‘I’m assuming you kept all the old paper logs.’
‘You assume correctly.’
‘Can you pull them? I’d like to know who else has visited Ezekiel.’
‘I can do that, but that may take a few days. You’ll have to fill out paperwork. I can email it to you, or you can fill it out when you come in.’
‘I’ll do it when I come in. When can I see him?’
‘We need to make some preparations, so how about tomorrow morning at ten?’
‘Ten’s fine.’
‘This is going to sound odd, but I have to say it. Please adhere to the female dress code policy. You’ll find the details on our website. Read it and have yourself a good laugh.’
Darby hung up, called ballistics and asked the person who answered to run a Glock eighteen through their database.
She walked down the hall feeling unsteady on her feet and strangely light-headed, as though she had just woken up from anaesthesia. Her mind recalled the single image she had of John Ezekiel – a black-and-white newspaper photograph of him staring down at his cuffed hands as the judge read the verdict of his life sentence. She remembered Ezekiel’s high forehead and blond hair; the hard, knotted muscles in his forearms. Eyes that seemed too small for his large face. Darby remembered that the photograph had been bigger than the small article tucked away in the back pages of the Boston Herald American.
When she opened the door to the fingerprints unit, she saw Coop standing behind his desk.
‘Homicide in Charlestown,’ he said, tearing a sheet of paper from a pad. ‘Lead detective is Stan Jennings. I couldn’t get him on the phone, but ops told me what we need to know. The victim’s lying in a dirt basement full of human remains.’
28
Darby sat behind the wheel of the crime scene vehicle waiting for the dozen or so Charlestown cops to clear the people crowding the streets. The afternoon’s pounding rain had finally stopped and the predominately Irish residents packed the streets and pavements. They watched from their windows and stoops, rooftops and decks. Some drank beer, and she saw more than one person passing a bottle wrapped in a brown-paper bag. Almost everyone was smoking.
Homicides in Charlestown, she knew, always produced a carnival-like atmosphere. The die-hard townies who had prised themselves away from their TV sets and bar stools had come here not so much to see if they knew the victim (chances were they did) but rather to find out who in the neighbourhood was out talking to the police. Charlestown still operated by a strict code of silence similar to the Italian Mafia’s omertà: your secrets and sins belonged to the town, and the town took care of its own. You didn’t go to the police, you didn’t talk to the police. This tribal value system had helped to confer upon Boston’s smallest and oldest neighbourhood the distinction of having the highest unsolved homicide rate in the city and the state year after year.
‘They’re acting like the police are here to hand out free scratch cards,’ Darby said.
Coop nodded, looking at the sea of faces passing by the windows. He had been unusually quiet during the ride. The moment he had entered the SUV, he had grown sullen and fidgety; he kept shifting his seat.
At first she had thought Coop might know the victim waiting for them in Charlestown. When he said he had no idea who lived there, she had told him about her conversation with Superintendent Skinner. Coop had answered in grunts and nods.
Clearly Kendra Sheppard was still on his mind, but Darby sensed it was more than that. He wasn’t ready to talk about what was really bothering him yet, so she dropped it. Over the years she had learned one thing about him: he couldn’t be pushed. Try it and he’d lock up and shut down. He’d talk to her when he was ready.
A patrolman tapped the Explorer’s hood and waved her through.
Darby parked the crime scene vehicle in the middle of the street. There was nowhere else to park. Cruisers had blocked off the surrounding streets slick with rain. Stepping out of the car into the grey evening light, she spotted several TV cameras pointed in her direction and wondered if the cameraman she’d seen in Belham had followed her here and was lurking somewhere close by.
When she opened the hatchback, Coop grabbed one of the vacuum-sealed packages holding a disposable Tyvek biohazard suit and headed for the house. The patrolman guarding the front door held it open for him.
‘Coop, you forgot your mask and face shield,’ Darby said.
He didn’t answer – or maybe he hadn’t heard her. He had already ducked inside the house. She stared after him, wondering why he was in such a rush.
Rummaging through the hatchback, she was relieved to find the new 3M respirator masks. In addition to its excellent particle filtration efficiency, this newer model had a cool-flow value that reduced heat and humidity build-up inside the mask. She grabbed two and an additional face shield. She tucked the bag for the biohazard suit under her arm and, kit in hand, lugged everything to the house.
Stepping inside was like stepping back through time, to the late sixties or early seventies – dark hardwood floors and shag carpeting, and in the kitchen one of the ugliest and most depressing wallpaper patterns she had ever seen.
She placed her kit on the kitchen floor. The young patrolman leaning against the worktop had a chubby face fresh with sunburn. His upper lip was shiny, greasy. She spotted the small jar of Vicks VapoRub on the table.
‘Help yourself,’ he said.
Darby held up her mask. ‘I’m looking for Detective Jennings.’
‘He’s downstairs.’ He jerked his thumb to the open door at the end of the tiny kitchen. ‘Stairwell is narrow so be careful of the evidence cones on the steps.’
‘Thanks.’
‘No problem. Enjoy the show.’
Dressed in her biohazard suit, she carried the equipment down the steps, eyeing the clumps of dirt next to the evidence cones. Where had the dirt come from? When she reached the cellar floor, she found her answer: the floor in the back part of the basement was made of dirt, common in old homes.
Coop, dressed in his biohazard suit and wearing his thick blue gloves, stood in front of a giant armoire that looked as if it belonged in the palace of a Chinese emperor. She saw several footwear impressions in the dirt.
A short and painfully thin older man wearing bifocals and a frumpy blue suit took the handkerchief away from his mouth and came over to introduce himself.
‘Stan Jennings.’
Darby shook his hand. The man’s shirt collar was at least two sizes too big and the dark circles under his eyes matched his black hair.
Jennings told her about the 911 call that had come from the neighbour across the street, an older Italian woman who babysat her three-year-old grandson while her daughter was at work.
‘This old gal smokes by the window on account of her grandson’s asthma,’ he said, his tone loud and excited, like that of a man who’d just discovered he had inherited a windfall. ‘She heard what she thought were gunshots. Next thing she sees is some guy dressed in a Red Sox windbreaker exiting the house. Guy was wearing a cap and had his head tilted down on account of the rain so she couldn’t see his face.’
‘Who owns the house?’
‘Kevin Reynolds.’ Jennings searched her eyes and a grin crept across his face. ‘You don’t know who he is, do you?’
‘No. Should I?’
‘Where you from?’
‘I grew up in Belham.’
‘Then you must know who Frank Sullivan is.’
‘The head of the Irish mob?’
‘That’s who I’m talking about.’
She knew the name, of course – everyone who lived in and around Boston carried stories about the man that ranged somewhere between ruthless gangster to some sort of modern-day Robin Hood character who kept their streets safe by either murdering drug dealers or making them magically disappear.