The Strangler

59

Margaret answered the door looking bulletproof in a wool twinset and skirt. “Michael,” she said. “What are you doing here? No work today?”

“No.”

“Are you all right?”

“No. All wrong, actually.”

“What does that mean? Did you call in sick?”

“No.”

“Don’t you think you should? What if someone’s looking for you?”

Michael hunched past her, as a porcupine trundles across a road with its load of erect quills.

“I really think you should,” Margaret repeated. “What if they’re looking for you, Michael? Why don’t you go use the phone in the kitchen? It’s the responsible thing, dear. It’ll just take a second.”

Michael stood in the center of the small living room. One of Conroy’s Mickey Spillane novels lay on the table by the big saffron chair.

“I need to ask you about Dad.”

“Okay.”

“Did you ever ask Conroy about him? Since we talked that morning?”

“I wouldn’t insult him.”

“You wouldn’t insult him? So you insult Dad instead?”

“You take that back, Michael.”

“Well, you have to insult one or the other. It’s awkward that way.”

She pulled her cardigan tight around her and crossed her arms. “Why do you say these things?”

“Tell me what happened with Dad.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Those last few months, something was wrong. Dad was upset about something. Moping around, drinking too much, smoking like a chimney.”

“Your father had a stressful job. I’d think you’d know that. He had ups and downs, same as everyone else, same as you. There was nothing unusual about your dad taking a drink, either. He was not Superman.”

“That’s what I figured, too. He was not Superman, so what? So maybe he took a pop at night, who cares? Happens to everyone. Only then he got killed. Now, that doesn’t happen to everyone, does it?”

“He got killed on the job. What did smoking and drinking have to do with it? He was in good shape. He was always in good shape, your father.”

An image flickered in Michael’s mind: Dad on the beach, not muscular but sinewy and lean.

“Help me, Mum. I need to know. There was one night at supper, a few months before, and Joe was saying how great it was to be a cop and all that, and Dad said something like ‘It’s not as great as it used to be.’”

“Oh, he said that all the time. Your father was getting old. He was tired. You try working those hours someday. You’d be tired, too.”

“No. He didn’t say he was tired, he said he was tired of it. He loved being a cop. So what was he tired of?”

“Tired is tired. He worked hard.”

Michael frowned. “You know what’s funny? When Joe got into trouble-that business with the bookie-we all knew just who to turn to: good old Uncle Brendan.”

“I don’t see what one has to do with the other.”

“Well, it’s just, if Dad was in trouble…All those years he and Brendan were partners.”

“And?”

“And Brendan isn’t exactly the kind of cop Dad was, now, is he?”

“I don’t like being cross-examined, Michael. This is not a court. Anyway, you seem to think you have all the answers. Why don’t you just say what’s on your mind.”

“Two murders in one family in the same year. That’s a hell of a coincidence. And no answers. No help from the cops-everything stays unsolved, unsolved, unsolved.”

“Michael, you have to let go of it-”

“No. I don’t want to let go of it. I went to see Amy’s friend at the newspaper. You remember Claire Downey?”

“I remember the name in the paper next to Amy’s.”

“Well, I asked Claire what she knew about it. Why would Amy think Conroy would ever want to harm my dad? I mean, even if Conroy is crooked, what would the motive be? Turns out, according to Claire, Amy was looking into the West End-two-legged rats in the West End.

“So then I went and talked to an old friend. Well, not a friend exactly. She thinks I’m the devil on earth-and I am-because I got her thrown out of her apartment so the tenement could come down so Farley Sonnenshein could put up one of his new buildings and make a few million more than he already has-all for the betterment of our fair city, of course. Mrs. Cavalcante, her name is. Nice little Italian lady. She told me there were bad guys -delinquenti- threatening her, trying to scare her out of her building so they could get in there and build those new apartments. Nothing too surprising there, right? A lot of money at stake, a guy like Sonnenshein probably isn’t above playing hardball. But get this: Mrs. Cavalcante says some of the delinquenti were cops.”

“Michael, you’re not suggesting your father was one of them!”

“No. Don’t be ridiculous. Dad might not have been Superman but he sure as hell was a Boy Scout, next to your boyfriend anyway.”

“Oh, Michael, you’re not turning into one of those conspiracy nuts.”

“Not a conspiracy. I’m talking about business as usual. Just a few cops on the take.”

“Business as usual is a couple of bucks here and there.”

“That’s right. And as long as it’s business as usual, the good cops like Dad are willing to look the other way. That’s how it works, right? The whole department isn’t crooked. Only half. But the good half has to shut its eyes-or at least its mouth-while the crooked half runs around with their hands out. But what if something changed? What if Dad started seeing things that weren’t business as usual, even for Boston, and he couldn’t look the other way anymore?”

“Good Lord, Michael, what does any of this have to do with Brendan?”

“Brendan would do things Dad would never do.”

“Michael, I don’t know what’s going on between you and Brendan, but I want you to understand something. Whatever Brendan did, whatever he might have got up to, your father did too. They weren’t just partners, those two, they were friends. They were Ike and Mike. You talk like it’s all good Joe, bad Brendan. It just wasn’t that way. It wasn’t that way at all.”

“Amy thought different.”

Margaret shrugged. “Then she was wrong. Bless her heart, she was a living angel, but she was not perfect, either. Now, I know how you felt about Amy. Sometimes we see with our hearts, Michael. Let me ask you something. How do you think your father put you through Harvard on a cop’s salary?”

“I worked my way through.”

“Yes, you worked, more power to you. But you had plenty of help. How do you think your father did that for you? How many other cops’ kids were there at Harvard with you? We’re not the Kennedys, Michael.”

“Well, that’s for sure.”

“Your father had three children. Sometimes he did what he had to. He didn’t invent the system.”

“I’d have no problem believing that except for one thing: In the end, when Dad died, the only other man in that alley was Brendan Conroy. If Dad decided he couldn’t just look the other way, if Brendan had gone too far and Dad was getting ready to blow the whistle-well, look, I can explain why Brendan might be in that alley with a gun. What’s your explanation, Ma?”

“I don’t need an explanation.”

“When you crawl into bed with him tonight, you might feel different.”

She slapped him. “I’m still your mother. Whatever you might think of me.”