Undertow

by Sydney Bauer

  At that point, time seemed to stand still. It was as if no one existed but these four females – the commotion around them detached by their closeness to the agony of the moment. And there they stood; wet and bedraggled and unable to speak on this picturesque jetty, under this glorious sunshine, on this beautiful day.

  2

  Boston District Attorney, Loretta Scaturro removed her wire-rimmed glasses and rubbed hard at her bloodshot brown eyes.

  It was Saturday and she had just been putting down a thick pile of case files and contemplating an evening walk down to the Harbour and up to the North End for some Italian take-away, when the phone had rung with the bad news.

  Christina Haynes was dead. The official cause of death, according to Boston’s Head of Homicide, Lieutenant Joe Mannix, was drowning.

  Lieutenant Mannix, who had two cops on the scene, and two detectives already working the case, had just arrived at Christina’s parents’ home to inform them of the untimely death of their only daughter.

  Lucky Joe. Better him than her. Loretta quietly scolded herself for such callousness in the wake of such a tragedy but realised this case was going to cause all kinds of trouble.

  Christina’s father, Senator Rudolph Haynes, was one of the most influential men in the state. Hell, he was one of the most powerful men in the country, and Loretta knew he would be all over this – and more specifically all over her. This was an election year and the case was going to be tricky. After all, the death occurred way beyond her field of influence – Gloucester Cape Ann, a long way from Suffolk County and the jurisdiction of Boston Police. But she knew Haynes would have his say in that too, and Mannix was smart enough to keep a foothold on things until the dust had settled.

  She moved to the kitchen, the thought of a walk long forgotten as she opened a bottle of her finest merlot. And then, glass in hand, she moved back into the living room without turning on the lights and sat down in her chintz-covered chair, focusing on the telephone before her, and counting down the seconds until it screeched with his call.

  David Cavanaugh swung his feet up onto Arthur Wright’s desk and lifted his icy cold beer to his mouth, the refreshing liquid stinging the fresh cut on his lower lip before making its way down his throat. Arthur was right, there is no better way to drink a beer than straight from the top of an almost frozen long neck bottle. David’s boss claimed to have spent at least some part of his colourful past in Australia where, he told David, they drink beer the only way it was meant to be drunk – coldly, quickly and in copious amounts.

  ‘Now I know why they call it the game they play in heaven,’ said Arthur, referring to David’s weekly fix of rugby with his old Boston College buddies.

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Because the entire brutish code is designed to send its players on a fast track to the pearly gates or, in your case, in the opposite direction.’

  David smiled. It was rare that he and his boss/mentor/friend had time to hang back like this, but it was Saturday evening and they had just put in four long hours of criminal precedent research.

  ‘We’ll both be in hell before these two parties reach some form of agreement,’ said David.

  David had worked for Wright, Wallace and Gertz for twelve years. The firm, located in a low rise heritage building on Boston’s historic Congress Street, was an old one with Arthur, at sixty-seven, being the youngest of the three partners. Howard Wallace was semiretired, Walter Gertz was more administrator than lawyer, and these days Arthur spent much of his time tag-teaming it with his young up-and-coming associate David Cavanaugh.

  Arthur was one of those rare creatures who had achieved great respect amongst his peers without ever having walked the conservative Boston legal fraternity line. He was one of the best criminal attorneys in the city, but looked more like a weather-beaten sailor fresh from a solo trip around the globe. He preferred jeans over trousers, open neck shirts over button downs and beer over bourbon. He was bright and brusque, stubborn and opinionated, and was David’s atypical rough-around-the-edges hero.

  Luckily for David, Arthur’s sometimes limited patience had stretched far enough to foster the career of the over-enthusiastic junior paralegal who had worked his way up through the ranks to become one of Arthur’s most trusted employees. David was in the process of earning a good reputation of his own as both a solid litigator and competent trial lawyer. As such, he was becoming a cash cow for the firm and a partnership was certainly not out of the question.

  David took another long swallow and jumped a little when a knock at Arthur’s door was followed by the swift, no-nonsense entrance of Arthur’s assistant, Nora.

  Nora Kelly was fifty-ish. She was sharp as a tack and spoke with the thickest Irish accent David had ever heard, or misunderstood as was more often the case. She was dedicated, hardworking and dripping with Irish wit which served to douse her prim and proper façade in just the right amount of humour.

  Today she wore her customary tweed skirt and snow white blouse, despite the fact it was Saturday and David and Arthur were dressed down in jeans and collared t’s.

  ‘Hey Nora.’

  ‘Is what horses eat lad, and would you please remove your shoes from Mr Wright’s nineteenth century mahogany table. You need to get up anyway. You have a phone call.’

  ‘I do?’ smiled David, immediately dropping his feet to the floor. ‘But no one knows I’m here, Nora. Sure you aren’t bluffing to steal a minute alone with me?’

  ‘Never in your reasonably short but unfortunate life,’ she returned. ‘C’mon then, lad, move it. The lady won’t hold forever.’

  ‘Lady hmmmm?’ Now Arthur was interested.

  ‘No accounting for taste,’ said Nora.

  Arthur and Nora had been trying for the past decade to set David up with every single, breathing female they came across. David had married his college sweetheart at nineteen, divorced at twenty-three and had spent the past twelve years buried in his work and stumbling from one non-committal relationship to the next.

  ‘Are you both finished?’ he said, signalling to Nora that he had no intention of moving to his office but would take the call on Arthur’s direct line.

  ‘You can live in hope, dear boy,’ said Nora, always needing to have the last word.

  And then David smiled, looking past her to her Screensaver which she changed daily. Without fail, it consisted of an uncannily prophetic proverb. ‘There’s always a calm before a storm,’ it read, and whilst half of him wondered why she had chosen this particular maxim today, the other had a strange feeling he was about to find out.

  ‘This is David Cavanaugh.’

  ‘Mr Cavanaugh, my name is Sara Davis and I am an attorney. I work for AACSAM.’ David knew of the AACSAM. He had done some pro bono work for them a couple of years ago. ‘I’m at Police Headquarters. I am ringing to ask your help.’

  ‘I’m listening, Ms Davis.’

  ‘Rayna Martin is my boss.’

  ‘I remember her.’

  ‘And she you. That’s why I called.’

  David had worked with Rayna on a health insurance case, something about a young kid who was being denied a pay out for kidney surgery. He remembered liking her, thinking she was gracious, and smart.

  ‘There has been an accident. And Mrs Martin is currently being questioned by the Boston PD.’

  ‘Has she been charged with something?’

  ‘No charge, at least not yet, but Rayna is anticipating a problem. You see, a teenager in her care drowned this afternoon.’

  ‘Where?’ asked David.

  ‘Essex Bay, just north of Gloucester, Cape Ann.’

  ‘But Boston have the case?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sara. ‘Apparently there were two Boston cops on the scene.’

  ‘Okay. But she’s a teenager, so she can swim right? We’re not talking a toddler here.’

  ‘There are circumstances. The girl drowned on a boating trip, a birthday party for Rayna’s daughter.’

  ‘So we’re t
alking . . .’

  ‘We’re not talking anything specific as yet. But the detectives are hovering.’

  ‘Are the police claiming Mrs Martin was negligent in her care of the girl?’

  ‘I’m not sure. It’s possible, but the girl’s father will certainly have a hand in all that.’

  This was getting more interesting by the minute.

  ‘Who is the girl, Ms Davis?’ asked David, now looking up at Arthur who was leaning forward on his desk curious as to what was going on.

  ‘Christina Haynes. Her father is Senator Rudolph Haynes.’

  David said nothing, just took it all in.

  ‘Mr Cavanaugh, are you there?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry, Miss Davis. I was just thinking.’

  ‘I know. There is a lot to think about. In any case, like I said, Rayna is asking for you.’

  ‘Ms Davis,’ said David.

  ‘It’s Sara.’

  ‘Okay, Sara, I’m gonna hang up now and walk out the door. My offices are Downtown so I can be at Roxbury in about fifteen. Tell Rayna I’m on my way and not to say anything until I get there. Tell her not to worry and that we’ll work this out.’

  David Cavanaugh pushed through the front glass doors of Boston Police Department Headquarters and looked around for anyone who may be Sara Davis. Within seconds he felt a firm tap on his shoulder and turned to see a woman standing behind him.

  Sara Davis had a slim build with long brown hair framing her narrow, high cheek-boned face. David knew this was not the time to be distracted by her mocha skin and pale blue eyes and immediately collected himself to shake her outstretched hand.

  ‘It’s nice to meet you, Mr Cavanaugh, I’m glad you’re here.’

  ‘Call me David.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She steered him towards the check-in desk before they headed towards the elevators at the end of the large, marble floored lobby.

  ‘It’s getting rather tense up there. Rayna gave an initial statement to a uniform but has since refused to talk to the detectives.’

  ‘Who are the detectives involved?’ David knew most of the plain clothes team at Headquarters.

  ‘Detectives Petri and Rico, I think.’

  ‘I know Petri,’ said David now getting a little concerned himself. ‘He’s homicide. Go on.’

  Well, there’s a certain . . . vibe.’

  ‘What vibe?’ he asked.

  ‘The one where you feel a simple matter could be on the verge of becoming something a lot more complicated.’

  ‘Sara, forgive me for asking this up front, but Rayna must know scores of lawyers, so why me?’

  Rayna remembered you from the Jamal Digby case. She admired your work.’

  ‘But I’m a criminal attorney and she hasn’t been charged with anything as yet so . . . ?’

  ‘No. Not yet, but . . . ,’ Sara stopped. ‘The police are interviewing the three girls who were also on the cruiser, they are still up at Addison Gilbert Hospital in Gloucester. Christina’s body is on its way to the ME’s office and the autopsy is being scheduled for tomorrow.’

  ‘On a Sunday? Fast work. Have they put someone in charge of the case?’ David knew some major clout was needed to organise an autopsy this early in the peace.

  ‘Yes, Lieutenant Mannix.’

  Joe Mannix was the Commander of the Homicide Unit. David knew him well, and liked him. They’d been friends for years but he was as high as you could go on the ladder of death at Boston PD. He was a good man, hardworking, loyal and more interested in solving crimes than pandering to the politics that went hand in hand with his position.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Sara, obviously noticing David’s worried expression.

  ‘Joe Mannix is head of Homicide,’ he said. ‘The DA probably asked for him personally.’

  ‘I have a bad feeling about this,’ she said.

  ‘Okay, Sara, let’s head upstairs. Mannix is a friend, and in the very least should be able to give us some indication of what the hell is going down.’

  ‘David,’ Lieutenant Joe Mannix looked up as the elevator doors opened.

  ‘Hey Joe. How’s the family?’

  ‘Good. They’re good. I was just about to come find you. Got a minute?’ asked Mannix, his head angling back towards his office as he stole a glance at Sara.

  David asked Sara to excuse him whilst he got the background from the Lieutenant. He was anxious to get the police take on all of this before he met with Rayna. Things were moving way too fast.

  Joe Mannix’s office in the new Roxbury Police Headquarters building was arranged in what could only be described as an assembly of minimalist chaos. The pale grey carpet formed a base for four walls – three glass, one solid and painted off-white, the latter of which acted as a partition between the Homicide Unit and the main corridor behind it. The glass walls were backed by Venetian blinds which ran to the floor and, judging by the dust on their slats, were set permanently at ‘open’, just like the door which, pushed back against the wall, had worn a groove in the office carpet.

  The overcrowded desk was a birch laminate with metal legs that were already scuffed with boot polish. On top was a phone, various pieces of stationery, three manila folders and a framed photograph of Joe’s wife Marie and his four sons. At the back right hand corner sat a metal basket marked ‘in’ which was overflowing with paperwork whilst the complementary ‘out’ tray was pretty much empty.

  The chair behind the desk was one of those ergonomically correct offerings, all grey and squat and uninviting. It looked newer than everything else in the room and David guessed it was because his detective friend spent more time perched on the edge of his desk than he did passing out orders from behind it. This afternoon was no exception.

  ‘Okay,’ said David, leaning his back against the front glass wall. ‘Let’s have it.’

  Mannix went through the basic story Rayna had given the police on the scene, starting with the cruiser hire and ending with their arrival back at port.

  He told David about the two Boston cops, and their water safety course, and their establishment of jurisdiction over the scene. He said Rayna gave an initial statement to Officer Tommy Wu but then refused to speak further until she saw her lawyer – David Cavanaugh.

  ‘Bet the local cops were impressed,’ said David, referring to Boston PD’s commandeering the case.

  ‘This is a sensitive situation. The media will be all over it. They were probably happy to pass.’

  ‘Sure Joe. More like you guys saw the red flag on this one, and knew the girl’s father would want it handled down here.’

  Joe hesitated.

  ‘Okay,’ said Mannix. ‘If it was accidental death, why was Mrs Martin so afraid to talk to us?’

  ‘Come on Joe. She gave Tommy the facts. After that, she was probably smart enough to realise there was no need for further explanation until she lawyered up. She’s a counsellor with solid legal training. The woman isn’t stupid, and given the girl’s parentage . . .’

  Mannix looked at David and shrugged his shoulders. They both knew how these things worked

  ‘I suppose the DA will be involved,’ said David, fishing for more information

  ‘Does a bear shit in the woods? Scaturro asked me to look after this one personally.’

  ‘But you’re Chief of Homicide, Joe, and, as you aptly pointed out, the media will be all over this one. Your involvement gives the immediate impression my client is . . .’

  ‘Look, David, no one is gunning to take this woman down. If the death was accidental, then that’s what we’ll find.’

  ‘How can it be anything but? What is she supposed to have done, held the girl under water because they ran out of party food?’

  ‘No, but she may have played favourites when it came to their rescue.’

  ‘That’s crazy. You’ve heard her story, it makes perfect sense.’

  ‘To you and me maybe, but we’re not the DA and we’re certainly not Senator Rudolph Haynes.’

  David real
ised Mannix, in his own way, was giving him a subtle warning.

  ‘What are you getting at Joe? If something is up, I deserve to know. I am the woman’s attorney after all.’

  ‘It’s the four girls,’ said Mannix lowering his voice before going on, ‘or more specifically, the three that are alive and the one that is dead. Teesha Martin, Mariah Jordan and Francie Washington, are all African-American, and Christina Haynes is . . . well, Christina Haynes was white.’

  It was almost nine by the time David got to see Rayna Martin. She sat in the corner of interview room one, the pale green cinder block walls making it feel even colder. She looked even smaller than David remembered; her normally bright eyes now red with tiredness and her neat navy dress crumpled and damp from the long day’s events. Sara was sitting by her side and a plainclothes cop stood sentry at the door.

  David knew time was running out for the police. They had to charge her with something soon or let her go home.

  ‘David, how nice of you to come,’ she managed a smile. ‘It’s been a while.’

  ‘Too long, Rayna. Given your extensive connections in the industry I have to admit I’m flattered you called, if that’s an appropriate thing to say under the circumstances.’

  ‘It is and thank you but you have to remember I’ve seen how you work, David, and to be honest, it was an easy decision to make. I’m just glad Sara found you, and that you’re here.’

  She gave a quick sideways glance towards the cop at the door and David took her cue, asking him to leave.

  After the officer had gone Rayna stood from her chair to shake David’s hand with both of her own. He noticed how cold and clammy they were.

  ‘I want to see my daughter,’ she said, her grip on him tightening.

  ‘Isn’t she back from Gloucester?’

  ‘The police keep saying the girls are resting, being treated for shock, but we get the feeling they’re stalling us,’ said Sara.

  David patted Rayna’s hands as if saying it was okay to release him, before leaving the room momentarily and returning with the news that Francie’s and Mariah’s parents had already picked up their daughters and taken them home and Teesha was on her way to Headquarters in a Gloucester PD patrol car.