Murder in the Charlestown Bricks: A Dermot Sparhawk Crime Novel Page 5

  “Si, my daughter in Jamaica Plain. She a good girl.”

  “I’d like to talk to her,” I said. “Do you have her phone number?”

  “Si.” Her face changed. “Her boyfriend is jealous. He check her calls.”

  “Where does she work?” I asked. “I can talk to her there.”

  “She have a good job.” Her face changed again, this time showing pride. “Ester cuts hair at Keldara Salon and Spa. It is in Dedham.” She touched my arm. “It is a good job she has. I no want her to lose it.”

  “I’ll be careful,” I said.

  I walked to Gertrude Murray’s building on O’Reilly Way and found the apartment of Santa Reyes, the woman who witnessed the accomplice fleeing the night of the murder. She answered the door with a smile, but when Santa saw it was me, she looked down the hall in both directions and rushed me inside, not wanting her neighbors to see me. A round woman with silver hair and fat cheeks, Santa could barely speak English, but that didn’t stop her from trying.

  I asked her about the man she saw leaving the building the night Mrs. Murray was killed. She struggled to tell me. He was “veinte” which meant twenty, “Spanish” self-explanatory, “muy poco” meaning very little, “el adicto” she pretended to put a needle in her arm. I asked her if the man was walking or running. He was walking “rapido” and she pumped her arms. Did she recognize him? “Nada,” she said. Santa went on to tell me he had black hair and a beard. She then pushed me out of the apartment and into the hall. A picture of the accomplice formed in my mind, a picture of a small Hispanic man, likely an addict, and more importantly, a man who probably had small feet. He couldn’t be the killer if he had small feet.

  Somebody else must have been in Gert’s apartment before Victor and his accomplice broke in, and whoever he was had killed Mrs. Murray. A thought came to me. What if there was a third person involved? Suppose that in addition to Diaz and the accomplice, there was another accomplice, one with big feet. And then another thought came to me. What if the man Santa saw wasn’t an accomplice at all, but a man leaving the building, a man who had nothing to do with crime?

  I needed more information, a lot more.

  15

  I walked down the hall to the apartment of Craig Gruskowski, the man who called 911 the night that Gertrude Murray was murdered. I knocked on his door, and a big man with a dockworker’s build answered. He gazed up at me and didn’t say anything. I looked inside. His place was immaculate. Music played in the background, an Eagles song from the seventies.

  “Mr. Gruskowski?” I said to break the silence.

  “I already talked to you guys.”

  “I’m not a cop,” I said. “My name is Dermot Sparhawk. My family lived next door to Mrs. Murray when I was a kid. We lived in this very apartment.”

  “You’re shitting me, this apartment?”

  “I’d like to ask you a few questions about Gertrude, Mr. Gruskowski.”

  “Sure, but call me Skeeter — it’s the ski in Gruskowski. My friends made it up.” He let me in. “I’ve been living in Charlestown my whole life, born up there on Bartlett Street where it crosses Sullivan. Know where I’m talking about, by the steep hill?”

  “It’s a nice block.”

  “I hit some hard times, my own fault, and I ended up here in the projects five years ago.” He sat down in a stuffed chair. “I have to sit a lot these days. The old heart ain’t what it used to be. I know the name Sparhawk. Your father was that big Indian, right?”

  “That’s him.”

  “He was an ironworker, Local 7, a tough son of a bitch and a little crazy, too. He didn’t mind having a drink now and then. Didn’t you play football at Boston College?”

  “Right on all the above,” I said to him. “About Mrs. Murray —”

  “Hold on, I love this one.” Skeeter cranked the CD player. “My favorite Eagles song of all time, Take It Easy.” He sang along with it, moving his hands like a conductor. “‘Well, I’m a standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, such a fine sight to see. It’s a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford, slowing down to take a look at me.’ What a story, what lyrics!”

  “Skeeter, about the night Mrs. Murray was killed —”

  “One of these days I’m gonna see Winslow, Arizona, gonna see the whole Southwest. Route 66, Albuquerque, St. Looey, the Grand Canyon, everything. I got this book on Route 66, read it five times already.”

  “That’s great, but I’d like to ask you about —”

  “I get mailings from the Route 66 Association, the Arizona chapter in the town of Kingman. That’s where Flagstaff is, in Arizona. I watched a YouTube video of Billy Connolly, that funny bastard from Glasgow. He toured Route 66 on a three-wheel motorcycle.”

  “Skeeter —”

  “Billy loved the desert. He’s Scottish, so he never saw a desert before, never saw cactus or cinder cones, either. That’s what he said.” He paused for a second, which probably seemed like an eternity to him. “Sorry, you wanted to talk about Gert.”

  “I work for the lawyer representing Victor Diaz. I’m trying to find out if Diaz really killed Gert Murray. I don’t think he did.”

  “I heard about Victor Diaz,” Skeeter said. “News travels fast in the bricks, like an echo chamber in here.”

  “We used to say that if someone sneezed, ten people said God bless you.”

  “And another ten yelled keep it down. I forgot you grew up here.”

  I looked out to the courtyard. When I was a kid I’d wrestled my father out there, practicing half-nelsons and headlocks and toeholds. He’d make me do pull-ups on the clothesline pole and pushups on the tar, eventually graduating to handstand pushups. He taught me not to blink. He did this by flicking jabs to within a whisker of my nose, and when I got used to the blur knuckles coming at me, I stopped blinking. Once he flicked a jab so violently that it broke the second hand on his Timex, snapping it off the post.

  “Tell me about the night of the murder,” I said.

  “I heard loud thumps coming from Gert’s apartment, and I mean loud,” he said. “That’s when I called the cops.”

  “What else did you hear?”

  “I heard footsteps running down the hall.”

  “Running, not walking?”

  “Definitely running,” Skeeter said. “You can tell the difference.”

  “You heard the footsteps after the thumps?”

  “Yes, right after the thumps, so it must’ve been the other guy Diaz was with, because Diaz was too stupid to scram. He hung around too long and the cops grabbed him.”

  “They grabbed him, all right.”

  Something about his story didn’t add up — not the story itself, but the way Skeeter reacted to the thumping sounds. In Charlestown we don’t call the cops. We intervene directly and without thought, leading with our chin, and we usually get clipped on the chin when we do this, but it’s our culture, our Townie pride.

  “When you heard the thumping, why didn’t you help her? How could you just listen and do nothing?”

  He looked down.

  “I’ve had three heart attacks. My doctor told me I hadda watch myself, don’t overdo it. When I heard the thumps I grabbed my baseball bat, ready to bust heads. I took a couple of warm-up swings, full cuts, and I got dizzy and fell on the floor. I popped a nitro and tried to give it another go, but I couldn’t breathe. My heart was pounding out of my chest. So I did the next best thing, I dialed 911 to get Gert help.”

  “I forgot about your heart.”

  “I had to leave the longshoremen because of it, and I’ve been out of work ever since. And I was no scallawag, either. I operated a crane, which pays big money. Five years without work, how’s that for a working-class guy?”

  “I’m sorry to hear it.”

  “As humiliating as it is to admit, I did what I could for Gert. In the old days I’d have kicked
ass. Believe me when I tell you that.”

  “I was out of line.”

  “You didn’t know.” Skeeter stood up, holding the arms of the chair. “How the fuck do you think I feel, not being a man anymore? If I was my old self, I might have saved her life.”

  “I believe you might have.”

  “Look, I’m gonna lie down for a while and listen to the Eagles. One of these days I’m gonna get to Winslow, Arizona. I’m gonna go to Route 66 and find that girl on a flat-bed Ford.”

  “I hope you make it out there, Skeeter,” I said.

  “Come back if you have more questions.”

  I told him I would and left his apartment, feeling like an asshole for giving him such a hard time.

  16

  I talked to a few more residents in Skeeter’s building and learned nothing of note. Then I thought of a man who might be able to help me, and I was pretty sure I knew where to find him. He’d be fishing at Little Mystic Channel, locally known as Montego Bay, a saltwater inlet that flowed into Charlestown under the Tobin Bridge.

  His name is Rod Liveliner, a retired tugboat pilot who spends his summers angling for blues and stripers. In Little Mystic Channel, Rod had a better chance of hooking a car bumper than a fish. He had been friends with my father. Both were Vietnam vets, both combat Marines, and both came back from Southeast Asia haunted. Rod kept his demons at bay by fishing. My father did it with booze. As for which worked better, Rod is still alive. I walked to the channel and saw Rod casting a line.

  “Any bites?” I said, approaching him from behind.

  A smile broke across Rod’s sunburnt face. He was wearing a canvas sailor hat with the brim turned down and salt-stained aviator sunglasses with green lenses. His arms were flaking, and his hands were blotched with liver spots that looked like a map of the harbor islands.

  “Dermot, what brings you here?”

  “Neighborhood crime.” I leaned on the railing next to him. “You probably heard about Gertrude Murray.”

  “Everyone’s heard about it.” He reeled in his line and cast it again. “Gert was a nice lady. Her sons are nuts, but she was nice.”

  “I’m investigating her homicide.”

  “I heard about that, too. Bo Murray isn’t too pleased about it.” He lightly tugged the line. “Bo isn’t the most balanced arrow in the quiver.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “He’s sick, too. I heard the doctors gave him six months.” He pointed to the tackle box. “Grab a drop line. The chubs are in the bucket.”

  “Sounds good.” I grabbed a spool of line, baited the hook, and unwound it into the water. “I talked to Gert’s neighbor, Skeeter Gruskowski. Do you know him?”

  “Sure do.” Rod’s smile broadened. “Skeeter is a classic.”

  “Skeeter called 911 the night Gert got killed.” I felt the line. Nothing. “He said he has a bad heart.”

  “Skeeter was a crane operator, doing quite well for himself, and then he had a heart attack unloading a container ship.” Rod reeled in the line, checked the bait, and hooked a fresh chub. “He went back to work three months later and the same thing happened, another heart attack.”

  “It must have been dangerous. Those containers are enormous.”

  “It ended his career,” Rod said. “He’s been on the dole ever since.”

  “Is he married?”

  “He was married.” Rod flicked his wrist and the sinker plunked thirty yards out. “He’s divorced now.”

  “What happened?”

  “Gambling,” Rod said. “A few of us waterfront workers, including Skeeter, played poker years ago, small stakes.” Rod gently pulled the line. “I guess he caught the gambling bug, and it got out of control. Horses, greyhounds, football, hockey, he bet the lot. He started hitting Foxwoods and that other casino down there.”

  “Does he still gamble?”

  “He doesn’t have the money,” Rod said. “It cost him everything — house, car, credit, marriage — and now he’s stuck in the projects.”

  I hear the same stories at AA meetings, addiction taking away every material thing you own, and then it goes for your soul.

  “Do you know anything about Victor Diaz?” I asked.

  “The man accused of killing Gert?” he said. “Don’t know him.”

  “His family lives in the bricks.”

  “I know,” Rod said. “The scuttlebutt says his accomplice killed Gert, which makes Diaz guilty, too. You have your work cut out for you.”

  “I know.” I wound the line and threw the limp chub in the water. “I have to go, Rod. If you hear anything, let me know.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Glooscap and I go deep-sea fishing every month. It’s peaceful out there, out beyond the horizon, the perfect setting to talk about the war. We never stop processing it, Dermot, the Vietnam years. And Vietnam vets are getting harder to find.”

  “Like codfish.”

  “We’re as rare as codfish, but not as protected. You should join us next time. Glooscap and I go out past the brink.”

  “I might take you up on that.” I looked at Little Mystic Channel. A film of motor oil rippled on the surface, and scum floated east on its way to the harbor. “Do you catch anything here?”

  “Once in a while, but the real fishing is out deep. Glooscap and I hauled in some lunkers this last month, stripers as long as your arm. Last year Glooscap snagged a 300-pound halibut, big as the one in the Winslow Homer painting.”

  “I saw the photo on his wall,” I said. “It was a proud moment for Glooscap.” Not so proud for the halibut. “He framed it.”

  “Way out there by George’s Bank, that’s where he caught it,” Rod said. “We were eating halibut steaks and halibut stew for six months.”

  I handed Rod my card. He handed me his phone number and told me to call him. Before I left, Rod said, “Be careful of Bo Murray. He’s buried two people that I know of and got away with it. One of them was a teenage girl.”

  “Fuckin’ asshole, killing a young girl. I’ll keep my eyes open.”

  I stood at the railing and watched the cars crossing the Tobin Bridge. The tollbooths were gone now, replaced by automated scanners that tally the fees, but the upgrade hasn’t improved the traffic flow, which is still a molasses trickle from Chelsea to Charlestown.

  “You remind me of your father.” Rod said, putting an end to my musing. He removed his sunglasses and swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “He was the best man I ever met, and as you well know, I owe my life to him. I am in his debt.”

  I had heard this story many times before, but out of respect I listened with interest.

  “He saved my life in Vietnam.” Tears welled in Rod’s eyes. “I was what they called a one-digit midget, less than ten days left in my hitch. It’s the scariest time for a Marine, when you’re about to be discharged. You get superstitious.”

  “I can see why.”

  “Your father saved my life two days before I got my honorable. We were fighting in Da Nang, Military Region 5, when it happened. I won’t go into the details because it’s still too painful to talk about, but I can tell you this much: Your father should have got a Silver Star for his actions. I’m alive today because of Chief. You now hold his debt, my debt to your father. If you ask me for anything, I will honor your request.”

  His eye sockets overflowed and tears spilled down his cheeks. The debt was important to Rod, and I wanted to respond in a respectful way, but I wasn’t sure what to say. So I said something I hoped would ease his mind. “My old man loved you. There is no debt to pay.”

  “I fulfill my obligations,” he said. “And watch out for Bo Murray.”

  Rod turned to the channel and cast his line.

  Night had fallen and my energy had ebbed. I sat in the parlor, looking at the stream of white headlights coming into the city and t
he stripe of red taillights going to the suburbs. A humming transformer on a telephone pole lulled me into a rhythmic trance, chasing away the noise in my head. In Alcoholics Anonymous, Step Eleven suggests that we pray and meditate to get closer to our Higher Power. This is the only way I can pray and meditate — staring at cityscapes and listening to city sounds. The sight of distant traffic calms me, probably because I’m not in it, and the hum of the transformer brings me back to my childhood, to the scratchy static from my father’s transistor radio.

  I had just reached a contemplative state when a spray of bullets shattered the windows. I dropped to the floor and rolled to the wall. No sound accompanied the volley — they must have used a silencer. I got out my phone to dial 911 but stopped. I didn’t want to deal with the police. A car sped away. I shook off the glass and peeked out the window and saw nothing threatening below. Judging by the angle of the bullet holes in the ceiling, the shooter fired from street level, probably from a car, most likely the car I heard speeding away.

  In Tibet, a meditation is ended by the peaceful gong of a resonant bell, in Charlestown it’s ended by a hail of gunfire. In the past I considered moving to an elevator condo, an upscale place with lobby security and underground parking and surveillance cameras, but that seemed like cheating. A man should handle his own problems, not farm them out to others. Why should I put a security guard at risk because someone is after me?

  So instead of moving, I took amateurish measures, but at least it was something. I placed a length-long mirror on the front landing and angled it so I could see who was coming up the stairs. I added a Fox police lock to the door, making it tougher to break down. I installed a deadbolt on the outside of the rear door. If an intruder came up the front stairs, I could engage the Fox police lock, go to the rear stairwell and deadbolt the door from the outside, thus preventing the intruder from getting through and giving me time to escape.

  A Jesuit priest once told me that material security is an illusion, at best a hoax, and that genuine security came from God. Tell that to a cop whose Kevlar vest just stopped a bullet. It’s not that I’m paranoid, thinking they’re out to get me, although sometimes I think they are. It’s that I’m a skeptic, anticipating the worst. I’m like a football coach who takes every precaution possible to prevent a turnover that’ll cost him a game — or in this case, my life.