But Sullivan and all the other big-time mafiosos – that period of time had occurred during her junior high school years back in the early eighties. She had no idea what Sullivan looked like, and what she knew about the man could fit inside a thimble. Son of a poor Irish immigrant couple who died shortly after arriving in Charlestown. Started out his career delivering cars to chop-shops and then later introduced Charlestown and South Boston to heroin while running guns to Ireland through Chelsea Pier. She remembered something about Sullivan dying in a botched raid involving two boats in Boston Harbor.
‘Kevin Reynolds was Frank’s right-hand man, his personal pit bull,’ Jennings said. ‘Kevin’s mother kicked the bucket about two weeks ago – nothing suspicious, just passed away in her sleep. He’s putting the house up for sale, which explains why he’s digging up these bodies. Not a good selling point.’
‘You have him in custody?’
‘Not yet. He’s probably split town. The son of a bitch is real crafty. I’m sure he’s –’
‘Excuse me for a moment,’ Darby said, eyeing the spent shell casings.
She carefully navigated her way around the sets of footwear impressions zigzagging their way across the dirt, not wanting to disturb them, and arrived at the nearest casing. Crouching, she examined it.
‘This is the same round we found in Belham two days ago,’ Darby said, cocking her head in Jennings’s direction. ‘I’m sure you heard about it on the news: the home invasion involving a woman and her son.’
‘Woman was murdered and her kid shot himself at the hospital.’
She nodded and stood up.
‘Do you know a woman named Kendra Sheppard? She’s from Charlestown.’
‘Her family was murdered in ’83,’ Jennings said. ‘Shot to death in their sleep by two different kinds of ammo. I helped work the case. Kendra disappeared before the funeral. I helped work that case too. Nobody knew what happened to her. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was one of the bodies buried down here.’
‘She’s not. The murdered woman we found in the house was going by the name of Amy Hallcox. We checked her prints against Kendra Sheppard’s. They match.’
Jennings’s eyebrows arched. ‘How long has she been living in Belham?’
‘She was living in Vermont. According to her son, she came here for some job interviews. Did you know she was arrested for prostitution in Charlestown?’
‘I remember something about that.’
‘Any idea why? She was nineteen.’
‘Sullivan wasn’t into prostitution, if that’s where you’re heading. His big thing was extortion. The cocaine and heroin came later.’
‘Why were her parents murdered, do you know?’
‘I’m sure Sullivan was behind it. When he was alive, you couldn’t piss on these streets without his permission. Either Sullivan killed the Sheppard family or he commissioned someone to do it. Do I have proof? No. But you can bet Sullivan was somehow behind it.’
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Coop moving the beam of his flashlight inside a cardboard box splattered with blood.
‘When Sullivan moved into Charlestown,’ Jennings said, ‘half the people here were murdered or disappeared without a trace. And that doesn’t include the victims who lived in and around Boston. The guy was as evil as Hitler and just as thorough. Ran Charlestown like it was a goddamn concentration camp. By the time he died, this place was like Auschwitz, a ghost town.’
She turned her attention to the body sprawled against the dirt floor. She could see only the navy-blue trouser legs and shoes; the rest was hidden behind Jennings.
‘For that to happen,’ Jennings said, ‘you’ve got to have some very important people on your payroll – people on the inside who can manipulate things, people in the know. People –’
‘Hold that thought.’
Darby had stepped aside to get a clear look at the body. White male dressed in a suit jacket. The majority of gunshots had hit him in the chest. Two shots had hit the man’s right leg. One had hit the femoral artery and he had bled out.
That shot hadn’t killed the man who had used the name of Special Agent Phillips. The single shot to the side of the forehead had done the job.
29
Darby put on her thick blue gloves and crouched next to the body. She found a leather billfold tucked in his front pocket.
Jennings’s scuffed black shoes stepped beside her. She opened the billfold: FBI badge and Federal ID for Special Agent Dylan Phillips. Pine was right: the credentials looked like the real deal. She started checking the other pockets.
‘You know this guy?’ Jennings asked.
‘I met him yesterday at St Joe’s Hospital. He posed as a Fed, had this ID and badge with him, even a Federal warrant.’
‘What was he doing there?’
‘He wanted to take Kendra Sheppard’s son into protective custody.’ She pulled a black wallet out of the back trouser pocket. Connecticut driver’s licence and assorted credit cards issued to Paul Highsmith. The licence photo matched the one in the ID for Special Agent Phillips. How many names does this guy have?
‘This guy’s name isn’t Phillips or Highsmith,’ Jennings said. ‘His real name is Peter Alan. When I knew him, he was a Federal agent for the Boston office.’
Darby stood. Coop had moved off to examine the furniture stacked in the corner.
‘I knew Alan back in the day, ran into him more than once here in Charlestown,’ Jennings said. ‘He used to run informants. Placed a lot of ’em inside witness protection so we couldn’t get at them – guys like Billy O’Donnell. They called him Billy Three Fingers. Guy was an expert safe cracker. He, ah, encroached on Sullivan’s turf and when Sullivan broke Billy’s right hand, Billy started picking locks with his left. After Billy entered WITSEC, I couldn’t gain access to him. Feds wouldn’t let me speak to him.’
‘And why is that?’
Jennings popped a stick of gum into his mouth. ‘Do you know how Sullivan bought the farm?’
‘All I remember is Sullivan died during a raid on the harbour. I was in high school when it happened, what, ’81?’
‘July of ’83.’
The same year Kendra Sheppard’s parents were murdered – the same year my father was murdered.
‘Let me give you a quick history lesson to bring you up to speed,’ Jennings said. ‘Sullivan operated out of Charlestown from the late sixties. By the time he died, you’re talking about a good twenty-year stretch when he either murdered people or made them disappear, including a lot of young women like the ones buried in this basement. Sullivan liked ’em real young. The ones who got involved with him ended up dead or vanishing into thin air. Don’t ask me for an exact number, because I started to lose count. Suffice to say I’ve got files of missing women who at one time or another were in Sullivan’s orbit.
‘Now when the guy was alive, he was untouchable, which is odd when you stop to consider that you had the Boston Feds gunning for him, Boston PD, the state police. The son of a bitch was always one step ahead. I remember this one case where we planted bugs in his car. Real technical operation, took four hours to install them. The next day a whole bunch of us are tailing Sullivan. He pulls up next to my car, rolls down the window and says, “Hey, Stan, those bugs you planted in my car, do you want them now or do you want me to swing by your office later?”’
‘So Sullivan had bought off cops,’ Darby said.