Haunted Hearts (21 page)

“What did he mean, ‘do something' about Myers? Do what?”

“I don't know. He told me that you had found Ross, that he was working as a yacht salesman in Annapolis, but he had gone sailing for a week or more. I said it had to be a joke.”

“Why did it have to be a joke?”

“Because Ross could never stand being on a boat for more than five minutes, even sitting at the dock. He made friends with some high-rollers in Florida. We went to a party on a boat in Lauderdale one day, and we weren't even out of the harbour before Ross was sick to his stomach. He was
green
.
He was so sick that the man who owned the boat turned back to shore and let us off. So Ross isn't a yacht salesman. He just isn't.”

McGuire worked on that for a minute, remembering the aloof attitude of the woman at the yacht brokerage. “So why did Orin go?”

“Because he said he might have found a way to get back at Ross. Orin said he had seen his share of unfairness, he had even
done
his share of unfair things. He said he wished he was like you, somebody who could act on the spot. Somebody who could do things besides argue in court and shuffle papers.” She smiled. “He would have loved to hear what you did tonight with that Hayhurst thug. He might dislike brutality, but I think he would secretly approve. Anyway, he said he was thinking of asking you to do what he was planning to do, except that it would mean revealing too many things about me. And he didn't want to.”

“You told him Myers wasn't on that yacht.”

She nodded.

“Where did he think Myers was? And how did Orin Flanigan expect to deal with him?”

“I don't think he expected to meet Ross. I think he knew something about Ross, about what he was doing in Annapolis or wherever he is, and he went down to stop it.”

“Not by contacting the police. As far as I know, the cops knew nothing about Myers, and had no reason to pick him up. What was Flanigan like when you saw him last?”

“Determined. A little excited. He said, ‘I'm going to blow the lid off Myers.' I asked him how, and he told me to just watch him.” She looked at the clock again, and began to stand up. “I've got to be back there in fifteen minutes,” she said. “Can we get a cab?”

Saying goodbye was awkward. When she left the cab, he watched her enter the halfway house, watched the door close, then told the cabbie to take him to Revere Beach.

Ollie's house was dark when the cab pulled into the driveway. He paid the cabbie, unlocked the door, took three steps into the hall, and froze at a voice from the top of the stairs.

“Stay where you are or I'll shoot.”

The hall light above his head was on, and he shielded his eyes from the glare.

“Who the hell are you?” the woman's voice said.

“I live here,” McGuire answered, squinting up the stairs. “Who the hell are
you
?”

She was perhaps thirty-five or forty years old, tall and big-boned, with blond hair crew-cut on top, and long at the sides and back. She wore a Boston College sweatshirt over shapeless black slacks and high-cut basketball shoes, and she was holding an ugly black automatic. “Put your hands on top of your head.”

McGuire raised his hands. “You got a license for that thing?”

“I'll tell you what I've got for it,” the woman said. “I've got an NRA marksmanship award for hitting a target half your size at twice this distance. How's that make you feel?”

“Look,” McGuire began, “Whoever you are . . .”

A buzzer sounded in the upstairs hallway. “Oh, for Christ's sake,” the woman said.

“How you doing, Ollie?” McGuire called down the hall.

He could barely hear Ollie's response through the closed bedroom door. “What's going on?”

“What'd he say?” the woman asked.

“He wants to know what's going on,” McGuire said. “Look, I really live here . . .”

“What's your name?”

“Hey lady, I
live
here,” McGuire said.

The woman began descending the stairs, the gun aimed at McGuire, and he recognized it as a Hi-Standard .22. Loaded with Remington Fireball cartridges it would do almost as much damage as a .38. “My name is McGuire,” he said. “You mind telling me yours?”

Something between a shout and a gargle echoed from the direction of Ollie's room.

“What do you know about somebody named McGuire?” the woman shouted down the hall, her eyes and the gun unwavering.

“He lives here, you stupid sack of tit,” Ollie shouted. “Send him in here.”

McGuire tried to suppress a laugh.

The woman breathed deeply and muttered something. “If you live here, where's your room?” she said.

“Up the stairs and on the right.”

“What's in it?”

“One double bed, one dresser, a stereo system, and a bookcase.”

“Any pictures?”

“Yeah. A poster of a town in France called Vence. It's over the bed. You starting to believe me now?”

She shook her head and lowered the gun. “I don't remember them saying anybody'd be coming in here tonight.”

“You're Ollie's nurse,” McGuire said, lowering his hands.

“First night.” She lifted her chin and angled it towards Ollie's room. “He can be a real son of a bitch, you know that?”

“You coming in here or you gonna stand out there blabbin' all night?” Ollie shouted through the door.

“Mind if I see my buddy?” McGuire said.

“I'm sleeping in the other bedroom, his wife's,” the nurse said. “My name's Liz Worthington.”

“I suppose I should say it was nice meeting you,” McGuire said. “But it wasn't.”

“Nobody at the Benevolent told me they had a roomer,” Liz Worthington said. “I saw the room upstairs and figured maybe it was their son's or something. Why the hell wouldn't they tell me that?”

“I'll be sure to ask them next time I see them,” McGuire said.

The nurse began climbing the stairs. “I keep that door locked, the bedroom door,” she said. “Just for your information.”

“I'll sure as hell keep mine locked, too,” McGuire said. She gave him a sharp look over her shoulder and continued climbing the stairs.

Ollie's bed was raised to a sitting position. “That broad upstairs? She had balls, she'd be storm-trooper material.”

“How do you know she hasn't?” McGuire said, settling himself in a chair. “Balls, I mean. She pulled a gun on me, Ollie. And why didn't you tell her about me?”

“Thought I'd surprise you a little, that's all. Didn't know she'd cover your ass with that nasty little Hi-Standard, even if she
was
braggin' about her marksmanship scores,” Ollie said. “If the damn thing'd gone off, at least you'd know it wasn't an accident. Jesus, Joseph, you're back on the hit parade. Been watchin' all the channels, tellin' how you turned that Hayhurst squirrel into roadkill. Didn't anybody interview you? They're sayin' you're like the Lone Ranger, doin' your good deed and then vanishing. They're after you like a belch after a beer. You really try to erase him against a brick wall? How's your car? They said, on channel eight, they said it took two slugs from the kid. And they said you were with some mysterious blonde woman. They love mysterious blondes, don't they? I mean, they're either famous or mysterious. This one's mysterious. So tell me about her.”

“I'll explain later . . .”

“Explain it now. You think I'm going anywhere?”

McGuire looked away, then back at Ollie. “What'd you settle?” he asked. “You and Ronnie? I thought it would kill you, when you found out.”

“It didn't kill me. Does it look like it killed me? Just wounded me in a different place. She packed some of her clothes, a bunch of other things she wanted. She'd already applied to the Benevolent for a nurse, did it last week. By the time they sent over Norman Schwarzkopf in drag, she was gone.”

“How're you taking it?”

“The only way I
can
take it. By telling myself there's other stuff to hang onto.” His voice softened. “So who the hell's Susan Schaeffer? And gimme the details on runnin' down that punk.”

“Maybe I'd better make some coffee,” McGuire said.

“Hey, it's that good?”

“So what are you going to do?”

It was an hour later. McGuire poured the remains of the coffee from the carafe into his cup.

“I don't know,” McGuire said softly. The adrenaline was used up, and his body ached. He held his head in one hand, the empty cup of coffee in the other. “Donovan's running things like he's a chainsaw in a rose garden. Shit's flying everywhere, but not a hell of a lot's getting done.”

“And you want to do something.”

“Why would I want to do anything?”

“The same reason you want to breathe, McBoink. Go find Myers.” Ollie's good hand reached for the bed control. With a muted hum the bed lowered him back to a horizontal position. “Check out Florida. Winter's coming, and horse balls like him can't wait to sit in the sun at Hialeah.”

“And if I find him, what do I do next? Tell Donovan where he is?”

“Donovan probably already knows. He just doesn't have enough to work with.”

“Wherever he is now, Myers killed Flanigan.”

“Good luck doin' anything about it. Nobody's seen the guy. You didn't see him in Annapolis, nobody's seen him up here, there's no proof he was ever in the rented car. If they do find and arrest him, based on what they've got now, Myers'll hire his buddy Rosen again, and Marv'll bust a gut laughin' at a charge like that. Which you know will never come to court anyway.”

“Why should I give a damn? I don't know Myers, and I never knew Flanigan much.”

“Because he got away with hurtin' some woman who's got your eyes dropping like cue-balls into a corner pocket, that's why.” Ollie closed his eyes. “Turn off the light. Maybe we'll all have breakfast together in the morning. You, me, and Door Number Three.”

McGuire tripped the light switch and closed the door behind him.

As he walked along the hall towards the staircase he heard Ollie's voice again. “Find Myers.”

The man who identified himself as the owner of Bay Ridge Yachts spoke with a faded Georgia drawl. McGuire called him as soon as he arrived at Zimmerman, Wheatley and Pratt the next morning, grabbing breakfast on the way in, avoiding both Ollie and the nurse. The man told McGuire his name was Harrison Klees, “with a
K
and no
e
on the end.”

Klees said no one named Myers worked for his company, nor had anyone named Myers ever worked for him. He was getting tired of answering these questions, and he really would like to get on with doing business and stay off the telephone. McGuire must be the third Boston cop to call him about this guy, whoever he was.

“Who asked?” McGuire sipped from his mug of coffee. Beyond his office door he heard the rustle of early-morning office activity—ringing phones, low conversation, and sudden brief volleys of laughter. “Who asked all the questions?”

“Well, someone from your department . . .” the man in Annapolis began.

“Who was it?” McGuire insisted. “Do you remember his name?”

“Irish. It was an Irish name.”

“Lieutenant Donovan. He's been reassigned to another case. I'm on it now, and I need to hear your side.”

“Well, like I told him when he called, and like I told the lawyer who was here, the one who was murdered, I don't know who y'all are talkin' about. I said I'd never heard of this Myers character before that lawyer showed up, and I don't want to hear any more about him. Heard too damn much 'bout him already.”

“What about Mrs. Diamond? Anybody talk to her?”

“That lawyer did, and your man Donovan did, too. I told that Donovan fella about the lawyer coming here and asking for her. Christine wasn't in that day, the day the lawyer showed up. I remember that. Anyway, the lawyer showed me his card and said it was an urgent legal matter, so I let him call her from here.”

“You didn't overhear the conversation?”

“Nope. They didn't talk long, and he was gone, the lawyer. Then I think the sheriff's office down here was trying to reach her, but I'm not sure if they did or not.”

“Apparently she told somebody that Myers worked for you. She said he was delivering a yacht to the Carolinas.”

“Yeah, well. You gotta understand that some funny people get attracted to these big boats. They come over here, and it's like somebody turns on a bullshit machine, they start acting like they just sold Rhode Island that morning, you know? She figured this guy for one of them. Plus, I remember a couple guys coming by here a week before that. They were looking for Myers too. Said they were told that Myers worked here, and they were the kind of fellas who found it hard to take no for an answer. Almost had to call the law myself to get rid of them. So she figured it was easier to say yeah, he works here, but he's gone for a week or so.”

“She a good saleswoman for you?”

“Christine? She does all right. She's overcome a few problems, as you know . . .”

“Problems?” McGuire wrote
Diamond
on a sheet of paper and kept the pencil poised for more notes. “What kinds of problems?”

He could hear the other man exhale noisily in exasperation. “Don't y'all read your stuff up there? I mean, how many more times've I gotta
do
this?”

“I must have missed it. What kinds of problems does Mrs. Diamond have?”

“Well, losing her husband the way she did last year . . .”

“What happened to him?”

“He was in the New York-Bermuda yacht race, skippering his own craft, and they ran into a bit of a stomach-churner, and he got himself overboard. Only member of the crew not tethered. Terrible thing. Two kiddies and all.”

“What did her husband do? For a living?”

“Bert Diamond was a damn fine dentist, orthodontics. And he had some investments around here, couple of strip malls up towards Glen Burnie . . .”

“So he left Mrs. Diamond comfortably off . . .” McGuire wrote a “$” under
Diamond
.

“I suppose . . .”

“What's to suppose?”

“Look, I don't go into detail with my employees, all right? I mean, their personal lives.”

“Wait a minute.” McGuire frowned and scribbled “?” after the dollar sign. “You're telling me Mrs. Diamond needed money?”

“I'm saying Mrs. Diamond had to pay off a lot of Bert's debts when he died, all those empty strip malls he had mortgaged to the hilt, hoping they'd turn to gold when the economy got going. They were worth practically nothing, and there was a whole lot of back taxes owin' on them, plus Bert had a lot of other payables. She was left with the house and not much more,” Klees said. “But Bert looked after his kids. His kids are set up with a trust fund, but Christine, she had to go to work, and I offered her a job here.”

“How old are the children?”

“About eight and nine. Two nice little boys. Listen, I've got a barrel-load of paperwork here needs doing . . .”

“Okay.” McGuire tossed the pencil aside. “Thanks for your help.”

“Am I gonna get any more calls like this?” Klees asked.

“There's always that possibility in a murder investigation.”

“Just in case I do, maybe I can save myself some time, 'cause I'm getting tired of singing this same song, you know? What'd y'all say your name was again?”

“DeLisle,” McGuire replied. “Detective Frank DeLisle.”

“Favours?” Libby Waxman coughed into the telephone with a noise that sounded like a ton of gravel falling down a flight of stairs. “What the hell do you think this is, a United Appeal agency?”

“Come on, Libby.” McGuire smiled at her reply. Some people got older and more crotchety, but funnier too. Libby was one of them. “I'm not saying it's a freebie, I'm just saying that one of them's a personal thing and I don't have a lot of money to play with. How about a two-fer?”

“This new stuff or old?”

“One's new, the other's more of the same.”

“More of the same? That guy I told you about last time?”

“Yeah, Myers.”

“Lawyer from that law firm you're with, somebody there got himself killed coupla days ago, right?”

“Yeah, I heard.”

“Newspapers're sayin' he was last seen down Washington way, that right?”

“You're right on top of things, Libby.”

“Which is not much more than a hooker's stroll from Annapolis. Where I told you Myers is.”

“You're getting the picture.”

“So whattaya need?”

“Just find out if Myers . . .”

“The guy I tracked for you.”

“Just find out if he's been spreading fresh change around Pimlico, places like that. Or maybe if he's golden with the bookies.”

“Won't take much. What else?”

“This one's easy for you. This one's the favour I need.”

“I don't handle favours, McGuire.” Libby's voice became clearer, and the edge grew honed. “You ever ask a bank to cash a friggin' favour?”

“I'm looking for a man named Thomas Schaeffer, used to live in Newton, moved out about two years ago. Guy works in telephones, telecommunication, stuff like that . . .”

“What'd he do?”

“He left town. With two kids.”

“Why?”

“Does it matter?”

“It's a custody jump, right? Took off with the kids, wife wants them back?”

“Something like that.”

“And the guy's straight? Doesn't gamble, doesn't do drugs? No record?”

“Except for a wife assault a few years ago, yeah.”

“Where's the wife now?”

McGuire shifted the receiver to the other ear. “You need that stuff?”

“Wouldn't hurt.”

“She's in town.”

“Custody stuff like this ain't easy, McGuire. Nobody on the street knows anything. You got some other source, some clue?”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute.” Someone at Zimmerman, Wheatley and Pratt must have Schaeffer's new address, McGuire suspected. If Schaeffer instructed Flanigan not to reveal his whereabouts, especially to Susan, would Flanigan refuse to provide it, caring about her the way he had? Was that part of the client-privilege guideline? Had Flanigan planned to provide Susan with her former husband and children's address? Or would he try to persuade her ex-husband to contact Susan himself?

“You still there McGuire?”

“Just a minute, Libby.”

He remembered Cassidy, and the young lawyer's concern about maintaining secrecy on his client's case of suspected fraud. Something was off-balance with that guy, McGuire suspected. It was worth a shot—a long shot, but what the hell. He swiveled in his chair and yanked open a file drawer. “Listen, there's one more thing,” he said. “Something else to look into.”

“What, you think I'm a wholesaler today? Three traces on one call?”

“This one's not a person,” McGuire said, retrieving a file folder and opening it on his desk in front of him. “It's a company.”

When the telephone rang ten minutes later, McGuire half expected it to be Libby with a detailed response to his request. Instead he heard Susan's voice.

“I'm down at the market,” she said. “I lost my job.”

“Because of yesterday? Being arrested?”

“Yes.”

“Wasn't much of a job.”

“No, but it's a condition of my parole that I either have a job or some sort of support.”

McGuire told her they would meet for lunch, and he named a restaurant near the market.

“I miss you already,” she said.

Next, McGuire called Berkeley Street to tell Wally Sleeman what he needed from him.

“What the hell're you up to now, McGuire?” Sleeman's voice had an amused edge to it.

“Just give me a rundown, verbal's fine,” McGuire said. “And don't tell DeLisle.”

“Why? Was it his case?”

“No, it wasn't his case. He was just a witness.”

“You're not workin' with Rudy Zelinka, are you?” Zelinka was the Internal Affairs investigator, the gatekeeper of the Boston Police Department's moral standards, although he was never described in such glowing terms by officers or detectives.

“No, it's strictly for me,” McGuire assured Sleeman.

McGuire went for a walk around the block, returned to make another pot of coffee, and had almost finished scanning the newspaper when the telephone rang.

“You busy?” Richard Pinnington asked. The tone of his voice said it didn't matter.

On the way up the open stairway to Pinnington's office, McGuire passed Lorna descending to the fourteenth floor. He smiled at her but she turned away and continued downstairs.

Pinnington's door was open, and the lawyer beckoned McGuire inside from behind his desk. “Close the door, will you?” he said as McGuire approached. The lawyer was in his shirtsleeves, his embroidered tie loosened and pulled away from his unbuttoned collar.

McGuire swung the door shut and sat in one of the wing chairs, facing Pinnington's desk.

“Sometimes all you want to do is practice law and you get stuck with a pile of other people's crap,” Pinnington said. He settled himself in his chair.

“Whose?” McGuire asked. This is not going to go well, he warned himself.

“Whose what?” Pinnington looked directly at him for the first time since McGuire entered his office.

“Whose crap are you having to deal with?”

“Jesus, it seems like everybody's. Orin's, his widow's, Barry Cassidy's . . .”

“Any of it mine?”

Pinnington stared at McGuire, as though thinking about it for the first time, which McGuire knew was a ruse. “As a matter of fact,” Pinnington said. He looked down at his desk, then back at McGuire. “Cassidy's upset with you.”

“So what? You said you could handle him. He got what he needed from me.”

“Have you made any unauthorized copies of his documents?” Pinnington stared at McGuire, direct and unwavering, and McGuire felt like a hostile witness being cross-examined in a courtroom.

“Like what?”

“Client records, correspondence, whatever.”

McGuire nodded. “Cassidy's client. The electronics outfit.”

“So you did.”

“Lorna told him, right?” She had been at the copying machine, watching McGuire.

“I don't know what Lorna might have told him,” Pinnington was saying to the floor. “All I know is that Cassidy's accused you of unacceptable conduct, and I told him I doubted it very much. But it appears he was correct.”

“I did it because he's hiding something.”

“Such as?”

“I don't know. All I know is that he didn't give me all the files, and I've had this gut feel . . .”

“Gut feel?” Pinnington looked at McGuire as though he had heard something amusing. “McGuire, I'm talking facts, and you're defending yourself by saying you had a gut fee!?”

“Instinct, Dick. Intuition. That's what you brought me in for, remember?”

“Yes, to use on behalf of our clients, damn it. Not against one of our own staff members, a guy in line for a partnership.”

“Why didn't he give me all the information?”

“It's his prerogative not to.” Pinnington rose from his chair and jammed his hands in his pockets. “Who are you to judge a lawyer's decision in these matters?”

“I'm sure he's hiding something . . .”

“Barry Cassidy has an exemplary record in everything he's done for this firm and our clients.” The lawyer withdrew a fist and hit the desk. “He's a Yale graduate
cum laude
, he's married into one of the best families in New England, and I will not hear unsubstantiated rumours of unethical behavior. Not in this office, not from your mouth, not anywhere.”

McGuire rose from his chair. “Sounds like we may have reached the end of our contract,” he said.