The Charlestown Connection by Tom MacDonald

Author:Tom MacDonald
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oceanview Publishing
Published: 2011-12-17T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 31

“Take a ride with me, Sparhawk,” Captain Pruitt said. “It won’t take long, and I don’t have all day. Hop in the car.”

Pruitt was waiting for me at my office when I arrived at work the next day. I never stepped inside the building.

“A ride to where?” I asked.

“Get in the car, I’ll drive.”

He never turned on the siren; he drove as if it were blaring. We sped down the expressway, past the Herald, past the Globe, and exited at Granite Avenue in Dorchester. Pruitt stayed on Granite Ave. over the iron drawbridge and turned left on Milton Street, then left again into Cedar Grove Cemetery. He sped by the headstones and obelisks and memorials until we reached the reedy banks of the Neponset River, where scummy water lapped the shore. Three unmarked police cars were parked there, along with two cruisers and an ambulance.

“Follow me,” Pruitt said.

I followed him to the river’s edge. He told me to stay put while he talked to the other detectives. Then he called me over. I was growing impatient.

“Why am I here?”

“There’s a corpse I want you to look at. A floater, he just washed ashore,” he said. “You’re our last hope for an ID. Dental charts are useless because his teeth were yanked out, probably with pliers.”

“His teeth were yanked out? What about fingerprints?”

“They cut off his hands.”

“I guess you’re out of luck with fingerprints.” I looked at the body. “Why drag me over here?”

“The guy’s nose has more stitches than a softball, that’s why. And he didn’t get them at MGH, either. Looks like an arthritic seamstress sewed them.” He took me by the elbow. “I’m betting he’s the second Irish attacker.”

“Now I get why I’m here.”

“You chewed the guy’s nose, remember? He’s the one that got away. Humor me, Sparhawk, take a close look at him.”

A medic unzipped the body bag just enough for me to see the dead man’s face. Pruitt was right about the stitch job. It was a tangle of frayed threads. His skin had a bloodless texture. The face was bloated and milky, almost featureless, too decomposed to identify.

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s him, maybe not. I can’t say for sure.”

“Take your time, Sparhawk,” Pruitt said.

I thought back to the day of the attack, when the two micks came at me with telescoping batons and beat my body numb. Sideburns and Saint Pat, flailing away like wild men. I almost forgot. Saint Pat had a tattoo on his forearm. I unzipped the bag another foot, turned over the arm, and there it was. A shamrock tattoo with St. Pat inked under it. I pointed to it.

“It’s him,” I said. “I don’t know his name, but he’s one of the guys who attacked me.”

“Good job,” Pruitt said. “Officer Hernandez will drive you back to Charlestown. Thanks, Sparhawk.”

Hernandez nodded his head toward one of the cruisers and I got in.

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