Brighton (20 page)

LISA BLINKED
her eyes open. The clock sunk into the dashboard read 6:00
A.M.
She’d planned on getting a hotel room but wound up parked in front of their apartment, wrapped in the bigness of the storm as it rolled in off the ocean, staring up at the sleeping windows until she herself dropped off. More rain blew up Pinckney Street, pinging off the roof of the car and cascading across her windshield. A man stood in the doorway of a hat shop, smoking a cigarette and staring at the cold water as it collected in the gutters and washed back down the hill. Blurry lights came on in a café. A woman stuck her head out and pulled in a stack of soggy newspapers left by the front door. Lisa was her first customer, sitting in the front window with hot coffee as the rain tapered to a mist, then stopped altogether. The sun made a tentative appearance just as Kevin stepped out of their building—now his. He kept his eyes glued to the pavement and headed straight for his car, bumping down the hill with a look neither left nor right. Lisa waited ten minutes, then crossed over and walked up four flights. She could have put off things for a day or two, but something told her this needed to be done quickly. She let herself into the apartment and looked around. A still life of her time
with Kevin looked back. On the mantel stood a reproduction of a New England whaling schooner etched in scrimshaw on a pale piece of bone. A cheap watercolor they’d bought in P-Town hung off the wall. Opposite it were framed pictures of them on the ferry to Nantucket and another watercolor, this one marginally better, of the Chatham lighthouse. She walked into the kitchen. Stuck to the fridge were ticket stubs from a Pats game and a single photo from last Christmas Eve. The snow had started falling in earnest around five. They’d filled a thermos with cocoa and walked through the city, sidewalks empty, bare black branches patterned against the low New England sky. As night fell, fresh light blazed from the windows of the Brahmin brownstones, illuminating stone steps and carved archways dressed in thin coats of white. They got a drink at the bar in the Ritz and listened to the carolers in the cold outside Arlington Street Church. Their night ended on a bench in the Public Garden. The snow had thickened, falling in sheets across the moonlight. An old woman took the photo, smiling at them as they smiled back and she remembered something lovely from her past. Lisa plucked the snapshot off the fridge and stuffed it in her pocket. She’d allow herself one.

In the bedroom, on the top shelf of the closet, were her suitcases. She pulled down the two rollers and filled them with clothes. Fifteen minutes later, she had her Civic loaded with everything she owned. And then it was time to leave. She leaned against the car and took a last look up and down the block. People were going about their business, doing what they did yesterday, would do tomorrow and the day after. She was the interloper, always had been, her life an exercise in make-believe, right down to the apartment in Beacon Hill and lily-white boyfriend. That
was unfair to her, to Kevin, to their time together, but she felt it all the same and knew she always would. It was her greatest strength and biggest weakness—a solitude she wore like a second skin. And the unblinking mind that went with it. Lisa pulled out her car keys and bent to unlock the door. A woman wearing Wayfarer sunglasses brushed past, knocking her into the side of the Civic. Lisa whipped around, swinging a fierce elbow but missing as the woman walked off. Lisa took a deep breath and let herself settle. Then she was back in the car, possessions packed tightly around her, rolling out of Beacon Hill, rolling with regret, rolling with anger, but rolling just the same. A cell phone buzzed from somewhere deep inside her bag. It was Frank DeMateo. He wanted her to meet him at the morgue. Fuck him, too.

Bridget Pearce slipped the Wayfarers onto her forehead and watched the Civic until it took the corner at the bottom of the hill. Then she walked slowly up the block, past Kevin’s building, to her rental. Bridget wasn’t sure what she’d hoped to find at her brother’s place, but the girlfriend was nothing if not interesting. Maybe even useful. Bridget cruised back down Joy Street, flipping off a couple of tourists who’d wandered off the sidewalk to take a picture. Then she turned onto Cambridge and disappeared into the choke of traffic headed downtown.

SCOTT CARSON
climbed the back stairs of the shit bag Royal Hotel one lousy fucking step at a time. Nick had given him a room on the fourth floor looking out over an alley. Prick was actually pleasant, smiling and calling him Mr. C. as he handed over the keys, telling him he could have the room for the rest of the day even though Scott had only paid for the morning. Ass wipe. Scott stopped once on the climb up, sitting in a stairwell and smoking a cigarette as the blood thundered in his ears and a cockroach the size of small beagle crawled past him on the wall. He pushed into his room at a few minutes before seven, immediately cracking open both windows in a futile effort to remove the stink of whoever had been in there before. In the bathroom he wiped the sweat off his face and touched at the puffiness in his cheeks and eyelids. He was overdue for a vacation. Maybe Vegas. Suck up some sun, pool time, a little gambling. Fuck knows he deserved it. But first, there was the matter of his wife. He’d figured it was gonna be difficult to get rid of her. Then he got the call. And just like that Colleen wasn’t a problem anymore. It bothered him if he thought about it too much so Scott decided not to. He found a water glass on a shelf over the toilet and pulled a flat bottle of
scotch from a paper bag. The girl he’d hired for the morning was listed as eighteen, but the guy at the service assured him she was fourteen. Tight. That was what the guy had said. And insatiable. Nice word,
insatiable
. Scott poured himself some whiskey and bolted down a handful of Vicodin. Then he took a blue pill. Followed by a second. What the fuck, why risk it when you can be thick as a barn post all morning? There was a small knock on the door. Scott drained what was left in the glass and checked himself again in the mirror, pushing at the loose folds of skin under his chin and carefully rearranging random strands of hair on his head. Another knock. Scott felt himself getting hard even as he walked across the room and gave himself a quick adjustment so she wouldn’t see the boner first thing.

“You’re early . . .” His mouth opened and closed once, dick shriveling, balls sucking up into his stomach. His guest took a step into the room and closed the door. Scott’s face crumbled into soft pieces. “What are you doing here?”

The first shot felt like a bee sting. Scott looked down at the hole in his shirt and thought it should hurt more than it did. He coughed and saw the hole bubble with a froth of blood. Another pop and a second hole joined the first. Scott had somehow found his way to the floor, looking up at stains on the ceiling and wondering if they were some sort of Olympic-sized cum shots. He could hear his heart now, rasping in his chest. There was something liquid between his lips. He wiped them and his sleeve came away red. The toe of a shoe brushed his nose as someone stepped over his body. Rough hands on his clothes and in his pockets. He turned his head and watched a dark figure climb out of the window and onto a fire escape that ran down the side of the building. Then Scott was alone. He tried to yell but only
managed the bones of a dead man’s whisper. Nick was probably outside in the hall, listening at the door and having a good laugh. Let him laugh, the fucking loser. Scott coughed again, the blood like thick syrup in his throat, filling his lungs, drowning, choking. Word around Brighton had always been not to fuck with the Pearce girls. Scott smiled a sticky grin. He’d never paid the talk any mind. Lesson fucking learned. He coughed a final time, blowing what was left of his life in bright blood all over himself. It was barely seven when he turned his head toward the morning sun and died.

BOBBY ROLLED
into the abandoned lot at exactly 7:40, listening to the engine tick in the morning quiet before getting out. He worked quickly and calmly, stripping the grimy plates off his Jeep with a flat-head screwdriver and tossing them into the backseat of a blue Toyota. The cars were parked side by side next to a field ugly with hunks of grass and rock. Bobby’s suitcase followed the plates, along with a small black gym bag. The Toyota turned over on the first try, its engine settling into a soft, efficient hum. Bobby pulled out of the lot and drove a mile and a half, parking on a side street a block from Saint Andrew’s. He walked back to the church with his head down and the gun in his pocket. Best he could tell, no one had followed him. And no one had seen him.

He sat in the last pew for eight
A.M.
mass and didn’t take Communion. Afterward, he waited for the church to empty before walking over to the confessional. The green light was lit, indicating a priest was inside waiting for his next sinner. Bobby knelt in the swirling dust and darkness. The wooden partition slid across with an oiled rasp. Seams of light bled through the wire
mesh, stitching a ragged pattern across his face. Bobby squinted and struggled to see his confessor but could only make out a black shape cloaked in some sort of sacramental glow. He blessed himself, mumbled some words, and listened to some mumbled back. A pause ensued—a holy space waiting to be filled with the litany of his sins.

“I haven’t come to confess.”

A dry rustle as Father Lenihan shifted in his vestments. “I’m sorry?”

Bobby shoved the picture from Paragon Park through the hole in the screen. “Saint Regis Home in Cambridge. Nineteen seventy-two.”

The rustling stopped. A pair of veined hands held the photo under a wavering circle of light. “Can I ask your name?”

“You wouldn’t know it, but I come to mass here almost every day.”

“I’m sure I’d know your face.”

Bobby felt himself shrink into the back of the confessional box as shame did its work, hollowing from the inside out. He licked his lips and rallied.

“I was never abused. At least not by any priest. But I saw stuff. And I saw you.”

“Son, let’s go into the sacristy and talk . . .”

“I always got the feeling you wanted to help, wanted to stop it. But you were young and couldn’t protect shit.”

The silhouette dipped, forehead pressing against the metal facing of the screen, breath whistling softly between his teeth.

“I didn’t come here to lecture you, Father. Not gonna piss and moan about my life, either.”

“We can get you help. I can make sure . . .”

“Don’t need it. Don’t want it.” Somewhere at the back of the church, a door opened and slammed shut. Then, a bell began to toll. Bobby took out a small volume and read.

At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives . . .

“Thomas Merton.”

“Very good, Father.”

The priest’s hand snaked through the hole, raking Bobby’s arm and clamping on to his wrist. His voice, when he spoke, was strained to a whisper. “You must understand I did what I could.”

Bobby’s fingers touched the grip of the gun in his pocket. “I’m sure you did. Thing is, Father, sometimes even good men just need to die.”

The heater in his car sounded like a five-pack-a-day smoker, wheezing and hacking, lukewarm air coughing out of the car’s floor vents in fits and starts. Kevin hit some buttons and pounded on the dashboard, hoping to intimidate the thing into kicking on. Heaters just didn’t work that way. He punched the off switch and sat in silence, staring at the heavy red door of Saint Andrew’s Church. Bobby hadn’t offered two words on the ride back from the Resie. As he got out of the car, he said he’d be at eight
A.M.
mass. Kevin had briefly considered talking things out right there,
but figured it’d keep. Besides, he’d had Lisa filling his head. Part of him thought she’d be waiting at the apartment when he got back from the Resie, and fought the urge to call when she wasn’t. The rest of him laughed at how willingly he’d sold his soul for a handful of trinkets. He pulled out one of her old winter hats he’d found in the backseat and held it to his nose, breathing in her scent still clinging to the knitted wool. He remembered the first time he’d kissed her. He couldn’t believe it was really happening, a woman like that, lips running across his like a sizzle, turning his knees to water and his dreams into flesh and blood, thrilling and scaring the hell out of him all at the same time. People like him, people who’d never really had it, didn’t understand love, wound up giving it too much weight, seeing it, touching it, imagining it everywhere. She’d understood that from the start. And so she’d played him for a fool. And he’d lapped it up with a fucking spoon. Sad thing was, given the chance, he’d do it all over again. Kevin threw her hat in the glove compartment and slammed the fucking thing shut.

Folks had begun to trickle out of mass in ones and twos, mostly old people, mostly women. He considered walking inside, but something malignant blinked in his belly and he stayed where he was, stretching his fingers and rubbing the early morning cold out of his knuckles. He wondered where Bobby was and whether he’d show up at all. And if he didn’t, where did that leave things? Kevin turned on his cell and punched in the number for his boss.

“Are you our writer-in-residence now?”

“Hey, Jimmy.”

“Hang on.” Jimmy Edwards shuffled the phone from one ear to the other. Kevin figured he was getting up to close the door to his office.

“We could use you in the newsroom, Kev.”

“I might be onto something.”

“Yeah?”

“The cop murder.”

“Patterson?” Jimmy’s voice tightened and Kevin knew he had him hooked.

“Mo and I have been working it.”

“Why’s this the first I’m hearing about it?”

“My fault. I told Mo to keep it quiet.”

“So talk to me.”

“Not yet.”

“Fuck you, not yet. The cops won’t give us shit. The governor’s sniffing around.” A pause. “Is your girlfriend handling it?”

“Let me talk to Mo.”

Jimmy took that as a yes. “How long you gonna need?”

“Mo.”

“Tomorrow. Your ass, my office. By the way, you didn’t hear it from me, but Stanley’s got a job offer.”

“In town?”

“
Chicago Tribune.
Heard it was for good money, too.”

“No shit.”

“Hang on. I’ll get her.”

His boss was gone before Kevin could ask another question. Then Mo came on the line.

“What did you do to him?” she said.

“Jimmy? Nothing.”

“He’s antsy about Patterson, right?”

“I told him we were working it together. He’s fine.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure. You get anything more on McNabb?”

“Not much. Her murder wasn’t exactly a high priority. I did get a look at the rest of the autopsy report.”

“And?”

“The knife was similar to the attacks on Sandra Patterson and Tallent.”

“How close?”

“I’m not a fucking M.E., Kevin. The measurements on the wound looked to be about the same. Blade was a half-inch wide. Four to six inches in length. Probably one of a million sold in Boston every year.”

“A million?”

“I’m just saying, it’s a common size knife.”

“But you think McNabb’s connected?”

“I thought that from the beginning.”

“Me, too.”

“So what’s next?”

“I need another day. Then I give you everything.”

“They really want me to file something.”

“One more day.” Kevin paused. The red door of Saint Andrew’s Church swung open and a couple of blue-haired old ladies tottered out, gesticulating madly as they negotiated the church’s front steps. From somewhere above, a bell hammered out nine strokes and fell silent.

“Where are you?” Mo said.

“Never mind. Jimmy told me you’re looking at a job in Chicago.”

“I told him that in confidence.”

“So you gonna take it?”

“Maybe. The
Chicago Tribune
’s starting a new I-unit. Money’s good. People seem nice. Who knows, right?”

She was leaving. He heard it in her voice and felt it in the way his stomach dropped.

“I’m happy for you, Mo.”

“Don’t be too happy. I’m not gone yet. Have you checked your messages?”

“I had my cell turned off.”

“Smart, Kevin. I left you a message about an hour ago. They found another body in Brighton last night. Guy named Seamus Slattery.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Yeah, well, he was stabbed twice in the chest. No ligature. At least nothing I know about.”

“Can you get a look at the file?”

“I don’t think so. My guy tells me your girlfriend’s flagged it.”

“No kidding.”

“So this is news to you?”

“News to me.”

Saint Andrew’s red door swung open again and Bobby Scales walked out.

“Sorry, Mo, I gotta go.”

“Where are you?”

“Another day. Then we sit down and talk.”

“How good is this, Kevin?”

“Good.”

“Political?”

“What isn’t?

“Dirty?”

“As hell.” He paused. “A day, Mo. Day and a half, tops. Then it’s me and you. We get some beers, we talk about Patterson. And all the rest.”

She started to speak, but Kevin cut the line. Bobby climbed in without a word. He was wearing a leather bomber jacket that was cracking at the seams and worn at the elbows.

“Where you been?” Kevin said.

“Mass, then confession.”

“Haven’t been to confession in years.”

Bobby shrugged. “It’s not for everyone.”

They chugged up Washington Street and crossed over into Newton. The promised land. When they were kids, Kevin and his buddies would cruise the neighborhood on bikes looking for dinner. They’d find a backyard with an unattended grill and swoop in with pocketknives, spearing as many fat steaks as they could before riding into the wind. They’d eat somewhere in the dark, licking the juice off their fingers when they were done, thrilled they’d gotten a free meal from the “rich Newton fucks.” That was then—when they were kids with nothing to lose, a whole world to fuck with, and all that mattered was “right now.” Kevin pressed down on the accelerator, feeling the car surge and tires sing as he swung a left onto a long, rambling stretch of road. Bobby sat beside him like a tombstone on a hill, staring blankly out the window. A park floated past, soft fields slumbering under a melting blanket of spring frost. An older man, professorial type with glasses and a green wax jacket, walked out of the park with a golden on a leash. The dog walker waved at the car. Everyone in Newton waved. It was like a village law or something. They went for another mile or so, past sweeping driveways and deep carpets of lawn rolling up to the front steps of one massive manse after another. Bobby finally
stirred to life, directing Kevin to circle back into the city. Like everything else, even Newton got tedious after a while.

“I figure we should talk to a lawyer,” Kevin said as they coasted to a stop at a red light.

“You mean you want to take your girlfriend’s advice?”

“She’s moving out.”

“She was doing her job, Kev.” Bobby was wearing a smaller bandage on his left hand and picked at the tape wound across his knuckles. Kevin noticed red marks streaked across his wrist.

“What’s that?”

“What’s what?”

“Looks like you got clawed or something.”

Bobby examined the marks for a moment, then dismissed them with a shrug. The light changed and Kevin eased through the intersection.

“I tell you I saw Father Lenihan the other day?”

“Small world.”

“You know the
Globe
’s doing all those stories on the church and stuff?”

“I read ’em, yeah.”

“I know the reporters working that. Checked all the lists they got for pervert priests. Lenihan’s not on any of them.”

“Why you telling me?”

“You go to church there. Thought maybe you’d like to know.”

They crossed back out of Newton and banged through a run of axle-scraping potholes.