by Brian Shea
Kelly stood. His lungs burned, but he’d regained enough strength to help. He grabbed McDonough under the armpits and started to drag him, his academy training kicking in.
Gray jumped in to assist, picking up McDonough’s feet. The two lawmen moved in tandem to carry the mob enforcer to safety.
Kelly slipped and fell, coughing wildly. His lungs had filled with the black smoke and his eyes still stung.
Gray helped Kelly up, and they grabbed McDonough by the wrists, pulling with all their strength as they dragged his limp body out of the mudroom and into the house’s hard-packed, iced-over yard.
They didn’t stop once outside. Kelly and Gray continued hauling McDonough’s dead weight as they put as much distance as possible between them and the burning house.
About twenty feet away from the house, a secondary series of explosions erupted from inside as Kelly and Gray collapsed in total exhaustion.
Not a portion of the house wasn’t totally consumed by fire.
Kelly and Gray wheezed and coughed as McDonough remained unmoving where they dropped him.
23
"Explain to me one more time why you and our guest here happened to be at a house in suburban Agawam that's fully engulfed in flames. To boot, we've got one near-dead mobster unconscious at the hospital. Worst of all, I'm only hearing about this after the fact. I thought I made myself exceptionally clear when we spoke earlier today." Halstead’s face held no line of tension. And though the message conveyed was one of both outrage and disappointment, none of it could be discerned in the calm, steady manner in which he delivered it. Cool and calm, somehow containing the rage bubbling just beneath the surface. The Iceman.
In little more than twenty-four hours with his new boss, Kelly felt that he’d made an unusually poor first impression. First, showing up at the O'Toole murder scene reeking of Sutherland’s retirement party while nursing a vicious hangover. Then upping his game the following day by being on-scene at a blown-up house after following little more than a hunch while managing not to keep Halstead informed after being explicitly told to do so.
"This may be my fault," Gray interjected, his voice crackling like that of a lifelong smoker.
Halstead turned his attention to the agent.
"Kelly was telling me a little bit about Walsh's gang and said he had some intel on one of their guys who runs the muscle. He mentioned if we expect a retaliatory reaction from Walsh, he’s a good guy to watch. So that's what we did. We went over to the bar where we found his car. He took off and we gave a loose follow. We didn't want to waste your time until we had more to offer."
Halstead then looked over at Kelly.
"It's Bobby McDonough from the neighborhood. We grew up together. And yeah, I had a feeling if we kept an eye on him, we might get lucky.”
Halstead pointed to the smoldering house in the backdrop. “You call this getting lucky? I’d hate to see what bad luck looks like to you.”
Kelly ignored the comment. “We thought we might get a lead on our perp. Walsh's people are more connected than the police. They have a better network of intelligence. The rules don’t apply to them.”
“And you figured what?”
“I don't know.” Kelly shrugged. “But I figure if you whack one of Walsh’s guys, there's going to be some type of retaliation. And who better to follow than his number one enforcer?"
"Why wasn't I privy to this?"
"Like Agent Gray was saying, we wanted to have something to show when we let you know.”
“If he was driving out here and it turned out to be nothing, it would've been a waste of your time and a bigger waste of ours. I'm not in the habit of wasting my supervisor's time." Gray stepped in front of Kelly and folded his arms as if defending him from a schoolyard bully.
Kelly was thoroughly impressed. The FBI agent who'd spent barely a week with them back in November had just taken up for him. He was glad to have him on the team. In that moment and the moments inside the inferno, Gray had proven he was a brother in blue, regardless of the team they played for.
Halstead looked back at Kelly. "This won't happen again, you understand me? I won't be kept out of the loop. I'll be the judge of whether something is or isn't worth my time."
"Fair enough," Kelly responded.
"With that unpleasantness out of the way, I guess you best get started," Halstead said.
"Get started with what?" Kelly was confused. Maybe he was referring to the mountain of paperwork that would no doubt be associated with this debacle. He thought about McDonough, who’d left by ambulance nearly two hours ago. He wanted to check on his friend and be by his side if and when he woke, but he knew that would have to wait. There was something Halstead needed done.
"What do you need us to do, Sarge?"
"Work the scene."
Kelly looked at Gray, who seemed just as baffled.
"Well, you caught it, you bought it. Agawam doesn't want this case, and since you're saying this house may be linked to our guy, I’m making it our scene to work.” Halstead stepped closer and spoke more quietly. “This may be the best chance we have of getting any inkling as to who this Penitent One is. Don’t screw it up.”
“We won’t,” Kelly and Gray said in near unison.
“Agawam PD will remain on scene and hold the perimeter, but you guys are going in. We'll forward them a copy of our report later.”
"When's tech going to get here?" Kelly asked.
"I notified them as soon as you called me. They should be here shortly."
Then, to his surprise, Kelly saw a pitch-black Suburban with heavily tinted windows pull to a stop outside the crime scene tape and sea of fire trucks and cruisers maintaining the wide perimeter of the scene.
Superintendent Acevedo stepped out of the passenger side and stood by the vehicle.
Halstead looked at the investigative unit’s commanding officer and then back at Kelly. "You better make this count. You better get me something on this one, you understand me, Detective Kelly?"
Kelly nodded.
Halstead began walking away, then looked back and said, "I'm stepping up for you on this one, Kelly. Better make it worth my while."
Halstead had proven himself correct when he said he stood up for his guys, even after being kept out of the loop. Pretty ballsy. As the new supervisor of their squad, running interference with the top brass took some intestinal fortitude.
With Halstead running his interference, Kelly turned his attention to Gray. "Hey, you didn't have to do that—putting yourself out there like that to protect me."
"Look, I was pushing the envelope just as much as you, I think more so toward the end.” Gray rubbed the cold from his arms. “You know how long I've been looking for this guy? Do you know how many people have failed before me? This is the FBI's white whale. And I want to be the fisherman who hauls it in."
Kelly realized Gray's drive didn't only stem from a need for justice but also for the accolades that came with serving it. And in a case like this, Sterling Gray would be a legend within the Bureau. Maybe he saw this case as his ticket to the next level, or a way out of some crappy unit? Or maybe he just enjoyed the sheer rush of bringing down somebody that everybody else had failed in doing.
Either way, Kelly realized at that moment that they differed slightly in their approach to law enforcement. Not that his was any better, just different.
"How do you typically like to attack a scene?” Gray asked. “Everybody has their way of doing things, and this is your baby, so I don't want to step on your toes."
"I appreciate that. A lot of guys wouldn't have asked, but since you did, I kind of like to see it for what it is. An initial walk-through, usually with a camera, and then I come back through and do a more thorough piece-by-piece investigation. It helps me organize the evidence and come up with a plan of attack before I go in. You can get into the weeds on these things, focusing too minutely before seeing the big picture.”
“All right. Do you want to wait for Crime Scene
or get started now?”
Hard for Kelly to tell if Gray had a preference or was just asking for the sake of it.
“I say we get started now. We can do the preliminary walk-through while we’re waiting," Kelly offered.
Both men slipped on a Tyvek jumpsuit, booties, and double-gloved each hand with sterile latex gloves before making their way into the crime scene that was now a smoldering wreckage of a house. No door to open this time, and no fingerprints likely left on anything in the house.
The smell was horrid. Smoldering ash was everywhere. Kelly coughed. The vapors were activating the tingle in the back of his throat, already irritated from his earlier bout with the fire and smoke.
The two now stood where the island in the kitchen had been, the same island that had worked to shield them from the initial blast wave that rocked McDonough. There was little left. The studs at the base that kept it rooted to the floor were all that remained of the charred ruin.
The tile floor was covered in soot, thick and pasty from the deluge of water dumped from the fire department trucks. The evidence eradication team had flooded this fire. They had done their bit, it seemed, to run every bit of water in the State of Massachusetts through their hoses.
Kelly treaded lightly, although there was no way to enter a scene like this without leaving your mark. Thankfully they could follow the path left by their shoes on their way back out. He walked over to where the access door to the basement had been, now nothing but a gaping hole. The stairwell led down, but many of the boards were burnt or missing altogether. The FD had managed to water the slab fairly well, flooding much of the lower few feet of the poured concrete basement.
Kelly stood on cracked tile in the kitchen and scanned the ground where he’d found McDonough. Wedged between an exposed pipe in the splintered baseboard was the silenced pistol they'd seen McDonough carry and, for a brief moment, point at them.
Kelly pointed to it. Gray nodded and then looked around. "Doesn't have to be his, you know. I'm sure if what you say is true and he is the enforcer, then there's going to be no tie between that weapon and anybody in their crew. And you putting a gun in his hand regardless of the house, well, that's a lot harder to explain than somebody doing a little recon. The intent to kill comes off and it just looks like a break-in. I'm pretty sure the owner of this house, if it's who we think it is, isn't filing any complaint charges."
For the second time in barely twenty minutes, Sterling Gray had proven himself loyal beyond Kelly’s wildest expectations. He was jumping headfirst into the faded gray of the world Kelly had found himself in since putting on the shield.
This second go-round with Gray, he'd begun to see him more as an equal. In November, Kelly saw the agent as somebody sent down from on high for the sheer amusement of some supervisor's whimsy. A face for the press with little to offer. But it appeared he’d been wrong, completely misjudging both the man and the mission. There was more to Gray than met the eye, and Kelly was glad to have him here now. His trust for the fed was growing exponentially.
"Feel like getting wet?" Kelly offered.
"It is a little bit balmy today. Wouldn't mind cooling off." Gray laughed.
Both men were making light of the fact that they were about to plunge into the cold water that had filled the basement when the external temperature hadn't yet hit thirty degrees. The thought of submerging themselves in the frigid pool was less than appealing.
Kelly took the lead, navigating the functional steps and using the wrought iron railing that had survived the fire. With a few steps to go, Kelly felt the water penetrate through the Tyvek suit’s paper-thin material and into his pants. It was shockingly cold, nearly taking his breath away. Regaining his composure, and with the quick numbing properties of the water adding to his ability to compensate, he stepped onto the concrete floor into knee-high water.
The basement was like something he'd expect in a horror movie—aisles of religious memorabilia, neatly organized and in glass cabinets, most of which were either shattered or melted. It was like a wax museum lit ablaze. Gallons upon gallons of water and fallen debris littered the space. Even through the damage, Kelly could see ornate items of religious significance, crosses and bits of stained glass, that looked handmade, along with stones labeled with the names of the holy places of their origin. A shrine filled with religious accoutrements was not what Kelly had expected to find when he first hit the icy water.
“Jackpot,” Gray said. As cold as he looked, there was excitement in his eyes.
“Looks like we found our first potential lead in figuring out who this guy is,” Kelly muttered.
Kelly’s interest was piqued by something he saw in the corner–a kneeler set against the wall. It was lacquered wood and looked as though it had been cut out of a church confessional. That was until he looked up. Heavy gray shackles hung above it, and a small circular mirror the size of a quarter was centered where someone’s head would be if they were in a kneeling position. Kelly had seen this before. Or read about it somewhere. Small mirrors like this were used by some for focused meditation for critical introspection.
"What do you make of this?" Kelly said, looking at Gray.
The two got closer. Etched in the wood just above the mirror were the words: Then He will also say to those on His left, “Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil.”
"Tell the guys at BAU they nailed it. I guess The Penitent One was an appropriate nickname after all," Kelly said.
He was transfixed by the kneeler. Punishment. The pain of his upbringing morphed into his calling card.
Kelly moved on, scanning the basement without touching anything. Observations only at this point.
No photographs hung on the walls. At least none of any non-religious images. The shackles might be beneficial in gathering some potential DNA. He made a mental note to relay that to Charles or Dawes. The rest of the house was destroyed, and the basement would be their best chance of finding any clue. Once they drained it and Charles had a chance to go through the scene, they might be able to find something usable.
Kelly was standing still, momentarily lost in thought. The water drew his attention. He looked at the water line just below his knee, now approximately two inches lower. Either the ground wasn't level and he’d walked up an incline, which was common in New England homes, or it was draining. A second later he had his answer.
The water was moving, flowing in one direction. Kelly followed a small bit of floating wood.
"Hey," he said to Gray, pointing at the little ripples of moving water flowing toward a wall across from the kneeler.
Kelly pulled his pistol and slowly began following the flow of the water to the wall. Gray followed.
He reached the wall and started running his finger along the edge, soon finding a small, hair-like seam. Had the basement not been flooded it was unlikely he would’ve found it.
"Get me something to pry it open."
Gray trudged over to a tool bench, sloshing his way through the cold water. He returned a few moments later with a crowbar. "Think this will work?"
Kelly took the beveled edge and slipped it into the crack. He worked it into place and began pushing and pulling, working it deeper. After several minutes, he heard a loud cracking sound. Whatever mechanism opened and closed the door had snapped.
One massive effort, with Gray assisting in the final pull, and the hidden doorway budged. As soon as it did, the water in the basement flowed out. Kelly slammed the crowbar in tight, fighting to keep it open as the water pushed hard against it.
It took a few minutes until the water pressure weakened enough for them to pry the door wider. Once opened, they traded the crowbar for their guns.
The two pointed their guns down the dark tunnel as the water’s surge echoed loudly along the tubular walls.
They edged forward with Kelly in front. One hundred feet or so ahead, they saw the gray light of day illuminating the other end. They moved quickly, their
heads ducked low and their weapons at the ready. Where the tunnel ended, they were met by a locked iron gate.
Peering through the bars, they saw a small dock like that of a personal boat launch. No boat was tethered to it.
"You know what this is, don’t you?" Kelly asked.
"An escape hatch."
24
"Can you believe this?" Mainelli huffed. “We get stuck on guard duty for the crime boss of Boston. All because some nut job is planning on taking him out! Seems like it'd be doing the taxpayers a favor if we were to drive around the corner for a bit. Maybe grab a bite to eat. There’s a great deli down the street with the best mozzarella you’ll find outside of the North End. And if we get back and happen to find Walsh dead, would that be so bad?”
Barnes had been listening to Mainelli's tireless rant, or some variation of it, for the better part of the last four hours. Sadly, that meant they were only halfway through their security detail.
Positioned outside in an unmarked cruiser was not exactly what the BPD brass had in mind when they offered up the protection. Walsh had thrown a fit Barnes had only caught one end of as Halstead worked to broker the deal. Cooler minds prevailed. Halstead, the Iceman, prevailed. Walsh agreed to have unmarked units present outside of his home if BPD felt so inclined. Which, of course, they did. And so, Barnes and Mainelli had been assigned the first rotation.
“And would you look at that place? I couldn’t afford that house in three lifetimes. Maybe more.”
Barnes had been staring at the house for the past four hours. Mainelli’s comment wasn’t lost on her. The Herald had done a piece on the converted multi-family in the lifestyle section a few years back. She couldn’t remember the cost, but it was in the millions. It stood out amidst the other neighboring buildings. It was a corner lot at the intersection of Dorchester Avenue and Harvest Street.
Not only was the burnt orange paint distinctly different, the contours were sharp when juxtaposed with the older surrounding structures. Barnes remembered one quote from the article. The interviewer had asked Walsh why he’d spent so much money converting the old triple decker when he could’ve spent the same elsewhere, like the Carolinas, and gotten triple the luxury. His answer was simple. “This is where I was born. And this is where I’ll die.” Looking at the front door now, she just hoped it wasn’t tonight. And wasn’t on her watch.
