Shattered Shell (13 page)

Felix shook his head, got back up, and I joined him. "No scrape marks, no pry marks, nothing."

"Either the door was unlocked or he had a key."

“Does young Kara have a habit of leaving the door unlocked?" I thought back and said, "Not that I know of. And the police report did say that she indicated the guy broke in."

Felix said, "Maybe it's nothing. Maybe she just forgot to lock the door that night. Happens."

"Sure," I said, not believing a word that either of us was saying.

Inside the apartment something heavier was now rummaging around in my chest, and I had a quick wish that we had left the movie theater and had gone back to New Hampshire, for I didn't want to be here. Felix muttered something and I followed him through the bathroom and to the bedroom, and turned around, moving easily enough in the dark. Felix looked over at me and said, "Get on the bed, will you?"

And as queasy as it sounds, that's exactly what I did. I lay back on the bare mattress and looked up at the ceiling, noting the cracks and fissures in the plaster, trying not to smell the scent of blood or sweat, and then Felix came into the bedroom. I sat up and looked at him. His features were crisp and he still needed a shave, and his coat was open, and it was easy enough to count the five buttons on his coat.

"This is awful," I said.

"It sure is."

I followed him out of the bedroom and we stood back near the door to the apartment. Just outside the living room window was a utility pole, and hanging from the pole was a bright streetlight, and the steady beam from that light illuminated the entire living room, short hallway, bathroom, and bedroom. No curtains blocked the light.

“Nothing in the report about the guy closing the bedroom door behind him when he came in?" Felix asked, the tone of his voice resigned.

"No, nothing," I said, crossing my arms, just staring at the street lamp, thinking, well, maybe it was burned out that night, and knowing that I would check it out tomorrow with the utility company and knowing my wish wouldn't come true.

How I hated what I saw.

"This doesn't look good at all, not at all," I finally said, not looking at Felix, just staring out at the living room. "Valuables still here, place untouched, no signs of a forced entry, and there's practically enough light here to read a newspaper."

“Maybe that's why your police inspector friend thinks this case is screwball," Felix said, the tone of his voice gentle. "Everything here is wrong. You just said it yourself. Kara's story doesn't make sense. Something else happened here that night, and she doesn’t want to tell the cops, her friend Diane, or you."

"You don't think she was raped?"

"No, 1 didn't say that. 1 thinks something awful happened to her, no doubt about it. But it's not what's in the report. As a former a spook, even you should see that."

My chest felt constricted, thinking of what was ahead, and I said quietly, "We were always taught, back then, not to let your emotions cloud your analysis, your work. No matter what you saw, no matter how bloody or awful. The work was your god and you didn't let anything else get in the way."

Felix said, "I think that's the most you've ever said about your time at the Pentagon."

In the light 1 tried to smile. "Then I've made a mistake."

"Perhaps you have." A pause, then, "I feel sorry for you, Lewis."

"And why's that?"

He reached over and gently slapped me on my shoulder. "Because you're going to have to tell Diane Woods that her Kara hasn't been telling the truth, and that's going to be painful for everybody involved."

1 was trying to ease the tension in my gut by saying something bright in return, but I heard something odd, something loud, and Felix looked at me and we went across the living room, hearing the noise again, sounding almost like a radio. We both looked out and down at the street below, and parked right on the street, blue lights flashing, was a Newburyport police cruiser. Another one came roaring up the street, pulling behind, and as the doors flew open 1 looked over at Felix and said, "Right now, I'm feeling sorry for the both of us."

"I guess so," Felix said, and he opened his jacket and pulled out his 9mm, and 1 said, "Felix!" and he said, "Relax, I'm just ensuring there are no misunderstandings." He put the pistol down on a coffee table, on top of a
Boston Phoenix
newspaper, and I said, "We've got a few seconds, let's go sit at the kitchen table and act real polite."

''I'm there."

Which is where we were when the Newburyport cops came pounding up the stairs and into the apartment and arrested us both.

Chapter Eight

Well, it certainly seemed that the patrol unit of the Newburyport Police Department had gotten all of the charm and hospitality handouts that Inspector Dunbar had missed, for after we were arrested and taken to the police station, we were treated politely and professionally, and when a couple of phone calls established that we had permission to be in Kara Miles's apartment, we were set free with a cup of coffee and an offer of a ride back to the parking lot where my Rover was parked.

But before Felix and 1 left we spent a few irritable minutes with the good inspector, who was not pleased to have been called out of bed to come down to the station on this chilly January night. He was wearing a down coat and University of Lowell sweatshirt and gray sweatpants, and his face was carpeted with gray-black stubble.  We were in an interrogation room, Felix and 1 sitting in orange plastic chairs, Dunbar sitting perched on a table, looking like a sleep deprived football coach, confronting two of his charges who had been out drinking. The room smelled of stale tobacco.

"I've talked to the arresting officer and I must say I'm impressed," Dunbar said.

"Why's that?" 1 asked. Felix sat next to me, a quiet smile on his face, one I'm sure he reserved only for officers of the law.

"Because that story was one sorry piece of bullshit, from start to finish," he said, arms folded. "Doing research for a magazine article. Bah. Do you expect me to believe that, that the two of you were crawling around that apartment at midnight for some friggin' magazine article?"

Felix spoke up. "Why not? It worked for the sergeant."

Dunbar shifted his ice-gaze to Felix. "And for you, who's supposed to be taking pictures for this article, mind telling me why you were there without your photo gear?"

Felix shrugged, still looking amused. "I guess the cold made me forgetful."

"Really? Well, don't forget this. I think you're up to something about this woman and her friend," and his voice dripped sarcasm at the word, "over in Tyler. I think you're sneaking around, maybe up to a little vigilante shit, trying to find out what happened. Well, get your asses back home and forget it. You talk to that Tyler detective and tell her to mind her own business, and if you clowns ever come back here and so much as race through a yellow light, your asses will be in jail for the weekend, with the phones out so you can't make any calls for bail money or a lawyer. Got it?"

I looked at Felix and said, "Gee, I've gotten it. How about you?"

"Oh, I got it a long time ago."

Dunbar swore one more time and then left, and we followed, and soon we were back outside and a female officer, dressed in a heavy leather jacket and whose nametag said CAROL APPEL, bundled us in the rear seat of a police cruiser and drove us back up to High Street. Along the way she said, "You guys rile up Dunbar back there?"

"That we did," I said.

"Good for you," she said, and Felix laughed.

At High Street she made a turn into the apartment building's parking lot, and she left the cruiser's engine running as she got out. Officer Appel opened up Felix's door --- since it was a cruiser, the rear doors had no handles inside --- and the two of us slid out into the frigid night air. Little breath clouds formed about her head as she said, "Next time, fellas, don't go visiting so late and make so much noise. You woke up the landlord."

Oops. "Thanks for the advice," I said.

"No problem." She ducked back into the cruiser and emerged with a 9mm in her hand. She handed it butt-first to Felix, and then passed along the full magazine. "Good for you that you had a carry permit, or you'd still be our guest," she said.

"With you as our hostess, it wouldn't have been that bad."

She grinned. "Don't be so sure. Now get the hell out, will you?" As the cruiser went back to High Street Felix looked at me and said, "Now that's a woman I would like to meet someday out of uniform."

"Because she's a cop?"

"Because of the challenge."

The drive back was quiet, with the road fairly empty and a half-moon at our rear lighting up the cold waves of the ocean. Faint drifts of snow covered the asphalt as I drove north, the radio station tuned to an all-news station, the volume turned down low. It was two a.m. on Thursday, and I was getting more tired with each passing mile. Felix was hunched over in his seat and said, "So, where do you want to take this?"

"A couple of options are open, and none of them are that attractive," I said. "My question to you: Are you still along for the ride?"

He yawned. "Oh, that I am. First, I still think something bad happened to your friend, and I'm still interested in meeting the guy who did it. And second, this gives me an opportunity to eventually raid your bank account, and I don't want to pass that up."

"Thanks for the good words," I said. "Why don't we get together in a day or two, look things over, see where we go from here?"

“Just so long as I get some sleep here and there, that's fine." I turned right onto Rosemount Lane and up the narrow road to his house. The road was bumpy with a layer of cracked and fissured ice. I stopped in front of his Mercedes and reached over and shook his hand, a gesture that seemed to surprise him.

"Thanks for being here, and thanks for not losing it with the cops."

Felix smiled. "Cops are part of the job, part of doing business. Nothing to worry about." And then his smile faltered a bit. "I'm worried about you and one special cop, though. Diane isn't going to like what you're going to tell her."

"I know," I said, "and I also know that I'm not going to talk to her tonight. Soon, but not tonight. You want me to walk you to the door or something?"

That made him laugh as he stepped out onto the snow. "The day you have to walk me to the front door must be the day I start collecting Social Security. Go to hell."

"Thanks, but not tonight," I said, and I turned the car around and drove home.

It was nearly Thursday afternoon before I was awake, showered, and shaved. With only another four hours of daylight left, I decided to take the rest of the day off, and not talk to Felix or Diane or Kara or Paula or even Inspector Dunbar. One of the few joys of being a magazine columnist, and of living secretly off the federal government's largesse, is the ability on some days to do what I damn please.

I dressed for the outdoors, gathered up my EMS day pack, and went to my tiny dirt cellar and the kitchen for some supplies. I took out my cross-country skis and waxed them up, and then outside I trudged through a rough path in the snow, heading north, carrying the skis and poles in my arms. The sky was bright blue and the ocean was just as majestic, and the air was so crisp and clear that it looked like the Isles of Shoals were just hundreds of feel away. Snow and rime ice covered the rocks, and I moved slowly, trying to keep my balance while wearing cross-country ski boots, which have no traction, no tread, and look like miniature clown shoes.

After about fifteen minutes I passed over into state-owned land, into the Samson Point State Wildlife Preserve, and I strapped on the skis near a grove of birch trees. Half-covered by the snow was a concrete bunker, its iron door welded shut years ago when the early-warning radar system that had replaced the huge coast artillery pieces had itself been shut down. The whole of the state park had once been the Samson Point Coast Artillery Station, built when the Spaniards were considered a threat for those several months in 1898, and over the years the enemies had changed to Germans and then the Soviets.

I started skiing, moving in that graceful rhythm that only takes a day or two to learn, and that is a great exercise. There was a trail I was following, one broken by me some weeks ago. As I traveled through the quiet woods, breathing deeply, I met not a single other skier. The trails were probably empty for two reasons: It was the middle of a work week, and this part of the park was officially closed, due to the discovery a few years back of some hazardous waste and chemicals in some of the bunkers.

The trail went deep into the woods, and except for the salt tag in the air, you wouldn't know you were near the ocean's edge. Snow still clung to the branches of the pines and evergreens, and I savored the cool air and the quite
shush-shush
of the skis sliding though the snow. Along the side of the trail were the marks of animals in the snow, the deep trio of indentations that mark a rabbit, the tiny marks of a field mouse, and even once the sharp marks of a deer, and I saw where bark and branches had been gnawed on the trees. As I skied along in the quiet forest, I tried to forget my trip last night to Newburyport, what Felix and I had found in Kara's apartment, the memory of the fires that had been tearing apart Tyler this winter, and the bitter thoughts of what had happened to me once in the Nevada desert that had eventually brought me here.