Intent to Kill

by James Grippando

  “This ain’t no peep show,” said one of the cops.

  Emma met his sarcasm with a flash of her credentials, which got her past the outer perimeter. The temperature seemed to drop another five degrees as she entered the underbelly of the old bridge. It was a tired cantilever steel structure nearly 100 feet wide and spanning 695 feet across the river and two riverside streets. It badly needed replacement, but it got high marks from some of Rhode Island’s homeless, who didn’t seem to mind the overhead buzz of 172,000 vehicles a day.

  Emma caught the eye of Lieutenent Adler, who recognized her.

  “Got an ID of the victim yet?” she said.

  Adler had the look and demeanor of a homicide detective who had seen far too many murders. He was a clenched fist of a man, perpetually tense and angry, his upper lip leathered from years of chain smoking.

  “No,” he said. “Pretty obviously homeless. Really bad teeth—I’m guessing not just from lack of flossing. Probably meth addiction.”

  “How long has he been dead?”

  “Foo-owwas,” he said.

  Emma had to translate in her head. Adler had one of those “Roe-Dyelin” accents that even natives had a hard time understanding.

  “A few hours—so not much rigor mortis beyond the head and neck, I presume?”

  “Nah much.”

  Emma glanced toward the cloth-draped corpse. The examiners were getting ready to lift it onto a gurney. “Cause of death?” said Emma.

  “Blunt trauma. Someone absolutely crushed the side of his head.”

  “You have a murder weapon?”

  “Yeah. Baseball bat was right next to the body. Traces of blood and human hair on it.”

  The mere mention of anything “baseball” hit Emma like ice water. It was suddenly clear why she had been summoned to the scene. “I see,” said Emma.

  Adler said, “Pretty careless to drop the bat right beside the body. If you’re not going to take it with you, at least throw it in the river.”

  “People panic, they do strange things,” said Emma.

  “Especially if they have one of those autism syndromes.”

  Emma tried not to push back too hard. “I understand where you’re going with this. But just because a homeless man is beaten to death with a baseball bat doesn’t mean the killer was Ryan James’s brother-in-law.”

  “I’d agree with you, except that this particular baseball bat happens to be signed by Ivan Lopez. I listen to Ryan’s radio show every morning. He and Ivan are best friends.”

  More ice water. Emma knew it was true. “Anything else pointing you in that direction?” she asked tentatively.

  “We found baseball cards in the victim’s coat pockets. Some are probably collectors’ cards, fairly valuable. There’s one of Carl Yastrzemski’s rookie season with the corner burned off. Possible evidence of motive there.”

  “Motive?”

  Adler shrugged, theorizing. “A guy like Babes is probably a loner, not many friends. He runs away from home, taking only his prized possessions: his baseball cards and an autographed bat. He calls in to Ryan’s radio show, tells the world he killed his sister”—sistuh—“and doesn’t know where to hide. He gets chummy with some homeless guy under a bridge. Homeless guy steals his baseball cards. Babes bashes his brains out with a baseball bat.”

  “Makes sense,” said Emma. Almost too much sense. “Any witnesses?”

  “So far we’ve talked to two other homeless folks. But they were clear on the other side of the river. Didn’t see anything, and with all this traffic noise, Lord knows they didn’t hear anything.”

  “How about fingerprints?”

  “Picked up some clean ones from the cards and the bat,” said Adler.

  “We have Babes’s prints in the data bank,” she said. “The lab lifted one from my BlackBerry earlier this month.”

  “Good to know. We’ll run it. Victim also had a cell phone on him—stolen, presumably. But the bat bashed it to bits. Not sure if we’ll get any latent prints or not, but our techies will track down the owner. If it belongs to Babes, that only strengthens my theory. Should have our answer before breakfast.”

  “Doesn’t sound like you’re expecting any surprises,” said Emma.

  “Been doing this too many yizz,” said Adler, looking off toward the river. “I’m done with surprises.”

  42

  BABES WAS TERRIFIED.

  He hadn’t slept a wink inside the niche. It took hours for the first signs of daylight to shine through the bolt holes in the granite marker. Still, he waited. To be absolutely certain that the man with the gun was gone, he had to remain out of sight until he could stand it no more. It was his bladder that finally betrayed him. He pushed out the granite marker and crawled out from his hiding place. To his relief, he was alone in the crypt.

  Babes quickly stepped outside to answer nature’s call, then hurried back inside. He didn’t want to go anywhere, but he was starving. Yesterday, Yaz had raided the Dumpster outside his favorite Italian restaurant and scrounged up a half-eaten Stromboli and garlic rolls for dinner, but there was nothing left for breakfast. Babes hoped that Yaz would show up any minute with a loaf of bread or some granola bars—whatever they handed out at the downtown homeless shelter. Realistically, however, Babes knew that it wasn’t going to happen. The mean-looking man with the gun last night had made this much clear: Yaz’s blackmail scheme had backfired on him. He was now running from serious trouble, or he was already in it. Either way, Yaz wasn’t coming back to the Dawes family crypt. Even worse, Babes understood that he, too, had to leave now—before the man with the gun came around again.

  Babes slumped into his corner and considered his next move. Trusting Yaz had been a huge mistake. He should never have told him about Chelsea’s crash. But after three years of bottling up the truth, he needed to tell someone what he had seen—and whom he had seen. It just so happened that Yaz had been there to listen. The thought of blackmail had never entered Babes’s mind until Yaz came back from the pond and made that phone call.

  What’d you have to go and do that for, Yaz?

  Babes took a breath. He needed to get moving, but he wasn’t ready to start walking. He put on his headphones and switched on his pocket radio.

  Ryan’s voice was in his ear.

  “I think the Patriots go thirteen and three this season, and that’s more than good enough to win the Eastern Division,” said Ryan.

  Babes switched stations. He hated when people talked about football when baseball was just reaching the most interesting part of the season, but more than that, he was not yet ready to hear Ryan’s voice—at least not until he’d figured out what he was going to do.

  “All news, all the time,” said the announcer on the next station.

  Babes was about to turn the dial again when “the top story” caught his attention: “A homeless man was found dead in Pawtucket early this morning, the apparent victim of a brutal homicide.”

  Babes froze.

  “The man, who has yet to be identified, is described as a white male, approximately thirty-five years old, with black hair that is longer on one side than the other. He was wearing an old army coat.”

  Yaz!

  “The body was found beneath the I-95 bridge over the Seekonk River. Police say that the man was beaten to death with a baseball bat. A number of old baseball cards were also found in his coat pockets. Fingerprints taken from both the bat and the cards reportedly match those of Daniel Townsend of Pawtucket.”

  “What?” said Babes, his words exploding like a reflex.

  “Townsend is the brother-in-law of former PawSox star Ryan James, whose wife died in a car crash three years ago, and who currently hosts a popular radio show in Boston. Townsend—who goes by the name Babes—has been on the run since phoning in to James’s radio show several days ago and confessing that he killed his sister. Anyone with information as to the whereabouts of Daniel Townsend or the identity of his alleged victim should notify the police. And n
ow for a traffic update, we go to—”

  Babes killed the radio. He wanted to scream, but he maintained control and began to process the news.

  Yaz was dead, no doubt about it. And Babes was the prime suspect. It made perfect sense that his prints were on the baseball cards. He could explain that to the police. But how did they end up on the baseball bat? The radio station must have gotten that part wrong. Definitely. That was it. Reporters mixed up their facts all the time.

  Babes closed his eyes, feeling only pain. Surely the cops had intensified their search after his call to Ryan’s radio show. It was bad enough that he’d killed Chelsea. If they had him pegged for Yaz’s murder as well, law enforcement was going to be everywhere looking for him. His photograph would be all over the newspapers, the television, the Internet. He could even end up as the featured fugitive on America’s Most Wanted. There might even be a reward for his capture—dead or alive.

  This is going to kill Mom.

  He wanted to call her, but no way could he drag his mother into this. She’d try to talk him into turning himself in, and if he turned himself in, the police would throw him in jail, and if he went to jail, it would be big naked men in the shower and cherry red lips of Kool-Aid for Babes.

  Don’t touch me!

  Babes pulled his hair, two tight fists on either side of this head, and he let out a noise that was somewhere between a groan and a scream. He had no idea what to do, but he had to act fast. The world, or at least the cops, needed to hear how he had met Yaz and how he’d had nothing to do with his murder. Yaz had taken Babes’s cell, but his mom had always made Babes carry a prepaid phone card in his wallet for emergencies. All he had to do was find a pay phone.

  It was time to call Ryan again.

  43

  THE STUDIO DOOR SWUNG OPEN. RYAN KEPT TALKING INTO THE microphone—“looks like he’s been scarfing down too many Fenway Franks lately”—as he read the expression on his producer’s face.

  “Line three,” she said, mouthing the words: “Babes.”

  “Oops, we lost Mike in Worcester,” said Ryan as he hit disconnect. Just switching lines made his pulse quicken. “Let’s go to Babes in…where are you, Babes?”

  “Stop it,” he said. “You know I can’t tell you.”

  Ryan did know. Emma had called to fill him in about the body under the bridge before his show, and at every commercial break, Ryan had darted off to get the latest update from the news desk. The fingerprint match on the murder weapon was especially devastating news. Ryan wanted to be in Pawtucket with his in-laws, but Emma had talked him into staying on the air. Her hunch that Babes might call was playing out.

  “Babes, let me go to a commercial so you and I can talk in private.”

  His producer was borderline apoplectic, her arms waving and head shaking in silent but emphatic disagreement.

  “No!” Babes shouted. “I want everyone to hear this. Especially the police. I want to be on the radio!”

  Ryan had never heard so much fear in Babes’s voice. “All right,” said Ryan. “We’ll do it any way you like. Just calm down a little, and don’t hang up on me.”

  “Calm down? How am I supposed to calm down? Somebody killed Yaz!”

  “Who’s Yaz?”

  “He burned my baseball card!” said Babes.

  “Help me out a little. Was it Yaz who the police found down by the river this morning?”

  “Well, duh. Those were my baseball cards in his pockets. He took them.”

  “Did that make you mad?”

  “He burned Carl Yastrzemski. Wouldn’t that make you mad?”

  Mad enough to kill him?

  It was the next logical question, but Ryan didn’t dare ask it on the air. He glanced through the glass at his producer, whose body language told him to take as much air time as he wanted.

  “Let’s start at the beginning,” said Ryan. “How did you meet Yaz?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, okay? I’m trying to explain everything.”

  “Go right ahead. I’m listening.”

  “When I left the house, I went to my secret place. I haven’t been there in a long time. Unfortunately, it turned out that Yaz was living there. He’s homeless.”

  “Where is this place?”

  “Stop it, Ryan! I said it was secret!”

  “Sorry. I promise I won’t do that again. So you met Yaz in your secret hiding spot.”

  “Right. We got to be—not really friends, but we got to talking. He wanted to know why I was hiding, so I told him about Chelsea.”

  The mere mention of Chelsea’s name sent chills down Ryan’s spine. “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him about the crash.”

  “What about it?”

  “Everything, Ryan. I told Yaz everything.”

  Ryan was at a crossroads again. A motive for murder just came to mind. “Did Yaz laugh? Did he make fun of you?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Did he not believe you?”

  “He believed everything, of course. It was all true. That’s the problem.”

  Ryan wasn’t sure where to go with that remark. “I don’t understand. Why was there a problem if he believed you?”

  “It was Yaz’s idea, not mine.”

  “What was Yaz’s idea?”

  Babes voice was cracking on the line, his words running together, as if he couldn’t get them out fast enough. “It never occurred to me to blackmail anybody, but Yaz used my cell phone to make the call, and then he tied me up and went out to collect the money—ten thousand dollars—but he didn’t come back, and then this guy came looking for me, a guy with a gun!”

  “Whoa, slow down,” said Ryan. “Who did Yaz try to blackmail?”

  “The man I saw that night. The night Chelsea died.”

  A tightness gripped Ryan’s chest. “Babes, I’ve talked to your parents. I know what happened that night.”

  “No, you don’t!”

  “Yes, I do. You said you were in the car. When you saw what happened to Chelsea, it scared you so much that you ran all the way home. You panicked. That’s okay. Lots of people would panic. I understand why you think you killed Chelsea, but you didn’t kill—”

  “No, you don’t understand! Mom and Dad don’t understand either! Nobody understands anything!”

  Ryan drew a breath, fearing that Babes was about to hang up. “You’re right. We can’t understand until you explain it to us. So go ahead. What are we missing?”

  “You’re missing the part that I told Yaz.”

  “Do you want to tell it to me now?”

  “Yes—yes! Just stop being the talk-show host. Shut up and listen to me! Nobody ever listens to me. Only Yaz did, and then he…”

  Ryan could tell that Babes was either crying or on the verge. “Don’t hang up, Babes. Tell me what you told Yaz.”

  Babes sighed. “When I saw what happened to Chelsea, I knew she was hurt really bad, but I didn’t know what to do. I just ran into the park and hid in the trees. I don’t know how long I was there, but it’s not like I told Mom. I didn’t run straight home.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I sat there, hiding. Because I didn’t know what to do. The car was smashed into a big oak. There was a branch right through the windshield. Chelsea’s door was hanging open. She was bleeding like crazy. Ainsley was screaming in the backseat. I couldn’t—I just couldn’t handle it.”

  “It’s all right,” said Ryan. “Tell me what happened next.”

  “Then this car pulled up.”

  Ryan froze. This was new. “What kind of car?”

  “The same car that was coming at us on the road, when the guy swerved right in front of us and Chelsea lost control.”

  “You saw that car?”

  “Yes. And he came back. He stopped on the side of the road and got out. He was kind of frantic as he ran to Chelsea’s car. Her door was flung open from the crash. He took one look and saw how bad she looked. He threw up right ther
e.”

  Ryan didn’t want to interrupt, but for some reason, Babes had paused. “Are you okay?” asked Ryan.

  “Yeah,” Babes said, his voice more distressed. “This is the really hard part. Chelsea—she wasn’t dead, you know. She was still alive.”

  For Ryan, this had suddenly moved beyond painful. “I know. She was alive when the ambulance brought her to the hospital.”

  “See, that’s the thing. If the ambulance had gotten there sooner, maybe it would have been different.”

  Ryan knew that was true. It was one of the big ifs that would torment him for the rest of his life. But he didn’t want to lay it on Babes. “It’s not your fault that—”

  “Shut up, Ryan! Just listen! I was there, and I’m the only one who knows whose fault it was. It was dark out, but the guy’s headlights were shining right on Chelsea, and I could see everything. She was still alive, I could tell. She was barely conscious, but she was digging in her purse for her phone. She had it in her hand when the drunk guy came up to her.”

  “She what?” said Ryan, almost unable to comprehend.

  “Don’t you get it? She was trying to call for help, but she couldn’t dial the phone. Her face was so bloody she probably couldn’t even see it.”

  Babes was definitely crying now. Ryan wasn’t far behind him. “Stay with me,” said Ryan. “What did the man do next?”

  “He did exactly what I should have done in the first place. I didn’t have my own cell phone three years ago. Mom thought I wasted too much time playing the games. But I should have taken Chelsea’s phone and called nine-one-one.”

  “Are you saying that the man took her phone?”

  “Yeah. He took it out of Chelsea’s hand. That’s what I should have done, Ryan. I should have taken her phone and dialed nine-one-one. If I hadn’t run like a coward into the woods, if I’d just kept my composure and stayed to help Chelsea, she would have lived. Even the drunk guy who caused the accident had enough sense to do that. He didn’t kill her. I did. He came back to help. I’m the idiot who freaked out and ran instead of helping her before it was too late.”