by Karr, Kim
Frank exhaled and looked away. “I do, but I swore on my life to keep it to myself.”
Uneasiness moved through me. Whatever it was didn’t sound good at all, and I wasn’t sure any of us should know.
Logan eased forward. “Anything you can tell us about Mickey would be helpful.”
Frank looked contemplative.
“Listen, Frank, this is going to sound crazy but I have reason to believe Patrick’s former gang, the Dorchester Heights Gang, is reassembling. And that maybe Mickey is running it, going by the name ‘the Priest’ to keep his identity secret.”
Doubt passed over Frank’s face like a shadow.
“It sounds crazy, but it’s not completely out of the question,” Logan said.
Frank was shaking his head.
“Think about it—over the past few years the drug trafficking on the streets of Boston has been pegged to one supplier, but no one knows who he is. Cocaine use has more than doubled across all income levels, which means someone with a substantial network is supplying it. What if it’s been Mickey this whole time using former Dorchester Heights members? The ones Patrick didn’t welcome into Blue Hill?”
My stomach twisted into a thousand knots. Clementine’s grandfather running one of the biggest drug rings in the history of Boston meant that if word got out, she would be in constant danger. Kidnapping threats. Death threats. Mob danger. And to make things worse, I had no idea what Mickey felt for Clementine, if anything. At least I knew that Mickey wasn’t involved in his granddaughter’s care as far as I had observed. In fact, aside from my sister’s funeral, I’d only seen him one other time, over at Erin’s for her son Conner’s birthday. I’m not even sure we ever spoke another word after we were introduced there. Still, the thought that he might be leading a secret life didn’t make me feel good about Clementine’s environment.
Frank stood up and walked over to the sink in the corner of the room. He opened the pine cabinet beneath it and rummaged around for a bit before he pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He raised the bottle. “Anyone else need a drink?”
Logan gave a shake of his head and leaned back on the wooden chair. I worried it might not withstand the pressure and tried not to wince.
“I’ll take one,” Declan said.
“Me too,” I chimed in. I wasn’t a drinker, but thinking about Clementine in possible perpetual danger drove me to want one.
With a quiet thump, Logan brought his chair upright and leaned forward. “You okay?” he whispered so only I could hear. It was as if he was thinking the exact same thing I was and also didn’t like what that meant.
I nodded and put my hand on his knee. Just touching him made me feel so much better.
Frank continued to rummage around.
The room waited in quiet anticipation.
Logan placed his hand over mine, as if in reassurance that he’d make everything okay. The sentiment touched me. What we had together was so real, at times I had a hard time believing it. With Logan in my life, I knew what Charlie and I once shared wasn’t real love at all because real love doesn’t fall apart when someone is broken. Real love toughs it out . . . no matter what. Besides, according to Logan I wasn’t the least bit broken, and I chose to believe him.
The liquid poured easily into the glasses Frank found above the sink and went down even easier. Logan’s touch had already started to settle my nerves and this finished the deal.
Frank, on the other hand, downed one, then another glass. When he finished, he looked toward Logan, who seemed to have switched gears and suddenly gained patience. A slight trickle of perspiration broke on Frank’s forehead. “It’s not Mickey. I’m almost certain of that.”
Logan looked perplexed. “What do you know, Frank? What makes you say that?”
He gulped another sip. “This is dangerous information. What I’m about to tell you has to remain in this room. Promise me it won’t get out.”
Logan raised his right hand. “I promise. I swear on my own life.” He glanced around and Miles and Declan did the same, and then his eyes landed on mine. I didn’t raise my hand. I didn’t have to; he knew I’d never do anything that would hurt him.
Frank’s words sputtered out. “He’d never run a gang once run by Paddy Flannigan. Never. Besides, he wouldn’t have any trusted members. No one would work for him.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Everyone knows his wife died because of him. He broke code and didn’t protect his family. No one would work for a man like that.”
“What really happened, Frank?”
“His wife took a bullet meant for Paddy.”
Everyone’s eyes widened to the size of saucers.
Logan twisted in his seat and his right foot was tapping furiously on the floor. “Are you certain about that?”
Frank nodded. “It happened right here, in my pub, in front of me.”
“Who pulled the trigger?”
His response was an empty, “Mickey.”
What?
I felt like the room was spinning. All the air was sucked from my lungs. I think I gasped. A chill went down my spine and I suddenly felt very cold. Mickey and Rose were Clementine’s grandparents, and learning details of their tainted past made those knots in my stomach tighten even more.
Logan moved closer to me and the gesture warmed me instantly. I couldn’t believe how much I needed him.
“What happened, Frank?” he asked, with a softness in his voice that surprised me.
Frank squeezed his eyes closed. “It was 1989, just after the New Year. The weather was miserable and the pub was empty, so I sent the bartender home. I’d thought about closing early, but my wife had just left me and the thought of going home to an empty bed wasn’t appealing. In walked Paddy and he ordered his usual. He came in a lot back then. I used to joke with him that I was his therapist and was going to start charging. He and his wife were having trouble and I was no stranger to that.”
Logan narrowed his eyes in concentration. “So you and Patrick Flannigan were friends?”
The hollow laugh that escaped Frank’s throat sent chills through me. “Friends. That would be a stretch of the word. I did what I had to in order to stay on his good side. Molly’s was between Blue Hill and Dorchester Heights turf but hadn’t been claimed by either. That was enough to make me his best friend if he wanted me to be.”
“You were afraid he was going to make you pay for protection?” Declan asked.
He nodded. “Fuck yeah, I was. Listen, things had changed by then. The Irish Mob was no longer about the cause; the IRA had long been forgotten. Like now, it was about profit, but it was also about pride. I was lucky I hadn’t been forced to pay for protection like everyone else around me. I didn’t care whose friend I had to be; I just wanted to keep it that way.”
Declan raised a hand. “I’m not judging. My old man paid right up until the day Patrick Flannigan turned his back on everything Dorchester Heights for his shiny new Blue Hill Gang. That’s the only reason we were able to save enough to expand our business.”
Sympathetic looks passed between the men.
Logan squirmed a little, knowing he was the catalyst behind the merge, but in this case, it turned out to have had a positive impact on at least one family. “Go on, Frank. What happened next?”
“An hour or so had passed and he was pretty wasted. The door opened and Rose O’Shea came in, dressed to the nines. She was wearing a tight black dress, high heels, and a brand-new fur coat. I noticed it because I found it hard to believe Mickey could afford something like that. She strode right over to Paddy and sat down. Like it had been arranged. He ordered her a drink and they started talking. I didn’t know if the two of them knew each other, but Rose had come in enough that I was aware nothing but trouble could come out of her flirting with him. Sure enough, it didn’t take long for her to down a few martinis and for them to disappear into the bathroom.”
My heart was in my throat. What if Michael was like his mother?
“What happened next happened so fast, it’s all a blur. Mickey came in looking for Rose. The place was dark, but when she came out of the bathroom it was easy to see what she had been up to by how disheveled she was. Her hair was a mess and her red lipstick was smeared all around her mouth. Mickey lit up like I’d never seen him. The two were always physical, don’t get me wrong—her slapping him, him pulling her out of the bar by her hair—but that night, the anger on his face seemed to transform to hatred.”
My pulse started to race.
“‘Your kid got arrested tonight,’ he’d barked at her. She acted dumbfounded and he turned red as he eyed her.
“Rose started to throw a tantrum. She called him a liar. Blamed him for not loving the kid. Mickey’s laugh was bitter when he told her that her kid was just as vile as her. She called him weak, pathetic, said he wasn’t a real man. Out of nowhere, he charged at her, calling her a whore, a bitch, screaming at her, yelling. When he reached her he slapped her so hard she fell back, but before she hit the ground he grabbed her by the arm and the hair and started to drag her toward the door.”
I dared a glance around the room, but everyone was focused on Frank.
Frank was in his own world. “That’s when Paddy came out of the john and drew his gun. Told Mickey to let her go. Mickey shoved Rose away and went for his own gun, but Rose stumbled forward just as Mickey fired at Patrick and she took the bullet, right in the back of the head. Died instantly.”
Everyone was in a state of shock.
My hand flew to my mouth and I gasped.
Mickey killed his own wife.
Michael and Erin must not have even been teenagers at the time. Michael never spoke of his mother, but her picture was everywhere in his house; he obviously loved her. Erin never spoke of her either, and as far as I knew she had only that one photo of a family of five in her house and none of only her mother. The older boy in the photo must have been the son Mickey was referring to who had been arrested.
The words sins of the father echoed through my head. And for the first time, Logan’s theory that Michael had killed my sister didn’t sound so insane. I couldn’t dismiss the thought.
Logan pushed to his feet. “Kill a man’s dog, he’ll kill your best friend; kill a man’s brother, he’ll kill your mother; take a man’s girl, and he’ll kill you,” he muttered.
“What?” I asked.
“Something my gramps told me once.”
Frank nodded. “Old unwritten code of conduct, but in Mickey’s case he killed his own girl.”
“He must have blamed Patrick,” Declan commented.
“I’m sure he did, but he was so much weaker than Paddy, there was nothing he could do about it. He didn’t have any power. His own gang had already collapsed years before when he went after another gang’s leader for flirting with Rose, and both gangs tore each other apart. He was just a florist by then. He really was powerless.”
“I heard about that. Do you think Killian knew how Rose died?” Logan asked in a tone that was steely and sharp.
Frank slowly shook his head. “No one knew but the three of us. They both disappeared right after and I called the BPD. I claimed a guy wearing a ski mask came in, shot her, and then ran. They never questioned me. Gang violence was everywhere.”
“You never told anyone else?” Miles asked.
“No! My life and my daughter’s were on line. I knew to keep my mouth shut.”
“You don’t think Mickey could be pulling Patrick’s strings somehow?”
“I don’t see it,” Frank said.
“So why would Patrick kill his own son?”
“I don’t have a fucking clue,” Frank answered.
“Like you said, a life for a life,” Miles said to Logan.
Miles had grown up in Southie and still lived there. He was a beat cop before he went to work for the Gang Unit; he knew the way the streets worked here in Boston in a way I never would. But then again, so did Logan.
“That has to go much deeper than any of us could even have imagined,” Logan said.
His words were spoken in an eerie context. One that made my pulse thunder through me and my heartbeat become so erratic, I thought my heart might pop out of my chest. I was clenching my palms so tightly that the indentations from my short nails were sure to draw blood.
My mind was spinning.
Would this information impact Clementine?
I started to feel like there was a black cloud over me that was never going to clear.
Uncertainty made me wary.
Worry controlled me.
Fear owned me.
If knowledge was dangerous, this was deadly information.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
LOGAN
The back door to Molly’s had served well as my escape route over the past four months, but today I needed it more than ever.
My lungs felt like they were filled with rocks and I couldn’t breathe. I pushed the door open with a force that made it bang against the brick wall.
Out in the cool night, air seeped into my lungs and I took two controlled breaths.
In.
Out.
I arranged my thoughts in my mind. A distant memory was nagging at me. One I’d been trying to place since Frank first mentioned Mickey O’Shea’s wife.
Darkness was everywhere.
The night was so still, the water looked like a sheet of glass, the sky like a blank slate, and the wind was dialed down to a mere warm breeze.
The perfect summer night for chillin’.
I kicked my feet up and stretched my arms behind my head, letting my body rest comfortably on the canvas cushion beneath me. Relaxed in this way, I was in prime position for the swaying motion of the boat to lull me to sleep.
I was wiped out. My grandfather and I had spent the day moving fast through the open water and finding the best spot to fish. Now, we were cruising on the sea of glass, doing nothing, and I could tell my grandfather wasn’t ready to head back in yet. I didn’t care; I had nothing better to do, and the truth was, I liked being out on the open water. It made me feel like my world wasn’t crashing in all around me. Whether it was hormones kicking in or the simple fact that my parents didn’t get along, and their constant arguing was making all of our lives miserable, I didn’t know, and really, I didn’t care. Life just sucked.
Sure, I loved hanging out with James, but being able to get away from the sailing lessons and polo matches of the Hamptons was like a breath of fresh air. I could breathe out here. I wasn’t suffocating in fine linen or choking down a glass of Perrier.
My paternal grandfather, Killian McPherson, had come to my mother’s family estate in Southampton to bring me back to Boston. Good thing, too, because even though I didn’t have my license yet, I knew how to drive, and I was contemplating taking my grandfather Ryan’s Bugatti out for a spin.
Killian McPherson and I had a tradition. September second marked the anniversary of his and my grandmother’s wedding. Ever since my grandmother’s death, my grandfather disconnected from the world on Labor Day weekend, and he just so happened to take me along with him every time.
The bitter argument my parents had over where I was going to start high school sent my mother fleeing from Boston in early July and she had taken me with her. But another one of my parents’ longstanding disagreements wasn’t going to keep my grandfather and me apart, even if Grandpa Ryan was around. The two older men hated each other. Then again, they were so completely different; there was no way they couldn’t.
Whatever.
Exuding a confidence that always left me in awe, he scouted the area. Fully satisfied that we were nowhere, which was where he wanted to be, he twisted around. “Have your parents agreed where you’ll start high school yet?”
I sat up straight, digging my sneakers into the floorboards for traction. “I told my mother I wanted to stay in Boston even if she chose to remain in New York, and like some sort of miracle she agreed to let me attend Boston’s
Blackstone Academy. For now, anyway. My father told me later she only agreed because I’d been wait-listed at NYC Prep and Collegiate, so we’ll see what happens.”
“NYC Prep, isn’t that where James goes?”
I nodded. “If I have to leave Boston, I’ll hold out until I get in there.”
“Just stay on the straight and narrow, Logan. That boy seems to sniff out trouble.”
I laughed and said nothing. James and I were way more alike than my grandfather wanted to know.
He maneuvered the boat around one last time and then shut the engine off. The way he drove this boat with such ease left me in awe every time I watched him. He was just a powerhouse. A very tall, well-built man with a strength that was greater than that of anyone I knew. It wasn’t his size, though, that mattered. It was the power that oozed from him that allowed him to command the attention of anyone he came into contact with.
I’d never seen anything like it.
Turning all the way around, he ran a callused hand over the stubble of his white beard. “Well, since you’re staying in town for a while anyway, I want you to come work at the News Parlor a couple of days a week. It will keep you out of trouble and I could use the help.”
My brows popped. The News Parlor was my grandfather’s store. He sold mainly lottery tickets, newspapers, and magazines, but there was a roped-off section that I was dying to get into. I’d been asking to work for him for the past year and he shot me down every time. “Really? You mean it?”
“Do I ever say anything I don’t mean?”
I couldn’t hold back my smile. “Will I be working on Dorchester Avenue or at the track?” I asked. Suffolk Downs was an awesome place and I loved when he took me there.
“Where do you think?”
“Dorchester,” I responded with a sigh. It was worth a try.
He grinned. “I knew you were smart.”
“Did you ever hire that girl who lives next door to you?”
Those dark eyes narrowed on me. “She’s older than you and she’s seeing that boy Tommy Flannigan. I don’t want you getting involved with that shit. He’s nothing but trouble.”
