Finn nodded reluctantly. “Danny was his son. He died a few years ago in a bar fight; he was stabbed to death. From what I’ve heard, the kid was always sort of a bad seed. In 1985, Danny would have been what? Sixteen? C’mon Gemma, the cops back then interviewed every male between the ages of thirteen and sixty-five. It doesn’t mean a thing.”
“That’s bull, Finn, and you know it. Moriarty’s a cop, a cop who happened to be a lead on the investigation into Nicky’s accident. And now come to find out his son was a suspect in the very murders Nicky was obsessed with? I don’t believe in coincidences.”
“Subject, Gemma. Not suspect,” he said, and leaned back with a sigh. “Well, go on, read it. Let’s see what it says. I know you’re not going to let this go until you do.”
They were only a few sheets of paper in the folder. On the first page, a tiny notation referenced a recording, and I assumed the transcript was word for word. With a deep breath, I began to read.
Moriarty, Danieclass="underline" Do I need a lawyer?
Dannon, Officer: You have the right to an attorney if we take you downtown. Right now, this is just a friendly conversation, son. Your dad does this sort of thing all the time with folks.
Moriarty, Louis: He’s right, Danny. Just answer the officers’ questions.
Cleegmont, Officer: Please, son, have a seat. As Officer Dannon said, this is just a nice friendly little conversation. We’re visiting everyone in town. Heck, we talked to your neighbors just a few minutes ago.
Moriarty, L: That’s right. And I talked to a bunch of your friends, and their parents, last week.
Moriarty, D: Okay, Pop, I get it. What do you guys want to know?
Dannon: Okay, Danny. Says here you’re a junior at the high school? Is that right? On the football team?
Moriarty, D: Yes, sir, a junior. No, sir, baseball’s my game, sir.
Dannon: Baseball? Now that’s a real American sport, isn’t it? You pitch?
Moriarty, D: Yes, sir.
Cleegmont: You know, I played a little ball in my day. I can see by your arms you’ve probably got a real nice throw, son.
Moriarty, D: I do okay.
Dannon: You lift?
Moriarty, D: Coach has us do weights in the afternoons in the gymnasium, sir.
Cleegmont: Would you call yourself a strong young man, then?
Moriarty, D: I suppose so. Strong enough.
Dannon: Now, I heard from one of the families down the road that you and Tommy had a beef awhile back. Can you tell us about that?
Moriarty, Elsa: Oh, that old nonsense? That boy was bothering Danny, following him around. He got in the way all the time. He wanted to be just like Danny.
Dannon: Now, what do you mean, he got in the way?
Moriarty, Elsa: Well, he-
Moriarty, D: Ma, let me handle this. It was nothing. We just had a scuffle last spring. It wasn’t a big deal.
Cleegmont: Was this before or after you stole lunch money from Andrew McKenzie on the bus?
Moriarty, D: Someone has been lying to you guys. Andrew’s poor as dirt. I never stole anything from that kid.
Dannon: You think this is funny? He’s eleven. His birthday was two days before he disappeared. And I have more than one person who can testify you were giving him a hard time a few months back.
Moriarty, L: Okay, fellows, I think you made your point. Danny’s a good boy and he sure didn’t have anything to do with the missing boys. I think this interview is about done.
Dannon: Lou, you know better than anyone that we’ve got to talk to everyone. We got two kids missing, and according to our records, your son has, at various points within the last year, had “issues” with each of them. We also know your son’s got a file an inch thick at the school. Now, we can go about this the easy way or the hard way. What’s it going to be?
“Is that it?” Finn asked.
I nodded. “The page ends there. Seems like there should be more to the report, but…”
“Wow. I mean, wow. Moriarty. What do you want to do?”
What I wanted to do was to sink my teeth into a big steaming slice of cheese pizza with olives and mushrooms, and forget I’d ever opened the folder.
I shrugged. “Let’s keep this between us for now. Like you said, they would have interviewed everyone. There weren’t that many kids in town; they were all bound to know one another, at least peripherally. But, it does make me wonder. A father’s loyalty to his son is something to consider, especially if the kid had a reputation. The cops would have been all over that.”
Finn said, “What are you saying, Gemma? That Danny Moriarty was the Woodsman? And his dad covered up the crime? No way. No, I know the guy too well. Lou Moriarty didn’t cover up the murder of two boys and then spend the next thirty years in the same damn town, all the while knowing the bodies were rotting a few miles away.”
He stood and pulled at his hair, something I had never seen him do before. He paced the aisle to our right, stopping at the edge of the dark void and then coming back. “And then what? Sixteen-year-old Nicky discovers this and Moriarty kills him, too? That is complete and utter bullshit.”
I thought a moment, recalling Finn’s words. “You said it yourself. Moriarty was insistent on searching Nicky’s room. What if Nicky had approached him, and threatened to expose him, or his son? Maybe Moriarty was looking for something Nicky had, some piece of evidence or proof?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Something. When you searched the room, did you have a pack with you, something to collect evidence?”
Finn nodded. “Yes, but I carried it. Moriarty couldn’t have taken anything without me seeing. I remember that day, we met at the Bellingtons’-their old place-and we looked like the freaking Bobbsey twins, both of us in khakis and maroon polo shirts. Moriarty didn’t have anything else with him, no briefcase, no bag, no nothing.”
“But if it was something small… something he could have slipped in his pocket?”
Finn stopped pacing and stared at me and then started pacing again. “What the hell. Sure, I suppose.”
I thought about Louis Moriarty. In 1985, he would have been in his mid-forties, smack dab in the middle of a distinguished career with the Cedar Valley Police Department. From the police transcript, it sounded as though he was still married at that point, living with a teenage son with a history of getting into trouble with the other kids.
Lou was big and strong; I had to imagine his son Danny had been as well. How much easier for a kid, known from the neighborhood, to get close to the two young boys than it would have been for a stranger? Maybe there was something there.
I thought about something else, too. Lou was one of the men that used to play poker with my step-grandfather, Bull Weston, and Frank Bellington and a couple of other guys from town. Thirty years ago, they were all accomplished, middle-age men, running the town in various ways: lawyers, cops, businessmen, and politicians.
And then, about twenty years ago, there was a falling out. The group disbanded, the men went their separate ways. What could have been at the root of something like that?
The lights above us buzzed off for a second and came back on and then flickered again and then went completely out. I stood and waved my arms, hoping to trigger a sensor but nothing happened. The space was dark, so dark that when I lifted a hand in front of my eyes, I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t even make out the green glow of the emergency exit sign.