Rogue Island

by Bruce DeSilva

  59

  Getting out of my T-shirt was agony. Once I got it off, it took me five minutes to ease into my team jersey and button it up the front. By the time Veronica called, the Sox were up 1–0 in the third.

  “Hey, baby. What’s the plan for tonight?”

  “I think we’ll be staying in.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “ ’Fraid not.”

  Even talking hurt.

  “I need you to do me a favor.” I said. “Could you get us some takeout and stop off at the Walgreens on Atwells Ave. to pick up a prescription for me?”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay. I’ll fill you in when you get here.”

  Forty minutes later, she walked in carrying a sack of deli sandwiches and a little white pharmacy bag.

  “What happened to your door?”

  “Nothing to worry about. The landlord says it’ll be fixed in a couple of days.”

  “What’s wrong with you? What do you need this for?” she said, dropping the pharmacy sack beside me on the bed.

  I still didn’t want to talk about it. I tore open the bag, wrestled the childproof cap off the vial, swallowed two Oxycodone tablets, and washed them down with Killian’s.

  “You’re not supposed to take those with alcohol, baby.”

  “So they say, but in my experience they work better this way.”

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

  “The Sox just fell behind four to one, and we’re coming to bat in the top of the sixth.”

  “Mulligan!”

  She snatched the remote and turned the TV off.

  “I’ll tell you everything after the game,” I said.

  “Tell me now.” She held the remote tantalizingly out of reach.

  “Later. I can’t miss this.”

  She pouted, surrendered the remote, and plopped down beside me as I switched the TV back on. She rolled over to hug me, and I yelped.

  “Mulligan?”

  “Soon as the game ends. Eat your sandwich.”

  The Sox tied the score in the eighth, Ramirez hit a three-run shot in the top of the ninth, Papelbon did his thing, and it was over.

  “I don’t suppose I’ll be enjoying the postgame show,” I said.

  She answered by punching a button on the remote, and the screen went dark.

  “Well?”

  “Lester didn’t have his best stuff tonight, but the bullpen was great.”

  “Enough already! Tell me what happened to you.”

  So I did. I tried to put a good face on it, but it was no use. I’d been beaten up by a pygmy.

  When I finished my sad tale, Veronica struggled to suppress a giggle.

  “I thought you were going to kick his ass.”

  “I was mistaken.”

  Then she glanced at the broken door and furrowed her brow.

  “Think he’ll come back again?”

  “He won’t. He’s made his point. Besides, the manhole-covers story is running tomorrow, so he’s got nothing to gain by a return visit.”

  Veronica cradled my face in her hands and touched her lips to my forehead, each cheek, my chin. I reached to pull her to me and yelped again.

  “Maybe you could get on top,” I said. I’m nothing if not resourceful.

  “Maybe we should give it a rest for a few days.”

  A few days?

  I swallowed another Oxycodone-Killian’s cocktail and chased it with Maalox. I looked at Veronica and wondered how I’d ever ended up with a woman that beautiful. I was still thinking about that when the drug kicked in and I nodded off.

  In the morning, I woke to the sound of Veronica banging around in the kitchen. When she heard me turn on CNN, she came in with the paper and a tray laden with scrambled eggs, bacon, orange juice, and coffee. I used the juice to wash down a couple of painkillers, but they didn’t work as well without the beer chaser.

  Mason’s story about the manhole covers was splashed across page one. There was no fire news. There hadn’t been any fires since Hell Night.

  “Why do you think that is?” Veronica said.

  “There are sixty-two pissed-off DiMaggios patrolling the streets now, looking to crack a head or two. Half the population of Mount Hope is popping NoDoz and lying in wait with firearms and nervous trigger fingers. Maybe our arsonist likes living even more than he likes burning things down.”

  “Why doesn’t he just move on to another neighborhood?”

  “He seems to have a special interest in Mount Hope.”

  “Those lawyers you asked me about the other day? What was that all about?”

  “Just some names I happened to run across.”

  “They lead you anywhere?”

  “A dead end,” I lied. Given what had happened to Gloria and to Cheryl Scibelli, the less Veronica knew, the better.

  That afternoon, Veronica curled up beside me with another book by that sexy poet she’d discovered. I opened a New Yorker magazine she’d brought for me to pass the time. Seymour Hersh was at it again, exposing more details about the mishandling of the war in Iraq.

  I’d spent the last eighteen years writing about the small-time thugs and liars who ran Rogue Island. Hersh had spent the last thirty-five writing about the big-time thugs and liars who ran the country. Maybe Veronica was right. Maybe it was time for me to move on, see if I could write something that would matter.

  I thought about that. Then I thought about it some more. My marriage was over. My parents were dead. My sister was in New Hampshire. My brother was in California, and we weren’t talking anyway. Veronica was heading for Washington, and I couldn’t bear losing her. What was holding me here?

  That evening, Veronica brought up that thing called the future again.

  “Mulligan?”

  “Um?”

  “Have you called Woodward yet?”

  “This week. I promise.”

  “You really will?”

  “I really will,” I said. And this time, I meant it.

  * * *

  Wednesday morning Veronica tried to talk me into calling in sick again, then gave it up and helped me sponge off and get into my shirt. My ribs didn’t seem to hurt quite as much as they did yesterday, the Red Sox were on a winning streak, and I was on the verge of a decision about my future. If it weren’t for Gloria’s eye, Scibelli’s corpse, the cloud of suspicion over Jack, the humiliating beating I’d taken, and five consecutive nights without sex, I might have been in a good mood.

  I couldn’t find a space on the street, so I paid ten bucks to park in a mob-owned lot and walked two blocks to the paper. A couple of prowl cars were double-parked out front. As I walked up the sidewalk, their doors flew open and four uniforms climbed out.

  Two got behind me, the other two in front, blocking my way. One grabbed my arms, yanked them behind my back, and snapped handcuffs on tight. Then he shoved me against a prowl car, kicked my legs apart, patted me down, and turned my pockets inside out. My vial of painkillers clattered on the curb. The pain in my ribs felt like I’d been shotgunned.

  “You’re under arrest.”

  Yeah. I’d figured that part out.

  The only words spoken on the short drive to police headquarters were: “What’s this all about?” “Can you guys tell me what’s going on?” “What the hell am I charged with?” Maybe the authorities had found out about my parking-ticket scam and didn’t think it was funny.

  60

  Three TV news vans were double-parked in front of the station, and a welcoming committee of cameras and microphones waited on the front steps. Reporters started shouting questions the moment I was yanked from the prowl car. Logan Bedford pushed his way to the front of the pack and hollered:

  “Why did you do it?”

  Do what?

  The uniforms pulled me by the arms into the station, bulled me into an elevator, and dragged me to a second-floor interrogation room. I was in too much pain to tell them how much pain I was in. A
cop put his hands on my shoulders and shoved me down onto a straight metal chair. Then they left, slamming the door on the way out. Through a little window in the door, I could see that one of them had stayed behind to stand guard. Apparently I was an escape risk.

  By the pattern of cigarette burns on the table, I could tell this was the same room where I had told Polecki about the little thug. I’d been sitting there in handcuffs for nearly an hour, savoring the aroma of old sweat and stale cigarettes, when Polecki and Roselli walked in grinning like idiots. My ribs ached and my arms were numb from elbows to fingertips.

  “How about taking these things off?”

  “Nah,” Polecki said. “You ought to wear steel more often. Looks good on you.”

  “Yeah,” Roselli said, “and you’re gonna look even better in stripes.”

  “They don’t wear stripes at the state prison no more,” Polecki said.

  “Maybe Mulligan could be a trendsetter and bring them back,” Roselli said.

  “Are you done,” I said, “or have you got some fresh material about bending over for the soap?”

  “I’m done,” Polecki said. He turned to his dumber half. “You?”

  “I got nothin’.”

  “So, Mulligan,” Polecki said, “You doing drugs now?”

  He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a plastic evidence bag, and tossed it on the table. My vial of pills was inside.

  “Read the label, asshole. It’s a prescription.”

  “Yeah?” Polecki said. “Then you won’t mind if we call this Doctor Brian Israel, make sure it’s all on the up-and-up.”

  “This is why you dragged me in here?”

  “Oh, no,” Polecki said. “There’s more.”

  “Let me tell him,” Roselli said.

  “We’ll take turns,” Polecki said. “Why don’t you start by reading him his rights?”

  Roselli pulled a well-thumbed card from his pocket and started the spiel. Watch a few TV police dramas and you can recite Miranda backwards, but Roselli still needed that card.

  “Now, then,” Polecki said, “I’m so glad you could come in for this little chat.”

  “Yeah,” Roselli said. “Good of you to drop by.”

  “Anything you want to confess before we get started?” Polecki said.

  “Save us all a lot of time,” Roselli said.

  “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I have fornicated a thousand times since my last confession.”

  “In the old days,” Polecki said, “this would be the part where I slug you with a phone book.”

  “But we don’t do that so much anymore,” Roselli said.

  Both took a moment now to sip coffee from paper cups. They didn’t offer me any.

  “You know what a criminal profile is, Mulligan?” Polecki said.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “The FBI’s real good at them,” Roselli said. “You give them the details of a crime, and they come back with a description of the perp, right down to the size of his dick.”

  “So last week,” Polecki said, “the boys and girls at Quantico took a few hours off from chasing ragheads to work up a profile of our serial arsonist.”

  He pulled something out of his jacket pocket and slapped it on the table—a few typewritten sheets of paper stapled together. It had to be notes he’d taken talking to an agent on the phone. The bureau never puts its profiles in writing. They don’t want defense lawyers using them as exculpatory evidence if they turn out to be wrong.

  “Perhaps you’d like to look it over,” Polecki said. “Oh, wait. With your hands cuffed behind your back, how are you going to turn the pages?”

  “That is a problem,” Roselli said.

  “We could uncuff him,” Polecki said.

  “Let’s not,” Roselli said.

  “I know,” Polecki said. “Why don’t we summarize it for him?”

  “I’ll start,” Roselli said. “According to the FBI, our arsonist is in his late twenties to late thirties.”

  “You’re thirty-nine, right, Mulligan?” Polecki said.

  “He lives alone,” Roselli said.

  “Like Mulligan,” Polecki said.

  “He drives an old, beat up SUV,” Roselli said, “probably a Chevy Blazer or a Ford Bronco.”

  “Mulligan’s Bronco is a piece of shit,” Polecki said.

  “He’s in pretty good physical condition,” Roselli said.

  “Sort of like Mulligan,” Polecki said.

  “Otherwise,” Roselli said, “he wouldn’t be able to lug five-gallon gasoline cans around and slip in and out of cellar windows.”

  “But he’s got some kind of nagging illness,” Polecki said. “Didn’t we hear that Mulligan has an ulcer?”

  “The fires are meticulously planned, with little evidence left behind,” Roselli said, “so we’re looking for an organized killer with a high IQ.”

  “You’re a smart guy, right, Mulligan?” Polecki said.

  “He has an unhealthy attitude toward authority figures,” Roselli said.

  “Might even stoop to calling them names, like ‘Dumb and Dumber,’ ” Polecki said.

  “He likes to cruise around at night in his Blazer or Bronco scouting for opportunities to set more fires,” Roselli said.

  “Hey,” Polecki said. “Didn’t we hear something about Eddie pulling Mulligan over in Mount Hope late one night?”

  “After he sets the fires, he likes to stand around and watch them burn,” Roselli said. “But he’s smart, so he’ll have a plausible excuse for why he’s there.”

  “Like, say, reporting for the newspaper,” Polecki said.

  “He’ll find a way to insinuate himself into the police investigation,” Roselli said.

  “Maybe even implicate an innocent person like Wu Chiang or invent a phony suspect like a little thug to throw us off the track,” Polecki said.

  “He has difficulty maintaining relationships with the opposite sex,” Roselli said.

  “Say, how is Dorcas, anyway?” Polecki said.

  And he’s fascinated by fire, I thought, remembering a snippet from my nighttime reading. But there was no way Polecki and Roselli could know that about me.

  “And he’s fascinated by fire,” Roselli said.

  “Yeah,” Polecki said. “What was it that Dorcas told us this morning?”

  “That Mulligan is a fucking bastard.”

  “I meant the other thing.”

  “That he’s been mesmerized by fire ever since he watched the Capron Knitting Mill burn down fifteen years ago,” Roselli said.

  Thank you, Dorcas, for finding another way to punish me.

  Polecki lit a stogie with a paper match, held the flame in front of my face a moment, and then flicked it at me.

  “So, Mulligan,” he said, “does this profile sound like anyone you know?”

  “Sounds a little like you,” I said, “except for the high IQ and the part about being in shape.”

  “Maybe we’ll be needing that phone book after all,” Roselli said.

  “Come on,” I said. “You both know I didn’t do this.”

  “Mulligan,” Polecki said, “you have now idea how much I’d love to see you go down for it.”

  Dumb and Dumber made a few more empty threats, then got up and left the room. Fifteen minutes later they came back trailed by two more friendly faces. Jay Wargart, a big lug with a five o’clock shadow and fists like hams, and Sandra Freitas, a bottle blonde with rumble hips and a predatory Cameron Diaz smile. They worked homicide. What the hell did they want?

  61

  Freitas settled into the chair across from me and dropped a large manila envelope on the desk. Wargart walked around the table and stood behind me. Polecki and Roselli held up the wall near the door, the little room crowded now.

  Freitas opened the envelope and extracted three crime-scene photos.

  “She had your name and number on a phone-message slip in her pocketbook,” she said.

  I didn’t say anyth
ing.

  “Witnesses saw you knocking on her door a couple of days before she was shot.”

  I kept my mouth zipped.

  “She’d been spending a lot of time looking at property in Mount Hope lately. Did she see something she shouldn’t have? Is that why you killed her?”

  I just looked at her. I should have asked for a lawyer an hour ago, but I wanted to see if I could learn something from the questions.

  “She was shot three times with a forty-five, but of course you know that, don’t you? I’m betting ballistics will show it’s the same gun we found when we executed a search warrant on your shit hole of an apartment this morning.”

  “How much?” I said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “How much do you want to bet?”

  Wargart kicked my chair, slamming my chest into the table. I’d seen the routine before—bad cop, worse cop. The vial of pills was still on the tabletop. My ribs were pleading for them now, but I didn’t figure Dumb and Dumber and the homicide twins were going let me have any.

  They grilled me about the murder for an hour before they unhooked the cuffs and gave me my one phone call. I used it to call Jack to tell him what was going on and let him know he was off the hook, at least for now.

  “Jesus, Liam,” he said. “Is there anything I can do?” I gave him Veronica’s number and asked him to let her know why I wouldn’t be home for a day or two. There wouldn’t be enough to hold me once the ballistics report came back. At least that’s what I told myself.

  When I was done, they tossed me into a holding cell. I chatted up a couple of meth dealers and then made a study of the folk-art mural scratched into the concrete blocks. Its visceral intensity, raw energy, and undiluted emotion stood in sharp contrast to its cool interplay of realism and impressionism. Think Grandma Moses meets Ron Jeremy.

  I was dead tired. I stretched out on a hard, dirty cot, but my ribs wouldn’t let me sleep. It seemed like hours before I finally drifted off.

  * * *

  Rain pelted the courtroom windows. Gloria writhed and moaned from the witness stand: “Make it stop! Make it stop!”

  Dorcas peered down at her from the bench. “I know this is difficult for you,” she said, “but just answer the fucking questions.” Then she reached inside her black robe and pulled out a coffeemaker and a five-gallon gas can.