And Leave Her Lay Dying (8 page)

He chose a corner table and ordered chili and a Kronenbourg from a middle-aged waitress, then sat and watched the crowd of after-hours office workers who were enjoying a quick relaxer before heading for home. Men and women stood three-deep at the bar, laughing, shouting, ignoring the snowy image on the wall-mounted television set.

When the chili arrived it was fiery hot and thick, with chunks of stringy beef. By the time McGuire finished, most of the after-work crowd had departed. The waitress brought his check.

“Anything else?” she asked in a lazy drawl. Her hair, bleached and dyed to the colour of pineapple, was swept up on her head; a few strands had escaped and dangled over her eyes.

“Who owns this place?” McGuire asked.

“You a cop?” the waitress replied.

McGuire said as a matter of fact he was.

“We breaking any laws here?”

“Not as far as I can tell,” McGuire said, smiling. “Just curious to know who the owner might be.”

“Marlene,” she replied. “Over there,” and she jerked her head in the direction of the bar where a woman leaned against the cash register, her arms folded across her ample chest. McGuire dropped some money on the table and crossed the room to the bar, sliding onto an empty stool in front of the owner. “You Marlene Richards?” he asked.

The woman turned and studied him carefully. She apparently liked what she saw because a broad smile began to spread across her face and continued to grow wider while she spoke, in a voice whose edges were frayed by smoke and whisky. “That's me, sweetie. Somebody send you looking for me?”

“Kind of.” McGuire returned the smile.

“Hope they gave me a good recommendation.” She stepped forward, rested her elbows on the bar and looked coyly into McGuire's eyes. “'Course, all my recommendations are good.” He could smell her perfume, heavy and sweet. “Who did the favour, sent you looking for me?”

“Guy called Andrew Cornell,” McGuire replied.

The smile froze and she straightened up, tilted her head at him and asked “Who the fuck are you?”

“He's a cop.” The waitress had followed McGuire to the bar after clearing his table. Now she looked at him with distaste, stuck out her bottom lip and blew a few tendrils of hair away from her face.

“Nothing wrong with entertaining a cop,” Marlene Richards said. “Sometimes get a few of them in here for a beer after work.”

“Any of them ask about Andrew Cornell?” McGuire asked.

“Who?” The waitress frowned.

“Finish clearing your tables, Shirl.” When she left, Marlene Richards pulled a stool out from under her side of the bar and sat across from McGuire. “Look, I went through all this crap with you guys last summer when Jennifer was murdered.” She looked away, then quickly back at him. “That's what this is all about, isn't it?”

She was perhaps forty-five, her face too fleshy to be pretty and her make-up too heavy to be flattering. Her thick, dark hair fell in curls to her shoulders. Her eyes were large and lively, her lips full and almost pouring, and her hands were small and pudgy; she wore cheap silver rings on each finger.

“Did you know him well?” McGuire asked, ignoring her question.

“Not as well as some people.” Reaching under the bar she retrieved a container of fruit juice and poured some in a small glass. “You drinking anything or are you going to tell me you're hard at work?”

McGuire said he was both and he wouldn't mind another Kronenbourg.

Her smile returned. “A man of taste.” She turned and shouted down the bar: “Shirl! Bring a frog beer with you!”

“Should I insist on some ID?” she asked after the waitress slid a bottle of the French beer and an empty glass in front of McGuire. “You look better than your picture,” she said when he showed his badge and identification. “Me, I look better
in
my pictures. Hides the sags and bags.”

McGuire smiled back at her. “Tell me about Andrew Cornell,” he said.

“Thought I told everybody already. First I told a couple of cops, then a team of detectives, and about a month later some fat-assed slob started coming in here and asking the same questions over again. Sat right there and drank whisky sours. What the hell happened to tough cops who drink nothing but boilermakers? Anyway, he stiffed me for two drinks, as I recall.”

“Do you remember his name?”

“Naw. Had a moustache like a toothbrush and talked like he was standing in a well.” McGuire nodded. Fat Eddie Vance rides again.

“Did Andrew Cornell come in here often?”

“Look, I only saw the guy over a couple of weeks. He was in here four, maybe five times before Jennifer was killed. Never saw him again.”

“Do you think he killed her?” McGuire took a long sip of beer and watched Marlene Richards arch her eyebrows and shrug her shoulders in reply. “Tell me what he was like,” he asked.

She stared off towards the dark end of the bar where the jukebox had grown mercifully silent. “Andy, he was everything Jennifer wasn't. She was loud, he was quiet. She was rough, he was smooth. She dressed like a ten-dollar hooker, he dressed like a window at Brooks Brothers. I remember he came in once wearing one of those French watches, the really expensive ones.”

“Cartier?”

“Yeah, one of those. Jennifer wanted everybody to know about it. Andy, he wouldn't flash it, he'd just sit quietly sipping his beer. But Jennifer told me once, ‘Next time you see him, check out his watch.' She was that kind of broad.”

“Sounds like they were opposites.”

“Yeah. Except in one way. You looked in their eyes and you could see they were both hornier than three-headed goats.” She tilted her head back and laughed, her voice shattering the near silence of the almost-empty bar.

“You learned quite a bit about him in just two weeks,” McGuire said when she calmed down.

“What are you saying, I took him in the back for a quick boink one night?”

McGuire smiled silently in return.

“Well, I might have. Got to know him a little better, I just might have. Guy had a good build. Looked solid in the shoulders, nice flat stomach. And there was something about him.” She searched for a word in her mind. “I don't know, he was kind of . . . mysterious, I guess.”

“You haven't said much about Jennifer,” McGuire commented.

Marlene reached under the bar and poured herself another glass of juice. “Jennifer, she was okay. She was a little . . . intense, I guess. I heard she'd spent some time in one of those rubber-room hotels up the coast, but we all go a little nuts now and then, don't we? Some of us in public, some of us in private. Anyway, one thing I'll say for Jennifer, she stood up for her rights. Other than that, I had no quarrel with her.”

“But other people did.”

Taking a long swallow of juice, she rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

“You want to tell me who?” McGuire asked.

“Hey, I told you. I gave all this stuff to the other bozos last summer. What are you trying to do, catch me in a lie?”

McGuire explained he had reopened Jennifer's file and wanted a fresh perspective on things.

She drained the glass and set it under the counter, then leaned towards him with her elbow on the bar. “Well, there was that guy from the insurance company, Milburn his name was. Used to come in here. Jennifer took him back to her place for a quickie one night and he thought he was in love. Spent the last couple of weeks before she died hanging around here, him playing Bogart and her playing Bergman. All I needed was a record of ‘As Time Goes By' on the jukebox. . . . Anyway, one night he tried to pick a fight with Andy Cornell. Said there's no way Andy could be her brother.”

“Why not?”

“Because Jennifer spread the word that Andy moved in with her. See, this guy—Gerry was his first name, I haven't seen him in here since—he knew she had a bachelor apartment. One of those sofas that convert into a bed, a kitchenette, bathroom, and that was it. I mean, this is a pretty liberal town, but brothers and sisters sleeping together, that's where you draw the line. Milburn, he was in here drunk one night. Told me Jennifer wouldn't see him because she was spending so much time with her brother. So he tried to pick a fight with Andy. Who bolted out the door like a shot.”

“Was Jennifer here that night?”

“No, but she came roaring in about ten minutes later. Looked terrible, too. Wearing a jogging suit, no make-up. Jennifer, she was a woman who needed make-up. I mean, she wasn't a bad-looking broad, but she had to work at it some, you know?”

McGuire said he knew.

“Anyway, she came in loaded for bear, grabbed a bar stool and tore after Gerry before a couple of regulars could grab her. Said he had no right meddling in her life, trying to beat up on her brother, all that stuff.”

“How did she find out?”

“Hell, Andy was out the door as soon as the other guy came at him. Guess he met Jennifer jogging and told her about it, she came running right in. She was all out of breath but ready to kick some ass. Thing is, this Gerry guy was a bit of a pussy himself. I mean, he's in
insurance
, for Christ's sake, and Andy, he doesn't want any part of him. Want another beer?”

McGuire turned down the offer and withdrew his notebook from a jacket pocket. “I've got two names here,” he began, opening the book in front of her.

Marlene leaned closer and tilted the notebook to catch the light, almost brushing her cheek against his. “What are you wearing?” she asked, smiling at him. “Smells good.”

He told her his brand of aftershave.

“That's a new one on me. I just bought a used Jag and now I'm looking for a man who sweats English Leather and pisses gasoline. Let's see who you've got here. Fleckstone. Oh yeah, big shot Fleckstone, the TV producer. Jennifer had the hots for him. Thought he was going to make her a star. Brought him in here a couple of times to show him off. I thought he was a jerk, personally. She did some TV commercials for him, pushing pizzas on channel three. Big deal. She had to put out for him to get those. Talk to Fleckstone, he'll tell you all about Jennifer, star of stage, screen and motel beds. Who else you got?”

Her face fell at the sight of the next name on McGuire's list.

“Frannie. Yeah, poor Frannie.”

“Frances O'Neil. Does she work here?”

Marlene turned to take a check from a waitress. “Used to,” she said over her shoulder as she rang it through the cash register, “until Jennifer was killed and Andy took off.” She handed change to the waitress, returned greetings to a crowd of regulars entering the bar, and leaned towards McGuire again. “Poor thing. She left here one night with Andy. Stars in her eyes. When he disappeared after Jennifer's murder, she was crushed. Never got over it. Walked around here crying until I sent her home. I kept her on for a few weeks, but she just got worse. Turned into a bag of nerves and finally called me to say she quit. Which did me a favour, because I was all set to fire her anyway.”

“Where is she now?”

“Last I heard, she was living with her sister out in Cottage Hill.”

“Do you have an address?”

“Somewhere.” She leaned to retrieve a stack of notepaper from under the counter. “She asked me to mail some money I owed her and I did. Here it is.”

McGuire copied the address in his notebook, then paid for his beer and slid off the bar stool. “Nice to meet you,” he said, nodding to her. “I might be back.”

“Hope so.” Marlene scooped the money and watched him head for the door. “Just remember, McGuire.”

“Remember what?” he asked, shrugging into his winter topcoat.

“Love is nice, but tender lust ain't bad.” She threw her head back and laughed, her voice following him through the door and out into the dark and empty street.

“It's just another neighbourhood bar. They get the office crowd at noon and after work, and then the regulars show up at night to watch the Sox or the Bruins, pinch a little ass, try for a pickup. The owner just might be the raunchiest female bartender you've ever met.”

Ollie lay back listening, his right hand squeezing and releasing the tennis ball with the mindless rhythm of a metronome. “This Cornell woman,” he wheezed. “She a regular there?”

McGuire sipped his coffee before speaking. “Worked just around the corner on Newbury. I'll stop by tomorrow, talk to the owner of the dress shop.”

“The guy she had the fight with at her apartment. Who was he?”

“Don't know. It might be Fleckstone, the television producer. This other guy, the insurance man with the hots for her, he sounds promising too.” He set his coffee cup aside and turned to see Ollie watching him through narrowed eyes.

“The building superintendent bothers me. After she's dead he starts drinking again, hanging around with women. Buys his booze by the case.”

McGuire shrugged. “His wife says he was in bed until almost seven in the morning the day of the murder, except when he got up to check the noise on the fire escape. Either way, he was with her at the time the Cornell woman died. Tough alibi to break, him being dead too.”

“So maybe he helped the brother check out when he got up at four in the morning.”

McGuire nodded. “I thought about that.”

“Doesn't explain the woman,” Ollie began. His eyes shifted quickly to the window.

“What woman?” McGuire could hear Ronnie approaching them, coming down the hall towards the bedroom. “You mean the one Reich was seeing? His wife could be wrong. I'll bet he was out drinking with the brother. He's hiding Andy somewhere and Andy is paying him off, maybe keeping him in booze until he gets out of town.”

“You think the brother did it?” Ollie asked, facing the darkness through the window.

“I'm not thinking anything until I talk to Fleckstone and the others.” McGuire stood up as Ronnie entered quietly behind him. It was time for her to feed Ollie and change his bedclothes. He's like a baby, McGuire realized. He has to be bathed, fed and cleaned up after. “I'm seeing him, the waitress and the insurance man tomorrow,” he said. “And the woman who owned the dress shop. I'll come back tomorrow night and fill you in.” He kissed Ronnie lightly on the cheek. “Gotta go, sweetheart. Thanks for the coffee.”

She gave him a thin smile, and the gesture revealed to McGuire the burden she bore and would bear for the rest of her life, caring for her husband as she would a helpless child.

Half an hour later, McGuire found a parking space within a block of his apartment, congratulated himself on his good luck and began walking back along Gloucester, his head down and his shoulders hunched against the cold.

High heels clicked towards him from the opposite direction, and he looked up to see Janet Parsons. They met at his apartment house stairs and she touched his arm gently and reached to kiss his cheek, her face silent and solemn.

“How have you been?” he asked, and her eyes gave the answer.

She perched on the edge of a chair like a bird poised for flight. Her coffee had grown cold in the earthenware mug on the table beside her.

“I guess I wasn't thinking when all this . . . when all this began,” she said in a dull, flat voice. “I still care for you, Joe, but . . .”

McGuire poured his second cup of coffee. “You don't owe me anything,” he replied. “You never did.” He looked at her over the edge of his coffee mug. “What did you tell him?”

“As little as possible. Why hurt him more?”

“How does he feel about me?”

“You mean does he want revenge?” She shook her head. “No, that's not Max. He just wants me back. He wants everything the way it used to be. Like it was a year ago.”

“Nothing can ever be the way it used to be. Things can't be the same ever again.” He was echoing Ollie Schantz—sooner or later he always did.

“He wants it better than it was.” She raised her chin and her eyes glistened in the light from McGuire's reading lamp. “How about you? How are you doing, staying away from headquarters? Bernie, Ralph . . . they're all going to miss you.”

“Kavander won't.”

“I hear rumours that you're not coming back. Some people are even saying the commissioner wants you gone.”

“Maybe he'll get his wish.” McGuire stood up and walked across the room to his elaborate stereo, the only luxury he afforded himself. “I don't miss Berkeley Street as much as I thought I would.” He selected a CD and slipped it into the player. “Ronnie Schantz is trying to get me fat with her cooking and Ollie and I are working together on a case.”

“Ollie? I thought . . .”

“He's only paralyzed from the neck down, you know.”

Soft piano music filled the room, rich, slightly dissonant sounds, introspective and slow. “Know who's playing?” he asked, turning to her.

She tilted her head, listening. “Bill Evans,” she said with a slight smile. “Am I right?”

“Six months ago, you didn't know him from Liberace.”

“Six months ago, I didn't know a lot of things.” She glanced at her watch and stood up. “I shouldn't have come here,” she stammered. “Except that I felt I owed you—”

“You don't owe me a thing!” he snapped. Then, shaking his head, he said it again softly: “You don't owe me a thing. Go home, Janet. Quit feeling sorry for me and your husband. And don't ever start feeling sorry for yourself. That's one thing I liked about you. You were the only woman I ever met who I couldn't imagine feeling sorry for herself. If that was an illusion, don't spoil it now.”

Later, standing at the window, he watched her leave the building and walk down Commonwealth to her car. He turned away, not seeing the man who had been standing across the street looking up at his window, and who began to follow Janet, walking several paces behind her.

The morning arrived too soon and too cold. Clouds skimmed low across the sky and dampness seeped through McGuire's heavy winter topcoat, scarf and gloves.

McGuire located Fleckstone Productions above an antique store in a three-storey brick building on Charles Street. At the top of the stairs an attractive young woman looked up from behind her colonial desk and smiled as he approached. She was speaking on the telephone, and while McGuire waited he scanned the office decor, which looked like an extension of the antique shop below them. Nova Scotia pine cupboards were mixed with Pennsylvania Shaker and English Chippendale furniture for an eclectic effect, as though each piece had been selected at random. McGuire knew that there was nothing random about this collection; the style was the result of a calculated effort that bespoke money. Large sums of money.

The prints on the wall were Courier and Ives, the carpet a rich and very old Persian, the light fixtures all burnished brass. But above, thrusting itself incongruously into the period mood of the room, was a gleaming wall-mounted television monitor.

“May I help you?”

The woman at the reception desk looked up and radiated an orthodontically perfect smile.

McGuire showed her his badge, gave his name and asked to see Richard Fleckstone.

Her eyes widened slightly but the smile never wavered. She punched a button on her telephone, announced McGuire, and with the same smile directed him to the end of the hall leading off the reception area.

Walking down the hall he passed several small cubicles. From behind their closed doors came the sound of rock music or amplified, professionally modulated voices. McGuire recognized the spiel of a popular used car pitchman as he passed one closed door; the musical theme of a local public affairs television show escaped from another.

At one open cubicle, McGuire paused to watch a cluster of young people dressed in jeans and sweatshirts or outrageous punk fashions, all of them bent over electronic equipment and intently studying images on banks of small television screens, speaking among themselves in a shorthand language as alien to McGuire as Mandarin Chinese.

The elaborately carved oak doors at the end of the hall swung open and McGuire approached a large overweight man standing in the doorway.

“I'm Richard Fleckstone,” said the man slowly. His voice was deep and resonant and he breathed noisily, as though speech were an effort.

McGuire once again showed his badge and identified himself. Fleckstone nodded and McGuire followed him through the door into a large high-ceilinged room cluttered with papers, stacks of video tapes, boxes and books. One wall was devoted to electronic equipment: a computer system, an expensive rack-mounted stereo, two VCR units and a bank of television monitors. An antique barber's chair sat alone by a corner window, facing out towards Beacon Hill.

Richard Fleckstone shuffled papers on his desk, the top of which was hidden beneath layers of photographs of attractive young women. “Excuse the mess,” he said, in the same bored yet almost out-of-breath manner. “I'm in the middle of casting a major shoot and I wasn't expecting company. Can I get you a coffee?” He looked up to see McGuire watching him carefully.

Fleckstone had a boxer's physique: a fighter past his prime and out of shape. His rounded shoulders flowed into a massive chest which ended abruptly at a soft, protruding stomach. His face was round, the grey hair thinning. But it was Fleckstone's stance which suggested he belonged in a ring: he stood with his stocky legs apart and balanced, the head bent slightly, the lids half-lowered, the eyes watching McGuire warily from an off-centre position—a boxer's stance.

“I'll pass on the coffee,” McGuire said. “Just tell me about Jennifer Cornell.”

“Thought so.” Fleckstone, wearing a blue blazer over a worn sweatshirt and cotton slacks, sat down and rested his feet, clad in white tennis shoes, on the corner of the desk. “Couldn't think of any other reason for you to come.”

“What the hell do you do here?” McGuire asked, sweeping his arm to take in the wall of electronic equipment.

“I used to do nothing but TV commercials,” Fleckstone replied. “Still do some. But now we're into other things. Industrial movies. Corporate presentations, training films. ‘Six Steps to Sales Success.' Stuff like that. Even some rock videos.” He swivelled in his chair and pointed to the television monitors. “See that top screen, second from the left? Watch.”

McGuire followed the producer's gesture. The monitor flashed a frozen black-and-white image of a silhouetted man in a harshly lit street. As McGuire watched, the scene shifted almost imperceptibly and the street lights acquired a blue tone. The man's hat, a forties-style fedora, faded from black to chocolate brown and in the background a white neon sign was transformed to orange.

“Colorizing,” Fleckstone explained. “We take old black­and-white movies, put them through a computer one frame at a time and add colour. Gives a whole new dimension. This one's
The Communion Murders
. Old Sydney Greenstreet flick.”

“Isn't there a lot of controversy about that?” McGuire asked.

“Yeah. Some. These movies, they were never made for colour. They were exposed, framed, edited, all for black-and­white.”

“So why do it?”

Fleckstone smiled. “Hey, you want art, you go to an art gallery. I'm a businessman. I've got over three million tied up here in video and computer equipment and I pay sixteen people to run it. First thing I ask anybody applying for a job here, the artsy-fartsy types with their degree in video arts or cinematography, kids who grew up expecting to become Eisenstein or Spielberg, I say, ‘You concerned about prostituting yourself?' If they answer yes, I say, ‘So how come you're looking for work in a whorehouse?'”

“Did Jennifer Cornell work here?”

“Jennifer? You kidding?” Fleckstone looked away, shaking his head and smiling. “Hell, no.”

“How did you know her?”

Fleckstone looked back at McGuire from under half­lowered eyelids. “Should I have a lawyer here?”

“You can if you want one. My suggestion is, save yourself the fee until I read you your Miranda rights.”

Fleckstone considered McGuire's advice before leaning back with his hands clasped behind his head. “I met Jennifer about a year ago at a party over on Newbury Street. A photographic exhibit or something. She latched on to me as soon as she heard I was in video work. Said she'd done some amateur theatre productions and wanted a chance in commercials.”

“And you gave her work?”

“A couple of local things. Carpet store commercial, some spots for a Chevy dealership in Quincy. I think she played a mother in a training video we did on dental hygiene.” He grinned at McGuire. “Not as much glamour in this business as some people think, but you can make a few bucks.”

“Were you ever in Pour Richards?”

Fleckstone nodded. “It's a dump. I met Jennifer there a couple of times. She liked to impress the regulars, have people meet her at her special table in the corner. She'd introduce me, saying ‘This is Richard Fleckstone, I bet you've heard of him.' Most of them hadn't and I told her to knock it off, don't try to come on like a star.”

“Were you sleeping with her?”

Fleckstone froze his gaze on McGuire, then allowed a smile to crease his face. “Boy, you get right to the point, don't you?”

“Beats wasting time.”

The other man nodded. “Yeah, I spent a few nights at her place, she spent a few nights at mine. No big secret. I've got two ex-wives and three kids too, in case you're curious.”

“You drive a white BMW, spoiler on the back?” McGuire asked.

“Sure. Parked in the lot. You want to check it out?”

McGuire shook his head. “You had a fight with Jennifer at her apartment about two weeks before she was murdered, right?”