Next of Kin (18 page)

‘Hi,’ Long said, ‘this is Detective Long of the Boston Police Department, homicide division. I need to speak with whoever is in charge of investigations into campaign finance
violations.’

Coale was parked on the street, watching the two men in the tiny convertible. The MG was a terrible car from an engineering standpoint, he reflected. It handled okay, but the
engine wasn’t powerful enough to provide the kind of spunk that usually made tiny convertible cruisers fun. When any pressure at all was applied to the gas pedal, the tiny four-cylinder
engine had to work so hard an automotive critic had once likened it to driving an old biplane without wings.

Still, as a man who understood the role of emotion in automotive enthusiasm, Coale appreciated the lawyer’s devotion. It took a particular sort of person to stay loyal to something that
defied rationality as completely as a forty-year-old two-seater with few comforts and fewer practical advantages.

He slipped the Bluetooth over his ear and dialed. McDougal answered even before Coale heard it ring. ‘They’re here,’ Coale said.

‘They?’

‘He’s with the ex-cop.’

‘Outside?’

‘Yes. They’re going in.’

‘Did they stop anywhere on the way over?’

‘The lawyer picked up the ex-cop. That’s it.’

‘Are you staying outside?’

‘No,’ Coale said. ‘I’ll tail them again once you’re done with them. Right now I’m going to the lawyer’s office. Keep them busy for fifteen minutes, and
I’ll have eyes on his computer and ears on his phone.’

‘Make sure you don’t lose them when they leave here.’

‘Are you telling me my job?’ Coale didn’t care how much McDougal was paying, at his age there was a limit to his patience.

‘No,’ came the response. ‘I hired you because you know your job. I expect you to do it.’

‘They’re getting out of the car,’ Coale said. He disconnected the line.

Finn and Kozlowski sat in the parking lot of the corrugated building in Chelsea that housed Eamonn McDougal’s office.

‘You know what you’re gonna say to him?’ Kozlowski asked.

‘Not really,’ Finn said.

‘You better get it figured out or he’ll tear you to shreds.’

They got out of the tiny MG and walked over to the building’s entrance. The chain was off the steel door and they opened it and stepped inside. Finn was surprised to see McDougal’s
assistant sitting at her desk. She was dressed more casually than normal, which is to say that her eye shadow was two shades lighter, and her heels were of the two-inch, not the four-inch variety.
Looking up, she smiled, taking out her gum and slipping it into the trash can under her desk. ‘Hi Finn,’ she said with enthusiasm.

‘Hi Janice,’ Finn responded. ‘Working on a Saturday?’

She shrugged. ‘I’m here when he’s here. That’s the rule. Besides,’ she leaned forward seductively, ‘when I heard he was meeting with you, I didn’t mind.
How’s everything goin’?’

‘Been better, actually.’ Finn often enjoyed her flirtations. At the moment, though, he had no patience for them. ‘He in his office?’

She nodded. ‘Uh huh. Girl trouble?’

‘Can we go in?’

She looked hurt. Glancing up at Kozlowski, she said, ‘I think he’s only expecting you. I don’t think he knew you were bringing someone.’

‘We work together.’ Finn walked by the side of her desk to the door that led to the back.

‘Wait!’ she objected. ‘Let me tell him you’re here!’ It was too late, though. Finn was already through the door with Kozlowski following close behind. As Janice
rose to block them, she bounced off Kozlowski’s shoulder and dropped back into her chair. ‘You can’t just go in!’ she yelled.

Finn walked through the door to McDougal’s office. McDougal was standing at a filing cabinet, placing some folders into a file. He heard Finn enter the room, and he slid the cabinet shut
and locked it with a key. Then he turned and looked at Finn. His eyes narrowed. ‘Must be important.’

‘What?’ Finn said.

‘Whatever it is you need to talk to me about,’ McDougal responded. He walked over to his desk and sat down. ‘It must be very fucking important for you to come barging into my
office. Other circumstances, barging in like that could be dangerous. You’d do well to remember that, Finn. You’d do very well.’ He nodded to Kozlowski standing in the doorway
behind Finn. ‘And you brought the muscle. Must be very important indeed.’

Finn and Kozlowski walked into the office. Finn sat in the chair across the desk from McDougal. Kozlowski stayed standing.

‘Kozlowski.’ McDougal nodded a greeting. ‘You wait outside while Finny and I have a conversation.’

Finn answered for Kozlowski. ‘We work together.’

McDougal looked at Finn. ‘Careful with your tone, boyo. You’ll have me thinking you don’t trust me. Relationships are based on trust. We lose that . . .’ he shrugged.
‘Who knows?’

Finn leaned in toward McDougal. ‘You wanna talk about trust?’ he demanded. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about Elizabeth Connor?’

McDougal frowned theatrically. ‘Elizabeth Connor,’ he repeated. ‘Now why does that name seem so familiar?’ He closed his eyes, as though thinking hard. Then the eyes
flashed open and his brow cleared. ‘Ah, yes. Of course, I remember now. She worked for me. In fact, I have her file right here.’ He pulled a manila file toward him, opened it.
‘You know, lots of employers just keep the basics about their employees in their files. That’s not how I work. I like to know everything about the people who work for me. You’d be
amazed what kind of information you can dig up on people.’

‘Did you kill her?’

McDougal didn’t flinch. In fact, he didn’t move at all. He just sat there, staring at Finn, his expression inscrutable. Finally, he asked, ‘Are you asking as my lawyer? Or are
you asking in some law enforcement capacity.’ He nodded to Finn’s chest.

Finn reached down and grabbed the hem of his shirt, lifting it up to reveal his bare chest. ‘I’m not working for the cops, and I’m not wearing a wire.’

McDougal nodded toward Kozlowski. ‘What about him? I don’t see him showing me what’s under his shirt.’

‘You haven’t bought me dinner,’ Kozlowski responded.

‘We’re here on our own,’ Finn said. ‘I heard she was into you for a lot of money. I just want to know if you killed her.’

‘Why do you care?’ McDougal asked. ‘What’s it to you?’

Finn could see the smile tugging at the corner of the man’s lips. At that moment, he was almost overcome by the desire to launch himself across the desk and grab him around the neck. He
found himself wondering what it would be like to strangle him; to feel his life slip away, to hear his last breath. ‘You know why,’ was all he said.

McDougal’s eyes were almost black. They reminded Finn of pictures of great white sharks he’d seen. ‘I want to hear it from you.’

‘She was my mother,’ Finn said.

The smile spread from the corner of McDougal’s mouth to his entire face. ‘That’s in the file, too,’ he said. ‘Goddamn, it’s a small world, ain’t it,
Finny-boy?’

‘Did you kill her?’ Finn asked. He was seething, and he wondered what his reaction might be if McDougal said yes.

Instead McDougal shook his head. ‘No. I didn’t. She wasn’t important enough for me to kill. I have a pretty good idea of who did, though.’

‘Tell me.’

‘It’s all right here in her file.’

‘Then let me see the file.’

‘If only life was that fuckin’ simple. It’s not, you know? Life is never that simple.’

‘Why not?’

McDougal shrugged. ‘There are other considerations to take into account. I’m not a rat, by nature.’

‘Bullshit,’ Finn said. ‘You’d send your mother away if it gave you an advantage.’

‘Be careful bringing up a man’s mother,’ McDougal said. ‘I know you’re not used to it, but it cuts close to home.’

‘So I’m learning,’ Finn said.

‘I guess you are. You want to know who killed your mother? That’s fine, but you’ve got to do something for me, first.’

‘What do you want?’ Finn asked.

‘You know what I want. I want my boy off the hook,’ McDougal said.

‘I’m already representing him,’ Finn said. ‘What more do you want from me?’

‘I want you to do what needs to be done!’ McDougal thundered.

‘Like what?’

‘That’s the fuckin’ question, now, isn’t it?’ McDougal said. ‘You’ve been in this game, what, fifteen years? You must have favors you can call in,
people you can lean on. Right now, you’re not doing
all
you can, and you and I both know it. Right now, you’re playing by the rules. I know you, Finn; when you want to you take
care of things, you do. When you want to fix things, you find a way. But right now, you don’t want to fix this thing for me bad enough. Well, maybe now I have something to trade.’

Finn shook his head. ‘You’re wrong. There’s nothing I can do outside the law. Even if I wanted to, there’s nothing I have to trade, no favors I have to call
in.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ McDougal said.

Finn stood up, leaning over the desk. ‘I don’t give a shit what you believe; I want to know who killed my mother!’ he screamed.

McDougal pushed his chair back from the desk against the wall to create some space between Finn and himself. His right hand had been concealed beneath the desktop, but now Finn could see that it
was gripping a large shiny semi-automatic pistol. McDougal pulled his hand up so the gun was resting on the top of the desk. ‘You just back away, Finny-boy, right this goddam second.’
He looked at Kozlowski. ‘And if I don’t see both of your hands in the next two seconds, your friend here’s dead, got it?’

Kozlowski pulled his hand out of his coat pocket. ‘You pull a gun, you better be ready to use it,’ he said in a low tone.

‘No problem there, Mr Kozlowski. Try me, if you’d like.’ He stood and walked over to the filing cabinet, unlocked it and slid the file in. ‘I’ll make this easy on
you. My son’s case gets dismissed in the next two weeks, and I’ll give you the file. I’ll even answer any questions you’ve got – though after you see the file,
I’m sure you won’t have many. And as a bonus, I won’t kill you.’

‘Lucky me.’

‘My son’s case is still around in two weeks, though, and you can ask your mother who killed her yourself. You understand?’

‘This isn’t over,’ Finn said.

‘No,’ McDougal answered. ‘I guess it isn’t.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Senator James Buchanan’s was the largest townhouse in Louisburg Square – the real one on Beacon Hill, not the Quincy imitation where Long spent his lonely evenings.
Buchanan didn’t really live there most of the time, though; he stayed there when he was in Boston, which was less than a third of the year. He split the rest of his time between a mansion on
embassy row in DC, a chalet in Park City, and a beach compound in Newport, Rhode Island. Rumor had it that he also kept an apartment about which his wife had no idea.

Long had called ahead to confirm that Buchanan was in residence. Congress was on a one-month break, theoretically to allow the members to take the pulse of their constituents, to argue issues,
and to return with a better feel for how to represent those who had elected them. In reality, the recesses were used to raise funds to bankroll the next campaign. The cost of running for the Senate
in the United States had gotten so high that even the wealthy relied heavily on fundraising, rather than paying for campaigns themselves. Buchanan had offices in the Kennedy Building downtown, but
he ran his operation out of an office suite in his home.

The door was opened by a young woman in a stylish business suit. She was nearly as tall as Long, and she had a stunning figure and a beautiful face. ‘Can I help you?’ she asked.

Long showed her his badge. ‘Detective Long, BPD,’ he said. ‘I called a little while ago about an investigation.’

She nodded. ‘We’re expecting you,’ she replied. She stepped back from the door and extended her arm in an invitation to enter. ‘I’m Sonia Harding, one of the
senator’s personal assistants.’

‘He has more than one?’

‘He’s a very busy man.’

‘I’m sure.’

She shot him a cautionary glance. ‘He’s on a call, and he’ll be down shortly. He asked me to have you wait in the library.’

She led him into a room that was out of an English country manor. Mahogany bookcases with ornately carved moldings lined the walls up to the ceiling, towering fifteen feet above them. Two
ladders on wheels attached to a brass rail that ran along the top edge of the shelves allowed access to the books. The furniture was leather, including the tops of two reading tables.

Two walls were covered with ancient lithographs showing some sort of excavation. They caught Long’s attention, and he walked over to get a better look.

‘Landfills,’ Sonia Harding said.

‘Pardon?’

‘Landfills.’ She motioned to the images on the walls. ‘They show the landfills in progress. More than seventy-five percent of what is today the city of Boston was once covered
in water. Most of the city is built on landfills.’

‘I didn’t know it was that much.’

She nodded and pointed to one particular sequence of prints. ‘This is the Back Bay landfill. The senator’s great grandfather was an engineer. He was in charge of the process by which
nearly six hundred acres between Fenway and the Charles River was turned from a swamp into a fashionable neighborhood. For nearly forty years, a train car’s worth of earth and gravel was
dumped into the Back Bay every ten minutes, twenty-four hours a day. It doubled the size of the city at the time, and made the senator’s family one of the richest in the country.’

‘You seem to know a lot about it.’

‘I try to know as much as I can about the senator.’

Sonia Harding motioned him into a tall wingback chair that looked like it had cost the lives of several calves to make. The personal secretary sat across from him in an identical chair, crossing
her legs discreetly.

‘How long have you worked for the senator?’ Long asked her.

‘Three years,’ she replied.

‘Do you like it?’

‘It’s better than what I was doing before.’

‘Which was?’

She smiled. ‘You didn’t say what this meeting was about when you called.’