Shutter Man (16 page)

The DA’s office had its own homicide division, which did much of the legwork that took place after an arrest had been made by the PPD and charges filed.

At nine o’clock, in Jimmy Doyle’s office, in addition to Jessica and a detective from the DA’s homicide unit, were three first-year ADAs.

Jessica knew she had overdressed for this meeting – not in the sense that she was wearing a ballgown and teardrop diamond earrings, as if she owned either – but her dark suit was pressed, her white blouse was starched and blindingly white, her only jewelry an inexpensive Timex watch and her wedding ring. A minimum of makeup; no perfume.

Jimmy slowly and methodically laid out the strategy they would undertake to build not only a case of first-degree murder against Danny Farren, but also a host of other charges, including racketeering and criminal conspiracy.

‘I’ve spoken to the inspector, and the captains involved,’ Jimmy said. ‘Choose anyone you like from our homicide investigation team. Jessica, you will also be on point with the homicide unit of the PPD. Your old stomping grounds.’

At this, a button on the desk phone flashed. Jimmy Doyle picked up the phone, punched the button. ‘ADA Doyle.’ He listened for a few seconds. ‘That’s fine. Thanks.’

A few moments later, Jessica sensed a presence behind her.

‘I’ve simply got to talk to security around here,’ Jimmy said with a smile, looking over Jessica’s shoulder. She turned to see who was standing in the doorway.

It was Kevin Byrne.

Jessica had been so busy of late that she hadn’t spoken to her old partner in a few months. They truly moved in different circles now. While she’d had dozens of police officers and detectives on the witness stand for direct examination, none had been from the homicide division.

Now, seeing her old partner filling the doorway in this place, her heart swelled. She wanted to throw her arms around him, but that would have been wrong in just about every possible way at this moment.

Byrne broke the rule for her. He gave her a quick, gentle hug. As always, despite the fact that she still carried a side arm, could handle herself with her fists and feet and had the power of subpoena, Jessica felt safe.

She’d always felt safe with her partner.

Byrne turned to Jimmy Doyle. ‘Hey, brother.’

‘You look good, Kev.’

The two men shook hands, did the half-hug, one-arm clap-on-the-back thing.

Tough Irish guys and their emotions, Jessica thought with an inner smile.

‘Kevin will be point man and liaison with PPD Homicide on this.’ Jimmy looked at Jessica. ‘Will that work for you?’

‘Absolutely,’ Jessica said.

‘Great. Danny Farren is going to be charged with murder later today. We all know that there is much more to his criminal enterprises than that. I want everything we can find on him. I want to bring the Farren chapter in Philadelphia to a close.’

Jimmy stepped around his desk, stood in front of Jessica and Byrne.

‘If we do our jobs well, Danny Farren will never get out of prison,’ he said. ‘If we do our jobs
really
well, and catch a tailwind, he’ll get a one-way ticket to Rockview.’

Jessica knew what he meant. The state correctional institution at Rockview was the only prison in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that carried out the death penalty.

‘Any thoughts, questions, concerns?’ Jimmy asked.

Jessica had a million of each. She decided to wait.

‘Besides new evidence on the firebombing, what are we looking for?’ Byrne asked.

‘Anything and everything. Wherever the investigation takes you. I talked to your captain. You can put as many detectives as you want on this.’

‘Much of this is going to be work for divisional detectives, though, Jimmy.’

Jimmy shook his head. ‘Not this time. I want the best homicide detectives we have. Everything has been cleared.’

‘Wherever it leads?’ Byrne asked.

‘Wherever it leads,’ Jimmy said. ‘Let’s not be swayed by who the victim of this homicide was. As unsavory as the woman’s lifestyle might have been, she was a citizen of this county, and if anyone counts, everyone counts.’

Jessica knew what he was saying, and that it needed to be said. Maybe not for Byrne or herself, but for the younger ADAs in the room.

The truth was, public agencies didn’t always break a sweat collecting evidence and prosecuting people who were responsible for the deaths of gang members or anyone on either side of the drug trade.

On the way out of the building, Jessica and Byrne ran into Graham Grande, who was on his way in. Byrne made the introduction.

‘Graham was with the ID unit a little before your time,’ Byrne said to Jessica.

‘I was,’ Graham said. ‘My first job was dusting the Liberty Bell when it got cracked.’

‘And as I recall, we closed the case,’ Byrne said with a smile.

Graham turned to Jessica. He handed her a card. ‘I’ve been doing a lot of work for the DA’s office. Expert witness testimony, consulting,’ he said. ‘Keep me in mind if you ever need an old dab hand.’

‘I sure will,’ Jessica said.

After they said their goodbyes, Graham crossed the lobby, signed in and took the elevator to the eighteenth floor.

Jessica and Byrne walked to Reading Terminal Market for coffee. They sat at a table, caught up, as much as they could in the time they had.

‘You guys go way back, don’t you?’ Jessica asked. ‘You and Jimmy.’

Byrne sipped his coffee, nodded. He gave her a brief history of his summers in Devil’s Pocket. He had never before mentioned any of this. Jessica wondered why, but didn’t ask. There were many episodes in her childhood that she had not shared with Byrne.

She caught him up on Sophie and Carlos.

‘Sophie misses you,’ she said.

‘I miss her. I can’t believe all this time has passed. I won’t let it happen again.’

‘She has braces,’ Jessica said. ‘And a boyfriend.’

‘Uh oh.’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘How’s Vince taking it?’

‘Like you’d expect,’ Jessica said. ‘Every time the kid comes to the door, Vincent answers it with a .45 ACP on his hip.’

Byrne laughed. ‘I remember it well from when Colleen started dating. I’m not sure I’m over it yet.’

They caught up on their fathers, their extended families. Neither wanted to leave. But there was work to be done. A few minutes later they stood in front of the massive 3 South Penn Square, directly across from City Hall.

Jessica stopped, put a hand on Byrne’s arm.

Byrne stopped walking. ‘What?’

‘I love the smell of City Hall in the morning,’ Jessica said, doing her best Robert Duvall in
Apocalypse Now
. ‘Smells like… justice.’

Byrne laughed. ‘God, I’ve missed you, partner.’

Jessica sat in the passenger seat, Byrne at the wheel.

‘Where to first?’ she asked.

‘I think we should take a look at the crime scene,’ Byrne said. ‘I’ve already talked to the bomb squad and a federal agent.’

Whenever a deliberately placed explosion occurred anywhere in Philadelphia County, an agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives led the investigation. The PPD bomb squad took part as support personnel. Their main purview was the detection and de-arming of explosive ordnance.

As Byrne headed west on Market Street, Jessica thought about this case. She had investigated many homicides, but not from her current desk. This was different. When you were a cop, all you could think about was the arrest. When you were a DA, it was about presenting the evidence and winning the case.

As a cop, when you came across exculpatory evidence, you could go blind and deaf. As a DA, not so much.

Jessica hoped she could justify Jimmy Doyle’s confidence in her. At this moment, she felt a little shaky about that.

As Byrne turned onto 21st Street, she spoke.

‘The Farrens?’

‘What about them?’ Byrne asked.

‘It seems you have a history with them, too.’

‘God, are there any secrets in this town?’

Jessica just stared. Rhetorical question.

Byrne told her about Christmas Eve 1988, about the death of Patrick Farren and his role in it as a young detective working out of South, and about how, while being questioned about the savage beating of a woman named Miranda Sanchez, Patrick Farren had unwisely threatened a veteran cop named Frankie Sheehan with a gun.

Jessica had never met Frankie Sheehan, but she knew his name, his reputation, and that he had died in the line of duty.

‘Frankie was never the same after that night,’ Byrne said.

‘How so?’

Byrne headed west on Lombard Street.

‘Well, some people who are given to such things believed he was cursed.’

‘Cursed?’ Jessica asked. ‘Like how?’

‘Two weeks later his wife got into a bad wreck on the expressway. Frankie’s cancer metastasized. Within two months he was first through the door at a drug house, which he had no business doing at his age. He was killed in the firefight.’

‘I’m not sure any of that qualifies as a curse.’

Byrne took a moment. ‘The Farrens are a menace, Jess. They harm everything they touch. Frankie’s not the first person, certainly not the first cop, to cross swords with them and come out bad.’

There was something Byrne wasn’t telling her, but that was okay. She could see that Frank Sheehan meant something to him, and she didn’t want to press.

Still, as they turned onto 24th Street, Jessica considered what Byrne had told her, and felt a dark force, something obscure and inexorable, pulling her ever closer to Devil’s Pocket.

The city was alive with celebration over the bicentennial.

At just after 6 p.m., with The Stone packed to the rafters, Máire was in the kitchen, turning the whiskey sausages from Tully’s. She sensed someone behind her.

It was Desmond. Desmond in his precious white suit.

‘Where are you off to?’ Máire asked.

‘Going to the fireworks.’

‘Are you now?’

‘I like them,’ Desmond said. ‘I wish they were here all year.’

‘Then no one would get anything done. Everyone would just stand about looking at the sky.’

Desmond laughed.

‘Have you eaten?’

‘I have, Ma.’

‘Let me look at you,’ Máire said.

Desmond buttoned his jacket, stood at attention. His suit was dirty. He had somehow cut his leg a day earlier, and there was dark brown blood on his right pant leg.

‘Why don’t you let me wash these trousers for you?’ Máire asked. ‘It won’t take long.’

Desmond looked down, as if seeing the stain for the first time. He looked up. ‘It’s fine. I like them like this.’

‘What am I going to do with you?’

Desmond again glanced down at his pant leg, thought for a moment. ‘You know what they say.’

‘What do they say?’

‘Better good manners than good looks.’

Máire smiled. ‘Character.’

‘I love you, Ma.’

‘You be careful crossing the street, Des.’

‘I will.’

Before leaving, Desmond paused, as he always did, caught his reflection in the toaster, smoothed his hair and walked out the back door. When he got to the sidewalk, heading to the park, he turned and waved.

Máire never saw him alive again.

Later that day, at the Fourth of July festival in the park, the devil put his hands in both pockets.

At just after ten o’clock, fair little Catriona Daugherty was found strangled in the park that bordered South Taney Street.

The rumors flew fast and hot. Máire heard, and not from just one source, that people in the Pocket suspected her Desmond of the terrible sin. They said that he had put his eyes on Catriona years ago and that he had taken a length of rope that night and choked the life out of her.

The police came to The Stone, talked to Máire and Danny and Patrick. Desmond did not come home. Except for a short time in hospital, it was the first time he had not slept in his own bed.

For the next four days, Máire and her boys combed the streets from Washington to Lombard, from the avenue to the river, knocking on doors, looking in garages and alleys and basements, hoping for the best, knowing the worst.

On the morning of July 9, there was a knock at the back door. Máire opened the door to a young policeman, who told her that a man had been found, shot to death, beneath the South Street bridge. He asked that Máire come down to the morgue to see if the dead man was her Desmond.

It was.

For the second time in two years, Máire found herself at the river’s edge, a bar of soap in one hand, a basket of clothes next to her. She stayed till dawn, and finally got the blood from Desmond’s white suit.

On the night Deena gave birth to two beautiful boys, the moon shone brightly over South Philadelphia. She named them Sean and Michael. They were light, but they were healthy.

When Máire held them both for the first time, she felt the feelings surge within her. Although Sean was beautiful, she knew the first time she saw Michael that he had the gift.

That night she stole back into the nursery, sat between them. It was Michael’s small hand she held as she recited the poem.

By the time Patrick Farren was murdered – gunned down in his prime by the police – the Pocket had changed. Gone were the drinking clubs and potluck dinners. Now it was about a drug called crack cocaine. The Stone had been robbed twice in the past two years. Only once did Danny and Patrick find the men who did it and put them under the sod.

At 8 p.m., the bar was only half full, with many of the regulars drinking at home with their families. Danny and his sons were off to the mall for last-minute shopping. Patrick was cozied up with one of his girls in the corner, a pretty girl Máire had seen in the bar a number of times.

A few minutes later, the two of them left.

The call came at just after midnight. Máire knew before her hand touched the receiver.

Patrick was dead, murdered at the hands of the police.

Two of her boys gone now. Poor Desmond in 1976, and now Patrick.

But the devil was not done with the Farrens on this night. In an attempt to save his Uncle Patrick, young Michael was struck by a car. The boy hit his head on the frozen pavement.

As Christmas Day dawned, Michael Farren lay in a coma, just like his grandfather so many years ago in County Louth.

He would not wake for nearly two years.

Each night Máire would read to the boy and play music. Like his grandfather in Dundalk, Michael did not respond. Many a night found Máire watching the boy’s eyes, his face, his hands, hoping for a reaction.

All the doctors and books said it was likely that Michael was aware of his surroundings, that he could hear what people said, and that it was a good thing to play music for him. While Máire’s taste in music was traditional, she felt that her grandson would not respond to ballads and laments and reels.

Patrick had been the lover boy, and had all the tools of the gigolo’s craft. Dozens and dozens of LPs. Night after night Máire would put them on, hoping for a reaction from Michael. All the British and Irish bands from Patrick’s era as a young man – Cream, the Groundhogs, Thin Lizzy, Chicken Shack, Taste, Roxy Music.

One evening, while flipping through them, she saw something that made her heart flutter. A strange-looking album that had depicted on its cover a mouth-puller, a carved stone icon used in medieval Ireland to ward off intruders and evil spirits. Máire’s own grandmother had had one on the front door of the house when she was growing up in Dundalk.

When Máire turned it over, she saw that the band was called The Stark.

She put the album on, and just a few seconds in, she could see that Michael was responding to it. It was the first time in nearly eighteen months. As the song played, she saw his eyes move beneath his eyelids, his fingers lift and fall to the rhythm, a color returning to his face.

The song was called ‘Billy the Wolf’.

By the time Michael and Sean had bested eighteen, they were known throughout the Pocket, and much of south Philadelphia, as the founding members of the River Boys. Their father Daniel – Máire’s last remaining son – presented a patriarchal face and presence, and no decision was made without him.

It was a long road back physically for Michael, who was weak and atrophied from his coma, but Máire had never seen anyone work harder. Many a dawn found him behind The Stone, a makeshift set of barbells at his feet. He set up a small boxing ring in the cellar and took on any and all comers, regardless of their weight. Many times he was overmatched and took a beating, but he never quit.

He spent his days getting physically stronger, and his nights reading. Máire had never seen so many books as she saw in his room in the basement.

But while he overcame his physical problems, the face blindness that Michael had begun to exhibit not long after coming out of his long fever dream, the inability to recognize even members of his own family, stayed with him.

Máire did what she could to help. Placing notes on everything, making a schedule for Michael to keep, pinning pictures of everyone in his room. Still, as often as he knew who she was, he did not know her from Eve. As the boys’ criminal enterprise grew, it became more and more of a problem.

In those years, Michael stuck close to Sean. Whenever someone crossed or cursed the Farren name, Sean and Michael brought the man to the cellar beneath The Stone, and there he learned his manners.

One man, a butcher by trade, had failed to make a payment for two months. He was carved with his own stag-handle knife.

As the millennium approached, Máire Farren had one son left, and two grandsons, one of them damaged. The Stone had fallen on hard times, and the Pocket was well on its way to gentrification, with talk of the Naval Home being turned into condominiums.

Máire knew that all of it was down to the curse.

Go n-ithe an cat thú is go n-ithe an diabhal an cat
.

If Máire had inherited anything from her grandmother, it was patience. She would wait to find the right moment, and when that moment came, the curse would be lifted.

As she sat at the end of the bar, folding the last of five linen handkerchiefs, the ones with blue lace around the edges, she knew it would be Michael who would lift the curse.

No, she amended, it would be Billy the Wolf.