Mystic River

"You just said it yourself, though? he's a past victim of sexual abuse, and yet Katherine Marcus wasn't sexually assaulted. That don't make sense, Sarge."

"Maybe he just whacked off over her."

"There was no semen at the scene."

"It rained."

"Not where her body was found. In the random thrill kill, sexual emission is part of the equation, like, ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time. Where is it in this case?"

Whitey lowered his head and drummed the sides of the light pole with his palms. "You were friends with the victim's father and a potential suspect when you were? "

"Oh, come on."

"? kids. That compromises you. Don't tell me it don't. You're a fucking liability here."

"I'm a? ?" Sean lowered his voice and brought his hand back down from his chest. "Look," he said, "I'm just in disagreement with you over the profile of the suspect. I'm not saying that if we zero in on Dave Boyle for more than just a few inconsistencies, I won't be right there with you to bust him. You know I will be. But if you go to the DA right now with what you got, what's he going to do?"

Whitey's palms drummed a little harder against the pole.

"Really," Sean said. "What's he going to do?"

Whitey raised his arms above his head and let out a shuddering yawn. He met Sean's eyes and gave him a weary frown. "Point taken. But"? he held up a finger? "but, you clubhouse fucking lawyer, you, I'm going to find the stick she was beat with, or the gun, or some bloody clothes. I don't know what exactly, but I'm going to find something. And when I find it, I'm going to drop your friend."

"He ain't my friend," Sean said. "Turns out you're right? I'll have my cuffs off my hip faster than yours."

Whitey came off the pole and stepped up to Sean. "Don't compromise yourself on this, Devine. You do that, you'll compromise me, and I'll bury you. I'm talking a transfer to the goddamn Berkshires, pulling radar-gun details from a fucking snowmobile."

Sean ran both hands up his face and through his hair, trying to rub the weariness out of him. "Ballistics should be back by now," he said.

Whitey stepped back from him. "Yeah, that's where I'm going. Lab work on the prints should be in the computer, too. I'm going to run them, hope we get lucky. You got your cell?"

Sean patted his pocket. "Yeah."

"I'll call you later." Whitey turned away from Sean and headed down Crescent for the cruiser, Sean feeling washed in the man's disappointment, that probationary period suddenly seeming a lot more real than it had this morning.

He headed back up Buckingham toward Jimmy's as Dave walked down the front steps with Michael.

"Heading home?"

Dave stopped. "Yeah. I can't believe Celeste never came back with the car."

"I'm sure she's fine," Sean said.

"Oh, yeah," Dave said. "I just gotta walk is all."

Sean laughed. "What's it, five blocks?"

Dave smiled. "Almost six, man, you look at it close."

"Better get going," Sean said, "while there's still a little light left. Take it easy, Mike."

"Bye," Michael said.

"Take care," Dave said, and they left Sean by the stairs, Dave's steps just a bit spongy from the beers he'd been knocking back in Jimmy's place, Sean thinking, If you did do it, Dave, you better cut that shit out right away. You're going to need every brain cell you got if Whitey and I come gunning for you. Every goddamn one.

* * *

THE PEN CHANNEL was silver at this time of night, the sun set but some light still left in the sky. The treetops in the park had turned black, though, and the drive-in screen was just a hard shadow from over here. Celeste sat in her car on the Shawmut side, looking down at the channel and the park and then East Bucky rising like landfill behind it. The Flats was almost completely obscured by the park except for stray steeples and the taller rooftops. The homes in the Point, though, rose above the Flats and looked down on it all from paved and rolling hills.

Celeste couldn't even remember driving over here. She'd dropped off the dress with one of Bruce Reed's sons, the kid decked out in funereal black, but his cheeks so clean-shaven and his eyes so young that he looked more like he was heading out for the prom. She'd left the funeral home and the next thing she knew she was pulling into the back of the long-closed Isaak Ironworks, driving past the empty shells of hangar-sized buildings and pulling to the end of the lot, her bumper touching the rotted pilings and her eyes following the sluggish current of the Pen as it lapped toward the harbor locks.

Ever since she'd overheard the two policemen talking about Dave's car? their car, the one she sat in right now? she'd felt drunk. But not a good drunk, all loose and easy with a soft buzz. No, she felt like she'd been drinking the cheap stuff all night, had come home and passed out, then woken up, still fuzzy-brained and thick-tongued, but rancid with the poison now, dull and dense and incapable of concentration.

"You're scared," the cop had said, cutting to the core of her so completely that her only response was pure, belligerent denial. "No, I'm not." As if she were a child. No, I'm not. Yes, you are. No, I'm not. Yes, you are. I know you are, but what am I? Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah.

She was scared. She was terrified. She felt turned to pudding by the fear.

She'd talk to him, she told herself. He was still Dave, after all. A good father. A man who'd never raised a hand to her or shown a propensity for violence in all the years she'd known him. Never so much as kicked a door or punched a wall. She was sure she could still talk to him.

She'd say, Dave, whose blood did I wash off your clothes?

Dave, she'd say, what really happened Saturday night?

You can tell me. I'm your wife. You can say anything.

That's what she'd do. She'd talk to him. She had no reason to fear him. He was Dave. She loved him and he loved her and all of this would somehow work out. She was sure of it.

And yet she stayed there, on the far side of the Pen, dwarfed by an abandoned ironworks that had recently been purchased by a developer who supposedly planned to turn it into a parking lot if the stadium deal went through on the other side of the river. She stared across at the park where Katie Marcus had been murdered. She waited for someone to tell her how to move again.

* * *

JIMMY SAT WITH Bruce Reed's son Ambrose in his father's office, going over the details, wishing he was dealing with Bruce himself instead of this kid who looked straight out of college. You could see him playing Frisbee a lot easier than hoisting a casket, and Jimmy couldn't imagine those smooth, unlined hands down in the embalming room, touching the dead.