Idyll Hands

by Stephanie Gayle

  “I see.” And I was, at last, beginning to see how it might have been.

  Jack McGee and Kevin McGee, cousins, and best friends.

  “Thanks for your time.”

  “Wait. Why are you calling? Have they found her? Susan Finnegan?”

  “No,” I said, and then I hung up the phone.

  I hadn’t found Susan Finnegan, not yet, but, for the first time since I started investigating, I thought I knew who might have landed her in the predicament that started it all.

  DETECTIVE MICHAEL FINNEGAN

  WEDNESDAY, JUNE 30, 1999

  0910 HOURS

  My footfalls sounded absurdly loud in the Idyll Public Library. At 9:10 a.m., the place was populated by one elderly man reading the newspapers, two librarians, and me. The librarians stood behind a waist-high counter. One sorted books. The other, Mrs. Lindhurst, tapped at a computer keyboard, her lips pursed.

  “Good morning,” I said.

  Mrs. Lindhurst looked up from the screen. “Hello, Mr. Finnegan.” Though I lived in Ellington, I used Idyll’s library for my reading. It had a better selection, and because it was near the station, I could drop in and pick up items. If I waited until my shift was over to collect from Ellington, the library would be closed. “We’ve got your copy of The Girl with a Pearl Earring,” she said. “Caroline, could you get that please?”

  The younger librarian bent and rummaged below the desk. Popped up with two books in hand, “And you’ve got another.” She turned the book so I could see its cover.

  “Ah, the Lahiri,” I said. “I’ve heard great things.”

  “It’s marvelous,” Caroline said.

  “And set in your old stomping grounds,” Mrs. Lindhurst said.

  “Charlestown?”

  “Boston.”

  As if they were exactly the same. I didn’t bother correcting her.

  “I came today because I need help with a research question.”

  Mrs. Lindhurst checked out the books, stamping the due dates onto the label affixed to the back. I had two weeks to read both books. Not a problem. I read two books a week on average. A lack of wives gave me a lot of free time. She handed me the books and asked, “What’s the question?”

  “I’m trying to discover why a young man might be living in a nursing home.”

  “How young?” Mrs. Lindhurst asked.

  “Mental disability,” Caroline suggested.

  “Forty-four years old,” I said.

  “Accident,” Mrs. Lindhurst said. “With a mental impairment, he’d likely live in a group environment, but not a nursing home, not usually.”

  “Accident,” I said. I’d had the same thought. “Could we check the newspapers?”

  “For when?” she asked.

  “Sometime in April 1990 or later.” He’d had a DWI in April 1990, so it had to be after that. The DWI report indicated that he’d been swerving between lanes. He’d paid a fine and spent a night in jail. His insurance must’ve gone up. But he wasn’t harmed. The report listed no injuries. Whatever landed him in a nursing home happened after that event.

  “Don’t suppose you could narrow the time frame?” Her tone implied I was being difficult.

  I couldn’t. I’d called Meadowvale this morning but was told that the person who could help me was out sick today. No one else had access to intake records. I doubted it, but I’d decided not to push too hard. We’d need the facility on our side later if this was the same guy.

  “Between 1990 and 1996.” Billy had found the listing for Waverly in a 1996 census listing, so he’d been at Meadowvale that year.

  “You have the man’s name?” Mrs. Lindhurst said.

  “Yes.”

  “Caroline, you have the desk.” Mrs. Lindhurst sounded as though she was handing over control of a flagship to a petty officer. Caroline nodded and straightened her cardigan. “We’ll be with the microfiche.”

  I followed Mrs. Lindhurst down the hall toward the stairs, which led to the basement where the children’s library, reading rooms, and microfiche lived. She paused near the stairs. “Wait. Let’s try the web first.”

  “The World Wide Web?” I asked.

  “Searching on the computer might save us time.”

  “You’re web savvy?” I didn’t own a computer.

  “Libraries are living institutions and must keep up with the times.” She led me upstairs, where the large-format books and most of the nonfiction books were shelved. We went through a door marked STAFF. A few desks, a coat rack, a coffeepot, and a tiny galley sink plus a very worn orange sofa and scarred coffee table.

  “So, this is what the inner sanctum looks like,” I said.

  She walked to the largest desk, atop which squatted a heavy computer screen. “I’m going to use a new search engine called Google. My colleagues tell me it’s better than Lycos.”

  “Sure thing.”

  She sat and tippy-tapped on the keyboard. I looked at the magazines and books on the coffee table. Several dog-eared New Yorkers lay along mystery paperbacks.

  “What’s the man’s name?” she asked.

  “Waverly Daniels. Or that’s what I think will show up.”

  “Alias?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  She asked me to spell the name, and then she typed. I waited. “Got it,” she said.

  “What?” Was she kidding? It had been less than a minute.

  “December 1990. A man named Waverly Daniels was injured in a car accident outside Manchester. We can pull the original article from the Hartford Courant.”

  I peered at the screen. “All you did was enter his name?”

  She turned and gave me a stern librarian look. “I did a little more than that, but,” she tilted her head, “not much. Soon you’ll be able to find out almost anything here.”

  I sniffed. “I’m not sure about that.”

  She shook her head. “I am. Come on, to the microfiche.”

  A half hour later, I had a copy of the article describing Waverly Daniels’s two-car accident. I handed it to Lewis, who sat at his desk, sipping coffee and muttering under his breath about police cooperation.

  “Here you go,” I said.

  “Where have you been, and what’s this?” He read the article. “Oh, God. It’s him. It’s him!” A few of the guys turned his way, but most ignored him. We’d done a lot of yelling the past few days as we thought we got closer and then realized we hadn’t.

  “His picture!”

  “It’s him.” They’d printed a photo of Waverly Daniels. A smiling photo as a counterpoint to the horrific details of the accident. His car had been sideswiped at an intersection. The driver’s side was crushed. He’d been pinned inside while emergency responders wrestled the Jaws of Life to extract him from the car. His injuries included fractured ribs and a spinal cord injury.

  “Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy,” Lew said. “December 1990.”

  “You think this is why he stopped?” I asked, knowing Lewis was running the same track with me. Abusers rarely stopped abusing. But his confinement to a wheelchair might have ended his career.

  “Would explain it,” he said.

  “Now we just have to get inside and talk to him.”

  “Just,” he repeated, his deadpan delivery forecasting all the work it would require.

  “You want me to work on the nursing home or the police?”

  “Nursing home,” he said. “Charm the hell out of them, okay? I know a cop who worked in Mansfield. He’s not there anymore, but he may know who’s the best person to approach.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Wonder Twin powers activate.” We touched fists together, like the cartoon twins. “Form of a charming bureaucrat,” I said.

  “Form of persuasive detective,” Lewis said.

  Then we picked up our phones and got to work.

  CHIEF THOMAS LYNCH

  THURSDAY, JULY 1, 1999

  0950 HOURS

  I’d reached that point where I couldn’t do more, not without doing ha
rm. I had a solid lead: Kevin McGee. I had his co-worker who attested he’d been asked to lie about Kevin’s work schedule. Kevin had a wife whose family was heavily involved in organized crime. Kevin’s cousin was Jack McGee. Susan visited the Bunker Hill Monument more often than any sixteen-year-old girl would. And she’d headed that way the day she disappeared, when it was out of the way of her path, or seemed to be. And yet, it was circumstantial. Thin as air. Nothing but guesswork. No forensics. No confession.

  Mrs. Dunsmore looked surprised when I came to her office. She said nothing when I closed the door and sat opposite her. “I need to run something past you,” I said. Her phone rang. She glanced at it. “It’s about Susan Finnegan.” She hit a button, silencing the ringer.

  “What is it?”

  I told her, about Kevin McGee and his lying cousin, Jack. How I thought Jack and Finny had some history, maybe. “If it’s Kevin, I can’t touch him. It’s well outside my patch.”

  She nodded. “And you can’t tell Michael.”

  It was my turn to nod. Telling Michael Finnegan my suspicions would be the last thing I would do. He’d go after Kevin McGee, and he might take his brothers with him for company. No. I didn’t know for sure whether Kevin was guilty, and I wouldn’t let Finny endanger his career for my hunch.

  “What will you do?” Her hands were gathered on her lap.

  “Contact the Boston Police. Hope someone there still cares about this case and has time to investigate.”

  “Sounds like the right move.” I was glad. I’d wanted confirmation. And I couldn’t bother Wright, not now with everything else he had on his plate. “I know someone at the BPD who might be able to help.” She had a Rolodex, and she spun through it, searching for the name. “Here he is. Detective Fred Williams. When you call, tell him Grace Dunsmore sent you his way, and ask how his sister is doing.”

  “Okay.” I looked at her fat Rolodex. “You got a detective in every city in there?”

  “No.”

  I rose to exit, and she added, “But I’ve got a sailor in every port.”

  “Mrs. Dunsmore!” I put my hand to chest, faking outrage. “I never!”

  Her laughter boomed outside the office, causing heads to turn. When they saw me, their looks grew even more confused. Good. Always keep ’em guessing.

  Had Mrs. Dunsmore given Detective Fred Williams a kidney? How else to explain the raptures he went into when I mentioned her name? I was to tell her “how happy he was to hear she was well” and how “delighted” his sister would be to hear from her.

  It certainly greased the wheels of my request. Fred Williams wasn’t familiar with the Susan Finnegan missing persons case, but he paid attention because of Mrs. Dunsmore, and he perked up when I mentioned the missing person was a policeman’s sister.

  “He still working?” he asked.

  “Yes, for me, actually.”

  “Ah, so that’s how you got involved.”

  “Yeah.” Better to say that than that I blackmailed my detective into letting me look into his sister’s disappearance because I was bored at work.

  “You know anything else about this Kevin McGee?” he asked.

  “Only what I’ve told you. Once I found out about him, I thought it best to pass it off to your department.”

  “I’ll see what I can scare up. Might take some time.”

  “I understand.” I wanted more, but I had no right to ask it, no authority. After the call ended, I felt like a shaken soda can about to erupt. I took a walk around the station. A couple of guys started to do crunches, but they soon tired of the activity. This was why I’d wanted a fitness plan. They couldn’t keep up exercise, even for the sake of a joke.

  Lewis and Finny reviewed papers. They gestured with their hands and finished each other’s sentences. They were deep into it. “But this one—” Finny said.

  “You think he’ll respond?”

  “How’s it going?” I asked. They pulled apart and regarded me with bleary eyes. Men woken from the dream of nailing a killer. I knew that look. Hell, I’d once had that look.

  “Getting there,” Lewis said. “The nursing home says we can visit tomorrow. We’re just finalizing details with the police. They’re concerned about his impairment.”

  I said, “Really? Thought they’d be more concerned that they have a murderer living in their backyard under an assumed name.”

  “Right?” Finny asked. “We’re getting confirmation from the nursing-home staff that he’s physically, not mentally, disabled.”

  “What is his status?”

  “Paralyzed from the chest down. He can still use his arms and hands. But he’s wheelchair-bound,” Lewis said. “Requires assistance to eat and other activities.”

  “How you feeling?” I asked.

  “Nervous,” Finny said.

  “Why?”

  “His situation. I worry it’ll play for sympathy. Juries don’t love convicting people in wheelchairs.”

  “You don’t worry about a jury. Worry about the arrest. What’s the plan? Gonna hit him with good cop, bad cop?” I asked.

  “Nah. Too predictable. I was thinking bad cop, worse cop,” Lewis said.

  DETECTIVE MICHAEL FINNEGAN

  FRIDAY, JULY 2, 1999

  0845 HOURS

  Lewis glanced at me, did a double take, and asked, “What is that?”

  “My lucky necktie.” It was yellow and printed with shamrocks. I’d gotten it as a gift in 1989 from my son, Max. Back then, my kids got me one of two presents for Christmas and my birthday: a tie or a bottle of Old Spice. I still had four bottles of the cologne, unopened, in my bathroom.

  “Never seen it before,” he said. “I’d remember.”

  “Never needed it before.”

  He harrumphed and got out of the car. I followed. We stood, surveying Meadowvale Nursing Home and Rehabilitation. The grounds were pleasant. A wide lawn dotted with walking paths. The building was a hodgepodge. Originally a large family home, it had, over the years, had wings added to create the giant building before us. The original home was still visible in the middle of the newer additions.

  We checked in at the reception desk. The director was on hand to lead us to Mr. Daniels’s room. He had a short stride, but it was fast-paced. He talked as he led us through the lobby, down a hall toward the living quarters. The hallway smelled of cinnamon candle and burnt oatmeal. “He’s on the first floor, of course.” I assumed he meant because of the wheelchair. Difficult to evacuate in case of a fire if the elevators weren’t to be used.

  “He’s awake at 6:30 a.m., every day. He often naps around 2:00 p.m., but he should be quite alert for you. He usually keeps to his room after breakfast. He likes his privacy. I think it’s because he’s so much younger than the other residents.”

  He stopped before a door. To the left of the frame was the name Waverly Daniels, written in marker. Nothing adorned the door, unlike the one next door or across the hall. Both of those doors were marked with stickers and fake flowers. Attached were photos of smiling grandchildren and pets and vacations taken years ago. Before us, a blank wooden door. Waverly Daniels wasn’t one for displaying his memories.

  The director knocked a quick, light series of raps, and then he called, “Mr. Daniels? You have visitors!”

  “What?” a voice called.

  “Visitors, Mr. Daniels. We told you yesterday, remember?”

  Lewis reached forward to stop the director from turning the knob. “You told him we were coming? We specifically requested he not know.”

  The director dropped his hand and frowned. “Well, yes, but that’s not our policy. Mr. Daniels never has visitors, and we thought it might be jarring if the police showed up, unannounced, to ask him questions.”

  We had planned on it being jarring. It’s what we wanted. I looked at Lewis and shook my head. Nothing we could do now. Daniel Waverly had the advantage of knowing we were coming.

  Lewis opened the door, an expression of his annoyance. The room was eastward-facing.
Sun streamed inside. Dust motes danced by the window and near the center of the room. And with a book on his lap sat Daniel Waverly. His hair was grayer than brown, and his face and body looked bloated, but he still had the pox mark and the cleft chin, and it was him all right. His eyes hardly blinked as he examined us.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  We returned his greeting. Looked around for seating. There was none. I guess he didn’t have much need for chairs. A twin bed made up with a pale-blue blanket afforded the only place to sit. The director noticed too. “Let me go fetch some chairs,” he said.

  “It’s fine,” Lewis said. “We won’t be long.” What he didn’t say was that we didn’t want him interrupting our interview.

  “It will only take a moment,” he insisted.

  “We’re good,” I said. “Really.” I stepped forward, edging him to the door.

  The director looked about the room, as if he’d find a spare chair hiding in the corners. “Well, if you’re sure.”

  “We are.” He left, and I closed the door.

  Daniel looked from me to Lewis. “I was surprised to hear I’d be hosting two policemen this morning. What can I do for you?”

  “He didn’t tell you?” Lewis asked. He, meaning the director.

  “He said you had questions, about a case you’re working?” He adjusted the book on his lap. I read the cover. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith. Was he kidding with that shit? Ripley was a sociopath who was always one step ahead of everyone, including the police. I fought back a smile. Cocky. We could work with cocky.

  “Elizabeth Gardner.” Lewis produced a photograph, the one used for her missing persons posters.

  “Elizabeth Gardner,” he repeated, as if hearing the name for the first time. This might be easier than we’d expected.

  “You dated,” Lewis said.

  Let him deny it. Let him deny it. Then we’d have caught him in a lie.

  “We did,” he said. “Briefly.”

  “Nine months.” Lewis laid a photo of Daniel with Elizabeth atop his book.

  Daniel picked it up by the corner and stared. “That was a long time ago. She went missing, back in ’78?”