Shallow Graves

to put it.“
    Not exactly a week for “Dear Diary .“
    “It gets worse, kid.“
    How?
    “The timing. The downstairs neighbor hears the dead woman’s shower going only fifteen or twenty minutes before the body’s found. Unless everybody’s covering for each other, the killer had only that much margin to get into her apartment and out again.“
    Isn’t that enough?
    “Yes, but it’s awfully coincidental for a burglar, and awfully close timing for something planned in advance.“
    What are you going to do now?
    “Go back where I started. Walk through the building, try to find some holes in what I’ve been told.“
    Isn’t it easier if there aren’t any holes?
    “Easier?“
    If it wasn’t planned, then maybe it was just a burglar. That way, the modeling agency gets its insurance money, and the gangsters might leave you alone and keep looking on their own, right?
    “Uh-huh.“
    Well, wouldn’t that be easier?
    “All around.“
    A pause. But making it easier doesn ‘t make it right.
    “Afraid not.“
    Something caught my eye in the harbor. A pale hump rising above a swell, then three, then five, then... “I don’t believe it.“
    What?
    “I’ve never seen anything like this before.“
    John, what?
    I was up to thirty-four. “Dolphins, I think. Dozens of them. Just breaking water.“
    I described the show for her, watching as even more of the creatures romped and veered, in pairs and squadrons, like so many synchronized swimmers. Maybe chasing fish, maybe running from something themselves, maybe just deciding to see Boston Harbor before the next onslaught of tourists in June.
    “There must be over a hundred of them, Beth. I wouldn’t have thought they could survive this far north.“
    Maybe it’ll be a week for “Dear Diary“ after all.

- 18 -

    I left the prelude a block away from number 10 Falmouth and walked to the alley behind it. I looked at the fire escape, trying to find a new perspective from my talks with Sinead Fagan, Oz Puriefoy, and Larry Shinkawa. The escape still switchbacked down the rear of the building, a landing outside Mau Tim’s window on the top floor, another outside the window on the second floor, a third outside a window in Fagan’s elevated first-floor apartment. The last flight retracted to Sinead’s landing. It still would miss the green, ribbed trash cans in the bricked space that passed for a backyard. Cousin Ooch already having moved the cans back from the alley to the building’s wall. Just like he said he did the Friday two weeks before, the morning of the day Mau Tim had been killed.
    I went to the rear door and knocked, noticing there was no keyhole on the exterior side. After a couple of seconds, I heard a bolt being thrown and the door creaked open, Cousin Ooch blinking out from behind it. Today he wore a bright blue cotton sweater with no shirt underneath and the same pair of droopy pants. The sweater made him look clownish, like a school principal in surfer trunks.
    He said, “The family called me about you.“
    “Who in the family?“
    The scarred face flicked right, slipping the imaginary punch, the nose sniffing twice. “What difference that make to you?“
    “None, I guess.“
    His eyes adjusting to the light, Ooch said, “Hey, you been in a fight or what?“
    “One-rounder.“
    “Yeah? Who with?“
    “What difference that make to you?“
    He thought about it. Flick, sniff/sniff. “Okay. Family said I’m supposed to take you around, show you what’s what.“
    “Can we start down here?“
    “Here? You mean, like outside here?“
    “No. The basement level.“
    “That’s just my place and the boiler room.“
    “I’d still like to see them. Go through everything.“
    Ooch thought some more, then turned. “C’mon.“
    Inside was a dark hall leading to a short staircase. One bulb glowed faintly at the center of the hall, two more doors off it on either side of the bulb.
    Ooch pulled the back door closed behind me. There was an old dead bolt at eye level, and he used the edge of his hand to reseat the bolt into the doorjamb.
    I said, “This rear door.“
    “Yeah?“
    “It doesn’t lock without the dead bolt?“
    “Uh-unh.“
    “No key for it from the outside?“
    “No key for it period. Just the bolt there.“
    “You usually keep it locked?“
    “A course I do. Kinda question is that?“
    “It was locked that night?“
    “That...?“
    “When Mau T—when Tina was killed?“
    “A course it was. I put the trash out