Authors: Elizabeth Adler
19
It was lateish, after ten that night anyway, when Harry finally sat himself down in his favorite red-vinyl booth at Ruby’s Diner, the one with the perfect view of the door so he could check who came in, who went out. The dog hunkered on its haunches awaiting its own “Squeeze special” raw burger, which it practically inhaled in one ecstatic mouthful. The procedure was always completed before Harry even put in his own order, though, like Squeeze’s, his was always the same: a Ruby cheeseburger, Swiss, charred, well done. Lately he’d been trying to do without the fries but the night seemed to call for comfort food. After looking at a particularly gruesome murdered body in the icy morgue and hours spent fruitlessly searching for a drug dealer by the name of Divon, who’d had a rap sheet since he was a kid with probation orders and time for drugs, and who seemed to have skipped town, he needed a burger and a beer. Besides, Mal was on his mind. He wondered what she was doing. Alone. In Paris.
Ruby’s was jammed. The plate-glass windows with their looped-back red-checked curtains gave a view of the cold and still-busy street, making inside seem even cozier. The Formica tables were the same ones that had been there since Ruby’s opened and the matronly waitresses might have been from the same decade. Doris, Harry’s favorite, came over as he sat down. Without asking she placed a cold bottle of Miller in front of him, took the iPad from the pocket of her white apron, and looked expectantly at him.
“Not that I need it,” she said, putting the iPad back into her pocket. “It’ll be the same old same. So, where’s the Eyetalian tonight, then?”
Harry sighed. “Come on, Doris, you can’t go on calling Rossetti that.”
“Takes one to know one.” Doris’s dark eyes crinkled in a grin. “Only an Italian can call another Italian an Eyetalian. So? Is it the usual?”
Harry nodded. Pulling off his old black leather bomber jacket, he checked the room. He’d sometimes brought Mal here. She had never liked it, and nor, he thought now, had Doris liked her, though both had been scrupulously polite. Mal had complained about the smell of fried food and chicken gravy that somehow always hung around the place, and Doris had decided the fiancée felt she was slumming.
Harry took a long cold gulp of the beer, closed his eyes, and tried to think good thoughts. He heard Squeeze give a warning growl and looked up.
A young woman was sliding into his booth. She sat down opposite him, not smiling, just looking, brows raised in a question. Then, “Hi,” she said.
Even sitting he could tell she was tall. Late twenties. Fire-red bangs over pale eyes, and a short swinging red bob. Roundish face but nice cheekbones; definitely not skinny but neither was she plump. She looked, Harry thought, like a woman who might enjoy the occasional french fry without too much guilt.
She held out her hand to him. Her short nails were polished shiny black and she wore a thin gold band on the third finger—right hand, though, not left. She had on a black leather bomber jacket, not unlike Harry’s own, with a white T-shirt under and though he could not see her feet because they were already under his table, Harry would bet she was wearing towering heels and a short skirt. She was just that kind of woman. Young, confident, and very much of today. And Harry very much did not have time for her.
“You’ll excuse me,” he said, icily polite, “I’m about to eat my dinner.”
“No trouble, I’ll join you.” She gave him a wide smile of such dazzling confidence Harry almost succumbed to his curiosity.
Squeeze emerged from under the table. Harry put a hand on the dog’s collar.
“Jeez,” the girl said, amazed, “I didn’t even see him. Is he supposed to be in here?”
“Special dispensation,” he said.
She took away the hand she had offered Harry and which was still unshaken, and instead offered it to the dog who sniffed it curiously then settled back down under the table.
“Such wonderful blue eyes,” she said. “I’ve never seen a dog like that.”
It was a direct line to Harry’s heart: love me, love my dog. “Squeeze is part malamute,” he said. “Arctic dogs, sort of like Huskies.”
“Must be useful in the Boston snow,” she said.
“So, to what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked, thawing a little.
“Ah … well … it’s kind of complicated…”
“I thought it would be.” He met her wide gaze across the table, just as Doris arrived bearing a foaming glass of Miller Lite for the girl.
Harry glanced suspiciously from Doris to the woman and then back again. She had not ordered the beer, yet Doris had known what to bring her. He said, “Why do I get the feeling this is a setup?”
“Because you’re right,” Doris agreed. “This is my niece, Jemima Forester. She’s an investigative reporter. Right up your alley, I thought.”
“A would-be investigative reporter, more of a blogger really,” Jemima said.
At least the girl had the grace to look embarrassed.
Harry took a long drink. The beer turned his throat to ice. It was a wonderful feeling. He watched Jemima lift her glass to him then also take a long drink. Despite himself, Harry was interested.
“Later on, we could go to the Mexican down the street,” Jemima suggested. “Do tequila shots.”
“And then who would drive you home?”
“
Moi?
” She gave him a mischievous smile that, cliché though it was, Harry thought really lit up her face. Her skin was the color of alabaster, her lips as ruby as Ruby’s curtains. She took a card from her cavernous black handbag and tossed it across the table at him.
“A good taxi service, should you ever need one, though I guess cops can always call on their own to pick them up, see them safely to their beds.”
“Then you think wrong.”
Doris arrived with his burger and a wire basket of still-sizzling fries.
“God, how great, I’m starving.” Jemima’s hand hovered for a second or two over the fries then she pulled it back, biting her lower lip, embarrassed. “Shit, I’ve done it again. My dad always said I was too impetuous.”
“Your dad got it wrong. I’d call you ‘pushy.’” Harry shoveled fries onto a side plate and passed it over to her, along with the ketchup bottle. “And since you’re eating my dinner shouldn’t I at least know why you chose my table to sit at tonight?”
“You looked lonely.” She paused. “Well, that’s not exactly the reason, though it is true. Actually … well, the fact is … I know you are working on the mystery of the fire at Evening Lake, the one where the mother burned to a crisp … and the girl escaped. Her name is Bea, I saw her on the evening news.”
“Jesus!” Harry stared at his burger, suddenly unhungry.
“Ohh, sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean to put you off, I mean, aren’t you supposed to be used to that kind of thing? The cops on TV always are.”
Harry pushed his plate aside, put his elbows on the table and rested his chin in his hands. “Shut up,” he said, “and then think about exactly what you want to tell me.”
Mortified, Jemima Forester sank back against the quilted red vinyl. Eyes lowered, she seemed to be considering what he had just said.
“I earned that, I guess,” she said.
“You have the nerve, Jemima Puddleduck, to intrude on my dinner, on my space.” Harry was getting really angry now. “Without any explanation. And then you question me about a current case that I would never talk to you about, even if I could. I am not a TV cop,” he added. “Don’t ever forget that.”
He finished his beer, pushed away his food, and clipped the lead onto the dog’s collar. It got to its feet, looking expectantly at the door, anticipating the biscuit treat he would get on the way out.
“I was always called that at school,” Jemima said. “Puddleduck. The Beatrix Potter nursery rhyme character. Sometimes I feel like her.”
“Then try not to behave like her.”
Jemima sat up straight. Her pale eyes were not merry now, her look was deadly serious.
“I know where Divon is,” she said.
Harry thought of all the things Jemima might have said this was the most unexpected. He sat back down and called Doris over.
“Two Cokes, please, Doris,” he said. “And plenty of ice.”
“I didn’t know I’d gotten you that hot,” Jemima said.
Harry wondered if she was flirting with him. Shit, she was smiling at him with that mischievous look that made him wary of her. He also wondered how much she really knew and how much she was trying to find out.
“So,” he said, as Doris came back with the drinks. “How do you know Divon anyway?”
“I went to high school with him. Same class. We all worried about him even then because he knew such shady characters. We liked him, he was a nice guy, always polite, always helpful, never gave the teachers attitude … I mean he was a regular kid like all of us. Apart from the trouble he’d get into.”
She clasped her hands around the icy glass of cola, staring thoughtfully into its depths, as though, Harry thought, she was conjuring up a scene, or a story. He did not trust her.
Jemima said, “Divon’s father murdered his mother. Stabbed her to death. She was in the bathtub at the time.” She shrugged in an effort, Harry thought, to appear nonchalant. “Made the cleanup easier, her being in the bath, I guess. But Divon was never the same. The father disappeared and Divon had to go and live with some relatives, an aunt I think, yes in fact now I remember it was the mother’s sister. His mother’s name was, unbelievably, Fairy Formentor. That was fifteen years ago, probably before your time on the force,” she added, giving Harry a long look, as though checking to see if he believed her.
“I believe you,” Harry told her, making a mental note to check on the murder fifteen years ago of Fairy Formentor.
She said, “Anyhow, every now and then, over the years, Divon just kinda showed up. He knew where I was at college—Oberlin, a small school, I loved it there, the best time of my life.”
Harry was not interested in her college years. “Divon,” he said.
“Oh, right. So Divon would show up, sometimes with his pockets bristling with money, sometimes to beg for a few bucks just to get him through. He always repaid it though, he’d send money orders. He was a very responsible young man really.” Jemima’s eyes met Harry’s. “Even though he was doing drugs. Heavy-duty stuff,” she added. “And then recently he called, told me he’d let me have the hundred he owed and as much more as I wanted. What he said exactly,” she said seriously, “was, ‘Jemima, honey, I’ve hit the friggin’ jackpot. I’m working with a woman who has all the contacts, and knows what she’s doing, and I know what I can do, so it’s mutual.’ Of course I asked him who the woman was, I was worried, he sounded so high. At first he just laughed, then he said, ‘She’s money and class, baby, and she has a lake house you would just die for.’”
Jemima drained her Coke and heaved a sigh. “And I guess she did just that,” she ended.
“Do you know where Divon is now?” Harry asked.
Jemima looked worried. “He’d told me he was going to Evening Lake that night to see her,” she confessed. “But what will you do with him? I know he’s innocent, after what happened to his own mother he could never kill a woman. Never kill anybody for that matter.”
She looked so concerned Harry knew her heart was in the right place. She had told him the story in order to protect Divon, not to see him jailed for murder.
“I’ll stand up for him in court, if I have to,” Jemima added, reaching suddenly across the table for Harry’s hand. “He’s a good guy, Harry Jordan. Just on the wrong path, that’s all.”
Harry had heard that story before, seen it a thousand times. Jemima’s hand felt cold in his, probably from clasping the icy Coca-Cola glass. Somehow it made him feel protective toward her. “Thank you for telling me,” he said gently. “And for trying to help him. Running is the worst thing he could do right now. Do you have any idea where he is?”
Jemima lowered her head and gazed, shamefaced, at the now-cold basket of fries. “At my place,” she said.
20
Harry drove Jemima to her apartment in a row house in North End, on a newly gentrified street that once housed Boston’s Irish immigrants in squalid tenements. Now, the buildings had been refurbished, the brick was bright, there were even trees. Of course, Jemima had to sit in the back since Squeeze was not about to give up shotgun. Still she told Harry she liked his car. She even said “wow” when he parked where he was not supposed to, right in front of her door, and clamped the police light on top.
She waited for Harry to open the door for her, then wiggled up and out after the dog, showing a great deal of thigh. “Sorry, not used to such smart sports cars,” she said, leading the way up the front steps and buzzing them in.
“Third floor,” she called, already heading upstairs. There was only one door on the third floor landing and she unlocked it.
“Okay, Divon,” she called, “it’s only me. And Detective Jordan,” she added as Harry followed her inside.
There was no hallway and they walked directly into the tiny apartment. Divon Formentor was sitting on a blue sofa, head down, hands clasped in front of him, as though waiting for the cuffs that would inevitably be placed there. He was very thin, youngish, in his late twenties, Hispanic-looking like his mother. His bald head had that recently-shaved shine. His eyes were dark and frightened.
Squeeze went and sat right in front of him, fixing him with that blue stare.
Divon shrank back, afraid. “I didn’t do it, sir,” he said to Harry. “I don’t do murder.”
Jemima hurried over and sat next to him, taking one of his hands in both of hers. “I already told Detective Jordan that,” she reassured him. “He’ll help you, Divon, all you have to do is tell him the truth.”
Harry stood by the door, his face impassive. “I have to take you in, Divon, you understand that, don’t you.”
“Yes, sir, but, like, I didn’t kill her.”
The click of the cuffs as they snapped over Divon’s wrists sounded to Jemima like the knell of doom.
“I should have helped you get away,” she said, suddenly terrified of what she had done. “I should have helped you.”
Harry said, “And I’ll remind you that if you had, you would be accessory after the fact to a murder.”