Authors: William G. Tapply
“Your machine didn’t say who killed her, did it?”
“Nope. Not yet. It might. We’ve just got to ask it the right questions.”
“So who was she?”
“Name of Mary Ann Mikuni. Japanese name.”
“I might have guessed.”
“Yes, I suppose you might have,” he said, implying that it was equally likely I might not have. “Anyway, she was arrested once in Providence back in seventy-eight.”
“Don’t tell me,” I said. “Let me guess. Prostitution. Soliciting. What do they call it?”
Stern laughed. “Nothing like that. God, you do have a conventional mind, Coyne. Or is that just a chauvinistic mind? You think any time a beautiful young woman is involved in a crime it has to be for selling her body?”
“I take enough of that shit from my secretary,” I said. “What did she do?”
“Legally, she did nothing. She was never brought to trial. But she was involved in an extortion scam. A Providence contractor gave kickbacks to some guy in the Mayor’s office for a big school building contract, then turned around and blackmailed the guy. They made some arrests—including Mikuni—but the guy in the Mayor’s office shot himself, depriving the state of its best witness. So they never prosecuted.”
“What else do you know about her?”
“That she grew up in San Diego, graduated from Brown in seventy-two
cum laude
with a major in chemistry. Went to work for a concrete manufacturer—how do you like that, you want bridge abutments?—a concrete manufacturer in Providence. Started out in the lab, but got promoted to an executive position after a little more than a year. Some kind of sales manager. That’s what she was doing when she was arrested. After that, we don’t have anything.”
“How does that help us?”
Stern chuckled. “Oh, we should be able to extrapolate where she went, who she knew, what she did. Like that.”
“And how she got involved in E.J. Donagan’s kidnapping?”
“Eventually. Maybe. It’ll take awhile.”
“I have the feeling we don’t have a hell of a long time.”
“Not ‘we,’ Coyne. Not you. Me, the Bureau, the cops. Not you.”
“Sure. I hear you.”
“I hope so.”
“So she would’ve been in Providence in 1971, then, right?”
“Brown University is in Providence,” he said. “Right.”
“Eddie Donagan was at Pawtucket then.”
“So?”
“How far is Pawtucket from Providence?”
“In Rhode Island how far is anyplace from anyplace else?” said Stern. “You know what the best thing was that ever came out of Rhode Island?”
“What?”
“Route 95.” I didn’t say anything. Stern said, “That was a joke.”
“I thought it was supposed to be,” I said. “Guess I’m not in a real receptive mood for jokes this morning.”
“Listen, damn it. Forget it, will you? Case closed, okay? Go to your office. Read the Constitution. Write a will. You want real excitement, chase an ambulance. You’re not in our league now.” I imagined Marty Stern jabbing at the telephone with his glasses.
“Are you guys going to look for Eddie Donagan?”
“We guys are going to try to find out who kidnapped the boy, if that’s what you mean. And the State Police and the Boston cops are going to try to figure out who carved up Mary Ann Mikuni. And if the two things appear to be related—”
“
Appear
to be! Jesus, Stern. It’s obvious—”
“It’s
not
obvious. It’s possible. It’s supposition. Maybe even likely. Look. We’ll see where the evidence leads us.”
“Are you saying that you won’t be working with the police on this?”
I heard his sigh hiss over the phone. “You should understand about jurisdictions, Coyne. It’s not clear that there’s overlap here. Not yet.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, struggling to keep my voice calm. “I identified the girl as the one who contacted me to make arrangements to deliver the ransom money. And she’s the one I met who gave me information about the kidnapping. And she’s the one who got killed. What question can there be about overlap, as you call it?”
“You
think
it was her voice. You
think
those names have something to do with the kidnapping.”
“Yeah. I do think so. I
know
so.”
“Listen,” he said, exasperation dripping from his voice. “I’m calling you out of courtesy. I got you out of bed this morning and put you through an unpleasant experience because I thought the girl might be the one you had met. The description was right. That proves that I haven’t discounted her connection with the kidnapping case. The fact is, Travers called me when they found her body because he and I have been communicating about this thing. Okay? So now I’m keeping you informed. I don’t have to do this. But you’re an attorney. You’re supposed to be able to handle it intelligently. In return, I don’t expect you to criticize our methods, or interfere, or do stupid things.”
“E.J. Donagan has been gone a long time.”
“I know, I know. We’re doing our best.”
“Well…?”
“Be patient, will you? And stay the hell out of it.”
“I hear you,” I said, and hung up.
I found the street where Eddie lived in back of Tufts University in Medford. It was narrow, made more so by the cars parked on both sides. I drove slowly. Kids riding noisy three-wheeled plastic vehicles zipped in and out from behind the cars and played ball in the street. The stark gray stumps of dead elms poked up next to the sidewalk at regular intervals. They had been cut off at about twenty feet so they wouldn’t topple over and smash into any houses. They were marked with big orange spray-painted “X’s”. Some day maybe the city would come by to finish the job.
The three-decker houses were all the same—square, close to the street, needing paint, and lined up close together. I squeezed my BMW into an empty place. A cluster of children came over to stare at my car. It looked out of place among the old Fords and Volkswagens. Then the kids stared at me, as if a man wearing a necktie was
ipso facto
cause for suspicion.
Not all the houses bore street numbers. On those that were numbered, the numerals had been painted over, so that I had to mount the front steps to read them. Eddie’s apartment was at forty-six. I found fifty. Then I found forty-two. There was a house between them. I muttered, “Eureka!” to myself. Sherlock Holmes would have been proud of me.
Beside the door were three bells. Over each was taped a faded scrap of paper with a name on it. The top bell was labeled “Donagan” in blue ball-point pen. I rang it, expecting no answer and getting none. The bottom bell was named “Sandella.” When I pushed it I heard the shrill buzz echo from inside. On the third ring a short man with a hooked nose and blue suspenders over his tee shirt opened the door.
“Whadda you want?” he said.
“I’m looking for Mr. Donagan.”
He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “He lives upstairs.” He started to shut the door.
“Wait, Mr. Sandella. Please.”
“Yeah?”
“Mr. Sandella, I’m Eddie Donagan’s lawyer. I need to see him. He might be in trouble.”
The old man’s face broke into a broad, gap-toothed grin. “It’s no surprise. He no pay his rent, he in trouble, you bet.”
“When did you see him last?”
“Never see Eddie. He come and go, you know? Just when he pay his rent. He come downstairs, bring me wine and money. He a good kid, Eddie. But he no pay rent, two weeks. Two more weeks, Eddie out ona street.” Sandella looked me up and down. “No lawyer stop me. I kick him out, he no pay.”
“You saw him two weeks ago?”
Sandella hesitated, then opened the screen door that separated us and stepped out onto the stoop. He thrust his face close to mine. He smelled of tobacco and garlic. “I see Eddie
six
weeks ago, mister. Last time I see Eddie, when he pay his rent. I have a month advance from when he take his lease. When it gone, Eddie out ona street.” He cocked his head at me. “What all you people want Eddie for? He a good kid. He do something bad?”
“Somebody else was here?”
Sandella nodded solemnly. “Sure. Cops was here. Coupla weeks ago. I tell them same thing. Eddie no here. They make me go upstairs, let them in. They look around, they leave, no Eddie.” The old man chuckled. “Eddie disappear, huh?”
“Would you take me upstairs?”
Sandella hooded his eyes and gazed beyond me. I took my wallet from my hip pocket and extracted a twenty. I folded it twice and pressed it into his hand. He didn’t look at it, but shoved it quickly into the pocket of his baggy pants. He turned and went back inside. A moment later he came back to the door.
“Come on. This way.”
I stepped into the narrow foyer. Sandella unlocked a door and led me up a dark stairway. At the top he unlocked another door and we entered Eddie Donagan’s apartment. There were two rooms—a large kitchen, and a smaller room where a narrow bed, a bedside table, and a bureau were the only furnishings. Two ajar doors revealed a small bathroom and a closet as well.
The place smelled like a dirt-floored cellar—damp, musty, unused. A film of dust covered every surface. Some dishes were stacked in the sink. There were two empty beer bottles on the table in the kitchen. I opened the door of the small yellowed refrigerator. It was practically empty—catsup, salad dressing, mustard, beer. There was a bowl half full of blue mold. I couldn’t tell what it had originally been. I closed the door quickly against the odor of rot and decay it emitted.
Sandella was standing by the doorway watching me. I turned to him. “Do you mind if I look around for a little while?”
He shrugged. “Help yourself. He’s not here. Close the doors when you go.”
Sandella left. I went back into the bedroom and sat on the bed. On the bedside table stood a lamp and an old clock radio. The alarm was set for nine-thirty. In the drawer I found a framed picture of Jan and E.J. when E.J. was about two. They were both smiling. E.J. had a bushy head of curly red hair and freckles sprinkled across the bridge of his nose. Jan’s hair was longer then. She wore it loose, a set of dark parentheses around her heart-shaped face. There was a bottle of Excedrin and a handful of coins in the drawer. That was all.
I rummaged through his bureau. All the drawers were packed with clothes, none too carefully folded. In one corner of the room was a big plastic trash bag. It, too, contained some clothes. In the closet I found a couple of suits and sports jackets, half a dozen dress shirts on hangers, and several pairs of shoes on the floor. In a cardboard box on the shelf were some sweaters. In the back was a scarred leather suitcase.
I wandered back into the kitchen and sat in one of the two chairs at the table. The room smelled of fried onions, rotten fruit, and burned cooking oil. The ceiling was gray and cracked. The wallpaper was stained and greasy. Some place for the guy who had once been the best pitching prospect in the American League to end up.
On the wall beside the refrigerator hung the telephone. I went to it and lifted the receiver. I got a dial tone. When I replaced the receiver I noticed that several phone numbers had been scribbled on the wallpaper beside it. Most of them had been written in pen. A couple were in pencil. It looked as if Eddie might have jotted them down while talking on the phone. Some had faded and smudged on the greasy wallpaper. A couple looked recent. I recognized Sam Farina’s. Two of the numbers were mine—one my office and one my home phone. There were half a dozen others. I jotted them down into my appointment book.
Off the kitchen was the bathroom—a cracked porcelain sink, a toilet, and an old-fashioned tub with feet like lion paws. On the sink a squeezed-out tube of Crest lay curled like an empty snakeskin. Beside it a ratty toothbrush was propped up in a plastic glass. The medicine chest held a razor, a dispenser of Gillette Platinum blades, a can of Rise, another bottle of Excedrin, a stick of Old Spice underarm deodorant, a bottle of English Leather, and a box of Band-Aids. I dumped the pills out into my hand. They were all Excedrin tablets. I put them back into the bottle, returned it to its place, and closed the door.
I took a can of Eddie’s Schlitz from the refrigerator and sat again at the table. Eddie’s apartment told me two things: no one had lived there for a long time, and Eddie hadn’t packed before he left. He had neither paid Sandella in advance nor cancelled his lease. He had not disconnected his telephone.
He had just left.
I closed the doors behind me. Downstairs I rang Sandella’s bell, and when he came to the door I thanked him. He shrugged and said, “No lawyer gonna stop me, mister. Two more weeks, he’s out. I got a cousin wants the place. I like Eddie, he no make trouble, but he’s out ona street.”
“That’s certainly your right, Mr. Sandella,” I said. “I agree with you. If Eddie doesn’t come back and pay you, you give it to your cousin.” I took one of my business cards from my pocket and handed it to him. He glanced at it and hooded his eyes again. I found another twenty and held it up in front of his face. “If you hear anything from Eddie, call me, will you? Just so there won’t be any trouble for anybody.”
Sandella took the money and shoved it into his pocket. “I’m supposed to call the cops, too.”
“That’s okay. Call them, too. Just don’t forget me.”
Sandella looked more closely at my card. Then he smiled at me. “I call you, Mr. Coyne. The cops, they don’t give me nothing. I call you first.”
J
ULIE WAS ON THE
phone when I got to the office. It was nearly noon. She made a big exaggerated “Oh, it’s
you
!” face at me, which I ignored. I continued on into my office, slamming the door behind me. A moment later I heard her knock.
“Come in,” I growled.
She opened the door and stood there, frowning at me.
“Just don’t say anything,” I said. “I know exactly what time it is, I know I have a busy law practice, I know old Mrs. Bartlett is thinking of finding a nice staid old firm that will pat her arm and say, ‘There, there,’ and at this point I don’t give a fat shit. I’ve been up since three.”
“Have you had a pleasant morning, otherwise?” she said sweetly.
“No. I haven’t. And no, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Fine with me. Call Mr. Stern.” Julie shut the door behind her. I sighed and walked back out into the reception area, where she was hunched over her typewriter. I touched the back of her neck. She shook off my hand.