Brothers and Bones (37 page)

Andrew Lippincott lived on Louisburg Square, in a corner brownstone he bought eight years ago for two million dollars. He didn’t need to renovate it, as it was already dripping with New England, Beacon Hill, colonial charm—ten-foot ceilings, big brick fireplaces, gleaming hardwood floors, rich, dark wood moldings and railings, stained glass on either side of the hundred-fifty-year-old oak front door. One might question how a former DA and current federal prosecutor—even one holding the top such position in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts—could afford to live in such a posh little community. The answer is that Lippincott, who was one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, invested extraordinarily wisely in the stock market and in local companies over the years. I’ve noted that his instincts are so sharp that his underlings only half-jokingly suspected him of having a sixth sense, a clairvoyance that guided his professional decisions over the years. Whether or not he had a sixth sense, I believed that whatever instincts guided him in his career also likely led him to the investment decisions that made him a wealthy man. He wasn’t so rich that it was unseemly in an officer of the court and servant of the people, but he was very, very secure financially.

As Bonz and I stood outside his brownstone, where I’d dined a few times with Jessica and her father, I looked down the block for Lippincott’s black Mercedes and saw it parked where he always parked it.

“So tell me one more time, Charlie, why we think Lippincott will help us. He’s a fed, after all.” He spit out the word
fed
as if it was a cigarette butt he’d sipped into his mouth after someone had dropped it in his coffee when he wasn’t looking.

“Yeah, he’s a fed, but he’s also my boss, and a decent guy.”

“Okay, but he’s sworn to put people like us away, not help us.”

People like us. Holy shit, I’d gone from Charlie Beckham, respected prosecutor, to Charlie Beckham, suspected felon on the run. I was now one of the people that the person I used to be was sworn to try to send to jail. I was a bad guy. At least that’s how it looked to the good guys. Holy shit.

“Yeah,” I said, “but I think I can convince him that I didn’t kill Angel. I know he’ll listen, at least. But most importantly, if I tell him that what we need his help with could bring down Carmen Siracuse, he’ll consider the bigger picture, table his ethical reservations, and do the right thing. At least I think he will.”

“And how can he help us?”

“By helping us think through what Michael Kidder might have been doing with Carmen Siracuse thirteen years ago. I think he might have had reason to be suspicious of Kidder. Maybe he has more specific thoughts he’d share with us, under the circumstances.”

“And if you’re wrong and Big Frank
wasn’t
referring to Kidder?”

“Then Lippincott won’t be able to help us and we’ll leave, find someplace to hide, and we’ll be no worse off for having stopped here. I mean, it’s not like our new appearances are fooling anybody anymore, so it’s no big deal if he sees us.”

Bonz nodded, then walked up the short brick walk to Lippincott’s front door. He raised the brass knocker and let it fall with a heavy, metallic clank. We heard it reverberate through the brownstone. A moment later, footsteps approached from inside. A shape appeared behind the stained glass to the right of the door, an eye at a clear piece of glass amid the carnival-colored pieces around it. I tried for a smile. This was the moment of truth. Either we’d hear Lippincott’s hurried footsteps heading away from the door, toward the phone in his study, or he’d open the door.

A deadbolt slid aside with a
thunk
. The knob turned and the door opened.

“Charlie,” Andrew Lippincott said. “This is a surprise.” He appraised me, then looked at Bonz, who, between the two of us, I had to admit, was the one who commanded one’s attention. To Lippincott’s credit, the sight of Bonz, which, in my admittedly limited experience tended to make people terribly uneasy, didn’t seem to faze him.

“Sorry to show up here like this, Mr. Lippincott,” I said. “We had nowhere else to turn.”

He thought about that for a moment, then opened the door wider and stepped aside. I followed Bonz into the brownstone but avoided my boss’s eyes—well, probably my
former
boss’s eyes, though I hadn’t officially been fired yet. Once we were inside, he closed the door and engaged the deadbolt. Lippincott was still dressed in the suit he’d worn that day, though his jacket and shoes were off. I found it strange for some reason to see him standing in his socks as we all stood there in his circular foyer.

“Were you able to get a continuance in the Redekov trial?” I asked, not really caring either way, but thinking I should ask.

“We were,” Lippincott replied.

“Good.” I paused. “Again, I’m sorry for coming here, Mr. Lippincott. As I said, we have nowhere else to turn. We’re running out of time. I’m in trouble, as you know—though I didn’t kill anyone,” I quickly added.

Lippincott nodded. “I just received a disturbing phone call, Charlie.” I waited. “Seems there were some shootings in the North End. Big Frank D’Amico is dead, along with one of his bodyguards. And there were reports of shots fired at Sal Barrone’s restaurant. Some witnesses place you and your friend at both scenes.”

“Those are reliable witnesses,” I said.

“You killed Big Frank?”

“No, one of the bodyguards did. We killed the bodyguard. Well, Bonz here did. But the kid drew first. It was self-defense.”

Of course, we’d charged into the place and put a gun to Big Frank’s head in front of a restaurant full of witnesses, so the self-defense argument might not be a strong one.

Lippincott, who always looked bright-eyed, cool and self-possessed, suddenly looked very tired. “My God, Charlie.”

“Mr. Lippincott, the entire Italian Mafia is after us, and they’re only going to get more determined when Carmen Siracuse finds out we had something to do with Big Frank’s death.” Lippincott was silent for a moment, most likely thinking about how close Siracuse and D’Amico had been for five decades. “And, of course, the cops are after us because they think I killed Angel Medina.”

“And they say you kidnapped an unidentified man,” Lippincott added, “though no body has been found and no missing-person report matches the description given by the police officer who saw him—one of two police officers, by the way, that you’re said to have assaulted. They figure you for some car thefts, too,” he added.

“I didn’t kill Angel. And we’ve tried not to hurt anyone. Everything that’s happened is a result of Carmen Siracuse trying to frame me.”

Lippincott nodded thoughtfully. “If that’s so, he’s done an effective job of it. I’ve heard some of the evidence, Charlie, confidentially, of course. It looks very bad for you.”

Bonz shifted uneasily. Lippincott hadn’t invited us to sit down. He hadn’t made up his mind about us.

“Look, Mr. Lippincott,” I said, “I wouldn’t have come here if I was guilty. The fact is, Carmen Siracuse is behind everything. And there’s more to it. And that’s where we need your help.”

He paused, then said, “I’m listening.”

That’s what I’d been hoping for. I explained to him as clearly and succinctly as I could about the tape Jake hid somewhere, his torture under Siracuse’s orders, Grossi killing Angel to frame me, and, finally, about Big Frank’s final words.

“Michael Kidder?” Lippincott said.

“Maybe it’s a long shot, I don’t know. We’re grasping at straws here, I guess, but we’re running out of time. And it sure as hell sounded like he was trying to say ‘Michael Kidder’ as he was dying. We have to chase down every lead we can, as fast as we can, because the cops and the mob are both snapping at our heels, and it’s only a matter of time before one of them catches up with us.”

He stared at me for a moment, then looked at Bonz, then back at me. “Charlie, as an officer of the court, as a federal prosecutor, as your boss, as Jessica’s father, and as your friend, I strongly urge you to turn yourself in. If you’re truly innocent, you’ll be able to prove that. I’ll help you. I’ll do everything I can to help you. But surely you must know that running away isn’t the answer.”

I exhaled in frustration. “I’m
not
running away, though. I haven’t gone anywhere. I’m still here, because the answers are here, somewhere, and the tape is here, and the tape and its answers can fix everything, can give me back my life. And take down Siracuse, too.” I added, “I know how badly you want that.”

Lippincott frowned, thinking. “If I help you, Charlie, if I don’t call the police, I’ll be committing a crime. If anyone finds out, I could be disbarred, even arrested.”

“So call them after we leave, tell them we came looking for a deal and left when you couldn’t help us. You’ll be in the clear. Just help us now. No one will know.”

Lippincott sighed.

“Mr. Lippincott,” I said, “if you can’t think of any connection between Michael Kidder and Carmen Siracuse, that’s fine. We’ll find another way. I’ll leave here right now. But if you can think of something, anything that might give us a clue, I need you to share it with me. Please, just take a few moments, give it some thought.”

He pursed his lips and steepled his fingers under his chin in contemplation. He was thinking. He was very good at thinking. He seemed to enter a slightly altered state of mind for a few moments, then he nodded to himself and turned away.

“Wait here. There may be something.”

Bonz tensed and started to go after him but I put a restraining hand on his arm.

“Give him a second. We can trust him.”

Bonz scowled at me dubiously and looked in the direction Lippincott had gone, into his study, disappearing from view. We waited half a minute. Bonz grunted once or twice. Finally, he said, “Fuck this,” and took two steps toward the study before Lippincott reappeared carrying a manila folder full of papers.

“These are old, Charlie, and it took me a minute to dig them up, but it occurred to me that I might have remembered seeing something, something that may be in here.”

I reached for the folder and he took a step back.

“Sorry,” he said. “These papers are highly, highly confidential. They contain information about some very important people in this city, people who are still in positions of power, and I couldn’t let anyone else see them. It’s against my ethical code.”

I ignored Bonz’s derisive snort and nodded in understanding.

“So what do you have?” I asked.

“Well, maybe nothing, maybe something. Give me a second here.”

He flipped through the papers, looking for something in particular.

“I know it’s here somewhere…is this it? No. Maybe this. Hmm.”

The grandfather clock in the niche beneath the curving staircase ticked away the seconds loudly. “Mr. Lippincott,” I said, trying to hide my impatience, “we haven’t got a lot of time. Maybe you could tell us what you’re looking for, get us started thinking about it.”

He was focused on the folder in his hands, the pages he was turning. He said, “I remember having a few suspicions years ago, just after becoming USA, about Michael. Nothing concrete, of course, or I would have acted on it, but I think I came across some records that I found troubling. Let me see…”

I gritted my teeth and watched in silence as Lippincott, lost in his own thoughts, carefully studied each page before turning to the next one in the folder. I rubbed sweat from the back of my neck. Somehow, the clock had begun to tick more loudly. Then Lippincott said, “Wait a second, what’s this?”

I looked up, daring to let a little hope shine into the gloom that had descended on my mind. And that’s when I saw Bonz marching with purpose across the floor. I hadn’t even seen him leave my side, yet there he was returning from Lippincott’s study, striding across the foyer, punching Lippincott squarely in the face, knocking him flat on his back on the polished parquet floor.

I guess Lippincott wasn’t clairvoyant after all, like some people wondered about him, or he’d have seen that coming. But he hadn’t. And I sure as hell hadn’t. I realized that if I wasn’t fired before, I certainly was then.

FORTY

“Damn it,” Bonz said, “I didn’t mean to knock him out.”

“Then, Jesus Christ, you shouldn’t have hit him!” I yelled. “What did you expect? He’s almost a senior citizen and he’s half your size. Why the hell did you do that? He was trying to help us. Shit, he may have had the answer right there in his hands. I think he’d just found what he was looking for and was about to tell me something.”

Bonz was looking down at the papers that had fallen out of the folder and fluttered chaotically to the floor. Some landed on Lippincott’s inert, supine form.

“No, he wasn’t, Charlie. He wasn’t going to tell us anything. He was stalling.”

I frowned. “Stalling?”

Bonz inclined his head toward the papers strewn about the floor. I dropped to one knee and scanned a few pages. About half were blank. A few were covered with printed gibberish, like his computer printer had calibrated its ink cartridge and these printouts were the result. One page looked to contain a grocery list, another a recipe for lemon ginger chicken. None pertained to Carmen Siracuse or Michael Kidder or anything remotely helpful to me. He had indeed been stalling. But why? And how did Bonz know? I looked up at him.

“I got suspicious. Not sure why. Call it instinct. I slipped away and hit redial on his desk phone.”

“He called the cops?” I looked at Lippincott’s face, slack in unconsciousness, an undignified trickle of saliva dripping from the corner of his mouth and puddling on the wood floor beneath his head.

“Well, that’s the disturbing thing.”

I looked up.

“Someone answered, Charlie, and it wasn’t the cops.”

“Who then?”

“Not sure, but it was no nine-one-one dispatcher. When the guy picked up, he immediately said, ‘Keep fucking stalling, we’re on our way,’ like he knew it was Lippincott calling back—”

“Caller ID” I said, cutting him off.

“Caller what?”

Caller ID must not have existed yet, or at least wasn’t in widespread use, thirteen years ago when Bonz was still a functioning member of society. “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “So this means—”