Chris Mooney - The Dead Room

'What was her name?'

'Don't know,' Coop said, his eyes growing wet. 'I'm ashamed to say I didn't bother to ask. It was probably better that way, since Mr Sullivan made me put a plastic bag over her head.'

Darby felt her midsection disappear.

'Of course, being the wonderful Robin Hood figure he was, Mr Sullivan yanked off the tape from her mouth so I could talk to her. You know, in case I wanted to say sorry before I suffocated her to death.'

Coop's dry, hoarse voice cracked over the words.

'She tried talking to me, I know she did, but I don't remember a word because the entire time I was holding that plastic shopping bag over her head I was thinking about my mother, how it would destroy her and my sisters if I was the one who ended up in that hole. If I was the one who disappeared. That was Mr Sullivan's specialty. I had heard stories, but now I was seeing it up close and in person.'

Tears spilled down his cheeks and his face crumbled. 'She didn't even put up a fight, Darby. It was like… like she had resigned herself to it.'

Darby couldn't move and all the while a voice inside her kept wishing that she could hit some magic rewind button on time, go back to her office and forget about coming here.

Coop wiped his eyes. 'After it was over, he made me put her body in the grave. I was burying her and not really feeling anything, I was in shock. But I was thinking about how I was going to hell. Mr Sullivan, he was all happy, kept telling me how proud he was. After she was buried he stuffed a wad of cash in my pocket. Two hundred bucks. That's how much her life was worth. He told me I was working for him now, and my new job was to keep an eye out on the streets, report back to him if I heard or saw anything in the neighbourhood.

'First, though, he said, I had to pay the piper. And if I didn't, he was going to pick up the phone and call one of his boys on the force, tell him about what had just happened here and give 'em this plastic bag with my prints all over it. And this Fed was going to back him up, say how I'd been working for Mr Sullivan and he'd seen me going into the house with this girl and heard screaming. And once I was in jail, Mr Sullivan said he was going to pay my mother a special visit.'

His name isn't Frank Sullivan, Coop. His real name is Ben Masters and he was a Federal agent who'd been planted inside the mob and I don't think he died and I don't know how he, King, Alan and the other two Federal agents placed on that boat managed to fake his death. All I know is that as every minute passes, this thing just keeps getting deeper and deeper, and I keep wondering when – or if – I'm going to reach the bottom.

Ezekiel kept whispering to her:

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… You know what they did to your father; you saw what happened to Kendra… Don't think you can expose these people. You can't trust anyone.

Coop moved his niece so her tiny head rested underneath his chin. 'Mr Sullivan took me upstairs to what I guessed was Kevin's mother's or sister's room – the sun is shining through these real lacy curtains, and there were all these religious pictures of Jesus and Mary and the pope hanging on the walls. And there was Father Humphrey sitting on the edge of the bed with his collar off and a glass of whiskey in his hand. The door locked behind me – they conveniently locked on the outside so I couldn't get out – and Father Humphrey kept smiling at me as he patted the spot next to him on the bed. Want to know what he did?'

'No,' she said, strangling on the word.

'Good, 'cause I don't want to rehash the gory details. And I'd hate to see you blush.'

'Coop -'

'I found the plastic bag, by the way. That's why I was in such a rush to get inside the house. I found the bag inside that box full of bones.'

'What did you do with it?'

'I threw it away.'

Darby stared at the carpet. She felt numb all over.

'I'd appreciate it if you left out that little detail when speaking to the commissioner,' he said. 'I don't want her to come looking for me. I already have them watching me.'

'Who? Who's watching you?'

'Why, the League of Extraordinary Dead Federal Agents. They're roaming around Charlestown.'

'Do you know their names?'

'No, but I know their faces. They're probably watching the house right now.'

'That woman you… met in the basement.'

'I don't know her name. And I'm proud to say that, being the stand-up guy I am, I never bothered to find out. Feel free to use your psych degree to draw your own conclusions. Just don't share them with me.'

'Ezekiel told me Kendra Sheppard was working with my father to help bring down Sullivan.'

'And look how well that turned out.'

'Did you know?'

'I knew Sullivan had a thing for her, kept her close. I found out about it after the prostitution bust.'

'And the other remains in the basement?'

'No idea. I've got a favour to ask.'

'What?'

'Take a long vacation until this blows over. Fake a heart attack. Buy a plane ticket and go somewhere, just do something. You need to get as far away from this as you can.'

'It's a little too late for that.'

Coop stood up and placed his sleeping niece on the sofa.

'You remember how my old man died?'

'Hit-and-run,' she said. Someone had run him over after he stumbled out of a bar in Lynn.

'What I didn't tell you was the phone call I got after we buried him. That Federal agent who'd brought me to Reynolds's house, Special Agent King? He called me at home and told me to keep my mouth shut or I'd be burying my mother next to my old man. That's why Jackie and I decided to stick around in Charlestown. We wanted to keep an eye on my mother. Thank God she moved to Florida at the beginning of the year.'

'Kendra Sheppard taped conversations with these -'

'Don't tell me, I don't want to know. I don't need anything else floating around my head, and whatever it is, it's not going to make a shit's worth of difference now anyway. You can't take these guys down. They're like vampires. They came here, what, twenty something years ago, and turned Charlestown into Salem's Lot. Now they're back, and if you think you can kill them, you're wrong. You put one down and there'll be another one to take his place. They're -'

Darby heard the screech of car tyres.

Coop scooped up the Glock and ran for the front door.

Darby jumped to her feet, hand reaching for her sidearm. Coop, leaning against the wall near the foot of the stairs, peered through a window overlooking the front street.

His body relaxed. He let out a long sigh.

'It's Jackie.' He tucked the nine in the back waistband of his jeans, covered it with his tank and threw back the deadbolt.

He ran to the sofa and picked up his niece. 'Stay here.'

Darby stood wobbly on her feet and watched as Coop ran barefoot through the rain pounding the streets and parked cars. He opened the back door of the car and placed the baby in the child seat.

Jackie rolled down the window. Darby could tell that the woman had been crying.

She looked around the street as Coop talked to his sister. Lots of parked cars. She couldn't see anyone behind the windows.

Coop ran back inside the house. He didn't shut the door and Jackie didn't drive away. The woman's face was pale, frightened.

'She wants me to go with her,' he said, picking up his sneakers. Water dripped down his face. 'She thinks she's seen some guys watching her house.'

'I'll call some people, have them guard her until -'

'Until what? Don't tell me you think this is going to blow over.'

'The commissioner's head of Anti-Corruption has taken over the case, this guy named Warner. He can -'