And Leave Her Lay Dying

by John Lawrence Reynolds

  DISTINGUISHING MARKS/CHARACTERISTICS:

  1. Walks with limp (right leg)

  2. Speaks with slight lisp and southern accent

  3. Well-proportioned physique; may frequent body-building gyms, etc.

  WANTED FOR: Questioning regarding murder of sister, Jennifer Judith Cornell

  LAST KNOWN ADDRESS: 2281 Park Ave., Apt. 2A

  McGuire read on through the night, filling his notepad with scribbles. He wrote reminders to himself, sketched a map of the murder scene, and drew lines to connect names and locations until the sheet of paper resembled a perverse maze. When he finally stretched and looked at his watch, he was surprised to discover it was past three in the morning and he forced himself to set aside the files.

  Later, waiting to fall asleep, he visualized the body of Jennifer Cornell in the last photographs ever taken of her, lying on her back, her wet hair clinging to the shape of her head, her eyes staring out in perpetual surprise.

  He stepped out of the shower stall to hear the telephone ringing, and left a wet trail to his desk where the details of Jennifer Cornell’s murder still lay.

  “You got the media on your ass yet?” Kavander snarled before McGuire finished answering.

  “About what?”

  “Hell, you don’t watch TV?”

  “Somebody from the Globe called last night—”

  “Yeah, you’re on their front page this morning. Saying ‘No comment.’ Very original, McGuire. You write that yourself?”

  McGuire rubbed his head with the bath towel. “Jack, I just got out of the shower and I’m standing here looking like a hockey stick with hair. Get to the point, will you?”

  “The point is, I need your butt here by ten o’clock. In case you don’t wear your watch in the shower, that’s forty minutes from now.”

  “What’s happening?”

  “You, me and Don Higgins, we’re going to talk about this mess. Then we’re going to face the hounds from the press and try to convince them that Boston cops don’t go around kicking puppies and beating up defence lawyers. Wear something in sincere blue,” Kavander ordered and hung up.

  Prosecuting attorney Don Higgins wore sincere blue suits exclusively, usually Brooks Brothers. In his profession, political instincts and a thrust for the jugular were deemed essential. Higgins achieved success with minimal quantities of either, replacing them with keen intelligence and an unshakeable code of ethics in a job which frequently scoffed at both.

  Tall and movie-star handsome, Higgins seemed cursed with what might have been an insurmountable handicap for a criminal law career: naïveté. Democrats and Republicans alike had approached him to run for office in almost any capacity he desired, convinced that his good looks and squeaky-clean image would harvest votes in bumper-crop numbers. But after extensive conversation, the political scouts soon cooled their enthusiasm.

  “Guy is as clean as an Eagle Scout,” said one Democrat following an afternoon with Higgins. “But nobody’s ready to vote for a forty-two-year-old guy who still says ‘Golly!’ and thinks being underprivileged means not going to Disneyworld every year!’

  Now, in a subtle blue pin-striped suit and quiet striped tie, Higgins rose from his chair in Kavander’s office and extended a pink, perfectly manicured hand to McGuire. “Hiya, Joe,” Higgins smiled. “Jack says he has you on special assignment.”

  “I’d like to have him strung up by the thumbs,” Kavander growled, leaning back in his chair. “Let’s get to it.”

  McGuire sat in the other chair, facing Kavander’s desk. “Why not start by filling me in?” he said, ignoring the captain’s outburst.

  Kavander swung his feet on the desk and talked around the toothpick in his mouth. “The good news is, Judge Scaife isn’t pressing contempt charges against you. The bad news is, Rosen has launched two million-dollar law suits against the city like we expected. One is for him, charging criminal assault and naming you and the entire B.P.D. The other is for that weasel client of his, charging false arrest and harassment, naming you and the great city of Boston.”

  “They are both without merit, in our opinion,” Higgins said, his smile erased. “We’ll propose a simple apology for the assault, since it’s clear that no injury was made on his person. He’ll sputter and complain, but the citizens of Boston won’t want to see a million dollars of their money going to a lawyer who owns a garage full of Ferraris.”

  “The false arrest, it’s all grandstanding, right?” McGuire asked.

  “Even less chance of succeeding than the assault charge,” Higgins smiled. “But it will let him keep his client off the street and delay proceedings. We’ll be fortunate if we can go back to trial within a year.”

  “And every prospective juror from here to Cape Ann will believe we’re railroading Wilmer,” Kavander muttered. “Which is just what Rosen wants.”

  “So what’s happening today?” McGuire asked.

  Higgins leaned back in his chair, his hands clasped behind his head. “We’ll try to neutralize the impact in the media. We can stop saying ‘No comment’ and begin stating that Rosen’s charges are baseless and that we have total confidence in the Boston Police Department staff in general and you in particular.”

  “Very kind of you,” McGuire said grimly.

  “Hey, Joseph!” Kavander removed his toothpick and pointed it at McGuire. “You’re not in any position to make smart remarks, okay? All you have to do is dance to our choreography, don’t trip over the footlights, stay away from here, keep your lip—”

  “Stay away from here?” McGuire echoed, rising out of his chair.

  “—keep your lip buttoned and we wait—”

  “Back it up, Jack!” McGuire shouted. “What the hell does ‘Stay away from here’ mean?”

  Higgins was smiling and waving his hands at the other men. “Hey, fellows, come on.”

  Now Kavander was standing too, his hands on his hips. He swivelled to stare at an empty corner of his office, breathed deeply once, and turned back to face McGuire. “That’s the deal, Joe,” he said in a soft, almost conciliatory voice. “The official word is, you’re on special assignment. You keep your pay, your pension and your badge. Most of all, you keep your nose out of here.”

  “Just until Rosen milks whatever he wants out of the charges and drops them,” Higgins added quickly.

  “You want me to disappear?” McGuire asked, looking from one to the other. “Go away, sit home, watch soap operas?”

  “I don’t give a fuck if you fly to the moon on a broom,” Kavander snapped. “Just don’t show your face around here for a couple of weeks at least.”

  “What if I stay out of here permanently?” McGuire asked. He reached inside his jacket to retrieve his badge.

  Kavander sat down. “Suit yourself,” he began, but Higgins interrupted, reaching to touch McGuire lightly on the arm.

  “Not a good idea, Joe,” the prosecuting attorney said gently. “If you resign it will be construed as an admission of culpability. Rosen’s case would immediately become strong enough for litigation. And that would be just the beginning.”

  “Of what?”

  “According to our legal advice, resigning now would leave you open to full indemnity on both million-dollar suits filed by Rosen. The city would be relieved of the financial risk and of any obligation to provide you with legal support.”

  McGuire stared at Higgins to be sure he was serious—a wasted effort. Higgins was always serious. “You mean I would be out on my own, facing two million dollars in law suits, and the city would be off the hook?”

  Higgins nodded, a look of concern on his face.

  Kavander was less comforting. “Not everybody would be sorry to see it happen, McGuire.”

  “Does that include you, Jack?” McGuire demanded.

  “Hey, what difference does it make?” The captain leaned back in his chair. “What are
you, too proud to take a paid vacation?”

  “We’re looking at a month, two months at the most,” Higgins said. “When Rosen drops his suits, everything is back to normal.”

  Kavander rustled in his drawer for a fresh toothpick. “For once in your life, McGuire, be reasonable. If I was you, I’d be out booking a cruise, getting away from this lousy weather, maybe hustling rich old broads all over the Caribbean.”

  “What about the grey files?” McGuire asked.

  “Leave them. I’ll pass them on to Eddie Vance, see how he does with them.”

  “Fat Eddie’s the reason most of them are grey in the first place, Jack. I solved one of them in a day.”

  “You came up with a half-assed theory is what you did.” Kavander looked across at Higgins. “Silky Pete Genovese, remember him? Buick used him for a bowling ball and a telephone pole for the head pin. McGuire thinks it was a murder and suicide. Some guy’s way of handling a customer complaint with his friendly neighbourhood loan shark. Trouble is, nobody cares.”

  “I care, Jack,” McGuire said. “The real trouble is that nobody else cares that Fat Eddie is blowing half the cases assigned to him. I’m looking at one now, a woman who drowned in the Fens last summer. There are leads everywhere, including an APB for her brother that was never followed up, and Fat Eddie writes ‘NETGO’ on it, leaves it in the drawer—”

  “Writes what on it?” asked Higgins.

  “NETGO,” Kavander said, staring down at his lap. “Nothing else to go on.” He was a different Kavander now, sullen and quiet. “Joe, you want to work on that one, you go ahead. I’m just telling you you’re on your own. You don’t show up here until I give you the word, and you work with whatever you already have.” His eyes snapped up and met McGuire’s. “That’s the deal. You either make the most of it or you book passage out of town, I don’t care. I just don’t want people around here tripping over you until Rosen’s off our back.”

  “Why?” McGuire asked quietly.

  The word detonated another explosion in the police captain. “There’s no ‘Why?’ There’s only ‘Do it.’” Kavander slapped his hand on the desk. “You’re a fucking loose cannon, McGuire. You’ve been that way since Ollie Schantz retired, flying around, bouncing off things.” He shook his head li though to erase his mood and force himself to grow calm again. “You ever play football in college, McGuire?” he asked in a quiet voice.

  “Never went. After I graduated from high school, my old man told me I already had twice as much education as he did and I’d better get a job and start paying board.”

  “What did you play in high school?”

  “Usually dead.”

  Kavander smirked. McGuire knew the captain had been an all-star guard at Boston College, a bruising blocker who remembered every opposition player he had ever knocked down. “I could tell you didn’t play team sports. Because you’ve never been a team player around here, McGuire. You’re a solo artist, you never learned how to put the team’s interests ahead of your own.”

  Higgins glanced at his watch. “They’re waiting for us downstairs,” he interrupted, straightening the crease in his rousers. “The TV crews were setting up when I came in. We should get going.”

  Kavander placed his elbows on the desk. Holding his head in his hands, he stared at a typed sheet of paper in front of him. “Joe, listen to me,” he said without looking up. His voice was low, his tone avuncular. “Trust me. I’m doing you a favour. Just lay low for a few weeks. It’ll do us both good. That’s all I’m asking. Just a few weeks, all right?”

  When McGuire didn’t reply immediately, Kavander swept the sheet of paper from his desk and rose from his chair. “Let’s go,” he said, walking briskly to the door. “And for Christ’s sake, McGuire, try to keep your cool.”

  Chapter Eight

  No weather is as unwelcome in New England as November rain. After scouring the North Atlantic, the cold air sweeps ashore and chills the land with its dampness. Too late in the year to nurture life and too early to soften the landscape as snow, the rain is suitable only for a grey world where Indian summer and all of its colours have faded and fled.

  When the rains begin falling after sunset, they drive New Englanders deeper within the caverns of their minds where their thoughts focus on the pleasures of dry warmth and their souls weigh the dubious prospect of another sunrise.

  That evening, a grey November rain deluged New England and the frame houses lining the streets of Revere Beach. Inside the white house on the hill with its view of the Sound, McGuire basked in the warmth of a fire, the aroma of fresh­baked pastry and the comfort of quiet conversation.

  He sat back in his chair, a glass of Scotch in his hand, describing the morning’s press conference and Kavander’s insistence on McGuire’s absence from the Berkeley Street headquarters building.

  Ollie Schantz lay propped in a sitting position. The fingers of his right hand tightened and relaxed around a tennis ball as he spoke. “Kavander doesn’t want you away from Berkeley Street,” Ollie said as McGuire sipped his Ballantyne’s on ice.

  “He says it’s his choice.”

  Ollie grunted. “Jack’s not the wind, he’s the weathervane. Somebody else doesn’t want you there. Somebody higher. Commissioner’s office, maybe.”

  “Whoever it is, I’m not going.”

  “Not going where?”

  “Out of town.” McGuire turned and stared out the window where the raindrops gathered on the glass and migrated downwards, seeking the sea. He felt old and defeated, more useless than his former partner lying paralyzed beside him. He grimaced in a bitter imitation of a smile. “It’s your classic decline and fall of civilization as we know it, Ollie. You’re here, I’m on the street, Fat Eddie Vance is golden, and the guys in the pinstripes are calling the shots.”

  “Fat Eddie’s the only guy I ever met, can’t get out of his own way.” Ollie turned his head to follow McGuire’s gaze through the window. The light across the water was obscured by the cold rain. “You say you’ve got one of his cases?”

  “You want to hear about it?”

  “I keep telling you I’m not going anywhere.”

  McGuire drained his glass and set it aside. For the next half-hour he recited the details of Jennifer Cornell’s murder. Ollie, his eyes turned away from McGuire and searching for the offshore light, interrupted several times to ask questions. Only when McGuire finished did Ollie roll his head on the pillow to study him.

  “So you’ve got this Cornell woman, she’s working on Newbury Street.”

  “In a pricey dress shop.”

  “In a dress shop by day and at night, when she’s not trying to hustle parts as an actress, she’s hanging out in this bar.”

  “Pour Richards.”

  “Whatever, on Mass Avenue.”

  “She’s a regular there.”

  “No husband, no boyfriend, nothing steady.”

  “Picks up a guy every now and then.”

  “She’s got a history of dropping a few beans out of her basket,” Ollie recalled from McGuire’s briefing. “Spends some time in a shrink haven upstate. Report says she was a borderline psychotic, manic depressive tendencies. Gets straightened out, comes back to Boston, when?”

  “Five years ago.”

  “Gets settled in and one day her brother shows up.”

  “Andrew.”

  “Andrew, her brother. He starts hanging out in this bar too. He’s smooth, good dresser, good conversation, everybody likes him, everybody thinks she’s a bitch.”

  “Yeah, she could be a real ball-breaker. That’s what comes out of the interviews.”

  “And after she croaks they find this TV producer’s name in her book and some guy, a regular in the bar, who’s got the hots for her.”

  “Something about her employer too. Woman who owned the dress shop where she worked was really pissed
at her.”

  “And she and her brother are living together.”

  “That’s what the neighbours say.”

  “Two weeks after her brother shows up, she’s found dead in the Fens and there’s no sign of her brother, what’s his name?”

  “Andrew.” McGuire consulted his notes. “Not a trace. Nothing in her apartment, no clothes, no ID. A second set of fresh prints, probably his. They were checked out and zilch came back. And there’s nothing on the guy. They checked with Maine records for information and came up empty. Birth records, neighbours, none of them say Jennifer Cornell ever had a brother. Of any age.”

  “Any next of kin at all?”

  “Not that we can find. Jennifer was born out of wedlock. Father unknown. Mother married a guy from San Antonio fifteen years ago. Died in a traffic accident there, nineteen eighty-three.”

  “Bernie Lipson starts the case, goes nowhere, and Fat Eddie takes it over.”

  “Yeah,” McGuire snorted. “Sits on it for a month, loses a bunch of reports and writes it NETGO. A real Sam Spade.”

  Ollie breathed noisily for a moment, his eyes on McGuire. “What’s out of sync, Joe?” he asked finally.

  McGuire grinned. How many times over their years of working together had Ollie looked at him while sitting in an unmarked car, or walking down Boylston Street on their way to a lunch of clams and beer, or gnawing on pizza in South Boston, tossing details of a case back and forth like a couple of Celtics working a two-man press? Ollie would ask “What’s out of sync?” and McGuire would review the case for him, Ollie nodding and saying “There’s a hiccup” or “Gotta stare that one down” or “That’s hotter than a two­dollar pistol.” Schantz and McGuire: together they had more closed files, more tight-assed homicide convictions than any two people who ever walked the floors at Berkeley Street. Goddamn, McGuire thought in silence, there were damn few grey files when they worked together, and there was none of that NETGO crap written on their cases.

  “Have we got us a job, partner?” McGuire asked.