Chapter 6
Eddie and Dr. McIntyre looked up, and everyone in the room was quiet, pondering Tony’s question.
Harvey said, “It’s your call, Eddie.”
Eddie returned his gaze and stood up slowly. “Okay, Jimmy, you and Nate stay on the fingerprints. Tony, I want you to get a couple of patrolmen and start a search for the dummy. I’ll be surprised if it’s not in the building.” He turned to Harvey. “Could you help me, Harv? Just go over the body with me and make sure I don’t miss anything?”
“Sure.”
Dr. McIntyre got stiffly to his feet. “Well, gentlemen, I’m stepping downstairs. I’ll be back up when Dr. Hogan arrives.” He ambled toward the doorway, raised the yellow tape, and ducked under it.
Eddie swallowed. “This one’s getting to me, Harv.”
“It’s because you know him.”
Eddie nodded. There were beads of sweat on his forehead, although it wasn’t hot in the room.
“You okay?” Harvey asked.
“I think so.”
“Take your jacket off.”
Eddie peeled off his sport coat. “Have they dusted this chair yet?”
“Here, lay it on my briefcase.”
Eddie draped his jacket over the briefcase. “As far as I can tell, Joey was just carrying his usual gear. His gun is in his holster. He didn’t draw it. So, he didn’t realize he was in danger, right? I mean, he’d have reached for his weapon if he knew he was going to be shot at.”
Harvey nodded. “He didn’t stand a chance.”
Eddie tugged at the knot on his tie. “The way he fell—splat on his face. His arms weren’t spread out.”
They crouched beside Joey’s body and pondered every nuance for several minutes. At last Harvey stood. “I think you’ve analyzed everything.”
“Captain?” Tony was at the door.
Harvey smiled. “Tell Detective Thibodeau.”
“Oh, right. Sorry, Eddie.”
“’S’okay,” Eddie said.
“We’ve got the dummy. He’s sitting on a toilet in one of the stalls in the men’s room down the hall.”
“That’s creative.” Eddie reached for his jacket. “Did you dust for prints?”
“Not yet. We probably won’t get any prints, except for the setup crew.”
“Don’t assume that.” Eddie followed Tony into the hallway. A knot of people filled the end of the hall, kept back by a uniformed officer.
“Your public awaits you.” Tony nodded toward the group, and Eddie glanced at them.
“I guess they want a press conference.”
“You wanna see the real dummy first?”
Eddie sighed. “Tony, it’s a dummy. You don’t have to say real dummy. I mean, it’s not like Joey is a fake dummy.”
“But why did they bother to move him?” Tony asked, leading the way into the men’s room. Harvey followed but stopped at the doorway to the men’s room while Tony and Eddie entered.
“If they left him in the office, anyone looking in there would see two bodies,” Eddie said. “This way, they just saw Joey and assumed it was the dummy. It bought them time.”
Tony shrugged. “Sounds plausible, Shakespeare. They stashed him in here and locked the stall door.”
Eddie nodded. “So anyone using the men’s room would figure it was a person in there, if they saw the shoes. They had to crawl out underneath, though?”
“I’d say so.”
“That means the person who did it wasn’t a very big guy.”
“Right.”
“Could you do it?”
Tony frowned. “I suppose. You don’t want me to demonstrate, do you?”
“Well, I don’t think it was a kid, but still, there’s not that much room between the dividers and the floor.”
“You’re saying someone as paunchy as the comptroller couldn’t do it?”
“Something like that. Could have been a woman.”
“Naw,” Tony protested. “A woman carrying a male dummy into the men’s room? Now, that would be noticeable.”
Eddie stared glumly at the dummy. “We’re sure this is our dummy? Bangor has a different one downstairs?”
“I think so.”
“Let’s make sure. Get Stickle or somebody else from the committee to identify this one as ours.”
“Oh, brother. We’re down to getting a positive ID on a dummy.”
Eddie came to the doorway, and Harvey walked with him back to the comptroller’s office.
“Should I do the press conference now?” Eddie asked.
“You know what you want to say?”
“Not really.”
Harvey nodded. “Decide what you need to give them, and what you need to hold back.”
“Did they find Joey’s mother yet?”
“Yeah, Ron called me a couple minutes ago. They’ve told Mrs. Bolduc, that is, Joey’s mother, and also his ex-wife. His mother called his brother and sisters. I think it’s safe to release his name now.”
“What about Debbie Higgins?” Eddie asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Too bad about her.”
“Yeah,” Harvey said. “I wish she wasn’t mixed up in this.”
“Joey was a fun guy.” Eddie felt somehow that he needed to defend the dead detective.
“I know, and he was a good cop. He did really well on the computer training last fall. Made a few bloopers in his day, but don’t we all?”
Eddie nodded.
Harvey put a hand on his shoulder. “You want me to back you up for the press conference?”
“Would you?”
“Sure.” Harvey nodded toward Jimmy Cook, who was lifting fingerprints from the comptroller’s desk.
“Jim, the boss and I are going down and talk to the press,” Eddie said. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m all set.”
Eddie nodded and looked over at Nate, who was examining the rug next to the body. “You and Nate, don’t let anyone else in here except the M.E. Well, and Tony.”
“Copy that,” Nate said without looking up.
“Come on.” Harvey went with Eddie to the elevator.
*****
On the way down, Eddie quickly outlined the points he thought he should make to the reporters.
“Sounds good,” Harvey said.
Eddie drew a deep breath and opened the front door. He positioned himself on the steps of City Hall. Jill Weymouth and Mike Browning came out of the crowd.
“You got this, Eddie?” Mike said.
“Yeah.”
“Good. Mayor Weymouth and I will be right here if you need us.” They stood behind him, near Harvey.
Eddie looked out over the crowd and swallowed. Hundreds of people jammed the sidewalk and the street beyond, where half a dozen patrolmen directed traffic, keeping it moving at a crawl. The grass no one was supposed to stand on, between the sidewalk and the building, was taking a beating.
Eddie glimpsed faces he knew. Harvey had sent most of his family home, but Jennifer and her father had stayed. Eddie’s younger sister, Lisa, gave him a low thumbs-up from the curb. His mother stood beside her. Of all the onlookers, their expressions were the least distressed. They’re just proud of me for being on top of things. They never met Joey.
Clustered on the steps below him, reporters and cameramen from every television station and newspaper in the southern half of the state vied for the best spots.
“Spell your name for them,” Harvey whispered in his ear, and Eddie smiled grimly. He looked at the reporters and picked out Leeanne. When her eyes met his, she smiled sorrowfully. Eddie approached the clutch of microphones that the TV crews had set up.
“I’m very sorry to have to tell you that we have lost one of our own today,” Eddie began. “Detective Joseph Bolduc was a credit to the Portland Police Department, and he was a personal friend of mine.”
He took a deep breath and went on, slowly enumerating the basic facts of the case. When he was finished, he turned to go back inside, and Harvey walked beside him.
“Not bad.” Harvey’s eyes told Eddie it was a deliberate understatement.
“Thanks. Jennifer going home now?”
“Yeah, I told her and George to head out, and not to wait supper for us.”
“How late do you want to work tonight?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Not too late. You get diminishing returns after a certain point. Seven, maybe, then go home and unwind. Get a good sleep and come in early.” Harvey punched the up button by the elevator door.
“Eddie—”
They both turned. Leeanne walked briskly toward them.
Eddie caught a quick breath. “Hey, Leeanne. I can’t give you anything special.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to. I just wanted to … talk to you.”
The elevator doors opened.
“I’ll go up and see how the guys are doing,” Harvey said. “Come over to the house later, Leeanne.”
“Thanks. I may be working late on this.”
When the door had closed, she looked up at Eddie. She opened her mouth, then closed it and shrugged slightly.
Eddie looked down the hall as Mayor Weymouth and several other people approached. “Look, there’s an empty room upstairs where we’ve been interviewing people.” He led her past the elevator to the stairway and through the door.
“I can’t stay long,” she warned, climbing the steps beside him.
“When’s your deadline?”
“Nine. You looked good at the press conference. Is someone going to tape the news for you?”
“Probably my mother. I don’t know.”
They emerged into the upper hallway, and he took her to the door of the conference room, scanned the room quickly, then drew her inside.
“What did you want to say?” Eddie asked.
“Just that … I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“A lot of things. I’ve been really rotten to you. I’ve been talking to Jennifer and Harvey more lately, and to Mary Rowland. They’ve all kind of helped me … to see some things.” She looked up timidly. Eddie’s pulse began to pound. Her blue eyes rimmed with dark lashes had always affected him that way. He remembered when she’d been frightened of him, and he’d moved ever so slowly to gain her confidence. She looked that way now, like a doe on the alert, ready to bolt.
“What kind of things?” he asked softly.
“I’ve been very selfish, for one.”
He thought about that. It was true, but it didn’t anger him anymore. He looked up at the ceiling. “I guess I was pretty selfish, too.”
She smiled, but it skewed a little. “I was thinking more about what I wanted than what you needed, or what God would want me to do. I think … I wanted to hurt you, but when I knew I had, it felt terrible.”
He swallowed hard. “I couldn’t tell.”
“I was good at hiding it, wasn’t I?”
He nodded.
“I didn’t want you to know I felt guilty and … lonely.”
“You didn’t need to send the ring back. It was a gift.”
“I—I couldn’t look at it. And Marie—” Leeanne’s pleading eyes filled with tears.
“What’s my mother got to do with it?” he asked.
“She got after you about it, didn’t she?”
“How did you know?”
Leeanne’s top lip twitched. “I knew, is all.”
“Well, she’s French.”
Leeanne laughed, just a sliver of a laugh, but Eddie couldn’t help smiling.
“Tu me manques,” he whispered.
She caught her breath. He could barely hear her when she replied, “I miss you, too.”
His left hand twitched, and he longed to reach out and touch her face. He remembered how her warm, smooth cheek felt against his.
“Call my cell phone at eight o’clock.” His voice was rough. “I might have something for you then.”
“I didn’t come here to get information.”
“I know. If you had, I wouldn’t have offered.”
“Don’t treat me special if you’re not supposed to.”
He shrugged. “Sometimes a tenacious reporter keeps calling until the last minute, and sometimes it pays off.”
She smiled then. “Thanks.”
“I’ve got to get back to work now.”
They stepped out into the hallway, and Leeanne started to turn to the right.
“This way, ma belle.” He took her hand and led her to the stairway door, his heart racing. She looked up at him again in the doorway, her lashes lowered, as though she didn’t dare look him full in the face. He released her hand reluctantly. “Call me. Don’t forget.”
“I won’t.”
*****
Harvey said nothing when Eddie entered the comptroller’s office, and they worked side by side for another three hours, carefully filling out their charts and grids, noting what tests the crime lab should perform on each piece of evidence.
At six o’clock, Harvey stuck his mechanical pencil in his pocket and rubbed his eyes. “I think we’re about done here.”
“Me, too. The CSIs will package everything up.” Eddie looked around at the detectives still bent over their assignments. “Pack it up, guys. We’ll start at 8 a.m., in the office.” He looked at Harvey. “You going back there now?”
“There are a few things I’d like to check on.”
Eddie nodded. “I want to go over the interviews and see the reports Ron’s men made tonight. Then I’ll do some planning for tomorrow.”
“Good thinking. You’ll want to schedule more interviews. Make a list, and Paula can do some calling when she comes in. Put me wherever you want me. Just use me like you would any other detective.”
“Why are you doing this, Harv?”
“Because I’m the captain, and I don’t want to do all the paperwork.”
Eddie laughed. “Sure. As if you’re lazy.”
“Just letting you stretch your wings.”
“You’re not planning to retire or anything?”
“Rest easy, buddy. I foresee a long working partnership for us.” Harvey took out his phone and called the dispatcher for an unmarked car to take them back to the police station, while Eddie checked in with the patrolman detailed to watch the crime scene on the evening shift.
“Hey, Captain, you won the challenge,” Charlie Doran, the dispatcher told Harvey over the phone.
“How’s that?”
“You won.”
Harvey laughed. “Eddie, we won the stupid game. We came into it even with Bangor this morning, and our Public Works guys won their contest. It seems Jimmy slipped the list of celebrity fingerprints to Myron Stickle while we were talking to the M.E. Bangor didn’t get all theirs until ten minutes later, so even though we forfeited on the murder, Portland won the challenge.”
“Joey would love this.” Eddie pulled on his jacket.
“Yeah. You’d better see the ex tomorrow.”
“Roxanne,” Eddie said.
“You know her?”
“I met her a few times. Before the divorce, you know?”
Harvey nodded. “Why did they get divorced?”
“I don’t know, but I could guess.”
“Joey was unfaithful?”
“I don’t think so. He was sociable, but he loved her. It’s the hours, you know? The wives get tired of waiting. First they get mad, then they get bored.”
Harvey sighed deeply. Eddie knew he’d dealt with the syndrome firsthand in his youth.
“Sorry, Harv.”
“It’s okay. I just … empathize too much with these guys. No matter what anyone says, quality time is no substitute for quantity time. What’s she like?”
“A little hard. Slightly disillusioned. A bit of a nag, I thought.”
“Pretty?”
Eddie shrugged. “Not my type. Flashy.” They went into the hallway and boarded the elevator.
“You and Leeanne are speaking,” Harvey observed.
“Just a few words.”
“Was that enough?”
“Maybe.” Eddie smiled faintly. “What can I give her at eight o’clock that will endear me to her forever?”
“That’s too easy, Ed.”
“I mean for her story.”
“Oh. So, we’re not talking about defrosting the ring yet.”
“Not yet, mon ami.”