Sixteen

The first team—a uniform I didn’t know and an older plainclothes I remembered—showed up with the hotel manager in tow. She had to be the manager; no lowly desk clerk could afford her snakeskin heels, much less her suit. Totally unruffled, she breezed down the hall as if a dead bass player or two were all in a day’s work. With her help, the cops quietly commandeered the bedroom and living room of Dee’s suite as well as the adjoining function room where the MGA/America stiffs had partied two nights ago.

That’s where they sent the witnesses to wait.

The room had been transformed. It was sedate, ready for a high-society wedding. The Mylar balloons had disappeared along with the rock band setup. Twelve linen-covered round tables ringed the dance floor. Mimi sat alone at a table for eight until Freddie, blinking and looking hastily roused from sleep, joined her. Jimmy Ranger and Hal Grady huddled at another table, their balding heads close together. I could hear them mumbling in low tones. The lead guitar, Ron, came in, still buttoning his shirt, and I marveled at how close he was in build to my ex-husband, Cal. Dee and I just liked the same sort of men. I thought about introducing myself to Ron, but he quickly surveyed the room and joined Freddie and Mimi. Nobody invited me to rub elbows, and I found myself too restless to sit. I wanted to reexamine the scene of Brenda’s death, ask Dee a few questions. Alone.

Like why I should stop looking for Davey Dunrobie.

Like who had arranged the invitations for the MGA bash and included Mickey on the list.

Like exactly what Lockwood had said on the phone besides three hundred thousand bucks.

Like whether she’d be willing to swear on something she held holy, like the Reverend’s guitar, that she’d really written “For Tonight.”

I paced a narrow track by the windows, staring down at the lights that sparkled the trees on Boston Common. If the windows could have been opened, I would have opened one just to hear a car honk, a siren wail, anything to break the heavy silence of the room.

Instead I walked faster, clacking my heels against the parquet floor.

I wondered where Dee was, whether the road manager’s quack would keep her from mumbling that she should have called the doctor because maybe stone-cold Brenda was still alive.

The young cop summoned Mimi first, then Freddie, then Ron, then Ranger, then Hal Grady. I wondered if I’d have drawn a lower number wearing the hotel manager’s charcoal suit and cream silk blouse.

When the uniform finally ushered me in, he and his partner were remarkably polite, as if the atmosphere of the hotel had rubbed off on them. Cops find a junkie overdose in Grove Hall, they treat it differently than a drink-and-pills in a posh hotel. I heard no references to meat wagons, no discussion of the anatomical attributes or shortcomings of Brenda’s body.

I wondered how the detectives who’d investigated Lorraine’s long-ago suicide had gone about it. Had they been influenced by her fleabag Jamaica Plain digs? Seen her as one more skinny hippie-chick OD? No cop had asked me any questions about her death. But then, I hadn’t been at the scene.

Mooney showed up, and for a brief time we were all buddies together. The old guy realized he did know me from way back—he never forgot a face, by God—and you know, they had a whole lot more women cops now. From the way he said it, I was pretty sure he didn’t approve of the change.

Mooney told me to wait a minute, and he and the two cops slipped through the connecting hall to the bedroom. They left both doors ajar. I’d had my fill of waiting, so I followed. Lightning seemed to flicker from the bedroom, but I figured it for a photographer snapping shots of Brenda’s body. I peered through the doorway, not really trying to eavesdrop.

“Might as well come on in, Carlotta,” Mooney said.

A slew of cops was present and busy, taking inventory with gloved hands, shooting photographs, dusting for prints. Maybe the hotel had a special arrangement with the police department: quick and efficient service in exchange for respectable corpses.

Brenda’s was still covered by the sheet. The pile of clothes by the side of the bed was presumably hers.

The medical examiner arrived, and I was glad Mooney motioned me out into the hall. This particular M.E.’s sense of humor—a job requirement, I suppose—always made me gag.

“Are you working for Dee Willis?” Mooney asked. He didn’t pull out a notebook, but I didn’t take it for a casual question. He’s got a memory like a lockbox.

“No,” I said with a clear conscience. Dee had made it perfectly plain that she no longer wanted me to find Dunrobie. I always like to tell Mooney the truth.

“But she phoned you to come over? Before she called the police?”

He must have gotten a quick summary from the cops inside. “It sounded urgent. She was upset. If I’d known anybody was dead, I’d have phoned you from my house.”

“When she called you, did you get the impression she was alone?”

“I couldn’t see a thing over the line,” I said flatly.

“Seriously,” he said.

“Seriously,” I said.

He wasn’t happy with my reply. He switched gears. “Tell me about the park,” he said.

“You talk to the officers involved?” I was sure he had.

“You see any connection between the park and this, uh, unexpected death?” he asked.

What had Dee mumbled? Something about somebody trying to scare her. Could she have meant Dunrobie?

I didn’t think Mooney could see my face. The light in the hallway was dim.

“If you’re not going to tell me anything, why did you call me?” he asked mildly. He talks that way when he’s just starting to get angry.

“To keep it low-key,” I said. “Dee’s an old friend. She’s worked hard for what she’s got, and she doesn’t need a lot of nasty publicity.”

“You can’t keep murder that quiet,” he said.

“Who’s talking murder?” I said.

“Come on. Don’t tell me you didn’t look around in there.”

“A quick glance,” I admitted.

“You didn’t touch anything?”

“Damn straight I didn’t.”

“So?”

“So it’s very neat,” I said reluctantly.

“You want to try and tell the medical examiner she didn’t vomit up any of that stuff, didn’t thrash around, just laid herself out like she was ready for the funeral director to decorate her with lilies?”

I said, “And then there are the circles on the magazine.”

“You can come back to work anytime,” Mooney said. “Two different sizes, two different glasses. Where’s the other glass?”

I shrugged.

“Let me run this by you. Your friend Dee scores some dope in that park. She and the bass player decide to play some bed games, drink some booze, take some pills. Dee maybe falls asleep, and when she wakes up, she can’t wake Brenda. So she cleans house and calls you.”

“Whoa,” I said. “First of all, trust me, no drugs in the park. Then what do you figure? Dee changed the sheets? What did she use to clean up with? Think she carries a can of Ajax? You see a bunch of used towels anyplace? Dirty sheets?”

“I don’t think there’s much that road manager wouldn’t do to smooth this tour. That record producer, either. Everybody seems like they want to do Dee Willis a favor. Even you.”

“Oh, I get it. You think she called me to bring over a mop and a vacuum cleaner.”

“Don’t get mad,” he said.

“It’s late. Maybe she died somewhere else and somebody moved her here,” I said. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Just walked the stiff through the halls? It’s kinda early for Halloween.”

“Brenda and Dee had a pretty public argument last night,” I said. “I think Dee may have fired her.”

“And?” Mooney said.

“So maybe she decided she didn’t want to look for another job. Took a bunch of pills, couldn’t remember how many, took some more, had a few drinks. Died.”

“In her own hotel room, I might buy it. But who moved her? And why?”

I said, “Isn’t this where the cops always look for the significant other?”

“Finding her in Willis’s bed sort of made me forget she might be married. Was she?”

“I’m not talking marriage, Mooney. I’m talking sleeping with, and she was very cuddly with a guy first time I saw her.”

“What guy?”

“Five-six, slight, dark eyes, dark hair. Freddie, the drummer, called him her ‘boy-toy,’ and Brenda didn’t appreciate the term one bit. He was a kid. Couldn’t be more than twenty-two, twenty-three.”

“This ‘boy-toy’ have a name?”

“Haven’t the faintest. You finished here?”

“You can go,” Mooney said, “if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Can I talk to Dee?”

“They moved her down the hall. I think a doctor’s in there asking for her autograph.”

“Yeah, you think I can talk to her?”

“Doctor says no.”

Hal must have gotten somebody good.

Mooney said, “If you manage to talk to her, you’re not gonna come out and tell me what she said, are you?”

“No,” I said.

“I can’t force you to tell me,” Mooney said.

“I’m glad you’re clear on that.”

“What about a favor?” Mooney asked. “A return on letting her walk after that park crap.”

“What do you want to know?” I said cautiously.

“While you were waiting for the cops to come, you hear Miss Willis say anything odd?”

“Odd?” I tossed the word back at him.

“Something like, ‘I should have called the doctor. She might have been alive.…’”

“Would that be odd?” I asked.

“Considering the lady’s been dead for hours and the other people in the room all say they never even thought about a doctor, yeah, I would say that’s a little odd. Makes you think maybe Dee was there before the others. Since it’s her room, she might have come back earlier than the rest.…”

“Going fishing?” I asked Mooney.

“And I wonder how this dead woman got into the room. They’ve got those card-keys, supposed to be pretty secure.”

“I was here the other night, after the park business, and a whole crowd was partying in Dee’s room. Got a duplicate key at the desk. No questions asked.”

“Interesting,” Mooney said. “And I hear you lost your handbag.”

I hoped Jo had kept her mouth shut about Mickey. I didn’t need Mooney riding me about my relationship with a known Gianelli.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Did it turn up in any of the dumps?”

“Not that I’ve heard,” I said. “Not yet.”

“Keys in the bag?”

I nodded.

“Change the locks yet?”

“No, Mom, but I’m gonna put Roz right on it.”

“Good.”

“So can I see Dee?”

“Sure. If you can get past the doc.”

I gave up after twenty-five minutes. Reporters, probably tipped off by somebody in the hotel, were starting to swarm up the elevators.

I stayed long enough to watch the well-groomed hotel manager escort Brenda’s unfashionably bagged body down a service elevator. God forbid a tourist should be confronted by the grim reaper in the lobby.