Brighton (26 page)

BU’S BOATHOUSE
stood on a spit of land just where the Charles River bent before making its final run into the harbor and infinite ocean beyond. Bobby pulled the Toyota into a small lot and killed the engine. They watched as swatches of light switched and played across the city’s skyline. Bobby was the first to speak.

“I come here sometimes.”

“It’s nice.” Her voice sounded tight, like she was on a first date. Bobby glanced across. Bridget touched her left ear and dropped her head. Shy. Demure. Impossible.

“Let’s get out for a second.”

“You think that’s a good idea?”

“Why not?”

Her features lit up at the challenge in his voice and she opened the door. He let her take the lead and walked on her right side, keeping the gym bag in his right hand.

“You ever been out on the river, Bridget?”

She shook her head.

“View’s nice from here, but on the water it’s something else. Sometimes, I’ll paddle right down into the city, watch the sun hang over the buildings . . .”

“Feel the world is all yours.”

“Exactly.”

“I didn’t know you had a boat.”

“Just a little one.” Bobby held a hand up to the cutting light and grinned. “You want to go out?”

Bobby knew one of the managers who let him keep the boat in a small shed next to the main boathouse. In return, Bobby took the kid’s action, as well as that of his college pals. He snapped open the lock on the shed and dragged the boat onto the damp grass. The oars were inside, as well as four life jackets tucked under two wooden benches. A metal rail ran around the perimeter, ending at an oarlock on either side.

The water looked dark against the riverbank. Bobby pushed the boat down the incline and stepped in as it floated out. He picked up an oar and pulled the boat close until it was tight to the shore. Bridget took a seat on one of the benches. Bobby dug the wooden blade into the soft mud and pushed. Once, twice, and the river’s current took hold. Bobby sat across from Bridget, fitted the oars into the locks, and began to pull. Five or six strokes took them into the middle of the river. The current eased and the air around them grew still.

“Are the crews out?”

Bobby shook his head. “You mind if we just drift?”

“I love to drift.”

Underneath one of the benches was a length of rope tied to a small anchor. Bobby dropped it over the side and felt the boat
tug lightly against it. She turned away from him and touched her neck as the breeze freshened, kicking up a few waves and jostling the boat before dying away again.

“Have you talked to Kevin?”

She swiveled around, head on a silky pivot. “Why would I say anything to him? Is that what you brought me out here for?”

“I brought you out for the view.”

Her eyes dipped to the satchel between his feet. “What’s in the bag, Bobby?”

He opened it and pulled out a notebook. Her face didn’t move.

“I found them on the roof at Champney,” he said. “Read ’em all.”

“Good.”

Bobby ran his fingers across “Saint Andrew’s Grammar School” written in Old English script across the cover. “You were maybe ten, twelve, when you started this one?”

“You mean the first?”

“I mean your grandmother.”

Bridget took the notebook in her hands and skimmed a couple of pages before closing it. Her voice sounded like tires on wet gravel. “She was supposed to be working. Instead, the old bitch comes creeping up behind me and grabs my wrist. I only wanted to rob her, but I had the knife in my hand and just hit her with it. Then I heard the nigger on the stairs.” She popped her fingers. “It all happened. Snap, snap, snap. He took one look, grabbed what he could, and ran like hell. All I had to do was cut myself. And I knew how to do that. Then I hid the knife and waited for them to find me.”

“And you’d had a taste of killing?”

“It never really bothered me. And once I got older, I wanted money.”

“When did you start stealing from me?”

“I didn’t steal anything. I expanded your business. Our business. First, it was selling dope in the neighborhood. Penny-ante stuff. Then, we moved into the suburbs. That’s when things got crazy. We’re rich, Bobby. Me and you. Crazy rich.”

He held up the notebook. “I count at least five dead, including Rosie Tallent and Sandra Patterson.”

“Both business.”

“Chrissy McNabb?”

“Junkie whore. Thought she could squeeze me cuz we went to school together.”

“Slattery?”

“More scum. He figured out we were running dope and thought you were involved. Was headed to the police when I asked if he wanted to smoke a bone.”

“And what did Finn ever do to you?” For the first time, Bobby saw something close to surprise flit across the flat angles of her face.

“How did you know about that?”

Bobby thought about his childhood friend, throwing a line off a boat somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico. He’d always told Finn he’d visit. And every time had been a lie. “I stopped by his place last night. Must have just missed you.”

“Don’t look so sad. He sold you out for a piece of ass. And he was getting ready to take over the book once you skipped town. But now you can stay.”

“How’s that?”

“I let it slip to Kevin’s girlfriend that Finn might be running the drug operation. They’ll find evidence in his apartment linking him to all the murders.”

“What kind of evidence?”

“I didn’t give them everything, but there’s enough. Articles of clothing. Driver’s licenses. The gun that killed Jordan.”

“Finn told you where it was buried?”

“Of course he did.” She paused, lingering over her final piece of information like a last bite of pie. “I know about Colleen as well.”

Bobby felt something tear inside. “Colleen’s got nothing to do with this.”

“Two nights ago she found the thirty-eight and brought it to your apartment. Her Prince Charming. Gonna solve all her problems with hubby. I wondered what you’d do. Then yesterday I watched you put it back on the roof. That’s when I knew for sure you were on board.”

Bobby stared at the slick, sliding scales of the river and the slope of the bordering bank, naked and running into the falling light. Beyond was Boston and the rest of the world, slightly askew and spinning silently on its axis. “So what’s next?”

Bridget’s eyes glowed pale green as she warmed to the task.

KEVIN LOOKED
at the handkerchief spread out on the front seat of his car and the knife he’d found wrapped inside it. It had a black handle with a nick at the very tip of the blade that made a perfect “v.” Beside the knife was Kevin’s cell phone. Lisa was on speaker.

“Are you sure?”

“Blade’s a half-inch wide. Small nick at the very top. What looks like bloodstains near the handle. It’s the knife.” Kevin took a left off Soldiers Field Road and crossed to the Cambridge side of the river. “There were really only two people who could have killed my grandmother. One was Curtis Jordan.” He jumped on Memorial Drive and headed south. Up ahead the BU boathouse flickered in and out of the trees.

“Kevin?”

“The other was my sister. That’s where I found the knife. In the house I grew up in.”

“She was what, eleven or twelve at the time of your grandmother’s death?”

“I saw an old x-ray of the wound she suffered in the file you gave me. There’s a piece of metal lodged in her ribs. Looks just
like a tiny ‘v.’ And then I found the knife in our house. Now, how could that be?”

“She stabbed herself?”

“That’s right. She killed my grandmother, cut herself, and pinned it all on Jordan when he came walking through the door. Then she kept the knife . . .”

“Until she decided to kill again.” A pause on the line. “But why the gun?”

“Bobby told me Bridget likes to collect things, especially people. Somehow she discovered where the gun was buried. Maybe through Finn, I don’t know. She dug it up and used it in the Patterson and Tallent killings. If things ever got too hot, she could drop the piece wherever she wanted. Control the investigation and send it in whatever direction suited her. It’s the power, the knowledge she could destroy someone’s life on a whim. Bridget would love that.”

“Where are you, Kevin?”

“She planted all that stuff in Finn’s place. Then she led you by the nose to it.”

“Where are you?”

Kevin eased around a bend, and the boathouse slid into view.

“I’ve got one more question before I go.”

“Don’t . . .”

“Shut up and listen. Bridget’s x-ray. You knew what it showed. You knew my sister was the killer.”

“I didn’t.”

“Fucking law review at Harvard Law School. Best prosecutor in the city. You don’t miss that x-ray. You wanted me to find it. Hoped I’d go after her.”

Kevin waited. Out on the river, a small boat slipped from behind a line of painted trees. There were two dark figures in it.

“It was your
sister,
Kevin. Yes, I wanted you to find it. And I wanted you to decide.”

“Decide what, Lisa?”

“I don’t know. Maybe talk to her. See if anyone else needed to be protected. Then I figured you’d come to me.”

“I’d come to you and you’d make the arrest. And if I didn’t come to you, you’d arrest her anyway and make your boss look like a fool for pulling in Bobby. Win, win for Lisa Mignot, our new district attorney.”

“That wasn’t my intent.”

“Fuck your intent. I gotta go.” He cut the line, climbed out of his car, and began to run. Kevin was halfway down the bank when both figures in the boat went into the water.

A dozen strokes and he was nearly there. The water felt oily on his skin. The boat looked larger and darker than it had from shore. Kevin swam the final few yards underwater and surfaced near the bow, hand gripping the gunwale, world tipping crazily as he climbed in. He saw the notebook first. The Old English script of Saint Andrew’s Grammar School. Bridget’s name in her slanted cursive. Then he noticed the anchor rope by the stern, stretched tight and dipping over the side. Kevin looked down into the water. His sister looked back. She was sitting a foot or two below the surface, the rope knotted around her neck, eyes wide and milky dead with the cold. Kevin dove in. It was only when he was submerged
in the grit of the river that he could see the second body, circling toward the bottom. Bobby was floating facedown, hair spread in a halo around his head. Kevin grabbed him under the shoulders and pulled for the surface. He didn’t have the strength to lift him into the boat, so he tied a life jacket around his waist and towed him back to shore. On the bank, Kevin pumped Bobby’s chest, tilted back his head, and blew into his mouth. After a few seconds, he began to cough up black water, then rolled over and retched. Kevin squatted by his friend, pounding him on the back, not really knowing what else to do. Finally, Bobby rolled back, head lolling in the wash from the river.

“Where did you come from?” His voice was cut up into rough pieces that scratched and tore.

“Father Lenihan told me what you had planned. Said you laid it out when you took confession.”

“She kept notebooks, Kev. Started with your grandmother.”

“I know. I found the knife she used.” Somewhere above them, Kevin heard a police siren stretch and scream.

“She walked me through it, but I didn’t listen. Just waited for a chance to get the rope around her neck and put her down. Couldn’t be no trial. Not for that.”

Bobby was right. He was always right, even when he wasn’t.

“No one’s gonna blame you, Bobby.”

“How about Curtis Jordan?”

“That was a long time ago. And you did it to save me.”

“I did it cuz I thought he deserved it. And I was the only one smart enough to play judge and jury. The only one tough enough. Except I got it wrong.”

The sirens were searching, growing louder one minute, fading to nothing the next.

“We’ll get a lawyer.”

“Nah, we won’t.” Bobby’s pale eyes flashed and Kevin remembered the lean face of the mutt, poking its head out of a burlap bag for a final sniff of sun and breeze off the river.

“You came back here to bury your past, Kev. Thing is, you gotta kill it first.”

“I’m not sure I can do that.”

“Come on. We’ll do it together.” Bobby stood, scraping the mud off his clothes with his hands and wading into the water. Kevin followed, his legs making small ripples that arced out in perfect concentric circles before disappearing into the murk. When they were far enough from shore, Bobby gripped Kevin’s arm and pulled him close. His words came in quick gasps.

“I’m gonna buck and fight and wanna come up. You hold my head down until I take a breath. You’ll know when it’s over.”

“Bobby.” Kevin’s voice drifted out into the abyss, sucked down into whatever soundless place words went.

“One breath and then there’s nothing.”

“Yeah.”

Bobby patted him on the shoulder and knelt so the water was chest deep, lips moving silently as he wet his fingers and blessed himself.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Dust thou art and unto dust thou shall return.

He took a final look at the sky, brushed in immaculate strokes of orange and red as the sun finally lifted clear of the city. Then he touched his lips with his tongue, took a small inhale, and ducked his head beneath the surface. Kevin gripped the back of his neck and held it. Bobby was still at first, then fought just like he said he would, bucking once, then twice. Kevin screamed
silently as Bobby thrashed, his life, in the end, reduced to little more than a string of bubbles. Kevin watched the bubbles pop and die, the world spinning like a mad top, a human life leaking away beneath his fingertips. Then he pulled his friend, his brother, his family from the dark, sucking well of water. He held him, kissed him, and swore at him. They swore at each other, at life, death, and everything in between. Kevin dragged Bobby back to the shore and laid him out on the bank, more dead than alive, but alive all the same. And then Kevin told Bobby his plan. It was the same plan they’d used twenty-six years earlier, except this time Bobby was the one who needed protecting and Kevin was ready to do his part.

Five minutes later, he slipped back into the river, sliding like an eel toward the boat. His teeth chattered with the cold as he took shelter under the bow then dove, untying the anchor rope that held his sister fast and watching her body spiral down until it was lost from sight. Kevin surfaced at the stern, wiping his eyes clear and looping an arm over the gunwale. The plan was simple. Bobby would disappear and Kevin would cut a deal with Lisa. He’d give her the knife if she forgot about Bobby . . . and Curtis Jordan. Kevin knew his ex well enough to know she’d jump at the chance to clear the Patterson murder. In her world, it was all that ever really mattered. Kevin looked over his shoulder at the far bank of the river. He could just make out Bobby standing there and waved him to his car. Bobby didn’t move. On the Boston side of the river, a gas guzzler in two tones of brown had pulled off Storrow Drive at a service exit and made its way to a small parking area in the shadow of the BU Bridge. Lollipops got out wearing a long coat and carrying what
looked like a rifle. Kevin dove again, surfacing in a screen of weeds near the edge of the bank. The killer had threaded a path along the river and nestled in a copse of trees about twenty feet away. He braced himself against the trunk of a small pine and raised the rifle, pressing his cheek against the wooden stock and sealing his eye to the scope. Across the water, Bobby dropped to his knees, arms spread as he tipped his face to the sky. Kevin crawled closer until he could see the second hand on Lollipops’s watch and the blue burn of his beard. Lollipops moved his finger onto the trigger then stopped, taking his eye off the scope and squinting at his target. The professional had hesitated—an act with its own reason, a domino with its own destiny, a sin with its own consequence. Kevin unzipped his jacket pocket and pulled out the snub-nosed revolver. The gun was cold and hard and wet in his hands. He shook it once and held it in front of him. The river lapped all around and the soft mud squelched underneath as he shifted to get a better angle with the gun. He noticed the set of the killer’s jaw and the crook of his arm as he dropped the rifle another fraction and rested his finger on the metal guard, studying his prey as Kevin studied his, alive now until Kevin pulled the trigger and then the man would be no more and everything else would remain and nothing would change, except for Kevin. For Kevin, everything would change. That was how Bobby said it would be, and if anyone knew, it’d be Bobby. Kevin steadied the gun with two hands and felt his heart thump against the riverbank until the two were one. A bird screamed overhead, flitting across the water and sailing into the trees. Kevin squeezed the trigger twice. Lollipops grunted in surprise, the rifle slipping from his hands, his bulk sliding down the bank until he came
to rest a few feet away. He stared at Kevin along the plane of the gun barrel, eternity resting on his tongue and not a word escaping his lips. Kevin fired twice more, then pulled himself up, crawling across the skin of grass to where the body lay and dragging it into the river. Everything was easier in the water, Lollipops leaking crimson clouds of blood and staring blankly at the sky as Kevin steered him toward the boat. Halfway there, Kevin let the weight sink, watching the killer’s mouth fill with water, then pushing down with his feet. The snub-nosed revolver followed, both trailing Kevin’s sister to the bottom. By the time he reached the boat Bobby was gone, a wink of brake lights marking his passage as he disappearead down Memorial Drive. Kevin climbed over the gunwale and sat on the wooden bench, listening as the sirens returned, watching as a parade of blue flashers worked their way down both sides of the river. He slid the oars into their slots and started to pull, slowly and steadily, for shore.