Finn thought about that. The answer wasn’t obvious to him. Finally, he shrugged. “I don’t know. I had it tough growing up, and it would’ve been easy for me to end up behind bars. Maybe I’d like to think that if that had happened, someone would’ve listened to me. Maybe this guy’s good enough at selling his story, so that I even bought into it a little.” He looked down at his shoes, shaking his head. “Or maybe I just felt like spending a couple of days tilting at a windmill or two.”
The elevator door opened at last, and the two of them stepped on. “You do what you want,” Dobson said defiantly. “But I’m not letting this go. I can’t.”
“I admire your determination,” Finn replied. “If not your judgment.”
“Do me one favor?” Dobson asked. Finn looked at him, waiting. “Don’t file your notice of withdrawal just yet. Give me a week, and if I can come up with something—anything—promise you’ll take a look at it and make up your mind then.”
Finn was tempted to say no: just put the matter behind him and move on. But Dobson was so desperate, and so passionate. It would have felt like kicking a puppy dog, and Finn didn’t kick puppy dogs anymore. Besides, what would holding off on filing a withdrawal cost him? He reached out and pressed the button for the ground floor. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll give you a week.”
“Thanks,” Dobson said, and he looked relieved. Finn wished he shared the man’s optimism.
The two of them faced forward as the doors started to creak closed. Just before they came fully together, a thick hand with grimy, stubby fingers forced its way into the breach, pulling the doors open again.
“Sorry,” the owner of the hand grumbled, stepping onto the elevator with them. He was around Finn’s height but much older, with a paunch that hung far over his belt. His hair, what there was of it, was silver-gray and cut close to the scalp, and his suit looked as though it had been purchased when the man weighed at least twenty pounds less. He held a file folder under one arm.
He forced his girth into the small space, standing closer than necessary, his head inclined toward Finn, making clear that he was giving him a good looking-over. It made Finn uncomfortable, and he was almost glad when the man spoke. “You Finn?” he asked.
“Yes,” Finn replied. “I’m Scott Finn. Have we met?” He offered his hand.
The man looked at the hand but kept his own at his sides. “No, we haven’t.” He leaned in closer, squinting. “You sure you’re Finn? I was expecting someone bigger.”
“I can only imagine your disappointment. Is there something you want?”
The man kept staring. “Yeah, I’d have guessed you were bigger. I mean, for someone to take on the case of a man who shot a cop, I would’ve thought you’d have to be huge. I wouldn’t have guessed a skinny guy like you would feel comfortable fucking with the cops on a case like that.”
Finn felt his scalp tingle, as it often had in his youth out on the streets when a challenge had been issued. “And you are?”
“Macintyre. My friends call me Mac. You can call me Detective.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Detective.” Finn smiled without warmth. “Is there something I can do for you on this case?”
Macintyre continued to stare at Finn, his eyes small and dark. “No,” he said. “I thought maybe there was something I could do for you. Maybe something that’d save you a whole lot of time and aggravation.”
“By all means,” Finn replied. “I’m generally in favor of saving time and aggravation.”
“Stay away from this Salazar guy,” Macintyre said. His voice was low and full of gravel. “It’s not worth it.”
“Thanks for the advice; it’s helpful,” Finn replied. “I’ll take it into account.”
Macintyre pushed his finger into Finn’s sternum. “I’m serious. He’s a bad guy.” He reached under his arm and pulled out the file. “I shouldn’t be showing you this, but we had our eye on this guy fifteen years ago. You ever heard of the street gang VDS?”
Finn shot a look at Dobson. “It rings a bell.”
“Bunch of scum. Real nasty fuckers—they were the ones who raped that crippled girl in Porter Square a couple years ago. Your guy Salazar was one of the leaders here in Boston. We never got enough evidence to prosecute him, but he was at the center of everything. So not only did he shoot a cop, but he was responsible for a whole lot of other ugly shit as well.” Macintyre opened the file. “Take a look. You can’t keep it, but I wanted you to know who you’re trying to get out.”
Finn looked over the top of the file. He could see what appeared to be notes from a number of surveillance stakeouts. He looked over at Dobson. “Mark, meet Detective Macintyre. Macintyre, this is Mark Dobson. My involvement in this case is going to be minimal, Detective, if I’m going to be involved at all. The man you need to convince is right here.” He pointed to Dobson and noticed the fear in his face.
Macintyre looked back and forth between the two lawyers. “Seriously?” he asked. “You’re out?”
“I am,” said Finn. “Though I’m not making it official for a week. Young Mark, here, will be leading the charge. If you really feel that Mr. Salazar is not deserving of another chance, Mr. Dobson is the man to talk to.” The elevator doors opened onto the ground floor, and Finn patted Dobson on the shoulder. “So your boy Salazar wasn’t just a doctor after all,” he commented. “He was a leader in VDS. My view of your judgment keeps going up and up. Good luck.” He shook his head as he started to walk away.
“Mr. Finn,” Dobson called after him. Finn turned around. Dobson walked after him and away from Macintyre, so that the cop couldn’t hear him. “You’re wrong about Salazar. So is this detective. Give me a week, and I’ll prove it to you.”
Finn nodded. “I already gave you a week, and I’m a man of my word. Just don’t expect too much from yourself. Hard as you try, you can’t always fix the world.”
Finn walked away. As he reached the door that led outside, he bundled his coat around him, giving one last look behind. Macintyre had approached Dobson, and the two of them were flipping intently through the file the detective had brought with him. Finn pushed the door open and stepped outside. Sometimes he wished he were still young enough to believe in miracles.
Chapter Eigh
t
That evening Tom Kozlowski walked a circuit around Boston Common. It was the closest he ever came to therapy. A light snow was falling, adding to several inches that had accumulated since Thanksgiving, washing away the last hints of autumn. He loved to wander Boston during the holiday season; when he was feeling down, it gave him some of his spirit back. He was desperately lacking in spirit at the moment.
Finn had told him earlier in the day that they were off the Salazar case. After hearing where Judge Cavanaugh had set the bar for them, Kozlowski could hardly question Finn’s decision. If DNA evidence alone wouldn’t be enough to spring the man, they both knew that the judge had no real intention of entertaining his release. Finn couldn’t be expected to sink his own time and effort into the case with no chance of success, and as Finn had told Kozlowski, “I wouldn’t ask you to write off your own time, either.”
“Okay,” Kozlowski had replied. “Your call.”
It was a crutch he seemed to be leaning on too heavily recently.
Your call
. How had it come to that?
On the other hand, he should have felt relieved that Finn had made the decision for both of them. What good would it do to dredge up the past? It would only hurt a woman he’d cared about once; a woman he’d let down; a woman who’d already been through hell. He couldn’t drag her back through that.
Yet in spite of it all, he was tempted to tell Finn what he knew. As Finn was explaining that he was dropping the case, Kozlowski had kept his mouth shut for fear that if he pried his lips apart, he’d start spilling the secret he’d kept for such a long time. Finally, when he had opened his mouth, all that came out was his new anthem: “Your call.”
Walking down the path parallel to Beacon Street, he paused, looking down at the Frog Pond, frozen for weeks now. The trees were trimmed with white fairy lights, blending into the snowflakes illuminated by the streetlamps. He forced his thoughts to go quiet as he listened to the enchanted cries of the children skating on the brightly lit pond below. The squeals of excited delight warmed him, if only briefly.
His own youth had been as different from those of the children he was watching as anyone could imagine. He’d been born to first-generation immigrants, refugees from the Soviet-style repression that crushed the spirit of the Polish people in the 1950s and ’60s. His parents had made it to Boston, though, where they’d carved out an uneasy survival for the family. In a city split tectonically between the Brahmins, the Irish, and the Italians, the Polish were often crushed in the fissures. His father had been a skilled steelworker in the old country, but no one would hire him for such a high-paying job in Boston. As a result, everyone in his family worked to make enough money to get by. Tom Kozlowski got his first job when he was six, helping clean down the fish stalls in North Market, where his mother sold scrod for pennies. “If he can walk, he can work,” he remembered his father saying in broken English when the owner of the stall questioned whether it was right to hire out a boy so young.
When his father’s heart gave out at forty-five—Koz was only seventeen—no one was sure the family would survive. The night they laid his father to rest, Koz, who’d never been devout, sat in the neighborhood Catholic church praying for guidance. The reply came in the form of a young parish priest whose brother was a sergeant in the Boston Police Department. The brother took pity on Kozlowski, and arranged for him to join the force on his eighteenth birthday. Since that day, though he’d never quite qualified as a true believer, Kozlowski had stayed generally loyal to the Church. After all, who was he to question an answered prayer?
And in the cosmic game of quid pro quo, his devotion to the BPD had more than compensated for his failings as a Catholic. For over twenty-five years, he’d been a crusader, dedicating his life to the force. To him, “To Protect and Serve” had been more than a catchy motto; it had been a calling. And whenever he’d been bothered by the sacrifice of his personal life, he’d sought out scenes like those below him at the Frog Pond. That his job provided a level of civic trust and security, allowing kids to enjoy a childhood he’d been denied, seemed enough to him. More than enough, usually. After all, you can’t miss what you never had.
And yet tonight the relief felt illusory. The Salazar case ate at him. Finn was probably right; the man was probably guilty. That rationalization had certainly allowed Kozlowski to bury his guilt for a decade and a half, but now the dirt had been kicked off the shallow grave of his conscience, and it seemed that the rot was infecting his soul.
He took one more look at the children gliding in circles over the illuminated ice at the bottom of the hill, their laughter reaching up to him. He wondered in that moment what Rosita Salazar’s laugh sounded like. He tried to push the thought out of his mind, but it fought its way back with irrepressible force. Against his will, he found himself wondering what it must have been like growing up without knowing her father; what it must have been like to wander through life blinded. And in the shadow of those brutal musings was the real question that he’d been avoiding for such a long time: Had he done the right thing?
The question haunted him as he stuffed his hands into his pockets and turned to walk away. It wasn’t his fault, he consoled himself. After all, it hadn’t been his call.
Chapter Nin
e
Friday, December 14, 2007
Finn didn’t give the Salazar case another thought. After all, he’d convinced Judge Cavanaugh to order the release of the DNA evidence for testing—no small feat. That was what he’d been called in to do. It was hardly his fault that the judge had made clear that he didn’t actually care what the DNA might reveal, and that he had no intention of releasing Salazar. And if Mark Dobson wanted to wallow in futility for a couple of weeks, that was his own call. Finn was a realist, and he had too many other things to pay attention to.
Finn was an exceptional trial lawyer, and he could work wonders in front of a jury, but he hated the business of law. The administrative contortions required to make sure that bills to clients got out the door and paid with some semblance of regularity; to ensure that vendors were satisfied enough to keep the lights on and the computers humming; and to see to it that he, Kozlowski, and Lissa had nominal health insurance were enough to stretch him beyond his capacity for minutiae. He had a part-time assistant who came in two days a week to help him with the process, but it was unquestionably the worst part of being on his own. At his old firm, he’d been responsible only for keeping track of his time; the firm had fully staffed departments devoted to making sure the mundane details were attended to. He hadn’t realized what a benefit that had been.
As it was, dealing with administrative hassles took up much of his Thursday and Friday that week. He negotiated discounts for a couple of clients unhappy with their bills, made sure that no invoices were over thirty days past due, and spent two hours trying to get some expensive new software, designed to be more efficient, to work. By late Friday afternoon, he was worn out and could muster little motivation to embark on any new tasks. Instead, he offered to buy the first round at O’Doul’s.
“Sounds good to me,” Lissa replied when he made the offer. A beer clearly held more appeal to her than the research project she had been gnawing on throughout the day.
“Koz!” Finn called to the back office.
“What?” The reply was barked, and Finn was reminded of the dark mood the private detective had fallen into in recent days.
“We’re going for beers. I thought you might want to join us, if you can manage a civil word or two.”
Kozlowski walked out of his office and leaned against the door. His frown seemed indelible. “Only girls drink beer. Men drink booze.”
“I’m a girl,” Lissa said, looking at Kozlowski. The emphasis was evident to Finn, but it seemed to escape Kozlowski’s attention.