Devine's Providence: A Novel Read online

  I kept busy during the days. The grass needed cutting, there’s that squeaky step I’d been meaning to fix, and that drawer full of argyle socks wasn’t going to organize itself. My evenings, every night for the past week, had been spent on the corner barstool at my second home, Rick’s.

  Going home after closing time was the worst. I tried to sleep. But every time I shut my eyes, images of the teary-eyed Chelsea faded into Zachetti and his look of disappointment I had hoped to never be on the receiving end of. The memory of the blood-stained pavement and shattered glass outside of the hotel inevitably morphed into the memory of the blood-stained pavement and shattered glass at the end of my driveway.

  Riley.

  Lying in bed, there was nothing to distract my mind from itself, and all of the toxic thoughts and memories and self-loathing that I worked so hard to keep out during the day slowly oozed in. It felt as if the entire world disappeared as it slept, leaving me completely alone and vulnerable until the birds starting their morning chirping just before dawn. It was only then, for some unknown reason, that I could finally relax a little and get an hour or two of rest before starting the whole cycle over again.

  It was a rainy Friday night—or it may have been a Tuesday—and I headed into Rick’s to start the “let’s get hammered” portion of my new routine.

  The full name of Rick’s was actually Rick’s Bar & Grille. I didn’t know the difference between a “Grille” and a “Grill,” but unless “Grille” means “Microwave,” Rick’s had neither.

  In a city full of either swanky speakeasies with craft cocktail programs or scummy hole-in-the-wall dive bars, Rick’s was a rare middle-of-the-road option. It had zero frills, but it was clean, kept a respectable clientele, and was decently priced. I’d be wary to order anything too complicated, but it was hard to screw up a scotch-on-the-rocks.

  The place used to be known as a cop bar, until a retired cop opened his own bar in the West End. Now all the fuzz drink at McKenna’s, leaving Rick’s to the neighborhood working class. And that suited me just fine. Nobody bothered anyone at Rick’s; there were no rowdy college kids or snotty tourists or fat cat business showoffs. Just people getting together to drink alone.

  My grip was still on the brass handle of the beat-up, graffiti-covered wooden door when the old man behind the bar started scooping a rocks glass full of ice and reaching for the Johnnie Walker. It took a second for my eyes to adjust to the windowless, dimly lit room. A few people dotted the perimeter, slouched in booths. Some alone and silently nursing a drink, others sharing libations with companions, but just as silent. The bar itself was void of patrons, its old upholstered seats empty and inviting.

  My ears were pleased to hear an old bluesy Billie Holiday number coming out of the jukebox. The juke, in all its neon glory, was there just for show; it was controlled completely by the bartender-on-duty through a cell phone app. It could play any one of the millions of songs in its library, but the management had a rule that a song couldn’t be played if it was recorded after 1965. This wonderful mandate resulted in playlists comprised of standards from the great American songbook, Rat Pack crooners, and only the best rock-and-roll.

  The perfect drinking music.

  By the time I reached my usual stool my glass of scotch was iced down and waiting for me. Charlie the bartender nodded a greeting. It was a tricky thing: the ability to make your regulars feel like “regulars” and not like “alcoholics”. Not everyone was comfortable being faced with the truth that their vices were so predictable. I was not one of those people, and appreciated the good service.

  I raised my glass to the barkeep. “Here’s to the perfect couple,” I said. “Lord Walker and Lady Day. Cheers.”

  Charlie nodded again and started busying himself with wiping down the already-clean bar.

  I liked Charlie. He was professional and courteous, but never said a word. No one knew the reason. The rumors varied from tongue cancer to just stubborn refusal, but there’s something great about a bartender who you know will keep your secrets. There was no dress code for the staff at Rick’s, but Charlie showed up to his shift every day in freshly-pressed black dress pants, a crisp white shirt with sleeves neatly cuffed up, and a black vest and tie. He was never without two bar rags—one that he actually used to obsessively wipe down the bar, and a clean one always tossed over his shoulder like a socialite’s mink stole. An accessory in case there was ever any doubt that he was in fact a bartender.

  The hours passed over a few more scotches as day turned into night. Customers came and customers left, but I stayed glued to my stool, just like all the nights before. I was already dreading going home to my empty house and the restless torment that was waiting for me.

  It was somewhere during a stretch of Ray Charles songs that the door flew open and a large figure lumbered in, fighting to get his umbrella closed.

  “Jesus Christ, it’s wetter than a submarine’s license plate out there. FUCK THIS UMBRELLA!”

  The few people in the joint looked up at the bellowing man with curiosity, annoyance, or both. Charlie started mixing a drink.

  “Zachetti?” I was a few drinks deep at this point, but there was no mistaking him no matter how sauced I was.

  “Hiya, Harry. Figured I’d find you here.”

  He carelessly threw his still-open umbrella into an empty booth and slicked back his hair, splashing a small pool of water onto the floor behind him. He waddled over and sat down next to me with a huff. Behind the bar, Charlie stood on a milk crate to reach a bottle on the top shelf.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” I slurred. “I guess everybody does come to Rick’s.”

  “Yeah, I haven’t been here in a dog’s age,” said Zachetti. He glanced around the room, looking for changes since the last time he had been there and failing to find any. “Do you remember that time some kid tried to rob the place?”

  “How could I forget,” I smiled. “That poor sap’s face when he turned to run out the door and saw you blocking the way. You were in uniform and everything.”

  Zachetti burst into deep laughter. “The kid actually pissed himself! And you just walked over and took the knife out of his hand. Christ, that was classic. Those were some good times back then.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It was a different time then.”

  “Yeah,” said Zachetti. We were both still smiling, but we each knew what the other one was thinking.

  “What are you doing here, Jake?” I asked.

  He sighed deeply. “I don’t like the way we left things last week. I think we both got a little hot under the collar.”

  “Look,” I said. “I didn’t mean any disrespect, you know that. I just believe Chelsea Woodstern is doing the right thing for the right reasons, and I reacted a bit too…defensively.”

  “It’s a strange world we live in now,” he said, shaking his head. “Everything’s so divided. There’s no more gray area. It’s either you’re with one side or you’re against it. No middle ground. I tell ya, it’s crazy.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” I said.

  “You’ll drink to anything.”

  “Touché.”

  Charlie place a martini glass filled with a pink concoction on the bar in front of Zachetti and plopped a lime wedge in. Zachetti stared at it, and when he spoke, it was unclear if he was speaking to me, Charlie, or the drink. “The fuck is this?”

  “That,” I said with a smile, “appears to be a Cosmopolitan. I guess it has been awhile since you’ve been in here, but kudos to Charlie for remembering your last order.”

  “Charlie,” said Zachetti in a calm, low voice. “Do I look like Kim fucking Cattrall to you?”

  Charlie shrugged.

  “Is this your idea of a joke? I haven’t had one of these since before I got married!”

  Charlie moved to take the drink away, but Zachetti grabbed the stem of the glass.


  “No, no,” he said. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t drink it. I’d hate to see you waste liquor. Asshole.”

  Charlie shrugged again, and resumed wiping down the bar. I laughed. As much as it pained me to think about my past, I sure missed certain things. Like Zachetti.

  He took a sip of his Cosmo. The martini glass looked like a thimble in his oversized mitt. Then his face turned serious, like it did when he was on-duty.

  “Truth be told,” he said, “there’s another reason I wanted to see you. Something else has…come up.”

  “Oh?” I pretended to sound intrigued, but the truth was I didn’t want to hear anything that would involve any kind of work. Which was unusual for me, but my heart just wasn’t in it.

  Zachetti lowered his voice and leaned in closer, the smell of cranberry and lime wafting off his breath.

  “First, there was the crime scene of the whole Marc Winters thing.”

  “Thing?” I asked. “You mean suicide?”

  “Uh, yeah, suicide. It definitely looked that way—most of the evidence showed a sure thing.”

  “Wait…what do you mean most of the evidence? I thought it was pretty cut and dry?”

  “Well, it was. At least at first, anyway. There were a couple of things that just didn’t sit right with me. But it wasn’t enough to say it was anything other than what it looked like.”

  I felt a soberness wash over me as my interest was reluctantly piqued.

  “What kind of things?”

  “Just different things that stood out. Like we can’t figure out how he broke the glass to the window before he jumped out. Those windows are as thick as the walls in Folsom Prison. Or why he didn’t just go up to the roof or something. And then there was the motive…”

  “Wasn’t he in love with Chelsea Woodstern and tired of hiding it? Supposedly?”

  Zachetti shook his head. “That’s what his note said. In his handwriting, too. But I followed up and spoke with his family and friends in California. And checked his social media and personal emails. None of it adds up. Turns out the Brit was as gay as a Provincetown parade. He seemed pretty comfortable and confident in who he was. I couldn’t find anything—nothing—that suggests his relationship with Woodstern wasn’t just mutual friendship. And nothing to suggest he was depressed or hiding anything or wanted to kill himself. The more I looked into it, the more I realized the whole thing fucking stinks.”

  “Huh,” was all I could say. I really didn’t want to be sucked back into this whole mess. But if Zachetti thought it stunk, there was something rotten hidden somewhere. And knowing him, he would be digging like a bloodhound until he found it.

  “And then a funny thing happens this morning,” he continued, his voice getting even lower. “I get the coroner’s report. Cause of death: blunt force trauma to the head due to falling.”

  “Nothing surprising there,” I said.

  “Of course not. It was exactly what it should have been. Except…”

  Zachetti took another sip of drink at the worst possible time, leaving me in suspense.

  “Except what?”

  “…except you know as well as I do how things work out. It’s rarely what it should be. And something told me this time was no different.”

  I couldn’t help myself. “Something told you? Don’t you mean someone?”

  Zachetti shot me a blank stare.

  “Don’t push it, kiddo,” he said. “I’ve come bearing an olive branch here, and you’re asking for the martini to go with it.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “Please, go on.”

  “Right. Well, anyways, I paid a visit to the medical examiner. I brought his report along with me. And, what do you know, he didn’t write it.”

  “What do you mean he didn’t write it?”

  “I mean someone wrote it, and signed his name, but the report I got was different than the one he wrote.”

  “Different how so?” Now I was in this, like it or not.

  “Actual cause of death: manual strangulation.”

  “Wait…it was a homicide?”

  Zachetti shrugged. “Looks like. But someone doesn’t want it to look that way.” He swigged back the rest of his drink in one gulp and smacked his lips. “Hence, the two reports. The guy had visible bruises on his throat. That wasn’t even mentioned on the report I got. Whole thing’s a motherfucking cover-up.”

  I didn’t need to finish my own drink for the room to spin; my head was whirling on its own.

  “Who’s covering it up? And why?” I had more questions now than I had before, but Zachetti just shrugged again.

  “Gotta be someone pretty high up. You’re the only one I’ve told about this yet, so keep it to yourself. I don’t know who I can trust with this, so I have to tread carefully.”

  “Why come to me?” I asked. “There’s not much I can do, Chelsea fired me before she even hired me.”

  Zachetti smirked. “Oh please,” he said. “I know you can’t just sit on this. There’s only so much I can do, but you have the power of the Smooth Criminals team at your disposal.”

  “Jake, I’m telling you, she cut me loose. Besides, it turns out half of the Smooth Criminals team was murdered.”

  Zachetti rubbed his chin.

  “You mean that whole operation is just Woodstern and Winters?”

  “Apparently, pretty much.”

  “They make it seem like they’re some big time outfit.”

  “The power of perception works in their favor, I guess.”

  “So tell me this,” Zachetti placed his hand on my shoulder. “What were they working on?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied. Zachetti stared me down, showing no reaction.

  “Honest,” I said, “All I know is it was something to do with a missing person. Only they said it could lead to other, bigger stuff…but the hell if I know what. No one that stands out has been reported missing lately, as far as I could find out.”

  Zachetti still stared at me, unmoving, a slight smirk forming at the corners of his mouth. The area around his lips was stained a light pink from the Cosmopolitan.

  “I’m telling you, Jake,” I said, “I’m not working for her. And as curious as I am…it’s just not my problem, frankly.”

  Zachetti slapped my back. “Sure, Harry, whatever you say. But we both know you’ll do the right thing. Because what’s right is right.” He stood up and swatted a twenty dollar bill onto the bar. He gave me a wink. “I’ll be in touch soon, partner.”

  He picked the lime wedge out of his empty glass and flicked it at Charlie, who just looked up wearily as it bounced off his vest.

  “And hey, Charlie, if I don’t see you…swell!”

  Zachetti erupted into laughter and strolled out the door, grabbing his mangled umbrella on the way.

  “What an asshole,” said Charlie.

  Chapter 6

  HE WALKED BY NIGHT

  I drank a little heavier than usual that night, even by my standards. Something funny was going on over at the PPD, and I didn’t like it. Someone was killed. A life was taken. I wasn’t so naïve that I thought everything should be run by the book with no leeway. I had been a cop myself, after all, and I know how things really work. Sometimes to get the job done you have to buck the standard protocol just a bit. Maybe leave something out of your report, or use interrogation tactics that aren’t exactly approved. Even the cleanest cop had to get his hands a little dirty eventually—but not like this. Someone’s hands weren’t just dirty, they were downright toxic. And it didn’t look like it was to get the job done, it looked like a cover-up.

  On the other hand, it had nothing to do with me. I was off the case, and just a regular schmoe. I held zero obligation to get justice, or find the truth, or do anything except trudge on with my meaningless life. Another cog in the machine of Providence’s private sector, taki
ng on snoop jobs and insurance fraud cases until I could retire or die, whichever came first.

  But there was a gnawing feeling in the back of my head that I just couldn’t ignore, no matter how much scotch I tried to throw at it from the inside. Zachetti’s words echoed over and over in my ears: What’s right is right.

  And what was right was justice. Justice for Marc Winters. Justice for his family. Justice for Chelsea Woodstern.

  Chelsea.

  Marc was clearly very close to Chelsea, and his death must be extremely difficult for her, given the circumstances. She had tried valiantly to put on her brave, determined face the day of his untimely death, but she must have been falling apart inside. And there I was, making things worse, as usual.

  Fuck it all.

  I spilled out onto the sidewalk in front of Rick’s just past closing time. Closing time for Rick’s was about two hours after every other bar in the city stopped slinging cocktails—not exactly legal, but no one seemed to care. It had stopped raining, but the streets were slick with puddles and a low-hanging mist was rolling in. I fumbled around, trying to get my keys out of my pocket, which was made difficult on account of my fingers getting in the way of themselves. I finally pulled out my car key, or maybe it was a stick of gum, and sighed as it turned into two and then three before my eyes.

  There was no way I was driving home that night. Luckily, although home was too far to walk, my office was only a few blocks away, and that was a journey I had stumbled through several times before.

  The world was too distracting. There were too many cool looking dark alleyways that needed exploring, or storefront window displays featuring shiny stuff, or littered losing scratch-off lottery tickets that might be winners. If I was going to make it to the safety of my office sofa, I had to concentrate. Luckily, Drunk Harry could concentrate extremely well—only on just one thing at a time. Now, the power of concentration focused on my footsteps.