Shattered Shell (10 page)

I looked over at her and said, "Does he know about your relationship with Kara?"

"Oh, I don't know," she said, rubbing at her upper arms. The wind had picked up some and it had gotten colder. "Maybe he does und maybe that's why he's not hot to trot on the case, but I could give a shit. I'm not really counting on him, you know."

Boy, did I know. "I understand." I looked back up at the condo unit, and wondered if Kara could see the two of us down here, chatting. "So far I have a pretty good idea of how Kara is doing, but tell me this: How are you doing, Diane?"

A too quick nod.   “I’m doing okay."

"The hell you are," I said. "How are you eating, and how are you sleeping?"

She looked away. "Here and there --- when I can forget about it for a few minutes, which is tough --- I sleep a little or get a bite In eat. I took today off and I'm going to take at least a couple of more days off this week, but it's going to be hard, especially with those goddamn arsons. But Jesus, Kara's always refused to learn how to use a weapon, and I get so frightened just leaving her by herself for an hour or two."

Then she turned and said, "I hate to admit, God I do, but I'm scared. I'm scared of what happened and I'm scared of that guy out there, whoever the hell he is, and I'm scared he might be stalking her, for whatever reason. I feel bad enough, not being there the night she was... the night she was attacked. If anything else were to happen to her, I swear I'd take a dive off the Dow Memorial Bridge and not come up for air."

"I know," I said. "Look. Felix and I were going to do some work this week, see what happens. And I'll start tomorrow with that inspector."

"Okay," she said, and she pulled a key from her jeans pocket and passed it over. It was on a heart-shaped pink locket, and the sight of it damn near broke my heart.

"A spare key to Kara's place," she said. "I imagine you'll want to check it out."

I put the key away. "You imagined right."

“And promise you'll call if anything comes up?"

"Promise."

I unlocked the door to the Rover and reached out for a brief hug, and Diane hugged me back, but for the first time in the years I've known her, there was a slight hesitation there, a slight resistance that was probably something on a cellular level going on with her, for her woman was back up there hurting, and here she was, hugging the enemy.

I understood the hesitation. But that didn't mean I liked it.

I like to think that I share some things with the young. A sense of wonderment about the night sky. A childish pride in our space program. And cooking skills that have never graduated much beyond boiling water. To get around endless meals of rice and soup, I've made an arrangement with the head chef of the Lafayette House across the way. The arrangement consists of clandestine meetings at the restaurant's back door, folding money on my part being passed to him, and some of the best dishes the Lafayette House has to offer, passed on to me.

So after a dinner of haddock stuffed with crab and lobster meat, along with a red potato dish and large salad, and washed down with a glass of Robert Mondavi red, I was stretched out on the couch, comforter across my lap, fire in the fireplace, and reading a thin file that described an evening of horror for a young woman not fifteen miles away from my peaceful room, the sounds of the wind, and the crackle of fire.

The preliminary incident report was fairly straightforward. It began with Inspector Dunbar being called from his home at two-thirty a.m. the past Saturday by the Newburyport dispatcher, and then arriving at the hospital about fifteen minutes later. There, the report said, he interviewed "one KARA MILES, age 29, of 64 B High Street, Newburyport," who claimed that earlier that evening that she had been raped by "u/k male who broke into her second floor apartment." Dunbar wrote that "KARA MILES" had obviously suffered some trauma, and he went into some detail about the extent of her injuries, which --- despite the fire and the warm comforter --- chilled me. Some evidence of vaginal bruising, though any semen evidence (which I knew would be important for DNA testing) was not readily available due to Miles's taking a shower and performing a douche upon herself before stumbling down the street to the hospital. The standard Massachusetts Sexual Assault Kit had been collected and the chain of custody for this evidence was being maintained. An examination of Kara's apartment indicated that entry had been gained through the front door, and there were some signs of a struggle in the bedroom. There was no evidence, however, of any burglary being committed.

There were two other apartments in the building. Sixty-four C was empty. The bottom floor apartment, 64 A, was occupied by the building's owner, one "JASON HENRY, 67," who was home on the night of the assault and said that while he had heard some voices from upstairs, it was nothing so unusual that would cause him to be concerned.

And that was that.

I read and reread the report for a while, looking at the sparse language of Inspector Dunbar's, trying to think of what I was going to do if I was lucky enough to catch him tomorrow. One thing was for sure: I was going to pump him for more information, since the preliminary report was dated and timed for late Saturday afternoon. Some new information, some kind of progress, must have come up since he wrote his report.

And when I read the inspector's words for the last time before stoking the fire and going upstairs, I came back to the one thing that disturbed me at the outset, and was still disturbing me as I got up from the couch. It was just a small thing, just one line in a multipage report, yet it was an inconsistency that I didn't like, not at all.

For when Inspector Dunbar asked Kara if the attacker had any facial hair, she had said she was sure the man had a mustache.

I knelt before the fireplace, jabbed at the dying embers with a poker, and just remembered, over and over again, what Kara had said to me earlier. The man had been clean-shaven, she had said.

It didn't make sense. And when I was finished with the fire and put up the grate and turned down the thermostat and shut off all the lights downstairs and checked the locks, it still didn't make sense.

So I went to bed.

Chapter Six

The Newburyport Police Department is in a two-story brick building on Green Street, near Merrimack Street in the heart of the downtown, which is an attractive collection of brick buildings that look like they've been there for hundreds of years. There are some touristy-type shops that butt right up to old hardware stores and lunch counters that are a haven for the natives. I parked in a municipal lot across the street and walked to the building, sloshing through rough half-frozen slush. The river and the marinas and the drawbridge spanning over into Salisbury were visible from the station, which had an old-fashioned blue-and-white sign at the entrance that said POLICE.

When I had called earlier, Inspector Dunbar hadn't seemed particularly cheerful over the phone, and he said he had a half-hour free in the afternoon. I went through the glass doors and into a reception area, and told the receptionist I was there to see the good I inspector, and I was surprised that my hands were moist and my heart was racing right along, like I was seeing a prisoner instead of a cop, and then I walked down the hallway.

Inspector Ron Dunbar's office was the opposite of Diane Woods', so I guess police detectives don't necessarily share furnishing tips. While Diane's office is organized chaos, with files piled on the desk and cardboard filing containers on the floor, and enclosed by green cinder-block walls, Dunbar's office was a study in neatness. The walls were a pleasant light blue, with framed certificates and awards hanging up. A neat desk, with manila folders piled in some semblance of order. Diane's sole window is barred and has a view of the rear parking lot of the Tyler police station. Dunbar's view was much more pleasant, the busy downtown and the wide Merrimack River.

Dunbar had short-trimmed black hair, horn-rimmed glasses, and light blue eyes that disconcertingly almost never blinked, so it always looked as though he were gazing at you in surprise. He had on a blue button-down shirt and a Scottish tartan wool tie. He leaned back in a black leather chair and looked at me sideways, holding a water jug in his hand, the kind that runners use, with a long, flexible straw.

After I sat down I handed over my business card, to which he shook his head and gave it right back, and then he started right off, without even pretending to be polite.

"Mind telling me what the hell you're looking for?" he asked.

"Information about the Kara Miles case," I said, opening up my reporter's notebook. "I'm considering doing a story about violent crime in tourist communities during the winter, when the money is tight and the tourists go home."

"And why this case? Just because Diane Woods is a friend of yours?"

"That and other things," I said, not wanting to get into a deep discussion of what I was up to. "It just seemed to be the type of case that would fit into the story."

"What kind of case might that be?"

"Violent rape, in the middle of the night, middle of winter," I said. "Not exactly the typical crime one would associate with a tourist city like Newburyport."

"So what makes you the expert?"

Boy, this was getting more fun with every minute. "I never said I was an expert. I'm a writer, one who's lived in the area for a while, I like to think I have a pretty good idea of what happens in the towns around here."

"So because of that, I should spill my guts about an open investigation?"

I doodled in my notebook. "Any information you gave me would be confidential. I'm just looking to see what progress you've made in the case."

Dunbar smiled, tapped the end of the straw against his perfect chin. "Let's wrap this up, shall we? Cops around here, we like to do favors for each other. It's just good sense. We exchange tips, information, and occasionally we help each other out. It's the kind of stuff that keeps us going. Now, when Detective Woods had her friend," and I could hear the sneer in his tone at that word, "get raped last weekend, I told her I'd let her in on what we were doing, as professional courtesy. But the silly bitch thinks that case is the only one I got here in a city of twenty thousand, and whatever I do for her, it's never enough. She wouldn't even be happy with hourly updates."

"Imagine that," I said.

"Yeah, imagine that," Dunbar said, and I gathered his sarcasrn-detection equipment was not fully functional. "So one of the things I agreed to do for her is to have a little chat with a friend, a magazine writer who obviously has too much time on his hands. So here you are, and we're chatting, and my deal is complete. I agreed to talk to you. I didn't agree to give you info about this friggin' screwball case."

"And why's that? And why is this a screwball case?"

He swiveled around and put the drinking bottle down on the desk with a little more emphasis than necessary, and leaned forward, finger pointing. "Do you think I have nothing else better to do than to waste my time with a fool like you?" he demanded.

I closed my notebook. "My thoughts exactly," and I got up and I left.

I spent another hour in Newburyport, just decompressing, wondering why, of all the wonderful officers who no doubt wear uniform of the Newburyport Police Department, one Ron Dunbar had made it to inspector, and was thereby complicating my life. I had lunch by myself at one of the old downtown restaurants, the Grog, and enjoyed a salad, cheeseburger, and that day's
Boston Globe
. I read through the paper, and by the time I put down the sports section, an hour had passed and I felt better about myself.

Leaving the Grog, I walked up Simpson Street a couple of blocks, bravely passing by an attractive-looking bookstore, and then I came upon High Street. Traffic was steady and I started walking west, doing fairly well on the slippery sidewalks. High Street is wide and the vast bulk of the homes there are large Colonials or Federals, painted white with black shutters. Most were built during the wonderful years when Newburyport was a busy shipping port and fortunes were made by sailing out to Hong Kong, Havana, or Madrid. But now most of the watercraft that leave are pleasure craft or fishing vessels, and many of the homes of rich merchants and sea captains belong to investment bankers or computer software designers, or are subdivided into apartments.

After about a twenty-minute walk I went across the street and stood before one of the Federal homes. It looked similar to any one of a half-dozen up and down this street, but this one was special. It had two stories, and birch trees, stripped by the winter of their leaves, framed both sides of the house.

The front door was painted black and there was a large brass knocker in the center, and an old wreath from last Christmas was still hanging on. Next to the door were three mailboxes and I knew that one of them said MILES. I shivered, stamped my feet. A driveway to the right led to a side parking area, bounded now by mounds of snow. There were homes on either side, about fifty feet distant in each direction. I knew from previous visits that there was one large apartment on the first floor and two smaller apartments on the second floor, one of which belonged to Kara.