And Leave Her Lay Dying (20 page)

The fat bearded man laughed over his coffee. “Shee-it, Henley. What'd you do, get yourself raised by armadillos? Hell's bells, everybody knows where he got that money. Just never knew he'd be such a damn fool to keep it all together up there.”

“I had that much money, I'd be gone,” said the man in the rodeo shirt sadly. “I'd just be gone to some place where I could sit by the ocean, watch people fish, and have young women bring me drinks all day. Wouldn't stay in this dust bowl.”

“Hear he's hurt bad,” someone offered.

“He'll live,” another suggested.

“Guy on the fire department, he says it took three of 'em to keep Mister Bledsoe from going back in there. Said his shirt was near burnt off him and he was still trying to get upstairs.”

“It's all tied in with those two dudes they found out on Highway 59,” the bearded man added. “Colin what's-his-name and that Warren guy. You know, Booker's cousin.”

“Couple of white trash,” someone said bitterly. “No loss.”

“Deputy Morrison, he's telling everybody it was a settling of accounts,” the bearded man continued. “Drug stuff. Probably Mexicans or them crazy Colombians. Says Bledsoe probably didn't pay for a shipment or something. Says it looks like that to him, and he don't plan to break any speed records hunting down that scum. Probably halfway back to South America by now anyway.”

“Let 'em all kill each other off,” somebody observed. “Damn well shouldn't waste taxpayers' money chasing them,” he added amid a chorus of murmured agreement.

McGuire finished his coffee and left.

He took a side road north of Laredo, cruising slowly through dusty towns with names like Asherton, Carrizo Springs and Crystal City. In Uvalde he turned east to drive through Sabinal and Hondo and Castroville, where the highway became a four-lane expressway. McGuire almost regretted the disappearance of the brown desert wasteland replaced by strips of gas stations and billboards.

At the San Antonio airport, the rental car attendant questioned a bullet hole in the Ford's rear fender.

“Drive through a lot of open country?” he asked, and when McGuire replied he had, the attendant nodded. “Probably deer hunters. Can't find a buck to shoot at, they'll bury a slug in a car fender for kicks. Looks like somebody dinged your front bumper too. Good thing you took the collision coverage.”

“Good thing,” McGuire agreed.

McGuire waited for his flight to Boston in the bar drinking beer and thinking of nothing, remembering everything.

Two hours later he watched the dry Texas landscape grow smaller beneath him as he flew home, north towards a cold sun.

The sun followed McGuire home. He awoke the next morning to discover it shining through his bedroom window, melting the last of the snow that had fallen three days earlier.

An hour later he was greeted at the door of the house in Revere Beach by Ronnie Schantz, who thrust a mug of coffee in his hand and kissed him on the cheek. “Missed you,” she said. “And guess who else has?”

“How many laws do you think I broke?”

Ollie Schantz had listened in silence, arching his eyebrows at McGuire's description of the incident at the mine and the deaths of Warren and Colin. His right hand continued to squeeze the tennis ball, whose surface had split from the constant flexing. The muscles and sinews on the back of his hand, once withered and weak, now stood out in relief. A new speaker-phone sat on the bed near his right hip.

“In Texas, probably none,” Ollie replied. “Except maybe drinking Mexican beer instead of Lone Star. So what are you going to do now?”

“Give the Cornell file back to Kavander. Maybe with my badge on it. And then get away from this cold weather. San Antonio's a long way from heaven, but at least you can live through November down there. There has to be some place just as warm but nicer.” He stood up. “I'll drop back later, let you know what happened with Kavander.”

“Wait a minute.”

McGuire turned at the open door. Ollie was frowning at him, his hand squeezing and releasing, squeezing and releasing the tennis ball. “Snyder, he was in the car when her mother died?”

McGuire nodded.

“Broke his ankle?”

“That's what he told me. The old man wasn't hurt at all.”

“And he's hobbling on it when the Cornell woman comes down for the funeral?”

“What's the point?”

Ollie rolled his head to the side. “Who said there was one?”

McGuire shrugged and left the room.

“I'm back.”

Jack Kavander lowered the memo he had been reading and glared over the sheet of paper at McGuire. “What's this, you doing an impression of MacArthur returning to the Philippines?” he growled. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Away.” McGuire sat in the chair opposite Kavander's desk. “I needed to get away. To think.”

“Other guys go fishing or sit in a bar to work things out. McGuire, he has to go away to think. What the hell do you think they invented bathrooms for?”

McGuire tossed a thick brown manila envelope on the desk.

Withdrawing the toothpick from his mouth, Kavander used it as a pointer. “What's this? Your lunch?”

“The files, Jack. The grey files from the Cornell murder. You can have them back. I'll attach a NETGO form on them. I'm stumped.”

Kavander's eyes narrowed. “Never thought I would hear you say that. You were always like a bull terrier when you got your teeth into a case.”

“Well, I was younger.” McGuire leaned back in the chair, his hands behind his head. “Even bull terriers lose their teeth when they get old. And this one's going to spend a week on a warm beach somewhere. Maybe the Bahamas. Bernie Lipson once told me about some little towns in the out islands where you can sleep in the shade all day and eat conch fritters and drink beer in a quiet little pub all night, just watching the sun go down.”

“Yeah, another day shot in the only life you'll ever live.” He waved his hand across the desk, wiping away the thought. “What the hell, McGuire. Do it. It will give both of us less to worry about.”

“Rosen's having me followed,” McGuire said softly.

Kavander stared at him. “You sure?”

“He told me himself. He has me pegged for breaking up Janet's marriage.”

“Rosen threaten you?”

McGuire nodded. “With two witnesses who will swear he didn't. He wants me to walk, Jack. If I do, he drops all the charges. And if I walk, so will Wilmer at his retrial.”

Kavander turned and studied his wall. “Leave it with me,” he said after a moment.

“You going to back me against him, Jack?”

Kavander reached for another toothpick.

“Are you going to back me, Jack?” McGuire repeated.

“I'll have to discuss it.”

“With whom?”

Kavander shook his head in silence.

“You bastard,” McGuire spat at him. “Somebody upstairs wants to throw me to the wolves, don't they? Who? Who is so pissed at me that they'll use me to get out from under a lawsuit and let the crazy kid back on the streets—”

“Joe—”

“
—the kid who gutted that poor girl like an animal?
”

“Nobody is throwing you anywhere, McGuire. Your problem is that you always work on the surface of things. You never see what's going on underneath.”

“Yeah, I'm a lousy politician,” McGuire responded bitterly. He stood up and waved his arms as he spoke, feeling himself becoming more agitated and refusing to fight it this time. “Hey, I'm proud of that. Damn proud. You know why? Because the world needs politicians like it needs a second rectum. You, the commissioner, Don Higgins, the rest of them, you're all politicians. You're all smart enough to win the game and dumb enough to think it's important.”

Kavander smiled indulgently, like a parent waiting for a small child to finish his tantrum. “Maybe you shouldn't waste any time picking up your ticket to the Bahamas,” he said.

McGuire thrust his hands in his pockets and stalked from the room.

“Ralph says you left Max.” McGuire entered Janet's office, closing the door behind him. “Is it true?”

Janet Parsons swivelled in her chair, the telephone receiver at her ear. “What?” she mouthed to him silently. “Yes, I'm listening,” she said aloud into the receiver.

“Did you leave him? Is it over?”

She rolled her eyes to the ceiling and began scribbling on a yellow legal-sized pad, thrusting it at him when she finished.

McGuire leaned across her desk. “What's it to you?” he read from the paper.

“Yes, I'm just getting that down now,” she was saying into the telephone. She pulled the pad back. Beneath her message to McGuire she wrote an address and telephone number. “You don't happen to know what kind of car it was, do you?”

McGuire seized her hand and yanked her towards him, staring into her eyes.

“Excuse me just a moment, will you please?” she said in an apologetic tone. Carefully setting the receiver on her desk, she pressed the “hold” button before raising her hand and slapping McGuire's face. “What the hell do you think you're doing?” she demanded through clenched teeth. “Maybe you and Ollie Schantz can lie around playing private-eye games but I've got a lead on a Murder One suspect here and I'll be damned if—”

McGuire grabbed her free wrist in his other hand, pulled her towards him and pressed his lips against hers. “You twitched,” he said when they separated, smiling back at her green eyes flashing with anger. “You were trying hard, but I definitely felt you twitch.”

“Let me go, damn it, or I'll have you charged with assault,” she said softly.

“No, you won't.”

“Where were you?”

He relaxed his grip on her wrists. “In Texas. On my own. I was following a lead.”

“I mean for me. Couldn't you see what I've been going through for the past week? Couldn't you tell I needed you to help me through this damned mess you were part of?”

He stood up and looked away. “Some things you have to work out for yourself—” he began.

“That's your opinion. Not mine. Not something like this.”

“I'm going to the Bahamas.” He looked down at her. “As soon as I can get a booking. Tomorrow, the next day, whenever. I'll make reservations for both of us in some quiet place on the out islands. Thanksgiving weekend is coming up. You could squeeze a couple of days out of here and tack it on. We'd have almost a whole week together, but we have to do it now. Tonight.”

“I'm busy tonight.” She picked up the receiver.

“With what?”

“Having dinner.”

“Anybody I know?”

She smiled like an errant child, teasing him. “Ralph Innes.”

“Ralph?” McGuire looked around her office as if he had just awakened from a lengthy sleep. “A date with Ralph? Where, in the back seat of his car? Ralph Innes? Jesus, Janet.”

She pressed the “hold” button and swivelled in her chair.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said into the receiver. McGuire was left staring at her back. “There are just a few more questions I need to ask.”

Two hours later, McGuire had opened his second beer, loaded a Paul Desmond CD into his player, and sat down to a chopped sirloin dinner heated in his microwave.

A knock on his door disturbed the mood.

“I brought lunch.” Janet Parsons stood holding a paper sack smelling of hot cheeseburgers.

“I'm just having mine,” he growled at her. “Besides, I wouldn't want to ruin your dinner tonight.”

She brushed past him, tossing the bag of burgers on a chair. “I do detect a hint of jealousy in your voice.” Sliding out of her coat, she tilted her head towards the stereo system. “The late Paul Desmond. Wonderful music to make love to. I understand he sounds especially good on warm nights in the Bahamas.”

“What the hell are you up to?” McGuire muttered from the open doorway.

She began unbuttoning her blouse. “You,” she smiled.

She lay against his shoulder, one leg out from under the covers, the knee resting on his hip. The music had ended long ago.

“What happened to your Murder One lead?” he asked.

“Came up empty. Mistaken identity. I'm back where I started.”

“And your husband?”

“It's over. I guess. One day it's over, the next day he wants to try again. For now, it's over.” She looked up at him with her green cat's eyes. “Are you really going to the Bahamas?”

“Do you really have a date with Ralph Innes?”

She rolled on her side and rested her arm on his chest. “He's amusing, in a coarse way. Kind of like a naughty little boy. Underneath, I really think there's a decent guy.”

“Janet, there's nothing under Ralph's skin except a goat in heat.” He rolled to face her. “Come with me. Get out of the cold for a few days. You need time off and Kavander will give it to you. We can fly down tomorrow night and have six, seven days together.”

“Damn it, I was angry with you.” Her voice conveyed both anger and sorrow. “I needed you. But you, you're so damned independent, you think everyone else should be the same way.”

“You had to work it out—”

“
And I needed you to help me!
”

He lay back again and covered his eyes with his forearm. “I'm sorry,” he said.

When he raised his arm and opened his eyes after a long moment's silence, she was watching him with a wry smile. “I never thought I would hear you say that,” she said. “I didn't think you knew the word.” Leaning over to kiss the tip of his nose, she whispered, “I have to get back.”

“Have a nice time tonight,” he said as she was dressing.

“I plan to.”

“Take some aspirin with you.”

“Aspirin? What for?”

“To hold between your knees!”

He slept the rest of the afternoon, waking once from a dream in which he saw men pinned to the ground on iron stakes like butterflies.

When he awoke for good, the sun was going down somewhere beyond Cambridge. He showered, swallowed a cup of instant coffee, called a travel agency and drove north to Revere Beach.

“I booked a trip to the Bahamas.” McGuire reached for the last of the cookies Ronnie Schantz had brought him when he arrived. “Place called Green Turtle Cay. Off Abaco. Rented a cottage on the beach near the only town on the island. I'll just lie in the shade for a week, drink beer, eat shrimp and think about nothing.”

Ollie Schantz was staring at the ceiling. “And the Cornell case?”

“The hell with it. I gave the grey file back to Kavander.”

Ollie grunted. “Don't need it anyway.”

“I'm not walking away from Berkeley Street, Ollie. Not yet. I'll just slip into a lower gear until I retire.” He stood up and stretched. “Tell you the truth, if I like the weather down there, maybe I'll look around for something to do. Even a place like Green Turtle Cay might need a cop. Somebody to go around, check for unlocked doors. No politics. No ambitious guys nipping at your heels.”

McGuire looked down to see Ollie watching him. “Sit down and go through all the Cornell suspects again,” the other man ordered.

“Ollie, I'm through with the case—”

“Well, I'm not!” Ollie snapped. “Run through it again from memory before you leave to go build sand castles on some desert island, goddamn it!”

McGuire sat. “There's Reich, the super,” he began. “Except he's dead and his wife says he was in bed when the victim was killed. Then there's the insurance man, Milburn, who was at the Fens when she died. He says he was drunk and asleep on a bench. I guess Andrew Snyder is a possibility, but hell, Ollie . . .”

“Keep going.”

McGuire sighed. “Okay, there's Fleckstone, who had a violent fight with her. She might have bugged him enough for him to kill her, I guess. There's Irene Hoffman, who I never did meet. Jennifer Cornell ruined her business, which is motive enough. Then I guess you could include Marlene from Pour Richards, but where's the motive?” He stared back at Ollie and shrugged his shoulders.

“Let's assume,” Ollie Schantz said, “that the brother's dead. Or at least he disappeared as soon as the Cornell woman was murdered. Good assumption?”

“Good assumption.”

“I'm going to ask you something. And don't answer until you've let the idea ricochet around inside that melon you carry on your shoulders. Think about it: Who was the only person who ever claimed to see both the victim and her brother together?”