Robert B. Parker’s Blood Feud

Ten

It was past eight by the time I met Richie in the little park set above the Chestnut Hill Reservoir, across from the football stadium at Boston College, on St. Thomas More Road. A little sign set in among the benches read “Chestnut Hill Driveway.”

Richie told me that an early-morning jogger, a BC student, had discovered the body of Peter Burke on her way down to run the reservoir. By the time I got there, Peter’s body was gone, and the cops had closed off both ends of St. Thomas More. Richie’s father was with him, and his uncle Felix. So, too, was Lieutenant Frank Belson. Richie had told me over the phone that all of the uniforms at the scene had been told to let me pass.

Frank Belson was a friend of my father’s and had once been a wingman for the great Martin Quirk, the most famous homicide cop in the history of the Boston Police Department and now its assistant superintendent. Frank made no secret, at least to me, of his dislike for Quirk’s replacement as his boss. The department knew her as Captain Glass. To Frank she was “her.” Or worse. He smoked cheap cigars, even in the age of enlightenment about the evils of tobacco whether you inhaled or not, and almost always wore the same navy blue suit, no matter the season. But he was what my father called a righteous detective, no bullshit to him, eyes that took in everything at once, an ability to recall a crime scene after the fact as if he had photographs from the scene spread out on his desk.

When he saw me come walking up the path he took the unlit cigar out of his mouth and said, “Now I know it’s my lucky day.”

He looked tired, even this early. But then he always looked tired. He reminded me of the old Indiana Jones line, the one about how it’s not the years, it’s the mileage.

“I would’ve thought your uncle spent as much time in Chestnut Hill as he did on the fucking moon,” Belson said to Richie.

“The shooter must have set up a meet,” Richie said. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. More privacy up here than the reservoir, even in the middle of the night.”

“Could it have been someone who owed him money?” Belson said.

“Someone like that would have come to Peter,” Richie said, “not the other way around.”

Peter Burke, I knew from Richie, had always run bookmaking in the family. His office, if you could call it that, was in the downstairs part of a two-bedroom flat on West Broadway in Southie. Richie had taken me by it once, after we’d had dinner at the L Street Tavern. It was when Richie was still living in Southie himself. His uncle’s office had about as much charm as a holding cell. When I’d pointed that out to Richie he’d said, “And on a good day, they can clear as much money here as banks do on State Street.”

I hadn’t noticed Desmond Burke come up behind us.

“He was told not to go anywhere alone,” he said. He shook his head fiercely and stared at the water. “A fucking cowboy until the end,” he said.

It came out “fooking.”

“He called me after midnight and told me he might have a lead on Richie’s shooter,” Felix Burke said. “I told him to stay where he was until he spoke to Desmond. He said he would. He lied. Peter did that. He was the youngest of us, and never much took to being bossed around.”

“Wasn’t anybody with him?” I said.

“He sent them home,” Felix Burke said. “Without telling Desmond or me.”

“Anybody find a phone?” I asked.

“Shit,” Belson said, slapping a hand to his forehead. “Why didn’t I think of that. Good thing for me I’ve got a crime solver like you on the case.”

“I’ll take that as a no,” I said. “Car?”

“Found it over there at the construction site where they’re building some new fucking facility for the football team,” Belson said.

“How would you possibly know that?” I said.

Belson jerked a head in the direction of the big uniformed cop standing with his arms crossed, facing in the general direction of Cleveland Circle. I’d spent a lot of college nights there drinking at a bar called Mary Ann’s, where their policy on fake IDs was more liberal than Elizabeth Warren.

“Novak played tight end here until he blew out his knee with one of those injuries that has all the initials,” Belson said.

“Weapon?” I said.

Richie answered before Belson could. “The lieutenant thinks it might be the same kind of .22 used on me.”

“I’m surrounded by crime solvers this morning,” Belson said. He looked at me and said, “Sometimes you run into them in the oddest places.”

He turned now to face Desmond Burke. My own father might be out of the game. Frank Belson was not.

“You say you have no working theories about what happened to your son and what has now happened to your brother,” Belson said.

“I do not,” Desmond Burke said.

They were a few feet apart, eyes locked on each other. It reminded me of a playground stare-down.

“You’re convinced this had nothing to do with some kind of grudge against your brothers.”

“I am.”

“You’re likewise convinced it is only about you,” Belson said.

“I am,” Desmond Burke said.

“You need to leave this to professionals,” Belson said.

“I have my own professionals,” Desmond said.

Belson said, “How’s that working out for you today, Desmond?”

I could see the tightness in Desmond’s face, and saw him clench his fists, but Belson was already walking away from him, trying to relight his cigar, bending down to take another look at the exact spot where I assumed Peter Burke’s body had been discovered.

When he stood up, he made a motion with his hand. Richie and I started to walk in his direction.

“Just her,” Frank Belson said.

When I got to him he said, “I assume you’re all the way into this.”

“They shot Richie,” I said. “You knew I wasn’t going to sit this out even before they shot his uncle.”

“Sadly, I do know that,” he said. “But since you are the daughter of a great policeman, I also know that you know that if you in any way interfere with my homicide investigation, you can add the fact that you’re Phil Randall’s kid to the list of things about which I don’t give a fuck.”

“Understood,” I said.

“I’ll be in touch,” he said, and walked past Desmond and Felix Burke and past the young cop Novak, in the general direction of where I could already see TV satellite trucks lining up on the side road that fed into St. Thomas More.

When he was about twenty yards away, I said, “Hey, Frank?”

He turned around.

“That list you just mentioned?” I said. “Is that an actual thing?”