Solitary Dancer (13 page)

Tim Fox hoped Fat Eddie never assigned another partner to him, never found him anybody, just left him alone to do his job. He worked better that way, nobody to adjust to.

But somebody new would be sent to work with him, somebody junior probably, because you needed corroboration and you needed backup, you needed somebody to talk to, bitch at even, otherwise the job would kill you one way or another.

He wheeled the gray Plymouth into a loading zone on Lansdowne Street and remained behind the wheel for a moment. Fat Eddie would have a new partner for him this afternoon, some whistle looking to move up to a gold badge. Bunch of crap. Fox didn't care. Whoever Fat Eddie chose, he'd be better than Donovan.

Fox stepped out of the car, tightened the belt around his Burberry and started across the street toward the low yellow-brick building with the faded sign proclaiming Van Ness Plumbing Supplies—Wholesale Only.

Inside, in a tiny reception area furnished with two plastic and metal chairs, Fox told the woman behind the sliding glass window that he was from the Boston Police Department and he had come to see Steve Peterson. Within a minute the door to the office area swung open and a man with short-cropped gray hair growing out of a bullet-shaped head stood looking directly at Fox. His body was blunt, like a tree trunk, and he wore a creased white shirt with the sleeves rolled above the elbows, a striped tie pulled away from his collar and blue trousers with red fireman's suspenders. The man introduced himself as Steve Peterson, shook Fox's hand once and turned to lead the detective through a maze of filing cabinets, computer desks and shipping cartons to a glass-walled office in a far corner.

“You here about Heather?” Peterson said, fishing a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of a suit jacket draped over the back of his desk chair.

Fox nodded and sat in one of the uncomfortable metal chairs across from Peterson. From somewhere beyond the walls of the office carne the sounds of forklift trucks and the shouts of young men.

“Already talked to some detective, coupla days ago. Irish guy, Donovan, something like that.” Peterson had a gruff voice and a directness that acted as a barrier against small talk.

Tim Fox had heard that voice before.

“This is kind of a follow-up visit,” Fox said. “Just take a minute.”

“Other guy didn't want much except to know where I was the night Heather was killed. So I told him. Same's I'm gonna tell you.”

Tim Fox withdrew his notepad and sat with his pen poised. “Did you call your former wife the evening she was murdered?” he asked.

“Yeah, I did.” Peterson placed a cigarette in his mouth and left it there while he talked. “It's on the answering machine, right? Knew you guys would hear it. I called her from here about, I dunno, quarter after seven, seven thirty, something like that.”

“From the sound of the tape, you were pretty upset with her. You want to tell me about that?”

Peterson pulled a battered Zippo from his trouser pocket, lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply. “You know what she was doing?” he asked, avoiding the detective's eyes.

“Doing?”

“Her scam, the pictures and all that shit. Don't tell me you don't know about it. Other guy did, the Irish cop.”

Fox nodded. “We know about it,” he said. “We just want to know how you fit in.”

Peterson studied the end of his cigarette. “Listen, maybe I should get a lawyer in here while I'm talking to you.”

“Can if you want to.”

“I mean, I didn't kill her, understand. Like I told the other guy, I'm living with a woman over in Charlestown, she's got a couple of kids. I was home there by eight o'clock, her and the kids and I went out for dinner, and I was in bed by eleven. I can prove it.”

“So far you're not a prime suspect in her murder, if that's what you're worried about,” Tim Fox said.

“Yeah, well, all this shit's upset my girlfriend all to hell but she knows, she told the other cop where I was, offered to sign an affidavit, whatever he needed.” Peterson took a deep pull on his cigarette and released the smoke slowly. “Heather was a pain in the ass to me in more ways than you'll ever know but I didn't kill her. Felt a little bad when I heard about it, understand. Not too bad, mind you, just a passing twinge.”

“How long were you married?”

“About two years. I refer to it as the Heather Incident. Second marriage for me and my last.”

“When were you divorced?”

“Three years ago. We kind of kept running into each other. Or she'd phone me for a favour, some damn thing. Most of the time I'd tell her to go take a flying leap but every now and then . . .” Peterson took another long pull on his cigarette, leaned his head back and aimed smoke rings at the ceiling.

“How involved were you in the blackmailing?” Fox asked.

Peterson swung his chair sideways to the desk, tapped the cigarette against a glass ashtray and spoke without looking at Fox. “This is where I gotta be careful,” he said. “See, I was never involved at all. It didn't surprise me what Heather was doing. She was screwing around on me when we were married, that's what broke it up, the marriage.” He smiled coldly. “Heather got off on the power more than the pleasure. I'm telling you, I was married to one strange woman.”

“But you knew she was blackmailing men.”

“Oh, sure. She bragged to me about it. Pulled up here once in her shiny new car, BMW. Showing off. Talked about leaving for Europe on the Concorde, all of that shit. Rubbed my nose in it.” He shook his head. “Jesus, she was a strange broad, I'm telling you.”

“She try to involve you in it?”

“Yeah.” Peterson butted the cigarette in a sudden violent motion, and Fox noted the man's deep chest, powerful biceps and aggressive manner. “Near the end. That's where I gotta be careful, like I said.” He turned to face Fox, resting his forearms on the desk. “You don't give a damn about criminal intent, do you? You know, just talking about doing something with somebody, something that might be construed as illegal? Is that, what? Conspiracy?”

“Was the other person Heather?”

“Could be.”

“There's no way we're going to pursue a conspiracy case where the second party is dead. Especially if she was a homicide victim. No way at all. You want to talk, go ahead, but I don't give a damn what you and your ex-wife might have speculated about. Unless it concerns her murder.”

Peterson stared back at Fox in silence. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Okay, I hear you.” He leaned back in his chair. “Look, I've been working in this dump for over twenty years. I bought a big piece of it a few years ago, right around the time everybody in the state decided they didn't want any more bathrooms. That's me, the guy with great timing, okay?”

Fox watched him in silence, waiting for him to continue.

Peterson breathed deeply once, picked up his package of cigarettes, thought better of it and tossed them aside. “She calls me, couple of weeks ago, says she's on to something big. Too big for her, she could use some help.”

“What kind of help?”

Peterson shrugged. “Kind of a partner. For protection. She never admitted what she was doing, the scam with the pictures. See, she never laid it out for me in detail but she let me know, bit by bit. You know, brag about her new boyfriend of the month. No names, but she'd tell me they gave her big chunks of money and I'd ask why and she'd laugh and say there were two things she knew best. ‘Two things I know best are fucking and photography,' she'd say and laugh like hell. Plus she'd talk about all the money she had invested. I knew she wasn't making it all as a photographer's agent.”

“How'd you feel about that?” Fox asked.

“About what? About my ex-wife screwing other guys? It was old news to me. Old news when our marriage split up, old news now. Didn't bother me none.”

“So why did she suddenly need a partner?”

“She was going after some kind of score from a big name and she wanted some backup, somebody who knew what was going on in case she messed up.”

“She offer you money?”

Peterson nodded. “Not a hell of a lot. Ten thousand up front and a couple of grand a month just to hold on to some stuff for her, I don't know what. Right now I could use it, the money. This place was bleeding, still is. The bank, wise asses over there, they'd just told me I couldn't draw more'n twenty-five grand a year in salary for Christ's sake until things get turned around and that'll take maybe a year. They saw me taking out more, they'd call their loan, that's the only deal they offered. So when Heather starting talking about how she'd pay for some help, I jumped for it. I said, ‘Sure, long's I don't have to get rough with anybody, do anything too illegal myself.'”

“Why did you call her the night she was murdered?” Fox asked.

“She never came through.” Peterson picked up the cigarette package again and toyed with it as he spoke. “She was supposed to meet me with the ten grand. Said she'd be home that night, I was to call and we'd meet somewhere. I mean, this was important to me, you know? One day the bank's saying they're ready to close me up, put me out of business after years of pouring my sweat into this place, the next day Heather offers me enough money to pull me through, just for backing her up, holding on to some stuff, let some guy know she wasn't strictly freelance. I
counted
on that. Then I call and she doesn't answer and I know she's home because . . .”

Fox waited a moment before asking. “Because what?”

This time Peterson removed a cigarette from the package. “Because I went over to her place and rang the bell. About six o'clock.” He placed the cigarette in his mouth, flicked the Zippo lighter and brought the flame to the tip. “She answered on the intercom and told me there was a change in plans, somebody else might be doing the deal for her. Told me to call later, she couldn't talk just then.”

“You figured she was backing out?”

Peterson filled his lungs with smoke and exhaled slowly. “That've been like her.”

“And you'd already spent the money she promised you.”

“Something like that.”

“Where'd you call her from, when you left the message on her machine?”

“Here. I came back here really pissed.”

“If you've got anything else for me, I need to know,” Fox said.

Peterson took another long puff on his cigarette and stared past the detective, lost in thought. Finally, he said, “Yeah,” set the cigarette on the ashtray, then stood and walked to the door where his suit jacket was suspended on a brass hook. Reaching inside he withdrew a black leather wallet and returned to the desk. He took a business card from the billfold, glanced at it absently and tossed it to the detective. “She gave me this when we first started talking.”

Tim Fox picked up the card, printed on heavy linen stock, and turned it over. The lettering was in gold script: Bedford Investments Incorporated. An address on Winthrop Square appeared beneath it followed by a name: Harley DeMontford. “This the man she was blackmailing?” Fox asked.

Peterson nodded. “He owns the joint, the Bedford outfit.”

“Why'd you take so long to give it to me?”

The other man smiled and tapped the end of the cigarette on the ashtray. “Can't you figure it out?”

“You were thinking about running your own scam on the guy?”

“You got it. But it never got past the thinking stage.”

“Smart move.”

“Yeah, I'm an upstanding Boston citizen.” Peterson placed the cigarette in his mouth. “Truth is, I woulda done it except when I heard all the details about what happened to her. How bad she was beaten up. If this guy's involved and he did that to Heather, maybe I should stay away from him.”

“You figured this DeMontford, he's the one who killed her?”

“She was scared shitless of
somebody
,” Peterson said, squinting through the cigarette smoke at Fox. “Something about the guy or the deal really spooked her. And believe me, Heather didn't scare easy.”

“We might have to talk to the woman you're living with again, double check your alibi.”

“You do that.”

“You going to the funeral this afternoon?”

“Hell, no.”

Fox rose to his feet. “We'll need to talk to you again.”

“Anytime.”

Fox was at the door when Peterson said, “The bank's shuttin' me down, end of the month, looks like. Coulda held them off with the money Heather promised.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Fox said. “Things are tough allover.”

Peterson swore under his breath and stabbed the ashtray with his cigarette.

“You want me to make some more coffee?”

Billie was speaking to McGuire but her eyes were fixed on the stained gray rug beneath her bed. She lay on her stomach, her head over the edge of the mattress, one arm dangling to the floor, a finger tracing patterns in the cheap carpeting. A bed sheet lay across her lower body, placed there by McGuire, who reached to stroke her shoulder before rolling onto his back.

McGuire said, “No, thanks.” He was looking up at the ceiling, finished in cheap stucco-like white paint, creating patterns by joining with imaginary lines the small gravelly lumps scattered randomly above him. A triangle there, a parallelogram here, and over there a diamond . . .

“Lemme guess,” Billie said. “You never had this problem before, right?” When McGuire didn't answer Billie rolled on her side, facing him. Her voice had lost its warmth, its caring tone, its seductiveness. “I mean, isn't that what you're supposed to say? ‘Gee, I never had this problem before.'” Charging each word with sarcasm. “‘I've always been able to get a diamond cutter up, first snap of a brassiere.' That's what you're supposed to say, right?”

“Billie, I'm sorry.” McGuire rubbed his eyes with one hand. “I'm really sorry.”