THE FOURTH WATCH (44 page)

"Yeah," his boss told him, "you got to keep the
club face square through impact, you can't let your wrists break
down, 'cause if you do the friggin' ball can go anywhere, know what
I mean?"

Sweet Mother of Christ, Henry
thought.

"Yep," the kid told him, "same thing when your
pickin' up one of those cans with the truck." He looked about 20
years old, had stringy red hair that hadn't been washed in a month,
and a long, homely face boiling with acne. He looked like somebody
had set his face on fire and tried to put it out with an ice
pick.

They had just pulled into an alley behind a
restaurant on Crow Hill, up off Hamilton . Henry had the truck's
fork arms locked into a two ton container and was just starting to
work it up and over.

''If you're too quick with the dump lever
before the can clears the cab ... "

Henry would later tell his friends
at the bar, that it was as if pizza face was clairvoyant! Because
it was at that very moment, with the dumpster suspended in mid air,
that he
did
move
the turn lever a fraction too early, and the box lid flipped
prematurely open and dumped a load of slop - and a corpse - onto
the hood of the truck.

Henry and his boss screamed simultaneously. The
corpse grinned at them ghoulishly, its face mashed up against the
windshield, its hair strung with old spaghetti, its lifeless eyes
staring in at them through the glass.

*****

WALTER SAT IN
his car down the street from the gate to the Whorley estate.
He was bundled up against the cold and all decked out for his visit
to this enclave of the rich and famous. What there was of his hair
was standing straight up, as if static electricity were surging
through it. He wore an old, three-quarter length topcoat over a
plaid flannel shirt tucked into green canvas pants. And scuffed
brown work boots with broken laces that the Salvation Army would
throwaway. The hair growing out of his ears remained untrimmed and
he hadn't shaved. His eyebrows had dandruff in them. In his pocket
he had a gold detective shield that he had lifted from a desk at
the old Waldo Street Precinct years ago.

It was a cold, early December day, and the
thermostat in his old car was going on him. He had the heater on
high, but it coughed and sputtered and just seemed to push the cold
air around. He could see his breath. He sipped coffee out of a
Styrofoam cup and checked his watch. It was ten past nine. Rich
people never went to work on time.

Snow had fallen the night before. A light snow,
maybe an inch, but it had dusted the evergreens and they sparkled
in the early sunlight. The roads were plowed and sanded and Baron
Ridge looked quite the quaint lane under the bare oak limbs that
reached across it.

Ted Whorley finally turned out of the gate in
his black Range Rover at 9:20 and raced off toward Route 9.
Samantha Whorley was gone. She hadn't been around since Carolyn
Whorley's funeral. Away somewhere. Walter wasn't sure what to make
of that.

He waited another ten minutes, sipping his
coffee and smoking, then he pulled in between the gates and drove
up the long drive. The sprawling lawns were white with snow and the
tile roof of the great house was frosted with it. He saw the big
barn standing back in the meadow, and there were two horses in
blankets out in the paddock. One of them, an enormous black
stallion, raced back and forth between the fences, its nostrils
smoking, its powerful hooves churning the snow.

The drive had been sanded and he could see the
service road that forked off between the back of the barn and the
paddock. Walter noted the swimming pool where Ol' Red had drifted
off to meet his Maker, and the little cottage, tucked away in a
copse of naked birch trees, where he suspected the Hernandez'
lived.

Walter parked in front of the mansion and went
to the door and rang the bell. He could hear the chimes echoing
through the big house. He stamped his feet against the cold and
waited. In a moment one half of the big double door opened and a
small Hispanic woman stared out at him. He had his phony badge in
his hand and held it up. "Mrs. Whorley, please," he
said.

"Weech one?" the woman inquired.

Got to be the Hernandez woman, Walter thought.
"Which one ya got?" he responded. He knew that Ellen Whorley was
the only one home.

Mrs. Hernandez moved aside and motioned him
into the foyer. "What you name is, please?"

"Detective Willingcock, Worcester PD," Walter
told her. She stared at him blankly. "You wait, hokay?"

"Sure.”

While he waited Walter wandered around,
descending the stairs into a giant room full of sculptures and
animal heads, guns and paintings. The front wall was all glass,
looking out on the powdered lawns, blinding in the cold sunlight. A
fire roared in the mouth of a huge fireplace. Walter warmed himself
in front of it.

A moment later Ellen Whorley came down the
steps, into the great room. She gawked in amazement at the little
troll like man who was picking things off the mantle and examining
them. "Make yourself at home," she said, “Detective ... er ...
Willingcock is it?"

"It is," Walter said smiling.

She was undeniably beautiful. Black, page cut
hair, lavender eyes, blood red lips pouting, soft white skin, big
firm breasts pressing against a pale green pullover, long legs in
tight white jeans, small, bare, delicate feet in tan suede sandals.
Yikes! Walter thought.

"Ellen Whorley," she said coming toward him,
extending her hand.

"Hubba, Hubba," Walter said,
shaking.

She burst out laughing. "And a, urn, Hubba,
Hubba, to you too, Detective.

"Aw, shucks."

They looked at each other for a moment, Walter
very comfortable in his surroundings. "Let's sit." She offered and
waved him at a couch in front of the fireplace. They did. "Were you
looking for Samantha or me?"

"You."

She looked surprised. "Oh, okay, how can I help
you?"

Walter shrugged his way out of his coat and
folded it neatly next to him on the

couch. ''I'm looking into the shooting of your
sister-in-law and her lawyer."

"Okay," she said. "Are you a homicide detective
then?"

Walter shook his head. "No, Ma'am, I'm with
Internal Affairs."

A look of surprise flashed across her face but
was gone almost instantly. Walter thought that he'd hit a nerve,
but her composure was back so quickly that he couldn't be
sure.

"Internal Affairs? Isn't that kind of
like...the police of the police or something?"

"That's it," Walter told her,
nodding.

"Huh," she said, frowning. “What's this all
about then?"

"Well, Mrs. Whorley, the thing is, I was
wondering about something that occurred at your sister-in-law's, um
... internment."

"Oh? Were you there, Detective?"

"Yes. Well, when it was over, and everyone was
leaving, I couldn't help but notice, that after the family had gone
back to the cars, you, Mrs. Whorley, came back and confronted
Deputy Chief Genetassio - got in his face pretty good as I recall,
and I was wondering, what that was all about. Can you tell me?"
Walter asked her bluntly.

For a minute Ellen Whorley sat in complete
silence. Walter didn't interrupt it. The sound of the fire popping
filled the time. Her features seemed to almost freeze, but then,
once again, she recovered quickly. She frowned then said, "Oh,
that! Yeah ... yes, that was just ... frustration, I
guess."

''How do you mean?" Walter pressed.

"Well, I mean, I was thinking, you know, how
could this happen, this killing and shooting, right on a street, in
front of people! And well I saw this Police Officer and I guess I
just kind of lost it."

"Do you know Deputy Chief Genetassio
then?"

Ellen Whorley blinked, twice. "What do you
mean?"

"Well," Walter said, "The Chief wasn't in
uniform, how'd you know he was a cop?"

"Oh. I don't know," she said, thinking about
it. "He seemed kind of official, you know, he was with the cops at
the service and looked like he was in charge or something so," she
shrugged, "I guess I just went after him."

Walter was nodding. He had taken a notebook out
of his sport coat pocket and was jotting useless notes in it.
Without looking up he said: "So you don't know Chief
Genetassio?"

''No.”

"Okay."

Ellen Whorley kicked off her sandals and tucked
her legs up under her perfect little bottom. The hem of her right
pant leg rode up a creamy calf and when Walter glanced at it, it
was his turn to blink. She had a small tattoo on her ankle ...
well, actually around her ankle. It was a snake, a cobra,
beautifully done, in striking position, hood splayed, black, with
fierce red eyes. The glance was quick and his eyes were back on the
notepad in half a second. "Are you investigating this Chief
person?" she asked, calmer now it seemed, "about Carolyn's
shooting?"

Walter folded up his notebook and stuck it back
in his pocket. ''No, no, Mrs. Whorley, just asking
questions."

"Okay then, I have a question?"

"Shoot."

"Why are the police of the police looking into
Carolyn's death? And why are you 'just asking questions' about this
police chief person?"

Walter, frowning, said, "Well, as much as I'd
like to help you there, it's an internal investigation, and I'm not
at liberty to talk about it. I'm sorry."

Ellen Whorley's eyes narrowed and her voice got
a little testy for the first time. "Maybe I should call your
superiors at the police station and ask them."

"That's what I would recommend," Walter agreed
nodding. He stood and picked his coat up off the couch and shrugged
into it. "Mrs. Whorley, I want to thank you for your time. I'm
sorry to have disturbed you."

“That's alright, Detective," she said rising,
the smile back on her face, ''I'm sorry I couldn't have been of
more help."

They walked up the short stairs. "Well, you
never know," Walter said laying it on thick now as she opened the
door for him, ''Detective work is just about going around asking
questions and checking the answers. You never know what's
important. Thanks again, Mrs. Whorley, for your time. You have a
good day.”

Ellen Whorley hugged herself against the cold
and watched as Walter plodded down the steps and waddled across the
drive toward his car - which in no way resembled a law enforcement
vehicle.

Shit, she thought.

*****

WALTER WAS LAUGHING
as he turned onto Barron Ridge Lane. He felt
certain that Ellen Whorley was lying right through her perfect
teeth. He didn't know what about, but he was betting that she did
indeed know Genetassio and that she was calling him right now. He'd
see. It would take that fat fuck about twenty nanoseconds to figure
out that it was Walter who had dropped in on Ellen Whorley,
pretending to be a cop. He lit a cigarette and chortled to himself
as he drove.

The sun was bright, the color of
quicksilver and climbing in a cloudless sky. Walter thought things
over. There was something about Ellen Whorley that ... what?... she
seemed almost...
familiar
. He smoked and drove and
thought about it. What a package, he was thinking. Ouch! All that
sexual voltage ... he bet if he touched her he'd dump a load in his
trousers. The black hair and white skin, the red lips and big tits,
and the tattoo...the snake! Unbelievable!

He drove and smoked and framed her again in his
minds eye, picturing her, her eyes and mouth. She looked like
Cleopatra for Christ's sake.

He thought about that, rolling it around in his
head, and then it hit him, and he almost slammed on the
brakes.

"Cleopatra!" He said aloud into the empty car.
"And the Palace Guard."

*****

SKIDS WAS LISTENING
to the police radio again when he heard about the
cops responding to the report of a dead African-American male in a
dumpster off Jenson Street up on the hill.

Ought-Oh, he thought, and called a cop friend
of his at the station.

"Timmy? Hi, its Skids. I just heard this thing
on the scanner ... " He told him what he'd heard. "What's this guys
name?"

"How the fuck do I know?" the cop said, "I
didn't even hear it. What, it just came on the scanner
now?"

"Two seconds ago. Check it out and call me back
will ya?"

"Why?” Timmy the cop wanted to know. “What do
you care?"

"It's for my Urban Studies thesis," Skids told
him. "Just check it out and call me back will you,
please?"

He hung up and called Walter's new cell phone.
It rang through to voicemail. Walter could be heard talking to
himself, trying to set up his voice mail, never quite accomplishing
it. He could be heard saying, “This fuckin' thing.” Skids left a
message for Walter to call him and hung up.