Mr. Stanton’s “director’s cut” of law enforcement’s video evidence included footage of Jack double-timing into the garage, car keys in hand, and locking himself inside the trunk of the Audi. Whoever made the copy had edited out the hours of footage of the police as they searched the house while Jack remained hidden away in the trunk, but the end of the video showed the trunk popping open and Jack crawling out, vacuuming the trunk, and then slipping out of the house.

  He had three initial thoughts after watching the video all the way through for the first time. The first was that he’d been very fortunate never to look toward the ceiling, either while he was standing inside Spinelli’s bedroom or as he was escaping capture in the garage. The closest he came was when he’d caught sight of movement in his peripheral vision as one of the responding police officers approached the house from the rear. He lifted his head to glance out the window, but the visor of his baseball cap had shielded his face from the camera quite nicely.

  His second thought was gratitude that he’d had the presence of mind to thoroughly vacuum the trunk of that damned car before escaping Spinelli’s home. He’d never removed his cap during the six hours, give or take, that he’d spent prone inside the trunk, but even though he kept his hair cut short, it was impossible to imagine a stray lock wouldn’t have dropped onto the carpeting at some point. The extra few minutes he’d taken to vacuum might mean the difference between his DNA ending up in a federal database, and his continuing to remain completely off law enforcement’s radar.

  The first two were fleeting thoughts, impressions that struck Jack as the violent video played silently on his computer.

  The third was far more interesting: he thought he recognized Spinelli’s attacker.

  The knife-wielding man had been dressed all in black, including a black hoodie and greasepaint he’d used to darken his face and hide his features. But during the life-and-death struggle, before Spinelli became too injured and weak to truly resist, the mobster had landed a couple of decent blows, one of which snapped his attacker’s head back and caused the hoodie to fly off.

  The attacker eventually yanked it back up again, but he wasn’t terribly quick about it. At that point he began to take control of the fight. Spinelli never landed another significant blow and moments later ended up almost back where he’d started—on the floor next to his bed.

  Except this time he wasn’t moving.

  But it was during that five or ten second interval where Spinelli knocked the hoodie off his attacker’s head that Jack blinked in surprise and felt his eyes narrow. He’d thought immediately upon seeing the attacker enter the bedroom that the way the man moved looked familiar, that he’d seen similar body language recently.

  The quick glimpse of the killer while bareheaded reinforced it.

  Jack tamped down on his mounting excitement and replayed the video from the beginning. He’d been mostly focused on Spinelli during the first run-through, and this time he ignored the victim entirely, concentrating his attention on the attacker. This time, when the man entered the bedroom Jack slowed the footage, stopping and starting it as he took the opportunity to examine the attacker as closely as the video allowed.

  He spent a long time watching the short snippet where the hoodie flew off the attacker’s head, replaying it over and over, becoming more convinced each time through that the killer slashing and hacking Rocco Spinelli to death was the same young man he’d seen approaching the home of Spinelli’s ex-wife in Dorchester yesterday.

  Jack paused the video and thought back to what he’d seen. He’d been splitting his attention between Burke and the approaching young man, glancing from the sidewalk to the front door, back and forth, and while he knew it was always possible he may have missed something, he was as sure as he could be that Burke had never seen the man.

  He sipped his coffee and replayed the scene in his head, the early-twenties man exiting the tricked-out little car down the street from the ex-wife’s home before reacting like a terrified rabbit to the sight of Detective Burke. The man had “I’m guilty of something” written all over his features, and now Jack thought he knew what.

  After a long time spent staring at the computer monitor, Jack leaned forward and restarted the video, watching it beginning to end for the third time.

  Then he removed the thumb drive and locked it in his top desk drawer.

  He powered down the computer and finished his coffee as he considered his next move.

  21

  Jack pulled to the curb in his rented black Chevrolet Suburban. He’d hoped to find one with smoked-out windows but hadn’t been able to, and had settled for the next best thing. Hopefully the big SUV would scream “FBI” to Mary Carson if she happened to glance out a window.

  He was dressed in his best suit: mid-priced, off-the-rack and conservative blue, over a white shirt and blue striped tie. A long–ago Organization assignment had called for him to impersonate an FBI special agent, and upon mission completion he had tucked the bureau ID away in his safe, certain that at some point he would have occasion to use it again.

  That point had arrived.

  He stepped out of the Suburban, carrying a clipboard upon which he’d loaded official-looking paperwork, as well as a small notebook. Then he walked briskly to the front door as he tried to determine the odds Detective Burke would find it necessary to return today for a second interview.

  This was definitely a calculated risk. If Burke were to come back while Jack was questioning Spinelli’s ex-wife and—hopefully—the young man he’d seen yesterday, things would take a turn for the worse, obviously. He felt confident he could take advantage of Burke’s surprise at finding another “law enforcement representative” on scene and use that surprise to escape capture, but doing so would inevitably entail disabling the cop.

  And that would exponentially increase the difficulty of finishing his self-imposed mission.

  But the Rocco Spinelli murder was a high profile case, at least regionally. All the local Boston TV channels had been covering the story, and until something bigger came along and grabbed their attention, the media spotlight would remain on it.

  The way Jack saw the situation, unless Burke got something from Mary Carson yesterday that he felt was so critical to the investigation he must return immediately—which, he had to admit, was always a possibility—the detective would spend the next few days chasing down other leads, probably interviewing some of Spinelli’s gangland connections.

  It was worth the risk.

  He knocked on the door and checked out the surrounding homes as he waited for an answer. No activity at any of them, but that didn’t mean much. Anybody could be watching.

  No matter. He was an FBI special agent doing his job.

  When half a minute went by without any activity from inside the house, Jack knocked again, louder and more insistently. The Dodge Dart he’d seen parked in the driveway yesterday was still there, so presumably someone was home.

  “FBI, Ma’am,” he called through the door, loudly enough to get her attention—if she were even inside—but not so loud residents in the surrounding homes would become aware the feds were paying their neighbor a visit.

  Hopefully.

  He raised his hand to knock again when the door swung open and a tired-looking middle-aged woman squinted out at him. She was dressed in faded jeans and a Bentley University sweatshirt, and she held a half-empty cup of coffee in her left hand.

  “Help you?” she said.

  “Mary Carson?” Jack asked.

  “Who’s asking?”

  Jack raised his FBI ID and held it for Mary Carson’s inspection. It wasn’t real, of course, but The Organization maintained a forger on staff who could duplicate virtually any official document down to a level of detail that would fool even authorities who dealt with the documents every day. Obviously, the game would be up should Mary Carson attempt to authenticate the ID with the local FBI field office, but Jack knew she wouldn’t do that. No one ever did.

  “FBI Special Agent Jack Bradbury,” Jack said. “Do you have half an hour or so free to answer a few questions, Ma’am?”

  “Questions? What about?”

  Jack replaced the ID in his front breast pocket and said, “I’d like to speak with you regarding the murder of your ex-husband, Rocco Spinelli.”

  She blinked. “I just talked to a detective yesterday about Rocco’s murder.”

  “Yes, I know, Ma’am. Detective Burke. We’re working together on the case.”

  “The attorney general’s office and the FBI are working together on the investigation?”

  Jack nodded. “I assume you’re aware of your ex-husband’s reputed ties to organized crime?”

  Mary Carson laughed. “I’m aware,” she said. “It’s one of the reasons I’m living in this Taj Mahal instead of in a million-dollar home.”

  “Well, it’s the organized crime connection that has necessitated the FBI’s involvement.” Jack thought about what he was saying and almost smiled. It would be ironic if a real FBI special agent were to show up for the very reasons Jack was spelling out while he was here “interviewing” Mary Carson.

  Disastrous, but nevertheless ironic.

  She sighed and stepped back, swinging the door open further with her hip as she raised her coffee. “Come on in, Agent Bradbury. Would you like a cup?”

  “That would be terrific,” Jack said, and meant it. In addition to the fact he always wanted coffee, the act of preparing it for him might allow Mary Carson to become more comfortable with his presence, which might permit him to gain more intel from his visit.

  At least, that was his theory.

  She poured the coffee and handed it to him and they moved from the kitchen into her small but immaculate living room.

  “Have a seat, Agent,” she said. She eased onto the couch as Jack took a chair next to the coffee table. “I’m not sure there’s much I can add to what I told Detective Burke yesterday. I really haven’t kept in contact with Rocco since we split. Our divorce was not a pleasant one, but it happened a long time ago, and even when things were at their worst between us, I certainly wouldn’t have wanted him dead.”

  “I understand,” he said. He perched his little flip-open notebook on his knee and said, “I’m actually here because Detective Burke said he wasn’t able to speak with your son yesterday, and I was hoping you might be able to put me in touch with him.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “David? Why would you want to speak with David?”

  “Just trying to cover all the bases in the investigation. You know, leave no stone unturned and all of that.”

  “But…David isn’t Rocco’s child. He was conceived shortly after Rocco and I split. He barely knows…uh, excuse me, barely knew Rocco. I can’t imagine what he could possibly add to your investigation.”

  “As I said, I need to—”

  “I know,” she interrupted. “Turn over all the stones.”

  Jack smiled. “Exactly. Does David live here?”

  “No, he moved out a couple of years ago, although he does still spend quite a lot of time here. I like to make him home-cooked meals, since if left to his own devices, he would subsist on Quarter Pounders and donuts.”

  “And when was the last time you saw David?”

  “He came over yesterday for dinner. He showed up late but said he’d been held up at a job interview.”

  Jack nodded. It seemed like the sort of information that would mean something to a Fed, so he scratched something into his notepad. “Could I get your son’s contact information, Miss Carson? Home address, telephone number, that sort of thing?”

  Mary Carson pursed her lips. “I’m not comfortable with the direction this interview has taken. I really don’t understand what you could gain by talking to my son.”

  “It’s strictly routine,” Jack said patiently. “But if you’d prefer not to give me David’s contact information, that’s fine. I can always get it elsewhere. DMV, court records, that sort of thing.” He was taking a chance with the “court records” comment, but while he tried never to judge a book by its cover, he would have been shocked if it turned out the young man he’d seen yesterday had never had any brushes with the legal system.

  “Fine,” Mary Carson said, although it seemed patently obvious it was anything but fine. “I wasn’t entirely truthful with you about David.”

  “Okay. And what were you untruthful about, ma’am?” He kept his tone noncommittal.

  She paused and sipped her by-now-cold coffee. Sighed. Shook her head and looked at the floor.

  “You know I’ll find out,” Jack said gently. “So you might as well tell me now. Things will go much more smoothly if I get the information from you and don’t have to go digging for it.”

  “Fine,” she said again. “I lied about David living elsewhere.”

  “So he does still live here.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why would you lie about that, Miss Carson?” Jack asked.

  Another sigh. “David didn’t have an easy time of it growing up. With a single mother who works nights, he was alone a lot and had to fend for himself. And this neighborhood,” she nodded toward the picture window, “this neighborhood is rough. Lots of bad influences, especially for a young man with time on his hands.”

  “David’s been in trouble with the law.”

  Mary Carson nodded. “I was just trying to protect him.”

  “Why would you need to protect him if he’s not involved in Rocco Spinelli’s death? You understand how that looks to me, yes?”

  “It’s not like that,” she said.

  “Then what is it like?”

  “I just wanted to prevent him from having to deal with law enforcement regarding a situation he could not possibly have been involved in. I was being completely honest when I said he barely knew Rocco. There’s simply no way David could have any information that would help you find Rocco’s killer.”

  Jack nodded. “I see. I assume David is not home right now?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And when will he be here?”

  “I have no idea,” Mary Carson said. “He’s a grown man and he comes and goes as he pleases.”

  “You said you work nights, Miss Carson?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what do you do for work?”

  “I work the three-to-eleven shift at the Johnson Cable Manufacturing plant in Chelsea as a quality assurance supervisor. Why would you need to know that?”

  “Just routine.”

  “Turning over more stones, is that it?”

  “All part of the job,” Jack said. “Thank you for your time, Miss Carson. I’ll be in touch if I have any more questions.”

  22

  “You should let it go, Jack.” Edie pressed her lips into a thin line of worry after she spoke.

  They were seated at their customary table, set off by itself in a secluded alcove at the rear of the Three Squares Diner. Edie only used it for paying customers during the busiest periods of hectic weekend mornings. Most of the time the tiny alcove served as her makeshift break room; a place where she could share a cup of coffee with Jack for a few minutes and still keep an eye on the activity inside her restaurant.

  He’d given her as many details regarding his current situation as he felt comfortable sharing, but it still felt strange, almost obscene, discussing his work with the petite blonde dynamo. To him, Edie Tolliver represented light and goodness in a life that was often filled with darkness and violence.

  He sipped his coffee and smiled. “No blood, no foul? Let bygones be bygones?”

  “Exactly. You were paid to eliminate an evil man and that man is now gone. Yes, some unknown person or persons tried to frame you and take you down, but you escaped and are fine. Why court further trouble?”

  It was a question Jack had asked himself more than once following his escape from the Spinelli home. He wasn’t sure there was an answer he could adequately express.

  “Well, first off, let me correct the record,” he said with a grin. “I was contracted to eliminate an evil man. I never received payment on that contract because I didn’t complete the assignment.”

  “You might as well have completed it.”

  “Maybe so, but I didn’t, and accepting the money would be wrong. I couldn’t do it, even though The Organization offered it to me.”

  Edie’s worried expression vanished for just a moment as her entire face lit up in a smile. It was like the sun breaking through an overcast layer on a summer day. “I never realized a professional assassin could also be a beacon of morality.”

  “I’m nobody’s beacon,” Jack said. “Of morality or anything else. But I have my own code of ethics I try to live by. I learned a long time ago that other people are always going to judge you, sometimes rightly and sometimes wrongly. But as long as you can look yourself in the mirror and know you’ve tried to live in a manner you can be proud of, you can go to sleep every night with a clear conscience. Looking for anything more out of life is just tilting at windmills.”

  The worried look had returned to Edie’s face. She blew distractedly at the steam rising from her coffee mug and said, “You are one complicated individual, Jack Sheridan.”

  He grinned. “Nah. I’m just a guy trying to get through another day.”

  “I refuse to concede my point,” she said. “I also can’t help but notice you never answered my question.”

  “What was it again? I find it hard to concentrate on anything besides you when we’re together.”

  “Flattery will get you everywhere, Mister. But I asked why you don’t just let the Spinelli thing go. Drop it, Jack, before you get hurt or things spin out of control.”

  “It’s not about my pride, and trying to even the score with someone who took advantage of me,” he said. “Or, to be accurate, it’s not solely about my pride.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  Jack took another sip of his coffee as he tried to explain what he was feeling. “I saw the crime scene, once in person and then multiple times on Spinelli’s surveillance video. It was…intense.”

 

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