Bad Thoughts

Chapter 28

After Shannon was released he headed across the Boston University bridge and then to Brighton. Without really thinking about it he found a small biker bar and had three quick shots of scotch. As he held his fourth shot he looked at it, mildly surprised, realizing he had no taste for it.

That part of his life was back to normal. He didn’t have any desire for alcohol. He didn’t really have any need for it. The three shots he poured down were wasted on him.

But the rest of it. The murders. The articles hidden in his walls… Liza Keenan…

He lifted the shot glass to the window and studied it, studied the way the light filtered through its yellow murkiness. As he stared through the liquid a resolve tightened the muscles along his jaw. A coolness cleared his mind. He put the shot glass back on the bar and got up.

He first called Susan. She confirmed that he had gotten home around eleven-thirty. Her voice sounded brittle, distant. She asked if he had been drinking. When he told her he hadn’t she hung up on him. He had a sickening feeling in his stomach that she had been told about Liza Keenan. For a moment he lost his resolve but then called Elaine Horwitz. She was positive he left her at eleven-ten. That left only twenty minutes for him to have driven to East Boston, pick out Liza Keenan, butcher her, and drive back to Cambridge. It would’ve taken more than twenty minutes to have just driven to East Boston, which meant that he had nothing to do with the murder.

At first he felt an overwhelming sense of relief. Then, just as quickly, a hot flush of anger. When Shannon next called Joe DiGrazia, his hands were shaking.

The old man looked first at Liza Keenan’s photograph and then back at Shannon. “Cops were showing me her picture,” he said suspiciously. “And yours, too. Why should I be talking to you?”

Shannon showed him his police badge.

“This says you’re a Cambridge cop. This is Boston. I don’t have to talk to you. Not unless I have a reason.”

He had been pushing a grocery cart filled with cans and newspapers when Shannon had stopped him. He brushed past Shannon and started to push his cart away.

“Is ten dollars enough of a reason?”

“Maybe.” He stopped and waited for Shannon to hand him the money. When he had it shoved into his pants pocket he gave Shannon an accusatory scowl. “Why those cops showing your picture around?”

“I don’t know. Have you ever seen me around here before?”

“No, I’ve never seen you. That what you want me to say?”

“I want you to say the truth.”

“Okay, I’ve never seen you before.”

“But you were here last night?”

“Yeah, I was here last night. Where else am I going to be?”

“You didn’t tell the police that.”

The old man showed a sly, toothless smile. “They didn’t give me any reason to,” he said.

“And you saw what happened to that girl.”

“No, I didn’t!” the old man protested. His face went slack. “At least,” he added, “not until after it had happened.” Then, very quietly, “I saw him when he was leaving.”

Shannon felt his heart skip a beat. “You saw him?”

“Not enough to get a good look,” the old man said apologetically. “I was sleeping in that alley behind some crates. I saw him when he walked by. Then I saw what he had done to that girl. And then I found myself another place to sleep.”

“All right,” Shannon exhaled, “let’s go talk to some people-”

“No, you don’t! I ain’t going nowhere. They’ll steal my cart if I go. Anyway, I don’t want to go nowhere.” The old man started to push off.

Shannon dragged his cart away from him. “You’ll lose your cart either way.”

The old man struggled briefly and then turned, resigned, to face Shannon.

“It wouldn’t help if I went with you,” he said. “My eyes aren’t that good anymore and it was dark and add to that, I was just waking up. I didn’t get a good enough look at him. At least not so I could describe him.” The old man shuddered involuntarily, his gnarled face relaxing. “I don’t think I wanted to get a good look at him.

“There was something about him that made me look away,” he continued, smiling sadly. “I guess I’m just too old to want to face death. At least before it’s time.”

“Is there anything about him you remember?”

“I’m sorry. There really isn’t. Except he seemed evil. That’s all I can picture in my mind. Just pure evil. It made my skin crawl when he walked by. And then I saw what he did to that poor girl.”

Shannon tried to question him, but the old man wouldn’t budge. If he had to guess on it, he’d say Liza Keenan’s murderer was big, but he couldn’t say for sure. He couldn’t narrow down the man’s age or what he was wearing. Only that he was white and that he was evil and that he smelled bad. Smelled bad enough that even he could notice.

Shannon sighed. “I need your name.”

That got the old man cackling. “What you need my name for?” he asked, showing a wide, toothless grin. “Nobody’s used it for over twenty years.”

“I still need your name.”

“Wouldn’t do you or anyone else any good. I don’t leave this block much, if you need to find me. Although, I don’t know what for. Since I already forgot everything I told you.”

Shannon met with Joe DiGrazia and filled him in on what he found. DiGrazia looked skeptical.

“You just left him?” DiGrazia asked.

“It wouldn’t have done any good bringing him in. He would’ve denied witnessing anything. Besides, he really didn’t. At least not so he could’ve given us a reliable description.”

“It was still sloppy police work.”

“Yeah, well, at this moment I’m not really a cop. And if we want to look at sloppy police work, let’s look at me being brought in for Liza Keenan’s murder. A couple of phone calls would’ve cleared me.”

DiGrazia looked thoughtful. “I’m not convinced you shouldn’t have been brought in,” he said at last. “I believe Susie about when you arrived home. I’m not sure if your therapist is being completely honest. I got a feeling she’s covering for you.”

“That’s ridiculous.” Shannon couldn’t tell whether DiGrazia was only trying to get a rise out of him. “There was no evidence I was involved with Keenan’s murder. If I was, from the photos I was shown, there should’ve been some blood evidence. A few minutes of real police work would’ve cleared me.”

DiGrazia shrugged. “It was still worth bringing you in. Something funny is going on with you. You might not have had anything to do with last night’s murder, but it still doesn’t clear you of the other two. Or explain why you had those articles of your mother’s murder hidden in your apartment. The ones you claimed you didn’t know you had. And it doesn’t explain what you were doing when you blacked out.”

Shannon shrugged. “Let’s look at what happened. There’ve been four murders, all presumed to have been committed by the same individual. I’ve already been cleared of two of the murders, but you and the FBI still keep trying to get me for the other two.”

“And we shouldn’t be?”

“No.” Shannon shook his head. “I think you need to go back to your original theory. That they all were committed by one person. If you do, and you accept the evidence that clears me of Roberson’s and Keenan’s murders, then you have to ask yourself why it seems like I’m being implicated.”

DiGrazia narrowed his eyes, lines along his jaw muscles hardening. “Yeah, why is that?”

“Because,” and Shannon couldn’t keep from showing a sick smile, “someone out there is trying like hell to implicate me.”

“And who’s that?”

“I don’t know. But he knows what happened to my mother. He planted those articles in my apartment. He had to have, ’cause I never saw them before.”

“You’re trying to tell me he broke into your apartment-”

“That’s right. And he’s committing these murders. Joe, he’s trying to frame me. I think what he really wants is to convince me I’m doing them.”

DiGrazia was drumming his fingers against the table. Frowning, he reached into his coat pocket and fumbled for a cigarette. “If that’s true, he has to know about your blackouts,” he said after he lit it up.

Shannon nodded. “I’ve been thinking about that. He must’ve been watching me, waiting for when I’d black out this year. Which means he’s been keeping tabs on me over the years.”

DiGrazia stared long and hard at Shannon. “Dammit,” he swore. He flicked his cigarette on the floor and crushed it out with his heel. “Give me a description of your witness. I’m going to bring the sonofabitch in like you should’ve.”

At four in the afternoon Shannon received a call from DiGrazia.

“You sick bastard.” DiGrazia’s voice was strained to the point where Shannon wasn’t sure what was said. At least at first.

“What was that?”

“You heard me.” Then, his voice choking, “I found your witness. Goddamn it, I almost believed that crap you fed me. I actually almost believed it.”

“What are you so excited about? I told you he wouldn’t cooperate-”

“Yeah, you’re right about that. At least, not after the way you left him in that alley.”

“Joe, talk English to me-”

“Shut up. I don’t want you trying to talk to me again. We’ll talk later, but not now. Not until we got you dead to rights. Oh, Bill, one more thing, I wouldn’t wait up for Susie if I were you. We had a nice long chat before I called you. In English.”