Mission Hill (19 page)

We pull into the gas station and find Ezekiel's manager, Freddy Stafford, in the garage, under the hood of a Honda, working a ratchet. This time I'm dressed for the occasion, in jeans and boots.

“I'm Detective Farnsworth, we spoke earlier,” Kevin says. “This is Abby Endicott, with the DA's office.”

Freddy extends his greasy paw. “Good to know you.”

It would be rude to just stand there, so I accept the handshake, making a mental note to wipe myself down with Purell as soon as I get back to the car.

“You're wasting your time coming all this way. Like I told you on the phone, Ezekiel isn't here.”

“We need to ask a favor,” I say.

“No offense, but I don't want to step in the middle of that murder. It sounds like a snake pit.”

“Can you tell us where Ezekiel is living?”

“I don't have any idea.”

A mechanic working on a car in the next bay turns on a hydraulic jack. Competing with the hiss of the machine, I raise my voice.

“It's crucial that we talk to him. If you don't want to tell us where he is, maybe you could talk with him about cooperating.”

Kevin steps in. “We can park a marked police cruiser outside your garage 24-7 for however long it takes. It could be there for days, maybe weeks, waiting for him to come back to work. We might even ask Inspectional Services to have a look around, see if there are any environmental code violations. Who knows, maybe Immigration would be interested in checking out your employee roster.”

The whir of a power drill drones nearby. Freddy stops what he's doing and looks up.

“I'm telling the truth. I have no way of getting in touch with him.”

“You must have some idea.”

“All I know is that he called in sick a couple of days. Then he asked me for a week off, probably to avoid you all. Can't say as I blame him.”

I hand him my card. “Please call if you hear anything.”

We head over to Ezekiel's last known address, his mother's house. Renée Hogan answers the door, wearing pink slippers and an orange waitress uniform, with sweat stains under the armpits. She stands in the doorway, looking exhausted.

“Hi, Ms. Hogan, I know you met the other prosecutor, Tim. I'm Abby Endicott. I've taken over the case.”

“Ezekiel's not here,” she says without inflection.

“It's important that we speak with him.”

“I haven't seen him all week.”

While I talk to Renée, Kevin shifts his body to get a peek inside the house, through the front windows.

“Do you know where he is?”

“No, but in all honesty, I wouldn't tell you if I did.”

“I appreciate your candor.”

“Mind if I have a look around inside?” Kevin says.

“Go ahead.”

Kevin walks into the apartment. I stay on the porch with Renée and try to keep her engaged.

“I'm sure this has been a nightmare for your whole family,” I say.

“My son has been through a lot, the shooting and all those surgeries. It's been almost a year, and he's still going to physical therapy. I swear he jumps out of his chair every time he hears a door shut.”

“I've offered to refer him to a counselor. I'm sure he could benefit from having someone to talk to.”

Renée looks in the doorway and watches Kevin push back coats in the front closet. “My son could benefit from being left alone,” she says. “Can't you let him be? Let him heal. That man ruined his health and his peace of mind. Now you're coming here, harassing us, making everything worse.”

“It doesn't seem like it right now, but I'm on your side.”

“No, it doesn't seem like that at all.”

Kevin comes outside, shaking his head in defeat. We thank Renée, and she goes back in the house.

Once we're inside the car, Kevin says, “The room was stripped bare.”

“Did it look like he just packed up today?”

“Hard to tell. Did you get anything out of the mother?”

“She made me feel guilty for hounding him and talked about how bad his health has been.” I pause. “She got me thinking.”

“Don't go soft on me.”

I look at him and roll my eyes.
As if.
“She gave me an idea,” I say. “Let's go over to the BMC.”

Kevin's wife is a nurse at the hospital. I've met her over the years, mostly for work-related reasons—she's always been pleasant enough. She invited me to Kevin's surprise fortieth birthday party, and after a few glasses of white wine, she let her feelings show when she referred to me as Kevin's “work wife
.
” It could have been the word
wife
that set me off, or it could have been her pejorative tone. Either way, I hope we don't run into her.

We park in front of the hospital and stop in the records department. There's one clerk on duty, and she pulls Ezekiel's file. It's Sunday, and his doctor isn't in her office. We have her paged, and she calls us back immediately.

“I've treated a lot of patients with gunshot wounds, but few as serious as Ezekiel's,” she says. “He's lucky to be alive.”

“When did you see him last?”

“He was in on Friday.”

“Can you check to see when he's due back?”

I wait as she logs on to her home computer.

“He has an appointment next month.”

The trial will be over by then, and without Ezekiel's testimony, Orlando will be free to kill again.

“Ezekiel lists his mother's house as his home address, but we know he's not living there. Do you happen to know where he might be staying?”

“He mentioned that he has two children by different mothers. You might want to talk to them.”

“Do you know their names?”

“Not offhand.”

After I get off the phone with the doctor, I ask the clerk to search for Ezekiel's emergency contact form.

“Marie St. Pierre,” he says. “She has an address in Lower Mills.”

When we get back in the car, Kevin and I agree that knocking on Marie's door would tip them off and drive him deeper underground. Kevin dispatches someone to sit on Marie's house to try to catch Ezekiel coming or going. We still have to find out the name of the second woman.

It's after eight when Kevin drops me off at home. We make plans to reconvene in the morning. Monday is Martin Luther King Day, and court will be closed. Inside my apartment, I check for a sign that Ty has been here since I left this morning.

In the kitchen, I forage for food. I open the refrigerator and pull out a block of Manchego cheese, grab a box of rosemary crackers from a cabinet, and open a bottle of Merlot. I take my dinner into the living room, plop down on the couch, and wonder how to make things right.

 

Chapter Thirty-five

Pretrial detainees are held at the Nashua Street Jail, a modern building on the fringes of Boston's West End. Orlando, along with about 450 other upstanding citizens, reside there while they await the outcome of their cases. There are far worse places to be locked up—some of the cells have water views.

Prisoners' phone calls are automatically recorded and we routinely subpoena the audiotapes. The conversations can provide a treasure trove of information.

“I pulled Orlando's jail calls and e-mailed them to you,” Kevin says, looking up from his laptop.

“What's he got to say?”

“Listen for yourself—you're going to love it.”

While I log on to my e-mail, Kevin walks around and surveys my apartment, inspecting the artwork and books. The last time he was here was the night of the break-in, and he didn't have a chance to do a lot of snooping. He was busy making sure a crazed killer wasn't hiding in my linen closet.

“Is this a first edition?” he says, carefully taking my copy of Poe's
Tales
off a shelf.

He's good. It is a first edition, first state, and it cost more than a Hyundai.

“No, it's just old,” I say.

I open the e-mail and hit play. A female voice issues a warning.
This call is being recorded.
It's the advisory that all prisoners hear, and couldn't be any clearer. Fortunately, inmates often ignore the message, call their friends, and brag about their crimes. They ask their fellow gang members to hide evidence or threaten witnesses. Sometimes they speak a foreign language, thinking we won't know what they're saying. They're right—we won't. But our certified interpreters will, and they'll translate every syllable for us.

Some Einsteins think they're clever by speaking in code. They seem surprised when we play their calls for jurors, who know exactly what they mean when they say, “Hide the puppies in the basement ceiling.” Especially when police get a search warrant and go into the basement, remove the ceiling tiles, and find not a littler of newborn labradoodles but a stash of fully loaded AK-47s.

I listen to the call on my laptop.

“That federal dude came to see to me,”
a man says.

“That's Orlando,” Kevin says.

“Yeah, what's he want from you?”
another man says.

“Who is that?” I say to Kevin.

“Orlando's father, Melvin.”

“I don't know. But my lawyer says if he don't put it in writing, then I shouldn't talk to him,”
Orlando says.

“Your lawyer's costing me a fortune. Listen to him,”
Melvin says.

“Blum says the feds can't tell the DA what to do. It's up to her,”
Orlando says.

“That bitch?”
Melvin says.
“She's got it in for you.”

“No shit. She's been after me since I was in juvie. Did you see her up in my face, waving her finger? I'm gonna fuck her up when I get out of here,”
Orlando says.

The call ends. I ignore the part where Melvin calls me a bitch and Orlando says he wants to inflict bodily harm.

“They're talking about Josh McNamara,” I say. “It would have been nice if he'd have told us what he's been up to.”

“He's a feeb—they're all the same,” Kevin says. “Sounds like he wants to flip Melvin and Orlando. I wonder what they have to offer.”

“He should have told us. Feds and their ‘need to know' nonsense.”

A few years ago, between the first and second days of trial, federal marshals showed up at the jail in the middle of the night and swooped up my defendant. They didn't ask permission—they didn't even give me a heads-up. I found out about it the next day, when my defendant failed to show up at trial. I'm still waiting for them to tell me where he is and when they're bringing him back.

“What's the federal interest here? Why is McNamara sticking his schnoz in our case?” Kevin says.

“Tim's murder may be connected to an investigation they've been working.”

“Who's the target?”

“I don't know.”

My front door lock clicks and we hear footsteps. Kevin bolts up, whips his gun out, and signals me to stay seated.

“Wait,” I say.

Ty comes in the living room and throws up his hands in exasperation. Kevin tucks his gun into the small of his back and pulls his shirt over it. Ty looks at me and then back at Kevin as though he's caught us in the act.

“Hey, you remember Kevin. We were working.” I offer the information a little too eagerly. “But I'm glad you're here—Kevin and I could use a break.”

“Oh, yeah, right,” Kevin says, picking up on the tension. “I have to make a few calls. I'll go in the other room.”

“Don't stop what you're doing on my account,” Ty says. “I came over to pick up my phone charger. Have you seen it?”

“It's on the bureau,” I say.

He goes in the bedroom, and I follow.

“We should probably talk, don't you think?” I say.

“It can wait.” He pockets the charger.

“There's nothing going on between me and Kevin. You know that, right?”

“Sure,” he says.

“I'm sorry about what happened yesterday.”

“It's all good.”

He's calm, emotionless, which makes me more anxious. He moves toward the door, but I block his path.

“Don't be mad,” I say.

“I'm not.” He sees a book on a chair, a biography of Beethoven, and tucks it under his arm.

“Want to go get coffee or something?” I say.

“Let's give each other a breather. You need to chill.”

He walks around me, back through the living room. On his way out the door, he speaks to no one in particular.

“See you,” he says.

“Nice talking to you,” Kevin says after he's gone. “You have a little spat?”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

I pretend to focus on my computer screen. He seems to let it drop, and we work in silence for a couple of minutes.

“Nothing like a woman scorned,” he says.

“Seriously, Kevin, I'm not in the mood.”

I whip my head around, ready to launch into a lecture on the importance of boundaries and respecting my privacy.

“Before you go all ‘I am woman, hear me roar' on me, don't. I wasn't talking about the situation with your boyfriend. Believe it or not, everything's not all about you.” He smiles and points to his computer screen. “Look what I found.”

“What?”

“Ezekiel Hogan's bachelorette number two.”

 

Chapter Thirty-six

The Tobin Bridge sits high above the industrial-waste-filled Mystic River. As Kevin zigzags in and out of traffic, I look out the window and think about number twenty, Clyde Ellis, who took out an insurance policy on his business partner and then laced her iced coffee with antifreeze. A month after the murder, just as we were closing in, Clyde jumped off the bridge to his death. I was really upset—I had been looking forward to convicting him.

Kevin reaches around to the backseat, grabs a folder and hands it to me. It's a restraining order, prohibiting Ezekiel Hogan from having contact with a woman named Helena Marshall or her daughter, Zara.
He put me in fear. I believe that he may try to hurt me.