Murder in the Charlestown Bricks: A Dermot Sparhawk Crime Novel

by Tom MacDonald

  “Who’s his best friend?”

  “I don’t know his friends anymore,” she said. “I moved away from Charlestown. I live in Jamaica Plain now, not in the projects.”

  “You must remember some of them.”

  “I never paid attention. They were trouble.”

  Ester wasn’t going to tell me a thing, but I pressed ahead anyway. “Back to his friend Juan, he might live in Dorchester or Roxbury. Juan boxed with Victor in Lowell.”

  “Juan who?”

  “I don’t know his last name,” I said.

  “Don’t know him.”

  “How about a girlfriend? Was Victor seeing anyone?”

  “Victor always has girlfriends, usually more than one.” Ester brushed my hair with a tortoiseshell comb and assessed her work. She then flipped open a straight razor and stared at my throat. “He doesn’t take girls seriously. He doesn’t appreciate them.”

  “Can you remember any of their names or where they lived or worked? I’m trying to save Victor’s life, Ester.”

  She applied shaving gel to the back of my neck and went to work with the razor, tickling my skin with each swipe of the blade.

  “I don’t remember their names.” She stepped back and looked at my hair again. “Victor probably doesn’t remember their names, either. He uses them.”

  She simultaneously defended him and attacked him — like a typical sister.

  “What else can you tell me about Victor?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “I don’t hang around with him anymore.”

  I asked her a few more questions, and in true Townie fashion she dodged them. I didn’t learn a damn thing, but at least my hair looked good. I handed her two hundred dollars for a tip and met Cheyenne in the waiting area.

  “How did it go?” she asked.

  “Lousy,” I growled.

  “That’s too bad. Wait for me in the car, and I’ll see what I can do.” She kissed me on the cheek.

  I went to the car and listened to the experts on sports radio. Nothing changes in Boston, not when it comes to sports. We build up our heroes to tear them down, and the harder they fall the happier we are. Today the Red Sox were on the chopping block, primed to be dissected by the Hub’s baseball gurus. Everyone knew what was wrong with the team, and everyone knew how to fix it. The hosts knew, and the callers knew. All of them could do a better job running the club, given the chance, but of course they’d never get the chance, so they managed from cell phones and broadcasting booths instead of dugouts. The game was simple, they said, and they cited lessons learned in little league or softball, real inside baseball. They offered advice to hitters, strategies to pitchers, and can’t-miss prospects to scouts. Some thought the manager should be fired, while others thought he should be extended.

  It would be easy to laugh at Red Sox Nation, but I can’t because I’m one of them. I knew how to fix the Red Sox, too. An hour later Cheyenne came out to the car and looked at me.

  “Well, what do you think?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My hair, how does it look?”

  Oops… “Oh, tremendous,” I said. “You always look tremendous.”

  She punched my arm. “It doesn’t count if I had to ask.” She grinned, and her cell phone rang. “Sorry, Dermot, I have to take this.”

  As she talked on the phone I meandered back to Boston, wanting the ride to last a long time. I drove down the VFW Parkway and the Jamaicaway and Brookline Avenue. If I came to a yellow light, I stopped instead of pushing through, a mortal sin in Boston. My punishment for the offense was the blasting of car horns, but it was worth it to be with Cheyenne a little longer. When we got to Teele Square, Cheyenne hung up the phone and said, “Sorry about that. School stuff, prison stuff.”

  “No problem.”

  “So, I had an interesting conversation with Ester. I can’t wait to tell you about it.”

  It never occurred to me that Ester might have told Cheyenne things that she didn’t tell me. Hell, she didn’t tell me anything. “You questioned her?”

  “I didn’t question her. We just talked.”

  I parked in front of her building.

  “Come on up,” she said. “I’ll make coffee.”

  We went up to her apartment, which was a small studio on the second floor with two small windows and a galley kitchen. A tan couch centered the room and a wing chair sat in a corner. I saw no TV or desktop computer. A painting of a man with intense eyes hung on the wall. A tin plaque on the frame read ‘Henry Starr, The Cherokee Bad Man.’ Cheyenne must have seen me looking at it, because she said, “That’s my grandfather.”

  “He looks like a tough guy.”

  “He was. Look him up on the Internet. Henry Starr was a legend.”

  She came out of the galley holding two mugs of coffee and placed them on the end table, took one of them and sat on the couch. I took the other and sat next to her. Cheyenne said, “I asked Ester about Victor’s friends. She told me he has only one friend, Juan Rico. Rico lives in Grove Hall. Rico was the accomplice.”

  “Ester told you that?”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “Wow, I’m impressed. How did you get her to talk?”

  “We spoke Spanish,” she said. “I think it made her feel more comfortable, because everyone else in the spa speaks English. No one could understand us.”

  “I didn’t know you spoke Spanish?”

  “I also speak Portuguese and little Italian, and I’m trying to learn various Wampanoag dialects, too,” she said.

  “Smart and beautiful.”

  Cheyenne blushed. “You rattled Ester a little when you said you talked to her mother. She doesn’t want anyone to know that she grew up in the Charlestown projects. I think she felt relieved to speak in Spanish, and she became more relaxed as the conversation went on. By the end of it we were talking freely, like friends.”

  “I didn’t mean to rattle her,” I said. “Did she say if Victor has a girlfriend?”

  “He had a girlfriend, but she died of an overdose — heroin laced with fentanyl. She never had a chance.” Cheyenne’s voice softened. “Another opioid death in the city, what else is new?”

  “It’s a plague.”

  “Mmm.” She sipped her coffee. “So, how did I do?”

  “You did great work. I think I need to hire you.” I kissed her. “Thank you.”

  “It was fun, very exciting, actually. What’s your plan now?”

  “I need to find Juan Rico,” I said.

  “Ester thinks she can track him down. There’s more.” Cheyenne stopped talking and leaned on me, wedging into my side. “Ester is terrified of her boyfriend. She wants to break it off, but she’s afraid of what he’ll do.”

  “Do you want me to help?” I asked. “I’ll come down on him like —”

  “I knew you would say that. I love that you want to defend her.” She leaned over and kissed my cheek and then my ear. “Ester wants to get away from him, but she can’t afford it. Motels add up fast. I offered to find her a safe house for abused women, but she’d have to quit her job.”

  “Why?”

  “Safe houses don’t allow the residents to work, because their boyfriends could follow them there and put everyone in jeopardy.”

  I took a sip of my coffee, and an idea came to me.

  “My friend Al Barese owns a hotel called Casa Abruzzi in the Ink Block. I’ll tell him about Ester’s predicament. If you think I’m protective, wait ’til you meet Al. He’ll insist that Ester stay at Casa Abruzzi until she straightens things out with her boyfriend.”

  “He will?” she said. “How do you know Al?”

  “He coached me at Boston College.” I chuckled, thinking back. “Al Barese was the most demanding man I have ever met — anywhere, not just football — and the best motivator, too.” I
won the Butkus Award for best college linebacker in the nation because of him. “When his father retired from Hotel Abruzzi, Al took over the operation.”

  “It sounds too good to be true,” she said. “What if Ester’s boyfriend follows her there?”

  “He’ll wish he hadn’t.” I thought about the situation. “Talk to Ester. Convince her to take a week off from work. That will give me time to fix the mess she’s in.”

  “How much will it cost?”

  “Don’t worry about it. Tell Ester to pack, and I’ll call Al and fill him in.”

  “Are you always this good at fixing problems?”

  Cheyenne kissed me and I kissed her back. Prickling electricity shocked my insides, as if my heart had touched a bare wire. My head went woozy, so woozy I thought I might faint. But I didn’t faint, which was a good thing, because if I had, I would have missed the rest.

  20

  Early the next morning I heard Cheyenne stirring in the kitchen. She came into the room and handed me a cup of coffee and sat on the edge of the bed.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  “You ain’t kidding.” I pulled her to me.

  She snuggled into my chest. “Last night was perfect. I feel like we’ve been together forever.”

  “I agree,” I said. “Let’s go for a perfect morning.”

  “Now now.” She sat up. “I think we have a lead.”

  “A lead?”

  “I’m trying to sound like a P.I.” She handed me a glass of water. “Ester called while you were asleep. She set up a meeting with Juan Rico.”

  “You’re kidding me. You already found him?”

  “Ester found him,” Cheyenne said. “The meeting is at five o’clock in Grove Hall. Ester insisted on coming with us. She’s moving out today.”

  “You work fast, that’s good news.”

  “I told her we’d pick her up.”

  At four o’clock we went to Keldara Spa and Salon and picked up Ester, who came out carrying two suitcases. The three of us drove to Grove Hall, with Cheyenne’s cellphone GPS dictating the best route. We turned onto Blue Hill Avenue near Franklin Park and pulled over at the corner of Geneva Avenue, one of the most dangerous intersections in the city, not because of the traffic, but because of the gangs. At least it was daytime.

  “He said he’d be down there.” Ester pointed at an alley. “That’s what he told me.”

  We got out of the car and went down an alley that was paved with broken bottles and crushed butts. The path doglegged to the left, bending behind a brick building that secluded us from the streets. A tall chain-link fence topped with razor wire blocked the end of it, offering no escape. I felt like a desperado trapped in a canyon, but instead the threat coming from a band of Mexican marauders like in an old Western, it’d come from a team of MS-13 gangsters. I looked at Ester.

  “This is where he said to meet,” she said.

  “Hey,” a man’s voice said, “over here.”

  I turned around and saw a diminutive Hispanic man, wearing baggy beige shorts and a drab-green tank top, standing in the shade. His hair was longish, and he hadn’t shaved.

  “Juan Rico?” I asked, feeling like a dummy. Who else would it be?

  “Yes, I’m Juan.” He was smartly on the other side of the fence, the fence serving as a barrier. “Victor didn’t kill the old lady. She was dead when we broke in.”

  “Are you willing to testify to that in court?” I asked, hoping.

  “If I do, I’ll go away for murder.” He stood a yard away from the fence, out of reach, ready to run if he had to. “All I can tell you is Victor didn’t kill her. And I didn’t, either. She was already dead.”

  “Victor said the same thing.” I looked at his small feet. “I believe you.”

  “That doesn’t mean a court will believe me.”

  I wasn’t prepared for this. If I had taken an affidavit form with me, I could have documented his testimony. But I didn’t, and that angered me. It meant I was distracted.

  “Victor will do a lot of time, Juan.”

  “If I testify, we’ll both do a lot of time.”

  “Not if she was already dead,” I said.

  “Who’s going to believe us?”

  I didn’t debate him, because he was probably right.

  “Tell me about the coins,” I said.

  “Victor knew about the coins. He heard that the old lady had jars of them inside her apartment. We knocked a couple of times, but no one answered.”

  “So you broke in.”

  “We thought no one was home. Victor took the coins on the table. We started looking for the jars, and that’s when we saw her on the floor. I got out of there. Victor stayed too long.”

  “Does he have a girlfriend?”

  “He did, she died.”

  I thought about the crime scene and asked, “Was there a third man in on the break-in, or was it just you and Victor?”

  “Just us two,” he said. “Why?”

  I told him about the bloody footprint made by a large shoe. Juan said he didn’t notice it. He didn’t notice anything, except the dead woman on the floor. Juan didn’t look like a killer to me, which was wonderful for him, but it wouldn’t help Victor Diaz much.

  “Are you sure you won’t testify?” I asked again.

  “Juan,” Ester pleaded. “Please help Victor. He’s your friend.”

  “I can’t,” he said, and then he was gone, vanishing in the other direction.

  I looked at Cheyenne and Ester and said, “Now what?”

  “We got what we came for, a meeting with Juan Rico,” Cheyenne said. “He told us the same story that Victor told you. That must count for something.”

  “It does,” I said. “And we know he’s not the killer, because of his feet.”

  I wanted more from Juan Rico, but the meeting was still successful. He corroborated Victor’s version of events.

  “Let’s go to the Casa Abruzzi,” I said. “You’ll be safe there, Ester.”

  21

  We drove up Harrison Avenue and parked in front of Casa Abruzzi, a brick structure with keystone windows framed in granite. Casa Abruzzi contrasted with the luxury hotels and condos sprouting up around it, refreshingly so. I grabbed Ester’s suitcases from the trunk. A redcap held the door as we went inside, stepping from rough concrete to luxurious carpeting. The lobby exemplified Old World elegance, with its dark woods and center staircase, its rococo balusters and mahogany banisters. To the right was a coffee bar with a copper espresso machine that looked like a deep-sea diving helmet. To the left was a barbershop enclosed in glass walls. The gold-leaf lettering on the glass read Andy the Clipper.

  Al Barese, a muscular man with dark brown eyes and a strong nose, greeted us wordlessly, his eyes showing concern. His brother Andy, a modern-day Luca Brasi, took Ester’s suitcases from me. They looked like lunchboxes in his hands. No one spoke, unless you counted Al Barese’s body language, which communicated alarm. I wondered if I had overstated Ester’s quandary to him.

  Al and Andy escorted us to a suite in the rear of the building, and it was commodious, a square room with high ceilings and tall wainscoting. I introduced Ester to Al, just to get people talking, and Ester told Al her story. Al listened with intent, asking Ester questions as she talked, especially when she talked about her boyfriend.

  “Does he carry a gun?” Al asked.

  “He always carries a gun, and so do his friends.” She started to say something else and stopped, and then her eyes widened. “He wears a wrist knife, too. He straps the sheath to his forearm and the blade clicks out the end.”

  “A spring-loaded assassin’s stiletto,” Al said. He looked at Andy, who nodded and left the room. Al continued. “I’m told he deals drugs.”

  “I didn’t know that when I met him. He moved in with me, and then his friends —
they’re mostly Cape Verdean — they started hanging around my apartment. I overheard some phone calls, and I figured out they were dealing.”

  “He’s dangerous,” Al affirmed.

  “He’s extremely dangerous, but I didn’t know that when I met him. I thought he was a nice guy.”

  “A charmer.” Al folded his hands and lowered his head, and while looking at the floor he said, “You’ll be safe here. You can stay as long as you want.”

  “Thank you,” Ester said.

  “Yes, thank you for this, Al,” Cheyenne said. “You are doing a wonderful thing. Now why don’t you gentlemen catch up in the lobby, while Ester and I talk?”

  We went to the lobby and sat in leather chairs. Out on Harrison Avenue, pedestrians paced by while texting messages, walking into the street oblivious to traffic. Instead of the pedestrians looking both ways before they crossed, drivers looked both ways to avoid hitting them. It was ass backwards.

  “She’s a knockout,” Al said. “Are you seeing her?”

  “We’re just starting out.”

  “I like an assertive woman.” Al must have noticed me looking at the barbershop, because he said, “Andy has a select clientele, old goombahs from East Boston and the North End. Each client keeps a straightedge razor in the shop.”

  Andy joined us, and in a deep voice he said. “I give the closest shave in the city. If you want to join the club, buy a razor. Carbon steel is the best. I’ll strop it sharp.”

  I looked at Andy’s banana fingers and gorilla wrists. A straight-razor shave? If he twitched, he’d cut my head off.

  “Let me think about it, Andy.”

  A redcap opened the brass-framed doors and two Italian men entered the lobby wearing European-style suits, one in a charcoal chalk-stripe, the other in an indigo sharkskin. The man in the sharkskin glanced at Al, but just barely, and went to the coffee bar with his pal.

  “Help has arrived,” Al said. “My version of going to the mattresses, my good friends from Eastie. They’ll hang around for a couple of days, just in case there’s trouble. The Cape Verdeans are tough sons of bitches.”