by David Hosp
“And what are you finding?”
“So far, only the invisible kind.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Not even an unpaid parking ticket. If this guy is doing something wrong, he’s being very discreet about it.” Flaherty noticed that her partner looked surprised. “I’m serious. Even when he was in the private sector he had the reputation of being a principled real estate developer.”
“There’s an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one.”
“No shit, but that’s his reputation.”
“How about his way with the ladies? Any possibility he and Natalie Caldwell were more than just committee members together?”
“It’s always possible, but I can’t find anything that would suggest it. He’s been married to Emily Worthington Clarke for twenty-five years, and I can’t find any hint of infidelity. Even if there were, I’m not sure it’s the kind of thing he’d kill over. I mean, it’s almost expected from a guy like him. I doubt a little extracurricular dabbling would hurt him politically.” Flaherty shook her head in frustration. “I’m hitting nothing but dead ends. How about you?”
Kozlowski smiled. “I had better luck. It seems as though our friend Mr. Loring may have a few things to hide. For instance, it turns out he was more involved in the Bulger case than the media ever let on. He worked hand in hand with Connolly in developing relationships with mob snitches. He even met with Bulger a number of times over the years when he was still being protected by the feds.”
“Wow,” Flaherty exclaimed. “He certainly managed to keep that out of the news, didn’t he?”
Kozlowski nodded. “That’s not all. Apparently, Loring was developing other snitches on his own—high-level snitches in the various organized gangs in Boston. Some of those he kept secret from everyone else over at the Justice Department. As a result, no one over there seems to have a clear idea about how deep Loring was into these gangs. Apparently, the kinds of guys he’d lined up were into some really bad shit. Some people he used to work with in the government think he may still be in contact with these people—and that he might have turned dirty.”
“If Natalie Caldwell had the evidence to prove those kinds of allegations, it would certainly provide a good motive for murder, wouldn’t it?”
Kozlowski agreed. “You should also know that he considers himself a bit of an office Casanova. He likes his women young, and apparently a couple have even liked him back.”
Flaherty made a face. “I’ve seen him in action myself. It’s not pretty.”
“So, with Loring we’ve got a possible love-interest angle as well.”
Flaherty shook her head in disgust. “Loring seems to be a better suspect than Clarke. Damn, maybe I should reconsider Clarke’s job offer.”
Kozlowski mused for a moment. “It’s a great opportunity,” he said. “And I can’t think of anyone who’d be better for the job than you. How long did he give you to get back to him?”
“I can probably put him off for a couple of days, but no longer.”
“All right, then. Let’s get this case wrapped up before then so you can make up your mind without worrying you might be working for a murderer.”
Flaherty smiled. “That would be nice, wouldn’t it?”
Just then the phone rang. She picked it up. “Flaherty,” she said.
“Linda, it’s Finn,” came the familiar voice on the other end of the line.
Flaherty looked up at Kozlowski and mouthed the word Finn. “Yes, Finn, what is it?” she said into the phone.
“I need to talk to you. I think I may have figured out who killed Natalie.”
She paused, wondering if he was on the level. “Well, do you want to give me a clue?” she asked tentatively.
“Not over the phone,” Finn replied. “Look, I’m at work now. Can you meet me at my apartment? I need to explain this to you in person.”
“When?”
“As soon as possible. Now?”
Flaherty looked at her watch. It was six-thirty in the evening. “Okay, I’ll be over as soon as I can,” she said.
Finn was relieved. “Thank you. You won’t be sorry. I’ll get out of here as soon as possible.”
Flaherty hesitated. “I’m not going to wait in front of your house, Finn,” she said, somewhat annoyed.
“Please,” Finn pleaded. “I need to talk to you. If I’m not there when you arrive, you can let yourself in and wait in the apartment. There’s a key hidden in a slot underneath the mailbox.”
Flaherty checked her watch again and sighed. “All right, I’ll see you shortly.” She hung up the phone and looked over at her partner with a raised eyebrow. “He says he’s solved the murder.”
“This should be interesting,” Kozlowski said. “You want me to tag along?”
She shook her head. “I have a feeling he’ll be more comfortable sharing whatever information he has if it’s just me. You two have never seemed particularly close.”
Kozlowski chuckled. “Still holding out hope for a romance, eh, Lieutenant?”
“He’s not such a bad guy, Koz. If he’s cleared in this case, I think you may actually grow to like him.”
“Yeah, just remember that he hasn’t been cleared yet. Be careful when you’re dealing with this guy. You’ve seen his record.”
“I love it when you worry about me, Dad.”
“Hey, I’m not worried about you. Weidel is looking for an excuse to kick both of us off the force, and if you get yourself killed, I’m sure he’ll blame it on me and try to have my pension taken away.”
“Your concern is heartwarming.”
“Just telling it like it is.”
Finn hung up the phone and looked at Bostick. “She said she’d meet me,” he said.
“Good,” Bostick said. “But do you think she’ll believe you? That’s the real question, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know. I can only lay out what we’ve discovered. She’ll have to make up her own mind.”
Bostick nodded. “Well, this is where I bow out. Are you going to take these lists with you?” he asked, pointing to the notes they’d taken listing Huron’s phantom employees.
Finn shook his head. “No, I’m locking those in the drawer of my desk so I can find them later. I’ll make copies for Linda once I see what her reaction is to this information.”
“Linda? ” Bostick smiled. “Even when I was on the force, I never heard anyone call her anything other than ‘Detective,’ or maybe ‘Detective Lieutenant.’ How is it you get to call her ‘Linda’?”
“Don’t ask,” Finn said. “Come on, I’ll walk you to the door.” They walked out of the conference room and headed toward the elevator bank. They were halfway there when Finn heard someone calling him.
“Finn! Finn!” came the voice from behind them. He turned and saw Preston Holland coming toward them. To his horror, he also saw that Tony McGuire was behind Holland. “Finn, glad we caught you,” Preston said as he approached the two. He was brought up short when he noticed the bruises on Finn’s face. “Good God, son, what happened to you?”
Finn had almost forgotten about his appearance. “I got elbowed in a basketball game and did a face-plant into the floor,” he said lamely. Fortunately, Holland was preoccupied and just nodded sympathetically. By then, McGuire was standing next to them as well.
“Mr. McGuire, this is Peter Bostick, one of our private investigators. Pete, Mr. McGuire is the head of Huron Security.”
Bostick’s face was as white as a sheet as he held out a reluctant hand to McGuire. “Pleased to meet you,” he croaked.
McGuire nodded as he regarded Bostick with suspicion.
“I didn’t even know you were working on this case with us, Peter,” Holland commented. Then he laughed as he looked over at McGuire. “I guess I’ve got to pay closer attention to the bills I send you, eh, Tony. Well, in any case, Mr. Bostick is one of our best, so you’d be getting a bargain.”
“I was just doing a favor for Finn,” Bostick said.
“It wasn’t related to the Tannery case,” Finn added quickly. “Then I feel better,” Preston said, winking at McGuire. “Finn, we had a couple of quick questions about this settlement Barnolk has proposed. Can we trouble you for a moment?”
“Sure,” Finn said. “You can show yourself out, can’t you, Peter?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” Bostick replied, already moving toward the elevators.
“Why don’t we go sit in my office,” Holland said as he, Finn, and McGuire walked in the other direction down the hall.
McGuire was looking back over his shoulder at Bostick as he hurried into an elevator. “What sort of investigation was he doing for you?” he asked Finn, gesturing toward Bostick.
“Nothing that important,” Finn replied. “He owed me a favor and I needed a little help with something.”
McGuire’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Finn. Then he smiled icily, sending shivers down Finn’s spine. “It’s always good to have some favors to call in.”
Chapter Fifty-five
IT TOOK NEARLY AN hour for Finn to meet with Preston and McGuire regarding the settlement, and he had trouble concentrating the entire time. Preston made clear that he expected Finn to take the lead in drafting the settlement agreement, and gave him detailed instructions on how it should be structured, but Finn’s mind was elsewhere. He knew that he needed to get moving if he was going to meet Flaherty at his apartment.
Once he was released from the meeting, he hurried along the streets of Boston, back to his car parked near the office. He had to get to Flaherty to tell her what he’d discovered. How she reacted would determine his next move. He couldn’t think that far ahead now, though.
It was nearing seven-thirty, and the sun had set to the west of the city, the glow on the horizon in that direction fading to light purple, then to blue, then to black in the east. It was the time of day and time of year Finn liked best. He could feel the wave of barometric pressure cresting and readying itself to crash upon the land, making way for the crisp, clean air of the fall. It felt like everything was coming to a head, and the world was preparing itself for a rebirth. Who knows, he thought, maybe Townsend was right. Maybe the apocalypse is upon us and the crescendo of the summer will bring with it a new biblical era. If that were to happen, Finn would need his answer to give to God. He was close, he knew, but he still needed closure. He owed it to Natalie.
Bostick lived in a small one-bedroom in the heart of Chinatown, only a couple of blocks from Linda Flaherty’s loft, and a few more from the Kiss Club. He’d stopped into Coogan’s Pub on his way home to grab a beer and calm down. The run-in with McGuire had shaken him, and he needed to be around other people for a while, even if it was in the anonymity of a crowded bar.
The first beer felt so good that he ordered two more in a half hour, letting the alcohol ease him into the evening. By the time the third beer had settled in his stomach, he was feeling better, and he decided to make his way home to grab some dinner. He slapped a ten-dollar bill on the bar, thanked Tommy, the bartender, and headed out.
Bostick could feel the pressure in the air, too. It was summer’s last great gasp, as a wall of heavy, humid air pushed in from the northwest. This should be the last of the heat, he thought, looking forward to the crisper days of autumn.
The entrance to his apartment was in an alley off Atlantic Avenue, and he felt even better as soon as he made the turn into the narrow passageway. It was good to be home, he thought. He hadn’t done anything he considered dangerous since the day he left the police force, and even while he was a cop, he’d never been in any really life-threatening position. As a result, the day’s discoveries had been stressful, and he was looking forward to relaxing on his couch and watching a ball game.
He walked up the creaky wooden stairs that led to his apartment door—a remnant of the days when the building had been full of tenements, each housing several families of Asian immigrants. As he stood on the platform at the top of the stairs fumbling for his keys, he heard a creak behind him. It was an odd sound, as if the weight on the planks had somehow doubled. He might have turned around to look behind him, if only out of curiosity, but there was no time. He felt the steel of a silencer behind his ear, and before he realized what it was, he heard the muffled pop of the gun going off. Then everything was dark.
The killer stood over Bostick’s slumped body in the alley in Chinatown. He looked down at the trickle of blood that ran from the back of the investigator’s head, over his collar, and down onto the wooden stairs. There was less of it than he expected, probably because the wound was instantly fatal and Bostick’s heart was no longer forcing blood through his veins.
Then the killer raised his arm and fired a second shot into Bostick’s head, just to be sure.
Chapter Fifty-six
FLAHERTY ARRIVED AT FINN’S apartment before he returned. She knocked several times before taking the key from under the mailbox and letting herself in.
She felt guilty being in his apartment when he wasn’t there, but he’d told her where the key was. She sat on the sofa in the living room for a few minutes, reasoning that as long as she was anchored in one spot, she’d be less tempted to snoop through the dwelling, as was her natural inclination. After a few moments, however, the stillness of the apartment and her own curiosity got the better of her, and she felt the need to stand up and move around.
She walked over to the living room windows to admire the view. Law firm life must be treating Finn all right, financially speaking, she surmised. The apartment had one of the best vantages she could remember seeing. It was a corner unit, and one side looked directly out at the Bunker Hill Monument, a granite spike identical in shape to the Washington Monument in D.C., only smaller. It rose from the top of the hill like some confirmation of conquest, overshadowing all of the other structures in Charlestown. The other side of the apartment looked down the hill toward the water. The tips of U.S.S. Constitution’s masts were just visible from the window, down by the pier at the naval shipyard.
Flaherty took in the views then drifted around the living room, examining the various artifacts with an investigator’s idle interest and analytical judgment. The room was sparsely decorated. The couch was a modern leather model with clean lines that cut in front of a glass coffee table. A low-backed armchair upholstered in an expensive designer fabric sat to one side of the sofa, with an end table in between. Facing the couch, two carved wooden chairs completed the set with a standing lamp in the middle.
The walls were largely bare. A few modern prints hung in those spaces that would otherwise have been too blank to suggest a life of any fullness, but they felt generic. Their colors were bold and matched the rugs and walls perfectly, as if a decorator had chosen them. Flaherty wondered if Finn had dated an interior designer at some point. It would certainly explain a lot, she thought. None of the furnishings seemed to reflect Finn, except insofar as they put her in mind of a man searching for an identity to be comfortable with. From what Flaherty knew of Finn’s past, the image didn’t really surprise her.
She moved from the living room to the kitchen, flipping on the lights as she went. The impact as she entered the room almost blinded her. Everything was bright white—the walls, the floors, the counters, the appliances—all of it so bright that it reflected the light painfully. It made her think briefly of the sterile atmosphere in John Townsend’s basement, and she almost felt the need to leave. Instead, she made her way over to the refrigerator, opening the door with a notion of foreboding she couldn’t explain.
It was almost empty. There were just a few condiments lingering on the door, lonely and forgotten. A few cans of diet Coke and several bottles of beer were pushed to the back on one shelf, and there was a half-eaten pizza still in its box.
Not much of a chef, she thought.
She closed the refrigerator door and stood upright. She should go back into the living room and sit quietly until Finn got back, she knew. She should respect his privacy and end her snoopin
g, but that just seemed too difficult. She needed to know more about him. As much as she fought to deny it, she had strong feelings for this man, and that didn’t happen very often. She needed to know what it was she’d seen in him that captured her attention, and whether there was any chance to sustain those feelings. She wanted it to happen, but she needed more information about him. The rooms she’d seen so far were blank slates, yielding nothing.
She stood for a long moment, in an ethical quandary. And then, finally, she shook her head in disgust and walked out of the kitchen, through the living room, and down the hallway toward the bedroom.
When Flaherty got to the bedroom door, she paused. She flipped on the light and stood at the threshold, hesitant, looking around the room. As with the living room, the decor was sparse, but it felt less forced to her. A queen-size bed stood against the far wall, covered in sheets and a bedspread of simple country design. The bed had been made up haphazardly, simply by pulling the covers up to the top of the mattress. Beside it was a nightstand with a brass light and an old-fashioned alarm clock. A book was lying next to the light, and Flaherty walked over to take a look at it. The Great Gatsby. She opened it and flipped through the pages.
There was a dresser against the near wall at the foot of the bed, but the surface was clean and devoid of any objects of interest. In the corner there was a battered old six-string guitar leaning on a stand. The walls were bare except for a small mirror above the dresser, hardly large enough for Flaherty to see her entire face in.
Is this it? Was this all there was to the man who’d so affected her? It seemed like there should be so much more. Something was missing, like he was only part of a person. Something primal and necessary was conspicuously absent, but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was, exactly. Then, all of a sudden, it hit her.
Pictures.
There were no pictures in the entire apartment—at least none she’d seen so far. Not a snapshot of friends at a party; not a memento from a trip hanging on the refrigerator; not a single image that would betray any sense of Finn’s past or any connection to another human being.