Liam Mulligan: Cliff Walk Part 23

"He says he's got a lot of enemies."

"I'll bet. So where do I find him?"

"His lawyer," I said, "isn't going to let you talk to him."

Parisi fell silent for a moment. Then he said, "Swell."

34.

"You sure you got it right this time?" Charlie said.

"I am."

"'Cause you really f.u.c.ked it up the first time around." He smirked as he cleared away what was left of my eggs and topped off my coffee.

I opened my mouth to argue but then thought better of it. I'd never flat-out reported that Maniella was dead. I'd just written that police believed he was. But I'd also believed it, and I'd made sure my readers did, too. The paper would not be running a correction, because by journalism standards my story had been technically accurate. But that didn't make it true.

Charlie was about to say something else when my cell phone interrupted with "Who Are You?"

"Mulligan."

"I'm only going to say this once," the caller said, "so listen up." The voice was m.u.f.fled-a man trying to disguise his voice. "Write down this address: 442 Pumgansett Street. Got that?"

"Got it. In the Chad Brown project, right?"

"Yeah."

"What's this about?"

"Big story for whoever gets there first. I suggest you haul a.s.s."

"What kind of story?" I asked, but I was talking to a dead line.

The worst places always seem to be named after the best people. Any Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School, Martin Luther King Drive, or Dorothea Dix Hospital is likely to be a war zone. Chad Brown, Providence's oldest low-income public housing project, was named for one of the city's leading seventeenth-century citizens, a man Roger Williams once described as "a wise and G.o.dly soul." Its 198 cramped apartments were squeezed into twenty two-story red-brick row houses in the city's Wanskuck neighborhood three miles northwest of the statehouse.

When the project was completed in 1942, the apartments rented for as little as eleven dollars a month, with preference given to defense workers. By the 1970s, it had become Providence's most dangerous neighborhood, plagued by gangs, riddled with drugs, and terrorized by drive-by shootings. This year, the decent folks who lived there were working with the police, making another attempt to take back their neighborhood. Best of luck with that.

I parked Secretariat in the cracked macadam lot in front of 442 Pumgansett, got out of the car, and stepped in fresh dog s.h.i.t. Folks who live on a battlefield don't bother with p.o.o.per-scoopers. I sc.r.a.ped my Reeboks on the curb and started up the concrete walk, my Nikon dangling from my left shoulder. My Boston Bruins sweatshirt hung low in front, weighted down by the .45 I'd shoved into the hand pouch. I didn't think I'd done anything to provoke the Maniellas and their goons again, but I had no idea what I was walking into.

"'Scuse me, sir. 'Scuuuuuse me."

I turned and saw two scrawny teenagers sitting on the Bronco's hood. Gang tattoos on their necks identified them as members of the Goonies, the city's newest street gang. I wondered if they'd borrowed the name from the kid movie or if it was just a diminutive form of goon.

"Give us twenty bucks and we'll watch the car for y'all, make sure nothin' happens to it."

I smiled and showed them my gun.

"The cracker got hisself a piece," the tall one said.

"Never seen one like dat," the short one said. "Looks f.u.c.kin' old."

"Prolly don't even shoot," the tall one said.

I pulled back the hammer. "Stick around," I said, "and maybe you'll find out."

They shrugged, slid off the hood, and pimp-walked down the street.

The guardrails flanking the row house's six concrete steps were loose and corroded. The shades on the apartment windows, two upstairs and one down, were drawn. The front door, dark green with two tiny broken windows, was open a crack. When I knocked no one answered, so I nudged it open with my shoulder, stepped inside, and elbowed it closed. I'd reported on enough crime scenes in the project to know the layout: an open living roomkitchen area on the first floor, two small bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs.

The living room held three fake-leather desk chairs, a daybed covered with a rumpled chenille bedspread, and two tipped-over aluminum worktables. Hundreds of DVDs in jewel cases were scattered across the threadbare green carpet. Many of them were cracked, as if they'd been stomped on. On top of them were two open Apple laptops, their screens smashed.

"h.e.l.lo. Is anyone here?"

When no one answered, I skirted the mess on the floor and checked out the kitchen. The rust-stained porcelain sink was piled high with food-encrusted dishes. A bottle of Early Times with two inches in the bottom stood on the yellow linoleum countertop next to a roll of paper towels. There was also a twelve-cup coffeemaker with a couple of refills left inside. I touched the pot with the back of my hand. It was warm.

A white Apple laptop, its power cord plugged into the wall, sat in the middle of a round, pressboard kitchen table. The screen was open but dark. On the keyboard, someone had left a note, hand-printed in big block letters on a sheet of copy paper: MULLIGAN!.

PRESS PLAY.

WATCH TO END.

THEN CHECK UPSTAIRS.

Not sure what was going on here, I didn't want to risk leaving my prints, so I took a Bic pen out of my pocket and used it to nudge the note off the keyboard. Then I tapped the pen on the touch pad. The screen lit up, displaying a paused video. I dragged the pen across the touch pad, trying to move the cursor to the control panel, but it didn't work. I tore a paper towel off the roll on the counter, laid it on the touch pad, and slid my finger across it, moving the cursor to the play b.u.t.ton. Then I reeled back.

A naked child was sprawled facedown across a queen-size bed. She was sobbing. A pale, skinny man climbed on top of her, and the child's mouth opened in a scream. Mercifully, the sound had been turned off. She couldn't have been more than seven or eight years old.

"WATCH TO END," the note said, but I couldn't take much of this. I hit the fast-forward b.u.t.ton, slowing the video in time to watch the man complete his business, grab a fistful of brown curls, and pick up a buck knife. I averted my eyes too late to miss the big finish.

I don't know how long I stood there, immobilized by the shock of it. Maybe a few seconds. Maybe several minutes. Then I turned from the computer and threw up in the sink. When I finished heaving, I grabbed another paper towel, used it to turn on the cold water, and cupped some in my hands to wash the sour taste from my mouth. I hoped I wasn't washing any important trace evidence down the drain.

In twenty years as a journalist, I'd seen a lot of death: firemen burned to cinders in collapsed buildings, mobsters shotgunned against barroom walls, teenagers dismembered by fast-moving trains. But I'd never seen anything like this.

"THEN CHECK UPSTAIRS," the note said. I jerked the .45 out of my sweatshirt, craving an opportunity to use it.

The worn vinyl stair treads felt gritty under my Reeboks. As I nudged open the door to the first bedroom, the first thing that hit me was the odor. The room smelled as if an army had used it as a urinal.

Two men and a woman dressed in jeans and T-shirts were crumpled on a beige s.h.a.g carpet beside an unmade queen-size bed. Beside them, several thousand dollars' worth of professional video equipment-two Sony video cameras, a couple of 5,500-watt DayFlo lights, and a tripod-lay twisted and broken. The carpet, the bed, and the room's flowered wallpaper were splattered with blood and brain matter. It was the same wallpaper I'd seen in the video downstairs. The blood was still wet.

I stuck the Colt back in my sweatshirt, popped the lens cover off the Nikon, and snapped photos from as many angles as I could without stepping in blood. The paper would never print such horrific pictures, but my mind would try to block this out. I'd need photos to write an accurate story.

Careful not to touch anything, I backed into the hall. The bathroom was just ahead to my left, the door pulled closed. I shouldered it open. The room was empty.

I stepped back into the hall and saw that the door to the second bedroom was padlocked. I put my ear to it and thought I heard a whimper, but it was so faint that I couldn't be sure.

"h.e.l.lo? Is anyone in there?"

No one answered. I put my ear to the door again. Another whimper.

My first instinct was to kick the door down, but I'd contaminated the crime scene too much already. Instead, I rushed down the stairs and fled the house. I had Captain Parisi on speed dial. He picked up on the second ring.

35.

The day had turned bitterly cold. A stiff northwest wind blew McDonald's wrappers and old newspapers around the project parking lot. A half-dozen kids, one of them bouncing a basketball, strolled by. It was good to see children still pushing and pulling their own breath. I sucked in air to clear the stench of blood and urine from my nostrils. Then I unlocked the Bronco, slid in, and pulled a Partags out of the glove box. As I lit it, my hands shook. I cracked the side window, smoked, and waited for Parisi to roll up.

After a few minutes, I started thinking more clearly. It wouldn't do to be carrying when the authorities arrived, so I tugged the Colt from my sweatshirt and locked it in the glove box. What else? Parisi might confiscate my camera. I ejected the memory card and concealed it between the pa.s.senger-seat cushions. Then I unzipped the pouch on the front of my camera bag, took out the spare card, and slipped it in the Nikon. I snapped a few shots of the front of the death house through the car window so there'd be something on the fresh card if anyone looked. Then I called Lomax, gave him the gist, and suggested he get a real photographer over here in time for the show.

Parisi must have made a courtesy call to the Providence PD, because they arrived first-two squad cars and an unmarked Crown Vic. The Vic's doors swung open, and out climbed the homicide twins: Jay Wargat, a big lug with a permanent five o'clock shadow and fists like hams, and Sandra Freitas, a bottle blonde with rumble hips and a predatory Cameron Diaz smile. I got out of the Bronco and met them on the sidewalk.

"Mulligan?" Freitas said. "You the one called this in?"

"I am."

"Been inside?"

"I have."

"And?"

"Two dead males and a dead female in one of the bedrooms upstairs. Looks like they were head-shot. And something worse in the kitchen."

"What would that be?"

"I don't want to talk about it. Go look for yourself."

"Touch anything?"

"Not so you'd notice. But I walked all the way through the place. Oh, and I threw up in the kitchen sink."

"You did, huh?" Wargat said, his face cracking into a grin.

"There's something else," I said. "The second bedroom is padlocked. I think someone might be locked inside, but I'm not sure."

"Stay here," Freitas said, "while we have a look."

I got back in the Bronco and watched the four uniforms mill around outside. Ten minutes later Wargat bolted out the apartment door, stumbled down the front steps, and gave the snuff film a thumbs-down review by emptying his stomach on the sidewalk. When he finished heaving, he walked over to the Crown Vic, opened the door, pulled out a Poland Spring bottle, and washed out his mouth. Then he shook himself like a dog, straightened his shoulders, and trudged back inside.

Another five minutes pa.s.sed before Wargat and Freitas came back down the stairs, she holding the hands of two hollow-eyed little boys and he with a little girl in his arms. The detectives loaded them into the back of an ambulance that had just rolled up. Freitas pulled a notebook out of her back pocket and climbed in with them.

Wargat watched the ambulance roll down Pumgansett Street toward Douglas Avenue. Then he turned and headed straight for me.

"Step out of the car, please."

So I did.

"Place your hands against the side of the car and spread your legs."

By noon, the lot in front of 442 Pumgansett was filling. Camera crews spilled out of three TV vans and set up on the sidewalk across the street. Gloria sat Buddha-style on top of her little blue Ford Focus and studied the scene through a long lens. Tedesco climbed out of his meat wagon and lugged his big steel case inside. Parisi and two of his detectives arrived in an unmarked car, spoke briefly with the uniformed Providence cops guarding the door, and then followed Tedesco in. From the back of a locked patrol car, I had a good seat for the show.

Twenty minutes later, Parisi and Wargat emerged together and headed my way. Parisi looked into the backseat of the patrol car and then turned back to Wargat.

"Why is Mulligan hooked up?"

"I don't want him going anywhere," Wargat said, "till we get this sorted out."

"Uncuff him."

"Sorry, Captain. He's in Providence police custody."

"He's in my custody now," Parisi said. "This is my crime scene and my investigation, Wargat. Get used to it."

The interrogation room at state police headquarters in Scituate smelled like fear, sweat, and nicotine. Parisi sat across from me at a heavy oak table scarred with cigarette burns and coffee cup rings. We were drinking coffee and going over my story for the third time.

"Could you recognize the tipster's voice if you heard it again?"

"I don't think so."

"Any idea why he called you?"

"The answer's still no."

"Think he's involved in this?"

"My gut says he is. A citizen would have called the police."

We reached for our paper coffee cups, then put them down when we found they were both empty. Parisi pulled my cell phone out of his shirt pocket, placed it on the table, and said, "Put it on speaker and try calling him."

The tipster's number was listed first under received calls. I hit send. After eight rings, a recorded voice: "I'm sorry, but the person you have called has a voice mail mailbox that has not been set up yet. Good-bye."

Parisi slammed his palm on the table. The empty coffee cups jumped. A zebra plant on the windowsill seemed to wither. I withered a little myself.

"If he was smart," I said, "he used an untraceable prepaid and then threw it in a Dumpster."

"Most criminals aren't smart."