Black Diamond (10 page)

Hector forced a blank look on his face. “I don't know anything about a fixed—”

“And we could say ‘Poor Hector. He's just a little innocent lamb caught up in a big meat grinder.' We could leave here with a head full of bullshit and almost guarantee you a life sentence. You couldn't give the prosecutor a better gift than our trying this case with our heads in a dark place.”

I had his attention, but still no words flowed.

“Understand the rules. Whatever you tell us in this room can go no further. You have the attorney-client privilege. And you've got something better than that. You've got Mr. Devlin's and my word that it will never get out.”

He looked from one of us to the other with an expression I couldn't read.

“What, Hector? Speak.”

He looked down at his folded hands on the table and just shook his head.

“Listen to me. I spoke with Vinnie Hernandez and Alberto Ibanez. They say it's time to get this monkey off your backs. I think they can get the other jockeys to go along. But someone's got to make the first move. Given the circumstances, it should be you.”

I think I touched something that set off a debate in his mind. He still looked down, but his face showed the struggle that was going on inside. His words were just mumbled.

“You don't know what's going on.”

“No, I don't. But I seem to be taking one hell of a pasting finding out.”

He looked up and saw the face scabs from my meeting with Scully.

“I'll tell you what I've learned so far. Paddy Boyle is everyone's hero and King Rat at the same time. I get the idea he's some kind of Irish godfather in South Boston. He's got a thug named Scully who does some of his dirty work. I think he's the one who has all of you jockeys in his pocket so he can call the outcome of a race before it's run. That's what I think. But I don't know it, so I can't use it to find out who knocked Danny out of the saddle. I'm assuming it wasn't you, which is giving you one hell of a benefit of the doubt. Now I need a little give on your part. Your turn.”

He was starting to sweat, which in this case was a good sign.

“Tell me, Hector. Are Boyle and Scully the problem?”

The struggle was cutting lines in his forehead. “If I say it, they'll find out. They'll know it came from me.”

“If you don't say it, and I stir the pot with those two, they'll assume it anyway. They know you're our client. Where else would we get the information?”

Now he really went into the jitters.

“You don't know what he's like. Scully. Some of us have families. You have to leave that part alone, Mr. Knight.”

“Nothing would please me more. But I can't. What do you know about Danny's daughter, Erin?”

He looked surprised at the jump shift. “What do you mean?”

“I'll lay it out for you. She's been kidnapped. She was taken before the race. You said Danny was acting funny. Did he say anything about it?”

Hector went into a complete shutdown. He just froze up. I knew it would take verbal dynamite to get what I needed. I nodded to Mr. Devlin and stood up. I put all my hopes into one exit speech.

“Get this, Hector. I may be stumbling around in the dark, but I'm going to go on stumbling till I find that little girl. If that causes Scully and the rest to assume the word came from you, then the chips will just have to fall as they may. I won't mention your name, but you're no dummy. I'll do my best for you, even without your help, but my number one is Danny's daughter.”

Hector's eyes were the size of half-dollars when Mr. D. and I headed for the door. We didn't look back. It was Hector's voice that stopped us at the door.

“Mr. Knight. Please. Come back.”

“Not unless there's a reason.”

He waved us back to the chairs. “What do you want to know?”

“Who's behind the race fixing? Is it Boyle?”

His voice started in a whisper, but it was enough. “Yes.”

“Was Scully the contact with the jockeys?”

“Yes. He brought a couple of others the first time. I don't know their names. They roughed a few of us up to show they meant business.”

“When was that?”

His voice was getting stronger. “About a year ago.”

“How often did they make you fix races?”

“First it was every couple of months. It's been every month for the last four months. It's getting more frequent.”

“Same time each month?”

“Yes. So far. Always around the fourteenth.”

I looked at Mr. D to see if that rang any bells with him. He just shook his head to let me keep rolling.

“How did they pay off the jockeys?”

He looked around out of instinct, although there were just the three of us there.

“Scully gave me the money. I gave it to the jockeys he told me to.”

“Not all of them?”

“Only the ones with horses that had any chance of winning.”

“The day Danny died. Was that race fixed?”

“Yes. I was supposed to win.”

“Was Danny in on the fix?”

There was a hesitation I didn't understand, but he answered the question. “No. His horse ran like a cow in the workouts. He didn't have a chance.”

I still wondered how Black Diamond turned into a speed horse overnight. I made a mental note to follow it up.

“Now to the most important part, Hector. Did Danny tell you about the kidnapping of his daughter before the race?”

“No. Like I told you. He just acted funny. He was jumpy, tense. We didn't talk to each other.”

“Did he say anything at all about Erin?”

“No.”

I looked to Mr. Devlin to see if anything was overlooked. He just shook his head. We left with little more than we came in with, but at least the spotlight was clearly on Boyle and Scully.

The rest of that Tuesday went by like molasses. I was filled with an emptiness that ran deeper than any I've ever known. Even Danny's death took second chair to an almost hopeless concern for little Erin.

I busied myself with phone calls and coffee breaks. There was a brief due in a week in another case, but I couldn't focus enough gray cells to put it together.

Just before Julie left for the day, she took a phone call. She came to the door of my office to say it directly.

“He didn't give his name. He didn't want to talk to you. He just wanted me to give you a message.”

“And the message was?”

“Michael, I don't like this. I got chills just listening to that voice. I think you should ignore it.”

“Julie, I can't ignore it if I don't hear it. What's the message?”

“He just said, ‘Tell the lawyer. Last pew, right side, Saint Anthony Shrine, Arch Street. Tonight, six thirty.'”

“That's it? Did he mention the name, Erin?”

“That's all of it. He hung up. If you want my advice, which you don't, don't go there.”

“No Problem, Julie. I know who it is. He's harmless.”

I never lie to my secretary, except when it's necessary to subdue her mothering instincts. This time, it took a bit of method acting. I was sure it was Scully, and no one had called him “harmless” since he left the crib.

By six thirty, the sun was well down. The Franciscan Friars who administer what is locally know as the Church on Arch Street a few blocks from our office had said the last Mass for the day. The back of the church was in a hushed darkness and empty except for a few late drop-ins and homeless dozers.

I welcomed the comforting peace that pervades that church. It was an antidote to the sense of personal dread I felt for both myself and Erin. I took a seat a couple of pews from the rear on the right side and settled into an internal communication with the Lord to whom I prayed for something to break the standstill.

Five minutes into the first rest I'd felt in days, a low voice behind me that sounded like gravel and sandpaper brought me straight up.

“Sit down, lawyer. Keep lookin' straight.”

I did. “What is it, Scully? Are you going to kill me here in church?”

“You'll probably be dead before this ends, but not at my hand.”

Since my question had not been rhetorical, the answer unclenched my fingers a bit on the front of the pew.

“Then what do you want? Like you said, you're holding the cards.”

“Not me. I'm not your problem. I want out.”

I went from the last prayer I thought I'd say on this earth to a state of total confusion.

“Out of what? And what have I got to do with it?”

“Just listen. I'm no choirboy. I've done things that might shock the father over there in the confessional. But I've got my limits.”

“Such as.”

I could hear him shifting around on the pew behind me. He leaned forward until I could feel his breath.

“I had no part in kidnapping the girl.”

“Really. Wasn't that you staking out the Ryan's house the day I came there?”

“I followed orders. I was told to watch the woman to see if she went to the police. That's all.”

“Whose orders? Boyle didn't even recognize the Ryan name. I thought you worked for him.”

“I'll say what I've got to say, and no more. Boyle had no part in the girl either.”

“Then who did? Who am I dealing with?”

“I don't know all of it. And that's the truth. I can give you a name. That's my part of the deal.”

“What deal? Why the change? The last time we met you nearly decapitated me.”

“I want no part of the doin's with the little girl. But you with your nosin' around. You'll suck me into the whole business till you brand me a kidnapper and worse. Like I said, I want out of the whole thing.”

The ground was shifting under me so fast I could hardly catch
up. At that moment, I only knew I'd promise anything for a name that could lead me to Erin.

“What do you want from me?”

“They say you're an honorable man, lawyer. I've asked. I want your word that I'll not be tarred with things I've never done.”

My conception of Scully was rocked by his use of the word “honorable.” I knew there was something below the surface that hadn't come out yet.

“You have my word in exactly those terms. If what you said about Erin is true, you'll have nothing to fear from me.”

“Fair play. Then I'll give you what I've got, little as it is, and remember I've done it.”

“Where is she?”

“She's not here. The day she was taken, they took her out of the country for safekeeping.”

“Where?”

He leaned still closer. “I'm just sayin' what I picked up from their talk. They took her to Ireland. Dublin.”

That was a numbing blow to think of her that far away. “Who took her?”

“I'll give you a name. It's all I have. I heard it last night. Seamus McGuiness. Killarney Street, somewhere in the north of Dublin.”

“Who are these people?”

I heard a stirring behind me as he stood.

“I've said what I came to say. But I'll give you this. You'd be better off against ten of me than any one of them.”

I heard him move away. I spun around and grabbed the end of his coat.

“What happened, Scully? Something happened to turn you around.”

He looked back at me. “I'll have no part of their doin's. That little girl—”

“What? What did you hear about Erin?”

He jerked his coat out of my hand. He sidestepped to the end of the pew. I thought he was going to leave without a word. I pierced the silence with a whisper that must have been heard at the altar.

“Scully, if I find her, will I find her alive?”

He turned around. He looked me in the eye, and he drove a dagger through my heart with one word.

“No.”

I got up Wednesday morning with a headache, a cold, and a decision. The cold was the result of walking through a drenching, chilling rain on nearly every paved street in Boston the night before until I could come to a decision. It came in two parts. The first part was that I clearly lacked the stone-cold callousness it would have required to take the last vestige of hope away from Colleen. Could I, on my worst day, summon the nerve to tell her that she would not even be able to kiss her baby one last time and lay her to rest with God? That she was just gone? I don't think so. It may come to that, but not today.

That led to the second part. If only to give her the chance for that last goodbye, I had to find what they'd done with Erin's body. That meant that the decision to go to Dublin was a fait accompli.

Since I was still awake at five thirty a.m., I substituted a shower and a breakfast of Motrin and black coffee for a night's sleep. I knew that any flight to Dublin would leave in the evening. That gave me the day to pull together any leads I could squeeze out of my slim sources for cracking the shell in a foreign country. I was working around an appointment at eleven, and missing that one was out of the question. Colleen had arranged for a funeral service for Danny at their parish church—family only. That included me.

By six a.m., I was at the backstretch at Suffolk Downs. I still could not shake the feeling that Black Diamond's part in that race was linked to the kidnapping of Erin.

I caught Rick McDonough right after his briefing of his exercise
riders. I held two cups of that good rich mud they serve for coffee at the backstretch shack. That was enough to sidetrack him to the rail for a couple of quiet words.

“How's Danny's wife, Mike?”

I couldn't answer, just thinking of how completely devastated she'd be if she knew that both Erin and Danny were lost to her. A simple head shake conveyed the word that she was not on top of the world.

Rick just looked into his coffee cup. I knew how deeply this tough old cowboy was wrung out by Danny's death.

“I need some information, Rick. I'm probably stepping on toes, but I have to do it. This is for Danny.”