“You onto something, Carlotta?”
“I’m curious, Mooney. And you’re not the only source of information in the world.”
“Thayler collected Roman stuff. Antiques. And I mean old. Artifacts, statues—”
“Coins?”
“Whole mess of them.”
“Thanks.”
“Carlotta—”
I never did find out what he was about to say because I hung up. Rude, I know. But I had things to do. And it was better Mooney shouldn’t know what they were, because they came under the heading of illegal activities.
When I knocked at the front door of the Mason Terrace house at 10:00 a.m. the next day, I was dressed in dark slacks, a white blouse, and my old police department hat. I looked very much like the guy who reads your gas meter. I’ve never heard of anyone being arrested for impersonating the gasman. I’ve never heard of anyone really giving the gasman a second look. He fades into the background and that’s exactly what I wanted to do.
I knew Marcia Heidegger wouldn’t be home for hours. Old reliable had left for the Square at her usual time, precise to the minute. But I wasn’t 100 percent sure Marcia lived alone. Hence the gasman. I could knock on the door and check it out.
Those Brookline neighborhoods kill me. Act sneaky and the neighbors call the cops in twenty seconds, but walk right up to the front door, knock, talk to yourself while you’re sticking a shim in the crack of the door, let yourself in, and nobody does a thing. Boldness is all.
The place wasn’t bad. Three rooms, kitchen and bath, light and airy. Marcia was incredibly organized, obsessively neat, which meant I had to keep track of where everything was and put it back just so. There was no clutter in the woman’s life. The smell of coffee and toast lingered, but if she’d eaten breakfast, she’d already washed, dried, and put away the dishes. The morning paper had been read and tossed in the trash. The mail was sorted in one of those plastic accordion files. I mean, she folded her underwear like origami.
Now coins are hard to look for. They’re small; you can hide ’em anywhere. So this search took me one hell of a long time. Nine out of ten women hide things that are dear to them in the bedroom. They keep their finest jewelry closest to the bed, sometimes in the nightstand, sometimes right under the mattress. That’s where I started.
Marcia had a jewelry box on top of her dresser. I felt like hiding it for her. She had some nice stuff and a burglar could have made quite a haul with no effort.
The next favorite place for women to stash valuables is the kitchen. I sifted through her flour. I removed every Kellogg’s Rice Krispy from the giant economy-sized box — and returned it I went through her place like no burglar ever will. When I say thorough, I mean thorough.
I found four odd things. A neatly squared pile of clippings from the Globe and the Herald, all the articles about the Thayler killing. A manila envelope containing five different safe-deposit-box keys. A Tupperware container full of superstitious junk, good luck charms mostly, the kind of stuff I’d never have associated with a straight-arrow like Marcia: rabbits’ feet galore, a little leather bag on a string that looked like some kind of voodoo charm, a pendant in the shape of a cross surmounted by a hook, and, I swear to God, a pack of worn tarot cards. Oh, yes, and a .22 automatic, looking a lot less threatening stuck in an ice cube tray. I took the bullets; the loaded gun threatened a defenseless box of Breyers’ mint chocolate-chip ice cream.
I left everything else just the way I’d found it and went home. And tugged my hair. And stewed. And brooded. And ate half the stuff in the refrigerator, I kid you not.
At about one in the morning, it all made blinding, crystal-clear sense.
The next afternoon, at five-fifteen, I made sure I was the cabbie who picked up Marcia Heidegger in Harvard Square. Now cabstands have the most rigid protocol since Queen Victoria; you do not grab a fare out of turn or your fellow cabbies are definitely not amused. There was nothing for it but bribing the ranks. This bet with Mooney was costing me plenty.
I got her. She swung open the door and gave the Mason Terrace number. I grunted, kept my face turned front, and took off.
Some people really watch where you’re going in a cab, scared to death you’ll take them a block out of their way and squeeze them for an extra nickel. Others just lean back and dream. She was a dreamer, thank God. I was almost at District One headquarters before she woke up.
“Excuse me,” she said, polite as ever, “that’s Mason Terrace in Brookline.”
“Take the next right, pull over, and douse your lights,” I said in a low Bogart voice. My imitation was not that good, but it got the point across. Her eyes widened and she made an instinctive grab for the door handle.
“Don’t try it, lady,” I Bogied on. “You think I’m dumb enough to take you in alone? There’s a cop car behind us, just waiting for you to make a move.”
Her hand froze. She was a sap for movie dialogue.
“Where’s the cop?” was all she said on the way up to Mooney’s office.
“What cop?”
“The one following us.”
“You have touching faith in our law-enforcement system,” I said.
She tried a bolt, I kid you not. I’ve had experience with runners a lot trickier than Marcia. I grabbed her in approved cop hold number three and marched her into Mooney s office.
He actually stopped typing and raised an eyebrow, an expression of great shock for Mooney.
“Citizen’s arrest,” I said.
“Charges?”
“Petty theft. Commission of a felony using a firearm.” I rattled off a few more charges, using the numbers I remembered from cop school.
“This woman is crazy,” Marcia Heidegger said with all the dignity she could muster.
“Search her,” I said. “Get a matron in here. I want my four dollars and eighty-two cents back.”
Mooney looked like he agreed with Marcia’s opinion of my mental state. He said, “Wait up, Carlotta. You’d have to be able to identify that four dollars and eighty-two cents as yours. Can you do that? Quarters are quarters. Dimes are dimes.”
“One of the coins she took was quite unusual,” I said. “I’m sure I’d be able to identify it.”
“Do you have any objection to displaying the change in your purse?” Mooney said to Marcia. He got me mad the way he said it, like he was humoring an idiot.
“Of course not,” old Marcia said, cool as a frozen daiquiri.
“That s because she’s stashed it somewhere else, Mooney, I said patiently. “She used to keep it in her purse, sec. But then she goofed. She handed it over to a cabbie in her change. She should have just let it go, but she panicked because it was worth a pile and she was just baby-sitting it for someone else. So when she got it back, she hid it somewhere. Like in her shoe. Didn’t you ever carry your lucky penny in your shoe?”
“No,” Mooney said. “Now, Miss—”
“Heidegger,” I said clearly. “Marcia Heidegger. She used to work at Harvard Law School.” I wanted to see if Mooney picked up on it, but he didn’t. He went on: “This can be taken care of with a minimum of fuss. If you’ll agree to be searched by—”
“I want to see my lawyer,” she said.
“For four dollars and eighty-two cents?” he said. “It’ll cost you more than that to get your lawyer up here.”
“Do I get my phone call or not?”
Mooney shrugged wearily and wrote up the charge sheet. Called a cop to take her to the phone.
He got JoAnn, which was good. Under cover of our old-friend-long-time-no-see greetings, I whispered in her ear.
“You’ll find it fifty well spent,” I said to Mooney when we were alone.
JoAnn came back, shoving Marcia slightly ahead of her. She plunked her prisoner down in one of Mooney’s hard wooden chairs and turned to me, grinning from ear to ear.