“Well, I don’t like macho men. Look at his neck.”
“You like Spike, don’t you?”
“He’s not a macho man, he’s gay.”
“There you go again,” I said.
“What?”
Rosie was back with her ball, dropping it on the floor in front of me and picking it up and dropping it.
“Throw the ball for Rosie,” I said.
Millicent picked the ball up and fired it the length of the floor, a lot harder than she needed to, and Rosie was after it, scrambling, as the ball bounced around. I smiled. Millicent was annoyed. Excellent. Annoyed was so much better than disinterested.
CHAPTER 41
I was outside the Crowley Limousine dispatch office with Brian Kelly.
“This isn’t even my case,” Brian was saying to me.
“I know, but they’ll never talk to me. I need somebody with a badge.”
“If there’s a crime it belongs to Framingham,” Brian said.
“That may be,” I said. “But did anyone in Framingham take you to paradise last night?”
“Well, no.”
“Is anyone from Framingham going to do it again tonight?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then?”
“Let’s get in here,” Brian said. “I’ve got a number of questions for the dispatcher.”
The dispatcher was a large woman in a flowered ankle-length dress, the hem of which just brushed the tops of some blue-and-white Nike running shoes. “Mr. Patton is a very good customer,” the dispatcher said. “I don’t think he’d like us talking about his business.”
“Yeah,” Brian showed her his badge. “But I would.”
She took the time to look closely at the badge, as if to make sure it didn’t say Chicken Inspector on it.
“We’re looking for a particular instance,” I said. “Two men went out to see Mr. Patton in one of your limos. About a month ago.”
If she thought by the “we” that I, too, was a Boston cop, no harm to it. The dispatcher stared at me a moment.
“Two men,” she said.
“Un huh?”
“Last month?”
“About a month ago.”
The dispatcher sat at the computer and manipulated the mouse.
“Got a trip on the fifteenth of August,” she said.
“Tell us about it,” I said.
Brian and his magic badge leaned against the filing cabinet beside her desk. She looked at him. He smiled at her.
“Pick up two men at an address in Swampscott. Take them to Mr. Patton’s home in South Natick. Wait and return.”
“What were the men’s names?”
“Just one name, Mr. Kragan.”
“Address?”
“Mr. Patton’s.”
“No, the pickup address in Swampscott.”
“Thirty-three King’s Beach Terrace.”
“Who’s the driver?”
“College kid, Ray Jourdan, lives on St. Paul Street in Brookline.” She gave us the address. We left and got back in Brian’s car and drove back to my loft. I got out. Brian got out and came around and stood next to me.
“I got to check in at the station,” he said.
“I think I can take it from here,” I said. “The driver will talk because his employer sent me.”
“I don’t think you should brace Kragan alone.”
“I’ll have less chance to learn anything,” I said, “if there’s a Boston cop standing around.”
“How about your ex-husband,” Brian said. “Kragan might walk a little softer if he was around.”
“He’s baby-sitting Millicent,” I said, “while Spike’s working lunch.”
“Everything we know about Kragan says he’s dangerous,” Brian said.
“Remember how we met,” I said.
Brian put his arms around me.
“I remember,” he said.
“So you know, I am not without resources.”
“I know,” Brian said.
We hugged each other for a moment. Then Brian pulled back a little and grinned down at me.
“In a pinch,” he said, “you could probably love him to death.”
I smiled, and said, “You should know.”
“Yeah,” he said. “The voice of experience. Will I see you tonight?”
“I’ll call you,” I said.
Ray Jourdan lived on the second floor of a three-story walk-up off Washington Street. He was a light-skinned black man with merely the implication of an accent, which I guessed was Caribbean. He told me he was a graduate student at B.U.
“I always drove for Mr. Patton,” he said.
“You ferry his girls back and forth.”
“Girls?”
“When Mrs. Patton was out, Mr. Patton would have girls brought out to the house,” I said. “They’d come in a limo. License tag says Crowley-8. You always drive for Patton . . .”
“Yes. I brought the girls.”
“Where did you pick them up?”
“In the parking lot outside the Chestnut Hill Mall. Front entrance.”
“Same girls each time?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You can’t tell one from another? Didn’t you get out and hold the door?”
“They were always Asian,” Ray said. “They tend to look alike to me.”
“Well, aren’t you politically incorrect.”
Ray smiled. He was nervous about this, but he was contained.
“And me a minority myself,” he said. “But it’s true. I don’t think they were the same girls, but I couldn’t tell for sure.”
“Did you deliver them back to the mall?”
“Yes.”
“How long did they stay?”
“Usually I’d have them back to the mall about one-thirty, two o’clock in the morning.”
“You just left them in an empty parking lot, in front of a closed mall?” I said.
“Yes, ma’am. Those were my instructions. The girls never said not to.”
“Any idea how they got to and from the mall?”
“Maybe they lived around there,” Ray said.
“In Chestnut Hill?”
“Well, just a thought.”
“While the girls were at the house, were there other people there?”
“I don’t know. I waited in the car.”
“Were there other cars.”
“No.”
“When you took Cathal Kragan out, there was another man as well.”
“Who?”
“Cathal Kragan, not a name you’d be likely to forget, is it?”
“No, no. I remember him.”
“And the other man?”
“I don’t know his full name. Mr. Kragan called him Albert.”
“Anything else?”
“I think Albert might have been from Providence. They talked about some restaurants down there. You know, Al Forno? Places like that.”
“Did they talk at all about Mr. Patton,” I said. “Or Mrs. Patton?”
“No.”
“You have no idea why they were visiting.”
“No.”
I thought about it for a while. Albert, from Providence.
“This is a good job for a guy needs to work part-time,” Ray said. “Lot of time sitting and waiting, you can study. If you tell Mr. Patton you’ve been talking to me, I’m pretty sure he’ll have me fired.”
“I don’t see why I’d have to tell him,” I said.
“At least until I get my degree,” Ray said.
CHAPTER 42
In Massachusetts, the record of political campaig
n contributions for all candidates is available to the public from the Secretary of State’s office. With Millicent and Rosie in the car I parked illegally outside the statehouse. A cop came over. I rolled the window down just enough for Rosie to stick her head out and try to lap the cop.
“Lady,” he said. “Can you read . . . Sunny darlin’!”
“Tommy, this is Rosie, and this is my friend Millicent. I just have to run in for a couple minutes.”
Tommy Hannigan put his hand out and let Rosie lap it.
“Put yourself right there, darlin’,” Tommy said. “Next to the Buick. Space is reserved for a guy shows up every year for the Christmas party.”
“Good, Tommy. Can you keep an eye on my dog and my friend?”
“Certainly,” he said. “How’s your dad?”
“Just fine,” I said. “You know he’s retired.”
“Two more years for me,” Tommy said. “Take your time. I’ll be right here till then.”
I went in and got the list of political contributors for Brock Patton. I went back, gave Tommy a kiss, got in my car, and went on down the back of Beacon Hill to Cambridge Street. I parked at a hydrant outside the Starbucks on Cambridge, and went in and got two oatmeal maple scones and two cups of Guatemalan coffee. I brought them out, gave coffee and a scone to Millicent, and a half a scone to Rosie, and kept the other half for me.
“We going to sit here while you read that stuff?” Millicent said.
“Yep.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Drink your coffee. Eat your scone. Give bites of it to Rosie. Watch the people passing by. Savor the moment of uncompromised leisure that you’re afforded.”
Millicent sighed loudly.
“Can I play the radio?” she said.
“Sure. Anything but talk radio. I can’t stand talk radio.”
She fiddled with the radio, moving irritably from one station that played hideous music to another station that played hideous music. Where’s Neil Diamond when you need him.
I had just taken a bite of the scone and a short slurp of Guatemalan coffee, and Millicent had just tuned in her fifth hideous heavy metal station, when I came across the name Albert Antonioni, of Providence, Rhode Island. I was two names past it, someone named Amaral, when I stopped and went back. Albert, from Providence. That’s what the driver had said about who was with Cathal Kragan in the back of the limo when they called on Brock Patton. I was orderly and patient. I went through the whole list, which took a second scone and trips for two more cups of coffee. There were other Alberts, and there were other people from Providence. But none that were both.
“Do you know anyone named Albert Antonioni?” I said to Millicent.
“No.”
“He might have been a friend of your father’s?”
“No.”
She fiddled with the dial some more.
Albert Antonioni. The name seemed familiar. There was some kind of Italian movie guy named Antonioni, but the name was familiar in a different context.
“I have to make some calls,” I said to Millicent.
She didn’t react, so I reached over and turned the radio off.
“Just while I call,” I said.
She slumped in the front seat and stared out the window. Rosie climbed around from the back seat and got in her lap. Before she could catch herself Millicent patted her. I picked up the car phone my mother had given me for Christmas last year, and made some phone calls and ended up talking to a detective in the Providence Police Intelligence unit named Kathy DeMarco.
“He’s the man down here,” Kathy told me. “When the old man died, and Junior went to jail, Antonioni was the guy who had to run things for the mob. At first it was temporary but pretty soon Albert was consolidating. And he consolidated the opposition right out of existence. And now he’s the man.”
“The usual way?” I said.
“Of consolidating? Yeah: bang, bang.”
“Might he be expanding?” I said.
“Be his style,” Kathy said.
“Is he connected at all to Brock Patton?” I said. “Who used to be the president of Roger Williams Trust?”
“Not that I know. Lemme bring it up on the screen.”
I waited.
“Got nothing under Antonioni,” Kathy said. “Lemme look under Patton.”
I waited some more.
“No Brock Patton,” Kathy said.
“How about Cathal Kragan?”
“Who?”
I spelled it.
“That his real name?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Just a guy I’m trying to locate.”
“What are we,” Kathy said. “A dating service?”
“I don’t want to date Cathal Kragan,” I said.
Kathy looked it up.
“No Cathal Kragan,” she said.
“Thank you,” I said. “Can I get a picture of Antonioni?”
“Sure, Sunny, all part of the service,” Kathy said.
“Actually,” I said, “I know it isn’t. So thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she said.
I gave her my address.
“If I come across the elusive Cathal,” Kathy said, “I’ll give you a buzz.”
“Be sure it’s the right Cathal Kragan,” I said.
“I’ll try to sort them out.”
We hung up. I left it in the cradle and pushed the speakerphone button and called the answering machine in my loft. I pictured the empty loft with a new canvas sitting and waiting on the new easel. I felt displaced, drinking yuppie coffee with my yuppie cell phone listening to messages from my empty home.
There was a message from my mother saying that they were worried because I was never home when they called.
The next message said, “If you do not return Millicent Patton to her parents, you will be killed.”
“It’s him,” Millicent said next to me.
“Who.”
“The man in the bathroom that looked right at me. The man was with my mother, when you know . . . him.”
I rewound the message and we listened again. The voice was deep and contemptuous and full of power.
“It’s him,” Millicent said again. “What are you going to do?”
“Let me just hear my messages,” I said. “Then we’ll talk.”
The last message was from Anderson, the Framingham cop who had let me into Kevin Humphries’ plumbing office.
“Got something you might be interested in,” Anderson said. “Gimme a call.”
I shut off the phone. And sat back and took a breath.
“Clues are pouring in,” I said to Millicent.
“What you going to do about him? The man? He said he was going to kill you.”
“I won’t bring you back,” I said. “If that’s worrying you.”
“No. I knew you wouldn’t,” Millicent said. “But he said he’d kill you.”
“Actually he said I’d be killed.”
“Whatever,” Millicent said. “What are you going to do?”
“Sooner or later,” I said, “I’m going to have to confront him.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You can’t. He’ll kill you.”
“I’ll arrange it so he won’t,” I said.
“You know who he is.”
“I believe he’s a man named Cathal Kragan. I think he sent those men that came to our door. I believe he killed a man that I talked with named Bucko Meehan. And he might have killed a man in Framingham named Kevin Humphries.”
“Don’t go.”
“I have to go,” I said. “This is what I do.”
“But what about me? What if he kill
s you?”
“I won’t go yet,” I said.
CHAPTER 43
On Thursday nights, I took an art history class at Boston University, and Julie had evening office hours for people who could see her at no other time. Afterward we would usually meet for a glass of wine somewhere in Harvard Square near Julie’s office. Tonight we were at the bar in the new Harvest.
“I feel like all of a sudden I’m a mother,” I said to Julie. “It’s so exciting to be out by myself without Millicent.”
“Is she with Spike?”
“No, Richie. Spike’s working and Richie was coming by anyway to visit Rosie.”
Julie nodded.
“Out and about,” she said.
“You have real kids of your own,” I said. “But you must feel that way sometimes.”
“God yes,” Julie said. “Anytime I’m away from them. Except of course when I’m feeling that way I’m also feeling guilty that I’m feeling that way.”
“I know.”
“I wonder if fathers feel that way?”
“Well,” I said. “They have more of a tradition of being away from the kids, supporting them and all that.”
“I know,” Julie said. “But I swear Michael is a better mother than I am.”
“Maybe he’s just a good father,” I said.
“He seems to want to be with them all the time. He likes to take them with us when we go places.”
“Which makes you feel selfish and unloving,” I said.
“You bet.”
Julie finished her wine and gestured at the bartender for another glass.”
“You love the kids,” I said.
“Yes.”
“And Michael loves them.”
“Yes.”
“That’s all each of you can do,” I said. “Love them the way you can.”
“Sometimes I think it’s easier if you don’t love them.”
“It’s not,” I said.
The bartender brought Julie her wine. Julie studied me for a moment before she picked up her glass and drank.
“This thing with Millicent is riding you, isn’t it?” she said.
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