‘You’re Jimmy Doolittle?’ I asked.
‘I am.’
For some reason – probably the heroic (or anti-heroic) name borrowed from the bomber pilot – I had assumed Jimmy Doolittle would project a little glamour. Instead, he turned out to be a pug, short and slight, with two badly bowed legs. His face was handsome but spoiled by a crushed nose that looked like a dollop of plumber’s putty. He was older than I’d expected, too. Probably sixty or so, far too old, I thought, to be using the diminutive form of his name. Even in the testosterone-rich environment of a police station, where forty-and fifty-year-old Bobbys and Billys and Johnnys are relatively common, it was surprising to meet a sixty-year-old man who still called himself Jimmy.
‘We need to look at a file,’ I told him.
Doolittle slapped a powder-blue
Document Request Form
down in front of me. I filled out the form with the scant information I had.
Case/File number:
UNKNOWN.
Defendant/suspect:
HAROLD
BRAXTON.
Victim:
ARTHUR TRUDELL.
Charge:
MURDER
(1ST).
Date of Offense:
AUGUST
17, 1987.
Doolittle scanned the sheet with a critical eye. ‘It’s a black file. Sorry’ He slid the form back across the counter at me.
‘A black file? What does that mean? I need to see it.’
‘A black file means it can’t be released without the Commissioner’s say-so. I need something written.’
‘From who?’
‘I just told you from who, from the Police Commissioner. Soon as you get that, I’ll get you the file.’
‘Caroline Kelly sent me.’
‘What’d I just say? I haven’t seen the paper today. Did somebody die and make Caroline Kelly Police Commissioner? I don’t think so.’
I shook my head, incredulous. I’d been threatened by cops and by gangsters, I’d had a gun put to my head – after all that, it was inconceivable that I could be stopped cold by an intransigent file clerk.
‘Mr Doolittle, I didn’t say she was the Commissioner, did I?’
‘Hey, I’m not going to argue with you. It’s a black file. Nothing I can do.’
‘That’s not good enough. I need to see it.’
‘Can’t help you.’
‘This is a homicide investigation.’
‘I’m sure it is, sir.’
‘But I can’t see the file?’
‘Rules, sir.’
There it was, the elaborate formality of the bureaucrat, armed with his inch-wide, mile-deep expertise and a single pointless regulation.
‘This is bullshit,’ I informed the clerk. ‘Complete and total bullshit.’
Doolittle glared, then turned to retreat into the stacks.
‘Jimmy,’ Kelly interceded, ‘could I borrow your phone a moment?’
Doolittle gave him a suspicious look, as if the phone too was restricted. ‘You can’t dial out. It’s just an intercom.’
‘That’s alright, Jimmy. I’m just calling upstairs.’ Doolittle slid the phone toward him, and Kelly punched in a two-digit number. ‘Commissioner Evans, please,’ he said into the mouthpiece, ‘this is Detective John Kelly. That’s right . . . Oh, Margaret, I’m fine, dear, how-uh-you? . . . Haw haw, that’s right, still above ground,
ye-e-e-es . . .
Oh, Caroline’s just fine . . . No. No babies yet. We’re working on it . . . Yes, I’ll hold.’ Kelly tapped the counter with his fingernail, looking exquisitely bored. He directed a reassuring smile at Doolittle. After a time, he jerked the phone back up to his ear. ‘Paul? Yes . . . Grand, and you? . . . Yes, I hate to impose on you, my friend. I’m in a little bit of a jam. I’m downstairs in the Records Room and I need to see a black file, but I’m told I need a clearance from you. You have a very efficient clerk here named Jimmy Doolittle . . .’ Kelly chatted with the Commissioner awhile, then held the phone out to Doolittle. ‘He wants to talk to you, Jimmy’
Doolittle took the phone reluctantly, as if it might explode in his hand. ‘Hello?’ His face flushed as he recognized the Police Commissioner’s voice. A moment later, he hung up, shell-shocked. ‘He says it’s okay,’ Doolittle mumbled. ‘I have a job to do, is all. I didn’t mean . . .’
‘Well,’ Kelly comforted, ‘no harm done. Not to worry, Jimmy. Simple misunderstanding.’
Doolittle retrieved the file – all eight boxes of it – and spread them out in a little office off the hallway.
‘Excuse me,’ I said, still pissed off, ‘what exactly is a black file?’
‘It’s just a file that can’t be released, like if it’s sensitive.’
‘How does a file get to be a black file?’
‘The Commissioner makes it one. You know, like if a judge orders that something not get released – what’s that word? – impounded. Sometimes it’s just that people want them for the wrong reasons, like if a case has a celebrity for a defendant, a movie star or an athlete or whatevah, that’d be a black file for sure. You know, a Chappaquiddick kind of thing. Internal Affairs files are all black. So’s child abuse.’
‘And if a file is not a black file?’
‘Then anyone can walk in and get it. Any cop or DA, I mean. Not many of ‘em do, though. These are all closed cases. Nobody gives a rat’s ass.’
‘So if anybody ever tried to look at this file?’
‘Then they’d have to have permission from the Commissioner’s office. Usually a deputy Commissioner signs it.’
‘Would there be a record of that somewhere?’
‘Right here, on the front of the first box. Here.’ Doolittle pointed out a single sheet on one of the cardboard boxes. It was a perfunctory one-sentence letter from the Commissioner on Boston PD letterhead:
Per the request of the District Attorney, ADA Robert M. Danziger and/or his designee(s) may review, photocopy, and/or photograph any document(s), evidence, or other materials in the above-referenced file at any time within one year of this date.
‘So nobody else has opened this box besides Danziger?’
‘Not since they closed the case. Could have been hundreds of people pawing through it before it got sent down here. I can’t control that, you know.’
‘Is there any way to tell who requested this file be black?’
‘A ’course.’ He lifted the form to reveal another. ‘Lowery. The DA.’ Doolittle turned to leave, then paused to ask, ‘Hey, you guys want coffee or something?’
Amazing what a call from the Commissioner can do.
‘No, thank you, Jimmy.’ Kelly smiled. He waited until the clerk left the room, then asked, ‘Alright, now, what are we looking for?’
‘The Homicide detectives’ notebooks. Anything that didn’t make it into the reports, anything that connects Trudell to Frank Fasulo.’
‘And we’re doing this because Braxton says so?’
‘You got any better ideas?’
We scavenged through the boxes, which contained mostly papers. The physical evidence – bloody clothing, slugs extracted from the walls, drug paraphernalia – had all been buried in some other archive, presumably. A few items remained, including a thick file of gory photographs. As for the papers, most of them I had already seen photocopied in Danziger’s own file on the case. He had apparently created a duplicate file of his own containing copies of every scrap in these boxes. Only one thing had been missing from Danziger’s file: the detectives’ original notebooks. The absence of these notebooks sent up a red flag. Obviously if Danziger’s theory was that the detectives had missed something the first time around, their contemporaneous notes would be a crucial bit of evidence. ‘Danziger copied the notebooks,’ I told Kelly. ‘Somebody took them out of his office. I’m sure of it. Danziger wouldn’t have left them out.’
The notebooks themselves were not fancy. Most were the spiral-bound type that students use. A few were breast-pocket-sized. Only one of the detectives had assembled his notes into a three-ring binder. Kelly and I read through the notebooks for the better part of the morning. Each was a diary of mundane tasks, the meticulous combing-out of good leads from bad (interviews with neighbors, friends, suspects, snitches), and daily interactions with others in law enforcement (telephone calls with prosecutors, forensics labs, other cops). It was grunt work and it yielded nothing. In the late summer of 1987, Mission Flats had been struck by a plague of amnesia and lockjaw. What evidence the investigators had obtained, including the murder weapon, had been recovered within minutes of the shooting.
The needle in the haystack was this note, scribbled by a Detective John Rivers the day after the Trudell shooting:
Per JV [Julio Vega?] V [victim, i.e. Trudell] upset, ‘not right,’ consulted FB [Franny Boyle]. JV unsure re. Nature of problem?
Time to talk to Franny Boyle again.
As Kelly and I drove to Government Center, where the SIU office – Boyle’s office – was located, it occurred to me that I had nearly forgotten the morning’s other revelation. ‘I didn’t know you were friends with the Commissioner,’ I said.
He gave me a skeptical glance.
‘No, really. I’m impressed.’
‘Ben Truman, don’t be daft. I wouldn’t know the Commissioner if he stood up in my soup. That was Zach Boyages from Admin.’
I cleared my throat. ‘Oh.’
46
Franny Boyle saw me at the door of his office and tried to manufacture a little of his old muscular presence. He pressed his head down into that thick, bullfrog neck and tightened his pecs. ‘What’s going on, Opie? You look real serious.’ But Franny’s act was not convincing anymore. For all his puffing, he seemed to be shrinking before my eyes. He was seated behind an enormous oak desk, an aircraft carrier of a desk, and its size diminished him further.
‘Franny, we need to talk.’
‘Oh man, this
is
serious. Nothing good ever comes after “we have to talk.” Last time someone told me “we have to talk,” I wound up divorced.’ Franny gave me a wiseguy smirk. It was an invitation to smirk along with him, which I declined.
I closed the door behind me.
‘Where’s the old man? Kelly?’
‘He’s outside. I thought we’d just talk, you and me.’
‘You gonna read me my rights?’
‘You need to hear them, Franny?’
He pursed his lips, disappointed he could not jolly me out of my solemn tone. ‘Well, sit down at least.’ He pointed to a chair that was covered with files. ‘Just throw that shit on the floor.’
‘That’s alright, Franny. I’m good here.’
Seated in his desk chair, he laced his hands on top of his bald head, flaunting two crescent moons in his armpits.
‘Franny, I’m not going to bullshit you. Kelly and I just came from the Records Room at Berkeley Street. We were looking through the Trudell file. We know Artie Trudell came to you with some kind of problem.’
‘Lots of cops used to come to me with problems. I was the only lawyer a lot of them knew – personally knew, I mean. People give lawyers too much credit. They figure we can answer questions about any kind of problem. I’ve had cops come to me with questions about divorces, real-estate closings—’
‘Franny, this wasn’t about a real-estate closing.’
‘No? How do you know?’
‘Wild guess.’
‘So what do you think it was about, hotshot?’
‘Frank Fasulo.’
Franny smiled. ‘Frank Fasulo?’
‘That’s right.’
A poker player who reveals the value of his hand with a gesture has what is called a
tell.
Franny Boyle, I could see, had a tell: to mask his concern, he smiled too quickly and too much.
‘Where’d you come up with Frank Fasulo?’ Franny said.
‘I got a tip.’
‘You
got a tip? From who?’
I thought about naming Braxton. I had promised Franny I would not bullshit him. But then, I’d made other promises too.
‘Let’s say I got it from Raul.’
‘No, really. Who?’
‘I can’t tell you that, Franny.’
‘Jesus, you certainly learn fast. Who the hell are you getting tips from? Not Gittens, I know that.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Gittens usually plays it close, and he doesn’t know you well enough. No, my guess is it must be Ms Kelly. I hear you and Princess Caroline are getting . . . close.’
He studied me, looking for a tell of my own.
‘Franny, before he died, Artie Trudell came to you with a problem. We know he did because he told Julio Vega. Vega said he was upset, he “wasn’t right.” I’m asking you: What was Trudell so worried about?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know meaning you don’t remember? Or you don’t know meaning it didn’t happen?’
‘I don’t know meaning I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Franny, do you want a lawyer?’
‘I
am
a lawyer.’
‘Then cut the shit and answer me! What was Artie Trudell so afraid of?’
‘I told you, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ He pushed back his chair and stood up. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about and maybe I don’t like what you’re suggesting—’
‘Sit down, Franny’
‘This is my office.’
I knocked him once in the shoulder then again, hard, in the chest. He fell into the desk chair with a clatter. He pushed himself back up, and I knocked him down again.
Kelly opened the door. He glanced at me standing over Boyle, who was sprawled awkwardly in his chair. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I thought there might be a problem.’ He disappeared again.
‘You don’t like what I’m suggesting, Franny? Let me fill in the blanks so you know exactly what I’m suggesting. I don’t think Artie Trudell came to you for a real-estate closing because I don’t think you know shit from pound cake about real-estate closings. I think he came to you because you’re a DA, and the only reason to go to a DA is to report a crime.’
‘What crime?’
‘I don’t know yet, but I’m going to find out.’
‘Yeah? How are you going to do that?’
‘For starters, I’m going to talk to Julio Vega. Whatever Trudell knew, Vega knew. They were partners, remember?’