Becky took his arm. “Watch that stuff,” she said, tapping his glass. “You’ve got that expression — all wound up and nowhere to go. Hang on to it, though. You’re going to need it.”
From across the room, Virginia gave him an odd look. He was about to head over when he realized it was for Becky, who excused herself and worked through the crowd toward her. Jim watched as Blodgett hugged her, his big hands open against the black back of her dress. Brian Dennison, Jim noted, was watching, too. Then Becky broke away and followed Virginia down the hallway and into Ann’s old room, where they shut the door. Politicos, thought Weir: They never stop.
Phil Kearns and Crystal from Oklahoma edged over to Jim. Kearns looked like a model — hair gelled back, face tan, a black linen suit with a black shirt buttoned to the top, no tie. Crystal was small, pretty, pink from her morning sun on Kearns’s deck. She gave Jim a small, somehow inviting smile.
Kearns talked on about Ann, and Weir sensed a genuine sadness in him. But Kearns wouldn’t use her name, as if he felt obliged to hold something he didn’t want to touch. When Crystal went for drinks, Weir stepped in front of Kearns, sealing him off from the rest of the room.
“You didn’t answer four calls from Dispatch that night, Phil. Between twelve-thirty and twelve-fifty. Explain.”
Kearns blushed, even though his eyes narrowed — A contradictory response, thought Weir.
“Not true. Dispatch calls my squad, I answer. If I was quiet for twenty minutes, that means she was quiet for twenty minutes. Jesus, Weir, this is a funeral.”
“The trouble is, I got a copy of the Dispatch tape. Carol tried to rouse you four times. What she got back from you was nothing. It’s all right there, on record.” He was bluffing. “I’ll play it for you anytime you want to hear.”
“Chief might like to hear his Dispatch tape is floating around Newport,” he said. “Unless he already knows.”
“Fuck the chief,” said Jim.
Kearns eyed him with a look of amusement.
“I want some answers, Kearns. If I don’t get them from you, Dennison will. If he listens to that tape, he’s going to haul your ass onto the carpet.”
Kearns’s face lost its self-satisfied glow for a moment. Without it, he had a hollow, hard expression. The expression, thought Weir, of someone capable of going through with things. “I’ll talk about that on two conditions. One, if you believe me, you won’t go to Dennison with it. Two, if you believe me, you’ll stay the hell out of my life.”
“Agreed.”
“You look like a guy who’d agree to just about anything to get what he wants.”
“That’s what I am. Talk, Kearns.”
The expression of amusement on Phil Kearns’s face turned to contempt. “I gave a citizen a ride home.”
Weir imagined said citizen, said ride. Would it jibe with Blodgett’s story of an out-of-beat squad car coming off the peninsula that night? “Did you use the bridge at midnight, come onto the mainland?”
“No. It was eleven-thirty and I didn’t stop off at the Back Bay. But don’t believe me, Weir. You want to talk to my alibi, she’ll tell you herself what happened. I’ll pick you up outside the Whale’s Tale tonight at ten. I want you to listen to her and listen good. Then I want you out of my face.”
“When did you make your play for Ann?”
A cool, predatory look came to Kearns’s face. “Never.”
Jim drank again, studying Kearns. “Why not? I think if I were you, I might have. I think you liked her a lot. I think it drove you crazy that she looked like an animal in a cage — your words — and you could let her out so easily. ’Cause you know what you saw when you looked at her? You saw a woman you could stand five of her next to” — Jim nodded toward Crystal — “and Ann would still add up to more. You saw a woman, not a girl. You saw someone in the same boat as yourself.”
The sergeant studied Jim’s face, then looked away toward Crystal. “You’re right. That’s what I saw. But I didn’t act on it, not once, not consciously.”
“Why not?”
“Ray.”
Kearns locked eyes with Jim. In the calm strength of Kearns’s expression, Weir believed he saw a man telling the truth.
“Tell me what you thought of her, Kearns. Just for me. I want to know what you thought of Ann.”
Kearns looked away. “I thought Ann Cruz was the most desirable woman I’d ever met.”
“But you never told her that.”
“Never.”
“What about Ray?”
Kearns sighed quietly. “No. Weir, what’s it fucking matter?” He watched Crystal coming back toward them, this pale lovely girl from Oklahoma willing to make him happy, two glasses of champagne in her red-nailed hands. He stared at her, a long moment of assessment, then at Weir. “I don’t know about you, but I’m here to mourn your sister.”
Kearns took the glass from Crystal and aimed her toward the cop corner. Weir caught Dennison watching. Doesn’t miss a trick, he thought.
He drank again, then worked his way over to Dale Blodgett, standing alone by the bar. Blodgett shook his hand and apologized for missing the service. His scarred, sun-lined face was all the more pronounced above the collar of his ill-fitting suit jacket. His heavy left eye bore into Weir. “I was with the EPA and Fish and Game people, trying to figure out how five hundred gallons of TCE got into the bay.”
“How do they know it’s five hundred gallons?”
“Just an early guess, from the damage. The ocean side isn’t touched yet — just the harbor. They said five hundred gallons would do it. Strong stuff. They’ll find out who dumped that shit. There’s only a few companies licensed to use it around here.”
“What’s it for?”
“Solvent. Breaks down just about anything. Grease, paint, rust.”
“Maybe it’ll give Becky an edge in the election. Get some more people out for the Slow Growth thing.”
“We’ll take it,” said Blodgett. He poured himself a vodka on the rocks, then lit a cigarette.
Jim heard the phone ring, then saw Virginia and Becky both moving down the hallway again.
Blodgett shook his head. “Lots of covert ops for a funeral,” he said.
“That’s Mom.”
“Fine woman. Tell me, Weir, how goes your investigation of the Newport cops?”
“It goes fine. You find out a lot of interesting things.”
“Like what?”
Jim didn’t answer. He watched as Becky came back up the hallway, without Virginia.
Blodgett grinned. “Tell me, Weir. Which one of us did it?”
Jim followed Blodgett’s glance toward the cop corner. Half of the men over there were looking at him now — Innelman and Deak, Tillis and Bristol, a few patrolmen that Jim had never met. Dennison stood in the middle of them, his attention fixed on Jim.
“I’m not sure yet. But I’m curious about a couple of things.”
“I don’t talk about those guys. I told you that in my driveway that night, and I’m telling you that now.” Jim noticed a couple more heads turning his way.
Weir saw how hard it was for Blodgett to be part of Dennison’s force and still stay loyal to his own politics. This little show is at my expense, he thought, to prove to the men that Dale’s really just one of them.
He spoke loud enough to reach the cop corner. “The only cop I’m curious about anymore is you, Blodgett. You and your big ugly face and your fishing boat without any rods in it. You and your buddy from Cheverton Sewer.”
Blodgett’s face went red; the heavy left eyelid faltered down a notch. He turned his back to the cop corner, screening them off. His crooked teeth revealed themselves. “You followed me? I take offense at that. Definite damned offense.”
“Let’s weep, fat man.”