by David Hosp
‘Your mother?’
‘You lived next door. You must have known her.’
The old man leaned against the door frame. ‘She was an unhappy person,’ he said. ‘That’s the nice way to put it. Others might not be so generous, even to her son, you know?’
‘Not really,’ Finn said. ‘Tell me.’
The man looked uncomfortable. ‘She wasn’t a good person,’ he said, looking at the floor. ‘You want me to tell you the truth, I’ll tell. It’s up to you.’
‘I want to know,’ Finn said.
‘She moved in here probably five years ago. When I first met her, I thought she was a racist. Mean as a snake to me, that one was. Treated me like I was somethin’ to be scraped off her shoe. Took me a while to understand it wasn’t because I was black, it was because I was human. She was a cruel, bad person. That’s as far I’m willin’ to go. She’s dead, after all, an’ I don’t like talkin’ ill of the dead any more than I have.’
Finn nodded. ‘I appreciate that,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry about your mama,’ the man said.
‘I never knew her.’
‘Still, she was your mama. That counts for somethin’, I guess.’ The old man started back into his apartment. He paused, and turned back to them. ‘I wasn’t lyin’; I really did call the cops. They’ll be downstairs I ’spect by the time you get out there.’
‘It’s okay,’ Finn said. ‘I really am her son.’
The man shrugged like it wasn’t any of his business. ‘If that’s true, you make sure you find your own place in this world. Don’t go makin’ all her mistakes over again.’
Long was just pulling up in front of the townhouse when Finn and Kozlowski walked out the front door. He seemed agitated as he got out of his car. ‘What are you doing here, Mr Finn?’ he demanded.
Finn and Kozlowski walked down the stoop. ‘Detective Long,’ Finn nodded. ‘Do you know Tom Kozlowski, former detective out of District D4?’
‘I remember him,’ Long said. Kozlowski put his hand out, but Long kept his attention focused on Finn. ‘I still want to know what the hell you’re doing here. This is a murder investigation, and you crossed a police line.’
‘There was no tape across the door,’ Finn said. ‘It was lying on the floor. Looked like the investigation was over.’
‘Bullshit,’ Long said. ‘There was tape on the door, and the door was locked.’
‘All I did was turn the knob,’ Kozlowski said. ‘Maybe the lock was old. There was no padlock, no chains. We figured it wasn’t a problem to look around; Mr Finn is next of kin, far as we know, right?’
Long finally looked at Kozlowski. ‘You figured it wouldn’t be a problem,’ he repeated. ‘After twenty-five years on the force, you didn’t see a problem with contaminating a crime scene? You didn’t see any problem with interfering with a police investigation?’
‘Didn’t seem like there was much of an investigation to interfere with,’ Kozlowski said. There was a challenge in the tone.
Long took a step toward Kozlowski. ‘You don’t have a badge anymore. I could take you both in, charge you with obstruction.’
‘Charges would never stick,’ Finn pointed out.
‘Maybe not,’ Long said. ‘But it’d be a hell of a pain in your ass, and it would keep you out of my hair for a while.’
The three men stared at each other for a moment. Finally, Finn said, ‘We didn’t touch anything. We just wanted to see the place. She was my mother.’
‘I understand that,’ Long said. ‘But I have an investigation to run, and I can’t have you interfering. I’ll let you know what we find when and if it’s appropriate, but you’re just gonna have to stay patient until then. And you’re gonna have to stay out of the way. You understand what I’m saying?’
Finn looked at Kozlowski. Neither of them said anything.
‘I’m dead serious,’ Long said. ‘I’ll overlook it this one time. But if you fuck with me, I’ll run you both in. I’ll mess with your lives like you won’t believe. You got that?’
‘Yeah,’ Finn said. ‘We got that.’
‘And you’ll drop this?’
Finn held his hand up. ‘Promise,’ he said. ‘We’ll drop this.’
Long’s eyes narrowed and he shook his head as he climbed back into his car. ‘I’m holding you to that,’ he said as he pulled out.
Kozlowski and Finn watched his car drive away. ‘You had your fingers crossed, right?’ Kozlowski asked.
‘Toes, too,’ Finn replied. ‘Where to next?’
‘From what I’ve been able to dig up, there were only two other places where she spent any time,’ Kozlowski said. ‘The place where she worked and the place where she drank.’
‘Either one close by?’
Kozlowski nodded. ‘Both. She worked at a little place that rips people off a few blocks up around the corner. She drank at a dive a couple blocks from there.’
Finn looked at his watch. It was ten forty-five. ‘Probably too early for people to be drinking,’ he said.
‘Not too early at this place, from what I remember,’ Kozlowski said. ‘This used to be my beat.’
‘Let’s start at the place where she worked anyway,’ Finn said. ‘If I start drinking now, I might not stop.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Long was back at the station house within five minutes. As he pulled up the street, looking at the cops milling about, he considered driving past and leaving it all behind him. A part of him no longer believed in the mission. He was just going through the motions now; he’d lost the passion and the belief that what he was doing was right.
He didn’t drive by, of course. It wasn’t in him to abandon his duty. In many ways, that was the root of his problem.
As he pulled into a parking spot and got out of the car, he could feel those around the building go tense just from having him nearby. He was getting used to it. He was like the survivor of some horrible, socially unacceptable disease; people treated him with an odd combination of fear, revulsion and awe.
He walked up the steps, into the building, and down the hall to the detective bureau. There were two voicemail messages waiting for him. The first was from Human Resources. He’d failed to sign some insurance form upon returning to work, and the woman on the message was warning that the consequences could be dire. He deleted the message before he’d even heard the extension to call back.
The second was from an assistant in the technology department named Julie Racine. She was in her late twenties with long red hair and a naive attraction to those on the right side of the fight for justice. She and Long had been involved several months before. It’d been mainly physical and the duration had been short, but it hadn’t ended badly. She’d dated cops before, and sensed when it was over. She broke it off before he had to, which allowed them to maintain some affection for each other. He hadn’t talked to her since he’d returned from leave.
‘Zach, it’s Julie,’ the message began. ‘I should have called earlier, just to see how you were doing. I probably should have gotten in touch with you when you were out on leave, too, but I figured you’d want to be left alone.’ Her voice was halting, searching for the right words.
‘Anyway,’ she continued. ‘I just wanted to let you know how sorry I am. If you ever need …’ her voice trailed off. ‘Well, I’m here,’ she finished. Long couldn’t tell whether she was offering more than professional sympathy. Not that it mattered; it wasn’t the right time to mess up someone else’s life. He almost put the phone down, thinking she was done.
‘I wasn’t calling about that though,’ the message continued. ‘I pulled the request you submitted to have a couple of unlisted numbers off the Connor phone records run. I’m still trying to chase down one of the numbers – there’s a strange block on it. I’ve never seen anything like it. The other one is interesting, though. I came down to give it to you myself, to see how you’re doing, but you weren’t there, so I left it on your desk. Call me if you want to.’
&n
bsp; The line went dead. Long stared at the handset for a moment before putting it down. He suddenly couldn’t remember why he’d let her get away.
He took a breath and let out a long sigh, turned to the report on the telephone records. It was short; Elizabeth Connor hadn’t been particularly sociable. She placed few phone calls, and received fewer. There were a couple to her place of business, and a few to credit card companies – probably responding to debt collections, Long figured. Other than that, there were only two numbers that were called more than once, both unlisted.
Long flipped to the end of the report, and his eyes widened. The first unlisted number, which Elizabeth Connor had called five times in the month before her murder, was owned by the 355 Water Street Corporation. The company name meant nothing to Long, but Julie had written a note beside the entry: Zach – did a quick check, 355 Water Street Corp. is owned by Joseph Slade.
Joey Slade was a name that Long knew well. He’d grown up in Dorchester, the son of a loading dock union supervisor with ties to the local Irish mob. Joey had followed his father into the business, and had done very well for himself. There was little ‘organization’ left in Boston’s organized crime. La Cosa Nostra’s New England offshoots had been crippled in the 1980s, and Whitey Bulger’s Winter Hill gang had collapsed when Whitey fled prosecution in 1994 after it was revealed that he had been an FBI informant for years. Joey Slade was one of the leaders in what remained of Boston’s criminal underworld.
Long picked up the phone and dialed Julie’s extension. She answered on the second ring. ‘Racine,’ she said.
‘Julie, it’s Zach,’ he said.
He could hear the intake of breath on the other end of the line. ‘Zach,’ she said. Another deep breath. ‘How are you doing?’
‘I’m fine,’ he said, more abruptly than intended. He could hear the pity in her voice, and he didn’t want that from her. ‘Is this right?’
She didn’t say anything for a moment. ‘Is what right?’
‘The phone listing. The company is owned by Slade?’
‘Oh, yeah.’ She sounded reoriented. ‘The phone records are right. I checked twice. Figured you’d find it interesting.’
‘I appreciate it.’ The pain between his eyes was back, but he fought it off. ‘What possible connection could she have to Joey Slade?’ The question wasn’t addressed to anyone.
‘I don’t know,’ Julie said. ‘Not my area. I do research, you do investigation.’
‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Long muttered.
‘Well, if you think that’s odd, you’ll love this,’ Julie said.
‘What?’
‘I mentioned I was having trouble getting information on a second number?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I found out why. The information is protected at the federal level.’
‘What does that mean?’ Long asked.
‘Honestly, I don’t really know,’ she said. ‘I’ve never come across anything like this before. All I know is that I had to submit an official request from BPD with an explanation to the Department of Homeland Security to get anywhere. They said they’d get back to me.’
‘Weird,’ Long said.
‘It’s more than weird,’ Racine said. ‘I highlighted the calls on the phone records for the mystery number and for the number for 355 Water Street Corp. Take a look.’
Long flipped to the front portion of the phone records report. The two numbers were highlighted – one in pink, one in yellow. It was hard to miss the pattern. ‘So both numbers were called five times in the past month,’ he said. ‘The unlisted number first, then the number for 355 Water Street within minutes after hanging up.’ The headache fought back and gained ground.
‘That’s what the records say,’ Julie said.
‘What’s the connection?’ Long muttered.
‘Who knows? The best I can do is get you the information on the other number. After that, it’s your job,’ Julie replied. ‘That’s why we’ve got guys like you on the payroll.’
The thought didn’t make Long feel any better. ‘Right.’
‘You’re still on the payroll, right?’ Long heard the pity in her voice again.
‘Why? What have you heard?’
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I just figured with everything … you know …’ She ran out of things to say, and bailed.
‘Thanks for this, it’s helpful,’ he said.
‘It’s my job.’
‘Yeah,’ Long agreed. ‘Still, thanks.’
The silence that followed was awkward. ‘Do you want to get dinner sometime?’ she asked.
Pity again, he figured. ‘Sometime, sure,’ he replied. It wasn’t a rejection, but it wasn’t an acceptance either. He figured it would give him some leeway. ‘Let me see how it goes down here on the job. I’ve got a bunch of stuff going on right now.’
‘I understand,’ she said. He couldn’t tell whether it was relief in her voice, or disappointment. ‘Give me a call if you think it would work.’
‘I will.’ He hung up. He hated lying.
The Asian woman behind the desk at Rescue Finance eyed Finn and Kozlowski with open hostility. ‘I already talked to the police,’ she said.
She stood behind the counter in a tiny storefront office no bigger than a Western Union. The posters on the grimy walls offered all sorts of financial services, from advances on paychecks to wire delivery services, to credit card applications. On each of the posters, pictures of smiling, scrubbed-faced people promised that every problem could be solved with ready cash: a college student receiving money from home for books; a father beaming at his daughter as she opened Christmas presents; a young man sitting without a care in the world, his leg up in a cast, his mind relieved of all worries by some sort of transaction from Rescue. The images formed a checkerboard of every ethnic group imaginable, enjoying the benefits of easy money borrowed, not earned.
The office was near the courthouse, so there was also a notice that certified checks for bail should be made out to the Roxbury District Court. There was no picture on the notice, and Finn marveled that no marketing genius had been able to spin joy into that particular financial service.
‘We’re not the police,’ Finn said to the woman. He guessed she was Vietnamese; there was a significant population in the area.
‘I talked to the police already,’ she repeated. ‘I’m not talking to anyone else. You go ’way now.’ She was in her late fifties; first generation from the accent, though she had been in the country long enough to pick up all of the warmth of a native New Englander. ‘You go ’way,’ she repeated, making a face like Finn and Kozlowski reeked.
‘I just want to ask you a couple of questions about Elizabeth Connor,’ Finn said. ‘Then we’ll leave.’
‘I’m working,’ she replied. ‘You leave now.’
Finn looked around the tiny storefront. There were no customers. It was the beginning of October, and Finn figured business on paycheck advances probably didn’t pick up until the second or third week of the month. ‘Please?’ he said. ‘I won’t take up much of your time.’
‘Why?’ she demanded.
‘She was my mother,’ Finn said.
The woman’s demeanor changed instantly. She suddenly viewed him with great sympathy and kindness. ‘Oh,’ she gasped, her hand grasping Finn’s over the counter. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘She never said she had children.’
‘I’m trying to find out what happened to her,’ Finn said.
The woman behind the counter was nodding, and Finn felt for a moment as though she’d accepted him into some sort of circle of trust. ‘You worked with her?’ Finn asked.
‘Only few times a month,’ the woman replied. ‘We have only one here most times. Sometimes, middle of the month and month end, we need two, but not very often. Three of us split time – two now.’
‘But you knew her?’
The woman was clearly saddened by Finn’s story, though her sadness did not appear to extend to Elizabeth Conn
or’s absence itself. She gave a half shrug. ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘We talked only a few times. I don’t think she like me; she keep to herself mostly.’
‘Did anyone else work with her more often?’
The woman shook her head. ‘No one here knows her well. She not the type to let people know her.’
‘What about your boss?’ Finn asked.
She frowned. ‘No boss.’
Finn raised his eyebrows and looked back at Kozlowski. ‘What do you mean no boss? Someone owns the business.’
The woman shrugged her shoulders.
‘Who hired you?’ Finn asked.
‘You go now,’ the woman said quietly, her compassion gone. His membership in the Vietnamese version of the Joy Luck Club had been revoked.
‘I need to know,’ Finn said. ‘Please.’
‘You go now!’ She yelled the words this time, loud enough to make Finn back up a few feet. ‘Now! Now! Now!’ she yelled. ‘You go now or I call real police!’
Finn put his hands up and backed away. He passed Kozlowski, still standing near the door to the place, and walked out onto the street. Kozlowski stayed for a moment, looking at the woman.
‘You go!’ she yelled at him.
He nodded. ‘Thanks for your help,’ he said, following Finn out the door.
Long sat at his desk, staring at the phone records for several minutes. There was a part of him that was tempted to let it all go. After all, who really cared about the death of someone as unimportant as Elizabeth Connor? He didn’t need the hassle.
And yet the case nagged at him. There were too many things about it that didn’t make sense. For example, the forensics report indicated that no fingerprints were found anywhere in the room in Elizabeth Connor’s apartment. Not even any of the victim’s own fingerprints. That suggested that the place had been professionally cleaned. If Elizabeth Connor was so unimportant, why had such effort been spent to wipe the place clean of any evidence? It certainly didn’t feel like something a junkie would do. Was it possible that Joey Slade had something to do with the murder? And, who was the man with the scar Long had seen outside Connor’s apartment? That was the question that bothered him most; he couldn’t get the man’s face out of his memory.