Brighton

by Michael Harvey

  Kevin hung the overcoat back on its hanger. The edge of a flat box peeked from under the bed. He pulled it out. Inside were a bunch of scuffed baseballs. Colleen’s collection. Each was shellacked to protect it and dated with the teams and score written in his father’s coiled black script. Kevin picked one up:

  SEPTEMBER 12, 1975

  City Semifinal

  Brighton – 3

  Charlestown – 2

  He put the ball in the box and slipped it back under the bed. Then he left, closing the door behind him.

  The knives he’d pulled out still lay in a row. Kevin stacked them neatly in the silverware drawer, then returned to the kitchen table, taking a seat and staring out a small window set over the sink. As a kid, he’d sat in the same spot with his mother when it was quiet in the early cusp of morning and the house was theirs. Kevin would eat breakfast while she shuffled around the room, a synchronized clock running in their heads that would tell them when it was time for him to go. He’d read whatever was put in front of him while he ate. Books, newspapers, the print off the back of the cereal box. Anything to feed his mind. When there was nothing to read, he’d memorize everything in the room—sixteen tiles across the ceiling one way; twenty-four, the other. Six magnets on the refrigerator door, except for a while when there were only five. Kettle on the stove, silver on top, charred on the bottom, black handle melted around the grip. Boxes of Cocoa Puffs, mac and cheese, pasta, sauce, and peanut butter in the first cabinet. Oreos, Lorna Doone cookies for tea, cans of Campbell soup, tuna, and deviled ham in the second. Plates, glasses, and cups in the third. Breadbox beside the toaster beside four containers, yellow tin stamped with blue flowers. Kevin’s gaze stopped. There were only three containers on the counter. A space and a light patch on the wall where the fourth should be. He walked over to the containers, picking up each in turn and checking inside. Sugar, a bag of flour, a box of salt. He pulled across a chair and began to search the upper shelves. The missing container was in a small, dark hole above the refrigerator. Kevin brought it back to the table, his mouth dry as dirt, his heart fluttering like a small bird in his throat. Inside was a hard object wrapped in a white handkerchief. Kevin lifted it out and placed it on the table, unopened. There was a footfall on the back porch. He looked up, half expecting to see his grandmother standing in the doorway.

  “Is this a bad time?” Father Lenihan said.

  47

  BU’S BOATHOUSE stood on a spit of land just where the Charles River bent before making its final run into the harbor and infinite ocean beyond. Bobby pulled the Toyota into a small lot and killed the engine. They watched as swatches of light switched and played across the city’s skyline. Bobby was the first to speak.

  “I come here sometimes.”

  “It’s nice.” Her voice sounded tight, like she was on a first date. Bobby glanced across. Bridget touched her left ear and dropped her head. Shy. Demure. Impossible.

  “Let’s get out for a second.”

  “You think that’s a good idea?”

  “Why not?”

  Her features lit up at the challenge in his voice and she opened the door. He let her take the lead and walked on her right side, keeping the gym bag in his right hand.

  “You ever been out on the river, Bridget?”

  She shook her head.

  “View’s nice from here, but on the water it’s something else. Sometimes, I’ll paddle right down into the city, watch the sun hang over the buildings . . .”

  “Feel the world is all yours.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I didn’t know you had a boat.”

  “Just a little one.” Bobby held a hand up to the cutting light and grinned. “You want to go out?”

  Bobby knew one of the managers who let him keep the boat in a small shed next to the main boathouse. In return, Bobby took the kid’s action, as well as that of his college pals. He snapped open the lock on the shed and dragged the boat onto the damp grass. The oars were inside, as well as four life jackets tucked under two wooden benches. A metal rail ran around the perimeter, ending at an oarlock on either side.

  The water looked dark against the riverbank. Bobby pushed the boat down the incline and stepped in as it floated out. He picked up an oar and pulled the boat close until it was tight to the shore. Bridget took a seat on one of the benches. Bobby dug the wooden blade into the soft mud and pushed. Once, twice, and the river’s current took hold. Bobby sat across from Bridget, fitted the oars into the locks, and began to pull. Five or six strokes took them into the middle of the river. The current eased and the air around them grew still.

  “Are the crews out?”

  Bobby shook his head. “You mind if we just drift?”

  “I love to drift.”

  Underneath one of the benches was a length of rope tied to a small anchor. Bobby dropped it over the side and felt the boat tug lightly against it. She turned away from him and touched her neck as the breeze freshened, kicking up a few waves and jostling the boat before dying away again.

  “Have you talked to Kevin?”

  She swiveled around, head on a silky pivot. “Why would I say anything to him? Is that what you brought me out here for?”

  “I brought you out for the view.”

  Her eyes dipped to the satchel between his feet. “What’s in the bag, Bobby?”

  He opened it and pulled out a notebook. Her face didn’t move.

  “I found them on the roof at Champney,” he said. “Read ’em all.”

  “Good.”

  Bobby ran his fingers across “Saint Andrew’s Grammar School” written in Old English script across the cover. “You were maybe ten, twelve, when you started this one?”

  “You mean the first?”

  “I mean your grandmother.”

  Bridget took the notebook in her hands and skimmed a couple of pages before closing it. Her voice sounded like tires on wet gravel. “She was supposed to be working. Instead, the old bitch comes creeping up behind me and grabs my wrist. I only wanted to rob her, but I had the knife in my hand and just hit her with it. Then I heard the nigger on the stairs.” She popped her fingers. “It all happened. Snap, snap, snap. He took one look, grabbed what he could, and ran like hell. All I had to do was cut myself. And I knew how to do that. Then I hid the knife and waited for them to find me.”

  “And you’d had a taste of killing?”

  “It never really bothered me. And once I got older, I wanted money.”

  “When did you start stealing from me?”

  “I didn’t steal anything. I expanded your business. Our business. First, it was selling dope in the neighborhood. Penny-ante stuff. Then, we moved into the suburbs. That’s when things got crazy. We’re rich, Bobby. Me and you. Crazy rich.”

  He held up the notebook. “I count at least five dead, including Rosie Tallent and Sandra Patterson.”

  “Both business.”

  “Chrissy McNabb?”

  “Junkie whore. Thought she could squeeze me cuz we went to school together.”

  “Slattery?”

  “More scum. He figured out we were running dope and thought you were involved. Was headed to the police when I asked if he wanted to smoke a bone.”

  “And what did Finn ever do to you?” For the first time, Bobby saw something close to surprise flit across the flat angles of her face.

  “How did you know about that?”

  Bobby thought about his childhood friend, throwing a line off a boat somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico. He’d always told Finn he’d visit. And every time had been a lie. “I stopped by his place last night. Must have just missed you.”

  “Don’t look so sad. He sold you out for a piece of ass. And he was getting ready to take over the book once you skipped town. But now you can stay.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I let it slip to Kevin’s girlfriend that Finn might be running the drug operation. They’ll find evidence in his apartment linking him to all the murders.”
/>   “What kind of evidence?”

  “I didn’t give them everything, but there’s enough. Articles of clothing. Driver’s licenses. The gun that killed Jordan.”

  “Finn told you where it was buried?”

  “Of course he did.” She paused, lingering over her final piece of information like a last bite of pie. “I know about Colleen as well.”

  Bobby felt something tear inside. “Colleen’s got nothing to do with this.”

  “Two nights ago she found the thirty-eight and brought it to your apartment. Her Prince Charming. Gonna solve all her problems with hubby. I wondered what you’d do. Then yesterday I watched you put it back on the roof. That’s when I knew for sure you were on board.”

  Bobby stared at the slick, sliding scales of the river and the slope of the bordering bank, naked and running into the falling light. Beyond was Boston and the rest of the world, slightly askew and spinning silently on its axis. “So what’s next?”

  Bridget’s eyes glowed pale green as she warmed to the task.

  48

  KEVIN LOOKED at the handkerchief spread out on the front seat of his car and the knife he’d found wrapped inside it. It had a black handle with a nick at the very tip of the blade that made a perfect “v.” Beside the knife was Kevin’s cell phone. Lisa was on speaker.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Blade’s a half-inch wide. Small nick at the very top. What looks like bloodstains near the handle. It’s the knife.” Kevin took a left off Soldiers Field Road and crossed to the Cambridge side of the river. “There were really only two people who could have killed my grandmother. One was Curtis Jordan.” He jumped on Memorial Drive and headed south. Up ahead the BU boathouse flickered in and out of the trees.

  “Kevin?”

  “The other was my sister. That’s where I found the knife. In the house I grew up in.”

  “She was what, eleven or twelve at the time of your grandmother’s death?”

  “I saw an old x-ray of the wound she suffered in the file you gave me. There’s a piece of metal lodged in her ribs. Looks just like a tiny ‘v.’ And then I found the knife in our house. Now, how could that be?”

  “She stabbed herself?”

  “That’s right. She killed my grandmother, cut herself, and pinned it all on Jordan when he came walking through the door. Then she kept the knife . . .”

  “Until she decided to kill again.” A pause on the line. “But why the gun?”

  “Bobby told me Bridget likes to collect things, especially people. Somehow she discovered where the gun was buried. Maybe through Finn, I don’t know. She dug it up and used it in the Patterson and Tallent killings. If things ever got too hot, she could drop the piece wherever she wanted. Control the investigation and send it in whatever direction suited her. It’s the power, the knowledge she could destroy someone’s life on a whim. Bridget would love that.”

  “Where are you, Kevin?”

  “She planted all that stuff in Finn’s place. Then she led you by the nose to it.”

  “Where are you?”

  Kevin eased around a bend, and the boathouse slid into view.

  “I’ve got one more question before I go.”

  “Don’t . . .”

  “Shut up and listen. Bridget’s x-ray. You knew what it showed. You knew my sister was the killer.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Fucking law review at Harvard Law School. Best prosecutor in the city. You don’t miss that x-ray. You wanted me to find it. Hoped I’d go after her.”

  Kevin waited. Out on the river, a small boat slipped from behind a line of painted trees. There were two dark figures in it.

  “It was your sister, Kevin. Yes, I wanted you to find it. And I wanted you to decide.”

  “Decide what, Lisa?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe talk to her. See if anyone else needed to be protected. Then I figured you’d come to me.”

  “I’d come to you and you’d make the arrest. And if I didn’t come to you, you’d arrest her anyway and make your boss look like a fool for pulling in Bobby. Win, win for Lisa Mignot, our new district attorney.”

  “That wasn’t my intent.”

  “Fuck your intent. I gotta go.” He cut the line, climbed out of his car, and began to run. Kevin was halfway down the bank when both figures in the boat went into the water.

  A dozen strokes and he was nearly there. The water felt oily on his skin. The boat looked larger and darker than it had from shore. Kevin swam the final few yards underwater and surfaced near the bow, hand gripping the gunwale, world tipping crazily as he climbed in. He saw the notebook first. The Old English script of Saint Andrew’s Grammar School. Bridget’s name in her slanted cursive. Then he noticed the anchor rope by the stern, stretched tight and dipping over the side. Kevin looked down into the water. His sister looked back. She was sitting a foot or two below the surface, the rope knotted around her neck, eyes wide and milky dead with the cold. Kevin dove in. It was only when he was submerged in the grit of the river that he could see the second body, circling toward the bottom. Bobby was floating facedown, hair spread in a halo around his head. Kevin grabbed him under the shoulders and pulled for the surface. He didn’t have the strength to lift him into the boat, so he tied a life jacket around his waist and towed him back to shore. On the bank, Kevin pumped Bobby’s chest, tilted back his head, and blew into his mouth. After a few seconds, he began to cough up black water, then rolled over and retched. Kevin squatted by his friend, pounding him on the back, not really knowing what else to do. Finally, Bobby rolled back, head lolling in the wash from the river.

  “Where did you come from?” His voice was cut up into rough pieces that scratched and tore.

  “Father Lenihan told me what you had planned. Said you laid it out when you took confession.”

  “She kept notebooks, Kev. Started with your grandmother.”

  “I know. I found the knife she used.” Somewhere above them, Kevin heard a police siren stretch and scream.

  “She walked me through it, but I didn’t listen. Just waited for a chance to get the rope around her neck and put her down. Couldn’t be no trial. Not for that.”

  Bobby was right. He was always right, even when he wasn’t.

  “No one’s gonna blame you, Bobby.”

  “How about Curtis Jordan?”

  “That was a long time ago. And you did it to save me.”

  “I did it cuz I thought he deserved it. And I was the only one smart enough to play judge and jury. The only one tough enough. Except I got it wrong.”

  The sirens were searching, growing louder one minute, fading to nothing the next.

  “We’ll get a lawyer.”

  “Nah, we won’t.” Bobby’s pale eyes flashed and Kevin remembered the lean face of the mutt, poking its head out of a burlap bag for a final sniff of sun and breeze off the river.

  “You came back here to bury your past, Kev. Thing is, you gotta kill it first.”

  “I’m not sure I can do that.”

  “Come on. We’ll do it together.” Bobby stood, scraping the mud off his clothes with his hands and wading into the water. Kevin followed, his legs making small ripples that arced out in perfect concentric circles before disappearing into the murk. When they were far enough from shore, Bobby gripped Kevin’s arm and pulled him close. His words came in quick gasps.

  “I’m gonna buck and fight and wanna come up. You hold my head down until I take a breath. You’ll know when it’s over.”

  “Bobby.” Kevin’s voice drifted out into the abyss, sucked down into whatever soundless place words went.

  “One breath and then there’s nothing.”

  “Yeah.”

  Bobby patted him on the shoulder and knelt so the water was chest deep, lips moving silently as he wet his fingers and blessed himself.

  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Dust thou art and unto dust thou shall return.

  He took a final look at the sky, brushed in immaculate strokes of oran
ge and red as the sun finally lifted clear of the city. Then he touched his lips with his tongue, took a small inhale, and ducked his head beneath the surface. Kevin gripped the back of his neck and held it. Bobby was still at first, then fought just like he said he would, bucking once, then twice. Kevin screamed silently as Bobby thrashed, his life, in the end, reduced to little more than a string of bubbles. Kevin watched the bubbles pop and die, the world spinning like a mad top, a human life leaking away beneath his fingertips. Then he pulled his friend, his brother, his family from the dark, sucking well of water. He held him, kissed him, and swore at him. They swore at each other, at life, death, and everything in between. Kevin dragged Bobby back to the shore and laid him out on the bank, more dead than alive, but alive all the same. And then Kevin told Bobby his plan. It was the same plan they’d used twenty-six years earlier, except this time Bobby was the one who needed protecting and Kevin was ready to do his part.