Marine Corpse

by William G. Tapply

  “What time did you leave?”

  “It must’ve been around eleven. I got home just in time to see the New Year being ushered in on the television. You know how that big ball comes down…?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Is that it?”

  “Yes. That’s all of it.”

  “Did he mention any names?”

  “No. I would remember if he did.”

  “What about Father Barrone. Joe Barrone.”

  “No.”

  “How about a Dr. Adrian Vance?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “Did he mention Altoona?”

  Lee frowned. “That’s in Pennsylvania. No, I don’t think so.”

  “Altoona was a person. A friend of his. Who has also been killed.”

  “He didn’t mention anybody by that name, no. He mentioned no names.”

  “Any reference to his notebooks, or a diary, or a journal?”

  He shook his head.

  “Did he say anything about meeting somebody that night?”

  He thought for a minute. “Well,” he said slowly, “not in so many words, no. But now that I think of it, he did look at my watch a few times, as if he had an appointment. I remember thinking that he acted as if he had a date, and wanted to get rid of me before a certain time.”

  “Did he say anything about a date specifically?”

  “No. I think I’d remember if he did.”

  I leaned back in my chair. “What else, Mr. Lee?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What haven’t you told me?”

  “I’ve told you everything.”

  “That’s what you said last time.”

  “Mr. Coyne, you’ve got to try to understand. Nothing I can do or say can bring Stu back to me. But it can ruin me. I explained that to you before. I didn’t kill Stu. I hope you know that. I don’t know any more about it than I’ve told you. But if my relationship with him ever became public knowledge…”

  “I’m an officer of the court, Mr. Lee,” I said. “And you have withheld information relevant to the investigation of a felony. Do you understand?”

  “I understand that you don’t seem to want to believe me. But it’s the truth. If you want to wreck my life, you have it in your power.”

  “Your career is not relevant here.”

  “It is to me.” He shook his head. “I’m not going to beg you. I told you everything. I do not want to be involved. As much as I loved Stu, I do not want to be connected to his death. It would do nobody any good.”

  “How do I know you’re telling me the truth now?”

  He shrugged. “I guess you don’t.”

  “What are you hiding?”

  “I’m hiding nothing from you. From the world, I’m hiding a great deal.” His shoulders slumped, but he held my gaze with his eyes. “I’ve told you all I know.”

  “You understand I’ll have to talk to the police.”

  “Will you have to give them my name?”

  “They can be more effective than I in getting at the truth.”

  “For God’s sake, Mr. Coyne! I’ve told you absolutely everything.”

  “Have it your way, then,” I said.

  He stood up. “I hope you have a conscience,” he said. “Good day, sir.”

  He started for the door. “Mr. Lee,” I said.

  He stopped and turned to face me. “Yes?”

  “I’ll try to keep your name out of it.”

  He nodded slowly. “I would appreciate it,” he said. Then he left.

  I poured a little more bourbon into my glass. Then I called Gus Becker. I told him what I had learned from my visit to the Sow’s Ear. I included the information David Lee had given me, but I made it sound as if Trixie had overheard all of it. I left my interview with Lee out of it. For the time being, I thought I could justify that.

  I told Becker about getting mugged. I had the impression that he thought it was funny.

  But he seemed interested in what I had to say. “Now we’re getting somewhere,” he said. I told him that I failed to see the connection with the cocaine wars, and he said, “It’s very complicated.” He asked again about Stu’s notebooks, and I told him I had nothing new on that subject. He asked if Heather had started her book yet, and I said I didn’t know. He told me I should stop butting into police business. It sounded perfunctory. He suggested we get together for a drink sometime. I said I’d like that, and we left it there.

  Al Santis did not seem interested. “So he went to a bar, shot the shit with a hooker, and got drunk,” he said. “Then he went outside and passed out in an alley. That don’t get us any closer to whoever stuck an icepick into his ear, now, does it?”

  “You don’t think his talking about Haiti and Thurmond Lampley’s assassination attempt makes a difference?”

  “Maybe you can explain it to me. You’re the lawyer. You’ve got all the brains. You understand confusing things.”

  “I can’t,” I said. “It makes no sense to me, either. It just seemed pertinent.”

  Santis and I did not talk about having a drink together.

  FOURTEEN

  I WAS NURSING A beer at a corner table at Marie’s when Billy walked in. I didn’t recognize my son at first. Somehow, I still expected to see the pre-pubescent eleven-year-old who smiles at me from the photos in my office, rather than the twenty-year-old man he’d become, largely in my absence. I missed most of my two sons’ adolescences, which makes me an object of envy among those of my contemporaries who had the full benefit of the experience.

  Billy has my gray eyes and longish nose. From Gloria he got his fair complexion and good teeth. Most of it all was hidden from view behind a bushy blond beard, which he got from neither of us.

  He came to the table and lifted a long leg over the back of a chair to sit down. I reached my hand across the table to him.

  “Hi, Son,” I said.

  “How ya doin’, Dad?” he answered, grasping my hand firmly and looking into my eyes the way I taught him.

  “I’m fine. Want a beer?”

  He grinned. “I don’t drink, remember?”

  “I remember last time you didn’t. Last time you were still shaving, as I recall.”

  “Like it?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Nope. Guess not. Mom hates it.”

  “Are you trying to make some kind of statement?”

  “What, growing a beard? Naw. Just thought I’d try it out. See how it looks.” He shrugged. “No big deal.”

  I took out my pack of Winstons and held it to him. “Smoke?”

  “Don’t smoke, either. At least, not those things.”

  Our waitress, a college kid from B.U. clad in tight faded jeans and a white blouse, stopped beside our table. She looked down at Billy. “Can I get you something, sir?” she said to him.

  He barely glanced at her. “Food. Feed me.”

  “Mr. Coyne? Another beer?”

  “Bring menus, I guess, Gwen.”

  She bobbed her head and gave us her slightly lopsided smile. “Right back,” she said.

  I watched her walk away. “Good-looking girl,” I observed.

  “Didn’t notice particularly,” said Billy. But the sly grin that peeped out from the hair on his face gave him away.

  “So,” I said with elaborate casualness. “How have you been?”

  “Aha. Here it comes. In most cultures, you know, they postpone the business until after the eating. It’s considered polite. Refined. Civilized. Especially when the business is unpleasant.” He looked down and tinkered with the silverware. “You wanna talk about me quitting school, right?”

  I nodded. “Right.”

  “Okay. Go ahead.”

  I shrugged. “Fine. So what the hell are you quitting school for, then?”

  His eyes twinkled. He was actually enjoying it. “I’ve gotta find myself,” he said, making it clear that we both knew he was parroting a cliché, and that I shouldn’t take it too seriously.
<
br />   I decided to play along with him. “Where do you plan to start looking?”

  Gwen appeared bearing menus. “The specials are on the blackboard, as you know,” she said. “I’ll bring salads and bread and you can order in a minute.”

  “Gwen,” I said, “this is my son Bill. He’s a sophomore at UMass.”

  She smiled crookedly at him. “Hi.”

  “How ya doin?” he said.

  She cocked her head. “Well, I’ll be right back.”

  “She’s in the nursing program,” I told Billy. “Smart kid. Works hard to keep herself in school.”

  “I hear you, Pop,” he said. “As for me, I’m in the business program and I hate it and I’m not working very hard at all. So I thought I’d go looking for myself. I figure I’ll start in Florida. Try the canals where the snook and tarpon live, maybe the flats off the keys for bonefish, prowl the mangrove swamps where there are largemouth bass. If I don’t find myself there, I’ll take a peek in Montana and Wyoming where the trout live.” He shrugged. “Like that. I’ll look around, see what I can find by way of an identity for myself. You understand?”

  “You’re not playing fair, you know,” I said. “Putting the fishing into it, I mean. You got that from me. No wonder your mother’s pissed off.”

  He grinned.

  “Anyhow, at this point I’m supposed to summon up righteous parental indignation. Ready?”

  “Ready,” he said. “Shoot.”

  “Okay. So. You plan to throw away your future, give up your education, waste my money, and break your mother’s heart, just so you can go bumming around, fishing and generally squandering your abundant talents so you can have a good time while you wait for your identity magically to appear. Is that it? Do I have it right?”

  He smirked. “You’re doing fine, Dad. Keep it up.”

  “You don’t think I’d like to chuck it all and go fishing?”

  “Sure you would. Hell, Dad, you do.”

  “I do sometimes. I also work. Everything in its place. Balance. Equilibrium. Moderation. For everything there is a season. The golden mean. Aristotle.”

  “Look,” he said, his face turning serious. “I know Mom put you up to this. I’ll tell her you were really pissed off, okay? You don’t have to go through the whole drill. Let’s eat and relax.”

  I shook my head. “It’s not that simple. You’re right, of course. Your mother did call me, and she is upset, and she assumes I am. And you’re right that I’m not. Not really. But I think I should be, and I think your mother is a better parent than I am because she is disappointed. She wants the best for you.” I sighed. “Oh, I do too, naturally. I’m just not sure what it is.”

  “That’s just it,” he said, with an eagerness that reminded me of what he had been like many years earlier. “I don’t know, either. School doesn’t feel right. I don’t love it. It’s work, and it’s hard, and it doesn’t make much sense. The only thing I’ve learned is that I don’t want to be a businessman.”

  “So why don’t you switch majors?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “You’ve got to be something.”

  “Hey, I don’t see why this has to be a big life or death thing. I can take a leave of absence. A sabbatical, like. A furlough. R and R. I’ve got a good record. They’ll take me back. I just need space. Time.”

  “I couldn’t let it happen without talking to you. I know you understand that.”

  “Sure. I understand.”

  “And I did need to tell you how concerned your mother is.”

  “I knew that already.” He leaned across the table toward me. “Look, Dad. If you want me to stay in school, if you tell me to, I will. Okay?”

  “You will?”

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  “It’s tempting.”

  “Well?”

  “No,” I said. “No. I’m not going to make that decision for you. You have a lot of things to think about. All I ask is that you think about them. Then make your decision. Make your decision. Not Mom’s, not mine. Do what you think best. But, dammit, think, okay?”

  “You’re not going to let me cop out, then,” he said.

  “Nope.”

  “Well. Thanks.”

  We talked about other things while we ate, fishing and the Celtics and politics. It was man talk, and it was good, and I realized I hadn’t done enough of it with my sons. Maybe it still wasn’t too late.

  I paid the bill, and we started to leave. Then Billy said, “Wait a minute, will you?”

  I stood by the door while he went back into the restaurant. I saw him talking to Gwen. She watched his face, her eyes solemn, while he bent to speak to her. Then she smiled and nodded and he rejoined me.

  “Well?” I said.

  “Well, yeah,” he answered, grinning.

  We buttoned up against the cold. When we got to the subway entrance we shook hands. “Keep in touch,” I said.

  “I will. I’ll let you know.”

  I watched him go down the steps. My son was a man, now. For some reason, I found it depressing.

  I got to Heather’s condominium a few minutes before seven, bearing the fourteen-dollar bottle of Burgundy that the guy at the package store guaranteed would go well with medium-rare steak, and a bunch of greenhouse daisies from the Puerto Rican lady on the corner. I rang the doorbell a couple of times, and when Heather didn’t answer I put my ear to the door. I could hear music playing inside. She was probably upstairs showering or changing her clothes and couldn’t hear the bell over the music.

  I shifted back and forth from one foot to the other for a minute, and then I remembered that she hid a spare key outside. I found the loose shingle and the key was there. I unlocked the door, returned the key to its hiding place, and went inside.

  She had the radio tuned to a Boston FM station that liked to play what they called “non-stop rock.” It was very loud and not especially tuneful. It served to remind me that Heather and I were of different generations.

  I went to the foot of the stairs. I could hear the shower running, but I called, “I’m here,” anyway, and took the wine and the flowers into the kitchen. I found her corkscrew and opened the Burgundy to let it breathe. I filled a tumbler with water and dunked in the daisies. Heather had left some peeled potatoes in the sink. A big wooden salad bowl sat on the butcher-block sideboard. She had already rubbed the inside of it with olive oil.

  I opened the refrigerator to see if I could find a beer. There were two thick T-bone steaks in a shallow pan marinating in a mixture that included crushed garlic and thyme. She had left half a dozen bottles of Beck’s dark to chill. I took one back into the livingroom with me.

  I went back to the stairs and yelled again, “Hey! Did you hear me? I’m here and I’m starving, and I’m going to change the radio station and I think you’re clean enough by now.”

  I found some light symphonic music on WCRB, adjusted the volume to my taste, and slouched on the sofa with my beer. I was eager to tell Heather about my session with Billy. She would, I suspected, sympathize with his urge to “find himself.”

  I allowed my mind to drift on the music while I sipped my beer. The piece, which I recognized as something by Debussy, ended at the same time that I drained the bottle. I heaved myself up from the sofa and went to the stairs. She was still in the shower. I muttered a few generalizations about the female gender and stalked up the stairway.

  The bathroom was at the head of the stairs. The door was ajar, and steam oozed out through the crack. I tapped on the door. “Come on, Heather. I’m hungry. Let’s go.” She didn’t answer.

  I pushed open the door and waved at the thick, hot mist in the room. “Want me to dry your back?” I said. Then I realized that she wasn’t behind the opaque glass shower door. I turned off the shower.

  She was in her bedroom, snuggled down under a blanket, sound asleep. The light from the hallway cast a beam across the mound of her rump. She was sleeping on her stomach, facing away from me. I deduced t
hat she had gone into the bathroom and turned on the shower, then returned to her bedroom to take off her clothes. I could imagine her, after a long day of boring work, yawning, lying on her bed just for a moment, pulling a blanket over herself, and letting her eyes fall shut.

  I went in and sat beside her on the edge of the bed. I put my hand lightly on her hip. “Hey,” I said softly. “You want company in there? I don’t know whether I should be flattered or offended. It’s plain enough that you’re not exactly excited about our date tonight.” I put my mouth to her ear. “Uncle Brady’s here,” I whispered. “You gonna wake up?” I prodded her shoulder gently. She didn’t move. I pushed at her hip. “Come on, Heather,” I said more loudly. “Let’s go.”

  Then I realized that her body wasn’t lifting and falling in the soft rhythms of sleep.

  Her breathing was too shallow to detect.

  I rolled her onto her back and her head lolled loosely.

  I touched her face. “Heather!” I said. “Hey, wake up!”

  She didn’t wake up.

  I felt for the pulse against the side of her throat.

  And then I knew that she wasn’t going to wake up.

  I yanked the covers off her. She was dressed in a loose-fitting pink turtleneck jersey and blue jeans. I got up and turned on the light in the room. Then I went back to the bed and looked down at Heather’s body. That’s when I saw the dime-sized rust-colored stain on the pillow where the side of her face had rested.

  I moved her head to look at her left ear. The little streak of dried blood in it had turned dark and scabby.

  I sat beside her for perhaps five minutes, stroking her hair. Then I stood up, drew the sheet over her face, and went downstairs. I picked up the telephone and told the operator to get me the Sudbury police emergency number.

  I gave my name and Heather’s address to the officer who answered, and told him that I was reporting a homicide. He wanted to know if I was sure that the victim was dead. I told him I was sure. He asked me if I had done it, and I told him that it wasn’t me. He told me to wait there, and I told him that I had no intention of leaving. I disconnected and then rang Gus Becker.