Mortal Sin (20 page)

“I’m looking for a runaway teenage girl. I’m trying to get the word out to everyone I can think of.” He handed a flyer across the table. Tom took it and studied it, his brow furrowed.

“She’s sixteen years old,” Clancy said. “She took the T
from Revere into Boston a few weeks ago and simply vanished.”

“Have you checked the bus station, the airport, the train station?”

“All of the above, without a single hit. I’m pretty sure she’s still here. Somewhere.” He picked up his coffee and took a sip. “You know as well as I do what happens to young girls out there on the street.”

Tom shook his head and sighed. “As a parent, it terrifies me,” he admitted. “Gen’s only a couple years younger than this girl. As a concerned citizen, it makes me angry. And as a legislator, it makes me want to take strong action.”

“You can legislate until the cows come home, but in my experience, it’s ineffective. You put one pimp in jail, the next day there’s another one there to take his place.” Clancy turned his coffee mug idly on the tabletop. “It’s discouraging.”

Tom set down the flyer and leaned back in his chair. Fingers threaded loosely in front of him, he studied Clancy with quiet speculation. “So what’s your solution?”

This wasn’t the first time they’d debated this particular issue. “I’ve told you this before and I’ll say it again,” Clancy said. “I don’t believe you can legislate morality. And in answer to your question, I haven’t yet seen any effective preventive medicine. Mostly just Band-Aid treatments applied after the fact.”

“What about better parenting skills? Stronger ties to home and church?”

“Even baby steps maintain forward momentum. But we’ve both been around long enough to know there’s theory, and then there’s reality.” Thinking of Sarah, he added, “And you can’t always blame it on the parents. Some of these girls I work with are simply bent on self-destruction. It’s heartbreaking to witness.”

Tom picked up the flyer again. “Is it okay if I make copies of this?”

“Of course. The more the better. I’m practicing saturation bombing. That’s why I thought of you. Whatever agencies I’m not involved with, you are.”

“I’ll pass it around. I’ve been doing a lot with the soup kitchens and the drug treatment centers. I’m also on the boards of a couple of homeless shelters. If she’s out there… well, you know the drill as well as I do.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it. So tell me more about Callie’s recital. I’d love to be there if I can fit it in. Callie’s a great kid.”

Paternal pride shone in Tom’s eyes. “Yeah, she is. She’s taking modern dance. I’ve been to a couple of her rehearsals, and it’s a hoot to watch. I don’t have my calendar with me, but if you give Bess a call, she can fill you in on the details. She’d love to hear from you. Just last week, she mentioned that it’s been months since we had you over for dinner.”

After breakfast, he drove to Braintree, where he spent the rest of the morning at Donovan House, finalizing paperwork on a girl who’d completed the program and was ready to transition back out into the community. Sheri Gordon had been clean for six months now. She was working as a receptionist for a local oil company, and she’d found a roommate to help her share expenses in the little two-bedroom apartment she’d rented above a drugstore in downtown Quincy. Her future looked promising, as long as she continued to follow the path she’d started on.

He was halfway back from Braintree when his cell phone rang. “Yo, Bwana,” said a familiar voice at the other end. “What’s happening, man?”

He hadn’t really expected to hear from the kid again. “Jamal,” he said. “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”

“I happen to be in possession of a piece of information that could prove beneficial to your cause,” the kid said. “For the right price, I might even be willing to share it with you.”

“Of course,” he said dryly. “And what might that price be?”

“You go tracking this dude down, I get to ride shotgun.”

“Deal. What’s the information?”

“This morning, I be hanging out and shit. You know? And I see him, the surfer dude, coming out of one of them porn shops down in the Zone. Seeing as how I didn’t have nothing better to do, I followed him. Discreetly, of course. Dude went into the parking garage on Beach Street and come out driving this slick red Beemer. And yours truly, being of sound mind and body, just happened to memorize the license plate number.”

“Well.” He was duly impressed. “Good work.”

“So? We going after him?”

Something tightened inside his gut, and the fleeting thought crossed his mind that perhaps he enjoyed this cloak-and-dagger stuff a little more than he should. Wondering what that said about him, he checked the time. It would be a couple of hours before Melissa sent out the search dogs. Time enough to nose around and see what he could find out. Assuming he could get an ID on the plate.

Northbound traffic on the Expressway was backed up as usual. While he breathed in diesel fumes from the eighteen-wheeler idling in front of him, he fumbled for a pen and paper to write down the number Jamal gave him. “Look for me when you see me,” he told Jamal. “I’m stuck in traffic.”

He tried Conor first, but Isabel, Conor’s saucy young secretary, informed him in a fluid Spanish accent that the lieutenant wasn’t in. Nor was Detective Lorna Abrams. That pretty much exhausted his list of contacts at the Boston P.D., at least the contacts he knew well enough to ask for an illegal plate search. He thanked Isabel and ended the call, spent a moment considering his options, and dialed Vince Paoletti.

“Father,” the Vice cop said. “You’re getting to be a real pain in the ass. You find your girl yet?”

“I’m still working on it. I need a favor.”

“How did I know that was coming? What is it you need this time?”

“I have a license plate number. I need a name and address to go with it.”

“I talked to Rafferty the other day,” Paoletti said. “I asked him about you.”

“Did you now? And what did he have to say about me?”

“Enough. Give me five minutes and I’ll call you back.”

He wondered just how much Paoletti’s “enough” had to do with a thirty-year-old friendship and how much it had to do with an eleven-year-old homicide. Water under the bridge, he reminded himself as he drummed his fingers impatiently against the steering wheel and eased the Saturn ahead a car length or two. It had been a long time since his last nocturnal visitation from Meg’s restless ghost. With the truth about her death revealed at last, Meg Monahan was finally at peace. And so was he. He could still look back with regret for what might have been, regret for the young girl who would never grow old. He still felt pain over her death. But the longing and the anguish were gone.

He’d just drawn abreast of the Bayside Expo when Paoletti called back. “Roger Seward,” the cop said. “2301 Jameson Street, Jamaica Plain. I ran his license, too, while I was at it. Five-eleven, one-seventy, blond, blue. Squeaky clean, not so much as a parking ticket.”

“Bless you,” he said. “I owe you one.”

“I didn’t do it for you, I did it for Rafferty. You and I never had this conversation.”

“What conversation?”

“Exactly. One more thing, Father. Don’t go playing hero, you hear me? I doubt that your friend Rafferty has either the time or the inclination to be scraping your carcass off the sidewalk. Keep your nose clean, and leave the superhero stuff to us.
Capisce
?”

“I hear you, Detective. Thanks.”

It was another twenty minutes before he reached the corner where Jamal waited patiently. “About time you got here,” the boy said cheerfully as he climbed into the car and slammed the door. “I thought you was in a car wreck or something.”

“Why do I get the impression that the idea of my ill-timed and bloody demise brought you immense glee?”

“Chill, dude. You get an address for Surfer Boy?”

“I did. You familiar with Jamaica Plain?”

“Not really.”

“I guess we’ll have to wing it, then.”

He circled the block, picked up the Southeast Expressway, then exited and began working his way through block after block of unfamiliar territory. As he drove, he tried to engage the kid in conversation. “How does your mother feel about you quitting school?”

Jamal glanced idly out the passenger-side window. “Ain’t got no mother.” He rubbed the tip of his nose with a knuckle. “Ain’t got no old man, neither.”

What had happened to the boy’s parents? Curiosity gnawed at him, but he felt it was more prudent to wait until Jamal volunteered the information. He cleared his throat and said, “Who do you live with?”

“My granny.” Jamal turned on the radio, spun the tuner until he found a station to his liking. Rhythm and energy, in the form of hip-hop music, filled the small space that surrounded them.

Raising his voice to be heard over the music, Clancy said, “And she doesn’t care that you’re not in school?”

“That school,” Jamal said, “seem to be of the opinion that yours truly is incorrigible. My granny say she washing her hands of the likes of me.”

“Well.” He wasn’t quite sure what to think. “Incorrigible or not,” he said, “you’ve just been elected navigator. Start looking for Jameson Street. It should be around here somewhere.”

They took a few wrong turns, assisted by Snoop Dogg and Jay-Z. “Stop!” Jamal said, holding out a hand. “This be it right here.”

Clancy hung a quick right onto Jameson. They’d landed somewhere in the 2200 block. He got his bearings, then began working his way westward to the 2300’s. As they passed house after house, Jamal read the numbers aloud. “2291, 2293… can’t read this next one… urn… 2297, 2299.” Clancy slowed and squinted at the house numbers. They rolled past an empty lot, and the boy took up counting again. “2303, 2305—hey! What the hell happened to 2301?”

Clancy stopped the car and they exchanged a puzzled look. He turned and took a quick survey of the house numbers across the street.

They were all even.

He put the car into reverse and slowly backed down the street, past 2303, to the weed-choked lot he’d ignored the first time through. Its sole inhabitant was a rusted 1969 Chevy Impala that sat up on blocks, its tires long since become victims of the neighborhood. He backed a little farther down the street, to the next house, and re-read the house number. 2299. In disbelief, he turned his attention back to the empty lot where 2301 should have been.

“Son of a bitch,” Jamal said.

On the drive out to Revere, he called Paoletti back, left a message on his voice mail suggesting that since Roger Seward’s last known address had been a ‘69 Impala surrounded by weeds, it might just be possible his name wasn’t the real deal, either. It was a warm spring day, breezy and muddy, and he drove with the window open because spring fever had him hard in its grip. He pulled into Sarah’s driveway, hip-hop music thudding at an alarming level, and turned off the car. “Holy shit,” Jamal said. “That house about as blue as blue can get.”

Sarah was on her knees in the front yard, dressed in a down vest and work gloves, yanking at a stubborn clump of dead milkweed. He and Jamal crossed the lawn, the ground squishing beneath their feet. “Need a little help?” he said.

She released the clump of milkweed and stood up. Brushing windblown hair away from her face, she said darkly, “You probably don’t want to know the kind of language that’s been coming from my mouth.”

“I suspect I’ve heard it all before.” He grabbed the milkweed in both hands, braced his legs, and yanked with brute force. The offending plant broke free, and he shook loose a few clumps of soil from its roots before he handed it to her.

“Maybe I could hire you,” she said dryly, tossing the dead soldier onto a pile near a corner post of the front porch. “Think we could set a reasonable hourly wage?”

“That depends,” he said. “If I didn’t have to be on call 24/7, it just might be an offer I can’t refuse.” He crossed his arms and leaned back to survey her work. “So you’re doing a bit of landscaping.”

She pulled off her gloves and tucked them into the pocket of her vest. “More like excavating. But it has to be done. I’m pulling up everything that’s not identifiable, raking up the muck, and then I’m planting grass seed. Once that’s done, I’ll start scraping the house. It’s just about warm enough to start painting. So what’s up?”

He introduced her to Jamal and told her about his fool’s errand to Jamaica Plain. “My instincts tell me we’re on to something with this guy. If he was an upstanding citizen, why would his driver’s license and auto registration have a fake address?”

“If I ever catch the son of a bitch,” she said, “I’ll string him up by the—” She glanced at Jamal and sighed. “I imagine you’ve heard it all before, too. What’s our next move?”

“I think a visit to a certain porn shop in the Combat Zone might be in order. Since Jamal’s underage, I thought you might like to come along.”

“You’re damn tootin’ I want to come along.” She shoved her hair away from her face and turned her back on the yard work. “Just give me a couple of minutes to wash off some of this mud.”

After she left, he wandered over to the porch, tested the railings and found them surprisingly solid. But the steps had reached a dangerous state of deterioration. He toed them gingerly, felt the springiness that signaled rotted wood. If she didn’t replace them, one of these days she’d fall right through and break a leg.

“Have you ever built a set of steps?” he asked Jamal.

“No. And I ain’t about to start now, so don’t go getting no ideas.”

“It can’t be that hard.”

Jamal kicked at the bottom step and a chunk of rotted wood fell off. They both stared at it. “She your old lady?” Jamal said.

“No, she is not my old lady.”

“She thinking ‘bout it, then. I seen the way she was looking at you, like you a piece of prime, grade-A beef.”

Clancy knelt to take a closer look at the steps. “I’m a priest,” he said, running a finger along the edge of the top tread. “I’ve taken a vow of celibacy. I’m not allowed to have a… ah… old lady.”

“Uh-huh. So how long you think it gonna take for her to get ready? It’s already been ten minutes.”

“She’s a woman, Jamal. I don’t know this from personal experience, mind you, but rumor has it that women can take a long time getting ready.”