2 in the Hat (6 page)

“Why’d he think that?”

“They showed signs of lividity in the buttocks, thighs and feet, as if they’d been sitting. We found the two of them standing.”

“So you think the guy had them sitting down after he killed them?”

“That’s what Belsky thinks. He said that after the heart stops pumping, gravity causes the blood to pool up in different parts of the body, depending on the positioning of the corpse. Initially the discoloration caused by the pooling blood can be shifted, but after six to eight hours the discoloration is fixed.”

“I understand what lividity is, Angel,” Mooney grunted.

“I’m just telling you what the ME said. The bottom line is that they had been someplace else, sitting up, possibly dressed in their formal wear, before they were dumped in Franklin Park.”

“It’s something to think about. He may have had them sitting upright in his car, strapped in with seatbelts, while he drove around trying to decide where to dump them.”

“I’m still not convinced as to how this all went down,” Alves said. “Let’s say he shoots Josh immediately. Why doesn’t anyone see or hear it? And Courtney would have screamed. There were people everywhere. How could there be no witnesses?”

“They were drunk,” Mooney said. “Maybe he tricked them into going someplace more secluded. He could have lured them into his vehicle. I could see them as good Samaritans,” Mooney said. “If the guy pretends he’s hurt, they walk right into his trap. Vintage Ted Bundy. He was a good looking guy, All American Boy. He’d wear a fake cast and pretend he needed help. Once the victim let her guard down, he’d attack.”

“What do you think he’s driving to pull off a stunt like that?” Alves said. “I’m picturing a van with tinted-out windows or a rusted-out old pickup with a cap. Every time I see something like that cruising around, I think ‘serial killer.’”

“It might not matter what he’s driving. Remember, he’s carrying a gun, the great equalizer,” Mooney said. “Guns tend to encourage people to cooperate.”

“Maybe the kids saw the gun, thought they were being robbed and figured they’d be released unharmed if they cooperated?”

“Even with a gun, it would be tough to control two people while driving. Either one of the kids could have freaked out on him and he’d have to kill them in the vehicle or risk getting caught.”

“What if there was more than one killer?” Alves said. “One guy to drive and one guy to control the victims until they got them to the primary scene.”

“This is the work of one man.”

“Okay. What if he’s not driving a van. What if he’s in an unmarked police car or something that looks like one? If he pretended to be a cop, he could have scooped them up without much trouble.”

“What if he is a cop?” Mooney asked.

“Either way, he could have told them they were under arrest for drunk and disorderly, or that he was taking them into protective custody until they sobered up. He could have placed them in cuffs and taken them wherever he wanted. Killed them at his leisure.”

“I’d like to get back out there before the next home game and talk with some of the tailgaters, see if they saw any suspicious vehicles cruising around or if they saw someone that looked like a cop riding around in an unmarked car. Problem is BC’s on the road the next two weeks.”

“What are the chances we’ll run into anyone that was there last weekend?”

“Pretty good,” Mooney said. “The same people stake out the same spots for every home game. This guy grabbed these kids. If we get lucky, one of the tailgaters saw something.”

“Three weeks is a long time to wait to talk to a bunch of drunks about something they saw a month earlier.”

“Read me that list of witnesses. I’m going over to BC right now.”

M
ooney was tired. He crumpled into the seat of his newly assigned
Ford Five Hundred. He didn’t appreciate the downgrade from the Crown Vic that supervisors used to drive.

After leaving headquarters, he’d driven to Chestnut Hill. He used Alves’s list of witnesses who had seen Courtney and Josh before they disappeared Saturday night. According to their friends, the couple had been tailgating along with the rest of the BC community. The game was a major event at the school, the first home game, one of only two nationally televised night games.

Their friends said that Courtney and Josh had had a few drinks. Neither of them drank often, so they were pretty intoxicated. The one thing the witnesses agreed on was that the two were in love. They went for long walks, held hands, talked, were affectionate in public. They seemed to enjoy being alone and talking. Their closest friends said their favorite spots were the area around the Chestnut Hill Reservoir and Chestnut Hill Park where they’d sit in the bleachers by the baseball field.

Mooney knew the area. At the park he pulled into one of the spots by the bleachers. When he was in high school, he had played a few games on that baseball diamond. First base for the Boston Latin Wolfpack. A few years back he’d played in a charity softball game with some cops and DAs on the same field. On the night of the murders, the area would have been
teeming with people. BC was playing Florida State, one of the biggest games of the season.

How could the killer have abducted and killed the couple with so many potential witnesses in the area? Mooney believed that the woman was the killer’s main target. The man was more of a prop needed to set up the scene. But the male also complicated matters. It would be harder to take two people. Probably the male victim was shot right away. The friends Mooney had spoken with confirmed that Courtney and Josh had eaten hot dogs and sausages not long before they left the game. Exactly what the ME found in their stomachs.

So how did the killer pull it off? Mooney scanned the bleachers littered with empty beer bottles and cans. The sweet smell of spilled beer was in the air. Courtney and Josh had been a little drunk, but that didn’t explain why no one saw anything. Mooney stared out at the empty ball field.

Someone must have seen something.

S
leep sat in his car in the parking lot at the far end of the field
. He watched the detective walking along the bleachers and then down onto the baseball diamond. This was the detective who had read his messages and still didn’t understand. Now here he was looking for clues to find out what had happened to the two lovers.

He would not find any. Because Sleep hadn’t left any. He was careful not to leave evidence that would implicate him. The first time he was impulsive, careless. Not any more. Now, everything was planned perfectly. And, of course, he had made himself invisible. The cops would only find what he wanted them to find. The man and the woman. The black and the white. The life and the death. The Tai-ji. The message.

Sleep watched as the detective made his way back up to the last row of the bleachers and sat on the aluminum bench. He slumped forward, hands dangling between his knees, staring down. Body language said the detective was beat, and it was only the first day of the investigation. Sergeant Mooney would have to get used to those feelings just as he had ten years ago.

S
ergeant Detective Ray Figgs ducked into the men’s room and took
a swig of scotch from the flask in his breast pocket. Carefully unfolding a bar napkin, he took a small cache of peanuts and shoved them into his mouth. He’d chew them as long as possible before swallowing. Wiping the salt from his hand onto his wrinkled pants, he straightened out his tie and stepped into the corridor. Ballistics was around the corner.

Figgs rang the bell, and one of the ballisticians let him in. He picked a pair of latex gloves from one of the boxes lying on the desk top, and put them on. He took a seat and waited for Sergeant Reginald Stone. Stone had promised to do a rush job on the bullet that killed George Wheeler.

Stone came from his office carrying an envelope and a plastic vial containing a single bullet. He secured the bullet and gestured for Figgs to come over to a comparison microscope. “Ray, this is the projectile you brought me this morning. The George Wheeler homicide. Forty cal.” Stone took a second vial with a second bullet from the manila envelope and secured that alongside the first. “This is from the Jesse Wilcox homicide. The number of lands and grooves gives us our weapon, the striations give us a match.”

Figgs had anticipated this news, but the reality hit hard. The same .40 was being passed around all over the city. It didn’t make sense that a community gun, a stash gun, was being used by so many rival gangs. It
would be impossible to link it to any one suspect. “How many incidents is it tied to?” Figgs asked, dreading the answer.

“Close to a dozen, if you count everything, homicides, nonfatals, and shots fired.”

“Any connections between them?” Figgs asked.

“None that I know of. But the analysts at the BRIC have mapped each incident where ballistic evidence was recovered. That’ll give you a history of the gun and how it’s been used.”

In the old days, they used to map all that out on a chalkboard. The Boston Regional Intelligence Center was his next stop. Right down the hall. After that, after the fancy computer-generated maps and information bubbles, it was back to basic police work. Knocking on doors, reinterviewing witnesses, finding a common link. If there was one.

Time for all that after he freshened up in the men’s room.

C
onnie parked in the South Bay courthouse parking lot, next to the
police station. He was trying to make roll call, but he was late. He grabbed his police radio from the center console. Besides the use of an office vehicle, the radio was the only thing he got when the DA named him a Rapid Indictment Prosecutor. But it was a good piece of equipment to have. He pushed the button on the side of the radio. “Bravo DA One, Ocean Nora,” he said, signing on for the night.

“DA on,” the dispatcher acknowledged him.

Connie stuck the radio in the back pocket of his jeans and secured his .38 in his ankle holster, the weapon of choice of some of the old school cops before they got the semis. As an assistant DA, he wasn’t supposed to carry a gun at work, and he certainly wasn’t supposed to carry one riding around at night with the cops. But he’d rather lose his job than lose his life.

Figures moved across the windows in the courthouse, and he thought back to the long nights he’d put in prepping cases in that building. The courthouse was still home to him. He had started his career there, working cases with Angel Alves, next door in District B-2, Roxbury.

Connie picked up his pace. He’d hoped to catch part of the four o’clock roll call. He needed to have the same information as the cops when he was on the street with them. In the main lobby, he punched in
the key code and took the back stairs to the second floor and stepped into the watch room just as roll call was ending.

Connie didn’t recognize the patrol supervisor giving the briefing. The sergeant stopped his update as the defective spring on the door hissed gently and then gave way, the door slamming shut. The sergeant stared at Connie for what seemed like a minute without saying a word. It was no secret that some of the cops, especially old-timers like this sergeant, didn’t like having ADAs in their station. They didn’t trust lawyers even if they were on the same side. They saw every young prosecutor as a defense attorney in training. He turned to Connie. “You the DA I’ve been hearing so much about?”

“I suppose so,” Connie said.

“Name?” he barked. He had an egg-shaped head, a high and tight doing nothing to disguise the horseshoe-shaped bald spot on the top of his head.

“Conrad Darget.”

“Who you riding with, Darget?”

After riding with different guys for the first few months after becoming a RIP, Connie had settled on Mark Greene and Jack Ahearn. They were the hardest working detectives in the district, destined to make Homicide. “I ride with Greene and Ahearn, sir.”

“Fine. You carrying?”

He had to give an answer. “Sir, I …”

“Never mind,” the sergeant interrupted him. “I don’t want to know. You signed a liability waiver form?”

“Yes, sir. On file with the captain.”

“I don’t want to catch any shit if you get hurt out there. And if you are carrying a piece, don’t use it. Detective Greene, make sure he has a vest. I don’t want a DA getting killed on my watch.” He turned back to face the officers standing before him. “Everyone. Careful out there tonight. Things have been heating up. And like I said, anyone with information on Wheeler, reach out to Sergeant Figgs.” The familiar hiss and bang announced the patrol supervisor’s departure.

Roll call was over.

Connie waded through the officers and found Greene and Ahearn. “What’s on the agenda tonight?”

“Shawn Tinsley. The shooter Tracy Ward ID’d today,” Greene said. “I pulled everything I could find on him. Checked his BOP. Not much of a record. Weed charges, a domestic. Everything dismissed. I pulled his
FIOs to see if any of the guys have stopped him, see who he’s hanging with. No real bad guys in the bunch, at least not according to their BOPs. I checked with the BRIC. Not on their radar either.”

“That could be a problem. They are the Boston
Regional
Intel Center. If they start asking who the kid is, next thing you know, the whole world knows Shawn Tinsley.”

“I didn’t tell them why I was asking about him. Otherwise they’d tell the Strike Force and half the Gang Unit would be up Tinsley’s ass in ten minutes.”

“Not the most subtle bunch,” Ahearn laughed.

“That’s their job,” Greene continued. “Jackie and I used to do the same thing. Won’t help us on this case. Tinsley’d know something was up and he’d lay low.”

“Let’s hope we get lucky and find him tonight,” Connie said.

Greene said, “I think Tracy Ward’s full of shit. He gave us Shawn Tinsley’s name just to get us off his back.”

“And to get a smoke,” Ahearn added.

“His story sounded too good,” Connie said. “He gave us a lot of detail about Tinsley’s crew. How they’ve been dealing crack. How Tinsley thought Ward was moving in on his turf.”