When she was done, she stood up and unpacked the suitcases. After that she got the phone book and found a number she had circled months earlier.
Phil Dornich knocked on the door at eleven o’clock and Susan Shannon showed him in. A short, round man in his middle fifties wearing a cheap suit and a stained overcoat. As he smiled at her, she noticed he didn’t have many teeth left in his mouth and what was there was in pretty bad shape.
“Nice to meet you, ma’am,” he greeted her as he extended a hand. He had a handkerchief balled up in his other hand and was mopping his forehead with it. A cold winter’s day and the guy was sweating like a pig. It nauseated her. Susan Shannon took the extended hand and let go on contact. She asked if he’d like a seat and maybe some coffee. He accepted both. First thing in the kitchen she washed her hands under the kitchen faucet.
When she brought the coffee in, Dornich was perched on the sofa in the living room, his overcoat opened and both a large paunch and a holstered revolver showing.
He grinned as Susan noticed the revolver. “I’m fully licensed to carry, ma’am,” he said. “I hope this doesn’t upset you.”
Susan handed him his coffee and sat down across from him. “No, not at all,” she said, smiling weakly. “I’ve been married to a police officer long enough that I’m used to it.” She paused and looked down at her hands. “I’d like to thank you for coming. I don’t think I was up to leaving the apartment.”
“That’s quite all right,” Dornich took a sip of the coffee and then put it down so he could mop the back of his neck with his handkerchief. “Something about my metabolism,” he smiled slightly. “I just can’t keep from sweating.
“Now, just to explain,” he continued as he shifted his body forward. “I’m fully licensed by the state of Massachusetts as a private investigator. My business, Dornich Investigations, has been around for eight years now. Before that I was a Boston police officer for twenty-five years and before my retirement I was head of detectives-”
“Very impressive,” Susan said.
“Yes, thank you,” Dornich wiped his handkerchief behind his ear and then along the side of his neck and under his chin. He leaned forward a little more so he had his elbows resting against his knees. “So there’s no misunderstanding, let me go over my rates. One hundred and twenty dollars an hour plus any reasonable expenses. We won’t charge you for gas or mileage or postage or stuff like that, but if we need to travel you will get charged for the airfare and hotel. By the way, how did you hear of us?”
“A friend recommended you,” Susan lied. Actually, she had picked his ad out at random from the yellow pages. Dornich nodded, having the good sense not to push her for a name. Susan Shannon felt a sense of deflation. “I didn’t know it would be this expensive,” she murmured under her breath.
Dornich reached forward with his stubby arms and took hold of the coffee and sipped it slowly. “Well, it can be expensive,” he agreed. “But we’re the most experienced firm in Boston. All of my investigators are ex-police officers. My chief investigator worked on the Son of Sam cases in New York. Our forensics expert is often called on by municipalities all over the country.”
Susan stared straight ahead as Dornich smiled sympathetically. With his mouth open all she could count were five teeth and a couple of them were nothing more than stumps. She found herself nodding slowly. For a long time she had convinced herself she was saving the money for them to buy a house, but she now knew she had only been kidding herself. The money had been her escape hatch and she had just nailed it shut. “Okay,” she said. “I’d like to hire you.”
“Well, now, that’s good.” He let his lips form a fragile smile. “And what would you like to hire me to do?”
“To find my husband.”
He straightened up on the sofa, letting his head nod in a knowing way. “It happens all the time,” he started.
“No, it doesn’t. Not like this, anyway. My husband’s sick. He’s got some sort of amnesia.”
“How long has he been missing?”
“Since last night.”
“Last night, huh?” Dornich rubbed his face, his thick, stubby fingers kneading into the flesh. “What makes you think he’s got amnesia?”
“Because he gets it every year,” Susan said.
Dornich wiped his handkerchief across his face and then shifted his round body forward as he attempted to broach the delicate subject. “I had a client once,” he began, “whose husband would sleepwalk every couple of months. He’d just get out of bed, hands held out in front of his face, and walk out of the house and then drive off.” He demonstrated briefly, holding out his own two arms and looking ridiculous.
“A couple of days later,” he continued, talking quickly, “he’d come back home completely disoriented, claiming he had no clue where he’d been. Well, one time the wife was worried so sick she hired me to find him.
“I found him shacked up,” he said after taking time to wipe his face. “His girlfriend would come in from Atlanta every couple of months and he’d go through his sleepwalking act. Now, maybe your husband has some sort of yearly rendezvous-”
“He doesn’t have anything of the kind,” Susan insisted, rejecting the idea flatly.
“But-”
“There are no buts here. It’s simple. My husband has amnesia and I’d like to hire you to find him. Do you want the job?”
Dornich sat with his mouth hung loosely open. He started to say something, obviously frustrated, then pushed his mouth closed, nodded and told Susan Shannon that he’d be happy to take her job.
“I’ll need some photographs,” he said. “Preferably a full shot and both sides. Also a list of all bank accounts and credit cards. And a list of his friends-”
“He’s not with any friends.”
Dornich stared straight ahead at Susie Shannon and smiled congenially. “Of course, he isn’t,” he explained. “But maybe he mentioned something to someone or-”
“He didn’t mention anything to anyone.”
“Of course, he didn’t.” Dornich forced a thin smile. He took a notepad from his overcoat pocket. “You said your husband’s a police officer. Which department-here in Cambridge?”
“Yes. He’s a detective out of the Central Square station. He’s been working mostly violent crime cases.”
“Who’s his commanding officer?”
“I don’t see how that could help you-”
“Well, it might. Maybe someone he works with knows something. It’s possible.”
“No one knows anything. If they did, Joe wouldn’t have spent last night driving around looking for him.”
“Joe?”
“Joe DiGrazia. His partner.”
“His partner did that, huh? Hell of a nice thing to do. Could you spell his name?”
Susan hesitated, then spelled it out. Dornich wrote it down and got his home phone number.
“Well, now,” he said, looking up, smiling. “Do you think you could find me those pictures?”
Susan got up. As she left the room the smile evaporated from his face, leaving it drawn, his eyes tired, glassy. He reached for the coffee and sipped it slowly. When Susan came back his smile flashed back on like a neon sign. He took the pictures from her and studied them quickly.
“Good-looking guy,” he observed pleasantly. “How old, thirty, thirty-five?”
“Thirty-three.”
“Thirty-three, huh? That’s nice. I remember the way I was at that age. Boy, you can make real stupid mistakes when you’re young, and probably even stupider mistakes when you’re that good looking. I don’t know about the last, but I do know about the first. You see, the problem is you start thinking with something other than your head.. .” He stopped himself. Actually, it was the look forming across Susan Shannon’s face that stopped him.
“But then what do I know,” he said, shrugging. “Except I’ll need a five-thousand-dollar retainer.”