Whisper Death Read online

  He had always loved her eyes.

  “You’ve changed your hair,” McGuire said.

  Janet Parsons nodded. “It’s easier to take care of this way. I don’t have time to spend fussing with it. Things have been so busy . . . do you know we’re getting by with eight fewer detectives than we had a year ago? It’s crazy. Ralph and I, we’re juggling six cases right now, most of them potential first-degrees too.” She straightened the silverware in front of her, aligning it with the paper placemat that declared “Hutch’s, Home of The World’s Finest Chowder.”

  “Ralph?” McGuire asked, forcing a weak smile.

  “Ralph Innes.” She folded her hands and rested her chin on them, looking at McGuire and speaking directly, holding back nothing. “He and I are working together now. Things have changed, Joe.”

  “I’ll bet Ralph hasn’t.”

  “Even Ralph. He’s grown up a lot. He’s not the clown he used to be. I always thought it was just an act anyway. When you get him alone, he can be a serious kind of guy.”

  McGuire wanted to ask how often Janet and Ralph had been alone, how often Ralph had shown his serious and sensitive side. Instead, he waved a waiter over and ordered Dubonnet for Janet and a Kronenbourg for himself, to be followed by chowder and sourdough bread.

  “You’re curious, aren’t you?” she asked when the waiter left.

  “About what?”

  “About Ralph and me. You want to know if we’re more than working partners. Come on, admit it, Joe.”

  McGuire shrugged. “It’s none of my business.”

  “You’re right. But I’ll tell you anyway. Yes, we’ve dated. We still do, now and then. When we can keep it private and not have everybody know. At work, it’s strictly business.” She sighed and looked away. “Ralph’s more serious about it than I am. I just want to get on with my job, which doesn’t leave a lot of time for . . .” She hesitated, then gestured with her hands helplessly. “Social things,” she finished.

  McGuire looked away, his eyes avoiding hers. “You and Ralph.” He shook his head in wonder. “I just can’t see it. He’s always been such an animal with women, and you . . .” McGuire shrugged. “Hell, and he’s even . . .”

  “Younger than me,” Janet said, finishing his thought. “Haven’t you heard? Older women with younger men are fashionable these days.” She was almost smirking at him until she saw the look on his face. “Look.” Janet reached across the table to rest her hand on McGuire’s arm. “You didn’t really expect me to live like a nun up here, did you? Because there’s no way you were living like a monk down in the Bahamas.”

  “You’re right,” McGuire agreed. “But I didn’t expect you to become involved with Ralph Innes either. What’s the attraction?”

  “Hey, he’s a good-looking guy.”

  “You need more than that.”

  “Sure I do.” Janet withdrew her hand. “In some ways I’m almost a mother to him. Don’t you dare laugh at that,” she warned as a smile began to play across McGuire’s face. “I’m only five years older than him. But he’s got that little boy thing about him that’s . . .” She shrugged. “You have to be a woman to understand.”

  “He brings out some maternal instinct in you.”

  “Maybe. He’s the kind of man who needs . . . I don’t know, not taking care of . . .”

  “You want to protect him.”

  “More than that. It’s as though I’m responsible for his happiness.”

  “You were responsible for a hell of a lot of mine too.”

  “Really?”

  “You know it.”

  “I guessed it. You could have admitted it to me. No, wait a minute. I can’t imagine you admitting anything like that. That’s not your style.”

  They sat in silence, waiting for the tension to dissipate.

  “I always thought you would come back,” McGuire said finally, resting his arms on the table and leaning toward her. “You kept saying how much you loved it down there and how you hated the idea of returning to Boston. Then, when I called Kavander and resigned, you changed your tune. Things were different. You began looking for reasons why it wouldn’t work. We’d get bored, you said. First we’d get bored with the island. Then we’d get bored with each other. But I always believed you’d come back. After a few days of winter up here, you’d like the idea all over again.”

  “You’re right, I did.” She let a warm smile fill her face. “I thought it was a wonderful idea.”

  “It would have worked.”

  “It would have been a disaster.”

  “We got along fine.”

  “For the first day. Don’t you remember the last couple of days? You were sulking. And I was on edge. We were getting on each other’s nerves.” She tore a slice of sourdough bread in her hands and looked across it at McGuire. “It was a test, Joe. Commitment. You either pass it or flunk it. You didn’t pass.”

  “We could have worked it out. If we had tried hard enough. If . . .” He let the word hang in the air.

  “We might have. Another try and we might have.”

  He looked up at her, full of hope and surprise. “Then why didn’t you come back? Or call me? If you thought we could work it out, why didn’t you call me?”

  “Because changing my life wasn’t my idea. It was yours, Joe. It would always be yours. Throwing aside my career, pulling up roots, coasting through the rest of life with no purpose . . .” She shook her head sadly. “That was your fantasy, not mine. It would always be yours,” she repeated. “And I could never accept that. I loved you more than you ever knew. But I could never give up control of my life to anyone else. Even to you.”

  The waiter brought their drinks and they touched glasses.

  “A toast?” Janet asked. “To what?”

  “Not what. Who. A toast to me.”

  “A toast to Acting Lieutenant Joe McGuire. To his new career on the force.”

  “No,” McGuire said over the rim of his glass. “A toast to the fact that he’s finally starting to understand Janet Parsons.”

  They devoured chowder and gossip together. The decision of her ex-husband to move back to Illinois. The sudden death of Jack the Bear at his desk, one hand clutching an empty coffee mug whose contents had spilled across layers of official papers like blood from a gaping wound. They talked until only inconsequential topics remained to nibble at. The growing traffic problem. The weather, so cold for June.

  When Janet looked at her watch a second time, McGuire called for the bill.

  Walking the few blocks back to police headquarters on Berkeley Street they avoided touching each other, even when jostled by pedestrians on the crowded sidewalk. Janet commented on the promising warmth of the sun and the clearness of the sky. McGuire grumbled about the trash in the gutter and the panhandler who accosted them, neither of which he had encountered on Green Turtle Cay.

  “You have a lot of adjusting to do,” she said when he finished complaining.

  “I have to get used to dirt on the streets and bums who won’t work?” he asked.

  “Uh huh.” She was walking briskly, setting her own pace. McGuire was conscious of men assessing Janet’s lithe figure, sometimes surreptitiously and sometimes in open admiration, pausing to look back at her after she passed. He watched them as they swivelled their heads to admire the motion of her long legs, the rhythm of her walk. “Plus working with Fat Eddie Vance.” She turned to catch McGuire’s eye. “And working with me. On a strictly professional basis.”

  “You’re right.” He plunged his hands in his trouser pockets. “I’ll have to get used to it.”

  “No,” she corrected gently. “We’ll have to get used to it, Joe. You and me together.”

  When they reached police headquarters, Janet paused at the foot of the steps. “It’s only Thursday,” she said. “You don’t start until Monday. What will you d
o to pass the time?”

  “Get my stereo system out of storage, set it up in my room at Ollie’s house and listen to all the music I’ve missed for the past six months.” He reached out to squeeze her upper arm. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “Too late,” she smiled, kissing him lightly on the cheek. A sister’s kiss. Or the kiss of your best friend’s wife as she greets you at her door. She offered another smile, this one sad and ironic, and ascended the steps to the massive bronze doors.

  McGuire turned to walk away. Then, like the men he had watched with amusement earlier, he looked back and followed her with his eyes as she climbed the steps and entered the cold stone building.

  Chapter Three

  McGuire spent Monday morning completing the barrage of paperwork needed to reinstate himself as an official guardian of the peace on behalf of Boston citizens.

  By early afternoon he had recounted stories of Green Turtle Cay to old colleagues, listened to all the details he could absorb about their families and frustrations, and been introduced to a bewildering number of new staff members.

  He endured it with the dispassionate manner of someone undergoing a painful but blessedly brief period in his life, like a patient recovering from major surgery. He was polite and passive without being apathetic; he even feigned interest in photographs of sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, the snapshots withdrawn from wallets and displayed like remnants of an extinct civilization.

  Ralph Innes, the baby-faced detective sergeant who boasted he would never marry because “I don’t intend to make the same mistake once,” approached McGuire after the others departed. Innes, who had once been in awe of McGuire, welcomed him back with excessive gestures: a slap on the back, a handshake that went on too long, a playful punch to McGuire’s shoulder.

  “This is great, just great, having you back,” Innes said warmly. “Goddamn, we needed you here, Joe!”

  McGuire nodded and thanked him while the space between their eyes grew charged with the awareness that they were in love with the same woman.

  Twice during the day, McGuire and Janet passed in the corridor. She flashed him a warm smile at their first encounter. But the second time she rushed by, calling instructions over her shoulder to a young detective who trotted behind her and nodded in agreement.

  By three o’clock, McGuire was slumped at his small metal desk in an alcove near the fire-escape door. A sheaf of memos and departmental orders lay in front of him; he read the first paragraph of each before arranging them all in a loose stack. Finally, he slid the papers off the desk into a wastebasket just as his telephone rang.

  “Need you up front,” Fat Eddie’s voice rumbled at the other end of the line. “Let’s go.”

  McGuire stared at the telephone after returning the receiver to its cradle. “Let’s go?” Is this how it’s going to be? McGuire wondered. Fat Eddie barks and I jump? Goddamn!

  “Got your first assignment, McGuire. Only thing I can come up with now, but believe me, there’ll be lots on your plate when you get back. Can’t really get you rolling until your weapons approval comes through. That’ll take a week, easy.” Fat Eddie was pulling at his toothbrush-sized moustache as he spoke, his eyes on a red file folder lying open on his desk.

  “Get back?” McGuire asked. “Back from where?”

  “First things first. Anybody talk to you about one Bunker Crawford?”

  “Never heard of him.”

  Fat Eddie closed the file folder and passed it to McGuire. “Here he is. Forty-three years of age. Unmarried. Employed by the US Postal Service for twenty years. Current residence is an apartment on Center Street, over in West Roxbury.”

  McGuire opened the file folder and scanned the documents inside. A homicide investigation report, witness statements, several photos of a middle-aged man lying sprawled in a doorway with his shirtfront soaked in blood, autopsy papers and APB request form. Plus the detritus of an ordinary man’s life generated by organizations, institutions and authority—photocopies of birth records, bank statements, civil service reviews.

  “Who’s the victim?” McGuire asked, shuffling through the photographs.

  “Man’s name was Amos. I forget his first name. US Postal Inspector. Apparently he was investigating some aspect of Crawford’s work. Maybe theft, there’s no indication of that yet. This Amos fellow knocked on Crawford’s door one evening. They began arguing, Crawford ran back into his apartment, came out with a gun and shot the post office official. A neighbour saw it all. Crawford was screaming something incoherently. Practically frothing at the mouth according to the witness. Then he ran down the corridor, rode the elevator to the street and disappeared. He showed up four days later running around some expensive houses in Palm Springs, firing his gun and screaming obscenities. Being held there. His lawyer filed to prevent extradition but we got it rejected this morning. So we want him back here. Which is where you come in.”

  Turning over an official Postal Service document, McGuire revealed a colour photo of an overweight man with sparse, copper-coloured hair and heavily lidded eyes. He was staring back at the camera with the neutral expression of someone following instructions. On the reverse of the picture was an official stamp identifying the subject as Bunker James Crawford, employee number 39–27083R, US Postal Service, and the date.

  “Any history of mental illness?” McGuire asked. “Psychiatric report? Criminal record?”

  “Nothing. He lived alone, but he seems to have gotten along with his neighbours and people he worked with. Comes across as a little shy, but he wasn’t a total recluse. There’s no explanation in his background for what he did.”

  “Drugs?”

  “Not indicated. Nothing was found in his apartment. He didn’t even drink very much according to the interviews.”

  McGuire turned back to the top page of the file, running his eyes down the homicide report to find the names of the original investigating officers. He looked up at Fat Eddie Vance, then back at the names again. Detective Sergeant Ralph Innes. Detective Sergeant Janet Parsons.

  “This is Ralph and Janet’s case.” McGuire looked over the edge of the folder at Vance. “Why me?”

  Vance blinked. “McGuire, I am not sending a mixed team of detectives to California to interrogate a suspect and return him in custody. Detective Parsons is first-rate, but she is hardly the best choice to strong-arm a prisoner across the country.” He blinked again. “Besides, you’ll have to stay overnight in Palm Springs . . .”

  “And you won’t approve separate rooms for them on the travel expense budget,” McGuire interrupted.

  Vance rested his arms on the desk and leaned forward. “That’s a factor, I’ll admit. More important, I need Detective Parsons here as an armed and qualified member of the investigation staff. Until you’re armed and fully in tune with operations again, she’s more valuable to me here than you are. You’ll be unarmed, but Innes will provide all the protection you should need.”

  McGuire nodded and glanced back at the file. “When do we leave?” he asked.

  “First thing tomorrow. Get Crawford back here and we can clear the case out. Get on with other things. You ask me, I don’t think Crawford will ever come to trial. Sounds like a one-oh-four to me. With a credible eyewitness and all, the lawyer’s got to be looking at an insanity.” Vance looked over at a scratchpad cluttered with notes. “I’ve rearranged Innes’s duties. The two of you get in to Palm Springs tomorrow afternoon, do a preliminary interrogation, finish the paperwork, and board a flight back on Wednesday with Crawford in custody.”

  McGuire scrutinized the file material. Only one sheet of paper identified the victim: Ross William Amos, forty-eight years old, of Morningside, Virginia. His occupation was listed as Security Inspector, US Postal Service. There was less information on the victim than McGuire had ever seen in a murder file. No statements from next of kin, no interviews with acquaintances, no f
urther action prescribed.

  Vance’s pen was tapping his desk top again.

  McGuire noted a telephone number scribbled under “I.D. Information Sources” at the bottom of the Victim Information Form.

  “McGuire,” Vance said impatiently, “you’ve got your assignment. We both have work to do. Let’s get going.”

  “We’ve all got ’em on our desks now.” Ralph Innes gestured at the computer screen. “Best thing the department did was link us all up with these things. You want to know what size of underwear J. Edgar Hoover wore, it tells you. Just a matter of knowing where to look and how to get through the code.”

  McGuire pulled a chair closer to the desk and sipped his coffee. “You hooked up to Washington?” he asked.

  “Hooked up to everywhere. What do you want to know?”

  “Something about this Amos guy. We’ve got one sheet that tells me nothing.”

  “All I could get, Joe.” Innes shrugged. “Guy had federal government security clearance. Things are locked up down there. You need FBI or Secret Service codes to get into the files. Look at this.”

  Innes entered a series of numbers into the computer, leaned back and waited for the screen to display several short paragraphs of text and symbols.

  “See?” Innes stretched an arm toward the computer. “Place and date of birth, marital status, Social Security number, education, home address, military record, work history, and that’s it.”

  McGuire squinted to bring the characters into focus. At the base of the screen he read: “Further reference, file #A28874–66.” He nodded at the screen. “What happens if you request that number?”

  Innes clicked the computer keyboard a few times with a speed and ease that impressed McGuire. “Watch,” he said, and leaned back in his chair again.

  A status line flashing the words NOT ACCESSIBLE appeared at the base of the computer screen.

  “That’s where the Feds can get at it,” Innes explained. “They’ve got the codes.”