Damaged Goods: A Jack McMorrow Mystery Page 21

  “I didn’t know that was his name,” I said.

  “Roger David Wilde,” Tibbets said. “The third.”

  “Huh,” I said.

  “So he had the gun on his own temple?”

  “Right. Like he was going to shoot himself. I think he was distraught.”

  “But he turned and shot at you?”

  “Right. I startled him. He just whirled around and fired. Pretty wildly.”

  “He wasn’t trying to harm himself at that point?”

  “No. He just sort of blasted away. I don’t think he’d had much experience with guns. He missed by a lot.”

  “So when you tackled him—”

  “Pretty tough for a reporter,” Raven said.

  Tibbets looked at him, annoyed at the interruption, then back at me.

  “I tried to get the gun away. We struggled for it.”

  “Was he trying to harm himself at that point?”

  I considered it. “He was trying to get loose. I don’t know what he would have done if he had.”

  “Did he point the gun at Miss Lasell?”

  “No.”

  “Did he point the gun at you?”

  “Eventually. I had his wrist and we were sort of arm wrestling.”

  “Did he say anything? I’m gonna kill you?”

  “Never said a word. You know how it is in situations like that. Just a lot of grunting.”

  “And you’re saying you were still struggling when Miss Lasell intervened?”

  “Yes.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “I told you. She hit him in the head with her crutch. More than once. It became clear that he was disabled.”

  “Somebody gave him a damned good whack,” Raven said.

  “Somebody?” I said.

  “He says he can’t remember anything,” Tibbets said. “Remembers walking in there to talk to her. Next thing he knows he’s in the hospital.”

  “With his head wrapped up like a mummy,” Raven said. “You know they let him out this morning? Christ, you have open heart surgery now, you’re home before lunchtime.”

  She gave him another look.

  “What are you getting at here?” I said.

  “Trying to get at the truth,” Tibbets said.

  She had her hands folded on the desk in front of her, like she was playing the teacher in a high school play. Now class . . .

  “I told you the truth,” I said. “What did Miss Lasell say?”

  They both looked at me, hesitated.

  “She says she clubbed him when he was on the floor,” Tibbets said.

  “Well, there you go,” I said. “He came in with the gun. It was self-defense no matter what. Fact is she may have saved my life.”

  “Which brings me to another question,” Tibbets said.

  I waited.

  “What is your relationship with the victim?”

  “Acquaintance,” I said.

  “Is she your lover?” Tibbets said, the word rolling off her tongue like we were in a soap opera.

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Was she Roger’s lover, then?” she said. “I mean, guys don’t usually try to kill each other over a girl who’s just a friend.”

  I didn’t answer, Tibbets leaned forward, her child’s hands on the wooden desktop. “Let’s get real here, Mr. McMorrow,” she said. “Somebody was screwing her.”

  “What would your parents say if they heard that dirty talk?” I said.

  “People assaulted,” Tibbets went on. “Shots fired on Main Street in Galway, Maine. Men coming and going.”

  I looked at her. I said nothing.

  “She’s a prostitute, isn’t she, Mr. McMorrow?” Tibbets said. “A call girl.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “My first guess was a drug dealer,” Raven said.

  “Or both,” Tibbets said. “You’re protecting her or she’s protecting you. Or you’re protecting each other. You use drugs?”

  “Ballantine Ale,” I said. “But I have it under control.”

  “You do have a heck of a reputation, McMorrow,” Raven said. “Play it close to the edge. Have for years. Well, you don’t play it that way around here.”

  “Ain’t room in this town for the both of us?” I said.

  “Reckless conduct with a firearm,” Tibbets said.

  “That’s all you can get him for?” I said.

  “No, that’s both of you,” she said. “He says you got the gun away from him, fired one shot over his head and into the ceiling.”

  “I thought you said he couldn’t remember.”

  “It’s coming back to him,” she said. “In pieces.”

  “He’s lying. I tried to get it away from him but I couldn’t. He still had it when she clocked him.”

  “He says he got it back off of you,” Tibbets said.

  “Your prints are on the gun,” Raven said.

  “I picked it up,” I said.

  “You tell us what’s really going on in that apartment and we let you walk,” Tibbets said.

  “Let me walk?” I said.

  “I think you don’t want to tell us ’cause your wife will go ballistic, she finds out you were having sexual relations with that young girl,” Raven said.

  “She knows better,” I said.

  “So you’re not going to cooperate?” Tibbets said.

  “I told you what happened.”

  “You told me what happened in that exact instance, or at least one version of it. You didn’t tell me what was really going on.”

  I looked at her.

  “Grand jury sits Wednesday,” she said.

  “You know the old saying,” Raven said. “You can indict a ham sandwich.”

  “I’ve got bigger problems than this,” I said.

  “And I’ve got to be in court,” Tibbets said.

  She was gathering up folders and legal pads from her desk. “Indictments go in the newspaper,” she said. “Heck of an embarrassment for your family, especially for a spouse with a job that’s in the public eye. Not exactly a career move for you, either.”

  “My career moves were a long time ago,” I said.

  “Think the New York Times will like their reporter on the front page? Mixed up in this? ’Cause you know they’ll hear all about it. Amazing thing, the Internet.” She started for the door. “Of course, maybe you don’t need to work. Maybe you have money.”

  “A lot of that around here these days,” Raven said.

  I thought of Roxanne. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

  Tibbets was out the door, her heels clicking down the corridor. Her perfume wafted to me and hung in the air. Raven popped another orange cheese cracker into his mouth, like he’d been waiting for her to leave to eat.

  “She’s young, but she’s tough,” he said.

  “Watches way too much Law & Order,” I said.

  Raven smiled as we turned to the door. “Know what I like about that show?” he said. “The way the people get squeezed and squeezed.”

  I looked at him.

  “You know what else?” Raven said.

  “No, what?”

  “It’s starting to look like a boat,” he said. “For a while it was just a lot of pieces of wood.”

  Chapter 31

  I told Raven I’d find my own way home. He said, “Shoot yourself,” and ambled over to his cruiser and drove off. I started walking up the street toward the downtown, my stomach growling.

  There was a cafe on the corner just past the newspaper office and I needed a cup of tea. As I walked by the newspaper office I saw the front page taped to the window: “Man Injured in Main Street Fracas,” the headline said. The story was above the fold, just under a story about the lobster catch. It was down. One photo showed Mandi being led by the arm out the front door of her building by a cop, her sweatshirt hood down over her face.

  “You go girl,” I said to myself. “Take you on a perp walk, the bastards.”

  I stepped
into the newspaper office and grabbed a paper off the pile on the counter. Dropping a dollar bill, I walked out into the cool summer morning.

  So the word was out. That was why Tibbets was so hot to charge Mandi with something that lived up to her reputation. This probably meant Mandi would be moving on, no way to live on Main Street with the scarlet W on her chest. Her next move would have to be way up the coast.

  If they let her go.

  At the corner, I stepped into the cafe. There was canned classical music playing. Pachelbel. I ordered a tea to go, and the woman behind the counter—green apron, white blouse—looked at me closely before turning away. She poured the water into a paper cup, slid the tea bag and lid across the counter.

  “You were in the paper,” she said.

  “Is that right?” I said.

  I held the paper out. She took it from me, flipped it over. There, on the back page, was the jump to the shooting story. They’d lifted a headshot of me off the Web. The caption said, “Jack McMorrow, of Prosperity, uninjured in Main Street shooting.”

  “People are saying it’s one of those crack houses,” she said.

  “That’s not true,” I said.

  “I didn’t say it was true,” she said, swirling a towel over the wooden counter. “I just said it was what people were saying.”

  “I’m sure they are,” I said. “Do you know the young woman who lives there?”

  “I’ve seen her around,” she said. “The sad girl, right?”

  I looked at her. “Yeah. The sad girl,” I said. “She’s not a crackhead. You can spread that around town. Say you heard it from a reliable source.”

  She looked at me warily, said, “Right.”

  I took my tea, chose one of the empty tables, and sat. As I started the story, the door swung open, bell ding-a-linging. A woman strode in: fifty-ish and silver-blonde, tight khaki skirt, clingy sweater, heeled sandals. Her jaw was clenched, face pink, and she waved the rolled-up paper like a club. She went directly to the counter, thumped the paper down.

  “Coffee, Charlotte,” she said. “I have to vent. I want to know why don’t these people just go back under whatever rock they crawled out from under.”

  Charlotte put down a mug, poured. Glanced over at me.

  “I don’t know, Jackie,” she said.

  “This is our town,” Jackie said. “We work out butts off to make it a good place to do business, for people to come and retire, and then these lowlifes come in. You know this story just cost me a big sale?” she said. “Dentist from Pennsylvania. Just divorced. Very good looking, too. Like an older George Clooney. Looking for vacation property, this close to making an offer on a beautiful contemporary, bay view, wrap around porches, granite countertops. Fully modernized. He saw that story in the paper, said maybe he’d go with a house in Camden.”

  Charlotte shook her head.

  “We don’t need druggies and whores on Main Street,” Jackie said. Charlotte looked toward me, flickered her eyesbrows. Jackie turned. Her face was flushed with anger, her cleavage, too. It appeared to me she’d had some work done.

  “Hey, aren’t you the one—?” She started unrolling the paper. I flipped money onto the table, got up, and started for the door. Then stopped. Looked at them as they stared.

  “Let she who is without sin cast the first stone,” I said, and pushed through the screen door, let it slam shut behind me, the bell jingling.

  I took a right toward the harbor. There were other people on the sidewalk and I walked slowly, feeling or imagining their scrutiny. So the small-town paper had tabloid instincts. My headshot; Mandi’s covered face.

  I glanced up and across the street as I passed the apartment.

  Sure enough, Lulu was in the window. She was surveying the people, the slowly moving traffic. Nothing bothers a cat. But I wondered about Mandi, the last phone call, the odd, upbeat quality in her voice. What was she thinking?

  I’m on the front page of the local paper as the focal point of a brawl where shots were fired. Word is getting out that I’m a prostitute and drug addict. But then again, I broke a crutch over a guy’s head, saved somebody’s life. Mandi, the heroine.

  I continued on.

  And there was the black Tahoe, parked fifty yards down, Mandi’s side of the street. There was nobody in it, no Marty in sight. I turned back and the cat was still there. I kept walking, touched the hood as I passed. It was cold.

  The town was pitched toward the harbor, everything flowing down to the bay. I walked down the street, skirting summer people standing in front of the shop windows in clumps. At the end of the street, I crossed the little park, took out my phone. I sat on a bench, right next to the one where I’d first interviewed Mandi. Sipping the tea, I opened the paper. Went right to it.

  Police called to a building on Main Street after neighbors reported hearing shots fired. Three people were found in the second floor apartment, including one with a head injury. A firearm was recovered. The three people were: Sybill Lasell, 25, of Galway, the occupant of the apartment; Roger Wilde III, 32, of Annapolis, Maryland; Jack McMorrow, 40, of Prosperity. Police said Wilde was injured but it did not appear he had been shot. He was taken to the Waldo County Memorial Hospital for treatment. The reporter called the hospital later that day and Wilde had been released. The investigation is ongoing, said Detective Brian Raven.

  I put the paper down.

  No mention of an escort service. No hint that Roger had gone up there and threatened to blow his head off. Nothing about who had fired the gun, about Mandi beating Roger with the crutch.

  What kind of newspaper was this?

  I looked out at the harbor. The breeze was brisk out of the northeast, the remnant of the rain that had passed, and the boats were turned stern-first toward the docks. They swung on their moorings and a big two-masted sailboat eased out of the harbor under power. I watched it absently, then caught sight of a guy moving around in the cockpit of a powerboat as the sailboat passed by.

  Something white on his head. Not a hat—a bandage.

  Roger.

  The boat was moored in the middle of the harbor, to the south toward the bay. It was big, forty feet or more, a classic type, all varnished above the white hull, the kind of boat that required a lot of work. There was a white dinghy tied at the stern.

  I got up from the bench and walked to the railing above the floats. Leaning there, I watched him. He sat in the upper cockpit, where there were controls atop the boat. He was facing the harborfront, wearing sunglasses. I felt like he was looking right at me. And then he moved slowly down a ladder, into the cabin, and out of sight.

  Dropping the tea and the paper in a trash can, I walked to the gate that led down the ramp to the floats. A sign said, “Only Boat Owners And Their Guests Beyond This Point.” I went through, walked down the sandpaper ramp to the floats. There were dinghies upside down on the deck, a few tied up alongside. Some had small outboard motors. One was beat-up, with an empty Budweiser can floating in the rainwater. That one had oars.

  I undid the rope, stepped over the bow, felt the water in my shoes as it sloshed toward me. I sat on the seat, put the oars in the locks, and pushed away from the float. The water sloshed back to the stern as I spun the boat around and started to row.

  Crossing the harbor toward Roger’s boat, I turned to navigate between the moorings. Halfway there, I looked over my shoulder. I could see the name on the stern now: Jolly Roger, Chesapeake Bay. I changed course, headed just north of his boat. I passed it, seventy-five yards off to my left. There was no sign of him, just the dinghy swinging gently in the wind. When I was upwind and fifty yards off, I stopped rowing. The boat slowed and then began to blow and I touched an oar to the water to steer it.

  In a couple of minutes I was drifting past his bow. I could see the helm through the big windows, the others covered by blue curtains that matched the canvas awning over the sitting area at the stern. And then I was alongside, feathering the oars to keep from banging his hull. As I closed on th
e stern, I pulled the oars in and laid them in the bottom of the dinghy, reached up, and grabbed the gunwale with one hand. I held the big boat off, stood, and swung up and over and in. I reached back and grabbed the dinghy’s line as it started to drift away, tied the rope to a davit.

  Stood and waited.

  There was a weather radio playing somewhere inside the boat, a robot voice talking about low pressure, waves three to five feet. I walked under the awning and looked in. There were canvas director’s chairs, in matching blue. Beyond that a little doorway that led below. I took two steps closer, waited for my eyes to adjust. Bent over and stepped down and in.

  “Freeze,” a voice said.

  He was sitting on the edge of a bunk to my right, an orange flare gun in his right hand, pointed at my chest. His face was pale; up close, the bandage was held on with flesh-colored tape.

  “You,” he said.

  “Roger,” I said. “Good to see you again. How you feeling?”

  “What do you want?” he said.

  “I’m feeling pretty good, too, considering some dipshit took a shot at me.”

  “I didn’t mean to. I mean, I didn’t know I was going to do that. It just sort of happened.”

  “I’m glad you just sort of missed,” I said.

  I looked around. “Okay. Now put that thing down before you burn this tub to the waterline. And after that, I just want to talk.”

  “About what?”

  “Mandi.”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” he said, the flare gun still pointed at me.

  “The gun,” I said. “I’m not here to fight.”

  He looked at it, put his hand, with the gun, down on the bunk cushion.

  “What don’t you want to hear?” I said.

  Roger looked at me, then looked away. It was dark in the cabin, but I could see he was wearing the same clothes from the apartment, bloodstains on his shirt. His khaki shorts were rumpled, his feet were bare.

  “Any of it,” Roger said.

  “Any of what?”

  “What she does. Why you come see her.”

  “I’m a reporter,” I said. “I came to her to write a story. That’s it.”