The Dead Room

by Chris Mooney

  ‘Thanks for the visual,’ she said.

  ‘You’re welcome. Now can we get to work?’

  Darby didn’t answer. Coop was keeping something from her; she could feel it in her gut. ‘What is it about Kendra Sheppard that’s really bothering you?’

  He rolled his eyes.

  ‘You’re not being honest with me, Coop.’

  ‘I’m sorry you feel that way.’

  ‘You didn’t talk in the car, you didn’t –’

  ‘You didn’t say much of anything either.’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Darby, I told you everything I know. Why are you turning this into a goddamn inquisition?’

  Because you never were a good liar, Coop. I can see it in your eyes. And the more I keep pressing you, the more defensive you get.

  ‘I’m going to go upstairs, get the fingerprint card and call the ME’s office,’ he said, emphasizing each word. ‘You’re more than welcome to escort me, since I’m getting the feeling you don’t trust me.’

  ‘I never said I didn’t trust you.’

  ‘Then can I get off the witness stand and do some work? Or do you want to waste more time grilling me?’

  ‘Call ops and have them page Castonguay,’ Darby said. ‘I want him here taking the pictures. Tell him I think I found his HERF device.’

  32

  Jamie sat alone in the living room waiting for the TV commercial to end. She could hear Carter playing with his Spiderman figures upstairs in the bathtub. Michael was still in his room. When the kids came home from camp, Michael had marched straight upstairs and slammed his bedroom door shut. She went to talk to him. He had locked the door. He refused to talk to her and refused to come out for dinner.

  She asked Carter what was bothering Michael and Carter just shrugged.

  The answering machine provided a clue. She had forgotten to check it when she first returned home.

  ‘Good afternoon, Miss Russo, this is Tara French, the director of the Babson sports camp here in Wellesley.’ The woman’s polite voice carried a good amount of caution, as if she didn’t quite know how to broach a difficult topic. ‘Please give me a call at your earliest convenience. I’d like to speak to you about –’

  Michael, Jamie had thought, deleting the message. Something had happened at camp today. She’d give Michael some time to cool down, then get his version of whatever had happened and speak to the camp director first thing tomorrow morning.

  The second message was from Father Humphrey: ‘Jamie, please call me. I’m… I’m worried about you.’

  The TV commercial ended. The newsreader for the New England Cable News channel, an ageing man with wiry grey hair and bright white teeth she suspected were dentures, started talking in a serious voice about the lead story, ‘a grisly homicide and shocking discovery in Charlestown at the childhood home of Kevin Reynolds, a former close associate of Boston’s notorious Irish mobster Francis Sullivan’.

  Frank Sullivan. Jamie knew the name, of course, but she couldn’t recall anything specific about the man’s legacy beyond suspected murder, extortion and people who suddenly vanished into thin air. She had graduated from the police academy in February of ’92 – nearly a decade after Sullivan’s death. The Irish mob – and the Italian Mafia, for that matter – had been dismantled by the time she had started her first Boston patrols. A year later she had transferred to Wellesley, a town whose greatest threat was the occasional burglary. She met Dan during that year, got married and quit working when she was pregnant with Carter.

  The horse-toothed newsreader disappeared as the screen switched to an Asian reporter who was broadcasting live from Charlestown. Jamie could see blinking blue and white police lights on the windows and wet pavement behind the reporter.

  The reporter gave a brief rundown of what had happened early this afternoon: ‘Charlestown resident Andrea Fucilla, who lives in an apartment building across the street from the childhood home of Kevin Reynolds, heard gunshots and called the police.’

  The screen cut to an elderly woman with olive skin and a crooked nose holding up a pair of thick glasses. She stood under an umbrella but her stringy brown hair was damp from the rain. She spoke in broken English.

  ‘I was on the phone talking to my daughter when I hear popping sounds like firecrackers. But didn’t think it was firecrackers so I call police.’

  ‘How did you know the gunshots came from the Reynolds home?’ the reporter asked.

  ‘I sit by open window smoking my cigarette and hear pop-pop-pop, pop-pop-pop. That’s what I tell police. That and what I saw.’

  ‘What did you see, Miss Fucilla?’

  Jamie felt a sickening dread crawling across her skin.

  ‘I saw a man come walking out of house,’ the elderly witness said. ‘I didn’t get a good look at his face. His head was tilted down because of the rain. He wore Red Sox windbreaker and baseball hat.’

  I saw a man come walking out of house. A man.

  Jamie sighed deeply, the tension dissolving inside her chest.

  The screen had switched back to the reporter. ‘Police confirmed that a male victim was found shot to death inside the house but won’t release the name or any further details regarding the human remains discovered inside the basement.

  ‘Mary Sullivan, mother of Kevin Reynolds, died last month. Local residents have spotted Kevin Reynolds in Charlestown during the past few weeks and told us he was getting ready to put his mother’s home up for sale.’

  Now a split screen of the reporter and the newsreader.

  The newsreader said, ‘Is Kevin Reynolds a suspect?’

  ‘Police have refused to comment but cited him as a person of interest,’ the reporter replied. ‘They are asking any resident who sees Kevin Reynolds to call.’

  The screen switched again to show a photograph of Kevin Reynolds. The picture had been taken some time ago, Jamie thought. Reynolds had a pie-shaped face and pug nose, but his curly hair was brown, not grey. And his clothing was straight out of the eighties: rose-tinted sunglasses and a thick gold chain draped over a white Champion T-shirt worn so tight it showcased his budding man boobs.

  A toll-free number flashed across the bottom of the screen. The reporter promised to bring viewers more details as the story developed.

  Jamie felt certain Reynolds was one of the men who had murdered her husband. She knew she had to move on him quickly. First, she had to find a way to bring him out of hiding.

  She got up from the sofa, wiping her damp palms on her shorts and nursing the idea she’d been mulling over since leaving Charlestown this afternoon. She was about to shut off the TV – she needed to get Carter out of the bathtub – when the newsreader launched into a story outlining Kevin Reynolds’s history with Frank Sullivan.

  On the TV screen, a black-and-white mug shot of Frank Sullivan’s first arrest at twenty-two. He had thick and wavy blond hair and wore a trench coat. He held a Boston Police arrest card a few inches below his freshly shaved chin.

  He had a scar on his right wrist – and it was of the same size and shape as the one Ben Masters had had.

  She blinked, figuring her mind was playing a trick on her. The scar was still there. Same size, same shape.

  She shifted her attention to Frank Sullivan’s big ears sticking out from the sides of his head.

  Ben had had the same ears.

  Now pictures of a younger-looking Sullivan flashed across the TV screen. She was dimly aware of the horse-toothed newsreader saying something about how Sullivan, an only child born in East Boston to a single mother, had started off his career stealing cars before graduating to armed robbery. He was arrested for holding up a bank in Chelsea and served two years in a Cambridge prison.

  Next, a surveillance photograph of a much older Francis Sullivan taken, according to the newsreader, the month before he died during a botched FBI raid on Boston Harbor. Sullivan bald on top, the hair on the sides of his head completely grey. Big ears and a wrinkled curtain of flesh dangli
ng underneath his chin.

  Ben had had the same rooster neck when she’d seen him inside her house. He’d had the exact same scar and –

  Francis Sullivan is dead, a voice whispered.

  Ben has the same ears – and that scar on his wrist, it’s the exact same size and pattern.

  It’s a coincidence, Jamie.

  No, it’s not.

  She tuned out the voice as she grabbed the remote control, frantically searching for the pause button. There. She pressed it, freezing the picture, and then dropped the remote and ran for the basement.

  33

  Jamie opened a drawer in Dan’s desk and took out Ben Masters’s passport and licence. She clutched the items as she ran back upstairs to the living room.

  She opened the passport and held the photograph up against the TV screen, next to the picture of an older Frank Sullivan.

  Ben had smaller nostrils but his nose was the same long, angular shape as Frank Sullivan’s. Both faces were oblong. Same high forehead. And both men had square jaws and cleft chins.

  Differences: Ben’s rooster neck was gone. The skin on his face was tight and smooth, not a wrinkle anywhere. He had a full head of black hair.

  Dyed, she thought. He must have had the hair transplanted, or maybe it’s a wig or a –

  Do you realize what you’re saying? that inner voice asked.

  Yes, she did.

  Frank Sullivan was Ben Masters. There was no question in her mind.

  She had encountered a handful of men in Wellesley – successful big-time executives who had undergone minimally invasive nips and tucks that, after a week of healing, left them looking relaxed and refreshed, as though they had taken a long vacation. These middle-aged men were struggling to maintain their youth. Nothing terrified a man more than losing his sex appeal to younger women, who, when you got right down to it, weren’t paying attention to them anyway.

  To complete his transformation to Ben Masters, Frank Sullivan had undergone a complete craniofacial reconstruction. He’d got himself a new head of hair but hadn’t tucked his ears or done anything to hide the dimple on his chin. Maybe no one would recognize Frank Sullivan passing by in the street, but if you put these two photographs side by side anyone could see the similarities.

  Do you still think this is goddamn coincidence? she asked that nagging inner voice.

  It didn’t answer.

  Fact: Frank Sullivan is Ben Masters.

  Fact: Ben Masters is Frank Sullivan.

  Fact: Frank Sullivan and Ben Masters are the same person.

  Jamie grabbed the remote and pressed PLAY.

  She had to wade through five more minutes of commentary and then came the segment of Frank Sullivan’s death during an FBI raid in the summer of 1983. Two of Frank’s associates had died, along with four FBI undercover agents who’d been placed on the boat – Jack King, Peter Alan, Steve White and Anthony Frissora.

  The men’s four pictures came on the TV. Jamie hit PAUSE.

  Peter Alan… He bore a close resemblance to the man she’d shot in the basement – and Kevin Reynolds had called him Peter. She couldn’t be entirely sure, though. And Anthony Frissora, why did he seem so familiar?

  The man I shot at the Belham house… I swear that’s Anthony Frissora.

  That inner voice perked up again: So now you’re saying that, in addition to killing one dead man who went by the name of Francis Sullivan, you’re saying that you killed two more dead men – two dead Federal agents by the names of Peter Alan and Anthony Frissora.

  There was no doubt in her mind that Ben Masters was Frank Sullivan, but Peter Alan and Anthony Frissora… the pictures on the TV screen were at least twenty years old, but their faces… their faces did bear a close resemblance to the two men she’d shot.

  She filed the thought away and hit PLAY.

  Frank Sullivan’s badly charred body, the newsreader said, was buried next to his mother’s in a Charlestown cemetery.

  Jamie wondered who was really buried in the cemetery, wondered how Frank Sullivan had managed to fake his death, and wondered how he had managed to get both the FBI and the Boston police to buy off on it. Her thoughts turned to the man she’d shot in the basement – the man she knew only as Peter.

  I can tell you everything you need to know, he’d told her.

  He’d worn a gun in a shoulder holster underneath his suit jacket. And she remembered him saying how he had tried to visit the boy named Sean at the hospital and encountered a problem with some woman from the Boston PD.

  Was the man named Peter a cop? Clearly he was tied in to Kevin Reynolds and Ben Masters.

  Frank Sullivan was now Ben Masters. Kevin Reynolds had worked for Sullivan. Reynolds had said he was expecting a call from Ben.

  Has to be Ben Masters, she thought.

  If the man named Peter was, in fact, some sort of law enforcement officer, had he helped Sullivan fake his death?

  You’re forgetting that this Peter guy was working with other people – the man you shot inside the house, the ones who removed the body from the woods, the ones watching the house. One man couldn’t pull off faking someone’s death, but if he had a whole group of law enforcement people working together to pull it off…

  Frank Sullivan died in the summer of 1983. He resurrected himself as Benjamin Masters. Five years ago he broke into her house and killed her husband.

  Why had Sullivan/Ben come out of hiding?

  What happened to your husband and children, the man named Peter had told her, I didn’t have anything to do with that. You have to believe me. That… that was all Kevin and Ben.

  She watched the news for another twenty minutes. There was no mention of a missing man named Ben Masters, but she was sure there would be plenty of discussion about it between Kevin Reynolds and his people.

  Carter called out for her.

  ‘Mom! Mom, I’m getting cold!’

  She shut off the TV and stood, trembling all over. She shoved the passport and licence into her pocket as she moved to the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘Get… ah… towel. Dry… ah… dry… off. Be… ah… ah… up… ah… in… ah… minute.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Back in the basement, she took out Ben’s mobile phone and slipped in the battery. She turned it on knowing she had to do this quickly, knowing that the signal was being monitored by this group of men. She knew one of these men was named Jack. She remembered Peter saying something about a man named Jack watching the Belham house.

  The phone’s screen had a message saying Ben had missed another eleven calls. She touched the message and the screen changed to the call log. Pontius had called. No calls from the man named Alan.

  She found the box marked ‘Messaging’. She touched it. A new screen now appeared upon which she could compose a message. She started typing ‘Pontius’ when the phone automatically filled in the name.

  She composed the message she’d been playing with for the past few hours:

  MEET ME AT WATERMAN PARK IN BELHAM AT 5 A.M. COME ALONE. WE’VE BEEN SET UP. DON’T TALK TO ANYONE. GET RID OF PHONE SO THEY DON’T TRACK YOU. WILL EXPLAIN WHEN YOU GET THERE, THEN HAVE ARRANGED SAFE WAY FOR YOU TO LEAVE. CASH, NEW ID, PASSPORT & DRIVER TO TAKE US. BE CAREFUL. MAKE SURE THEY DON’T FOLLOW.

  Throughout the afternoon she had debated the ‘come alone’ part; it reeked of a set-up. She wondered whether it would alert Reynolds. If he didn’t come alone, her plan wouldn’t work.

  This is too risky, that inner voice said.

  Maybe, but this was the only way to bring Reynolds to her. She didn’t think he’d pass up an opportunity to speak to Ben Masters/Frank Sullivan. Reynolds, with his repeated phones calls, was clearly in a state of panic about what the police had found in his basement. And now here came Ben to the rescue. She felt confident Reynolds would follow the instructions in the message. When someone threw you a life preserver, you didn’t say wait, excuse me, but I need you to answer some additional questions before I grab hold. You clutched it an
d thanked the sweet Lord above for your tremendous good fortune.

  What if something happens to you? Michael and Carter have already lost one parent. Don’t take away another.

  Jamie saw the photograph Dan had taped to the wall – the photograph of Carter, still a baby, sitting on Michael’s lap on a beach at Cape Cod, their last vacation together as a family. Her two boys smiled at her from the picture, looking healthy, happy. No scars on their bodies. No memories of their father being tortured to death in the kitchen. No dead room.

  You can figure out another way. You don’t have to –

  She hit SEND. The message lingered on the screen for a moment and then disappeared into cyberspace or wherever these things went. Jamie removed the battery, threw everything back inside the drawer and went upstairs to tend to her children.

  34

  Darby, who had just stripped out of her coveralls, paced the threadbare carpet in the empty bedroom at the top of the stairs waiting for Dr Howard Edgar to come back on the line. The state’s new forensic anthropologist had moved into his Quincy home less than a week ago and was now rummaging around the strange rooms still packed with boxes searching for a pen and paper.

  She had borrowed a mobile phone from a patrolman and had gone upstairs to get away from the noise. Jennings had gathered his troops inside the kitchen and she could hear him speaking.

  ‘The lead we had on Kevin Reynolds? It turned out to be his cousin, which isn’t surprising, since the two of them look so much alike. We need to find him. Some of you grew up here. I did too, so I know what you’re thinking – the neighbourhood won’t talk to us. Code of silence and all that bullshit. Tell them the remains we found might belong to local girls. That’s your way in. Use that to get them to talk. Work your contacts. Call any retired flatfoot you know who walked these streets during the Sullivan regime. Any name you get will help us get closer to identifying these remains.’