THE FOURTH WATCH (13 page)

Truth to tell, the bums, and Carolyn Whorley's
soft laughter, were bumming me out, and the cultural death of the
liquid lunch in society has not had the effect on me that the
political correctness police would have liked (especially when you
considered that at this time of day the liquid lunch could segue
seamlessly into the liquid dinner). I was wondering idly about
where I might follow this impulse when the phone rang. I answered
it on the second ring.

"Law Office," I said.

"Yeah, right," Walter said, "and this is the
White House calling."

"Hillary?" I said.

"Listen, try to engage your brain here for a
minute."

"Hold on a second ... Okay, I think I got it
... go ahead."

"I've been working on your case. I know you
haven't done anything, but I figure if I pass a little bit of
information on to you, you can embellish the shit out of it and
bill your bitch for a few score hours."

"How kind of you to think of me,
Walter!"

"Yeah, don't mention it. You want to have a
drink and talk or what?”

"Actually I was thinking of going home, having
two glasses of carrot juice and a alfalfa sprout salad, then I was
going to listen to my 'Sounds of the Seashore' CD and chant in
Hindu."

''Is that done in the nude?"

''Usually.''

"Sounds like fun but I was thinkin' that
instead, I could meet you at O'Hara's where I could work your tab
for a belly full and you could review my findings."

"See you in twenty minutes," I
said.

He was cackling on the other end of the line
when I hung up the phone.

I shut down my laptop, but did not pack it up.
I put some folders in my brief case, but did not pick it up. I
threw my suit-jacket over my shoulder, fished my keys out of my
pocket, killed the lights and locked my office door. I almost said,
“I shall return” as I took to the stairs.

*****

IT WAS COOL AND QUIET
inside O'Hara's when I went in. I ordered a pint
of Wachusett Pale Ale and nursed it and watched the Red Sox game on
the T.V above the bar. The place was filled to about a third of its
capacity, mostly with suits, some adorning women. I recognized
several lawyers that I knew. I noticed Rick Wall, sitting with two
of his commandos from the DA's office, at a cocktail table near the
end of the bar. I picked up my drink and went down. I was looking
at my watch as I approached.

"Well, look what we have here," Wall said as I
approached. "If it isn't Counselor Knight." He was
smiling.

"Hey," I said, "3:45 and the DA's office is
closed for business on a Tuesday afternoon. Nice duty! I hope none
of you guys are drinking and driving."

Wall ignored me. "Listen nice work the other
day on that old lady shop lifter!" He turned to his troops. ''He
gets me to agree to an NG, I don't say a word to his request to
expunge the record, and somehow he still gets Terrible Tommy to
bludgeon the shit out of me in open court. Can't do a favor for
some people" He raised his glass to me. I raised mine in
return.

"I didn't have anything to do with His Honor's
punishment of you. I was grateful for your help! In fact if the
ethics statutes didn't prohibit it, I'd buy you a
drink."

"Against my better judgment, I won't report
you ... you know John and Dale, right?" he said. We nodded to one
another. Rick got the bartenders attention, made a circular motion
with his finger above his head and pointed at me. The
universal-signal for: give us a round on this schmuck. The other
two ADA's went to the bar to wait for, and fetch the four fresh
drinks.

"Listen," I said, "I got a question for you.
How come your name is on the roster of folks that showed up at Red
Whorley's house on the morning they fished him out of his
pool?"

Rick had his glass half way to his mouth, but
stopped it in mid air and looked at me for a minute over the rim.
Then he let it finish its trip and put it back down on a cocktail
napkin. After careful deliberation he said: "Why do you
ask?"

''I have been retained to look into his death
by one of the family members," I said and took a sip of my own
drink.

"Retained," he said. "You don't
say."

"Oh, but I do."

He looked at me for a minute, wondering I'm
sure, how a low budget shyster like myself got within a thousand
yards of a Whorley. But he didn't say anything. After a half beat
he shrugged and said: "The boss wanted someone up there. Guy was a
heavy hitter. I went up, walked the scene, signed the log and went
back to work."

"And let me thank you for signing that log," I
said, ''because it’s my guess that not everybody did."

He smiled.

"Probably should have had pages of names," I
said.

Still smiling he just shook his head. I could
tell I was right. "So," I said, "what'd you see over
there."

"Dead rich guy getting his picture taken and
getting himself stuffed into a body bag. Bunch of family folks
hollerin' and carryin' on. Half crazy gardener getting interviewed
by everyone there, even though he didn't speak a word of English.
Cop's made a preliminary call of accidental drowning, so I
left."

"Yeah," I said, "what do you make of
that?"

"What?"

"The cops deciding right up front that he
drowned?"

Rick laughed, his eyes dancing. "Hey, what do
I know?" he finally said. ''If it looks like a duck and it quacks
like a duck and it walks like a duck, odds are it's a duck, know
what I mean? Those guys go to these scenes all the time. That's
what they figured happened, coroner’s office backed it up, end of
story. What are you gonna make a mystery out of this, bill the shit
out of the thing?"

I shook my head. "I don’t know, we’ll see what
it is." I said looking down into my beer. I tilted it up and
finished it off and grabbed the new one that was in front of me on
the table. "It ain’t the end of the story quite yet
though."

Just then I saw Walter working his way toward
us. The top of his head was about shoulder level with the average
woman in the crowd.

As he approached Rick Wall said: “Hello,
cockroach."

"And a big fuck you to you too dickwad,"
Walter said. He struggled his way up onto the bar-stool.

Wall picked up his drink and stood up. "Well
I'll let you girls talk," he said. "See ya, Counselor. Good luck
with that, huh?" He went back over and joined his two toadies, who
had gone back up to the bar after delivering our drinks when they
saw that we were talking shop.

"Think he's a homo?" Walter asked when he was
gone.

"No," I said, ''I do not."

"I never see him with no poon-tang, know what
I mean?"

"Now that you mention it, I never see you with
no poon-tang neither. You a homo?"

''Negative,'' Walter said and shook his head
in disgust at my insolence.

"So whata ya got there big boy?" I asked
him.

"For Christ's sake, get me a drink before you
start grilling me, will ya?"

The bar was pretty full now. People were
gathered in knots, their heads together, nodding and smiling. The
Red Sox game was over. The cable news channel with the stock action
scrolling across the bottom had replaced it on the screen. The
volume was off now though, and there was some Irish music drifting
softly down on us from discreetly placed ceiling speakers. The
bartenders were at full alert. I motioned the guy that was running
my tab. He put a hand to his ear.

"What do you want?" I asked Walter.

''Bottle of Lite," Walter yelled at the
guy.

"Lite Beer, huh?" I said. "How's that workin'
out for you? What are you about four-eight, two-sixty?

''Hey listen, if they stretched me out I'd be
six-nine!"

''Yeah, well while you’re waiting for that to
happen, go on over there and kick one of those women in the ankle
and ask her to hand your beer down to you."

When Walter came back with his beer I asked
him: "So what did you get?"

He put a bowl of bar snacks down on the table,
tilted his beer bottle up and took a long pull before answering. "I
don't know," he said. "Nothin' concrete I don't think, either way.
How about you, have you done anything at all?"

I spent the next few minutes telling Walter
about my visit to the police station and everything I had learned
from their file. Not that there was much to tell. He wasn't all
that surprised by the fact that the cops had done a half-assed job.
"They see a lot of dead bodies," he told me when I was
finished.

"That's what everyone keeps telling me," I
said.

Walter shrugged. "Well I found more questions
than answers where I was looking"

"Yeah? What do you mean?"

''I don't know, but there's all kinds of funny
signposts along the way with this thing." He took another pull on
his beer, put the bottle down. He dug a handful on mixed nuts out
of the snack bowl and shoved them in his mouth then he leaned
forward on his elbows. "Okay. First things first. Loading Dock is
closely held; Sub-chapter S." Peanut shrapnel flew from his mouth
as he talked.

''Is that redundant?" I asked.

He had no appreciation of my legal humor.
"There are three stockholders, three directors, etc. etc. etc ...
"

"Let me guess, but Red held ninety percent of
the stock?"

"Ninety-eight," Walter said. "The other two
shares are held by his son, Edward, and your asshole lawyer friend
Andreason."

''It’s not unusual to have your lawyer own a
share of stock in a closely held corporation, Walter."

"Whatever. The kid was second in command down
there. He's a director and the Exec. V.P., so I guess he's running
the show now."

''That's what the sister tells me."

''But I don't know if he's got a new boss or
what? I mean did the Mrs. inherit? Or did the kids inherit
together? Or did this Edward inherit all by himself? 1 don't know.
I got to get down to the Probate Court and see if there’s a will to
look at."

I nodded, finished off my beer, flagged the
bartender, pointed to Walter and I and

got a nod in response. "You want something to
eat?"

''Nah,'' he said.

"Good."

"Cheap fuck. So I go over to the Medical
Center and talk to the coroner. Guy

name of …" Walter fished a pair of reading
glasses and a notebook out of his sport coat pocket ''Boutros
Haddad."

''Irish kid, huh" I said.

"My take on what he had to say was that he
didn't find anything that was contrary to what the cops said was
the cause of death."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"It means the guy came in all
water logged and bloated from what was described to him as a
drowning accident in his pool, and he didn't find anything
that
was inconsistent
with that. But here's two things that he didn't like, and
told the cops off the record, for whatever they wanted to do with
it. A ... " Walter held up a finger, ''the guy had diatoms in his
lungs ... "

"Yeah," I said, "I read that in the autopsy
report, what the hell is a diatom?"

"And 2 ... " Walter held up a second finger,
"the guy had his pants on backwards."

"He had his pants on backwards?"

"Is there an echo in here? He had his fuckin'
pants on backwards!"

“
What are you talking about, I
thought he was wearing shorts or something."

"Shorts then- what the fucks the difference?"
Walter said. "The point is, when they get a stiff in there on the
table, the first thing the do is cut off his clothes, right? So
they cut his guys shorts off and where they cut is where the label
is."

"Yeah, okay?"

"Well," Walter sighed, a little exasperated,
"the guys layin' on his back, so they cut his pants off down the
front ... right?"

And of course then I saw it. "The labels
always on the back!" I said.

"Boy you're good," Walter said taking a drink
from his beer. The table was littered with nuts that spilled
everywhere each time he put a paw in the bowl.

"So if they cut the shorts off down the front,
and cut through the label area, he must have had his pants on
backwards."

Walter was smiling and nodding. "Shorts," he
said. "Right."

We sat in silence thinking about that for a
moment. At least I was thinking about it. Walter was watching the
crowd, probably for clues. So Red's shorts were on backwards.
Didn't mean much. He was supposedly drunk. Those sweat shorts
usually had an elastic waist band. Front and back can look the
same. If he was getting dressed in the dark, he could have pulled
them on backwards.

"Was he wearing underwear?"

"Yep."