Black Diamond

by John F. Dobbyn

  It took three of my ritual knocks before the door slowly opened a crack. There were none of Colleen’s familiar rapid, almost dancing footsteps and welcoming flinging of the door wide open. There was no hug and kiss on the cheek and smile that could inspire yet another Irish song. In fact, I hardly heard her come to the door, and it opened just enough to identify the visitor. The drawn, pale, expressionless face that acknowledged my presence was hardly recognizable as Colleen.

  I wasn’t sure she was going to open it the rest of the way until I spoke. She just retreated inside, and I pushed it myself.

  Whatever empty, idiotic, useless words I said accomplished nothing to break down the wall created by her blank expression. I don’t know what I expected. Maybe a consoling hug and the release of a flood of tears. It didn’t happen.

  I made a perfunctory offer of help, but since I was incapable of bringing Danny back, anything else fell short of rousing the least spark of interest.

  I gave it a full ten minutes before getting a grip on the obvious. For whatever reason, Colleen had locked herself away from the intrusion of well-intended consolation—at least mine. I decided to favor her with that which she seemed to want or need the most, my absence.

  The hollowness that I’d felt since hearing of Danny’s death seemed at least doubled when I turned to leave with nothing but frost in place of the mutual consolation I’d imagined. I reached the door alone, when I realized that something else was missing. The iciness of Colleen had blocked out my expectation of two tiny feet running like trip hammers and two tiny arms that leaped toward my neck in the constant faith that I’d catch her and lift her the rest of the way. The smushy feeling of that angelic face rubbed into my nose and cheek was as much of a ritual as my signature knock on the door.

  “Colleen, where’s Erin? Does she know?”

  The question seemed to jar her out of the deep freeze. There was a hesitation, but at least she spoke a full sentence.

  “She’s at the neighbor’s.”

  “Have you told her?”

  Again the pause. “No.”

  “Colleen, I know it’s hard, but—”

  “I can’t. Let it go at that!”

  It came out sharper than I think she intended. I couldn’t block the stunned look. I think it was that look that first registered whom she was with. She took a hanky out of her pocket and let the tears flow into it. I came back to her, and she let herself sob on my shoulder for what seemed like several minutes.

  I thought it had washed away the wall of ice, but when the flow stopped, it was back. I wondered if she had heard that I was representing the man charged with Danny’s murder, but that seemed unlikely.

  We walked to the door. This time she opened it. I stepped outside and turned back.

  “Colleen, I guess you know that if there’s anything I can do—”

  The only response was a nod with her head down. I hated to leave that way. I felt as if I were failing Danny. On the basis of what the hell, I reached out and grabbed her shoulders. The shock of it brought her head up, and for the first time she looked me in the eye.

  “Colleen, this is not some stupid, half-wit mumbling of the right thing to say. I’m really here to help you. If only for the sake of Erin, can you get a grip?”

  She pushed away and went inside the door. I thought she’d slam it, but she turned back from the darkness inside and said in the coldest tones I’d ever heard, “I’ve got a grip. I’ve got a grip on the fact that everything is gone. Can you hear that?”

  I had no answer. I was completely empty. I started to leave, when Colleen’s voice caught me. It was just as cold, but there was more steel in it. “Can you hear that, Michael? There’s nothing left.”

  She closed the door. I stood there for a moment without a rational thought in my mind. I walked to my car in a state of numbing shock. The end of the visit had been even more bizarre than the beginning. The person I had just left was as complete a stranger as if I’d knocked on the wrong door.

  The drive back to Boston was on instinct while I tried to make sense of that whole conversation. I don’t even remember the first ten miles. Nothing about the previous twenty minutes rang true to the Colleen who was like the closest family to me.

  I think I was passing through Lynn when ideas started dropping into my consciousness like pieces of the sky falling, and each connection multiplied the panic brewing in the pit of my stomach. I reached into my pocket for my cell phone to call Colleen. I found the handkerchief she had been using. There was something hard and round rolled in it. I pulled over and unraveled it slowly to postpone what I sensed was coming, but there was no preparing for it. My chest seized and I could barely breathe when I saw in the folds of the handkerchief a tiny gold ring with a ruby birthstone. I had given it to Erin for her second birthday. Danny had told me she loved wearing it.

  I wanted to run back into the house to ask Colleen directly, but I knew she couldn’t talk. She had made that plain to anyone who wasn’t so shocked by rejection that he couldn’t read the signs.

  I took a minute to put together the barest bones of a plan and drove at nearly twice the speed limit to the Walmart in Lynn and then a florist friend in Winthrop. That done, I took the Sumner Tunnel back to Boston and the office.

  Before entering the tunnel, I used my cell phone to reach Mr. Devlin. Thank God he had not left the office.

  “Michael, you sound breathless. What happened?”

  “I just saw Colleen, Danny’s wife.”

  “How’s she doing?”

  “About as badly as possible. She’s in pieces. I don’t think it’s completely Danny’s death. She seemed almost afraid to talk to me. But she gave me a message. She slipped a little ring I gave Erin into my pocket so I’d find it after I left. She said she’s lost everything, emphasis on everything. She said it twice. I think she’s saying Erin’s been taken.”

  “Damn it, Michael!” I could feel the pain in his voice.

  “She’s also saying she can’t talk in the house. I think she’s afraid it’s bugged.”

  “How can I help? I have contacts with the Boston office of the FBI.”

  “That’s good, but not yet. We need to get more information. I have an idea. If it works, Colleen will be leaving her house in Beverly. We need to know if anyone follows her, and whom they report to. Will you call Tom Burns and have him put his best man on it? That would be Tom himself.”

  I gave Mr. D. the address in Beverly to pass on to Tom Burns. Tom had been our dependable go-to detective agency for as long as we’d been a firm. He charged rates that would make a neurosurgeon blush, but expensive though he was, I’d never consider him overpriced.

  I was in the office in fifteen minutes flat. When I passed my secretary, Julie, on the way to Mr. Devlin’s office, I told her to hold any call that wasn’t a notice of fire in the building or a call from Colleen Ryan. She put that bit of dramatics together with what must have been the look on my face, and her natural empathy went into overdrive. That meant a flow of questions that I put off with a promise of full disclosure before the sun set.

  I had just time to explain to Mr. D. that when I left Colleen, I had picked up a prepaid disposable cell phone at Walmart that couldn’t be tapped or traced. I programmed our office number into the phone and put it into the bouquet of cut flowers I had my florist friend, Max, deliver to Colleen. A floral delivery would seem natural to anyone watching the house.

  The note I enclosed with the flowers told Colleen to drive to Revere Beach Boulevard and park on the ocean side close to Kelly’s Roast Beef sandwich stand. It told her to buy a Coke, and drink it on the public benches by the ocean across the street. The traffic around Kelly’s Roast Beef is always brisk. It would give Tom Burns a chance to get a lock on whoever might be following her without blowing cover. My note said to then walk into the public women’s restroom down the shore to the left and call our office using the phone she’d find in the flowers. The assumption was that anyone following her would likely
be a man, so she’d have about four safe minutes in the ladies’ room.

  The briefing of Mr. D. was quick. The wait that followed seemed interminable, although it was only ten minutes. Julie put the call through to Mr. D.’s office, and we hovered around the speakerphone.

  “Colleen, are you where I think you are?”

  The response was punctuated with barely restrained sobs.

  “Mike. Thank God. I’m so sorry for before. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “I know, Colleen. It’s all right. Did you go where I told you?”

  “Yes. I’m here now.”

  “Good. Then we have just a couple of minutes. Mr. Devlin is here. Tell us everything you know about Erin.”

  “Dear God, Mike. Someone has her.”

  She got that far before sobs choked off her voice.

  “Colleen, you’re not alone. We’re going to get her back. I promise.”

  It was a wild promise, but I put it in the hands of God and said it with all the assurance I could muster. Wild as it must have sounded, I could sense the tiniest bit of calming creep into her voice.

  “What can I do, Mike?”

  “Exactly what I tell you. First, fill us in. What happened?”

  “Yesterday morning, early, Danny was going to the stables on the backstretch at Suffolk. He was riding Black Diamond in one of the early races before the MassCap. He wanted to ride him out to get the feel of him before the race. Erin liked to go with him to the morning workouts, so he took her. There was never a problem. That area of the stables is more secure for the sake of the horses than any daycare center. Dear God, Mike, if we had only known then.”

  “It might not have made any difference. Go on, Colleen.”

  “I got a call from Danny about eleven. He said—” Her voice choked off again.

  “Colleen, I wish I were there to help you, but you’ve got to pull it together. You only have a couple more minutes to talk. Danny said what?”

  “He said someone took Erin. He said I had to stay in the house, that somebody’d be watching from the outside. He said he was taking care of it, and he’d get her back.”

  “Did he say how?”

  “No. He just said I had to stay in the house in case the phone rang. He also said I couldn’t tell anyone, or Erin would—you must know how much I wanted to tell you this afternoon.”

  “You did tell me. That was a great trick with the ring. You’re a trooper, Colleen. Think about this. How did Danny sound on the phone?”

  She gave it a few seconds. “I don’t know. Of course he was frightened for Erin, but he sounded stiff, like he was being told what to say.”

  “Okay. We have to keep this short. I want you to calm down, wash the tears off your face, and go back to your car. Drive directly home and stay there. I know it’s hard, but I want you to know that people are working on this for Erin that you don’t know about.”

  “Mike, Danny said we couldn’t call the police or they’d hurt Erin.”

  “We won’t. This is not the police. You have to trust me. No one will know. Keep that cell phone with you in case you need to reach us. I’ll call you tonight. When I do, don’t say anything over the phone about Erin by name. I’ll get any message across somehow. Do you understand all that?”

  “Yes, Mike. Thank you, thank you. Is there anything else I can do?”

  “You know the answer to that one, Colleen. And we’ll be praying with you.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The most painful way possible for Mr. Devlin and myself to pass the next hour and a half was in enforced inaction. But given the need for secrecy and no promising leads, we had no choice. We each hunkered down behind any office work that could possibly absorb our attention while we waited for a call from Tom Burns.

  I used the time to do some computer research on the race that had taken Danny’s life. It was a sprint race over five furlongs, a little over half a mile, for two-year-olds, the youngest Thoroughbreds that can be raced.

  I checked out Danny’s mount, Black Diamond, on the Daily Racing Form site for any recorded workouts before that race. He had been bred in Ireland at a small Thoroughbred stable in Kildare. His bloodlines were not remarkable, and his training times even less so. He had never breezed the half mile in less than fifty-three seconds and change, which would not excite the most generous handicapper.

  He had been shipped to Rick McDonough’s stable at Suffolk Downs just two weeks before the race. Under Rick’s hand, he still couldn’t break fifty-three seconds for the half mile in a couple of morning breezes. It was no great surprise that he was a twenty-to-one long shot the day of the race.

  My office clock had just struck six when Julie buzzed me with the word that Tom Burns was on the line. I had her transfer it to Mr. D.’s office and sprinted down the hall to be there when he picked up. Mr. D. did the talking, but we listened together.

  “Gentlemen, your intuition was on the button.”

  “Meaning what, Tom?”

  “There was a tail waiting to follow her when she left the house. I tailed both of them to the roast beef sandwich place on Revere Beach Boulevard. She picked up a Coke, drank it on a bench, and went into the public women’s room. The tail and I both waited till she came out and we started the parade again back to her home.”

  I jumped in to set my mind at ease. “Tom, tell me the tail never spotted you.”

  “No, Mikey. I won’t tell you that. Based on what you know about me, you should assume that without question.”

  “Assumed it is. What next?”

  “The tail stayed on station a few houses down her street until a few minutes ago. A second car pulled up, apparently the relief shift. The first tail took off.”

  “Any idea where?”

  “That’s why I need your instructions. I thought you’d want to know where he went. I’m traveling three cars behind the first tail now.”

  “You guessed right. Stay with him. Get back to us as soon as he lights somewhere.”

  “Will do.”

  “Two more things. I need a description of the tail you’re following and also the make of the car that’s at Colleen’s house now.”

  “Right, Mike. This guy is about six foot two. Looks trim, athletic. Sandy, curly hair. About thirty. Definitely Irish.”

  “Takes one to know one, right, Tom?”

  That brought my Irish senior partner’s eyebrows up a notch.

  “In this case, a blind Swede could tell. Hang on a sec, gentlemen.”

  There was silence for about a minute and a half before Tom was back.

  “The name of the tail I’m following is Vince Scully. He has a Southie address. You want it?”

  “You’re golden, Tom. Shoot.”

  “Four twelve G Street. Not a bad neighborhood. A lot of classy renovation. If the Lincoln this guy’s driving is his own car, and I’m assuming it is, he makes a hefty income for someone who tails people.”

  “Again may I say, it takes one to know one.”

  “Now, now, Mikey. In case you’re wondering what you’re paying for, I used my personal contact to run his license plate. Try that with your average P.I.”

  “Point taken. What about the second tail’s car?”

  “It’s a two thousand nine Ford Taurus. Gray, inconspicuous. Parked three houses south of her house. Too dark in the car to get a description of the driver except he’s male. I was out of position to get the license number. I didn’t want to lose the first tail trying.”

  “Good call. One last thing. Can you get a man over to Colleen’s house to keep an eye on her from the outside. They could turn on her.”

  “Consider it done. Anything else?”

  I looked at Mr. D. He nodded agreement that all the bases were covered for the moment.

  Mr. D. and I left the office with the mutual agreement that whoever heard from Tom first would notify the other. I could have gone to my apartment to wait, but doing nothing was chafing my nerves to distraction.

  Without giving it a lot
of thought, I drove to Beverly. I cruised past the Ford Taurus parked three houses from Colleen’s without slowing or looking to either side. I did, however, get the license number.

  One loop around the block raised an idea that would be minimally dangerous to Erin and Colleen, and yet might get things off dead center. I pulled into the driveway of a house three down from the Taurus. There were no lights in the house at that early darkening hour. At least for the moment it was a fair guess there was no one home. The name on the mailbox was Justin Clifford.

  With the help of 411, I called the Beverly police. One thing I’ve noticed about the police in a wealthy, secluded community is that their top priority is the peace of mind of the residents who pay their salaries.

  “Beverly police. Sergeant Barnes. How can I help you?”

  I slipped into my best north shore accent.

  “Sergeant Barnes, Justin Clifford here. I believe we’ve met.”

  “Of course, Mr. Clifford.”

  I figured he’d never deny it, whether they’d met or not. I also figured that nothing would give an incentive to fulfill my request to the letter like the notion that I could hold him personally responsible.

  “Small matter I’d like you to check on. There’s a car parked by the curb just down the street. Not familiar. The driver seems to be just sitting there. Been there for some time. Possibly stalking. Do you suppose you might check it out?”

  “Of course, Mr. Clifford. I’ll have someone there immediately.”

  “Excellent, Sergeant Barnes. One thing. In the interest of privacy, no need to use my name.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  One minute and twenty seconds later, a police cruiser slid in behind the Ford Taurus. I saw the driver straighten out of a slumped position. It was too late for him to hit the gas.

  I had a front row seat as the officer rousted the driver out of the Taurus. My heart rejoiced to see the driver take out his wallet and show identification to the officer. They chatted for a minute or two before the officer walked back to the police car. I gave him two minutes to pass information back to the station house before getting Sergeant Barnes back on the line.