Private Sector (17 page)

“Of course.” After a moment, she said, “Have you thought of a good one yet?”

Right. I allowed a few seconds to pass, then said, “Your sister scared the hell out of me.”

She put down her wineglass and studied me. “Why?”

“You know why.”

“I want to hear it.” But she already knew, and she chuckled. “Maybe you’re not as brave as she claimed.”

“I don’t see any engagement rings on your finger, sister.”

“I have an excuse.”

“What’s your excuse?”

“I’m much younger than you.” She laughed. Again. She then said, “You should have asked her out. She got involved with another man. We weren’t all that happy about it.”

“What was his problem?”

“
Problems.
Older, married twice before . . . a charming, successful guy, just definitely not right for her. My father lost a lot of sleep over it.”

Well, for some reason, perhaps guilt or perhaps a need to change the topic from the dead to the living, I asked her, “Well, what’s your life story?”

She appeared amused by this question. “The same as Lisa’s.”

“I know you were sisters, but—”

“No, Sean. Literally almost identical. We were eleven months apart, Irish twins. Still, you’d swear we sprang from the same egg. Same height, clothing size, tastes, grades in the same courses . . . perhaps you’ve noticed we even sound alike? We did everything together. She was a track star, I was a track star. She went to a girls’ prep, I went with her, then to UVA, then to Harvard Law.”

“No kidding.”

“Because I’m darker, and she was a year ahead of me, they called me her shadow. I know this sounds strange. We were sisters, but more than sisters.”

“You miss her.”

“He cut out my heart. It’s like he killed
me.
”

I didn’t respond to that, but it brought some clarity to why she was here, and the scale of her emotional stake in this case.

But recalling that the purpose of this dinner was to take our mind off more serious matters, I asked, “And did you like the same men?”

“No. Poor Lisa was always attracted to creeps and jerks.” She laughed.

Interesting.

“So you never fought over boys?”

“Actually, I was seriously involved until recently.”

“What happened?”

“Old story. Business mixed with pleasure, and it didn’t work out.”

“Another lawyer?”

“He has a law degree, but wasn’t practicing. He was in the FBI. I met him on a case a few years ago, we moved in together, got engaged, and . . .” She brushed some hair off her forehead and said, “You don’t want to hear about this.”

“Am I getting too personal?”

“No. It’s just such a common tale.”

“These things are never common. What happened?”

“George was a real hotshot in the Boston Field Office. Early promotions, a drawerful of citations, a real up-and-comer. We worked a case together, some mob murders actually, that he had broken and developed. I had just moved into the felonies section, it was my first big case, I needed help, and he got me through it.”

“Go on.”

“I was madly in love with him. We lived together three years.” She looked away and said, “I broke it off.”

“Why?”

“We worked another case, and it didn’t work out.”

“His problem, or yours?”

She paused a moment, then said, “George was very ambitious. The more successful he became, the more ambitious he got. You know how that happens?”

“It happens to some people.”

“George had been working this case for a year. He was under unbearable pressure from the mayor’s office and his bosses to break it. Car theft is a major problem in Boston, everybody pays for it in high insurance rates, and the case involved a massive interstate auto theft ring. Whoever brought it down and got the convictions was going to be a hero. George somehow got to some people on the inside, treated it like a conspiracy, used one source to roll up another, and a number of the indictments landed on my desk to take to the grand jury.”

I nodded but wasn’t expected to comment, so I didn’t.

“The ring was large, several hundred people, from street kids who collected the cars, to chop shops, to the millionaires who controlled it. A few of the defense attorneys approached me. They

said George had broken the rules, and complained that the discovery elements that had been turned over to them were partial, that certain critical pieces of evidence were withheld. They were talking about witness coercion, some strongarming, and perhaps unauthorized wiretaps. There was enough there that I went to George and asked him. He insisted they were lying. But I knew George. He was lying. The next day his office approached the DA and asked to have me removed from the case on the pretext that I hadn’t shown sufficient enthusiasm and dedication.”

“And your boss bought that?”

“The part he bought was that no DA is successful without the full and friendly support of your local FBI office. Also, this was your basic checkbook case. He also wanted credit for bringing down insurance rates.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Well, George got his grand jury indictments, his promotion, and his reassignment to FBI headquarters.”

“When was this?”

“About six months ago.”

“What did you say to him afterward?”

“I didn’t. Oddly enough, I was still in love with him, and I wasn’t sure how I’d do in a confrontation. I left him a note, moved out, and took a thirty-day vacation. When he tried calling, I hung up.”

“The cathartic solution in these things is to look them in the eye and tell them to screw off.”

She smiled and said, “Next time, I’ll call you and ask how to handle it.”

I didn’t seem to be having much luck staying on cheerier topics, so I tried again. “Why didn’t you follow Lisa into the JAG Corps?”

“I actually considered it. But my father’s getting older, my youngest sister was just starting high school, my mother’s dead . . . you understand? . . . Somebody had to stay nearby. Lisa did the heavy lifting when we grew up. It was her turn to go into the world and follow her dream.”

Sometimes in the midst of a pleasant conversation, something perfectly innocuous gets said, but it isn’t at all innocuous. We both, I think, experienced the same jarring, nasty realization that Lisa’s dream had just ended in a nightmare. And like that, the mood was killed.

She took a few more sips of wine. I took a few more sips of wine. We avoided each other’s eyes.

Then I said, “Janet, be honest. What’s your interest in catching this guy?”

“As in, justice or revenge?” I nodded, and she said, “I’m a law enforcement officer. I work inside the system and believe in it, for all it’s worth.”

“I’m relieved to hear that. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

So we’d both said the right words. Actually, for me, justice was revenge, especially if the killer got to squat on the hot seat. But I wasn’t sure she wanted that same order. We returned to the task of eating our pizza, and trading small talk, but the mood was irretrievably dead, and then the tray was empty and Dom Jimmy Jones was clearing the dirty dishes, and presenting our bill.

On the way out, I said to Janet, “I’ll drive you back to the hotel.”

She replied, “Not yet. I thought we’d go search Lisa’s apartment now.”

“What?”

“It’s not far. I’d like to search it now.”

“I thought we agreed we’re facing a serial killer.”

“And I thought we agreed that’s speculative. Martin and Spinelli can work that angle.”

“Translate that for me.”

“We’ve taking precautionary measures.”

“Precautionary?”

“Yes. At least, somebody should consider other motives and possibilities.”

This was very obtuse and I found myself wondering if Janet Morrow knew something she hadn’t yet shared, that she had some tangible reason to suspect that the facts, as we currently understood them, had a few holes.

If so, for some reason she had not shared those reasons with me. Which was odd, but I’d also spent enough time with this lady to appreciate that she played by her own rules. In short, the only way I was going to get to the bottom of this was to go along for the ride, which brought to mind that ancient warning—curiosity killed the cat.

But I’m a dog person. Surely I was safe.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

S
PEAKING OF CATS, THE MANAGER OF LISA’S APARTMENT COMPLEX WAS actually named Felix. Lisa had lived in a pleasant yet sprawling maze of cookie-cutter townhouses in Alexandria, a few turns after the Duke Street exit off I-395. The complex appeared modern, perhaps fifteen years old, was spacious, clean, and well-tended; a nice starter village for upwardly mobile professionals. There were plentiful Saabs and Volvos, and also trees, shrubs, and flower beds, and had it not been December, the place would’ve been bursting with manicured prettiness and gleeful yuppies flipping burgers on backyard grills.

After I showed my military orders appointing me as survival assistance officer, and Janet flashed the ID that verified she was the victim’s sister, Felix, who seemed friendly enough, agreed to let us into her apartment. Felix, incidentally, was built like an old spark plug, and had the appearance of a former fighter, with the shambling, disjointed movements of a guy who got better than he gave.

We walked a few yards with Felix in the direction of Lisa’s townhouse before he said to Janet, “Listen, yer sister, she was

somethin’ special. A real sweetie, that one.”

Janet replied, “Thank you.”

He seemed uncomfortable. “I, uh, well, we were pals.”

“Oh. . . I didn’t know. We didn’t know a lot about her life down here. She usually traveled up to see us.”

“Yeah, I know that. I always kept an eye on the place when she left.” After a moment, he added, “Everybody ’round here liked her, y’know. Real popular, that girl.” After another moment, he asked, “Hey, there gonna be a funeral?”

“Yes. We just haven’t decided where yet.”

“Keep me in mind, would ya?”

“I will, Felix.”

We walked on in silence for a while. He finally said, “She used to have me over for barbecues, when the weather was decent. Most folks here. . . I hear from ’em when they got complaints, y’know. Always appreciated that about Lisa. She was real special.”

Janet smiled warmly. “You must’ve been very special to her, too.”

He grinned, stared down at his big feet, and led us up the path to her townhouse door. He dug a ring of keys out of his pocket, studied them, then selected one. He stuck it in the keyhole and tried turning it. Nothing.

He bent over and studied the key. “I don’t get it. It’s the right key.”

I suggested, “Maybe she changed her lock.”

He shook his head. “I used it to get in, y’know, the day she died, to shut off the heat and gas, so the bill don’t run up.”

He reached down to his toolman belt, withdrew a flashlight from a loop, flipped it on, and directed the beam through a side window. He stuck his face to the pane of glass and then muttered, “Ah, Christ. . . would ya look at that.”

I peeked over his shoulder. Coats were littered on the floor, some chairs tipped over, and I remarked, “I take it this wasn’t like that when you went in?”

“Lisa kept the place real neat. Good tenant that way.”

My question had obviously been misconstrued, but his reply placed the timing of the break-in somewhere between the day of Lisa’s death and this moment.

I asked him, “Can you replace windows?”

“I’ll do it,” he insisted, “No charge to you.”

He pulled a wrench off his toolman belt, crashed it into the living room window, then swung it around, enlarging the hole, proving himself to be a man of deed and little thought. A line of smaller windows was beside the door; knock in one of them, reach through, unlock the door, and voilà. He climbed over the sill and worked his way to the front door, unlocked it, and allowed us to enter. Janet flipped the light switch that illuminated the hallway. Felix flipped the switch for the living room and kitchen.

The sight was a combination of mayhem and efficiency. Janet wandered around, stepping over broken pictures and toppled furniture.

I said, “What were they looking for?”

Janet said, “I . . . oh my God . . . let’s check Lisa’s bedroom.”

We rushed down a short hallway to the bedroom at the end. As with the rest of the apartment, it had been violently tossed. The mattress had been yanked off the bed, a bookshelf flung over, pictures torn off the walls. A jewelry box lay on the floor. I used a foot to flip it on its side—empty.

“Don’t worry about that. There should’ve been a computer in here,” said Janet, pointing at a small desk in the corner.

We returned to the living room. I asked, “Did Lisa have a stereo, a television, a microwave?”

“Of course.”

“They’re all gone.” My eyes caught on a family photo of Lisa, her father, and her sisters; the same one I’d seen in her father’s home, the five of them laughing and sailing, their hair whipped by the wind. The picture lay on the floor, covered by shards of broken glass. Janet caught my eye and noticed it also. We both froze for a moment.

I suggested to Janet, “Lisa’s address is in the phone book. Her murder was announced on the news. There are thieves who listen for those kinds of things.”

“Or maybe it was arranged to appear that way.”

“Maybe.” She looked at me and I asked, “Do you have reason to suspect that?”

She didn’t reply.

Felix was shuffling his feet. He said to Janet, “I’m real sorry. Shoulda kept an eye on the place.”

I said, “Happens all the time, Felix. Nothing you could do.”

He shuffled his feet some more, but did not appear mollified.

Janet wandered around a minute more, then faced us and said, “I’d like you two to leave me alone for a minute.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I replied. “This is a crime scene.”

“It’s my sister’s apartment, for Godsakes.”

“
And
a crime scene. You shouldn’t touch anything, and we should call the police.”

“Spare me the lecture. I just . . . She was my sister. These are her things, all I have left to remember her by. Please . . . a moment of privacy?”