Brutality (41 page)

Fina held up her hands in a conciliatory gesture. “That’s for the attorneys to figure out. I’m just trying to learn more about the soccer program.”

“And about her death,” Sheila suggested.

Fina nodded. “Yes. I’m also trying to determine who killed Liz.”

Sheila picked at a pill on her scrubs. The teddy bears were drawn to look as if they were flying around the rainbows. How was that reassuring to anyone? Fina wondered.

“I can’t tell you more than my husband did,” Sheila said. “He’s the expert on NEU sports.”

“That’s what I’ve gathered,” Fina said. “He seems to be incredibly popular at the university.”

“He is.” Her expression didn’t give anything away.

“How does he find the time for everything?” Fina wondered. “Work, family, NEU? Does he ever sleep?”

Sheila gave her a tight smile. “He’s very organized and very productive. He’d be bored if he didn’t have a lot going on.”

“I know the type,” Fina said. “Do you ever go to any NEU events?”

“Sometimes we take our boys.” Sheila looked out the window. “I imagine they’ll want to go more often the older they get.” Fina thought perhaps there was some wistfulness in her tone.

“It’s fun to do as a family,” Fina said. “When I was growing up, we went to a lot of ball games together. We still do sometimes. Come to think of it, it’s the only place we all get along.”

“Good thing our boys love sports,” Sheila said, shaking her head. “Imagine if they wanted to play the flute or visit museums?”

Who’s to say they didn’t? Lots of interests and preferences were determined by wiring, but parental influence couldn’t be underestimated. Were the Ludlow children born competitive or did they rise to the occasion when it became clear that Carl wouldn’t have it any other way? Would Matthew have been an opera lover in another clan, or Fina a fan of the ballet?

“Is there anyone at NEU who has a bone to pick with your husband?” Fina asked.

“Why are you asking me that?”

“Like I said, I’m just trying to learn about the sports programs and the different relationships at play.”

“My husband gets along with most everyone,” Sheila said. “It’s one of the reasons he’s good at his job and a successful booster.”

“Right.” Fina nodded.

It was clear that asking Sheila about her husband’s alleged infidelities would be fruitless. Whether or not the rumors were true and whether or not Sheila knew about them, Fina couldn’t imagine she would discuss it with a virtual stranger. Some people wanted nothing more than to spill their guts and tell their sad stories, but Sheila Lafferty was not one of those people.

“Are you worried what might happen if the lawsuit goes against NEU?” Fina asked. “In terms of the athletic program?”

“I can’t imagine it will,” Sheila said, “and even if it does, there’s no way the school will let the athletic program suffer. It’s too important.”

“But if Kevin weren’t as involved,” Fina mused, “that would be quite an adjustment.”

“Why wouldn’t he be as involved?” Sheila fiddled with the rings on her left hand. She was wearing a modest-sized diamond engagement ring and a thicker gold wedding band.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe if there were some shake-up with the program?”

Sheila looked at her watch again. “Look, I don’t think there’s anything else I can tell you, and I’ve got to leave for work.”

She rose from the couch and headed toward the front door. Fina followed her and pulled on her boots and coat.

“Did you go to the Medical Society benefit dinner with Kevin?” Fina asked.

“That’s a random question.”

“I’m just covering all the bases.”

“What does the benefit dinner have to do with anything?” Sheila asked, and then the answer dawned on her. “I wasn’t at that dinner, but I can assure you my husband was. There are a lot of people who can vouch for him.” She pulled open the front door. “He had nothing to do with that woman’s death.”

“Well, people saw him at the beginning of the evening and the end, but nobody’s really sure where he was in the middle.”

“Good-bye,” Sheila said, putting her hand on Fina’s shoulder in a not-so-friendly way.

“Thanks for talking to me, Sheila.”

“I wish I hadn’t,” she said, slamming the door after her.

Another satisfied customer,
Fina thought, returning to her car.

27.

Fina got to Medford a little after five and sat in her car outside the clothing store for ten minutes. She wanted to make sure that Joe and Stuart had plenty of time for the changing of the guard, and it gave her a chance to reflect on her conversation with Sheila Lafferty. There were various possible outcomes from their little chat, but Fina thought two were most likely. The first was that Sheila would tell Kevin and he would go ballistic. The second was that Sheila wouldn’t tell him anything. Fina couldn’t predict which way it would go, but she wouldn’t be surprised if Kevin left her an angry voice mail before day’s end.

Inside the clothing store, an extremely tall man stood in front of a three-way mirror as another man wielded a tape measure around his treelike limbs. The customer was on a small raised platform, rendering him even more giant. Fina found Stuart behind the counter, staring at a computer screen.

“Hi there,” Fina said. She’d fluffed her hair in the car and reapplied her lip gloss. She wasn’t opposed to using her feminine wiles for the greater good.

Stuart looked up briefly. “Hi.” His head bobbed back up to study her more closely.

“I was here the other day,” Fina said. “I spoke with you and Joe about the man I was trying to locate.” She held up the photo.

“Right. I remember,” he said. “Joe isn’t here. You can try back tomorrow.”

“Actually,” Fina said, leaning against the counter, “I was kind of hoping to talk to you instead.”

“Yeah?”

Fina smoothed the photo down. “I know he’s a customer,” Fina said, “because of his socks.”

Stuart looked at the man’s ankle. “What do you mean?”

“His socks. He got them from this store.” Fina didn’t know that for sure, but there was no harm in bluffing. Either Stuart was going to give her some info or he wasn’t. Lying about the guy’s sock purchases didn’t hurt anyone.

Stuart scratched his belly. He was wearing a mustard-colored sweater that made him look like an oversized jar of Grey Poupon. It wasn’t a good look.

“I don’t know the guy,” he finally said.

“But you have an idea?” Fina rummaged around in her bag and pulled out a small packet of tissues. Before she’d left the car, she’d positioned a couple of twenties so they were peeking out of the plastic sleeve. Stuart’s gaze was drawn to the cash.

He glanced around the store. The giant customer and the tailor were talking, and a couple of other shoppers were eyeing the merchandise.

“I don’t know who he is,” he admitted quietly, “but I’ve seen him.”

“You don’t have a name or an address?” Fina asked.

Stuart shook his head. Fina looked around the space and noticed two security cameras in opposite corners. If they were working—and that was a big
if
—they might provide evidence that the mystery man was a customer, but it still wouldn’t tell her who he was.

“Do you think Joe knows his name?” Fina asked.

“He pretends to know all the customers, but I doubt it. This isn’t Brooks Brothers, after all,” Stuart said, his mouth veering off into a sneer.

Fina suddenly felt wearied by the whole task. Maybe she should just call Cristian and share this new development, but that might lead to even greater frustration. He would investigate the same avenues she would, but in a less timely fashion, and he’d get all the credit.

“Do you have a mailing list or some other system for keeping track of your customers?” she asked.

He rested his hand on the edge of the counter as if he were sidling up to the saloon in a western. “Maybe.”

Fina put the tissues and the money back into her bag and started to turn away. Stuart was completely out of his league when it came to bluffing, and even if he let her walk away, Fina could live with that. A willingness to walk away was the key to successful negotiating.

“Wait,” he said, raising his hand. “I didn’t say no.”

“Yeah, but I really don’t have time for maybe,” she said, taking another step toward the door.

“You don’t want to talk to this guy because he lost something, do you?” Stuart asked.

Fina didn’t respond. If her calculations were correct, Stuart would be more motivated to help if he believed it was part of a cloak-and-dagger operation, not the recovery of lost property.

“I’ll give you a list,” he said, his eyes trained on her bag. “I don’t know what good it’s going to do you.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Fina said. She wasn’t sure what she’d do with it, either, but she’d learned never to dismiss any piece of information, no matter how useless it seemed in the moment.

Stuart clicked the mouse, and a printer under the counter started humming. Fina reached into her bag and pulled out the cash. The risk when paying for information was that people told you what they thought you wanted to hear, which was not necessarily the truth. But it was a risk that she was willing to take. More often than not, the recipients of Fina’s bribes weren’t interested in repeat visits from her.

He handed her a few sheets of paper with names, e-mail addresses, and mailing addresses.

“We send out a lot of coupons,” Stuart said.

Fina took the list and scanned it. There were about three hundred names listed. Tracking these people down would be a huge task, assuming her theory wasn’t completely off base to begin with, but she couldn’t spend time worrying about that. She had started down this road, and when it came to detecting, it was always better to keep moving than to stand still.

—

F
ina dreaded tackling the list of customers, nor did she have a plan for how to do it, so she decided to put the information aside for the moment. She was getting hungry and called Cristian, but he was tied up at work and dinner wasn’t an option. In the interest of killing two birds with one stone, she called Matthew at the office.

“Are you free for dinner?” she asked him.

“What’s the catch?”

“You’re so cynical.”

“Sorry. I’ll be free in a couple of hours,” Matthew said. “Why don’t you meet me here?”

“Actually, I have a place in mind in Cambridge.”

“So there is a catch!”

“I’m trying to cross paths with a certain someone, and he frequents this particular place,” Fina said.

“Does ‘cross paths’ mean you want to talk to the guy?”

“Probably not, but I’ll play it by ear.”

“Well . . .” Matthew trailed off.

“The food is good, there’s live music,” Fina said, “and they make lots of fancy cocktails. It’ll be fun.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“No. I wouldn’t invite you to something that was going to be dangerous.”

He hooted. “I’ll tell Scotty you said that.”

“I didn’t invite him that day. He invited me, remember?” Fina really wished the car bomb culprit could be found so she could clarify the target. If she was going to be given a lot of grief, at least it should be earned.

“Okay,” Matthew said. “Where is it?”

Fina gave him the address. “And take off your tie,” she said. “We don’t want to stick out like sore thumbs.”

“Jeez. Any more rules?”

“Nope. That’s it. See you soon!”

She smiled in anticipation. Good booze and a good brother were a winning combination.

—

T
wo hours later, Matthew ordered a Manhattan and Fina opted for a glass of red wine at the bar. Technically she was on the clock, so hard alcohol seemed like a bad idea. Not long after they sat down at a table tucked into the corner, the man she’d spoken with two days earlier made his way over to their table.

“Hey, I saw you a couple of nights ago, but you left before I could stop by,” he said to Fina.

“Sorry about that. My friend needed to get going.”

“Amy, right?” he asked, smiling.

“That’s right.”

Matthew looked at her askance and studied the menu.

“And you’re Marshall?” Fina asked.

“Right.” He extended his hand.

“This is my friend Matthew,” Fina said as the men shook hands.

They chatted for a few more minutes, then Marshall was summoned to the bar.

“Amy?” Matthew asked once they were alone.

“You know I use different names sometimes.”

“Why are you using one here?”

“Because I couldn’t risk having Marshall mention me to the guy I’m looking for. Have you ever met another Fina?”

“No, thankfully,” her brother said. “But if the guy’s here, isn’t he going to see you?”

“Possibly, but it’s getting pretty crowded. Even if he does, I can explain it away.”

“Of that, I have no doubt,” Matthew said, holding up the rocks glass of his newly arrived drink.

Fina clinked her glass against his and took a sip. She didn’t know anything about wine, but her rule of thumb was to choose the second least expensive option. Unless Carl was paying, in which case she would opt for the second most expensive option. It still wasn’t clear who was footing the bill for this investigation, so she erred on the side of frugality.

Fina had decided before Matthew arrived that she wasn’t going to bring up the Haley situation. Something had to be done, but until she had a plan, she’d keep her mouth shut. Harping on the issue might just annoy Scotty and Matthew, and she needed their support. The information about Karla’s kids was creating a slow burn in her stomach, like an ulcer, but Fina knew that she needed to be strategic and clever. She didn’t want to be the next Ludlow exiled from the family fold.

It was a welcome respite to spend time with Matthew and not discuss family drama. He got a second drink, and they sampled a variety of foods, including pork belly sliders, oysters, roasted Brussels sprouts, and sweet potato fries.

“This is a weird combination of food,” Fina noted, pushing at a piece of octopus with her fork.

“But it’s all delicious,” Matthew said.