A Fine Line (11 page)

I, on the other hand, hadn’t gotten twenty percent off a new Coach shoulder bag at some shop on Newbury Street.

We talked for a long time, lying there on our backs with our heads on our bunched-up pillows. When we both started yawning, I got up, loaded up the electric coffeemaker, and turned off the lights. By the time I got back to the bedroom, Evie was asleep.

I woke up abruptly with the panicky certainty that Evie was gone.

I found her out on the balcony. She had pulled on one of my old sweatshirts and was bent forward with her forearms braced on the railing. She had my binoculars pressed against her eyes aiming toward Logan Airport on the other side of the harbor.

I saw instantly what she was looking at. A big fire was blazing over there on the edge of the water in East Boston.

I leaned on the railing beside her.

“I heard a kind of thumping noise,” she said softly. “It woke me up. Here. Have a look.” She handed me the binoculars.

Across the misty water I saw the blue and red lights of
firetrucks and police cars flashing around the edges of the fire. On the harbor, fireboats were shooting high arching spouts of water at the flames.

“One of those old warehouses, probably,” I said. “Or maybe a fuel storage depot. Those big LNG tankers offload over there.”

I went inside, found my cigarettes, and brought them out to the balcony. It had stopped raining, but the air was moist and a layer of fog lay over the harbor, so that the fire and the lights looked blurry half a mile away.

“I hate fires,” said Evie softly. “Ever since . . .”

“I know,” said. “Me, too.”

We watched the fire burn for quite a while. When we went back to bed, it was still blazing over there across the harbor.

I woke up early and slipped out of bed without disturbing Evie. I plugged in the coffee machine, then turned on the little television on the kitchen counter.

I had to scan several channels before I found some early Sunday-morning news, and I had to wait nearly to the end before they mentioned the fire. The warehouse, they reported, was owned by some big French conglomerate called Beau Marc Industries. It was located on Pier Seven on the Boston Harbor in East Boston. They were estimating the damage at two million dollars, and they had not ruled out arson.

It took a couple of minutes for it to sink in.

Beau Marc. Pier Seven.

Boomer pierce ever
.

Jesus!

That phone call that had awakened me in the dark hours
of Saturday morning. He was predicting that fire. He was telling me about it. That it was going to happen.

Who the hell would do that?

Then I thought:
Why me?

When Evie woke up, I was sipping my second cup of coffee out on the balcony and scanning the site of the fire through my binoculars. She poured herself a mugful, brought it out, and sat beside me. She was wearing one of my T-shirts and a pair of my sweatpants. They fit her quite nicely, except the pants were a little long for her.

“What do you see?” she said.

“Not much. I’m going to go over, take a look. Want to come?”

“Why?”

“Why would you want to come with me?”

“Why would
you
want to go?” she said.

I told her about the phone call and the news report.

“That’s way spooky, Brady,” said Evie.

I nodded.

“Would you mind if I didn’t go with you?” she said. “I really hate fires. They’re too depressing. I’d rather just curl up with the Sunday paper.”

I kissed her forehead. “I don’t want you to be depressed. I won’t be long.”

It took about fifteen minutes in the sparse Sunday-morning traffic to zip through the Callahan tunnel and wend my way through the streets of East Boston to the side street that led down to the water. On this side of the harbor, the air was thick and the sky dark. Particles of white ash accumulated on the hood of my car.

I parked a block from a couple of fire engines, got out of
my car, and walked toward the standing brick walls and the blackened piles of rubble that had been a warehouse the previous day. Curls of smoke still rose here and there from charred rafters, and the smell of burnt rubber hung heavy and acrid in the damp air.

The entire area was circled by crime-scene tape.

I stood there a respectful distance from what was left of the building. A little clot of elderly men wearing baggy pants and cardigan sweaters came along and stood next to me. They weren’t saying much. Just looking. I wondered what they were thinking about this big fire in their neighborhood.

After a few minutes, a fireman with wet sooty smudges on his face came trudging toward us, heading for the parked vehicles. His eyes were red, and he was looking at the ground. I guessed he’d been up all night.

“Excuse me,” I said to him after he ducked under the tape.

He looked at me and blinked.

“I was wondering who’s in charge here,” I said.

“Why?”

“I might have some helpful information.”

“Helpful how?”

“It’s complicated,” I said. “Look. I live across the harbor. I saw the fire last night.”

“You saw something you think is helpful?”

“If it would be easier, you could have somebody call me,” I said. “I know you guys are busy.”

The fireman squinted at me for a minute, then nodded. “Man in charge is Lieutenant Keeler. He’s the PD arson investigator. You should talk to him.”

“Can you point him out to me?”

“Wait here,” he said. He turned, ducked under the tape, and headed back to the standing walls with the empty
windows and the piles of brick and blackened wood that had once been the Beau Marc warehouse.

A few minutes later, the fireman reappeared. With him was a tall rangy man wearing a yellow hardhat, a blue T-shirt, blue jeans, and rubber boots. The letters BPD were stenciled on the hardhat. He had a clipboard in one hand, and a cell phone was clipped to his belt. The fireman pointed to me, and the tall guy nodded and came toward me.

“I’m Lieutenant Keeler,” he said. He took off his hardhat and wiped his forehead with his wrist. He had close-cropped red hair. His eyes and face were red, too. He looked about forty. “You got something for us?” he said.

I told him about the phone call I’d received around four
A.M.
on Saturday morning, and how I lived directly across the harbor from the warehouse.

“You didn’t recognize the voice, huh?” he said.

“No.”

“You thought it was just some crank call?”

I shrugged. “He sounded drunk. His voice was muffled. I figured it was a wrong number.”

“But he said Beau Marc Industries? Pier Seven?”

“I didn’t recognize those words when he said them,” I said. “But when I heard them on the news this morning, I realized that’s what he said.”

“When did you say this was?”

“Friday night. Early Saturday morning, actually.”

Keeler shook his head. “What do you make of it?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“I mean,” he said, “why you? Who’d call you about a fire he was going to set the next night, right where you’d be sure to see it?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “This was an arson fire, then?”

He nodded. “And it sounds like you talked to the arsonist. So why would he want to tell you about it, have you see it?”

“The only thing I can think of . . .” I shook my head. “It makes no sense. I don’t see how there could be any connection.”

“What?” said Keeler. “Connection with what?”

I told him about Walt Duffy’s murder and how Ethan had gone missing. “Does that make any sense?”

Keeler shook his head. “Nope. But the fact that it makes no sense might only mean we’re not seeing it. If there is no logical connection, then it’s a damn strange coincidence, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “It is. That’s why I thought I should tell you about it.”

“You did the right thing. Thank you. I expect I’ll want to talk with you some more. Right now things are pretty hectic here. How can I get ahold of you?”

I gave him one of my business cards. He looked at it, then looked up at me. “Lawyer, huh?”

I nodded.

“Lawyers deal with a lot of weirdos, don’t they?”

“Some lawyers do,” I said.

“You ever deal with any arsonists, Mr. Coyne?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

“Well,” he said, “there’s always a first time.” He raised his hand and touched his forefinger to his brow in what might have been a salute. “Appreciate it, sir. We’ll be in touch.”

He fitted his hardhat back onto his head, turned, and trudged back to the rubble.

I picked up some muffins at Dunkin’ Donuts on the way home, and when I got there I told Evie about my conversation with Lieutenant Keeler. It was her opinion that I’d misunderstood the phone call, that the caller had, in fact, been a drunk with a wrong number, just as I’d originally thought, that Walt Duffy’s death had overwrought my imagination, and that I should stop perseverating on it.

I didn’t agree with her. But I didn’t pursue it. I figured it would only upset her.

We ate muffins and drank coffee and read the Sunday
Globe
, and when the sun came out in the afternoon, we walked along the waterfront and ended up in the North End. We decided to have an early supper at one of the little restaurants there. We drank red wine and ate pasta and listened to the Italian opera they piped in through the speakers, and we didn’t talk about arson fires or the deaths of friends or missing college boys.

When we got back to my place, Evie said she guessed she’d head for home. I went down to the parking garage with her. She climbed into her car, rolled down the window, and stuck her face up at me for a kiss, which I readily delivered.

“Given it any more thought?” she said.

“Shacking up, you mean?”

She smiled. “Couldn’t we call it something else?”

“I saw you studying the real estate section.”

“I figured you were so engrossed in the sports you wouldn’t notice.”

“I noticed,” I said. “See anything?”

“I saw a lot.” She started up her car. “Maybe a picnic this week?”

“I’d like that. I’ll probably have a dog with me.”

“Good. I like Henry.” She reached out and touched my cheek. “Are you okay?”

“I’ll feel better when Ethan Duffy shows up.” I hesitated, then said, “I’d feel a lot better if you weren’t leaving.”

She nodded. “Me, too. But that’s how it is right now. Call and tuck me in, okay?”

I watched Evie pull out of the garage. Then I got into the elevator and went up to my apartment.

I was thinking: I’d had several fairly serious relationships since I split with Gloria. For a while it seemed that Alex Shaw and I had a chance of making it. I know I loved her. But with Alex, our “weekend marriage,” as she called it, felt just right to me. She lived in southern Maine, more than a two-hour drive from Boston, and I didn’t mind being apart from her Monday through Friday. I liked spending the weekends with her, but I liked missing her during the week when we didn’t see each other, too.

With Evie, I didn’t like missing her during the week at all. I wanted to be with her all the time.

Scary.

W
hen I got to the office Monday morning, Henry came bounding over from Julie’s desk. I squatted down to rub his ears, and he licked my face and wagged his entire hind end.

“How’d it go?” I said to Julie.

“Megan cried this morning when I told her I was bringing him back to you. She played with him the entire weekend. He slept on her bed.”

“On the bed, huh?”

“I told her he could sleep in her room provided he stayed on the floor. When I went in the next morning, he was curled up beside her with his chin on her shoulder. I bawled her out. She claimed he must have snuck up there after she went to sleep.”

“At least he didn’t crawl under the covers.”

She smiled.

“You better get Megan a dog.”

“That’s what Edward says. We’ll see.”

When I went into my office, Henry followed me. When I
sat at my desk, he slipped around my legs and curled up under them. I liked having him there by my feet while I talked on the telephone and read legal documents.

Julie buzzed me a little before noontime. “There are two people here to see you,” she said.

“Who?”

“Detective Mendoza and Lieutenant Keeler. I told them you only had a minute.” That was for their benefit, I knew. Julie likes to promote the illusion that I am busy and in-demand.

“I’ve got many minutes,” I said. “Tell them to come on in.”

A minute later, the door opened and Detective Saundra Mendoza came in, followed by Keeler, the tall redheaded arson cop I’d met Sunday morning at the scene of the fire. Keeler looked tired. Mendoza looked angry.

Henry scrambled out from under my desk and went over to sniff them. Each of them gave him a perfunctory pat on the head.

I told Henry to come back, and he did, reluctantly. I pointed at the floor and told him to lie down. He did that, too.

“You got him trained,” said Mendoza. She was wearing black leather pants, black boots, and a red short-sleeved jersey.

“The offer’s still open. You want a dog?”