Dark Horse

by Rory Flynn

  Harkness reads: “ ‘Because?’ ”

  Glenn squints at the page. “ ‘I wouldn’t be here in jail if it weren’t for you. I helped you clear out Albrecht Square. Now you and the mayor are selling everything I ever worked to save. Fuck you, Fayerwether. Really, fuck you.’ ”

  “Nice, potty-mouth,” Harkness says. “Almost as convincing as the actual call—the one that got Fayerwether to front your bail bond. Discreetly, of course. Through a third-party signatory who happens to be his brother-in-law.”

  Glenn tosses his script on the floor. “Okay, Eddy, enough. What do you want?”

  “It’s easy, Glenn,” Harkness says. “Some research.”

  “On what?”

  “Let’s just say selected topics.”

  “Why should I help you?”

  “Because you’re about to get fired, and you’re mad that all your pet books are heading to Sotheby’s.”

  Glenn’s head drifts slowly down until his forehead rests on the dashboard.

  Harkness pulls a small black notebook from his jacket pocket. “First of all, how do you know Fayerwether?”

  “Met with him in the old Trustees Room every month for seven years,” Glenn says. “He’s on the library’s board of directors.”

  “The same people who get to decide whether to sell your books or not?”

  Glenn nods. “Yeah. It’s a rubber-stamp board. The mayor. Fayerwether. Some other business guys. Couple of writers, for show.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “Not exactly the nicest guy around,” Glenn says. “Connected. Old money. Powerful. Been running the Urban Redevelopment Council for decades. Iron-hand kind of guy.”

  “What’d he want from you?”

  “Right after the hurricane, Fayerwether cornered me at the end of an emergency staff meeting and asked if I could dig up a historical loophole that might help clear people out of the flooded parts of the city. Made it sound like it was really important. So I did a little research and gave him the goods on a bunch of colonial towns.”

  Harkness looks up from his notebook. “Lots of towns still have a billeting law on their books?”

  “Sure,” Glenn says. “Lexington, Concord, Andover, Nagog, couple of others.”

  Harkness wonders why the squatters chose Nagog, suspects it wasn’t an accident, because nothing is.

  “So Fayerwether wanted to clear out the Lower South End before the mayor appointed him?”

  “Don’t be stupid, Eddy.” Glenn leans forward, getting worked up again, vibrating in his seat. “Don’t you get it? These guys all went to the same colleges . . .”

  “So what? We both went to Harvard, Glenn.”

  “But we’re not up to anything.”

  “Really, book chucker?”

  “They’re all on the same boards and belong to the same clubs and live in the same neighborhoods. The mayor. Fayerwether. All of them.” Exhausted, Glenn slumps back against the squad car’s perp-pummeled leatherette. “That’s just the beginning. I could tell you some stories.”

  “Next time we get together, I might just take you up on that.” Harkness closes his notebook and slips it in his pocket.

  They drive in silence down Boylston Street. Harkness circles the Public Garden then cuts down Commonwealth Avenue, trees already glowing with tasteful holiday lights. Glenn stares out the window as they pass the elegant, exclusive clubs that he was just ranting about—Bay State, Massasoit, St. Botolph, and St. Pancras.

  Glenn exhales on the window and draws a smiling face in the fog. “What’s the point, Eddy?” he says. “It’s like fighting gravity.”

  Harkness pulls in front of the library, double-parking behind a food truck. “Look, you’re tired and pissed off, Glenn,” he says. “But what you’re doing—the book riot, calling Fayerwether and yelling at him—isn’t going to stop anything.”

  “Had to do something, Eddy.”

  “I get it. But if you keep bothering Fayerwether or the mayor, or go on an online rant, or mouth off at your hearing, you could get a couple of years in Walpole. Judges don’t take kindly to citizens attacking the mayor. Even if the weapon was a book.”

  “I think it was Two Years Before the Mast. Solid binding, but a commonplace copy.” Glenn’s starting to cross the line between smart and smart-ass.

  “Got a wife and kids, Glenn?”

  “No,” Glenn says.

  “Anyone special in your life?”

  “Not really.”

  “Okay, then. If you end up going to jail, that doesn’t do anyone any good. You. Me. Your coworkers at the library. It just means the people you’re mad at will win, again. Do you want that?”

  Glenn says nothing.

  “Just promise me you’ll stay invisible for a while.”

  Glenn tries to open the door but it doesn’t work.

  Harkness reaches for the lock release. “We’re not done, Glenn. You’re a smart guy. I’m going to have some questions, the kind you might be able to answer. Can I count on you?”

  Glenn turns and stares at Harkness with bloodshot eyes. “No way, Eddy. No fucking way.”

  Harkness releases the lock. Glenn opens the squad-car door, slams it behind him, and stalks toward the Boston Public Library, a free man.

  14

  HARKNESS SLIDES OPEN his top desk drawer, reaches in the back for the black-velvet ring box, and opens it to reveal the engagement ring. Reflections from the small radiant-cut diamond glimmer on his office wall. It was his grandmother’s ring, found when he, Nora, and George emptied out the house after their father’s suicide. Their father never gave their mother the ring. He had larger-carat tastes. But it seems right for Candace—direct, unpretentious, beautiful.

  If he were a more conventional man, Harkness might have written a list of the pros and cons of marrying Candace. He would simply review the list and make a decision. But the ring has spent the past couple of months in his desk drawer—not because he’s afraid of commitment, dedicated to being single, or not sure he’s in love with Candace. Like a crossword puzzle, these typical complications have answers. The reasons for his delay are harder to put into words.

  As Harkness puts the ring back in the drawer and locks it, Patrick barges in carrying his open laptop.

  “Harky, you gonna ask Candace the big question or just let that ring sit in there until it turns back into carbon?”

  Harkness says nothing, just stares at Patrick so long that he starts talking again.

  “I mean, you ain’t gonna find anyone better than Candace,” he says. “Someone willing to put up with all your Harky-ness-ness.”

  Harkness holds up his hand, palm forward. “You broke into my desk?”

  “Needed keys to the storage rooms when you were out on sick leave.”

  “There’s a lock on my desk for a reason.”

  “I take all forms of security as a personal affront and challenge,” Patrick says.

  “Don’t do it again, okay?”

  “Why would I?” Patrick shrugs. “Already took a good look around. Anyway, isn’t it kind of a cliché to hide an engagement ring in the back of your desk drawer?”

  “I’ll hide the ring somewhere else. But I don’t want to hear another word about it.”

  “Already let you know where I stand on the matter.”

  “I didn’t ask you, just to be clear.”

  “Fair enough,” Patrick says. “But if you want to talk it over anytime, let me know.”

  “I’ll do that,” Harkness says, knowing he won’t.

  Patrick points to his laptop. “For now, let’s take a walk over to the dead zone for a few minutes. Got something for you.”

  The ever-escalating number of fatal overdoses, 980 today, hangs over their heads—a reminder that opioid nightmare is more than just media shorthand. As he talks with Patrick, Harkness can’t help but wonder whether he’s wasting departmental resources on a side project that won’t keep the number from rising.

  “So who are all these pe
ople?” Harkness points at the long list of hundreds of names on Patrick’s laptop screen.

  “They’re the Manchester Group, categorized by employees, ­execs, and directors.”

  “Looks like a normal company,” Harkness says. “Anything weird?”

  Patrick tilts his head. “Not really.”

  “So they’re just another straight-ahead business success story? Lots of employees, smart decisions, growth, profits, all that stuff the analysts like?”

  “Pretty much.” Patrick smiles. “Unless you take a closer look.”

  “I’m assuming you did that.”

  “Oh yeah.” Patrick taps on the keyboard with one hand. “Cross-referenced all of ’em with prior offenders, outstanding warrants, and all the usual lists.”

  “And that uncovered?”

  “Nothing,” he says. “Barely a parking ticket in the bunch.”

  “So they’re clean?”

  “Not so fast, Harky.” Patrick holds up a thick finger. “I set the database on auto-reference and went to sleep. While I was dreaming about taking a day off, hitting a million-dollar scratch ticket, and fitting into a size forty-four R again, this little honey scanned all publicly available records. And hit pay dirt.” He rubs his laptop like it’s a genie’s lamp. “People are right. Sometimes you do some of your best thinking while you’re sleeping.” He spins the laptop toward Harkness, revealing a long list of names.

  “What’s this?”

  “Cross-referenced the Manchester Group folks, past and present, with the City of Boston employee database,” Patrick says. “They got to make that list public. Sunshine Law stuff. O’Mara’s in there—on the board a few years ago. Fayerwether was on the board in the nineties. And that guy Neil Burch was head of security at Manchester for about a decade. The Manchester Group is like the farm team for the mayor’s office.”

  Esther drifts into the dead zone. “How come Patrick gets to have all the fun?”

  Harkness looks at Patrick. “Are you having fun?”

  “Not really, unless you think data-mining is fun.”

  “You two have been meeting here for weeks,” she says. “Let me help out.”

  “No way,” Patrick says. “I’d rather eat kale.”

  Harkness shoots Patrick a look that reminds him to be nice. “There isn’t a lab angle here,” he tells Esther.

  She shakes her head. “Doesn’t matter. I’m a detective first, lab rat second. Just tell me what you need me to do.”

  “I may have something for you,” Harkness says. “Side project, but part of the Dark Horse investigation.”

  Patrick slams his laptop closed and stalks back to his desk.

  Esther steps closer. “So what’s the assignment, boss?”

  “Need information on Boston resident Jennet Townsend,” he says. “Did an initial check on her.” Harkness hands Esther a sheet of paper with Jennet’s information on it. “She’s an activist from way back. Lived in the Lower South End until she moved to Nagog with some of her friends.”

  “Heard about that,” Esther says. “That wanderer thing.”

  “Yeah, that wanderer thing is starting to drive my hometown completely nuts. But that’s not what I want you to look into. Jennet Townsend used to run something called the Community Store in the Lower South End back when I was a beat cop. There was some kind of minor scandal—I can’t remember what it was about. Can’t find anything on it online.”

  “Really, nothing?”

  “Wasn’t a big deal at the time. I just want you to check it out. See if it had anything to do with drugs.”

  “Hate to say this, boss, but Patrick’s better at this kind of thing.”

  “Can you dig deep for a crumb of evidence? Can you read fast? Can you be charming?”

  Esther thinks. “Yes. Yes. Maybe?”

  Harkness writes Glenn’s contact information on a piece of paper. “This guy works across the street at the library. He’s about to get fired for starting the book riot.”

  “Didn’t turn into a movement, did it?”

  “Glenn’s not exactly a charismatic leader,” Harkness says. “But he’s really good at finding obscure facts. Kind of an info-savant, from what I hear.”

  “So?”

  “Back when I was a beat cop, there was a paper called the Lower South Ender. Local news. Opinion pieces about how bad everyone in city government was. Lots of whining and insider gossip—you know the type. All focused on the Lower South End.”

  “Micro-news before there was micro-news.”

  “Exactly. Came out every week until the editor gave up or ran out of money. If anyone knew anything about Jennet Townsend, it would turn up there. It was like the neighborhood sink trap.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Talk to Glenn, see if the library has copies. If they do, search them for anything about Jennet Townsend and the Community Store.”

  “You mean like doing a keyword search?”

  “No, I mean like going through a foot-high stack of dusty local newspapers and reading every word, carefully. Taking notes. And drinking coffee to stay awake.”

  Esther deflates slightly, looks like she’s already losing interest. “Can I write about it in my blog?”

  “No. And I’m not going to explain why that’s a bad idea.” Last time Harkness checked, more than fifty thousand people were reading Blab from the Lab, Esther’s blog about crime scene investigations, her Tonkinese cat, and the occasional recipe.

  “Please.”

  “No means no, Officer Vieramenos.” Harkness hands her the piece of paper. “Go. Let me know what you find. And do not, repeat, do not, share anything about this assignment.”

  Esther pantomimes zipping her mouth closed and tossing the invisible key across the office.

  Harkness stands in the alley behind Boylston Street, drinking an afternoon coffee (splash of milk, no sugar) from a paper cup and staring at the reinforced back door of Narco-Intel, tagged with incomprehensible scrawls and drawings of unnatural acts. It’s slathered with stickers from bands he’s never heard of—winky-jokey retro-band names that make him wonder what’s happened to the underground music scene. Would college students really line up outside a club to see a band called Mission of Irma?

  He’s rushed out this door hundreds of times on his way to find hidden evidence, interrogate a dealer about some nasty new entrée on the drug menu, or piece together the narrative of another drug-related death. Upstairs, today’s incoming tide of memos awaits his attention. But before he walks back up the narrow steps to Narco-Intel headquarters, he dials the familiar office number of Harkness and Sons.

  “Any of your golf chums in real estate?” Harkness asks George when he picks up.

  “I’m at work, Eddy.”

  “So am I.”

  “I mean like work that pays money.”

  “I get paid to be a detective, George.”

  “But not much, right?”

  “Okay, let me try again. I need your help, George.”

  “Don’t lead with the need, Eddy.” Their father used to mutter this phrase whenever George asked for something—more allowance, a ride to school—without offering anything in return. Red Harkness couldn’t turn an honest profit. But he could definitely turn a phrase. “Tell it to Anne Frank,” another maxim from his stainless-steel soul, stopped whiners cold.

  “Cut it out, George,” Harkness says. “This is serious.”

  No response.

  Harkness takes a new tack. “You probably don’t have any powerful real estate pals, do you? I mean the real players, not minor-leaguers with a couple of buildings?”

  “Sure I do,” George says. “I know Brian Donoghue, the asshole who’s putting up Batterymarch Tower. You know, that new high-rise downtown? The one that overpaid tech guys are dropping like a million bucks to get an apartment the size of a closet? And I know a bunch of others, all major dickweeds. And they’re taking it home in bags. The market’s white-hot. Can’t make shiny buildings fast enou
gh.”

  “I’ll text you some questions.”

  “About how to get rich like they are?”

  “No, for an investigation I’m working on.”

  “Ooohhhh.” George makes his tremulous snarky sound, the one that dismisses his brother to an outer corner of his limited consciousness.

  “You owe me, George.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Last time I saw you, you were freaking out in the back of a squad car like a big baby who got caught breaking and entering his old playpen.”

  “Oh, that,” George says. “Those piker cops in Nagog would never get a B and E to stick. My lawyer would fillet them like a wild salmon from Whole Foods.”

  “Buying organic, are we?”

  “I’m all about health. Health is wealth. You heard it here first, bro.”

  Harkness sees that a call is coming in from the Nagog Police. “Gotta go, George. One of those piker cops is calling.”

  After he clicks his brother away, all Harkness hears is frantic shouting. “Hold on. Can’t understand what you’re saying.”

  “Eddy? Eddy? Something really strange is going on out here.” Usually slowcore, Watt’s gone speed metal.

  “What?”

  “Like an invasion or something!” he shouts. “Need your help. Really.”

  Harkness presses his eyes closed. He knows where requests like this lead. But he can’t desert Watt, who’s as much of a brother to him as George, maybe more.

  “On my way.”

  15

  THEY RACE PAST the marble obelisk jutting from the center of the town green. It’s late afternoon and Watt hits the siren and lights to clear what passes for rush hour in Nagog. Harkness stares out the squad-car window looking for any hint that the Civil War monument lay in pieces just a year ago, but sees none. Time erases the evidence, at crime scenes and in small towns.

  “Okay, it started slow, but now there are three people living in the Gilmores’ carriage house on Main, six in an empty rental house on Central, and dozens of others all over town,” Watt says.

  The radio crackles with other reports—a break-in on the Post Road, strangers spotted inside an artist’s studio on French Street.