Hidden Charges

by Ridley Pearson

“Thanks, Mary-Jo,” said Jacobs. “Okay, come in.” He introduced Rappaport to Shleit and returned to his desk chair.

  “What’s this all about?” inquired Shleit.

  “I have proof the bomb wasn’t in that locker,” said a breathless Rappaport.

  “What the hell?” wondered Shleit, looking quizzically at Jacobs.

  Rappaport placed a piece of blackened metal onto Jacobs’s desk. “See for yourself,” he said. “That’s the locker manufacturer’s stamp. Company name and address, patent number.”

  “So?” said the detective.

  “So if the bomb was inside the locker, that piece of metal should have been blown into the wall behind it, right? Only direction it could have gone, not to mention that if the bomb was in the locker it should have disintegrated this piece.”

  “What are you driving at?” asked Shleit, leaning forward in his chair, worry creasing his forehead.

  “I found this piece clear across the room. Only one explanation: the bomb wasn’t in the locker. It was behind the locker. When it exploded, it carried this piece with it. The damage to the cement backs it up. That bomb wasn’t in the locker, it was inside the cement wall behind the locker. And if I had to make a guess, I’d say the electrician set it off.”

  “You crossed a police barrier,” said a red-faced Shleit.

  “Your people missed it!” reminded Rappaport.

  “Sounds to me like we better have the electricians take a look,” said Jacobs. “It might give us something.”

  “Our people will handle it,” Shleit said strongly. “Don’t look at me like that, Rappaport. I ought to have you arrested.”

  8

  She was furious with Toby. His reaction to the newspaper article was completely unfair. Had it been anyone else, she would have immediately quit the job and forgotten all about the incident. But she couldn’t force herself to forget Toby Jacobs.

  The message had been left on her parents’ answering service. She returned to Braintree for the second time in a little over twelve hours. When she entered the apartment she smelled cigarette smoke.

  The man was sitting in a chair, obviously waiting for her. “Sit down.”

  She took a seat across from him. “Change your mind?”

  “I got to thinking about what you were asking. I just wasn’t in the mood to talk last night.”

  “I drove all the way up here last night to interview you, Mr. Proctor, on the basis of our phone conversation. You implied you had information on your former employer that I might be interested in. I was a bit disappointed to find out you didn’t have anything.”

  “I do. I do. Like I said, I got to thinking. Russo used me as a scapegoat. Even the papers said so. When the prosecuting attorney needed a fall guy, Russo picked me.”

  “We’ve been over that.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Be patient.” The man wore dark green jeans and a yellow shirt. He looked like a golfer. The cigarette burned next to him. The apartment was furnished in rented motel furniture. “Like we talked about, Russo’s not the type to try anything too violent. Not his style. But he sure as hell wanted the mall in his pocket. I can damn well attest to that. Heard him mention it a hundred times. So I got to thinking about a couple of meetings he had with Romanello, and it started to make sense to me.”

  “Romanello?”

  “He’s a cement contractor. Pissed off Russo something fierce because he broke his ties with the union and accepted the Green job when DeAngelo broke the union. Only thing is, one time I kind of stumbled in on one of their meetings, they were all buddy-like. Know what I mean? Can’t explain it. Day before, Russo had been making like he could kill the guy. And, when I step into the room, suddenly Russo changes moods and Romanello plays right along with it, they act like they’re angry, but the thing is, two seconds beforehand they’d been laughing together.”

  “One of the Ritigliano daughters married a Romanello. That wouldn’t be the same Romanello, would it?”

  “Danny Romanello, sure it is.”

  “They’re brothers-in-law?”

  “Danny married the youngest.”

  “Explain this meeting again.”

  “It just got me thinking, you know. Why would they want me to think they hated each other? Didn’t make no sense. They threw tantrums and Romanello stormed out cursing at the top of his lungs, but that’s not the way it was going down a couple of minutes before. I was standing behind the door the whole time, getting up my nerve to give Russo a piece of my mind. I heard Russo say something like ‘Our friend at the mall has everything under control,’ stuff like that.”

  “He said that? Those words?”

  “Just like that. You consider this cooperating, right? Jesus, my appeals are running out, Miss Lyme. I talked to my lawyer this morning. He says we need every bit of help we can get. They’re gonna put me behind bars with a bunch of queers for something I never did. They set me up. You said you’d talk to your friend in the district attorney’s office, right?”

  “I’ll talk to him, but I can’t guarantee it’ll do any good.”

  “Something’s strange between Russo and Romanello. I’m telling you, the more I got to thinking about it, the more I realized something strange is going on out there. They’ve got someone out at the mall on their payroll. Maybe I could find out who.”

  “I think you’re in enough trouble as it is.”

  “If I found out who it was, would that help?”

  “That would help very much, but I don’t suggest you go breaking any more laws.”

  “You leave it up to me, Miss Lyme. I’ll get you what you need.”

  9

  “Daddy? Am I bothering you?”

  “Of course not, dear, come in. Sit down. Can I get—”

  “No.” Julia Haverill closed her father’s office door loudly and sat down. She dropped her purse onto the carpet. Its contents rattled as it landed.

  “I meant to tell you, Jules, how proud I was of you the other night with Forest. You handled yourself very well.”

  “He’s kind of like an uncle or something. I like him a lot.” The view from her father’s office was spectacular. When her father had been away on a business trip once, she had talked Peter into making love to her in Haverill’s big leather chair, the city skyline spread out in the distance. It had been one of those risky encounters she would never forget.

  “What is it, dear?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re staring.”

  “Sorry.” She hesitated before softening her voice and saying, “Daddy, could I have another little piece of next month’s allowance?”

  “Jules, you’ve already spent September’s allowance, and half of October’s. That money was supposed to help you get established at school—”

  “Well, maybe I won’t go to college.”

  “Just what exactly does that mean, young lady? Of course you’ll go to—”

  “Maybe I’ll get a job up in Boston, like Ellen. I could stay with her. I could earn money instead of going to stupid college. Who needs it, anyway.”

  “Sweetheart, we’ve been over this.”

  “Lots of people don’t go to college.”

  “A college education is more important now than ever. What with the competitive—”

  She interrupted, speaking very fast. “No it’s not! That’s not true at all. I don’t know what I’ll do. Maybe I’ll visit Mom in France. I have her address. She has plenty of money.”

  “Jules, don’t do this—”

  “Maybe I’ll go to college over there instead, go somewhere a little farther away than Hartford. Only reason I stay here, Daddy, is ‘cause I love you, and I think we make a pretty good team, you and I.” She faked a few sniffles and rounded the desk, sitting in his lap and throwing her arms around his neck. He smelled like aftershave. “I love you, Daddy.”

  “And I love you, pumpkin. You know I do.”

  “And I don’t want to leave you. I didn’t mean any of that. It’s just that there are som
e things I want to buy and—”

  “Not to worry, love. What’s money, anyway?” He wrapped his strong arms around her and squeezed tightly. He couldn’t bear the thought of her leaving, even though college was just a few weeks away. “I love you.”

  She was all he had left in this world.

  10

  Susan spotted Jacobs on the far side of Pavilion D. He was waiting for an elevator. Nicknamed the “Sports Pavilion,” D hosted both an overhead running track and a separate bicycle track. Sports enthusiasts lapped shoppers below, some of whom took pleasure watching others work out. Like all the other pavilions, a glass canopy in D allowed natural light to filter down onto the hundreds of potted plants and trees.

  The architects had used D’s ground floor creatively. Its center island was filled with two unusual items: a jungle gym, “Kiddieland,” that rivaled any ever built; and, adjacent to it, an elaborate English maze, a living hedge ten feet high, that spiraled into a garden café, which was served by a set of dumbwaiters from a special kitchen built on the sub-level below.

  Escalators rose steeply between levels. Sunlight bit brightly onto the moving steps. Leaving the maze’s hedge to her left, Susan hurried through the crowd, passing many people in shorts and jogging shoes on breaks from workouts at one of the various health spas that occupied D.

  “Toby,” she called, as he stepped into the moving jaws of the large elevator, with several other people. She could feel him willing the doors to close—to shut her out. But she willed them to stay open. She stopped, huffing, facing him. “We have to talk,” she said, to the interest of all the passengers but Jacobs. “Well?”

  The doors moved noisily, like two great big steel curtains closing.

  At the last possible second Susan thrust her hand into the crack and triggered the doors open again. “Ouch.” She rubbed her fingers as she stepped inside and stood next to him. She talked into his ear. He looked at the closed doors, trapped. “You’ve got this all wrong, you know.”

  “I trusted you. But, it’s your job, I should have known better. You’re very good at seeming sincere.”

  A woman tourist in her mid-fifties standing behind Susan blurted out, “Oh, my,” unintentionally, misunderstanding Jacobs completely. Her face flushed crimson, and she tugged on the flowered shirt her husband wore. The man brushed her nagging hand away with the automatic response of a horse’s tail swatting flies.

  “I’m a reporter, and a damn good one.” Susan seemed to be telling the rest in attendance.

  The doors opened. Jacobs and two others disembarked. He said, “Maybe you’re a damn good reporter, but you sure screwed me,” and walked on.

  Furious, Susan stepped out of the car, the doors groaning closed behind her. She felt the lump in her throat and tried to swallow it away, but her tears won out, and so her voice cracked as she shouted, “I didn’t write that article. I didn’t supply the governors’ names. Your own people did, you jerk. You self-appointed jerk.” She stabbed the elevator call button viciously.

  “What?”

  “That’s right,” she said, head cocked, eyes burning. “Mull that over awhile.” The elevator bell sounded. The doors slid open and, without looking, she stepped backward; a man in running shorts, wearing a Sony Walkman in his ears, dodged around her and gave them both an odd look.

  Jacobs stepped toward her, but she shoved her hand out like a traffic cop announcing “stop.” The doors began to close. She held her hand up, their eyes locked together, hers still glassy with tears, his wide with confusion and anger. As the doors were about to shut, Toby shoved his hand inside the crack, splitting them open again. Still looking at her he said, “Ouch,” very deliberately.

  “No,” she told him sternly, not lowering her hand. The doors closed again, leaving him behind.

  A minute later, as she got off on the ground floor, she saw him sprinting across the Pavilion D’s west concourse toward C.

  He had used the stairs.

  ***

  Knorpp’s office, like Haverill’s, had a spectacular view of downtown, several miles in the distance. Its appointments of fine grained woods and leather matched Knorpp’s tailored and groomed appearance. Jacobs burst through the door without knocking and caught the mall’s general manager doodling on a notepad. Knorpp sat up quickly as the door brushed the carpet.

  Jacobs yelled, “So public relations included the VIP names in the press release. What’s that all about?”

  Knorpp struggled. “I have a secretary. I don’t need the intrus—”

  “You violated an agreement we had on the release of those names. Why?”

  “We need the publicity.”

  “We’re going to have two hundred thousand dollars in cash here for that lottery drawing. That’s plenty of publicity.”

  Knorpp replied, “It’s not the same. We need status.”

  “You know what you’ve done by releasing those names?”

  “I don’t have time right now.”

  “Guarding the governors in a crowd that size will be next to impossible. But do you care? Hell, no. All you care about is cramming another thousand people into that pavilion.”

  Knorpp rose slowly from his desk, went to the door and closed it. He spoke softly. “My job is to bring tenants into Yankee Green. The bigger the turnout, and the more publicity, the more people are interested in having a store here. Right now we’re at a very critical time. You know that as well as I. I capitalized on a rare publicity opportunity. We hope to have three governors here on Saturday. None have committed. Promised, yes. Committed, no. I put a little pressure on them, that’s all. If it messes you up…. I wish I could say I’m sorry. I’m not.”

  “Your talents are wasted on this place, you know that? You should be in politics yourself.” Jacobs stormed out of the office. Knorpp could justify shooting his own mother. What could be expected from a man born with his hair parted?

  Back in his own office Jacobs slumped into his chair, feeling guilty about his assumptions. His feet hurt badly. His shoes looked tired. He rubbed fatigue out of his eyes. Everyone had an excuse for everything.

  He had made a complete fool of himself with Susan, the one new and exciting element in his life. He phoned the flower shop in Pavilion A. He told them to write on the card, Ouch. I’m sorry—Toby. P.S. How about dinner tonight?

  11

  Laura sipped her iced tea. The cool, sweating glass held an imprint of her delicate hand as she returned it to the table. She touched the thin band of pale skin on her finger, the pronounced lack of tan where her wedding ring had been for the last few years. She felt no guilt at having removed it. It was time to move on with her life.

  “If there’s one thing you need to know about me, it’s that when it comes to women I’m a chicken.” He pushed the plate away.

  “That’s not how I remember you.”

  “That was a long time ago. A divorce has a way of making you feel… inadequate.”

  “That doesn’t suit you, Sam.” He had never been one for small talk. She remembered him as being the one with the terse and pithy comments that you went home thinking about. While all the other kids had been worried about pimples and looking cool, Sam had been off thinking heady things. It was a difference in him she appreciated.

  She and Tim had had a fine, wonderful life together, in so many ways, but rarely, if ever, did they discuss anything of much substance. With their courting days well behind them and the demands of a growing family, their rare discussions had focused instead on logistics and money matters, improving their sex life, fixing the car.

  Yes, Sam was altogether different, and that was just fine with her.

  “I’m still searching for who I am. That may sound funny at my age, but it’s the truth. If you’re looking for a rock to lean on, I may disappoint you.”

  “I’m not looking for anything. I’m eating lunch with an old friend.”

  “I’m certainly not going to manage a shoe store the rest of my life, I can tell you that.” He toy
ed with his food. He had tight-set dark eyes, a straight bold nose, and the neck of an athlete. “I’m sorry, Laura. I’m rambling.”

  “Not at all. I was just thinking how I’ve missed our talks. We’ve lived in the same area for this long and never socialized. Why? We were all good friends not long ago. What’s the matter with us?”

  He shrugged. “Longer ago than you might think. Besides, we’re not exactly in the same town. You live twenty minutes south, I live ten minutes north. People find their own little circles of friends. Isn’t that true? Neighborhoods, other couples with children…. We get so we have too much to do all the time. Have you ever noticed that? We’re always ‘too busy.’” He drew the quotes in the air. “We’re so afraid of life slipping by, we cram our schedules up, pack every minute so full that life does slip by: the exact opposite of what we intended is what happens.

  “How often do we go for walks anymore, I mean just a plain old walk, like we did as kids, with no idea where we were going or how long we’d be gone? Maybe you do, but I sure don’t. If I go for a walk, I plan it. I get up, check my watch, my mind sorts through a likely route I’ll take, I prepare for whatever the weather is, and off I go. You know what I’d like? I think I’d like to live way up in New Hampshire or Vermont. Way the hell up there someplace. I’d like to wake up, read the New York Times in the morning with a fresh cup of coffee, and then go for a walk; no place in particular, just out into the woods somewhere, no watch, no schedule, just go for a walk and kind of drink it all in. In the fall maybe I’d stop and try to count the colors. How long would that take? In the winter maybe I’d bundle up and sit real still and wait to see a squirrel going after a stash of nuts buried deep in the snow. Christ, now listen to me, I sound like a Grape-Nuts ad.

  “I don’t know, Laura. I think it’s time for a change. I can feel it coming. The more I think about it—I mean, look at this place, talk about an artificial existence—the more that place up in New Hampshire sounds awfully good to me.”

  She was holding her breath, staring into his eyes.