Swan Dive - Jeremiah Healy Read online

  "John, have you been drinking?"

  "On the level."

  "God, John, I don’t know. The prosecutor in me says yes, but the way things are today, maybe not. A neutral lawyer could probably think of at least a couple of reasons why that should be handled a little quieter."

  "Thanks. Look, I want to see you again, but with all of this . . ."

  "I’ve waited this long, John. But pretty soon I’m going to need more from you."

  We hung up. I called the number Nino had given me. A woman who might have been Salomé, the tougher, older one at lunch, answered and then put Nino on. He was pleased to hear my voice and was still very interested in receiving any "mer-chan-dise" I might uncover.

  I Next I called Braxley and asked him if the "material" had hit the street yet. He said no. He also said he hoped I was making progress on the material, because he had heard that the real estate market was rising, making the near future a "very excellent" time to sell.

  I put the receiver back in its cradle and rotated my chair to look out over the Common. Whoever kills Marsh and Teri takes the drugs, but doesn’t try to sell I them. Because the killer is using them personally, like Felicia. Or because the killer wanted Marsh, or Teri, I or both, dead and didn’t give a damn about the drugs, like Hanna. But why does anybody go to the trouble of framing me first?

  I got up, locked up, and drove home. Nobody was waiting for me anywhere. I had a pizza delivered, washed it down with my last three Molson Goldens, and went to sleep at 10:00 PM.

  TWENTY-TWO

  -♦-

  I drove past the Swampscott house twice, but saw no sign of Braxley or Terdell for half a mile in either direction. Assuming they weren’t anchored offshore in a Boston whaler, I backed into her driveway alongside the apparently fixed Escort and got out of my car. I rang the bell, then knocked just as Hanna opened the door. She had a towel in her hand.

  "John."

  "Hanna, I wonder if I could talk with you for a while?"

  "Oh, of course, of course. Come in."

  She led me into the living room. It now looked straightened, restored. Hanna said, "I remember you don’t like the coffee, but could we sit in the kitchen? I’m doing the laundry, and Vickie is in the yard with Rocky. I want to keep the eye on her. Like you said?"

  "The kitchen would be fine."

  I sat on a stool, Hanna folding linens from a plastic basket and turned three-quarters away from me so she could see the child through the window. Vickie had a furry beanbag of some kind on a piece of cord, and would swing it out toward a low hanging bush, then work it back to herself like a fly-caster after trout. The quarry was the kitten, who would pounce on the bag from beneath the bush, tussle with it wildly, then bound back under cover to await the next toss.

  I said, "She looks happy."

  Hanna smiled. "She is. To be home, with her new kitty. And I am happy."

  "To be home?"

  The smile turned wistful. “To be home, and to be free of Roy, that too, I think." She creased a pillow-case precisely, like a marine furling the colors at sunset.

  "Hanna—"

  "I bury him yesterday."

  "I’m sorry?"

  "Roy. I bury him yesterday."

  I couldn’t read any emotion at all from her. "How did Vickie take it?"

  "I did not have Vickie there. They tell me it is cheaper to do the cremation, but I tell them, no, I want him buried. I tell the BMW man, ‘Come get your car, I make no more payments on it.' He was mad, so was the boat man, I call and say, ‘Come, take back your boat, no more payments on that either."' She shook her head. "They both say they sue me, but I need the money so I can bury Roy. And I bury him so I can go back if things ever get bad again, go back and stand at his grave and remember what bad really is."

  I waited till I was sure she was finished. Then I said, "Have you seen Braxley again? Or heard from him?"

  "No."

  "Hanna, I met with the police. And with Chris." I summarized for her what I’d learned from each. She listened, politely but still without emotion.

  "Was that different from what you expect them to say?"

  "No."

  She shrugged. "So I wait, right? For the drugs to be found or Braxley to come see me again."

  When I didn’t answer, she said, softly, "It doesn’t matter. It is still better than Roy."

  "Hanna, I’m at a dead end looking for the drugs. You told me the last time that you didn’t really know anything about them, and I believe you. But if you can think of anything that would help, I’d appreciate it."

  She gestured with a dish towel. "When I come back here, I pull the things together that the drug people pull apart. I don’t know Roy’s life since I leave him so well, but the only things I can see gone that I remember are a suitcase and the video things."

  "When you say video things, you mean the camera

  and the case for it?"

  "Yes, the case he carry the drugs in. And the stand thing."

  "The tripod?"

  “Yes. Tripod."

  I thought back to Maylene’s comment at lunch about Teri’s supposed screen test. "Did Roy take the camera and tripod out of the house much?"

  Hanna dropped her eyes. “Sometimes."

  "What for?"

  She blushed. “You need to know this?"

  "Hanna, I don’t know what I need to know."

  She abandoned the laundry and hugged herself as though she were chilly, staring out at Vickie and away from me. "Roy, he like to . . . use the camera when we . . . in our bedroom. He set up the tripod thing and the camera and then . . . take the pictures of us . . . of him more, doing the things to me. He put all the lights on and buy some kind of film you don’t need special lights for. Then he . . . take the pictures and watch them on the TV." She cleared her throat. “Enough?"

  I wished it were. “One more question?"

  She nodded without turning to me.

  "You said he used to take the video things out of the house. Do you know why?"

  Hanna ground her teeth, but spoke evenly. "When he thought I wasn’t doing . . . it right, he would yell at me, hit me. Then he wouldn’t want me for . . . till the marks go away. So he take the things and go see the girl."

  "The girl who was killed."

  "Yes. He tell me he going to see her, then he go with the things, go to her, then he come back with them, the pictures, and he . . . put them on the TV and make me watch, watch him and her to make me do better for him."

  I couldn’t think of anything else to say except “I’m sorry."

  She waved a hand at me, the tears beginning to flow.

  I got up and left her.

  * * *

  I drove west to Route 1, then took it north to I-95. I swung off onto 495 and then exited at Tullbury, stopping at the first public phone I saw. There was only one “Leo Kelley" with an "ey" in the book. I dialed, heard Sheilah’s voice answer, and hung up. Ten minutes later, I was outside her father’s place, his red Buick gleaming in the driveway.

  The house was a mini-Victorian. A disproportionate wraparound porch held heavy, old-fashioned wicker furniture. The white paint on the chairs was bright and fresh, but the cushions were dirty and flat. I pictured Leo thinking that he had kept up his side of the maintenance but his dead wife had failed in her attention to the needlework. I knocked on the screen door and heard two voices say “I’ll get it." Sheilah arrived first, stopping short when she saw me and causing her father to bump into her from behind.

  "Christ, Sheilah, what the hell did—" Leo Kelley became aware of me and changed to "Not you again!"

  Sheilah said, "What do you want this time?"

  "Goddamn it, it don’t matter what he wants. This is my town, and I’m gonna call Tommy down to the station and get—"

  "Dad, please? Okay?"

  "I don’t know what you—"

  "Dad!"

  "Awright, fine. Fine! I wash my hands of it. You wanna act like a two-year-old, fine. Go off with this guy now. O
r the jig drug pusher. I don’t care. Just keep ’em out of my house and out of my life, okay?" He stomped back into the house somewhere.

  She looked at me. "Well?"

  "Your father didn’t say anything about the porch."

  She tried to make up her mind, then unlatched the screen door and came out. She was wearing jeans a size too large for fashion and a nondescript short-sleeved shirt that was poorly cut. She plunked herself down in one of the chairs and crossed her legs, foot jiggling nervously. I sat on the railing.

  "Ms. Kelley, have you seen Braxley or his friends?"

  “No, and I don’t want to, either. Which is why I’m talking to you."

  Her logic escaped me. "I want to ask you some questions about Roy Marsh and his video equipment."

  A little blood drained from her face. "Go ahead."

  "You and I talked at the house in Swampscott after it was searched. You said the only thing you noticed missing was the videocamera and its case."

  "Uh-huh."

  "Was the tripod gone, too?"

  She worked her mouth, but just said, "Yes."

  "After I left, did you notice anything else missing?"

  "No."

  "How about Roy’s suitcase?"

  "No. I mean, I don’t know. He had a bunch of them, I didn’t really pay any attention, you know?"

  "So one of the suitcases could have been missing too?"

  "Yeah, could have been. I was upset, you saw me."

  “You said the last time you saw Roy was Sunday night into Monday morning, about one A.M., right?"

  "When I got home from work."

  "Before the house was ransacked."

  "Before . . . yeah, of course before. They didn’t search the place till . . ."

  "Till after Roy was dead?"

  "Yeah." She recrossed her legs, still twitching the dangling foot.

  "You also said you spent the day, Monday, doing errands and so forth, since it was your day off. You didn’t see Roy at all."

  "Right, right. He was up and gone before I was. Like I told you."

  "And then you came here, to your Dad’s for dinner."

  She chafed. "Right. Look, I’ve got to be in to work by three-thirty and I got a lot of things to do first, so if--"

  "Roy had the camera rolling when you and he made love, didn’t he?"

  She jerked, like a dog on a short leash.

  I said, "The video equipment. Roy had it set up in the bedroom of the house in Swampscott so he could tape you and him together."

  She remembered to breathe, but she had to try hard to get everything else started again. "You didn’t . . .you didn’t look at the tapes . . ."

  "No, Ms. Kelley. I didn’t and I wouldn’t. Hopefully, nobody else will either. Provided you confirm some things."

  She looked absent now, away from it all. "Things."

  "The video equipment, the camera and tripod and all, it was gone Monday morning when you woke up, right?"

  "No."

  "No?"

  She shook her head to make me understand. "No, no. It was . . . it was gone when I got home from the errands. I went upstairs to take a shower and saw it was gone. We’d . . . he’d had it set up on Sunday morning in the bedroom and it was gone. I just thought . . ."

  "That Roy had gone to see Teri Angel again?"

  "Whatever her name was."

  "According to one of Teri’s friends, Roy was with Teri on Saturday night. He was with you Sunday morning and night, then back again with Teri on Monday night?"

  She lifted a hand, covering her eyes. "Look, Roy liked . . . he had a lot of sexual energy. And demands."

  “When you saw Roy on Sunday night, he asked you to stay at the house in Swampscott on Monday, didn’t he?"

  Sheilah didn’t answer.

  "He asked you to be there so he could have an alibi, like on Friday afternoon with the cat."

  "You don’t understand . . . what I was going through. I loved him, and I didn’t want to believe what you said to me at the hospital, about him doing that to her cat and threatening his wife and the girl. So I asked him, and he . . . he hit me, telling me if I really loved him, I’d trust him on something that bad. That’s when I knew for sure he’d hurt the cat. When he told me I should be trusting him."

  "Then he asked you again to cover for him Monday night?"

  “Yes, but he didn’t say why and I wasn’t about to ask him after the ‘trust’ thing, so I told him I’d be there and then I couldn’t, just couldn’t, I mean, what if it was going to be his wife this time, or the little girl? So I called my dad and came up here, then kept trying to call Roy, and not getting any answer, then I got worried and I drove back down there and the phone rang, the police . . ."

  She seemed to stall and glide to a stop. She didn’t cry, she just sat there, elbow on crossed knee, face buried in upturned palm.

  "Ms. Kelley?"

  She stayed put.

  "Ms. Kelley?"

  No reaction at all. I got up, thinking at least I’d have to be facing only one more woman Roy Marsh had wrecked.

  * * *

  Stopping at a greasy spoon that looked like a failed Dairy Queen, I ordered lunch. I also ran over what I had.

  Sheilah Kelley’s admission about the camera and tripod being gone before Marsh was killed made everything else come together. I’d been assuming all along that whoever mugged me also murdered Roy and Teri, and no one fit as the framer. That was because only one person had the nerve and the attitude to set me up. Roy himself.

  Marsh has a bad day Friday, Hanna demanding the house, me visiting him in the shower. Not exactly a choirboy, he still doesn’t dare target Hanna or Vickie, especially after the cat episode. So he decides the best way to come out ahead is to blackmail Felicia, who wasn’t able to head Hanna off on the house. But Felicia’s too smart to be tied into the drug buying in a traceable way, so he needs concrete evidence of something else unworthy. From Stanslield, Marsh knows Felicia refers clients to Teri. Maybe not grounds for disbarment, but enough leverage to pry the price of the house from Felicia. Then on Saturday night, Teri says something that makes Roy realize that Felicia is also one of Teri’s crossover freelancers and that Felicia’s next due to see her on Monday night. That gives Roy all of Sunday and Monday to plan.

  Roy comes to Boston to mug me for the gun and have me as a fall guy if something goes wrong at the Barry. But then old Roy somehow botches the camera/gun confrontation with Felicia and Teri. Felicia grabs the video stuff and the drugs and takes off, leaving me center stage in Roy’s bungled frame.

  It all made sense if I could prove Felicia knew Teri. Stansfield and probably other divorce clients would do, even if Patch might not recognize Felicia as one of Teri’s regulars. And Felicia had a very deep pocket, plenty enough to pay off J.J. and get Hanna off the hook.

  Feeling optimistic for the first time in four days, I finished my meatball sub and soggy potato chips. Then I used the outside booth to call my answering service. There was a message from Ed, my friend at the South Boston courthouse. Now that I had Stansfield tying Felicia to Teri, I really didn’t need Ed’s help anymore. However, he must have jumped through hoops to get the information for me that quickly, so I called him back.

  "Clerk’s Office."

  "Ed?"

  "Ed? No, I think . . . just a second." The voice yelled off the line. "Hey, Charley? Charley! Hey, you seen Ed? Yeah, that’s what I thought." He came back to me, conversationally. "Yeah, it’s like I thought. Ed’s covering the second session, might be there all—hold it, he’s coming through the door now. Hey, Ed?"

  There was a clunking noise, then, "Hello."

  "Ed, John Cuddy."

  "Ah, oh, yes, Lieutenant, that file just came in. Hold on, will you?"

  "Thanks, Ed."

  About twenty seconds passed. "Lieutenant?"

  "Right here."

  "Yeah, I got this so quick ’cause I knew you really needed it. We don’t have no Federal fucking Express on these, you know?"<
br />
  "How does dinner at Arnheins strike you?"

  "That should just about cover the postage, all right. I got your ‘Papangelis, Theresa A.' right in front of me here. Now, what do you want?"

  “Charge and date?"

  "Soliciting, November of seventy-eight. Knocked down to a disorderly, she agreed to facts sufficient."

  "Meaning the lawyer basically got her off on the soliciting charge in exchange for her admitting there were facts sufficient to find her guilty of disorderly conduct?"

  "That’s how I’d read it. Anything else?"

  "Yeah, who’ve they got as her lawyer?"

  "Oh, right. Just a second . . . Yeah, here it is."

  Ed told me, and the sky began to fall.

  TWENTY-THREE

  -♦-

  The Pontiac looked more rusted, the converted garage more shoddy. I opened the door without knocking, but there was no cousin in the waiting area. Chris sat at the secretary’s desk, efficiently hunting and pecking at a form in the typewriter and looking up in embarrassment when he saw it was me.

  "Jeez, John, this temp service, I gotta change—"

  "l know, Chris."

  "About the temp place?"

  "No. About Marsh, Teri, everything?

  His eyes went out of focus. Standing shakily, he said, "Maybe we better . . . the office."

  * * *

  I didn’t have to ask him to start at the beginning. "It was the MS, John, swear to God it was. Don’t let nobody kid you, you can’t fight something like that. Before, Eleni and I were doing okay, hell, I was doing better than okay in the office by the courthouse there. Then the MS hit her, and it all, I don’t know, just dribbled away. The money, the clients, her and me."

  "You represented Teri back in 1978, a long time before the MS."

  "Huh? Oh, yeah, I did, but I didn’t start . . . start going to see her then., That was just how I met her, doing a courtesy thing for somebody up where she lived. Just like I got involved with that fucking Marsh, helping somebody out."

  "When did you first start seeing Teri?"

  "Maybe a year ago. I had this closing in Boston, at three. The lawyers down there, they think everybody’s in a big-time firm, you know? They schedule everything figuring that the guy on the other side’s just gonna catch the five-ten for Wellesley. Or maybe is gonna go back to his State Street office and put in another five hours before calling it a day. You come in like I have to, though, that Route One’s a nightmare anywhere from four to seven going north out of the city. So I finished up with the closing at like four-fifteen and walked over to the Parker House. Have a few drinks, wait out the traffic, you know?"