by Linda Barnes
“Jimmy,” he said, leaning forward expectantly. He had a good chin, chiseled and dimpled, and he led with it like he knew it was his strong suit. His gray eyes were small, close together under shaggy eyebrows.
“Carlotta,” I responded.
“You’re not from around here.”
Everybody could tell.
“I’m a narc,” I whispered, expecting total disbelief. “Working undercover.”
The guy stared at me for a split second, burst into laughter. That’s exactly what they used to do when I was a narc, working undercover.
“You’re sure at the wrong place,” Jimmy said, “’less you want to nail a couple underage kids ain’t been carded.”
“You one of ’em?”
“Hell, no,” he said, mixing indignation with pride. “I’m twenty-one.”
Well, I was twenty-one once, I felt like telling him, for no other reason than it seemed impossible that I’d ever been as young as he was. Had I ever grinned that own-the-world grin? Had I ever seemed so carefree?
The sickly accordion faded from my mind, replaced by a blues lick: “Been on the job too long,” followed by a sweet guitar slide. Dave Van Ronk sings it in a gravelly voice, some old-timey tune about sheriffs and outlaws. The same line I’d quoted Mooney earlier in the day.
The kid asked me something, but I couldn’t hear him over the din. I inquired if he was a local.
He nodded, sipping beer from his mug.
“Know a man named MacAvoy, ex-cop hangs around here?”
“Why?”
“Why not?”
“You’re not from one of those social service agencies, are you?”
“I don’t think they work nights or hang out in bars, unless you’re talking about a social service I definitely do not provide.”
The kid blushed scarlet, and I couldn’t help wondering if he saw me as a possible date, an older sister, or someone who might be his mother’s pal.
Hell, how did I see myself?
Not coming on to a twenty-one-year-old. No way.
“Is Sergeant MacAvoy here?” I asked.
His gray eyes searched the room, came to a stop at a table for four, back corner, far as you could get from the accordion. Score one for MacAvoy.
“White hair with glasses?” I asked.
“Next to him, on his right, the heavy old coot, heard he used to be tough.”
“Plaid shirt?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“If you mean it, have another beer. On me.”
“Blond girl in the denim vest, see her? She’s gonna smack me if I don’t leave you alone.”
“Laurie doesn’t own me.”
“Is that what we’re playing at here? Do I look like the Declaration of Independence? Why not do her a favor? If you don’t want her, tell her. Other guys look interested.”
“Who?” he snapped.
“Never mind,” I said dryly, standing. “Tell her you thought I was your cousin, Elsie. I look a lot like her.”
“Well … okay, if that’s what you want. Nice meetin’ you.”
“You never met me,” I said.
I worked my way past the wounded piano and the small knot of crooners. A sign pointed to the rest rooms. I followed it, hoping the scorned Laurie wouldn’t trail me. Girls and Boys, the signs on the doors read, like grade school.
I stared at my face in the ill-lit bathroom mirror. I swear, crow’s feet had sprung from the corners of my eyes overnight, like someone had etched fine lines on my twenty-one-year-old face while I was sleeping. Maybe I ought to go back to Jimmy, snatch him away from Laurie, drink him under the table. Take him home as a souvenir.
I ran cold water in the sink, mopped the back of my neck.
The hell with it.
Two things I know about retired cops: they like to reminisce; they like to feel important. I had to hope MacAvoy would be drunk enough to talk, but not too drunk to tell me what I wanted to know.
A delicate balance.
I consulted the mirror as if it were a crystal ball. If I’d carried any powder, I’d have powdered my nose.
I edged out of the girls’ room into the narrow corridor, brushed by a leather-jacketed man whose sweaty stink lingered after he passed. I moved a chair into the breach between MacAvoy and his eyeglass-wearing neighbor, sat myself down in suddenly suspicious silence.
“Sergeant,” I said, taking a deep breath and placing my ID on the table, “how do you feel about private investigators?”
He took his time studying me, then my photo, passed my license around to his buddies, who nodded and murmured appreciatively.
I spent the time gazing at MacAvoy. Maybe he’d been as young as Jimmy once, almost handsome. Now his face was round and jowly, nose doughy and lined with drinkers’ veins. His skin seemed pasty in the fluorescent glare, too pale for a man who lived so close to the sea.
“Well,” he announced finally, playing to his cronies, “I think they look a heluva lot better than they used to.”
This drew an uproarious laugh that centered attention on our table.
“Can I speak with you alone?” I asked.
“You don’t have to ask twice, girlie. Get lost, guys. Find your own fun.”
“Outside,” I said. “I’ll walk you home.”
“Haven’t had that good an offer in twenty years easy,” he said, hauling himself to his feet by putting a lot of his weight on the table. He pulled out his wallet, yanked out a twenty and slapped it down. “Have a round on me, boys.” He added another twenty. “Drinks on the house,” he announced grandly to the room in general. “I’m feeling lucky tonight.”
He tried a little bit of bump and grind and I hoped he’d move it before I decided to hit him in his fat beer gut. I know, I know, I ought to use my feminine wiles to worm information out of old men, but honestly, does that mean I have to put up with crap that was stale before I was born?
I shoved my disgust aside. I’d be truly pissed if the guy was young. Older guys, hell, it was a different world then. Face it. Live with it. Pick your role, I ordered myself. They’re limited: mother, daughter, wife, lover.
I’d be the sweet concerned daughter. It comes hard to me, as my late father would attest if he could, but I can pull it off for short blasts at a time.
I linked a filial arm through MacAvoy’s and he was wobbly enough that he had no choice but to move, or else look as though I were dragging him unwillingly through the door. A buddy of his hooted as we left, but I had my man in tow and I didn’t mind. The old goat slipped an arm around me and tried for a feel, but he was drunk and I was faster.
“Do that again, you’ll need to use up some of those Medicare benefits,” I cautioned.
He stared at me with hostile drunken eyes. For a brief moment, I wondered if he was carrying his piece. I’d left mine in the car, locked in the glove compartment.
I hoped I wouldn’t regret it. Ex-cops, drunk ex-cops, you can never tell.
26
The silence—a mere twenty feet from the bar’s entrance—was eerie. The accordion player had called it quits for the night. I regarded the hulking elderly man beside me with misgiving.
“So what’s yer problem, girlie?” he said.
“No problem with me,” I shot back. “How’s your memory?”
“I reckon I remember more than you’ll ever know, girl.”
“If you want to keep calling me ‘girl’ and ‘girlie,’ I guess I could call you ‘Daddy.’ You like that?”
“Not particularly.”
“What do you like to be called?”
He stared up at the single string of wind-whipped red plastic flags that delineated the parking area. Made me think of salvage from a used-car lot, but his face relaxed into a grin, as if he were recalling other decorations, maybe the ceiling of the high school gym. Sock hop, Saturday night.
“Pretty ladies call me Mac,” he said.
Sweet daughter that I was, I smiled. “Mac, I’m
Carlotta and I used to be a cop, too, but I didn’t make my twenty, and I had to go private. I’d appreciate your help.”
“Who tol’ ya where I live?”
Suspicion wiped the grin off his face.
“Head of Boston homicide.”
“An’ he’d be named?”
“Mooney. I worked for him. You want to call D street, he’ll tell you I’m a straight-shooter.”
“Ol’ bat across the street tol’ ya ’bout the bar, right? Like to use her fat head for target practice. Some con breaks outa the can—some punk I nailed thirty years ago—she’ll tell him where to find me, no trouble, day or night. Bitch.”
He stumbled and I caught him by the elbow and damned if he didn’t try the grab-ass bit again. I stepped on his toe. Hard.
“You really who ya say?” he asked.
“Yep. As I recall, your place is this way.” I wasn’t relishing the idea of a lengthy stroll with a drunk hanging on my arm, balancing his weight while compensating for pebbles and gravel in my sandals.
“Don’t ya have a car?”
“Left it parked near your house.”
“Damn, and I thought I’d be gettin’ a ride home. Arthritis in my knee, and all.”
“I can’t carry you,” I said. “Sorry.”
He didn’t take a step. Just stood in shadows smirking, pondering his next move.
“And which a my old triumphs did ya wanna discuss? What’s so vital that ya drive out here, track an old booze-hound to his lair?”
I played unconcerned. “Why would you think I’d be interested in your old cases?”
“Ya asked about my memory, girl. I can remember whatcha said not five minutes ago, girl.”
The last “girl” came out tough, a hurled insult.
I ignored it. My daughterly role was admiring and respectful. Not confrontational.
“You’re sharp,” I said.
“You don’t know the half of it.” He sat on a rough-hewn bench, and patted the seat beside him. I took it, keeping a good five inches between us. The yellowish glow from the bar illuminated the right side of his face. I wondered if his buddies could see us parked on the bench, if I should prepare for some fumbling attempt at romance, something to tell the guys about.
I said, “I can see why you might get stuck with a hot potato like the Cameron girl’s disappearance. What I don’t understand is why you took over so soon, just weeks into the case. The investigation started in Dover, spread to Cambridge, Marblehead. It would seem that the state police—”
MacAvoy tossed me a disparaging look, then hawked and spat onto the parking lot. “Thea Dorothy fuckin’ Janis Almighty Cameron,” he said with the careful precision of the drunkard. “Goddamn all Camerons, ya should excuse my French. Don’t think I feel much like talkin’ about that one, thanks all the same.”
“But you’re the one who pulled it all together, Mac,” I said, spreading it on thick. “If it hadn’t been for you, Dorothy might never have been connected with Albert Albion. Don’t tell me you don’t remember him. A cop doesn’t get many chances to pin a big-time case on a serial killer. Have you been approached by any Hollywood types? Agents? You know, movie deals? Book offers?”
MacAvoy didn’t react to a word of it. Not Albert Albion’s name. Not the implicit offer of cash.
“Whole bunch of ’em should rot at the bottom of the sea,” he said quietly. “Who the hell do they think they are? They speak and the earth moves, mountains move, cops sure as hell better move. Get outa the way or get the hell steam-rollered.”
Seemed like he was talking about the Camerons—not cops, not serial killers.
“Some cases are like that,” I said, trying again to remind him that I’d been a cop, too, that we’d played for the same team. “You need to gentle them along, like unexploded landmines.”
“Right,” he said, giving a single nod, as if the matter were settled, once and for all. I could barely hear him between the flags and the ocean. To my dismay, the accordion started up again.
I said, “I’ve seen your case file.”
“Yeah?” His lack of concern seemed too elaborate, faked.
“It’s in great shape,” I told him. “What’s left of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Crossed-out pages, missing pages, wite-out, erasures—”
“The case is closed,” he said, shifting his weight. “What’s your beef?”
I thought about the gravel, the stones. I could grab a handful, toss them in his face, run.
“Just a few questions.”
“Such as?”
“Why were you put in charge?”
“Musta been my lucky day, girlie. Wanna know how lucky? If it hadn’t a been for the Camerons, I’da retired a captain, not a goddamn sergeant. You know the difference that woulda made on my pension?”
I could look it up. Public record.
“Did you ever see Beryl Cameron, much less interview her?”
He stared at the bench.
“How about the rest of the family? Franklin, Tessa—”
“The Dover police took statements.”
“The Dover police collected excuses, reasons the Camerons couldn’t be interviewed—”
“Really now, darlin’, does that surprise ya? The rich gettin’ treated different from the rest of us? No wonder ya quit. Or did ya get the boot?”
I ignored the scorn in his voice. “Do you recall the date of Albion’s confession?”
“No,” he said carelessly. “My memory seems to be goin’ after all. Ya have a cigarette on ya, darlin’? Smokin’ always helps me remember.”
“No,” I said. “I gave ’em up.”
He had a pack, almost full. He leaned against the rickety bench, fired the match on the small stretch of wood separating us. It seemed a deliberately threatening maneuver, a “stay clear” warning. In the flickering light, I caught a glimpse of an irregular five-pointed star tattooed on the back of his hand.
The tobacco smelled better than the stale beer and old vomit of the bench, I’ll say that for it.
“Do you recall a Dr. Manley, a psychiatrist who may have said that Beryl Cameron was too ill to testify?”
“Can’t say I do.”
“Did Beryl Cameron attempt suicide during the investigation?”
“I’m sure I would have noted that in the file,” he said. “Darlin’.”
“How about this one? Do you think the CIA altered the files?” I asked.
“The what?” he said. “Didja say the blessed initials? Have ya been drinkin’, or have I been drinkin’, or is it the both of us gone mad?”
I took a deep breath of salt air. “Is there any chance Thea Janis is alive?”
“No,” he said. “Not unless you believe in that reincarnation balderdash.”
Hell with it, I thought, standing. It had been a nice ride.
“Who’re ya workin’ for?” MacAvoy asked suddenly. I made like I hadn’t heard him, started the trek back to my car.
“Are the Camerons paying you? Or that other guy who’s running for governor? If you’re trying to shovel up dirt—”
He lurched to his feet. He was awkward, but quick. I didn’t waste any time making tracks. I never broke into a run, but I stayed ready, listening, listening for footsteps.
On the drive home, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was tailing me. Whenever I glanced in the rearview mirror there was nothing, or the usual run of indistinguishable headlamps. Once, the creepy feeling got so bad that I pulled to the side of the road, yanked open the glove compartment, and slapped my S&W 40 on the seat at my side, its metal cold against my thigh. I made sure the safety was on. Waited, humming softly under my breath.
Took me a while to recognize the song.
“Been on the job too long.”
Maybe I had.
27
The way I drove I made damn sure nobody followed me. I didn’t get a ticket, for speeding or any other violation, but not because I obeyed traffic ru
les. Past midnight, there’s a scarcity of patrol cars on the road.
All that caution wasted. A cop lurked on my doorstep. Mooney. He hasn’t written a traffic citation in years.
“Come on,” he said.
“I’m tired.”
“Gary Reedy’s in the car. The FBI wants you.”
“You told them about me? You gave up your source?”
“No, Carlotta, that’s not the way it went. Garnet Cameron has accused you of bearing false witness.”
“‘Bearing false witness’? That might cut the mustard in church, but since when is it a jailable offense?”
“Just talk to Reedy, okay?”
If it had been any cop other than Mooney, I’d have told him to scoot.
Gary Reedy had a FBI man’s car, a big Mercury Marquis with a shotgun rack mounted under the roof. He had an FBI man’s firm dry handshake, an FBI man’s blunt chin and deep gruff voice. I hate to admit it, but I liked the guy. He made me think of the perfect dad, not the perfect J. Edgar Hoover suit-and-tie agent. I’d never even seen him in a white shirt. He wore jeans, as usual. Unfortunately, he tends to label and dismiss me as a gangster’s moll because of my involvement with Sam Gianelli.
“Is she game?” he asked Mooney as if I weren’t present.
“It’s your sell,” Mooney said.
“What would I be buying?” I asked Reedy. “This time of night?”
“Where’ve you been?” Reedy asked. I ignored him. He only does it for practice. He doesn’t expect me to answer so I don’t.
“Get in,” he said, indicating the car.
“No, thanks.”
“It would take less time if I drove while I explained.”
“On the other hand, if you ask here, I can just say no.”
“I need you to confront Garnet Cameron.”
“Bull.”
Reedy said, “I’m betting he won’t call you a liar.”
I glared at Mooney, but kept my voice steady as I spoke to Reedy, because Reedy stops listening to women if their voices get high or quavery or possess any quality he might be able to label “hysterical.”
“Why on earth not?” I said calmly and reasonably. “Because he went to the right schools? Maybe Garnet won’t out-and-out call me a liar. He’ll say I was mistaken. That I misunderstood. That Missy—”
