by David Hosp
“Thank you. You did really good work out there. I know it wasn’t easy.”
“No, it wasn’t. But it’s part of the job, isn’t it?” He shook his head. “I should have gone into real estate.” He turned to head back out, then stopped and turned back to Flaherty. “I haven’t even asked yet,” he said. “Where is he?”
She hesitated. “He’s at Mass General,” she said after a pause. “They had to take two slugs out of his shoulder, and he lost a lot of blood, but they think he’s going to make it. We’ll get to interrogate him in the morning. It might be useful to have you there, so that you can hear what his story is.”
Stone nodded, then headed down the hallway toward the men’s locker room.
Chapter Thirty
MAN, THIS PLACE IS CRAZY, Finn thought as he walked into the station house for Area A-1. There were reporters everywhere, some setting up cameras and lights, others scribbling notes into floppy, well-worn notebooks, and still others scurrying to interview any cop at any level who was willing to talk.
“Excuse me,” he said to the desk sergeant. The cop didn’t hear Finn, or perhaps he’d heard him and was simply ignoring him. “Excuse me!” Finn said again, louder this time.
“Yeah, what the hell do you want, buddy?” the big, thick-jawed man responded.
“I need to speak to Lieutenant Flaherty,” Finn said politely. He hoped that by using Flaherty’s name he might get some deference. He was wrong. The desk sergeant just laughed.
“Yeah? You and everyone else in this place, I guess. Who are you with?” he asked.
“What?” Finn asked, not comprehending.
The desk sergeant looked impatient. He was a huge man in his late fifties, with a prodigious gut that folded over his thick police utility belt, making it difficult for him to get too close to the desk. “What outfit are you with?” he asked again. “The Globe? The Herald? ABC? NBC? Who?”
Finn shook his head. “I’m not a reporter, I’m a lawyer.”
The desk sergeant’s glare became hostile. “You’re not representing this scumbag, are you?” he asked, pointing a thick finger at Finn’s nose.
“What scumbag?” Finn asked. Then he thought better of engaging the sergeant; the man clearly had a bias against lawyers. He shook his head, waiving the question off. “I’m helping Lieutenant Flaherty on a case. She asked me to put together some information and drop it off.”
The sergeant looked only slightly less suspicious. “What’s your name?” he demanded, leaning over the counter and putting his jowly face too close to Finn’s.
“Scott Finn,” he replied.
The sergeant picked up the phone and pushed a button, then turned around as he spoke into the receiver so that Finn couldn’t hear. After a moment, he turned back around and hung up. Without uttering a word to Finn, he went back to his paperwork.
“Excuse me?” Finn said politely again. The sergeant looked up, obviously perturbed. “Should I go in, or what?”
“I didn’t tell you to go in, did I? You’re supposed to wait out here and she’ll be out in a little while.”
“Did she say how long it would be?” Finn asked. He was pushing his luck, he knew, but he had to get to work.
The sergeant rolled his eyes. “No, buddy, she didn’t say. Things are a little hectic around here today, so you’ll forgive us if you’re not exactly our first priority at the moment.”
“I noticed. What’s going on?”
The police officer frowned at Finn, as if in disbelief. “Didn’t you listen to the news this morning? We caught the guy. We caught the Little Jack bastard who’s been killing the whores.”
Finn felt his heart skip a beat. “Caught him?” He couldn’t believe it. He had no idea how to react. “When did you catch him?”
“Last night. He killed another girl, but we got him. Put a couple holes in him, too. Enough to put him on his ass at Mass General.”
“How did you catch him? Is Lieutenant Flaherty all right?” A thousand questions streamed through Finn’s head.
“What am I, your own personal news service? Why don’t you pick up a paper and read about it? In the meantime, you can wait over there. I got a lot of work to do, and I don’t have time to hold your hand.”
Finn walked over to the corner and sat in an empty seat. All around him, the room buzzed with activity as reporters mined their sources for any nugget of information they could get their hands on. A television journalist began filing a report from inside the precinct house, only to be shut down and told to go outside by several large, surly officers. Finn noticed none of it, though. He sat dumbstruck, trying to work through the implications of the arrest. He’d lain awake nights over the past weeks, wondering what he’d do if they found Natalie’s killer. He’d played out a thousand fantasy scenarios in which he found a way to get close to the man and kill him with his bare hands. He’d never do it, but that didn’t make the fantasies any less satisfying.
He looked down at his hands in his lap. The list of Natalie’s political contacts was typed neatly and folded into an envelope. Linda probably won’t need this anymore, he thought. He was sorry he hadn’t been more help in catching the bastard. Maybe he should just leave. He wasn’t needed anymore, and Linda would contact him if there was anything more he could do. He should leave, he knew, but he couldn’t seem to get his legs to work. In part, he wanted more information about the man they’d arrested. In part, he just wanted to see Linda again. They’d made a connection, and he wasn’t willing to give that up, at least not yet.
He must have been sitting there for fifteen minutes before she came out. She was flanked by the Neanderthal—Kozlowski was his name, Finn remembered—and a younger officer Finn had never seen before. They were moving quickly as they came into the room, heading out the front door, but they were immediately swarmed by a mass of reporters shouting questions. The mob slowed them down, but Kozlowski and the other man locked arms in front of Linda, forming a wedge that drove through the wall of microphones and Dictaphones. Finn stood up, but hung back from the crowd, unsure what to do. He could see Linda over the bobbing heads of the reporters, and he waved to her, but her head was down as they pushed their way through. Halfway through the room the crowd of bodies became too thick, and even the wedge of muscle leading Linda was not enough to make significant headway. That was when Kozlowski pulled out his gun.
Finn was shocked when he saw it. Having met Kozlowski before, he feared the man wasn’t pulling it out for show, but actually intended to shoot someone. The reporters must have had the same thought, because there was a collective gasp, and those closest to the officers immediately backpedaled. Instead, though, Kozlowski pointed the gun up in the air, as if he intended to fire a warning shot. The room got much quieter after the initial shouts of alarm from the press corps, and Kozlowski began giving orders.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” he shouted. “This is a police station, and we are charged with protecting the public safety! We will not have that role jeopardized by a press mob in the station house! We are not giving any statements at this time about any ongoing investigations, but there will be a press conference later this afternoon outside the station, at which time Lieutenant Flaherty will take a limited number of questions. Until then, please clear out of here and let us do our jobs!” He motioned to the desk sergeant, who gave a hand signal to those behind him. An instant later, several large uniformed officers materialized and began pushing the press corps back. There were initial protests, and Finn could hear the squeals of “First Amendment” from those being pushed, but they were to no avail, and within a minute or two the room was largely cleared out.
One of the uniformed officers moved over toward Finn with a menacing look. He had his nightstick out and was using it as a battering ram. “Clear out!” he shouted as he got close.
“Oh, no,” Finn tried to explain, “I’m not a reporter.”
The officer looked him up and down, still skeptical. “Who are you, then?” he asked.
�
�My name is Scott Finn. Lieutenant Flaherty asked me to stop by and drop off some information.” He decided he was better off not identifying himself as an attorney.
The officer narrowed his eyes and held out his hand. “Give it to me, and I’ll make sure she gets it,” he said.
“I’m sorry, she asked me to give it to her personally,” Finn explained. He was polite but firm, and the officer stared at him for a moment longer, debating whether a battle of wills was worth his time. In the end, he relented and turned toward the middle of the room.
“Lieutenant! There’s a guy over here who says you wanted to talk to him!” he shouted.
Flaherty saw Finn and nodded. “It’s okay, Jimmy!” she yelled back. She turned and said something to Kozlowski and the other man, and then walked over toward Finn. Finn could see the younger man talking to Kozlowski, gesturing toward Finn as Flaherty walked over. “What are you doing here?” she asked. He was thankful, at least, that she was smiling.
“You asked me to drop this off,” he replied, showing her the envelope. “It’s a list of all the politicos Natalie knew or worked with.” Finn noticed she wasn’t reaching for it. “It may be moot, now,” he said, sounding disappointed.
“No,” she said, taking the envelope. “We may as well have all the information. But you’re right, we think we’ve got our guy.”
“Yeah, I just heard. That’s terrific,” he replied. “I guess you won’t be needing my help anymore.”
“Probably not, but I’ll let you know what’s going on as soon as we’re sure ourselves. We’re going to interview him right now.”
“What do you know about him?”
Flaherty hesitated. “We’re not releasing any information at this point,” she said.
“I understand.” Finn backed off.
“I’ll let you know what we have as soon as I can, but I’ve got to go now.”
“That’s okay, we can talk later,” he said. She nodded and started to walk away. Finn wanted to say more, so much more, but it didn’t feel like the right time. He couldn’t just let her walk away, though. “Linda!” he called out.
She turned around and looked at him, taking two steps back in his direction as he caught up with her. “What is it?” she asked.
“I know you’re going to be swamped for the next week or two, and I’m not going to bother you, because you need to focus on what’s going on here. But sometime after that, once you’re starting to put this behind you, do you think we could have dinner again?”
She smiled. “I think I’d like that,” she said. She looked over her shoulder and saw Kozlowski and Stone staring at them. “I’ll call you,” she said quickly.
He nodded, and she turned to go. This time he let her. He knew somehow he’d see her again.
Flaherty caught up to Kozlowski and Stone as they headed out the door. The two men exchanged a look. “What was he doing here?” Kozlowski asked.
“I asked him to put together a list of possible suspects for the Caldwell woman’s older boyfriend. He was just dropping it off.”
“You sure he wasn’t just looking to get some information about the investigation?”
“He didn’t even know we caught the guy until he got here.”
“He doesn’t read the paper?” Kozlowski scoffed. “He doesn’t listen to the news?”
“I don’t know. He was on his way to work. Maybe he doesn’t read the paper until he gets in. Who knows? What difference does it make?” Kozlowski shook his head, which pissed her off even more. “What’s up your ass about this guy, Kozlowski?”
Kozlowski nodded at Stone. “Tell her,” he instructed.
Stone shrugged his shoulders and looked at Flaherty. “He was the guy from the bar,” he said.
“What bar?” Flaherty asked.
“The Kiss Club. He’s the guy from the Kiss Club. He knocked around a hooker who looked like the Caldwell woman a few nights ago. I reported it at the time, but I couldn’t catch up with him to get any sort of ID. The man you were just talking to is the guy I saw that night, though.”
Flaherty took a deep breath and tried not to show any emotion. “You’re sure?” she asked.
Stone nodded. “I got a really good look at him.”
The three of them walked in silence toward the parking garage. No one knew what to say.
“I thought you should know,” Kozlowski said at last. “Sorry.”
“Yeah,” Flaherty responded. “Me too.” I knew it was too good to be true, she thought.
Chapter Thirty-one
MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL WAS only a few short blocks from the station house, but the ride seemed to last forever. Stone sat in the backseat, his hands gripping each other in his lap as the muscles tensed up and down his arms. He still hadn’t come to grips with the evil he’d confronted only a few hours before.
In the front seat, Kozlowski sat behind the wheel, picking his way through traffic on the busy streets that ran along the back side of Beacon Hill. To him, the arrest of Little Jack was just another minor success in the ongoing struggle to hold back the tidal waters of depravity that were a constant force in life. He’d long ago given up any notion of “winning” the war against crime, opting instead to take solace in small victories.
Flaherty sat in the passenger seat, looking out the windows at nothing in particular. She was focused inward, watching a reel of regrets and calculations play out on the screen in her mind. This was a significant moment in her career, she knew. She’d been given the lead role in catching the most notorious murderer in Boston in the past thirty years, and she’d succeeded. Never mind that the success had precious little to do with her leadership, and was more the result of a wild rookie hunch combined with a search and seizure that was probably illegal. That wouldn’t matter, she knew. She’d get the lion’s share of the credit. Those ahead of her in the political pecking order—Weidel, the commissioner, the mayor, the governor— would each take their slice of recognition off the top, but her reputation was now guaranteed.
Why then did she feel empty—like an impostor living off lies and waiting to be unmasked? To her, the Caldwell case was still unsolved, and this latest revelation about Scott Finn had hit her like a baseball bat in the chest. She’d spent time with him and liked him. Hell, she’d kissed him. How could she have misjudged his character so badly?
For all her doubts about the Caldwell case, there was still a part of her that wanted to leave it all alone. Everyone in the city would be happy to lay the blame for the murders—including Caldwell’s—at the foot of the monster who’d been caught in the act of torture; torture so unspeakable that rational explanation could be overlooked. No one needed any more mystery in this case, she knew. She could let the whole thing drop and simply walk away from Finn, and no one would ever know about their dinner together, or the kiss.
She couldn’t do it, though. She had too many questions, and she was about to meet the one person who might be able to give her some of the answers.
They already had a working biography of Little Jack from the ten hours of investigation that had been conducted at his house. His name was John Townsend. The press would be thrilled that they could keep using “Jack” as the murderer’s name, Flaherty thought. He was a thirty-three-year-old lab technician who worked at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. He’d attended Tufts Medical School for two years in the late 1990s, but had dropped out after his parents died in a car crash that had left him with a broken arm. The house in which he lived— the house where he was caught—had been his parents’, and he’d inherited it after the accident.
All of this information, Flaherty knew, only provided the most basic outline of who Jack Townsend really was. It might be that they’d never know more. He might clam up and refuse to talk, and watch as the police and the “experts” and the public searched for some explanation to hold on to—something they could all make sense of.
But then again, he might let them in. That was what Flaherty was hoping. She was praying he’d be the
type of criminal who wanted people to understand him, or at least what he thought he was. That way, she might find out more about the other heinous things he had done. And she might get her answer about Natalie Caldwell.
These were her hopes as Flaherty stepped out of the car at Mass General and walked toward the entrance. Through the lobby and down a long corridor to the right was the Medical Detention Center, which treated patients who needed to be restrained for one reason or another. As she walked down the corridor toward John Townsend’s room, she had the distinct premonition that the surreal journey she’d begun a few months before was nowhere close to ending.
Chapter Thirty-two
HE LOOKED SO FRAIL. That was the overriding impression Flaherty had of Townsend. It almost made her laugh, but she reminded herself of what he’d done, and the humor faded. He was sitting upright quietly in his bed. His hospital gown was pulled off the shoulder where bandages covered the bullet wounds Stone had inflicted. His arms were at his sides, both attached by handcuffs at the wrists to the railings on the sides of the bed. The flop of sandy hair that he normally brushed forward was askew and stuck up from the top of his head like a rooster’s comb, revealing a shiny bald pate. He looked so calm and harmless as they opened the door that they thought they might have the wrong room.
He turned as they walked in, looking at each of them for a long moment before moving on. His expression didn’t change until he came to Stone. Then the slightest flicker of recognition flashed in his eyes, followed by a simple nod of his head, as though in respect.
“Mr. Townsend,” Flaherty began.
“John,” he said. “I prefer to be called John.”
“My name is Lieutenant Flaherty, John. This is my partner, Detective Kozlowski, and this is Officer Stone.”
“Yes, Officer Stone and I have met, haven’t we?” He looked at Stone with a placid smile. Stone shifted his feet uncomfortably and looked away. “We were never properly introduced, but it was Officer Stone who gave me this, I believe,” he said, nodding downward toward his shoulder.