And Leave Her Lay Dying

by John Lawrence Reynolds

  “Janet, there’s nothing under Ralph’s skin except a goat in heat.” He rolled to face her. “Come with me. Get out of the cold for a few days. You need time off and Kavander will give it to you. We can fly down tomorrow night and have six, seven days together.”

  “Damn it, I was angry with you.” Her voice conveyed both anger and sorrow. “I needed you. But you, you’re so damned independent, you think everyone else should be the same way.”

  “You had to work it out—”

  “And I needed you to help me!”

  He lay back again and covered his eyes with his forearm. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  When he raised his arm and opened his eyes after a long moment’s silence, she was watching him with a wry smile. “I never thought I would hear you say that,” she said. “I didn’t think you knew the word.” Leaning over to kiss the tip of his nose, she whispered, “I have to get back.”

  “Have a nice time tonight,” he said as she was dressing.

  “I plan to.”

  “Take some aspirin with you.”

  “Aspirin? What for?”

  “To hold between your knees!”

  He slept the rest of the afternoon, waking once from a dream in which he saw men pinned to the ground on iron stakes like butterflies.

  When he awoke for good, the sun was going down somewhere beyond Cambridge. He showered, swallowed a cup of instant coffee, called a travel agency and drove north to Revere Beach.

  “I booked a trip to the Bahamas.” McGuire reached for the last of the cookies Ronnie Schantz had brought him when he arrived. “Place called Green Turtle Cay. Off Abaco. Rented a cottage on the beach near the only town on the island. I’ll just lie in the shade for a week, drink beer, eat shrimp and think about nothing.”

  Ollie Schantz was staring at the ceiling. “And the Cornell case?”

  “The hell with it. I gave the grey file back to Kavander.”

  Ollie grunted. “Don’t need it anyway.”

  “I’m not walking away from Berkeley Street, Ollie. Not yet. I’ll just slip into a lower gear until I retire.” He stood up and stretched. “Tell you the truth, if I like the weather down there, maybe I’ll look around for something to do. Even a place like Green Turtle Cay might need a cop. Somebody to go around, check for unlocked doors. No politics. No ambitious guys nipping at your heels.”

  McGuire looked down to see Ollie watching him. “Sit down and go through all the Cornell suspects again,” the other man ordered.

  “Ollie, I’m through with the case—”

  “Well, I’m not!” Ollie snapped. “Run through it again from memory before you leave to go build sand castles on some desert island, goddamn it!”

  McGuire sat. “There’s Reich, the super,” he began. “Except he’s dead and his wife says he was in bed when the victim was killed. Then there’s the insurance man, Milburn, who was at the Fens when she died. He says he was drunk and asleep on a bench. I guess Andrew Snyder is a possibility, but hell, Ollie . . .”

  “Keep going.”

  McGuire sighed. “Okay, there’s Fleckstone, who had a violent fight with her. She might have bugged him enough for him to kill her, I guess. There’s Irene Hoffman, who I never did meet. Jennifer Cornell ruined her business, which is motive enough. Then I guess you could include Marlene from Pour Richards, but where’s the motive?” He stared back at Ollie and shrugged his shoulders.

  “Let’s assume,” Ollie Schantz said, “that the brother’s dead. Or at least he disappeared as soon as the Cornell woman was murdered. Good assumption?”

  “Good assumption.”

  “I’m going to ask you something. And don’t answer until you’ve let the idea ricochet around inside that melon you carry on your shoulders. Think about it: Who was the only person who ever claimed to see both the victim and her brother together?”

  McGuire looked away.

  He frowned. His face became clouded, then suddenly animated and he leaped to his feet and said a name slowly, his words tinged with disbelief.

  “Nice going, killer,” Ollie smiled. “And I’ll bet you’ve figured out what happened to Andrew Cornell.”

  “How long have you known, damn it?” McGuire demanded.

  “I suspected it the day you left for Texas. When you came back and told me about Andrew Snyder, it all fell into place. The accident cleared up a couple of nagging little details. It’s all been in your notes, Joseph. The ones you made when you were looking at the murder-scene pictures. Her hair, Joe. Look at her hair. And the callous. That’s what clued me in.”

  “I’ll need something. Maybe the old glass sandwich number.”

  “That’ll work. Match them up with Norm Cooper’s files.” Ollie’s right arm swung in jerky motions to his night table. His hand released the tennis ball and one finger hooked the drawer handle.

  “You’ve got a fair bit of movement there now,” McGuire observed.

  The drawer slid open, revealing a scattered collection of dated snapshots and news clippings, a gold badge, plastic sealed ID card and .38 revolver.

  McGuire chose what he needed. “How long has your gun been here?” he asked, frowning down at the weapon.

  “Since I asked Ronnie to bring all my junk down from upstairs. Close the drawer.”

  McGuire slept fitfully that night, waking often to assure himself it was true, that Ollie’s theory was the only plausible solution and that they had all been blind not to see it.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The morning air traffic was heavy into Logan Airport. McGuire stepped out of his car, the weak sun at his back, as a 747 passed low overhead, its wheels dangling from beneath the craft’s underbelly.

  At the sound of the doorbell, the dog gave a warning bark.

  “Good morning,” McGuire said to the face that appeared at the partially opened door. “Sorry to arrive unannounced.”

  Frances O’Neil’s sister, Mona, stared back at him, holding the black Labrador by its collar.

  “I’m Lieutenant McGuire, Boston Police Department,” he said, smiling. “I was here about a week ago to talk to your sister Frances. Remember?”

  The woman nodded, her face devoid of expression.

  “I have to talk with her again,” he said when she made no gesture to invite him in. “Actually, I just want to show her a photograph. If she can identify the individual in it, she could help us in our investigation. It won’t take a minute.”

  She opened the door and stepped aside without a word. McGuire entered the house and glanced into the living room where Frances O’Neil stood near the fire, a moss-green cardigan over her shoulders, her arms folded in front of her.

  “Hello, Miss O’Neil,” McGuire said, smiling warmly. “Sorry to drop in like this. Wonder if you can help us with something.”

  Frances O’Neil walked to the centre of the room, her cautious smile growing wider as she approached McGuire.

  “You promised to call me Frances,” she said. “But I forgive you. Come sit by the fire and we’ll talk.”

  “I can’t stay long,” McGuire allowed himself to be led away from the sister, who stood at the door watching them before dragging the protesting dog into the kitchen.

  “Not even long enough for tea?” she asked. She tilted her head, her eyes crinkling as she smiled.

  McGuire withdrew a small brown envelope from his topcoat. “Miss O’Neil,” he began.

  “You promised Frances,” she repeated coyly.

  “Okay, Frances.” He removed a photograph from the envelope. The picture had been bound between two small squares of glass that McGuire had purchased from a hardware store that morning, the edges sealed with paper tape. “Tell me if you recognize the person in this photograph.”

  “It’s not you, is it?” she smiled. She took the photograph from him, tilting it in the light from the window to see the image
through the glare from the glass.

  “It’s a little fuzzy,” she said frowning. “Hard to see the face.”

  “Does he look familiar at all?”

  “No. I can honestly say I have never met this man.”

  Mona walked briskly into the room from the kitchen where the dog cried and danced excitedly behind the door. “Who is it supposed to be?” she demanded, peering over her sister’s shoulder.

  Ignoring her, McGuire asked Frances to turn the photo over and read the writing on the back.

  Frances brought the glass-encased picture closer to her eyes and squinted. “It looks like ‘Provincetown, 1956,’” she said.

  “Does that mean anything to you?”

  She shook her head. “Sorry.”

  “How about the writing? Does it look familiar?”

  “Let me see,” Mona insisted, reaching for the picture.

  “Please.” McGuire held a hand up to dissuade her. “Please let your sister study the writing. This is very important.”

  Mona glared at him before retreating to the fireplace.

  “I have no idea whose writing this is,” Frances said. She looked up at McGuire and giggled. “I didn’t do very well, did I?”

  McGuire retrieved the photograph from her. “It’s not your fault,” he said, handling it carefully by the edges. “If you don’t recognize him, it was a false lead. Happens all the time.”

  “Who is he?” Mona snapped, trying once again for a glimpse at the picture.

  “Someone who might have helped us find the murderer of Jennifer Cornell.” McGuire slid the picture back into the envelope. “Right now, it looks like I’ve hit a dead end. Sorry to trouble you.” He turned and headed for the door.

  “Will you be back?” Frances touched his elbow, walking quickly to match his pace.

  “Only if I have more questions.” McGuire seemed distant, deep in thought.

  “Can’t we talk again like we did the other day? I enjoyed that. You’re a wonderful listener, you know. That’s a very special gift. Some people think listening is easy, but they’re wrong. It’s a gift; it takes real talent.”

  He paused at the door to turn and take her hands in his. “Tell you what. I promise we’ll have another chat soon. And when we do, I’ll listen to everything you have to say.” He looked over her shoulder at Mona, who had taken her sister’s position near the fireplace, where she stood watching them with hooded eyes. “Thank you,” he called across the room.

  Frances followed him to the top step, wrapping her arms around her to ward off the chill. “Don’t mind Mona,” she said softly. “She’s been, well, tense lately. She’s very protective of me. You can understand.”

  “Go inside,” McGuire said.

  “Not until you tell me when we can talk again.”

  “Soon.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  “Coop!”

  McGuire had nodded at the security desk officer, skimmed past the officers and stenographers crowded near the vestibule elevators, bounded down a side corridor of Berkeley Street Police Headquarters and burst through the door marked “Bureau of Identification” at the rear of the building. Now he stood behind a counter separating him from the best police ID expert in Massachusetts.

  Norm Cooper looked up from a microscope. He adjusted his horn-rimmed glasses and grinned at McGuire across the battered oak desk. “Ah, the countenance of a strange and haunted man,” Cooper said with an exaggerated English accent. His face was so round it might have been drawn with a compass, his button nose serving as the centre point; it was crowned by dark hair which refused to be tamed by comb, brush, gel or bricklayer’s mortar. “Are you here in the process of exercising deductive abilities? Or have you come to bid farewell to this decrepit vale of tears?”

  “I need a favour, Norm.” McGuire circled the counter and walked across the room, past several assistants examining hair and skin samples, fabric fibres, and other detritus of crime investigation. “Won’t take you more than a couple of minutes and I even have a file number to cover the paperwork. Can you handle it?”

  Cooper studied him cautiously. “Is it apt to put Kavander’s nose in a meat grinder?”

  “It could.”

  “Then no problem. What’s up?”

  McGuire explained what he needed, handing Cooper the brown envelope.

  “Have it for you in an hour,” the ID expert nodded. “Soon as I finish a blood match. You need it written?”

  “Just your well-qualified opinion over the telephone,” McGuire said, already heading for the door. “I’ll call later.”

  The high-ceilinged lobby of the old Police Headquarters building had grown crowded by the time McGuire reentered it. Detectives, police officers, secretaries, lawyers, forensic staff and others crisscrossed the marble floor between the exits and the elevators, or stood chatting in small groups.

  McGuire elbowed his way through the throng, receiving pats on the back from some of his colleagues while others avoided his eyes. He planned to spend the next hour devouring eggs, coffee and the morning paper at a nearby diner, but a grey-haired police officer called out to him as he passed the security desk.

  “Captain Kavander told me to send you up,” he said, with as much authority as he could muster.

  McGuire strolled over to the desk. “How did he know I was here?”

  “I told him. Saw you enter. I was ordered to let him know if you were still in the building.”

  “I’ll drop in some other time.”

  “He said right away.”

  McGuire looked at the old cop at the security desk, his face lined from years of walking a beat in every kind of weather, his hair thinning and his eyes watery behind thick glasses. Making one last stop before retirement after forty years on the job, McGuire speculated, and probably hating every minute of it. McGuire smiled back at him. “You got it,” he said, and turned to the elevators just as the doors of the nearest one opened and two familiar faces stood staring back at him. One of them, Bernie Lipson’s, broke into a wide grin at the sight of McGuire.

  “Now there’s a man who can solve it, I’ll bet,” Lipson said as he left the elevator.

  McGuire glanced at Ralph Innes who had shared the elevator with Lipson. “What,” he asked, “happened to you?”

  Innes licked his swollen upper lip. The flesh around one eye was the colour of kosher wine. “Accident,” Innes replied, brushing past him.

  “Damned if we can figure it,” Lipson said as he and McGuire watched Innes stride to the front door. The doors closed and the elevator began descending to the basement. McGuire punched the “up” button again. “He goes out of here last night higher than a kite. Won’t tell us what’s up. Says he’ll give us all the hairy details this morning. So we figure he’s up to something. Probably something carnal. Then he comes in this morning looking like that. Won’t talk about it. Can’t kid him either. One of the guys upstairs tried to make a joke about it and I thought Ralph was going to throw him through a window, and what the hell are you smiling at, McGuire?”

  “I think I know what happened.” McGuire laughed aloud. “See you, Bernie,” he added, stepping towards the elevator now coming up from the basement. Its elaborate brass doors opened to reveal a morose Tim Fox glaring angrily at the floor. “Hey, Timmy,” McGuire said as he stepped aboard and the doors closed behind him. “What’s the matter?”

  Fox looked up briefly at McGuire, his hands thrust in his pockets. He shook his head slowly. “The bastard, Joe,” the detective said in a low voice. “You wouldn’t believe it. The little bastard.”

  “Who? What the hell happened?”

  “We were on Huntingdon half an hour ago,” Fox explained. “Me and Sadowsky, on our way to check a weapons ownership. And this woman comes running out into the street, right in front of us. She’s screaming, she’s h
ysterical, wearing a bathrobe. Sadowsky, he’s driving, he almost runs over her. She tells us some guy broke into her apartment while she and her roommate were getting ready for work. Guy tied them up in separate rooms. She got free and he’s still in there with the roommate. So Sadowsky and me, we go up, and he’s still in there with a knife, cutting up this woman on the living-room rug. Goddamn!”

  McGuire grunted. “So you brought him in?”

  The elevator doors opened to the third floor as Fox grunted, still looking at his shoes. “He’s down in the interrogation room. Looking like he just came off work in a slaughterhouse. Worse than that.” Fox looked up at McGuire. “He’s your man, Joe. Arthur Trevor Wilmer, out on bail for doing the same thing to that co-ed from Boston College six months ago.”

  McGuire bolted from the elevator and charged down the fire stairs to the basement, where he entered an unmarked door off a side corridor.

  In the dim light of the observation room, a swarthy face turned to meet McGuire’s from behind the glow of a cigarette. The sound of slow, steady breathing hissed through a speaker on the wall.

  “Joe,” the man said softly. “I hear you know this piece of rat-shit.”

  “Yeah, Lou,” McGuire replied, waiting for his pulse to calm. “I know him.”

  Two police officers standing near the far wall stepped aside and nodded as McGuire approached the large glass area in front of him. Through the one-way mirror looking into an adjacent small room, McGuire could see two men sitting across from each other at a low wooden table, a small desk microphone between them. A large electric clock hung on the wall opposite the observation room, positioned to face a video camera and taping equipment. The microphone fed sound from the interrogation room to both the taping equipment and the speaker in the observation room near McGuire’s ear.

  McGuire knew the men at the table. The burly crew-cut detective who sat with his massive forearms on the table and his small, piercing eyes on the young man seated across from him, was Don Sadowsky, Sergeant of Detectives.