Shallow Graves - Jeremiah Healy (3 page)

Holt said, "Notice anything?"

"The medical examiner say whether these were
cuts on the throat?"

"Yeah. M.E. thinks the perp had the necklace in
his hand when he choked her. Notice anything else?"

"No sexual abuse."

"No."

Holt sounded impatient, like I was getting colder
rather than warmer. It was hard to tell from the photos, but the
application had listed her eye color.

I said, "They're the same."

Holt sat back again and smiled. "Spooky, isn't
it? Her eyes and the necklace there, the same color."

The telephone company keeps track of all calls, even
local ones, made from any address. "You have her phone records
yet?"

"They're being sent."

"Ten days, you don't have them?"

Holt came forward, reaching across the desk to
reclaim the photos. "What do you think, our boy stopped to call
his momma, see if she needed anything from the store on the way home?
We got no eyewitnesses on the perp and no hope of turning one. We
find somebody dirty with the necklace, he's a done guy. Or, somebody
pops a name at us, gives up the killer, we can lock it in with maybe
a little pressure and a couple of statements. But otherwise, this
one's a dream you can't remember once you wake up."

"I'd think you'd be showing a little more
enthusiasm for a glamour killing like this."

"Cuddy, we've logged over fifty homicides in the
city since January one, and we're not into May yet. Used to be, we'd
have maybe a hundred in the whole Commonwealth the whole year.
Enthusiasm's kind of tough to come by, these days."

Holt tipped back in his chair again. "Besides,
now that you're on this, we can relax and watch you bring it home for
us."

I thanked him and got up.
He told me to be sure and have a nice day, now.

* * *

I went up the hall and around the corner to another
office. Inside, I could see Robert Murphy wading through a file that
had two inches on the Manhattan Yellow Pages. Black, burly, and
blunt, he'd been promoted to lieutenant and assigned to Homicide some
years ago when a biased city councillor mistook an Irish name for an
Irish cop.

Murphy wore a long-sleeved blue shirt with a collar
stay under a blue silk tie. Two fingers held his place at two
different points in the file. "Gotcha."

"Lieutenant?"

Murphy looked up and down again. "Cuddy. Take a
seat."

I closed the door and angled a chair toward him. "Am
I interrupting anything?"

"Minor victory. One of maybe ten suspects in a
drive-by tells the uniforms he was with a homeboy named Jomo when the
shooting started. Only problem is, Jomo was enjoying the county's
hospitality on Nassau Street at the time."

The new jail near the Registry of Motor Vehicles. "I
haven't been there yet."

"You saw it, you wouldn't believe it. They got
something like 450 cells with computerized doors. The cells're in
color-coded units for different kinds of offenders, with
different-colored jump suits to match."

"Alice Through the Looking Glass."

"
Compared to Charles Street, anyway. New
facility's got twenty beds for women, no more 'Susan-Saxe' cells in
the bowels of the courthouse. Windows, recreation decks . . .
Jacuzzis."

"Next budget."

"Save me the trip to Florida for Spring Break."

Murphy stuck a couple of yellow Post-Its into the
file as bookmarks. "You still looking a mite sickly."

"
Thought I might try to hold the weight."

"You really run the marathon with that bullet
wound?"

"Wasn't much of a wound."

"Isn't much of a brain, you ask me. The shit
about that law professor all cleaned up?"

"As much as ever will be."

Murphy rocked back, slitting his eyes. "Doesn't
seem like you and me have much to talk about, then."

"Less than that. I'm just here as a courtesy."

"Courtesy."

"Right."

"About exactly what are you being so polite?"

"I drew a case from my old employer."

"You had a real job once?"

"Insurance company. I worked there before you
knew me."

"So?"

"It's a death claim."

"Homicide?"

"Right."

Murphy passed a hand over a stack of six or seven
thinner files near the corner of his desk. "One of mine."

"No."

"No?"

"One of Holt's."

Murphy closed his eyes all the way. "The door's
right behind you."

"There's something funny — "

"That little round thing, they call that a knob.
It opens the door."

"Lieutenant — "

"Cuddy, maybe you're forgetting the last time I
helped you out on one of Holt's cases. Ever see True Grit?"

"You a Glen Campbell fan, too?"

"
I was thinking of the scene, the Duke warns the
rat to get the hell out of the grain bag, but that rat, he just don't
listen so good. You remember what caliber it was the Duke used to
chastise him?"

"Like I said, just paying you the courtesy of
letting you know."

"And I appreciate that, Cuddy, I really do. This
job, you treasure every little courtesy comes your way."

I left before Murphy could wish me a nice day, too.
 
 

-3-

AFTER LEAVING POLICE HEADQUARTERS, I WALKED BACK TO
MY OFFICE on Tremont Street. The few documents from Harry Mullen and
my notes from Holt went into a case folder. I did two more hours of
paperwork on other files, looking forward to seeing Nancy Meagher for
her birthday dinner.

By the time I got to the entrance of the New
Courthouse building, she was already down from the District
Attorney's office and talking with a female Sheriff's Deputy at the
metal detector. Nancy's suit was a nubby gray tweed with black and
green specks over a ruffled white blouse. The deputy wore blue.
Seeing me, Nancy brought the strap of her briefcase onto her
shoulder. "Thought I'd save you a trip up the elevator."

I said, "Mustn't seem too anxious for a date,
counselor." Nancy and the deputy rolled their eyes in unison.
The deputy said, "When do you suppose men'll stop being such
jerks?"

Nancy said, "The day genetic engineering becomes
available for household use."

I stood a little straighter. "Could be that day
has arrived. You're looking at the body of a twenty-year-old
paratrooper."

The deputy said, "What're you gonna do, he asks
for it back?"

Nancy was still howling as we went through the
revolving door

I said, "It wasn't that funny."

"Oh, John, it was priceless."

"It was a cheap shot. She can't be more than
twenty-two herself."

"She's almost thirty, and you've been so
cock-proud ever since you ran the marathon that I was beginning to
wonder how to bring you back to earth."

"A few weeks of feeling like a young warrior
doesn't seem so long."

"It does if you're ‘dating' the warrior."

I decided to change the subject. "So, how was
your day?"

Nancy shook her head. "The usual. I'm on a bank
robbery. Pretrial, our boy moved to suppress an eyewitness ID from a
photo array."

"Denied?"

"Yes. At trial, defendant renewed his motion,
but the judge, bless her, refused to review her denial. At that
point, our boy conceded identification and tried to make like he was
the new Patty Hearst."

"I thought the Symbionese Liberation Army
abolished their draft."

"Not to hear this guy. He actually took the
stand, tried to persuade us he was kidnapped and forced to cooperate
at gunpoint."

"Let me guess. His credibility was not without
stain."

"Twelve priors, three for armed robbery, seven
all told admissible under the prior conviction statute."

"You had that kind of ammunition and he still
took the stand?"

"It was his only shot, John. If he's convicted
of this one, he's going away forever."

"Jury get the case yet?"

"I finished my cross this afternoon. My guess is
some wrangling over requests for jury instructions tomorrow, then
closing arguments and charge by lunchtime. Speaking of eating, where
are you taking me tonight?"

We'd reached the Park Street corner of the Boston
Common. I pointed diagonally across it, though even in bright
daylight you couldn't have seen the building I meant.

Nancy said, "The Ritz?"

"You got it."

"John, it'll cost a fortune"

"You're each age only once."

She linked her arm in mine and looked up at me.
Irish, freckled face. Wide-spaced blue eyes. High forehead with
black, fine hair, parted on the right side, long enough to fall just
so onto her shoulders. And a smile that took its time pushing up the
corners of her mouth and dimpling her cheeks and finally flashing
straight teeth under a nose that she'd punch you for calling perky.

Nancy said, "There are certain advantages to
'dating' successful, 'older' men."

"I'm not that old."

She balled her free hand into a fist, threw it
straight into the air and said, "Airborne!"

Nancy was still laughing so hard, I thought they
might not let us into the second-floor dining room.

At the table, the maitre d' discreetly pulled out the
birthday girl's chair and seated her. I tipped him a five for putting
us at a window overlooking the Public Garden. The trees were a little
too high to appreciate the flowers, but then it was early enough in
the season that the beds weren't spectacular yet.

The waiter stepped over immediately for our drink
orders, and Nancy said she'd rather have wine. The sommelier appeared
with the wine list, which should have come in three volumes and an
audiotape. I picked a price range in the red Bordeaux, and he made a
suggestion that I accepted.

As the sommelier retreated, I said, "You know, I
really don't mind the cracks about my physical condition/'

"I know. Otherwise I wouldn't make them."

Nancy covered my right hand with both of hers,
running the edge of a fingernail along the back of my knuckles. "I
read somewhere that holding hands is pleasurable because of the nerve
endings."

"Nerve endings."

"Right. For example, it feels good for me to do
this."

"It does."

She turned my hand over. "But if I try your
palm, it feels better, doesn't it?"

"Uh-huh."

"That's because there are more nerve endings
there." The nail went to the pad of my middle finger. "It
should feel even better now. Know why?"

"Still more nerve endings."

A nod before moving to the thumb pad. "And there
are just bundles of the little devils here."

I cleared my throat. "Any more . . . bundles?"

"Yes, but unfortunately they're not yet
accessible."

At which point, our wine arrived.

Halfway through the meal, a terrific rack of lamb for
two, a pianist started playing, the kind of theme and variations that
you recognize but have trouble placing.

Nancy stopped the wineglass halfway to her lips. "
'Phantom of the Opera'?"

"I think so."

She took a sip. "Growing up in Southie, did you
ever think you'd eat here?"

"Same as you, Nance. I thought I'd work hard and
do well and yeah, eventually eat somewhere outside of South Boston."

Nancy said, "Do you enjoy it?"

As the pianist segued into "Out of Africa' I
looked around the room. Lofty ceiling, delicate molding, crystal
chandeliers. Wall-tall windows with drapes that had to be gathered
like the robes of an emperor. Enough tuxedos and evening gowns to
prove that fifty-year-olds still held proms.

I came back to Nancy. "Yes, I enjoy it."

"As much as eating at a fish joint in Southie?"

"The same, I think. In Southie, the guy who
brings the wine bottles twists off the tops. I'm not sure the
enjoyment goes up just because the guy here pours a little into a
silver spoon around his neck."

"I was impressed with how you handled that, by
the way."

"The man knows his job. I should let him do it
if it helps me."

"Speaking of jobs, what did you do today?"

That was the tough part of being with an assistant
D.A. There were some things I couldn't talk about because of client
confidentiality and other things I couldn't talk about because I
might put Nancy in a conflict of interest. She wore the mark of one
of those conflicts on her right shoulder, a little pleat of scar
tissue over the hole a thirty-eight slug made when we first got
involved.