“It’s possible. I already told you there wasn’t a brain among the guys who pulled the job.”
“Any proof of Riccio’s involvement?”
“No. But we couldn’t disprove it either. We figured one of the robbers either worked for him or was related.”
“But no link was ever established?”
“None that I know of. I’m confident they didn’t work for him, but the relative thing is a whole other can of worms.”
“Why? Seems like it would’ve been easy to make the connection if one of them had been related to Riccio.”
“You’d think so, but a guy like Riccio had women everywhere. He was married, sure, but the life of a Mafia boss is a little different. You familiar with the term goomah?”
“Yeah. It’s Italian slang for girlfriend, right?”
“Mistress. And Jack Riccio had a number of them. Some we knew and some we didn’t. If he fathered a son by one of the unknown goomahs, we’d have never made the connection.”
“So it’s entirely possible one of the four was related.”
Pritchard nodded. “It is.”
“Giving Riccio motivation to want revenge for his death?”
“I don’t know. Seems pretty unlikely after all these years, but still, it is possible.”
Byron shook his head and sighed. “This thing’s a nightmare.”
“John, there’s something I haven’t told you yet,” Pritchard said. “Something you need to know.”
Byron studied him, wondering what he’d held back. And why?
“I’m gonna tell you something that isn’t in the case file. You’re the first person, outside of the FBI, that I’ve ever told, but I think you should know. After the shootout in Portland, we spent two weeks up here processing the scene, working with the Maine attorney general, interviewing witnesses, cops, everybody. It was exhausting. I’m sure you can imagine how popular we were, poking around the police department. The nosy feds who wouldn’t go away.”
“Probably about as popular as you’d be if you were doing it today.”
“I suspect that’s true. Anyway, after the initial investigation was done in Portland, we returned to Boston. There was still plenty of work to be done and I was getting pressure from my bosses to lay off the cops. I’d only been back for a couple of days when I got a message to call Reece Byron.”
“What did he want?”
“I never found out. He left his home number. I tried calling a few times, but he never answered. Finally, I called the department and found out he was dead. Suicide.”
“What the hell are you saying?”
“I don’t know what I’m saying, John. I only know I couldn’t get right with it. And it still gnaws at me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“I couldn’t decide if I should. I didn’t want to upset you.”
“So you really don’t have any idea why my dad called you?” Byron asked, sounding more defensive than he’d meant to.
“No, you’re right. I don’t.”
Byron’s imagination was off and running like some feral equine. He didn’t dare verbalize what he was thinking to Pritchard, but the thoughts came just the same. “Let me ask you something. Do you honestly believe there’s any chance the murderer is the missing robber, Andreas?”
“Honestly? No, I don’t. I think Andreas is most likely dead. He was lucky to pull off the robbery. There’s no way he’s managed to avoid detection all these years, especially while being on the bureau’s most-wanted list.”
“Riccio manage to avoid capture for years,” Byron countered.
“Yeah, he did. But Andreas isn’t Jack Riccio. Riccio is cunning, well educated, and dangerous.”
“What if he made it out of the country? He certainly had enough money to disappear for a while. Why couldn’t he have reentered the states undetected? Illegals do it all the time.”
“Yes, but it’s easier for illegals. It’s much harder to pull it off if you were born in the states like Andreas was. The paper trail is too long to hide from. Especially since 9/11.”
“If not Andreas, who do you think is behind this?”
Pritchard didn’t answer right away. He appeared to be considering how to answer the question. “John, I think there are most likely only two possibilities. Either Riccio sent someone to settle the score or—”
“Or?”
“Or it’s one of your own.”
Chapter Eighteen
AS WITH EVERYTHING at the Portland Police Department, the Records Division had undergone a number of major changes over the years. One of those had been the death of the antiquated card-filing system. At one time, index cards were created for every suspect, victim, and address relevant to police contact. The cards had been maintained for decades as a way of cataloguing and retrieving police data, finally becoming obsolete with the advent of the computer.
Byron spent the better part of an hour inside the stuffy and cramped back room of 109’s Records Division going through the index card filing cabinets before finally managing to locate a case number for his father’s suicide report.
Prior to handing over the key, Rachel, the elderly clerk in records, provided him with a stern warning about leaving the archives in disarray.
“If I had a nickel for every time I’ve had to go down there and fix things because they weren’t put back in their proper place, well, I wouldn’t need to work here anymore. Now, I know I can trust you, right, Sergeant Byron?”
He didn’t know if it was her tone or the way she peered over her wire-rimmed glasses at him, but he couldn’t help but feel like a schoolboy being chastised by the librarian. He assured her he was trustworthy, even raising his hand in salute with the Scout’s honor sign. Byron had never been a Boy Scout, but he’d seen a picture of the hand salute once and did his best to emulate it. It worked and she handed over the key.
Five minutes later, he found himself in the damp basement of 109. The cavernous and dimly lit storage vault was lined with long rusty metal shelves, each of them ten feet high and twice as long, packed with musty cardboard boxes containing decades of Portland police case files and reports dating back to the 1940s.
There didn’t appear to be any rhyme or reason to the filing system. He wondered when exactly Rachel had put things in their “proper place.” It took several minutes before he located the boxes marked 1985 and systematically began to dig through thousands of mildewed reports. Eventually, he found the one he’d been searching for: the death investigation of Officer Reece Byron.
He sat down on a box, staring blankly at the yellowed face-sheet. This was the first time he’d ever seen the police reports of his father’s death. He could feel his emotions tugging him in several directions. On the one hand, he might well find something to help break the current investigation wide open, but on the other . . . He took a deep breath, slowly exhaled, and began reading, looking for anything out of the ordinary.
According to the report, his father was suspected of having killed himself the night before he’d been found. The detective assigned to the case had done all of the usual follow-up, and the medical examiner confirmed the cause of death was from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. The toxicology report attached showed he’d been drinking at the time, but the level was only .15, far from overly intoxicated, especially for a man as proficient at the art of imbibing as his father had been. So if he wasn’t drunk, he had to have been thinking clearly at the time, Byron reasoned. Why then would he have called and left a message for Pritchard if he was about to commit suicide? It didn’t make sense. Did he call out of guilt? Was he going to confess to taking the money? Was there something else he needed to get off his chest?
He flipped back to the face sheet. The investigating detective was Jeffrey Irving. Byron wasn’t familiar with the name, but he was familiar with the
supervisor who signed off on the case, Sergeant Reginald Cross. Why would they have allowed Cross to supervise the death investigation of one of his own team members? It certainly wouldn’t fly today. He couldn’t talk with O’Halloran, and Cross wasn’t giving him anything but grief. He needed to find Irving.
IT WAS AFTER five by the time Diane and Nugent returned to Portland. Byron had just located an address for Jeffrey Irving in Windham when the two detectives walked into CID. Irving would have to wait. He copied the address in his notebook, then powered off his computer. They met briefly in the conference room, sharing the details of their respective interviews.
“Falcone is useless to us, then?” Byron asked.
“He’s a plant, Sarge,” Nugent said.
“Don’t be such an asshole, Mike,” Diane said.
“Hey, I’m not the one who kicked me out of the room. He threw me out, Sarge. I don’t think he liked me.”
“He’s a good judge of character,” Diane said.
“Seriously, he can’t help?” Byron asked.
“He didn’t even remember having been a cop,” she said.
Byron wondered if maybe Falcone had only been having a bad day. He’d read somewhere that there was still a great deal not known about the disease. The effects of Alzheimer’s could seemingly worsen or improve from one day to the next. He tucked away a mental reminder to revisit Falcone at a later date.
“What about Williams?” Nugent asked.
“Did he give you anything?” Diane asked.
“Sure, he gave me the runaround. He’s a car salesman. I asked where the Ocean Avenue information had come from and he started to tell me.”
“But?” Nugent asked.
“He pulled back, said he didn’t know, like he was confusing cases.”
“You think he was confused?” Diane asked.
“Not a chance. I think he caught himself.”
“Maybe he really doesn’t remember,” Nugent said. “I mean, it has been over thirty years.”
“If you’d heard how detailed his account of the event was, you’d know what I mean.”
The three of them drove out to Diane’s, ordered Chinese takeout, and spent the rest of the evening reading the FBI case files. It was a little before eleven-thirty when Nugent fell asleep in the chair, but he drove home shortly after. Byron got up from the couch and was about to follow suit when Diane stopped him.
“Where are you off to?” she asked. “Got a hot date?”
“Hardly. Thought I’d head home and let you get a few hours of sleep.”
Diane stood in front of him, putting her hand gently on his chest. “No one said you had to go, John.”
She was less than a foot away, making direct eye contact. The smell of her perfume and the feel of her touch were having an effect on him. Arousing something he hadn’t felt for a long time.
“Unless you don’t want to stay?” she said.
“It isn’t that,” he said, feeling too much like an awkward teenager. “It’s just—”
She removed her hand and stepped away from him. “Or I could make up the couch for you.”
“Don’t go to any trouble on my account,” he said, relieved that the moment had passed.
“No trouble at all.”
SLEEP ELUDED BYRON once again. He was lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling, his brain racing in a thousand different directions. The murders, his failed marriage to Kay, the booze, and now he was actually considering sleeping with his partner. No, not just his partner, his subordinate. His friend. He wasn’t sure how it had happened. How did it ever happen? Incrementally, he supposed. Working on murder cases, long hours together, shared feelings, an obvious mutual attraction. He realized that Diane probably knew more about his feelings than Kay had. How had things gotten so fucked up? And what was it his dad had wanted to tell Pritchard? Why not tell him before the agent returned to Boston? Was it something he’d found out after Pritchard left? Did it have something to do with the money? If it was the money, did Reece find out who had it? Was he involved? The questions kept coming.
The meeting with Pritchard had been meant to answer some questions not create more. He felt like Dorothy standing where the yellow brick road diverged, only instead of two different directions, this case felt like it could go in a dozen. One thing was certain: he wouldn’t find any answers lying there. He needed to talk to Irving. He got up and resumed reading the case files.
It was after three A.M. and Byron was seated in a wingback chair with only a low-wattage floor lamp to read by when Diane padded barefoot into the room. The skimpy white nightshirt she wore, emblazoned with I Love NY across the front, did little to hide her curves.
“Hey,” she croaked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Can’t sleep?”
“Never could,” he said with a smile. “Sorry if I woke you.”
“It’s okay. I had to pee anyway.” She sat down crossed-legged on the floor between the file boxes. Her shirt rode up over her thighs. “Whatcha thinking about, besides this case?”
“My dad.”
“This thing has stirred up a lot of memories, huh?”
“In spite of my best attempts at repression.”
“You know, in addition to being a great detective and gourmet chef, I’m also a pretty fair listener.”
“Don’t forget incredibly humble.”
“Wanna share?” she asked.
He looked up and smiled. “Not particularly.”
She put her hands on her hips. “You know, I spent a whole day with Mike because of you, John Byron.”
“Nuge isn’t that bad, is he?” he asked, half kidding.
“You’ve obviously never spent an entire day listening to his bad jokes. You owe me.”
“That how you see it?”
“You’ve never told me what happened to your dad.”
He removed his reading glasses and folded them up. “No, I haven’t.”
“Sometimes it helps to talk about it.”
“You’re not gonna let this go are you?”
“Nope. I’ll make us some coffee.”
“Is that a bribe?”
“Yup.” She bounced up from the floor with a dexterity Byron couldn’t remember ever having, and headed for the kitchen. “Come on. I’ll even cut you a brownie.”
“All right.”
They sat across from each other at the table, each with a steaming mug of coffee. Diane listened intently as Byron recounted his tale.
“I was sixteen when my parents split. An impressionable age, so they told me. Not sure exactly what age is the best for parents to break up. As you can imagine, I didn’t take it well. Went to live with my mom on the West End. She left because of my dad’s two problems.”
“Two problems?”
“Yeah, drinking and infidelity. Ironic, considering how religious he was. He made me go to church every Sunday, Saint Peter’s on Federal Street. All the Catholic kids from the Hill went there.”
“The Hill?”
“Munjoy.”
She nodded.
“I knew he had his issues, but I still looked up to him.”
“Of course, he was your dad.”
Byron took a drink of his coffee while Diane cut each of them another brownie.
“I liked visiting him when he had his cop buddies over. They treated me like I was one of them. They told the best stories and I got to stay up late. My parents didn’t move too far apart, so I could still bike over to see my dad after school, if I wanted. I was seventeen the day it happened. I headed over to see my dad as soon as school let out. I opened the door to his apartment and walked inside.”
Byron grew quiet as he toyed with the brownie, picking at it but not eating. Diane waited for him to continue.
“I hollered for him but he didn’t answer. I was afrai
d he might be entertaining a lady friend or something; it had happened before. He wasn’t. I found him sitting in the dining room with his head down on the table. At first I thought he was passed out, but then I saw the blood. There was so much of it. His gun was on the floor next to his chair. I had no idea what to do, so I ran outside and started yelling for help.”
Diane reached across the table and wrapped her hand around his.
“I’d never seen anything like it. The police came to the house. Ray Humphrey was one of the first officers to show up. I remember I couldn’t stop crying. Ray got me out of there, drove me around for a while in his cruiser. I don’t recall exactly what he said to me, but whatever it was it made me feel better. He’s always been able to do that. He finally drove me home and told my mother what’d happened.”
“I’m so sorry,” Diane said. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
“The following week was a blur. Mom kept me out of school. Relatives stopped by with food. We ended up throwing most of it out. The service was coming right up and I didn’t have a suit to wear. Ray took me shopping at a clothier on Congress Street, paid for it out of his own pocket. At the funeral mass, I sat at the front of the church between my mom and Lieutenant O’Halloran. I couldn’t believe my dad would take his own life. Still can’t.”
Diane got up and walked behind his chair, wrapping her arms around him tightly. “No one should have to see something like that. Especially a teenager. What about your mom? I’ve never heard you mention her?”
Byron hesitated a moment before answering. “She’s gone.”
“I’m sorry, John.”
“I went through the archives today, looking for his suicide report,” he said, getting back on topic.
“Oh, John. Why?”
“I think I located the detective who investigated it. I’m gonna go talk to him today.”
“Why would you wanna reopen that wound?”
“I want to tell you something Pritchard shared with me.”
Diane released him from her embrace and returned to her chair.
“Terry told me he got a message from my dad about a week after he and his team returned to Boston to finish up work on the actual robbery. My dad said he wanted to talk.”
Among the Shadows Page 15
