Crush(91)

“An hour or so had passed and he was pretty wasted. The door opened and Rose O’Shea came in, dressed to the nines. She was wearing a tight black dress, high heels, and a brand-new fur coat. I noticed it because I found it hard to believe Mickey could afford something like that. She strode right over to Paddy and sat down. Like it had been arranged. He ordered her a drink and they started talking. I didn’t know if the two of them knew each other, but Rose had come in enough that I was aware nothing but trouble could come out of her flirting with him. Sure enough, it didn’t take long for her to down a few martinis and for them to disappear into the bathroom.”

My heart was in my throat. What if Michael was like his mother?

“What happened next happened so fast, it’s all a blur. Mickey came in looking for Rose. The place was dark, but when she came out of the bathroom it was easy to see what she had been up to by how disheveled she was. Her hair was a mess and her red lipstick was smeared all around her mouth. Mickey lit up like I’d never seen him. The two were always physical, don’t get me wrong—her slapping him, him pulling her out of the bar by her hair—but that night, the anger on his face seemed to transform to hatred.”

My pulse started to race.

“‘Your kid got arrested tonight,’ he’d barked at her. She acted dumbfounded and he turned red as he eyed her.

“Rose started to throw a tantrum. She called him a liar. Blamed him for not loving the kid. Mickey’s laugh was bitter when he told her that her kid was just as vile as her. She called him weak, pathetic, said he wasn’t a real man. Out of nowhere, he charged at her, calling her a whore, a bitch, screaming at her, yelling. When he reached her he slapped her so hard she fell back, but before she hit the ground he grabbed her by the arm and the hair and started to drag her toward the door.”

I dared a glance around the room, but everyone was focused on Frank.

Frank was in his own world. “That’s when Paddy came out of the john and drew his gun. Told Mickey to let her go. Mickey shoved Rose away and went for his own gun, but Rose stumbled forward just as Mickey fired at Patrick and she took the bullet, right in the back of the head. Died instantly.”

Everyone was in a state of shock.

My hand flew to my mouth and I gasped.

Mickey killed his own wife.

Michael and Erin must not have even been teenagers at the time. Michael never spoke of his mother, but her picture was everywhere in his house; he obviously loved her. Erin never spoke of her either, and as far as I knew she had only that one photo of a family of five in her house and none of only her mother. The older boy in the photo must have been the son Mickey was referring to who had been arrested.

The words sins of the father echoed through my head. And for the first time, Logan’s theory that Michael had killed my sister didn’t sound so insane. I couldn’t dismiss the thought.

Logan pushed to his feet. “Kill a man’s dog, he’ll kill your best friend; kill a man’s brother, he’ll kill your mother; take a man’s girl, and he’ll kill you,” he muttered.

“What?” I asked.

“Something my gramps told me once.”

Frank nodded. “Old unwritten code of conduct, but in Mickey’s case he killed his own girl.”

“He must have blamed Patrick,” Declan commented.

“I’m sure he did, but he was so much weaker than Paddy, there was nothing he could do about it. He didn’t have any power. His own gang had already collapsed years before when he went after another gang’s leader for flirting with Rose, and both gangs tore each other apart. He was just a florist by then. He really was powerless.”

“I heard about that. Do you think Killian knew how Rose died?” Logan asked in a tone that was steely and sharp.

Frank slowly shook his head. “No one knew but the three of us. They both disappeared right after and I called the BPD. I claimed a guy wearing a ski mask came in, shot her, and then ran. They never questioned me. Gang violence was everywhere.”

“You never told anyone else?” Miles asked.

“No! My life and my daughter’s were on line. I knew to keep my mouth shut.”

“You don’t think Mickey could be pulling Patrick’s strings somehow?”

“I don’t see it,” Frank said.

“So why would Patrick kill his own son?”

“I don’t have a f*cking clue,” Frank answered.

“Like you said, a life for a life,” Miles said to Logan.

Miles had grown up in Southie and still lived there. He was a beat cop before he went to work for the Gang Unit; he knew the way the streets worked here in Boston in a way I never would. But then again, so did Logan.

“That has to go much deeper than any of us could even have imagined,” Logan said.

His words were spoken in an eerie context. One that made my pulse thunder through me and my heartbeat become so erratic, I thought my heart might pop out of my chest. I was clenching my palms so tightly that the indentations from my short nails were sure to draw blood.

My mind was spinning.

Would this information impact Clementine?

I started to feel like there was a black cloud over me that was never going to clear.

Uncertainty made me wary.

Worry controlled me.

Fear owned me.

If knowledge was dangerous, this was deadly information.