He sat in the last pew for eight A.M. mass and didn’t take Communion. Afterward, he waited for the church to empty before walking over to the confessional. The green light was lit, indicating a priest was inside waiting for his next sinner. Bobby knelt in the swirling dust and darkness. The wooden partition slid across with an oiled rasp. Seams of light bled through the wire mesh, stitching a ragged pattern across his face. Bobby squinted and struggled to see his confessor but could only make out a black shape cloaked in some sort of sacramental glow. He blessed himself, mumbled some words, and listened to some mumbled back. A pause ensued—a holy space waiting to be filled with the litany of his sins.
“I haven’t come to confess.”
A dry rustle as Father Lenihan shifted in his vestments. “I’m sorry?”
Bobby shoved the picture from Paragon Park through the hole in the screen. “Saint Regis Home in Cambridge. Nineteen seventy-two.”
The rustling stopped. A pair of veined hands held the photo under a wavering circle of light. “Can I ask your name?”
“You wouldn’t know it, but I come to mass here almost every day.”
“I’m sure I’d know your face.”
Bobby felt himself shrink into the back of the confessional box as shame did its work, hollowing from the inside out. He licked his lips and rallied.
“I was never abused. At least not by any priest. But I saw stuff. And I saw you.”
“Son, let’s go into the sacristy and talk . . .”
“I always got the feeling you wanted to help, wanted to stop it. But you were young and couldn’t protect shit.”
The silhouette dipped, forehead pressing against the metal facing of the screen, breath whistling softly between his teeth.
“I didn’t come here to lecture you, Father. Not gonna piss and moan about my life, either.”
“We can get you help. I can make sure . . .”
“Don’t need it. Don’t want it.” Somewhere at the back of the church, a door opened and slammed shut. Then, a bell began to toll. Bobby took out a small volume and read.
At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives . . .
“Thomas Merton.”
“Very good, Father.”
The priest’s hand snaked through the hole, raking Bobby’s arm and clamping on to his wrist. His voice, when he spoke, was strained to a whisper. “You must understand I did what I could.”
Bobby’s fingers touched the grip of the gun in his pocket. “I’m sure you did. Thing is, Father, sometimes even good men just need to die.”
The heater in his car sounded like a five-pack-a-day smoker, wheezing and hacking, lukewarm air coughing out of the car’s floor vents in fits and starts. Kevin hit some buttons and pounded on the dashboard, hoping to intimidate the thing into kicking on. Heaters just didn’t work that way. He punched the off switch and sat in silence, staring at the heavy red door of Saint Andrew’s Church. Bobby hadn’t offered two words on the ride back from the Resie. As he got out of the car, he said he’d be at eight A.M. mass. Kevin had briefly considered talking things out right there, but figured it’d keep. Besides, he’d had Lisa filling his head. Part of him thought she’d be waiting at the apartment when he got back from the Resie, and fought the urge to call when she wasn’t. The rest of him laughed at how willingly he’d sold his soul for a handful of trinkets. He pulled out one of her old winter hats he’d found in the backseat and held it to his nose, breathing in her scent still clinging to the knitted wool. He remembered the first time he’d kissed her. He couldn’t believe it was really happening, a woman like that, lips running across his like a sizzle, turning his knees to water and his dreams into flesh and blood, thrilling and scaring the hell out of him all at the same time. People like him, people who’d never really had it, didn’t understand love, wound up giving it too much weight, seeing it, touching it, imagining it everywhere. She’d understood that from the start. And so she’d played him for a fool. And he’d lapped it up with a fucking spoon. Sad thing was, given the chance, he’d do it all over again. Kevin threw her hat in the glove compartment and slammed the fucking thing shut.
Folks had begun to trickle out of mass in ones and twos, mostly old people, mostly women. He considered walking inside, but something malignant blinked in his belly and he stayed where he was, stretching his fingers and rubbing the early morning cold out of his knuckles. He wondered where Bobby was and whether he’d show up at all. And if he didn’t, where did that leave things? Kevin turned on his cell and punched in the number for his boss.
“Are you our writer-in-residence now?”
“Hey, Jimmy.”
“Hang on.” Jimmy Edwards shuffled the phone from one ear to the other. Kevin figured he was getting up to close the door to his office.
“We could use you in the newsroom, Kev.”
“I might be onto something.”
“Yeah?”
“The cop murder.”
“Patterson?” Jimmy’s voice tightened and Kevin knew he had him hooked.
“Mo and I have been working it.”
“Why’s this the first I’m hearing about it?”
“My fault. I told Mo to keep it quiet.”
“So talk to me.”
“Not yet.”
“Fuck you, not yet. The cops won’t give us shit. The governor’s sniffing around.” A pause. “Is your girlfriend handling it?”
“Let me talk to Mo.”
Jimmy took that as a yes. “How long you gonna need?”
“Mo.”
“Tomorrow. Your ass, my office. By the way, you didn’t hear it from me, but Stanley’s got a job offer.”
“In town?”
“Chicago Tribune. Heard it was for good money, too.”
“No shit.”
“Hang on. I’ll get her.”
His boss was gone before Kevin could ask another question. Then Mo came on the line.
“What did you do to him?” she said.
“Jimmy? Nothing.”
“He’s antsy about Patterson, right?”
“I told him we were working it together. He’s fine.”
“Yeah?”
“Sure. You get anything more on McNabb?”
“Not much. Her murder wasn’t exactly a high priority. I did get a look at the rest of the autopsy report.”
“And?”
“The knife was similar to the attacks on Sandra Patterson and Tallent.”
“How close?”
“I’m not a fucking M.E., Kevin. The measurements on the wound looked to be about the same. Blade was a half-inch wide. Four to six inches in length. Probably one of a million sold in Boston every year.”
“A million?”
“I’m just saying, it’s a common size knife.”
“But you think McNabb’s connected?”
“I thought that from the beginning.”
“Me, too.”
“So what’s next?”
“I need another day. Then I give you everything.”
“They really want me to file something.”
“One more day.” Kevin paused. The red door of Saint Andrew’s Church swung open and a couple of blue-haired old ladies tottered out, gesticulating madly as they negotiated the church’s front steps. From somewhere above, a bell hammered out nine strokes and fell silent.
“Where are you?” Mo said.
“Never mind. Jimmy told me you’re looking at a job in Chicago.”
“I told him that in confidence.”
“So you gonna take it?”
“Maybe. The Chicago Tribune’s starting a new I-unit. Money’s good. People seem nice. Who knows, right?”
She was leaving. He heard it in her voice and felt it in the way his stomach dropped.
“I’m happy for you, Mo.”
“Don’t be too happy
. I’m not gone yet. Have you checked your messages?”
“I had my cell turned off.”
“Smart, Kevin. I left you a message about an hour ago. They found another body in Brighton last night. Guy named Seamus Slattery.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Yeah, well, he was stabbed twice in the chest. No ligature. At least nothing I know about.”
“Can you get a look at the file?”
“I don’t think so. My guy tells me your girlfriend’s flagged it.”
“No kidding.”
“So this is news to you?”
“News to me.”
Saint Andrew’s red door swung open again and Bobby Scales walked out.
“Sorry, Mo, I gotta go.”
“Where are you?”
“Another day. Then we sit down and talk.”
“How good is this, Kevin?”
“Good.”
“Political?”
“What isn’t?
“Dirty?”
“As hell.” He paused. “A day, Mo. Day and a half, tops. Then it’s me and you. We get some beers, we talk about Patterson. And all the rest.”
She started to speak, but Kevin cut the line. Bobby climbed in without a word. He was wearing a leather bomber jacket that was cracking at the seams and worn at the elbows.
“Where you been?” Kevin said.
“Mass, then confession.”
“Haven’t been to confession in years.”
Bobby shrugged. “It’s not for everyone.”
They chugged up Washington Street and crossed over into Newton. The promised land. When they were kids, Kevin and his buddies would cruise the neighborhood on bikes looking for dinner. They’d find a backyard with an unattended grill and swoop in with pocketknives, spearing as many fat steaks as they could before riding into the wind. They’d eat somewhere in the dark, licking the juice off their fingers when they were done, thrilled they’d gotten a free meal from the “rich Newton fucks.” That was then—when they were kids with nothing to lose, a whole world to fuck with, and all that mattered was “right now.” Kevin pressed down on the accelerator, feeling the car surge and tires sing as he swung a left onto a long, rambling stretch of road. Bobby sat beside him like a tombstone on a hill, staring blankly out the window. A park floated past, soft fields slumbering under a melting blanket of spring frost. An older man, professorial type with glasses and a green wax jacket, walked out of the park with a golden on a leash. The dog walker waved at the car. Everyone in Newton waved. It was like a village law or something. They went for another mile or so, past sweeping driveways and deep carpets of lawn rolling up to the front steps of one massive manse after another. Bobby finally stirred to life, directing Kevin to circle back into the city. Like everything else, even Newton got tedious after a while.
“I figure we should talk to a lawyer,” Kevin said as they coasted to a stop at a red light.
“You mean you want to take your girlfriend’s advice?”
“She’s moving out.”
“She was doing her job, Kev.” Bobby was wearing a smaller bandage on his left hand and picked at the tape wound across his knuckles. Kevin noticed red marks streaked across his wrist.
“What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
“Looks like you got clawed or something.”
Bobby examined the marks for a moment, then dismissed them with a shrug. The light changed and Kevin eased through the intersection.
“I tell you I saw Father Lenihan the other day?”
“Small world.”
“You know the Globe’s doing all those stories on the church and stuff?”
“I read ’em, yeah.”
“I know the reporters working that. Checked all the lists they got for pervert priests. Lenihan’s not on any of them.”
“Why you telling me?”
“You go to church there. Thought maybe you’d like to know.”
They crossed back out of Newton and banged through a run of axle-scraping potholes.
“When you gonna ask about the Resie?” Bobby said after the road had smoothed out.
“I’m not.”
“Good.”
“Whatever you had buried there . . .”
“You know what it is.”
“Whatever it is, you should tell the lawyer.”
“How well you know lawyers?”
“Apparently not as well as I thought.”
Bobby chuckled and gestured for Kevin to turn onto Tremont Street. They bumped along some old streetcar tracks, a picket line of two-families and three-deckers, all crooked and humpbacked, rough nails and wood, running up and down the side streets. Bobby gestured again, the smallest of motions with his good hand. Kevin rolled into an empty lot and stopped. They each looked up at what everyone in Brighton called “the Steps.”
34
THEY NUMBERED eighty-nine in all, smooth stone slabs marching through a thicket of terraced woods to the back door of Saint Andrew’s Church. The steps were put in for all the God-fearing folks who lived in the low-lying neighborhoods up and down Tremont Street. For six decades they’d climbed their way to absolution on Sunday morning and hustled back down after mass for another fun-filled week of cursing, fighting, and all-purpose sinning. Bobby led the way up, never explaining why they’d stopped or where they were headed. About halfway to the top, he gestured to a break in the trees and walked into a clearing populated by the crumbling remains of what had once been a small building. Bobby kicked at a cluster of beer cans and settled on the damp turf, his back against the building’s only remaining wall. Kevin stopped ten feet away.
“Not gonna find any lawyers here, Bobby.”
“Know who used to live here?”
Kevin shook his head.
“All the Irish nuns. They’d walk up the steps every day to wait hand and foot on the priests. Sit down. You’re making me nervous.”
“The gun’s making me nervous.”
Bobby zipped open his jacket and pulled out a thirty-eight-caliber revolver. Its grip was wrapped in gray tape. “Recognize it?” He laid the gun on the ground by his boot. Kevin squatted on his heels. The trees were still heavy with rain. They crowded close, shutting off the rest of the world, creating a leafy amphitheater for just the two of them.
“So you did pull it out of the hole.”
“It’s your grandmother’s. She kept it in a strongbox along with her cash.”
“She never told me.”
“Why would she? I went up there the morning after she died. Figured the cops or someone would have grabbed it, but there it was. Stuck up on a shelf in the china cabinet.”
“And you took it?”
“I used it to kill the prick that butchered her.” Bobby picked up the weapon and offered it, grip first, then put it back down. “Your girlfriend squeezed you last night with the file on Jordan.”
“And you think you’re vulnerable?”
“You tell me.”
A breeze swept across the hill, shaking rain from the tops of the trees. Kevin felt Bobby studying him in the drifting light.
“I’ve always been good with killing, Kev. If anyone knows that, it’s you.”
“You saying you killed those women?”
“If it’s me or them, it’s gonna be them. You should have seen that. You should have seen that first fucking thing.”
Bobby climbed to his feet, gliding across the clearing to sneak a look down the steps. He held the gun in his right hand, down low by his side. They were maybe fifteen feet apart when he turned and pointed. A simple, clean gesture. Kevin put up his hands as if they could stop a thirty-eight-caliber slug from doing what God and man intended. Bobby touched a silent finger to his lips. He’d use the same gun he used to kill the man who’d murdered Kevin’s grandmother. And no one would hear a thing. By nightfall Kevin would be in the ground, buried in the soggy woods behind the nuns’ house, just down the hill from where he’d taken his First Communion. All this
and more raced through his brain at warp speed as Kevin mimicked Bobby, slipping his own finger to his lips and not making a sound. Such a willing victim in the end. Maybe he thought he’d get points for that. Bobby gestured for Kevin to go to his knees and zeroed the gun on his forehead. The two men stayed that way, grim, gray statues among the trees. Then Bobby lifted his chin, raising the gun a fraction so it was aimed just off Kevin’s shoulder. From his left, Kevin heard the chatter of leaves. A raccoon waddled out of the crackling brush and stared down the slope at both of them. He had curved, black claws and razored teeth drawn up in a vicious smile. A second raccoon peeked his head out from under a bush and hissed. Then the pair slithered back into the scrub, disappearing in a whip of black-and-white fur.
“Fucking hey.” Bobby lowered the gun. The killing moment, if that’s what it was, had passed. “You all right?”
“Just a little jumpy.”
Bobby reached down and helped Kevin to his feet, gripping his triceps and pulling him within a whisper. “You really think I’d hurt you?”
Kevin shook himself free, hot fear draining out of his belly and down into the black earth. Bobby slipped the thirty-eight back under his jacket. “I’m gonna need you to stay here and chill for a bit.”
“Where you going?”
“Not sure. Maybe me and Finn will head down to Florida like he’s been yapping about all these years.”
“You didn’t kill those women.”
“You saw the piece.”
“Let’s go in and talk to them. Try to cut a deal.”
Bobby bared his teeth in a smile their raccoon friends would have been proud of. “How old are you now?”
“Forty-two.”
“And how many holes you dug?”
Kevin didn’t respond.
“Killing someone changes you, bro.”
“I was there, too.”
“Being there isn’t pulling the trigger.” Bobby produced a small object from his pocket. “You left this behind the day you went to New York. Never thought I’d be able to get it back to you.”
Brighton Page 20
