Текст книги "The Chill of Night"

Автор книги: James Hayman

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

‘You and Elaine Goff were the last two attorneys to sign out from Palmer Milliken her last day at the office. That was Friday, December twenty-third.’ McCabe paused, wondering if Ogden would care to comment. He didn’t. ‘You signed out ten minutes after she did, at ten after nine. Did you happen to see her in the office before you left?’

‘Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. We had a late meeting. From about eight thirty to nine that evening. There were a couple of things Lainie wanted to wrap up before she left for vacation.’

‘Such as?’

‘I don’t see how that’s pertinent to your investigation.’

If you were fucking her on your desk, asshole, it might be very pertinent was what McCabe wanted to say. He settled for the weaker and less incendiary ‘Whatever was on Goff’s mind, whatever she talked about, may have affected her actions later. It might help us find her killer.’

Ogden didn’t say anything, and his blank face revealed nothing. Probably a hell of a poker player. Finally he spoke. ‘Well, I don’t see what this could possibly have to do with her death, but the meeting was about Lainie’s partnership. She was eager to get it before the end of the year. It would have been a very early offer. She’s only been with Palmer Milliken for six years. However, I thought the quality of her work warranted consideration. For that reason I sponsored her for admission to the firm at a partners’ meeting held earlier that evening.’

‘Was an offer extended?’

‘No. My colleagues thought it was too early and that Lainie should wait another year. That’s when most PM partnerships are awarded. I argued in her favor, but to no avail.’

‘You told her that when you met?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did she take it?’

‘Naturally, she was disappointed.’

‘Was she angry?’

Ogden looked at McCabe as if trying to gauge how much the detective knew. A moment passed before he said, ‘Not that I could see.’

‘Did she tell you where she was going after she left the office?’

‘No, and I didn’t ask. But I would have thought she’d go home to pack. She was leaving on her vacation the next morning.’

‘I’d like to have my people go through her office and computer files to see if we can find any notes or e-mails that will help in our investigation.’

‘If she was killed by a random mugger . . .’

‘I have reason to believe she knew her attacker.’ That wasn’t quite true, but it might throw Ogden off stride. ‘There may be some evidence of that relationship in her office.’

‘Well, it sounds like a fishing expedition to me.’ Ogden pursed his lips, then shook his head. ‘No. I won’t allow it.’

‘I can get a court order.’

‘I don’t think so. Her files are protected by attorney-client privilege.’

‘We only want to look at her personal files. You, or someone from your firm, can be present while we look. Make sure we don’t compromise confidential client information.’

‘Not good enough. I’m not sure her personal files can be separated from her business files. Certainly e-mails can’t. Naturally, I’d like to help in any way I can, but I can’t compromise my clients’ confidential business. If you request a court order, I’m afraid we’ll have to file a motion to quash. I think we’ll be successful.’

Ogden might be right about that. McCabe might have to establish some sort of likelihood that Goff’s files contained relevant information. He’d have to talk to Burt Lund in the AG’s office about how to proceed. Lund might be able to work out a deal with Ogden, otherwise they’d go for the warrant. For the moment he decided to try another tack.

‘Where did you go after you left the office that Friday night?’

‘I had a drink to celebrate the season with a friend, and then I came home, to this house, to spend the rest of the evening with my wife.’

‘Who was the friend?’

‘Another attorney at my office. We had the drink at the bar at the Portland Harbor Hotel, and yes, I can prove it. I have the American Express receipt at the office.’

‘Who was the other attorney?’

‘I’m not sure that’s any of your business.’

‘Humor me.’

Apparently not one to suffer fools lightly, Ogden sighed. ‘Another of the associates in the M&A practice. A woman named Janet Pritchard.’

Interesting. A woman. Probably a young woman since she was still an associate. Was Ogden fucking her, too? McCabe filed the name away for future reference. ‘One more question.’

Ogden glanced at his watch.

‘Where were you between 10:00 P.M. and 3:00 A.M. last Tuesday night?’

‘Sergeant McCabe, I’m afraid I’m out of time. And, aside from that, this conversation is getting a little tiresome. I’ll have Chloe bring you your coat.’ With that he got up and walked out of the room, leaving his nearly empty cup on the table and McCabe still sitting in the red leather chair. McCabe stared at the cup, wondering if he could slip it into his pocket without being seen. The dregs of the coffee might wet his pocket, but traces of Ogden’s saliva, and thus his DNA, would remain on the rim. He doubted the Ogdens would notice the loss of a single cup. However, he knew that if he took it without either a search warrant or permission, any evidence obtained would be inadmissible in court.

‘Here’s your coat, Detective.’

‘Thank you, Chloe.’

As McCabe put it on, he deliberately swung the tail of the long overcoat behind him. Ogden’s cup crashed onto the hardwood floor.

‘Oh, damn, look what I’ve done.’ He knew there was some reason he still wore a full-length coat.

Chloe ran off to find a dustpan and brush. ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ he called after her. Then he knelt down and carefully slipped as many pieces of the rim into his pocket as he could. He put on his shoes, waved good-bye to Chloe, and closed the front door on the way out. Didn’t want too much heat escaping.

Henry C. ‘Hank’ Ogden stood at a window on the second-floor landing and watched, with a kind of loathing, as McCabe walked across the icy gravel toward the big black Ford. He felt a tightness in his gut, and he didn’t like the feeling. No. He’d have to keep this nosy prick of a detective, with all his questions about Lainie and who was where and when, from probing too deeply into his affairs. It wouldn’t do for him to know too much. No. It wouldn’t do at all.

Deep into his thoughts, he didn’t notice Barbara coming up behind him. He started at the touch of her hand on his shoulder.

‘You’d better shower and change, Henry. Jock and Sonia and the boys will be here in less than an hour.’

He nodded absently, still keeping his gaze on the car as it pulled from its parking space and disappeared down the driveway. His eldest son and daughter-in-law and their two sons were coming up from Boston for the weekend. It would be hard playing the devoted father and grandpops when he had so many other things to think about.

‘Who was that in the black car?’ she asked.

‘A policeman. Something bad happened to someone in the firm. He came to ask some questions.’

‘Really? What happened?’

‘One of the associates died. No. That’s not strictly true. Actually, she was murdered.’

‘Oh my God, Henry, that’s horrible. I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘Who was it?’

‘A young woman who worked for me in M&A. No one you know. Elaine Goff.’

‘Murdered. My God. Do they have any idea who did it?’

‘No. Not yet.’

‘Elaine Goff? I don’t think I know that name. Was she anyone important to the firm?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Not anyone important.’ He smiled and kissed her softly on the cheek. ‘Not important at all.’

Seventeen

Instead of going back to 109, McCabe pulled up in front of the Coffee by Design on Congress Street. Leaving the car running, he ran in and ordered a large cup of the daily dark roast, Black Thunder, which at least sounded like it ought to keep him going for a while. As an afterthought he added a cranberry walnut scone. He sat in the car for a while, sipping and munching and looking at the picture of Goff in her black evening gown. Ogden to her left. Jack Kelly to her right. The guy who was about to pick up nearly two hundred grand as a result of Lainie’s death. McCabe turned the Crown Vic around, made a right on Avon, then a quick left and another right. He turned into the driveway of a large, ramshackle Victorian. Two smaller buildings to the rear also seemed to be part of the property. He pulled in between a red Jeep Cherokee, one of the old boxy ones, and a battered school bus with light blue paint covering the original yellow-orange. Black hand lettering on top of the blue read SANCTUARY HOUSE. Below that, in smaller letters, was written, WHERE HOPE IS REBORN. McCabe could see the outline of other letters, painted over but still visible under the blue. They read WEST PARIS SCHOOL DISTRICT.

Up on the porch, a boy and a girl, both a little older than Casey, lounged against the railing, sucking hard at the butt ends of cigarettes, doing their best to ignore him. The boy looked away when McCabe approached. The girl stared back disdainfully through a heavy coating of makeup. Her addiction to black lipstick and even blacker eyeliner appeared to be at least as strong as the one to nicotine. Beneath her painted face she wore a short, fluffy white fake fur jacket over a thigh-high miniskirt, which in turn covered dark gray long johns stuffed into fluffy boots that kind of matched the fluffy jacket. Except for the long johns, an accommodation to the weather, the package screamed hooker. He didn’t know what he was expecting to find at Sanctuary House, but somehow this wasn’t it.

McCabe put on his best smiley face. ‘Either of you know where I can find John Kelly?’

Neither answered, so he repeated the question.

Finally the girl nodded slowly. ‘Yeah. We know.’

‘Well, good. That’s a start. Now maybe you can tell me where that would be?’

She took a last deep drag and tossed her butt into a number ten can apparently set out there for the purpose. ‘I’ll go get him for you,’ she said and headed into the house. The boy continued smoking and looking out toward the street, his acne-scarred face almost lost under the array of hardware pierced into the flesh.

‘Pretty nice day today, huh?’ said McCabe.

No answer.

‘Still pretty cold, though. You might need a jacket.’

Still no answer.

‘You have a name?’

‘No.’ The kid flicked his spent butt into the can and headed for the door. McCabe shrugged and followed. Once inside, he found the girl walking back toward him.

‘He says to wait in his office. That’s it there.’ She pointed toward a closed door with a hand-lettered sign Scotch-taped to it that read KNOCK!

‘Says he’ll be right with you.’ She disappeared up the stairs. McCabe went in without knocking and closed the door behind him. There wasn’t much to Kelly’s office, and what there was looked shopworn. Third– or fourth-generation hand-me-down furniture. An old oak desk. A couple of folding metal chairs for visitors. A tall metal filing cabinet in the corner. Pretty much every surface was covered with paper – files, manuals, piles of newspaper clippings – most of which appeared to be about Sanctuary House or Kelly himself. All highly laudatory. The one on top had a picture of Kelly with his hands resting on the shoulders of a couple of teenagers, both of whom looked more cleaned up than the pair on the porch. A HERO OF THE STREETS, the headline declared.

Two facing walls were covered with books stacked on shelving constructed out of cinder blocks and unpainted boards like in a college dorm. Hundreds of them. Most of the titles seemed appropriate for someone in Kelly’s line of work. Broken Lives: The Tragedy of Child Abuse; The Psychotherapy of Abandoned Children; Fund-raising for Nonprofits: Building Community-Based Partnerships. He pulled out a volume called The Healing Power of Play: Working with Abused Children by a woman named Eliana Gil, skimmed a few pages, and then put it back. He squatted down and checked out the bottom shelves. Mostly books about religion and theology. Two titles stuck in the right-hand corner behind Kelly’s desk caught his eye. The first was The Theology of the Prophetic Tradition. He pulled out the second, An Introduction to the Old Testament Prophets and Their Message. He flipped through it. A lot of the pages were marked by yellow highlighter. He flipped to the table of contents and was hit by a surge of excitement, followed by a surge of doubt. He stared at the words in front of him. Chapter 17. Page 463. The Prophecies of Amos: Historical Relevance to the Modern Age.

He was interrupted by a deep voice. ‘Checking out my library?’

McCabe looked up. A pair of dark blue eyes behind heavy black-rimmed glasses looked down at him. He closed the book and rose from his squat.

‘John Kelly?’

Kelly nodded.

‘Detective Sergeant Michael McCabe. Portland PD.’

They shook hands.

‘How can I help you?’

‘All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword,’ McCabe said, watching Kelly’s face. No reaction other than a mild curiosity.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword. Sound familiar?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

He held up the book. ‘It’s a quote from the Book of Amos. Chapter nine. Verse ten. I wondered if you remember hearing it before.’

‘I don’t recall, but I’ve probably come across it.’

‘This is your book?’

‘Of course it’s my book. They all are, though that one dates back quite a few years. I wrote a paper on the Roman Catholic view of Old Testament prophets in graduate school.’

‘With references to the Book of Amos?’

‘Yes. Though that wasn’t the focus.’

‘But you don’t remember that line?’

‘Not specifically, but Amos was all about smiting sinners, so it sounds appropriate.’

‘Interesting.’

‘If you say so.’

‘Are you still interested in biblical scholarship?’

‘I suppose so. It’s what I got my doctorate in. What I taught at the college level before deciding to put my money where my mouth is and start this place. I still do some reading – and writing. When I have time. Which is not often.’

‘Who knows about your paper on the prophetic tradition?’

Kelly heaved a sigh. ‘Y’know, this is getting old. I have no idea. I suppose my thesis adviser might remember it. Maybe my roommate at the time. Why on earth are you questioning me about quotes from Amos?’

‘Is it available on Google?’

‘My paper?’ Kelly looked oddly at McCabe ‘Good heavens, no. It was never published. It wasn’t that good.’

‘Do you still have it?’

Kelly thought about that. ‘It’s probably buried in a box along with the rest of my stuff from grad school.’

‘Where do you keep the box?’

‘I have a summer cottage. No. Cottage is too grand a word. A shack, really. I store a lot of stuff there.’

‘Unheated?’

‘There’s a woodstove. I don’t use the place in winter, though. It’s not insulated. I haven’t been there in months.’

‘Where is it?’

‘On one of the islands.’

‘Which one?’

‘Harts.’

McCabe tried not to let excitement show on his face. ‘Do you have any objections if we take a look at your cottage? Assuming, of course, you have nothing to hide. If you’d rather, we can always get a warrant.’

Kelly looked more puzzled than annoyed. ‘Be my guest. The doors are never locked. Walk right in.’ Kelly told him where the cottage was located. ‘Now why don’t you tell me what all this has to do with Lainie’s death. That is why you’re here, isn’t it? Lainie’s death? Are you suggesting somebody read Amos, took it to heart, and smote her as a sinner?’

‘Smote? Is that the past tense of smite? Not smited?’

‘Smote is correct. Now please answer my question.’

‘Sorry. I can’t. I just needed to check something out. Why don’t we start over?’ He extended a hand. ‘Like I said, I’m McCabe. Detective Sergeant Michael McCabe.’

‘I recognize you. When the kids told me a cop was here, I figured it had to be you.’

McCabe smiled and waved a hand, indicating his civilian clothes. ‘How’d they know?’

‘These kids can sniff out a cop a mile away.’

Just like the kids in New York, McCabe thought. They always knew. Uniform or no uniform. Even when there was no color difference. ‘What makes your kids so good at it? Sniffing out cops, I mean.’

‘Experience. Most of them are runaways, throwaways, and other assorted leftovers from the societal scrap heap. They’ve been bullied, hassled, and chased down by guys in blue suits most of their lives.’

‘I haven’t worn a blue suit in a long time.’

‘It’s not the suit, McCabe. Trust me. They know. Anyway, I’ve been expecting you ever since I heard the news about Lainie.’

Kelly pointed McCabe to one of the folding chairs. ‘Just dump those files on the pile over there.’ He slipped behind the desk and sat down and looked at McCabe. His eyes, even behind the glasses, were hard to ignore. They were even bluer and more intense than they’d seemed in the photo. They radiated energy. From what I hear he’s a hell of a charismatic guy, Maggie’d told him, a real charmer. His crooked nose looked like it’d been broken more than once. McCabe guessed a scrapper. Sort of like Cleary.

‘Ever do any boxing?’

‘Amateur. As a teenager back in Pittsburgh.’

‘Any good?’

‘Not really. As you can see from the nose, guys tended to hit me more than I hit them.’

‘So what made you do it?’

‘I like defending myself. When I was young, people picked on me. One in particular. I wanted him to leave me alone.’

‘So you hit him?’

‘Just once. That’s all it took. He stopped.’

‘Picking on you?’

‘Yeah. Picking on me.’

‘Do I call you Father Jack?’

‘No. Just John. Or Jack, if you prefer. I’m not a priest anymore. Haven’t been for a long time.’

‘But you’re still a believer?’

‘Yes, but it’s different now. God sets the course by which I guide my life. The pope no longer does.’

‘Do most of your kids dress like the girl on the porch? The one who went to find you?’

‘What were you expecting? The Brady Bunch?’

‘She’s what? Fifteen years old?’

‘Tara’s sixteen.’

‘Sixteen, then. Any reason you let her hang out on the porch sucking on butts and looking like a Times Square hooker?’ Not the best way to start off with Kelly, but screw it. The girl was just a couple of years older than Casey. McCabe needed to get it off his chest.

‘Look, McCabe, if that’s where this conversation is going, why don’t you pick yourself up and go on back to Middle Street. My kids aren’t angels, and as a former street cop you ought to know that. A lot of them are vengeful, dirty, unrepentant sinners. All of them are wounded. I can’t change that in a day or a week or even a month. They tend to wear whatever they arrived in plus whatever appeals to them in the donation bags we get from the churches around town. Which, frankly, isn’t much.’

McCabe knew he had pressed the wrong button. He also knew it was dumb. If he was going to get any more out of Kelly, he’d have to back off. Let the anger subside. At the moment Kelly was on a roll, and McCabe figured he was better off letting him finish.

‘If Tara looks like a hooker,’ said Kelly, ‘hey, guess what? You’re right. That’s how she survived for the last year or so, and I’ll bet if you asked, she’d tell you fucking strangers for money was better any day than fucking her father for nothing. Which is what he forced her to do most of her life. At least when he wasn’t beating her silly and telling her she was a worthless piece of shit. The good news is she’s stopped hooking. She’s starting to put her life together. She just hasn’t changed her clothes yet.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You’re sorry?’

‘Yeah, I’m sorry. I shot my mouth off, and it wasn’t called for. So I’m sorry.’

‘Okay.’ Deep breath. Pause. ‘Apology accepted.’ Another deep breath. Another pause. ‘McCabe, you’ve got to understand our first job here is to get Tara and others like her off the streets and convince them their lives are worth saving, worth caring about. Fashion makeovers and smoking cessation, as important as they may be to you, are well down the line as far as I’m concerned.’

‘You’re pretty passionate about all this.’

‘You noticed.’

‘Any truth to the rumor you were abused yourself as a kid?’

‘It’s not a rumor, and yeah, there’s truth to it. It’s not something I try to hide. I was fourteen, and I was raped by my parish priest. The first time it happened I told my old man, and all he did was beat the crap out of me for blaspheming the Holy Mother Church. So I figured I’d have to defend myself. Remember I told you how somebody picked on me? Well, the second time it happened I beat the crap out of the priest. He was bigger and older than me, but I gave him two black eyes and a bloody nose.’

McCabe suppressed a smile. ‘What happened to you for that?’

‘Nothing. He couldn’t tell anyone what he’d done to deserve it. So he just told everyone, including the cops, that he’d been mugged on the street. Told them a couple of big black guys did it.’

‘Naturally. Doesn’t everyone?’

‘I suppose – but y’know what angered me then and still makes me angry now? Knocking the good father silly didn’t really change anything. He just kept on doing the same thing to other kids.’

‘Whatever possessed you to become a priest yourself?’

‘You mean aside from the fact that I felt I had a calling?’

‘Yeah. Aside from that.’

‘Like a lot of others, I had this cockamamie idea I could reform the institution from the inside. Didn’t take long to realize that idea was delusional. In those days, the institution wasn’t interested in reform. It was only interested in avoiding scandal, which it did for decades. It wasn’t until the Boston Globe turned the whole thing into national news that the Church really did anything to change. And by that time Sanctuary House was already up and running, and I was gone from the priesthood.’

McCabe remembered the Globe series well. In January 2002, a team of investigative reporters from the paper broke the story of pedophile priests wide open, detailing the sins of hundreds of priests, the victimization of thousands of children. The country was shocked. McCabe wasn’t. He’d learned about priestly abuse decades earlier because he knew a kid who was one of its victims. He hadn’t thought about Edward Mullaney in a long time. Fourteen years old. Shy and serious. An altar boy. A pious believer, utterly powerless to resist the God-like figure in a turned-around collar who liked taking him on ‘outings.’ McCabe had often wondered what had become of Edward. He’d found out last year. That’s when he learned Mullaney had been convicted of raping an eight-year-old girl.

‘How many kids do you have living here?’

‘Depends. Anywhere from thirty, which is our legal capacity, up to sixty, which is about all we can stuff in. Kids who sleep on the street in the summer sleep here in January. Right now we’ve got them three and four to a room.’

‘They come and go?’

‘It’s not a prison. Kids are always welcome here. Any kid. If they leave, we don’t usually try to hunt them down. Although I have done that with a few I thought were a danger to themselves or to others. Even called you guys for help a few times.’

‘How long’s the average stay?’

‘Some come for one night and then disappear. Others are here for weeks or months, which gives us a chance to work with them. We don’t turn anyone away, and we don’t kick anybody out unless they break our rules.’

‘Which are?’ asked McCabe.

‘We only have three, and, like I said, they don’t include a smoking ban. Number one’s no violence. Against yourself or anyone else. Number two’s no booze or drugs. Here or anywhere else. Number three, everyone has to show everyone else respect. Break a rule once and I’ll usually give you a second chance. Break it twice and you’re out. In return the kids get a place to sleep, food to eat, and an obligation to do some work to help keep this place running. Cooking. Cleaning. Shoveling snow. Plus an obligation to work with one of our counselors to develop a program to turn their lives around. We try to help them get jobs in town. Find permanent housing. Send them to school or tutor them for the GEDs. Thanks to our volunteers we can offer therapy to those who need it. Counseling for the others.’

‘Permanent staff?’

‘Me and three counselors. One’s a young friar who’s been with me a couple of years. The other two are USM grad students studying social work. They’ll rotate out at the end of the semester and be replaced by others. We also have a number of volunteers.’

‘Lainie Goff one of them?’

‘Yes, Lainie was a volunteer. She was also on our board of trustees.’

‘Active?’

‘Very. This organization meant a lot to her.’

‘What was her role?’

‘She did some fund-raising. She was very good at that. She was also our attorney. Pro bono, of course.’

‘Yours or the kids’?’

‘Both. We get hassled by the powers that be all the time – the city, the child welfare agencies. She fended them off. Sometimes abusive parents want their children back. She fended them off as well. Lainie was a tough, smart, take-no-prisoners kind of lawyer. This is the kind of work she should have been doing full-time instead of slaving away in that corporate sinkhole.’

‘Palmer Milliken?’

‘Yes. She was better than that. A better lawyer. A better person, though she probably didn’t know it. The fourteen-hour days she spent there would have counted for a lot more if she’d spent them here.’

‘Why do you think she did it? Work there, I mean? Was it just for the money?’

‘Money was important to her. Too important in my view. See, the thing you’ve got to understand about Lainie is she was insecure. She always needed to prove she was the best. The smartest, the toughest, the sexiest, the most beautiful. Whatever. That’s what drove her. Still, no matter how well Lainie did, and she always did very well, somehow it was never good enough. Insecurity does terrible things to a person. It’s a sad thing to say, but I think the only time I ever saw her genuinely happy was when she was here working with the kids.’

‘Really?’

‘Strange, isn’t it? The tough-as-nails lawyer as surrogate mother. She always seemed to gravitate toward girls like Tara who’d come from sexual abuse situations. They trusted her. She seemed to have an intuitive understanding of what they’d been through.’

She had a stepfather, but I don’t think she’d want him notified of anything. What Janie Archer said to him now made more sense. ‘Do you suppose Lainie went through an abusive childhood herself?’

‘I don’t know, but that’s what I’ve always thought. Work with these kids long enough and you learn they give off a certain vibe. You can feel it. I felt it in Lainie. I even asked her about it once or twice, but she never wanted to talk about it. She’s a very private person. Was a private person.’

McCabe made a mental note to find out more about Wallace Albright. Find out if he was still alive, still in Maine, and maybe still abusing young girls.

‘Lainie only worked with the girls?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Interesting.’

‘If she was abused as a child, I think it fits. She saw males as the enemy. People to be used and manipulated but not to be trusted.’

‘She trusted you, didn’t she?’

‘I think so.’

‘What was your relationship with her?’ ‘We were close. As close as she ever let anyone get to her.’

‘Except for the kids?’

‘Yeah. Except for them.’

‘Were you intimate?’

‘You mean sexually?’

‘You tell me.’

‘No. We weren’t intimate. Not sexually. Not in any other way either, except that we both cared about the kids. She was a private person and didn’t share much about her personal life.’

‘She was also a beautiful, sexy woman, and you’re not a priest anymore. Weren’t you ever tempted? Physically, I mean?’

Kelly stared at him. ‘I’m otherwise involved.’

‘Who with?’

‘None of your business.’

‘Ever been to her apartment?’

‘No.’

‘Where were you last Tuesday night from about 9:00 p.m. till midnight?’

Kelly smiled at the inference. ‘It would seem I’m a suspect.’

‘Everyone’s a suspect.’

‘Last Tuesday night I was where I am every Tuesday. Sitting right here writing grant proposals till about two in the morning.’

‘Then what?’

‘I went to sleep.’

‘Where?’

‘There’s a staff bedroom upstairs. One member of the staff is always on premises. We rotate. Tuesdays and Thursdays are my nights.’

‘Anybody see you?’

‘Nobody any jury would ever believe.’

‘Who?’

‘Just a couple of street kids who banged on the door about midnight. They wanted beds. We didn’t have any, but it was too cold to let them sleep outside. So I gave them something to eat and let them sleep in the kitchen.’

‘They have names?’

‘Sure. One calls himself Bennie. Male prostitute. Gives blow jobs for drug money. He’s about seventeen. He lived here for a while last year, but we had to bounce him out.’

‘Bennie have a last name?’

‘He says it’s Bennie Belmont, which may or may not be his real name. He’s a liar and a troublemaker. He broke the rules twice and then some. You might be able to find him if you prowl around the right bars. The other one said his name was Gerald R. McGill, which I know was phony.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Had to be. Unless he owns the funeral parlor across the street. Anyway, Bennie and Mr McGill left the next morning, and I haven’t seen either of them since.’

‘How about Friday, December twenty-third? Two days before Christmas. Where were you, say, around 9:00 P.M.?’

Kelly thought for a minute. ‘At home. In my apartment. On Howard Street.’

Howard Street was just a few blocks from McCabe’s place on the Eastern Prom. ‘Anybody with you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who?’

‘My partner. We share the apartment.’

‘You’re gay?’

‘I’m gay.’

‘What’s your partner’s name?’

‘Edward Childs. People call him Teddy.’

‘Mr Childs will confirm you were together that night?’

‘I’m sure he will.’

‘There were just the two of you, home alone two days before Christmas? No parties to go to? No celebrations?’

‘We like it that way. We had dinner. Wrote some last-minute cards. Read. Went to bed.’

‘How long have you and Teddy been together?’

‘Eight years.’

‘Do you have any idea why someone would want to kill Lainie?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘You have any kids here who are mentally unstable?’

‘If you’re talking about emotional problems, anxiety, depression, stuff like that, it’s pretty near one hundred percent. If you’re talking about being bipolar or schizophrenic, we’ve had a few, but not many. Mostly we’re not equipped to deal with it.’

‘Can you give me a list of the kids Lainie had closest contact with? We’ll need to interview them.’