by Peter Manus
“What are you thinking?” I say.
“I’m thinking that for all of his effort to play it close to the chest, Coburn can’t hide that he’s relieved that the guy’s dead. When I remarked that it must be a shame to be losing the revenue Becker pulled in, Coburn looked puzzled. You know that funny way that the English look when they pull a puzzled expression?”
“No. Show me.”
Harry ignores the invitation. “Coburn said that the firm’s distribution system is one where the lawyers eat what they kill.”
“This means…?”
“Means that if some big-money partner pulls his stakes and walks, or, you know, takes a dive off a building, the others don’t suffer the loss the way they would if everyone’s earnings went into a pot and then got redistributed. They don’t pool, if you will.”
I snort. “That’s a crock. Money coming in is good, regardless of the system.”
“True enough,” Harry agrees. “But whether or not we buy what Coburn was peddling, it came off like he had been making the rounds behind closed doors, trying to rally support among his partners to give Becker the heave. It just felt like I was getting the choice tidbits of some well-rehearsed talking points on what Becker did and did not mean for the firm.”
“Don’t know much law, but you can’t just bum-rush a partner. You gotta buy him out.”
Harry raises a finger. “Ah, but it might be less costly if the guy’s crossed the line a couple of times. Legal ethics is a big bugaboo these days, and Coburn’s been taking notes on our boy Elliot. I know this. Some things they tell without telling, you know?”
“I’m familiar. You talk to the ex?”
“That I did, for a moment or two,” he says. “Very sweet. Not altogether broken up over her ex’s death, but there’s some guilt there. She gave me her card. Maybe you’ll be the one to get back to her—she’s the liberal feminist type, so she’ll like you.”
“Where’s the guilt coming from? She dump him?”
“She did, at that. Had an affair and everything.”
I feel an eyebrow rise. “This is what ‘very sweet women’ are doing these days?”
He spreads his palms like I’ve stumped him. “You know I’m such a softie when it comes to your sex. That’s why next time it’s going to be you who talks to her.”
“So what have we got?” I rest my chin on my knees. “I’m seeing a self-styled playboy, fast approaching fifty, who strikes out with the ladies, could soon be on the outs with his law partners, and has an ex who pities him. Cripes—maybe the guy did throw himself off a building.”
“True enough,” Harry says. “True, true, true enough.”
FIVE
Marina Papanikitas’s Personal Journal
Yo, Zoey, m’sweet,
I walk in to find a mass of wholesome goodness on the kitchen counter: bunch of powdery nuts, packet of dates aged to resemble so many shrunken heads. Hey, and in the sink some veiny weeds and two dinosaur eggs. Someone’s been to the Asian market, my detective instinct tells me. Meaning someone is back at trying to pry open someone else’s mind on what constitutes elegant eats? Well, bring it, babe. Appears, however, that you have rushed off in that “forgot the effing miso paste” style of yours. This is going to be odd, but I have grown accustomed to our non-speaking mode of keeping close. So, to the journal I go, even as I await your arrival.
Picked up a puppy at the precinct, by the way. Cop named Malloy, who for some reason craves my approval. Think I might have muttered “good job” or something when he found that leopard print scarf the other night—next to useless, of course, as evidence, although now I know the lady we’re chasing wears a lot of scent—so now he keeps popping by with updates. Lab report on the drink Becker was having on that terrace before he took his fall—hey, guess what, it was whiskey. And guess what, the lipstick on the rim of the Irish coffee glass was a lady’s. That sort of stuff. I just keep telling myself that not too very long ago, that was me. The memory makes me tolerant—and super grateful to those who held their temper during my pre-homicide years.
On my way home, I drop in on Bonnie McCloud. Kind of on a whim—she’s on my to-do list, but not my commute route—but when I call from the car, she picks up and says sure, so I hit the blinker on Broadway. Lives in a pocket of Rosindale meandering toward upscale. I claim the hydrant spot—cop’s prerogative—and find her kneeling on the grey lawn with her back to me and her long skirt splayed, hair in a fat knot, poking bulbs into a bed. House is uber-gingerbread—carvey trim and crooked windows everywhere. Whimsical paint choices—talking orange, pink, yellow—my eyeballs spasm just looking at the place, even shrouded in evening light. Neighbors probably grouse, but the beige siding and chainlink most of them have gussied their places up with doesn’t exactly score them style cred.
I tread up the walk, and Bonnie turns an ear, then stands, lifting a gloved hand to wipe at her nose with the back of her wrist, her eyebrows raised politely, but her eyes prepared to say she’s not interested. Am I, like, somehow putting out a J.W. vibe these days?
I smile and pull out my badge, remind her that she met H.P. at the law firm.
“Sure, yeah, nice to meet you.” She’s got a young voice; talks kind of lispy, too. Pulls a gardening glove off to give me a firm finger squeeze. Cheeks and nose looking a little raw, but that’s from the chill air and not weeping. “Mind if I finish this up while we talk?” She sticks a finger down into a brown paper bag and takes a peek. “I’m a little late getting them in this year, and I’ve got about twelve to go.”
I seat myself on the steps as she kneels on her worn rubber pad. “Daffs?”
“Up the path. These are tulips. I do my dahlias in pots, and put them in come spring under the bay.” She rests on her haunches and laughs at herself. “We like color.”
I smile. “You wear it well.”
She looks down at her alpaca sweater and patchwork skirt and shakes her head as if just realizing what she’s got on. “It’s more Dominic than me. He sees something he thinks he’d like me in, he buys it,” she says apologetically. “And, like most men, he doesn’t think in terms of outfits. But when he designs a book cover, I’ll tell you, it sells.” She resumes digging.
“How long you two been married?”
“We’re not,” she says simply.
“Oh. Your house or his—I mean if you don’t mind my asking? I house-share, myself.”
“Same. We bought it together about two years ago.”
“Must be tricky, making a commitment after a divorce.”
She sits back, one knee up under the skirt. “It’s all tricky, is what I’m learning,” she says. “We’re thinking about tying the knot in January, though. Dominic’s got an ex, too. Fortunately, she’s in a relationship right now.”
I watch her press a bulb down. “You think Elliot was unhappy about you and Dominic?”
“Elliot wasn’t the jealous type. He wanted me to be happy.” She resumes digging.
“Think he was unhappy, generally?”
“I’m pretty sure he was, but I don’t think for a minute that he killed himself.” She seems to frown upon hearing her own words. I can’t see her face well. “Actually, I know he didn’t.”
“Got a reason you can put into words, or is it that you just know?”
She shakes her head and leans on the heel of her hand so as to deepen the hole. Her shoulders move with the work. “I don’t have to consider it,” she says. “Elliot and I were married for five years and divorced for seven. He had a lot of insecurities, but suicide wasn’t in his vocabulary. Elliot was murdered. I got the feeling that your partner knew it when I met him, and my guess is that you know it too.” She stops digging and looks up. “Don’t worry, I don’t expect you to answer that. I’m just saying that I’m relieved that you’re going at it from that angle, because I know that’s what it must have been.”
“Any insights into why he might be up on that hotel roof terrace with someone?”
She s
ighs. “I can think of a couple of reasons, but my best guess is that he was there to get laid.” She drops the trowel and sits back on her haunches, apparently having lost her taste for planting. “I don’t mean to make him out like a pick-up artist, but that was his thing, and he was kind of proud of it. I don’t think he grew up happy. When he got out of law school and put on a suit, suddenly women were very attracted to him. He ran with it.”
“Why would a woman want to kill him, though?”
“I don’t think any would, at least not because he’d dumped them. I mean, he played the field, but that wouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone he was seeing. He was open about it.”
“Surprised you, didn’t it?”
She laughs sharply as she shakes the soil off her gloves. “It didn’t, actually.” Her eyes are bright in the dusk. “Guess that’s why I let myself start up with Dominic.”
“Good enough for the gander, that sort of thing?”
“Well, no.” She scratches gently at her face, wary about the soil on her hands. “It was more that I realized that Elliot and I would eventually split. He wasn’t a guy who was going to change, no matter what he might intend.” She looks off, thinking, and I watch her squeeze her hand into a fist like she’s trying to choke off a line of memory.
I change my tone. “So, look, you said you could think of a couple of reasons that Elliot might have been up there on that roof terrace. Like what, other than going there with a woman?”
She thinks. “Actually, I don’t know what I meant by that. Just a turn of speech.”
“Care to tease it out with me? I mean, I know we’re just speculating, here, but psych games can be worthwhile. I’ve had some luck with them in the past.”
Bonnie sits back, some of her tension subsiding. This is her kind of thing. H.P. was right to want me on her. “So…what are you asking me to do?”
I lean forward, elbows on knees. “Let’s make up a story for Elliot going up to that roof terrace other than to be with a woman.”
She plays with her hair. It’s not right, she’s thinking, but she wants to. And I don’t seem like a typical flatfoot—I won’t seize on whatever she says like it’s an admission. And, of course, on some level it would be a relief if Elliot had not been killed by a spurned woman. Elliot was a dope, but she’d rather him to have died with some dignity.
Shutting up seems like the way to go, so I do that. She begins without prodding, but slowly, as if sorting her thoughts as she goes.
“Elliot was homophobic as the best of them, so all I can think is that he would be trying to work some deal. Elliot prided himself on his ability to work backroom deals.”
“Why on the roof, though?”
She shakes her head but continues. “Maybe so as to not be overheard? He’d have liked the idea that he needed to take steps to protect the confidentiality of a deal he was concocting.” She glances my way. “Ironically, he’d never shut up about one of his scores once he closed it.”
“What kind of deals are we talking about? Legal stuff?”
“Yes, of course,” she says, then pauses. “Well, at least he’d have his arguments all lined up about how whatever he was doing was technically legal.”
“Did he ever deal with criminals, to your knowledge?”
“Well, he started in defense work. I mean, you deal with criminals every day, right?”
“Sure,” I say agreeably. “But I meant more like doing legal work for mobsters.”
I’d half-expected the idea to give her pause—brash guy who thinks he can handle himself does a deal for some hoods, deal goes south, hoods react the way hoods know how—but she brushes it off without question. “Elliot wouldn’t have had any mob dealings, even legal ones. It’s just not like him. Elliot was more of a one-man show. He wouldn’t want to be beholden to any kind of boss. I mean, that was his whole problem at Richardson.”
“He had problems at the law firm?”
She glances up at me like she knows that I already know this. “He never should have joined that partnership. Elliot was meant to be solo. He said so a million times. He just couldn’t resist the prestige of an old waspy label, so he tried to play it both ways.”
“You think he could have gotten himself in trouble with his partners?”
She answers simply. “Absolutely. I don’t doubt that there was plenty of friction. Would they kill him? A bunch of lawyers?” She gives me a roll of her eyes. “Elliot may have pretended he was living a real-life Grisham novel, but I don’t think so.”
“They might give him the boot, though.”
“Fat chance.” She sits back from her work to give me all her attention. “Look, you have to remember something. Elliot was silly when it came to women and, yes, he cared too much about what strangers thought of him so he could look plenty silly there, too. It’s called narcissism. But all that didn’t mean he was stupid, by any means. Elliot could pull something off that other lawyers wouldn’t have been able to maneuver. He anticipated better than those around him. That’s why they disliked him at the firm. They could complain all they wanted about his tactics, but you can mark my word that there wouldn’t have been anything illegal or, you know, in breach of the partnership. Elliot was that cocky SOB you so wished would cross the line enough to get himself burnt, but it never quite happened.”
I dip my head. “Sounds like he could make people pretty mad.”
She laughs. “You don’t say?”
“So let me ask you this. How did Elliot afford his lifestyle?”
“Well, I’m sure he did pretty well at his practice,” she muses. Then she cocks her head. “Like, what do you mean by lifestyle?”
“Maybe you haven’t seen his condo. He only got into it last year. Beacon Street.”
“Nice?” She seems a tiny bit curious in spite of herself.
“About nine million nice. Bit showy for my taste, all that glossy mosaic tile spreading out before you, the leather ceilings, and all that glass to soak in the unobstructed view of the Charles. Still, the elevator entrance thing is cool—straight shoot up, car to bar. And car means one of those mini Ferarris everyone’s salivating over. Bar’s rocking some limited edition vodkas. All this is news to you, I’m gathering?”
She looks baffled for a moment, then affects a shrug. “We didn’t have any kind of arrangement, so it was pretty much none of my business how Elliot was doing after we split.” After a long pause, she adds, “I’m glad he was doing well financially. That would mean a lot to him. And it certainly supports my gut sense that Elliot wasn’t in a frame of mind to take his own life, right?” She’s doing a good job trying to deflect, but she can’t quite hide her shock and suspicion at how Elliot’s nest egg had exploded so much since their split.
“Look, Bonnie, my partner and I, we keep dancing around this wheeler-dealer idea because the woman angle is so bloody easy, and we hate when life’s easy. So let me ask you one more time, just for kicks, and I want you to answer without thinking. First words that come to your mind. You think it’s conceivable that Elliot could have maneuvered some backroom deal that someone just couldn’t tolerate? I mean, we all agree that Elliot had a big ego, but so do a lot of other guys who fashion themselves to be big fish. Some of those guys can’t take being beat.”
“So they’d kill the lawyer who outmaneuvered them? I mean, please.” She does answer immediately, just like I asked her to, but it’s clear she wants to quash the whole idea, and why not? One way, he’s just her lovelorn idiot ex. The other way, he’s a crook who lost his way after she abandoned him. She doesn’t like the first option, but she likes the second option less.
“Yeah, sounds stupid,” I agree. “Still, there’s lots at stake, sometimes. There’s liberty, in a plea bargain situation. Political capital, when you’re doing business with the state. And money can be more than just money if it’s old family money. Hell of a lot of toes out there waiting to be squashed by some guy who doesn’t have quite the finesse to match his chutzpah.”
&nbs
p; The sun’s gone down, so I hear more than see her gathering up her bag and trowel. “I’ve actually got a bunch of editing to get through tonight,” she says. She sounds queasy.
I stand up. “Understood.” I put out my hand. “And let me reiterate that I do get the difference between fact and speculation.”
“Yes, well,” she says, offering a weak, chilly hand. She nods, trying to convince herself that she hasn’t helped me to suspect her ex of something that could blacken his name a lot more than infidelity. “Be sure you remember that, okay?” she says.
Glancing back when I hit the sidewalk, I see her in silhouette, the cheery house behind her. Best I can make out, she’s staring after me, gripping the bag of bulbs.
I’m beginning to sense there’s more than meets the eye going on with Elliot Becker’s death, Zoey. I’m thinking that Elliot’s ex kind of senses that, too.
SIX
I am Nightingale—
You know, my friends, when first I began circling in on Elliot Becker—following the girls from his office so as to catch tidbits about him, watching his Back Bay high rise to steal a glimpse of him sliding out of the underground garage in his silver coupe, trailing him to the gourmet market, the riverside jogging paths, his private Pilates class—my intent was to be unerringly methodical about this kill, and all my kills. I would observe all simultaneously, then enter the life of each man, seriatim and without pause between, position myself for the dispatch, and execute without passion. My touchstone would be my detachment. I would play the quintessential Moreau.
This did not prove to be the case. My encounter with Elliot was eye-opening, in spite of my painstaking efforts. Certainly the man was, to all appearances, a parasite, marinated in ego, incapable of conscience or remorse, his mentality differentiable from a child’s innocent greed due only to his smug sexuality. It was on this that I focused, the last evening of his life. Still, you know, in killing Elliot Becker, I killed a child, as this was what he was in his innermost mind. There was something disquieting about it; it haunts me to this day as I observe my son, sucking esuriently at my nipple, his tiny fingers kneading the air, his infant eyes translucent with satisfaction. And back then, it made me realize that this adventure in serial killing would not be the tidy linear project I had envisioned, five chores executed domino style, five dead guys in my wake. Murder, it turns out, is emotionally complex. Who could have guessed?
