Next of Kin (6 page)

He supposed it went back to the days of his youth. He’d been raised in sustainable poverty by a father who was a chauffeur to a wealthy Boston Brahmin family. His mother had died giving
birth to him – the irony of his first kill – and he and his father had nothing. They lived in a two-room garage apartment, and the only objects of beauty in their lives were the cars.
Three of them – two Rolls Royces and a Bentley. Someone else’s cars, though his father had cared for them with a passion he’d passed on to his son. The appreciation for a
beautiful automobile was something he and his father had shared.

The garage owner was pulling the mechanic out of the driver’s seat, taking a chamois to the door handle and the wood finish on the steering wheel. Then he held his arm out, presenting the
car to the man as though it were a gift. ‘It’s ready, Mr Coale,’ he said, his voice cracking. Coale smelled fear on the garage owner’s breath.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a polished silver money clip stretched with bills.

‘Oh, no,’ the garage owner protested. ‘I can’t. Please. It wasn’t ready on time.’

Coale pulled five one hundred dollar bills off the stack of cash, reclipped the rest, folded the bills twice. As he walked past the garage owner, he tucked the bills into the man’s breast
pocket. ‘You do the best work in the city, Hassan,’ he said. ‘You should be paid properly.’

‘Thank you,’ Hassan said simply.

Coale slipped into the car and eased on the gas in neutral. The sound of German engineering well maintained was gratifying. Sliding the car into gear, he looked over his shoulder.
‘I’ll be back next month, Hassan.’

Hassan nodded, and the Mercedes rolled out toward the street. Coale had much to do. Inattention to detail could be fatal. He’d made his reputation on attention to detail.

Before pulling into traffic, he glanced in his rearview mirror. Hassan was standing by the door to the garage, watching him go, leaning against the building and wiping the fear from his brow
with a cloth.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Detective Long stood at the doorway to the townhouse near the top of Bunker Hill in Charlestown. It was a moonless evening, and a light autumn rain misted down on him. It
smelled clean. Cleaner here, up on the hill, than down in the projects by the water. It was nice up here, he thought. Nice to be so high up that you couldn’t smell the shit that coated the
shoes of the little people. Nice to have a view that didn’t force you to witness what others went through just to survive. Long could only guess at how nice that would be. It wasn’t how
he’d spent the first half of his life; it clearly wasn’t how he was going to spend the second half.

He took a deep breath and checked his attitude as he rang the doorbell to the top apartment. Scott T. Finn, Esquire had done well for himself.
Good for him
, Long thought; he had no reason
to hold it against him. From what he’d learned through a brief background check, it wasn’t like the guy was born on a pile of gold. Finn had made it to the top of the hill on his own.
More power to him. Long wondered whether the booze was affecting his judgment, but dismissed the notion quickly. Besides, he could afford to wait to pass judgment on the man. He was going to get a
good, clear look into the man’s soul. Stress was the best truth serum, and Long was about to dump a whole truckload of stress on Scott T. Finn, Esquire.

The doorbell speaker crackled. ‘Yeah?’ It was a man’s voice.

‘Is that Scott Finn?’ Long responded.

‘Yeah. Who is it?’ There was an instinctive distrust in the voice.

‘Detective Long, Boston Police. I need to talk to you.’

The pause lasted longer than necessary. ‘I’ll be down.’

‘I can come up,’ Long said. The box had gone dead, though. That was fine with Long; he could do this in stages. There wasn’t any question in his mind that he’d be invited
up eventually.

The door opened a couple of minutes later. Finn was standing in the doorway wearing jeans and an untucked button-down shirt. He looked to be about ten years older than Long, and a few inches
taller. ‘Detective,’ he said, nodding. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Can we talk upstairs?’ Long asked.

Finn shook his head. ‘I’d prefer not to. I try to keep my home life separate from my work life. Which one is this about?’

‘Sorry?’

‘I assume you’re here about one of my clients? It may be easier to do this tomorrow at the office.’

Long shook his head. ‘I’m not interested in any of your clients. I need to talk to you.’

The lawyer’s eyes darkened. ‘About what?’

‘This really would be easier to do upstairs, Mr Finn.’ Long knew he wasn’t going to convince the man . . . yet.

‘I don’t think so,’ Finn said. ‘Why don’t you just tell me why you’re here?’

‘Okay,’ Long relented. ‘I have to ask you some questions about your mother.’

Finn smiled, as though the visit were a mistake. ‘You’ve got the wrong guy,’ he said.

‘I don’t think so.’

Finn was still smiling. ‘I don’t have a mother.’

‘Everyone’s got a mother,’ Long said, toying with him.

Finn shook his head. ‘I’m an orphan,’ he said. ‘I never had parents.’

‘Yes, you did,’ Long said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the letter he’d found taped to the bottom of Elizabeth Connor’s desk drawer. He held it up so that
Finn could see it. ‘You wrote to her once.’

Finn’s face went white, and he staggered back slightly, leaning against the door. ‘Where did you get that?’ he asked in a whisper.

‘It was in your mother’s apartment,’ Long said. ‘About five feet from her body. She was murdered last weekend.’ The lawyer didn’t respond. ‘You look a
little shaky, Mr Finn. You sure you don’t want to discuss this upstairs?’

For a moment, Finn heard nothing. Not the patter of the raindrops tapping on the stoop; not the words the detective spoke after announcing the reason for his visit; not the
pounding of his own heart. For a moment he was lost, overwhelmed by emotions he thought he’d put behind him many years before.

He managed to recover his composure only with significant effort. He had to, he knew. The lawyer in him understood that he had to let it go and refocus so that he could deal with the police
detective at the door. ‘Maybe it would be better if we discussed this upstairs,’ he said at last.

Long nodded, and Finn thought he could detect the shadow of a smile cross his lips. ‘Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,’ he said.

Finn led the way up the three flights of stairs to his apartment. He looked back twice to take some measure of the man. He looked to be younger than Finn, though there was wear around the edges
of the eyes that testified to more experience than his age would suggest. He was a couple of inches shorter, maybe just shy of six feet, with a body that was neither thick nor thin. His light brown
hair was rain swept, making him look, at first glance, disheveled and disorganized. The eyes were bloodshot but sharp, and they seemed to notice everything, taking it all in with the efficiency of
a video camera, ready to play it all back later for analysis.

Finn opened the apartment door at the top of the stairs. The shock was wearing off, and underneath it Finn found a million questions. ‘Come in,’ he said, gesturing. Detective Long
stepped in and Finn followed. He could see the man’s head swivel, the camera still recording.

‘You live here alone?’ Long asked.

‘No,’ Finn said. They walked through the entryway and into the living room. Sally was sitting on the couch reading. She looked up. ‘This is Sally,’ Finn said. ‘She
lives here, too. Sally, this is Detective Long.’

Long walked over to her, and reached out his hand. His raincoat dripped dirty spots on the cream-colored carpeting. ‘Nice to meet you, Sally,’ he said.

She looked up at him, and then over toward Finn. ‘It’s all right,’ Finn said.

She looked back at Long’s hand, put her own out slowly. ‘Hello,’ she said. Long took hold of it and gave a firm shake, his eyes never leaving hers.

‘Detective Long and I need to talk about something in private,’ Finn said. ‘Can you give us a few minutes? Go on back and read in your room?’

Sally got up and walked out. ‘Nice meeting you,’ Long called out behind her, but she didn’t respond. ‘Cute kid,’ Long said to Finn after she’d left. ‘I
did some digging before I came over. Didn’t know you had a daughter.’

‘I don’t,’ Finn responded.

Long raised an eyebrow. ‘Niece?’ he asked. There was something untoward in his tone – the hint of a euphemism.

‘Client’s daughter,’ Finn said. ‘He died. I’m looking after her.’

‘Tough break.’

Again, there was something in the detective’s tone that Finn didn’t like. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean having your parents die. Must be tough for her. Tough living without parents.’

‘Her father’s dead. Her mother’s alive; she’s just got problems,’ Finn said. ‘Did you come here to talk about Sally?’ Finn asked. ‘I mean, is she
connected to my mother?’

‘No.’ Long shrugged. ‘Just making conversation. I didn’t know about her. It made me curious, is all.’

Finn cocked his head and said, ‘Is that really what you’re curious about?’

‘No,’ Long said. It was clear that he was still studying Finn, trying to read him. ‘Did you know your mother was dead?’ Long asked.

‘I didn’t even know she was alive,’ Finn answered. ‘Who was she?’

Long held up the letter. ‘She never wrote back to you?’ he asked. ‘You never found out who she was?’ The detective walked over to the window and looked out at the view
reaching down the hill to the shore.

‘No,’ Finn said. ‘She never wrote me back, and I never found out who she was.’ He felt his voice starting to rise, and took a deep breath to calm himself down.
‘I’ve spent my entire life knowing nothing about my parents. You’re telling me now that my mother was murdered. Sorry if I seem a little impatient. Who was she?’

It took a moment for Long to respond. He turned from the window and said, ‘Sorry.’ The way it came out made Finn want to knee the man in the groin, but he kept his composure.
‘Her name was Elizabeth Connor,’ Long said at last. ‘Lived in Roxbury, just out past Metropolitan Hospital. You been out that way recently?’

‘I’m in Roxbury District Court just about every week,’ Finn said. ‘You probably already know that if you did some background on me. How was she murdered?’

‘Beaten,’ Long said. He took a small notebook out of his pocket and flipped through the pages. ‘With the poker from a fire set. Whoever did it kept hitting her even after she
was dead. Looks like there was a lot of anger involved. The locks were picked, her place was tossed. We’re not sure what she had there before, so we don’t know what’s
missing.’

‘And the letter . . . ?’

‘Found it taped underneath a desk drawer. Interesting reading.’

‘I was angry when I wrote it.’

‘Yeah,’ Long said. ‘So I gathered. Understandable, I guess, given everything that you went through. You didn’t have the happiest childhood after she gave you up, did
you?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ Finn said.

‘Must’ve been tough.’

‘Lots of kids have it tough,’ Finn said. He narrowed his gaze at Long. ‘How about you, Detective? How was your childhood?’

Long nodded with a bitter laugh. ‘
Touché
, Mr Finn. ’Course, neither of my parents were murdered, otherwise I’m sure some cop would’ve shown up at my door
asking a bunch of annoying questions. Your mother, though . . .’ His voice trailed off. ‘How many foster homes did you go through? How many stays at state facilities before you hit the
streets?’

‘Too many,’ Finn said. He fought to keep his mind from pointlessly traversing the past. ‘It was a long time ago.’

‘Yeah, it was,’ Long admitted. ‘Some wounds take a long time to heal.’

‘Do you have something you want to ask me, Detective?’

Long turned his palms up. ‘It’s my job – you understand.’ He looked at his notes again. ‘Elizabeth Connor,’ he continued, summarizing, ‘lived alone; no
evidence of any long-term attachments; not married; no children we know of – other than you, of course; fairly mundane job about ten blocks from where she lived. From what we know so far, she
lived an unexceptional life.’

‘Any leads on who might have murdered her?’ Finn asked.

‘Just an angry letter from a son she apparently never knew taped to the bottom of a drawer.’ He waved the letter again. Finn looked away. ‘Other than that, nothing. You
understand why we have to follow up, I’m sure.’

‘I’m sure,’ Finn said. ‘It’s late, so I’ll make this easy on you, Detective. I wrote the letter a long time ago and sent it to the agency that placed me as a
baby. They said they would forward it to my birth mother if she was willing to accept it. I never heard anything back. I never found out anything about my mother’s identity until five minutes
ago, and I had nothing to do with her death.’

Long was jotting down notes as Finn spoke. ‘That it?’ he said, looking up. ‘Nothing else?’

‘Not that I can think of,’ Finn replied. ‘Just a lot of questions about who she was and why she was murdered.’

‘You never knew her, and she abandoned you,’ Long said. ‘Why should you care?’

‘I don’t know,’ Finn said. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t, but I do. Is there anything else you can tell me?’

Long shrugged as he closed his notebook. ‘It’s not the best neighborhood. Chances are it was just a simple robbery gone wrong. Crack-head looking for something to sell for his next
high.’

‘Sounds like a logical theory.’

‘Yeah. Maybe. I still have to follow every lead.’ The detective looked down at the dark stains on the carpet. ‘Shit, I dripped on your rug. Sorry about that.’

‘It’s water,’ Finn said. ‘It’ll dry.’ The silence dragged out for several beats, both men looking at each other from across the room. ‘You got a
picture?’

Long frowned. ‘Nothing you’d want to see.’

‘What do you mean?’

Long looked uncomfortable for the first time in the evening. ‘It was taken at the morgue.’

‘I still want to see it.’

Long reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a Polaroid, glanced at it briefly. ‘You sure?’