Brighton (25 page)

THE OLD-SCHOOL
sign had gone dark, its neon letters staring out blindly over the intersection at North Beacon and Market like some modern-day Tiresias. Kevin pulled into an empty spot directly beneath the second “D.” Lisa’s autopsy files were still in the backseat. He grabbed them and headed into the Dunkin’ Donuts, setting up at a table with a good view of the front door and close by the store’s emergency exit. Outside a police car zipped past in a blur of color. Then another. A server wondered aloud what the Christ was going on and wandered over to the window for a better look. Kevin stirred some sugar in his coffee and saw Finn’s face circling there. Part of him was glad he was dead. That part scared him, but there it was and he couldn’t ignore it anymore. He took out his cell phone and dialed Lisa’s number.

“Kevin, I’ve been trying to call you.”

“You need to listen.”

“All right.”

“Is this being recorded?”

“I told you. That was a mistake.”

“Is it being recorded?”

“No.”

He didn’t believe her but didn’t think it really mattered. “I just left Finn McDermott’s apartment.”

“Hang on.” There was a pause on the line, then she came back. “Where are you?”

“Never mind. I saw you and DeMateo pull up. Is it a suicide?”

“We don’t know yet. Why were you here?”

“I found out Finn was hooked into the Curtis Jordan thing. I wanted to talk to him.”

“We found the gun that killed Jordan in his apartment. At least we think it’s the gun. We also found personal effects from Rosie Tallent and Sandra. I just got off the phone with DeMateo.”

“So it’s over?”

“We’re not sure what it all means yet. If you were in this apartment, you need to come in and make a statement. And you need to do it before they find evidence you were here.”

“Does Finn make sense?”

“Could be.” Another slight, calculated pause. “Do you know where Bobby Scales is?”

“No.”

“All right. Tell me where you’re at and I’ll have someone pick you up. Then we can go through it.”

Kevin felt his stomach clench and the walls of the Dunkin’ Donuts creep in about two feet on all sides. “Let’s go through it now.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Then I think I’ll stay put.”

“You’re in a vulnerable position, Kevin. And I don’t want to have this conversation over the phone.”

His mind picked up the word
vulnerable
and turned it, watching how it caught and reflected light.

“Kevin? You still there?”

“Maybe you should try to explain. Then we’ll see how things go.”

“There’s a decent chance McDermott’s being framed.”

“So you believe he was murdered?”

“We have a witness who says she saw Scales leaving his apartment last night.”

“And you think I’m involved?”

“It’s complicated, Kevin. Why don’t you come in and we can talk. Just you and me . . .”

He cut the line and sat back in his chair. The phone buzzed. He turned it off. They were coming for him. They wanted Bobby, but they’d settle for him. And Lisa was leading the charge. He wondered if she had the ability to trace his call. Why not? His gaze caught the files she’d given him, stacked on the table next to his coffee. The reporter in him needed something to read. The rub of paper and ink under his fingers. Words scattered down the page in long, luxurious lines. Therapy for the broken mind. He unwound the rubber bands on the binder and opened it. The first thing he found was a summary report on Seamus Slattery’s autopsy. Kevin’s eyes skipped down to the description of the fatal injury.

The stab wound is diagonally oriented between the 5th and 6th ribs on the left side of the chest and measures approximately 1/2 inch in length. Inferiorly there is a squared-off end approximately 1/32 in length; superiorly
the wound is tapered. Wound penetrates into the left pleural cavity, with an estimated depth of three to four inches. Wound pathway is irregular, perhaps indicating the tip of the weapon was broken off during the attack. X-rays, however, show no evidence of fragments.

He laid the report aside. What would they charge him with? Lisa was smart as fuck. She’d come up with something. Not that it mattered. He wouldn’t say a word while Bobby was still out there. If he was arrested and wound up taking a deal, Kevin would provide a full statement detailing his role in the Curtis Jordan killing. It’d be the end of his career, his life as he knew it, and wouldn’t help Bobby a damn bit. Still, Kevin felt good about that part of things. He took another sip of coffee and opened a second file. Staring back at him was a picture of his grandmother, crumpled in the hallway of her apartment, the late-afternoon sun of his youth filling the space around her with that perfect, sculpted light. He flipped the file shut and gazed out the window as a bus took on a handful of early morning commuters and chugged down the street. Another police car whipped past. Kevin didn’t want to see any more but found himself opening the file again. Clipped to the death photo was his grandmother’s autopsy report—a jumble of words and numbers that purported to catalog her essence and failed miserably. Underneath the report was a dusty gray sleeve with
SAINT ELIZABETH’S HOSPITAL
stamped in 1970s red block letters. Inside the sleeve, Kevin found a single x-ray. It was twenty-six years old and bore his sister’s name. Kevin remembered Bridget returning from the hospital the morning after his grandmother died, white bandage taped to her side, cat’s eyes
staring out the front window as their mother cried blindly beside her. He held the x-ray up to the light and studied his sister’s twelve-year-old ribs, lined up in a neat row like a rack of spring lamb you’d find at the butcher. Cozied between the fifth and sixth ribs, Kevin saw what he saw—a tiny white fleck, just like an inverted “v.” Somewhere faintly, a penny dropped.

THE LADDER’S
joints had popped and cracked, gray wood slivered and bleached nearly white from four decades of New England weather. Colleen reached for a rung and looked up at a square of tinted sky looking back. Slowly, she began to pull herself up.

Her sister was already there, bunkered in the layered shade of the trees that bordered the far side of the building, eyes peering over the roof’s edge, blinking into the filtered light of the alley below.

“Bridget?”

She was wearing a gray cardigan, with black leather gloves, black pants, and winks of light at her ears.

“You look nice,” Colleen said, but kept her distance. She’d been to the zoo before and knew the rules when visiting the lion cage. Bridget rose from her perch and circled closer.

“Why couldn’t we meet in the house?” Colleen said.

Her sister thinned her lips. “Does it matter?”

“Sorry.” The apology came tumbling out of her mouth before Colleen’s brain had the time to process, never mind stop it.

Bridget gestured to the low wall that ran around the edge of the roof. “Let’s sit for a second.”

“I’m fine here, thanks.”

“I know all about the Royal.”

Colleen felt the quick heat in her face. Shame. Her mother’s shame. Her grandmother’s shame. Generations of women, buried in shame. Colleen bore it all as her own. And so it was. “That’s none of your business.”

Bridget took a seat on the wall and stared placidly at the turning light.

“I know
your
secrets,” Colleen said, voice spitting with sudden and ancient venom. “What you’ve hidden up here. Everything else.”

Bridget turned a fraction and blinked. “Really?” She patted the ledge. Colleen sidled closer, sniffing the air around her before taking a seat.

“Better?”

Colleen nodded and felt a throbbing, full in her throat. Almost shyly, Bridget reached across and touched her sleeve. “Do you think I’d actually do anything to harm you?”

“I hope not.”

“I wouldn’t. Couldn’t.” Bridget pulled out a shiny, gold derringer and placed it between them. “He was disrespecting you, Colleen. Disrespecting your marriage. So I took care of it.”

Colleen lifted her eyes off the neat little gun that was suddenly part of her life and blinked away a hot tear. “When?”

“Yesterday. At the Royal. There’ll be money for you and Conor. A new life.”

“I talked to Bobby. Did he . . .”

“Fuck Bobby.” Bridget smoothed her brow with a smile. “I
just need you to do one thing for me and then it’s over. Can you do that?”

“Yes.” Colleen’s response drifted out into the silent space, turning into a thousand whispers in the hanging leaves of the trees.

“Good.” In Bridget’s left hand was a small spiral notepad. She ripped out a blank page. It made a dry, tearing sound and Colleen felt herself flinch.

“You’ve made mistakes, Colleen. Marrying him, buying the place in Newton, thinking you could make it all work.”

“I lied to myself. I lied to everyone. I know that.”

“Write me a single sentence. No details, no specifics. Just a sentence saying you’re sorry.”

“Seriously?”

“I know it sounds crazy, especially coming from me, but in some ways I think it’ll help wipe the slate clean. Give us a reason to trust each other.”

“And that’s it?”

Bridget nodded. Colleen plucked the page from her hand, scribbled out a few lines and signed it.

I’m sorry for all the pain and hurt I’ve caused. All I can do is hope people forgive me, just as I forgive them.

Colleen Carson

“How’s that?”

“Perfect.” Bridget folded the page into a square and slipped it in her pocket. Then she stood up, Colleen now cleaving close. Morning air pushed up from below, prickling the skin on her arms and sending a delicious thrill through her bones.

“I remember coming up here when we were kids,” Colleen whispered. “It was always your spot. Always, always, always.”

Bridget held out her arm. Colleen tucked underneath it, head bending to her older sister’s shoulder, Bridget’s hand slipping to the small of her younger sister’s back. From there, all it took was a nudge. Colleen teetered and tottered like a clown in the circus, painted eyes rolling, bright red mouth opening and closing, fingers grasping for purchase in the air. Bridget reached out to steady her sister and stuffed the note she’d just written in one oversized pocket. The shiny derringer in the other. Then she gave her a second push.

Colleen heard her heels rasp across the top of the wall before sliding away from the roof, down the slick face of the building. The fall took forever, dropping silently through alternate layers of light and shadow, looking up to see her sister staring down at her as if from the bottom of a deep shaft. The last thing Colleen remembered was the stick-on smile and a crooked set of fingers toddling good-bye. Then the back of her skull hit the pavement with a wicked crack and the movie cut to black. Colleen’s body lay in the cooling shadows, hidden from a world she no longer inhabited, finally at rest.

THE LIVING
room at 8 Champney looked like a stage, lights down, audience hushed, the final act about to unfold. Kevin called out Bridget’s name and was greeted with crickets. He wasn’t surprised and headed straight for the kitchen. It seemed even smaller than before, but maybe all the rooms seemed progressively smaller with each visit. One day he’d show up and the front door would open into the backyard, the entire apartment reduced to nothing more than a warped threshold of time and memory.

There were dishes in the sink and the faucet was dripping. Kevin turned it off. Beside the sink were three drawers. The middle one had always been the silverware drawer. Kevin pulled it open and found a mismatched collection of forks, knives, and spoons tangled up in a tray. He separated out the knives and took his time, examining each in turn. When he was done, he laid them out on the table. Somewhere a woman yelled and a door slammed. Kevin walked out to the back porch, deserted except for a yellow tomcat who blinked at him out of his one good eye. Kevin had the feeling he’d just missed someone and headed back into the apartment. To his left was the hallway. At the end of it, his parents’ bedroom. It had always been off-limits when
he was a kid. No one ever had to tell him. Kevin just knew. He pushed open the door and went in. Clothes stood like dead soldiers on hangers in the closet. He sat on the bed with one of his father’s overcoats and ran his thumb along a rough seam, then buried his face in the fabric. It smelled like stale sweat and fear. And he hated it as much as he needed it. There was a sound, a groan of wood, and he looked up at the long light of morning staining the far wall. He remembered the only time his dad had ever comforted him. Kevin had been playing street hockey at the top of Champney where the street widened. The goal was marked by two boots, separated by the length of a hockey stick, and the Doors’ “Light My Fire” was playing on a radio someone had stuck on the curb. He’d never seen his grandmother walking up Champney before and remembered her heavy black shoes and how the sight of them had parched his throat. She told him best she could—in bits and pieces the way those things always came out. His dog, a six-month-old streak named Jagger, had gotten loose. A garbage truck caught him in its teeth, snapping the pup’s spine in three places. Kevin dropped his hockey stick and bolted, legs wild, arms pumping, trying to outrun death down the hill. The screen door, still in its youth, announced his arrival with a heavy slap against the wooden frame. A circle of faces were huddled around the kitchen table, staring out at him with tunneled eyes. There was muttering about blood and fractures and the look Jagger gave them when they put him down. “It was a blessing,” someone told him in that condescending, knowing way people talk who’ve never loved anything in their lives except themselves. Kevin felt like putting his fist through a window, except he wasn’t that way. And everyone knew it. He ran into his sisters’ room and
threw himself on the bed. The door creaked and a hand brushed his shoulder. His father’s voice was suddenly in his ear. “We’ll get another one,” he whispered. Kevin never turned, never said a word. He was ten years old and not about to hand over the piece of himself his father coveted most. So he listened until the footsteps died away. And they never went to get another pup. And no one ever spoke of it again. And they lived, chained together by nothing but blood, yet chained together all the same.

Kevin hung the overcoat back on its hanger. The edge of a flat box peeked from under the bed. He pulled it out. Inside were a bunch of scuffed baseballs. Colleen’s collection. Each was shellacked to protect it and dated with the teams and score written in his father’s coiled black script. Kevin picked one up:

SEPTEMBER 12, 1975

City Semifinal

Brighton – 3

Charlestown – 2

He put the ball in the box and slipped it back under the bed. Then he left, closing the door behind him.

The knives he’d pulled out still lay in a row. Kevin stacked them neatly in the silverware drawer, then returned to the kitchen table, taking a seat and staring out a small window set over the sink. As a kid, he’d sat in the same spot with his mother when it was quiet in the early cusp of morning and the house was theirs. Kevin would eat breakfast while she shuffled around the room, a syn
chronized clock running in their heads that would tell them when it was time for him to go. He’d read whatever was put in front of him while he ate. Books, newspapers, the print off the back of the cereal box. Anything to feed his mind. When there was nothing to read, he’d memorize everything in the room—sixteen tiles across the ceiling one way; twenty-four, the other. Six magnets on the refrigerator door, except for a while when there were only five. Kettle on the stove, silver on top, charred on the bottom, black handle melted around the grip. Boxes of Cocoa Puffs, mac and cheese, pasta, sauce, and peanut butter in the first cabinet. Oreos, Lorna Doone cookies for tea, cans of Campbell soup, tuna, and deviled ham in the second. Plates, glasses, and cups in the third. Breadbox beside the toaster beside four containers, yellow tin stamped with blue flowers. Kevin’s gaze stopped. There were only three containers on the counter. A space and a light patch on the wall where the fourth should be. He walked over to the containers, picking up each in turn and checking inside. Sugar, a bag of flour, a box of salt. He pulled across a chair and began to search the upper shelves. The missing container was in a small, dark hole above the refrigerator. Kevin brought it back to the table, his mouth dry as dirt, his heart fluttering like a small bird in his throat. Inside was a hard object wrapped in a white handkerchief. Kevin lifted it out and placed it on the table, unopened. There was a footfall on the back porch. He looked up, half expecting to see his grandmother standing in the doorway.

“Is this a bad time?” Father Lenihan said.