High Season (27 page)

“Jesus. What are we going to do with it? We can't exactly turn it over to Mancini.”

“For now, it goes home with me. You never saw it. If it's Louie's, I'll give it to his wife.”

“What if it's the town's?”

Coffin grinned. “I'll make an anonymous donation to the policeman's ball.”

“You're doing this to protect Louie.”

“His family. They're going to have a hard enough time as it is.” Lola picked up the legal pad. Several of its pages had been torn off. “Check it out,” she said.

Coffin peered at the pad. The lined pages had nothing written on them. “What?” he said.

“What are you, blind?” Lola said. “Look at these indentations on the top page—you can sort of make out what was written on the page above this one.”

Coffin held the pad under his nose, then at arm's length. “My, my. You're a regular Nancy Drew.”

Lola laughed. “When I was in sixth grade, my best friend wanted to be Nancy Drew. I wanted to
do
Nancy Drew.”

Coffin pointed at the legal pad. “Put your young eyes on that word and tell me what it says.”

“Kotowski.”

“Ha. Thought so. What's this below it?”

“Looks like capital
E
, capital
D
, then the word ‘test' with a question mark. Who's E-D?”

“Beats me. What does it say under E-D?”

“Phipps. Circled a few times.”

Coffin wiped a hand over his face. “Ed,” he said. “Who the hell is Ed? Eddie Myers? Ed Ramos?”

“They could be initials.
E
-something,
D
-something.”

“Early Detection?”

“Eggplant Dalmatian?”

“Emphatic Dropcloth?”

Coffin sat down in his desk chair. The sewer pipe rumbled overhead. “How much of a Nancy Drew fan are you really?”

“The biggest.”

“Good. Because tonight we're going to break into Louie's office.”

“Cool.”

“If we get caught we're up shit creek, you know.”

“So let's not get caught.”

The phone buzzed, and Coffin picked it up.

“Get up here right away,” Boyle said. “I've got some news for you, and you're not going to like it.” The line clicked and went dead.

Coffin put the phone back in its cradle. His head ached. He wondered how much sleep he'd gotten—two hours? Three? Lola looked tired, too. “I've got to go talk to Boyle,” Coffin said. “Why don't you take a break? Take a nap. Get something to eat.”

“Are you sure? I'll come with you if you want me to.”

“I'll be okay,” Coffin said. “I mean, how much worse can it get?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

S
orry about your cousin, Coffin,” Boyle said. He stood beside his office window, looking down at Commercial Street. “He was a decent guy.”

“He would have sold his own mother for dog food, if the price was right,” Coffin said, “but he was family.”

“That's a hell of a way to talk,” said Boyle, turning to glare at Coffin from beneath his beetling eyebrows.

“Yes, it is.”

Boyle scowled and sat down in his leather chair. “All right—since we're apparently done with the eulogizing, let's cut to the chase. Two things, and you're not going to be happy about either of them. First, we had to release Plotz.”

“Wonderful,” Coffin said. “Perfect.”

“His lawyer pointed out that the restraining order he was supposed to have violated was expired. Said lawyer also seems to think that you and Winters illegally pursued Mr. Plotz into his apartment and used excessive force in arresting him. Mr. Plotz is weighing the possibility of a formal complaint and a lawsuit against the town.”

“Mr. Plotz shouldn't press his luck. Any progress on the pickup?”

“Nope. Unless Plotz is a complete idiot, he's either dumped it or had it repaired by now. Ready for the
bad
news?”

“You're enjoying this, aren't you?”

“That would just be sadistic, Coffin.” Boyle smiled, leaned back in his chair, and laced his fingers on top of his speckled bald spot. “The bad news is that Mancini and that prick Pilchard have arrested your buddy Kotowski for all four murders. He's sitting downstairs in a holding cell, waiting to be transported down to Barnstable.”

“Oh, for Christ's sake,” Coffin said. “Those idiots.”

“Yeah, you keep saying that. Mancini thinks it's a no-brainer.”

“Then he's just the guy for the job. What a fucking moron.”

“Come on, Coffin. Kotowski's the obvious call. The guy's a nutcase. He attacked Silva right here in this building, in front of Mancini and a dozen witnesses.”

“He attacked him with a
fish
—not a gun. Not a knife. A fucking
fish
. Serial killers don't attack people with fish.”

“Okay—he also had a beef with the Hench woman, who was involved in the Moors project, which fits your own damn theory.”

Coffin started to speak, but Boyle raised a hand, palm out. “Talk to the hand, Coffin. You're too close to this thing. You're not seeing it clearly. Mancini thinks there's an easy conviction here, and I happen to agree with him. Why don't you go home, take a couple of days off, and get your head clear. It's over, Coffin. Case closed.”

“Is that what we're doing here?” Coffin said, standing up. “Going for an easy conviction? And here I had this naive notion that we were trying to catch a serial killer.”

“Of
course
Mancini's going for the conviction, Coffin. I mean, this is the biggest thing since Tony Costa chopped up those girls and buried 'em out in the woods in Truro.”

Coffin paused in the doorway. “You've been reading up on local history, I see.”

Boyle smirked. “I try,” he said.

“Then you remember what Costa said after they sentenced him.”

Boyle looked at Coffin blankly.

“
Keep digging,
” Coffin said.

 

Coffin rode Kotowski's bike to Wymynwerx, the two-story, cedar-shingled gym on Shank Painter Road where Jamie was teaching her two o'clock advanced class. Traffic was heavy; a carful of young women honked and laughed at his unsteady progress. Then, a few minutes later, a passing Winnebago almost clipped him with its bumper, forcing him into the ditch. By the time he got to the gym he was soaked in sweat.

Inside, Coffin nodded to the short, muscular girl behind the desk. She looked up from her magazine and nodded back but didn't smile.

Coffin poked his head into Jamie's class, a roomful of very thin women posed with hands and feet on their purple mats, butts high in the air. He caught Jamie's eye, and she winked at him. Coffin crooked a finger, and Jamie whispered to one of the women in the front row, who took over the class.

When they'd stepped out into the hallway, Coffin nodded at the roomful of women. “Downward-looking dog,” he said.

Jamie hugged him hard, then kissed him on the lips. Coffin wasn't sure, but he thought he saw the girl behind the desk frown slightly out of the corner of his eye.

“Facing. Downward-
facing
dog,” Jamie said, wiping sweat from her forehead with a white gym towel. “Horrible about Louie. Jesus.”

“Thanks,” Coffin said. “News travels fast.”

Jamie hugged him again. “You okay?”

“No. I don't know. There's something else.”

Jamie looked at him, head tilted a bit. The sun streamed through the gym's big front window, backlighting her hair.

“They let Plotz out of jail,” Coffin said. “I don't want you staying by yourself.”

“Duffy? That wimp? I can handle Duffy Plotz, Frank.” She flexed her arm. “Feel that bicep.”

“He had a
shrine,
Jamie, remember? Pictures of you all over his apartment. I didn't tell you this, but he'd sliced a couple of them up with razor blades. And now he's probably
really
pissed.”

Jamie squinted. “Okay, slicing up the pictures
is
pretty creepy, but I'm not—”

“Look, I really need you not to argue with me about this—”

“Ask me again.”

“There are dead people piling up all over town, for Christ's sake—”

“Frank. Just ask me again.”

“—which is why you're moving in with me for a few days at least, till we figure out what to do about the son of a bitch.” Coffin frowned. “What are you grinning at?”

“You have to ask me three times.”

“What?”

“You've asked me to move in with you twice. Three is a magic number—I thought you knew that.”

“Well, it's just until—”

“That's not asking.”

“Will you move in with me?” Coffin said.

Jamie kissed him, slowly and with considerable concentration. “You know what?” she said when the kiss was over.

“Uh, no, ma'am.”

“You'll be glad you asked. Yes indeed, I do believe you will.”

When Coffin passed the girl behind the desk on his way out, she was intent on her magazine. He pushed the door open, and just before it swung shut behind him he heard her say, “Breeders. Ew.”

 

The jail shared the second floor of Town Hall with the police dispatcher, the squad room, the day officer's desk, and the men's locker room. It had three cells in a row along an outside wall, and a small common area with a metal table and four metal chairs bolted to the floor. Each cell contained two cots one above the other, a small stainless steel sink, and a stainless-steel toilet. Kotowski was the only prisoner; he sat on the edge of his cot, dressed in an orange jumpsuit and rubber sandals, smoking a cigarette.

“Lawyers,” Kotowski said. “One step up the evolutionary ladder from real estate developers. Several steps below spirochetes, tapeworms, and dung beetles. You know what Shakespeare said, don't you?”

“Well, you still need one,” Coffin said. He stood outside Kotowski's cell, leaning against the bars. “Mancini thinks you're the next Tony Costa.”

“Ha. I used to buy pot from Tony Costa. Very nice guy, as long as you weren't an eighteen-year-old girl.”

“Costa died in prison, you know.”

“Okay, I'll hire a lawyer. Whoever you recommend.”

“Good. What else do you need?”

“Socks, underwear, toothpaste, toothbrush, a carton of cigarettes, some whiskey, and lots of pornography. Thought you'd never ask.”

Coffin laughed. “You're only going to be here for a few hours, till they send somebody up from Barnstable to transport you.”

“Okay, fine. Forget the socks and underwear.”

“Anyone you want me to contact?”

“No, but you'd probably better stop by my house now and then and feed Spaz.”

Coffin rubbed his chin. He hadn't shaved, and it was starting to get bristly. “Look,” he said, “I'm not going to let you rot down there. We're going to find out who killed those people.”

“Made a lot of progress, have you?”

“Well, no.”

“So I won't hold my breath.”

“Probably a good plan.”

Kotowski waved a hand. “Hey, I did six months on Riker's Island, I can sit in Barnstable County till my bail hearing.”

“Riker's, huh? Must have been tough.”

“It's a shithole. It's out in the middle of the East River, you know—just downwind from this huge sewage treatment plant. God, it stank. Rats the size of schnauzers would pop up out of the toilets every now and then. One of my cellmates got bit on the sack and had to get a rabies shot.”

“Jesus.”

“But other than that it wasn't so bad. We had wicked competitive games of Scrabble.”

“Oh, come on now—”

“No, seriously. A couple of those guys had memorized the entire Scrabble dictionary. They kicked
ass.
”

 

Coffin rode Kotowski's bike to the A&P and bought a toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste, and a carton of Camel filters. Next door, at Pete's Liquor, he bought a half-pint bottle of scotch. Then he pedaled back to Town Hall and delivered the goods to Kotowski, producing the scotch from his pocket when he was sure no one was looking.

“Thanks,” Kotowski said, cracking open the bottle. “But where the hell's my porn?”

“What would people think,” Coffin said, “if they saw me buying the latest issue of
Twinks in Chains
?”

“They'd think you finally came to your senses,” Kotowski said, killing the whiskey in one long guzzle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

C
offin was exhausted when he finally climbed off the bike and propped it against his front porch. There was a note from Jamie inside, on the kitchen counter:

Wild Man,
My stuff's in the bedroom. How about clearing out a drawer or two, now that we're roomies? Went to Orleans with Corrine to do laundry and buy fish, etc. Back by 8:00 or so.
XO
Jamie

Coffin dropped ice cubes into a glass and poured two fingers of scotch. He stood by the sink and drank the scotch while a scrum of tiny brown ants pushed a small piece of potato chip across the counter. Outside the window, the sunflowers drooped in the hum of late-afternoon heat.

When the scotch was gone, he refilled his glass, went into the living room, and sat down on his mother's uncomfortable sofa.
The answering machine blinked its red light at him from the end table.

He pushed the button and skipped through messages from reporters: ABC, Fox News, Channel 7. Serena's killing had been sensational; Louie's had driven the press into a frenzy. Coffin erased all the messages. The stuffed goat's head looked like it was about to say something insulting.