by Mike Lawson
“So what do you think happened?” DeMarco asked after the introductions were made.
Fitzgerald shrugged. “I think she tripped at the top of the stairs and fell.”
“Bullshit. I want to see the crime scene,” DeMarco said.
“Crime scene?”
“That’s right. This wasn’t an accident. Elinore Dobbs was in better shape than you are, Fitz, a lot better shape. She moved like somebody half her age. And she would have been careful going down those stairs because the lights on the landings were out. When I walked down those stairs, I held on to the rail because the light was dim, and she would have done the same thing.”
“The lights on the landings were on,” Fitzgerald said. “At least they were when I was there.”
“What?”
“But, hey, the boss said you were a guy with some juice so if you wanna drive over there, let’s go.”
Fitzgerald turned out to be right: the lights on the staircase landings were glowing; there were hundred-watt bulbs in the sockets. Those lights hadn’t been on the last time DeMarco walked up the stairs.
When he saw Elinore in the hospital, DeMarco’s first thought had been: Lawsuit. He was going to file a lawsuit on her behalf against Callahan for the poorly lighted stairs, which the suit would claim was the reason she fell. And he was going to hire a mean-mouthed barracuda for a lawyer to press the lawsuit, the kind of lawyer who could win a case against the Cub Scouts. But that plan just went out the window.
“When did she fall?” DeMarco asked.
“I don’t know when she fell, but the medics were called at seven thirty this morning.” At seven thirty, DeMarco had still been in bed, and by the time he met with Boyer at Elinore’s building, she’d already been taken away by the medics.
“Who found her?” he asked Fitzgerald.
“Some wino. Since the front door to the building doesn’t lock and most of the units are empty, winos sneak in here to sleep. Anyway, this guy was walking up the stairs and saw Elinore lying on the landing between the second and third floors. He said she was unconscious when he found her, and he went outside, found a woman with a cell phone, and she called nine-one-one.”
“Huh,” DeMarco said. He walked up and stood on the third-floor landing, looking at the stairs Elinore Dobbs had tumbled down. He tried to imagine her losing her balance, a hand reaching out, trying to grab the banister, the terror she must have felt before the impact. Then he noticed something: just a smidgen of sawdust on the top of the landing, which he was sure he wouldn’t have seen if the landing lights hadn’t been so bright. He knelt down and looked closer, then said to Fitzgerald, “Come here.”
On one side of the landing was a wall and on the other side was the landing newel—a post with a round ball on top that the handrail attached to. He pointed at the hole in the base of the newel, a hole about one-eighth of an inch in diameter.
“You see that little hole?” DeMarco said.
“No,” Fitzgerald said.
“Get down on your knees and look.”
With a grunt and considerable effort, Fitzgerald knelt.
“Now do you see the hole?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s new,” DeMarco said. “You can see the wood is white inside and you can see a bit of sawdust on the floor beneath the hole. I think someone drilled that hole recently. Now look at the wall on the other side of the staircase. There’s a hole just like this one, about an inch off the floor.” DeMarco paused, then said, “I think somebody strung a trip wire across here.”
“Come on,” Fitzgerald said.
“Get a CSI over here and have him check this out,” DeMarco said.
“A CSI? You think this is television, DeMarco? What’s a CSI going to do?”
“I want him to look at these holes. And take fingerprints, too.”
DeMarco could tell Fitzgerald was about to give him an argument, then remembered the political muscle that DeMarco had. “I’ll see if someone’s available,” Fitzgerald said. “But we may be waiting quite a while.”
It turned out that they didn’t have to wait even half an hour. It must have been a slow day for crime in Boston. A kid in his twenties with spiky dark hair, a grapevine tattoo on his neck, and a ring in one ear arrived carrying what looked like a tackle box. If he hadn’t been wearing a blue Windbreaker with yellow letters that said POLICE on the back, DeMarco would have guessed the kid belonged to a not very successful rock band.
DeMarco told him to dust for prints and take a close look at the two small holes. The kid, not knowing who DeMarco was, looked over at Fitzgerald, and Fitzgerald nodded. “Why am I looking at the holes?” the CSI tech asked.
“Because I think someone rigged a trip wire across the landing and made an old lady fall,” DeMarco said. “So just look and tell me what you think.”
The technician applied fingerprint powder to the newel, the wall opposite the newel, and the handrail but didn’t find any prints. DeMarco wasn’t surprised there were no prints on the handrail because they’d be smeared by people holding on to the rail while coming down the steps. But he thought the tech might find something on the lower part of the newel, an area where you wouldn’t expect people to touch. And if the tech found prints, they could lead to the McNultys, whose prints would be in the system. But no such luck.
“Dust the top of the steps near the post,” DeMarco said, thinking maybe someone put a hand on the steps kneeling down to drill the holes, the way Fitzgerald had put his hand on the steps when he knelt down. But there was nothing, not even a print left by Fitzgerald, who’d probably smeared everything when he looked at the holes. Or maybe, if the McNultys had anything to do with this, they’d worn gloves. Whatever the case, there were no prints.
“Now take a close look at those holes,” DeMarco said.
The CSI examined them first with his naked eye, then took a magnifying glass from his equipment box and lay down on the steps so he could put his head close to the holes. He examined the hole in the newel first, then the one in the wall.
He looked up at DeMarco and said, “You can see threads.”
“Threads?” Fitzgerald said.
“Yeah, screw threads,” the technician said. “I can’t prove someone installed a wire, but if someone did, they might have drilled the holes, then screwed in an eyebolt or an eyehook like you use to hang pictures and then ran a wire, like picture-hanging wire, through the eyebolts. But that’s the best I can tell you, and I’m just guessing.”
“Well, I think that’s exactly what happened,” DeMarco said. Looking at Fitzgerald, he said, “Someone, most likely the McNultys, attached a wire to hooks like your technician said, then Elinore walked out here on this landing and headed down the steps and tripped. They were trying to kill her, figuring a woman her age would break her neck.”
“I guess that could have happened,” Fitzgerald said, although he didn’t sound like a true believer. “But where’s the wire? And with the lights on, if there had been a wire, she should have seen it.”
“I’m telling you those lights weren’t on yesterday,” DeMarco said. Then, before Fitzgerald had a chance to debate the issue, he said, “What was the name of this wino who found her?”
“Greg Canyon, like Grand Canyon.”
“Let’s go talk to him. And let’s go find out where the fucking McNultys were when this happened.”
“What are you saying? That the wino rigged a wire, then took out the wire and the eyebolts before the medics got here?”
“Yeah, maybe. Or maybe the McNultys rigged it the night before and then got the wino to find her and remove the wire. And one other thing. I think they screwed in that hundred-watt bulb after the wino found her, while Elinore was unconscious and he was waiting for the medics to arrive. So I want to know where the McNultys were last night and this morning. Ditto for the wino. We’ll go talk to the wino first.”
“That might be kind of tough,” Fitzgerald said. “I mean, he’s a street person. He doesn’t have an address.”
“If the guy hangs out in this area, we should be able to spot him. We’ll drive around and look. And I want you to do a record check on him. See if he’s associated with the McNultys or Sean Callahan. See if he was in prison with the McNultys or went to school with them or if Callahan ever employed him.”
DeMarco could tell he was annoying Fitzgerald, snapping orders at him—and he didn’t give a shit.
Fitzgerald called somebody at the station and told whomever he talked to to e-mail him a summary of Canyon’s record if he had one. Then he and DeMarco got into Fitzgerald’s car and started cruising the streets near Delaney, trying to spot Canyon. According to Fitzgerald, Canyon was very tall—maybe six five or six six—and had wild black hair that went down to his shoulders and was wearing jeans and combat boots. “And he had on a ski jacket, a dirty blue one,” Fitzgerald said. “Even though it was already about ninety when I talked to him.”
DeMarco thought a ski jacket would be a good place to stash a few light bulbs and the wire that had been used.
Half an hour after they started their hunt, DeMarco was growing impatient and said, “Did you get that e-mail with his record yet?”
Fitzgerald pulled over to the curb and took out reading glasses and his cell phone. “Yeah, here it is.” He squinted at the screen and said, “Just the usual shit you get with bums. Assaults for fighting with other bums. Peeing in some merchant’s doorway. Being drunk in public.” Fitzgerald laughed. “The only people ever charged with being drunk in public are homeless people. Half the guys who go to Fenway are drunk in public and a lot more violent than most bums, but we never charge them.”
“Do they have a picture of him on file?” DeMarco asked, not caring about the inequitable ways the city of Boston dealt with drunkards.
“I guess. Probably.”
“Have someone e-mail you his picture.”
Five minutes later, after Fitzgerald and the guy he was talking to figured out how to e-mail Canyon’s mug shot, Fitzgerald had it on his phone.
“I want to go to the places around here that sell booze, especially cheap booze,” DeMarco said.
They stopped at three places, all of them three or four blocks from Elinore’s apartment. None of the store owners recognized Canyon, and a guy as tall as him with a wild mane of black hair would have been noticeable. “Don’t you find it strange,” DeMarco said, “that this wino doesn’t shop in any of the stores around here? Look at his arrest record and find out where most of his arrests occurred.”
“The e-mail doesn’t say. It’s just a summary, like you asked for.”
“So call the fuckin’ guy that prepared the summary and ask him.”
Fitzgerald did. “Almost all the busts were in Revere.”
“Which is where the McNultys have a bar,” DeMarco said. “The goddamn McNultys know this guy.”
DeMarco was silent for a moment. “I want you to get Canyon’s picture to every cop on patrol in Boston and Revere.”
“You gotta be shittin’ me,” Fitzgerald said. “I mean, I know you’re upset by what happened to that old lady—I am, too—but it’s not like Canyon was one of the marathon bombers.”
“Does it look like I’m shitting you, Fitzgerald?” DeMarco said.
Fitzgerald started to say something—then he recalled whatever O’Rourke had said to him about the necessity of keeping Congressman John Mahoney happy.
Fitzgerald made three or four phone calls and relayed DeMarco’s order—and DeMarco could hear the people he was speaking to saying a variation of what Fitzgerald had said: Are you shitting me?
Happy that the cops were now on the hunt for Canyon—who DeMarco was a hundred percent sure was an accomplice to trying to kill Elinore Dobbs—DeMarco told Fitzgerald: “Let’s go see the McNultys.”
An hour later—Fitzgerald had begged DeMarco to let him stop at a McDonald’s before he collapsed from hunger—they parked near a bar named the Shamrock in Revere.
As they were walking toward the bar, DeMarco said, “You need to be careful with these guys. You might even consider calling for backup.”
“Backup?” Fitzgerald said. “I don’t think so.”
DeMarco got the impression just then that Fitzgerald hadn’t always been a fat cop waiting until he could draw a pension. In fact, he wouldn’t have been surprised if Fitzgerald had a sap in his back pocket and would enjoy using it.
The tavern was a dump, which is what DeMarco had expected from the exterior. Dimly lit, broken-down furniture, smelling of spilt beer. There was a dartboard on one wall and the wall around the board was pockmarked from players too drunk to hit the target. The glass covering a picture of Larry Bird behind the bar was flyspecked.
Standing behind the bar, reading a paperback, was an ample-sized woman with frizzy red hair and arms like a stevedore. One unshaven old drunk who looked as if he’d forgotten where he put his dentures was the only customer in the place. The McNulty brothers were at a table, a bottle of Jameson’s in front of them, watching Jerry Springer on the television over the bar. On the Springer show two large women were screaming at a scrawny, tattooed doofus, accusing him of cheating on them both. The doofus seemed very pleased with himself.
When the McNultys saw DeMarco, they smiled. Ray, the one with the bitten ear, said, “Hey, what happened to you? Looks like somebody cleaned your clock.”
DeMarco almost lost it. He clenched his fists and took a step toward the table, then inhaled and stopped. He wasn’t in good enough shape for a fight and, with his luck, and with Fitzgerald as a witness, he’d probably get arrested for assault.
“Where were you two shitheads last night?” DeMarco asked.
“Why you asking,” Ray said.
“And you better watch your fuckin’ mouth,” Roy said.
“He’s not asking,” Fitzgerald said. “I’m Detective Mike Fitzgerald, BPD, and I’m the one who’s asking. So where were you two shitheads last night?”
Elinore was an early riser and she’d been found by Canyon at seven thirty a.m., which was another thing that bothered DeMarco: a bum being up at that time of day. DeMarco figured that the trip wire had been installed the night before. He also figured that whoever installed it—the McNultys or Canyon—hadn’t been worried about any of the other residents using the stairs late at night. Mrs. Polanski, the lady with dementia, didn’t leave her apartment; Goodman, the agoraphobic, didn’t leave his; and Mrs. Spiegleman was an invalid, and gutless Mr. Spiegleman would have been afraid to venture out at night. The trap had been set for Elinore because the McNultys knew that she’d be out and about early in the day.
“We ain’t got nothin’ to hide,” Ray McNulty said to Fitzgerald. “We were here in the bar from, shit, I don’t know, five until what?” he said, looking over at his brother. “Ten?”
“Yeah,” Roy said. “It was probably about ten. The Sox game was almost over but they were so far behind we bailed before it ended.”
“And what did you do after you left the bar?” Fitzgerald said.
“We had a couple girls over to our place.”
“You two had dates?” DeMarco said, making it clear that he found it incredible than any woman would go out with them.
Ray laughed. “I guess you’d call it a date, but we had to pay them.” He pulled out his wallet and handed Fitzgerald a card. Fitzgerald showed the card to DeMarco. It said Pinnacle Escort Services. “The two who came over were named Crystal and Terri,” Ray said.
“No, her name was Sherrie,” Roy said.
“Oh, yeah, Sherrie. Anyway, give ’em a call. They spent the whole night, didn’t leave until eight this morning.”
“That’s your alibi?” DeMarco said. “Hookers?”
“We don’t need an alibi,” Ray said. “We
didn’t do anything.”
“How come you didn’t ask why we’re asking where you were last night?” DeMarco said.
They shrugged simultaneously, like Siamese twins joined at the shoulder.
“We figured you just wanted to hassle us about something,” Ray McNulty said. “So why are you asking?”
“Because someone tried to kill Elinore Dobbs this morning. Someone stretched a wire across the landing on the third floor, and she tripped over it and fell. She’s got a concussion and a broken arm. And I think you two cocksuckers either did it or paid someone to do it.”
Roy stood up. “I told you. You better watch your mouth.”
Fitzgerald put his hand on his short revolver and said, “Sit your ass back down.”
Roy did, but he was simmering, and DeMarco thought—actually, he hoped—that Roy would attack him.
“Where do you guys know Greg Canyon from?” Fitzgerald asked.
“Who?” they said in unison.
DeMarco looked over at the hefty barmaid standing behind the bar, listening to everything. “What’s your bartender’s name?” he asked Ray.
“Doreen. Why?”
DeMarco walked over to Doreen and said, “Were you here last night, Doreen?”
She scowled at him, making him think of a pit bull with freckles. “Yeah.”
“And were the McNultys here the whole time you were here?”
“They were wherever they said they were.”
DeMarco knew he was wasting his time. With people like Doreen loyalty to your friends always came first, plus the McNultys, since they owned the bar, employed her. Nonetheless, he said, “I know what they said, but I want to hear what you have to say. So were they in the bar last night and how long were they here?”
Doreen just crossed her arms over her broad chest and stared at him.
“They made an old lady fall down some stairs,” DeMarco said. “They were trying to kill her.” Doreen didn’t even blink. “If she dies, Doreen, and you cover for them, you can be charged as an accessory.”
“If you’re not going to order a drink,” Doreen said, “move along.”
