The Girl in White Pajamas (9 page)

“George did. At least the bride knows the proper wedding etiquette.”

“Fuck you! I still can’t get over how great you look. Lean and mean!”

“Don’t get any ideas, you’re married now.” He looked at his watch. “This walk through starts at one o’clock. It’s supposed to go on till two thirty. I can come by after that.”

“That’ll be great. But he wasn’t killed in the line—”

Bogie shook his head cutting Jack off. “It’s all bullshit!” While he spoke, large raindrops started falling. Jack quickly excused himself and ran to his car.

As Bogie walked back inside the funeral home, he shuddered as he had a flashback to the letter Bailey wrote to him. She told him that he was too old for her. He was the biggest mistake she ever made. Each word was like another knife through his heart. When the pain grew unbearable and world grew darker, he held fourteen year old Amanda’s hand while she screamed for help.

Bogie walked back in the building and found Rose in the back hallway. He whispered to her, “Bailey sent Jack to talk to me. She wants to meet this afternoon.”

Knowing Bogie as well as she did, Rose could tell he was excited and scared. She casually asked, “Does she want to tell you about Isabella?”

Bogie shook his head. “Jack said somebody’s trying to kill her.”

“What!?”

Bogie shrugged. “I don’t know what’s going on. I told him I’d meet her after I leave here.”

Rose half nodded. “I’ll be in my office if you need anything.” She playfully punched him on the upper arm and opened the back door only to be greeted by Jeannie McGruder as she came in out of the rain. Rose’s quick intake of breathe brought Bogie out of his private world. Looking like Darth Vader in drag, Jeannie McGruder lumbered through the doorway breathing heavily, sounding like she was using a respirator. Jeannie was covered in a huge dark nylon raincoat that reached her ankles. She wore a black, wide-brimmed hat with a black widow’s veil attached. It seemed like a parody of Jackie Kennedy at the presidential funeral. Her brown shoes had slits on each side to make room for her swollen feet.

Regaining her composure, Rose said, “Jeannie. I’m sorry for your loss.”

Jeannie stared at Rose trying to remember who she was. When Bogie called her name, Jeannie turned to him. “Do you want to go inside?” he asked. She nodded and he offered his arm. When Jeannie entered the room, the whispering stopped. As the family stared in total silence, Jeannie walked over to the closed coffin with Bud’s picture resting on top. She leaned over and rapped her knuckles on the lid. “Knock! Knock!”

Elizabeth and Ann McGruder gasped. Elizabeth placed her hand over her chest believing she was having a heart attack. “You vile creature!” she yelled.

Jeannie gave her a Bronx cheer before she allowed Bogie to escort her to the waiting chairs. When Jeannie sat down, she looked over at Amanda and studied her. “You’re so beautiful! Were you one of his whores?”

Amanda quickly said, “Aunt Jeannie, I’m Amanda. Don’t you remember me?”

Jeannie continued to stare at Amanda then put her fist to her mouth and cried. “You played with Jennifer. Oh, my God! My baby! This is where my baby…” She sobbed uncontrollably. While she screamed and cried, the funeral director opened the front doors as his associate opened the back doors. It was showtime!

Black police buses, SUVs, black and whites and motorcycles were all converging on the parking lot of the Hotel Commonwealth so the uniformed officers could form a straight, dignified line up the street, through the front door of the funeral home and out the back door while saluting their fallen comrade. Unfortunately, someone in the BPD forgot to confirm whether or not the Red Sox were playing at Fenway that afternoon. The Soxs were. The staging area the police expected to use was crowded with cars belonging to Red Sox fans. The rain came down, and Commonwealth Avenue soon turned into a cluster fuck with police vehicles double parked while small groups of men and women congregated on the street in the rain until they were called to join the line. The officers exiting the funeral home couldn’t leave the area because they were blocked in by the ones who arrived later.

No one thought the scene could get worse, but it did. Lightning lit up the sky and the thunder followed. At two-twenty, the Red Sox game was called because of rain, and fans running out of Yawkey Way joined the mix. Bud McGruder’s walk through became the greatest fuck-up Boston had seen in years. Curses were placed on his soul and that of the BPD, assuming either had one.

It was three-thirty in the afternoon before the McGruders were able to escape from the funeral home and be escorted to the limousine. Walking behind the ladies, Bogie and Randy looked at the gridlocked traffic. Bogie touched Randy’s arm and said, “I’d like to ask you a favor.”

Randy smiled and asked, “What?”

“You know I have a little daughter?”

Randy nodded.

“Her mother never told me about her. I’ve learned that they’re in danger. I need to go to Washington Street and find out what’s going on.”

“Amanda will be—”

“Just tell her to chill. I’ll talk to her later. We’ve all had enough drama for one day. Will you stay here and help the women? Get them in the limo and go with them back to the house,” Bogie said.

Randy nodded. “Will you be back for the wake?”

“Yeah. If I’m not, start without me.”

Randy studied the traffic. “Nothing’s moving.”

Bogie nodded. “That’s why I’m taking the fastest route possible. I’m walking. It’s only a couple of miles.”

It was almost four-thirty when Bogie reached the corner of Washington and State. He was used to running, but he’d forgotten how crowded the streets and sidewalks were when there was a traffic tie-up. Bogie stood across the street from One Boston Place and tried to visualize the scene of the murder with the additional information he got from the unpublished police report.

Questions raced through his mind. Why had Bud parked here? He was driving his own car. He had to be meeting somebody. Who? Bud was in public relations. He wasn’t out meeting drug dealers or snitches. Could it have been Matt MacDonald? Did the person he was meeting carry a .45 caliber gun? That gun was fairly heavy, not easy to conceal. Elizabeth McGruder seemed to have no problem emptying a .38. Could she handle a .45? Bud’s gun was holstered so he wasn’t expecting a gun battle. Who wanted to kill him? He was a philanderer, but did that warrant the death penalty? Unanswered, Bogie’s questions continued to move through his head.

When Bogie entered the lobby, he found his heart was pounding and his hands were sweating. He hadn’t felt this nervous since he was a teenager going on a date. This was it! For the first time in four years, he and Bailey would be face to face. She broke his heart when she wrote that letter to him. But he convinced himself that he had to go on for Amanda’s sake, and that’s when he learned that Bailey had his child. If Bailey didn’t love him, didn’t want him, why did she have his baby? She was not religious and was a strong advocate of free choice. That small flame of hope burned inside of him as he tried to believe she might still love him.

As he pressed the button for the elevator, he had an epiphany. This was the end game. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Bogie had believed that if he had been in better shape, dressed classier, learned to dance, whitened his tobacco stained teeth she’d still love him. Maybe, if he had been a better lover. He felt like an athlete entering the arena after a rigorous period of training. Let the games begin!

When he walked into the office of Rubin Goldstein and Associates on the twenty-sixth floor, he found everything much the same as it had been four and a half years earlier. A large glass-enclosed conference room was to the right of the reception area. Bogie saw that Bailey’s office was the first office to the left.

The greatest change here was the silence. It was four-thirty in the afternoon, and the place looked empty. This same office was bustling day and night when Bogie met with Rubin four and a half years earlier. Those were grueling meetings. Bogie’s wife, Olga, and baby daughter, Barbara, had been killed in a car accident. That car had been driven by his father, Baxter McGruder. At first, Rubin was representing Bogie while the cops and DA aggressively tried to pin an involuntary manslaughter charge on him. He and the old man had engaged in a brutal fist fight before Baxter McGruder drove off with Olga and the baby and then was involved in a head-on collision with an eighteen wheeler.

The legal bills mounted as the cops and DA tried to link Baxter’s injuries from the fight to his inability to stop when he and the Mack truck collided.

Rubin suggested they take the offensive and file suit against his father’s estate and the other driver on behalf of Olga and the baby. Bogie refused. He didn’t want blood money from insurance companies.

As the police continued to badger Bogie, and his legal bills grew higher, he was more receptive to Rubin’s suggestion that they file suit. “Fuck ‘em all, sue ‘em all!” Bogie instructed.

By that point, the pretense was over. The marriage was a business arrangement. He was paid to marry his father’s mistress and claim the child as his own. The cops thought he was the betrayed husband who found his father, a reputed swordsman, screwing his wife and then the fists flew. The truth was that Baxter McGruder had slapped fourteen-year-old Amanda across the face.

Every night Baxter snuck out of his own back door, opened the kitchen door to the twin brownstone and joined Olga in bed. Bogie slept on the couch so Olga had plenty of room for Baxter. Baby Barbara’s crib was in the room with Olga, but the baby woke up a few times every night. Since Bogie was scheduled to do surveillances three nights in a row, Olga and the old man figured Baxter could change his normal routine. With Bogie out of the house, Baxter and Olga decided to have a honeymoon and get Amanda to keep Barbara in her room for the night. When Amanda refused, Baxter slapped her face and forced her to watch baby Barbara. The next day Amanda didn’t go to school but walked to the R & B office. She told Rose what had happened. When Bogie learned of this, he went ballistic.

Bogie had a two-year verbal commitment to the sham marriage that was financed by a Palm Beach property. The marriage would keep Olga in this country while she worked on getting a green card. It also provided Baxter with the time he needed to collect a large annuity Elizabeth McGruder had given him as a retirement gift. Baxter would dump the old lady after that.

Baxter and Olga didn’t seem to notice that Amanda hadn’t come home from school and certainly didn’t expect Bogie to be sitting there waiting for them.

All the rage and hatred he harbored for the years of abuse he had suffered at the hands of Baxter McGruder came to the forefront as Bogie’s fists pounded into him. Baxter was in great shape for his age and gave as good as he got. By the time the two men finished, Olga was sobbing and cursing in Russian while the baby’s cries went unheard. Both men were bloody. Bogie grabbed Baxter and pushed him out the back door, telling him to take his whore with him.

Bogie figured Baxter and Olga would regroup, come back with cops and throw him out, but he didn’t care. He pulled suitcases out from under Amanda’s bed and started packing his and his daughter’s clothes. His hands were still shaking as the adrenaline rush wore off, but he continued his movements. Bogie went into the kitchen and grabbed a box of trash bags from under the sink. Blood dripped onto the kitchen floor from somewhere on his face. He ignored it. Racing back into the bedroom, Bogie tossed Amanda’s bedding into bags. Feeling slightly light-headed, Bogie could smell his own testosterone-laced sweat that permeated the room. Racing against an invisible clock, Bogie rushed down to the basement and got cardboard boxes. He brought them upstairs and quickly packed Amanda’s lamp, charging station and her prized doll collection. When he glanced in a mirror, he almost didn’t recognize himself. His left eye was dark and swollen. There was a cut over his right eye. Blood oozed from a deep gash on his cheek, and his upper lip was split. Bogie had so much blood over his face that he wasn’t sure which of it was his and which was the old man’s. There was no time to clean up as he hurriedly gathered his and Amanda’s possessions.

While he packed, the house phone rang. He ignored it. Amanda had his cell phone number if she wanted to call him. The phone rang several more times before he gathered their things and placed them in one corner of the bedroom.

The phone stopped ringing about the time the doorbell chimed and the pounding on the door began. It was difficult to ignore the noise when he saw the flashing lights outside the front windows. Bogie opened the door ready to tell the cops he was leaving without a fuss, but they didn’t ask him to leave. They quietly told him his wife and daughter had been killed in a car accident. He already knew who was driving. He only asked, “Is he?” They nodded.

Bogie shook himself back to the present, and moved straight ahead to Bailey’s office. The mass of copper curls moved as she spoke on her cell phone. Her eyes brightened and she stood up holding onto the edge of her desk when she saw him. Bailey smiled and continued to steady herself as he walked toward her.

Bogie wanted to appear cool and calm, but the minute he looked at her, he thought his heart would stop. He knew she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Bogie studied that lovely oval face and green, cat eyes then realized that, like her brother, she had developed dark circles under her eyes. Bailey was thin, and her hands trembled. Bogie walked toward her office and stepped inside. “Hi, beautiful,” he said as casually as possible.

She started to smile and her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Bogie! It’s so good to see you!”

He grabbed her and held her close as he inhaled the fragrance of L’Air du Temps her signature scent. Every time he smelled that fragrance, Bailey moved into his mind and wouldn’t leave. And now he was holding her as she cried on his new silk Brooks Brothers suit.

“Jack was right,” she finally said and sniffled. “You look great--blonde and tan...”

The corner of his mouth flickered into a ‘Bogie’ smile. “It’s usually called
gray
, but if you want, we can call it blonde.” After she smiled, he said, “Sooooo…are we going to waltz around or are you going to tell me that I’m a father?”

She looked down. “I’m sorry. I should have, a long time ago. I did try. I wasn’t sure what to say. I’m so sorry.”

Bogie looked at the large picture on Bailey’s desk. The little girl with the carrot colored curls was a miniature of Bailey. “She’s beautiful!”

Bailey smiled and nodded.

“I want to see her, meet her,” he said quickly.

Bailey nodded. “I was planning on it, but then this…” Her voice trailed off as they walked to the conference room.

As they sat in the glass-enclosed room with the black marble table between them, Bogie took her hand. “Tell me about her,” he said gently.

Bailey smiled through her tears. “She’s smart, she’s funny, she’s everything in the world to me…” Bailey stopped to stifle a cry. “I called her after I talked to Jack. She’s very excited about meeting you. Little Izzy’s making you something to eat.”

“She’s three!” Bogie said surprised.

“You’ll get a three-year-old dinner. It will either be peanut butter and jelly or a hot dog with chips.”

“No Blanquette de veau?”

Bailey’s face reddened and she smiled. “Dammit! You would remember that disaster!”

“I thought it was heroic for your first attempt at French cuisine. It was pretty good!”

“Jack and George disagreed. I think George reminded you that you actually thought Army food was good. What does that say about my cooking?”

They were each lost in their bittersweet memories until Bailey said, “Jack said you were coming here after the walk through. It was getting late so I called him to make sure you were still on your way.”

“The traffic was all tied up. The walk through had something to do with it. I hoofed it over here.”

“From Comm Ave?”

Bogie nodded.

Bailey grinned. “I remember when you wouldn’t walk a half a block to the Seven-Eleven to get a pack of cigarettes.”

“That was the old Bogie. This is the new improved version. So tell me what’s going on here.”

Bailey smile faded. “It started about two or three weeks ago. Izzy’s cat Fluffy was killed.” When Bogie raised an eyebrow, she continued, “The cat was hung by a rope from a tree. It was no accident. Izzy freaked out. And I got phone calls at all hours, hang-ups from blocked numbers. Izzy kept saying somebody was watching her in the play yard at her pre-school. After that, I took her out of there.”

“You’re talking harassment not attempted murder.”

“Let me finish. Two days ago, I was leaving the parking garage next door. You know how the exit is a circular driveway all the way to the bottom?” When he nodded, Bailey added, “You don’t even need to tap the accelerator, just glide down. Well, I was somewhere around the third level and was moving too fast so I tried to use the brake. There were no brakes. I even tried the emergency brake, but the car just kept speeding downward till it crashed through the wooden barrier and onto Washington Street. It smashed into cars parked across the street. The airbags opened…otherwise I’d be dead. Thank God no cars were coming down the street or it would have been worse.”

“When was the last time you had the brakes—”

“Pl..lease!” she said irritably. “The police towed what was left of the car. I got a call from my insurance company this afternoon. The adjuster said that the front brake line was punctured and the back one was cut so there was probably just enough fluid left to drive a few feet to the ramp. After that, there were no brakes.”

“That still doesn’t—”

“Last night someone shot out the windows in my living room
and
dining room. I called the police. They found a shell casing and said it was from a shotgun.”

“Holy shit!”

“It’s fairly isolated there. No one saw or heard anything.”

“Any ideas?”

“I thought I did. But it turned out I was wrong.”

“Who?”

“It doesn’t matter. I was wrong.”

Bogie stared at her until she said, “What?”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“I’m telling you everything I can.”

Bogie blew out a breath then reached down and opened his cell phone. When she started to speak, he held up a finger. “Rose, where are you?” After she told him she was in the garage next door, he said, “Come on up!”

“Why did you call Rose?”