“Wait! What?” How could Chase be related to any of these gangsters? His mother was a Vanderbilt, for goodness sakes! Slowly, the meaning behind his words sank in. “Wait a minute, you mean Tony? Listen, I’m not Tony’s girlfriend. We’re just friends.”
“Ms. Maguire, since when do nice, small-town girls like you move into condos with bad boys like Mr. Lenzi if you are
just friends
.” His fingers made exaggerated air quotes around the last words, eliciting titters from his junior agents. “We know you’re his
goomah
, and whether you realize it or not, Ms. Maguire, you are in some serious trouble. Or at least, your boyfriend is.”
She’d heard the word
goomah
before, when Tony used it as a joke. He told her it translated to something like
demanding bitch
. How could these guys take it so seriously? She rolled her eyes. “He’s not my boyfriend. What will it take to convince you of that? Jeez Louise, can’t men and women be friends anymore without sex in the equation?”
The door to the room swung open and Jim entered slowly, balancing an overfilled tray of coffee cups. Emma saw her iced coffee teetering in the midst of the steaming Styrofoam cups. He plucked it from the cardboard and placed it on the table in front of her. “Thanks, Jim. Case in point. Jim and I are friends without a whiff of sexual tension.”
He bobbled the tray and nearly spilled the rest of the coffees. “Whoa there, what are you saying about me and sex? I thought Emma was here to fill you in about her friend Tony.”
“Friend, not boyfriend,” Emma added for emphasis.
Agent Roth rolled his eyes. “Whatever label you want to attach is fine by me. We already have him on tape referring to you as his mistress.”
“Wait, what? What do you mean, mistress?”
The agent she now knew was McKay started smirking again. “
Goomah
. The Italian word for mistress. Also used when those
paisans
are dating inappropriate women, the ones they can’t—or won’t—marry.”
Emma sputtered, trying to find a retort.
Inappropriate? I’ll give him inappropriate
. She clutched her coffee to help keep her temper in check. Roth turned to McKay with a stony look and asked him to leave the interrogation room. He pushed his chair back with a little more force than necessary. “What? What did I do? I just explained the goddamn word to her.” Roth pointed to the door without saying another word.
“Now then,” Roth said after the door slammed behind McKay. “You’ve spent a significant amount of time with the man in the last six months, and if you’d fill in some of the details of his life for us, it would help matters, for us and for you. After all, I’m sure you don’t want us going to Tony with our most recent photos.” He threw down several 4 by 6 snapshots in rapid succession. “McKay took these last night.”
Emma leaned back in the chair, working hard to maintain a blank expression. The series of grainy photographs showed her and Todd slamming Jaegermeister and ending with the first kiss she planted on his cheek.
Should I be surprised they misinterpreted the situation? They still think I’m Tony’s mistress.
Her face burned at the memory of how much more compromising the photos could have been, if that idiot of an agent did a more thorough job. She and Chase walked arm in arm through the public parking lot at MacMillan Wharf, and hadn’t been very private with their intentions when they reached the Harbor Hotel. Even her ears turned crimson at the memory.
Judging by the smug smile on Roth’s face, he totally misread her reaction to the photos. “I’m sure your mobster wouldn’t be nearly as forgiving of your indiscretion,” he sneered. “All we ask is a few answers.”
“There’s no point in threatening me, Agent Roth. I’ll tell you if I can.” His eyes tightened and she quickly added, “I meant, if I know the answer. That’s all.”
“Fair enough.”
Roth questioned her about specific dates and places, most of which Emma had no clue about. It was quickly obvious that she had no useful information to share about Tony. She’d met him in January, and knew he worked in insurance, but still couldn’t remember the company name. No, she never met anyone he worked with, or any of his friends or family. “Well, until the other day when Vito showed up and introduced himself.”
Roth scribbled a notation. “What day was that?”
“The day he died.”
“Were you aware of his business in Provincetown?”
She shrugged. “Tony said his cousin handled the family business in Boston and P-town. I assumed he meant insurance.”
Roth smirked and shook his head. “Drugs. He traveled by ferry from Boston once a week during the summer months, so as not to cross through the mid-Cape territory staked out by the Brazilian gangs.”
Emma felt lightheaded, listening to Roth speak so nonchalantly. “This might be business as usual for you all, but this is my hometown. Sure, I realize there are drugs everywhere these days, but it’s small time stuff around here.”
Roth closed one folder and opened another, shaking his head. “Where do you think it comes from? Let’s move on to something you might know more about.” He proceeded to question her about her relationship with Tony. She confirmed that the pair met for coffee every other Sunday morning at The Daily Grind, a popular Manhattan coffee shop. Apparently, two of the junior agents at the table had been taking turns staking out their Sunday rendezvous for the last month or so.
“We’re friends meeting for coffee,” Emma insisted. “Friends do that kind of thing, you know.”
“Did anyone ever join you for one of these coffee meetings?”
Emma shook her head. “Just us.”
Roth frowned. He switched topics again, circling back to her time at Eco Dawn. His questions seemed less specific, more open-ended, wanting her to explain the benefits the project offered the city, or why the mayor championed the cause. Emma did her best to explain the project and what it would mean to city residents. Roth zeroed in on the fundraising, asking about specific donors. Emma shook her head in frustration. “I honestly don’t remember off the top of my head who wrote a check for what amount. Or when they made their commitment to the project. Who keeps all those facts in their heads?”
Jim spoke up. “Can’t you pull up some sort of spreadsheet on that smartphone?”
“I wish.” Emma explained how her phone died on Monday, losing all her contacts and the connection to her office. “I have to re-sync it all when I get back to the office next week. For now, it’s just a phone.”
The interview dragged on, but the questions started to blend together and sound familiar. Roth drilled down on each topic repeatedly, not seeming to believe that Emma didn’t have more information. Finally, she snapped. “If I had the answers, I would give them to you. You keep trying to ask me the same things with different words. I’m not an idiot. I just don’t know.” She turned to Jim for support. “This is not what I signed up for when I agreed to help. I’m hungry, and cranky, and late to meet Chase over at CCS. Can they keep me in here all day?”
He shook his head. “Not against your will. Not without arresting you.”
She glared at Agent Roth. “Are you arresting me?”
“Not at this point,” he said, looking grim. He dragged a hand down the side of his face, the picture of frustration. “But I’m also not entirely convinced that you don’t know more than you’re sharing. How do I know you’re not headed straight out that door to warn your pal Tony about our investigation? I’m thinking it would be safer for you to stay here and cooperate.”
Her eyes widened. She’d almost forgotten that Tony should be in Provincetown by this point, looking into his cousin’s murder and the fire at her parents’ home. And no doubt looking for her. But what did Agent Roth expect? That she’d sit here quietly while he badgered her with more questions she couldn’t answer? They’d get no further in the investigation and she’d go insane. How would that help either one of them?
“You have a murder to solve and I have a life to live. Call me if you think of questions I can actually answer.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chase looked up from the microscope to check the clock on the wall. Five minutes before noon, and no call from Emma. “I guess she really needed to sleep,” he mused. He’d spent most of the morning huddled alone over seemingly endless slides, comparing and contrasting the findings from the garbage sites they’d investigated over the last month and a half. He originally meant to let his intern take charge of this morning’s findings. He wanted to get back to the motel—and to Emma—as soon as possible. However. That was before Todd arrived at the Center wearing yesterday’s clothes and looking like he should have stayed in bed. Or at least gone back to the motel room first.
He looked through the glass partition to where Todd sat in the spot Emma occupied the day before, hands clutched around his coffee mug, less than helpful. Food and drink were strictly prohibited in the actual lab space, and Chase didn’t have the heart to ask the kid to forego the caffeine. He let him rest and regroup in the outer room, trying to get a handle on the day.
When he’d first arrived, Todd seemed to be running on pure adrenaline, telling tales of an all-night dance party and dawn trip to the outer beach to watch the sunrise, something he’d apparently never done before. Todd gushed poetically about the way the golden beams slid over the horizon, lighting the water in successive ripples of bright pastels, making Chase remember his first ocean sunrise. They’d compared notes on various beaches up and down the East Coast, and Chase enjoyed the back and forth verbal volleys that seemed like second nature to this quick-witted kid.
Over the course of an hour the initial rush wore away, and the kid out there huddled with his coffee looked more like a zombie than a lab assistant. In fact, Chase decided to take him back to the motel for a nap and a shower when he went to wake Emma. No way he’d let Todd behind the wheel of a car, cringing to think he’d driven himself to the Center. The kid deserved a break, especially after holding down the fort alone yesterday with Captain Wilbur.
Chase blinked his eyes. Since when did he give assistants a “break” for doing their job? He must be getting soft in his old age. Or maybe Todd had worn him down with his complaining about needing time off to
live life
and
enjoy summer
.
Or maybe he’d discovered for himself that there was more to life than work. He pictured Emma as he’d left her this morning, tanned flesh tangled with white sheets, golden hair fanned around her head, lips curled into a small smile. A smile only for him, one that promised more mornings of waking up together, along with many more nights of steamy kisses and steamier sex. He shifted uncomfortably on his stool, his pants suddenly too tight. This discomfort had been happening way too often since he met Emma, but he couldn’t quite think of it as a bad thing. More like a reminder that there was something he wanted that didn’t include work.
Time to go.
He packed the slides back into their labeled containers and cleared the rest of the equipment. The intercom buzzed and Chase looked through the window at his intern.
“Are you leaving for lunch, boss?”
Chase nodded, stacking the boxes onto a corner table where they wouldn’t be in anyone’s way, should someone else need the lab space in the next few hours. “I’m taking you to the motel. I promised Emma lunch, and you could use a few hours of sleep before your next party.”
“Listen, boss, I’m really sorry I screwed up. I meant to be here before ten to sign for the package, and…”
Chase shut the lab door, grinning at Todd. “Stop apologizing. I was here, everything got signed for, no harm, no foul. Besides, it sounds like the sunrise was totally worth it.”
Todd’s jaw hung open for several seconds before he found his voice. “Who are you and what have you done with Dr. Anderson? Is this like an
Invasion of the Body
Snatchers
scenario?”
He patted him on the shoulder as he passed. “Come on, kiddo. Your bed will be a helluva lot more comfortable than that stool.” He held the door as Todd stumbled to his feet and followed.
“I realize that, but I never thought you did,” he mumbled, the tone teasing if somewhat subdued by exhaustion. “Do you stop working long enough to even have a real bed somewhere? One that’s not on a ship or in a motel?”
Chase frowned. “Yeah, I have a condo in the city.”
“Are you ever there? Wait, sorry. Getting too cheeky for my own good.” Todd yawned widely. “It’s just, I’ve been working with you all summer long, and it took until this crazy week for me to realize you’re actually a person, too, and not only a brilliant eco-warrior.”
“Of course I’m a person. What else would I be?”
Todd slid sunglasses from his pocket, donning them before exiting the building to face the bright midday sun. “Robot? Automaton? Cyborg?” He shook his head. “Don’t get me wrong, boss, I totally get it now. I respect you.”
“I can tell,” Chase chuckled drily.
“No, really. You’re always so focused and you never cut anyone slack. Honestly? One of my professors tried to talk me out of applying for your internship because he said I couldn’t hack the shit you pile onto assistants. But the thing is, you work just as hard, 24/7. It’s not like you slack off and let interns do the heavy lifting. You’re right in there, every day, all the time. How do you do it?”
Chase found himself at a loss for words. “What we do, our research, is important. Someone’s got to do it.”
The two men were quiet as they got into the rental car, Chase’s last statement echoing in his own head. The kid’s eyes drifted closed the moment the car pulled out of the parking lot, mumbling something about
not having to do it all alone
. Chase rolled his eyes, wondering if former interns saw him in the same light as Todd. Like a brilliant, demanding, unfeeling taskmaster who piled too high a load on their shoulders. He wondered which of his university colleagues had warned the kid away from taking the internship.
Most importantly, was Todd right? Had he changed somehow over the course of the last week? He didn’t think he was any different inside, as a person. He still held the same beliefs, moral code and values, shaped by years of the best private schools and always striving to achieve success to make his parents proud. But…perhaps his protective walls had cracked a little over the last week, his priorities shifting. What was the point of saving the planet if his own world was empty? Sure, he took satisfaction in his work, but without human connection, what was life all about anyway?