A Christmas Killing (2 page)

As to the origin of the name, the prevailing theory was that a parish priest once said that the kids in the neighborhood were so bad they would “steal the chain from the devil's pocket.”

The Stone was bottom- and middle-shelf whiskey, national brands on tap. You could get neither a light beer nor a drink with an umbrella at The Stone. Also, there was no table service. If you couldn't make it to the bar under your own power, you didn't drink.

Byrne and Sheehan parked on Grays Ferry Avenue. They watched the scant Christmas Eve traffic pass, the comings and goings from The Stone.

“You know these people?” Sheehan asked.

“The Farrens,” Byrne said. “Yeah. I know them.”

At just after ten o'clock a man came out of the back door of The Stone, looked both ways up the street, shrugged his coat a little higher, walked a half-block toward Carpenter Street. He was big enough: six feet, broad shoulders, wide chest. He stopped at a blue 1965 Malibu SS, parked near the corner. The car was a classic, but only partially restored.

“Which one is that?” Sheehan asked.

“It's him,” Byrne said. “It's Patrick.”

They exited the car, made their way across the street, reached Patrick Farren before he could get his keys out of his pocket.

Farren looked up. Even though it was unnecessary, both detectives produced their shields, identified themselves as police officers.

Farren was a hard and scarred fifty, heavy tats, dead eyes. According to his sheet, and reputation in the Pocket, he and his brother, Danny, were mad dogs, low-level crime corporals of the most vicious kind. Extortion, strong-arm robbery, loan sharking, arson. The book on Patrick was that he liked his sex rough. Among his dozen incarcerations were two terms for misdemeanor assaults against prostitutes.

The Farren brothers had inherited The Stone from their father, Liam, who died at sixty-six in Graterford prison, courtesy of the sharp end of a Romani
chivomengro.

Byrne stepped onto the curb first, towering over the man by three or so inches. Sheehan stayed back.

“Evening, Mr. Farren,” Byrne said.

Farren glanced down the street, toward the bar, perhaps hoping for backup. None came.

“Yeah,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“This your car?” Byrne asked.

Farren looked at the vehicle, as if it might not be his. The detectives had already run the plates. It wasn't really a question.

“It's mine. Is there some kind of problem?”

“Only that I don't have one just like it,” Byrne said. He pointed at the right front fender of the Malibu. “Looks like you had a bender.”

“Philly drivers and four-way stops,” Farren said. “What can I say? It happens.”

“Did you report it?”

Farren smiled. Two missing teeth, two gold. “Now, what good would that have done?”

Byrne shrugged. “I don't know. Maybe it would've helped with the insurance.”

An empty laugh. “I own a body shop. I get a price.” He slowly reached into his pocket, pulled out a business card. Heavenly Body on Wharton Street. He handed it to Byrne. Byrne took it.

“Thanks,” Byrne said. “Can you tell us where you were tonight?”

“What time?”

“Around eight o'clock.”

“Tonight?”

“This very one.”

Farren waved a hand at the bar, but did not take his eyes from Byrne's.

“I was here,” he said. “I've been here all night.”

“Then why ask what time? All night is all night.”

Farren said nothing.

“Do you know a woman named Miranda Sanchez?” Byrne asked.

“I know a lot of women.”

“Are any of them named Miranda Sanchez?”

Farren feigned thought. “Name doesn't ring a bell.”

“What about Misty? Know any women named Misty?”

“No, but I like that name better.”

Byrne once more pointed at the Malibu. “Have you had this in for service today?”

“Today?”

“I can speak louder if you want me to,” Byrne said. He did. “Yes. Today.”

Farren didn't see the humor in this. “No.”

Byrne walked around to the back of the Malibu. The thin line of light amber liquid led around the corner, on the same side of the street as the bodega, a half block away.

Byrne crouched down, touched a finger to the fluid, smelled it. He returned to where Farren stood. But not before looking into the passenger side of the car. There was blood on the front seat. It looked almost black in the sodium street light.

Byrne held out his two fingers. “Smells like brake fluid.”

Farren shifted his weight. “Had to put fluid in tonight,” he said. “That a crime?”

“The only crime is what they charge for it in a food market.”

No response.

“Where's the empty can?” Byrne asked.

“I threw it out.”

“Where?”

Before Farren could answer, Byrne sensed movement to his right. There, coming up the sidewalk, fewer then twenty feet away, was Patrick's brother, Danny. Behind him walked two boys, both about ten years old.

Danny Farren, a few years older than Patrick, wore a long black leather coat, a black knit watch cap. He had his right hand in his coat pocket. When he rounded the corner he made eye contact with his brother, and knew.

If Patrick Farren was the family pit bull, Danny was the Rottweiler. He had done ten years in Rockview for manslaughter.

Byrne unbuttoned his coat. Frank Sheehan did the same. Sheehan bladed his body toward Patrick; Byrne, toward Danny.

“Now, about that brake fluid can,” Byrne said.

Patrick snapped his fingers. “I remember now. I threw it out the window.”

“Where?” Byrne asked. “It'll still be there.”

“Can't recall.” Farren took a step backward, toward the middle of the street. Byrne watched his hands. He hadn't made his move. Yet.

Byrne put away his notebook. He needed both hands free.

“Here's what happened,” Byrne said. “You
know
Miranda Sanchez. You've seen her before. In fact, I have an eyewitness who can put her in your bar on more than one occasion. What happened tonight was, you pulled over on Christian a few hours ago, and sent Miranda into that bodega to buy some brake fluid. You put the fluid in your car, and then Miranda said the wrong thing, or looked at you the wrong way, or dropped your last rock in the snow, and you beat her senseless. She's fighting for her life at Graduate right now.”

Farren took another step away, which put him closer to Frank Sheehan. Sheehan closed the gap with a step of his own.

Byrne glanced at Danny. Danny Farren now had both hands in his pockets. The two boys huddled in a doorway behind him.

“You…you got some
balls,
brother,” Patrick said. Despite the cold, sweat began to bead on his forehead. “You come down to my neighborhood, on Christmas Eve, with
this
shit? You got a wild fuckin' imagination.”

“Do I?” Byrne asked. “Then tell me where you tossed that can of STP,
brother.
Tell me where it is, I'll go get it, and we can wrap this up. I'll admit my mistake, I'll buy you a Bushmills, and we can go about our lives, spend Christmas with our loved ones. Sound good?”

Farren didn't move, didn't speak. Byrne nudged the hem of his coat back a few more inches.

“See, you
could
tell me where that empty can is, but you won't,” Byrne said. “You won't tell me because we both know it's in the back of your car right now. You know as well as I do that the lab can match that exact fluid to what's in your car, and you also know that we're going to find Miranda Sanchez's fingerprints all over the can.”

Patrick Farren stole a glance at his brother. Something silent passed between them. Something dark and violent. Something primal.

“And I'll bet that her blood is on the front seat of your car,” Byrne said. “Prove me wrong. Let's go home early.”

Patrick Farren unbuttoned his coat.

“Don't do it,” Byrne said. He eased his hand onto the grip of his weapon. “Let's resolve this. Nobody has to get hurt.”

“Fuck you.”

A light came on in Byrne's periphery. At first he thought someone had turned on their Christmas lights, but the light was too big, too bright. In that instant—the chasm between a thought and an action—Byrne realized it was the traffic light on the corner.

And in that instant somebody screamed.

Byrne glanced over to see that it was one of the boys, the smaller of the two. Before Danny Farren could stop the boy, he ran off the curb.

“Uncle
Pat!
”

A second later Byrne saw the car coming around the corner, a big Delta 88 Royale. The driver had apparently anticipated the green light on Carpenter Street and had not slowed before making the turn.

The car slammed into the boy, hitting him just below his waist, tossing him high into the air. Byrne heard the air punched from the boy's lungs. His body came down on the icy street with a sickening thud, his head cracking on the pavement.

The other boy screamed but, in that moment, all Byrne heard was his own heart.

“You mother
fucker,
” Patrick Farren yelled. He pulled his weapon from his waistband, and picked a target. Sheehan was closer.

But Frank Sheehan had already drawn. He fired three times, hitting Patrick Farren in the center mass of his chest in a tight pattern. Farren never got off a shot. He was blown to the ground, falling next to the boy, the snow-dusted street now pooling with their blood.

Byrne spun, leveled his weapon at Danny Farren. The older Farren brother slowly raised his hands into the air.

The second EMS wagon left at just after midnight. There was no need to hurry for Patrick Farren. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Patrick's ten-year-old nephew, Michael, sustained multiple injuries, as well as serious head trauma. He was currently in an induced coma at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital.

As the Crime Scene Unit towed the Malibu to the police garage, where it would be processed for evidence, Detectives Kevin Byrne and Frank Sheehan gave their statements, and were cleared to go off duty.

An all but empty can of STP brake fluid was found on the floor of the Malibu, just behind the driver's seat.

They sat at the bar at McGillin's Old Ale House on Drury Street. Since leaving the station house, Byrne had called his contact at Graduate Hospital every fifteen minutes. Miranda Sanchez's condition had been upgraded from critical to stable.

Byrne had also called U of Penn. There was no news about Michael Farren.

It was somewhere around the bottom of their second Tullamore Dew that Frank Sheehan finally spoke.

“Thirty-six fucking years, Kevin,” Sheehan said. “Second time I've ever fired my weapon on the job.”

“It was a clean shoot, Frank.”

Sheehan shrugged, spun his glass. The juke played Sinatra's “I've Got the World on a String.” The fireplace, and the Dew, began to cut the chill.

“He's still dead,” Sheehan said. “And that kid's in a coma.”

Byrne chose his words carefully, hoping they were the right ones. “I don't know much, but I do know this,” he said. “You didn't put either of them on that corner tonight. What happened tonight is squarely on the Farrens' doorstep. It has been for a long time.”

Sheehan drained his drink, corralled the next one.

“One of these days that might make me feel better,” he said. “Today is not that day.”

Ten minutes later, as Frank Sheehan got off the stool to put on his suit coat, Byrne glanced at the man's inner forearms, saw the evidence of a number of IV needles: the black and blue marks, the scarring, the bruising. He wondered when the chemo had started for Sheehan. Frank always wore a hat, even indoors, as he was now—and didn't have that much hair to begin with—so hair loss wasn't a clear indicator.

The weight loss, however, was.

And now this.

Byrne decided that, as much as he wanted to ask the man about his health, there would be another day, another time.

Back at the station house, they stood for a long moment in the parking lot. Neither man knew how to end this night.

“Sometimes this city can get pretty quiet,” Sheehan finally said. “Ever notice that?”

It was true. Byrne could all but hear the snowflakes land on the ground.

“Merry Christmas, Frankie.”

Sheehan smiled, but there was no joy in his eyes.

At just after two am Byrne drove back to the Pocket. He parked across the street from The Stone, got out.

A few minutes later, the door to the tavern opened. Danny Farren emerged, stood on the sidewalk, under the green neon sign. His eleven-year-old son, Sean, stood next to him.

The two men found each other in the night, standing on opposite sides of the street, opposite sides of the law.

Byrne looked at the boy, thought about the song that had been playing in the bodega, “The Little Drummer Boy.”

A newborn king to see . . .

Byrne would head home for a few hours' sleep, then return to the station house, continue to type what would ultimately be a mountain of paperwork. An officer-involved shooting, a dead suspect, a critically injured ten-year-old boy. He'd be lucky if he was done with the paperwork by New Year's Day.

The street had been plowed, a fresh coat of snow covered the sidewalks. If you had not been present on this Philadelphia street on this Christmas Eve you would never know that a man lost his life here, or a boy, his childhood.

These were the sorts of things that, in time, faded into the lore of a neighborhood.

Even if the people forgot, Devil's Pocket would remember.

The Pocket always did.