Part 9 (2/2)
”Oh, my G.o.d!”
”I could be wrong about this. All I've got so far are suspicions.”
”And you want to know if I can confirm them?”
”Yeah.”
”Well, I can't. I mean, I always thought he was a little creepy, but nothing like that.”
”Do you have access to his computer?”
”His office desktop, sure.”
”Does he have a laptop?”
”He does. He usually carries it around with him, but sometimes he forgets and leaves it in the office.”
”Do you think you could look through his computer files without getting caught?”
She fell silent for a moment, thinking it over. ”I guess I could,” she said. ”What would I be looking for?”
”Video.”
”What kind of video?”
”You'll know when you see it.”
Peggi checked her watch. ”The office is empty now,” she said. ”We could go over there and take a look.”
”I probably shouldn't go with you, Peggi. If someone walked in on us, you could say you were working late, but my presence would be hard to explain.”
”Okay.”
”Here's my card,” I said. ”Call me if you find something.”
14.
That evening, I stretched out on my Salvation Army mattress and cracked open the new Michael Connelly novel to see how Harry Bosch would solve his latest caper. Maybe I'd learn something I could use. Wouldn't be the first time.
My apartment was on the second floor of a crumbling three-story tenement house in the city's Italian section of Federal Hill. It wasn't much, but since my breakup with Dorcas, it was all I could afford. Besides, I felt at home in this working-cla.s.s neighborhood of store clerks, hairdressers, and bus drivers raising big, close families. People here had a history of keeping their priorities straight. In 1933, Federal Hill voted to repeal Prohibition by a total of 2,005 to 3.
Angela Anselmo, the single mom who lived in the apartment across the hall, was cooking something spicy again tonight, the aroma seeping through the inch-wide crack at the bottom of my front door. My mouth watered. I switched off my iPod speakers so I could listen to Marta, Angela's ten-year-old daughter, practice the violin. She was getting really good.
She was in the middle of Hungarian Dance no. 5, for the fifth time, I think, when I heard someone trudging up the worn wooden stairs to the second-floor landing. Someone heavy, by the sound of it. Then a sharp rap on my door. I got up, walked into the kitchen, peered out the peephole, and got a good look at the center of a ma.s.sive chest. Not a someone my door could keep out if he wanted to get in, so I unlocked it and turned the k.n.o.b.
The someone turned out to be two someones. Both wore their hair military style. It was a chilly night, but they wore no jackets over their muscle s.h.i.+rts, one black and the other gray. I could see they were in shape, but there's a difference between iron-pumping shape and fighting shape. Then I spotted their matching tattoos-an eagle clutching an anchor and a Navy SEALs trident in its talons-and I knew these two were both.
They stepped inside, and Black s.h.i.+rt gently closed the door.
”Mind if we sit?” he asked.
”Anywhere you'd like.”
They looked around the kitchen and saw nothing but a greasy stove and a wheezing twenty-year-old Frigidaire.
”Sorry,” I said. ”The wife got all the furniture.” I squatted on the floor, my back against the wall. They chose to remain standing.
”You dropped in on the Maniellas' place at the lake yesterday afternoon,” Black s.h.i.+rt said.
”Guilty,” I said.
”Never a good idea to go there uninvited,” he said.
”Thanks for letting me know.”
”You've also been hanging around the clubs,” Gray s.h.i.+rt said.
”Didn't know I needed an invitation for that.”
”You're welcome there anytime,” he said. ”But you were asking questions.”
”Kinda goes with the job.”
”Miss Maniella would like you to stop,” Black s.h.i.+rt said.
”Okay,” I said.
”Cuz we might not be so polite if we have to come back,” he said.
”And none of us want that,” I said.
”We understand each other?” Gray s.h.i.+rt said.
”We do.”
That's when Black s.h.i.+rt spotted my only piece of artwork suspended in a shadow box on the chipped plaster wall.
”What's with the forty-five auto?”
”My grandfather carried it when he was on the force,” I said.
”Providence PD?”
”Yeah. I keep it there to remind me of him.”
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