Gone, Baby, Gone (Kenzie & Gennaro #4)(61)

“Fifty-nine, you don’t sound so sure.”

“Uh, Command, we saw a man matching Mullen’s physical description wearing a Celtics hat and sunglasses…. Uh…. Over.”

Doyle closed his eyes for a moment, placed the receiver in the center of his forehead. “Fifty-nine, did you or did you not make a positive ID on the suspect? Over.”

Another long pause filled with static.

“Uh, Command, come to think of it, that’s a negative. But we’re pretty sure—”

“Fifty-nine, who was covering Devonshire Place with you? Over.”

“Six-seven, Command. Sir, should we—”

Doyle cut them off with a flick of a switch, punched a button on the radio, and spoke into the receiver.

“Sixty-seven, this is Command. Respond. Over.”

“Command, this is Sixty-seven. Over.”

“What is your location?”

“South on Tremont, Command. Partner on foot. Over.”

“Sixty-seven, why are you on Tremont? Over.”

“Following suspect, Command. Suspect is on foot, walking south along the Common. Over.”

“Sixty-seven, are you saying you’re following Mullen south on Tremont?”

“Affirmative, Command.”

“Sixty-seven, instruct your partner to detain Mr. Mullen. Over.”

“Ah, Command, we don’t—”

“Instruct your partner to detain the suspect, Sixty-seven. Over.”

“Affirmative, sir.”

Doyle placed the receiver on the console table for a moment, pinched the bridge of his nose, and sighed.

Angie and I looked at Poole and Broussard. Broussard shrugged. Poole shook his head in disgust.

“Uh, Command, this is Sixty-seven. Over.”

Doyle picked up the receiver. “Go ahead.”

“Yeah, Command, well, um—”

“The man you’re following is not Mullen. Affirmative?”

“Affirmative, Command. Individual was dressed like suspect, but—”

“Out, Sixty-seven.”

Doyle tossed the receiver into the radio, shook his head. He leaned back in his chair, looked at Poole.

“Where’s Gutierrez?”

Poole folded his hands on his lap. “Last I checked, he was in a room at the Prudential Hilton. Arrived last night from Lowell.”

“Who’s on him?”

“A four-man team. Dean, Gallagher, Gleason, and Halpern.”

Doyle cross-checked the names with the list by his elbow which gave their unit numbers. He flicked a switch on the radio.

“Unit Forty-nine, this is Command. Come in. Over.”

“Command, this is Forty-nine. Over.”

“What is your location? Over.”

“Dalton Street, Command, by the Hilton. Over.”

“Forty-nine, where is”—Doyle consulted the list by his elbow—“unit Seventy-three? Over.”

“Detective Gleason is in the lobby, Command. Detective Halpern is covering the rear exit. Over.”

“And where is the suspect? Over.”

“Suspect is in his room, Command. Over.”

“Confirm that, Forty-nine. Over.”

“Affirmative. Will get back to you. Over and out.”

While we waited for an answer no one spoke. We didn’t even look at each other. The same way you can watch a football game, and know that even though your team has a six-point lead with four minutes to go that they’re somehow going to blow it, so the five of us in the rear of the command post seemed to feel any edge we may have had slipping out under the door into the gathering dark. If Mullen had so easily given four experienced detectives the slip, then how many other times had he done it over the last few days? How many times had the police been sure they were watching Mullen, when in fact they were tailing someone else? Mullen, for all we knew, could have been making visits to Amanda McCready. He could have been establishing his escape route out of these hills tonight. He could have been buying off cops to look the other way or picking which ones he’d have removed from the equation sometime after eight in the pitch black of the hills at night.

Mullen, if he’d known we were on him from the get-go, could have been showing us everything he wanted us to see, and, while we were looking at that, the things he didn’t want us to see were going on behind our backs.

“Command, this is Forty-nine. We’ve got a problem. Gutierrez is gone. I repeat: Gutierrez is gone. Over.”

“How long, Forty-nine? Over.”

“Hard to say, Command. His rental car is still parked in the garage. Last physical observation occurred at oh-seven-hundred hours. Over.”

“Command out.”

Doyle seemed to consider crushing the receiver in his hand for a moment, but then he laid it gently and precisely on the corner of the console table.

Broussard said, “He probably had another car placed in the garage a day or two before he checked in.”

Doyle nodded. “When I check with the other teams, how many of Olamon’s men, do you think, will be unaccounted for?”

No one had an answer, but I don’t think he’d expected one.





18





If you head south out of my neighborhood and cross the Neponset River, you end up in Quincy, long thought of by my father’s generation as a way station for the Irish prosperous enough to escape Dorchester but not quite wealthy enough to reach Milton, the tony two-toilet-Irish suburb a few miles northwest. As you drive south along Interstate 93, just before you reach Braintree, you’ll see a cluster of sandy brown hills rising to the west that always seem on the verge of sudden crumbling.