Innocence

by David Hosp

  Finn walked on another twenty yards to the mouth of the alleyway. What had brought him here? Why was this place, this random spot of violence, so important?

  He stepped into the alley, just a short ways at first. Even covered in a pristine layer of new snow, it reeked like sewer water in a landfill, and his nose, which was already running from the cold, began to sting.

  He walked in a little farther. He could see nothing remarkable about the place. Like so many of the alleys in the aging city, this one was paved in uneven granite bricks and bordered by a high curb on both sides. Above him, fire escapes dangled like the fraying inner seams of a cheap suit, twisting and turning haphazardly, rusted through in places. Finn wondered idly whether, faced with the choice, the inhabitants

  might take their chances against the flames rather than risk a trip down the iron deathtraps.

  Farther down the passage he heard a cat rustle in a garbage can. At least he thought it was a cat, but when the creature emerged into the sliver of light from the street Finn got a good look at it. While it was large enough to be feline, Finn couldn’t remember ever seeing a cat with such a fleshy tail and a pointed snout.

  He looked around again, searching for something—but what? By his reading of the testimony at Salazar’s trial, he was standing on the exact spot where Steele had been found, the blood drenching the bricks, her life running out of her almost too fast to stop. It was a tragic scene, to be sure, but he could find no meaning to it now that he was here, no enlightenment. By all accounts, the place had little connection to Salazar, who lived over ten blocks away, and even less to Steele, who lived in South Boston, over five miles from the spot.

  Then it hit him all at once, and he broke into a sweat in spite of the cold. He balled his hand into a fist and put it to his forehead as the thoughts flashed through his brain like a migraine. He’d read through the trial transcripts so many times, he could play them all back at will. Now he ran through them in his head, trying to remember whether the question had ever been addressed.

  Certainly Steele’s testimony on the attack had been vivid. She’d been walking down Columbus, passing the mouth of the alley, when she’d been hit on the head and dragged to this spot. She’d been half conscious, coming back to full reality only when the machete was held to her throat. Even on paper, her testimony had been riveting, and Finn knew from experience that Salazar never stood a chance once she took the stand.

  But the power of the testimony had distracted everyone, including Finn, and left one basic question unanswered: What was she doing here? Why, when she was officially off duty, was she wandering around one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city, miles away from her home? As scruffy as the area seemed to Finn this evening, it had been far worse fifteen years earlier. It had been the kind of area even cops hesitated to visit alone without a good reason.

  There was only one possible answer, and Finn felt like a fool for having overlooked it before: She was conducting some sort of independent investigation; something she was keeping off the official record for some reason.

  “She was on the job that night,” Finn said quietly to himself as he opened his eyes deep in the intestines of the alley. So the question he had to answer now was: What was it she was out here investigating?

  He smiled a little to himself, gratified that his own inquiry had some footing, slippery though it might be, against which he might move forward. His relief, though, was short-lived. He heard something move behind him, too large this time to be a cat of any size, and he realized he wasn’t alone in the alley.

  At that moment, he was grabbed from behind and thrown into the brick wall that edged the alley. He was hit in the face with something hard and heavy and cold, which disoriented him. It took him a minute to regain his bearings, and when he did, he realized that a large blade was being held to his throat.

  His eyes followed the blade down toward the hand that held it, then back up the arm to the shoulder, moving slowly until he found himself looking into the eyes of his assailant.

  “Mr. Finn,” the man said. “Talk quickly or die.”

  z

  “Where did he go?”

  There was something about the tone of Kozlowski’s question that made Lissa uneasy. “Roxbury,” she replied.

  “By himself? Where in Roxbury?”

  Lissa frowned. “How the fuck should I know? We had lunch, we came back here, and he poked around in his files for a little while; then he said he was heading out to go check on something.”

  “But you didn’t ask where?” Kozlowski seemed concerned. She’d never seen him like this. It set off alarm bells in her head.

  “Like I said, he was going to Roxbury, but no, I didn’t ask for an address.”

  “And you just let him go?”

  “What the fuck does that mean?” she replied. “He’s my goddamned boss. I’m supposed to chain him to the desk?”

  Now it was Kozlowski’s turn to frown. “No. But I don’t like him heading out on his own. Not the way this case has been heading. Dobson gets murdered, Salazar gets attacked in prison, and now we seem to have the entire BPD down on our asses. Finn likes to think he can take care of himself, but he can’t. He takes too many risks, and it’s gonna get him killed. Until this thing is over, I should be with him when he does something stupid.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe if you stuck your head out of your office every once in a while, you’d be able to keep better track of him.” Lissa could see that the point had wounded Kozlowski, and she was sorry she’d said it. She softened her voice. “How can you be sure he’s doing something stupid?”

  “It’s Finn. It’s what he does.”

  She considered this. “Fair point.” She tried to remain calm. “I’m sure he’s fine,” she said, as much to comfort herself as Kozlowski.

  “Maybe,” Kozlowski said. “Was he coming back to the office?”

  “I don’t know. I assumed so. He left at around four, and I wasn’t thinking he’d be gone for longer than an hour or so.” She looked at the clock. It was approaching six. “I’m sure he’s fine,” she said again.

  Kozlowski looked out the window. Warren Street was dimly lit by the old-fashioned gaslights on the corners, but other than that, the darkness of the evening was total. A heavy layer of storm clouds blotted out whatever moon and stars might have added illumination.

  She watched him there, staring out onto the quintessential New England winter scene. If still waters ran deep, he was a bottomless fjord. Even his eyes refused to blink as he stood motionless with his thoughts. “Is there something bad out there for him in Roxbury?” she asked.

  He turned to her. “I don’t know,” he replied, and the concern in his voice drove her to the edge of panic. “But given everything that’s happened in the past few days, I can tell you there’s nothing good out there for him.”

  Lissa stood next to him, staring with him out at the street. Then she reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his cell phone and handed it to him. She could barely keep her voice from breaking. “Call him,” she said.

  z

  “I said talk quickly, Mr. Finn.”

  Finn stared at the man in front of him, who had light skin and dark hair and was in his early twenties. He spoke with an accent as he held the blade of the machete to Finn’s throat. In spite of the fact that with the flick of his wrist, he could end Finn’s life, there was something oddly nervous about his demeanor. Finn had grown up around psychopaths—men and boys who could bludgeon another human being to death one moment and chow down on a rare burger smothered in grilled onions and ketchup the next. This man didn’t have the right look in his eyes for a killer.

  “Talk about what?” Finn leaned back to try to get some separation from the blade, but the young man stayed with him.

  “Don’t fuck with me. What did he tell you? We need to know.”

  “What did who tell me?”

  The man pushed the machete blade harder into the skin over Finn’s Adam’s apple. �
��I told you not to fuck with me.”

  Finn spoke carefully, so that the motion wouldn’t sever his jugular.

  “Trust me, under the circumstances, the last thing I want to do is fuck

  with you. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Salazar. What did he tell you?”

  “About what?”

  The pressure on the blade increased again, and Finn thought it was all over but the embalming. He felt a trickle of blood running down the front of his neck and onto his shirt. It was a nice shirt, too. Probably the one he would have liked to be buried in.

  “Tell me or die,” the young man said.

  “Okay, okay,” Finn protested. His mind echoed with a thousand lies, but picking among them was the hardest thing he’d ever done. It occurred to him that the truth might be better, at least to start with. He could wade into the deception as necessary. “He said he didn’t do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “The attack. He said he didn’t attack Steele. It was someone else.”

  The man frowned. “What else did he tell you?”

  “I don’t understand,” Finn stalled.

  The man stared at him closely, the frustration showing on his face. It looked as if he was trying to figure out whether Finn was telling the truth. Then his expression changed. It was as though he had crossed over a line and come to an irreversible decision. Finn had the distinct impression that he was about to die. There was still some hesitation remaining in the man’s eyes, but there was something else, too. Something stronger. Fear. The man increased the pressure on the blade and began to slide it across Finn’s throat.

  “Wait,” Finn choked out. “There was something else.”

  The man paused. “What?”

  “It’s . . .” But all the lies were gone, and Finn could think of nothing to say. Looking into the man’s eyes, he knew his bluff would fail.

  “Goodbye, Mr. Finn.”

  Finn closed his eyes.

  “What the fuck are you doing in my alley?”

  Finn sensed his assailant turning toward the street, toward the angry shout. Finn opened his eyes and looked over, thankful, at least, for the brief reprieve.

  It was the homeless man Finn had almost stepped on. He was standing in the shadow of the alley’s entranceway.

  “I said, what the fuck are you doing in my alley?” he shouted again.

  “Get out of here, old man,” the man with the machete said. “Now.”

  “Fuck you,” the homeless man replied, and there was no fear in his voice. “Fuck you, I say. This is my alley, an’ you wanna use it, you gotta pay me a dollar, at least!” He weaved as he walked forward, until he saw the long blade. Then he smiled. “An’ if you’re gonna kill him here, it’ll be five dollars. Cops’ll shut this place down for a week.” He nodded as though running through the calculation in his head. “Yep. Five dollars, at least.”

  A nervous smile appeared on the face of Finn’s assailant. “Fine, old man. Let me do my business, and you’ll get your money.” He turned back to Finn.

  Just then Finn’s cell phone rang. Its tone was sharp and loud, and it made both of them jump.

  Finn looked up. The interruptions had shaken the young man, and the hesitation was crowding onto his face again. “I don’t suppose you’d let me answer that, would you?” Finn asked him.

  The man was beyond speaking, but he shook his head as he screwed his courage together. Finn thought there was a chance he wouldn’t go through with it, but it was too great a chance to take. He slid a foot back and positioned his fist carefully, preparing to swing up and out. It was a desperate maneuver, as likely as not to drive the machete up into the soft palate where his neck met his chin. It would do serious damage, Finn knew, but he thought he might survive. For a while, at least. It was likely that the man would get a clean second swing at him, and that would end the matter, but he was short on options, and this seemed the best one he had. He readied himself for the blow and was about to take his chance when he heard another shout from near the alley’s entrance.

  “Let him go!”

  The voice came from over near where the old man had been standing. The old man’s gravelly, plaintive growl had been replaced by a young, strong, authoritative shout. Finn looked over. The homeless man was gone, and standing in his place was a slim, dark figure holding a gun. It was pointed straight at the head of the man with the machete, and there was no waver in the muzzle. In the shadows, Finn couldn’t make out the face of his savior.

  “Let him go,” the man with the gun said again, with even more conviction this time. He raised the pistol, and Finn heard the hammer cock.

  The blade of the machete was still against Finn’s throat, but there was less pressure on it; the man who had been about to slice through Finn’s neck a moment earlier now had his attention focused on the entrance of the alleyway. The man with the gun was probably forty feet away, and it was a nearly impossible shot from that range for anyone other than an expert marksman, particularly with Finn so close to the machete. Still, all it would take was one lucky shot . . .

  Finn looked back at his assailant and could read in his face that he, too, was weighing the odds against the man with the gun. With each passing second, the pressure of the blade against Finn’s throat relented ever so slightly. When Finn felt the connection break entirely, he acted without hesitation, pulling his body back and swinging his fist up into the man’s arm in one fluid motion.

  The man was taken by surprise, and his arm launched skyward, the blade hissing by Finn’s ear, just missing the side of his face. Finn ducked back against the alley wall, and a shot rang out, but the man with the machete held his ground. With the decision made for him, he, too, acted quickly, swinging the blade hard and fast toward Finn’s head.

  Finn put his arm up to fend off the blow. It came at him at an awkward angle, but the blade was still sharp enough to slice through the meat of his forearm. Finn screamed in agony.

  As another shot echoed through the alley, Finn dove to the ground. The machete came at him again, wildly, missing him and connecting with the bricks behind the spot where Finn had stood only a second before.

  Looking up, Finn saw the man with the gun running toward them, taking aim from closer range. Finn’s assailant took one more swing, missing his rib cage by a matter of inches, and then he was gone. Running deeper into the alley, he fled into the darkness. The man with the gun, who was almost on top of Finn now, took aim and fired off three quick shots. Finn heard a scream from deep within the cavernous passage and looked up to see the fleeing man, who was little more than a shadow, stumble and fall into the wall, then get to his feet and continue into the darkness as the man with the gun ran after him.

  Left alone, Finn glanced down. The snow covering the brick alley underneath him was stained maroon-black, as was a swath of his suit pants underneath the spot where his injured arm dangled. He pulled off his overcoat and jacket to assess the damage.

  “Fuck,” he whispered to himself as he beheld the mess. The flesh was hacked through, and a solid chunk flapped loosely in the cold. With his right hand, he reached up and loosened his tie, slipping it over his head and then pulling it over the wreckage of his left arm to the elbow. He put one end of the tie in his mouth and used his free hand to tighten the tourniquet.

  When he was done, he looked up to see the man with the gun hurrying back toward him. Finn thought to run but decided that if the man wanted him dead, he wouldn’t have risked his life to save him. He still couldn’t see the man’s face clearly, though he had the feeling that he knew him. As the man approached, Finn finally recognized him: It was Miguel Salazar. Finn had no idea what to say.

  Miguel bent down in front of him, and it became clear that the doctor in him was taking over. He pulled Finn’s arm toward him to take a look at it as Finn began to shiver. “Where did you learn to tie a tourniquet?” Miguel asked.

  “I used to get into knife fights when I was younger,” Finn said.
<
br />   “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. Not something I’m proud of, necessarily, but the life experience can come in handy at times.”

  Miguel didn’t respond but continued his examination. “He caught you in the middle of the muscle, and it doesn’t look severed. The bones aren’t broken, which is a blessing. We need to get you to a hospital, though, where I can take a good look at it.” He noticed Finn shivering and took off his coat. “You may be going into shock.”

  “I’m not going into shock, it’s just cold.”

  “Better to be safe than sorry.” Miguel put his coat over Finn, then piled Finn’s suit jacket and overcoat on top of that. He pulled out a cell phone. “I’m calling an ambulance here. Don’t move, okay?”

  Finn started to sit up. “I’m not going to lie here in an alley waiting for an ambulance, Doc. I’ll be fine.”

  “No, you won’t.” Miguel was calm but firm. “Stay here; it’ll only take me a minute to call 911.”

  Just then there was the faint whine of sirens in the distance. “Looks like someone beat you to it,” Finn said.

  Miguel listened intently until he was sure that the emergency signals were coming closer. “Looks like you lucked out.”

  “Bit of an understatement. Where did you come from?”

  Miguel gave a distracted but reassuring smile. “My brother. He made me promise to keep an eye on you.”

  Finn stared off into space. “I’ll have to thank him,” he said. His hearing seemed to be fading. His voice sounded distant to him.

  “Stay with me, Mr. Finn. You’re losing blood, but you’re going to be fine as long as you stay with me. If anything happens to you, I’ll have to answer to Vincente. I’d hate to disappoint him.”

  “Fair enough.” Finn refocused his eyes. They were directed down into the alley, and he nodded in that direction. “Where’d he go?”

  Miguel looked back over his shoulder. “It splits down around the corner and opens onto two different streets. He got away.”

  “You hit him, I think,” Finn said, slurring a little. “He screamed, and I saw him stumble.”