Buried Troubles

by Marian McMahon Stanley

  Solly could feel the guard watching after him as he started up the stairs.

  The door on the third floor opened to a small corridor where Solly found himself looking directly into a cramped, paper-filled internal office.

  Behind a battered metal desk stood a tall, slim man whose youthful build and features were at odds with a worn expression. What was the right word thought Solly. Used-up, maybe. A used-up man. A heavyset Hispanic man with multiple tattoos stood leaning against a side wall, in conversation with the man behind the desk.

  “Reyerta. Another line fight early this morning. Guys working on the condos next door bumped a client in line. Somebody shoved somebody else and then everybody got in.”

  The first man, who Solly took to be Liam Joyce, shook his head and responded in a rich Irish accent. “God knows we don’t need this right now, Eduardo. Alpha is already complaining again. They’ll be through the roof about this.”

  Solly knew that there was big time tension between Saint Martin House and Alpha Properties, the developer and manager of the pricey new condo complex expanding down the block. Alpha was not comfortable with the presence of Saint Martin House and its clients in its backyard, even though the House had been at its location for decades, well before the condos and before property values in the area shot into the stratosphere.

  It was Alpha Properties in fact that gave the money for the House to build an atrium for people lining up to eat. Alpha hoped the addition would keep the clients off the sidewalks and out of the way of condo residents who didn’t want to run a gauntlet of street people to get into their multi-million dollar homes.

  At this point, Liam Joyce noticed Solly in the hall and held his hand up to wait a moment.

  Solly saw Eduardo look at him with concern. “I can talk to you later,” he said to Liam.

  “Talk now, Eduardo. It’s okay. No secrets.” Liam said impatiently, glancing at Solly.

  “BPD and Councilor Ross are supposed to come by this afternoon,” said Eduardo, looking at Solly with a question in his eyes and some defiance. “No more lines unless we want to pay for a detail. We can’t afford to pay cops to watch the clients. Besides, it sends the wrong message.”

  Joyce patted his hand in the air, looking to soothe Eduardo. “That I know. That I know.”

  He turned then to Solly. “I thought you were coming this afternoon with Councilor Ross, Officer. As you can see, we’re not quite ready for you yet.”

  “Maybe you have me confused with someone else, Mister Joyce.” Solly stepped forward and extended his hand. “Detective Solly Belkin, BPD. I called earlier.”

  Both men’s faces went still.

  Solly noticed a slight nervous tic in Joyce’s left eye, and saw Eduardo’s muscular body stiffen into a defensive posture.

  Recovering quickly, Joyce waved his hand and said in a distracted voice. “Oh yes, yes. We have someone from the BPD coming in this afternoon about a little trouble we had here this morning.”

  “So I gather,” Solly responded. “Not surprising. You have a lot of hungry, homeless people—mostly adult men—standing in a line. Didn’t you just build an atrium?”

  “You know, we’ve outgrown it already.” Joyce dropped into a chair behind the desk wearily—like an old man, belying his adolescent looks. He gestured to Solly to take a seat.

  “Call Mr. Twomey,” urged Eduardo, forgetting Solly for the moment. “Ask him for money to expand the atrium.”

  “Oh, Jesus. I’m always calling Declan.” Joyce put his hand over his eyes for a moment. “I don’t know why he takes my calls anymore.”

  “Because he loves you and your trabajo, your mission, Saint Liam.” Eduardo’s face had softened briefly into a smile, his tone avuncular. “Have some coffee and a sweet. You’ll feel better.”

  Still watchful of Solly, Eduardo turned to the window and retrieved a coffee and butternut doughnut for Joyce. Solly had thought that he’d smelled something fine like this, but figured that perhaps it was a kitchen smell coming up through the grate.

  “Eduardo gets me a Dunkin latte and a butternut doughnut every morning. Is this man not a saint?” Liam lifted the lid off the coffee and inhaled deeply. “Mmmm.”

  Eduardo turned to Solly. “Would you like a coffee, Detective? I didn’t realize we were having a guest.” Solly thought he might have heard a hint of territorial reproach in Eduardo’s voice. A subtle wave of wry amusement rippled across Joyce’s face.

  “No thanks. I’m good.” Solly held up his hand in response.

  Eduardo turned to Liam. “You’ve got someone from the Chancery coming in—maybe in an hour. The Cardinal wants to serve lunch sometime this month.”

  “Lovely.” Liam looked at Solly. “Good man. Comes at least once a month. And mirable dictu, with no photographer.”

  Eduardo shuffled his feet slightly. “Would you like me to stay, Mr. Joyce?”

  Liam looked at the bulky man with affection. “No, I’m okay.”

  Eduardo hesitated before responding, clearly reluctant to leave. “Okay, I’ll go down and help with the signup for the training program.” He held up his cell. “Just give me a call if you need anything.” Solly was intrigued with the look of barely contained animosity directed at him from Eduardo as he lingered in the door.

  “I’m okay, Eduardo. Thanks. I’m okay,” Liam said. He waved his hand in dismissal with a small smile.

  Eduardo nodded, holding up his cell and pointing at it before leaving the room and closing the door.

  Solly dove right into it. “Mr. Joyce, you’re aware of Patrick Keenan’s death?”

  Joyce nodded sadly, his eyes fixed on his cluttered desk. “Yes, yes. Sad business. I was shocked to hear about it.”

  “He came to see you the day before he died.”

  Joyce nodded again. “He did.”

  “Do you mind telling me about the purpose of that visit?”

  “No, I don’t mind at all, Detective.” Joyce raised his head. “The boy was working on an independent study project at the University in Galway. He came to ask me some questions as part of his research.”

  “Questions about what?”

  Joyce shifted in his seat, keenly aware of Solly’s eyes on him. “Well, it was a pretty broad topic. Something about Irish-American support for community projects in Northern Ireland. And, of course, Saint Martin House here at home is an iconic institution supported by many people, but a particular favorite of the Irish-American community. He wanted to see if there had been any linkage.”

  “Really?” Solly was quiet for a few taut, still moments, staring at Saint Liam. “I thought Patrick’s project was focused on Irish-American support for the IRA in the 70s.”

  The area around Liam Joyce’s mouth went slightly white in a minuscule twitch, his body betraying him. “Maybe at the beginning, but I wouldn’t know about that. He wanted to know about the House and how it came to be, where the support and financing came from—that sort of thing.”

  “I’m surprised, Mr. Joyce. That’s quite different from what I understand about his research.”

  “Well, now, as I say, maybe the topic morphed. Yes, morphed, you know. To more about how the Irish-American community support for causes like Saint Martin’s impacts civic society here and there. Maybe he shifted focus. Yes, maybe shifted focus.” He looked hopefully at Solly.

  Solly contemplated how an Irishman’s accent, for some reason one of the most effective tools of persuasion known to man, became thicker while doing a sell. Saint Liam was doing a sell.

  Solly didn’t respond. Liam Joyce caught his bottom lip with his teeth, raised his brows and shook his head. “I can’t tell you much more than that, Detective.”

  “I see, Mr. Joyce,” Solly said slowly. He sighed before asking, “And how did Patrick seem when he was here?”

  “Oh, enthusiastic, excited to be traveling, to be in Boston. You know, he was young.” Joyce’s voice trailed off and he looked momentarily stricken, staring into space. “Just so young.”
<
br />   The conversation flattened after that, with desultory answers from Liam Joyce that shed no light on the case. Solly left ten minutes later, feeling frustrated and intrigued.

  It was clear to Solly that something complicated had happened during Patrick’s visit to the House. Something Saint Liam was not being open about.

  He was turning this thought over in his mind as he slowly descended the stairs. Distracted, he almost bumped into Eduardo on the second floor landing. Waiting for him?

  “He’s a good, good man, Detective. He’s a saint.” That word again. “Don’t do nothing bad to him.”

  Solly was taken aback but curious. “I have to talk to everyone, Eduardo. A young man has been killed. I owe it to him and his family to make sure we get the answers here. Mr. Joyce is not being singled out.”

  Eduardo didn’t respond immediately. He looked carefully at Solly and started to walk up toward the third floor. Partway up, he turned over his shoulder to say softly. “Es un santo. Es un santo,” before continuing up the stairs.

  CHAPTER 9

  Rosaria loved the way that Solly had developed the habit of walking to her right since her right eye became damaged. For the most part, she had learned to offset for this visual weakness. Yet, as Solly walked beside her and gave her arm a gentle touch when they approached a grate or an irregular piece of pavement on the right side, she realized how much energy it usually took her to compensate. He made everything so much easier.

  Solly insisted on accompanying her to all her doctors’ appointments. A good idea as she was not diligent about note-taking during the visits or writing down questions for the doctor in advance. This new kind of casualness was not like her. She’d always been an attentive, if occasionally unruly, student and had managed many projects successfully in her long career. Diving in and running things was her forte. Here, she was in some unfamiliar passive state about her injuries. Rosaria wondered if this new behavior was a form of denial about the damage to her eye. Or perhaps just a welcome collapse into Solly Belkin’s care and competence. She wasn’t used to collapsing, and the fact that she had was somewhat embarrassing to her personally. But every day, she was thankful for Solly.

  Today, she’d flushed with this gratitude again when he’d pulled a small notebook out of his jeans pocket during the doctor visit. It was the same type of notebook he used for interviews and case notes at work. He must have bought dozens of these small black spiral notebooks that just fit into his jeans pocket. This particular notebook had a small sticker on the upper right corner that read Rosie-Eye Appts. In it were questions for the doctor (“Exercises to strengthen the eye muscles?”) and notes about medications and progress.

  The doctor at Mass Eye and Ear had told Rosaria today that her eye seemed to be healing well on its own. He didn’t see the need for surgery. Perhaps in about six months, she’d be back to normal, with the possible exception of an occasional flickering of light in the corner of her eye. They’d have to see about that.

  “What would I do without you?” she asked Solly.

  “You’d manage, you always do,” he said, putting his arm around her shoulder. “But I’d be one lonesome guy without you, I’d tell you that.”

  “Oh, you’d never be lonesome. Good looking, macho cop who reads books, hikes, and has a vinyl jazz collection. Someone would snatch you up in no time.”

  Then, he looked into her eyes for a long time and said, “No one like you, Rosie. No one like you,” and he kissed her.

  ◆◆◆

  Before they split up for Rosaria to go back to her condo and Solly to the Tremont Street station, they stopped for lunch at the Union Oyster House, down near the Faneuil Hall Market and not too far from Rosaria’s condo. Popular with tourists and senior citizens, the old restaurant had first opened in 1826 in the Union Street Building. Earlier, King Louis Phillippe of France had taught French in an upstairs room to the young ladies of Boston while he was in exile after the French revolution.

  The low-ceilinged and cramped rooms, filled with colonial and maritime paraphernalia, seemed to embrace Rosaria as she and Solly entered. How many meals had she had here as a child with her parents? Just being here gave her a sense of comfort and security, something she needed at this point in her life.

  Rosaria felt so good that she was tempted to order a Blue Moon. But she decided that having a beer was not a good idea. Without Solly on her right hand side, she needed her wits about her to navigate the city streets.

  “How’s your friend Bridie?”

  “Not so great. Terrible shock.”

  “Yeah. Patrick sounded like a good kid.” Solly’s brow furrowed over determined brown eyes. “We’ll get whoever did it. Might take time, but we’ll get him.”

  “I hope so, Solly, but—don’t take this the wrong way, we have to try—it won’t bring Patrick back.”

  “No, no, it won’t.” His big hand covered hers on the table. “It’s okay to say that. I’ve been around a long time. I know the score.”

  “Sorry to be rude,” Rosaria said to Solly as she took out her cellphone. “I forgot I have to text George at our building about letting the new dog walker in today.” She keyed in her password and took a sharp breath as she saw an old text displayed on the screen. “Oh, my God, Solly. I totally forgot to tell you something important.” She hit the side of her head with the flat of her hand.

  Solly interrupted sprinkling oyster crackers into his chowder to look at her.

  “About your eye? About the case? About the Sox lineup? What?”

  “I just saw a text I sent to Patrick the last time I saw him.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Right after Patrick visited Liam Joyce at Saint Martin’s, he and I met near the T stop on the Common. We...,” Rosaria paused and reddened. “We had an argument.”

  “Oh?” Solly cocked his head.

  “He just wouldn’t tell me anything about what the real target of his research was or what his meeting with Liam Joyce was about. Patrick was driving me crazy. I wanted to strangle him.” She stopped. “Sorry. That last part was not appropriate under the circumstances.”

  “Forget it. So—is that it? You had an argument? So what?”

  “No, that’s not the important part.” She leaned heavily against the back of the wooden booth, and ran her hand through her white hair. “There was someone following us—a big guy in a black Bruins tee shirt. After we split up, he followed Patrick into the Park Square T-station.”

  “How could you forget something as important as that?” Solly’s tone was more curious than angry.

  “I don’t know, I don’t know.” She shook her head. “Just so much going on.” She gave Solly a helpless shrug. “I just...I just...forgot.”

  “Okay. So tell me now.” He put his packet of crackers down and leaned forward on his elbows. Rosaria told him about that day and Patrick and the man and Patrick’s return phone call to her telling her that all was well and not to worry.

  “Might be nothing, a guy just headed home to Cambridge from work,” Solly said. “But, it’s possible he might have followed Patrick to see where he lived. And he could have been the one who broke in later to take Patrick’s computer and notebooks. Never know.” He sighed. “I wish we had gotten at least one good fingerprint from that break-in. Nobody saw or remembered anything. So many people coming and going in those multi-families in that area. If it turns out it’s this guy with a Bruins tee shirt, you’d think that would maybe stand out.” He stopped and shook his head. “What am I thinking? No, it wouldn’t, not in this town. Anyway, go over it again and describe him to me. Everything you remember.”

  Solly took a small black spiral notebook out of his back pocket. This was a different notebook from the one he’d used earlier in the doctor’s office. This notebook look well-used and had a small white sticker in the upper right hand corner that read Homicide—Keenan.

  CHAPTER 10

  Rosaria knew that Solly had been married before, as she had been. After he and Rosaria had
been seeing each other for a few weeks, they’d shared their marital histories over a long dinner at Lucia’s on Hanover Street.

  “He was older,” said Rosaria of her first husband Bronson. “Pretty traditional.” She leaned back against the booth and took a deep breath. “I was probably too young to make a decision around marriage, not really fully formed, you know?”

  “Oh yeah,” commented Solly.

  “He loved the fact that I was spunky—that was a word he used to describe me. Spunky. Anyway, he thought it was great to be married to a spunky, bright young thing.”

  “Probably was,” Solly smiled.

  “Well, for a while. Then I joined the workforce. Had some success, got a little too independent for his comfort level as I got older and had more world experience. And then not so great. He’s a good man, but we were a really bad fit.” Rosaria paused for a few moments, fingering the stem of her wineglass. “That’s why I’m so jealous of my independence now. I couldn’t breathe. It was such a relief to get out from under.”

  “I’ll bet it was.” Solly smiled and followed up with “I can handle independence.”

  “That’s why I love you, Solly Belkin.” She was surprised to find her eyes wet, and forged on. “He always seemed to have someone on the side, too, after I started to come into my own. And the worst part was that he kept telling me I was imagining things.”

  “Gas lighting.”

  “Yes, gaslighting. Of course, as it turned out, I wasn’t imagining anything. He’s good looking, and there always seem to be lots of available women, whether the men are married or not.” She inhaled deeply. “Well, anyway, we ended it.”

  “Got it. Must have been tough.” He reached over to cover her hand with his own. “You’re safe with me, honey.”

  They were both quiet for a while before Solly asked. “Did he marry again?”

  “Oh yeah, to one of the administrators he was seeing at the consulting company where he worked while he was married to me. She thought he walked on water, until they separated for some reason. Before then, though, they were very happy. One time I saw them together—they were going golfing, wearing matching pink golf shirts and green pants.” Rosaria started to giggle and had to cover her mouth so as not to disturb the other diners. Solly joined in and they were lost in mirth for a minute or two.