Scar Tissue

by Samantha Simard

  “Well it’s true,” Christopher argued, sounding a lot like the politician he was, determined to argue a point even when the majority was against him. “Matt O’Donovan’s dead, Jake Wolfe looks like hell, Captain Bach lost her sister—”

  Wolfe stood up from the couch, anger coiling in his gut. “I need to have a word with Christopher. Alone.”

  “Gladly, partner,” Scarlett said, a little too cheerfully. “We’ll go down to the cafeteria and get some coffee.”

  She gave Wolfe a pat on the shoulder and left the room with Caitlin, Frankie, and Melissa.

  Once they were gone, Wolfe dragged Frankie’s vacated chair over so it was next to Christopher’s bed. “You’ve got a lot of balls, saying that. About two more than I thought you did.”

  “I’m sorry, okay? I had to get everybody else to leave so we could talk, and I knew that would piss you off enough to want to tell me what a prick I am in private,” Christopher said, pitching his voice low. “I know you tried your hardest to catch that bastard, and so did those detectives.”

  “Yeah, and none of it was good enough,” Wolfe replied. He almost couldn’t believe Christopher was clever enough to clear the room in the way he had. “Now what did you want to talk to me about?”

  “Nobody’s gonna let this protection thing go, are they?” When Wolfe shook his head, Christopher continued, “Fine, but my brother is the only person from BPD I trust.”

  Wolfe raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

  “The police union hates me because I’m on the Republican ticket against Big Mike,” Christopher said. Michael “Big Mike” Draymond was the former chief of the Boston Police Department, and while Wolfe had never met the man, he’d heard you either loved him or wanted to punch him in the face. “And with that information leak they had during the Mass Art Murders—”

  “From what Kamienski told me they think the leak was somebody associated with the department, not actually in it.” Wolfe knew the department’s IT faction had been trying to figure out where the leaks to the media had come from for months, and they’d managed to trace some cyber evidence back to the medical examiner’s office. “Do you think Draymond had something to do with the shooting at Stela?”

  “I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised,” Christopher said. “He’s been hounding me like a dog with a bone—says I’m not conservative enough, that I’ve ‘been corrupted by the liberal media’.”

  Wolfe huffed out a laugh. “Is that code for ‘I’m afraid of the internet’?”

  Christopher tensed weirdly, like he wanted to shrug but stopped himself because of his shoulder. “Could be. Draymond is pretty old-school.”

  “Okay, but what about Anton Codreanu?”

  “What about him?”

  “You’re sure he didn’t plant the idea of police corruption in your head?”

  “Anton and I barely know one another,” Christopher said, annoyance bleeding into his tone. “And any conversations we’ve had have strictly been about the issues. Melissa probably told you he’s been a generous donor to the campaign.”

  Speak of the devil and he shall appear. Before Wolfe could respond, the door to the room opened and Anton Codreanu walked through it. He was trailed by two bodyguards sporting near-identical buzz cuts and harsh Eastern European facial features. They wore crisp black-on-black suits that offset their boss’s Sunday-golf-casual look, jackets cut to conceal the handguns they undoubtedly had holstered under their beefy arms.

  “Of course I’ve been generous, Christopher! You are the best candidate for governor Massachusetts has seen since I arrived in this country,” Anton said. His Romanian accent had been sanded down over the years, and he spoke with no true affectation despite his grand words. Eyes that matched Sebastian’s in color but were blank like a snake’s landed squarely on Wolfe. “My, my, if it is not Boston’s finest!” He extended a hand. “I do not believe we have met.”

  Wolfe thought: You had my brother tortured. You make your son do terrible things. You want to kill my father.

  Wolfe said: “We haven’t.” He forced himself to stand and shake Anton’s hand. He wanted to crush the other man’s fingers, to whip his arm into a spiral fracture and throw him on the floor, stomp his head beneath his boot. He did none of those things. “I’m Jim Wolfe.”

  “Ah, the illustrious detectiv.” Wolfe didn’t know it was possible for a human being to sound so sardonic in the space of four words, but Anton managed it. “My son speaks highly of you—nothing but praise for the lovely private investigator who did not report an unfortunate car accident.”

  It wasn’t an accident, Wolfe wanted to say. You ordered him to rear-end me on purpose, wanted him to get under my skin when Diana couldn’t. Sebastian had admitted as much back in April, but Wolfe had that part of Anton Codreanu’s crazy scheme figured out before his confession.

  However, Wolfe knew that while Anton may not have been expecting to see him in Christopher’s hospital room, he was now trying to figure out how to twist this situation to his advantage. The easiest way to play into Anton’s hand would be to reveal exactly how much Wolfe knew about his theory that his eldest son Vladimir’s murderer—Wolfe’s father, David—was alive, despite being declared dead by the Army over two decades ago. Since David was in fact alive and Wolfe had gotten the majority of his information about Anton’s lust for revenge from Sebastian, it was safer for everyone for Wolfe to play dumb.

  That didn’t mean he had to like it. “My driving record isn’t spotless, and your son made an honest mistake.” And I have a crush on him that’s approximately the size of Alaska so I kind of want to kill you.

  Anton looked at him with a critical, calculating eye, but he appeared to buy the dumbass act Wolfe was trying to sell. He turned his attention back to Christopher: “Mr. Sullivan, you have my deepest apologies for what transpired at Stela last night. I would like to offer as many of my men as you require for personal protection until the primary election.”

  Christopher opened his mouth to reply, but Wolfe didn’t trust him to not fuck it up.

  “That’s a generous offer, Mr. Codreanu,” Wolfe said, “but we have it handled. We’ll be providing Mr. Sullivan with security and doing some investigating of our own until BPD knows more about what happened.”

  “Well, I’m sure the department will be working on it night and day,” Anton said. He clasped his hands behind his back, the picture of false humility. “Tell me, how is Captain Bach? It must have been so painful to lose her sister in such a gruesome manner.” A cruel imitation of sympathy twisted his expression. “And speaking of which—how is your brother, Mr. Wolfe? Is Jake all right?”

  “Hanging in there,” Wolfe replied. If he gritted his teeth any harder he’d crack a molar. “We’re taking it one day at a time.”

  “And I wish him nothing but the best.” Anton was such an adept liar that he had no tells, something that Wolfe had only seen in true crime films about psychopaths and sociopaths. “Mr. Sullivan, if you need anything, you have my number.” He made to leave, his two bodyguards following along like overdressed gorillas. “Best of luck with your investigation, detectiv.”

  “About that,” Wolfe said, causing Anton to pause in the doorway. “You wouldn’t have any idea of who’d want to shoot up your restaurant, would you?”

  Anton smiled, and it was reminiscent of the way a shark might grin if it sensed blood in the water. “None at all. Have a pleasant day.”

  ~***~

  Chapter Four

  Down on Brookline Avenue, Laine and Aiden Parker strolled past Fenway Park, greasy slices of pepperoni pizza from Sal’s in hand. They were dressed like the tourists milling up and down the block, in shorts and tank tops and brand new Red Sox hats. Laine’s distinctive red hair was tucked up underneath her cap and large tortoiseshell sunglasses mostly obscured the scar across her face.

  Aiden took a bite of his pizza and raised his phone, snapping pictures like any young man would—he even took a few of his sister when she stopped to
pose in front of a restaurant. “People probably think you’re an Instagram model.”

  Laine snorted even as she flashed him a cheesy grin. “Only from a distance.”

  They passed the intersection with David Ortiz Drive and Jersey Street, Laine pausing again to pose in front of the baseball-shaped sign for the Kenmore parking lot. She took a good, long look at the building directly next to the lot, inspecting it from top to bottom from behind her shades.

  “I’ve got one security guard,” she murmured, smile still plastered on her face as Aiden snapped away. “He’s by the entrance closest to the street, but I doubt he’ll still be here at game time.”

  “You prepared to do something about him if he is?” Aiden asked, and there was an undercurrent of malice in his voice that made Laine tense. “I won’t be around to help you if he’s a problem.”

  “He won’t be,” she replied, hoping she sounded surer than she felt. “I have no interest in hurting anyone besides the target, Aiden, and neither should you. We’re not like those idiots that shot up Stela last night—we have a message to send.”

  They kept walking, past the building and the security guard, and Aiden licked pizza grease off his fingers. He gave his sister a harsh once-over out of the corner of his eye and said, “Don’t forget that part, Lainey. The message comes before anything—and anyone—else.”

  Laine swallowed the last bite of her pizza, the doughy treat suddenly a hard ball in her stomach. “I know, Aiden. I’ll do what I have to.”

  ~***~

  Christopher Sullivan’s campaign office was in his hometown of Somerville on the stretch of Broadway west of I-93, crammed between an optician and a bank in a small strip mall. The windows were papered with large photographs of Christopher’s face, bordered by a red and white stars-and-strips motif that was probably meant to be patriotic but looked tacky to Wolfe’s jaded eyes. There were conflicting odors from a taco place at one end of the street and an Ethiopian restaurant at the other, and some local kids rolled on their skateboards near the corner Gulf station, soaking up the last dregs of summer before they were forced back to school.

  Constantin and Sebastian were loitering outside the campaign office, both of them leaning against the optician’s brick wall, albeit in vastly different stances. Constantin stood at attention in his usual black-on-black suit despite the heat of the sun, hair slicked back and a perpetual frown on his craggy face; Sebastian slouched next to him in designer skinny jeans and a blue t-shirt, booted feet crossed at the ankles and a lit Camel dangling from crooked fingers. There were a couple of trucks from the local news channels camped out across the street, but the reporters and their cameramen seemed too preoccupied with setting up the perfect backdrop for their shot to be interested in anything actually happening at the office.

  The Corvette purred to a stop behind Constantin’s black Mercedes sedan. Sebastian elbowed his bodyguard to get his attention, taking one last drag from his cigarette before grinding it underfoot. Constantin shrugged his shoulders with disinterest, because evidently now that he knew Scarlett and Wolfe weren’t a threat to his charge, he’d rather continue daydreaming.

  Scarlett hopped out of the passenger’s seat of the ‘Vette and got to them first, wrapping her arms around Sebastian in a hug. “Hey, dude—you okay? Last night sounds like it was pretty fucked up.”

  Sebastian looked pleasantly surprised but returned the embrace. “I’m fine. I heard on the news that the others who were injured are all going to be okay. How is Christopher?”

  Scarlett snorted. “A pain in the ass, but he’ll live… at least if we have anything to say about it.”

  “Which we will since we’re getting paid, but also because Caitlin will literally force me to watch her mother cry if he gets murdered,” Wolfe added, stepping up in Scarlett’s place and going for a hug of his own. He came from a family of huggers—Scarlett had learned it from them—so he figured it wouldn’t be weird if he hugged Sebastian too. Friends hugged all the time, toxic masculinity surrounding the idea of men showing affection be damned.

  What Wolfe wasn’t expecting was how nice it would be.

  Sebastian was just under six feet tall, so he could hook his chin over Wolfe’s shoulder and not get his face smushed somewhere by his armpit (which was something that Wolfe liked to avoid). His dark hair tickled the side of Wolfe’s face where it curled behind his ear, and his smaller frame was solid with muscle even though he was thin enough that Wolfe could feel his ribs through the back of his shirt. He’d sucked in a sharp breath initially but let it out a second later, hands coming up to grip Wolfe’s back as he returned the hug.

  “I met your father today,” Wolfe said as he pulled back, clenching his hands into loose fists to stave off the urge to brush that one errant piece of hair off Sebastian’s forehead. “He was shorter than I expected.”

  Sebastian’s eyes went wide. “You met Anton? How?”

  “He probably went to see Christopher in hospital,” Constantin guessed, and when Wolfe nodded he let out a snort. “That is Anton, always pretending to possess the capacity for feelings. Like guilt.”

  “He offered Christopher some men for protection, but thankfully Jimmy managed to dissuade him,” Scarlett said. She’d gotten the whole story on the ride from Tufts to the campaign office. “Hopefully he gets the hint and backs off.”

  Constantin snorted again. “Not likely. It’s Anton.”

  In an effort to fade the worry lines from Sebastian’s face, Wolfe changed the subject: “So how’s your mom? She need anything else fixed?”

  Stela Goodyear née Codreanu remarried to a kindhearted and well-off accountant, but Nathan was one of those people who insisted on trying to be a handyman while knowing nothing about home improvement. Therefore he failed, sometimes spectacularly, to get anything done. His most recent folly involved setting some painting rags on fire when he left them by a well-lit garage window to dry and they promptly caught on fire. It wasn’t a surprise that once Stela met Wolfe and realized he was handy, she would call or text occasionally to have Wolfe fix Nathan’s mistakes while he was at work.

  Sebastian smiled, bringing out the dimples in his cheeks and the light in his bottle-blue eyes. “Actually, she asked me to ask you to come by when you get a chance. From what I understand, Nathan managed to coat the entirety of the cabinet under the kitchen sink in silicone but he didn’t fix what was wrong with the sink in the first place.”

  Constantin grunted, shaking his head. “That man is a menace. Is that not the exact situation in which most people would call a plumber?”

  “Why bother when you know a guy who’s got a master’s degree in engineering that he never uses and will work for plum dumplings?” Wolfe opened the door and held it for the others, stepping into the air conditioned space last and breathing in the scent of copy paper and old coffee. “Wow, this is… not what I was expecting.”

  The office was all one room, with cream walls and dark green carpeting that was meant to hide dirt. Large gray filing cabinets lined one wall, and the rest of the space was taken up by several post-form desks that looked like they had been assembled by a drunk blind man and plastic folding chairs that were either from a rental company or somebody’s backyard. One sad-looking houseplant sat atop the water bubbler, directly below yet another poster with Christopher’s face on it.

  “Disappointing, isn’t it?” a female voice said, emerging from one of two doors along the back wall. “I told Christopher we needed to spice up the décor, but his sense of style is about as exciting as a piece of white bread.” The woman was around Scarlett’s height, with brown wavy hair cut in a short layered style and eyes like polished pieces of onyx. She wore a pale lilac jumpsuit that looked light and flowy, but shoulder pads and black pumps gave her a don’t fuck with me edge even as she stuck out her hand. “Nikki Shaw, campaign manager for the next governor of Massachusetts—you know, providing he doesn’t die.”

  Wolfe shook her hand and introduced her around. The lack of people
other than Nikki in the office was surprising, so his first question was: “Where is everyone?”

  “Told them to stay home,” Nikki replied with a shrug. “Everyone’s a volunteer except for me, and the last thing we need right now is someone blabbing to the media.” Crossing her arms over her chest, she looked Wolfe up and down. “From the way your military record describes you I expected you to be a spit-shined asshole.”

  Wolfe raised an eyebrow. “How the hell did you get your hands on my file?”

  Nikki smiled, red lips glossy under the fluorescent lights. “Got a guy at the Pentagon who owes me about twenty favors. Even he could only get a heavily-redacted version, of course, but it told me enough. Three tours of every shithole the Middle East has to offer with a Silver Star and a Purple Heart to show for it, honorable discharge at Sergeant thanks to grievous injury. You know what that tells me about you?”

  Scarlett looked like she was debating between being impressed and strangling Christopher’s campaign manager. “Please, enlighten us.”

  “It tells me you’re loyal, brave, and maybe a little bit crazy,” Nikki said, not unkindly. “What it doesn’t tell me is how well you choose your friends.” She looked at Sebastian. “I advised Christopher to stay the hell away from your father, but Anton provided us with a donation at an important time.”

  “My father has the ability to make himself invaluable to whomever he’s trying to manipulate,” Sebastian said. Glancing at Wolfe and Scarlett, he added hastily, “I can assure you I am not here to act as his spy. That is what I told him I was doing, but I’m actually their intern.”

  Nikki took that in, nodded to herself, and turned to Constantin. “What about you?”

  Constantin jutted his chin in Sebastian’s direction. “I go where he does. No exceptions.”

  Scarlett pulled a face. “That makes it sound like you stand over him while he takes a shit, which, ew.” Her expression went flat when she met Nikki’s dark gaze. “What about me, huh? You’re not gonna psychoanalyze me based on my record?”