Haunted Hearts Read online

  “They harassed her,” McGuire said, “just because she’s a woman. That’s how they get their kicks.”

  Detective Cheryl Hetherington was maybe thirty-six years old, McGuire wasn’t sure. He remembered her as a uniformed cop, ten years ago when McGuire and Ollie Schantz were at their peak. “Cute little rascal,” Ollie had said after she’d briefed McGuire and Schantz on their arrival at a murder-suicide domestic scene. Hetherington had been married to the headwaiter at a restaurant on Newbury Street until she left him to marry another cop. Two years later the marriage ended, and she drifted through affairs with other officers, some single, some married, some in between. One of them had given her a son along the way, and when McGuire learned she was the third partner in DeLisle’s Operation Safe Haven he wanted to talk to her, to ask how she’d managed to screw up one part of her life, the one that existed beyond Berkeley Street, while being so successful at the other part of her life, the one that earned her Officer of the Month three times in the last four years. Just to compare her errors with his own. Just to see if maybe they shared the same genetic flaws.

  “Hormones,” she’d shrugged when he asked her. “A weakness for men with curly hair and deep voices. And vodka Martinis in dark bars.” Nothing McGuire didn’t already know.

  “It’s life in the city for a woman,” Hetherington was saying to McGuire now. “She’s probably forgotten about it already, and we missed a chance to nail a couple of stars for the department. You should’ve just played along and not said anything to those jerks, just because they upset her.”

  “Whatever happened to chivalry?” McGuire asked, half-joking.

  “What?” Hetherington said.

  She didn’t know what the word meant, McGuire realized. She doesn’t know what the hell it’s all about.

  “When’s the last time you saw a woman in a gingham dress?”

  Ollie Schantz was lying on the bed that was his world, grinning up at his ex-partner. It had been seven years since Ollie snapped the third vertebra in his neck on his second day of retirement. He had been bedridden since, would be bedridden until he died.

  McGuire had finished describing the afternoon’s events that ended his career as a decoy. The day was fading into evening.

  “What’s your point?” McGuire slouched in the chair next to Ollie’s bed sipping tomato juice and vodka, no spice, no celery stirrer. Just vitamin C and Smirnoff.

  “You know how old Doris Day is?”

  “Doris Day? I don’t know. Sixty maybe?”

  “More like eighty. She’s an old broad, McGuire. There ain’t women like her any more. Never was, probably. That’s what you’ve been chasing all your life, some squeaky Doris Day to wear gingham dresses and bake you cookies in a house with shutters . . .”

  “Gloria wasn’t like that.” Meaning McGuire’s first wife.

  “You’re right, Gloria wasn’t like that. Gloria was young and pretty and a little wild, so you tried to make her like that, which helped screw things up, in case I never told ya before. But Sandi was like that when you married her. First time I met her she was wearing a gingham dress, hair in a ponytail . . .”

  “She was a good-looking woman.”

  “They were all good-looking women, you squirrel. That’s not what I’m talkin’ about . . .”

  “Hey.” McGuire gestured with the hand holding his drink. “You married a woman who stayed home, baked you cookies, kept things sane for you . . .”

  “The last of a vanishing breed, Joseph. She’s the last of a breed. That’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you. Women have changed, they don’t need protectin’ from you anymore.”

  “Sure they do.”

  “You wish. Half the women have lipsticks in their purse. The other half have Smith & Wessons.”

  “I like taking care of women.”

  “They like it too. Just don’t need it. And they’re sure as hell not going to thank you for it.”

  McGuire thought about that. Then: “Where is Ronnie, by the way?”

  “At her painting class. You see that picture she did last week, the one of the old barn?” Ollie’s voice swelled with pride. “The woman’s got talent she hasn’t even used yet. She’s damn good, Joseph.”

  “You want to watch the game?” McGuire reached for the television remote on Ollie’s bed.

  “Who’re we playin’?”

  “Jays, I think.” McGuire punched the power button and the screen came to life with an electronic hiccup.

  “Dumb-ass team with no pitching?”

  “I’m taking them.” McGuire drained his drink.

  “You want to lay two bucks a hit?”

  “Three for doubles, four for triples, five for a dinger?”

  “One for an RBI.” The picture flickered to life.

  “Let me get another vodka.”

  “Have one for me. Get a pencil and paper to keep track of your losses too. Look it this, we’ve got second and third with one out, and McCluskey’s up. Open your wallet, Joseph.”

  During the seventh inning the front door opened and closed, and Ronnie Schantz’s footsteps pattered down the hallway. She entered the room, shining behind her smile, her hair gathered on her head with loose strands escaping in curls across her forehead. She wore a moss-green topcoat over a gold high-neck sweater and pleated slacks.

  “Hi guys,” she said. She walked to Ollie’s bed and bent to kiss him on the forehead. She held his good hand in hers and squeezed it. “You hungry?” she asked her husband.

  “My stomach thinks my throat’s been cut,” Ollie said. “McGuire’s been suckin’ back Bloody Marys, leavin’ me here to waste away.”

  “I offered you a sandwich,” McGuire protested.

  Ronnie kissed McGuire’s cheek. “I’ll get him something. Who’s winning?”

  “Joe’s down three bucks and the Sox are leading eight to five.” Ollie watched his wife shrug out of her coat, his smile beaming at her.

  “I’ll make coffee,” McGuire said, standing. “Square up with you tomorrow.”

  He knew what Ronnie would have to do now. Change her husband’s diaper. Rub ointment on his bedsores. Wash the man’s body, care for him as though he were a helpless baby. Fulfilling the duties she had performed every day, without let-up, for seven years.

  “It’s the best thing I’ve done in my life. The very best thing.”

  The baseball game had ended. Ollie was sleeping, aided by pills washed down with fruit juice. Ronnie smiled at McGuire over the rim of her coffee cup, holding it in two hands. Music drifted into the kitchen from the radio in the living room.

  “It’s as though something came alive in me, something I didn’t even know was there.” She set the cup down, smiling with excitement in a way McGuire had never seen before. “I always liked to draw pictures when I was a kid, and in art class at high school. Everybody did; it was more fun than math. Now I’m learning things, little secrets and techniques. I love it.”

  “What is it, a big class?” McGuire poured himself another coffee.

  “Just seven of us, plus the instructor. Wow, is he good! His name’s Carl Simoni. He’s had shows all over the country.” Her smile beamed even brighter. “One of his watercolours is hanging in the State House.”

  “Ollie’s proud of you.”

  “I’m pretty proud of myself.” Her eyes lingered on McGuire. “More than I’ve been for years.” She rose from the table. “Wait’ll you see what I bought today. It’s really extravagant, but I thought I’d treat myself.” He heard her walk down the hall, open the closet door, and return to the kitchen carrying what looked like a polished wooden briefcase. She set it on the table, slid the brass locks aside, and opened it.

  Inside was an assortment of watercolour pads, brushes, cotton cloths, textured paper, and other materials McGuire couldn’t identify. “Nice,” he nodded.

  “Isn�
�t it beautiful? It’s just like Carl’s, only smaller. Made in Switzerland.” She lowered her voice and said in a stage whisper that was almost a giggle, “It cost me nearly three hundred dollars! For God’s sake, don’t tell Ollie that.”

  McGuire promised he wouldn’t.

  An hour later, McGuire was in bed, in his room at the rear of the house, thinking of Ronnie’s happiness, her new enthusiasm, and recalling that she had been wearing more makeup than he had seen on her in years. Eye shadow and lip liner, and something that accented her cheekbones. She had tinted her hair blond, and where the hell did she get that figure recently . . . ?

  Chapter Two

  “Gotta do something.”

  McGuire tossed the morning paper aside and stared out the window next to Ollie’s bed, at the ocean visible beyond the shore road.

  “Yeah, but lawyers?” Ollie was propped up in bed, the remote control in his hand. Two heads were conversing on the television screen.

  “You go where the money is. My pension’s barely covering food and my rent here, and don’t give me that crap about not needing to pay my way. My car needs a transmission overhaul. Or maybe just a kick in the ass, if you knew where to kick a Chrysler.” McGuire had purchased the ten-year-old hardtop when he was working as a part-time security guard. The job lasted less than a month. It ended the day McGuire suggested that his supervisor’s brains were located immediately behind his testicles.

  “You really wanta work with a bunch of lawyers? Can’t Frankie DeLisle, Wally Sleeman, one of those guys, find something for you to do, help ’em clean up the city?”

  “I can’t work with DeLisle. Couldn’t when I was at Berkeley and sure as hell can’t now. Sleeman’s a lot of fun, but he’s not the brightest cop I ever met.”

  “Yeah, well.” Ollie moved his head in the semblance of a nod. “Wally’s the kinda guy, he’s gotta get naked to count to twenty-one.” His eyes swung to McGuire’s, a smile playing on his face when he saw McGuire grinning. “But Christ, Joseph. How you gonna work with a bunch of ambulance chasers?”

  “It’s Zimmerman, Wheatley and Pratt. They’re mostly corporate, civil law, divorce lawyers, family law . . .”

  “Come on.” Ollie managed to turn his head far enough to follow McGuire’s gaze through the window. “You’re tellin’ me you’re not gonna run with hounds, you’re just gonna trot with dachshunds. Dogs are dogs.”

  “What am I supposed to do the rest of my life? Stay here as your gardener, mowing the lawn, taking out the trash, helping Ronnie with the groceries . . .”

  “You’re talkin’ about stuff I used to do.” Ollie said it without anger or self-pity. Ollie had a way of stating obvious facts in an obvious manner.

  “Okay, so I’m making like a husband around here.” McGuire realized what he had said, what he was implying.

  Ollie’s eyes remained on the water. “You doin’ that too?”

  “Aw, for Christ’s sakes, Ollie.” McGuire stood up, his hands in his pockets.

  “Listen, it can happen.” Ollie’s voice was free of rancor. “You don’t think I know Ronnie’s still a good-lookin’ woman? Remember old Dave Sadowsky? He was always findin’ reasons to drop by when I wasn’t here, tellin’ Ronnie what a honey she was, how she could do better’n me. Till I told him one day, he ever tried to lay a finger on her I’d make him do a pole vault on a friggin’ twelve-gauge.” Ollie grinned at the memory, but his eyes avoided McGuire’s.

  “I don’t believe you can even think . . .”

  “I hear you two out in the kitchen, late at night. I hear Ronnie laugh. You make her laugh, Joseph. One of the sexiest things a man can do for a woman is make her laugh. We spend all those years, us guys, tryin’ to dress the right way, drink the right brand of Scotch, lift weights and do sit-ups, all that stuff, and most women are just lookin’ for a guy with a sense of humour.”

  “Ollie, I am not sleeping with Ronnie . . .”

  Ollie’s head moved in an arc until his eyes locked on McGuire’s. “I’d understand if you did,” he said. “See, that’s the point. I’d understand.”

  Zimmerman, Wheatley and Pratt occupied two floors of a downtown bank tower, the office a gaudy display of post-modern architectural hubris in cinnamon-coloured marble. “An excess of good taste,” was how one critic described the atrium lobby, with its brushed brass accents and crystal light fixtures.

  Stepping from the elevator and walking to the law firm’s fifteenth-floor reception desk, McGuire entered a world of Edwardian elegance. The walls were wainscoted in dark oak beneath flocked wall coverings in shades of deep reds and hunter greens. Next to the reception desk, a wide staircase spiraled down to the firm’s fourteenth-floor library and the steno pools, accounting, records-keeping, all the engine-room mechanics that permitted the legal professionals to function on the floor above them.

  McGuire was wearing a blue Oxford button-down shirt and blue cotton slacks, plus his trademark tweed sports jacket, custom-made for him by a Charlestown tailor who had owed him a favour. The tailor had done a superb job, adding leather trim on the buttonholes, Mandarin silk lining, and other details. McGuire had seen the same fabric on a jacket in a Brooks Brothers window. Without the custom tailoring and detailing, the Brooks Brothers version was priced at $800. The tailor had charged McGuire only for materials.

  McGuire had done the tailor a very large favour.

  McGuire owned three of the jackets, one brown, one blue, one gray. He wore them year-round with jeans or with tailored slacks, in rain and snow, on all but the hottest, most humid, summer days. He suspected he would be buried in one of them. They looked both expensive and defiantly unfashionable. They suited him even now, in the rarified climate of one of Boston’s most prestigious law firms.

  “Mr. Pinnington has been expecting you,” the receptionist smiled when McGuire announced his name. A minute later Richard Pinnington, senior partner, was walking across the Axminster from somewhere beyond the reception area, his hand extended, and his patrician face beaming a smile at McGuire.

  “It’s a matter of having access to a special kind of talent.”

  Richard Pinnington leaned forward, his eyes on McGuire. They were seated in matching wing chairs covered in green leather with brass upholstery studs. The leather was soft and yielding, and the aroma of the tannery still rose from its buttery surface. Between them, a silver tea service and two ornate bone-china teacups rested on a low, glass-topped oak table. Pinnington’s office, encompassing as much square footage as the entire ground floor of Ollie and Ronnie’s house, stretched to a bank of windows overlooking the Atlantic.

  Pinnington was in his early sixties and he carried his age, like his upper-class bearing, in a manner that members of a privileged class often do: with elegance and grace. His hair, thinning but still wavy, was pewter-gray, a colour repeated throughout the man’s wardrobe. His Egyptian cotton shirt sported a subtle gray stripe, his maroon tie was flecked in an amorphous gray pattern, and his blue suit had an undertone of gray.

  McGuire suppressed a rare feeling of inadequacy in Pinnington’s presence.

  “You’re not that involved in criminal law,” McGuire said, settling back in the chair facing Pinnington. “Why call on a cop who spent his career on the street?”

  “Well, you’re absolutely right.” Pinnington sat back, mimicking McGuire’s posture. “We are not specifically a criminal-law firm. Just two criminal lawyers on staff. But things are becoming so complex for us that we need . . .” Pinnington looked for the phrase in the air beyond McGuire’s shoulder. “We need a radar detector, a sonar device is maybe a good way of putting it, that can alert us to potential criminal activity.”

  “On the part of your clients?”

  “Perhaps. More likely, of course, on the part of our adversaries. Also, we often make use of certain criminal investigative techniques in our civil cases.”

  “Such as?”

&
nbsp; Pinnington shrugged. “People who can locate lost individuals for us. Assembly of evidence in perhaps a more effective manner than civil lawyers can muster. And there are borderline cases where civil and criminal law seem to be overlapping at a faster rate every day. Child-custody cases, for example. That’s become a big part in our practice. Abduction is a serious criminal offense. Assuming wide interpretations of custody laws is a civil matter. See my point?”

  McGuire nodded.

  “Business espionage is another concern. We can become involved in corporate civil law and discover the possibility of criminal activity by employees or officers.”

  “These are hardly my field.”

  “No, they’re not. But we can use your perception, your instincts. I have a colleague who practices criminal law. Marv Rosen. I think you know him. Anyway, he’s our criminal-law counsel.”

  McGuire knew Rosen, would never forget the ferret-faced lawyer. He had physically attacked Rosen in a courtroom years earlier, a foolish move that cost McGuire a demotion and two weeks’ income. “He tried to charge me with assault once,” McGuire said. “He dropped it in exchange for an apology, and told everybody I’d given him the best PR he’d ever received.”

  Pinnington smiled. “Marv still talks about it. It’s his best dinner-party story. I’ve heard it over and over. Now, I’m not saying Marv would enjoy sharing a slow boat to China with you, but he has a keen respect for your intuitive abilities.” Pinnington leaned back in his chair, his hands behind his head. “One of the many things you don’t learn at law school is how to hone your intuition. But the more I practice law, the more I value that . . .” He hesitated, then found the word. “. . . skill. So I decided a few weeks ago I could either try to inject it into each of our partners and staff, or I could consider buying it on the open market, so to speak.”

  “Which is me.”

  “Which is you.”

  “What are you offering?”

  “Five thousand dollars’ monthly retainer, plus itemized expenses. It’s flat, whether you work eighty hours a week or none. And your workload could vary that much. Let’s assume a firm three-month contract to start. After that, we’ll review your hours and make adjustments to the fee if necessary. Maybe reassess the whole arrangement. This is an experiment for us. For you as well, I suspect.”