Dead Winter (19 page)

“Another lawyer joke,” I said.

“Ask Artie, you don’t believe me.”

“Okay, I believe you. What about that Social Security number, Charlie?”

“Got it right here. That’s why I called you. The name that goes with that number is Margaret Gallatin Borowski.”

“Birthplace?”

“White River Junction, Vermont.”

“Parents?”

“Peter Charles and Josephine Katherine Borowski. Both currently residing in Bradford, Vermont.”

“Siblings?”

“None.”

“What about Maggie? What’ve you got on her?”

“She has never been arrested, that’s really all I can tell you. You want more on her, it’ll take some doing. I mean, I can try to pull some strings with Commerce or IRS, if it’s worth it to you.”

“What you gave me is a help,” I said. “Appreciate it. Worth listening to your story for.”

“Mahi mahi.”

“Next week.”

After I hung up with Charlie, I called Kat Winter’s office. Her new administrative assistant answered with a snotty “May I help you?”

“It’s Brady Coyne. Let me talk to Kat.”

“I’ll see if she has time for you.”

Jesus Christ!

“Oh, Brady,” said Kat in a moment. She sounded breathless.

“I get you out of the loo again?”

“No. I wasn’t sure I’d hear from you again.”

“I’m still your lawyer, Kat.”

She laughed quickly. “Sure. Of course.”

“Anyhow,” I added, “the other night was interesting. Different. Intriguing.”

“Intriguing?”

“Yes. Fascinating.”

She snorted. “What kind of line is this, anyway?”

“No line,” I said. “Look, Kat. Forget it, okay? The fishing was fun.”

“Yeah. It was. You’re not mad, then?”

“Nope. Course not.”

“Well. Good.”

“So want to come to Vermont with me?”

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Hang on a second.”

I lit a cigarette. I smoked it. I stared out my office window at Copley Square, buried under a smog inversion. The sun burned dimly through, the color of urine. I smoked another cigarette. Julie came in, saw me with the phone to my ear, and arched her eyebrows. I lifted one finger. She nodded and left.

Kat came back on the line about fifteen minutes after I lit that first cigarette. “Oh, I’m really sorry, Brady. I had a call on the other line, and then I had to get a couple things cleared off my calendar. So I’m all set for tomorrow. What time will you pick me up?”

“Hey, great,” I said. “Nine okay with you?”

“Nine is fine. What’ll I wear?”

“Dress casual. I never go to Vermont without stopping to look at the trout streams.”

“Sounds like fun,” she said. “Is that why we’re going? To explore trout streams?”

“I’ll tell you all about it on the way up.”

A
FTER I HUNG UP
with Kat, I put through a call to Horowitz at state police headquarters at 1010 Commonwealth Avenue. I figured his secretary might be under strict instructions to chill me, since the last time I had talked to the detective he had been decidedly hostile, but she took my name and asked what my business was.

“Tell Horowitz I have information for him on three North Shore murders,” I said.

She did not seem especially impressed with the importance of all this, but after holding for several bars of “Moon River,” I heard Horowitz’s voice on the phone. He sounded as if he was eating corn on the cob.

“You’re back on bubble gum, aren’t you,” I said.

“No willpower,” he mumbled. “Whaddya got?”

“Maggie Winter in Newburyport, Nathan Greenberg in Danvers, Andrea Pavelich in Salisbury. Ring any bells?”

“Come off it, Coyne. Play parlor games with your adoring old clients. I know about the three killings, okay? I even remember that you think Winter and Greenberg were connected.”

“All three were connected, somehow,” I said.

He paused. “How’s Pavelich fit in?”

“She was Marc Winter’s alibi.”

“So you think—?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “They’re holding the husband, I understand.”

He paused again. I heard his gum pop. Finally he said, “Last I heard, they had a good suspect for the Winter case.”

“Her husband. Marc Winter. He didn’t do it. The Pavelich girl could’ve explained it. I told you he had an alibi. She was it. She explained it to me.”

“Yeah, yeah. I remember you told me he was covered. The Pavelich girl, huh?” He paused. “Interesting that she got killed,” he said.

“Makes it tough for Marc to explain himself.” I lit a cigarette. “Anyway, there’s another piece of this I thought you should know.”

“Goodie,” said Horowitz.

I told him about Nathan Greenberg’s mission from Lanie Horton in Asheville, North Carolina, how he had tracked down Maggie Winter, who I deduced was Lanie’s biological mother. “That’s the connection,” I concluded.

“So who killed who?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I figure one killed the other, then a third party killed the first one.”

“Like Marc Winter.”

“Except he has an alibi.”

“Had,” said Horowitz. “He ain’t got one now.”

“I’m just trying to help,” I said. “Do you know anything more about Andrea Pavelich’s killing?”

He sighed. “The state police investigate all murders in the Commonwealth. We detectives are assigned our own cases, but we’re expected to be familiar with all ongoing investigations. Okay? So we get copies of all the paperwork, which consists of big stacks of this extra-wide computer paper which doesn’t fit into old-fashioned file cabinets, so it ends up all over the desk and jammed into drawers. So to answer your question, I haven’t been assigned to any of these three cases that interest you, but, yeah, I know about them, more or less, and I got the paperwork here somewhere, and because I’m gonna switch you over to my colleague Moran in a couple minutes so you can repeat what you told me, I’ll read you the paperwork on the Pavelich thing. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay. Hang on.” I heard the shuffle of papers. I heard Horowitz mutter, “Shitfuck.” Then he said. “I hate how this paper is all connected together and you gotta fold it right. Like a roadmap. I can never get roadmaps folded right. This goddam thing spilled all over my desk. Okay. What we got on Pavelich is this. Local cops got a call about eleven Saturday night from this Albert Pavelich in Salisbury. Says his wife is dead. They hustle out there and find this big guy on the back deck of their house. The guy’s drooling, stumbling drunk, and the lady’s quite dead. She was shot three times. Ballistics got two of the slugs out of her chest. A third one went through her throat, got a big artery, probably the one that killed her. A .22, which they haven’t recovered. Automatic, they think. This Pavelich, the husband, they take him in. They aren’t going to question him, the condition he’s in, so they lock him up, get him sober, then they read him his Miranda. He refuses counsel and proceeds to deny doing it. Now the M.E. finds this dead gal has got old bruises on her neck, arms, and chest. Doesn’t take too much checking around to discover that her old man, this Albert, used to beat on her pretty regular. Salisbury cops had answered more than a couple complaints over the years. Plus the husband has a little sheet. Mostly minor stuff. Driving under the influence, drunk and disorderly, battery on a police officer, stuff like that. Not your upstanding citizen. But not exactly a criminal, either. Just a big stupid asshole who drinks too much and has a bad temper. Statistically, your perfect wife killer. Likewise, they got it on good authority that the dead lady had boyfriends—”

“Marc Winter, for one,” I said.

“Mm,” said Horowitz. “Anyhow, finally Pavelich decided to get himself counsel, and the lawyer got him released, and he wasn’t arrested, since they’ve got neither a witness nor a weapon.”

“But they’ve got motive and opportunity.”

“Yep. They figure he’s the boy, and even though they’ve kinda botched the investigation so far, they’re pretty confident.”

“I talked with Andy Pavelich a couple weeks ago,” I said. “Her husband saw us together and attacked me in the parking lot. I can vouch for the fact that he was a jealous and violent guy.”

Horowitz was silent for a minute. “You don’t suppose—?”

“He killed her because of me? Don’t think I haven’t thought of that.”

“Hate to have that on my conscience.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“Look,” said Horowitz. “This is enlightening and all, but none of these are my cases. I’m gonna get Moran on the line, who’s handling the Maggie Winter case.” And without waiting to exchange polite good-byes, he put me back on hold.

The telephone played “Bridge Over Troubled Water” while I waited, a schlocky rendition with lots of violins and no words, then segued directly into “Just Like a Woman,” which used to be a good Bob Dylan tune before the Reader’s Digest Orchestra got hold of it. Finally I heard a click, and a soft female voice said, “Mr. Coyne?”

“Yes. I’m still holding here.”

“This is Detective Moran. What’ve you got for me?”

I repeated to her the connection between Maggie’s murder and Nathan Greenberg and Andrea Pavelich. She listened to my recitation without interrupting. When I was done, she said, “That is really interesting. It doesn’t help figure out who killed them, though, does it?”

“I suppose not.”

“My best suspect on the Winter kill is still the husband.”

“He’s a better suspect now that his alibi is dead.”

“His alibi might’ve been an accomplice.”

“I talked to her. I don’t think so.”

“You think Maggie Winter was the mother, though, and Greenberg was tracking her down?”

“I’m planning on finding out,” I said.

“Well, good for you. Let me know, okay?”

“Okay.”

I hung up, more confused than ever, and impressed with the way police detectives avoided confusion. They simply zeroed in on a scenario and made it work for them, conveniently ignoring complications such as conflicting evidence. Jealous husbands tend to kill wayward wives. Ergo, Marc killed Maggie and Al killed Andrea. Hookers killed guys like Greenberg in motels.

These things were all generally true. They are the common things, and as medical and legal folks all agree, the commonest things most commonly do happen. A cliché, trite and obvious. But clichés achieve their stature by containing big chunks of mundane truth, as much as people like me hate to admit it.

I played “Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits” on Des’s back door with my knuckle, and he called, “Come on in.” I opened the door. Barney, the basset, waddled up to me, sniffed my cuffs, and finding no interesting dog urine smells, went back to curl under Des’s legs.

He and Marc were sitting across from each other at the breakfast table. As near as I could tell, Des was reading the front of a giant-sized Cheerios box and Marc was reading the back.

“Grab some coffee, pull up a chair,” said Des with what seemed to me forced joviality. “What’re you doing in this neck of the woods at this hour?”

“I’m taking your daughter to Vermont with me. We may never return.” I found a mug in the cabinet over the sink, filled it with coffee from the electric pot on the counter, and straddled a chair backwards. “I’m early, thought I’d stop in and see how you guys are doing.”

“Andy’s dead,” said Marc.

“I heard.”

“Al shot her.”

“What I heard, they haven’t proved that yet.”

“Oh, shit, right. A lawyer. Innocent until proven guilty. Reasonable doubt. Burden of proof. Garrett keeps telling me that stuff, supposed to make me feel better.”

I turned my head and looked hard at Marc. “You got something you want to say?” I said.

He returned my stare. “No,” he said finally.

“Now, look,” I said. “I wasn’t the one who—” I stopped myself. Des was watching the two of us, his head swiveling rhythmically as if Marc and I were whacking a shuttlecock back and forth between us. I sipped my coffee. Then I lit a cigarette. “How’re you making out, Des?” I said finally.

He shrugged. “I used to distribute solace to my parishioners like jellybeans. It’s a little harder when it’s close to home.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” said Marc. “You shouldn’t worry. Zerk’s handling everything.”

“Oh, it’s not just you,” said Des. “It’s poor Maggie, too, and you, of course. And Kat. I worry about her, all alone. And, and…”

Connie, I thought. She was never far from his consciousness.

“Let’s go fishing,” I said to Des.

He nodded distractedly. “That’d be fun.”

“I mean it. Let’s make a date.”

“Sure. We will. I’d like that.”

I left it there. Des did not appear eager. I drained my mug, doused my cigarette butt under the faucet, and tossed it into the wastebasket. “Thanks for the java,” I said.

Des did not get up. He waved vaguely at me. “Take care, Brady.”

Marc followed me out the door to my car. “Look,” he said.

“Forget it.”

“I was out of line. It was me who—”

“It was Al, okay? It wasn’t you and it wasn’t me.” I recalled the lecture Zerk had given me when I willingly assumed guilt for Andy’s death. Now, as I repeated it to Marc, I understood it.

Marc shrugged. “I know you’re right. It doesn’t make me feel better.”

“I don’t feel great about it, either.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Forget it,” I repeated.

He held out his hand. I shook it. Then I got into my car. Marc rested his hands on the roof and leaned toward the open window. “Zerk says even without Andy we’re in good shape.”

I switched on the ignition.

“It’s not that easy,” he said.

I shifted into reverse, then peered up at him.

“I lost Maggie, I lost Andy. What’d I do to deserve that? Huh?”

I reached through the window and gripped his forearm. “It doesn’t work that way, pal. Ask your father for some theology on it. He’ll tell you.”

“He could use some theology himself.” Marc straightened up. “Say hi to my sister for me.”

I nodded and backed out of the driveway.

Kat was wearing a pair of tight jeans, faded almost white, and an orange polo shirt minus the alligator over the breast pocket. She wore sneakers with no socks. “Should I be more dressed up?” she said after greeting me at her door and inviting me in.