The Dead Room

‘Your father knew what he was up against. Big Red heard the tapes, knew what these Boston Feds were doing, the names of the cops and state troopers Sullivan had on his payroll. Sullivan and his Federal friends, they were Charlestown’s version of the Gestapo. Witnesses and informants could never come forward because they knew they’d be killed. Your father… he had to take matters into his own hands. He couldn’t trust anyone on the Belham police force, but he couldn’t leave these people blowing in the wind. He knew what he was up against, so he had to get them as far away from Charlestown as possible, get them new identities. We’re talking dozens and dozens of lives that he saved.’

‘Was my father working with anyone?’

‘I don’t know. Kendra said when she spoke to your father she was alone. I met him only a handful of times, always alone. Kendra brought me to him. I told him what I saw, and Big Red set me up in a safe house. A week later, your father was dead, and I was arrested. A month after that, Sullivan and his Federal buddies died in that raid on Boston Harbor, and that was the end of it.’

‘Why were these men looking for her all this time?’

‘Because the tapes she gave Big Red were only copies,’ Ezekiel whispered. ‘Kendra told me she’d kept the actual tapes – and she had notes on the Feds, times and places, that sort of thing. And she’d kept a list of the names of the people your father had smuggled out of the state. All this time, Kendra thought these Feds had died along with Sullivan. That changed about a year ago when she was living in… Wisconsin, I think. Working at a small insurance company, she told me. One day she left work, was driving home, when she realized she’d left something at the office, and when she pulled around to the front she saw Peter Alan heading inside the building. The other guy, a man named Jack King, was behind the wheel of a car parked right out front. She picked up Sean from school and started driving to look for a new place to live, just left all of her stuff behind.’

‘What did she tell Sean?’

‘Kendra said she told him everything. She had to, because after Wisconsin, they were always switching identities. That’s why she decided to come forward, because of Sean. She didn’t want anything to happen to him. After Wisconsin, they moved to New Jersey. Their apartment got broken into and she panicked and split for Vermont, changed her name again, this time to Amy Hallcox. She was a pro at changing identities. Always worked at places where social security numbers were easily available – places like insurance companies. She told me she was sick and tired of running, said it was time to come forward with what she knew before they killed her. She was the last one left.’

‘The last of what?’

‘The last of the people your father smuggled out of Charlestown. They’re all dead. After she saw Alan, she did a little research. She took her list of names and found out that they had been murdered. All unsolved. This secret Gestapo unit of dead FBI agents – they had tracked them down and killed them.’

‘How?’

‘Your father must have had a list. They must have confiscated it. That, his tapes, evidence, whatever he had. They had a tough time finding Kendra because she kept switching her identities every time she moved.’

‘Was the entire FBI involved or just the Boston office?’

‘I don’t know. Kendra told me about the Boston Feds who were involved, that’s it.’

Darby thought about the ransacked house in Belham. Her home in Vermont had been searched.

‘Kendra told me she’d kept the tapes, notes, all of it,’ he whispered. ‘I don’t know where they are; she didn’t tell me. I told her to let sleeping dogs lie. Besides, it wouldn’t have changed anything. It’s been twenty plus years since she left Charlestown. If she’d come forward with whatever she had, what would it have accomplished? The FBI would have maintained that the Federal agents who had died on those two boats were, in fact, dead. It would’ve just made her a target. And when they find out you’ve spoken to me – and they will – you’ll be a target.’

‘Is Kevin Reynolds a Federal agent?’

‘Kendra had her suspicions,’ he whispered, ‘but she couldn’t prove it.’

‘Did she tell you who was on these tapes?’

‘No, she didn’t. We had only forty minutes to talk. I let her do all the talking. I just listened.’

‘Does she know who killed my father?’

‘No. I don’t know either. I was in this motel when your father was murdered. I told this to my wonderful public-appointed lawyer, of course. The motel said they had no record of me staying there. No bills, nothing. It didn’t matter. The Feds set me up. They stole my car, they found the gun I kept in my apartment – they planted enough evidence to leave no doubt that I’d done it. Without any evidence to support what I was saying, my lawyer thought he was listening to the paranoid ramblings of a schizophrenic.’

‘My father wouldn’t have left you alone in a hotel. He would have arranged for someone to watch you.’

‘He said he had someone watching the hotel – someone he trusted. I don’t know who he was, I never saw the guy.’

‘I’ll look into this.’

‘No,’ he hissed. ‘I didn’t call you to help me; I called to warn you about these so-called Federal agents. I have no idea if they’re still working for the FBI, but, regardless, they’re out there looking for these tapes. Don’t go looking for them. You know what they did to your father; you saw what happened to Kendra. If you find these tapes, destroy them. Don’t think you can expose these people. You can’t trust anyone, especially people inside the Boston police department. Sullivan had plenty of your people on his payroll.’

‘Tell me some names.’

‘I don’t remember their names, but I’m sure they’re still out there. You start in on this, you’ll wind up buried next to your father.’

I haven’t started in on this, Darby wanted to say. I’m already in it.

49

Darby felt cold all over as she collected her things from the female guard. She was dimly aware of the woman speaking, making a joke to Billy Biceps about how everything must’ve gone well with Zeke ’cause the doc still had both her ears, ha-ha. Darby forced a smile, thanked the guards and stepped into a cool, bright corridor echoing with murmured conversations.

The rational part of her, which had been oddly quiet all this time, spoke up. You actually believe everything Ezekiel has told you.

A statement, not a question. Did she believe everything? She didn’t want to believe any of it, but a good majority of the things he had told her – like Special Agent Alan, for example – were true. Some of the other things he had said clambered around the truth – too goddamn close to it. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the man didn’t fit the mould of someone suffering from a schizoaffective disorder. The delusion about the room being bugged should have dominated the entire conversation. His paranoid thoughts should have been rampant, but the man’s speech had remained remarkably coherent. He had answered each of her questions, had easily moved from one topic to the next without confusion and – and – had shown a remarkable degree of empathy when speaking about her father.

And what about her father? At thirty-nine, her memories of Thomas ‘Big Red’ McCormick had started to blur and fade. As it was, she didn’t have many memories to start with. She had barely seen him during her childhood, Big Red having to work a tremendous amount of overtime while Sheila attended night school for her nursing degree. A few random snapshots came to her – clutching her father’s big leg on the subway as the crowded T-car rocked- and-rolled its way down the track; Big Red cracking peanut shells in his long, callused fingers at Fenway Park.

But, beyond her father’s love of the Red Sox, Frank Sinatra records, good bourbon and cigars, she didn’t have the first idea about what had made Big Red tick. He had been an unnaturally quiet man, more prone to listening than to talking. And he was always observing the world around him. In her memories he seemed constantly exhausted.