JM02 - Death's Little Helpers aka No Way Home

by Peter Spiegelman

  “Smart lady,” he said. “Very smart. And tough. That was a hell of a blow to go driving in, especially in a wind-up toy like that and on these roads. She must’ve been plenty worried to do that. She must like you.” His voice was deep and intimate, with a distinct Boston accent.

  I nodded, and he looked at me silently for a long moment.

  “She’s a little shaken up— no surprise— and a little tired, maybe, but even with that she’s real smart. I like smart people. I’m Barrento, by the way— Louis. I run the detective division in Berkshire County.” And then he asked his questions.

  There were a lot of them, but none that I didn’t expect: who I was; what I did; why I’d come there; what I’d been looking for; how I got into the barn; if I had been in the house; if I had touched anything; who the big crazy guy was; why he was tossing me around like a rag doll; whose car was in the barn; whose body was in the car; what I knew about how it got there. He took me through everything I’d done at Calliope Farms several times, from several angles, and every time I told him nearly all of it, withholding only the actual breaking in and my examination of the red accordion file. He listened and nodded and gave nothing away. And when I thought he was through, he sighed and pulled a piece of paper from his jacket pocket and looked at it.

  “I read here you used to be a cop— a sheriff’s deputy over in New York— Burr County.”

  I looked at him and said nothing.

  “That’s not so far from here— three, four hours maybe. I remember that case from a few years back. I was working out of Springfield then, but I remember it.”

  He studied my face and shook his head a little. “So you tell me, back when you were a cop, what would you have done in my shoes? What would you have done with an out-of-state private license you found prancing around a crime scene— a murder scene, no less? One who fed you some bullshit story about doors already open and locks already busted? One who claimed to be so worried about a missing guy that— even though his client had fired him— he had to drive all the way up from goddamn New York City to go looking. But who— even with all this worry— couldn’t be bothered to pick up the fucking phone and give the local cops a heads-up? I mean, hypothetically, what would you have done?”

  Barrento didn’t raise his voice and didn’t take his eyes off mine. I sighed and ran my hand down my swollen cheek. “Hypothetically, I guess I’d be pissed,” I said. “But I’d also think about how long it might’ve taken me to find the body, if this private license hadn’t come along, and how long it might’ve taken to grab a suspect. If I thought he’d done me a little good, then, hypothetically, I might cut him a break.”

  Barrento pursed his lips and ran a thumb and forefinger over his bushy mustache. “And if the case was a high-profile one? If you knew the press— the national press— would be all over it, along with every boss and politician in the commonwealth? You still think you’d give the guy some slack?”

  “I guess I’d want to be sure that he was a right guy,” I said. “But if I was, then— on a high-profile case— I’d be happy not to waste my time on bullshit.”

  Barrento smiled a little. “Thanks for the advice,” he said. He settled himself more deeply in the passenger seat and stroked his mustache and looked out the window for a while. Then he turned to me.

  “Go sit with her,” he said.

  Jane was still holding the white Styrofoam cup when I climbed into the Audi. She looked at me— at my face and my arm in its sling, at my clothes that were sodden and mud-covered— and then she looked away.

  “Is it broken?” she asked.

  “Dislocated. They can reset it in the ER.”

  “Otherwise you’re … okay?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “That’s good,” she said softly. She was quiet for a while, watching troopers carry things to and from the barn, and then she told me what had happened.

  It was a simple story. When she hadn’t heard from me for hours, and couldn’t raise me on the phone, Jane had grown worried and had driven to Calliope Farms. She’d parked on the road, and even through the rain she’d seen lights in the barn and a car— Cortese’s Chrysler— in the turnaround, and her worry had grown larger still. And then she’d seen the lights go out and thought she’d heard … something, and she’d dialed 911. The emergency operator had been swamped with calls and skeptical, and it had taken a while for the sheriff’s deputies to roll up. When they did they were a minute behind Jane, who had waited as long as she was able and had driven up the hill with no plan in mind beyond honking her horn. She finished telling it and took a deep breath and drank the chilly dregs that were left in her cup.

  Cars and trucks pulled in and out, and uniformed men came and went and milled around in the mud, and Jane and I watched them and were silent. Colored lights washed across the car, and Jane’s hands and face were tinted blue and white and red. The ice pack was spent and the pain in my shoulder was swelling. My stomach was empty and my eyes were gritty and hot. I closed them and kept very still and breathed very little. Thoughts careened in my head for a while, and slid and staggered, and then they stopped altogether.

  Barrento rapped on the glass and I jumped. Jane ran the window down.

  “You two can go for tonight. But I want you both at the Lee barracks in the morning, for formal statements.” He looked at Jane. “You should be out pretty quick,” he said. He looked at me. “You’ll be longer.”

  Jane turned the Audi in a tight circle and headed slowly down the driveway. There were flares at the entrance, and state troopers. There was a van parked by the side of the road, a hundred yards from the signpost. It was white and had a large red number eight on its side and a satellite dish on its roof. There were men near it, with lights and a big video rig that they pointed at us as we drove past. Heavier weather was coming.

  The ER at Pittsfield Hospital was clean and pleasant, and its array of vending machines was vast. Jane sipped a Sprite while we waited, and turned the pages of a magazine, and was quiet. I ate a chocolate bar and made phone calls.

  My first was to Tom Neary. He listened silently while I told him what I’d found and what had happened afterward, and he sighed heavily when I finished.

  “Murder and insider trading,” he said. “It’s a shitstorm all the way around. Unless there’s another war or something, the press will go nuts with this. There are probably cable news guys drinking your health right now. I don’t envy what’s-his-name— Barrento. You think he’s any good?”

  “I think he’s plenty good. And he’s been around the block enough times to be expecting the worst on this thing.”

  “With something this high profile, he’s right to. Everybody north of him on the food chain will be pushing for a fast close. At least he’s got hold of someone already.” Neary thought for a moment. “Will he and his boys know what to make of Danes’s file?”

  “They’ll figure it out eventually, but it might be a while before they get to it. They’ve got to make a formal ID of the body first, and autopsy it, and then they’ve got a mountain of forensics to move.”

  “But when they do—”

  “Then Marcus Hauck will be scrambling a squadron of lawyers or else taking an extended vacation to points south. And all the folks at Pace-Loyette will be working on their résumés.”

  Neary laughed grimly. “I’m not sure it’ll sink them, but if it doesn’t they’ll be doing some serious housecleaning— which will no doubt include their security services.”

  “Timing is everything,” I said. “I’m a little exposed with this file thing— I told Barrento it was all look-but-don’t-touch with Danes’s car. So you can’t know about the file until Barrento gets around to finding it.”

  “Are you kidding? I plan to keep a healthy distance from Pace until this thing breaks. I’ll gladly take their money afterward— assuming there is an afterward— but I’d rather not get splashed with the first wave of sewage. You think Barrento will jam you up?”

  “It seems to
me he should have a lot of other things to worry about, but you never know.”

  “You tell Sachs about this yet?”

  “She’s my next call.”

  “It’s tough for the kid.”

  “Billy. His name’s Billy.”

  “Right— Billy. And how are you doing?”

  I looked over at the waiting area to where Jane sat with a magazine in her lap, looking at the wall.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  I tried Nina Sachs but got only her machine and left no message. Then the man at the desk called my name. I was in and out in fifteen minutes, with my shoulder reset, re-iced, wrapped, and resting in a new sling. Jane was waiting in the car.

  The streets of Lenox were quiet when we drove through town, and almost dry. The small parking lot at the Ravenwood Inn was empty. Jane shut the engine down and sat with her hands on the wheel and looked straight ahead. Her cropped black hair was sculpted around her ear, which was small and intricate. Her lower lip was trembling. Muscles flexed in her forearms as she tightened and loosened her grip on the wheel. The ticking of the engine was loud.

  “Jane, I …” My throat was tight and I was out of air. I took a deep breath. “I know thank you doesn’t cover it, and neither does I’m sorry—”

  Jane cut me off. Her voice was quiet and very steady. “Why are you sorry? It’s not you, right? It was that crazy man. It was just work, right?”

  “Right.”

  Jane swallowed hard. “Are you in trouble … with the police?”

  “I don’t know. It depends on what Barrento wants to do, how big a deal he wants to …”

  I stopped and stared at Jane, who had reached under her seat and come up with the Glock. It was matte black and ugly in her lap. She stared at it as if it had just fallen from the sky.

  “We shouldn’t leave this here,” she said. “We should remember to take it inside.”

  “Jane, what are you—”

  “I don’t know why I brought it. I thought you might need it … or that I could—” She made a small gasping laugh. “So … I brought it along.” She turned to me, and her perfect face crumbled and her perfect eyes dissolved in tears.

  36

  Jane was up before six on Wednesday, and she moved quickly about the room— showering, dressing, packing her bag. I lay in bed, in a half-sleep, and for a while I told myself we were at home and that she was getting ready for work. Then I felt a twinge in my shoulder and the whole of the day before came back to me. I opened my eyes, and Jane was at the end of the bed. She was fully dressed and her bag was on her shoulder. Her car keys were in her hand.

  “You all right?” she asked. I nodded. “And you can get to the rent-a-car place okay, and drive with that arm?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Okay. Then I’m going to give my statement and get back to the city.”

  I sat up but turned wrong and something like a hot wire ran through my shoulder. Jane saw it in my face.

  “Don’t,” she said. “Rest more.” She patted my foot.

  I looked at her and nodded. “Drive carefully,” I said.

  Light was streaming through the big windows, and I heard birds, and a dog bark. In a minute I heard Jane’s car start, and turn in the drive, and pull away. I looked at the ceiling and wrapped the covers around me and thought about going back to sleep, but didn’t.

  I got up and worked my left shoulder in tentative circles. It was sore and bruised and still a little swollen, but it was all there. I checked my face in the mirror. The puffiness had gone down, but there was a cut across the bridge of my nose and bruising around my eyes. I picked up the phone and tried Nina Sachs again. This time I didn’t even get her machine.

  Lee is next door to Lenox, to the south and east, and the state police barracks there is just off Route 7, in a stolid brick building with white trim, lots of antennae, and, when I pulled up, three TV news vans out front. I went in a side door, and a trooper led me to Barrento’s office.

  It was small and square, with a window onto Route 7, a beige metal desk, and the smell of old coffee. Barrento wore a wrinkled green shirt and last night’s jeans. His baseball jacket was collapsed in a corner, and Barrento seemed like he might soon follow. His beard was heavier and his eyes were ravaged, and he looked years older than when I’d seen him last. He had a telephone propped in his ear, and he pointed at one of the plastic chairs in front of his desk. I sat.

  The desk was layered in papers, the only clear spots taken by graduation photos of two boys whose square faces and heavy features were younger, less cautious versions of Barrento’s own. Barrento dug with a wooden matchstick at a well-used brown pipe while he listened to the phone, and every now and then he said “Uh-huh.”

  He hung up and scanned my face, and my arm in its sling. “Well, at least you got a change of clothes,” he said. “You see the fourth estate out there?” He stifled a yawn and tossed a thumb at the window. “This place is a fucking sieve. And it’ll only get worse when we release the ID. You should figure they’ll get hold of your name. I told your friend the same thing when she was in.”

  I nodded. “You made the ID?” I asked.

  “Just between us girls, we matched his prints with the ones he gave for his brokerage license. It’s Danes.”

  “You have a cause of death too?”

  “I don’t have the report, but the bullet hole I saw in what was left of his chest was a clue.”

  I thought about that for a while, and Barrento watched me think. “You have a time of death?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Got to wait for the report. It’s weeks, though.”

  “Have you spoken with his ex-wife yet?”

  “Early this morning. But enough with your questions, let’s do some of mine. You give any thought to what we talked about last night?”

  “Some.”

  “Any parts of your story you want to change?”

  I shook my head.

  Barrento’s laugh was deep. “No? That’s a pity. ’Cause I was hoping you could help me account for these.”

  He pulled open a file drawer and reached in. He came up with a large plastic evidence bag. My waist pack was inside. The tools clanked when he put it down. He reached into the drawer again and came up with two more bags. My flashlight was in one and my cell phone was in the other. They were caked in mud. My shoulder was throbbing and I rubbed it. Barrento chuckled some more and knocked his pipe on the edge of the desk. Fine ash came out, and he whisked it away with the side of his thick hand.

  “I was thinking about what you said last night— about not wasting time on bullshit— and I was thinking that it’s actually good advice. I mean, I’ve got more than enough bullshit in my life right now, you know, and it would be great to get rid of some. Like, for example, your bullshit story about how you got into the house and the barn— which by the way was even less convincing once I found your burglar’s tools lying around the yard. Then there’s the bullshit I’ll have to go through if you stick to that story— searching for the nonexistent third party who jimmied those locks. And there’s the bullshit any half-bright defense lawyer will sling to take your crappy story and my failure to find this third party and turn it all into reasonable doubt. That’s three big piles of crap I’d really like to get rid of.” Barrento shook his head regretfully. “You see where I’m headed with this, March?”

  “More or less.”

  Barrento smiled. “And now, would you more or less like to change your story?”

  I was quiet and Barrento looked at me some more.

  “Nobody around here is looking to make their career with a B and E bust, March. I’m doing you a favor.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “Like I said, I don’t want to waste my time. And maybe I figure you did me a little good yesterday. And maybe a couple of buddies of mine over in New York State said you were a decent cop back when, and a pretty smart guy.”

  “You’ve been busy.”

  �
�All night long.”

  I nodded. “Okay,” I said. “I appreciate the break.”

  “Great. Now you get a chance to show me how much.” Barrento’s smile was tired and disarming, and his dark eyes were as honest and shiny as a spaniel’s. My stomach tightened.

  “How?”

  “You’ve been working on Danes longer than me. I thought you could give me some background.”

  “What kind of background?”

  “On his friends, his family, his colleagues, anybody pissed off at him, anybody he was pissed off at— the basic stuff.”

  I was quiet for a long while, thinking careful thoughts. Barrento watched me, a tiny smile lurking beneath his mustache. “I thought you had a suspect,” I said finally.

  His smile grew. “I do. But you know how it is. You like to be sure, especially when half the world is watching.”

  “You’re not sure it was Cortese?”

  Barrento shrugged. “Probably I’ll feel better when I get more forensics back, and when I can talk to the guy.”

  “He’s still out of it?”

  “Docs tell me it’ll be a while before the drugs kick in and he can say anything sane. By which time he’ll have a lawyer. The lab work is coming along, but there’s a shitload to process.”

  “So— for now— you’re not sure it was Cortese?”

  “Are you?” he said, and poked again at the bowl of his pipe. Somewhere I heard the turning of wheels within wheels.

  “I think he wrapped Danes in plastic and packed him in the car.”

  “Me too,” Barrento said. “Especially since we’re lifting Cortese’s prints from the sheeting and the car and all the crap inside. Though I’ll be damned if I can figure out why he did it.”

  He stuck the pipe in his mouth and tested the draw. Something was amiss, and he dug at it some more with the match.

  “What do you think about the shooting part?” he asked.

  My stomach got tighter, and I answered carefully. “I didn’t see a gun.”

  Barrento smiled a little. “Neither have we— not yet, anyway.”

  “Not in the house or in Cortese’s car?”