Robert B. Parker's Slow Burn

by Ace Atkins

  He was a big man, bigger than me, with gray hair and a drooping Sam Elliott mustache. He met me at the landing with a panting yellow Lab at his side. I liked him right away. His name was Teddy Cahill. His dog’s name was Galway.

  “Did I mention I can do an amazing rendition of ‘Danny Boy’?”

  “I’m glad someone can,” Cahill said. “Went to a wedding this weekend and none of the kids knew the words. It broke my heart.”

  “Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but religiously follows the new.”

  “You ain’t fucking kidding.”

  We stood in the kitchen and he poured coffee into two mugs. We walked back through a long hall to a cluttered office. Arson headquarters was a collection of beaten desks set end to end with outdated computers and so many file cabinets they lined the outside halls. Galway lay down and sighed.

  “How old?”

  “She’ll be twelve this year,” he said. “She was a real worker. Now she sticks to the office.”

  “Good nose?”

  “The best,” he said. “She could lead you right to any accelerant. Now it’s tough to get up these steps.”

  I patted the dog’s head. We were kindred spirits. I’d needed a knee replacement last year. Now I’d regained the spring in my step.

  “You’re a persistent man,” Cahill said. “You left ten messages. And then got Commissioner Foley on my ass.”

  I smiled and sipped my coffee. “I guess I’m not easily deterred.”

  “I wasn’t sure what to make of it,” he said. “You being a private snoop and all. But the commissioner said you were okay.”

  “High praise?”

  “From the commissioner?” he said. “You bet. But I have to wonder, what in the hell do you think you can do that we haven’t tried already? Jesus. This thing has been top priority. We’ve worked every damn angle. And when that wasn’t enough, we called in ATF.”

  “And where did that get you?”

  “Crap City.”

  Galway lifted her head. She scratched at something inside her ear and then lay still.

  “I’m not here to critique your work,” I said. “I only promised to look under a few rocks.”

  “Heard you might have connections?”

  “Some,” I said. “With bookies, leg breakers, and assorted low-lifes. The guards at Walpole and I are on a first-name basis.”

  “It’ll take a snitch to lead us somewhere,” Cahill said. “All this high-tech crap we got: photographs, video, lab results. What it’ll really take is one crook turning on another. We weren’t left with much. It’s been tough. Tough on the department and tougher on the families. We all want to know what happened.”

  I nodded.

  “We’ve ruled a lot out.”

  “Of course.”

  “And to be honest, I don’t know what happened,” he said. “Some people, I know, have some theories. But all that shit is just talk. I need facts.”

  “But there’s a tape?” I said. “Or a digital image? Or whatever you have these days of someone running from the alley by Holy Innocents.”

  Cahill sighed and studied me. He was silent for a moment and reached for his coffee mug. Galway was in a gentle snooze, so comfortable she began to snore. Her rib cage expanded and fell with each breath. It had started to rain, a gentle patter on the windows. Thunder broke outside.

  “I’d like to see it.”

  “Where’d you hear about it?”

  “A little bird flew in my office,” I said.

  “Jack McGee is a big fucking bird.”

  I shrugged. “You and I both know I work for Jack McGee,” I said. “But I do have other sources.”

  “Commissioner didn’t want that out,” he said. “I don’t like it, either.”

  “It didn’t come from Jack,” I said. “And I don’t work for The Globe. But a pair of fresh eyes on an old case never hurts.”

  Cahill sipped some coffee. I sipped some coffee. The rain fell and Galway snored. She had a vigorous snore. He said, “The investigation is ongoing.”

  “As it should be.”

  “Any details stay within this fucking building,” he said.

  “You bet.”

  “If news was to get out—” he said. “With all the shit we been dealing with. You might have seen we’ve been pretty damn busy.”

  “I understand. When I worked for the Middlesex DA, I learned to keep things to myself.”

  I asked for some more coffee and Cahill stood and left the room. It was not only a stalling technique but also because I wanted more coffee. I patted Galway’s flank, thinking of Pearl aging, and waited until Cahill returned. “Do I have your word?” he said.

  I nodded.

  “Nobody,” he said. “I mean fucking nobody is supposed to know about this.”

  “Sure.”

  He reached for his phone, dialed up somebody, and told them to come into the room.

  “How good is the image?” I said.

  “Terrible.”

  “How terrible?”

  “It’s nothing but a freakin’ shadow,” he said. “What the hell can we do with that?”

  18

  An investigator by the name of Cappelletti leaned over his desk and scrolled through dozens of video thumbnails on his laptop. Cahill had walked me down the hall and introduced us. Cappelletti, who worked as unit photographer, seemed dubious about my intentions. He had buzzed brown hair and wore a red T-shirt with jeans. He kept sunglasses on a loop around his neck and chewed gum.

  “You any relation to Gino?” I said.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Mr. Patriot?” I said.

  “What’d I tell you?” Cahill said. “This generation doesn’t speak our language.”

  The tech looked like he might have been all of fifteen. His T-shirt read ARSON. I wondered if I might print a few XLs reading GUMSHOE. I could sell them on my website if I only had one. Cappelletti kept on scrolling until he came to the frame he liked and clicked on the box.

  Outside, the rain fell along Mass Ave. Cars passed with their headlamps on and windshield wipers working. A white pickup with a battered back end pulled in beside C & L Auto Body. As the truck turned, I noted C & L had their work cut out for them, as the side door had been broadsided.

  “This is twenty minutes before the first call,” Cappelletti said.

  “Where’d you pull the video?” I said.

  “Apartment building across the street,” he said. “I watched it ten times before I spotted the guy. Hold on. You’ll see it.”

  I bent down, rested my right hand on the desk, watched and waited. Cahill leaned against the office door like a bouncer, arms crossed over his big chest. Galway had stayed in his office, still snoozing.

  The video showed a grainy view of Shawmut Street and several cars parked along the sidewalk. Holy Innocents was a dark old hulk, recognizable only by its heavy front doors. The counter read 19:42 and clicked off the seconds.

  “You see him?” Cappelletti said.

  “Him?” I said. “I only see cars.”

  “Behind those cars across the street,” he said, pointing at the screen with a pencil. “He comes out of the church fast and then turns on Shawmut, heading south. Right at this spot. Hold on. Hold on. I’ll back it up.”

  He used his mouse and clicked back the counter. “Five seconds from here.”

  Cappelletti was good. It was a bit like spotting a mosquito in a sandstorm. But at one point, a dark shadow did in fact high-step down the dark alley. He paused the image and zoomed in. He lightened the image and pointed at it again with the tip of his pencil. It appeared to be a white male wearing a ball cap and dark clothes. With the pixelation and lack of light, it may have very well been Tom Brady deflating his balls.

  Cappelletti clicked the mouse and moti
on started again. The shadow hit the sidewalk in a sprint and ran out of the frame.

  “Like I said,” Cahill said from the door. “Crap City.”

  “What’s the time before we see smoke?”

  Cappelletti scrolled the video ahead several minutes. “Twelve-point-three minutes.”

  “We would have released it if you could see the guy’s freakin’ face,” Cahill said. “But without more, we didn’t want the guy looking over his shoulder. We want him shooting off his mouth.”

  “Sure,” I said. “How about the vehicles parked along the curb?”

  “All accounted for,” Cahill said. “Christ, you think this is amateur hour?”

  “Witnesses?”

  “Fourteen,” Cappelletti said. “Not counting responders. Spent two weeks knocking on doors in that neighborhood. It ain’t the best in the South End.”

  “And?” I said.

  “Nobody knows nothing,” Cahill said. “How about you? You got anything you’d like to share with the group?”

  He and Cappelletti stared at me, waiting. Cappelletti blew a bubble until it popped. I shrugged. “The building was in the process of being sold.”

  “Yeah,” Cahill said. “Herbie Wu. So what? You think he torched it? Because that’s not how things are done this century. He wouldn’t have gotten half back from the insurance.”

  “Maybe someone didn’t like him moving into the neighborhood?”

  “From Chinatown?” Cappelletti said. “Pretty diverse neighborhood.”

  “Maybe someone leaned on him to do business so close to Southie.”

  “Did he pay?”

  I didn’t want to sell out Wu. But I shook my head.

  “And who did the asking?” Cahill said.

  “Working on the details,” I said. “It may be nothing.”

  “Don’t screw us, Spenser,” Cahill said. “I wasn’t real thrilled with you coming down here. If you know someone was leaning on Herbie Wu—”

  “Would be better if we could ID the man in the alley.”

  Cahill and Cappelletti looked at each other. Cahill said, “And you’re working on the other thing?”

  I nodded.

  “Who?”

  “Working with the League of Unextraordinary Gentlemen,” I said. “You’ll be the first to know.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Cahill said.

  “I did want to ask you about this and its possible connection to all the new fires,” I said. “I am a subscriber to The Globe. You guys have a bug.”

  Neither of the men spoke. Cappelletti shut the laptop.

  “It’s possible all of this is connected,” I said. “Right?”

  “You and Jack McGee.”

  “Busted flat in Baton Rouge,” I said. “Waiting for a train.”

  “What the hell’s he talkin’ about?” Cappelletti said.

  “I’d like to see the addresses and owners of all the new fires you believe are arson,” I said. “Maybe I can spot a pattern.”

  “Right now, we have a real problem. But there’s no reason to believe they’re connected to Holy Innocents. We’re talking about someone with a cracked head, not a professional criminal. But if you want to read this shit till you’re cross-eyed, be my guest.”

  Galway trotted up and I patted her on the head. “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship.”

  “Me or the dog?” Cahill said.

  I simply smiled. Cahill just looked at me and shook his head before showing me the way out. As we walked down the steps, he said, “Me, Dougherty, and McGee were at the fire academy at the same time. We did three years together on Engine Thirty-three. I drove his wife home after the wake. She was so medicated, she didn’t know what planet she was on. Kids still can’t make sense of it.”

  “I’d like to help.”

  “Whatever it takes,” he said. “I haven’t slept in a long while.”

  Johnny ran away from a couple of condemned triple-deckers on Dot Ave with a big shit-eating grin on his face. Kevin was driving his Crown Vic that night, windows down and headlights off. He’d parked around the corner and listened to the scanner on low. Johnny opened the passenger side and slammed the big door. He was laughing. The night was hot, and Johnny’s face shone with sweat.

  “This one’s gonna be a pissah,” he said. “You see those old shingles on the roof?”

  “Yeah?”

  “They turn pink from wear,” he said. “They’re made out of gasoline. Those two buildings will burn like crazy. You’ll see this thing for miles.”

  “You sure no one’s inside?”

  “Does it fucking look like anyone would live in that shithole?” he said. “Or you afraid we’re going to burn up some rats? Don’t be getting soft on me.”

  “I just thought we were going to burn that building on E Street. You know, that old warehouse?”

  “We are,” Johnny said. “But we burn this and it’ll tie up a couple engine companies. That way we can set up shop and work on that building. We don’t and they’ll put it out before it really gets going.”

  “I don’t know,” Kevin said. “They can’t handle all this.”

  “If it’s not a mess, then we ain’t doing any good.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know dick,” Johnny said. “Just drive. Everything’s all set. Me and Ray already stacked some tires by the wall. He said it’s covered in scrap wood and oil drums. It’s all ready to go.”

  “Do we wait for the call on Dot Ave?”

  “You worried it won’t burn or somethin’?” Johnny said. “Christ.”

  They drove through Dorchester and up into Southie. The scanner crackled to life: Engine 21, Ladder 17, and Ladder 7. Multiple calls for a fire at 848 Dorchester Avenue. Box 7252 is being transmitted.

  Kevin drove. Johnny smiled, hot wind blowing through the open windows. “What’d I fuckin’ tell you?”

  Johnny wore rose-tinted sunglasses that night. They were prescription, the kind that reacted to light. When he’d light up La Bomba, they’d change his eyes. He reached into the front pocket of his security guard uniform and pulled out a cigarette. He smoked it while Kevin followed the streets over to an endless warehouse on E Street. Almost all of it looked to be corrugated tin, and Kevin wondered how the hell they’d light up this beast.

  Kevin had already sweated through his T-shirt. He reached for the hem and wiped his face. Driving with one hand, he slowed the Crown Vic and parked in an alley. Johnny already had La Bomba in his lap, cigarette dangling from his lips. “Here. You get the freakin’ honor.”

  Kevin grabbed the paper bag and got out of the car. He walked to the west side of the building, close to Fargo. He found the wall Johnny had told him about, wood with tar paper and a pile of tires stacked eight feet high. All he had to do was light the match, get in the car, and roll on back to the first houses on Dot Ave. After all, if they didn’t show up at a fire, some of the Sparks would start to wonder.

  Kevin’s heart raced and his hands shook as he set the bag next to the tire and struck the match. He got the cigarette going and ran back to the car. Two fires tonight. Johnny said they needed to do five or more tonight or it wasn’t worth squat. Really get the whole department hoppin’. From Southie to Charlestown and maybe over to Brighton. It would be beautiful, he said.

  Soon they were headed back to Dot Ave, seeing flames and smelling the smoke from the triple-deckers. The scanner told them it was a working fire now. The chief had called for a second and third alarm by the time they parked a few blocks away. A ton of chatter on the scanner.

  At the scene, Kevin and Johnny walked through the dozen or so Sparks watching the blaze and taking pictures. Kevin raised his hand over his eyes, seeing the two buildings burning hot and bright as promised. But also seeing a third house and an apartment building starting to
smoke. It had spread. The buildings were too damn close.

  Johnny saw it but didn’t seem to give a shit, talking with two jakes who’d just come out of the building sucking on oxygen. Johnny made some kind of joke and gave the boys a thumbs-up before walking away.

  They stood around for the next half-hour before Kevin drove Johnny back to his own car. He’d left the red sedan parked inside a chain-link fence. The fence surrounding the little plot where he’d parked his security company trailer. The two sat there in the car, Johnny’s pit bull going nuts by the gate.

  “You see them families?” Kevin said. “We should’ve been more careful. This was supposed to be political.”

  “It is political,” Johnny said. “Everything is political.”

  “But burning out families?” he said. “I saw ten people sitting on the curb. That old man sucking on oxygen. I don’t like how this went.”

  “People have been hurt,” Johnny said. “More will have to get hurt for someone to do something.”

  “Nobody’s gotten hurt,” Kevin said. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What?”

  “Good night,” Johnny said. He got out and slammed the door.

  Kevin sat there for a moment, listening to the dog bark over and over. When he began to start the car, he felt a hand on his wrist. He felt like his heart might leave his chest. It was Johnny, laughing at making him jump. “You know the best part?”

  Kevin shook his head.

  “Those jakes back there,” he said. “They thanked me. Thanked me for all the support. You know how that fucking made me feel? It’s all gonna be worth it. You’ll see.”

  19

  After visiting the boys in Arson, I cracked my office windows that afternoon to the pleasant sound and smell of rain falling, and began to check messages. According to my service, I had eight calls from Cedar Junction, or as it’s more traditionally known, MCI Walpole.

  Tommy the Torch had fine timing. I returned the call.

  Prisoners don’t set their own hours, and I had time to walk down to Berkeley Street to buy a sub sandwich and chips. I made coffee and responded to a few e-mails. I ate most of the sub and cleaned off my desk. I paid a few bills. I checked the time. And then I called Susan. “Dr. Kildare here,” I said. “I’m calling to schedule in a sponge bath after a two o’clock lobotomy.”