Read The Front Page 7


  “Event?” Anger flares. “ You call what happened an event?”

  “But realistically?” He mildly goes on. “People don’t give a damn about our problems, our mishaps, our tragedies. We hate weakness. It’s human nature. It’s animal instinct. We also don’t like women who are too much like men. Strength, courage are fine within bounds, as long as they’re manifested in a feminine fashion, so to speak. What I’m suggesting is, this YouTube video’s a gift. Primping in the mirror. Trying to look alluring in a way men appreciate and women can relate to. Exactly the image you need right now to reverse this strengthening tide of unfortunate speculation that what happened damaged you as a potential leader. Yes, you evoked a lot of public sympathy and admiration at first, but now it’s fast moving the other way. You’re coming across as distant, too tough, too calculating.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “The danger of the Internet is obvious,” he continues. “Everyone can be a journalist, an author, a news commentator, a film producer. The advantage is just as obvious. People like us can do the same thing. Turn the table on these self-appointed . . . If I used the word that comes to mind, I’d be as vulgar as Richard Nixon. You might want to consider making your own video and posting it anonymously. Then, after much public speculation, get some loser geek out there to take credit.”

  Which is exactly what Mather does. She figured that one out a long time ago.

  “What sort of video?” she inquires.

  “I don’t know. Go to church with an attractive widower who has several young children. Perhaps address the congregation with deep emotion, talk about your change of heart—a Road to Damascus conversion experience—that’s made you passionately pro-life and a proponent of amending the Constitution to ban gay marriage. Talk about the plight of people and pets displaced by Hurricane Katrina to deflect attention away from your helping orphans who aren’t Americans.”

  “People don’t post things like that on YouTube. It has to be a candid moment that’s embarrassing, controversial, heroic, something funny. Like that bulldog riding a skateboard . . .”

  “Well”—impatiently—“fall down the steps when you’re leaving the pulpit. Maybe some usher or, better yet, the pastor, rushes to your rescue and accidentally grabs your breast.”

  “I don’t go to church. Never have. And the scenario is degrading. . . .”

  “And examining your cleavage in a bathroom isn’t?”

  “You just said it wasn’t. Said it was alluring. Indicated it was compelling and caused people to remember I’m a desirable woman and not some sort of cold-blooded tyrant.”

  “This is not a good time to be stubborn,” he warns. “You don’t have three years before the machinery cranks up again. It’s already started.”

  “Which is why I’ve asked repeatedly to talk to you about another matter.” She seizes the opportunity. “An initiative that you really need to hear about.”

  She opens her briefcase, pulls out a synopsis of the Janie Brolin case. Hands it to him.

  He skims it, shakes his head, says, “I don’t care if Win what’s-his-name solves it. You’re talking front-page news for a day, maybe two, and by election time, no one will care or even remember.”

  “This isn’t about one case. It’s about something much bigger. And I must emphasize that this can’t be made public yet. It absolutely can’t. I’m taking you into my confidence, Howard.”

  He folds his hands on top of his desk. “Don’t know why I would make it public, since it’s of no interest to me. I’m more interested in helping you with your self-destruction.”

  A double entendre if ever there was one.

  “That’s why I’ve taken the time to advise you,” he says. “To put a stop to it.”

  What he wants to put a stop to is her. He despises her, always has, and became her supporter last election only to serve a very simple purpose. The Republicans needed to win every office they possibly could, especially the governorship, and the only way to ensure that was to weaken the Democratic party at the last minute by Lamont’s withdrawing from the race. Her doing so for “personal reasons” was a front. Behind it, she and Mather made a deal she now knows he had no intention of keeping. She’ll never be a Republican senator or member of congress and, most of all, never serve in his cabinet should he reach his goal of winning the presidency before he’s dead. She fell prey to his machinations because, frankly, at the time, she wasn’t thinking clearly.

  “Now I want you to listen to me,” the governor is saying. “This is a foolish, frivolous endeavor, and you don’t need more bad publicity. You’ve already had enough for a lifetime.”

  “You don’t know the facts of the case. When you do, you’ll have a different opinion.”

  “Make your opening statement, then. Change my mind.”

  “This isn’t about a forty-five-year-old unsolved homicide,” she says. “It’s about allying ourselves with Great Britain to solve one of the most infamous crimes in history. The Boston Strangler.”

  The governor scowls. “What the hell’s Great Britain got to do with some blind girl getting raped and murdered in Watertown? What has Great Britain got to do with the Boston Strangler, for God’s sake?”

  “Janie Brolin was a British citizen.”

  “Who gives a damn unless she was bin Laden’s mother!”

  “And she very likely was murdered by the Boston Strangler. Scotland Yard is interested. Very, very interested. I’ve talked to the commissioner. At great length.”

  “Well, now, that’s hard to believe. Why would he even get on the phone with some DA from Massachusetts?”

  “Perhaps because he’s sincere about what he does, is very secure in who he is,” she subtly retaliates. “And keeping in mind it’s very much to the advantage of Great Britain and the U.S. to forge a new partnership now that there’s a new Prime Minister, and hopefully, soon enough, a new president who isn’t . . .” She remembers she’s now a Republican, and should watch what she says.

  “Partnership in what to do about Iraq, terrorists, yes,” Mather retorts. “But the Boston Strangler?”

  “I assure you, Scotland Yard is enthusiastic, fully engaged. I wouldn’t be pushing ahead if that part hadn’t fallen into place.”

  “I still find it hard to believe. . . .”

  “Listen, Howard. The investigation’s under way. It’s already happening. The most extraordinary criminal justice coalition in history. The UK and U.S. fighting together to right a terrible wrong committed against a defenseless blind woman—a nobody in a nothing place called Watertown.”

  “Well, the whole thing’s preposterous.” But he’s interested.

  “If my plan succeeds—and it will—you’ll be directly credited, which not only shows you’re a crusader for justice and have a heart but pushes you into the international arena. You’ll be Time magazine’s man of the year.”

  It will be a cold day in hell before she gives him the credit. And if anyone’s going to be man of the year, it will be her.

  “As intriguing as it might be to think this blind British girl was murdered by the Boston Strangler,” the governor says, “I don’t see how the hell you’re going to prove it.”

  “It can’t be disproved. That’s what ensures success.”

  “ You’d better be right about this,” he warns. “If it’s an embarrassment, I’ll make sure it’s yours. Not mine.”

  “That’s why we must keep this out of the press right now,” Lamont reiterates.

  He’ll leak it immediately.

  “We go public only if it’s successful,” she says.

  He won’t wait.

  “Which, as I’ve said, I’m confident it will be,” she adds.

  Of course, he reads between the lines. She can see his thoughts in his beady eyes. Shallow, cowardly dolt that he is. He’ll want the media to be all over this now, because in his limited way of thinking, if her initiative fails, it will be the last straw for her and she probably won’t recover. If it succeeds,
he’ll step forward after the fact and take the credit—which (and this is what he fails to see) will simply serve to make him look like the dishonest, cynical politician he is. The only winner at the end of the day is going to be her, by God.

  “ You’re right,” the governor says. “Let’s keep it quiet for now, wait until it’s a fait accompli.”

  Revere Beach Parkway, speeding past Richie’s Slush with its candy-cane striped roof, heading to Chelsea.

  “Not to be confused with the Chelsea in London,” Stump says.

  “That another fancy literary allusion of yours?” Win says.

  “No. Just a beautiful, really hip part of London.”

  “Never been to London.”

  The Massachusetts Chelsea, two miles from Boston, is one of the poorest cities in the commonwealth, has one of the state’s largest populations of undocumented immigrants, and the highest crime rate. Multilingual, multicultural, crowded and run-down, people don’t get along, and their differences often land them in jail or leave them dead. Gangs are a scourge that robs, rapes, and kills simply because it can.

  “An example of what happens when people don’t understand each other,” Stump says. “I read somewhere there are thirty-nine languages spoken around here. People can’t communicate, at least a third of them are illiterate. They misinterpret, and next thing you know, someone gets beaten up, stabbed, shot down in the street. You speak Spanish?”

  “A few key phrases, such as no. Which is Spanish for no,” he says.

  The landscape continues to deteriorate, one block after another of run-down houses with bars on the windows, lots of check-cashing joints, car washes, as Stump drives deeper into the city’s dark, depressing heart while the GPS dangling from the rearview mirror tells her to turn this way and that. They enter an industrial area that in the heyday of the Mob was the ideal drop-off for dead bodies, a squalid, scary square mile of rusting sheds, storage facilities, landfills. Some businesses are legitimate, Stump tells him. Many of them are fronts for drugs, fencing stolen goods, and other shady activities such as “disappearing” cars, trucks, motorcycles, small aircraft.

  “Even a yacht once,” she adds. “Guy wanted the insurance money, claimed the boat was stolen, trailered it up here and had it crushed into a cube.”

  His iPhone again. He checks caller ID. Number Unknown. Lamont’s number comes up that way. He answers, and Crimson reporter Cal Tradd’s voice is in Win’s ear.

  “How did you get this number?” Win says to him.

  “Monique said I should call you. I need to ask you about the Janie Brolin case.”

  Goddamn her. She promised nothing was going to be released to the media until the case was solved.

  “Look, this is important,” Cal goes on. “I need to verify you’re on special assignment, and there’s a Boston Strangler connection.”

  “Go screw yourself. How many times I got to tell you I don’t talk to reporters. . . .”

  “Have you been listening to the radio, watching TV ? Your boss is furious. Someone leaked all this, and my suspicion is it’s the governor’s office. I won’t name names, but suffice it to say, I know some of the idiots who work down there. . . .”

  “I’m not verifying anything.” Win cuts him off, hangs up on him, says to Stump, “It’s all over the news.”

  She says nothing, is busy driving and swearing at the GPS. It tells her to make a legal U-turn.

  SIX

  Stump parks in an alley where they have a good view of DeGatetano & Sons, a scrapyard with mountains of twisted metal behind fencing topped with razor wire.

  She says, “You see where we are?”

  “I saw where we are before we got here. You must think I spend all my time hanging out in Cambridge coffee shops,” Win says.

  Tough-looking customers are pulling up in trucks, vans, and cars, all loaded with aluminum, iron, brass, and, of course, copper. Eyes are furtive, guys filling grocery carts, pushing them inside the machine shop, vanishing into a noisy darkness.

  “An unmarked Taurus in an alleyway?” she goes on. “We may as well be a Boeing 747. Maybe we should pay attention to our surroundings, because they’re sure as hell paying attention to us.”

  “Then maybe you shouldn’t be so conspicuous,” he says.

  “That’s what deterrents do. They’re conspicuous.”

  “Right. Like chasing off cockroaches. Scare them from one corner to the next until they end up at the corner they started from. Why did you bring me here?”

  “Chasing off cockroaches is exactly the impression I want people to have—want them to think I’m after petty thieves. Construction workers, installers, contractors, these dirtbags who pilfer metal from construction sites. Some of it scrap, a lot of it not. Bring it here, no IDs, no questions asked, paid in cash, the clients they rip off have no idea. Remind me never to remodel or build a house.”

  “If you’re in and out of here on a regular basis, how come you need the GPS?” he says.

  “Okay. So I have a terrible sense of direction. Don’t have one at all.” The way she says it, it sounds like the truth. “And I’d appreciate it if you kept that to yourself.”

  Win notices a thin person in baggy clothes, a baseball cap, climbing out of a pickup truck piled high with copper roofing, pipes, dented downspouts.

  “Disorganized crime is what I call it,” Stump says. “Unlike the old days when I was growing up in Watertown. Everybody knew each other, would be eating in the same restaurant with the Mafia—same guys who remember your grandmother at Christmas or buy you ice cream. Truth be told? They kept the streets clean of scumbags. Burglars, rapists, pedophiles? They’d end up in the Charles River with the heads and hands cut off.”

  The thin person he’s watching is a woman.

  “Organized crime was a good thing,” Stump continues. “At least they had a code, didn’t believe in beating up old ladies, carjackings, home invasions, molesting little kids, shooting you in the head for your wallet. Or for no reason at all.”

  The thin woman pushes two empty carts toward her truck.

  “Copper. Currently going for about eight grand a ton on the Chinese black market.” Stump abruptly changes the subject, looking where Win’s looking. “You beginning to understand why I brought you here?”

  “Raggedy Ann,” he says. “Or whatever her real name is.”

  She’s filling a cart with scrap copper.

  “Super Thief,” Stump says.

  “That whack job?” Win says in disbelief.

  “Oh, she’s a thief, all right. But not the one I’m after. I want the guy who’s doing the major hits. Stripping buildings of plumbing pipes, downspouts, roofing. Ripping off miles of wire from power lines, construction sites, breaking into telephone trucks. Maybe his real deal is drugs—taking the money and buying oxys, then reselling them on the street. These days going for around a dollar a milligram. Drug crimes lead to other crimes, finally lead to violence. Including murder.”

  “And you think your Super Thief ’s unloading the stolen copper here,” Win assumes.

  “Somewhere around here, yes. At this particular fine establishment? Probably one of many he uses.”

  He watches Raggedy Ann, says, “An informant, I assume.”

  “Now you’re getting it,” Stump says.

  Raggedy Ann pushes her cart, doesn’t seem the least bit uncomfortable, as if she belongs in the dangerous world of Chelsea scrapyards.

  “What makes you think it’s the same person doing the major hits?” Win asks.

  “A detail consistent in most of the big jobs. I believe he’s taking pictures. We’ve recovered the packaging from disposable cameras, always the same brand. A Solo H-two-oh. Waterproof with a flash, go for about sixteen bucks in the store—if you can find them. And on the Internet for six or seven. He leaves them at the scene in plain view.”

  The mansion on Brattle Street. The vandalism, the missing copper downspouts and gutters, the ripped-up copper plumbing, and the Solo H2O disposabl
e camera box in the kitchen of a house where Win found evidence he fears was planted, evidence that might lead to him. He almost tells Stump about his stolen gym bag, but doesn’t. How the hell does he know who’s doing what? He’s caught in a web of connections, and the spider at the center is Lamont.

  He says, “Any prints on the camera packages you’re finding?”

  “No luck. The typical reagents didn’t work on the paper, and superglue didn’t develop any prints on the plastic. But just because you can’t see a print doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Maybe the labs will have some luck, because they certainly have more space-age instruments than I do. If they ever get around to it.”

  He almost asks if she’s ever heard of an LLC called FOIL, but he doesn’t dare. Lamont spent more than an hour inside that abandoned Victorian mansion. Who was she with? What was she doing?

  “Let me ask you something, for the sake of speculation,” he says. “Why would your copper thief take photographs at his crime scenes?”

  “The first thing that comes to mind,” she replies. “He gets off on it.”

  “Sort of like your bank robber who maybe gets off on leaving the same type of note every single time? Gets off on flaunting himself, letting everybody know he’s the same guy doing all of them and not leaving a fingerprint or even a partial, even though you can see in the surveillance tapes that he’s not wearing gloves?”

  “Are you suggesting it might be the same guy doing all of this? The bank robberies and the copper thefts?” she asks skeptically.

  “Don’t know. But perpetrators who flaunt their crimes and taunt the police aren’t your average bear. So to have two crime sprees in the same geographic area at the same time, and both have what appear to be the MO I’m describing, is extremely unusual.”

  “Didn’t realize you’re a profiler, in addition to all of your other talents.”

  “Just trying to help.”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  “Then why am I sitting here? You could have told me this Raggedy Ann weirdo is an informant so I’d understand why I should stay away from her. You didn’t need to show me.”