The Front

  He climbs a stepladder, pulls down the log for 1962, looks for a work space, resorts to an open file drawer, places the log on top of it, starts flipping through pages, starts sneezing, his eyes itching, miserable. April 4, and he finds the handwritten entry for Janie Brolin’s murder. He jots down the location of the crime—meaning her address, since she was murdered inside her apartment—and that one simple fact completely changes the scenario. He can’t understand it. Nobody noticed? The Boston Strangler? You’ve got to be kidding. He keeps going through drawers. Cases aren’t filed alphabetically but by an accession number that ends with the year. Her case is WT218-62. He scans labels on file drawers, opens what should be the right one, finds records jammed together so tightly he has to take out sections of them at a time or he can’t see what’s there.

  He pulls the Brolin case, then riffles through dozens of files in the same drawer, having learned long ago it’s not uncommon for information from one file to accidentally find its way into another. After an hour of itching, sneezing, his mouth tasting like dust, he comes across an envelope wedged in the back of the drawer, and written on it is the Brolin case number. Inside is a yellowed newspaper clipping about a twenty-six-year-old man named Lonnie Parris, struck by a car while crossing the street near the Chicken Delight on Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge. A hit-and-run that occurred in the early-morning hours of April 5—the day after Janie Brolin’s murder. That’s it. Just an old newspaper clipping.

  Why the hell would a hit-and-run have the Brolin case number on it? He can’t find the file for the Lonnie Parris death, probably because it’s a Cambridge case. Frustrated, he tries his iPhone, can’t get on the Internet or even make a call from down here in this cave. He leaves the records room, trots up a flight of stairs, finds himself in the jail’s booking room. Cameras, a Breathalyzer, property lockers, and handcuffs dangling from nails along the walls to make sure prisoners behave while waiting their turn to be fingerprinted and have their mug shots taken.

  Dammit, no signal in here, either. He steps behind the desk to try the landline phone but doesn’t know the code to dial out.

  “Stump? That you?” A loud voice startles him.

  The jail cells, some inmate. Female. Probably held until she can be transferred to the jail on the top floor of the Middlesex County courthouse.

  “I’ve had enough now, okay, already?” The voice again. “That you?”

  Win walks past empty cells, heavy metal doors open wide, catches the faint ammonia stench of urine. The fourth cell door is shut, and posted on it is Q5+. The code for suicide risk.

  “Stump?”

  “I can get her for you,” Win says, peering through the small mesh window, not believing what he sees.

  Raggedy Ann sits cross-legged on a slab of a bed inside a cinder-block cell not much bigger than a closet.

  “How you doing?” he says. “You need something?”

  “Where’s Stump? I want Stump!”

  On the wall next to the door is a collect telephone for prisoners. It has a direct line out, and across from it on a win dowsill is a bottle of hand sanitizer.

  “I’m hungry!” she says.

  “What they got you locked up for?”

  “Geronimo,” she says. “I know you.”

  Now he’s hearing her accent, remembers what Farouk said about the so-called shorty. A white woman who talked “black.”

  “You know me? How’s that? Except for our running into each other now and then,” he says, nicely enough.

  “I don’t got nothing to say to you. Get out of my face.”

  “I can get you something to eat, if you want,” he says.

  “Cheeseburger, fries, and Diet Coke,” she says.

  “Dessert?” Win asks her.

  “I don’t eat nothing sweet.”

  Fresca, Diet Coke, nothing sweet. Kind of unusual for a junkie, he thinks. Most recovering heroin addicts can’t get enough sugar. At least one good thing about looking through a metal mesh-covered window, he can study her without being obvious. Same baggy clothes she had on at the scrapyard. Her sneakers still have their laces. Unusual for a suicide risk. Of course, the jail cell has no towel racks, no window with bars, not even handles on the stainless-steel sink. Nothing to loop a belt, shoelaces, or even clothing around if you wanted to hang yourself.

  Without her freakish rag doll getup, she looks more like a street urchin who might be pretty were it not for her curly red hair sticking up everywhere, her nervous mannerisms. Plucking at her fingers. Wetting her lips. Rapidly tapping one of her feet. No matter what he’s heard about her, he can’t help feeling pity. He knows that people don’t grow up fantasizing about being a drug-addicted prostitute or a homeless person who eats out of garbage cans. Most tormented souls who end up like Raggedy Ann started out with bad genetic loading, or abuse, or both, and their subsequent debilitating problems are hell on earth.

  He picks up the receiver of the red wall phone, wipes it down with the hand sanitizer, and places a collect call.

  The operator tells Stump that Win Garano is on the line and will she accept charges.

  “You’re calling me collect?” she says. “Where are you?”

  “ Your jail.” His voice. “I don’t mean in it.”

  She tenses up. “What happened?”

  “Dropped by your records room. My cell phone wouldn’t work in there. Looked for a landline and guess who’s staying at your charming little B and B?”

  “What’s she told you?”

  “She needs to see you. Wants a cheeseburger. Excuse me.” Obviously to Raggedy Ann. “How you want that cooked?” A murmur. Then back to Stump. “Medium, hold the mayo. Extra pickles.”

  “I’m rather busy at the moment. I realize you’ve probably forgotten I moonlight as a successful businesswoman.” Stump holds the phone between her shoulder and ear, places a block of Swiss on the slicer.

  It’s that time of day when customers come in all at once, and there’s a long line at the deli counter. One impatient woman is waiting to be rung up, and two more people are walking in. Pretty soon—thanks to Win—she’s going to lose control over every aspect of her life. Damn him. Wandering into the jail. If that isn’t her bad luck. All he seems to bring her is bad luck.

  “She’s also getting cranky,” Win adds.

  “I’ll be right there,” Stump says to him. To the pushy woman at the deli counter, she says, “Be with you in just a minute.”

  “What’s a good wine with smoked salmon?”

  “A dry Sancerre or Moscato d’Asti. Third aisle.” Back to Win. “Just tell her I’m on my way, and then get out of there and wait for me. I’ll explain.”

  “You want to give me a hint?”

  “Safekeeping. Had a little problem after I dropped you off at your car.”

  Never occurring to her, of course, that he intended to end up at her department, in the records room. Even if she’d known, she wouldn’t have assumed he might take a tour of the damn jail.

  “Wait a minute. She’s saying something to me. Oh, yeah. Add fries, and I forgot the Diet Coke.” His voice.

  The feeling it gives her. The feeling he gives her, and it’s getting worse. She doesn’t know what she’s going to do. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be relatively simple. He would show up at the department, work Lamont’s case, and leave. Even the chief said this trumped-up investigation wasn’t Stump’s problem and not to worry about it or get involved. Jesus God. In the beginning, this was all about Lamont. Win was a minor character and now has gotten bigger than the great outdoors.

  “Meet me in the parking lot in twenty, thirty minutes,” Stump says to him.

  He’s inside Nana’s car, waiting, when a red BMW 2002 pulls up next to him.

  “I’m impressed,” he says, as Stump rolls down her window. “Nineteen seventy-three, looks like the original paint job and bumpers. Verona red? Always wanted one of these. Black leather looks original, too. Only the seals and window felt look new. F
rom here, I mean. You had this since you were what? Five, maybe six?” He notes the Wendy’s bag in the backseat, adds, “So what happened to land your special friend in jail for safekeeping?”

  “Soon as she left Bimbo’s, she went to Filene’s.”

  “How does she get around? Been meaning to ask.”

  “Piece-of-junk Mini Cooper. She ended up at Filene’s, shoplifted some makeup and a Sony Walkman.”

  “That makes her a suicide risk?”

  “Q-five-positive status signals the department to check on her, but she’s unstable, easily set off. In other words, just the sort you prefer to avoid.”

  “Anybody ever mention you’re a lousy liar?” Win says. “Fi lene’s doesn’t carry electronics. Not possible she shoplifted a Walkman. And I don’t think she drives a Mini Cooper.”

  “Why can’t you pick up signals? Quit interrogating me about things that are none of your concern.”

  “I pick up on signals just fine. Especially when they’re as subtle as a sonic boom. Here’s a hint. Don’t fabricate details about places you’ve never been, like big discount department stores that don’t have private, spacious dressing rooms and a small, discreet staff. Not that I’m assuming you take off your prosthesis when you try on jeans, slacks, for example. But if nothing else, you probably have a few select places you frequent—probably small places, boutiques, maybe, where they know you.”

  “There was a problem after we left the scrapyards,” Stump says. “She attracted attention from the wrong person, someone who followed her.”

  “Got any ideas?” To see if maybe, just maybe, Stump might tell the truth.

  “Said some van, like a construction van. She was scared maybe some bad dude from the scrapyards got suspicious, followed her. She freaked out, called me, and I had her pulled by a marked car and arrested.”

  “Charged with what?”

  “Said I had a warrant for her arrest, and she called to turn herself in. Said she’d been charged with selling stolen copper.”

  “You said it wasn’t really stolen. Was like flash money. And you can’t arrest somebody without a hard copy of a warrant. . . .”

  “Look. The point was to ensure her safety. End of story. I had her locked up. If she really was being followed, then whoever was doing it had ample opportunity to see her pulled, cuffed, put in the back of the patrol car. I’ll let her out once it’s dark.”

  “This mean she’s done at the scrapyards?”

  “If she doesn’t go back at some point, it will confirm the suspicion there might be something up with her. That maybe she’s working with the police. Assuming it’s true that someone from the scrapyards was following her.”

  He passes on what Cal told him.

  “Great. All I need is a damn reporter screwing with things,” she replies. “These people are ruthless. He’d better watch out he doesn’t get himself killed. What are you doing down here?”

  She looks good in her red BMW, and her face is pretty in the late-afternoon light.

  He says, “My, how quickly we forget. My mundane assignment of solving a forty-five-year-old homicide that might be connected to the Boston Strangler. Even though I know it can’t be.”

  “Amazing if you’ve already determined that. In fact, I’d call it miraculous. You divine it, or what?”

  “A glance at your records. You know much about the history of the Mafia in this quaint town of yours?”

  “As I’ve mentioned before, my quaint town was a better place in the heyday of the Mob. Don’t quote me.”

  “The apartment complex she lived in was on Galen Street, about a two-minute walk from Piccolo’s Pharmacy, which isn’t there anymore, of course.”

  “And?”

  “Southside. Huge Mob neighborhood. Most of the apartments and houses all around Janie Brolin were occupied by Mob guys. All kinds of stuff going on, whatever you wanted. Numbers, jewelry, prostitution, illegal abortions, all around Piccolo’s Pharmacy, Galen and Watertown streets. Why do you think there was no crime down there in the days of yore? I mean none.”

  “Where the hell do you get all this?” She cuts the engine of her BMW. “You see some movie or something?”

  “Just things I’ve heard over the years, a few books here and there. You know, I’m in the car a lot. Listen to them on tape, CD, have an okay memory. Janie Brolin was murdered on April fourth. A Wednesday. Wednesdays were collection day, all kinds of people showing up to get paid by the bookies. Always the same day, eyes and ears all over the place. So you should think about that. Why was she an exception to the rule, the only murder—ever—in Southside during the early sixties, especially on collection day. Plus the Feds doing their thing. So ask yourself. The cops, the Feds didn’t know who killed the girl? You really believe that?”

  Stump gets out of her car, says, “You’d better not be making this up.”

  “Gives me the feeling the cops were in on it. As in a cover-up. You know the old saying, Don’t screw with a Mafia guy unless you’ve got one with you.”

  “Translated?”

  “Collusion. A team effort. Not a sexual homicide at all, period. You remember who was president in 1962?” he says.

  They start walking toward the police department.

  “Damn,” she says. “Now you’re really spooking me.”

  “Right. JFK. Before that he was a senator in Massachusetts, born right over there in Brookline. You know the theories about his assassination. The Mob. Who knows? Probably never will. But my point is, some Boston Strangler lowlife wouldn’t have dared step foot anywhere near Janie Brolin’s apartment. And if he was so stupid he didn’t know any better, he would have ended up in the Dorchester Bay, dismembered, an ax buried in his chest.”

  “You’ve got my attention,” Stump says.

  An hour later, both of them are in the records room, going through Janie Brolin’s case file. She’s using his tactical light, and he’s taking notes.

  “Your clout and we can’t go to your office or something?” Win says, his eyes and throat itching again.

  “You don’t understand. There are four of us in one small office, not including the house mouse.” Meaning the administrative officer. “Everybody hearing everything the other person’s saying. Cops talk. Do I need to tell you that?”

  “Okay. The weather.” Win flips back through his notes. “Anything about the weather on April fourth?”

  “Not on any of these reports.” Stump has Janie Brolin’s file open, doing what Win did earlier, using a drawer as a table because there’s nowhere else to work.

  “What about newspaper articles?” he asks.

  She looks at a few. Old, sharp creases from having been folded for more than forty years.

  She says, “A mention that when the police arrived at her apartment around eight a.m., it was raining.”

  “Let’s go over what we know so far. Janie’s boyfriend, Lonnie Parris, groundskeeper/maintenance guy for Perkins, picked her up for work every morning at seven-thirty. This particular morning, he shows up, she doesn’t answer the door, it’s not locked. He comes in, finds her dead, and calls the police. When the cops arrive, Lonnie’s gone. Has fled the scene, immediately making him a suspect.”

  “Why would he call the police? If he’s the one who killed her,” Stump wonders.

  “Back to the facts as stated in these reports. Another question.” He looks through photographs. “It’s supposedly raining by the time the cops arrive. They’re all over the scene. Or should be. You notice anything unusual about that?”

  Stump looks at the photographs, and it doesn’t take her long to observe. “The carpet. A cream color that shows dirt. It’s raining and all these people in and out? Why is the carpet clean?”

  “Exactly,” Win agrees. “Maybe not as many cops in there as we’re supposed to believe? Maybe somebody cleaned up the place just enough to get rid of incriminating evidence? Let’s keep going.”

  “Postmortem took place at a funeral home? That’s unusual, too, isn
’t it?” Stump says.

  “Not back then.” Flipping a page of his legal pad.

  “Cause of death, asphyxiation from being strangled with a ligature, which was the bra tied around her neck.” She reads on. “Petechiae of the conjunctivae. Hemorrhage over the back of the larynx and soft tissue over the cervical spine.”

  “Consistent with strangulation,” Win says. “What about other injuries? Bruises, cuts, bite marks, broken fingernails, broken bones, whatever.”

  Stump scans the report, studies diagrams, says, “Looks like she had bruises around her wrists. . . .”

  “You mean ligature marks. From her wrists being tied to the chair legs.”

  “Not just those,” Stump says. “It also says there are marks around her wrists consistent with fingertip bruises. . . .”

  “Suggesting he grabbed her wrists or gripped them tightly.” Win keeps making notes. “She struggled with him.”

  “Not possible they’re postmortem? From him dragging the body, moving it when he positioned it?”

  “Someone grabbed her wrists while she still had a blood pressure,” Win says. “You don’t bruise when you’re dead.”

  “Same kind of bruises around her upper arms,” Stump says. “And also her hips, buttocks, ankles. It’s like everywhere he touched her, it turned into a bruise.”

  “Keep going. What else?”

  “You’re right about broken fingernails,” she says.

  “Defensive. She may have scratched him,” Win says. “I hope they swabbed under her nails. Although they didn’t do DNA testing back then. But they could have checked for ABO blood types.”

  The reports are there. Swabs were taken of various orifices. Negative for seminal fluid. Nothing from under her nails, Stump tells him. Maybe they didn’t look. Forensic investigations were different back then, to put it mildly.

  “What about a tox report?” Win asks, writing in his unique shorthand. Abbreviations and spelling that only he can decipher. “Any mention of alcohol, drugs?”

  A few minutes of going through the file and she finds a report from the chemical laboratory on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. “Negative for drugs and alcohol, although this is interesting.” She holds up a police report. “States in the narrative that she was suspected of drug use.”