Strangled - Brian McGrory [14]
As we were settling into our chairs, Vinny called out, “So, been to any good murders lately?”
Everybody laughed. Seriously, they really did.
Some of the cops were asking Vinny how the Atkins diet was going, as if they didn’t already know. I mean, these guys were detectives. A couple of others were talking about so-and-so’s disability pension, and the commander at the academy who was bedding down a couple of the new recruits. I sat in silence, my mind drifting off to my temporarily dismal place in this world.
The cop to my right, maybe making conversation out of pity, said to me, “My grandkid has a hamster that eats more than what you do for dinner.”
Even the mention that he had the kid that I didn’t was like a little dagger in my heart, that’s how bad I was at that moment. I mustered a smile and said, “I thought we were paying by the pound, and seeing what Vinny took, didn’t want the paper to go under.”
He laughed, more politely than heartily, and I can’t say I blame him. He stuck out his hand and said, “Mac Foley, I’m a BPD detective.”
I contained my enthusiasm, due to how recently I had heard his name, and given how he was something more than a mystery man to anyone outside of the department, the guy behind the curtain pulling so many levers in countless murder cases, only to emerge in the light of the courtroom, always victorious.
I said, and calmly so, “I’ve heard quite a bit about you. A pleasure to meet you. I’m Jack Flynn with the Boston Record.”
He said, “And I’ve heard quite a bit about you as well — all of it good, some of it very recent.”
He smiled a subtle smile at me, not with his teeth but his lips.
I took another bite of my lettuce, and he returned momentarily to his prime rib. Down the other end of the table, Vinny was telling a joke about a birthing camel and an Egyptian gynecologist — or so it seemed from the parts I couldn’t help overhearing.
Foley said, “So you’ve landed yourself in an official report on one of our murder cases.” He laughed a shallow little laugh, though his facial expression didn’t seem to think he thought that fact was riotously funny.
I replied, “Not intentionally. You get the damnedest things in the mail these days.”
He didn’t laugh at that, and again, I couldn’t blame him. I hadn’t exactly brought my A-game to the Ritz-Carlton that night, and wasn’t so sure I’d have it back for a while.
“How did the detectives treat you?” he asked. He asked this more conversationally than anything else, taking another bite of prime rib before I answered. If I had told him that they had slammed me against the Record’s front desk, kicked me in the groin, and hit me in the chest with a stun gun, I think he simply would have nodded and looked right through me.
That said, I give him credit for trying to keep the discussion going. The thing was, I didn’t know where he was leading it, which I found unusual. He basically does what I basically do for a living, except with the benefit of forensics and subpoenas: he gets people to tell them things, even if they might regret it later.
I replied, “I couldn’t believe how much they had to say about the Jill Dawson murder.”
He looked like he was about to choke on a piece of beef, but then I added, “Which was nothing at all.”
He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. I smiled back, a big toothy smile. He didn’t even pretend to think this was funny.
Up at the podium in the front of the grand room — which, now that I think of it, is probably where the term grand ballroom comes from — Mara Laird spoke into the microphone and asked for everyone’s attention. Everyone, in turn, gave it to her, not only because she was the acting mayor of the city of Boston, but also because she was a terrific physical specimen — tall, blond, and painstakingly fit from a lifetime spent on the ski slopes of northern New England. Not that I was noticing these things in my current state of gloom, but, you know, you can’t help but notice