When Denny called, I said, “I’ve got Charlie and Marie Connors. She rescued the boy. We’re on our way to Brooklyn … They’re in the back seat of my car. Heading toward New York on the turnpike. Send an escort.”
“Stop saying ‘rescued.’ Ralph came the other night with Charlie. Ralph works for Winston.”
I put two and two together and knew who Ralph was, Winston Connor’s assassin, the guy who attempted to get me this morning. I let Marie talk.
“To give Winston credit, he took Charlie from Ralph when he realized what Ralph was.”
“What Ralph was?” I asked.
Marie shuddered and looked at Charlie, but he was busy looking at the pictures in his book. “Overly fond of ….”
“I get it now.” I gripped the wheel hard and drove.
“I’d taken Charlie to the mall so he could ride the carousel. After that, I was going to return to Winston … I think.”
“You got kids?” I asked.
“Six boys. They’ve got their own lives. They don’t talk to us, except for the youngest. He helps his dad. But the other five, we don’t see them. It’s better that way. I understand. They found a way out.”
“Maybe you’ll see them now. Do you have their phone numbers at least?”
She nodded, close to tears. She looked so frail, like a word could knock her down.
“Got any friends here?”
Marie shrugged and said, “I kept my apartment in Brooklyn. I haven’t kept in touch with my friends, though.”
Two seconds later, Jane called, breathless.
“How the hell did you do that?”
“Long story. Marie Connors did most of it.” I gave her my tags and asked again for an escort.
Five minutes later, two New Jersey Troopers appeared, their sirens wailing. I pulled into the right-hand lane. One got in front, the other in back and we sped our way to the state line where two NYPD highway patrol chargers took over. They dropped us at the door of the 84th Precinct.
A crowd of reporters had gathered along with a bazillion cops. Mixed in with a swarm of federal agents, there was an impressive array of NYPD brass, including the bureau chief, the Brooklyn Borough assistant chief, commanders, the precinct captain, and the commissioner himself.
Jane met my car and somehow got us through all the emergency vehicles, squads and unmarked cars to the podium. My eye throbbed like hell. By this time, Marie was shivering, but she held Charlie in her arms and whispered something. He smiled and waved to the crowd. A thousand lights flashed.
“Where’s Barbara?” Jane asked.
“I’ve got calls in to her.” I shrugged. Jane was acting like it was my fault we couldn’t reach her. She was right, I didn’t have control of my client.
“What about his father?” I asked.
“He’s on his way,” she said.
“Daddy!” Charlie yelled.
The crowd went crazy.
After the commissioner thanked the chief and his crew for their work, the FBI’s chief investigator spoke. “What you did, Mrs. Connors, was heroic. You saved Charlie’s life.” Cameras flashed. Marie stared into the lens like a soul caught between heaven and hell. I think there were tears in her eyes.
Celebrating Too Soon
Once the hullabaloo died, Jane, Denny, Willoughby, Cookie and I sat in our dining room polishing off three large pizzas from Grimaldi’s while they got me all updated. Cops and detectives swarmed Dumbo, Fulton’s Landing, Vinegar Hill all morning and afternoon doing a door to door and hadn’t found the perp. Not a sign.
“And all this while I’m taking my test?” Cookie said. “I aced it if anyone’s interested.”
“He’s dead or he’s gone to ground, hiding in some basement. Maybe he’ll die there and we won’t find him for a dozen years. Don’t forget he’s got a car, and we thought we saw him traveling down Henry Street this morning like a bat fleeing a fire. I say he’s lurking in the shadows ready to pounce.”
And on the word “pounce,” Willoughby pounced.
Cookie rolled her eyes. “This guy for real?”
We were happy. Celebrating. No denying. Not one computer plugged in.
One woman called the hot line, swore she saw the man in the sketch.
Jane’s imitation of her was perfection. “‘He tried to rape me, I swear it,” she got up, prancing around the table. “Got his big dick out and was pumping it something fierce. I took one look at that flagpole and I spread myself like angel wings all the while praying to the Virgin. … Don’t let him touch me, Holy Mary, Mother of God! Didn’t he get scared when he saw me spread-eagled. Ran away like a greased rabbit.’ But the witness swore he wasn’t wounded. She didn’t see him limping. ‘But would you notice a gimp leg in the face of that huge shlong?’”
“His name’s Ralph,” I said. “Marie told me, and her husband called him a pervert. Ralph’s been contracted to get rid of me.” I smiled. “The truth is spilling out of her. She’s had it. The final straw? When she overheard her husband telling Harry to get rid of Charlie. The blinders she’d been wearing for forty-five years dropped off like hot coals.”
“Wonder how that happens,” mused Jane. “Married to a guy forty-five years and you don’t see what he’s like until all of a sudden? I don’t get it. What happened?”
“Maybe it was grace,” Willoughby said, wiping pizza crumbs from his shirt.
“It was Charlie,” Cookie said. “He was the grace. Marie couldn’t stomach the death of a child.”
“I don’t get why she married a man like Winston Connors in the first place, but she did. The blinders must have been on way back then,” I said.
“Of course they were,” Jane said. “In her day, women got married when they were girls, just out of high school. Now they wait a good long while, live with a guy.”
I nodded. “Smart lady, Marie. Gracious. I remember her from family Christmas parties at the bank. And she remembered me, too, but said I looked older.” I smiled at my quiet revelation. “That’s how I got her to go with me, I figure. We just started talking in the mall, like two old acquaintances, you know. Simple as that. No rat-a-tat-tats. No shrinks with loud speakers.”
“Women should run the world,” Cookie said.
Jane nodded. “The Feds spent an hour questioning Marie, but the woman was exhausted, and we persuaded them to stop with the interrogating until tomorrow. So we’ve got guards on Marie, and on you two and Cookie.”
“Me? Nobody knows me,” Cookie said.
“All the same, we’re covering our bets. You went missing for quite a while.”
“Yeah, you did a Barbara on us,” I said.
“She’s another one we’re watching,” Jane said. She looked hard at me. “Client or not.”
I shrugged. “Charlie’s the one I’m worried about. Is he with his dad?”
“Yes, and we’ve got two policemen guarding them until we can put all the devils to bed. That includes Connors and his crew, too, not just Ralph, although right now, he’s our biggest concern.”
“I can’t understand why Barbara hasn’t called. By now she’s got to know Charlie’s home.” I was quiet for a space, a good long space. “I think something’s wrong.”
There was silence.
“Marie’s the one I feel sorry for,” Cookie said. “She’s dead meat, I swear to God.”
We stared at her.
“Well you read about it all the time.”
“Read about what?” Willoughby asked.
Jane frowned. “Don’t say that.”
Cookie was applying lipstick. “Figure it, she’s a dead head unless she finds a super smart shrink. Married to the same guy for forty-five years, sucked every ounce of gumption out of her, and what’s left?”
“C’mon, we said we were going to celebrate, not talk shop,” Willoughby said.
“This isn’t talking shop, this is talking life,” Jane said.
Denny perked up. “She’s got six sons. One of them must have kids. So there you go, there�
�s a life.”
I had to say something, didn’t I? Open my big mouth and get right in there. “Get with it, this isn’t the nineteenth century. You think a woman has to have offspring to have a life? Do you think that’s it for us?”
Now there was real silence, the red kind.
“No, I didn’t mean … I just meant … the woman she’s become, a gangster’s wife. She’s the wife of a fraud, a crook. All his life she’s stood by her man, not saying a word. To me, he’s no better than the Godfather, a serious prick. She overhears the remark about getting rid of Charlie and leaves. Finally she’s had enough. But after the leaving, what does she have? Nothing, she’s a woman with nothing. Think about it. She might have a nice bank account, but how far is that going to get her? She’s got squat.”
That was Denny covering his tracks.
“Not as far as the courts are concerned,” Jane said.
“And besides, she kept her apartment in the Heights, don’t forget.”
“That’s where she is?” Denny asked.
“Why wouldn’t she be there? It’s her place,” Willoughby said.
We looked at Jane.
“They’re keeping her in an undisclosed location, at least for tonight. Chief’s orders. Got a surveillance on the apartment. But nobody knows that. New Jersey and FBI picked up her car in the Freehold Mall parking lot. They’re going over it for evidence.”
“They love doing that,” Willoughby said. “Probably in Quantico as we speak, giving those clowns something to do.”
I wondered what Marie was feeling, now that Charlie was gone and all the life she was used to, bridge once a week with her friends or whatever, going to church on Saturday afternoon, the first cup of coffee in the morning sipped from her favorite cup, all her comforting rituals, everything was over for her. If there was a hero in this whole thing, it was Marie. She saved Charlie’s life and lost her own, at least for now. She’d have to start over.
But something else Denny said started my mind going. Something that struck a chord. Something about Barbara. Because right now, she was the mystery.
Then I remembered something. I texted my FBI guy asking him for the list of plates on the three black Mercedes parked in the Blue Eagle drive.
And he texted back, “Sent them hours ago. Check your email.”
Sure enough, they’d been sitting in my inbox for hours. I should have seen them long ago. It all fell into place—Barbara’s leave from her law firm, her erratic behavior, laughing, crying, disappearing, dressed up on a Saturday morning. I should have tailed her, but it wouldn’t have made any difference if I’d known about the Mercedes in Blue Eagle’s drive because all along I should have known where she was going. All along, I should have suspected.
“The tags on the boyfriend’s car?” I asked, my face red.
“What boyfriend?” Willoughby asked.
“Barbara’s. My client’s. They turned up on a car parked in the Blue Eagle’s drive.”
There was a hush as my heart went south. “I should have seen it before,” I said, my blood rushing and my ears pounding. My voice trembled. God, don’t let me cry. “I should have seen it.”
“What are you talking about?”
I stood. “C’mon, we’ve got to get to her before—”
“Slow down. What are you talking about?” Jane asked.
“She’s talking about Barbara,” Cookie said. “She knows something bad’s happened. She’s like this when she knows too much, like animals before a tsunami hits.”
I was about to try Barbara again when Jane’s phone started ringing and we all jumped.
I remember Jane nodding and listening for what seemed like hours but was only seconds while the four of us sat waiting for her. I remember Willoughby picking up crumbs from the table and eating them. I remember Denny whispering ‘Good work’ in my ear and hugging me, not quite getting it, sweetheart that he was, but trying to understand, really working at it. I loved him for that, or at least I thought I did, and we’d be happy if only the stone in my throat would stop choking me.
Jane looked at us and spoke softly. “The surveillance team heard shots.”
“Where?” someone asked.
“Barbara’s house,” Jane said. “The parlor.”
“Coming, Cookie?” Denny asked, checking his Glock. He shoved it back in his pancake holster and handed me a vest.
Long Before It Happens
Funny how you know something long before it happens. We dropped Cookie off, because she didn’t have to see it. The way I figured it, I knew we were going to find devastation. It crept closer like a wounded animal stalking us as we crossed Atlantic, and my stomach started talking to me. I knew it. I watched Denny’s jaw clench. It was going to be epic. I could feel it, looking into the patrolman’s eyes guarding Barbara’s front door. I knew it was going to be dire by the way he handed us suits and gloves and slip-ons. I could smell my own fear as we put them on.
“Building’s safe. We’ve got it surrounded,” the patrolman told Jane. “CSU hasn’t arrived. Should be here any minute.”
We stepped past the crime scene tape and opened the door. I smelled cordite walking down the hall and I almost lost it.
Jane turned to me. “You okay?”
I nodded, but the white specks were swimming in my eyes again.
There was a new smell when we opened the parlor door, sharp and coppery. I looked up at the domed ceiling, trying to avoid the agony ahead, and stared at all the plaster curlicues ringing an old-fashioned chandelier, looked deep into the crown molding and fancy painted walls and plush furniture. Everything matched, everything spotless except for the two bodies on the floor and pool of blood soaking into rug. I took one look and had to excuse myself and got sick all over the shrubberies in the front.
I didn’t want to get too close, not yet. And something drew me upstairs. Denny followed. I counted thirty-seven steps up to the second-floor bedrooms, walked through the landing to the front bedroom, another designer’s showcase, and into the master bath. I opened the cabinet and saw what I should have seen from the giddy-up—pill bottles, all five shelves loaded with them. It was a pharmacy.
I retraced my steps. The bed was made, no clothes hanging off of furniture. An American Girl doll sat on the overstuffed chair. On the desk, underneath an empty bottle of oxycontin marked “No Refills,” was a folded note.
“Couldn’t stand it. No more of this.” It was signed by Barbara.
I should have known. I could have stopped her. I could have prevented this. The blood pounded in my ears and I bit my lip so bad I tasted blood. Better than tears. If Denny hugged me hard enough, the pictures and the smell would go away, I knew they would. If he hugged me hard enough, the bad dream would burst and I’d wake up. But I pressed my fingernails into my palms and told him we’d better go downstairs.
I told Jane about the note. “I touched it. I had to read it, but I put it back.
“What do you mean, you touched it?” the old Jane asked.
“I had my gloves on. If I’d have seen the tags earlier, I could have stopped this,” I told her.
“What are you talking about?”
I pointed to the dead man. “That’ll be Ken Connors, Winston’s youngest son. CSU will want to check the black Mercedes parked on the street. I saw it as we pulled up. Look for the New Jersey tags. Cookie saw him getting into it this morning, remember, and took down the plates. Feds saw it today parked on Blue Eagle’s drive.”
There was silence.
“Who’s going to call the next of kin?” I asked.
“That’s my job,” Jane said.
“The only emergency contacts I have for her are her ex-husband and her mother.”
“State has the same,” Jane said. She stepped out into the hall, but was back in less than a minute. “I left a message for Frank Alvarez to call me.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Who was the shooter?”
“It looks like Barbara killed Ken Connors, then shot herself, but of co
urse that doesn’t go anywhere,” she said. “Not until the coroner gives me the official cause and manner.” Despite her best intentions, Jane was having a Jane Moment. She’d been working up to it. She was entitled.
“I’m glad Charlie’s too young to understand,” Denny said.
“Some day he’ll have to be told,” Willoughby said. “And I wouldn’t want to be the one to tell her.”
“You’d better check Ken’s ID, just to make sure I’m right about the man’s identity,” I said.
“We can’t touch the bodies,” Jane said. “Bad enough moving the other stuff.”
I went to the closet in the entryway. “Let’s hope his coat has a wallet in it.”
There were small snow suits and a woman’s coat. No men’s stuff. We all looked around and I spotted a briefcase near the so-called love sofa. Sure enough, there was a wallet inside, along with keys and papers.
Jane grabbed them. “Emergency contact on the reverse side of the license has the name of next of kin, his father, and a phone number with a New Jersey area code,” she said.
I looked at Jane, the pounding in my chest now subsiding. I could do this, I told myself. “At least now the color of his hair matches his beard.”
She dialed the number and held the phone out so we could hear the busy signal, then she contacted her counterpart in the FBI and told him what had happened, giving him the name and number on the back of Ken Connors’ driver’s license. She put the speaker on and held the phone out again so we could hear the guy’s rant. She should have called him the moment they discovered the body, how did she expect cooperation from them when she herself wasn’t cooperative, blah, blah, blah.
With that, Jane switched off the speaker. Putting the phone to her ear she began to talk, low and sweet at first, but gathering force the way a train gathers speed. Pretty soon she was like forty tons of steel roaring down a mountain. “You speak of cooperation? You need to attend a class or hire someone who knows how to communicate, someone to spoon feed you the subtleties of relating to others since you know squat. Squat. Why is it my contacts tell me you planned to go out to the Connors farm this afternoon at three and you have yet to inform me of your visit or tell me the results? Why is it my contacts are feeding me information about Blue Eagle farm, how many people inside, how many horses, how many help, the tags on the cars in the driveway, the number of flowers in the goddam beds? Why is it you don’t give but you expect to get? I’m tired of pulling information out of you, and when I give you a call moments after I get the call from my surveillance crew saying they heard a shot, you give me a lecture?”
Too Quiet In Brooklyn (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 1) Page 22
