saturday afternoon                                1
Draft of 26 May 1992







     Stealing Home
     (subsequently published as: Elegy for a Thief)


     by


     Margaret L. Press




     Chapter 1


     
     
     "Who died?"  The 300 pound flight instructor looked up at
Detective Sergeant Gabriel Dunn and slid a key across the
counter.  Dunn only flew to escape a case.  His inexplicable
compulsion to fly was severely hampered by his tortuous
relationship with his instructor.  Zack wheezed between every
sentence and continued:  "We're taking Five-Seven-Vicious.  It's
mostly intact."
     "Zack.  No one died," said the detective.  N3857V was a
bitch to start up in the cold.  January 26th was cold.
     "No one dying in Salem?  You'll soon be out of a job, son.
How're you gonna keep paying for lessons the rest of your life?"
     "I don't intend to fly with you the rest of my life, man.
I'll kill myself first."
     "So if you're not on a case why'd you come out?"  Zack's
preflight briefings were largely given to berating Dunn's
infrequent flyer program.
     "Hey, lapper," lapper being a term of endearment, "you know how
many details I endure to pay for one lousy lesson with you?  And what
do I get?  You pump me for information, you tell me how to run my
cases, you ask me to fix your tickets.  You blow smoke in my face, you
put the plane overgross.  No wonder I can't fly."
     "I never said you couldn't fly, boy.  Don't blow a fuse."  The
fat man grunted.  "It's just, ya gotta get up more than once a
homicide, Gabe.  Salem's not that lethal.  You'll never solo."
     Dunn smiled and held the door open.  "You're milking me, you
bastard."
     The flight instructor persisted.  "Read in the Times where you
folks been having break-ins all week.  Any suspects yet?"
     "Nope," Dunn answered.
     "You dust for prints?"
     Dunn looked annoyed.  "Never occurred to us."
     "How about that sports card store?   You find any of that poor
guy's baseball cards?"
     They had arrived at the single-engine Cessna 150.  The detective
zipped up his jacket and began loosening the tiedown ropes.
     Zack leaned one large arm against the strut.  "Those cards were
pretty valuable, the paper said.  I hope you boys get them back."
     Dunn answered tightly: "OK.  You're right, I am avoiding the
case."
     Zack formed a sad "ohhh" with his mouth.  "He wasn't insured,
Gabe.  That's what I read."
     Dunn wanted to kill him.  "Well, we're stuck.  They've all been
clean.  No traces."
     "All right!" beamed the instructor.  "We'll try a hammer-head
stall over Plum Island.  It'll all fall into place!"
    Dunn winced at the metaphor.   Then his beeper went off.


          *  *  *
     
Now his wings turn to ashes to ashes his grave
                    Iron Maiden "Flight of Icarus"
     
     
     Moira Doheny lay in an awkward pile on the floor of her
North Salem living room.  One bare foot was entangled in the leg
of an overturned chair.  The right side of her porcelain face and
Victoria's Secret paisley robe were soaked with blood.  Like
broken wings, the young woman's slender twisted arms protruded
from her sides, helpless in allaying her final fall.  The purple
in her frail hands declared her biologically dead.
     Moira's death had been unattended.  With unattended death
come detectives.  Jake Myles had been the first detective from
the Salem P.D. Criminal Investigation Division on the scene and
had taken temporary charge.  He had preceded Dunn by enough
minutes to have had the case nearly solved.  As his supervisor
stood now in the middle of the dimly lit room digesting the
damage, Myles hovered at his elbow and translated like a tour
guide at the House of Seven Gables.
     "Appears to be a suicide, Gabe.  No signs of forced entry.
Doors were locked when the landlord found her.  You'll find the
note on that desk, and a Charter Arms revolver by her hand.
Looks like a thirty-eight, a Bulldog or something."
     "You're taking pictures?" asked Dunn.  "Any family here?
Where's the landlord?"
     "He's waiting upstairs.  There's another apartment up there.
This used to be the old Pealey place, didn't it?  Anyway, we told
him to stick around.  The girl's name is Moira Doheny.  Nice
looking, wasn't she?  No one else has showed.  No one from the
State's responding, except ballistics and the medical examiner.
She should be here shortly."
     Myles raised his Nikon and finished shooting the roll.  Dunn
crouched down beside the girl.  He slipped a hand under her arm.  She
was still somewhat warm to the touch.  Without moving her he couldn't
locate an exit wound, but the bullet had entered about an inch above
her right ear, streaking the brilliant red hair with a swatch of
brunette.  The right hand appeared to have powder burns.  Moira's arms
were still limp, but her jaw had begun to stiffen.  Her mouth, even in
death, wore a faint pout that reminded Dunn of his sister.  Nearby on
the floor was the Charter Arms.
     "Done with your pictures over here?"  Dunn asked Myles.  The
younger man nodded.
     "Don't tell me you want prints," Myles asked.
     "Yes, prints.  I want prints.  Including this," he said, sticking
his pen carefully through the trigger guard and moving the weapon to
the desk.  Two chambers had been fired.
     The gun was blue steel.  Myles placed it into a paper bag for
fuming later at the station.  "I have yet to get a good print off a
gun, Gabe," he warned.
     "You're young yet."
     "Looks a little like your sister, doesn't she," said Myles.
     Dunn shuddered.  He turned to assess the clutter on the girl's
desk.  The suicide note was still in the typewriter, brief and
unadorned, black and crisp.  The statement apologized to those she had
hurt, it referred to pain she could no longer bear.  It was signed,
with love, Moira.  Fairly impersonal.  Dunn had seen notes that
rambled for 20 pages.  He had pulled notes off floppy disks.  Notes as
terse as  DONT CALL, notes that ended with this is Raymond, signing
off.  He reread Moira's last words, then glanced around the room,
looking for corroboration.  And looking for a second bullet.
     The house, built around the turn-of-the-century, had undergone
extensive renovations in the decade since Horace Pealey's death.
Conversion into a two-family rental property had criminally disfigured
the once noble Victorian into a utilitarian but obscene hodgepodge of
separate entrances, aluminum storm windows, and makeshift interior
walls.  Moira's living room looked like it had once been a parlor of
some majesty.  Now it was sentenced to mediocrity, its dignity
transformed to gloom.  The walls were an annoying shade of blue; the
pieces, or set as they wanted to be called, were classic Levitz,
matching and looking still under warranty, perhaps not even paid off.
Moira Doheny was the only decoration.
     On the floor next to the TV was a purse.  Dunn opened it
carefully and pulled out the wallet.  The victim had been 22 years
old, 5' 4", did not require glasses, could not drive a semi or a
school bus.  The license was due to expire three months after the
driver had.  The Registry camera had cast its usual unsavory pallor
over her face, and had ferreted out the most minor of complexion
difficulties, turning small beauty emergencies into capital offenses.
The detective keyed his radio and called in Moira's number for state
and local queries.  He looked back at her face.
     Dunn's sister Rachel was about 4 years older than this girl.  He
had had the dubious task of taking over a good part of her upbringing
when he was a teenager, at an age where sisters were still more of a
liability than an asset, a state they revert to now and then even in
adult life.  He had always assumed that her pout came from being the
spoiled younger sister of three put-upon brothers.  All his life he
had given her a hard time about it.  Dunn supposed that at the moment
Moira Doheny had good enough reason to pout.
     Continuing his tour, the detective studied the ceiling and walls
until he located the bullet hole about 3 feet up from the floor in the
corner by the window.  Chips of the revolting blue gypsum dusted the
rug below.  He squatted down and poked at the hole cautiously with his
pen.  The projectile had gone straight through the wallboard.  Peering
in, he could see no daylight.  Dunn stood up and looked at Myles, who
sighed and reloaded his camera.  "Ballistics coming, you said?"  Dunn
asked.
     Myles growled.  "Yeah.  Said he was on his way.  We'll fucking be
here all day."
     Dunn's radio sputtered for a moment, then spat out, "Control to
thirty-three."  33 was the designation for the gray, unmarked Ford LTD
Crown Victoria and the detectives it contained.  When Dunn answered,
the voice on the radio confirmed Moira's name and address, and her
unblemished record.  No one wanted her.  Dunn put in a repeat request
for the state ballistician.
     "We're gonna miss 'COPS'," Myles said.
     Dunn went through the rest of the apartment, checking the
medicine cabinet, recent mail, desk drawers, the contents of her
refrigerator.  Moira had food shopped recently.  Above the kitchen
sink, jars of cloudy water occupied the sunny end of the windowsill.
An avocado seed pierced with toothpicks sat in one; the rest contained
carrot tops in various mysterious manifestations.
     Moira's medicine chest held a dozen small plastic containers
attesting to her pain.  The detective culled a cloth-bound address
book from the bedroom.  Inside the front cover there was a work number
for "Dad".  Unfortunately, she hadn't needed to write down her
parent's home address and phone.
     At the foot of Moira's bed sat a small hope chest, presumably for
holding the victim's small hopes.  Dunn moved a sweatshirt and
hairbrush, squatted down and lifted the lid.  Rummaging down to the
bottom, the detective located a white linen table cloth.  What every
girl needs.  The layers above it made considerably more sense: a
bicycle lock, a stack of old bank statements, some clothes, a
forgotten coupon organizer, magazine clippings ranging from "How to
Balance your Checkbook" to "30-day Make-over".  The complexities of
life seemed to have crowded out the hopes.  A lot of those coupons had
probably expired.
     Back in the living room the center desk drawer surrendered up a
box of loose thirty-eight shells.  A conglomeration of various brands:
Remington, Federal, some no-name discount stuff.  Some practice rounds
in disposable aluminum casings.  Still lethal enough.
     Finally the beat man's voice from the front porch heralded the
arrival of the medical examiner.  Dr. Gloria Mei, all 59 inches of
her, would soon put to rest any doubts as to Moira Doheny's status.
She entered the livingroom slightly out of breath, as if the effort of
maintaining even those 59 inches of stature among a forest of Goliaths
was an ongoing exertion.
     "Hello boys, what have we got?"  Heads turned to look down on
her.  "My, my, my," she continued, setting down her bag.  She looked
around at the boys like they were somehow responsible for this
travesty.
     While she poked and prodded, Dunn went to the side window and
pushed aside the curtain.  The window overlooked the rear of the Store
24 which occupied the corner of North and Moody streets.  January's
low afternoon sun cast long shadows on the sidewalk.  Dunn couldn't
help noticing that the sky had never been more cloudless.  The
visibility was unlimited and the wind calm.  He knew in his heart that
this day would have been the day he finally soloed.  Republic Aviation
was one of those old-fashioned flight schools that still cut your
shirt off, nailing it to the office wall with the date etched on the
front with a Marks-A-Lot.  Dunn was wearing the expendable T-shirt he
had optimistically pulled on that morning.  The front had grease
stains and holes.  The inscription in back, thankfully, wouldn't have
shown, pinned to the wall.
     Dr. Mei checked the temperatures both of Moira Doheny and her
living room.  She confirmed the absence of an exit hole.  No other
wounds, signs of struggle or assault.  Pupils were normal and even.
Dunn sat down on the edge of the couch and watched as she worked.
Finally, she stood up, removed her latex gloves and repacked her bag.
The detective pulled out a small notebook.
     "O.K.  Single bullet wound, death looks sudden.  From the
stippling around the wound, I'd say it was very close range, almost
contact.  Everything else, negative.  Lividity suggests the blood
settled with the body in this position.  Rigor's just starting.  Could
suggest 6 to 8 hours.  That's corroborated by her temperature.  91
degrees.  With this room temperature, we could pretty much say seven
hours.  Seven degrees, seven hours.  An hour each way."
     She sounded like a miniature Julia Child.  7 degrees, 7 hours.  A
slow oven.  Just a pinch of powder burns.  She smiled down at Dunn.
He was waiting for the wine recommendation.
     "Gloria, can we get an autopsy?" he asked.
     "On what grounds?" she asked.  Suicides were no longer routinely
done since the last cutbacks.  On the other hand, if anything turned
up later, they all had asses to cover.
     "You need more than gut feeling, right?"
    "I need more than gut feeling," she said.  "A bit more."
     "How about trajectory of the bullet?"
     She started to unlatch her bag again.  "I can probe it for you
here, if there's any question."
     Dunn thought for a moment.  "The note mentions pain.  From the
looks of her medicine cabinet she could have been referring to
physical pain.  We can see what her doctor says, if he's willing to
talk to us.  We can find out what the prescriptions are for.  But if
she was hurting enough to kill herself, that would be useful to try to
confirm."
     Dr. Mei laughed.  "What do you think we'll find?  A sledge hammer
in her frontal lobe?"
     "I don't know.  Some kinds of pain would be detectable, wouldn't
they?  You didn't say you needed a great reason."
     She seemed unconvinced.  Dunn added: "OK, how about this?  She
had all that stuff in her medicine cabinet, enough to put her to sleep
forever.  Women prefer that method.  Why'd she pick a gun?"
     She frowned and bent down to retrieve her bag.  "All right.  You
got your post.  I'm releasing the scene.  Can I use the phone in
here?"
     "I'd rather you didn't," Dunn said.
     "You really believe it's not suicide," she said, looking at him.
"What's bothering you?"
     Dunn shrugged.  "It'll be your call, Gloria.  But look around
this room.  Look in the kitchen, in the sink.  Look all over.  The
clutter.  The laundry, dirty dishes.  All within normal limits.  Do
you see despair here?  Unless she despaired of ever paying off the
furniture."
     "She didn't shoot herself out of despair.  She shot herself
because of the pain, remember?"
     "Did she?  That's what we need to find out.  That's why we need
the autopsy."
     "We know she took pain killers.  What's really bothering you,
Gabe?"
     Dunn walked her to the front door.  The beat officer was leaning
against the wall, carrying on a conversation with his radio.
     "The second bullet," he answered.  "Use my phone.  It's the gray
Crown Vic, right out front."

          *  *  *

     Tremors continued to travel through Chris Alexei's limbs like
aftershocks.  His body still felt the effects from the night in an
unheated jail cell.  But Moira hadn't helped.  She definitely hadn't
helped.  "Let's drive by again," he suggested out loud.
     "Are you out of your fucking mind?"  Eugene Sollors had just
shelled out $1000 to make bail for Chris.  He felt responsible for the
kid until his Monday morning arraignment.
     "OK, just down North Street.  We can see from there."
     "Chris, they'll find her.  Her sister will come by.  Someone will
come by."
     Chris had loved Moira.  Off and on.  He didn't like the thought
of her rotting on the floor of her apartment.
     Eugene changed the subject.  "Look, man, what do you wanna do
about the cards?  Go through them now?  Divide them up?"
     Chris looked blankly at the box of cards.  Most were in plastic
sleeves or heavy protectors, each one bearing a small Sports King
price tag.  Eugene's timing left him derailed.
     Eugene pulled the box towards him and scooped out some of the
contents.  1962 Topps, 1963 Fleer, Near Mint.  Hank Aaron, Willie
Mays, $150 each.  Rookie Parade Catchers, $125.  Jimmy Piersall,
$2.50, Billy O'Dell, $6.  Number 423:  Rival League Relief Aces, 5
bucks.
     "How ya wanna do this?" Eugene asked.
     Number 312: Colt .45s Team.  9 bucks.
          *  *  *

     The landlord's name was Haynes.  He had rented the downstairs
apartment to Moira about a year earlier.  She had been a fairly quiet
tenant except when various and sundry boyfriends showed up.  Sometimes
all at once.  Mr. Haynes couldn't figure it out.  But luckily the
couple upstairs, in whose kitchen he now sat, were hard of hearing.
So he hadn't had to take any action.  She paid her rent on time, kept
the place clean.  Dunn asked the couple what, if anything, they had
heard or seen in the last 24 hours.  They had heard and seen nothing.
Not surprisingly.  Dunn had had to repeat the question 4 times.
     The detective asked the landlord to show him everything he had
touched in Moira's apartment.  The two filed back downstairs and out
onto the porch.  Moira's body was on its way to Salem Hospital with
bags on her hands.  The onlookers seemed settled in for the duration.
     "What did you do when you first arrived, Mr. Haynes?"
     The landlord turned and faced the separate entrance to number 2
Moody St..  Fighting off the distracting sounds of police radios and
the chatter of the audience, he put one hand to his forehead and
concentrated on the task.  Finally, he stepped forward.
     "I rung the bell."  He reached out and extended a finger to
within an eighth of an inch of the square, plastic buzzer.  "I rung
several times, in case they're in, you know, I don't wanna surprise
them."  Then he groped for his key ring and pulled it out.  "There was
no answer, so I let myself in.  She had a problem with a drain in the
bathroom.  That's what I come for."
     "When did you talk to her about it?" Dunn asked.  "Did she know
you were coming?"
     "Today's Saturday?  Thursday I guess.  She called me Thursday.  I
told her I'd try to get to it this weekend.  I like to take care of
things as soon as possible."
     Dunn looked skeptical.  "Was it the first time she called about
the drain?"
     "Well, the first time where it was this bad," he explained with
considerable conviction.
     Dunn pushed open the door.  "What next?"
     Mr. Haynes stepped into Moira's hallway.  The livingroom was off
to the left.  Down the hall to the right was the door to the kitchen.
A small closet was carved into the space below what would be the entry
stairwell to the upstairs apartment.  He stopped and looked down at
his feet.  "There was mail.  I was stepping on her mail.  I picked it
up, I put it on the radiator."
     He pointed to a peeling radiator next to the doorway to the
kitchen, where the mail had lain until Dunn had thrown it into the
evidence file.  Then he continued slowly down the hall, treading
deliberately, as if walking through a choreographed routine.
     Dunn looked after him in surprise.  They had passed the open door
to the livingroom.  "You didn't go in here?" he asked, thumb extended.
     Mr. Haynes shook his head.  "Not till afterwards."
     "After what?"
     "After I fixed the drain.  Didn't take long.  I snaked it, and
poured in some Liquid Plumr for good measure."
     "You fixed the drain?" Dunn asked, incredulously.  Moira's bloody
corpse just inside the open door, the desk lamp illuminating her last
declaration.  And Mr. Haynes had walked right by, no, scooped up the
mail a foot from the doorway, then walked by.  Dunn backed up a step,
looked into the livingroom and tried to remember exactly where the
body had been positioned.  The top of her head should have been
visible.  Her flaming red hair against the forest green carpet.
Green, which looks so good with red hair.  Dunn shook his head.  "You
fixed the drain," he repeated, rhetorically this time.
     "Snaked it," said Mr. Haynes.
     We should all have landlords that efficient.
     After mucking about in the bathroom sufficiently to obliterate
any useful clues, Mr. Haynes had gone back the way he had come, this
time poking his head in each room, presumably just to snoop.  The
scene awaiting him in the livingroom had not escaped him this time.
Mr. Haynes had found his way backwards out the front door, set his
tool box down on the porch and leaned on the buzzer for number 4.  At
1:34 p.m. the Salem Police Department took the call.
          *  *  *


     Clarence Doheny had sent the kid back to Allied Lumber to get
another couple pounds of eight-penny nails.  The basement of this
modest Witchcraft Heights garrison was looking less like a boiler room
and more like a family room, whatever the hell that was.  Doheny had
built dozens of family rooms without ever seeing the need to own one.
The room you curled up in when you had a living room you were afraid
to sit in.  Or that you stuffed all the junk in that the attic got too
hot for.  But not for long.  People who built family rooms invariably
went out and bought pool tables.
     Doheny wore a "This Old House" T-shirt and a 6'3" frame, useful
for putting up blue board.  He had been whistling Auld Lang Syne under
his breath for the past 4 days.  Like a shred of food stuck between
his teeth, it refused to dislodge.
     From somewhere above him Doheny heard a phone ring.  He slid
another four by eight sheet of plywood into position on the floor
frame.  The next piece would need to be cut down.
     "Mr. Doheny, telephone," came the distant voice of one of the
garrison's younger occupants.  Doheny brushed off his hands and headed
up the basement steps.  When he emerged into the warm kitchen, he took
the receiver from the teenager with a look of impatience.  Probably
Allied verifying the charge.
     "Yeah?  Clarence Doheny here."
     It wasn't the lumber company.
     "Moira's dead."
          *  *  *

     The ballistician had cut open the wall, marked the trajectory,
and retrieved the bullet.  Looked about right for the Charter Arms,
but time would tell.  Lots of time, the state's specialty.  His
unofficial pronouncement was that the bullet had been angling slightly
upwards when it hit the wall.  It had mushroomed somewhat in the soft
decaying wood.  A high quality, jacketed hollow-point load.  A good
police bullet.
     "Why would a suicide shoot at the wall first?" asked Dunn,
knowing that the ballistician was no psychologist but had seen far
more victims shot by their own hands than had Dunn.
     "It's not unheard of.  Just trying out the gun sometimes."
     "Like hesitation cuts before they slit their wrists," Dunn mused.
     "I guess.  Not my department, cuts."   The man repacked his tool
kit.  Myles had finished photographing the bullet and handed it back
to him.
     "Let him take the gun, Jake.  Sam, we need prints off it before
you test it.  Anything you can find out, give me a call, will you?"
     Myles handed over the bag.  Ballistician and bounty departed for
1010 Commonwealth Avenue, home of the state lab in Boston.
     Dunn looked at his watch.  Scene secured at 3:40.  Jake could
still catch 'COPS'.

          *  *  *







          Chapter 2

     It had been exactly one week since Detective Billy Trinidad had
rotated his Steelcase desk ninety degrees, breaking with a tradition
of parallel desks in the Criminal Investigation Division since back
when they were still arresting witches.  Billy Trinidad, who doubled
as the evidence officer and possessed one of the only two keys to the
drug vault, now sat with his back to the window and faced the door,
startling all who entered.  Jake Myles had been the first post-
rotation entrant and had asked who the new receptionist was.  The
epitaph was dying hard.
     Dunn piled an assortment of directories on his own parallel desk
and began looking up the identity of Moira's father from his phone
number.  Myles had stopped off downstairs to run some of the names in
the girl's address book.  When he strode in moments later with the
first of the printouts, he paused and bent over Trinidad's desk.  "Any
messages?" he asked sweetly.
     The reverse directory for Beverly-Lynn-Peabody-Salem listed the
number as belonging to Becker and Doheny General Contracting, Inc. on
Highland Avenue in Salem.  Dunn jotted down the address and stood up.
"OK.  First order of business is, we talk to the girl's family.  Then
we check with her neighbors, the store next door, friends in her book.
Any juicy history?" he asked Myles, indicating the printouts.
     "Nothing earth-shaking.  Why are you treating this as a
homicide?"
     "Every death's a homicide until we prove otherwise," Dunn
answered.
     "Save that for the press.  Why are you treating it as a homicide,
Gabe?  How much proof do you need?"
     Dunn shook his head.  "It's too perfect.  The note, the gun with
her prints, powder burns.  Could be a clever killer."
     "All that stuff - that's called evidence.  You've been spending
too much time at the Sack Cinema.  This is life.  This is Salem.
Killers here are not rocket scientists."
     "So how come half our murders go unsolved?"
     "Cause we ain't either," Myles stated.
     Remembering his T-shirt and the somber nature of their errand,
Dunn asked Trinidad if there were any clean shirts around he could
borrow.  He didn't bother asking Myles, whose shirts all looked like
they originated from the Honolulu Airport Gift Shop.  Trinidad fished
around in a large brown evidence bag under his desk and tossed Dunn a
dark blue wad.
     "What body is this from?" asked Dunn, holding up a wrinkled polo
shirt that otherwise passably matched his lanky frame.
     "It's mine.  Just give it a good shake."
     Dunn removed the torn T-shirt he had hoped with luck and calm
winds to lose that day.  He started to stuff it into his bottom desk
drawer, but Myles caught sight of the back.
     "'Nobody's Ugly at 2 A.M..'  I must have this shirt!"
     Dunn threw it at him.  Pulling on the polo shirt, he said:
"Let's go see the father."
          *  *  *


     When the question of suicide came up, the family members were
quiet.  Moira's sister Sasha had joined her father with baby in tow
before Dunn and Myles arrived.  Both the Dohenys were still noticeably
in shock.  Neither had known of the victim's whereabouts or plans.
Neither raised any argument to the suggestion that Moira had taken her
own life.
     "She got these headaches a lot," explained Sasha, clutching the
small, sticky child on her lap.  The woman was in her mid-twenties,
auburn hair pulled back with a pair of silver barrettes.  Freckled
skin that rivaled her sister's, and an Irish face that mirrored her
father's.  "Moira was in a car accident last spring.  She had some
sort of head injury.  She was unconscious for a while, and then later
started getting these pains.  Sometimes her pills helped, sometimes
they didn't.  Sort of like bad migraines, only worse, she used to tell
me."
     Dunn looked at her father.  Mr. Doheny cleared his throat, then
added in a strangely modulated voice:  "Check with her doctor.  He had
a name for it.  'Chronic post something syndrome.'  I got a brother
living with chronic pain, too.  Terrible thing.  And then her.  And
now this..."
     "Did she ever talk of suicide?" Dunn asked.  The detectives spoke
in tones low and hushed, as if someone were asleep at their feet.
     They shook their heads.  But still no protestations.
     "Did either of you see or hear from her the last couple days?"
Dunn asked.  Negative, again.  Sasha indicated she had not been home
the previous night, so didn't know if her sister had tried to reach
her.
     "Anything else bothering her besides the headaches?  Money
problems, boyfriend problems?"
     The whole family had money problems, as it turned out.  Mr.
Doheny had nothing lined up after the boiler-room make-over.  Sasha
was out of work.  Her live-in boyfriend sold flavored popcorn from a
push-cart in the Liberty Tree Mall.  That plus her unemployment checks
soon would be insufficient to stop the bank from repossessing her car.
Without her car, job opportunities had a way of shriveling up.
     "Moira and me, we helped each other a lot recently.  You know,
back and forth.  I had cash when she needed it for medical expenses.
She hasn't been able to repay it yet.  That bothered her, I know.  I
told her not to worry about it.  But, like I'm losing the car, and she
knew how that is, since hers was totaled in the accident.  It's a real
drag."
     Dunn glanced at Myles.  He reached into his jacket for the
address book and turned again to the pair.
     "Would either of you recognize any of the names in here,
especially the ones on the first page?  They seemed to be important to
her."  Dunn handed the book to Mr. Doheny.  Sasha looked over her
father's shoulder.  The baby, who looked about 7 months, reached out
to feel the cover.
     The names on the first page, the page before the A's, weren't in
order.  Most were just first names or family members:  Dad - work,
Adele, Sasha, Mom - Calif, Mr. Haynes, Saratoga (main), S's ext:,
Chris, BCN mystery riff, Dr. Merck, Eugenes, CVS (pharm).  The random
category seemed to spill over into the A's as well.  Dominos, J G,
cable TV.
     Moira's father looked up and shrugged helplessly.  "Sasha, that's
her sister."  He pointed at his daughter.  "And her mom.  Moved to
Long Beach three or four years ago.  These others..."  He looked
pained.  When your child starts acquiring friends you don't know, a
life you don't know, well the next thing you know they go and get
themselves killed.
     Sasha looked up.  "Merck's her doctor, Dad."  To Dunn:  "Adele, I
think her last name is Prego, or Predo, or something.  A friend.  Used
to be close.  And Chris, she was going with him off and on.  Eugene
sounds familiar.  Someone in Chris's crowd was named Eugene.  I don't
know about Eugene-s."
     Dunn studied the page upside down.  "Could be Eugene S.  Do you
know Eugene's last name?  Or Chris's?"
     Negative on both.  J G had two numbers.  The old one, crossed
off, was a Lynn exchange.  The second was Salem.
     "Can you tell me anything about them?  Did Moira talk about them
at all?"  Dunn asked.
     Sasha glanced at her father.  "I think one or the other had been
in some sort of trouble.  It wasn't a particularly good crowd."
     "Trouble with the law?  Any idea what it was?"
     Sasha shook her head.  Dunn got a sense she felt she had to
protect her sister.  Or someone else.  "Moira was ... well, dumb
sometimes.  She kept picking up strays, thinking she could change
them."
     "What about Moira herself?  Was she ever involved?  Was she ever
in trouble?" Dunn asked.
     "No.  Moira wasn't that type."
     Myles leaned forward and cleared his throat. "Was she the type
who could commit suicide?" he asked.
     Sasha paused.  "She kept talking about...escape."
     "Escape?  From what?" Myles continued.
     "'Gotta do something about my life,' she told me."
     "You think ending it was what she had in mind?"
     "I don't know, Officer."
     Dunn had made a copy of the note found on Moira's desk.  He
handed it to the pair and watched them as they read it.
     "'The only way out?'" Mr. Doheny gave a low moan.  "No, sugar,
not the only way out.  Not the only way," he repeated over and over,
fighting for his voice.
     Dunn glanced at Sasha, who was shaking her head.  "Is that
Moira?" he asked.  "Did your sister write that?" he asked quietly.
     Sasha shifted her hold on the child and looked up.  "Not the kid
I grew up with.  But you know, the pain really changed her."  She
couldn't speak after that.  Instead, with her free hand she held the
paper up to her face and inhaled deeply.  It didn't smell of Moira.
It smelled of death.
     Dunn looked at notes like that and thought of the souls who wrote
them, almost more shocking than the act itself.  Putting it on paper
avoids argument.  Buck stops here.  Pen runs dry.  No further
discussion.  If they could be stopped mid-sentence, stopped from
writing the scene they then felt compelled to play out, could they be
saved?  After over 13 years on the force, Dunn still didn't know.  The
more he tried to understand suicides, the less he understood about
everything else.
     Thirteen years a cop.  Nearly nine years a detective, five a
sergeant.  Student pilot for almost two.  Five and a half years since
his piano was last tuned; divorced 4 years; 2 years, 1 month, 4 days
since his last cigarette.  His left knee, injured in a chase 2 years
previously, still bothered him.  He wasn't improving at bat.  A few of
the hairs which topped his 5' 10" frame were no longer the color of
straw.  Cops age earlier than the rest of the world.
     Dunn supposed that every day you didn't have strong enough reason
to die, you kept on living.

          *  *  *







          Chapter 3


     Eugene Sollors flipped off the top of a Rolling Rock and handed
it to Chris.  "You sure it was Judd ratted you out?"
     "Course it was.  He drove Wednesday night.  No one else had the
kind of information he had.  Hell, there wasn't even that much in the
safe."  He took a long swallow of beer.  Chris Alexei was a safe man.
Specialized in square doors and alarm systems.  Mostly the brute force
method where you cut the wires and go away for an hour.  If no one
answered, the place was yours.  You could peel the safe at your
leisure.
     Round doors were tougher.  Usually beyond the capability of his
crow-bar.  But Thursday night the Sports King had had a round door and
it had eventually yielded.  Eugene was with him on that job and had
said it would be worth the effort.  Chris didn't like to deal in
merchandise anymore.  Fucking waste of time.  But Eugene knew baseball
cards.  He was a collector himself, a little sideline.  Eugene knew
which ones were good.  And he claimed they would be untraceable, easy
to get rid of.  Sell a few a week.  Right?  As if.
     Judd Grimes had turned Chris in for a liquor store B and E that
had netted them only a few hundred in cash and some lottery tickets.
Judd had no part in the Sports King job the following night, thank
God.  Chris and Eugene reaped over 80 thousand dollars worth of cards,
plus what cash was in the safe.  Bail would have been considerably
higher if the police had known about that one.
     Chris tapped his bottle.  "The dick-head.  I haven't used him in
a long time, you know.  Shoulda known better.  He's strung out, or
high, or dope-sick or something half the time.  He's been doin' smash
and grabs and getting caught.  Too much snow.  He's too easy to crack.
He thinks he's such a hot-shit wheelman.  Fucker's never driving for
me again.  When'd you get the message they popped me?"
    "Adele told me this morning.  I came right down, Chris."
     "I didn't call Adele.  I called Moira.  Nine, ten last night.  I
told her to call you right away."
     "Well, I did a job last night, OK?  Moira called Adele, Adele was
asleep when I got back.  I didn't hear till eight this morning."
     Bitch.  "She coulda left you a fucking note.  I had to spend all
night in that shit house.   That's the worst lockup I've ever..."
     Eugene got up.  "All right, you're out, OK?  What'd they say
about your liquor store job?  Did you work a deal?"
     "...fucking rat in my cell.  Miracle he was alive, cause it was
cold as a bastard.  Toilet stopped up.  Cement bed..."
     Eugene interrupted:  "Chris, for chrissake, did you talk to them
or what?"
     "...plexiglass over the bars so's you can't hang yourself it's so
bad.  No, asshole, I didn't give them your name, I didn't give them
any other jobs.  All they got is Cosgroves.  Me and Judd.  Lay off
me."
          *  *  *


     While Myles checked with Moira's neighbors on Moody Street, Dunn
tried tracking down her friends.  None of the numbers under Chris and
Eugene were listed in the reverse directory.  The detective made a
note to talk to a friend at the phone company on Monday.  Tracking
down the owners of unlisted and unpublished numbers was a pain in the
butt.  Required a court subpoena if you didn't have a little
connection in the business office.
     Adele's number was listed under Adele Prada, residing on Upham
Street in North Salem, a few short blocks from Moody.  Dunn gave it a
try, but got no answer.
     Next, he called the manager of the Store 24 to find out who might
have been working when the girl died.  Dunn had met the manager a
couple times.  Hank Terrell lived down in the Willows section of
Salem.  Nice guy, cooperative.  Terrell remembered Moira.  Came into
the store any and all hours.  He gave Dunn the name and number of the
midnight shift man.
     Dunn called Archie Pappas and learned that Moira had in fact been
in just after midnight Friday night, early Saturday morning.  He
couldn't remember exactly what time, or what she bought.  The
detective called Terrell back and asked if he could pull the in-store
video-tapes for that day.  Dunn had worked on a robbery of the store
once, and knew that Terrell kept good tapes.  A lot of places had
equipment they paid thousands of dollars for, but they pinched pennies
by never replacing the tapes.  Comes a hold-up and the tape's all
snowy.
     Terrell's tape of the robbery last year could have won an award
for artistic merit.  First a guy walks up to the cashier wearing plaid
pants and a Grateful Dead T-shirt.  Buck teeth, scarred face, shaved
head.  Buys a package of hot-dogs and a pack of Marlboros.  Leaves the
store.
     Five minutes later, same tape, guy with a ski mask and shotgun
walks in, leans over the counter and threatens the cashier.  Plaid
pants, Grateful Dead T-shirt, same height, same hands.  Cleans out the
till.  Gun waving, he backs down aisle three and grabs a package of
hot-dog buns.  Then he beats it.  Perfect disguise.
     The boys played the tape up in CID for weeks.  Could have sold
tickets.
          *  *  *
      Predominantly blue-collar, North Salem was the 23 car beat,
variously known as the milk run or the North Salem retirement
community, not due to the age of the residents, but due to their
penchant for quiet, law-abiding lives.  Cops assigned to the 23 car
were considered to be in retirement.  The ones that had requested 23
spent their nights on dinner breaks.  The ones that hadn't, spent
their nights wondering what they had done wrong.
     North Salem is separated from the rest of the city by the North
River.  To the west it abutts the city of Peabody, to the north the
Danvers River flows into Beverly harbor.  Nearly three-quarters of its
acreage is given to cemetaries and a golf course.  Much of the ward's
tranquility is attributable to the bulk of its population being dead
or golfing.  The remaining four thousand or so, mostly Democrats,
occupy predominantly two-family structures in an area bisected by
Route 114, one of about three major but inadequate traffic routes into
town.  114 is called North Street in Salem, and lined with small
neighborhood shops and wooden houses, it crosses the river and dumps
its convoy at the corner of the McIntire historic district, downtown.
     North Salem had not always been so law-abiding, nor was Moira
Doheny's blood the first blood shed here.  In the 1830's homes in the
neighborhood became stations along the underground railway as slaves
from the south made their treacherous way to Canada.  Some sixty years
earlier, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Leslie was turned back at the
bridge in the earliest known resistance by the colonists, thwarting
the British efforts to uncover munitions hidden in the North fields.
To the current citizenry, who breakfast at Leslie's Retreat, the North
Salem memorial to that illustrious event, to the sons and daughters of
those who resisted inb 1775, the first blood spilled in the
Revolutionary War was Salem blood.

          *  *  *






          Chapter 4


When constabulary duty's to be done, to be done,
The policeman's lot is not a happy one.


                              W. S. Gilbert

     
     Detective Daniel Braedon was staring glumly at his pocket
calendar.  "I wait six weeks to get the weekend off and we land a
homicide."   Moira's address book lay open before him, turned to "D-E-
F".
     Dunn looked up at him.  "It's not officially a homicide, Danny.
But Jake and I have the autopsy in a half hour, and he's looking at
the Store 24 tapes.  Billy's in, too.  He's on a B and E.  Sheila's
off.  I need you to be making these calls, buddy.  We got all kinds of
stuff happening."
     "Sheila's off?  How about me?  I'm fucking off!"
     "You want to find her?  Be my guest.  Only make the calls first."
     "We were going skiing.  Car was all packed when you called.  I
told her we should've left early.  Weekend's half over by the time she
decides what clothes to bring.  And by then she don't need any.  My
next shot, it'll be fucking spring.  Six goddamn weeks."
     "We woulda beeped you.  You can run, Daniel, but you cannot hide.
Anyway, it's seven weeks."
     "What's seven weeks?"
     "Your next weekend off."  Dunn had gone back to his report.  One
of the few detectives to avoid the word processor out of some vague,
unknowable primitive fear, he wrote each word carefully in block,
capital letters, giving his Officer's Reports a look somewhere between
urgency and adolescence.  Sticking to all caps avoided the whole issue
of Capitalization.  It was also easier for the mildly dyslexic writer
to get the words right.  Dyslexia sufficient to insure that reading
and writing would never come easily to the man.  Studying for his
sergeant's exam 7 years ago had been a grim reminder that he had not
entirely overcome the disability.  Yet he had made it.  The day he got
his promotion, anonymous members of the department plastered a
DYSLEXICS UNTIE banner on his bulletin board.  It was three days
before he got it.
     Dunn signed and dated his report, the first of many.  Braedon was
still studying him from three desks away.  "What are you talking
about?  They always told me six weeks.  I work four days, I'm off two,
that's a six-day week."
     "Your days off move back one day a week.  Trust me.  It takes
seven days to get back to the full weekend.  That's seven weeks,
Lapper."
     "They explained it, my first day back is actually the  seventh
day.  So I work five out of seven days..."
     "Forget that crap.  That has nothing to do with it.  Half of what
they tell you has nothing to do with anything."
     Braedon was very quiet.  After a while he said, "You may have
something there, Gabe.  I think I've been given bad information."
     "Just take a look at your calendar.  Count the weeks yourself."
     Braedon looked at the month of January, then turned to February,
then March.  After a few minutes he looked back up at Dunn.  "They've
been screwing me.  For eight years they've been screwing me."
     Dunn grinned at him.  He rolled back his chair, walked to
Braedon's desk and tapped the address book.  "Call these people, will
you, Danny?  Gunstock will still have snow in the spring.  They'll
make it for you specially."
     Dunn's trouble had been the middles of words.  He'd nail the
beginning, the ending, stare at it and the sucker would look complete.
But the middle would have leaked out like a liquid center cherry.
Decedent still occasionally came out decent, and sometimes descant on
some of his reports.  Myles would read them out loud and suddenly
burst into song, usually the high-soprano part of "America the
Beautiful."
          *  *  *








          Chapter 5

     Moira's father came down to the hospital morgue Saturdaynight to
make positive identification prior to the autopsy.  Myles met him in
the hallway and took him inside.  Dr. Mei raised the covering from the
girl's face.  She glanced up at Mr. Doheny.  He began to shake.
"That's my little girl," he whispered.
     Myles led him back out to the corridor and gave him a cigarette.
"She always got after me to quit, you know.  I told her when she gave
up running with thieves I'd give up smoking."
     "Do you need a ride home, Mr. Doheny?" Myles asked.
     "No, thanks.  I've got the truck.  What happens to her now?  When
they're done in there?" he asked, controlling his voice with
difficulty.
     "The medical examiner will probably release the body first thing
in the morning.  You can make your arrangements then."
     Mr. Doheny looked back at the door to the morgue.  "How long will
it take?"
     "The post-mortem?  An hour or two," Myles said.
     "Maybe I should wait..."
     This is no operation; she won't be going to no Recovery...
     "That's not really necessary, Mr. Doheny.  They won't be able to
tell you anything tonight.  You want me to call Sasha?"
     Mr. Doheny looked through Myles, to some point inches behind his
head.  "No, that's all right.  I've got the truck..."
     "Right."

          *  *  *




Walk on the wild side
     

     On the way back from the autopsy, Dunn and Myles took a quick
detour through the Point to check out what was happening on the street
and to see if anyone would own up to shooting Moira Doheny.
     The Point neighborhood of Salem was the 22 car beat, the only two-
man beat in the city.  90% of the police log addresses were in the
Point.  Separating the area from the waters of the South River and
Salem Harbor were industrial buildings, boatyards, and darkened, brick
apartment houses, gutted by despair and drained of life.  In the dim
doorways of Ward and Harbor Streets, in the bright lights of
Lafayette, you could get whatever you wanted and a lot of things you
didn't want.  On Saturday nights the detectives routinely rolled
through the neighborhood once or twice in their familiar unmarked Ford
Crown Victorias, making their presence known, checking out any new
players, passing the time with the old.
     For the regulars, almost all Saturday drug activity ceased
between 4 and 12 when the night shift detectives were on, except
between nine and ten when they were known to return to the office to
watch TV.
     Most of the CID night detectives had worked the 22 beat when they
were in uniform.  Cops bid on 22 if they wanted to do police work and
catch bad guys.  The "real" section, they called it.  They were the
"real" police.
     Dunn and Myles made a quick circuit down Congress Street, then
onto Palmer, finally turning back onto Lafayette.  A group of familiar
faces in front of the Lincoln Hotel spilled over the curb and out into
the street.  A couple of them were brawling.  Breath hung in the air
like steam.  It was colder than a witch's tit.  One of the faces waved
down the car.
     Myles rolled down his window as he slowed the car.  The air
smacked him in the face.  "Hey, handsome," he said to the nearest man.
A babble of greetings ushered forth.  Several in the group had played
against the Salem Police Department softball team once last summer.
The civilian team called themselves Las Antilles.  Every member had
done time.  The shortstop had narrowly escaped an assault charge 2
weeks earlier.  Their pitcher had just finished 3 years of state time.
     The detectives asked if anyone in the group had known Moira
Doheny.  Seemed an unlikely match, but Dunn had had stranger sources
in his time.  The name was passed around like an echo.  No dice.
     "Hey, gringo," yelled the pitcher.  "When we gonna play again?"
     "When you guys are ready to lose again," Dunn answered.  The cops
called them Las Enchiladas.  "Where's the rest of your team?"
     "Le's play tonight," said the shortstop.
     "Gotta work, pal," Dunn responded, leaning over Myles.  "Will you
guys call me if you hear anything on this girl?  She had a boyfriend,
Chris something."
     "Rematch!  We wanna rematch!  Anything - volleyball, wrestling,
you name it, man."
     "How about a footrace?" Dunn suggested.  Myles looked at his
watch.  'COPS' was starting in twenty minutes.
     "A what???" said the shortstop.
     "A race.  Right now.  All the way around the block.  Me and you."
     "Around the block?  You suggesting a fucking marathon, man."  The
kid looked extremely doubtful.
     "Come on!  It'll get you in shape for the game.  If you win, I'll
pay you ten dollars," said Dunn.
     "An' if you win?"
     "We get to throw you in jail overnight," Myles answered.
     The kid laughed and backed away.  "I'm in bad shape, man."
     Dunn rejoined: "Just one night.  We promise you.  It won't be so
bad."
     The shortstop turned back to his friends.  "I gotta finish
killing this man," he said over his shoulder.  "An' you gonna miss
your TV show."
     "He's right," said Myles, who put the car in drive and began to
crank up the window.  "Hasta la eggroll," he yelled out to the group.
     "I'll give you a head start," Dunn shouted out through Myles's
window.
     "He's gotta kill the man," Myles explained, accelerating down
Lafayette.  "And we got our show."
     At the New Derby Street intersection Myles pulled around a slow-
moving Bronco towing a rowboat on a makeshift platform with wheels.
"Get a real trailer," he hollered in annoyance.

          *  *  *














     Chapter 6


My Lord calls me,
He calls me by the thunder
The trumpet sounds within my soul;
I ain't got long to stay here.

     
     
     Saturday night just before nine, it started to snow.  Chris
lay down on his waterbed.  One way to end an intolerable day is
to go to bed.  Furthermore, he had had no sleep the night before
in the jail cell.  From where he lay, Chris watched the
distracting onslaught attack his bedroom window.  Visual white
noise.  Moira had been crying when he last held her here.  Deep
sobs coming from somewhere other than her head pain.
     "I gotta get away from you, Chris," she had said.  "I don't
know if I can, but I gotta try."
     "It bothers you now, what I do?"
     She was quiet.  Then she said: "I got used to the gifts.  I
got used to not asking where they came from, I guess.  Not
wondering, Chris.  Not caring.  But it's different now."
     "Why is it different now?"
     She didn't answer.
     "What am I gonna do?  Maybe be a phone company repair man?   Take
home a quarter what I do now.  How are we gonna afford your medical
bills?  On your paychecks maybe?"
     She rolled over and looked out the window.  It was snowing that
night, too.  "I'm so cold.  I think the cold makes the headaches
worse.  I think I'd be better off down south.  I could live cheaper,
too.  Maybe Florida."
     "Florida?  Jesus."
     "I want to see Universal Studios, you know?  And Disneyworld.
Always wanted to see that.  It must be heaven living down there."
     "What am I gonna do in Florida, for chrissakes!"
     "Yeah, it would be like going to heaven," she murmured closing
her eyes.
     He rubbed her neck for awhile.  "There's safes in Florida, I
suppose."
     "Lie on the beach and eat all those oranges," she purred.
     "I'll get you oranges.  All the oranges you want."
     Then the pain started again.  He could feel it in her neck.  "No,
Chris.  You can't come,"  she said in a faint voice.  The stiffness
gradually spread throughout her body.  "Oh, God, it hurts..."  She
curled herself up into a fetal position and started to shake.  "I'm so
cold," she said, choking on tears.
     Chris wrapped himself around her and held her until she fell
asleep.
          *  *  *

Steal away, steal away home,
I ain't got long to stay here.

     
     At 10:35 Saturday night, a confidential source called in a
not so anonymous tip.  A Mom and Pop store on Boston Street next
to the Peabody line was going to be hit.  Sometime after
midnight.  The guy was certain and convincing enough to warrant a
stakeout.  Dunn hung up and swore.  Myles was still watching TV.
     "Hope you didn't have plans, Jake.  We're gonna go watch a
store."
     Within a half hour they had picked a spot at the far side of
a lot next door to the target.  A few overnight parkers and a
tree which intensified the darkness offered them some protection
against discovery.  Their view from the west was good.  The thief
would probably try the back door.  The windows on the east side
were too visible from the busy street.
     THe snow had stopped.  The detectives unpacked their coffees
in the dark.  Surveillances always began with some requisite
grumbling.  This time Dunn started them off.
     "I was supposed to solo today.  Instead I get a murder and
this shit."  He sighed.
     Myles laughed.  "You wish it was a murder.  Why the hell
couldn't he pick this place?" he said, pointing to the store
whose lot they occupied, store and lot both located in the city
of Peabody.  Myles then switched to berating Christmas
decorations, still in store windows, visible from where they sat.
     "Jake, it's only January," Dunn retorted.
     "They'll still be up in March.  That's the thing about it." For
Jake Myles, the mantle of police responsibility was a heavy one.
     "Well, save your bitching for March."
     Myles shut up for a minute.  Then:  "How're we gonna see anything
if the snow starts up again?  We'll be pretty obvious if we have the
fucking wipers going all night."
     Dunn answered, "Jake, let's not bleed until we're cut."
     Finally, Myles was quiet for a while.  Dunn thought about the
autopsy, three hours earlier.  The ballistician's first impression of
the bullet they removed from Moira's head had been that the caliber
looked right for the Charter Arms.  No surprise there.  Looked like
one of the low quality practice loads.
     Death was due to the single bullet wound.  The trajectory and
powder burns were not inconsistent with firing at close range, and
with the gun positioned in her right hand.  The family had confirmed
that the victim had been right-handed.
     Dr. Mei had found signs of the recent head injury.  Moira's pain
had been real.  Toxicology results would take a couple weeks, however.
The medical examiner could not find evidence of drugs or medication
based on physical findings.
     There had been some discussion over the manner of death.  Dr. Mei
was prepared to rule it a suicide, but one result of the examination
had given Dunn a foothold.  "It was one more complication," she had
argued.
     "It was a reason to live," Dunn had countered.
     Dr. Mei had looked him in the eye.  "OK, Gabe. I'll mark it
'pending.'  Get to work."
     Moira Doheny had been three months pregnant.

          *  *  *

     "He ain't coming," said Myles.  It was nearly two a.m.  They were
cold and bored.  Myles's cup was in a thousand small pieces.  Dunn's
was pierced through and through like a colander.  Both had done this
many, many times.  That didn't make it particularly interesting
anymore.  They were each sick of the other's life and opinions.
     "That's the fortieth time you've said that."  A moment later,
Dunn's beeper vibrated.  He checked the number and picked up the car
phone.
     It was their informant.  This particular thief had changed his
mind and gone to Marblehead.  Dunn thanked him for the update.  "Screw
this," he muttered and switched on the ignition.

          *  *  *




     Gabe Dunn's job with the force had taught him that life did
indeed have a dark side.   For him the best defenses were a deep and
unyielding sense of humor to face it and total submersal in music to
escape it.  Sometimes life's bright side was equally hard to face and
required an even greater sense of humor.  But through it all,
confronting or not, tunes ran through his mind endlessly, as though
his lifetime were an unending opera.  Songs were the vessels of his
emotions.  Without melodies to define them, Dunn's reactions eluded
and confused him.
     The detective didn't play the piano well enough to keep his next-
door neighbor from pounding on the wall.  Dunn had never had lessons
and rarely had a willing audience.  What he did have in his favor was
Roger, the neighbor's unregistered dog, forcing a sort of delicate
truce between the two tenants.  When Dunn crashed his way through the
Moonlight Sonata, the neighbor wouldn't call the landlord.  When Roger
crapped on their walk, Dunn wouldn't call the dog officer.  For three
unregistered years he had tolerated the animal, watching it grow up
from puppyhood.  Dunn could remember when the turds were only the size
of triple-A batteries.
     The one time Dunn had spoken directly to Roger's owner was when
he had apologized for a vigorous Chopin mazurka that had helped him
recover from a big drug case he had lost in court.
     "Chopin?" the guy answered from a crack in the door. "I thought
it was Slayer."  From behind the man, the dog barked.  As the door
slammed shut, Dunn yelled, "That's not a dog you've got in there, is
it?"






          Chapter 7
You don't know what a man is
until you have to please one
     
     Adele woke up Sunday morning with the same recurring, crippling
sensation she had had all week:  she had ended up with the wrong guy.
     When Chris had called Friday night from jail asking for Eugene
and needing help, the sound of his voice had sent a wave through her
body that had left her bewildered and agitated.  Over the course of a
few days her relatively contented existence had turned to one of
discontent, settling rapidly into an abiding, bone-aching despair.
She had known Chris for over two years.  She had liked him at times,
resented him at times, but had never loved him, particularly.  Before.
     Eugene took pretty good care of her.  Eugene had respect among
their friends, his partners.  Eugene always knew what to say, had the
last word, the best joke.  Objectively speaking, he was better
looking.  But somehow, now, Chris's face held some newfound secret.
Chris had been transformed.
     She was paralyzed, pinned to the bed with the weight of his
image.  Every cliche true, and every one of them inadequate.  All
other men were wretched for not being this one man.
     She turned and gazed around the room.  Eugene's stuff was all
over the place.  A pair of his sneakers lay where he had dropped them
last.  These Nikes had carried him over rooftops, down fire escapes,
away from cops.  They had thrilled her with their essential maleness.
Now they were pathetic.  Like artificial feet.  They didn't fool her
anymore.  How could Eugene know what a half-man he had become?  His
sudden diminishment choked her with something akin to profound pity.
     The phone exploded by her ear.  She recoiled for a moment in
irritation, unable to leave where she was.  Her arms were glued to the
bed with her anguish.  The rude intrusion was more than she could
bear.
     But it could be Chris.
     Chris had given her the impression for two years that she, Adele,
was not quite his type.  He had taken no more than polite interest in
her during the times they had all spent together, Eugene and Adele,
Chris and Moira, then Chris and whoever, then back with Moira.  Or
Chris and Judd, or someone else, when they had a job to do.  It wasn't
for Adele that Chris came over.  It was for everything but.  One
thing, though, now Moira was dead.
     Moira Doheny was dead.
     Adele shoved one hand back into reality and yanked the receiver
to her ear.  "Hello?"
     "Is this Adele Prada?"
     She wasn't seriously expecting it to be him, but the
disappointment made her aware of how hard her heart was pounding.
"That's me," she whispered with effort.  Who the hell was this guy,
another half-man.
     "This is Gabe Dunn, Salem Police.  We're investigating the death
of Moira Doheny.  I believe you were acquainted with her?"
     "Yes, I heard."  Adele cleared her throat, getting her voice to
engage.  "She shot herself or something yesterday?"
     "We haven't made a final determination.  We would like to ask you
a few questions if you don't mind.  Would it be possible for us to
drop by this morning?"
     Adele looked at the clock.  It was 9:15.  Eugene was supposed to
come over later.  God knows when.  "What time?"
     "At your convenience."
     "All right,  OK.  Give me like an hour?"
     "We'll be there," Dunn said and hung up.
     Adele dialed Eugene's apartment and left a warning on his
answering machine.  Then she got up to take a shower.
     The hot water embraced and comforted her.  Grab hold of the
reins, Adele, she commanded, squeezing shut her eyes to force Chris's
face from her mind.  Officer, Eugene and I were together all night.
She was in a lot of pain.  She was always in such pain.  I wish I
could have done something more for her.  Moira shot herself.  She shot
herself.  So sorry to hear...so sorry.
          *  *  *


Still hear your voice
and it's telling me lies
     
     
     No fresh, unsmudged prints had been found on the typewriter
when Myles had fumed it.  He had even checked the power switch.
The machine now sat on the counter next to the copier in the
detectives' office.  For ten minutes Dunn stared at it from his
seat.  Her final words?  Her last confidant?  Somehow he didn't
think so.  They had removed and bagged the paper, and tested the
typeface at the scene.  It had compared positively with the note.
Masquerading as Moira's oracle, this instrument of deceit had
betrayed her.  But Dunn knew that it would take a lot more than
intuition to justify department time and money be spent on what
even the girl's relatives had accepted as a suicide.
     The black IBM Selectric, far better than the one the CID
had, was now ruined by the SuperGlue they used in the fuming.
What do you say to the family when you destroy a thousand-dollar
piece of equipment?  Same thing you say when you hack their
ceiling apart looking for drugs, or rip new kitchen cabinets down
looking for old bullet holes.  You say, "Sorry!"
     Dunn looked at his watch.  Forty-five minutes to kill before
he visited Adele.  He still had to talk to Moira's doctor at some
point.  Might as well do it on the way over.  But first he picked
up the phone and dialed his sister, partly to reassure himself
that she was alive.
     "Hi, kid," he said when she answered.  For a moment he felt
tenderness towards her, as he often did during cases like these.
Lots of cops come home after brutal homicides and hold their
families a little more closely.  Appreciating what they've got.
     Rachel didn't answer for a moment.  Dunn thought he could hear
fuming over the line, or else it was a bad connection.
     "You forgot my birthday," came her cold reply.
     Dunn closed his eyes.  Yes, he forgot her birthday Friday.  "I've
been on a case..."
     "Saturday.  I heard.  She died Saturday.  I was born Friday."
     "You know, Rachel, I'm not so sure it was a Friday in 1965...I
mean, that's real cute the way you said that and all, but not
entirely..."
     "You can't even be sorry.  You have to be an asshole."
     Then he remembered.  "Wait ... no, I sent you a card!  I didn't
forget!"
     He was answered with sarcasm.  "Yeah, right."
     "You didn't get it?  I sent it ... Let's see, I sent it
Thursday."
     "Wow, maybe my postman died.  It would have been late, though,
even if he had lived."  Rachel's tone was relentless.
     "What is it with you, Rachel?  All the rest of us were so even-
tempered and good-natured.  How'd you turn out so hot-headed?  Four
kids raised in the same family.  You must have been a foundling left
on our doorstep."
     "There's no such thing as the same family.  For each kid, the
family's a different one."  This was her favorite speech.  Dunn had
had it easy.  Her life had been hard.  Dunn had had a mother through
most of it, whom Rachel could hardly remember.
     "Don't pout," he said calmly.
     She began to scream.  "Cut out that shitty stereotyping of women!
You always do that."
     "I'm not talking about women, I'm talking about you."
     Rachel thought this might be some further insult.  She came close
to hanging up.  "You are...attempting.. to put me down ... when you...
use words like 'pout'.  I.. don't.. pout.  I.. have a ..short.. upper
lip," she explained in even, trembling tones, bordering on
hyperventilation.
     So that explained 26 years of his sister's sulking.  "Happy
birthday," he said quietly.
     There was a long silence.  Then she started to cry.  "It's not
the birthday.  It's everything else."
     "Everything else," he echoed, with sensitivity, he thought.
     "I gotta go," she said.  Rachel didn't like crying in front of
her brother.  She hung up.
     "I love you," Dunn said into the receiver.

          *  *  *












     Chapter 8



If you can't be with the one you love, honey,
love the one you're with.

     
     Dr. Kevin Merck slipped the leash over the dog's head and
opened his front door.  As he stepped out onto his porch, the red
Crown Victoria pulled up to the curb in front of the Lowell
Street bungalow.  Dunn switched off a rather sloppy production of
Carmen and got out.
     "Dr. Merck?  Gabe Dunn, Salem Police.  I said I'd be by, is
this a bad time?"
     Dr. Merck nudged the dog down the steps and approached the
detective.  "I've got to walk this dog.  Can we talk on the way?"
     "Sure."  Dunn was grateful the doctor was willing to talk at
all.  Many wouldn't.  "Lead on."
     The doctor looked about Dunn's age - mid-to-late thirties.
Burgundy sweater and an Eddie Bauer jacket.  Already doing well.
The house was no mansion, but had seen a lot of remodeling and
had a nice view of Juniper Cove, where his street dead-ended.
The two men and the dog, trailing along behind like a small
sheep, headed up toward Fort Avenue.
     "When was the last time you saw Moira Doheny?"
     "She was in earlier this week, actually.  Monday, I believe.  I
could check for you later.  Her file's at my office."
     "How long was she your patient?"
     The doctor thought for a moment.  "Let's see - two years, maybe a
bit more.  Long before her accident."
     Dunn glanced over his shoulder.  "Nice looking dog," he lied.
"What's his..." he bent over. "...her name?"  The over-weight black
Lab turned vaguely needy eyes toward him and waddled on with
determination.
     "I don't know.  I'm babysitting it for a friend this week.  Dog-
sitting.  I forgot to ask.  I've been calling it Snowball.  We used to
have a cat, Snowball.  I'm more a cat person."
     Dunn looked back down.  "Good name.  You know, I think it's a
she," he said and smiled.  "But then you're the doctor.  Can you tell
me about the accident?"
     "Not much to tell," answered the doctor.  "She suffered a
concussion, a couple fractures, wrist, I think.  Moira was unconscious
for several hours.  We kept her in the hospital for about three weeks.
The head injury left her with chronic, post-traumatic headaches.  If I
recall, the diagnosis was probably subdural hematoma."
     "What were you giving her for them?" asked Dunn.
     "Phenobarbital.  For awhile, diazepam, but that didn't do
anything for her.  I've tried various courses, I don't remember.
They'd be in her file."
     "What was the prognosis?"
     "When was the accident?  Last spring?  I don't think her pain had
diminished at all.  I told her I knew of a few cases where after a
year or two patients seemed to go into remission.  But more commonly,
if the pain lasted this long, there was a good possibility it was long
term."
     Dunn looked at him.  "In other words, you didn't have any idea."
     Dr. Merck shrugged.
     They had crossed onto Winter Island.  A pheasant exploded from
the brush on the opposite side of the road and streaked across their
path.  The two men looked back to see if the dog would react.  She
returned a look tinged with hope.  Perhaps it was time to turn back.
The pheasant had made no visual impact other than a faint, subliminal
message reminding her somehow that she was hungry and out of breath.
     Dunn bent down and scratched her under the chin.  "Real trooper.
She's a real trooper."  Her eyes filled with intense gratitude.  She
sniffed his mouth.
     "Maybe we're walking too fast for it," said the doctor, looking
burdened.  He sighed.  "Would a dog like this really protect my home
against all intruders?"  They continued, strolling slowly.
     "I've seen where EMTs couldn't get past a dog to save the owner's
life."  Dunn considered whether the owner of this dog would have that
problem.  He could imagine Snowball's Living Will:  Please do not take
extraordinary measures to walk me after my time has come.  "On the
other hand, I've gone into B and E scenes where there's a dog home and
you almost have to suspect them of complicity.  They just smile up at
you.  Had one once, the thieves bribed a Saint Bernard with a package
of gourmet blueberry muffins from the victim's kitchen counter.  The
owner warned us before we went in that the dog could be dangerous.
But when we did go in, there was the dog lying on the kitchen floor,
burping quietly.  The only thing left was bits of cellophane wrapper.
And a shelf where the VCR had been."
     The doctor nodded.  "I think the other Snowball, the feline
version, was more effective.  At least cats can make you feel
embarrassed to be there.  When a cat looks at you, you feel like
scum."
     They reached the public landing and turned to follow the beach up
toward the lighthouse.  The dog was lagging more and more.  Dunn
nearly offered to carry her.
     "Snowball, heel!" the doctor tried lamely.  The dog continued
waddling slowly, but a tragic expression filled her face.
     "What do you know about the circumstances of the accident?  Had
Moira been drinking?" Dunn asked.
     "Oh, let's see... if I recall there was evidence of a moderate
amount of alcohol, maybe some drugs.  I'd have to check the file.
While she was in the hospital she couldn't tell anything about how it
happened.  She had no memory of the accident, even where she was going
or where she had come from."
     "Did any of it come back to her?"
     Dr. Merck tugged on the leash.  "Took her a few months.  She told
me eventually she remembered being at a party.  But she couldn't
figure out what she was doing driving alone near the Kernwood bridge.
I think she was starting to remember more and more.  She asked me what
she could do to get more to come back to her.  Something bothered her
about it.  Something didn't make sense to her.  I told her just give
it time."
     Dunn made a mental note to check the accident report.  "Let me go
back to the headaches for a second.  What was Moira's attitude?  Was
she optimistic?  Could she handle the pain?"
     "Some of the time, yes.  Some of the time, I'd have to say no.
She wanted assurances that things would improve eventually.  Pain's
more bearable when you know it will end.  But I couldn't give her any
assurances."
     "Did she ever talk to you about suicide?" Dunn asked.
     "No, not to me.  I gave her the name of a therapist I thought she
should see, someone who I thought could council her more effectively
than I could.  I don't know if she looked up this woman or not."
     "Could I get her name?"
     "Sure.  I've got her number at the house.  I'll write it down for
you when we get back."
     Dunn asked:  "Dr. Merck, would you believe Moira was capable of
suicide?"
     The doctor waited a full minute before answering quietly.  "Yes.
I think she was capable."
     Dunn looked at him in surprise.
     They turned around and headed back toward the causeway.  The dog
seemed to recognize a return trip and perked up slightly.  They didn't
have to carry her.  When they reached Dr. Merck's gate, the lab pushed
ahead and led them to the door.
     "How does she know this is home?  Aren't you actually a
stranger?" Dunn asked.  He reached down to rub her neck.
     Dr. Merck laughed.  "That's right.  She doesn't know me from
Adam.  Her owner dropped her off last night and threw her bed into the
middle of my kitchen floor, which, by the way, looks like some kind of
leaky cedar bean bag chair.  The bed, not the floor.  Patched with
duct tape.  As long as her bed's here, and I feed her, this is home."
     Dunn located a set of tags on the lab's collar.  One was shaped
like a hydrant and bore testimony to the fact that she was caught up
on her shots.  The other was shaped like a heart and contained her
name and address.  "Her name's Martha," Dunn announced.
     "I don't even like dogs," Merck said.
     Dunn smiled.  "Could'a fooled me."


          *  *  *




     The sound of Eugene's voice on the phone no longer did to Adele
what it used to do.  He was attempting to sound patient and reasonable
but to Adele he came off more like runny eggs.  "Not that we have
anything to worry about Adele, but just to keep things simple, we were
both at your place Friday night and Saturday morning, OK?  That way
the police won't hassle either of us."
     "Why would I need an alibi, Eugene?"
     "Why would I need one, Adele?  Do I have to explain it again?  We
don't need the cops on our backs.  Let's make their job easier, OK?
They'll solve her death a lot faster if we don't confuse them with any
'where were yous'."
     "What's to solve?   She killed herself," Adele countered, trying
to scrape off the uncooked parts of the conversation.
      "Yeah.  I'm just saying that if they have to do any head
scratching they'll start digging in areas that have nothing to do with
Moira.  If she had friends with records, they become suspects even
when there's no crime.  You know?"
     Adele was quiet.  Finally she asked, "You ever going to stop,
Eugene?"
     "Stop what?  You mean get a job?"
     She shifted uncomfortably.  The phone was quiet for a moment.
     "You tired of gold chains around your neck?  Got your nice
bedroom set, your nice car, I can stop now?  Thanks, Adele."
     She still didn't speak, letting the dialogue congeal.
     "Anyway, I got a job, remember?" Eugene added.  "I'm a driver,
when I can find work, which I can't at the moment.  Times are tough,
Adele.  Times are tough."

          *  *  *






          Chapter 9

     
Hey lady, you got the love I need,
maybe more than enough,
oh darlin, darlin, darlin, walk a while with me,

               Jimmy Page "Over the hills and far away"
     
     Dunn went alone to see Adele Prada.  Her apartment was on the
second floor of a newly renovated three-decker.  She opened the door
wide and wore a hard, bored look.  In contrast to her tough demeanor,
her hallway was lined with framed prints of hands clasped in
supplication and poems that began with Dad... in very large script.
Adele's manner and decor seemed straight out of Salem's Point
neighborhood, high crime, tenements in disrepair, a heavy dependence
on drugs and on framed prayers hanging on the walls.  She gave the
impression of a woman on her way up in the world, but not yet
comfortable with up.
     Adele motioned toward a chair, part of a dining room set she
seemed almost surprised to find in her dining room.  She sat across
from him and lit the end of a Newport light, settling then into a look
of suspicion.  A pearly banana clip caught up chemically-overtreated
curls into a kind of mane.  Big hair, they called it.
     "What can you tell me about Moira Doheny?"
     Her eyes narrowed.  "What do you want to know?"
     Warming to the attention, Adele Prada turned out to be talkative,
with a funny mixture of loquacity and caution.  She skittered around
in the interview like a crab.  Moira Doheny had come onto the scene a
little over two years earlier.  Adele had met her through a mutual
friend.
     "What mutual friend?"
     Adele paused.  Dunn continued:  "Could it have been 'Eugene?'  Or
'Chris?'  Or 'J.G.?'"
     Adele seemed to be considering in which direction to dodge.
She'd be a terror on the football field.  Finally:  "It was Chris."
     "Chris who?"
     "Chris Alexei," she said with resignation.  "We were at a
party..." she started a lengthy description of the party.
     Dunn had stopped listening.  Alexei.  Some sort of trouble...A
bell went off.  What was that kid's name?  Christian Alexei.  Arrested
Friday night for the Cosgrove's break-in earlier in the week.  He and
Myles had picked up another guy that afternoon trying to cash in some
stolen lottery tickets at a convenience store.  Grimes.  Judd Grimes.
J.G.  Another friend of Moira's?
     Grimes was looking for enough cash to buy his drugs.  Sitting in
the office, he was hurting sufficiently to come around in record time.
Didn't want no lockup.  He had been Alexei's wheel man for the
Cosgrove's job, and undoubtedly a few others.  Dunn had hoped for a
connection to the Sports King theft, but Grimes seemed not to have
been involved with that one.  Grimes was a loser.  If Alexei were any
good, he probably only used him when he had to.
     Judd Grimes gave the cops Chris Alexei.  Dunn gave Grimes $25
personal bail so the guy could get on with his shopping.
     "Who bailed Chris out yesterday?" Dunn asked.
     Adele paused.  Dunn was getting tired of all the silent
negotiation.  He added: "Adele, I can check the bail slip.  Whoever
paid it will want their money back."
     "Eugene," she said.
     "Eugene!"  Eugene...s.  "Eugene in trouble, too?"
     She smiled.  "Not at the moment."
     "Who is Eugene?"
     Eugene Sollors.  Adele's boyfriend.  Dunn suggested he could look
up Sollors's life story, so Adele saved him the trouble and related
it.  Sollors had a little history.  Had worked occasionally with
Chris.  Had done some state time.  According to Adele, Eugene had gone
straight.  He was terrified to go back in.
     "Cleaned up his act.  Eugene would do anything now to stay out of
jail.  Even got a job."
     "What's his job?" Dunn asked.
     "He's a truck driver.  He does deliveries.  It's part-time, but a
job's a job."
     "You know of anyone who might have had a reason to want Moira
dead?"
     Adele looked surprised.  "You think she didn't kill herself?"
     "You knew her well?"  Dunn asked.  "Do you think she could have?"
     Adele fumbled.  "Well, she was having bad pains... who else could
have?  Eugene was with me all night."
     Guess that means, too, that you were with him, Dunn surmised.
We've got alibis.  Nicely done.  "Anybody have a beef with her?" he
asked.
     She thought for a moment.  Not remembering, but running through
her options again.  "Chris has a problem with Judd Grimes."
     Dunn smiled.  "Well, Judd did turn him in.  I'd have a problem,
too."  The interview kept rolling back to Chris.
     "No, I mean besides that," she said.  "He thinks Judd was seeing
Moira while he was in prison last year."
     Jail was a cost of doing business for guys like Chris.  Dunn
recalled their lengthy interview Friday night after they picked him
up.  Chris could do time.  Took it well, did what he was supposed to
do, seized every opportunity to work off some of the stretch: good
behavior, classes, AA, jobs, worked in the kitchen when he was lucky.
You could shave two and a half days a month off your stretch.  Some
guys couldn't do time.  But Chris could.
     Only one problem.  Every night for 6 months you wonder who's with
your woman.  Makes you crazy.  Wanna make yourself really crazy?  You
wonder if it's a cop with her.
     "Was he?" asked Dunn.
     Adele was holding back, sorting out a complex set of alliances,
debts and payoffs.  Dunn knew the look and could hear the calculator
humming.  Somewhere inside she punched the subtotal key.
     "If he was, he was careful," she hedged.
     Come on.  Give me more.
     "They were seen a couple times."  Grand total.  "Judd's a loser.
If Moira was doing anything, it was charity work.  Know what I mean?"
     "Did Chris know?" the detective asked.
     "We never said anything to him, but I think he found out."  She
sighed.  You do your best to protect someone...
     Dunn had seen it hundreds of times.  Inmates' visits with
girlfriends began and ended with "Are you gonna wait for me?"  "Will
you be there when I get out?"  Desperate questions with irrelevant
answers.  But what did they expect?  Their career choice.  You pays
your money and you takes your choice.
     He thanked Adele and left.

          *  *  *

     Dunn knew a guy from high school, Frank Mallory, now on the
force.  Officer Mallory drove the 23 car on the night shift, was a
pretty good cop, but a strange man.  One of those guys who'd back-door
a restaurant to get a free meal.  When Dunn was still married and his
wife Claire was pregnant, Mallory's wife Rose was at about the same
stage, and under the care of the same obstetrician.  The four of them
ran into each other in Dr. Kramer's waiting room a few times. The two
women compared notes, stories, pains, magazine articles, and fatigue.
The two men talked shop, primarily departmental scuttlebutt.  Who's
eating whose calls, who's taking all the good details, taking all the
credit, bidding on nights, screwing around.  No housewife can hold a
candle to a cop when it comes to gossiping.
     During Claire's eighth month the visits became weekly.  One
Tuesday morning the Dunns walked into Dr. Kramer's waiting room and
saw Frank Mallory flipping through a Sports Illustrated.  Next to him
was a woman, probably in her seventh month, who definitely was not
Rose.  A little something on the side, a victim of a housebreak seven
months ago who had been the beneficiary of Officer Mallory's
'counseling' the night after the crime.  Frank Mallory had apparently
made a choice.  Rose Mallory went the rest of the way alone.

          *  *  *

You're the reason I live
You're the reason I die...
                    Aerosmith "Angel"
     It was like a sick good news bad news joke:  The good news is the
little woman is pregnant.  The bad news is she's also dead...
     Dunn hadn't gotten to the good news part.  He was studying Chris
Alexei from across a living room of furniture reminiscent of Moira's,
like His and Hers sweaters.  Chris was holding onto composure like a
drowning man clutches a flotation device.
     As though any composure at all needed some explanation, Chris
said:  "Actually, I knew.  I ... found out last night."  He swallowed
a couple of times, then looked up at Dunn.  "Can you tell me anything
... I heard she shot herself."
     "We only know that she died of a gunshot wound.  Were you close
to her?"
     Chris looked up toward the ceiling.  "Yes.  You could say that.
I ... yeah, close."  His pain seemed genuine.  "When did it happen?"
he asked.
     "Sometime early yesterday morning, is the best we can determine."
     "While I was in jail ..." somewhere between a question and
statement.
     "Chris, where did you go after you were released yesterday?" Dunn
asked.
     "Home.  I came here.  I took a shower and went to sleep."
     "You were here by yourself?"
     "Yeah."
     "Anyone see you when you got here?"
     "No."
     "There's something else I need to ask you," Dunn said.
     The eyes turned back to him.
     "Did you know Moira was pregnant?"
     This time it was the surprise that was genuine.  "No ..." the boy
whispered.  "Don't do this to me, man!"  Chris buried his face in his
fists and began to sob.
     Dunn sat for a few minutes.  Nothing more to ask right now.  He
felt unequipped for this part.  What did the Manual say?  Well, pal,
we can continue this later.  I'll see myself out.  Don't forget ...
court tomorrow, nine A.M.  "Do you want a glass of water?" he asked
Chris.  The boy didn't hear.
     Dunn saw himself out.


          *  *  *
     When Dunn returned to the office, Det. Daniel Braedon had
scrawled the results of his phone research covering pages A through Z
of Moira's address book onto the back of a Cruiser Deficiency Report
form and left it on Dunn's desk.  A few numbers were old or
disconnected.  Another few were no-answers.  Two didn't know or
remember the victim.  Of the remainder, many but not all had known of
Moira's pain.  None knew of other reasons for despondency.  Or of
people who would want to hurt her.  Or how she had spent her last day.
The only one to talk to her that day was a Paula DeCotis, who had
received a call from Moira somewhere between 11 and 12 Friday night.
DeCotis lived about a block and a half from Moira.  Moira had wanted
to borrow her car.  DeCotis couldn't accommodate, because the car had
been loaned to someone else.  DeCotis had asked if Moira wanted to be
contacted when the car was returned. Moira had said, in exact words
according to DeCotis, "No, I have a better idea."  Moira gave no
indication of what she wanted the car for, only that she wouldn't need
it more than a few minutes, quarter of an hour at most.  End of
conversation.
     Dunn looked up at the map of Salem on the opposite wall.  Seven
minutes each way meant her target could have been almost any part of
the city that time of night, and a good chunk of Peabody, Danvers or
Beverly.  Her boyfriend was being held at the police station.  Was she
coming to bail him out?  15 minutes wouldn't have been enough time.
Just the same, he'd check the booking form for the time of Alexei's
phone call.
     Unless her destination were very close by, Moira had not been
intending a social call.  That left a pick-up or drop-off, or possibly
getting word to someone who had no phone.  What was her 'better idea'?
     Dunn turned the page over.  The 33 car allegedly suffered a blown
left headlight.  No officer name, no date.
          *  *  *








          Chapter 10


     Adele had come up with addresses for Grimes and Sollors.  Myles
picked the former and headed across the bridge to Beverly.  Federal
Street was about a mile up Rantoul.  The detective pulled up in front
of Saint Mary, Star of the Sea, which boasted a school by day and
Beano games at night.  Grimes's apartment house was diagonally across
the street.
     A man dressed in olive green pants and an identically hued
sweater was mopping the floor of the lobby when Myles pushed open the
door.  The detective located J. Grimes among the bank of bells.  He
gave it a punch.  When the door finally buzzed, Myles stepped gingerly
over the wet linoleum, smiling apologetically at the man in green as
he passed by.  The man didn't look up.
     Grimes was up on the third floor.  Myles opted for the stairs,
stepping by a Big Wheel and a pile of cardboard boxes in the
stairwell.
     "Hey, partner," said the detective when the door opened.  Judd
Grimes screwed up his eyes trying to place the face.  "How quickly
they forget.  Friday, you joined the team.  Gave us Chris Alexei,
remember?"
     Grimes seemed to remember and changed his look to one of caution.
"Wha'd'ya want?"
     "I want to talk about Moira Doheny," answered Myles.
     "Who says I know her?"
     "You saying you don't?"
     By way of answer, Grimes swung the door wide and stepped back to
let the policeman in.  His face looked disheveled.  A dirty rubber
band was snarled up around the end of his tail.  The rest of his hair
was sadly in need of spiking.
     Myles looked around the room as he sat down.  Judd Grimes's life
of crime had provided him a not too uncomfortable existence: VCR,
color TV tuned to a Bruins game, hi-fi, CD collection, cheap, but not
shabby couch, some kind of leatherette bar, currently housing a
Nintendo set, an aquarium, and a bottle of Johnny Walker Red.  The
place looked like it had been assembled from other people's places.
     Grimes's surroundings had a curiously temporary quality.  Clearly
not all his proceeds went to drugs.  But his prized possessions looked
like they had a short shelf-life.  Sort of a revolving inventory.
     "How did you know her?"  Myles shouted over the announcer's
explanation of the melee to which the crowd was currently being
treated.
     Grimes turned down the TV.  Might as well get this over with.  No
way was he going back to the station.  "She's Chris's girlfriend.  Or
was.  I hear she's dead."
     "News travels fast.  Then you socialize with Alexei?  You didn't
give us the impression the other night that you knew him that well.
'Just a job,' wasn't it?  Something like that?"  Myles parked one
ankle over the other knee and stretched his arms out along the back of
the couch.  He gazed towards the aquarium giving Grimes time to get
uncomfortable.
     "Worked with him enough to know he had a girlfriend," Grimes
mumbled.
     "So what are those things?" Myles gestured towards the aquarium,
grayish projectiles darting around in the milky water.  The bottom was
covered with bright green sand and a grinning skull with a plastic
plant sticking out one of the eye holes.  Looked just like Salem
Harbor.
     "Mollies," the kid answered.
     "Why mollies?"
     "They survive.  Can't kill 'em."
     Despite our best efforts.  "Good," said Myles.  "So, what was
your name doing in Moira's little book?"
     "My name?  It was in Moira's book?  Jeez, I'm flattered.  Maybe
Chris gave it to her to call in an emergency."
     "Good idea.  You're just the guy I'd wanna call in an emergency.
You ever try guppies?  They last pretty good."
     "Mollies is better.  Don't have to feed them hardly.  They eat
their young.  Perpetual motion, like."
     Myles felt slightly sick.  "Judd, when did you last see Moira?"
     Grimes thought for a minute, then seemed to find some safe
ground.  "The night we did the Cosgroves job.  I picked Chris up at
her place."
     "Wednesday...the twenty-third?  How did she seem?"
     "Fine, I guess."  A smile flickered across his lips.  "Well,
except they were having a fight."
     Oh, right.  They were having a fight.  Yeah, that's right.  A
fight.  First you don't know her, bud.  Then you're privy to their
domestic disputes.  This is police work.  Listen to bullshit all day.
One witness after another.  Like those puzzles about the truthers and
the liars, what do you ask so it don't matter which they are?
Question after dogged question, answers like pulling teeth.  Nothing
comes easy.  A lot of energy, few results.  Perpetual motion it ain't.
Myles looked at his watch.  At approximately 1pm this detective
proceeded to apartment 39, 145 Federal Street, Beverly, to interview
Mr. Judd Grimes who informed him that the victim had been
quarreling... "Tell me about the fight," he asked.
     "He, that's Chris, brought her a gold chain.  A real nice one.
She got mad at him.  She said all this stuff about it being stolen.
Buncha crap!  It wasn't stolen.  I was with him when he bought it.  He
got it at Daniel Lowes."  Grimes pffffed.
     "Women.  Can't figure 'em," agreed Myles.
     "He took good care of her," said Grimes, still unable to figure
'em.  "Never like hit her or nothin.  Ungrateful bitch."
     "How was he gonna take care of her from the Middleton jail?"
     Grimes grinned.  "I know Chris.  Believe me, he woulda been
working overtime between now and his trial date to get something set
aside for her.  He did last time.  Bought her a car so's she could
visit him."
     "How do you know all this?  You do his taxes?"
     Upon further questioning of Mr. Grimes it was determined that
Chris Alexei was angry at the victim and expressed his anger
frequently to the witness during their commission of the break-in at
Cosgroves Liquor on the night of January 23.  Grimes also suggested
that matters were not helped when he, Grimes, disclosed to Alexei that
the victim had once made a pass at him, which this detective finds
hard to believe.
     Myles paused at the fish tank on his way out.  He bent down and
pressed his nose against the glass.  The fish went wild.
     "Monsters," he mumbled.

          *  *  *







          Chapter 11


     Dunn led Archie Pappas, the Store 24 cashier, upstairs and into
the CID office.  Pappas glanced at Billy Trinidad's desk as they
passed by, expecting somehow to be signed in, processed, announced, or
told to take a seat.
     Trinidad was perched on the edge of his desk.  Two gentlemen
occupied the chairs, looking miserable.  The one in the swivel chair
was on the phone and sweating.  The other had his head bowed, studying
the floor.  Dunn looked at Trinidad.  "Weren't these guys in last
night?  You scooped them in Riley Plaza?"
     "They decided to join up.  We're still looking for a couple
buys."
     "What did they have?  An ounce?  How long can it take to find
three ounces in this town?" Dunn asked.  Trinidad's rule was three for
one.  Whatever we pop you with, you bring us three times that and
we'll talk to the DA.
     "We're not having a lot of luck, apparently,"  Trinidad answered
solemnly.  "It seems there's no more drugs on the North Shore."
     Dunn looked at Trinidad's guests.  A couple of muffs.  Unlikely
they could score a cup of coffee at the double D.
     "Thanks for coming down, Mr. Pappas," he said to his visitor.
"Hank gave me the tapes from Friday night and Saturday morning,
including the ones from your shift.  We think we've found where Moira
Doheny comes in.  We wanted you to tell us about it."
     Dunn pulled a chair closer to the TV, located the tape he wanted,
and shoved it into the machine.  Mr. Pappas looked uncomfortable.  A
lot of establishments aimed the camera at the register, more
interested in the actions of the employees than of the customers.
This camera showed enough of the counter to catch faces.  And one of
the faces it had captured was Moira Doheny's, just after midnight,
early Saturday morning.  The woman appeared at the register with a
white styrofoam cup and handed Pappas a bill, wadded up into a little
ball.  Black and white, no sound.  Moira's features had an eerie
clarity and alertness.  A testimony both to the quality of the video
camera and to the soundness of Dunn's theory that the woman was
neither drugged nor in pain.
     "Tell me everything you remember."
     "That was a coffee.  Regular.  It's serve yourself.  That's all
she bought.""You ever see her before?"  Dunn asked.
     "Oh yes.  She lives next door to the store.  Comes in on my shift
a lot.  Trouble sleeping, she used to tell me."
     "Did she talk at all that night?  Say anything about headaches,
or look like she was in pain?  Or whether she was going to meet
anybody?"
     "Mmmh, no, not really.  Said hi, got her coffee, and left."
     "And she was alone?  No one came in with her, or spoke to her in
the store?"
     "That's right."
     The tape seemed to confirm that the encounter, at least on
camera, had been brief.  Moira was gone from view, and the corner of a
National Enquirer appeared next to the register.  A momentary pause
while another customer was taken care of - a local witch coming in to
buy a lottery ticket.  Then, aside from pages flipping, no further
action was forthcoming.  "Oh, and the stamp," Pappas added, relaxed at
last that the camera had not recorded him burglarizing the till during
some deeply repressed impulse.  Or picking his nose.
     "The what?"
     "She bought a stamp from the machine inside the doorbefore she
fixed her coffee," said Pappas.
     "Any idea what she was mailing?"
     Pappas shook his head.  "A card, maybe?  I don't remember
exactly."
     As Dunn walked him out, he asked:  "What was she like, Mr.
Pappas?  What did you think of Moira?"
     "Nice girl," the man answered.

          *  *  *


     When Dunn reentered the office, Lieutenant Angeramo, chief of
detectives, emerged from his inner sanctum and gestured for Dunn to
join him.  Angeramo's job was to bust balls.  What he did beyond that,
was one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in the Criminal
Investigation Division.
     As Dunn took a seat, Angeramo closed the door and began in an
unctuous tone:  "Gabe.  Listen.  I'm not trying to put pressure on you
or anything.  But just tell me ... what makes you wanna treat this as
a homicide?  You got every guy in the department in on call backs.
Help me try and justify all this overtime.  Please."
     "No way is this a suicide, Carl."
     Angeramo exploded.  He could only maintain the nice guy approach
for the first question.  Anyone who couldn't capitulate in that time-
frame risked acquired hearing loss in their nearest ear.  After a
sustained tirade of expletives and a review of every relevant
department directive, Angeramo gave Dunn the signal to redeem himself.
     Dunn leaned back and propped one foot on Angeramo's trash can.
"OK.  Here's what we got.  Twenty-two year old girl, three months
pregnant, close family, works part-time.  Seems to be managing, I
mean, her rent's paid.  Food in the fridge."
     "You found her with a suicide note typed on her machine, a gun
next to her with her prints, powder-burns on her hand.  I've looked at
your reports.  No one you've talked to was shocked that she killed
herself.  What did her doctor say?"
     Dunn paused.  "He wasn't too surprised, either.  But Moira was
hanging out with some odd characters.  Three burglars, including her
on-again-off-again boyfriend, with whom she had been arguing earlier
in the week.  Jake dug up a witness, and one of mine provided a
motive."
     "Motive for the argument or for a homicide?" Angeramo asked.
     "Well, maybe both.  Moira may have been fooling around while her
guy was in jail.  Or maybe not, but he believed she had, which is
sufficient."
     "Gabe," Angeramo's voice was starting to rise again.  "Nothing at
the scene pointed to a jealous rage.  It was tidy and planned."
     Dunn had to agree.  And Alexei had no history of violence or
assault.  But there were undercurrents in her relationships and in her
choice of friends which bothered him.  A kind of elusive volatility
danced among her chums like a twister in a trailer park.  Somehow,
Dunn suspected Moira had unwittingly stepped in its path.
     "Danny found out Moira was trying to borrow a car around midnight
Friday," Dunn offered.
     Angeramo snorted.  "So she originally planned to drive off the
Kernwood bridge!  Again!  Look, I gotta lot of establishments pressing
me on these break-ins, Gabriel.  The owner of the Sports King is
financially ruined.  Let's get Mr. Lazarus his cards back.  Help him
feed his family.  You're wasting a hell of a lot of resources on a
case that looks pretty open and shut to me.  The girl's dead.  But
every night some motherfucker's hitting another store in this city."
     "Yeah?  Two of those motherfuckers knew Moira Doheny," Dunn
pointed out.
     "Small world.  You've got till Tuesday to quit blowin' smoke up
my ass.  Then you close this case or give me a fuckin' good reason why
not."
     Dunn was about to suggest his boss look at the face on the video-
tape.  Moira's vitality 7 hours before her death was reason enough.
But he decided that for the moment it was more important to let
Angeramo have the last word.
          *  *  *

     Myles strode in with a can of Sprite.  Ignoring the muffs, he
leaned toward Trinidad, who had reclaimed his seat.  "I'd like to
speak to a detective, honey," he said.
     Trinidad gestured toward the chief's door.  "They're both in
there.  Come back tomorrow."
     "Gabe in there with Geronimo?" Myles asked.  Trinidad nodded.
"What's up?"
     The evidence officer shrugged.
     "Secret squirrel shit?" Myles whispered.
     "Secret squirrel shit," Trinidad confirmed.
     Myles drained the can and dunked it into Trinidad's basket.
"Well, would you tell him Moira's mom's in town.  I'm gonna go talk to
her.  That is, if he still cares.  If he still has a job."
          *  *  *












     Chapter 12


I've been waiting
for a girl like you
     
     Moira Doheny's mother, Iris, had just arrived from LA and
was staying Sunday night at Sasha's.  Jake Myles went by to talk
to her.  He had put on a fresh shirt with parrots and palm trees,
hoping she'd feel more at home.
     Iris Murdock now, the woman explained she had divorced
Clarence nearly five years ago and went out to California a year
later.  She had a brother out there, and young nieces and
nephews.  A bar owner named Steven Murdock had convinced her to
stay.
     For the trip Iris had worn a navy blue running suit with
fire engine red lipstick and sneakers with some actress's
trademark.  Her hair was a non-original shade of brown.  Her
eyes, struggling to deny her age, were ringed with streaked eye
liner.
     "Mrs. Murdock, were you close to your daughter?"
     "Yes.  We were very close."  She spoke quietly.  Someone had
given her a tranquilizer.  Myles could see the flight had taken
its toll.  "We talked almost every week on the phone."
     "When did you last hear from her?" he asked.
     "We were very, very close." she repeated.
    "When, uh, did you last talk to her?" Myles tried again.
     She looked at Myles as if seeing him for the first time.
"Wednesday or Thursday, I'm not sure which," she answered at last.
     "Did she seem more depressed than usual?"
     "She was feeling lonely, I remember.  And bothered by things.  I
suppose she was sort of depressed," Mrs. Murdock said.
     "What was bothering her?"
     The woman didn't respond.  She seemed to be drifting a bit.
     "Mrs. Murdock?  Did she tell you she was pregnant?  Was that on
her mind?"  Family could be so difficult.
     "I ... yes, I knew she was pregnant.  I don't think she told
anyone else. Not even Sasha.  My other daughter."
     "Why not?" Myles asked.
     "Moira wasn't sure what she was going to do about it.  She'd been
taking so many pain-killers.  Some not even approved by her doctor. I
don't know how she got ahold of some of them."
     "She had friends, Mrs. Murdock, who could get her anything she
wanted."
     "Oh.  Chris?  He was a problem, wasn't he," she said.
     "Yes ma'am.  He was a problem."  Myles shifted in his chair.
     "She thought the baby would be affected by some of the
medications.  And she wasn't sure what kind of life she'd have with
someone like Chris...not a good role model for a child."
     "She was planning to stay with Chris?"
     Mrs. Murdock looked puzzled.  "Actually I'm not sure.  I think
she was trying to ... to outgrow him.  To work through him."
     Talked California already.  "How did she get mixed up with guys
like that?" Myles asked her.
     "I don't remember how the two met.  Chris was always rather
sweet... I had a feeling she was experimenting with being, well, wild
for a time.  Chris was an opportunity, but a pretty safe one."
     "Safe?"  Myles either didn't speak California or didn't speak
Woman.
     "She knew he would never hurt her.  And I think he stopped using
drugs when he met her.  That's what she told me," said Moira's mother.
     We always tell our mothers that.  Myles pulled out his notebook
and a pen.  M. considering abortion.  He scratched his head.  "So,
Mrs. Murdock, would you say Moira was considering an abortion?"
     "She didn't like the idea of an abortion.  That was why she was
troubled, I think."  Mrs. Murdock looked around the room.  She hadn't
been back east in a long time and she wondered how Sasha had been
doing.  Not many pictures on the walls.  No photographs at all.  She
looked back at Myles for help in finding her place.  Myles was
scratching out something in his notebook.  "Where were we?" she asked.
     "I was wondering myself..." he began.
     "You know, when you're young and alone, you can pretend all you
want.  Pretend to be daring, take risks, cut loose, just try on that
sort of life for a while.  But then when suddenly you become a parent,
all that changes.  You still fight with wanting to stay young, but now
there's a sort of clean slate.  A new chance.  And a responsibility.
And you think, 'I'm not going to make all those mistakes my parents
made.  Or all those other grown-ups.  I'm still young and ... wise.
The way only young can be.  I'm going to be the perfect parent!'  Do
you know what I'm talking about?" she asked.  Her eyes were shining.
     "No..." Myles answered.  That's some tranquilizer, he thought.
He wrote in his notebook:  M. keeping baby - dumping C.A.  "So, you're
saying she was going to keep the baby?"
     She looked slightly taken aback.  "Did I say that?"
     Gimme a break, woman!
     Mrs. Murdock went back to looking for family photographs on
Sasha's inhospitable walls.  "Boys are harder, Officer," she said in a
pained voice.  "You know, they push us away sooner but they need us so
much longer."
     "Can I take it Moira had a brother?"  Myles asked, but got no
answer.  He wished Sasha would come home.  Put the mother out of her
misery.  Maybe shooting her would do it.  He'd do it for her.  Had the
Smith & Wesson right here.  13 shots.
     "Mrs. Murdock, did she ever talk to you about suicide?"
     She looked at him.  "You know, there were moments when she was
ecstatic thinking about the baby.  She'd allow herself that.  Let it
slip through for a few moments.  But then her mood would swing back.
Back to worrying.  Parenthood.  Not an easy thing."
     Myles studied a mole in the middle of the woman's forehead.
Right there.  Could plug her right there.  "Was she suicidal?  Did she
talk about killing herself?" he asked, with tension in his jaw.
     "Have you any idea what it's like for a parent to watch their
child go through that for the first time?  Their own personal
discovery of parenthood?  It's so delightful ... they think they're
inventing the experience."
     "No, ma'am."  Myles bent down over his notebook.  Fruitcake, he
wrote.  He drew two lines under the word.  "Did she ever tell you she
planned on killing herself?"
     She stared at him.  "Never.  She never would have entertained the
thought.  Even in her worst moments of pain.  She would cry into the
phone, officer, she'd say, 'Momma, make it stop!'  I couldn't do
anything for her."  Mrs. Murdock started to cry.  "Couldn't do
anything."
     Myles looked down at his parrots and palm trees.  He didn't know
what more he could do for this woman.  "Mrs. Murdock, other family
members didn't seem surprised at the suggestion that she took her
own..."
     "Other family members weren't her mother!" she shouted.
     Myles drew a couple more lines under the previous ones and shut
his notebook.  Beam me up, Scotty.  "Yes, ma'am."
     Out in the car he threw the notebook on the seat beside him.  Now
he had to go write the fucking report.
          *  *  *



     Sasha had insisted on grocery shopping by herself.  She had
somehow convinced her mother that a long trip required rest and had
even managed to switch the effect of the time zones.  Doped up on
Valium, Iris had agreed to stay at the house.  Sasha had always
thought of her mother as Iris.  Moira had called her mom.
     Not particularly anxious to get back, Sasha was doing the whole
store.  Every aisle, shopping by process of elimination rather than
from a list.  Apparently her pace just matched that of a deaf couple
going in the opposite direction.  The two carts passed each other at
the same spot in the middle of each aisle.  For the first two times,
she had been amused.  For the next two encounters, she began to worry
that they would think she was spying on them.  Maybe she was following
them to watch them do funny things with their hands.  In aisle five,
however, the woman smiled at her, forgiving her.
     Sasha was standing in the International section.  Foods from
around the world.  She was struck with inspiration and reached for a
box of Enchilada Dinner.  That and her package of Cape Cod potato
chips should make a nice welcoming meal for her mother.  A little
blend of east and west.  Sasha considered her relationship with Iris.
Somehow the mother-daughter thing that Moira had experienced had
always eluded Sasha.
          *  *  *

     Dunn and Myles were waiting for their suppers.  So were the usual
Sunday night flock of Salem State College students, bouncing in like
sailors on leave.
     "What'd you get from the mother?" Dunn asked.
     "She's a tune," answered Myles.
     "Well, she is from LA."
     "Moira was 'working through' Chris," Myles elaborated.
     "To get her head in a better place?"
     "Her head and other parts of her body, I guess."
     "Well, you do what you have to do," said Dunn.
     Their orders were announced.  Myles grabbed a couple cans of Coke
from the refrigerator and met Dunn back at the booth.  They shared the
bench facing the front door; no cop sits with his back to an entrance.
Dunn propped the radio next to the napkin holder and unwrapped a
meatball sub the size of his leg.
     The guys in the department referred to Luigi's Submarine
Sandwiches as the substation.  Down on Lafayette, it was the
traditional location where informants could drift in and talk to cops.
You have information, you need information, you drop by the
substation.  Dunn wasn't expecting anything today, other than supper.
     "So she was unable to shed any light on who exactly Moira is?"
Dunn asked.  His biggest problem with this case was the victim.  How'd
she end up with this crowd?  If he could just understand her a little,
he'd have half a chance in figuring out why she was now dead.
     Myles shook his head.  "After meeting Mom, I'm surprised Moira
didn't take a few hostages down with her."
     Dunn looked at him without listening.  "What do we know about
her, Jake?"
     Myles swallowed some Coke.  "She was into garbage regeneration.
Grew carrots from carrots."  He bit into his sub.
     Dunn decided to drop it.
     "What about you?  Anything?" Myles continued with his mouth full.
     "I think I want to look into her old car accident.  The little
she remembered apparently bothered her.  If it bothered her, it should
bother us," Dunn said.
     "OK.  We're bothered.  Anything else?"
     "I'm still trying to chase down this guy Sollors.  His girlfriend
doesn't know where he is today.  Actually, we know him.  His picture's
up in the office and he's in our computer."
     "Which?"
     "He's in everyone's computer.  We've got Sollors, Grimes, Alexei
- they're all in each other's known associates files.  Board of
Probation query went through a box of paper when we mentioned their
names."  Dunn sipped his coke.  "Didn't they have any milk?" he asked.
     "Real men don't drink milk.  Have a clue, Gabe."
     "Anyway," Dunn continued, "Judd Grimes is a nothing.  Sollors and
Alexei are career guys.  Sollors has got twice the history Alexei has,
but I think it's because Alexei is twice as smart.  He's never been
caught during a B&E.  But the way he pulls them off, you know he's a
professional.  Lots and lots of practice."
     "How does he get caught then?"
     "Twice he's been ratted out by his buddies.  Earlier he was
sloppy.  Possession of class A substance, possession of burglarious
tools, operating unders, a couple burglaries before he got the hang of
it.  Chris Alexei could clear hundreds of cases for me if we could
just be friends."
     "Talk to him.  Just like you're talking to me.  He'll understand,
I know he will."

          *  *  *






          Chapter 13

Why don't we steal away into the night
     The witness to Moira's accident, Selma Fecteau, parted one of
several layers of lemon yellow window dressings and gestured out
towards the Kernwood Golf Course across the street from her bungalow.
"Just over there. I heard the crash.  When I looked out it was flipped
over in the Cold Springs ravine.  I called 911.  They connected me to
the police."
     Moira's license history had netted Dunn the date and location of
her accident.  Sargent Street and Kernwood Avenue, Salem, April 29.
In the Traffic Department downstairs, he dug up a copy of the accident
and journal reports.  The original caller now sat wheelchair-bound
before him trying to recollect the night.  She had never seen the
vehicle before, could remember no unusual sounds prior to the crash.
No one walking by that she recalled.  But then it had been dark.
Between the pools of light provided by the streetlights, armies could
have been encamped without her notice.  But the police department had
only one recorded call.
     "Of course, I couldn't do anything myself to help.  I deeply
regret that," she said with disappointment.
     "But you did help," Dunn told her.  "No one could have done more
until rescue arrived.  And no one else called in.  You saved that
young woman's life.  She was lucky - you're the only house  around."
     She nodded and accepted his reassurance with gratitude.  "So she
recovered?  The papers never said."
     "Yes she did."
     She smiled.  "That's good."  Mrs. Fecteau surveyed the room for
him.  "This is actually a gatekeeper's cottage, you know.  It's very
quiet all around here.  Cemeteries, woods, the golf course, no other
living persons until Cabot Farm, down towards Kernwood bridge."
     Dunn nodded politely, disappointed that the gatekeeper held no
key.
     Mrs. Fecteau looked back at Dunn.  Concern revisited her face.
"And the other one?" she asked.
     "Other one what?" asked Dunn, not understanding.
     "The young boy.  The driver.  Was he all right"
     Dunn stared at her.  "Driver?"  Nothing in any of the reports
mentioned a second occupant.  Moira Doheny had been thrown clear of
the car, and had been presumed to be driving.
     "He looked like he was in better condition.  He was scrambling
out when I looked out.  I thought in fact that he was going to look
for a phone.  Didn't they talk to him?"
     "You didn't mention this when you called in?"
     "I thought I did, I'm not sure.  I think he just asked if anyone
was hurt."
     "Can you describe him at all?"
     "No, not really, just looked like a young man in the dark."
     "And where was he headed?"
     "Up to the road...well, the bushy area next to the road.  I
didn't see him after that, when I came back from the phone call.  You
know, maybe he slipped out of my mind when I was talking to the
police."
     Just slipped out.  Stole away into the night.

          *  *  *


Lynn, Lynn, city of sin
     James Deemer had been brought in by one of the beat officers for
shoplifting steaks from a supermarket on Highland Avenue.  Personal
bail was set at $20.  Deemer couldn't make it.
     It was just after 8 pm.  Myles was typing up some of the day's
results.  The January winds blew through the cracks around his window
with gale force, reaching him past the stretches of duct tape, and
beyond the protective barricade of manuals on the sill, placed there
to stop the snow from drifting in.  Deemer was brought up so that
Myles, in his official capacity of department photo and print man,
could take a Polaroid snapshot of him against the back of the office
door.  According to the tape measure glued to the door jam, Deemer
stood 5'6".  Slightly built, dirty blond hair in a scruffy ponytail,
and tracks up and down both arms.  The guy was from Lynn.  He didn't
seem to recall how he had gotten to Highland Avenue.  Once he was
processed, Myles returned to his typewriter.  Deemer was taken back
downstairs, put into cell 2 and given a blanket.  His jacket, belt and
shoes were thrown into a yellow laundry basket out in the hall, with a
2 painted on the bottom.
     In real life, a significant portion of police work in solving a
case consists of calling the snitches, and making deals in the booking
room.  And waiting for tips.  The ones you don't anticipate, or think
to go after.  You are heavily networked, or you are ineffectual.  A
distant bell sounded in Myles's head.  He flipped off the typewriter
again and turned to paw through the papers on his desk.  The query on
Judd Grimes surfaced.  Previous address: 22 Semple Street in Lynn.
Last assault charge was in Lynn, in October.
     Myles stood up and put on his jacket.  It was 28 degrees outside.
The lockup would probably be 29.  He headed downstairs to try and
convince James Deemer to join the team.  On the way he stopped at the
front desk and grabbed the printout on him.  One entry.  A prior
shoplifting arrest about a month earlier.  No wants or warrants.
     The detective frowned.  This scant biography hardly fit his
friend in cell 2.  The guy shook whenever he stood up.  The printout
could not possibly be his entire life's story.  Myles had them query
the computer again, running the licence number, and every variation
and cross-reference they could think of.  Nothing.
     Myles went into the lockup, leaned against the bars and rapped on
the plexiglass.  Deemer stirred somewhere under his gray blanket.
Only the top of his head was visible.  "I'd like to talk to you,
James."
     "What do you want?" was the muffled reply.
     "Ever hear of a guy by the name of Judd Grimes?"
     "Who?"
     "Big kid.  Muscular.  Blond, short hair with a tail.  Missing a
front tooth.  Ring any bells?  Had some trouble down in Lynn
recently."  Myles wished they had photographed him.
     "Don't know him," from deep within the blanket.  The man was
still shaking.  Myles wondered if he would have known his own mother.
     "Talk to me," said a voice from the bunk in cell 3.  "I know
people."
     Myles ignored the interruption.  "So what's your real name,
James?"
     "I told you.  James Deemer."
     "He told you.  Name's Beamer."  Again the solo Greek chorus from
the next cell.
     "C'mon, James.  Don't jerk me around," Myles said.
     "'Buzzard's luck, cop...'"  Cell 3 wouldn't shut up.
     "I swear.  It's my name."
     "'Can't kill nothin'...'" said his neighbor.
     Myles stepped back.  "We'll see."  He could see the condensation
from his breath.  He put up the collar of his jacket.
     "'... and nothin' will die.'"
     Myles went upstairs.
     The files were kept in the office next door to CID.  The
detective let himself in and pulled the original report on the prior
arrest.  At the time another man had been arrested with Deemer.
Further digging netted him a couple phone numbers, and Myles reached
for the phone.
     "What can you tell me about James Deemer?"  he asked Deemer's
friend after a few preliminaries.
     "I want my car, man."  The price for the information.  Up front.
     "What's with your car?" Myles asked.
     The car was at Chico's Tow, where it had been since his arrest.
A 1988 Cadillac.  But Deemer's friend didn't have the cash to get it
back at the time.  And with each passing day the amount went up $20.
     "We'll take care of it," Myles said.  "Who's James Deemer?"
     Dmitriopolous.  James Dmitriopolous.  Myles called down for an
NCIC query and was rewarded with 4 feet of history.  Board of
Probation provided another six.  Rumplestiltskin.  15 aliases, 5
social security numbers.  6 dates of birth.  Warrants outstanding in
Florida and New Hampshire.  The detective called the Ft. Lauderdale
Police Department and relayed the good news.  They asked for a Fax of
his prints.  He couldn't raise anyone in New Hampshire other than the
answering machine.  He left a message and went down to the cells.
     "Well, we found out who you are," Myles said triumphantly as he
turned the key in the door to cell 2.
     The blanket barely stirred.  "Who am I?"
     Myles rattled off a few of the names.  "They'd like to see you in
New Hampshire and they'd like to see you in Ft. Lauderdale.  And
Worcester, but that's just little stuff.  You can forget Worcester.  I
think you're going to Florida.  They're willing to extradite."
     "I don't know what you're talking about.  I never heard of those
names.  I'm cold.  Can I get another blanket?"  He sat up and felt for
the floor with his feet.
     "Hey, I'm cold, too," said the voice from cell 3.  Cell 1 was
empty.  A paper sign was taped to the bars warning that the toilet was
broken.
     Myles swung open the door.  Deemer looked up.  "What do you want
now?" he whined.
     "Come on out.  I have to fingerprint you."
     Deemer rubbed his head.  "So where am I now?"  His words were
slurred.
     "Ain't Kansas anymore," answered cell 3.
     Myles led Deemer out into the hall and took two sets of prints.
Deemer asked about the warrants and about where he got all the
misinformation.
     Myles handed him a paper towel and a pencil.  "Sign here, on the
back.  Both cards."
     The man tried to focus his eyes on the end of the pencil. After a
pause he asked:  "Which name should I use?"
     "Use your real one.  Hey, use whatever fucking name you want."
     The man scribbled George Bush on each card.
     As the detective locked him back up, Deemer said, "Can I make my
call?  When do I get to make my call?"
     "I'll send someone down," Myles said.
     "I wanna make my call, too," yelled the voice from the next cell.
     Deemer was fully awake now.  "Hey, can I pick where I go?  Can I
go to New Hampshire?  Like tonight?"
     "Get in some skiing," recommended cell 3.
     "You have to be arraigned first.  Then they can all come and get
you.  Tomorrow.  If you don't want to go to Florida, you can elect to
fight that one.  But in the end, it's not your choice.  It's probably
gonna be whoever's got the bigger beef."
     Deemer looked glum.  "Can I make my call now?"
    The voice from cell 3 yelled, "Florida.  Go to Florida."
     Myles got the blanket and slid it through the narrow gap below
the plexiglass.  The detective thrust his hands into his pockets and
shivered.  "Yeah, I'd pick Florida."
     He turned and went back upstairs.


          *  *  *





          Chapter 14

     Dunn picked up the phone and dialed Sasha Doheny.  It was after
10 Sunday night.  When she answered, he asked if she had any knowledge
of who the driver might have been the night of the accident.  Sasha
had always thought that Moira had been alone.  Dunn described his talk
with Mrs. Fecteau.
     "Are you sure?" she asked.  Then:  "You know, Moira never did
regain full memory of that night.  It was always puzzling her.  Dr.
Merck said she might never remember.  Or that it might suddenly come
back to her some day."
     "What did she remember?  Anything?"
     "She told me she was at Adele's.  They were just hanging out
there, a party of some kind.  Then when she left...she didn't remember
much after that.  She said it was dark on Kernwood Ave. and she
thought she might have seen an animal, a cat or something.  She wasn't
sure.  And she didn't remember what she did, whether she swerved or
braked or what.  Woke up in the hospital."
     "Maybe she doesn't remember swerving or braking because she
wasn't the one driving.  And she was on Sargent Street, according to
our accident reconstructionist.  That's a dangerous road at night.
Lots of people take the wrong turn at the cemetery, think they're on
Kernwood, but they end up on Sargent.  They blow the stop sign at the
end cause Kernwood doesn't have one.  Just when they think they've
reached the bridge, they're over the embankment.  Sasha, if you think
of anyone who might have been with her, or who might know, call me,"
he said.
     Dunn tried Adele next.  Her line was busy, so he went down his
list of names.  There was no answer at Chris Alexei's.  He reached
Judd Grimes, who barely remembered Moira's accident, much less who her
companion might have been.  Finally, Adele's line was clear.
          *  *  *
     Adele hung up.  The detective, Sergeant what's-his-face, had just
told her Moira had not been alone in the car at the time of the
accident.  The news shocked her.  She had always assumed that Moira
left the party by herself that night.
     Eugene was stretched out on the couch watching a Chuck Norris
movie.  "Eugene," she asked, hand still on the receiver, "do you
remember anyone being with Moira that time she ran off the road?"
     "What time?  That party here?  I don't even remember her
leaving."  His eyes were fixed to the TV.
     Adele went into the bathroom to resume brushing her teeth.
Friends stopped by lots of nights.  She had a hard time bringing to
mind that particular night.  It probably constituted a party because
the music was cranked up and more than a half dozen people were
around.  Plenty of booze and drugs.  She thought harder, trying to
reconstruct the events surrounding the accident.  Well, except that
night they did run low.  A lot had been consumed.  Moira had consumed
her share.  What was it they were low on... just beer?  Someone... who
was it?.. had volunteered for a packie run, but there was some
problem.  What was the problem?  She strained to recall.  Adele spat
into the sink.

          *  *  *
     Alone in the detectives' office, Dunn attempted unsuccessfully to
ward off his frustration and fatigue.  The interesting turn had so far
been a dead end.  He stood up heavily, flipped on the answering
machine, pulled on his jacket, shut out the lights.  We're losing the
beat.
     Dunn descended the back stairs in pitch dark.  Somehow the
department never managed to keep a working bulb in the back stairwell.
Waste of money.  The public wasn't supposed to use this staircase and
members of the force knew the way in their sleep.  Marble stairs
continued on down where logic would have placed a landing.  Some day
they were going to get their asses sued.
     The backdoor led out to the front of the building same as the
front door, depositing its users by the cars.  Feeling weary and
irritable, Dunn decided to take the gray car home for the night.  As
he opened the door he noticed 27 car, one of the cover cars, had
pulled in.  He could just make out Officer Paul Szymanski by the dim
light of the streetlight, sitting in the cruiser and holding something
to his face.  Dunn walked over.  He leaned in the window and asked:
"What's up, bud?"
     Szymanski pulled the rag away and examined a smear of blood.  "I
caught a domestic.  Violent domestic, in a car, down on Webb Street."
     Dunn nodded sympathetically.  "You OK?"  Disputes, especially
domestics, were some of the most dangerous calls a cop could answer.
Talk about No Win.
     Szymanski snorted.  "I pull up on them, you know, blew down there
with lights and siren, aimed the fucking take-down lights in their
faces.  Never noticed me.  Wailing away at each other in the front
seat, elbows jabbing at the horn, fur flying.  So I yank open the door
and haul them out.  She's screamin' at me arrest that sonofabitch and
I'm trying to separate them.  She's sayin' she's gonna leave him, he's
sayin' he's gonna kill her, you know, usual stuff.  So I says, 'you're
coming with me, buddy.'  So then he leans toward her and hollers, 'Now
look.  See what I'm gonna hafta do?  I'm gonna hafta beat this cop!'"
     Dunn laughed.  "And then he did?"
     Szymanski grimaced painfully.  "They both jumped on me.  She's on
my back, he's hammering at me while I'm messing with the cuffs.
Finally got him jacked up against the side of the car, bitch's still
hangin' on my neck.  Got him cuffed, got her cuffed, then my backup
rolls in."
     Dunn shook his head in disbelief.  "Well, if anyone could've done
it, you could, lapper.  Where are they now?  Inside?"
     Szymanski nodded.  "Gave them each a room.  Room with a view."
The affectionate term for the lock-up.
     Dunn turned to go.  "Get someone to look at that lip, pal."
     Are we heroes, or what.

     When Dunn got home it was nearly midnight.  Flyers from
yesterday, soggy with snow, still littered his doorstep.  No food in
the house, too late to call his sister for a free meal, even if she
were on speaking terms.  He felt his depression growing steadily into
despondency.  Szymanski's lip bothered him.  The whole fucking job
bothered him.
     His original plans for the evening got shit-canned with the
murder.  Dinner with a lady, possibly celebrating his soloing this
weekend, possibly some other excuse.  His plans with this woman had
gone astray more often than not.
     Dunn wanted to call Mel, because even though it was late and she
would be asleep, he knew it would be all right.  It would be OK, but
it wouldn't be fair to her.  Dunn wasn't really thinking about Mel or
their new and tentative relationship.  He was thinking about Claire,
his ex-wife.  Mel deserved to be thought about.  Claire did not.  But
his relationship with Mel was not mysterious.  Uncertain, yes.  But
understandable.  With Claire, he had been certain.  His current non-
relationship with her was the biggest unsolved mystery of his life.
     Claire had left nearly five years earlier, taking their daughter,
Joy.  She had gone home to a small, grungy town in New York,
repudiating her life so completely that she had refused to stay in New
England, much less in North Salem with Dunn.  Gabe Dunn had turned 37
last November.  Next fall he had hoped to walk with his daughter when
she marched off, lunchbox in hand, to her first day of school.  To
help her find her room and find her way.
     Now he didn't even know his own way.  After five years he still
didn't understand.
     Dunn dropped the wet flyers into the trash.  He had one phone
message.  He stabbed at the button and poured himself a glass of
orange juice.
     "Gabe?  It's Mel, just checking to be sure you're OK.  Call if
you feel like it.  Doesn't matter how late.  Bye, bye."
     It would be so easy.  Easy to lose himself in her.  He stared
down into the glass.  A Celtics glass he got at a Mobil station.
     All day long on the job the people love you, hate you, depend on
you, hold you accountable, crush you, need you, and you respond to it
all.  What's left when you go home?  You've given everything you have.
     What was he going to give Mel?
     Dunn didn't see enough happy families to believe in them anymore.

          *  *  *

     It was a Sunday night, that was the problem.  Judd Grimes had a
case at home so he said he'd get it.  Adele had lost track after that.
And then Moira had just disappeared at some point with no
announcement.  It wasn't with Chris, he was still in jail.  He got out
the following month just after Moira was released from the hospital.
Eugene... it wasn't Eugene.  He was around later.   She remembered
now:  Eugene and Judd had argued because Judd had wanted to borrow
Eugene's car for the run and Eugene said no.  Judd's own wheels were
in Lynn somewhere, probably impounded or seized... But then Judd was
gone.  And the case of beer never showed up...

          *  *  *

     At one A.M. he still couldn't fall asleep.  Dunn felt for the
phone by his bed.  He dialed Mel's number and waited a long time until
she answered.  He couldn't give, but he could still tak