Robert B. Parker's Slow Burn (7 page)

B
y early afternoon, I returned to Boston only to find two ugly guys blocking my apartment building’s doorway.

I might have walked around them. But one was John Grady and he was very fat. He also looked pissed-off. On the upside, he seemed to be sober and clean-shaven, his thick hair washed and styled. Grady had on a green T-shirt that read
IT’S OUR FUCKIN’ CITY
. His friend was younger and in better shape. He was balding, with the rest shaved down to nearly nothing, wearing a black Gold’s Gym tank and workout shorts. He was a bodybuilder with bloated muscles and puffy veins. His pinprick black eyes radiated as much intelligence as a lab rat’s.

“You boys soliciting for the Jimmy Fund?” I said.

“You were down in the South End for the service,” Grady said. “Trying to make trouble on a big day.”

“How’d I make trouble?”

“Poking around,” he said. “Asking questions. Talking shit with the commissioner.”

Grady looked to the Michelin Man. Michelin Man staggered his stance. He stared at me with little eyes. He had a scar on one massive shoulder where he’d had a shoulder repaired. Lots of juicers had that problem. He looked to me and said, “Mmm.”

“No one needs this shit,” Grady said. “I don’t need you bothering me at the pub. And no firefighters need you poking around on a sacred day.”

“When should I poke around?”

“You got no business.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” I said. “Trouble is my business.”

“Like I told you,” he said. “People are waiting in line to stomp your ass.”

Michelin Man said “Mmm” again. His repertoire was dazzling. I waited for him to launch into the soliloquy from Hamlet.

“That line is long and winding,” I said. “Past efforts have proven futile.”

“What?”

“Futile,” I said. “It means it’s not worth attempting to threaten me or fight me. I’m tired and have planned a late breakfast. You boys don’t look like you could make it to the Public Garden without a lot of sweat and sucking wind.”

“Wanna bet?”

“I’m trying to help,” I said.

“I’ll toss you right in the garbage,” the young guy said.

I shrugged. He took a fast step toward me, grabbing my arm. I pivoted off my right foot and landed a hard left in his soft gut. He made an
oof
sound and attempted to tackle me around the
waist. I rammed his bald head into a brick wall and he slumped to the ground.

“John,” I said, “unless you have some secrets, I’m working for you, too. Now, you can attempt to accost me and we could dance around Marlborough. The neighborhood watch might complain, as this type of behavior is frowned upon in the Back Bay. But I’d grow bored and tired. I have linens to change.”

“Pfft,”
he said. Grady spit on the sidewalk. Michelin Man was on his ass.

“Or,” I said, “I’ll buy you brunch. There’s a nice place down the street. They even let you chain your pets outside.”

Grady looked to his friend, sucking air. His bald head had started to bleed. I leveled my eyes at him and crossed my arms over my chest. If he didn’t move, I might just start singing “If You Knew Susie, Like I Know Susie.” I started to hum.

“‘Oh, what a girl,’” I said, under my breath.

“What?” Grady said.

“Your call, John.”

He seemed to think about it for a moment and then nodded to the Michelin Man. Michelin Man called me a few choice words and shuffled back to his car. We watched him go and then drive off in a beat-up Chevy sedan.

“Let’s walk,” I said.

We followed the Public Garden along Beacon and took a left on Charles to the Paramount. I bought Grady a stack of blueberry pancakes. I had the huevos rancheros with fresh-squeezed OJ and black coffee. Creature of habit. The afternoon was soft and warm. They’d opened up the windows fronting Charles.

“To recap,” I said. “What’s your problem with me?”

Grady hadn’t touched his food. “You got no business.”

“You said that,” I said. “But if that stopped me, I wouldn’t be very good at my job.”

“This is Arson’s case,” he said. “They don’t need you tracking shit through their house.”

“A good metaphor, but far from accurate,” I said. I reached for the coffee.

“A guy like you ain’t in it for no one but themself.”

“That’s why you agreed to break bread with me?”

“Maybe I was fucking hungry.”

I raised my eyebrows. Hard to argue with bulletproof logic.

“I think you have some kind of beef with Jack McGee and this doesn’t have anything to do with you or me,” I said. “Or even Dougherty, Bonnelli, and Mulligan.”

“McGee is an asshole.”

“Doesn’t change what he believes.”

“We never got along,” Grady said. “We worked together six years ago. I never wanted to be on the same shift with him. He liked to piss me off. Always complaining and making trouble.”

“How’s he making trouble now?”

His mouth was full with a slab of blueberry pancake. I held up my hand to let him know he could finish chewing. I sipped on some coffee and added a half-packet of sugar.

“He didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“Come the fuck on,” Grady said.

I shook my head. I waited. When in doubt, be quiet, let them talk. People like to fill the silence. I cut into the huevos
rancheros. If there was any logic to the world, this breakfast would hang at the MFA.

“He didn’t say?” Grady said. “No shit?”

“None at all.”

“It’s my fault.”

I looked up. There was a lot of chatter and hum around us. People laughing and talking. Silverware clanging as small tables were cleared. New customers hustled for a seat once they got their food.

“How?” Oh, Spenser. Master interrogator.

“I killed them,” Grady said. His face had drained of color and his blue eyes had grown very large. He breathed in and out of his mouth. He’d had only a few bites of pancake, and as he reached down for the coffee, his hand produced a slight tremble. “Jack knew. Jesus. He didn’t say that? Isn’t that what this is all about?”

I shook my head.

“Laying the blame,” he said. “He wanted me to be exposed. I broke down that door, let in all that air. I wasn’t listening to the radio chatter. I just fucking bust through that office. When that room opened up. All that fucking oxygen.
Whoosh.
That fire came up hard and fast. I got knocked back. My ears were burned and back broke. But, shit, I got out. I was pulled out. But. Oh, holy hell. Jesus. Jack? Jack didn’t say?”

Grady was crying. I always had a hard time watching big men cry. I saw my father cry only twice. Both times scared the hell out of me.

“That’s not your fault,” I said.

“Bullshit,” he said. “It’s in a report. But it was kept quiet.”

“McGee doesn’t want you,” I said. “He wants the men who set this. He thinks it’s this firebug who’s driving the department crazy.”

“That’s it?” Grady said.

I nodded. He wiped his face and blew his nose. It sounded like an out-of-tune trumpet. “What’d Arson tell you?”

“Zip,” I said.

Grady rubbed his face. He nodded. “But you know they got a tape?” he said. “A surveillance tape of some bastard running from the church. Christ. I know for a fact they been sitting on that for a year.”

T
he Arson squad kept separate offices from headquarters in an old firehouse on Mass Ave, blond brick with twin bay doors for investigators’ vehicles. I found a battered red door and took the stairs up to the second floor. The captain knew I was coming and he buzzed me in.

He was a big man, bigger than me, with gray hair and a drooping Sam Elliott mustache. He met me at the landing with a panting yellow Lab at his side. I liked him right away. His name was Teddy Cahill. His dog’s name was Galway.

“Did I mention I can do an amazing rendition of ‘Danny Boy’?”

“I’m glad someone can,” Cahill said. “Went to a wedding this weekend and none of the kids knew the words. It broke my heart.”

“Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but religiously follows the new.”

“You ain’t fucking kidding.”

We stood in the kitchen and he poured coffee into two mugs. We walked back through a long hall to a cluttered office. Arson headquarters was a collection of beaten desks set end to end with outdated computers and so many file cabinets they lined the outside halls. Galway lay down and sighed.

“How old?”

“She’ll be twelve this year,” he said. “She was a real worker. Now she sticks to the office.”

“Good nose?”

“The best,” he said. “She could lead you right to any accelerant. Now it’s tough to get up these steps.”

I patted the dog’s head. We were kindred spirits. I’d needed a knee replacement last year. Now I’d regained the spring in my step.

“You’re a persistent man,” Cahill said. “You left ten messages. And then got Commissioner Foley on my ass.”

I smiled and sipped my coffee. “I guess I’m not easily deterred.”

“I wasn’t sure what to make of it,” he said. “You being a private snoop and all. But the commissioner said you were okay.”

“High praise?”

“From the commissioner?” he said. “You bet. But I have to wonder, what in the hell do you think you can do that we haven’t tried already?
Jesus.
This thing has been top priority. We’ve worked every damn angle. And when that wasn’t enough, we called in ATF.”

“And where did that get you?”

“Crap City.”

Galway lifted her head. She scratched at something inside her ear and then lay still.

“I’m not here to critique your work,” I said. “I only promised to look under a few rocks.”

“Heard you might have connections?”

“Some,” I said. “With bookies, leg breakers, and assorted low-lifes. The guards at Walpole and I are on a first-name basis.”

“It’ll take a snitch to lead us somewhere,” Cahill said. “All this high-tech crap we got: photographs, video, lab results. What it’ll really take is one crook turning on another. We weren’t left with much. It’s been tough. Tough on the department and tougher on the families. We all want to know what happened.”

I nodded.

“We’ve ruled a lot out.”

“Of course.”

“And to be honest, I don’t know what happened,” he said. “Some people, I know, have some theories. But all that shit is just talk. I need facts.”

“But there’s a tape?” I said. “Or a digital image? Or whatever you have these days of someone running from the alley by Holy Innocents.”

Cahill sighed and studied me. He was silent for a moment and reached for his coffee mug. Galway was in a gentle snooze, so comfortable she began to snore. Her rib cage expanded and fell with each breath. It had started to rain, a gentle patter on the windows. Thunder broke outside.

“I’d like to see it.”

“Where’d you hear about it?”

“A little bird flew in my office,” I said.

“Jack McGee is a big fucking bird.”

I shrugged. “You and I both know I work for Jack McGee,” I said. “But I do have other sources.”

“Commissioner didn’t want that out,” he said. “I don’t like it, either.”

“It didn’t come from Jack,” I said. “And I don’t work for
The Globe
. But a pair of fresh eyes on an old case never hurts.”

Cahill sipped some coffee. I sipped some coffee. The rain fell and Galway snored. She had a vigorous snore. He said, “The investigation is ongoing.”

“As it should be.”

“Any details stay within this fucking building,” he said.

“You bet.”

“If news was to get out—” he said. “With all the shit we been dealing with. You might have seen we’ve been pretty damn busy.”

“I understand. When I worked for the Middlesex DA, I learned to keep things to myself.”

I asked for some more coffee and Cahill stood and left the room. It was not only a stalling technique but also because I wanted more coffee. I patted Galway’s flank, thinking of Pearl aging, and waited until Cahill returned. “Do I have your word?” he said.

I nodded.

“Nobody,” he said. “I mean fucking nobody is supposed to know about this.”

“Sure.”

He reached for his phone, dialed up somebody, and told them to come into the room.

“How good is the image?” I said.

“Terrible.”

“How terrible?”

“It’s nothing but a freakin’ shadow,” he said. “What the hell can we do with that?”

A
n investigator by the name of Cappelletti leaned over his desk and scrolled through dozens of video thumbnails on his laptop. Cahill had walked me down the hall and introduced us. Cappelletti, who worked as unit photographer, seemed dubious about my intentions. He had buzzed brown hair and wore a red T-shirt with jeans. He kept sunglasses on a loop around his neck and chewed gum.

“You any relation to Gino?” I said.

“Who’s that?”

“Mr. Patriot?” I said.

“What’d I tell you?” Cahill said. “This generation doesn’t speak our language.”

The tech looked like he might have been all of fifteen. His T-shirt read
ARSON
. I wondered if I might print a few XLs reading
GUMSHOE
. I could sell them on my website if I only
had one. Cappelletti kept on scrolling until he came to the frame he liked and clicked on the box.

Outside, the rain fell along Mass Ave. Cars passed with their headlamps on and windshield wipers working. A white pickup with a battered back end pulled in beside C & L Auto Body. As the truck turned, I noted C & L had their work cut out for them, as the side door had been broadsided.

“This is twenty minutes before the first call,” Cappelletti said.

“Where’d you pull the video?” I said.

“Apartment building across the street,” he said. “I watched it ten times before I spotted the guy. Hold on. You’ll see it.”

I bent down, rested my right hand on the desk, watched and waited. Cahill leaned against the office door like a bouncer, arms crossed over his big chest. Galway had stayed in his office, still snoozing.

The video showed a grainy view of Shawmut Street and several cars parked along the sidewalk. Holy Innocents was a dark old hulk, recognizable only by its heavy front doors. The counter read 19:42 and clicked off the seconds.

“You see him?” Cappelletti said.

“Him?” I said. “I only see cars.”

“Behind those cars across the street,” he said, pointing at the screen with a pencil. “He comes out of the church fast and then turns on Shawmut, heading south. Right at this spot. Hold on. Hold on. I’ll back it up.”

He used his mouse and clicked back the counter. “Five seconds from here.”

Cappelletti was good. It was a bit like spotting a mosquito in a sandstorm. But at one point, a dark shadow did in fact
high-step down the dark alley. He paused the image and zoomed in. He lightened the image and pointed at it again with the tip of his pencil. It appeared to be a white male wearing a ball cap and dark clothes. With the pixelation and lack of light, it may have very well been Tom Brady deflating his balls.

Cappelletti clicked the mouse and motion started again. The shadow hit the sidewalk in a sprint and ran out of the frame.

“Like I said,” Cahill said from the door. “Crap City.”

“What’s the time before we see smoke?”

Cappelletti scrolled the video ahead several minutes. “Twelve-point-three minutes.”

“We would have released it if you could see the guy’s freakin’ face,” Cahill said. “But without more, we didn’t want the guy looking over his shoulder. We want him shooting off his mouth.”

“Sure,” I said. “How about the vehicles parked along the curb?”

“All accounted for,” Cahill said. “Christ, you think this is amateur hour?”

“Witnesses?”

“Fourteen,” Cappelletti said. “Not counting responders. Spent two weeks knocking on doors in that neighborhood. It ain’t the best in the South End.”

“And?” I said.

“Nobody knows nothing,” Cahill said. “How about you? You got anything you’d like to share with the group?”

He and Cappelletti stared at me, waiting. Cappelletti blew a bubble until it popped. I shrugged. “The building was in the process of being sold.”

“Yeah,” Cahill said. “Herbie Wu. So what? You think he torched it? Because that’s not how things are done this century. He wouldn’t have gotten half back from the insurance.”

“Maybe someone didn’t like him moving into the neighborhood?”

“From Chinatown?” Cappelletti said. “Pretty diverse neighborhood.”

“Maybe someone leaned on him to do business so close to Southie.”

“Did he pay?”

I didn’t want to sell out Wu. But I shook my head.

“And who did the asking?” Cahill said.

“Working on the details,” I said. “It may be nothing.”

“Don’t screw us, Spenser,” Cahill said. “I wasn’t real thrilled with you coming down here. If you know someone was leaning on Herbie Wu—”

“Would be better if we could ID the man in the alley.”

Cahill and Cappelletti looked at each other. Cahill said, “And you’re working on the other thing?”

I nodded.

“Who?”

“Working with the League of Unextraordinary Gentlemen,” I said. “You’ll be the first to know.”

“Jesus Christ,” Cahill said.

“I did want to ask you about this and its possible connection to all the new fires,” I said. “I am a subscriber to
The Globe
. You guys have a bug.”

Neither of the men spoke. Cappelletti shut the laptop.

“It’s possible all of this is connected,” I said. “Right?”

“You and Jack McGee.”

“Busted flat in Baton Rouge,” I said. “Waiting for a train.”

“What the hell’s he talkin’ about?” Cappelletti said.

“I’d like to see the addresses and owners of all the new fires you believe are arson,” I said. “Maybe I can spot a pattern.”

“Right now, we have a real problem. But there’s no reason to believe they’re connected to Holy Innocents. We’re talking about someone with a cracked head, not a professional criminal. But if you want to read this shit till you’re cross-eyed, be my guest.”

Galway trotted up and I patted her on the head. “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship.”

“Me or the dog?” Cahill said.

I simply smiled. Cahill just looked at me and shook his head before showing me the way out. As we walked down the steps, he said, “Me, Dougherty, and McGee were at the fire academy at the same time. We did three years together on Engine Thirty-three. I drove his wife home after the wake. She was so medicated, she didn’t know what planet she was on. Kids still can’t make sense of it.”

“I’d like to help.”

“Whatever it takes,” he said. “I haven’t slept in a long while.”