The Prettiest Feathers (23 page)

I didn’t like the sound of that. Besides worrying that Wolf-Chadwick-Carver might have paid Robert a visit, I hadn’t forgotten the nurse’s warning that a subdural hematoma could kill a person. I decided to check on him.

It seemed pointless to knock. All I had to do was set the door aside and walk in. Sinclair’s living room was empty and I didn’t hear the TV in the bedroom. The phone was off the hook. I put the receiver back where it belonged and turned to leave.

Just then, my partner, completely naked, stepped out of the kitchen carrying some slices of pizza on a large white plate. He was headed for the bedroom.

“I have an idea,” Robert said. “Why don’t you drop by
unannounced, walk right in, and make yourself at home? It’s really a bad time, Lane.”

Sometimes I have to be hit with a two-by-four. “I need to talk to you,” I said.

“Let me call you later.”

Just as I was beginning to wonder why he kept glancing toward the bedroom, I found out. A woman, wrapped in Robert’s robe, appeared in the doorway.

“Oops,” she said, but she didn’t look embarrassed.

“I think you two have met,” Robert said.

“Yes, of course,” I said.

Susan Walker backed into the bedroom and closed the door. Earlier that morning, at the precinct, Walker and I had been standing together, talking, when Robert rolled in. She noticed him right away—and, thinking back, I realized that she did sort of perk up at the sight of him. “What’s his story?” she had asked me. I explained that he was my partner. “What kind of guy is he?” she wanted to know.

“I’ll be running along now,” I said.

Sinclair followed me out into the hallway of his apartment building, with nothing more than a slice of pizza shielding him from an indecent exposure arrest.

“Hey, Lane,” he said, trotting after me.

I had come to his apartment to discuss the case. At least, that’s what I had told myself. Maybe I’d been looking for something else, too, but I’d lost on both counts.

I
walked back into the apartment, grabbed a beer, and sat down on the carpet in the living room. Susan walked out and wrapped a blanket around me.

“I didn’t know you and your partner were involved,” she said.

“Neither did I. It’s been a long time.”

Susan was pulling on her clothes. “I should get going.”

“Yeah. It’s late, I guess.”

“After midnight. I’ve got a briefing at eight. Can I call tomorrow night?”

I stood up and pulled the blanket tighter. I felt a chill and my head was pounding. “Yeah, let’s do something.”

We kissed and she was gone.

I sat on the sofa and called Fuzzy. His voice was sleep sodden.

“It’s me,” I said.

“It’s late.”

“I think I’ve got one of those hangovers that start to come
on when I stop drinking too early. I’m going out, hit a few bars. Want to join me?”

“I was dreaming,” Fuzzy said. “It was a nice dream. I don’t want any nightmares. Besides, I’m on duty at four. See you tomorrow.”

“Good night, Fuzzy.”

The line went dead.

I dressed, grabbed my keys and wallet, and took the three cans of beer remaining from a six-pack. I slid the door into place as best I could, which was becoming a bad joke.

My car was beside its hydrant. I got in and headed for the waterfront, wondering what Lane was so amped about. It had been over between us for months.

I found a place called the Sea Breeze. It was right across the street from the river, which smelled like a men’s room in a bus station. The Sea Breeze itself smelled even worse, but it was just what I wanted. I sat at the bar and ordered a Wild Turkey boilermaker.

The bartender—short, fat, and smothered in tattoos—said all he had was Old Crow.

“Good enough,” I said.

There were maybe five guys still drinking. One guy had passed out at his table, and a few hookers were grabbing a drink before heading out for one more trick. There wasn’t much talk, just chain-smoking and serious drinking. I tossed mine back and ordered another.

I knew what I was doing. Running from Sarah. Running from Liza. Playing at being a cop. Anything to duck reality.

I knew it, but I couldn’t stop it. You live a whole life that way, what are you supposed to do? You can’t flip a switch and suddenly become sober and responsible. It’s bad enough dealing with shit on the run. Who wants to stand still and do it?

The headache was receding. Nothing like finding the right medicine.

A hooker walked over and stood at my elbow. “Twenty in the car. Forty at my place,” she said.

I looked at her. Nineteen? Twenty? Somebody’s daughter. “Honey, I just want to drink.”

“I know you,” she said. “You’re a cop. Bert, this dude’s a cop. What are you letting fucking cops in here for?”

Bert was the bartender. “You a cop?”

“I just want to sit here and drink,” I said.

“Finish your drink and get the fuck out,” Bert said.

“He busted me,” the whore told him. “Couple years ago. Him and a big dyke cop.”

“Look, I don’t want any trouble.”

By this time, two more Sea Breeze patrons had moved toward me.

“I’m gonna finish my drink, then I’ll walk out of here,” I said, slipping my 9 millimeter onto the bar. They stopped.

“Give me an excuse,” I said. “Please give me an excuse.”

I looked at the clock behind the bar. I couldn’t read the time, but it had lights that kept twinkling—like they were drops of water going over Niagara Falls. Over and over again.

“I don’t need an excuse,” I said, and fired four shots into the waterfall.

There was a geyser of sparks and shattered plastic, the smell of cordite. All the assholes were under tables or running for the bathrooms.

The place got real quiet. I didn’t bother with the drink, just sat for a few minutes, then walked out. I made it through the door and into the parking lot before I went down to my knees. I thought I’d been slugged from behind, but I was alone in the lot, on all fours on the damp asphalt.

I crawled to the old Ford and pulled myself up by the door handle. I felt like I had to get somewhere, but I couldn’t remember where.

I got behind the wheel and started the car. Then I fished a pint of Wild Turkey out of the glove compartment and removed the cap with my teeth. The old amber liquid did the trick-or at least part of it. I don’t know how long I drove,
or what route I took, but it was after three in the morning when I pulled up at the precinct house.

I managed to find my cubicle and slip in without anyone noticing. At that hour there weren’t many people around anyway.

I took a sip from my pint and called information for Sax-tons River, Vermont. “The police department,” I said.

“They have no listing,” the operator said. “I can give you Bellows Falls or the state police.”

I took both numbers and started with the small-town department.

“No one in the department goes back that far,” the dispatcher said when I told her I was interested in a case from the 1960s. “Charlie Murdock was chief for years, but he’s dead. You might be better off trying the state police. They’re just up the road from here.”

I tried one more approach. “What about the name Paul Wolf? That mean anything to you?”

“Paul Wolf? Why didn’t you say so. I was a substitute teacher at the school when all that happened. It was the only thing people talked about around here for months.”

She sounded happy to talk. There wasn’t much going on in Bellows Falls at 3:30 in the morning.

“What exactly happened?” I asked.

“Paul and his mother, Alice Wolf, lived alone in an apartment in Bellows Falls. She was a waitress at a diner there. Nobody was real sure who Paul’s father was. Eventually. Alice met a man named Edward Corrigan and moved in with him in Saxtons River. Corrigan had an old house there that he was always working on, but never really made livable. Paul was a loner. Corrigan had no use for him. People were pretty sure the stepfather batted Paul around, but Alice never complained. She went to church and prayed a lot, but never tried to get help for Paul or any of the family. Then Alice got pregnant. The baby—Sarah—was the apple of Corrigan’s eye. She was his baby. And Sarah was a real cutie, don’t misunderstand me. But things just got worse for Paul. It seemed
like Corrigan hated him even more after the little girl was born.”

The sister’s name was Sarah. Was I finally starting to make some connection?

“I’m not real clear about why it all happened that night, but Paul went after Corrigan with a knife. Alice grabbed him from behind. Paul cut them both pretty bad, but they managed to get the knife away from him. Mental health was involved after that, and Paul was sent away to some private school. He was home for a while the summer before he left for college. He was so bright. It was such a waste. He left here that summer and hardly ever came back. I heard he didn’t do so well in college down in the city. Then, of course, there was the army. He was killed in Vietnam. His ashes are buried right up the hill here. But somewhere in there—I’m not sure exactly when—he started going by another last name. He was convinced he knew who his real father was. I don’t know where he got the idea. He thought it was Gary Pease, a local guy who died in a logging accident the year Paul was born. That’s why he took to calling himself Paul Pease.”

“What about Sarah?” I asked.

“She married and moved away. I don’t know who she married or what her name is. I think she cut off all contact with her parents about the same time Paul was shipped off to Saigon.”

I sat at the computer terminal and put in a request for information. The army did have a record for Paul Pease. He was killed at Pleiku in 1972, three years before the last American soldiers came home.

I did the paperwork necessary to get his complete file and his fingerprints.

“I don’t care what his fucking name is, he ain’t dead,” I muttered to myself. “There’s an explanation for all this shit.”

“You’re not going to find it,” Hanson said.

The captain had walked in behind me, right after addressing the 4
A.M.
roll call.

“You don’t work this case,” he said. “That’s department
policy. You don’t work
any
case when you’re on leave. You
are
on leave, Detective, and you don’t come off leave until you’ve been through alcohol rehab. Twenty-eight days and a clean bill of health, or you start looking for something in warehouse security. Leave the nine on your desk.”

After Hanson said his piece, he walked out.

I placed my weapon and badge on my desk, then wandered down the hall. Lieutenant Swartz was standing outside an interrogation room in front of the one-way glass.

“What’s up?”

“Willoughby’s been working the guy most of the night,” he said, gesturing at a slightly built, fiftyish guy wearing Coke bottle glasses. “You smell like the inside of a cheap bottle.”

“Who is he?”

“Name’s Wayne Purrington. He’s already confessed to doing the three prostitutes up in Albany. There’s two more in Troy the Bureau hadn’t even connected to him. He’s been down our way since just before Harris was done. Won’t talk about Sarah, but says he
might
have done Harris. Says he doesn’t remember.”

I studied Purrington’s sallow complexion, sunken cheeks, missing teeth, balding head, long, bony fingers—he was dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, looking like he belonged in a dump like the Sea Breeze.

“He didn’t kill Sarah,” I said. “He didn’t kill Maxine Harris either.”

Swartz agreed. “But Willoughby’s gonna get a confession out of him anyway.”

“And when Purrington gets a lawyer, he’ll recant. This is all bullshit.”

Again, Swartz agreed. “I’m keeping the investigation going, Sinclair. Lane’s going to handle it. You get your ass into rehab and take care of business. You not only smell bad, you look bad.”

I nodded at him, might have said, “Thanks,” then continued wandering down the hall—with my head banging
like a pile driver and the whole world going blurry on me. Swartz was right. I did need a little R&R somewhere. But first I wanted to find Fuzzy.

Somehow I managed to get to the coffee machine, and there he was.

“Fuzzy, you went through rehab, didn’t you?”

“Twice,” Fuzzy said. “I guess it didn’t take. I’m so close to retirement now, they don’t bother with me anymore.”

“What’s it like?”

“Food’s good. Too much talking, though—all this shit about a higher power. See, I’ve had this understanding with God ever since I was a kid. When He’s ready to take me, I go. No argument. No pleading for more time. I just go.”

Fuzzy was getting revved up—maybe from the coffee, I don’t know. He was also going in and out of focus. Too much to drink and not enough sleep. Or maybe I needed a drink.

“This body ain’t no temple,” Fuzzy said, “as you can plainly see. When it needs Irish whiskey, it gets Irish whiskey. And I’ve put enough stout through my kidneys to rain out a Yankees game. Now, I had these rehab dudes—most of ’em found Jesus curbside—telling me to give myself up to a higher power. I already had that worked out. And I kept getting the steps mixed up. There must be a dozen of them fucking things.”