Mystic River (40 page)

And Dave? They’d wrapped the chain through the holes in the cinder block, tied it tight around his body, and locked the two ends together. And then they’d struggled to lift his body the nine inches it needed to clear the boat, and they’d tossed him over, Jimmy having a distinct image of the child Dave, not the adult, sinking to the river floor. Who knew exactly where he’d landed? But he was down there, at the bottom of the Mystic, looking up. Stay there, Dave. Stay there.

The truth was, Jimmy had never felt much guilt for anything he’d done. Sure, he’d arranged with a buddy in New York to have the Harrises sent five hundred a month over the last thirteen years, but that wasn’t guilt so much as good business sense—as long as they thought Just Ray was alive, they’d never send anyone looking for him. In fact, now that Ray’s son was in jail, fuck it, he could stop sending the money. Use it for something good.

The neighborhood, he decided. He’d use it to protect his neighborhood. And looking in the mirror, he decided that that’s exactly what it was: his. From now on, he owned it. He’d been living a lie for thirteen years, pretending to think like a straight citizen, when all around him he saw the waste of blown opportunities. They were going to build a stadium down here? Fine. Let’s talk about the workers we represent. No? Oh, okay. Better keep a close eye on your machinery, boys. Hate to have a fire on something like this.

He’d have to sit down with Val and Kevin and discuss their future. This town was waiting to be opened up. And Bobby O’Donnell? His future, Jimmy decided, wasn’t looking all that bright if he planned on sticking around East Bucky.

He finished shaving, looked one more time at his reflection. He was evil? So be it. He could live with it because he had love in his heart and he had certainty. As trade-offs went, it wasn’t half bad.

He got dressed. He walked through the kitchen feeling like the man he’d been pretending to be all these years had just gone down the drain in the bathroom. He could hear his daughters shrieking and laughing, probably getting licked to death by Val’s cat, and he thought, Man, that’s a beautiful sound.

O
UT ON THE STREET
, Sean and Lauren found a space in front of Nate & Nancy’s coffee shop. Nora slept in her carriage and they placed it in the shade under the awning. They leaned against the wall and ate their ice cream cones and Sean looked at his wife and wondered if they’d make it, or if the yearlong rift had done too much damage, squandered their love and all the good years they’d had in their marriage before the mess of the final two. Lauren took his hand, though, squeezed it, and he looked down at his daughter and thought she did look a little bit like something to be adored, a small goddess, perhaps, filling him up.

Through the parade streaming in front of them Sean could see Jimmy and Annabeth Marcus, their two pretty girls sitting atop the shoulders of Val and Kevin Savage, the girls waving at every float and open convertible that passed by.

Two hundred and sixteen years ago, Sean knew, they’d built the first prison in the region along the banks of the channel that ultimately bore its name. The first settlers in Buckingham had been the jailers and their families and the wives and children of the men housed in the prison. It had never been an easy truce. When the prisoners were released, they were often too tired or too old to move very far, and Buckingham soon became known as a dumping ground for the dregs. Saloons sprouted up along this avenue and its dirt streets, and the jailers took to the hills, literally, building their homes up in the Point so they could once again look down on the people they’d corralled. The 1800s brought a cattle boom, the stockyards springing up where the expressway was now, a freight track running along the edges of
Sydney Street and unloading the steers for the long walk up to the center of what was now the parade route. And generations of prisoners and slaughterhouse hands and their offspring pushed the Flats all the way down to the freight tracks. The prison closed in the wake of some forgotten re-form movement, and the cattle boom ended, and the saloons kept sprouting. The Irish immigrant wave followed the Italian wave in twice the numbers, and the el tracks were built, and they streamed into the city for jobs, but always back here when the day closed. You came back here because you’d built this village, you knew its dangers and its pleasures, and most important, nothing that happened here surprised you. There was a logic to the corruption and the bloodbaths and the bar fights and the stickball games and the Saturday-morning lovemaking. No one else saw the logic, and that was the point. No one else was welcome here.

Lauren leaned back into him, her head beneath his chin, and Sean could feel her doubt, but also her resolve, her need to rebuild her faith in him. She said, “How scared were you when that kid pointed the gun in your face?”

“The truth?”

“Please.”

“Close to losing bladder control.”

She craned her head out from underneath his chin and looked at him. “Seriously.”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Did you think of me?”

“I did,” he said. “I thought of both of you.”

“What’d you think?”

“I thought of this,” he said. “I thought of now.”

“The parade, everything?”

He nodded.

She kissed his neck. “You’re full of shit, honey, but it’s sweet of you to say.”

“I’m not lying,” he said. “I’m not.”

She looked down at Nora. “She’s got your eyes.”

“And your nose.”

She was staring at their baby when she said, “I hope this works.”

“Me, too.” He kissed her.

They leaned back against the wall together, a steady stream of people passing by along the sidewalk in front of them, and then Celeste suddenly stood before them. Her skin was pale and her hair was speckled with dandruff and she kept pulling on her fingers as if trying to pop them from the sockets.

She blinked at Sean. She said, “Hey, Trooper Devine.”

Sean held out his hand because she looked like she needed contact or she’d float away. “Hi, Celeste. Call me Sean. It’s okay.”

She shook his hand. Her palm was clammy, her fingers hot, and she let go almost as soon as they’d touched.

Sean said, “This is Lauren, my wife.”

“Hello,” Lauren said.

“Hi.”

For a moment, no one knew what to say. They stood there, stilted and untethered, and then Celeste looked across the street and Sean followed her gaze to Jimmy, standing there with his arm around Annabeth, the two of them shining as bright as the day, surrounded by friends and family. They looked like they’d never lose anything again.

Jimmy’s eyes swept past Celeste and met Sean’s. He nodded in recognition and Sean nodded back.

Celeste said, “He killed my husband.”

Sean felt Lauren freeze up against him.

“I know,” he said. “I can’t prove it yet, but I know.”

“Will you?”

“What?”

“Prove it?” she said.

“I’ll try, Celeste. I swear to God.”

Celeste looked out on the avenue and scratched her head with a lazy ferocity, as if digging for lice. “I can’t seem to put a finger on my mind lately.” She laughed. “That didn’t sound right. But I can’t. I just can’t.”

Sean reached out and touched her wrist. She looked at him, her brown eyes wild and aged. She seemed sure he was going to slap her.

He said, “I can give you the name of a doctor, Celeste, someone who specializes in those who’ve lost loved ones to violent crime.”

She nodded, though his words didn’t seem to provide any consolation. Her wrist fell away from his hand, and she tugged at her fingers again. She noticed Lauren watching her, and she looked down at her fingers. She dropped her hands, then raised them again and crossed her arms over her chest and tucked her hands under her elbows as if trying to keep them from flying away. Sean noticed Lauren giving her a small, hesitant smile, one of abject empathy, and he was surprised to see Celeste respond with a tiny smile of her own and an acknowledgment of gratitude in the blink of her eyes.

He loved his wife then as deeply as he ever had, and he felt humbled by her ability to convey instant kinship with lost souls. He was sure then that it was he who had wronged their marriage with the emergence of his cop’s ego, his gradual contempt for the flaws and frailty of people.

He reached out and touched Lauren’s cheek, and the gesture caused Celeste to look away.

She looked out onto the avenue as a float in the shape of a baseball glove drifted by, ringed on all sides with Little Leaguers and T-ball teams, the kids beaming and waving and going crazy with the adoration.

Something about the float chilled Sean, the way the baseball glove, maybe, seemed less to be cradling the kids and more on the verge of enveloping them, the kids oblivious, smiling like mad.

Except for one. He was subdued and he looked at his cleats, and Sean recognized him immediately. Dave’s son.

“Michael!” Celeste waved to him, but the kid didn’t look back. He kept his eyes down even though she called his name again. “Michael, honey! Sweetie, look! Michael!”

The float kept drifting along, and Celeste kept calling, and
her son refused to look her way. Sean could see a young Dave in the kid’s shoulders and the droop of his chin, his almost delicate good looks.

“Michael!” Celeste called. She pulled her fingers again and stepped off the curb.

The float passed them, but Celeste kept following it, moving through the crowds, waving, calling her son’s name.

Sean felt Lauren idly caress his arm, and he looked across the street at Jimmy. If it took him the rest of his life, he was going to bring him down. You see me, Jimmy? Come on. Look over again.

And Jimmy’s head swiveled. He smiled at Sean.

Sean raised his hand, the index finger pointing out, the thumb cocked like the hammer of a gun, and then he dropped the thumb and fired.

Jimmy’s smile broadened.

“Who was that woman?” Lauren said.

Sean watched Celeste as she trotted along the line of parade watchers, growing smaller as the float continued up the avenue, her coat flapping behind her.

“Somebody who lost her husband,” Sean said.

And he thought of Dave Boyle, and he wished he’d bought him that beer like he’d promised on the second day of the investigation. He wished he’d been nicer to him when they were kids, and that Dave’s father hadn’t left him, and his mother hadn’t been nuts, and that so many bad things hadn’t happened to him. Standing along the parade route with his wife and child, he wished a lot of things for Dave Boyle. But peace mostly. More than anything, he hoped Dave, wherever he was, got a little of that.

Thanks to Sergeant Michael Lawn, as always, of the Watertown Police Department; Boston City Councillor Brian Honan; David Meier, chief of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Homicide Unit; Teresa Leonard and Ann Guden for catching my errors; and Tom Murphy of James A. Murphy and Son Funeral Home in Dorchester.

A particular debt of gratitude is owed to Trooper Robert Manning of the Massachusetts State Police, who put the ball in play and answered all my questions, no matter how stupid, with a straight face.

Deepest thanks to an extraordinary agent, Ann Rittenberg, and a brilliant editor, Claire Wachtel, for guiding me through.