BLUE MERCY (38 page)

“Bernard did a great job. Really applied himself. I figured the responsibility had changed him. Guess I was wrong.”

Kay savored the spiced tea. “So how did their mother die exactly?”

“Overdose.” McClurkin shook her head. “Mary didn’t have an easy life. Bernard’s father was a bastard. He beat her on a regular basis, even prostituted her to his friends. The day he ended up in a wheelchair from an accident down at the docks was the day Mary could finally run away from Eddie Eales. He died a couple years later.

“She was good for a while after that, then hooked up with Billy’s father. Harold Coombs. He wasn’t much better than Eales. Treated her and Bernard like dirt and got her back on the drugs.”

“So your sister’s death was an overdose?”

“Yes, but it wasn’t accidental. Mary tried to kill herself, and when that didn’t work, she went back into her bedroom and pumped herself full of heroin to finish the job. Bernard found her in the morning, called me because he
didn’t trust the police. When I got there, he was still cleaning up Billy.”

“I don’t understand.”

“She’d bled everywhere. Looked like someone tried to murder her. Blood all over the bathroom, the bed, the sheets, herself, and Billy. Poor boy must have gone to his mother sometime in the night. Bernard found him curled up next to Mary’s body in bed, covered in her blood.”

Kay tried to process the images in her head as the cold understanding settled over her.
Childhood traumas.

“Ms. McClurkin, before the heroin, how exactly did your sister attempt to kill herself?”

“She cut her wrists. Poor girl couldn’t even do that right.”

THE FILE ON MARY COOMBS’S DEATH
had been left as “pending” for two decades, filed away with the seven hundred other cases per year that were suicides, overdoses, and questionable deaths not ruled homicides. After an hour of searching, Kay had signed out the manila folder and sat at her desk, reviewing the reports and staring at the twenty-year-old photos.

Now, as she steered into the Bridge Marina’s lot, Kay could still see the photos in her mind. Mary Coombs’s body, the empty syringe, all the blood, and the Spyderco lock-back knife.

Tucking the case folder under her jacket, she sprinted down the pier.
The Blue Angel
listed gently in the dark, the riggings on her mast silent. Finn had the radio on: Creedence Clearwater.

“We got him,” Kay said, clearing the companionway steps.

Finn wore stained jeans and a sweatshirt and was elbow-deep into some kind of small motor. Tools, rags, and grease-blackened parts covered the galley table.

“It’s Billy Coombs,” she said. “Eales’s brother.”

“Whoa. What did I miss?” Finn dropped his wrench. “The guy lives up in Pittsburgh.”

“Exactly why he’d have to rent the place on Keystone.”

“But why here?”

“He grew up here, Finn. He knows these streets. This is where he feels safe. In control.” She slapped the file onto the table. “You need to see these.”

She opened the folder for him as he worked cleaning gel into his hands over the sink. “Billy’s mama, Mary Coombs, didn’t just OD,” she said, spilling the photos across the table. The bathroom: the tub half-filled with pink water, the sides smeared with blood, crimson footprints on the old, cracked linoleum. And in the bedroom: more blood on the carpet, the comforter, and sheets.

“She suicided,” Kay went on. “She hacked up her wrists, only she didn’t do it right. The cuts
cross
the radial artery, not follow it. So, when that didn’t work, she went back into her bedroom, bleeding everywhere, and shot herself up with whatever heroin she had left in the apartment. Combined with the blood loss, it was enough to finish her off.”

Finn listened as she told him about Eales finding his brother in the morning. What was most vivid to Kay about the police photos was the oval-shaped area of unstained bedding in the midst the bloody squalor, a nest where the eight-year-old Billy had huddled against his dying mother. Mary Coombs’s left arm had rigored in a position that suggested she’d had it flung over her youngest son, cradling him long after death.

“With each murder,” she said, “he’s reenacting his mother’s death. And think about it—who else would Bernard cover for all this time? Who would he take a possible death sentence for?”

Kay was shivering, but it wasn’t from the chill off the harbor. She was pumped. Could barely stand still. “It all fits, Finn. Coombs could have been down here visiting his brother each weekend those first three women were killed,
and
the night Spence and I hit Eales’s door.”

“But from what they’ve said, and everyone else, the Bozo brothers haven’t spoken in years.”

“It’s bullshit,” she said. “Coombs killed Valley because he was with Bernard the night he dumped Chisney’s body in Leakin Park a year and a half ago, and he was scared Valley might have seen him. Killing her is what probably started him up again.”

“And Hagen?”

“Patricia Hagen was easy for him. She knew him. When we get the dump back on her phone line, I’m sure Coombs’s number’ll show up. He probably called her, convinced her to see him.”

“But by killing her, he took out the one person hell-bent on proving his brother’s innocence,” Finn reasoned. “You’re saying he wants Eales to take the fall for the first murders?”

“I don’t think this guy’s even planning that far in the future. I think he’s satisfying his own needs. Maybe the brotherly love doesn’t run on a two-way street with these two. It’s him, Finn. I know it.” Unbidden, the memory of the diner on York Road came to her: the burned coffee, the electric train trundling on the rail overhead, and William Coombs’s neat smile as he looked at her across his plate of greasy eggs. She’d believed it was compassion she’d seen in his eyes that morning when he’d apologized for his brother’s attack. Now she knew better.

“And this mutt doesn’t have a record, right?” Finn asked. “We’ve got no prints to run for comparison?”

“No, he’s clean.” Kay pulled the photos together while Finn changed into a fresh sweatshirt and joined her at the table.

“So where do you want to go with this?” he asked. “We need something on him before we can make a move.”

“I know. That’s why we gotta go to Pittsburgh.”

“You think he went home?”

“After the scare we gave him at Eales’s house last night, that’s my guess. And I can’t wait to see his face when we show up on his doorstep tomorrow.”

THEY LEFT BALTIMORE IN FOG.
Driving under a gunmetal sky for four hours up the I-70 and west on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Finn and Kay arrived in Pittsburgh by 1 p.m. Kay had insisted on driving, perhaps believing her lead foot would get them there sooner. She was amped and Finn guessed it wasn’t the half dozen coffees she’d downed or that she’d slept barely two hours.

She’d stayed the night on the boat, sharing his bed for the first time in over a year. They’d made love, and later, as he held her, they’d talked openly about their relationship, of being there for one another and trying again. He didn’t wake until 5 a.m., to the sound of Kay scrounging the galley for coffee. They’d gone to the office then, sorted through the jurisdictional details of leaving the state, and hit the road by nine.

They found Billy Coombs’s car dealership along Baum Boulevard. It was one of the higher-end car lots on the
strip, boasting new and used luxury domestics, with a few foreign models thrown in for spice. In the gleaming showroom Coombs’s partner informed them Billy had stopped in briefly that morning, then hit the road again, bound for some car auction. Finn had the sudden image of Coombs driving back to Baltimore and envisioned having passed him on the interstate.

They headed north to Stanton Heights then, and when they finally located Coombs’s large, two-story brick house and pulled to the curb, Finn could feel Kay’s excitement.

“Doesn’t look like anyone’s home.” Finn nodded across the quiet residential street to the house. “Then again, car could be in the garage. How are you handling this if he’s in there?”

“I’ll tell him we just wanna talk,” she said. “Like, he knew Hagen. Maybe he’s got some ideas who’d want her dead, et cetera, et cetera. Just a nice civilized visit.”

But as Kay reached the wide wraparound porch, Finn saw her unclip her hip holster and adjust her jacket over the duty weapon.

Sheila Coombs was a heavy girl. Quite pretty, Finn guessed, before the exhaustion of having a newborn had taken its toll.

“Billy’s not home,” Mrs. Coombs said as Finn tucked his shield into his jacket pocket. “Actually you just missed him. He was home yesterday and left again this morning. What’s this about? You said you’re from Baltimore?”

“Baltimore Homicide. We’re investigating the murder of a Patricia Hagen.”

“Name doesn’t ring any bells.”

Finn sensed the girl’s sincerity. “It might for your husband. We’re doing some background work on Ms. Hagen and hoped Mr. Coombs could help.”

“You drove all the way up here for that?” A baby cried
somewhere in the house. Mrs. Coombs held her eyes shut for a moment, as though willing the infant to stop. “Excuse me for a second,” she said, disappearing into the house.

Kay stepped through the door. “You don’t mind if we come in, do you, ma’am?” She didn’t wait for an answer.

The front hall was middle-class lavish, boasting antique gilt mirrors and a reproduction Victorian chandelier. A chaise lounge in fake crushed velvet with ornately carved legs might have looked chic except for the baby diapers and toys.

Mrs. Coombs returned, carrying a wailing bundle of pink terry cloth. “So how do you think Billy can help you?” she asked, desperately bouncing the baby in her arms.

“We think he may have known Ms. Hagen.”

“Wow. You’re going back a ways. Billy hasn’t lived in Baltimore in years. And, honestly, I don’t remember him ever mentioning her. How exactly do you think Billy knows her?” Finn heard a waver of paranoia in Mrs. Coombs’s voice, the kind that came with a new mother’s sense of diminished attraction and the worry of a husband’s straying affections.

“Ms. Hagen was close to your husband’s brother.” Kay moved farther into the foyer.

“Then I doubt Billy knew her.”

“When was the last time your husband saw your brother-in-law?”

“Not since the bastard was incarcerated.” She spat the words as though even the thought of Eales left a foul taste in her mouth.

“So he visited him before then?” Finn asked.

“Yes.”

“Oh. We were under the impression your husband hadn’t seen Mr. Eales in years.”

“And that’s what he always tried to convince me of too since he knows I don’t like Bernard. But I know Billy used to visit. Every few weekends. He always told me he was going to see friends, but I know it was Bernard he was seeing cuz Billy hasn’t been to visit anyone in Baltimore since Bernard was arrested.”

Weekends
. Finn looked at Kay. She nodded her acknowledgment and then started to wander down the main hall, searching casually. Beyond her, Finn saw the door of a sitting room opened to the left, and sunlight flooded a living room at the end of the hall. Only one door remained closed.

As Mrs. Coombs fussed over her colicky infant, Kay reached for the knob of the closed door.

“Do you mind if I use your bathroom?” Kay asked. “It’s been a long drive.”

But before the latch could clear the frame, Mrs. Coombs stopped her. “That’s not a bathroom.” Her suddenly sharp tone started the baby up again, and she rocked the infant harder in her arms.

“I’m sorry,” Kay said. “I just assumed—”

“That’s my husband’s office,” Sheila Coombs’s voice rose over the baby’s crying. “Look, Detectives, if there’s nothing else, I’d rather you left.”

“Actually, there is one other thing,” Kay lied. “We also needed to talk to your husband about Mr. Eales’s house. It was broken into the other night.”

“Billy sold the house.”

“No, ma’am, I don’t believe he has. And since he’s the owner, we need permission to change the locks.” Kay was thinking on her feet. “See, we don’t know who your brother-in-law may have given keys to, and we need to secure it since it is still a crime scene.”

“Did you try phoning Billy?” The infant’s wails were
rising in pitch, in spite of Mrs. Coombs’s desperate efforts.

“I’ve left a couple messages. But it’s important we get the house locked up quickly.”

“Why don’t you ask his deadbeat brother. I assume you know where to find him.”

“Yes, but since he’s not the actual owner—”

“Fine, then put locks on it. You’ve got permission from me.”

Kay looked to Finn, and he took her cue. “That won’t work, ma’am,” he said. “It’s gotta be done right. Honestly, you’d think we didn’t have enough paperwork, but we do need something to take to our bosses. Make sure it’s all on the up-and-up. Can’t have the department getting sued because we tampered with private property.”

“What we’d need, ma’am, is the deed,” Kay cut in. “If we had that, showing Mr. Coombs as the owner of the house, then your permission would probably satisfy our legal department.”

Sheila Coombs couldn’t answer, distracted by the intensifying cries of her newborn.

“Would your husband have a copy of the deed in his office?” Kay asked.

“Look, I just … can’t this wait for when Billy gets home? He can fax it to you.”

Kay shook her head. “I understand it’s not a good time, Mrs. Coombs, but if you could just get us that deed—”

“No, you don’t understand. I don’t go into my husband’s office, Detective. I respect his privacy.” The woman averted her eyes, and Finn glimpsed an awkwardness that seemed bred of reprimands rather than respect. “You’ll have to wait till he’s home.”