Haunted Hearts

by John Lawrence Reynolds

  “Already ate.” He glanced at the clock. “Ollie awake?”

  “Not yet.” She stood and carried her coffee mug to the sink.

  “Told him I’d watch the football game with him this afternoon. Want to give me a shout when he’s ready?”

  “Sure.” She stood at the sink, staring down into it. “I’ll shout my lungs out.”

  McGuire walked to her and rested his hands on her shoulders. “I guess sometimes it gets to be too much.”

  She nodded.

  “Anything I can do?”

  She turned her head. Her face was wet and her eyes were swollen. “I wish,” she said. “I wish there was.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Okay.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. “I’m a woman who is turning fifty this year, with a husband who can move his head and one hand, and a dead baby who’s been lying in his grave for thirty years.” She held her chin up, in defiance or perhaps just to keep the tears from flowing. McGuire didn’t know which. “Fix it,” she said.

  “I can’t,” McGuire said.

  “I know.” She turned away. “Go upstairs and get some sleep. You look like you can use it.”

  Chapter Nine

  For all of his confidence and independence, McGuire was as subject as anyone to the flattery of knowing he was needed by someone he needed in turn, however shallow the need might be. Had he been younger, or the same age but less cynical, he might have told himself it was love. McGuire did not tell himself it was love, because he knew it wasn’t. But it was pleasurable nevertheless.

  On Monday morning he dressed in a sweater, slacks, and jacket, and slipped into a pair of moccasin-styled loafers. He poured himself a cup of coffee and carried it to Ollie’s room, where Ronnie was feeding her husband.

  “Hear you took my advice,” Ollie said between spoonfuls of something that looked to McGuire like gruel. “Got yourself a warm squeeze.”

  “Promise to watch your language, I might bring her around and introduce you,” McGuire said.

  “That’d be nice, Joseph.” Ollie made a slight motion of his head. “That’d be real nice of you.”

  “Catch you later,” McGuire said. He walked to the door. “Don’t count on me for dinner.”

  Ronnie raised the spoon and moved it towards Ollie’s mouth, never acknowledging McGuire’s presence.

  Lorna Robbins smiled up at McGuire, twirling a yellow pencil in one hand. McGuire had called Flanigan’s number as soon as he arrived, and Lorna told him to come straight up. “He’s on the phone now. Told me to send you up as soon as you called.” She beckoned him towards her.

  McGuire leaned over her desk, absorbing her perfume.

  “I thought about you all night,” she said in a stage whisper. “And all the way to work this morning.”

  McGuire reached for her hand just as the door behind her opened. Orin Flanigan stood smiling at McGuire, one hand fingering the bottom of his tie. McGuire squeezed Lorna’s hand before releasing it. He strode into Flanigan’s office and chose the same leather chair he had sat in before, while Flanigan closed the door.

  “Coffee?” Flanigan said. He paused halfway across his office to his desk. “I can ask Lorna to make us some . . .”

  “You’re a busy guy,” McGuire said. “What I’ve got will only take a couple of minutes. So maybe we’d better skip the coffee.”

  Flanigan settled himself behind his desk, and made a tent with his hands. “What did you find out?” he asked. He spoke in a low voice, as though there were someone in the room, eavesdropping.

  “Myers apparently works as a salesman at a place called Bay Ridge Yacht Brokers in Annapolis,” McGuire said. He handed Flanigan the business card given him by the woman at the yacht brokerage. “There’s the address. I’m guessing he hasn’t been employed long. They’re still waiting for his business cards.”

  Flanigan studied the card and frowned. “Who’s Christine Diamond?”

  “Another salesperson. She told me Myers was delivering a yacht to South Carolina and might go on to Florida from there. He could be gone a week or more.”

  Flanigan’s eyes shot up to meet McGuire’s. “You never met him?”

  “Wouldn’t matter much if I had. Your description was pretty broad, and I couldn’t get Berkeley Street to give me a mug shot. But I got a pretty positive ID from a guy named Wade who seems to be a buddy of the owner of the Academy Bar. Myers has a bad rep all over town, from what I understand. They won’t let him in the bar anymore.”

  “Find out where he lives?”

  “Hard to say. The police have nothing on him. I checked the listings for an R. Myers in the telephone book. There were three. None of them sounded like him, but I can do a more thorough investigation if you want.”

  “What would that involve?”

  McGuire shrugged. “Staking out the addresses. Talking to neighbours. Figure on two or three days down there. And if that’s the case, you’re probably better off hiring a local private investigator. They’ll do a better job than me, and for less money.”

  Flanigan gave the idea some thought. “Did you learn anything about him?”

  “He seems to be doing the same thing down there he did here. Both guys at the Academy Bar confirmed he’s got a reputation for living high, not paying his bills.”

  “Was he alone on the boat? The one he was sailing to South Carolina?”

  “No idea. Would that be important?”

  “It might.” The lawyer’s mind was in a distant place. “What did this woman look like, this Mrs. Diamond?”

  “Dark. Attractive.”

  “Married?”

  “It says she is on the card.”

  Flanigan looked at the card again.

  “Would it help if I knew what this was all about?” McGuire asked.

  “Not really.” Flanigan opened a desk drawer and placed the business card inside, then closed and locked it. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for this. You really are good at what you do. Very good. What’s Annapolis like, by the way? Haven’t been there in years.”

  “Nice town, if you like boats and seafood.”

  Flanigan nodded without listening. “And this Diamond woman again? What was your impression of her?”

  “Bit of a snob. Or maybe just protective of Myers.”

  “Wealthy?”

  “Couldn’t tell.”

  “Fashionably dressed?”

  “I suppose so.”

  McGuire anticipated more questions. “Short dark hair, brown eyes, slim, maybe five-foot-six. Bit of an attitude, like I said.” He waited while Flanigan absorbed the description. “I thought you wanted me to look for Myers.”

  “I did, I did.” Flanigan appeared to come out of some sort of reverie. “Thank you again. Send Lorna in to see me when you leave, will you?”

  McGuire spent the rest of the morning reading documents being circulated through the law office, interoffice memos on topics he knew nothing about. Lorna called mid-morning to say she wouldn’t be going out for lunch, she was busy with some details that Flanigan needed settling. “Can you come for dinner tonight?” she asked. “I want to show off my cooking talents.”

  McGuire said he’d be there with a bottle of wine.

  At lunch he wandered through Quincy Market, ate a sandwich at a deli, scanned a newspaper, and returned to the lobby, where he waited for an elevator. He was asking himself why he should stay around for the rest of the day with nothing to do, thinking he would rather sit at the bar at Zoot’s and absorb the patter of hustlers and off-duty cops who gathered in the neutral zone of the bar to rib each other and tell lies and trade stories. The elevator doors opened and McGuire, his head down and his mind still in Zoot’s, stepped forward and collided with something warm, soft, and sweet-smelling.

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said before McGuire could re
spond. “Are you all right?”

  She seemed concerned that she might have injured him, even though McGuire was almost a head taller. Her hair was the colour of pulled taffy and sunshine and high clouds, and her eyes were green. She does look a little like the picture on Flanigan’s credenza, McGuire realized. Around the eyes. “It’s okay,” McGuire said. “I’m fine.”

  “I’m sorry,” the woman repeated. She looked at him again and something changed in her expression. Then she turned and walked away and across the lobby, clenching her purse in both hands, her shoes making a click-click sound on the marble.

  Flanigan’s noon-hour friend, McGuire realized as he stepped into the elevator. Flanigan’s very attractive, very nervous noon-hour friend.

  “Where the hell’s Ronnie?” McGuire asked when he discovered Ollie alone in the house on Revere Beach late that afternoon.

  “At her painting class.” Ollie was watching the early television news, another mélange of disasters and imminent crises.

  “Again?” McGuire tossed his jacket on a side chair.

  “It’s some sort of extra session, working with real models or something in natural light, I don’t know. Besides, she loves it. And she’s good at it. Leastwise, I think she is. What a mess in India, eh?”

  “How do you feel about it?”

  “I figure that’s what happens when you pay more attention to cows than people.”

  “Not India, doorknob. I mean about Ronnie being away so much.”

  Ollie fastened his eyes to McGuire’s. “Hey, she earned it. You’ve only been living here a few months but that woman’s been building her life around me for years. So if she wants to play Picasso for a while, that’s okay with me.”

  “I’m having dinner at Lorna’s place,” McGuire said. “You want me to fix you something before I go?”

  “Naw,” Ollie said, returning his attention to the television screen. “Ronnie’ll feed me later. Lorna, huh? She’s the woman put a knot in your drawers?”

  “I’m going up to change,” McGuire said. “I may not be home tonight.”

  “Whoa, we got ourselves a live one this time, have we?” Ollie said to McGuire’s back.

  Instead of climbing the stairs, McGuire walked to the hall closet. Open it and you’re a jerk, he told himself. He opened the closet door.

  Inside, on the floor, were two pairs of Ronnie’s winter boots, a dust pan, an umbrella with the tip of its handle carved into a dog’s head that McGuire had given Ronnie as a Christmas present last year, and Ronnie’s wooden paint case.

  Lorna greeted him at her door wearing her patterned crimson robe. Something bubbled on the kitchen stove, and aromas of garlic, butter, and onions flooded the apartment.

  “How hungry are you?” she asked after kissing him and closing the door, her back pressed against it.

  “A little,” he said. “Why?”

  “Cause dinner’ll wait. But I can’t.” She opened the robe, revealing a black lace bra, narrow-cut panties, and black net stockings held in place with a garter belt.

  They ate an hour later, spinach linguini in garlic butter sauce and a green salad, Lorna watching him over every morsel of food.

  On the sofa, Lorna snuggled against him, and as they shared the last of the wine McGuire had brought, he asked about Orin Flanigan.

  “He’s going somewhere. He didn’t have much scheduled for the next couple of days, and he starts a big court case next week. So he told me he wouldn’t be in tomorrow or the next day. ‘There’s something I want to do,’ is all he said. ‘Better to do it sooner rather than later,’ he told me. I don’t know what’s up, but it has to do with that trip you took.”

  “Was Susan Schaeffer in to see him at noon?”

  “Yeah. Everything was on hold until then. I mean, he didn’t make any decisions until she left. That’s when he said he wouldn’t be in tomorrow or the next day either.”

  “Where’s he going?”

  “He didn’t say. I asked where I could reach him, and he told me it wasn’t important. If something came up I could always call Nancy. His wife.” She twisted in his arms to look up at him. “Let’s go back to bed.”

  He didn’t bother returning to Revere Beach the following morning because, he told himself, it wasn’t necessary, even while admitting the real reason: because he didn’t want to confront Ronnie. Not today. Not yet. He drove Lorna to State Street, where she left the car after blowing him a kiss. Then he parked three blocks away and walked back to the office alone.

  McGuire still didn’t fully understand the difference between staff lawyers and full partners, except that full partners seemed to earn more money and occupy larger offices. Nor did he care, when he entered his office to discover a handwritten note on his desk from a staff lawyer named Barry Cassidy.

  During McGuire’s introductory tour of the law firm’s offices, it had been Cassidy who fired questions at him as though cross-examining a hostile witness, asking about McGuire’s trial experience, investigative procedures, and educational background. Before cutting him off with a suggestion that the lawyer check with Pinnington, McGuire had replied with broad answers and an amused and tolerant expression. At the time, he considered Cassidy to be just another tight-assed ambitious young man, whose cocky, formal manner indicated he was blessed with more ambition than talent, and was more afraid of failure than he was confident of success.

  There was another noticeable thing about the lawyer: He was so light-skinned and fair-haired that he appeared almost albino. His face was boyish rather than handsome, the whole effect made somewhat comical by a blond mustache, so fair and thick it reminded McGuire of yellow caterpillars he had seen as a child.

  McGuire recalled that first meeting with distaste, a feeling that intensified as he read Cassidy’s note.

  I was here to see you at eight-thirty a.m., the note said. No one seemed to know where you were, and I have an urgent matter to discuss with you. Call me at extension 8162 the minute you arrive. By the way, most senior staff members begin their day here at eight.

  By the way, how would you like to slide down a razor-blade banister? McGuire replied silently. He rolled the note into a ball, tossed it into the wastebasket, and dialed Cassidy’s extension.

  “I need to make use of your services,” the young lawyer said stiffly, “on behalf of a client. Could we convene this morning?”

  Convene? McGuire thought to himself. Who the hell says “convene” instead of “meet”? “Sure,” he said. “What time to you want to, uh, convene?”

  There was a short pause as though the other man were weighing McGuire’s sarcasm. “I’ll expect you here at eleven,” he said.

  Two hours later, after McGuire finished a pot of coffee and the morning paper, he was sitting across from Cassidy, whose every gesture seemed to be a measure of his self-importance. He pulled at his shirt cuffs until an equal length was exposed on each arm of his suit jacket, checked the knot of his tie, and displayed his teeth, before passing a small stack of paper across his desk to McGuire.

  “Here is a summary of the case, prepared for your eyes only,” Cassidy said. “After you’ve read it, I’ll answer any questions you may have.”

  “Tell me about it,” McGuire said, not moving his eyes from the lawyer’s.

  Cassidy blinked. “It’s in the memo.”

  “I’ll read the memo later. Tell me in your own words. Off the top of your head.”

  Cassidy made a strange movement, thrusting his chin forward and tilting his head at the same time. He breathed in, exhaled noisily, and began to speak. “Our client is a supplier of electronics parts. Their largest customer recently declared bankruptcy without any previous hint of trouble, while indebted to our client for almost three million dollars. Our client suspects criminal fraud, including the transfer of substantial sums of money out of the country. We would like to know a little more about the firm’s
actions, whether they appear to have engaged in criminal activity, that sort of thing.” The lawyer made the same unusual motion with his head again and stared at McGuire.

  “That’s it?” McGuire said.

  “Those are essentially the facts. You spent a few years on the fraud squad, I believe? Before becoming a homicide detective?”

  McGuire grunted and picked up the stack of paper from Cassidy’s desk. “It took you this much paper to tell me about a two-bit possible fraud case?”

  Cassidy flashed a mocking grin. “I have given you a comprehensive appraisal,” he said. “There is a good deal of work in that document.”

  McGuire stood up, still holding the papers. “At three hundred bucks an hour, right?” he said. “When do you want an opinion?”

  “First, I’ll require an estimate of your time,” Cassidy said. Before McGuire could speak, he added, “And I expect daily summaries of your findings, plus a copy of a non-disclosure agreement . . .”

  “A what?” McGuire said.

  “. . . signed by you and notarized by a partner of the firm . . .”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute . . .”

  “. . . as a condition of you accepting . . .”

  “Wait a goddamn minute!” McGuire shouted.

  Cassidy sat back, his well-manicured hands gripping the arms of the chair as though it were about to soar into flight.

  “What’s this non-disclosure crap?” McGuire said.

  “It’s my policy whenever I contract for services on behalf of clients.” Cassidy repeated the motion, stretching his neck and tilting his head, and McGuire recognized it as a nervous gesture.

  “If I say something’ll be kept confidential, that’s all you need.”

  “It’s merely a formality.” Cassidy was attempting to look angry, but his eyes, shifting from side to side, revealed more unease than outrage.

  “Well, to hell with formality,” McGuire said.