5

This time I closed and bolted the door behind them. I peered through the peephole as Donovan guided Emily Woodrow down the three steps. Then I hurried back to the living room.

The white envelope, while of lesser quality than the stiff blue ones, was not cheap. I slit it with a letter opener and eased out the contents. Two items: a folded sheet of paper and a powder-blue check. The paper was a photocopy of a death certificate. Rebecca Elizabeth Woodrow’s. The date of death was the same as the one on the photograph.

Emily Woodrow’s daughter had died. That much of her initial story was true.

The check was big enough to earn an involuntary whistle. And all I had to do to earn it was wait.

I tapped my fingers on my desk. My blunt-cut nails made no noise. Waiting is not what I do best. Nor is it my natural inclination.

I peered into the envelope, dissatisfied with its contents. My eye caught a flash of silver at the bottom. I yanked the sides of the envelope apart and shook until something fell onto my blotter.

I got a stinging paper cut for my effort, and a shiny bit of foil-like paper, about one inch square. When I held it to the light, it seemed to change color. One edge was slightly bent, another looked as if it had been snipped with a nail scissors, separated from a larger item.

What that item might be, I couldn’t guess.

My stomach rumbled, so I made breakfast, swallowing the rest of the carton of orange juice, then frying up four slices of bacon and two eggs in a cast-iron skillet.

Ah, the joy of bacon! I’d never tasted its crisp fattiness till I was eighteen: No pig products allowed in my mother’s kosher home. As an adult I’ve found that eating such defiantly treyf fare gives me the warm glow of disobedience, as good a fuel as any for trying to pump information out of often-reluctant sources.

I deserted the dishes in the sink, where Roz might or might not notice them, and returned to the living room. Emily Woodrow’s check, drawn on a BayBank in Marlborough, had her name and address printed neatly on the upper-left-hand corner. Her own name, not her husband’s. I dialed a 1–800 number, asked to speak to Patsy, and sipped my first Pepsi of the day while stuck on hold. Somebody played saccharine-stringed Beatles Muzak in my ear.

Patsy Ronetti’s Bronx blare woke me up.

I met her when I was a cop. She’s a prize. Took a job right out of high school, a trainee with Equifax, one of those high-profile information-gathering corporations. Spent four years as an insurance investigator, and now she knows it all: data-base access, public-document searches, credit reporting. I send her a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label every Christmas. Most of the investigators in town probably do the same. She could run a liquor store on the side, but mostly she reports credit.

I ran Emily Woodrow past her, gave her Harold’s name as well, assuming he had the same last name as his wife and child, read her the Winchester address on the check. Then we talked money and time. Her rates are not cheap, but she’s fast. I could hear her punching keys on her terminal as we bartered.

I wanted both a credit report and an employment search, and was arguing in favor of a two-for-one deal.

“You hooked yourself a live one,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“I’m backed up here to Tuesday, Carlotta. Half the country’s checking on the other half. I’m not gonna do any rush job on this, understand? But here’s a teaser for you. He’s a lawyer—”

“I already knew that.”

“You also know he pulls down six large? Maybe you can afford the car.”

“Huh?”

“You’re buying a car, right? Or leasing?”

“Not that I know of,” I said while imaginary warning bells pealed in my ears.

“Wait a minute. Carlyle, right?” She spelled it out.

“Yeah.”

“I got a call, must be three days ago. Car dealer, I coulda sworn.”

“Got the paper on it?”

“Geez, I dunno. I think it was a phone deal.”

“Patsy, can you pull my file and see who exactly was doing the asking? Because I’m not buying any car.”

“Hang on.”

Muzak drowned out the furious clatter of keystrokes.

I gulped Pepsi and brooded. I don’t mind using electronic data banks. It’s just I hate the thought that somebody else can use one to find out about me.

Her voice was smug. “Stoneham Lincoln-Mercury. What did I tell ya? Memory like a trap.”

“Hang on.” My phone doesn’t feature Muzak on hold. She had to listen to the sound of my lower-left-hand drawer opening and closing. I found the Yellow Pages tucked behind a sheaf of files. I balanced it on my lap, riffled the pages.

“There’s no such place,” I said.

“Gee, he sounded nice, too,” she offered.

“A man.”

“Yeah.”

“You must have had a phone number or something, so you could tell the guy I was a bum risk.”

“Gotta go,” Patsy said. “Later.”

I was getting used to her abrupt disconnections. Her bosses at E–Z Electronic, a far-smaller outfit than Equifax, didn’t know about her free-lance career. Nor would they have approved.

I waited five minutes, but she didn’t call back. No telling when she would.

Somebody steals my garbage. Somebody checks my credit. And I hadn’t even applied to work for the FBI.

I drummed my fingers on my desk for five more minutes, then I picked up the receiver and dialed Mooney.

When I was a cop, I worked for Mooney, and most of the time he made it seem as though I worked with him, not for him. Green as I was, just out of U.–Mass. and the police academy, I didn’t fully appreciate the camaraderie. I thought it was the way all cops worked.

He’s a lieutenant now—homicide—and I don’t think he’ll rise any higher because he’s too good at what he does. Too busy closing cases to play politics.

I mentally composed a recorded message because he’s out of his office a lot. When he answered on the second ring, I was caught flat-footed.

When Mooney starts sounding good to me, I worry. Not that he doesn’t have a nice voice; he does. Not that he’s bad-looking. Tall, well-muscled, round-faced—I jokingly tell him he’s too white-bread for my taste. He—disapproving of Sam Gianelli—tells me I’m attracted to outlaws, not cops. When Mooney starts sounding good, it makes me wonder how things are really going with Sam and me.

“Moon, hello.”

“Hi, there.”

“How’re you doing?”

“Fine, Carlotta.”

“Busy?”

“Usual.”

“Somebody’s in your office.”

“How’d you guess?”

“Intuition.” I could have said, “And you haven’t asked me out yet,” which he usually does right after “hello,” but I didn’t want to start anything.

“It’s a lady,” he said. “Somebody who’s getting to be a very close friend.”

I wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth, but I felt a sharp stab of something that felt uncomfortably like jealousy. “You gonna arrest her?”

“Haven’t decided yet. What can I do for you?”

“Run a plate?”

Mooney and I keep an ongoing balance sheet in our heads. Anytime I can help him out, I do my best. Private cops need official pals to break bureaucratic logjams.

I said, “I’m looking for a late-model Firebird, light blue, maybe gray.”

“Just give me the plate.”

“Yeah, look, I’m sorry to bother you at the office. The last two numbers are four, eight.”

There was a moment’s silence. “Nah,” he said, “you gotta have more than that.”

“I don’t.”

“Give the client the money back.”

“I would if I could.”

“Spent it?”

“It’s a personal thing, Mooney. Try it with the Registry, okay?”

“Those clerks hate me already.”

“They respect you, Mooney.”

“Carlotta, don’t even try to butter me up.”

“Why not?”

“Might work.”

I smiled. “One more thing.”

“Where have I heard that before?”

“What does Cee Co mean to you?”

“Huh?”

“Just free-associate, Mooney.”

“This a test?”

“Moon, try.”

“Short for Coca-Cola?”

I hung up. While I waited for Patsy to call back, I made a list. Seiko. Seeko. See Ko. Ceeko. C. Ko. Somebody Ko. I tried the White Pages and learned that Ko is quite a popular name in the Chinese community. The entries numbered twenty-six and ran from Chi-Fen Ko to Zyuan Ko, with a pedestrian Thomas Ko thrown into the mix.

Patsy didn’t call back.

After staring interminably at both the shiny side and the dull side, I carefully placed the foil square back into Emily Woodrow’s envelope. Under my magnifying lens, it seemed dotted with a faint crescent-shaped pattern. It didn’t look like anything I’d ever seen before.

I sighed. Maybe Roz would have a different take on it. She usually does.

When the doorbell rang, I was relieved.

Waiting is hard.