Either a chill was setting in, or the fear was beginning to affect him physically. His hands were beginning to shake, but he looked me dead in the eyes.
“What do you want?”
“I want you to know that as of this moment, the life you know is over. Beginning now, it all crumbles to pieces. You’d better have your wits about you in the next ten minutes to come through it with as much as you can possibly hold together.”
I let that sink in for a second while he just looked at me.
“Ten years ago, Mr. Loring, you did a despicable thing. You and that gang of respectable thieves that hide behind Adams Leasing hired a man to burn a couple of your rat-traps in the South End. You hired a man by the name of Frank Dolson to take the fall on the arson. It went sour when it turned to a felony-murder charge. Are you following me here?”
“That’s absolutely absurd.”
“We’ll see. Now we get to the part that’s going to bring you people to justice. You fixed the Dolson jury. And you hung it on Lex Devlin. You took the life out of a man whose boots you’re not good enough to lick.”
“I don’t have to listen to this.”
He started to get up.
“If you leave that seat, I send the evidence directly to the district attorney, and you lose the chance I’m offering you to buy leniency.”
It was as if I had reached out and pulled him back to the bench.
“What evidence are you talking about?”
I reached into my suit-coat pocket and took out Martin Shortbridge’s signed statement. I handed it to him. His hands were quivering when he took it; but when he read it, his whole body started to shake. He said nothing. I thought he was going to cry.
“Let me tell you where we’re at, Mr. Loring. What you’re looking at is evidence to convict you of jury fixing. That could be good for at least a five-year sentence. Believe it or not, that’s the good news. The bad news is that it ties you in as an accessory to the felony murder of the men who died in that fire. That means that this could be the last time you’ll see this beautiful Public Garden for the rest of your life.”
That did it. Now he was weeping. I looked at him in his nine-hundred-dollar suit and thought of his life of posh clubs and lobster dinners and summer home on the North Shore. Then I thought of the last ten years of Mr. Devlin’s life that paid for it, and I felt anger. At the same time, I couldn’t help being stung with a degree of pity for him. But neither emotion mattered. I had to do what I came to do.
“There’s a way of softening the fall, Mr. Loring.”
He looked up at me with a face that was wet and almost pleading.
“What way?”
“Right now, you’re the fall guy. You’re the only general partner of the limited partnership that owns Adams Leasing. The rest of the thieves are hiding behind you in the hopes that you’ll take all the heat. I know there are much bigger fish than you in this mess. Right at this passing moment, you have a chance to offer evidence and bargain for leniency.”
It sank in for a second before he asked it.
“What will happen to me?”
“I can promise you this. If you pass up this chance, you’ll go to prison for the rest of your life. If you make a statement now, before it breaks, it’ll go lighter with you. How much lighter, no one can promise. I think you can topple some heads that will put the prosecutor in a generous mood.”
He just sat there with his head submerged in his hands.
“It’s your decision. I’m on my way to the prosecuting attorney right now. I can do it with or without your cooperation. What’ll it be?”
The tears wouldn’t stop. I heard a sob catch in his throat like a gasp. Then I heard it in a muffled voice, and my heart nearly sprang out of my chest.
“What do you want me to do?”
I stood up and waved to the woman who was sitting on the bench down by the pond. I had asked Julie to meet me at the Public Garden, but stay a distance away. She came at a run with a briefcase.
I gave her my seat. She took a laptop computer out of the case and brought it to life to take dictation.
“Mr. Loring, this is my secretary. I want you to dictate a statement. Miss Benson will take it down. She has the equipment to print it out, and you’ll sign it. I’ll see that you get full credit with the prosecutor for giving evidence. Are you ready to begin?”
He seemed unaware of Julie’s presence, but he was focused enough to know that his neck could only be saved by seizing the moment. Carpe diem. And he did.
It flowed like honey from his lips, and Julie caught every word on the word processor. It was like tapping a gusher. He had no idea how much would satisfy me, so he spilled it all. He laid bare an association of some of the most powerful people in the commonwealth of Massachusetts that went back twenty years. He outlined dealings in real estate all over the city that would make Dillinger look like Billy Graham.
The shenanigans were made possible by the most foolproof protection I could conceive. They had a stranglehold on the laws affecting zoning, eminent domain, and private legislation through their own membership. It had taken years to develop, but they had placed members of the association in every branch of government from the governor’s cabinet to the key committees of the state legislature to the Supreme Judicial Court.
I could feel my legs turning to rubber as I listened to the names of the people Loring implicated. I looked out over the pond where my parents had taken me on the swan boats as a child to feed the ducks. I was staggered as I remembered that time of innocence and trust, and listened as too many of the pillars of the state that was my home crumbled in a bone-heap of greed.
There were times when I thought I was going to be physically ill. I could easily have wept.
When he stopped speaking, I asked my own questions while Julie kept up on the laptop.
“How many members of the Supreme Judicial Court, Mr. Loring?”
“Only three. They’re ordinary, impartial judges on most cases. They only serve the association’s interests on rare cases where it matters to the business.”
There were so many questions, but I had to focus on the reason I was there.
“Was this association behind the arson that Dolson pleaded guilty to?”
“Yes. We hired another man to do it, but he bungled it. When it became obvious that it was arson, and he could be prosecuted, he threatened to take us with him. We hired Dolson to take the prison sentence.”
“But then it turned to murder, and you had to get Dolson off the hook for the murder. How did you do it?”
“We bribed a juror to produce a hung jury.”
I held my breath. We were so close to touchdown. I looked to see that Julie was getting it all. I spoke slowly.
“Did Mr. Alexis Devlin have anything to do with the bribery of the juror?”
“No.”
“Did he have any knowledge of the fixing of the juror at any time?”
“No. We planted the rumors that he was behind it to take suspicion off the association. We even set the procedure in motion for a bar disciplinary proceeding. Then we had it called off after Dolson entered a plea bargain for the arson.”
I looked at Julie to see if she had it. She looked up at me, and I could see moisture swelling in her eyes. She just nodded.
“One more thing. Mr. Loring, is this association involved in the Anthony Bradley case?”
He looked at me. “What do you mean?”
“Let’s break it down. Did the association have anything to do with the murder of the Chinese man?”
“No. We had nothing to do with that.”
That was a disappointment. That still left Anthony as the most likely killer.
“Did the association have anything to do with the prosecution of Bradley?”
He thought for a second.
“Only indirectly. When young Bradley got into serious trouble it served our purposes. The balance on the
