Brighton (13 page)

KEVIN MET
Mo Stanley at the Mirror Café in Brighton Center. Three old-timers stared at her as she got a cruller and coffee, whispering furiously among themselves when she decided to join him at a table in the back.

“You couldn’t give me a call?” she said, slipping off a backpack and tucking it under the table by her feet.

“Sorry.”

“For Chrissakes, I’ve been leaving you messages . . .”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

“Doesn’t sound fine.”

“The Pulitzer Prize, Kev?”

“I know.”

“Seriously, the Pulitzer fucking Prize? I’m numb. I mean I was numb, like, yesterday.”

“Jimmy told everyone?”

“He told me, then I told him to keep his trap shut. You’d let everyone know when you were ready, which, by the way, should be soon.”

“I owe you one.”

“Bet your ass you owe me. What’s with the freak show up front?”

“Brighton’s finest. You know how it is. Beautiful woman walks in they’ve never seen before . . .”

“Save it for someone who gives a shit. You want a piece of my cruller or what?”

Kevin smiled and was rewarded with a smile bouncing back across the table. Mo was a Quincy girl, earned her stripes for the
Globe
covering crime in Dorchester and Roxbury. As she liked to say, the real fucking deal. She could have been a knockout if she’d wanted to. Instead, it was short hair and no makeup. She never wore a dress unless she had to and didn’t let too many people know too much about her. Add all that up and the newsroom concluded lesbian. Kevin knew that was wrong. First, because she’d told him. Second, because they’d rolled around in the front seat of his car after a night of drinking at Mister Dooley’s on Broad Street. They’d talked about it the next morning and decided it was best to leave the whole thing alone—which never really worked, but that was what they’d decided to do anyway. The truth was he cherished her friendship. Really, he cherished everything about Mo. Of course he never said a word to her about any of it.

“So, what’s it like?” she said, tearing open a package of Splenda and stirring some into her coffee before setting the cup to one side.

“You’ll have one of your own soon enough.”

“Yeah, well, until the Pulitzer committee gets around to my clip file, allow me to live vicariously.”

“It’s no different than before.”

“Like hell it isn’t.”

“How do you figure?”

“For one thing you don’t seem to have to show up for work anymore. They just gonna send you a check every other week and trot you out for the Christmas party?”

“I’m working.”

“I know, Patterson.”

He’d called her before he went to see Bobby. He figured she’d be in early and knew she’d be working the Patterson homicide. And even if she wasn’t, she’d know more about it than anyone in the newsroom. That was just Mo. So he’d told her in a general sort of way about the connection between Patterson and Rosie Tallent. She’d immediately jumped to the possibility of a serial killer. Kevin had let the idea ride.

“You get a chance to take a look at anything?”

She reached down and pulled a legal pad from her backpack. Mo had strong, square hands and flipped through her notes quickly, mumbling as she went.

“Mo?”

The reporter stopped flipping and looked up, hints of pique in both cheeks. “What am I going to get out of this, Kevin?”

“I told you. There’s a link between Tallent and Patterson.”

“What kind of link?”

“A forensic link.”

“You’re getting this from someone inside the investigation?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Your girlfriend, maybe?”

He’d been careful to keep Lisa out of the conversation. Mo, however, was too damn smart. And Kevin should have known better.

“You don’t want the story, Mo, just say the word.”

“I want it.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, but I can only sit on the Tallent connection for a day or two, tops.”

“That’s all I need. After that, I give you everything, including all my sources.”

“We’ll do a joint byline.”

Kevin shook his head. “It’s all yours. Fair enough?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Now, we need to find out if there are other cases out there.”

Mo broke out her Mo grin, which typically translated to
I’m the best reporter in the city so fuck you and the horse you rode in on
.

“You already got one,” Kevin said.

“How’d you know?”

“Cuz you got that look on your face.”

“What look?”

“Never mind. What did you find?”

“It’s my guy in the cold squad.”

“How much detail did you have to give him?”

“Relax, the guy’s a year from retirement and thinks of me as the granddaughter he never had. He’ll keep his mouth shut. In fact, he’ll be more than happy to lie, cheat, and steal for me if that’s what we want.”

“Tell me about the case.”

Mo crowded closer. Kevin could feel the heat coming off her skin, the hot thrill of a journalist sinking her teeth into a story. Fucking narcotic. He took a sip of his coffee and waited.

“Her name’s Christine Flannery.”

“Never heard of her.”

“Why would you? She’s a white Rosie Tallent, lived in Southie. I know, it’s not Brighton, but hear me out. They found her body two years ago, dumped in a stairwell a block from Government Center. Stabbed twice in the chest.” Mo reached into her backpack and pulled out a file.

“What’s that?”

“A summary of the autopsy report and a set of crime scene photos. I told you, anything I want.” Mo pushed across the report and finally took a sip of her coffee. “God, that’s good. M.E. says they found ligature marks on her neck. Page 3.” She directed Kevin’s attention to the bottom of the page and read the highlighted passage aloud for him. “‘Strangulation used as a means to
control and incapacitate
the victim rather than
kill
. . .’”

Kevin scanned the summary. “Says the ligature marks showed signs of slippage, indicating she was probably strangled with a nylon or a sock.” He flipped the report shut and pushed it across the table. “I’m looking for a piano wire, Mo. And a postmortem gunshot wound to the head.”

“I know what you’re looking for, but these things don’t always match up perfectly. This woman was dumped in a stairwell downtown. Killed right there or very close by. My guy says whoever did it probably didn’t have a lot of time.”

“So he couldn’t go through his ritual?”

“Maybe there is no ritual. Maybe it’s just convenient to strangle them, then use the knife.”

“But the gunshot. There’s nothing convenient about that.”

“So without the gunshot, you can’t see a link?”

“Didn’t say that.”

Mo dropped her voice to a fierce whisper. “Then what the fuck are you saying?”

“I don’t know.”

“This isn’t about a serial killer, is it, Kevin?”

“I don’t think so.”

“And the ritual crap isn’t all that important?”

“It’s important, but not critical.”

“‘Important, but not critical.’ You know what, fuck you.” She stood up and began to repack her notes.

“I know as much as you do, Mo.”

She stopped packing. “You’ve never lied to me before, Kev. Why start now?”

He touched her sleeve. “Sit down.”

She shook him off, but took a seat. “Patterson was working undercover on a drug sting when she was killed.”

“I already told you that.”

“Yeah, but you never told me how it all ties together. And you never told me how your girlfriend fits into all of it.”

Lisa again. Mo was circling. And Kevin needed space.

“Let me take a look at the photos.” He pulled across a stack, flipping through a handful of morgue shots before stopping on a run of pictures from the dump site and the tangle of body parts that made up Christine Flannery, layered across three steps leading down into what looked like a basement. Kevin was guessing she was close to six feet, cocaine thin, with her skirt hiked up and a tattoo of a turtle crawling up a pale left thigh. She had her mouth open—front teeth little more than black nubs—and doll eyes half shut with that glassy look that told you the body was a shell and its owner had moved on to greener pastures.

“How old was she?” Kevin said.

“Thirty-six. Long string of arrests. Possession, hooking. All street-level stuff. You know the drill.”

“And she lived in Southie?”

“Old Colony. Had three kids. No husband.”

“Kids?”

“I assume they’re in the system somewhere. Foster homes, adoption.”

Kevin flipped through a few more photos, stopping on a close-up, snapped from a high angle peering down and across the body. “What’s that?”

Mo leaned in for a look. “What?”

Kevin studied the image and waggled his fingers impatiently. “You got any more of these? Tight shots, head and shoulders.”

Mo dug through the pile and found a few more pictures. Kevin nodded to himself as he cycled through them.

“What is it?” Mo said, frantically scanning his discard pile, wondering what she’d missed.

Kevin pulled the photos into a neat stack and pushed them across the table. “Where did you park?”

“Around the corner.”

“Pull your car up to the light. I’ll be waiting.”

“Where are we going?”

“Just follow me.”

A dozen or so kids formed a human chain, tethered to a wall and swinging back and forth across the schoolyard. A solitary dark-haired boy, maybe ten or eleven, lurked at the far end of the yard with another dozen classmates between him and the end of the chain. The boy jogged back and forth, looking for an opening. Three kids tried to trap him in a gully, but the boy squirted free
and began his run, twisting and turning, dodging and cutting, getting ever nearer to the end of the chain of students stretching out to meet him. The other team closed ranks, one of the kids clipping the boy on the shoulder but not holding him long enough. He circled again, slower now, his pursuers sensing weakness and moving in. The boy feinted another run, then found a gap and broke through, a final desperate dash, riding a wave of speed as his pursuers collapsed on either side, touching hands with a girl on the end of the chain and freeing the members of his team who scattered to the four corners of the yard. The boy drifted in the flotsam and jetsam of his run, cruising the perimeter again, taking congratulations in stride even as the game of Relievio wound up for another round.

“Memories, Kev?” Mo was squinting and holding her hand up to the morning sun slanting across the back lot of Saint Andrew’s Elementary. “Let me guess, you went to school here?”

He’d been that kid, sprinting from the beginning of recess until the end, before school, after school, during school. Always running, never getting caught. He recalled one fall afternoon and a single game that became a death march and his signature Relievio moment. The other team consisted of six kids, all fast, all tough, all smart. They hunted him across the blacktop for two hours. He ran that day in a pair of cheap leather shoes, nails gone through both soles, feet a bloody fucking mess. By the end, his own team was telling him to quit, right up until the moment he made his run and freed them.

“I went here through sixth grade,” Kevin said.

“Had enough, huh?”

“It wasn’t so bad. How about you?”

“Sacred Heart in Quincy. Eight years of nuns. Another four in high school.” Mo nodded at the school’s redbrick façade. “How does any of this tie in to Christine Flannery?”

“They used to have an all-girls high school here. Saint Andrew’s Academy. Closed down a few years back. When I was a kid, I remember they gave out this thing called a Miraculous Medal at graduation. Silver medallion of Mary hung on a blue string.” Kevin pulled out one of the crime scene photos from the dump site. “This woman’s wearing one. At least I think she is. Come on.”

They cut across the yard and ducked inside the big front door. Chalk dust and erasers, floor polish and Windex, streaked windows and hazy sunshine. The sights and smells flooded his bloodstream, bubbling up to fill his eyes, ears, nose, and throat.

“Look the same?” Mo said.

“Smaller.”

The school probably should have had some sort of security at the front door, but there was nothing, so they wandered down one hallway, then a second. Some of the classrooms were full and they could hear a nun blowing on a pitch pipe, then leading her class as they ascended, then descended the scale of notes.

“What’s with the A’s and B’s?” Mo pointed at the figures “2A” and “2B” stenciled in white over a pair of adjacent doors.

“That’s how they split up the classes. In the first grade you were designated an A or a B. Then you stayed with that class all the way through eighth grade.”

“How did they decide who went where?”

Kevin shrugged. “It’s the nuns so who knows. I was a B. Come on.”

They ducked into a classroom, empty except for an old nun set like a chunk of granite behind a desk at the front of the room. “Can I help you?” She spoke without taking her eyes off her work.

“We’re looking for some information,” Kevin said, aware of his voice in the close quarters of the classroom.