Gone, Baby, Gone (23 page)

“Pray they don’t crash into each other,” Poole said.

The quarries comprised a large land mass. At the height of the New England granite boom, more than sixty were in operation. Granite Rail remained one of twenty-two that hadn’t been filled in, and the sites of the rest spread wide across the torn hills between the expressway and the Blue Hills. We’d be entering at night with very little light. Even the rangers Dempsey brought in to speak about the area admitted that there were so many trails in those hills that some were known only to the few people who used them.

But the trails weren’t really the issue. Trails eventually led somewhere and that somewhere was a small number of roads, a public park or two. Even if the kidnappers could slip through the dragnet on the hills, they’d be nabbed somewhere below. If it were a case of just the four of us and a few cops monitoring the hills, I’d give the edge to Cheese’s people. But with one hundred and fifty cops, I was hard-pressed to see how anyone planned to move in and out of there unnoticed.

And no matter how dumb most of the people in Cheese’s organization were, even they had to know that, no matter what their demands, in a hostage situation there would be a lot of cops.

So how were they planning to get out?

I raised my hand the next time Dempsey paused, and when he saw me, he looked like he was considering ignoring me, so I said, “Major.”

He looked down at his pointer. “Yes.”

“I don’t see how the kidnappers can escape.”

Several cops chuckled and Dempsey smiled.

“Well, that’s the point, Mr. Kenzie, isn’t it?”

I smiled back. “I understand that, but don’t you think the kidnappers do too?”

“How do you mean?”

“They picked this location. They would have realized that you’d surround it. Right?”

Dempsey shrugged. “Crime makes you stupid.”

Another round of polite laughter from the boys in blue.

I waited for it to die down. “Major, if they had planned for such a contingency, though, what then?”

His smile widened, but his owl eyes didn’t follow suit. They narrowed at me, slightly confused, slightly angry. “There’s no way out, Mr. Kenzie. No matter what they think. It’s a billion to one.”

“But they think they’re the one.”

“Then they’re wrong.” Dempsey looked at his pointer and scowled. “Any more dumb questions?”

At six, we met with Detective Maria Dykema of Hostage Negotiation in a van they’d parked under a water tower about thirty yards off Ricciuti Drive, the road that was carved through the heart of the Quincy quarries. She was a slim, petite woman in her early forties with short hair the color of milk and almond eyes. She wore a dark business suit and tugged idly at the pearl earring on her left ear throughout most of our conversation.

“If any of you come face-to-face with the kidnapper and the child, what do you do?” Her glance swept across the four of us and settled on the wall of the van, where someone had taped a copy of the
National Lampoon
picture in which a hand held a pistol to the head of a dog and the caption read:
BUY THIS MAGAZINE OR WE’LL KILL THIS DOG
. “I’m waiting,” she said.

Broussard said, “We tell the suspect to release—”

“You
ask
the supect,” she corrected.

“We ask the suspect to release the child.”

“And if he replies ‘Fuck off’ and cocks his pistol, what then?”

“We—”

“You back off,” she said. “You keep him in sight, but you give him room. He panics, the kid dies. He feels threatened, same thing. The first thing you do is give him the illusion of space, of breathing room. You don’t want him to feel in command, but you don’t want him to feel helpless either. You want him to feel he has options.” She turned her head away from the photo, tugged her earring, and met our eyes. “Clear?”

I nodded.

“Don’t draw a bead on the suspect, whatever you do. Don’t make sudden moves. When you are going to do something, tell him. As in: ‘I’m going to back up now. I’m lowering my gun now.’ Et cetera.”

“Baby him,” Broussard said. “That’s your recommendation.”

She smiled slightly, her eyes on the hem of her skirt. “Detective Broussard, I’ve got six years in with Hostage Negotiation, and I’ve only lost one. You want to puff out your chest and start screaming, ‘Down, motherfucker!’ should you run into this sort of situation, be my guest. But do me a favor and spare me the talk-show circuit after the perp blows Amanda McCready’s heart all over your shirt.” She raised her eyebrows at him. “’Kay?”

“Detective,” Broussard said, “I wasn’t questioning how you do your job. I was just making an observation.”

Poole nodded. “If we have to baby someone to save this girl, I’ll put the fella in a carriage and sing lullabies to him. You have my word.”

She sighed and leaned back, ran both hands through her hair. “The chances of anyone running into the perp with Amanda McCready are slim to none. But if you do, remember—that girl is all they got. People who take hostages and then get into a standoff, they’re like rats backed into a corner. They’re usually very afraid and very lethal. And they won’t blame themselves and they won’t blame you for the situation. They’ll blame her. And unless you’re very careful, they’ll cut her throat.”

She let that sink in. Then she removed four business cards from her suit pocket and handed one to each of us. “You all have cell phones?”

We nodded.

“My number is on the back of that card. If you do get into a standoff with this perp and you run out of things to say, call me and hand the phone to the kidnapper. Okay?”

She looked out the back window at the black craggy mass of the hills and quarry outcroppings, the jutting silhouettes of jagged granite peaks.

“The quarries,” she said. “Who would pick a place like that?”

“It doesn’t seem the easiest place to escape from,” Angie said. “Under the circumstances.”

Detective Dykema nodded. “And yet they picked it. What do they know that we don’t?”

At seven, we assembled in the BPD’s Mobile Command Post, where Lieutenant Doyle gave us his version of a pep talk.

“If you fuck up, there are plenty of cliffs up there to jump from. So”—he patted Poole’s knee—“don’t fuck up.”

“Inspiring speech, sir.”

Doyle reached under the console table and removed a light blue gym bag, tossed it onto Broussard’s lap. “The money Mr. Kenzie turned in this morning. It’s all been counted, all serial numbers recorded. There is exactly two hundred thousand dollars in that bag. Not a penny less. See that it’s returned that way.”

The radio that took up a good third of the console table squawked: “Command, this is Unit Five-niner. Over.”

Doyle lifted the receiver off its cradle and flicked the
SEND
switch. “This is Command. Go ahead, Fifty-nine.”

“Mullen has left Devonshire Place in a Yellow taxi heading west on Storrow. We are attached. Over.”

“West?” Broussard said. “Why’s he going west? Why’s he on Storrow?”

“Fifty-nine,” Doyle said, “did you establish positive ID on Mullen?”

“Ah…” There was a long pause amid crackles of static.

“Say again, Fifty-nine. Over.”

“Command, we intercepted Mullen’s transmission with the cab company and watched him step into it on Devonshire at the rear entrance. Over.”

“Fifty-nine, you don’t sound so sure.”

“Uh, Command, we saw a man matching Mullen’s physical description wearing a Celtics hat and sunglasses…. Uh…. Over.”

Doyle closed his eyes for a moment, placed the receiver in the center of his forehead. “Fifty-nine, did you or did you not make a positive ID on the suspect? Over.”

Another long pause filled with static.

“Uh, Command, come to think of it, that’s a negative. But we’re pretty sure—”

“Fifty-nine, who was covering Devonshire Place with you? Over.”

“Six-seven, Command. Sir, should we—”

Doyle cut them off with a flick of a switch, punched a button on the radio, and spoke into the receiver.

“Sixty-seven, this is Command. Respond. Over.”

“Command, this is Sixty-seven. Over.”

“What is your location?”

“South on Tremont, Command. Partner on foot. Over.”

“Sixty-seven, why are you on Tremont? Over.”

“Following suspect, Command. Suspect is on foot, walking south along the Common. Over.”

“Sixty-seven, are you saying you’re following Mullen south on Tremont?”

“Affirmative, Command.”

“Sixty-seven, instruct your partner to detain Mr. Mullen. Over.”

“Ah, Command, we don’t—”

“Instruct your partner to detain the suspect, Sixty-seven. Over.”

“Affirmative, sir.”

Doyle placed the receiver on the console table for a moment, pinched the bridge of his nose, and sighed.

Angie and I looked at Poole and Broussard. Broussard shrugged. Poole shook his head in disgust.

“Uh, Command, this is Sixty-seven. Over.”

Doyle picked up the receiver. “Go ahead.”

“Yeah, Command, well, um—”

“The man you’re following is not Mullen. Affirmative?”

“Affirmative, Command. Individual was dressed like suspect, but—”

“Out, Sixty-seven.”

Doyle tossed the receiver into the radio, shook his head. He leaned back in his chair, looked at Poole.

“Where’s Gutierrez?”

Poole folded his hands on his lap. “Last I checked, he was in a room at the Prudential Hilton. Arrived last night from Lowell.”

“Who’s on him?”

“A four-man team. Dean, Gallagher, Gleason, and Halpern.”

Doyle cross-checked the names with the list by his elbow which gave their unit numbers. He flicked a switch on the radio.

“Unit Forty-nine, this is Command. Come in. Over.”

“Command, this is Forty-nine. Over.”

“What is your location? Over.”

“Dalton Street, Command, by the Hilton. Over.”

“Forty-nine, where is”—Doyle consulted the list by his elbow—“unit Seventy-three? Over.”

“Detective Gleason is in the lobby, Command. Detective Halpern is covering the rear exit. Over.”

“And where is the suspect? Over.”

“Suspect is in his room, Command. Over.”

“Confirm that, Forty-nine. Over.”

“Affirmative. Will get back to you. Over and out.”

While we waited for an answer no one spoke. We didn’t even look at each other. The same way you can watch a football game, and know that even though your team has a six-point lead with four minutes to go that they’re somehow going to blow it, so the five of us in the rear of the command post seemed to feel any edge we may have had slipping out under the door into the gathering dark. If Mullen had so easily given four experienced detectives the slip, then how many other times had he done it over the last few days? How many times had the police been sure they were watching Mullen, when in fact they were tailing someone else? Mullen, for all we knew, could have been making visits to Amanda McCready. He could have been establishing his escape route out of these hills tonight. He could have been buying off cops to look the other way or picking which ones he’d have removed from the equation sometime after eight in the pitch black of the hills at night.

Mullen, if he’d known we were on him from the get-go, could have been showing us everything he wanted us to see, and, while we were looking at that, the things he didn’t want us to see were going on behind our backs.

“Command, this is Forty-nine. We’ve got a problem. Gutierrez is gone. I repeat: Gutierrez is gone. Over.”

“How long, Forty-nine? Over.”

“Hard to say, Command. His rental car is still parked in the garage. Last physical observation occurred at oh-seven-hundred hours. Over.”

“Command out.”

Doyle seemed to consider crushing the receiver in his hand for a moment, but then he laid it gently and precisely on the corner of the console table.

Broussard said, “He probably had another car placed in the garage a day or two before he checked in.”

Doyle nodded. “When I check with the other teams, how many of Olamon’s men, do you think, will be unaccounted for?”

No one had an answer, but I don’t think he’d expected one.

18

If you head south out of my neighborhood and cross the Neponset River, you end up in Quincy, long thought of by my father’s generation as a way station for the Irish prosperous enough to escape Dorchester but not quite wealthy enough to reach Milton, the tony two-toilet-Irish suburb a few miles northwest. As you drive south along Interstate 93, just before you reach Braintree, you’ll see a cluster of sandy brown hills rising to the west that always seem on the verge of sudden crumbling.

It was in these hills that the grand old men of Quincy’s past discovered granite so rich with black silicates and smoky quartz that it must have shimmered at their feet like a diamond stream. The first commercial railway in the country was constructed in 1827, with the first rail clamped to the land with swinging spikes and metal bolts in Quincy, up in the hills, so that granite could be transported down to the banks of the Neponset River, where it was loaded onto schooners and transported to Boston or down to Manhattan, New Orleans, Mobile, and Savannah.

This hundred-year granite boom created buildings erected to withstand both time and fashion—imposing libraries and seats of government, towering churches, prisons that smothered noise, light, and hopes of escape, the fluted monolithic columns in custom houses across the country, and the Bunker Hill Monument. And what was left in the wake of all this rock lifted from the earth were holes. Deep holes. Wide holes. Holes that have never been filled by anything but water.

Over the years since the granite industry died, the quarries have become the favored dumping ground for just about everything: stolen cars, old refrigerators and ovens, bodies. Every few years when a kid vanishes after diving into them or a Walpole lifer tells police he dumped a missing hooker over one of the cliffs, the quarries are searched and newspapers run photos of topographical maps and underwater photography that reveal a submerged landscape of mountain ranges, rock violently disrupted and disgorged, sudden jagged needles rising from the depths, jutting crags of cliff face appearing like ghosts of Atlantis under a hundred feet of rain.