I’ve done my share of funerals: my mom’s, singing and wailing and chanting; my pop’s, a sea of blue uniforms; my Aunt Bea’s, quiet and dignified. Even with time, they don’t blur together; each is a frozen chunk of time. I’ve viewed my share as a cop, too, from mob jobs where you note the license plates, to hit-and-runs where you wear the full dress uniform to let the family know you take the crime seriously. I’ve seen graveside fainters, graveside screamers, slapped cheeks, wrestling matches, and once a real brawl that knocked a frocked priest off his feet.
I decided to join the crowd, but stay near the rear, off to one side, the better to watch without being watched.
Eddie had said nothing about searching for a tape of Fournier’s voice to send to the FBI lab along with the inspector general’s hotline tapes. Either he was playing it close to his vest or doing nothing at all, hoping I’d let it go, hoping the Horgans could bury the accusations along with the man, go on as if nothing had happened.
It was getting colder, the rain changing to slush. I plunged my hands deep in my pockets and felt the faint crackle of paper. I’d given Liz the book Marian had sent to her darling Krissi, but not the note that went with it, the note I’d been instructed to deliver in person. I ran my fingertips over the sealed flap. Marian wasn’t among the sparse crowd under the tent. When I went to clean out my desk I’d give it back to her, apologize. After I steamed it open and read it. The priest’s voice rose and an answering sob came from Fournier’s mother in the front row.
Leland Walsh stood alone under an umbrella, half-sheltered by the tent. I joined him, using his umbrella, and my lack of one, as an excuse.
“Glad to see you,” he murmured.
The priest spoke of the resurrection sure to come to whosoever believeth in Him, and Fournier’s family wept along with the sky. I counted the crowd and tried to place a name on the burly figure next to Harv O’Day. He had buzz-cut light gray hair, posture more erect than the soldier brother’s. I didn’t think I’d seen him on-site. There must be bigwigs present. Dig officials and union bosses. PR flacks. I identified a reporter from the Herald, another from the Globe.
I’d gone through news files online last night, searching for previous Dig accidents, looking for patterns. Two carpenters had had their legs smashed at the bottom of an excavation pit under Atlantic Avenue near Beach Street. Two workers had died: one in ’98, when a backhoe trapped a man against a concrete barrier; one in ’99, just last year, from a fifteen-foot fall. A forty-two-year-old woman working the roof of a highway tunnel near South Station had fallen thirty feet, survived.
An insignificant number considering the project’s size. That’s what the papers would say, but I didn’t think any of the reporters would try to tell it to Kevin Fournier’s mother.
Fournier couldn’t have fallen more than twelve feet.
As the coffin was lowered into the pit, Leland Walsh swallowed audibly. The man standing near O’Day took a seat next to Liz Horgan, muttered something in her ear. She lowered her head to her hands. I hadn’t thought her face could turn any whiter, but it paled.
“Who’s that?” I asked softly. Leland Walsh had been watching, too. I was very aware of his eyes, his movements, his strong bare hand clasping the umbrella handle.
“New night watchman. I don’t know why he’s here.”
“Friend of the Horgans?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe he knew Kev from another job.”
The priest stopped speaking. Mrs. Fournier stood shakily and tossed a white rose into the grave. The military brother sent a spadeful of dirt after it, returned the spade to the pile of upturned earth with a crunch.
“Was there an old night watchman?” I murmured.
“What?”
“If he’s the new night watchman, how did they handle the watch before?”
“Three, four sites share a man. Old guy, does a few rounds, probably sleeps most of the time. Nobody worries much because of the detail cops.”
It’s Massachusetts law: Any construction site that intersects auto traffic must pay an off-duty policeman to caution drivers and direct the cars. With so many cops so close at hand on the surface streets, the contractors would feel safe.
A sudden gust of wind caught the umbrella, tilted it. I reached to steady the handle at the same time Walsh did. Our hands touched. I felt the fine hairs on the back of his dark wrist, and an almost electric tingle.
“I won’t be coming back to work,” I whispered.
“Why? What happened?”
I shrugged as if to say it was too long a tale. Which it was. I didn’t want to meet his eyes.
He lowered the umbrella to cut us off from the crowd. “You busy tonight? Someplace we can get together, have a drink?”
“You know a bar named Raquela’s?” I asked.
“How about seven? We can have dinner. It’s that place on the pier, near the site?”
I nodded.
“Yeah, close by. That’ll work out real well. You want to borrow my umbrella, give it back tonight?”
I shook my head and he moved away, falling into conversation with a man in an expensive topcoat. I stayed till the end, watching the mourners file by the site, some shoveling a farewell spade of earth. I took note of who got into which car with whom, tried to sort the suits from the workers, the family from the friends. The new night watchman, Jason O’Meara, whose name I’d entered on the payroll, left without speaking to the Fournier family or Gerry Horgan. I kept an eye on Leland Walsh, but he didn’t get close enough to the grave to toss any mementos after his friend.
I didn’t pay my respects to the family. I didn’t know them. Instead I threw a handful of dirt on the coffin after everyone else had gone, remembering the man who’d wanted to speak to Liz Horgan so badly, remembering his angry voice on the tape. I’d pay my respects by going over the post-mortem with a fine-toothed comb. Whether Eddie sent it or not.