A House on Liberty Street

by Neil Turner

  “I’m confident we’ll finish Monday, Your Honor.”

  I wonder what evidence the prosecution can possibly have left. That’s not my biggest concern, though. We still aren’t sure what case we intend to present as soon as Tuesday.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I meet Brittany at O’Hare International Airport at noon on Sunday when she flies in from Brussels with her mother.

  Michelle hasn’t changed outwardly, and I suspect she hasn’t changed a bit inside, either. She’s arrived in her usual impeccably arranged splendor. A chic white raincoat is draped over the sleeve of a form-fitting burgundy dress. On another woman, the silky fabric clinging to her might be considered slinky. Michelle somehow manages to give it a conservative, executive-appropriate twist. Tall and willowy with long, lustrous raven hair and an almost regal bearing, she’s graced with curves any stripper or starlet would kill for—assets she’s never shied away from employing in either the boardroom or the bedroom. Not that she’d sleep her way through the executive suite or even seriously entertain a workplace tryst to advance her career. Michelle is simply aware of the numbing effect testosterone has on the male brain. She’s used that knowledge to her advantage for as long as I’ve known her. In what is surely a sign of progress, her many charms leave me cold today.

  “You won’t have her in that house, will you?” she asks after a perfunctory hello.

  “That house is our home,” I retort.

  “I will not have my daughter staying in a house where someone has been shot in the last few weeks!”

  “She’s not your daughter. Britts is our daughter and she’ll be staying with me. She’ll be fine. Get used to the idea.”

  “What security arrangements have you made for her stay?”

  “I said she’ll be fine.”

  Michelle bites off whatever angry reply is on the tip of her tongue and storms away to catch her connecting flight to Atlanta.

  We collect Brittany’s bags and head home. Fortunately, the insurance company contractor has replaced the front porch without building permit issues, so I don’t mention the fire or vandalism. I reassure her as best I can about Pat’s condition, bring her up to speed on the trial, and I’m current on events in Europe by the time we arrive at Liberty Street. I make hot chocolate and am just getting into the Cedar Heights saga when my phone rings. It’s Mike Williams.

  “I was gonna stop by but I know you and Brittany are catching up,” he says after we exchange greetings. “I’ve got a quick question or two.”

  “Shoot.”

  “I’ve been thinking about how to play Sandy Russo’s alleged statement.”

  “And?”

  “I want to throw a tantrum about the discovery violation.”

  I don’t disagree but I’d like to hear his reasoning. “Why?”

  “What she heard has to help us.”

  I decide to play devil’s advocate. “Probably so. If you’re so sure of that, why not just put her on the stand and find out?”

  “I’ve considered it, believe me.”

  “No time for the prosecution to prepare or dull the impact by getting her story out first,” I continue. “If Sandy confirms Papa’s story, the prosecution can’t unring that bell.”

  “But then we’d need to put Francesco on the stand to tell his side of the story. You know how I feel about that.”

  Indeed, I do. “But if Sandy’s testimony supports Papa’s version of events, getting his story in front of the jury should outweigh whatever damage Dempsey can do to him.”

  “You might be right.”

  I pause and stare out the window while I think. “So, the question is whether or not to blindside Dempsey and hope it’s a knockout punch or go a little more cautiously to guard against landing a haymaker on our own chin.”

  Mike chuckles. “That about sums it up.”

  I’m sorely tempted to swing for the fence on this. Mike sees the potential of doing so, yet he’s holding back. Is he being overly cautious or am I being reckless? What gives me the right to gamble with Papa’s life? Mike waits me out until I finally say, “Swinging for the fences appeals to me, but there’s no Plan B if it goes wrong.”

  “That’s right.”

  Prudence, Tony, I tell myself. “File the motion.”

  “I’ll file it this afternoon. Your job is to park your butt at home and enjoy your daughter.”

  After we say our goodbyes, I find Brittany in the living room admiring Pat’s painting of the beach at sunrise. I hung it over the fireplace the night I brought it home.

  “Pat’s work,” I say.

  Brittany looks at me in astonishment. “This is awesome! You didn’t tell me she paints like this.”

  “I didn’t know.” I tell her about discovering Pat’s painting room the day I took her home from the hospital.

  “Can we call her?”

  “We’re going to see her tomorrow.”

  “Please, Dad?”

  I put them on the phone together and putter while they chat.

  Brittany walks in a few minutes later and hands me the phone. “Your turn.”

  “Hey, Pat,” I say. “How are you?”

  “Good. Sitting down?”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve been doing a little work the past few days.”

  I stifle the urge to give her hell for not resting. “And?”

  “Titan targeted your house this spring. They sent a demolition crew to run a truck into the garage and then bribed Henry Poindexter in the licensing office not to issue the building permit. The Trib is running the story tomorrow. The article will suggest that folks higher up the village food chain were pulling the strings to use the damaged garage to foreclose and get your father evicted. We’ll draw a direct line to how that effort had tragic results for your father and Sheriff’s Deputy O’Reilly.”

  “Bastards!”

  “Indeed,” Pat agrees. “Your father and his neighbors aren’t the first folks Titan has pulled this stunt with. They hire a bunch of punks to trash target neighborhoods and homes they covet. They’ve been running the same scheme in Phoenix, Tulsa, Sarasota, and who knows where else—always operating through cleverly disguised subsidiaries.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “A Titan demolition team was arrested in action several days ago. I’ve been building a network of reporters around the country who are working on eminent domain stories of their own. When Titan’s thugs got themselves arrested in Sarasota, a reporter there called me.”

  “How did the reporter find out?” I ask. “I mean, guys get arrested for vandalism all the time. Must be thousands of them. How was the connection made to Titan?”

  “It’s not like these bozos are the most savory critters around, Tony. They ratted out their boss before the day was out and the cops found him as easy to roll as a mangy mutt that wants its tummy scratched. And so it went, right on up the line until someone fingered Titan.”

  I shake my head in wonder. “Not much in common with the blue wall of silence, huh?”

  “Nope.”

  “I should be able to use this at the Village Board meeting on Tuesday. I just need to figure out how.”

  “You’ll work it out,” Pat says confidently before we end the call.

  I order pizza from Malnati’s and carry it into the kitchen when it arrives. With the sky darkening, I walk over and close the wooden plantation shutters that cover the new kitchen window. Pretty hard for a shooter to hit what he or she can’t see. At least that’s what I’ve been telling myself.

  When the doorbell rings five minutes later, Brittany bounces to her feet. “I’ll get it.”

  “No! I’ve got it. Stay right here.”

  Brittany’s inquisitive eyes widen at my display of skittishness.

  I open the door to find a pudgy security guard staring back at me. “Is there a Brittany Valenti staying here?”

  I stare back at him, wondering who the hell he is and what he’s doing on my front porch asking abou
t my daughter. A quick glance at the flashlight and other paraphernalia hanging off his belt suggests he’s unarmed. “Who are you?”

  “Who are you?” he asks back.

  “I live here, so I’ll do the asking. Who the hell are you and why are you here?”

  “We’re here to protect Brittany Valenti. Is she here?”

  “Who sent you?” I ask while he snaps his gum. I doubt this guy would even be a match for the mysterious hoodie bike rider.

  “Dispatch.”

  “Maybe you should call dispatch and find out who told them to send you here.”

  After his dispatcher assures him that he’s at the right address, Brittany’s prospective bodyguard squares his shoulders and once again demands to know if she’s in the house.

  “Listen pal,” I inform him, “I don’t know anything about this. You’re not coming in.”

  Mr. Bodyguard inches closer to the door. “Sir, we’ve been hired to protect Brittany Valenti. I need you to step aside so I can confirm that’s she’s okay.”

  “Or what?” I scoff. “You’ll call the real police?”

  He’s not sure what to say to that. He takes a step back.

  “Until you can tell me who hired you, please get off my step before I call the police to report you as a trespasser.”

  When he doesn’t move, I close the door in his face and start back to the kitchen, then begin to suspect what’s probably going on. I divert to the bedroom and call Michelle’s cell. She picks up immediately.

  “Did you hire some sort of security service to watch Britts?”

  “I did. If you won’t see to her protection, I will. I have a call into our attorney to see what other steps I can take.”

  Maybe she’ll have Brittany taken into protective custody until Mommy can whisk her back to Europe? When I recall the vision of Michelle’s hireling standing on the porch, I can’t quite suppress a chuckle. Unfortunately, Michelle hears it.

  “You think this is funny?” she explodes. “My daughter is in a house that a killer is stalking, and you laugh at my concern?”

  “You should see the clowns they sent out here. You’re wasting your money. Call them off. I’ll take care of things.”

  “I won’t call them off! Even if you won’t let them in the house to protect Brittany, I insist that you allow them to set up a perimeter.”

  A perimeter? I repeat silently. What a joke.

  “Do not try my patience on this,” Michelle warns when I don’t reply.

  I’ve had enough. “You don’t insist on anything in my home. Call off your rent-a-cops before I have them arrested for trespassing.” With that, I cut the connection and silence the ringer so we won’t be interrupted by Michelle’s outraged return calls. I coerce Brittany into playing along by silencing her phone to forestall a family telephone brawl. She can tell her mother that she forgot to take her phone off airplane mode after they landed at O’Hare.

  The doorbell rings again forty minutes later. Michelle’s SWAT team? I’m tempted not to answer but eventually relent. Maybe the poor little bastard has to pee. I peer through the peephole and see Detective Plummer standing on my front step. When I open the door, he’s staring at the retired Ford LTD Police Interceptor parked at the curb.

  “Hello, Mr. Valenti. I hope you don’t mind me dropping by.”

  After we shake hands, Plummer looks back at the Shield Security vehicle. “What are those guys doing here? Everything okay?”

  I wave him inside. “My daughter’s visiting. My ex-wife hired them to protect her.”

  Humor dances in the eyes of the detective but he doesn’t say whatever’s on his mind.

  “Come on in. We’re having hot chocolate in the kitchen. Unless you need to speak to me privately?”

  He shakes his head before following me into the kitchen to exchange greetings and a little small talk. “Me being here while we’re in the middle of a trial doesn’t look so good. No trial talk, okay?”

  “What brings you here, if not the trial?” I ask.

  “You’ll be happy to hear that we’ve got Miss O’Toole’s shooter in custody.”

  “Terrific!” Brittany exclaims.

  “That’s great!” I add to her cry of relief. For all my bravado earlier with Michelle, I’ve been having second thoughts about Brittany staying here.

  “Remember when we were talking in the yard the morning after it happened?” Plummer asks.

  I nod.

  “Once I heard that we’d been able to get a ballistics match on the shell casings and bullets through IBIS and it turned out to be a gangbanger’s gun—”

  “What’s IBIS?” Brittany asks.

  “Integrated Ballistics Identification System.”

  “Wow, a government acronym,” she says with a smirk.

  Plummer returns her smile. “Yeah. Imagine that.”

  “And?” I prompt impatiently.

  “I asked myself why a gun that was used in a gang shooting resurfaced a few years later in Cedar Heights in the hands of some bozo who doesn’t know how to use it.”

  “This isn’t your case,” I say. “Why were you looking into it?”

  “The gangbanger gun bothered me. How did it end up here? Most of them go into the lake or down a sewer after they get used, but sometimes they disappear into a cop’s pocket. Anyway, I had a look at the call sheets from a couple of hours either side of the shooting here and a name caught my attention.”

  “Who?” Brittany and I ask in unison.

  “Andy O’Reilly Junior was pulled over for driving a little erratically in Daddy’s car a little before midnight. Nothing else was filed, so I tracked down the beat cops who pulled him over. They recognized him as O’Reilly’s kid, figured he was blowing off a little steam, and cut him loose with orders to go straight home.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” I say.

  Plummer nods. “Yeah, it does. I remembered you telling me about Brittany being harassed by the O’Reilly boy at school. It’s no secret that the kid’s a handful, so I dug a little deeper. I wanted to have a look for the gun at the kid’s house. My captain laughed me out of his office when I suggested they get a warrant and check.”

  “Why did he do that?” Brittany asks.

  “Cap reminded me that O’Reilly was one of our own and suggested I had a lot of nerve wanting to mess with the poor guy’s family.”

  “Not that surprising,” I mutter.

  Plummer’s eyes narrow. “That’s not how the job works, Mr. Valenti. I went to see O’Reilly’s ex. We chatted about the trial for a bit. Mrs. O’Reilly told me she worries about some of the people her husband had been running with before he split. Said she was glad there was still a gun or two in the basement. When I asked her about the guns, she gave me the insider nudge-nudge, wink-wink routine about cops picking up an illegal piece and bringing it home. Told me her husband did it a few times, as if everyone does.”

  “Do cops actually do that?” Brittany asks.

  Plummer’s brow creases in distaste. “Dirty cops do it, and some who aren’t so dirty. Some guys keep them as an extra personal piece. Dirty cops plant them as evidence and worse. Anyway, I decided a little bullshit was in order to smoke out the truth, so I told her the kid was good for the tire slashing and arson here. I topped that off by telling her that a gun O’Reilly pocketed had just been used in an attempted murder. When she went pale, I knew I was onto something. Things played out pretty quickly from there—warrant, ballistics, confession.”

  “Did he slash my tires and torch the porch?”

  “He did.”

  I meet Brittany’s surprised gaze. “I’ll explain the vandalism later.”

  “Okay,” she says uncertainly.

  I turn back to Plummer and angrily ask, “Did the mother know?”

  “Who knows? Guess it doesn’t matter one way or the other. Anyway, I gotta run. Thought you should know.” Then he fixes Brittany in his gaze. “Last thing. It’s against the law to disclose the name of a juvenile offender.�
�

  She stares back blankly.

  “That means we can’t breathe a word of this to anyone,” I tell her. “Detective Plummer has done us a favor to let us know. He’s trusting us not to jeopardize his career by popping off about it.”

  Brittany’s expression is grave as her eyes track back to Plummer. “Understood. I won’t let you down.”

  He smiles. “I know. I wouldn’t have told you if I wasn’t sure of it.”

  “Wait,” I say when he turns for the door. “Why did he come after us?”

  Plummer sighs. “Anger. Rage. Revenge. He’s one screwed up young man.”

  Brittany turns to me. “The kid on the bike? I bet that was him. He’s always cruising around on a bike like that.”

  “Kid on a bike?” Plummer asks.

  Brittany explains.

  “Could be,” he mutters when she finishes. “I’ll ask him… put your minds at ease.”

  Brittany smiles. “Thanks.”

  I can’t figure Plummer. He’s messing with my cop preconceptions; the guy genuinely seems to be a seeker of truth. Hell, he’s even being helpful.

  “I guess it’s kinda sad,” Brittany murmurs.

  I recall the horrific vision of Pat lying in a pool of blood on this very floor. Sad, my ass. I’m glad the kid is off the streets and hope he stays off.

  “But he’s still an asshole,” Brittany adds.

  She and I chat for a few more minutes after Plummer leaves, but she’s fading fast. I tuck her in ten minutes later.

  Her hand creeps out from under the covers and tightens on mine while another yawn overtakes her. “You’ve got a lot going on. Don’t let me get in the way.”

  I tuck her hand back under the covers and lean down to plant a kiss on her forehead. “Don’t be silly. I’m thrilled you’re here. Have a good sleep, honey. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Her eyes close and she snuggles deeper under the covers with a contented sigh.

  A profound weariness settles over me after I softly close the door. She’s right. A momentous week lies ahead. The fate of this house and my father will likely be decided by next weekend.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine