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DREW PATRICK
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Inner Circle's Bad Boys, the theme song from the television show COPS, woke me from a deep sleep. It was my ringtone for Detective Captain Robert Burke. I answered in a fog.
“I'm on my way to your house,” Burke said as soon as I answered. “Be ready in five minutes.” He hung up.
I got out of bed. Dash lifted his head and looked at me still half asleep. “Go back to sleep,” I told him. He put his head back down and closed his eyes.
I stumbled into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. I put on my jeans and a Red Sox 2018 World Series Champions tee shirt that read HISTORY MADE with the number 18 in place of the I and S. I made my way downstairs and pulled on my New Balance sneakers.
I found Burke parked in front of my house in his unmarked State Police Ford Taurus. I got in the front passenger seat. Burke handed me a coffee from Dunkin'.
“Thanks,” I said. I was still too tired to say anything about the fact he actually bought me a coffee.
As we pulled away from the curb he said to me, “Leo Mancini was killed tonight.”
I looked at him, not sure I heard him correctly.
“Professional hit,” he continued as he looked straight out the window. When we reached Broadway Burke turned on the flashing blue cop lights, mounted in the car's front windshield and grill, and pressed the gas pedal to the floor.
“If he's dead, what's the rush at two in the morning?” I asked.
“One of Mancini's guys got off a few shots. Hitman got away, but a group of college students found him bleeding out in the street a few blocks away. They called 9-1-1. He's in critical condition at Mass General Hospital. Docs say he won't make it to dawn. I want to talk to him while he's still got a pulse.”
“This was obviously a play to take out the Mancini crime syndicate,” I said. “Any idea who is behind it?”
I took a sip of my coffee while Burke responded. “There is a list of perps as long as my arm. But Eddie Garavito is at the top.”
“There has been bad blood between Eddie and Angelo for years,” I said. “If Leo was as weak as people seem to think ...”
“It would be a perfect time to make a move,” Burke said completing my sentence for me.
“Should we also consider this is related to my conversation with Nevin Barlow?” I said. “Timing seems more than a coincidence.”
We were moving at a fast clip along a largely deserted Broadway. Being in a cop car had its advantages when you wanted to get somewhere fast. Burke considered my question for a moment. He said, "I've considered that possibility. But it seems like a bold move for someone other than another mob boss."
I nodded my head and took a bigger sip of my coffee now that it had cooled enough so it wouldn't burn my tongue. Cambridge was zipping past us. Or maybe we were zipping past Cambridge. At any rate, we were moving very fast in a state cop car.
Burke and I were silent for a while. The blue lights flashed out in front of us as we hurtled along Broadway. We crossed Longfellow Bridge. The Charles River was dark and still beneath us. We turned left onto Charles Street and raced to the entrance of Mass General.
A State Police trooper was waiting and brought us to the hospital room where the hitman would spend his remaining moments of life. Additional State Police troopers stood watch along the hallway. We entered the room. The hitman was in bed with tubes and wires attached to him. Hospital equipment beeped and whirred.
“What's the latest?” Burke asked Detective Lieutenant Sanchez.
She replied, “He can talk.”
“Have you been able to id him?” I asked.
“His name is Brody Walker. He's known to every law enforcement agency as a suspected assassin. Until now no one has ever gotten close to him.”
Special Agent Mark Sumners walked into the room.
“Now the gang is all here,” I said.
“Brody Walker. I'm Detective Captain Robert Burke with the Massachusetts State Police. This is Special Agent Mark Sumners of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The other guy is Drew Patrick. He's a private detective. You've already met Detective Lieutenant Isabella Sanchez. Now, before you slip into the great beyond, we want you to tell us who hired you.”
Brody Walker's eyes fluttered. He looked around the room. He took a long and difficult breath. Then he said, “Go screw yourselves.”
"This is your chance to do something good in your life," Sumners said. "Your last and only chance. You have nothing left to protect."
Brody Walker turned away. A single tear streamed down his face.
“Or maybe you do have something to protect. More appropriately, someone to protect,” I said. “Who is it?”
“I have a little girl,” he said. “She’s not aware of me. Her mother wanted it that way. I don't blame her for that.” He paused a moment to catch his breath. Then he continued, “I have money saved for her in a safe deposit box. If I tell you the bank and where to find the key, will you promise me she'll get the money?”
“Your blood money?” Sumners said. “We can't be part of that.”
“Law enforcement can't,” I said. “But I can.”
“Drew,” Sumners said to me.
“I didn't say I like it. I don't. This guy disgusts me. And, yes, it is blood money. Who knows how many people he killed to get it. But we need to find out who hired him.”
“It could help us prevent a mob war,” Sanchez said. "I know it looks like Garavito did order the hit, but it makes little sense. It's not his style."
“And if it wasn't Garavito, then it makes it all the more likely it is connected to our case. It may help us get who we are after. The only one we can go after now that Leo is dead.”
“Drew's right,” Burke said. “And who knows, maybe the little girl will use the money to go to college and contribute to the betterment of society.” He paused a beat. “Unlike this crapbag.” Burke tilted his head at Walker.
Sumners nodded. Burke, Sumners, and Sanchez left the room.
“Okay,” I said. "First give me the details about the money. Then you will tell me who hired you for this hit. And I also want information about any other jobs you have done in Boston. Let's help the State Police and FBI solve some cold cases. If there is anything else you want to get off your chest before you die, I'll listen. But I won't try to make you feel better or offer you forgiveness, or anything like that.”
“You promise you'll get the money to my little girl?”
I nodded. He told me her name and and that she and her mother lived in San Francisco. Walker gave me the name of the bank on Market Street in San Fran. The key to the safe deposit box was in a locker at the Greyhound station two blocks from the bank. Walker gave me the locker number and combination. I wrote them down with the other information.
Then he said, “I don't know who has been hiring me. Not the main guy. I only know the man who made the arrangements with me.”
“Who is he?”
Walker shook his head. He took a breath. His breathing became labored. "He never gave me his name. He's a big-bellied guy with a fat nose. Looked like someone broke his nose at some point."
“That's all you've got?” I said. “No deal.” I turned to leave.
“Wait,” Walker said. He took another breath. It was getting harder for him to breathe. “I can tell you where I was going to meet him to collect the rest of the payment for the job.”
“Where?”
“Same place as last time. Boston Common Parking Garage.”
Walker gave me the parking location of the car. “It's a silver Toyota Camry. I get in the front passenger seat.”
“Okay. That's where. When are you scheduled to meet him?”
“Tonight at ten. There's something else.”
“What?”
“You were next on my list,” Walker said.
“Another good reason one of Mancini's guys got off a good shot,” I said.
I didn't like learning I was on the hit list, but sometimes it came with the job. I needed to let it go and stay focused on getting what I could out of Walker before he passed.
"You mentioned the same guy hired you for other jobs. Any of them here in Boston?"
Walker nodded. “Yeah. Lady named Laura Powell.”
When Walker said her name I felt the rage well within me. Enough that I wanted to deny him what little time he had left. But I wasn't surprised by the news. It fit with how this was all unfolding.
“She didn't die,” I said. I wanted him to be aware he hadn't succeeded in that job. Walker had no reaction.
“Someone bumped her into the street,” I said. “Who was your accomplice?”
“A local guy named Oscar Ricardo.”
“What was the other job?” I asked, fairly certain what Walker's reply would be.
“Guy named Phillip Swanson in Washington, DC.”
Walker took several more labored breaths. Then he said, “I don't even know why somebody wanted them dead. I never cared.” He wasn't necessarily talking to me. His blank and unfocused eyes stared into nothingness. Suddenly he looked over at me. "I only did a few jobs here in Boston."
He told me the names and dates of his other hits. I wrote them down. Then Walker rattled off more names, places, and dates. He had committed every hit to memory. I wrote those down too until he stopped talking to take one last, final breath.