by Ace Atkins
“Had to have the thing printed out, too,” Quirk said. “You know cops these days use these devices called computers. You heard of them?”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ve seen pictures.”
Quirk was a big guy with bricklayer’s hands who always looked buttoned-up and spit-shined. In the decades we’d known each other, I had never seen him with so much as a wrinkle. He was dressed in a navy suit with a white dress shirt and red-and-blue rep tie.
“Do you mind me asking why you’re looking into this?” Quirk asked.
“I have a client who thinks you got the wrong man.”
“I’ve heard that song before.”
“You read the report?”
“I was the one who printed the son of a bitch out.”
“What’d you think?”
“I think you’re wasting a perfectly good afternoon.”
“Solid?”
“The vic was stabbed, raped, and run down with a car,” he said. “We got her blood all over the suspect’s vehicle.”
“Blood match the deceased?”
Quirk looked at me like I should be wearing a cone-shaped hat. “Hmm. Gee, maybe we should’ve thought about that.”
“You mind if I grab some coffee?”
“Help yourself.”
“Bad as always?”
“Worse.”
The homicide unit kept their offices in a big open space on the third floor of the new police headquarters building off Tremont Street in Roxbury. The old headquarters had been within walking distance of my office and was now a boutique hotel called the Back Bay. The old headquarters was all gray stone with a lot of rugged charm. The new headquarters had all the aesthetics of an insurance company.
I spent the next two hours reading through the incident report, the coroner’s notes, and the detectives’ file. The file contained a copy of Julie Sullivan’s arrest record. She’d been arrested four times for possession of crack cocaine. And five times for prostitution and once for public intoxication.
Two weeks before she’d been killed, Julie Sullivan had entered into a plea deal on drug charges. She was set to enter a drug treatment facility in Dorchester a week later. I noted the name of the facility and date on the yellow legal pad I’d brought.
I also noted the dates and places of her drug arrests. The reports told me little else.
I wrote down Julie’s date of birth. She’d been twenty-six when she died. Her body had been found at a construction site off University Drive on Columbia Point. Not only did her blood match the blood on Mickey Green’s car, but tracks found at the scene matched his tires.
Mickey Green’s file was pretty thick. He’d been convicted of breaking and entering at eighteen, aggravated assault at nineteen. And twenty. And at twenty-one—twice. He stole some cars. He robbed a convenience store. He spent time in the pokey.
Green had been spotted at a drive-through car wash at Neponset Circle an hour before his arrest. But some of Julie’s blood and matted hair remained on the car, despite his efforts.
Outside the window, flags popped tight on their poles. Cold wind tossed trash and dead leaves down cleared sidewalks past banks of dirty snow. A sheet of newspaper lifted in the wind and disappeared under a Buick.
I’d been doing what I do for a long while now. In that time, I’d grown pretty good at knowing when I could poke holes in investigations and admitting when poking would do little good. This one had been fashioned of steel and concrete. I tapped my pen against my legal pad and let out a long breath. The case I’d just worked made me feel dirty and shabby but had also left me with a full bank account and a little time. The girl just wanted someone to listen and check things out. Despite everything I’d just read, she believed her mom’s killers were still out there and a family friend had been left holding the bag. Pretty weighty stuff on a fourteen-year-old. Sometimes a few hours of honest work was better than a bar of soap.
I leaned back into the seat. I was making a few more notes when Quirk strolled into the conference room and handed me a business card. On the back he’d written a cell phone number.
“Bobby Barrett,” Quirk said. “Works out of District Eleven. He can tell you about this Mickey Green guy.”
I took the card and thanked him.
“How far you get with the file?”
“Far enough,” I said.
“Like I said, the case is solid.”
“My client says she saw the victim with thugs a few hours before her death.”
“Then who the hell is Mickey Green?” Quirk asked. “The ice-cream man? Did you read his sheet?”
“I didn’t see any other suspects.”
“I don’t think there was a reason,” Quirk said. “He was driving the car used to kill her.”
I nodded.
“Girl like that gets around at night,” Quirk said. “You saw her priors. She could have had a lot of company before she ran into Green at that bar.”
“I don’t see a motive.”
Quirk smiled. “How many killings ever have a good motive? People get pissed off. Shit happens.”
“I’ll inform my client.”
“I’m not trying to bust your balls,” Quirk said. “I know you want to do right by the kid. I just don’t want you wasting your time.”
“I’ll talk to Barrett,” I said. “I’d also like to talk to someone in the drug unit.”
“What about the case detective?”
“Didn’t see much detecting done in the file,” I said. “I want to know some of the players in Southie. Drug unit would help.”
“Yes, sir,” Quirk said. “Your wish is my command.”
“Quirk, you really make me feel special.”
Quirk told me to go screw myself.
3
Locke-Ober was classic Boston, like the Old North Church or Carl Yastrzemski. There was a time when they didn’t allow women, but fortunately those days were over. The décor still had that men’s-club feel, with wood-paneled walls and brass trim. The waiters wore white.
I had gone home and exchanged my Boston Braves cap, leather jacket, and jeans for gray wool pants, a light blue button-down with a red tie, and a navy blazer sporting brass buttons. I had showered, shaved, and polished the .38 Chief’s Special I wore on my belt, behind my hip bone. The drape of my blazer hid it nicely in the hollow of my back.
I looked as if I deserved a solid drink. I ordered a dry Grey Goose martini and sat at the old bar, staring at an oil painting of a nude woman. The woman looked strong and curvy, with ample breasts and only a thin silk sash around her waist.
I heard Monk being played somewhere as my martini arrived. Very cold and slushy with ice, extra olives. I looked into the bar mirror and lifted the glass to myself.
“What should I make of that?”
I turned and smiled. Susan took the barstool next to me.
“Why would any club exclude women?” I asked, signaling the waiter for a glass of chardonnay.
“Repressed homosexuality,” she said.
“Mother issues?” I asked.
“Could be both,” Susan said. “A martini?”
“Cheers.”
“What’s the occasion?”
“Tonight we dine courtesy of Cone, Oakes.”
She smiled as a glass of Chalk Hill was placed in front of her. The tune switched from Monk to Coltrane. The room was warm and pleasant. Our voices seemed to be absorbed into the old walls as we talked, waiting on our table. I had envisioned a filet, medium rare, with creamed spinach and mashed potatoes. Another martini. Maybe two.
“Wow,” I said, taking all of her in.
Susan wore a black sheath dress with sheer black stockings and high-heeled suede pumps. A chunky necklace of black onyx and small diamonds rested on her collarbone. I leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. She smelled of lavender and the promise of a long evening in good company.
“Aren’t you going to buy me dinner first?”
“For this kind of dinner,” I said, “I’ll
expect something spectacular.”
“Have you ever been disappointed?”
“Of course not.”
“Or exhausted?”
“Nope.”
“Then yes, cheers,” she said, toasting me.
I raised my glass in reply.
“Since when do you like olives?”
“You know me,” I said, taking a big sip. “I like to switch it up.”
“And drinking a bit faster than usual.”
“I made a promise to a kid that I cannot fulfill.”
“What was the promise?”
“I told her I would look into her mother’s murder.”
“What’s the problem?”
“There’s a man already serving life for the crime,” I said. “She believes him to be innocent.”
“Oh.”
“Quirk showed me the case file,” I said. “I’d have had a better chance of freeing Bruno Hauptmann.”
“But you only told her that you would look into it.”
“Semantics.”
“Ah.” She nodded. “You want to help her.”
Susan sipped her wine and studied me. Her black eyes were very large and luminous, framed by dark lashes and elegantly arched eyebrows. She gave me a crooked smile before taking another small sip.
“So tell me, how old is this girl?”
“Fourteen.”
“Quite young to be hiring her own detective. She come alone?”
I nodded. “Straight off the Red Line from Southie.”
“And can she pay you?”
“Sort of.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“We settled on a fair price.”
“How’d she find you?”
“Apparently I’m known in the best Southie circles as a toughie.”
“What happened to her mother?”
I told her.
“Jesus Christ.”
“Spoken like a true Jewish American Princess.”
“A parent’s death is always tough, but a violent death as seen by a ten-year-old would be seismic,” Susan said. “Is there a father?”
“Nope,” I said. “Dead mother was a single parent.”
“Who’s looking out for her now?”
“She’s pretty independent,” I said. “Lives with her grandmother, who’s largely absent. She takes care of her younger sisters and stays in school. It’s not Ozzie and Harriet, but what is?”
“She must be pretty strong-willed,” she said. “She wants to right things herself.”
“Even if they’re wrong.”
“You don’t believe that she really saw her mother forced into a car by those other men?”
“Yep,” I said. “I believe she saw it, but I’m not sure it proves anything. A woman with Julie Sullivan’s rap sheet doesn’t exactly run with the Brahmins.”
“Then you must see something in her story, or you wouldn’t have taken the case.”
“Not in the case,” I said. “In her. She needs someone to listen.”
“And you like her.”
“We bonded over donuts and the Sox.” I nodded. “So, yeah. She’s tough and smart. You meet a kid like that and think about all that’s in her way to succeed. You take the same kid and put her in another home. . . .”
“Loving parents and a nice colonial in Smithfield?”
“Something like that.”
Susan took another micro-sip. “Has she had contact with the convicted man?”
“I understand she visits him in prison,” I said.
“Stoking the fantasy.”
“What fantasy?”
“To become her mother’s savior.”
“Hold on, let me take some notes,” I said. “You shrinks and your fancy talk.”
Susan shrugged. I ordered another martini. Susan caught me studying the oil painting of the curvy nude woman. She smiled at me and nodded at the painting.
“Now, that’s a real woman,” Susan said. “Naked as a jaybird and fighting for liberty.”
Susan turned to me. She could tell I was barely listening.
“I just don’t want to get this girl’s hopes up.”
“Be honest with her,” Susan said. “If she’s clear about your intentions and what you can do, then you can’t hurt her.”
I put my glass down on the bar and leaned in to her ear. “You know,” I said, “you’re pretty smart for a Harvard Ph.D.”
4
I met Officer Bobby Barrett the next morning at Mul’s Diner on West Broadway in South Boston. Mul’s was a hash-and-eggs joint with a neon sign on the roof and walls made out of stainless steel. I ordered black coffee and took it outside to talk to Barrett, who was leaning into his prowl car to monitor the radio. The morning was crisp, hovering around thirty degrees. Our breath fogged as we talked.
“Mickey Green,” Barrett said. “What a piece of work.”
“You ever arrest him?”
“A few times,” Barrett said. “Chickenshit stuff, mostly. Lots of warnings. But you can bet when some shit was going down, Green was there. A neighborhood fuckup. The kind of guy who’d try and sell a Christmas tree in July.”
“A killer?”
“What do you think?” Barrett said. He looked about forty-five, with a shaved head and a significant belly.
“Seemed more like a thief.”
“Every man in jail says he’s innocent.”
“Quirk said you helped out in the investigation.”
“Someone dropped a dime on him.” Barrett shrugged. “We got a call from a pay phone; somebody said that Mickey Green killed that woman. Whatshername?”
“Julie Sullivan.”
“Sullivan, right,” he said. “I went out looking for Green, checked in at a few bars, and damn if I didn’t catch him at a car wash over by the circle. I mean, Christ. The guy was right there washing the blood off his Pontiac.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Big-time,” he said. “Makes you wish this state would reinstate the death penalty.”
“Motive?”
Barrett grinned a little and shook his head. “The vic was what is commonly known as a crack whore. The perp was a user, too. Mix those two together and you get a Southie dance party.”
“So it was all about drugs?”
“When your mind is fried, could be anything,” he said. “I once saw a guy kill another guy over a jar of fucking peanut butter.”
The inside of Mul’s Diner looked warm and peaceful, something out of a Hopper painting. People ate breakfast and drank coffee in vinyl booths. On the other side of the fogged windows, they read the paper or chatted on a slow Saturday morning. I turned and faced the empty brick storefronts that lined the street, marching in a steady, slow decay.
I lifted the collar on my leather jacket and took a sip of coffee from a paper cup.
“You ever hear of a couple guys named Moon and Pepper?”
“What is that, a rap group?”
“Drug dealers.”
“I could ask around.”
I handed him my card.
“I don’t think Julie Sullivan was top priority for the boys in homicide.”
“A Southie girl living the life never is,” he said. “I don’t even think it made it into the Globe.”
“It got a brief.”
“So why do you give a shit?”
“I’m handsomely paid by the deceased’s family.”
Barrett nodded. “Must be nice.”
“Not to mention, I’m bold and stout-hearted.”
“Quirk said you were a smart-ass but a real straight shooter.”
“That’s true.”
“He said you used to work for the Middlesex DA’s office but didn’t like to follow orders.”
“Also true,” I said.
“Maybe the reason I’m still on patrol at forty-five.”
I shook Barrett’s hand and thanked him before driving south on Dorchester Avenue, passing a big sign welcoming me to South Boston in English and Gaelic.
5
The Mary Ellen McCormack had been built back during the Depression, endless rows of squat brick buildings surrounded by black iron fencing. Old snow had been scraped and banked along the sidewalks and around an open basketball court, where a little boy rode a tricycle. A woman in a tattered ski hat stood nearby, smoking a cigarette and keeping watch. A patch of brown grass poked out of a bare spot beyond the court. Old twisted trees in the courtyards loomed barren and skeletal.
I parked off Kemp Street, in front of an official-looking building with an open wrought-iron gate and quickly found her second-floor unit. A television played inside as I knocked.
Mattie opened the door, a bit surprised to see me. She was wearing a black sweatshirt, faded jeans, and a silver tiara. She swiped the tiara from her head and nodded me in, through the kitchen. I spotted in front of the television an assembled pink play castle, where twin girls crawled out from a door flap, waiting for Mattie to return. Mattie tossed the tiara onto the kitchen counter by some dirty cereal bowls and an open carton of milk. Her face was flushed.
“I can come back,” I said. “You look busy.”
“Just babysitting and crap until Grandma gets up.”
A gaunt woman lay asleep on a flowered sofa, one bony arm across her eyes, mouth open, a knitted blue blanket over her feet. She had a tattoo on her forearm of praying hands holding a rosary with the word JULIE beneath it. Grandma looked to be in her late forties.
“What’d you find out?” Mattie asked. She placed her hands on her narrow hips.
“May we sit?” I said, looking to the small kitchen table.
“I’d rather stand.”
“Grandma have a rough night?”
“Are you kidding?” she asked. “She just got in.”
“Night shift?”
“Yeah. The night shift at the pub.”
“We all must serve God’s purpose.”
“Listen, let’s get to it,” Mattie said. “I got to get the girls cleaned up and ready for a birthday party over in the next building. It’s Dora the Explorer. They love freakin’ Dora.”
The twins rattled around in the pink castle. Occasionally one would emerge and then crawl back inside. They both had short reddish brown hair but wore different pajamas. One kid was Dora and the other was a Disney princess. I didn’t know which one. I used to really be up on the latest Disney princesses.