All in One Piece (3 page)

“It wasn’t a visit. It was first aid.”

He looks as though I’m an NPR word quiz lady. Ed Maglia shows no real empathy for a civilian reeling from carnage in her own
home, blood on her door. “Like I was saying, after Steven left you, he went back upstairs?”

“I assumed he was up there. He’s a financial analyst. He worked part of the time in his apartment.”

“But you have no actual knowledge.”

“Well, no, I didn’t see or hear him. I was resting from the hit-and—… the fall. My kitchen and bedroom are to the rear
of the house, away from the square. Whoever came or went last night, I didn’t see him. Or her. Them.”

Maglia taps a nail against his wedding band. I assume that his gun is holstered inside his suit jacket. “A few minutes ago,
Ms. Cutter, you referred to a nighttime bumping noise. Yet you say the building seems soundproof.”

“The walls are very thick. These Victorian town houses are built like fortresses.”

“When you woke up in the night and heard the bumping, the noises you called violent—”

“I didn’t say violent.” Or did I?

“What about voices?”

“No voices. None.” Should I try to make the actual bumping sounds, like when you take your car in? “It was like a storm, like
thunder. It felt both close and distant. Maybe it was somebody’s fireworks left over from the Fourth. Or it might have been
a nightmare. A dream not related to Steven—”

“Isn’t that unlikely? I mean, the noises woke you, isn’t that right?”

“My dog was agitated. Maybe a sleep cycle was interrupted. I didn’t get up and look at a clock, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“So you heard the violent bumping noises, Ms. Cutter, and stayed in bed? Can you make a best guess about the time?”

“I’d rather not.” A minute ago, he was all for
supposing
. Now he wants guesswork. I’m a hit-and-run victim, lucky to be alive, but he acts as though I deliberately lounged in bed
listening to a homicide in progress. Maglia reminds me of Marty, even though the homicide detective looks nothing like my
ex-husband. One thing I know for sure: Detective Frank Devaney wouldn’t treat me like this.

“How about showing me where you saw the blood drip?” We troop to the radiator, but Maglia bars me from getting too close,
as if I have no judgment on my own. He says something about getting a photographer and a tech to take a sample. “Could I see
your bedroom, please?”

He follows me back, unmade bed and all, and he taps the walls, stares at the ceiling like a building inspector, opens the
window, and leans out to look up and down at the narrow back alley. Cold October air blows in.

I, too, try leaning out to see, but Maglia shuts the window, and we go back to the front room and sit back down. He faces
me. “One reason all this is important for you, Ms. Cutter… there’s a stain on your own front door. We think tests will
prove it’s blood.”

D
etective Maglia, I saw the bloody door when I stepped outside moments ago. It shocked me. I don’t know how it got there.”

“You didn’t make physical contact with the door? Is that what you’re saying?”

“I… only the knob. I grabbed the knob with my right hand and pulled the door closed behind me.”

“You didn’t bump the door?”

“No.”

“And you’re sure? Because if you’re sure, Ms. Cutter, then we have to investigate two possibilities. One, the probable killer
either bumped the door or leaned on it for balance. In that version, the door stains are accidental.”

I nod.

“But the second possibility is that whoever killed Steven Damelin deliberately marked your door.”

I swallow and nod again.

“Suppose we go see that bloodstain on the door.” He follows me into the vestibule, and we peer at the door for a full silent
moment. My worst fears are confirmed. Try as I might to see the marks as random streaks and splotches, they look shaped. They’re
brushstrokes. Like calligraphy.

“Any guesses about the marks, Ms. Cutter?”

“They look brushed on, don’t they? Painted on. They look Oriental. Don’t you think so? Maybe Japanese?” I fervently hope he’ll
say that I’m too upset to judge. I want him to say the eye can play tricks. “Or am I seeing things?”

He doesn’t answer. “To your knowledge, is there anything in your apartment that might attract someone with violent intent?”

“I have one last mink coat in case my daughter decides she wants to wear fur.” He gives me a look. Reggie, I think to myself,
don’t be ridiculous. “Wait… there’s something Steven said to me about his relationship to my late aunt. He said she was
working on some kind of deal with him.”

“What kind of a deal?”

“It was confidential. He promised to tell me about it. He thought I might be interested, maybe get involved.”

“Financial?”

“I have no idea.”

“And did your late aunt talk about it? Maybe use a word like ‘arrangement’ or ‘partnership’?”

“No.”

“You said you were close to your aunt?”

“It was holiday visits and phone calls. It wasn’t day in and day out.”

“Maybe she said something offhand. Could you refresh your memory?”

“There’s nothing to refresh. I told you everything.” Then I hear my own voice, starting small, turning sarcastic. “Detective
Maglia, let me just say, if I knew Steven Damelin was upstairs being murdered, I’d have checked my watch and called police
on the spot. I’d remember for sure whether the outside front door was locked. In fact, I might even have the killer tied up
with duct tape.”

I mumble something about police as public servants who need counseling skills. My credibility’s washing down the gutter. Years
of TV cop shows don’t help. The interrogation feels somewhere between Dalí’s dripping watches and
NYPD Blue,
with touches of
Columbo
reruns. My work with Devaney feels NA, not applicable.

Maglia’s eyes are flat, as if suspicion is the only thing they know how to see. We stand awkwardly in the vestibule. “I’m
just trying to get the sequence of events, Ms. Cutter.” Inches from my door, he puts on eyeglasses to give the blood-marked
panel the closest scrutiny, as if the marks might yield secrets. As if the blood might speak.

Beside him, I shiver and fight nausea. “I’d like to get dressed now.”

“Not yet. Step back inside, please. A female officer and a tech are on the way. I have a few questions about when you found
the body. You didn’t touch anything in the apartment?”

“No, but my dog ran ahead and… got bloodstains on her paws and muzzle. And the drill. I didn’t see it at first. I accidentally
kicked it.”

He frowns his disapproval. Yes, I disturbed a crime scene.

“Did you see a hammer?”

“No.”

“Or a nail gun?”

“I wouldn’t know a nail gun if I saw one, Detective Maglia.” A memory flashes. “In the grooves of the drill bit, I saw a .
. . pink mush.” I try not to throw up.

Maglia makes a note, then calls two blue-uniformed cops who’ve been searching the basement. The three huddle, though the red-faced
one casts furtive looks at me. Then the photographer comes to snap pictures of the puddle, and the technician, Judy, takes
a sample of the blood, whereupon Maglia asks for my robe to turn over to the lab.

It goes through my mind, where’s a lawyer? Nasty thought, given my recent experience with the legal profession through my
divorce. Did Maglia refer to our talk as an interview? He didn’t say interrogation, I’m sure of it. Should he read me my rights?
What about the Miranda thing? “You have the right to remain silent.” Except that’s for drug dealers and car thieves. Miranda
is for suspects, not for me. Certainly not for me.

Maglia introduces a sharp-faced brunet, Officer Prish, whereupon Judy, wearing plastic gloves, opens a paper bag. Officer
Prish accompanies me to the bedroom, where Judy takes my robe and closes it in the bag.

“I thought you used plastic.”

“Plastic degrades the evidence.”

“Will I get my robe back?”

“In due course.”

As if I’d ever wear it again. But my very own robe—evidence in a murder in my own home. Quickly I put on a sweater and slacks.
Back in the front room, Maglia reports that the basement search is finished for now. “No signs of disturbance, Ms. Cutter,
though we might want to come back.” He adds, “I advise you to change your locks.”

“I’ll do that.”

“And, Ms. Cutter, any further thoughts on anything that links Steven Damelin to your aunt, any ties?”

I think of Steven’s necktie. And those strips on his wrists. “You mean their ‘deal’?” He nods. Walking to the door, I feel
less escorted than released from custody.

“Is there anything I need to do?” I ask.

“Just put yourself in our hands.”

Mi casa es su casa?

I know the script. The detective will give me his card. So he does, then adds a twist: the order not to leave the area without
first informing the Homicide Division of the Boston police.

A
m I a suspect? Maglia disappears before I can ask.

What now? It’s after ten, and Steven’s body is still upstairs. Uniformed police cluster outside, and my right shoulder aches.
What’s a woman to do? Get a bucket, cold water, sponge, and Clorox. I pull on my oldest jeans and shirt, stand over the radiator
area, and say something close to a prayer, then sink to my knees and start scrubbing the blood from my floor.

Each spongeful of rusty rose brings the slaughter of Steven Damelin home. The sponge and brush pace my sobs and feel oceanic.
Tears mix with the water and blood like a ritual bathing. Like a grisly sponge bath.

There is no catharsis. Forget tragedy’s platitudes, Steven Damelin is dead, and sponging his blood from my floor feels wrong.
It’s sacrilegious to empty the pail into a bathroom drain. A votive candle should glow brightly. Instead, the air sharpens
with chlorine bleach.

With knees wet, I scrub hard and rhythmically despite the aches and pains from yesterday. Biscuit stays back, tail down, ears
dropped. Then an unanticipated feeling begins, like a warm hand on my shoulder as I work along. The hand squeezes, gently
at first, then harder, like a clamp. It’s physical, though nothing like the bruises from yesterday’s fall.

I push up, kneeling with sponge in hand as I try to blink back a teary blur. The blur thickens, and the clamped feeling yields
to double vision as shapes form as if through a lens. Eyes wide open, I’m now in two places. This is my apartment, my floor,
but in my mind there’s blue-brown water and a pale floating log. The watery scene draws me, sweeps me in. Calm at the surface,
the currents below are roiling. Whirlpools suck at my arms and legs. A spiral twists at my thighs and torso, and my lungs
fill and my head reels from a hard blow from the log. It’s a drowning place, this picture. Somehow I know this and cannot
blink it all away.

What is happening here? The blood… it’s triggered my sixth sense. As if I’m drugged, the scene claims me. Now a figure,
a human form. I make out… Steven. It’s Steven Damelin. Though I can’t see his features, it’s him, far-off but near too.
He twists in the current, dodges the log. He flails and tries to swim away, but the current is too powerful. He thrashes at
the surface but goes down, drowning before my eyes. I cannot help to save him. My lungs… my own lungs are filling as
my chest burns. On my knees on the hardwood, I myself am experiencing Steven Damelin in the act of drowning.

Eyes wide open, I drop the sponge and try to wait. Biscuit whines, and the fur on her neck is rising. The dog growls and bares
her teeth. “Biscuit, girl, no—” Crouching low, Biscuit is ready to lunge, attack the very air. Can I stand up? Yes, but I
stagger back, half sick. The water and log stay like a photo print as I cough and swallow and lean against a wall here in
my home. I hear my own breath.

Panting.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the vision fades as I stand against the wall and breathe. For a fact, I do breathe. Normality is edging
back; that is, if a murder site counts as normal. Yet my heart pounds. Looking down, I expect to see each hard beat at my
chest.

Why this vision? What’s it about? Have I relived a particular moment from Steven’s past when he came close to drowning? Did
I experience a trauma in his life? Some psychics do bear the burden of others’ catastrophes, but I don’t want to be one of
them. If my psychic self channels Steven’s life crises, can I block them? Or could I be destined—doomed—to relive events of
his life, a man I barely knew?

Or maybe the vision is post-traumatic stress from the murder, plus the hit-and-run. Some psychic messages speak in symbols.
The drowning, is it symbolic? Water for blood? Whichever, I’m limp, my scalp actually tender from the “log.” Steven in water
with a tree trunk? It’s as vivid as the young man’s corpse. There’s one practical thing to do. I take a deep breath, pick
up the scrub pail, hold it away from my body, then pour the bloody water down my toilet, flush, step out of the bathroom.
Another intake of breath, a second flush. And a third.

If only I’d known Steven better.

If only I had not known him at all.

What about my bloody door? Loath to step out and face that brushwork pattern, I force myself to go speak to one of the cops,
Sergeant Dorecki, a nervous, pale-faced man who could use a few hours in the sun. He tells me Steven’s body will be removed
to the ME.

“Is that the morgue?”

“The medical examiner.” His lip twitches. “Yes, the morgue. It takes four to six hours for police to work a homicide scene.”

“Will the police photographer take photos of this door?”

“Already did, ma’am. Took quite a few.”

“The blood marks, don’t they they look deliberate, like Oriental writing?” But the sergeant won’t say. I ask, “Will the police
clean the marks from my door when you’re all through?”

“Clean the door? No, ma’am.”

It dawns on me, the whole upstairs cleanup will be my job when the police are finally finished. Mr. Clean, that’s who I need.
Mr. Clean in his white muscle shirt and earring. In person.