Night Passage (18 page)

“Jesse, you need to be clear about things,” Hathaway said finally. “You are either with us, or you are not. We value loyalty above all things. It was ultimately Tom Carson’s failure.”

“Whatever happened to him?” Jesse said.

Hathaway glanced away from Jesse and stared out the window.

“We had to ask for Tom’s resignation,” Hathaway said.

“Because?”

“Because his loyalty was in question.”

“Loyalty to who?” Jesse said. His voice was gentle and there was nothing in it other than interest.

“To us,” Hathaway said. “To the people of this town who matter.”

“Like you,” Jesse said.

“Yes. And Lou Burke, and everyone in this town who cares about preserving democracy at the grass roots.” Hathaway’s voice seemed to scrape out of his throat.

“So where is Carson now?”

“I have no idea,” Hathaway said.

“Me either.”

Hathaway looked hard at Jesse, but there was nothing on his face, nothing in his voice, except the hint of something seething behind the bow tie and glasses.

“I don’t want to hear that you are opening up to this state policeman in any way,” Hathaway said finally.

“The surest way to bring them down here in droves,” Jesse said, “is to try and keep them out.”

“You don’t have to keep them out. But you can stonewall them.”

“You haven’t had much dealing with people like Healy,” Jesse said. “I have. He’s been in this business forty years. He’s taken guns away from hopheads and children away from molesters. He’s seen every mess, heard every lie. He’s been there and seen it done. You can’t stonewall him any more than you can scare him.”

“So we throw the town secrets open to him?”

“No, but we let him help us catch the guy who killed that girl,” Jesse said.

Hathaway sat silent as a stone on the corner of the desk, shaking his head slowly.

“A damned divorcee,” he said finally, “out to get laid.”

“Or the mother of two kids,” Jesse said, “out for the evening. All depends on which truths you tell, I guess.”

Hathaway continued to sit and shake his head. Then he rose abruptly and walked stiffly out of Jesse’s office. Jesse watched the empty doorway that Hathaway had gone through for a while, his lips pursed slightly. He realized his jaw was clamped very tight and he opened it and worked it back and forth a little to relax it. He breathed in deeply and let it out slowly, listening to his own exhale, easing the tightness along his shoulders, relaxing his back.

“And Lou Burke,” Jesse said aloud.

He got up and went to the file cabinet and got out Burke’s personnel file and took it back to his desk and began to thumb through it.

Finding Tammy Portugal’s husband was easy. The alimony check had been cashed at the Paradise Bank and the address was printed on it. Jesse drove out to Springfield and talked with him at 10:30 a.m. in a coffee shop on Sumner Avenue at an intersection called the X. The restaurant was out of the 1930s. Glass brick, and a jukebox near the kitchen.

“I’m a loser,” Bobby Portugal said to Jesse. “Tammy thought she was marrying a winner, but that was just my bullshit. I been a loser since I graduated high school.”

Portugal was medium height and husky. His dark hair was longish and he had a neatly trimmed beard. He wore a Patriots warm-up jacket over a gray tee shirt and jeans.

“We went together in high school. I was a big jock in high school. Running back, point guard. She thought I was a big deal.”

The waitress brought an order of English muffins for Jesse and a fried-egg sandwich for Portugal.

“Made All–North Shore League, junior and senior year, football and basketball. Got a partial scholarship to B.C.”

Portugal paused while he peeled off the top layer of toast and poured ketchup on the fried egg.

“And when you got there,” Jesse said, “everybody had made all-league and a lot of the leagues were faster than yours.”

“You better believe it,” Portugal said.

He took a bite of his sandwich and put it down while he pulled a paper napkin from the dispenser on the table and wiped ketchup from the corner of his mouth.

“I lasted six weeks,” he said. “And quit. Went to work for the highway department in town. Thought I was making a ton. Tammy and I were still going out, and she got pregnant, and …” Portugal shrugged and shook his head. He picked up his sandwich and held it for a moment and put it down. His eyes filled and he turned his head away from Jesse.

“Take your time,” Jesse said.

Portugal continued to sit with his head turned. Without looking he pushed his plate away from him. Jesse waited. Portugal took in a deep breath and let it out. He did it again. Then he straightened his head and looked at Jesse. His eyes were wet.

“We got married,” he said. “She still thought I was a big deal. Nineteen, money in my pocket, a star in the Paradise softball league. She was thrilled to be marrying Bobby Portugal.”

Portugal’s voice was perfectly calm. Remote, Jesse thought, as if he were talking about people he knew casually, and found mildly interesting. Except that he was teary.

“And then we had the babies and two hundred and fifty bucks a week didn’t look like so much. I tried selling Amway for a while. That was a joke. I tried insurance, got through the training program and got fired. I didn’t earn much money, but I played a lotta ball with the guys and drank a lotta beer. Finally she dumped me. You blame her?”

“What are you doing out here?” Jesse said.

“Security guard. Downtown at the big mall. When I get off work, I got a room with a sink in the corner and bathroom down the hall. You ever play ball?”

“Some,” Jesse said. “Why Springfield?”

“I had to get away from Paradise,” Portugal said. “This seemed far enough. Nobody ever heard of me here.”

“Tell me where you were Tuesday night.”

“Did my shift at the mall till ten. Had a date. Girl works at the mall. Got home around three-thirty, she spent the night. That when she was killed? Tammy? Tuesday night?”

“Can I talk with the woman you dated?”

“You gotta?”

“Be good to know what you were doing that period of time.”

“Yeah, if you gotta. But can you be sort of cool about it? Her old man is a long-distance trucker. When he’s out of town we … we got a little arrangement.”

“I can talk to her at work,” Jesse said.

“Okay. Her name’s Rosa Rodriguez, she works in the little candy kiosk in the mall.”

“Can you give me the address of the mall?” Jesse said.

Portugal told him and Jesse wrote it down.

“You own a car?”

“No. With my alimony? Mostly I ride the bus. Buses are pretty good here. I guess there’s no more alimony, is there?”

“Child support,” Jesse said.

He nodded.

“They okay?” he said.

“Your children?”

“Yeah.”

“They’re with your mother-in-law.”

Portugal nodded.

“You wanna give me the name of your supervisor please,” Jesse said.

Portugal told him.

“What time you get to work on Wednesday?”

“Ten a.m. About five hours’ sleep. Man!” Portugal shook his head. “You think I done it?”

“Not if your story checks,” Jesse said. “She was out clubbing, probably, Tuesday night, there was alcohol present. You know any of her favorite places?”

Portugal shook his head.

“No favorites,” he said. “I know she used to go out once a week, but she’d never go the same place. Didn’t want to get a reputation, you know. Bad for the kids, she said. So she wouldn’t go to any place regular. She’d always go where nobody knew her. She was a good mother, man.”

“Sorry to have to ask, but did she go to meet men, you think?”

“Yeah, sure, why wouldn’t she? We was divorced. She was free. She liked sex, I know that. I mean that’s pretty much what we had was sex, and after a while, when I wasn’t working and didn’t do much but play ball and drink with the guys, we didn’t even have that.”

“Because she didn’t want to?”

“Because I wasn’t much good,” Portugal said.

“Too much defeat,” Jesse said.

“And beer,” Portugal said. “Way too much beer.”

“You got an arrangement with the trucker’s wife, though,” Jesse said, and smiled. “Looks like you’re making a comeback.”

Portugal shrugged.

“Arrangement is just that, we both like to get laid, it don’t mean much.”

“You have any thoughts on who might have killed your ex-wife?”

Portugal’s eyes teared again. He lowered his head.

“No,” he said.

They talked in the anachronistic restaurant for nearly an hour. Jesse asked about male friends of the deceased, about female friends. Had she ever worked anyplace? Had she any enemies? Had he any enemies? Did she have debts? Did he? How often did he see her? When had he last seen her? When it was through, Jesse paid the small bill and they left the restaurant. The fried-egg sandwich remained uneaten on Portugal’s plate.

“I wasn’t such a loser,” Portugal said, “she’d be all right. She figured she was marrying Mr. Big, guy that was going somewhere. And look where I took her.”

“Maybe you’re taking on more than you need to,” Jesse said.

“And maybe I ain’t,” Portugal said.

Jesse had nothing else to say about that and he got in his car and drove away while Portugal stood on the corner looking down Sumner Avenue at Jesse’s receding car.

There was a harvest fair on the common. It meant that tables were set up outdoors and people sold handicrafts and bakery products and pumpkins to benefit the Paradise Woman’s Club. Inside the meeting Cissy Hathaway in a mop hat and apron was selling cider and donuts. Jesse stood with Abby against the far wall, near the door.

“The Paradise Woman’s Club,” Abby said. She shook her head. “Makes me blush.”

“Maybe it has evolved into a powerful force for feminism,” Jesse said.

“And maybe pigs fly,” Abby said.

“And whistle while they do it,” Jesse said.

They got in line for cider. In line ahead of them was Jo Jo Genest, massive and alien in the Saturday-morning suburban crowd. When it was his turn he lingered at the counter talking to Cissy. Jo Jo stayed too long. The line built up behind him with people looking toward the front to see what the holdup was. Jesse watched Cissy as she talked to Jo Jo. Her body seemed to lose some of its stiffness and her pale face seemed to gain color. She shifted behind the cider table in a way that made her hips move. Jo Jo finally moved on, the crowd parting carefully as he moved ponderously through it. He didn’t look at Jesse and Cissy’s eyes followed him before she turned back to the next customer.

When it was his turn Jesse ordered two ciders and two donuts, paid for them, and carried them away from the table to where Abby was standing.

“She’s not as mousy as she looks,” Jesse said.

“Cissy?”

“Un huh.”

Abby looked at him as if he were crazy, as they walked across the common toward the wall across the street where the burnout kids usually sat.

“How could she be more mousy?” Abby said.

They sat together on the stone wall, where they could watch the people.

“I’m telling you, did you see her get almost wiggly when Jo Jo bought some cider?”

“Oh come on.”

“I’m telling you, there’s something there.”

“You can tell by just looking.”

“Absolutely,” Jesse said. “I am wise in these matters.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I am blessed with a penis,” Jesse said.

“Yeah, and you think with it,” Abby said. “Like every other man I know.”

Jesse ate some donut and took a sip of cider. The leaves had begun to gather on the ground, yellow mostly, but with enough red and partial green to give it the New England effect. The smell of them mixed with the smell of the ocean. The ocean smell was so pervasive, Jesse thought, that unless it were offset by something else you didn’t notice it.

“Any progress on the killing?” Abby said.

“Not in the sense that you mean,” Jesse said.

“What other sense is there?”

“Well, like any investigation, each time you eliminate a suspect that’s progress. You’ve narrowed the pool, so to speak. But progress in the sense of a solid lead to who did it, no.”

“Who have you eliminated?”

“Her ex-husband. He’s got a verifiable alibi for the time she was killed and several hours each side of it.”

“And I suppose the ex-husband would always be the prime suspect in a case like this.”

Jesse nodded.

“We like to start simple,” he said.

“So has the pool now narrowed to everybody but her ex?”

“Well,” Jesse said, “sort of. But there’s odd-looking bits and pieces sort of floating up, nothing like a nice hard clue or anything, just odd things that don’t look like they’re part of the soup.”

“Like what?”

Jesse shrugged and finished his first donut.

“You know the old instruction on how to sculpture a horse out of granite. You take a piece of granite and chip away everything that doesn’t look like a horse.”

“What the hell kind of answer is that?” Abby said.

Jesse drank some cider.

“I was trying to be folksy,” he said.

Abby leaned away from him and stared at his face.

“Jesse, you don’t want to tell me,” she said.

“Talking about a case doesn’t usually do the case much good,” he said.

“Goddamn it,” Abby said. “You don’t trust me.”

Jesse didn’t say anything. The paper cup from which he’d drunk his cider was empty. He crumpled it and tossed it into a green trash barrel.

“Two,” he said.

“Jesse, you can’t not trust me.”

He turned to look at her.

“Ab,” he said. “I guess the ugly truth is, I don’t trust anybody.”

“For Christ’s sake,” she said.

“Nothing’s quite what it seems to be around here,” Jesse said. “Makes me careful.”

“Including me?”

“Don’t be hurt,” he said. “It’s just the way I have to be.”

“I am hurt, but I’m also sad—for you. Not to trust me! You have to be able to trust somebody.”

Jesse shrugged. He did trust someone. God help me, he thought, I guess I trust Jenn. He decided not to mention that. It wasn’t an answer that would make Abby feel better.