The Dread Line Page 7

  “Another football player?”

  “No. Ricky wasn’t built for that. He played trombone in the school marching band. Poor little guy became a target when he came out of the closet toward the end of his junior year. The usual shit. Name calling. Bullying. Conner stepped in and made the assholes back off. That’s the kind of friend he was. The kind of man he is.”

  “Is Ricky still in town?”

  “Why?”

  “I’d like to talk with him.”

  “He’s enrolled as a film student at Rhode Island School of Design.”

  The friendship made me wonder if Bowditch might be gay. “Was Conner popular with the girls?”

  “Had to beat them off with a stick.”

  “Anybody special?”

  “Meghan Falco. Class secretary and a member of the cheerleading squad. They dated on and off through high school, went to the senior prom together.”

  “Know where I can find her?”

  “She’s a biology major at URI. Last I heard, she and Conner had gotten engaged.”

  Really? Mister Perfect was going to marry his high school sweetheart? By the time I left Shroyer’s office, he’d all but convinced me that I was investigating Saint Conner of Classical.

  * * *

  The following evening, I was watching the third quarter of the Celtics-Knicks game, chomping a pepperoni pizza and tossing the crusts to Brady when the cell phone played my ringtone for McCracken.

  “Evening, boss. Still in Vegas?”

  “Caught the red-eye home early this morning.”

  “Learn anything?”

  “No, but I need you tonight.”

  “Where are you?”

  “At Rhode Island Hospital getting my broken wrist set.”

  “Aw, hell. What happened?”

  “I’ll fill you in when you get here. And Mulligan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Bring a gun.”

  14

  I floored the Mustang on I–95, made it to Providence in forty minutes, burst into the hospital, and found McCracken in the emergency department waiting room. He was slouched in a molded plastic chair, a gauze bandage taped to his forehead and his right arm in a cast.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Fuck, no. I need a drink.”

  “Have they finished patching you up?”

  “A couple of minutes ago, yeah. Let’s get the hell out of here. I’ll meet you at Hopes in ten minutes.”

  “Sure you’re okay to drive?”

  “I’ll manage.”

  Hopes, the local press hangout, was nearly empty when I pushed through the door. Just a couple of alkies smoking cigarettes and pitching woo to their boilermakers at the scarred mahogany bar. I strode across the grimy linoleum, bought two bottles of Killian’s, and carried them to a table in back. A couple of minutes later, McCracken came in, walked gingerly toward me through the dim light, and slumped into a wobbly wooden chair.

  “You okay?”

  “Wrist’s still numb from the junk they shot into it, but my head hurts like a bastard.” He thumbed a plastic bottle from his pants pocket and dropped it on the table. “Mind opening this for me?’

  I shook two Vicodin tablets into his left palm. He swallowed them and washed them down with a swig of beer.

  “The doc warned me not to mix these with alcohol,” he said, “but I hear they work better this way.”

  “You probably heard it from me.”

  “Did you remember to come strapped?”

  I unzipped my jacket and gave him a peek at the Walther in my shoulder holster. “So, tell me. Who do you want me to shoot?”

  “Soon as I find out who they are, I’ll let you know.”

  “What happened?”

  “After my plane landed, I went home, caught a few z’s, and then dropped by the office. Sharise had already left for the day, so I stepped into my inner office and snapped on the light. First thing I noticed was that my file drawers had been rifled, papers thrown all over the floor. Second thing I noticed was two mugs with pistols sitting on the couch.”

  “Anybody we know?”

  “Never seen them before.”

  “Descriptions?”

  “Looked enough alike to be brothers. Both of them six-two, two-twenty. Shaved heads. Brown eyes a little too close together. Purple Phoenix Suns T-shirts under dark brown Windbreakers. Blue jeans. Black Nikes. One clean shaven, the other with a dickish porn mustache.”

  “What were they carrying?”

  “Both had compact nine millimeter semi-autos. Looked like maybe the Ruger LCP.”

  “A woman’s gun,” I said.

  “Yeah. Would have told them that, but I didn’t want to make them mad.”

  “How’d they get in?”

  “Must have picked the lock. Gonna have a high-end electronic lock installed next week, so remind me to give you the key code.”

  “What did they want?”

  “First off, they asked if I had a good time in Las Vegas. I told them Andrew Dice Clay’s show at the Hard Rock was awesome but that I’d lost three hundred bucks at a Golden Nugget craps table.”

  “You went to see Andrew Dice Clay?”

  “Of course not. He sucks.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “They asked why I was investigating Conner Bowditch.”

  “And you said?”

  “I said, ‘Who’s Conner Bowditch?’”

  “How’d that go over?”

  “They forced me to sit, duct-taped my arms and legs to my desk chair, and hurled questions. Who was I working for? Why had I gone to Las Vegas? Who had I talked to there? I told them I’d love to help them out, but that I was bound by client confidentiality.”

  “And then?”

  “The clean-shaven one, who did most of the talking, gave me an appraising look. Said the two of them could get rough with me but that he figured it probably wouldn’t do any good. I told him it probably wouldn’t do me any good either. He seemed to think that was pretty funny. Tell you what, he said. I don’t need to know what you’re doing as long as you quit doing it. Stop and there’s ten grand in it for you. But if you don’t, you’re in for more of this. Then he pulled a blackjack out of his Windbreaker and slammed it down on my wrist. I heard the bone crack.”

  “That when he clubbed you in the head?”

  “He didn’t. He just cut me loose with a pocket knife and said they’d be keeping an eye on me. Then the two of them walked out the door.”

  “So why the bandage on your brow?”

  “It’s embarrassing.”

  “Tell me.”

  “The duct tape must have cut off the circulation to my feet. When I got up, I stumbled and whacked my noggin on the corner of the desk.”

  I suppressed a chuckle. “When you try to pick up women with your story about facing down a couple of thugs, you might want to leave that part out.”

  That’s when a tall stranger with a shaved head pushed through the front door and took a slow look around. I slid my hand into my jacket and rested it on the Walther.

  “What’s wrong?” McCracken said.

  “The guy who just came in. Don’t turn around. Use the bar mirror to check him out.”

  “Nope. Not one of them.”

  I relaxed, went to the bar, and fetched us another round.

  “The two guys,” I said as I settled back across from him. “You said they wore Phoenix Suns T-shirts?”

  “Yeah. Purple T-shirts under brown Windbreakers. What kind of an asshole dresses like that?”

  “Think they could be from Phoenix?”

  “Nah. They’re too pale to have spent any time in the sun. Their accent was pure Boston.”

  I sipped my beer and thought for a moment. “Does it seem odd to you that we’re getting pushback on Bowditch?”

  “It does,” he said. “So far, we haven’t turned up anything. And if we do find some dirt, who’s it gonna hurt?”

  “Just him,” I said.

  “Yo
u think he sicced the thugs on me?”

  “Can you think of anybody else with a reason?”

  He took a pull from my beer and rubbed his jaw. “I got nothing. But how would the kid even know we’ve been looking at him?”

  I pulled out my phone, punched in some digits, and put it on speaker.

  “Shroyer residence.”

  “Good evening, Coach. It’s Mulligan.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I was wondering if you’ve got a number for Bowditch. I want to give him a courtesy call, let him know my firm’s been hired to do a background check on him.”

  “He already knows. I mentioned it to him on the phone yesterday. Him and me, we’re still close. He calls me about every week.”

  “Okay, but I’d like to give him a call anyway.”

  Shroyer rattled off Bowditch’s cell number. I thanked him and hung up.

  “Well,” McCracken said, “it looks like Mister Perfect is trying to cover up some seriously bad shit.”

  15

  Thanksgiving is a day for family, but I didn’t have much of one left. My parents and grandparents were dead, and I hadn’t been on speaking terms with my brother for years. That left my sister, Meg, who’d invited me to spend the holiday at the New Hampshire farmhouse she shares with her wife and their adopted daughter. But today they were snowed in, the roads impassable.

  I didn’t like turkey anyway.

  Joseph DeLucca had less family than I did, meaning none at all. He arrived shortly before noon toting my monthly share of the gambling proceeds and a last-minute feast he’d assembled: Four bakery pies—pumpkin for me and apple for him. Six large pizzas—two with pepperoni for me and four with bacon, meatballs, sausage, anchovies, onions, and mushrooms for him. And two cases of beer—Killian’s Irish Red for me and Narragansett for him. He also brought a sixteen-ounce sirloin for Brady.

  “Heard from Bowditch lately?” I asked as we loaded the beer into the fridge.

  “He rang me up Tuesday to place bets on three of this weekend’s basketball games.”

  “Big bets?”

  “Nah. Just twenty bucks per.”

  “He’s still not gambling on B.C. games?”

  “Not with me.”

  We each grabbed a beer and a pizza and carried them into the sitting room, where the day’s first football game was under way on my forty-two-inch flat-screen.

  “Uh.… Mulligan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Where’s the fuckin’ couch?”

  “The dog ate it.”

  “Oh.”

  Without further comment, he squatted on some cushions I’d shoved against the wall. Not wanting to be rude by taking the only chair, I flopped down beside him.

  All that afternoon and evening, Joseph’s cell phone rang a dozen times an hour, gamblers calling to lay down last-minute bets on the weekend’s college and pro football games. Mine rang once, around eleven P.M. I excused myself and took it into the bedroom.

  “Happy Thanksgiving, Yolanda.”

  “Happy turkey day to you, too, baby.” Her voice had smoke in it. “The storm in northern New England made the news out here. Did you make it to your sister’s okay?”

  “Afraid not. Three feet fell in Nashua, she’s lost power, and the streets in her neighborhood still haven’t been plowed.”

  “Oh, darn. I hope you’re not spending the day alone.”

  “Do hookers count?”

  “Most of the ones I know can’t.”

  “You know some hookers?”

  “Remember where I grew up? Of course I do. Well, back then I did. So who’s there really?”

  “My friend Joseph.”

  “Hope he didn’t bring the food.”

  “He did.”

  “Oh-oh. Double cheeseburgers and fries?”

  “Of course not. It’s Thanksgiving.”

  “What, then?”

  “Scads of pizza and a couple of cases of beer.”

  “Ha! That explains why you’re slurring.”

  “I am?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “He also brought a nice sirloin.”

  “Mmm. That’s more like it.”

  “Yeah. Brady gobbled it so fast you’d think the big guy had never seen food before.”

  “You gave the steak to your dog?”

  “And the pizza crusts, too. Brady’s crazy for them.”

  “How’s the weather there?”

  “Cold and blustery. We’re supposed to get rain overnight. How’s your mom?”

  “Better. The meds have finally got her blood pressure under control. I wanted to take her to Michael Jordan’s for dinner, but she insisted on cooking a turkey with all the fixin’s.”

  “For just the two of you?”

  “Uh-huh. Did it up right, too. Linen napkins, candles on the table. And, man, can she cook. By the time I leave here, I’m gonna be so fat that none of my clothes will fit. Good thing I’ve got a month to diet before I come home. Otherwise, my ass would be so big that you wouldn’t love me anymore.”

  “No chance of that, baby.”

  When I returned to the sitting room, I found Joseph passed out on the floor cushions. I snapped off the TV, picked the empties off the floor, and flopped into bed with Brady.

  * * *

  I was dreaming about making love to Yolanda when Jimmy Cagney’s voice startled me awake: “You’ll never take me alive, copper!” He kept snarling that defiant line from his 1931 movie, The Public Enemy. Still groggy, I needed a moment to recognize it as my ringtone for law enforcement sources.

  I glanced out the window and saw that it was still dark. Brady stirred, raised his head, and looked at me. Then he sighed and went back to sleep. I threw off the covers and groped the bedside table for my cell. By the time I found it, it had gone to voice mail. The message from Chief Ragsdale was brief:

  “North Road where it cuts through the Marsh Meadows Wildlife Preserve. Wake up, Mulligan. You’re going to want to see this.”

  I staggered into the sitting room in my skivvies, roused Joseph, and asked him to keep an eye on Brady—and to feed him if I didn’t return by midmorning. The weather had turned during the night, the temperature dropping into the thirties. I pulled on jeans, running shoes, and a hooded sweatshirt and bolted out the door into a cold, steady sleet.

  Five minutes later, I spotted the pulsing light bar of a Jamestown police cruiser that was parked at the side of the road. I pulled in behind it and looked around. Off to my left, flashlight beams crisscrossed in the reeds. I set off in that direction, my Reeboks sinking into the spongy earth.

  “Mulligan?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We’re over here. And watch your step.”

  I smelled it before I saw it, the stench of burned hair and flesh. Forty yards in, I found Ragsdale and one of his patrolmen standing over the remains of a medium-size dog.

  The chief shoved something in my hand and then shined his flashlight on it. A singed collar. Hanging from it were a dog license and a red metal heart engraved with the pet’s name and the address of the folks who owned him. They’d named him Casper. I looked at the body again, wondering if he might once have been white.

  “How’d you find him?”

  “Somebody saw the flames and anonymously called it in.”

  “Told the family yet?” I asked.

  “No. They phoned the station yesterday evening, just after supper time, to report that he’d gone missing. News about the dog burnings is all over town now, so they were scared as hell. I’m gonna let them enjoy their breakfast before I break the news.”

  I checked my wrist and found that I’d left my watch at home. “What time is it now?”

  “A little past five.”

  “You done here?” I asked.

  “If Patrolman Martin can carry the remains back to the patrol car.”

  “I got it covered,” the patrolman said.

  “I think we should talk, Chief,” I said. “Want to grab so
me breakfast?”

  “Nothing on the island is open this early.”

  “I know a place. I’ll drive you.”

  Ten minutes later, we pulled into a lot on Broadway in Newport and sat in the car waiting for Dunkin’ Donuts to open. At five thirty, we pushed through the door, ordered coffee and breakfast sandwiches, and carried them to a booth next to a streaked plate glass window. Ragsdale took off his drenched jacket and hat and dropped them on the seat. I grabbed a handful of napkins to mop my hair. Outside, the street was nearly deserted. The sleet was falling harder now.

  “You got a dog, Mulligan?”

  “I do.”

  I pulled out my cell phone and showed him a photo of Brady. He took out his and showed me a picture of his Border collies.

  “What are their names?” I asked.

  “Spade and Archer.”

  “For the detectives in The Maltese Falcon,” I said.

  “Yeah. They’re only two years old, but they’re such a big part of the family now that it’s hard to remember what our life was like without them.”

  “I know just what you mean.”

  “If somebody did this to one of them,” Ragsdale said, “I’d shoot the fucker in the head and bury him in the swamp.”

  “I’d help you dig the grave.”

  We sat in silence for a minute or two, munching our sandwiches. Mine tasted like ashes.

  “Find any evidence at the scene?” I asked.

  Ragsdale dipped his hand into the front pocket of his jacket, pulled out a clear plastic evidence bag, and tossed it on the table. Inside was a blue-and-yellow Ronson lighter fluid can.

  “I’ll dust it for prints when I get back to the station. The rain probably washed them away, but there’s always a chance we could get lucky.”

  “Any footprints or tire tracks?”

  “I told Martin to go back and take another look after daylight, but chances are the bad weather has washed that away, too.”

  Ragsdale went back to the counter for another round of coffees. When he returned, I changed the subject.

  “Anything new on the jewelry robbery?”

  “I got nothing. You?”

  “I don’t have any answers,” I said. “But I have some new questions.”

  “Such as?”

  “What do you make of Ford Crowder?”