Framed: A Psychological Thriller (Boston's Crimes of Passion Book 2) Read online

  Boston’s Crimes of Passion, Book Two

  FRAMED

  by

  Colleen Connally

  http://jerrihines.org/

  http://twitter.com/jhines340

  https://twitter.com/ColleenConnally

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  Copyright 2016 by Jerri Hines

  Cover Art by Erin Dameron-Hill

  Edited by Faith Williams, The Atwater Group

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form without permission. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without permission of the author is illegal and punishable by law. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Dedication

  To my husband, Bob, for allowing me to follow my dream.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Prologue

  Helen Barlow studied herself in the bathroom mirror. Planning on spending a pleasant night watching old movies, she changed into a pale-blue night gown. Brushing her hair to the side, she curled it under to give it a Lauren Bacall look. She was ready.

  Ever since she lost her Arthur, her secret pleasure came from watching her collection of classic movies. The films were an escape from the void she felt after he had succumbed to a heart attack twenty years ago.

  Dear Arthur. He teased her so about her obsession with Hollywood starlets.

  Her love for historic films came from her mother. Even at seventy-one, the enjoyment had not faded. Since her retirement a year earlier, it seemed the only thing she looked forward to at night.

  There had been a time when she had plans for after she retired. Lots of plans. First thing was to sell this large house in Roslindale and go live with her son, Charlie, and his family, out in Franklin.

  She had wanted to be free from the burden of maintaining her home. Then she would have been able to travel with her friends. Louise and Mildred were always taking one trip or another with their church.

  But it wasn’t meant to be. Not long after her last day at work, her son stood on her doorstep, suitcase in hand. Charlie’s wife, Martha, had thrown him out.

  To Helen’s shock, she discovered her son had lost his job. Even worse, she learned Charlie had gambled away all his money and left his family destitute.

  He would have had her bankrupt, too, if she let him. Moving in, he wanted to take over her household expenses. She steadfastly refused.

  Helen had agreed to let him live with her, but made it perfectly clear she would never sign over the house or any of her investments to him. She had been in the employment of Witt Ashcroft too long not to have learned a thing or two about handling money. She had even taken it a step further and changed her will, leaving the bulk of her estate to her grandchildren.

  Charlie had been so angry. Angry enough to scare her.

  Thankfully, a few months back, her son’s anger had begun to subside. He had begun to attend Gamblers Anonymous and had even began helping around the house. He seemed especially motivate to clean out her spare room.

  When she had left her employment after Mrs. Ashcroft’s death, she had been so hurt by Mr. Walter’s treatment of her, she had thrown the remnants of her old job into the room and shut the door.

  Charlie became a new man. Not only was he helping around the house, he listened to her talk, allowing an outlet for her resentment toward the Ashcrofts. She found herself going on for hours about her old job.

  Whispering the forbidden details of her life with the Ashcrofts gave her a sense of immense enjoyment. She told Charlie everything she couldn’t share before because of the confidentiality contract she had signed to work for the family. Now, she didn’t give a shit about any damn contract…not after the way they treated her.

  As she walked back into her bedroom, Muffin, her cat, purred against her leg. “Patience.” Helen leaned down and patted the kitty. Sitting down on the bed, she reached for her slippers.

  Suddenly, a blow to her head sent her reeling backward. Disoriented, she tried to focus. She wasn’t alone!

  Disbelief tore through her. Someone had hit her…wanted to hurt her. Who?

  Trying desperately to regain her balance, her eyes adjusted well enough to see a dark figure hiding in the shadows. In sheer terror, she screamed.

  For the love of Jesus! Don’t!

  From the corner of her eyes, she saw her assailant swing back his arm with a hammer in hand. She raised her arm over her head in a vain attempt to repel the attack.

  He hit her again against the side of her head. Confused and terrified, she pushed back against her attacker. A strange liquid ran down her face into her eyes.

  She couldn’t see.

  Off balance, she fell back on the mattress, soaking the bedspread with the fresh, warm blood oozing out of her. The assault didn’t ease.

  Oh, Mother Mary! I’m going to die!

  She hurt. Oh, she hurt terribly.

  Struggling, she tried to wrench herself away from her assailant’s grip. For a moment, she was free. But in her next breath, strong hands gripped her legs and dragged her off the bed.

  Her face slammed hard on the hardwood floor. Unable to lift her head, she opened her eyes longer enough to see the hammer swinging back down at her.

  Blam!

  She screeched.

  It was the last sound she made.

  Chapter One

  The night was lit by flashing blue lights. Cops were everywhere. Sergeant Detective John Brophy walked through a cordon of uniformed officers without a word.

  An officer stepped aside when Brophy came close, giving way for the detective to view the fugitive brandishing a gun, waving it wildly in the air from the window of an old abandoned house.

  “Don’t come near me! I’ll shoot!”

  Brophy stepped up beside his partner, Albert Waters. Wasn’t hard to spot him. Waters stood a half a foot taller than anyone beside him.

  With a glance back at Brophy, Waters smirked. “Who the fuck is he trying to scare?”

  “Wager he’s all out of bullets or he would have come out firing,” Brophy said dryly. “Surprised we haven’t already taken him down.”

  “We’re waiting…if we can. Orders from Evans himself.”

  Boston’s elite fugitive unit had cornered two murder suspects in an old aba
ndoned building on Columbia Road in Dorchester. Off a tip, Pedro Santiago and Jorge Garcia had been discovered holed up at the drug hideout.

  Santiago and Garcia, two alleged gang members, had been on Brophy’s most wanted list for the last week. The pair had ambushed an innocent, unarmed fifteen-year-old, Emmanuel Vargas, riding his bike down the street. When the teenager refused to stop, the gangbangers pulled out guns and fired.

  Vargas was hit seven times: five in the back, one in the leg, and one in the back of his head. The teenager died instantly.

  “Got them cornered. Trying to talk them out. Not doing much good.”

  “Anything else?” Brophy frowned.

  As he surveyed the scene, he understood the superintendent’s stance. Gang violence had escalated over the last few weeks. Last week, they had dealt with a shooting outside a school. Killed an innocent eight-year-old.

  Now with the pair of wanted gangbangers trapped, a quandary had developed. How the hell to bring out the two suspects without triggering more violence in the already troubled neighborhood?

  Despite the suspects’ long juvie rap sheet and allegiance with one of the worst gangs, Triple 6, the community had become sensitized, waiting for the police to make a misstep. Two dead black suspects would fuel the fire.

  Living in this urban environment had left the youths vulnerable to the violent world around them. Like the victim, Vargas. A sad fact.

  According to his history teacher, Vargas had come to him a couple of weeks back complaining that kids on the street were pressuring him to join a gang. He was scared. Unfortunately, the kid had a right to be frightened.

  When Vargas was brought to Brophy’s attention, it was too late to save the kid. He was dead. The only thing Brophy could do was bring his killers to justice.

  Santiago and Garcia had been brazen in the kill. The execution was staged in broad daylight, in full view of horrified neighbors and a surveillance camera.

  An APB had gone out. An all-out search to bring the killers to justice. It was difficult: a terrified neighborhood, frightened witnesses. Nobody was willing to talk.

  Until tonight. A tip had come in from one of the local TV news investigative reporters, Josh Kincaid. He had gone to the suspects’ mothers and had convinced one of them to turn their son into authorities.

  It was the reason they were here tonight.

  The bullhorn blared. “Put your weapons down! Come out, hands up!”

  The answer came. One of the suspects yelled, “Just shut the fuck up! We’ll ride the beef! Dyin’ without fear!”

  Brophy’s hand instinctively reached for his holstered pistol. With his gun pointed straight at the entrance, he joined an onslaught of officers who had done the same.

  A voice blasted again from the bullhorn, a different voice. A woman’s voice.

  “Pedro Santiago, I know that ain’t you saying those things? Getca your ass out here right now. I ain’t raised you that way!”

  The words resonated, quieting the crowd who had gathered behind the barrier of uniformed officers.

  Glancing over his shoulder, Brophy saw the bullhorn in the hands of a tall, heavyset Hispanic woman. Beside her stood a tall, sandy-haired man, dressed in an expensive sport coat. Behind him was a cameraman filming the entire scene.

  That damn reporter—Kincaid.

  The woman wouldn’t relent. “I swear I’ll come in and smack those ears!”

  Tension riddled the air. Then, a voice called out, “We’re coming out! Don’t shoot!”

  Slowly, the door opened. The teens followed the officer’s instructions and raised their empty hands high in the air. Coming down the steps, both knelt on their knees and placed their hands on top of their heads.

  Immediately, the suspects were slammed to the ground and cuffed.

  Waters nodded toward the crowd. “You gonna go over and thank Kincaid?”

  Brophy lowered his gun and stared over at the man. Kincaid was comforting the weeping mother in his arms.

  Their eyes met briefly.

  The man wore on Brophy’s nerves, despite the fact Kincaid had ended the stand-off peacefully.

  Brophy looked away. “He can get all the recognition he wants from the commissioner and mayor. I’ve got no desire to see myself on the eleven o’clock news. Come on. We need to get Santiago and Garcia down to the station. Got a long night ahead of us.”

  Waters nodded with a grin. “Remember, he got us these two.”

  The older detective looked over at the reporter and shook his head.

  “Only a fool would trust a reporter.”

  * * * *

  When Josh Kincaid went to work as a field reporter, he carried with him the voice of his grandfather instructing him to read every word of The Globe daily.

  Times had changed. The Internet had replaced the Boston paper in giving snippets of what might make the next big breaking news story, but Kincaid had never forgotten the inference—don’t overlook what’s right in front of you.

  Kincaid had held his grandfather in high esteem. Robert Reed had been a gritty investigative reporter. One of the best in his day, his grandfather had worked for the Washington Post during the Watergate scandal before he moved back to Boston to work for The Globe. Regrettably, his grandfather’s days had been cut short. He had died on September 11, 2001.

  Robert Reed had been a passenger on American Flight 11 that had been flown into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. At the time, Kincaid had been a freshman at Northeastern University and quite indecisive on his direction in life. After his grandfather’s funeral, he declared journalism as his major.

  Once he graduated, he immediately began his career as a reporter, working first at WRSP in Tampa and then at WSVI in Philadelphia. He arrived back in Boston at FOX27 six months before the Boston Marathon bombing.

  For his coverage of the event, he had won numerous awards, including the Edward R. Murrow for his station. Following his last exclusive, he had been promoted to investigative reporter.

  He had worked over nine months putting together the story of questionable refugees fleeing persecution in Iraq and finding a home in the Boston area, asserting their ties to al-Qaeda. The climax of the investigation led the FBI to a secret terrorist cell, which resulted in a shootout in Somerville.

  Driven. That was what Lynn had told him…when she left him a month before their wedding. Too obsessed with his stories…too ambitious. His hard work and determination had struck a wedge between the lovers…one too wide to overcome.

  Boy, he must be tired. He hadn’t thought of Lynn for years. The last he had heard of her, she had married an investment banker and settled down in Boca Raton.

  “Do you ever sleep?”

  Kincaid glanced over his partition. Mark Buccieri, the news manager of FOX news, smiled at him, looking quite pleased.

  Through the open glass behind Buccieri, the station was in the middle of its morning broadcast, rerunning the segment from last night.

  Kincaid picked up his coffee cup from Dunkies and took a sip. “Had to wrap up a few loose ends.”

  “Then take a couple of days off,” Buccieri said. “You deserve it. Already heard from Tom this morning. He watched the segment last night. Great work, especially adding how courageous Santiago’s mother was in helping bring it to a peaceful end. He said he heard immediately from the mayor, who expressed his appreciation with your help in capturing the two suspects without further violence.”

  At the mention of Tom Berning, the general manager, Kincaid leaned back in his chair. Berning had hired him and had made no bones about the fact Kincaid was his star reporter, but Kincaid was under no illusions. In this business, you were only as good as your last story.

  “Don’t plan being behind the desk long. Have to go over the emails I’ve ignored while I’ve been chasing leads.”

  “Have Maggie call and make arrangements for dinner later this week. Tom wants to celebrate. He smells another award nomination coming.”

  Kincaid watched Bu
ccieri disappear around the corner. Rubbing his tired eyes, he turned back to his computer. He had told his assistant, Maggie Lopez, not to come in until the afternoon. He had run her ragged these last few days.

  A forty-five-year-old divorcee, Maggie had followed him up from Philadelphia. The two had worked well together for the last ten years. Along with his cameraman, Avery McNeil, Kincaid felt confident in his crew.

  Opening up his emails, he clicked first on the one Maggie had sent him marked as a possible storyline. The link brought him to a newspaper article from The Post and Courier in Charleston, South Carolina. The headline read “Grandmother Sacrifices For Belief in her Grandson.”

  His attention was drawn first to the picture of an elderly, African-American woman, short and petite with speckled white hair. She looked directly into the camera, showing her weary, sad eyes. Her shoulders stooped with a curve that was common from hard work and age.

  The caption identified her as Tillie Taylor, grandmother of convicted murderer, Harrison Taylor. As he skimmed the article, Kincaid quickly caught the gist of its contents. Tillie Taylor believed her grandson was innocent.

  Harrison Taylor was convicted of killing Charleston police officer, Gregory Steiger, thirteen years ago. Serving a life sentence without a chance of parole at Lieber Correctional Institution, Harrison was condemned to live the rest of his days behind bars.

  “Harrison is a good boy,” Tillie Taylor was quoted. “He would never hurt anyone.”

  The details of the murder were scant, but compelling. Officer Steiger had been found shot to death in an alley. Close by, Harrison was lying in a puddle of blood with drug paraphernalia, shot in the stomach. Harrison had been fortunate to have survived, but the evidence lay heavy against him. His hands tested positive for gunshot residue—GSR—and his fingerprints were on the gun that killed Steiger.

  Seemed pretty straightforward. Officer Steiger caught Harrison red-handed in the middle of a drug deal gone bad.