“Because you respect me. And because there’s something else. Something that’s been lurking on the fringes of your life that you’ve never faced.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re a compare, Lucinda. More trusted than blood.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re one of us.”
“No! My father was a miner!”
“Yes, he was.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will.”
* * *
Carlo drove Lucy back to Bayonne.
Riding behind the big man, with his wide shoulders and thinning black hair touching his collar, she realized that he was the only person she’d met who fit the Mob image.
Her head was swimming. The man she had just dined with was well educated, engaging—even, for all his years, attractive.
But he was a Mafioso.
He was the capo famiglia of a major crime family.
Lucy had just reached an understanding with a seasoned criminal.
That significant fact should have bothered her. In their conversation, she had consciously attempted to be bothered by it.
Instead, it comforted her.
What’s wrong with me?
Her reverie was interrupted by a ringing phone. Carlo took a call. He listened, muttered something in reply, and disconnected. His eyes found Lucy’s in the rearview mirror.
“The cops are watching your car.”
“How do you know?”
“A friend.”
“Did your friend say what cops?”
“Only that they’re not Feds.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I can’t take you to the garage. Some of these county cops know who I work for.”
“Drop me on Broadway. I’ll walk the rest of the way.”
“Why don’t I leave you somewhere near your house? You can go home and wait them out.”
“No. I’m not playing games. If they’re watching my car, they think they’ve got something. If I don’t show up, they’ll come looking, and I don’t want my son to see that.”
“If they arrest you, Mr. Lanza can’t help.”
“If they arrest me, they’ll wish they hadn’t.”
In the mirror, she thought she saw a hint of respect.
“They could be watching the Broadway intersection.”
“Drop me at Walgreens. It’s a five-minute walk.”
24
When Lucy walked into the parking garage, the first face she saw was Carla Scarlatti’s. The woman was leaning against Lucy’s car, talking on a cell phone. She was dressed in jeans and a short jacket, her sidearm prominent on her left hip. When she spotted Lucy, she abruptly ended her call, dropped her hand to her weapon, and advanced on Lucy.
Lucy heard footfalls behind her. She glanced back. Geary was entering the garage.
Scarlatti dispensed with all pretense of niceties.
“Where were you, Mrs. Hendricks?”
Lucy had her keys in her hand. She stepped past Scarlatti, keyed the remote to unlock her car, and kept moving.
“Stop right there! We want to ask you some questions.”
Lucy swung around. “I’ve answered all the questions from you I’m going to answer!” she snapped. “You obviously have a personal agenda that has nothing to do with finding the truth about my husband’s murder! Five years ago, you were just a tactless bitch who wasted valuable time chasing a ridiculous theory. If anything, you hindered the investigation! Now you’re back with more harassment because someone murdered a psychologist who was helping my son.” Lucy shifted her gaze straight to Geary and raised her voice as she aimed her next words. “What is it this time, Carla? Are you just upset because your old boyfriend decided to help me? Or is it something else? Something you’re trying to cover up? Whatever it is, you’d be very wise to back off!”
Scarlatti seemed taken by surprise at the heat of Lucy’s verbal assault, and unsettled enough to glance over at Geary before responding.
The man’s expression revealed nothing.
“Nice speech, Mrs. Hendricks,” Scarlatti shot back with a self-righteous smirk, “but you’re still going to have to explain to us why your car is parked in this garage, blocks from any convenient shopping, and why you were seen this afternoon riding away from this location in a vehicle registered to a company owned by a known member of the Lanza crime family. And why, hours later, you appeared miraculously at the intersection of Broadway and Thirtieth and strolled back here.”
“I don’t have to explain anything to you, Scarlatti!”
“In that case, Mrs. Hendricks, I’m placing you under arrest.”
Geary interjected. “Detective…!”
“This woman’s husband was murdered in circumstances that point directly to Lanza family involvement. We now have evidence that she has been consorting with a member of that same crime family, that she was apparently the last person to see Dr. Clooney alive before he was abducted by his killer or killers, that Clooney was tortured in classic Mob style—obviously to get some kind of information out of him—that he was then murdered, and that his body was dumped on exactly the same spot where Jack Hendricks was found. And we have one other piece of evidence relating to Clooney. Do you know what I’m talking about?”
Geary was thoughtful. “Yes.”
“I’m saying all of this means that we have probable cause to believe that Mrs. Hendricks was complicit in her husband’s murder.”
WHAT?
Lucy could not believe what she was hearing. She stared at Geary, daring the man to agree with this insanity.
Geary took a deep breath, held it, let it out … and nodded his head.
Scarlatti whipped out a pair of handcuffs and advanced on Lucy, triumph in her eyes.
Lucy felt her body stiffen.
She felt her mind harden.
She had always detested Carla Scarlatti. Now she felt that loathing transform into quiet, deadly hatred.
But for the woman’s spineless partner, she felt only disdain. “Geary!” she called to him, as Scarlatti pulled her arms behind her, snapped on the cuffs, and started droning her Miranda rights.
“What?”
“You’re a contemptible coward, and a disgrace to your badge!”
* * *
The BPD interview room looked much like the ones Lucy had seen on television—cinderblock walls, scarred wooden table, beat-up chairs, video camera, and the obligatory one-way mirror for outside observers. But if Scarlatti and Geary thought the setting would intimidate Lucy in any way, they were sorely mistaken.
First, because she was angrier than she had ever been in her entire life.
Second, because, once during her marriage, she had sat outside this very room, watching Jack interview a female suspect. He had asked for her help in assessing the credibility of a female teacher who had been accused of sexually abusing a young male student, and his captain had agreed Lucy could attend.
Lucy knew this room.
And, she knew that someone well above these two detectives’ pay grade was monitoring her custodial interrogation. A captain, or even a deputy chief, would be standing in that dark space on the other side of the glass, pondering whether Lucy’s delivery to a police station in handcuffs had been based on no more than bare suspicion; pondering whether these two cops really had probable cause to detain her for complicity in the murder of her husband; and wondering how many heads would roll when it emerged in the resulting lawsuit that neither of the officers who were using this room was even a member of the Bayonne Police Department.
For the past forty minutes, Geary had said little. He just stood in a corner, listening, while Scarlatti tried every transparent trick in the book to get answers from Lucy.
Lucy had just sat there, pale and cold, her eyes burning into Scarlatti, saying nothing.
Until now.
It began with the second phone. The Nokia 100 they’d found in her purse.
Geary
had run a fast check on Lucy’s late-model smartphone, a Samsung Galaxy. There were no saved e-mails, but he’d quickly reviewed it for texts, recent calls, and contacts. He’d found nothing that connected her to anyone other than her own family in Florida, the school where she taught, her son’s daycare … and Robert Olivetti.
Meanwhile, Scarlatti had checked the Nokia.
Now she set it in front of Lucy.
“Explain this to me,” she said, as she took a small tube out of her pocket, squeezed ointment into her left palm, and idly rubbed it into a scaly patch on the back of her right hand. “Why are you carrying this phone?”
Lucy made a deliberate show of wrinkling her nose at the medicinal smell of the ointment and responded to the question with an icy smile. “It’s my son’s. He’s at home with my sitter. Why don’t you arrest him, too? Maybe he was in on the conspiracy.”
“A cell phone for a five-year-old?”
“It’s a toy. They’re practically giving them away these days.” Lucy paused. “But then, I’m not surprised that you know nothing about children.”
“It’s a prepay. A burner! And there’s time on it!”
“Really? And how many numbers?” Lucy wasn’t worried that they’d found Dominic’s contact number. As an extra precaution—one that she was now thankful for—she’d memorized the number and deleted it from both Drafts and Dialed Numbers before she left the house that day.
“None. Do you know how that looks?”
“I don’t really care how it looks. If you’d bother to check, you’d know that a lot of providers give away those phones, with time already loaded on them. It’s a sales gimmick.” Lucy checked her watch. “And by the way, I know I’m entitled to a phone call. So if you plan to continue this ridiculous interview, I’ll need to call my sitter.”
Scarlatti ignored her. “Why don’t you tell us about Professor Clooney?”
“I’ve already told you about him.”
“So you say, but we have a little problem here.”
“Yes, you do. And it’s about to get bigger.”
Scarlatti brushed aside the implied threat. “The problem—your problem, Mrs. Hendricks—is Dr. Clooney’s connection to the Lanza crime family.”
For the first time in the interview, Lucy was shaken. She’d been listening to Scarlatti’s questions, saying nothing, letting the stupid woman reveal what she had—which was basically nothing. Now, finally, Scarlatti had tipped the “other piece of evidence” she’d mentioned in the garage just before Lucy’s arrest.
She steeled herself.
“What connection?”
“Clooney testified for Dominic Lanza in a custody fight. The testimony was heard on camera, so we’ve never seen a transcript. But, whatever he said, it didn’t work, because the ex won the case.”
“When was this?”
“Two years ago.”
“From what I’ve read, Lanza’s a bit old for a custody fight.”
“Second wife. A lot younger than him. Guess she went for the money.”
“Interesting, but what has that got to do with me?”
“Let me spell it out for you: 2006 … your husband is a BPD cop, but his body is found out of jurisdiction, in Jersey City, with a Lanza family calling card jammed in his throat … before he was killed, he’d been accessing police databases he had no business accessing … you’re the grieving widow, and you claim you know nothing about his activities, even though you’d just enjoyed a luxury, all-expense-paid vacation with him in a Mob-connected hotel in Key West … you disappear to Florida … five years later, you’re back in Bayonne, living in the same house, meeting with Dr. Clooney, another person Lanza may have felt knew too much about some aspect of his life … within hours of your meeting, Clooney shows up dead in exactly the same place your husband’s body was found. Today you’re spotted riding in a vehicle owned by a known affiliate of the Lanza family. Who are the common denominators in all this? You and Dominic Lanza!”
“Dr. Clooney was at my home on a professional consultation. He was visiting my son.”
“What’s wrong with your son?”
“That is none of your business.”
“You’re not helping yourself.”
“Neither are you.” Lucy leaned forward. “I’ve heard everything you’ve had to say. The same questions, over and over. I’m not some illiterate perp you can bully. That mishmash of so-called evidence you just recited is nowhere near probable cause. This is called false arrest and unlawful detention! Now, I want to call my sitter, and my attorney.”
“What attorney?”
“Robert Olivetti!”
“You think having a prosecutor boyfriend is going to save you?”
The door swung open and a male voice spoke: “Actually, it is going to save her, Detective.”
Robert Olivetti was standing in the doorway, holding Lucy’s purse. Behind him stood another man. Lucy recognized the BPD’s deputy chief. He wore a look of profound irritation, and his ire clearly wasn’t directed at Olivetti.
Olivetti handed Geary a sheaf of papers.
“What’s this?”
“Perhaps you’ve heard of habeas corpus?”
Olivetti helped Lucy out of the chair. As they were leaving, she scooped the Nokia off the table.
* * *
“I stuck my neck out on this.”
Olivetti was driving her back to her car.
“I realize that.”
“Is this going to come back and bite me in the ass?”
Lucy didn’t reply.
“Lucy, were you with Lanza today?”
She hesitated. She didn’t want to lie to the man who had just freed her from Detective Scarlatti’s clutches—from his own ex-lover’s clutches—but she’d need to be careful.
“He contacted me,” she replied, without specifying exactly when. “He wanted me to know that his organization, as he called it, never did business with Jack, and they had nothing to do with his murder.”
“Why call you now? After all these years! Why now?”
“That story in the Journal. About Professor Clooney’s murder. The one that mentioned me. The one your girlfriend must have leaked!” Lucy caught herself. She touched his arm. “I’m sorry, Robert. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s okay.”
“I really am grateful for what you did for me today.”
“Glad to help.” He was silent for a moment. “Do you believe Lanza? Do you believe he had nothing to do with Jack’s murder?”
Lucy pretended to consider the question.
“I do.”
“Did he say anything about Clooney?”
“Just that it wasn’t his doing, and he was sorry I’d been dragged into the story.” She paused. “But it does worry me. The connection Scarlatti mentioned.”
“There must have been more to the meeting! How did it play out? What did he say?”
The line had been reached. The line Lucy had already drawn in her mind. The one she wouldn’t cross.
She deflected.
“I’ll tell you sometime. But right now, I’m exhausted. I need to get home, get a night’s sleep, and then figure out how I’m going to explain all this to my principal after Carla Scarlatti leaks to the world the fact that I was arrested.”
Olivetti sighed. “Okay. But you need to understand something. You’re playing a dangerous game having contact with Dominic Lanza.”
“You can rest easy. There won’t be any more contact.”
It was a smooth lie, but one Lucy had planned for. She didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty.
A dubious lesson in amorality, learned from a master.
25
Lucy’s arrest never did hit the papers.
She figured Floyd Jackson’s letter to the Office of Professional Standards in Trenton, with copies served personally on Scarlatti and Geary, had probably dampened Scarlatti’s enthusiasm for ruining her life. At first, her attorney had relished the prospect of filing a civil rights cas
e against both officers. But after hearing Lucy’s carefully edited narration of events, under the convenient protection of attorney-client privilege, he was alarmed enough to suggest that an Internal Affairs complaint would be deterrent enough. He doubted a jury would understand Lucy’s admission that she’d met with a notorious Mob boss not just once, but twice.
Lucy was fine with that, especially since she hadn’t bothered to tell the lawyer about her third meeting with Dominic.
The lead-up to the meeting had felt vaguely ridiculous, like being dropped into a third-rate spy novel. On Friday, she’d come out of the school at the end of the day to find a slip of paper tucked under the driver’s side windshield wiper of her car. It bore a single hand-printed word:
CALL
She had waited until after ten that night before using the Nokia.
“Lucy. We need to meet.”
Lucy?
Apparently her new partner in crime had decided “Lucinda” was too formal for a discussion between trusted allies.
“Do you know what happened to me? After last time?”
“I heard about your ordeal.”
“Fortunately, no one else has.”
“I’ll come to you.”
“Where?”
“Your home. Tomorrow night.”
“Are you sure? I mean—”
“I understand your concern. We have ways. Turn off all the lights in the rear half of your house and leave a glass door unlocked.”
“The door on the left. If you come after nine, Kevin will be asleep.”
“I’d like to meet him.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“Is this the Psych major talking?”
“I suppose it is.”
“Do you know how surreal that sounds?”
“I suppose it does.”
“All right. Come at eight.”
“See you then.”
* * *
Dominic arrived on the dot of eight. He stepped through the curtains into Lucy’s office, shut the sliding door behind him, locked it, looked at her and said, “I walked from Avenue A. Carlo has the other phone. We’ll use yours to tell him when to pick me up.”
“This must be important.”
“It is. We can discuss it after Kevin is in bed.”
Storm Rising Page 17
