by Ray Daniel
“We had a threatening Twitter.”
“It’s a tweet,” I said. “You had a threatening tweet.”
“Yes, a tweet.”
“Let’s see it,” said Caroline.
Lee glanced at Black.
Caroline said, “C’mon, you’ll need to hand it over anyway before I take your jobs.”
Black nodded. Lee pushed a sheet of paper toward us, a screen shot of a tweet.
@TuckerInB0ston: I killed Earl and next Ima kill me some cops. #TuckerGate
Black said, “That’s your Twitter account, Tucker.”
“No, it isn’t,” I said.
“You’re TuckerInBoston.”
“Yes, but I’m not TuckerInB-zero-ston.”
“Huh?”
“The second letter in Boston. That’s supposed to be an oh.”
Black said, “Oh?”
Caroline pointed at it. “Oh!”
Lee and Black looked at each other. “Oh … ”
“Yeah, it’s a zero,” I said. “That didn’t come from me.”
Caroline read from the tweet, intoning an accent. “Ima kill me some cops.”
“Seriously?” I said.
“Lee actually thought you wrote that.”
“We grew up hard in Wellesley.”
Lee looked ill.
“We had a murderer to catch, and a tip that it was you,” said Black.
“Right. Did you ask me for an alibi?”
“What alibi?”
“Was Earl killed like the other one?”
“What do you mean?”
“Head cut off, picture on 4chan?”
Black said, “What’s 4chan?”
“Are you shitting me? You don’t even know the MO?”
Lee said, “Yes. Same MO.”
“What time did the picture go up?”
“Half past seven, yesterday evening.”
“You think maybe you should ask where I was at half past seven yesterday?”
“Okay. Where were you at half past seven yesterday?”
“I was visiting my cousin in the North End.”
“Anyone see you?”
“Besides my cousin in the North End?”
“Yeah.”
“A Chinese spy named Xiong. You’d recognize him.”
Lee narrowed his eyes. “Are you mocking me?”
“No. I would never mock you.”
“I need to talk to Xiong.”
“Take it up with the FBI. I have a friend.”
Lee said, “So the FBI is covering for you again?”
Black said, “Let’s not go down that path. I’m not accusing the FBI of anything.”
Caroline said, “To be clear, you sent a SWAT team to my client’s house when you could have made one phone call to find out where he was. Got anything else in your magic folder of evidence to justify destroying his apartment?”
“We got a phone call,” said Black.
“Yeah, what did it say?”
“It said that Tucker had taken a woman hostage and there was screaming.”
“Any screaming when your SWAT goons arrived?”
“We haven’t analyzed the body-camera feeds.”
“I’m going to need those feeds, by the way. All the better to nail you with.”
“How do you know what they’ll show?”
“They’ll show Tucker and FBI Special Agent Mel Hunter sharing a beer on the couch. As far as I know, that’s a rare posture for a hostage situation. And I’ll bet you there is no screaming.”
“It was good beer,” I said. “There would have been no screaming.”
Lee and Black sat, eyes downcast, Lee fiddling with his folder.
Caroline asked again, “So do I go for the five million or twenty?”
“The city will fight you.”
“The city will cut you two losers off at the knees as soon as they figure out how much money you wasted. Tricked by a hacker? Do you think that story will fly?”
“We’re not letting Tucker go,” said Black.
“He’ll need to post bail,” said Lee.
“Are you two going to represent the city in court?”
“Our assistant district attorney will.”
“Dan? Dan won’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. He’s too smart.”
“He’s got our backs.”
The conference room door opened, a sandy-haired guy with two days’ growth poked his head in.
“Hi, Dan,” said Caroline.
“Hey, Caroline!” Dan’s surprised smile stirred something in me. Jealousy? “Are you still here?”
“We were just talking about whether you’re going to arraign Tucker.”
Dan glanced at me, grimaced. “I think not. I was just coming by to tell Lee that the Commissioner needs a rundown of this fiasco so he can write a detailed apology.” Dan reached out a hand to me. “And I too am sorry, Mr. Tucker. We made a terrible mistake.”
“Thanks, Dan,” I said.
Dan closed the door behind him.
Caroline slid her view to Lee and Black. “What’s it going to be?”
Black said to Lee, “Get his stuff and get him out of here.”
I didn’t move, said, “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Black and Lee looked at each other. “What?”
“C’mon, out with it.”
Lee said, “What are you talking about?”
“The Commissioner’s sending me an apology, but it’s not really his fault, is it?”
“You want an apology?”
“Yes, I want an apology. I also want a restraining order.”
“There is no such thing.”
“Then restrain yourselves.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I pointed at Lee and Black. “I want you two and the Boston Police Department to stay out of my hair.”
Black said, “Mr. Tucker, you have counsel here who can speak for you.”
Caroline said, “I think he’s doing fine.”
“If I’m brought down here again for any reason, if I’m followed or investigated, if I hear anything about that video of me slapping a guy—”
“What video?”
“Google it,” I said. “If I even get a notion that you guys are following me, investigating me, or intending me any inconvenience whatsoever, I will tell the Commissioner to tear his apology in half and shove a piece up each of your asses.”
Black said, “Listen, you’re luck—”
“Shut up. I’m talking now,” I said. “Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
Caroline said, “I’m thinking twenty million is the right way to go.”
Lee crossed his arms. “Fine.”
“Fine? What does that mean?”
“I’m sorry.”
Black looked at Lee as if he’d lost his mind. “You apologized?”
“‘Fools mock at reparation, but among the upright there is favor.’”
“What?”
“Proverbs 14:9.”
“For Christ’s sake!”
“Please don’t swear.”
Black crossed his arms, sulking. “Fuck this shit.”
“And another thing,” I said. “I’m going to find out who murdered Peter and who murdered Earl, because it’s the only way I’m going to get you morons and the Twitter mob off my ass.”
“And you want our help?”
“No. I want you to stay out of my way.”
“Fine.”
“And one other thing.”
“What?”
“I want a new door on my condo by noon.”
As we left the conference room, my phone chirped a text message from Adriana: We need t
o talk.
Fifty-Five
I saw Adriana before she saw me. She sat alone in Caffe Vittoria’s front window, looking down Hanover Street past the cannoli line at Mike’s Pastry and on down toward St. Stephens. I tapped on the glass as I walked by, eliciting a jump, a little smile, then a scowl. I walked up the stairs and saw that Adriana had already ordered biscotti. I nodded to Nick, ordered a double espresso, and sat in the window with Adriana. My brain sloshed slightly in its pan as the hangover spun it.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.”
“Are these biscotti for both of us?”
“I think I’m getting a divorce,” Adriana said.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
I leaned back, absorbing the news, parsing the words. Nick brought me my espresso. I thanked him, took a sip. Bit a biscotti. It was the first decent thing I’d eaten all morning. I chewed, waited to see if the sugar helped my brain. It didn’t. The biscotti tasted like wheat, chocolate, and sugar instead of a cookie.
Adriana said. “Catherine is such a bitch.”
“You guys fighting?”
“So fucking tired of it all.”
“Is this over me?”
Adriana shrugged. “I told her she was out of line telling you to stay away.”
“Because you guys shouldn’t break up over me.”
“You’re family. She should stick by family.”
“She’s scared.”
“It’s no excuse.”
I drank my espresso.
Adriana looked me over as if for the first time. “You look like shit.”
“Thanks.”
“Rough night in jail?”
“You know about that?”
“It’s all over Twitter.”
“Of course it is.”
“Catherine was reading the #TuckerGate stuff to me. I told her to stop.”
“Why?”
“She was lording it over me, saying she told me so.”
“Told you so what?”
“That you were a killer. That you had killed that guy.”
“Earl Clary.”
“Yeah.”
“Ha! You two are my alibi, you know.”
“Really?”
“She was busy throwing me out of the house when someone cut off Earl’s head.”
“Then why did they arrest you?”
“Prank phone call.”
“Bastards.”
“Who?”
“All of them.”
I nibbled the biscotti. No better. The my stomach rocked. I looked out the window, watched people walking on Hanover Street, living in the real world. A world where destroying someone took more work than typing or making a phone call.
“I can see why Sal used to like it here,” I said.
“Why?”
“People walking. Different people, same directions. You never see the same thing twice. Kind of like watching a lava lamp.”
Adriana looked out across the crowd. “God, I miss him.”
“Yeah. Me too. Can’t imagine what it’s like for Maria.”
“Poor kid. I don’t know what to do for her.”
“I think you’re doing what you should be doing.”
“Fighting in front of her?”
“No, not that.”
“Because we’ve been doing a lot of that.”
“I meant loving her. Giving her a home.”
“Sure, when I’m not telling Catherine to go fuck herself.”
“What are you fighting about?”
“I want you to stay in our life. Be whatever kind of dad you can.”
“You told me that I was a shitty dad.”
“Better than nothing.”
I raised my espresso. “Here’s to being better than nothing.”
Adriana punched my arm. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, but”—I shook my head—“not a good time for me to be any kind of dad.”
“Seriously. You going to say you’re too busy?”
“Imagine if that SWAT team broke down your door.”
“Why would they?”
“Same reason they did it to me. Someone called them.”
“They’d do that to us?”
“Yeah. If I were there.”
“So Catherine is right.”
“She’s wrong about me being a killer, but right about me staying away.”
Adriana bit a cookie. Put her face in her hand. When she looked up, tears wet her cheeks.
“So they win.”
I shrugged. “For today.”
“I don’t know what to do about Catherine.”
“Are you asking for advice?”
“Marriage advice from you?”
“I was married.”
“You two fought like badgers.”
“Yeah, but we stayed married to the end.”
“Do you think you would have made it if Carol hadn’t been murdered?”
I ate a little more biscotti. Still tasted like ingredients instead of a cookie. My sloshing brain told me that I didn’t need a cookie. I suggested to my brain that it didn’t know what it was talking about. My stomach sided with my brain. I pushed the cookies away.
“I think we would have made it. We loved each other.”
“Really?”
“We didn’t like each other some days, but that’s the deal. That’s how marriages work. Is Catherine talking divorce?”
“No.”
“Then don’t you start it. That’s my advice. You can go back and fight with her about whether I’m welcome in the house, but don’t threaten the marriage.”
“So you are giving marriage advice.”
“‘Stay married’ is pretty basic marriage advice.”
Adriana stood, I followed. We stepped out of the coffee shop and into the chill. Spring had decided to toggle back to March rather than test out May. The marathon runners would be happy.
Adriana wrapped her arms around herself. “So what now?”
“Now I figure out who killed Peter and Earl.”
“Why you? Why not the cops?”
“It’s better if it’s me. It would put the whole #TuckerGate thing to bed.”
Adriana opened her arms. We hugged.
“Love you, cousin,” she said.
“Love you too.”
“Don’t stay away long.”
We broke the hug. Adriana set off down Hanover. I imagined going home, lying down in a dark room. Sweet idea. My flip phone chirped. A text from Mel.
Need your help.
Fifty-Six
It was a short walk from the North End to Government Center. Mel waited for me next to the transporter-accident sculpture. She saw me, waited for me to reach her. Took a step back.
“You stink,” she said, crinkling her nose.
“Prison changes a man.”
“You know, when you invite a girl up to your apartment, handcuffs are supposed to include consent and a safe word.”
“What does the senator want?”
Mel had looked up at the building and said, “He’s pissed off.” We entered the building together.
Now, Kamela sat across a conference room table from Mel and me, tight-lipped with disapproval. I sat staring into the middle distance and negotiating with my hangover. Let me get through this without puking and I’ll go right back to bed, I promise. The night in jail might well have been a death sentence—a slow, sloshy death sentence.
The senator burst into the room, brandishing a tablet. “What the hell is this?”
Mel looked at me. I shrugged.
“What is what, sir?” asked Mel.
Kamela winced as Endicott slammed the tablet onto the table.
He pointed at the screen, which featured a YouTube video entitled “Senator Pervert.”
I had expected to see the video from yesterday, but this was an edited version. It was like the trailer from Fifty Shades of Grey. It had been cut and tailored to hide the senator’s identity, but to show you exactly what you’d see the senator do if you watched the full show. The video featured a gray-haired back, a moan, a clinking of handcuffs, a flash of a pink nightie, a gasp. No faces. The video promised to be released tomorrow.
The senator shook a finger at Mel. “You were supposed to suppress this filth!”
She looked like I felt: gray and ready to puke. “I’m sorr—”
“Do you know anything?”
Mel shook her head, “No, we—”
I interrupted. “We know who has the video. He told me that he’s going to post it online tomorrow.”
The senator leaned in on me. “You know who has it?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Xiong Shoushan.”
“And why hasn’t this Xiong Shoushan been arrested?”
Kamela said, “I thought he had been arrested.”
Mel said, “There were procedural problems.”
“What kind of procedural problems?” The senator pointed at Mel. “Did you screw up the arrest?”
“The point is,” I said, “arresting him may not solve your problem.”
“He may have set up the video to publish itself automatically,” said Mel.
“What?” boomed the senator.
The senator’s volume splashed my brain around in my head, causing my eyes to lose their tracking and rattle like marbles. I couldn’t take much more of this. Nor did I have to.
I stood to leave. “I really need to get home.” Stumbled a bit.
The senator asked, “What is wrong with you?”
Kamela said, “Tucker spent the night in jail.”
“Jail?”
“It was a prank,” I said. “I got swatted by the Boston Police Department.”
“Swatted?”
Mel said, “He was arrested by a SWAT team, but released this morning.”
“Oh my God!” Endicott cried. “Kamela, have you ever seen such incompetence?”
“No, Senator,” said Kamela.
“You two need to fix this!” Endicott pointed at us.
I had been dragged after a sleepless, hungover night into this conference room by a powerful man who was stupid enough to make a video of himself screwing his wife and then let it get into the cloud. A powerful man afraid to face the music at home when his wife found out that her deepest fears about the video had been realized. A man who had, to put it bluntly, fucked up. And now this man was yelling at me like I had done something wrong?