Perfectly Criminal

by Celeste Marsella

  She walked us to the elevator and we said our goodbyes, Beth and Lolly promising to keep in touch. Before the elevator door closed, Beth was already making plans. “Okey-dokey, smokey,” she chirped. “Let's go for lunch. The Cookhouse. I'm famished. And I don't want to go back to Providence just yet. I love it here. The smell of the ocean simply gets me high.”

  “That and sixteen ounces of wine on an empty stomach.”

  “So, the second-floor bartender at the Cookhouse knows everything about everyone in this town. And they have the best clam chowder on the planet.”

  Back in the car, Beth buckled herself in, and then suddenly popped up like a jack-in-the-box. “Ooh, let's go see Doogie first! I bet I can get information out of her!”

  I started the engine of the Suburban and held off answering her until we were safely out of the lot. “She won't speak to me and I can't send you alone. You'll screw things up.”

  I expected Beth to be stung by my comment, but she laughed, giggled actually. She was still in hail-fellow-well-met mode, and I was the odd man out.

  “Okay then, Kemo Sabe,” she said. “On to the Cookhouse.”

  SETTLED AT A QUIET CORNER OF THE UPSTAIRS bar at the Cookhouse, I ordered us up some chowder and a couple more drinks—scotch and soda for me this time and another Pinot Grigio for Beth—while I tried to apologize for my comment to her in the car about screwing things up. Apologizing was not one of my strong suits—in fact I didn't remember the last time I'd done it. But I should have known Beth would rescue me from my rotten, ill-mannered self.

  “You know, Shannon, we've all come to expect that from you—those snipes that are not really well thought through. I mean, I'm not telling you to change or anything, but… well… it's like having a crutch. I think you hide behind being brusque and mean-spirited so no one will want to get too close to you. Because that's exactly what happens when you lay those punches—people tend to stay far enough away from you so that when you throw your zingers it doesn't sting that badly. Does that make any sense to you?”

  “What if I don't want anyone that close to me?”

  “Well, you can say that if you want, but I don't believe it.” She turned away from me. “I accept your apology nonetheless.”

  I was ready to retract my apology when Jake Weller strolled in and ordered a beer at the other end of the bar. I moved out of view behind a support beam and kicked Beth.

  She turned to me. “Now what's wrong? Honest to God, Shannon, you're impossible to figure out—”

  “Shh,” I whispered as I leaned farther out of sight. I nodded my head toward Jake Weller, who was busy talking to the bartender. “That's Scott Boardman's press guy.”

  Beth remained safely anonymous as she pinned her ear to his conversation, but then he stood abruptly and walked over to us.

  “Shannon Lynch, right?” He extended his hand to me.

  I nodded, shook his, and introduced Beth, who plunged right into conversation with him. “Do you live in Newport?”

  He shook his head. “I'm on my way back to campaign headquarters in New Canaan. May I sit with you?”

  Beth chirped, “Sure,” and pulled her glass toward me to make room for his beer. I remained silent.

  “I'm from here originally,” Beth continued. “I live in Providence now, though, but I still know everyone in Newport. I just so love it here.”

  He smiled at her, and then winked, smooth and saccharine, but giving up nothing.

  Beth fluttered her eyes and shook her hair in a dizzying rendition of the airhead female. “Sorry, didn't mean to pry,” she sang. “And I talk way too much.”

  He smiled again and then looked over at me. “But this isn't your neck of the woods, is it, Miss Lynch?”

  I smiled and winked back at him, giving him the same nothing he'd just given Beth.

  Beth, on the other hand, chattered away, either knowing she was the buffer to Weller's and my impasse, or just being Beth, who I was now beginning to realize would talk incessantly once she was wound up and set loose.

  “… because Scott Boardman, and, well, Pat too before she died, is a member of the NYYC, and I never remember seeing them there. Of course, I haven't been to the club in ages. Mother and Dad still sail but my work schedule is so crazy—”

  “And you work with Miss Lynch? An AAG too?”

  Beth raised her eyebrows apologetically. “Not yet, I'm afraid. I start law school in the fall.”

  Weller returned his attention to me. “I guess you think I'm a real jerk, talking the way I did about Scott in Chief Sewell's office? In hindsight, I'm sorry about that.”

  “You should be,” I said. “Because you had nothing to offer, so, frankly, I question your motive.”

  He shook his head and looked down at his beer. “You girls are around death every day. Violent murders, rapes, mutilations. When I heard about Pat and her friend-brutally killed—you have no idea what effect that has on a middle-class guy like me. I panicked. Went to see the one friend I had in the police, Charles Sewell. I really didn't expect anyone else to be present. I wanted to get the thing off my chest, where it was sitting like bricks. I couldn't breathe.”

  “Boy, do I understand that,” Beth said. “When I first went to work at the AG's office, I was freaked by the crime scene photos. It took me a while… and I still can't go to the morgue. Well, not that I'm required to… yet.”

  He smiled kind of sweetly now, his coyness gone. “I'm the public relations guy for a very powerful senator. I had a moment of weakness. And as I said, I thought our conversation would be private.” He looked away out the window to where rows of yachts rocked at their moorings, their masts swaying like staffs of wheat in a field. “What can I say?” He looked back at Beth and me. “I apologize.”

  “Hey, no skin off my nose,” I said. “Give Scott Boardman a holler and apologize to him.”

  “You and Scott have become… friends, I hear. He and I have already talked. Settled up. We'll see what happens in the coming days. I can't imagine this investigation will go on too much longer. God knows you must have folders full of evidence from that bloody boat. And you've probably taken fingerprints from everyone who is even remotely suspect, right?”

  Jake Weller was smart enough to avoid Beth's and my stares. Smart enough to throw the statement out but not look to us as if he were expecting an answer. Smart enough to know he wouldn't get any.

  “We like surprises at the AG's office,” I said. “We let no one know where the evidence is pointing until the handcuffs are ready to be snapped into place. Right, Beth?” I was still looking at Weller.

  “Oh my God, yes,” she answered. “Remember that college president the police rousted from bed at five in the morning? When he saw himself on the six o'clock news in pajamas and handcuffs, he had a heart attack in the jail cell.” She explained to Weller. “He recovered in time for his trial, though, where Shannon sent him to prison for life. He shot his business partner and tried to make it look like a mob hit.”

  Either Beth had made that whole story up to scare Weller, or I was losing my mind, because I had no recollection of the case. But I was proud of her anyway. Beth was learning how to play with facts, arm them and load them up so they had the most impact. She was promising to make a nice addition to our prosecutorial team.

  But then Weller surprised us by taking a different tack.

  “I'd like to make amends,” he said. “Help you in any way I can. The campaign is on hold indefinitely, so I'm free to sleuth with you. That is what you're doing here in Newport, right? You didn't come all this way for the clam chowder.”

  Beth pushed her cold unfinished bowl of chowder away and took a sip of her wine. She knew when she was out of her league—not quite ready for the majors.

  I looked Jake Weller in the eyes like I was studying a map and making a quick decision which road to take before I passed them both and lost my chance. I emptied my scotch and twirled the ice cubes around in my mouth while I dug into my bag for a card. I flicked it on t
he bar in front of Jake Weller. “When you have something worthwhile to tell me, give me a call. Otherwise, stop stalking us. I don't like it.”

  “You still don't trust me.”

  “Mr. Weller, I doubt your own mother trusts you.”

  He took my card and nodded good-bye as he slipped off the bar stool and then spun it around. “Maybe Scott's the one you shouldn't be trusting, Miss Lynch.” And then he walked out.

  “So much for making amends with Scott Boardman,” I remarked to Beth. I waved the bartender over for our check. He came to Beth and me and leaned over the bar. “That gentleman paid your tab. It's all set.”

  I looked at Beth and then back at him. “When was that?”

  “As soon as he walked in. He said he was meeting you here.”

  I shouldn't have let him pay our tab, but he'd already left, and it was too late to undo the deed.

  My cell phone began singing “Oh Danny Boy”—the special ring I'd programmed for the chief's calls. “Yeah?” I said into the phone.

  “We need to talk. Boardman's ready to plead guilty.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Yeah? Then why did his lawyer just leave the AG's office looking for a deal?”

  “And what did Vince say?”

  “No freaking way, is what your boss said. No deal. So we need to talk, Shannon. Meet me after work. Boardman's guilty, and I want you to stay away from him. He's a dangerous asshole. Some of us don't take wife-killing too lightly.”

  “Sorry to hear that, Chuck. You should try it sometime. 'Cause the only way I'm coming there to talk to you is over Marjory's dead body.”

  THE CENTURY LOUNGE

  “YOU HAVE TO AT LEAST CONSIDER HE'S GUILTY now, Shannon,” Beth said as we drove in relative silence back to Providence. “I never thought I'd even think this, but with Scott Boardman, you might be blinded by love.”

  “It can't be love. I don't even know his middle name.”

  “You require a positive ID for love?”

  “You used to be a nice kid, Beth. What happened?”

  “I would have to credit you for that.”

  I felt Beth staring at me as I kept my eyes on the road ahead. She waited for a response to her assertion of my inability to see clearly while in the throes of love. Beth assumed that merely because I was quick to jump into love and even faster to kick the guy out, that I was the love guru, when in fact the only long-term relationship I'd ever had was with the husband of another woman. “So you think Boardman's guilty too? I'm the only putz who's holding out for his innocence?”

  “You're the only one who cares whether or not he's innocent. I'm not sure what you believe in your heart of hearts.”

  “First of all, stop talking to me like I'm Marianna. I've never been accused of having one heart, let alone several hidden away like Russian nesting dolls. And I don't know what I believe anymore. I had a gut feeling that Micah Cohen was innocent, and I screwed that case up. He should be hanging right now instead of sucking off his boyfriend in his wife's bed. So, yeah, I might be wrong about Boardman. Maybe it's old age—suddenly feeling my own mortality—but I don't jump to convict anymore just because I'm a prosecutor. I'm not going to put someone in jail just so I can have another notch in my AG belt.”

  “What about another notch in your sexual conquest belt? Being with a rich and famous senator who's making a White House run is pretty heady. And I bet Chief Sewell is jealous as hell.”

  “You're wrong, Beth. I'm not playing the jealousy card with the chief. I really like Boardman. And maybe he's hiding something, but I don't think he killed two women. And then what about Leo Safer? Did he shoot Safer and then shoot himself to make it look good?”

  “Yes, some people are capable of shooting themselves to cover up a murder. How about the woman who point-blank shot her three young children in the backseat of her car and then shot herself to make it look like a carjacking gone bad? What I'm trying to say is, you aren't thinking clearly on this. Is your fuzzy vision a blindness caused by love for Scott Boardman, or is it a symptom of a more general malaise that made you lose the Cohen case too?”

  I hated Beth when she was this coolly analytical. Laurie could be like that too—take a thought that was initially seemingly preposterous, and then draw it out into an irrefutable geometric equation to prove her point. But in order to keep our communal friendship whole in the delicate game of constructive criticism, Laurie usually kept her math to herself, whereas Beth was always anxious to count one of us out when one of our lives wasn't adding up. That she could always get to the bottom line while achieving a wholesome balance by not offending delicate sensibilities was a credit to her sweet nature and good intentions. So I stifled my urge to tell her to go pound sand up her ass.

  “Beth, do me a favor. Use my phone and get Vince on the line. I don't want to involve you.”

  She dug efficiently into my bag, found my cell, and dialed the office, handing me the phone when the gruff voice said, “Where the fuck are you now?”

  “Boardman wants to plead?” I said.

  “Who said he wants to plead? His lawyer was just feeling around. Seeing what's in the air.”

  “So Ron Esterman must think he's guilty.”

  “I don't care what anyone thinks. Boardman's my number one squeeze for these murders until someone prettier comes along.”

  “You've been hanging around Andy too long, Vince.”

  “I told you to stay away from the Boardman case, not take a goddamn vacation. Get back to the office. There are other cases that need attention. Unless you're on a losing streak, in which case hand in your resignation and I'll find someone else who can fuck things up cheaper than what I'm paying you.” And then he disconnected.

  Beth and I drove back to Providence in relative silence. Because Beth was technically a lame duck pending her September severance, she wasn't worried about her own neck, but I assured her anyway: “Don't worry. The Pig doesn't know you're with me.”

  In Vince's office I readied for a heart-to-heart on my erstwhile heartthrob, Scott Boardman, but Vince wouldn't oblige. “What do you want?” he said as I stood in front of his desk still panting from the jog up the stairs. He looked up at me. “Is the elevator broken again?”

  “I need the exercise. My lungs are killing me from lack of smoke. You got one?”

  He pushed his pack to the edge of his desk, where I grabbed it and slapped the pack until a slim white stick of tobacco peeked out at me.

  Vince continued to feign reading the folder he was peering into. At my silence, he looked up at me again. “You want me to light that for you too?”

  “What did Ron Esterman say?”

  “What did I say to you on the phone? It's none of your goddamn business in the first place, and in the second, he was just poking around here trying to find out where we were on this. And frankly I was sweating when I took my hands out of my pants to tell him that we have so much nothing on this that I've been playing with myself just to get my spirits up!”

  “You have been hanging around Andy too long.”

  “Andy who? I fired the fag.”

  “You asshole, Vince. When the fuck did you do that?”

  “While you've been sunning in Acapulco, or wherever it is you been hiding these days.”

  “Jesus Christ. What's his number? We've got to hire him back.”

  “Why? And since when do you make those decisions?”

  “Why? Because he's good, and you fired him for no other reason than his sexual orientation. And I have to make decisions when you screw up and expose this office to civil suits from the ACLU and God knows what other organizations set up to protect innocent people from your homophobic, misogynistic, racially challenged thick head.”

  Vince went back to his folder and began turning the pages as if they were heavy bricks. “Boardman's guilty,” he said. “His own lawyer is having second thoughts. So take your broken heart out on someone else. And Andrew Lavigne is history. We got a new girl coming in tomorrow. Tell
Beth to sit there until she shows up.” He glared up at me again. “Where the hell is she anyway? The state's still paying her salary. I want her at work until her classes start.”

  I took a few deep breaths and decided to light the cigarette that was getting crushed in my hand. The last real smoke I'd had was with Scott Boardman in my apartment that first fateful night. I pulled a seat up closer to Vince's desk as he eyed me suspiciously. Our relationship wasn't the up close and personal kind.

  “You got that match now?” I asked.

  He threw his lighter across the desk and I lit his lousy Merit cigarette with his excellent sterling lighter. “How can you smoke these things? It tastes like an old butt on the first hit.”

  “What are you still doing here?” he said without looking up.

  “Vince, tell me about Boardman's lawyer—what exactly did Esterman say to you? Because I had almost the same conversation with Scott Boardman about pleading out—”

  “When?” he said calmly. “When did you have this conversation? Before or after I told you you were fired if you went near him again?”

  “After.”

  His silence told me I should keep going. If he was going to throw something at me, he'd wait until I was finished.

  “After Leo Safer's murder, Scott begged me to meet him in his hotel room. Brooke was there. She recanted her story, he recanted his alibi, and then she left. Then he and I had a hypothetical conversation about his pleading out. I thought it was because he was getting scared, and pleading to a few years was better than taking a chance at trial and going away for life. Three murders … and he's scared. At least that was my take.”