“Okay, Lucy, thanks,” I told her.
“Another call you didn’t have?” Bancroft asked.
“Wrong number,” I said.
We arrived at police headquarters, went inside and up to Homicide, where we found Danny O’Rourke in the coffee room.
“You guys solve Jack’s case yet?” he asked us as he made a cup.
Bancroft held a thumb and index finger just a fraction apart and said, “We’re this close to investigative glory.”
“That last itty bit is always the hardest,” O’Rourke said.
“How about your case?” I asked him as Bancroft made two cups of coffee for us. Obviously the Dunkin’ Donuts box was a barren wasteland.
“That Catholic priest murder,” O’Rourke said. “He was implicated in the sex-abuse scandal uncovered by the Boston Globe back in 2002, but he just got dead. Justice delayed. I busted my hump tracking down his victims and their families and friends, looking for suspects. I found six of the victims still living in the Boston area. Of those, only two agreed to talk to me. They both had alibis for the time of the murder. Their parents are deceased and the victims are certain that none of their other family members or friends would have killed the priest. Of the four who wouldn’t talk, only one, on paper at least, seems capable of murder. He’s in the system for various offenses, including assault. Nearly killed a guy in a bar fight. So I’m looking at him.”
Bancroft and I walked over to his cubicle with our coffees. He sat at his desk and I rolled a chair over from an empty office.
“So how do we get Leverton to show his true colors?” Bancroft asked me.
“I think we need a decoy,” I answered. Like all epiphanies, that had just occurred to me. “We find some way the decoy can really piss off Leverton, and then see if Amendola, ordered by Leverton, makes a run at him.”
“Got anyone in mind to dangle in front of him?” Bancroft asked.
“That will follow from the plan,” I said.
“Which is?”
And, just like that, the details of a plan came to me, as if Saint Michael the Archangel was whispering it into my ear.
“I’m thinking that we arrange for a fake city building inspector to show up at a Leverton Properties job site,” I said. “The inspector trumps up a violation of some kind, threatens to shut down the job, and lets it be known that, if a payment is made, the problem will go away, and that the inspector hasn’t mentioned the violation to anyone else. Yet.”
“Leverton must be used to shakedowns like that,” Bancroft said. “Wouldn’t he just pay the bribe?”
“Yeah, but then our inspector will say he’s changed his mind and the price is now double. Leverton will realize that this will be an endless shakedown and conclude that the inspector should disappear.”
“I like it,” Bancroft said. “It would be a nice twist if the inspector was a woman,” he added. “Less threatening.”
“You have someone in mind?”
Bancroft said, “We have a corporal who wants to be a sergeant. An assignment like this could give her a boost.”
I looked at him and smiled. “She wouldn’t happen to be Danny’s niece, would she?”
27.
Undercover Officer Ryan
“I’m in,” Millie said after I’d outlined the operation over lunch at the No Name Restaurant, a little seafood place on the Boston Fish Pier which, Millie told me, began in 1917 as a seafood stand serving fresh catches to commercial fishermen.
I decided to have our meeting over lunch so Millie could become accustomed to my investigative style. Her father was a swordboat captain, she said, and she’d been eating at the No Name since she was a young girl. In his honor, we both ordered grilled swordfish steaks, which were excellent. “Just out of the water,” Millie said.
“You need to know that this assignment carries with it a high degree of risk,” I told her. “The thug Stewart Leverton employs is as mean as they come. If I’m right, he’s killed at least one person, and maybe more.”
“Patrolling the streets of Boston carries with it a high degree of risk,” Millie said. “So it’ll be no different than a normal day at work.”
“Okay,” I said. “The head of the building department, a man named Bernie Shepard, is on board.”
I gave her five business cards and a cell phone belonging to a real city building inspector named Judy Kykendall. Judy’s supervisor told her that they were needed as part of a confidential investigation. She readily agreed when promised three days of paid leave. We didn’t want two Judy Kykendalls out there while working our scam.
The waitress appeared to ask about dessert.
“The bread pudding is a must,” Millie said.
We both ordered some.
“Have you picked a job site?” she asked.
“Shepard told me that Leverton Properties is putting up a luxury hotel on Boston Harbor,” I told her. “It’s a big project that’s just broken ground. The mayor was there to cut the ribbon. They won’t want any problems with it.”
“How much should I ask for?”
“If it’s too small an amount it won’t seem authentic,” I said. “Too much, and they might make a run at you before we’re ready. Ten thousand should be about right.”
“When do I start?” Millie asked.
“First thing in the morning. I cruised the site. The foreman works out of a trailer. You’ll find him, give him a business card, and tell him there’s a problem with their soil sample. Shepard said that their soil sample’s already been approved, but you’ll say further analysis has raised a question about the groundwater, and they’ll have to stop construction until it’s resolved. The foreman will probably ask how long that will take, and you’ll say things are really backed up, it could be six to eight weeks.”
“That’s when I’ll tell him that maybe the problem can be made to disappear,” Millie said.
“Exactly,” I said. “I have no reason to think that the foreman is dishonest, but he’ll likely be accustomed to shakedowns like this, so he’ll take it to his boss, Stewart, and the rest should unfold as planned.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Let’s stay positive,” I told her.
“One more thing,” Millie said. “What should I wear?”
Just like a woman, I thought, but, of course, didn’t say, not in this #MeToo day and age.
“Jeans, boots, a flannel shirt if you have one, any kind of jacket,” I said. “I’ve got a Boston building department hard hat for you in my car.”
“Any makeup?” she asked. “Smoky eyes?”
I didn’t have an answer for that one.
She laughed. “Just kidding, Jack.”
The next morning, I was sitting in the Homicide Unit’s conference room with Bancroft, waiting for Millie to report what happened at the hotel job site. Time passed slowly as we drank our coffee and split the one doughnut that was left.
After an hour, Millie showed up in her building inspector outfit with her hard hat tipped at a jaunty angle. She was wearing a tan canvas Carhartt jacket over her red plaid flannel shirt.
She gave a salute and said, “Undercover Officer Ryan reporting for duty.”
“Tell us,” Bancroft said, clearly pleased to see her alive and in one piece. As was I.
“The foreman’s name is Randy Murphy,” she said as she took a chair. “He seems like a straight shooter. And a hunk, I’ll add. If he doesn’t go to prison, we might have a future together. Or I could wait for him if it’s not too long a sentence.”
“How did he react?” I asked.
“I introduced myself, gave him the business card, and went through the script. He listened without showing any emotion, like it was routine business. As you predicted, he said he’ll talk to headquarters and get back to me. I told him to call me on my cell phone, rather than at the building department, wink wink.”
Randy Murphy, Leverton’s foreman, called Millie the next morning and told her to meet him at the job site. I instru
cted her to have her gun with her, and if a big man, Bobby Amendola, was there, with or without the foreman, to make an excuse and leave immediately.
The three of us had lunch at Tony’s, a nearby sub sandwich shop where cops got a discount, so we could rehearse the operation one more time. Then Bancroft and I went back to the office and Millie, driving a Ford F-150 truck Bancroft borrowed from the building department, drove to the hotel job site.
Millie returned to Homicide forty-five minutes later carrying a black canvas briefcase and said, “It was just Randy Murphy, the foreman, in the trailer. He told me that his boss agreed to the payment and handed me this briefcase, saying that it contained ten thousand dollars. I took it and told him that it was just a down payment and I needed ten thousand more. He said he’d check again with headquarters and call me with an answer.”
“You don’t have to go any farther with this,” I told Millie. I was having second thoughts about her safety. “We can always find another way.”
“That other way being?”
I was silent, and she said, “That’s what I thought.”
Millie, Bancroft, and I hung around the office, chatting about life on the job, fishing, and hunting.
Judy Kykendall’s cell phone rang.
“Hello?” Millie said into the phone.
She listened, saying “Uh huh” several times, “All right,” and finally, “That works for me,” and ended the call.
“Murphy said the second payment has been approved,” she told us, “and that I should meet him at nine tonight at the Charlestown Navy Yard.”
“No surprise,” Bancroft said. “It’s part of a big park. A secluded location at night, when everything there will be closed. And, of course, it will be Amendola who shows up, not Murphy.”
“What’s there?” I asked Millie.
“Two ships, Old Ironsides and a World War II destroyer, the USS Cassin Young, that also serves as a museum ship. Other than that, there’s a museum and a visitor center. Murphy told me to meet him in the parking lot of the visitor center.”
“You know your local history,” I said.
“All of Boston is local history,” she told me. “School kids learn it all by heart.”
“We need to get Lieutenant Halloran to sign off,” Bancroft told us.
“We’ll do that, but let’s start with a tour of the Charlestown Navy Yard,” I said.
I rode shotgun in the Taurus, with Millie in the back seat, as Bancroft navigated our way to Charlestown. Along the way, Millie continued her tour-guide narration: “The Charlestown Navy Yard was originally known as the Boston Navy Yard, established in 1800 as a navy shipbuilding facility. It was in continuous service until it was decommissioned in 1974. The property is now part of the thirty-acre Boston National Historical Park.”
“Now here’s a truly historic site,” Bancroft said as he pulled over and parked at the curb in a loading zone. “Louie’s Lunch Bucket, my favorite burger joint. Bacon double cheeseburgers to die for.”
He flinched, realizing that saying “to die for” was not a good thing under the circumstances, the circumstance being that Millie was soon to be a decoy for a probable killer.
She broke the tension by starting to laugh and saying, “No better place for a last meal than Louie’s.”
Bancroft was right about the burgers. Maybe, because she was nervous, Millie ate like it was her last meal. Bancroft and I matched her, just to put her at ease.
It was a fifteen-minute drive from Louie’s to the Fifth Street entrance of the Charlestown Navy Yard. We drove down a winding road, past buildings that certainly looked historic, but I refrained from asking Millie, the local history buff and show-off, about them. We pulled into a parking lot filled with cars and school buses. A sign said that the lot was for the visitor center, which was a one-story redbrick building.
We got out of the Taurus and walked to the front of the visitor center building. From there, I could see piers running into Boston Harbor with the USS Constitution and the destroyer Millie mentioned moored to one of them.
“The Constitution, aka Old Ironsides, was launched in 1798 and is the oldest commissioned ship in the navy,” Millie told me as we looked at the piers. “She never lost a battle. I can tell you about each one …”
“I don’t doubt that for a second,” I said.
Bancroft laughed and said, “Maybe another time, Millie. We’ve got work to do.”
We walked the area, then got back into the Taurus and drove around the park, noting the buildings, how the roads came together, and the entrance-exit streets. On the way back to police headquarters, Bancroft said, “Given the layout, here’s what I recommend. At eight P.M., Jack and I will drive back there and park behind the Constitution Museum building, out of sight. Millie will arrive at eight thirty in the department’s armored vehicle.”
“Tell me about that,” I said.
“It’s an unmarked Ford Utility SUV with the Police Interceptor package that’s up-armored like a Humvee in a war zone,” he told me. “It would take an armor-piercing bullet to go through the metal or the glass.”
“Go on,” I told him.
“Millie parks in the visitor center lot as instructed,” he continued. “Amendola will arrive at nine, he said, and Millie will stay in the Ford with the doors locked and windows up. When she doesn’t get out, Amendola will walk over, carrying an empty briefcase. He’ll tell her to get out. Instead, she’ll point her pistol at him. He’ll assume she can shoot him through the glass so he’ll shoot first, at the glass, and then probably at the door. When his bullets don’t pierce either one, and given that he’s not killed by the ricochets, he’ll know he’s been had and run back to his car. We’ll block the road, with Millie driving up behind him. If he tries to drive over the park grounds, I’ll have a police helicopter on call to follow him and squads ready to block him.”
“If we take Amendola alive we can charge him with attempted murder of a police officer, even though he doesn’t know Millie is one,” I said. “Then I can see if his gun matches the weapon used in the Naples killing. We recovered the bullet.”
“And if it does, we offer him a plea bargain in return for cooperating in the prosecution of the Levertons,” Millie said.
“Now we need to brief Lieutenant Halloran,” Bancroft said.
Back at headquarters, the three of us found Lieutenant Halloran in his office. I let Bancroft explain the details of our operation. Halloran listened, stroked his chin, and said, “Are you okay with this, Corporal Ryan? It’s purely a volunteer assignment.”
Millie nodded and said, “I am, sir.”
Halloran turned to me and said, “You get one of our officers killed, Starkey, and the Naples PD won’t recognize you when we give you back.”
“Roger that,” I said.
28.
Baiting the Trap
We had several hours to kill before it was time to set up the trap at the Charlestown Navy Yard for Bobby Amendola, so we went back to the office, where Bancroft attended to his other cases, Millie went to the squad room, and I sat in Danny O’Rourke’s empty cubicle and made calls to Tom Sullivan, my bartender Sam Longtree, and to Marisa. There was universal agreement that my latest plan might work, or it might fail spectacularly.
At seven thirty, Bancroft and I took the elevator down a floor to the squad room to tell Millie it was time for him and me to depart for the Charlestown Navy Yard, ahead of her.
“Last chance to go to law school,” I told her.
“The legal profession would seem mega-boring compared to this,” she said.
Bancroft drove us to the Charlestown Navy Yard and parked in the rear lot of the Constitution Museum. While waiting, we chatted about sports, politics, and his retirement dream, which involved a lake cabin in Vermont with good bass fishing and satellite TV for all the sports channels.
Bancroft looked at his watch and said, “I’ve got Kevlar vests in the trunk.”
We got out and put them on. At eight thirty,
we heard a car drive by on the street in front of the museum: Millie in the armored Ford SUV. A moment later, she called Bancroft on his cell phone to say she was in place.
A half-hour later, right at nine, we heard a car on the road. We got out of the Taurus, found we didn’t have a clear line of sight to the visitor center parking lot, went back to the Taurus. Bancroft drove out onto the road, headlights off, and parked, far enough back to not be seen from the visitor center parking lot, but close enough, with the windows down, for us to hear gunshots.
A few moments later, we heard three of them.
Bancroft hit the gas and headed toward the visitor center just as we saw a pair of headlights coming at us. He skidded to a stop parallel to the road, a blocking move, and put the headlights on, along with the car’s lights and siren. We got out and stood behind the open car doors. I had my Glock pointed at the oncoming car and Bancroft had the shotgun.
The game of chicken ended when Amendola was maybe twenty yards away. He swerved onto the grass of the park. He was driving his Escalade, which would have no trouble off-road.
Bancroft and I hopped back into the Taurus and he gunned it in pursuit of Amendola, lights and siren still on. He picked up his police radio microphone and said, “Dispatch, this is Detective Bancroft, badge number 1430, in pursuit of a black Cadillac Escalade, license number unknown. Subject is driving off-road at high speed through the Charlestown Navy Yard, passing the commandant’s house and heading northwest toward the Thirteenth Street exit onto Chelsea Street.”
“Roger that, Detective,” came a woman’s voice in reply. “What do you need?”
“Require units to block off Chelsea one mile east and west of Thirteenth and surveillance by Air One,” Bancroft told her.
“We’re on it,” the dispatcher said. “Stay in touch and good hunting.”
All the while, we were bumping over the ground at speed, gaining on the Escalade as it sped toward the park exit where we came in.
“If he goes out that exit,” Bancroft said, “his only choices are to turn east or west, where he’ll be blocked by our units, or to turn back into the park on Sixteenth Street going east, or on Fifth Street, going west.”
The Now-And-Then Detective Page 17
