Mark Del Franco - Unquiet Dreams

“Anyway, we ID’d the kid,” Murdock said. “Dennis Farnsworth. Sixteen years old. Some petty shoplifting charges. All dropped. No big trouble.”

I knew it. Sixteen. “Until now.”

“Until now,” Murdock repeated.

“Any family?”

He nodded. “Mother. Two sisters. They live on D Street.” He turned onto D Street.

My stomach gave a slight clench. I knew what was coming. “Have they been notified?”

“Yeah. We get the easy part. All we have to do is question her while she’s in shock.”

I hate talking to parents about their dead kids. You knock on a door. It opens. They take one look at you with your solemn face, and they know. They always know. You don’t even have to be wearing a uniform. They can smell cop a mile a way. Doesn’t matter what rung of the social ladder they’re on. They know a cop who has that look isn’t stopping by for the Auxiliary Association’s annual donation drive. The last thing they want to talk about is how maybe their kid was not hanging with the right crowd.

Sunset was coming on, the sky turning a deep purple. The streetlights hadn’t kicked on yet, but already house lights burned more visibly, the taillights of cars standing out a little more. You travel far enough down D Street, you get out of the Weird and into South Boston. If you don’t travel that far, you end up in the twilight zone between the two neighborhoods. Not dangerous with a capital “D,” but barely safe with a small “s.”

It was easy to spot where the Farnsworths lived. The triple-decker wooden townhouse shone with light. One lone news van from the local cable station had parked not too far away. I could lay odds I knew where the network stations were. Murdock parked by a fire hydrant.

We walked up the sidewalk to the house, nodded to the beat officer who was keeping an eye on things, and mounted the porch steps. Several kids stared at us, an unusual mix of fey and human, street kids, with hard stares and harder lives. No gang colors that I could see.

We went through the open door into the house, the heat of many people wafting over us. To the right, a staircase led to the upper apartments. The Farnsworth place was on the first floor, another open door that met the entryway on the landing.

Murdock stepped in first, pausing to take in the scene. Over his shoulder I could see people clustered in a modest living room. On the couch a red-eyed woman sat, stout, thin, dyed blond hair clipped to one side with a child’s red barrette. She had her arm wrapped around a small girl, who half lay in her lap, maybe seven years old, with solemn eyes roaming the room. Another young girl, a few years older, sat on her other side, her face pressed against her mother’s shoulders, eyes as red as the woman’s.

“Mrs. Farnsworth?” Murdock spoke softly.

The woman lifted her head in our direction without speaking.

“Mrs. Farnsworth, I’m Detective Leonard Murdock. I’m very sorry for your loss today.”

She didn’t so much nod as rock back and forth slightly. “Thank you.”

“Is there somewhere we can talk?”

Another woman crossed the room, sat on the couch, and with gentle hands took the younger child into her own lap. Mrs. Farnsworth squeezed her other daughter’s hand and stood. Without speaking, she led us through a crowded hallway lined with more people. Their conversations fell away as we passed, their faces tracking with questions.

We entered a back bedroom, obviously her room, crowded with a bedroom set too large for the space. Everything was neat and orderly, the faint odor of dime-store rose water in the air. She sat on the bed.

“Mrs. Farnsworth, when was the last time you spoke to Dennis?”

“Last night before I went to work. He was supposed to be watching his sisters. Molly said he went out about eleven o’clock and made her swear not to tell. He said he’d be back in an hour.”

“Did he seem different? Preoccupied? Worried?”

She shook her head. “He seemed fine. Happy. It was just a regular day.”

“Do you know if he was in any kind of trouble?” Murdock asked.

She shook her head again. “Not that I knew. He’s that age when it isn’t cool to confide in his mother.”

“What about his father?”

Her voice and face went flat. “Gone. Ten years.”

“What about friends? A lot of kids on the porch.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know his friends anymore. I work two jobs. Denny was quiet. He was trying to stay out of trouble.”

“Was it working?” I asked. Murdock shot me a look, but I ignored him.

“I don’t know,” she said in a tiny voice.

I crouched down so that she could look down at me. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Farnsworth, I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Connor Grey. I’m helping to investigate any unique aspects to this…situation. Do you know why Dennis was on Summer Street?”

She shrugged. “He hung around up the Weird. Found some group that he liked.”

“A gang?”

Finally, she stirred out of her lethargy. “He is not in a gang! Denny hated gangs. That’s how he got in trouble—some gang trying to recruit him. His high school counselor got him involved in a community group.”

I liked and didn’t like where this was going. “Unity?”

She nodded. “That’s it. He seemed to like it there. His grades went up.”

“Did Dennis know Alvud Kruge?”

Her eyes searched the carpet. “He talked about Mr. K. all the time. He liked him.”

“Do you know what happened to Alvud Kruge today?”

She closed her eyes. “Yes. My son couldn’t have done something like that.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that.”

“Mrs. Farnsworth, did Dennis confide in anyone?” Murdock asked.

Her face hardened a bit as she looked at him. “He had a girlfriend. Crystal. Crystal Finch.”

“Do you have an address or phone number?”

“No. Somewhere on E Street. He ended the relationship.”

“Why’s that?” Murdock asked.

“Because I asked him to. That girl was bad news. Bad family. Trouble.”

“Is there anyone you can think of that might have wanted to cause Dennis harm?”

She exhaled sharply through her nose. “Look where we live. I work two jobs, and this is the best I can do. No one needs a reason to harm you around here. And I can’t think of a single reason why someone would…why someone would…” She teared up. “No, I don’t know.” The tears began to spill.

“Mrs. Farnsworth…” Murdock began.

She bunched a tissue under her nose. “I want my girls. Please, get my girls. I don’t want to talk anymore.”

Murdock pulled a business card out of his pocket. “Okay. Here, please call me if you think of anything. I’ll call on you tomorrow to see if you need anything.”

She took the card wordlessly, not looking at it. I stood and backed out of the room with Murdock. He turned back a moment. “If I may ask one more question, Mrs. Farnsworth, did Denny have a pair of orange Nikes?”

She shook her head. “No. He had white sneakers. I don’t know what kind.”

“Thank you,” Murdock said. We made our way back through the apartment. Murdock paused by the couch and squatted in front of the older girl. “Are you Molly?” She nodded.

“Did Denny say where he was going last night?”

She stared at Murdock with wide, solemn eyes. “No. He said he had something important to do.”

“Did he say what?”

Molly glanced at the woman cradling her sister. She leaned close to Murdock. “No, but he went with Crystal,” she whispered. “I saw her up the street. Don’t tell Mum or she’ll be mad.”

Murdock smiled to reassure her. “I won’t. Your mum’s asking for you and your sister.”

We left the apartment. The porch was decidedly emptier than when we had arrived. The fey kids were gone. Of the ones left, Murdock started asking about their relationship to Dennis. I stepped down to the sidewalk. He was just covering the bases. I was willing to bet that the kids who really knew Denny Farnsworth had left when they saw us. Tough kids don’t talk to cops if they can avoid it.