Lesser Evils

by Joe Flanagan

  “Unless he can convince people that they found their way back to Massachusetts and into those tarps in the meantime.”

  “Nobody’s going to buy that. They’re going to want to review his inquiries down there, who he called, who he talked to, the whole thing. If it’s the Weekses, it’s gonna be too good to be true. I plan to call the district attorney as soon as I find out because I want to see Stasiak try to explain himself. I might see that the Standard Times gets a call, too, really give his ass a jolt when he sees it in the paper. And this would put the Elbow Room investigation in a completely different light, too.”

  “You need to get them ID’d, Ed. And you need to call Dunleavy. Don’t give them anything to hang you with.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ll do all that eventually. I have to call Jack Dowd.”

  “O.K. Call me when you know more.”

  Jenkins hung up the phone and turned to Roy Campo. “Roy, you think you can keep quiet about this for a day or so?”

  “What do you mean, do I think I can? Of course I can keep quiet. You think I want everyone to know they’re dumping bodies out here? Goddamn, how the hell did something like this wind up out here, anyhow?”

  Jenkins dialed the coroner’s office.

  “Jack.”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Ed Jenkins.”

  “Hello, detective.”

  “Jack, we have a couple of bodies out here at the dump.”

  “What?”

  “A couple of bodies. A woman and a girl. We think.”

  “At the dump?”

  “At the dump.”

  “Holy Jesus.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I said. Now, what we’d like to do is keep this quiet. We want to get them on ice while we try to find dental records and we don’t want the whole goddamn town going crazy over it.”

  “All right.”

  “You’re gonna need . . . I don’t know . . . Bags or something.”

  “What condition are they in?”

  “Bad. We got pieces. I won’t lie to you, Jack, it’s a hell of a mess.”

  “Can I get a vehicle in there?”

  “You can get part of the way. We can take them out to you in the shovel of the backhoe.”

  “O.K. You want pictures?”

  “Yeah, I guess we better take pictures.”

  Jenkins visited the old woman who lived next door to the Weekses. Through a broad line of questioning that would not arouse her suspicion, he got from her the name of the Weekses’ dentist and Jenkins paid him a visit at his practice in Centerville. He retrieved the records and brought them to Jack Dowd’s office. There was a small lavatory adjacent to the morgue, where he found Dowd leaning over the sink, scrubbing his hands. He planted a thumb over one nostril and blew mucus into the sink, then moved his thumb to the other side and repeated. Suddenly aware of Jenkins standing in the doorway he straightened up. “Sorry,” he said, and took a towel off the rack. He looked a little stunned. “Are those the dental records?”

  “Yes.”

  “These people were cut apart.”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “There are tool marks on the cartilage and bone. I’d ask you what’s going on but I know you won’t tell me.”

  “You’ll find out, Jack.”

  “Give them here. I’ll call you within the hour. Unless you want to wait around.”

  “Not really. So it’s a woman and a girl?”

  “Yes. I’m going to say thirty-five and eleven, respectively. Thereabouts. Strangled and dismembered.”

  “I’ll come back in an hour.”

  As Jenkins walked out to his car, he noticed a red and black Studebaker rolling slowly through the lot, the driver glancing in his direction. Jenkins went to a diner on Main Street and took a seat where he could watch the door. He had a cup of coffee and read the paper and then went back over to the hospital. As he approached the building, he spotted the Studebaker behind him again. When Jenkins turned into the lot, the car continued on. He found Jack Dowd sitting at his desk filling out forms. “Miriam and Doreen Weeks,” he said.

  “Goddamn,” Jenkins said. “Goddamn.”

  “This is good news?”

  “Yes—well, not for the Weekses, but yeah, it’s good news. Jack, thank you.” Jenkins shook the coroner’s hand. “I need to go see the DA.”

  On his way to the Barnstable courthouse, he watched for anyone who might be following him but he saw nothing suspicious. He parked down the street in front of a restaurant and walked to the courthouse, surveying his surroundings. He climbed the granite steps and signed in at the desk that guarded the suite of offices belonging to the district attorney. Elliott Yost was in a meeting with two men from his staff.

  “Tell him it’s important,” Jenkins told the secretary.

  “He’s requested that he not be disturbed.”

  “Oh, he’ll be disturbed all right.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Tell him to come out, honey. This is more important than his meeting.”

  She flopped her hands on her desk in an exasperated gesture and poked her head into Elliott’s office. She came back, shaking her head. “You’ll have to come back later.” Jenkins walked around her desk and went for Elliott’s office door.

  “Hey!” she said. “You can’t go in there!”

  Elliott and his two colleagues stared at Jenkins when he swung the door open. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Elliott, but we need to talk.”

  “I’m in a meeting!” Elliott said. “Vera!”

  “Elliott, we need to talk.”

  “You can’t just walk in here, detective.”

  “I know.”

  “Damn it. You people.” Elliott grabbed his jacket up off the back of his chair and followed Jenkins out. They went into the conference room next door. Elliott was furious.

  “What is it?”

  “The Weekses have been located.”

  “I know that.”

  “At the town dump. Wrapped up in tarps. Cut in pieces.”

  Jenkins told him about the discovery.

  “I don’t understand,” Elliott said.

  “I don’t either. Stasiak said he found them in Florida.”

  “I know what Stasiak said.”

  “I believe this is connected to a gambling and extortion racket that’s being operated out of the Elbow Room. I know you’ve got the child murders and everything but someone needs to investigate this.”

  “I know, I know. I can’t do it all at once.”

  “So let me take this case.”

  “I’ve got the state police on it.”

  “Elliott, I hate to point out the obvious . . .”

  The district attorney held up a hand to silence him. “I know. I don’t know what Dale did or didn’t do. It’s a hell of a mix-up, I know that.”

  “I’m not doing much with the task force. Frankly, they’re wasting my time. I could chase this down. Warren and I put together all the intelligence.”

  “Let me talk to Dale.”

  Roy Campo was sitting in the shack at the dump trying to get a small television set to work when Jenkins drove up. “Roy, where are your guys?”

  “Out back somewheres.”

  “Call them in, will you?”

  Ten minutes later, the two men rolled up in the backhoe. Jenkins told them that they were free to talk about the discovery of the bodies. He said a reporter from the Standard Times would be over soon and they could tell him everything they knew. From there, Jenkins found a payphone and called the Standard Times.

  “Cape Cod Standard Times, news desk.”

  “Two bodies were discovered at the Barnstable town dump this morning. They were identified as Miriam and Doreen Weeks. They were dismembered. The guys at the dump will give you the information
. If you don’t believe me, call the district attorney’s office. Want his number?”

  “Wait, wait, wait, wait. Who am I speaking to?”

  “SPring five, three-two-five-oh. Got it?”

  “Hold on, fella. Who . . .”

  “Got it?”

  “Yeah, three two . . .”

  “Five-oh. Elliott Yost. When you get to the dump, talk to Roy Campo.”

  Jenkins hung up and drove to Warren’s house. There was a black car parked on the side of the road a short distance down the street with a man behind the wheel. Jenkins watched it as he walked across Warren’s yard. As he knocked on the door, the car pulled away, the driver looking away from Jenkins as he passed so that his face was not visible. Warren opened the door a crack. Jenkins noticed he had the chain lock fastened on the inside.

  “I got some news.”

  Warren undid the chain and let Jenkins in.

  “Those bodies at the dump are the Weekses. Jack Dowd checked the dental records this morning.”

  “Damn.”

  “I told Elliott.”

  “What did he say?”

  “It knocked him on his ass. He doesn’t know which way is up.”

  “They have to go after the gambling thing now.”

  “I don’t see how they can’t,” said Jenkins. “If we can tie this to the Elbow Room, boy, we can put the hammer down.”

  “We don’t have the kind of evidence it’s going to take. They can string a lot of the dots together but there’s nothing substantial. And Elliott needs to know they might have somebody inside the department. What does he plan to do?”

  “Talk to Stasiak.”

  “Does he know about the bodies?”

  “Not yet, but he will soon. I know this is probably way out of line but I think it’s awful funny—awful funny—that Stasiak told you those people were found in Florida.”

  “Be careful what you say, Ed. Not to me but to others.”

  “Well, I’m only stating the facts. We know that Stasiak claimed the Weekses were found in Florida some time ago. We know he lied about interviewing the brother. We know that he never called Elliott Yost to tell him, but he sure was in a hurry to do it right after telling you. And then there’s the fact that he basically threatened you—did he threaten you?’

  “To say the least.”

  “O.K., threatened you to stay away from the Weeks case.”

  “Do me a favor,” said Warren, “and let me know before you do anything with this, will you? You’re treading on thin ice.”

  “O.K. Hey, is someone following you?”

  Warren looked at Jenkins. He paused for a moment. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because there was a guy in a black car parked outside. He left as soon as I pulled up.”

  Warren’s expression darkened. His eyes went to the window.

  Jenkins said, “I think someone’s following me. In fact, I’m sure of it.”

  “Who? Someone connected to McCarthy and the rest of them?”

  “That’s my guess. I’ll send a squad car by your place every few hours.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’ll call you later.”

  34

  Jenkins made anonymous phone calls to the Boston Globe and the Herald Traveler, telling them about the discovery at the dump. He also told them that a state police officer, Captain Dale Stasiak, had told the district attorney for the Cape and Islands that he had located the Weekses in Florida some time ago and suggested they look into the amount of time that elapsed between the state police locating the family and their informing the district attorney. He finished with the explosive revelation that the deaths were possibly connected to a gambling and extortion ring that had once been investigated by local police.

  The discovery of the Weekses’ bodies threw the region into yet a higher pitch of lamentation and paranoia. The conspiracy-minded had a field day connecting the Weekses to the dead children. There was talk of death cults, UFOs, zombies. There were renewed calls for FBI involvement, strenuously rejected by the state police, less so by Elliott Yost, who was feeling so much pressure that respect and liberation from the doldrums of a backwater district were no longer important. Now, he didn’t view the case so much as his ticket to higher places but as something he had to survive.

  The Globe ran an editorial that raised questions about the capabilities of the state police. At a time when the public was depending on its law enforcement agencies to be at their absolute best, it did not inspire confidence to have two people the state police thought they had located turn up in a garbage dump right under their noses.

  Warren and Jenkins met with Elliott Yost at the courthouse. Around the time of the raid on the Elbow Room, Warren had delivered a dossier including all the information they had gathered. At the time, Elliott had been impassive. Now they sat in the quiet of his office. The attorney’s eyes were watery and his face strained.

  “Who was the confidential informant?” he asked.

  “A guy named Wilson Hayes,” Jenkins answered.

  “This is someone you turned?”

  “No. He’s a former colleague of mine. He went in there and observed. We worked a couple of gaming cases together when we were both with the Providence PD. He knows what he’s talking about. He’ll confirm there’s gambling going on—and most likely moneylending too—and there’s a bunch of guys from up above who might be connected to Grady Pope. George McCarthy is apparently an old associate of Pope’s. And McCarthy’s down here now, running the Elbow Room.”

  Jenkins told him about how Leapley had been badly beaten, their surveillance of the Elbow Room, the compromised wiretap, and the hearsay evidence they had developed. “Wilson Hayes told us they had a full-service bookmaking operation going in there. They had a sports wire, phones, the whole thing. We went in there and everything had been cleared out. We think Hayes was telling the truth, and we think someone in the department tipped them off that the raid was coming.

  “So as far as the Weekses go, we know from the phone records the husband had been calling the Elbow Room. He called the illegal line and we figure it was about borrowing money. He got behind, they threatened him. The missus starts yacking to the DuPonts, you get involved, and then they all disappear. It got out of hand. He wasn’t paying and they had to shut her up. The kid, well, she just happened to be there.”

  Elliott put his head in his hand. “God,” he said.

  “There’s no way you can get more resources on it?” Warren asked. “Jenkins, for example?”

  “I can’t possibly. How can I?”

  “Just tell the state police you want me on it,” Jenkins said. “I know a whole lot more about this than they do.”

  “Have you considered the possibility that Russell Weeks is responsible for the murder of his wife and daughter?”

  “I doubt it,” said Warren.

  “Well, it’s a scenario Captain Stasiak raised.”

  Jenkins and Warren looked at each other. “Captain Stasiak,” Warren said, “probably isn’t aware of the information we’ve gathered.”

  Jenkins said, “This isn’t nickel poker at the Elks Club, Elliott. This is serious. Wilson Hayes told us he figured the whole operation is probably taking in a hundred thousand a year. These guys are bad bastards. And someone in the department or someone somewhere giving information to the subject of an investigation, I would think that would get somebody’s attention.”

  “That’s a very serious allegation,” Elliott said. “That would need to be looked at very hard.” He folded his arms on his desk, hunched his shoulders, and looked around the room, bleary-eyed. “You’ve informed Chief Dunleavy of your findings, I assume, detective?”

  Jenkins nodded and looked out the window.

  “I want to concentrate on the Weeks murders,” Elliott said. “Not any intrigue about informants or w
hatever else. If there’s something to all that we’ll take it on later. This isn’t an illegal gaming investigation and I don’t want it to become one. That is relevant only insofar as it relates to the Weeks killings. You work for Chief Dunleavy and the town of Barnstable, detective. And the Weeks murders are a state police case. I’m going to recommend they assign you to it. But ultimately, I will concur with any action your superiors want to take. I’ll speak with Chief Dunleavy as soon as I can.”

  35

  September was uncommonly warm that year. There were reports of lights in the night sky over the lower Cape. People went out to high, lonely places and sat on the hoods of cars, hoping to see a UFO. Late afternoons were humid and steamy, the air leaden yet filled with an ambient electricity, like the kind that preceded a severe thunderstorm, though none ever came. Father Keenan noticed it and looked out the tiny bathroom window of the rectory as he splashed water on his face in the morning and thought about his friend, Father Boyle. Patrons of the Elbow Room looked around the parking lot as they came out in the dark hours of early dawn, remarking absently that the weather felt strange. Ed Jenkins, sitting in traffic on Main Street in Hyannis, watched the tourists amble along the sidewalk with a vulnerable, slightly disconcerted look. One of the men counting money in the kitchen behind the Bilge in Orleans looked up and said, “Open that window. It’s hot in here.” Another said, “Leave it closed. It’s going to rain like hell.”

  In the first week of September, along a lonely stretch of beach in Truro, Warren lay concealed in the brush that grew among the dunes and watched Dale Stasiak pull up to a public phone booth in the beach parking lot. Warren lay with his back against a rise in the sandy soil, his legs stretched out in front of him, and looked through a spotter’s scope that he had once used to examine targets on the police firing range.

  He watched with the exquisite anxiety of the birder who has discovered a very rare specimen, thrilled at the good fortune of having stumbled upon it at all and fearful that the thing would fly off to the inaccessible places where it concealed itself, never to be seen again. Tailing Stasiak had been nearly impossible. He reversed direction, changed speeds, parked unexpectedly to observe his surroundings, even switched cars. Warren had lost count of the number of times Stasiak had shaken him completely. Nearly every time he had tried to follow him, Warren was either outmaneuvered or duped outright. He would have given up if he had a job to go to, but work at Cameron’s was sporadic. He finished a number of jobs at Nazareth Hall, which he traded as tuition payments for Mike’s continued attendance. He never got back to James Holbrooke and Grayson Newsome at Antiquitus about the work there because he felt uncomfortable about it. Now they were gone on an extended vacation to Europe and he didn’t know when they’d be back. Much of his savings were gone. He needed to look at his balance before he wrote any more checks but was avoiding it.