The Dead Soul (21 page)

39

Thursday, September 11 - NOON

Jake grabbed a Mountain Dew from the machine in the hallway by his office. Tapped on the spout before snapping it open. Walked in, shut the door behind him, sat down in his chair with a heavy thud. He needed to take a serious look into Stuart Micah’s criminal record. Dickie was downstairs with Tad Peterson, digging, buying time, so the team searching Peterson’s house could maybe find something to tie him to that Cambridge case.

There were only two photographs left on Jake’s office wall. He had packed all the others and most of his personal belongings into a box, which sat on the small sofa by the window. One photo was of Jake standing next to Casey, who was dressed in his Marine greens. Casey stood straight as a rake. Chest out. Arms folded behind his back. Jake was a teenager, sporting that cocky I’m-a-bad-ass Southie look all the kids had.

Underneath that photo was one of Jake decked out in his full cop blues, white gloves, standing next to Casey’s memorial. Jake stood and stared at it. He couldn’t bring himself to pull it down off the wall. Not until he was walking out of the office for the last time.

On his desk was a family photo of Jake, Brendan and Dawn. It was a farm scene. Fake fence. Some hay. They all smiled.

The good times.

Jake fired up his computer and connected his iPhone to an open port, hit the interface icon on the desktop to synchronize the two.

His gut told him not to tell Matikas about Micah yet. It would just cause more problems. The dilemma with the lead was, of course, tracking down Micah’s victims. It was going to be difficult on a number of levels. As Jake figured, the victims’ families had sued the state of Maine and the Boston Arch Diocese of the Church, which made their cases extremely
un
-PC. Add the juvenile factor to it and the white shirts would not like Jake sniffing around. There was an unwritten rule between cops and City Hall—once government money exchanged hands, the vic was off limits.

Politics is for the weak.

It took a minute for Jake’s computer to pull the latest data from his iPhone and send it into the main database. As Jake waited, he considered the idea that catching a serial murderer usurped any and all political meddling attached to the case. He would be glad to answer questions later. Hell, if he stuck around long enough to catch this lunatic, he would be glad to resign. The idea of leaving consumed Jake these days. Did he really need all this bullshit with Mo and Matikas? He was supposed to be a cop. Not some sort of babysitter and political scapegoat. Where had their integrity as police officers gone?

With a few keystrokes, Stuart Micah’s mug shot appeared on Jake’s monitor. He downloaded it, along with Micah’s complete file, into his iPhone. The main system sent back a message that it needed more data before a projected profile could be completed.

Fine. Micah’s mug shot and file would suffice for the time being. It was Micah’s latest prison intake photo, taken last year. The guy had a steely gaze. Dark brown eyes. Crinkled brow. Acne scars. He’d make a great extra in a Nazi film, Jake was thinking, staring at him. His hair was gray and wiry, like pipe cleaners. He looked as if prison had aged him some. Still, it was clear that Stuart Micah was doing the time, the time was not doing Micah.

Big difference, Jake knew.

Jake read through several reports the prison compiled on Micah. The guy had accepted his punishment, knowing he was going to die in prison. Most cons could not admit guilt, or come to terms with the reality of prison life forever. But it was clear Micah was not bred from that same ilk.
He wants to be left alone,
said one psychological analysis. He suffered from
Borderline Personality Disorder characterized by the standard, across the board, pervasive instability of moods, along with an inability to maintian interpersonal relationships. He possesed a self-image of a man who hated himself, but could not do anything about it to change or make reporations to his victims.

Jake was able to access an older file on Micah through the interoffice computer system (ICS-KPAC). It was a network cops used to swap suspect info from precinct to precinct without worrying about some zit-faced Geek Squad Lisbeth Salander wannabe with a supercomputer having fun in his room hacking into the BPD. Reading Micah’s criminal report further, Jake learned Micah was battling emphysema. The guy was on oxygen. Weighed 95 pounds. He used a wheelchair to get around inside the prison. And yet, beyond all that, “I’m comfortable,” he told a psychologist a year after he was caught, “knowing that my victims deserved the abuse they suffered by my hand. They were chosen because they needed a teacher—their parents abandoned them. They were sent to me by God.”

Jake called the DA’s office. He ordered a complete copy of Micah’s trial transcripts. The clerk said she would have it delivered by the end of the day—tomorrow. Jake figured he could spend the weekend reading through the testimony of Micah’s victims. Maybe come up with some useful information.

Next, he called the prison, explained himself. Then asked how hard it would be to get in and see Micah later that afternoon.

“No problem,” said the chief of security. “You come see me, Detective.”

Jake could hear it in his voice.
A budding cop. Perfect
. So he went with the moment. “This is a big case in the city, Chief. Your help would be greatly appreciated. How is Mr. Micah?”

“Frail, but sharp as a tack. Detective Cooper, anything I can do to help, you just say the word.”

“I’ll be up there late this afternoon.”

40

Thursday, September 11 – 1:30 P.M.

Anastasia Rossi drove back to her apartment in Chelsea’s Little Italy to retrieve a notebook she left behind that morning. It was no bother. Dickie had a department-mandated eye exam downtown. She dropped him off, said she’d be back in an hour.

“I’ll be out front,” Dickie said. “Don’t be late.”

She parked in an open space in front of the three-story, red-brick tenement building. There were those cast-iron ladders, sharp chips of green paint flaking off, leading up to the small verandas hanging over the street. Outside on the lamppost hung a red, white and green Italian flag. People sat on the stoops, talking, eyeing anyone who looked out of place. Smoking. Talkin’ shit.

Inside her apartment, Anastasia had the latest bestselling self-help books—
The Secret
was bedside—and diet magazines strewn about. The refrigerator was empty, save for a half-gallon of green tea, cream for coffee, a few out-of-date condiments she’d never use, and a six-pack of Diet 7-Up. White Chinese food cartons, stained with tacky red duck sauce, sat next to a half-empty green bottle of Pellegrino spring water on one of the refrigerator door shelves.

After checking her messages (nothing from Todd) and grabbing the notebook, Anastasia stopped by the door on her way out, stared at a photo she kept up on the wall over the thermostat near the door. It was she and Todd at a friend’s party, his arm interlocked with hers. They held red keg party plastic cups up in front of themselves. Saluted the camera. Both looked glossy-eyed, but happy.

She touched the photo gingerly. Smiled slightly. Tilted her head to the right. It was hard, but she was going to get through this.

Fake it till you make it.

Outside, Anastasia walked down the ten steps and toward her car. Almost there, she bumped into, of all people, a man she presumed to be the neighborhood mailman. He was common-looking, she noticed. Wore sunglasses—those yellow-tinted types you buy on late-night TV and get two pair for $19.95 plus a free fanny pack carrying case. He had a pock-marked face. Craters, she thought. Dark brown—nearly black—eyes. He seemed to be about five foot eight inches, maybe 160 pounds.

Mr. Nobody.

No, Mr. Everybody.

Anastasia’s mind was off somewhere. In fact, she wouldn’t have looked twice at him if they had not bumped into each other.

“Oops,” he said, dropping the load of mail from his hands. “Sorry.”

“Oh, no. It’s my fault.” She bent down. Helped him pick up the mess. “Don’t know where my head is these days.”

“I know how
that
is. You have a good day now, Officer.”

Anastasia got in her car. Called into base to let dispatch know where she was headed. It took several minutes. When she was finished, CSI Anastasia Rossi sped off with a chirp of the tires.

1:46 P.M.

He sat in his Jeep. Watched Anastasia Rossi speed away like some television cop off on an urgent call. He wondered if she had figured out that tiny little detail yet. Or was she so consumed with her own issues, she had failed to notice.

Officer
.

If she was such a smart cop, as she had projected herself to be in the newspapers and on TV, she’d realize there was no way for a stranger to know she was a cop. Anastasia dressed in casual clothes. Not traditional blues.

She’ll never figure it out.

The mailman took out a photo he swiped from the Chelsea Public Library.

It was her, definitely. “Officer Anastasia Rossi, Forensics.”

Sitting in front of her apartment, staring down at Anastasia’s photo, the mailman smiled, relishing in how easy finding CSI Rossi had been.

He had logged onto Yahoo! Search inside the library, keyed her name into that little magical box to the left of the Yahoo! Trademark symbol. With a few quick keystrokes, the man in the mailman’s uniform came up with two A. Rossi names in the Boston area. One lived in a high-rise outside Beacon Hill, which anyone with a grammar school education knew a cop in Boston could not afford. The other lived in an apartment building outside Revere. He printed out the information along with MapQuest directions and headed out the door.

Officer Rossi. My hero.

41

Thursday, September 11, 4:15 P.M.

The drive up to Shirley, Massachusetts, took Jake a little over an hour. He enjoyed the time out of the city. He could clear his head without the noise of the past intruding. Northern Massachusetts was a beautiful part of the state, with lots of evergreens and rock-strewn streams bubbling off to nowhere. It was hard not to feel a calming sense of letting go up here.

Jake came out of a wooded area, turned a corner, and there it was—a mountain of concrete and steel standing tall, as if it had been planted and grown from a seed. The prison itself was surrounded by a fifteen-foot-tall fence, topped with coils of wire and Chinese starlike razors. The prison seemed incongruous inside the dynamic of preserved forest country. So contextually and environmentally out of place.

The Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center was Massachusetts’s most modern prison. It held the distinction of having the maximum degree of technical security out of any prison system in the United States. Jake had read up on the place before leaving, even downloaded some of the data into his iPhone. He was fascinated by the sheer mass of the structure now seeing it in person. The 500,000-square-foot maximum-security facility housed about 1,000 cells. It also had over 125 special management cells. And two dozen health service beds, which was one of the reasons why Micah had been transferred from Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Norfolk, south of Boston—maximum health care within maximum security.

The security system at Souza-Baranowski was something out of
Battlestar Galactica
. The brain of the facility consisted of forty “graphic interfaced computer terminals,” a geek’s way of saying there was only one way into the keyless building. The computer controlled the prison’s 1,700 doors, lights, receptacles, as well as the gates. With one of the largest matrix systems in the world at their disposal, guards used nearly 400 cameras to oversee and record the ebb and flow of the prison, twenty-four-seven.

Jake flashed his badge into the camera’s eye, and was zapped into the main lot.

At the guard shack, Jake unloaded the one live round in his .40 caliber Glock into the fifty-five-gallon drum full of sand by the door. All armed law enforcement visiting the prison were mandated to stick their hand into a rubber hole on the top of the barrel and fire any live rounds of ammo into the mound of sand inside. It was to protect the inmates more than anything else.

Jake handed the guard five additional rounds. Showed him the gun was empty. Holstered it. Then followed his escort to an empty waiting room past four sliding steel doors banging shut—with that dramatic prison echo—behind him. The room was devoid of any color whatsoever. Reds, greens and purples stimulated inmates. The gray kept them calm. Chairs and tables were welded to the floor. Remote controlled camera eye lenses stared down at Jake from all four corners. The hum of fluorescent lights kept pace, while the shiniest—and cleanest—white tile Jake had ever seen glared up at him.

“We spoke on the mobile,” the guard said with a British accent, sticking out his catcher’s-mitt-size hand. “Name’s Derek Minster.” He was freakishly tall. Bald by choice. Fit as a weight trainer. “Anything you need, Detective, you get hold of me. I’m the shift supervisor here. They call me ‘Chief.’ Nothing gets done without my signature. Of course, I’m pulling a double tonight because we’re short, but what can you do?”

Jake was impressed. Two guards with five o’clock-shadow-shaved-heads stood in back of him at attention. They stared at nothing in a creepy, Heil Hitler-like fashion.

“Thank you.”

Jake read through his iPhone notes as Micah was wheeled in. There was an oxygen tank strapped to the back of Micah’s wheelchair, a long, clear hose running from a ventilator up to his nostrils.

“Take all the time you need, Detective.”

The door closed. The lock snapped into place, clicking loudly inside the room.

With labored breath, Micah asked, “What do you want?”

“Your help. I need information you have.”

Jake and Dickie had theorized that Micah might be pulling the strings of some nut on the outside. Maybe coaching an old student to kill. Jake needed to be careful with his questions. He didn’t want to allude to this. He needed Micah to believe that he had some sort of control over the investigation.

“Not interested.”

“All I need is information, Mr. Micah. Just a few yeses and nos. Then I’m out of here.”

“Why would I help you?” The heart rate machine hooked to Micah’s pulse beeped at a methodic, medical pace. The room smelled of fresh paint and cleaning chemicals. Micah had a hospital aroma to him, Jake could tell by sitting so close. It reminded the detective of his mother putting Vicks Vapor Rub on his chest when he had a cold.

“Did you smoke, Micah? I’ve wondered. I’m conducting a little un-scientific survey of my own. Looking over your medical history, I’ve thought, ‘How much did this guy smoke?’ I’m sorry you’re so sick. Must be doubly worse in a place like this.”

Jake took a piece of nicotine gum, popped it into his mouth. He offered a piece to Micah.

“I did not smoke, Detective. Actually, the medical care in here is ten times what I would have gotten on the outside.” Micah gave Jake a fake smile, then went straight-lipped. “I’ll ask you again—what do you want? Look at me. I have a death sentence. I am in no mood to waste any of my time. I have a card game to get back to. I’m prepared to die in here. I could care less about your investigation.”

“I’m interested in your students. Those you abused, that is.”

“No.”

“Tell me about the orphanage. Your classes.”

“No again. Next?”

“What if I can get you out of this high-tech prison and into a lower security facility downstate? Same healthcare. Some hot nurses to take care of you. Good food. I can talk to the DA. She’s a personal friend.”

“You’re not going to do anything for me, Detective.” Micah chuckled for real this time. “Don’t make transparent promises. It won’t work here. One thing about a prison with such tight security—nothing is private. There’s probably ten people watching and listening to us right now.”

Jake looked around the room. Big Friggin’ Brother.

“Listen, no bullshit,” Jake leaned in to whisper. “I need you to step up to the plate her, or I’ll make your life in this joint a hell you have never thought existed.”

Micah smiled. “This has nothing to do with that serial murder case in the papers, Mr. Cooper. Now does it?” Micah had a sarcastic, one-up tone to his gravelly voice.

Jake was puzzled by this.

“You heard me, Mr. Cooper. This is more about a little girl you couldn’t save, am I right?”

Blood rushed into Jake’s face and hands. His pulse went off the charts. He stood. Walked away from the table.

“You need to redeem a career so you can walk away from the job feeling like it wasn’t your fault that little girl died. I can smell it on you.”

Jake bowed his head. Had one hand in his pocket. The other clenched into a fist, up to his mouth. He considered how he had lost that fire for the work he once had. He was running on the past, using it to fuel every move. Once a cop lost his nerve, Jake was certain, he was finished.

“What’s a matter, Mr. Cooper, I hit a nerve? You’re so quiet.”

Jake got nose-to-nose with Micah. He thought of that little girl’s final moments, what it must have been like to smother and not breathe. He grabbed the oxygen hose, pinched it. Put his mouth up to Micah’s ear. “Don’t fuck with me, you freakin’ diddler—I’ll have you castrated in here, you got me.”

Micah couldn’t breath. He started coughing. Couldn’t stop on his own. Guards rushed in. Ended the interview. Wheeled Micah out into the hallway.

Jake followed them. “I’ll be back tomorrow morning.”

“Don’t bother,” Micah said, trying to catch his breath, hacking and coughing.

Derek Minster stood nearby, listening.

“I won’t leave you alone.”

“Promises, promises, Mr. Cooper. Spare me the drama.” The guard wheeled Micah a few feet down the hall after Minster motioned with a head nod to take him away. Halfway down the hall, Micah tugged at the guard’s shirt to stop. “Turn me around. I want to see his face when I tell him.”

Jake looked. “Tell me what?”

“I know who you’re looking for, Detective.” He laughed, and it started another coughing fit. Then he grabbed the guard’s shirt again, as if he was some sort of villain in a Peter Sellers movie, gesturing to be taken away. “I even know his name.”

The guard wheeled the child abuser away as he laughed and coughed.

6:05 P.M.

When Jake returned to his car in the prison parking lot, he checked his iPhone.

Dawn had sent him a text saying to call her as soon as he could.

“Hey.” He started the car. “What’s going on? Everything okay?”

“Fine, Jake. Listen. I got a call from an ‘old friend,’ didn’t leave his name. Said something about Mo—”

“What’s going on, Dawn?”

“This guy said Mo was upstate in some bar, drunk off his ass, saying things that weren’t making much sense. Told me to get ahold of you right away with the info.”

“Name of the bar?”

“Yeah, hold on, let me get the note.”

Silence. Static.

“Dunstable, a place called Larry’s. Mo was apparently heading up to Vermont to go fishing. Meet some old cop buddies.”

“Who called?”

“Said he didn’t want to get involved.”

“Did you recognize the voice? Caller ID?”

“No. Private name, private number. Voice was muffled. Male, though, for sure.”

“I’m about an hour from Dunstable. Maybe I should go. I’d like another crack at this clown Micah tomorrow morning. I’ll get a hotel in Dunstable. Call you later.”

Jake groaned after he hung up. Going to rescue a drunk from himself was not what he had in mind for the rest of the day. But maybe it was time to confront Mo and lay it all out.

What is he doing up here, anyway?

Guy never fished a day in his life.

Driving away, Jake was reminded of a time when he had pulled his father out of Touchie’s Shamrock Pub on the corner of H and 8th streets in Southie, a few blocks from the Cooper’s row house. It was one of those scorching July mornings. Several teenagers loitered outside the bar, standing on the corner bare-chested, T-shirts tucked into their back pockets. They held quart bottles of beer in brown paper bags. Unlit cigarettes tucked in their ears. Jake stared them down, walked into Touchie’s just as two guys were getting ready to pummel the old man. Jake’s dad was yelling, “Fookin’ tinkers!” He and two local union guys were arguing about the Boston Bruins losing in the playoffs the night before. A friend of Casey’s had called Jake to warn of the impending ass-kicking. It was the first and last time Jake bailed his father out.