Loose Change: The Case Files of a Homeless Investigator

by Sean Huxter

  Three young, beautiful waitresses, all dressed in sleek black outfits, milled about taking customer orders. An older waitress served me. She knew me, and despite her sometimes gruff demeanor she was efficient and handed me my hot latté within minutes. It was perfect. It had that creamy mocha color that only the perfectly foamed latté could achieve, and the warm smell was something I could swim in.

  On a raised section in the back four men sat around a round table, each with a copy of the Boston Globe up in their faces. As the papers lowered to change pages and raised again I saw their faces. Connected for sure. One of the four was clearly someone important. He was talking to someone - not quite as important, but their business seemed important - and the other two were probably his guards.

  They were talking quietly, with those thick Boston accents. Charlestown? Southie? Hard to tell. When the fourth one lowered his paper I dropped my cup on the floor. The coffee spilled, the mug shattered, and the waitress came over tut-tutting, grabbing a mop on the way.

  “Hey!” she scolded. “If you can't keep the place clean, you can't come in here anymore!”

  But I barely heard her. I was staring. Right into the face of my worst nightmare. He leaned to his left and said something to his boss. They all looked my way, and one shouted, “Hey, mind yer fuckin' business, asshole!”

  I couldn't turn. I couldn't stop staring.

  One of the men stood and started towards me. The man looked like Schwarzenegger, muscles bulging inside his suit jacket, making creases in the wrong places as he moved. A second man stood up and the two hovered over me at my table. The waitress made herself scarce.

  “What the fuck you lookin' at, Rummy?” Yeah, by my appearance it's understandable he think I'm an alcoholic. Being homeless gains a person a certain appearance, despite one's best efforts. And the stereotypes die hard. I'm not a rummy. I'd hadn't had a drink for three thousand four hundred forty one days.

  “Hit the street, Dad,” Arnie said menacingly. I still wasn't looking at them. I was still staring past them to the man sitting to the right of the obvious boss at the table. The boss was wearing a suit that probably cost more than I ever made in a year. The focus of my attention, however, was dressed in a leather bomber jacket with a hoodie underneath.

  The two men lifted me bodily by my upper arms, dragged me through to the front of the caffé and threw me out onto the pavement.

  “Don't fuckin' come back!”

  I lay on the slush-covered sidewalk unable to move; unable to unglue my eyes from the darkened recesses of the caffé.

  I knew that face.

  It was a face I couldn't look away from. It was a face from a man I recognized, and he was a man I swore I would kill.

  Chapter 2 I stood in a narrow almost street near Victoria, still shaking with rage. My mind was furiously working. I was pacing frantically and looking around for a weapon. I wasn't thinking, I was reacting. I had no plan, but my intent was to find something I could use, walk back in there and pummel the man in the bomber jacket until his body was a mass of pulp. But what little rational brain I had left was trying to make the rest of me see sense. This wasn't going to work. It wasn't going to help.

  That man was the ringleader of a violent invasion of my home in 1998 that ultimately killed my wife and daughter.

  Just a couple of weeks ago I had been a suspect in a murder. The man I was suspected of murdering was the second man in that home invasion. Derek Mosley. This was his partner, his until-nowunidentified boss. Fingerprints at the scene could not be matched to any known criminal at the time, and the case went cold until a month or so ago when Derek Mosley got very cold and the case got very hot.

  There had been no clues to the identity of either man until a couple of weeks ago, then the two got together after more than a decade to strike again at the home of an art collector on Acorn Street behind Beacon Hill. Mosley was killed by a different art collector who had caught him stealing gold from one of his statues.

  Suddenly, after over a decade, both surface. There must be a reason. And now by complete chance I find the man responsible for the vicious crime that destroyed my life.

  This man was not going to live much longer, I made myself that oath. The problem was how to get to him and ensure he died before I did.

  I could do it now. Attack him with a piece of steel fence or something I could find down this alley, but with two enforcers and a mob boss in his company I would hardly get a hit in before I was dead myself. I had to do better than this.

  And yet if I walked away now I might never find this man again.

  I had one thing to my benefit that I was both grateful for, and furious about:

  He had not recognized me.

  I peered through the set of corner windows through Victoria, hoping to keep my eyes on the ringleader. I was just in time to see the four men leave through the northern entrance of the café. They walked up to the next building and went into Michael's Pastries. They were in there for about ten minutes. Even they had to observe the lengthy line of customers.

  If I acted fast, I could get him on the way out. I just needed something heavy. Something metal, like a length of rebar or something. I'd do it, even if his guys killed me. I'd be ok with that as long as I got him first.

  When they left with string-tied Michael's boxes in-hand, they climbed aboard a large black Cadillac SUV. I couldn't follow but I did manage to scrawl the license plate number on a scrap of paper and a pencil stub I found in my pocket.

  Now what?

  That's the man who killed my family.

  And he was driving away up Hanover Street, around the curve of the buildings towards Commercial Street until they were out of my sight.

  I had to think. I had to stop breathing this hard. I had to get my heart rate down. I was about to pass out.

  He had been one of four at a back table at Victoria. Two were clearly muscle. The third was clearly a boss. So where did that leave my guy? What was he doing there? And had he been going to Victoria all these years? Had I missed him so often?

  Can't be. No way. Whatever he'd been doing for the past decade he'd not been doing it around here. And suddenly, just last month, when he had met up with his former partner and invaded the home of an art collector, he was announcing his return in a bold way.

  Suddenly.

  Why?

  Why now?

  Why here?

  I could only think of one way to find out.

  Chapter 3 I missed Officer Turley's almost constant presence on Tremont Street. He had held that beat for years. And now there was another cop in his place, one who wasn't as friendly. I couldn't go to him, he'd likely arrest me for staring at his car or something.

  I walked along the deep, slushy walkway to the center of Boston Common where Old Fernie usually sat on better weather days than this. He was nowhere to be seen.

  Even in this weather Miko's boys were thrashing on the Frog Pond. They'd had to clear some of the snow and slush away, but they were slamming their skateboards along anything railed or paved. I didn't see Miko.

  “Sup, old timer?” one said.

  “Seen Miko?” I asked. I hoped to use his cell phone. It seemed that no matter how down and out, the younger kids always had the latest cell phones.

  “Miko? You ain't heard? He's goin' for the big time, man.” Steve-o, a tall blonde with dreads and a soul patch beamed with pride.

  “What?”

  “Yup. He's at the MASS competition down Fall River. Mid Atlantic Skate Shows? He's been winnin' the local comps lately. Now he's takin' his new moves to the big leagues.”

  “Huh! You mean he actually did it?”

  “Doin' it, man. Like he always said he would.”

  “Phone!” I shouted.

  “What?”

  “Sorry. I need a phone. You happen to have one?” I think I sounded desperate. Steve-o pulled back a bit, but he saw my distress and handed over his iPhone. “Charge almost out. Be quick. Don't drop it, man. They break.”

/>   I grabbed it like a starving man grabbing a bread roll.

  “Thanks,” I said. I turned and pulled a card from my shirt pocket, where I've kept it ever since Detective Turley gave it to me.

  I called his number but got his machine.

  “Detective Turley! It's me! I have to talk to you. I saw him! I saw him! Look! Meet me at my corner at Copley!”

  The phone made a harsh beep and I lost the connection.

  Dammit! I yelled into it, but it was out of power.

  “Easy, man, take it easy. I gotta go find a charger.” Steve-o took the phone back, picked up his board and walked down towards Tremont.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “You got it...” he replied, without turning. His friends grabbed up their decks and followed him.

  Chapter 4 Evening was falling and the rain was coming down when an unmarked car pulled up next to the minaret-like ticket kiosk on Copley Plaza at the corner of Boylston and Dartmouth. The window rolled down and Detective Turley said “Get in.”

  I climbed into his passenger side and he pulled out into traffic and drove nowhere in particular. “So you sounded desperate on the phone. What's up? Who did you see?”

  “The man who broke into my house on February 8, 1998.”

  “What?” He looked sharply at me, then slowly back at where he was aiming his car.

  “It was him!”

  “Where? How do you know?”

  “Victoria's in the North End, and I know. That face is burned into my brain.”

  “But after all this time...”

  “Believe me, time has not softened those features. It was him.”

  “But he's been impossible to find. Why now?”

  “I don't know why now, but if you remember that photo in

  Loose Change when Derek Mosley broke into Martin Sprech's house... the photo showed Mosley fairly clearly, but the other man's picture was so blurry as to be unhelpful. It was him.

  “He and Mosley were a team. I don't know how many houses they broke into, but I know of at least two, and over a dozen years apart. Mine, and Sprech's.

  “He's been laying low, or in prison, or something, until he announced his return last month. And I saw him before noon today. Sitting at a table with two bodyguards and a boss at Victoria's.”

  “Jesus. Mob?”

  “Sure as I'm soaked to the skin sitting here,” I said.

  “What the hell is he doing suddenly with the North End mob?” “No idea. But it was him.”

  “I believe you. Look, let me do some asking around. I'll have to check the files. You're sure?”

  He looked at me and judging by my look, he regretted that last question.

  “Ok. Let me drop you somewhere. I'll go do some digging.”

  Chapter 5 Some time later I was still soaked through, still walking, when the new cop outside the Common called me over. Huh. Who'da thought? He seemed to want nothing to do with us homeless types.

  “What's up?” I asked. Immediately he spun me around at his car, grabbed my arms and said, “You're under arrest for vagrancy.”

  “What? What you talking about?” I turned.

  “And resisting arrest,” he said, shoving my head onto the hood of the car, tightening the cuffs to the point where I could already feel my hands growing numb.

  “Too tight, asshole!” I said. “I can't feel my hands.”

  “Poor you,” he said. He read me my rights and shoved me into the back of his car. He drove us to Boston PD HQ and threw me into an interview room where I sat, wondering what the hell this guy's problem was. I hadn't done anything ever to him, or given him any inkling I might.

  I waited for what seemed like an hour when the door finally opened and three detectives came in. Neither was Turley.

  “So, what can I do for you fine detectives today?” I said, initiating the conversation, trying to maintain some kind of upper hand.

  “Shut up,” the oldest said, and stood in a corner. He looked well over sixty, white hair, too old to be an active duty cop. The other two were Best and Davis. Davis I had had encounters with before. He wasn't overly friendly to me. Best I knew slightly. Enough to impersonate him on the phone once or twice to get information. I hoped he didn't know about that. How could he?

  “I hear you been snoopin' around the North End,” said Davis. “Why you snoopin' around the North End? That ain't your area. You like the Common. That's a bit of a walk.”

  “No walk is too far to get good coffee,” I said.

  He grabbed my neoprene lapels and shoved me back onto my chair. “Don't be a wise ass. Tell me what you were doing at Victoria's this morning.”

  “What the hell?” I said, regaining my balance. He let go of me. “Do you detectives have some kind of charge against me or something? What the hell is going on here?”

  “I repeat. What were you doing at Victoria's this morning?”

  “Getting a latté, and Victoria's is the best.”

  “Wise ass again, eh?” Best kicked my chair hard.

  “Listen, asshole. You're nobody. We could lock you up and no one would ever see you again. We don't even need a charge. We could stick you on a plane to Syria and you'd rot in some prison getting your tonsils replaced by pliers every month or so. Sound like we're kidding?”

  I looked around the room. They did not sound like they were kidding. What the hell was this all supposed to mean?

  “You're interfering in a very important case,” Davis said. “One that involves the FBI, the Feds, Homeland Security, everyone. And if you interfere, we have enough pull with Homeland that they

  will remove you from the situation – permanently. And we know enough about you to know no one would ever miss you. You're a bum. You live on the street. You people disappear all the time and there's not even a breeze to indicate you were ever there. Got me?”

  I stared at him. I stared at the three. Other than “Shut up” earlier, the oldest detective never said another word.

  “Tell me you'll stay away from the North End,” Best said. “Tell me now or you won't ever get out of here.”

  I saw movement in a small window at the door. Without a knock the door opened and Detective Turley was standing there.

  “What is this?” he demanded of the two detectives, his immediate superiors. He glanced at the oldest man. “What are you doing here Lieutenant Sullivan? You're retired. What's your concern with active police business?”

  The oldest man took a long, hard stare at Turley and slowly walked out, his hands still in the pockets of his damp trench-coat He didn't look back.

  “Sergeants... I'm waiting for an answer.”

  “Vagrancy,” Best said.

  “Bullshit,” Turley said. “Do I have to get the Captain in here?”

  Best and Davis stood very close to Turley. “Stay the fuck out of it rookie.”

  “The hell I will,” he said. He walked around to my chair, unlocked the cuffs and said, “You're free to go. I'll meet you at the entrance in five minutes.”

  I didn't need to be told twice. I got up and left.

  “Pleasure doing business with you gentlemen,” I said to Best and Davis, doffing a pretend cap as I left the room.

  Behind me I heard shouting, and the door closing.

  Chapter 6 Turley drove me back to the Common. During the drive we discussed what had happened, and he seemed puzzled. “Why you? Why now? Seems an odd coincidence that you may have found the perp in a decade-long cold case and suddenly one retired detective and his two stooges pick you up for no apparent reason.”

  “Yeah. Been meaning to ask you about that. Who, other than me and you, knew about my call to you?”

  He turned and looked at me. “Wait a minute... you think I had something to do with this?”

  “Did you?”

  “No. I only told the Captain about what you reported to me, and the rest of the afternoon I was poring through your file to see what I could find out about this guy. He's nowhere on the radar. I don't know a name, I ce
rtainly don't have a match for his fingerprints taken at the scene of your home invasion. The man doesn't exist in the system.

  “So I did some more digging. I went out of the system. I thought, so what if this guy's in the system unofficially?”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, maybe he's being protected.”

  “Protected? By cops?”

  “Been known to happen.”

  “Why?”

  “I'd only be speculating. Let me do some more digging. And I think I'd better talk to the Captain again. He's clearly the one who told Best and Davis.”

  Shit... I was wondering if I shouldn't just make myself scarce for a few weeks.

  “Look, I'm just looking out for you,” Turley said.

  “Why?”

  He drove for a block or so in silence. I could tell he was pondering.

  “My great-uncle Ray was homeless on the streets of Toronto most of my life,” he said. “No one in the family ever talked about him. I only found out in my late teens. I heard snippets of conversation between my mother, my aunts and uncles. One uncle in particular lived outside Toronto and apparently liked to look in on him from time to time, make sure he was ok. Kind of like his father's brother's keeper. It's a long story, but when I was older I asked my mother about Ray and she told me that he was sent to Toronto to get treatment. This was the 1950s and things were different. Ray wasn't quite right in the head, and his mother, my great-grandmother, didn't know how to handle it. She sent him up there, supposedly to a mental facility where they could take care of him.

  “It didn't stick. He wasn't there long before he ended up on the street.

  “Years later Ray went home, wanting to see his mother again, hoping to be taken in like the Prodigal son. But she made it clear she didn't want to see him again. He left, dejected. Went back to the only home he knew – the streets of Toronto.

  “When I found out, I couldn't believe it. Some of the things I had heard over the years suddenly hit home. Once I heard my uncle saying 'From behind, walking, he looks just like Dad.' That's my grandfather.