The detective nodded as he took notes in his own notebook. “And did you notice what this person was wearing?” he asked.
“Not really. It was dark, and I believe they were wearing dark clothing. But I only saw them for a minute.” Lucy looked up at all three officers as they watched her speak.
“Thank you. Are you able to tell if anything was taken from the lockers, or from the wine cellar downstairs?” the detective asked.
“Only one thing. There was a baseball cap in Donovan’s locker…Officer Fitz and I noticed it together this morning. As for all the lockers, I don’t know exactly what was in them. I’ll have to ask all my employees when they come in on Tuesday. We’re closed tomorrow, on Mondays, so everyone has the day off.”
“The hat’s not important. Just let me know once you’ve spoken to your employees about anything else that may be missing. We’ll take some photographs and some fingerprints from downstairs and then we’ll be out of your hair. Thank you very much for your assistance.” The detective closed his notebook and stuffed it into one of his pockets. All three men filed back down the basement stairs to the scene of the crime, leaving Lucy alone in the office.
Lucy leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. It was getting close to five in the morning, and she had been up since Officer Fitz had pounded on her door before ten o’clock that morning. At least she had taken a nap before the break-in.
She could hear the three men down in the basement, taking measurements, and bickering over who was going to take the fingerprints. It sounded like they had been working together for a long time.
“Damn it, Simmons! Just take the prints so we can go home!” The detective’s voice echoed up the stairs as he raised it in frustration. “Some of us have wives to go home to, unlike you two putzes.”
“Can it, Carter. Some of us are doing just fine for ourselves, thank you very much,” Officer Simmons’ voice responded. Officer Fitz seemed to be staying out of it.
“Anyway, I’m just about done. Start packing up, we’ll be done at the same time.” Officer Simmons sounded satisfied with himself.
A few minutes later, the three men trooped back up the stairs. “Ms. Moretti, we’ll be getting out of your hair now. I know you’ve had a long day. Officer Fitz has your contact info, so don’t worry about that. I’ll be in touch personally with any information or updates. Gentlemen, let’s be on our way.”
“Thank you all very much for coming out so late. Or early, as it were. Let me lock up and I’ll walk out with you.” Lucy turned off the light in the basement stairs, and the one in the office. She locked the door behind her and turned to follow the officers to the back door. Detective Carter opened the door and walked through it, letting it swing close behind him, until Officer Simmons caught it, and did the same. Officer Fitz was third, and caught the door, but he held it open, gesturing for Lucy to go through first.
“Thank you, Officer. Much appreciated.” She smiled at him as he went through the door.
“Detective, I’ll be right behind you. I’ll walk Lucy up the stairs and check out her apartment. I don’t want to take any risks after the break-in downstairs.”
The thought hadn’t even occurred to Lucy that someone might have also tried to break in upstairs. Maybe after she’d chased them off downstairs, they had come up here to try again.
Officer Fitz went up the stairs first, one hand resting on the butt of his gun in its holster. He’s really taking this seriously, Lucy thought.
He reached the door at the top and tried to turn the handle. Nothing happened; it was still locked.
“Looks like no one got in this way. Are there any other points of entry?” He turned to face her.
“Nope,” she said, “Just the windows facing the street, and no one could have gotten to those.”
“Do you mind if I unlock it and just take a look around?” he asked, holding out his hand for the keys.
“Of course,” Lucy answered. She dropped the keys into his outstretched hand and watched as he tried to unlock the door.
“Here, it sticks,” she said, “Let me get it.”
“No, no, I’ve got it!” he answered as the lock finally turned in the door. He glanced at her with a triumphant grin and pushed the door open. He turned back to the apartment, his hand going back to the butt of his gun as he took a step inside. He reached next to the door, feeling for a light switch. He found it, flooding the room with light. Officer Fitz took a look around and stepped into the apartment. He checked the two tiny bedrooms and the bathroom, trying the windows as he reached them. Finally he returned to the doorway where Lucy waited.
“Alright, I’m satisfied. You should be safe here. Just make sure you lock the door behind me, and leave all the windows locked as well.” He smiled at her again.
“Thank you so much for everything, Officer Fitz. I really do appreciate all the help,” Lucy said, smiling back as his grin widened.
“My pleasure, ma’am. Have a good night. Don’t be afraid to reach out if you need anything.” He shook her hand, leaving a business card behind in hers. “That’s my direct number.” He took off down the stairs, taking them two at a time.
“Very smooth, Officer Fitz!” Lucy called after him, smiling a real smile for the first time all day. She went back inside the apartment as the three officers pulled away, making sure to lock the door behind her.
Chapter 6
Lucy lay in bed, refusing to open her eyes and check the time. She was exactly where she had fallen asleep, with the pillow pulled over her head to block out the morning light she knew would be peeking through the windows. One of these days she would get around to putting up blinds to replace the curtains her grandmother had sewn for the windows. Not today, though.
She rolled over, tucking the pillow below her head. The analog alarm clock on her night table read just past eleven o’clock in the morning. Along with the curtains, it was another remnant of her grandparent’s time in this apartment.
Only eleven, Lucy thought. Still a few more hours until Ally gets here. Lucy and Ally always spent their days off together in the apartment. Ally would test new recipes, and Lucy would work on everything else that was required to keep the place running, ordering all the various odds and ends they needed or working through the numbers for the restaurant. Since Ally left work earlier at night and Lucy stayed to shut down the restaurant, Ally would do the early morning trip to the farmer’s market downtown and Lucy would sleep in. They would meet after lunch at the apartment and work together until it was time to enjoy the meal for dinner. Sometimes the recipe would make it onto the menu, and sometimes the recipe would go straight in the trash. It was always a toss-up until they sat down to eat.
But in the meantime, Lucy headed straight for the bathroom. She took a long, hot shower, letting the water wash over her until she finally started to feel a little better. She kept replaying in her head everything that had happened the day before, starting and ending with that Officer Fitz. I think I spent more time with him than I did with anyone else yesterday, she thought to herself. He had been helpful, coming back with the detective the second time after the robbery.
Lucy got out of the shower and wrapped herself up in her bathrobe before heading out to the kitchen and starting the coffee maker. Downstairs in the restaurant, coffee was carefully ground and brewed using imported Italian beans, but up here in her apartment, it was regular store brand, pre-ground coffee. She almost preferred what she kept in the apartment, and either way, it was cheaper.
She watched the coffee drip down into the pot, waiting impatiently. She poured it out into a mug and headed to the couch. She sank down into the cushions and switched on the TV, flipping through the channels as she blew on her coffee. All of a sudden, Donovan’s face filled the screen - she had landed on the local news. Lucy stayed on the channel, listening while the anchor went on and on about Donovan without really saying anything. The anchor said more about Alba than she did about Donovan himself. Oh, well, a little publicity never h
urts.
The more she thought about it, absentmindedly sipping her coffee, the more Lucy realized that she didn’t really know much about Donovan at all. For having known him since she was a teenager, Lucy couldn’t think of a single fact about him that the news anchor hadn’t just repeated on the air. Born in Vermont, lived in Boston since he was a teenager. Started at Alba at nineteen and had worked there ever since. The news had even interviewed one of their customers outside the restaurant.
Lucy and Donovan had always talked, had even had long conversations late into the night after the other servers had left, but Lucy still knew almost nothing about Donovan. He had been such a private person; an expert at carrying on life without passing on any information about himself.
And what about that hat she had found in his locker yesterday? The one that went missing after the robbery last night. It looked like it belonged to a baseball league or something. How had he never mentioned that? Did he play on a team down in Redmond?
Lucy’s mind continued to wander as she sat on the couch, thinking over Donovan’s life and the little she knew about it. She knew he had been single, but Lucy hoped he had had a friend who he confided in, someone he had really been able to talk to. She was lucky enough to have that person in Ally for years, and she couldn’t imagine having to handle this situation without someone to talk it over with.
There was a knock on the door, interrupting her thoughts. Lucy glanced at the clock, almost noon. Who could it be? It’s too early for Ally. She waited for a second to see if the knock would come again. She didn’t get people knocking too often, with a door opening on to a balcony over an alley like it did. Yesterday had certainly been an exception, and twice in two days was unheard of.
Instead of another knock, she heard the sound of a key sliding into the lock and the tumblers turning. The door opened to reveal Ally, loaded down with bags.
“You’re up already! I was going to surprise you with breakfast.” Ally exclaimed, coming in through the door and dropping the bags on the kitchen counter.
“If I shut my eyes, will it still count?” Lucy asked, smiling.
“No!” Ally exclaimed. “But I’ll still make it for you anyway. Your favorite, brown sugar waffles with peaches and cream.” The dish was a specialty of Ally’s, one she had developed when she was living in Savannah, Georgia after she left Charleston.
“Mmh,” Lucy groaned, her mouth watering. “Can I help?” She got up off the couch and started across the small living room to the kitchen.
“No way! Sit back down. You had to spend practically all day with that dreadful cop yesterday and then run a dinner service. Relax,” Ally called as she started unpacking the bags.
“You don’t even know the half of it, Ally. The cops were here again last night, after everyone left. There was a break-in in the basement.”
“Holy crap, Luce! What? What happened?” Ally dropped the bag of peaches she was holding and rushed over to the couch where Lucy was sitting.
“It’s fine. Really. Someone, some guy I think, came in through the window and broke open some of the lockers. It doesn’t look like he actually took anything, which is weird. All that was missing was a baseball cap from Donovan’s locker.” Lucy shrugged and stepped across the kitchen, sitting on one of the stools at the tiny island that divided the kitchen and the living room.
“It really wasn’t that big of a deal, surprisingly.” she continued. “ Any other day it would have been huge news. I called the cops and they sent the same officer from yesterday morning, a guy, Fitz, and another officer and a detective. It’s the same detective from Donovan’s case since they thought it might be related. They told me they’ll let me know if they turn anything up.”
“Lucy, you can’t catch a break!” Ally poured herself a cup of coffee and leaned against the counter as she sipped. “You’re handling all this remarkably well. Two days ago the most exciting thing that had happened all week was when the produce delivery was late.”
Lucy smiled. Ally was right.
“Oh well. Life happens. At least it wasn’t me who got stabbed to death.” They both laughed out loud at that, as morbid as it was. At least they were still laughing after the weekend they had been through.
Chapter 7
“Ally, as always, that was wonderful.” The two women were sitting on the couch, since Lucy didn’t have a dining room, or a dining room table. The apartment was way too small for that. Their dirty dishes on the coffee table in front of them, both women leaned back against the couch and relaxed.
“What do you say we leave the dishes for later?” Lucy asked. “I could really use some sunshine. It feels like it’s been days since I was outside in the sunlight. Want to take a walk?” she asked.
“Definitely. We can work off some of these waffles too. And all that whipped cream—ugh! ” Ally got up off the couch and stacked the dirty plates together, heading to the kitchen.
“Slow down,how do you have so much energy?!” she called after Ally. More slowly, Lucy pulled herself up off the couch and followed her friend into the kitchen. Ally quickly stacked the dishes up in the sink and rinsed her hands off. “Alright, let’s go!”
They both slipped on their shoes and jackets. Boston could get pretty chilly in early summer, especially by the water where they were. They stepped out the door, Lucy pausing to lock it with Officer Fitz’s words from the night before echoing in her mind.
Ally headed down the stairs first, Lucy following close behind. Lucy gestured at the back door of Alba as they walked by. “It sure does feel good to be walking right past that door,” she commented.
“Doesn’t it? Don’t even think about the restaurant today,” Ally said. “Just think about what a beautiful day it is and how nice it is to be outside.”
They reached the end of the alley, both subconsciously turned to the left onto Salem Street, towards the waterfront and away from St. Mark’s, where Donovan’s body had been found. They strolled along the sidewalk, window shopping and stopping to read the menus of the competing restaurants along the road. The street was home to many of the Italian restaurants located in the North End, including Alba. It ended in an intersection near Charter Street, near the old North Church where Paul Revere’s famous signals had hung in 1775.
Even though many of the restaurants in the neighborhood hadn’t had a menu change since the eighties, Lucy and Ally still liked to keep up on the competition. It was impossible to tell when a decades-old restaurant might be sold, or taken up by an over-zealous grandchild who wanted to prove they could handle the family business.. Lucy was lucky. So far, the small changes she had been making to the restaurant, things like new specials, cutting back on the expensive ingredients, cutting back on the hours her staff worked, were working without any fallout. She had finally taken over a little less than three years ago, and was working to improve the restaurant where she could.
The two women strolled along the street, making a few more turns, to the small park where the North End met the Boston Harbor. They laughed as they walked, gossiping about whether or not one of the new busboys would work up the courage to ask out the red-headed bartender he was so obviously had a crush on.
“No way, he’ll never do it! He’s afraid to ask her for a glass of water,” Ally scoffed.
“I don’t know, Al, last week they were talking an awful lot. I think she might return the feelings…who knows what could be blossoming behind the bar!” Both women laughed.
“Man, like we have any room to talk. When was the last time you went on a date, huh? College?” Ally teased.
“I had coffee with Lucas from next door just two weeks ago, and you know it! I just haven’t had a chance to call him back,” Lucy defended herself. Lucas was the manager of the restaurant next to Alba.
“Please! You know very well that was not a date. He wanted your permission to put the dumpster for their renovation outside the back door!” Ally laughed as she spoke.
“Yeah, and I told him I’d get back to him and l
et him know! He hasn’t had a chance to ask me out again, because I haven’t called,” Lucy laughed, trying to explain herself, but Ally wouldn’t let her off the hook. She didn’t have any real interest in Lucas, but he was a convenient excuse to keep Ally from getting on her case about dating.
“Oh please, we’re both married to the job. I haven’t been on a date in years. I’ve stayed up all night with plenty of men though—at least in the kitchen!” Ally joked.
They laughed together and watched the boats moving across the harbor.
Lucy spotted something familiar, out of the corner of her eye. Blue and purple, moving quickly through the crowd of tourists at the water’s edge. Even this early in the season it was hard to navigate around them.
Wait a second, Lucy thought, that’s the hat. It was a blue and purple baseball cap, with the same logo that had been on the cap stolen from Donovan’s locker. It was being worn by a teenage boy, who couldn’t have been older than sixteen. Lucy started towards him to ask about the cap,was it from a team or something? Had the boy known Donovan?
The boy was tall, with long legs that allowed him to move quickly through the crowd. Lucy sped up, Ally trailing behind her. “Luce? Where are we going?”
“That hat! It’s the same one I told you about, from Donovan’s locker. I think that boy might have known him!” Lucy called back over her shoulder.
The boy turned at the mention of Donovan’s name,he had been close enough to hear. When he saw Lucy coming towards him, he ripped the hat off of his head and shoved it into his pocket, starting to run back towards the crowded city streets surrounding the park.
“Wait! I want to talk to you!” Lucy shouted desperately, hoping he would come back. Instead the mysterious boy just picked up speed, dodging through the crowd with impressive dexterity. He jumped out into the street just as a tour bus came by, running past it and disappearing into the city on the other side.
Murder at St. Mark's Page 3
