36
Jane was up before six on Wednesday, and she moved quickly about the room- showering, dressing, packing her bag. I lay in bed, in a half-sleep, and for a while I told myself we were at home and that she was getting ready for work. Then I felt a twinge in my shoulder and the whole of the day before came back to me. I opened my eyes, and Jane was at the end of the bed. She was fully dressed and her bag was on her shoulder. Her car keys were in her hand.
“You all right?” she asked. I nodded. “And you can get to the rent-a-car place okay, and drive with that arm?”
“I’m fine.”
“Okay. Then I’m going to give my statement and get back to the city.”
I sat up but turned wrong and something like a hot wire ran through my shoulder. Jane saw it in my face.
“Don’t,” she said. “Rest more.” She patted my foot.
I looked at her and nodded. “Drive carefully,” I said.
Light was streaming through the big windows, and I heard birds, and a dog bark. In a minute I heard Jane’s car start, and turn in the drive, and pull away. I looked at the ceiling and wrapped the covers around me and thought about going back to sleep, but didn’t.
I got up and worked my left shoulder in tentative circles. It was sore and bruised and still a little swollen, but it was all there. I checked my face in the mirror. The puffiness had gone down, but there was a cut across the bridge of my nose and bruising around my eyes. I picked up the phone and tried Nina Sachs again. This time I didn’t even get her machine.
Lee is next door to Lenox, to the south and east, and the state police barracks there is just off Route 7, in a stolid brick building with white trim, lots of antennae, and, when I pulled up, three TV news vans out front. I went in a side door, and a trooper led me to Barrento’s office.
It was small and square, with a window onto Route 7, a beige metal desk, and the smell of old coffee. Barrento wore a wrinkled green shirt and last night’s jeans. His baseball jacket was collapsed in a corner, and Barrento seemed like he might soon follow. His beard was heavier and his eyes were ravaged, and he looked years older than when I’d seen him last. He had a telephone propped in his ear, and he pointed at one of the plastic chairs in front of his desk. I sat.
The desk was layered in papers, the only clear spots taken by graduation photos of two boys whose square faces and heavy features were younger, less cautious versions of Barrento’s own. Barrento dug with a wooden matchstick at a well-used brown pipe while he listened to the phone, and every now and then he said “Uh-huh.”
He hung up and scanned my face, and my arm in its sling. “Well, at least you got a change of clothes,” he said. “You see the fourth estate out there?” He stifled a yawn and tossed a thumb at the window. “This place is a fucking sieve. And it’ll only get worse when we release the ID. You should figure they’ll get hold of your name. I told your friend the same thing when she was in.”
I nodded. “You made the ID?” I asked.
“Just between us girls, we matched his prints with the ones he gave for his brokerage license. It’s Danes.”
“You have a cause of death too?”
“I don’t have the report, but the bullet hole I saw in what was left of his chest was a clue.”
I thought about that for a while, and Barrento watched me think. “You have a time of death?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Got to wait for the report. It’s weeks, though.”
“Have you spoken with his ex-wife yet?”
“Early this morning. But enough with your questions, let’s do some of mine. You give any thought to what we talked about last night?”
“Some.”
“Any parts of your story you want to change?”
I shook my head.
Barrento’s laugh was deep. “No? That’s a pity. ’Cause I was hoping you could help me account for these.”
He pulled open a file drawer and reached in. He came up with a large plastic evidence bag. My waist pack was inside. The tools clanked when he put it down. He reached into the drawer again and came up with two more bags. My flashlight was in one and my cell phone was in the other. They were caked in mud. My shoulder was throbbing and I rubbed it. Barrento chuckled some more and knocked his pipe on the edge of the desk. Fine ash came out, and he whisked it away with the side of his thick hand.
“I was thinking about what you said last night- about not wasting time on bullshit- and I was thinking that it’s actually good advice. I mean, I’ve got more than enough bullshit in my life right now, you know, and it would be great to get rid of some. Like, for example, your bullshit story about how you got into the house and the barnwhich by the way was even less convincing once I found your burglar’s tools lying around the yard. Then there’s the bullshit I’ll have to go through if you stick to that story- searching for the nonexistent third party who jimmied those locks. And there’s the bullshit any half-bright defense lawyer will sling to take your crappy story and my failure to find this third party and turn it all into reasonable doubt. That’s three big piles of crap I’d really like to get rid of.” Barrento shook his head regretfully. “You see where I’m headed with this, March?”
“More or less.”
Barrento smiled. “And now, would you more or less like to change your story?”
I was quiet and Barrento looked at me some more.
“Nobody around here is looking to make their career with a B and E bust, March. I’m doing you a favor.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Like I said, I don’t want to waste my time. And maybe I figure you did me a little good yesterday. And maybe a couple of buddies of mine over in New York State said you were a decent cop back when, and a pretty smart guy.”
“You’ve been busy.”
“All night long.”
I nodded. “Okay,” I said. “I appreciate the break.”
“Great. Now you get a chance to show me how much.” Barrento’s smile was tired and disarming, and his dark eyes were as honest and shiny as a spaniel’s. My stomach tightened.
“How?”
“You’ve been working on Danes longer than me. I thought you could give me some background.”
“What kind of background?”
“On his friends, his family, his colleagues, anybody pissed off at him, anybody he was pissed off at- the basic stuff.”
I was quiet for a long while, thinking careful thoughts. Barrento watched me, a tiny smile lurking beneath his mustache. “I thought you had a suspect,” I said finally.
His smile grew. “I do. But you know how it is. You like to be sure, especially when half the world is watching.”
“You’re not sure it was Cortese?”
Barrento shrugged. “Probably I’ll feel better when I get more forensics back, and when I can talk to the guy.”
“He’s still out of it?”
“Docs tell me it’ll be a while before the drugs kick in and he can say anything sane. By which time he’ll have a lawyer. The lab work is coming along, but there’s a shitload to process.”
“So- for now- you’re not sure it was Cortese?”
“Are you?” he said, and poked again at the bowl of his pipe. Somewhere I heard the turning of wheels within wheels.
“I think he wrapped Danes in plastic and packed him in the car.”
“Me too,” Barrento said. “Especially since we’re lifting Cortese’s prints from the sheeting and the car and all the crap inside. Though I’ll be damned if I can figure out why he did it.”
He stuck the pipe in his mouth and tested the draw. Something was amiss, and he dug at it some more with the match.
“What do you think about the shooting part?” he asked.
My stomach got tighter, and I answered carefully. “I didn’t see a gun.”
Barrento smiled a little. “Neither have we- not yet, anyway.”
“Not in the house or in Cortese’s car?”
“Nope.”
“Which doesn’t mean much by itself.”
“Not much,” Barrento said. He drew on his pipe some more and then he looked at me. “We think he was killed in the dining room. The floors were cleaned in there, but there was blood in the boards.” Barrento paused and smiled at me. “But you know all that already, don’t you?”