The Weight of Living Read online

  Nagler threw open the door to find McCann leaning back in his tall office chair and staring out the window. He turned slowly and reached to his desk for his glasses.

  Then he looked up. “What...”

  Nagler leaned over the desk and flipped two copies of Lauren’s photo of Garrett Alton on the desk.

  “Here’s your missing cop.”

  McCann leaned in, adjusted his glasses and shuffled the photos before placing them on the desk. He looked over at Nagler, who forgot how tall the man was; even sitting they met nearly eye-to-eye.

  “Officer Alton was not missing,” McCann said. “He was on an assignment.”

  Nagler flipped his hands at McCann. “Bullshit. No one in this department, not even his shift officer knows where he is. And what kind of an assignment has him following me and my friends around?” Nagler leaned over the desk at McCann. “So, where is he?” Then he laughed. “You have no idea where he is. What a damn phony you are. What is it you do again?”

  McCann sat back, reached into a pocket, and extracted a handkerchief. He wiped his mouth, then recovering, began to speak, but instead sighed.

  “Well, I need to know why he is following me.” Nagler closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. “Why is he following Lauren Fox? She is a civilian and a city official. Where’s the order for that kind of surveillance?” When McCann placed the handkerchief on the desk and folded his hands, Nagler said. “There is no authorization, is there? He’s on a fishing expedition for you. What are you fishing for, McCann?”

  The officer pushed back his chair and stood up, towering over Nagler.

  “It’s Commissioner McCann.”

  Nagler scratched his eyebrows and squeezed his forehead. He turned toward the door and took a deep breath. It was coming. No way to stop it.

  “Fuck you.”

  “What?”

  “Fuck this commissioner shit. You’re just a paper pusher. What? The mayor’s snoop? Do you report to him every night about what bad boys the cops in this town are?”

  “Careful, Detective. I could suspend you.”

  “You can’t, you know,” Nagler smiled. “I read your contract. You’re just an administrator, no authority over the law enforcement ops or personnel. Hell, you can’t even fire Nancy. So what do you do, Commissioner McCann?” The sarcasm thicker than the flies at the slow riverbend called Smelly Flats in the summer.

  McCann sat, leaned back, and then placed his elbows on the desk.

  “You’re right,” he said softly, even as the softness of his voice reinforced the threat. “I don’t work with the chief, or deal with day-to-day police matters. But the people I report to are very powerful, so I would be careful, Detective.”

  Nagler laughed. “You’re not really very good at this intimidation stuff, are you? Didn’t your bosses tell you you’re not supposed to make an open threat, just vaguely suggest that trouble might arise? I’ve known guys like you my whole career. You think you’re pulling the strings here, but you’re just having your strings pulled by someone else.” Nagler strolled toward the door. “I will find out, you know, who is pulling your strings. And I will find Alton.”

  Nagler put his hand on the doorknob, but McCann called him back.

  “There are larger forces at play, here, Detective. I would urge caution.”

  Nagler tilted his head to the right and smiled. “There you go again. Another threat. You’re just not a fast learner, are you?” As he closed the door behind him, he smiled at Nancy, who peeked up from her keyboard. How fast a learner am I? Need to find Alton soon.

  ****

  “It was really a threat?” Dawson asked.

  The reporter leaned over the table between he and Nagler so the conversation would slip below the diner chatter at Barry’s.

  “It was almost comical,” Nagler said. “You know, movie tough-guy stuff. ‘Back off or somebody’s gonna get hurt.’”

  Dawson shrugged. “He is the mayor’s boy. Jackson worked overtime to get the council to approve that appointment. Made no sense, but there he was.”

  “But for what? Not money. This town doesn’t have two nickels to rub together. So what’s the point of getting inside the city’s government? There’s nothing left to steal.” Nagler scratched his neck and watched Tony, the cook, peel slices of ham from a stack onto the grill and then wave a salt and pepper shaker over the top. He cracked a couple eggs next to the ham and then started singing to himself. Nagler couldn’t hear the words, but Tony’s lips were moving: “Bum, bum, bum.”

  “Maybe it’s not about money,” Nagler said.

  “It’s always about money,” Dawson replied, laughing.

  “You know what I mean, Not directly about money. Maybe it’s about protection for someone.” Nagler stared at the table and squinted, then licked his lower lip. “Didn’t the old mayor, Howie Newton, pull something like that ... um, what’d he do? I know, put a judge in one of the municipal court sessions, ran all his land deals through that court.”

  “Right,” Dawson nodded vigorously. “Right. Shell companies on top of shell companies, selling the properties back and forth.”

  “So,” Nagler asked, “Any judges retiring soon, or planning to catch a deadly disease?”

  Dawson smiled. “I’ll check.”

  “One good thing about McCann?”

  “What’s that?”

  “He never denied he knew where Alton is. Didn’t say, but didn’t deny he knew.” Nagler raised one eyebrow. That notion didn’t make him feel any better.

  CHAPTER NINE

  What if they don’t find me?

  Nagler placed the paper coffee cup on the hood of his patrol car, folded his arms and leaned back against the vehicle, the hot metal burning his skin through his shirt. Before him was the Old Iron Bog, the silent keeper of Ironton’s secrets, the scraps of human life, the stolen cars, the bodies of murder victims.

  “So it’s just you and me,” Nagler muttered to the swamp. “How much do you know?”

  “Know about what?”

  Nagler turned, startled by Lauren Fox’s voice. Then he smiled.

  “What?” she asked. “You didn’t think I knew about this spot of yours?”

  “What?” he laughed.

  “What, what. This spot, just off the main road with the big fence, a little incline and pull-off overlooking the ‘broad expanse of gray-green water’” — she mocked his voice — “‘my little thinking spot.’ You must have told me about it fifty times,” she said.

  “Not fifty.”

  “Okay,” she said as she walked to him, kissed him and then pressed her back into his chest.

  “Maybe twenty.”

  He pulled her tighter and kissed her neck. “Hi, kid.” They rocked in silence. “What are you doing here? You weren’t followed, were you?”

  “Don’t think so,” she murmured. “Do that again...” and she reached up and pushed his head to her neck, which he kissed again while slipping one hand under her loose shirt and jacket. “I, um, mmm ... I pulled a real James Bond. Side streets, in and out of parking lots. Took a different route back here from my mother’s house.”

  “How is your mother?”

  Lauren pulled away from his grasp and turned and faced Nagler.

  “Scared to death. That’s why I came to find you.” Lauren reached into her pocketbook and pulled out an envelope. “She got one of those letters, the mortgage letters.”

  “Holy crap,” he said as he opened the envelope and scanned the formal-looking letter. “Just to be sure. This is not her bank, not her account number or the balance, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And she’s not delinquent?”

  Lauren shook her head, no. “For years, the mortgage has been paid out of an account by electronic transfer. My father set it up years ago when he sold some bonds. He put aside enough to cover the mortgage and then some. It’s almost paid off, because he timed the last payments to coincide with his retirement. But then, you know, he died.”
r />   “I know. I’m so sorry, kid. But it looks like he took care of your mom. Smart.” Nagler tapped the folded letter against his jaw. “You told her this was a scam, right, and not to worry?”

  “Yeah, of course, but she’s still worried. She’s going have to show up in tax court and prove that this letter is a fraud. She’ll need a lawyer... wait a minute. What are you thinking? Why are you grinning?”

  “We know a lawyer,” Nagler said, smiling. “A lawyer who knows all about this.”

  “Bruno.” Lauren’s face opened and lit up. “Right.”

  “Right.” Nagler nodded several times, each time more vigorously. “You and Dawson found that out. He knows the inside game. When’s the court date?” He scanned the letter. “Hell, it’s next month. Plenty of time. Just keep your mother calm and have her pull all the mortgage records she has.”

  Lauren leaned in, wrapped her arms around Frank’s neck and found his mouth. He leaned back and pulled her into a long kiss. She drew back and placed her hands on either side of his face and kissed him again. “This is better, isn’t it?” she asked softly.

  “Better than what?”

  “Better than worrying all the time.”

  Nagler smiled and kissed her forehead.

  “You know,” she said. “I’m not yet a member of the club.”

  “What club?”

  She laughed. “The sneak-off-and-get-laid-in-the-bog club. I think I should be a member. I have a blanket in my car. I’ll get it.”

  “So do I, and guess what, it’s right here.”

  Before he could open the trunk, the sound of a vehicle crash filled the air.

  “Where did you park?”

  “On the road... on Mount Pleasant, but way off...” Lauren’s voice wavered.

  “Okay.” Nagler started to lead her to the road. “Wait here.” He paused and reached for his service weapon and removed it from the holster.

  “Frank!”

  He glanced at Lauren and then at the pistol. “I know,” he replied grimly. “Just want to be sure. Get in my car and stay down.”

  The distance to the road was less than a hundred feet, Frank knew, but the dense brush would have shielded the view of his car, parked thirty feet below the grade of the street. Still, someone intent on finding the vehicle — or someone who had followed him — would know he was there.

  He paused at the bottom of the slope that led to Mount Pleasant and saw no other vehicle. He shifted his pistol into a firing position and slowly side-stepped up the slope; at the top, he hunched behind two thick bushes and waited, then entered the street.

  Lauren’s yellow Chevy was angled facing the bog, the rear passenger side quarter panel smashed. Down the road maybe a quarter-mile, a black SUV straddled the highway, its front driver-side panel damaged.

  While Nagler watched, the vehicle backed up, straightened its wheels, and pulled away, taking the right turn onto Rockaway. Show off.

  Nagler called dispatch. “Our suspect SUV is headed down Rockaway from Mount Pleasant. Left front damage. Need a crew to the Old Iron Bog for a reconstruction.”

  ****

  Later, when speaking to Lieutenant Maria Ramirez, Nagler said, “I don’t get it. He knows we know he’s following us. Either he’s no good at it, or he’s deliberately being obvious. But I don’t get smashing Lauren’s car. What’d that prove? Is the threat escalating?”

  Ramirez shook her head. “No. Hang with me a second, Frank. I think it’s something else entirely.”

  She walked to the console where the video data was stored and pulled up the first sighting of the girl when she was pushed from the SUV on that snowy night.

  “I’ve been looking at that video over and over,” Ramirez said. “Slo-mo, zoomed-in as close as I can get. Watch. The girl says something back to the car before that last push and the car drives away.”

  Nagler leaned over Ramirez’s shoulder to study the video.

  The girl picked herself up from the snowy sidewalk, reached out to the car door and an arm juts out of the back seat. Then her mouth moved.

  “What if they don’t find me?”

  “Is that what she seems to say?” Nagler ran a hand through his hair, and leaned over the console. “Play it again.”

  Very slowly the girl’s mouth moved. “What...if...they...don’t...find ... me.”

  Nagler felt the chill creep up his back. “Holy shit, Maria.”

  Ramirez stood staring at the floor, arms crossed across her chest. Then she looked up.

  “We’ve all been thinking that it is the same SUV. The one with the girl, and the one following you all,” Ramirez said. “What if there are two vehicles? We don’t have plates, no ID, just that blurry photo that Lauren took of Garrett Alton. You have an SUV that hit Lauren’s car this morning, but you didn’t see the driver or get a plate.” She shrugged. “Just sayin’. We’ve been running state vehicle records for any clue about local black SUVs but we can’t find them all or check them all.”

  “That’s good thinking,” Nagler said. “I think because I’m one of those being followed, and I’m close to the others, it’s easy to lose perspective. Thanks, Maria.”

  “Ah, Frank.” Ramirez reached over and patted his cheek twice. “Why’s everyone out to get you?”

  “Just to keep you busy,” Nagler smiled, then scratched his day-old beard. “So, two black SUVs, separate drivers. But there was a second person in the back seat of the SUV that dropped the girl off in the street. Is that second person the other SUV driver? If so, why are they working together? Or are they?”

  “For what reason?” Ramirez asked. “Say there are two different drivers. One dropped the girl off in a half-assed attempt to save her. And the other one is following you and your friends, and then smashes Lauren’s car. What connects all this, if anything does?”

  Nagler huffed out a sour laugh and then shook his head. “The little girl.” He glanced at Ramirez and raised one eyebrow. “The little girl.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  You still have what I want

  “Damn it, Bruno, pick up.”

  Nagler slammed the phone receiver down again. Five calls to attorney Bruno Hapworth’s office, all to voicemail, and the message, “This mailbox is full. Please call back.”

  Then again, Nagler thought, “Nag-laar!” That voice, steel scraping on rock, every set of fingernails dragged on every blackboard in the world all at the same time, a jackhammer headache that never fades.

  Hapworth wasn’t the most crooked lawyer in Ironton, but he did play the edges, Nagler knew. Drunk driving, drug cases, landlord-tenant disputes, a blizzard of minor cases that filled court dockets in a dozen towns. On a flier he would take an oddball case just to see what would happen, and then to everyone’s surprise, he’d win. But this real estate foreclosure stuff seemed beyond him, Nagler thought, although if Dawson was right, all Hapworth had to do was show up in tax court and file a few papers. Didn’t you ever ask where your client was, Bruno? Or didn’t you want to know? Why ya doing it?

  Even for you, it seems remarkably sleazy. Most of your cases took advantage of the drug-addled, drunk as a skunk and the poor and stupid, even if you did plea bargain their sentences down to a minimum. But take advantage, you did, Bruno.

  So, who is taking advantage of you? They are either paying you so much money you could not refuse it, or they have something on you so nasty and shameful, you’ll do anything to keep it a secret.

  Nagler chucked.

  “Who does that?” he asked aloud. Gamblers, drug dealers, politicians, the very wealthy, people with power and something to lose. Did one of your cases go south? Who’s got you by the short hairs, Bruno?

  Nagler slapped his forehead. Of course, and he yanked out the bottom drawer to his desk and pulled a file, flipped through a few pages, and found the envelope. It was a letter from Harriet Wadley-Jones he received after her successful lawsuit against the state college. Inside was Bruno Hapworth’s business card with his cell-phone number. “That’s
why I never throw anything away,” he said.

  He picked up his own cell phone and punched out a text to Hapworth. “I think I can help.”

  As soon as he placed the phone on his desk, it rang. Wow. Quick.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  A sigh. “I am not a patient man, Detective. You still have what I want. And I will come for it.”

  “Hey, who the hell are you?”

  A click, then silence on the other end of the phone.

  What do I have? Nagler asked himself. “I don’t owe anyone any money. I don’t borrow things,” he said.

  What?

  He closed his eyes and thought deeply.

  The girl.

  What did Sister Katherine say? The girl represents something larger than she seems? How big?

  ****

  Nagler reached over to the leaning metal post and gave it a shake, sending a rattling ripple through the rusted chain-link fence that separated a couple piles of dirt from the river.

  This was supposed to be a park, with grass along the river bank, and benches and trees for shade. And lovers strolling arm-in-arm, and mothers telling their five-year-old sons to stop chasing the ducks or throwing rocks at the geese in the river; the place where the city came to breathe and relax and look forward.

  Lauren was still trying, he knew. She had hung the sketch of the original park concept on her City Hall office wall and, along one border, listed the dollar amounts of grants that had been promised to start the work. But there were more cross outs showing the funds had been withdrawn than there were new listings of cash. Classic Ironton. For every new, good development like the grocery store, there was a step back, like the historic theater becoming the property of an out-of-town group that stopped holding public events. The weekend crowds stopped coming to town, the restaurants suffered and closed, and what was once a lively section of Blackwell Street had become as quiet as a tomb.

  Nagler crossed the cement lot that was planned to hold the park, stepped around the potholes and piles of trash pinned by the wind to the section of fence deposited by the floods five years before and crossed to Bassett Highway through the gap between the half-empty offices that lined the empty street.