Damaged Goods: A Jack McMorrow Mystery Read online

  “Turn around,” I said. “Go slow or I’ll shoot you.” I moved closer as the person turned. Clair came around the far corner of the house.

  “Jack,” Mandi said. “It’s me.”

  “I didn’t know where else to go,” Mandi said. “I’ve been driving around and around for hours.”

  We were in the driveway, Clair and I. Mandi was leaning against the black Tahoe, her bad foot drawn up. She was pale and disheveled and looked small and young, the tomboy little sister of the sexy call girl.

  “I didn’t want to bother you, really I didn’t. But he was crazy. I couldn’t stay there. I had to drive with my left foot.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He had a pistol, drinking whiskey, Jack Daniels out of a big bottle. He started out saying he was gonna kill his ex, she wasn’t gonna get his money. Then he started in on me, said maybe I was just after his money, too, maybe he’d have to kill me. And he laughed, like it was funny.”

  “You shouldn’t have gone there,” I said.

  “He said, at first, maybe he’d give me the house up here, would I come and see it. Then we got there, it was more, I could stay for free when he wasn’t here. Of course, when he was here, I could stay, too.”

  “It was okay until he got drunk. He’s got a real bad temper and this time he just got meaner and meaner, and crazier, too, saying all this stuff. First he was saying he had money and he had clout down in Mass., he could get me a real job, he had a friend in real estate.”

  “And then?” I said.

  “I said I didn’t want to live in Mass. and he got mad and said I was blowing it, he was my big chance. And maybe I just liked being—”

  She paused. “He said some pretty nasty things.”

  “Hasn’t he beaten you up before?” I said.

  Mandi didn’t answer.

  “Why do you go back for more?”

  She sighed, looked away.

  “Did he touch you this time?” I said. “Let’s call the police. Lock him up.”

  “No,” Mandi said. “It’s okay. I just had to get out of there.”

  “Where was he when you left?”

  “The bathroom. I took the keys and kind of limped out, real quiet.”

  “Where was the gun?” Clair said.

  “In his hand,” Mandi said. “He only put it down when he poured more whiskey. At one point he took some of the bullets out and put it up against his head and pulled the trigger.”

  “Russian roulette,” I said.

  “Then he told me I should try. Every time I did it and didn’t die, he’d give me ten thousand bucks. I said no way and he put it on his forehead and just kept pulling the trigger. I said to stop, but he kept going.”

  “It was empty,” Clair said.

  “Yeah, he said I’d just blown eighty grand. Then he put the bullets back in. That’s when he started talking about really killing himself, maybe taking me with him. Then he started in on his ex, said she was screwing around on him and that’s why she wasn’t gonna get any money in the divorce. Then he started saying maybe he’d shoot her and then shoot himself, wasn’t gonna do time for her, not as a policeman.”

  “He wasn’t a cop,” I said. “He was in corrections.”

  She looked at me. “How do you know that?”

  “I checked. Corrections his whole career.”

  “Like a prison guard?” Mandi said.

  “Yeah.”

  “He told me he was a detective. Undercover. Drugs and stuff. I figured he made his money knocking over drug dealers.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “So he lied,” Mandi said. “Everybody lies. Like Roger and his rich family and his boat.”

  It struck me that she’d very quickly changed the subject.

  “That’s true, about Roger,” I said. “You saw the boat.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I talked to him. On the boat, in the harbor. He said to tell you he still loves you.”

  “See? Lies,” Mandi said.

  “What makes you say that?” I said.

  She looked away, pulling her hood tighter. I tried again.

  “Marty. He was at Walpole. Deer Island. But mostly he worked at a county facility,” I said.

  “Prison guard,” she said. “That would suck.”

  “You think?” I said.

  “I don’t know, but it seems like it’d be really boring,” Mandi said. “So Roger really said that?”

  I nodded. “I believe him. I also believed him when he said he never touched you.”

  Mandi looked away, put her hands in her pockets. “Yeah, well—”

  “Why’d you pin it on him?”

  “I didn’t pin anything on anybody.”

  “You said it was Roger, when it was really Marty, according to Roger.”

  “I was scared,” Mandi said.

  “Of Marty?”

  She nodded.

  “That he’d hurt you again?”

  A hesitation, then another nod.

  “But you went with him yesterday.”

  “He could be nice, sometimes.”

  “How’d you first meet him, Mandi?” I said.

  She shrugged. “He called, like everybody else.”

  “Huh,” I said. “You didn’t know him from anywhere else?”

  She frowned. “Heck no. Wish I didn’t know him now. Hope I never see him again.”

  “Gotta get his car out of here,” Clair said.

  “We’ll just leave it in Galway somewhere,” I said.

  “You want me to leave, I will,” Mandi said. “I was afraid, if I just went back to the apartment and he woke up—”

  “Probably be out for a while,” Clair said. “Let’s go in.”

  We started for the door, then turned back. Mandi was hobbling after us and I offered her my arm, a little grudgingly now. She took it and hopped and half-skipped her way to the side door, where we paused. Clair got on the other side and we helped her up, Mandi in the middle, the guns on the outside.

  I looked up, saw Roxanne in the window, and then she was gone.

  “If you don’t mind my asking, what’s with all the rifles?” Mandi said.

  “The guy who’s been bothering us,” I said. “He’s around.”

  “Give me one, then.”

  “You’ve handled a gun?” Clair said.

  She looked at him, seemed to think about it, just for a moment. “No,” she said. “But I can learn.”

  Chapter 35

  Roxanne was upstairs, sitting in the chair in the bedroom. Sophie was asleep, head thrown back, her throat exposed. I had an awful thought, Wilton coming in, seeing her and—

  I shook it off. Roxanne got up and we left the room, went down the hall. We stopped, face to face.

  “What is she doing here?” Roxanne said.

  I explained, the best I could.

  “She should go to a shelter. Her foot is fine now.”

  “I know. But I guess she thinks of this as a sort of sanctuary.”

  “It is—for us. If she wants to live like that, associate with people like that, she can find someone else to rescue her.”

  “I know.”

  “What if he comes here looking for her?”

  “We’ll take care of it,” I said.

  “We’ve got one homicidal maniac to worry about, Jack. We don’t need two.”

  Roxanne’s eyes were dark and angry. Her lips were pursed and pale.

  “I understand,” I said. “So we’ve got to get rid of his car.”

  “We don’t. She does.”

  “She can barely drive. She had to use her left foot.”

  “She got it here. She can take it away.”

  “She needs to sleep for a while,” I said. “She’s been up all night.”

  “Join the fucking club,” Roxanne said. Then she turned and walked back down the hall, into the bedroom, and closed the door.

  I sighed. Went downstairs, glimpsed Mandi curled up on the co
uch in the den, a blanket over her legs, her sweatshirt hood still up, and her back to the door. I continued on to the kitchen, found Clair making coffee. It burbled in the machine, trickled down into the pot. He got out a mug and poured some for himself. I went to the counter, took a teabag from the porcelain jar.

  I filled the kettle, put it on the stove, and waited.

  “His car,” I said.

  “We both can’t leave,” Clair said. “Roxanne?”

  “Won’t do it. She’s not too happy that Mandi is back.”

  “Mary could follow you in, drive you back.”

  “Or we could drive it out in the woods and torch it,” I said.

  “Now you’re talking,” Clair said.

  “I can do the barn duty for a while,” I said.

  “Full light, should be able to take a break. Maybe a couple of more hours.”

  “Let me get my tea,” I said.

  The water boiled. I poured it into a travel mug that said Quantico on the side. I was letting the tea steep when I heard it.

  A car door closing. I went to the doorway and looked out.

  Raven was standing by the rear end of the Tahoe, looking at the license plate. He had his radio out. He was talking.

  “I think we just found a way to get rid of his car,” I said.

  We went out to the driveway, left the rifles inside. Raven saw me, kept talking on the radio. When we got close, he said, “Ten-four,” and put the radio in his jacket pocket.

  “She here?”

  “Sleeping,” I said.

  “Been here long?”

  “About an hour. Did he report it stolen? Because I think there are extenuating circumstances.”

  “No, he didn’t report it,” Raven said. “But what might those circumstances be?”

  “She said he took her over to his house in Bayside, got drunk, started waving a handgun around, threatening to shoot anybody and everybody. Tried to get her to play Russian roulette. When he went to the bathroom, she took off. Came here because she was afraid he’d come to her apartment.”

  “I need to talk to her,” Raven said.

  “Come on in,” I said.

  “No, I think we need to go back into town.” He was somber. No chitchat.

  “I’ll go get her then,” I said.

  I went inside, through to the den. Tapped Mandi on the shoulder. She jumped, jerked her arm up to protect herself.

  “It’s Jack,” I said.

  She rolled over, looked up at me, bleary-eyed.

  “Police are here. They want to talk to you.”

  It took her a moment to process it, and then she said, “Did you tell them I was going to give the car back? It’s not like I was stealing it.”

  She was sitting on the couch, scuffing on her sandals. “I have a car. I don’t want his car.”

  She started to get up, winced. I stood beside her and she put her hand on my shoulder, hobbled down the hall, through the kitchen, and outside, where the sun was bright and the breeze was out of the west. I held her up as she eased down the stairs. Raven came to her.

  “Miss Lasell,” he said. “We need to talk.”

  “I wasn’t going to keep the car,” Mandi said. “It was just that I had to get out of there. He had a gun and he was drunk and yelling and I didn’t know what he was gonna do. So when he was in the bathroom, I just took the keys and—”

  Raven held up his hand. “It’s okay. We can talk back at the station.”

  “The police station?” Mandi said, eyes widening. “I didn’t do anything. I just borrowed it. You can take it back right now. I used some gas driving around—God, I drove for hours—but I’ll pay for it.

  She turned to me. “Jack, can you get my bag. I have cash. It’s in—”

  The hand again.

  “Hey,” Raven said. “I have to ask you to come with me. Right now.”

  “Okay, but I don’t see why—”

  “Mr. Callahan is dead,” he said. “We found him a little while ago.”

  Mandi reeled on her feet, grabbed for my shoulder. She started to take short, shallow breaths, like she was hyperventilating.

  “Easy,” I said.

  “Oh, my God,” she said. “Oh, my God. He said he was gonna kill himself or his wife or me or all of us, but I thought he was just drunk. I just didn’t want the gun going off or—”

  “Please, let’s get in the car, Mandi,” Raven said.

  She looked at me.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Just tell them what happened.”

  “He was crazy,” she said, as Raven led her down the driveway. “Whiskey. It does things to people, they turn into maniacs. He was just out of control, you know?”

  He eased her into the back of the cruiser and closed the door. Walked back to me.

  “We’ll need a statement from you, too.”

  “I can tell you right now,” I said. “At least from when she got here. And I saw them leaving the apartment together in the afternoon.”

  The hand. “State police are helping with this one. They’ll want to hear it.”

  “So I take it he didn’t choke on a bite of steak.”

  “When I left they were picking pieces of his brain off the wall,” Raven said.

  “Huh,” I said.

  “How ’bout you come down and tell us what you know.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “The whole story,” Raven said.

  Our eyes met. I nodded. “Right.”

  “I’d let you ride with her but I don’t think that’s a good idea, until we get your statements. Oh, and a wrecker is on its way for his truck. Got the keys?”

  “Never saw them. I think they’re probably still in it.”

  He walked over and looked in the window. Turned back and nodded. He looked up at the sky, vivid blue beyond the swaying trees, the breeze cool and dry and pure.

  “Beautiful day,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Great day to be on the water. Won’t be long, I’ll have that boat ready to launch.”

  “Good for you,” I said.

  “Couple more little things to be done,” Raven said.

  “Great.”

  “Makes it all worth it,” Raven said, “when everything starts falling into place.”

  It was Raven and a balding CID detective, his last name Lawrence. I’d seen it in news stories over the years and now I had a face to put with the name. He had a weak chin, and he’d missed a spot on his left cheek when he’d shaved that morning. He was matter of fact and efficient, legal pad at right angles to the table, pen laid neatly on top of it.

  There was a digital recorder on the pad and he picked it up when I sat down. He turned it on, put it on the table, and slid it toward me. Gulls cried outside and I wondered if the recorder caught that.

  “Okay, Mr. McMorrow,” Detective Lawrence said. “From the top. When did you first meet Miss Lasell?”

  I took a deep breath and started at the beginning. The idea for the story. The ads in the paper. My calls. Mandi in the pizza shop.

  Raven smiled. He’d won at last.

  But not quite. I told them about finding her beside the bed. I told them about her staying at Clair’s. I said I didn’t know much more about her, that she seemed to want to listen more than she wanted to talk about herself.

  I answered their questions, but they never asked if I’d gone to her former apartment in Portland. They never asked if I’d CarFaxed her Toyota. They did ask about Roger and I told them about our conversation on the boat. I told them what Marty had said to me. I told them everything Mandi had said about him that morning.

  “Kind of a dangerous business she got herself into,” Raven said.

  “Yes,” I said. “All by herself, too.”

  “You believe her story, that he was drunk and crazy, but alive when she left?” he said.

  I shrugged. “What’s the forensics say?”

  “A little early,” Lawrence said. “We’re supporting the investigation wit
h informational interviews. Medical examiner will make the determination of cause of death.”

  He reached for the recorder, turned it off.

  “Was he shot from ten feet away?” I said.

  “No,” Raven said. “Muzzle was pressed against his right temple.”

  “Right-handed?”

  Raven smiled. “Yes,” he said.

  “Time of death?”

  “Not long. Neighbor called it in. Said he heard something, then he fell back asleep. Woke up and decided he hadn’t dreamt it. Dead maybe an hour when we got there at four-ten.”

  “Was he sitting up when he got it?”

  “In a recliner,” Raven said.

  “Any other prints on the gun?”

  “They’re working on that,” he said.

  “That sort of information really can’t be disclosed. It’s part of the investigation,” Lawrence said.

  He stood, picked up his legal pad.

  “At least we’ll get her prints run quick now,” Raven said, ignoring him. “Sent them in a week ago, but the state needs a little incentive, you know what I’m saying? A guy with his brains all over the wall—now that tends to get their attention.”

  Chapter 36

  Sophie wanted to play Chutes and Ladders, so that’s what we did, with the board set up on the kitchen table after the dishes had been cleared and washed. The idea of the game was to make your way from one end of the board to the other without having bad things happen to you, like catching a cold or being scratched by a cat. There was no skill. Like a lot of life, it was all in the roll of the dice.

  Mary, Sophie, and Roxanne played, Sophie on her knees on her chair, hunched over the board and counting intently. Clair and I shared the red piece, rotating in and out so we could take a walk. Sophie guffawed when we broke dishes or fell through the ice. She couldn’t understand why we’d want to leave and miss all the fun.

  At eight o’clock, Sophie had won and was rubbing her eyes. The three of us went upstairs to the bedroom and tucked her in with stuffed animals lined up beside her, bears, a cat, a giraffe poking their heads out from under the blanket. It looked like bedtime on the ark.

  “I want to go home when I wake up,” Sophie said.

  “Me, too,” Roxanne said.

  “We’ll see,” I said.

  “Maybe Twinnie is there,” Sophie said.