The Dead Soul (15 page)

28

Tuesday, September 9, 1:45 P.M.

Lieutenant Ray Matikas had an obsessive-compulsive nature about him when it came to locking the doors to his office, drawers in his desk, and the elephant-gray cabinets that contained files he needed to keep private. With the call of a legless body hanging aboard the Tea Party Ship, Matikas made the appropriate shout-outs from his office, rallying the troops over the radio to head out to Dorchester Avenue. Just so happened, Dickie was on the road. Jake too. No one had seen nor heard from Anastasia Rossi in hours.

“I want everyone there ASAP,” Matikas shouted, tearing out of D-15’s parking lot.

Jake called in immediately. “What’a we got, Lieutenant?”

Matikas passed through several red lights, siren blaring, pedestrians stopping to look as the tires on his Crown Vic squealed.

“Just get your ass over there, Cooper. Looks like it’s connected to your case.”

Jake’s chest tightened.

1:47 P.M.

Back inside the D-15 squad room, one person lagged behind purposely, waiting for this moment when everyone was gone. The few blues hanging around, a Vice detective and two cops from Patrol, were in the locker rooms arguing over how the Red Sox had blown the third game of an important series against the Yankees.

Upstairs, the young cop at the front desk was calming a screaming wife. She said her husband had beat her up and took off with the family nest egg. All thirty dollars of it.

“I need you to relax, ma’am,” the officer said, “and start at the beginning.”

Getting by the front desk was not a problem for the intruder. Opening Matikas’s office door, however, was not going to be as simple.

Even though the intruder was good with a lock pick, it took a few tries. Then, making sure the coast was clear down each end of the hallway, a twist and a slight push with a Visa card and
pop
… the door opened.

The intruder was in.

The file cabinets were a breeze, same as Matikas’s desk. It was dark in the office with the blinds folded down.

Flipping through several manila folders, the intruder uncovered a file marked
Echo 1-Echo 2.

“Ah, yes … the gold mine.”

29

Tuesday, September 9, 2:28 P.M.

Looking east from Congress Street into Boston’s Inner Harbor, standing on the bridge over Four Point Channel, the sky had turned menacing and mad. It had that dark gray color to it—same as you see on the Weather Channel in one of those tornado-hunter videos from Kansas or Missouri. A few cloud tails drifted downward, funneling, moving slowly in a vortex. Looked like ink being poured into a swirling glass of water. Yellow crime-scene tape blocked off the dock leading to the Tea Party Ship. The Congress Street bridge was closed on both sides. The presence of the tape made the wharf look as though some sort of Revolutionary War movie was being filmed on location. The slight mist and increasingly darkening skies didn’t help. The wind whipped. Having a ship like this as the scene of such a gruesome crime, reporters and television satellite truck crews jockeying for position on the other side of saw horses, you worked under a microscope.

Matikas ordered squad cars parked on both sides of bridge, facing each other, lights flashing. The white sheet covering Mary’s hanging corpse was staged in a circus tent-like fashion around her body so no one could see or take photos. Think of a cable lineman working on a telephone pole in winter under a canopy. You get the picture.

Jake and Matikas stood below Mary’s body, looked up. Their gold badges against black leather pouches dangled from their necks on long chains. Both men shook their heads in disbelief and for several minutes, neither spoke a word.

Breaking the silence, Matikas said, “Holy shit, Cooper. This is unreal.”

Waves crashed up against the sides of the ship. White caps crested over the swells in the channel. Keeping steady on the boat became a job in itself.

“Where’s Shaughnessy, Cooper?”

“Don’t know, Lieutenant.”

“Fat bastard should be here.”

“Does it always have to be personal, Ray? Damn. Look at yourself, for crying out loud. You could stand to eat a peach now and then.”

Matikas didn’t answer. He was paying careful attention to Mary’s stubs. “Can you believe this? Look at her. Press gets hold of this, we’re fucked.”

Jake checked his watch. He, too, wondered where Dickie had run off to. And Anastasia, where in hell had she gone? Were they working together on a lead he didn’t know about? Jake thought maybe it was time to pull in the reins on those two and get control of his team. It took a true leader to earn that respect back. They might say no one forgets. But cops remember everything.

Studying Mary, Jake realized he was now part of a case that had become much bigger than a homicide investigation. This was in a different league. He even caught himself looking away, wondering if he could now ever come out of this case with a sane head. It was a cliché to say that homicide cops latched on to vices—booze, drugs, sex, gambling—after a career of dead bodies. Yet Jake could see himself falling in, not being able to crawl out of that same hole.

“If we don’t come up with something soon, Cooper, we’re done. You got
anything
yet? How ‘bout that super-duper, high tech CSiPhone piece of shit of yours?” Matikas lit a cigarette, titled his head back, blew the first drag up in the air. Then stared at Jake.

“I need a bit more time here. It’s only been a week. Let’s all just take a deep breath. Chill out. I’ll turn up something soon.”

Neither had to say it. Their killer had sent a message. The Optimist, as the
Globe
branded him, had turned a corner. He was now speaking to Jake and his team directly.

“A boat,” Jake said. He twisted his neck, stretching it from side to side.

“What’d you say, Cooper?” Matikas kept his eyes on Dickie as he walked the dock. “Has Shaughnessy qualified lately at the range, Cooper?” He took one last drag from his cigarette, looked at the end of it, flicked the butt in the water.

“Not sure, Lieutenant, why don’t you ask him?”

“What’s this about a boat, Cooper?”

“Only way this guy could have gotten her up there like that was with a boat. That video surveillance along the docks would have picked him up otherwise.”

Harbor Patrol motored up the channel by the Tea Party ship. Jake watched it go by. The driver waved. Jake nodded.

“Don’t be so sure of that, Cooper.”

Dickie walked up, gave the lieutenant a hand wave. He had a scorned child look about him. He knew what was coming.

“Where the fuck you been, Shaughnessy?”

“Takin’ care of business, Lieutenant.” Dickie stared at his boss.

Jake looked over from behind the lieutenant’s shoulder, smiling at Dickie, wagging a finger at him.

Dickie looked up at the victim. “I had a feeling … shit.”

Jake and Matikas turned.

“What do you mean?” Matikas asked.

“Well, I sensed a religious tone, maybe even motive. Now I know for certain.”

Jake had thought the same thing as he studied the way the body was presented. How the killer had left her spoke to a man with issues against Christianity. The scene would be forever etched in Jake’s mind, a blasphemous intent written all over it. Did their serial have a vendetta against the Church?

“Our guy could be a victim of the Church sex abuse scandal?” Matikas offered, thinking out loud. They walked to the stern after Jake suggested they view the crime scene from a different angle. The rain started without warning, as if someone had suddenly turned it on.

“Wasn’t Anastasia with you, Dickie?” Jake asked.

“No. I thought she was at the station. You haven’t seen her?”

“Nope.”

“Cooper here seems to think a boat was involved.”

“I’ll go there, too, Lieutenant. There’s no way one man could get a body up that high by himself.”

“He docked off here, let’s say.” Jake explained, pointing, looking toward the side of the boat that faced the open ocean. “In the middle of the night, he hoists her up on that mast with a pulley system of some sort he has on his boat. All fishing boats are equipped with a hoist to load bait and remove the catch of the day.”

“Like on
Deadliest Catch
, Lieutenant. Those crab cage hoists.”

The lieutenant sighed. Massaged his temples.

“Vernon,” Dickie shouted.

An officer in blue ran over. “Yeah, Dick, what’s up?”

“Listen, I want a canvass of this entire marina along the Channel. All the fishing, private and party boats, et cetera. I want every boat accounted for last night.”

Jake interrupted. Thought about the look that guy had given him. “Including Harbor Patrol,” he added.

“Yeah,” Dickie echoed. “Where they were? What time? Find out if anyone reported a boat in this area of the channel late last night. Haul their ass in if you run into a problem. Got me?”

Officer Banks flipped his police cap, covered with plastic, dripping wet from a harder rain that had picked up. The wind blew west, throwing the downpour in slanted sheets.

“Okay,” Jake said, yelling over the sound of the rain, covering himself with his jacket, “so he docks off here. He hoists her up there. Tacks her arms. Ties off her elbows with that rope and duct tape. Then ties her knees, right above where he cut off her legs, to the mast with fishing line.” He shook his head at the thought of the description. “He’s grabbing whatever is available to him. He didn’t plan this part well. Then he speeds away? Something’s not right here. We’re missing a step.”

Jake walked over to the body, stared upward, covering his face by making a visor with his hand, as if blocking the sun’s rays.

“That’s
your
problem, Cooper,” Matikas shouted. “I have a crapload of paperwork to get done. I’m not about to stand out here all afternoon, getting soaked. You need to start thinking about a specific type of killer. Call in that FBI profiler.” He snapped his fingers. “SA Talbot. Get me something I can work with.” Matikas watched Anastasia Rossi work her way through the officers guarding the docks and onto the ship. “I cannot bring your theory of a boat and pulleys and strange characters in the night to brass, Cooper. They’re already up my ass. I need something tangible. Like a fucking killer!” Whenever Matikas become irritated, he spoke in English and Lithuanian. “You’ve got, what, three bodies now? Three!” He held up the appropriate amount of fingers, then said something in Lithuanian. “All blondes—all with their legs missing.”

Dickie laughed.

“Funny, huh. This is hilarious, isn’t it, Shaughnessy?” Anastasia walked over with her forensic tackle box in one hand, flashlight in the other. “Hey, glad to see our CSI could make the party. Rossi, how are you?” Matikas threw his hands up in frustration, walked toward the exit. “Follow me, all of you.”

“Sorry I’m late, Lieutenant. Cooper. Shaughnessy.” Anastasia gave head nods to both.

“I’m wondering, Lieutenant, do you think in that funny language of yours, or do you think in English?” Jake mocked.

“Up yours, Cooper. Laugh all you want. But damn it all, get me something today, before we’re all in a heap of shit. If the press makes a connection to the Church, it’s gonna get nasty.” Matikas walked off the ship, stopped halfway across the little catwalk, put a hand on the rope railing for balance, turned around. “I don’t need to tell you, Cooper, that the hourglass on your career is almost out of sand.”

Jake, Dickie and Anastasia turned, went back to the mast where Mary’s body was strung up.

“I want this entire deck swept tonight, Rossi,” Jake said. “Outside of the ship, too. Pay particular mind to rope burns and markings on the side of the ship facing the water. Things like that. Text me a brief on what you find by the end of the night.”

“We know who she is yet?” Anastasia slapped on a pair of latex gloves. “Damn, it’s pouring out, huh.” She took a poncho out of her box, stretched it open, placed it over her head.

Dickie went off to get that info. Anastasia and Jake waited. “Hey,” Jake asked in a semi-whisper, looking around, “you get a chance to check that thing out for me yet?”

Anastasia fiddled with her flashlight, turning it on and off. “Not sure I can do that, Cooper. I kinda feel dirty about going in there.”

Dickie came back. The rain made a tinny sound, almost as if hail was falling on a metal roof, as it hit various sections of the canvas sails.

“Looks like, um, from what the blues are telling me, she was identified by one of the kids on the tour. Said he recognized her from church. It looks like we got us one Mary Margarine O’Keefe, thirty-one. She lives in …”

“… Brookline,” Jake finished for Dickie, looking up at Mary, “with her father, who’s a
freakin’
deacon at St. Paul’s Church. I knew she looked familiar. Sonofa
bitch
.” Jake unfoiled a piece of nicotine gum. Chewed it violently.

“You know her?”

“Yeah, Dickie. Of her, actually. I know her father, Deacon Patrick O’Keefe.” Jake thought of Father John wanting to speak to him about the deacon. Was there a connection? Maybe more to what Father John knew but didn’t want to say?

“Incredible. If our guy knew that, he’s got some serious issues with the Church. Maybe an abuse victim?” Anastasia turned to get out of the windblown path of the rain, pulling her arms inside the poncho.

“We’ve been down this road already, Rossi,” Dickie said.

“I better get over there and tell Father John and the deacon myself.” As Jake spoke, they all turned. There was a commotion going on over by the catwalk entrance to the boat. Two blues were arguing with a man. With the rain pelting harder, it was hard to make out who was who.

Jake moved closer.
Mo. Shit.

“I’ll handle this,” he said to Dickie and Anastasia, who looked at each other with an embarrassed turn-away of their heads.

“What do you want? Let him be, fellas. It’s cool.” The two blues went back to guarding the entrance. Jake walked up to Mo.

Mo brushed himself off, as if he had been manhandled. “You boys know who I am? … Jake, how are you, buddy?”

Jake could smell the booze, even through the steady rain. “Mo, I’m working here. This is not a place for you. Not now.”

That hurt. The student dictating to the teacher what to do. Mo felt two feet tall. “Just wanted to stop by and see if … you know, if I … I could help out.” Mo looked up, saw Mary. “Shit almighty. What the hell?”

Jake didn’t want to deal with this problem anymore. “Mo, you have to get—”

From behind Jake, Dickie interrupted. “What happened to you, Blackhall? They called you the ‘King of Southie’ at one time. More collars than any cop on the force. You busted the Bulger crew when other cops were afraid.” There was anger and hate in Dickie’s voice, coming from somewhere deep. Jake had never heard him like this before. “I remember you were once talked up as the reason why Bulger’s crew broke up. Some said you—by yourself—turned Bulger into an FBI snitch. I often wondered, what in the hell happened to Mo Blackhall to end up like a skid row bum? Look at you.” Dickie turned his head to the side and spit.

Jake was concerned. Why was Dickie getting involved? Why such animosity between them? Jake could feel both his left and right carotid arteries throb to the beat of his heart against the damp tightness of his necktie. He stuck a finger inside his shirt and loosened the wet collar up some.