McNulty kept his eyes on the pink round face. “Severino was offering to sell the reverse footage.”
Larry tilted his head to one side. “And you’re offering to download the CCTV footage.”
“You told her about that?”
“She knows you better than you think.”
“That’s worrying.”
Larry disappeared back behind the curtain. “That would come under the ‘serenity to accept the things I cannot change’ part.”
McNulty stepped away from the door. “Well, get serene about this. When were you going to tell me you’re being called as a witness in the porn trial?”
The shower was turned off. Larry stuck his face through the curtain again.
“What?”
Larry’s extremities were all pink where they stuck out from the bathrobe. His face and his arms and his short, fat legs. He didn’t offer to make coffee or brew some tea. He was hyper enough without added caffeine. “You’re kidding, right? Nobody’s told me.”
McNulty shook his head. “It’s what the lead detective said.”
Larry sat at the table opposite his technical adviser. “He pulling your chain? Trying to get a bite?”
McNulty shrugged. “Could be. Not much point though. Something I can check so easily.”
Larry crossed his legs. “But not while you were in custody.”
McNulty leaned back in his chair. “I wasn’t really in custody. Not seriously anyway.”
Larry looked at the Yorkshireman. “They dragged you off in handcuffs. It was all over the news. Right after a close-up of Randy Severino.”
McNulty raised his eyebrows. “They overreacted.”
Larry blew out his cheeks. “Doesn’t matter now. The whole world saw Titanic Productions’s police adviser being dragged away by the police.”
McNulty made a circular gesture with one hand. “I’m sure you’ll spin it in your favor.”
Larry tapped a finger on the table. “What I can’t spin is our first AC turning up dead.”
McNulty sighed. “Or your judge getting shot on the movie set.”
Larry stood up and started pacing the floor. “Especially if the first AC was involved.”
McNulty waved a calming hand. “He wasn’t involved.”
Larry stopped pacing. “He was trying to sell the footage. That’s involved enough.”
McNulty lowered his hand. “He didn’t shoot anybody. Everything after that is just fallout.”
A light went on behind Larry’s eyes. “Unless we spin it like he was trying to draw out the gunman. Letting him know we caught him on film.”
McNulty shifted in his seat. “Not a good idea. Painting a target on your back.”
Larry pulled the robe tighter. “It’s what you’re doing.”
McNulty looked at the shiny, pink prune. “I’m a stronger swimmer.”
NINETEEN
Night turned into day. June turned into July. Waltham began gearing up for its plans for the Fourth of July and McNulty geared up for his plans for the bogus CCTV. He wasn’t finished with the red van yet though, so the following morning saw him walking down the alley to Abko Auto Body again. Banners were already going up on the lampposts along Linden Street.
July 4th Parade
www.waltham.ma.gov
10 a.m. Banks Square Waltham
sticking out of one side of the lamppost, and
July 4th Fireworks
and Evening Show
7 p.m. Waltham High School
on the other, like two giant sails catching the wind.
Police inquiries always start the same way, you start with what you know or who you know, or where you know. House-to-house inquiries fan out from the house where the crime was committed. In the case of the shooting, that would be the orphanage that had been turned into a movie set. With the van, it was the place that suggested the grey was undercoat. He found the foreman in his office.
“Interesting idea. The neutral undercoat thing.” McNulty stood in the doorway. “Tell me, do you guys have a body shop fraternity?”
The other thing about police inquiries is how long they take. In a Larry Unger production this part would be covered by an expert use of montage and background music. Asking the questions takes long enough but traveling from location to location adds time and distance to the equation. Getting lost trying to find some of the workshops didn’t help. Hooking into the body shop fraternity went a long way toward shortening McNulty’s day.
The foreman not only helped with the legitimate panel beaters and spray shops but also made a few calls to uncover some of the backstreet off-the-books garages. McNulty used the tried and tested routine of starting where you are and then fanning out, so he did the auto strip on Linden Street first. Just for completeness, because he doubted they’d painted the van on the same street they’d done the shooting.
The net widened. McNulty took in wreckers and repair shops in Waltham, South Side and Auburndale. He set the boundary at Watertown heading east, concentrating on the south and west. He took in spray bays at West Newton, Norumbega Park and Stony Brook Basin, and all points in-between. The day wore on into afternoon and all he had to show for it was an understanding of just how much work the July Fourth Parade generated for the local economy. Everything except emergency bodywork and repairs had been put on hold as the floats and parade vehicles were cleaned and sprayed, and brought up to standards.
Some of the auto centers suggested other places to try. Some of the other places suggested way-off-the-books premises. Most of them he could drive to. Some required a bit of walking. The only constant was the rusty foreign car that kept turning up in his rear-view mirror. And the guy who kept watching him. White male. Medium height. Medium build.
It was the head mechanic at Stony Brook Basin Auto Body who finally pointed McNulty in the right direction. McNulty took with a grain of salt the mechanic’s assertion that he’d heard about a red van looking to repair a dent in the roof. Anyone who called himself Head Mechanic when he was, in fact, the only mechanic had to be taken with a certain amount of scepticism. The body shop he gave up didn’t have a name, and there wasn’t even
