The Penitent One (Boston Crime Thriller Book 3)

by Brian Shea

  Kelly played the frustrated detective forced to do grunt work. Easy enough. He'd worked with enough cops who fit the bill. Mainelli would have played this role perfectly, without any acting needed. In hindsight, maybe he should have brought the man with him.

  "Piss off," Lumpkin said, stepping back and turning away from them. He gave one last glance toward the homeless shelter before starting to run.

  Only a few feet away at this point, Kelly and Barnes gave chase.

  The drugged-out man was much slower, and in only a matter of seconds Kelly closed the gap. He didn’t tackle. Years back, he’d learned a trick of the trade. Never tackle when you can push. If you wanted to win the battle with minimal effort, all you had to do was knock the person off balance.

  When Kelly was close enough, he struck out with the palm of his hand, hitting Lumpkin in the base of his neck. The impact sent the murderer’s head forward. Ass over tea kettle, the man fell into the snowy hard pack, sprawling out awkwardly before rolling to one side. Kelly and Barnes filled the void.

  Kelly dove onto Lumpkin’s back and tried to wrangle the man's hands into submission.

  Lumpkin twisted his body to the right. Kelly saw the glint of a knife and shoved himself backward, creating some distance.

  "Drop the knife or you’re dead," Barnes commanded. She already had her pistol out. Barnes kicked Lumpkin in the shin hard, getting his attention while keeping the gun at his head.

  Kelly stood, stepping beside Barnes and withdrawing his pistol. He’d disregarded the rule: Never cuff until you’ve got control. An overzealous moment that could’ve carried with it a deadly consequence.

  Barnes had the man's attention. Lumpkin’s wide, bloodshot eyes bounced between the two guns aiming down at him. The drugs, the confusion of their ruse, and his current predicament of being flat on his back and facing two department-issued Glocks were causing a whirlwind of uncertainty in the man.

  Lumpkin grit his teeth and spat, throwing the knife off to the side. It wasn't over until he was in cuffs and searched. Kelly knew this. He lived by these rules, and they kept him alive.

  "On your face," Barnes said.

  The man rolled onto his stomach.

  "Arms out like an airplane. Do it now," Barnes barked.

  Lumpkin complied.

  "Slowly," she added.

  His ungloved hands crawled across the snowpack, the knife a safe distance away.

  Kelly stepped on the blade, making it impossible for the man to get to it in case he had a change of heart, which, under the circumstances, Kelly seriously doubted would happen.

  "Put your hands at the small of your back," Barnes said, her voice even but her words commanding.

  The man complied. The fight had left him completely.

  Kelly nodded to Barnes, a silent confirmation that he was moving in. He then holstered his weapon and unsnapped his handcuffs.

  Kelly snapped the cuffs on the man who had just tried to pull a knife on him, who had made the critical error of bringing a knife to a gunfight. Seconds later, Wendell Lumpkin was in custody, and the knife he'd used to murder Jason Palmer was lying in the snow less than seven feet away.

  "What the hell is all this about?" Lumpkin said.

  "You're under arrest for the murder of Jason Palmer."

  "What?" Lumpkin asked, now realizing that his initial reaction of preparing to run when he first saw the detectives had been right.

  "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do can be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney present prior to or during any questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided to you at no cost. Do you understand the rights that I've read to you?"

  Lumpkin nodded.

  "Let me hear you say it. Do you understand the rights that I have just advised you of?" Kelly asked, leaning in close. "I want to hear you say it."

  "Yeah, I understand, but I ain't talking to you," Lumpkin said.

  Kelly pulled the man off the ground and sat him on the icy curbing. He removed his radio from the clip on his belt and called into headquarters, radioing for a caged car to come pick up their perp.

  Less than fifteen hours after Jason Palmer was murdered, Kelly and Barnes had their man in bracelets, ready to face prosecution for murder.

  Kelly couldn't help comparing the ease of this case with the stalemate of the red card hanging on his murder board. He hadn't even had time to make Palmer's red card, and yet Benjamin Tomlin’s and Danny Rourke’s killer remained at large. And it still gnawed at him like an itch he couldn’t scratch.

  16

  For the first time in a long time, Kelly arrived at work just before the official start of the day, crossing the threshold into Homicide a minute shy of 8:00 a.m. Jimmy Mainelli had actually beaten him to the office. Kelly couldn't remember the last time that had happened, or if it was a first. He had allowed himself this bit of reprieve from his normal pace and the relentless effort he put forth on a daily basis, the extra couple hours sleep a reward for bringing Wendell Lumpkin to justice so swiftly. The eighteen hours of work that it took to accomplish that feat also contributed to his exhaustion. The extra sleep had been needed for his body’s physical recovery from the adrenaline dump.

  Kelly had replayed the brief seconds it took to apprehend the transient murderer. Lumpkin’s ability to get the blade out before they gained control had haunted him. And it would for a long time to come. Kelly was his own worst critic, hypervigilant when it came to assessing the good and bad of everything he did. It started as a patrolman and only intensified when he obtained his detective shield. After every suspect takedown, whether with SWAT, Narcotics, or Homicide, Kelly conducted his own after-actions review, focusing on any possible mistakes so they wouldn't be repeated the next time around. He applied that same critical eye to the cases he worked. And while to everyone else, Wendell Lumpkin's arrest was as smooth as they come, he knew deep down those final few seconds were anything but. If Barnes hadn’t been there to quickly counter the knife with her gun, the end result might have been entirely different. That thought kept him up late into the night.

  Once asleep, he'd managed to sleep more soundly than he had in a long time. Catching a homicide suspect had an amazing effect on his psyche. He compared it to winning the Golden Gloves Championship in his boxing career.

  As Kelly entered Homicide, he saw Barnes removing her jacket and realized she too must have taken a little bit of extra time this morning. Normally she was his counterpart on the-early-bird-catches-the-worm mantra.

  She gave him a smile, simple and genuine, nothing more to it. Mainelli peeked his head up from behind the cubicle wall that divided their squad’s four-desk cluster. He wore a wide, shit-eating grin, obviously pleased to have beaten the early riser to work.

  Before Mainelli could offer a jab at him, Kelly held up his hand and shook his head sluggishly from side to side. He bypassed his desk and went straight into the break room for a cup of coffee. Kelly, happy to see the pot already full, grabbed a mug from the open shelf and filled it, adding two scoops of sugar and a dash of cream from the fridge before slowly ambling back toward his desk.

  He passed by the sergeant's office and was surprised to see Superintendent Acevedo sitting across from Sutherland. Acevedo wasn't accompanied by his normal entourage of lieutenants and ass-kissers. Kelly recognized the only man seated beside him. With his clean-cut, Marine-like haircut graying at the temples, and the dark suit and tie he wore, Paul Halstead, the sergeant assigned to BPD's Internal Affairs Unit, looked more like a bank manager than a city cop.

  Kelly's heart skipped a beat. Why was IA meeting with Sutherland? His mind immediately raced to replay last night's arrest. Everything was within the protocols. He didn't step on anybody's toes. Although he knew Acevedo's son, Tony, had been gunning for him. Maybe there was a slip-up? Maybe Lumpkin, who was unwilling to talk after being booked and processed last night, had a change of tune. Or maybe he decided to file a complaint
about excessive force. Kelly knew there had been none, but he also knew neither he nor Barnes had a body camera to prove otherwise. It wouldn't be the first unwarranted complaint lodged against Kelly.

  Desperate people, especially those arrested for murder, typically did anything in their power to deflect attention from the real matter at hand. In Lumpkin’s case, he’d killed a man for what amounted to $160. That said, Kelly also knew the review process within Internal Affairs. If and when a complaint reached their desk, regardless if it was perceived as frivolous, it had to be investigated thoroughly. Supervisors would be notified. The officer who was the target of the investigation would have an opportunity to review the accusation, and in most cases, obtain union representation to deal with the potential fallout.

  Not too long ago, Kelly had survived the Internal Affairs review and civil suit revolving around the death of Baxter Green. He employed the union's attorney, Marty Cappelli, who happened to now also be dating Kelly's ex-wife. The thought of having to call him on another matter regarding an IA investigation soured the taste of Kelly’s hot coffee.

  He approached Mainelli, eyeing the closed-door meeting. "What's going on in there?"

  "Beats me. They were in there when I came in.” Mainelli shrugged. “So at least twenty minutes now, if not longer."

  "Any talk?" Kelly asked, code for the rumor mill.

  Mainelli, as lazy as he was, was adept at receiving these whispered rumors. He'd been in Homicide long enough that people trusted and confided in him.

  "Nothing. Not a peep." Mainelli absently shuffled the papers on his desk.

  Kelly sat down at his desk.

  Barnes pushed her chair back, rolling past the divider separating their desks and leaning back to look at Kelly. "You think it has something to do with last night? How we handled Lumpkin?"

  Kelly shrugged. "I can't see why. We did everything by the books. It was clean all the way through. I mean, I screwed up with the takedown. Should've seen that coming. Should've waited."

  "Don't beat yourself up, Mike. You did good. You caught him. You ran him down. Shit happens. Nobody's perfect. Hell, I'm just glad I was in a position to address it when it went sideways. I hate to think what could have happened otherwise."

  "I don't get it. Why is IA in there with Acevedo?"

  Mainelli overheard and peeked his head overtop the cubicle. "Maybe his son had something to do with it. He's been pissed off at you ever since you stole the Tomlin case. Wouldn't surprise me if that little prick tried to railroad you on some BS complaint. I'll ask around, see what I can find out."

  Kelly nodded slowly, not really one to pry. He usually had the patience to wait these kinds of things out. Closed-door meetings would eventually open. If it involved him, then the turd would land on his desk.

  He decided to occupy his mind as he sipped his coffee, thumbing through the paperwork from the Lumpkin case even though it was committed to memory. He eyed it anyway, knowing some supplemental reports were needed, a couple administrative T's to cross before it was closed and forwarded to the prosecutor’s office.

  He put it aside and stared at his murder board. The red cards for Rourke and Tomlin taunted him amidst the blue solved cases. The fact that he had a blank red card ready to go for Jason Palmer but never even had a chance to fill it out added insult to injury. Kelly never bothered to fill out a red card for the murdered rapist, Phillip Smalls, even though he knew the man was a victim of The Penitent One. A rapist didn't deserve to be on the same board as his former partner and a dead priest.

  He opened his drawer and pulled out the thick file on Tomlin, always within arm’s reach. Kelly opened it and started scrolling through the pages of reports, photographs, evidence, listings, DNA attempts, fingerprints, and autopsy reports, searching for the clue that would break the case wide.

  Mainelli popped back up and looked down at him. "Oh no, not this again, Mike. Let it go. You win some, you lose some. And that right there is a lost cause if I’ve ever seen one. That guy's in the ether. We're not going to catch him. Hell, the FBI couldn't catch him, and they've been looking for him for almost two decades. Stop beating yourself up.” Mainelli cracked his knuckles. “And if I recall, I'm pretty sure Sutherland already told you to push that over to Cold Case and let it rest."

  Kelly snapped the file shut and looked at the man whose pudgy fingers were clinging to the top of the divider. "Yeah, I know. It's on my list of things to do."

  He put the file back in the drawer and shut it. The case had more to do with the faltering status of his and Barnes's relationship than he cared to admit. She'd been a stalwart supporter of his investigative efforts in every case they'd worked together since she'd come to Homicide after leaving the department’s Sexual Assault Unit in mid-summer of last year. But even she had grown tired of talking about the Tomlin murder.

  For Kelly, it had become an obsession, one that was driving a wedge between him and everyone in his life. Even when he pretended not to be thinking about it, he was. He’d become disconnected, his mind trapped back three months ago when the case first hit his desk. Kelly had been chasing a ghost ever since. Any open time between the end of a case and the beginning of a new one, he was back on the Tomlin murder. Mainelli was right; he'd been told by Sutherland on more than one occasion that it was time to file it in the unsolved category and shift it over to Cold Case, where it would be lost among the stacks.

  But Kelly couldn't allow himself to do it. He couldn't allow himself to give in, to give up. His innate, never-quit, never-say-die attitude that flowed over from his youth wouldn’t allow it. The lessons he'd learned in Pops' gym and the streets of Dorchester were only amplified during his time with the PD. Tenacious didn’t even begin to describe the fervor with which he attacked a case. Like a pit bull, he never let go. Kelly knew the flipside to the coin could be cataclysmic to his personal life, and yet he still couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  The murmur of the Homicide floor dropped to a hush. Kelly knew, without looking, that the meeting inside Sutherland's office had come to an end. He peeked around his cubicle and saw Acevedo standing with Halstead beside him. As the three men did a round-robin shake of hands, Kelly carefully watched Sutherland's facial cues. He didn't have his typical disgruntled, angry look. From the looks of things, Sutherland hadn't been admonished by the commander of the Investigative Unit.

  Acevedo turned to leave while Halstead lingered behind with Sutherland. The door opened and Kelly dipped back behind his desk. A moment later, a shadow crossed his desk as Superintendent Acevedo moved into view and stood near the opening to Kelly's cubicle. He casually leaned on the divider wall, looking down at Kelly as if they were old friends.

  Kelly turned in his chair but did not stand. "What can I do for you, sir?" Kelly was not one typically intimidated by rank, but respectful enough to know his place.

  "That was fine work you did yesterday."

  "Thank you, sir," Kelly said flatly.

  "You're a hell of an investigator, Kelly. Don't let anybody tell you different."

  And with that, Acevedo turned on his heel and headed out the door.

  Mainelli popped back up. He was in and out of his seat today like a whack-a-mole. "Did I just hear Superintendent Acevedo give you a compliment?"

  "Sun shines on a dog's ass every once in a while," Kelly said, repeating a phrase his late father had used on a daily basis.

  "Guess so. Color me impressed," Mainelli said, then disappeared back into his hole.

  Barnes peeked around the corner again. "Something's happening," she whispered. “Halstead and Sutherland are in there chuckling like schoolgirls."

  "I hope they're not laughing at the demise of my career," Kelly offered. His attempt at levity fell somewhat short.

  Barnes offered him a conciliatory smile and soft chuckle. "Well, if you go down, I go down."

  Kelly hoped that phrase would evolve into something more substantial and be reflective of their relationship at some point. He tried not to overextend
and project beyond the current point of his dating relationship with his partner, but at his age, relationships moved faster. He knew what he wanted and approached it with the same mindset he did everything in life. Full tilt, full speed, and all in.

  Sutherland approached the squad’s cubicles and rapped his knuckles on the metal siding of one of the dividers. “Let me see you guys in The Depot, I've got something I need to talk to you about.”

  The husky sergeant led the charge into the conference room. Kelly noticed his hobbled gait had dramatically improved, atypical for his boss, who usually played up the bum knee after meeting with anybody from the command staff. Strange that he would not continue his act in the face of the Internal Affairs Supervisor. But Kelly had long since given up trying to figure out Sutherland.

  He picked up the case file for Wendell Lumpkin's arrest just as Sutherland turned back before taking a seat in the conference room. "No need for paperwork," he called to Kelly.

  Kelly returned the file and followed Barnes and Mainelli into The Depot. Just as Kelly began to close the door behind him, Halstead appeared.

  "Got room for one more?" he asked, giving Sutherland a look, some inside joke Kelly wasn’t privy to.

  Kelly stepped aside, allowing the IA Sergeant to enter.

  Sutherland and Halstead sat near the curved head of the oval-shaped conference table. Kelly, Mainelli, and Barnes sat staggered on one side with their backs to the door, a unified front for whatever was coming.

  "I have some news. Good, bad, I don't know. Take it however you want. It's good for me," Sutherland said, his gruff nature absent. He was more jovial than he'd been recently. "I've been approved."

  "Approved for what?" Mainelli said.

  "For my disability rating."

  "Nice," Mainelli offered. Kelly and Barnes nodded.

  "So, what's that mean, Sarge?" Kelly asked.

  "It means this fat bastard is going to take his early retirement and head south to Florida."

  "Effective when?" Mainelli asked.