He turned his back so the boy wouldn’t overhear. Steve handed the ball to the man. “Have him choke up and keep his elbow parallel to the ground.”
Before the man could respond, Steve moved on.
A few moments later, Steve looked back. The father was crouched down, talking to his son and setting his stance with the bat choked up and his arm parallel to the ground. A moment later the kid cracked the ball in the sweet spot, sending it high into the air. He let out a hoot and his father cheered and flashed Steve a thumbs-up.
Yes! Steve said to himself. I can.
His hand went to his cell phone clip on his belt in the impulse to tell Dana, to say he could do it, that he had made up his mind that he could commit.
But how to word it without sounding foolish or desperate?
Hi, it’s me. I decided I want to have kids, I could come by tonight if you’re free.
Hi, I had this vision and I’m ready to commit. What do you say we start all over again?
He pressed her number. On the fifth ring her voice message came on. He clicked off and continued down the flats through shafts of light from the setting sun.
58
Sometime later Steve headed back up the beach to leave. The sun had nearly set. The father and son were gone and the crowd had thinned out. As he moved up the boardwalk his PDA phone jingled. It was not Dana’s number. It was not a number or exchange he recognized.
Steve turned to face the ocean, his eyes fixed on the horizon where a sailboat cut across the darkening seam of sky and sea.
“Lieutenant Detective Markarian?”
“Yes?”
“This is David Greggs, manager of Pine Lake Resort in Muskoka, Canada. You called the other day asking about a Terry Farina.”
“Yes.”
“Well, the last time we talked I had told you we had no record of a guest named Terry Farina staying with us last month or at any time. Well, I had circulated the photograph you had e-mailed among staff members, and one of our waiters said he recognized the woman. She had stayed here the same six days that Ms. Farina had allegedly been a guest. Because she paid in cash, we have no record of her real name. She’d registered as Jennifer Hopkins.”
“Jennifer Hopkins.” Steve jotted down the name. “Is it possible to speak to this waiter?”
“Yes, he’s right here. His name is Peter Good.”
Steve heard another voice say hello. “Peter, Mr. Greggs said that you recognized the photo of Terry Farina, who apparently registered as Jennifer Hopkins.”
“Yes, but it took me a while to recognize her,” Good said. “In fact, nobody recognized her. She had a hat on kind of low plus she had large sunglasses on all the time.”
“Do you recall if she was alone?”
“All the times I saw her she was.”
“Which was how often?”
“Well, she took all her meals in her room, and when she went outside she sat alone in lounge chairs in back where it’s pretty woodsy and private. I don’t think I ever saw her by the pool or in the main lodge. Same with the other staffers.”
“So you’re saying she didn’t mingle with any of the other guests.”
“Not that I saw, and that’s the same with the others. Nobody saw her mingle.”
“Can you ask Mr. Greggs if she used the phone in her room?”
“We already checked that. No calls in, no calls out.”
“Okay.”
“The thing is, I think she was kind of hiding, if you ask me.”
“Hiding?”
“Yeah, kind of embarrassed maybe.”
“Embarrassed?”
“Well, her face. It was kind of messed up.”
“Messed up?”
“Well, my first thought was that she’d been in a bad car accident, you know, bruised and cut up. Which is why nobody recognized her at first. But I was her waiter, because her cabin is one of my assignments, so I saw her more than the others. It’s the same woman.”
“You’re positive.”
“Yeah.” There was a pause. “But, you know, I mean given the circumstances, I’m starting to think that maybe it wasn’t an accident but that somebody beat her up.”
59
“This is turning into a goddamn public relations nightmare,” Captain Reardon growled as he eyed the group around the conference table.
It was ten the next morning, and Reardon’s jacket hung on the back of his chair, his tie was loosened, and his sleeves were rolled up. His face was an aspic of frustration. Copies of The Boston Globe and The Boston Herald sat next to him.
“The papers are accusing us of trumped-up charges against Pendergast, of coercive interrogation, unlawful seizure of property, false arrest, and wrongful death. That’s the good news. The fucking lawyers are threatening to bring suit against the city and the Department of Corrections and its officers for insufficient monitoring during his incarceration. They’re also citing cases going back ten goddamn years of the ill-treatment of suspects and excessive force by our officers. Not to mention op-ed columnists yowling about the city murder rate like it’s fucking Baghdad. Before Amnesty International jumps up our ass, I want some answers.”
Steve had rarely seen Charlie Reardon so ballistic. Usually he was the phlegmatic image of the Boston Police whose starched press conference image gave solace to the home audience and assurance to city administrators. Sitting with him at the table with Steve were Dacey, Hogan, and Vaughn.
Reardon picked up The Boston Globe. “And the first thing I want to know is why the hell wasn’t he put on suicide watch? He was on medication for depression and anxiety. He was a high-risk candidate for suicide.”
Reardon was right. Most suicides were educated people arrested on their first offense and took place within the first seventy-two hours—the window when they’re most distraught by shame brought on themselves and their families.
“Maybe the psychiatrist didn’t think he was a danger to himself,” Dacey said.
“I checked,” Reardon said. “It’s because the arresting officer failed to alert the correction authorities he was being treated for anxiety and depression. Seems rather convenient if you ask me.”
No one said anything as they were all thinking the same thing. Then Steve said, “The D.A.’s office is saying his suicide suggests a consciousness of guilt.”
“Yeah, and that’s nice to think so, but I’m not buying that just yet.”
They had reviewed Pendergast’s phone and credit card records for the last nine months and found that he had made only three calls to Terry Farina’s cell phone, around the time of their only date. Likewise, he had received one call from her, apparently in response to the date. Since then, no other records of correspondences, no purchases relevant to the case. Notes of interviews with friends yielded nothing new connecting him to the victim—no complaints of stalking, no reports of dates or calls or harassment. Nothing linked him to the murder scene.
Reardon made an audible sigh. “I’m asking Lieutenant Markarian to conduct an internal investigation of Detective Sergeant Neil French. He’s scheduled to return in a week.”
Steve’s stomach squirted acid. It was any cop’s nightmare to investigate his own partner. And although he was prepared to review what they had on Neil, his mind kept flicking flash card images of him hugging his daughter, holding forth on a Red Sox play, tearing up over his wife’s demise, his resigned anguish over Lily’s problems, his eyes puddling when he thought of Terry Farina murdered. His cracking up at something Steve had said. Also him scarlet with rage at Pendergast, the instant heat at the college girl with a bare midriff, the scathing contempt for DeLuca and his strippers, the stocking attack of Pendergast. The only thing worse was sending the dogs on yourself. “Yes, sir.”