Page 172 of My Heart Still Beats
“You can. It’s not easy. I know that.” She reaches her arm out and touches my face. “But you helped me. You helped me see how much good there still was in my life. Please.”
I don’t reply.
“Ben, I—”
I place my fingers over her lips. “Don’t. Please.”
“I love—”
“Please, Tessa.”
“Damn it, Ben. Why don’t you want me to say it? Didn’t you mean it when you said it to me?”
“With all my heart, Tessa.”
“Then why?”
I lean down and kiss her lips. “You need to rest. We’ll talk later. I’ll tell the cops you can’t make a statement until tomorrow.”
“I’m fine to make a statement.” Then a giant yawn splits her face. “Ow! That hurts.”
“Get some sleep, Tessa. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
…
I spend the rest of the day talking to the Suffolk County DA, Marjorie Akins. With Braden at my side, I tell my story.
“It’s up to you,” I say to her. “Charge me if you can. I’ll gladly pay the price. I can’t go on keeping this secret any longer.”
“Mr. Black,” she says.
“Ben, please.”
“All right. Ben, this is a fifteen-year-old crime.”
“With no statute of limitations.”
“On the murder part, yes. On the theft, my hands are tied. But the theft doesn’t concern me. It sounds like that warehouse was dealing in black market goods. I can’t be sure, of course, but around that time we had a rash of that stuff going on in South Boston. As for the murder, you didn’t do it, Ben.”
“No. But I was there. I transported the body.”
“And no body was found then, so it won’t be found now.” She clears her throat. “I’m not condoning what you did all those years ago, Ben, but you weren’t even eighteen yet. You were a stupid kid.”
“I won’t disagree with you there,” I say.
Braden says nothing.
“I can’t charge you for anything. I can’t charge the others at this point, either, but I’ll remand your case against Dirk Conrad to federal court for prosecution under the federal extortion laws.”
I nod.
“Can we keep this out of the media?” Braden asks.
“They won’t hear it from me,” she says, “but the Conrad brothers will probably sell their story to the sleazy rag that offers them the most money.”
“What ifIoffer them the most money?” Braden asks.
“No,” I say. “If that were the answer, I’d have paid Dirk off in the first place. Don’t you see? He knows our pockets are bottomless. He’ll keep coming back.”
