Gone, Baby, Gone - Dennis Lehane [38]
“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.