Darkness, Take My Hand

by Dennis Lehane

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Hi,” she said. “I feel chastised. By a man with a name like Barton no less. Hold on.”

  While I was on hold, I looked out the window as the RV switched lanes again and saw what the tie-up had been. A Volvo had rear-ended a Datsun and the owner of one of them was being escorted down the breakdown lane to an ambulance. His face was covered in blood and pricked with small shards of glass and he held his hands in front of him awkwardly, as if he wasn’t sure they were attached anymore.

  The accident wasn’t blocking traffic anymore, if it had ever been, but everyone had slowed to a standstill to get a proper look. Three cars ahead of us, the backseat passenger was recording it all on video camera. Home movies for the wife and kids. Look, son, severe facial lacerations.

  “Mr. Kenzie?”

  “I’m here.”

  “I’ve been chastised twice now. The second time by Agent Bolton’s boss for wasting the FBI’s precious time on something as trivial as protecting my client’s rights. So, which of my choirboys do you need information on?”

  “Evandro Arujo.”

  “Why?”

  “We just need it, that’s all I can say.”

  “Okay. Shoot.”

  “When’s the last time you saw him?”

  “Two weeks ago Monday. Evandro’s punctual. Hell, compared to most, he’s dream.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Never misses an appointment, is never late, got a job within two weeks of his release—”

  “Where?”

  “Hartow Kennel in Swampscott.”

  “What’s the address and phone number at Hartow Kennel?”

  She gave it to me and I wrote it down, ripped off the sheet and handed it to Bolton as he hung up the phone.

  Lawn said, “His boss, Hank Rivers, loves him, said he’d hire nothing but ex-cons if they were all like Evandro.”

  “Where’s Evandro live, Officer Lawn?”

  “Ms. is fine. His address is, lemme see…here it is—two-oh-five Custer Street.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Brighton.”

  Bryce was right next door. I wrote down the address and handed it to Bolton.

  “Is he in trouble?” she said.

  “Yes,” I said. “If you see him, Ms. Lawn, do not approach him. Call the number Agent Bolton just gave you.”

  “But what if he comes here? He has another appointment in less than two weeks.”

  “He won’t be coming there. And if he does, lock the door and call for help.”

  “You think he crucified that girl a few weeks ago, don’t you?”

  The RV was moving briskly now, but inside, it felt like traffic had come to a dead stop.

  I said, “What would make you think that?”

  “It was something he said once.”

  “What did he say?”

  “You have to understand, like I said, he’s one of the easiest parolees I have and he’s never been anything but sweet and polite and, hell, he sent me flowers in the hospital when I broke my leg. I’m no virgin when it comes to ex-cons, Mr. Kenzie, but Evandro really seemed like a decent guy who’d taken his fall and didn’t want to take another.”

  “What did he say about crucifixions?”

  Bolton and Fields looked at me and I could see that even the usually disinterested Erdham was watching my reflection on his LED screen.

  “We were finishing up here one day and he started fixating on my chest. At first I thought, you know, he’s checking out my breasts, but then I realize he’s staring at the crucifix I wear. Usually I keep it tucked under my shirt, but it fell out that day and I didn’t even notice until I caught Evandro looking at it. And it wasn’t just a benign look, it was a bit obsessive, if you know what I’m saying. When I asked him what he was looking at, he said, ‘What do you think about crucifixions, Sheila Lawn?’ Not Officer Lawn or Ms. Lawn, but Sheila Lawn.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said, ‘In what context?’ or something like that.”

  “And Evandro?”

  “He said, ‘In the sexual context, of course.’ I think it was the ‘of course’ that really got to me, because he seemed to think it a perfectly normal context in which to consider a crucifixion.”

  “Did you report this conversation?”

  “To who? Are you kidding? I have ten men a day, Mr. Kenzie, who say far worse to me, and they’re not breaking any laws, though I could consider it sexual harassment if I didn’t know that my male colleagues hear the same thing.”

  “Ms. Lawn,” I said, “you jumped right from my original questions to asking if Evandro crucified someone, yet I never mentioned wanting him for murder—”

  “Yet you’re hanging out with the FBI and you said I should hide if I saw him.”

  “But if Evandro was such a model parolee, why would you make that leap? If he was so nice, how could you think—”

  “Of him crucifying that girl?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because…You put things out of your mind every day in this job, Mr. Kenzie. It’s, well, what you do to keep at it. And I’d completely forgotten that crucifix conversation with Evandro until I saw the article on that girl who was killed. And then it came back fast and I remembered how I’d felt as he looked at me, just for a second, while he said, ‘In the sexual context, of course,’ and the way I felt was dirty and naked and completely vulnerable. But more than that, I felt terrified—again, for only a second—because I thought he was considering…”

  There was a long silence as she groped for words.

  “Crucifying you?” I asked.

  She inhaled sharply. “Absolutely.”

  “Beyond the hair-coloring and the goatee,” Erdham said as we watched Evandro’s photograph take on full color and total clarification on the LED screen, “he’s definitely had his hairline altered.”

  “How?”

  He held up the last photo taken of Evandro in prison. “See the scar from the shiv on his upper forehead?”

  Bolton said, “Shit.”

  “Now you don’t,” Erdham said and tapped his screen.

  I looked at the photo Angie’d taken of Evandro exiting the Sunset Grill. The hairline was at least a half-inch lower than it had been when he left prison.

  “Now I don’t think that’s necessarily part of a disguise,” Erdham said. “It’s too minimal. Most people would never notice the change.”

  “He’s vain,” I said.

  “Exactly.”

  “What else?” Bolton said.

  “See for yourself.”

  I looked at the two photos. It was hard to get past the shock of white hair turning to dark brown at first, but gradually…

  “His eyes,” Bolton said.

  Erdham nodded. “Brown naturally, but green in the photo Mr. Kenzie’s partner took.”

  Fields set down his phone. “Agent Bolton?”

  “Yeah?” He turned away from us.

  “His cheekbones,” I said, noticing my own reflection transposed over Evandro’s in the screen.

  “You’re good at this,” Erdham said.

  “No go at either his address or his place of work,” Fields was saying. “Landlord hasn’t seen him in two weeks, and his boss said he called in sick two days ago and hasn’t been seen since.”

  “I want agents at both places yesterday.”

  “They’re already on their way, sir.”

  “What about the cheekbones?” Bolton said.

  “Implants,” Erdham said. “That would be my guess. You see?” He punched a button three times and Evandro’s photo was magnified until we were staring at nothing but his calm green eyes, the top half of his nose, and his cheekbones. Erdham touched a pen to the left cheekbone. “The tissue here is much softer than it is in that photo. Hell, there’s almost no flesh in that one. But here…And see how the skin seems almost chapped, just a bit reddened? That’s because it isn’t used to being stretched out that far, like skin over a blister t
hat’s on its way to the surface.”

  “You’re a genius,” Bolton said.

  “Definitely,” Erdham said and his eyes lit up behind his glasses like a little kid’s looking at birthday candles. “But he’s pretty damn smart, too. He didn’t go for big changes which would alarm his probation officer or a landlord. Except for the hair,” he said hurriedly, “and anyone would understand that. Instead, he went for subtle cosmetic changes. You could run this current photo through a computer, and unless you knew exactly what you were looking for, it might not match up with any of those prison photos.”

  The RV tipped a bit as we made the turn onto 93 in Braintree, and Bolton and I palmed the roof for a moment.

  “If he thought that far ahead,” I said, “then he knew we’d end up looking for him or at least for someone who looked like that.” I pointed at the computer screen.

  “Absolutely,” Erdham said.

  “So,” Bolton said, “he’s assuming he’ll be caught.”

  “Seems to be the case,” Erdham said. “Why else would he duplicate some of Hardiman’s murders?”

  “He knows he’ll be caught,” I said, “and he doesn’t care.”

  “Might be even worse than that,” Erdham said. “Maybe he even wants to be caught, which means all these deaths are some sort of message, and he’s going to keep killing until we figure out what it is.”

  “Sergeant Amronklin told me some interesting things while you were on the phone with Arujo’s probie.”

  The RV turned off 93 at Haymarket and again Bolton and I had to push against the roof to maintain balance.

  “Such as.”

  “He caught up with Kara Rider’s roommate in New York. Ms. Rider met a fellow actor in a class three months ago. He said he was from Long Island, only made it into Manhattan once a week for this class.” He looked at me. “Guess.”

  “The guy had a goatee.”

  He nodded. “Went by the name Evan Hardiman. Like that? Ms. Rider’s roommate also said, and I’m quoting here, ‘He was the most sensual man who ever walked the earth.’”

  “Sensual,” I said.

  He grimaced. “She’s, you know, dramatic.”

  “What else did she say?”

  “She said Kara said he was the best fuck she’d ever had. ‘The be-all and end-all’ was how she described it.”

  “She got the end-all right.”

  “I want a psych profile immediately,” Bolton said as we rode up in the elevator. “I want to know everything about Arujo from the moment they snipped his umbilical to now.”

  “Got it,” Fields said.

  He wiped his face with his sleeve. “I want the same list we ran on Hardiman, cross-refeRenee everyone who ever came in contact with Arujo while he was in prison and have an agent at every one of their doorsteps by tomorrow morning.”

  “Got it.” Fields scribbled furiously in his pad.

  “Agents sitting on his parents’ house if they’re still alive,” Bolton said, taking off his coat and breathing heavily. “Shit, even if they’re not. Agents on the homes of every girlfriend or boyfriend he ever had, on any friends he’s had, any girls or boys who ever spurned his advances.”

  “That’s a lot of manpower,” Erdham said.

  Bolton shrugged. “Minuscule compared to what Waco cost this government and we might actually win here. I want recanvasses of all crime scenes, fresh interviews of every BPD slug who touched them before we came on the scene. I want all principals on Kenzie’s list”—he ticked off on his fingers—“Hurlihy, Rouse, Constantine, Pine, Timpson, Diandra Warren, Glynn, Gault—reinterviewed and extensive, no, exhaustive checks run on their backgrounds to see if they ever crossed paths with Arujo.” He reached into his breast pocket for his inhaler as the elevator came to a stop. “Got it? Get to it.”

  The doors opened and he charged out, sucking audibly on the inhaler.

  Behind me, Field asked Erdham, “’Exhaustive’—is that spelled with one dick or two?”

  “Two,” Erdham said. “But they’re both pretty small.”

  Bolton loosened his tie until the knot hung at his sternum and dropped heavily into the chair behind his desk.

  “Close the door behind you,” he said.

  I did. His face was deep pink, his breathing ragged.

  “You okay?”

  “Never better. Tell me about your father.”

  I took a seat. “Nothing to tell. I think Hardiman was reaching, trying to rattle me with bullshit.”

  “I don’t,” he said and took a small hit off his inhaler. “You three had your back to him when he said it, but I was watching him on film. He looked like he blew a load when he said your father was a yellow jacket, like he’d been saving it for maximum impact.” He ran a hand through his hair. “You had a cowlick when you were younger, didn’t you?”

  “A lot of kids did.”

  “A lot of kids didn’t grow up to have their presence requested by a serial killer.”

  I held up a hand, nodded. “I had a cowlick, Agent Bolton. Usually only noticeable if I’d been sweating a lot.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I was vain, I guess. I put shit in my hair to keep it down usually.”

  He nodded. “He knew you.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Agent Bolton. I’ve never seen the guy before.”

  Another nod. “Tell me about your father. You know I’ve already got people researching him.”

  “I assumed as much.”

  “What was he like?”

  “He was an asshole who enjoyed inflicting pain, Bolton. And I don’t like talking about him.”

  “And I’m sorry,” he said, “but your personal qualms mean nothing to me right now. I’m trying to bring Arujo down and stop the bloodshed—”

  “And get a nifty promotion out of the deal.”

  He raised an eyebrow and nodded vigorously. “Absolutely. Bank on it. I don’t know any of these victims, Mr. Kenzie, and in a general sense, I don’t want any human beings to die. Ever. But in a particular sense, I feel nothing for these individuals. And I’m not paid to. I’m paid to bring down guys like this Arujo, and that’s what I’m doing. And if by doing so, I advance my career, then isn’t it a perfect world?” His tiny eyes dilated. “Tell me about your father.”

  “He was a lieutenant with the Boston Fire Department most of his life. Later, he switched to local politics, became a city councilor. Not long after that, he got lung cancer and died.”

  “You two didn’t get along.”

  “No. He was a bully. Everyone who knew him feared him, and most hated him. He had no friends.”

  “Yet you seem to be his opposite.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, people like you. Sergeants Amronklin and Lee are very fond of you, Lief took an instant liking to you, and from what I’ve learned of you since I took this case over, you’ve formed very strong bonds with people who are such polar opposites as a liberal newspaper columnist and a psychotic weapons supplier. Your father had no friends, yet you are very rich with friends. Your father was a violent man, yet you don’t seem to have an uncontrollable propensity for it.”

  Tell that to Marion Socia, I thought.

  “What I’m trying to figure out here, Mr. Kenzie, is if Alec Hardiman made Jason Warren pay for the sins of his mother, maybe you’re being set up to pay for the sins of your father.”

  “Which is fine, Agent Bolton. But Diandra had a direct effect on Hardiman’s incarceration. So far, though, there’s no link between my father and Hardiman.”

  “Not one we’ve uncovered.” He leaned back. “Look at this from my perspective. This all started when Kara Rider, an actress, contacted Diandra Warren using the alias Moira Kenzie. That wasn’t a mistake. That was a message. We can assume, I think, that Arujo put her up to it. She then points fingers at Kevin Hurlihy and by implication, Jack Rouse. You make contact with Gerry Glynn, who worked with Alec Hardiman’s father. He points you toward Hardiman himself. Hardiman kil
led Charles Rugglestone in your neighborhood. We also assume that he killed Cal Morrison. Also in your neighborhood. Back then, you and Kevin Hurlihy were kids, but Jack Rouse ran a grocery store, Stan Timpson and Diandra Warren lived a few blocks away, Kevin Hurlihy’s mother, Emma, was a housewife, Gerry Glynn was a cop, and your father, Mr. Kenzie, was a fireman.”

  He handed me an 8X11 map of the Edward Everett Square, Savin Hill, and Columbia Point neighborhoods. Someone had penned a circle around what constituted St. Bart’s parish—Edward Everett Square itself, the Blake Yard, JFK/UMass Station, a stretch of Dorchester Avenue beginning at the South Boston line and ending at St. William’s Church in Savin Hill. Within the circle, someone had also marked in five small black squares and two large blue dots.

  “The squares are?” I looked at him.

  “Approximate locations of the residences in 1974 of Jack Rouse, Stan and Diandra Timpson, Emma Hurlihy, Gerry Glynn, and Edgar Kenzie. The two blue dots are the murder sites of Cal Morrison and Charles Rugglestone. Both the squares and dots are within a quarter square mile of each other.”

  I stared at the map. My neighborhood. A tiny, mostly forgotten, hardscrabble place of three-deckers and faded A-frames, cubbyhole taverns and corner stores. Outside of the occasional bar brawl, not the type of place that called much attention to itself. Yet here was the FBI shining a national spotlight down on it.

  “What you’re looking at there,” Bolton said, “is a kill zone.”

  I called Angie from an empty confeRenee room.

  She answered on the fourth ring, out of breath. “Hey, I just came through the door.”

  “Whatcha doing?”

  “Talking to you, ya pinhead, and opening my mail. Bill, bill, bill, take-out menu, bill…”

  “How was Mae?”

  “Fine. I just dropped her off with Grace. How was your day?”

  “The guy with the goatee’s name is Evandro Arujo. He was Alec Hardiman’s partner-in-life in the joint.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Nope. Looks like he’s our guy.”

  “But he doesn’t know you.”

  “This is true.”

  “So why would he leave your card in Kara’s hand?”

  “Coincidence?”

  “Fine. But Jason getting killed, too?”