by Gerry Boyle
“I’m sure.”
I turned to leave, then turned back.
“Does it seem funny to you that they wouldn’t go into the dentist’s office? I mean, looking for drugs or laughing gas or something?”
The woman looked at me. I gave her my best smile. She tried to bite her tongue, but couldn’t.
“Chief had them count the drug bottles and all that. He thought it was funny. But Les checked everything.”
“So maybe they chickened out before they got that far, huh?”
“Or maybe they went in and didn’t find anything that interested them. I was kind of hoping they’d steal the bill for my husband’s bridge, but no such luck.”
I laughed. She smiled. I left, and pondered her joke all the way back to Portland.
It was a little before one o’clock when I parked in the Maine Medical Center lot. I hurried to the front doors, down the corridor to the elevators, and kept going.
To the telephones.
First I called Clair. The phone rang a dozen times. I waited, in case he was in the barn. On the fifteenth ring, he answered.
“Yeah, hello.”
“It’s me.”
“Hey. This is your personal secretary calling. I oughta get paid by the call.”
“How’s one beer per message sound?”
“Sold. Call Detective Martucci.”
“When did she call?”
“This morning.”
“What’s she want?”
“To talk to you.”
“God, it’s hard to find good help these days. About what?”
“She didn’t say.”
“She say anything at all?”
“To me she did.”
“Like what?”
“It was personal and confidential.”
“They’re putting you in the witness protection program?”
“Yeah. I’m gonna be a brain surgeon in Spokane. And also they found the kid with the gun. They want us to ID him. You interested?”
“Not terribly. He say anything about who put him onto us?”
“Nope.”
“They don’t know the finger trick,” I said.
“And I didn’t tell ’em,” Clair said.
“Our little secret.”
So I hung up and called Mendoza at the Chronicle. At first they said he was out, and then they said he was in, and then he picked up the phone.
“Mendoza.”
“McMorrow.”
“Hey, man. What’s up?”
“I just got back from Bobby Mullaney’s funeral.”
“No kidding. How was it?”
“Small. Seven or eight people. No body. Just a cross stuck in the ground.”
“Where was this?”
“The cemetery in Florence.”
“Today?”
I could hear his pen scratching paper.
“This morning. Ten o’clock.”
“You talk to the wife?”
“A little. Did you?”
“Tried. Couldn’t get past the son. I guess it was the son. He told me to eff off and hung up.”
“He’s like that.”
“What is he? Some kind of backwoods psycho?”
“Some kind. I haven’t figured out exactly which one. Your story run?”
“Coming off the presses shortly. Confirms the identity. Gives some background. You’re mentioned briefly.”
“Very briefly, I hope.”
“You scratch my back or I’ll put you in the lead,” Mendoza said.
“You play rough.”
“This is the big city.”
“Well, big-city reporter, I need a favor.”
“What is it?”
“I need you to check your police blotter. Find out if there have been any break-ins at dentists’ offices around there in the past few days.”
“Dentists’ offices?”
“Right. You know. Cavities and all that.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“I can’t really say yet. It might not be anything.”
“McMorrow, I don’t know. You expect me to hoof it over to the police station and look through the complaints for you, but you won’t tell me why? What do I look like? A goddamn servant?”
“Come on,” I said.
“Nope. You want the information, call the cops yourself.”
“Will they really check for me?”
“Depends on who answers the phone,” Mendoza said.
“I need to know for sure.”
“I need to know why.”
I weighed it.
“Can I tell you off the record? Just for now? It isn’t anything yet anyway.”
Mendoza’s turn to weigh. “Okay. For now.”
“There was a burglary at this accountant’s office in the town of Madison, Maine. It was a couple of days before the body was found.”
“Uh-huh.”
“The accountant is in the same building as the dentist. The offices are connected by a regular door. And it was unlocked.”
“Is there a point here or what?”
“They took computers and stuff from the accountant. But nothing was taken from the dentist’s office. The dentist thinks they didn’t even go in.”
“But?”
“But what if they did,” I said. “What if they went into the dentist’s office. That’s where Bobby’s dental records were.”
“But they were still there. They sent ’em.”
“I know.”
“Well, they matched.”
“They matched something. Somebody.”
“You’re thinking it wasn’t Mullaney?”
“I don’t know. I just think it’s funny that burglars would completely ignore a doctor’s office, with drugs and all that, and break into an accountant’s office. Who breaks into an accountant’s office?”
“Isn’t even tax time,” Mendoza said.
“It just seems funny.”
“But you’re making a pretty big jump to get to wherever it is you’re headed. What does that have to do with dentists down here?”
“What if they switched the X-rays? Took some from down there and brought them up here.”
“Why?”
“So the body would be ID’d as Mullaney’s.”
“So he can be written off as dead? What for? And, McMorrow, if it wasn’t him in the car, who was it?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Somebody whose dental X-rays were in an office in Madison, Maine.”
“All because the burglars didn’t go into the dentist’s office? You’re reaching, man. I think Mullaney got in way over his head down here and they wasted him. End of story.”
“Probably. But I’m not a hundred percent sure.”
“You’re gonna write this? And get it past a Globe editor?”
“Only if I can prove it.”
“Must be nice, McMorrow. Sit around up there in the woods and think up this crazy stuff.”
“It is nice. Will you check for me?”
“You’re gonna owe me one.”
“Can you check today?”
“Jeez, McMorrow. Need your shoes polished?”
“I don’t own any. I just have boots.”
“What a hick.”
“And proud of it,” I said. “Will you still be there at four?”
“Most likely.”
“I’ll call you.”
The elevator hummed me up to the eighth floor and spat me out. The corridor was cool and dim and silent as a padded room. The cop was at the door. It was the woman. She looked up.
“Quiet morning?” I said.
“Well . . .,” she said.
I stopped.
“She tried to get in downstairs.”
“The mother? In the hospital?”
“She got in the hospital. But she asked at the information desk where her friend Roxanne was.”
“Did they tell her?”
“They have her mug shot. They knew who it was. They pretended to check
and called Security. She spooked and took off.”
“You have a mug shot?”
“Sure.”
“Can I see it? I’ve never seen her.”
She fiddled with the button on her front pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. I took it and unfolded it. It was front and side views, Portland Police Department case numbers held under her chin.
She was blonde with black roots. Her face was long and plain and drawn and her eyes had that hopeless look of somebody who has given up.
“Did they catch her?”
Her face fell a little.
“No. They patrolled the area but she was gone. It’s a big city.”
“It isn’t that big. How can she just disappear?”
“She could have gotten in a car. Probably somebody picked her up.”
“That’s great. What was she going to do?”
“They said she was carrying a paper bag. Who knows what was in it.”
“She knows,” I said. “Does Roxanne know?”
“I told her.”
“How is she?” She hesitated.
“Well, I’d say she’s a little nervous. Tries not to show it.”
“She’s like that,” I said, and pushed open the door.
Roxanne was in bed, surrounded by her flowers. She was asleep and the casket effect almost made me shudder. I turned away and got the chair from the foot of the bed and lifted it over to the side by Roxanne and sat down. When I did, she jerked.
“Whaaa.”
“Easy, it’s me.”
Her eyes focused slowly.
“It’s okay,” I said.
“She was here. Did they tell you?”
“Yeah, they did.”
“I’m sick of this. I want to get away from here.”
“I don’t blame you. What does the doctor say? When will your beautiful bionic body be ready to travel?”
“She says two or three more days.”
“The orthopedic surgeon?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you should come home with me. Recuperate in idyllic Prosperity, upper case. I’ll cook for you.”
“I may come in spite of that.”
“It’d be a lot better than sitting in South Portland. I’m sure she couldn’t spell Prosperity, much less find it.”
“I may take you up on that.”
“You could wear your johnny. I like the off-the-shoulder look. And Clair and Mary would be there. You could invite your work friends up to visit, bring us lots of presents.”
“It’s a deal,” Roxanne said. “But enough about me. How did you spend your morning?”
“I went to a funeral,” I said. “Sort of.”
Sitting there, I told Roxanne about the service and the cross. I told her about the marijuana gang at the restaurant. I told her about the dentist. I told her about Melanie. And I told her about Mendoza.
She sat there thinking, her eyes narrowed. Our minds were different. Mine meandered. Hers churned like a computer.
“You know what I—”
A nurse knocked and came in on padded white shoes. Roxanne turned and said “Hi.”
“We’ve got to check that incision, change it up,” the nurse said. “It’ll only take a few minutes.”
She looked at me and smiled. “Would you mind?”
“I could use a drink,” Roxanne said. “There’s juice and soda somewhere down the hall. Orange juice?”
“Third door on the left,” the nurse said.
“I’ll be back,” I said.
I went out and asked the cop if she wanted a drink, and she said she’d take a diet Coke. I passed a couple of patients in the hall, shuffling in their slippers, and then found the room and the cups. I filled them and came back. The cop took her drink. The door was closed, and I could hear Roxanne and the nurse talking.
I walked down the hall and around the corner and there was a waiting room. The television was on but nobody was there. There was a telephone, too, and I decided to call my answering machine. I put Roxanne’s juice down and dialed. My machine answered.
Clair had called and asked me to call him at home, which I’d already done. Somebody had called twice and hung up. Roxanne had called, just to hear my voice, she said.
And then there was another message.
“Mr. McMorrow, this is Tony Stone. I’m an investigator with the Mutual Insurance Group, based out of Worcester, Massachusetts. I’m doing the preliminary work on a claim resulting from the death of Robert V. Mullaney . . .”
29
I passed the nurse in the hall. Then I passed the cop, standing up, sipping her Coke. I pushed the door open and Roxanne looked at me from the bed.
“You know who called me? An insurance guy. Bobby had life insurance.”
Roxanne grinned.
“Then that’s it.”
“What’s it?”
“Insurance,” she said. “The insurance money.”
I stood by the bed.
“No,” I said. “No, they just aren’t the type. An insurance scam? I mean, these are people who wouldn’t buy vegetables from the supermarket because they don’t trust them. They probably still boycott grapes. They live in that homemade house in the middle of nowhere and go on about big business and corporations. It just doesn’t fit.”
“Maybe they see it as some sort of terrorist act,” Roxanne said. “Maybe they’re exacting revenge on corporate America.”
“I can see that, but the money? These are people who pride themselves on not needing any. The garden. Even the pot. Bobby told me how he traded pot for services. It’s their own economy they’ve made.”
“Maybe this economy was a matter of necessity. You know. They were poor, so they pretended to like it.”
“And cooked up this scheme?”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. It just seems sort of beneath them.”
“And selling pot wasn’t? You don’t do that for fun, Jack. You do it for money.”
“But it was like raising a pig and slaughtering it in the fall,” I said. “They tended their plants and brought them to market.”
“Maybe they got sick of playing dirt farmer. You said the son wanted a house with a basketball hoop in the driveway, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but since when is he calling the shots?”
“You look disappointed, Jack,” Roxanne said.
“I am, I guess.”
“People aren’t always what they seem.”
“They never are. And I knew these guys weren’t what they seemed,” I said. “I just didn’t expect them to be like this.”
Roxanne looked at me.
“Are you going to call the insurance guy back?”
I thought for a moment.
“Not yet,” I said. “Not yet.”
And I didn’t call Detective Martucci, either. But I did call Mendoza. Twice. The third time I left the number of Roxanne’s room. And waited.
We sat there, side by side. Roxanne dozed off. The guard changed at the door and the older cop took over. He looked in, book in hand. I nodded and he saw Roxanne sleeping and held up his book apologetically and tiptoed out. I sat some more. Thought some more.
It could all fit. Plant phony dental records. Get the body identified as Bobby’s. Collect the cash and split. But if it wasn’t really Bobby, who was it? A mouth full of silver, Mendoza had said. A crispy critter with a mouth full of silver.
I picked up the phone and my chair and moved away from the bed. Quietly, I called directory assistance, asked for Lester Pelham’s number, and dialed again.
He was with a patient, the receptionist said. I said I’d hold. She said it would be quite a while and asked my name. I told her, and she put me on hold and then Pelham wasn’t with a patient anymore.
“A small question, Doctor,” I said. “I know it might seem like a picky detail, but bear with me, please.”
“I’ll try.”
“I know Bobby Mullaney was your patient for several years, bu
t did you do a lot of work on him? I mean, were his teeth in pretty bad shape? If you had, I thought I could say something like, ‘Dr. Lester Pelham had a lot of calls about Bobby Mullaney over the years, but never one like this.’ Sounds corny, but something like that.”
“Well, I probably shouldn’t say this, with confidentiality and all, but he had plastic teeth.”
“Pardon me?”
“They weren’t plastic, but that’s what I used to call them. I kidded him. We kidded back and forth. I said his teeth couldn’t be real because they never decayed. I think he must have grown up with fluoridated water down south somewhere. Makes a huge difference. Like night and day. I see people here, grew up with well water, and—”
“You mean he didn’t have a lot of fillings and all that?”
“I think he had one. Maybe two. Teeth as hard as rocks.”
I thanked him and hung up.
“A mouth full of silver,” I said, and I called Mendoza again.
I waited. This time he answered.
“Can I get my coat off, McMorrow?”
“Sure. After you tell me.”
“How ’bout I write it up and mail it to you.”
“Saying what?”
“There weren’t any break-ins at dentists’ offices, per se. Not in Valley, anyway.”
“But?”
“But there was one at a clinic sort of thing downtown. They do, like, pro bono work. Checkups. HIV testing. And they have a dentist.”
“When was the break?”
“September second.”
“What’d they take?”
“Some change from the secretary’s drawer.”
“That’s it?”
“Pretty much.”
“No drugs?”
“They’re locked up. The report said they attempted to gain entry but were unsuccessful.”
“So they took the money and left?”
“Yup.”
“Screw around with the files?”
“It didn’t say that.”
“Who goes to this place? I mean, who are the patients?”
“Mostly the homeless,” Mendoza said. “Some druggies. Junkies. Winos. People on the streets.”
He paused.
“How’s your theory doing, McMorrow?”
“I think it’s holding up so far. What do you think?”
“It ain’t dead yet,” Mendoza said.
Roxanne slept. The nurses looked in. I was on the phone.
I called directory assistance for the Valley area code and asked for the office of the state coroner. The operator said there was no such listing. I asked for the state medical examiner and she said there was no such listing for that, either, and then she said no, she had a number for the chief medical examiner’s office at the UMass Medical Center in Worcester. I took the number and dialed. Readied my take-no-prisoners voice.
