Robert B. Parker's Slow Burn (Spenser, #44)(61)

“And part-time arsonist.”

“Minor character flaw.”

“Who would you say out of the three is the most insecure?” she said. “The one posing as a hero but knows he’s a fraud?”

“In a perfect world,” I said. “I would hope all of them.”

“But would Teehan, as the youngest, be the most vulnerable?”

“Yes.”

“And Donovan?” she said. “You believe he’s the leader?”

“I do.”

“You want to focus on Teehan’s anxiety,” Susan said. “If you could get Teehan and Zucco to worry about Johnny Donovan, you might break the triangle. Turn the two weakest members against the strongest.”

“That won’t work,” I said. “Zucco is in too deep with cops now. They have other plans. I just want Teehan to see Johnny Donovan as he really exists. He believes Donovan is a hero and trusts his leadership. Until that breaks, he won’t speak with me or with the cops.”

“You can push,” she said. “But to break the trust, he’ll have to see his hero in the act as a failure and someone not to be admired.”

“Johnny Donovan has already failed six ways to Sunday.”

“Do you think the kid believes he’s responsible for the death of those firefighters?” she said. “Or the murder of that Spark?”

“I don’t even know if Teehan helped him.”

“This sounds all very bound up in a father-son dynamic,” Susan said. She flipped onto her back, staring up at the circling fan. “The illusion of the father as a hero is hard to break unless he sees something very real and personal to him.”

“How about stone-cold logic?”

“Logic is a waste of time, my friend.”

“What’s real?”

“Real is experience,” she said. “It’s visual. Right now, he probably believes everything Johnny Donovan tells him. I’m betting none of them see what they’re doing as wrong. They have justified all their actions.”

“So all I have to do is make sure that Johnny Donovan really screws up and Teehan sees it?”

“Yep.”

“Piece of cake.” I kissed her on the cheek. “What do I owe you, Doc?”

Susan arched her back, stretched, and smiled. “I can think of one specific thing.”

I started to whistle “Heigh Ho” and sang, “‘It’s off to work I go.’”





55


The next morning, the police still couldn’t locate Kevin Teehan. I had a few ideas, first stopping off at the Home Depot and then continuing up Route 1 to Saugus and the Riverside Cemetery. I’d found an obit of Teehan’s mom on the Globe site. An old teacher of Teehan’s I’d spoken with told me he’d been prone to sit at her grave. She’d found it a little unsettling.

I parked along a low stone wall on Winter Street for most of the day. I took a few breaks to check in with Susan, eat a chicken pie at Harrow’s, and to use the bathroom. I drank Gatorade and watched people come and go to the cemetery on a hot summer afternoon. A man running a Weed Eater and a push lawnmower worked around the headstones. He wore coveralls and protective earphones, and after what seemed liked hours, packed up his gear onto a trailer and drove away in a pickup truck.

As he exited the cemetery, he passed Kevin Teehan in his vintage Crown Vic. Aha.

I watched Teehan drive deep in the cemetery, park, and then get out with flowers in hand. He had a mattress and some furniture tied down in the trunk.

I drove into the cemetery and parked next to him with my nose facing Winter Street. I got out, placed a GPS tracker under the open trunk, and walked toward him. He was kneeling at the grave but peered up as I got close.

He got to his feet. He squinted and scowled at me simultaneously.

I help up a hand.

“Police have Ray Zucco,” I said.

He didn’t say anything. He had on cargo shorts and flip-flops. If I hadn’t seen the furniture, I’d think he was going on vacation.

“You headed to the Cape?” I said. “I was just there. Lovely time of year.”

“I’m not going nowhere,” he said. “You can’t just follow me.”

“Cops are looking for you.”

“You’re not a cop,” he said. “Just try and stop me.”

“It would be my pleasure, Kevin,” I said. “But I’d rather just talk.”

“This is a special place,” he said. “Don’t f*ck up my special place.”

His pasty, pockmarked face flushed bright in the sun. I could not help but notice that there was a scorched piece of earth by the grave. Paging Norman Bates.

“I don’t think your mom would like what you’ve been up to,” I said. “She supported the firefighters up here. Isn’t that right? She was dating one when she died.”

“You don’t know shit about my mother,” he said.

“I know she got sick and died when you were fifteen,” I said. “And I know you latched on to a real piece of work in Johnny Donovan when you dropped out of high school. Although you told me that you and Johnny never met.”

“I don’t know him that good.”