The Son of John Devlin (36 page)

“And Ray Murphy?” Del Rio asked.

Kennedy shook his head dismissively. “He had a big mouth,” Kennedy said. “He could have hurt us very badly. I had Moloney deal with him.”

Emily turned to Jack. He remained frozen in his seat, fingertips just touching his nose, hands clasped together in prayer.

Emily reached over and placed her hand on his shoulder. “Heard enough?” she asked.

He nodded that he had.

She took up a walkie-talkie and clicked the side. “Unit one, you may proceed,” she said. “Please acknowledge.”

“Unit one proceeding,” said one of the two FBI agents in the first car.

“Unit two, you may proceed,” she said.

“Unit two proceeding,” said one of the agents in the second car.

Jack shifted into gear and drove two blocks to the front of Kennedy’s house. The FBI agents pulled up as he did, at a respectful distance, but two of the agents moved swiftly across Kennedy’s front lawn and stationed
themselves by the front of the house. Two others moved around back and concealed themselves.

Emily stood by the car as Jack went to the front door and rapped three times in succession. In a moment Del Rio answered the door.

He looked into Jack’s eyes but said nothing.

“Thank you,” Jack said.

Del Rio nodded and went back inside.

“You have a visitor,” Del Rio said as Jack moved swiftly across the room, his service revolver drawn and aimed at Kennedy’s heart.

“Stand up!” Jack ordered.

“What the—” a flabbergasted Kennedy said.

“Stand up!” Jack said, and Kennedy did so.

Del Rio guided Kennedy against the wall, face first, and frisked him. “Okay,” he said.

“Thomas Kennedy,” Jack said, placing handcuffs on Kennedy’s wrists, “I am placing you under arrest for the murder of John Devlin.”

S
now came in wispy flakes, riding the frigid winds out of the northeast. The sky was heavy and gray, the temperature in single digits. Jack pulled his Jeep into the parking lot at the Holy Name Church. It was just quarter of five in the afternoon, but already darkness had fallen. Jack was surprised at how many cars were already in the parking lot. Normally, this Mass attracted sparse attendance, but on this night the lot was three-quarters full. Older men, mostly, climbed out of their vehicles and walked slowly toward the church.

Jack sat in the car a moment, looking around.

Emily reached over and put her hand on his. “You okay?” she asked.

He took a deep breath and nodded. “I’m okay,” he replied.

She smiled at him. “You look very handsome in your new coat,” she said. “Very distinguished.”

He looked down at the navy-blue overcoat he’d bought the day before. He had not owned a good coat, and he wanted to dress well for this occasion. He wanted to feel an appropriate level of formality, for it was, after all, the moment toward which he’d been working … for how long? For most of his life, it seemed. They had
gone out together the day before, Jack and Emily, and shopped for the coat. Jack had been nervous about it, for he wanted the new garment to be right. They had gone along Newbury Street first, but the coats there were too stylized, too European for his taste. He wanted something very basic, straightforward, but well-made. At Filene’s, the big department store downtown, Jack tried on a dozen coats in the price range he had stipulated, but none of them quite did the trick. Then, on a nearby rack, he spotted the coat. The salesman, a patient and helpful older gent, said it cost substantially more than the amount Jack had said he wished to pay.

“Let’s just try it on,” Jack said. The older man nodded and removed the coat from its hanger. He held it behind Jack, and when Jack put each arm through and stood up straight, gazing into the mirror, he knew this was right.

The coat sat well on his broad shoulders and hung nicely from his body. The material felt smoother to him than the others, and there was about this coat an altogether more elegant feel than anything else he’d tried on. That was explained in part, said the salesman, by the fact that the garment was eighty percent wool, twenty percent cashmere.

Jack buttoned it and stood looking into the mirror. He turned sideways and looked back over his shoulder to see how it fit from the side. It was as though the coat had been made for him.

“What do you think?” he’d asked Emily.

She smiled widely. “Perfect,” she said.

And so he bought it, paying more for it than he ever had for any article of clothing in his life. And he was glad. That night, at his house, he and Emily had eaten
take-out Chinese food and sat around the fireplace talking about Jack’s dad.

Late in the evening Jack had gone into his bedroom and opened up his closet. He took out a charcoal-gray suit that he’d worn to his law school graduation. He chose a blue and white striped dress shirt with spread collar and a simple print tie with green and blue. He had brought Emily in to review his selections, and she nodded her approval. All the garments were arranged carefully together in the center of the closet.

Jack got his black dress shoes out of the closet and brought them to the living room, where he carefully dusted them off, then applied a thorough coat of shoe polish and buffed them to a high shine.

Now the moment had arrived, and Jack’s palms were sweaty, his heart beating fast. He felt good, though. Ready.

She gripped his hand and smiled at him again. He took another deep breath and got out of the car. Standing in the cold parking lot, Emily slid her hand under his arm and walked close to him, her head down against the wind. She wore a black evening dress with a chocolate-brown shearling coat. Her hair was pushed back on one side, held in place by an elegant silver and pearl clip. They were a handsome couple.

“Jackie,” called a voice, and Jack turned to see Eammon O’Brien, the retired cop who had been on the job with his father. Eammon was old and stooped, but he moved swiftly across the lot, vapor coming from his mouth as he breathed. He patted Jack on the shoulder, a broad, warm smile across his reddened face.

“It’s a good thing you done, Jackie,” Eammon said.
“It’s a good thing, Jackie. Your father, Jesus, Jackie, he’d be so damn proud of you.”

Eammon shook his head, squeezed Jack’s hand, and moved off toward the church.

“Thank you …” Jack said, his voice a whisper. “Thank you, Eammon.”

Emily held tightly to his arm and studied Jack’s face to see if he was all right. He seemed to her suddenly very far away.

Inside, the church was warm and inviting. The altar candles were lit, shimmering in the draft near the stained glass. There were dozens of people already in seats, men mostly, retired cops, a few with their wives.

Jack walked with Emily slowly down the center aisle. As they moved, Jack saw many familiar faces and nodded to each, smiling, saying a soft hello. They reached the second row and Jack genuflected, then entered the pew after Emily. He knelt and shut his eyes as he prayed. After a minute he sat down on the wooden bench.

In the minutes before Mass began, ushers from the Patrolman’s Benevolent Association appeared and distributed the plain white booklets listing police officers through the years “who had served honorably.”

An usher placed the booklets at the end of the pew and then, hesitating, handed one to Jack. He took it and froze. As he stood with the booklet in hand, the priest swept onto the altar and Mass began. Jack stood with the booklet in his hand, clutching it.

The Mass was a blur until it came time for the priest’s sermon. Father Reilly, the chaplain of the Boston Police Department, stepped to the front of the altar and began speaking.

“We gather here this afternoon as we do every month
at this time to pause for just a moment from our daily lives to recall the good works of so many of our brothers and fathers and grandfathers and beyond who served as police officers in our city,” he said. “This month, as we do each and every month of the year, we add to our roll of honor.”

Here, Father Reilly paused and glanced down at Jack. The church was hushed.

“We add one name this month,” the priest said. “A name that deserved to be here many years ago, but God is patient as so must we be. And through the nobility and the courage and the perseverance of his son, the name added this month is that of deceased detective John Devlin.”

Jack bowed his head in a brief prayer of thanks, and as he did, he opened the booklet, and there, on the first page, was his father’s name—a place of honor for a new name on the list. Having heard the priest say his father’s name and having read it on the page, Jack Devlin was overwhelmed. The tears came streaming down his face and he found himself being embraced by Emily and he felt safe and protected and he thought of his father and he felt a great surge of love in his heart. He thought of that good man whose crime had been that he was human, that he had been flawed, a sinner. But he had sought to better himself, not only as a man, but as a child of God; he had sought to do the right thing, to redeem himself, and Jack believed he had sought this for him, as much as for anything else. For Jock Devlin had been the greatest of fathers, and he’d wanted nothing more than the chance to raise his son, to be with him and watch him grow, to help him become a man of strength and
goodness. All he had wanted was to be a good father and to love and protect his son.

But that chance had been taken away from him. Now Jack had given him something back.

“And so today we pay special tribute to John Devlin, Sr., and we ask God to place him in a special place near Him in Heaven for all of eternity. And we pray for all of the others listed in your booklets, available to you in the pews or in the back of the chapel, all of those who have served with honor on the police department. Let us pray …”

When the Mass was ended, Jack moved out of the pew and began, very slowly, to walk back down the center aisle. No one else in the church moved. Only Jack and Emily walked toward the back, and as they did so, Eammon O’Brien stood in the middle of the church and began to clap his hands, slowly, rhythmically. Jack looked at him, standing alone, clapping, smiling broadly. And as he clapped, a few others joined in, and then others, and more and more, until all of the men in the church were on their feet clapping and the sound was thunderous within the nave of the church. Jack glanced back and saw that Father Reilly was clapping as well, and the men cheered and shouted their approval, and Jack put his head down and the tears came again. But this time he smiled, too, and he clutched Emily’s hand, nodded, and whispered, “Thank you, thank you, God, for allowing this redemption.”