A Killing Night mf-4

by Jonathon King

  "Max?"

  I put my hands in my pockets and took a step toward her. The elevator bell rang and I ignored it. I watched her hand a load of files to a man in a suit next to her and wave him into the office, all without taking her eyes off me. As she approached she looked down once, then raised her eyes and reached up and took a strand of hair that had come loose and in one heartbreaking motion that burned in our past, she tucked it behind her ear. We met halfway.

  "Max Freeman, holy shit, look at you!"

  Her lips were sealed in a barely contained smile but her eyes were undeniably bright. She tossed her arms around my neck and I think I put one hand on her back. Her perfume was new. Her cheek soft and the same. I felt my weight anchor in my heels and the hug might have lasted a second too long for a divorced couple standing in a police headquarters who hadn't seen each other for more than five years. She stepped back, or I did, and she still held my shoulders.

  "Jesus Christ, a beach bum? An oil rigger? A damn boat captain? What the hell have you done with yourself, Max?"

  "Hi, Meagan. How have you been?" was all I could manage and my face felt stupid and flushed. She cocked her head. She was one of those women whose eyes told you she was smarter and wittier than you, but she was willing to let you try to catch up.

  "It's the Florida sun," I said. "Plays hell with a guy's complexion."

  I wanted to tell her that she hadn't changed a bit. But she did it for me.

  "Did you come all this way just to see me?" she said with that teasing smile of hers.

  The elevator pinged again and a group got off.

  "Uh, yeah, Meg, in a way," I said, lying again. Home must have brought back that special talent in me. I guided her to a bench in the hall and sat.

  "I'm actually working for an attorney in West Palm Beach on a case."

  "You're a P.I., Max. How perfect for you and that independent streak of yours. Do I know the firm?"

  "Uh, I doubt it. He's a one-man show. Kind of independent himself."

  "It's just that my husband, Troy Montgomery of Montgomery and Wallace, does a lot of work with real estate attorneys in Florida," she said. She crossed her legs with the grainy shoosh of fine nylon and rested her left hand on her knee. The ring on her finger flashed, even in the poor fluorescent light.

  "I, uh, congratulations," I said. "I didn't know you were married."

  "Yes you did, Max," she said, fluttering the fingers of her left hand on which a rock the size of Gibraltar clung. "You've always been an observant cop."

  "Anyway," I said, avoiding that trap. "I came up to talk with some folks about a former officer, Colin O'Shea. He was a few years younger than me. I think you might have met him."

  She looked past me, spinning, I knew, the scenarios through her head. Meagan had been a sharpshooter on the SWAT team when we were married. She was tough, accurate and knew through training, and not just a little of her naturally conniving character, how to see a path in her head before taking it.

  "Is this the O'Shea some agency in Florida is looking at as an abduction suspect?"

  "Yeah."

  Never underestimate a smart woman with skills.

  "A detective down there called me. I gave her what we had in the file. You do know I'm heading IAD these days?"

  I nodded.

  "And I wouldn't be giving you credit, Max, if I didn't suppose that you also know about the Faith Hamlin case."

  "Yeah, I do."

  Without physically moving, space of some kind opened up between us on the bench. A step back, without one actually taking place.

  "This detective, she was very persistent. Wanted to know more than what we had. Very aggressive."

  I nodded again.

  "You know her?"

  "I've done a couple of overlapping cases."

  "Overlapping?" she said, raising that eyebrow of hers. I'd determined years ago it was a skeptical twitch she must have been working on since childhood. I pretended to ignore it. "So, do you know more, Max? About O'Shea?"

  Here came the info for info drill, I thought.

  "I guess I know that he was your prime suspect in the Hamlin disappearance and that because he couldn't be charged he moved to Florida," I said.

  Meagan did not flinch.

  "And you also know that your overlapping detective friend is considering him as her main suspect in the disappearance of other victims."

  I fell back on my refusal to answer rhetoric.

  "How Republican of your local constable to farm out investigative work to a private contractor, Max," she said. "Or are you somehow working for Mr. O'Shea as a defensive player?"

  Down the hall the suit Meagan had been with stuck his head out the door of her office and looked at us, briefly, no high sign, no clearing of the throat, before retreating,

  "She asked me to talk with O'Shea, see what he might say to someone from the neighborhood. It was a favor," I said.

  Meagan's eyes brightened, the sudden look of enthusiasm catching me, like it had the first time I'd met her.

  "Then we've got to have dinner, Max," she said brightly as she stood. "You can tell me about this conversation with our Mr. O'Shea and what that perceptive mind of yours came up with."

  "And you can bring along the investigative case file for me?" I said, playing the info game.

  "All in my head, Max," she said, smiling and touching her hair with an index finger. "Yours for the asking."

  "Tomorrow, eight o'clock at Moriarity's then?" I said, instinctively tossing out a place we'd gone to many times when we were together.

  "Ah, a little slumming, Max," she said, and I'll be damned if her eyes didn't twinkle. "Perfect choice. See you tomorrow at eight."

  When I stood, she leaned into my rising face and caught me with a kiss on the cheek and then turned on a heel and left me standing there wondering if I was an idiot or just a common fool. I gathered enough sense to turn my back to her before she reached her office door where I knew she would turn to see if I'd been watching her legs.

  CHAPTER 11

  I worked my way onto Race Street and headed east over the Ben Franklin and into New Jersey. The water in the Delaware River looked steel gray. The heater in the rental was still not caught up and I could imagine how cold the water was running below and the thought made me shiver.

  Contrary to widely held and denigrating opinions of the depressed city of Camden, the sky does not grow instantly darker over there. It held the same shade of light shale, but without as many towers and skyscrapers to break up the monotony. I took the Admiral Wilson and spiraled through the next interchange to get on the Marlton Turnpike. From there I used the driving directions Mrs. Mott had read me over the phone. By the time I found the Majestic Ice Arena I was late for my appointment with Colin O'Shea's ex-wife.

  It took another ten minutes to find a parking spot between all the SUVs and minivans. Inside the corrugated metal building the temperature difference was negligible. I could still see my breath as I walked the front aisle between the protective glass of the rink and the rising stands. On the ice was a haphazard spray of tiny hockey players shuffling in various directions and trying to keep their balance with their sticks. I worked my way toward a group of women who were only occasionally interrupting their conversations with a "Good job, Jimmy!" or "That's OK, Paul. Get up!"

  I stood for a full minute in their view and was one step from going up to announce myself to the entire group when she stood and made her way down the stands.

  "Mr. Freeman?"

  "Janice?" I said, extending my hand. Hers was covered with a knit mitten and I shook it. "I'm sorry I didn't give you a description over the phone so you would know what I looked like."

  "You look like a cop," she said, and I looked into her face to see if that agitated her.

  "With a tan," she added and tried to smile.

  I showed her my ID and P.I. license.

  "Should we wait until your son is done?" I said, nodding out to the ice.

  "Hell, no.
They'll be out there another forty minutes," she said and pointed back toward the entrance. "Let's go have coffee."

  I liked her already.

  We sat at a table in a small snack bar area, both of us with our hands wrapped around large Styrofoam cups of steaming coffee. Kids were running in and out for pizza and sodas and candy and screeching and laughing and arguing. The chaos didn't seem to faze her. It was giving me a monumental headache.

  "You said you were a friend of Colin's?" she started.

  "We worked District Ten around the same time. He grew up near Eighth and Tasker and my parents were down around Snyder."

  "Eighth and Mountain," she said.

  "Excuse me?"

  "Colin was Eighth and Mountain. My family lived a couple blocks away, on Cross."

  "Ah, South Philly girl," I said, trying to soften her face. I was guessing mid-thirties. Her hair was still black and her dark eyes had a hardness that appeared to have been earned. She was wearing tasteful makeup in the middle of a school week and had on the reddest lipstick I think I've ever seen. It marked the edge of her cup with a heavy stain.

  "Janice Carlucci," she said. "My maiden name. I met Colin when we were kids. I was told to stay away from the Irish so, go figure. I do exactly what my Italian parents say I can't do." She shrugged. "Shakespeare. Ya know?"

  "I'm familiar," I said, sipping my coffee, letting her go.

  "We got married after he passed the academy. If you're from the neighborhood, you know. Cop, fireman, your father's plumbing business. Job for life."

  She was right, I just didn't like the condescension in her voice.

  "It wasn't exactly what you wanted," I said.

  She shook her head.

  "I matured, Mr. Freeman. I saw something on the other side of the river." She raised her palm.

  When she'd taken her mittens off I'd ranked the rock on her finger. It was practically up there with Meagan's. I'd already noted the expensive, fur-lined coat.

  "Colin was stuck between proving himself in South Philly, being the tough Irish cop, or getting the hell out, go to college, be something more. Or, no offense, Mr. Freeman, be something different," she said.

  "He ever take that frustration out on you?" I asked, since bluntness seemed to be the order of the day. She held me with her dark eyes for a few moments.

  "I'd heard he was an ass-kicker on the streets," she said. "You know, the guys sittin' around McLaughlin's or in the kitchen on poker night, braggin' an' all.

  "But never with me, Mr. Freeman. Yes, I filed the damn domestic charge. Because Colin wouldn't see anybody, not a counselor, not an AA group. He was letting his life rot and mine was going down with it. It was abuse."

  I let her stare into her coffee. She didn't want to look up at me to reveal the moisture that was in her eyes. It was something I could never figure in women, that range of emotion, pissed and sympathetic, disarming and ruthless, heartbroken and heart-breaking, one to the other in a dumbfounding span of minutes.

  "Then they used it against him," she said and left the statement sitting out there like the steam in the air. I waited until another pack of clomping skaters went by.

  "When Faith Hamlin went missing?" I said, catching up to her.

  She nodded her head.

  "They put it in the papers that Colin had already been accused of beating me when we were married, that he had a history. So of course he must have been in on what those guys did to that girl."

  Out on the rink a horn sounded. A smattering of applause. My time was running out.

  "Mrs. Mott, the authorities in Florida are linking Colin with the abduction and disappearance of at least a couple of women," I said.

  As the words left my mouth she started shaking her head no.

  "Do you think he's capable of something like that? Or could have become capable?"

  When she looked up at me, the dry hardness was back in her dark eyes. Just like that, tough Philly girl coming right back.

  "No way," she said. "Not the man I knew. Colin was never the kind who ever did something vicious without someone else to see it, to prove that he could do it to measure up, to prove he was as tough as the rest of you. He was always after that approval, from me, from his family. But on his own, push come to shove Mr. Freeman, he was a coward."

  She drained her coffee like she meant it.

  "You're a cop. You're talking about somebody with the balls to steal somebody's life, to kill them for some sick reason. That's what you're saying, right?"

  "Yeah," I said, finding it hard to hold her look.

  "I don't want to speak badly about Colin, but he is what he is. I lived with him, I know. A man like Colin just doesn't have what you're talking about in him."

  "Did you tell that to the investigators on the Hamlin case?" I said.

  "Who? IAD? Sure I told them, while they were interviewing me about any hideaways in the Poconos where Colin might be hiding or some shit. You think that made it into their report, Mr. Freeman?"

  The horn sounded again and vibrated through the building. End of the period.

  "I gotta get Michael," she said, hooking her thumb.

  "I thank you for your time, Mrs. Mott."

  "Not a problem," she said, shrugging her shoulders like the South Philly girl she'd always be.

  "One thing, though," she said, pulling on her mittens and raising her voice over the growing din of ice time switching. "If you see Colin again, Mr. Freeman, tell him I wish him the best, you know? He's got a lot to answer for. But this isn't one of them." When I crossed back over the bridge into the city, lights were flickering on in the dusk. After dinner I walked from Gaskill a few blocks to the First Methodist Church and stood on the cold sidewalk outside looking at the weathered stone and mortar and the dull stained glass. Despite its old heavy architecture its spire still rose into the night with the majesty intended by its builders. It was in the basement of this church that Billy's and my mothers had met and formed an unlikely friendship and insidious plan. On pre-dawn Sunday mornings they prepared the early coffee and breakfast reception and shared their similar secrets. Then they conspired to kill my abusive father and my mother carried it out. After decades of shame and pain she gained her freedom. Then within a few years she herself was dead. Following her wishes she was cremated and her sisters-in- law still only whispered her name. She refused to lie next to the body of my father and carry the lie into eternity. But she had suppressed her own basic human need to have control over her life and took it in death, a measure of justice to keep her warm.

  CHAPTER 12

  I slept until noon. The gray light of day barely made it through the windows of the blue room. Judging by the outside, it could have been six in the morning or six at night. For several minutes I lay staring at the ornate molding of the ceiling wondering when it had been that I'd lost the sense that Philadelphia was my home. Without an answer I rolled out of the big bed and started searching through my bag for running shoes.

  I coughed all the way down to Front Street. My mouth was still warm from Guy's coffee and each time I drew in a breath of chilled air it raked down my throat. I turned south and it took me till Alter Street and the Mummers Museum before my lungs and legs felt loose. I tried to get into a rhythm by staying on the macadam and off the curbs but any cadence I caught was quickly interrupted by double-parked cars, some delivery guy backing up a truck, somebody nosing out from an intersection. I was trying to grind off a sharp stone in my head. Two good cops, Sherry Richards and Meagan Turner (I couldn't bring myself to use her newly married name) were convinced that O'Shea was a predator. Somehow they could filter through what his life had been, his upbringing, his career, his wife's inside view of the man and still come up with a demon. And somehow, I couldn't.

  I made it to Wolf Street before I finally gave up the run. The space under my oversized sweatshirt was warm and puffs of heat were rising up under my chin. My knees ached from the concrete pounding and the muscles in my thighs felt heavy and strained. An exercis
e in futility, I thought, and smiled at my own dull wit. I grabbed the ends of my sweatshirt cuffs in my palms, gathering the material around my cold hands, and started walking. The sun was still blotted out and I had to search to find it, a spot in the sky that barely glowed like a dull bulb behind a dirty sheet. I walked west without thinking and ended up turning back north. By the time I passed Mount Sinai Medical Center, a chill had set up in my sweat- soaked T-shirt and when I looked up to find a place to get some coffee I realized I had worked my way to the corner market where Faith Hamlin had worked her last night. At the entrance two wide concrete steps led up to a wooden-framed screen door with a wide metal banner across its middle that said TASTYCAKES in lettering that was fading and chipped. The spring on the door yawned when I opened it and a trip bell jingled somewhere inside.

  There was a blower the size of a stuffed suitcase mounted above and to the right that poured warm air down onto the threshold and kept the cold from infiltrating the place. I stepped in and stood in the airflow for a few seconds, rubbing my hands and resisting the urge to raise them up into the heater's hot face. To my right there was a thigh-high freezer chest with sliding, frosted-up glass doors that ran the length of one wall. The Daily News, the Inquirer and three different racing forms were stacked on its back edge. To the right were three rows of shelves with groceries and snacks and the kinds of cleaning products and paper goods you might run out of on an irregular basis at home. It was the kind of place your mom would send you for a gallon of milk or bag of sugar. I took a few steps in and spotted the stacked glassed coffeepots in the far left corner, warming on a stainless hot plate, and walked that way. There was no one behind the counter at the far end of the single room. No radio drone. No television hissing on a shelf under the rack of cigarettes.

  I poured a twenty-ounce cup and the aroma of the steam was fresh. The top pot had been full. There was no decaf. I had no use for the open pint of half-and-half and packages of sugar. I took a careful sip and checked the rack of packaged treats beside me. Tastycakes, as advertised. I grinned and picked up a butterscotch package, my favorite as a kid, and tore the cellophane open and took a bite. I might have even closed my eyes because when I took another sip of coffee to wash down the flavor, a young man was standing behind the counter, staring at me.