with the pain the words brought him. He lay on his side, his right shoulder packed with thick gauze front and back, bandages around his chest and neck holding everything in place. Dried blood the color of rust showed through the gauze, and the sheets were pink where blood had dripped and spread. Dad’s skin was so pale it was almost as if I could see through it to the flesh and muscle beneath. He looked old, weak, and hurt. That scared me more than the bandages.
“A through and through,” Uncle Dan said, his hands clenching and unclenching as his fear turned to anger. “Who did it?”
“Don’t know,” Dad said. “I heard somebody come up behind me from an alleyway, then a click, like a hammer pulled back.” He stopped, closed his eyes for a second, took a deep breath, and then flinched, the act of filling his chest with air causing shredded muscle to shriek in protest.
“I started to turn,” he said, “and then he fired. I went down, heard another shot, but he missed. Must’ve been nervous, there were cops close by.” He closed his eyes again.
“Where?” I asked. “Where were you?”
“A block from the district courthouse, not ten minutes after I left the D Street Station.”
“Did you see the guy?” I asked. I looked at Uncle Dan and saw him exchange glances with Dad, then look at me.
“Naw,” Dad said. “Didn’t see a thing.”
“Who would shoot you two blocks from the courthouse, in broad daylight? And why?” Dad didn’t answer; he just looked at Uncle Dan.
“Well, Billy, I’d say someone who didn’t want your da to get to the courthouse,” Uncle Dan said with slow certainty.
I had a million questions, about open cases and guys getting out of the slammer, but neither of them wanted to talk. Uncle Dan had given me the keys to the squad car and told me to go home and get Mom, tell her everything was OK. I wasn’t so sure it was, but I did as I was told. I took my dad’s hand, something I hadn’t done since I was a little kid, and held it tight. He squeezed it and smiled, a brave smile, and I gave him one back. As I walked out of the room, I turned to pull the door shut behind me. Uncle Dan was already leaning over Dad, nodding his head as Dad whispered to him. I shut the door and walked down the hallway lined with cops-plainclothes and bluecoats-all thankful Dad was all right, patting me on the back and telling me all I had to do was ask if we needed anything. I remember nodding and saying thanks, all the while wondering what had led to an ambush just steps from the South Boston District Court.
Dad was home in a week and we had constant visitors and meals brought in by neighbors and the wives of cops. Everything from corned beef to platters of cold cuts, pickles, and cheese to lasagna and meatloaf. We needed it all, too, with cops visiting Dad at the end of every shift, sometimes just sitting outside on the front stoop, watching the traffic go by, waiting. Uncle Dan brought some of his IRA pals around, too, quiet men in black suits and cloth caps who spoke Gaelic to each other whenever someone they didn’t know came into the room.
The case was never solved. Dad went back to work, desk duty at first, after three weeks at home. Every day after work one of the IRA boys would pick Dad up at the station and drive him home. That went on for a week, then Basher McGee was found floating in Quincy Bay, hands tied behind his back and two slugs in the back of the head. Just like an IRA execution, although no one commented on that. There was a big police funeral, with black armbands, brass, and bands. After that, Dad took the trolley home.
Someone dropped a tray outside the room, the loud metal-against-linoleum sound echoing in the hallway. I took another look at Kaz, then walked out of the room. The door closed behind me.
It was as if I had walked out into another world, where all the rules were different; everything had changed as sure as the door shutting behind me. Daphne Seaton, a kind, sweet person, was dead. Kaz was shattered and would never be the same again without her. My first two friends in England. Destroyed. I didn’t really care about the war any more than I had before. But I did know one thing. The man who had killed them was going to die soon, at my hands. My world had been attacked this time and I was going to hit back. This was my war.
As I went to look for Harding, it occurred to me that I didn’t give a damn about what happened after that. Maybe I’d get killed, maybe thrown in prison, it didn’t make a bit of difference. It was kind of restful not to have to think about the future.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Thunder rumbled in from the north as low dark clouds let loose. Hard rain pelted the courtyard of the hall with thick drops, splattering dirt and ash into a gooey ooze beneath my feet. Daphne was gone, the white sheet that had covered her lying in the sooty mud next to the twisted frame of the Imp. I tried not to think of the image of her in the car as I went through the wreckage, trying to find any piece of evidence. Nothing had survived the fire. Cold rain soaked through my Parsons coat; I was glad I was wearing thick-soled combat boots as I struggled through the muck.
I turned my attention to the debris piled up in a corner of the lot. Bits of metal and glass, pieces of the staff cars that had been damaged, and what looked like the charred remains of luggage were heaped together. There were a couple of bicycles that had also been caught in the explosion, and other unidentifiable pieces of who knows what. Shovels and rakes were stacked up against the side of the building, left by the crew that had started the cleanup before the rains came. I grabbed a rake and started to pull the pile apart. The rain couldn’t keep the stink of wet ash and burned rubber down. I tried not to breathe too deeply as I looked through the soggy mess I raked out from the pile.
I pawed through the stuff, trying to ignore how raw and cold my hands were, and found some bits of clothing and a pile of burned papers that turned out to be a manual for a Ford sedan. I tossed the bike frames aside and dug deeper. I was soaked to the skin now, and the rain was getting worse, starting to come down sideways. There was a helluva storm brewing up. I was just about to give up the search when I saw a leather grip sticking out from under a partially charred seat cushion. I thought of Kaz’s hand holding the handle of a briefcase, and pulled it out from under the cushion. It was a cheap government issue briefcase, more of an attache case, with hard sides and two spring locks. It hadn’t stood up well to the blast. It hung open on a busted hinge. One side was ripped and blistered, as if it had caught fire and smoldered for a bit. There was nothing inside. I looked at the warped case and wondered out loud. “Geez, Kaz, how did you manage to live through that?”
I went back to methodically pulling the pile apart again, looking for the papers or whatever else might have been inside the briefcase. It kept raining. Now lightning was striking the heath all around me. I wasn’t having fun. The only good thing was that the rain was washing the mud and ash off me as fast as I became covered in it. After half an hour all I had to show for my efforts was a disintegrating pile of charred papers that could have been the London Times for all I knew. It just didn’t figure. Could whatever was in the case have been totally destroyed? It must’ve fallen out of the broken briefcase when the tire bomb went off. Could it have been burned to ashes?
OK, I thought to myself, time to make like a cop and recreate the crime scene. I walked over to the door enterance to the parking lot. Four stone steps led up to large wooden double doors beneath a small arch. I stood there for a minute, looking at the position of the cars and trying to put myself in Kaz’s place.
If I’m Kaz just coming through the doors, the Imp would still be in its original parked position. I went down the steps. Kaz was excited, and would’ve been hurrying. I took quick steps. Daphne’s seen me by now, and she’s in a hurry, too. She puts the Imp in reverse, lets up on the clutch, and backs up, probably looking at Kaz. Was there a smile on her face? Boom! I stopped in my tracks. I looked all around. So many people had tramped through here and then cleaned up that nothing remained to show where Kaz had hit the ground. OK, the explosion would’ve knocked him back, and he would have dropped the briefcase. The briefcase. I should be carrying the briefcase. I marked the spot where I was standing and got the briefcase out of the pile. I tried to force it shut, but it wouldn’t close properly. I held it closed and then returned to my spot. The briefcase was slightly blistered on one side. How would Kaz have been carrying it? If he’d held it by the handle, how did one side get burned? I tried to picture Kaz in a hurry.
Two-handed. He would have been running and carrying it in front of him in both hands. He wasn’t the most athletic guy, and that would have been easier than having it bang against his leg. I held the briefcase up in front of me, the damaged side toward the car.
