“I had Ann,” he said. “Maybe Tyler decided to cut himself in, whatever. He knew something, so Felton had him killed.”
“Who’s doing all this killing?” Bobby Kiley said.
“We recruited local guys.”
“How?” I said.
“Through DeRosa. They never knew who they were working for.”
“Would Shawcross kill someone himself if he had to?” I said.
“Sure.”
“DeRosa was a valuable man,” I said. “Why waste him on the Mary Smith frame?”
“He was in jail anyway,” Conroy said. “Small-time street thing, the asshole. We got it fixed. But meanwhile, it gave him a reason to make a deal with the DA for ratting out Mary Smith.”
“Credibility,” I said. “Who were the stumblebums that followed me around and tried to brace me in the parking garage?”
“They were from Felton. He had some people on, ah, staff.”
“But he didn’t use them for heavy lifting?”
“No,” Conroy said. “Not usually. He wanted to keep that separate. Anybody who did any killing only knew DeRosa.”
“That true of the guys that tried me in Fort Point?”
“Yes.”
“Who pulled the trigger on DeRosa?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Felton.”
“Because I was getting too close?”
“I don’t know how close you were getting,” Conroy said, “but you wouldn’t go away. Killing you hadn’t worked, so he had DeRosa killed to cut you off, and he told me to disappear.”
“Which you did.”
“Yeah.”
“Except.” I looked at Ann.
Conroy nodded. His voice was heavy. “Yeah,” he said. “And you figured it out.”
“Why were you checking Smith out at the gay clubs?” I said.
“You know about that, too,” Conroy said wearily.
“We never sleep,” I said.
“I was trying to figure out what Shawcross had on him. I got some sort of gay hit off him in the bank. All those boys… I don’t know. I just had a suspicion.”
“How did Shawcross know?”
“I don’t know.”
“The name Roy Levesque mean anything?” I said.
“No.”
“Larson Graff?”
“No.”
“How about Joey Bucci?” I said.
Conroy frowned. “Bucci?”
“Yeah.”
“When I was at the bank we lent him some money.”
“You remember all the bank loans?” I said.
“No. This one was no interest, open-ended, you know? A gift. Felton told us to do it.”
“You know why?”
Conroy shook his head.
“You know where Shawcross is now?”
“No idea.”
“Is that his real name.”
“No idea.”
“Will he come after you when he knows you’re talking like this?” Ann said.
“What fucking difference does it make, Annie?” Conroy said.
