Gone, Baby, Gone

by Dennis Lehane

  I nodded. “She made the ransom call to Lionel, didn’t she?”

  He shrugged, looked off at the skyline. “You at my house,” he said. “Christ, that pissed me off.” He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. “You see my son?”

  “He’s not yours.”

  He blinked. “You see my son?”

  I looked up at the stars for a moment, a rarity in these parts, so clear on a cold night. “I saw your son,” I said.

  “Great kid. Know where I found him?”

  I shook my head.

  “I’m talking to this snitch in the Somerville projects. I’m alone, and I hear this baby screaming. I mean screaming like he’s being bitten by dogs. And the snitch, the people walking down the corridor, they don’t hear it. They just don’t hear it. ’Cause they hear it every day. So I tell the snitch to beat it, I follow the sound, kick in the door of this shit-smelling apartment, and I find him in the back. The place is empty. My son—and he is my son, Kenzie, fuck you if you don’t think so—he’s starving. He’s lying in a crib, six months old, and he’s starving. You can see his ribs. He’s fucking handcuffed, Kenzie, and his diaper is so filled it’s leaking through the seams, and he’s stuck—he’s fucking stuck to the mattress, Kenzie!”

  Broussard’s eyes bulged, and his whole body seemed to lunge against itself. He coughed blood onto his shirt, wiped it with his hand, and smeared it on his chin.

  “A baby,” he said eventually, his voice almost a whisper now, “stuck to a mattress by his own bedsores and fecal matter. Left in a room for three days, crying his head off. And nobody cares.” He held out his bloody left hand, let it drop to the gravel. “Nobody cares,” he repeated softly.

  I placed my gun on my lap, glanced over at the city skyline. Maybe Broussard was right. A whole city of Nobody Cares. A whole state. A whole country, maybe.

  “So I took him home with me. I knew enough guys who’d forged fake identities in their time, and I paid one off. My son has a birth certificate with my surname on it. The records of my wife’s tubal ligation were destroyed and a new one was created, showing she consented to the procedure after the birth of our son, Nicholas. And all I had to do was get through these last few months and retire, and we’d move out of state and I’d get some lame security consultant job and raise my child. And I’d have been very, very happy.”

  I hung my head for a moment, looked at my shoes on the gravel.

  “She never even filed a missing person’s report,” Broussard said.

  “Who?”

  “The skaghead who gave birth to my son. She never even looked for him. I know who she is, and for a long time I thought of just blowing her head off for the fuck of it. But I didn’t. And she never looked for her child.”

  I raised my head, looked into his face. It was proud and angry and profoundly saddened by the depths of the worlds he’d seen.

  “I just want Amanda,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s my job, Remy. It’s what I was hired to do.”

  “And I was hired to protect and serve, you dumb-ass. You know what that means? That’s an oath. To protect and serve. I’ve done that. I’ve protected several children. I’ve served them. I’ve given them good homes.”

  “How many?” I asked. “How many have there been?”

  He wagged a bloody finger at me. “No, no, no.”

  His head shot back suddenly, and his whole body stiffened against the vent. His left heel kicked off the gravel and his mouth opened wide into a soundless scream.

  I dropped to my knees by him, but all I could do was watch.

  After a few moments, his body relaxed and his eyes drooped, and I could hear oxygen entering and leaving his body.

  “Remy.”

  He opened one weary eye. “Still here,” he slurred. He raised that finger to me. “You know you’re lucky, Kenzie. One lucky bastard.”

  “Why’s that?”

  He smiled. “You didn’t hear?”

  “What?”

  “Eugene Torrel died last week.”

  “Who’s…?” I leaned back from him and his smile broadened as I realized: Eugene, the kid who’d seen us kill Marion Socia.

  “Got himself stabbed in Brockton over a woman.” Broussard closed his eyes again and his grin softened, slid to the side of his face. “You’re very lucky. Got nothing on you now but a worthless deposition from a dead loser.”

  “Remy.”

  His eyes flickered open and the gun fell from his hand into the gravel. He tilted his head toward it, but left his hand on his lap.

  “Come on, man. Do something right before you die. You got a lot of blood on your hands.”

  “I know,” he slurred. “Kimmie and David. You didn’t even figure me for that one.”

  “It was gnawing at the back of my brain the last twenty-four hours,” I said. “You and Poole?”

  He gave his head a half shake against the vent. “Not Poole. Pasquale. Poole was never a shooter. That’s where he drew the line. Don’t debase his mem’ry.”

  “But Pasquale wasn’t at the quarries that night.”

  “He was nearby. Who do you think cranked Rogowski in Cunningham Park?”

  “But that still wouldn’t have given Pasquale the time to reach the other side of the quarries and kill Mullen and Gutierrez.”

  Broussard shrugged.

  “Why didn’t Pasquale just kill Bubba by the way?”

  Broussard frowned. “Man, we never killed anyone wasn’t a direct threat to us. Rogowski didn’t know shit, so we let him live. You, too. You think I couldn’t have hit you from the other side of the quarry that night? No, Mullen and Gutierrez were direct threats. So was Wee David, Likanski, and, unfortunately, Kimmie.”

  “Let’s not forget Lionel.”

  The frown deepened. “I never wanted to hit Lionel. I thought it was a bad play. Someone got scared.”

  “Who?”

  He gave me a short harsh laugh that left a fine spray of blood on his lips and closed his eyes tight against the pain. “Just remember—Poole wasn’t a shooter. Let the man’s death have dignity.”

  He could have been bullshitting me, but I didn’t see the point, really. If Poole hadn’t killed Pharaoh Gutierrez and Chris Mullen, I’d have to refigure some things.

  “The doll.” I tapped his hand and he opened one eye. “Amanda’s shirt fragment stuck to the quarry wall?”

  “Me.” He smacked his lips, closed his eye. “Me, me, me. All me.”

  “You’re not that good. Hell, you’re not that smart.”

  He shook his head. “Really?”

  “Really,” I said.

  He snapped his eyes open, and there was a bright, hard awareness in them. “Move to your left, Kenzie. Let me see the city.”

  I moved and he stared out at the skyline, smiled at the lights flickering in the squares, the red pulse of the weather beacons and radio transmitters.

  “’S pretty,” he said. “You know something?”

  “What?”

  “I love children.” He said it so simply, so softly.

  His right hand slid into mine and squeezed, and we looked off over the water to the heart of the city and its shimmer, the dark velvet promise that lived in those lights, the hint of glamorous lives, of sleek, well-fed, well-tended existences cushioned behind glass and privilege, behind redbrick and iron and steel, curving staircases, and moonlit views of water, always water, flowing gently around the islands and peninsulas that made up our metropolis, buffeted it against ugliness and pain.

  “Wow,” Remy Broussard whispered, and then his hand fell from mine.

  34

  “…at which point the man later identified as Detective Pasquale responded, ‘We have to do this. We have orders. Do it now.’” Assistant District Attorney Lyn Campbell removed her glasses and pinched the flesh between her eyes. “Is that accurate, Mr. Kenzie?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “‘Ms. Campbell’ will do fine.”

>   “Yes, Ms. Campbell.”

  She slid her glasses back up on her nose, looked through the thin ovals at me. “And you took that to mean what exactly?”

  “I took that to mean that someone besides Detective Pasquale and Officer Broussard had given the order to assassinate Lionel McCready and possibly the rest of us in the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

  She flipped through her notes, which—in the six hours I’d been in Interrogation Room 6A of the BPO’s District 6 station—had grown to take up half the notepad. The sound of her turning sheets of paper made brittle and curled inward by her furious scribbling with a sharp ballpoint reminded me of the late-autumn rustle of dead leaves against curbstone.

  Besides myself and ADA Campbell, the room was occupied by two homicide detectives, Janet Harris and Joseph Centauro, neither of whom seemed to like me even a little bit, and my attorney, Cheswick Hartman.

  Cheswick watched ADA Campbell turn the pages of her notes for a while, and then he said, “Ms. Campbell.”

  She looked up. “Hmm?”

  “I understand this is a high-pressure case with what I’m sure will be extensive press coverage. To that end, my client and I have been cooperative. But it’s been a long night, wouldn’t you say?”

  She turned another crisp page. “The Commonwealth is not interested in your client’s lack of sleep, Mr. Hartman.”

  “Well, that’s the Commonwealth’s problem, because I am.”

  She dropped a hand to her notes, looked up at him. “What do you expect me to do here, Mr. Hartman?”

  “I expect you to go outside that door and speak to District Attorney Prescott. I expect you to tell him that it’s patently obvious what occurred in the Edmund Fitzgerald, that my client acted as any reasonable person would, is not a suspect in either the death of Detective Pasquale or of Officer Broussard, and that it is time for him to be released. Note, too, Ms. Campbell, that our cooperation has been total up to this point and will continue to be so as long as you show us some common courtesy.”

  “Fucking guy shot a cop,” Detective Centauro said. “We’re going to let him walk, counselor? I don’t think so.”

  Cheswick crossed his hands on the table, ignored Centauro, and smiled at ADA Campbell. “We’re waiting, Ms. Campbell.”

  She turned a few more pages of her notes, hoping to find something, anything, on which to hold me.

  Cheswick was inside another five minutes checking on Angie as I waited on the front steps, getting enough glares from the cops coming in and out of the building to know I’d better not get pulled over for speeding for a while. Maybe for the rest of my life.

  When Cheswick joined me, I said, “What’s the deal?”

  He shrugged. “She’s not going anywhere for a while.”

  “Why not?”

  He looked at me like I needed a shot of Ritalin. “She killed a cop, Patrick. Self-defense or not, she killed a cop.”

  “Well, shouldn’t you be—”

  He cut me off with a wave of his hand. “You know who the best criminal lawyer in this city is?”

  “You.”

  He shook his head. “My junior partner, Floris Mansfield. And that’s who’s in there with Angie. Okay? So chill out. Floris rocks, Patrick. Understand? Angie’s going to be fine. But she’s still got a lot of hours ahead of her. And if we press too hard, the DA will say, ‘Fuck it,’ and push it to a grand jury just to show the cops he’s on their side. If we all play ball and make nice, everyone will begin to cool down and get tired and realize that the sooner this goes away the better.”

  We walked up West Broadway at four in the morning, the icy fingers of dark April winds finding our collars.

  “Where’s your car?” Cheswick said.

  “G Street.”

  He nodded. “Don’t go home. Half the press corps is there. And I don’t want you talking to them.”

  “Why aren’t they here?” I looked back at the precinct house.

  “Misinformation. The duty-desk sergeant purposefully let it leak that you were all being held at headquarters. The ruse’ll hold until sunup; then they’ll come back.”

  “So where do I go?”

  “That’s a really good question. You and Angie, intentionally or unintentionally, just gave the Boston Police Department its blackest eye since Charles Stuart and Willie Bennett. Personally, I’d move out of state.”

  “I meant now, Cheswick.”

  He shrugged and pressed the slim remote attached to his car keys, and his Lexus beeped once and the door locks slid open.

  “The hell with it,” I said. “I’ll go to Devin’s.”

  His head whipped around in my direction. “Amronklin? Are you crazy? You want to go to a cop’s house?”

  “Into the belly of the beast.” I nodded.

  At four in the morning, most people are asleep, but not Devin. He rarely sleeps more than three or four hours a day, and then it’s usually in the late hours of the morning. The rest of the time, he’s either working or drinking.

  He opened the door to his apartment in Lower Mills, and the stench of bourbon that preceded him told me he hadn’t been working.

  “Mr. Popularity,” he said, and turned his back to me.

  I followed him into his living room, where a book of crossword puzzles sat open on the coffee table in between a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, a half-full tumbler, and an ashtray. The TV was on, but muted, and Bobby Darin sang “The Good Life” from speakers set to whisper volume.

  Devin wore a flannel robe over sweatpants and a Police Academy sweatshirt. He pulled the robe closed as he sat on the couch and lifted his glass, took a sip, and stared up at me with eyes that, while glassy, were as hard as the rest of him.

  “Grab a glass from the kitchen.”

  “I don’t feel much like drinking,” I said.

  “I only drink alone when I’m alone, Patrick. Got it?”

  I got the glass, brought it back, and he poured an overly generous drink into it. He raised his.

  “To killing cops,” he said, and drank.

  “I didn’t kill a cop.”

  “Your partner did.”

  “Devin,” I said, “you’re going to treat me like shit, I’ll leave.”

  He raised his glass toward the hallway. “Door’s open.”

  I tossed the glass on the coffee table, and some bourbon spilled out of it as I got out of the chair and headed for the door.

  “Patrick.”

  I turned back, my hand on the doorknob.

  Neither of us said anything, and Bobby Darin’s silk vocal slid through the room. I stood in the doorway with all that had gone unspoken and unconfronted in my friendship with Devin hanging between us as Darin sang with a detached mourning for the unattainable, the gulf between what we wish for and what we get.

  “Come on back in,” Devin said.

  “Why?”

  He looked down at the coffee table. He removed the pen from the crossword book, closed it. He placed his drink on top of it. He looked at the window, the dark cast of early morning.

  He shrugged. “Outside of cops and my sisters, you and Ange are the only friends I got.”

  I came back to the chair, wiped the spill of bourbon with my sleeve. “This isn’t over yet, Devin.”

  He nodded.

  “Someone ordered Broussard and Pasquale to do that hit.”

  He poured himself some more Jack. “You think you know who, don’t you?”

  I leaned back in the chair and took a very light sip from my glass, hard liquor never having been my drug of choice. “Broussard said Poole wasn’t a shooter. Ever. I’d always had Poole pegged for the guy who took the money out of the quarries, capped Mullen and Pharaoh, handed the money off to someone else. But I could never figure who that someone else was.”

  “What money? What the hell are you talking about?”

  I spent the next half hour running it down for him.

  When I finished, he lit a cigarette and said, “Broussard kidnapped the kid; Mullen saw him. O
lamon blackmails him into finding and returning the two hundred grand. Broussard runs a double-cross, has someone take out Mullen and Gutierrez, has Cheese whacked in prison. Yes?”

  “Killing Mullen and Gutierrez was part of the deal with Cheese,” I said. “But otherwise, yes.”

  “And you thought Poole was the shooter.”

  “Until the roof with Broussard.”

  “So who was it?”

  “Well, it’s not just the shooting. Someone had to take the money from Poole and make it disappear in front of a hundred and fifty cops. No flatfoot could pull that off. Had to be high command. Someone above reproach.”

  He held up a hand. “Ho, wait a minute. If you’re thinking—”

  “Who allowed Poole and Broussard to breach protocol and proceed with the ransom drop without federal intervention? Who’s dedicated his life to helping kids, finding kids, saving kids? Who was in the hills that night,” I said, “roving, his whereabouts accountable only to himself?”

  “Aw, fuck,” he said. He took a gulp from his glass, grimaced as he swallowed. “Jack Doyle? You think Jack Doyle’s in on this?”

  “Yeah, Devin. I think Jack Doyle’s the guy.”

  Devin said, “Aw, fuck,” again. Several times actually. And then there was nothing but silence and the sound of ice melting in our glasses for a long time.

  35

  “Before forming CAC,” Oscar said, “Doyle was Vice. He was Broussard and Pasquale’s sergeant. He approved their transfers to Narcotics, brought them on board with CAC a few years later when he made lieutenant. It was Doyle who kept Broussard from getting transferred to academy instructor after he married Rachel and the brass went nuts. They wanted Broussard busted down to nothing. They wanted him gone. Marrying a hooker is like saying you’re gay in this department.”

  I stole one of Devin’s cigarettes and lit it, immediately got a head rush that sucked all the blood out of my legs.

  Oscar puffed from his ratty old cigar, dropped it back in the ashtray, flipped another page in his steno pad. “All transfers, recommendations, decorations Broussard ever received were signed off by Doyle. He was Broussard’s rabbi. Pasquale’s, too.”