She fumbled with her keys. They slipped back into her pocketbook. Then they disappeared among the clutter. A common nightmare of hers was where simple actions became impossible. Like running through molasses. Or trying to find her keys when her life depended on it. Oh God, she screamed internally as tears streamed her face, please help me find my keys! And then, miraculously, she had them and the main entrance door was open and she was racing up the three flights to her apartment. Her heart pounding within her, feeling as if it were going to explode out of her chest…
And then…
She had the door to her apartment open. The craziness of her fear and terror hit her hard and she started laughing and bawling at the same moment. All the emotion came pouring out of her.
And then something else hit her. Much harder than the emotion. Hard enough to send her sprawling face first across the hardwood floor of her hallway. She felt a dullness as her chin cracked against the floor and then heard a click behind her. Someone was locking her door. Then a knee digging into the small of her back. Her arms were pulled behind her, her hands tied together with some sort of cord, the material biting into her flesh.
It all happened so fast. Before she could utter a sound she was flipped over onto her back. A gloved hand was against her throat. Pressing hard and then releasing the tension. It made her think of the way a cat entertains itself with a mouse before the kill.
And then there was the knife-an eight-inch cutting knife. Her eyes grew wide as she stared at it. It was held inches from her face.
A soft, wispy, singsong voice breathed lightly into her ear. A vaguely familiar voice. “Go ahead,” it said. “Scream. This knife has to go somewhere.”
Chapter 15
Phil Dornich stood in the Central Square squad room shooting the bull with the desk sergeant. He recognized a few faces but didn’t really know anyone there. It wasn’t likely that he would. Boston and Cambridge police don’t have much to do with one another. And after eight years off the force, the few cops he did know in Cambridge were long gone. Still, after twenty-five years as a cop he felt comfortable in any police squad room and he had no problem shooting the bull with anyone there.
“What about his personnel record?” Dornich asked with a thin smile.
A pained expression formed over the desk sergeant’s face, like he had gas. Dornich pulled out Susan Shannon’s retainer check and showed it to him.
“He just disappeared?” the desk sergeant asked. “Just like that?”
“That’s right.”
“And you think there’s something in his folder that could help find him?”
“I think so.” Dornich shifted his weight so he was leaning casually against the wall. “Maybe he went to his hometown or something. His wife doesn’t even know where he grew up.”
The sergeant said he was going to make some phone calls and he turned three quarters of the way around on Dornich. The first call was obviously to Susan. It was short and polite. The next call was longer. The way the sergeant joked around and by the language he used, it was to another cop. When he got off the phone he turned back to Dornich grinning widely.
“Shannon’s wife said she hired you,” he said, his shit-eating grin growing as he spoke. Dornich just smiled back.
“I also called a friend of mine who works out of narcotics in East Boston. Joe Wiley. He said you were a hell of a cop when you were on the force. That before you retired, you were head of detectives.”
The name was only vaguely familiar. Dornich kept his smile intact. “Joe’s a hell of a guy himself,” he said.
“Yeah, sure. He wanted me to ask you how you got the nickname Pig?”
The fat detective’s smile dulled a bit. “It’s because of the way I sweat.”
“You’re sure that’s the reason?”
“I’m sure.”
“Nothing else?”
“No, nothing else. It’s because I sweat like a pig.”
The desk sergeant broke out laughing. “Quite a nickname,” he said as he rubbed some wetness from his eyes. “Wait here. I’ll see what I can get you.”
Dornich waited patiently. He hated that nickname. Hated it more than anything. Even though he’d never admit it to himself, it was the reason he retired from the force. Head of detectives at fifty and retired at fifty-one. All because of a rotten nickname.
The desk sergeant wandered back. He stood very close to Dornich and pushed a wad of paper into his hand. “Slip this inside your jacket,” he said, winking. The paper disappeared quickly into the fat man’s jacket.
“What do you think about Bill Shannon?” Dornich asked after the sergeant got back behind his desk.
“A smart guy. Maybe too smart. But he’s a good cop when he’s not acting like a wacko.”
“Does he have a girlfriend?”
The sergeant shrugged. “I wouldn’t be the guy to ask.”
“Any sort of reputation with hookers?”
A cautiousness darkened the sergeant’s features. “Again, I wouldn’t know,” he said, his voice guarded.
“I can appreciate that.” Dornich showed the few teeth he had left as he smiled broadly. “Of course, nothing I find out goes back to his wife. I just want to bring him home.”
“I’ve never heard anything about Shannon playing with hookers,” the sergeant said stubbornly.
Dornich took out his handkerchief and rubbed it quickly along the back of his neck. A grin crept along the sergeant’s face as he watched. “Quite a nickname,” he said.
“Sure was,” Dornich agreed. “By the way, his partner… ?”
“Joe DiGrazia.”
“Is he around? I’d like to ask him a few things.”
“Sorry, he took the day off. Not feeling well.”
Dornich couldn’t keep from smiling. A real smile this time. Big surprise about DiGrazia. Obviously, the party was still going on. He asked the sergeant for a home number and the sergeant told him no problem, consulted a directory and scribbled the number down for him.
“Let me leave my number in case he calls in,” Dornich said.
“Sure, go ahead.”
Dornich wrote it down and handed it to the sergeant. He hesitated. “I’ll tell you,” he started, a playful smile forming over his round face, “the world has changed since I left the force. Eight years ago murders meant something. Maybe a domestic situation that got out of hand or some scumbag trying to muscle in on some other scumbag’s territory. But there was always something behind them. Nowadays they mean nothing. It can be simply because you look at a punk the wrong way. These days, words lead straight to gunplay.”
“Yeah, these kids out there now are nuts.”
“Not just the kids. You can just call someone the wrong name and have a Magnum. 357 shoved up your ass. I’ll tell you, though, it will clear away hemorrhoids better than anything I know. You might want to tell your asshole buddy Joe Wiley that.”
The desk sergeant had the look of a man badly wronged. He reluctantly accepted Pig Dornich’s sweaty extended hand.
It wasn’t until after five o’clock that Dornich was able to reach Joe DiGrazia at home. He told DiGrazia what he wanted and DiGrazia gave him his home address and invited him to come over.
When DiGrazia answered his door, Pig Dornich knew he was on the right track. Eyes were bloodshot red, bags heavy enough to check in at the airport, and a hungover complexion that gave the cop’s skin a feverish look. The general haggard appearance of a man who’s been screwing and snorting hard all night.
DiGrazia gave the fat, smug detective a quick look up and down before stepping aside for him. “Susie hired you, huh?” he asked.
“She’s worried about her husband. I was hoping you could help.”
“Hey, anything I can do.” DiGrazia seemed to lose his train of thought for a moment as his eyes wandered away. When they focused back he asked Dornich if he wanted a beer. Dornich said okay and DiGrazia asked him to follow him, that they could talk in the kitchen.