by Anne Emery
“Did you tell the police about these other guys?”
Drew hesitated, then said, “No.”
“How come?”
“Because I was afraid they might think I was jealous about all the times she cheated on me. They might try to pin the murder on me.”
The poor lamb, Monty thought; I’m more likely than the police to try to do that.
Chapter 15
Brennan
On Monday, January 25, 1993, Nick Stockall and Brennan Burke, dressed in hooded jackets, jeans, sneakers, and leather gloves, loitered in the late-afternoon shadows outside the apartment building in Dartmouth where Pike Podgis had taken up residence until his legal difficulties were resolved one way or the other. It had taken Brennan a few days to set up, but here he was at Podgis’s apartment building, about to break in; he was about to create another crime scene. The building had seen better days. Presumably. Some windows were taped up or supplemented by sheets of plastic, and the grounds were littered with candy wrappers and cigarette butts. Podgis had told an interviewer that he had just bought a new luxury condo in Toronto and was now forced to make monthly payments for lodgings in Nova Scotia. Monty Collins had given voice to the suspicion that Podgis for some reason actually wanted a downmarket living experience. For journalistic reasons perhaps. Or maybe to enhance his reputation as the victim of a miscarriage of justice. Well, if so, he had found what he was looking for in this place.
Stockall was a convicted housebreaker Brennan had met in his prison ministry; he was small and wiry, with a ratty-looking moustache and small, close-set eyes. He was nerved up, bouncing up and down on his toes, anxious for some action. Or maybe in need of a fix. Brennan tried to picture what he himself must look like, skulking around on someone else’s private property with his young sidekick. He did not want to think about whether he looked more sinister than idiotic, or the other way around, and he had to overcome the temptation to bolt and abandon the whole ill-conceived mission. The consequences of being caught like this were unimaginable. He was breaking the law and crossing an ethical barrier in conscripting young Stockall as his accomplice.
“Nick, you have my word that if this goes awry . . .”
“If it what?”
“If this plan goes south, I’ll take full responsibility. Your name won’t escape my lips no matter what happens. This is important, and I can’t see any other way to make sure this guy goes down for the girl’s murder. You understand.”
“I don’t give a fuck about Podgis. I say we stick it to him. I’d like to see him try to kill a guy. No way. So he kills a girl. She probably told him to go fuck himself. Put him in Dorchester; he starts running his mouth up there, he won’t last a week.”
“Thanks, Nick. I appreciate your help.” Brennan peered at the building. “He should be going out soon. I know he has an appointment.” With his lawyer. Monty had mentioned a Monday afternoon appointment.
Brennan looked about him and wondered whether he and Stockall should be doing something. Throwing a ball around would hardly do the trick, given that it would call attention to them rather than make them blend in. But maybe they should light up cigarettes, anything to look half normal. Wait! There he was. Podgis was leaving the building just as a taxi pulled up. He must have been watching for it from inside. When the car pulled away, Brennan said, “All right. Let’s go.”
There was no security, and the door to the lobby of the building was not locked during the day. Brennan had done some research and reconnaissance the day before, feeling as foolish then as he did now. He approached the building in what he hoped was a casual manner, with Stockall at his side. They headed for the stairs in preference to the elevator and nearly walked over an elderly woman in their hurry to get on the steps and out of sight. Brennan excused himself, natural manners kicking in where silence would have been advised. The woman looked up at him, frowning. Was there something in his voice that made him an object of suspicion? Someone out of place here? What was he thinking? Everything about his appearance and that of his co-conspirator was suspect. He tried to put it out of his mind as he got to the staircase and took the steps two at a time to reach his destination. The sooner this was over, the better.
Podgis’s apartment was number twenty-four, halfway down the corridor. Brennan looked around from under his hood and was strongly tempted to take it off. A gentleman removes his hat upon going indoors. He could not remember the reason, but it had been drilled into him since childhood. But a man about to break into the dwelling place of another was no gentleman. They drew up in front of the door, and once again Brennan had to wrestle down the temptation to run and abandon the whole crazy scheme.
But Stockall was already working the lock with some sort of pick and was jiggling it around. Brennan heard a creak of the floor and whipped around in the direction of the sound. Nothing. Why was he so fearful here, when he had never shown fear in the face of threats from rough characters in the streets of Dublin, New York, or Rome? He had been a scrapper when necessary in his younger years, and even in later life he was not easily intimidated. Then he got it. It wasn’t fear at all; it was shame. Because he was doing something wrong, not just illegal but wrong. Breaking into another man’s home. Wait, though; he was doing wrong in order to accomplish a greater good. He listened to himself and didn’t like it; that kind of reasoning had been used to justify everything from state terror to . . . He shut down the lecture on moral philosophy and put his mind to the task at hand, right or wrong. He had a major threshold to cross, from law-abiding citizen and — Christ! He wasn’t a citizen of this country. If he got caught, would he be deported? What had he been thinking, out of his mind with drink and plotting this criminal enterprise?
Brennan could not go through with it. “Nick,” he said sotto voce, “forget about it. This is a wacky idea, and it’s too — ”
“Hey!” Brennan heard a shout coming from the staircase, and he willed himself to stay calm. He looked around — he could not stop himself — and saw a couple of young fellows bounding down the stairs. He turned his head away. One of the guys must have shouted to his companion. They were gone.
“We’re in.” Stockall pushed open the apartment door and started into the room. Brennan grabbed his elbow and pulled him back. “Nick, thank you. Your work is done. Go on now. As far as we know, nobody has seen you here. Keep it that way. Don’t mess up your probation. I’ll take things from here.”
“Come on, Brennan, let me at this place. That motherfucker deserves it.”
“He does. But the last thing you need is another conviction on your record. Right? Walk away. And thanks.”
Stockall was reluctant, but he backed out of the doorway. “Okay, okay. Take it easy, Brennan, but take it. Whatever it is, man, get it. And you ever need to bust in anywhere again, you give me a call. Capisce?”
“Capisco. Now get going before you get spotted here.”
Stockall walked swiftly away, took the stairs, and vanished from sight.
Brennan slipped into Pike Podgis’s apartment, quietly closed and locked the door behind him, and looked around. The small living room was painted in what Brennan’s mother would have called a “bilious green.” Dusty brown curtains hung at the windows. Some of the hooks were missing, so the curtains sagged in the middle. The air was fetid, and Brennan had the impression the windows were never open. There was a brown and pinkish flower-patterned couch and matching chair, and a lounge chair in place before the enormous television that dominated the room. There was a new-looking video player beneath it. Brennan flipped through Podgis’s small collection of videos. His interests appeared to lie with crusading foreign correspondents, action heroes, and young people in peril from everything from nasty schoolmates to chainsaw-wielding Texans. He opened the cases to see if the tapes were the real thing instead of . . . what? Home movies? Amateur porn? Nothing appeared to be out of order except the man’s taste in entertainment.
One of the teen movie cases was empty; that must have been his current interest. But Brennan was not about to turn on the machine; no telling how much noise would come out of it, or what might alert Podgis to the fact that someone had used his equipment. So Brennan contented himself with reading the description of Everything’s Wrong with Evie.
It was petite, brown-haired Evie Henshaw’s first day at the big high school in town. She put on the nice new dress her mom had bought her at Wal-Mart, applied a little bit of makeup, not too much, smiled at herself nervously in the mirror, kissed mom goodbye, and before she knew it she was standing in front of her locker at Styx Valley High. And that’s when it all started to go wrong. Very wrong. Because, according to popular girl Breagh-Lee Verdell, the queen bee of the A-list clique at school, Everything’s Wrong with Evie: her face, her hair, her clothes, her mom and dad. Everything. The In Girls start to pick on Evie like wild animals on a helpless kitten. Evie goes home every night and cries herself to sleep. Until she meets Willie “Wolf” Wollmer, a personal trainer, and they start pumping iron together. And planning Evie’s Revenge. Nothing will ever be the same at Styx Valley High! Rated R for nudity and violence.
Brennan was revolted, both by the tawdriness of the subject matter and by the thought of a grown man watching such a thing. But he could hardly claim to be surprised, knowing what he knew about Podgis.
A shout in the corridor made Brennan jump and nearly drop the video case. Someone was running in the hallway. Footsteps were approaching the apartment. He held his breath and tried to figure out what he would say if Podgis came through the door.
The footsteps kept going past, and silence descended again. Brennan resumed his search.
There was a big pile of clippings about the murder case and about Podgis himself. Again, no surprise. He had saved photos of himself facing a phalanx of microphones and vowing to get to the bottom of the false and malicious charges against him. He had always been a crusader for truth, as much as that got under the skin of certain people and the powers that be, and they were out to get him now. He would never rest until the real killer was found, and if his crusade had to be conducted in a prison cell, so be it. It would take more than a miscarriage of justice to stop Pike Podgis. The sort of blather you’d expect.
The flat had a tiny galley kitchen. Brennan didn’t think he’d find much of interest there, but that’s where he headed next, for no other reason than to eliminate it from consideration. He opened the fridge, the cupboards and drawers. Nothing but a few dishes and utensils. In the sink were plates with egg yolk congealed on them, mugs with a film of milk turned sour. The less said the better about the bathroom. Brennan held his nose and cast his eye across the scummy tub and basin, the unspeakable toilet. The soap had hairs stuck to it. An oxymoron in one word; if soap be filthy, can it still be called soap? Giving thanks for the fact he was wearing gloves, he opened the medicine cabinet and examined the contents. A cup contained a toothbrush with the bristles curled outward, little gobs of dark matter stuck to them. You’d think a person could change his toothbrush once in a while and rinse it off. But that was neither here nor there. Brennan wasn’t there to find evidence to prosecute Podgis for his gross personal hygiene. One visit to the apartment would be sufficient to make such a case. But this was murder, and he soldiered on. No narcotics on the shelf, no bags of white powder.
The bedroom was cramped and stuffy, the bed unmade, the sheets dingy, an oily stain on the pillow. Brennan regarded it all with revulsion. Podgis’s squat. Squat, squalor. What was it with the sound of “squa” in English that so perfectly described the squalid? Lo squalo. The shark, in Italian. Podgis should be so lucky as to be compared with the ever-gliding predator who ruled the seas. A pike: what had Brennan heard about that? He couldn’t remember, but it wasn’t edifying; he knew that much. Nothing of the glamour of a shark. He snapped his attention back to the squat he was in and resumed his investigation. At the bottom of the bed was a suitcase with clothing spilling out of it. Brennan was loath to paw through it but he stifled his squeamishness and rummaged through the clothes. He wondered how detectives could stomach this part of the job. There was nothing in the suitcase that he would recognize as being relevant to the murder case. Same with the bureau drawers. Nothing but clothes. And a package of condoms, unopened. They’d be more use in Podgis’s back pocket, Brennan figured, where at least somebody might see the outline and think he had need of them. There was a desk made out of something that was meant to look like wood, but didn’t. There was nothing of interest on the top of it or in the drawers. What Brennan thought he would find, and didn’t, were notes made by Podgis about the murder charge. Maybe he worked on his case elsewhere. The television building? He did not seem the sort of person to leave it all up to his lawyer. Did he type notes into a computer at the newsroom? If so, whatever he had found and noted would be off limits to Brennan; he certainly couldn’t jimmy the lock and break in there.
Only the closet was left to explore. He heard a heavy step in the corridor, and a muffled voice. Was Brennan fated to be the comic figure cowering in the closet when the homeowner (or the husband) came home unexpectedly? Not hearing anything more, he pulled the closet door open and looked inside. There were a few jackets and pairs of pants on hangers. The shoulders of the jackets were sprinkled with dandruff. Revolting. Even so, he had no choice but to touch the garments with his gloved hands. He searched the pockets, found nothing but a couple of crumpled receipts and a few coins. Nothing on the floor but a pair of out-sized track shoes and a gaudy pair of very shiny cowboy boots.
There did not appear to be anything on the top shelf but he reached up and slid his gloved hand along it just in case. There was something. He made a sweep of the entire shelf and brought forward whatever was there. Folded pieces of paper. More receipts. For restaurants, bars, taxis. What was this? A scrap of paper with various times scribbled on it, and the word “Yukon.” And “Mon–Fri, 4:30.” Another paper was wrapped around something. Brennan unfolded it and found a Polaroid photograph, the kind that came straight out of the camera, so you didn’t have to take it somewhere to have it developed. It had been damaged by something, possibly water. It was rippled and discoloured on one side. Brennan took it to the window for a better look. Oh, God. A naked girl or woman, back view, shown from her thighs up to her head. She was slim and had long dark hair. She was lying on top of a man. One of his flanks was visible, and it was clear that he, too, was naked. Most of his face was covered by hers, except for his right eye and cheek. His hair was dishevelled and grey. Brennan stared at the picture, then rewrapped it and put everything back the way it had been. He gave the apartment a final glance; as far as he could tell, it looked exactly as it had looked before he searched it. The door seemed to close and lock properly. He peered around like the shifty, guilty intruder he was and left the building.
Brennan felt sick to his stomach. He knew the man in the photograph. Ignatius Boyle.
Monty
Monty was in his office going over a trial transcript for an appeal hearing later in the week when his secretary, Tina, poked her ingeniously coiffed head in his door.
“Monty, there’s a gentleman here to see you. Jason MacDonald. He doesn’t have an appointment.”
“I’ll see him. Send him in.”
A man in his early twenties appeared at the door, and Monty invited him in with a gesture towards one of the two chairs on the other side of the desk. The man had long black hair dragged back into a ponytail and a tattoo of a tarantula crawling up his left hand. He turned and closed the door, then sat down and looked at Monty without speaking.
“Mr. MacDonald? Monty Collins. What can I do for you?”
“It’s not MacDonald.”
“Oh? My secretary gave me the name Jason MacDonald.”
“Yeah. Sorry about that. It’s Jason Snider.”
It took a second for Monty to register the name. He sat forward
in his chair. “You mean you’re — ”
“Yeah, Jordyn’s brother.”
“I see. How can I help you?”
“I heard you been out looking for information.”
“Well, yes, part of the job.”
“I’ve got something for you.” He reached inside his jacket. Monty tensed and considered his options for movement if the murder victim’s brother were to pull out a gun.
But it was a manila envelope, which he placed on the desk and pushed towards Monty. “This is something you should see.”
Monty picked up the envelope and drew out the contents. A bunch of papers held together by a butterfly clip. Each page had been cut or torn along the top and the bottom.
“Go ahead. Read a couple. I got time.”
Baby,
You have to be strong. We both do, till I can get out and we can be together. Because it was meant to be. You and me. There’s a whole lot of people out there that will do anything in their power to keep us apart. Any chance they have, they’ll put me down. Try to turn you against me. Saying this one or that one was an “innocent victim.” That’s just words. Innocent victims are people who don’t deserve what happened to them. Like getting run over by a bus or by some idiot who got his licence out of a corn flakes box. People who deserve what they get, who ask for it and act like whores and finally somebody gives them what they want and then all of a sudden they’re “no, no, no,” people like that are not “innocent victims.” So don’t listen to all these lies and negative stuff they’re saying. Because you know how I feel. I would never “hurt” you, because you would never “hurt” me. And you know that everything that happened was meant to be. Because it brought you to me!! So you be my good little girl and don’t do anything to make my life in here any harder than it is. Remember: you’re not the only one who’s alone. I’m alone. In a cell. All night and most of the day. So it’s only fair that you’re alone too. Yes? But don’t worry. We’ll be together. No matter what they try to do to keep us apart!!
