“It’s the right thing to do.”
“We’ll see.”
“You know, there’s something I need to talk about, too. A family thing.”
“Ricky?”
“No. Brendan.”
“I thought you said family.”
Amy sat down. She put her coat aside, slid forward, and laid her forearm on the desk. “Michael, we’ve never really talked about this.”
He avoided her eyes to muffle the little thrill of Amy, her directness, the outlandish possibility of a frank conversation about his family, the intimate pleasure of a shared confidence. She was so close. So close.
Amy wiggled further forward, to the very edge of her seat. “You don’t like Brendan.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Just don’t.”
“Why?”
He shrugged.
“Do you think Brendan did something wrong?”
“Wrong like what?”
“You know what I mean. Be honest.”
“I just don’t like him hanging around my mother, that’s all.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s enough.”
“Michael, I need to tell you something. I see how you act around Brendan. I know how you feel; I don’t like him either. I never trusted him, never wanted him around you three boys, and I certainly never wanted him anywhere near your mother. If he ever lifted a finger to her, I swear I’d kill him. Your dad had Brendan pegged.”
“Pegged as what?”
“A cop with a bad conscience.”
“So,” he demanded, “what’s the big secret about Brendan?” He imagined Amy had in mind some petty corruption Brendan might have indulged in. The sort of Boston mischief that only the newspapers cared about-and even they did not care much.
“Michael, what do you think about the way your father was killed?”
“I’m against it.”
“I’m serious, dammit. Do you believe it happened the way Brendan says it did?”
“Why not?”
“Two experienced cops, Homicide detectives, go searching for a suspect. They go down to the docks in East Boston looking for a witness, some street kid who lives there, twelve, thirteen years old. They find the kid, he runs, they chase. Kid squirts down an alley, Joe Senior runs in after him while Brendan lags behind. Joe Senior turns the corner, kid shoots him once, in the chest-and Joe Senior is dead, bullet in the heart. Now Brendan hears the shot and, disregarding his own safety, he barrels around the corner, too, to help his partner. Kid shoots a second time, hits Brendan in the gut, and Brendan goes down, again with a single shot. Kid takes off.”
“That’s the story.”
“Do you believe it?”
“It happens.”
“Do you know how hard it is to kill a man with a handgun, with one shot, on the run? It’s hard even to disable someone with one bullet. It’s John Wayne stuff-bang, you’re dead. Only in the movies. The fact is, to kill a man with one shot you need to be very lucky or very accurate. You have to hit the head or the heart. That’s not easy when you’re both running in a panic. But this young kid puts two cops down with just two shots, on the move, killing one? Doesn’t sound right.”
“So he got lucky.”
“Twice?”
“It happens.”
“Not like that. Once is lucky. Twice? Impossible.”
She looked Michael square in the eyes until he looked away.
“And another thing: why didn’t Brendan get up and run after the kid? Why’d he let the kid get away?”
“Because he was shot. He nearly died in the hospital.”
“That was later. Internal bleeding, then an infection. Those are complications. Neither was true when he was lying there, letting that kid run right past him.
“Then, when the Homicide guys interviewed Brendan in the hospital, he gives them nothing. Just a vague description: skinny, teenage, Negro. When in doubt, just say the magic word ‘Negro’ and the Boston PD goes running.”
“They’d never seen the kid before. They were following a tip. What do you expect?”
“I expect an experienced cop like Brendan Conroy would have described the kid better. A cop is a professional witness. If it really went down the way Brendan says it did, he’d have done better than some faceless mystery Negro. Besides, how is it that no one else saw the kid? Come on-a Negro kid in that neighborhood would have stuck out like a raisin in a bowl of milk. So where is he? How come they never found him?”
“Okay, I give up. So who’s the kid who shot him?”
Her response was a simple, level look.
“The Negro kid?”
“Michael. There is no kid.”
“So who…?”
“Brendan. It was Brendan.”
“You sure it wasn’t Oswald?”
“Michael, this didn’t just come to me. I’ve been digging into it for a year.”
“So where’s the gun? If Brendan and my dad were alone in that alley, where’s the gun? They never found it.”
“Brendan could have dumped the gun anywhere. He had plenty of time.”
“Okay, so if Brendan shot my dad, who shot Brendan?”
“Brendan shot your dad, then himself.”
“Oh, come on!”
“Michael, did you know Brendan once shot a suspect in the side, right here”-she pointed to her side, just above the hip bone-“and the bullet passed right through, in and out, barely slowed the guy down at all. I have the file.”
“But Brendan was shot right in the gut, here, not here.”
“It’s not so easy to shoot yourself accurately. Not if your goal is to survive. The bullet entered Brendan’s body on a slightly downward trajectory, moving from his right to his left-just as it would if Brendan was holding the gun in his right hand. His shirt was singed by the discharge, he was shot at such close range. A few feet at the most. If Brendan weren’t a cop, they’d have thrown out his whole story based on just the physical evidence.”
“How about the motive? Brendan and my old man were best friends for twenty years. They were like brothers. Why would Brendan want to kill him? Lust for Margaret Daley? Greed for the Daley fortune?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t figured that out. Yet.”
“Wow.” Michael sighed.
“I know. Wow.”
“No, I mean, ‘Wow, you’re a lunatic.’”
“It sounds crazy, I know. But look, you’re the only one I can tell, Michael. Ricky would think I’m insane, and Joe would just kill Brendan with no questions asked. You’re the only one I can talk to. Tell me you believe me. Tell me at least you’ll think about it.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Okay. That’s a start.”
“So what’ll you do next?”
