Authors: David Daniel

The Marble Kite (6 page)

BOOK: The Marble Kite

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Like the rest of us, cops develop habits that provide them a little order in the chaos. Even beyond the rote of drill and the paperwork, they find something: a watering hole for after-shift whiskey, a floating card game, a pew at the back of a church. One cop I used to know would go to the shooting range once a week and blast away at man-sized targets, because, as he said, “it keeps me from shooting people.” Ed St. Onge had a place, especially when the city crime rate was up, and his blood pressure along with it. Blindfold me and I'd still know the smells: liniment and cigar smoke, b.o. and tired canvas.

The West Side Gym had a history as colorful as the city's, including gunfights, gaming rings, and more characters than Damon Runyon. Mostly, however, it was dedicated to the manly art of pugilism. Outside of Brockton, where Hagler had come from, and Marciano before him, Lowell had produced some of the best prizefighters in the country, a lot of them developed in the West Side Gym, under the tutelage of Christy Speronis. These days there were still prospects, title contenders, and even a champion or two who trained there, but working at the front counter was a moon-faced fellow who should've served as fair warning to anyone
considering taking up gloves. Joe Doyle had worked up through the amateur ranks and had a stretch as a pro, fighting as a mid-heavy under the name Kid Sligo. He'd never topped any big card or come within hailing distance of a title belt, and yet he'd lasted a lot of years, many of them taking it on the chin, and the last few of them, it was rumored, refusing to hit the canvas for the New England mob, which some would claim was more a testimony to stupidity than anything else: Better-wired men than him had ended up as landfill. He'd wound up mumbling his words out of a face that looked like an Edsel's hubcap that had rolled all the way from Palookaville.

“Hey, Kid,” I greeted him.

He dropped into a crouch and did a one-two with his shoulders. “Hiya, gooda seeya.” He recognized me, though I don't think he could have picked my name off a list of one.

“Last I knew, you were the gate over at Matty Silver's lounge.”

“Still am. This is supple
mental
. Christy says he likes to keep me around to add class to this joint.” His grin showed more gums than teeth. We chewed life for a moment, then I asked for St. Onge, making it sound as if Ed was expecting me, and Kid motioned with his head. “Steam room. Want a towel?”

St. Onge was standing in front of a locker mirror, unbuttoning a brown cardigan. He didn't see me, and I paused, struck with an image of a much younger cop, standing before a squad room mirror, trimming the corners of his dark mustache. He caught sight of me and turned. “Rasmussen, what the hell?”

“I know, it's your naptime. I won't take much of it.”

He dropped his arms. “You won't take any of it. When I come here I'm off-limits.”

“The billboard over City Hall Square neglected to mention that.”

“Spare me. That's part of the new approach: Cops are your friends, you should trust them. The idea was old when Pat O'Brien played it in the movies and the crime was kids swiping fruit off the apple cart. These days I figure anybody who's got to worry about me coming after them, I don't want to be friends with. All right, you got two minutes, then we're done here. There's no way I'm letting you climb into the steam bath with me.”

“Good thinking.”

He hung his sweater on a hook in a locker. “By the way,” he said, “congratulations.”

“For working the other side?”

“What side? I heard you bought a house. Out in the Ivies, I heard.”

It was on the west side, off Princeton Boulevard, in a section where streets were named Harvard, Columbia, and Cornell, don't ask me why. It was where I probably ought to have been right then, sanding floors, scraping wallpaper, buying new accessories with income from my good steady unglamorous insurance gig. “I like the peace and quiet.”

“What's this about the other side?” he asked.

I told him Troy Pepper's attorney had hired me.

“Makes sense.” He loosened his pink necktie and let it hang, like the tongue of an exhausted bloodhound. “You and Meecham are both right there in the same rat hole, you can huddle together and nibble the cheese.”

“That's mice, not rats. They don't live together. Anyway, I want to get some details on the police investigation.”

“I like peace and quiet, too. It's why I come here.” He began unknotting his tie.

“Maybe you can preview what'll be in the Sun, save me from reading between the lines.”

He looked at me, his lips pursed under his mustache. “That's all you'll get from here.”

I nodded.

He motioned me to a bench, and we sat. He began untying his shoes. “We got the squeal about eight forty last night. There was a uniform detail at the location already, doing security. We sent detectives, and they're handling it. I might've caught the case ordinarily, but I'm doing this task force on gangs, I'm spread thin. I just came from Lowell General. Southeast Asian kid, fourteen years old, he's critical after a beating. You'll read
that
tomorrow.”

I sensed he wanted to talk about it, so I kept quiet.

“There's this ritual to join a gangâa âjump-in,' where members get to beat on you for a while. To see how well you defend your manhood. They're too young, too dumb to figure out yet that being tough isn't
about being violent. Jumping
out,
though â¦ that's a bitch. This kid wanted to quit, go back to school, reconnect with his family. A dozen of his so-called crew beat him senseless. When he wouldn't wake up, somebody with a shred of brains took him to the emergency room, and then split. So he's down there, fourteen years old, his family heartsick, and it's touch and go, all because he wanted out. We had a seventeen-year-old shot the day before yesterday. We picked up the shooter because he was bragging about it. The sad part? A lot of these kids aren't stupid and could make something of themselves. But they're all twisted up in this machismo crap, like it's about honor or something. They're violent because they're weak, and way down inside they know it, but no one's ever showed them another way to express it.” His face was damp and grim, and I tried to think of some appropriate words, but I knew that words wouldn't help, any more than the steam bath would, that maybe only time had any chance. “Anyway,” he went on, clearing his throat, “the carnival killing. I hear there are some people working out there who are worth taking a close look at their backgrounds. But that's Cote's case.” He glanced around and added in a lowered voice, “Though you know who's riding herd on it personally, right?”

I hadn't until that moment. “Frank Droney?”

His silence was his answer.

“Is it just one of Mother Nature's tricks, or has his face been carved Mount Rushmoreâfashion into the granite ledges along Route Three?”

“Did you hear what I said?”

“Yeah.” It was interesting; and it added up. Strangers come to town and one of them kills a citizen, dumps her in a field. It was simple. This was election season, and Droney's man Cavanaugh was up for another term. They were hands washing each other, crime and punishment. “Rumor has it there are a few people around who still think being a crook doesn't pay, but none of them are politicians.”

“It's just as well. If they weren't sitting in office, half of them would be sitting in jail for exposing themselves in public.” He flung off a shoe. “The point is, it's not for you to decide whether this carnival character is innocent or not. That's for the law. You know where I'm going to land.”

“Where you can huddle and nibble cheese.”

“Hit the bricks, pal.”

“Good luck. I hope that kid in the hospital makes it.”

Walking back through the gym, listless in the aftermath of cheap victory and loss, I caught sight of a young woman in a corner, kickboxing at a heavy bag. Something in the energy of her attackâlet alone the very unlikelihood of her presence there in that temple of testosteroneâdrew me over. Her dark hair was in a tortoise-shell clip, high on her head. Her Everlast sweatshirt was form-fitted and ended below her ribs, baring her muscular midriff and a small gold belly ring. She had a good rhythm going, and a vicious kick. She may have been vaguely familiar, but I wasn't sure and I wasn't going to lay that old line on her. I listened to the steady
whap
of canvas for a minute, then she stopped, took a towel that was draped nearby, and mopped her face. She saw me looking. “Don't step on your eyeballs, Jack.”

I gave it an embarrassed smile. She reared back on one leg and drove her other foot into the bag with a
whump
that set the bag swinging like a hanged man.

Driving along the river toward the fairgrounds, through the slowly changing trees, I reflected on the changes I'd been living. Finally letting go of the fantasy I'd clung to for too long concerning getting Lauren back was the big one. Buying my own place was part of it, too. Now I realized in a way I hadn't looked at it before that my relationship with the cops was changing as well. For a time after I left, I maintained some profile there. Cops knew me as having once been one of them, though to be honest, with many of them it wasn't a benign knowledge; I was the guy who'd dirtied them all by getting caught taking a bribe. Frank Droney had been the one to demand my shield. With others, people who knew me and knew the truth, there was a sense that my fall possessed a kind of grudging honor. Ed St. Onge had stuck his neck out for me and had gone on record as saying I was an innovative and gifted investigator. (I'm only quoting him.) Then, his good opinion cut ice with others. Now, only St. Onge really remembered. My relationship with the department had devolved into a dispiriting war of attrition. In the daily world at JFK Plaza, Droney ran the detective bureau. While St. Onge would still help me in ways he could, he could foresee a time when he would ride into the sunsetâliterally, probably, heading to the Southwest, where he and his wife could be with their only daughter, who practiced medicine near
Albuquerque. There was no reason to risk his reputation or his pension by being anything more than courteous to me. Still, he'd been there when I needed him, ready to risk a lot more. I liked to think it went both ways.

At the meadow where the carnival was set up, I parked behind a cruiser and an unmarked city car and walked over to where I found Pop Sonders standing outside his motor home, hands cocked on his hips. Nicole squatted nearby, petting the greyhound. Seeing me, she hopped up. “Hello, Mr. Rasmussen.” I winked at her.

“I see the city hasn't run you off yet,” I said to Sonders. There was no sign of the cops.

“They might as well have. I can't open tonight, and unless I can get a whaddyacatlitâinjunctionâlifted, not any night soon, either.”

“Have you spoken with Fred Meecham?”

“He was gonna make some calls. For now â¦” He put his hands up, in a palms-open gesture. “Meanwhile, somebody shot Speedo here.”

I glanced at the dog, then at Nicole. “I took a BB out of his side,” she said.

“Is he all right?”

“I think soâaren't you, fella?” She scrubbed the dog's long, narrow head. “Maybe it was kids playing in the woods and it was an accident. I don't think anyone would do it on purpose, do you?”

Pop caught my eye, and his expression made it clear he thought otherwise.

“Do you want to take him to a vet? The city animal clinic is just across the river.”

“No, thank you. The BB came out, and I can take care of him good. He hardly notices. He just wants to go back into the woods.” She patted him. “Did you speak with Troy, Mr. Rasmussen?”

“I saw him, but I didn't get much.”

Sonders frowned. “He isn't denying the charges?”

“Denying, confirming â¦ he's not saying much of anything.”

Nicole's small face clouded with uncertainty. “He's always pretty quiet,” she said meekly.

“Except now ain't the time for it,” Pop grunted.

The girl seemed nervous at such talk, and her dog was eager to run. She said good-bye, and they went off. I turned to Pop. “The city won't even let you leave?”

“Oh, we can leave, all right, if we want to go without the show. But I get the idea that if we do leave, it'll be for good. Someone'll say we broke our agreement and put a lien on all this stuff. But I'll be damned if I'm going to let them railroad me. Or railroad Pepper, either.” He glanced in the direction of Pepper's camper trailer, and I noticed that the door was partway open. “Guess who's back?” Pop said.

“I saw the cars. What are they after?”

“You're the ex-fuzz. You tell me.”

I said I'd catch up with him later and wandered over to the trailer that belonged to Troy Pepper. The door was ajar, but I knocked anyway. A rugged young officer pulled the door open wider. He had a brutal battering ram of a face and close-cropped hair a few shades darker brown than his eyes. He was one of the patrol officers who'd been on detail the night before, the male half of the pair I'd seen. He wore short sleeves, fade-washed jeans, and short boots, his weapon and handcuffs on his belt, his badge on a lanyard around his neck. He lifted his head in inquiry, and I gave him my name and asked if one of the detectives was around. “What's it about?”

Roland Cote appeared behind him in the doorway of the camper. Neither of the cops was wearing latex gloves, which seemed to confirm
that that the forensic heavy lifting had already been done. “It's okay, Paul,” Cote said in a slow voice. “Rasmussen here used to wear a badge. He misses it sometimes and tries to compensate by carrying a piece of paper. Or have you sprung for a shiny star out of one of those rent-a-cop catalogs?”

I let it alone. The patrolman's jaw clenched for a moment, as if he were chewing marbles, then he stepped aside to let Cote emerge.

The detective had thickened with time, like stew The aluminum steps creaked with his weight, which I pegged at near 220, most of it on the torso of his five-ten frame. His thinning brown hair was scraped back across his head like wires on a faulty electrical coil. He was wearing a forest green blazer with brass buttons over a shirt and tie, both the color of beef gravy. He shifted a Dunkin' Donuts coffee cup to his left hand. The extended right hand was perfunctory, but I took it.

“Carnival doesn't open till nighttime,” he said.

“Not even then, I gather.”

“Oh?”

“The city shut it down.”

“I didn't know that.” And didn't much seem to care, judging by his tone. “So what brings you?”

“Work.”

Cote stepped back and raised his brows, which gave his face a momentary curiosity before it settled back into its bland cast. “For the lawyer representing the perp? Seems kind of a waste. This one's going to be convict-by-the-numbers, from what I see. We got our man.”

“Fred Meecham's old-fashioned that way. He still has this idea about innocent until proven guilty.”

“And you bill by the hour.” Cote's grin looked like it had been snipped into his bland face with garden shears.

“Idle curiosity,” I said, “what brings you back today?”

“Just dotting
i
's and crossing
t
's.”

“Do you mind if I have a peek inside?”

“Yeah, right.”

“Why not? You've broomed it.”

“Because I said so.” He raised his hand in a slow gesture to indicate the pointlessness of further entreaties. I didn't push. He was on firm
ground; until the police released it, it was still a crime scene, and until Meecham directed me, I had no formal clearance for access. From what little I could see through the open door, the trailer was eight by twelve, with a couple of folding chairs, a small dressing table, and a day bed, which had been stripped of sheets. The floor looked to be carpeted with Astroturf. The patrolman was jotting on a steno pad. Taking a different tack, I asked Cote, “So how do you read it?”

We'd never been friends, but we weren't enemies, either. I hoped he wouldn't mind talking, cop to ex-cop. He took a sip of his coffee. “Pepper and the victim had a past. She came here to see him yesterday morning. She'd been here Saturday, too. We've got eyewitnesses that put her with Pepper that afternoon and early evening. On Sunday, she apparently got herself prettied up and came over. There was some sort of argument, it got physical, and she got dead.”

“Why'd she show if she had a restraining order against Pepper?”

Cote showed no surprise that I knew about it. “Why does any woman? I could spend all my time on domestic relationships that go bad but where the partners can't let go. Plenty of shrinks do. Anyhow, that went back more than a year, and when it lapsed, she didn't renew it.”

“Had Pepper ever violated the restraint?”

He tried to read whether it was rhetorical or a genuine question. Finally he just said, “I haven't seen anything about that.”

“Have you talked to her friends and found out if he'd made any threats to her?”

“You looking for something special?”

“It seems to me part of the job for both of us is to get some back story.”

“Back story? What is this, Hollywood? Okay, sure, there're always things in anyone's life that are interesting to dig upâbut where are you going to begin that story? âYour Honor, I'd like to start on a blustery March morning, when the moon was on the wane. My client's mother gave birth to him â¦ ' I mean, the way I see it, we may be interested in entirely different things. So the best policy right now is we don't talk anymore. That okay with you?”

I let it go. Beyond, the meadow was bright with goldenrod and purple loosestrife and the little stark-white tufts of burst milkweed pods, and
farther back still, the woods were aflame with scarlet sumac and yellow and orange maples, the colors a vivid backdrop to Cote's drab presence. I gestured in that direction. “Why there?” He turned. “You guys obviously have your evidence,” I pursued, “but wouldn't it have made more sense to wait till he could get her out of here for good?”

“What did I just tell you?”

“This is just me spitballing. Pretend I'm not here. Why not stick her in the river down in Lawrence or Haverhill or put her in the New Hampshire woods? No body, no crime, and maybe next spring, or five years from now, some hiker comes across decomposed remains, and Pepper and the carnival have been in a hundred other cities and no one remembers.”

Cote's interest didn't stir. “You think too much, Rasmussen,” he said.

“No one's ever told me that before.” I shrugged. “The spot where he allegedly carried her is a hundred yards from here. Does that make any sense?” Saying it, I realized I was working through it for the first time for myself, too.

He gave his shoulders a vague twitch. “Dumping the body somewhere else is maybe what he'd like to have done, but he didn't get a chance, the dumb shit. He had to be on the job. So he left her in the trailer, waited till later, and hauled her straight out. We estimate that to be around seven, seven-thirty, when he took a short break from working the midway. It's going dark then. He didn't even take time to clean up the evidence. She was found at eight-forty. Her pocketbook was under the bunk in his camper.”

The officer came out now, glancing at Cote for instructions. “Seal it up,” Cote said.

The cop set to affixing crisscrossing strands of yellow tape to the door, pressing the ends in place with thick-fingered hands. He seemed to have a relish for the job.

I asked, “Do you figure Pepper carried the victim out of the trailer by himself?”

“Why not? She weighed all of a hundred pounds. Plus we caught a break. There were officers on detail, and their quick thinking helped us ID Pepper as a suspect right away. Officer Duross here was one of them.”
Duross. He was the one who had talked with Alice Parigian in child services in New Jersey.

Cote looked around, then underhanded his coffee cup toward a clump of weeds. It spun through the air, spraying coffee in a golden pinwheel. “Probably just as well the city is shutting this place down,” he said. “They ought to rethink the whole idea of carnivals coming to town, you ask me. If you ran criminal checks on some of these shitbuckets who work here, you'd be amazed how many got sheets. Well, I guess I'll see you in due time.” He started off, then stopped and turned. “Hey, speaking of â¦ how about our boy, huh?”

He read my blank expression.

“Deemys is prosecuting. I used to rib him about how he wore clothes they have to unlock cables before you can buy themâMr. Fancy Pants. But he's the man now.” He gave it his crinkled grin. “You, me, Gus â¦ gonna be like old times.”

Pop Sonders was in his motor home, talking on the phone. Nicole sat at the computer. She cut a timid glance my way and went back to the keyboard. Pop sounded angry at whomever he was speaking to, his occasional words strained, his face ribbed with deep, disapproving lines. With a grunt of good-bye, he hung up and jabbed his chin my way. “How's it look?”

“The police investigation? Like a noose tightening.” Nicole had turned now, listening. “They've got the coroner's report and evidence from Pepper's trailer. I don't suppose you can alibi him between noon and around six last evening?”

“Already told you. That was a busy stretch. It got pretty hectic and noisy around here.”

“Are you wondering if anybody saw him then, Mr. Rasmussen?” Nicole spoke up.

I looked her way. “Did anyone?”

She thought for a moment, then her small face darkened. “I seen him for some of the time. But everyone's got jobs to do and we do 'em. Plus, part of the time he'd have been inside his trailer.”

“How about the womanâFlora NuÃ±ez? Did you see her?”

“I didn't think so. But people saw him here in the morning, and I definitely saw them together on Saturday.”

“That's the afternoon you opened?”

“Yeah â¦ she was here,” Pop said. “Troy took her around. Won her a stuffed doggie sinking baskets or something. Women like that kind of thing.”

Yeah
, I thought,
they do
. “Did you know he kept a handgun?”

He pulled a morose face and shook his head.

“Does Pepper use drugs?”

“What are you getting at?” His bushy eyebrows tensed together.

“Just fishing. Is that a no?”

“It better be. We got a policy about that.”

“Do you go into each other's trailers?”

“Only if invited. A person's home is his castle here, same as anywhere. Going in would violate one of our unwritten rules.”