Robert B. Parker's Slow Burn (5 page)

W
e followed an alley beside the Gothic stone church to a burned-out doorway. Inside, portable lights shone in the dark space. New wooden beams and studs shared space with charred and blackened wood. Foley pointed to the crossbeams overhead and the stone walls.

“The flashback happened here,” he said. “This is where the mayday went out. We were pushing midlines down both steps. We had a company to the rear of the structure and out on Shawmut. I’ve never seen a fire burn so fast in my life.”

Water dripped from the crossbeams, pinging puddles on the floor. Sawhorses, table saws, and piles of sawdust and scrap wood littered the basement. He walked to the stairwell, where his driver handed him a small Maglite.

Commissioner Foley cast light on charred spots along the
wall resembling an alligator’s back. “This is deep char,” he said. “This is where we believe the fire started.”

“But we don’t know how?”

“The first thing we do is try to rule out the obvious,” he said. “We know this wasn’t electrical. We can find no traces of an accelerant present. It kills you. But sometimes you never know. We know this is where the fire started and the spread just took over everything fast. All that was left was the stone. You think about something so small, a fucking spark hitting this wood and eating everything in its path like a fucking cancer.”

“What about a second source?” I said. “Another spot it may have originated.”

Foley stood. He looked to McGee and back at me, shaking his head. “I heard that shit, too. But it’s not true. There’s no evidence of multiple points of origin. Zip.”

“Most of the church burned up so freakin’ bad, how would we ever know?” McGee said.

Foley shrugged.

“Something burned up hot as hell at this very spot,” McGee said. “Place was abandoned like half the buildings we’re seeing right now. I don’t care if there’s a hundred points or just this one. No one does this shit and just stops cold.”

Foley ran a hand over his jaw. He stared at McGee but didn’t say a word.

“I’m sure you got your reasons,” McGee said. His fat face was turning a bright red. “But I don’t appreciate the way I been treated. Like I’m some kind of goofball for thinking the firebug did this. I loved Pat. He was my best friend. I was the one who had to call on his wife. Go get his kid at his goddamn soccer
game. You know what it was like to hear that order to evacuate on the radio, knowing our guys were inside?”

Foley nodded. “Of course.”

“Yeah,” McGee said. His voice softening. “I know. I know.”

“Can we agree it’s suspicious?” I said.

“Of course it’s suspicious,” McGee said. “Arson’s got some kind of evidence. And they found more at all the other fires.”

Foley placed his hands inside his black rain slicker and shook his head. “Yeah?” he said. “Where’d you hear that, Jack?”

“Everyone in the department knows,” McGee said. “Jesus Christ. You don’t think firemen talk around the station? What else can we do but polish our engines.”

“We start talking about a firebug and people start to panic,” Foley said. “And then the crazies start joining in to copycat. You know how that shit goes.”

“But you found something,” I said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Foley said. “We got something. But it’s not enough yet. If you know something, you better let us know.”

“Why don’t you broadcast every shred you got to every reporter in this city? Put out a reward?”

“Like I said, we have to be careful about everything we do,” Foley said. “This takes time.”

“It’s been a freakin’ year,” McGee said. “Give Spenser something to work off of. What can it hurt?”

“Look, if Spenser wants to poke around about this fire, I won’t get in his way. Just promise me you’ll share if you get something of use.”

“Can I meet with investigators?” I said.

“That’s up to them,” Foley said. “But I’ll ask.”

“Arson is doing jack shit,” McGee said. “They’ve had their thumb up their ass for the last year. I go down there to talk to them and they look like I just crapped in the sink. Why not let him talk to them?”

“Ease off,” Foley said. “Let me see what I can do.”

We walked back out into the light rain and fresh air. I took a deep breath, but could still smell the blackened wood and fire on my clothes. The short, squat man I’d seen before was waiting by a red Ford Explorer, holding a door open for Foley. The front plate had an official BFD tag.

Foley stopped for a moment to stare at McGee. “Is he as good as he says?”

McGee looked to me. “If he’s half as good as his ego, it’ll help.”

“Jack speaks the truth,” I said. “My ego is massive.”

Foley gave me a nod and walked to the car. The car sped away and I was alone in the rain with Jack McGee.

“What the fuck was that?” he said.

“Cooperation?” I said.

“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not. Watch your ass. Anytime a jake leaves the ranks, it makes me nervous.”

S
usan was still in session. I let myself in, took Pearl for a short walk, and as a reward popped the top on a Lagunitas IPA. Z had introduced me to the beer, as it hailed, like him, from the West Coast.

I sat on Susan’s back deck and tossed tennis balls to Pearl. Even though Pearl was aging, she could retrieve better than Irving Fryar. A tennis ball wasn’t quite the pros, but she didn’t seem to mind. I let Pearl back in the house for some water, removed my knit shirt, and started Susan’s push lawnmower. Her diminutive lawn had gotten shaggy.

The whole thing took less than twenty minutes.

After I finished, I helped myself to another beer as a reward and sat again with Pearl on the back deck. I had on Levi’s, a pair of running shoes, and sunglasses. I must have looked rakish
when Susan walked onto the back deck and eyed the lawn. Freshly cut grass smelled of summer.

“How much do I owe you?” she said.

“I’ve seen movies that started off like this.”

“How about you prune the bushes and we’ll talk.”

I smirked but restrained comment. Susan only shook her head.

Susan had already changed from shrink garb into a pair of khaki shorts and a lightweight gray T-shirt with a tiny square pocket. She wore her hair on top of her head in a bun and no shoes. Her large, dark eyes were luminous.

“How about an early dinner at Alden and Harlow?” I said.

“Or a later dinner at the Russell House Tavern?” she said.

“Equally enticing,” I said. “Does a later dinner imply we enjoy a matinee?”

She sat with me on the steps, took a sip of the beer, and handed it back. I was pretty sure she was surveying my landscaping skills. “I knew you were angling when you cut the grass.”

“Did you notice the patterns I mowed?” I said.

“Amazing.”

“Out front, I cut a little heart with an arrow through it.”

“What will the neighbors say?”

“It’s Cambridge,” I said. “They find us as eccentric as everyone else.”

“Okay,” she said. “But only on one condition.”

“I wear a lacy thong?”

“Ha,” she said. “Just don’t mess up my hair, big guy.”

I threw the tennis ball long and far for Pearl, stood, and opened the back door wide for Susan. She walked on ahead of me into the coolness of her house and tossed her T-shirt into my face.

“Race you upstairs,” she said.

T
he next morning, I called on Father Conway at the Immaculate Conception Church in Revere. Conway was a youngish guy, mid-thirties, with a long, thin face and close-cropped dark hair. He wore a clerical collar on his clergy shirt and black-framed glasses that we’d called birth-control specs in the service. He looked a lot like a young Fred Gwynne, minus the bolts in his neck.

“At first I was thankful the church was abandoned,” Conway said. “But then they brought those men out in bags. I’ll never forget the firefighters standing at attention as they loaded them in ambulances. It was a horrible morning.”

Up front stood the requisite organ and an all-star lineup of saints along the walls, holy water in a marble baptismal font, and a large wooden cross draped in white. The carpet in the
sanctuary was very old, the color of a putting green. The church smelled as fresh as a grandmother’s coat closet.

“I was there yesterday,” I said. “For the memorial.”

“I wanted to attend,” Conway said. “But I had two funerals this morning. And a wake tonight.”

“Plenty of security in your work,” I said.

“And yours,” he said. Smiling. “It’s been a busy and hard summer. When I counsel people I often talk about how our troubles could be much worse. Often it’s the small things that pressure us most.”

“Life,” I said. “Just a temporary condition.”

Conway smiled at me and nodded. I sat in the second row of pews and he sat in the first. His left arm was stretched out lengthwise as he turned around to talk with me. He looked very relaxed and at home in the musty old church.

“Did you ever hear any theory from the arson investigators?”

“No.”

“Any theories of your own?”

“With a church that old, I would assume something electrical,” he said. “I don’t believe anyone ever found out. And it seems now they never will.”

“Investigators have ruled out most everything,” I said. “Including electrical.”

“Arson?”

“Some believe it was set,” I said. “But there’s no evidence. The worry is that if it was arson, the same person is loose and setting new fires.”

“I don’t know why anyone would set fire to the church,” he
said. “Plenty of people were very upset about it being sold. They wanted it protected.”

I nodded and tried to give the impression I’d known that all along. I kept nodding so he wouldn’t suspect.

“The archdiocese had been wanting it shut down for years,” he said. “That church was started by German immigrants, but for the last twenty years was mainly an outreach for the homeless and drug abusers. I’d been there for only three years, but we were growing, bringing in young families in the South End. It was becoming a viable church again. As you know, some parts of the South End transition slower than others.”

“So why would they close it?”

“After all the scandals and our numbers dwindling,” he said, “we needed the money. This isn’t your parents’ Catholic Church. Things have changed a great deal.”

“I had expected to become more devout as I grew older. Somehow that hasn’t happened.”

“A Farewell to Arms,”
he said. “The old man playing pool with the young lieutenant.”

“A literate priest.”

“I took an American lit course while at BC,” he said. “Some things actually stick. May I ask, are you Catholic, Mr. Spenser? You look to be of Irish stock.”

“My mother was Catholic,” I said.

“Did she take you to Mass?”

“She died in childbirth,” I said. “Her brothers, my uncles, took me some when we moved to Boston. My father had lost all faith. Except what he found in whiskey bottles.”

He nodded.

“Can you think of any reason someone would want to burn the church?” I said. “Did anyone in the neighborhood hold a grudge or ever make threats?”

“No.”

“May I ask who would want to buy an old church?” I said. “Except another religious group.”

“Holy Innocents was the last piece of a block someone needed for some kind of major redevelopment,” he said. “I guess they thought no one would notice the razing of a hundred-year-old historic structure. Or at least didn’t care.”

“Do you recall the buyer?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Those decisions are made by men in pointy red hats.”

“Perhaps you might find out for me?”

He studied my face, seeming to take me more seriously now that he knew I’d been raised Catholic. “That should be fairly easy. If you don’t mind waiting.”

I sat there in the hard pew for a half-hour before Conway returned with a name of a development company and a phone number. I thanked him. “I also appreciate you not asking how long it’s been since my last confession.”

“That long?”

I smiled. “Father, I don’t believe you’d even been born.”

H
erbie Wu agreed to meet me outside his real estate office near Copley Square. I waited on a park bench next to the turtle statues, well within the shadow of the Trinity Church. I spotted Wu as he walked across the square. Not because he was Asian American, but because he looked like a multimillionaire real estate mogul named Herbie. He had on tan shorts, a light blue dress shirt, and a bright purple jacket. His sunglasses looked like they cost more than my SUV. The shorts-and-jacket combo was a bit disconcerting.

I rose, introduced myself, and shook hands. He was short, with small hands and slick hair. He had one of those soul-patch things under his lower lip.

“You know some important people, Mr. Spenser.”

“A few.”

“Fast Eddie Lee?”

“I knew you did a lot of business in Chinatown.”

“Everyone in Chinatown must do business with Mr. Lee.”

“Traditional?” I said.

“Not really,” he said. “Let’s say necessary.”

I nodded.

“And now you do a lot of business in the South End?” I said.

“Some,” he said. “But not as much as I’d like. The South End has grown too expensive even for me. Property is being held hostage. Too rich. Even with some investors from back in the old country.”

“Where’d you grow up, Mr. Wu?”

He grinned. “Quincy.”

I smiled. Pigeons fluttered away from two young boys chasing them. A man playing an accordion had set up nearby and played the latest pop hits. The man didn’t have much talent but seemed enthusiastic.

“Last year you were about to purchase Holy Innocents,” I said.

“Where did you hear that?” he said.

“From a holy man.”

“Did this holy man tell you they still wanted me to pay after the fire?”

“Nope.”

“I don’t pay for damaged property,” he said. “The contract was still being looked after by lawyers. We had kept it out of public record because
The Globe
would have had a field day with development on a historic property.”

“And what had you planned to do with a hundred-year-old church, Mr. Wu?” I said.

He rubbed the insignificant tuft of hair under his chin. “Hmm,” he said. “May I ask why you want to know? I don’t often air business in public with strangers.”

“Especially with strangers introduced by crooks?”

“Are you saying Fast Eddie Lee is not a legitimate businessman in Boston?” Wu said. He smiled. “I’m shocked.”

“Heavens, no.”

Herbie rested his elbows on his bare legs. I noticed he wasn’t wearing socks with his suede loafers. I didn’t pass judgment. I’m a no-socks man myself.

“Condos,” he said.

“You were going to turn an old church into a condo?”

“Well,” he said. “You couldn’t tear it down. It was going to be part of a much larger development. I had plans for an entire stretch of what we developers call mixed-use. I don’t know if you’ve seen the church, but it’s not in the hippest section of the South End.”

“And now?”

“I walked away,” he said. “I’ve gone on to other projects. In business you have to weigh your costs and benefits.”

“Too high a cost?”

“Way too high.”

“That had nothing to do with rebuilding after the fire?”

He shook his head. “To be honest, the fire would have helped me out,” Wu said. “Less red tape and meetings with the Planning Commission. Can you imagine how much flack I’d get from preservationists? We’d already been working on a plan to retain as much of the edifice as possible while working around it.”

“So why get out?” I said.

Across from the public library, a large bandstand was being erected. A group of tourists on bicycles cut through the park, all smartly wearing helmets. The guide stopped and pointed out some of the important sites around them. I thought about waving but decided to keep a low profile.

Herbie Wu shook his head. “It’s been nice meeting you, Mr. Spenser,” he said.

I didn’t move. “Just what did Mr. Lee tell you about me?”

“He said you’ve been a pain in his ass.”

“Did he say that in English or Chinese?”

“I only speak a little Chinese,” Wu said. “He said it in English.”

“And what else?”

“Be careful of what I say,” he said. “But you can be trusted.”

I nodded. The tourists on bicycles pedaled off toward Boylston Street. The accordion player had launched into a horrific version of “Squeeze Box” by The Who. I might’ve preferred “Lady of Spain.”

Wu stood, the wind ruffling his expertly barbered hair. He checked his smartphone, bored, and offered his hand. I stood and shook it.

“You weren’t wanted in the neighborhood?”

Wu didn’t answer.

“If it wasn’t money?”

“It was money,” Wu said. “Everything is money. But this isn’t Chinatown. I pay taxes. I don’t have to pay protection.”

“Who?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“I promise you I’ll leave you far out of this,” I said. “I only need a name. I walk away and you’ll never hear from me again.”

“This wasn’t my first encounter with that bastard,” Wu said. “Or I suspect my last.”

I waited. I could tell he wasn’t a fan of whoever may have smoked him out of the South End.

“Doesn’t matter if you’re from Beijing or Bedford,” he said. “Business is the same everywhere. And right now, if you want to set up a lemonade stand in that part of the South End, you got to pay off Jackie DeMarco. It’s too close to Southie.”

I nodded.

“You’ve met him?”

“Quite recently,” I said. “And we did not part on good terms.”

“I have no proof,” Wu said. “But his people came to me two weeks before the fire. They knew of the impending sale. I told them I would not pay a nickel.”

“Bingo.”

“Excuse me.”

“I always say that when I move down the food chain.”

“Be careful, Mr. Spenser,” he said. “This is a man without boundaries or ethics.”

“Criminals rarely possess those traits.”

“The same might be said about developers.”

“Depends on what they develop.”

“You promise to leave my name out of this?”

I agreed. Wu nodded and walked away. I tipped the accordion player two bucks as I left.