In Mystic River, Sean and Whitey don't have a clue about the real killers of Katie until they finally listen to the 911 tape. Sean notices that the caller refers to the victim as a she, although he couldn't know that the victim is a girl since he saw only the car and the body was dumped in the park. This tells Sean that the caller probably knew more about the case - but how did they make the connection to Silent Ray and his friend Johnny? Not once in the movie do we see them being in contact with the police and they didn't give their names either...
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Good question. Mystic River's ending has always struck me as one of the most disappointing "deus ex machina" endings I've ever seen, so maybe this answer will help.– Shiz Z.Dec 3, 2012 at 22:36
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2 Answers
This break through might look a little vague but still there was a shot in the dark for Sean and Whitey. The only connection they could make from the case was that the shot fired to kill Katie was fired using the gun of 'Just Ray'. So there was a possibility that someone from the Harris household would have committed the crime. However the elder Harris had passed his polygraph with flying colors as mentioned by Sean. When they went to question Katie's boyfriend Brendan for the first time at his house they had met the Harris junior with his friend John O'shea too.
After listening to the 911 tape they found out that the boys knew more about the murder. Hence they might have taken a wild guess that mute Harris junior might have access to that gun and he was always with his friend John. Although it looks to be exaggerated but for investigative purpose they went to meet him.
One more feasible explanation can be that after listening to the tape Sean and Whitey had gone to question Brendan about those two boys whom Katie might have known or have grudge against. But at the time they entered John had already drawn a gun over Brendan. Once police got them they confessed everything.
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About your first theory: did Sean and Whitey know that it was Silent Ray and John O'shea who called 911? I don't think so, since they didn't mention a name. The second one sounds quite reasonable though - the cops were not prepared for someone pointing a gun at them. So they probably just wanted to talk to Brandon about the 911 tape.– mortDec 6, 2012 at 9:57
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1Well Sean and Whitey did not know their identities but still they could not count out the possibility of the presence of Ray's gun in his household. They also knew that the boys knew about Katie. Any way the later still look more probable.– QriousDec 6, 2012 at 10:30
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Sean and Whitey knew enough facts about the case to at least make a weak connection to Silent Ray and John O'Shea after listening to the tape.
- They assumed that Katie knew her killer because the old lady witness told them that she heard a "Hi" followed by the shot.
- They knew that the gun used to kill Katie was the gun (not just caliber or type, but THE gun) that Just Ray used in a liquor store robbery years ago based on the ballistic analysis.
- Katie was killed in the Harris' neighborhood, assumedly on her way to Brendan's house (they were leaving for Vegas the next day.)
- You can tell from the call that they were kids and they knew that the victim was a girl but were obviously trying to hide what they knew.
So all of this adds up to (in Sean and Whitey's mind): How can all the evidence point to Brendan and yet, based on the polygraph, he is not the killer? Answer: They were looking at the wrong brother. That at least warrants a conversation with the boys. The rest is explained by Qrious above.
As I stated in another post, from a writer's perspective, the call is simply the mechanism that allows the characters to break the case. Whether the call is a plausible case-breaker or whether the call itself is realistic seems to be the question. On the former, yes, on the latter, that remains open for debate.
