Sign of the Maker (Boston Crime Thriller Book 4), Brian Shea [free reads .txt] 📗

The guard retreated, closing the door behind him.

"Mr. Collins, I'm Michael Kelly, and this is my partner, Kristen Barnes. We're with Boston PD Homicide."

"I know who you are, but I don't know why you're here to speak to me. The Goddang feds came in the middle of the night and woke me up. At least you two didn't roust me from bed at 1:00 a.m."

Prisoners had the right to refuse to speak to anybody, and that included law enforcement. Kelly and Barnes had been greenlighted for this interview, but the final approval came from Collins himself.

"At least it’s a break from solitary, right?" Kelly offered.

"I don't mind the quiet."

"How'd you end up in the hole?"

Collins smiled, the left side of his mouth a fraction of an inch lower than the right. He compensated by cocking his head. The nearly imperceptible adjustment registered on Kelly's radar. The scar bothered Collins. The thin Irishman brought his hands up from his lap and into view, resting them on the cold steel table. His fingers were still interlaced. Upon closer inspection, Kelly saw the bruised knuckles and abrasions covering the skin around them. "You should see the other guy."

"If you spoke to the FBI, then you know why we're here."

Collins’s smile disappeared, replaced by a snarl. "I didn't say I talked to them."

"You said—"

Collins interrupted with a loud shake of his shackles. "I told you they came here and woke me up. Nobody said nuthin' about talking."

Kelly looked at Barnes. In the unspoken exchange, they both realized Mills had not updated them on the interview because there hadn't been one.

"Okay," Kelly conceded. "If you didn't want to talk, then why bother agreeing to meet with us?"

"I owed somebody a long-overdue debt and figured it was time to pay up."

"Debt? To who?"

"Your father."

13

Kelly clenched his teeth, a ripple of tension spreading along his jaw and settling in his eyes as he processed the convicted bombmaker’s words. Until recently, the mention of his father would have brought warm memories. After learning about his adoption and biological connection to the head of Boston's Irish mob, the word “father” didn’t hold the same meaning.

"How do you know Walsh?"

Collins shrugged. "Long time ago. Not that time matters for me. Let's just say he assisted me in getting settled in when I first arrived."

"He did you a kindness and twenty-three years later you repay whatever it was by talking with me? I don’t get it."

"Not sure you would. I consider honoring those debts as if they were written in blood and sealed by the creator himself. And I always pay them, regardless of the time." Collins looked around the interview room. "Time is a construct left for people outside these walls. In here, time stands still."

It wasn't a real explanation, but one that would have to do, at least for now. Kelly was just happy that whatever leverage Walsh had created was turning into a positive. It might end up being the one good thing his biological father ever did.

"And as for those feds, I told them to piss off. Didn't tell them squat." He looked as though he was going to spit to demonstrate his disdain for the federal agents. "I told those bastards they can have their crack when I'm sittin' in their godforsaken jail. Until then, they can buzz off."

"Your fed time?"

"Didn't do your research, huh?"

Kelly felt the blow. Normally before prepping for an interview, he would've pulled all pertinent case files, but receiving the information about Collins so late at night and as he was in desperate need of a reset hadn't afforded much time to do any digging.

All Kelly knew about Collins’s case was what he got from the face sheet and the criminal history report attached to it—that he was arrested in Boston for possession of bomb-making materials in the late ’90s.

"Yeah, I got pinched, but funny how this whole jurisdiction thing works, right?" Collins winked at Kelly. "Feds, locals, everybody wants a piece, right? Especially when it's a big case."

His Irish brogue was thick, reminding Kelly of his mother. Being second-generation Irish, Kelly was able to move in and out of the brogue if he so desired, but he didn't feel like playing that hand with this man. He had used it to his benefit in a couple of pubs, got himself out of a fight one time once the brawler realized that he was from the old country.

"Some of your friends at Boston PD got a tip from a snitch. I got picked up on the explosives they found in my apartment. State hit me with a fat thirty-year sentence."

"That's a pretty heavy hit."

"It was a lot of explosives." Collins winked.

"How'd the feds get involved?"

"That came later. A comparison to a completed bomb matched a detonated bomb used to blow up a bar in Charlestown."

Kelly noted Collins's careful choice of language and avoidance of any involvement.

"Feds added sixty years. Not to run concurrently. That means when I'm done with my time in here, I get shipped off to ADX, the supermax in Colorado, and that's where I'm going to die. I told those bastards, especially that prick with the mustache, to go screw. They can come talk to me in a few years when I'm ready to go over to their penitentiary." Then Collins looked at Kelly more closely. “You look like him.”

"I'm not here to talk about Conner Walsh."

"Didn't figure you were. Just thought I'd mention the striking similarity between the two of you. I knew him when he was about your age. You could've passed for him."

"Did the agents tell you what this is about?" Kelly dodged the statement.

Collins looked displeased Kelly didn't want to play along with his ancestry games and pressed himself back in his chair, the taut chain restricting his movement to only a couple of inches. He tried to look casual about it, but that was hard when your body was being held at both ankle and wrist by the heavy stainless-steel shackles