Frame-Up (6 page)

Before we reached the door on the way out, Mr. Devlin put his hand on Billy's shoulder.

“That's one more I owe you, Billy.”

“It wasn't a favor, Lex. It was the right thing to do. Tell her or not, as you wish. At my age, she'd be doing me a favor to fire me. I'm getting tired, Lex.”

“I'm not going to say anything. She'll have to disclose the witness after the indictment anyway.”

The two old warriors looked at each other.

“Stay aboard, Billy. Let's take a run at one more windmill together.”

Julie's first words when I reached the office that Friday morning were like a second sunrise.

“You have a visitor, Michael. She's waiting in your office.”

The pieces of a beautiful puzzle were coming together. I had noticed a bright yellow Volkswagen bug parked close to the building.

“Julie, by any chance, reddish auburn hair, blue eyes?”

“Michael. She's pretty.”

“Right. If anyone but Mr. Devlin or the pope calls, I'm in conference.”

I took one deep breath for an attempt at nonchalance, and walked into my office. There she was, sitting across from my desk, even more beautiful than before. I searched for the perfect opening — something suave, intelligent, sophisticated.

“Hi!”

Unfortunately, it was none of the three, and it came with enough gusto to lift her about three inches off the chair.

“I'm sorry. Didn't mean to startle. Michael Knight.”

“Yes. I know, Mr. Knight. My name's Theresa O'Brien. Terry.”

“Terry. Call me Mike.”

“Thank you, Mike. I think I need someone I can call ‘Mike' more than ‘Mr. Knight.' I know you were John's closest friend. He called you his adventuring buddy.”

I could see mist forming.

“It was mutual. We went on a lot of crazy trips together. Can I get you anything — coffee, anything?”

I was dancing around my total inability to say that John spoke
of her often, or even mentioned her at all. I was also groping for the reason that John never talked about her once. I finally decided to fly direct.

“Were you a good friend of John's?”

“Yes. Sort of. Actually we've known each other for some time. Since high school. I just came back to Boston a short time ago. We ran into each other at a party. We started dating just a week before his death.”

The misting got heavier.

“I'm sorry.”

“I'm all right. Thank you. I should be saying ‘I'm sorry' to you. You had John's loss and that terrible injury. You look a lot better than the day of the funeral.”

“Thank you. The power of vitamin E.”

“I should tell you why I'm here. I wonder, could we close the door?”

As I eased the door closed, I could see Julie's eyebrows rise to about her hairline. By the time I got back to my desk the phone rang. I heard Julie's crisp voice.

“The pope's on line two.”

“Thank you, Julie. Please put him on hold.”

I hung up, and Terry had my full attention.

“I don't know how to start this. I really don't know whom to trust. I finally decided to bring this to you. I know how close you were to John.”

“Whatever you say is in confidence. If it helps, I'd have trusted John with my life. I think he felt the same.”

“He did. I've got to say this to someone.” She took a deep breath for courage. “Every time I saw John that week before he died he was more nervous. When I'd ask, he'd only tell me that he was under a lot of pressure. You know the people he was representing. Anyway, we had lunch the day of the — the day he died.”

That explained his shift with me from lunch to dinner. Perhaps.

“John told me at lunch that he had an appointment that afternoon that was going to solve everything. He was going to be free to
do a lot of things he couldn't do before. I think that may have involved our relationship, although he didn't say it directly. I think he was being deliberately vague about it.”

The mist became a teardrop. I gave her time and a Kleenex.

“He said something else. He gave me an envelope and asked me to hold onto it. He said he didn't want to have it with him during his meeting. He asked me to mail it the next day — that would be that Saturday — unless he told me otherwise. But then he was killed that evening.”

“Did he say whom he was meeting?”

“No, he didn't. I have no idea. This is the envelope.”

She handed me what we used to call a report-card manila envelope, sealed, stamped, and addressed to Mr. Anthony Aiello at an address in the North End.

“Do you know who Anthony Aiello is, Mike?”

“Yes.”

I fingered this thing that could be more explosive than the bomb that killed John. There was a small, interesting, hard bulge in the envelope the size of a peanut shell.

I wondered about telling her that Anthony “Chickie” Aiello, also known as “Fat Tony,” was one of those names the press loves to highlight in the large-print headlines for a quick, cheap, boost in circulation. The news articles always include the word, “reputed,” followed by “mobster” or “underworld figure” or “close associate of Dominic Santangelo.” They could call him a three-toed frog as long as they precede it with the word “reputed.”

The more reliable scuttlebutt among the lawyers at the bars was that Tony Aiello was the underboss of the Santangelo Mafia family, the number-two man and advisor to the don, and nothing “reputed” about it.

The nickname “Chickie” sounds cute and cuddly. Nothing could be further from the truth, as any number could testify if they were still alive. The derivation of the nickname goes back to the days of his introduction of gambling on live cockfights in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. It produced a growing income until the don squelched
it for good business reasons. An interesting fact of life is that Aiello could populate Boston Harbor with more human bodies than mackerel, and only the Boston Herald would raise a ruckus to sell papers. On the other hand, one incident of cruelty to animals — including chickens — would ignite the wrath of a sizeable and voluble section of the populace. Not good for business, and business is all that matters. The cockfights ended, but the name “Chickie” stuck.

I took the envelope. Since she didn't actually ask who Anthony Aiello was, I saw no point in volunteering the information.

“I'm curious, Terry. Why did you decide against mailing it?”

“I don't trust any of those people John worked for. After he was killed, I didn't know what to do. That's why I thought of you. I know John trusted you.”

I nodded and fingered the lump in the envelope.

“Unless you have second thoughts, let's take a look.”

She indicated no qualms, so I tore open the envelope. There was a sheet of white typing paper with no words on either side. It simply held a well-worn tubular key with a yellow handle and the number 134E on it.

“It looks like a key to a pay locker. Probably one of the terminals. My guess is North or South Station. It looks too old for the new lockers at Logan Airport. Probably South Station. That was closest to John's office.”

“What will you do with it? Are you going to send it to Mr. Aiello?”

“Under the circumstances, I don't think that's what John would have wanted. Why don't you leave this with me? The less involved you are, the better.”

She took another deep breath. This time I could sense her relief in being out from under a burden she could not understand. I put the key in the top drawer of my desk. I was about to ask her if there was anything else, when the phone rang.

“Julie, have you still got the pope on hold?”

“He hung up. This time it's Mr. Devlin. He wants you.”

“Put him through.”

I heard the button click, and the voice meant business.

“The indictment's in. Let's go to work.”

I saw my visitor to the door, but not until after taking her address and phone number in Winthrop across the harbor — just in case anything came up. I was in Mr. Devlin's office in three minutes flat. He was on the phone with Mr. Santangelo and waved me in. He did not put the conversation on speakerphone, which didn't surprise me. The arrangements they were making were delicate and confidential, quite possibly a matter of life or death.

When Mr. D. hung up, he seemed uneasy.

“I'd like to keep this simple, Michael. Why don't you meet me here at nine tonight? We'll be going for a ride. My car, you drive.”

We took Route 9 west out of the city. Mr. D. called the lefts and rights. Two hours later, we pulled up behind the back door of a small jail facility on the east side of the City of Springfield. We turned out the lights and waited. About midnight, another car pulled up across the street from us. I didn't recognize the figure that got out of the car until Billy Coyne walked up beside the window. He nodded to both of us.

“Will he show, Lex?”

“You remember that autographed picture of Ted Williams in my office? The one you always wanted? I'll bet it against dinner at Locke-Ober's. Michael included. He'll show.”

Billy leaned against the side of the door in silence. I could see the red glow as he lit up a cigarette.

“Can't hear you, Billy. Is it a bet?”

“You know gambling's illegal, Lex. You're soliciting a public official to commit a crime.”

“In other words, no bet.”

Billy took a deep draw on the cigarette. “The bet's on. But if I lose, I'll prosecute you.”

“You can't. We're out of your jurisdiction.”

We waited. Twenty minutes of silence. Mr. D. slouched down in
the passenger seat with his eyes closed. Billy had climbed in the backseat. We both jumped when Mr. D. broke the silence.

“Billy, that dinner includes drinks, before and after, right?”

“Doesn't seem to matter, does it? Your innocent lamb is probably half way to Sicily.”

“Before and after, right?”

“Why not?”

“Good.”

Mr. D. got out of the car for no reason apparent to me until I saw in the rearview mirror a faint light from a streetlamp glint on the black surface of a limousine without running lights. It moved slowly until it slid in behind us. Billy was out of the car behind me and dialing numbers on a cell phone. He whispered into the phone, “They're here.”

The back door of the lock-up opened, and two uniformed officers came out onto the platform. We all watched as four dark double-breasted suits with plenty of Italian wool material to hide unnatural bulges got out of the limousine. The men were not massively large, but from their movements and the way they filled out the suits, they appeared to be athletic and well conditioned. They scanned the area for whatever could be seen in the darkness.

Mr. D. started to walk past them toward the limousine. Two of them blocked his path until the voice of the don gave the okay. He walked between them, and the back door of the limousine swung open. Mr. D. got in. He was there for five minutes before the door opened again. A slight figure, compared to the dark suits on either side of him, walked at a quick march up the stairs and into the building, accompanied by the two uniformed officers.

That was it. It was over. Mr. D. got back in the car, and after a few words about meeting the next day, Billy went back to his car.

On the way back to Boston, now that we could get our minds on something else, I took the time to fill him in on my visit from Terry O'Brien and the key that was sitting in my desk.

“What do you plan to do with it, Michael?”

“I'll check it out tomorrow morning. I think I've seen those keys at South Station.”

He gave me a nod, and he was quiet the rest of the way back to the office. I stopped Mr. D's car in front of the parking garage where I always left my car. Before I got out, he turned and gave me that look that had a message behind it.

“Michael, you've got a good mind. I want you to use it every minute of the day while this is going on. These are no choirboys. They have the morality of a sledgehammer. I don't want you hurt. Again.”

“I'll be careful, Mr. D.”

He shook his head.

“Careful doesn't do it, Michael. I'm talking about being constantly defensive. There's a thought that's been waking me up nights.”

He had my full attention.

“We keep assuming they deliberately killed John McKedrick.”

“True. What else, Mr. Devlin?”

The look was intensifying.

“That Friday, you were about to get into that car. What if McKedrick hadn't started the car till you were in it?”

Surprisingly, the thought had actually never occurred to me. Maybe I'd been unconsciously rejecting it, but once out in the open, it hit me like a linebacker from the blind side. I had no answer.

“Think about it, Michael. It was more natural for him to wait till you got into the car to start the engine. What if John McKedrick was not the target?”

I forced down the acid that was slowly rising out of my stomach, and put on a steady voice.

“An interesting thought, Mr. D. But given our different lines of work, wasn't John a much more likely target?”

“I tell myself that at three every morning. It gives me precious little relief. What I'm saying is you watch every move you make till we get this sorted out. I want you alive and present someday at my retirement party.”

I smiled. “I just want to be alive and present at that dinner at Locke-Ober's.”

That brought the first smile I'd seen on Mr. D's face, forced or otherwise, since the world exploded.

I woke up the next day to one of those pull-the-covers-back-over mornings. A raw, dank mist crept in from the ocean to paint everything a depressing gray. It was hard to roll out of my apartment on Beacon and Dartmouth, but after a “black eye” at Starbucks — a double shot of espresso in a cup of black coffee — my personal fog began to lift.