Cold Case (2 page)

There was no soda fountain, so I lurked the aisles, for all the world a shoplifter, or a woman too chicken-shit to buy a box of Trojans from a pimple-faced teenaged clerk. The newsrack provided momentary diversion. The
Star
trumpeted DEATH ROW INMATE GIVES BIRTH TO ALIEN TRIPLETS! in uppercase twenty-four-point bold.

The
Herald
led with a heavily hyped local story: WILL VOTERS GO FOR DIVORCED MAN WED TO WOMAN 19 YEARS YOUNGER?
Boston
magazine handled the same sludge more tastefully, focusing on the upcoming gubernatorial race with a simple, CAMERON: THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING.

By the time the phone rang nine minutes and forty-five seconds later, I'd guiltily spent eighty-nine cents on a pack of spearmint Tic Tacs. Thurman W. Vandenburg, aka Miami Sleaze, might not be my idea of an upstanding member of the bar, but he was prompt.

“Nothing I can do,” he said, not waiting for me to speak.

“Well, I can do plenty,” I replied quickly. “Expect a large package of cash in the mail. I'll bet you know dodges the IRS hasn't heard more than a million times.”

“The situation is somewhat delicate.”

“Sure it is, buddy, but I'm out. I've managed to invest Paolina's cash so far. Legit. It ends here.
No más.”

“There's no evidence that she's his daughter,” the lawyer snapped.

“Except he sends money,” I replied dryly. “For her, through me. What's your problem? Afraid he can't pay your fees?”

“He's missing,” Vandenburg said softly.

It took a minute for the words to sink in.

“No names,” Vandenburg insisted.

“Jesus Christ,” I murmured slowly. “Ooops, that's a name. Sorry.”

Total silence followed by a muffled eruption. Could have been Vandenburg chuckling. Could have been Castro swallowing his cigar.

“No names,” I repeated.

“I've been out of touch with our mutual friend,” Vandenburg said, “for a certain number of days. That sets off a chain of events, financial and otherwise. I don't think you'll be bothered.”

“Is he dead?”

“I have no idea.”

“Don't blow me off. I need to know.
Is he dead?”

Thurman W. Vandenburg terminated the call. No doubt he'd been clocking it with a stopwatch. No doubt he knew exactly how long it would take the DEA to get a lock on the pay phone.

The drugstore on Huron Avenue boasts one of the last of the true phone booths, with a tiny seat and a bifold door, a poignant reminder that once upon a time phone calls were considered private conversations. Ma Bell installed it and NYNEX obviously hasn't found it yet. If they had, they'd have ripped it out, gone for the handy-dandy wall model.

I automatically scanned the aisles before exiting. I assumed the Drug Enforcement Agency would be all over Vandenburg's calls, simply because word is out: If you get nailed on possession of a narcotic substance in the great state of Florida, Vandenburg's your man.

So I wasn't surprised to see the guy. Dismayed, yes, but not surprised. He wasn't watching me, wasn't waiting like a total fool, artillery bristling. He was strolling the aisles and his mild-mannered browser routine might have worked if not for the incredibly hot weather, which surely wasn't his fault. His windbreaker drew my attention like a red flag. The bulge under his armpit riveted my glance. The outline of a holstered gun is unmistakable.

I had no desire to explain my Miami connection to the DEA. My fingertips touched 911 as I slid slowly to the floor of the booth, my T-shirt riding up in back, cool plasterboard tingling my sweaty skin.

The Cambridge emergency dispatcher answered on a single ring. That-a-girl!

I pitched my voice deliberately high, lisped, and paused in a childlike way. “Um, uh, there's a man with a gun,” I said cheerfully.

I heard a muted thud, as though the woman had set down a coffee cup in a hurry. “Where, honey? Now, don't you hang up, child,” she said.

“In the drugstore,” I replied in my singsong little voice. “Mark's Drugs, I think. On Huron Avenue. I'm with Mommy and the man has a gun, just like on TV.”

“Good girl, honey. What's your name? Can you leave the phone off the hook—”

I didn't hear the rest of her advice because I was crawling toward the door behind the pharmacy counter. The front door sports a string of bells to signal customer entrances and exits. The back door doesn't. I wedged my ass through the opening and slithered from air-conditioned cool into the inverted air mass that had hovered over Boston for the best part of early August, holding temperatures above eighty, redlining the pollution index. A street lamp cast a yellowish haze. The night air hung thick and noxious: recycled exhaust fumes, heavy and sticky as a steam bath.

Somebody ought to sweep the damned alley, I thought. Clear away the busted beer bottles. I inched forward. Glass, or maybe a sharp pebble, pierced my right knee. I felt for smoother pavement, glanced up.

No visible observers. Distant approaching sirens. I'd have loved to hang around, listening to the Cambridge cops dispute territorial rights with the DEA. Instead I stood, quickly brushing my kneecaps, and walked home, thankful I'd dipped into my savings for Paolina's three-week stay at a YWCA-run camp on a perfect New Hampshire lake. No chance she'd see a newspaper in the back woods. If anything dreadful had happened to her dad, she wouldn't run across some gruesome death-scene photo unprepared …

I'd never told Paolina, my little sister from the Big Sisters Association, that her biological father, the alleged drug baron Carlos Roldan Gonzales, had been in touch. It had never come up in conversation. I'd never mentioned his irregular cash shipments.

I found myself hoping Roldan Gonzales
was
dead, then trying to take back the thought as if it had the power to do the deed. His death would make my life easier, no doubt about that. I'd never have to explain. I could present Paolina with the money as a gift, me to her, no intermediary, no ugly stain on cash that must surely have come from the drug trade. It could be what I'd named it for the IRS's benefit: track winnings. Simple luck, passed on with love from Big Sister to little sister. College. Travel. An apartment of her own when she turned eighteen …

Except it would all be a lie without Carlos Roldan Gonzales's name attached.

Lies don't usually bother me much, but I try not to lie to Paolina. She means too much to me. And lies have a sneaky way of tiptoeing back to haunt you.

I glanced at my watch and doubled my pace, vaulting a fence, cutting diagonally through my backyard.

I wondered if the guy had really been DEA or just a casual drugstore holdup man. The cops would go a hell of a lot tougher on him if he were DEA. I know; I used to be a cop. They hate federal poachers.

Safely in my kitchen, I downed an icy Pepsi straight from the can, standing in front of the open refrigerator to bring my temperature down from boil. I stuck my hair in a stretchy cloth band, bobby-pinning it haphazardly to the top of my head. I was dabbing my sweaty neck with a wadded paper towel when the doorbell rang.

A prompt sleazy lawyer followed by a prompt potential client. What more could a private investigator want?

2

As I marched toward the front door, I wondered what lies Vandenburg, the sleaze, had slipped by me, what half-truths he'd told.

What lies would this client try?

With a touch—hell, a wallop—of vanity, I consider myself an expert in the field of lies, a collector, if you will. I've seen liars as fresh and obvious as newborn babes; a quick twitch of the eye, a sudden glance at the floor immediately giving the game away. I've interviewed practiced, skilled liars, blessed with the impeccable timing of ace stand-up comics. I don't know why I recognize lies. Somebody will be shooting his mouth, and I'll feel or hear a change of tone, a shift of pace. Maybe it's instinct. Maybe I got so used to lies when I was a cop that I suspect everyone.

I'd rather trust people. Given the choice.

My potential client beamed a hundred-watt smile when I opened the door, bounding into the foyer like an overgrown puppy. Even if he'd been a much younger man I'd have found his enthusiasm strange, since the number of people pleased to visit a private investigator is noticeably fewer than the number eagerly anticipating gum surgery.

He'd seemed both agitated and exhilarated on the phone that afternoon, otherwise I wouldn't have agreed to a Sunday evening appointment. He'd mentioned a missing person, given his name with no hint of reluctance. I'd checked with the Boston police; there was no 3501, i.e., missing person file, currently devoted to anyone sharing a last name with Mr. Adam Mayhew. Which left a ton of possibilities. The person in question could have been reported as a 2633, the current code for a runaway child. Could have had a different last name. Hadn't been absent the required twenty-four hours. The missing individual might be considered a voluntary—a walkaway or runaway adult.

Possibly my client-to-be knew exactly where the missing person could be found. Quick case; low fee.

Which would be too bad, because the sixtyish gentleman currently shifting his weight from one foot to the other as though testing my wooden floorboards looked like he could donate megabucks to the worthy cause of my upkeep and not miss a single dollar. His shoes were Bally or a damned good imitation, slip-on tassle loafers with neither a too-new nor a too-used sheen. Well-maintained classics, indicating a man with more than one pair of shoes to his wardrobe. A man with quietly expensive taste and access to a good dry cleaning establishment. A formal soul, rigged out in full business attire on a shirtsleeves, sweat-hot evening.

No wedding band. Inconclusive. A class ring, the Harvard
Veritas
, common enough around here, worn with casual pride.

Hair silvering nicely, hairline receding. Height: five-nine, which made it easy for me, from my six-one vantage, to note that his crown was not yet thinning.

Fingernails buffed and filed. Hands well cared for. Prosperous. My kind of client. A lawyer? A professor? A respected businessman? The speed from phone call to initial appointment had curtailed my research.

“Mr. Mayhew?”

“Yes,” he agreed cheerfully. “And you're Miss Carlyle.”

He'd been eyeing me as carefully as I'd been observing him. I wondered what conclusions he'd drawn from my disheveled appearance.

If Paolina's unexpected package of cash hadn't arrived, if I'd skipped the Miami phone call, if said phone call hadn't taken such a daunting chunk of time, I might have attempted to dress for success. Worn a little makeup to accent my green—well, hazel, really, almost green—eyes, and belittle my thrice-broken nose. I'd have done battle with my tangled red curls.

I opened my mouth to utter polite excuses, realized that Mr. Mayhew didn't seem to expect them. I liked the way his level glance concentrated on my eyes, as though the measure of a woman were not in her clothes or her curves, but hidden in a secret compartment beyond all external gifts and curses.

I nodded him down the single step to my living room-cum-office.

“You may call me Adam,” he said.

“Carlotta,” I replied. I liked his lived-in, good-humored face—lines, pouches, bags, and all. His eyes were blue behind bifocal lenses, and seemed shy and oddly defenseless, as though the glass barrier were necessary for protection as well as visual acuity.

He toted a battered monogrammed briefcase of caramel-colored leather. Forty years ago, it might have been a college graduation gift.

“I've wanted to do this for so long,” he said as he settled into the upright chair next to my desk.

“Excuse me,” I said. “You've wanted to do what for so long? Visit a PI's office?”

If the guy was a flake I wanted him out. He didn't seem like a thrill-seeker. He seemed genuine. Sympathetic. So sympathetic I was tempted to tell him my troubles with Paolina and the drug money. I shook myself out of it.

“On the phone—” I began.

“Do you remember Thea Janis?” he said at the same time, glancing at me expectantly. “The writer.”

“Writer” jogged my memory.

“It was a long time ago,” I said, struggling to recall a faint whisper of ancient scandal relegated to some distant storage locker in my mind like so much cast-off furniture. “I remember reading her book.”

“Not when it was published,” he said. “You're too young.”

“When I was fifteen, maybe sixteen.” Over half a lifetime ago. My mother had bought it for me three months before she died. Did I still have it? The title hovered tantalizingly out of reach, a ripe fruit on a high branch.

“Thea was younger than that when she wrote it,” he said. He could have uttered the words dismissively. Or flippantly. But he spoke with longing, with fervency and desire. Triumph, as he added, “She was fourteen. Imagine. Fourteen. The critics didn't know that, at first. Unqualified praise. When they learned the book had been penned by a child, a teenager, the bouquets turned a bit thorny, almost as if some critics felt they'd been duped, not given the real goods somehow. Jealousy. Nothing more than jealousy.”

“Why do you say that?”

“She was the goods,” he answered simply. “A prodigy. Nietzsche wrote like an adult at twelve. We find it more acceptable in music. Mozart.”

“Thea Janis was a literary Mozart?”

“See? You can't keep the skepticism out of your voice. It's automatic. Cinematic prodigies, okay. Visual arts, okay, with reservations. We prefer the paintings of a Grandma Moses. We glorify poets and authors who begin careers in their fifties, or later. I wonder if it's endemic to the beast,” he continued softly, almost as though he were speaking to himself, “a way in which humans maintain belief in their own potential: Someday I'll write a brilliant novel, paint a great picture … A way to keep the essential meaninglessness at bay.”