Chapter 6 - The Iron Border
By three o'clock Sunday morning, the utility truck had met Birdie’s sedan behind the mausoleum at the Pawtucket cemetery.
The transfer was conducted in absolute darkness, the three vehicles arranged in a defensive triangle between the granite tombs.
Birdie handed the framed communion portrait through the truck window to Rafe, her hands trembling from the bitter cold.
Rafe used the edge of Gio’s hunting knife to slice through the heavy brown paper backing, pulling out a yellowed parchment document.
It was the 1974 deed to the DePasquale property, complete with the raised municipal seal of the City of Providence and the original signatures of his parents.
Taped to the back of the parchment was a handwritten letter from Teresa Balandi, dated fourteen days before her admission to St. Jude’s.
Mave read the trembling script beneath the dashboard light:
*"They tell me Raphael is in trouble. They tell me the house must be given away so my boy can stay free. If you are reading this, Franklin Doyle lied to an old woman who loved her son."*
Rafe folded the letter with deliberate slowness and placed it inside the leather-bound ledger next to Nathaniel Pike’s death certificate.
"Birdie goes to a convent in Fall River," Rafe instructed Gio, pointing toward the southern approach.
"The sisters there owe my father a debt from thirty years ago," Rafe said.
"They will keep her behind the cloister walls until this is finished," Rafe directed.
"Take my sedan, Gio," Rafe ordered.
"Make sure nobody follows you past the Taunton line," Rafe commanded.
Gio looked at Rafe, his expression troubled by the sudden change in plans.
"You can't cross into Massachusetts alone with the girl, Boss," Gio protested.
"The state police have established a permanent roadblock at the Interstate 95 crossing near Attleboro," Gio warned.
"They’re checking commercial licenses, personal registrations, and trunk compartments," Gio reported.
"I'm not taking Interstate 95," Rafe answered, stepping into the driver’s seat of the utility truck.
"I'm taking the old freight right-of-way behind the chemical plant in Central Falls," Rafe revealed.
"The tracks haven't carried an engine since the eighties, but the maintenance road runs parallel all the way to South Attleboro," Rafe explained.
"It’s buried under three feet of drift, Boss," Gio said.
"This truck has four-wheel drive, iron chains on all four tires, and six hundred pounds of scrap steel in the bed," Rafe said.
"It will clear the track," Rafe stated.
"Deliver Bernadette safely, Gio," Rafe said, gripping his lieutenant’s shoulder with finality.
"If I don't call you by noon on Monday, take whatever is left in the safe at the Federal Hill club and leave New England," Rafe ordered.
Gio swallowed hard, nodded once, and stepped back toward Birdie’s idling sedan.
Rafe pulled the heavy utility truck around the cemetery gates and headed north toward Central Falls.
The access road to the abandoned rail line was completely hidden beneath a massive wind-drift that reached the hood of the truck.
Rafe shifted into low gear, locked the front hubs, and hit the drift at full throttle.
The truck shuddered violently, the engine screaming as the steel chains bit through the ice, throwing frozen gravel against the undercarriage.
Snow surged over the windshield in a blinding wave, reducing visibility to less than five feet.
Mave braced her boots against the firewall, her hands gripping the canvas bag as the truck lurched across the half-buried rail ties.
The metal wheels of the suspension slammed down against the frozen gravel with teeth-jarring impacts that rattled every bone in her spine.
"We’re across the state line," Rafe said twenty minutes later, his voice cutting through the deafening roar of the low-range transfer case.
A rusted metal sign hung from a leaning telegraph pole beside the tracks, reading: *Commonwealth of Massachusetts – Town of Attleboro*.
The victory was short-lived.
As they crested the rail embankment near the Route 1 junction, a set of blue-and-red flashing lights illuminated the trees three hundred yards ahead.
A Massachusetts State Police cruiser sat parked across the maintenance crossing, its spotlight sweeping back and forth across the tracks.
The trooper had clearly spotted the churning snow thrown by Rafe’s tires.
"He’s calling it in," Mave shouted, pointing toward the cruiser’s roof antenna, which was vibrating violently in the wind.
"Hold on," Rafe commanded, shifting into third gear and accelerating directly down the rail embankment toward the road.
The truck tore down the forty-degree slope, sliding sideways through brush and saplings before hitting the asphalt crossing with a bone-crushing jolt.
The front bumper of the utility truck clipped the rear quarter panel of the cruiser, spinning the lighter patrol car forty-five degrees across the icy road.
The trooper dove across his front seat as the massive truck roared past, its iron chains throwing chunks of broken asphalt through his windshield.
"He didn't see your face," Mave gasped, looking back through the shattered rear window.
"He saw the truck," Rafe corrected, steering through a maze of secondary suburban roads lined with dark, snow-draped colonials.
"Every cruiser within twenty miles is converging on this sector right now," Rafe said.
"They will declare a state of emergency pursuit," Rafe predicted.
"They will say we are armed and dangerous fugitives who rammed an officer on duty," Rafe added.
"We have twenty-nine hours until Naomi Whitcomb walks into the federal building," Mave said, checking the dashboard clock.
"It doesn't matter how many cruisers they have between here and Boston," Rafe said, his eyes burning into the white darkness ahead.
May you like
"They are chasing a ghost on the state line, but we are already behind their perimeter," Rafe said.
He turned down a winding secondary road that led toward the blue hills of Canton, disappearing into the vast, frozen silence of southern Massachusetts.
