Muscle Memory

by William G. Tapply

  He held out his hands, palms up. “I sleep sound. I snore. My wife, she used to say the whole house rattled when I slept. She’s been gone six years now.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said automatically.

  “Yeah, well she ain’t dead, if that’s what you mean. Gone, understand? Living with her sister in Revere.”

  I nodded. “So how well do you know Mick?”

  He shrugged. “Nice guy, Mick. Quiet. Good tenant. Minds his own business, pays his rent on time. Big strong fella. He always helps me lug the trash barrels out to the sidewalk on Tuesdays.”

  “Have you talked with him at all this week?”

  “Since…?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Since his wife was murdered.”

  “The other night,” said Mancini. “Not last night. Night before last Wednesday. I took a bowl of macaroni and some garlic bread up to him. He said thank you, he’d already eaten. I asked if there’s anything I could do. He just shook his head. Sad man. I feel bad for poor Mick. Terrible thing, what happened to his wife.”

  “Has he had any visitors in the past couple of days?”

  “That one fella, in the suit and mustache, he dropped in a few times.”

  “Lyn Conley?” I said.

  Mancini shrugged. “Don’t know his name. Drives a nice car. Sorta gray? A whatchacallit…”

  “Lexus?”

  He nodded. “That’s it. He was here yesterday, around suppertime. That was the last time I saw him. Stayed maybe an hour.” Anthony Mancini scraped the palm of his hand over his whiskery cheek. “There were all those TV people, you know. That was Tuesday, huh? You were here.”

  “You don’t miss much, then, Mr. Mancini?”

  “I’m here all day long. Window looks right out on the porch. I hear anything, I take a peek. I saw you come in a little while ago.”

  “So what about last night?”

  He shook his head. “I always go to bed at ten. Then I see nothing, hear nothing.” He shrugged. “You want some coffee?”

  “If it’s already made, sure.”

  “Milk?”

  “Black, please.”

  He left the room. I looked around. Over the television hung a large full-color painting of Jesus on the cross. His blood was bright crimson, much brighter than the dull brownish splotch on Mick’s sheets. A bunch of palms was stuck behind the painting.

  The bookcase beside the TV was crammed with paperbacks. From where I sat, it looked like they were mostly westerns and mysteries, with a few romance novels scattered among them.

  Mancini came back carrying two heavy ceramic mugs. He handed me one, then took the chair across from me. “So what’s gonna happen?” he said.

  “The police will be here. They’ll secure the area. They’ll probably want to talk with you.”

  “They gonna take me down to the station again?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  He smiled. “Wouldn’t mind. Little excitement, you know?”

  “Did they take you to the station before?”

  He nodded. “Day after Mick’s wife was killed. They were asking me about Sunday night. If I’d seen Mick.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  He cocked his head. “Am I supposed to tell you?”

  “Yes. I’m Mick’s lawyer.”

  “Well,” he said, “I told them the truth. I didn’t know whether Mick was home or not. He was here during the afternoon, but he coulda gone out when I was in the kitchen or the bathroom or something. Or after I went to bed.” Mancini shrugged. “I wish I could help Mick out.”

  “Telling the truth is always best.” I stood up. “I think I’ll wait out on the porch. I need some fresh air.”

  “I’ll join you.

  I shook my head. “You should stick near the phone. The po­lice might need to contact us.”

  He nodded solemnly. “Gotcha.”

  I went out and sat on the front steps, sipping Anthony Mancini’s thick, bitter coffee. A minute later, a Somerville police cruiser squealed up and double-parked in front. Two uniformed cops got out and approached me. “Who are you, sir?” said one of them, a young red-haired guy with a David Letterman gap between his front teeth.

  “I made the phone call,” I said. “Brady Coyne. I’m Mick Fallon’s lawyer.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Anyone inside?”

  “Just Mr. Mancini, the landlord. He lives on the first floor. I told him to stay right there.”

  “Sure. We know Tony.” He turned to his partner. “Take the back. I got out here.”

  The other cop disappeared around the side of the house. The redhead stood on the front path with his back to me, surveying the neighborhood. “They don’t tell us nothing,” he said without turning to me. “Just come, secure the place, wait for the staties.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Must be something big, state cops takin’ jurisdiction.”

  I lit a cigarette.

  The cop looked over his shoulder at me. “So what’s going on?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Tony in some kind of trouble?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He turned back to watch the street. “Fuckin’ staties,” he mumbled.

  I had just finished my cigarette when a blue Ford Taurus, unmarked except for the portable blue flasher on the roof, pulled up in front. Horowitz got out of the passenger side, walked past the Somerville patrolman without acknowledging him, and stood in front of me. “Where?” he said.

  “Third floor.”

  “You touch anything?”

  I shut my eyes for a minute. “One of the kitchen chairs had tipped over. I picked it up and shoved it up to the table. The door out onto the porch was unlatched, and I shut it. I picked up the pillow and touched the bloodstain on the sheet. The molding around the door to the bedroom. Um, the doorknobs to the two closets and the bathroom and both sides of the doorknob into and out of the kitchen. That’s it, I think.”

  Marcia Benetti, Horowitz’s partner, strolled up to us. “Should we wait for the others?” she said to Horowitz, ignoring me.

  “Yeah. You go on in there and baby-sit the guy in the first-floor apartment.”

  Benetti brushed past me and into the house.

  Horowitz sat beside me. “Tell me everything you saw.”

  He had his notebook out. I reconstructed everything as well as I could from the time I’d arrived here.

  “The rug,” he said. “It was still wet?”

  I nodded.

  “But the blood was dry.”

  “Yes.”

  Just then two other unmarked vehicles, both with blinking blue flashers on the roofs, pulled in behind Horowitz’s Taurus. He got up and went to the sidewalk to greet them. They talked for a few minutes, then all of them except Horowitz trooped past me and into the house. “You sit tight,” he said to me. “I’m gonna have to talk to you again soon’s we get a good look up there.”

  “How long?”

  “As long as it takes, Coyne. Don’t push me.”

  I shrugged, and Horowitz went inside.

  I’d been sitting there for about half an hour when I became aware of loud voices out on the sidewalk. I looked up and saw the Somerville cop holding Lyn Conley by his shoulders. Conley’s face was red, and so was the back of the cop’s neck.

  I got up and went to them. “Hey, Lyn,” I said.

  He blinked at me. “What the hell is going on, Brady? Did Mick—”

  “He’s gone missing,” I said.

  Conley stepped back from the cop, scowled at him, tugged on the lapels of his suit jacket, then smiled quickly at me. “Thank God,” he said. “I was worried that—wait a minute. What do you mean, missing?”

  “I can’t say anything else, Lyn.”

  “But what the hell—?”

  “He’s not home,” I said. “I think you better wait with me. I’m sure the police will want to talk to you.”

  He rolled his shoulders. “I don’
t get it. What do the police care if Mick’s not home?” He narrowed his eyes at me. “Something’s happened to him, hasn’t it?”

  “Looks like it,” I said.

  Ten

  THE SOMERVILLE COP PUT his hand on Lyn Conley’s shoulder. “I gotta keep you two separated,” he said. “That big-shot detective’ll have my ass if I let you guys compare stories.”

  Lyn pushed the cop’s hand away. “I don’t have any damn story,” he said. “I’m here to visit my friend.”

  “Listen, pal,” said the cop. “You wanna obstruct justice—”

  “I want to know what happened to Mick.”

  “Just do what I say,” said the cop. “And don’t touch me again.”

  “Wait,” I said to the cop. “We’re just upset, both of us. My friend here doesn’t mean anything.”

  The cop glared at Lyn for a minute, then turned to me. “Okay. That’s good. I don’t want trouble any more than you do. So why’n’t you go back and sit on the steps where I can see you. And you—” he turned to Lyn “—you can take a seat in the back of my cruiser, there. How’d that be?”

  “That’s fine,” I said quickly. I nodded at Lyn.

  He frowned at me, gave his head a little shake, then turned and ducked into the backseat of the Somerville cruiser.

  I went back and sat on the front steps. Ten or fifteen minutes later, Horowitz came out. He walked past me to where the Somerville cop was standing guard on the sidewalk, and the two of them conferred for a minute. Horowitz glanced at Lyn Conley, patted the cop on the shoulder, then leaned down and said something to Lyn.

  A minute later he came back and sat beside me. “Let’s talk about Fallon’s enemies,” he said.

  I turned to him. “You think…?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know what to think. Looks like there was a helluva row up there.”

  “Was there blood anywhere else?”

  Horowitz nodded. “A few spots on the living room rug and kitchen floor. Like a trail to the rear exit off the kitchen.”

  “If somebody killed him…”

  “Why’d they bother taking his body?”

  “You think Mick could still be alive?” I said.

  “I think it’s possible.”

  “Kidnapped or something,” I said. “They had to hurt him. Disable him. Mick’s a big guy. Unlikely to go along willingly.” I nodded. “Sure,” I said. “I see what you’re thinking.”

  “I doubt if you see what I’m thinking, Coyne.”

  “Well, how do you figure it?”

  “Kinda premature to be figuring it,” he said. “What we got is some blood, a trashed apartment, a fire escape off the back of the house, a missing three-hundred pound man, one potential witness who claims he was sleeping, and Fallon’s car still parked on the street. The only actual corpse belongs to a fucking fish.”

  “Mick’s daughter gave him that fish,” I said. “He called it Neely.”

  Horowitz frowned. “Neely?”

  “After the Bruins player.”

  “Oh, yeah. The right winger. So the man loved his fish, huh?”

  “Well,” I said, “he sure loved his kids.”

  Horowitz stared at the ground for a minute, then turned to me. “I need to know who Fallon’s enemies are.”

  I nodded. “You’ve got to understand that I don’t know that much about him. He’s only been my client for a few weeks, and before that, he was just a guy I ran into a few times at Skeeter’s. He lied to me about several things. I do know he was a gambler. He owed money. In pretty deep, I think. And there were those two hoods at Skeeter’s.”

  “Russo’s boys. I know all about that.”

  I nodded. “Anyway, that was way back in February. Also, of course, there might be someone who thought he killed his wife and didn’t like it. Or,” I said, “the same person who killed her could’ve come after him.”

  “Some kind of grudge against both of them?”

  I shrugged.

  “What’s his problem?” he jerked his chin toward the cruiser where Lyn Conley was sitting in the backseat. “That’s the guy whose wife found Mrs. Fallon’s body. What’s he doing here?”

  “He and Mick were old friends. He’s been visiting every day since Kaye got killed. Sort of looking out for him, I guess.”

  Horowitz chewed his lip. “Look,” he said after a minute, “I know you’re his lawyer, and I know what you can and can’t tell me. But I’m gonna tell you something.”

  “You were planning to arrest Mick this morning,” I said. “Right?”

  He nodded.

  “You’ve been gathering evidence against him. You subpoenaed the deposition, interviewed Barbara Cooper.” I arched my eyebrows.

  Horowitz nodded. “And we found a witness.”

  “What kind of witness?”

  “Solid eyewitness. Saw Fallon that night in Lexington.”

  “At Kaye’s? The night she—?”

  “Yep. Sunday night around eleven.”

  “This witness reliable?”

  “Neighbor across the street. Retired banker, for Christ’s sake. Sober, conservative. You know the type. Perfect witness. Recognized Fallon, of course. Fallon had lived there for a long time. Hard to confuse Mick Fallon with anybody else.”

  I blew out a breath. Mick had sworn to me he’d been in his apartment all night on Sunday. Assuming the witness was telling the truth, Mick had lied to me again. “This witness,” I said to Horowitz, “he’s sure of the day and the time?”

  “I’ll tell you his name,” he said, “because I’m obligated to. I don’t have to tell you anything else, and I ain’t gonna.”

  “I’ll interview him myself.”

  “Of course you will. Mitchell Selvy’s his name.”

  “And he lives across the street from the Fallons’ house?”

  Horowitz nodded.

  “Thank you.” I stood up and arched my back. “Can I go?”

  “Sure. Go.”

  “What happens next?”

  “Me, I’m gonna go talk some more with that Conley guy in the cruiser, then head back to the office, catch up on my messages, think about lunch. You probably oughta go to your office, compose a will or something.” He gave me his cynical Jack Nicholson grin. “Cops’ll do their job, Coyne. You’ll do yours.”

  “What about Mick?” I said.

  “Oh, we’ll find him. Let’s hope it’s not in a Dumpster behind some strip joint in Revere.”

  I nodded to Horowitz and started down the path toward the street.

  “Hang on,” he said.

  I turned. “What?”

  “Let’s keep this out of the newspapers for now, huh?”

  “I don’t have a problem with that,” I said.

  I got to the office a little before eleven. Julie looked up from her computer and said, “You could’ve called, you know.”

  “Actually, I couldn’t,” I said. “Or I would’ve.” I filled her in on the morning’s adventures.

  “So is Mr. Fallon—?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  Julie stared at me for a minute. Then she shook her head, sighed, and picked up a memo pad. “Mr. McDevitt called. Something about fishing.” She looked up at me and smiled quickly. “Bet you won’t forget to call him.”

  “No, indeed,” I said.

  I poured myself a mug of coffee, took it into my office, and called Charlie McDevitt at his office in the Federal Building where he prosecuted cases for the Justice Department. I exchanged gossip with Shirley, Charlie’s secretary, about my two boys and her countless grandchildren, and then she put me through to him.

  “Did you hear about that behavioral laboratory out in Mill Valley, California, that started using lawyers instead of white rats for their experiments?” he said without preliminary.

  “This is why you called?”

  “Some of those experiments were getting screwed up because the technicians were feeling sorry for the rats,” said Charlie. “Besides, there were some thin
gs that rats refused to do. They figured lawyers would solve all their problems. Plus, of course, lawyers are more abundant than rats.”

  I was glad Charlie couldn’t see me smiling.

  “The lawyers didn’t work out, though,” he said. “They had to go back to using rats.”

  I waited for a minute, then said, “Okay. How come they had to go back to using rats?”

  “With lawyers,” he said, “they weren’t able to extrapolate their results to human beings.”

  “Well,” I said, “I know what you mean. Fact is, I’ve been feeling a lot like a stupid white rat in a maze lately.”

  “The Mick Fallon thing?”

  “Yep.”

  “That’s the reason I called.”

  “Steer me out of the maze.”

  “Yes. Trout, Coyne. And the gurgle of clean running water, and the soft June breeze whispering through the hemlocks. Cedar waxwings flitting in the aspens, mayflies and caddisflies clouding over the water, good manly conversation, none of it about business or finance or world affairs.”

  “Manly conversation,” I said. “The Red Sox. Beer. Women.”

  “That sort of thing. Exactly.”

  “The Deerfield or the Farmington?”

  “Deerfield okay with you? Been daydreaming about it all week.”

  “Tomorrow or Sunday?”

  “Sunday. Meet me at the old Hojo’s by the rotary in Concord at, say, nine?”

  “It’s an Italian restaurant now.”

  “Oh, good point. Another treasured New England tradition down the tubes. Well, screw it. Let’s meet there anyway.”

  “Nine o’clock,” I said. “Even if it’s raining.”

  “Especially if it’s raining,” said Charlie.

  I like to work late on Friday afternoons. It gives me a good rationalization for not lugging a briefcase home for the weekend. So I tried to put Mick Fallon out of my mind and spent the rest of the day scrutinizing contracts and divorce decrees and wills, touching base with a few clients on the telephone, setting up appointments and dickering settlements with fellow lawyers, sketching out the draft of an article I was supposed to write for the Yale Law Review, and in general depriving my conscience of any good reason to distract me from a Sunday of trout fishing.

  Julie blew me a good-bye kiss precisely at five.