Dennis Lehane - Gone, Baby, Gone

“Chris Mullen?”

“’Bout the same.”

“Where did your association begin?”

Helene lowered her beer. “What?”

“Where did you meet this Cheese guy?” Beatrice said.

“The Filmore.” She took a slug off the beer can.

“When did you start working for him?” Angie asked.

Another shrug. “I did some small stuff over the years. ’Bout four years ago I needed more money to take care of Amanda-”

“Jesus Christ,” Lionel said.

She glanced at him, then back at Poole and Broussard. “-so he sent me on a few buys. Hardly ever big stuff.”

“Hardly ever,” Poole said.

She blinked, then nodded quickly.

Poole turned his head, his tongue pushing against the inside of his lower lip. Broussard met his eyes and pulled another stick of gum from his pocket.

Poole chuckled softly. “Miss McCready, do you know what squad Detective Broussard and I worked for before we were asked to join Crimes Against Children?”

Helene grimaced. “I care?”

Broussard popped the gum in his mouth. “No reason you should, really. But just for the record-”

“Narcotics,” Poole said.

“CAC is pretty small, not much in the way of camaraderie,” Broussard said, “so we still hang out mostly with narcs.”

“Keep abreast of things,” Poole said.

Helene squinted at Poole, tried to figure out where this was going.

“You said you ran dope through the Philadelphia corridor,” Broussard said.

“Uh-huh.”

“Who to?”

She shook her head.

“Miss McCready,” Poole said, “we’re not here on a narco bust. Give us a name so we can confirm whether you really muled for Cheese Ol-”

“Rick Lembo.”

“Ricky the Dick,” Broussard said, and smiled.

“Where did the deals go down?”

“The Ramada by the airport.”

Poole nodded at Broussard.

“You do any New Hampshire runs?”

Helene took a hit off the beer and shook her head.

“No?” Broussard raised his eyebrows. “Nothing up Nashua way, no quick sales to the biker gangs?”

Again Helene shook her head. “No. Not me.”

“How much you hit Cheese for, Miss McCready?”

“Excuse me?” Helene said.

“The Cheese violates his parole three months ago. He takes a ten-to-twelve fall.” Broussard spit his gum over the railing. “How much you take off him when you heard he got dropped?”

“Nothing.” Helene’s eyes stayed on her bare feet.

“Bullshit.”

Poole stepped over to Helene and gently took the beer can from her hand. He leaned over the railing and tipped the can, poured the contents into the driveway behind the house.

“Miss McCready,” he said, “word I’ve heard on the proverbial street the past few months is that Cheese Olamon sent a goody bag up to some bikers in a Nashua motel just before his arrest. The goody bag was recovered in a raid, but not the money. Since the bikers-hale fellows all-had yet to partake of the contents of the bag, speculation among our northern law enforcement friends was that the deal had gone down only moments before the raid. Further speculation led many to believe that the mule walked off with the money. Which, according to current urban lore, was news to the members of Cheese Olamon’s camp.”

“Where’s the money?” Broussard said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Care to take a polygraph?”

“I already took one.”

“Different questions this time.”

Helene turned to the railing, looked out on the small tar parking lot, the withered trees just beyond.

“How much, Miss McCready?” Poole ’s voice was soft, without a hint of pressure or urgency.

“Two hundred thousand.”

The porch was silent for a full minute.

“Who rode shotgun?” Broussard said eventually.

“Ray Likanski.”

“Where’s the money?”

The muscles in Helene’s scrawny back clenched. “I don’t know.”

“Liar, liar,” Poole said. “Pants on fire.”

She turned from the railing. “I don’t know. I swear to God.”

“She swears to God.” Poole winked at me.

“Oh, well, then,” Broussard said, “I guess we have to believe her.”

“Miss McCready?” Poole pulled his shirt cuffs from underneath his suit coat, smoothed them against his wrists. His voice was light and almost musical.

“Look, I-”

“Where’s the money?” The lighter and more melodious the singsong got, the more threatening Poole seemed.

“I don’t…” Helene ran a hand over her face, and her body sagged against the railing. “I was stoned, okay? We left the motel; two seconds later every cop in New Hampshire is running through the parking lot. Ray snuggled up to me, and we just walked right through them. Amanda was crying, so they must have thought we were just a family who’d been on the road.”

“Amanda was there with you?” Beatrice said. “Helene!”

“What,” Helene said, “I was going to leave her in the car?”

“So you drove away,” Poole said. “You got stoned. And then what?”

“Ray stopped at a friend’s place. We were in there, like, an hour.”

“Where was Amanda?” Beatrice said.

Helene scowled. “The fuck I know, Bea? In the car or in the house with us. One of the two. I told you, I was fucked up.”

“Was the money with you when you left the house?” Poole asked.

“I don’t think so.”

Broussard flipped open his steno pad. “Where was this house?”

“In an alley.”

Broussard closed his eyes for a moment. “Where was it located? The address, Miss McCready.”

“I told you, I was stoned. I-”

“The fucking town then.” Broussard’s teeth were clenched.

“ Charlestown,” she said. She cocked her head, thought about it. “Yeah. I’m almost sure. Or Everett.”

“Or Everett,” Angie said. “That narrows it down.”

I said, “ Charlestown ’s the one with the big monument, Helene.” I smiled my encouragement. “You know the one. Looks like the Washington Monument, except it’s on Bunker Hill.”

“Is he making fun of me?” Helene asked Poole.

“I wouldn’t hazard a guess,” Poole said. “But Mr. Kenzie has a point. If you were in Charlestown, you’d remember the monument, wouldn’t you?”

Another long pause as Helene searched what remained of her brain. I wondered if I should go grab another beer for her, see if it would speed things up.

“Yeah,” she said, very slowly. “We drove over the big hill by the monument on our way out.”

“So the house,” Broussard said, “was on the east side of town.”

“East?” Helene said.

“You were closer to Bunker Hill project, Medford Street or Bunker Hill Avenue, than you were to Main or Warren streets.”

“If you say so.”

Broussard tilted his head, ran the back of his hand slowly across the stubble on his cheek, took a few shallow breaths.

“Miss McCready,” Poole said, “besides the fact that the house was at the end of an alley, do you remember anything else about it? Was it a one-family or two?”

“It was really small.”

“We’ll call it a one-family.” Poole jotted in his notepad. “Color?”

“They were white.”

“Who?”

“Ray’s friends. A woman and a guy. Both white.”

“Excellent,” Poole said. “But the house. What color was that?”

She shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

“Let’s go look for Likanski,” Broussard said. “We can go to Pennsylvania. Hell, I’ll drive.”

Poole held up a hand. “Give us another minute here, Detective. Miss McCready, please search your memory. Remember that night. The smells. The music Ray Likanski played on his stereo. Anything that will help put you back in that car. You drove from Nashua to Charlestown. That’s about an hour’s drive, maybe a little less. You got stoned. You pulled over into this alley, and you-”