Chris Mooney - The Dead Room

'Did she tell you who was on these tapes?'

'No, she didn't. We had only forty minutes to talk. I let her do all the talking. I just listened.'

'Does she know who killed my father?'

'No. I don't know either. I was in this motel when your father was murdered. I told this to my wonderful public-appointed lawyer, of course. The motel said they had no record of me staying there. No bills, nothing. It didn't matter. The Feds set me up. They stole my car, they found the gun I kept in my apartment – they planted enough evidence to leave no doubt that I'd done it. Without any evidence to support what I was saying, my lawyer thought he was listening to the paranoid ramblings of a schizophrenic.'

'My father wouldn't have left you alone in a hotel. He would have arranged for someone to watch you.'

'He said he had someone watching the hotel – someone he trusted. I don't know who he was, I never saw the guy.'

'I'll look into this.'

'No,' he hissed. 'I didn't call you to help me; I called to warn you about these so-called Federal agents. I have no idea if they're still working for the FBI, but, regardless, they're out there looking for these tapes. Don't go looking for them. You know what they did to your father; you saw what happened to Kendra. If you find these tapes, destroy them. Don't think you can expose these people. You can't trust anyone, especially people inside the Boston police department. Sullivan had plenty of your people on his payroll.'

'Tell me some names.'

'I don't remember their names, but I'm sure they're still out there. You start in on this, you'll wind up buried next to your father.'

I haven't started in on this, Darby wanted to say. I'm already in it.

Darby felt cold all over as she collected her things from the female guard. She was dimly aware of the woman speaking, making a joke to Billy Biceps about how everything must've gone well with Zeke 'cause the doc still had both her ears, ha-ha. Darby forced a smile, thanked the guards and stepped into a cool, bright corridor echoing with murmured conversations.

The rational part of her, which had been oddly quiet all this time, spoke up. You actually believe everything Ezekiel has told you.

A statement, not a question. Did she believe everything? She didn't want to believe any of it, but a good majority of the things he had told her – like Special Agent Alan, for example – were true. Some of the other things he had said clambered around the truth – too goddamn close to it. And if that wasn't bad enough, the man didn't fit the mould of someone suffering from a schizoaffective disorder. The delusion about the room being bugged should have dominated the entire conversation. His paranoid thoughts should have been rampant, but the man's speech had remained remarkably coherent. He had answered each of her questions, had easily moved from one topic to the next without confusion and – and – had shown a remarkable degree of empathy when speaking about her father.

And what about her father? At thirty-nine, her memories of Thomas 'Big Red' McCormick had started to blur and fade. As it was, she didn't have many memories to start with. She had barely seen him during her childhood, Big Red having to work a tremendous amount of overtime while Sheila attended night school for her nursing degree. A few random snapshots came to her – clutching her father's big leg on the subway as the crowded T-car rocked-and-rolled its way down the track; Big Red cracking peanut shells in his long, callused fingers at Fenway Park.

But, beyond her father's love of the Red Sox, Frank Sinatra records, good bourbon and cigars, she didn't have the first idea about what had made Big Red tick. He had been an unnaturally quiet man, more prone to listening than to talking. And he was always observing the world around him. In her memories he seemed constantly exhausted.

Kendra introduced me to your father… She loved your father very much.

I admired him greatly.

Big Red was a remarkable man. One of a kind, you could say. I regret what happened to him every single day.

Darby opened the main doors. The afternoon sky was a bright, hard blue and free of clouds, the air still unbearably hot and humid. She looked behind her, having the absurd feeling that Ezekiel had followed her outside.

Lieutenant Warner, sitting behind the wheel of her car, had parked in one of the spaces reserved for police. He had a good view of the entire car park and the prison's front doors. He saw her and pulled out of his spot.

She didn't want him behind the wheel, she didn't want him in her car. She wanted to drive alone, in silence, to process what had just happened.

Warner was on his mobile.

'Commissioner,' he said after she shut the door. He handed over his phone as he drove off, heading for the exit. 'Go ahead, it's safe to talk.'

Chadzynski wanted an update. It took Darby a moment to collect her thoughts. She spoke slowly, concentrating on her words. The commissioner listened without interruption.

Darby finished talking. A long silence followed. For a moment, she thought the connection had died.

'Commissioner?'

'I'm here. I was… I'm still trying to process what you've told me.' Another pause. 'You're suggesting that the head of the Irish mafia, a man responsible for the deaths of countless numbers of people as well as the disappearances of several young women, was a Federal agent.'

'I'm not suggesting anything. I'm just telling you what Ezekiel told me.'

'But just the idea of it… it's… Darby, Frank Sullivan was a vicious psychopath. He killed Boston cops, state troopers – he killed people from Boston and Charlestown and God only knows who else. I have stacks of files of unsolved homicides that are believed to be linked to Sullivan. I've always heard rumours about the FBI trying to place an undercover agent inside the Irish and Italian mafia, but if what Ezekiel said is true, it means the Federal government not only placed an undercover agent inside the Irish mob, they somehow made him the goddamn head of it. We're talking about a man who's a mass murderer. It means the Federal government is implicit in the murders and disappearances of, what, nearly a hundred people? Do you realize the magnitude of what you're suggesting?'

Unfortunately, she did. Not only had the Boston FBI – maybe even the entire Federal organization – sanctioned Sullivan's actions, they had also helped to cover them up.

Your father knew what he was up against, Ezekiel had told her. Big Red heard the tapes, knew what these Boston Feds were doing, the names of the cops and state troopers Sullivan had on his payroll.

'Do you believe Ezekiel?' Chadzynski asked.

'I do. Even if I wanted to dismiss it as some sort of paranoid schizophrenic story, Kendra Sheppard did, in fact, visit him. Ezekiel knew her real name. Knew where she was living, knew about her son – he knows too many details for it to be some sort of made-up story. And why ask to speak to me after all this time?'

I didn't call you to help me, Ezekiel had said. I called to warn you about these so-called Federal agents.

'The timeline bothers me,' Darby said. 'Kendra Sheppard's parents were murdered in April of 1983. She disappears, then my father is shot in May. Sullivan and these Federal agents – how many are these again?'

'Four,' Chadzynski said. 'Here they are, on the Boston Globe's website. Peter Alan, Jack King, Anthony Frissora and Steve White. There's an interesting note in the article. They were all assigned to the Boston task force set up to dismantle both the Irish and Italian mafias. I'm starting to gather information from our files to see what we can find out.'

Sullivan and his Federal friends, they were Charlestown's version of the Gestapo.