Dangerous Waters, page 4
“Is a finger broken on the right hand?” Borenson asked.
“You’ve got it. Right hand, forefinger.”
Cory’s face looked even worse in the daylight, his skin colorless, the partially eaten eyes, his mouth jammed open obscenely by something I couldn’t identify. Borenson asked the question for me: “What’s in his mouth?”
“Baggie. Looks like somebody shoved a bag of coke down his throat.”
“Cocaine?” Borenson turned to me, his watery blue eyes hard. “You didn’t say a thing about coke, Mr. Burke.”
“This is the first I’ve heard about it.”
“Uh-huh. Well, I’m not taking any more chances with Miranda.” He pulled a small plastic card from his back pocket and read the warning to me in an even tone.
When he was finished, I said, “First off, Lieutenant, am I under arrest?”
“No. I just wanted to make sure you understand your rights.”
“Think about it, Lieutenant—would I have called the police if I had killed him?”
“You’d be amazed at the stupidity I see every day. Now do you want to call an attorney or not?”
Ellen came up behind him in the cockpit. She stared at the body, eyes wide, her hand over her mouth. Her face was bone-white. “His eyes,” she moaned. “Look at his eyes.…”
Three boat lengths away, the photographer’s telephoto lens was aimed at me like a gun. The detective in the harbormaster’s launch was yelling for the press boat to back off.
Ellen sat down heavily. Her voice was almost a whisper. “What in God’s name have you gotten us into?”
6
The police department was in a redbrick building across from a church. It was flanked by a Chinese restaurant and a tattoo parlor. Borenson gave me the phone to call the agency’s attorney, Tom Windon. “The police?” Tom repeated. “You’re kidding.” Tom was not a criminal lawyer, but neither were the two attorneys I knew socially. He said he would be right down.
“Save us all some time here,” I said to Borenson. “Check with the Treadway Inn. We were there all night, ground-floor room near the desk. I ordered cognacs for us around midnight, we couldn’t sleep. We were up for breakfast at six-thirty.”
“Lot you can do in six and a half hours,” he said.
I extracted a photo of Ellen and me from my wallet and told him again how we spent the evening, starting with dinner at the Rhumb Line.
He looked at me speculatively, then called out to Detective Blair. They talked briefly, and the detective left with the photo. Borenson turned back to me. “I’m cooperating with you, you cooperate with me. Tell me about the coke.”
“I’ve told you all I know. We’ll wait until my attorney and your detective come back.”
“Suit yourself. In the meantime, we’re bringing in Mr. Daniels, Miss Perry, and the launch driver.”
“Is that really necessary?”
“Embarrassing, is it? That’s too bad.”
For two hours, Ellen and I sat at an empty desk in the detectives’ area, watching them go about their business, answer phone calls, drink coffee. She refused to speak.
Tom Windon arrived, looking hassled and a bit uneasy. He requested a private room for us, and I explained what had happened while Ellen looked past me.
“I know this is rough,” Tom said. “But, as you said, Riley, everything you’d want to hide is out in the open. First thing, Rachel and Nick will confirm what happened earlier in the weekend, the timing and all, and let’s hope the police come back with something solid from the Treadway Inn. Mainly I think they’re just trying to throw a scare into you, so that if you are involved you’ll give.” He looked uncomfortable. “Uh, you’re not, are you?”
“No, Tom.”
“All right. Well, good, you know, but I’ve got to ask.”
Through all of this, Ellen sat with her arms crossed, staring across at the mirror above a little washbasin. “I suppose that’s one-way glass.”
“It may be,” Tom said. “But I guarantee you no one is watching behind there now. That would violate attorney-client privilege, and that would throw their case right out.”
“If you found out.” Her eyes moved quickly to my face, and she looked back at Tom. There were goose bumps on her arms, though the room was warm. I put my hand on her shoulder, but she moved away like a cat. “Don’t.” To Tom, she said, “Can’t you get us out of here?”
“Sure. You’re not in custody.”
“Let’s get this over with,” I said.
“Riley’s right,” Tom said. “I’m not going to argue with you that the police are being stupid. But there’s so much pressure on the drug-trafficking thing around here that when they think they have a shot at tracking it down, they get very careful, and that means they don’t take a chance on any testimony being thrown out because the suspect didn’t hear his rights.”
At that moment, a uniformed policeman escorted Rachel and Nick into the room. Ellen’s lips tightened, and she squared her shoulders. She stared at Rachel.
“I don’t know what to say,” Rachel said to Ellen.
“I can imagine,” Ellen said. “But don’t worry … Rachel, is it? I didn’t marry you, I married him. She’s very pretty, Riley.”
“Come on.”
She yanked her arm away. “I’m being goddamn civil, under the circumstances.”
“Ellen, let’s sit back over here,” Nick said.
Borenson stepped in at that moment with Linda, the launch driver. She looked very young, her eyes apparently red from crying. But she said, steadily enough, “Yes, that’s him.” She nodded toward Rachel. “And that’s her.”
Ellen rubbed her arm and stared defiantly at Borenson. He grinned at me. “Hey, the whole gang is here, huh? Time for you and your attorney to join me for a chat.” We followed him back to his office. Borenson leaned his elbows on his desk and said, “Well?”
“Lieutenant, you don’t have anything linking my client to a crime,” Tom said. “He did what any good citizen should do, he called the police when he found a body.…”
And so on. They haggled a few minutes more about who was helping whom, and then I went through the story once again. Borenson tossed me a typewritten statement created from the earlier interview and asked me if it was accurate. Tom and I read it through carefully, and I said that it was. “Okay,” Borenson said, standing. “You can sign it now, or after I talk with your friends and get the final report in on the search of your boat.”
“Search?” Tom said.
I felt chilled.
“Hey, it’s a crime scene.” Borenson leaned close to me. “Look, we’re sick of the money that’s thrown around in this town on drugs, the attitude that if you’re rich you can get away with anything. I see it all day long in the faces of the punks sailing those boats, kids driving Porsches to high school, frigging yachts complete with helipads. I’m up to my neck in the problems people like you bring into town, and if I find so much as a stick of pot on your boat, you’re going to wish you never got that hard-on for Miss Perry.”
“Enough of that,” Tom said.
“Yeah, I’ve had enough of the two of you. Sign this or don’t.”
I signed the statement.
“Okay, time to talk with the rest of the happy crew.” He waved us out of his office and began to close the door.
“Borenson,” I said.
He turned back. “Lieutenant Borenson.”
“How about giving me some mug books to look through? When you get finished playing your games, you’ll find we’re innocent, so how about we make use of some of this time?”
“Getting cooperative?”
“Always was. Just not putting myself in jail to make your job easier.”
“Sounds reasonable to me,” Tom said.
Borenson grunted. “Sure, we’ve got pictures.”
It passed the time, but I didn’t see Green Shirt. A skinny police artist interviewed me to put together a passable likeness. He said he would talk individually with Rachel and Linda and refine it further.
Another few hours passed before the uniformed officer brought me into the big interrogation room with the others. Ellen looked straight at me. Nick shook his head wearily. Linda sat in the corner writing in a notebook. Rachel avoided my eyes altogether, staring at the tabletop. Tom simply looked uncomfortable.
Borenson entered, and held the final sketch in front of him. “Okay, you three claim this is the guy, right?”
I nodded, and so did Linda and Rachel.
“But no one like this fits the photos in the mug books, right? How did I know?”
Borenson stared right at me. “You’ll be interested to know the final reports are in on the search of your boat. Guess what we found?”
I felt a sinking in my chest. If someone planted Cory’s body under my boat, he surely could have planted a few ounces of coke in one of the lockers as well. I kept my face blank and said simply, “What, Lieutenant?”
He sighed and said, disgustedly, “It’s clean. And the clerk at the Treadway does remember you and your wife, and says he left his post just once to go to the bathroom, and your door is within clear sight. We turned up a witness on the Albin three boats away from yours. He was there Saturday night, and couldn’t sleep right about the same time you were calling for your cognacs. He went up on deck and saw a quahog boat, one of those skiffs with the little cabin on the stern, being rowed right beside yours. Thought that was funny. Those boats run about eighteen feet, and are usually wood. Kind of a heavy boat to row. He figured the guy was headed out to rake shellfish illegally, so he yelled out, and the quahogger started the outboard and took off. Too dark for any identification, he says. Plus the medical examiner puts Cory Dearborn’s—that’s his last name; sweet, isn’t it?—anyhow, he figures Dearborn caught all that metal in his chest a little before midnight. Everything else checks out, timewise, and you’ll be interested to know we followed up thoroughly. Oh, yeah, a Carl Tattinger said to let you and Mr. Daniels know how unhappy he was about the police calling him at home to verify your whereabouts Friday night. Made a point that I let you know, and he says to put everything on hold, he’ll have his attorney contact yours first thing tomorrow morning.”
Nick groaned.
Borenson grinned at me, then looked over to Tom and said, “Guess that would be you, wouldn’t it?” He turned for the door. “Burke, if you’ve got a minute more, stop by my office. It’d be in your best interest.”
I almost didn’t, but I decided to hear what he had to say. He was on the phone, but I walked into his office anyhow, and sat across from him while he dawdled over his call. Finally, he hung up. “Look, I think you’re lying. I’m not sure where, but I think so. But whether you are or not, you’re in shit way over your head.” He pulled out several eight-by-ten photos from his left- hand drawer and splayed them across the desk. I winced. They were most likely taken at the morgue, of a young black man with a long deep gash along his throat up to his ear. There were cuts across his nose and right eye. Another set of prints showed the head of a white man, his hair shaved around a deep cut which had laid open skin and bone down to the gray matter of his brain.
“Penknife,” Borenson said. “You’d think it would be impossible. The guy who did in these two weighed easily twenty, thirty pounds less than either of them. But they pissed him off. They were at his house, and he had just done a few lines and he figured they were trying to stiff him on a buy. He cut the black guy, then gut-shot the white one, and then went at his head with the knife. All this before they knew what was happening to them. I know this, because when we brought him in, he bragged about it. This shit doesn’t make people crazy—he knew exactly what he was doing—but it gives them the attitude that they can do anything. That they’re faster, smarter, and better than anyone else. And someone with an attitude like that, who is a head case to begin with, will do absolutely irrational and vicious shit, faster than you can believe. You’re not set up to fight with them. If the head basher you told us about is real, and if he thinks you have something he owns, you’ve got yourself a serious problem. This is the time to tell me the truth.”
“We’ve told you everything we know.”
“Uh-huh.” He eyed me silently, then shrugged. “Well, good luck, then. I’ll call the Belmont police. Check in with them when you get home. Maybe they can pay your house some extra attention.”
“Tell me, how about the fingerprints? Did you get anything off the oar?”
“Nothing we can use. It was too smudged.”
“What do you know about Dearborn?”
“His wallet with twenty dollars in it was still in his back pocket, and the girl, Linda Noel, knew him. He was a local yacht salesman, worked for Compton’s Marina. My guess is he made more than a little money on the side with snow. He has a terrific apartment, stereo, Jacuzzi on the deck, the works.”
“Was Linda planning to meet him at the dock?”
Borenson looked irritated that I was questioning him, but he answered, “No, she said she was surprised to see him there.”
“Did he ever say which boat he was originally heading for?”
“No. But being a yacht broker, he could have access to a number of boats moored in the harbor. You know, ones listed with his marina. We’ll check those out as well.”
“So she took him back to the main dock in Newport, not back to Fort Adams, right?”
“Right. She said she took him back to the dock, and he walked away, saying he was going to call a cab for the hospital, and that’s the last she saw of him.”
“Did she see him take the cab?”
“No. Though two other launch drivers confirm that he left without her.”
“And you haven’t found the cab driver yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Dearborn didn’t have a splint on his finger, either.”
Borenson smiled grudgingly. “You’re thinking like a cop. But there was a residue of athletic tape. That doesn’t tell us much, though, since plenty of people have a roll in their medicine chest. We’ve checked with Newport Hospital, and they have no record of him or anyone who fits his description coming in. We’re checking other hospitals and clinics.”
Borenson leaned back in his chair. “Look, you want to show me you’re on the level, how about you help us out, hey? Let us stake you out on your boat. You act like you’ve fought with your wife, hang out for a week or so, hit the bars, complain that you’re lonely. See who approaches you.”
“What makes you think I need to show you I’m on the level? Besides, why would anybody come to me? I told you, I don’t have any coke. What’s to say any has been stolen?”
“You think they stuffed his body under your boat just to make a point, huh? For interfering?”
“That’s the only explanation I can see.”
Borenson tugged on his lower lip, while staring at me. “Huh. Well, that’s it, Burke. You got anything more to say, now’s your chance. After this, you’re on your own.”
“Always was,” I said.
Outside the station, Tom said, “I’m not sure how much I helped in there.”
“You did,” I said, but privately I agreed with his assessment.
“Uh, look. If this continues in some manner, I’m not the right guy for this job.”
I shook his hand. “Thanks, Tom. Looks like we’ll be needing you in tomorrow with Tattinger.”
His face fell even further. “Probably not going to be complex, I’m afraid. He’ll exercise his right to resign the account, and we’ll cover him for thirty to ninety days, however long it takes him to get a new agency.”
“Sounds accurate.”
Nick drove me, Ellen, and Rachel back to the Fort Adams parking lot.
“Look, I know this sounds lame,” I said. “But I’m sorry for all the trouble.”
No one answered.
The tension was electric. We all kept our eyes straight ahead. When we reached our car, Ellen locked her door.
“Take your girlfriend,” she said. “Nick will see me home.”
7
Talker, our golden Labrador, looked as if he knew something was wrong by the time I arrived at home. Nick had already left, and Ellen greeted me with white-faced silence. Talker moved warily between us, apparently unsure if he was the cause of our increased tension, but certain that he should remain present.
I made a quiet fuss over him, scratching his muscled neck and behind his ears. Ellen went upstairs. I called the Belmont police and bounced around on the phone lines until I finally reached a Detective Swampscott, the officer who had talked with Borenson. Swampscott’s tone was cool, but he said that they would indeed have the patrol cars drive by, and would I plan on stopping in to see him tomorrow?
Afterward, I made coffee and stood looking out the window, thinking of what I had to say to Ellen. Talker brought me out of my reverie by licking my hand and whining. I said, “All right, boy, let’s go.”
He ran up the stairs before me and pushed the bedroom door open with his shoulder. His tail started wagging, slowly, and he dropped his head. Ellen was sitting at her dressing table, her back to me. The lights were low, and she glanced at me in the mirror, but said nothing. Talker sniffed at her hip and pushed her with his nose. She ignored him. He growled softly and moved his lower jaw in the way that had earned him his name, and she looked down. “Sorry, boy,” she said, petting his head. “I shouldn’t have done that, huh?”
He slumped at her feet and heaved a big sigh.
She was wearing her bathrobe. She said to me, “You don’t think we’re going to sleep together, do you?”
“Ellen, I can’t offer any kind of excuse for what I’ve done. But what kind of marriage have we had for the past couple of years?”
“We can change that pretty damn quickly!”
“Maybe it’ll come down to that.”
Her eyes dropped. “Is that what you want?”
“No. But I don’t want to continue the way it’s been.” I pulled up a chair. “Let’s talk about the next several days.”
