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her last words.
When I was done, when I couldn't talk anymore, Jannie whispered, "Watch the
river, how it flows, Daddy. The river is truth."
That had been my mantra for the kids when they were little and Maria wasn't
around. I'd walk them by the Anacostia River or the Potomac and make them look
at it, the water, and say, "Watch the river& the river is truth."
Or at least as close as we'll ever get to it.
Chapter 105
I WAS FEELING strangely emotional and vulnerable, and I guess, maybe, alive
these days.
It was both a good and a bad thing.
I had breakfast with Nana Mama at around five thirty or so almost every
morning. Then I jogged to my office, changed clothes, and started my sessions
as early as six thirty.
Kim Stafford was my first patient on Mondays and Thursdays. It was always a
hard thing to keep personal feelings out of the sessions, at least for me, or
maybe I was just out of practice. On the other hand, some of my colleagues had
always struck me as too clinical, too reserved and distant. What was any
patient, any human being, supposed to make of that?Oh, it's okay if I have the
affect of a turnip; I'm a therapist .
I needed to do this my way, with warmth at times, with lots of feeling and
compassion rather than empathy; I needed to break the rules, to be unorthodox.
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Like confronting Jason Stemple at his station house and trying to punch that
scum's lights out. That's what I callprofessional .
I had a break in my schedule until noon, so I decided to check in with Monnie
Donnelley at Quantico. She was doing some research on a theory of mine about
the Butcher. I hadn't said much more than hello, when Monnie interrupted. "1
have something for you, Alex. I think you're going to like this. It's your
idea anyway, your theory."
Monnie then told me that she'd used my notes and tracked down news about
Sullivan's wife through a mob soldier who was in the Witness Protection
Program and now living in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
"I followed the trail you set up, and you were right on. It led me to a guy
who was at Sullivan's wedding, which was small, as you might expect. The pal
from Brooklyn you told me about, Anthony Mullino, he was there. Apparently,
Sullivan didn't want many people to know about his private life. His own
mother wasn't invited, and his father was dead, as you know."
"Yeah, killed by his son and a couple of pals. What did you find out about
Sullivan's wife?"
"Well, it's interesting stuff, not what you'd expect, either. She's
originally from Colts Neck, New Jersey, and she was a first-grade teacher
before she met Sullivan. How about that? Salvatore Pistelli, the Witness
Protection guy, said she was a sweet girl. Said Sullivan was looking for a
good mother for his kids. Touching, huh, Alex? Our psycho hit man has a soft
spot. The wife's name was Caitlin Haney. Her family's still living in Colts
Neck."
That same day, we had a tap set up on the phones of Caitlin Sullivan's
parents' place. Also on a sister who lived in Toms River, New Jersey, and a
brother who was a dentist in Ridgewood.
I had some hope again. Maybe we could close this case after all and bring
down the Butcher.
Maybe I would see him again and take a little bow myself.
Chapter 106
MICHAEL SULLIVAN HAD BEEN USING the name Michael Morrissey since he'd been
living in Massachusetts, Morrissey being a punk he'd more or less drawn and
quartered in his early days as a hit man. Caitlin and the boys kept their
first names but went under the surname Morrissey now too. The story they had
learned by heart was that they had been living in Dublin for the past few
years, where their father was a consultant to several Irish companies with
business connections to America.
Now he was doing "consultant" work in Boston.
The latter part happened to be true, since the Butcher had just gotten a job
through an old contact in South Boston. A job  a hit, a murder for hire.
He left the house overlooking the Hoosic River that morning at a very
civilized nine o'clock. Then he drove west; he was headed to the Massachusetts
Turnpike in his new Lexus. He had his work tools in the trunk  guns, a
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butcher saw, a nail gun.
He didn't play any music on the first part of the trip, preferring to travel
down memory lane instead. Lately, he'd been thinking a lot about his early
kills: about his father, of course; a couple of jobs for Maggione Sr.; and a
Catholic priest named Francis X. Conley. Father Frank X had been messing
around with boys in the parish for years. The rumors were all around the
neighborhood, the stories laced with plenty of kinky, slimy detail. Sullivan
couldn't believe that some of the parents knew what was going on and hadn't
stepped up to do something to stop it.
When he was nineteen and already working for Maggione, he happened to spot
the priest down at the docks, where Conley kept a little outboard for his
fishing trips. Sometimes he would take one of the altar boys for an afternoon.
A reward. A little sweet treat.
On this particular day in the spring, the good father had come down to the
dock to prepare his boat for the season. He was working over the engine when
Sullivan and Jimmy Hats stepped on board.
"Hey, Father Frankie," Jimmy said, and beamed a crooked smile. "How 'bout we
take a little boat trip today? Do some fishin'?"
The priest squinted up at the two young hoods, frowning when he recognized
who it was. "I don't think so, boys. Boat's not ready for action yet."
That brought a laugh from Hats, who repeated, "Ready for action yeah, I get
you."
Then Sullivan stepped forward. "Yeah, it is ready,Fodder . We're goin' on a
sea cruise. You know that song? Frankie Ford's 'Sea Cruise'? That's where
we're goin'. Just the three of us."
So they cruised on out of the boatyard, and Father Frank X was never seen or
heard from again. "God rest his immoral soul in hell," Jimmy Hats joked on the
way back.
And that morning, as he drove out on his latest job, Sullivan remembered the
old Frankie Ford song  and he remembered how the pathetic priest had begged
for his life, and then for his death, before he got cut up into shark food.
But most of all, he remembered wondering whether he had just done agood deed
with Father Frank, and whether or not it was possible that he could.
Could he do anything good in his life?
Or was he just all bad?
Chapter 107 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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