“Well, if it isn’t Portland’s finest,” Jimmy said in a loud voice, clearly issuing a warning to anyone smart enough to heed it.
“That obvious, huh?” Byron said.
Jimmy grinned and nodded before turning his eyes back to the boys.
Byron watched the teenagers quickly scoop up the electronic gear from the counter and stuff it into the brightly colored knapsacks they were carrying.
He approached the counter. “How’s business, Jimmy?”
“Oh, you know me,” Jimmy said, lowering his voice to a normal level. “I can’t complain. What can I do for the Portland Police Department?”
“We’ve had reports of teenagers trying to sell stolen goods from car break-ins. Haven’t seen anyone like that around here, have you?”
Both boys hurried past Byron, giving him a wide berth as they headed toward the store’s entrance as if flames were licking at their heels.
“Nope,” Jimmy said. “You know I don’t buy hot stuff. Have a nice day, boys.”
The fake bell chimed again as the teenagers made a hasty exit, slamming the front door behind them.
“Anyone ever tell you you’re bad for business?” Jimmy asked.
Byron pulled out his credentials and held them up.
Jimmy studied the ID. “Detective Sergeant, huh? You’re like royalty. Usually I only get the younger detectives stopping by to harass me.” He folded his arms and leaned against the table directly behind him. “Must be something really important.”
Byron returned the wallet to the inside pocket of his suit coat. “I’m wondering where someone might go to purchase a gun.”
“A gun? You looking to buy a gun?”
“Not me,” Byron said, playing along. “I have enough guns already. It’s for a friend.”
“We sell guns. Everything by the book. Waiting period, paperwork, background checks. You know. Everything neat and tidy, Sergeant.”
“Yeah, I know. What I’m looking for is a place someone might skip over all those requirements. Buy something off the books. Know anyplace like that, Jimmy?”
Haggerty had spent the morning shoveling the driveway. The physical labor was soothing; it helped him focus. But now he was going stir-crazy. He could feel the walls beginning to close in. He needed something to take his mind off the shooting. Television wasn’t an option, as he didn’t have the attention span to watch anything for longer than ten or fifteen minutes. And the local networks kept running promos for their latest coverage of the Plummer shooting, each time displaying Tommy’s senior class photo. The all-American boy gunned down by police. It was heartbreaking. He couldn’t escape it.
He thought about phoning his parents again but didn’t want to rehash the incident or upset his mother more than he already had. According to his father she had been glued to the internet looking for news updates and then crying whenever she found one. Besides, his attorney, Eugene Pomeroy, had advised him not to discuss the incident with anyone. What he really wanted was to go visit Sharon, his girlfriend, think about something pleasant for a while. But Sharon had made it clear that as long as this thing went unresolved she couldn’t see him.
“It isn’t something I want to be a party to,” she’d said.
“What the hell does that mean?” he’d asked her. “Are you breaking up with me?”
Sharon said she didn’t have to explain herself and that he should just respect her wishes.
Although they’d only been dating for a month, he had expected her to be a little more understanding. So much for being supportive, he thought. Fuck it. I gotta get out of here. Get some more fresh air. Maybe walk around the block a couple of thousand times.
He walked through the kitchen to the home’s side door, slipped into his boots, then grabbed his coat and hat. As he stepped outside he nearly ran over an attractive young blond woman standing halfway up the stairs.
“Excuse me,” she said.
There was something vaguely familiar about her, but Haggerty couldn’t place the face.
“Can I help you?” he said.
“I was looking for someone who lives around here.” She smiled and stuck out her hand. “I’m Leslie.”
“Sean,” he said, shaking it. “Nice to meet you, Leslie. Who are you looking for?”
“Actually, this is a little embarrassing. I was hoping to find you.”
“Me?” he said, taken aback.
“You’re Officer Sean Haggerty, right?”
It hit him like an anvil. He knew why he’d recognized her. Leslie Thomas was a field reporter for one of the local news affiliates. He looked past her toward the street where a salt-covered news van sat idling at the end of his driveway. A large bearded man wearing a puffy blue coat stood next to the van aiming a shoulder-mounted video camera in their direction. Haggerty looked back at her. “How the hell did you get my home address, Leslie?”
“Please don’t be mad,” she said. “I just want to get your side of the story.”
“My side? Since when does anybody give a shit about my side? Get the hell off my property.” Before she could respond, Haggerty turned and retreated into the house, slamming the door behind him.
He stood at the front window, peering out around the curtains, watching as the reporter retreated to the street. She spent the next several minutes talking on her cell while looking back at his house. Eventually, Thomas and Grizzly Adams climbed inside the van and drove away.
Haggerty turned from the window and sighed deeply. He really was trapped, a prisoner in his own home.
It took Byron all of ten minutes and fifty bucks to get a name from Jimmy: Daniel Sewell. The irony was that Sewell’s Second Hand was Honest Jimmy’s only real Portland competition when it came to fencing stolen merchandise on the peninsula. It turned out that Jimmy had only one rule in his less than ethical playbook. He didn’t skirt the gun laws and sell off the books. Sewell, at least according to Jimmy, didn’t have the same high moral standards.
Sewell’s shop, located on Marginal Way near Play It Again Sports, was new to Portland, having only been open since October. Byron knew there was no way a brand-new dealer would ever admit to selling illegal firearms. The way Byron figured it, he had two options. He could bust one of Sewell’s friends for something and put them to work, but that would take time, and time wasn’t a luxury they possessed. The more expedient option involved getting one of Crosby’s out-of-town drug detectives to pose as a buyer. Someone that Sewell would never recognize, and hopefully never suspect.
Byron pulled out his cell and punched in the number for Sergeant Crosby.
Kenny Crosby held the same rank as Byron, detective sergeant, but Crosby was on loan from PPD to MDEA where he supervised all of the drug investigations in Cumberland County. The two men had never gotten along. Byron neither respected nor trusted the smart-mouthed, misogynistic gym rat.
“Crosby.”
“Kenny, it’s John Byron.”
“Well, if it ain’t the AG’s best friend.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Byron asked.
“Word on the street says you’ve been working a little too close with one particular ex-trooper on this Haggerty thing. What are you, like IA now?”
Byron wondered how it was that every time he was forced to deal with the egocentric drug sergeant all he could think of was caving Crosby’s face in. Even Crosby’s voice grated on him. Byron thought about telling Crosby what he could do with his opinion, but he needed his help. Like it or not, Byron had to play nice.
“You’re a real riot, Kenny,” Byron said. “Listen, I need one of your guys to work a gun buy.”
“Trying to jam up Haggerty on something else?”
Byron felt the blood rush to his cheeks. He took a deep breath and gritted his teeth before responding. “Next time we meet up remind me to tell you all about it. Are you gonna help me or just keep busting my balls?”
“Gotta tell ya, that second one sounds like a lot more fun, but I guess I have to. I’ve got a gu
y on loan from Lowell PD. When do you need this thing to happen?”
“ASAP. How about this afternoon?”
“No can do. My Lowell guy is tied up on a buy until after midnight. I can send him to you tomorrow though.”
Byron wondered if the detective really was busy, or if Crosby was still screwing with him. He also wondered why the feds wouldn’t have given Crosby the heads-up on the OC connection with the laundromat. Or, despite their denials, perhaps they had and Crosby wasn’t aware that Collier had tipped Byron. Either way, Byron wasn’t about let on that he knew.
“Tomorrow will have to do,” Byron said.
“How do you wanna do the contact?” Crosby asked.
“Give him my cell,” Byron said. “Have him call me.” Better to remove Crosby from the equation straightaway. Byron needed the help of his undercover, not Crosby.
“You got it. Oh, and give my best to Trooper What’s-her-name.” Crosby disconnected the call before Byron could respond.
Byron looked at the phone. “Asshole.”
Terry Alfonsi walked out of the spray booth and removed his breathing mask and goggles. His hands were spattered with traces of the flat-black primer he had layered onto his late friend’s Mitsubishi.
Vinnie was sitting with his feet up on the counter watching the television.
“Finished?” Vinnie asked.
“Yup.”
“How’s it look?”
“Like a Mitsubishi covered in black primer.”
“Wow. Someone’s got a shitty attitude.”
“Whatever,” Terry said, sounding as dismissive as he could. He entered the bathroom and soaked down several paper towels, then wiped the sweat off his head. He kicked off his sneakers, then shimmied out of the paint-smeared coveralls, hanging them on a wall peg. After taking a piss and not bothering to flush the grungy toilet bowl he walked back into the garage. Vinnie was still glued to the TV.
“What’s eating you anyway?” Vinnie asked.
“It’s the cop thing. We’ve roughed up some dirtbags before, and you’ve probably done more than that.”
Vinnie grinned but said nothing.
“But this is a cop we’re taking out here,” Terry said.
“Yeah. So? He bleeds same as everyone else.”
“And you think we’ve planned this out enough?”
“What else is there? I’ll follow him around until I have a good opportunity to waste him. You wait in town with the flatbed for my call. We load it, cover it, tow it to the sandpit, and torch it. Easy peasy.”
Terry still didn’t like it.
“Oh, by the way,” Vinnie said. “Derrick called again while you were in the booth.”
“What did he say?”
“Had some more information to pass along. Said our boy is a regular at Fitness World on St. John Street in Portland.” Vinnie struck a pose, flexing one of his arms like a competitive body builder. “Sun’s out, guns out.”
Chapter 13
Tuesday, 7:30 p.m.,
January 17, 2017
Byron returned to 109 to find uniformed officers posted at both ends of the plaza. One was located at the top of the stairs that led down to Middle Street, the other at the entrance to the rear garage where Byron had just parked.
“What’s up?” Byron asked as he approached the officer.
“New directive from up on high. No protests in the plaza.”
After this afternoon’s incident Byron couldn’t find any fault in that order. Removing the threat of violence against officers coming and going from police headquarters would certainly cut down on the number of complaints against officers, and injuries, on both sides. He wondered who had come up with the mandate. Rumsfeld?
“Might have been nice if they’d taken this step before Sergeant Pepin got split, huh?” the officer said.
Byron mounted the stairs to the third floor where he found Tran.
“Anything new?” Byron asked.
“I’m working on it,” Tran said. “So far, three names you gave me have accepted my friend requests.”
“Which three?”
“Scott Henderson, Nate Freeman, and Abdirahman Ali.”
“How does that help us?”
Tran spun around in his chair to face Byron. “Good old-fashioned data mining, Sarge. After they friend me I have access to their friend lists, photos, posts, you name it. You wouldn’t believe the stuff these kids put on social media. If there is anything to find, I’ll find it.”
“Assuming I know nothing about this Facebook stuff, because I don’t, how are you getting these kids to friend you?” Byron asked.
“Haven’t I ever shown you my profile?”
Byron shook his head.
“Look,” Tran said as he pulled up a new screen.
The profile photo was of a cute teenaged-looking Vietnamese girl named Phuong Nguyen.
“Who is that?” Byron asked.
“Jade. She’s my cousin.”
“Tell me you’re not using a photo of an actual teenager.”
Tran smiled. “Fear not. My cousin is twenty-three and lives outside of the U.S. She helped me set up this profile to go after pedophiles.”
Byron studied the page information and images. He noticed the friend total. “She has over a thousand friends?”
“Not her, me. And this is only one of my fake profiles.”
“How many do you have?”
Tran grinned proudly. “Twenty-three.”
Byron shook his head in disbelief. “Keep at it.”
“Oh, and I found Christine Souza. Did you know she was dead?”
PPD’s day shift had long departed for home as Commander Jennings walked casually down the back hallway of 109’s second floor. In his left hand he held a legal-sized manila envelope containing nothing but blank sheets of paper that he’d taken from the copier outside his office. He wanted to give the appearance that he was delivering something on the off chance he ran into someone working late.
Lining the hallway were doors to the offices of the training sergeant, payroll manager, grant coordinator, community prosecutor, and internal affairs, which comprised three offices and a storage room. Jennings found all the office doors closed. Passing by each he looked down at the floor for any light spilling out. There wasn’t any. He stopped at the door to the internal affairs case storage room and pulled a key from his front right pocket. Standard operating procedure mandated that the key was to have been turned over to the IA lieutenant after Jennings was reassigned. But like so many other administrative mandates at 109, it got lost in the shuffle and never happened.
Jennings took one last look up the hallway, then inserted his key into the lock and slipped inside.
Byron returned to his office. Amid the growing pile of supplements and statements was a newly formed mountain of pink slips from Shirley Grant. He sat down and began to organize them when his cell rang. It was Diane.
“Hey, lady,” he said, answering it.
“Lady, huh?” she said. “I like that. How goes it?”
He sighed and collapsed back in the chair. “Give me a word that’s worse than slow?”
“At a standstill?”
“That’s actually three words, but they’ll do,” he said. “Have you eaten?”
“Just finished. Chief Rumsfeld held an off-site dinner meeting.”
“Strange I didn’t garner an invite. Intimate dinner?”
“If five is intimate,” she said. “A lot of brass there.”
“Glad I wasn’t invited, then. I’ve got an allergy to brass.”
“I thought it was gluten?”
“I get ’em confused.”
“One of the local news reporters showed up on Haggerty’s doorstep this afternoon,” Diane said.
“How the hell did they get his home address?”
“I don’t know.”
“Dammit. Can we move him somewhere? Maybe put him up in a hotel outside of town?”
“We tried. Hags doesn’t want to leave hi
s house. He’s gonna stay inside for the time being. Only Channel 8 has made it out there so far.”
Byron knew as well as Diane that sooner or later the other news agencies would have Haggerty’s address and come calling. Information like the shooter’s home address was chum in the water, especially when the shooter was a cop. The sharks would come circling soon enough.
“Will I see you later?” she asked.
He wanted nothing more than to say yes, but there was still so much to do. “Not tonight. I’m planning to burn the midnight oil on this. I’m way behind on the paperwork.”
“Okay. Talk to you tomorrow?”
“Count on it. G’night, Lady Di.”
Byron ended the call with Diane and dialed Haggerty’s cellphone, but it went straight to voicemail. “Hey, Hags, it’s John Byron. Just checking in to see how you’re holding up. Heard about your afternoon visit. Give me a call when you get a chance.”
He had just slipped the cell back into his pocket when Lucinda Phillips appeared in the office doorway.
“Am I interrupting anything?” Phillips asked.
“Not at all. Come in.”
“Making any headway?” she asked as she sat down opposite him.
Byron looked down at his desktop. “Hard to tell. You?”
“Collecting data. Same as you.”
Byron nodded.
“Wondered if you might want to catch a bite to eat?” she said.
He considered the work in front of him and the ribbing he had taken from Crosby, both of which were strong reasons to decline her invitation.
“My treat, John.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
Their table at Street & Co., a cozy bistro in the heart of Portland’s Old Port, was situated against a rustic brick wall, upon which hung an iron candleholder. A small cinnamon-scented votive cast a warm glow over the table.
Beyond the Truth Page 14