Next of Kin (7 page)

Finn reached out and took the photograph from him. She barely looked human. She was naked to the tops of her breasts, a sheet covering her below. The glare of the surgical light reflected off
white skin that was pulled tight. Her hair was back, and Finn could see the splatters of blood coming forward from her scalp. It gave him little idea of what she might have looked like in life. At
least her eyes were closed.

‘I’m keeping it, okay?’ Finn said.

‘Why?’

‘Because.’

Long nodded. ‘I got others.’

‘Anything else?’ Finn asked.

‘No, I guess not,’ Long replied. He slipped the notebook into his jacket. ‘Sorry to drop all this on you like this.’

‘Like you said, it’s your job.’

‘Yeah. I’ll find my way out.’ Finn watched as Long headed down the hallway.

‘Long?’ Finn called after him as he reached the door. The detective turned to look at him. ‘You’ve really got no other leads?’

Long shook his head. ‘Nothing.’

‘How long do you think you’ll work the case?’

Long frowned. ‘I assure you, Mr Finn, I’ll work this case as hard as I can until there’s nothing left to go on.’

‘How long?’ Finn demanded.

Long started to say something, but checked himself. He took a deep breath. ‘Realistically?’ he asked.

‘Yeah,’ Finn said. ‘Realistically.’

Long shrugged. ‘Unless there’s some sort of break – something that gives me something to chew on – a week. Maybe more, maybe less. You understand how it works.’
Finn stared at him, and Long nodded and opened the door. Then he was gone.

‘Yeah,’ Finn said quietly. ‘I understand how it works.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

Eamonn McDougal had once loved bars. He’d spent most of his life cruising through pubs and taverns, flashing his smile at the women, and his fists at the men. It was
where he’d made his reputation, where he’d built his life. He’d loved bars the way a sailor loves the sea or a pilot loves the sky.

His son had ruined all that for him.

Kevin McDougal began sneaking into bars at age fourteen. That fact alone wouldn’t have bothered his father; it probably would have made him proud if the boy could carry forward the
family’s reputation. He couldn’t, though. Where Eamonn was tall and broad in the chest and shoulders, Kevin was short and slight. The son had worked hard over the years at the gym to
hang muscle from his thin bone structure, but for some reason that had only annoyed Eamonn even more. It made his son seem insecure, weak. Weakness was the thing in life that Eamonn hated most, and
he saw it in abundance in his only offspring.

His son’s greatest weakness had developed slowly over the past few years. Slowly enough that Eamonn had been able to convince himself that it wasn’t really a problem at all. Eamonn
had tried a little cocaine himself in his youth, after all, and it had never taken over his life. It was a mere dalliance that provided an added rush in his adrenaline-fueled life, and he was smart
enough to know that anything more than dabbling would weaken his mind.

Clearly his son didn’t share his strength or intelligence when it came to drugs. According to the rumors, Kevin had started with cocaine, but moved quickly through crack and heroin. Now
the boy was using pretty much anything he could get his hands on. Selling, too. Eamonn had no moral problem with the drug trade, it had supplied him with a steady income stream over the years, but
the notion of selling on the street depressed him. That’s what the hustlers and the skanks and the immigrants were for. No one of stature sold on the street. If he was involved in a deal, it
was at the wholesale level, and the cash on the table reached into seven figures at least. That his son had been picked up on the street selling ten-dollar bags of crack outside a schoolyard made
him want to vomit.

So, notwithstanding his long-standing love of bars, it was with revulsion and near dread that Eamonn opened the door to the HotSpot in Southie, looking for his son.

The HotSpot was new to the neighborhood, and it didn’t blend well. The black lacquer bar, modern abstract black and white photographs on the wall, and zebra-striped velvet curtains hanging
at the back made plain that the bar was catering primarily to the yuppie scum who had invaded the South End in the past decade. For a terrifying moment Eamonn wondered whether it might be a gay
bar, but the presence of numerous long-legged young women in tight cocktail dresses and expensive dye jobs set his mind somewhat at ease.

He looked around, his eyes adjusting to the lighting. Most of the patrons wore either business suits or the black-jeans-and-sweater uniforms of the Eurotrendies. He couldn’t believe the
locals hadn’t burned the place to the ground yet.

Kevin was in the back, in an area of large, circular booths upholstered in the same velvet zebra trash that hung from the curtain rods. He was half reclined with two women and two of his
‘crew’. The two women were attractive, at least, but even that couldn’t temper Eamonn’s annoyance. Kevin was wearing black leather pants and a loose-fitting white sweater
that showed off his muscles. He sat up straight when he saw his father.

‘We need to talk,’ Eamonn said coldly.

Everyone at the table looked uncomfortable. ‘Do you wanna sit?’ Kevin asked.

Eamonn shook his head. ‘I want you to stand.’

Everyone at the table looked at Kevin. He was pinned in at the booth by two people on either side of him. ‘You heard him,’ he barked at the others. ‘Let me out.’ All four
moved instantly, and Kevin had the option of moving in either direction. He chose the route that took him furthest from his father. ‘I’ll be back,’ he said to the others once he
was out, and they all slid back in.

Eamonn took a few steps away from the table, making sure that no one was nearby to eavesdrop. ‘You come here often?’ he asked once his son had joined him. The tone in his voice made
clear his judgment.

‘Sometimes,’ his son admitted. ‘Why? What’s wrong with it?’

‘There’s fuckin’ zebras on the seats,’ Eamonn said, shaking his head. ‘You gotta ask me what’s wrong with it?’

‘What?’ Kevin asked. ‘The owner says zebra’s the new black.’

Eamonn raised his hand, as if to hit his son, and Kevin flinched. The reaction was enough to make Eamonn feel better for a moment. ‘You’re a fucking idiot,’ he said.

‘Because I like this place?’ Kevin asked.

‘No, that’s just tonight’s confirmation.’

‘What, then?’

‘I got you a lawyer,’ Eamonn said. ‘One of the best. And you don’t even use him? You give him attitude? I don’t need this shite, you understand, boy?’

Kevin folded his arms defiantly. ‘He wants me to take a plea that would put me in jail,’ he said. ‘I’m not going in.’

Eamonn McDougal sighed heavily. ‘You really are stupid, boy. You think I’d let you go to jail?’ He shook his head. ‘It might be the best thing for you – show you
what real life is – but you wouldn’t survive. I know that.’

‘But that’s what the lawyer said,’ the son protested.

‘Shut the fuck up, and do as I say. The lawyer isn’t going to let you go to jail, no matter what he tells you right now, you understand? He’s gonna get you off.
Period.’

‘That’s not what he told me.’

‘Yeah, well, he’ll change his mind.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because I can be very persuasive.’ He looked at the outfit his son was wearing and shook his head. He grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him in close so that he could look into
his eyes. They were red and watery, and they betrayed his recreational inclinations. If they hadn’t been in public, Eamonn probably would have thrown his son through the wall. ‘Get off
the shit,’ he growled.

‘I don’t understand,’ Kevin said. ‘What shit?’

Eamonn squeezed his son’s shoulders with his massive hands until he grunted in pain. ‘I’m deadly serious, boy,’ he said. ‘It’s time for you to get right, you
understand? If it doesn’t happen now, it won’t happen at all, and I’m not going to watch you put your mother through that. If it comes to that, I’ll make it quick and
painless, for you and for her, you understand? I shit you not.’ He squeezed the boy’s shoulders even harder. ‘You understand?’

‘Aaargh!’ Kevin grunted, writhing out of his father’s grip. ‘Okay,’ he protested. ‘Okay.’

‘Now, you get your ass back to the lawyer, and you tell him you’re in. Tomorrow. You understand?’

‘Yeah, okay.’ Kevin rubbed his shoulders.

Eamonn nodded, turned on his heels and walked to the front door. As he passed the bar, he looked at the bartender. He was wearing tight-fitting black pants, a white T-shirt two sizes too small,
and a black leather vest. He had three earrings in both earlobes. ‘Tell your boss to make sure his insurance is paid up,’ Eamonn said. The bartender frowned in confusion. He started to
say something, but Eamonn held his hand up. He was in no mood. ‘Just tell him.’ With that, he pushed the door open and headed back out to his waiting car and driver.

Long sat in his car, scribbling notes into the small pad he kept with him. There wasn’t a lot to write, but he worked hard to cram as much detail as he could onto the
tiny pages. The key to his work was in following the details, keeping track of them, herding them into paddocks to let them feed and interact and mate. Every once in a while, if you let yourself
get to really know the details, you saw the patterns you were looking for, the inconsistencies that were the hallmarks of guilt.

So far, he’d seen none of those hallmarks in his brief conversation with Scott Finn. The man had been nervous, but the nervousness seemed born of the sheer scale of Long’s revelation
to him. Long could discern no prevarication. The only aspect of the lawyer’s life that seemed out of place was the girl. Long would look into her situation, but his hunch was that it would
lead nowhere.

When he was done scribbling in his notebook, he slid it back into the breast pocket of his raincoat. He reached down and felt for the bottle under the car seat. It was there, but when he brought
it up to his lips, it was empty. He shook his head. It was a bad sign – he had no recollection of finishing it.

Finn was still sitting on the sofa, staring at the wall. ‘You gonna stay like that for the rest of the night?’ Sally asked.

He turned and looked at her. She was standing in the doorway wearing an over-sized T-shirt and leggings. She looked at him the way an oncologist might examine a patient in remission, searching
warily for any sign of disease – some indication that the patient might convulse at any moment. ‘You were listening,’ Finn said.

‘Yeah,’ she replied without hesitation. ‘I was.’

‘So you heard.’ He didn’t like the fact that she’d been eavesdropping. His childhood abandonment was a window into his psyche he’d have preferred she hadn’t
looked through.

‘That was the basic point of listening,’ she pointed out. Finn closed his eyes and tilted his head back, but said nothing. He was exhausted. ‘You didn’t even know
her,’ Sally said. ‘And from the way everything looks, she didn’t want to know you. I say good riddance.’

Finn opened his eyes and looked at her. ‘Is that what you’d say if it was your mother?’

‘My mother?’ Sally looked down, and for a moment Finn was sorry he’d asked the question. ‘I knew my mother, so I could say a lot worse than that about her.’

‘Would you?’ Finn asked. ‘Say worse?’

Her expression was serious. ‘No. I probably wouldn’t. My mother’s such a fuckup, I’m not even really mad at her anymore, I don’t think. We’ve all got our
problems; she’s got hers. The world turns. At least your mother sounds normal.’

‘A normal mother who gives up her child?’ Finn said. ‘Doesn’t seem possible to me.’ He rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand. ‘You should go to
bed,’ he said. ‘It’s a school night.’

‘What’d you say in the letter?’ she asked. She had a way of asking the most personal questions directly and somehow making them sound reasonable. Finn admired that skill except
when she directed it at him.

‘I don’t even remember,’ Finn lied.

‘Yes, you do.’ He had to admit she was smart, and she could read people. She didn’t take people at their word. It was probably one of the things that had kept her alive.
‘What’d you say?’

Finn leaned forward. ‘I told her she was going to hell,’ he said. ‘I told her about every bad thing I could remember that happened to me when I was growing up, and I blamed it
all on her. I told her about the beatings; about the fights; about the gangs I used to run with and the terrible things I used to do.’ He stood up and walked to the same window where Long had
stood, taking in the view from the top of the hill. It was impressive. Sometimes it amazed him how far he’d come. ‘I told her I hoped whatever she’d gone through was at least as
bad, and that whatever was going to happen to her in hell would be even worse still.’

‘Huh,’ Sally said. He could feel her looking at him. ‘So . . . not exactly a Hallmark card?’

He snorted an involuntary laugh. Thank God she had a sense of humor. ‘Not quite,’ he said. ‘I called her every awful name I could think of. I was immature.’

‘How old were you?’

‘I was in law school at the time, and still dealing with some of the things I had to do to pull myself out of the street life. I wasn’t entirely happy back then.’

‘How about now? You happy now?’ Looking at her, Finn could tell it was an honest question. He wasn’t sure how to answer it honestly.

‘I’m better now,’ he said. That much, at least, was true.

‘Law school,’ she said, marveling. ‘Isn’t that, like, in your twenties?’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘About there.’

She shook her head incredulously. ‘You mean my childhood is gonna keep me fucked up for another decade?’

He smiled sadly. ‘If you’re lucky. If you’re like the rest of us, it’ll mess with you a lot longer than that.’ He walked back over to the couch and sat down. He
frowned at her as he spoke. ‘You shouldn’t have to deal with all of this. I’ll be fine, you don’t need to worry.’

‘I’m not worried,’ she said. ‘I’d just like to help.’

‘How?’

She shrugged. ‘How about a yogurt?’

‘You think that’ll help?’