Devine's Providence: A Novel Read online

  Chelsea was dressed like the femme fatale she was, complete with lines running up the back of her stockings and white satin gloves. She looked up at me from under her wide-brimmed hat. Everything was still in black-and-white, except her eyes were as green and her lips were as red as ever.

  “Oh, Mr. Devine,” she said, falling into my arms. I pushed her back and held her arms tightly.

  “Call me Harry,” I said. “Say, what’s the big idea, you coming around here? Boy oh boy, you got me all twisted around.”

  I didn’t even know what I was referring to, but I recognized the voice coming out of my mouth as more Bogart than me.

  “Don’t be cruel, Mr. Devine,” the dame said, sitting down across from the desk. “I just had to come, don’t you understand?”

  She pulled out a cigarette from a leopard-print case. A lighter appeared in my hand and I offered the flame to her. Then I leaned against the desk, poured two glasses of some kind of liquor, and handed her one. Despite some recognizable tension between us, we clinked glasses.

  “Cut the flim-flam,” I said. “Why are you here?”

  Flim-flam?

  The music stopped. Chelsea stood up, now exactly my height. Our eyes locked, and everything else in the room darkened out of focus until there were just those two beautiful green eyes and red lips. The lips let out a whisper.

  “Run.”

  The office was gone and I was running through the darkened and empty city streets, block after block of identical office buildings, homes and warehouses. My trench coat flowed behind me like a cape, and I struggled to keep my hat on my head because apparently I wear fedoras now. I didn’t know what I was running from, just that I had to get away, and that was becoming increasingly difficult. The buildings that I sped by started to repeat their pattern, like the background of an old cartoon. I was getting nowhere fast. The streets started to turn into hills, getting steeper even as I pounded up them.

  Then my feet started sinking into the pavement. The sidewalk became quicksand, and I struggled to move forward.

  “Harry!”

  Chelsea was in front of me, grasping toward me, but just out of reach. A gunshot rang out, and Chelsea’s face twisted in shock and pain as she fell to the ground. The street leveled out and I was somehow finally free. I ran to her side, but it was too late, she was lying face-down in her own blood. I looked back at the direction of the gunshot and was surprised to see myself, standing with my arm outstretched, still pointing the smoking gun. I was laughing eerily.

  Confused, I looked at the body next to me and rolled it over. It wasn’t Chelsea anymore, but a young girl, no more than six, one whom I had dreamed of countless times before. My eyes instantly filled with tears.

  Riley?

  I brushed her blonde hair back away from her lifeless eyes. The world was in color now, and it was daytime, and everything moved in slow motion. My wife Susan was running toward me, fighting her way through the onlookers. Toward us. Toward her. Chelsea was gone now, sucked away with the rest of the dream. This was memory that was playing out now.

  I fought to climb toward consciousness. I had lived this out too many times and didn’t need to again, especially now. It was clear sleep would offer no solace today.

  What finally woke me, though, was a tingling sensation on my leg. Groggily, I pulled my vibrating phone out of my pocket. It was a number I didn’t recognize. Probably a sales call. I silenced the phone and sat up, rubbing my face. Every muscle in my body was tense, like they had all individually turned into cement.

  A flood of emotions were coming at me from all directions, some of them real, some of them residual from the dream. I regretted dumping that glass of scotch.

  As my head cleared, I decided that although I certainly didn’t deserve to work with Chelsea and her team, I couldn’t very well pass on the chance. I’d just have to rein in the Ol’ Devine Charm and fake my way through. I’ve done it before.

  The phone buzzed again, with the same number showing.

  “Fuck it,” I said aloud to myself, and picked up.

  Before I could even say hello, Chelsea spoke on the other end.

  “Harry,” she said. “You need to come quick. There’s been a murder.”

  Chapter 4

  THE HARDER THEY FALL

  The Downcity Hyatt is one of the precious few businesses anywhere near Providence’s downtown district with its own dedicated parking lot. Without circling the block hundreds of times looking for a spot on the street, this meant it was less than five minutes from the time I left my office to the time I approached the yellow police caution tape that was blocking off the area around the hotel’s main entrance.

  I had to gently push my way through a small gathering of curious onlookers. Most had their phones in the air, live-streaming the macabre scene before them, or at least what they could see. A portable screen had been set up to block the real stomach-churning stuff, but it couldn’t block all of the radius of broken glass scattered about, nor all of the pool of fresh blood oozing its way across the pavement.

  Cops and crime scene professionals milled about, snapping pictures, taking notes, measuring just about everything, and talking to hotel staff and bystanders. I lifted the caution tape and was immediately spotted by a nearby uniformed officer.

  “Whoathere, guy,” he called out. If his accent was anymore Rhode Island, it would’ve come with a side of clam cakes. “Stay behind the yella line, please. Nobody in or out ‘til this is cleared.”

  I didn’t know him, but then again I didn’t know most people on the force anymore. I pegged him to be in his mid-twenties, so he was probably still a rookie. Time to see how much of a rookie.

  I pulled out my wallet from and flashed my laminated P.I. license.

  “It’s okay,” I said authoritatively. “I’m an investigator.”

  This was a Hail Mary move that actually worked on rookies sometimes, but almost never when a dead body was involved. Today was no exception to those odds.

  “I don’t cayuh if you’re freakin’ Sherlock Holmes,” the officer snorted. “You ain’t gettin’ through.”

  Ah, well. The game was afoot.

  I smiled, shrugged, and retreated to the back of the crowd, taking note of the broken window on the fourth floor—north side of the building, six from the end. I circled around the hotel through the parking lot, giving a wide berth to the crime scene to avoid suspicion. If I remembered correctly, there was a function room with a kitchen on the ground level. And where there’s a kitchen, there are kitchen workers. And where there are kitchen workers, there are smoke breaks.

  Bingo.

  Around an overgrown fence concealing a row of dumpsters, a small gathering of mostly Hispanic men and women dressed in black pants and white chef’s coats mingled around, puffing on cigarettes and scrolling through their phones.

  I ducked behind one of the dumpsters and waited. I didn’t have to wait long, a few minutes maybe, before the group extinguished their butts and collectively filed back into the building through a side door. After about a half-minute more, I emerged from my hiding spot and went to the door. It was still being propped slightly open by a cinder block, as back doors to kitchens usually were, in my experience.

  Luckily, the small storage room on the other side of the door was empty, so there was no one to notice me slip in. There was a hook on the wall next to the door, and on it, thank heavens, was the single most useful tool I’ve ever used to sneak around places I wasn’t allowed to be in.

  I snatched the clipboard off the hook, straightened my tie, and opened the door into the bustling kitchen. As I walked purposefully through the lines of white coats chopping and dicing and washing, only a few faces even bothered to look up at me, and none with any surprise or alarm. After all, clearly I belonged here. I had a clipboard.

  Now get out of my way, I have very important clipboard-y stu
ff to attend do. Don’t make me flip through it.

  There seemed to be an awful lot of people working for a hotel kitchen, but it was a very large kitchen, so I may have lapped it a couple of times before I finally noticed the swinging doors.

  It turned out the doors lead to a cavernous ballroom, in the process of being set up for a wedding. I felt my luck waning. If there was one person who could pick out someone who shouldn’t be where they were, it was a wedding planner.

  Sure enough, just as I had my eye on the exit, a short, stern-looking woman with a headset noticed me and intersected my path. She had a clipboard of her own. It was noticeably bigger, and I felt a twinge of self-consciousness.

  “Hellooo,” she said in a sing-song voice. “Can I help you?”

  I quickly scanned the room and tried to find something—anything—that might be missing.

  Flowers? Nope, here.

  Linens? On the tables.

  Chocolate fountain? Already set up.

  “Is this where there the ice sculpture’s going?” I asked, pointing to a long table along the wall.

  “Ice sculpture?” she shrieked. I admired the masterful way she flipped through her clipboard. “But you’re not supposed to be here for another four hours!”

  Why did I pick something so…time-sensitive?

  “Of course,” I said, smiling, “I’m just the scout, making sure everything’s on track. We wouldn’t want to bring it in just to find out you’re not ready yet.”

  The woman scoffed and waved her hand.

  “Yes, yes,” she said. “I assured Alexander we’d be ready! Tell him if he doesn’t stop bothering me, the hotel will have two dead guys on their hands. As if I don’t have enough to worry about. Honestly, of all days…”

  She turned away and started verbally assaulting some poor soul on the other end of her headset. At least this Hail Mary pass was completed.

  “Will do, thank you,” I said. I headed to the door, leaving my clipboard on the buffet table on my way out.

  I shied away from the main bank of elevators off of the lobby, ducked into the stairway, and started climbing. I stopped at the top for a full minute to catch my breath.

  Holy fuck, am I out of shape.

  I apparently had left the last of my luck on the ground level. When I swung the door open to the fourth floor hallway, I found myself smack in the middle of a huddle of police officers, now staring at me. The one that spoke was at least a bit nicer than the rookie downstairs, though equally as Rhode Island.

  “Hey-how-ahhh-ya,” he greeted. “Ya lawst, bud?”

  I didn’t see any way I could talk my way on through to the crime scene without getting arrested, so I turned sheepish.

  “Oops,” I said. “Err…wrong floor?”

  Just then, a familiar voice boomed out from down the hallway.

  “Harry? What the fuck are you doing here? Let him through, boys.”

  It seemed like my luck had made its way up the stairs and had finally caught up to me. The curtain of blue uniforms parted to reveal someone who I hadn’t seen in a long time. Too long.

  “Detective Zachetti, you sonofabitch.”

  I sighed with relief and held out my hand as he approached. The hulking man forcibly pushed it aside and embraced me in a bear hug.

  “That’s Lieutenant Zachetti now, remember? Or don’t you check the Facebook?”

  “Only to chat with your mother,” I quipped. I’m embarrassed, actually, by how quickly the childish response came out. But something about Zachetti’s affable nature did that to me. And even though it wasn’t funny, he roared with laughter. He slapped me on the back so hard my teeth hurt, but I tried not to wince.

  Zachetti was a gorilla of a man, taller and wider than any other member of our class at the police academy. He intimidated most people, cops and civilians alike, but once we were partnered together for our first patrol assignment, we became fast friends. He took his job very seriously, and was very good at it, but he knew how to play equally as hard. I had never met a more generous, loyal, fun-loving soul than Jake Zachetti.

  Standing there with him, it felt for a moment like it could have been twenty years earlier. Working a case together, laughing together—before my whole world fell apart. But then, like everyone else from my past that I run into, his head tilted at an angle, his voice grew intimate, and I knew the inevitable question was coming.

  “How ya holdin’ up?”

  There it is.

  Still, after all these years, I didn’t know how to answer that. What would I say? What did people want or expect to hear?

  Terrible! Every agonizing minute is just putting in time until a welcomed death!

  That wasn’t quite accurate, though plenty would want to hear it.

  Terrific! I am so over my ex-wife and dead daughter, I don’t even remember their names!

  Certainly not true, either.

  My stock answer had grown over the years from, “Oh, you know, one day at a time,” to a joking “How much time do you have?” but I didn’t have the strength to make the effort today, so I just went with good old deflection.

  “Fine, fine. How have you been, buddy?”

  Zachetti shrugged his broad shoulders and smirked.

  “Eh, you know,” he said. “Livin’ the dream.” He let out another roaring laugh as if that response was some sort of hilarious inside joke. As far as I could remember, it wasn’t. At least not one I was in on.

  The nearby cops were quiet, intently watching the giant man’s uproarious outbursts in the middle of a crime scene, but no one dared say anything. If Zachetti had noticed them staring, he didn’t let on, but somehow I knew he had and just didn’t care.

  As if to prove me right, he wrapped his tree limb of an arm around me and walked me down the hallway, away from the conclave of boys in blue. He leaned in close and lowered his voice, which for Zachetti meant he was still pretty much shouting.

  “Seriously though, Harry,” he said, as if I were the one guffawing over a dead body, “what the hell are you doing here? You working a case?”

  I hesitated to show too much of my hand, but I knew if I was going to get anything from Zachetti, I’d need to give a little first.

  “As a matter of fact I am,” I said. “And without getting too much into it, this murder may be a part of it.”

  “Murder?” Zachetti stopped, and his eyes grew as wide as a Margaret Keane painting. “Where’d you hear anything about a murder? This here’s a fucking suicide, and as neat as it gets.”

  “Suicide, huh?” I repeated, rubbing my chin. “Guess I misunderstood. Who’s the stiff, anyway?”

  Zachetti narrowed his eyes and looked at me sideways, all but ignoring my tactless question.

  “Say,” he said, “Who are you working for exactly? It’s not that Woodstern chick, is it?”

  I wasn’t expecting her name to come up. I made a true effort to hide my surprise, but years of sitting across from Zachetti during late night poker games and one subconscious eye twitch told him everything he wanted to know without me having to say a word.

  “Jesus, Harry, how could you?” His voice was quiet for real this time. “I know you’re a fan and all, but you’ve seen what she’s done to other departments. Downright eviscerated ‘em. You above all people should know how much being put under a microscope can affect the job. Damage done from public outcry can take years to repair. And for what? A few bad eggs?”

  “Easy, partner,” I said, “Don’t get yourself all worked up. I haven’t actually taken anything on yet. I don’t even know what’s going on, really I don’t. That’s what I hoped you could help me out with.”

  Zachetti visibly softened. He stared into my eyes for a bit. I stared back, until finally a smile spread up one side of his face.

  “Bah,” he scoffed quietly. “I knew you couldn’t be bought
so easily.” He continued walking down the hallway, leaving me to follow.

  “So, you never answered me,” I said, catching up. “Who’s the victim? And what does Chelsea Woodstern have to do with him?”

  “This is all off the record, mind you,” he warned. “I wouldn’t be so forthcoming with any other P.I.”

  “Nor would I want you to.”

  “Name’s Marc Winters. British expat from California. And he worked for Woodstern. Researcher and writer, though I can’t seem to find out why they’re in town or what they’re working on. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you? Should we be worried?”

  I shrugged, trying to hide any flicker of recognition in my face. “Like I said, you know at least as much as me.”

  “I can’t even get a hint out of Woodstern,” said Zachetti, shaking his head. “I don’t know, Harry, I don’t like this at all. I don’t wanna see myself as some kind of target. Or anyone else on the job, for that matter. Or you, if you catch my drift.”

  “She doesn’t always feature corruption in police departments,” I said. “It could be city hall, Federal Hill wise guys, even a local bank or business—pretty much anything. But I’m sure you don’t have anything to worry about. Unless…” I trailed off and left the rest of the thought unsaid. Zachetti had always been on the up-and-up, for the most part. Everything he did, at least, he did so with honor, and he was proud of that. But it had been a while, and the job changes people. Providence had a long history with corruption on all levels, to the point where the city—cops and civilians alike—felt a certain romanticism toward it. I felt a twinge of guilt for even thinking he would be behaving anything but honorably, but I was trained to think of every possibility.

  Zachetti stopped again and gave me his trademark side-eye. “Don’t even think it, smartass. I have less skeletons in my closet than you do. But that’s what concerns me. You know how the fallout from these bullshit amateur ‘investigative reports’ work. Someone has to go down to make it look like penance. And who usually goes down? Schmucks like me. And life goes on for everyone else.”