Mission Hill Read Free Page A

klieg light flips on, blinding me. I block the glare by cupping my hands over my eyes, and stare at him. He’s not dissuaded.
    â€œI’m here behind Lattimore’s Towing with Abigail Endicott, chief homicide prosecutor for the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office. Abby, I know this has to be a difficult one. What can you tell us?”
    â€œThis better not be live.”
    He waves off the cameraman. “I thought you’d want to go on the record, share some thoughts about the victim.”
    â€œCome on, Carl, I just got here.”
    â€œYeah, but you know, right?” He seems genuinely confused.
    Kevin is moving away from the tent, rushing toward me. His right arm is extended, palm facing me, like a traffic cop.
    â€œHold up, Abby. Let’s talk for a minute.” Kevin takes my elbow and tries to turn me in the opposite direction, but I jerk my arm away.
    â€œEnough of this protective, paternalistic bullshit,” I say. “Everyone knows what’s going on but me. Who is it?”
    â€œI wanted to tell you in person.”
    â€œOkay, I’m here. Tell me.”
    On the periphery of the white tent, a technician holds a magnifying glass as he meticulously dusts a Ford Taurus for prints.
    â€œThat’s a detective’s car,” I say.
    â€œNo, the vic wasn’t a detective,” Kevin says.
    He starts to explain, but something catches my eye, distracting me. It’s ten feet away, on the pavement, encircled by a chalk outline, a few inches from an orange cone evidence marker. I stare in disbelief.
    â€œAbby, listen,” Kevin says.
    â€œIt can’t be.”
    Everything starts to swirl in slow motion, the noise around me sharpens into a shrill hum. This is worse than anything I ever could have imagined. The reports got it wrong. It’s not a cop.
    â€œTry to breathe,” Kevin says.
    I take a few steps closer to get a better look. There’s no mistaking what it is: his trademark blue-and-white NY Yankees baseball cap.
    Plenty of people wear Yankees paraphernalia in Boston—students, tourists, my uncle Dalton. But there’s only one man who has the irreverence, bravado, and sense of humor to wear a Yankees hat while tossing back a pint at Doyle’s or sitting behind the wheel of an unmarked Boston police car.
    I know who it is but I have to see for myself. With Kevin by my side, I inch forward and peer inside the tent. There he is—Tim Mooney—with a bullet hole in his head.

 
    Chapter Five
    Tim and I started our careers together. We shared an office in the decrepit Suffolk Superior courthouse, before it was evacuated and condemned, like one of my crime scenes. There were eleven of us crammed into a windowless room, buried between floors. Chips of paint, most likely lead, fell from the walls. It was unbearably hot in the summer and even hotter in the winter. The water dispenser was permanently out of repair and the only bathroom was public—sometimes it doubled as a shooting gallery for defendants who needed a heroin fix.
    We were district court prosecutors, earning $27,000 a year, working long hours under impossible conditions. Unwilling victims berated us, sleazy defense attorneys challenged our ethics, political hack judges mocked us. And we loved every second of it.
    Now we’re each assigned to our own offices, windowed and carpeted, in a modern building, One Bulfinch Place. Most prosecutors at our level have plaques, commendations, citations, adorning their walls. The only decorations in Tim’s office are snapshots of his wife and daughter tacked to a bulletin board. My walls are filled with pictures too—mug shots, crime scenes, and murder victims. I don’t keep any family photos, birthday cards, or posters from my favorite museums. Nothing that could give visitors a clue about who I spend time with or where I go outside of work.
    â€œYou’re shaking.” Kevin unscrews the cap from a