| Excerpted
from the Chapter Four:
Monday morning I left the house around quarter of eight--about half an
hour earlier than normal--so I'd have time to talk with Gordon Cahill
in his office and still get to mine by nine. Julie had a morning full
of client meetings lined up for me, and being late would be a bad way
to start the week. My clients could handle it, but Julie would make my
life miserable.
It promised to be another fine Indian Summer day in Boston. The maples
and beeches on the Common and in the Public Gardens had started turning
crimson and gold and bronze, and the low-angled morning sun glowed in
the tops of the foliage. Squirrels scampered under their branches gathering
acorns and beechnuts. Pigeons waddled around on the sidewalks looking
for stale French fries and popcorn. Ah, Mother Nature.
It was the kind of early-autumn morning that gave me an itch to prowl
through some real woods, spy on some wild animals, maybe even go trout
fishing one more time before the snow flew.
I stopped at a coffee shop on Newbury Street and bought two large coffees
and half a dozen bran muffins. As I recalled, Gordon Cahill liked bran.
St. Botolph Street runs between Huntington and Columbus Avenues behind
Copley Place. Cahill's office was half-way down the street on the second
floor above a Thai restaurant. The last time I was there he had the air-conditioning
running high and was burning incense -- a futile effort to neutralize
the exotic aromas that wafted up from the kitchen below.
Gordie hated all southeast-Asian cuisine--a vestige, I assumed, of his
time in Saigon thirty-odd years ago--but he wasn't thinking about moving.
He said the rent was cheap and, anyway, he liked the fact that he wasn't
too comfortable in an office. His liked being out on the streets where
the action was.
When I climbed the stairway it was a little after eight-fifteen in the
morning, and the restaurant was closed. Still, the mingled stale smell
of curry and coconut milk and roasted peanuts and seared hot peppers lingered
in the walls.
The door to Cahill's ofice was open a crack. With my briefcase in one
hand and my bag of muffins and coffee in the other, I nudged it open with
my toe and said, "Hey, Gordie. I come bearing muffins."
He didn't answer. I went in.
His cramped office was dominated by a big old oak desk with an Apple computer,
two telephones, and a wire basket full of papers. A dirty window overlooked
the back alley. A row of filing cabinets dominated one wall. There was
a mini-refrigerator and a microwave oven and a floor-to-ceiling bookcase
that held mostly legal tomes, phone books, atlases, and other reference
works.
To the left, the door to the conference room was ajar. I put the bag of
muffins and coffee and my briefcase on Cahill's desk and stepped into
the other room.
"Gordie, you here?" I said. "I'm in no mood for--"
That's when the gunbarrel rammed into the back of my neck and the growly
voice said, "Don't even blink."
"Hey," I said. "That hurts."
I recognized the growly voice. It belonged to my old friend--and occasional
nemisis--Roger Horowitz. Horowitz was a homicide detective for the Massachusetts
state police. Naturally, whenever I encountered him it meant that he was
investigating a homicide, so naturally, as much as I liked him, I never
wanted to encounter him. It usually meant somebody I knew had died under
suspicious circumstances.
"Christ," Horowitz grumbled. "It's you."
"Please point that thing somewhere else," I said.
He hesitated, shoved his gun into the holster under his armpit.
I poked my finger at his chest. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm the cop," he said. "I get to ask the questions. What
are you doing here?"
"I brought coffee and bran muffins. I'm having breakfast with Cahill."
"Why?"
"Bran muffins are good for you," I said. "They keep you
regular."
"Answer the fucking question, Coyne. I been up all night. I'm in
no mood."
"Cahill's doing some work for me," I said. "We were supposed
to meet here and talk about it."
"What work?"
"Oh, no you don't," I said. "I came here to talk to Gordie,
not you."
"Cahill ain't here."
"I see that."
"That's because he's dead," he said.
"Gordie?"
He nodded.
I sat heavily in one of the chairs at the conference table. "What
happened?"
Horowitz blew out a breath and slumped in the chair across from me. "You
said something about muffins. Got coffee, too?"
"Of course."
"Go get 'em."
"You want a muffin," I said, "you've got to tell me what
happened to Gordie."
Horowitz narrowed his eyes, pretended to ponder the pros and cons of that
proposition, then nodded. "I can tell you some things, I guess. That
coffee better still be hot or the deal's off."
I fetched the paper bag from the other room, plunked it down on the conference
table, and sat across from Horowitz.
He ripped the bag open, popped the top off one of the coffees, and took
a sip.
"Hot enough?" I said.
He shrugged, picked up a muffin, and took a bite. "Car crash,"
he mumbled around his mouthful of muffin. "Around midnight last night."
"Where?" I said. "How? What the hell happened?"
He took another sip of coffee and wiped his mouth with the back of his
wrist. "He was heading east on Route 119 between Ashby and Townsend.
You know the Willard Brook State Forest?"
"I've driven through there, sure. It's a little ways past the Squannacook
River, where I sometimes go trout fishing."
"Twisty road, all them big pine trees? No houses or gas stations
or anything for maybe ten miles?"
I nodded.
"Cahill plowed into one of the trees."
"And he died?"
"Yep. He was going way too fast, and his front tire blew out."
Horowitz made an exploding gesture with his hands. "There was a fire."
"Damn." I shook my head. "I can't believe it."
"Believe it," Horowitz said. "Your turn, Coyne."
"Wait a minute," I said. "I know about unattended deaths
and all that, but why are you here?"
"Looking for clues. Why else?"
"You're investigating an automobile accident?"
"Who said anything about an accident?"
I looked at him. "You think was murdered?"
He rubbed his bristly chin. "Officially, it looks like an accident,
all right. No evidence to the contrary at this point. We got forensics
and the accident-scene crew checking it out. How well did you know Cahill?"
I shrugged. "He's done some work for me over the years. He's very
good. The best, actually. Thorough, absolutely discreet. Honest. Expensive.
I knew him professionally more than personally, I guess you'd say. I liked
him a lot."
"You know he used to be a state cop?"
I nodded. "Friend of yours, then?"
"I got to know him when he was undercover in Lawrence and Haverhill.
The man had balls, I'll give him that. Annoying habit of making up puns.
You'd never know it to look at him, but he was absolutely fearless. He
was undercover almost three years. Not a minute of it he wasn't at risk.
But he got the goods on 'em. When he testified, of course, that was the
end of undercover for Cahill. They put him behind a desk. He hated that.
Finished out his twenty years, retired, and started doing this."
Horowitz waved his hand around the office.
"So you're investigating this--this car crash--because he used to
be a state cop?" I said.
He shook his head. "I told you too much already." He arched
his eyebrows at me. "Quid pro quo, Coyne."
I shook my head.
"I'd really like to know what in hell Cahill was doing on Route 119
at midnight on a Sunday," persisted Horowitz. "Where he was
coming from, where he was going."
"Of course you'd like to know," I said.
"Who he'd been talking to, what he was looking for."
"Key questions, for sure."
Suddenly Horowitz reached across the table and grabbed my wrist. "Dammit,
Coyne. Gordie's dead. Don't you get it?"
"I can't tell you what he was working on for me, Roger. You know
that. Not without my client's permission." I looked meaningfully
at where his hand held my wrist.
He gave my wrist a squeeze, then let go of it. "Get it, then."
"You really think--?"
"I don't know." He leaned back in his chair, shook his head,
and let out a long sigh. "For all I know, he had a heart attack.
But you're a cop for twenty years, you accumulate a lot of enemies. You
do PI work, you collect more of 'em. I owe it to Gordie to figure out
what the hell happened, that's all. Help me out, okay?"
"I'll talk to my client, see what I can do." I stood up. "You
want the rest of these muffins?"
He shook his head. "Bring 'em to Julie or give 'em to your dog or
something. I prefer blueberry."
I went to the outer office and picked up my briefcase.
Horowitz followed behind me. "I'll be calling you," he said.
I swept my hand around Cahill's office. "You find anything useful?"
"You ask too many questions, Coyne."
I shrugged. "I notice that you're here alone."
"So?"
"I thought you guys always worked in pairs."
He flapped one hand and said nothing.
"So where's your partner?" I said.
"Home having breakfast with her husband, probably."
"You're alone on this?"
"What's it look like?"
"It looks to me," I said, "like you're working on your
own hunches on your own time. I bet your boss doesn't even know you're
here."
"None of his fucking business what I do on my own time."
I nodded. "I'm right, then. This is not an official investigation."
"None of your business, either."
"Well," I said. "Your interest in my client suggests maybe
it is. You want my help, you've got to convince me there could be a connection.
So what makes you so sure this wasn't an accident?"
He blew out a breath. "I just knew the man, that's all," he
said. "Gordon Cahill was very careful, precise, unexcitable. Plodding,
almost. You don't survive undercover for three years if you're not. It
would be entirely out of character for him to drive recklessly, exceed
the speed limit. He'd never drink or do drugs if he was driving. He wouldn't
fall asleep at the wheel. Nothing could make him panic. He just wouldn't
have an accident. Not Gordie."
"Unless?"
Horowitz shrugged. "Think about it."
"Unless someone was chasing him? Is that what you're thinking? Somebody
forced him off the road or something?"
He waved his hand. "We'll see what the crime-scene people, forensics,
ME's office come up with. You talk to your client. Then we'll put our
heads together."
"No promises," I said. I opened the door and stepped out of
Gordon Cahill's office.
"Hey, Coyne," said Horowitz.
I stopped. "What?"
"There's nothing left of him but a cinder," he said.
I looked at him.
He made an exploding motion with his hands. "It was a fireball. As
bad as anything I've ever seen."
"I'll see what I can do," I said.
* * *
I left Horowitz pawing through the papers in the wire basket on Gordon
Cahill's desk. I knew he wouldn't find anything. Gordie was way too careful
to leave anything useful on top of his desk.
It was barely a five-minute walk
to my own office, and I used spent the time pondering the possibility
that Albert Stoddard had figured out that Gordon Cahill was tailing him
and had run him off the road in the Willard Brook State Forest.
That struck me as even more out of character for Albert than speeding
was for Cahill. But I was a notoriously poor judge of character. I generally
assumed the best in people which, I'd learned over the years, was a surefire
formula for disappointment.
Still, I rather liked that about myself. I knew a lot of lawyers, especially,
who instinctively assumed everybody lied, cheated, and beat their wives.
Mistrust was probably a useful trait for a lawyer, but it was a piss-poor
trait for a human being . . . which shows how much interest I had in being
a successful lawyer.
But then I remembered the last words Cahill had spoken to me on the telephone
before we lost our connection. "Those boys," he had said.
Boys? Albert?
If Albert Stoddard was fooling around with boys, if that's why he was
acting weird and furtive, and if Gordon Cahill found out about it, and
if Albert knew that Cahill knew . . .
Sometimes it was hard to think the best of people.
* * *
Julie didn't look up from her computer when I walked into the office.
The arch of her neck was decidely hostile.
I glanced at my watch. "Hey, I'm only twenty minutes late."
"Mrs. Brubaker arrived thirty minutes ago," she said without
lifting her head.
"Well," I said, "you're the one who always likes to keep
the clients waiting."
"We would like to promote the patently absurd illusion that you are
busy and that your services are in high demand," said Julie, "as
ridiculous as we both know that is. I can carry it off when you're holed
up in your office reading fishing catalogs and the client arrives in the
waiting room. It's more difficult when I'm forced to usher the client
into your office and serve her coffee and make small talk because you
have yet to arrive and we don't want her to see you straggle in."
"I don't really care whether Mrs. Brubaker thinks I'm busy or not,"
I said. "I don't think she cares, either. Hell, I'm not that late."
I plunked the bag of muffins on her desk. "For you. Bran. Good for
your bowels."
"Since when are you worried about my bowels?"
"I worry about everybody's bowels."
She glanced at the bag. "It's torn. Where'd you get it?"
"I confess there were originally six muffins in there," I said.
"I ate one and Roger Horowitz ate two."
She cocked her head and looked at me. "Detective Horowitz? Now what?"
"Gordon Cahill," I said. "He died in a car crash last night."
Julie shook her head. "Oh, dear." She hesitated, then said,
"Detective Horowitz is with homicide."She
arched her eyebrows, making it a question.
"Don't ask," I said, "because I can't talk about it."
Julie nodded. "So you have been busy."
"A veritable whirlwind of thoroughly depressing activity," I
said.
"I'm sorry about Mr. Cahill," she said. "He was a nice
man."
"Yes," I said. "He was. I liked him a lot and I'm very
upset by this."
She hesitated. "You think he was murdered?"
"I don't know."
"But you and Detective Horowitz are going to find out, huh?"
"Not me," I said. "I've got a law practice to run."
Julie laughed quickly. "Sure you do. So why don't you go accrue some
billable hours for a change? Mrs. Brubaker seems quite distraught this
morning."
I snapped her a salute, then went over to the coffee machine, poured myself
a mugful, and headed for my inner office, where Harriet Brubaker was waiting
for me, twisting her handkerchief around in her hands.
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