The Dorchester Five by Manus Peter

Author:Manus, Peter [Manus, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 2017-08-22T04:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

Marina Papanikitas’s Personal Journal

The Culligan house is clad in faded green siding with white metal shutters and a matching storm door, all streaked with soot. Wheelchair ramp runs round the side and into the driveway, where there’s a white Crown Vic nosed up against its base. Fender dents make it clear that it took the driver some getting used to the fact that the car and the ramp need to share the parking space. Harry noses his own car half onto the sidewalk, following the example of others up and down the street. A container truck roars by, explaining the custom.

I hit the buzzer. After a while, a lady with what looks like a permanent sneer opens up. Later forties, arms crossed, jaw set—probably used to be a looker, but life’s left her decidedly unimpressed, and it shows. Blonde frosted hair with a synthetic sheen to it, coifed in a kind of tiered mound, velour top with a plunging neckline, pink stretch pants, fuzzy mules—the kind with clear plastic heels. No cigarette to talk around but my guess is we caught her between.

“Sorry, sweets,” she says to me, “I’m on a call.” Both Harry and I flash our badges before she can swing the door shut in our faces.

I identify us as her mouth sinks into the surrounding flesh and her eyes go kind of hooded. “So now I gotta talk to detectives too?” she says. She walks away, leaving the door open, presumably an invitation for us to follow. We watch as she shoves her way through a swinging door muttering a couple of choice words that she’s happy for us to overhear. I glance at Harry as we follow her through to her kitchen.

“I’m assuming you’re Mrs. Culligan?” I say. “Jake’s mother?”

“Wow-wee, got it in one. How do you people do that?” She settles at the table, her phone call ruse forgotten. We can hear some tense dialogue from the next room.

“They got soaps on before noon now?” I ask, casting about for how to break the ice.

“It’s SoapNet,” she says, like everyone knows. She holds a mug between her hands, not offering us a seat. Looks like a World’s Best Mom mug. It’s the little ironies, huh, Zoey? She lifts the mug and has herself a sip. I don’t smell coffee, but the rich, fizzy scent of rum hits me as she lights herself a Parliament. Must hit Harry too.

“Little early for the sauce, huh?” he says. H.P. knows who not to make nice with.

She lets her lighter clatter to the table. “Got my reasons.”

“Maybe,” I concede. “How’s it been for you?”

“Not easy,” she says, picking a piece of tobacco off her tongue with a fingernail. She likes me a little better for asking. “But it wasn’t ever gonna be easy, was it? Not with those two. Not after Wayne left us. One day here, next day gone, like that.” She makes a motion vaguely reminiscent of a leaf in the wind.

“Husband been gone how long now?” I ask.

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