Outwitting Trolls

by William G. Tapply

  “The Beverly Suites don’t have security cameras in the corridors?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “They got ’em in the elevators, but not the corridors.”

  “This guy,” I said, “when I chased him, he went down the stairs.”

  “He probably came up the stairs, too,” he said, “because we looked at the elevator tapes and couldn’t find him. The way he kept that hood over his face, I’d guess he was aware of the cameras, avoiding them when he could, covering his face the rest of the time. Those shots you just saw are all we got.”

  “Trying to avoid cameras,” I said, “would suggest that he was up to no good.”

  “Ha,” said Horowitz. “No good, as in stabbing a veterinarian in the heart in his hotel room, you mean.”

  “That would qualify as no good,” I said.

  Sixteen

  When I got back from Horowitz’s office, I made myself two fried-egg sandwiches, with mayo on Cuban bread, and ate them at the kitchen table with a glass of orange juice. Under the table, Henry’s tags clanged against his metal dish as he gobbled his Alpo. The Red Sox were playing the Blue Jays on my little kitchen TV. There was no score in the fourth inning, and nothing was happening. Mostly easy grounders and routine fly balls.

  After I rinsed my plate and glass and stowed them in the dishwasher, Henry and I went into my downstairs office. He curled up on his dog bed for his after-supper nap, and I called Sharon Nichols at her condo in Acton.

  When she answered, I said, “How are you?”

  She hesitated, then said, “Oh, I’m all right, I guess.”

  “Tell me the truth,” I said.

  “The truth, huh.”

  “I’m your lawyer,” I said. “You must always tell me the truth.”

  “Well, okay. The truth? Lousy, is how I am.” She blew out a quick, cynical laugh. “I’m not sleeping. I lie awake. I toss and turn. My mind whirls around. Weird images, dark thoughts. Terrifying, sometimes. When I finally do drift off, I dream about violence and death. I wake up in the darkness and can’t go back to sleep. I can’t control my bad thoughts. It’s like suddenly I can’t take anything for granted. I doubt everything. The world is undependable. Out of control. Bad things can happen to anyone anytime, and I lie there thinking of all the possible bad things, and how I can’t prevent them. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Yes, I understand,” I said.

  “When I’m up and around,” she said, “during the day, it’s like this cloud of gloom surrounds me. I’m jumpy and irritable. Today a customer dropped her car keys on the floor, and I screamed and just about hit the ceiling.” She hesitated. “This is to be expected, right? I mean, aren’t these feelings pretty much normal for somebody who a few days ago discovered the bloody corpse of the man she was married to for many years, the man she was maybe falling in love with all over again? Not even to mention, someone who the police think did it?”

  “What you’re feeling might be expected,” I said, “but it’s not healthy, and it’s not normal. You need to deal with it. Do you remember I mentioned my friend the homicide counselor to you?”

  “A shrink, right?” asked Sharon.

  “She’s a psychologist,” I said. “She specializes in helping the friends and relatives of homicide victims deal with their feelings. She says people like you are also the victims of homicide, just as much as the person who got murdered. Her name is Tally Whyte, and I’d like to arrange an appointment for you with her. Okay?”

  “I don’t feel like having to explain myself to anybody,” Sharon said.

  “You wouldn’t have to explain anything to Tally,” I said. “She understands all about it. Her own father was murdered. She has people who keep going back to her, years after the murder occurred.”

  Sharon was silent for a minute. Then she said, “I don’t know. It seems too hard. What I really want is not to have to think about it.”

  “It’s not going to go away,” I said.

  “I know,” she said. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll give it a try. I’ve got to do something.”

  “I’ll call Tally now,” I said. “I’ll get right back to you. Okay?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Okay. Thank you.”

  “Before you hang up,” I said. “I left you a voice mail message yesterday asking about a man named Clem. Somebody Ken knew.”

  “You asked me that before,” she said. “It still doesn’t ring any bells. I’d’ve called you if I thought of anything.”

  “Could be a nickname or something.”

  “I’m sorry, Brady.”

  “He might be the one who killed Ken.”

  “I understand,” she said. “I’m drawing a blank. I’ll keep thinking about it, okay?”

  “Sure,” I said, “that’s fine.”

  The instant Sharon and I disconnected, I realized I’d neglected to tell her about seeing Wayne. One of my shrink friends would find some kind of vast significance in that, no doubt.

  Well, I’d tell her about it when I called her back.

  Over the past few years I had introduced several of my clients, people who’d brushed up against murder, to Tally Whyte, and they all told me that she’d helped them deal with, and in some cases get rid of, their fears and guilt, their dark, oppressive thoughts and feelings.

  Tally had given me her home and cell numbers. I’d written them down in my old-fashioned little black address book. I tried her at home.

  She picked up the phone on the fourth ring. “Friend or foe?” she asked.

  “Friend, definitely,” I said. “It’s Brady Coyne.”

  “Yep,” she said. “Friend. My favorite lawyer. If I ever get divorced, you’re my man. Of course, I’ll have to get married first. How have you been?”

  “Oh, I’ve been fine,” I said, “but—”

  “You’ve got a client, huh? Friend, relative of a homicide victim?”

  “Right,” I said. “She needs you.”

  Tally was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “The veterinarian in the hotel?”

  “That’s the one,” I said. “His ex-wife.”

  “I’ve heard about this case,” Tally said. “She’s a suspect, isn’t she?”

  “Sharon is her name,” I said. “Sharon Nichols. She found the body. Two stab wounds, abdomen and heart. They haven’t eliminated her from their list of suspects.”

  “Did she agree to see me?”

  “Yes,” I said. “She’s not doing very well. She knows she needs help. I was thinking, if she’s willing to talk to you…”

  She hesitated, then said, “What do you think? If she’s willing to see me, it means she’s innocent?”

  “That occurred to me, yes.”

  “It doesn’t work that way, Brady,” she said. “You’re really not that confident about her innocence, are you?”

  “I don’t know, Tal. I don’t think she did it, but I guess I’ve still got some doubts. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’m her lawyer.”

  “I can’t help you there,” she said. “My clients have the same confidentiality protection as yours, you know. Anyhow, sure, I’d be happy to see her. We should do it soon. With these things, time is of the essence. How’s tomorrow morning? Say around eleven?”

  “Let’s make it a date,” I said. “I’ll call Sharon right now, and if tomorrow at eleven won’t work for her, I’ll get back to you. Otherwise, I’ll bring her to your office.”

  “I’ll be waiting in the lobby for you,” she said. “It’ll be nice to see you again.”

  When I called Sharon back and told her that I’d set up an appointment for her at eleven the next morning, she said, “Boy, you did that fast. Before I could change my mind and chicken out, right?”

  “I think it’s important,” I said. “Can you come to my office? I’ll take you over there, introduce you.”

  “I’m a big girl,” Sharon said. “You don’t need to hold my hand.”

  “I’d like to,” I said.

  She laughed. “A woman would be a fool to r
efuse an offer like that. I’ll take the morning off and be at your office—when? Ten?”

  “Ten or ten thirty,” I said. “Tally’s office is on Albany Street, a five-minute cab ride from Copley Square.”

  “This is all way above the call of duty, Brady,” she said. “I do appreciate it.”

  I cleared my throat. “I saw Wayne today.”

  Sharon blew out a quick breath. It hissed in the phone. “Really,” she finally said. “Why didn’t you tell me this when we talked before?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I was focused on getting you together with Tally.”

  “Is he all right?”

  “Yes, he’s okay. I told him what happened to Ken.”

  She said nothing.

  “He’s dropped out of school,” I said. “He’s living in a little house on the outskirts of Websterville. He seems to be…he’s okay.” I wasn’t going to tell her that Wayne fled in his car when I knocked on his door, or that when he came back, he pointed a pistol at me.

  “So what’s he doing?”

  “For work, you mean? I don’t know.”

  “Back to the drugs, huh?”

  “What about drugs?”

  I heard Sharon blow out a breath. “He got busted for selling drugs when he was in high school. He was on probation for eighteen months. This was a few years after Ken and I split. We blamed ourselves.”

  I remembered the shiny Navigator that pulled up in front of Wayne’s house, and the parties at Wayne’s house, and the ketamine in Ken’s hotel room. Obvious connections. “I don’t know if he’s into drugs or not” was what I said to Sharon.

  “Did you tell him I’ve been trying to reach him?”

  “Yes. He got your messages. He doesn’t want to talk to you. I’m sorry.”

  “No,” she said. “I knew that. I just don’t understand why.”

  “I think Wayne has a lot of complicated feelings about both of you,” I said. “You and Ken, I mean, and your divorce, and the reasons for it, or what he imagines the reasons were.”

  “What reasons?” she asked.

  “He thinks Ken was abusive to you.”

  “Abusive?”

  “Mentally,” I said. “Emotionally.”

  Sharon chuckled. “Aren’t we all? I mean, isn’t that one of the usual dynamics in a marriage? A certain degree of—I don’t know what to call it—psychological abuse, I suppose, going in both directions? Both partners sometimes wanting to hurt each other?”

  I thought of my marriage with Gloria. It was the only marriage I’d experienced. All the others I had just observed.

  I didn’t think abusiveness was a factor in our marriage, or in our divorce. Maybe I was remembering it selectively.

  “I guess it’s not uncommon,” I said. “In failed marriages, anyway.”

  “Kids misinterpret what they see and hear,” said Sharon. “Ken and I had our problems, obviously. There was a lot of conflict and tension, no doubt about it. I mean, we did get divorced. I can see how Wayne would think that Ken was abusive to me.” She paused. “I suppose, in a way, he was. And I was probably abusive to him, too. I mean, one of the reasons I wanted to get divorced was to separate that stuff from the kids’ lives before it scarred them.” She blew out a breath. “Sounds like we were too late. Something else to feel guilty about, huh?”

  “It’s something else you can talk about with Tally,” I said.

  “That’s not really connected to Ken’s murder.”

  “In your head,” I said, “everything’s connected.”

  “You’re right about that,” she said. “I can’t tell you how it feels, having a child who refuses to speak to me.”

  “I can imagine,” I said. I was thinking of Billy. “Anyway, you’ve got Ellen.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Thank God for Ellen. She keeps me almost sane. Well, Brady Coyne. Thank you for all of this. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Get some sleep.”

  “Ha,” she said.

  I was in bed with my shoulders propped up against my pillows and my tattered copy of my bedtime book, Moby-Dick, resting on my lap. Melville, digressing again, had devoted an entire chapter to the subject of the tail of the sperm whale. He had a great deal to say about the power and size and functions of this part of the whale’s anatomy, some of it marginally interesting, and after several thousands of words, he wrote, “The more I consider this mighty tail, the more do I deplore my inability to express it.”

  That’s how I feel about it, too, I thought.

  Then the phone on my bedside table rang.

  I shut the book, picked up the phone, and said, “Hey.”

  “Hey, yourself,” said Alex. “Reading Moby-Dick?”

  “It’s scary,” I said, “how you know things like that.”

  “I do know a lot,” she said.

  “You know way too much.”

  “Do I threaten you?”

  “Only in the most interesting ways.”

  “Ho, ho,” she said.

  “Did you have a good day?”

  “I spent all day trying to write,” said Alex.

  “That’s what writers do, isn’t it?”

  “Some writers actually do write.”

  “You saying you had a bad day at the keyboard?”

  “I’m saying I had a typical day,” she said. “Maybe something salvageable came out of it. I’ll have a better idea when I look at it tomorrow. Right now, it feels like I wrote nothing but crap. How about you? What’d you do today?”

  “I had some minor adventures,” I said.

  “Your cases.”

  “Yes.”

  “Which you can’t talk about.”

  “Right,” I said. “Sorry.”

  “That’s all right,” she said. “I’m used to it. Probably boring anyway.”

  “Oh, definitely boring. Billy and Gwen are coming for supper on Saturday, by the way. I hope that’s okay.”

  “It’s great,” she said. “It’ll be nice to see your Billy again. He was just a kid last time I saw him. So what do you think? Is Gwen his girlfriend?”

  “You’ll see for yourself. Then you can tell me. We’ll have pizza and beer.”

  “I love pizza and beer. Sausage. Mushrooms.” I heard her yawn. “Sleepy Alex,” she murmured. “I just called to say good night to my honey.”

  “Good night, babe.”

  “Sleep tight, swee’ie.”

  “See you Friday, huh?” I asked.

  “Before you know it, darlin’. Mmm. Hug and kiss, ’kay?”

  “Back atcha,” I said.

  Seventeen

  Julie buzzed me on my office console a little before ten thirty on Thursday morning. “Your appointment is here,” she said.

  “Sharon Nichols?”

  “Correct.”

  I hired Julie when I opened my law practice. She was my first and only secretary. Much of the communication that passed between us was unspoken. We read each other closely and accurately—tone, inflection, body language. No words needed.

  “Why don’t you like her?” I asked into the phone. “Or can’t you talk?”

  “That’s right,” she said. “She just arrived, and she’s standing right here.”

  “She’s my client, for God’s sake,” I said. “I’m not dating her.”

  “I’ve heard that before.”

  I found myself smiling. “Just bring her in, will you?”

  “Certainly, sir.”

  Oh-oh. When Julie called me sir, it meant she was upset—and when Julie was upset, I had learned, it was a sound policy to try to figure out why and then do something about it.

  When she opened my office door and held it for Sharon, I understood. Sharon was wearing a narrow black skirt that stopped just above her pretty knees, with an off-white linen jacket over a tight-fitting red sweater that left little about her upper body to the imagination. Some tricky makeup emphasized her big eyes and good cheekbones and expressive mouth.

  Julie, I guessed
, thought Sharon looked slutty and dangerous, but that was Julie. I thought Sharon looked classy, in fact, and quite beautiful, although behind her eyes and around the corners of her mouth I saw tension and sadness and fatigue.

  Julie, ever protective of my current relationship, in the present case with Alex, assumed that Sharon had dressed for my benefit.

  I stood up, came around from behind my desk, and held out my hand to Sharon, who gave me a quick, knowing little smile and a hearty, formal handshake.

  “Would you like coffee?” Julie asked.

  “No, thank you,” I said. “We’ll be leaving in a minute.”

  “As you wish,” said Julie.

  After Julie closed the door, Sharon sat in one of my client chairs, and I resumed my seat behind my desk.

  “She doesn’t like me,” Sharon said.

  “She thinks you’ve got designs on me,” I said.

  “Oh, dear.”

  “Don’t worry about Julie,” I said. “She thinks every attractive woman is a threat to my virtue. Take it as a compliment.” I looked at my watch. “It’s a fifteen-minute walk or a five-minute cab ride to Tally’s office over on Albany Street. Your pick.”

  “Oh, let’s walk,” she said. “It’s a gorgeous day out there.”

  “We can have lunch after you’re finished with Tally.”

  She smiled. “That would be nice, but I told my partner I’d be at the shop by two. Now I wish I’d taken the whole day.”

  “Another time,” I said. I stood up. “We better get going.”

  It was an April-in-Paris spring morning in Boston. In the vacant lots and in the little side gardens and in the patches of yard in front of the buildings along Mass Ave, the forsythia and honeysuckle were blooming aromatically. The new leaves on the maple trees were lime green, the size of mouse ears. The easterly breeze that came wafting in from the harbor smelled like freshly turned earth and spring rain. The sun was warm on our faces, and puffy white clouds drifted harmlessly across the high blue sky. It was the sort of morning that made you want to grab the hand of the first pretty girl you saw and go skipping down the sidewalk.

  I managed to resist the impulse.

  Tally Whyte, as promised, was waiting for us in the lobby of the square brick building at 720 Albany Street that housed the OCME, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.