“Where are they?”
Jake looked up. “Safe, Dick.”
“It’s not about justice anymore, Jake.”
They both stared at their colleague’s body. Revenge was a motivator.
“We’ll find him, Dickie. It was never about justice, anyway. You know that.”
“I need to make a stop before we head out.” It was the first time Dickie had injected emotion into his voice. He sounded as though he had just snapped out of a trance. “I’ll meet you back at the squad room.”
“Can I help?”
“No. It’s nothing. Just some unfinished business.”
60
Saturday, September 13 - 7:25 P.M.
Mo Blackhall stood to the left of his mahogany desk, staring into the countryside lining the back of his property. Few things were more important to Mo these days than the dozen acres of wilderness he had owned for the past thirty years. The land was all Mo had left. The bank had served papers on the house weeks ago. The foreclosure almost complete. Mo wasn’t fighting it. He needed to be out by the end of the month.
That episode back at D-15 with Jake proved to Mo he had lost control—that is , what he could remember. This entire cat-and-mouse with Jake was getting old, same as running from brass. Mo walked over to the table bar and poured himself a glass of scotch. Then went back to staring out the sliding glass doors. The chestnut-colored booze cast a glare on the wall from the overhead light hitting the glass just right. Mo choked that first sip down. It burned. But, then, a moment passed, and there was that warm feeling.
The tingle.
The glow. Ah … yes. That calming of his shaky hands.
His second sip was interrupted by a knock at the door.
Mo Blackhall stopped mid-sip. He knew who it was. He was expecting him.
He unlatched the dead bolt, popped the door knob, walked away, allowing gravity to open the door. Found himself back at the slider, his back to the visitor.
“I almost blew it,” Sunshine said.
“I heard. Don’t sit.”
“You don’t know what’s it’s like.”
“I do.”
“You don’t.”
“It’s over. I’m taking you with me when they come.”
“Just give me some more time.” Sunshine paced in back of Mo. “I think I can get to him. How in the hell did he know you were up north?”
“Where is he now?” Mo had not turned around.
“Packing for a trip to Maine, I assume.”
“Good. But forget him.”
“What do you mean?”
Mo was captivated by the maples and oaks in his backyard. They were as tall and straight as telephone poles. Perfect, like kids, really. Mo had been so out of it all these years, this was the first time he had realized how big the trees had gotten. The leaves were hanging on, ready to let go and fall to the ground. He could see him and his ex-wife out there as twenty-year-olds, throwing grass at each other, running around, laughing, kissing, talking about how many kids they were going to raise in this house.
“I should cut those two, the ones in the far north corner.” Mo took a pull from his drink. He pointed to the trees with his hand still on the glass. “So the others can grown to their full potential. What do you think, Sunshine?”
“I think you need to stay sober next time you meet our guy.”
Mo thought about that. “You’re probably right. But is all this actually worth a shit? If that Ted Williams Tunnel lawsuit doesn’t disappear, we’re both going to prison. They’ve sent a message with the foreclosure of this house. We’ll eventually both end up at the bottom of the Charles, Sunshine.”
Cement shoes.
“The Tunnel investigation will take years, Mo. Hey, are you going to offer me a drink? By the time they figure out what happened, we’ll be in Mexico. Then they’ll go after Jake. They want his ass bad. The plan, remember? Don’t lose sight of it.”
“You know, evil is subjective. Good is absolute. Whether you skim off the top and people die because of it, or cut the legs off women, makes no difference. Both have the same result. We murdered that family in the tunnel—that boy and his mother.”
“Come on, Mo—”
“Get out of my house, Sunshine.”
“Mo, don’t give in now. We’re almost there. Homestretch.”
Mo Blackhall took a slow sip of scotch. “You were supposed to be here yesterday, Friday. I waited for you. Fridays are not such good days, I understand. Is that why you didn’t come? Did you feel that, too? Friday is the darkest day in humanity.”
The Passion.
“What are talking about, Mo? Oh, wait … that’s right. You decided on a liquid breakfast and lunch and stumbled around the squad room.”
“Sunday’s coming.” Mo turned, stared at his drink as if he was checking to see if he needed another. Twirled the glass in his right hand, watching the ice clank against the sides. “The resurrection.”
The Rising.
Sunshine didn’t understand the metaphors. “Come on, Mo. Don’t think too much into this. I can handle it.”
“Look at you.” Mo finally turned. “What’s with the long face?”
“Work.”
“Well, since you brought it up. How many more will have to die, Sunshine?”
“We cannot plan on contingencies, Mo. The Carmichaels were unfortunate. That tunnel accident is not our fault.”
“Get out of my house.”
61
Saturday, September 13 - 8:08 P.M.
Before they left for Maine, Jake and Dickie met inside the squad room. It was quiet with no one around. Dickie was late. Said that errand he had to run took longer than expected.
Jake didn’t press him.
Most of the lights were off inside the office, the rhythm of the day gone. Jake and Dickie stood by the water cooler near Jake’s office. A gurgle rose from the bottom of the big upside-down bottle and a bubble burst on the top. They both looked. Here was one of those random sounds you don’t hear with the noise of work and life happening around you during the day. But in the silence of the night, it took on a peculiar impression.
“I need to do a few things in my office before we leave. I’ll be two minutes, tops.” Jake turned to walk away. Stopped. “You all right, Dick? You look, I don’t know, worried.” Dickie’s face had changed since the morgue. “Everything okay?”
“I’m good.”
An unspoken shadow of guilt loomed over these two men, one that males rarely talk about or acknowledge. Like when a guy rattles on about his golf game at a wake, outside on the steps, smoking a cigarette. Staring at death, right there in the face, and you go on about double bogeys. It’s a diversion. A subterfuge. A way to hide emotional baggage. Jake was good at holding stuff in.
Dickie wanted to clean out Anastasia’s desk. Put everything in boxes. Send it away so he never had to look at it again.
He shook his head walking toward their side-by-side desks. How life could kick you in the ass without warning, rip your damn heart out. As soon as you get close to someone, poof, gone.
Inside one of Anastasia’s drawers, Dickie found a compartment under lock and key. It was strange for her to have a secret storage place inside her desk. Why not at home? Was the woman a closet alcoholic? Dickie imagined popping the lock and finding a bottle of cheap vodka, the odorless drug of choice for the working-class alky.
Damn. How could I not see it?
Getting the little padlock to pop was as easy as jamming a screwdriver into it.
Dickie lifted the top off the box.
Notebook?
He remembered. Anastasia liked to write in a black notebook after conversations. Or sometimes while Jake and the lieutenant were in the corner discussing things she couldn’t hear. And whenever she came back from a meeting.
Was the woman an Internal Affairs mole? Dickie’s heart raced. He didn’t want to believe it.
He opened the book and read.
Jake came around the corn
er, briefcase in hand. “Let’s go. Take care of whatever that is later.”
Dickie stuffed the notebook in his overnight bag. Walked over to the counter and left the morning desk sergeant a note, telling him to finish packing the rest of Anastasia’s desk and get it out of the squad room before Monday.
They filed out the door and got into Jake’s Crown Vic without speaking. Jake drove out to I-93 and over the Mystic River Bridge. He glanced at Dickie and patted the briefcase. “Little present for us left on my desk.”
“What?”
The Our Lady of Peace Orphanage in Bainbridge was a three-hour hike from Boston, even with Jake in the HOV lane, cruise control set on ninety miles an hour. It would be dark by the time they arrived. Everything was going to be closed.
“My man came through, Dick.”
Anastasia’s notebook preyed on Dickie’s mind. It was killing him to find out what she had written. He didn’t want to read it in front of Jake. He needed to protect Anastasia for now. At least until he found out what she had been up to. Jake had too much to deal with as it were. Dickie figured he’d walk into their hotel room in Maine, run into the bathroom, crack open the notebook.
“Hey, you hear me?” Jake asked, looking at Dickie, then the road. Back and forth. “A list of the kids sent up to Bainbridge from St. Paul’s.”
“Good ole Father John. I knew he’d come around.”
“With Dawn and Bren involved, I think the stakes changed his mind. Read the note.”
Dickie popped the tiny locks on the top of the briefcase and read:
Jake,
Dawn & Brendan are safe with the sisters. I’ll continue to check on them. Take this. But you didn’t get it from me. Catch that evil man and end this madness. I’ll pray for the Rossi family and Detective Rossi’s eternal salvation.
Yours, in Christ,
Fr. John
“Anything jump out at you in that paperwork?”
“I see a lot of names … Micah had a lot of kids to choose from. It won’t mean much until we get up north.”
Jake paused as he slowed down to pass an RV traveling at the speed limit. “Dickie?”
“Yeah, Jake?”
“What’s so special about the notebook you took from Rossi’s desk?”
Dickie thought fast. “Nothing. Just Rossi’s mind on paper. What she was thinking.”
Jake gave Dickie a curious look. He didn’t want to push the subject. Not now.
“You follow up with the Simmons University professor?”
“Yeah. He doesn’t know a damn thing more than what he’s said already. Lisa was purchasing flowers on the Internet along with other trinkets she sold. She had one of those cyber stores. Where everything came from, well, that’s another question. If that punk Colby had not wiped out her computer, we’d probably have a few leads.”
Jake planned to wait for Dickie to fall asleep. Then he was going to find the notebook and see if Anastasia documented anything about Mo and the assignment he had sent her on. No sense in getting Dickie involved unless he had to.
62
Saturday, September 13 - 9:34 P.M.
Jake pulled into a rest stop somewhere in the wilds of Maine on I-95. Up and down the interstate, nothing but pine trees for miles on end. Those tall, dark army-green ones that make your hands sticky. Dickie went inside, in search of something to eat. Jake waited in the parking lot. He watched a physically fit man with a sharp-dressed woman park their minivan in a handicap space. They had one of those blue and white tags with a stick-figure wheelchair symbol hanging from the rearview mirror.
Lazy bastards.
Father John called.
Dawn … Brendan …
“What is it?”
The reception was poor. Not a tower for miles. Jake looked at the screen.
One bar.
“I cannot hear you too well, Jake. But I hope you can hear me. It’s Patrick O’Keefe.” The deacon? “One of the sisters tending to him called. There’s been a visitor over to see him.”
“What kind of visitor, Father?” Jake hated when father was so indirect.
“A priest …” the reception was in and out, “… or, rather … like a priest,” Jake thought he heard Father John say. He pulled the phone down, looked at the screen again.
Half a bar. Shit. He shook the phone as if it would help. Come on.
“Say again, Father …”
“… this … priest was over there talking to Patrick.”
Was that so strange? Had he heard Father John right?
“… he was asking Patrick odd questions … sort of … well, he was getting loud and used a threatening tone.”
“Doesn’t sound like such a nice priest, Father.”
“That’s just it, Jake, we … a priest at all. The sisters, they panicked, Jake … and I’m sorry, but they …”
“Again, Father? Come again? I cannot hear you.”
Dickie got into the car. He was eating a doughnut. Motioning with his head, he whispered, “Who’s that? What’s going on?”
Jake looked concerned.
“I said”—the signal was clear now, Jake could hear the priest as if he was sitting next to him—“that I have no idea how the sisters knew where Brendan and Dawn were, but they told this priest.”
Jake’s heart thumped. Adrenaline filled his veins. His carotid arteries throbbed. He wanted to scream at Father. “What’d you just say?”
“I think it was this smart-aleck young priest that does all the bishop’s dirty work. Apparently, this bishop is quite upset with me for helping you out. It’s not in our nature here to be involved in a serial-killer case, Jake. I’m not Father Dowling.”
Jake didn’t know what to say.
Think this through.
“You get over to the bishop’s office and talk to that priest, Father.”
“Sister Rosa, she’s the one who told him. She said something else that I thought was rather unusual, Jake …”
The reception broke up.
Those bars again. Jake couldn’t hear a damn thing.
“What did she say, Father?”
The signal went dead.
63
Sunday, September 14 - 7:01 A.M.
During its heyday, the Our Lady of Peace Orphanage wasn’t a dark and gloomy facility conjuring images of emotionless people with decaying souls walking around like kids from a Frank McCourt book. Nor did the sisters, dressed in the traditional black and white penguin habits, slap rulers against their palms and threaten the kids with disciplinary action.
A red-brick building, Our Lady had seventy-five beds. It was equipped with a full gymnasium. Kitchen. Cafeteria. Two dozen classrooms. An old banner said Our Lady was focused on God’s Word and Goodness. The nuns running the place were rarely seen without smiles. The priests who visited left the boys and girls yearning for their return. The teachers—save for maybe Micah—throughout the fifty years of Our Lady’s existence were gentle, kind, informative. Always willing to show patience where the children were concerned.
“The homes they are from are troubled, not the kids themselves,” Mother Ophelia liked tell outsiders. “None of this is their fault.”
Jake and Dickie walked onto the grounds and into the waist-high grass on that early Sunday morning. It was ten years since Our Lady had been shut down because of budget cuts and law suits. Strange, Jake considered, how buildings, once they stopped pulsating with life, decayed and rotted, much like the human body.
“You talk to Father John this morning, Jake?”
“Yeah, he’s checking into that priest. We’re moving Bren and Dawn just to be sure.”
“I won’t ask where.”
Jake wasn’t offering.
Most of the windows in the building had been shattered by vandals long ago. Jake kicked open the main door, walked in underneath a fallen timber. “Come on, Dickie.”
“Remind me why we’re going into this cobwebbed place John Carpenter would find attractive for a movie set?’
&n
bsp; “Because it’s fun, Dick. Move your fat ass.”
Standing inside the lobby, peering into the empty rooms, Jake looked puzzled. It was as though an announcement had been made that the world was soon coming to an end and everyone abandoned the building at once. Things had been left in their place. Notebooks sat on counters next to coffee mugs and phones. The furniture was torn and covered with dust, dirt, rubble. There was an early Windows personal computer on the counter near a sign that read PASTOR’S OFFICE.
Walking down the hallway, glass crunching underneath their heels, Jake and Dickie found a door marked records.
“After you,” Jake said with a magician’s wave of his hand.
The room was filled with filing cabinets. They looked pillaged. Papers scattered across the floor. Unreadable. Smudged and damaged from all the water leaking into the room.
Dickie opened one of the drawers with a rusty squeal.
“Nothing.”
“Open them all.”
“Come on, Kid, we won’t find anything here.”
“We still have another hour before anything in town opens.” Jake glanced at his watch. Then unfoiled a piece of nicotine gum from its plastic seat, stared at it, and tossed it on the floor before popping it. He sat down on a metal crate and, instead, took out a cigarette from a pack in his pocket, fired one up, and looked around. “Quite a place, huh?”
Dickie looked in one of the file drawers. “I see you’re doing well with quitting, huh, boss?”
“Yup.”
“There’s nothing here, Jake.”
Jake was staring at the floor. “You wanna tell me where, or, actually, why you hid Rossi’s notebook from me last night?”
“Couldn’t find it, huh?” Dickie smiled. Pulled open more drawers.
“Nope.”
THE DEAD SOUL: A Thriller Page 27