The Dead Room (17 page)

35

Darby clipped the phone to her belt as she moved out of the bedroom. She took the steps quickly and made her way through the officers packed inside the kitchen.

Jennings stood in the archway between the kitchen and the living room. She stepped up beside him, catching sight of Coop watching the street through one of the windows, then turned to the crowd. Jennings was still talking when she cut him off.

‘Excuse me, Detective. Gentlemen, I need your attention here, and I need it now… Thank you. I have to speak quickly, so listen up. There’ll be no follow-up questions.’

She had organized her thoughts and spoke quickly but clearly.

‘Jackson Cooper is in the living room watching an older white male standing across the street. This man is bald, about six feet, and built like a beer keg. He’s wearing a light grey sports jacket and brown dress trousers. He’s also armed. This is a person of interest both for this investigation and for the one that’s currently under way in Belham. He’s working with one or more people who may be posing as Federal agents. They may be driving a brown van with a Mass. licence plate.’

She gave them the plate number. ‘Even if the van isn’t here, I’m sure he didn’t come alone. I want you to form groups and create a perimeter by going to the following street corners.’

She knew Charlestown well and rattled off the street names. Then she turned to Coop and said, ‘Is the subject still across the street?’

‘He is,’ Coop said.

‘Okay, good,’ she said, turning back to the men. ‘Get a visual before you leave. Under no circumstances are you to use your radios. I believe these people are monitoring police frequencies.’

She pointed to a man standing directly in front of her and said, ‘Give me your mobile phone number.’

He did. She quickly programmed it into her phone.

‘What’s your name?’ Darby asked.

‘Gavin.’

‘If I need assistance or if there’s a problem, I’ll contact Gavin. I’ll let Detective Jennings take over from here.’

‘And what are you going to do?’ a patrolman in the back asked.

‘I’m going to introduce myself,’ Darby said, ‘welcome him to the neighbourhood.’

Soft laughter.

She opened the back door to an alley of rubbish bins and black bags She ran across the alley, then hooked a left and sprinted across Thatcher Street, the gun holster knocking against her hip. Now a right on to Grover. In less than a minute she’d reach Grafton. Take a right there, run across it and then make her way back up to the top of Old Rutherford Street, where Baldy was standing. Maybe three minutes of running total.

All those mornings spent running in her SWAT gear had paid off. She felt light and fast on her feet and made good time.

She banged a right on to Grafton, surprised to see Baldy trotting across the pavement in his leather wingtips.

Why hadn’t Coop called her?

Darby slowed to a walk, beads of sweat running down her forehead and into her eyes. Her heart pounded, but she wasn’t winded.

Baldy stepped underneath a street light and she could see a mobile phone pressed against his ear. He had a good five inches on her – he was six foot two, she guessed – and he was twice as wide. She also got a good look at his pockmarked face. No question this was the same man she’d seen earlier today.

Baldy’s eyes cut to her. She was removing her sidearm when he abruptly turned and ducked down an alley between two apartment buildings.

Shit
. Darby started running.

A moment later she reached the corner leading into the alley, heard footsteps echoing. She turned into it and saw his shadow sprinting past rubbish bins. She gave chase, slowing when she reached the next corner. She turned, saw him running into the street, and followed.

Baldy wasn’t in good shape but for such a big man he ran fast and well. And he had a solid lead.

Darby was closing the gap when she heard a car door shut. Tyres peeled away in a screech of rubber. By the time she reached the street, she caught a flash of a dark car before it disappeared.

36

Jamie placed the electric clippers on top of the newspapers with which she’d covered the bathroom vanity. She’d shave her hair down after she saw Michael. He had come out of his room earlier to use the bathroom. She hoped he hadn’t locked his bedroom door again.

He hadn’t.

She slid the door open and saw him lying on his side, fast asleep.

The right side of his face was swollen.

Michael didn’t stir when she pulled back the sheets and climbed into his bed. She wrapped an arm around his waist.

This is the only way I can touch my child: by sneaking into his bed while he’s asleep. This is the only way I can feel close to him.

Her eyes stung. Blinking back tears, she kissed his cheek and then lay close next to him, wide awake. Underneath his T-shirt she could feel the thick, rubbery scar on his chest from where the doctors had operated on him to save his life.

I’m so sorry for everything you’ve gone through, Michael – for everything you’re still going through. If there were a way I could fix it, I would. I swear to God I would.

Michael stirred awake. His head popped up, his voice groggy, thick with sleep. He expected to see Carter – sometimes his younger brother crawled into bed. When Michael saw her, he looked alarmed.

‘What’s wrong? Are you sick?’

‘I’m… ah… okay.’

His glare was as cold and unforgiving as an X-ray.

‘What’s that… You smell like the way the air does after fireworks have gone off.’

He smells the cordite
, she thought. No amount of scrubbing with soap and water could remove the gunpowder odour. She had tried using the recipe given to her by her firearms instructor – scrubbing hands with lemons. Apparently, it hadn’t worked.

‘Your… your, ah… face, what… ah… ah…’

‘Don’t worry about it.’ His head slumped back against the pillow.

‘Fight?’

He didn’t answer. He had turned back towards the window.

‘Direct… ah… camp director… ah… she… called.’

He sighed. ‘I got in a fight with Tommy Gerrad today.’

‘Why?’

‘It doesn’t matter. I had to go to Miss French’s office. While I was there, I told her I didn’t want to be there any more, so I guess you’re stuck with me.’

Jamie kissed the back of his head and hugged him. She felt his body stiffen.

He didn’t push her away, though. He didn’t remove her arm.

‘Sorry,’ she said, and hugged him again. ‘Sorry for… way Tommy… ah… ah… how he… hurt you.’

Michael didn’t answer.

‘Love,’ she said. ‘Love… ah… you.’

‘You went to him first.’

Jamie froze.

‘You thought you could save only one of us,’ he said, ‘and you chose Carter.’

‘
No
,’ she said, clutching him. ‘I –’

‘I was there, remember? I saw you.’ His voice, barely above a whisper, was stripped of emotion. ‘You went to him first.’

He was right. She had gone to Carter first. After she managed to free herself from the chair, after she had called 911, she had used the kitchen knife to cut the tape binding his eighteen-month-old brother to the chair and started doing CPR on Carter while Michael, still tied to the chair, bled out. Her focus was on saving Carter first: he was so small, had been shot twice and was losing blood fast. By the time the EMTs arrived, Michael had passed out. Michael remembered what had happened, and this knowledge had lain between them for years, lengthening the already considerable distance between them. But this was the first time he had ever spoken the words out loud and it pierced her.

Jamie’s breath came out sharp and fast. The words she needed to speak were stuck somewhere on the broken road between her brain and tongue. She kissed Michael’s neck, feeling her son’s body shudder again, and then, unable to hold it any longer, started to cry. She kissed the top of his head, tears streaming down her face, and said, ‘Sorry, Michael. Sorry.’ She whispered the word over and over again, wishing she could travel far away from this bedroom – this house. Pack up and move them some place where their memories would be stripped clean, their scars erased. Where they’d wake up and greet each day without dread, without worry.

37

Darby dialled Patrolman Gavin and told him to get on the horn and pull everyone back. The person of interest had escaped. She hung up and went looking for Coop.

She didn’t have to look far. She found him talking to the attractive woman in the tight pink shorts with the word ‘trouble’ stitched across her ass. Her name was Michelle Baxter. She had attended school with Coop, from kindergarten all the way through Charlestown High School.

Baxter reeked of beer and cigarettes. She wore bright red lipstick and had gone heavy on the makeup and eyeliner. She smiled and flirted with Coop, acting as if everyone around her had come out of their homes to attend a late-night block party.

‘Where do you live, Michelle?’ Darby asked.

‘Right here.’ Baxter waved a hand to the apartment building behind her. ‘You want a beer or something?’

‘Thank you, but no. We’re on duty. Can we talk upstairs?’

‘Sure, why not?’ Baxter stubbed out her cigarette and walked up the steps.

Coop turned to Darby and said, ‘Let me talk to her alone first. You know the deal about Charlestown – nobody will talk to the cops. I live here, so I might be able to get her to open up.’

‘The only thing that woman wants to do with you, Coop, is to find a way to get you into her bed. Besides, she invited both of us up. I think she’ll talk to me.’

The dank stairwell smelled of stale cigarettes and cat urine. Someone was playing the Stones’ ‘Gimme Shelter’. Baxter swayed as she climbed the stairs.

‘Here,’ Coop said, grabbing her arm. ‘Let me help you.’

‘Christ, you’re beautiful.’ She kissed his cheek, leaving a lipstick mark. Giggling, she turned to Darby. ‘Isn’t he sexy?’

‘The sexiest,’ Darby replied.

The woman’s fifth floor apartment had scratched hardwood floors and mismatched Salvation Army furniture. The kitchen table and worktops were covered with papers, magazines, packets of Ramen noodles and generic soda cans.

Baxter wanted to smoke, so she led them out to a balcony. Blue and white lights flashed from down the street. The whole neighbourhood was awake, and Darby saw more than one face crowding a window, watching the street.

Coop slid the sliding glass door shut, then stood against the back wall with his arms crossed over his chest. Baxter sat in a plastic lawn chair, propped the heels of her bare feet up on the railing and lit a cigarette.

Darby leaned the small of her back against the railing, gripping it with both hands as Michelle Baxter tilted back her head and blew a long stream of smoke into the muggy air. Grey clouds wafted through the thongs and lacy bras hanging on the clothesline above Baxter’s head.

‘The man you were talking to earlier, the guy dressed in the grey suit jacket,’ Darby said. ‘You told us he was a cop.’

‘That’s right,’ Baxter said, brushing the fringes of her chemically treated blonde hair away from her boozy, bloodshot eyes. ‘Flashed a badge and everything.’

‘By everything, do you mean you also saw his picture ID?’

‘No, just the badge.’

‘What was his name?’

‘Don’t know. He didn’t introduce himself. Some people just don’t have any goddamn manners, you know?’ Baxter smiled but her eyes were dead. ‘You from around here?’

‘I grew up in Belham.’

‘That’s not Charlestown.’

‘I know.’

‘It’s different here.’

‘How so?’

‘Just… different.’ Baxter took a long drag from her cigarette. ‘I read about you in the papers, when you caught that sicko who was hacking up women in his basement. You’re some sort of doctor. Can you prescribe medication and shit?’

‘I’m not that type of doctor.’

‘That’s too bad. So what kind of doctor are you?’

‘I have a doctorate in criminal behaviour.’

‘Explains why you’re with him.’ Baxter pointed to Coop.

Darby smiled.

‘I keep seeing the two of you around town,’ Baxter says. ‘You guys dating, or is it one of those friends-with-benefits things?’

Coop spoke up. ‘Darby has much higher standards.’

‘It’s true, I do,’ Darby replied. ‘Michelle, this cop you were talking to, when he flashed his badge, what did it look like?’

‘Like how a badge looks. Like the one you got clipped to your belt.’

‘Describe it to me.’

‘You know,
gold
. Metal. Had “Boston Po-lice” written on it.’

‘What did he want to talk to you about?’

‘He wanted to know who I’d seen coming and going from Kevin Reynolds’s house.’

Darby waited. When the woman didn’t speak, she said, ‘And what did you tell him?’

‘I told him that I didn’t see anything,’ Baxter said, ‘and that’s the truth.’

‘Why did he talk to you, though?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Why did he single you out?’

Baxter shrugged. Her eyes became veiled, and she retreated back inside a place she had probably spent most of her life – a place behind heavily fortified walls and locked doors where no one could reach her.

‘Darby,’ Coop said, ‘why don’t you give us a moment?’

‘She don’t got to go,’ Baxter said. ‘Ain’t nothing I’m going to say to you that I wouldn’t say in front of her. Just because you live here, Coops, doesn’t change the fact you’re a cop.’ She rolled her head to him with that dead expression in her eyes. ‘Makes things nice and easy for you now, don’t it?’

Darby said, ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I’m just busting Coop’s balls, is all,’ Baxter said. She checked her watch. ‘Can we wrap this party up? I’m bushed. I’ve been on my feet all night.’

‘I didn’t know Wal-Mart stayed opened so late,’ Coop said.

‘Don’t start in on me, Coops, okay?’

‘Did you quit or did you get fired again?’

‘I had to give it up,’ Baxter said. ‘All the people working there
no hablo inglés
. Since I don’t speak Spanish, I opted for early retirement.’

‘So you’re, what, back to stripping?’

‘Go home, Coops. I’m too tired and too old for another intervention speech. Better yet, why don’t you use it on yourself?’

‘Good seeing you, Michelle. Take care.’ He looked at Darby and nudged his head to the door.

‘Michelle,’ Darby said, ‘the man you were speaking to wasn’t a cop.’

‘Then why would he be carrying a badge?’

‘He’s pretending to be a cop.’

‘I don’t know what to tell you. I saw a badge.’

‘Then why did you speak to him? I thought you people lived and died by that whole code of silence thing?’

Baxter laughed softly. ‘You people.’

‘Why did you speak to him?’

‘Didn’t have much of a choice. This guy can be very persuasive.’

Can be
, Darby thought. ‘How do you know him?’

‘Look, it doesn’t matter. Telling you ain’t going to change anything.’

‘Then go ahead and tell me.’

Baxter took a long drag from her cigarette and stared into space, as if the life she had envisioned for herself was waiting for her somewhere on the other side of these flat roofs and dirty windows, a place light-years away from these historic streets where Paul Revere and other American Revolutionaries had successfully fought off wave after wave of invading British troops.

Coop stepped up next to Darby and said, ‘This is a waste of time. Let’s go.’

‘My mother, God rest her soul, had a coke problem – a real bad one,’ Baxter said. ‘Towards the end, she started hocking pretty much everything we owned, which wasn’t much to begin with, and when Mr Sullivan –’

‘Michelle,’ Coop said, ‘you don’t need to go down this road.’

‘Why don’t you grab yourself a beer or something?’ Baxter said, flicking her cigarette into the air. ‘Better yet, go to my bathroom medicine cabinet and feel free to use the stuff I take for my periods. That should take care of your PMS or whatever’s crawled up your ass.’