Home Body, page 51
The cool smile again.
“But short of someone just handing her a bag of cash—she didn’t work anywhere else,” I said. “As far as I can tell, she’d really immersed herself in this place. So where else could extra money come from?”
“Not from here. That’s one thing I take very seriously. I have to because some of these people think there’s this unlimited amount of money. I mean, and this isn’t for print, they’ve grown up in a world where there were no limits. And the money was earned by somebody two generations back. They don’t think of the sweat that went into that. They think it grows on trees, if you’ll excuse the cliché.”
“Somebody else said that. And you reminded them it didn’t grow on trees.”
“I come from modest circumstances. My parents came here from Poland with five dollars between them. They worked every waking minute so I could go to Smith, I could get an MBA at Wharton. My dad worked in this company that made hoses. I mean, actually made them. He came home all dirty, smelling like rubber. My mother did tax returns for the immigrant community in Quincy. Nothing was handed to them, not like some people in this world. We do a lot of good, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t forget that money comes from sweat. On my watch every penny is accounted for and it goes where the foundation is committed to putting it. And there are strict regulations governing that.”
She lifted herself in her chair.
“Are we through?”
“I guess so,” I said. “If I have questions, I’ll call.”
She stood and smoothed her skirt. I stood, too, stuck the notebook in my back pocket. Roxanne started for the door.
“So what do you think happened?” I said, more confidentially.
“To Miss Moretti?”
“Yeah.”
“Off the record? I think she crossed paths with the wrong person in Maine in that wasteland you have to cross to get home from Blue Harbor and she was killed. Happens all the time in this world, unfortunately. Women are prey. Of course, that doesn’t minimize the tragedy.”
I paused. She didn’t look choked up, but that wasn’t her style.
“Did she get any bonuses or anything like that?”
“No, not that came through our operating accounts.”
I must have looked perplexed.
“Jack,” Kind said, gathering up a briefcase and bag from her desk. “You should go to one of these functions, the big ones. And this is totally off the record. The museums, the BSO—it’s wall to wall with silver-haired men and a lot of younger women. The men make seven figures and have alpha-male egos to match. The women, a lot of them, are wife number two or three, former administrative assistants who saw their chance and went for it. And then some of them, like Angel, are new to the game, just there for show.”
“To watch the show, you mean?”
“No, Jack,” she said, pausing by the door. “They are the show, all decked out in slinky dresses. There’s a term for it. It’s a little crass. Oh, what is it?”
“Arm candy?” Roxanne said.
“That’s it,” Kind said. “Walk into the Oak Bar at five o’clock and see the guys in their sixties and their pretty young things.”
“You’re saying Angel was one of those pretty young things?”
“Off the record, Jack. And I know it’s a terrible thing to say, given the circumstances. But it’s the truth.”
She opened the door and we stepped into the hallway, and she closed the door and locked it with a key from her bag.
“But what does that have to do with money?” I said.
“Oh, come on now, Jack,” Kind said as we started down the hall. “These young women may be trophies, but the smart ones, they make sure they get something in return.”
“And Angel?” I said.
“Miss Moretti,” she said, “wasn’t stupid.”
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A livery cab, a black Town Car, picked Kathleen Kind up out front for the ride home to Cambridge. We got in the car as the cab pulled away and I said to Roxanne, “What do you think?”
“Not exactly warm and fuzzy,” she said.
“I guess they need somebody to keep the bleeding hearts in check.”
“And remember, it’s not her money they’re giving away.”
“No, and it’s a good gig,” I said.
“If you’re good with numbers and tax law and a little snooty.”
The Town Car swung around the corner and out of sight.
“And Angel?” I said.
“I think for a nice girl, Angel sure stirred the pot.”
“Maybe that’s my lead,” I said.
“That is the story, isn’t it?”
“I’ll tell Myra it’s changing.”
“Yeah,” Roxanne said. “It’s not Cinderella getting killed on the way home from the ball.”
I called the bureau from the car and Myra’s line was busy, which meant she was in. I swung over to State Street and up and into traffic, not a parking space within two blocks. It was Jazz at the Marketplace, according to the posters, and in the distance we could hear music. I started looking for a space, looping in widening circles, and ended down past McKinley Square and the Custom House hotel. It was dark beyond the hotel and deserted and Roxanne held my arm as we walked back up to South Market. The music was loud, bouncing off the buildings like flies off glass.
I called up on the intercom and Myra buzzed us in.
She was standing at her desk, barking into the phone.
“Right, you’ll see it tomorrow afternoon, early. . . . Right. McMorrow. He’s been working on this since they dug her up. Yes, the Connelly connection is strong. She worked with David directly. I mean, it’s his family’s foundation and he’s the main one there. The others just sit on the board. Right, in Maine, but not really close to where the Connellys’ house is. . . . Well, listen, he just came in; hang on.”
She put her hand over the phone.
“It’s Alice. They want a tagline for the national budget.”
I thought for a moment, but not more.
“With a Connelly entree, murder victim was poised on edge of Boston social whirl.”
“That’s good,” Myra said, and she repeated it into the phone and rang off, turned to me and said, “Okay, where do we stand?”
Roxanne went to the restroom and I told Myra whom I’d talked to and what they’d said. Leaning on the front of her desk, she listened. When I was done, she said, “Cops have the box?”
I said I didn’t know but I’d find out.
“So the question is, who was her sugar daddy?”
“Dalton denies it.”
“Nah, he’s a small-time nine-to-fiver. I picture somebody with serious bucks. Somebody who could promise Angel the condo in Antigua, a ride down on the Citation Two. Somebody who could pick her up like she was a mint on the way out of the restaurant. ‘Here, honey. Here’s ten grand. Go get yourself something nice.’ ”
“What if nobody gave her anything?” I said.
“You mean, what if she stole it?”
“Or something like that. What if she landed one of these guys and then threatened to go to the wife.”
“Then they’d pay her off, or—”
“But if she tried it with the wrong guy,” I said.
“Then somebody kills her,” Myra said. “It fits, maybe.”
“Right. She gets some money but wants more. Pushes somebody too hard and they decide she’s a liability. Have her killed. I start to ask questions and they bring in somebody to make me stop.”
“And when you don’t stop?”
“Like the detective said, they’re leg breakers. They’re not hit men.”
“Why do I not find that particularly reassuring?” Myra said.
Roxanne came back and we talked about the story. Myra said she’d love to use Dalton’s wife talking about the prom dress. That would take the focus off Dalton as the apparent boyfriend. She thought we needed Maddie Connelly, too, and something more from the Moretti family to address the premise, which was that Angel was stepping across class lines.
And we needed whatever we could get about the cause and place of death, the amount of money and whatever else was in the safe-deposit box. I said I’d try to get Maddie and Mrs. Dalton that night, and the others in the morning.
And then there was small talk, Myra talking to Roxanne about her work, Roxanne telling Myra about the group Maddie had for the talk about child abuse, Myra asking me what David Connelly was really like. I said he was a good guy, very interesting, and not bad-looking, either.
“I think he’s a hottie,” Myra said.
“So does his wife,” I said.
“If I had been Angel, that’s the one I would have gone after,” Myra said. “You don’t think—”
“No,” I said.
“He’s got the money.”
“No, he’s a good guy.”
“With a wife and a kid, and something to lose,” Myra said.
“No,” I said. “David and Maddie are very tight.”
And then I thought of Maddie crying after the funeral, David telling her it was going to be okay.
“No,” I said.
“Maybe she jumped his bones on the way home from the office Christmas party. She threatens to go to Maddie and tell all if he doesn’t come through with the cash and a job for her North End buddy.”
And a ride to Bar Harbor on the boat?
The phone rang and Myra answered it, started talking about the New England news briefs. I grabbed a couple of notebooks and some pens and Roxanne and I went down and out. The lobby was deserted, but the music was blaring and people were all over the marketplace. We walked out to State Street and started down and the crowd thinned, just a few college kids shuffling along, baseball hats on backward, a homeless man picking like a raccoon through a trash can. We were near the Custom House when I heard someone behind us, turned, and saw three young guys and a woman—shorts, muscle shirts, baseball hats.
They were bounding along, a couple of the guys pushing each other, one of the guys and the woman holding hands. They whooped and laughed and two of the guys broke into a sprint, like they were racing to their car. I turned and moved out of the way and the pounding footsteps approached and I started to turn back.
The shoulders. Something hit me. I stumbled, lost my grip on Roxanne’s hand, and fell.
32
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There was a swish of fabric behind me, a rush of steps, Roxanne saying “No.”
I was just back on my feet when someone landed on me, rolling me into the street, wrapping his arms around my shoulders, climbing on my back.
I staggered, tried to spin him off, reached behind me for his face, but then the other one was on me, balaclava masks on them now, pushing me around the corner and into a service sort of alley. It was dark and I hit the wall with my shoulder, lashed out with my left arm, and caught one of them in the face. He jerked his head back, tried to grab my arm, but I wrenched it free. Turned and used the guy on my back as a shield, but then both of them ran me into the wall, my face scraping the hard brick. I bellowed but someone wrenched my head back and looped a gag over my mouth. It caught on my teeth and they pulled harder and it went into my mouth and I felt like I was choking. Someone grabbed my wallet from my back pocket and said, “Check it,” and I heard another one say, “Yup.”
Roxanne came around the corner, the guy and the woman holding her, the guy’s hand over her mouth as she writhed and kicked and stomped at their feet. Then she was behind me and someone said, “Use this,” and she cried out and then her voice became muffled. I screamed “Leave her alone” into the gag, and they yanked my hands out from the wall and I kicked blindly, hit a shin, stomped on a foot. They started kicking and hit behind my right knee and my leg buckled but they yanked me up by my shirt and I felt the cold air on my back. I tried to turn and kick but I fell onto my side at the base of the wall, saw Roxanne on her knees, the woman on Roxanne’s back, an arm locked around her neck. They were kicking me in the arm, the shoulder, the chest, the side of the head, a flurry of blows and then someone was standing on my chest. I rolled and he stumbled off of me. I wrapped my arms around his legs and twisted and he fell heavily to the pavement, his head making a hollow sound like a coconut.
Two of them fell on me, grabbing for my wrists, but I twisted free, saw the woman in front of Roxanne now, the guy holding her hands behind her. She slapped Roxanne and then grabbed for the top of her shirt and yanked and the shirt tore and I could see Roxanne’s bra and the woman reaching again.
I bellowed and bulled my way to my feet, taking the guy on my back up with me. Turned and charged backward into the wall, feeling his head slam the bricks, his teeth against my shoulder. And then I ran through them, hit the woman from behind, and she flew past Roxanne, sprawled on the ground, and Roxanne ducked and I hit the guy behind her in the face, felt teeth and wetness and he spun and fell and one of the guys said, “His hands, get his hands.”
But I was loose now, Roxanne, too, and she pulled the gag off and ran onto State Street, screaming, “Help, help me,” and I heard other voices in the distance, someone saying “What’s that?”
And they were on me, but I was swinging and one stumbled and I kicked him in the belly and elbowed another as he reached for my wrists. I stomped on their feet, lashed out at their shins, and they were bending my hands back, trying to break the fingers, the wrists. One finger was bending way back but I whipped the other hand loose and grabbed for faces and eyes. I gouged and scratched and tore and one of them let out a shriek, blood streaming from his eye and then there were voices approaching. Like a flock of sparrows, the four of them fell away in unison and started running back up the street, away from the square.
One turned back and screamed, “We’ll come to fucking Maine and kill you,” and then two men rounded the corner, one with a Custom House insignia on his shirt, both with fists up, the older man breathing hard. They looked at me, the blood running down my face, and then at the backs of the others, fading into the darkness. One said, “You okay? What happened?” and Roxanne came around the corner then, one hand holding the torn shirt up, a gray-haired woman scurrying along behind her.
Roxanne was crying and she came to me and said, “Are you all right?” and she pulled the rag off my mouth and I said I was, and she said, “Did they break your hands?”
I shook my head.
“They tried,” I said.
“They don’t want you to write this story,” she said, still panting. “You’re going to write the best story you’ve ever written, those dirty bastards.”
She started to sob loudly.
“You’re going to write that story, you’re going to write it, Jack McMorrow. You’re going to write it, write it, write it.”
33
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Outside the emergency room at Mass General, the ambulances came and went, like wasps around a nest. We stood in a little circle in the parking lot on Fruit Street, Roxanne and I, Myra and Sullivan. My left little finger was splinted to the finger beside it and my whole hand throbbed.
“So let’s say Mick didn’t want to show his face,” Sullivan said. “He could sub the job out, get any number of kids to come to your office there and wait. And you say the people at Connelly’s place knew you were going there. Who else?”
“I don’t know. Mick himself could have followed us from the Connellys’ and made a quick phone call.”
“Could have brought the kids himself,” Sullivan said. “Let them loose like dogs.”
“Will you find him tonight?”
“I’ll look around. My bet is he’ll be at one of the bars and everybody in the place will say he’s been there all night.”
“So what do you do?” Myra said.
“This isn’t for print?”
“No,” I said.
“I’ve got to be careful, standing around with reporters. Don’t want something I say to come back and bite me in the—”
“It’s okay,” Myra said.
“Well, you look for some leverage. You find a firearm, somebody who Mick assaulted who we have something pending on, maybe they’ll consider bringing charges in exchange for a break. You get something on Mick that could put him back inside and then you bargain with that. Or we go after Vincent. He has a brother out on bail for assault. Maybe we trade something there.”
“An assault for a murder?” Myra said.
“You always want to trade up,” Sullivan said.
“So you think that whoever hired Mick knows who killed Angel?”
“They know something we don’t know.”
I spoke and my voice was hard and jarring, edged with impatience.
“What is it you know, exactly, Detective? For the record, for this story.”
They all looked at me but no one said anything. I took out my notebook and flipped through the pages with my taped hand. Sullivan hesitated, then pulled a cell phone out from the back pocket of her jeans and turned around and walked a few feet away. Roxanne turned to the Charles and the lights on the Cambridge side and said, “The city really is pretty, isn’t it? You’d never know all this stuff was going on.”
“The other day I was talking to this woman who teaches at Harvard,” Myra said. “She studies all those little bugs in the sand in the ocean. She said if people knew what was under there, they’d never walk on the beach again.”
I almost smiled. Sullivan was talking and I overheard her say, “We need him, too,” and then she turned back to us, said, “Okay, Jack. This is what I can tell you.”
We sat in the front of her car, just the two of us. She gave me a clipboard to set my notebook on. I scribbled; she talked.
She said the Audi was found on a side street in Chelsea, one window broken, the CD player gone. Forensics people matched grass and other flora from the underside of the car to the path that led to the gravesite in Monroe, Maine, and there was a gull’s feather hanging from the rearview mirror, like she’d just been to the coast. But Angel’s parents said she came home the night she left Maine, which meant whoever had killed her had driven all the way back north. They were checking tapes at the tollbooths on the Maine Turnpike but hadn’t come up with anything yet. That just meant the car might have been driven up Route 1—with a body in the trunk.
