The Only Good Lawyer - Jeremiah Healy (30 page)

But, if I couldn't talk about them with Nancy, there
was still someone I could talk with about her.

The people who run the cemetery on the hillside
overlooking the harbor are pretty good. About leaving the gate open
for people who visit at night, that is. There's always the risk of
vandalism to a headstone, but in a neighborhood as tightly knit as
Southie, somebody would know whoever did it. And that somebody would
tip a relative of the decedent involved, which would end that
vandal's career.

And maybe even the vandal's own life as well.

I shook that off as I reached her grave. The
lettering chiseled into the marble was beginning to show the harsh
frost of winters and the acid rain of springs.

"Beth," I said, a hitch in my voice.

John. A pause. You sound . . . cold.

"More tired than cold."

And more depressed than tired?

"With some reason, I think."

Tell me?

I did.

Another pause. And this . . . "fling" of
Nancy's with Woodrow Gant was before she met you.

"Years before"

A third pause, then, I wish I knew what Nancy 's
feeling toward you was right now, but I never experienced it. You
were my one and only, John.

"I know." Below us, a barge was moving
northeast past the harbor's mouth, the hull and deck lights on her
the only indication of her existence or direction, and even those
telltales were distributed haphazardly, like a Christmas tree
decorated by a drunk.

John?

"Sorry, kid. I'm winking out on you."

Or on yourself

"What do you mean?"

John Francis Cuddy, you've always been a good man,
but more than a bit dense when it comes to some aspects of the human
condition.

"Thanks. That sure clears everything up."

I don 't . . . She started over. I think you have to
let Nancy call the tune here, because neither you nor me knows better
than she how to handle her feelings.

I took a breath of the crisp, salt-laden air. "You're
right, Beth. As usual."

As always, a hint of smile coming up from the ground
that held her, I hoped more comfortably than I ever really believed.
 

Chapter 15

BY THE TIME I got back to my condo from the cemetery
that Thursday night, it was pretty late. Rather than ruin Steve
Rothenberg's dreams, I decided to sleep on the information about
Nicole Spaeth and Woodrow Gant until the next morning.

I didn't get to sleep on it very long.

The clock radio read 4:50 A.M. when I picked up the
phone by my bed on what I think was the second ring. "Yeah?"

"Cuddy, Murphy."

"Lieutenant, what—"

"Get your ass over here. Now."

I sat up. "Where's
'here'?"

* * *

It turned out to be a derelict, aluminum-sided
two-decker in South Boston abutting several warehouses with
chain-link fences and concertina wire festively enclosing their
parking  lots. The two-decker itself was probably white once,
but the skin of paint had peeled off the siding, and the Windows and
doors I could see were all boarded up.

I parked the Prelude as close as a uniformed officer
would allow, then asked for Murphy. The uniform led me on a wending
route around early-bird rubberneckers held back by yellow plastic
tape strung from telephone poles and the antennae of bubble-topped
cruisers, the tape reading "POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS."
Inside the perimeter of cruisers were two unmarked sedans sandwiched
around the Medical Examiners white-and-blue minivan.

When we reached the back of the building, I could see
that the rear door was open—forced open, judging by the way it hung
from only its bottom hinge. The uniform told me to wait outside while
he went into the house.

Pretty quickly the officer returned and walked past
me, Murphy now beckoning from the threshold. As I moved toward him,
he said, "You stop for breakfast along the way?"

"At five in the morning?"

Murphy nodded. "Best figure on a light lunch,
then."

"It's that bad in there?"

"Let you decide for yourself."

I trailed behind him into what would have been the
kitchen, now a wreck of torn-up linoleum whose age and color could be
anybody's guess. All the appliances were gone, with open-faced, rusty
pipes or just gaping holes in the cabinetry marking where they'd
stood. The clittering of little clawed feet came through the walls,
and a haze of dust motes danced in front of me. The air itself
carried a strong smell of oil and a stronger smell of urine, but the
strongest was that high, sickly-sweet stench which, once you've known
it, can never be mistaken for anything else.

Murphy held a handkerchief in front of him, squirting
a dose of some liquid onto it from a small squeeze bottle he took
from a jacket pocket. "You want some of this?"

"Gasoline?"

"Yeah."

"No, thanks. I'll be all right."

Murphy raised the hankie to his nose. "Let's go,
then."

At the corner of the kitchen was an open door, stairs
to a cellar behind it. Bright lights flared below but not in that
strobing way camera flashes will. As we descended the steps, both the
oil smell and the sickly-sweet one grew powerfully.

When I reached the point that my head cleared the
ceiling, I could see an old oil burner too big or too broken to move
from the dirt—floored basement. A couple of men in business suits
holding six-volt lanterns stood around an assistant M.E. in her white
coat and surgical mask. She was kneeling beside a body in dirty,
tattered clothes curled into the fetal position. The woman blocked
most of my view, but I could see the corpse's face well enough. An
older man with wasted features and reddish hair, the eyes bugging out
as though he'd been pressurized from within. My bet would be that
someone had strangled him, but the other characteristics of bulging
tongue and blue lips weren't there.

Literally not there.

Murphy spoke through his handkerchief. "Rats
been at him a while."

"Do we know who he is?" I said, though I
had a pretty good idea.

Murphy hooded his eyes, giving me a sideways hint of
them. "Why do you think I called you out?"

"Mantle, Michael A.?"

Murphy motioned to one of the other suits, who
brought over a plastic evidence baggie with some kind of paper inside
it. The lieutenant took the baggie and held it up for me to see. The
paper lay open but heavily and dirtily creased in a cross pattern, as
though it had been carried folded in fours for a long time.

"No wallet," said Murphy, "but this
was in his pant pocket."

The lanterns threw just enough ambient light for me
to read the printing on Mantle's birth certificate. "I'm told he
used it for winning drinks at bars."

"Winning drinks?"

"As 'Mickey Mantle'."

Murphy huffed out a "just-what-I-needed"
laugh, then returned the baggie to the other detective. "Doc,
can you give me an estimate on time of death?"

She didn't bother to look up. "Weather like
we've had?

More than a few days, less than a few weeks. Lab
results ought to narrow the bracket."

The shooting of Woodrow Gant occurred a week ago
Wednesday. "You figure this man was strangled?"

In a sarcastic voice, the M.E. replied, "Unless
he pictured me naked, and his eyes just popped out."

The top half of Murphy's face lilted toward the
stairs.

"Come on."

When we reached the kitchen, he said, "Breathing's
better outside."

What passed for the backyard was strewn with broken
beer bottles and busted toys, used condoms and torn shingles. We both
stood for a minute as Murphy put away his handkerchief. Then he said,
"You never met this Mantle, right?"

"You're talking for positive ID now?"

"I am."

"We can try Vincennes Dufresne."

"The one I had to roust at Spaeth's rooming
house?"

"Right."

Murphy nodded. "In due time." He gestured
behind us.

“
Unless Dufresne surprises me, I figure you can
forget about I your alibi witness."

"How did you know the corpse was down there?"

"Got a call. Somebody said they went in the
house to take a leak, saw the body."

"You have this tip on tape, then."

"Uh—unh. Man called Boston City."

"The hospital?"

"Our one and only."

"Not nine-one-one?"

"I talked to the hospital woman who caught the
call, around three-thirty in the A.M. She said the man 'sounded
black'."

"Like the call on Woodrow Gant that night."

"Right. Though she's from the Dominican herself,
so what does that tell you?"

"It tells me you've gotten two tips involving
this case from somebody who sounded—"

"It happens, Cuddy."

"The one about Gant's body on the road, yeah.
But let's face it, Lieutenant. Not many blacks tend to just wander
into Southie."

"Only takes one."

"Did this morning's caller give the hospital an
address?"

Murphy looked at me. "What do you mean?"

"Did the woman have the exact address of this
place when she telephoned you guys?"

He thought about it. "Must have. Message slip
had the number and street before we ever got a unit over here."

"Don't you think it's kind of odd a black guy
strolling around this part of town at that time of the morning goes
into an abandoned building to take a leak and then decides to do his
business in the cellar?"

"If he was polite about it."

"And then, after seeing a body, the guy's also
attentive enough to note the right address before he calls a number
that by chance doesn't automatically tape the incomings?"

Murphy said, "What I think is kind of odd, your
man's alibi witness is found dead four blocks from your man's
apartment. And I'm betting the lab's going to establish that this
Mantle got dead right around the time last week that Woodrow Gant i
was killed."

"Lieutenant, Spaeth is going to tell you the
next morning when you arrest him that he has an alibi witness he
strangled the night before?"

“
Maybe he hopes we don't find the body."

"Seems to me that the cellar here is a pretty
good spot for the body not to be found for a while, but certainly
found after a whi1e."

Murphy chewed on that. "So you're saying what?"

"I talked to a lot of people the last two days.
One of them could have made this morning's call to the hospital."

"To tip us about Mantle's body, you mean?"

"And wipe out Spaeth's alibi after I rattled
some cages on his behalf."

Murphy chewed on it some more, his eyes saying what
he felt before the words got to his lips. "No. No, I'll tell you
what I think. My instincts fooled me on this one, Cuddy. When I went
to arrest him, Spaeth had everything all worked out. He put on a
great act, and I bought it. But no more."

"Just a—"

"Your man tapped Mantle as an alibi witness to
drum up some reasonable doubt when he'd already killed him. The same
night Spaeth did Woodrow Gant, so Mantle can't ever set things
straight. It fits."

"It stinks."

Robert Murphy hooded his
eyes again. "All depends on your point of view, I suppose."

* * *

“
Why the hell does he call this place 'the
Chateau'?"

"It's a long story, Lieutenant."

Murphy and I waited under the portico. The bump on
the other side of the door made Murphy look up but not jump, and when
the door itself creaked open, Vincennes Dufresne blinked out at both
of us, the strap of a T-shirt-as-nightie slipping off his shoulder.

"Eh, you got any idea what time it is?"

Murphy said, "Mr. Dufresne, we're going to be
needing you for a whi1e."

The boarding house owner looked at me. "After
all the help I been, you bring a cop to my place?"

"Always nice to be remembered." said the
lieutenant.

Dufresne turned back to him. "What do you got to
see?"

"Other way around," said Murphy. "First
you have to see somebody, then probably we have to look at Michael
Mantle's room."

"The Mick?" Dufresne blinked some more.
"Aw, no. He's dead?"

Murphy glanced at me before saying to Dufresne.
"Pretty good guess."

The head hung down toward the T-shirt. “Well, maybe
he was right after all, eh?"

I said, "Don't get you."

"The Mick." Dufresne looked up. "One
day, I say to him, 'Mick, the way you spend your money on the brew,
you don't believe you can take it with you.' And the Mick, he says,
'Vinny, let me put it to you this way: You never saw no U-Haul behind
a hearse, did you?' "