“Hey, I wasn’t entirely kidding before. If my current job washes out, I might just want to do something different like PI work. Why the fuck not do something fun for a change?”
“Then think of this as an interview for an internship. Why were Taylor Carver and Linda Gibson killed?”
As Maguire thought about it, he started drumming on the steering wheel then nodding his head as if it were some kind of bobble head doll. Finally he became still. “How about this,” he said. “We know they were beaten to death and from what I heard it was pretty bad. I guess it could be drugs, but I just never saw any evidence of that. So why couldn’t it have been a crime of passion, someone close to them who just went nuts. I’d have to think it would take some pretty intense emotion to beat two people to death. So maybe it was a family member or a close friend. I think that’s the angle I’d look into. So how’d I do?”
“I’ll grade you later. Any suspicious behavior before the murders? Any strangers hanging around the building? Anything odd, out of place?”
“The police had already asked me about that. There was nothing I could think of.”
“Did you see or hear anything the night they were killed?”
Maguire shook his head. “We had a field trial at work scheduled the next day at a potential customer’s site and I couldn’t leave until I finished one of the features we’d promised. I didn’t get home until three in the morning and when I did everything was quiet and peaceful. They must’ve been killed before then. The next day a police detective banging on my door woke me up. I guess their door had been broken into and there was some blood outside of it, but I was too tired to have noticed it when I got home the night before.”
“How about your wife?”
“She didn’t hear anything.” Maguire’s round face seemed to shrink as he stared straight ahead. “My wife hadn’t been sleeping well for a while and was taking sleeping pills by then. She never got used to moving out here. Misses her family, friends, the ocean, lobster, the weather, foliage, Quincy Market, Newbury Street, the
“I’m sorry to hear she’s unhappy here.”
“Thanks.” Maguire gave Shannon a quick glance. “How about you, you get used to it?”
“It’s been a good change for me.”
“Are you married?”
“Divorced. But we’re reconciling, and it’s been a good change for her also.”
“I guess it takes time.” He pulled onto the ramp for I-25 and flashed Shannon a wicked grin. “Only five minutes from the park, then that’s it for your grilling. Your interrogation will have to wait until the ride back.”
“I only have a few more questions. Did they have problems with anyone that you knew of?”
“I don’t think so, but you got to remember these were college kids, and like a lot of college kids, they weren’t the most considerate neighbors in the world. Kind of loud at times. But no, I can’t think of anything specific.”
“But you had a problem with them.”
Maguire made a face. “Because they woke me up a few times? As I said, they were kids, you’d have to expect that. You think because of that I’d break down their door and beat them to death? Jesus!”
“Lesson one in being a detective, consider every possibility.”
“Christ, I’ll remember that. But to answer your question-they could be annoying at times, but no, I had no real problems with them.”
“How about your wife?”
Maguire shook his head. “Not that I know of. Most nights she was doped up with sleeping pills, so when they made noise she slept through it.”
“From the pictures I saw, Linda Gibson was quite a looker.”
“Leave no stone unturned, huh?” Maguire said.
“Lesson two.”
“Alright, I asked for it, I’ll play. I didn’t see her much, maybe a dozen times while they lived there, but she was a good-looking kid. Operative word being ‘kid’. I don’t cheat on my wife, and if I were going to, it wouldn’t be with a kid half my age. Satisfied?”
“Lesson three, you’re never satisfied until the case is closed.”
“Committed to memory,” Maguire said, a grim smile tightening his lips. As he pulled into the Coors Field parking lot, his smile turned more upbeat. “And we’re at the ballpark,” he announced. “PI school is closed until further notice. Only thing I’m talking about from this point on is baseball, beer, and hotdogs.”
As Maguire got out of the car he spotted a couple of guys wearing Red Sox jerseys hanging out by a van as they drank beer. He yelled to them with his fist raised in the air that the Sox would kick the Colorado Rockies into rubble. They yelled back that the Sox rule and the Yankees suck. A couple of Colorado Rockies fans walking by suggested to Maguire that he move back to Boston and quit adding to Denver’s pollution problem.
Maguire gave Shannon a poke with his elbow. “This is going to be fucking great,” he said. “I’ve been looking forward to this since February when the schedule came out. I bet you we get more Sox fans here than Rockies fans.”
As they entered the stadium, Shannon had to admit there was a good chance of that. There seemed to be a sea of Red Sox jerseys and pennants, and only a scattering of fans wearing the Yankee pinstripe rip-off Colorado Jerseys. The Red Sox fans were loud and raucous and belligerent. The seemingly outnumbered Rockies fans acted subdued, only making occasional smartass comments about what the Sox fans could do to themselves. Sox fans countered by asking when the Rockies were going to field a major league team.
Maguire poked Shannon again. “Section one forty, third row. Right by third base. You couldn’t get tickets like this in Boston if you donated a kidney for them.”
As they made their way to their seats, Maguire wanted to stop off at the concession stands for some beer and hotdogs. Shannon told him he’d take care of it as payback for the tickets. He started off with two beers and three hotdogs for Maguire and a bottle of water for himself.
“You don’t drink beer or eat hotdogs?” Maguire asked, eyeing Shannon suspiciously.
“I’m not big on alcohol these days. And I’m a vegetarian.”
“Sounds kind of un-American. Oh well, I guess that just means more beer for me,” Maguire said.
They got to their seats about the time batting practice started, and Maguire had been right, there were moon shots being launched-balls that would’ve cleared Lansdowne Street in Boston. Near the end of batting practice, Shannon heard someone from behind yelling his name. He turned and saw a man standing in the aisle above him saluting him with a big shit-eating grin plastered on his face.
“Holy shit,” the guy yelled. “It’s Bill ‘freakin’ Shannon, back from the dead.”
Shannon stared back for a long moment before recognizing the man. Ed Poulet, one of the detectives Shannon had worked with back in Massachusetts. Next to him was Jimmy Mason, also grinning from ear to ear. Shannon never much cared for either of them when he was on the job. Poulet was a wiseass and Mason for the most part his sidekick. Several times over the years he and Poulet had come close to blows.
Poulet was waving a hand at Shannon like a traffic cop directing a car through an intersection. “Come on, for Chrissakes,” Poulet was yelling, “you got a couple of Brothers in Blue waiting up here.”
Shannon left his seat to meet them. When he got closer he could see that Poulet had put on some pounds and his hairline had receded a few more inches, making him look almost like a caricature of his former self. Mason was the same thin, wiry sort he always was. Both of them had a glazed sheen in their eyes indicating a day of heavy drinking. As Shannon got within a few feet, Poulet grabbed his hand and pulled him in for an embrace.
“Damn, it’s good to see you,” he said. Next, Mason pumped Shannon’s hand and at the same time gave him a friendly punch in the shoulder. “Shit Bill, we were walking by when Ed here with his eagle eyes spotted you,” he said. “It’s been over five years, you can’t write or call anyone about how you’re doing?”
“I’ve been good.”
An intensity burned through the alcoholic haze in Poulet’s eyes as he stared at Shannon’s damaged hand. “So that’s what that piece of human garbage did to you,” he said. “Jesus fucking Christ. And what he did to poor Joe. I hope he’s burning in hell for all eternity.”
“There’s no doubt in my mind that he is.”
“I fucking hope so.” Poulet shook his head. The intensity in his eyes faded and his face seemed to sag. “I heard rumors that you were out west somewhere. Jesus, though, I never expected to run into you here. Jimmy and I booked a two-day package to come out here and tour some of the breweries around Denver and catch a Sox game.”
