Brian Gold was in some of them. A pretty young girl with long pale hair and a slender childlike body was in the others.
They were naked in all the photos.
They looked painfully young, those two kids. More like children than teenagers. Brian had a sturdy little athlete’s body, but his skin was smooth and hairless, and he had the face of innocence.
The girl had tiny little breasts and boyish hips. It was Jenny Rolando. I remembered her from the soccer-team photos on the wall in the Reddington police station.
In some of the photos, Brian and Jenny were together—just the two of them in one shot, these two naked children, coupling on a bed. In a few others, the two of them were with a third person. In the rest of the photos, it was either Brian or Jenny with somebody else, different people in each photo, it looked like, some male and some female. Except for Brian and Jenny, all the other figures were adults, many of them half-dressed, and all the adult faces were turned away from the camera.
The photos were hard to look at. These two children on their knees with their arms wrapped around the hips of fat, hairy men with their pants down around their ankles, with their heads between the legs of flab-thighed women, on their hands and knees with a man wearing a T-shirt mounted behind them, with a big-butted woman with her dress bunched up around her hips sitting astride them, sandwiched between two middle-aged people, one male and one female …
No wonder Brian had fled. No wonder he was ashamed and guilt-ridden. No wonder he couldn’t face his mother.
I heard a deep voice from Julie’s office. I hastily crammed the photos back into the envelope, took it over to my safe, shoved it in, shut the door, twisted the knob, and adjusted the framed picture of Billy and Joey over it.
I was back sitting on my sofa smoking a cigarette when Horowitz came in.
He stopped in the doorway, stared down at the dead body on my floor, then looked at me. “Jesus Christ, Coyne,” he muttered.
“You recognize him?”
He squatted beside the dead guy and frowned down at him for a minute, then looked up at me. “Yeah,” he said. “I know who this is. You’ve done mankind a great service.”
“Who is it?”
“Name of Bobby Klemm. Freelancer. Started out with the Capezza mob down in Providence, got himself a reputation, went independent, oh, eight or ten years ago. Been working all over New England. He’s slick. Uses twenty-two long-rifle cartridges. Slices a big X on the tips of his slugs. Nastier than hollow-points. That’s his signature. We figure him for about a dozen hits from Burlington to Springfield to New Haven. He’s been picked up a few times, but no one’s ever had enough on him to go for an indictment.”
“If he was that slick,” I said, “he wouldn’t be lying there looking up at my ceiling.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Coyne,” said Horowitz. “He got careless, underestimated you, and you got lucky.” He stood up, then nudged Klemm’s leg with his toe. “Wish you didn’t have to kill him, actually.”
I nodded. “He could’ve explained it all, probably.”
Horowitz nodded, gave Klemm’s leg another halfhearted kick, then came over and sat on the sofa beside me. “I called it in a few minutes ago. I figured you wanted to talk to me first. Boston homicide’s on their way, and when they get here it’ll be their case, so you better talk fast. This has gotta be connected to the Sprague thing, and assuming it is, Gus Nash’ll be all over you like a full-blown case of genital herpes.”
I told him what had happened, about the envelope Jake had given me for safekeeping, how Klemm had known about it, known that it was in my safe.
Horowitz puffed out his cheeks and blew out a long breath. “The professor told him,” he said. “The business end of a cigar butt’ll do things like that to a man. So what was in that envelope the guy was so hot to get ahold of?”
I told him.
“Jesus,” he muttered. “Kiddie porn.” He glanced over at Klemm’s body. “Fuckin’ scum. He died too easy. You shoulda aimed lower.”
I nodded. “I’m sorry I didn’t.”
“What a world,” he said. “You’re gonna have to give Nash that envelope, you know.”
“Like hell I am,” I said.
He cocked his head and frowned at me. “Whaddya mean, like hell?”
I shrugged. “I’m not showing those pictures to anybody.”
“You better not get all moral and honorable on us here, Coyne,” he said. “You just killed a guy, don’t forget.”
“No one sees those pictures,” I said. “It’s the least I can do.”
“Show’em to me, at least.”
I shook my head. “Nope. Not even you.”
“Just lemme see them,” he said.
I hesitated. “You’ll give them back?”
“If you insist.”
“And you won’t mention them to anybody?”
“If I can see them,” he said, “maybe I’ll recognize something. I can do some checking. I won’t have to tell anybody where I saw em.
I considered it for a minute, then went to the safe, took out the envelope, and handed it to Horowitz. “I’m trusting you on this, Roger,” I said.
He thumbed through the photos, peering hard at each one, then gave them back to me. I returned them to the safe.
“So?” I said.
“Vile,” he said.
I nodded.
“There’s only two identifiable people in them. The Gold boy’s one of’em, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Who’s the girl?”
“Jenny Rolando,” I said.
“That accident?”
I nodded.
He looked at me. “Maybe it wasn’t an accident,” he said. “Maybe Sprague intended to kill them.”
“I’ve been thinking the same thing.”
“Well,” he said, “it’s a start. I’ll pursue it. What’re you gonna do?”
“I’m not going to tell anybody about the photos.”
“You’re gonna lie about it?”
“I didn’t lie to you,” I said.
He nodded. “That’s because I’m not on the case. What about Nash?”
“I’m not telling Gus Nash. My story is that it was a robbery. The guy said he was after money and jewelry. What the hell do I know? Probably some cokehead. Scared the shit out of me. He was very rough with Julie. Took a shot at me, so I shot him. Self defense. If I have to talk to Gus, yes, I’ll have no problem lying to him.”
“Nash ain’t stupid,” said Horowitz. “He’ll recognize Klemm, know it was no robbery. He’ll connect it to the Sprague thing.”
“I assume he will,” I said. “That’s fine. But I’ll play dumb. Let him think what he wants. I’m not telling Gus Nash or anybody else about those pictures. Those photos are between you and me.”
Horowitz shook his head. “You’re puttin’ me in a tough spot. You realize that, don’t you?”
“You’re a tough guy, Roger.”
He nodded. “True.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “So you got this figured out?”
“Not really,” I said. “But for starters, I assume Bobby Klemm’s pistol is the one that killed Jake Gold and Ed Sprague, and if it is, I don’t think I’m in trouble for this.”
“Well, let’s hope so.” He looked toward my door. There were voices out there. “Sounds like the Boston cops’re here,” he said. “This one—” he nodded toward Klemm’s body “—is their case. Tell’em whatever the hell you want. I’ll verify it was what you told me. You and me need to talk some more.”
“I thought they took you off the Sprague case,” I said.
“They did,” he said. “Fuck’em.”
He stood up, started toward the door, then stopped and turned back to me. “You okay, Coyne?”
“Sure. Why?”
He shrugged. “You just killed a man.”
“I’m fine,” I said.
He looked at me for a minute, then shrugged and left my office.
I was fine. I felt
calm and clear-headed and under control.
It would probably hit me later.
After Horowitz left, two men came in. Both wore dark suits and dark mustaches and had shields pinned on their jackets. The taller of the two had streaks of gray in his hair. He introduced himself as Lt. Dominic Gillotte, Boston homicide. The other guy was Sergeant Michaelson. I shook hands with both of them.
They took me out into the reception area. Julie was sitting at her desk talking to a uniformed female officer. Several other people who were standing around out there, including Horowitz, went back into my office.
Gillotte and Michaelson sat me down in one of the waitingroom chairs on the opposite side of the room from Julie’s desk and asked me to tell my story, which I did, the way I’d told Horowitz I intended to tell it. Gillotte asked a few perfunctory questions, which I answered, then he repeated them in such a way that I understood they weren’t perfunctory at all.
I stuck to my story, and after about half an hour, Gillotte went back into my office. Michaelson stayed with me. He didn’t ask any more questions, and I didn’t say anything to him.
I lit a cigarette, and about the time I was stubbing it out, Gillotte and Horowitz came out. Gillotte had my .38 in a plastic bag.
“This is yours, right?” he said.
“Yes. It’ll have my fingerprints on it, and you’ll find that it’s the gun that killed that person in there.”
“You got a license for it?”
“Of course.”
He nodded. “Assuming everything checks out, we’ll get it back to you in a couple days.” He looked at Horowitz. “Anything else, sir?”
Horowitz shrugged. “It’s your case. Seems pretty straightforward to me.”
Gillotte nodded, and he and Michaelson went back into my office again.
Horowitz sat beside me. “They’ll put two and two together pretty soon,” he said quietly. “Soon as they ID Bobby Klemm and do their ballistics on that twenty-two, they’ll connect this with Sprague and Gold. You should expect to hear from Nash and Stone before long, and I doubt they’ll be as gullible as Gillotte. I covered for you here, but I can’t do anything for you with Nash.”
“I can handle it,” I said.
Horowitz grinned. “That was a good shot you made.”
“He was all of five feet from me. Hard to miss.”
“You’d be surprised. I’ve seen experienced police officers miss from five feet.”
“Go for the body mass. That’s what Doc Adams always told me.”
“Well,” he said, “you done good, Coyne. He woulda killed you and Julie. He let you see his face. That means he was planning to kill you.”
I nodded. “That’s what I figured.”
He patted my leg. “If this was my case, I’d grill you like a Fenway hot dog, you know.”
“Last time I was at Fenway, they steamed the dogs.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Good point.” He stood up. “I’ll be in touch,” he said. “We’ll have to put our heads together on this.”
I looked up at him. “Thanks, Roger,” I said. “I know you’re putting yourself on the line here.”
“I ain’t doing it for you, Coyne,” he said. “This is the first time I ever got taken off a case, and it stinks.”
TWENTY
After Horowitz left, I sat there in my reception area while various official people moved in and out. Sergeant Michaelson sat stolidly beside me. He didn’t say anything, but I understood that I was supposed to stay put. I was his prisoner, and I didn’t like the feeling.
After a while, two men pushed a gurney into my office, and they came back out a few minutes later with a zipped-up body bag on it. Julie had been sitting behind her desk the whole time with the same female officer baby-sitting her. She kept glancing my way, and whenever she did, I smiled and nodded at her. She nodded back to me. She was sticking to our story.
Finally Lieutenant Gillotte came back. “You can go home now, Mr. Coyne,” he said.
“About time.”
He frowned at me. “You okay?”
I nodded. “I guess so. I don’t shoot people every day.”
He cocked his head. “Back in eighty-seven you shot a guy. You were in your apartment. Used that same gun, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Yes,” I said. “Same gun. They called that guy Rat. He was some kind of small-time mobster. He’d already killed a few people, and he was going to kill me and my girlfriend.”
Gillotte nodded. “Most people don’t shoot anybody in their whole life. I’m a fucking homicide cop, and I never shot a guy. You’ve shot two.”
“I’m a lawyer,” I said. “That probably explains it.”
He smiled. “Anyway, why don’t you get the hell out of here. We’ll be in touch with you. And you better plan on taking the day off tomorrow. Your office is a crime scene.”
“Okay,” I said. I got up and went over to Julie. “They told me I can leave.”
She nodded. “Me, too. I called Edward. He’s coming to pick me up.”
“Hey,” I said, “you might as well take the day off tomorrow.”
“Since they won’t let us in here anyway?” She smiled. “Just so it doesn’t count against my vacation time.” She cocked her head and frowned at me. “Are you all right, Brady?”
“Sure. You?”
“I’m okay.”
I hugged her, then left.
A uniformed officer was standing stiffly outside my office door. I nodded to him, and he nodded back. Then I went down to the end of the corridor and got into the elevator. I’d walked to work, so I’d have to walk home.
I looked forward to it. The wintry air would clear my head, and the long stroll down Boylston Street, across the Public Garden and the Common, through the financial district and Quincy Market and along Atlantic Avenue to my apartment overlooking the harbor—it would give me time to do some thinking. Maybe I’d stop off at Skeeter’s on the way, have a burger and a beer, watch a basketball game on the TV over his bar. It would be fun to watch a good college basketball game, have a beer or two, talk sports with Skeeter, think about something else besides dead people and pornographic photographs of a boy I’d known since he was a baby, a boy who still called me Uncle Brady.
The elevator stopped at the lobby and the doors slid open. I stepped out … and lights started flashing and a mob of people with cameras and microphones closed in on me. They were shoving and elbowing each other and yelling all at once.
“How’d it feel to kill a man?”
“Was he a client?”
“A few questions, Mr. Coyne.”
“Who was he?”
“Got a license for that gun?”
“Did he rape your secretary?”
“Was he on drugs?”
“ … Reddington?”
“ … Professor Gold?”
Somebody grabbed my arm. I tried to shake him off, but he didn’t let go. “Come with me,” he growled.
It was Horowitz. He held up his shield so the mob could see it and yelled, “Move out of the way or I’ll arrest every goddamn one of you.”
Surprisingly, they stepped back. Horowitz shouldered his way through them. I followed along behind him, out of my office building and onto Boylston Street.
We stopped on the sidewalk and looked back. The mob of reporters had followed a short distance behind us. They stood there uncertainly, and Horowitz glared at them.
“Hey, thanks,” I said.
“You got a car?”
“No. I was going to walk.”
“They’ll follow you. Come on.”
He led me to his Taurus, which was parked in the loading zone around the corner. We got in. He slapped his magnetic portable blue flasher onto the roof, and we pulled away and entered the flow of evening traffic on Boylston Street, heading east.
I smoked a cigarette as Horowitz maneuvered through the traffic, and we didn’t talk all the way to my apartment on Lewis Wharf.
When he pulled up in front, he lea
ned toward me. “I wouldn’t say a damn thing to the media if I were you.”
I nodded. “I wasn’t going to. Advice of counsel.”
He grinned. “I was gonna tell you to get yourself a lawyer, too.”
“I already got one.”
“Any lawyer who tries to defend himself has a fool for an attorney, don’t forget,” said Horowitz.
“So I’ve heard.” I opened the door, slid out, then leaned in. “Thanks again. Thanks for everything.”
He waved me away. “Ah, you’re a pain in the ass, Coyne.”
“I try.”
“I got some things I need to do,” he said. “I’ll get in touch with you. I ain’t done with this.”
“Neither am I.”
The first thing I did when I got up to my apartment was go into the kitchen, take down my jug of Rebel Yell, and pour myself a double shot. I thought maybe I’d get myself blitzed again. Two nights in the same week. That would be a personal best, if you didn’t count college.
I took my drink into the bedroom, shucked off my office clothes, and climbed into jeans and a sweatshirt.
The red message light on my answering machine was blinking like a toddler with a cinder in her eye. I pressed the button. The machine whirred for a long time as the tape rewound through a dozen or more messages. Then it clicked, beeped several times, and a voice said, “Mr. Coyne, this is Melissa DuPont at Channel Seven news, and—”
I hit the button. The next voice belonged to Dan Hutchins at the Globe, and the one after that was the eleven o’clock news anchor from Channel Four.
I turned the machine off, sat on my bed, lit a cigarette, and took a long gulp of Rebel Yell.
And then it finally hit me.
Both of my hands started trembling, my stomach lurched, and I couldn’t catch my breath. I put my drink on the bedside table, stubbed out my cigarette, and lay back. I took several deep breaths. The booze burned in my stomach.
I closed my eyes. Pictures began flashing and whirling in my head.
Bobby Klemm’s cruel eyes.
The black hole of his gun’s muzzle.
The look of pain and fear in Julie’s eyes.
The patch of dark, shiny blood on Klemm’s powder-blue turtleneck.
Scar Tissue Page 16
