I didn't want to hear the rest of it, but I'd pushed Meller down Hagan's throat, and he had a right to do the same to me.
"They sell him the rye, Cuddy, and he downs it, then goes belly-whopping in three inches of water. What the fuck did you think he was gonna do with your money, Saint John? Buy him- self some new threads, maybe a dry bed for the night? You fuckin sanctimonious asshole, you said you never killed anybody without meaning to? Well, stand proud, brother. You just got credited with your first."
I'd heard enough and left, the young cop's mouth set for catching flies.
* * *
If I had my bearings right, the button I was pushing belonged to 57 Costigan Street, but I couldn't hear any chimes responding inside. I tried knocking; no one answered. Then I heard a vaguely familiar sound that I couldn't immediately place. A whispery, intermittent ticking noise, like someone repeatedly thumbing along and through fifty pages of a book. It was coming from behind the house.
Moving to the side yard, I noticed how similar the house was to Gail Fearey's, the major difference being the condition of each. The exterior paint here was pale peach and appeared, if not fresh, at least not completely abandoned. Mrs. Meller maintained ivy and other vines along the sunny wall, with flowers planted in a pleasing pattern beneath them.
As I turned the back corner, I could see an older, slight woman pushing a prehistoric hand mower, the thresher blades making that ticking sound. The yard was only about forty by fifty, which made the manual method seem quite rational. Her back to me, she advanced, retreated, and drove on, two or three feet at a time, waltzing to a silent tune.
I said, "Mrs. Meller?"
She quartered her progress, but only to cover a patch extending into a bed of violets. I crossed the yard, repeating her name. I was only a few steps from her when she spun around, a frightened look in her eyes.
I quickly said, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"
She held up her right hand in a stop sign, which had the desired effect on me. She cupped the hand to her ear, then two fingers to her lips in a shush gesture. Then she shook her head. Deaf, and mute. Approaching sixty, her face tapered to a delicate chin and was framed by graying hair in what used to be called a pixie cut.
Mouthing the words in an exaggerated way, I said, "Do you read lips?"
She held up her hand again, this time thumb and index linger an inch apart.
"A little?"
Mrs. Meller nodded.
I produced my identification. She read it, looked up at me. "Jane Rust hired me before she died."
Mrs. Meller seemed baffled.
"You didn't know her?"
Negative shake.
"I think her death might have something to do with the death of your son, Dwight. "
She crossed her arms and dropped her gaze. Gulping once hard, the woman made up her mind. She moved toward the back door, indicating I should follow.
The inside of the house was as perfectly arranged and kept as the landscaping. We sat on a couch in her living room, she pointing first to a red bulb in a fixture mounted on the opposite wall. Pressing her thumb on an imaginary button in the air in front of her, she pointed next to a lamp, then opened and closed her fist like someone signaling "five" over and over.
"When the doorbell is pushed, the red light flashes?"'
She nodded, smiling. Then her expression shifted. From the drawer in the end table she produced a large manila tablet like elementary school kids used when learning the alphabet. Mrs. Meller wrote quickly in capital letters, her syntax jumbled.
"WHAT YOU WANT KNOW ME"
Indicating the pad and then myself, I said, "Should I write my questions down for you?"
She shook her head, gesturing toward me and my mouth, then her and the pad. I got it.
As she stared intently at my lips, I said, "I know how the police said the incident happened. Do you believe them?"
"DWIGHT AND ME POOR BUT HIM THIEF NO"
"What do you think happened?"
"POLICE LIE ME NO KNOW WHY"
"Had Dwight ever been in trouble with the authorities before?"
As I spoke the word authorities her eyes fluttered, confused. I said, "Trouble with the police before that night?"
Shaking again, she wrote, "KIDS SCHOOL MAKE FUN ME DWIGHT MANY FIGHT"
"Aside from lights at school, though, any. . . any crimes?"
Dogmatically no.
"What would he have been doing in that alley?"
She seemed to bite back a memory. Then, "DWIGHT DEAF BUT TALK SOME THEN KIDS MAKE FUN GIRLS MAKE FUN"
Mrs. Meller looked up at me, but I didn't understand, and she could see it before I could say it.
"DWIGHT GO THE STRIP FOR GIRLS"
I paused, embarrassed for her and myself and for a boy I'd never met. His visits to The Strip weren't varsity larks.
"The newspapers had only a couple of stories about what happened. Did you ever have anyone look into it, like a lawyer, maybe?"
"NO MONEY JUST ME"
"You looked into it?"
She seemed hurt, and I realized how my doubt must have appeared to her.
She wrote, "BOOK YOU WAIT" and left the room. I folded my hands and tried to think of a way to apologize but couldn't. Mrs. Meller returned with a scrapbook. Resuming her seat, she opened it on her lap.
The first few plastic sleeves held old photos, black-and-white and too small or too large for today's 35-millimeter standard. She reviewed them quickly, lingering on only two shots: a much younger she and a baby, followed by a noticeably younger she and a gawky fifteen-year-old boy. She glanced at me from the corner of an eye and proceeded until the photos were succeeded by newspaper clippings.
Mrs. Meller yielded the page turning to me. She had them all. The Globe and the Herald (still the Herald Traveler in those days) carried only the short pieces Liz Rendall had predicted. A candid photo of the young Hagan was attached to the Herald story, a police academy portrait of Hagan in a parade cap in the Globe. I skimmed the articles from the Beacon, which paralleled the content and style of what Liz had told me, down to the "G. E. Griffin" bylines.
Mrs. Meller had a Beacon picture Liz hadn't mentioned: Hagan and Schonstein, the latter barely recognizable through the Crusaders cross of bandages taped over his face. They were entering some sort of public building. The clipping was yellowed and the photo itself expectedly grainy.
There were eight more clippings in the book. One dealt with the clearing of the officers for their actions that night, and a second was Dwight Meller's awkwardly brief obituary. The hnal six chronicled Hagan's sequential promotions, with an Op-Ed piece broadly suggesting that he was the right man to next occupy the chair of chief.
I checked to make sure there were no more entries. I realized Mrs. Meller was watching me expectantly.
My demeanor must have conveyed the unspoken question "Is this it?," because she closed the book very carefully and formed her hands around the edges, straightening the leaves in a way I couldn't appreciate or caressing the memories in a way I could.
I started to say, "Mrs. Meller. . . ," but realized she wasn't looking at me. I touched her sleeve, and she tore herself from the past.
"Mrs. Meller, thank you for showing me this. I lost my wife before her time, and I know that going through all this again wasn't easy for you."
She reached for the tablet. "POLICE KILL DWIGHT YOU FIND OUT WHY TELL ME"
I said I'd try.
* * *
Wonder of wonders, Richard Dykestra was in his office. Even the receptionist seemed surprised.
Dykestra came through an inner door when he heard my voice. He said "Hold my calls" to her and "C'mon" to me. A scale model of Harborside haunted a table near his desk. Pink telephone message slips were clustered next to a multilined Rolm receiver. I sat on a black leather hammock stitched to a chrome frame. Dykestra plopped into a big swivel chair, his feet resting pigeon-toed on the base of the chair.
"Thought me and you had our talk already.
"
"Some things came up. I remembered you saying Jane Rust never bought your explanations. Figured I'd give you the chance to sell them to me."
"Let's hear your questions."
"I read Jane's articles on redevelopment in general and you in particular. "
"So?"
"So how'd she miss your settlement with Schonsy on the fire?"
I wanted to say it like that, watch for his reaction. He was as animated as a freeze-frame.
"I don't see what a cop's fall has to do with any of this here."
"You don't."
"No," said Dykestra. "He's an old guy, carrying this young kid down some stairs. He don't watch where he's going."
"Through the smoke, you mean?"
"Through whatever the fuck was going on that night."
"Yet you settled with him."
"Yeah. Yeah, I settled it."
"Insurance company involved?"
"You kidding? You know what they want for insurance on them four-deckers? They're wood. Fifty, sixty years old. Cost more in premiums than I gross in rents."
"Then where's the pressure to settle? Why not let him sue you, drag it out a few years before you've got to write the check?"
Dykestra shrugged. "Guy's a cop. A fuckin hero for saving the kid and everybody else in the building. Good public relations."
"No, Richie. Good private relations."
"I don't get you."
"Schonsy seems the kind of guy you don't shortchange."
"Look, I got one of the Porto's lives in the place willing to say her uncle smokes in bed, okay? That means the fire's not my fault. But I got no insurance, no guarantee a jury with half of them Portos and the other half smokers are gonna see it that way. Plus, Schonsy was saying he tripped on the carpet coming down, and the staircase got so fuckin wrecked from the fire, who could say?"
"You have the building's title in a real estate trust?"
The face narrowed. "Yeah. "
"Any other property in the same trust?"
"What's it to you?"
"I'm still wondering why you settled without a suit being filed. Even conceding you'd lose on the merits, why not just let Schonstein and his lawyer take the destroyed house and the land under it for what it's worth, so long as the trust didn't own any other parcels worth your saving?"
Dykestra's eyes made a circuit of the room. "Awright, you wanna know, I'll tell you so's you'll know. Cop like Schonsy, he's been around forever. He's got things on everybody. He makes a phone call here, drops a hint there, he could get everybody and his brother on my back. Everywhere I got property in the city. I don't need that, Jack. I don't need fines up the wazoo because my drunk fuck janitor in a twelve-unit complex ain't wearing a surgical mask when he takes the garbage cans to the curb."
"Not to mention fire inspections, building code violations—"
"You got the picture. Any more questions?"
"Yeah. How much was the settlement?"
"That you don't need to know. " He picked up a message slip and pushed a button on the telephone console. "Give my regards to Boston, huh?"
"Maybe I'm not leaving town just yet. "
"You ought to. I don't think Nasharbor's agreeing with you too good, you know?"
19
The Almeida Funeral Home was just off Main Street in a sprawling Victorian painted the obligatory white with black shutters. Three men with olive complexions were standing around a hearse and a limo in the driveway. The rniddle-aged one was shifting from foot to foot, a Clydesdale waiting professionally for the start of another parade. The two younger ones shared a cigarette and quiet jokes.
Inside, several viewing rooms branched off from the main foyer and central staircase. Next to one double doorway, a black felt board spelled in white plastic letters Jane RUST/PARLOR A.
Managing editor Arbuckle was standing beside a seemingly sober Malcolm Peete. Each was talking out of the side of his mouth, as though that showed more respect for the deceased in the closed coffin. Kneeling at the casket was Bruce Fetch, secretary Grace seated nearby. A dozen or so people milled around, a few of them faces I remembered from the city room. As a portly man moved aside, I could see Liz Rendall speaking with an elderly woman I recognized from one photo back on Jane's dresser. She wore a faded print dress that appeared ten years out of fashion. When Liz spotted me, she excused herself and came over.
Her eyes shone brightly over a face set in an appropriately subdued smile. "John, I'm glad you could make it."
I checked my watch. "I miss the services?"
"No. Jane wasn't religious, so I didn't think a service would be in keeping, especially given. . . the way she died. Almeida does a nice, simple job, regardless of, I think he said, 'the faith of the departed'."
A silver-haired man in a morning coat with the manner of a patrician came into the room. He briefly took the elderly woman's hands in both of his and bowed slightly at the waist. I said to Liz, "Almeida?"
"Yes."
"And Jane's aunt?"
"Uh-huh."
"You think I could ask her a few questions?"
Rendall frowned. "I don't know. She's been pretty good so far, but Jane was her only living relative, and I'm not sure how close she is to losing it."
"I'll tread softly."
Liz was cut off by Almeida saying, "May I have your attention, please?"
Everyone acceded, and Almeida explained the vehicular order of march. I noticed a few of the newspaper people growing sullen. Probably planned to stay only for the expected service in the funeral home, but now felt trapped into driving to the cemetery as well.
As Almeida concluded, I could see the aunt's eyes searching the room for Liz. Making contact, she approached us. I quickly said to Liz, "Be easier for you if l rode in the limo, too?"
Before she could reply, the aunt was upon us, saying, "Liz, who is this good-looking young man? Your beau?"
Rendall said, "I wish, Ida. This is John Cuddy."
The aunt pressed my hand and said, "You were a friend of Janey's?"
I wasn't sure how much detail Liz had told her. "Yes, but only recently."
"Too bad. More friends like you and Liz, and I'II bet matters wouldn't have come to this." She noticed the room emptying out, and said, "If you don't have a ride to the cemetery, how about sharing the limousine with us?"
"Sure."
Ida gazed back at the casket. Almeida and the three I'd seen outside were politely waiting till the room was cleared before trundling the coffin out to the hearse.
Ida said, "Well, best be on our way, I guess. Leastways Jane's gotten a nice day. She would have liked that. "
* * *
"Manhattan, Kansas. Ever hear of it?"
"No, ma'am. I haven't."
"Call ourselves 'The Little Apple'. Get it?"
"Yes, ma'am. Clever play on words."
"I think so. I do. Even got some decals and bumper stickers, that sort of thing. Couple of the shopkeepcrs made themselves a bundle on them. A bundle, word has it."
Liz and I sat next to each other in the limo, facing Ida in the most comfortable seat. I was thinking that if Ida was close to cracking, I'd hate to see her party mood.
"'Course it's still just a little town, just the university to keep it going, truth be told. But I've lived there all my life and never wanted anything else. Not like Janey, no."
"Did she stay in touch?"
"Oh, some. She'd write me, call on birthdays, Christmas-time, that sort of thing. Janey was my sister's child, my younger sister. Died young, too. Right around Janey's age. Bad luck or bad seed."
"Janey talk much about what she was doing here?"
"On the newspaper?"
"Yes."
"No, not since she wrote me with her new address and all. Said she was real happy with it, her first 'real' job, she said. I guess the other papers didn't treat her so well, but if it wasn't for them, she wouldn't have been here, so who can say?"
"What do you mean?"
"W
ell, if it wasn't for her friend down in Florida, she wouldn't have gotten this job, but who can say whether it was good or ill, seeing as how things worked out for her."
Liz and I exchanged glances. "What friend?"
"Well, young man, I don't rightly know. Can't say she ever said, and if she did, I don't remember. Think it was just somebody from Florida who helped her, from the paper she worked on down there."
"Do you remember which paper?"
"Oh, mercy, no. She worked on so many, and they all sound the same to me, like nobody who ever owned them had as much imagination as a farmer naming his herd. But it was in Florida, for certain, near where she went to school."
I said to Liz, "You know where that was?"
"Probably Miami. They've got—"
"No, no. Wasn't Miami. Miami I would have remembered. Ry Bicks, he moved down there when his wife took sick. Couldn't ever understand Ry's doing that, never even saw the place before he upped and took her there, but I would have remembered Miami. When I read Janey's letter, I mean."
I said, "Tampa, Gainesville, Talla—"
"Gainesville. Gainesville, yes, I remember wondering if that's where the dog food came from, you know? Yes, it was Gainesville alright, whatever their newspaper is."
I was about to ask something when the driver slewed to the right and through the cemetery gate. As he proceeded slowly down the macadam, Ida looked around and her lower lip began to quiver.
She said, "Trees. Oh my, that's nice. Janey would have liked having trees around her."
Liz shot me a look that said, "Enough, okay?," and I had to agree with her.
* * *
Almeida was as short and sweet over the grave as he had been indoors. I could appreciate the heavily Catholic parts of the ceremony that he necessarily, but smoothly, deleted. The dozen or so mourners stood uncomfortably close together, Fetch directly behind me, Grace next to him.
Ida, weakening slowly, was between Liz and me. Liz had her right arm around the aunt's waist for support. Ida reached down with her right hand and clasped my left in that bony, intense way older people have. She cried softly into a hankie. The hankie gave off a faint scent of lilac.
Yesterday's News - Jeremiah Healy Page 16
