“Pull over,” Lisa said.
Kevin parked on a hilly side street full of shitty apartments rented out to students and even shittier apartments reserved for Brighton’s illegals. Lisa dug through a file and handed him a photo of a young black woman lying on her side in a cold puddle of blood.
“Her name was Sandra Patterson, twenty-seven years old. She was stabbed twice. Bled out on the floor.”
“And what was Sandra doing on Radnor Road?”
“You ever heard of Habitat for Humanity?”
Kevin turned over the picture and looked out the window. Three Asian kids were coming down the block with book bags slung over their shoulders. Catching the early bus to school. Probably the charter to Latin School.
“Did you hear me, Kevin?”
“I heard you. That’s who she was working for?”
“Habitat broke ground on the Radnor house ten weeks ago. Sandra was part of their construction team.”
Kevin smiled blankly at the Asian kids. One of them waved as they walked past. Another gave him the finger. Somewhere a bird pecked at his soul and flew off with a piece. He passed the picture of the dead girl back to Lisa. “And the governor cares about all of this because . . .”
“Sandra Patterson was a state cop. She was working undercover as part of a drug op.”
“In Brighton?”
“Your old neighborhood’s been a player for years. Mostly local, cash-and-carry stuff out of the Faneuil projects and Fidelis Way. Some of the low-rise apartments along Western Avenue. Here and there in Allston.”
“So why was Patterson in a house being built by Habitat for Humanity?”
“Two, three years back, we noticed some new patterns emerging. A lot more activity in the ’burbs. White kids selling bags of smack next to the Sunglass Hut in the Chestnut Hill Mall. Shit like that. They’ve also made a move on campus. BC, BU, Tufts, Harvard. The whole nine yards.”
“And it’s all running through Brighton?”
“Brighton’s an edge neighborhood, bordered up against Brookline, Newton, Cambridge. Plus it’s got a lot of universities nearby.”
“Who’s the supplier?”
“Dunno. Whoever it is, they’re not working out of any of the projects and, best we can tell, not hooked up with any gangs. They pick their spots, and they’re damn good at covering their tracks. As you can imagine, there’s been a lot of pressure to shut the thing down.”
“They’re moving dope in white neighborhoods.”
“Rich neighborhoods, Kevin. Rich-ass suburbs.”
“Why haven’t I heard about any of this?”
“Because people like Sandra have been working undercover. She was enrolled part-time as a student at BC. A month ago, she told her boss she was gonna volunteer for the Habitat thing. She said Habitat itself wasn’t the target, just cover for an angle she was looking at. Didn’t seem like Sandra was close on anything so her boss didn’t get a lot of specifics. We’re not sure what happened after that, except it was a fuckup.”
“Did you know her?”
“I met her. Sweet kid. Smart as hell, too.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. There’s something else you need to see.”
Kevin watched as Lisa dug into her file again. A folder fell off her lap, scattering Sandra Patterson’s mortal remains across the floor of the car. Kevin reached down to pick up the photos. Lisa beat him to it and held up a head and shoulders shot of the victim. Patterson was lying flat on her back and might have been sleeping, save for the red button on her forehead and circle of thin steel wrapped around her neck.
“Sandra was strangled with what we believe to be a twelve-gauge piece of piano wire,” Lisa said. “The gunshot was postmortem. Thirty-eight caliber.”
Kevin studied the photo. Lisa kept talking.
“Forensics says whoever killed her tied off the wire enough to incapacitate, but not to kill. Then he used the knife.”
“Did he take anything?”
“Took her driver’s license, some money, and the sweatshirt she was wearing.”
“Not your typical drug murder.”
“It’s Rosie Tallent, Kevin. Same M.O. Garrote and a knife. Single postmortem shot to the head. Black, female victim. And they both happened in Brighton.”
Kevin handed back the photo. “Rosie was found in Allston. And it was five years ago.”
“So you don’t think the two are related?”
“Do you?”
“I think whatever this is, it’s local.”
“And you think I can take you inside?”
“You grew up here. And you wrote about Rosie’s murder.”
“I wrote about the man who was wrongfully convicted of Rosie’s murder. And the legal process behind it. I never got into who actually committed the crime. The truth is I know as much about Brighton these days as you do about Roxbury.”
“Exactly. And if Sandra Patterson was killed in a walk-up on Blue Hill Ave., I’d be calling in all my markers.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t have any.”
“No one?”
“I’ve been gone a long time, Lis. You want a ride back to the apartment?”
“You’re not going to help?”
“I didn’t say that. You want a ride?”
Lisa stuffed all the paperwork back in her briefcase. Kevin turned over the engine and headed downtown, flashing through Kenmore Square and the Back Bay before hitting Beacon Hill.
“What are you going to do today?” she said.
“Drop you off. Then drive back to Brighton and bang my head against the wall.”
“I love you, Kev.”
“I want an exclusive if this ever sees the light of day, which, by the way, I highly fucking doubt.”
He pulled up in front of their building and watched her disappear inside. Then he took out the business card Finn had given him. It read:
BOBBY SCALES
LEAD CARPENTER/ASST SITE SUPERVISOR
HABITAT FOR HUMANITY
Kevin clipped the card to the ballistics report he’d pilfered from Lisa’s e-mail. It was short and sweet. An automated computer system had linked the thirty-eight used to kill Curtis Jordan in 1975 to postmortem gunshot wounds in both the Rosie Tallent and Patterson murders. A state firearms examiner subsequently confirmed the match as a thirty-eight caliber Smith & Wesson revolver. Kevin swore softly to himself. Then he put the car in gear and started rolling downhill. Thunder rumbled overhead and hard bullets of rain began to fall.
18
BOBBY SAT in his room and watched Barney Fife watch himself in a mirror. He was teaching Opie how to use a slingshot and wound up breaking a pane of glass in a bookcase for his trouble. Barney got all kinds of agitated until Andy stepped in and made it all better. Then Andy gave Opie a lecture on the dangers of the slingshot and sent the boy on his way. Bobby knew it was only a TV show, but Mayberry offered comfort. And there were many days, even more nights, when Bobby needed comfort. So he lost himself in the black-and-white images tumbling across the screen and barely stirred when the phone rang. Eventually, his eyes wandered to a clock he kept by the bed. Seven A.M. Damn, where did the time go? Bobby picked up the remote to turn off the set and paused. Opie had accidentally killed a bird with the slingshot and held the body in his hands. Six years old, trembling, crying, willing the bird to fly and tossing it up in the air, as if that could undo what had been done. No such luck, Op.
Bobby snapped off the set and lay back on his bed. He lived in a one-bedroom apartment above Joey’s. The apartment was a dump, not to mention a firetrap, but it was convenient. And part of the routine that had become his prison. He got up and pulled a chair to the window for cigarettes. Bobby smoked and stared at an old Red Sox schedule he’d taped to the wall. Then he looked out the window. The shower had been cold and brief, washing the streets clean, leaving them slick and bright. The traffic up and down Market was light so it wasn’t hard to miss the beat-up Volvo when it pulled in across the street. B
obby edged his chair back a foot or so and watched from the shadows as Kevin Pearce got out and took a look around. He was taller than Bobby pictured, a man now, but Bobby could still see the kid in him. The way he held his head as he glanced up and down the block, the hesitation in his step as he walked over to Johnny D’s produce stand. The two of them stood in front of a display of bananas and talked. Bobby knew Johnny D was studying Kevin, the long hair and rumpled coat, probably trying to place him and figuring out how much to tell him. Finally, the produce man pointed back toward Joey’s. Kevin shook his hand and headed that way. The first rays of sun slanted between the buildings and licked at his feet as he walked. Bobby flicked his cigarette out the window and took another ten seconds to study his childhood pal. He was like a letter that had been posted in the mail years ago and been circling through time ever since. The letter was gonna show up in Bobby’s mailbox someday. And today was that day.
“Coffee?” Bobby pointed to a Mr. Coffee plugged into the wall. Kevin shook his head. He was standing in the doorway, unsure whether he was coming or going.
“Sit down.” Bobby took a seat at the table and pushed forward a chair with his foot. Kevin sat down and looked around.
“I know. Forty-four years old and I live in a dump.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. It’s cheap. And I don’t need much. Just a place to shower, sleep, hang my clothes.” Bobby was wearing black Nike sweatpants with white trim and a plain gray T-shirt. He nodded at the closet and a half-dozen collared shirts, neatly pressed and hanging in a row. “My life’s simple. And quiet.”
“What do you do?”
“You know about the betting?”
Kevin nodded.
“Fingers died and there was no one else but me.” Bobby spread his hands. “So I take the action and keep people happy.”
“You like it?”
“It’s not the kind of thing you walk away from.”
“I saw Finn down at the park. He told me you also work construction.”
“I hang Sheetrock six, eight hours a day. Then I come home, fix up some dinner, and go to bed. Twice a week, I have a couple of beers downstairs. And I go to mass most days.”
“Mass?”
“I like Jesus. I like his life. So I go.”
Kevin’s eyes ranged across the room to a single shelf of books. “You read a lot?”
“Depends.”
Kevin walked over and ran his fingers across a Bible stacked beside a Quran. Propped up at the end of the shelf was an old vinyl album from Johann Sebastian Bach. Kevin held it up.
“Where’s the turntable?”
“That’s Bach’s mass in B-minor. Most perfect music ever composed.”
Kevin put the album back and pulled out a paperback copy of For Whom the Bell Tolls.
“He’s good,” Bobby said. “But the macho stuff doesn’t really work without the rest of it. Empathy, compassion, suffering. Your grandmother taught you that.”
Kevin walked back to the table and sat down. “Are you pissed I came back?”
“I told you to stay away.”
“And I did. For twenty-five years.” He spoke with a quiet conviction, but Bobby saw through it.
“You’ve been in and out of Brighton.”
“Only when I had to. And not for very long.”
“A lot’s changed. Everyone’ll tell you that, first fucking thing.”
“Sounds like you don’t believe it.”
“I do and I don’t. The people I see, people who grew up here, people who stayed, they know what they know and can’t imagine nothing different. Still walk around smug as shit, wanting to kick the piss out of anyone who tries to tell ’em otherwise. They’ll hate you, by the way. Figure you came back just to rub their faces in it. You sure you don’t want coffee?”
“No, thanks.”
Bobby poured himself a cup, fixed it up with milk and sugar, and brought it back to the table.
“What about the rest of them?” Kevin said. “The ones who didn’t grow up here?”
“What about ’em?”
“What are they like?”
“Who gives a fuck? You keep in touch with your sisters?”
“Colleen, here and there. Bridget, not so much.”
“Haven’t been back to Champney?”
“You know I haven’t.”
Bobby took a precious sip from his coffee and rubbed his lips together. “Finn told me about the Pulitzer. Un-fucking-believable. Congratulations.”
“Thanks. Actually, it was a story about a Brighton guy. James Harper. He was convicted of killing a woman named Rosie Tallent.”
Bobby got up again and pulled out a trunk from under the bed. He dug around until he found a manila envelope and tossed it on the table. It was stuffed with clippings from the Globe.
“Second time in as many days that I’ve seen a collection of my stuff,” Kevin said.
“I read everything you ever wrote on Tallent. I’m proud of you, Kev. Your grandmother would be busting . . . when she wasn’t telling everyone ‘I told you so.’ Doesn’t mean you should have come back, though. You shouldn’t have.”
“Why?”
“Same reason you stayed away in the first place. Out there you’ve got your future. Something special.”
“And back here I’ve got a past?”
“Eat you whole, brother. Bones and all.”
Bobby laid down the thirty-eight with the gray tape on the grip. The silver twenty-two sat beside it. Kevin took a seat on the bed and stared at the guns as Bobby filled up a trash bag with clothes. They were in his room above the cab office. Less than a mile away, Curtis Jordan’s body was cooling on the floor of his apartment. Bobby threw a pair of torn-up jeans in the bag. The smell of cut grass and turned earth blew through an open window.
“I can get my own clothes,” Kevin said.
Bobby shook his head. “Just wear mine. Most of this stuff is too small for me anyway. You got any blood on your shoes?”
Kevin stuck up his feet, shod in a pair of black Cons.
“Take ’em off.” Bobby found a pair of no-name, beat-up sneaks in a closet and tossed them at Kevin. Outside, a car engine coughed, then settled into a throaty rumble.
“Where am I going?” Kevin said.
“New York. You’re gonna stay with your aunt for a while.”
“How am I gonna get there?”
“Shuks is downstairs. He’s gonna drive you.”
“Why?”
“Cuz that’s how it is. You gotta go. And you gotta go now.”
“What about the wake?”
Bobby sat down on the bed. Kevin’s pupils were blown wide open. Quiet fear vibrated between them like a tuning fork. “Not gonna happen, buddy. I’m sorry.”
“At least I got to see her in the basement.”
“You never should have been involved, Kev.”
“I had a gun, too.”
“You weren’t gonna pull the trigger.”
“You don’t know that.”
“But you do. And that’s important. Did anyone see you in the building?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
Kevin nodded.
“Let me take a look at that shirt.”
Kevin pulled off his shirt. Bobby checked it for blood and threw it in the closet.
“Put on one of mine.”
Kevin shrugged on a long-sleeve polo and rolled up the sleeves so it fit. Bobby picked up the thirty-eight in one hand and the twenty-two in the other. He stashed the guns in a dresser drawer, then tied up the bag of clothes in a knot.
“When will I be back?” Kevin said.
“Two weeks. A month, tops.”
The kid was never coming back. And would never leave if he caught even a whiff of that simple fact. Bobby shoved the bag of clothes in his chest. “Come on. Shuks is waiting.”
“I’m gonna miss you, Bobby.”
“It’s just for a month. Cool?”
“Cool.”
“Good. Now, let’s get moving.”
“I ran like a coward.” Kevin flicked at the news clippings with a finger.
“You were a kid.”
“I ran like a coward. And I let you take the weight.”
“That’s your ego talking.”
“I know how I feel.”
“So what’s next? You gonna walk over to Station Fourteen and give them a statement?”
Kevin shook his head.
“Then what?”
“I guess I just needed to come back. To see you. Say what I said.”
“Consider it done. Now go.”
They sat in silence. Bobby sipped at his coffee and stared at a watery patch of sunlight on the wall.
“I was thinking about stopping by Champney,” Kevin said.
“Did Colleen tell you Bridget and I had a thing?”
“I heard it wasn’t a big deal.”
“It wasn’t. Bridget helps with Fingers’s operation. Handles all the bookkeeping.”
“That’s how she pays the bills?”
“She earns it, Kevin. Girl’s organized as shit. And she likes money.” Bobby took the clippings back to the trunk and packed them away.
“Can I ask you something?” Kevin said.
“Go ahead.”
“I’ve written hundreds of pieces for the Globe. Why pick out Tallent to save?”
“How do you know I didn’t save everything you’ve written?”
“Did you?”
“No. Tallent was your best stuff. And she was from Brighton. Hell, it won the Pulitzer so I must know something.” Bobby pushed the trunk back under the bed and sat down at the table, leaning forward with his shoulders and chest, fingertips touching, voice hushed as if the entire world and everything in it depended on whatever came next. “It’s never gonna be like you want. Never in a million fucking years. You try to fix things from back then, you try to meddle, even a little bit, and poof.” Bobby exploded the world with his hands. “It all comes apart. People start getting hurt. You know what I’m saying?”
“I think so.”
“It was good to see you, Kev. Proud as hell. Don’t ever forget that.”
“I won’t.”
“Good. Now go, enjoy your life. And stay the fuck out of Brighton.”
Brighton Page 11
