The Dead Room

by Chris Mooney

  Her kit was right where she had left it when Coop summoned her to the hospital: next to the leather club chair. She removed her camera and made her way back downstairs.

  Techs dressed in bunny suits soaked through with sweat were busy collecting evidence from the chairs. Coop had tagged them – a reminder to personnel that the chairs were to be transported to the lab. Walking through the kitchen of drying blood, she was glad to see everyone using the new digital SLR cameras to document everything.

  She found Coop in the living room. He had set up a fuming tent around the leather cushions.

  He pulled the mask down and said, ‘Lots of smooth glove prints. We –’

  ‘You still keep those binoculars in your kit?’

  ‘I do.’ He tapped it with his foot. ‘What do you need them for?’

  ‘I’m going to do some sightseeing. I’ll be back in a few.’

  ‘Come see me when you’re done.’

  Darby jogged through the woods. When she reached the top of the second incline, she stopped running and examined the trees. Here was a tall, dead pine, the upper trunk split by lightning.

  Coop’s binoculars had a leather strap. She fitted it around her neck, then placed the binoculars against the small of her back. She did the same thing with the camera.

  She jumped, grabbing the overhead limb with both hands and pulling her feet up, the leather straps pressed against her throat. Wrapping her legs around the limb, she hoisted herself up and straddled the limb. After a moment of wrangling with the straps, she stood and made her way to the trunk.

  Climbing, she tested the weight of each limb. An occasional car whooshed by on the Blakely Road and in the distance she could hear branches snapping, Mark Alves’s deep voice shouting something to Randy Scott. She couldn’t make out what they were saying. She stopped climbing when she had a clear view of the neighbourhood.

  Binoculars in hand, she searched the areas where the van would be able to see her car. She was surprised to find it parked on the corner of Walton and Cranmore, far away from the house and far from the news vans with their satellite feeds.

  The van had Massachusetts plates. She scooped the pen from her shirt pocket and wrote the number on her forearm. Then she removed her phone from the belt clip and dialled the main number for Belham police.

  ‘This is Darby McCormick from Boston’s Criminal Investigative Unit. I’m working with Detective Sergeant Artie Pine on the homicide on Marshall Street. I need you to send a couple of squad cars to Walton Street to apprehend the driver of a brown van. Tell them to drive up Cranmore and park their vehicles so they block access to Walton – I’ll explain why when they get there. I also need them to run a plate for me.’

  She gave the operator the plate and her mobile number, then switched to the camera and took several pictures of the van. The camera lens wasn’t powerful enough to focus on the front plate.

  The door opened. The man who stepped out had a round, shaved head. She wondered if this was the same man she’d seen last night wearing the tactical vest and night-vision goggles.

  The man buttoned his light grey suit jacket and started running. Darby snapped pictures, catching sight of the slight bulge from the handgun he wore on his belt.

  Baldy shoved his way past the throng of reporters and cameramen, then grabbed the elbow of a TV cameraman dressed in jeans, sneakers and a white shirt. Sunglasses covered his eyes and he wore headphones over a baseball cap.

  More pictures and then she quickly zoomed in on his face and managed to get a good, clear shot of Baldy speaking into the cameraman’s ear. The two pushed through the crowd and were off and running.

  Darby kept taking pictures as the van backed on to Cranmore. A screech of rubber and someone slammed on their car horn. Watching the van’s tyres spinning with smoke, she wondered if Baldy had a police radio or a scanner in his car. Maybe someone had called to tip him off.

  18

  The East Boston address listed on Ben Masters’s licence belonged to an abandoned automotive garage called Delaney’s. The sign, with its faded red lettering on wood bleached from the sun, sat above a front door boarded up with plywood sheets. All the windows had also been boarded up and sprayed with graffiti. Two big padlocks secured the chains wrapped around the chain-linked gate for the car park. Weeds grew out of cracked asphalt.

  Did the garage hold some sort of significance or value for Ben? Or had he simply chosen this site because it was abandoned? It was maddening to wonder.

  She turned around and drove up a street of triple-decker houses. She would need to buy a pair of bolt cutters on the way home, and find a hammer and a crowbar. She could come back with them tonight.

  The Charlestown house sitting on the corner of Old Rutherford Avenue and Ashmont Street was painted a robin’s-egg blue. Jamie did three drive-bys to check the windows. They were all dark. No vehicle was parked in the driveway.

  Idling at the stop sign, she looked across the street to the white mail box spotted with rust. Gold decals for the number ‘16’ were taped to it. She didn’t see a name.

  She pulled to the side and double-parked against the cars filling every empty spot along the narrow one-way street. She hit the button for the hazard lights, left the minivan running and stepped out tugging the brim of the Red Sox baseball cap to push it further down her forehead. Sunglasses covered her eyes and Dan’s old Red Sox windbreaker covered the shoulder holster and Glock. She had swapped it for the Magnum. If something went down inside the house, she didn’t want to leave the police anything that could connect her to Belham.

  A quick glance to make sure no one was watching and then she opened the mail box. It was stuffed with letters and catalogues. Thank God. She pulled out a handful of envelopes and quickly rifled through them. All bills, every one addressed to the same person: Mary J. Reynolds. Another glance to make sure she was alone and then she shoved them back into the mail box and turned her attention to the aluminium screen door.

  Beyond it, an old wooden door that looked as if it had been installed a century ago. The wood around the oval glass built into the centre had warped and cracked from water. Two deadbolts. They looked new.

  Pressing her face up against the screen, she saw a dark foyer and a hall of dingy white walls and scratched hardwood flooring. At the far end, a kitchen with cardboard boxes stacked on the worktops. Some of the cupboards had been left open. The shelves were empty.

  Jamie rang the doorbell and ran back to her minivan. She pretended to be talking on Ben’s mobile while watching the house out of the corner of her eye.

  The front door didn’t open.

  She had Ben’s keys in her pocket. She could try unlocking the door now. No, not yet. She had to be sure no one was home. She had to be sure. She drove away to look for a place to park.

  The last time she had stepped foot inside Charlestown was years and years ago as a newbie cadet fresh out of the Boston Police Academy. Back then, during the early eighties, the Irish gangs had ruled every inch of these streets. Now, with all the mob leaders dead or behind bars, a wave of gentrification had swept through the town, stripping the old neighbourhood establishments to make room for upmarket restaurants, coffee shops and antique shops more in line with the tastes of the new upper-middle-class residents who had gobbled up the overpriced houses and condos. This new Charlestown reminded her of a slightly less ritzy version of Beacon Hill – old brick buildings with no back gardens, just window boxes and the occasional tree planted on the cracked pavement. No garages, maybe just the odd driveway big enough for a single car. Just like Beacon Hill, every Charlestown resident who owned a vehicle had to squeeze it into a sticker spot along the street.

  Half an hour later, she found a tiny car park attached to a brick building belonging to an accounting firm – and within walking distance of the house. She squeezed the minivan into the last spot and left it running for the air-conditioning.

  She placed the battery in Ben’s phone, turned it on and dialled directory inquiries.


  ‘City and state,’ the operator said.

  ‘Charlestown. Mass… ah… ah…’

  ‘Massachusetts?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Mary… ah… ah… Reynolds. Ashmont… ah… Street.’

  Jamie heard the click-click-click of a keyboard on the other end of the line as she grabbed the pad of paper and pen that were in the glovebox.

  The operator connected her free of charge. Jamie pictured Ben’s name and number being displayed on the house phone’s caller-ID. If the man in the Hawaiian shirt or anyone else was inside, she hoped he’d see Ben’s name and pick up.

  On the eighth ring, when no answering machine picked up, she hung up. No one was home.

  Raindrops plopped against the windscreen. The sky had grown darker. It was going to start pouring any minute. Good. People stayed inside when it rained. Jamie got out of the car and started walking.

  Ben’s Palm Treo had a tiny but fully functional keyboard and a 2 × 2 colour screen with a numeric touch keypad. She touched a button and up came a screen with icons for voicemail, contacts and a call log. A gold bell blinked in the top-left-hand corner of the screen. She touched it with her fingernail. Ben had three missed calls and two new voicemails.

  She accessed the voicemail, then hung up when the mechanical voice asked for a PIN number. She didn’t need a PIN number to access the contacts.

  Three contacts: Judas, Alan and Pontius. No full names or addresses, just different phone numbers.

  Judas and Pontius. Her years of Catholic school delivered the obvious glosses: Judas Iscariot, one of Jesus’ disciples, had betrayed God’s one and only son; Pontius Pilot, the Roman governor, had condemned Jesus to death.

  Were the two names some sort of code? Again she recalled Ben’s comment about being some sort of undercover cop.

  She checked the call log. Eight calls, all from Judas. She wondered if Judas was Mr Hawaiian Shirt, the man who had driven Ben and the suited man to Belham in the BMW. She suspected he hadn’t been caught by the police. The news hadn’t reported anything. She had checked the TV and radio.

  She removed the battery. No way to track the mobile signal now.

  A heavy rain broke out, drilling the streets and parked cars. She started running.

  When she reached Ashmont, she looked at the building directly across the street from the Reynolds home. Most windows were dark but she spotted several glowing with light. She didn’t see any shadows moving behind the glass.

  Now a final glance around the street. All clear. She fished Ben’s fancy Tiffany key ring from her pocket as she moved up the front steps and opened the aluminium door.

  She tried the first key. It didn’t unlock either deadbolt. She tried the next one and the next as the rain slapped her head and shoulders, water dripping over the brim of her hat.

  Come on. One of these keys has to –

  The first deadbolt clicked back. She tried the same key in the second one and heard it unlock.

  The key didn’t work on the doorknob, but the one next to it did.

  Jamie unzipped her jacket and stepped inside the tiny foyer. The hot air trapped between the closed windows reminded her of her grandmother’s house: a small, neat home with air smelling of steamed Brussels sprouts, air that no matter what the time of year smelled of sickness and death.

  No one came running. From her pocket she removed a facecloth and quickly wiped down the areas she had touched with her bare hands. Then she put on a pair of latex gloves, eased the door shut and locked it. Time to make a quick survey of the house.

  Jamie removed the Glock, comforted by the feel of it in her hand, and moved up the worn burgundy runner to the first floor.

  Hands down, the Reynolds woman had the world’s ugliest bathroom. Pink ceramic tiles ran halfway up the walls and covered the floor; there was a shower stall of cracked grout black from mould; the rusted vanity had a mirror covered with water spots.

  The empty bedroom down the hall had bare white walls with scratches and nail holes that hadn’t been patched. Cobwebs in the corners. Dull-blue carpeting worn thin, burn marks from dropped cigarettes. She checked the tiny closet. Empty.

  Six quick steps across the hall and she stepped into a second bedroom. Same white walls, same shitty carpet. No closet. She headed downstairs.

  The kitchen had been decorated back in the late sixties or early seventies by someone who was clearly colour blind. The chocolate-brown wallpaper, faded in spots from the sun, clashed oh-so-beautifully with the mustard-coloured cupboards and the orange-and-black chequered linoleum floor. The rips and tears in the wallpaper had been mended with glue, and the squares of scuffed linoleum that had started to bubble and peel had been nailed or tacked down.

  Attached to the kitchen was a small, square-shaped living room full of boxes sitting on emerald-green carpeting – some open, some still taped shut. A brown three-seater sofa and a matching loveseat and chair had been pushed into the corner of the room.

  The storm had not let up; the sound of the rain drilling against the windows and roof echoed throughout the room. She found the phone, a small black cordless model with a digital answering machine, sitting on top of three stacked boxes leaning against a dark yellow wall between two windows.

  The ANSWER button was turned off. She pressed the PLAY button. A mechanical voice said ‘no new messages’. She kept her finger on the button. Beep and then a voice exploded from the speaker: ‘Kevin, Carla Dempsey from down the way.’ Extra-thick Boston accent, the deep and husky voice cured from a lifetime’s addiction to Marlboros that probably started right after the woman popped from the womb. ‘I saw you packin’ up and everything and swung by to give you my condolences about your ma but the door was locked. That woman was a sweetheart, God rest her soul. Take care.’

  A slight pause and then the machine added, ‘Tuesday, two thirty-three p.m.’

  Beep.

  No more messages. She walked back into the kitchen.

  Marking pens, rolls of packing tape and bubble-wrap sat on a circular maple table. The worktops and cupboards were bare. The mahogany-stained door in the back of the kitchen opened to a dark stairwell leading to the basement. It took her a moment to find the light switch.

  The cellar was cool and damp and smelled of mildew and something else… something rotten. The basement was also surprisingly large, lit by a single bulb hanging above the washer and dryer. The flooring around the stairs was concrete but the back half, the part past the stairs, was dirt. A shovel rested against a handful of small cardboard liquor boxes stacked on the floor in front of the dusty pieces of an old oak bedroom set.

  Facing her was an unbelievably tall antique armoire with a red lacquered finish and gold-leaf accents. The clawed feet had sunk into the dirt and the armoire leaned slightly to the left. The top part of the armoire, carved into wings, nearly touched the ceiling. Behind the armoire, Jamie found a half-unearthed grave full of bones.

  19

  Jamie’s eyes shifted away from the grave to a cardboard liquor box. Her scalp tightened and a prickling sensation shot its way across her damp skin as she stared at a collection of human bones stained brown from their long time buried in the soil. Several of the longer bones had been snapped in half so they’d fit inside the box.

  Among the bones were two human skulls. One with long hair was wrapped inside a plastic bag.

  The upstairs door opened. Heavy footsteps thumped across the floorboards directly above her head. The door shut and another pair of footsteps followed.

  Two people. Two people were inside the house and one of them was walking across the kitchen – the basement door was open, the light on.

  She couldn’t hide behind the armoire. There was a foot-long space between the floor and the bottom of the armoire. When they came downstairs – and they would, they would – they’d see her sneakers and the cuffs of her jeans. Find a place to hide, then take them by surprise. But where?

  She swung her attention t
o the opposite corner. An ancient black oil tank and hot-water heater sat in the shadows. It would have been a perfect hiding spot, had the two tanks not been sitting six inches away from the wall. No way to get behind them. No space behind the washer or dryer. She looked at the furniture stacked next to the armoire.

  A chest-of-drawers, long and wide, sitting flush against the floor. Hide behind there, lie flat and wait.

  Standing behind the chest, she grabbed one edge, hoping to God the drawers weren’t weighted down with stuff. The chest lifted with ease off the floor and without a sound. Carefully she dragged it a few inches across the dirt. There. Now it would conceal her.

  ‘Ben, you down there?’

  The male voice sounded like a marble-mouthed Kermit the Frog. This voice, Jamie was sure, didn’t belong to the man who had called to Ben from the bottom of her stairs.

  Jamie lay on her back with her knees bent, the backs of her sneakers pressed up against her rump. The Glock, gripped in both hands, rested between her knees. She stared at the cobwebs strung between the copper pipes and wooden floorboards, listening to the heavy footsteps descending the stairs. Now they were moving across the basement. They stopped somewhere near the armoire.

  Craning her head, she looked through the two-inch gap between the wall and the corner of the chest and saw a pair of white high-top basketball sneakers and a bright floral shirt hanging over jeans. Curly grey hair. Ben’s driver.

  The second person came downstairs. Jamie listened to the approaching footsteps. They stopped on the other side of the chest.

  ‘You’ve got to be shitting me, Pete. You think my basement’s bugged? That I got, what, cameras installed down here?’

  Jamie heard something placed on the top of the chest. Click and a high-pitched whine filled the room, then disappeared.

  ‘Your house was bugged once before.’ A light, airy voice with a slight lisp – the kind of man who fought with his fingernails. ‘You always play it safe. When you don’t, mistakes get made and that’s when you get caught. You should know that better than anyone.’