And Leave Her Lay Dying (4 page)

“Jack the Bear” they called him, for his disposition and his oversized, shaggy appearance.

Jacques Charles Kavander stood six-foot four and weighed two hundred and fifty pounds. His mother, Marie, a volatile and fiercely proud Québécoise, had been working as a cook in a Maine lumber camp when she first tangled with Charlie Kavander, a cutting crew foreman with massive arms and a constant snarl. Their marriage produced dozens of physical battles, three charges of disturbing the peace, and one son. Over the years they were separated only long enough for Marie to storm out the door and ride a bus back to her family in Rivière-du-Loup where she would call Charlie, demanding that he drive up and bring her home immediately. Which he always did without fail.

When Jacques was sixteen years old, his father sat watching him chop wood, approached him and rested a hand on the boy's shoulder. “You're going to be a big guy,” he said. “Big mean guys like you and me, there are two things we can do. We can stay here, work in the lumber camps, ducking trees and axes, getting drunk every Saturday night. Or we can become cops. I think you should be a cop. It's safer.”

His son shook his head. “I'm going to do both,” he said. “I'm going to work with you in the bush and save my money for college. Then I'll be a cop. But not a dumb one.”

He obtained his degree in criminology, graduating
cum laude
and with more than passing interest from two professional football teams, whose entreaties he ignored. In over twenty years as a Boston beat cop and detective, Jack Kavander drew his service revolver only once although he was shot at on three different occasions. On one occasion he had been hit, and with a 38-calibre bullet buried in his thigh had launched himself at his assailant with such ferocity that the man, a parole violator caught ransacking a warehouse, turned to flee just as Jack the Bear's massive hand clamped on his shoulder.

Later, Kavander and the fugitive both rode in the same ambulance to the hospital. Kavander was released several days before the other man, who was treated for several broken ribs, a broken jaw, a severely sprained arm and mild concussion suffered from falling downstairs while attempting to escape custody. Or so it was recorded in the official files.

Now nearing sixty, Kavander still carried his massive frame ironing-board erect. His hair was white and close­cropped, the limp from the bullet wound grew more noticeable every year, and his voice had acquired the rasp and growl of an idling diesel.

Kavander's appointment as Captain of Detectives ten years earlier had at first elated the Boston police force. “He's one of us,” the officers nodded to each other. “A cop's cop. He knows what it's like out on the street.” But the optimism soon grew jaded. Within months, Jack the Bear began his conversion from top cop to common bureaucrat, distancing himself from the everyday concerns of police officers and placing emphasis on procedures.

“You have to admit, Kavander's living proof of the theory of evolution,” Ollie Schantz once observed over an after­hours beer. “Trouble is, he's evolving the wrong way. First he was a whistle, then he was a badge. Now he's a suit that's turning into a jock-strap.”

Sitting across from Kavander in the captain's office, McGuire remembered Ollie's joke and smiled.

“You think this is funny, McGuire?” Kavander growled.

“Not a bit, Jack.”

“Damn right it isn't. Look, I don't care if Rosen says you sleep with diseased camels, you don't lose your cool in court and try to pop a defence lawyer in the mouth.” He pulled a toothpick from the box in his desk and began chewing on it, the residual habit of a reformed two-pack-a-day smoker. “What if this bag of shit, this Wilmer kid, what if he walks?”

“He can't walk,” McGuire protested.

“Higgins thinks he will.”

“Higgins can't let him. He knows the kid is as guilty as Judas.”

“Rosen's going after bail until the trial is rescheduled.” Kavander examined the end of his toothpick. “He'll probably get it too. Won't be the first time.”

“It's a wonderful world,” McGuire muttered.

The telephone on Kavander's desk rang. He picked it up, snarled his name, and grunted single-syllable words into the receiver before crashing it down again.

“The kid walks,” he said, staring out the window to Berkeley Street. “Judge Scaife declared a mistrial. Higgins is pissed. We're months from a new trial date, and the commissioner wants to see me in an hour.” He swung his head to face McGuire. “What the hell am I going to do with you, Joe?”

“I could always resign.”

“The very idea is giving me a hard-on.”

“Want to call your wife, give her the good news?”

“You used to be funny, McGuire. Keep it up, you could be the funniest unemployed cop in town.”

“Then you'll have to push me, Jack. Because I'm not jumping.”

“The commissioner will want your ass.”

McGuire felt the colour rise in his face. “Tell him to come and get it,” he spat at Kavander. “Tell him by the time he arrives I'll let every paper in the state know this is the same commissioner who awarded me three commendations in the last five years—”

“You and Ollie,” Kavander growled.

“What?”

“He gave them to you and Ollie together. And frankly, McGuire, since Ollie retired you haven't been worth a hell of a lot to me.”

McGuire lowered his voice, trying to keep his emotions under control. “We had the best conviction record in the state—”

“And the more I think about it,” Kavander exploded, “the more I'm convinced there was only one brain between the two of you and it's lying in bed over in Revere Beach!”

McGuire stood up, his hands in his pockets. “Jack, I'm as good a cop as you've got here.”

“Then prove it to me, McGuire.” Kavander's voice softened. “Find a way of proving it to me and keeping your nose clean until we put Wilmer some place where he can spend the rest of his life being gang-banged on a fixed schedule.”

“You got any ideas?”

Kavander leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, I got some ideas. Sit down and I'll tell them to you.”

“Grey files? He's got you doing grey files?” Bernie Lipson poked at the slice of lemon in his soda water, not believing what he heard.

McGuire nodded and sipped his Kronenbourg, savouring the slightly sweet French beer.

“That's only until the new trial, right?” Ralph Innes surveyed the interior of Hutch's, the dark Stuart Street clam bar favoured by headquarters cops. “They get that snot-nosed Wilmer back in court, you testify again, and you're back in harness, am I right?”

“If I want it,” McGuire replied. He slumped against the back of the booth.

“You've got to want it, Joe.” Bernie Lipson stared solemnly back at McGuire. “Guy like you, you can't throw away a career just because you tried to rearrange a lawyer's face.” Lipson grinned. “By the way, apparently Judge Scaife can't talk to anybody about what happened in court yesterday without breaking up. He says the expression on Rosen's face when you grabbed him was the funniest thing he'd seen in thirty years on the bench. He wanted to do it himself, that's what I bet.”

“Oh my goodness,” Ralph Innes interrupted. “Here comes paradise, mounted on the two longest legs in the city.”

The other men looked up to see Janet Parsons striding through the crowded bar to their table. On the way, she acknowledged greetings from police officers and ignored the stares of strangers admiring her lean figure, her long dark hair swaying in a loosely-curled ponytail. The strangers assumed she was a fashion model; only the police officers knew she was in fact Detective First Class Janet Parsons, Homicide Squad, Boston Police Department.

“Hi, sweetie,” Innes said as he slid along the booth to make way for her. “What do you say we go back to my place from here? Just you and me and a whip and two midgets.”

“Jesus, Ralph, don't you ever stop?” Bernie Lipson scowled at the younger man. Devoted to his family, Lipson rarely engaged in after-hours social sessions. The news of McGuire's confrontation with Kavander had drawn Lipson to the nearby bar for one glass of soda water.

Lipson had become McGuire's partner when Ollie Schantz retired, but when his relaxed style conflicted too often with McGuire's intensity, Kavander had split the team and reassigned them. They continued to take an interest in each other's concerns. Especially when it came to dealing with Jack the Bear.

Janet Parsons settled herself in the booth and waved the waiter over, ignoring Innes's comment. She ordered a Dubonnet on ice and smiled at McGuire and Lipson.

“Can't figure you out, Legs,” Innes grinned. “With all my other girls I'm a regular Rudolph Vaselino.”

“Ralph,” she replied, looking down at her lap as she smoothed her skirt, “sometimes you are so repulsive I'm surprised your right hand still goes to bed with you.” She turned quickly to catch McGuire's eye. “I don't believe what I heard. Has Kavander really got you working the files?”

“Grey files,” McGuire nodded. “Review them, look for screw-ups, see what's worth running down, then send them off to the Bomb Shelter.”

Grey files were dormant, unsolved homicide cases. No murder case was officially declared closed until a conviction had been secured. When a team of detectives had exhausted all leads and moved on to a new case, the information they had assembled was “grey-filed”—set aside; the case remained open but inactive. All the documentation was stored in grey envelopes identified by file number, victim's name, and date and location of the crime. Data in these four categories were entered into the department's overloaded computer for cross-indexing while the paperwork—autopsy reports, crime-scene photographs, witness statements, investigation memos—were transferred to a basement area known as the Bomb Shelter. The majority of grey file murders remained unsolved; convictions happened only as a result of blind luck, guilty conscience or death-bed confession.

“First you bury the victim, then you bury the files,” Ollie Schantz once said to describe grey-filing. “Only difference is, after a year it's easier to find the victim than the files.”

“All the grey files?” Janet Parsons asked, leaning across the table to McGuire.

“Last year's,” McGuire answered. “My choice. I take a bunch of them, walk through the records, assess how efficient the investigating team was, maybe check out some new angles.” He rotated the beer glass in his hands. “If this was the army, it would be one step above cleaning the latrines.”

“That's disgusting, Joe.” Janet sat back in the booth and shook her head. “A guy with your experience, all those years you put in. Kavander's acting like a bigger ass than ever.”

“He wants me to resign,” McGuire said, smiling warmly at her.

“Will you?” Lipson asked.

“Not yet. Not until I'm ready.”

“You got any back-up?” Innes inquired.

“I've got a car, a desk and a computer terminal. That's it.” McGuire drained his beer, then looked around at the others, who studied him with solemn expressions. “Come on, it's not so bad. The retrial is scheduled for six months from now. We'll get Wilmer put away and I'll be golden again. Meanwhile I get to come and go as I please. Even work at home.” He grinned at Lipson. “Just might do me good. No nice Jewish boy bringing me bagels and blintzes to stuff in my fat gut.”

“Hey, Joe,” Innes said. “If you need something, anything, you call me, right? Bernie and me, we'll get you whatever you need. I'll bet you even put away some of those grey file cases.” He turned to look at the others. “Ten bucks says Joe comes up with something, something solid so he can put the grab on a guy, get a conviction. Am I right?”

“Ralph, it's a clerk's job,” McGuire said before anyone could respond. “Let's not make a big deal about it, okay?”

Innes shrugged, then slid along the booth to bump Janet Parson's hip with his own. “Hey, how's your love life, Legs?” he asked. “You getting all you need without me around to sizzle your cymbals?”

“It's none of your business, Ralph,” she replied, staring at McGuire.

“Which means it ain't so hot, right?” Innes placed his arm delicately around her shoulder. “What you need is a young stud like me. If things were good in the sack, you would have said something. They're not so good, so you tell me to mind my own business.” He took a long swallow from his drink. “I rest my case.”

“Also your cock,” Janet said, and Lipson exploded in laughter while McGuire smiled in silence.

“Anything left in your glass?”

She raised herself on one elbow and reached across him to the night table, the motion pulling the sheet from her body and exposing the gentle slope of her back, the slight hollow of her waist, the smooth swelling at her hips.

McGuire traced the lines of her body with his hand, sweeping his fingers back along her stomach, dragging his nails against her smooth skin.

“Don't,” she giggled. Janet Parsons lay back and studied him, the glass of rye and water in her hand. “You know the best part about sex?” she asked.

“Damn right. It feels good.”

“No, I mean philosophically.”

“Parsons, you're the only woman I ever met who could get philosophical about sex.”

“Listen to me. Making love forces you to live in the moment.” She reached out with her free hand to touch the scar on his upper lip. “We spend so much time regretting or missing the past, or worrying about the future. Both are a waste of time. But when you're making love, you're totally wrapped in
now
. That's what makes it so special, isn't it?”

“Well, I'll agree that it's never a waste of time, anyway.” He took her hand in his and brought it to his lips.