“They would me,” Farrell said.
CHAPTER
50
I WENT OVER to the new headquarters the next day and looked at mug shots of Verna Lee Lister.
“Yes,” I said to Farrell. “She looks a lot different now, but it’s Natalie.”
“Good,” Farrell said. “I thought I might run at this from the other end, so I went over to the Organized Crime Unit this morning before you came, and looked at Tony Marcus in their computer.”
We were sitting at Farrell’s desk in the squad room. It was neat and efficient-looking like the whole building, still new. Cynicism and sorrow had not soaked into its walls yet. The paint was still fresh.
“That’s very thoughtful of you,” I said.
“OCU busted him in 1997 for Criminal Conspiracy.”
“I gather they didn’t make it stick.”
“Naw. They knew they couldn’t. They just like to hassle Tony whenever they can. He made bail in a couple of hours, and the case got dismissed in the prelim.”
He opened a manila folder and took out a computer printout and handed it to me.
“Take a look at who put up bail.”
“Natalie Marcus, spouse.”
“There,” Farrell said. “Now go solve your case.”
“Solve?” I said.
“Sure, I’ve done all the heavy digging for you.”
“You bet,” I said. “The walk to OCU must have been exhausting.”
“Hey, I got you the identity of your black woman.
I established she was married to Tony Marcus.”
“I know,” I said. “Thank you. It’s just that the more information I have, the more I can’t figure it out.”
“If I’m investigating a murder,” Farrell said, “which I’m not, because this case is closed, and Tony is in the mix, I’d figure him for a hand in it.”
“Maybe if I start with him,” I said.
“And work backwards,” Farrell said.
“I wonder if he’s still married to Natalie.”
“Be worth finding out, I guess.”
“That’s pretty much what it all is, isn’t it,” I said. “You find a question and you try to answer it. And when you get enough answers, something begins to form.”
“Or it doesn’t,” Farrell said.
“I know. We both know you don’t always solve the crime.”
“Hell, Sunny, you were on the job. You know that sometimes we’re not even trying to solve the crime. We’re just trying to clear the case.”
“I know,” I said. “That’s my advantage. I only have to worry about solving the crime, and I can work on it as long as I want to.”
“Or until you go broke.”
“Usually I have a client.”
“And in this case?”
“I might sell a painting.”
“Un huh.”
I smiled at him.
“And my ex-husband has money.”
“Alimony?”
“Oh God, no,” I said. “I’d never ask Richie for alimony.”
Farrell nodded.
“Of course not,” he said.
“Alimony destroys a relationship.”
“I figured the divorce usually did that.”
“It doesn’t have to, and even if it did, alimony destroys women. It leaves a woman still dependent on the man she divorced.”
“How about she’s raising the kids,” Farrell said.
“Parents should support their children,” I said.
Farrell nodded.
“You start investigating Tony Marcus,” he said, “you should do so very carefully.”
“Maybe he needs to be careful of me,” I said.
“You don’t have to prove you’re tough, Sunny. We all know you are. But Tony would have you shot for stepping on his shadow if he were feeling grumpy that day. He already sent one guy after you.”
“I wonder why it was Jermaine,” I said. “I wonder why it wasn’t Ty-Bop.”
“That’s a pretty good question,” Farrell said. “For a girl.”
“You hadn’t thought of it either, had you?”
“Maybe I did,” Farrell said. “Maybe I didn’t.”
“And maybe you’re a horse’s ass,” I said.
“I didn’t know that was still in doubt,” Farrell said. “But why didn’t he send Ty-Bop?”
“Maybe he didn’t send Jermaine.”
“Then why in hell did Jermaine try to shoot your ass?”
“Good question,” I said. “For a boy. Maybe it has to do with the same last name.”
“Just be glad he didn’t send Ty-Bop.”
“Ty-Bop’s a skinny adolescent hophead,” I said.
“Yeah,” Farrell said, “with the life expectancy of a fruit fly. But he can shoot. And he likes to shoot. And he would shoot everyone all the time if Tony didn’t control him. If it had been Ty-Bop you wouldn’t be here.”
“Glad it was Jermaine,” I said.
CHAPTER
51
WHEN NATALIE CAME down the steps of her house, wearing designer sweats and running shoes, I fell in beside her.
“I do not wish to talk with you,” Natalie said.
“No. I don’t blame you,” I said. “But you may as well get it over with now. You know how persistent I am.”
Natalie kept moving, down Revere Street toward the river. I stayed with her.
“I know nothing about you,” Natalie said, “except that you are an intrusive bitch.”
“I don’t think feminists are supposed to say ‘bitch.’”
“You’d be quite surprised at what I can say.” Natalie picked up her pace a little.
We walked in silence to the footbridge near the Arlington Street exit from Storrow Drive, and up over it, and down onto the esplanade near the Hatch Shell.
Natalie tried to outwalk me, but I stayed with her.
“What do you want?” Natalie said. If her voice weren’t so high-toned and well bred, she would have snarled.
“What is your relation to Tony Marcus?” I said.
Natalie’s head snapped around as if it were electrified.
“Get away from me,” she said with her teeth clenched.
“When did you stop turning tricks?” I said.
She stopped. I stopped with her.
“You lousy little fucking honkie bitch,” she said with her teeth clenched even tighter. “Get the fuck away from me or I will kick your nasty little blond ass.”
So much for well bred.
“Does Mary Lou know about your past?” I said.
She kicked me. She was off target from her threat and got me in the knee. She started swinging at me with both hands. She didn’t show a lot of skill, but she was enthusiastic and several punches landed before I was able to get a hold of her right arm. I ducked under, and twisted her arm up behind her and held it with my right hand while I got hold of her hair with my left hand.
“I’m slender,” I said, “but I’m quick.”
Natalie struggled but there wasn’t a lot to struggle against.
“I can do this longer than you can,” I said. “Why don’t you quiet down.”
“Fuck you, bitch.”
“Calm down,” I said. “Or I’ll dislocate your shoulder.”
“Motherfucker!”
I gave her arm a small twist.
She said “Ow!” and stood still.
“Better,” I said.
“Your former name is Natalie Marcus,” I said. “You paid Tony Marcus’s bail in 1997 and were listed on that occasion as his spouse. You were formerly known as Verna Lee Lister and you were arrested numerous times prior to 1995 for soliciti
ng.”
“So?”
“What makes it more interesting is that a pimp named Jermaine Lister tried to kill me a little while ago, and got arrested for it, and was stabbed to death in the jail yard.”
“Jermaine?”
“Yep. There’s a lot of name coincidence here, isn’t there?”
“Somebody killed Jermaine?”
“Did you know Jermaine?”
Natalie began to cry. Not loudly, more stifled and interior. I let her go and she went and sat on a bench near the water. I sat beside her.
“You did know Jermaine.”
She nodded.
“Husband?”
She shook her head.
“Brother,” I said.
She nodded.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Natalie didn’t speak. She stared at the water and cried.
“Do you know who had him killed?” I said.
Natalie continued to stare at the river as it moved slowly east toward the harbor.
“Do you know who killed Gretchen Crane?”
Stare.
“Do you know who killed Lawrence B. Reeves?”
Stare.
“Natalie,” I said, “I know who all the players are. I know most of the connections. It’s only a matter of time before I dig it all up.”
While she stared, Natalie began to take deep shaky breaths. I waited. She didn’t speak or look at me. One had to be tougher than I am to keep pushing her. I stood.
“I’m sorry about your brother,” I said. “And I’m sorry you had to learn it this way.”
She kept looking at the river and crying and breathing hard. I left.
CHAPTER
52
I SAT WITH Mary Lou Goddard in her office at Great Strides. She was nowhere near as friendly as Natalie had been.
“Almost from the day I met you and that disgusting little dog,” Mary Lou said, “I have regretted it.”
The insult to Rosie seemed gratuitous, but since Rosie wasn’t there to hear it, I let it go.
“You might regret it more,” I said.
“You are too insignificant for me to regret it more. You are an intrusive, nosy, self-serving woman who has no sense of her place in the larger order of things.”
“The larger order of things?”
“We have serious work to do here. You seem intent on impeding it.”
“That may be a collateral effect,” I said. “But primarily I’m interested in finding out why three people have been killed.”
“Three?”
“Gretchen Crane, Lawrence B. Reeves, and Jermaine Lister.”
“Jermaine who?”
“Lister.”
I watched her face. She showed no sign that the name meant anything to her.
“I don’t know anyone named Lister,” she said.
I didn’t say anything. I should confront her with the identity of her girlfriend and see what she did with it. But I thought about Natalie sitting on the bench by the Charles River crying. Sometimes I wondered if I was tough enough for this business.
“Could you tell me how you met Natalie?” I said.
“I certainly cannot.”
“Did Natalie know Gretchen?”
“I have nothing to say to you,” Mary Lou said.
“What was Natalie’s name when you met her?”
Mary Lou folded her arms and sat without speaking.
“Did she know about you and Lawrence B.?”
Mary Lou rose without a word and walked out of her office and down a short hallway and disappeared. I thought about following. But I figured she had locked herself in the lavatory and the thought of me pounding on the lavatory door was not an encouraging one. Nor did it seem like it would lead to a breakthrough in the case.
Over the next several days, I tried talking to the staff of Great Strides. It took longer than it should have because I had to do so without Mary Lou catching me, so I was forced to catch the women when they left the office on coffee break, or to eat lunch, or, eek, to smoke. Nobody knew anything about Natalie, about Gretchen’s love life, about Lawrence B. Reeves, about Mary Lou’s love life, about Jermaine Lister, or Tony Marcus, or what time it was. One young woman admitted early that Mary Lou had warned them against speaking to me. But I kept on until I had talked with everyone and learned nothing. The more recalcitrant the case became, the more stubborn I got. But after three days I was no closer than I had been, so I took Rosie and went to have dinner with Spike. Sometimes he had a good idea. Sometimes he was consoling. And even if he was neither, he was usually fun.
CHAPTER
53
WE WERE AT the best table in his restaurant with a bottle of Gewürztraminer, having pasta and lobster tossed in a reduction of vodka and cream. Rosie had her own chair but spent most of the time on the floor under her chair with a soup bone. Spike had filled the marrow cavity with peanut butter and Rosie was single-minded and noisy in her determination to get all of it.
As we ate, one of the waitresses came over and spoke to Spike. “There’s a gentleman at table four says he wants to speak with the manager.”
“Sure,” Spike said. “Excuse me, Sunny.”
He walked to the gentleman at table four.
“You called?” Spike said.
“You the manager?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Are dogs allowed in this restaurant?”
“Dogs?” Spike said. “You see a dog in here?”
“Right under the chair where you were sitting,” the gentleman said.
“Then probably the answer to your question would be Yes they are, wouldn’t it?”
The man was with a woman and another couple. They all looked at one another.
“Well,” said the woman, “I can’t believe that’s sanitary.”
Spike smiled courteously.
“If you saw the kitchen,” he said, “you wouldn’t worry about the dog.”
The four people at the table stared at him. Spike continued to smile.
Then the man who’d questioned Rosie in the first place said, “Well…for crissake…I guess you’d better bring me the check.”
“Certainly, sir.”
Spike snapped his fingers, gestured to the waitress. She grinned and brought the check, and Spike came back to the table. Rosie’s tail thumped as he sat down, but she didn’t let up on the soup bone.
“They’ll leave a big tip,” Spike said.
“A tip?”
“Sure. It’s not the waitress’s fault that the manager is a prick. They don’t want to be thought of as stiffs.”
“So you think they’ll tip her?”
“Too much,” Spike said. “You hear anything from Elizabeth’s former boyfriend, whatsisname?”
“The loathsome Mort? No.”
“And the fabulous Mary Lou Goddard?” Spike said.
He was monochromatic tonight. Black suit, black shirt, charcoal silk tie, gleaming black tasseled loafers.
“I’m having a little trouble bringing that to closure,” I said. “I’m flattered, by the way, that you dressed up for me.”
“My pleasure,” Spike said. “If I was straight, I’d be on you like a terrier on a rat.”
“And such a beautiful way with metaphor,” I said.
“It’s a simile,” Spike said. “Tell me about Mary Lou.”
I told him what I knew.
“Speaking of terriers and rats,” Spike said.
“I want to know what happened.”
“You could print that on your business cards.” Spike deepened his voice. “Sunny Randall, Investigations: I Want to Know What Happened.”
“Well, I do.”
“It’s one of your greatest charms, Sunny. Nothing too elevated, like the search for truth, or a passion for justice. You’ll hang in on a case until the hinges of hell start to ice up, because you want to know what happened.”
“And, right now, I don’t know what happened. And I don’t know how to find out.”
“Well, you know that there’s a connection between Natalie and Gretchen and Mary Lou. And you know there’s a connection between Jermaine, Natalie, and Tony.”
“Yes.”
“You’ve had no luck with Mary Lou.”
“No.”
“You’ve had no luck with Natalie.”
“No.”
“Gretchen and Jermaine are dead.”
“Yes.”
“Who does that leave you?”
“Tony.”
“See, you knew it all along.”
The anti-dog party left. The waitress picked up the credit card slip and brought it over to Spike and showed it to him.
“Twenty-five percent,” Spike said to me.
“You know your clientele,” I said. “My problem with Tony Marcus is how I get at him.”
“You could go ask him.”
“Would he tell me anything?”
“Of course not.”
“So how do I get at him?”
“If I was sleeping with Richie Burke—and I wish I were—I’d see if I could enlist him and his father and uncle.”
“Why would Tony talk to me if they helped me?”
“I don’t know, see what they can come up with. If you go in with the Burkes, at least, Tony’s less likely to have you put to death.”
“The Burkes already have a couple of men keeping an eye on me,” I said.
“Buster and Colley,” Spike said. “They could protect you from the likes of Jermaine, okay. But Tony wants you dead, Ty-Bop will shoot them and you before they can get their iron cleared.”
“How do you know Buster and Colley?”
Spike smiled.
“How’d you know they were following me around?”
Spike smiled again.
“How do you know Ty-Bop?”
Spike kept his smile.
“You and Mona Lisa,” I said. “But I don’t want to ask Richie or his family for help.”
Perish Twice Page 18
