‘Mr Beck?’
He startled. ‘Yes? Oh, Chief Truman, thank you for coming.’ He jumped up and cleared a space on the bench facing the lagoon. ‘Have a seat. You want a sandwich? I got you tuna-fish.’
I took the sandwich and turned it over in my hand.
‘It’s okay,’ he said, ‘it won’t turn you into a defense lawyer.’
I sat down. ‘Do you take your lunch here a lot?’
‘Nah. I don’t usually eat lunch. There never seems to be time. I’m either in court or on the way to court. I have to watch it anyway.’ He patted his belly. ‘I picked this place because I thought we could be alone here.’
The ducks kicked up another round of honking. Rhonk rhonk.
‘They’re upset about something,’ Beck said.
‘It’s getting cold. They’re anxious to leave.’
I opened my sandwich and the two of us ate in silence. An awkward etiquette pertains at lunchtime meetings. It requires occasional conversational pauses for chewing, and it disfavors asking questions of someone who has just inserted a bolus of tuna-fish sandwich in his mouth. So Max Beck and I – strange bedfellows, unsure how to speak to each other – sat for a while eating our lunches.
‘Does anyone know you’re here, Chief Truman?’
‘No. On the phone, you said it was confidential. Besides, it’s not exactly something I’d brag about to my cop friends.’
‘Your cop friends think I’m one of the bad guys.’
‘They think you’re a devil worshiper.’
Beck grinned. Being thought a devil worshiper did not seem to trouble him. ‘Well then, thank you for coming. We’ll make this quick, before anyone sees you. Usually I’d call a prosecutor to arrange this. My client wants to surrender.’
‘So let him surrender.’
‘Well, that’s the unusual part. He wants to surrender to you.’
‘Me? Why me?’
‘He trusts you.’
‘He shouldn’t. Did your client tell you he broke into my hotel room last night with one of his goons and put a gun to my head?’
Beck shook his head.
‘Maybe I’m not the best cop for Harold today’
‘I see. But you haven’t taken out a charge against him, have you?’
I did not answer.
‘Harold said you helped get his daughter back.’
‘It wasn’t a big deal.’
‘It was a big deal to him. Chief Truman, Boston PD is on a rampage looking for my client. It’s important they not find him. Do you understand that?’
‘I think it’s important they do find him. There’s a warrant out for him.’
‘Yes, there is that. What I meant was, it’s important that Harold not be in their custody, that he not disappear into a holding cell somewhere or find himself being chased down some dark alley by a bunch of white cops with guns. This isn’t about the legalities.’
I bristled at the generalization. I was a white cop with a gun too. ‘Is this you talking or your client?’
‘My client and I speak with one voice.’
‘Ah. That’s the devil-worshiping part.’
Beck frowned. He broke off a piece of bread and tossed it on the ground, where the ducks pulled it apart. ‘My client asked me to deliver a proposal to you. He says he is willing to surrender on the warrant but only on two conditions: He’ll only surrender to you and only on the condition that he be taken immediately to Maine for trial. He is not afraid of a trial. But he doesn’t want Boston to have custody, even for one day, even one hour. He feels strongly about that, so that’s the way it would have to be.’
‘Otherwise?’
‘Otherwise Boston PD can keep looking for him, and when they find him Harold won’t surrender. Someone will get hurt.’
‘Probably Harold.’
‘Yes. Probably Harold. Do you take comfort in that, Chief Truman?’
‘Of course not. Are you that cynical about cops?’
‘Some cops, yes.’
‘Well you don’t know me. I haven’t earned that from you.’
‘No, you’re right. I apologize. My client feels he is in danger from certain Boston cops, that’s all I meant. Here, let me show you something.’
Beck put his sandwich down and wiped his hands on his thighs. He rummaged around in his briefcase until he found a letter on the District Attorney’s letterhead, three or four pages long, single-spaced. The word CONFIDENTIAL was typed across the top. The subject line read, Re: Agreement By and Between the Commonwealth and Harold Ellison Braxton. ‘Skip to the back,’ Beck suggested. Three prosecutors had signed the letter: the state Attorney General, District Attorney Andrew Lowery, and Assistant DA Robert M. Danziger.
‘Harold asked me to show that to you. Do you know what it is, Chief Truman? It’s a cooperation letter. Signed by Bob Danziger. Did you know Harold was working with Danziger?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t you find it strange that Harold would go off and murder a prosecutor who’s just given him immunity? Look here.’ He reached over and opened the letter to the second page. ‘Use immunity for Harold’s testimony regarding the events of August 16-17, 1987, the night Artie Trudell was killed. Do you know what use immunity means?’
‘Yeah, it means anything he gives them can’t be used against him, unless the state can show they had an independent source for the information. They can still charge him with the murder, but they can’t use his own words to convict him.’
I scanned the letter, which did not explicitly identify the crime Bobby Danziger was investigating. But it was obvious. ‘Jesus, Danziger actually flipped Braxton. He was using Braxton to reopen the Trudell case.’
‘Yes. And I’ll tell you what else that letter means. It means Bob Danziger didn’t think Harold killed Artie Trudell. You don’t give immunity to a cop killer, even limited immunity like this.’
‘I don’t understand. If Harold didn’t kill Artie Trudell, what would he know about the case?’
‘Chief Truman, Harold’s relationships with the police are complex. He’s not the monster they make him out to be. He’s helped out a number of detectives, including your friend Martin Gittens.’
‘Braxton was a snitch for Gittens?’
‘Is. Braxton is a snitch for Gittens.’
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Ask Gittens. They’ve both been in the Flats a long time, coexisting quite happily. I’m not saying they’re friends. It’s a business relationship: an exchange of values. Gittens gets information, Harold gets’ – he searched for the discreet word – ’room to maneuver.’
‘“Room to maneuver.” You mean Gittens has been protecting him. I don’t believe it.’
‘Not protecting him. He just helps Harold stay out of trouble. If there’s going to be a raid, Gittens may give him a heads-up, that’s all. It’s not so uncommon. Spies and counterspies.’
Beck must have seen I was flummoxed by all this because he fell silent while I took it in. To pass the time, he tore off a piece of bread and tossed it on the ground. He took care to leave it where a little finch could peck at it for a moment before the enormous honking mallards chased the bird off.
‘Understand what I’m telling you, Chief Truman, Martin Gittens is a good cop. He does what he has to do. He takes his information where he finds it. Gittens works narcotics cases, and the only people with information about the drug trade, unfortunately, are in the drug trade. What are you gonna do?’ He shrugged. ‘Actually, I kind of like him, as cops go.’
‘Did Gittens protect Braxton in the Trudell case?’
‘He warned Harold about the raid, yes. That’s why Harold wasn’t there. But after that, Gittens played it straight. When he thought Harold was the shooter, Gittens went after him harder than anyone else. It was Gittens who found the murder weapon, remember.’
‘With Braxton’s prints on it.’
‘Those prints were planted.’
‘Oh, come on.’
‘Look, p
rints can be lifted. All it takes is a piece of Scotch tape and a little know-how. We had a forensics guy ready to testify those prints were put there, probably by some cop trying to shore up a weak case.’
‘So Braxton was Raul?’
Another theatrical shrug. ‘Who knows.’
‘Well what did Danziger want Braxton for? What was he going to testify to?’
‘Just that Gittens had tipped him off to the raid. That’s really all he knows about it.’ Beck fixed me with a look that approximated sincerity. ‘Chief Truman, Harold did not kill Bob Danziger. I don’t say he’s an angel, but he didn’t do this.’
‘How do I know that for sure?’
‘Because Danziger knew it. Danziger knew Harold didn’t kill Artie Trudell. That’s why he gave him immunity. Figure out what Danziger had, figure out how he knew.’
‘Well unfortunately I can’t ask Danziger, can I?’
‘He must’ve had something – evidence, a witness, something. My client trusts you. Harold asked me to show you this document for a reason: He wants you to trust him too. Not be his friend, not approve of everything he does, just trust him. Let him surrender.’
I tossed the rest of my sandwich to the ducks, who surged around it frantically. ‘Alright, how does this work?’
‘We pick a place outside the city limits, where Boston PD doesn’t have jurisdiction. Harold will surrender himself voluntarily to your custody. From there you would take him straight to Maine for trial.’
‘If I were him, I wouldn’t be so anxious for a trial.’
‘Chief Truman, if you were him, right now the trial would be the least of your worries.’
50
Battery Point is a bulge of land that extends into Boston Harbor at the southeastern edge of Mission Flats. There is a little park, not much more than a turnaround for cars. A plaque explains that English cannons once were stationed here to guard the southern approach to the city. A knee-high stone wall surrounds the lookout point; beyond it the land quickly melts into a soggy marsh. If you stepped off that wall, you’d find yourself standing in water up to your waist. A few more steps and you’d be under water completely. The land is unbuildable and too far from the city center to tempt developers to fill it in, as they did the Back Bay. So it has been preserved in something like its pristine condition. In fact, if you ignore the modern intrusions – the planes banking away from Logan Airport, a field of oil tanks, trash snarled in the grass – with no great leap of imagination, you can catch a glimpse of this place as it must have appeared when the first Englishmen arrived here. Lush and fecund; rocky and wintry and terrifying too. A new England suited to the rapturous Puritan vision of a community without sin, a fundamentalist Christian theocracy, an anti-America. A New World. They must have sailed right past these marshes. If you’d been standing on this spot four hundred years ago, you would have seen them, proto-Americans searching for a better landfall.
Gittens kept me waiting here for some time. When he finally arrived, we stood on the concrete parapet looking north toward the city skyline. The wind off the harbor fluttered our jackets. I crossed my arms to keep the chill off.
‘Some spot,’ he said.
‘I thought we’d better talk privately’
‘Oh?’
‘I have some information about the Trudell case.’
‘Jesus, are you still on that?’
‘Martin, doesn’t it bother you that everybody involved in the case is dead? First Trudell, then Danziger, now Vega.’
‘Vega? He killed himself.’
‘No. There were two sets of ligature marks, and you can’t hang yourself twice. Vega was murdered. Somebody staged it to look like a suicide. Vega must have struggled, he must have escaped the first time, so the murderer had to do it again.’
‘Who are you, Nancy Drew?’ Gittens was annoyed. ‘You’re making this much harder than it is. Forget Vega, forget Trudell. Braxton shot Danziger because Danziger was a DA. Don’t you get that?’
‘What about Trudell?’
‘What about Trudell?’
‘Who killed him?’
‘Gee, maybe it was the second shooter on the grassy knoll.’
‘I’m serious, Martin.’
‘Alright. Braxton killed him. Is that what you need to hear?’
‘Impossible.’
‘Impossible? Why? Because Braxton’s such a swell guy?’
‘No. Because he wasn’t there. Braxton knew the raid was coming. You warned him.’
For a moment the only sound was the sough of the wind in my ears.
‘That’s a crock of shit, and don’t you ever repeat it to anyone. Somebody’s playing you, Ben. I didn’t warn Braxton. Who told you that?’
‘Danziger. It was in his file, and it gets worse. Danziger had given immunity to Braxton. He was going to have him testify to all this; he was taking it to a grand jury’
‘Untrue.’
‘It is true. Here’s the cooperation letter. At a minimum, it explains why Braxton was in Maine. He wasn’t there to kill Danziger; he was there to meet with him. He was going to be Danziger’s star witness.’
Gittens studied the letter without comment, his face expressionless.
‘Martin, Danziger knew.’
‘Knew what?’
‘He knew Braxton was your snitch. He knew you protected him.’
‘That is just false. Look, have I gotten information from Braxton? You bet I have. Have I given something back to him in exchange? Absolutely. That’s how it works. It’s my job. That doesn’t make Braxton “my snitch.”’
‘Did you tip him off about that raid when Artie died?’
‘Of course not!’
‘Did you ever protect him?’
‘No. Not the way you mean.’
‘Was Braxton “Raul”?’
‘No. And don’t you ever fuckin’ put in a report that you even asked that question.’
I shifted, suddenly unsure of myself.
‘Ben, listen carefully: Braxton. Killed. Trudell. Case closed.’
‘It doesn’t make sense. If Harold was tipped off about the raid, why would he still be in the apartment when Trudell got there?’
‘“Harold”? What is this? Are you getting all this from Braxton?’
‘Why did he leave the gun, Martin? Braxton’s way too smart to drop the murder weapon with his fingerprints all over it. Why would he do that?’
‘Why? Because in real life things get fucked up, that’s why. Why was he in the apartment? How the hell should I know? Maybe he had to go back to get something. Maybe he meant to get out sooner but he got held up. If he was warned – and in the Flats, who knows, maybe he was – maybe the raid team just got there sooner than Braxton figured they would. He fucked up. And once he was trapped inside, he had to shoot his way out because that’s all he knows how to do. What else would he do? Negotiate? He isn’t Henry fuckin’ Kissinger.’
‘And the gun? Why did he drop the gun?’
‘Because he’s human. Because he was under stress and he made a mistake. Yes, he’s smart, but smart people commit crimes imperfectly. It happens all the time. That’s how they get caught. Jesus, Ben, that’s what murder is. It’s not cool calculation; it’s hysteria.’
‘What about Raul?’
‘Would you forget about Raul! It never mattered about Raul. I told you, there was no Raul and there were a thousand Rauls. It doesn’t make any difference.’
He rested one foot on the stone wall and looked out over the harbor toward the airport on the opposite bank. ‘There aren’t neat solutions to every mystery. The world is messier than that. People get involved and they’ – he waved his hand in exasperation – ’they complicate everything. They do things for reasons even they don’t understand. They do things for no damn reason at all. I know this is your first murder and you want to figure everything out. But sometimes you can’t figure everything out because you can’t ever really understand other people. You can’t understand why they do what they do.
You just have to accept a little mystery, Ben. People are mysterious, the world is mysterious. You can’t know everything. You’re not supposed to. This isn’t a history book. It’s just the world. It’s a messy place.’
It struck me then that Gittens was the perfect cop for Mission Flats. He was a natural broken-field runner, with just the supple temperament for that chaotic, unbounded place. When the rules did not work, he bent them. When the facts did not fit, he bent them too. And in general that was a necessary – even a good – thing. Without people like Gittens, the system would jam. But all that sophistication made Gittens tougher to decipher than Franny Boyle had been. He was certainly a better poker player than Franny I’d been bluffing when I said all this information had come from Danziger’s files. In fact it had come from Vega, Braxton, and Beck. I’d bluffed, but Gittens had not revealed his cards. Unlike Franny, Martin Gittens did not have a tell. He was indignant at the suggestion he’d done anything wrong – and guilty or not, who wouldn’t be?
He said, ‘What do you intend to do with all these . . . theories about the Trudell thing?’
‘I’m not sure. I still don’t know who the shooter was. For all I know, maybe it was Braxton after all. All the rest is just – I guess it’s just the way the game is played around here.’
Gittens tore up the cooperation letter and dropped the shreds into the water. They caught in the reeds. Some landed in open water, where after a time they sunk. I was offended at the gesture, but when Gittens spoke again, his voice was so reassuring that I knew he’d torn up the document for my own good. Some secrets should remain just that.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘be careful out there. There are people who don’t want the case reopened. Important people.’
‘So I’ve been told. But what can I do? I can’t just stop.’
Mission Flats Page 33