This time, McGreevy’s end went quiet for a long time. “His niece is saying it, or you are?” he asked finally. “If you have something you want to say to me, Markham, I’d appreciate it if you just stated it directly.”
“The local authorities were desperate to solve this case,” Reed replied. “We both know how sometimes that pressure can cause people to make mistakes.”
“You’re not talking about a mistake. You’re implying a frame-up.”
“I’m implying nothing. I’m just asking questions.”
“Yeah? Go on, then. Ask.”
“Why was Kevin Powell on Emerson Street the night of the fire? He said he was on his way home, but his house was in the opposite direction from Gallagher Furniture.”
“Jesus Christ, Reed. Maybe he took a wrong turn. You ever try to navigate the streets of Boston in the dark after you’ve had a few under your belt? Those roads were laid down by cows three hundred years ago.”
“You’re saying no one investigated him.”
“Investigated him?” McGreevy scoffed on the other end. “He was a goddamned hero. He not only rescued the woman from the fire, he caught the guy who started it. The man probably hasn’t had to buy a drink in Boston his whole life. If you want to try to rewrite that canonized piece of city lore, you’d better come up with something more than maybe he took a wrong turn on a dark street.”
“There was a witness who disappeared,” Reed said. “A drifter.”
“The Blaze? Half the task force was convinced that guy never existed.”
“I’ve got a city cop who will swear he did.”
“Now listen here,” McGreevy said, his voice low and urgent, “I don’t know what you’re up to with this crap, but I don’t like it. I granted you a couple of days to go up there and consult in a possible serial rape investigation, and instead, here you are muckraking in a case that is ancient history. Calling me up with a bunch of innuendo and nonsense, running down a good man’s name in the process. So you listen up, and you listen good because I am not going to repeat this: the niece is going nowhere with her case. Luis Carnevale is a sociopath who gets his jollies burning up little kids and watching firemen risk their lives to put out the fires he started. He was guilty as hell twenty-six years ago, and there is one way you can be a hundred percent sure of it: the fires stopped when we locked the sonofabitch up.”
Reed cleared his throat. “Noted,” he said.
“Your ass better be on the plane in two hours,” McGreevy said. “And then I’ll expect you back here Monday morning, with your attention focused where it belongs.”
“Yes, sir,” Reed replied, looking up as he spied Ellery walking toward him. She was redressed in street clothes and running a towel over her wet hair. She raised her eyebrows at him when he hung up with McGreevy. “McGreevy is convinced they got the right guy in Luis Carnevale,” he told her.
“Figures,” she said. “I look forward to hearing the other side.”
“What do you mean?”
“Bertina Jenkins, Carnevale’s niece. I gave her office a call this morning, and I’m meeting with her in forty-five minutes to talk about the case.” She walked back toward the kitchen, the towel over her shoulder, and paused at the counter to pick up a cold blueberry pancake. He watched as she broke off a piece and ate it.
“Bertina Jenkins agreed to see you? Just like that?” he asked, somewhat incredulous.
“Turns out there is an upside to being infamous,” she replied, a hint of mischief in her gray eyes. “Everyone wants to meet you.” She dusted off her hands and regarded him. “I can drop you at the airport first, if you want.”
Reed checked his watch, debating whether he could still make it back to the hotel to fetch his belongings. “How about you drop me off at the airport after?” he countered, and Ellery’s mouth widened into a grin.
* * *
Bertina Jenkins, of the upscale Jenkins & Associates Law Firm, worked out of a sleek office in a building right in the heart of downtown. The waiting area featured comfortable chairs, tasteful art, and actual living plants, as well as a partial view of the snow-covered Boston Common. Reed was most impressed by the TV screen playing what was essentially an extended advertisement for the firm, with Bertina Jenkins and her fellow lawyers nodding sympathetically at would-be defendants, striding purposefully up the courthouse steps, and glad-handing grateful clientele who had apparently beaten all charges. The production values were high, the staging savvy, and Reed could see why this woman had managed to raise attention about her uncle’s case in the media. She clearly knew how to craft a message.
Reed rose along with Ellery when Bertina emerged from her office. She was shorter than she’d appeared in the video, barely over five feet, but angling to seem taller with three-inch heels and a smooth, elaborate top-knot hairdo. She had a warm, firm handshake and a quick smile. “Ellery Hathaway,” she said. “I’ve read a lot about you.”
“I could say the same for you,” Ellery answered as Bertina led them back to her office.
Reed wondered, if Ellery hadn’t shot the man who’d tried to kill her, who’d tried to kill them both, if this woman would have been happy to take over the murderer’s defense. The walls of her office were covered in plaques, diplomas, and various smiling pictures of Jenkins and local celebrities. Reed recognized the late Mayor Menino and Red Sox slugger David Ortiz among the photographs.
“So you’re interested in my uncle’s case,” she said as they took their seats. “Why is that?” Reed gave her points for sitting with them on one side of the desk rather than placing herself in opposition on the other side.
“Ms. Jenkins,” Ellery began, but the woman cut her off.
“Call me Bertie, please. Everyone does.”
“Bertie,” Ellery tried again, sounding a bit more uncomfortable with the informal moniker. “I recently made the acquaintance of Myra Gallagher, the woman who was injured in the fire.”
“Terrible, awful thing. That poor woman.”
“Yes,” Ellery said. “As you might imagine, she’s been upset by all the recent news coverage.”
“I’m sorry for that,” Bertie said, laying a hand over her heart. “Truly, I am. But I have to get justice for Luis somehow.”
“I’ve seen you on the news,” Ellery said, “and you seem very convinced he’s innocent. I was just wondering why that is.”
Bertie gave Ellery an appraising look, and then glanced at Reed. “You’re law enforcement,” she said at length. “I know how you guys think, how the system operates. It only matters what you can sell to a jury, not what really happened. If the prosecutors convinced twelve citizens that Luis was guilty, he must’ve done it, right?”
“If we thought it was that easy, we wouldn’t be sitting here,” Reed replied, spreading his hands.
Bertie considered this a moment and then shifted forward in her seat, until she was practically out of the chair entirely. “Here’s the truth: the task force has no idea who set that fire because they never investigated it. They fixated on Luis right at the scene and then built up their case around him. They never even considered any other suspects.”
“What other suspects?” Ellery asked.
“The Gallaghers, for one. The two brothers, Patrick and David Gallagher, inherited that store from their father but then mismanaged it to the point where it was going under. The rumor was that David wanted out, but Patrick couldn’t afford to buy him off. Both brothers were going to lose their shirts, except then the place burned down and they collected a cool two million dollars in insurance money.”
“Patrick Gallagher lost his son,” Ellery protested. “His wife was nearly killed.”
“Yeah, and maybe he wanted it that way.”
Reed tilted his head, considering. “You have any proof of that?”
“Just a neighbor who’d be willing to say that Myra and Patrick fought a lot. But maybe he didn’t intend to have them killed. They weren’t supposed to be there that night, right? She went back
to get some tax papers. Maybe Patrick or David hired someone to torch the place, and the hired help just picked a really bad time to do the deed.”
“Interesting theory,” Reed said, although his tone indicated he didn’t find it wholly plausible.
Bertie narrowed her eyes at him. “Maybe you’ll like this one better: Myra and Patrick’s older son, Jacob. He was a punk-ass kid who had been suspended from school twice—once for fighting, a second time for setting a fire in the cafeteria trash can.”
“He was a teenager at the time, right?” Ellery asked. “That’s a big leap from high school vandalism to burning down the family business.”
Bertie shrugged. “I’m not saying he did it. I’m saying no one ever checked to see whether he might have done it. He wasn’t at home the night of the fire. Where was he? I don’t know. The cops never bothered to follow up. They already had Luis in custody—a nice brown-faced fall guy from a poor neighborhood that guaranteed he’d have no resources to fight back. I was four years old at the time, so I don’t remember any of it, but it practically destroyed my mother. She lost her job at the restaurant because no one wanted to be waited on by the sister of Luis Carnevale, convicted arsonist and murderer.”
“That may well be true,” Reed said. “But you won’t be able to get Luis a new trial without new evidence.”
“Between you and me, I’m hoping the parole board just releases him,” she said, her posture softening a little. “But I am serious about reinvestigating this case. I have a private eye working on finding Earl Stanfield.”
Reed exchanged a look with Ellery, who gave a slight shrug. “Who’s Earl Stanfield?”
“Better known as The Blaze,” Bertie said dryly. “Earl supposedly told Luis’s defense attorney that he had seen the arsonist start the fire that night at the furniture store, and that it wasn’t Luis. Funny thing is, after he said that, Earl disappeared.”
“You know where he went?” Reed asked.
Bertie leaned back in her seat and sized him up. “No. Do you?”
“Me? Why would I know?”
“Someone does. Someone with a badge. Earl Stanfield didn’t have two nickels to rub together—it’s not like he was boarding the Concorde and jetting off to the Riviera to start living the lifestyle of the rich and famous. No.” She shook her head. “Earl Stanfield didn’t just suddenly disappear after that fire. The way I see it, someone disappeared him.”
* * *
By the time they had left Bertina Jenkins’s office, the sky had thickened with clouds. “Storm’s coming in,” Ellery murmured as she glanced overhead. “You’re lucky to be getting out before it hits.” She started up her truck so she could take him back to the hotel and then to the airport.
Reed gave a noncommittal reply, lost in his own thoughts as they bumped and jostled over city streets torn up by salt and winter plows. He did not feel glad to be leaving; rather, he felt intense disquiet, as though he were departing with nothing in order. The rapist was out there somewhere, perhaps with a new target in his sights. Luis Carnevale—maybe a reckless killer, maybe an innocent man—was on his third decade of prison. And someone was sending Ellery threatening messages again. Reed’s unease grew as he collected his suitcase from the hotel and let her drive him toward the airport. He had no concrete reason to stay and many good reasons to go. McGreevy would definitely remove his name from consideration for the promotion if Reed failed to show up on Monday.
He glanced sideways at Ellery. She didn’t belong to him, not at all, but he didn’t want to let her go just yet. Once he got on the plane, there was no way of telling when he might see her again. “If anyone slips a threatening note under your door again, please let me know,” he said as they swooped down into the tunnels and his anxiety level ticked up a notch. The airport was mere minutes away.
“They won’t come back,” she replied dismissively. “Whoever it is, they’re a big coward. They got their cheap thrill and that’s that. I know how it goes.”
“I hope you’re right. But for my peace of mind, please promise me that you’ll be careful.”
“I’m always careful.” She took the exit for Logan Airport and entered the lane for departures.
He looked at her again, took in the delicate curve of her face and the shorter tendrils of dark hair that had escaped the knot at the base of her neck. She had a leather jacket on and gloves so no one would see the scars. I’m always careful, she’d said, but what he really wished was that she didn’t have to be.
She navigated around all the taxis and other cars to the side of the road, where she let the truck idle. “So,” she said with a deep breath. “Here you are.”
“Here I am,” he agreed, glancing at the sliding doors to the terminal. He made no move to get out of the truck. “Keep me informed about the cases, will you? If you hear of any new developments.”
“Of course. Thank you again for coming up here.”
So formal they were all of a sudden. Reed groped around for what he really wanted to say. “When that man from your group asks you out—and he will…” He paused while Ellery rolled her eyes in dramatic fashion. “I think you should say yes.”
“And I think that it would be a disaster.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do,” she said crossly. “You don’t know what it’s like.”
“Dating is scary for everyone,” he told her. “Trust me. I’m back on the market for the first time in ten years, and I practically need to take a Valium before asking a woman out.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said skeptically, “I’m sure it must be real tough for you out there—the poor little handsome FBI agent with his own trust fund. I feel your pain.”
“You think I’m handsome?” He hadn’t thought she’d noticed him physically at all, really. He fought the urge to check his look in the side mirror.
“I think you’re full of crap,” she said good-naturedly, and gave him a playful shove. “You’re also going to miss your plane.”
“Say yes,” he told her suddenly. “See what happens. If it doesn’t go well, you can call me up and tell me how very wrong I was.”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “Really. You’d want all the gory details?”
“I want—I want you to be happy.”
She blinked in surprise, her expression softening into a sad smile, as though this was the one thing she knew she could never give him. “Go,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Get out of here.”
He opened the door and stepped out into the biting wind. The storm was getting closer. He was going to lean down to the window and say his last good-bye when his phone rang inside his coat pocket. As he dug it out, Ellery started to pull away, and his words got stuck in his throat. Reed glanced down and saw the caller ID: Powell, Kevin.
In his haste and shock, Reed completely forgot to take the call. He chased after her taillights, waving his phone in the air as he yelled after her. “Ellery, wait!”
5
Ellery kept one eye on the tunnel traffic and one eye on Reed as he finished his side of the conversation with Kevin Powell. A cab cut her off, crossing the double yellow line, and Ellery laid on the horn in retaliation. Reed made a do-you-mind gesture at her as he clutched the phone tighter to his ear. “Yes, we could meet,” he was saying. “Uh, Southampton Street?” He gave a helpless shrug in her direction, and Ellery nodded.
“It’s a half hour away,” she told him.
“We could be there in a half hour,” Reed said with more authority. “Okay, then. One o’clock it is. I look forward to the conversation.”
Ellery regarded him with open curiosity as he hung up the call. “Well? What did he want?”
“He didn’t say much over the phone,” Reed replied, sounding distracted. “Just that McGreevy had called him and said he didn’t need to answer any questions we might put to him. On the contrary, Powell seems eager for a meeting.”
The Sumner Tunnel dumped them out into the North End, where the first few snowflakes were be
ginning to swirl in the air. “If we don’t have to be there until one,” she said, eyeing the crowded rows of cars parked on the sides of the street, “maybe we could grab lunch.” Already they had passed four Italian restaurants, cozy-looking places with brick storefronts and names like Vito’s or Villa Francesca, and Ellery could almost smell the roasted tomato sauce in the air. She finally nabbed a parking space big enough for her truck, and then she led Reed a block away toward a tiny hole-in-the-wall place called Trattoria Il Panino that she remembered from her earlier days in the city. The place held just six tables and wooden straight-backed chairs, but the heady mix of garlic, basil, and fresh-baked bread made it clear that no one came here for the ambience. She ordered the spaghetti carbonara while Reed opted for the octopus salad. Her dish arrived in the pan it had been cooked in, retaining every luscious drop of the creamy sauce, and Ellery’s eyes rolled back in pleasure as she took the first bite. “I don’t get over here enough,” she said of the North End. “I forget how amazing the food is.”
“It’s very good,” Reed agreed as he speared a green olive with his fork.
Ellery took another few quick bites to quiet her rumbling stomach. “So Powell wants to talk even though McGreevy said he didn’t have to,” she said. “Doesn’t sound like a man who thinks he has something to hide.”
“Or he wants to find out what we know.”
“Which isn’t much.” They both chewed on that for a few moments. “We could go in there and hit him with the one-way street problem,” Ellery mused. “But he’ll probably just blow it off, say he made a wrong turn.”
“Which could still be the truth,” Reed pointed out. He crunched on a narrow slice of garlic bread. “No,” he said when he had swallowed. “He’s going to want to tell us the story of the Gallagher fire. It’s his story, and it’s the best story he’s ever told. That’s why he wants to talk to us—so he can tell it one more time.”
The surety of his words made Ellery pause with her fork in hand as she regarded him. She knew very well what Reed’s best story was. It had sold a million copies and gotten him interviews on dozens of talk shows. It occurred to her suddenly that there had been no second round after the summer, despite the feeding frenzy in the media. Reed had replied to reporters with a terse “No comment,” and returned back to Quantico almost immediately. “Are you going to write another book?” she asked him now, and he looked up in surprise from his plate. “About what happened this summer,” she clarified. “It would be another bestseller, practically a sequel.” She put down her fork, her appetite gone.
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