The Big Dig by Linda Barnes Page B

filling in a quarry to make a fancy country club, sending it out to landscapers in the ’burbs.”
    Spectacle Island, in Boston Harbor, used to be not only an eyesore, but a stinkhole. Use an area as a garbage dump long enough, that happens. Increased in size, sculpted and landscaped with Dig dirt, it was being touted as a future day-trippers’ delight, only a ferryboat ride away.
    I said, “Dirt off one site, though, the price tag couldn’t be much.”
    â€œExactly.”
    â€œThe complaint give specifics?” I asked. “Names?”
    The waiter brought the pizza, a misshapen circle smelling of garlic and tomato, too hot to touch. I inhaled and salivated. They’d scored it into six generous slices, left the knife on the side. I cut Eddie a wedge and dumped it on his plate, but he didn’t seem to notice.
    â€œC’mon, before it gets cold,” I said.
    My half had artichokes and anchovies in addition to pepperoni. It was squishy, hot, and delicious, twice as good as its Quincy Market cousin, and I vowed to bring Paolina here. Maybe she could bring a friend and we’d avoid the loaded silences.
    Eddie tasted a small bite, wiped his mouth on his napkin. “Listen, Carlotta, there’s nothing says this dirt business or the thing about stuff walking off-site has anything to do with a lousy accident. I been on this, ever since I heard. I got my sources at the General, too, and the docs think the man fell.”
    â€œYeah, you show me a doc who can tell the difference between fell and got shoved, Eddie.”
    â€œYou think it’s like that?”
    I envisioned the scaffold staircase, remembered the queasy sensation in my stomach the first time I’d descended to the pit. “I don’t know. You want me to check with the paramedics, see if he said anything?”
    â€œIn the ambulance?”
    â€œHorgan rode with him.”
    â€œI’ll take care of it,” Eddie said.
    â€œI’m going to ask Spike to run a criminal check on Fournier, okay?”
    â€œA CORI? Sure.”
    I wondered if I should expand the criminal records search, include Harv O’Day and Leland Walsh. O’Day could over-order supplies and equipment even more easily than the Horgans. And Walsh—what exactly made me suspicious of Walsh? Good looks? The way he’d watched me take the steps to the trailer? His disappearing act following Fournier’s fall?
    â€œAnything else you want me to cover, Eddie? Will the site close if Fournier dies?”
    â€œHah. The big boys will send flowers and regrets, but this is a money deal. You stick to equipment theft—plus check out the hauling contracts.”
    â€œHorgan had a disagreement with a trucker day before yesterday.”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œNorrelli.”
    Eddie took a long pull on his drink, leaned closer. “Interesting. Maybe you oughta use your contacts , you know what I mean?”
    He concentrated on his pizza, avoiding my eyes.
    â€œI don’t like it,” I said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œEddie, you know sometimes on a case, your gut tells you look here, look there. Mine’s not giving me directions yet, but there’s something. The site’s way too tense—”
    â€œWhaddaya mean, tense?”
    â€œMaybe what I’m picking up is some kind of financial trouble, or maybe something personal, like a divorce. Any rumors about Liz and Gerry?”
    â€œShit. That would be bad. That would split the freakin’ company.”
    I wondered exactly how much of Horgan Construction Liz Horgan owned. I didn’t feel like I could ask Eddie flat out. Eddie was old man Horgan’s friend.
    I said, “Do you have tapes of the hotline calls?”
    â€œThey’re at the IG’s office.”
    â€œAny chance both complaints were made by the same guy?”
    â€œHey, if they were, it’s probably some asshole with a grudge, right? FBI lab’s got sound stuff.