Brighton (11 page)

Normally he’d have followed her right into the shower, but Kevin could tell she was wired for work. And, for the first time, she’d actually asked for his help. So he threw on a T-shirt and went into the kitchen to make coffee. They’d worked out the rules after three months together. She’d treat him like any other journalist in the city. No special access to anything coming out of the D.A.’s office. And it was a two-way street. If he dug up some dirt, she
wouldn’t expect to know until it hit the papers. Lisa had been the one who’d pushed for the Chinese wall. Now, for some reason, she wanted to tear the thing down.

“Hey.” Her voice was muffled. Kevin walked back to the bathroom and cracked the door. The room was heating up and covered in a thin layer of mist.

“Yeah.”

Lisa stuck her head out of the shower. “You making coffee?”

“Got a pot brewing. So what is it about your case that can’t wait until morning?”

“They got some of the preliminary forensic work back.”

“And it can’t wait until morning?”

Lisa shrugged and slipped back behind the shower curtain. “It’s DeMateo. He said he needed me so I go.”

Frank DeMateo was the district attorney for Suffolk County and Lisa’s boss.

“You want a ride?”

“I’ll just jump in a cab, but you can do me one favor.”

“What’s that?”

“My briefcase is in the living room. There’s a zippered pocket on the outside. Can you check and see if my ID’s in there? If I left it at work, it’s gonna be a pain in the ass getting into my building without it.”

Kevin found her briefcase on the floor near the front door. He sat down on the couch and checked the pocket, but there was no ID. He opened the case, pulled out a couple of files, and dug around. Her ID was wedged at the very bottom, underneath a Snickers bar and a small makeup bag. Kevin stared at the picture of his girl, smart, smiling, beautiful, and about
to burst with the fullness of it all. And this was her work ID. Kevin shook his head and swore to himself. His work ID looked like something out of the fucking Book of Revelation. And not the good Revelations, either. He started to shove files back into the briefcase. The last one was older, dog-eared, with a torn green cover and a typed label that read:
HOMICIDE
—1975. Underneath was the name of the victim:
CURTIS JORDAN
. Kevin felt his heart double pump in his chest and listened to the water from Lisa’s shower, running like a dark, distant river. He followed the sound back to the bathroom and cracked the door again. The room was draped in steam now, her voice issuing from somewhere within its folds.

“Did you find it?”

“I did. How much longer you gonna be?”

“Five, ten minutes. Why?”

“Nothing. Coffee’s ready.”

“Thanks.”

He started to leave.

“Kevin?”

“Yeah?”

A pause. “You all right?”

“Sure. Just sucks you gotta head out in the middle of the night.”

“I’m sorry, babe. It’s a messed-up case. I’ll explain it all later.”

Kevin closed the door and walked into the living room. They kept a small printer/copier on the floor by the desk. He powered it up and flipped through the first few pages of the old murder file. Phrases jumped out at him. “Deceased, twenty-six-year-old male, found on floor.” “Cause of death: Thirty-eight-caliber gun
shot wound to the chest.” “Postmortem contact wound: Twenty-two caliber to the head.” “Homicide: Unsolved.”

Outside, the city was painted in shivering pinpricks of light. Inside, a radiator started to spit and the walls seemed to thump and swell. Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart” ran through his head like a cold dream and Kevin wondered if that wasn’t his fate. He wiped his hands and laid the old file down on the desk. Lisa’s laptop was open and running. A picture of the two of them at a Sox game served as her screensaver. He hit a button and the smiling faces dissolved into her e-mail browser. The latest message in her in-box was from her office and carried the subject heading: CURTIS JORDAN. Kevin opened it. The message was brief.

ATTACHED IS THE BALLISTICS REPORT WE TALKED ABOUT. CALL ME. F. DEMATEO

He opened up the report and hit print without reading it. Down the hall, the water was still running. After the report finished printing, he pulled out the file on Jordan. He’d copied maybe fifteen pages when the water stopped. Kevin turned off the printer and returned the file to Lisa’s briefcase. She was toweling off when he walked back into the bedroom with coffee. He sat on the bed and watched as she got dressed—jeans and a loose-fitting Harvard sweatshirt.

“Coffee’s good,” Lisa said and lifted her mug.

“How long you think you’ll be?”

“Dunno. Hopefully not all night.” She straddled him on the bed and cradled his face in her hands. “I’m so proud of you, Kev.”

“Thanks.”

“I mean it. I feel like we’re in this great place . . .”

“And?”

“And I don’t want anything to screw it up.”

“What could screw it up?”

“Nothing. I’m just saying.” She leaned in to kiss him, the scent of lemon clinging to her hair and skin. “I gotta go.”

“You gonna tell me about your case?”

“When I get back.”

He walked her to the front door, then watched from the window as she climbed in a cab and disappeared down the hill. It was nearly midnight as he settled on the couch with his coffee and started to read—about a man he’d shot in the head twenty-six years earlier.

The phone jumped at a little after four in the morning. Kevin was lying on the couch, counting cracks in the ceiling. He let it ring twice, then picked up.

“Yeah?”

“Did I wake you?” Lisa’s voice sounded hollow and echoed down the line.

“Not really.” Kevin swung his feet to the floor. “How’s it going?”

“These people are idiots.”

“Who’s that?”

“Take your pick. You know what, it doesn’t matter. I need to ask a favor.”

“What’s that?”

“I need you to come down here. Tonight. Right now.”

“To your office?”

“To Brighton, Kevin. You gotta come to Brighton and you can’t tell a soul.”

He knew he’d go. And knew he was going to lie to her. It wasn’t something he wanted to do. And it wouldn’t end well. But he’d lie anyway, as she’d lied to him. Sometimes it was just how things worked out. So he wrote down the address she gave him and hung up. Then he went into their bedroom and got dressed.

THE LETTERS
were each a yard and a half high, alternating neons of orange and pink, blazing away in the predawn darkness at the corner of North Beacon and Market Streets. Had they all been working they would have spelled
DUNKIN DONUTS
. Even short two “D”s and an “N,” the locals got the message. Kevin could see her as he pulled into the lot, set up at a table by the window. He ordered coffee and a honey-dipped doughnut from the sleepy-eyed woman behind the counter and made his way over. The reports he’d pilfered from Lisa’s briefcase and computer were tucked inside his jacket pocket. He touched them with one hand as he slid in across from her.

“You all right?” she said, taking a sip from a cup kissed with lipstick.

“I haven’t been working a murder all night.”

“I get the feeling you don’t like to come back here.”

“Brighton used to be home to the city’s slaughterhouses.”

“Really?”

“Yep.” Kevin gestured to the empty stretch of street running past their window. “Drove the cattle right down Market and butchered them along the river. Less than a half mile from where we’re sitting.”

“Yikes.”

“The poet in me would say you can still smell the blood . . . especially if you grew up here.”

“But?”

“Brighton’s like anywhere else. Got its rough edges, got its skeletons. And like everyone else in this city, they think they’re the shit and everyone else is from hunger.” Kevin took a bite of the honey-dipped and dropped it back on its piece of wax paper. “Fucking heaven. You want a bite?”

Lisa shook her head.

“Suit yourself. You know this is the busiest Dunkin’ Donuts in the country?”

“No kidding?”

“Assholes down in Weymouth say they’re number one, but fuck them. It’s Weymouth, for Chrissakes. Besides, this place is open twenty-four seven.” Kevin took another bite and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “So you gonna tell me why we’re here?”

Lisa turned the coffee cup in her hands and avoided his eyes as she spoke. “I’m gonna share something with you. Something no one but me, you, and maybe a dozen other people know. And it’s not something you can report.”

“If it’s a story, I’d rather not know. That way if I get something on my own . . .”

“You can run with it and be a big hero. That’s not what this is, Kevin. Not now.”

The server glanced up from her work. Kevin waved her off and she went back to rearranging the jimmies on a tray of frosted doughnuts. Lisa massaged her temple with two fingers and dropped her voice. “Sorry, long night.”

Everyone downtown knew she was a star. Fuck that, a megastar. Lisa’s problem was she viewed the world as a meritocracy. If you were smarter than her, then lead. If you weren’t, then get out of the way. And no one in the D.A.’s office was as smart as Lisa. Needless to say, the white men she worked with trembled in her considerable wake. And fucked with her every chance they got.

“You need some rest,” Kevin said.

“Yeah.”

He touched the back of her hand. “Look, if you want this off the record, it’s off.”

“Thanks, babe.”

“Not a problem. Now, tell me about your murder. I’m assuming it happened in Brighton?”

“A black woman was strangled and knifed in a house that was being built on Radnor Road. You know where that is?”

“Sure.”

“We gave the story to the press late yesterday afternoon. Normally, it would be a one-day hit.”

“But not this one?”

“We withheld the ID on the victim. And the exact location.”

“Why?”

She shook her head. “I can’t get into all that, but some people working the case wanted a little time with the evidence before we gave the name to the press.”

“Who’s handling the scene?”

“Good question. Boston P.D.’s on-site as the primary, along with the state police. It was your typical big-dick contest until the governor’s office called.”

“The governor?”

“They requested that the D.A.’s office pursue an independent line of investigation, at least for the time being.”

“Who died, Lis?”

She nodded at what was left of the doughnut in front of Kevin. “You about done?”

He popped the last bite in his mouth and drained his coffee. She was already on her feet. “Let’s take a drive.”

They left the Dunkin’ Donuts and headed up Market. The sky was just beginning to lighten and streetlights marked the way with soft splashes of light.

“Where are you going?” Lisa said.

“Thought I’d swing by Radnor. Just take a look.”

“Not a great idea. They’ve got a couple of unmarked cars taking down the tag numbers of anyone who shows an interest.”

“Scratch Radnor. Where would you like to go?”

“Just drive.”

Kevin rumbled up Chestnut Hill Avenue, bumped over the streetcar tracks, and swung a left onto Commonwealth Avenue.

“Pull over,” Lisa said.

Kevin parked on a hilly side street full of shitty apartments rented out to students and even shittier apartments reserved for Brighton’s illegals. Lisa dug through a file and handed him a photo of a young black woman lying on her side in a cold puddle of blood.

“Her name was Sandra Patterson, twenty-seven years old. She was stabbed twice. Bled out on the floor.”

“And what was Sandra doing on Radnor Road?”

“You ever heard of Habitat for Humanity?”

Kevin turned over the picture and looked out the window. Three Asian kids were coming down the block with book bags slung over their shoulders. Catching the early bus to school. Probably the charter to Latin School.

“Did you hear me, Kevin?”

“I heard you. That’s who she was working for?”

“Habitat broke ground on the Radnor house ten weeks ago. Sandra was part of their construction team.”

Kevin smiled blankly at the Asian kids. One of them waved as they walked past. Another gave him the finger. Somewhere a bird pecked at his soul and flew off with a piece. He passed the picture of the dead girl back to Lisa. “And the governor cares about all of this because . . .”

“Sandra Patterson was a state cop. She was working undercover as part of a drug op.”

“In Brighton?”

“Your old neighborhood’s been a player for years. Mostly local, cash-and-carry stuff out of the Faneuil projects and Fidelis Way. Some of the low-rise apartments along Western Avenue. Here and there in Allston.”

“So why was Patterson in a house being built by Habitat for Humanity?”

“Two, three years back, we noticed some new patterns emerging. A lot more activity in the ’burbs. White kids selling bags of smack next to the Sunglass Hut in the Chestnut Hill Mall. Shit like that. They’ve also made a move on campus. BC, BU, Tufts, Harvard. The whole nine yards.”

“And it’s all running through Brighton?”

“Brighton’s an edge neighborhood, bordered up against
Brookline, Newton, Cambridge. Plus it’s got a lot of universities nearby.”

“Who’s the supplier?”

“Dunno. Whoever it is, they’re not working out of any of the projects and, best we can tell, not hooked up with any gangs. They pick their spots, and they’re damn good at covering their tracks. As you can imagine, there’s been a lot of pressure to shut the thing down.”

“They’re moving dope in white neighborhoods.”

“Rich neighborhoods, Kevin. Rich-ass suburbs.”

“Why haven’t I heard about any of this?”

“Because people like Sandra have been working undercover. She was enrolled part-time as a student at BC. A month ago, she told her boss she was gonna volunteer for the Habitat thing. She said Habitat itself wasn’t the target, just cover for an angle she was looking at. Didn’t seem like Sandra was close on anything so her boss didn’t get a lot of specifics. We’re not sure what happened after that, except it was a fuckup.”

“Did you know her?”

“I met her. Sweet kid. Smart as hell, too.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. There’s something else you need to see.”

Kevin watched as Lisa dug into her file again. A folder fell off her lap, scattering Sandra Patterson’s mortal remains across the floor of the car. Kevin reached down to pick up the photos. Lisa beat him to it and held up a head and shoulders shot of the victim. Patterson was lying flat on her back and might have been sleeping, save for the red button on her forehead and circle of thin steel wrapped around her neck.

“Sandra was strangled with what we believe to be a twelve-
gauge piece of piano wire,” Lisa said. “The gunshot was postmortem. Thirty-eight caliber.”

Kevin studied the photo. Lisa kept talking.

“Forensics says whoever killed her tied off the wire enough to incapacitate, but not to kill. Then he used the knife.”

“Did he take anything?”

“Took her driver’s license, some money, and the sweatshirt she was wearing.”

“Not your typical drug murder.”

“It’s Rosie Tallent, Kevin. Same M.O. Garrote and a knife. Single postmortem shot to the head. Black, female victim. And they both happened in Brighton.”

Kevin handed back the photo. “Rosie was found in Allston. And it was five years ago.”

“So you don’t think the two are related?”

“Do you?”

“I think whatever this is, it’s local.”

“And you think I can take you inside?”

“You grew up here. And you wrote about Rosie’s murder.”

“I wrote about the man who was wrongfully convicted of Rosie’s murder. And the legal process behind it. I never got into who actually committed the crime. The truth is I know as much about Brighton these days as you do about Roxbury.”

“Exactly. And if Sandra Patterson was killed in a walk-up on Blue Hill Ave., I’d be calling in all my markers.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t have any.”

“No one?”

“I’ve been gone a long time, Lis. You want a ride back to the apartment?”

“You’re not going to help?”

“I didn’t say that. You want a ride?”

Lisa stuffed all the paperwork back in her briefcase. Kevin turned over the engine and headed downtown, flashing through Kenmore Square and the Back Bay before hitting Beacon Hill.

“What are you going to do today?” she said.

“Drop you off. Then drive back to Brighton and bang my head against the wall.”

“I love you, Kev.”

“I want an exclusive if this ever sees the light of day, which, by the way, I highly fucking doubt.”

He pulled up in front of their building and watched her disappear inside. Then he took out the business card Finn had given him. It read:

BOBBY SCALES

LEAD CARPENTER/ASST SITE SUPERVISOR

HABITAT FOR HUMANITY

Kevin clipped the card to the ballistics report he’d pilfered from Lisa’s e-mail. It was short and sweet. An automated computer system had linked the thirty-eight used to kill Curtis Jordan in 1975 to postmortem gunshot wounds in both the Rosie Tallent and Patterson murders. A state firearms examiner subsequently confirmed the match as a thirty-eight caliber Smith & Wesson revolver. Kevin swore softly to himself. Then he put the car in gear and started rolling downhill. Thunder rumbled overhead and hard bullets of rain began to fall.