Small Mercies

Which means when Bobby and Vincent go down to holding, the only two assholes waiting for them in the interview rooms are Ronald Collins and Brenda Morello. Ronald Collins, a Southie kid from a line of Collinses who go back to the potato famine, is as dumb as his older brothers, his father, and his three uncles, most of whom, per Bobby’s recent research, have done time. He’s a hard case not because he’s particularly hard but because he’s too fucking stupid to know there’s any other way to be.

Brenda Morello, on the other hand, with her wet eyes and her shaky chin, is the jackpot. She’s been ready to blab since the moment she was picked up walking to her summer job at Sullivan’s on Castle Island. When Bobby and Vincent enter the interview room, she looks up at them with her tear-streaked face, and the first words out of her mouth are “Can I please go home?”

Bobby takes the seat across from her.

Vincent remains standing, which, of course, makes Brenda more nervous.

Bobby gives her his friendliest smile. “Just want to ask you a couple of questions.”

“And then I can go home?”

She can walk right out the door right now — she hasn’t been charged with anything — but she doesn’t grasp that, and it’s not part of their job description to enlighten her.

“Can you tell us what you did Saturday night?”

Brenda pretends to think about it, looking up at the ceiling for a moment. “I dunno. Hung out.”

“Where?”

“You know.”

“We don’t.”

“Around.”

“Around Columbia Park?” Bobby says.

She stares back at him, her mind working furiously now that his question confirms all her fears about why she’s there.

“You were there with Ronald Collins, George Dunbar, and Jules Fennessy.”

“Maybe?” she tries.

“No fucking maybe about it,” Vincent says as he walks behind her.

Her eyes fill. Vincent walks behind her again and she tenses, expecting a slap.

“Brenda,” Bobby says gently, “look at me.”

She does.

“We know you were there. And then something happened.”

“What happened?”

“Why don’t you tell us?”

Bobby can see it consuming her suddenly — this terrible knowledge she’s kept inside of her for almost a week now.

But she replies, “Nothing happened. Nothing I remember.”

Bobby pops open his briefcase, removes a photo of Auggie Williamson, and places it on the table. It’s not just any photo. Bobby goes for the jugular — it’s the morgue photo.

It has the desired effect. Brenda’s face half crumbles, and she puffs air like a fish in a bucket.

“No,” she says. “Nothing happened.”

Now Vincent does hit her. Just a quick flick of his fingers off the back of her head. She yelps. In outrage more than pain.

Bobby puts a finger on the photo. “This young man is dead. And we have it on good authority, Brenda, that you were one of the last people to see him alive.”

She shakes her head several times. “No.”

Vincent stands directly behind her. “Say no again, you little twat, and see where it gets you. You ever spent time in an ICU?”

Bobby flicks him a dial it back glance and then waits for Brenda to look at him again before he asks her, “Were you the one who said, ‘You run slow for a nigger’?”

Brenda’s mouth forms an O of shock. “I never said that.”

“No?” Bobby looks at Vincent for a moment. “We heard you did.”

“Well, then someone’s fucking lying, cuz I didn’t say that.”

“But you were on the platform at Columbia Station when someone said it.”

“I — What? No, I was — No, I was not on any platform. I was at Columbia Park with my friends, and I got in a fight with my boyfriend and I left. And they went to the beach.”

“We have witnesses who place you on the subway platform.”

“Well, they’re lying.”

“Why would they do that?”

“I dunno. Ask them.”

“We can put you in a lineup.”

That puts a fresh quiver in her chin.

“If we put you in a lineup, this lady you knocked down, she’s gonna remember you, Brenda.”

“I didn’t knock any lady down,” Brenda says with clear indignation.

“That’s not what she said,” Vincent says.

“Well, she’s lying.”

“Everyone’s lying, aren’t they, Brenda?”

“Maybe not, but she is.”

“She was pretty convincing,” Bobby says. “Has her elbow all scraped up. Says she stepped off the outbound train and you slammed into her.”

“We weren’t on the outbound side of the platform,” Brenda says. “We were on the inbound.” She realizes her mistake a second too late. Lowers her head, stares at her shoes.

When she raises her head, Bobby can see in her eyes that they broke her. She’ll tell them everything now. She won’t stop talking until sunup.

There’s a soft rap on the door, and Vincent opens it on Tovah Shapiro, attorney at large. Even before Tovah Shapiro crosses the threshold, she’s already telling Brenda, “Don’t say another fucking word.”

Tovah Shapiro is the worst kind of defense attorney — she used to be a prosecutor, so she knows how cops think. Plan. Act.

“Did they read you your rights?”

Brenda has no idea who this woman is.

“Did they?”

“No,” Brenda manages.

“My name is Tovah Shapiro. I’m your attorney.” She sits at the table by her “client.”

“Don’t you mean you’re Marty Butler’s attorney?” Bobby asks.