All in One Piece Read online

  Sit? Sitting is the posture approved by every man I’ve ever known.

  “Anything out of the ordinary, give us the word. Any sixth-sense messages, let me know.”

  He leans close, but I’m in a bind. Telling him now about my vision of Steven Damelin drowning will “prove” that I’m too close to the case. If I tell him now, Devaney will forbid me any part in the investigation. For now, my leeway—my freedom—requires a self-imposed gag order. “I’ll be in touch, Frank. I’ll call you. Maybe you’ll call me back?”

  “Definite maybe.” He twinkles. I don’t twinkle back.

  Devaney is still standing by my VW when I get in, start the engine, rev it to 3,000, 4,000 rpm, feel the surge, and like it a lot.

  Chapter Ten

  The notion of going upstairs to Steven’s makes my skin crawl. I take Biscuit out and count the cops. It’s down to one cruiser at the corner, and the sidewalk ghouls are gone, doubtless heartbroken not to see a parade of bagged corpses. Sergeant Dorecki tells me the police are finished. It’s after four. The upstairs apartment can be cleaned now.

  There’s no sign of Nick the locksmith.

  I schedule Right True Clean and touch that spot on my head. It’s still sore. Press harder. It’s definitely sore.

  Keep busy, Reggie. I call my son’s voice mail in Silicon Valley. “It’s Mom again, Jack. Please call ASAP.” Stepping outside, I try all the doorbells next door at 25 Barlow. Nobody answers. I go back inside. The mail arrives, shoved through the vestibule slot. For me, there’s a magazine renewal, supermarket specials, autumn closeouts. Actually I’m hoping for a card, especially one postmarked Cairo or Damascus. A certain man promises to be in touch but travels a good deal. I already have cards showing the pyramids and Sphinx and camels. Each message promises dinner as soon as he lands in Boston. Meanwhile, the cards are stowed in my lingerie drawer—so far, four of them. There’s no fifth arrival today.

  Addressed to Steven are a bill, a menswear sale, discounts on rugs. I set it all aside. Will Maglia trust me with a forwarding address? What address? Who is the next of kin?

  I go into the study with Jo’s massive rolltop desk and two oak file cabinets. This was her “boiler room,” where I turn out “Ticked Off” weekly on my laptop. Jo’s files are still intact for sentimental reasons mixed with inertia. We all joked about her first-generation laptop, but Jo Cutter believed in paper. In the past months, I’ve gone through her old grade books, high school history curriculum plans, and community organizing records. Now I search again, among the hundreds of names in the files, for Steven Damelin. A stickler for record keeping, Jo surely opened a file on their “deal.”

  There’s no such file, not in these oak drawers. A thorough search yields no trace of Steven. There is a thank-you letter acknowledging Jo’s help launching the Big Buddies program, signed by a Rev. Gail Welch of All Souls Church. I’m noting her name when Nick the locksmith arrives, a mustached man as thin as a rail.

  At the sight of my vestibule door, he puts down his toolbox and his eyes widen to dark saucers. His Adam’s apple jerks. “Is Chinese?” I force myself to look at the door panel, and my throat closes when he says, “This dry blood?”

  “No, it’s paint. Just paint. Come in.” He looks ready to flee. “Please come in.” I force a smile, and at last he picks up his tools and crosses my threshold. I walk him through every room and order a combo of dead bolts, chains, and padlocks. In minutes, his drill whines and screams.

  There’s one final task in the study. The sight of my door and Nick’s reaction stiffen my resolve. I close the study door tight and unlock a walnut cabinet where two handguns are kept. Yes, guns. These, too, were Jo’s. Why she had them I never knew. They remain one of her secrets, shocking when I first came upon them last winter. In Jo’s life, they’re inexplicable. The Colt .44 looks like something from a Clint Eastwood movie. The other, the Taurus .38 revolver, is another matter. It’s scary, yet reassuring too. Am I a gun enthusiast? Hardly. Have I ventured to use this firearm? Once I brandished but did not fire it. Devaney would have a fit if he knew.

  Reaching into the cabinet drawer, the hiding place, I close my hand around the grip of the Taurus. The safety is on, and the gun not loaded, though I own a box of half-jacket flat-point bullets. Over the last couple of months, I’ve toyed with the notion of gun lessons. It has seemed adventurous, like kayaking or scuba.

  Now it’s life support. When Nick leaves, I will load the .38 and check the Web and yellow pages for firearms instruction.

  The locksmith’s tools clink in the background, and I’m thankful for the ringing phone.

  “What’s this about murder, Mom?”

  “Jack… you talked to your sister.”

  “She e-mailed me.” The e-generation. “So you actually talked to the guy, and then he got killed? Are you okay? Are the police still there?”

  “In droves,” I lie. “Your Aunt Jo’s house is a police convention.”

  I picture my Silicon Valley son at his computer and with a three-day stubble, his sandy hair tousled, probably in shorts and sandals, living the life he loves, not a suit in his closet. Then his male fix-it logic kicks in, so very Jack. “You gotta think twenty-four/seven, Mom. You need security.”

  “Dear, the locksmith is here right now.”

  “Molly and I think private security.”

  This sounds suspiciously like round-the-clock nurses, casting me as the invalid. Which I totally reject. They mean well, but grown children will be patronizing. They can’t help it. “I’ll look into an alarm system, Jack.”

  “I mean private guards. No metro force will give you round-the-clock surveillance. When things quiet down, they’re gone. They were too late for that poor s.o.b. who needed protection, and the police aren’t interested in you.”

  “He wasn’t an s.o.b., Jack. He was a helpful young man. As it happens, I’m working with the police.”

  “You’re an amateur, Mom.”

  “Try ‘apprentice,’ Jacko. And remember the warmhearted Greek brothers at the neighborhood grocery? They arranged for the locksmith.”

  “They probably get a kickback.”

  “Oh, Jack, don’t be like your fa—I mean, they are concerned for my safety.”

  “So am I. But the Greeks aren’t standing guard at your doorstep. You need extra protection.” Classic Jack. From boyhood, his solutions are blunt. “Just remember Houston, Mom.”

  “Oh, hon—” My son never quite got over his fifth-grade year, when our house burglary went unsolved and Jack was stunned to learn that the Houston cops couldn’t recover the very TV on which he watched police heroes. “Not to worry, dear. The detectives are brilliant, and the locksmith’s turning the place into Fort Cutter. But let me ask you a few questions. Did Jo ever say anything about a younger man named Steve or Steven Damelin? Think hard.”

  In the background, I hear a keyboard tapping on. Then my son says a firm no.

  “Anything about a ‘deal’?”

  “Aunt Jo? Hardly.”

  “Did you notice anything unusual the last few times you spoke to her when she was still… herself?”

  “Before the heavy drugs? I don’t think… wait, maybe one thing. Last fall she offered me travel money if I wanted to see the world.”

  “A vacation?”

  “Travel for fun? Think again, Mom. No, it was for education, to broaden my mind. She’d be my sponsor. She said her ship was coming in.”

  “What ship? When?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  I’m careful not to alarm my son. “Interesting, Jack. Now I better let you get back to work. Still data mining?”

  “Data mining it is, Mom.”

  Gainful employment, that’s what it is to me. And my son’s happiness. “Keep in touch, Jacko.”

  “Count on it, Mom. Call me.” I’m ready to hang up, but he presses the point. “No, I mean, call me. It sounds like maybe Jo was connected to the murdered guy in some special way. Don’t blow me off, Mom. Because yo
u know what? If Aunt Jo hadn’t died, maybe she’d be in danger now. I mean, maybe there’s danger in the situation, like the house. Maybe it’s some deal that involved Jo and the guy. What’s his name again?”

  “Steven.”

  “Yeah, Steven. Suppose it’s something you don’t know about, but it’s coming down to you. Suppose, like, you’re next—”

  “Jack!”

  “You have to take care of yourself. You better get serious.”

  “I’m very serious, Jack.”

  When we finally hang up, I go to the windows. Evening is coming on, and there’s not one cop car in sight. Gaslights glow algae green along the street, and I think of Steven’s body in the morgue, cooled by refrigeration. I hear Nick testing the new locks on every door, ready to bolt me in.

  It’s a practical move, a sensible precaution. I’ll be safer, at least in theory. But locks have their limits. Nick, the cops, my kids—they see protection. Fine.

  But right now it’s breaking out that’s on my mind. Yes, I’ve broken free in life, and a free-range woman refuses to be locked in. Call this my autumn resolution: I, Reggie Cutter, hereby refuse house arrest on Barlow Square. I’ll bolt, all right. I’ll be my own free agent. Scared? Sure, I’m no fool. But like pros who play through the pain, I’ll push through to the playing field. More, I’ll wrap my arms around this murder case and not let go for a minute till the killer is caught.

  Chapter Eleven

  Never have I been so thankful for a dog. Biscuit curls at the foot of the bed. She wakes when I do, and when I get out of bed to have a look around, she patrols the rooms at my side. Sniffles and congestion from my dander allergy are the smallest price for this canine companion and watchdog. Restful sleep? Save it for the Sealy ads. The .38 revolver is now loaded, and I’ve stored it in a shoe box on the shelf in my bedroom closet.

  Waking up twice after midnight, I check the new front door and basement locks and peer out the windows. No one’s on Barlow Square. Patrol cars circle deep into the wee hours. They move slowly, their flashers off. One cruiser parks at the corner and stays for over two hours. I am thankful.

  At six, I am up and dressed, the coffee and TV on. The early a.m. news reports a spectacular, made-for-TV warehouse fire in Somerville. Mere seconds are spared for wrap-up coverage of Steven’s murder. Close-ups show the body bag brought down the stairs, plus my shoulder and Biscuit’s nose. Steven’s name does not appear in today’s Globe obituaries.

  Three hours from now, Right True Clean will arrive. The apartment will look as good as new. The door panel blood will be gone.

  Pouring coffee, I’m suddenly thunderstruck by this: the cleaning will erase all evidence of the Oriental markings. If I need to see the police photographs for any reason, I’ll have to plead with Devaney and beg Maglia. They’ll pull rank and stonewall. No way.

  The next couple of hours are suddenly precious. My snapshot film camera has three shots left. Snap snap snap, I finish the roll. But suppose they don’t turn out. Can I copy the pattern? Draw it, me? It’s a standing joke between me and Molly. But tissue paper, tracing paper. God help me, I must trace the markings, with the heel of my hand resting just one tissue thickness from Steven’s blood.

  Queasiness, I tell myself, is out of the question. The tissue I’ve saved for gift wrap is now forensic. Quickly I tape a big piece over the door panel and go for a Sharpie pen and—

  And hear a horrific roar outside. Yet a familiar roar. What day is it? Good God, it’s Wednesday. Yes, Wednesday. The roar and day match. I know whose noise this is, and why it’s here.

  Why he’s here.

  Biscuit is a ball of motion, flying to the front, poised to leap into the arms of the biker who’s just off his cherry-red Harley Fat Boy and climbing my front steps as if he owns them. He’s in black boots, faded tight Levi’s, and a Marine Corps jacket. His arms reach out, and the dog flings her whole self at him from muzzle to tail the instant the door opens. Then it’s all paws and palms and growls and barking while I stand by like a sidelined referee.

  “Don’t hurt her ears.”

  “She loves it.”

  Indeed she does. Roughhousing with this man is Biscuit’s utopia. This is R. K. Stark, the custodial “papa” who shares joint ownership of the beagle. Whatever Jo was thinking when she willed her dog to two human polar opposites, neither Stark nor I will ever know. Oil and water we are, or night and day. We see eye-to-eye on almost nothing, not even the dog. Stark rolls Biscuit on the stoop, and her patch of snowy-white fur darkens to gray. “Stark, don’t, I just bathed her.”

  “Grit’s good for her coat. Don’t worry, Cutter, I’ll take her swimming. The water’s warm enough.”

  Take her. That’s the dreadful fact—that Stark has come for Biscuit. We trade off every few days, and it’s his turn. He’s brought that homemade leather contraption to harness her to the Harley Fat Boy motorcycle. He’s here to take my watchdog away.

  “How about some coffee?” he asks. He sees my hesitation and misunderstands it. “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna nag about your biker course.”

  He means the motorcycle riding course he’s pressing me to sign up for, which is now out of the question. “Stark, a motorcycle is the last thing on my mind.”

  “Your tuition check’s cashed, Cutter. You’re on the student list for the last week of the month.”

  “I don’t think so. I have… other plans.”

  “You’ll love it. How ’bout the coffee? A quick cup. Don’t worry, I’m not moving back in.”

  This refers to the two years when Stark lived downstairs in Jo’s basement rent-free. “A coffee break,” I say. “Sure.”

  But he stops at the sight of the tissue paper over the door panel. “What’s this, arts and crafts?”

  Biscuit sniffs, whines, writhes, whimpers, and gives a moaning bark at the blood-marked door. “Biscuit, no.” I take her in my arms. Stark looks hard at the tissue paper. “What’s that underneath, Chinese?”

  The word “blood” is beyond me. The murder… to talk about it again? I can’t. “I’m updating the entryway, trying out a possibility.” Stark’s gaze narrows, but silently he follows me to the kitchen, where I fill an enormous Bruins mug and wait until he spoons in his usual five sugars, stirs, gulps as if the hot brew is a cold soda.

  “How can you drink it that hot?”

  “A leatherneck’s a leatherneck inside and out.” He means his Marine Corps days. At nearly six feet, Stark is totally fit. His hair is ginger, his eyes Atlantic gray. In his mid-thirties, his trademark aroma is unfiltered Camels. I imagine him a few years ago coping with civilian life, living in Jo’s basement, camping on a cot with a shower rigged at her ancient soapstone sinks. Supposedly his two years downstairs were to be spent renovating the basement into an apartment while he pulled his life together, but believe me, there’s no sign of renovation. Stark says he’s forever grateful to Jo and now pays her back by looking out for my welfare. He’s a self-appointed adviser and guardian of sorts, meaning Stark repays my aunt’s generosity by offering me his personal protective services. Indeed the man has a knack for appearing at the wrong times—and the right times too. The term “jackboot thug” comes close to an apt description, but more than once Stark’s been my Boston lifeline.

  “So what’s up, Cutter? Your eyes look like you need some rack time. You losing sleep?”

  As usual, there’s no small talk. Stark’s nickname could be Mr. Nine Inch Nail. I avoid his question. “A cleaning service is coming.”

  “I thought scrubbing was part of your workout.”

  “I’m splurging. Anyway, my column is soon due.”

  “‘Pissed Off’?”

  “‘Ticked Off.’ As you know.”

  “What’s it gonna be? Gentlemen that don’t hold doors for ladies? Guests that don’t bring vintage wine for supper?”

  “For dinner. Don’t bait me. But I’m always looking for good ideas.”

  “In fact, I have one. It’s tips.”

&n
bsp; “Gratuities? I did that column.”

  “Not big-bucks dining, Cutter. Not your country clubs.”

  “I included hair salons and valet parking.”

  He grins as if I’m clueless. “I’m talking about the guy at the McCounter, the woman at the drive-thru or Wal-Mart. A buck for people working two, three jobs and they can’t make it.”

  “Tips for fast-food workers? For kids?”

  “They’re not just kids. They’re rock-bottom, decent working stiffs. They’re screwed by big companies and the stock option crowd. They’re pushed to the wall.”

  “Stark, I am not a political columnist. I need rapport with my readers.”

  “Rapport? What good’s rapport when the bottom falls out? I’m talking about people that need help.”

  “Stark, let’s discuss this another time. Right now I could use some help. Actually I’d like a favor. How about let Biscuit stay a few days longer here with me?”

  “The life of a lapdog? No way, Cutter. She’s in training. I put together a swim-dive program, and we gotta talk about her diet. She needs a protein regimen… wait, this isn’t strictly about the dog, is it? Something’s going on. You got new locks, I saw chisel marks on the front door. Don’t give me bull about upgrades in the hall. You look scared. What’s up?”

  My throat shuts. I force a swallow and say murder and sketch the last two days from the blue car to the police. He doesn’t move a muscle. His eyes narrow to gray oceanic slits. “So the cleaners are coming for the upstairs, right? What about your front door? Let’s look.”

  I drag myself with him. Biscuit hangs back as we lift the tissue. Stark lets out a piercing whistle. “Son of a bitch.”

  “It’s deliberate, isn’t it? Oriental? I took some pictures.”

  “Looks Chinese, maybe more than one character. What’s it say?” Neither of us can guess. “You gotta find a translator fast, Cutter. Another thing, what kind of car ran you down?”