Tight Lines (7 page)

Finally she left him. Got this place to hide out in in exchange for watching over the building. She was good at fixing things. She’d learned a lot from her dad. Johnny kept harassing her. Long messages on her answering machine. Bribing Donald to let him into the building, then banging on her door for an hour, alternately yelling and cajoling, wanting her to open up, swollen with his bruised macho pride. And after she ordered Donald not to let him in, Johnny simply went around the side of the building to her private entrance and pounded and yelled out there. And she just sat inside at her table and cried and didn’t open the door. So he tried a new strategy. If he couldn’t bully her, he could divorce her. It was, she figured, his idea of revenge. Personally, she didn’t much care whether she was divorced or not right now. She just had no desire to live with Johnny Costello. Somewhere along the way, love had transformed itself into hatred. Funny how things like that happened. She supposed she’d be needing a lawyer, but she hadn’t gotten around to it.

As she talked it occurred to me that while she may have learned to hate him, she hadn’t really stopped loving him.

She looked up at me. “What happens to people, anyway?”

I thought of Susan and Mary Ellen. I thought of me and Gloria. I shrugged. “I don’t know. No wisdom here.”

Our beer cans were empty. She got up, fetched more, came back, and sat down.

Her phone rang. It was sitting on the table in front of us under some papers on the end of a long cord that snaked into the kitchen. She let it ring twice, then pushed the papers off it. She lifted the receiver an inch off the cradle, held it there for a few seconds, then hung it up. She looked at me and shrugged. I lifted my eyebrows. She shrugged again.

She tilted up her beer can, took a long swallow, her throat working. Then she put it carefully down on the table. She rotated it slowly, staring at it as if she was studying the label. Then she looked up at me. She reached over and tapped my arm with her fingernails. “Hey,” she said. “You’re a lawyer.”

I nodded. “I am.”

“Do divorces?”

“You can’t afford me, Jill. Have you thought of mediation?”

“Mediate with Johnny Costello? That’s a laugh. I’ve destroyed his manly pride. He’s just out to get me.”

“What about a restraining order?”

“Hey. He’s my husband.”

“True.” I took a swig from my beer can. “Tell you what,” I said. “If that lawyer does come around with papers for you to sign, take them, don’t sign them, and give me a call. I’ll look them over for you.”

“Yeah, well, you’re right. I can’t afford you. I can’t afford anybody. Do they have public defenders for divorces?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I can look at papers, see what’s involved. We can take it from there.”

“I can maybe give you a hundred bucks as a retainer.”

I smiled. “You don’t need to. What do you want out of this?”

“The divorce? Not a damn thing. The divorce is his idea. His way of asserting himself. I don’t care about a divorce one way or the other. I just want him to leave me alone. I couldn’t possibly feel any less married to Johnny Costello if we get divorced than I do right now. He wants a divorce, he can have it. Just so I don’t get screwed in the process.”

“No custody issues?”

“I told you. We didn’t make any babies.”

“Golden retrievers, Persian cats, tropical fish?”

She smiled. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No. Sometimes custody of pets is tougher than children.”

She shook her head. “No pets.”

“What about common property?”

“Nothing of mine. I haven’t got any money. Just a clunky old Toyota. Had to get loans for school. He can have what’s his.”

“Everything is common property, you know. You’re entitled to half.”

“I don’t want anything,” she said. “I wouldn’t take it.”

I shrugged. “Well, I’ll be happy to help you,” I said.

“Really?”

“Sure. Really.” I took out one of my business cards, wrote my home phone number on the back of it, and gave it to her. “Just give me a call.”

She glanced at the card and dropped it onto the table. “Okay,” she said. “I probably will.”

I glanced at my watch. “Time for me to get going,” I said. I drained the rest of my beer and stood up.

“Yeah,” said Jill. “I still got homework to do.”

I went to the door. She followed me. I opened it. She touched my arm, and I turned. “Hey,” she said. “Thanks.”

She put her hands on my shoulders, tiptoed up, and kissed my cheek.

“You’re welcome,” I said. I patted her shoulder and got the hell out of there.

I walked out of the building into the city night. I crossed Beacon Street and headed across the Common on one of the poorly lit diagonal paths that would start me back to my apartment on the waterfront. Jill Costello’s daughterly kiss started me thinking about my impending date with Terri Fiori. It had been a week or so since I had seen Terri. Already her face had grown fuzzy in my memory. I tried to conjure it up, those great dark eyes, that jet black hair…

The hand that suddenly gripped my arm felt like a bear-trap. The voice that hissed in my ear was rough and threatening.

“Hold it right there, buddy,” that voice growled.

I stopped and held it right there.

Damn! I was about to become a statistic. I was about to get mugged on the Boston Common. If I was lucky I might not be murdered.

W
ITHOUT TURNING AROUND, AND
with his fingers digging painfully into the flesh above my elbow, I said, “What do you want?”

“C’mon. Over here, where I can see you.”

He steered me toward a bench. I had never been mugged before. This was not how I would have imagined it.

“Siddown.”

I sat. He sat beside me, still holding my arm.

“You can let go,” I said. “I promise not to flee.”

To my surprise, he let go.

I turned to look at him. He had closely cropped iron-colored hair, bushy gray eyebrows, a few days’ worth of heavy black-and-white bristle on his cheeks. His eyes were small and dark and surrounded by puffy flesh. There was a large bump on his nose where it took a right-angle turn toward the left.

He looked more or less like Buddy Hackett in a bad mood.

“So who the fuck are you, anyways,” he said.

“My name is Brady Coyne,” I said. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Dave Finn,” he said. “I’m a friend of Mary Ellen.”

“You’re not gonna mug me?”

Then he grinned. And he looked even more like Buddy Hackett. “Nah,” he said. “Sorry about that. Christ, you walk fast. I just wanted to talk to you.”

“About Mary Ellen?”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “I knew she had another guy. Drove me nuts. She wouldn’t admit it. She ever tell you about me?”

“I’m her—” I stopped. “No. She never did.”

“You musta suspected, though, huh?”

I shrugged.

“I admit I was jealous as hell,” he said, tugging at his nose. “But now I’m just worried. So if she’s with you or something, okay, best man wins, all that shit. I just wanna know she’s okay.”

“Look,” I said. “I’m her mother’s lawyer, that’s all. I don’t know Mary Ellen. I’ve never even met her. I need to do some business with her.”

“You’re not that guy?”

“I told you, I’ve never met her.”

He shook his head slowly back and forth. “Well, shit. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t know where she is either?”

“Nope. Been calling. Ever since she stood me up. Figured, fuck it, so she found some younger guy. What beautiful young gal like her’d wanna marry an ugly old bastard like me anyway? But, damn. She suckered me good, tell you that. Assumed it was you, comin’ around to pick up some of her things. The guy at the desk said you was there earlier, might be comin’ around again. I wanted to get a look at you.” He cocked his head, looking at me. “Shoulda known when I seen you. Figured it hadda be somebody younger than you.”

“Marry you? She’s going to marry you?” I said.

“You think that’s funny?”

I shrugged.

“Yeah, I know what you’re thinkin’. Ugly old pug like me, rich lady like Mary Ellen, so beautiful and refined and all. Hey, I didn’t believe it myself. But, yeah, we’re plannin’ on it.” He took a deep breath. “I dunno. Guess maybe we’re not. Guess she run off with the other guy. Not you, huh?”

“No. Not me. What do you know about this other man?”

“Nothing. Diddlysquat. I know there’s some other guy. That’s all.”

“Guy with a ponytail and earring? Old hippie type?”

Dave Finn frowned. “Nah. I don’t think so. I know who that is. That’s some old buddy of hers. Fella name of Raiford. Sid Raiford. She usta work with him in some bookstore. No, this is some other guy. I don’t think her and Raiford are like that.”

“An Arab, maybe?” I said.

“Huh?”

“The other man. Is he an Arab?”

“Listen,” he said. “I don’t know
who
the fuck he is. I don’t think it’s Raiford, that’s all. I thought it was you. He could be an Arab or a Greek or a fuckin’ Russian for all I know. I mean, I oughta be able to figure it out, but I can’t. Fuckin’ detective, and I can’t even get a line on some guy my gal’s run off with.”

“You’re a detective?”

He snorted a quick ironic laugh through his L-shaped nose. “Not a very good one, I guess. Yeah, I’m a cop.”

“Well,” I said, “it would seem that between a cop and a lawyer, we ought to be able to find her.”

“You really don’t know where she is either, then?”

“No,” I said.

“Gonna keep lookin’?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“If you find her, will you tell me?”

“If I find her,” I said, “I will first ask her if she wants me to tell you. If she says no, then I will not tell you. What about you?”

“Me?”

“If you find her, will you tell me?”

“Same deal, I guess. What’d you say you wanted with her?”

“I’m her mother’s lawyer. She’s dying. It’s about her estate.”

“So Mary Ellen’s gonna get even richer, huh?”

“Looks that way.” I fished another business card from my jeans pocket, scratched my home phone number on the back, and gave it to Finn. “Here’s my number. Home and office. I’d appreciate a call. From you or her.”

He took the card, ran the ball of his thumb over the raised lettering, and shoved it into his pocket.

“You don’t have any idea where she might’ve gone?” I said.

“I been lookin’ for a week. Haven’t got a clue.”

“Do you know if she has a vacation place?”

“Yeah, matter of fact. She’s mentioned it. She’s got a cabin or something on some pond somewhere, I think. I never been there.”

“No idea where it is?”

“Nope.”

“Maybe she’s there,” I said.

“Hope so.”

“Why?”

“Means she’ll be back. But I doubt that’s where she is.”

“Why?”

“She woulda told me she was goin’.”

Maybe not, I thought. But I remembered the inside of her closets. There didn’t seem to be any empty hangers or missing pieces from the matching luggage. Her bed was unmade and there were dirty dishes in the sink. She left her prescription of Pertofrane in her medicine cabinet. Her place had not looked the way a woman would leave it if she was going away on an extended vacation.

I stood up. “Can I go now?” I said.

Finn grinned crookedly. “Hope you ain’t mad.”

I held my hand down to him. “It was good to meet you. A big relief that you didn’t mug me.”

We shook hands and I resumed my stroll down the path that crossed the Common. I glanced back over my shoulder. Dave Finn was still sitting there on the park bench, watching me.

J
ULIE HAD SET UP
a morning full of conferences for me on Tuesday, so I didn’t get a chance to make any calls until after lunch. That’s when I took out my notebook and punched up the first number on my list, Dr. Arline McAllister, the gynecologist with the Cambridge office. The woman who answered the phone sounded harried and informed me that the doctor was at the hospital and wasn’t expected back until late afternoon. I left my number and requested she call me.

Next on my list was Dr. Peter McAllister, the plastic surgeon whose office was in Chelsea. I tried the number I had written down.

A woman answered. “Dr. McAllister.”

“I’d like to speak to the doctor, please.”

“I’m sorry, sir. The doctor—”

“I’m a lawyer,” I said.

She hesitated. “Your name?”

“Coyne. Brady Coyne.”

“Your client?”

“Let me speak to Dr. McAllister, please, miss.”

“Just a moment.”

She put me on hold. I lit a cigarette. It was less than half smoked when she returned. “The doctor can speak with you now, Mr. Coyne.”

I heard a click, then, “Dr. McAllister. How can I help you?”

“I want to discuss Mary Ellen Ames,” I said.

I heard a hesitation. Then, “Beg your pardon?”

“Mary Ellen Ames. Your patient.”

“I have no patient by that name, sir.”

“Has she been your patient? Have you done surgery on her?”

“Look,” he said. “What is this?”

“You never heard of Mary Ellen Ames?”

“Never.”

“Don’t you want to look it up in your records?”

“I don’t need to. I’d recognize the name of any patient I ever had.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Well, your credulity is of no interest to me, sir, and I don’t appreciate being bullied by some ambulance chaser. So if you—”

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I’m not after a lawsuit, Doctor. Please. One question.”

“I never heard of her. What else can I tell you?”

“Pertofrane. Do you prescribe Pertofrane?”

He laughed. “Hardly.”

“Why not?”

“I’m a plastic surgeon, Mr. Coyne.”

“So?”

“Pertofrane is an antidepressant.”

“Oh.”

“Listen. The reason I don’t need to look up your client in my records? What was her name?”

“Mary Ellen Ames.”

“Yes. The reason I don’t need to look her up is that I just opened my office eight months ago. I haven’t had that many patients. I’d remember her. Anyway, I don’t prescribe Pertofrane.”

“I’m sorry I bothered you.”