Shallow Graves - Jeremiah Healy (17 page)

"Nancy, I'm sorry — "

The stop sign again. "Wasn't you. Wasn't your
fault, I mean. And wasn't his hip, either. The vet said he has a
congenial . . . congenital problem with his back legs. I can't
remember the science name, but it's like his kneecaps aren't in the
right place, so he has to have an operation to put them back. Where
they should be. So it wasn't your fault. It would have happened
sometime, when he jumped off a chair or down a step or . . ."
She waved the last phrase away.

"If Renfield's going to be okay, then why the
bottle?"

Nancy flapped both hands in her lap. "They
called me at the office and told me he should have the operation or
else be . . . put to sleep, and I guess I just realized how . . .
fragile everything could be. When I'm with you, I'm fine. When you're
not here, and Renfield is, I'm fine. But when I got home tonight, and
he wasn't here, and no word back from you, I just realized how lonely
it was to be alone."

"Nance — "

The stop sign came up halfway. "John, this isn't
easy for me. I'm trying to tell you something, okay?"

"Okay."

"When I first started seeing you, I said to
myself, 'Girl, this could be the one.' But then I realized that you
have your life, and your job, and that's fine. That's fine, really,
because I have my life and my job, too." Her right hand slashed
through the air. "Even steven. But I just realized tonight that
the main reason I got Renfield from the animal shelter in the first
place is that . . ."

Something chumed inside her, and I started hoping
that this wasn't going to be a much longer speech.

". . . is that I needed company when we weren't
together. Once I got used to having you around, I needed somebody
around when you weren't."

"Like Renfield."

Nancy pointed at me. "Exactly."

"When can you pick him up?"

"That's the other thing. They have to keep him
till Friday afternoon. 'Cause of the anestex . . . anesthesia. They
have to keep an eye on him when he wakes up. But I have to leave for
Dallas that morning for my talk, and I can't . . ."

Her voice quavered, and I got up on my knees and
hugged her. "I can pick him up, no sweat."

She started to cry quietly. "But I can't even be
— "

"
Nancy, don't worry, okay? I'll pick him up, and
he'll be fine."

She nodded into my shoulder, and I felt something
else move inside her.

"Nance, why don't we get you into the bathroom?"

"Good . . . idea."

We just made it.

* * *

Nancy got out of bed Thursday morning on the strength
of a quart of ice water and three Excedrin. After I dropped her at
the courthouse, I drove to the condo space and decided to run to
clear my own head toward seeing Harry Mullen.

It had been a few weeks since I'd done the Boston
marathon, but most of the ill effects were gone. My right toenail,
which had turned black, began growing out instead of falling off. My
side, where I'd taken a bullet in the little pocket of fat above the
hip bone, healed over nicely, just a livid mark on the love handle.

I still had the endurance the training had given me,
but I expected that would evaporate over the next few months. In just
a cotton turtleneck and shorts, I crossed Storrow Drive on the
Fairfield Street pedestrian ramp, heading upriver on the macadam
path. They were still repairing the Mass Ave Bridge, the orange
cement trucks looking like ladybugs on a branch. It seemed as though
they'd been repairing the bridge since I'd started high school.

Nearing Boston University, I passed over the painted
outlines of several bodies, limbs akimbo. I think the outlines were
supposed to represent some people killed during a coup in Chile. The
paint certainly wasn't the work of a crime scene techie. The police
use removable tape or washable chalk so as not to terrify the
tourists any longer than necessary.

I made the turn for home
at the Harvard Square bridge, thinking that it had been my first
training run for the marathon and remembering how much trouble I'd
had with it five months earlier. Then my mind shifted to confronting
Harry Mullen over what he'd gotten me into, and I picked up my pace
considerably on the way back.

* * *

He looked miserable even before he saw me in his
doorway.

"Jeez, John, nobody told me you were here."

I gestured behind me. "There was nobody out here
to ask. Where's the staff?"

Mullen motioned me in. He pulled a cigarette pack
from his shirt pocket, and I reflexively closed the door.

Harry lit up without handing me a towel or setting up
his electronic box. There was even an ashtray on his desk, five dead
butts already in it. "You got my message on your tape there?"

"I got it. Of course, the Danuccis delivered
their message a little sooner."

Mullen flinched, took a deep drag, and blew it out
like a fire-eater.

"I want to explain this, John."

"I want to hear it."

Harry waited for me to take the visitor's chair. No
more comfortable than last time.

He said, "First, I swear to you, I didn't know a
thing about the Danucci side of it."

"Bullshit, Harry."

"No, honest to God. Yulin's call and letter came
in while I was out of the office. Because the policy's half a
million, the claim went down to New York before we even started on it
up here." Mullen took another hard drag. "And your friend
Brad Winningham spotted the Dani name."

"How did he do that?"

"He knew somebody went to law school with the
girl's uncle. I guess everybody at the school knew about the guy
changing his name because of the family connection."

"Look, Harry, why didn't you tip me to this when
I came to see you Tuesday afternoon?"

"Because I didn't know, John. I swear."

"How come you didn't know then but you did know
by last night?"

"Yesterday afternoon, I — Jeez, John. Let me
go back, go through it from the top, okay?"

I exhaled. "Okay."

Mullen mashed out the cigarette. "The claim
comes in with the Dani name on it, nothing about 'Danucci.' It gets
sent to New York. Winningham sees it, makes the connection, then
tells me over the phone to assign the investigation to you. Get me?"

"You gave it to me without knowing about the
Danuccis being involved."

"Right, right. I get the call from Winningham, I
figure, he's trying to be a nice guy for once. I owed you, John. What
you taught me here, what you said for me when they booted you out. I
figured this'd be a good way to pay you back a little."

"
So you didn't look the gift horse in the
mouth."

"Right."

"So what happened to change things?"

Mullen closed his eyes and chewed the inside of his
cheek. Then he seemed to talk to the desk. "Winningham called me
yesterday. Said he was going on vacation. Said he wanted to tie up a
few loose ends first."

"Like me."

Harry looked up. "Yeah. Yeah, like you. He asks
me, ‘You give that case to Cuddy yet?' and I say, 'Yes, Mr.
Winningham.' And he says, 'He working on it yet?' And I say, 'You bet
he is.' And then he says, 'You hear back from him yet?' and I go,
'No, Mr. Winningham, but I just gave him the file yesterday.' And the
shit says, 'Well, don't hold your breath, Mullen! And I stop. Then I
say, 'What do you mean?' And he says, 'You ever heard of the Danucci
family?' And I say, ‘Like in the mob stories, you mean?' And
Winningham just laughs, John. The son of a bitch just laughs at me."

I watched Mullen. "He told you not to tell me,
right?"

Harry looked away, out his window toward the Burger
King.

"Yeah, but fuck him."

I watched my old friend some more, tried not to see
his little kid with the goofy smile.

Harry said, "Besides, another month, it won't
mean anything anyway."

"Why not?"

Mullen stabbed at the pack of Marlboros. "Another
month, I'm gone."

"They caught you?"

He looked at me like I wasn't speaking the mother
tongue.

"What?"

I inclined my head toward the ashtray. "The
company policy on smoking. They caught you?"

"Oh." Harry acted like he wanted to laugh,
but just couldn't find the right muscles. "No. Jeez, that's
right. I was so worried about that the last time I saw you. No, John.
They're folding us up."

"They're what?"

"They're closing the office. That was one of the
other 'loose ends' Winningham wanted to tie up before he hit the
beach.

Seems some MBAs didn't have anything better to do
down in New York, they punched me and my people into the computer and
found out they could save a dime, folding us up and doing all the
regional investigating with free-lancers out of Boston or Portland or
Providence."

"You're kidding?"

Mullen's face told me he wasn't. "So, you want
to punt this Dani/Danucci thing, it doesn't matter. You want to stay
with it, I'll let you know when to start sending your reports to New
York."

I let out a breath and sat back in the chair as Harry
lit his cigarette. I couldn't see how leaving the case for Empire
would take me out of Mau Tim's death as far as the Danuccis were
concerned. At Homicide, Holt wouldn't be any help, and Murphy
couldn't be any help. Right now, being with Empire was a
justification, maybe even a buffer.

Then I noticed the little kid in the photo again.
"Harry, what are you going to do?"

He blew smoke from his nostrils. "Check with
some guys I know, dust off the résumé." He tried to smile.
"They still call it that, right?"

"I'll keep my ears open for you."

"Thanks, John."

"I hear about something, I'll let you know."

"Good, thanks."

As we stood and shook
hands, I couldn't decide whose hail words sounded more hollow.

* * *

I had left the Prelude in
the condo space for my walk over to Empire. After seeing Harry
Mullen, I walked back to the condo and tried to call Brad Winningham
in New York. His secretary advised me he would not be available for a
week. I told her I'd like to see him then and she told me that he'd
be very busy upon his return. I said that was all right, I'd be happy
even if I had to wait to see him. When she asked for my name, I told
her "John F. Danucci." She said she'd put me in the book
but couldn't promise anything. I told her I was sure that Mr.
Winningham would think that she'd done the right thing. I went down
to my car and headed toward the Boston Herald, one of the two big
newspapers in town. I wanted more background information on the
Danucci angle, and there was one reporter I was pretty sure could
help me.

* * *

"You notice it, don't you?"

I said, "Notice what, Mo?"

"Notice what. Notice what's different."

I looked around Mo Katzen's office. The old
typewriter was still on the stand next to his desk, Mo detesting the
concept of computerization. The avalanche of papers, both documents
and sandwich covers, was still on top of his desk. Mo himself sat
behind the desk, wavy white hair on his head and a dead cigar in his
mouth. He still wore the vest and pants of a three-piece suit, the
jacket to which I'd never seen on him in all the years I'd known him.

No visible changes. "Sorry, Mo."

"Christ, some detective you are. This." He
reached up to his left ear and pulled out a tiny, flesh-colored lump
of plastic.

"This little bugger."

I took the other chair. "A hearing aid?"

"Finally. Can you believe it? A few years past
my prime, and I got to wear one of these things."

Mo's prime may have passed recently, but he was never
going to see seventy again. "How long have you had it?"

"Couple weeks now. My wife and I are at this
banquet thing back in March, and we're sitting around this big round
table, like for poker. This guy I never met before is asking me some
kind of cockamamy question from across the table and I'm answering
him and then my wife starts elbowing me in the ribs, telling me I'm
'not replying in the context of the question.' "Can you believe
that?"

"Hard to believe about you, Mo."

"Damn straight. Anyway, this happens like two or
three more times in the course of the evening, and my wife is just
about to file papers on me, so I tell her, 'All right already, I'll
go see my doctor.' And she tells me, 'You need an audiologist.' And —
I gotta admit — I say 'A what?' And she smiles this superior smile
of hers, and she doesn't have to tell me 'I told you so' before she
makes an appointment for me.

"So, all right, I go to this audiologist guy.
Only instead of an office like a doctor, it looks like an appliance
store. But, she made the appointment, I go in anyway. The guy asks me
some questions, takes some kind of a 'reading' he calls it, then
pokes around in my ears with this thing, looks like a miner's pick
with a light on it. He says to me, 'Well, Mr. Katzen, no trouble with
your wax,' like I've been to the dentist and he tells me I've been
flossing right. So then he puts me in this sound booth with keys, but
not like a piano."