Beacon Hill

by Colin Campbell

  “At my wall.”

  “They hit your wall. Guarantee that’s not what they were aiming at.”

  There were voices over by the police cars. Hunt tilted his head as if talking to an idiot.

  “A pretty tight grouping to the right of the front gates. Considering I was standing up the steps at the door. Not very good shots if they were aiming at me.”

  Grant shrugged. “Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then. This squirrel keeps shooting? Who knows what nut he’s gonna hit?”

  Footsteps sounded outside.

  “Are you calling me a nut? Is that what you think?”

  “You don’t want to know what I think.”

  The footsteps came up the front stairs. Hunt puffed his chest out and drew his shoulders back.

  “That’s right, officer. I don’t care about you at all.”

  The knock on the door wasn’t as loud as Grant’s. It was quiet and respectful and completely unnecessary. The door was already open. The man at the door was wearing a creased suit and a shirt and tie. The tie was loosened and the top button undone. He held up his detective’s badge.

  “DeLuca. Downtown.”

  He waved an apology at Hunt.

  “Excuse me, sir.”

  Then looked at Grant and jerked his chin back out the door. Grant took the hint and stepped outside. The District A1 detective closed the door before speaking.

  “What the fuck you think you’re doing?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Standing two steps down in the orange glow of the porch light, Grant had the feeling he’d wandered into a Walter Hill movie. One of those cop films where detectives spend all their time shouting at each other before bonding over a final reel shootout. Except Grant didn’t see himself bonding with Mike DeLuca. Shootout or not.

  “Is that how you greet all your fellow detectives?”

  DeLuca was one step up on Grant. It made them the same height.

  “My fellow detectives work A1. Not two Districts over at E13.”

  “Radio asked for assistance.”

  “I didn’t ask for assistance.”

  “Should have got here quicker then.”

  “I got here quick enough. Where the fuck d’you come from?”

  Grant kept his voice calm and level if not exactly friendly. “Doing a house search over by Back Bay Fens.”

  “D4. That ain’t your district either.”

  Grant had had enough of explaining himself. He took two steps backwards to the sidewalk and waved an arm towards the street.

  “We gonna stand here all night arguing cross-border cooperation or you want to know what I’ve done so far?”

  DeLuca compressed his lips into a dead flat line and took a deep breath through his nose. He let out a sigh that took the edge of his anger but couldn’t keep the ridicule out of his voice.

  “Fire away, Sherlock.”

  Grant delivered a situation report in short, sharp sentences. Arrived at scene. Determined the shooter had gone before arrival. Spoke to the potential target. Gave Hunt’s explanation and his reluctance to cooperate. Paused to let all that sink in.

  DeLuca came down the steps and joined Grant on the sidewalk.

  “Do you know who Daniel Hunt is?”

  Grant tried not to look down at the shorter detective.

  “Somebody with a high opinion of himself.”

  “The fourth richest man in Boston. Biggest contributor to the police chief’s re-election campaign. Major sponsor of the Boston Police Department. Bought your handcuffs, gun, and uniform.”

  “I don’t wear a uniform.”

  “And you don’t carry a gun. I remember from the news. Strange for an ex-soldier.”

  “Not strange for an ex-typist.”

  DeLuca sucked a piece of meat from his teeth.

  “Heard that too. Didn’t believe that either.”

  Grant ignored the interruption and indicated the crime scene. The portion of sidewalk he’d cordoned off and the wall next to the front gate.

  “Shots were fired from over there. Either on the sidewalk or a few steps into the road. Shell casings scattered across the floor. Haven’t counted them but most of them are there.”

  He nodded at the bullet holes in the wall.

  “Six hits. Even grouping. High and wide of the steps…” He didn’t need to point at the front door. “…where Hunt was using his keys.”

  Grant made an expansive gesture to include the entire street.

  “Haven’t done house to house yet, but no witnesses have come forward. Hunt says he didn’t see or hear anything. So probably nobody on the street at the time.”

  He jerked a thumb at the spent cartridges glinting in the light. “Haven’t called SOCO yet.”

  “SOCO?”

  “CSI. Forensics. Whatever you call them here.”

  “Expensive is what we call ’em. If nobody’s been shot.”

  Grant was beginning to get a sense of how this was going to play out and he didn’t like it. Bad guys do bad things and good guys are supposed to lock them away. Whoever fired these shots was unlikely to leave it there. The police needed to stop him because the next time he might not miss.

  “You’ve just finished telling me how important this Hunt fella is.”

  DeLuca turned a fierce stare on Grant. “That’s right.”

  Grant stared right back at him. “Not so important you’re going to follow up on this.”

  “Important enough that if he says he don’t want to complain, then we don’t have a complaint. Simple as.”

  Grant let out a disgusted snort. “Fuckin’ unbelievable.”

  DeLuca decided to give Grant the facts of life. “We had sixty-three shootings last month. That’s just the ones involving death or injury. A couple were just damage to property. Across Downtown, Charlestown, and South Boston. Three districts. Eight detectives. If we investigated every time a gun went off, we’d have over two hundred. You should know. Police can only do what they’ve got time to do. If the most powerful man in Boston wants this one dropping, it gets dropped. Then I can get on with cases I’ve got a chance of solving.”

  Grant shook his head. He glanced up the steps and noticed Hunt standing in the doorway. He was glaring at the Yorkshireman even harder than DeLuca had been. He saw Grant watching him but didn’t back off. This was his house. This was his town.

  DeLuca kept his back to the steps.

  “If you don’t like it, fuck off back to England.”

  Grant looked at the A1 detective but didn’t respond.

  DeLuca couldn’t leave it alone. “Or at least back to Jamaica Plain. Nearly as bad anyway.”

  DeLuca made a winding up gesture above his head, then drew one finger across his throat. The red and blue lights stopped flashing. The uniformed cops took down the crime scene tape and reopened the street. DeLuca scooped the shell casings into an envelope without checking to see if he’d got them all. There wasn’t going to be any forensic examination. Nothing was getting photographed in situ. This crime was a non-starter.

  Grant shrugged and turned away. DeLuca climbed the steps to the front door and went inside. The door slammed shut to emphasize Grant’s dismissal. The marked units continued along Mount Vernon and headed off down Charles Street towards Boston Common.

  The night became quiet. The street was empty again apart from a lone detective who wasn’t even supposed to be there. He fished the car keys out of his pocket and walked towards the Crown Vic. He saw a curtain twitch out of the corner of his eye. Heavy drapes in a house almost as grand as Hunt’s.

  It twitched again, then closed against the light.

  Grant threw a quick glance over his shoulder at the crime scene that wasn’t, then looked at the house opposite. He put the keys back in his pocket.

  “Fuck it.”

  He crossed into the shadows between lampposts.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Canvassing the neigh
bors was standard police practice. House to house enquiries they called it back in Yorkshire. If you got canvassed in England, it was usually some low rent politician after your vote. In America, canvassing meant knocking on doors. Grant had a very persuasive knock.

  The house with the twitchy curtain was first. The obvious starting place. Unfortunately, the curtain twitcher had only been responding to the flashing lights and the police activity. An attractive woman who carried her wealth lightly. Elderly but well preserved. Her clothes were casual but expensive. Her jewellery functional but not showy. She was the polar opposite to Daniel Hunt. She had the house opposite too.

  “Are you really a police officer?”

  Grant showed her his ID. “Yes, ma’am, I really am.”

  The woman raised the glasses hanging around her neck and scrutinized the badge wallet.

  “It’s just that you don’t sound like you’re from around here.”

  “No, ma’am. I’m not.”

  “And yet here you are working in Boston.”

  “In response to the shooting over the road, yes.”

  The woman lowered her glasses and looked past Grant towards Daniel Hunt’s house. Her expression when she looked back at Grant was that of a teacher watching a particularly slow pupil.

  “Well, as I said, I heard several bangs, like a car backfiring.”

  Grant shrugged off the condescending look. “Is that what you thought it was?”

  The woman’s look turned even more pitying. “This is Beacon Hill. Cars don’t backfire here.”

  “So you guessed it was gunfire?”

  “I suspected.”

  “But you didn’t look out to see.”

  “Not immediately. I didn’t know which way the gunshots were directed.”

  Grant smiled his understanding. Good point.

  “How soon after?”

  “A few minutes.”

  “And what did you see?”

  The woman rubbed her temple with one hand and closed her eyes while she searched her memory. When she opened them again, they were clear and sharp and focused.

  “I saw a man tying string across the street.”

  Grant nodded. That put a timescale on his arrival. He’d only just missed the shooter. It also meant the shooter must have been in a car unless he went into one of the houses. There’d been nobody outside when he arrived. Nobody running down Joy Street either. Mount Vernon was a one-way street. From Joy towards Louisburg Square.

  “Did you hear a car?”

  “I told you. Cars don’t backfire in Beacon Hill.”

  This was like pulling teeth.

  “Do their tyres squeal in Beacon Hill? When making good their escape?”

  The woman raised an eyebrow. “Ah yes. No, I did not.”

  Grant jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “When you looked out. Did you see anything opposite?”

  The look of pity returned. “Yes. A tree. And one across the road.”

  Grant turned to follow her gaze. The neatly cultivated trees that lined Mount Vernon Street were evenly spaced to leave room for streetlamps and parking. One of the trees was right outside the woman’s front door. Whoever planted them liked to keep things symmetrical. There was a matching tree directly opposite. She couldn’t have seen the front of Hunt’s address even if she’d been looking. The sight lines meant Grant should be asking further along either side.

  The woman lowered her voice. “You do have trees in England?”

  He let out a sigh and smiled. “Thank you, ma’am. You should have been a detective.”

  She smiled back, entering into the spirit of things. “I don’t need to be. Not when you’re here.”

  It was the third house along before Grant hit pay dirt. Between the first and second tree from the crest. Right where Grant had parked the Crown Vic. From that angle, the occupant could see diagonally across the street in roughly the same direction as the line of fire. The occupant wasn’t as wealthy as Daniel Hunt or as condescending as the woman down the street. He was a big, strong man in his mid-fifties who had worked in construction before starting his own building firm. Now he lived among the Boston aristocracy but would never be one of them. He was also the first one to offer Grant a drink.

  “You want sugar in that?”

  Grant held the cup of tea up.

  “One, please.”

  They might prefer coffee in America but Grant hadn’t met a builder yet who didn’t know how to brew a pot of tea. This was the first time he’d risked a cup he hadn’t made himself. It wasn’t half bad. Rod Basham produced a delicate china sugar bowl that looked tiny in his hands and Grant stirred one teaspoon of sugar into his tea.

  “Thanks.”

  The big man sat opposite Grant in the living room’s bay window. They both looked out of the window. Grant took a sip of tea, then turned back to Basham.

  “You got a good view then.”

  Basham took one last look across the street, then focussed on Grant. “Yeh. We don’t draw the curtains till bedtime. Drives my wife mad.”

  “It’s after bedtime now.”

  “Wasn’t back then. I don’t go up till late. I was just closing them. That’s why I was at the window.”

  Grant indicated a fancy light fixture. “Were your lights on?”

  Looking out at night depended on how bright it was inside. Too bright and all you’d see was the room reflected in the window. Lights off and you’d have a better view of outside. Basham shook his head.

  “Just the hallway. I only came in to close the curtains.”

  “Show me where you stood.”

  Basham moved into the alcove formed by the bay windows. To the left, as if drawing the curtains. Grant stood next to him, careful not to spill tea on the expensive carpet. If he moved to his right, the reflection of the hallway door blocked his view outside. Move back where Basham was standing and the reflection disappeared. Grant ticked that off his list of witness requirements. Things that would have to go in Basham’s statement if it ever came to that. Important to set the scene and show conditions at the time of the offence.

  Time of day: Was it day or night?

  Weather conditions: Was it clear or misty or chucking down with rain?

  Obstructions: Did he have a clear unobstructed view?

  Lighting conditions: Was the scene well-lit or in darkness?

  Distance: How far away was the witness?

  Length of time: How long was the witness watching?

  Grant had covered all bases. Now he needed Basham to expand on his initial explanation.

  “Good. So tell me again.”

  Basham looked across the street and gathered his thoughts. “Okay. I saw the guy opposite pull up outside his house and go unlock his door. Then this other car stops in the middle of the road and some guy starts firing out the window. First guy dives through the door and the car speeds off down the street. I couldn’t believe it. In Beacon Hill. That shit don’t happen here. I go to call the police but somebody’d already called.”

  Grant jerked a thumb next door.

  “Already seen her. Said she heard the gunshots but didn’t see anything.”

  Basham glanced back out the window.

  “Not surprised. Happened so fast by the time she looked out it’d have all been over.”

  Grant took another sip. Time to put some meat on the bones. “You said some guy started firing. Did you see it was a man?”

  Basham shook his head. “Figure of speech. Sorry. No. Just a shape.”

  “Driver or passenger?”

  Grant had to remind himself this was America. Left hand drive. Mount Vernon was a one-way street. The direction the car was travelling meant the driver was on the wrong side to be firing out the side window. Basham sucked in his breath as he reordered his thoughts.

  “Passenger. Front seat, I think, but can’t be sure.”

  “What kind of car was it?”

  “Sedan. Dark.
Sleek looking. Maybe a Ford.”

  “You get the number?”

  Basham shook his head again. “It was in the shadow from the trees when it stopped. Clipped the white Mercedes when it set off again though.”

  Grant looked out the window. He could see where that must have been. And the white Mercedes across the street. He’d have to check the damage for paint transference. Hopefully get a color for the dark sedan.

  “And as soon as it stopped, they fired at the guy opening his door.”

  “No. The passenger.”

  “Okay. The passenger fired at the guy opening his door.”

  Basham pointed at Hunt’s front door, then moved his hand to the right.

  “No, the other passenger. The shots weren’t at the guy opening his door. They were at the other guy got out of that guy’s car.”

  Grant looked blank for a moment.

  “Hunt had a passenger?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Back out on the street ten minutes later. Grant stood in the shadows between streetlamps and looked at the house across the road. The white Mercedes had a dent and a scrape on the rear driver’s side. A streak of blue paint, giving the color of the shooter’s car. It never bothered him that thieves and scumbags lied to him. They always did. It was to be expected. It was part of the game of cat and mouse between police and crooks that included finding enough evidence to uncover the lies and reveal the truth. Some of that evidence was physical, things that put the criminal at the scene even though he said he’d never been there. Some of it was using good interview technique to trap the thief in a lie that you could later drop on him with the aforementioned physical evidence.

  What annoyed Grant was when people he was trying to help lied through their teeth. Complainants who upped the value of their stolen property or claimed the damage was by a third party when they’d actually done it themselves. And people involved in shootings who failed to mention that the target was a passenger he hadn’t even said was there.

  Daniel Hunt was beginning to annoy Grant.

  The thing was, what to do about it?

  Obvious choice was to confront the man and get him to admit the truth. Stumbling block was the lead detective who wasn’t about to let Grant anywhere near the man who funded the chief’s re-election campaign and paid for Boston PD’s uniforms. Grant’s only play was to make DeLuca change his mind. Grant pondered that in the shadows between streetlamps, across the road from the target address.