The Son of John Devlin (21 page)

Driscoll glanced at Jack. “We do, actually, Mr. Granby,” Driscoll said. “We had represented in our memorandum that we would present an audiotape recording made of the events of the night in question.” Driscoll paused and glanced down at the conference table. “I would like to amend our memorandum by withdrawing that representation.”

Granby seemed stunned. The lawyers for both Moloney and Curran drew back in surprise. Moloney raised his eyebrows as though to mock Devlin, as though to say, Ah, what a pleasant surprise. Curran looked down at the floor. Moloney and Curran’s lawyers conferred in a brief, whispered exchange. Then Moloney’s lawyer spoke.

“We move to suspend the hearing,” he said eagerly. “The essence of the complaint against our clients has been withdrawn. Without material evidence, this proceeding should be suspended.”

Granby seemed troubled. He turned to Driscoll. “Mr. Driscoll, are you certain of this?” he asked.

Driscoll nodded. “Yes,” he said.

Moloney’s lawyer, his eyes wide, saw his opportunity and moved for the kill.

“In the petition for this hearing,” he said, “it was represented that there was an incriminating audiotape. In view of the withdrawal of that representation, I submit that this proceeding must be suspended.”

Jack sat frozen at the table. He did not move; he could not. The idea that Moloney would walk out of this room without so much as a reprimand, with nothing on his record, with no change in his status as a sergeant detective on the Boston Police Department, was more than he could handle. Jack would have bet anything that Moloney had been involved in the Blackthorn deal, had exacted payments from the owner to protect him from overcrowding citations. He could not prove that, but believed it. And he also believed, in fact knew, that Moloney was in the business of shaking down drug dealers for cash. He’d had several dealers tell him that, and he had set up his own sting operation, an operation that caught Moloney in the act.

But no audiotape meant no case. For Jack had studied the law before undertaking his assignment, and he knew that hard evidence would be needed if he was to crack the brotherhood. He knew the department rules and procedures, the collective bargaining agreement with the detectives union, and the applicable law would favor an officer in a dispute when it was one person’s word against another’s.

They could go before the disciplinary board and seek dismissal or suspension of Moloney and Curran based on the direct testimony of Devlin and Del Rio, but that would be the word of two cops against two others.

Granby sat back, contemplating the situation. After a moment’s thought, he leaned forward again.

“Mr. Driscoll,” he said. “The department is alleging breach of duty. This is a grave charge. It is alleged in your memorandum of complaint that the two detectives violated their oaths of office and should be removed from the force. That they confiscated private property in an improper manner and subsequently committed perjury. Unless you have significant physical evidence to this effect, I see no alternative but to suspend this proceeding.”

Driscoll said nothing.

Granby nodded. “I hereby grant the defense motion,” he said. “This proceeding is suspended.”

She had never heard him sound so distressed.

“What happened?” Emily asked.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” he said. “I really am.” He was sweating and breathing heavily. He’d quickly left police headquarters and strode down the sidewalk, past heavily bundled shoppers and office workers.

“What’s all that noise in the background?” she asked. “Where are you?”

“Boylston Street,” he said. “Pay phone.”

“It’s freezing,” she said. “Why are you outside?”

He sighed heavily. “I had to get out of there,” he said. “The hearing was a disaster.”

“What!”

“Disaster,” he repeated.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Remember I told you about the tape of the bug we had?”

“Of course,” she said.

“It’s gone. I went to Evidence this morning and it was gone.”

There was silence on the other end of the line. Then she said, “What do you mean you went to Evidence?”

“To the evidence room in the basement of headquarters,” he said. “Where I’d filed it the night of the bust.”

Silence again. “Jack, I don’t know what to say. I mean …”

Of course, he thought. How could he have been so foolish? How could he have possibly believed that a particular portion of the department would have any integrity? How could he have been so naive, so foolish, as to believe that the tape was safe in the hands of the Boston Police Department? He’d been so careful, so very scrupulous in everything he’d done, in all of his thinking and plotting and planning, and he’d made a mistake a rookie wouldn’t make. What could he possibly have been thinking?

“Where are you exactly?” she asked.

“Uh, Boylston and Berkeley,” he said.

“Okay,” she said. “You know that little hole in the wall on Newbury, right near Clarendon?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll meet you there in ten minutes,” she said. “I’m on my way.”

She raced out of the office, caught a cab, and arrived at the restaurant a minute after him. They took a booth near the back and had coffee.

“You look exhausted,” she said. “You desperately need a rest.”

He slumped in the booth, looking defeated. “I blew
it,” he said. “I could have had real leverage, and I lost it.” His visage grew dark and angry. “Because I’m a fucking incompetent!”

She gave him a reproachful look. “Hardly,” she said. “All this does is prove you’re human. You’ve thrown yourself into your work with a vengeance and focused too intensely for too long and you made a mistake. So you’re human. Big deal. Plus you weren’t going to prosecute anyway, so the result’s the same.”

“But it isn’t,” he said. “Because I would have been the magnanimous one, the reasonable one, and it would have softened the edges of some cops in the middle, some guys who might have come forward and talked. And it would have given me leverage over Moloney for next time, and we both know there will be a next time. I could have used this next time to force his resignation. That was my whole plan.”

Emily Lawrence walked down the hallway on the twelfth floor of the John W. McCormack Federal Courthouse, the heels of her black pumps clicking loudly on the polished floor. She walked swiftly from her office to the far corner of the floor where two holding rooms, secure facilities, were used for federal prisoners brought in for trial.

Larry Crapo had been arrested a day earlier for violating a restraining order taken out by his ex-girlfriend. Crapo had been charged with going to the woman’s Milton apartment and slapping her around. She had reported him, and when he had been arrested, later that night—or, more accurately, at three-thirty in the morning—he was in possession of a substantial cache of cocaine as well as an unregistered handgun.

None of these offenses in and of themselves were particularly grave in nature. Individually and collectively, however, they constituted a violation of Crapo’s federal parole. After having served two and a half years for dealing cocaine, he was on a three-year probation, with terms that required him to refrain from any sort of brush with the law.

In cases such as these, prosecutors had broad latitude, and federal judges were in the habit of granting prosecutors’ petitions.

So it was that Larry Crapo, facing the prospect of going back to a federal prison to do an additional year or more, had talked with the FBI about his knowledge of a particular crime that had yet to be committed. He insisted upon talking about this face-to-face with one person alone, and that was the Assistant United States Attorney who had prosecuted him and sent him to prison, one Emily Lawrence.

Emily entered the outer room and walked toward the holding area. She saw Larry Crapo slumped in a chair with handcuffs and leg irons. There was a small conference table, four metal chairs, and a large glass ashtray on the table. Two U.S. marshals stood nearby, chatting.

“Would you mind waiting outside, gentlemen,” she said to the marshals. They got up to leave but she stopped them. “Those aren’t necessary,” she said, indicating the leg irons and cuffs. A marshal removed both.

Larry Crapo smiled as they left. “A pleasure to see you again, Emily,” he said.

“It’s always a delight to see you, Larry,” she said sarcastically. “Beating up girls now, are we?”

His face reddened. “We had a misunderstanding,” he said, looking down at the floor.

“The coke was a misunderstanding, too, probably.”

“The coke was a plant,” he said.

Emily regarded him with contempt. She folded her arms across her chest and glared at him. “If that’s the kind of conversation you want to have, then there’s no point in having a conversation.”

He said nothing for a moment. Then, “So what am I up against?”

“You’re going back to prison,” she said flatly.

“How long?” he asked.

“I would say a year on the assault, a year on the gun, and two on the coke,” she said quickly. “I would say four.”

He was stunned. He sat with his mouth open, eyes wide.

“Possibly five,” she added.

“Five …”

Larry Crapo was speechless, but only for a moment. For the idea of going back to prison was utterly repugnant to him. And he would do anything, literally, to keep from having to go back.

Emily stood with her arms crossed, waiting for him to edge toward the point. But she did not want to seem overeager.

“I’ve got work to do,” she said, turning and moving toward the door, “so if—”

“If I say to you the word morphine, morphine in its purest form, would that mean anything to you?” Larry Crapo asked her.

She turned around quickly, her head cocked to one side, clearly taken by surprise and unable to hide it.

Crapo saw this and was encouraged. There was hope.
He sat forward on the chair. “Come on,” he said, “sit down.”

She did. “What do you have?” she asked.

“So you do know about it?” Crapo said.

“I know of a deal involving very high-grade morphine, yes,” she replied. “What can you tell me about it?”

“I need assurances that—” Crapo began, but before he’d finished his sentence she was vigorously shaking her head, dismissing what he had to say.

“No assurances,” she said. “Tell me what you have. If it’s good, we’ll make a deal. If it’s no good, we won’t.”

“I got no protection,” he complained.

Emily shook her head with disgust and got up from the chair, moving quickly toward the door.

“All right, all right,” he said desperately.

She stopped and turned, but remained standing.

“It’s coming in here, into Boston, soon,” Crapo said. “This’ll be the first market where it gets any distribution. I know guys in on the ground floor.”

This, Emily suspected, meant that Larry was in on the ground floor. “Go on,” she said.

“It’s been tested here. Test sales. Small amounts as samples have gone out, and the reaction’s been strong. Very strong.”

“Tell me,” she said.

“I know a guy got the rights to distribute the South Shore,” he said. “I know the guy, and so he takes samples out to customers who he thinks might be potential buyers, and some of these customers are themselves distributors but on a smaller scale, see. And the reaction is excellent.”

“So who’s in charge?” she asked.

Crapo suddenly grew serious. “That’s what it comes down to, then, isn’t it, Emily? Who’s running the op? Who’s the man? Who’s breaking new ground here, doing what no one’s done in years and years—bringing in a new product for an affluent market. No scuzzballs. No ghetto shit. No crack crowd.” He made a face indicating he found that notion profoundly distasteful.

“Who had samples?” she asked.

Crapo shrugged. “Don’t know. I’d guess a handful, maybe two or three, maybe a half-dozen distributors.”

“And the reaction was …”

“People flipped,” Crapo said. “Very smooth. No hangover, minimal hangover.”

“So who’s behind it?” Emily asked.

Crapo fell silent, watching Emily closely. She waited.

“One very smart man,” Crapo said. “One very smart, successful young man.”

Emily waited, but Crapo was silent for a long moment. “I need some sign, some indication this will affect my status,” he said. He said it quietly, humbly.

“You tell me who’s behind it, and it has an impact on my investigation, and I will absolutely go to bat for you,” she said.

“Plead everything out?” he asked.

“Except the assault,” she said. “You pay a price for that.”

He looked shocked.

“Beating women up, Larry,” she said. “It offends me.”

He reflected upon this, and then finally nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Guy’s a doctor at Brigham and Women’s. Very big.”

Emily was incredulous, though in the drug trade, she knew that nothing should ever surprise her.

“His name is Young, Dr. Christopher Young,” Crapo said. “He’s the brains behind the whole thing.”

The CrimeStoppers bank records indicated that the organization had revenues during the previous year of $144,000 and expenditures of the same amount. All of the money had gone in a single transaction as a donation to another not-for-profit charitable trust called the Law Enforcement Education Association. Jack Devlin looked at the document before him. He had never heard of the Law Enforcement Education Association, just as he’d never heard of CrimeStoppers before seeing it on the Blackthorn bank records. That it received all of its funds for a year from the owner of the Blackthorn, and that he had then immediately transferred all of those funds to another charitable organization—LEEA—struck Jack as quite peculiar.

He would have some research done into both organizations. But he knew he had to be careful. He didn’t want whoever was behind these organizations to know he had an interest in them.

He put in a call to a man who could be trusted in the police department Technology Division, a young fellow who worked part-time while he attended law school nights. And he asked that some research be done carefully and with discretion.

Coakley ascended the stairs from the Copley subway station and paused for a moment to catch his breath. It was a bright sunny day, but the sun’s warmth was lost in the arctic wind that swept down out of the north and whipped across the city of Boston. As the wind ripped
across the open Copley Square park—a sizable quadrangle bound by the stately beauty of the Boston Public Library, the elegance of the Copley Plaza Hotel, the magnificent glory of Trinity Church, and the towering glass and steel presence of I. M. Pei’s Hancock Tower—Coakley turned his head and hiked his shoulder to protect his face from the sharpness of the cold.