Chapter 24

I fell asleep with a woman beside me, yet woke up alone. The phone rang and I picked up the receiver, expecting to hear Diane Lindsay explain why. Not quite.

“I’m twenty minutes from your house. Might be a good idea if I come up for a chat.”

His voice was flat. It reminded me of long afternoons in a dark saloon. The patrons drink in cheap liquor and recycled smoke. Each stares straight ahead into his respective past. In other words, it didn’t sound good. At nine in the a.m., especially so.

“And a good morning to you, Detective Masters.”

“Yeah. You got coffee?”

“There’s a Dunkin’ Donuts on Clark and Belmont. Pick up a couple. I take mine Boston-style.”

The detective hung up before I got to tell him that was with cream and sugar. Maybe he already knew.

I rubbed my face in the glass of the bathroom mirror, took a minute, and put away the night before. She had asked why I kept my shirt on. I told her I was modest. She thought that was cute. The truth, however, stared at me in the mirror. Two bruises, small punctures where a killer had used me for a pincushion.

By the time I showered and dressed, Masters was leaning on the doorbell. He wasn’t exactly smiling, but he did have the coffees and a bag that looked full of what I suspected were doughnuts. We sat down at the kitchen table, split up a half-dozen honey-dipped, adjusted the coffees, and got down to business.

“Let me ask you something, Kelly. Do you work at being a fucking jag-off? Or is it something genetic?”

I took a sip of my coffee and contemplated the moment. It’s important to contemplate the moment when it’s a good one. Once I opened my mouth, the moment would change into something else. Maybe better, but probably worse.

“Exactly what’s the problem, Detective?”

“You know what the problem is. What the hell you doing over at the evidence warehouse?”

“Working a case.”

“That’s all you have to say?”

I dunked a doughnut but kept it in the coffee too long and lost half of it.

“Goddamn it,” I said. “Hate when that happens.”

“Jesus H. Christ.” Masters made a move to go. I stopped him.

“You want a shot of something in that coffee?” I said.

“You want to quit fucking around?”

I nodded. The detective drained his cup and held it my way.

“Keep the coffee and just pour the shot.”

I rustled up a bottle and poured him a dose.

“I went over and talked to Goshen about Elaine Remington’s rape. Just nosing around.”

“What did you find?”

“Nothing,” I said. That was a lie. It happens sometimes.

“The DA no longer considers you a suspect in the Gibbons thing,” Masters said.

“I know. It helps to have evidence.”

“Some things just need to play out, Kelly. You know how that goes.”

An image of Gerald O’Leary came before my mind and I nodded.

“No hard feelings?” the detective said.

I shrugged.

“Good. Let’s talk about Mulberry,” Masters said.

I raised an eyebrow and hid the rest of my face behind a doughnut.

“Look, Kelly, I know you talked to the landlady. I have a feeling you might have even found her body. So let’s talk.”

“Mulberry’s dead?”

Masters shifted in his seat, took a deep breath in, then out. He was fishing and we both knew it.

“Yeah, she’s dead. Whoever killed her tore the place up pretty good. We figure robbery. If you figure otherwise, now would be a good time.”

The detective sat back, sipped at his Jameson, and waited. I took a minute I didn’t really need. Then I spoke.

“I think Gibbons gave her something or left something behind in his room. Whatever it was, it got them both killed.”

“Let me guess,” Masters said. “You also think it has something to do with the Remington thing?”

“I do.”

“The one you went to the evidence warehouse on.”

“It’s a theory.”

“Why?”

“Gibbons worked that case as a patrolman,” I said. “Remington tracked him down and asked for his help in clearing it. Then he got himself dead.”

“That’s it?”

“So far.”

Masters looked at me like he’d rather not. He siphoned off the last of his whiskey and stood up.

“I’m going down to the autopsy. You want to come along?”

“No thanks.”

“What are you going to do?”

I plucked a volume of Cicero off the corner of the kitchen table and held it up in the morning light.

“Read,” I said. Masters took a look at the title, shook his head, and left.

I let Cicero drop back onto the table and pulled up an old homicide file I had stashed by my feet. The El rumbled nearby, a horn honked, and a hint of thunder echoed in the distance. I didn’t notice. Instead, I turned the pages and read.