“What did he say to you, honey?”
“Nothing, ma’am.”
“All right, then.”
Mrs. Pendleton waited. They all waited. Everyone on the bus, the double line of cops in riot gear and more on horseback, the ranks of tight pale faces behind the cops who didn’t want their children shipped off to a strange neighborhood halfway across the city, the million plus who’d sit safe and smug in their suburbs and watch on TV. All of them wondering if Lisa Mignot would make it to the front door of South Boston High School. Or if she’d be heading back to Roxbury in a pine box.
Lisa pushed the cop’s baton away and stepped off the bus. Her eyes followed a pigeon, flapping its wings once and riding a gray wind across the façade of the school before perching on the corner of the building like a small, silent statue. Lisa took another step. There was a young white cop to her left. He slipped the visor up off his face and smiled. She smiled back. A green golf ball struck him just under the eye. He dropped to the ground and didn’t move. The golf ball was followed by a baseball, slapping the pavement a foot or two in front of Lisa and sailing off into the crowd. Then it all came down. A fusillade of rocks and bricks, batteries and bottles, pinging off Plexiglas and popping all around her. Something told Lisa not to run. Running was fear. And fear was oxygen to the hatred burning all around her. So she ducked her head and just kept walking. Another cop went down to her right. Someone grabbed her under the arms and nearly lifted her off her feet, hustling her up the path toward the front door of the high school. She was twenty feet away when another golf ball snapped off the pavement. The carom caught Lisa near the temple. She went to a knee. There was a thread of blood on the curb and more on her hands. Above her a voice called her name. Then Mrs. Pendleton was there, wiping her face with a handkerchief.
“Can you go the rest of the way?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good, because if you can’t make it, they don’t stand a chance.” Mrs. Pendleton pointed back toward the buses and a string of eyes staring out from the windows. Lisa nodded. The older woman took her hand.
“Head high, Lisa. Never be afraid.”
And that was how they walked, hand in hand, the final five strides. And then, officially, South Boston High School was integrated.
Kevin wasn’t a racist. Not a bit. Still, when she’d told him the story that Sunday morning, his face had clouded over. She was, for just a moment, one of “them”—the little black girl all of Boston had seen walking off the bus that day. She took a small sip of wine, rolled onto her back, and stared at a wooden picture rail that ran naked around their living room.
“What are you thinking about?” he said.
“Nothing. You. The Pulitzer.” She lied because it was easy. Kind, even. Meanwhile, her mind turned to the part of herself she kept separate. Like a stone, it sat silent and cold and heavy in her stomach, absorbing neither heat nor light, reflecting only itself.
“Tell me something,” she said, wary of the conversation now, leading things carefully away from where they couldn’t go.
“Whatever you want.”
She propped herself up on an elbow, the curve of her hip outlined in light from the street. “What does a Pulitzer mean for a journalist’s career?”
He chuckled. “Good question. Probably nothing. If I wanted to leave Boston, maybe I could go to the Times.”
“But you don’t want to leave Boston.” She knew he’d never leave. For Kevin, Boston was Boston. And everything else wasn’t. Lisa didn’t feel that way, but, again, why get into it? Especially now. Somewhere a cell phone rang, a soft purr coming from the general vicinity of the couch.
“I think that’s mine.” She dug around in the cushions until she found her phone. “Gotta take this.” She retreated down the apartment’s short hallway, dropping her voice to a whisper. After another minute, she returned and started picking up clothes off the floor.
“What is it?” Kevin said, climbing to his feet and stretching.
“Remember I wanted to talk to you about something in the Sevens?”
“One of your cases.”
“A girl was murdered last night. I can’t go into all the details, but it’s a big-time heater.”
“And you need my help?”
She stopped collecting clothes and turned to face him. “What if I did?”
“Like I said, it’s a violation of the rules.”
“But you’d be willing to make an exception?”
“I’d be willing to make a trade.”
She pulled him close, kissing him hungrily and running a rough nail across his cheek. Then she escaped into the bathroom, leaving him alone in the living room, half naked and bathed in a pale splinter of light.
Normally he’d have followed her right into the shower, but Kevin could tell she was wired for work. And, for the first time, she’d actually asked for his help. So he threw on a T-shirt and went into the kitchen to make coffee. They’d worked out the rules after three months together. She’d treat him like any other journalist in the city. No special access to anything coming out of the D.A.’s office. And it was a two-way street. If he dug up some dirt, she wouldn’t expect to know until it hit the papers. Lisa had been the one who’d pushed for the Chinese wall. Now, for some reason, she wanted to tear the thing down.
“Hey.” Her voice was muffled. Kevin walked back to the bathroom and cracked the door. The room was heating up and covered in a thin layer of mist.
“Yeah.”
Lisa stuck her head out of the shower. “You making coffee?”
“Got a pot brewing. So what is it about your case that can’t wait until morning?”
“They got some of the preliminary forensic work back.”
“And it can’t wait until morning?”
Lisa shrugged and slipped back behind the shower curtain. “It’s DeMateo. He said he needed me so I go.”
Frank DeMateo was the district attorney for Suffolk County and Lisa’s boss.
“You want a ride?”
“I’ll just jump in a cab, but you can do me one favor.”
“What’s that?”
“My briefcase is in the living room. There’s a zippered pocket on the outside. Can you check and see if my ID’s in there? If I left it at work, it’s gonna be a pain in the ass getting into my building without it.”
Kevin found her briefcase on the floor near the front door. He sat down on the couch and checked the pocket, but there was no ID. He opened the case, pulled out a couple of files, and dug around. Her ID was wedged at the very bottom, underneath a Snickers bar and a small makeup bag. Kevin stared at the picture of his girl, smart, smiling, beautiful, and about to burst with the fullness of it all. And this was her work ID. Kevin shook his head and swore to himself. His work ID looked like something out of the fucking Book of Revelation. And not the good Revelations, either. He started to shove files back into the briefcase. The last one was older, dog-eared, with a torn green cover and a typed label that read: HOMICIDE—1975. Underneath was the name of the victim: CURTIS JORDAN. Kevin felt his heart double pump in his chest and listened to the water from Lisa’s shower, running like a dark, distant river. He followed the sound back to the bathroom and cracked the door again. The room was draped in steam now, her voice issuing from somewhere within its folds.
“Did you find it?”
“I did. How much longer you gonna be?”
“Five, ten minutes. Why?”
“Nothing. Coffee’s ready.”
“Thanks.”
He started to leave.
“Kevin?”
“Yeah?”
A pause. “You all right?”
“Sure. Just sucks you gotta head out in the middle of the night.”
“I’m sorry, babe. It’s a messed-up case. I’ll explain it all later.”
Kevin closed the door and walked into the living room. They kept a small printer/copier on the floor by the desk. He powered it up and flipped through the first few pages of th
e old murder file. Phrases jumped out at him. “Deceased, twenty-six-year-old male, found on floor.” “Cause of death: Thirty-eight-caliber gunshot wound to the chest.” “Postmortem contact wound: Twenty-two caliber to the head.” “Homicide: Unsolved.”
Outside, the city was painted in shivering pinpricks of light. Inside, a radiator started to spit and the walls seemed to thump and swell. Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart” ran through his head like a cold dream and Kevin wondered if that wasn’t his fate. He wiped his hands and laid the old file down on the desk. Lisa’s laptop was open and running. A picture of the two of them at a Sox game served as her screensaver. He hit a button and the smiling faces dissolved into her e-mail browser. The latest message in her in-box was from her office and carried the subject heading: CURTIS JORDAN. Kevin opened it. The message was brief.
ATTACHED IS THE BALLISTICS REPORT WE TALKED ABOUT. CALL ME. F. DEMATEO
He opened up the report and hit print without reading it. Down the hall, the water was still running. After the report finished printing, he pulled out the file on Jordan. He’d copied maybe fifteen pages when the water stopped. Kevin turned off the printer and returned the file to Lisa’s briefcase. She was toweling off when he walked back into the bedroom with coffee. He sat on the bed and watched as she got dressed—jeans and a loose-fitting Harvard sweatshirt.
“Coffee’s good,” Lisa said and lifted her mug.
“How long you think you’ll be?”
“Dunno. Hopefully not all night.” She straddled him on the bed and cradled his face in her hands. “I’m so proud of you, Kev.”
“Thanks.”
“I mean it. I feel like we’re in this great place . . .”
“And?”
“And I don’t want anything to screw it up.”
“What could screw it up?”
“Nothing. I’m just saying.” She leaned in to kiss him, the scent of lemon clinging to her hair and skin. “I gotta go.”
“You gonna tell me about your case?”
“When I get back.”
He walked her to the front door, then watched from the window as she climbed in a cab and disappeared down the hill. It was nearly midnight as he settled on the couch with his coffee and started to read—about a man he’d shot in the head twenty-six years earlier.
The phone jumped at a little after four in the morning. Kevin was lying on the couch, counting cracks in the ceiling. He let it ring twice, then picked up.
“Yeah?”
“Did I wake you?” Lisa’s voice sounded hollow and echoed down the line.
“Not really.” Kevin swung his feet to the floor. “How’s it going?”
“These people are idiots.”
“Who’s that?”
“Take your pick. You know what, it doesn’t matter. I need to ask a favor.”
“What’s that?”
“I need you to come down here. Tonight. Right now.”
“To your office?”
“To Brighton, Kevin. You gotta come to Brighton and you can’t tell a soul.”
He knew he’d go. And knew he was going to lie to her. It wasn’t something he wanted to do. And it wouldn’t end well. But he’d lie anyway, as she’d lied to him. Sometimes it was just how things worked out. So he wrote down the address she gave him and hung up. Then he went into their bedroom and got dressed.
17
THE LETTERS were each a yard and a half high, alternating neons of orange and pink, blazing away in the predawn darkness at the corner of North Beacon and Market Streets. Had they all been working they would have spelled DUNKIN DONUTS. Even short two “D”s and an “N,” the locals got the message. Kevin could see her as he pulled into the lot, set up at a table by the window. He ordered coffee and a honey-dipped doughnut from the sleepy-eyed woman behind the counter and made his way over. The reports he’d pilfered from Lisa’s briefcase and computer were tucked inside his jacket pocket. He touched them with one hand as he slid in across from her.
“You all right?” she said, taking a sip from a cup kissed with lipstick.
“I haven’t been working a murder all night.”
“I get the feeling you don’t like to come back here.”
“Brighton used to be home to the city’s slaughterhouses.”
“Really?”
“Yep.” Kevin gestured to the empty stretch of street running past their window. “Drove the cattle right down Market and butchered them along the river. Less than a half mile from where we’re sitting.”
“Yikes.”
“The poet in me would say you can still smell the blood . . . especially if you grew up here.”
“But?”
“Brighton’s like anywhere else. Got its rough edges, got its skeletons. And like everyone else in this city, they think they’re the shit and everyone else is from hunger.” Kevin took a bite of the honey-dipped and dropped it back on its piece of wax paper. “Fucking heaven. You want a bite?”
Lisa shook her head.
“Suit yourself. You know this is the busiest Dunkin’ Donuts in the country?”
“No kidding?”
“Assholes down in Weymouth say they’re number one, but fuck them. It’s Weymouth, for Chrissakes. Besides, this place is open twenty-four seven.” Kevin took another bite and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “So you gonna tell me why we’re here?”
Lisa turned the coffee cup in her hands and avoided his eyes as she spoke. “I’m gonna share something with you. Something no one but me, you, and maybe a dozen other people know. And it’s not something you can report.”
“If it’s a story, I’d rather not know. That way if I get something on my own . . .”
“You can run with it and be a big hero. That’s not what this is, Kevin. Not now.”
The server glanced up from her work. Kevin waved her off and she went back to rearranging the jimmies on a tray of frosted doughnuts. Lisa massaged her temple with two fingers and dropped her voice. “Sorry, long night.”
Everyone downtown knew she was a star. Fuck that, a megastar. Lisa’s problem was she viewed the world as a meritocracy. If you were smarter than her, then lead. If you weren’t, then get out of the way. And no one in the D.A.’s office was as smart as Lisa. Needless to say, the white men she worked with trembled in her considerable wake. And fucked with her every chance they got.
“You need some rest,” Kevin said.
“Yeah.”
He touched the back of her hand. “Look, if you want this off the record, it’s off.”
“Thanks, babe.”
“Not a problem. Now, tell me about your murder. I’m assuming it happened in Brighton?”
“A black woman was strangled and knifed in a house that was being built on Radnor Road. You know where that is?”
“Sure.”
“We gave the story to the press late yesterday afternoon. Normally, it would be a one-day hit.”
“But not this one?”
“We withheld the ID on the victim. And the exact location.”
“Why?”
She shook her head. “I can’t get into all that, but some people working the case wanted a little time with the evidence before we gave the name to the press.”
“Who’s handling the scene?”
“Good question. Boston P.D.’s on-site as the primary, along with the state police. It was your typical big-dick contest until the governor’s office called.”
“The governor?”
“They requested that the D.A.’s office pursue an independent line of investigation, at least for the time being.”
“Who died, Lis?”
She nodded at what was left of the doughnut in front of Kevin. “You about done?”
He popped the last bite in his mouth and drained his coffee. She was already on her feet. “Let’s take a drive.”
They left the Dunkin’ Donuts and headed up Market. The sky was just beginning to lighten and streetlights marked the way with soft splashes of light.
“Where
are you going?” Lisa said.
“Thought I’d swing by Radnor. Just take a look.”
“Not a great idea. They’ve got a couple of unmarked cars taking down the tag numbers of anyone who shows an interest.”
“Scratch Radnor. Where would you like to go?”
“Just drive.”
Kevin rumbled up Chestnut Hill Avenue, bumped over the streetcar tracks, and swung a left onto Commonwealth Avenue.
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