Absolutely, Positively (9 page)

“Killjoy,” she said, tugging her blazer to smooth out a wrinkle.

Aiden smirked. I had the feeling Preston amused him. Much like a sideshow act.

I crumbled the empty sandwich wrapper. Ignoring Preston was sometimes best.

“Whatever you do, be careful. You’re playing with fire.” Aiden rose, headed for the door.

“You’re leaving already? But what did you find out about Mac?”

“I didn’t learn much more than you did about Mac Gladstone, though I’m still waiting to hear on his medical records. There is one thing that stands out.”

“What?” I asked.

“He’s been withdrawing nine thousand dollars a month from his bank account for the last six months. Some of it has been going to his daughter and her husband—a monthly allowance of sorts—but the rest, about five grand a month, is unaccounted for.”

Sean whistled low. “Why?”

“No one knows for certain. But we’ve seen this pattern before.”

My stomach was in knots. I pushed my sandwich away. “How so?”

“In blackmail cases. My best guess is Mac Gladstone has been paying someone off.”

10

Aiden’s revelation had knocked some wind out of our suicide theory. If Mac was being extorted, then he might have disappeared on purpose. Maybe even staged his own death.

He might even have been desperate enough to leave his beloved granddaughter behind to worry. Not to mention Rufus.

But it all begged the question of who Mac was paying off. According to his family and friends, he had no enemies.

Sean, Preston, and I were speculating.

“Tax fraud?” I suggested.

Preston rolled her eyes. “That’s not a big deal. According to my sources, Mac’s worth upward of fifty million. He’d easily be able to pay off a tax bill.”

Sean sat at my desk, his back to us as he used the computer to look up the Mayhew heist. He’d been quiet since Aiden’s visit. Too quiet.

I dialed Meaghan Archibald. Her phone rang and rang. It finally clicked over to voice mail. I left a message asking her to call me back.

“Maybe Jemima is the result of an illicit relationship,” Preston suggested. “Oh, wait. This isn’t your family we’re talking about.” She smirked.

“Low blow,” I said. Funny but low.

“How is Cutter these days?” she asked.

“He’s fine.”

“How long will he be out of town?”

She stared at her fingernails as if not caring about the answer, but there had been something in her tone that had me watching her carefully. Even Sean swiveled in the desk chair for a closer look.

A rosy blush stained her cheeks as she picked at a hangnail.

“Why are you so interested?” I asked.

“Who says I’m interested?”

Thoreau stirred from his doggy bed in the corner as I picked up my tote bag, put Meaghan’s file inside. “I do.”

“I do, too,” Sean said.

She stood, running her palms over her pants, then bending to straighten the cuff. “Well, you’re both wrong. Find anything?” she asked Sean, ditching the conversation.

Sean tapped the screen. “None of the pieces from the Mayhew robbery were ever recovered. There were classics like van Gogh and Monet stolen along with more modern pieces from Andy Warhol. Several items of vintage jewelry were also taken from the precious-gems exhibit, including a pink diamond ring worth upward of two million. There were also several Norman Rockwell pieces taken and—” He stopped abruptly.

“What?” I asked.

“Two of the prints stolen were Mac Gladstone’s.”

“Mac?” I repeated. “It has to be a coincidence. That robbery was three years ago.”

Preston leaned in to read over Sean’s shoulder. “Reporters don’t believe in coincidence.”

“Okay, Ms. Reporter-Pants,” I said. “What’s your theory?”

She frowned. “I don’t really have one. I just don’t believe in coincidences. Besides, I can only do so much. You two are the investigators. You figure it out. Then let me know, so I can write an article about it.” She headed for the door. “I’m going back to the Common to see if the Lone Ranger has made another appearance. You’ll let me know if Meaghan calls, right?”

“Right,” I said.

As Preston left, Thoreau raised his nose, sniffed, and went back to sleep.

Sean turned off the computer and leaned against the table. I cozied up, rubbed the deep lines between his eyebrows. “Why the concern?”

His hands spanned my rib cage, pulled me close. “This case. I have a bad feeling about it.”

“We do have escape clauses. Or we can just return her retainer. If it’s bothering you that much we can walk away.”

“No,” he said, kissing my neck. “Not yet. Not until we have more information on Tristan.”

Sean’s shoulders stiffened when he said the name. It reminded me of when he did the same thing yesterday. I drew back, looked him in the eye. “What upset you yesterday when Preston was talking about zebras changing stripes?”

He kissed my lips, edged away. “I wasn’t upset.”

As I watched him put his files in a messenger bag and gather up Thoreau, I had to wonder why Sean was lying to me.

*   *   *

Looking for more information on Tristan had us headed to Squantum, a small peninsula that jutted like a baby toe into the waters between Boston Harbor and Quincy Bay.

The Speros, the foster parents who had taken in Rourke and Meaghan as teenagers, were living in a blue-collar, family-friendly neighborhood with sidewalks and tree-lined streets. Sean pulled up to a three-foot-tall snowbank that acted as a curb.

The sun was sinking on the horizon as I dug into Meaghan’s growing file to brush up on what we knew. From what Sean and I had been able to gather so far, Anthony Spero had worked most of his life as a steelworker but was now on disability after an accident at the Quincy shipyard. His wife, Mary Ellen (née Murphy), currently held a full-time job as a librarian at the Thomas Crane library in Quincy. No kids. There was one auto loan outstanding for a Chevy pickup. The house, however, belonged to Mary Ellen’s sister, Catherine Murphy. The Speros had been living here for the past nine months. Their former house in Jamaica Plain had been foreclosed on when Anthony could no longer work.

I tucked the paperwork back into the file and dropped it into my tote bag. I rubbed Thoreau’s ears and he yawned, his little pink tongue sticking out.

We were hoping Mary Ellen and Anthony Spero would tell us their side of what happened eight years ago. Would it match what Meaghan had told us and what was in the newspapers?

“Ready?” Sean asked.

Thoreau jumped up, wagged his tiny tail so fast there was a draft.

“Not you,” I said to him. I lowered the window a crack, tucked a blanket around him. I grabbed my tote bag as I opened the door.

Lights glowed in the house, a small split-level ranch probably built in the forties or fifties. It was painted dark beige with black and cream trim. Cracks split the shoveled concrete walkway as we headed to the front door.

In answer to Sean’s knock, a man filled the doorway, his potbelly jiggling under a white T-shirt. Sweatpants sagged as if he’d recently lost weight.

“What?” he asked.

“Anthony Spero?” Sean asked.

“Yeah? What?”

I pegged him as the kind who hit the bars every weekend, who talked too loudly (mostly about himself) and only worked hard enough not to get fired.

I immediately felt bad for his wife.

“We’d like to speak to you and your wife,” I said, pasting on a bright smile. “About Tristan Rourke and Meaghan Ar—” I caught myself. He might not know her adopted name. “Chaney.”

“Who’re you?”

Sean handed him an SD Investigations card. “We’re looking for Rourke.”

With a jerk of his head, Spero motioned for us to come in. He didn’t hold the door. In the tiny kitchen, he opened the fridge. “Only one beer left.” A top popped, fizzed. “You two want some water?”

I bit back a smile at his attempt to be a good host. “No thanks.”

I could tell by the set of Sean’s jaw that he didn’t like Spero at first glance.

“Why are you looking for that punk Rourke?” Spero shuffled into the living room, plopped down on a slipcovered armchair, set his beer can on his belly. “What kind of house doesn’t have a recliner? This ain’t my place, if you can’t tell. It’s my old lady’s sister’s place.

“We’ve been here a couple months. It’s not permanent. Just till we find a place of our own. Damn economy. Meaghan tell you we were here?”

Delicate pink paint covered the walls, casting a girlish glow over the room decorated with antique furniture—a gorgeous Georgian side table, a pair of mahogany armchairs. Not pieces a man like Spero would ever appreciate.

“License bureau.” Sean sat on a settee, taking up a little more than half of it. “Mary Ellen listed a change of address.”

Spero’s face screwed up as he processed the information. He scratched his stomach. White-tinted stubble covered his jowly chin. He reminded me a bit too much of Dennis Farina’s mug shot.

I really needed to stop reading the gossip mags at the Shaw’s checkout. “Is Mary Ellen around?”

“Nah. Working late all this week, overtime. We need the money.”

“Do you see Meaghan a lot?” Sean asked, redirecting the conversation.

“Me? Nah. Mary Ellen still talks to the girl, time to time. She don’t think I know, but I let it slide.”

“Slide?” Sean asked.

“Those kids were all messed up,” Spero said, tapping his head to indicate mental problems. “We don’t need them interfering with our lives. Did she listen? No. It’s why women shouldn’t make no decisions. I had my choice, those kids never would’ve left the hellholes they crawled out of.”

Sean tensed, coiled, as if he were about to spring. I set my hand on his leg and could practically feel the anger coming off him in heated waves. What was with him lately?

“Whiny bunch of bloodsuckers, kids are. Only good thing about those kids Mare brought in?”

“What?” Sean asked through clenched teeth.

“The dough. Made some good money back then. Could use some now.”

“Why aren’t you still fostering?” I asked, probing.

His eyes went wide. “ ’Cause I like breathing, thank you very much. I put my foot down after Rourke tried to do me in. Happiest goddamned day of my life.” I could picture him on the bar stool, telling this same story, guffawing with his buddies.

I couldn’t help myself. “The day he tried to strangle you?”

He tipped his head to the side, sized me up. “No, Goldilocks. The day I kicked all those kids out.”

“And Mary Ellen?” Sean asked.

“She got over it.”

Obviously not if she still kept in touch with Meaghan. “Do you know if Mary Ellen also keeps in touch with Rourke?”

Anger weaved into his eyes. “If she knows what’s good for her, she best not be talking to Rourke.”

I wanted to ask, “Or else what?” but held my tongue. I was afraid of the answer.

I nudged Sean. We both stood to go. It was Mary Ellen we needed to talk to if we wanted to know what had happened eight years ago.

Anthony Spero was nothing but a dead end.

11

I watched my footing as I came down the front steps, careful of icy patches. “Do you want to swing by the library on the way home?”

Home.

Such a simple little word that held so much meaning.

It wasn’t as though Sean didn’t spend all his free time there. He had space in the closet, a toothbrush next to mine, two bureau drawers. He knew to run the hot water for a few minutes before getting into the shower in the morning to kick-start the water heater. He knew how to operate the stackable washer and dryer and that the oven temperature ran hotter than what the knob indicated.

My home
was
his home.

Why not make it official?

Right. The curse.

The damn curse.

I hated that thing.

Still angry, he said, “It’s on the way.”

I faced him. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“You. The anger.”

“The guy was a jerk, Lucy.”

“It’s not just him. You’ve been off ever since we took this case.”

“It’s getting late. We should go.”

In the muted glow of the streetlights, I could see the pain etched in his eyes. I wanted to know where it came from and how to get rid of it. But now wasn’t the time or place to push him. My heart aching, I spun and lost my footing. Sean grabbed my elbow. Warmth flowed from his fingers through my coat, down my forearms, and tingled in the tips of my fingers.

“Whoa,” he said.

“Whoa” was right. “Look!” I gasped, pointing at the car. Both doors were wide open. Thoreau was nowhere in sight.

We stood frozen for the briefest of seconds as we took it all in. The scene, the repercussions.

Sean let go of me and rushed forward. He stuck his head in the car and pulled it out a second later. “He’s gone.” Pained, he said, “I locked it, didn’t I? I remember locking it.”

I nodded. I recalled hearing the beeps. “What else did they take?”

“Nothing. Nothing else is missing that I can tell.” He went to the trunk, opened it. Pulling out two flashlights, he handed one to me.

Thankfully, I’d brought my tote bag in with me.

I heard him mumble, “Son of a bitch,” under his breath before he said, “Let’s split up. Look for prints in the snow, in case he’s running loose and not stolen.”

My heart sank to my toes. Stolen. Thoreau was a purebred Yorkshire terrier. He’d get good money on the black market.

73 minus 5 is 69. Shit. 68.

So much for math calming me down.

I started off down the block, calling Thoreau’s name. Street lamps offered little extra light as the beams from the flashlight swept back and forth across front lawns, searching for any sign Thoreau had been here. There was no sign of him—or of paw prints, either.

Twenty minutes later, I was still looking. I walked up and down four streets before heading back to Sean’s Mustang. I fought a wave of nausea as I looked inside the car. Thoreau’s leash was gone. He hadn’t been hooked to it when we left him in the car—someone had come along, broken in, and stolen Thoreau.

Deflated, I leaned against the door. Tears welled in my eyes. The little dog had become a part of my family. I couldn’t believe he was just gone. And that I couldn’t use my abilities to find him.