Coyote (15 page)

Fine with me. I went over to the fridge, pulled two slices of ham out of a plastic package, used two slices of cheese for bread, stared at the clock, and called it a late lunch.

Roz laid down her brush and turned around with a satisfied sigh. “A guy came,” she said.

From the front her appearance was startling. Her brassy hair had a streak of coal black starting at her part and running down one side.

She strolled over to the refrigerator and seized a jar of peanut butter, her principal diet. I don't know why she doesn't have scurvy.

“Guy have a name?” I asked.

“Guy had a bod,” she said, forming her lips into a soundless whistle. “You don't want him, let me know.”

“But did he have a name?”

“Clinton,” she said.

“That's not a man,” I said, “that's an Immigration agent.”

“Look again,” she advised with a grin.

“What did he want?”

“You,” she said sadly. “Not me. He'll call later.”

“You busy?” I asked.

She stared critically at her work. “Busy meaning what?”

“You free for a job?”

“Sure,” she said.

Someday when I ask her, Roz is going to ask me what job, or how much I'll pay her, or whether it's legal or illegal, and then maybe I'll think of her as real. I don't know what I think of her as now. Some kind of phenomenon.

I sent her out to research Hunneman's, City Hall stuff—who owns it, who leases it, corporate or individual ownership, tax records. I could tell she was disappointed by the job.

“And,” I added, “you might go over to the Cambridge Legal Collective. Ask for Marian Rutledge. See if she's got any clients who live on Westland Avenue. Get her to search files. There's a good-looking guy secretary. Maybe you can vamp him and see if he'll find you the stuff.”

“Vamp him?” she asked. “Did you really say that?”

“Forgive me,” I said. “It's your dress.”

“Well, I think I know what you mean,” she said. “It'd depend on whether he's built.”

“The important thing is who owns Hunneman's.”

“I'll get it,” she said.

“Be discreet.”

I actually said that to somebody who looks like Roz.

21

The phone rang and I ran to get it, hoping Paolina's voice would be on the other end.

It was Kristy, trying to schedule a special volleyball practice to rev us up for Saturday's title match. I dutifully took down time and place and said I'd be there if I could arrange it. No promises.

“Nose okay?” she asked.

“Fine,” I lied.

I ended the conversation before she could inquire about Harry Clinton, the Olympic scout.

I dialed Mooney's office again. This time somebody picked up his phone and said they thought he was somewhere in the building. I left a message: Don't go anywhere till you talk to Carlotta. The guy on the other end said sure, he'd tell him, but from his uninterested tone I didn't think he would.

I grabbed my handbag and ran down the front steps.

I think better when I'm driving. Part of me relaxes as soon as I settle in the driver's seat and punch on the radio. Stray thoughts line up and organize themselves in neat rows and columns.

It seemed suddenly clear to me that I needed to make a stop before visiting Mooney, and I was pulling into the
Herald
driveway before I was entirely sure of the thought process that had brought me there.

I abandoned the car in a slot with a nameplate on it—some reporter's perk, I guessed. I hoped he was out on a hot story that would keep him away from the office parking lot.

Helen, the party girl who'd given me my envelope, was still on duty, if chatting on the phone qualified as on duty. I listened to what Joe did to Sue and how Sue was going to fix him good. It didn't sound like a business call. I cleared my throat. I didn't want to miss seeing Mooney because of my brainstorm.

She got off the phone and heeled her precarious way over to me. “No more mail for you,” she said.

“You remember,” I said. That was promising.

“For twenty bucks I remember a lot,” she said.

“That's just what I want to talk to you about,” I said.

On my way out of the building I saw the headline blaring from a stack of papers on some receptionist's desk. I fumbled in my bag, trying to find change.

“It's okay,” the lady behind the desk said with a toothy smile. “Take one. Read the
Herald
.”

SERIAL KILLER STALKS FENS! HOW MANY DEAD?

No wonder Mooney wasn't answering his phone.

22

I knew the desk sergeant, so he gave me no hassle, just a clip-on badge that authorized me to wander the station.

Mooney was in his office, and he wasn't alone. Much to my lack of delight, Walter Jamieson was with him. I gritted my teeth, knocked, and strolled in. The air was smoke-filled, evidence of a recent meeting unless Mooney had fallen off the wagon. I inhaled deeply. I gave it up a long time ago, but I still get a rush from the secondhand stuff.

Jamieson didn't exactly snarl at me. Mooney cracked a smile, not a great smile, but an effort nonetheless. Jamieson was perched on the edge of the guest chair. Mooney sat in the chair behind the desk, and that took care of the seating facilities and most of the available space. I leaned my backside against a wall and slid down until I was practically on the floor. I used to sit like that in Mooney's office a lot.

Mooney stared at me hard, lifted his hand, and touched his cheekbone. “Want to swear out a complaint?” he asked.

So much for my attempts at bruise camouflage via makeup.

“Don't let me interrupt you,” I said as Jamieson steamed.

“Mr. Jamieson was leaving,” Mooney said pointedly.

“I was not,” Jamieson denied.

“Look,” Mooney said, “we're cooperating on this case, but cooperation means you file the right forms and we send you the relevant data. It does
not
mean I give you material before I get it, okay?”

From my seat on the floor I could stare up at the map on the back of the door, at the four pushpins clustered near the Fens.

Jamieson made as if to start a new wave of protest, but he kept glancing down at me and stopping. I guess he was unwilling to share his valuable thoughts with an outsider. “What is she doing here?” he finally blurted.

“Well,” Mooney said, “I hope she's come to take me out to dinner. After that …” He gave an eloquent shrug.

Jamieson blushed and tightened his lips disapprovingly. He said, “I need copies of the reports for our files.”

“I'll send them over,” Mooney said.

“I'd like to take them with me,” Jamieson said.

“I'll send them.”

“Quit stalling me, Lieutenant.”

“I can give you everything we've got in a teaspoon,” Mooney said through clenched teeth. “Listen up. The FBI hasn't come up with more than fifty similar crimes yet. The medical examiner says the women were all killed in a similar manner. I gave you that hot flash before. The M.E. can't say they were killed by the same man, he can't say not by the same man. I can tell you they were killed by the same man. How do I know? With my gut. We're going through mountains of missing-persons reports, from Kansas City, from Oregon, for chrissake, but so far we got no matches.”

Jamieson consulted a small wire-ringed notebook. “Were the women raped?” he asked.

Mooney shrugged his shoulders.

“Drugs?”

“No evidence.”

“How did the killer get the body from that apartment to the park? Without anybody seeing him?”

“He's lucky and smart. The FBI's got a word for these guys. They call them ‘organized' killers, and they're a bitch to catch. There's an alleyway behind those buildings on Westland. He must have pulled a car close to the back door, wrapped the body in a sheet or a plastic tarp. Burned the tarp or stuck it in a dumpster. I've got guys looking. D.A.'s got guys looking. State police are looking.”

“What about dental records?” Jamieson insisted.

“We have the remains. You get me some records to try a match with, and I'll get you the best damned forensic dentist you ever saw.”

“These women,” the INS man said angrily. “If they're illegal, they come here with nothing. No identification. No jobs. No family. No dental charts. No one to file a report when they don't show up.”

“Probably,” I said sweetly, “they don't expect to get killed. Inconsiderate of them.”

Jamieson glared. I watched the pushpins on the map.

Mooney broke the silence. “Anyway, we're trying two dental matchups that aren't going to work. We're not doing them because of interagency pressure, we're doing them because we're thorough, got that? Very thorough.

“The thing I want to tell you is that the guy is going to be very hard to catch. Because he knows a lot of the same stuff cops know. Christ, he could
be
a cop. He's like that Atlanta child-murderer guy. He washes up afterward. He's careful. When we find him, he's going to have a library full of books on forensic medicine, stuff like that. Because this guy is not dumb and he's not ignorant, and he seems to know what he's doing—if anybody who does this kind of shit knows what he's doing. You want to write that down?”

“I want the reports,” Jamieson said stubbornly.

“Me too. How about you answer some questions? Why haven't I gotten a full set of prints to go with that green card? A set of documents? You gotta have prints, a medical report, a letter from a bank, from an employer, all that crap on file. At least I'd know if one of these stiffs is really named Manuela Estefan.”

“I told you we're working on it.”

Mooney got to his feet slowly. He's a big man, and when he stood, the tiny room got even smaller. For a minute I thought Jamieson was going to stand and challenge him, but he shrank back in his chair, and muttered, “First thing in the morning, then.” He didn't say good-bye to me when he fled.

Mooney looked at me after a moment's silence. “Shit,” he said, “I feel like the schoolyard bully.”

“How long's he been here?” I asked.

“All day,” Mooney said. “He wants to move in.”

“Mooney,” I said, “it'll be justifiable homicide. I'll testify.”

“Take me out to dinner?” he said.

I was suddenly ravenous. “Sure, let's go,” I said, thinking only of my stomach.

“You mean it?” I could tell from his eyes that he hadn't given up. Sam or no Sam. Gorgeous INS guys be damned.

“Yeah,” I said less than graciously, “but it's not a date or anything.”

“My treat,” he said.

I wouldn't go till he agreed to split the bill.

23

We had three arguments before we left the station, which is about par for Mooney and me. First came the split-the-check controversy, followed closely by the where-to-eat routine, capped by the who-should-drive finale. I haven't figured out whether Mooney's insistence on driving is purely a macho thing or not. Could be he hates the way I drive, or it might be he thinks that if he drives, he'll get to take me home, wangle an invitation for a beer, and some night I'll extend the welcome up to my room. Who knows?

I had the advantage. My Toyota would get ticketed, towed, or stolen if I left it where it was, whereas Mooney's Buick was safe for all foreseeable eternity in the cop lot. I won.

We wholeheartedly agreed to eat at Mary Chung's in Central Square, each of us pretending the other had pulled a fast one and picked the restaurant. I can go without a hit of Mary's Suan La Chow Show for a week before I start getting withdrawal symptoms. It's a bowlful of plump wontons resting on beansprouts in a hot, spicy sauce that will cure whatever ails you. Sometimes I order two bowls. If the government declared it a restricted Class-A substance, I'd go outlaw.

I parked in the back lot after a fairly uneventful trip during which I exercised my horn only once. We made our way through a trash-strewn alleyway that seems narrower and smellier every year. A gang of young Haitians hangs out there, using it as a combination clubhouse and urinal. They grew quiet when we approached. Mooney doesn't look like a cop, but he looks like somebody you don't want to mess with. When I take the alley alone, they make comments. Usually that bothers the hell out of me, but it's harder to take offense at sexist slurs voiced in liquid French.

We had to wait twenty minutes for a booth, which is nothing. I wondered if M.I.T. was on vacation. Usually the place is clogged with Techies. You can tell from the decor that people come for the food.

Mooney does not eat Suan La Chow Show. It's too spicy for him. He ordered spring rolls. I've tried to educate him, but there it is.

We compromised on the rest of the order because I like everything spicy and Mooney likes everything bland—except he wouldn't call it bland, and he'd describe my taste as fiery. Lemon chicken, mostly for him; and hot stuffed eggplant, batter-fried and hot-pepper-sauced, mostly for me. The waitress left a pitcher of water on the table as well as a pot of tea.

“Just how much are you cooperating with Immigration on this investigation?” I asked. “Was that a sample?”

“A hundred and ten percent,” Mooney answered disgustedly. “Word came down from on high. Do we have to talk about it?”

“You tell them everything,” I murmured flatly, thinking about Marta's threat to leave town, taking Paolina away.

“Empty the whole bag,” Mooney agreed. “Why?”

I poured steaming tea, dribbling it on the tabletop.

I wanted him to know about Hunneman's. I didn't want INS to rush in, raid it, and close it down.

“Is the cooperation a two-way street?” I asked when I'd fussed with the tea long enough for Mooney to start wondering whether I'd gone deaf. “I mean, why is it taking Jamieson so long to come up with the Manuela Estefan stuff?”