Hell Bent Page 2

  I nodded. “Telling stories runs in your family. Gus traveled a lot, I seem to remember. So what’s he need me for?”

  “He’s getting divorced.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “You used the past tense. You said Gus told stories. Meaning …?”

  She shook her head. “He doesn’t do that anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s kind of a long story.”

  “And I bet it’s connected to why he wants me to represent him,” I said.

  “Sure it’s connected,” Alex said. “Everything’s connected. But this is me. I’m the one who wants you to represent him.”

  “He doesn’t?”

  “He doesn’t know what he wants.”

  “Well, consider it done,” I said. “No problem. Just have him give me a call.” I hesitated. “This is nice, seeing you again. But really, I do divorces all the time, and it’s not as if I’m likely to refuse to represent him. It wasn’t necessary—”

  “Like I said,” she said. “It’s a long story, Brady.”

  “If you want to make supper out of cheese and crackers and Rebel Yell,” I said, “we’ve got all night.”

  She reached over and put her hand on my wrist. “You’ll represent him?”

  “Assuming he’s getting divorced in Massachusetts where I’m allowed to practice law, sure.”

  “He’s renting a place in Concord now. He works in a camera store there. His wife and kids live in Bedford.”

  “How long have they been separated?”

  “A little over six months. It’s—why don’t I just tell you.”

  I poured another finger of Rebel Yell into each of our glasses. Then I slouched back in my chair. “Proceed,” I said.

  She hesitated for a long moment. “There’s a lot I don’t know,” she said. “Gus came back from Iraq a little over a year ago. He doesn’t say much about it. He lost his hand. His right hand. He’s—he was, I guess you’d say—right-handed. So now he’s given up photography. Says he can’t manipulate a camera one-handed.” Alex took a sip from her glass. “He’s got two little girls. My nieces. Clea and Juno. His wife, a really nice woman named Claudia—Gussie traveled all over the world, and he ended up marrying the girl he took to his senior prom—Claudia asked him to leave back in the spring, and now she’s hired a lawyer and she wants a divorce, and Gus, he’s not doing anything.”

  “He needs to be represented,” I said.

  “I know,” said Alex. “That’s why I’m here. Can you represent somebody who doesn’t want to be represented, says he doesn’t care what happens?”

  “Not unless he asks me to,” I said. “He sounds depressed. Losing his hand, giving up his career, getting kicked out of the house by his wife.”

  “Oh, he’s depressed, all right. He has been ever since he got back, if depressed is what you want to call it.”

  “Post-traumatic stress disorder, huh?” I said. “He lost his hand. Probably saw a lot of horror.”

  She nodded. “I guess so. That’s why he went over there. To take pictures of the horror.”

  “Was he embedded?”

  Alex shook her head. “Not Gus. He was independent and proud of it. He believed that being embedded meant being controlled, being allowed to see and hear only what they chose to show him. Being censored. He went on his own, at his own expense. It’s what he always did. He was always off somewhere looking for a story to take pictures of. That was his career. Finding the stories that weren’t being told, the shadows and angles that he believed needed to be exposed. He thought it was important. He believed in it.”

  “So what stories did he find in Iraq?”

  Alex shrugged. “I don’t know. He was over there for about a year, and then he came home without his right hand, and he hasn’t said much of anything to anybody.”

  “Is he being treated for it?” I said. “The PTSD?”

  “He’s in some kind of support group. Or he was. I don’t know if he’s still going. He’s on medication, I do know that.” She shook her head. “There’s a lot I don’t know. It was Claudia who called me, told me she was divorcing my brother and he refused to retain a lawyer, and as much as she couldn’t live with him and didn’t want him around her kids, she was worried about him and thought he should have a lawyer. So I called Gus, told him I was coming down, and he didn’t say yes and he didn’t say no, which is pretty much how he seems to be dealing with the world these days. So I came. I figured I’d stay with him for a few days, try to get him pointed in the right direction.”

  “Get him a lawyer,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. “Ideally, you. And in general see how he was doing and if there was anything I could do for him. It’s the least I can do.” She blew out a breath. “When we were growing up, Gus was my hero. My big brother. I called him Gussie. Everybody loved him, or at least that’s how it seemed to me. He was a really good athlete, he was big and strong and handsome, he laughed all the time. He made me laugh. He was nice to me. I was just this bratty little four-eyed sister, always whining and looking for attention. But he didn’t tease me or get mad at me or ignore me, even though he was eight years older than me. He read to me at bedtime, took me out for ice cream, taught me how to play checkers …”

  She tilted back her head and looked up at the sky. I could see the glitter of tears in her eyes.

  “You don’t have to talk about it,” I said.

  She turned and looked at me. “It’s just sad, what’s happened to him. So I drove down from Maine a few days ago, and basically he said I couldn’t stay with him, that he had to be alone. Said he was working on some things, whatever that’s supposed to mean. It was pretty obvious that me being there made him edgy. So I got a room at the Best Western there by the rotary in Concord. That’s where I’m staying. I’ve had supper with him a couple of times, and he pretends that everything’s all right. I know he’s just trying to protect me, the way he’s always done.”

  “But you’re worried about him,” I said.

  She laughed quickly. “His life has gone all to hell, Brady. I guess he’s going to have to work most things out for himself, but the least I can do is make sure he gets a fair shake in this divorce. Now he’s saying he doesn’t care. I figure someday he will care.”

  “That’s exactly right,” I said. “I see that a lot. One of the parties—usually the husband—he’s wracked with guilt or just overwhelmed by the whole thing, he thinks he doesn’t care what happens. He thinks if he gets completely screwed, it’s what he deserves.”

  “That’s Gussie exactly,” said Alex.

  “He said he was working on some things?” I said. “What things?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t ask. I didn’t really take it literally. I think it was just his way of getting me off his back.”

  “Why did Claudia kick him out of the house?”

  She shrugged. “I’m sure he was pretty hard to live with. I figure that’s none of my business.”

  “If I’m going to be Gus’s lawyer,” I said, “it will have to be my business. Anyway, if he doesn’t agree to have me represent him, it’s all moot.”

  “He’ll agree,” said Alex. “I’ll take care of that.”

  “He has to understand that he can’t hold back from me. He’s got to give me an accounting of his assets. He’s got to figure out what he wants. We’ll have to talk about division of property and custody and—”

  “I said I’d take care of it,” said Alex. “And just to be clear about it, I’m not asking you for a favor.”

  I smiled. “Never said you were.”

  “I intend to pay you.”

  “Right. Of course.”

  “I do,” she said. “And don’t you patronize me, Brady Coyne.”

  “I’d never patronize you, Alexandria Shaw.”

  “See? There you go.”

  I laughed.

  “God damn you,” she said. “What’s so funny?”

  “It’s just like
old times, isn’t it?”

  Then she laughed, too. “It’s good to know that some things never change. You still get under my skin.”

  “So what about a sandwich or something?” I said. “Or I can throw something on the grill, open a can of soup, call out for a pizza.”

  “Do I still get under your skin?” she said.

  “Pizza it shall be,” I said. “You still like it with artichoke and eggplant?”

  “See?” she said. “Nothing ever gets under your skin. That always drove me crazy. No wonder I dumped you.” She blew out a big, phony sigh of exasperation. “Don’t forget the goat cheese on my half of the pizza.”

  TWO

  Back in May, Douglas Epping and his wife, Mary, moved from the split-level in Chelmsford to their retirement condo on the waterfront in Charlestown. Now, five months later, around noontime on the day after my reunion with my old girlfriend, Alexandria Shaw, Doug was pacing around my office, his hand chopping the air like a hatchet, slicing off his words, his face getting redder and redder. Doug was about seventy, tall, bald, and stooped. He looked like a stroke waiting to happen.

  “Calm down, will you?” I said. “Sit down. Take a deep breath. You want some coffee or something? Bottle of water?”

  “No, nothing.” He smacked his palm with his fist. “Mary told me it wasn’t worth it, getting all upset,” he said. “But God damn it, Brady. I am upset. Swear to God, I want to murder those sonsabitches.” He plopped himself on my sofa and blew out a breath. “Pisses me off.”

  “Let’s talk about suing them,” I said. “You shouldn’t ever mention murder to your lawyer.”

  “I’m half serious,” said Doug.

  “Start over, okay? Slowly. Begin at the beginning.”

  “Sure. Right. Okay.” He took a deep breath, pursed his lips, blew it out. “So these movers, this outfit from Lowell, AA Movers, they call themselves, which Mary hired after interviewing, I don’t know, three or four other outfits because these guys came in with the bottom estimate and, she said, they seemed nice—that’s how Mary thinks, you know, ‘they seemed like nice boys’ is how she put it—first thing they do on the day of our move is, they show up in a truck that isn’t big enough. I mean, we got rid of a lot of furniture, just kept the good stuff for the condo, but even so, I took one look at that truck, and I said, ‘You can’t fit all our stuff in there.’ And the crew boss—this was not the guy that Mary thought seemed nice, this guy looks about sixteen years old, you wonder if he’s even old enough to drive the pint-sized van—he says not to worry about it, sir, which turns out to mean that they’re totally committed to cramming all of Mary’s precious stuff in there whether there’s room or not.” Doug pushed himself off the sofa and resumed pacing around. “So the next thing we know—”

  “Doug,” I said.

  He looked at me. “What?”

  “You’re doing it again.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Getting worked up.”

  “I’m not getting worked up, Brady. I am worked up.”

  “If you’re planning on having a heart attack,” I said, “take it somewhere else, will you?”

  “Sorry. You’re right.”

  “Maybe we should save this for another day.”

  “I’m trying to be calm. It’s just—”

  “I know,” I said. “It pisses you off. Sit down, okay?”

  “Right. Okay.” He sat down and blew out a big breath. “So anyway, the first thing that should’ve tipped me off was this dinky moving van they backed into our driveway. The second thing was, they took all Mary’s paintings and laid them out on the lawn. I mean, the whole front lawn’s covered with these precious oils and watercolors she’s been collecting for the past forty years, and they’re lying there on the grass face up to the sun—Mary knows what she’s doing, Brady, knows her art, we got a lot of money invested in these paintings—and these moving guys are walking around among them, stepping over them while they’re lugging other stuff out of the house. The third thing was, I’m talking to one of them, young Hispanic guy with some kind of accent, wiry little fellow, hardly the image of somebody who’s gonna hump a piano up the stairs, and I’m asking him about the training he had to be a mover, whether he had to take classes or something, just making conversation, really, and he laughs and says, ‘Training? You shittin’ me? No training, man. Me, I’m a roofer. Sonny at Double A needs to load a truck, he got a bunch of guys like me he calls, and if I’m not on a roofing job, man, I can use the money.’” Doug’s accent, imitating the mover who was really a roofer, sounded like Speedy Gonzalez, the cartoon mouse.

  “All the movers are part-timers?” I said.

  “I don’t know about all of them,” said Doug, “but it wouldn’t surprise me. Day laborers, you pay ‘em under the table. No benefits, no taxes, no insurance. No skills, either. No pride in their work.”

  “I’m getting quite interested in your story,” I said.

  Doug nodded. “It’s an interesting story, if you’re into horror.”

  “Or if you’re into lawsuits,” I said. “This outfit’s based in Lowell, you said?”

  “Right. AA Movers, Inc. Double A. Makes ‘em first in the yellow pages. Classy, huh?” He shrugged. “So, like I was saying, this whole operation stank from the minute they backed their Tonka-toy truck into our driveway, but what’re you gonna do? I tried to sort of supervise, at least make sure nobody stepped on a painting. They had to load and unload and reload the damn truck three or four times before they managed to squeeze everything into it, at which point Mary says, ‘See? They were right. The truck isn’t too small.’ And I’m wondering what’s getting squished in there, but I don’t want to say anything, upset her. She’s the one who hired them. So the rest of it seemed to go okay. We got to Charlestown and they unloaded us, and it wasn’t until after they were gone and we started unpacking and organizing things that we found all the damage. For example, Mary’s got this dresser, been in her family for about five generations, came over on the Mayflower the way she talks about it? Big gouges on the top, looks like some giant lion or something scratched it with his claws. Antique rocking chair she got at an auction, cost more than my Volvo? Rocker busted clean off. The glass shattered on the front of one of our water-colors and scratched the painting. Puncture in the oil painting that used to hang over our fireplace. I could go on. You want me to go on? I got a list in my pocket.”

  I got up from my desk. “I’m going to get us some water. You sit there, take a few deep breaths, relax for a minute.”

  I went out to the reception area. Julie had her headset on. She was talking on the phone and tapping at her computer. I lifted my chin to her, and she looked up and smiled without missing a beat.

  I went to the alcove where we hid our half-sized refrigerator and the office coffee machine, took two bottles of Poland Spring water from the refrigerator, and went back to Julie’s desk. A minute later she was off the phone.

  She looked at me. “Is Mr. Epping all right?”

  “He’s pretty worked up, actually.” I showed her the two bottles of spring water. “I want you to look up something for me, okay?”

  She smiled. “It’s what I do, isn’t it?”

  “It’s just one of the countless invaluable things you do,” I said. “See what you can find out about an outfit called AA Movers, Inc., based in Lowell.”

  “Anything special?”

  “Names, dates, addresses. Any legal stuff that pops up, of course.”

  “Right now?”

  “Yes. I’d like to have it while Doug’s still here.”

  “No problem. Oh, wait.” She held up a slip of paper. “Alex called.”

  “What’d she want?”

  “Just, you should call her.”

  “I’ll do it when I’m done in there.” I went back into my office. Doug was standing at the window looking out at the plaza. I handed him a bottle of water and resumed my seat behind my desk. “Sit,” I said to him. “Drink.”


  He sat, unscrewed the top of the bottle, and took a swig of water. “Where was I?” he said.

  “When you got unpacked, you found a lot of damage.”

  He nodded. “Right. So, okay. I called them, talked with the same guy Mary had talked to, who she thought seemed like a nice boy. Guy named Delaney, the head guy. President of the company, it turns out. I told him we had a lot of damage from the move, said I assumed he’d want to make good on it. He said something like, ‘Yes, sir. Absolutely, sir. We stand by our work, want our customers to be happy, proud of our reputation, sir,’ blah blah. Tells me to get an estimate of the damage, send it to him. So I found a guy right there in Charlestown who does antique restoration, had him come over, and he wrote it all up for me.”

  “Cost of repair?” I said.

  Doug nodded.

  “Does that take into account the loss in market value of repaired antiques?” I said.

  “No. He said I’d have to find somebody else to do that. I figured that’d be another conversation with this Delaney who wanted to make me happy. So I photocopied the estimate, overnight-mailed it to him. Waited a week. Didn’t hear anything.”

  “What was the estimate?” I said.

  “Little over thirteen grand.”

  “You never make antiques as good as they were by filling in gouges, replacing a rocker, painting over scratches.”

  Doug nodded. “Like I said, I figured this would be a process, there’d be some give-and-take. I was trying to be practical. I mean, that dresser was priceless before the gouges. Anyway, when Delaney doesn’t call me back, I try calling him. Keep getting voice mail, leaving messages. I try several times for about a week, and finally I figure out he’s reading my name off his phone, just refusing to talk to me. So I get smart, use my cell phone, and Delaney answers. Yeah, sure, he says, he got the estimate. It’s outrageous, he says. You can’t be serious, he says. Can I prove his movers caused the damage? He talked to the crew, he says, and they swear they didn’t bust anything. Best he can do for me, he says, is what’s covered by his insurance per our contract, which is sixty cents a pound, take it or leave it.” Doug pushed himself up off the sofa and pointed his half-empty Poland Spring water bottle at me. “I figure that priceless eighteenth-century dresser weighs about fifty pounds, Brady. So this guy wants to give me thirty bucks for it, call it even? How much does an eighteen-by-twenty-four-inch oil painting in a simple wooden frame, no glass over it even, weigh, for Chrissake? You see why I want to murder somebody?”