Scar Tissue

by Samantha Simard

  “You’re a former NYPD detective that got scapegoated by the force as part of a cover-up, and your father runs one of the most well-known and wide-ranging private security firms on the planet,” Nikki said, chuckling a bit. “I was actually going to call Vaughn Securities to get a quote, and then I got the word that the boss hired you two. Seemed almost poetic.”

  The door Nikki had come out of opened again, and this time Detective Jeff Kamienski stuck his head out. “Ma’am, are you coming back to the interview, or—ah, hell.”

  Wolfe perked up. “If it isn’t our favorite detective!” He elbowed Scarlett in an attempt to sell his cheer. He and Kamienski were friendlier post-Mass Art Murders—nothing brings people together faster than a serial killer—but that tenuous thread could fray with one wrong word. “What are the chances we’d wind up on the same case twice?”

  “Slim to none,” Constantin commented, the sarcasm going over his Eastern European head. “Is Silent Mark with you?”

  Kamienski pinched the bridge of his nose, opening the door further to reveal the trench coated form of his partner leaning against a wall in the conference room behind him. “I feel like I’m in a bad crime novel—you know, the kind they sell online for a couple bucks? Or maybe the oncoming migraine is making me delusional.”

  Scarlett patted him on the arm as she shouldered her way into the conference room. “Take it easy with the Excedrin or you’ll wind up with liver failure at a critical moment in the plot.” She nodded a greeting at Silent Mark and sat down in one of the chairs arranged around the large conference table. “So what is this, the two-for-one special?”

  Nikki nodded, taking her own seat. “Something like that. I figured since all of you would like to know the same things, I could kill two birds with one stone.”

  “That’s not usually how this works,” Kamienski said, “but I’m getting the feeling that you don’t give a damn, Ms. Shaw.”

  “I got a similar impression,” Wolfe agreed, stretching out his legs and immediately coming boot-to-loafer with Constantin, who glared at him with only slightly less malice than he would’ve a few months ago. “I guess the first question to ask would be the obvious one—what have you told the press?”

  “As little as I can get away with, but that comes with its own problems.” Nikki leaned over and opened a mini-fridge that sat in the corner. She passed bottled water around, taking a long sip from hers before she continued. “The other candidates are sympathetic on the outside, but they’re also the ones spreading the rumors.”

  “Rumors?” Sebastian asked.

  Nikki rolled her eyes. “Christopher slept with a mobster’s wife and got caught, he’s secretly addicted to cocaine and the cartel is after him—oh, and apparently aliens use miniguns now.”

  Wolfe winced. “Sounds like a real clusterfuck.”

  “Is it possible that one of the other candidates could’ve had something to do with the shooting?” Kamienski asked. “Because as usual, Mr. Codreanu—not this one, his father—conveniently had no idea why someone would want to trash his restaurant and injure a bunch of people.”

  The campaign manager hummed thoughtfully, drumming a manicured nail against the cap of her bottled water. “Well, Christopher did get into a little spat with Governor Halliday at a community service event a while back…” Roy Halliday was the Democrat all the Republican candidates were frothing at the mouth to unseat, and it wasn’t too surprising that the extremely liberal governor and a conservative candidate had argued publicly. “You all spoke with Christopher earlier, correct? Did he name a suspect?”

  Kamienski and Silent Mark shook their heads, but Wolfe said: “He mentioned something about not trusting the police because he and Mike Draymond don’t get along.”

  Scarlett huffed out a laugh. “I don’t think anybody gets along with Big Mike Draymond except the thick necked weirdos that follow him around.”

  Kamienski glanced at Silent Mark, who gave him a thumbs-down. “Draymond’s an acquired taste—a drive-by wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for him. Problem is we can’t go at him directly. Nobody really likes Big Mike, but they all respect him. If we bring him in for questioning and it’s not him, I might as well invest in charcoal briquettes, because Captain Bach will burn my ass. That suspension a few months ago did not make her any more sympathetic to bullshit.”

  Constantin made a face. “That metaphor was lackluster, but you got your point across.” He looked at Sebastian. “What if we were to speak with this Big Mike? We have no association with the department.”

  Silent Mark’s thumbs-down turned into a thumbs-up, and Kamienski said, “I don’t like it, but if it’s the best idea we’ve got then I guess we go forward. You do that, and Silent Mark and I will speak with the governor.”

  “Don’t be surprised if you get voicemail,” Nikki said, before she turned her attention to Wolfe and Scarlett. “Meanwhile, you two should get ready for your big televised debut alongside Christopher and Melissa.”

  “Whoa, whoa, televised?” Scarlett repeated, eyebrows arching into her hairline. “What the hell are we doing?”

  Nikki reclined her chair, her expression indicating she was glad it was them and not her that would be enduring a night out with her client. “Baseball game, Red Sox and Yankees at Fenway, tonight. As quintessentially American as hot dogs and apple pie. Oh, and you both need to bring a date—Mel’s mom and the kids were going originally, but given the circumstances I nixed that idea.”

  Wolfe turned to Sebastian. When their eyes met, he suddenly found himself flustered, and brought a hand up to rub the back of his neck. “You could, uh, come with me? We could go together?”

  Ignoring the way Scarlett snorted at Wolfe’s less-than-smooth delivery, Sebastian chewed his lower lip in thought. “Like a… date?”

  “No! I mean, not if you don’t want it to be,” Wolfe reassured, even as something seemed to deflate in his chest. “Work date. A date at work.”

  “I like it,” Nikki said, nodding as she no doubt visualized how progressive it would seem for a Republican candidate to have a male friend who was dating another man. “The media will eat that up.”

  “Good Christ,” Scarlett muttered, shaking her head before saying in a louder voice, “What about me? Who am I supposed to bring?”

  Nikki tapped her chin in thought. “Hmm… what about Kevin? He’s close in age, and that way we don’t have to bring in an outsider and expect them to keep their cool if the bullets start flying.”

  Kamienski groaned. “No flying bullets, please—I don’t want to be the one to scrape Wolfe’s corpse up off home plate.”

  Scarlett, meanwhile, looked as shocked as a person could look without passing out. “Kevin? Kevin Sullivan? You want me to go to a ball game slash potential life-or-death scenario with a librarian?”

  “And me,” Wolfe piped up. “I’ll be there. So will Sebastian.” He looked at Constantin. “You know you can’t go, right? You’re way too conspicuous.”

  Constantin nodded. “I figured that out. I also figured you are smart enough to understand that if anything happens to Sebastian while he’s with you I will cut your nuts off and hang them off my menorah during Hanukkah.”

  Sebastian rubbed his forehead and muttered “Constantin,” in a way that suggested this was not the first time someone had been threatened with genital mutilation by his bodyguard.

  “Well!” Nikki exclaimed, clapping her hands together and rising to her feet. “I think that’s a good place to adjourn this meeting. I’m off to run damage control.”

  The rest of them got up as well, heading for the door and back out into the rippling waves of humidity on the sidewalk. Nikki locked up the office and gave them a little wave as she got behind the wheel of a brand-new white BMW and roared off toward Boston. Constantin and Sebastian left next, intent on tracking down Mike Draymond before lunchtime.

  Kamienski grabbed Wolfe’s elbow before he could get into the Corvette. “Hey, can I ask you a question?”


  Wolfe looked at him over the tops of his aviators. “You just did, technically.”

  Silent Mark hid a smile at Kamienski’s growl of frustration.

  “Okay, smartass, let me ask you a question,” Kamienski said. “We both got invitations to Caitlin’s wedding in the mail a while back—are those legit?”

  Wolfe leaned against the car, only wincing a little as hot metal practically sizzled against his back. “Why wouldn’t they be?”

  “I don’t know anybody who’s in the business of sending out counterfeit wedding invitations,” Scarlett added, from behind her pair of the same gold-rimmed, brown-lensed aviators Wolfe wore—two-for-one sales at Sunglass Hut were no joke. “And since I don’t see Ashton Kutcher anywhere, I’m pretty sure you’re not on Punk’d.”

  Kamienski took a surprised step back. “Seriously? Why the fuck would a nice girl like Caitlin Sullivan want two cops she met once at her wedding?”

  Wolfe shrugged. “Why not? You helped save my brother—that counts for a lot in my book, so I’m sure it does in Caity’s.” He clapped Kamienski on the shoulder. “Stay in touch, man. Hopefully we can keep her brother alive for the big I do.”

  ~***~

  Angel Wings Hospice was a three-story prewar brick building on the west side of Lynn, separated from Boston Street by a wrought-iron fence and a sweeping lawn. A parking lot and the equipment necessary to take care of people in the last stage of their lives had been added during a massive retrofitting at the turn of the century. According to their website Angel Wings boasted one of the highest online ratings for a private pay hospice facility in Eastern Massachusetts.

  Diana had pulled up the site on her phone while she and David sat across the street from Angel’s Wings in their rented Camry. They drank large iced coffees from a nearby Dunkin’ and debated how to talk their way into the facility. Being convincing was usually as simple as pretending to belong somewhere, but a hospice facility—which was less porous than a hospital and would be very concerned with patient privacy—required more tact.

  “They’ve probably been given information about Martha’s family,” Diana said, digging around in the cardboard box propped on the center console for a donut hole. “Better to pretend to be related to Otis, I think. I could be his niece?”

  David nodded. “I’d buy that. Who am I?”

  Diana smirked mischievously. “You could be my father again.”

  David choked on a sip of coffee. “Nope—I told you that wouldn’t work last time, and it didn’t!”

  “Not even with this?” Diana questioned, reaching out to tug at a stray section of his dyed hair—which, in fairness, was currently a lot closer in color to hers than the hair of his actual children. “The eyes don’t sell it, though. Why’d you pick gray?”

  Because it reminds me of Angela without me getting up the balls to see her, David thought, blinking against the contact lenses covering his irises. “Covers the green pretty well.”

  Diana snorted. “You’re a shit liar.”

  David smiled, jostling her shoulder as he popped his car door. “Only to you, kid. Let’s do this.”

  Diana took David’s hand in hers as they crossed the street, as naturally as if they were a real couple. When they weren’t pretending to be father and daughter, they were husband and wife; the juxtaposition made David severely uncomfortable and Diana liked to tease him about it. Just because Diana didn’t look fifteen years old anymore didn’t mean David didn’t think of her as the cynical teenager the CIA had paired him with after the death of his previous partner. She thought he was ridiculous and told him as much, with a little smile on her lips that never failed to make something old and fond twist in David’s chest.

  They were hit by a blast of frigid air as they walked through the hospice’s automated doors, immediately faced with a reception desk and a smiling woman in a dress shirt and cardigan. Large glasses took up most of her face and her gray hair was cut in the shape of a slightly-wilted flower. She looked like someone’s grandma, which David thought was apt since lots of grandmas wound up in places like this.

  “Hi there!” she said, cheery but not forced. “Welcome to Angel Wings Hospice—are you here for a tour, or a visit?”

  “A visit,” Diana said, any trace of a Serbian accent gone from her voice, replaced by something vaguely Beacon Hill. “We just got back from vacation and wanted to see my aunt. Her name is Martha Webber.”

  The receptionist tapped at the keyboard in front of her for a moment, the good-natured smile slowly fading from her face. Adjusting her glasses, she got up out of her chair and came around the desk, worrying the edge of her cardigan between her fingers. “I’m afraid I have some bad news, Miss…?”

  “Mrs. Johnson,” Diana corrected, the hand that wasn’t clutching David’s rising to her mouth. “Diane, and this is my husband, Daniel. Are you telling me… is she…?”

  The receptionist nodded, sucking in her cheeks and looking at the floor. “I’m afraid your aunt passed away over a week ago.” She glanced up again, eyes narrowing as she thought of something. “I’m surprised your uncle didn’t tell you.”

  Bringing Diana into his shoulder as she pretended to sob, David explained: “We were on a cruise off the coast of Alaska. Spotty cell service—Otis’s messages must not have come through.” He rubbed Diana’s back and knitted his brows together. “Do you think we could at least see her room? Unless someone else is in it, of course.”

  The receptionist’s expression softened back into sympathy, her suspicion overridden by Diana’s convincing display of grief. “Yes, that’s fine. Martha’s belongings haven’t been collected yet, so we’ve kept the room closed.”

  Diana sniffled as she pulled away from David. “We can take her things—I’m sure Uncle Otis is just busy planning the funeral.” She reached out to squeeze the receptionist’s hand in both of hers, forcing a smile. “Thank you so much.”

  The receptionist patted Diana’s arm and ushered them through a pair of doors behind the desk that she unlocked with the electronic badge hanging around her neck. A generic-looking linoleum hallway led to a small private room equipped with a hospital bed, a dresser with a few knickknacks on top, and a couple of chairs for visitors. A door near the back of the room led to a bathroom, and some cardboard boxes were stacked in the corner, overflowing with clothes that must’ve belonged to Martha Webber.

  “Just let me know when you’re done—take as long as you need.” With that, the receptionist left, shutting the door quietly behind her.

  “Good job back there,” David said, deliberately keeping his voice down; their conversation didn’t need to be overheard by a patient or staff member. He glanced around, studying the corners of the room without looking like it. “I don’t see any cameras, do you?”

  “No.” Diana moved toward the dresser. “This place is high-end, though. Anton must’ve chipped in to put Otis’s wife here, don’t you think?”

  “Probably,” David replied. He unstacked the boxes and began sorting through the clothes, looking for anything that might give them a clue as to where Otis could be.

  Diana was quiet for a moment, and then she asked, “Have you spoken with Jake?”

  David was used to Diana’s frequent non sequiturs, but the new topic threw him for a loop. “Uh… no? I’ve never even met the kid.”

  “Sebastian mentioned to me in passing the other day that nobody’s talked to Jake much since he moved out of Caitlin and Ryan’s place last month,” Diana continued, rummaging in the empty dresser drawers like David hadn’t spoken. “Perhaps you should try getting to know him a little.”

  Jake was another man’s son with the love of David’s life, but David wasn’t going to hold his and Angela’s issues against him. He wasn’t opposed to the idea of introducing himself and hanging out with Jake, but David wondered why Diana was interested. “What brought this on?”

  Diana shrugged, a deceptively casual gesture. “I know what it’s like to get fucked over by Anton—and from w
hat Sebastian tells me it sounds like our father was very much behind the mess with the Mass Art Murderer. That, and he is Wolfe’s brother—maybe you could earn some brownie points with your son.”

  “I’ll think about it,” David conceded. He’d found nothing interesting in the clothes and restacked the boxes, the clothes inside folded much neater than they were before. “We’ve got to find Otis first.”

  Diana had picked up a jewelry box off the dresser to make sure nothing was underneath it, and when something caught her eye, she grinned. Setting the box down, she picked up a business card embossed with the shiny golden logo of Quinn, Goldstein and Wickersham, also known as Boston’s ritziest law firm. “This should help with that.”

  ~***~

  “How’d things go with Big Mike?” Wolfe asked, taking a sip of his chocolate frappe—which would be called a milkshake anywhere but New England—from a red-vinyl booth in Ryan’s Diner. He and Scarlett managed to secure their table an hour before the lunch rush, which meant they were the only customers.

  A fifteen-table establishment in a run-down storefront on Washington Street in Boston’s South End, Ryan’s Diner was kitty-corner to the Burying Ground and overlooked by tourists unless they accidentally walked in the door. The menu above the counter featured typical greasy spoon fare ranging from pancakes to club sandwiches and everything in between; Wolfe had been eating there since he was a little kid and he knew from personal experience that everything was delicious.

  Sebastian made a face at the question, sliding into the booth across from Scarlett and Wolfe. “Not so good. I might not be associated with the police department, but he knew who I was right away.”

  “Word of Anton’s generosity to Christopher’s campaign seems to have spread,” Constantin said, plonking down next to Sebastian in the booth and resting his beefy forearms on the table. “We were escorted out of Draymond’s campaign office, which was probably good in retrospect.”