When she got to the main deck, Stranahan was sitting on the edge of the roof, legs dangling.
“What’s in the bag?”
“Cold cuts, wine, cheese. I thought you might be hungry.”
“This how they do it in New York?”
The sack was heavy, but Christina didn’t put it down. She held it like a baby, with both arms, but not too tightly. She didn’t want him to think it was a chore. “What are you talking about?” she asked.
“The wine and cheese,” Stranahan said. “There’s a sense of ceremony about it. Maybe it’s necessary where you come from, but not here.”
“Fuck you,” said Christina Marks. “I’m on expense account, hotshot.”
Stranahan smiled. “I forgot.” He hopped off the roof and landed like a cat. She followed him into the house and watched him slip into blue jean cutoffs, no underwear. She put the bag on the kitchen counter and he went to work, fixing lunch. From the refrigerator he got some pickles and a half pound of big winter shrimp, still in the shell.
As he opened the wine, he said, “Let’s get right to it: You’ve heard something,”
“Yes,” Christina said. “But first: You won’t believe what we just saw. A man with a machine gun, on one of those water-jet things.”
“Where?”
She motioned with her chin. “Not even a mile from here.”
“What did he look like?”
Christina described him. Stranahan popped the cork.
“I guess we better eat fast,” he said. He was glad he’d brought the shotgun down from the roof after Tina and her friends had left, when he went to find a fresh bandanna. Subconsciously he glanced at the Remington, propped barrel-up in the corner of the same wall with the stuffed marlin head.
Christina peeled a shrimp, dipped it tail-first into a plastic thimble of cocktail sauce. “Are you going to tell me who he is, the man in the underwear?”
“I don’t know,” Stranahan said. “I honestly don’t. Now tell me what else.”
This would be the most difficult part. She said, “I went to see your friend Tim Gavigan at the hospital.”
“Oh.”
“I was there when he died.”
Stranahan cut himself three fat slices of cheddar. “Extreme unction,” he said. “Too bad you’re not a priest.”
“He wanted me to tell you something. Something he remembered about the Vicky Barletta case.”
With a mouthful of cheese, Stranahan said, “Tell me you didn’t take that asshole up to the VA. Flemm—you didn’t let him have a crack at Timmy in that condition, did you?”
“Of course not,” she said sharply. “Now listen: Tim Gavigan remembered that the plastic surgeon has a brother. George Graveline. He saw him working outside the clinic.”
“Doing what?” Stranahan asked.
“This is what Tim wanted me to tell you: The guy is a tree trimmer. He said you’d know what that means. He was going on about Hoffa and dead bodies.”
Stranahan laughed. “Yeah, he’s right. It’s perfect.”
Impatiently Christina said, “You want to fill me in?”
Stranahan chomped on a pickle. “You know what a wood chipper is? It’s like a king-sized sideways Cuisinart, except they use it to shred wood. Tree companies tow them around like a U-Haul. Throw the biggest branches down this steel chute and they come out sawdust and barbecue chips.”
“Now I get it,” Christina said.
“Something can pulverize a mahogany tree, think of what it could do to a human body.”
“I’d rather not.”
“There was a famous murder case in New Jersey, they had everything but the corpse. The corpse was ground up in a wood chipper so basically all they found was splinters of human bone-not enough for a good forensic I.D. Finally somebody found a molar, and the tooth had a gold filling. That’s how they made the case.”
Christina was still thinking about bone splinters.
“At any rate,” Stranahan said, “it’s a helluva good lead. Hurry now, finish up.” He wedged the cork into the half-empty wine bottle and started wrapping the leftover cold cuts and cheese in wax paper. Christina was reaching for one last shrimp when he snatched the dish away and put it in the refrigerator.
“Hey!”
“I said hurry.”