Shutter Man (10 page)

It began the moment he turned onto Grays Ferry Avenue. When Byrne had been very young, and his mother had driven him all the way across the city from Pennsport, it seemed as if he were going to a foreign country. Riding down Reed Street, passing the landmarks, stopping at red lights, watching the people, it was always about the journey, not the destination.

Byrne’s job had taken him to these wards many times. One case, a few years earlier, had brought him and Jessica the length of the Schuylkill, investigating bodies strewn along its banks, into a heart of darkness.

When they turned onto Montrose Street, Byrne felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. He’d forgotten how much time he’d spent in and around these blocks.

The police officer waiting for them was in his thirties, a few cheesesteaks over fighting weight.

Out of habit, as he and Bontrager approached the officer, Byrne reached into his coat pocket for his ID. He then reminded himself that this wasn’t a job.

‘How you doing?’ he asked.

‘I am blessed,’ Quindlen said. ‘Thanks for asking, sir.’

‘Keeping the peace?’

‘Just trying not to disturb it.’

‘Where is Mr Shaughnessy?’ Byrne asked.

‘Just around the corner on the avenue. He’s out front.’

Of course he is, Byrne thought.

Still on watch.

Byrne had not seen Shaughnessy in more than twenty years. The last time he had seen him, he was probably in his mid-sixties, a short, broad man who’d worked most of his adult life for a moving company. Even at sixty-five, he could hoist a full keg on each shoulder and walk up two flights of narrow stairs without breaking a sweat. Byrne had once seen him lift the right rear end of an AMC Gremlin onto a concrete block.

For a few years, after the war, Shaughnessy had fought professionally as a middleweight, most notably on the undercard of the first fight between Bob Montgomery and Wesley Mouzon, held at Shibe Park.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Eddie said. ‘You got old.’

‘Still the charmer.’

Byrne leaned forward, hugged the man. He still felt solid.

‘It’s been a couple of years, Eddie,’ he said.

‘What’s with the Eddie shit?’

‘Just sayin’.’

‘It’s
Mr
Shaughnessy.’

‘This is Detective Bontrager,’ Byrne said.

The two men shook hands.

Eddie looked down the street, back. You didn’t have to be a mind-reader to know what was coming. Byrne was right.

‘Place is going to shit,’ Eddie said.

Byrne indicated the block of row houses ‘Do you know who owns these?’ he asked.

Eddie pointed at a sign. It read:

Coming soon: Six New Luxury Row Homes. A Greene Towne LLC Development.
 

‘Any idea who Greene Towne LLC is?’ Byrne asked.

Eddie shrugged. ‘Probably owned by some rich prick. I remember when you could buy any house on this street for ten thousand dollars. Now I hear they’re a quarter-million.’

‘Even this one?’ Byrne asked.

Dead center in the block was a dilapidated wooden house, scarred with graffiti. Byrne had an idea about what was happening with it. The owner was refusing to sell until he got his price.

‘Piece of shit,’ Eddie repeated.

‘How’s the family?’ Byrne asked, trying to move on.

Eddie shrugged. ‘Half are dead, the other half – my wife’s side – are in jail. The rest are nuts.’

‘Two halves, and then some,’ Byrne said. ‘Big family.’

‘Remember my grandson Richie?’

Byrne vaguely remembered Richard Huston. Half a tough guy, liked to push his women around. ‘I do.’

‘Jail.’

‘Let me guess two things,’ Byrne said. ‘One, it was a domestic violence situation, yes?’

Eddie nodded.

‘Two, Richie didn’t do it.’

‘Of course he did it. Still didn’t deserve a year and a half.’ Eddie looked up, squinting into the sun, which was coming over Byrne’s right shoulder. Byrne stepped a few paces to his right, putting the man in shade.

‘Ever meet Richie’s second wife, Judy?’ Eddie asked. ‘The one with the fat ankles?’

‘Never had the pleasure.’

Eddie laughed. ‘If you’d met her, you wouldn’t call it no pleasure, believe me. You’d probably have taken a poke at her yourself.’

Byrne smiled. ‘Not sure about that.’ He looked up the street, at a vacant lot, and realized what had once stood there. The F&B Variety Store.

‘Whatever happened to Old Man Flagg?’ he asked.

‘That asshole? Dead for years.’

‘What from?’

‘Too mean to live.’

Byrne had had no argument with that.

Eddie took a few moments, made a ritual out of lighting the two-inch remaining stub of a cigar. Byrne remembered this about him. Cigar lighted, he pointed at the Loading Zone sign, and the two cars just beneath it.

‘Fucking sign, right there. In English. Which is probably the problem.’

Byrne felt the Philly quid pro quo
coming. Eddie continued.

‘They park here anyway. I tell them to move, they give me the finger. Believe me, if I was ten years younger…’

Byrne couldn’t think of any favors he was owed by the PPA – the Philadelphia Parking Authority – but maybe someone owed someone who owed someone. It was how most things worked. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

Eddie just nodded.

‘So this thing,’ Byrne said. ‘Why did I get the call?’

Eddie fixed him in a gaze. ‘You’ll see. I figured if anyone knew what to do with it, you would.’

Byrne glanced at Josh Bontrager, who looked rapt at this old-school mystery.

‘Who am I talking to down there?’ Byrne asked.

‘Guy name of Kilbane. Owen Kilbane.’

‘Okay. Thanks, Eddie.’ He clapped the old man on the shoulder. ‘And don’t smoke too many of those things.’

‘What are they gonna do? Stunt my fuckin’ growth?’

The staircase was narrow and steep. The basement was small, mirroring the parlor above. The man standing in the corner was seventy years old if he was a day, wore stained white overalls, a painter’s hat with the Sherwin-Williams logo.

‘You’re Mr Kilbane?’ Byrne asked.

The man nodded. ‘It’s Owen, but everyone calls me Owney,’ he said. He held up his right hand. It was flecked with paint. ‘Sorry I can’t shake. No disrespect meant.’

Byrne smiled, introduced himself, stuck out his hand. ‘What’s a little flat latex between professional men?’

The two men shook. Gently. Owney Kilbane then picked up the driest rag at hand, handed it to Byrne.

‘This is Detective Bontrager,’ Byrne added, wiping his hand.

Bontrager just waved.

Byrne took a moment to take in the room. Structurally it looked as bad as any century-old row house built just a few hundred yards from the river. But it was amazing what several coats of interior white could do.

‘It’s looking good,’ he said.

‘Coming along.’

‘So, you say you found something down here?’ Byrne asked.

At this, Owney Kilbane pointed at a small cardboard box on his makeshift table. Once again, Byrne’s instincts threatened to take over. He nearly reached into his pocket for a glove. This wasn’t a job. He wasn’t sure what it was, but if there wasn’t a dead body, it wasn’t a job.

‘Where did you find this?’ he asked.

Owney pointed at the opening that led to the crawlspace under the back half of the house. ‘I had to replace some of the bridging. The box was shoved into the crawlspace just a few feet from the opening.’

Byrne looked back at the table. The box was about twelve inches square, perhaps ten inches deep. On it was a layer of dust disturbed only by the markings created by Owney Kilbane as he fished it out from the crawlspace.

On the side of the box was the faded logo of the grocery store to which everyone in the Pocket went back in the day.

Other than that, there was no clue as to what was inside. But it was something important. Important enough for this man to flag down a police car, and for Eddie Shaughnessy to reach out to Byrne.

Byrne opened all four flaps of the box, bent them back. On top was a long-yellowed piece of newsprint, the color comics, perhaps from the 1960s. Byrne noticed Nancy and Sluggo at the top of the page.

He pulled out the piece of newspaper, and beneath it saw an old green dish rag, soaked with dark oil. He peeled away the rag and, for the first time in almost forty years, saw the contents of the box.

A nickel-plated .38 caliber revolver.

Byrne remembered as if it were yesterday the first time he had seen it, tucked away in a box behind two bricks just over a rusted Dumpster on Montrose Street, not two blocks away from where he now stood.

Without a word, he rewrapped the gun in the rag, lifted it out of the box and placed it on the table. There were two more items in the box, both in old-style plastic sandwich bags. One looked like an ID card of sorts; the other was wrapped in newsprint.

Byrne took out one of the sandwich bags, slid it open, removed the contents. Again it was faded color comics. This time Hi and Lois. As he began to unwrap what was inside, he found that he was anticipating something, something that felt like the missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle, a piece you might find kicked under the sofa after many years, the puzzle long since donated to some charity auction or dumped in the trash.

Or hidden in the crawlspace, Byrne thought.

When he fully unwrapped it, he saw that he had been right. There, like a ghost from his past, was a pair of wire-rimmed dark glasses. Both lenses appeared to be smudged.

Beneath it, in the second bag, Byrne could now see that the ID was a SEPTA bus pass. Without taking it out of the bag, he angled it toward the light.

He didn’t have to. He knew what name was on the pass.

Desmond Farren.

Byrne and Bontrager stood across the street from the row house, the box resting on the trunk of the car. They watched the traffic pass, each immersed in their own thoughts.

On the way to Devil’s Pocket, Byrne thought he was doing a favor for an old man. Now he was on the job. The box could have contained just about anything, but it didn’t contain just anything. It contained a gun. Every day, citizens of Philadelphia found guns – in attics, in basements, in garages, sometimes just lying on the side of the road – and had no idea what to do with them. Sometimes they tossed them into the trash, only to have them rediscovered by sanitation workers.

Although most people were unaware of it, a city ordinance called for all guns to be turned over to the police department for safety reasons.

That was the letter of the law. The police wanted them off the street, of course, but more than one case had been furthered by the sudden and unexpected appearance of a firearm.

The protocol was for Byrne to now take the box to CSU. The gun would be put in evidence. It would eventually be fired into the ballistics tank at FIU, its appearance and serial number logged, the bullet evidence stored.

On the way back to the Roundhouse, Byrne regaled Josh Bontrager with stories of his summers in and around Devil’s Pocket. Neither man spoke of the three-ton elephant locked in the trunk of the car.

Byrne dropped Josh Bontrager at his car, then sat in the parking lot, the past and present colliding all around him. He needed time to think this through. Unless he was mistaken, a half-dozen lives could be impacted by the discovery of this material, material that was all but certain to be evidence in a crime.

But why should it take him any time to decide? This was his job, his oath. You find a gun, you turn it in.

He left the box in the trunk for the time being, went into the duty room of the unit. He ran a few names, made a few calls, came up empty. He was just about to head out when his phone beeped. He’d gotten a call on his cell while it had been on silent. The voicemail was from his father. Byrne tapped the icon, returning the call.

‘Boyo!’ his father exclaimed.

Something was wrong. Padraig Byrne was never this happy, not in the middle of the day. He never had a pint before six.

‘Da,’ Byrne said. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Wrong? What could be wrong? I’m just happy to hear your voice.’

While it was true that Padraig Byrne had the gift, it had never really worked on his son.

‘
Da
.’

‘Can I call you right back?’

‘Why?’ Byrne asked. ‘You called me. What are you doing that’s so important?’

‘I’ve suddenly got my hands full,’ Paddy said. ‘See, I’ve… got something on the stove.’

‘How much are you up?’ he asked.

Silence.

‘How much are you up?’ he repeated.

‘What makes you think I’m playing cards?’

‘For one, I can hear Dec Reilly coughing in the background.’

‘He still smokes that shitty pipe,’ Paddy said. ‘I think he buys the tobacco by the metric ton.’

‘I can also hear
Boil the Breakfast Early
playing in the background.’ The Chieftains album was the only CD Dec Reilly owned.

More phone silence. ‘You know, you could have had a career as a cop.’

‘There’s still time,’ Byrne said.

Paddy lowered his voice. ‘I’m up two hundred and change.’

‘So cash out, put it in the bank.’

Paddy Byrne snorted, but out of respect to his son he said nothing.

Byrne figured he would spare his father the standard speech. Hadn’t worked when he was twenty, wasn’t going to work now. As Byrne’s grandmother used to say, trying to change the mind of a Byrne was like whistling jigs to a stone. He moved on.

‘Are you coming to Aunt Dottie’s party?’

‘When is it again?’

‘Thursday,’ Byrne said.

‘Food and drink?’

‘Until they call the paramedics.’

‘Beautiful,’ Paddy said. ‘Do I have to wear a tie?’

‘No,’ Byrne said. ‘But pants are mandatory.’

‘Good. I won’t lose them in the next hand.’

‘Love you, Da.’

‘You too, son.’

Byrne called the crime lab. He knew it was too soon for anything beyond presumption on the hair and fibers recovered at the Channing crime scene, but it never hurt to ask.