North of Boston (34 page)

I turn to Parnell. “Your apartment's not safe. You can't go back there.”

His eyes are bloodshot, and his face is haggard. “I need some things there to finish this story. I don't give a shit about John Oster.”

“You don't get it, do you? He's a killer. I didn't believe it before, but now I know it's true. He's after you, and I can promise he's got your place staked out. If you go back there, you'll be jumping right into his net. You'll be like a fish that he catches just by waiting.”

“Which is it?” the driver yells into his rearview.

Before we can answer, we miss the Storrow Drive exit, and he steers us toward the North End.

Parnell's eyes flash at me defiantly. “Did you just compare me to a fish?” He gives the driver his address.

As we wind through the narrow streets, I try to persuade him to stay in a nearby hotel at the very least. Just for a few days. He rightly points out that, if either apartment is being watched, it's more likely to be mine. Therefore, if I'm serious about wanting to evade this pathetic Johnny-douchebag guy, I should take my own advice and stay in a hotel as well.

We end up at the Bostonian. Adjoining rooms.

I sit on the bed, and try to figure out what to do. Parnell seems to have decided that the hard part of our job is over: now that the ring is busted and we've got footage and a story, we're close enough to the finish line to let down our guard. He seems to think that Johnny's just a footnote who will eventually be caught in the net of the official investigation, once it gets under way. Or maybe he just doesn't want to run anymore, and, with his handgun strapped to his calf, is willing to take his chances. In any case, he won't last more than a few days in exile from his apartment. He's only here at all because he thinks that this is what he has to do to keep me away from my apartment.

As for me, I can't wait for the authorities to nab Johnny. The investigation into the hunting ring will most likely be slow. It could take weeks before there's enough evidence to implicate him. I have to neutralize him before he gets to Noah, Parnell, or me. But how? The only answer seems to be to find a way to link him to the murder of Mrs. Smith.

I've got one advantage. Right now he doesn't know where Parnell, Noah, and I are. But that won't last very long: Parnell's not going to stay holed up in a hotel, and Jeffrey won't be able to keep Thomasina and Noah out of town forever. Whatever I'm going to do, I have to do it fast.

I call Jeffrey from the room phone. He's relieved to hear from me. He says that at this moment they're having lunch in a resort in the White Mountains. Cornbread, hearty stew. Gorgeous view outside the windows.

It's nice to know that we all have excellent accommodations.

He said they did some leaf peeping this morning, but the height of the season has passed. There's not a trace of enthusiasm in his voice. The tour manager role, less than twenty-four hours old, is already wearing thin.

“What's going on down there?” he asks tensely.

“Things are being resolved.”

“Damn you, Pirio.”

“Just give me time.”

“How much?”

“Not sure.”

Thomasina gets on the phone. “Noah wants to know when he's going back to school.”

“Soon.”

“I don't care if I never see another goddamn tree in my life.”

“How many days now, Thomasina?”

“Sixteen. What do you think? Two more than the last time you asked me. Big whoop, huh?”

Before I can say anything, Noah's on the phone. “Hey, Pirio. You know how it says ‘purple mountain majesties' in that song we always have to sing in school? Well, the mountains here really
are
purple. So why do they call them
white
?”

“I can't answer that. But it's nice to hear your voice.”

“I'm missing a lot of school. We were going to do electricity in science, and I think I missed the whole thing.”

“Electricity will always be around.”

“This is a weird time to have a vacation.”

“It's good to be different sometimes.”

“But we're not having any fun.”

“Vacations are like that more often than you think.”

“Your dad was teaching me to play chess, and that was better than this.”

“Did he show you how to smoke a cigar?”

“I'm not supposed to say.”

“You'll be back soon, and then you can finish learning chess.”

“It's hard, but I like it. Your dad said I could play with him whenever I wanted.”

“That sounds nice. But I'm warning you: he won't let you win.”

“That's just for little kids.”

“I have to go now, but I'll see you soon.”

“Good-bye, Pirio. It was nice to talk to you.”

“Good-bye, Noah. It was nice to talk to you, too.”

Sunlight is pouring through the room's sliding glass door. I step onto a balcony overlooking Quincy Market, where people flow in every direction, and a breeze tugs the last stubborn leaves off the sidewalk-planted trees. Chrysanthemum pots are everywhere. More flowers wrapped in cellophane stand in buckets of water outside a shop, and two men perch on a bench, strumming Spanish guitars. I want Noah to have a world like this. Safe and bright. But those worlds don't happen by themselves.

Reentering the room, I catch sight of myself in the mirror over the dresser. My bruises have turned various colors—blue and purple, but also the yellow of summer squash and a froggy green. I'm not sure if these changes have anything to do with Labrador tea. Completing the rainbow effect is my outfit: Tiffany's pink sweatshirt and navy sweatpants. I can't go anywhere looking like this.

I'm about to pop out the door when I realize I don't have a credit card or even an ID to make a withdrawal. The money Margot gave me is long gone. Parnell put the plane tickets and hotel rooms on his card. I go out to the hall, knock on his door. When he opens it, I explain and tell him I'll pay him back.

He accompanies me across the street. We go in and out of various stores while I buy clothes, makeup, sunglasses, bubble bath, and shoes. At the inside food court, he orders a ham sandwich to go. I get a dozen raw oysters with horseradish. We sit outside to eat on a granite bench on a lovely historic cobblestone plaza, and try to feel like everyone else. It doesn't work. Every square-faced, red-headed man who walks by is John Oster until I blink and look again. Parnell looks none too happy himself. We end up lunching like we're on speed, toss our trash in a receptacle, head to the Apple store in Back Bay, and purchase an iPhone. I program Parnell's number and the ones I know from memory. He gives me some more cash.

It's close to two when we get back to the hotel and our respective rooms. I throw my packages on the bed, fill the tub with warm-to-hot water, and soak in bubbles for a long time. I can hear the television in Parnell's room through the wall. It's on much too loud. From the periodic hushes followed by polite applause, I can tell it's some part of the PGA tour. Oddly disappointed, I run more hot water, creating competing noise and a real extravagance of bubbles. I could never love a man who watched television, especially golf, at such a volume in the middle of the day. Sinking into foam so high and thick that it stands in peaks, I sigh with a modicum of relief. It's good to have that point decided.

—

I'm standing in front of Mrs. Smith's three-decker in Jamaica Plain, having taken the Green Line from Haymarket. The high pitched roof sends a jagged shadow over the sidewalk. I shiver in a sharp wind, wrap another loop of scarf around my neck. When I dropped her off after our museum trip, I remember her opening the door to the first-floor apartment and being greeted by Jasper's happy barks. The same white-lace curtain hangs in that window, but plastic shades have been pulled tight behind the bowed front windows. I mount the few stairs leading up to a small porch, ring her bell, and hear a melodious chime inside. I wait. No one opens. I try the handle; it's locked.

I ring the bell for the second-floor apartment. A minute later, the stairway light flicks on, and the wooden stairs creak as someone lumbers down them. A woman, midforties, with a red kerchief tied around her head, pulls aside her curtain with a hooked index finger.

“Are you Jehovah's Witness?”

“No, ma'am.”

“MASSPIRG? Greenpeace?”

“No, ma'am.”

“Whaddya want?”

“I want to talk about Libby Smith.”

The curtain falls, the bolt slides, and the door opens halfway. She's a large woman in cotton sweatpants and a T-shirt that bears a picture of Larry Bird above the caption “Legend.”

“What about her?” she says. Her manner indicates that she's prepared to indulge me for a minute, no more.

“The night she died . . .”

“Yeah? Go on.”

“Did you notice anything unusual?”

“I already told the cops.”

“I was a friend. I'm just curious. As a friend.”

The woman's eyes narrow. She knows there's something fishy, but that doesn't put her off. Instead, it seems to make me more interesting. But she doesn't invite me in, just stays on the small landing, keeping one arm behind the semiopen door, in case she has to shut it quickly.

“You work with her?”

“No. We . . . uh, we used to walk our dogs together at the pond. It used to be her and Jasper and me and Arnold, my Saint Bernard. Six o'clock every evening after work. We got to be really close. I guess it's just hard for me, not knowing what happened to her. The only information I have is from the newspaper obituary. And I'd love to know where Jasper is.”

The woman's face has softened. “You'll be glad to know that Libby's son took him to live with his family in West Roxbury. Jasper's gone to a very good home. Libby would be so pleased.

“You know, it was Jasper who raised the alarm that night. He was barking . . . oh, was he barking! You'd think the world was about to end. It was three in the morning. I figured Libby would see to him, so I just put my earplugs in, and went back to sleep. But Jasper was still at it when I got up the next morning, so I knocked on Libby's door, and when she didn't answer, I went in with the key she gave me—we'd exchanged keys a couple of years ago in case one of us got locked out. Jasper was in a tizzy, scampering all around. His voice was hoarse from barking. Libby wasn't there, so I called the police; I didn't know what else to do. They stopped by and looked around the apartment, but didn't have much to say. A few hours later, my bell rings, and it's the cops again. Said there'd been a hit-and-run on the Jamaicaway early that morning. Wanted me to go with them to city morgue to see if I could identify the body. Sure enough, it was her. I couldn't believe it. It was so sad to see her that way, under a sheet, her face so white. That something like that would happen to her—who would have thought?”

“I wonder why she went out in the middle of the night.”

“Dementia. That's what they said.”

“When you went into her apartment, was anything out of place?”

“Looked the same as always.”

“Did you hear anything before Jasper started barking? Or notice anything?”

“I was sound asleep until the dog woke me up.”

“Any car outside?”

“Didn't check. Didn't think to. Why? You think someone picked her up?”

“I'm not sure. It just seems strange that she would walk off by herself at that time of night, leaving Jasper behind.”

“Well, they say that's what happens when you got dementia.”

“Well, thank you for your time, Mrs.—”

“Ramirez. And you?”

“Catherine. Catherine Johnson.” It wouldn't do to have anyone know I'd been here.

“No trouble. It's a shame when something like this happens. Shakes everybody up.” She starts to close the door, thinks better of it. “Sorry you lost your friend.”

“Thanks. One more thing. Could I get into the apartment?”

“What for?”

“She had something of mine. . . .”

Mrs. Ramirez is already shaking her red-kerchiefed head. “No way. No one but family. If you want, you can leave me your number, and I'll give it to her son when he comes.”

“That's OK. Thanks anyway.”

I walk away dejected. The sun is bowing out with an orangey-pink fanfare at the sky's western edge, and the shadows of the tall houses are pooling together on the street. Maybe it's better to go to the police after all, spill everything I know. But my saner mind reminds me that I'd only be sucked into a complicated bureaucratic mess that would just tie up my time, leaving Johnny loose and Noah unprotected. No, I've got to think of something else.

At the end of Mrs. Smith's street, I turn onto South Huntington, a busy thoroughfare this time of day. The area has that worn-down, worn-out feeling: potholes a foot deep; telephone poles splintered at eye level from all the posters and church announcements that have been stapled to them over the years. Up ahead, the drab VA Hospital and the Home for Little Wanderers. A neighborhood with no illusions.

But that doesn't fully explain the odd sensation that begins to tingle along the back of my left shoulder as I walk along. It's the feeling you get when someone is watching you, or has quietly walked into a room behind you, and you turn and discover them, not quite sure how you knew they were there. I glance over my shoulder, but all I see is a fire hydrant, traffic moving sluggishly, and cars parked along the curb. I walk a little faster. Instead of fading, the prickling sensation gets stronger.

The Heath Street T stop is a couple of blocks ahead, on the other side of the street. I decide to cross early. I step off the curb, stand between two parked cars as I wait for the traffic to clear. I take this time to look to my left a good long way. Two blocks down, a blue Camry is traveling at about three miles per hour in the right-hand lane, causing other cars to slow and pull around it. The driver is gripping the wheel tightly, his hands at ten and two o'clock, and his eyes are scanning ahead of him and to his right. He appears to be hoping for a parking space to open up. As the car gets closer, I can see the driver better.
Shit.
It's Max. He must have followed me from Mrs. Smith's house.