The Penitent One (Boston Crime Thriller Book 3)

by Brian Shea

  "I feel like we're starting at square one all over again. The closer we get, the further away I feel from catching this guy," Kelly said, venting his frustration out loud. He normally internalized his angst when it came to a case, but he felt that he and Gray were synced, that they got each other. They both had the same drive. If not for the same motivations.

  Just then the radio crackled to life, and on it, he heard Jimmy Mainelli frantically calling for help, issuing a Code 99 at their location. Kelly and Gray were already running for the door before the transmission ended.

  All the detectives in the Homicide unit began clearing out. When a Code 99 came across, it was an all-hands-on-deck call to action. Kelly ran down the hallway, Gray close on his heels. As he ran down the stairs and out into the parking lot, Kelly realized they had a third member in their group, running along with them. It was none other than Sergeant Halstead.

  Kelly was momentarily shocked. He had been conditioned by Sutherland's slow amble. Seeing his new supervisor keeping stride for stride with him was a nice change of pace.

  Less than two minutes later, all three piled into Kelly's Caprice and tore off toward Connor Walsh’s home.

  The Caprice fishtailed slightly as it swerved onto the street. Kelly heard Barnes's voice on the radio, calmer than Mainelli's but equally chilling, telling them there were already two down. "DRT" was her acronym. Cop speak, meaning Dead Right There. Kelly knew it well. He didn't like it. And he knew Barnes well enough to know that she was already preparing to enter the fray, if she wasn't already in it.

  Kelly floored the gas pedal. Even as the Caprice, with sirens wailing, raced forward, he felt as though no speed would be fast enough. Nothing would get him from downtown to Dorchester in time to save her and Mainelli.

  Something was jammed against the door, making it nearly impossible to open. Barnes pushed against it with all her might, trying to force her way in. "I need a little help, Jimmy!"

  The larger detective got low and leveled his thick shoulders against the heavy door, ramming into it again. He was met with resistance, but it started to give just a little.

  Prying it open about six inches, Barnes quickly realized why they were having such difficulty. It wasn't barricaded. There was a body in front of it.

  That brought the count to four. The killer inside that room had dispatched four of Walsh's best men in a matter of minutes, and he was likely still somewhere inside. That left only two of Walsh's security detail and Walsh himself.

  Barnes pressed hard, and with Mainelli's support they were able to force the door open, shoving the body along the floor. The opening gave Barnes enough wiggle room to squeeze inside. Harder for Mainelli, who kept his expletives to himself.

  When she wriggled her way in, Barnes took up a prone shooting position using the dead mobster’s body as a human sandbag of protection.

  She saw nothing, even though it was an open layout. Walsh's master bedroom and office were ahead to the right. The mobster had given them the layout when the security detail was assigned in the event something broke bad. Something definitely had.

  There was a six-by-four marble pillar in the center of the room dividing the bar from the living room. Inside the pillared centerpiece was a fireplace with access points to both sides of the room.

  Gunfire kicked up again before Barnes had a chance to formulate a plan. One of Walsh's men popped up from behind the bar and was firing wildly toward the pillar. His rounds skipped off, chipping away at the marble.

  "He must have a visual on him," Barnes said just loud enough for Mainelli to hear.

  She took aim where the mob man was firing but didn't see anything.

  The mobster ran his weapon dry. In the split second it took him to drop the magazine and dig into his pockets for another, two muffled bangs came from the other side of the room.

  The mirrored wall behind the bar was instantly painted in the mobster’s blood and brain matter. He swayed for a moment as his body remained in a brief suspension, already dead before he hit the ground.

  Barnes still couldn't see the shooter. She didn't want to take her eyes off the fireplace pillar, the direction of the gunfire.

  Did he hear us enter? Does he know we’re here? Her mind was racing. She knew the only chance she'd have would be the element of surprise. Barnes waited in the quiet seconds that followed the last shootout.

  The bedroom and office doors were closed. It was like a game show. What's behind door number one, door number two? Except guessing wrong could end in death. Where would the killer go? Where did Walsh run to? Mainelli tried to squeeze himself next to Barnes, but she waved him back with her free hand.

  "He's over there," she whispered. "I can't see him, but he's somewhere behind that fireplace wall."

  Mainelli took a crouched firing position using the door as both brace and cover, while Barnes maintained her prone position.

  She pulled slowly at the hip line of the dead man she was lying behind, trying to roll him up onto his side more. Barnes hoped the extra layer of flesh and bone would be enough to protect her.

  And then the strangest thing happened. With the calm of somebody on a Sunday afternoon stroll through the park, the white jacket appeared as The Penitent One moved across the floor toward the closed door of Walsh's study. He didn’t see her.

  Barnes fired twice as she yelled, “Police, drop the gun!”

  The impacts of her two rounds spun the killer in a wild pirouette.

  His face, even after being shot, was dead calm as he turned toward Barnes. He raised his pistol and fired controlled bursts at her.

  She ducked as low as humanly possible, shrinking herself as the mobster’s body shook. His hip and belly were pelted with the silenced rounds of the gun.

  Mainelli had fallen backward and was sprawled into the hallway.

  Barnes tucked herself down as low as she physically could. Then, as quickly as the gunfire had started, it stopped.

  She counted silently, "Three…two…" She willed herself to move. "One!"

  Barnes raised herself up, preparing to face the threat, her gun pushed out in front of her. Looking down her sights, she realized he was gone.

  It took half a second for her mind to play catch-up. The study door was now open.

  Gunfire rang out from within. Six, maybe ten shots were fired, Barnes couldn't keep track. She quickly ran her hand over herself, ensuring none of the rounds he’d fired at her had found their mark. Although she was now covered in the blood of the man she'd used as a human shield, Barnes wasn’t hit.

  She rushed forward toward Walsh’s study as she heard the loud crash of breaking glass. Mainelli huffed a curse from close behind.

  Barnes didn't pause outside the door. She entered, button-hooking in and taking the room in a swift sweep of her weapon.

  To her left, against a bookcase, was the last man in the mob security team. His body was riddled with bullets. Behind the overturned desk was Connor Walsh. His hand was partially exposed, as was a bit of his face. He was covered in blood and didn't appear to be moving. No sign of The Penitent One.

  Then she saw the source of the breaking glass. The back window had been shattered, spraying glass all over the floor. Barnes rushed to the window, her eyes following a bungee rope that led down the side of the house.

  She looked out to the street just in time to see a gray Kawasaki motorcycle disappear down Harvest Street and out of sight.

  Mainelli was standing in the doorway, taking in the scene and then Barnes, looking shocked. “That was some ballsy police work there.”

  "I think I got him," Barnes said. "Obviously I didn't stop him." The high and low in her voice was a side effect of the adrenaline coursing through her veins. She flexed her shaking hands and holstered her weapon.

  A gasp and gurgling noise came from Connor Walsh as he rolled to his side and coughed blood. He looked bad. She couldn't tell how many times he had been hit from the amount of blood covering his clothing.

  Watching the mob boss
flail, Barnes paused, thinking of Mainelli's earlier conversation about killing two birds with one stone. How hard would it be to not render aid? To let this pariah of a human being slip away into the abyss?

  She pushed back the thought. Not her call, not who she was.

  Barnes moved over, pushing the table further out of the way so she could get a better look at the damage to the bleeding mob boss. She ripped open his button-down silk shirt and saw he had been wearing a bulletproof vest. It looked as though two of the rounds he'd taken had bypassed the Kevlar, leaving his upper chest and shoulder bleeding heavily.

  She sank her finger deep into the bullet hole just beneath his clavicle. She could feel his pulse through the blood pushing against her finger.

  "We've got six dead and one critical. Suspect on the loose. Gray motorcycle heading West on Harvest," Mainelli radioed in, and then knelt alongside Barnes, putting pressure on the other wound.

  26

  Kelly screeched the Caprice to a halt near the intersection of Dorchester Avenue and Harvest Street. Easy enough to find with the florist van fully engulfed in flames by the curb. Kelly passed the two dead mobsters with the green roses on their chests and ran into Connor Walsh’s home. Kelly and his team weren’t the first on scene. Patrol had already converged on location minutes before their arrival. He ran up the stairs to the third floor, Gray and Halstead close behind.

  They entered Walsh's suite on the third level of the converted triple decker. Barnes was standing in the center of the room near a fireplace when Kelly entered.

  He wanted to run to her, to step over the dead mobster and take her in his arms and hold her. But he resisted the urge, forcing himself to walk. A euphoric wave of relief washed over him upon seeing her unharmed.

  He walked directly to Barnes and Mainelli. "You guys good?" He addressed both of them but was looking directly into Barnes's emerald green eyes.

  She nodded but didn't speak.

  He could see the look in her eyes, the distant stare. She was there, but she wasn't. Kelly had been in shootings himself and knew that everybody's brain reacted differently. There was a universal truth—nobody bounced back immediately. The brain had to process, and that process took time. Being on scene, covered in other people’s blood, was not the place where that mental healing could begin. The brain needed distance from the causative event if it were to begin to repair itself from the trauma.

  Halstead walked up. "I’m glad you two are all right. Now listen carefully, I don't want you to say anything to anybody here on scene. Do you understand me? We'll reconvene for a formal statement of what occurred here. We’ll do it by the numbers when you're ready, and I'll make sure that you have union representation on hand when we do.” He paused and looked down at her holstered weapon. “Detective Barnes, I'm going to need to take your duty weapon."

  There was no feeling worse for a cop than having their gun removed. It made the officer involved feel like they’d done something wrong. Kelly knew this all too well. Halstead must've understood also after working in IA for eight plus years. As soon as he took her gun, he unholstered his and placed it into her holster.

  "No good cop should be without. You two are going to be riding a desk for a bit until this gets sorted by the official channels, but let me say—you did a hell of a job here today. And you have my word, I'll back you all the way."

  Kelly looked on as the medics prepared to move Walsh on the gurney.

  The mob boss he’d recently discovered was his biological father was breathing from an oxygen mask, his eyelids fluttering, as they wheeled him by. Kelly felt a strange impassivity at seeing him in such a condition. He had no feelings for the man, even after learning their connection, other than knowing he was one of the city's biggest problems. His issues on that would have to wait. Because right now, the killer who had just executed six mobsters, and nearly Barnes and Mainelli, had just escaped capture once again.

  The only difference was he was now wounded.

  Kelly looked at the floor as the gurney was wheeled down the hallway and out of view. On the plush white carpeting, now smattered in various shades of red, were the remaining green roses. A total of seven in all, meaning their killer knew exactly the odds he was up against when he entered. Now, six of those seven were dead, and one was hanging on to life by a thread.

  Dawes had been sent to process the scene while Charles continued to work on the evidence from the house in Agawam. The door to The Depot was closed as Halstead recounted the situation and the state of the case as it was. The three detectives, plus Gray, were present.

  Mainelli couldn't stop rubbing his thick hands together, as if he couldn't get the sweat or Walsh’s blood off his skin. He looked paler than usual. The olive-skinned Italian was as white as an Irishman in winter. Even though he hadn’t fired his weapon, he was still involved, still there when the rounds flew, and it had obviously taken a toll. The mental strain was evident on the veteran detective's face.

  Barnes, on the other hand, seemed to be making her way back. Pulling the trigger also had that effect; Kelly had seen it firsthand when he had been in a situation that called for him to take action. The other officer on scene didn’t fire his gun, but the one who makes the decision to pull the trigger when it's justified or righteous can usually come to terms with it.

  It's a much harder thing to grip when you didn't fire, when the enemy was downrange and presenting a threat but for some reason you couldn't pull the trigger. Mainelli fell into that category. He would be filled with the self-doubt and self-loathing that came from those rarer than rare moments in law enforcement where deadly force was necessary. Everybody thinks that when push comes to shove, when their life is on the line, they’ll take the shot. But some don't. Some freeze. At least in this case, it didn't cost another cop her life. And maybe if Mainelli had fired, it would have stopped their killer. Maybe not. He would forever question that, and the answer would forever elude him.

  "As far as field work, we're down to three, including me," Halstead said. "Mainelli and Barnes will assist from the desk. Just so you know, I've already given a quick debrief to Superintendent Acevedo. And he said, barring any new information, you guys should be good on the shoot. You know how these things go. It's going to take a little while to clear you, especially once press gets wind. I've put you both on light duty, effective immediately. Meaning you can come and go as you please in the building, regular shift stuff, and you can work the paper trail from inside the office. Just no field work. Kelly and Gray, you guys will handle any of the field work required from this point forward, do you understand me?"

  Both nodded.

  "Try not to blow up any houses this time," Halstead added.

  It was the first time Kelly had seen Halstead try to make a joke. If it was a joke. Impossible to tell from the man's flat inflection.

  Kelly's phone vibrated with a text message from Charles that said, "Call ASAP."

  "It's Charles," Kelly said, interrupting Halstead. He called the senior crime scene technician. "What do you got, Ray? I'm in a meeting."

  "Well, put me on speaker."

  Kelly did as he was told, placing his cell phone in the middle of the conference table.

  "You’ve got everybody here. Sergeant Halstead, Mainelli, Barnes, myself, and Gray."

  "Guys, you're going to want to hear this."

  "We're all ears, Ray," Halstead said. "Go ahead."

  "Well, I took that prayer kneeler from the Agawam house. I took the whole thing. I wasn't sure, but I just felt like there were such potential DNA points beyond the shackles that it was worth bringing it in and going over it with a fine-tooth comb."

  "I thought you already sent those submissions off for analysis."

  "I did, and we're still waiting."

  "Then what's the news?" Halstead asked.

  "I found something in the wood siding. I don't know what made me look there, but I was looking for some trace fibers along the seam of the wood, an opening at the joint. It was hollowed ou
t. I pried it open and found something extremely interesting."

  "Please tell me you're not going to make us guess," Halstead said.

  "I know who our guy is." Everyone was silent, as if the air in the room had been sucked out.

  Kelly sat forward, listening intently. "How'd you figure that out? We're still waiting on the DNA. Did you get a print?"

  "Better. I got his ID. Well, it wasn't an ID per se. It was a newspaper clipping from some thirty years ago."

  "A newspaper clipping?"

  "In it, there was an article about a boy who'd been tortured and abused by his religious zealot parents. A boy who, at the age of thirteen, had set his house ablaze, killing both mom and dad."

  Kelly edged forward, as if he could see whatever Charles was looking at.

  "The boy's name was Christopher Vance."

  "Do you have the address of the fire, where it took place, the house?"

  "I just texted it to you." Kelly saw the alert, an icon indicating the message had been received.

  "Amazing job, Charles," Halstead said.

  "We owe you, buddy."

  "I'll take my payment in the form of a Dunkin’ cup of Joe," the technician said with a dry, raspy laugh before clicking off.

  Kelly looked around the table, Gray's eyes catching his attention. He looked like he had just opened the biggest present under the tree on Christmas morning. He had a gleeful expression unlike any Kelly had seen since they'd met back in November. Kelly knew why. Gray finally had The Penitent One’s name. He’d now be known as the agent who got further than anyone in fifteen years.

  Gray almost leapt out of his seat and ran toward the cubicle station he’d turned into his temporary office space. He began typing away furiously at the computer keyboard.

  Kelly followed but didn't interrupt. He could see that the FBI agent was totally focused on the task at hand, most likely looking up information on the name just provided by Charles. A few minutes later, he pushed himself back in the roller chair and around to Kelly's cubicle as the printer began to whir.