Jackpot (Frank Renzi mystery series) (2 page)

Wednesday, April 26, 2000 — Milton, MA

At 4:50 a.m. his cell phone went off like an air-raid alarm. Dead bodies seldom turned up at convenient times. He grabbed his cell phone off the bedside table and punched on to silence it.

“Yo, Frank. Rise and shine, baby. Got a gang hit in your territory.” Detective Rafe Hawkins worked the Boston PD Narcotics Unit. He also served on a taskforce that targeted gangs. Rafe’s favorite saying:
Drugs and guns go together like ham and eggs.
Homicide Detective Frank Renzi tended to agree.

Conscious of his wife stirring in the other bed, Frank got up and went in the bathroom and shut the door. “What’s up? Where are you?”

“Uniform patrolling Mass Ave found a banger in the gutter, one shot to the head, called me a half-hour ago. I’m at the scene, three blocks up from Boston Med Center.”

“Gimme fifteen and I’m there.” He splashed cold water on his face and gazed into the mirror over the sink. Surrounded by puffy skin, dark bloodshot eyes stared back at him. He’d been in his basement office until one a.m. poring over three new cases. When he got in bed, he couldn’t sleep, ugly crime scene photos dancing through his head like stills from a horror movie.

He combed his fingers through his dark hair. No gray hairs yet, but he was only thirty-seven. If he didn’t start getting some sleep, he’d look like Methuselah. Dark stubble covered his cheeks and jaw, but he’d worry about that later. He brushed his teeth and crept into the bedroom. In the twin bed on the left, Evelyn was sound asleep, her auburn hair spread over the pillow.

He put on his navy running suit, strapped on his Sig Sauer and left the house. The dusky light of dawn was creeping over his neighborhood in Milton. Two minutes later he got on the Southeast Expressway, the thirteen-mile divided highway that people south of Boston used to get into the city. Wondering which gangbanger caught a bullet this time, he took the Mass Ave exit and sat at a red light beside the sprawling Boston Medical Center complex. He yawned, wishing he'd stopped for a cup of coffee.

The light turned green and he swung onto Mass Ave. Three blocks up, he parked behind a Boston PD cruiser, got out and flashed his badge at a BPD officer directing snarled traffic, sleepy-eyed folks headed for work clocking the sheet-covered body in the gutter.

Elegant redbrick townhouses with bay windows lined this part of Mass Ave. Someone had tied yellow crime scene tape to a wrought-iron fence in front of one townhouse and fastened it to a telephone pole fifteen yards away. On the sidewalk numbered pieces of folded cardboard marked evidence. A dozen distraught women stood behind the tape in bathrobes and slippers, older black women, talking in low voices.

A hulking six-foot-four wide-body with ebony skin and large dark eyes trotted up to him. Trash-talking Rafe Hawkins played center on the District 4 hoop team, a fearsome sight below a basketball hoop. Now he wore a gray running suit and a grim-faced expression. “We got a few shell casings, not much else.”

Frank tilted his head at the onlookers. “Any wits?”

“Nobody talks when cops are around. Too many eyes watching. Might get some later.”

They ducked under the yellow tape and Rafe pulled back the covering on the body. A young black male, clean-shaven but for the soul patch under his bottom lip. He wore baggy sweatpants, a green hoodie and expensive sneakers. Blood pooled under his head, a ragged wound visible on one side of his face. In death he appeared young and defenseless. Another wasted life, Frank thought. Too many kids involved with gangs these days. When he caught the killer, another life would go in the toilet.

“Heavy firepower,” Frank said. “Was he carrying?”

“Had a Glock-nine in his hand. We bagged and tagged it. Won’t know if he got off a shot till they test his hands for residue.”

“I don’t recognize him. Who is he?”

“DeVon Jones, age twenty-three, busted for dealing, served most of a five-year stint at the House of Correction, released three weeks ago. We keep tabs on ’em, so I got an email. He runs with the Ashmont Hill gang in Dorchester. Bad move, coming here alone. Not his territory.”

Frank scanned the crowd and saw a little black kid, nine or ten maybe, peeping around two older black women. The kid made eye contact, then turned and ran north on Mass Ave toward Symphony Hall.

He nudged Rafe’s arm. “The kid knows something.”

They ran after him, the kid scampering away like a frightened rabbit, skinny arms pumping. One block later he grabbed a wrought-iron fencepost and swung himself around a corner. He wasn’t big but he was fast.

They reached the side street in time to see him dart into an alley. Most days Frank did a five-mile run, but Rafe had longer legs and outpaced him. Five feet from the alley, they stopped.

“Looks young,” Rafe said, “but he could be packing.”

True, and more gunslingers could be waiting in the alley. After eighteen years with Boston PD, Frank had two basic rules. Never let down your guard. Always assume the worst. He’d never forget his gut-churning fear when he responded to a homicide call—a Haitian woman with her throat slashed—and her husband attacked him with a machete.

Another time two fleeing bank robbers emptied semi-automatics at him, slugs buzzing by his ear like deadly mosquitoes. Just last month a former mental patient with an AK-47 had taken a hostage in a South End tenement and held off an army of police officers for three hours.

The memories flashed through his mind in a nanosecond, made his mouth go dry.

They drew their service weapons and approached the alley.

An adrenaline buzz jumped his heart rate. What awaited them around the corner? An innocent kid or a posse of gunslingers?

Rafe sprinted to the opposite side of the opening. No shots.

Frank gave a nod. Weapons raised, they sprang into the alley. The stink of rotted garbage from two overflowing dumpsters hit his nostrils. Still no shots, but the gunslingers might be watching inside an apartment, taking aim from a window.

His heart pounded like a machine gun. He looked skyward, eyes darting from one five-story building to the other. Metal fire escapes zigzagged down the sides of both buildings. No one on the fire escapes. A pair of jeans and two polo shirts flapped on a clothesline outside a third-floor window.

Sound from a radio or a TV drifted through an open window on the left. But no gunfire. Five-story buildings on both sides. Five floors of windows, dozens of vantage points. He glanced at Rafe. Rafe was eyeballing the windows, his dark-skinned face set in fierce concentration.

They marched down the alley. Two heart-pounding minutes later they reached the other end. No gunfire. No gunslingers. No sign of the kid.

Rafe lowered his Glock, looked at him and shrugged. “The little bugger got away.”

“You think he lives here?”

“No telling.” Rafe checked his watch and gave him a sardonic grin. “Now we got the excitement over with, want to grab breakfast? Come back in an hour, we can talk to the folks that live here.”

Frank holstered his Sig Sauer. “Sounds like a plan.”

____

Ten minutes later they were sitting in a booth at Waffles and Wings, a soul food diner on the lower end of Mass Ave, sipping the steaming black coffee the waitress had brought them without asking. They came there often and she knew them by sight. The odor of frying bacon and sausage permeated the air as harried waitresses delivered breakfast to hungry patrons.

Other than a few white and Asian workers from Boston City Hospital, most were African-American. To their left, several diners perched on stools along a yellow Formica counter. A bell dinged as the chef slapped two plates onto the shelf behind the counter.

“How’s my favorite horseback rider?” Rafe said, eyeing him over the rim of his coffee mug.

His daughter Maureen rode at a stable in Milton and Rafe had attended several horse shows there. Unlike Frank’s house, the stable was in a ritzy section of Milton, and Rafe’s ebony skin stood out in the sea of white faces. Not that it bothered Rafe. Few things did. At twenty-nine, he was living the good life, owned a three-decker in Dorchester where he lived with his chic fashion-designer wife and their two cute-as-a-button kids.

“Mo’s doing great,” he said, “made the Dean’s list her first semester.”

“Uh-huh. Probably made the hit list, too, fine-looking girl like that. What I hear there’s plenty of horny pre-med students at Johns Hopkins.”

The waitress, an older black woman with wiry arms and a world-weary air, delivered their breakfast: waffles and sausage for Frank; a three-egg omelet, sausage and grits for Rafe.

“I gave her my birth-control lecture when I drove her down to Baltimore to get her settled in.”

Rafe paused with a forkful of omelet halfway to his mouth. “You? Not Evelyn?”

He poured maple syrup on his waffle, wishing he’d kept his mouth shut. At last he said, “Be serious. Evelyn thinks birth control is evil. You know how it is with Catholics. Every sperm is sacred.”

Rafe flashed a sly grin and started humming: “Every Sperm Is Sacred” from the Monty Python film,
The Meaning of Life.

“I got her a credit card, had the bills sent to me. I told her if I didn’t see a pharmacy charge for the pills every month, I’d cancel the card.”

“And? So?” Rafe asked, methodically slicing his sausage into bite-sized portions.

“So she’s taking them. She hasn’t mentioned any boyfriends, but at least she’s protected.” He grinned. “Wait till
your
daughter’s a teenager. Ten years from now you’ll be beating them off with a stick.”

“You got that right. So, uh, how’s Evelyn doing?”

He didn’t want to talk about Evelyn. Since he’d joined the District 4 hoop team ten years ago, he and Rafe had become close personal friends, but most of the confidences they shared about their personal lives came from Rafe, not him.

“Not so hot now that Maureen’s gone. She used to take Evelyn shopping, you know, for clothes and whatever doodads women buy at the mall. Now she just mopes around the house.”

“Hey, take her to a movie.”

“She won’t go to movies. Too many people. Too many germs.”

Rafe stopped chewing and stared at him. “Too many germs. Far out. Somebody better investigate that, find out where all those germs are.”

“Hey, dummy, the germs are on the too-many people.”

A cackling laugh from Rafe. To the Beatles tune “Lonely People,” Rafe sang in a low voice, “Ohhh, look at all those germs and people.” Drummed a riff on the table with his fingers.

They cracked up, and several heads turned to see what they were laughing about. But talking about Evelyn’s hang-ups was one thing. Living with them was another.

“I suggested a part-time job, figured it might distract her, but she said it would interfere with church. She goes to early Mass every day.”

“You got a tough row to hoe, buddy.” Gazing at him over his coffee cup. “Hope you got something going on the side.”

He ate a bite of sausage, took his time chewing. Rafe played a mean bass in a jazz combo. Much of their friendship revolved around their passion for jazz and basketball, activities that allowed them to forget the ugliness of the mean streets they policed every day. Rafe also had a mistress, a white woman he’d met at the steady jazz gig he played in Newport, his hometown.

Frank had met her once. But no one knew about Gina, not even Rafe, and he intended to keep it that way.

“What I’ve got is three dead lottery winners, all of them in New England.”

Rafe cocked an eyebrow. “Lottery winners? What’s up with that?”

Relieved to escape any more discussion about his personal life, he said, “Remember the FBI agent I told you about? The guy I met at Quantico? He’s convinced it’s a serial killer and asked me to help.”

“Told you that course would load you up with more work. Like you don’t have enough already.”

True. He thought about the black kid, the fear he’d seen in the boy’s eyes. He wanted to know why the kid was so scared, but the odds of finding him were slim. Too many cases, too little time.

“I don’t mind. Ross is a good guy, and it never hurts to have a connection at the Bureau. He sent me the three case files.” The files that had kept him awake last night. Three elderly women murdered in their homes. If Ross was right, the killer was probably stalking his next victim right now.

Frank pushed his plate aside. “You set?”

Rafe grabbed the check. “I am. You set for the big game? We gonna whup those District 6 losers or what?” When it came to basketball, trash-talking Rafe had a killer-attitude.

Amused, Frank said, “Beat ’em by twenty for sure.”

But as they left the diner his mood darkened. He needed to change his clothes, but he didn’t want to go home and face Evelyn.
“Where were you, Frank? I woke up and you were gone and you didn’t even leave me a note!”

Screw that. He kept some spare clothes in his office at the District 4 station. A quick shave, a change of clothes, and he’d go back to the Mass Ave murder scene and talk to some residents. Any kind of luck, someone might know who the little black kid was.