Lloyd Corricelli - Ronan Marino 01 - Two Redheads & a Dead Blonde (12 page)

“Yeah, no one was in the mood to work. Pretty incredible to know that one minute someone is here, the next they’re gone.”

I was shocked he wasn’t bitching about losing money.

“Max, do you know if Karen was working anywhere else?”

“She might have been. She only worked part-time at my place. I guess she was a student the rest of the time.”

“I’m looking into her death.”

He stared at me oddly. To Max, I was simply a guitar player in a pedestrian bar band.

“You’re not a cop.”

I wanted to reveal my secret identity, but I wasn’t in the mood for questions.

“No, but I can do things they can’t.”

“Like what?”

“Did you forget what I did in the military?”

“We’ve never really discussed it.”

“Right. I’ll fill you in sometime. Do you want to help me?”

He shrugged. I was waiting for the “what’s in it for me,” but to my surprise it never came. Two shocks in thirty seconds, I might have to reevaluate the little Ugnaught.

“Sure. Anything, Ronan.”

“Good. I want you ask around the club, maybe talk to Cassie and some of the other girls. See if they have any ideas who might have wanted Karen dead.”

“I thought it was an accident,” he replied.

“I’m not buying it,” I said. “Look, are you going to help me out or not?”

“Sure. Why can’t you talk to them, though?”

“You know them better than I do. I’m going to come by eventually, but until then; can you do that for me?”

“I’ll do what I can.”

“Keep it between us, too. I don’t want everyone to know what I’m doing.”

“I just hope you’re a better detective than a guitar player.”

That was just great, another ball buster. I enjoyed razzing people as much as the next guy, but there’s time and place and this wasn’t it. I watched him waddle off, and I was immediately reminded of Danny Devito as the Penguin in
Batman Returns
. It wasn’t the long black coat either.

My next move was trying to come up with a number that might match the one on the card; pretty damn hard to do when you don’t actually know the number. I called every modeling agency within a hundred miles and asked about Karen. None claimed to have ever heard of her.

My ribs were feeling better, so I put on my karate
gi
and worked out for close to an hour. I’d set up a makeshift
dojo
in my garage with a heavy bag. Eventually I planned to put down a wood floor to make it more like the Japanese
dojos
I’d studied in overseas. There was really no good reason why it hadn’t been done yet. One day I’d face up to the fact that I was a major procrastinator. Another character flaw exposed.

It hurt like hell to throw kicks and punches, but I sucked it up. I was tired of feeling vulnerable. The last thirty minutes was spent working on
kata
, the rhythmic arrangement of moves that looked like a dance. While many American martial artists put little value in it, its secret is in the repetition of moves. If one knew what each move signified, they could be adapted to actual combat. After twenty-years of studying, I’d become extremely proficient at the
kata
but as with any art, endeavored to improve.

By the time I finished my workout I was soaked in sweat and the heavy fabric of my gi was water logged. When that happened, I knew it was a good workout. I showered off, grabbed a beer from the fridge and soaked in the hot tub, listening to “Darkness on the Edge of Town.” I almost played some Buffet, but his stuff was far too light for my mood. My investigation was going nowhere fast, and I sat in the swirling hot water waiting for some kind of vision; an epiphany to lead me to where I wanted to go. I considered consuming the rest of the beer in my refrigerator, but blurry vision wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.  I groaned out loud and slapped my fist on the edge of the hot tub. Frustration was starting to set in, which usually made for sloppy work.

Things were so much easier in the fantasy world of Batman. He’d simply go out and bitch slap some thugs into telling him what he wanted to know or use the Bat Cave super computer and have the answer he needed in seconds. Maybe I would have to look into acquiring my own Bat Cave with a super computer. Slapping around thugs was also a good option, but I’d been unable to find any so far. They were having much better luck finding me.

I went to bed no closer to the answer than I’d been a week before. Some detective I was. This funk was killing me and I hated it.

* * * *

It was cold, damp and raining hard when I woke up, so I stayed home and called every listed modeling agency in the neighboring states. Once again, I struck out. It didn’t really take more than twenty minutes, because New England is just not a hotbed of the fashion world. If flannel shirts, jeans and work boots ever come into vogue, we might have a chance.

After that, I walked the floors trying to figure out my next move. I could start calling the agencies in New York City, since it was only four hours away, but that would take considerable time and there were hundreds of them.

I played my guitar for about half an hour, but just couldn’t get into it. Boredom was threatening to push me over the edge when Marc called and invited me to the UMass-Lowell River Hawks hockey game that night. I’d promised him I’d go the morning he picked me up downtown and I wanted to see my nephew. His chipper little attitude and smile would pull me out of my dark mood, or so I hoped.

I didn’t anticipate any shooting at the hockey game outside of the on-ice action, so I carried a smaller snub nose .38. I didn’t want to be unprepared if by chance something did happen. After getting my ass kicked, paranoia was getting the best of me.

Parking in the downtown garages is fairly cheap, but I found a free spot on a side street next to the old Wannalancit Mills and walked across to the Tsongas Arena. The rain had stopped, but the wind had picked up, giving me a good excuse to wear my leather jacket. I would have looked pretty foolish if it was eighty degrees out, but the autumn chill was just what I needed for concealing my weapon.

I stood on the stairs of the modern glass fronted arena watching the people as they passed. A few of the fans, adults and kids alike, wore the home team’s blue sweater with the school name in white font on the front. I chuckled at one guy who wore an old Lowell Lock Monsters jersey; which was once our local minor league team before they were sold, became the Lowell Devils and then left town after a couple of lackluster seasons.

The Monsters’ logo was supposed to be a mythical creature named Louie that lived in Lowell’s locks. Louie looked like a cross between Godzilla and Barney the purple dinosaur. I supposed somewhere in Lowell urban myth there could have been a monster of the locks, but I couldn’t remember one. It sounded like it would make a great “B” movie and the marketing department doubtlessly decided that it would appeal to the kiddies and sell lots of jerseys. It was unfortunate that the region couldn’t support the team and lost it.

We still however had one pro team in town that was well supported. Just down the street from the Tsongas Arena sat LeLaucheur Park, home of the Red Sox’s “A” league team, the Spinners. I hadn’t been to a game there yet, but my Dad assured me it was a classy operation. Then again he considers Denny’s a classy place because they have table service.

Marc and Timmy saw me as they exited the parking garage and I waved to get their attention. Timmy was smaller than most other kids his age, just as I’d been, but he was full of spunk. He bounded up the stairs and gave me a big hug. I didn’t have the heart to tell him it to be careful of my ribs.

“Hiya, Uncle Ronan.”

“Hey buddy, you ready for the game?”

He vigorously nodded his head. I looked up at Marc, who was smiling.

“What are you grinning about?”

“I like seeing him with family,” he said.

We had grown up with the benefit of family being there for the good and bad times. It was something that I had only begun to realize the importance of in recent years, usually when I found myself alone in some godforsaken hellhole. As much as I complained about them, I usually valued their being so close.

“So, where’s your River Hawks’ jersey, Timmy?” I asked.

He just shrugged his shoulders and looked at his dad.

“You seen the price of hockey jerseys these days?” Marc lamented.

I smiled and put my hand on Timmy’s shoulder. “Do they have a souvenir shop in this joint?”

“Yeah, they have all kinds of cool stuff,” he said.

“Good. Let’s go have a look.”

Marc started to protest, but I held my hand up to silence him. “I got it.”

After buying our tickets, we found the souvenir stand and Timmy was quickly beaming ear to ear in his brand new official blue, red and white jersey. I understood Marc’s earlier statement because even for a kid’s size, it cost close to a third world country’s gross national product. The jersey was huge on him, and I had to roll up the sleeves, but he didn’t seem to mind. It made me feel good to make him happy.               

“You’re spoiling him again,” Marc complained.

“That’s part of being an uncle with no kids of his own. Don’t you remember how much Uncle Sal used to spoil us? I seem to remember a certain person getting an official Cam Neely jersey at the old Boston Garden souvenir shop.”

He laughed and nodded his head. “I still have it somewhere too.”

“Right next to your Mike Greenwell jersey I’ll bet.”

“I hope you’re not comparing a college jersey to an Neely one,” he said. “Cam is in the Hockey Hall of Fame.”

“Nah, of course not. That would be sacrilege to Sea Bass.”

We found our way to our seats, about fifteen rows up from center ice. The arena was small compared to some of the larger venues in the area like the “new” Boston Garden or the Verizon Wireless Arena up in Manchester, but it was just the right size for Lowell. It had no upper deck and not a bad seat in the house. They’d renovated the arena a few years back including replacing the annoying seventies era scoreboard that had once hung in the Buffalo Aud; home of the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres. It was the old style that simply showed the score, time and shots on goal. It always pissed me off when I went for a beer, missed a great play and there was no way to see the replay on the scoreboard. 

Behind the seats, concession stands of every kind ran around an open concourse. I opted out of the healthy choices and had fried dough and a large Coke while Timmy opted for popcorn. Marc only had a diet Coke. I felt a little bad about my constant prodding of his ever-widening girth. It wouldn’t stop me from doing it again though when I had to put him in his place.

I wouldn’t consider Marc fat, but sitting behind the desk had not done wonders for his physique. I offered to start working out with him, but he had yet to take me up on the offer. I somewhat empathized with him, although I’d never admit it. I’d had to go up a waist size in the past year due to the effects of age. It was still a respectable thirty-three inches, although I bought size thirty-four just in case I experienced a um…growth spurt.

Just before the puck dropped the arena was roughly full of rowdy Hawks’ fans and a good number of fans of the opponents. Down in one section the team’s goofy mascot, Rowdy, a guy in a beefed up hawk suit, entertained a group of kids like Mickey Mouse on acid. The children’s father seemed a bit put off by his antics but they loved it. If the guy in the suit knew what was good for him, he wouldn’t come over and embarrass me.

We stood for the national anthem, sung by a group of girls from a local high school. As I sat back down, I adjusted my holster so the gun stopped sticking in my ribs.

“You armed?” Marc whispered softly in my ear.

I nodded.

“At a hockey game? Jesus, you think something’s going to happen here?”

It was my turn to roll my eyes. I waited for my lecture but it never came. He knew better, especially with what I’d just recently been though.

Between the second and third periods, with the home team up on the visiting University of New Hampshire Wild Cats three goals to two, I needed to make a bathroom run.

I took care of business and as I exited the restroom, I ran into a familiar face. It was the doctor from the ER with a couple of very attractive blonde friends. The theory that good-looking women traveled in packs was illustrated perfectly by this moment. The doctor wore a team jersey with black jeans and white Nikes and looked really cute dressed down. She took a gulp from a large cup of draft beer and I could see by her eyes it wasn’t her first.

“Dr. Sadalo…?”

“Sadolovaki,” she said with a hint of recognition on her face.

“Ronan Marino, we met last week at the ER.”

She smiled. “That’s right. You’re looking much better.”

I was pleased to hear she was using the warm and sultry voice, not the cold professional tone she used when we first met.

“I’ll catch up to you,” she said to her friends. They smiled, looked me over and exited. “How are you feeling?”

“Better, thanks.”