Innocence

by David Hosp

  It was nearly three o’clock when Finn pulled his car out of the lot at police headquarters, Kozlowski sardined in next to him. Finn had enough time to get up to Billerica to talk to Salazar. This time, however, he would talk to him alone. Regular visiting hours would be over, and Finn would have access to Salazar only in his role as the man’s attorney. Kozlowski would not be permitted in. As a result, they decided that it made sense to drop the private detective back at the office so he could help Lissa get the investigation under way.

  “Thoughts?” Finn asked as they pulled out onto Melnea Cass Boulevard.

  “Plenty,” Kozlowski replied.

  Finn spun the wheel to avoid a pothole larger than his tiny car. “I’d love to hear some,” he prodded. Kozlowski was the best at what he did, but Finn sometimes found it aggravating how tight-lipped he was.

  “You didn’t tell me Macintyre talked to you last week.”

  “Yes, I did,” Finn said. “I said, as I was leaving the courthouse, some cop came up to tell us to keep Salazar in jail.”

  “Some cop,” Kozlowski repeated. “Not the same thing as Macintyre.”

  Finn looked across at Kozlowski. “Does it matter?”

  Kozlowski looked out the passenger window. “It might.”

  “You know him, I take it.”

  Kozlowski nodded. “We worked together a few times way back, twenty years, maybe more. Been a long time since we had close contact to speak of, but we were in the same station house for a while.”

  “Good guy?”

  “Only if you prefer assholes.”

  Finn considered this. “I do hang out with you quite a bit.”

  “Funny.”

  “You think it’s a coincidence that he was assigned to the Dobson case?” It seemed like a remarkable coincidence to Finn, and it had him concerned for some unidentifiable reason.

  Kozlowski sighed. “Officially, cases are assigned randomly—unless there’s some known connection to an ongoing investigation. In reality, if a senior detective has an interest in a particular case, it ain’t hard to mess with the system.”

  “So where does that leave us?”

  “In limbo, I guess. Everything he says about Salazar could be true. He could turn out to be one bad fucker. That happens, you need to try like hell to get off this case, ’cause it’s gonna end badly one way or another. On the other hand, from what I know about Mac, I can’t take his word as gospel. He’s got some tarnish on the badge, you know what I mean?”

  “You think he’s dirty?”

  Kozlowski tilted his head. “Don’t know. But I’m not sure he’s entirely clean. The last time I worked with him, he bent the rules. Not badly. Not nearly as badly as I’d seen others do, but I tried not to get assigned with him again. Once you start bending some of the rules, it gets a hell of a lot easier to bend some others. I didn’t want to be there if he asked me to back him up.”

  Finn focused on the road as he pulled out onto Storrow Drive, headed east toward Charlestown. It was just past three o’clock, and the sun was already settling along the horizon behind them, on the other side of the Charles River. The snow had let up, and it had turned into one of those wonderfully crisp, cold days of early winter, with the sky so clear that the sunlight off the fresh snow covering the city was difficult to look at. The MG was churning hard to kick out enough heat to warm the little convertible, but Finn could still see his breath, and he wasn’t sure whether the frost on the windshield was on the inside or the outside. He shivered as he drove, thinking about his upcoming encounter with Salazar. It felt like he was getting himself into a mess, and he was tempted to take Macintyre’s advice—cut and run, and leave it all to be cleaned up by someone else. After all, Lissa was right: He hadn’t wanted the case in first place.

  Except that he had. Dobson was a smart enough lawyer to know which of Finn’s buttons to push to get him involved. Dobson had been a believer. In law school, the professors had talked about the law in terms of justice. Perched high in their ivory towers, they had preached the gospel of the law as a tool for social good, for correcting the world’s inequities. Most of the other students, fresh from their boarding schools and four-year-college campuses, had bought into it. Not Finn. Finn had spent his life in the real world, and he knew that justice was an illusion. The victory over Slocum had been sweet and satisfying, but it hadn’t been justice. The real world was too gray for justice to play much of a role.

  And yet, as he’d sat in law school classes, snickering internally at the naïveté of those preachers, there was a part of him that wanted to believe it. Like a kid reading a comic book, he wanted to live in a world of right and wrong, where victory didn’t mean winning only for himself but for some greater principle as well. It was to that part of him that Dobson had appealed. It was that part of him that was murmuring in the back of his head right now, whispering that this was his chance—maybe his only chance—to find a little justice. If not for Vincente Salazar, at least for Mark Dobson.

  He guided his car off Storrow, down Monsignor O’Brien Highway, around three corners, and skidded to a stop in front of the office. Kozlowski opened the passenger door and hauled himself out. He leaned over and looked at Finn. “Good luck,” he said.

  “Any last words of advice?”

  Kozlowski frowned. “Be careful” was all he could muster. Then he closed the door.

  Finn pulled out and pointed his car northwest, toward Billerica. The sun had fallen below the horizon, and only a pale, thin glow was visible in the distance. It felt as though the temperature had already fallen another ten degrees.

  It felt to Finn like it was about to get even colder.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Finn paced back and forth in the interview room at Billerica, his footsteps a full cadence behind his heartbeat. He tried to work through what he would say to Salazar—what he would ask him—but it was useless. His thoughts were coming too quickly and defied structure.

  He heard explosions of steel on steel from deep within the prison, as doors were slammed open and closed, the sounds coming steadily closer, until the door to the interview room swung open and Salazar, bound at the wrists and ankles, was escorted into the room by two heavyset guards. He stood by the doorway, a look of surprise on his face at seeing Finn. Then he shuffle-stepped over toward the plastic chair set in front of the table in the center of the room.

  The guards watched their shackled prisoner sit, then gave the lawyer a quick glance. “Fifteen minutes,” one of them said. They turned and walked out, slamming the door behind them, leaving Finn alone with Salazar.

  The two of them stared at each other. Neither moved. Finn stood several feet behind the table where Salazar sat, one hand partially raised, as if he’d been cryogenically frozen in midspeech. Salazar’s head was tilted slightly as he regarded Finn with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. Finn wondered who would be the first to break the silence.

  “Mr. Finn,” Salazar said at last. “I was under the impression that you were no longer interested in my case. I was told you no longer found it easy enough for you. Have you changed your mind?”

  It took a moment for Finn to respond. “Maybe,” he said. He still didn’t move.

  Salazar placed his cuffed hands on the table. “Mr. Dobson said you’d given up hope. He said you were out.”

  “When did you talk to him?”

  “Mark?”

  “Dobson. Yes.”

  Salazar frowned. “The days sometimes run into each other here. What is today? Monday?”

  “Yes.”

  Salazar went through a mental calculation. “It must have been last Friday, then.”

  “You haven’t talked to him since?”

  “No.”

  Finn gave a skeptical look.

  “You can ask him if you don’t believe me, Mr. Finn,” Salazar replied.

  “No, I can’t,” Finn said. “That’s why I’m here.”

  Salazar looked at Finn, tilting his head farther in confusion. “I
don’t understand.”

  “He’s dead.” Finn watched Salazar’s reaction closely, scrutinizing his facial expression. It revealed nothing. Salazar stared straight at Finn, his eyes never twitching, his face granite. He didn’t flinch, though Finn thought he sensed the man’s breathing quicken.

  “How?” was all he said.

  “Butchered,” Finn replied. After a pause, he added, “With a machete.”

  Again Salazar showed no reaction, no emotion. He sat still, and Finn had no indication of what was going on in the man’s head. Finally, he nodded, then stood. “Thank you for coming,” he said to Finn. He

  walked to the door. “Guard!” he shouted.

  “What are you doing?” Finn asked.

  “Going back to my cell.”

  Finn had no idea what to say. “That’s it?” he demanded. “‘Thank you for coming, I’m going back to my cell’? That’s all you have to say to me?”

  “What more would you like me to say?”

  “I want a goddamned explanation!”

  The door opened from the outside, and one of the guards stood there, looking at the convict and his lawyer.

  “I’m not through with my client!” Finn yelled.

  The guard looked both annoyed and amused as he turned his attention to Salazar, raising an eyebrow.

  After a moment, Salazar nodded at the guard, who stepped back out and closed the door behind him. “I thought you were no longer interested in my case, Mr. Finn. I thought you’d resigned.”

  “Yeah, me, too. Only I never filled out the paperwork, so we’re stuck with each other, at least for now.”

  Salazar mulled that over. “I appreciate your dedication, Mr. Finn. But please, for both of our sakes, go back to your office and fill out the paperwork.”

  “Why? I may be willing to help, and there’s no one standing in line behind me. Without me, you die here in jail. You really think it’s smart to dismiss me so quickly?”

  “You sound like Mark Dobson now,” Salazar said. “Look what happened to him. I can’t take that responsibility.” He shook his head. “I’ve already survived a lifetime in here. I can certainly do a few more. There’s nothing I have left for them to take. Thank you again for coming, but you can’t help me.”

  “Thanks, but I like to make those kinds of decisions myself,” Finn replied. “You don’t need to worry about me. I can take care of myself.”

  Salazar gave a thin, pained smile. “That’s what Mr. Dobson said also.”

  Finn folded his arms. “You know who killed him, don’t you? You know who killed Dobson.”

  Salazar took a deep, reluctant breath and nodded. “Yes, Mr. Finn, I know who killed him.”

  “Tell me,” Finn demanded. “I only knew him briefly, but he had balls and brains enough to drag me into this shit. That means something to me. I want to know who killed him.”

  Salazar stared through Finn, his shoulders slumped. He looked like a man in agony. “Very well,” he said. “It was me.”

  Finn looked back at Salazar, not comprehending. “What?”

  “That’s right, Mr. Finn. I killed Mark Dobson.”

  z

  Kozlowski stood in the doorway to Finn’s main office. Lissa Krantz was sitting at her small desk, pecking furiously at her keyboard as she stared at her computer screen. She was engrossed in her task, and she didn’t notice him enter the room. He watched her, lost in his own thoughts.

  Finn had just been messing with his head, he was sure. There was no chance that someone like Lissa would have any interest in someone like him. It wouldn’t make any sense. And yet . . .

  He wasn’t sure he’d ever looked closely at her before. He knew she was attractive—and young. That was probably why he’d never taken a good look. For him, she was like an expensive car: He knew a Maserati was a fine-looking automobile, but he also knew he’d never drive one, so he’d never bothered to examine one close up.

  Now here he was, standing in the doorway of the office, admiring this attractive young woman, appreciating her looks for the first time. Strangely, he felt self-conscious. He shook himself in annoyance. Fuck Finn.

  He cleared his throat as he stepped fully into the room. Lissa turned and looked at him briefly, then went back to her work. “What’s going on, Koz?” she asked in a bored tone.

  “Nothing,” he replied. All of a sudden he was noticing everything that came out of his mouth, and it sounded dull-witted to him. He cursed himself. “Do we have a fingerprint expert yet?” Perhaps if he turned the conversation toward the Salazar investigation, he would feel more comfortable.

  “I’ve got some calls out,” she said. “There’s a guy named Jim Brannagh who’s been doing some freelancing since he left the fingerprint lab and started teaching at B.U. He looks promising. And Finn gave me Kelley LeBlanc’s name, so I’ve got a message in to her. She’s younger, but she spent fifteen years doing this stuff for the cops.”

  “They both worked for the BPD, right?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she replied. “We need someone with some decent credibility, and anyone local who’s any good came out of the goddamned department.”

  “We’ve gotta go outside Boston for this,” Kozlowski commented, trying to sound authoritative. “There’s too much of a conflict if we stay here. We probably won’t get the full scoop if we use someone local with ties to the fingerprint unit.”

  “Thin blue line?” Lissa asked.

  Kozlowski nodded.

  “Still?”

  “Grim, isn’t it? But it’s still there. Cops protect each other, especially cops they know, or cops in the same department.”

  “But these people are retired.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Once a cop, always a cop.”

  She turned to look at him. “Where does that leave you?”

  Kozlowski felt himself squirm under her scrutiny. “What do you mean?”

  “You were a cop. Would you protect other cops?”

  He shifted his stance uncomfortably. “Depends, I guess.”

  “On what?”

  He shrugged. “On the situation. On the cop.”

  “What happened to that black-and-white view of morality you were talking to Finn about earlier? Is that just for other people?”

  “No, it’s not. But it’s a little different for cops. It’s like being in the military. You’re out there in a war zone, and people are trying to kill you. The only ones you know have your back are the other cops you work with. You start messing with that trust, and the world becomes a very dangerous place very quickly. That’s drilled into you, and it’s tough to get out.”

  “So? Is it out of you yet?”

  He tried a smile. “I think so, but I’m a little bit of an oddity.”

  She turned back to the computer. “No fucking argument here,” she mumbled.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  Neither of them said anything and the silence weighed on Kozlowski in a manner it never had before. “Anyway,” he said, “I’ve got some thoughts on who we might use if we go outside Boston on the fingerprint issue.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “I’ve got a list back in my office. I’ll get it.” He turned and started back through the door, paused, started into his office again, and then stepped back out once again. He looked over at her. “I’ve got a couple things I have to finish up, and it’s starting to get late. If you want, we could grab a drink in a little while. Maybe talk about it over dinner.”

  She looked at him again.

  “I mean, only if you want. You may have other things going on, and we can always get to it tomorrow. But if you want . . .” He heard his voice trail off. He felt intimidated. It was a bizarre experience for him.

  Her expression betrayed her surprise. “Sure,” she said. “What the fuck, right?”

  “Good. An hour or so?”

  “Sounds good.”

  “I’ll come get you.”

  “From the other room?”

  “
Right. From the other room. I’ll pop my head in.”

  “Good. I’ll see you then.”

  “Okay.” He turned and walked back to his office. It was only four paces, but it felt like a journey. Once safely in his own space, he rested against the wall. He felt exhausted and confused, and yet he couldn’t ever remember feeling quite so alive.

  z

  “I killed him,” Salazar repeated. They were seated at the table in the attorney visiting room, and the convict’s head was in his hands, his elbows resting on the chipped-wood surface. “I might as well have swung the machete myself.”

  “What happened?”

  “I wanted out so badly. Too badly. I wanted to sit with my daughter without guards watching me every time I gave her a hug. I wanted to sit on the back porch of my brother’s house—I’ve seen it in pictures and in my dreams—and talk quietly with him about medicine. I try to keep up with many of the new procedures and treatments, but it’s not the same reading about in journals as it is living with it.” He ripped his hands through his long hair. “I wanted it all so badly, I was willing to put Dobson’s life in danger. He was the only person outside of my family who has ever believed in me—in my innocence—and I got him killed.”

  Finn watched Salazar, trying to determine whether he was acting. “I was at the police department earlier today,” he said. “They blame you.”

  Salazar looked up at him. “Well, that’s the first time I’ve ever agreed with the police,” he said. “I suppose there’s a first for everything.”

  “No,” Finn said. “They don’t think you got him killed; they think you had him killed.”

  Salazar rubbed his eyes in disbelief. “Why?”

  Finn leaned back. “They say you are a member of VDS. A leader, in fact.”

  “That’s a load of mierda. Bullshit. Did they give you any proof?”

  “They had pictures,” Finn said.

  “Of?”

  “You with VDS gang members. You looked like you were conferencing pretty seriously about something.”

  “No,” Salazar said. “It’s not true.”

  “I saw the pictures.”

  “Of course you did. And I’m sure they had pictures of me with VDS. I treated them. I was the closest thing to a real doctor to everyone in the neighborhood. That included VDS gang members. I treated them when they got sick. When they got shot. When they got pregnant. It wouldn’t be very hard to have pictures of me with them.”