The Profiler's Daughter (Sky Stone Thriller Series) (5 page)

But Sky was remembering Monk's comment about the Hilliard shooting. "Hilliard committed suicide," he’d said. "I just pulled the trigger for him."

Sky didn't mention this. Why spoil the Chief’s glow?

"Your father and I were great friends, you know. We first worked together about a hundred years ago on the Back Bay murders – your dad a rookie, fresh out of Quantico. Boston was his first field-office assignment, it was my first year with Boston homicide. Hell, we were just kids then."

"My dad worked the Back Bay murders?" Sky was startled. Monk had never spoken of it.

"Oh, yes. Your father was new to Boston, came with nothing but a shiny new badge and his Smith & Wesson." The Chief laughed uncomfortably. “Monk was a real blue flamer in those days, the job was everything. Not even interested in women. That's how he got his nickname. Until he met your mother, of course."

Sky knew the story but she let him talk.

"Everybody thought Monk was nuts, in those days. A system for profiling murders? He invented the term, you know. Nobody even knew what ‘profiling’ meant, except for a couple of sociology and criminology instructors at Quantico." He shook his lion's head. "Sociology, for God's sake. Who knew?" His voice grew somber. "After we broke the Back Bay murders, Monk tried to get me to join the bureau."

"High praise, coming from Monk."

The Chief shrugged at the compliment. "Monk called me again when he was promoted to Unit Head, asked if I was interested in joining. I stayed in local law enforcement, no regrets." Magnus shook his head. "But your father and I always spoke the same language."

The same language indeed.

Magnus Moriarty, son of an Irish cop from Southie and an Italian mother from the Lake. A product of twenty years with Boston PD. His meteoric rise from arson, to vice, to homicide, had been accompanied by an arrest record so impressive that he was known on the streets as The Terminator. His celebrity among fellow officers was cemented after he talked an armed cop killer into surrendering during a six-hour stand-off in Charlestown.

Some said Magnus Moriarty's departure from Boston homicide to run the Newton police department was a form of unofficial retirement. But they never said it to his face.

"There weren't many people Monk respected," Sky said.

"And the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

"Excuse me?"

"You remind me of your father, that's all." The Chief gestured toward Monk’s photograph. "You see things, Sky. The way Monk saw things. You're like your dad. Smart. But not all the right kinds of smart. That’s not always enough. You gotta work the game.”

Sky didn't like the direction this conversation was taking. Magnus was setting to launch onto his hobby-horse, give her the pep talk about being a political animal. She never had wanted that life, neither had Monk. "I interview people, Magnus."

The Chief picked up a sword-shaped letter opener and ran his thick finger along the blade. “You have your critics. Some don’t take you seriously.” He shrugged. “Comes with the territory. A woman, working in a man’s profession. But your track record speaks for itself, Sky. It's no secret. You work a case, that case gets solved." He issued a deep sigh. “You're modest. Like your dad." This small insight seemed to energize Magnus and he jumped up from his chair.

"But you're so goddamn thin. You need to eat. Put some meat on those bones." He lifted the string of sausages from the lamp and dropped them in a brown paper grocery bag. "Take these home. Fry in a pan with a little olive oil, about twenty minutes." He held the bag out to Sky. “Mange!”

She nodded politely and accepted the gift. Given the amount of red meat she normally consumed, the Chief's bag of sausages ought to last her, what? Five years?

"By the way," Sky tried for a casual tone. "I'm withdrawing from this case. I can't work with Jake. I thought I could. Sorry to pull out like this."

The Chief wiped his hands carefully on a tissue and began rearranging a stack of manila files on his desk.

Sky was encouraged by his silence and continued. "I'll brief Kyle on this morning’s interview. I’m just not ready to come back to work.”

 "You can take time. Take all the time you need. But take it after this case is solved."

 Sky plunged ahead. "Things are complicated. Jake's breathing down my neck. Butera hates me. I need more time." Sky shoved her hand in her coat pocket and stroked the baby sweater.

 "Come with me." Magnus stood up and marched out of the room with a sideways gait that always reminded Sky of John Wayne.

 She gripped the bag of sausages and followed him down the corridor to a dark, cramped room she'd never seen before.

Magnus flipped a switch and motioned her to sit. The room was illuminated with the glow of a computerized map of Newton beamed large on the wall.

"StatCom," he said. "Developed a few of years ago by NYPD. We feed all Newton’s crime data to our people in the crime analysis and mapping unit – civilians – experts in the use of geographical information systems. Rapes, assaults, homicides," he explained, "broken down into those committed with guns, domestic or non-domestic, burglaries listed as residential or commercial, thefts classified as retail, personal, or auto." He pointed to the wall. "Those guys give us maps like this one."

Sky scanned the familiar matrix of Newton streets and villages, overlaid with irregular clusters of hexagons and triangles.

"The hexagons show the residential streets and shopping hubs where thieves have broken into cars," the Chief explained.  "The triangles show where our officers have responded with focused patrols.  The closer the overlap –”

"The bigger the drop in car break-ins," Sky finished his sentence.

She had a scientist's appreciation for the power in this kind of feedback. Criminal behavior and police performance juxtaposed visually. Nice.

"We've had a thirty-six percent reduction in car break-ins this year alone." Magnus was clearly proud of his new toy. He hit a key on the board and the map flashed with a new cluster of shapes. "Residential burglaries, down twenty-eight percent." He punched the key again, and another cluster appeared. "Arrests on outstanding warrants? Up a hundred and thirty-nine percent!"

"A triumph of the scientific method," Sky nodded.

The Chief flipped off the computer and they sat together in darkness. Officers passing through the hallway cast shadows on the wall in front of Sky. She watched them drift back and forth like Plato's shades.

"I know you got a bad deal," Magnus said. "You lost your baby." His voice seemed to drop an octave. "Burying a child is a hard thing. Maybe the hardest thing."

Did he understand, Sky wondered? And if he did, so what? She wanted nothing more than to sit in this dark room. She wanted to sit in this dark room forever.

"Listen carefully, Sky. Hear me out.” Magnus’s voice was firm. “Local news is already calling this the Heartbreak Hill Murder and that’s just the beginning. Two hundred news outlets are in town for the Boston Marathon, from all over the planet, and they’re salivating like hyenas. Remember the girl murdered in Aruba? One cable network diddled that story every day for two years, turned that particular police department into an international joke.”

Magnus pulled a cell phone from his breast pocket. “Someone out there thinks they can murder a woman in the center of this city and get away with it.” He pounded a fist to his chest. “My city.”

He leaned toward Sky. “You can take the coward’s way and hide out on Nantucket. Or you can find this killer. Your decision. I know you'll make the right one." He put on a pair of tortoiseshell bifocals and punched out a number on the cell phone.

So there it was.

Sky stood up. The room swam around her. She tried to remember when she'd last eaten. Lunch, yesterday?

Magnus was on the phone to the mayor’s office, full of smarmy bonhomie. "Relax, John. I have my best men on this case." He covered the receiver with his hand and whispered loudly to Sky. "Let me know what you think of that sausage. It's a new recipe."

Sky slammed the door on her way out.

The sound reverberated through the hall like a gunshot.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Sky tightened the belt of her coat, shouldered her way through the security door at the back of the police station, and tossed the bag of sausages onto the passenger side of the Jeep.

She left headquarters and drove east on Watertown Street under a sky of gunmetal gray. The Victorian and Georgian homes of West Newton soon gave way to pastel bungalows and triple-deckers, all crammed together on narrow lots. That’s how you knew you were in the Lake.

The Lake was Newton’s blue-collar neighborhood, five square blocks rimming the north edge of town. On maps it was called Nonantum but to the people who lived here it was forever the Lake.

Tonier parts of town had lawns. The Lake had yards. Yards with swing sets and picnic tables where large, old-world families with bawling babies ate summer suppers. Aunts, uncles, parents, grandparents, all living within earshot of each other. The saying went, if you opened your dining room window in the Lake, you were in someone else’s dining room.

Summer tomatoes grew riotous in every Lake garden, a badge of Italian pride. Fire hydrants were painted red, white and green – the colors of the Italian flag – for the annual St. Mary of Carmen Festival in July. Plaster statues of the blessed virgin were ubiquitous.

And, while most in Newton favored cars with a European flair – Saabs, BMWs, Mercedes – here in the Lake, you still bought American. Rusted sedans and Ford trucks of indeterminate age parked cheek to jowl, turning simple navigation through the narrow streets into a game of chicken.

Sky steered the Jeep toward the heart of the Lake’s business district, the intersection of Watertown and Adams. The black clock above Kildare’s Pub on the southeast corner read nine-thirty. Four hours since she'd been roused from bed. A puddle jumper from Nantucket to the Hyannis airport to pick up her car for the drive north, to Boston. No breakfast, just some pills.

A steady stream of customers from Dunkin’ Donuts glutted the street with double-parked cars and foot traffic in all directions. Sky crawled through the intersection and took a right past Carmine's Restaurant into a scrubby lot. She parked next to an abandoned oil drum and crossed the lot with the bag of sausages in hand. Carmine, owner and chef, was taking a cigarette break on the back steps.

"Ciao, bella!" Carmine waved her into the restaurant’s back entrance. Carmine Coppola was only slightly taller than Sky, with a shock of silver hair and a face like a roadmap. Sky knew he'd been there since five am, baking rolls, making bacon for BLT's, starting the Italian wedding soup.

Carmine escorted Sky into the restaurant, past the smoking grill to the counter. Customers crowded around tables drinking coffee, reading the Boston Herald, arguing local politics.

Sky ordered a double espresso and unbuttered wheat toast. Carmine popped a lid on the coffee and put the toast in a paper bag with two small plastic tubs of orange marmalade.

“Smile, bella!  You look so sad." Carmine handed the white bag to Sky.  "Beautiful, but sad."

Sky thanked him and wove her way around the tables and through the front door to the street.

She sipped the rocket-fuel coffee and looked for Jake's black Mustang.

Jake Farrell was Lake born and bred, favored son in an Italian clan of considerable size. Sky looked to her left, past the dry cleaners, the Chinese restaurant and Kildare’s Pub on the corner. To her right, just across the alley, Salvi’s Barber and a tiny antique shop with a wicker rocking chair displayed on the sidewalk next to an ancient copper lamp.

No black Mustang in sight.

She entered a glass door just past the diner, checking the list of business occupants listed on the foyer wall. She was glad to see her office neighbors were still in business. Hard times these days for construction companies, much less for a small talent agency and a yoga studio.

She took the carpeted steps to the second floor. The smell of fried rice and onions permeated the hallway. Sky paused, remembering the last time she’d been here. Eight months pregnant and engaged to Jake.

She unlocked the door and stepped into her office.

Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves took up most of the wall space, crammed with texts, periodicals and magazines in no particular order. A dozen blue and white ceramic pots from China – a graduation gift from her grandmother – sat atop the bookshelves, and a Persian rug carpeted the floor in a pattern of faded pink and green geometrics. A small television with a built-in DVD player sat on a stand next to the door.

Everything was just as she'd left it. An abandoned journal lay open on the arm of a sofa under the far window, and brown remains of a dead lily drooped from a clay pot on the window ledge.

Sky tossed the bag of sausages into a small refrigerator and sat down at her desk. The dank cold of the forest crime scene seemed trapped in her very bones. She pulled off the red cowboy boots and removed wet socks. Her toes were painted – what color was it? Blood Orange.

Sky turned on the computer and ate a few bites of dry toast. The familiar whirring and quiet clicks as it booted up made her realize just how out of touch with the world she’d been this last year.

Why had she come back?

Nearly a year had passed since she’d lost the baby and she still felt like she was drowning in grief. Magnus's early morning call to the murder scene had been like a hand reaching out to her in the dark. She was out of the Nantucket vacation house and on the plane within twenty minutes of that call, on the mainland and back in Newton in little over an hour.

It was, upon reflection, an entirely thoughtless series of actions. Sky had simply behaved, responded to the stimulus, like a rat running a maze.

Her eyes fell on a small snapshot in an oval filigree frame.

Sky picked it up and dusted the glass with the cuff of her sweater. It showed her parents on honeymoon in the Black Hills, the year before Sky was born. Her mother, in white shorts and a yellow halter-top, smiled contentedly into the camera. Monk’s arm was wrapped around her mother's waist and he looked tan and relaxed.