Suddenly the area was swarming with people. Gurneys rolled over, and a man in a paramedic’s uniform pulled on Finn’s shoulder, telling him to move away. He moved back and watched as they poked and prodded and pumped, trying to yank Devon back to life. Finn could tell it was pointless, and their efforts lost urgency after a few moments. They started checking their watches as they worked to get the body on a stretcher, making sure to document the attempted revival process for the hospital records. They wheeled the body away, pretending that all wasn’t lost, as though something more might be done at the hospital with better equipment. Finn knew better.
Porter was still screaming about the paintings. Hewitt was trying to calm him down. At one point Finn had the sense that the FBI agents and the BPD detectives were in a heated argument, but he couldn’t follow it. Their voices warbled unsteadily and he had trouble making out the words through the fog in his head.
He walked over to where two other paramedics were working on Sally and stood next to Kozlowski. The effort was going better there: they seemed satisfied that she was out of danger, and they were spending their energies making her comfortable as they clipped a pulse monitor to her finger and strapped an oxygen mask to her face to make her breathing easier. As they loaded her into the ambulance, she opened her eyes. It looked as if she was trying to talk.
“It’s okay,” Finn said. “You’re going to be okay.” The words felt hollow. He’d said them too many times already that night.
She tried to talk again, and Finn could hear the heart monitor ping faster. “Just relax,” said one of the paramedics, but that only sped the ping pace. He looked at Finn. “You know her?”
“Yeah.”
“You wanna come in the ambulance? We need to keep her calm right now; she’s in shock.”
She was looking at him, and her heart rate was settling slightly. “I’m not her family,” Finn said.
The paramedic looked back and forth between him and Sally. “Maybe not,” he said, “but you seem to be calming her down. We could use your help.”
Finn thought about the promise he’d made to Devon. He looked at Kozlowski, who nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “If you think it’ll help.”
The paramedics lifted the gurney into the ambulance, and Finn climbed in behind them. One of them slid up front into the driver’s seat; the other stayed in the back, making sure the monitors were working. Finn lowered himself into a seat across from the gurney, up by Sally’s head.
“You can hold her hand,” the remaining paramedic said.
Finn hesitated, then reached out and took her hand. He could feel her squeezing his hand tightly, hanging on for dear life. He squeezed back, and that seemed to calm her. She tried to talk again, but Finn couldn’t make out the words. He thought maybe she was asking about Devon, but there was no way to tell. “You’re all right,” he said. “Just relax.” She looked at him and nodded.
A moment later, she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Forty-One
Devon ’s funeral was at eleven on the Wednesday of the following week. There was no service, just a rectangular hole in the ground on a brown plot of grass off a dead-end street in Dorchester. The casket was suspended above the pit, ready to be lowered hydraulically into the ground. The cherrywood was polished to a shine that reflected the bright sun from above; it was the top of the line. Finn figured there was no reason to skimp; he used the cash that Devon had stashed in his apartment to pay for the plot, the service, the short obituary in the paper, and the coffin. The rest he put into a fund for Sally. He couldn’t bring himself to take the fees the firm had been promised. It didn’t seem right; he’d failed Devon, after all.
It was a Catholic cemetery, so a priest was present, though when he asked Finn what he wanted him to say at the burial Finn told him nothing. It didn’t seem there was much to say. Two grave-diggers stood nearby, ready to fill in the hole once the casket was lowered. Other than that, it was just the four of them: Finn, Kozlowski, Lissa, and Sally. No one else showed up. The priest went through the ceremony quickly and quietly enough that Finn could hardly hear the words. That, too, was fitting, he thought.
Sally was quiet throughout the service; she’d said little since she’d been released from the hospital a few days before. She stood there, staring at the casket as if she was trying to unravel a riddle. Finn understood: the fact that there would never be answers wouldn’t keep her from asking the questions.
When the service was over, a switch was flipped, and the casket descended into the ground. The four of them stayed until the process was over, but turned before the first shovelfuls of dirt were thrown on top. They didn’t need to see that.
They walked away silently, Kozlowski and Lissa holding hands, their heads down. Finn had his hands in his pockets, walking close to Sally. As they came up the hill, back toward the car parked in the narrow lane that wound around through the cemetery, Finn saw a figure standing under a tree, watching the grave-diggers work from a distance. Sally saw it, too. She stopped. “It’s her,” she said.
“Who?” Finn asked.
“My mother.”
Finn squinted into the sun, trying to make out something more than the silhouette. “You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know.” Sally stood there for a long moment, just staring at the woman under the tree. “I should go over, I guess,” she said at last.
“If you want to.”
“Will you come with?”
“Yeah.” Finn called over to Kozlowski and Lissa, “We’ll catch up.”
He and Sally climbed the short hill toward the tree where the woman stood. As they approached, Finn could see she did not look well. Her hair was short and disheveled, and she wore loose-fitting clothes over emaciated limbs. She must have been in her late thirties, but she looked much older. She looked at Sally as they approached.
“Sally!” she called. Her voice was shrill with forced surprise, as though a father’s funeral were the last place she would have expected to find a grieving daughter. She opened her arms as if she was expecting a big hug. Sally stayed next to Finn.
“What are you doing here?”
“I read about your father in the paper,” she said. “I’m sorry. I thought you were better off with him than me. It’s over now, though; you can come home with me.” She was smiling, but tears were streaming down her face, and it had been long enough since she had bathed that they made tracks on her cheeks. Her eyes were glassy, and it seemed she was having trouble focusing.
“Where?” Sally asked.
The woman waved her arm. “Oh, I got a place, don’t worry.”
“Where?”
“I’m gonna get a new one.” She was no longer looking at her daughter. “We’ll be happy now.”
It took a long time for Sally to answer. “I think I’m gonna figure something else out,” she said at last.
“You sure?” The woman’s voice sounded sad. Relieved, too, though.
“Yeah, I’m sure. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”
“Okay, then,” the woman said. “You take good care of yourself, and I’ll come visit, okay?”
“How will you know where to find me?” Sally asked.
The woman waved her hand again. “Don’t be silly, a mother always knows.”
They stood there in silence for another moment, with Sally looking at her mother and her mother avoiding her daughter’s eyes. Finn looked at the ground. Finally Sally said, “Okay, Mom, I gotta go.” She turned and walked away before her mother could say anything more.
Finn caught up to her and walked beside her. “You okay?”
“Fine.” She was walking quickly, back to Lissa and Kozlowski, who were standing by the side of the car, looking back at them.
“You sure?”
“Fuck her,” Sally said. “I’m better off alone.”
Finn put a hand on her shoulder as he walked. “You’re not gonna be alone,” he said. He wasn’t looking at her as he said it. As they walked, he saw her arm come up and wipe something away from her eye.