Now You See Her (7 page)

“Gloomy weather.” In Bostonese, it comes out “wetha.”

“Bet you used to be in Florida this time of year, didn’t you? Or the islands.”

“Something like that.”

“Must have been nice.”

I will not fuel his tropical yearnings with postcards from my past. “It had its moments. It’s done.”

He cuts a bite of donut as if to savor a delicacy on fine china. “On the Faiser case,” he says, “I want to update you.”

“Good—because I want to help. I’d like to see your notes.”

“From the leather notebook? Forget it. The handwriting’s so bad my wife says I could’ve been a doctor.”

“I can puzzle it out.”

He puts down his fork. “Believe me, the notes don’t make any sense. They’re like…a foreign language.”

“I might spot something you’ve missed.”

He shakes his head. “Reggie, you have to understand that this is complicated. I wasn’t exactly myself in the crack years.”

“We were all younger thirteen years ago, Frank. And not so wise either.”

“It’s not that. I was more like another person, nobody you want to know—or I’d want to know, for that matter. In those years,
the guy in the shaving mirror was a stranger.” He fidgets with the fork. “I don’t like to dwell on it. You think what’s past
is past, but it lies in wait like a leg trap. The notebook stirs everything up.”

“I can help. Let me do my part and read the pages. We both have the same goal. We both want to find out whether an innocent
man has spent nearly thirteen years in prison. We can read the notebook together.”

“And have a discussion? We’re not a book club, Reggie.” There’s finality in his voice, and his cheeks are flushed. He snaps
off the plastic fork tines. The donut lies uneaten.

Is this shame, or is he hiding something? Or is the notebook a cop-civilian barrier? Whichever it is, I cannot simply retreat
every time Frank Devaney pulls rank or becomes agitated. “Frank, do you have Henry Faiser’s mug shots from when you booked
him? I’d like to know what he looked like. Any distinguishing features? What can you tell me?”

“He was slender. He looked young for his age.”

“That’s all?”

“My recall’s hazy, Reggie. I told you Homicide was a zoo back then.”

“But surely, you’ve reviewed the files in the past couple weeks. You’re working on his case, right?”

“When I can spare the time.” He drinks, stares off, blinks. “There’s a certain very big case right now. The whole division
is pulled in. It’s a media circus.”

“Sylvia Dempsey?” He nods. “You’re involved in that one too?”

“To lend a hand.”

Meaning that he’s tied up a certain number of hours that otherwise would be spent on Henry Faiser. “TV news says somebody’s
being sought for questioning.”

“I suppose you want to know who it is?”

“In fact, I don’t. I’m doing my best to avoid the whole thing, Frank, and it’s not easy when one story dominates the news,
day in and day out. It’s like an infestation. Anyway, what good would it do to wallow in the murder of a business executive’s
wife who was about my age?”

“That’s right, stay clear. Personal stuff is the kiss of death— that’s a figure of speech. By the way, the husband is a doctor.”

“Not a businessman?”

“A doctor who’s in a business. A skin doctor. We’re working with the Newton police.”

“Newton?”

“Their place of residence. Look, Reggie, there’s a reason I asked you to meet me today. I’ve brought a piece of evidence from
the Faiser case.”

“The gun?” My heart leaps. “No, a stopwatch, like coaches use to time athletes. How about if you hold it and try to get a
feeling?”

“Was it Peter Wald’s? Or Henry Faiser’s?”

“It came from the vacant lot where the murder weapon was found. It was lying in the weeds with empty bottles and other junk.
Our blues brought it in with the gun.”

“Just the watch? Why not the empties and other stuff?”

“Because the stopwatch was found a foot from the gun and looked clean, like it just came out of somebody’s pocket, maybe the
shooter’s.”

“So you think that the killer shot Peter Wald and then ran into the vacant lot and dropped the gun and also lost the watch?”

“We thought so at the time.”

“The stopwatch was introduced as evidence in court?”

“No, it wasn’t. The DA didn’t need the watch—not when we had the gun.”

I ask, “Where is the gun?”

“In storage. It’s a snub-nosed .32. That probably doesn’t mean anything to you.”

He couldn’t be more wrong. Among the furnishings in my Aunt Jo’s Barlow Square townhouse condo are two handguns, one of which
is a .38. Jo Cutter was not a markswoman, and I have no idea why she had these guns. It was shocking to discover them. They
are scary and intriguing.

I say, “So Peter Wald was shot at close range.”

He puts down the fork. “How do you know?”

“Because a snub-nosed .32 is wildly inaccurate beyond fifteen to twenty feet.”

“Is someone in your family a sportsman, Reggie?”

“Sportsperson, you mean.” A feminist daughter and a divorce tune up a woman’s ears to gender pitch. I drink my lukewarm coffee.
Clearly, Devaney knows nothing about these guns of Jo’s. “Nowadays everything’s on the Internet, Frank.”

He looks relieved. “So you’ve kept the watch all this time?”

“I got it from a warehouse.”

“Why not the gun?”

“First things first.” He moves the donut and broken fork to the side. “I couldn’t just check out old evidence like a library
book. I needed a little help from my contacts.”

So the watch isn’t officially in his possession. Maybe Stark is right: there’s mounting pressure to reopen the case. “How
about DNA evidence?”

“We didn’t have test kits back then.”

“Personal items? Something with skin flecks? Clothing with blood?”

“Physical evidence rots if it’s not refrigerated, Reggie. Maybe you watch too much TV.”

“Don’t brush me off, Frank. I’m trying to help.”

“It helps when you tune in your psychic station. You ready?” I feel pushed but nod yes. “It won’t bother you to try it here
in the donut shop?”

“Psychics can work anywhere, Frank. It’s not like a seizure. I won’t froth at the mouth.”

“I just mean—” He looks almost embarrassed. “It seems a little cheap.”

I have to laugh. “If it bothers you, we can go for cocktails at the Ritz.” He chuckles. I smile. From an inside pocket comes
the watch, which he puts down on the table. It’s a small black plastic digital thing with tiny buttons and a liquid crystal
screen, which is blank. The battery is dead, of course, though its working order shouldn’t matter. It just looks so impersonal,
mass-produced.

I admit to this: a paranoid flicker of suspicion that this isn’t really evidence but a deliberate feint on Frank Devaney’s
part. He could have taken the watch from, say, a dish of old keys and rubber bands and dried-out pens to test me, to make
certain I don’t fake visions in order to stay connected to police work. Or to be sure that the so-called silent partner is
straight with him, even if he’s not with me.

What do we know about each other, the ex–corporate wife and the homicide detective? That we come from different worlds, that
our paths ordinarily would never cross. Yet both of us seek freedom from a troubled past. The Henry Faiser case offers us
a fresh start.

I pick up the watch and clasp it between both hands and close my eyes. I hear voices out front—a dozen honey-glazed, three
cinnamon, coffees. I hear greetings and good-byes. I press the watch between my palms as if to warm it. Still nothing happens.

I’m ready to give up and hand it back when my hearing changes. It’s as though I move to a different frequency, underwater
or high in the earth’s upper atmosphere. Then all feeling, all sensation, throughout my body seems to drain toward my right
arm, to my hand, then my thumb, my right thumb. The thumb burns, and I see something raw and red. I see red drops.

“Frank, my right thumb is burning, and I see…it’s like meat. It’s bloody meat.” My breath is heavy. “I’m not sure, but it
could be human flesh.” I swallow hard. My rib, my thumb—are they connected? My body is a data bank of pain, but the meaning
is totally beyond me.

* * *

Don’t even whisper the word “meat.” Or steak, chop, or drumstick. The stopwatch vision of bloody raw flesh has driven me to
a tofu and veggie diet.

And what good did my “reading” do? The burning thumb and the raw flesh seemed to baffle and disappoint Devaney. Whatever he
knows about the Faiser case is not in sync with a fiery thumb. He pressed for more psychic data, and I gripped the watch till
both of my thumbs turned white, but nothing else came into my sixth sense. It was exhausting. Frank doesn’t seem to understand
the bodily toll a psychic reading takes, how draining it is. We promised to stay in touch, but both felt down when we parted.

I’m not down for long, though. The police files are closed to a civilian, but surely, the Globe covered the story of the Eldridge
fire and the shooting of Peter Wald. Going online in the newspaper’s archive, I enter keywords to search events of thirteen
years ago on March 22. Interestingly, the Globe covered the fire and the shooting in separate stories. The headline on page
two of the first section read, “State Senator’s Son Fatally Shot.” Peter Wald was identified as a college student known for
environmental advocacy. “Shot by an unknown assailant at approximately 1:25 p.m. on the 300 block of Eldridge Street, Boston.”
Taken by paramedics to Boston City Hospital, he was declared dead on arrival. Robbery is named as the suspected motive, and
police were said to be searching for a black male of medium height, late teens or early twenties. Senator Jordan S. Wald,
who identified his son’s body at the hospital, was said to be in seclusion.

The article contained no information on why Peter Wald was on Eldridge Street, which was, according to Devaney, a known drug
dealers’ bazaar. Did the senator pull strings to suppress that information? As a parent, frankly, I would have.

Three additional articles report the arrest, arraignment, trial, conviction, and sentencing of Henry Faiser, all within the
year, all reported in short columns on inside pages. Is it possible that Senator Wald exerted political pressure to get a
swift conviction? If so, he’s partly responsible for an innocent man’s conviction—if Henry Faiser is innocent.

As for the fire, it received all of four inches in the Metro section, maybe 150 words altogether. A fire of suspicious origin
in the 300 block of Eldridge Street destroyed three houses and an automobile body shop, B&B Auto, in the early evening hours.
Firefighters arrived at 7:13 p.m. to find four structures ablaze. Though high winds hampered efforts to contain the fire,
firefighters prevented its spread to adjoining streets. Residents of Eldridge Street escaped, though two unidentified bodies,
thought to be homeless males, were later recovered from one unoccupied house. It is thought the fire began in that house,
caused by smoldering cigarettes or drug paraphernalia.

I search for follow-up stories. There’s nothing. Didn’t any reporter look further into the fire? Didn’t an editor assign additional
coverage? Evidently not. It was on to the next day’s stories and deadlines.

For the next three afternoons, I walk around the Eldridge neighborhood in search of Suitcase Mary, hoping another five dollars
might pry loose additional memories of Eldridge Street life years ago. She’s nowhere to be seen, even though Biscuit is in
doggie Nirvana paddling in the gutter rainwater. Meg Givens has called to schedule lunch, which is nice, although she sounded
tense and admitted to problems at work. She gave no specifics.

I am brushing and vacuuming dog hairs from every surface on Sunday early afternoon. Stark—without phoning ahead, as usual—roared
up a couple of hours ago and took Biscuit out for training at the nearby park.

The dog finally staggers back home, laps her whole bowl of water, and promptly collapses on her bed just off the kitchen.
I’ve turned off the vacuum. “Stark, you worked her too hard.”

“Nah.”

“Just look at her little chest. It’s heaving.”

“Look at her paws, she’s dreaming about chasing rabbits. She went crazy for the puddles today, wanted to swim. You giving
her too many bubble baths?”

Asleep, Biscuit growls softly, a sign of aggressiveness, which Stark loves but I find alarming in a pet. “She’s about ready
for field trials,” he says. “I know a guy with a farm out in Acton.”

“Stark, that’s too far. How would you take her? Not on that motorcycle. The harness is treacherous.”

“I tinkered with one strap. Bet I could get a patent.”

“You’re delusional.”

He laughs and scans my kitchen counter. “You out of coffee?”

“I’m staging a work stoppage. This isn’t Starbucks.” I try to sound firm but come off petulant instead.

Stark says, “Maybe you should go for an outdoor workout too.”

“I work out with free weights. I keep fit.”

“Get some sunshine, vitamin D for your mood.” Then he grins, the devil in his eyes. “Anyway, you oughta be nice. I happen
to have the name and address of Henry Faiser’s sister.”

“Fantastic. I mean it, great. What’s her name? Where does she live?”

“Feeling better, Cutter?” His gray eyes glint. The kitchen smells like Camels and leather. “You sent in your application yet?”

“Stark, you can’t force me onto motorcycles.”

“Who’s forcing? It’s a swap.”

“It’s blackmail.”

“You’ll love it. Forget your vacuum, you need a Harley. Besides, women love the leathers. So where’s the application? I’ll
help you fill it out. You got boots?”

“Any woman with pantsuits in her wardrobe has boots.”

“I don’t mean candyass fashion boots, Cutter.” Candyass—his favorite put-down and a true measure of his vocabulary. “I’ll
work on it.” I spend the next moments with the application. “It asks why I want to take the Motorcycle Safety Foundation course.
How about ‘bullied’?”

“Try ‘recommended by friend.’ Don’t forget the check.”

I write the tuition check, and he puts the envelope inside his jacket for personal courier service. “We’re looking at a weekend
in July. Now this.” He takes out a torn paper. “The name’s Kia Fayzer. She spells it different from her brother. It’s F-a-y-z-e-r.
Last known address is 3529 Roland Street, Mattapan. She’s not in the phone book. I can tell you, Cutter, Mattapan’s no place
for a honky lady.”