The Guardian (20 page)

Nat saw her looking. “It’s a mess. Nobody’s coming for it soon, believe me.”

In the distance, Janine could see the buildings of Boston, and she could smell the ocean. The woman didn’t seem to notice that she was sitting on broken glass and little bits of it were stuck to her miniskirt. She even had a small scratch on her leg that trickled blood.

“How’d I get here?”

“Huh? I practically had to carry you. Sleepyhead. I’ve been busy this morning. I got these clothes, and I’m going to take care of business. A hundred bucks for this outfit, and I can make ten times that by the time it’s ready for the dry cleaning.” The woman lit a cigarette, drew on it hungrily, and nodded to Janine. “Don’t worry. I won’t be gone that long.”

Janine didn’t know what she was talking about. “I want to go home.”

“Oh, Jesus,” the woman groaned, rolling her eyes. “All I’ve done for you, I gotta hear this?” She laughed to herself. “My Aunt Barb told me it wouldn’t be easy. She said raising kids was tough. Same old, same old, constantly. But you’re a good kid.” She reached out to stroke Janine’s hair, but Janine drew her head away.

“Call my mom. She’ll give you money.”

“I don’t want money. I’ll
make
it for us, I’ll get on my
back
for it, but I don’t want to hear again about calling your mom. I said I’d take care of you, and I’ve done more than anyone else.” Nat began nodding as she spoke, her voice rising as she went on, “A goddamn
cop,
Mr. I-Want-to-See-Some-ID, was on the ground when I pulled this thing out and took care of business for you.” She patted her purse. “You think your mom could’ve done that?” Nat reached over and chucked Janine hard under the chin. “That was my
husband
I was shooting at. Don’t blame me for missing. I didn’t really want to kill the guy. He’s had a hard time. And I’ve made some mistakes, too. I traded him in for you, and I’ve kept him away, so don’t you go telling me who to call and what to do, not when I’ve done so much for you.”

“You were calling me Leanne. That’s not my name.”

The woman looked away. Her hand was shaking as she raised her cigarette and inhaled deeply. She blew smoke at Janine, making her cough. “So what? I’ve been smoking some shit, and I’ve got what you call a good imagination. Leanne was a great kid—you could do worse, being like her, believe me.”

“Please—”

“Stop
whining!”

Janine hesitated. The woman had snapped that last bit so angrily, as if Janine had been nagging at her for hours. But she knew she hadn’t. She also knew the woman was making more sense now than she had at other times, and Janine figured she just had to keep trying.

“Please, I know the phone number. I’ll call Mom. I won’t say anything about you. I promise.”

The woman shook her head and her voice sounded very tired, as if she wanted Janine to see how unhappy she’d made her. “No. He’s out there. He can show up anytime, anyplace. I’m keeping you safe.” She sighed. “It’s not easy being … it’s not easy.”

Janine thought maybe she should just run. They were in a huge parking lot and the water was right in front of them. She hadn’t been there exactly before, but it reminded her of the times her parents had taken her to the Children’s Museum, and when she looked back at the city, she figured maybe she was very close to the museum. Her heart leapt then, because the woman at the counter there was very nice—and she knew Janine’s mother. She always said, “Hi, Beth,” when they walked in. She might not remember Janine, but maybe she would.

She would listen.

“I don’t see Lee,” Janine said.

The woman looked at her sharply. “So you did hear his name, huh?”

“I won’t tell.”

“Right.” The woman checked her watch. “Look, I gotta go.”

“Can I go to the museum?”

“What?”

“The one for children with the big milk bottle. It’s near here, isn’t it?”

“No, honey. I’ve got to work. I don’t like doing this, but if I’m going to, now’s the time. Some guys like a little something around now.” The woman touched her breast as she said this, and then laughed aloud at Janine. “Listen, just drink up the shake. I’ve got to get going.” The woman handed her the drink.

“I don’t want the shake.”

The woman’s smile disappeared. “I said drink it.”

“No. I don’t feel good after. I want to go home, now.”

“Drink it!”

“No.”

The woman slapped her.

Janine fell back against the seat and tried to kick the woman while fumbling for the back door lock. The woman got hold of her by the waist.

“Help!” Janine cried.

“I don’t like having to do this,” the woman said, and it sounded like when the woman had yelled for Janine to stop whining. It didn’t sound real. It sounded like something the woman thought she was supposed to say. “I’m so disappointed in you.”

“I want my mom!” Janine screamed. “You’re not my mom!”

The woman pulled Janine into the front seat and then out of the car. There was no one nearby. Janine screamed for help again. The woman held onto her wrist as she bent back into the car and the trunk lid popped open.

“You made me do this,” Nat said tightly. Janine tried to pull away, but Natalie was bigger and stronger, and she yanked Janine off her feet and dragged her to the back. Janine fell to the ground, scraping her nails to the asphalt for purchase. But Natalie was too strong. She simply picked Janine up and shoved her into the trunk. And slammed the lid shut. “Don’t leave me!” Janine cried, terrified in the sudden darkness. She found metal on every side. The car was small, and she couldn’t lie down straight. “Please don’t leave me!”

“You’ve been a bad girl,” she heard the woman say. “So you just stay there and think about disappointing me again.”

Chapter 34

Byrne said, “It was pretty convenient that the hooker Teague supposedly stayed with was out of town and unable to corroborate his story, I’ll say that. And he did remember the date pretty fast.” They were on Storrow Drive heading toward Watertown. “Still, that doesn’t mean he has anything to do with your niece, just that he doesn’t want to get involved any further with the police.”

Byrne glanced over at Ross. “It’s hard to tell when the dumb ones are lying sometimes. When they come up with a simple story and refuse to budge on it. Now, smart guys try to explain it all away, tie themselves in knots. Such as a guy telling me he didn’t have a gun, then hearing from someone else an hour later he did.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You want to tell me about that?”

“I threw it in the water.”

“When?”

“Before coming to the police station. Threw it into the Charles.”

“Would you’ve killed Teague?”

“I didn’t.”

“Yeah. Well, tomorrow’s another day, right? Have you got
anything
that says your prison record got your niece into this situation?”

Ross shook his head. “Nothing definite. It just seems like a hell of a coincidence.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Byrne rubbed at his chin. “But I see coincidence all the time. Looking at an investigation for what you expect to see will screw you every time. Detective work is like science: You look for what’s actually there, not what you expect to see. Anyhow, I don’t know about Teague.”

A cruiser was waiting for them on the Watertown line, and two uniformed officers escorted Ross and Byrne to the first grocery store. “Look, I lied to the woman in here,” Ross said. “She has no idea that my brother was in here. She wasn’t even sure if there was anyone else here the night her brother was killed.”

“Stay in the car then. If it really is the same guy doing these robberies, I’d just as soon keep that possibility down to as few people as I can.”

After about twenty minutes, Byrne came back and swung behind the wheel. “Let’s go to Cambridge now, confirm what this Muriel Gray told you.”

“Did the owner here have anything to add?”

Byrne shook his head as he started the engine. “Just that she misses her brother very much.”

At the Store 24 where the clerk had been killed, Ross received a little more respect with Byrne and a Cambridge detective named Doyle leading the questioning than he had before. But no more answers.

Muriel Gray wasn’t in, and they wasted an hour tracking her down at her position in the admissions office of Harvard University. “Mr. Jacob,” she said, surprised to see him at the door of her office.

Doyle rolled his eyes at that but didn’t take the time to disabuse her of Ross’s identity. He and Byrne asked her to again explain what she’d seen the night the clerk was killed and to pencil out the mask of the gunman. “Why didn’t you give us this before?” Doyle asked. He was a prematurely bald man in his early thirties, with a scowl that Ross suspected was permanent.

“You didn’t ask, and I didn’t remember until Mr. Jacob here asked me.”

Doyle apparently didn’t have an answer for her, but he managed to convey his disgust without it.

Downstairs a few minutes later, he said to Byrne, “I think it’s time to turn Mr. ‘Jacob’ here upside down and shake the truth out of him.”

“You know something, Teddy?” Byrne said. “I think you’ve got a point.”

“You want to take him back to the station?”

“Nah. The feds are in on this, so I’ll work it out with them.” Byrne stood with Ross outside the car while Doyle took off. Byrne said, “He’s a putz, too. But then again, so are you. And now’s the time for the rest of the change in your pocket. Tell me about Crockett.”

“What about him?”

“The guy’s a professional robber. And we’re talking a lot of money here.”

“I know him. He wouldn’t do that to us, to me.”

“Let me be the judge of that. Let me be the judge of everything you’ve been doing.”

Ross stepped away from the car, feeling a wave of conflicting emotions. Byrne lifted himself onto the hood and waited.

Naturally, Janine came first.

But Ross had promised Crockett silence. The two of them had worked as partners for the past five years, and betraying that trust came hard.

“Her time’s wasting,” the cop said.

Ross sighed. “Let’s go to South Boston.”

Chapter 35

Ross’s mouth tasted sour as Byrne knocked on the door. “Police, Mr. Crockett.”

Crockett appeared. He was barefoot, wearing jeans and a white T-shirt. He scratched the stubble on his chin and said to Ross, “Thanks, buddy.”

“Can we come in?” Byrne said.

“Yeah, why not?” He gestured toward the kitchen table and sat down himself. He apparently caught Byrne’s careful assessment of the room. “It’s hard to hide a kid in a studio apartment. But check out the closet. Maybe she’s in there.”

“I’ll do that,” Byrne said simply. And he did.

Crockett snorted softly and looked at Ross.

Byrne came back, and joined them at the kitchen table. “You know how it works. Don’t pass up the obvious. Eight times out of ten, that’s where the answers are.”

Crockett lifted his shoulders slightly. “Am I under arrest?”

“Not now. Should you be?”

“Are you wearing a wire?” Crockett looked at Ross as he said this, although he was talking to Byrne.

“No.”

“How about I check?”

“Go ahead.” Byrne lifted his arms, and Crockett patted him down.

Both looked a little embarrassed, but Crockett seemed satisfied when he was done. “So what do you want from me?”

“Take it from the top,” Byrne said. “Tell me your involvement.”

Crockett’s version matched what Ross had told Byrne on the way over pretty well. He, too, didn’t mention giving Ross the time and place to hit the armored car, or admit to dropping the gun off the bridge. Instead, he told Byrne about making the introductions to Datano and staying at the house to act as a bodyguard.

“And you chased down where Teague was living, correct?”

“I made some calls, yeah.”

“To who?”

Crockett hesitated, then gave Byrne the names of two fences in Boston. Doing this seemed to make him tired, and angry. He looked at the floor.

“Has he been giving them much business?”

“They didn’t say. I didn’t ask. I just got the address.”

Byrne turned his attention to Ross. “And what did Datano do for you?”

“Try to buy the land at a fraction of the cost,” Ross said. “And suggest I take out a contract on the guy.”

“Did you?” Byrne’s voice was mild.

“No. I didn’t think I could trust Datano’s people.”

“Damn right. If she saw anything, they’d just kill her, believe me … so what
did
Datano do for you?”

“Made some introductions.”

“To who?”

Ross hesitated for only a second, hoping his trust in Byrne was justified. “A guy by the name of T.S.”