“Just curious, Don,” I said. “Didn’t think a background check on gang activity would interest you much.”
Hendricks leaned forward, elbows on the desk. “Everything in this county interests me, Russo.” So much for humor.
“If there is a gang,” I said.
“That’s my cue,” Fleener said, leafing through a few notebook pages. “When the idea of gang activity first came up, I paid attention, but nothing you said rang a bell. That’s why I wanted to talk with my guy in Lansing.”
“The one on the task force, right?”
“Yeah.” Fleener hesitated, glancing at Hendricks. “Don, you want this one?”
Hendricks cleared his throat. “Some of our gang people, sometimes they work off the books.”
They waited, letting that sink in.
I glanced at Fleener, then back to Hendricks. “They don’t have, shall I say, proper authorization?”
“Something like that,” Hendricks said, sounding purposefully vague. “They’re not exactly dealing with conventional crooks …”
“Not like the Joey DeMios of the criminal world.”
Hendricks nodded. “Nobody would use the word ‘organized’ to describe their activity. They’re not very bright, their movements are too random.” Hendricks shrugged. “They don’t lend themselves to conventional means.”
“So, you spy when you need to?”
“Marty,” Hendricks said, ducking my question. “Give Russo what you know.”
Fleener glanced at his notebook.
“Four men, white, late teens or early twenties. Oldest is twenty-four. Two work, two unemployed. Only one, a Samuel Dexter, graduated high school.”
Fleener looked up from his notes. “By the way, the unemployed guys do not draw unemployment from the state.”
“That’s comforting,” I said.
“All four have had run-ins with the law, small-shit stuff nobody cares about. No felony charges or arrests.”
“Does this gang have a name?” I said.
Fleener shook his head and grinned. “It’s a stretch to suggest they’re anything more than four guys who drink too much and get in trouble together.”
“Okay,” I said, “then how did they get on your radar in the first place?”
“Wondered how long it would take you to ask,” Fleener said.
“Well?”
“Dumb luck,” Fleener said. “One of the guys, a Benjamin Jarvis, beat up his girlfriend. She filed a complaint, later withdrawn …”
“Of course, it was,” I said.
“ … in Mackinaw City. The girlfriend called Jarvis a drug dealer, so Mac City cops alerted SANE.”
SANE, an acronym for Straits Area Narcotics Enforcement, covers drug activity in Emmet, Cheboygan, and Otsego Counties.
“If they have drugs at all,” Fleener said, “they sell them to their buddies for change. We didn’t charge them for dealing.”
“Why is it you think this is the bunch threatening Lenny Stern?”
“Dumb luck, again,” Fleener said. “I was thumbing through the file, thin as it was … the only real paperwork was on Jarvis.”
“The one who beat on his girlfriend?”
Fleener nodded. “Mac City officer made a note about a tattoo on the kid’s forearm.”
“Really?”
Fleener nodded. “A 44 inside a circle.”
“Do you believe in coincidences?” I said.
“You bet I do,” Fleener said, “but I know you don’t. Figured you’d want to see the file.”
“You figured right.”
“However.” It was Hendricks. “We wouldn’t be able to show you, since there is no official paperwork.”
“So, I saved you the trouble of being a pain in the ass,” Fleener said. “I dug a little deeper.”
He had my attention now.
“The two guys who work, Dexter and Jarvis? They live together in Gaylord, downtown. That’s where a familiar name popped up.”
“Cavendish?” I said.
“Yep,” Fleener said. “Wouldn’t have meant a thing, but I’d just checked DMV about that old truck that took a run at LaCroix in Harbor Springs.”
“The two guys,” I said, “they work at Cavendish Company?”
“Yes, they do, and there’s more. My guy in Lansing thinks Sylvia Cavendish is supplying the drugs.”
“Mama Cavendish is a drug dealer?”
“No,” Hendricks said. “Sylvia Cavendish supplies the drugs to Dexter and Jarvis. That’s all, she doesn’t deal.”
I described my visit with Sylvia’s sons, Daniel and Walter, in Gaylord, relating how Walter lied about their father and the vanity plate. Pieces of my puzzle were dropping into place. A few of them, anyway.
“The Cavendish sons run the family business,” I said. “So why does Sylvia supply employees with drugs?”
“Good question,” Fleener said. “I thought Cavendish might be connected to Lenny Stern and the Kate Hubbell murder investigation, so I took it to Don. But it’s all pretty thin.”
“Just out of curiosity,” I said, “the other two, the unemployed pals? They live in Carp Lake, by any chance?”
Fleener shot a glance at Hendricks, then they both stared at me.
“What do you know,” Hendricks said, “that we don’t know?”
I told them about Henri’s car, the phony blood, and the two guys who were followed to Carp Lake. I skipped that it was Jimmy Erwin who did the following.
“All right,” Hendricks said. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.”
Hendricks tugged at his already-loose tie, then ran his hands over his head as if his hair needed rearranging.
“Ms. Hubbell’s murdered,” Hendricks said. “No leads …”
“No leads until Russo asked me to check with the DMV,” Fleener said, “and maybe a gangbanger or two in our neighborhood.”
“Then pieces started falling all over each other,” Hendricks said.
“That prosecutor lingo, Don?”
Hendricks almost smiled. “You bet it is. Look, the pieces start with a number, ‘forty-four.’ A vanity plate, a tattoo. The same tattoo shows up on the arm of a guy yelling at Lenny Stern in a parking lot, on the arm of a guy whose girlfriend says he gets drugs at work. Then ‘work’ turns out to be the Cavendish Company, owned by the widow of a central figure in Stern’s book. That company owns a truck with forty-four on a vanity plate.”
Don Hendricks took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and looked at each of us. “The hell’s going on here?”
40
“It’s got to be more than a license plate or a tattoo,” I said.
“That’s stating the obvious,” Don Hendricks said as he returned to his desk with freshly made coffee. “Can’t you do better than that?”
If I could have done better, I would have thrown it out there, I thought about saying. But it was a rhetorical question. Hendricks was starting to feel the pressure. Kate Hubbell’s murder investigation was not following predictable patterns, not leading to the predictable culprits. Experience was less helpful than usual. Hendricks knew that; so did Martin Fleener.
“One more thing,” Fleener said, “before we adjourn for the day.”
Fleener tipped his chair back, leaning it against the wall.
“Nothing’s come together on this one, Don. Kate Hubbell was killed. Since then, what? Leads? Suspects? Motives? Usually things start to fall into place with good police work.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Hendricks said.
“That list you just ran off? The tattoo, the rest of it.”
“What about it?” Hendricks said.
Fleener was good at this, adding things up.
“Remember where they found Kate Hubbell’s body?”
“Behi
nd a warehouse, wasn’t it?” Hendricks said.
Fleener nodded.
“So?”
“It’s amateur hour, Don,” Fleener said. “That list of yours adds up, but we don’t recognize it. We expected the usual, the familiar, and haven’t gotten it. These aren’t professionals, Don. They’re careless amateurs.”
“Go back to Kate’s body,” I said.
“The rope around her neck, remember?” Fleener said. “The kind of line used on boats?”
“But she was shot,” I said. “One to the head.”
“Right,” Fleener said. “So we figured the rope was some kind of message, maybe another threat.” Fleener shook his head. “Sloppy police work. I was sloppy. Stern’s book was about the mob, about corruption. I jumped all over Joey DeMio. The mob killed her, the mob was sending a message …”
“But you concluded DeMio isn’t involved,” Hendricks said.
“Right. That rope on Hubbell was an amateur’s idea of the mob’s code of silence. Violate omerta and you die.”
“A red herring?” I said.
“It was a bad one, and I fell for it,” Fleener said. “I was so eager to tag Joey I wasn’t paying attention.”
“You weren’t the only one,” I said.
“What’re you thinking, Marty?” Hendricks said. “Now, I mean.”
“All roads lead to the Cavendish Company. The truck, the plate …”
“Yeah, yeah. Got that,” Hendricks said. “Now what?”
“Cavendish is in Otsego County,” Fleener said. “If we move on Sylvia or her sons, we tip them off. Besides, we have nothing solid that connects any of the Cavendish family to a murder in Emmet County.”
Fleener looked my way. “What was your next move going to be, Russo, if we weren’t having this little chat?”
“The two at Carp Lake. Thought we’d see what they’re up to.”
“‘We’ means you and LaCroix?” Hendricks said, with a touch of annoyance.
“Of course,” I said. For several years the prosecutor, not to mention the State Police, had regarded Henri as trouble. Henri did nothing to dispel the idea.
“Just keep him in check, Russo,” Hendricks said. I let it go. We’d had this debate before. It always got us nowhere. I changed the subject.
“Clear something up for me, will you, Don?”
He waited.
“Joey DeMio,” I said. “The restaurant over on Lake Street. What do you make of it?”
“Pretty obvious to us,” Hendricks said. “Joey’s making his move to the mainland.”
“Is he leaving Mackinac?”
“Our sources tell us no.” It was Fleener. “Joey’s expanding.”
“You worried about that?” I said.
“Concerned would be a better word.” And that was that. Hendricks drank some coffee, put the mug down and said, “All right, Russo, get on those two guys in Carp Lake, but keep Marty in the loop. Understand?”
I left the County building on the Lake Street side and headed for the office. I’d walked almost two blocks, lost in thought about our meeting, when I noticed the sun and the blue sky were lost in clouds. It was still July hot, but the edge was gone, at least for the moment.
“Morning, boss,” Sandy said when I walked into the office. She was at her desk. Henri sat in a client chair over by the Lake Street windows. I grabbed a bottle of water from the small refrigerator near the door and sat next to Henri.
“So how did you and Hendricks leave it?” Sandy said.
I took a long drink of water. “First, did all go well at the airport, Henri?”Henri nodded. “Picked up Lenny first, then Tina. I waited in the terminal until their flight was in the air. Arrived at O’Hare early. They’re Gloucester Security’s problem now.”
“They’ll have an easier time covering him,” I said. “Three days of meetings, cocktail parties, the hotel. Limos between the events. They’ll wrap him up tight.”
“He won’t be very happy,” Sandy said, “but he will be safe. Now what about Hendricks?”
I took another drink of water, put the bottle on the floor next to my chair, and gave them a quick recap of my meeting.
“Hendricks and Fleener don’t want to tip off the Cavendish family any sooner than necessary.”
“Well, if mother Sylvia’s dealing drugs,” Sandy said, “wouldn’t they have their guard up anyway?”
“Hendricks doesn’t think she’s a dealer.”
“Sell them or give them away,” Henri said. “You do that, you’re on edge.”
“Did they speculate,” Sandy said, “why Sylvia would give drugs to company employees, who then supply their friends?”
“She wants to be loved?” Henri said.
Sandy ignored his comment and said, “She’s paying for something. Loyalty, maybe.”
“That wasn’t a question,” I said.
“Wasn’t meant to be. You give something of value, you expect something in return.”
“A little cynical, don’t you think?” Henri said.
“Got a better suggestion?”
Henri shook his head. “No, ma’am.”
“For services rendered?” I said.
“Does that include murder, boss?”
“Could be,” I said, “but we know the four buddies and Cavendish Company have something going on, or we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Let’s go see if the Carp Lake pair is home.”
“They were there a while ago,” Henri said.
“Yeah?” I said.
Henri nodded. “Swung up that way after I dropped our friends at the airport. Found the house, with the truck Jimmy Erwin described out front.”
“I wonder how much drugs it takes to buy a murder?” Sandy said.
41
“You think Kate Hubbell was murder-for-hire?” Henri said.
He eased his SUV through traffic north on US 31 toward Carp Lake. He always insisted on driving if we were trying to be inconspicuous. Another SUV, no one noticed or cared. But my BMW? Inconspicuous?
The cloud cover cast a welcome gray dullness over the late morning. It wasn’t much cooler or less humid, but hiding the sun for a while made it feel that way.
“Not sure what to think, Henri.”
“If Sandy’s right about the Cavendish woman …”
“That she’s paying for something?”
“Yeah. Could she be paying to threaten Lenny Stern?”
“Could be,” I said. “Question is, why?”
“Maybe she doesn’t want bad publicity for her dead husband.”
“So she’d contract a murder?” I said.
We cruised by the Pellston Airport. The landing lights of the north-south runway sparkled in the gray day, and the parking lot was crowded with cars, as it always was in mid-summer.
Henri paid little attention to speed limits as he blew through the Levering blinker light. He eased off the throttle several minutes later and turned off 31, near the Carp Lake post office.
“It’s a few houses down,” he said, turning on a narrow tarmac road that paralleled Paradise Lake. “There. The green F-150.”
“Someone’s in the truck,” I said. “Two guys.”
Henri slowly drove past the house, pulling to the side of the road about sixty feet away. I turned to watch. Henri adjusted his mirror. The green truck went the other way.
“You recognize them?”
“Didn’t get a good look.”
“Shall we go for a ride?” Henri said, making a U-turn.
“Nothing better to do,” I said. “Truck’s headed south, toward Petoskey.”
“Too bad we didn’t get a look at them,” Henri said.
“Let’s see where they’re going. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
The green F-150 moved steadily along, not pushing the
speed limit. Henri kept plenty of highway between us, and the road was straight. We’d pick up a turn easily enough. The truck went past C-66 at Levering.
“Not cutting to I-75 or the lake,” Henri said. “Petoskey, here we come.” He glanced at me, then added, “I’m curious why Hendricks was so eager to let you run interference for him and Fleener.”“Hendricks was clear, Henri. They can’t tie the Cavendish family to Kate Hubbell’s murder. But if they are involved, why tip them off?”
“You think the Cavendish brothers … . Hey, they’re turning,” Henri said. The green truck took a right about fifty yards ahead.
“Only one thing between here and the lake.”
“Moose Jaw Junction,” I said. “A burger and beer in beautiful Larks Lake, Michigan.”
There were no vehicles between us and the F-150 on Van Road. Henri stayed well back, but another arrow-straight road through rural Michigan farm country made for an easy tail.
“Bar’s another mile or so,” Henri said. “The brothers … you think they believed your bullshit story about a company truck driver witnessing a crime?”
“Don’t know, but they must suspect something’s going on. They didn’t strike me as dumb, especially Walter.”
“He the one who took over the conversation?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll bet they’re trying to figure it out.”
The green truck slowed when it reached the restaurant. Cars and trucks lined the shoulder of Van Road and jammed the parking area in front of the one-floor roadhouse.
Henri drove on a bit and pulled into an empty spot.
“Get a look?” he said.
“Could be the kid from the parking lot run-in,” I said. “Not sure.”
“Jump out, I’ll be there in a minute.”
I moved quickly to the entrance, walking right behind a noisy group of four women. This was not their first stop of the day. They laughed, pointing at the huge, phony antlers above the door. The women gave me cover as we went through the door. The room was crowded, from the bar just inside the door all across a large room filled with tables and chairs. Wood paneling, a red brick fireplace, and an abundance of moose paraphernalia left little doubt about the theme of the popular place.
Deadline for Lenny Stern: A Michael Russo Mystery Page 19
