by Linda Barnes
There were eight more matchbooks, but no empty cigarette packs or cigarette stubs. There were broken Bic pens, Styrofoam cups, brown paper bags, more rotten fruit with semi-frozen bugs to keep it company.
When the sun started sinking, we repacked the refuse, flattening and consolidating, since one bag had ripped when we had opened it. The wind made the cleanup a tricky, messy job.
“Some date, huh?” Mooney said as we trudged back to the house. He carried the bag of stinking prizes over his shoulder: the mutilated paper, the disc, the matchbooks.
We showered in icy water. The soap, which I hadn’t even noticed before, now smelled terrific. We ate more eggs.
Often I found myself darting glances at Moon when he wasn’t looking, gratified to find that his neck was exactly as I remembered it under the blue shirt collar, his hands strong, the fingernails short and blunt-cut. The confines of the house forced us together. Brushing against each other, even in passing, felt electric.
After we’d eaten, I suggested jigsaw puzzles.
“Sounds like a hot second date.”
We separated scraps of paper, lined and unlined. I’m good at jigsaws. Paolina and I once put together a Monet water lily, the background blue on deeper blue, fading to purple and gray, the pieces positively minute. This was harder. We might not have been able to reassemble a single page if it hadn’t been for a strategic ketchup stain.
The page had the bullet format of a PowerPoint presentation. Someone had scrawled the word Strategy across the top margin in pencil. Underneath: 25 CFR 83.7.
Mooney said, “CFR is Code of Federal Regulations.”
A laptop computer would have come in handy. The document, held together with aged Scotch tape from a kitchen junk drawer, read:
The Petitioner has been identified as an American Indian Entity on a substantially continuous basis since 1900.
recommend countering this based on 1900–1910 special Indian Schedules of federal census, newspapers, scholarly texts.
A predominant portion of the petitioning group comprises a distinct community and has existed as a distinct community from historical times to the present.
recommend countering this based on close Nausett links with Mashpee Wampanoag.
The Petitioner has maintained political influence or authority over its members as an autonomous entity from historical times to the present.
recommend countering this based on lack of tribal records from 1870-1872, 1910-1912.
Also cite joint 1937 venture with Mashpee Wamps.
A copy of the group’s present governing document including its membership criteria must be submitted.
reworded document ambiguously to cause further delay.
The Petitioner’s membership consists of individuals who descend from a historical Indian tribe.
recommend hiring fraudulent signatories?
Mooney gave a low whistle. “It’s a list of the federal criteria for recognition of Indian tribes.” He had been reading over my shoulder. “Complete with suggestions and instructions on ways to screw the tribe.”
Here’s the kicker: The letterhead was the firm of Hastings, Muir, 158 Downe Street, Nausett, Massachusetts. The Nausett tribe’s own attorney, their strongest advocate.
THIRTY-EIGHT
“Refresh my memory,” I said. “Danielle Wilder worked for Hastings how long?”
Traffic was light, and moving briskly. We were encountering more cars now, after crossing the Connecticut border.
Mooney’s hands were easy on the steering wheel. “Years. More than three, almost four. She was going to go to law school and they were going to pay her way.”
I bit my lip and tugged a strand of hair. Under what pressure? What compulsion?
Moon said, “I met him at Mitch Farmer’s, in the upstairs hall, when I was trying to find Julie’s room. Which I never did get to search, by the way.”
“What was he doing upstairs? “Hastings? Cold pills, cough drops. The old man sent him up to—”
“But you said the old man’s bedroom was downstairs. You said you looked into the downstairs rooms and—”
“Should have cuffed him then, for lying to me. Damn.”
“What?”
“Hastings used the word consortium. Really. He was yapping about how the community and the banks, ‘a wide consortium of interests,’ all supported the Indians.”
Some support. “And he came to Falmouth Hospital just to hold Alma’s hand,” I said slowly.
“You think Julie’s grandfather caught on?”
“Or maybe Julie’s grandfather knew Hastings was screwing the tribe all along.”
We rounded a curve and the matchbook castle was visible, sparkling against the night sky. As we drove closer, it resolved itself into a skyscraper gilded by powerful lights. In TV commercials, Foxwoods rises like a lone sequoia in the middle of nowhere. Now I was surprised to see smaller buildings all around it, not on a strip, but in a cluster. The gaudy brightly lit signs reminded me of Vegas.
Mooney’s dark suit looked like he’d spent the day working in it. I won’t say he no longer looked like a cop, but by the time I’d finished, he didn’t look as much like a cop as he usually did. He’d complained about the hair gel, hadn’t said much about leaving his shirt untucked or the heavy gold chain I’d looped around his neck. His shoes, alas, were a giveaway. Nobody wears black lace-up shoes but cops.
I was wearing stuff I’d acquired in Vegas, low-cut, tight, and black.
“We could spend the night,” Mooney said. “They’ve got three hotels.”
“I like your shack.”
“You ever stay here?”
I read between the lines: Had I ever spent the night at Foxwoods with Sam Gianelli? “No.” When Sam wanted to gamble, he went to Vegas. My jaw tightened.
Mooney said, “I don’t see why I’m pretending. When we get inside, most likely I’m just gonna badge somebody.”
“If it comes to that, fine. I just want to be able to go with the moment.”
“Play with the rules, you mean.”
“Isn’t that what they’re there for?”
“Christ, I’m glad you don’t work for me anymore.”
We held hands walking into the casino. I told myself it was part of my cover, but I liked the way it felt. I liked the way I felt, warm as burner-grilled bread in the chilly air. Contented. The feeling had been growing since last night, starting not with the love-making, but before, when I’d broken my vow of silence and told Mooney my secret.
My Catholic father would have looked me sternly in the eye, said, “Confession, girl, it’s good for the soul.” My mother would have warned me to tread carefully. She never trusted anything, my mother. I don’t know if it was the Depression or the fate of European Jewry, but she considered every pleasure a warning that life was about to rip your heart out. I wondered what Paolina’s shrink, Aaron Eisner, would say about that.
I felt like I’d stood upright through a force-five hurricane. I didn’t have to pretend with Mooney. He knew exactly who I was, that terrified fourteen-year-old, the good cop, the bad cop, the good mother, the bad mother. And he was still here.
“It’s coming together,” I said. “I can feel it.” Moon used to tease me about my “instincts,” but often, near the end of a case, I swear I can feel a charge in the air, like static electricity, raising the fine hairs on my arms.
We could have, should have, waited till morning, started at the law firm, started slowly. But it was night and there had been casino matchbooks and playing cards in Jessie/Julie’s bag and Thurlow had confirmed it: She had interned at Foxwoods. The casino sat at one end of the equation, with the Consortium Guidance Consulting Group in the middle, and Hastings at the other end.
The walkway to the front door of the tower was edged in sparkling lights. Colored lights overhead focused on the path, turning it into a runway, a catwalk, a place to be, a place to be seen. Music spilled from invisible speakers.
“Now this feels like a
date.” Mooney squeezed my fingers. “Feels like I won the lottery. I don’t need to get lucky tonight. I already got lucky.”
Casino designers are paid to pull you in the front door. Once you’re in, they urge you in deeper, with visual delights both obvious and subtle. In the depths, the lighting is soothing, indirect, and flattering. No clocks or windows give a hint as to the time. There is no time in casinos, only noise, chatter and pings and rumbles and rustles overlaid with cheery, upbeat music.
In one large room, roulette wheels shared the floor with green-felted craps tables while variegated lights shaded fabric-draped walls. In another room, the yellow-gold walls were dotted with flaring sconces. Chandeliers flooded a third with artificial sunshine and warmth. The occasional laughter might have been live or canned.
I grabbed Mooney’s elbow.
“It’s something, huh?” he said.
But I wasn’t impressed with the colored lights shifting through the synthetic waterfall or the stained glass or the mile of deep red carpeting that invited suckers to the green-covered gaming tables.
“That bag.” I pressed against Mooney’s arm, turn ing him to follow the man in the blazer who carried the same type of bag “Ken” had hefted from the silver Volvo to the Cambridge building and back again, replacing it carefully in the trunk. This wasn’t Ken. He was an average-sized man, fifteen years older than the man I’d shadowed through the night. But the bag was the same size and shape and we stayed on him, watching as he used a card key to enter a grilled enclosure at the far end of the vast casino.
“Ken carried one of those tote things.”
“That’s a courier bag,” Mooney said. “Ballistic nylon, lock-top. You need a key to open it.”
“Money?”
“Money. Time to use the badge now?”
“Let’s wait a little.”
“You think Kyle’s here?”
I shrugged. The man with the tote wore a maroon blazer with a gold logo on the breast pocket. There were other men wearing the same blazer. I thought it was worth a shot.
We passed through hallways lined with slot machines, neon arched and brightly lit. Men and women, the women outnumbering the men, yanked and laughed and swore and gasped, machinelike themselves, intense, focused. One woman, dazed, wiped her sweaty forehead with a white silk scarf, then stared at the makeup stain in disbelief.
It was a vast complex with multiple rooms for slots, table games, keno, and poker. The bingo hall was bigger than a concert hall.
“Bet you won’t find him,” Moon said.
Betting is an old custom with us.
“Bet I will.”
Moon said, “If I win, we stay the night. I choose the hotel.”
“And I pay?”
“Hey, they have heat and hot water. Big beds. Big bathtubs. Whirlpool spas.”
“And I bet they get lots of checkins with no luggage, too.”
“What’s old Ken-Kyle look like again?” Mooney asked.
“Six feet, white, blond, one-ninety. Blue eyes. Nice ass.”
“You eat with that mouth?”
“Oh, Mooney, my dad used to say that all the time.”
“I don’t want to remind you of your dad.”
“Do you gamble?”
“All cops play cards.”
“Poker takes too much concentration.”
“Blackjack, then.”
We played small stakes, sat at slot machines. Eleven not-Kyles in maroon jackets strolled by. We had drinks at a narrow bar, moved from beer to Jack Daniel’s, won and lost twenty-two dollars and change.
“Are you happy?”
The directness of Mooney’s query stopped me cold. Happiness, my mother taught, was the precursor to disaster.
“Yes,” I said. “You?”
“Yes. You’re not sorry?”
“No.” I found that my voice sounded stronger on the negative.
“We’re gonna badge,” Mooney said. “And I think I want to stay in a suite.”
“Oh, yeah? Sit and watch.”
Earlier I’d noticed a freckled man in a maroon blazer, fresh-faced and twenty-five. He seemed the closest in age and body type to Kyle. Sometimes people are drawn, like to like, I thought, with what I now recognize as alcohol-inspired clarity.
I put a glaze of hard liquor in my voice and eyes. “Hey, hon, where’s Kyle tonight?”
“Kyle?”
“I shouldn’t call you hon, not with the badge on your blazer, Roger. Or Rog. Is it Rog? You gotta know Kyle. Kinda looks like you a little? Kyle the cutie, you know? Blond guy, little bit taller than you, year or two older. Last name is something with an H.” I knew that suddenly, too. Alcohol-inspired clarity again. Julie kept the same initials: Ken Harrison equaled Kyle H.
“Kyle Hudson, Kyle Harris, Kyle Hendricks, I could go on all night, but you just feel free to stop me when I get close.”
The man’s mouth twitched. “Haber. You want to see him?”
“Uh, actually, no. I just don’t want him to see me.” I lifted my fingers to my lips and whispered. “With my husband.”
“Like that, huh?”
“You a friend of his?”
“Not that good a friend.”
“But maybe you could just tell me if he’s working?” I was playing with the gold hankie in his breast pocket, touching his tie, invading his space.
“He’s up in Stargazer tonight.”
The Stargazer Casino was on the twenty-fifth floor of the tower. I chatted with Roger a bit more, about the neat crowd and the great food and which games were best to play stoned and which to play sober. And in between I managed to learn that Kyle’s shift would be over at two, in case I could manage to lose my husband for a little while.
Mooney didn’t need to badge anybody to find out where the employee lot was. He simply circled the building, located the rear exit closest to the tower lounge, watched employees punch out and head to their cars. It was a fairly big lot. The silver Volvo had a Connecticut plate tonight. It still had a broken taillight.
Instead of sharing a room with a whirlpool, we sat in the Buick and waited.
THIRTY-NINE
At 2:38 the man who was not Ken and not engaged to marry a now-dead girl who was not named Jessica Franklin hurried out of the building wearing his camel-hair coat. At 2:40 he entered the Volvo and revved the engine. We followed, well behind, minus headlights. I had previously warned Mooney to keep back, alerting him to Ken’s erratic driving style and possible use of tacks.
I would have preferred the driver’s seat, but the Buick has tricks of its own, so Mooney stayed behind the wheel.
“He should get that taillight fixed,” Moon said.
“Bet he doesn’t have the registration.”
We took a right, then a left, onto a curvy tree-lined two-lane country road. Hard going without lights, but Moon’s a veteran Boston driver, a pro. I trusted him.
He didn’t speak until we hit a straightaway. “At that restaurant, Mamma Vincenza’s?”
“Yeah? Did you see him turn? Take the next left.”
“I got him. You said they didn’t come in together, this guy and your client?”
“Right. According to the waiter, he was already there. She joined him.”
“She was running late?”
“My theory: He barely knew her. Maybe he’d met her once or twice with Danielle. Maybe he’d seen her at Foxwoods. She barged in on him, plunked herself down at his table.”
Mooney and the Buick were losing ground. “Why?”
I was afraid the Volvo would fade entirely out of sight. “Maybe she wanted him to go to the police with what he knew about Danielle’s death, what he knew about the link between Hastings and Consortium Guidance.”
The Volvo’s damaged lights were barely visible over a rise. Mooney’s foot hit the gas and the Buick responded.
“He’s getting on the highway,” Moon said. “Thank God for that.”
“She could have been using me to scare him,” I said. �
��I know it sounds like I’m trying to make excuses, wriggle out of losing him, but I think she told him somebody was on his tail.”
“That’s why she hired you?”
Julie Farmer would have known my name if Sam had mentioned his ex-girlfriend, the former cop, to Danielle Wilder, if Danielle had mentioned me in turn to her best friend, Julie, maybe complaining that Sam talked too much about his ex. I wondered what Sam had said. I know an investigator who never gives up, who doesn’t know when or how to quit. I wondered what Danielle had said to Julie. If anything should happen to me, don’t accept it at face value. Hey, maybe you can hire that bulldog ex-cop girlfriend Sam always used to go on about. Pass the headache on to her.
I said, “Julie lied to me, gave me all that wedding hoopla, printed up her own invitation.”
“Which wouldn’t have been hard,” Moon said, “considering the machine at her grandfather’s house, the one that printed up all those flyers.”
“But why lie to me?” I said.
“Out of habit?” Moon suggested.
Her mother had called her a good little actress. Not, perhaps, someone who believed honesty was the right policy always. The impersonation could have been triggered by a small thing, like finding the real Jessica Franklin’s lost purse at Foxwoods.
The Volvo slowed and Mooney did, too. My right foot was pressed into the floorboards, as though I were operating an imaginary gas pedal.
Moon said, “So she wanted you to throw a scare into him.”
“The scare thing was probably a last-minute inspiration, while she was having dinner with him. She wanted to know exactly where he went and who he saw.” I was pretty sure she’d wanted it so much, she had broken the Volvo’s taillight.
“Why didn’t she go to the cops with what she knew?”
“What she suspected. She started to. She contacted the feds, right, Moon?”
“That’s what the BIA guy said.”
“But then, when she told her grandfather, he begged her to wait till after the election. Alma Montero overheard them arguing. It makes sense, Moon. Let’s say the girl gets worried that her grandfather might be involved. He and Hastings are close; the grandfather could be making money off the tribe as well as the lawyer, taking kickbacks. So before she talks to the feds, she decides on an end run. Instead of going to the police, she comes to me. Instead of telling me the truth, she lies, to shield the old man. If I’d followed Ken/Kyle and he’d gone from CGCG to her grandfather’s house, she might have decided to drop the whole mess, forget about the feds, let Sam go down for Danielle’s death.”
