Devine's Providence: A Novel Page 13

  I thought in contrast of how long it took me just to sign on to Facebook, hunting and pecking my two index fingers slowly across the keys. Despite my affinity for all things old-fashioned, the fact that we as a society haven’t moved away from the infernal QWERTY keyboard baffled me. I already spent a good chunk of time in kindergarten learning an alphabet (in order!), I shouldn’t have to learn another one.

  I hadn’t even finished my internal curmudgeonly rant when Chelsea pulled the flash drive out.

  Even before it said it was safe to do so.

  Badass.

  She held the drive up.

  “Who wants to comb these over?” she asked. “I saved only the ones that could be something. Just a few dozen.”

  I took the drive from her hands.

  “I’m on it,” I said. I sat down at the desktop and plugged the drive in. I couldn’t type for shit, but at least I knew how to read.

  “Good,” said Chelsea. “I’ll see what else I can find on here.”

  “I’ll get us some coffee,” said Terry, and left the room.

  Zachetti plopped down at the table and sat in silence as Chelsea and I clicked and scrolled away on our respective computers. But Jake Zachetti doesn’t do well in closed spaces or silent places, and soon made himself useful by digging out the sports pages from the stack of old newspapers, presumably in case the culprit behind Marc Winters’ murder turned out to be a lineman for the Patriots.

  Statistically speaking, not entirely far-fetched.

  The emails Chelsea had saved for me were mostly internal local government memos. Looking for clues in those was like looking for a needle in a stack of needles; there was no telling what Grayle was being bought off for. Every board decision looked completely routine to me.

  There was one that stood out, though. I turned to Chelsea.

  “Any luck with you?”

  Chelsea nodded slowly.

  “He was definitely on the take. I can’t get into his bank accounts, but he was maxing out his credit cards every month, and then paying them off completely through money orders…which usually means cash. And way more cash than he would ever make from just his salary.”

  “Well,” I sighed, “at least that confirms the anonymous tip.”

  “Anything interesting in the emails?”

  “Well, I can’t make heads or tails of most of them, to be honest. There’s a lot of real estate back-and-forth. It looks like there’s plenty of—let’s say ‘favors’—being tossed around between the mayor’s office and the CPC, but nothing major or out of the ordinary. There’s this one message, though, it seems strange only because of the timing. Grayle got it the morning he disappeared.”

  Chelsea turned around. “Oh?”

  The email was sent from FTEMP@CARTEMPLE.COM. I read the message out loud.

  Dear Mr. Grayle,

  As you have been instructed in the past, please do not attempt to contact Mr. Temple at this address. Any customer service queries must be sent to SUPPORT@CARTEMPLE.COM or by reaching out to your assigned service representative. However, we have made clear that there is nothing left to discuss and your matter will be resolved accordingly.

  Kindly delete this email upon receipt and remove us from your contact lists.

  It was unsigned.

  There was a rustling of newspaper as Zachetti sharply looked up.

  “Francis Temple?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Who’s Francis Temple?” asked Chelsea.

  “A car salesman,” I said. “Biggest in Rhode Island. Owns about a dozen dealerships all over Southern New England. ‘The Car Temples,’ he calls them. The guy’s a millionaire. Seems like Grayle had some customer service issue he wanted resolved. But I’ve never seen a form letter like this end with asking to delete it.”

  Chelsea stood and peered over my shoulder at the email. “That is odd,” she said.

  Zachetti rubbed his chin. “You know,” he said, “Francis Temple is Chief Delgado’s brother-in-law.”

  “The police chief?” asked Chelsea.

  Zachetti nodded. “Married to his sister.”

  “No, I didn’t know that,” I said. “That is interesting.”

  Chelsea’s brow furrowed up. “Would it be unusual for Temple to be working with the City Planning Commission?”

  “Not at all,” I said. “He’s one of the most powerful businessmen in the state. I’m sure he has real estate dealings with the city all the time.”

  “We should find out exactly what,” she said. “It could be nothing, but…”

  “Agreed,” said Zachetti. “That’s too strange of an email to ignore, especially right before the guy up and vanishes. I’ll look through the meeting agendas and see where Temple’s name pops up.”

  “Good,” said Chelsea. “I’ll keep looking through his laptop here. Harry, go back over those emails, see if there’s any other mention of Temple or his dealerships.”

  I nodded and went back to staring at the computer screen.

  If this were indeed an old movie, I thought, this whole process would take only a few moments, as we whizzed through the tedious work thanks to some montage. Instead, we hunkered down and did more scrolling, reading, and sorting. Not exactly the glamourous detective work worthy of Sam Spade.

  C’est la vie.

  Terry returned with some welcome java for all of us. I was filling her in on our suspicion of a Frank Temple connection when Zachetti held his hand up.

  “Hold on,” he said, flipping through the CPC meeting minutes, “think I found something.”

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Any petition Temple had with the commission was passed. Pretty quickly, too,” Zachetti said. “Except the last one. Earlier this year.”

  “Really?” said Chelsea. “What was the issue?”

  “Same as every other time,” said Zachetti. “Parking structures. Temple—or rather, his company—has been buying up dozens of the city-owned public garages and lots.”

  “I remember reading something about that,” I said. “But I didn’t know Temple was the one buying them. Part of the mayor’s privatization initiative is to sell off control of public parking to the highest bidder.”

  “Well, doesn’t look like there was any bidding war,” said Zachetti. “They’ve all been going to Temple, real estate and all, and at a steal of a price, too, if you ask me.”

  “That’s shady,” said Terry, “but typical for Providence.”

  “What about the last one?” asked Chelsea.

  Zachetti looked over the paperwork.

  “Looks like Temple was requesting an approval for a real estate transfer to him from the city on a garage on Eddy Street. All of the other requests passed unanimously, but on this one, one board member objected.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “Chairman Grayle?”

  Zachetti nodded.

  “Grayle didn’t give a reason, but one ‘no’ was enough to table the issue until the next meeting.”

  I rubbed the bridge of my nose.

  “So let’s suppose,” I said, “Temple wants control of all of the city parking structures. He paid off the mayor to get his support, but any civic real estate deals have to go through the CPC. On record, too. So he paid them off, too. Until Grayle flipped. So we think Temple had Grayle—taken?”

  “That’s where it looks like the pieces are falling,” said Chelsea.

  “And then,” I continued, “he had the police chief—who’s also his brother-in-law—paid off to make Grayle’s disappearance go as unnoticed as possible. Until he gets word that two nosy meddlers—Chelsea and Marc—are sniffing around. So he has Marc killed? And again enlists the police to cover it up?”

  Zachetti thought this over while Chelsea stared at the table in front of her with a furrowed brow.

  “I
don’t know,” I said. “That seems like an awful lot of work, time, and not to mention money, just so he can get his hands on a few parking lots. I’m not sure I buy it.”

  The room sat in silence for a while, except for the sound of the wheels turning in each of our heads. Zachetti’s big iron gears clanked loudly as they laboriously attempted to churn out a solution. Chelsea’s computer-like mind whizzed through all possible angles to try to make the pieces fit. Terry’s head nodded in rhythm to a song only she could hear.

  The old-fashioned typewriter in my own head clicked out what I knew, dinging after every line and trying to arrange the pages in an order that made sense. But no matter how I looked at it, there were pages that just weren’t there. Sections of the narrative that would make everything else fall into place. We needed those pages. We didn’t even know what it was that we didn’t know.

  “Temple’s definitely involved,” I said. “But there’s a missing piece.”

  Zachetti nodded in agreement.

  “There’s something we don’t know or we’re not seeing,” he said. “It’s gotta be about more than just the parking lots. Grayle knew something else…something that scared him. That’s why he changed his mind all of a sudden.”

  “And that’s why he’s missing,” said Chelsea. “So the question now, is what? How do we find out what’s really going on?”

  “We’re going to have to look closer at Frank Temple,” I said. “But we really need to tread lightly. He’s obviously not taking any chances when it comes to protecting his secret—whatever it is.”

  Terry squealed and started to clap excitedly, which startled all of us, but mostly Zachetti.

  “The fuck is wrong with you?” he asked.

  Terry was smiling from ear to ear.

  “We get to go to a ball!” she said. “How exciting!”

  Zachetti looked at me.

  “The fuck is wrong with her?” he repeated.

  “You know, Terry,” I said, “I think you’ve been spending too much time around all this Mary Jane.”

  Chelsea laughed. I shot her a confused look, because despite all my delusions, I knew it wasn’t that funny, let alone funny enough to get Chelsea Woodstern to laugh.

  “Jesus, Harry,” said Zachetti, smiling, “nobody calls it Mary Jane anymore.”

  “You sound like my father,” said Chelsea. Rather than react, I brought up a memory of a time when I was less hurt. I chose the other night, when I got the shit beaten out of me in wet socks.

  Terry was digging through the pile of newspapers on the table, looking for something in particular.

  “They’re right,” she said without looking up, “just call it the usual ‘weed’ or ‘pot.’ The kids call it ‘bud,’ but you’ll sound like you’re trying too hard. Like usual.”

  She finally glanced up at me and winked. My little unfunny joke had backfired tremendously.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I asked.

  “I just mean you have a very specific way with words,” she said.

  “Yeah,” said Zachetti, “specific to 1927.”

  I held my hands up in defense.

  “Hey,” I said, “are we solving this thing, or is it ‘making fun of Harry’ time?”

  “Yeah,” said Chelsea, in a terrible James Cagney impersonation, “what’s the big idea, see? When are you jamokes gonna give this case the what for?”

  Zachetti guffawed louder than I’ve ever heard him before, which is saying something.

  “I didn’t mean any offense, Harry,” said Terry, “it’s rather endearing, actually.”

  “I think it’s adorable,” said Chelsea, matter-of-factly.

  My heart melted a bit. As hurt as I was to find myself suddenly the butt of everyone’s jokes, it was an incredible feeling to see Chelsea lighten up and even be a little silly. I was still seeing all these new sides to her that I hadn’t before, and each new side made me admire her even more.

  “Yeah,” intruded Zachetti, “it’s the cat’s pajamas.”

  Zachetti and Chelsea flashed each other a bemused smile. I rolled my eyes.

  Before I could use my antiquated vernacular to deliver a retort, the dame treating the papes to an up-and-down gave our bumping gums the old 23 skidoo.

  “Aha!” said Terry, “found it!”

  She flopped a newspaper from two weeks prior in the middle of the table. She pointed to a headline.

  TEMPLE TO SPONSOR WATERFIRE BALL

  “Francis Temple is sponsoring the WaterFire Masquerade Ball this year,” said Terry, “as a fundraiser for Mayor Crawford’s re-election campaign. Everyone we’re talking about will be there. And it’s outside! How fun is that?”

  “Isn’t it usually at the Biltmore?” asked Zachetti.

  “Usually,” said Terry. “But this year they’re going bigger than ever. Blocking off Weybosset and Westminster Streets. They’ll have a huge dance floor and everything!”

  “That’s in front of the Turk’s Head,” I said. Zachetti nodded.

  “What’s ‘WaterFire?’” asked Chelsea.

  “Ooooh, it’s wonderful,” said Terry. “It’s like a festival meets performance art meets…fire!”

  “They put it on a few times a year,” said Zachetti. “They burn a bunch of torches in the river and blast opera, all so they can hawk glow necklaces and fried dough. It gives pick-pockets good hunting ground and the RISD college students an excuse to be weird.”

  “Oh, come on, Lieutenant,” said Terry. “Where’s the romantic in you? Strolling along the waterfront, under the stars, watching the flames and the gondolas and all those people…it’s spiritual, in a way.”

  “It’s fucking extortion, is what it is,” said Zachetti. “Hundreds of vendors trying to sell you candles or incense or roses for your date…zither music cranking so loud you can’t hear yourself think…stuck shoulder to shoulder against hippies and hipsters…if I wanted to smell like sweat and patchouli oil I would’ve stayed in the seventies.”

  “Hmmm,” said Terry. “Sounds like Mrs. Zachetti forces you to go to WaterFire more than you’d like?”

  “Every goddamned time.”

  “Anyway,” I said, anxious to bring the conversation back on track, “when is this soiree?”

  “The twenty-third,” said Terry, scanning the article. “It says formal wear is required and masks are encouraged.”

  “That’s tomorrow night,” I said.

  “Can we go?” squealed Terry excitedly.

  Zachetti shrugged. “Everyone who’s anyone will be there. Would be a good opportunity to do some asking around.”

  “Sounds like it’ll be pretty crowded,” said Chelsea, “plus, if we play along and wear masks, I can blend in pretty easily.”

  Even with her dyed hair and wearing a mask, I personally would find it hard to lump Chelsea in with everyone else. But that was just me.

  “It’s still a risk,” said Zachetti, “but I think it’s too good of an opportunity to pass up, if we’re ever going to find out more about Temple.”

  I nodded in agreement. It was dangerous, to be sure. If anyone got word back to Temple that Chelsea was back in town, or that Jake and I were still digging into Winters’ murder, we’d be done for. And we’d be walking right into the lion’s den. There was no telling how many people Temple had in his network; it could very well be that we’d be the only ones at the ball not on his payroll.

  But Zachetti was right. We wouldn’t get another chance like this, with so many people so close to Temple in one place. Hopefully the liquor will be flowing, and idle chatter with the right person who’s had one too many may bust the case wide open.

  I thought about insisting Chelsea stay hidden in the War Room while Terry, Zachetti and I went to the ball, but I knew with certainty that option just wouldn’t fly with her. She’d insist on coming, so
I decided to not even bring it up.

  “Alright,” I sighed, “looks like we’re going dancing.”

  “Yesssss!” said Terry.

  Chapter 11

  ROADBLOCK

  At six o’clock the following morning I woke up to the burner phone ringing on my nightstand. It was Terry, wanting to know my suit and shoe sizes. I groggily told her, and she gave me the name of a tailor to visit later.

  Terry had insisted on taking care of everything to get us ready for the ball. She was able to procure our tickets, even though they were sold out (she refused to divulge how). She arranged our formal wear, even the masks.

  A real fairy godmother.

  That evening, the plan was for me to meet Chelsea and Terry at my office, and we would ride to the shindig together. It would look totally normal to anyone watching—just a guy taking a gal out for a night on the town. With his landlady. Typical Saturday night stuff in The Renaissance City.

  Zachetti would be at the event separate from us. Unlike Chelsea and I, this was no undercover mission for him. Even disguised and in a large crowd, he would be too easy to pick out, especially in a place likely to be crawling with his fellow police officers. But it would not be out of character for him to show up at a thing like this; Jake’s wife was constantly dragging him along to parties and functions and fundraisers that he had no interest in being at. We could only hope that the crowd would be big enough that no one would notice that Mrs. Zachetti was nowhere to be found.

  Traffic was already heavy when I picked up my tux later that afternoon. WaterFire didn’t start until sundown, but people were already lining the waterfront, making their way to the basin at Waterplace Park, and taking their sweet time crossing the streets and the many pedestrian bridges that cross the waterways downtown.

  The Woonasquatucket and Moshassuck rivers converge in the dead center of the city to form the Providence River, which winds its way south before spilling out into Narragansett Bay. The portions of the rivers that cut across downtown are lined with stone walkways below the street level, reminiscent of the Venetian canals.

  These walkways were already thickly crowded with people. The initial lighting of the torches has become a spectacle in itself, as volunteers on barges and gondolas float down the narrow rivers and feed wooden logs to the large metal sconces that protrude from the water every few yards.