The Son of John Devlin (13 page)

Ray Murphy hung his head and rubbed his eyes with his right hand. When he finally looked up, Jack could see there were tears in his eyes.

“He fucked it up and nothing was ever the same again,” he said. He turned his head and stared off toward the window that overlooked the side yard. Darkness had fallen. A cold wind rattled the storm door.

A long time passed, a minute or more, before anyone spoke again.

“I’m sorry,” Jack said quietly. “I don’t understand.”

“He was not a bad man, but he was a weak man, like the rest of us,” Ray Murphy said. “Or so we thought. But once he decided he wanted out, that was that. Everyone talked to him, see, because to have a defector was like having a traitor. It was like one of us saying you’re wrong and bad, and there was always the thought out there that, hey, what the fuck, is he talkin’ about us to anyone or what?”

Murphy stared at Jack. “You follow me?” he asked.

Jack nodded. “So other guys went to him and tried to persuade him to keep at it. But he wouldn’t.”

Murphy shook his head emphatically. “He wouldn’t. Wouldn’t budge.” Murphy shrugged. “And that was his undoing.”

Abruptly, Murphy went to the door and flung it open. “That’s it,” he said. “I’ve done my part. I’ve paid my debt. Don’t come back.”

Jack was surprised. “I don’t understand,” he said. “I wanted to—”

“No more,” Murphy said. “I’ve said enough. Too much. Years ago we decided …”

But he did not finish the sentence.

“Who’s we?” Jack asked.

But Ray Murphy did not answer.

J
ack and Del Rio walked up to the third-floor corner office of Thomas M. Sheehy, the deputy commissioner of the Boston Police Department. Sheehy was a huge man, six feet five inches tall, over 260 pounds. He greeted the two detectives in a businesslike manner and sat down behind his desk.

“Did you assault Detective Moloney?” Sheehy asked Jack. Devlin’s hair had fallen forward over the right side of his face. He slowly brushed it back, running his right hand through it, back over his ear and down to the back of his neck. Jack was dressed in khaki pants and an old black turtleneck sweater. His face turned pink and his jaw tightened. The scar by his right eye grew purplish. He frowned, and when he did, the darkness of his deeply set eyes made him appear angry.

When Jack did not answer right away, Sheehy grew impatient. “Did you?” he demanded.

“I had to deal with him,” Jack replied.

“Did you assault him?” Sheehy asked. “It’s a simple enough question. Yes or no, did you assault Detective Moloney?”

“Moloney’s an asshole, Tom, you know that,” Del Rio said.

Sheehy turned to Del Rio. “Whether Moloney is an asshole is not the issue. The issue is whether one officer on the Boston Police Department assaulted another.”

“I assaulted Moloney, yes,” Jack said.

“Very professional,” Sheehy said sarcastically. “Very professional, indeed. Because now Moloney’s lawyer can say, ‘Hey, they had a personal beef and one guy went after another and there was a plant and whatnot.’ And if the tape is not admissible—you listening carefully, Counselor?—if the tape is not admissible, then Moloney says, ‘Hey, I took some dough off the kid because that’s all we found. Of course I had cash in my pocket, because we were headed downtown to do a report and turn in the money, as we always do when we hit somebody like that.’ And that leaves us in a funny position. No tape admissible, then no case, and no case, we got egg all over our kissers, don’t we?”

“It was deliberate provocation by Moloney,” Del Rio said. “No question.”

“Look, Detective Devlin, let me be as clear as I can be,” Sheehy said. “I find the whole matter distasteful. If Moloney and Curran did what is alleged, then I am disappointed in them. But I am also disturbed that one officer assaults another; that a sting of two officers is mounted by another officer and the brass is not made aware of it—”

Jack cut in. “That’s why I asked Del Rio to come. So the brass would not only be informed, but present, as well.”

“Well, this brass wasn’t informed, and neither was anybody else,” Sheehy said, his huge face turning red with anger. “And I don’t like it when somebody fucks with my department. I know the mayor likes this idea; I
know the commissioner likes this idea. But I don’t. Nothing personal, I just don’t like certain of my men snooping around trying to catch others of my men with their dicks in their zippers.

“Because morale is everything,” Sheehy continued. “And you have someone snooping around from within the ranks, that’s bad news. Sends the wrong signal. ‘Go out and risk your life for us tonight, but, oh, by the way, empty your pockets and up against the wall, motherfucker.’ ”

Sheehy glared at Devlin, who said nothing.

Sheehy rose from his chair, hauling his huge frame to its full height and walking to the window of his office. He took a deep breath and exhaled as he shook his head.

“Moloney was a moron,” he said. “Demented. Insane.” He glanced across the room at the two detectives. “But the problem is, if you think you know him from that incident, then you don’t know him, because as is the case in many situations, things are a little more complex than they might originally appear to be. Look, did he fuck up?” Sheehy laughed in a mocking way. “Oh, he fucked up. No question. But you know, here’s a guy, last year laid down on a table and let them slice him open to take out one of his kidneys and put it in his sister. His baby sister, okay? I mean, let’s get fucking real here, guys.”

Sheehy stalked across the room toward his desk. His face had reddened again. “And now she’s in bad shape,” Sheehy said. “Looks like she won’t make it.”

Sheehy stood behind his desk, hands on his hips, looking down at the floor. Suddenly, he looked up.

“What’s served by going to the mat on this?” he asked. “What do we accomplish? Okay, let’s look at it. We get Moloney and Curran out the door. Forced retirement. Maybe they lose their pension, maybe not, but probably they do. So they’re gone, right? And if they go, maybe they sue us, probably they do, and the whole thing gets in the papers and the fucking scum at the papers couldn’t be happier, and so they’ll have the articles every day for about a year. By the time they’re through with us, there won’t be any reason to believe there is now or ever has been an honest cop in the city. You know that to be true. It’s indisputable. And so the question I’m raising—asking you to consider—is whether it’s worth it?”

Sheehy walked to the window and stared outside for a long time. Neither Devlin nor Del Rio spoke.

“You perfect, Jack?” Sheehy finally asked. Devlin did not respond. “I’m asking you, Jack, you perfect?”

Devlin shook his head no.

Sheehy nodded. “You ever make any mistakes? You ever fuck up? Ask to be forgiven?”

Sheehy was clearly agitated. He stalked back to the window, folding his arms across his chest. There was silence in the room for a minute, perhaps longer. When Sheehy spoke again, his voice had lost its edge. He spoke softly, almost plaintively.

“People make mistakes, Jack,” he said. “I would think you would understand that. People make mistakes, and then they get another chance and sometimes they do something with that second chance. Sometimes they blow it. But the ones who don’t, now, that’s something good. So you tell me, Jack, do we give Moloney a second
chance? What do we do? You tell me. Give him a chance or ruin his life?”

“So you getting on with the commish okay?” Deputy Superintendent Thomas Kennedy asked.

“No problems when I see him,” Jack replied, “though that’s rare. It’s funny, I’m really off doing what I’m doing, and there isn’t all that much supervision. He’s really given me a free hand.”

Jack sipped his Coke and regarded Kennedy. “I get the sense you’re not all that high on him these days,” he said.

Kennedy frowned. He put his fork down and took up his napkin, wiping his mouth. He paused to reflect for a moment.

“It’s not him, per se,” Kennedy said thoughtfully. “It’s the structure. I’m not comfortable with a civilian running the show. I think it works better when someone other than a political appointee is in charge of a force of two thousand uniformed personnel. And don’t give me the military analogy. That’s war, and you don’t want generals running the Pentagon because then they’re making policy, deciding whether to bomb Bosnia.

“Fighting urban crime is an ongoing operation. It’s not a question of whether to take it on but how to take it on, and it’s just so obvious to me, Johnny, that the people best qualified to run that are the people who know it from the street level up. The people who’ve worked their way up through the ranks.”

Jack smiled. This was a familiar refrain from Kennedy.

Kennedy laughed. “I know, I know,” he said. “You’ve heard it before.”

Jack and Kennedy tried to meet for lunch every other month or so, a ritual that had begun when Jack entered the academy. Kennedy had been his father’s partner when the men were detectives, and now he’d risen through the ranks to become the second-highest uniformed officer on the force.

“It’s a reasonable point of view,” Jack said. “Entirely reasonable. But I’ve found the commissioner to be very smart and a good listener. That’s a good combination, where he sits.”

“No question he’s intelligent, but it is frustrating to be talking to someone about some sort of community policing plan and know you’re talking to someone who has never felt what it’s like to do this work at the most basic level. Who’s never responded to a domestic dispute call.”

Kennedy’s eyes widened. “Imagine that, Jackie,” he said, the astonishment clear on his face. “Never once had to go into an apartment in some shitty area and sort it out, figure out who’s doing what to whom and how to try and stop it, or at least tone it down.”

Kennedy shook his head, part amazement and part disapproval. “That makes no sense to me. None. The idea that the most basic elements of police work are things he’s only heard or read about but never done. Never once! It’s lunacy.

“Anyway, that’s my only frustration,” Kennedy continued. “On a day-to-day basis I have no real difficulty with him. But what I think about him, you’ve heard before, too many damn times, anyway. I’m more interested in how you’re doing. Things okay so far?”

“Actually, there’s something I wanted to ask you,”
Jack said. “I know you’ve wanted to leave it to the commissioner, but I have a judgment question here and I’m not sure someone who’s a civilian can answer it adequately.”

“Don’t sell him short, Jackie. Cop or no, he’s sharp, as you yourself just pointed out.”

“I’m not selling him short, I just want your opinion,” Jack said. “You’re aware of the sting on Moloney and Curran, and you’re aware that we have a disciplinary hearing coming up in a few days. The issue in my mind is how hard to push on this. Curran doesn’t bother me. I think he’s harmless, basically. I think he’s influenced by the strongest-willed person around.

“For me,” he continued, “Moloney’s the issue. Basically, it’s a very straightforward case. Moloney and Curran find a dealer who’s particularly vulnerable in terms of the amount of time he’ll do if he’s brought in, and they hit him for cash. It’s not the first time they’ve done it, but I can’t honestly say it’s the hundredth, either. I don’t know.”

“Dealers, Jackie, Jesus,” Kennedy said, an edge to his voice. Jack had heard the lecture a number of times through the years—dealers of narcotics had forfeited their basic rights, in Kennedy’s view. “I mean, come on.”

“The point is, though, Tom, what Moloney and Curran did was a felony. It’s ugly stuff.”

“Hey, no question,” Kennedy said. “They should not have done it. I’m not going to defend them. I’m only making a distinction that it’s not as though they went after someone you would have sympathy for, that’s all. But as for what they did, you get no defense here, Jack.”

“But the question now is, what to do,” Jack said.
“The hearing’s coming up and I sense there’s a kind of vacuum, and I think they’re going to look to me to a certain extent, and Del Rio, to see how hard we’re going to push on this. How much of a stink.”

“How much of a stink relative to what do they do with it, you mean,” Kennedy said.

“Right, I mean—”

“It’s a hot potato, no question,” Kennedy said. “And what you’re asking is, do we make a federal case out of this, in which case a lot of dirty laundry gets aired; and the question is, does the airing of that dirty laundry serve a purpose within the department.”

“So?” Jack asked.

Kennedy considered this, gave vent to a deep, weary sigh. “So it’s your call, Jackie,” he said. “I’m not going to tell you what to do. You have good judgment. Use it. Just make sure that, either way, you feel comfortable inside with it, that’s all.”

Kennedy shook his head. “I have to say I was personally disappointed, bitterly disappointed, about Moloney. He and I have known each other, Christ, thirty-plus years. And to do this …” He shook his head distastefully.

“But you’re right. It showed this is serious, and that has gotten guys’ attention. And I have to tell you I looked at the report you wrote, and all I can say is that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a tighter, more professionally written presentation in my entire career. You handled every detail of that superbly. I mean that sincerely. You should feel proud.”

Jack was deeply flattered by Kennedy’s comment. He stirred his coffee and nodded. “Thanks, Tom,” he said. “That means a lot to me, as I’m sure you can imagine.”

“You know I mean it,” Kennedy said softly, smiling. “To see what you’ve done with yourself, your career … you’re such a credit to yourself.” Kennedy paused and looked down at the table. “To your dad.”

There was a prolonged, awkward silence. Through the years, whenever the subject came up, Kennedy had a tendency to become morose, to blame himself.

“If only I had been there,” he would say. “If only I had been there.”

But they had covered that ground.

“Any advice?” Jack asked, for toward the end of their lunches, Kennedy would often offer some bit of advice or wisdom about life in the Boston Police Department.

“Be careful,” the older man said. “There are elements within the force who have no use for this. To some guys, the thought that a cop is chasing other cops …” Kennedy had a grave look on his face and shook his head.