Dutch Blue Error Read online

  “Goddamit, Brady Coyne!” I guess we wait was how he put it. “You find that son of a bitch and you stuff that money down his goddam Irish throat. I want that stamp!”

  “How’m I supposed to do that, Ollie?” I said. “I don’t know his number or his address or any known acquaintances. I don’t know what he does for work or where he hangs out or where he went to school. I don’t even know his name, for God’s sake.”

  “How do you know you don’t know his name?” said Ollie quietly.

  I stopped. “Hm. Good point. I’ll get back to you.”

  To Zerk I said, “Want to play private eye?”

  He squinted suspiciously at me. “Say what?”

  “Private detective. See if we can find our Daniel F. X. Sullivan in the phone book.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” he muttered. He fixed me with a lopsided grin. “They’ll be calling me Sam Spade, eh?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Thank you,” I said.

  An hour later I walked out into the reception area. Zerk had his jacket thrown over the back of his chair. His tie was pulled loose and his collar hung open. He was speaking into the telephone. “I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Sullivan: I had no idea…. Yes, of course I’ll tell him if I see him, but…”

  He shrugged and hung up the phone. I cleared my throat. Zerk turned to glower at me. I sensed briefly what opposing quarterbacks might have felt when they stood over their center calling signals and happened to glance across the line at the Tufts middle linebacker, number 48 on your program, Xerxes Garrett.

  Zerk did not look happy.

  “That Daniel F. X. Sullivan ran off with a nursery school teacher two months ago. Last heard from in Des Moines, where he used his credit card. Five kids at home, oldest nine, youngest three months.”

  “Can’t say I blame the guy,” I said.

  Zerk ignored me. “Two Daniel F. X. Sullivans are dead. One for several years, one was buried a week ago Saturday. Another one’s a bartender who works nights who I woke up. He wasn’t pleased. One sells maritime insurance. I spoke with his recorded voice on the answering machine. Not our man. You want me to keep going?”

  “How many you got left?”

  “In the Boston book? Couple of dozen, I’d say. I haven’t even dared to look at the suburban books. You really think we got the right name here?”

  “No,” I said, “I don’t. But we’ve got to be sure, don’t you think?”

  “I think this private investigating is boring. I think I’ll be a lawyer when I grow up instead.” He smiled at me. “I think I need some help.”

  “You’re right,” I sighed. “I’ll start in the West Suburban book.”

  I hung the GONE FISHIN’ sign on the door and set to work. I flipped open the thick green directory to “Sullivan.” There were six full columns of Sullivans. Somewhere around 600 listings. I counted twenty-seven Daniel Sullivans, three Sullivan, D.’s, and four D. F. Sullivans. There were no Daniel F. X. Sullivans.

  I threw the book onto the floor, got up, and walked back to Zerk. By now his necktie was on the floor and his loafers were under his chair.

  “Hey, Sam Spade,” I said. “Forget it.”

  His ear was snuggled to the phone. He covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “Watch what you callin’ me, boy,” he growled. His eyes darted to the telephone. “Sh,” he said to me.

  “There’s too many,” I persisted. “Forget it.”

  He waved his hand at me. “Yes, Mr. Sullivan?” he said into the phone. “This is Daniel F. X. Sullivan of Seventeen Walnut Drive, Roxbury?” He paused. “No, Mr. Sullivan, this is not WHDH and I’m not asking you for the cash call jackpot number. The reason I’m calling is… Ah, shit. Well, that wasn’t him, either. That guy was nine hundred years old, at least. So. You’re ready to quit already? You hardly got started.”

  “I didn’t get started at all,” I said. “It’s too much. There’s too many of them.”

  “You got a better idea?”

  “Yeah. Forget it. We’ve got other clients to worry about.”

  He shrugged. “Suits me. Can I pretend to be a secretary for a while, now?”

  The following morning when I got to the office, Zerk was at his desk looking at Sunday’s box scores in the Globe. He grunted at me and I grunted at him. I went over and set the coffee to brewing. It was my turn.

  “Anything on the machine this morning?” I said.

  “It’s only eight-thirty; I don’t start working until nine. Hurry up with that coffee, will you?”

  “You could’ve put it on yourself when you got in.”

  “Your turn.”

  “You can wait, then.”

  “See where Rice went three for four yesterday,” said Zerk. “They lose again?”

  “Stanley blew a two-run lead. It’s September. They’re dead.”

  I went into my office, lit a Winston, and moved manila folders around on my desk. I sat down, got up, looked out the window at the morning smog, and went out to check the coffee. It was still burbling. I went back to my desk.

  A moment later Zerk barged in, holding the Globe in both of his hands and shaking it at me.

  “Take a look at this,” he said.

  He spread the obituary page out on top of my desk. I looked.

  “You’re too young to be checking the obits,” I said. “I want my coffee.”

  “Here,” he said. His finger pointed at a picture of a man’s face. Under the picture was the caption, “Francis Xavier Shaughnessey, 1968 photo.”

  “So? Friend of yours?”

  “Take a close look.”

  I did. Then I bent and looked again.

  “I’ll be damned,” I breathed. “Daniel F. X. Sullivan. That what you think?”

  “Gotta be. He was younger in this picture. But you can’t mistake that nose.”

  I shifted my attention to the brief obituary. The headline read, “Francis Xavier Shaughnessey, 66. Former auditor for Commonwealth.” I read on:

  Francis Xavier Shaughnessey, an official in the State Auditor’s Office before his retirement in 1978, died suddenly in his home in Boston last Monday evening. He was 66.

  Mr. Shaughnessey, a native Bostonian, attended Dorchester High School and graduated from Northeastern University. He served during World War II in the European Theater of Operations, where he earned two Purple Hearts. He received a field promotion to the rank of Captain during Operation Overlord.

  After the war Mr. Shaughnessey was the European field representative for the Gulf Oil Company. Poor health forced him to return to Boston, where he began work in the Auditor’s office. He retired in 1978.

  Mr. Shaughnessey leaves his daughter, Deborah Ann Martinelli, and a sister, Elizabeth Shaughnessey Monroe.

  A funeral Mass will be said Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. at the Church of the Sacred Heart, Dorchester.

  I glanced at Shaughnessey’s listing under the Death Notices, and saw that visiting hours would be held from two to four and seven to nine on Monday and Tuesday at the Michael P. O’Reilly Funeral Home in Dorchester.

  Zerk had been reading over my shoulder. I looked up at him. “Guess I’ll be going to a wake this evening,” I said. “You notice something here?” said Zerk, pointing to the newspaper.

  “What’s that?”

  “It says he died last Monday. That explains why he wasn’t at our little rendezvous.”

  “He was otherwise occupied, it seems,” I said. I thought for a moment. “Wonder why they waited a whole week before putting in the death notice. And why wait nine days before having the funeral?”

  “White folks sho’ does funny things sometimes.”

  “Somehow I don’t think that adequately explains it,” I said.

  5

  I FOUND THE MICHAEL P. O’REILLY Funeral Home halfway down a pleasant, tree-lined residential street somewhere in Dorchester. It was a big Victorian house needing some paint. But the lawn grew lush and green, and the big maple out front glowed brilliant orange in its autumn plumage, and from t
he outside it seemed a pleasant enough place for gazing at dead bodies, pondering mortality, and murmuring sympathetic inanities to the bereaved.

  I parked out back. There were a dozen or so other cars in the lot, a couple wearing official state license plates. I stepped out of my BMW and walked around to the front door.

  A dark-suited young man stood by the guest book in the foyer. He held my eye for a moment, then dipped his head in solemn greeting.

  “Good evening, sir,” he said. “Won’t you sign the book?”

  I felt his eyes on me as I bent to scribble my name. I glanced at the signatures of those who had preceded me, but recognized none of the names. When I looked up, I realized the man had been watching me by the way his eyes slid away from my face.

  “Thank you, sir,” he said, with another bow. “It’s the room to your left.”

  I paused in the doorway to get my bearings. The casket sat on a little platform at the far end of the room surrounded by big sprays of gladioli and carnations. A bald-headed man and a fat woman were kneeling beside it, their heads inclined toward the body inside. Along the left wall, a row of straight-backed wooden chairs sat in a line, most of them empty. The rest of the room was occupied by metal folding chairs arranged to facilitate meditating upon the corpse. Most of them remained unoccupied, as well. The mourners evidently preferred to stand together in small clusters, conversing in hushed tones—to facilitate their escape, it seemed to me.

  I was anxious to verify whether this Shaughnessey was, in fact, my friend Daniel Sullivan, I moved along the row of chairs against the wall, stooping to take the hand of an elderly woman who clutched a lace handkerchief in her lap.

  “I’m so sorry,” I muttered, or something similarly lame. I was grateful that the woman neither looked up nor bothered to respond.

  Then I found myself standing by the coffin looking into the paraffin face of Francis X. Shaughnessey. The phrase, “They did a real nice job on him. He looks so natural,” came to my mind. They had done a good enough job so I could tell that this Shaughnessey had undeniably been the Daniel F. X. Sullivan of my acquaintance. Beyond that, he resembled all the other examples of the mortician’s art I had seen. He was a piece of wax sculpture somewhat smaller than life. It always startled me how bodies laid out in caskets could remain so motionless.

  And, of course, he didn’t look “natural” at all. He didn’t look as if he had ever lived. His mouth had never smiled or sneered, his nostrils had never twitched, his eyebrows had never lifted or frowned. There had never been wrinkles playing at the corners of his eyes and mouth. Blood had never rushed to flush those rouged cheeks. Even his nose seemed to have been reshaped into someone’s concept of an ideal form, although in Shaughnessey’s case the ideal had been compromised considerably.

  I had the sense that the real Daniel Sullivan was hiding under a mask, smirking at me. As I stared down at his shell, it seemed to me that old Dan Sullivan had somehow had the last laugh on me. Not only had he conned me into participating in this barbaric ritual of “visiting” his eviscerated husk, but he had also managed to win our little cat-and-mouse game with the Dutch Blue Error. No matter the price of his victory.

  I imagined the eyes of the others in the room upon me, so I knelt beside the body and rested my forearms on the railing. “Where’s that stamp, you old rascal?” I whispered.

  After I had knelt there long enough to have recited a couple of Hail Marys and a leisurely Our Father, I stood and moved away from the coffin. I figured if I slid inconspicuously toward the back of the room, I could ease myself out without anyone’s noticing. My mission had been accomplished.

  Then I felt a hand on my arm. “I’m Deborah Martinelli. He was my father.”

  Vanilla skin, shiny black hair worn long and straight, high cheekbones, and gray eyes like polished silver. With makeup she would be beautiful, I thought. She wore a black sheath which hinted at roundnesses that were not revealed. Her grip on my arm was firm.

  “Brady Coyne,” I said.

  She steered me toward the back of the room, away from her father’s body. We sat on a couple of folding chairs.

  “I don’t know you.” Those pewter eyes searched mine.

  “No. We’d only met recently. We were in the middle of a business transaction.”

  She nodded. “You and a hundred others. He was always in the middle of a business transaction. Do you sell paintings?”

  I smiled. “No. I’m an attorney.”

  “Ah,” she said, as if that explained it. Her eyes drifted away from my face. I figured she had done her duty, greeting me, and it was time for me to leave. Which suited me fine. I had found out what I needed to know.

  I started to stand. “Well, Mrs. Martinelli…”

  “Stay a minute.” It was a command. I sat down again.

  “I didn’t know him that well,” I said, “but…”

  Her head jerked up. Her eyes were razors. “Then don’t say something insincere, Mr. Coyne.”

  I shrugged. “I just…”

  “You were going to tell me how natural he looks, maybe?”

  I gave an embarrassed little laugh. “Matter of fact…” I waved my hand. “No. Of course not.”

  She glanced over at her father’s body for a moment, then swiveled her head around to look at me. “Barbaric, isn’t it?”

  “Well, it depends.” I sounded like a lawyer, even to myself. I could equivocate with the best of them.

  “We’re supposed to be Catholic. This is how we’re supposed to do it. We genuflect, we mumble our little prayers, the priests come in, the men go out back and drink, the ladies cry, and somehow it’s supposed to make a difference.” She shook her head. “But it doesn’t. Dead is dead.”

  “I don’t handle death very well, myself.”

  “I don’t want to handle death well,” she said. “Especially my father’s.”

  “You seem to be doing okay.”

  “Do I?” Her smile was ironic. “Good. I’m glad I seem to be. Because I’m not. If I was doing well I’d feel sadness, wouldn’t I? Or emptiness. Loss. I should cry. But you know what?” She squinted her eyes at me. “All I feel is mad. I am really pissed off that my father is dead. Is that doing fine?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe it is.”

  She tossed her head. “Yeah. Maybe.”

  I hesitated. “Look. I’m not very good at this. To tell me truth, I just came here to see if your father was who I thought he was, that’s all, and…”

  “And was he?”

  “Yes. And beyond that, I don’t know what to say to you. Just, I’m sorry.”

  “Well, at least you’re not telling me how God works His will in wondrous and mysterious ways, and that my father now lies in peace with the angels—and all the shit I’ve been hearing lately.”

  She smiled quickly when she said the word “shit,” as if she thought it might shock me. It didn’t.

  “That doesn’t help much, does it?” I said.

  “Makes it worse. He’s dead, and now he looks like pâpier maché, and that’s that.” She cocked her head. “What did you mean about seeing if he was who you thought he was?”

  I sighed. “The truth is, your father owns—owned… he had a very valuable item which I was helping a client of mine to purchase from him. It was a very complicated transaction, and for reasons of his own, your father chose not to tell us his real name. I know this isn’t the best time, but…” I reached into my jacket and took out one of my business cards. “This is my card. I’d appreciate it if…” I let it hang there.

  She took my card and seemed to stare right through it. Her fingers moved over the embossed letters as if she were reading braille. Then she looked up at me.

  “You came here to do business,” she said, her voice flat.

  “Well, no, but…”

  “Maybe we should work out a deal right here, huh?”

  “I hardly think…”

  “I think,” she said, standing up suddenly, “that you should get the he
ll out of here right now, Mr. Lawyer.”

  I stood. “I’m sorry.”

  “God damn it, just get out of here!”

  I shrugged, and as I turned to go I felt a strong hand on my shoulder. “C’mon, pal,” said a deep voice. “Come with me. Let’s leave the lady alone.”

  I turned to look into the smooth face of a man several inches shorter than I. He had chocolate eyes, thick, curly hair, and a bushy black mustache. His shiny white teeth seemed to be smiling at me.

  “Get that shyster out of here, Philip,” said Deborah Martinelli. “This son of a bitch is trying to do business here, and the body isn’t even cold.”

  “This way, buddy,” said the man named Philip, and I allowed myself to be led out of the room and across the hall into a smaller room where several men were standing around smoking and talking quietly.

  He released his grip on my arm and held out his hand to me. “Phil Martinelli,” he said. “Son-in-law of the deceased. Estranged husband to that hellcat. Don’t mind her. She’s basically hysterical in the best of circumstances.”

  “I didn’t mean to upset her.” I fished out a Winston and lit it. I noticed that my hands shook a little.

  “Want a little nip?” said Martinelli.

  “Well, sure, I guess so.”

  I followed him to a low table in the corner where four other men had gathered. “Excuse me,” he said to them. “This man needs a drink.”

  He poured an inch of Cutty Sark into a clear plastic glass and handed it to me, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him I’d have preferred bourbon. I took it in one gulp, trying to focus on the fire in my stomach while ignoring the taste in my mouth. Martinelli took the glass from me and refilled it.

  “Didn’t catch your name,” he said.

  “Coyne. Brady Coyne.”

  “Friend of Frannie’s, then.”

  “Sort of.”

  He touched one of the other men on the arm and said, “Doc, I’d like you to meet one of Frannie’s friends.” To me he said, “This is Doc Adams.”

  He was a graying, vigorous looking guy with washed-out blue eyes and a crinkling smile. I took his hand.