And Leave Her Lay Dying (14 page)

“Until Andy Cornell?”

“He was part of it. I just . . . When I left, my sister told me I could be her live-in babysitter. I earn my room and board and forty dollars a week. And I get so much love from Kelly. She seems everything to me. Sometimes it frightens me because I know she won't always be a child. She won't always need me.”

McGuire stood up. “I have to go, Miss O'Neil.” He thanked her for the tea.

She walked him to the door, held his coat for him, and touched his elbow absent-mindedly. “I've never told anyone about the man at the library,” she said. “Except my sister. I'm sorry if I bored you.”

“You know what I think?” he said, turning to look at her. “I think you're too good a person to spend your life regretting a guy like that.”

The tears began again and she bit her bottom lip. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for saying that.” Then, with a whisper of desperation in her voice: “Will you be back?”

“I might.” He handed her his card. “If you think of anything else, call me.”

“You already gave me one,” she said accepting it. “But I'd love another.” She reached to touch his upper lip with her finger. “How did you get that scar?”

“Shaving.”

She smiled broadly enough to wrinkle her nose, making her look several years younger. “Impossible.”

“I use a very large blade.”

“You're an interesting man.”

“Only on the outside.”

The dog began scratching at the kitchen door, crying for attention. McGuire stepped into the chill of the day and the inhuman roar of another 727 on its way to the airport, its landing-gear extended and the sound of its engines piercing the afternoon calm.

Driving back to the city, he tried to assemble pieces of the puzzle of Jennifer Cornell's murder in his head. No matter how he arranged them, the gaping hole that always remained in the picture was named Andrew Cornell.

He hesitated at Bennington, began to turn left into the city, then jerked the wheel right towards the ocean and Revere Beach Parkway.

“Would you mind waiting in the living room?” Ronnie said at the door, avoiding McGuire's eyes. “It's dinner time. He's not comfortable having you watch me feed him.”

McGuire sat quietly in the small, tidy living room. A game show played itself out on the television set, the contestants locked together in frenzied greed. Atop the television console, from within a sterling silver frame, the face of a small boy shone into the room. His hair was carefully combed into a shiny pompadour and he wore a printed cotton top with matching short pants. He was laughing at something above and behind the camera, his rosebud mouth spread in an expression of glee. He would always be laughing. He would always be five years old and alive.

“Coffee?”

McGuire twisted in the chair to see Ronnie beaming at him.

“He's happy you're here,” she said. “He won't show it—you know Ollie—but he wants to talk to you.”

She poured coffee for him in the kitchen and he entered Ollie's room, sipping from an earthenware mug.

“How you doing?” Ollie lay propped up in his bed, his right hand squeezing the tennis ball at the same steady tempo.

“First we kill all the lawyers,” McGuire said as he lowered himself into his usual chair. “You?”

“You have to ask?” The large head studied McGuire, the eyes narrowed to slits. “So tell me what happened today.”

For the next half hour McGuire traced the events of the day, beginning with his request for information from Ralph Innes.

“You'd better talk to Jack,” Ollie offered when McGuire mentioned Ralph's warning. “Get him calmed down. Otherwise you'll get your ass pulled into the wringer.”

His eyes widened as McGuire described Rosen's ambush in Robinson's meeting room and the demand for McGuire's resignation.

“Rosen's about as smooth as stucco toilet paper, but he's not dumb,” Ollie said quietly. “Bet the farm on this, Joseph. Somebody over at Berkeley Street knows what he's up to and gave him the nod. Maybe not Kavander, but somebody above him. They know about it. Otherwise, Rosen wouldn't pull a number like that on you.”

“Goddamn it, Ollie!” McGuire exploded. “I resign now and they'll put this Cornell case back in the grey files. Not only that, but Wilmer will walk for good. You know how testimony is useless from a cop who just resigned from the force. It's worth nothing. Less than nothing. Rosen would cut me to pieces in front of the jury. We'd have two killers still walking around out there and nobody would give a damn.”

“Except the city gets rid of a trouble-making cop and out from under a lawsuit.” Ollie turned his head to face McGuire. “Joe, I remember when Kavander talked to me the day I left. He said he'd bet my pension that you wouldn't last six months without me to keep you reined in.”

“And what did you tell him, Ollie?”

“I told him he might be right.” Ollie lowered his voice. “I also told him that if it was true, he would lose the best damn investigating cop on the force. Now, what else have you got?”

McGuire reviewed Andrew Cornell's appointment to meet Fleckstone on the day after his sister was found murdered, and his apparent familiarity with southern accents. He talked about visiting Frances O'Neil and her description of the missing brother.

“It all comes back to the brother, whoever he is,” McGuire said when he had finished.

Instead of answering, Ollie studied him, then rolled his head to look out the window at the darkened sea.

McGuire looked at his watch. “I'll call Ralph Innes, see what he came up with.”

Ronnie was seated in the kitchen, the evening newspaper spread in front of her. “I need to use the phone,” McGuire said, adding quickly, “No, it's okay, stay there,” when she rose to leave.

“We're having an extension installed in Ollie's room tomorrow,” she said. “A speaker phone. That way, he doesn't have to use the receiver.” Her face clouded. “After that, all he'll need is somebody to call him.”

McGuire dialled Berkeley Street, asked for Ralph Innes and opened his notebook while waiting to be connected.

“Innes here,” the detective answered.

“Ralph, it's Joe. You got anything for me?”

“Yeah, yeah.” The other man sounded distracted. “Let me get to a different phone, okay?”

McGuire nodded when Ronnie lifted the coffee pot in his direction. She poured a cup and set it in front of him.

“Joe?” Innes came back on the line. His voice was softer, almost a whisper. “Had to get to another phone. Listen, where you calling from? Kavander's been riding everybody's ass looking for you.”

“I'm at a friend's,” McGuire replied. “Just tell me what you got and I'll get back to Kavander later.”

“Okay. And listen, Joe, Jesus, I'm really sorry for all those things I said.”

“About what?”

“Not what. Who. Sweet . . . Janet. I didn't know about you two. Why didn't you say something instead of letting me talk about her like that in front of you?”

“How the hell did you find out?” McGuire asked.

“A guy in ID heard Kavander bitching about it to somebody in the commissioner's office. Her husband called the commissioner himself and spent ten minutes blubbering about how you ruined his life. Kavander said that was all he needed, a citizen complaining about a cop screwing his wife behind his back. Hell, you know how word spreads around here. Anyway, Joe, I'm sorry for all those cracks. Just making jokes, you know?”

McGuire felt more tired than he could remember. All day long he had managed to keep memories of Janet from his mind. With difficulty. And with sorrow. He didn't want them intruding now. “Forget it, Ralph. It's over anyway. I was never comfortable being involved with a married woman. Never could be. So what did you discover?”

Innes spoke to someone at his end of the line, then returned to the receiver. “I have to make this fast,” he said. “Just got a call in from Washington Avenue. Sounds like a double and suicide. Anyway, here's what I've got. Found a Cartier pawned on Dorchester, June nineteenth. Guy got sixteen hundred cash for it.”

“Name?”

“One Henry Reich, Park Drive.”

“Son of a bitch!” McGuire began scribbling in his notebook.

“That's the bozo you wanted to know about, right? Apartment superintendent? Fell downstairs carrying a case of booze? I interviewed him, second time around on the case, with Fat Eddie.”

“What was he like?”

“Kind of arrogant, as I recall. Wouldn't offer us a thing. Acted like it was his big chance to be a pain in the ass to the cops.”

“What's on his death report?”

“Accidental. Yeah, this is the guy. Age sixty-four. Weight one-eighty. Blood alcohol level was point-one-six. Old bugger was pickled like a kosher dill.”

“When did it happen?”

McGuire could hear pages being turned. “July fifth. About eleven at night. No witnesses, body discovered by the wife.”

“Okay, I know that part. How about Jennifer Cornell's bank records?”

More pages being turned. Then: “She made cash deposits of over three thousand dollars each on May twenty-third, twenty-fifth, twenty-ninth and thirtieth, and June second. These were in addition to regular salary deposits made by her employer. Then she withdrew almost five grand in cash on June third.”

“Which, I'll bet, is what the Cartier was worth.”

“Something like that.”

“Anything else in the bank records?”

“Nothing special.”

“How about her mother?”

“Ah, yes. Suzanne Alice Cornell.” Innes read from his notes. “Died end of May, nineteen eighty-three, San Antonio, Texas, aged fifty, cause of death massive internal injuries suffered when the car in which she was a passenger collided with another vehicle on Culebra Road.”

“She the driver?”

“No, her husband was. One Ernest Edward Snyder. Charged with D.W.I. Spent thirty days in the slammer and another year with his licence lifted.”

“Who else was in the car?”

“Can't tell. All I got was a reading from the woman's death certificate and some info over the phone on her husband. Circumstances, that's all I asked for.”

“Where is her husband? He still alive?”

“Guy on the desk down there, his name is Maydelle by the way, said he thought so. Old Ernie Snyder was no stranger to the boys in San Anton', apparently.”

“They have any children?”

“Who? Ernie and Suzanne? No, nothing here.”

“All right, thanks Ralph. You gave me plenty to work on.”

“Ernie had a kid. Got something on him.”

McGuire continued scribbling in his notebook, the telephone receiver wedged between his ear and shoulder. “Can't be worth much.”

“Maybe, maybe not. But it's interesting. See, this was his second marriage. Ernest Edward Snyder had a son from a previous marriage, born nineteen fifty-three. Guy would be in his mid-thirties now. Anyway, want to guess what his name was?”

“Andrew Ernest Snyder!” McGuire slapped his notebook on Ollie's bed and began pacing the length of the room, almost strutting with pride. “She had a foster brother named Andrew, damn it. From San Antonio.”

Ollie Schantz watched him silently.

“I'll call Kavander for an arrest warrant and take off for Texas,” McGuire continued.

“How about a description?” Ollie asked in a flat voice. “You got a description to match this guy?”

“I've got a name, I've got a connection, he's the right age. Come on, Ollie. How much more do I need?”

“It would help if Kavander didn't want you waltzing away from the case.”

“But if I do, who finds the killer?” McGuire almost shouted. “Fat Eddie Vance and his gang of merry men? Look, Ollie. If Kavander gets in my way on this one, I'll call every greaseball reporter in the state and tell them that our captain of detectives wants to suppress a murder investigation.”

Ollie stared at him, blinking once, then twice. “Call him,” he said finally.

Back in the kitchen, McGuire waited for a desk officer to make the connection to Kavander's office. It was five-thirty; the odds were good that Jack the Bear was still at his desk, writing sarcastic comments on investigation reports.

“He ain't here,” said the desk officer when he returned to the phone.

“Who's this?”

“Sergeant Cauley. So who the hell's this?”

“Joe McGuire, Stew. How are you?”

“Hey, Joe-Joe! I'm okay, but you're three storeys below the shithouse. With the Bear, anyway.”

“That's one reason I have to talk to him. So where is he?”

“Down at the Copley. Probably on his third Martini. Getting ready to pinch a waitress's ass. Testimonial dinner there for the commissioner. Listen, you call him there, I didn't tell you where to find him, okay?”

“Stew, I haven't talked to you all year. Thanks.”

It took three people to connect McGuire with Jack Kavander in the Waltham Room of the hotel. Against a deep layer of conversation and a thin veneer of instrumental music, he heard Jack Kavander's voice bark its owner's name.

“Jack, it's McGuire.”

He waited for a response. Instead, all he heard were peals of distant laughter and two bars of “It Was Just One of Those Things.”

“Jack, I know you're pissed with me, but I've got something on one of the cases—”

“McGuire?” Kavander spat into the telephone. “How did you know where I was?”

“It's scribbled in washrooms all over town. Listen, Jack—”

“Goddamn it, McGuire. In ten minutes I'm making a law-and-order speech to half the politicians in the state.”

“Good. Tell them what a great fucking job your Homicide squad is doing,” McGuire shouted into the receiver. He glanced up to see Ronnie peering at him over the top of her newspaper, and shrugged apologetically.

McGuire counted another bar of the old song from the hotel's music system before Kavander replied in a tight, even voice. “McGuire, if you have something we should know about, you bring it to my office tomorrow at noon and you lay it out for me and Lieutenant Vance and his people. And if you have sufficient cause, we will certainly follow routine procedures to launch an appropriate investigation.”

“Fat Eddie? Jack, that horse's foot blew this case in the first place.”

“Preliminaries, McGuire. That's what we'll do first.”

“The guy we want is down in Texas, for Christ's sake!”

Another pause. “All the more reason to do the preliminaries.” Kavander lowered his voice even further. “I'm telling you, McGuire. If you have something, you turn it over to the staff. Because right now your career is hanging by a thread—”

“Which is wrapped around your balls!” McGuire replaced the receiver and stared at the telephone before looking around to see Ronnie studying him. A slight smile played across her face.

“Next time, give him Ollie's love too,” she said.

He grinned back and leaned to kiss her on the forehead. “I need to make another call or two,” he said. “One of them is long-distance. To Texas.”

“Not a place I ever wanted to visit,” she said.

McGuire grunted, flipped through the telephone book for airline listings, and within five minutes had booked himself on a morning flight to San Antonio.

He made the next call to the San Antonio Police Department, where a Sergeant Maydelle answered on the first ring.

McGuire introduced himself. “I have a Murder One investigation that concerns the son of one Ernest Edward Snyder of your city.”

“Heard about that ol' dog this afternoon,” Maydelle drawled. “Y'all coming down here, shake some sand out of your boots?”

“I plan on arriving tomorrow to ask him a few questions, with the cooperation of your department.”

“Glad to help,” Maydelle said. “Give me your flight number. I'll have one of our young 'uns meet you, give you a tour, maybe recommend a good place for a taco and beer.”

McGuire recited his flight number.

“Look for a San Antonio officer holding a red file folder when you arrive at the airport,” Maydelle instructed. “Bring your ID. We'll do the rest.”

“I got ears. I heard,” Ollie said when Joe returned to his room and began describing his conversation with Kavander. “He's going to shoot you down in flames, Joe.”

“Not me, Ollie,” McGuire answered, slipping into his topcoat. “I'm not going to ignore the only solid lead that's turned up on the case in six months and add another NETGO stamp to the file. I do that and I deserve to spend the rest of my life in the Bomb Shelter with all the files Fat Eddie has screwed up, just counting the days until I'm pensioned off.”

“You never learned to play politics, Joe. That's your problem. Fat Eddie, he's not the greatest cop in the world but he knows the politics.” Ollie shifted his head slowly, his eyes searching for the offshore light in the darkness, his hand still squeezing and releasing the tennis ball.

“And you did?”

“Damn right I did.”

“How?” McGuire spread his hands. “I never saw any of it. Hell, you were twice as driven as I am. Ask anybody on Berkeley Street. Ask them if Ollie Schantz ever played politics. They'll all say ‘Like hell he did.' When did you ever get down in the dirt with those political bastards? I sure as hell never saw it.”

In a slow, almost creaking motion, Ollie's head swivelled back to stare coldly at McGuire. “Maybe,” he said, “I was so good at it that nobody ever noticed. Did you ever think of that?”

McGuire slept fitfully, waking to imagined sounds in his apartment while his mind scrambled to regain vestiges of dreams. In the morning he dressed in a tweed jacket, flannel slacks, white button-down shirt and black knit tie. He threw socks, underwear, a clean shirt and toiletries into his suitcase, along with his Police Special revolver and cartridges wrapped in a heavy bath towel.

Climbing into a cab in the fading darkness on Commonwealth Avenue, he leaned back in the seat and allowed the winter chill to finish waking him up.