Devine's Providence: A Novel Read online

  “No sugar is right,” he mumbled under his breath.

  “So, Mrs. Woodstern,” I sighed. “You wanna tell me what’s going on? To be honest, I never thought I’d see you again.”

  “Lieutenant Zachetti reached out to me yesterday,” she said. “About the coroner’s report, and about his hunches. I was wrong about him, Harry, I realize now he’s one of the good guys. It said a lot that he was able to put his own personal feelings toward me aside when he realized what was going on. It takes a big man to admit when he’s wrong.”

  “He’s the biggest,” I said.

  “Heard that, asshole!” came a shout from the kitchen. I shot Chelsea a smile.

  “So,” she continued, “I couldn’t stay away. I was already doing my own investigating on Marc’s death, but it appears as if it’d be best if we all worked together. Especially considering what you’ve been going through.”

  She bit her lower lip.

  “I’m…sorry. About everything. About you getting attacked, about your office…I feel responsible.”

  “Well,” I said slowly, “I kind of feel that, too.”

  My mastered skill of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time was in full display. Chelsea’s eyes grew wide and she looked away.

  “You’re a cruel man, Harry Devine,” said Terry. She sat down next to Chelsea and placed a hand on her knee. “Don’t listen to him, dear. He’s just been through a lot. None of which is your fault.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” said Chelsea. “You’re…the property owner? I’m so sorry for all the trouble.”

  “Now, now,” Terry dismissed her. “I’m invested now. We’re going to find out who killed your friend, don’t you worry.”

  I leaned forward. “Of course we are. I only meant that—”

  “Just leave it,” said Terry, curtly.

  I sighed, and we sat in silence for a bit. Finally, I spoke up.

  “You’re taking a risk, coming back to Providence. Whoever’s behind this means business, and they’re not afraid to show it.”

  Chelsea nodded. “That’s why I changed my appearance…or at least tried to,” she said. I didn’t say anything, but I missed the way she looked before, with her silky raven hair and her cat’s-eye glasses. Sitting here now, she just looked so…ordinary. Still beautiful—she couldn’t change that no matter how she tried—but just a regular woman. Which I realize was the whole point, so yippee for that working.

  I guess.

  “I even flew in under an alias,” she continued. “No one can know I’m here. We need to crack this thing from the shadows.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  Zachetti entered the room carrying a tray with a coffee pot and four mugs. He set it down on the desk.

  “Thanks, Mr. Belvedere, that’ll be all,” I said.

  “Fuck you,” said Zachetti.

  “Language, my boy,” I said. “Where are you staying?” I asked Chelsea.

  “That’s what we need to talk about first,” said Zachetti, deflating into a chair. “She can’t stay with either of us; we’re undoubtedly being watched. We made sure no one saw us come in, but we’re taking our chances just being here now.”

  “We’re not safe here,” Chelsea agreed. “And hotels are a little too risky for my taste, considering my last stay. But we also need someplace to work—a base of operations. You guys need to keep up your daily routines. No need to arouse any more suspicions until we have to. But a safe place to meet up and talk would be nice.”

  “I think I have just the place,” said Terry.

  Zachetti held his hand up. “Thanks, doll, but the second floor is a little too obvious. Might as well stay up here.”

  “It’s not the second floor. But it’s someplace Chelsea can crash and we can have room to work. It’s not the Ritz Carlton, but no one would ever find it. And it’s got running water and an internet connection.

  “That’s really all I require in life,” said Chelsea.

  “And just where is this fortress of solitude?” I asked.

  “Well,” said Terry, smiling at Zachetti, “Lieutenant, do I still have that immunity you offered?”

  • • •

  A bit later, after scoping out the street to make sure we weren’t under surveillance, the four of us made our way down the outside steps and through Terry’s darkened shop. She locked the door behind us as we filed into the back room where I had woken up earlier that morning.

  “Terry,” I said, “I appreciate your willingness to help, but this isn’t any better than my office. We’re in the same building.”

  “Just shut up and wait,” said Terry. She unlocked the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet, pushed all the files aside, and stuck her hand in. She felt around in the bottom of the drawer until there was a click. A section of the far brick wall silently sprung open, revealing a wrought-iron spiral staircase descending into the floor below.

  Zachetti gasped. “You have a fucking BATCAVE?”

  “Not exactly. Watch your step.”

  As we followed her down and around the staircase, motion-sensor lights built into the wall clicked on, illuminating our path. The wall swung closed automatically behind us.

  “This is leftover from the days when the building was a pharmacy,” Terry explained. “Prohibition era.”

  “Cool, a speakeasy?” asked Chelsea.

  “No,” said Terry. “Nothing that fancy. They’d make the juice down here, or at least store it, and sell it upstairs. An illegal distillery and liquor warehouse.”

  We reached the bottom of the stairs where a large metal door blocked our path. Terry pounded six numbers into a keypad, then pushed the door open for us.

  “I never knew this was down here,” I said.

  “Good,” said Terry. “The only people who do know about this place are the people I want to know. And until a few minutes ago, you weren’t on that list.”

  As we filed through the door, I saw why I hadn’t made the cut. We were in a large room—a very large room. Row upon row of marijuana plants stretched out before us, all under long strips of white lamps. A fine mist was settling over the plants, dispersed from copper pipes that snaked their way around the room.

  “Oh, my God,” I said. “You have a grow operation in your basement?”

  “There must be hundreds of thousands of dollars tied up in here,” said Zachetti, his mouth agape.

  “That’s a modest estimate,” said Terry. “Nothing but the best care for my babies.” She reached out and caressed the leaf of the nearest plant. “Finest crop in New England.”

  I heard a soft giggle and looked at Chelsea. She was smiling. Not the wry, almost-sarcastic smile she usually gave me; or the forced, I-pity-you-so-I’ll-be-nice-to-you smile she also usually gave me, but a genuine, unabashed enjoyment.

  It was beautiful.

  She caught me staring at her. I quickly darted my eyes up to the pipes and wires running overhead.

  “This place must draw a suspicious amount of power,” I mused to myself.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Zachetti, “I’m willing to bet it’s the same amount of power as…maybe half a dozen tanning beds?”

  “Ten, to be safe,” said Terry. “Had to come up with some reason to be using all this electricity.”

  The penny dropped and the furnished-yet-tenantless second floor now made sense.

  God, I’m an idiot.

  Terry then led us into one of the several smaller rooms that branched off of the main chamber. In it was a sofa, a conference table, and a small desk with a computer. A large map of Rhode Island hung on one wall with little red pins stuck into various locations. I knew better than to ask what that was all about. The lights turned on automatically as we entered.

  “Here we are,” said Terry. “Home sweet home. The sofa pulls out. Full bathroom with a sho
wer next door. And that—” she pointed to a heavy metal door at the rear of the room, much like the one we came through at the bottom of the staircase, “—is your own private entrance.”

  “A back door?” asked Zachetti. “Don’t tell me…it’s a secret elevator that leads to a phone booth in the train station.”

  “Despite my investments in technology and security,” said Terry, “we’re not at that level of James Bond stuff…yet.” She winked at Chelsea, who still seemed amused at the secret, elaborate catacombs I had been unknowingly working directly over for the past decade.

  “An old escape tunnel,” continued Terry, “built in case of raids from the G-men. Comes up in an old garage about a block away.”

  “A garage you own, I’m guessing?” I asked.

  “Owned by a…business acquaintance…with mutual interests. I’ll get you access. Anyway, I’m hoping this place would suffice. Anyone that knows this is here is completely trustworthy, I assure you. It’s not on any plans or blueprints or permits, so no one could possibly find out it even exists.”

  “And they wouldn’t believe it if they did,” said Zachetti. Terry nodded in agreement.

  “Well,” I sighed, “It’s certainly secretive enough.”

  The four of us stood in silence for a bit. I’m sure the others were all thinking the same thing I was:

  How the hell did this random group suddenly turn into a rag-tag gang of mavericks, standing in a secret underground bunker, trying to take down forces God-only-knows how much bigger than us?

  A week ago, my biggest worry was how the Sox could possibly win the pennant this year with their bullpen as lousy as it was. Now, for all we knew, our lives could all be in danger.

  There was a small part of me that still wanted to say “fuck it” and just leave. Just walk out with a “not my problem” and get on a ferry or a plane or a bus somewhere and just drink myself into unconsciousness until it was all over.

  I looked at Zachetti. His eyes were closed and he was rubbing the bridge of his nose with two kielbasa-sized fingers. He was the driving force behind us all being here. It was him that roped me into wanting to dig deeper into Marc Winters’ murder. It was him that called Chelsea in California (immediately after he left me at the bar the previous night, I later found out). It was him that expedited her arrival back in Providence after I was attacked and found my office ransacked. The last time I had talked to him, he had not only hated her, but hated me for not hating her. And yet here she was, thanks to him.

  He was arguably risking more than any of us. He couldn’t just hide away in a hole in the ground with us, he had to work in the lion’s den and keep up appearances. He had a job. He had a family. And still, here he was in the corner room of an illegal hideout, sticking his bull-like neck out farther than any of us.

  This was important to him. Most important.

  What’s right is right.

  I then looked over at Chelsea. Her eyes were on her feet, her hands tucked into the pockets of her sweatshirt. Her glowing, earnest smile was gone, and I found myself praying that I would get to see it again sometime. True, I didn’t know her very well at all, but to me she looked utterly deflated.

  She was risking a lot, too. If someone was willing to kill Marc Winters over whatever they were looking into, it stood to reason that they wouldn’t stop with just him. They’d lay off, likely, if they thought Chelsea had just given up and returned to her life on the west coast, on to the next story. But if word got out that she wasn’t through with her investigation, well then she’d be target number one. Because anyone who knew anything about her knew that she wouldn’t stop until she found the truth…or died trying.

  Yet, she was here. She let Zachetti talk her into coming back—Zachetti, whom she had seemingly zero respect for. She dyed her hair, got a fake ID, and flown 3,000 miles all within a day so she could be here. She needed this. There was no way she wasn’t going to find the truth.

  Unless the truth finds her first.

  So how could I walk away from that? Jake and Chelsea were sacrificing everything to see this through; I couldn’t just leave them because it wasn’t my problem. I had walked away from too much. I had spent the last fifteen years of my life walking, running, hiding, working and drinking away from my own problems, and I was tired. It was time I stuck around. I may have gone into this situation unwilling and unwittingly, but now that I was here, I may as well make myself worth something.

  I looked at Terry to find her already looking at me. Her sparkly eyes darted back and forth between me, Zachetti, and Chelsea, and she was…smiling.

  She did not look like an old woman who just invited three investigators into her secret drug lair to discuss how to prove a potential conspiracy without getting murdered. She looked like this sort of thing just happened all the time, and it was her duty to play the gracious hostess. She looked…happy.

  I thought I knew her, but who even is this woman?

  “So?” she said, jolting the others back to reality, “What do you think? Does it make the cut?”

  It was as if she were a real estate agent showing a lovely split-level ranch to a newlywed couple not afraid of a fixer-upper.

  “I mean, it’s kind of perfect,” said Chelsea.

  “I hate to admit it,” growled Zachetti, “but it does check all the boxes.”

  The group then stared at me, as if I were the deciding factor. As if I wasn’t just along for the ride, clutching onto Zachetti’s coattails for dear life.

  “I guess it’ll do,” I stammered.

  “Oh, good,” said Terry. “How exciting! What an adventure!”

  Chelsea returned her gaze to down to her feet, and I could sense an uncomfortableness from even Zachetti.

  “Uh, Terry darling,” I said, “I don’t know if you fully understand how serious this is. This isn’t an adventure. It’s…someone died, Terry.” I could see Chelsea wince out of the corner of my eye. Marc’s death was still a raw wound.

  Terry seemed to ignore me. She stepped forward and grabbed both of Chelsea’s hands.

  “It hurts now,” she said, “but the best thing we can do for this young man’s memory is find out what happened to him. And we’re not going to do that feeling sorry for ourselves. I didn’t know him, but somehow I know he wouldn’t want that. He’d want us to be at our best. He’d want us to finish what he started. And, in whatever plane of existence he’s in now, he wants you especially to stay strong. Isn’t that right, dear?”

  Chelsea nodded.

  Zachetti leaned over to me and whispered, keeping out of Terry’s earshot.

  “This chick…is a little weird, huh?”

  “A little, I always thought,” I said. “But I had no idea. Still…I’m pretty sure we can trust her.”

  “Well, that’s fucking good,” he rasped, “seeing as how she just inserted herself into this very delicate fucking situation.”

  Terry was still consoling Chelsea, but it was unclear if Chelsea was actually listening or just blindly nodding along in agreement.

  “I mean,” Zachetti went on, “it’s like if Shaggy’s grandmother just fucking threw herself in with the Scooby-Doo gang.”

  “Actually,” I whispered back, “I bet Shaggy’s grandmother also grew a tremendous amount of weed.”

  “Jinkies Christ,” said Zachetti.

  I burst out with a loud laugh, which was not at all the proper response to what Terry and Chelsea were talking about. Terry’s eyes turned scolding, but Chelsea looked almost amused and slightly relieved for the interruption.

  “Ruh-roh,” Zachetti whispered out of the side of his mouth.

  God damn, I’ve missed this guy.

  “Anyway,” said Terry, “I have some loose ends to tie up. Some, uh, employees to notify that you’ll be using the space.”

  “I should go, too,” said Zachetti. “Harry, will you be a
lright by yourself tonight?”

  “I can make sure I’m not followed home, if that’s what you mean.”

  “That’s important,” he said, “but no, that’s not what I mean. Anywho, I’ll touch base with everyone tomorrow, and we’ll get things rolling.”

  He reached out and put his hand on my shoulder. I tried not to react to the sudden weight.

  “Thank you for this, partner,” he said. “You’re the only friend I’m certain I can trust on this. Not to mention the smartest detective I know. We were unstoppable, once. And as much as it pains me to say, Ms. Woodstern here is the best at what she does. If anyone can straighten this whole mess out, it’s us.” He stuck a thumb out toward Terry. “Plus Grandma Ganja over here.”

  “It’s like we’re in a movie!” said Terry.

  “You know,” snorted Zachetti, putting his arm around Terry and walking toward the door, “I thought you were Betty White, turns out you’re Walter White.”

  “I won’t pretend to understand the reference, Lieutenant,” she replied.

  They took their leave, bickering back-and-forth the whole way out. I lingered behind, needing a minute to let everything sink in. As tired as I was, I couldn’t stomach the thought of going home yet. Plus, it just seemed cruel to leave Chelsea locked alone in some strange basement. I collapsed down onto the sofa.

  Chelsea spoke, but remained standing.

  “I’d like to echo Lieutenant Zachetti’s sentiments,” she said. “I have to thank you. I really didn’t mean to upend everyone’s lives like this.”

  “I know how important this is to you,” I said, “and to Jake. He’s right, you know. As eccentric as he is, we make a great team. And you are obviously the best there is. We’ll find out who killed Marc. And why.”

  We stood silent for maybe thirty seconds that seemed like days. It was stifling. I had to break it—I had to say something.

  “Look,” I said, “It’s no secret we’ve gotten off on so many bad feet a podiatrist couldn’t even help me. But…I know you’re hurting. And I’m so sorry about that.”

  Chelsea’s watery eyes met mine.

  “Tomorrow I’ll go back to being the Chelsea Woodstern I’m expected to be. That I need to be. But tonight…I’m just tired.”