182
Danger-Close
A Jake Thunder Adventure
by
Jon F. Merz
Copyright © 2010 by Jon F. Merz
Smashwords Edition
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Originally published in 2004 by Five Star Mysteries/Thorndike Press.
Chapter One
The look said it all.
I'd seen it enough times before to recognize the flash of surprise followed by the surge of disappointment and embarrassment.
I smiled in spite of it.
"Not what you expected, am I?"
She tried to recover but it was too late and she gave up halfway through a stuttering recant, finally letting it all drop out. "Well, I just thought that you'd be, well..."
"Not a paraplegic?"
She nodded. I smiled some more.
"Did you come here with the intention of hiring me for my ability to walk or for my ability to solve your case?"
"The latter."
I looked at her again. Tall, short blonde hair and in possession of the kind of curves most of the fashion world thinks of as fat but real men still crave. Her eyes blossomed hazel every time she blinked, which seemed to be a lot.
I watched her gaze travel around my office on Centre Street in Jamaica Plain, first focusing on my honorable discharge from the Air Force, then the numerous pictures and letters on the walls.
"Satisfied clients," I said.
She nodded.
"Except the Rodney Dangerfield one."
"What?"
I pointed. "The autographed picture? I never worked a case for him. I’m just a huge fan." I grinned. "You ever see Caddyshack?"
"Is that movie?"
"More like a comic epiphany, I think."
She tried to smile. I could see I was getting nowhere. I waited. "Take your time."
She sighed. "Forgive me, please, it's just-"
"Not normal per se to find a private investigator in a wheel chair, I know." I pivoted around and looked out of the window. "Want to tell me why you're here? It might take some of the pressure off of making conversation."
"My sister's dead."
"So are a lot of other people. What made her so special?" I turned back around.
Tears had formed in the interim, and they marked time in the lower lids before running off down her face, one at a time, in slow motion. She was obviously used to the effect it had on most men. Too bad, I didn't fall into that category. Still, I had to give her a nod for trying.
"She got mixed up in something she didn't belong in."
I leaned forward across the desk. "Spell it out for me, would you? I bill out by the hour and cryptic speech tends to cost you a lot."
"Drugs, Mr. Thunder. She got involved with drugs."
"Again, so what? Lots of folks get mixed up with that garbage. And a lot of them end up dead."
"But she was my sister."
"Mrs. Patterson, I'm not a revenge service. Unless there's something extraordinary about this case, I'd say you're better off letting the police handle it."
"The police have no idea, no clues, and no reasonable place to start their investigation. Unless a miracle happens, my sister's file will get shoved into some gray metallic file cabinet marked 'unsolved'." She frowned. "I don't want that."
"That's a reasonable assumption," I said. "But what makes you think I'd be able to find her killer?"
"Killers, more likely."
"You've got some information then?"
She nodded.
"You tell the cops about it?"
She shrugged. "Some. But if I told them too much, they'd label my sister as a junkie and pay even less attention to the case."
"All right. So, why don't you tell me about it?" I gestured to the single armchair across from my desk. "Get comfortable."
She sat and crossed her legs. Fishnets. I took a subtle breath of air. Some women still knew how to dress in an age of wispy anorexic models that looked more asexual than anything feminine. Thank God for the small pleasures in life.
"I guess her problems stemmed from the fact that she was over thirty and hadn't married yet."
"That's a rather antiquated sentiment."
"Not in my family, Mr. Thunder. We're old money. The women marry young and into rich families."
"That what you did?"
"We're not discussing me."
"Might help give me some more background on the case." It was bullshit and she knew it. With a look like hers, she'd been around the track and knew all the dangerous curves better than most NASCAR drivers. Still, she gave me a quick half smile.
"My sister never found anyone she wanted to marry. She felt that two people should be in love before they get married."
"Jeez, imagine that. What a crazy notion."
"Are you always this sarcastic?"
"Usually."
She looked at me for a second more and then continued. "Despite a rather endless stream of suitors, she chose none of them. In fact, she decided to cut ties to the family altogether and make a go of living her own life."
"Respectable."
"It was utter insanity."
"If you say so."
"Turning your back on an annual allowance of ten million does not fall under rational thought, Mr. Thunder."
"Call me Jake."
"I'll call you Mr. Thunder."
It felt like I was tangoing with a porcupine. I smiled. "Maybe she was one of those nutty people who doesn't think money counts for everything in life."
"That's exactly how she felt."
"I'm guessing her views on life didn't go over that well with the rest of the family?"
"Correct. Everyone except for me severed all ties with her."
"Rather extreme, wouldn't you say?"
"Mr. Thunder, my family does not stray out into common society much. We belong to a stratum that sticks to its own kind. Parties, jobs, wealth, it all stays where it belongs: at the top of the pyramid."
"Well, you're certainly dipping down low by coming here, aren't you?"
"If you say so."
I walked into that one. "It's just I don't imagine your kind has an arsenal of private dicks they can call on at any minute of the day. That'd be why you're here."
"You are correct about us not usually using private, uh...'dicks,' as you say. But I came to you because your reputation precedes you."
Nice to know the fact that I had two bum legs wasn't included in that rep. "All right, so your sister goes out into the big bad world on her lonesome. What happened?"
"Despite what she said about not caring about the family and the suitors, she was desperately lonely."
"Too bad I didn't meet her. I might have helped out."
"She wanted children, Mr. Thunder."
"Ouch. Don't assume all of my legs aren't working. Point of fact, my middle one works just fine, thank you."
It took her a minute to grapple with what must have constituted gutter lingo to her. Then she forced a smile. "Ah, yes. How clever."
"That's me, Mr. Clever. You oughta see me at charades."
"My sister's loneliness began affecting her life and her work. Since I was the only one she kept in touch with, she confessed everything to me."
"Like what?"
"She started drinking quite a bit."
"Nothing wrong with taking the edge off every once in a while."
"Every night, Mr. Thunder? Wouldn't you agree that would tend to make the edge quite dull?"
"For some." I hoped the bottle of Jim Beam I kept hidden in my top drawer wouldn't suddenly materialize on my desk.
"She was drinking a lot. And spending a lot to keep her in spirits. It was money she didn't have."
"What'd she do for work?"
She looked like she'd swallowed a moldy piece of cheese. "Retail. She worked in retail."
"The nerve."
"Mr. Thunder, please, this is hard enough without your insipid commentary every few seconds. I don't see how injecting barbed comments will help you solve this case. Honestly, do you treat all your clients this way?"
"I'm making a special effort to impress you." I grinned. "Is it working?"
"Not in the vaguest."
"Marry me."
"Pardon me?"
"Never mind, we'll build up to that one." I pivoted around again. Outside on Centre Street, the lunchtime crowd packed the sidewalks while cars crawled by. "Go on."
"She'd spend her nights at bars. Usually with a few useless friends she'd managed to acquire at work. I don't think any of them knew her true background. Perhaps they thought she was just another thirty-something adrift in a sea of misdirection."
"Zowie, that was poetic. You should be a writer."
"I've penned a few poems in my time."
"How much time is that?" I faced her again.
"Excuse me?"
"How old are you?"
"Does that have a bearing on the case?"
"Might."
She raised an eyebrow. "I am three years older than my sister was."
"Thirty-six?"
"Close enough."
"Good age."
"I think so."
I smiled. She smiled. There might be some progress yet.
"So she had these friends."
"Yes. They spent quite a bit of time together."
"Any lovers?"
"I don't know."
"You just said she told you everything."
"I didn't say that."
"You said she confessed everything to you. I'd assume that included whoever she was sleeping with."
Again the look of revulsion crossed her face. Someone hadn't kept this poor woman properly serviced. That seemed fairly evident.
"She mentioned one or two of them. One was an actor in New York. He never amounted to much. He made a habit of coming to town for the purposes of staying with her, sponging off of her, that type of thing. "
"What about the other guy?"
"Local, I think. Not really a boyfriend, per se."
"A fuck buddy."
That did it. She almost stood up. "Mr. Thunder, your terminology is a little alarming at points."
"Well, what would you call it?"
She paused, searching. "A rendezvous?"
I shook my head. "I don't speak French. And I'm used to my terminology. So, we'll use fuck buddy for now until we come up with something we can both agree on. How's that?"
She pursed her lips tight enough to make diamonds. "Fine."
"So, who's the local dude?"
"His name is Don Woolery."
"He work with her?"
"No. She met him at a bar she used to frequent."
"Which one?"
"Joey's on Newbury Street."
I knew it. The place had only installed a handicapped access ramp after the local activists had crawled all over them. Some places only wanted upright business. That pissed me off.
"Okay. What else?"
"There's not much else."
"When'd you hear from her last?"
"A week ago Thursday."
"How long's she been dead?"
"The police recovered my sister’s body on Monday morning outside of Cleveland Circle. In the reservoir."
That meant at least a 96-hour window. That would make things tough. "They do an autopsy?"
"Yes. I was told it was standard procedure."
"Yeah, it is. What'd they find?"
"They said she'd been shot. Twice."
"Head shots?"
"I think so."
Execution-style. I nodded. "This Don guy, she like him a lot?"
"Nothing close to love, but they had an understanding."
"What kind of understanding?"
She raised her eyebrows. "The rendezvous kind."
"All right, so no real sticky unrequited love stuff clogging the issues then."
"I don't think so, no."
"Good."
She leaned forward letting the skirt ride up exposing more thigh. And garters. Sometimes God actually does smile down on me.
"Do you think you can find out who killed her, Mr. Thunder?"
I kept staring at her legs. "Don't know, really. I can check out a few things, see how they play out. Poke around. See what develops." I looked up. "That sound okay?"
"I suppose it will have to."
I leaned back. "Mrs. Patterson, you're going to have to trust that I know how best to run this down, all right? No interfering. I don't want you off running your own investigation. Since we're dealing with killers, it only makes sense this will be a bit dangerous, understand?"
"Yes."
"Dangerous might mean you'd only get hurt if you try to sniff out stuff on your own."
"I won't."
"All right then. I'll need some contact information. A number where I can get a hold of you day or night in case something develops."
She withdrew a wheat-colored vellum business card and pressed it into my hand. I looked at it.
Vanessa Patterson
555-9090
"You kept your maiden name, huh?"
"I'm proud of my heritage."
"This a cell phone number?"
She nodded.
"Do you have a home number I can reach you at as well?"
She looked away. "My husband might not like the idea of a strange man calling me at all hours of the night."
"Guess he doesn't know you're doing this, eh?"
"He never approved of what my sister did. It's one reason my family loves him so much."
"And why do you love him so much?"
She paused. "That's rather personal, don't you think?"
I smiled. Her pause told me everything I needed to know. "My fee is $500 per day plus expenses."
She sat back. "That's outrageous."
"You didn't do any checking around, did you?"
"I heard you were a good detective. I didn't comparison shop, no, if that's what you're asking."
"Well, Vanessa, you get what you pay for."
"It's just that $500 per day-"
"-plus expenses."
"Seems very expensive given your condition."
I cocked an eyebrow and said nothing for thirty seconds. She shifted only after twenty-five of them passed. "You don't get a discount because my two lower extremities aren’t working properly, Mrs. Patterson."
She sighed. "I'm sorry, that was wrong."
"You're damned straight it was."
"Sorry."
"Forget it. If I had a buck and a cigarette every time someone made a crack about my condition, I'd be a dead millionaire."
She pulled out a slim checkbook and scrawled out a check, ripped it off and handed it to me. "At $500 per day you must at least be close to the millionaire part."
I glanced at the check. "I do well. Certainly not in your realm, though."
"No, I wouldn't think so." She said it so matter-of-factly, it only reinforced the idea that she must have truly been one of those incredibly rich people who only come down from Olympus on rare occasions. Lucky for me this happened to be one of them.
She gestured at the check. "There's enough there to cover the first week's worth of work. If it runs past that, I'll have another one sent to you."
I tucked her card and check into my breast pocket. "You've got my number?"
"Yes."
"Call any time, day or night." I smiled. "If you have anything else you want to tell me about."
A funny look crossed her face and she let the small grin out of its cage again. "I'll do that."
She stood up and extended her hand. "Thank you, Mr. Thunder."
I took her hand and held it for a second. "It's Jake, Vanessa."
She let me hold on to her hand for another second, then pulled free from my grasp. "Call me when you have something."
A thought crossed my mind. "Tell me something."
"Yes?"
"What happens if I find out who killed your sister?"
"You don't seem like someone who uses 'if' very much...Jake."
"I'm not. But I'm also something of a realist. Answer the question."
"When you find them," she paused. "You'll give me the information I need to send them straight to hell."
"I'm not an assassin, Vanessa."
"I wouldn't dream of asking you to kill. I have resources other than you for that." She spun on what looked like handmade Italian heels and walked to the office door. "Good day."
I watched her leave the office, then leaned back in my chair thinking about everything we talked about. But mostly, I thought about how incredibly gorgeous she was.
Chapter Two
The logical place to start was at Boston Police headquarters. Cleveland Circle fell on the Newton/Boston line, but I was willing to bet that Newton, as the smaller town, would have yielded to BPD and its bigger machinations.
My route to headquarters consisted of rolling first down Seaverns Avenue to the Green Street subway station, and hopping on the elevator to take me down to the platform itself. The ride was only about ten minutes on the Orange Line to Roxbury Crossing and from there it was just a matter of rolling on over.
I sighed watching cars fly past me on Tremont Street. Lately, I've been really missing the thrill of driving. I've totally missed out on knowing what road rage is all about.
BPD headquarters used to sit over on Berkeley Street in an old gray stone building etched with character. Nowadays it was an ugly steel and mirrored facade with a sign directly ripped off from Scotland Yard. Glass bricks that used to be all the rage in California formed the foundation. I wondered if anyone in the planning department had figured out that a well-placed car bomb would shred most of the inhabitants inside if it was located near those same glass bricks.
I guessed not. I figured out a long time ago that not everyone thinks like I do. Imagine that.
I rolled past the lobby post under the eyes of a bored desk sergeant three hundred pounds and two dozen donuts out of shape. He didn’t notice me.
One of the rules of escape and evasion I'd once learned in the Air Force but had only come to appreciate since my accident was that people never ever look down. If it isn’t within a certain field of view, they won’t notice it.
They never look up either; but since I'm not real good on stilts, I haven't had a chance to see if that one's true.
With my private investigator's license clipped to my shirt backwards, most of the people who looked at me only wanted to get out of my way. I headed for the elevator bank and pushed the fourth floor.
When the doors parted again, I rolled myself out and steered down the hallway, coming to stop at the homicide division. I opened the door and got myself inside with a minimum of banging against the door jamb.
I met Frank McCloskey a thousand summers ago when he was an up-and-coming beat cop and I was fresh out of the service with two useless legs and a bunch of medals someone thought I deserved pinned to my chest. I helped him take down two thugs robbing a liquor store one night and we'd been fast friends ever since. McCloskey was the kind of guy you always want to have in your corner: honest but not above bending the rules if it's important to do so.
He looked up as I came in. "Jesus H. Christ."
"Anybody ever tell you not to take the Lord's name in vain?"
"Millions of times. I'm hopeless."
"I coulda told you that."
"Funny guy. Should I ask how you got past the check-in downstairs?"
"Probably not."
"I will anyway."
"You see the sergeant they have manning that desk?"
"Yeah."
"Still need to ask?"
"Guess not." He flipped through a stack of paperwork on his desk. "What brings you down here, Thunder? I'm kinda busy."
"You guys pulled a woman out of the Cleveland Circle reservoir on Monday, yeah?"
He nodded. "Named Patterson, yeah. So what?"
"How deep are you looking into the case?"
"What we heard about her?" He shook his head like a sheepdog just out of a lake. "Not very."
"What'd you hear?"
"Drunk. Drugs. Bit of a whore." He frowned. "She got on the wrong side of some dealer most likely. She ended up dead. Same old story, different name."
"Maybe not."
"What's it to you?"
"Her sister hired me to find the killers."
"Plural?"
"She thinks so."
"What about you?"
"Don't know yet. That's why I came to visit you."
He swiveled his chair, pushed his way over to a computer keyboard and punched in a few keys. "Not much to have a look at. Got the initial report here, an autopsy rundown, toxicology that kind of thing."
"What'd the ME say?"
"Two entrance wounds. Slugs were 9mm. In the skull. Blew the better half of her head away. Didn't sound like she had much gray matter anyway."
"You get the slugs?"
"Amazingly, we got one of them. Lodged into a piece of her skull. The other bullet probably bounced somewhere into the water. And no, I’m not going to put divers in the water over there looking for it, so don’t even ask."
"You run the round past the State Police ballistics boys?"
McCloskey sighed. "Shit, Thunder, you serious? Do you really think we've got that kind of time?"
"How much time does it take to do your job?"
"Helluva lot more than I got to spend talking to your ass." He pointed to a stack of files. "See them? We had a banner week. Got three homicides that are definitely gang-related. Youths. Fourteen and sixteen years old. Then we got some seventy-year old Vietnamese convenience store worker gunned down during a robbery that's got the whole community riding the Mayor. So he rides us for results. And you want me to spend some time on what looks like a relatively straight forward case? Give me a break. I haven't seen the business side of my wife in weeks."
"No wonder you're so cranky."
He sighed. "Thunder..."
"I'll take that as a no then on the slug."
McCloskey groaned. "Lemme guess, you want me to have them run it down?"
"Gee, would ya?"
"Oh sure, what the hell." He made a few notes. "Anything else I can get for you? Maybe a lobster dinner and a fine Chablis?"
"Who'd you scare up for character witnesses?"
"Few friends, her sister – who, I might add - was anything but cooperative."
"But a helluva good looking woman."
"True. But I'm happily married, I don't notice those things anymore."
"'Course you don't. And I'm the next Pope." I pointed at the computer. "Can I get a printout of that report?"
"You know I can't let you have official police documents. If someone found out, my ass wouldn't last any longer than a euro model out at Walpole."
"Yeah, that'd be a real shame." I wheeled myself over to his desk. "So, can I have that printout?"
He sighed again. "You're a pushy bastard, you know that?"
"Someone might have mentioned it once."
"Only once?" McCloskey laughed. "I woulda thought it'd be monogrammed on your shirts and bathrobe by now."
"Give me some time."
He ripped a few sheets out of the laser printer and slid them over to me. "Better shred 'em when you're done with 'em otherwise you'll have to cultivate a new fool here in headquarters who'll help your sorry ass every time you need something."
"Frank, does it look like I have time to cultivate new fools? Besides, why get a new one when the old one still works like a charm?"
McCloskey sighed. "You owe me."
"You'll run the slug?"
"Yeah."
"Friday," I said. "I'm buying."
"'Bout time you picked up a tab."
"Name the place."
"Guilfoil's, where else?"
I grinned. "Not some place in the city? I'm surprised."
McCloskey flipped me the bird. "My tab's bigger at Guilfoil's. You can grab that, too."
I slid the report into the side of my chair and wheeled myself to the door. "Friday."
"Hey, Thunder."
I turned partway around. "Yeah?"
"That Patterson case. If it turns out to be something, you let me know about it would you?"
I pointed to the stack of files on his desk. "I wouldn't want to burden you, pal."
"Just remember who wears the shield, okay?"
Now it was my turn to flip him the bird.
Getting outside took even less time than getting in. I simply rolled out the way I came in, still under the nose of the bored desk sergeant who by now had buried his nose in the newspaper crossword puzzle.
Good luck to him.
Outside of police headquarters, I took a moment to read through the report. It didn't contain much else than what McCloskey had already told me. He'd been true to his word when he said they hadn't dug into her background much.
Melinda Patterson's vitals made her sound like a pretty attractive catch. The autopsy photos didn't do much for her – they never do – and given half her skull had been blown off, I couldn’t see much of a family resemblance.
Vanessa still outpaced her in my opinion. But then again, Vanessa was still alive so it wasn't all that fair a comparison.
The ME's blood toxicology workup noted a fairly elevated blood alcohol content along with trace amounts of THC. So, she'd had a few tokes. That might have made her a bit horny. And that might mean she left with someone that night on the pretense of sleeping with him.
I was interested in the ballistics report on the slug they'd recovered. I was pretty surprised they found it at all. She must have died at Cleveland Circle and then been disposed of in the same fell swoop.
Someone obviously wasn't trying very hard to conceal the killing. Usually most folks get off'd somewhere else and then dumped across town to throw off the boys in blue.
But Melinda Patterson's killer or killers hadn't given a damn. Or they'd been so confident that they wouldn't be caught they just got it over and done with quickly.
Either way, the theory didn't cheer me much.
The ballistics rundown would possibly give me an angle on the gun used. That could go a long way toward identifying what kind of folks she'd run afoul of. Hopefully. If my luck was bad, the slug would have come from a Beretta or a Glock, one of the guns you can find on any street corner in America.
But if my luck was good...
I didn't have time to waste waiting for McCloskey's pals at the State Police ballistics unit down at 1010 Massachusetts Avenue to come through with the goods. I was on the clock and still one helluva long way from impressing Vanessa Patterson much.
I checked my watch and saw that the hours had ticked by pretty fast since Vanessa had graced my office with her presence. Nighttime was just around the corner and it was time to check out the first name on the witness list McCloskey had given me. Coincidentally enough, it was the same guy Vanessa had told me about:
Don Woolery.
Have I mentioned yet how I don't really believe in coincidences?
Chapter Three
Joey's bar sat in what aspired to be the upscale section of Newbury Street, somewhere between the understated blue blood wealth of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel end down by Arlington Street and the gaudy nouveau riche of European college kids up by Sonsie. Joey's sat in the middle, luring young and old alike who didn't fit in at either end but desperately wanted to belong to both.
I got there by six; the place was already crowded. If you've ever thought about how tough it is trying to walk into a bar by yourself and start a conversation with someone, try it sometime when you're sitting in a wheelchair.
Nowadays, most people are accustomed to seeing us on the street, but bars, by and large, aren't really conducive to people in chairs. That fact alone had garnered Joey's more than a few enemies over the years.
Personally, I wasn't all that happy at having to wade through buzzed, giggling, snorting faux sincere lonely-hearts. But a buck's a buck and Vanessa's buck was as good a reason to make myself uncomfortable as any.
McCloskey's report contained snapshots of the witnesses they'd spoken to. Don Woolery was among them.
And Don Woolery was among the drinking crowd at Joey's this night.
Tall. Easily over six feet. But lean at maybe one-eighty. His brown hair was brushed back off his forehead and short on the sides. His eyebrows looked sculpted; I thought he looked the type to take in a waxing every few weeks.
Trying to get someone's attention in a crowded noisy bar is tough enough when you're at roughly the same height as your target. For me, it's a bit tougher. But I perfected a technique some time ago that enables me to get anyone's attention any time I want.
I bump into them with my chair.
Metal poking into the back of your leg hurts.
And it's not something that you can easily brush aside and ignore. Even when you've been drinking.
Don grunted as I banged into him.
But it was only after I'd done it again that he thought to look down and see me for the first time. His eyebrows arched and then he stooped.
"What can I do for you?"
"You can order me a beer and then get us a table. We need to talk."
He eyed me for another second. "What about?"
I flipped open my credentials and showed him. "It's about Melinda."
He peered closer at my license. "Thunder? What the hell kind of name is that? You for real with that thing?"
"I'm one half Sioux Indian. The name is real enough."
He frowned. "So what? You're not a cop. I don't have to talk to you."
"'Course you don't. But it might look pretty funny unless you do. You wouldn’t believe the kind of scene I can cause with this contraption."
He looked at me again and then sighed. "Why not?"
We made our way over to the back booth where a knot of former fraternity boys cleared out as Don approached. He settled himself across from me, took a long drag on his beer and watched me sip mine.
"So?"
"So, you wanna tell me about the other night?"
"What other night?"
"Don, don’t start this conversation off on the wrong foot. I already know you’re one of the guys the police spoke to about Melinda’s death."
"Well, what's to tell? Cops have already asked all the questions. You should check with them."
"Maybe I already have. Maybe I want to hear your version of the events."
He belched and followed it up with another healthy swig. "There ain’t all that much to tell. She was plastered before I even got started."
"She drink?"
"A lot."
"What's a lot?"
"What it sounds like."
I leaned across the table. "Pretend I'm new to the country. Explain a lot to me, would you?"
"Blistering drunk as often as she could manage it."
"What'd she drink?"
"Captain's and coke. A lot of it." He grinned. "She couldn't have put more away if she'd had gills."
"Colorful. You a poet or what?"
"Nah, I'm not into that creative shit."
"Who'd she leave with that night?"
"Not me."
"She leave with you often?"
"Not always. Sometimes."
"Monthly?"
"Maybe. Maybe more. Sometimes she hooked up with my brother."
"A family affair. How thrilling."
"Chick was so lonely I probably could have talked her into banging my old man."
"Ever the good son, huh?"
"Old man’s dead, though," he said.
"So, Melinda was a convenient lay."
He nodded. "I was lucky to meet her."
"Maybe she was lucky, too, huh?"
"Not the other night."
"No." I took another sip. "You haven't answered my question."
"I'm outa beer."
I motioned a waitress over and asked for a refill. I turned back to him. "Talk to me."
"Some dude. Never seen him before."
"Young?"
"Kinda. Her age. My age."
"Seem okay?"
He laughed. "Well, shit, there wasn't a sign around his neck that said 'lunatic' or anything like that."
"You mention this to the cops?"
"Cops never asked that question."
"You could have volunteered it."
"Why bother? She wasn't worth the effort."
"Everyone else around here think that way, too?"
"Who the hell knows?"
"She ever mean anything to you?"
"She meant an easy lay. Downside was she smoked a lot. Made her stink down south, but otherwise she was a great fuck. Swallowed. Back door - she liked that. Some bondage on occasion. Had this fetish for being spanked hard. Played dress-up once or twice. Cheerleader, that kind of crap."
"She ever hook?"
"Why? You looking for some?"
"Don't get stupid."
His eyebrows arched again as if he wasn't used to being spoken to like that by a guy in a chair. That was fine with me. I'm really into busting up other people's fantasy worlds with a hefty dose of my own unique brand of reality.
"I don't know if she hooked. Maybe. But she never seemed to have much money."
"What about drugs?"
"Pot. Liked the MJ."
"Any blow?"
"Never saw her walking around with a greenback up her snout, but who knows? Maybe she did."
I finished my beer as the waitress returned with Don’s refill. "The guy she left with - you see him here before?"
"I'm not usually looking at guys in here."
"Usually?"
"Never. I'm into chicks."
"You never saw him here before then."
"Guess not."
"Anything else you want to tell me?"
"Have I told you anything yet?"
"Not much."
He nodded. "Guess we're through then." He hefted his glass and stood up. "Thanks for the beer."
I watched him thread his way back to the bar where he elbowed a smaller guy out of a stool and slid onto it instead. My observation was interrupted by a fresh voice.
"You need anything else?"
I looked up and saw the waitress standing over me. She smiled but not in a sympathetic way. Her interest seemed genuine enough. I appreciated that.
"I'll take the bill."
She nodded, made some final calculations, and then handed me the slip of paper. I folded a twenty into the crease she'd made and handed it back.
"Thanks." She seemed happy enough. "You sure you don't need anything else."
"You know anything about that guy who I was just talking to?"
She glanced at the bar and frowned. "Yeah, I know of him."
"He got a rep?"
"A bad one, but yeah."
"Why so?"
"He's a lying bastard. One of the girls who used to work here went with him for a while."
"She say what he did for work?"
She shook her head. "Nah. Whatever it is, it's not a nine-to-five gig. He's in here almost from the time we open around noon. Stays usually until nine or ten."
"Every day?"
"Most. Sometimes he's not here, though."
I nodded. "He got a lot of lady friends?"
She sighed. "Well, yeah, sure. He's slick, you know? Got that manner about him that women like. Confident. Laid back. He'll almost ignore you. Some women, that drives 'em nuts."
"Not you, though."
"Not me. I like my men up front and honest."
"Seems like a fair request."
"I thought so, too. I haven't had a decent date in six months."
I filed that away. She was cute enough. "You ever see that guy get into any scuffles or fights? Any inappropriate behavior at all?"
"No. He tips like shit, though. That's inappropriate in my book. Oh, he's tried to pick me up about a half dozen times."
"That bad, huh?"
She smiled. "Awful. I don't want anything to do with him."
"You've been very helpful. Thanks a lot."
"My pleasure. Come back soon. We'll talk some more."
"But not about him."
She smiled some more. "Right."
She moved off to another table and I made my way out of the bar, coasting down the cement ramp and braking out on the sidewalk. In the interim, Newbury Street had darkened; the numbers of people filling the sidewalks had thinned. I wheeled around and scanned the immediate area.
The Boston Architectural Center offered a convenient nook hidden in recessed shadows. I steered myself over and then reversed so I could get a look at the entrance to Joey's.
I didn't have long to wait.
After being propositioned twice by the roving personality test givers who represented the latest celebrity philosophical movement, Don Woolery gave a quick glance up and down the street before heading up toward the old Tower Records building on Massachusetts Avenue.
I gave him twenty seconds and slid out of the space, rolling down the street after him. One of these days, I'll give in to my body's demands for a motorized chair, but right now I keep the manual because it gives my arms and back a great workout. It's better to be a bit brawny in the chair than look like some skinny chump who can be felled by a gust of wind.
Tailing people in a wheelchair is something similar to blind luck. You don't have many chances. If they turn and spot you, it's over. Wheelchairs are damned hard to conceal on the street.
Fortunately for me, tonight my new friend Don was in a real hurry and obviously wasn't all that concerned about our earlier interaction because he didn't look back once in the short hop up to Massachusetts Avenue.
He stopped on the corner by the Tower Records building entrance and stood scanning the traffic. I eased myself over to a lip in the wall by the ice cream parlor and waited.
Two minutes later a black limousine oozed up to the curb. Don hopped right in and I watched as the limousine slid back into the traffic slipstream and then turned right down Beacon Street toward Kenmore Square.
Even if there'd been a taxi able to carry my chair, I doubted I'd get much more accomplished tonight. I watched them go, too far away to get the license number of the limousine.
And still too far away to figure out any of this case.
Chapter Four
McCloskey the miracle worker turned up at my place the next morning as I was working on the speed bag down in my converted cellar. I'd just done six rounds of three minutes each on the bag interspersed with some jab practice on the heavy bag. Sweat was running off my body like a flash flood in a spring rain storm. I toweled off just as he buzzed the doorbell. I pushed the intercom.
"Yeah?"
"Police, Thunder. You're under arrest for suspicion of voyeurism, womanizing and rampant sexual self-gratification."
"Guilty as charged. My right hand and I are downstairs. Come on down."
He showed up thirty seconds later and grimaced as he entered. "Shit, dude, turn a damned fan on, would you? It stinks like balls and ass in here."
I took a chug from the water bottle. "You come all this way just to harass me about my impeccable workout discipline?"
He nudged the heavy bag. "Still working the old Dempsey routines?"
"The Triple, yeah. Near as I can manage it, anyway. The hook to the head translates to the ribs, but yeah, same one."
He nodded. "I gotta get back down here sometime. Maybe we'll do some sparring?"
"I'll kick your ass."
He laughed. "I believe it. I haven't seen the sunny side of exercise in about a year."
"And yet you still manage to maintain your womanly figure."
"Up yours."
I grinned. "You got something for me?"
He held up a manila envelope. "Ballistics, baby."
"You're awesome." I held out my hand for the envelope but he kept it back.
"You sure you want to see this?"
I frowned. "What the hell does that mean? Of course I want to see it. Shit, I had you go to the trouble. Least I can do is take it off your hands."
"It's just this might not be exactly what you were looking for when you asked me to do this for you."
"They find something?"
He shrugged. "Not that they know of, no. But to a couple of seasoned professionals like us-"
"You mean crusty old bastards."
"I might at that," He handed me the envelope. "Well, you tell me what you think."
"Something tells me whatever I think is what you think already."
He shrugged and watched as I slid the report out. "Don't forget: Guilfoil's on Friday."
"Yeah." But I was already reading the report. And McCloskey was right. I didn't like what I found in the pages. I looked up at him after a minute.
"Shit."
He nodded. "Told ya."
According to the report, the boys at the State Police lab had concluded the gun used in the Melinda Patterson murder had been a Tokarev 9mm. It was a rare piece. Especially in an age of SIG Sauers, Glocks, and Smith & Wessons.
But McCloskey and I knew the Tokarev was the favored weapon of the Russian Mafiya. Specifically, the Georgian gangs liked them. Maybe it was their inherent nationalism, or maybe it was because they knew it made them stand out. Maybe it was a warning. Neither McCloskey or I had ever been close enough to them to ask.
Funny how times change.
I sat there feeling the sweat roll off until it wandered down past my waist where I didn't feel much of anything anymore. Not since the accident.
McCloskey interrupted my wandering mind. "How you gonna play this one, Thunder?"
"Damned carefully."
"Now just because it's a Tokarev doesn't necessarily mean it's the Russians."
"Who you trying to convince - me or yourself?"
He sighed. "Yeah. I know. It was a long shot."
"No one else we know would use a Tokarev unless it's some damned collector."
He nodded. "You know the Feds are still trying to infiltrate those gangs in New York and Chicago, right?"
"I read that, yeah. They have any luck?"
"Couple of their guys turned up very dead for their trouble."
"Yeah."
"Think this might be out of your league?"
I looked up frowning and he held up his hands. "Hey, I didn't mean anything by it, Jake. Calm down."
"What's your point?"
McCloskey lowered his hands. "The Russians don't fuck around. I got guys on the force told me they wouldn't have anything to do with them. Some of them think they're ten times worse than the Vietnamese gangs up in Lowell. You go sticking your nose in their business, you could wind up very dead as well."
"Goes along with the job, Frank. You know that."
"Yeah, but you've got the option of dropping the case. I don't have that luxury."
"You telling me you're gonna start looking at this case a little more closely?"
"I'm not saying shit. All I am saying is that you need to be careful. Believe it or not, some of us have actually grown a little fond of having your sarcastic butt hanging around town. Be a shame to see anything happen to you."
"I'm touched. But you know as well as I do that I've got to run it down."
"Yeah." He grinned. "That sister's a helluva looker."
"Damsel in distress, my friend. Someone's gotta help 'em. Only a few of us knights in shining armor left."
"Shining armor?"
"Might be a little dented."
"And tarnished."
"That too."
He nodded. "I figured it'd be useless to try to convince you otherwise. You got any other leads so far?"
"Yeah. I spoke to Don Woolery last night."
"Slimy prick, ain't he?"
"Not the most hospitable dude, no."
"Tell you anything?"
"Not much. Melinda Patterson and he were apparently in bed together a few times a month. Quickies, nothing serious near as I can tell. But he didn't seem to have much remorse for someone he used to bang. Said she never had much money, though."
"Her sister never slipped her any? That's odd."
"Yeah. I wanted to ask her about that. Woolery insisted she had a drinking problem."
"Drugs?"
"Probably nothing beyond an occasional joint."
"What else?"
"He left in a bit of a hurry last night after I talked to him."
"Maybe you shook him up."
"Maybe. I got the impression he was on his way to a business meeting, though."
"What time was that?"
"Around eight."
"You know many people who have business meetings at eight in the evening?"
"I don't know too many people who hang around a bar all day long and then get into black limousines bound for Kenmore Square, no."
"You get a tag number?"
"Nah, too far away." I patted the chair. "This thing isn't the best vehicle for surveillance work."
"You're kidding, right? How many times have I told you to get this thing motorized. Hell, you could slip in and out of traffic faster than a car if you got the right engine."
"Yeah, but then I'd need an airbag and a CD player on it, too. That gets expensive."
McCloskey grinned appreciatively and then sighed. "So, what now?"
"Well, I can go poke around in known Russian Mafiya hangouts, making myself a royal pain in the tuckus."
"What's the other option?"
"I can go work Don Woolery over again."
"You think he's holding out?"
"I'm sure of it."
McCloskey chewed his lip. "I'd go with option two for right now. Seems safer than pissing off the local hoods."
"Yeah. Unless Don Juan gets jumpy and tells them I'm coming. Then it could be just as dangerous either way."
"I doubt he'd do that. After all, he's only seen you once. What's he got to worry about?"
"Good point. You got anything else on him?"
"No. But I can do some digging."
"Yeah. Maybe bank accounts, work records, that kind of thing. Let's see what he's really up to and who he's working for."
"When are you going over?"
"Tonight, I think. I'll go in when he's sleepy. Might make him a little less irritable."
"Less prone to getting violent, too."
"S'okay if he gets violent." I smiled. "I haven't had a good workout in a while."
"Don't go too rough on him. We might need him to testify."
"If the Mafiya's involved in this, I'd say Don Woolery has about as much chance of making it to the courthouse alive as I have of bedding down with Miss America."
"There's a bet no bookie would take."
"You saying I don't have a chance with Miss America?"
"Nope. You did."
I grinned at him but I don't think either of us really felt all that happy at the coming storm.
Chapter Five
I spent the afternoon getting acupuncture on my legs from Doctor Poon, a transplanted Thai who had a knack for reviving most of my aching limbs. So far though, he hadn't been able to bring back feeling in my legs. I wasn't about to give up hope just yet. Despite what western doctors said, despite their sentence proclaiming I'd never walk again.
Despite it all.
I'm a big believer in mind over matter. So severed nerve endings, damaged spinal discs be damned. If I was going to walk again, the most important step I need to take first was to convince myself mentally it could be done. Dr. Poon was an integral step in that department. His healing needles had done a lot for me already. He'd built my confidence by restoring flexibility in my shoulders and back already.
I used the time I was lying on my stomach on his well-padded table to try to do some thinking. My mind drifted instinctively to the accident that robbed me of my right to walk. My mind always went there first.
Somalia 1992, I was one of two Air Force special operations commandos attached to a Delta Force mission in Mogadishu. If you ever wanted to know what life must have been like in the Wild West, Mogadishu was a good place to get a fair idea. Everyone had guns. Hell, most folks had a rocket launcher or two lying around. And there were enough dead bodies littering the streets, stinking up the air that you couldn’t walk ten feet without tripping over one of them.
On that hot, sun-baked day when the dust seemed to scamper and clog every nook of every pore on your body, two Blackhawk helicopters were on their way in, filled with Delta operators, ready to nab one of the local warlords. I was already on the ground, in hiding, with my partner.
Our job was tough. We’d had to sneak and peek our way into the location during the dark of night, confirming that the warlord was, in fact, where our intelligence guys said he was.
We confirmed it by getting up close and personal with his bedroom. We could have waxed his ass then and there, but apparently, the leaders in Washington didn’t think that was very civilized. We withdrew close-by and called in the rest of the snatch team to our position.
We saw the Blackhawks emerge over the rooftops of buildings a few hundred feet from my position. My partner called in a final clearance to commence the run in when all hell broke loose.
Twin plumes of smoke erupted from a doorway on my left and streaked toward the choppers. In an instant, the rotor had been blown off one of the choppers and caused it to plummet to the ground, breaking up on impact.
While the second chopper raked the doorway with gunfire from its door gunner, we scrambled out to try to help the survivors I could see trying to fight their way out of the burning wreckage.
Bullets kicked up dirt all around us. Resistance was incredibly fierce. I could hear the screams of the men burning alive inside the fiery wreck. I reached the back of the bird just as the first bullet nailed me in the lower back.
Somehow, I didn't let it stop me from ripping off the back of the twisted metal and helping three commandos get out. I took another bullet in the next five seconds. This time it knocked me good. I fell unconscious amid the flames, the bullets, the screams, and the slow-motion nightmare that would plague me for the rest of my life.
By the time I came to, we'd been evac'd out of the fire zone and back to our lines. Doctors worked on me for six hours before sewing me up and pronouncing sentence.
They dug enough metal out of me that day, they said, to build a small bowling trophy. I wasn't amused. I was even less amused when I came back to consciousness and found my lower extremities didn't work any longer.
They bumped up my medical discharge to a full honorable one in light of what I did. They gave me a few medals for courage and honor under fire, that kind of thing.
To be honest, they meant shit to me.
I'd give 'em all up to walk again.
And stubborn as I was, I wasn't about to let army doctors convince me that walking again was an impossibility.
Impossible and I haven't been on speaking terms for a long time.
Dr. Poon sank another needle along one of my meridians and hummed a tune quietly to himself as some new age music drifted about in the background. Incense tickled my nose from a burner he concealed elsewhere in the Spartan room.
"You feel?"
"No."
He kept humming. "You will."
That's what I liked about Dr. Poon. He didn't like the word impossible either.
I took another deep breath as my mind ticked over and on to the case at hand. Vanessa Patterson flashed through my mind briefly and a few erotic scenarios as well, but I managed to clear them out and concentrate on Melinda Patterson, Don Woolery, and their possible connection to the Russian Mafiya.
Melinda Patterson might have wanted to sever all contact with her family but would she go so far as to get herself wrapped up in something like a gang? Or drugs for that matter? It didn't make much sense given her upbringing. Still, people turned from good to bad all the time.
Don Woolery didn't seem very upset about her death. Maybe it's just me but a good lay seems more deserving than just the quick write-off he’d given Melinda. Hell, he'd even insisted she'd been pretty good in the sack.
So who was into Don? The same people that got to Melinda? Had Don sold Melinda out to protect his position? Or had they both gotten in over their heads and Don had given up Melinda to save his own skin?
Too many questions.
And I still wasn't convinced about the Russian Mafiya.
True, they'd been making inroads across America ever since the supposed fall of Communism in the former Soviet Union. I knew for a fact that the gangs that were operating in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles had close ties to the Russian Intelligence Service. They kept each other informed of what America was working on, despite everyone claiming that the Cold War was over.
Boston had so far remained relatively untouched in the infiltration of Russian gangs, however. There were some, I knew that. After all, throughout the eighties, Allston had and still had a sizable Russian community of expats. It would be a cake walk for any gangster to come over, blend in, and quietly set up shop for some bigger crime lord back in St. Petersburg, Moscow, or even Groznyy.
But what would the business be? The Russians had a fairly good market share of fresh heroin and opium grown in the steppes of Central Russia, true, but then again, so did the Cambodian and Chinese gangs. Cocaine still belonged to the Colombians and Mexican cartels. Marijuana was the province of the Jamaicans and ex-flower kids of the 60s.
It didn't leave much for the Russians.
Arms sales had always been a big thing for the Russians, though. They'd sell pretty much anything to anyone for the right price. I knew suitcase nukes were being sold to small contract terrorist groups in the Middle East for huge sums of change. A few years back, there’d been serious concerns about something called Red Mercury. And they'd even sold a submarine some months back: over the Internet of all places.
But arms sales meant you had to have a big buyer. It had to be worth the expense of setting up shop over here and keeping the supply and demand chain in good working order. I didn't know of many big buyers interested in outfitting their own private army.
I sighed, feeling Dr. Poon work more needles into my body. He was working on my upper back now, where I still had feeling. According to him, I simply had a bad connection between my upper back and lower back and hence my legs. Restore the good connection and all would be well.
At least that's what he told me.
I think a small corner of my mind might have remained convinced I was wasting my time doing this treatment. But even that corner would be hard-pressed to deny the relaxing benefits that Dr. Poon's therapy gave me. I could roll in a ball of stress and leave an hour and a half later feeling light as air.
That and my eternal hope of walking again kept me coming back.
Dr. Poon kept humming.
I kept thinking.
Chapter Six
By six o'clock that night I still hadn't thought of very much which left me a little concerned that my powers of deduction might not be what they used to be. I had to keep reminding myself that I'd been provided with scant information about the case.
And then I reminded myself that I was a professional and excuses didn't really get me any further along.
Some day, I’m going to give myself a brain operation and remove my work ethic…
The key thus far was Don Woolery and his connection to Melinda Patterson. What they'd been doing the night of her disappearance had inevitably contributed to the fact that I was now working on this difficult thing.
And Don Woolery needed to fill me in further on those facts, whether he liked it or not.
Getting to South Boston on the T is about as easy as threading my way down the K2 with skis on my hair. It can be done, but man it was gonna hurt.
I set off a few minutes after six and managed to get myself down to Green Street without causing too many injuries to the local population. I caught the Orange Line at its second stop and rode in to Downtown Crossing and then switched to the Red Line, which runs into Southie and Dorchester.
Years back, both those towns weren't all that friendly. They'd been home to working class folks as long as I could remember. But as with any such neighborhood, they had unfriendly elements to them as well. During the late eighties, one of Boston's colorful mayors tried to clean things up and on the surface, he'd succeeded.
But you can always find trouble lingering below the surface. It's never that hard. And it’s never as far away as too many of us like to think.
I got off at Broadway, five stops along and rode the elevator to the top. Street side, traffic whizzed by in three or four directions. Broadway station was stuck into the middle of the street like some almost forgotten ice cream stand.
For the locals it was no problem. They just ante'd up and crossed the street, dodging cars and heavy trucks lumbering past and on toward Route 93.
For a handicapped dude like myself, however, getting across the street was going to require a little more finesse. Not to mention sheer guts.
The bottle of Jim Beam I kept in my top desk drawer might have helped steel my will, but ol’ Jim was back in my office in Jamaica Plain.
And I was in South Boston.
Luck managed to find me in the guise of an off-duty police officer that stopped enough traffic to earn him some definite disapproving looks from drivers. I caught a couple of "hurry up you crippled bastard"s from losers on their way to a complete stress-out for getting home two minutes later than normal. Good luck to ‘em. They’d have a coronary soon enough.
I said thanks to the cop and wheeled myself past at least four drinking establishments before the grade of the street sloped upward. I grinned and pushed myself on.
Discipline is something I'm a real big believer in and it's one of the few things I have that never lets me down, provided I don't falter first. I could have taken the easy way out years ago when I first came home and splurged on the expensive electric all-wheel-terrain chair that would basically drive itself.