“Her MO. Looks around, drinks her Fresca, and leaves. Seems harmless.”
“Well, she’s starting to give me a creepy feeling. What’s her name, and which shelter? I think it would be a good idea to run a background on her.”
“I don’t know anything about her except she’s not right.” Twirling her finger at her temple.
“So, how long you known about Lamont’s assigning me to Watertown?”
“Let me see.” She looks at her watch. “ You left your voice mail an hour and a half ago? Let me do the math. I’ve known for an hour and a half.”
“That’s what I thought. Nobody’s told you, so she makes sure from the get-go that you and I don’t get along.”
“I don’t need some harebrained new hobby right now. She sends you to Watertown on some secret mission, don’t come crying to me.”
He crouches next to her. “You ever heard of the Janie Brolin case?”
“You can’t grow up in Watertown and not have heard of that case, which was half a friggin’ century ago. Your DA’s nothing but a consummate, cold-blooded politician.”
“She’s your DA, too, unless Watertown PD’s seceded from Middlesex County.”
“Look,” she says, “it’s not my problem. I don’t give a damn what she and the chief have cooked up. I’m not doing it.”
“Since it occurred in Watertown, since there’s no statute of limitations for homicides, technically it is your problem if the case is reopened. And as of now, looks like it has been.”
“Technically, homicides in Massachusetts, with rare exception, such as Boston, are the jurisdiction of the state police. Certainly you guys remind us of that on a regular basis when you show up at the scene, take over the investigation, even if you don’t know a damn thing about anything. Sorry, you’re on your own.”
“Come on, Stump. Don’t be like this.”
“We just had another bank robbery this morning.” Arranging bottles on shelves. “Fourth in three weeks. Plus the hair salon breaks, car breaks, house breaks, copper thefts, hate crimes. Never stops. I’m a little busy for cases that happened before I was born.”
“Same bank robber?”
“Same-o, same-o. Hands the teller a note, empties the cash drawer, call goes out over BAPERN.”
Boston Area Police Emergency Radio Network. So local cops can talk to one another, assist one another.
“Meaning every cop car on the planet shows up, lights and sirens full-tilt. All of downtown looks like a Christmas parade. Ensuring our one-man Bonnie and Clyde knows exactly where we are so he can stay out of sight until we’re gone,” she says as a customer walks in.
“How much?” Win refers to the bottle of olive oil he’s still holding.
More customers. Almost five p.m., and people are getting off work. Pretty soon, it will be standing room only. Stump sure as hell isn’t a cop for the money, and he’s never figured out why she doesn’t retire from the department and have a life.
“It’s yours at cost.” She gets up, walks to another aisle, picks out a bottle of wine, gives it to him. “Just got it in. Tell me what you think.”
A 2002 Wolf Hill pinot noir. “Sure,” he says. “Thanks. But why the sudden kill-me-with-kindness act?”
“Giving you my condolences. Must be fatal working for her.”
“While you’re feeling sorry for me, mind if I get a few pounds of Swiss, cheddar, Asiago, roast beef, turkey, wild rice salad, baguettes? And kosher salt, five pounds would be great.”
“Jesus. What the hell do you do with that stuff? Throw margarita parties for half of Boston?” As she stands up, so at ease with her prosthesis, he rarely remembers she has one. “Come on. Since I feel so sorry for you, I’ll buy you a drink,” she says. “One cop to another, let me give you a little advice.”
They collect empty boxes and carry them to the storeroom in back, and she opens the walk-in refrigerator, grabs two diet cream sodas, and says, “What you need to focus on is motive.”
“The killer’s?” Win says, as they sit at a folding table, walled in by cases of wine, olive oils, vinegars, mustards, chocolates.
“Lamont’s.”
“You must have worked a lot of cases with her over the years, but she acts as if the two of you have never met,” he says.
“Bet she does. I don’t guess she told you about the night we got so ripped, she had to sleep on my couch.”
“No way. She doesn’t even socialize with cops, much less get drunk with them.”
“Before your time,” says Stump, who’s older than Win by at least five years. “Back in the good ole days before an alien took over her body, she was a kick-ass prosecutor, used to show up at crime scenes, hang out with us. One night after a murder-suicide, the two of us ended up at Sacco’s, started drinking wine, got so wasted we left our cars and walked to my place. Like I said, she ended up spending the night. We were so hungover the next day, both of us called in sick.”
“You must be talking about someone else.” Win can’t envision it, has a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach. “You sure it wasn’t some other assistant DA, and maybe over the years you’ve gotten the two of them confused?”
Stump laughs, says, “What? I’ve got Alzheimer’s? Unfortunately, the Lamont you know never goes to crime scenes unless television trucks are everywhere, hardly ever sees a court-room, has nothing to do with cops unless she’s giving them orders, and doesn’t care about criminal justice anymore, only power. The Lamont I knew may have had an ego, but why wouldn’t she? Harvard Law, beautiful, smart as hell. But decent.”
“She and decent don’t know each other.” He doesn’t understand why he’s suddenly so angry and territorial, and before he can stop himself, he nastily adds, “Sounds like you have a slight touch of the Walter Mitty syndrome. Maybe you’ve been a lot of different people in life, because the person I’m drinking a cream soda with is short and fat, according to Lamont.”
Only thing short about Stump is her dark hair. And she’s certainly not fat. In fact, now that he’s paying attention, he has to say she’s pretty damn buff, must work out a lot, has a great body, actually. Not bad looking. Well, maybe a little masculine.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t stare at my chest,” she says. “Nothing personal. I tell all the men that when I’m alone with them in the back of the shop.”
“Don’t assume I’m hitting on you,” he says. “Nothing personal. I tell all the women that when I’m alone with them. Tell men, too, if the need arises. So to speak.”
“Had no idea you were such a cocky dude. So to speak. Arrogant, for sure. But wow.” She looks intently at him. Sips her soda.
Green eyes with flecks of gold in them. Nice teeth. Sensuous lips. Well, a little wrinkled.
“And here’s another house rule,” she says. “I have two legs.”
“Goddamn. I haven’t said a thing about your leg.”
“That’s my point. I don’t have a leg. I have two. And I’ve seen you checking.”
“If you don’t want to draw attention to your prosthesis, then why do you call yourself Stump? For that matter, why do you put up with anybody calling you Stump?”
“I don’t guess it might occur to you that I was called Stump before I had a bad day on my motorcycle.”
He doesn’t say anything.
“Since you’re a biker boy, let me give you a tip,” she says. “Try not to let some redneck in a pickup truck run you into a guardrail.”
Win suddenly remembers his soda. Takes a swallow. “And another word tip?” She tosses her empty can into a trash bin that’s a good twenty feet away. “Stay away from literary allusions. I taught English lit before I decided to be a cop. Walter Mitty wasn’t a lot of different people, he was a day-dreamer.”
“Why the nickname, if it’s not about your leg? You’ve got me curious.”
“Why Watertown? That’s what you should be curious about.”
“Obviously, because the murder occurred there,” he says. “Maybe beca
use Lamont knows you—even if she acts like she doesn’t. Or at least she used to know you. Before you got short and fat.”
“She can’t stand that I saw her drunk, and know a lot about her because of what happened that night. Forget it. She didn’t pick Watertown because of the case. She picked the case because of Watertown.”
“She picked the case because it isn’t just any old unsolved murder,” Win retorts. “Unfortunately, it’s one the media will love. A blind woman visiting from the UK is sexually assaulted and murdered. . . .”
“No question Lamont will milk it for all it’s worth. But it’s worth more than one thing. She has other agendas.”
“Always does.”
“It’s also about the FRONT,” Stump says.
Friends, Resources, Officers Networking Together.
“In the last month, five more departments joined our coalition,” she goes on. “We’re up to sixty, have access to K-nine, SWAT, antiterrorism, crime scene investigation, and most recently a helicopter. We’re still making bricks without straw, but we’re on our way to needing less and less from the state police.”
“Which I think is great.”
“The hell you do. State police hates the FRONT. Lamont most of all hates the FRONT, and what a coincidence. It’s headquartered in Watertown. So she’s siccing you on us, setting us up to look like the Keystone Kops. We have to have some superhero state police investigator come in and save the day so Lamont can remind everyone how important the state police is and why it should get all the support and funding. A wonderful bonus is she gets back at me, makes me look bad, because she’ll never forgive me for what I know.”
“What you know?”
“About her.” It’s obvious that’s all Stump intends to say about it.
“I don’t understand how our solving your old case makes you look bad.”
“Our solving it? Unh-uh. I keep telling you. You’re on your own.”
“And you wonder why the state police doesn’t like . . . Hell, never mind.”
She leans forward, meets his eyes, says, “I’m warning you, and you’re not listening. She’ll make sure the FRONT looks bad whether the case is solved or not. You’re being used in ways you don’t even know. Being set up in ways you can’t even imagine. But start with this: The FRONT gets big enough one of these days? Then what? Maybe you guys don’t get to be bullies anymore.”
“We’re bound by state law just like you are,” Win says. “It’s not about bullying, and you’ll never hear me say the system’s fair.”
“Fair? How about worst conflict of interests in the entire United States? You guys have complete control over all homicide investigations. Your labs process all evidence. Even the damn death investigators at the morgue are state police. And then the DA whose state police investigative unit works all this, soup to nuts, is the one who prosecutes the case. For you and yours truly here, that would be Lamont, who answers to the Attorney General, who answers to the governor. Meaning the governor de facto has control over all homicide investigations in Massachusetts. You’re not dragging me into this. It’s headed only one way—toward disaster.”
“Doesn’t appear your chief thinks so.”
“Doesn’t matter what he thinks. He has to do what she says. And he won’t take the blame, will just pass it down the line. Trust me,” Stump says, “get out while you can.”
TWO
Lamont used her reelection last fall as an excuse to fire every member of her staff. Fresh starts are a compulsion of hers. Especially when it comes to people. Once they serve their useful purpose it’s time for change, or, as she puts it, a resurrection from something that’s no longer vital.
Although she doesn’t waste energy on personal reflection, a remote part of her is aware that her inability to maintain long-term relationships might not serve her well as she ages. Her father, for example, was extraordinarily successful, handsome, and charming but died completely alone in Paris last year, his body not found for days. When Lamont went through his belongings, she discovered years of birthday and holiday gifts he’d never opened, including a number of expensive pieces of art glass from her. Explaining why he never bothered to have his secretary call or dictate a thank-you note.
The Middlesex County courthouse is a concrete-and-brick high-rise in the dreary, crime-ridden heart of Cambridge’s government center, her office on the second floor. As she steps off the elevator and notices the detective unit’s closed door, her internal weather turns overcast. Win won’t be inside his cubicle anymore, not for God knows how long. His reassignment to Watertown will make it difficult for her to demand his presence whenever she pleases.
“What is it?” she asks, when she finds her press secretary, Mick, sitting on the sofa in her corner office, talking on his phone.
She makes her usual cutthroat motion, indicating for him to end the call instantly. And he does.
“Don’t tell me there’s a problem. I’m in no mood for problems,” she says.
“We have a little situation,” says Mick, still new at the job, but promising.
He’s handsome, polished, shows well, and does what he’s told. She settles behind her glass desk inside her glass-filled office. Her ice palace, as Win calls it.
“If the situation’s little, you wouldn’t be in my office, waiting to pounce on me the instant I walk in,” she says.
“I’m sorry. I’m not going to say I told you so. . . .”
“You just did.”
“I’ve been quite vocal about what I think of your reporter friend.”
He means Cal Tradd. Lamont doesn’t want to hear it.
“Let me find a way to say this delicately,” Mick says.
It takes a lot to unnerve her, but she knows the warning signs. A tightness in her chest, a chilly breath on the back of her neck, an interruption in the normal steady rhythm of her heart.
“What has he said to you?” she asks.
“I’m more concerned about what you’ve said to him. Did you do something to make him spiteful?” Mike says bluntly.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Maybe you slighted him in some way. Such as giving that front-page story to the Globe last month instead of to him.”
“Why would I give him a front-page anything? He works for a student newspaper.”
“Well, can you think of any other reason he might have to get you back for something?”
“People never seem to need a reason.”
“YouTube. Just posted a few hours ago. Frankly, I don’t know what we’re going to do about it.”
“Do about what? And your job is to always know what to do about it—whatever it is,” she retorts.
Mick gets up from the sofa, moves next to her, commandeers her computer, and logs on to the Internet, on to YouTube.
A video clip.
Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” as Lamont walks into a ladies’ room, stops at a sink, opens her ostrich-skin handbag. Begins touching up her makeup in the mirror, primping, studying every angle of her face, her figure, experimenting with buttons on her blouse, which to button, which to unbutton. Pulling up her skirt, adjusting her pantyhose. Opening her mouth wide, examining her teeth. A voiceover from her own reelection campaign reciting “Clamping Down On Crime. Monique Lamont, DA for Middlesex County.”
Instead of a handcuff snapping shut at the end of the ad, her teeth in the mirror do.
“Is this why you brought up Cal?” Severely. “Immediately assuming he’s to blame? Based on what?”
“He’s your shadow, practically stalks you. He’s immature. It’s something a college kid would do. . . .”
“Such a strong case you make.” Sarcastically. “Good thing I’m the DA, not you.”
Mike stares at her, wide-eyed. “You’re going to defend him?”
“He couldn’t possibly have done it,” she says. “Whoever recorded this clearly was in the ladies’ room. A female, in other words.”
“And it would be easy e
nough for him to pass as a damn girl. . . .”
“Mick. He follows me like a puppy, was hanging around me the entire time I was at the School of Government. He had no time to suddenly become a cross-dresser or hide in the damn ladies’ room.”
“I didn’t realize—”
“Of course you didn’t. You weren’t there. But you’re right. The first order of business always is to find out who betrayed me.” Pacing. “Most likely, some female student in a stall saw me through a crack in the door and recorded all this nonsense with her cell phone. The price of being a public figure. No one will take it seriously.”
Mick stares at her as if she just fell off a shelf and shattered—like one of her pieces of art glass.
“Further,” she says, “what matters is whether you look good. And I’m happy to say, I do.” She replays the clip, reassured by her exotically beautiful face and perfect teeth, her shapely legs, her enviable bosom. “Make a note of it, Mick. That’s how it works out there.”
“Not exactly,” he says. “The governor called.”
She stops pacing. The governor never calls.
“About YouTube,” Mick says. “He wants to know who’s behind it.”
“Let me see. I must have it written down somewhere.”
“Well, it’s an embarrassment no matter who did it. And when you look bad, he looks bad, since he’s the one who . . .”
“What did he say, exactly?” she asks.
“I didn’t talk to him directly.”
“Of course you didn’t talk to him directly.” Angrily pacing again. “Nobody talks to him directly.”
“Not even you.” As if she needs to be reminded. “And after all you did for him,” Mick adds. “You haven’t seen him once. He never returns your phone calls. . . .”
“This might be our opportunity.” She cuts him off yet again, her thoughts like pool balls, scattering across the felt, clacking into pockets. “Yes. Absolutely. The best revenge is success. So what do we do? We turn this YouTube debacle to my advantage. My chance to have an audience with His Highness and get his support for my new crime initiative. He’ll be interested when he sees what’s in it for him.”