Brighton (19 page)

“YEAH.”

“Frank. It’s Lisa.”

“Something pop on the wire?”

“It’s not gonna work.”

Frank DeMateo moved the phone from one furry ear to the other. He should have been home in bed with his wife. Instead, he was standing in a pitch-black lot behind the Winship Elementary School in Brighton. “Scales has got the gun. Or he knows where it is.”

“Maybe he got rid of it.”

“And someone found it and just started offing people? I don’t believe it. Has he said anything?”

“He’s been in his apartment all night. No visitors. No calls.”

“Fuck.” The district attorney for Suffolk County dropped his head back and stared at a couple of muddy stars, nearly lost in an inkblot sky. He had a bad feeling and wasn’t sure if it was about Scales or his colleague. Maybe both.

“What do you want to do?” Her voice ran smooth and still.

“Shut it down.”

“You sure?”

“The task force is gonna come in and push everyone around anyway. Let them set up their own fucking wire.”

“Where are you?”

“I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.”

“Am I gonna be off the case?”

“That’s up to the task force.”

“Which means I’m off.”

“Shut down the wire, Lisa. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“Good night, Frank.”

DeMateo stuffed the phone in his pocket and began to walk. He was half sorry. And that was only if he tried real hard. Lisa Mignot was too smart for his own good. On top of that, she was black. As the only elected Republican in Suffolk County, DeMateo sat in slot number one on the Dems’ hit list. And Mignot was their wet dream. If she’d gotten lucky with the wire and broken open the Patterson thing, he’d have been as good as fucked in the next election cycle. Now, however, he had a shot. All he had to do was make a case against Scales, which was why he was out in the damp and the fucking cold, chasing ghosts in Brighton.

The Winship lot was split into two levels with a set of concrete stairs connecting them. DeMateo strolled down the steps, jingling loose change in his pocket like he had all the time in the world. A uniform was waiting on the lower level.

“What’s your name?” DeMateo said.

The cop rubbed his hands together and stamped his feet. He had clean, white teeth that flashed in the night when he spoke. “Officer Clavell, sir. Jose Clavell.”

“You found the body?”

“Yes, sir. It was rolled up in a tarp.”

“Show me.”

Clavell chased the path with his flashlight, leading DeMateo to a pickup pulled next to a Dumpster and the wall of the school. Clavell turned his light on the backseat as the D.A. stuck his head in. The tarp was peeled open like an overripe banana, revealing a head of black hair with a pale streak running parallel to the part.

“This is how you found him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What’s with the eye patch?”

“EMT said he lost an eye.”

“No kidding. Nothing wrapped around his neck?”

“Neck? No sir.”

“Cause of death?”

“EMT said it was multiple stab wounds to the chest.”

“And the tarp was just like this?”

“It was taped up at both ends with electrical tape. I cut it open. That’s how I made the ID.”

“But the body’s the same? Head back. Mouth open. All that shit’s the same?”

“Yes, sir.”

DeMateo knew what Clavell was thinking. What was the Suffolk County D.A. doing out here in the middle of the night on a nothing murder? DeMateo had already gone ten rounds with the detectives working the scene. Then, their boss. He had every right to be here, but there was a protocol involved. Fuck protocol.

“Name’s Seamus Slattery?”

“Yes, sir. He lives the next street over on Mount Vernon.” Clavell pointed vaguely toward an iron fence.

“The pickup is his?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Priors?”

“Busted for possession twice. Cocaine and weed. Both times dismissed. Couple drunk and disorderlies. A DUI last year. He was an Irish citizen.”

“Erin Go Fucking Bragh. What about a green card?”

“Ten years ago.”

DeMateo took the light from Clavell and probed the backseat. “Tell me what you see there.”

“That’s his right hand, sir.”

“I know that.” DeMateo held the light steady on the corpse’s palm, flung awkwardly toward the two men as if inviting them inside.

“It’s bandaged, sir.”

“You got a knife?”

Clavell produced a small pocketknife. DeMateo reached in and cut away the white gauze pad wrapped around the corpse’s hand. “What do you see now, Officer?”

“It looks like a puncture wound.”

“Maybe two, even?”

“Yes, sir.”

DeMateo pushed the light up to the dead man’s face. “Looks like he might have gotten bashed in the head as well.” He snapped off the light. Thirty yards away, two detectives were huddled by a crime services truck, drinking coffee and chatting with one of the techs.

“The woman who called this in, she saw this guy getting beat up yesterday?”

“Yes, sir. Said she saw it out of her window.”

“She say anything about him getting a nail put through his hand?”

“I didn’t ask her.”

“Why the fuck would you?”

“Sir?”

“The puncture wounds were covered up by the bandage. Besides, if she’d seen something like that, she probably would have mentioned it.”

“Yes, sir. I think the detectives are planning to interview her.”

“Where does she live?”

Clavell again pointed toward the fence line.

“Show me.” DeMateo started to walk across the lot as fat drops of rain began to fall. Clavell fell in step. It was five minutes before anyone realized they were gone.

THE SKIES
opened just as he ducked inside. Bobby let the door swing softly behind him and started up the darkened staircase that led to his apartment. From somewhere above came the scuff of leather on wood. Bobby took out the nickel-plated nine he had stuck in his belt. It didn’t figure that Cakes had moved that quickly, but who else would be paying him a visit at three in the morning? Halfway up the first flight, he heard a second sound, this time a sniff, followed by a wet sigh. A woman’s sigh. Bobby thumbed on the safety, slipped the gun inside his coat, and climbed the rest of the way. Her face was cut in half by light filtered from the street. Rain drummed on a skylight overhead, a muffled sound making Bobby feel like they were the only two people in the world.

“Did you get wet?” she said.

“What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you.”

He opened the door to his apartment and Colleen Carson followed him in. She perched on the edge of a chair, clutching a large black bag in her lap and taking a slow look around. “This is nice.”

“Spare me.”

They’d never talked much after she got married. Then he’d started dating Bridget, and they’d never talked at all. Bobby cracked a window and felt the wind and rain sucking at his fingers through the gap. He could smell her scent mingled with the storm and thought about fifteen years ago and an Irish bar on Harvard Avenue called Toner’s.

Happy hour. Some guy with a nicked-up guitar playing Neil Diamond on a small wooden stage as if his life depended on it, which it probably did. Everyone was stiff as fucking doorknobs, hooked arms and red, sweaty faces, singing and dancing and drinking fifty-cent drafts, doing all the Boston shit everyone thinks is so great, but only up close or from a great distance. Colleen Pearce sat at a table with a handful of beer mugs, two cigarettes boiling in ashtrays, and a girlfriend keeping a close eye on who was where, what, and when. The last time Bobby had seen Colleen she’d been maybe fifteen. Not anymore. Guys came up to the table. Guys left. Finally, her friend went to the ladies’ room and Bobby slipped into the empty chair. He asked if she was a Pearce even though he knew damn well she was. Colleen smirked and wondered aloud if it always took him that long to make a move. They talked—easy, fun, stupid talk. Thrilling talk. Young talk. She smoked and he watched her smoke, committing every gesture to memory, stringing them together like pearls. They had a couple more drafts, just enough so it was good. At some point the friend returned and disappeared again. They swayed and sang along with everyone else to Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.” She covered his hand with hers like they were an old married couple and it was the most natural thing in the world. When they left, the city seemed mellow and scratchy after the smoke and noise of the bar. They got a pizza
at Pino’s in Cleveland Circle and watched the Green Line rumble past and talked about the stuff they’d been waiting to talk about their whole lives, but never found the exact right person who’d know when to talk and when to listen. It could have gone anywhere from there, but Bobby knew better. He’d already dug his trenches and built his walls, strung long, looping runs of razor wire around his heart. So he dropped her off at Champney around two in the morning and watched her go into the house. She called a couple of times after that, but he ignored them. Two nights before Christmas, he saw her through a window downtown. She was with a college-looking guy, sitting at a table in a restaurant. Colleen was laughing with her chin up and covering the man’s hand with hers. Just like an old, married couple. Bobby felt a pull inside that surprised him. A year later, she married Scott Carson. And life moved along.

“You know I wouldn’t come unless it was important,” she said, something anxious eating at the edges of her eyes.

“What do you want?”

“I’m not exactly sure.”

That was a lie. She knew what she wanted. If you weren’t making a bet, it was the only reason to pay Bobby a visit. He was the guy everyone grinned at uncomfortably in the street and avoided until that moment when they needed someone to take out the trash cluttering up their lives. It was his thing, why he walked like he did.

“Where’s your husband, Coll?”

“He’s got guns.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. Gone. He keeps a shotgun in the house and some sort of machine pistol.”

Scott Carson was a smug, arrogant prick who treated Colleen like a piece of townie ass. That was Bobby’s take, not that anyone ever asked him. And that wasn’t Scott’s only problem.

“Tell me about the drugs.”

“I don’t know anything about that.”

Bobby got up and opened the door. “If you’re gonna lie to me, there’s not much I can do.”

“Bobby.” She had so little and thought it mattered so much. And she’d use whoever was around to keep it safe. He could blame her, but why bother.

“Tell me what you know, Coll. It goes no further.”

“Fine.” Her voice had turned quick, defiant, skipping over words like a stone across a shallow, green pond. “I know he’s been dealing.”

Bobby closed the door and leaned up against it. “How long?”

“I’ve known for six months.”

“Did he tell you where he was getting his product?”

She shook her head. “We needed the money. Fucking bills in Newton, Conor’s school. But the guns and the rest of it. Christ, I’m afraid he’s gonna come in one night and kill us.”

Bobby walked to the window and shut it. Then he pulled up the shade so he could get a better look at her in the patches of light. Her sweater was thin cashmere, and her collarbones stuck out like fish ribs. Bobby noticed swelling along one heavily powdered cheekbone. His eye tracked down to a faint necklace of fingerprint bruises around her throat. He moved closer and touched them with his finger.

“He’s got girlfriends, Bobby. Little girls he fucks in a hotel downtown. Last week I sat in the lobby and watched him walk in with one of them. Then I went into the ladies and got sick.”
A single, tardy tear slipped from the corner of her eye, trickled down a sticky cheek and into the side of her mouth. “What happened there?” She pointed to the bandage on his hand.

“Nothing. Where’s his stash, Coll?”

“Stash?”

“The drugs. Money.”

“Scott doesn’t let me see that stuff.”

Bobby sat down again and leaned forward, hands clasped loosely between his knees. He was in no hurry and they both knew it. She pulled a small cigar box from her bag and pushed it onto the table. The inside was stacked with cash, twenties, fifties, hundreds, sorted into neat bundles, each bundle wrapped in a piece of paper covered with figures and names. Underneath the cash was a Ziploc bag containing twenty or thirty lottery tickets, folded in half and paper clipped. In the crease of each ticket was powdered cocaine—looked like teeners and eights. Bobby took a quick peek at the names on the money wrappers. Then he put the cash and drugs back in the box and closed it.

“There’s a little more than four thousand,” Colleen said. “I don’t know what the drugs are worth.”

Bobby tapped his fingers on the table. Outside the wind and the rain took turns banging drunkenly against the side of the building. “Pick up your son tonight. Get all your shit together and get out of the house.”

“But . . .”

“No ‘buts.’ Pick up Conor and leave.” He scratched out a name on a piece of paper. “This is a long-term hotel in New Hampshire. Get yourself a room and lie low until you hear from me.”

“You just took all my money.”

He walked over to his suitcase and returned with a thousand in twenties and hundreds. “This’ll keep you for a while.”

She grabbed at the money and stuffed it in her bag. “What if he tries to find us?”

“Scott won’t be bothering you anymore.”

“Really?” There was a crack in her voice, a glimmer underneath of something shiny and hard and mean.

“You should get moving, Coll.”

“He’ll be at the Royal Hotel this morning. I mean, I think he’ll be there. He usually gets a room.”

Bobby didn’t respond. She stood up to leave, pulling on her coat, suddenly anxious to be as far from whatever she’d set in motion as possible.

“One more thing,” he said. “Don’t tell your sister about any of this.”

“I can tell her I’m leaving for a while . . .”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Cuz she likes to talk. Cuz she doesn’t like you. And cuz she can be pretty fucking nasty when she wants to be.”

Colleen eased back into her seat. “There’s something else we should probably talk about.”

The sudden shift should have bothered him. But it was Colleen, and he’d always been intrigued most by whatever came next.

“What is it?”

Her eyes moved to her bag. Thunder grumbled and a long fork of lightning lit up her face. Bobby saw Sal Riga there as well as the other dead man from the produce market, the one with dark eyebrows raised in double question marks. Then Colleen Carson reached into her bag and pulled out a gun.