Robert B. Parker’s Blood Feud

Thirty-Three

The body had been found between the Murphy Rink in South Boston and the park next to it on William Day Boulevard, not far from the Castle Island lagoon.

A man had been walking his dog at about seven in the morning, according to Frank Belson. The dog had suddenly become agitated and started barking. The man found the body, facedown, near a small clump of trees. The man with the dog called 911. I knew the drill about “body found” from my days as a cop as well as I knew the code to unlock my iPhone. Car dispatched. Patrol supervisor alerted. Full notification to the operations center. Call to the on-duty homicide officer, who called Belson.

He now stood with me about fifty yards from the perimeter of the crime scene. Body was already gone, pictures had already been taken, a handful of cops inside the perimeter looking for anything Belson might have missed in his own inspection of the scene. By now I knew there was as much a chance of them finding something Frank Belson had missed as there was of them becoming astronauts.

“We never close,” he said.

“Fighting crime, reducing fear,” I said from memory.

“What about improving the quality of life in our neighborhoods?” Belson said.

“Might have fallen a little short this morning on that one,” I said. “’Least in this neighborhood.”

He made a snorting noise.

“One to the back of the head,” he said. “Guy’s own gun in the side pocket of his windbreaker. Looks like he never got the chance to clear it.”

“What kind of gun?”

“One that killed him or one in his pocket?”

“Pocket?”

“A .22,” Belson said.

“Was it not a .22 that shot Richie and killed Peter and Buster?”

Belson said, “Fuckin’ ay.”

“ID?” I said.

“Wallet in the back pocket of his jeans, intact,” Belson said. “Rhode Island driver’s license, credit cards, Dunkin’ Donuts card, all in the name of Dominic Carbone, a resident of Cranston until a couple hours or so ago.”

“I assume he wasn’t moonlighting with the Cranston Chamber of Commerce,” I said.

“We’ve already run his name through the NCIC,” Belson said. “National Crime Information Center.”

“I know what it means, Frank.”

With the morning light hitting his face the way it did, he might have grinned.

“Dominic, as it turns out, was not what you might call an Eagle Scout. Did two falls for assault as a younger man. A third, according to the Providence cops my guys have already talked to, was tossed on account of a bad arrest.”

I waited. I knew him and knew there was more.

“Which is not the most interesting part of Dominic’s portfolio.”

“Don’t make me beg,” I said.

“According to the Providence cops, Dominic grew up to be a button man for Albert Antonioni,” Belson said. “Oh, wait. I meant to say alleged button man.”

“You PC bastard.”

“His gun is already back at the lab,” Belson said.

“Because you want to know if it might be the same gun somebody has been pointing at the Burkes,” I said.

“How did we ever let a Crimestopper like you get away?” Belson said.

“And if it is a match,” I said, “does that close the books on our recent crime spree?”

Belson snorted again.

“Fuck, no,” he said.

“Would be an awfully tidy package,” I said.

“Wouldn’t it, though?”

“This work has made you cynical,” I said.

“Hasn’t it, though?” Belson said.

“If there is a ballistics match, then what?”

“Then officially I’ve only got one stiff to worry about,” Belson said.

“And unofficially?”

“Unofficially, and because I am a cynical-type person, I start to think how convenient it is that we put a bow around everything with a Mobbed-up guy from Rhode Island who somehow gets himself shot to death from close range outside an MDC skating rink in South Boston,” Belson said.

“You think Desmond and Felix could have had this done?”

“Could have? Sure,” he said. “But that means they got the guy out here and somebody got close enough to shoot him, the way somebody shot Peter Burke.”

“It was done here?”

“ME says yes.”

Being somebody who really did consider herself a good citizen, I thought about telling Belson about Maria Cataldo and what Dominic Carbone, if it was Dominic Carbone, had said to me while holding me down in that alley in the rain. I thought about possible connections between the late Dominic Carbone and the Cataldo family, once run by a man that Desmond Burke said Albert Antonioni had killed, or had ordered killed. Unless Desmond Burke had lied to me, always a distinct possibility.

If Peter and Felix Burke thought that Dominic Carbone, who worked for Albert Antonioni, was their shooter, how long would it take for them to go after Antonioni himself?

But I didn’t share any of that with Frank Belson, at least for now.

Belson looked at me the way I knew he looked at crime scenes, as if he somehow saw something on my face. Or was reading my mind.

“I like you, Sunny,” he said. “I love your old man. But you know me well enough to know that if you are holding back from me and I find out about it, I am prepared to harass the shit out of you.”

“It’s all the rage,” I said. “Harassment.”

“I didn’t mean that kind,” Belson said.

“I know.”

Now Belson grinned. “Me, too,” he said.

He really could be a funny bastard when he wanted to be.