Chris Mooney - The Dead Room

'Sure, why not?' Baxter stubbed out her cigarette and walked up the steps.

Coop turned to Darby and said, 'Let me talk to her alone first. You know the deal about Charlestown – nobody will talk to the cops. I live here, so I might be able to get her to open up.'

'The only thing that woman wants to do with you, Coop, is to find a way to get you into her bed. Besides, she invited both of us up. I think she'll talk to me.'

The dank stairwell smelled of stale cigarettes and cat urine. Someone was playing the Stones' 'Gimme Shelter'. Baxter swayed as she climbed the stairs.

'Here,' Coop said, grabbing her arm. 'Let me help you.'

'Christ, you're beautiful.' She kissed his cheek, leaving a lipstick mark. Giggling, she turned to Darby. 'Isn't he sexy?'

'The sexiest,' Darby replied.

The woman's fifth floor apartment had scratched hardwood floors and mismatched Salvation Army furniture. The kitchen table and worktops were covered with papers, magazines, packets of Ramen noodles and generic soda cans.

Baxter wanted to smoke, so she led them out to a balcony. Blue and white lights flashed from down the street. The whole neighbourhood was awake, and Darby saw more than one face crowding a window, watching the street.

Coop slid the sliding glass door shut, then stood against the back wall with his arms crossed over his chest. Baxter sat in a plastic lawn chair, propped the heels of her bare feet up on the railing and lit a cigarette.

Darby leaned the small of her back against the railing, gripping it with both hands as Michelle Baxter tilted back her head and blew a long stream of smoke into the muggy air. Grey clouds wafted through the thongs and lacy bras hanging on the clothesline above Baxter's head.

'The man you were talking to earlier, the guy dressed in the grey suit jacket,' Darby said. 'You told us he was a cop.'

'That's right,' Baxter said, brushing the fringes of her chemically treated blonde hair away from her boozy, bloodshot eyes. 'Flashed a badge and everything.'

'By everything, do you mean you also saw his picture ID?'

'No, just the badge.'

'What was his name?'

'Don't know. He didn't introduce himself. Some people just don't have any goddamn manners, you know?' Baxter smiled but her eyes were dead. 'You from around here?'

'I grew up in Belham.'

'That's not Charlestown.'

'I know.'

'It's different here.'

'How so?'

'Just… different.' Baxter took a long drag from her cigarette. 'I read about you in the papers, when you caught that sicko who was hacking up women in his basement. You're some sort of doctor. Can you prescribe medication and shit?'

'I'm not that type of doctor.'

'That's too bad. So what kind of doctor are you?'

'I have a doctorate in criminal behaviour.'

'Explains why you're with him.' Baxter pointed to Coop.

Darby smiled.

'I keep seeing the two of you around town,' Baxter says. 'You guys dating, or is it one of those friends-with-benefits things?'

Coop spoke up. 'Darby has much higher standards.'

'It's true, I do,' Darby replied. 'Michelle, this cop you were talking to, when he flashed his badge, what did it look like?'

'Like how a badge looks. Like the one you got clipped to your belt.'

'Describe it to me.'

'You know, gold. Metal. Had "Boston Po-lice" written on it.'

'What did he want to talk to you about?'

'He wanted to know who I'd seen coming and going from Kevin Reynolds's house.'

Darby waited. When the woman didn't speak, she said, 'And what did you tell him?'

'I told him that I didn't see anything,' Baxter said, 'and that's the truth.'

'Why did he talk to you, though?'

'I don't understand.'

'Why did he single you out?'

Baxter shrugged. Her eyes became veiled, and she retreated back inside a place she had probably spent most of her life – a place behind heavily fortified walls and locked doors where no one could reach her.

'Darby,' Coop said, 'why don't you give us a moment?'

'She don't got to go,' Baxter said. 'Ain't nothing I'm going to say to you that I wouldn't say in front of her. Just because you live here, Coops, doesn't change the fact you're a cop.' She rolled her head to him with that dead expression in her eyes. 'Makes things nice and easy for you now, don't it?'

Darby said, 'What's that supposed to mean?'

'I'm just busting Coop's balls, is all,' Baxter said. She checked her watch. 'Can we wrap this party up? I'm bushed. I've been on my feet all night.'

'I didn't know Wal-Mart stayed opened so late,' Coop said.

'Don't start in on me, Coops, okay?'

'Did you quit or did you get fired again?'

'I had to give it up,' Baxter said. 'All the people working there no hablo ingles. Since I don't speak Spanish, I opted for early retirement.'

'So you're, what, back to stripping?'

'Go home, Coops. I'm too tired and too old for another intervention speech. Better yet, why don't you use it on yourself?'

'Good seeing you, Michelle. Take care.' He looked at Darby and nudged his head to the door.

'Michelle,' Darby said, 'the man you were speaking to wasn't a cop.'

'Then why would he be carrying a badge?'

'He's pretending to be a cop.'

'I don't know what to tell you. I saw a badge.'

'Then why did you speak to him? I thought you people lived and died by that whole code of silence thing?'

Baxter laughed softly. 'You people.'

'Why did you speak to him?'

'Didn't have much of a choice. This guy can be very persuasive.'

Can be, Darby thought. 'How do you know him?'

'Look, it doesn't matter. Telling you ain't going to change anything.'

'Then go ahead and tell me.'

Baxter took a long drag from her cigarette and stared into space, as if the life she had envisioned for herself was waiting for her somewhere on the other side of these flat roofs and dirty windows, a place light-years away from these historic streets where Paul Revere and other American Revolutionaries had successfully fought off wave after wave of invading British troops.

Coop stepped up next to Darby and said, 'This is a waste of time. Let's go.'

'My mother, God rest her soul, had a coke problem – a real bad one,' Baxter said. 'Towards the end, she started hocking pretty much everything we owned, which wasn't much to begin with, and when Mr Sullivan -'

'Michelle,' Coop said, 'you don't need to go down this road.'

'Why don't you grab yourself a beer or something?' Baxter said, flicking her cigarette into the air. 'Better yet, go to my bathroom medicine cabinet and feel free to use the stuff I take for my periods. That should take care of your PMS or whatever's crawled up your ass.'

Darby watched Baxter pull a bottle of Budweiser from the cooler set up next to her chair. Her attention – her concern – lay with Coop. For some reason the expression on his face triggered a memory of her mother – Sheila pacing the emergency waiting room while Big Red was being cut open on the operating table; her mother, a nurse, already knowing that the window of hope had slammed shut, that her husband of twenty-two years had lost too much blood and was brain dead.

'Now I always knew my mom liked coke,' Baxter said, tossing the beer cap on to the balcony floor. 'I caught her snorting it a couple of times with one of her boyfriends, but I had no idea how serious her problem was until Mr Sullivan told me. Mr Sullivan is Frank Sullivan, by the way. Everyone in town called him Mr Sullivan, even the old timers. The man was big on respect, as I'm sure Coops told you. Coops, you remember that time -'

'Let's skip the trip down memory lane, okay?' Coop said. 'Do you know the name of the cop or not?'

'Maybe Darby here would like to know what it was like growing up here in Chuck-town with Mr Sullivan,' Baxter said. 'I'm getting the feeling you haven't told her about your own, you know, personal experiences.'