Chris Mooney - The Dead Room

'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.

'Oh, I'm sure he had cops and guys from the state police on his payroll, but I'll do you one better. I think Sullivan was an informant for the Feds. Now ask me how I can possibly say that.'

'How can you possibly say that?'

'Thank you for asking. See, the Italians in the North End, they went down like flies, one right after another. Sullivan, though, kept running his business – thrived, in fact. Not once was he arrested.'

'What about Reynolds?'

'Nope. It was like the two of them were untouchable.'

'Who set up the sting on Boston Harbor?'

'That would be the good people at the FBI's Boston field office. Special Agent Alan was working with one of my informants, the aforementioned safe cracker Billy O'Donnell. Billy got busted and was facing a permanent vacation at one of our fine supermax prisons, so he did some wheeling and dealing with Alan, told him he had some very significant information on Mr Francis Sullivan. Alan agreed to the deal, and Billy told him that Sullivan was bringing in a major score of heroin by boat. Alan told his superiors and set up a sting on Boston Harbor, where the transaction was supposed to take place.

'One of the undercover guys,' Jennings said, 'a Fed named Jack King, was in communication with the command post when Sullivan for some reason stepped aboard and started shooting. King got shot, and by the time the cavalry arrived, both boats were engulfed in flames. No survivors. Sullivan and the two guys from his crew, the undercover Feds on the boat – everyone was burnt to a crisp. Divers came in the next morning to pull out their bodies. No survivors.'

'Were you there?'

'Oh, no, this was strictly a Feds-only party. No ATF, no state or local police. Boston Feds had a major hard-on for Sullivan. Once the Italians were out of the way, they came under some serious pressure to deliver Sullivan next. It wouldn't look good if the Boston cops or staties delivered Sullivan's head on a silver platter, no, they had to do it, so they locked us out. They threw our informants into WITSEC so we couldn't get access to them. In other words, we were left in the dark.'

'Was Reynolds involved?'

'In the sting? Probably. Sullivan never went anywhere without Reynolds in tow. The Feds tried to prove it – Boston PD tried too, after the fact, but Kevin had a rock-solid alibi. He's a crafty prick.'

Darby took off a glove and rubbed her sweaty forehead. She couldn't see how all the pieces fit together: Kendra Sheppard using an alias; the Feds; the bodies buried in the basement of a home owned by the mother of Kevin Reynolds, a former henchman for the now-deceased ringleader of Boston's Irish mafia. And don't forget your father. Big Red is somehow involved in all of this – your father and the man who murdered him.

Jennings grinned, kneading the gum between his nicotine-stained front teeth. 'I haven't told you the best part.'

'Well, don't keep me in suspense. Tell me.'

'You're going to love this. I mean, you really are going to love it. Special Agent Alan here?' Jennings tapped the dead man's shoe with his. 'He was one of the undercover agents planted on the boat. He's supposed to be dead.'

'Forgive me for asking the obvious question,' Darby said, 'but you're positive Special Agent Alan was on the boat?'

'I am, but you don't have to take my word for it,' Jennings said. 'Read the FBI transcripts. That is, if the FBI will let you. It took me, oh, I don't know, three months of visiting their office every morning before they finally produced the transcripts of what happened that night.'

'Did you ask to listen to the audio?' Darby knew the Feds recorded the communications between the boat and the command post.'

'As a matter of fact, they did,' Jennings said. 'Sadly, they wouldn't allow me to listen to the tapes, citing that they were part of an ongoing Federal investigation.'

Darby grinned. 'You don't trust the Feds?'

Jennings laughed. 'I know, I know. I should place more faith in our government officials. But I'm a stubborn old man, Miss McCormick. I've seen too many things here in Charlestown – things that would make the hair on the back of your pretty neck stand on end. I'll tell them to you sometime, but right now I want to know how a Federal agent has somehow resurrected himself from the dead only to wind up being shot to death inside Kevin Reynolds's basement – which is full of human remains, no less. If you have any ideas or theories, I'd love to hear them.'

For the next twenty minutes she led Jennings through her brushes with the unidentified men in the woods, the driver of the brown van and the cameraman with his laser mike.

'Now that is an interesting development,' Jennings said after she finished. Then he glanced down at the body. 'And this man is Peter Alan. I'll bet my salary for the entire year on it. But don't take my word for it. His prints will be stored in the database.'

Darby nodded. All federal and state employees – all law enforcement personnel – had their fingerprints stored inside the national fingerprint database, IAFIS. 'I'll print him here,' she said. 'I'll call someone from the lab to get the fingerprint card so we can get a head start.'

Footsteps moved to the top of the basement steps.

'Hey, Stan,' the patrolman from the kitchen said.

'Yeah, what's up?'

'Is there something wrong with your phone?'

'I don't think so. Why?'

'Tim's been trying to call you and said he keeps getting your voicemail. He's got a lead on Reynolds.'

'Coop called you earlier but couldn't get you on the phone,' Darby said. 'I tried calling you from the road and kept getting your voicemail.'

Jennings took out his phone and examined it. 'That's odd.'