“Is that why your partner took over the scene at the Charles River this morning? Is that kind of thing hard for you?”
“Not usually. I guess it depends.”
“Well, you seemed like you had it together. You were pretty tough on me.”
Cordero smiled. “I enjoyed being tough on you.”
“I could tell. Both of you did.”
“Sal can be a bit overprotective.”
“No kidding,” replied Harvath.
“As far as kicking me loose to go interview those girls with you, I’ll fill you in on a little secret. Sal’s also a bit of a snob. He’s from Southie, you know.”
“Really?”
“Yup. Joined the Army to escape his old neighborhood. Ended up coming home and becoming a cop. He helped me out a lot after my husband died.”
“Again, I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“Me, too, but mostly for Marco. Children need fathers.”
“You know, I lost my dad the same way,” said Harvath.
“He drowned?”
“He did. Not too long after I graduated from high school.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. At least you knew him. You were lucky to have had the time that you did.”
“I know that now. My father was a good man.”
“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
Harvath grinned. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“I’m very intuitive.”
She was flirting with him and he definitely felt attracted to her, but business and pleasure were often a bad mix. “I think we’d better order dinner,” he said, raising his hand to get the waiter’s attention.
• • •
They polished off a bottle of wine together and Harvath wondered if maybe she really was trying to get him drunk when she asked if he wanted to order another one. He declined, but did say yes to some grappa.
They talked about many things: how Cordero became a cop, what it was like balancing her career with being a mom, what they both did to stay in shape, how Cordero’s partner had not helped him at all regarding the Four Seasons, and how Harvath had subsequently checked into the W hotel on points.
They spent the majority of their time discussing the case, and they did so in detail. Harvath admitted that even though he’d offered up Fort Hill as a likely site for the killer, it was still a long shot. He’d been trying to think outside the box. The fact was, though, that if the killer had remained in Boston, he could end up striking anywhere. For all Harvath knew, the killer was gone. He was growing more and more certain that the next time his phone rang, it would be with news of the killer having struck in Chicago, San Francisco, or Seattle. He’d hop back on the plane, fly to wherever it had happened, and start another murder investigation from square one. It was not only frustrating, it made him angry.
But there was also something else. On top of his professional reasons for not wanting to leave Boston, he also had a personal one. The more time he spent with Cordero, the more he liked being around her.
It was a beautiful night and still early, so they decided to walk for a while. They passed several historic sites, like Faneuil Hall, the Old Corner Bookstore, and the Old South Meeting House, where they stopped to read their weathered bronze plaques. Harvath showed off his knowledge of Boston’s role in the American Revolution and teased her good-naturedly from time to time, but she took it all in stride with a smile.
By the time they reached Boston Common and his hotel, neither wanted their evening to end. He invited her in for a nightcap, but she demurred. It was already later than she had intended to be out. She joked that the one thing you could count on with children and criminals was that neither class cared how little sleep or how much to drink you’d had the night before; both would try to turn your weakness to their advantage.
He waited with her while the hotel doorman flagged a cab and then helped her climb in. “I had a very nice evening, Lara,” he said. “Thank you.”
“I had a nice time, too. And it’s still Detective Cordero,” she replied with a mischievous grin as she closed the door and gave the driver her address.
Harvath smiled and stood back as the taxi pulled away. Her sense of humor was one of the many things that were growing on him.
He stopped in the bar and ordered a cup of coffee to take up to his room. He needed to check his email, and undoubtedly the Old Man, who was a night owl, would be up and would want to talk. He might even have some good news for him. At least that was what Harvath told himself as he stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for his floor. In his gut, though, he had a very bad feeling that something evil was hovering on the horizon and would make itself known sooner, rather than later.
CHAPTER 43
Garden Court in Boston’s North End was a one-way street that only allowed parking along one side. It being Boston, parking was always at a premium and there were no spaces available. The killer hadn’t expected there to be any. Pulling his van up as far as he could onto the sidewalk, he made sure there was enough space for traffic to get by and placed a placard on his dashboard that read EMERGENCY PLUMBING REPAIR IN PROGRESS. It wouldn’t stop a cop determined to give him a hard time, but he hoped not to be here long enough to draw much attention. In the meantime, the sign might prevent an angry local from calling the police because of how the van was parked.
He parked as close as he could to 5 Garden Court Street in order to use the van to obscure the entrance. Stepping into the cargo area, he opened the sliding door from inside and had unfettered access to the building’s front door.
With his pick gun, he made quick work of the cheap lock. In the blink of an eye, the door to the empty, unoccupied ground-floor apartment was open. Stepping inside, he did a quick check to make sure no squatters had taken up residence since his last reconnaissance. It was clear.
He used a collapsible aluminum loading ramp to wheel the gang box out of the van and into the squalid apartment. As soon as it was in, he quickly offloaded the rest of his equipment, including the van’s spare tire.
The window facing the street had been covered over with newspaper and he had no idea if the apartment even had functioning electricity. Not that it mattered. He wouldn’t risk any light from inside spilling out and drawing attention. Snapping a series of glow sticks, he tossed them into corners of the tiny apartment and then used a staple gun to hang the padded moving blanket over the inside of the window.
With that complete, he focused on getting the buckets cooking. Using his knife, he pried off their lids and with the cinder blocks and bricks, he created a series of raised platforms for each, in order to get them up off the cracked linoleum floor.
Next, he ignited the torches and placed them around the metal buckets in order to start heating their contents. The trick was getting them close enough to bring the ingredients to a boil without rupturing the buckets themselves and having them spill their contents all over the floor. It had taken him some practice in the days leading up to this moment to get it just right, but he had been able to perfect his technique and was confident that he could reproduce the results once he arrived in the apartment.
Very soon the air was filled with the liquid’s pungent odor. He knew that it wouldn’t take long to spread farther up into the three-story building. As he had at the Liberty Tree Building, he kept a silenced pistol at hand while he worked. If anyone came to investigate the source of the smell, they’d be immediately dispatched. The lion would not be deterred from his kill.
He used a professional-grade infrared thermometer to monitor the temperature in each of the buckets. As they started climbing closer to their boiling points, he assembled the rolling winch system that would allow him to move each of the buckets to where he needed them without risk of spilling any of the liquid on himself.