High Season (24 page)

“Very fucking funny, Frankie,” Louie said.

“More to the point,” said Phipps, raising a neatly groomed eyebrow at Boyle.

“More to the point,” Boyle said, “what have you got? Who are your suspects?”

Coffin shrugged. “Beats me,” he said.

Louie groaned audibly. Phipps threw up his hands.

“What do you mean,
beats me
?” Louie said. He was fiddling with a black and silver fountain pen—taking the cap off, putting it back on. “How can you not have suspects when corpses are piling up all over town?”

“We've got no witnesses to any of the killings. We've got very little in the way of physical evidence, and limited access to forensic
lab reports on what evidence there is. What we
do
know is that the killings all appear to be connected to the Moors condo development. I'd like to know more about the consortium that owns it—it's very secretive.”

“Quite the investigation you're running, Detective,” Phipps said.

Coffin met his eyes. They were a foggy blue, the color of bread mold. “Last I heard, this was an unofficial, off-the-books investigation. We can't just start busting heads and serving warrants.”

“But you arrested the Plotz guy,” Boyle said. “What's that about?”

“Unrelated, probably. He tried to run me down last night.”

“Jesus. What'd you do to piss him off?”

“He's been stalking my girlfriend. He followed me into the cemetery and tried to flatten me. Or maybe just scare me. Anyway, he's in jail.”

“So,” said Phipps, pursing his lips. “You've basically got nothing.”

“We're
so
fucked up the ass,” Louie said, furiously capping and uncapping the fountain pen.

Coffin shrugged. The green boat was turning at the breakwater, heading for Race Point and the Atlantic. “We can narrow things a little,” he said. “Our guy is probably male, pretty big and strong. He's probably local; he knew Duarte and Serena were involved with the Moors. He had Serena's cell phone number.”

“You checked her incoming calls?” Boyle asked.

Coffin nodded. “Her cell phone and PDA were in her car. Lola got a look at them before Mancini showed up. Serena had dinner with a client at eight o'clock. Got a call on her cell at nine seventeen. We talked to the client—guy named Henderson. He says the call seemed to upset her. She wrapped things up with him and took off.”

“So . . . ?”

“Dead end. The call came from the pay phone outside Adams Pharmacy.”

Louie groaned softly. Phipps folded his arms across his muscular chest.

“How sure are you that the killings are related?” Boyle asked. “That's not what the state police think.”

“You talked to Mancini today?”

“Yup. He's working on Merkin's wife and Serena's girlfriend. Duarte he figures is drug related.”

“Maybe—but then you've got three unrelated murders in less than two weeks, in a town that hasn't had three murders in ten
years
. Pretty freaky coincidence.”

“Okay,” Boyle said. “What's your game plan?”

“Keep poking at Real Estate Investment Consortium,” Coffin said. “See what crawls out. Find out who's involved, how they're making money. Look for anyone connected who had a reason to start killing people.”

“The
Moors
?” Louie said. “You think someone involved in the
Moors
did this? These are wealthy, prominent businesspeople, for God's sake. They don't go around nailing people to freaking
buildings
.” He uncapped the fountain pen. It made a faint blurping sound, and ink splattered all over his hands. “Fuck,” he said.

Coffin shrugged again. “If these are motiveless killings, we
are
screwed.”

Silva glanced at Boyle, who nodded. “We need results, Coffin,” Boyle said. “This thing cannot drag on till fucking Judgment Day. We like your pal Kotowski for Serena's murder, and if he did that one, he probably did the others, too.”

“He's completely fucking deranged,” Louie said, wiping his hands on a white handkerchief. “Capable of anything.”

Coffin watched the green boat as it passed Long Point. The water was pale turquoise near the shore, deep blue farther out. It
sparked and glittered in the sunlight. “Kotowski hasn't killed anyone,” he said. “I was with him when Duarte's house caught fire.”

Boyle waved a hand. “Doesn't matter. Duarte may not be related. Maybe Mancini's right about him. The point is, we want you to take a good, hard look at Kotowski.”

“Trust me, Frankie,” Louie said, dropping the ink-smeared handkerchief into the wastebasket beside his desk. “The Moors angle's a loser. It's going nowhere.”

“Obviously,” said Phipps.

“Fire me,” Coffin said.

“Now, Frankie—” Louie said.

“You force me to open an off-the-record, probably illegal investigation, and now I've got a committee telling me how to run it. Fuck you. Fire me.”

“Think about your mother, for God's sake,” Louie said. “What happens to her if you lose your job?”

“Look, Coffin,” Boyle said, “maybe you're right, but maybe you're a little too close to this Kotowski guy to see the situation clearly. All we're asking is that you take a look. Talk to him. See if he's got alibis for Merkin and Hench. If it doesn't pan out, you can poke at whatever you want.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

C
offin knocked on Kotowski's door. It was locked, which surprised him—Kotowski had never even had a working latch, to Coffin's knowledge, much less an actual lock. The house was quiet. Kotowski's truck sat in its usual spot in the scraggly front yard.

Kotowski had probably pedaled his rattletrap bike to the Yankee Mart for coffee or a pack of cigarettes, or over to Billy's for unhappy hour. Coffin decided to wait on the front porch, but after a few minutes he got restless and walked around to the back of the house, figuring the sliding glass door that opened onto the deck was almost certainly unlocked.

Late afternoon slantlight, the sky luminous and clear, only a few wisps of cloud at high altitude, mingled with the contrails of passenger jets heading into Boston. Coffin hopped from Kotowski's low seawall onto the beach. A pair of gulls shrieked at each other at the water's edge, fighting over some dead thing they'd found in the sand. The tide was going out, sucking through the breakwater, speaking a thousand watery tongues.

Kotowski might have gone to the Little Store, to peruse a fresh
shipment of porn magazines. He could have been paddling his kayak around Long Point, nude except for his conical Vietnamese straw hat. Or maybe he was inside, asleep or sitting in one of the moldering armchairs with headphones on, smoking hashish and listening to Rostropovich play the Bach cello suites.

A flight of rotting wooden stairs ran from the beach to Kotowski's deck, with a little gate at the bottom to discourage tourists from trespassing. Spaz, Kotowski's scruffy orange tomcat, sat on the warped railing, licking his paw. Coffin swung the gate open and climbed the stairs, which sagged a bit under his weight. He crossed the weathered deck and peered in through the glass door, cupping his hands around his eyes to block the glare. Kotowski's rusted three-speed leaned against the shingled wall. There were no lights on inside, no Kotowski. Coffin tried the door, but it was locked. He thumped on the glass with the flat of his hand.

“Kotowski!” he called, but there was no movement inside. He thumped on the glass again. Nothing. Kotowski wasn't home.

Coffin clambered awkwardly over the seawall, crossed Kotowski's yard, and got into the Dodge. He turned the key, and the engine roared to life instantly, a black plume of smoke belching from the tailpipe. The Dodge backfired loudly twice, then stalled.

“Fuck me,” Coffin said. “Motherfucking fuckball.” He climbed out of the Dodge and stood staring at it, pondering revenge. Something smelled like melted plastic. He opened the hood. Green flames flickered up from the carburetor.

Kotowski's garden hose was snarled in the front yard, near the scraggly tomato plants. Coffin turned the water on at the house, grabbed the hose, and trotted toward the car. The flames were bigger, rising two or three feet above the engine compartment. Coffin trained the garden hose on the fire, a miserable spritz aimed at its heart. The flames grew. It occurred to Coffin that if the fire spread to the gas tank, he might be killed by the explosion—or at least
maimed by flying shrapnel. He tossed the hose aside and backed off.

“Burn, then, motherfucker,” Coffin said. “Go on and burn.” The fire hissed and steamed and went out. The smell of burnt radiator hose hung in the air.

Coffin crossed the yard, jumped over the seawall, then came back a minute later with Kotowski's decrepit three-speed over his shoulder. He set it down, climbed aboard, and rode off, wobbling. He'd call Sal when he got home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

J
amie napped fitfully on Coffin's sofa. The day was warm; the couch was lumpy and narrow, upholstered in something itchy. She dreamed a woodpecker was drilling a hole in the house. It knocked, paused, knocked again.

It knocked.

Jamie's eyes snapped open. Someone was
there
—outside the screen porch. A dark figure stood on the doorstep, peering in, silhouetted against the late afternoon light. Jamie's heart was pounding.
Plotz?
she thought.

“Frank? You in there?”

“Oh my God,” Jamie said. “Lola, is that you?” She climbed off the sofa, walked out to the screen porch, and unlatched the door.

“Hi,” Lola said. “You okay? Did I catch you at a bad time?”

Jamie pushed the screen door open. “Come on in. I was napping. I had back-to-back classes this morning, and with everything that's been going on I haven't been sleeping very well.”

“Oh, no,” Lola said. “Sorry to wake you. I just wanted to drop something off for Frank.”

“He's not here.” Jamie padded into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water from the Brita. “I thought he'd be with you.”

“I can come back,” Lola said.

“You're welcome to wait. He's probably over at Billy's, having a drink. Water? Glass of wine?”

“Sure—water. Thanks.”

Lola was dressed in jeans, a black T-shirt, and engineer boots. Her hair was pulled back in a short ponytail.
A tomboy,
Jamie thought.
A cute one. No wonder Frank likes her.

“So Frank tells me you're thinking about having a baby,” Lola said, sipping her water. “That's a pretty big step.”

“The end of self-indulgence, or something. At least until they start day care.”

“I'm not sure I could handle the responsibility. I don't even do very well with houseplants.”

Jamie blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Apparently people don't usually forget their babies at the grocery store. Or eat them. It's nature's way.”

“Can I ask another personal question?”

Jamie smiled. “My life's an open book.”

“It's none of my business,” Lola said, leaning against the kitchen counter, “but I've been wondering about the not-getting-married thing. It's kind of unusual.”

Jamie waved a hand. “Marriage,” she said. “You get a piece of paper that says you're stuck with each other until you die. It seems like the quickest possible way to suck the life out of a relationship, doesn't it?”

“Besides,” Lola said, “now that gay people can get married in this state . . .”

“It just
ruins
it,” Jamie said. “Up in Canada, straight people have stopped getting married altogether.”

Lola grinned. “You know, suddenly wine sounds like just the ticket.”

“When doesn't it?” Jamie said. She opened the fridge, found a cold bottle of pinot grigio, and went to work with a corkscrew.

 

Coffin wobbled into his driveway on Kotowski's bike, nearly crashing into Jamie's old blue Volvo. The bike had no brakes at all. He climbed off and wiped a sleeve over his brow. He was soaked with sweat. Lola's black Camaro was parked at the curb.

The house was alive. Music and women's voices drifted through the open windows out into the summer evening. He opened the screen door and stepped onto the porch and said, “Hello?”

“You're in trouble, mister,” said a voice from inside the house. It was Jamie. Another woman laughed. Coffin stuck his head into the living room. Jamie and Lola were in the kitchen, drinking wine and making a salad. A jazz record was playing—Chet Baker singing “The Best Thing for You.”

“I am?” Coffin said.

“No fair not telling me when someone tries to kill you,” Jamie said, wagging a finger at Coffin. “That's very, very bad. Bad!”

“Nobody tried to kill me,” Coffin said. The goat's head goggled at him incredulously. “Duffy just wanted to scare me, I think.” He put his hands on Jamie's shoulders and tried to kiss her, but she ducked away.

“Don't
ever
do that again,” she said, pointed index finger an inch from his nose. “I hate that stupid stoic shit.”

“Sorry,” Coffin said.

“Hi, Frank,” Lola said. “Want me to hit him for you, Jamie?”

“Hey!” Coffin said.

“Yes,” Jamie said, “but let's give him a drink first.”

Coffin scowled at Lola. “You told on me,” he said.

“Sorry, Frank,” Lola said. “I had no idea you were playing tough guy.”

Coffin sighed. The pinot grigio was so cold that the bottle was beaded with condensation. “What's for dinner?” he said, pouring himself a glass.