Next of Kin (34 page)

‘I need to know. I don’t want anything to happen to my mother. What can I do?’

‘Can you get us any information on the campaign’s finances? Its donors and bank accounts?’

She shook her head. ‘I’m not involved in the campaign. I’m only there when they need the picture of the perfect family. Ironic, isn’t it?’

‘Anything would be helpful,’ Long prodded her.

‘I wouldn’t even know what to look for.’ She frowned. ‘What about the other part? Her son. Is there any way I can help figure out whether he’s my father’s
child?’

Long looked at Racine. ‘We’d need a sample from Finn as well,’ she said. ‘It would answer the question, though.’

‘How long would it take?’ Brooke asked.

‘If we get a sample from you and one from Finn today, and if Detective Long pushes the lab we’d have DNA results by tomorrow,’ Racine said.

‘Do you think he’ll do it?’ Brooke asked.

‘There’s only one way to find out,’ Long replied.

‘Feel better?’ Finn asked Sally. He still wasn’t very good at reading her moods, and he felt wholly inadequate whenever it fell to him to try to console her.
He imagined that the confrontation with Buchanan’s bodyguards would have shaken her, and he wanted to show her that he cared. He’d taken her to get ice cream, then brought her back to
the office. When he was at a loss, sweets were his fall-back. They’d had a lot of ice cream since she’d moved in with him.

‘I wasn’t feeling bad before,’ she said. ‘Good sundae, though. Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘What’s wrong?’

Finn shook his head. ‘I’m not very good at this.’

‘Good at what?’

‘You just beat up a couple of armed, two-hundred-pound security officers. I don’t know what my reaction is supposed to be. Do I yell at you? Point out that if I hadn’t opened
the door, you would’ve been hurt – maybe badly? Do I grab you and give you a hug because I’m glad you’re okay?’

Sally made a face.

‘Then you tell me. Because I don’t know what my role is here.’

Sally sucked on her straw, getting down the last of the milkshake. ‘I’m not an easy kid,’ she said. ‘I know that.’

‘In some ways, you’re the easiest kid there is. I just don’t have a lot of room to play the father figure.’

She sighed. ‘I don’t think I can change who I am.’

‘I don’t want you to. Hell, I don’t even know what a father’s supposed to do. I didn’t have any role models growing up, so I’m at a loss.’

‘Maybe I’m not looking for a father figure. Not in the traditional sense, anyway. Maybe that’s okay. When you grow up with a crack addict for a mother and a thief for a father,
tradition doesn’t mean that much. It’s not like we spent a lot of time around the piano singing “White Christmas”.’

Finn said, ‘So we’ll just go with it. Day by day?’

She nodded. ‘Day by day.’

The phone rang; Finn picked it up. ‘Finn.’

‘Mr Finn, it’s Detective Long.’ Finn felt the muscles in his back tense.

‘What do you want?’

‘I want a blood sample.’

‘Why? Am I a suspect? Are you going to pin something on me, just for fun?’

‘It’s not like that,’ Long said.

‘No?’

‘We want to check out your theory about Senator Buchanan. We want to know whether he’s your father. Who knows, maybe you’re on to something. His daughter’s willing to
cooperate. In order to know, though, we need a DNA sample from you.’

Finn frowned. ‘Why the change of heart?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘It does,’ Finn said.

‘Why?’

‘Because I don’t trust you. For all I know, you’re just looking to protect him. How do I know you won’t just take my sample, throw it away and then tell me you got
negative results to get me to drop this whole thing?’

‘I guess you don’t know,’ Long said. ‘But that’s not how I work. You’re just going to have to accept that.’

‘Easier said than done.’

‘You want to catch your mother’s killer? I’m giving you the chance to do that. I’m also giving you the chance to answer one of the biggest questions in your life. Are you
ready for that?’

Finn looked at Sally. She was staring at him, a worried look on her face. ‘Yeah,’ Finn said. ‘I’m ready for the answers. I’ll be over in a few minutes.’ He
hung up.

‘Cops?’ Sally asked.

Finn nodded. ‘They’re gonna run DNA tests, see if Buchanan’s really my father.’

‘You think you can handle it if he is?’

‘I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out.’ He stood and scrunched the napkins into his milkshake cup. ‘You done with yours?’ She nodded, and he took the cup from
her. On the way out toward the kitchenette, he grabbed the glass of water he’d given to Buchanan.

Out in the kitchen, he threw the cups away and poured the water down the drain. He started to put the glass in the mini dishwasher he’d had installed in the kitchenette, then reconsidered.
He held the glass up, looking at the streaks and smudges on the side. Smudges put there by the man who was likely his father. Finn leaned over the sink, looking at the glass, feeling sick and weak.
He’d built a life for himself. He wasn’t a man used to letting destiny dictate his fate for him. And yet now, it seemed as though everything were out of his control. Life was directing
him, not the other way around, and he didn’t like it.

He ran the water for a moment, splashed some on his face, wiped it off with a towel. He had to take back the responsibility for his life.

He stood up straight and shook himself. It was time to get some answers once and for all.

CHAPTER FORTY

Shock and awe was an apt description. Peter Mitchell might have wanted more shotguns on the team, but what firepower his people had was utilized to its maximum effect. At
precisely four-thirty, three teams moved in unison, swarming over every aspect of Joey Slade’s operations. Nine officers stormed Slade’s offices, arresting him and securing the
premises. All records and computers were confiscated and impounded. Slade himself was led out in handcuffs, as were several of those who worked with him.

By precisely four-forty-five word of the arrest had hit the street. Details emerged in rapid succession, with rumor and speculation mingling easily with fact. A second round of arrests were
carried out at six, and by seven o’clock panic had gripped those within Boston’s criminal community.

Coale got the call from McDougal at eight. He was sitting in his car outside the lawyer’s apartment. Watching. ‘You need to be here,’ McDougal said over the phone.

‘Where’s here?’

‘My office. Chelsea. I need you now.’

‘I still have to finish the job you gave me,’ Coale said.

‘That job is over,’ McDougal said. ‘I have a new job.’

‘What is it?’

‘I’ll tell you when you get here.’ The man sounded agitated, out on the edge. It was a bad sign.

‘Tell me now.’

‘When you get here. Drop what you’re doing.’

Coale said nothing. He closed his phone and started his car. He gunned the engine and pulled out, heading across two bridges into Chelsea.

McDougal was sitting so still Coale wondered whether the man was breathing. Kevin, McDougal’s demented son, was sitting on the couch in the office, looking scared and
excited at the same time. Coale knew about the McDougal kid. He didn’t like him.

‘They arrested Joey,’ McDougal said slowly.

Coale nodded. ‘Slade. I heard. Bad luck for him.’

McDougal shook his head. ‘It wasn’t luck. They were tipped. They knew what they were looking for. Cops couldn’t pull that off on their own. They had help.’

‘You worried?’

McDougal looked at Coale. ‘Yeah, I’m fuckin’ worried. There were more arrests tonight. Innis. Jackson. Callwell.’

‘All friends of yours,’ Coale said.

‘I don’t have any friends. And friendship don’t count for shit when you’re looking at twenty-to-life. They’ll give me up before their lawyers are even sitting at
the table.’

Coale considered carefully what to say next. ‘If the cops had anything on you, you’d be in jail already.’

McDougal took a quarter out of his pocket, flipped it around on his fingers. ‘They’re waiting for something,’ he said. He sounded so calm it was eerie. ‘They’ve got
what they need, they’re just dragging this out. Seeing what else they can get on me before they come.’

‘What makes you so sure?’

McDougal nodded toward a television on the table next to the couch. It was sitting on top of a VCR. McDougal used one remote to turn on the television, another one to turn on the VCR. Then he
pressed play.

The image was static; grainy and indistinct, like an old home movie. A door in dim light, dirty and industrial. There were numbers in the upper right hand side of the screen. A clock. Two days
ago. Six forty-three. It took Coale a moment to recognize the scene. It was the front door to the building they were in.

‘Yesterday we had a problem with the alarm system. It wasn’t working right when Janice came in. The company came out, said the wires had been cut. It didn’t make any sense to
me, though, because nothing was taken. Then the arrests started.’

On the screen, Coale could see some movement. McDougal was at the door, letting himself in. Sitting in the office, McDougal pressed fast-forward, and the time on the clock spun forward.

‘I’ve got some people on the inside,’ McDougal said. ‘On the force. They don’t know everything, but they know enough. Everything they have on Joey is something I
know about. Nothing I’m directly attached to, but everything I’ve got information on. It’s like they picked my mind clean, and they’re using it against Joey. That got me
thinking about the alarm, so I checked the security tapes from the camera outside.’

On the screen, McDougal exited the building, his movements jerky and fast. In the office he pressed play, and the clock slowed to normal time. Coale could see McDougal’s face clearly. Then
he walked away, disappearing from sight.

‘Keep watching,’ McDougal said.

It was only a minute or two before two men appeared on the screen at the door. They were dressed all in black, with dark jackets and watch caps. They were facing the door, their faces away from
the camera. One was tall and thin. The other shorter, solid. The solid one went to work on the alarm system. The thinner one seemed to knock on the door. After another moment, the door opened and
they stepped inside.

‘Police?’ Coale asked. ‘Maybe feds.’

‘The authorities still obey their own rules for the most part,’ McDougal said. ‘It’s one of the things that make this a great country. When they show up, they have
jackets with “Police” stamped on them, and they have warrants. All out in the open.’

‘Who, then?’ Coale asked.

McDougal pressed fast-forward. At the first sign of movement, he pressed play again.

There were three of them when they came out. The two men were accompanied by a young woman. The tall one had files under his arm. They all kept their heads down, though, making it difficult to
make out their features. Then, at the last moment before they walked off the screen, the thin one looked up, almost straight into the camera. McDougal pressed pause on the remote, and Coale stared
at Scott Finn’s face on the screen.

‘Not good,’ Coale said.

‘No,’ McDougal agreed. ‘Not good at all.’

‘What do you want me to do?’ Coale asked.

‘I want you to kill them.’

Long drove home alone. It was late, ten-thirty. He’d stayed at the office, going over his notes from the investigation, looking to fill in the little pieces that still
seemed to elude him. He had the big picture already. If the DNA tests confirmed that Buchanan was Finn’s father, it would be a bombshell that could destroy the senator’s career. Even
without that, Connor knew about Buchanan’s campaign finance violations. That would be enough, on its own, to bring the man down. The campaign finance issue also threatened Eamonn McDougal, a
man who was notorious for eliminating threats as quickly as they appeared. In so many ways, it felt as though the crime were solved, and yet the picture wasn’t complete. There were holes at
the edges; Long didn’t like holes.

Julie Racine had stayed at the station house with him for a while. She would have stayed all night, but Long wanted to be alone with the case, alone with his thoughts. Besides, he needed to do
something on his own, so he’d told her to go home. He would call her later, he said. Maybe in the morning. He stayed another hour, then left for the night.

Interstate Ninety-three was empty, and the trip back to Quincy took less than ten minutes. He pulled off the highway at exit twelve, wound around the off-ramp, past the K-Mart at the edge of
Dorchester, past the AutoZone and the car dealerships and the candlepin bowling alley. He was less than a half mile from his apartment when he pulled into the parking lot just off Columbus Circle.
It was a quiet lot in front of a couple of broken-down warehouses backed up against the marshland by the edge of the Neponset River by Pope John Paul Park. The narrow waterways stank of oil and
refuse and sewage.

In front of the warehouses, a run-down two-story brick building fronting the local highway housed Ups n’ Downs; a local dive with a neon sign half blocked by the interstate overpass. Two
bars – one upstairs, one downstairs. Neither of them saw much action. It was the kind of a place where the regulars came and stayed, and few others dared to venture in. It gave off a defiant
atmosphere of defeat and acceptance. Right now, this was where he needed to be.

He walked in, and all six eyes in the place looked up at him. Two of the eyes belonged to the bartender. The others were red and heavily hooded, and looked out from angry faces at the far end of
the bar. The bartender glanced at his two patrons and gave them a reassuring nod. He walked toward Long. He was tall, and built like he spent his mornings at the gym with free weights. He had a
thick head of dark hair and dressed better than the neighborhood required.

‘Detective,’ he said.

‘Nicky,’ Long responded.

‘Haven’t seen you in here for a little while.’

‘You miss me?’

‘No. Just sayin’.’

Long sat down on a stool. ‘Business looks good.’