Part 11 (2/2)
”Richie Z,” Mooney said. ”Two-bit hood from East Boston. Convicted murderer.”
”He was exonerated,” Connie said. ”Wrongly convicted.”
”Sure he was. Once in a while a guy gets lucky enough that all the witnesses against him are dead. Then he gets some new witness to come forward and tell a different story. The next thing you know he's a big hero. 'Wrongly convicted' by a corrupt system.” Mooney was winding up for one of his rants.
”His case is a little different,” Alves said. ”The only witness who testified against him was a federal informant. Turns out the witness lied about Zardino to give the feds someone to send to jail for an unsolved mob hit.”
”I'm sure he did something he deserved to go to jail for,” Mooney said.
”We had a run-in with him and his sidekick the other night,” Greene said. ”His buddy acts like he's a lawyer instead of an ex-con.”
”He's lucky I didn't give him a beating,” Ahearn said.
”Goes by the name Luther,” Connie said. ”He did time in state prison on a home invasion. Shot someone.”
Mooney shook his head. ”Luther what?”
”He only gave us Luther.”
”That's not his real name,” Mooney said. ”He used to be a little thug. I remember the face.”
Mooney had a gift for faces. He could thumb through a stack of Arrest Summary Reports and remember most of the faces.
”Darius Little,” Greene said. ”I looked into his background after the incident the other night.”
”That's it,” Mooney said. ”They used to call him D-Lite. No criminal history when he was younger, but his big brother was no good. Darius went away to college down South. Played football, Division One. Great running back. He was home from school one summer when his brother lost a gunfight and ended up dead. Darius never went back to school. Then he's in the mix with his brother's old crew. Kid became a one-man crime spree, and the man he shot ended up in a wheelchair. His lawyer got him in front of the right judge. Took eight to ten on a plea deal. Only nineteen at the time.”
”You know quite a bit about him,” Alves said.
”I investigated the brother's death. Darius flipped out at the scene. Had to cuff him to calm him down. We never caught the killer, and Darius still holds a grudge. Said I didn't work the case hard enough. Said I was too busy working the Prom Night case.”
”Apparently, he found Christ in prison,” Greene said.
”Great program the mayor has there,” Mooney said. ”Let's pair up ex-cons, or 'ex-offenders' as he calls them, and send them out on the street so they can teach gang kids how to become better criminals.”
”I don't think that's the goal of the program,” Alves said. ”The kids connect with these guys because they've experienced some of the same things.”
”You should have seen them the other night,” Greene said, ”telling us not to lay a hand on them, that we had no reason to search. They're giving the kids a lesson on criminal procedure, how to tell the cops to screw-”
”You want to know what really p.i.s.ses me off?” Ahearn interrupted.
Alves could see that Ahearn was angry, his hands clenched into ma.s.sive grapefruit-sized fists.
”Let's hear it, big guy,” Mooney said.
”We come to this meeting because we're ordered to,” Ahearn started. ”Fine. It's a waste of my time, but I'm told to be here, so here I am. Then we get a lecture from the super that we need to be out there stopping everything that moves. Like we're rookies and we don't know how to do our jobs. I can deal with that. She's the boss. But what the h.e.l.l are those two sc.u.mbags doing at our our intel meeting?” intel meeting?”
Greene interrupted him. ”Jackie, keep your voice down.”
Alves looked around at the steady stream of bodies moving down the hall toward them, away from the Media Room and the table set up with coffee and old Danish. It was too late to stop Ahearn.
”Greenie, she invites criminals into our house and expects us to share information with them. These meetings used to be closed to everyone except the good cops, a couple of probation officers and ADAs, guys we could trust with sensitive information. It meant something to be invited here.”
”Jackie's right. It's gotten to the point where she's inviting the bad guys into the room,” Mark Greene said.
Maybe they were right, Alves thought. Here they were, inviting strangers into their own house.
CHAPTER 42.
Luther had felt the hostility in the room. He and Zardino were pariahs. They had no reason to stay after the meeting, but they did. Maybe to make the cops feel uncomfortable, maybe to stand their ground. pariahs. They had no reason to stay after the meeting, but they did. Maybe to make the cops feel uncomfortable, maybe to stand their ground.
The one person who'd been friendly was Conrad Darget. He'd come over before the meeting started. Told them he'd heard that he and Richie had done a great presentation at the mayor's Peace Conference. Darget was their new friend, a real politician, working the room, saying h.e.l.lo to everyone, shaking hands and backslapping.
”We should get going,” Zardino said, pulling at the collar of a s.h.i.+rt that was tight for him.
Rich was right. They had made their point. Now the room was almost empty, only a few stragglers left, kissing up to the superintendent. ”These meetings remind me that my people live in a police state,” Luther said as they started down the long hallway, weaving through the small herds of officers. ”You heard them talking about that Shot Spotter system? Homeland Security money. System's hooked up to satellite imaging and cameras that run twenty-four-seven. What do you think they're taking pictures of when shots aren't aren't being fired? That money's supposed to fight terrorists, not spy on people in the city. It's Big Brother keeping an eye on the black man.” being fired? That money's supposed to fight terrorists, not spy on people in the city. It's Big Brother keeping an eye on the black man.”
”I wanted to jump in when they were going on about Shawn Tinsley as an impact player, a shooter,” Zardino said. ”He was a creampuff, nothing but talk.”
”Shawn never shot anyone in his life,” Luther agreed, ”but it's good you kept your mouth shut. We promised his boys they could talk to us confidentially. You can't break your promise.”
”But they told us who committed the murder. It wasn't Shawn,” Zardino said. ”Tinsley's dead. His good name shouldn't die with him. You know how I feel about people being falsely accused of a crime.”
”We're between a rock and a hard place. If we tell anyone that it was Michael Rogers who killed Ellis Thomas, his friend, we betray our clients' confidence. We lose our street cred. We stay quiet, a decent boy's name is ruined.”
”And a killer is out there on the street. Maybe we can get out the information confidentially, tell someone familiar with the case who the shooter is. Give them the killer's name. Otherwise they'll never look at Rogers as a suspect. Never think he'd kill his friend for being a snitch.”
Luther was silent for a couple minutes as they walked through the cars stuck in rush hour traffic and hopped over the jersey barriers on Tremont. ”Maybe we should talk to Darget,” Luther said. ”He owes us a favor for not diming him out that night with the detectives. We tell him the story. Tell him we know who the killer is. But we're not giving up our source.”
”We could tell Ray Figgs instead. It's his case,” Zardino said.
Luther knew how Zardino felt about the prosecutor. ”Decade ago, Figgs would have been our best chance, but not now.” The story of a former Marine going from sharpshooter to bar stool was a sad one. Luther didn't want to see another case slip away with a detective whose heart wasn't in it. Someone had to be held responsible for the murder. But it had to be the right man. The name of an innocent boy of color ruined, blasted to nothing, immortalized as a murderer? That was wrong. Luther slipped his hand into his jacket pocket. He felt the small shape of the card the prosecutor had given him.
CHAPTER 43.
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