All in One Piece

by Cecelia Tishy

  “You sure you’re fit to work?”

  “Anything to get my mind off homicide for a little while.”

  “Something I learned in my fifteen years as a caseworker, Reggie: you better face your trouble, or it comes back to bite you hard.” Nicole appraises my outfit, a taupe two-piece. “I knew you weren’t feelin’ good the minute you walked in. You got on those fog colors.”

  I flush. This is about my wardrobe. As Gina and as Mrs. Martin Baynes, you see, I long favored tasteful neutrals and pastels. This knowledge was eagerly sought at StyleSmart, or so my aunt told me in her last weeks when she summoned the strength to put me in touch with Nicole Patrick, who in turn flattered and cajoled me into coming to work for her. My job was to create office-ready ensembles for the entry-level women. So I’m second-in-command, but there’s a twist.

  “Reggie, before you’re through today, let’s do a little something for your color palette.”

  “Operation Peacock Reggie?”

  She nods and points to a candy bowl. “Colors like those Jelly Bellies.”

  That’s the twist, the nub of things: Nicole Patrick has taken charge of my makeover. I’m her coworker, but also, like the welfare women, I’m her client.

  “So meanwhile, Reggie, here’s today’s project. I’m thinking the store needs a supersize section for our full-figure ladies, but something with a nice name, maybe Boutique Royale. Let’s look over here.” She leads me past racks of suits and jackets to a corner of the store beside the fitting rooms. “Right here, let’s create a special spot, put in a few racks with the nicest big clothes. And I got a trick up my sleeve: we’ll cut out the size tags. Nobody will feel like they’re getting on a scale.”

  “How will they know what size?”

  “Just hold ’em up and try ’em on, like we all do. With sizes as crazy as they are, why not?”

  “Nicole, it’s a great idea. Terrific.” So I spend nearly two hours snipping out size tags while Nicole arranges the racks and waits on customers, one woman hoping to pass a word-processing test, another training for restaurant hostessing. Nicole calls me, allegedly to consult. “Miss Reggie, how about this emerald green? Fabulous with Keesha’s skin tone, don’t you think?” Yes, I think. “And the sunflower yellow?” Absolutely. She winks to let me know this is a sly stealth exercise for Peacock moi.

  At last we take a break back at the nook, and she refills the teacups. “Nicole, it’s been great to play with scissors all morning, nothing but tags on my mind. It’s a relief.”

  “Reggie, that poor young man killed right over top of you. You are sorely tested in these times. And him so close to Jo.”

  “Close? What did you say?”

  “Oh mercy yes, to hear Jo tell it, he was a son to her.”

  “A son? Steven Damelin? They were that close?”

  “Or maybe she meant sunshine.”

  I nearly choke. “What did Jo say?” It’s against my grain to allow long pauses. It seems antisocial. But Nicole won’t be hurried. It’s a long shot, but I ask, “I hear Steven traveled. Maybe his trips involved his special deal with Jo?”

  Nicole adjusts her bracelets. “At least one of them did.”

  “Which one? Where did he go?”

  Nicole raises her cup, eyes me. “Reggie, I don’t know what the two of them were up to. But Jo said Steven took special trips to fire up something they were working on.”

  “And when was that?”

  “Over a year ago. I was taking inventory, so it was probably March.”

  “Was it something financial?”

  She crosses her legs. “Reggie, let me tell you something. This part of Boston’s my home, and over my lifetime they’ve called Roxbury a slum, a ghetto, a hood, a community. One name after another, all meaning pretty much the same thing.”

  Time out for this lesson in urban geography.

  “I taught second grade, and then I was a caseworker for fourteen years. Fourteen years. You see things from the inside. Every kind of trouble, it’s all right there—drugs, drink, babies born to babies, guns, gangs, everything. I was in and out of the triple-deckers, and believe you me, I saw it all.”

  “Nicole, if you could just tell me—”

  But she’s bent on her social studies lesson. “You know, Reggie, the way folks think not-for-profit means free. You know how much fund-raising we have to do. These days a hundred good causes are chasing the same dollar, and that’s a fact.”

  I nod. “Nicole, I appreciate that, but what does it have to do with Jo and Steven’s deal?”

  She hesitates. “Well, I can tell you this. Jo promised that once the deal went through, StyleSmart would never ever have to worry about rent.”

  “Once it went through? She didn’t say if?”

  “She said if we needed a bigger store, she could make it happen. That was her promise.” Nicole shakes her head. “But, honey, I don’t believe I know another thing to tell you. Wish I did. Love to help you out. Now, how ’bout that welder?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  It’s midafternoon, 3:22, and I’m parking at the Apollo Club in a seedy warehouse district where buildings are gutted and debris thunders down chutes into Dumpsters. Call this an in-person mail screening for Maglia.

  Inside the steel door, I’m expecting replicas of the museums’ classic torsos, doubtless the club’s theme. Maybe they’ve fixed the broken noses, replaced the arms and legs snapped off by antiquity’s vandals.

  Surprise… the softly lighted interior features a backlighted water wall and stone garden ornaments. A bossa nova sound track highlights flute and mandolins. But there’s not a plaster Apollo in sight. On the contrary, the place looks ready for Architectural Digest.

  At the bar, three young men in sportswear sit over mixed drinks in oversize stemware. To the left are high-backed booths. The bartender has buzz-cut hair and a diamond stud in the left earlobe.

  Is he Matt?

  No, he’s Sandy. Matt, he tells me, is in the fourth booth back. Past three empty booths, I find a frizzy-haired man who stares at the screen of an open laptop surrounded by paperwork. Are those spreadsheets? Maybe he’s the club’s accountant, this man in a dark silk shirt and jeans. Entrenched, he defies interruption. “Excuse me, are you Matt?”

  “I am Matthew Kitchel.” At last, he looks up, his mouth in a pout, eyes wary.

  “I’m Reggie Cutter. May I speak with you for a moment?” He takes my hand as though it’s roadkill. It’s totally clear I’m in a gay men’s club, and therefore that Steven— “I’m here about Steven Damelin. You know him?” Barest nod. “Perhaps you know that he was killed?”

  “Everybody knows.”

  “He was my upstairs tenant on Barlow Square. I… I discovered his body the morning after he died.”

  He sucks in his cheeks. “I suppose you want to sit down.”

  This is as close to an invitation as I’ll get, so I slide into the booth. “I’m here because of a card you sent Steven from the club. I’m gathering his mail, mostly junk. But the Apollo card had your signature. I thought maybe you could tell me something about him.”

  “Like what?”

  “About his family or friends. I’ll need to dispose of his furniture.”

  “Try Goodwill? Or eBay.”

  “Surely his friends and relatives would like the chance to have his things.”

  He closes the laptop and turns the papers facedown. “Ask the cops. Ask the personnel department where he worked.”

  “Corsair Financial? I’ll call, of course. But your card seemed personal. Look, Matthew, a woman in a gay men’s club . . . I’m only trying to do the right thing. I admit that I expected plaster Greek statues.”

  His laugh is surprisingly rich. “Well, Apollo’s a kind of joke. It’s from the first name of one of the owners, Paolo. Paolo Gigliarro. You expected the gay stereotype, right?”

  Needle, needle. “Actually the club’s postcard threw me off… the illustration.”

  “It’s a mailing we prepare
d two weeks ago, snail mail. And so you found our card among Steve’s things.”

  Which implies that I snoop. He flicks his thumbnail against his front teeth. An Italian insult? “Steven told me he’s from an old Boston mill town,” I say. He nods but says nothing. “There must be several old mill towns around the city. Perhaps Lowell?” He doesn’t respond. “Maybe his family lives there?”

  “Maybe.” Here comes the bartender, Sandy of the diamond stud. Matthew orders his “usual.”

  I say, “Nothing for me, thanks,” and feel at a loss. “So you can’t suggest friends? Or family?”

  “You should ask the cops about family. About friends, the word is won’t. You heard me, won’t.” The moment hangs. Sandy returns with mineral water and a bowl of wasabi peas. Matthew says, “Let’s be honest—if a gay guy gets murdered, the cops are ready to pin it on any gay man who ever dated him. Or didn’t.”

  “You’re implying that anyone who takes his furniture—”

  “Is a suspect. You’re a real bright lady.” He taps his temple, drinks, and crunches peas.

  I’m thinking of the leather strips fastened to Steven’s wrists. Sex strips? Bondage? “But he knew people here at the club?”

  He tosses down a few peas. “You want to know who killed Steve? A thousand to one, it’s that kid.”

  “The boy Steven mentored? Luis?”

  “Everybody said that kid ought to be locked up in a psycho ward. Or deported. Nobody’d go near Steve when he was around.”

  “Because he’s violent.”

  “Better a pet tiger than that kid. Steve was a sucker.”

  “If he’s that violent, why did Steven—?”

  “Pure pity, that’s why. The kid has no father, mother’s a wage slave, cleans toilets. They’re from Guatemala, maybe Ecuador, one of those hellholes. Steve felt sorry.” Matt looks hard at me. “It doesn’t take Freud to know Steve was trying to fix his own life, a guy from that shithole—”

  “Guatemala?”

  “Lawrence, Massachusetts.”

  “Steven’s hometown?”

  “Anus of America. It was a mismatch all along. Steve dragged him to the art museum. The kid wanted to go to serial killer movies.”

  “But that doesn’t mean this boy killed Steven. Why would he?”

  “To get the golden goose—to rob him blind. We begged Steve not to let that Bigfoot into his apartment.”

  “Luis was in the apartment that night?”

  “Are two and two four? Of course, he must have been there. Steve tried to civilize him, invited him up for dinners. He’s a big lumbering hulk, hands like catcher’s mitts. It was just too damn risky.”

  “But robbery isn’t suspected.”

  “Not yet, you mean. Listen to me—” He leans forward, focused. “Here’s what happened. The kid demanded money, Steve said no way, and the kid went berserk. Maybe he didn’t plan to, but when he heard no, he flipped. That’s what happened.”

  “Matt, what’s Luis’s last name?”

  “How the hell should I know?”

  “Do you have his address?”

  “Are you crazy? Didn’t you listen to me? They live all over the city. They’re everywhere.”

  “But the police—”

  “Fuck the police. They don’t want the truth, they want one of us. They’re phobic fucks, and they don’t care.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Three Damelins are listed in Lawrence, Massachusetts, starting with a soft-spoken woman who doesn’t know Steven but thinks genealogy might be fun, then a teen who asks, did she win some kind of prize? Number three is a raspy male voice recording that growls, “Leave a message.” I do, assuming that Detective Maglia has already covered this ground. Family members could be potential suspects, and police interviews double as interrogations. Maglia and Devaney will tell me little or nothing.

  Though I left a message informing him of my visit, Maglia hasn’t called me for a report on the Apollo Club. Nor have I called the welder about window bars. Nor have I ventured upstairs, not even to inspect Right True Clean’s work. To face that apartment alone… tomorrow, I tell myself, tomorrow for sure. A tuna salad and pear make do for dinner, and I take Biscuit out before dusk, lock every lock when we return, and then hack away at the Chinatown pineapple, which gives the kitchen a pleasant fragrance but makes me feel stupid, as if the bloody door is a vile joke. The markings and fruit make no sense. No one returns my call from Lawrence.

  It’s early evening, just after seven, and I’m in the front room scanning Jo’s books for something light to read when my eye is drawn to the top shelf with the green bottle. This is no time to start dusting, but the bottle naturally reminds me of Steven and of my aunt. It’s a pale green, and it sits between a wood carving and a bronze figurine, all formerly Jo’s, all up high. On impulse, I climb on a chair, take the bottle down, dust it off, hold it under a lamp.

  It’s a stout and sturdy whiskey bottle, and the bubbles and waves in the glass mean it’s quite old. The neck is long enough to grasp, and it tapers from broad shoulders like the body of a sentinel. “QUART,” it announces in embossed glass capital letters, though there’s no sign of a glue-on label. The glass itself is molded with a brand medallion: “Blanchard & Farrar, Dock Square, Boston.” I can imagine it corked and filled with whiskey. It looks, actually, like a bottle in a saloon from the movies. Steven called it a boyhood household item, not an heirloom. Presumably his family did not cherish it, though I could be wrong about that.

  Did he give it to Jo to cement their “deal”? Did he request the bottle from his family, or snatch it as his due? Of course, Jo welcomed the gift. That was her nature. I can picture her here in this room exclaiming with delight. Was it startling when the gift channeled an otherworldly scene as she held it? Steven was emphatic about Jo’s psychic vision when she grasped it. She heard yelling and something about a skull. Something positive too. What? My memory’s hazy, I was so rattled by my hit-and-run.

  The Blanchard & Farrar QUART needs a quick wash. In the kitchen, a squirt of detergent and warm water, and I’m soon drying the glass, which shines brightly. I’ve rehung the towel and grasped the bottle in both hands when a low grumbly hum begins. It’s like an electric light before the bulb blows. No, not quite that. It’s changing, getting louder.

  I look around, still gripping the bottle. My kitchen lights glow steadily. Now the sound is guttural, the volume swelling. It’s discordant, a cacophony of several sounds. They pour out and gather in and around the mouth of the bottle. Voices . . . yes, the swelling sounds are human voices caught up in argument. They’re knotted in arguments, disturbed, frightened too. Yes, I sense fear. It’s dark and cold, but the voices are heated—though not English. It’s another language… Slavic? I see whiskers and smooth skin, men and babushkas. Children cry.

  Another sense of things is also present, mixed in with fear. It’s a certain energy. It’s positive. It’s forward, upward. It wants to lift. It wants to take flight.

  Then a sharp crack. My head, my skull, as if I myself am targeted with a blow. My knees start to buckle. It’s glass on bone. I’m stunned, holding the very bottle that’s struck the blow. “Ouch.”

  Biscuit whines and jumps against my leg. I put the bottle down and stand back. She barks as if to drive away intruders, then snarls as if she, too, enters into those arguments. “Biscuit, quiet down, girl. Shhh, quiet now.” I pick her up, smooth her fur. We soothe one another for long moments, and I gradually comprehend what has happened. I have entered into the vision that Jo experienced when she held this very bottle. From aunt to niece, the vision is essentially the same.

  Did Jo translate it? Did it teach her? Did she learn? Or did it puzzle her as it baffles me? How did she manage to put it up on the living room shelf? Did she endure the voices and risk another crack on the head as she teetered on a stool or chair? Maybe Steven shelved it for her.

  But Steven is dead. And Jo is dead. I’m on my own. Facing practicality, I quickly wrap the towe
l around the glass to avoid touching it directly. “Biscuit, sit down, girl. Sit.” I then stand on the chair and put the Blanchard & Farrar QUART right back on the highest shelf, out of range.

  But not out of sight. Back down, I touch my head. It hurts. It’s sore in two places. First a log, now a bottle. What next? Steven is dead, my formerly bloody door mocked by pineapple, Maglia silent, Frank Devaney incommunicado, and I’m under assault by my precious gift of a sixth sense. Swathed in self-pity, I grab a book and pray eventually to be lulled to sleep this Thursday night by the roar of a Harley motorcycle.

  It’s Friday, 9:00 a.m. I’m in a gabardine skirt and jacket and nearing All Souls Church, a few blocks from Tremont. The temperature’s dropped again, down to the low forties. The air is clear and the sky a bright blue as I enter a church that smells of stone and burned candles. Rev. Gail Welch sits at a broad desk in her office off the vaulted sanctuary. Her handshake is firm and fast as I introduce myself and apologize for not phoning ahead.

  “No problem. What can I do for you?” Close-set brown eyes survey me at a glance. Wearing slacks with a shirt and twill blazer, Rev. Welch is trim verging on spare. A clerical robe on a peg by the door is the sole sign of Gail Welch’s calling. She motions me to a chair by a stack of hymnals, Bartlett’s quotations, and a book on roofing. Following my gaze, she says, “We’re in a century-old church with a slate roof that’s falling apart. Some challenges aren’t covered in divinity school, such as keeping the congregation dry on Sunday mornings in rain and snow.” She gives me a quick scrutiny. “So you’re Jo Cutter’s niece?”

  “Yes. Her Barlow Square town house has been my home since last winter.”

  “Well, then, how’s it feel living in a saint’s shrine?”

  Instantly speechless, I find myself laughing hard for the first time in days. Gail Welch’s smile is sardonic. “Your aunt was a treasure, and we all miss her. But everybody’s life must go on in their own terms. Jo’d be the first to understand and approve.” The minister gives me a searching gaze. “Sometimes life can feel like chaos theory in action, Reggie. I won’t be coy. News of the murder is all over the South End. Doesn’t the worst news always travel fastest?”