‘I’m just feeling a little lost, that’s all.’
‘Why lost?’ I didn’t respond and she prodded, ‘Say it.’
‘My mother’s dead.’
She tilted her head in a sympathetic way, and I hurried to cut her off before she could offer the usual sticky condolence. ‘I’m just still getting used to the idea. My mother’s really dead.’
Caroline waited for more, but how could I explain it? How could I convey the three-dimensional reality – the skin, the warm breath, the voice – of the person who’d vanished? What would the obscure, lost history of Annie Truman mean to someone who’d never met her?
‘There’s a lake in Versailles,’ I said to the window, ‘called Lake Mattaquisett, very beautiful, very cold in springtime. We have a home movie of my mother floating on a tire tube in that lake. She’s wearing a yellow bathing suit and she’s pregnant with me. We used to pull out the movie projector on rainy days and we’d watch it. In the movie she’s young, maybe thirty or so, a little older than I am now. She’s laughing, happy. I have that image in my memory. I’m not sure why’
‘Because you miss her.’
I nodded.
‘I’m sure she was proud of you, of how you turned out.’
‘I guess.’
‘Ben, I’m a mother too. Trust me, she’d be proud of you.’
‘I think she’d be happy I came back here, to this city. She’d get a kick out of this, too, what we’re doing.’
‘What are we doing?’
‘Flirting. Or not flirting, whatever it is. She’d love this.’
‘Are we flirting, Ben?’
‘I don’t know. Aren’t we?’
She pretended to fiddle with a thread.
‘Do you know your dad goes to your sister’s grave every day?’
‘Yes.’
‘Every day. Still.’
‘It gets better, Ben. It takes time.’
‘That’s just what your father told me.’
I sipped some more, the warmth of the bourbon streaming through me now.
‘Ben . . . I don’t feel like I owe you an apology for last week. But I hope you understand. I had to be careful. At the time it seemed like Gittens was right about you and Danziger. You had motive, means, opportunity.’
‘Sometimes you have to forget all that Agatha Christie crap, Caroline. You have to look at the person too.’
‘Okay. I guess that’s right.’
‘The other thing is, about when my mother killed herself—’
‘Ben, I don’t want you to tell me anything about that. You’ll put me in a terrible position.’
‘We have to get past it sometime.’
‘Ben, please, don’t. I mean it.’
‘Okay’ I tapped a knuckle against the window. ‘You know, last winter my mother got in a car accident. She wasn’t supposed to be driving at all. We weren’t supposed to let her. I used to unhook the battery cables so the car wouldn’t start. But somehow she got it started. Either I forgot or she figured it out. Maybe someone helped her reconnect the battery, someone who didn’t know what was going on. My mother could be . . . insistent. Anyway, she got all the way out to I-95. Who knows how. I guess she just kept driving and driving. Maybe she was lost. Or maybe she was trying to drive all the way down here, to Boston, to come home. She was born here, did I ever tell you that? She loved this place.’
My eyes began to seep.
Caroline was silent.
‘Somehow she wound up on the wrong side of the highway. She was going north in the southbound lanes. She must have gone on the wrong ramp or got confused by the signs or something. It must have been terrifying, all those cars coming at her. She drove into a concrete bridge support.’
Caroline made a soft, startled sound.
‘She was okay. Bumps and bruises. She had a black eye. It took forever to heal. The car was totaled. My dad had a fit.
‘That was when she decided. She said, ‘I don’t want to be a vegetable, Ben. I’d be mortified.’ That’s the word she used, mortified. She said she did not want to go through it alone and my father was not someone she could turn to, not for that kind of help. She was—’
‘Ben, please. Don’t do this.’
‘She got a book. That was Anne Truman: She researched the whole thing. The Seconal, she had a doctor friend. I won’t tell you his name. He gave her an anti-nausea drug too, so she could keep it all down.’
‘Ben, I don’t want to hear this. I can’t.’
‘There were ninety pills. We had to empty them all into a glass of water. Ninety red gel-capsules, one by one. They didn’t want to dissolve. We had to keep stirring and stirring.’
‘Ben—’
‘It was supposed to taste bitter. She said you were supposed to chase it with something to dull the taste. Jell-O or applesauce or something. She used bourbon.’
Caroline walked over to the window where I was standing. She stood in front of me, close, and said, ‘Ben, stop. I can’t hear this.’
‘I need you to understand.’
‘I do understand.’
‘Mum said, “Ben, hold my hand.” So I held her hand. And she said, “My Ben, my Ben.” And she went to sleep.’
‘Ben, no more. For your own sake, please. Please. I understand.’
I brushed my eyes. ‘Do you?’
‘I understand,’ she whispered.
We kissed, leaning against the window. It was a different – better – sort of kiss, because this time Caroline gave herself to it completely.
44
I woke up early the next morning, just after dawn, and stood by the window. The city was gray, the sky above it a dark slate that was reluctant to brighten. I drew a circle on the glass with my finger, a little greasy circle around the area I took to be Mission Flats.
‘What are you doing up?’ Caroline said.
‘I need to find out more about the Trudell case.’
‘Why?’
‘Because Braxton said – Where can I find more information?’
She groaned. ‘You’ve already seen the files.’
‘There has to be more.’
‘Ben, it’s too early—’
‘I can’t sleep. I keep thinking there has to be more. What else is there?’
‘Do we have to talk about it now?’
‘No. Sorry, go back to sleep.’
‘Try the detectives’ notebooks.’
‘Good.’ I thought a moment. ‘Wait – what detectives’ notebooks?’
‘Homicide detectives keep notebooks on every investigation. It’s routine. Sometimes there’s information in the notebooks that doesn’t make it into the reports. You might find something there.’
‘Where are they?’
‘Archives, I imagine.’
‘Okay, then I need to see those notebooks. Can you get me into the archives?’
‘Not right this minute.’
‘Alright, when it opens, then.’
Without lifting her head or even opening her eyes, she said, ‘Ben, all the Trudell files are privileged. They’re not circulated. Lowery saw to that. You’ll need to file a request with Archives, and it probably won’t be granted. You could file a Freedom of Information request with the AG, but it would take a while.’
‘How long is a while?’
‘Six months. Maybe a year.’
‘A year! We don’t have a year.’
‘What can I tell you.’
‘You can tell me how I get in to see those notebooks today’
One of Caroline’s eyes popped open. She propped herself on one elbow. ‘Chief Truman,’ she said carefully, ‘if this case ever comes to trial, it will be important that the prosecutor not be aware of any improprieties in the way evidence is obtained. And it would be unethical for me to tell you how to evade the public-records laws.’
‘Right. Sorry. I shouldn’t—’
‘What I will say is this: If – I said if hypothetically – you needed to get those records without the
proper clearance, the best way would be to take my dad with you and see a man named Jimmy Doolittle over at Berkeley Street. And you would never ever tell the prosecutor that you got those notebooks illegally, because then she would have an ethical obligation to report it to the court.’
‘Um, what might I tell the prosecutor?’
‘What you might tell the prosecutor is that an anonymous person provided the notebooks to you, or better yet a dead person like, say, Bob Danziger. And you would have to be prepared to say that under oath. Is that all clear?’
‘Crystal. Thank you, Counselor.’
Her head dropped back down on the pillow. ‘My dad was a good detective. He’ll get you in. If you wanted to get in to the Pope’s underwear drawer, he could get you in.’
‘I’ll keep that in mind. You never know.’
‘Ben, maybe you should come back to bed. The archives won’t open till nine.’
‘I’m not feeling very tired.’
Eyes closed, she grinned and said, ‘Me neither.’
45
Jimmy Doolittle was the archivist of the Boston Police Department, overseeing a musty basement room blocked in with cardboard boxes and steel shelving. In these last few days of the Berkeley Street headquarters, the Records Room was even more chaotic than usual. Files had been boxed up and boxes stacked up, ready for the moving vans. These same boxes would soon be re-interred at the new headquarters or at a state archive facility, but for now there was an appealing sort of clutter here. It was like an old antiques shop – you wanted to open some of these musty boxes just to see what was inside. Someday very soon, of course, boxes like these will disappear altogether as police reports are increasingly maintained on computers, but most Boston cops still scratch out their reports longhand or whack them out with IBM Selectrics, which seems to me a very good thing.
John Kelly tapped on a desktop bell, the type you might see in an old hotel, and a voice deep in the warren of boxes growled, ‘I hear ya, I hear ya.’ When he emerged, Doolittle pointedly removed the bell from the counter.
‘You’re Jimmy Doolittle?’ I asked.
‘I am.’
For some reason – probably the heroic (or anti-heroic) name borrowed from the bomber pilot – I had assumed Jimmy Doolittle would project a little glamour. Instead, he turned out to be a pug, short and slight, with two badly bowed legs. His face was handsome but spoiled by a crushed nose that looked like a dollop of plumber’s putty. He was older than I’d expected, too. Probably sixty or so, far too old, I thought, to be using the diminutive form of his name. Even in the testosterone-rich environment of a police station, where forty-and fifty-year-old Bobbys and Billys and Johnnys are relatively common, it was surprising to meet a sixty-year-old man who still called himself Jimmy.
‘We need to look at a file,’ I told him.
Doolittle slapped a powder-blue Document Request Form down in front of me. I filled out the form with the scant information I had. Case/File number: UNKNOWN. Defendant/suspect: HAROLD BRAXTON. Victim: ARTHUR TRUDELL. Charge: MURDER (1ST).Date of Offense: AUGUST17, 1987.
Doolittle scanned the sheet with a critical eye. ‘It’s a black file. Sorry’ He slid the form back across the counter at me.
‘A black file? What does that mean? I need to see it.’
‘A black file means it can’t be released without the Commissioner’s say-so. I need something written.’
‘From who?’
‘I just told you from who, from the Police Commissioner. Soon as you get that, I’ll get you the file.’
‘Caroline Kelly sent me.’
‘What’d I just say? I haven’t seen the paper today. Did somebody die and make Caroline Kelly Police Commissioner? I don’t think so.’
I shook my head, incredulous. I’d been threatened by cops and by gangsters, I’d had a gun put to my head – after all that, it was inconceivable that I could be stopped cold by an intransigent file clerk.
‘Mr Doolittle, I didn’t say she was the Commissioner, did I?’
‘Hey, I’m not going to argue with you. It’s a black file. Nothing I can do.’
‘That’s not good enough. I need to see it.’
‘Can’t help you.’
‘This is a homicide investigation.’
‘I’m sure it is, sir.’
‘But I can’t see the file?’
‘Rules, sir.’
There it was, the elaborate formality of the bureaucrat, armed with his inch-wide, mile-deep expertise and a single pointless regulation.
‘This is bullshit,’ I informed the clerk. ‘Complete and total bullshit.’
Doolittle glared, then turned to retreat into the stacks.
‘Jimmy,’ Kelly interceded, ‘could I borrow your phone a moment?’
Doolittle gave him a suspicious look, as if the phone too was restricted. ‘You can’t dial out. It’s just an intercom.’
‘That’s alright, Jimmy. I’m just calling upstairs.’ Doolittle slid the phone toward him, and Kelly punched in a two-digit number. ‘Commissioner Evans, please,’ he said into the mouthpiece, ‘this is Detective John Kelly. That’s right . . . Oh, Margaret, I’m fine, dear, how-uh-you? . . . Haw haw, that’s right, still above ground, ye-e-e-es . . . Oh, Caroline’s just fine . . . No. No babies yet. We’re working on it . . . Yes, I’ll hold.’ Kelly tapped the counter with his fingernail, looking exquisitely bored. He directed a reassuring smile at Doolittle. After a time, he jerked the phone back up to his ear. ‘Paul? Yes . . . Grand, and you? . . . Yes, I hate to impose on you, my friend. I’m in a little bit of a jam. I’m downstairs in the Records Room and I need to see a black file, but I’m told I need a clearance from you. You have a very efficient clerk here named Jimmy Doolittle . . .’ Kelly chatted with the Commissioner awhile, then held the phone out to Doolittle. ‘He wants to talk to you, Jimmy’
Doolittle took the phone reluctantly, as if it might explode in his hand. ‘Hello?’ His face flushed as he recognized the Police Commissioner’s voice. A moment later, he hung up, shell-shocked. ‘He says it’s okay,’ Doolittle mumbled. ‘I have a job to do, is all. I didn’t mean . . .’
‘Well,’ Kelly comforted, ‘no harm done. Not to worry, Jimmy. Simple misunderstanding.’
Doolittle retrieved the file – all eight boxes of it – and spread them out in a little office off the hallway.
‘Excuse me,’ I said, still pissed off, ‘what exactly is a black file?’
‘It’s just a file that can’t be released, like if it’s sensitive.’
‘How does a file get to be a black file?’
‘The Commissioner makes it one. You know, like if a judge orders that something not get released – what’s that word? – impounded. Sometimes it’s just that people want them for the wrong reasons, like if a case has a celebrity for a defendant, a movie star or an athlete or whatevah, that’d be a black file for sure. You know, a Chappaquiddick kind of thing. Internal Affairs files are all black. So’s child abuse.’
‘And if a file is not a black file?’
‘Then anyone can walk in and get it. Any cop or DA, I mean. Not many of ‘em do, though. These are all closed cases. Nobody gives a rat’s ass.’
‘So if anybody ever tried to look at this file?’
‘Then they’d have to have permission from the Commissioner’s office. Usually a deputy Commissioner signs it.’
‘Would there be a record of that somewhere?’
‘Right here, on the front of the first box. Here.’ Doolittle pointed out a single sheet on one of the cardboard boxes. It was a perfunctory one-sentence letter from the Commissioner on Boston PD letterhead:
Per the request of the District Attorney, ADA Robert M. Danziger and/or his designee(s) may review, photocopy, and/or photograph any document(s), evidence, or other materials in the above-referenced file at any time within one year of this date.
‘So nobody else has opened this box besides Danziger?’
‘Not since they closed the case. Could have been
hundreds of people pawing through it before it got sent down here. I can’t control that, you know.’
‘Is there any way to tell who requested this file be black?’
‘A ’course.’ He lifted the form to reveal another. ‘Lowery. The DA.’ Doolittle turned to leave, then paused to ask, ‘Hey, you guys want coffee or something?’
Amazing what a call from the Commissioner can do.
‘No, thank you, Jimmy.’ Kelly smiled. He waited until the clerk left the room, then asked, ‘Alright, now, what are we looking for?’
‘The Homicide detectives’ notebooks. Anything that didn’t make it into the reports, anything that connects Trudell to Frank Fasulo.’
‘And we’re doing this because Braxton says so?’
‘You got any better ideas?’
We scavenged through the boxes, which contained mostly papers. The physical evidence – bloody clothing, slugs extracted from the walls, drug paraphernalia – had all been buried in some other archive, presumably. A few items remained, including a thick file of gory photographs. As for the papers, most of them I had already seen photocopied in Danziger’s own file on the case. He had apparently created a duplicate file of his own containing copies of every scrap in these boxes. Only one thing had been missing from Danziger’s file: the detectives’ original notebooks. The absence of these notebooks sent up a red flag. Obviously if Danziger’s theory was that the detectives had missed something the first time around, their contemporaneous notes would be a crucial bit of evidence. ‘Danziger copied the notebooks,’ I told Kelly. ‘Somebody took them out of his office. I’m sure of it. Danziger wouldn’t have left them out.’
The notebooks themselves were not fancy. Most were the spiral-bound type that students use. A few were breast-pocket-sized. Only one of the detectives had assembled his notes into a three-ring binder. Kelly and I read through the notebooks for the better part of the morning. Each was a diary of mundane tasks, the meticulous combing-out of good leads from bad (interviews with neighbors, friends, suspects, snitches), and daily interactions with others in law enforcement (telephone calls with prosecutors, forensics labs, other cops). It was grunt work and it yielded nothing. In the late summer of 1987, Mission Flats had been struck by a plague of amnesia and lockjaw. What evidence the investigators had obtained, including the murder weapon, had been recovered within minutes of the shooting.