"Damn," Edelstein commented. "Hope she never took him up on that."
Wilkinson laughed. "Maybe she killed him after she saw this dump."
"No," Joe said quietly. "She can barely leave her apartment."
An embarrassed stillness greeted his remark, although that hadn't been his intention. He took down another postcard. Again it was to Katie, again sentimental, again unmailed. In the night table drawer, he found an old photo of Katie and Pete, heavily dressed and with their arms around each other, standing before a row of bare trees. They were smiling and dusted with fresh snow. Next to the photograph was a dog-eared Bible, several of its passages underlined in light pencil. Marking one page was a pamphlet from AA.
Joe pointed noiselessly at the single other piece of furniture in the room: a battered chest of drawers. Edelstein caught his meaning. "It's mostly empty. Forensics took a few things."
Joe checked its contents, finding nothing beyond a threadbare man's worn remnants.
He sat on the edge of the rumpled bed. "Not much to go on. How long had he been living here?"
"Here?" Edelstein answered. "Almost eight years. Before that, it's anyone's guess."
"Any friends or drinking buddies?"
Wilkinson answered that. "This was one of the most solitary guys I ever heard of. He worked; he drank; he came up here to sleep it off."
"Drank downstairs?"
"Mostly. We're still piecing it together, checking other places he might've gone, interviewing coworkers-the whole routine. I hate to say this, given what brought you here, but this may be history repeating itself, Joe-another murder with no solution. We've had that before. Guy kills a guy for a one-liner or less. It's hard to track when there's no motive. What about this Katie girl? He have anything to do with her not being able to leave the house?"
Joe rose to his feet. "No. He started drinking. They drifted apart. One day he was gone. At least that's her story. I have no reason to doubt it. She got sick later. Seems clear he was still thinking about her." Joe looked at the room appraisingly. "What strikes you about all this? I mean, generally speaking?"
"It's a dump," Wilkinson said.
But Edelstein got his point. "It's a hermit's cell."
"Yeah," Gunther agreed softly. "The cave of a self-exile."
Chapter 13
Joe returned to the bar that night. The place was utterly transformed-jammed, hot, and noisy. The voices were too loud, the laughter forced, the body language loaded with seduction, anger, or loneliness. Angling through the crowd, he watched the patrons enacting their rituals as he might have groups of wary animals circling a water hole.
He found a place at the end of the bar and prepared to wait patiently for the bartender to notice him amid the confusion. She was a tall, slim, attractive woman, probably in her mid-forties, dressed not provocatively but suggestively. From his vantage point, he could see her traveling the length of the bar, exchanging jokes, taking orders, replacing some drinks before she was asked to, and generally reading her customers like a good air traffic controller-separating the newcomers from the regulars, the easygoing from the boors, making sure everyone at least knew she'd seen them. It took her just forty-five seconds to look directly at Joe and gave him a one-finger be-there-in-a-minute salute. He nodded in response and then watched her bend over the sink, facing her public, and quickly wash a few glasses, giving every man within proximity a fast look down the front of her carefully half-buttoned blouse.
This woman knew the game, the players, and the value of the bar as barricade. Joe imagined she made great tips.
He'd spent the entire day in Gloucester, indulged by Edelstein, Wilkinson, and finally the assistant DA who'd shown up later, following them around as one or the other of them, mostly Edelstein, interviewed a variety of Pete Shea's acquaintances and coworkers. What they ended up with was the portrait of a quiet loner who told no one of his past, revealed little of his personality, and did his best to stay clear of all groups, cliques, and organizations. In one instance, when he'd worked at a place that was considering unionizing, he quit rather than get involved. In fact, as far as they'd determined, he'd held a half-dozen jobs on or around the docks, always doing menial tasks, always without comment or complaint, always turning down any promotions.
By early evening, as Joe was seeking advice about a reasonable motel, his three colleagues were conceding that they'd probably never find out who'd stabbed their man in the chest. The assistant DA concluded by saying that he'd be reachable by phone from then on, stimulating a dismissive sneer from Wilkinson, unseen by its target.
Unsurprisingly, due as much to his natural instincts as to his personal investment, Joe demurred from agreeing with them. In his gut, he knew there was something here far beyond a hopeless drunk pissing off the wrong guy at the wrong time.
Sitting in Peter Shea's room that morning, seeing the world Shea had inhabited for so many years, Joe had begun exploring the possibility that this man had gone far beyond simply ducking an antique murder charge. Over the years, Joe had developed a familiarity with the people who committed or aspired to commit such violence. It was that insight now that stopped him from putting Pete Shea in that category too quickly.
Unfortunately, there was no single rationale justifying his reluctance. It wasn't the Bible in the drawer, for example. Many murderers were religious fanatics. And it wasn't the sentimentalized affection for a love long out of reach. Nor was it the booze, the lack of social interaction, or the shiftlessness. In fact, the more Joe considered it, the more he began thinking it was the absence of several details that was making him rethink his long-presumed nemesis. There was no violence in the man's history, no acquisitiveness, no vanity or pride. He'd been a loner but not a sociopath, a drinker but not a bully. Pete Shea, Joe was starting to consider, might possibly have been a man who'd quite simply had the rug yanked out from under him, and forever lacked the emotional wherewithal to recover.
After Wilkinson and Edelstein called it quits for the day and Joe had politely turned down their offer of dinner on the town, he'd walked around Gloucester's streets for hours, touring the various neighborhoods while weighing several other long-held prejudices supporting the Oberfeldt case.
The focus on Pete Shea had not been capricious. He did have a history as a thief, his switchblade had been found covered with the victim's blood, his were the only prints found on the knife, his girlfriend, despite her best effort, had failed to supply him an alibi, and he had vanished as soon as he'd heard the police were interested in him. Finally, no single other candidate had fit the bill so well.
Additionally, as a foster child, Shea had been deemed repeatedly "incorrigible," although Joe's search through those records had revealed only rambunctiousness, not violence. His run-ins with the police had been triggered by thievery, vandalism, and supplying minors with alcohol-never by any assaultive behavior.
And finally, there was Katie. Beyond telling Joe, back when he'd first met her, that Pete had been sweet and gentle, she'd added, "He's had a shitty life and I don't guess it's getting any better." She'd also ascribed his flight not to guilt but to his probably finding the entire situation "more than he could handle."
At the time, Joe had thought those claims predictable and weak at best. What else was a young girl going to say about the man whose bed she'd shared, especially to the cop hunting him? But what if she'd been right?
"What's your pleasure?"
Joe looked up, startled, into the face of the bartender he'd been admiring earlier. She stood with her hands flat on the bar, her expression pleasant and receptive, her eyes watchful.