“That’s irrelevant.”
“Come on.”
“A buck fifty a day,” I said.
Her eyes widened. “You’re paying him a thousand-fifty a week?”
I shrugged. “It’s his price.”
“We’re going to go broke.”
I held up my index finger. “One more day.”
She spread her arms. “Why?”
Behind her, on the TV, they’d interrupted the soap opera for a live update from the banks of the Mystic River.
I pointed behind Angie’s head. “That’s why.”
She turned her head and looked up at the TV as frogmen pulled a small body from the water and several weathered-looking detectives waved off the cameras.
“Oh, shit,” Angie said.
I looked at the small gray face as the head came to rest on wet rocks, then the detectives succeeded in blocking the cameras with their hands.
Siobhan. She’d never have to worry about seeing Ireland again.
33
Last night, as soon as the police had passed him on the waterfront, Nelson was supposed to turn around and go back, park a few blocks down on Congress Street and watch Pearse’s building, see if he went anywhere after the police finished up and left.
As long as he did his job, I didn’t mind paying Nelson a grand a week. It was a small price for knowledge of Pearse’s movements.
But it was way too much to pay for a fuck-up.
“I
“Tell me what happened last night.”
“The cops drove him over to the Meridian Hotel. He got out, went inside. The cops leave. He comes back out and hails a cab, takes it back to the building.”
“He went back to his loft?”
“Fuck no. But he went in the building. I couldn’t tell exactly where.”
“What, no lights went on? No-”
“Fucking place is a city block, man. You got the Sleeper Street side, the Congress side, and two alleys. How’m I supposed to cover all that?”
“But he went in there and stayed.”
“Yeah. Until he left for work this morning. Then he comes back around a half hour ago, looking pissed. He goes in the building, been there since.”
“He managed to kill someone last night.”
“Bullshit.”
“Sorry, Nelson, but there must be a way out of there that we don’t know about.”
“Where’d the vic live?”
“She was staying in Canton. They pulled her out of the Mystic this afternoon.”
“Bullshit,” he said again, this time twice as hard. “Patrick, the cops finished up with him last night, it was, like, almost four in the morning. He went to work at seven. How’s he gonna slip out of the building without me seeing, somehow get all the way down to fucking Canton, ace someone, transport the body up to the North fucking Shore, and then, then he’s-what?-he’s gonna come
“It’s not possible,” I said.
“You’re fucking A, it ain’t. He mighta done a lotta bad shit, Patrick, but in the last ten hours, he ain’t done nothing at all.”
I hung up, put the heels of my hands over my eyes.
“What?” Angie asked.
I told her.
“And Nelson’s sure?” she said when I finished.
I nodded.
“So if Pearse didn’t kill her, who did?”
I resisted the urge to bang my swelling head against the desktop. “I don’t know.”
“Carrie?”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “Carrie. Why?”
“Maybe she figured out that Siobhan was working for Pearse.”
“How? We didn’t tell her.”
“But she’s a smart woman. Maybe she…” She held up her hands, then dropped them. “Shit. I don’t know.”
I shook my head. “I can’t see it. Carrie goes over to Canton, whacks Siobhan, drives her to the Mystic, and dumps her body in? How’s she going to lift the body? The woman weighs less than you do. Hell, why would she even think to drive clear across to the other side of the city and dump the body?”
“Maybe she didn’t kill her in Canton. Maybe she drew her out to a meeting place.”
“I’ll buy that someone drew her out. Carrie just doesn’t fit. I’m not saying she couldn’t kill-she could. But it’s the dumping of the body that bothers me. It’s too cool. It’s too methodical.”
Angie leaned back in her chair, lifted the phone off the cradle, and hit speed dial.
“Hey,” she said into the phone, “I don’t have Patriots tickets to trade, but can you answer me one question?”
She listened as Devin said something back.
“No, nothing like that. The woman they just pulled out of the Mystic, what was the cause of death?” She nodded. “To the back of the head? Okay. Why’d she come to the surface so fast?” She nodded again, several times. “Thanks. Huh? I’ll ask Patrick on that one and get back to you.” She smiled, looked at me. “Yes, Dev, we’re back together.” She put her hand over the phone, said to me, “He wants to know for how long.”
“At least till prom,” I said.
“At least till prom. Aren’t I lucky?” she told him. “Talk to you soon.”
She hung up. “Siobhan was found with a rope dangling from her waist. The operating theory is she was tied to something heavy and dropped to the bottom, where something ate through the rope and part of her hip. She wasn’t supposed to come up.”
I banged my chair back as I stood and went to the window, looked down at the avenue.
“Whatever his move is, he’s going to make it soon.”
“Yet we’re agreed he couldn’t have killed her.”
“But he’s behind it,” I said. “Fucker’s behind everything.”
We left the belfry and went across to my apartment, entered the living room to a ringing phone. Just as I had that early evening on City Hall Plaza, I knew it was him before I picked up the receiver.
“That was pretty funny,” he said, “getting me suspended from my job. Ha, Patrick! Ha ha!”
“Doesn’t feel good, does it?”
“Getting suspended?”
“Knowing someone’s fucking with you and might not let up for a while.”
“I can appreciate the irony, just so you know. Someday, I’m sure, I’ll look back on this and just laugh and laugh and laugh.”
“Or maybe you won’t.”
