Page 80 of I Will Ruin You
“Sure.”
“It made me feel younger, surrounded by young people, you know? You get really close to them while they’re here, and then they’re gone, making lives for themselves, and a new crop of them comes in.”
“I know,” I said.
“A lot of them, they called me Willie,” he said. “You know, for the Simpsons character? Groundskeeper Willie? That was actually the part I liked best. Keeping the grounds.”
His gaze wandered over to the back of the school and a set of doors that led to his former domain. Behind them were the guts of the school. His office, the school’s boiler and electrical system, a backup generator, cleaning supplies, a small garden tractor he used to maintain the grounds. In winter, he attached a snowblower to it to clear the sidewalks.
“I liked riding the lawnmower, cutting the grass,” he said. “Gives you lots of time to think, doing that. And it’s one of those jobs where you can immediately see what you accomplished. Every time you make a loop, it’s right there for everyone to see.” He smiled. “I’d ride that lawn tractor all day if you let me.”
Something Mark LeDrew had said to me eight days ago suddenly popped into my head.
“You’re a real lawnmower man, Ronny,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said, grinning. “I guess I am.”
Thirty-Eight
This was the third hospital where Andrea was running her game, holding a bouquet of flowers, telling the woman at the reception desk that she wanted to deliver them personally to Lucy Finster for taking such nice care of her mother.
“Lucy Finster?” the woman said, tapping away at her computer. “What department does she work in?”
Andrea recalled that just before she put the clamp on Billy’s tit, he’d said something about his wife Lucy working in a hospital cafeteria. Would have been nice if he’d said which fucking hospital. There was one in Milford, a couple in Bridgeport, two up New Haven way, one in Westport. If Andrea had thought to ask, she and Gerhard wouldn’t be driving from facility to facility trying to find the elusive little bitch.
Because that was exactly what she was. Elusive.
They’d doubled back to the Finster place, after the police had arrived, mingled with the gawkers lined up along the yellow police tape. Listened to the gossip, how no one had seen Billy’s wife.
Which got Andrea and Gerhard thinking that there might be a very good reason for that. She’d run off with their Flizzies. The carry-on bag was not there. Billy sure didn’t have it, and he wasn’t exactly in a state to tell them where it might have gone. But with Lucy in the wind, well, you didn’t have to be fucking Sherlock Holmes to connect the dots.
They realized, of course, that if Lucy had their stuff and had gone on the run, she might not be showing up for work the next day. But if they could figure out which hospital she worked at, then they might be able to find some of her friends. Maybe one of them would lead them to her.
So here she was, at a hospital in New Haven, her second stop, holding a cheap bouquet she’d bought from someone on a street corner, asking for Lucy.
To the receptionist, she said, “I know it sounds funny, her being able to help my mom when she worked in the cafeteria, not being a doctor or a nurse, but Mom, bless her, in her last days, she’d come down to the cafeteria and Lucy always made time for her and she didn’t have to do that. It just shows that everyone who works here, in whatever capacity, really cares about the patients.”
The receptionist looked up from her screen. “I’m sorry, but we don’t have anyone here by that—”
“Thanks for nuthin’, bitch,” Andrea said, heading for the door and hoping these shit flowers wouldn’t completely wilt before she got to the next hospital.
By Tuesday afternoon, Marta was reviewing everything she had, so far, on the death of one William “Billy” Finster. He had died of a gunshot wound, at close range, to his upper abdomen. The bullet had gone right though his heart. It would have been quick.
A check of footage from neighbors’ surveillance video turned up little. Only a couple of homeowners had tricked their places up with security cameras that captured street traffic, and what video that had been recovered had not proved useful. They did have a partial license plate and the make and model of a car that had been seen near the Finster house, and Marta had been waiting to hear back on that.
No cell phone had been found at the scene. Not on Billy, not in the garage, not in the house. If Billy’d been in the habit of carrying a phone, someone, presumably whoever had shot him, had taken it.
Before packing it in the night before, she had gone to Paulie’s, the chicken wing place. She’d found a receipt tucked into the folds of the box and showed it to the manager. He said it hadn’t been a delivery. The customer had come to the shop, placed the order, and waited outside in his pickup truck until it was ready.
“You get his name?” Marta asked. She already knew, from looking at the receipt, that it had been a cash transaction. No credit card to help with an ID.
The manager shook his head. “Nope. When it was ready I just waved and he came in and got it.”
“He a regular? Seen him before?”
“Once or twice, maybe? I’m not sure.”
When asked for a description, the manager was beyond vague. Height? “Kind of average.” Weight? “Sort of average, I would say.” Hair color? “Kind of average.”