Chapter 28
CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT
ANDREA
Stakeouts are so boring! I’ve spent the last two days watching Patrick Murray attend meetings around the city with enough muscle to instill fear in anyone who may see him as a target. I doubt anyone would be dumb enough to try anything.
My guy at the barber shop came through. He had two bits of information that could be helpful in figuring out Eamon’s intentions with Cindel and why the fuck Paddy Muscles is back.
Apparently, Daddy Murray is unhappy with his son’s business model.
There’s talk of moving their gambling virtual to evade the law.
Although, I’m pretty sure that’s all been done before.
It sounds like Patrick is off his rocker.
Now, the second piece of knowledge was much more concerning. In a little over two weeks, the red wolf is being released. Now, what does that mean… I don’t fucking know yet, but what I do know is I’ve spent all my energy and resources on the Murrays, so I haven't had time for much else.
My friendship with Cindel is in shambles.
Every time we interact, it’s some kind of argument.
I get it. My protective nature may come off more, domineering thunder-cunt, but I mean well.
God, I’m a shit friend, but she’s playing with fire, being involved with a Murray.
Ultimately, she won’t just get burned; she’ll be incinerated. I know what they're capable of.
It’s been a long weekend and although I want nothing more than to head back to the apartment and check on how Cindel is doing…
I must head back out to the college. Moyra will only talk in person, never corresponding via email or phone, unless it's to arrange a time and location. I guess being married to a cop as long as she has been, can make anyone a bit paranoid. Nevertheless, she has the backstory I need. So, I must stomach the transit system and her conditions. I am grateful though that she wants to meet indoors this time. Not only could the wind chill cut right through you, but a storm was rolling in. That’s all I needed right now, was to wind up with pneumonia when I had some kind of obscure timeline to have answers by.
At precisely 4 p.m., I sit in the coffee shop on the southwest corner of campus.
This time I bought, and for once, she was late.
This is the third time we’ve met in recent weeks.
I desperately need to know more about her time working here.
The things she’s heard. The things she’s seen.
When we last met, we got a little off topic.
She apologized but I led the conversation there.
See, I like to know who my sources are in addition to what they know.
Knowing their characters and a little history makes all the difference in the world, because after all, what they're telling you is already hearsay.
If their background could skew the information they gave me, I needed to catch that upfront.
Moyra Kent was married to Karl Kent for a whopping twenty-five years.
I’d say being together with someone that long is impressive in itself, but they weren’t happy years.
Karl’s real personality started rearing its ugly head, shortly after they eloped.
At first it started off as gaslighting. Then, isolating her from her friends, as well as her sister who she said was her best friend at the time, but she couldn’t leave. She stayed for the baby.
He developed a drinking problem while on the force.
The job took a toll on him. Shitty excuse if you ask me.
He chewed through their savings, but there was a silver lining for Moyra, because it meant she was able to go back to work.
She’s been teaching journalism at Boston College for twenty years now.
“I've always dreamed of being a journalist. Karl wasn’t too keen on the idea. So, the compromise was teaching.”
Eventually, the conversation circled back around to the whole reason I came to see her…
Theo. “We’re not supposed to have a favorite but…
he was a natural,” she recalls the memory, looking melancholy.
“His papers were so intriguing, I commonly used them in other lectures as examples…” she told me while we strolled around the campus grounds during one of our meetings.
“His brilliance didn’t just catch my attention but others who weren’t even enrolled in my class. ”
This is it! Something leading in the right direction. Toward answers about Theo. Cindel never believed he took his own life. She’s not the only one who felt that way. “I recognized the young man who sat in the back of the class. You see… he’s, my nephew.”
Moyra enters the coffee shop looking not quite as put together as usual. Her merlot-colored hair roughly pulled back while her outfit is mostly wrinkled. I stand when she approaches, already having finished my latte.
“Moyra, are you okay?” I try to ask casually rather than alarmed at her state.
“Sorry, I’m tardy. Please, sit.”
We sit at a modest table off to the side. It’s a busy time of day. She seems to scan the room. Did she want the place to be full of people? What was she concerned about?
“I’m afraid your drink is cold.”
She swats her hand. “No bother, I’ll still sip at it. Thank you, dear.” She pulls out her red framed glasses and fidgets in her chair, generally looking unsettled.
I lean closer to ask, “Is something the matter?”
She looks down to the purse she clutches in her lap before looking up at me with an apologetic smile. “That’s not why you came all this way. I don’t want to bother you with my personal woes.”
I rest my hand on the table. “You, are why I came all this way.”
The same somber smile comes back, before it’s gone again.
“Karl called me.” Her ex-husband. The bastard that secluded her from everyone abused her mentally and physically.
I nod. “He… he said he wants to get back together. He says it was the biggest mistake of his life, letting me go…” She looks up to the ceiling, breathing deeply before continuing.
“He says he’s making enough money now with his side gig, that if I came back to him, I wouldn’t have to work anymore.
He’s such a fool to think I’d want to have anything to do with his dirty money.
” Tears gathered in the corner of her eyes as her face scrunches up.
This isn’t exactly the direction I expected this meeting to go. I was in fact here to learn more about Theo but…
“Karl never caught me listening to his calls, but I understood… my sister lived a similar lifestyle, so I was familiar with how business works. Somehow, Karl found himself as an insider for a mobster.”
I may faint. I think I just hit the informant lottery.