Gravewriter (26 page)

T
he man following Billy wore a tan raincoat and an olive green Stetson, pulled low to the top of his sunglasses. From the quick glance Billy managed to sneak as he walked around a corner, the man looked like the average big-shouldered brute. He limped slightly, maybe from an old football injury, or maybe he'd been wounded in a war, or had been punished by the mob. From a hundred yards away, the man looked anywhere from 35 to 135.

Who could be following me?

Maybe the same guy who followed me on the highway.

Who is this guy?

A collector, maybe? But then why does he follow at a distance?

Billy detoured on his walk to the courthouse. He headed through a neighborhood of single-family cottages, and three-deckers packed side to side, so close to the street that the front steps were part of the sidewalk. The houses were old and simple but in good shape. With no front yards, people with green thumbs settled for whiskey barrels packed with geraniums. The neighborhood felt old-fashioned—the
kind of place that closed streets for block parties and where adult neighbors had authority over one another's kids.

Billy got lost in the maze of side streets. He zigzagged by instinct, until he heard the bustle of Atwells Avenue, the main artery of Federal Hill. The street was like an old village square, stretched out for a mile; a place to visit, not a place to drive through on your way to someplace else. The awnings on the restaurants and markets were the Italian colors—red, green, and white. The place always seemed thick with people. Locals lived in apartments stacked two or three high on top of the restaurants; tourists walked with noses in guidebooks that revealed where gangsters had been whacked into their linguini, back when Federal Hill had been HQ for the New England mob.

Billy glanced over his shoulder, saw the guy in the raincoat.

He walked into a wall in the shape of a man. “Ow!”

The wall said, “Billy Povich, I'm glad I found you. I was about to visit.”

Billy looked up.

“Hey, Walter,” Billy said glumly. How was Billy supposed to lose the guy tailing him while getting pounded in some back alley?
Wait a second
… Who would dare come after him with Walter the collector at his side? Billy repeated brightly. “Hey, Walter!” He grabbed the big man's right hand and pumped it three times.
What the hell
… He pumped three more times.

The main in the raincoat detoured, casting one glance toward Billy and Walter. He slipped down a side street and disappeared.

Walter frowned, looking puzzled. He took his hand back. “Mr. C. wants his money,” he said. “He was
unpleased
I came back last time without the full wad.”

“I'll write you an affidavit,” Billy said, only half joking, “swearing that you whooped me as hard as anybody.”

“You know I like you, Billy, but Mr. C—”

“By Sunday, Walt—I'll have it by Sunday.”

Walter put his hands on his hips and cocked his head at Billy. A pack of teenaged boys parted on the sidewalk and flowed around Walter like a stream around a boulder.

“Pounding my face today won't make Sunday come any quicker,” Billy added.

“You'll have the interest, too?”

“All of it,” Billy confirmed.

Walter's face softened. The bear smiled. Maybe there would be no beating that morning.

“I'm heading downtown,” Billy said, sneaking a glance to where the man in the raincoat had disappeared. “Can we head that way?”

They walked toward downtown; Billy felt like his big brother had arrived to scare off a bully. He wondered why the man had been following him at such a distance. Why didn't the guy try to catch him in the neighborhood, before they reached the crowded avenue? Or was the man just waiting for the perfect shot? Had Walter saved his life without knowing it? Billy indulged in the mystery in silence.

Walter said, “So what's with Sunday? You getting paid that day?”

“It's payday,” Billy agreed.

“What did you hit?”

“College football game,” Billy said. “It's local, so you know how those point spreads are.”

“Shaky, mostly,” Walt said. “Especially early in the season, when the local books haven't figured out the teams yet. When was the game?”

“Uh, that's the thing,” Billy said, violently scratching a sudden scalp itch. “The game's not until this Saturday—but it's a lock, a fucking lock. I laid everything I have on this bet, so I'll have Mr. C.'s money after I win.”

Actually, Billy had laid more than everything he had—he had maxed out the cash advances on seven credit cards for the capital to put down this five-figured wager, which he hoped would be the last bet of his life.

If he lost, it certainly would be the last.

Billy had expected Walt to bonk his head or maybe restrict his oxygen for ninety seconds or so, to make the point that a live bet was not equal to cash in hand. But the big man just rubbed a fist into his palm. The gesture seemed almost subconscious on Walter's part, though Billy understood.

He had to win that bet.

Anxious to change the subject, Billy asked, “So how'd it go with your girl after that horoscope ran in the paper?”

Walter beamed. “I had to beg off the fourth time,” he said. “Which gets me thinking. She has this friend—”

“Uh-huh.”

“—who lives by the horoscope, same as my girl. Both Scorpios.”

“That's probably why they're friends.”

“This friend is
hot.”

“You wanna switch?”

“That would be no net gain on my part,” Walter said. “I'd like to add her to the mix.”

“Ah.”

“Maybe I can owe you a favor?”

Billy grabbed his chin a moment in thought. He said, “They say three's a crowd, Scorpio—but there's nothing more fun than a happy crowd. Share and share alike!”

D
illingham's leg bounced under the table as Peter Shadd returned to the witness stand. The prosecutor reminded Martin of a racehorse in the gate.

The judge informed Peter that he was still under oath, then told Dillingham, “You may begin cross-examination.”

The prosecutor exploded from his chair. “What happened to your gun?” he demanded.

Peter's eyes widened. He seemed stunned by Dillingham's aggressiveness. “Wasn't my gun.”

Dillingham rolled his eyes dramatically. “Excuse me,” he said, exaggerating the sarcasm, laying his hand over his heart and looking upon Peter as he would a bug. “What did you do with the gun you had stolen from your cell mate?”

“I dunno.”

“You don't know.” He pretended to be disappointed.

“I lost it.”

Dillingham suddenly marched across the courtroom and stood at the back of the jury box. “Isn't it true,” he called out, nearly shouting,
“that after you robbed your cell mate Mr. Horne and stole his money in the park, you decided to kill Garrett Nickel?”

“No.”

“You killed him so you wouldn't have to share any money with him.”

“No!”

“You shot him, isn't that true?”

“Objection!” Martin yelled. “He's answered the question twice already.”

“You shot him, didn't you!”

“I didn't shoot him,” Peter cried.

The judge made a sign, as if signaling a base runner was safe. “That's enough,” he growled, growing red-faced again. He shook a finger at the two lawyers and warned, “We're going to keep our heads during this cross-examination. We're going to speak one at a time. We're going to shut up if there's an objection, until I sort it out. We will do everything I say today, or we will spend the night downstairs in lockup. And by ‘we,' I mean the two of you.”

He looked for anybody who might disagree. Nobody dared. Returning to the testimony, the judge made his ruling. “The question has been asked and answered—the witness denies shooting Garrett Nickel. Let's move on, Mr. Dillingham.”

Dillingham nodded in deference to the judge. When he resumed his cross-examination, the racehorse was gone and staid, plodding Ethan Dillingham was back—a Clydesdale again. “You mentioned in direct examination that when Garrett Nickel picked you up, you injected yourself with heroin, is this correct?”

“Yes.”

“You had been years without the drug, correct?”

“In jail—yeah.”

“The drug's destructive hold upon you is well documented, is that not true?”

Peter looked hard at him and then shrugged. “It screws me up.”

“Mmmmm,” Dillingham said thoughtfully. “Can you tell the court, then, why you immediately injected yourself with a substance for which you had no
physical
addiction at that time and which you knew contributes to self-destructive behavior?”

Peter looked away in heavy thought for a few seconds, searching himself for the answer.

“I shot up because I had been thinking about doing it from the day I got locked up,” he said. “Getting high is all I dream about in prison—whether I'm reading, doing push-ups, working on my appeal, or, well, anything. I'm sorta dreaming about it right now, if you want to know the truth. I don't expect anybody who ain't in my shoes to understand, but there it is.”

Dillingham flipped the page of his legal pad and read. He had no follow-up question for
that.
Martin suppressed a smile. Peter had done well.

Give the son of a bitch more truth than he can handle.

“So is it possible,” Dillingham said, though it seemed his heart wasn't in it, “that you could have shot Garrett Nickel while in this drug-induced stupor?”

“I didn't shoot him.”

Dillingham let it drop and flipped the page. He asked, “You have testified that the gunpowder residue on your hands came from firing at a rat, is this true?”

“I'm afraid of rats.”

“I don't believe the police found a dead rat in the boathouse—at least not one mortally wounded by a bullet,” Dillingham said. “The only gunshot body found anywhere near the boathouse was that of your former cell mate Garrett Nickel.”

“Objection,” Martin said, “Mr. Dillingham isn't asking questions; he's dictating a novel.”

The judge nodded. He told Dillingham, “This is a Q and A format,
Mr. Prosecutor, so let's hear more Q out of you and more A from the witness, and perhaps we'll conclude this trial before I hit mandatory retirement.”

Jurors chuckled.

Dillingham ignored the humor and plowed on. “What happened to the rat?”

“Maybe it ran away.”

“With a bullet in it?”

“Maybe I missed.”

“From two feet away?”

Peter tugged on his ear and fidgeted. He suddenly looked nervous. “I must have missed,” he said. “Or I hurt it and it ran away.” He looked to the jury. “I don't know.”

Dillingham stepped two paces closer to Peter. “What caliber was the gun?”

“Small-bore,” Peter said immediately. “A twenty-two.”

Martin chewed the inside of his cheek. Peter had to tell the truth, but did he have to seem so
sure
about it? He sounded like the ammunitions editor for
Concealed Weapons
magazine. What the jury would take from that, Martin feared, was that Peter had fired a lot of different guns.

Dillingham sensed the same thing, and he swooped in for another pass. “You're sure about the caliber?”

“Twenty-two,” Peter said again.

“That's the caliber of weapon that killed Garrett Nickel, isn't that right?”

“If you say so.”

“That's what the medical examiner has said, isn't it?”

“I object, Your Honor,” Martin said. “Mr. Shadd is a witness, not the court stenographer.”

The judge nodded. “The caliber of the bullets that struck the victim is in the court record—twenty-two caliber. Let's move on.”

Martin had won the objection, but Dillingham had won the point, hammering his most devastating piece of evidence. Martin combed his fingers through his beard, pulling hard at a knot until it gave way. He had anticipated that the gunpowder on Peter's hands would be the heaviest anchor on the defense. But to see it played out stung worse than he had expected.

We're in trouble.

Dillingham checked his notes a moment and then tossed the pad on the table. “Let me just ask about one more point,” he said, pausing and looking pensive. “You have admitted that you escaped from prison.”

“Yeah, obviously.”

“That you robbed your cell mate at gunpoint.”

“Like I said.”

“That you injected yourself with heroin.”

“Yeah.”

“And you admit,” he shouted, “that you were inside the boathouse when an unidentified victim was murdered and decapitated, and that while in proximity of that brutal killing, you admit you fired a stolen handgun of the same caliber as that which killed Garrett Nickel. You admit all of that, don't you?”

Peter looked to Martin, who could not help him.

“Yeah, I did all that stuff,” he squeaked. “But I didn't kill Garrett.”

“Of course not,” Dillingham cried, mocking him. “When would you have found the time?”

B
illy woke with a gasp and looked at his hands.

He could see their outline in the dark. His hands were dry, chapped, not sticky with the blood he had felt in his dream. He rolled over, pulled the pillow over his head, and bit the blanket. The sobs shook him like a seizure, and then suddenly they were gone. His body was exhausted, but Billy was wide-awake.

It was 4:45
A.M
. Too late for a sleeping pill. There should be at least one alert juror that day; the defense was expected to finish its presentation. He had an urge for Ovaltine—the toddler's sleep aid. He had slept in jeans, a white-collared dress shirt, socks, and slippers. Not the most comfortable sleepwear, but it saved time when he got up. In the kitchen, Billy warmed milk and scraped hardened Ovaltine from the jar.