The Son of John Devlin (14 page)

“I’ve heard some grumbling,” he continued. “Nothing too bad, but there are people who are unhappy about it, and the sooner it ends, the better, as far as they’re concerned. So just be careful. You’re under a microscope. And if you screw up, they’ll know it and they’ll exploit it to high heaven and use it against you.”

“Like who?” Jack asked.

“Some are obvious, and I would have mentioned Moloney before the events of this week, to tell you the truth. But that’s just it, Jackie. That’s the problem.”

Kennedy glanced around the restaurant, which was two blocks from police headquarters, then leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “That’s the problem,” he repeated, his voice low. “I don’t know who, exactly, you know what I mean? But there are certain elements
who have something to lose here, obviously. Everything to lose. And they won’t like that. So be careful. Very careful.”

Jack Devlin swung the net, took a pass from the defenseman, and headed up the left boards with the puck. Through center ice he picked up speed and saw the center on his line twenty feet to his right gaining speed. He could see that in a second or two the center would be open for a pass. But Devlin also saw, thirty-five feet away on the far right, that his right wing was streaking through center. The defense would expect Devlin to pass to the center. But he kept the puck until, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the right wing approaching the blue line at top speed. It was then that he sent a hard pass all the way across the ice. It hit the tape on the right wing’s stick just soon enough to keep him onside, and suddenly he was in behind the defense, all alone. He faked the goalie to his left, then went to the other side and slid it easily under the goaltender’s pads.

It was an informal pickup game of guys Jack had known in high school and college, an easygoing affair. Toward the end of the game, he spotted Coakley standing over by the warming hut, and at game’s end, he came off the ice and toward Coakley.

“You’re early,” he said.

“I wanted to see if you still had any moves,” Coakley replied.

“And?” Jack said, smiling.

“Not bad. A little rust, but not bad.”

In the warming hut, Jack removed his skates and they went back outside and up a few steps by the rink. On a
terrace, there was a commanding view of downtown Boston, lights glittering from Brookline all the way to the waterfront. The night was frigid and clear, a huge pale moon high in the jet-black sky over Boston.

Jack loved it up here, especially on a clear winter night. There was something about the panoramic nature of the view, something about seeing so much terrain at once, that deeply satisfied him. So often he could see but one small piece of the puzzle, one piece that seemed at times to bear no relation to any other. The contrast was sharp and satisfying.

“So he says he’s got four guys breathing down his neck,” Coakley said. “He’s desperate for the delivery. Says he’s got to have it.”

“How did he seem to you?” Jack asked.

“On the verge,” Coakley said. “Not panicking but not far from panicking.”

Jack did not want that. He wanted nothing sudden or foolish. “Okay,” he said with a sigh.

“Okay, what?” Coakley asked.

“Tell him it’s on its way. Tell him it’ll be here any day.”

Coakley nodded. He would do as instructed. He sat back with his hands folded on his ample lap and thought for a long moment. “I heard something …,” he began, but did not continue because he was not certain what words to use.

Jack turned his head, studying Coakley closely.

“What?” he asked.

Coakley frowned, and as he did so, brought his chin down toward his chest. In this position he seemed particularly heavy, the flesh of his face running uninterrupted down to the top of his chest. He pursed his mouth
and his eyes narrowed as though he was concentrating on a puzzling bit of mental gymnastics.

“I’m not sure whether it’s anything, but I heard from a guy I know what sounded like general rumblings,” he said.

Jack waited, but Coakley did not continue. He seemed stuck, for some reason.

“Rumblings,” he said.

Coakley nodded.

“About?”

“You,” Coakley said.

“Me.”

Coakley shifted his weight and crossed his arms. “Moloney has friends,” he said. “Bobby Curran, too.”

Jack nodded. He was not surprised. Ever since taking on the assignment he’d known that the possibility of trouble existed. To be on an assignment resembling Internal Affairs was not the way to endear oneself to fellow officers. Jack knew that through the years various I.A. officers had been harassed and some had been threatened; threats that had been taken seriously. One I.A. detective some years back was beaten up twice, but that had been as much because he was an offensive asshole as anything else.

Jack was careful, for he knew that the type of man who joined a police department was far more comfortable than most with the idea of violence, the use of force. When all else failed, force was, after all, the way cops imposed their will.

“Keep your head up,” Coakley said.

Jack smiled. It was an old hockey expression. Those who skated with their eyes on the ice got blindsided.

“I do,” he said.

“I mean, these people …” Coakley’s was an expression of concern.

Jack nodded. “I know,” he said.

H
e thought about her much of the time now, thought about her as he was getting up and getting ready for work, thought about her as he was driving downtown to police headquarters; thought about her often as he went about his business during the day, when he attended boring meetings about various topics, gave depositions in the matter of Detectives Moloney and Curran; before he went to bed at night.

And when she called him at his office, he was glad. “How are you?” he asked.

“I’m great,” she said. “And I’m even better because a trial we had scheduled to start this week has been postponed. So, guess what?”

“What?”

“I have an invitation for you,” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “I accept.”

“You accept what?” she asked.

“I accept whatever invitation you have.”

She laughed. “No, listen to what it is.”

“I don’t have to,” he said. “The answer is yes. Tell me where to be and when.”

“But you don’t know what
it
is!”

“I told you,” he said, laughing, “it doesn’t matter. The answer is yes.”

“Great!” she said. “Pick me up at seven o’clock tomorrow morning. And pack a bag.”

“A bag?”

“Shorts, bathing suit, tennis racket, whatever,” she said.

He was taken aback. “Where are we going?”

“I thought it didn’t matter,” she challenged. “I thought you accepted?”

“I have accepted,” he said. “I am going.
We
are going. I’d just like to have some idea where we’re going.”

“Florida,” she said.

“You’re kidding?”

“Would I kid you?” she said. “We fly into Palm Beach and drive up to a place called Jupiter. I have friends who have a house there, and they’re loaning it to me for a few days. The weather forecast is perfect, I checked. And I’m desperate for a break.”

Jack considered it. Certainly he could take some time off from work. He had five weeks vacation coming to him, two still unused from the prior year. In a way, it was an ideal time to get away.

“I’ll pick you up at seven,” he said, and hung up.

Then he sat alone in his dingy office the size of a broom closet and contemplated a trip with Emily. But as he thought about Florida, his mind turned to someone else—to Alden Farmer, who had retired to Vero Beach.

Jack went down to the police department’s resource room and dug out an atlas. He found a map of Florida and saw that Vero Beach was only about fifty miles from Jupiter. This trip was fated, he thought. This was his opportunity to do something he’d considered doing for
several years, his opportunity to try and track down Alden Farmer, to meet with him face-to-face, to talk with the former agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation who had arrested his father.

The Boeing 737 lifted off the Logan runway at 8:34
A.M.
and climbed into a sullen, gray November morning. The jet bounced through a dense layer of clouds and broke into a clear, sunny sky as it settled into a smooth ride south.

“Wow,” Emily said, “I didn’t know how good it would feel to get out of town. But there are times when that place can just choke you.”

Jack understood. Boston sometimes felt like the smallest, most claustrophobic place on earth; a place where everyone had an angle, where it was sometimes difficult—even with a scorecard—to tell the good guys from the bad. It was a place, as someone once said, where the prevailing disease was Irish Alzheimer’s: You forget everything except the grudges.

Jack had always had an intuitive feel for the politics of the city; politics that penetrated all manner of business done, especially in law enforcement. This was, after all, a city where the mayor’s son worked as an assistant in the D.A.’s office; where a judge’s brother was a lead defense lawyer in town; where cops and lawyers were sisters and brothers and husbands and wives and cousins and neighbors and blood enemies. This was a place where love and hate coexisted easily, and where they sometimes even blended into one.

Jack Devlin felt a pleasant sense of relief as the plane climbed higher in the sky and moved away from Boston. He and Emily settled in over coffee and corn muffins.

“I just think sometimes it’s too much,” she said. “I feel as though there are times when I’m working on a case and I pull a single thread and I pull it and tug at it and pull it some more and I follow it and it winds throughout the whole city from City Hall to the State House to God-knows-where.

“Don’t get me wrong, I love living here, but sometimes it’s all a little too cute and cozy and too inbred, and you get to a point—or at least I do—where I feel like I can’t even breathe.”

“That’s true on the BPD,” he said. “It’s very much that way. And while there’s a positive side to that, there’s that claustrophobic downside, too. Where everything’s just a little too cozy, and when a nod and a wink can either make or undo a deal.”

She turned in her seat and smiled at him. “I’m really glad you could come,” she said. “This is great.”

She looked to him like the most beautiful woman in the world; her shiny black hair neatly brushed back, her gorgeous smile; her pretty slender neck; her bright, blue eyes.

“I’m really glad you invited me,” he said. “I really am.”

The house was set on a bluff by the ocean, a pink cottage with white shutters and Italian tile floors. The kitchen led out to a large deck that overlooked a private beach. The sun was high in a clear blue sky, the temperature pushing 80 degrees. They changed into bathing suits and went down to the water. He had never before seen her like this. In a black two-piece suit, he could see her slim, athletic build. She was trim and firm from regular workouts. And very sexy.

The water was cold, and she pulled back when a
wave washed up over their feet, but Jack kept walking at a steady pace and soon was chest-deep. He dove in and took a leisurely swim out and then back. He felt reinvigorated.

Emily, too, dove in, but was quickly out. They went back to the house, where they lay down on chaise lounges and allowed the warm sun to dry their bodies.

She lay there, eyes closed. “Have you noticed I’m a little on the chatty side?” she said.

“Not really,” he replied.

“Well, I am,” she said. “I often say what’s on my mind.”

“That’s okay.”

“May I say something to you?” she asked.

“Of course,” he said, half sitting up and looking over at her.

“I think you’re a very attractive man.” She said it without opening her eyes or moving from her supine position. “Do you think I’m too forward?”

He laughed. “No, I do not. I happen to think you’re a very attractive woman.”

She waited a beat. “That’s it?” she said. “Just very attractive?”

“Beautiful,” he said.

“Ah, much better. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he said.

“Good night,” she said.

“It’s noon.”

“I know,” she said, and with that, fell asleep.

He read for a while, then quietly opened a large deck umbrella to keep the sun off her. And he dared for the moment to indulge in the pleasure of watching her sleep.

* * *

As the sun went down, the sky on the horizon turned orange, then purple. At dusk they sat out on the deck and gazed across the water at some distant ship inching its way south, already lit for the night. The house was close enough to the ocean so the sound of the waves washing up on shore at high tide had a mesmerizing syncopation.

They sipped cold white wine and looked at the sky and the water, and, to Jack Devlin, Boston and the reality of his life seemed very far away. But he could not shake it from his mind. Nor did he wish to.

She made a salad and he grilled fish, and they ate in the dark on the deck and strolled on the beach after dinner, holding hands. As they walked he kept shifting the position of their fingers. He was surprised at how small and delicate her hands were; surprised as well at how tightly she squeezed his hand.

When they returned to the house, they stood on the deck and embraced. He could hardly believe it, standing there under the warm, moonlit sky, embracing the most beautiful woman in the world.

“What a way to live,” he remarked the following morning, as they sat on the deck, the warm sun rising in a cloudless eastern sky. The sunlight twinkled on the water as it rolled to shore. Over a breakfast of juice, bagels, cereal, and coffee, they looked out over the sparkling blue ocean.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Emily said.

“Very calming,” he replied.

“Although for me it’s amazing because it’s so different from my real life. I wouldn’t want this to be normalcy.” She hesitated a moment and regarded him. “Would you?”

He laughed. “I don’t know. Pretty tempting.”

“Come on, Jack,” she said.

“What’s wrong with living a life where you have the ocean and the sun and you don’t have to deal with frigid mornings and cars that won’t start and slush and ice and snow and all of those problems that come with a place where it’s gray and sullen for three or four months of the year?” He smiled and cocked his head to the side. “What would be so bad about walking on the beach in the early morning and fishing and living life outdoors much of the time?”