Robert B. Parker's Slow Burn (Spenser, #44)(10)

“I hope that’s not the case.”

“I didn’t leave that church until maybe two or three the next day. I was there when Dougherty’s wife and two of his kids showed up. That’s something I didn’t want to see. You ever hear someone scream not out of fright but out of real animal pain? Stuff deep inside?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“That’s what it is,” Featherstone said. He walked back around from the counter. A thick-calved woman in a blue dress and a husky kid in a tricorne hat bounded into the museum. The husky kid tried to crawl under the velvet ropes and onto a horse-drawn pump. “Hold on.”

The husky kid made it as far as the wooden wheels before Featherstone told him to get back behind the ropes. Featherstone wandered back to me.

“I didn’t get real close,” he said. “Most of the fire I was working. I hate what happened to the guys. But shit, I’d do anything I could if some son of a bitch set it. But it’s just a sad day, nothing more. Life sometimes doesn’t make any sense.”

“But if something changes,” I said. I handed him my card.

“I promise,” he said.

Unlike John Grady, he didn’t toss it on the floor. Progress.





8


Five days later, Boston Fire marked the year anniversary that Dougherty, Bonnelli, and Mulligan had died inside Holy Innocents. Outside the blackened shell of what had been the church, the chaplain prayed and everyone dropped their heads. It started to rain. Except for a few politicians, nobody opened an umbrella during the service to the fallen firefighters.

The whole South End went quiet. You could hear the wind and rain hitting the street.

The fire radio clicked on and a dispatcher read the men’s names and time of the fire last year to the minute. Across Boston, sirens wailed. The skies then opened up and covered Shawmut Street in slanted sheets of water.

I pulled up the collar on my jacket and removed my hat. I stood back as the firefighters shook hands and hugged one another. Across the street, TV news trucks had set up, taking video from a respectable distance. After a few minutes, the fire trucks drove away. Dozens of firefighters lingered. A few of them were walking into a break in the fence line and going into the church.

“You making any progress?” McGee said.

“I interviewed four more first responders,” I said. “And a half a dozen people who watched the church burn.”

“Insurance?”

“Checked that out, too,” I said. “Only one to benefit would be the archdiocese.”

“They’ve done a helluva lot worse.”

“Sure,” I said. “But their payout wouldn’t be even touching the historic value.”

“Yeah,” McGee said. “I guess they might’ve turned it into a steakhouse or something. Like that—”

“Smith and Wollensky,” I said. “Of course the South End is growing that way. Maybe someday it will be a B and B for Labradoodles.”

“First came the gays and all their arty-farty stuff and now the investment bankers with their Mercedes SUVs, complaining about all the city noise and traffic.”

“Leave it to Gary Cooper and gays to clean up Dodge.”

“This property is worth something to somebody,” McGee said.

“Sure.”

“Maybe worth more cleared than as some musty old church.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“I’ll bet dollars to donuts,” McGee said.

“Always an unwise bet,” I said.

“Why?”

“I hold one in higher esteem.”

“You tell me what, then,” McGee said. “What else is there but greed? Someone wanted that church gone.”

“Revenge,” I said. “Extortion. An act of God.”

“Revenge is looking good,” McGee said. “But God would never let this happen. Not my God, anyway.”

The rain slackened and I shook the water from my hat. It was a road hat for the Mississippi Braves that a friend down south had sent. Nearly identical to my Boston Braves hat except for the big M with a tomahawk through it. I watched the men coming and going from the break in the chain-link fence. I spotted John Grady. He had on a blue windbreaker but no hat. His long hair fell limp and wet over his big head as he gave me a hard stare.

After a few minutes, a tall man with a clipped mustache and wearing a black raincoat walked out.

“Oh, shit,” McGee said.

I looked at McGee.

“Fucking Commissioner Foley,” he said. “He’s going to make a thing. Oh, Christ.”

Foley shook a few more hands and then the commissioner walked on over. He wore a navy suit with a pale yellow tie. As he moved, you could see a small gold shield adorning his lapel. A smaller man in dress uniform walked in stride almost like a shadow.

He patted McGee’s back, shook his hand, and eyed me. “Who’s your friend?”

McGee introduced me.

“Yeah,” he said. “I heard of you.”

“My reputation stretches far and wide,” I said.

“And that you’ve pissed a lot of people off.”

“Yep.”

“And caused a lot of folks in BPD a headache.”

“Also true.”