Joey Warnecki - Eight Days
Page 7
Chapter 7
Mary arrived ten minutes early to find Joey not at home. The back of his pickup truck was loaded with tools and materials, but her knocking at his back door had gone unanswered. The door was unlocked and she had entered, calling his name in case he had overslept. A note was on the kitchen table to tell her that he had gone for an early breakfast and that he would be back by seven. She was irritated that he had once again gone somewhere without letting her know beforehand. He showed up, whistling, to find her leaning back against the grille of the truck, one heel on the bumper, arms crossed over her chest, and scowling. He stopped whistling. "What's the matter?" he asked.
"I thought you were going to keep me informed of your whereabouts," she said. She was wearing a green chamois-cloth shirt under a tan canvas jacket, loose-fitting blue jeans and hiking boots. Joey wore tan canvas carpenter's pants, his high-top work boots, and a heavy, wool, red and black-checked shirt. The bill of his red ball cap was skewed a few degrees to the side.
He put his hands into his pockets. "Well, it was so early, I didn't want to wake you up. I only walked down to breakfast."
"I don't care if it's the middle of the night and you're going outside to piss, you call me and tell me what corner of the yard you're going to use. I want to know every time you step outside your door. And if you can't reach me, you call one of the other numbers. But call me first. Anything happens to you, it's my ass. Got it?"
Joey bobbed his head. "Yeah, sure," he said, avoiding her gaze. Time to change the subject. "Ready to go? All my stuff's in the truck and the keys are in it." Instead of answering, she pushed off from the front of the truck and swung inside to the driver's seat. She started the engine and looked down at him, hands on the wheel. He stood blinking at her for a moment and got in the passenger seat. He had to bang the door closed twice to get it to latch. She drove without speaking. Joey thought that she was unreasonably upset, but was uncomfortable with her silence. "You want to stop and pick up a coffee or something?" he asked as a peace offering.
"I'm all set." A black cloth bag next to her threatened to vibrate onto the floor and she tucked it closer to her hip. The truck had a standard transmission shifted from the column and she moved through the gears as though she had been driving it every day. Traffic in town was light and the early morning sky had an uncertain quality about it, as though it were still making up its mind as to the weather it would produce this day.
Joey looked at the bag. "Are you carrying a gun with you?" he asked, indicating the bag.
"Always," she answered. She took her eyes from the road for a moment to look his way. "I think that you sometimes forget the position that you're in. I am concerned for your safety. You should be, too. Point made?"
"Point made," he granted. "Let's let it go now, okay?"
"Fine, this the place?" At his nod, she shifted down and turned into the driveway of a large, Dutch colonial house, yellow with white trim. Decorative patterns of varying shapes of shingles wrapped around the house in bands. The oyster-shell driveway wound past burlap-wrapped shrubs and a wooden rowboat made into a planter to the rear of the house, where a gabled porch roof was supported by inclined two-bys. A pile of building material sat close by, covered by a blue plastic tarp. "Nice house," she said.
"Nice house, nice people. Done a lot of work for them." He exited the truck and immediately began hauling his gear from the back: portable table saw, power cords, toolboxes, sawhorses, and various portable power tools. He seemed anxious to get moving after missing a week of work. "I'll get all this stuff out and you can take the truck, do whatever you need to do. And thanks for bringing me out."
Mary stood beside the truck, stretching and surveying the area. It seemed to be a fairly safe place to work, with several houses nearby in view of the property. Year-round residents: witnesses, she thought. From the rear of the house, a slice of the back bay and the mudflats were visible. From the front, a good piece of the harbor could be seen. This was prime real estate, she thought. The landform rose past this property to the primest piece in town, the Adams' home, perched above them a thousand feet further up the road. Its dark slate roof and double chimneys could just be seen over the tops of the intervening vegetation. Anyone driving down from that house would have to pass right by the Jennings' summer residence. She looked up to the early morning sun. A haze was drifting in from the west, turning the sky above her to gray and already stretching in streamers toward the blue sky and sunshine of the east. She completed her circuit of the property and Joey had the truck empty and saw table and horses set up. Two yellow power cords snaked from a slightly opened window next to the porch area. "So what are you doing today?" she asked.
He scratched the stitches under his cap, pushing the bill farther to the side. "I'd like to have the framing for the porch and stairs all done by the end of the day. The piers are already set. Maybe I can even get some of the decking done. I'll work 'til dark. You can pick me up then or tell Louis, he'll do it if it doesn't work out for you."
"You want to get rid of me or something?" Mary smiled at his haste to get started.
"No, no," he said hastily. "Hang around long as you like. Check out the interior of the house, whatever. I just feel like I'm imposing on your time."
"Well, it is my day off. Maybe I'll take a look inside, see what you're doing for a while, take off and do some things and bring back some lunch." She thought this would be a nice place to relax for a while, if the sun would only stay out. She watched as a Channel Twenty-Six News van drove past, heading toward Adams' house.
.
Tina Bronki and a video-cam man emerged from the van that parked in front of Charles Adams' house on the driveway that continued on to a separate three-car garage beyond the house. The doors of the garage were closed. Tina, knocking on the front door with the camera man close behind her, thought she saw a shadow move behind the closed drapes of an adjacent window, but banging the heavy brass knocker brought no response. Three minutes of knocking and waiting was enough for her and she decided to visit the business office downtown. Her trademark red coat swirled around her as she hustled the cameraman back into the van. He was a slightly overweight, disheveled-looking man in his mid twenties, with long hair in a ponytail and his shirt untucked. He couldn't seem to move fast enough for her and grumbled about her constant state of hurry. Jim Fleck was his name, and it was his job to drive the van, but she preempted that spot, not being able to wait for him to stow his gear and get into the driver's seat. He muttered about union regulations and she told him to shut up and move his fat ass, driving away before his door was fully closed.
Letitia Adams was the only person evident in the business offices of Adams Real Estate and Development. Tina and Jim and his gear crowded into the small reception area where Letty received them politely but coolly. Jim had the camera on his shoulder and running as they entered the door. Mary liked a jumpy, hand-held, lead-in shot. She felt it made her appear to be an investigative reporter on the move. Before Tina could speak, Letitia held up a hand. "If you would like to speak with me, you may shut that off, first."
Mary started to speak, saw the firmness in Letty's eyes, and signaled Jim to stop recording. "Mrs. Adams," she said, "I'm Tina Bronki with Channel Twenty-Six and I would like to speak with your husband. Is he here?"
"I am aware of who you are, Ms Bronki. I do watch the news, occasionally, and no, Charles is not here at the moment. Perhaps I can help you. What is it you would like to know?" Letitia spoke with her usual poise, in calm and measured tones. She was dressed in a soft, gray wool suit over a cream silk blouse, and every hair of her tightly tucked bun was in place. Her posture was perfect. Only a certain tiredness around the eyes revealed any break in the armor of her persona.
Tina evaluated the woman before her for signs of evasiveness and found none. She certainly did not look like a woman who had anything she needed to keep hidden from the press. Tina wished that she had Charles Adams in front of her for the same kind of scrutiny. "Mrs. Adams," she began,
"can you think of any reason that toxic chemicals should be delivered to the cannery, before or after it ceased operation?"
A hint of puzzlement came over the tired-looking eyes. "There were certain caustic cleaning and disinfecting materials that were used, but nothing that would be considered toxic, unless it were used improperly. It was a food production industry, and proper methods to insure cleanliness were necessary. Is that what you mean by toxic chemicals?"
"No, Mrs. Adams. I'm talking about other things, specifically banned pesticides and herbicides, chlorinated hydrocarbon compounds, and PCB's. Things like DDT, chlordane, and methoxychlor. And some organophosphate compounds."
Letitia's eyebrows rose. "Small amounts of pesticides were used, occasionally, when the cannery was in operation to control roaches. I remember that when DDT was banned, we went to methoxychlor, and when that was banned, other chemicals were used, but only in very small quantities. None of the other things were used, I'm sure. I did the invoicing and inventories personally. I would know. I must ask why you are inquiring about this." She was intensely interested, and not at all indignant.
Letitia seemed to be very straightforward, but Tina would play out her hand. "I have, in my possession, shipping invoices that show the delivery of more than a hundred drums of these substances in the years between 'seventy-five and 'seventy-nine." What she had in her briefcase were copies of copies, but they would do for now. As long as Joey didn't lose the originals.
Letitia shook her head. Those dates and quantities didn't make any sense. "Let me see them," she demanded, holding out her hand. Tina reached into her briefcase and removed several sheets of paper, handing them to Letitia and watching her face closely for any reaction. Letitia moved into the better light next to the window and studied the pages, noting the recognizable signature of her husband on some and seeing the signature of Stan Warnecki on others. Without looking up from the papers, she asked, "Where are the originals?"
"In a safe place," came the non-answer.
"Where did you get them?"
"I'm not at liberty to say. Would you care to comment on them?"
Letitia straightened and turned to Tina. "I have no idea what these papers mean, but I can assure you, I intend to find out. May I keep these copies?" Her stare had turned to iron, her mouth set and determined.
Tina nodded. "I will be doing a short piece on this on the six o'clock report. You might want to watch it." Although Tina could be as callous as only a t.v. journalist could be, she was not entirely inured to the personal concerns of others. It would take several more years of hard work to build that requisite scar tissue. The small piece of vulnerability that yet resided within her responded to what she saw in Letty's eyes. They were both exceptionally strong women. Tina saw a glimpse of how even a strong woman could be blindsided and taken down and it made her feel vulnerable herself. Sympathy was the result of this realization. She would go after the true bastards, and leave this woman in peace. If possible.
In front of the sign proclaiming the name of Adams' business, Tina did a short stand-up piece for the evening news, raising the questions that must be answered, and challenging Charles Adams to answer them. Afterwards, she asked Fleck what he had thought of Mrs. Charles Adams. Jim Fleck was a tech nerd, but years of watching people through the objective lens of a camera had given him a certain perspective. He caught the shifting eye and the facial tic that belied the speaker's words. "She didn't have a clue," he said. "But I pity the poor bastard that pulled the wool over her eyes for so long." He shook his head in sympathy with the creature of his own gender who was going to have to account to the righteous woman they had just left. "She's going to tear him a new asshole."
Tina rolled her eyes. "Don't sympathize with assholes just because they're male assholes, Fleck. Or else you qualify to be one yourself. Let's go."
Charles Adams skulked in an brick-lined alleyway across from his own office, watching, but not able to hear the brief report that Tina Bronki spoke into the microphone she held in her gloved hand. The slight breeze blew wisps of fog and a light mist that deadened her words before they could reach across the street. The collar of his tweed sport coat was turned up to deflect the chill air, and the job he had done shaving was no better than that of the day before. His breath steamed sourly from another late night of heavy drinking. He was, in fact, still a little drunk this morning, and anxious for a small nip from the silver flask he carried in his left jacket pocket. His jacket was too nicely tailored to completely hide the shape of the flask or the bulge of the pistol stuck in the waistband of his trousers behind his back. Charlie didn't look himself today. Passing him on the street, anyone who knew him would think an impersonator was wearing his face and frame, and trying to sully his reputation by casting him as a degenerate bum. Reluctant as he was to confront his wife this morning, he had to know why a reporter was after him. When the sound of the departing news van had faded into the sound of the traffic passing on Main Street, he crossed over to his offices and slipped inside the door.
Letty looked up from the papers she still held and was shocked at his haggard appearance. His eyes were bloodshot, with dark pouches beneath. His shirt was wrinkled and the cuffs of his pants were dragging and wet. This, from a man who took great pride in appearance and never left the house without checking himself thoroughly in a full-length mirror. "You don't look well, Charles," she said. She felt a pang of sympathy for whatever trouble he had gotten himself into, but did not approach him from her position by the window.
Charles rubbed the stubble on his chin. He was having trouble meeting her eyes. "Yeah, well. I haven't been getting much sleep lately. What was the reporter here for?"
Letitia took two steps toward him and extended the papers. "She was asking about these. Asking what AdCanCo would do with these substances. I've been wondering, myself."
Charles was startled. His jaw dropped and his eyes widened. "What the hell," he said, turning through the pages. "Where did these come from?" He looked up. "What did you tell them?"
"I said that I had no knowledge of them. Tell me about them, Charles." Her voice was calm and non-threatening. She stood stone-still, watching him.
"I've got to see Martin Cowles," he said, more to himself than to her. Then, directly to her: "Don't say anything to anybody about this." He turned to peer through the window in the door, craning to look up and down the narrow street. Without further notice of her, he slipped out the doorway and crossed to enter the alley, hunching his shoulders and walking away quickly. Letty watched him from the window, not moving from her position for long after he disappeared from view.
.
Sergeant Clarkson was seated behind his desk, shirtsleeves rolled and tie loosened. Across from him, leaning over to point at something in the clutter of the desk was Lieutenant Waters, neatly dressed in civilian clothes, jacket and tie. Chief Sloan, striding by in the corridor, noticed Waters presence and stopped abruptly in the doorway. "What are you doing here?" he asked. Although the second-shift commander commonly reported in hours ahead of his start time, he rarely came in this early in the morning.
It was a second before Waters turned to face the chief. "Doing some schedule changes," he said, deadpan. Clarkson glanced up briefly at Sloan and returned to his work, erasing and penciling in a name. Averse to paperwork of any kind, nonetheless Sloan entered the office to lift the scheduling forms from under Clarkson's pencil. The sergeant's chair creaked loudly as he leaned back to regard his chief. Sloan studied the papers. It was obvious that changes were made to accommodate fuller coverage of Warnecki. "Put Brulick on third shift, too," he said.
"We'll be short a car," said Clarkson. After a beat, "You want him to ride with Knowles?" His tone, normally gruff, had another note to it, one that Sloan didn't recognize. Sloan looked at him, trying to pick up what it was.
"He can use my vehicle. That way we can keep an eye out for Trott, too. I'll use my own car," said Sloan, too easily relinquishing this major perquisite of his office. Hi
s own car was an old Plymouth sedan, rusted and faded from being parked too close to the salt water. His boat took up the space in his one-car garage that might have been used to shelter the car. His wife seldom went out, using the car to pick up groceries on occasion or to get her hair done. She was a small, slight woman with a cowed look, usually seen, if ever, wearing a nervous, apologetic smile.
Clarkson thought that Brulick would be keeping an eye on Knowles for Sloan, as much as Elwood Trott. "Sure," was all he said. A look passed between Clarkson and Waters.
Waters cleared his throat. "Chief," he said. He was standing so close to Sloan that the diminutive chief had to crane his neck to look up at him. Sloan took a step back. "You know, we've been looking for that boat that LeBeau's men chased out of the harbor the other night, and the sergeant happened to mention that you have a similar boat. We were thinking that we could take a picture of it, print it out, and post it around the harbor. It might stir someone's memory, give us some leads."
"There's gotta be a thousand Whalers like mine up and down the coast," Sloan scoffed. "And those guys probably saw some kid throwing firecrackers. Waste of time."
Waters shrugged slightly, cupped an elbow in one hand and lightly scratched his jaw with the other. "Maybe," he said. "Still, I'd like to follow up on it. Wouldn't think there'd be too many boats like that left on the water, this time of year. Won't take too much time."
Sloan appeared to consider it. He shrugged. "Go ahead. No skin off my nose. Boat's in my garage. Send someone over anytime." He turned to leave.
"Chief," Waters said, halting him at the door. "You mind meeting someone at your place, sometime this afternoon, maybe three?" Sloan nodded once, curtly, and left, heading back in the direction from which he came.
Ten minutes later, Sergeant LeBeau entered Clarkson's office, lugging a damp cardboard box which he set on the floor before the desk. Clarkson rose from his seat enough to see what it contained and sat down again, heavily. A solid cement building block lay in it with a piece of black polyester line knotted to it, the kind that lobstermen sometimes used to secure their pots. Waters squatted down to finger the cleanly cut end of the rope. "Hasn't been in the water long, has it?" he said.
"Nope," agreed LeBeau. "No barnacles, not even any algae. I'd say a week or less. Just a little silt from boats going by overhead. We picked it up 'bout an hour after low tide, sitting on the bottom right about where my guys saw the shot fired. I got them looking for a knife and a gun, right now."
"Diving?" asked Waters. LeBeau nodded. Waters looked at Clarkson. More confirmation of the story. Clarkson looked disgusted, like a dog had shit on his carpet and he would have to clean it up.
"Cliff," Waters said, "take the digital camera and meet Sloan at his place at three this afternoon. Check out the boat, shoot some pictures for flyers to post harbor-side. If the chief isn't there, go on in anyway."
"He say okay?" LeBeau raised one eyebrow. Waters nodded slowly. "I'll see if there's any biker boots in a corner, too," LeBeau added with a wry smile, and left.
"You going to do an inventory today?" asked Waters.
Clarkson nodded. "Gonna check the evidence room and the gun locker. Should be a few thirty-eight specials in the locker from when most of the men went over to nine millimeters. Check 'em against the list."
Waters studied him. Clarkson wore the look of a man whose cherished vocation had suddenly soured on him, grown too heavy to be easily carried. "We're going to run out of time soon," Waters said. "Cops are going to begin to talk about strange goings-on. You know how it is. They'll feel it in the air before they know exactly what it is." Waters had already gotten a few questioning looks from officers and staff that indicated the rumor mill had begun grinding.
"I know," said the sergeant resignedly. He put down his pencil and got heavily to his feet.
.
Louis' first stop in his morning errands was at the Constitution Gun Shop, located in a converted barn on a side road off of Route One, south of Thomaston. The clerk looked at the green bullets that Louis spilled onto the glass-topped counter and remarked, "Good thing you didn't try to fire any of these."
"I was hoping you could dispose of them for me. Like to buy a box to replace them," Louis said.
"No problem," answered the clerk, a heavily bearded, pear-shaped man of forty years or so. His red hair was cropped closely to his skull and he wore a button on his pressed blue denim shirt that read: 'Preserve Your Right to Arm Bears." The heavy man had red, white and blue suspenders and a belt to hold up his black denim pants. "Fired the gun in a while?" Louis shook his head. "Got a cleaning kit?" Louis shook his head again. "What exactly is it?"
"World War Two Colt automatic."
"A cannon, huh?" The man grunted to his knees and stood with a red-painted metal box. "Might want this then, unless you don't intend to ever fire it." Louis paid for the kit and the bullets with cash. He wouldn't tell Joey what he had purchased, but he intended to be prepared. He'd had an idea. It involved going to see the old prick that lived on the other side of Joey's house, but he'd do it anyway, as much as it pained him.
His second stop was in town, on Court Street, at the law offices of Meahan and Cowles where he had a ten o'clock appointment with Joey's lawyer, Daniel Drew. Drew's small office was on the second floor of the three-story, white, Victorian-style building, converted from residential use some thirty years earlier. The office had apparently been created when a bedroom had been split into two smaller rooms by means of a drywall partition that interrupted the crown molding and baseboard that otherwise continued around the room. The office had an old, oak desk, two wooden chairs, a few metal filing cabinets, and three meagerly populated bookshelves. It also had one window that looked out into some tree branches, and two framed posters, one espousing Greenpeace, the other a playbill for 'A Moon for the Misbegotten.' Louis was shown into the office by the secretary/receptionist whose services were shared by the three associates on that floor.
Daniel stood to greet him. "Sit down, Mr. Armstrong. How may I help you?" He held up a cautioning hand. "You understand, of course, that I can't speak to you of anything concerning Mr. Warnecki's affairs." He smiled apologetically.
"You don't have to tell me anything," Louis said. "You just have to listen to what I have to tell you. And then you can get together with Joey and decide what to do with it. Okay?" Daniel spread his hands to invite Louis to continue. Louis withdrew the folded sheaf of receipts from an inside pocket of his long, gray raincoat and placed them on the desk between them for Daniel to peruse. He explained how Joey had come to find them and related subsequent events that the lawyer had not previously heard, bringing him up to date on Joey's activities. Drew took everything in, making notes on a yellow legal tablet, doodling as much as writing.
"Wow," was what he had to say when Louis had finished.
"Wow? That's what you got to say?" Louis had expected some other kind of reaction, something more lawyerly, a dignified 'hmm' or 'I see.'
Drew smiled. "First reaction." He put on a more serious expression. "This is interesting. More than interesting. This environmental stuff is right up my alley. I'd like to see Mr. Warnecki today, talk this over. Do you know what he's doing today?"
Louis nodded. "He's working over to North Shore Drive. Number fifty-five, I think. Big yellow house. Lunchtime be a good time to catch him there. Otherwise he's not going to want to stop work. Bring him a sandwich, get his attention."
Drew walked Louis downstairs to the front entrance to show him out. At the sound of voices in the downstairs hallway, they both turned to see Martin Cowles ushering a troubled looking Charles Adams into his office, one arm across Adams' shoulders, like a priest offering consolation to the bereaved.
"You guys lawyer for Adams, too?" Louis was alarmed.
"Hmm," Daniel said, seriously. "Yes. My uncle Martin has been counsel for the family for years and years."
"I think that could be a problem, don't you?" Louis asked.
"Cou
ld be, for me anyway. But not for Mr. Warnecki, I promise you." Drew looked as sincere as only a failed seminary student could. Louis was not much assured.
As unsettling as his visit to Drew's office was, the third stop in his morning promised to be worse. As much as he dreaded going to Joe Soucup's house, after parking his car in his own driveway, he forced himself to walk the several step it took to lead him to Joe's front door. Joe opened the door to his knock almost at once, dressed apparently in the same clothes he'd worn the day before. No greetings were exchanged between the two men. Louis stepped around Joe into the front hall and into the living room, where he decided to stand, even if offered a seat. The furniture was greasy with the dirt of the ages and covered in cat hair. The house was uncomfortably warm and the commingling of unpleasant scents in the air, the strongest of which was that of cat urine, was almost unbearable. Louis would almost prefer to have Joe come to his own home to talk with him. Louis forced his mind to his purpose. "I been thinking," he said. "I want the two of us to cooperate in looking out for people that might come around bothering Joey at night. If you was to see someone that shouldn't be there, creeping around or whatnot, I'd like you to call me on the telephone. Would you do that?"
Joe stood like a molting turkey buzzard, his head cranked to the side to hear better, focusing on Louis with one eye. His head bobbed slightly as he was thinking. "Yeah," he said slowly, dragging out the vowels. "I could do that, maybe. And then what would you do?"
At least he doesn't have that goddam smirk on his face, thought Louis. "Well," he began. He didn't want to say that he had new bullets for his gun. "I guess I'd check it out and do whatever seemed necessary, scare the guy off, yell, call the cops, call Joey and wake him up. You know, break it up somehow."
Joe walked by him, scuffing over to a pile of junk mail mostly stacked on a straight-backed wooden chair, some slopped onto the floor. He picked up an unopened envelope and handed it to Louis. "Write your number on there." Louis did so, with a pen from his coat pocket. Joe slipped the envelope under the black rotary dial desk phone next to the mail chair. "That all?" he said. Louis nodded. "Okay then," Joe said, dismissing Louis from his presence. Once outside, Louis took several draughts of fresh air, purging his lungs. Thank God that was behind him, he thought.
.
Mary drove Joey's truck to run a few personal errands that morning, leaving Joey's work site after seeing Adam's Lincoln drive by ten minutes after Tina had sped back down the road. She couldn't catch up to him, so she picked up some groceries, brought them home, and then made calls to Sims and Clarkson to check in with them.
A half-hour past noon she returned to the North Shore address with a large sausage and cheese pizza. Joey was sitting under the rear porch roof on the newly installed flooring joists, just finishing what appeared to be an over-stuffed sandwich. He wiped his hands on the butcher-paper wrapping and strolled over to the driver's side of the truck, chewing the last bite. "Hey," he said. His knees and boots were muddy and sawdust was stuck to him all over.
She rolled down her window and his nostrils opened at the aroma of fresh pizza that poured out. "Hey yourself," she said. "You already ate, huh?"
Joey looked at the cardboard carton on the seat beside her. "You brought pizza," he remarked.
"Got room for a piece?" she asked.
Joey shrugged. "I might." He got in on the passenger side and held the carton on his lap. "Daniel Drew stopped by to talk for a few minutes. Brought me a sandwich. Thanks for thinking of me, though." He opened the carton, inhaled deeply of the aroma, and dealt out two slices. "Louis talked to him this morning and gave him those papers. The toxic chemical stuff, you know. Let him in on everything that's been going on. We agreed that he, Drew, should bring it up to the EPA, see what they can do with them." Steam from the pizza, in combination with the moisture from Joey's damp clothing, was causing the windows of the truck to completely fog over. "Also," he said, "I was thinking of getting him to link Tina up with his friends in the EPA, make a bigger splash. He used to work with them, you know."
"That so," Mary commented from around a mouthful. "He going to do that?"
"Yeah, he thought it might be a good idea." Joey was generally optimistic, more so when filling his belly.
Mary rolled her window all the way down. "Aren't you getting soaked?" she asked. The fog that had been rolling in from the harbor was reaching up the landform. The sky was leaden and a light mist had begun falling by mid-morning. "Aren't you in danger of getting an electric shock, working in the wet?"
"I think it's evaporating off me as fast as I get wet. Long as I keep moving I'll be good. And I'm plugged into a ground-fault circuit in the kitchen. It just pops off once in a while. I'm happy to be working again, that's all."
"If it pours though, you'll quit, right?"
"Yeah, can't work in the rain. Just make a muddy mess of everything."
They talked back and forth, eating and enjoying a casual conversation. The world of Joey's problems and the fact that Mary was a cop acting in her professional capacity seemed far removed from the moment. By the time the pizza had disappeared and Joey was picking at and eating the strings of cheese that were stuck to the box, they had spent a pleasant hour of give and take. Joey broke the corners of the box, folded it up , and stuck it under the seat. "Guess I'll get back to work," he said.
"What time shall I pick you up?" Mary asked, passing him a stack of napkins to wipe the grease from his hands.
"When the light's gone or it starts to really rain," he said. "If I have to get out of the rain before you get back, I go inside and wait. Don't worry about it. Take your time, do whatever you gotta do. I'm good here. And thanks again for the pizza." He got out of the truck and she drove away, thinking that under other circumstances she might consider going out with him. But that would have to be put aside. He was part of her job, not a potential boyfriend. She wondered if he had cracked open any of the novels she had left with him.
.
At about the time that Mary was driving away down North Shore Drive, leaving Joey to cut wood and bang nails, Charles Adams finally was able to reach Sloan at his department line. "Harry," he said, obviously several drinks ahead for the day. "Gotta talk to you."
"You're drunk," observed Sloan, alone in his office. "Where are you? You on a cell phone?" Fool, he thought, all flash and no guts.
"No, I'm in Camden. At the Shipwreck. On a pay phone." The Shipwreck was a lowbrow, working-class bar that featured cheap drinks between the hours of ten a.m. and two p.m. No one who associated with the likes of Charles Adams or the Chief of Police of Rock Harbor was likely to frequent it and, best of all to Charles' mind, it was a dark, cave-like place, perfect for drinking alone and not being seen. He'd been hiding from the world there among the draping nets and nailed-up hunks of driftwood since leaving Meahan and Cowles. "Hey, you been able to get a line on Trott?"
"No, nothing yet. Is that all you want?"
"Something's come up out of the past. We gotta talk. Can you come out here?" Adams hunched over the pay phone in the hall space next to the men's room, holding a drink in his free hand.
Sloan was irritated. He didn't want to babysit a drunk, but he thought he'd better go and see first hand what condition Adams was in. "I'll be there in half an hour. Don't drink anymore." He hung up and left his office, taking a civilian topcoat with him. He would leave his uniform cap in the car when he got to the Shipwreck. On his way to the basement exit to the parking area, he passed the property room where Clarkson's back could be seen before an open gun locker. Three, gray steel, standing cabinets stored the tightly controlled weaponry of the department. He stopped and stuck his head in. "What are you doing?" he asked.
"Inventory," answered Clarkson, without turning around. He was comparing serial numbers on a list with the handguns, shotguns, and rifles hung and tagged in the locker. Sloan stared at his back for several seconds and strode away to the exit. Clarkson's hands clenched on the clipboard in his hands, bending it
until it almost snapped. He stood perfectly still until the heat slowly left his body and he was able to resume his work. Not being able to act on his anger was becoming increasingly difficult. He thought he might snap if a resolution did not come soon.
The Shipwreck was located on a side street two blocks away from the harbor, on the edge of the commercial district. It had no parking lot of its own, so Sloan parked on the street, around the corner from the bar. Sloan didn't expect to be recognized by any of the few patrons that frequented this kind of bar this early in the day, but he turned his collar up against the drizzle and slipped in as quietly as he was able. None of the half-dozen men at the bar paid any attention to his entrance. They, like the aproned bartender, were engrossed in the soap opera playing on the t.v. over the bar. He sat opposite Adams in a back booth of scarred pine. The pine-slab table was carved with enough initials to hold a pint of spilled beer and Sloan kept his arms off the table. Adams leaned heavily on the table, tracing designs in the water rings left from his iced drink. "What's so important you had to drag me out here?" Sloan asked, taking in Adam's appearance. It made him nervous and pissed him off. Adams watched his glass as he told Sloan about the reporter's visit. Sloan wanted to know where the papers had come from.
"Only one place they could have come from. Stan Warnecki must have taken them and hid them when he started bitching about what we were doing. Why they should turn up after all these years, I don't know." Charles spoke with a drunken sadness, like a man resigning himself to the loss of a favored hunting dog.
"Get ahold of yourself," Sloan said harshly.
Charles eyes were watery. "You know, my wife left me," he whined. "Cops and reporters coming around, this old shit surfacing. I've been sitting up all night with a gun in my hand, waiting for Trott to come around. You've got to do something."
"Keep your voice down." Sloan's eyes slid to the bartender, who had looked their way, casually interested in soap opera sounds not on t.v. Sloan stared his attention away. "Oh, I'll do something alright," he hissed. "And if I need your help, you'd better be sober. So dry up. Go home and sleep it off." Sloan checked his watch. Three o'clock. "I gotta go." He slid from the booth and Charles remained, searching his besotted imagination for options should everything fall apart.
.
Sergeant LeBeau, wearing a yellow raincoat with reflective stripes on the back and sleeves over his uniform, got out of his patrol car. He also wore high, black rubber boots with the tops folded down. There was a fine mist that hung in the air, heavier than fog, lighter than rain, that diffused the light of the day into an even gray that cast no shadows. Sloan's cedar-shingled garage sat thirty feet away and at right angles to the house. Both buildings had roof ridge-lines that undulated between their widely-spaced rafters. The structures were old. Old enough to be of post and beam construction, built by Edmund Sloan, Harry's great-grandfather. LeBeau's and Sloan's forebears, Acadian and Anglo respectively, had collided in years past, contending over fishing grounds rights in cod wars between the ethnically differing groups. That area of dispute had disappeared with the cod.
LeBeau looked to the house. The gray-haired head of Sloan's wife appeared in a window, the wavy glass of the many-paned sash distorting her features enough to make her face appear unsymmetrical. LeBeau waved to her and pointed to the garage. She vanished from view. LeBeau had heard a rumor that she was agoraphobic, becoming over the years less and less able to leave her house, and seldom seen in town. Living with a bully like Sloan wouldn't make her condition any easier, thought LeBeau. He crunched over the gravel drive to the garage and unclasped the latch, swinging the double doors wide to reveal the trailered boat. It rested, bow forward, amidst a tangle of wire lobster pots, lines, foam buoys, fuel cans and whatnot that barely left room for the boat. He stooped, lifted the tongue of the trailer, and pulled it out into the open. He was just setting it down when Sloan's unmarked departmental Crown Vic pulled into the yard and stopped behind his own. Sloan's quick, impatient steps brought him to the opposite side of the boat in a hurry.
"Well, take your pictures and get back to work," he said.
LeBeau's forearms draped over the gunwales. "Pretty clean," he remarked. The outboard motor still hung from the transom, but the boat's fiberglass hull was scrubbed clean, inside and out.
"Putting it up for the winter," was Sloan's short reply.
"Don't you still have a few pots in the water?" asked LeBeau. Though Sloan had been with the department for many years, he maintained his early connection with the water, keeping a dozen or so traps going for his own use, selling any surplus to the pound operation.
Sloan hesitated. "Couple. I'll get Manny Rose to pull them for me." Manny was a small-boat lobsterman, an old-timer of few resources and fewer words, who would do odd jobs on the side for a few extra bucks.
The boat was going to tell him nothing. With a slap to the hull, LeBeau walked away to get the digital camera from the seat of his car and returned to snap a few photos, Sloan pacing outside of camera range. LeBeau wouldn't get an opportunity to poke around in the garage, not that he could expect to see anything interesting in there, judging by the immaculate condition of the boat.
Sloan sent him off, saying he would roll the trailer back into place by himself. He listened to the crunch of the car's wheels on gravel until the sound was swallowed up in the surrounding mist and fog. He stood by the boat, thinking. There had been an atmosphere of tense watchfulness about Waters and LeBeau that disturbed him. And Clarkson, usually gruff but not hostile towards him, had seemed to be unwilling to confer with him on the business of the day. Something was not right. He should get back to the department and find out what it was.
.
"Last issued to McKesson. Retired in 'ninety-seven. Last inventory was three months ago and it was there where it was supposed to be." Clarkson hunched over his desk, phone to his ear, talking to Waters at home. The implications were clear to both of them. Only the watch commanders had keys to the gun locker. The three watch commanders and Clarkson, who was acting watch commander for the first shift, since Sloan couldn't be counted on to be there when needed.
"How incredibly stupid," remarked Waters. Waters was in his home office, a converted spare bedroom on the second floor of his home where he could close the door and escape the noise and confusion created by his three young stepsons. His wife, ten years younger than he, had been widowed when her husband had died of a cerebral aneurysm six years earlier. June Sims had played matchmaker for her and the lieutenant, inviting them both to a picnic three years ago. Her husband had been embarrassed by her obvious maneuvering, but the couple had hit it off almost immediately and gotten married within three months of being introduced. Waters had had no children by his first marriage and his ex-wife lived in New York. Waters felt he'd been settling in nicely in Rock Harbor, putting down strong roots in his adopted community where he felt that a man with good intentions and ability could make a difference for good. The box that had been opened during the past week had a moldering smell that he associated with big city police work, where anything could happen, and did. He hoped that here, the cause of that smell could be rooted out and purged from the system before it destroyed the department and all he had gained in his hard-won new life. In the city you sometimes had to turn your head and look away. Not here, and not him. "That's too stupid to be possible," he reiterated, "if it turns out to be the weapon used last Monday night." There was a sample bullet fired by every gun in the department, kept for comparison with any found at the scene of a shooting to determine which might have been fired by a cop's gun.
Clarkson thought about it. "Maybe," he said. "If the gun were cleaned and replaced before a scheduled inventory, it wouldn't be even considered for comparison. That's for the future, when they're all computerized."
"And the reason the gun hasn't been replaced is that the job isn't over, right?" Waters took Clarkson's silence for assent. "So, when Sloan becomes aware of the unscheduled inventory, the situation become
s more immediate."
"He saw me doing it," Clarkson said. At that moment, Sloan opened the door to Clarkson's office and entered. There was a slight hitch in his step when he saw the box on the floor containing the cement block. Clarkson could have put it out of sight, but he'd wanted to see Sloan's reaction on seeing it. "Chief just came in," he said, talking to Waters and keeping his eyes on Sloan, who hid his surprise well.
"Who you talking to?" Sloan asked. He was still wearing the long topcoat, and had his uniform cap on his head. His eyes flicked to the box beside the desk and back again.
Clarkson held the phone away from his ear, open to the air, not cupping the mouthpiece like one who wanted privacy. "I'm talking to the Lieutenant," he answered in flat tones. His face might have been cast in stone, for all the expression it showed.
For some reason, Clarkson's deadpan speech and countenance irritated the chief. "What the hell's this supposed to be?" he said, giving the box a small kick.
"I'll call you back," Clarkson said into the phone and hung up. His movements were controlled, like he was afraid to move too fast and might break something. He folded his hands on his stomach and leaned back. His chair didn't squeak. "LeBeau's guys pulled that out of the water near where the shot was fired."
Sloan stayed in character, rolling his eyes and then staring at Clarkson. "And why would they want to do that?" he asked, inferring that only an idiot would think to do such a thing.
Clarkson raised one eyebrow and pursed his lips, giving an elaborate shrug. "Guess they thought it was interesting. Only recent thing that's been put there, maybe. That's all they've found so far." His expression grew more serious, almost mock serious. "I told them to spend a little more time there. Serve as a training exercise, you know."
"What do you think they're going to find, a body?" Sloan was incredulous.
"No," Clarkson said, "not a body. Maybe they'll find the knife that cut the rope." His tone suggested the implausibility of such a find, but his eyes held no humor that Sloan could see.
"Well, get 'em out of there," Sloan ordered. "Stop wasting the taxpayer's money and the department's time." His long coat swirled as he spun and headed out the door, slamming it behind him. Clarkson held himself stiffly in the chair, hands grasping the wooden armrests. If he didn't hold himself so, he might fly out of the room after Sloan and choke him to death. A commotion in the hall, with the sound of Sloan yelling and another, softer voice, outside his office door preceded the double knock and then entrance of Sergeant LeBeau. He was carrying a small plastic bag and still wore the rolled boots. Sloan did not follow him in, but LeBeau was watching over his shoulder after he closed the door and strode to the desk. He placed the clear bag in the center of the desk and a drop of water rolled from it to make a worm track in the ink on a paper beneath. Clarkson lifted it away from the desk and saw that it contained an open folding knife. It was the kind that had a nub near the hinge end of the blade so that it could be opened with one hand. The stainless steel bolster had a belt clip attached and half of the three-inch blade was serrated.
"I guess that's the one," Clarkson said. "Sloan notice it?"
LeBeau noted that Clarkson was referring to the chief as 'Sloan' lately, apparently not willing to accord the man the title of respect due his office. "Oh, yeah," LeBeau said, "his eyes bugged out and then he tore me a new one for wasting time over there."
"What'd you say?"
"I said, 'yes,sir'. Then he took off down the hall." LeBeau paused. "Things coming apart?"
Clarkson gave a small wave of the head. "I'd say things are coming to a head. I think we got almost enough for an arrest warrant."
LeBeau looked around for a seat and saw one against the wall. He went to it and sat down there, rather than moving it closer to the desk. "Anybody else, yeah, maybe enough for an arrest. In this case, we got enough to make a big stink, maybe force a resignation." He crossed his legs, slouched in the chair. "Without getting one of them to roll over, the chances for a conviction are minimal to none. Adams and Sloan got a lotta juice. I'd say we need more. Maybe a lot more."
Clarkson knew all of that. And he recognized the fact that he was so anxious to rid his department, and he truly felt that it was his department, of a bad apple that he was ready to spill the whole barrel now, rather than work toward a solid case. It was an itch he desperately wanted to scratch. He leaned back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling, thinking. "Brulick's on third tonight," he said.
LeBeau was watching him. "Yeah, so?"
"So's Knowles."
LeBeau got it. "Maybe the weak link can be broken, that what you're saying?"
Clarkson shrugged. "I was just thinking that since we're losing our edge so fast and we're running out of time anyway, why not step up the pressure where we can?"
"Without actually crossing the line into a formal accusation," LeBeau added. He put his feet flat on the floor and sat up straight. "I agree," he said. "The more time goes by, the more time they have to cover their tracks. We should push all we can." He hesitated. "I think. Better ask the lieutenant."
.
At four o'clock, Mary was at Sims' home, sharing coffee with him until it was time to pick Joey up before dark. It was getting close to that time, night would fall early in this kind of weather. "Have a cookie," Sims offered. "Made them myself."
"How domestic," she said, taking one. "So what do you think about this toxic waste thing?" she asked. "Good cookie." Chocolate chip.
He shrugged. "Anything to put Adams in the spotlight makes it harder for him to act privately. If he finds out it came from Warnecki though, it might give him one more reason to go after him. We're going to have to keep good track of all of them." Sims was dressed for work and ready to go. He'd been waiting for a call from June, but she hadn't gotten back to him. He put on his jacket. "I gotta go. Take some cookies." He shuffled half of the plateful into a brown paper lunch bag for her. She accepted them graciously, not being much of a baker, herself.
Joey's truck was parked behind Sims' Volvo in the driveway. Sims stopped as he opened his car door to get in. "Hey," he said, "You driving an unregistered vehicle?"
Mary froze with one leg already in the cab. "Oh, shit. I forgot. I've been driving it all over town." Sims lived about six blocks from Joey's. "I'm going to park it and take my own car." She drove slowly and carefully, looking for police vehicles. Every cop in the department knew that truck shouldn't be on the road and she didn't want to be embarrassed by being caught driving it.
Very little light remained in the sky by the time that Mary reached the worksite. The porch light was on, showing that the framing was complete and more than half covered with gray-primed decking. The piles of building materials were covered with blue tarps and Joey was lugging his tools through the open door into the house. Mary followed him into the kitchen, where another tarp was spread on the floor under his neatly stacked equipment. "Want some help?" she asked.
"Nope, last trip." Joey disappeared and returned with an armload of coffee cans and boxes of fasteners. He brushed his clothes off over the tarp. "All done. Good timing." He grinned at her, holding the door for her to precede him through. He locked up and hid the key under a rock next to the foundation. He didn't ask why she wasn't driving his truck, but she told him and warned him against using it again until he had a valid registration under his own name. "That may be a while," was his comment.
At the street end of the driveway, Mary waited for a dark Lincoln to pass before pulling out onto the narrow road. Her headlights illuminated the passing driver. "I do believe that's Charles Adams," she said.
"Doesn't look too good," Joey commented.
"No. Driving like he's had a few, too. Maybe more than a few." The car was moving slowly, driven with exaggerated care. They watched until the car was out of sight around a curve. The road had no painted line and the Adams had kept close to its center, weaving somewhat. "Wish I could stop him, give him a breath test," she said. "Good to know where he is, anyway."
Mary drove carefully through the streets of town to Joey's house. Visibility was nil, traffic creeping, drivers hunched over their steering wheels to see what little remained of the observable world. Mary made the trip safely and backed into Joey's driveway. Joey had been quiet throughout the journey and Mary had thought he was letting her concentrate on her driving, but when she turned to look at him, he was asleep, head back and mouth open. "Hey," she said. "We're here." Joey picked his head up and blinked awake, not overly surprised to find himself home. "Mind if I use your phone?" she asked. She wanted to call in and report Adams' location and, incidentally, to check out Joey's house.
"Not at all," he said, exiting her car. "Come on in."
Joey left his muddy boots beside the kitchen door on a rubber boot tray. His wet socks flopped at the toes and left damp footprints on the kitchen linoleum. "Want some tea?" he asked, heading for the bathroom.
"No, thanks," Mary said. "Got to get home and feed my cat." She left her shoes by the door and passed Joey to look briefly into each room of the house.
Joey watched her. "What are you doing?' he asked.
"Nothing. Just seeing if you've had any visitors." Satisfied that the house was secure, she made her call while Joey was in the bathroom. When he emerged again she asked him if he had plans to do anything but stay in for the evening.
"No, I'm going to shower, eat, and read until I crash. I want to get up early and get started work right away." He looked like he could use a shower. His hair was matted down on top from his ball cap and the sides were sticking out crazily. Damp sawdust clung to him all over and mud streaked elbows and other projecting joints. At least his hands were clean, though a few knuckles were scraped and it appeared that mud had been incorporated into the fresh scabs. Mary got the impression from his appearance of a marionette without strings, loose jointed, with too long arms and outsized hands and feet. "What?" he said.
Mary shook her head. "Nothing. Just thinking. Guess I'll go." She moved to where her shoes lay.
"Hey," he said. "Didn't you want to take some books?"
She paused and straightened. "Yeah, you mind?"
"No, no. Let me get you a bag. Take all you want." He grabbed a plastic shopping bag from under the sink and followed after her into his sitting room, where she squatted on her heals, searching titles for books she hadn't read.
"How's this guy?" she said, pulling out a book called 'Free Fall'.
"Oh, yeah, he's good. Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. Start with this one, though. If you like it you can take the rest in the series." He pulled another from the 'C' shelf and handed it to her, replacing the one she had.
She took three more that looked promising. "That's enough," she said. "Thanks." When she stood, her knee popped. "Ouch. Have you had a chance to look through any of the ones I brought?"
His face brightened. "I read 'Windy City Blues' by who, Warski?"
"Paretsky," she corrected. "Good, huh?"
"Very good. Good lead character, finely crafted plot, smooth writing style." His tone was critically serious, as though he were a wine maven discussing the fruity overtones of a 'ninety-four Pinot Noir. Mary had to chuckle.
"Okay,then. See you at the next meeting of the Rock Harbor Literary Guild," she said, and left.
Joey got cleaned up, scrounged through the refrigerator for something to eat, coming up with a plastic bowl of Louis' beef stew, and went to bed, reading until he fell asleep with the book propped up on his stomach and the light still on. He didn't see Louis that evening, but Louis had agreed to drive him to work early the next morning.
.
Charles Adams caught the local evening news report, watching the television through bleary eyes in his den. He'd been drinking scotch all day, watering it down enough to maintain an even state of inebriation without falling over the edge into stupor. It was a practiced discipline with him, this self-anesthetization, and he even felt a little pride in his ability to fine-tune his consciousness. To his mind, it was something akin to Zen meditation, western style.
Tina Bronki's taped stand-up bit in front of his business made it onto the tag end of the program. His meditation was deep enough that he had to struggle to rise from it into the physical world. Nonetheless, he got the gist of it: the shipping receipts, his unavailability for comment, and his wife's claim to ignorance. He also caught the closing statement made by the live anchor that the EPA was expected to look into the matter. This stuck him as an injustice. Those papers rightfully belonged to him and he called his lawyer right away, to tell him so. It was an easy call, the phone was right next to his seat and his lawyer's home number was on the speed-dial. That done, he rewarded himself by freshening his drink.
Martin Cowles and his wife Margaret were sitting down to dinner when Charles called. They, unlike Charles, preferred a more solid nourishment in the evening and it irritated Martin to be disturbed in the evening at home. That was what associates were for, he thought. It bothered him enough that he called Daniel Drew, who was also about to sit down for supper. He asked Daniel if he had received the papers from Warnecki and said that if had, then he must turn them over forthwith. Daniel refused to either confirm or deny his possession of those or any other papers, claiming client confidentiality. Martin was not satisfied with his response, pointing out that associates were not partners and were therefore liable to release from employment at any time. Rashly, Daniel told his uncle where he could stuff his employment and hung up. This truncated conversation provided for an uncomfortable evening all around. Margaret Cowles castigated her husband for his heavy-handed treatment of her only heir and nephew. Melissa Drew cried, causing their two young children to cry, and lamented the soon expectation of a state of homelessness for their family. All this, from the dharma of a Zen alcoholic.
.
Sims worked an uneventful shift. Uneventful, but tiring nonetheless, since the fog and mist made it difficult to do anything but avoid smashing into other drivers on the roadway. Sometimes it was difficult to know even where he was on a particular street. It was an evening where everything was hidden, where an army of insect-faced aliens could infiltrate the town and no one would be the wiser. It was an evening for eyestrain and white-knuckle driving. Still, he did the best he could, once setting out flares and helping an elderly woman to change a flat tire on his way to cruise by Elwood Trott's apartment. At Adams' house, he'd seen the light from one first-story window. Similarly, Sloan's house showed a light, but the department vehicle couldn't be seen there, and Sloan's other vehicle was missing as well. So, he thought, the chief was out and the missus was probably home. One light at Warnecki's house burned through to the end of his shift.
He was bone tired by the time he traded his patrol car at the station house for his Volvo wagon. He thought he'd sleep like a dead man tonight. Changing from first to second shift had always been a difficult transition for him. He'd never liked working either the second or third shift, no one in the department did. A possible exception was Knowles, who seemed to take it in stride, perhaps even enjoying working the dark hours. Knowles liked breaking up the closing-time bar fights, hauling off the drunken participants to jail, maybe knocking a few heads together; following the weaving motorists who'd had two or three drinks too many and needed to have their keys taken away and brought to spend a sobering time in the lock-up. But, Sims thought, Knowles' father had been a drunk. Maybe he had a mission, a special calling to redress the grievances of his youth when he hadn't the power to make his life the way he felt it should be. In any event, as far as Sims was concerned, Knowles could have the late shifts. Sims would take the daylight, anytime.
.
At nine o'clock in the evening, while Sims was busy with the flat tire, Sloan met with Jimmy Brulick at Brulick's house in the north end of town, half a mile from Sloan's own residence
. Brulick was to ride home with the chief and take the car for the graveyard shift.
Brulick's house, where he lived alone, was a prefab ranch house on a cement-block foundation, hard by the road and nestled tight to the steep bank of an expired sand and gravel operation. It had been a hastily built development, run through the town zoning board by it's well-connected developer, namely the Adams Real Estate and Development Corp. It was one of the few of Charles' projects that had actually netted him any serious money, mainly because of the questionable site and the cheap cost of construction. In the summer, sand blew from the unstable banks and covered window sills and cars with grit. Rain washed sand down into yards where grass would not grow, and parents feared to let their children play outside for fear that their play on the banks would cause them to collapse and bury the kids alive. The development was thirty-two small houses packed together in a desert, and it was a hardy soul who tried to grow a garden there, or maintain a lawn. Property values were so low that even a single cop could afford a mortgage there, as Brulick had.
The outside of Brulick's house was as plain as plain could be, siding and trim painted a dusty beige, with no attempt made to soften its bleakness with plantings or yard decoration. Not even a pink plastic flamingo or fanciful mailbox suggested the individuality of the lone man that resided there. No curtains showed to soften the windows, the shades were usually pulled. Only the black-painted metal numerals tacked over the front door indicated that the place had an address to which mail might be delivered.
Inside the house, if anyone were to visit there, one might see that the walls were covered with photo-finish, faux-walnut paneling. Posters were thumb-tacked here and there, the main themes of which were handguns and large-busted women in unlikely poses. There was a painting on black velvet that might draw an eye hoping for visual relief: a mother and child, possibly the madonna, sitting in repose beside a lively mountain stream, green moss-covered rocks and lush foliage enfolding them in in a seemingly protective embrace. This painting, the only framed decoration of the home, hung on a wall opposite the most comfortable chair in the living room, a brown corduroy-upholstered recliner. The recliner faced this picture rather than the nondescript color t.v. in the closest corner. Aluminum soft-drink cans and an empty potato chip bag sat on the floor, close beside. There was a small bookcase in the room, of dark-stained pine, but the only books it contained were a dictionary and thick, paperback almanac. Two small, framed pictures occupied a shelf along with a few miniature ceramic dogs. One photo was of an elderly couple, gray-haired and smiling uncertainly at the camera. Another was of a young woman who had Brulick's thin nose and pointed chin, her arm protectively around the shoulder of a young girl in a frilly, white confirmation dress.
A competent housekeeper would note that the furniture was never moved when vacuuming was done, and that dusting was casually, if ever, done. That the kitchen counters were streaked and the dishes and pots and pans not really clean. Dirty laundry resided under the unmade bed and behind the closet door. All in all, a poorly kept house, not worthy of being called a home. Elwood Trott's slovenly cave of a home had at least the character and individuality of an intentional misanthrope. This place had the ambiance of a train station, or a transient hotel. Traces of character were so slight as to be almost nonexistent. James Brulick's inner life was almost completely hidden, as least as such might be revealed by his place of residence. The velvet painting, and the position of the chair presented the only items that might intrigue anyone who could possibly be interested in digging for the secret life that must reside somewhere in the man, as it does in any man.
Brulick was nervous. He was nervous from the aura of intensity that seemed to steam from his boss, from the sidelong glances he got lately from certain members of the department, and from a general feeling of uncertainty in the air in the department at large. He'd been protected from egregious harassment at the hands of those in the department who disdained him, by virtue of his position close to the head of the department. Some might categorize his position in another way, but his chief had always been a shield for him. He needed a shield. Compared to most police officers, he was small. The size and depth of a person's spirit does not relate to physical size, but Brulick's was small and mean, not lending itself to inspire a feeling of confidence and trust in his co-workers. This had made him an outsider and Sloan had used this status to create a loyal sycophant to his own personal glory.
Riding in the passenger seat, Brulick noticed the chief's jaw muscles working. That happened when Sloan was fretting over a troublesome issue. At times, when a problem was particularly vexing, Sloan would click his teeth together. Brulick listened closely and thought he could hear that sound beneath the engine noise. A good and careful toady learns the signs that indicate whether the boss is blowing hot or cold, so he would know which way to jump. Brulick knew now to wait for his chief to speak, and not interrupt his thought process.
Sloan kept silent all the way home until the car was idling beside the chief's personal car, behind his house. Sloan put the shift lever into park and turned half-way in his seat, resting his forearm atop the steering wheel. He spoke confidentially. "Jimmy," he said, "I need you to keep an eye on Knowles for me tonight. I think he may be involved in something — something illegal. This has got to be between you and me for the time being, until I can get the goods on him."
Brulick recognized his cue to speak. "What sort of thing is he doing?"
"Well," said Sloan, "I don't want to say until I know for sure, but it may be drug related."
"You talking about the stuff we found in Warnecki's house?"
Sloan gave a barely perceptible nod. "Maybe. I'm working on it and I want you to keep tabs on him for me."
Knowles made Brulick nervous. The headlights of the car showed an area thirty feet in front of them, everything else of the world hidden in fog and mist. "Don't you think I'd be pretty obvious, chief, hanging on his tail in this shit?"
"I don't mean for you to follow him around, for crying out loud. Sure, you'll see him on the road once in a while. He'll be checking out Warnecki's place, and Trott's too, but call him on the radio every twenty minutes or so, check his location. What could be more natural on a night like this? You're just checking in with your shift mates. Shit, Jimmy, use your head." Sloan pushed his uniform cap back on his head and rubbed his forehead.
Brulick nodded his compliance. "Okay chief, whatever you say. Where you gonna be?"
"I'll be right here, listening to the radio in the house," Sloan said.