Fifty-Four
There’s a lot to love about Caroline Quinn. She’s beautiful, with red hair and a yoga-toned body. She’s smart, the top criminal-
defense lawyer in the city. She’s tough, lost a leg to the Marathon bombing, yet drives a stick. But the thing I loved most about Caroline Quinn at this moment was that she was on my side.
As for me, I was having an out-of-body experience. They say that beer on whiskey is mighty risky, but it’s not half as risky as jail on whiskey. I’d spent the night in a holding cell with an open toilet bowl and a cot. Nothing that happened in that room could be counted as sleep. My beard scuffed at my collar, my mouth tasted like dog crap, and my eyes could only approximate looking in the same direction. Dizziness and crankiness vied for my soul.
“Gentlemen,” Caroline said to Lieutenant Lee and his boss, Captain Black, “do you think a five-million-dollar settlement would do it, or should I go for twenty?”
Black and Lee, sitting next to each other in the conference room, glanced at each other. Lee shrugged. Black, using his steel-gray crew cut to look menacing, decided to out tough Caroline.
“You’ll never get a dime, Quinn. We were protecting the city and our own,” he said.
“Really? Not a dime?” Caroline turned to me. “Tucker, don’t you have Jerry Rittenhauser from the Globe on speed dial?”
“Yes, I—”
Caroline cut me off. “I’m thinking of a headline: Keystone Cops of the Internet Age.”
Lee said, “We had evidence that Tucker was dangerous.”
“Lee—”
“Lieutenant Lee.”
“Right. Lee, it’s so sad that you’re losing your mind. How long have you known Tucker?”
Lee crossed his arms.
“A couple of years, at least,” said Caroline.
“We had a threatening Twitter.”
“It’s a tweet,” I said. “You had a threatening tweet.”
“Yes, a tweet.”
“Let’s see it,” said Caroline.
Lee glanced at Black.
Caroline said, “C’mon, you’ll need to hand it over anyway before I take your jobs.”
Black nodded. Lee pushed a sheet of paper toward us, a screen shot of a tweet.
@TuckerInB0ston: I killed Earl and next Ima kill me some cops. #TuckerGate
Black said, “That’s your Twitter account, Tucker.”
“No, it isn’t,” I said.
“You’re TuckerInBoston.”
“Yes, but I’m not TuckerInB-zero-ston.”
“Huh?”
“The second letter in Boston. That’s supposed to be an oh.”
Black said, “Oh?”
Caroline pointed at it. “Oh!”
Lee and Black looked at each other. “Oh … ”
“Yeah, it’s a zero,” I said. “That didn’t come from me.”
Caroline read from the tweet, intoning an accent. “Ima kill me some cops.”
“Seriously?” I said.
“Lee actually thought you wrote that.”
“We grew up hard in Wellesley.”
Lee looked ill.
“We had a murderer to catch, and a tip that it was you,” said Black.
“Right. Did you ask me for an alibi?”
“What alibi?”
“Was Earl killed like the other one?”
“What do you mean?”
“Head cut off, picture on 4chan?”
Black said, “What’s 4chan?”
“Are you shitting me? You don’t even know the MO?”
Lee said, “Yes. Same MO.”
“What time did the picture go up?”
“Half past seven, yesterday evening.”
“You think maybe you should ask where I was at half past seven yesterday?”
“Okay. Where were you at half past seven yesterday?”
“I was visiting my cousin in the North End.”
“Anyone see you?”
“Besides my cousin in the North End?”
“Yeah.”
“A Chinese spy named Xiong. You’d recognize him.”
Lee narrowed his eyes. “Are you mocking me?”
“No. I would never mock you.”
“I need to talk to Xiong.”
“Take it up with the FBI. I have a friend.”
Lee said, “So the FBI is covering for you again?”
Black said, “Let’s not go down that path. I’m not accusing the FBI of anything.”
Caroline said, “To be clear, you sent a SWAT team to my client’s house when you could have made one phone call to find out where he was. Got anything else in your magic folder of evidence to justify destroying his apartment?”
“We got a phone call,” said Black.
“Yeah, what did it say?”
“It said that Tucker had taken a woman hostage and there was screaming.”
“Any screaming when your SWAT goons arrived?”
“We haven’t analyzed the body-camera feeds.”
“I’m going to need those feeds, by the way. All the better to nail you with.”
“How do you know what they’ll show?”
“They’ll show Tucker and FBI Special Agent Mel Hunter sharing a beer on the couch. As far as I know, that’s a rare posture for a hostage situation. And I’ll bet you there is no screaming.”
“It was good beer,” I said. “There would have been no screaming.”
Lee and Black sat, eyes downcast, Lee fiddling with his folder.
Caroline asked again, “So do I go for the five million or twenty?”
“The city will fight you.”
“The city will cut you two losers off at the knees as soon as they figure out how much money you wasted. Tricked by a hacker? Do you think that story will fly?”
“We’re not letting Tucker go,” said Black.
“He’ll need to post bail,” said Lee.
“Are you two going to represent the city in court?”
“Our assistant district attorney will.”
“Dan? Dan won’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. He’s too smart.”
“He’s got our backs.”
The conference room door opened, a sandy-haired guy with two days’ growth poked his head in.
“Hi, Dan,” said Caroline.
“Hey, Caroline!” Dan’s surprised smile stirred something in me. Jealousy? “Are you still here?”
“We were just talking about whether you’re going to arraign Tucker.”
Dan glanced at me, grimaced. “I think not. I was just coming by to tell Lee that the Commissioner needs a rundown of this fiasco so he can write a detailed apology.” Dan reached out a hand to me. “And I too am sorry, Mr. Tucker. We made a terrible mistake.”
“Thanks, Dan,” I said.
Dan closed the door behind him.
Caroline slid her view to Lee and Black. “What’s it going to be?”
Black said to Lee, “Get his stuff and get him out of here.”
I didn’t move, said, “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Black and Lee looked at each other. “What?”
“C’mon, out with it.”
Lee said, “What are you talking about?”
“The Commissioner’s sending me an apology, but it’s not really his fault, is it?”
“You want an apology?”
“Yes, I want an apology. I also want a restraining order.”
“There is no such thing.”
“Then restrain yourselves.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I pointed at Lee and Black. “I want you two and the Boston Police Department to stay out of my hair.”
Black said, “Mr. Tucker, you have counsel here who can speak for you.”
Caroline said, “I think he’s doing fine.”
“If I’m brought down here again for any reason, if I’m followed or investigated, if I hear anything about that video of me slapping a guy—”
“What video?”
“Google it,” I said. “If I even get a notion that you guys are following me, investigating me, or intending me any inconvenience whatsoever, I will tell the Commissioner to tear his apology in half and shove a piece up each of your asses.”
Black said, “Listen, you’re luck—”
“Shut up. I’m talking now,” I said. “Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
Caroline said, “I’m thinking twenty million is the right way to go.”
Lee crossed his arms. “Fine.”
“Fine? What does that mean?”
“I’m sorry.”
Black looked at Lee as if he’d lost his mind. “You apologized?”
“‘Fools mock at reparation, but among the upright there is favor.’”
“What?”
“Proverbs 14:9.”
“For Christ’s sake!”
“Please don’t swear.”
Black crossed his arms, sulking. “Fuck this shit.”
“And another thing,” I said. “I’m going to find out who murdered Peter and who murdered Earl, because it’s the only way I’m going to get you morons and the Twitter mob off my ass.”
“And you want our help?”
“No. I want you to stay out of my way.”
“Fine.”
“And one other thing.”
“What?”
“I want a new door on my condo by noon.”
As we left the conference room, my phone chirped a text message from Adriana: We need to talk.