Jamaica Plain (9780738736396) (22 page)

thirty

“Bureaucratic, pencil-pushing bastards.”

Miller was being uncharacteristically vocal. Grant walked through the door to the detectives' office and walked straight back out again. He checked the name on the door, gave Miller a comedy double-take, then went back in. “That's not like you. Where's the universally upbeat Miller gone?”

“Drowned in a shower of shit.”

“I can't deflect it all.”

“Neither can I when they strip us down to skeleton staff.”

“Welcome to the trenches, kiddo.”

“Welcome to the valley.”

“Got it in one. What's going on?”

Miller's desk was cluttered with papers, evidence labels, and photographs. The normally methodical detective had a fit of pique and shuffled the papers up with both hands. His anger spent, he stood up and jiggled his coffee mug. “Milky. Two sugars, right?”

“Right.”

While Miller made the coffees, he told Grant the story. Two Hispanics had been arrested overnight breaking into a car in Brookline. The B&E Motor Vehicle led to Pena and Ortega admitting twenty-six MV breaks across Brookline, Norwood, South Boston, West Roxbury, and Jamaica Plain. House searches uncovered a stash of stolen property ranging from car radios to shock absorbers and credit cards to driving licences. The entire mashup required cross-border cooperation that involved the night detective being tied up until three hours after he should have gone off-duty and Miller catching the fallout of the JP searches.

The coffee was good. Grant let Miller blow himself out. Once the storm had subsided, he leaned on a desk and waved at the mountain of paperwork Miller had mixed up in the shuffle. “Just give me the keys and I'll go do it myself then.”

Miller almost agreed without thinking, distracted by trying to arrange the papers into some kind of order. Almost but not quite. His hands paused among the desktop muddle. Steam spiraled up from his mug. He stepped back and turned to face the overseas cop. “What keys?”

Grant put on his innocent face. He took a sip of his coffee and blew steam off the top of his cup as a distraction, not because it was too hot. He nodded toward the door, as if that explained everything. “Freddy's place. I want to have a look.”

Grant sat at a
computer in the corner of the room, his fingers dancing across the keyboard. He had foregone the search warrant request template and was using a blank document page. Single-spaced. Aligned left. He double-tapped for a new paragraph, then glanced over his shoulder.
“I don't know why you need a request completing. This isn't going to court. Sullivan's dead.”

Miller spun away from the tidy stacks of papers and photographs on his desk. “Even more important to cover all the bases then.”

“What bases? I just want to have a look where he lived.”

“The bases of probable cause that allow us to legally search the premises and seize any evidence found therein.”

“I'm not looking for evidence. I'm looking for answers.”

“Answers that might lead to a court case against others further down the line. Therefore we need to show probable cause.”

“Jesus. You sound like Sergeant Rooney.”

“Sergeant Rooney's on sick leave. And I sound nothing like him.”

Grant absorbed that latest piece of information. He doubted Rooney would be back on duty anytime soon. Without any evidence to make it permanent, at least the fly in the ointment was removed for now. “Probable cause is what Freddy told me in the interview room.”

“He said he was an importer.”

“The other stuff he said—about what's at his house.”

“What is at his house?”

“We'll find out when I take a look.”

“That's fishing. And there's nothing in your statement about him talking about his house.”

“There will be in the second draft.”

“That's illegal.”

“That's practical. Kincaid told you to help.”

“Kincaid said to give you anything that doesn't end up with me in jail.”

“You won't end up in jail. Trust me. Something's wrong here.”

“What's wrong here is you have no jurisdiction in Boston and we have no authority to search a dead man's house.”

Grant leaned back in his chair. “Think laterally. You do have authority. In fact, you have a legal obligation. Sullivan was in custody at the time of his death. His keys are among his personal possessions downstairs.”

He tapped the side of his nose and winked. “Think. What did you do with his car?”

“Took it to the impound lot.”

“To search it?”

“Well, sort of.”

“But officially?”

“To list all property and protect it while in police possession.”

“And if we've got his house keys?”

“Then the keys and anything related to them are the responsibility of the police.”

“So we need to look in his house to see what needs protecting. Right?”

The voice from the doorway was loud and friendly. “Now there's a man thinking on his feet.”

Kincaid shut the door behind him and walked to the coffee machine. His dress uniform jacket was open and his collar unbuttoned, but he was still an imposing figure as he strode across the office. Tall, wide, and handsome. Like men in uniform were supposed to look.

Miller stood up and went to Grant's computer. He leaned over and tapped a couple of buttons. The office printer started up in the corner. Two pages slid out of the tray and he picked them up. “I still want something on paper.”

He glanced at the neatly spaced writing, then began to read. After a few moments he stopped and looked at Grant. “What the fuck?”

Kincaid sat beside Miller
with a mug of coffee in one hand and the search warrant request in the other. He read the page and a half Grant had already typed and then dropped the sheets of paper on the desk. He barked a laugh and took another sip of coffee.
“I thought you were a typist?”

Grant shrugged. “I never said I was a good one.”

Kincaid slid the pages toward Miller. “There's more spelling mistakes and missed words than a dyslexic's first novel.”

“I didn't engage spell-check.”

“You didn't engage your fingers either.”

Grant shrugged again. “Doesn't matter. Protect and serve. Life and property. We need to protect Sullivan's property. That means letting me have a look in his house.”

Kincaid put his feet up on his desk and held the mug of coffee in both hands. He leaned back but didn't take a drink. He glanced at the paperwork on Miller's desk, then up at the young detective. “When you've finished that lot, Tyson, grab the keys from custody.”

Miller bowed to experience. “Be this afternoon at the earliest.”

Kincaid looked at Grant. “That okay?”

“Fine by me. You fancy tagging along?”

Kincaid stared back at Grant. “Nothing I'd like better, but I can't. This detail's shit. Should be over tomorrow, though, once Senator Clayton gives his speech and the Ay-rabs go home.”

Grant had a minor flashback. News footage of the foreign delegation arriving at the airport. A smiling politician greeting them. The same smile that adorned a campaign poster in Frank Delaney's office. Senator Trevor Clayton.

PART THREE

Point I'm making is, if one small prick can fuck over ten big pricks, then one big prick like you's got no chance.

—Jim Grant

thirty-one

Freddy Sullivan had lived
as he had died, in a rundown shithole with his ass hanging out. At least that was the impression Grant got as Miller pulled into Terrace Street. Not that the E-13 interview room was a rundown shithole before the grenade had exploded, but it certainly was afterwards. Terrace Street was rundown no matter which way you looked at it.

“People actually live here?”

“According to his custody record.”

Miller stopped the unmarked Crown Vic. Terrace Street ran along the west bank of the railroad tracks between Jackson Square station and Roxbury Crossing and was mostly industrial and borderline derelict. A telegraph pole had a Tow Zone sign ten feet up. Somebody had shot it full of holes. Grant couldn't imagine parking being a problem.

Miller looked at the address in his notebook. “134A.”

Grant looked along the street. “Numbered from which end?”

“The Mississippi's Restaurant is 103 at the junction with Cedar. I guess that puts the even numbers alongside the tracks.”

“You think we're going to find any numbers along there? Place is a fucking bombsite.”

“Let's just try anything looks like a house.”

Miller put the car in gear and set off along Terrace Street. Cruising speed just in case a building number leapt out at them from the sprawl of urban decay and graffiti. The engine purred. Grant consulted the map in his head, now pretty much ingrained since he'd scoured it the first couple of days of his visit. He overlaid the district boundaries.

“Bet it makes you glad you don't work B-2 if the rest of West Roxbury's anything like this.”

“Every district has its open sores. JP's just a bit more scenic.”

They found 134A halfway along on the right. It was one of four wooden houses between a stretch of overgrown scrubland and a parking lot for the factory opposite. The four houses backing onto the railroad tracks looked old and jaded. Green paint flaked off the woodwork. The ground-floor windows of one were cracked and taped. The front door of another was nailed shut. There were two houses alongside the road and two more smaller ones around back. 134A was around the back, accessed through a dusty yard behind a stand of stunted pine trees and an industrial dumpster. The only thing missing was the traditional rusting car on bricks instead of wheels. A sign on the telegraph pole at the entrance to the yard read

Parking 2-Hour Limit

—as if anyone would want to park here for more than two hours. It was almost as funny as the Tow Zone sign down the street. At least nobody'd shot this one full of holes. Miller pulled up alongside the yard but didn't drive in. He parked on the street. Grant doubted they'd exceed the two-hour limit.

They got out the car and stood for a moment, Miller checking for rusty nails that might flatten his tires, Grant taking stock as he always did when he approached an uncertain future. His eyes scanned the yard and the pine trees to the right. The unkempt bushes alongside them. The trees were too sparse for anyone to hide behind. The bushes too thin and straggly. The industrial dumpster sat like a squat toad in the far right corner. It didn't look as if it had been used for months, the rubbish sticking out of the top dusty and rotting. It backed onto the trees. No room behind it.

If this had been a hot zone, that corner could have been a possible threat. It wasn't a hot zone. It was a house search. Still, Grant went through the motions out of habit. The yard was clear. No movement. No enemy activity. He concentrated on the nearest house, 134 alongside the road, and the crumbling wreck behind it, 134A. He didn't think the point could be overstated. “People actually live here?”

Miller looked at the glorified wooden shack. “Did. Before his ass hit the ceiling.”

Grant glanced at his companion. “I thought you were more sensitive than that.”

“Don't get youthful enthusiasm mixed up with soft.”

Grant checked the windows facing the yard. 134 first. The curtains were all closed. They looked like they'd been closed for years. The side door had a notice taped across it. Weeds were growing out of the welcome mat. Nobody home. Not for a long time. 134A next. It only had one window and the front door faced the yard. The rest of the house was hidden behind 134. Any views that Sullivan used to have would be around the back, facing the railroad tracks. Ideal for trainspotters. Not bad for criminals wanting to keep their activities private.

None of the windows showed movement. Hot zone cleared. They crossed the yard, raising little clouds of dust with each footfall. Grant half expected the cliché dog to bark or cat to hiss and knock a dustbin lid over, but their approach was silent. Miller held up the keys. Grant waved him forward. “Be my guest.”

Miller nodded and unlocked the door. Grant opened it and stepped inside.

The smell hit them
like a smack in the face. Freddy Sullivan had been in custody a good few days before Grant arrived from England to interview him. It was three days on top of that since he'd been killed. Something in the house hadn't stood the test of time well. Rotting food. Or something dead.

The ground floor was almost as basic as Sean Sullivan's apartment above Parkway Auto Repair but not quite. There were at least more rooms than the single bedsit and kitchenette at the gas station, but the rooms were just as sparsely furnished. The front door opened into the lounge. There was a door to the left for the kitchen, small and functional with a dropdown flap table, and a door next to that for the downstairs bathroom. The living room was large and square and empty apart from a two-seat settee, an ever-present TV, and a throw rug that covered the floorboards in the middle of the room.

Two windows overlooked the railroad tracks out back. First thing Grant did was dash over and open them to let the stench out. Neither of them spoke. To open your mouth was to invite all sorts of shitty possibilities in. Grant breathed through his nose but kept one hand clamped firmly over it as a filter. He wished he'd brought the postmortem Polos but hadn't expected anything like this during his holiday assignment.

Keep out of trouble. Don't get involved. You're off-duty.

This felt like anything but off-duty. This was a house search in a cesspool. It didn't get much more on-duty than that. Opening the second window helped. A gentle breeze wafted some of the smell out into the open, bringing much-needed fresh air into the room. He went to the front door and wedged it open, setting up a three-way action that allowed him to remove the filter. “Thought they'd searched this place already?”

“Cursory search only. Anything out in the open. Guess it didn't smell as bad back then.”

Grant knew how that went. If Sullivan had been arrested for burglary or theft, the BPD could have searched the house for any items related to those offenses and any property stolen during their commission. Back in the UK they'd have to state what items they were looking for—TVs, car radios, DVD players, etc. Good practice was to list a few items that were small enough to fit in cupboards and drawers, then at least you could turn the place inside out looking for them. If it was just TVs, you'd find it difficult arguing in court later how you found the stolen checkbook taped to the back of the cutlery drawer. Sullivan wasn't arrested for burglary or theft—at least not in America. He'd been detained for a foreign-force inquiry and therefore, as Kincaid had said, it was basically an address check rather than a full search.

Grant surveyed the room. An open staircase next to the front door led to the first floor. Grant corrected himself. In the US it was the second floor. He glanced at Miller, then nodded towards the stairs. “Start at the top and work down?”

“Sounds good to me. What are we looking for exactly?”

“Nothing specific. Anything looks out of place.”

“What's out of place in a shithole like this?”

Grant raised one leg. His foot stuck to the floor, only coming up with an effort. Looking through the kitchen door, he couldn't imagine eating anything cooked on the grease-splattered gas rings. “Anything clean.”

It was only partly a joke. Everything belonging to Sullivan was grimy and careworn. Anything cleaner than that was probably someone else's. “Anything to do with Triple Zero or Frank Delaney.”

“Gotcha.”

Miller led the way. Grant followed, wondering what mysterious life forms they were going to find in the bedrooms. At least the smell grew fainter as they reached the landing.

They found nothing in
the bedrooms—there were only two—just clothes and bedding. A few skin mags and a supply of Triple Zero condoms in a bedside cabinet. Grant looked out of the master bedroom window. The railroad embankment was steep and began right at the building line. In common with most railway networks, the banking was weedy and overgrown. It discouraged kids from playing on the tracks. Trees and bushes dotted the long grass. Occasional clear spots allowed a view of the nearest set of tracks. As he watched, a six-carriage commuter train rattled by. He noticed for the first time that the T had different tracks than the traditional railroad, and that the north and southbound T ran nearest the house. Beyond that were three more sets of tracks for heavier trains.

He turned his attention back to the bedroom. He'd been ruthless during the search, and everything was either overturned or askew. Police searches tended not to stand on ceremony. Villains and their relatives could tidy up later. Sullivan hadn't been much on keeping the house tidy anyway. He went onto the landing and looked in the next room. Miller was almost finished too.

“Anything?”

“No.”

Grant looked at the only other door off the landing and smiled.

The bathroom and toilet. Sullivan's favorite hiding place.

He nodded at Miller and pointed to the bathroom door. It was partly open but not enough to see inside. The landing and stairs were bare wooden floorboards. They creaked as he crossed from the bedroom. The stench from downstairs had pretty much gone, but up here musty bedroom odor and piss-stained toilet smells made Grant breathe slowly and evenly. He walked with economical movements to avoid breathing heavy.

He stood three feet from the door and inserted the toe of one K-Swiss tennis shoe into the gap, then nudged the door open a few more inches. The door was heavier than he'd expected. It moved slowly. A slice of curled linoleum came into view. A stained bathroom rug. The pedestal base of an ivory washbasin. A few more inches and he could see the mirrored bathroom cabinet on the wall. That gave him line of sight behind the door.

Something was hanging from a hook in the ceiling.

It swayed gently, the rope groaning under the weight as the door tried to push it aside. Grant held up a hand. Miller wasn't moving, but the signal spelled danger. He drew his sidearm and stepped to one side so that Grant wasn't between him and the bathroom door.

The smell. It had almost gone, but Grant wondered again where it came from. He nudged the door. The thing in the mirror swayed again. The smell didn't start up again. That gave him confidence. Rotting corpses tended to release more gasses when they were disturbed. Dead people farted worse after a few days. That kid in
The Sixth Sense
—he should be thankful he only
saw
dead people.

Grant stepped forward and moved his head to get a better view in the mirror. Up. Down. Left. Right. Whichever way his head went gave him the opposite angle in the mirror. There were no other hidden surprises in the bathroom.

He shoved the door with his shoulder and stepped through the gap.

Freddy Sullivan's dirty washing swung in the laundry bag. Being a complete imbecile, he'd fixed the hook in the ceiling directly behind the door instead of in open space. Grant unhooked the bag and kicked it aside. Discolored jeans and sweatshirts spilled onto the floor. He opened the door and smiled at Miller. “Attack of the killer laundry.”

“Is that what the smell was?”

“No. That's not from up here.”

Grant quickly searched the bathroom cabinet and the shelves above the washbasin. As expected, there was nothing of note. Now he stepped back and looked at the bathtub. He kicked the bath panel. A dull echo indicated what everyone knew. It was hollow. Boxed-in bathtubs hid more storage space than your average chest of drawers. It was just never used. Unless you were Freddy Sullivan. Grant remembered doing a drug raid on the family home in Bradford. The house was clear. It was only when Grant had ripped off the bath panel that he had founds stacks of rolled up banknotes and boxes of dealer bags loaded and ready for distribution.

He dropped to his knees and prised open one end of the panel. It was stiff, and the effort hurt his fingers. He banged the panel with one elbow and shook it loose. He banged again, and a gap opened up. His fingers hooked inside and pulled. The panel creaked. It wouldn't move. It creaked some more. Then it came away with a loud crack.

Grant set the panel aside and looked into the hollow beneath the bathtub. It was empty. Just dirt and dead spiders.

“Shit.”

Miller nodded at the toilet. “Be my guest.”

Grant threw him a dirty look. He stood up and shifted the dirty laundry with one foot. That was the upstairs done. So far they'd drawn a blank. He wasn't ready to give up yet, though. Grant came out of the bathroom. “Start at the top and work down?”

Miller holstered his weapon.

“Time for downstairs.”

This time Grant led the way as they went back down to the living room.

Half an hour later
they were down to one last room. The living room had been easier than the bedrooms since there was hardly any furniture and no cupboard space at all. Grant ripped open the lining of the settee, and Miller took the back off the TV. New flatscreen televisions had no hiding places, but the good old cathode ray tube sets had big cabinets and lots of room. Nothing. The open staircase meant there was no storage cupboard under the stairs.