Chapter XX

I sat next to Evelyn Miller for the short hearing. She looked shocked when the bail figure was announced, and even the judge displayed some surprise, but Moxie didn't object. His priority was getting Colleen out of jail, and he knew the money was available. Apart from the size of the surety, the conditions weren't onerous: for example, no prohibition was sought on the possession of alcohol. During the hearing, Erin Becker had also briefly raised the possibility of prohibiting contact between Colleen and her husband, but the absurdity of this was made manifest by a single bark of what might have been laughter from Moxie, and the suggestion was quickly shelved.

It was, I supposed, another example of the incompatible positions involved in the case. The prosecution was basing its actions on the assumption that Henry Clark was dead and his mother was responsible. We, by contrast, were operating on the belief that Henry might yet be found alive, despite the evidence to the contrary, but more particularly that whatever had befallen him, it had not been at the hands of Colleen. From our perspective, there were two parents tormented by the disappearance of a child; from the prosecution's, only one.

Colleen was restored to the custody of the county sheriff while her mother made arrangements for the cash portion of the bail to be paid, and signed the necessary documentation to secure the remainder against her home. Both Moxie and Becker made brief statements to the media, but avoided the full dog-and-pony show because the judge wouldn't have approved. I stayed out of the way until Moxie indicated that he wanted to talk. We sat in my car and watched the media disperse.

"Officially," said Moxie, "the sheriff will release Colleen at eight. Unofficially, as a personal favor, he'll show her the door at six thirty so we can avoid the cameras."

"Do you want me to pick her up?"

"No, I'll get Matty to do it. The reporters know your face, and if someone spots you waiting in the jail lot, it won't take them long to put two and two together."

Mattia Reggio was a retired guy who occasionally did driving and scut work for Moxie. In his prime, he'd been one of Cadillac Frank Salemme's bagmen, running deliveries across state lines for the New England outpost of the Office, the Providence mob. He'd begun having reservations about his vocation after Frank's son, the now-deceased Frank Jr., strangled the South Boston nightclub owner Steve DiSarro back in the early nineties to stop him from testifying against his silent partners, namely Cadillac Frank and Whitey Bulger. Reggio's qualms had hardened into resolve by the turn of the century: he wanted to throw in his hand. Not many people could step away so easily, but Reggio and Cadillac Frank had walked the hard line together, and Reggio had never taken any shit from him—or from Whitey either, which irritated Whitey more than piles, though he had to suck it up like a big boy because of Cadillac Frank.

The ghost of DiSarro did eventually return to haunt Cadillac Frank, because the former's remains turned up in Rhode Island in 2016, and Cadillac Frank went to prison for the murder when he was in his eighties. By then, Reggio was long retired, an ex-mobster with a reasonably clear conscience and an absence of serious blood on his hands.

Or that was one version of the story. Another was that Reggio might have been involved in the disappearance of a rival mobster named Alessandro Angioni, a Genovese underboss who had operated out of Springfield, Massachusetts. Angioni wasn't well-liked, not even by his crew, but that didn't mean the Genoveses were prepared to let him drop off the map without making inquiries. Reggio had endured a bad night at the hands of the Genoveses' enforcers, but the bruises had healed and Angioni's fate remained a mystery, which was best for all concerned, Angioni excepted. Reggio had allowed an appropriate amount of time to go by before announcing that the whole experience had definitively soured him on the criminal lifestyle, and he wanted to cash out in favor of a less fraught means of earning a living. He'd ended up running a limo company out of Portland before retiring to tend his garden and play with his grandchildren, but there was only so much of both he could do before he started getting bored, and he'd eventually found part-time employment with Moxie.

Reggio was reliable, though I still didn't like him. He might or might not have been a murderer, but he'd kept company with too many killers for me to feel secure in his company. He also had an irritating habit of noisily chewing gum, and in moments of stress was known to take the wad from his mouth and, seemingly unconsciously, stick it on the edges of tables and chairs. It was why I'd never allowed him past my front door, or was one more reason not to.

"By the way," said Moxie, "I've persuaded Colleen not to return home until things calm down. I want to give her time to catch her breath."

I knew what he meant. Colleen had just made her first court appearance, spent a night in jail, and was currently one of the most infamous women in the state. That would place additional strain on her, but home wasn't the place to deal with it right now. Eventually, she'd have to be allowed to go back, because she'd made it plain that those were her wishes, but it would be better to let the hounds disperse first.

"Do you have somewhere in mind?"

He waited for me to catch up, which didn't take long, especially when he was staring meaningfully at me.

"Really," I said, "my place?"

"It's secure and secluded. This will only be for a few nights."

"The reporters will work it out soon enough."

"Maybe not," said Moxie. "Her mother will stay at the Clark house and I'll run in Janice, my secretary's daughter, under a blanket to make the media and her neighbors believe it's Colleen. Janice can come out later, and as far as anyone will be able to tell, she was house-sitting during the hearing, or stocking the refrigerator. We'll also leave the Fulcis where they are. It'll help keep up appearances."

I wasn't happy, but conceded that it made sense. The media would grow weary of hanging around soon enough. Colleen wasn't going to be invited to many parties in the neighborhood, and would have to be wary about visiting the mall or eating out, but in time some superficial semblance of normality might return to her daily life until the trial commenced.

"Fine," I said. "Ask her mother to pack a bag for Janice to bring out with her. If Colleen needs anything else, you can arrange to have your secretary pick it up, or I can do it later."

"Thanks," said Moxie. "Just add the expenses to your bill. Although," he added, "she probably won't cost much to feed."