My brain tells me to act fast. Find something to pick up this knife with so I don’t contaminate the prints. Then get the hell out of there quick. Mounted to the wall beside the phone, a long roll of brown paper, like a butcher might stock. I go to it, rip off a piece, bring it back with me to the knife. I pick the knife up with the paper, wrap it up, shove it inside my flannel shirt.
I hear ringing bells, indicating the flower shop front door is opening. I jump back over to the phone, my left arm pressed against my side to secure the knife. With my right hand, I grab the phone, and as Wool Overcoat passes by, I bark, “On my way, boss!”
I don’t hang up the phone so much as slam it back on its cradle.
Wool Overcoat stops inside the open doorway. He’s got a large Dunkin Donuts coffee in one hand, and a bag of donuts in the other.
“What is it?” he asks.
“You were right,” I say, with a shake of the head. “Just a screw up. The order goes to another flower shop on Central Avenue in Schenectady, not Albany. I apologize for the mistake. I’ll be on my way.”
I make my way past him, start back down the corridor to the door that accesses the delivery bays. On my way past Anatoly’s office, I can’t help but take a quick look inside his open door. He’s seated at his desk, smoking the crap out of a cigarette, going over some papers laid out on his desk. He senses someone staring at him, so he looks up quickly. I don’t know why I do it, but I offer him a nod, then keep on going.
“You!” he shouts. “Wait!”
I stop dead in my tracks.
“Come back here.”
Heart pumping in my throat, I take a couple steps back.
“Excuse me?” I say.
I’m not looking directly at Anatoly. Rather, I’m averting my eyes, so that he doesn’t see my eyeglasses, but instead, the brim of my filthy baseball hat.
“Do I know you?” he says, in his heavily accented Russian.
“I don’t think so, sir,” I say. “I drive for Capital Florist Supply. They screwed up and sent me here by mistake this morning.”
Wool Overcoat squeezes past me, enters the office, sets the coffee and donuts onto the desk.
“About time,” Anatoly grumbles.
“There was a long line of people,” Wool Overcoat says. “This man here is going now, da?”
Anatoly smokes and waves me off. Not like he’s saying goodbye, but like he’s shooing away a common household pest. My left arm feels like it’s losing its circulation, and I’m growing dizzy from my speeding pulse. Stepping away from the open door, I practically lunge for the exterior door, opening it and stepping out onto the metal staircase. Descending the stairs two at a time, I take it double-time to the truck, thrust myself back behind the wheel, and fire it up. I gaze out the windshield when I reach into my flannel shirt and retrieve the knife, which I then carefully place under the seat.
Throwing the tranny in reverse, I back up. Then, grinding the gear back into first, I pull out of the lot, making a right onto Central Avenue. I don’t steal my first breath until the full receding reflection of The Flower Man store is safely in my rearview mirror.
It dawns on me that I never planned for what to do with the truck once my mission at The Flower Man store was completed. Maybe in the back of my mind, I thought Anatoly would recognize me for who I am and shoot me dead on the spot, or worse, cut my head off inside his workroom. But then, despite the train wreck that is my life, I’m not usually that pessimistic.
I drive in the direction of Broadway and the Hudson River.
Choices: I can either ditch the truck on the side of the road somewhere. Maybe along State Street in the downtown and simply Uber it back to my Mustang. Or, I can call Miller and do things the proper way, even if it means I’m about to get chewed out.
I decide to be a big boy and go with the latter.
Pulling over on State Street, directly across the street from the famous Jack’s Steak House, I then retrieve my cell phone, speed-dial Miller. While I wait for him to answer, I gaze through the tinted glass at the now empty Jack’s bar, where Albany’s high rollers, bankers, and financiers will belly up to post-workday martinis to celebrate their successes or drown their sorrowful losses. They might then retire to the old dining room where waiters dressed in black tuxedos draped by body-length white aprons will serve big bloody steaks and more martinis.
“Jobz,” Miller says, his tone not exactly jovial. “Where are you?”
“Can you come pick me up?”
I tell him where I am.
“The condition of the truck?”
“All good, Heffe,” I lie. “Not a scratch.”
“Good because the owner of Capital Flowers won’t press charges if it’s returned with a full tank of gas within the hour. Neither will that kid you jumped.”
I guess now’s a bad time to tell him about the bullet hole in the windshield.
“I’ve got something you’re going to want to see,” I tell him instead.
He pauses for a moment. “Is it what we need?”
“I’m not sure it’s exactly what we need, but it’s long, razor sharp, it’s got blood on it, and prints.”
“Holy crap,” he says. “Don’t touch it and stay put. I’ll be right there along with a blue and white.”
“I’ll be waiting,” I say.
The line goes dead.
I don’t return the busted smartphone to my pocket. Instead, I thumb the RING app, check the McGovern grounds. I don’t expect to see much happening there this morning after what went down overnight. As I expected, all seems quiet. The front door, the driveway, the neighborhood road . . . they’re are all quiet. The Albany cop cruiser is still parked against the curb, only a few feet from the end of the driveway. The wide expanse of front lawn is quiet too, but there’s something about the leftover rose petals fluttering in the morning breeze that makes me sick to my stomach. Or the small patch of winter brown grass now stained with Megan Barker’s blood.
A blue and white pulls up on my tail, its flashers flashing, its sirens blaring. Another unmarked cruiser pulls in front of me at an angle. It would be impossible for me to escape even if I wanted too. I stuff the smartphone back in my pocket.
Miller gets out from the passenger side seat on the unmarked cruiser, approaches the truck. I roll down the window.
“You sure do know how to make an entrance, Miller,” I say.
“I like being dramatic sometimes,” he says. “Breaks up the day.
He’s wearing an old-fashioned fedora which protects his full jarhead of white hair from the bone cold. He’s also wearing a long Burberry trench coat and brown leather gloves.
“What are you, Kojak?” I say.
He makes a smirk. “Who loves ya, baby.”
“Where’s your lollypop?”
For people not in the know, Kojak was a detective show my mother used to watch when I was a kid. Big bald guy by the name of Telly Savalas used to play the wisecracking gumshoe character. Instead of a cigarette, he was always sucking on a lollypop.
“Dispense with the jokes and let’s have it,” he says. Of course, I know what he’s talking about, and I’m perfectly happy about getting it out of my sight. Reaching under the seat, I pull the brown paper-covered knife out and hand it to him.
He immediately brings it back over to the car, hands it to the cop who’s sitting behind the wheel. Making his way back to me, he gazes at the cop cruiser behind me. He gives the cops that occupy it a wave. The cruiser doors open, and they get out, make their way to where Miller is standing.
“You can get out now, Jobz,” Miller says, his face strangely stoic, and hard looking. So is his tone of voice.
I open the door, get out of the truck.
“Steve Jobz,” Miller says. “I hate to do this, but I gotta bring you in for questioning.”
My entire circulatory system goes cold.
“What for?” I say. “That stupid truck incident? Because I never intended the gun to go off-”
&nbs
p; Miller is shaking his head.
“Not at all,” he states. “I’m taking you in as a suspect in the first-degree murder of Megan Barker, Esquire.”
I’m seated in the backseat of Miller’s cruiser. Like most cop cruisers approaching one-hundred-thousand miles, the heat hardly works, and it smells like old tuna fish. I’ve reluctantly given him my car keys, and he’s sent someone to fetch my Mustang at the elderly home across the street from the Central Florist.
“I know my rights, Miller,” I say. “I want a lawyer.”
He’s got his left arm relaxed on the seatback, his back positioned in the corner between the seat and the car door.
“You only need a lawyer if you’re guilty,” he says, pulling down on the brim of his fedora. “Plus, you’ll notice I didn’t cuff you, nor did I tell you, you were under arrest. I only told you I gotta bring you in for questioning due to the fact that you’re a suspect.”
“What about the McGoverns?” I say. “My assignment to keep a careful watch on them and the property.”
“That blue and white is still parked outside the house,” he says, “and you’ll have plenty of time to spend with the McGoverns later.”
“Goodie,” I say.
“Look on the bright side, Jobz,” Miller says, glancing at his wristwatch. “It’s coffee and donut time at the precinct. You play your cards right, there’ll be a chocolate frosted waiting for you.”
“You really know how to brighten up my day, Miller.”
He smiles, shifts his torso so that he now faces the road.
“Who loves ya, baby,” he says.
Minutes later we pull up to the Albany Police Department Central Avenue Precinct. Miller doesn’t take me into his office, but places me inside an interview room. The room is square with a metal table positioned in the center. There’s no windows, but one of the walls houses a two-way mirror. I wave at the mirror and smile for whoever is on the other side.
As promised, Miller brings me a coffee along with packets of sugar and powdered cream and swizzle stick to mix it all up. He also sets a chocolate frosted donut in front of me on a white napkin. Tearing open the powdered cream, I dump it into the coffee, stir it with the swizzle stick. The donut goes ignored.
Miller sits down across from me, sets a legal pad down on the table.
“You not gonna eat your donut?” he says. “I went to great pains to save it for you.”
“Guess now I have to,” I say.
I pick up the donut, take a bite out it. It’s fresh and good. But I’m not very hungry considering the grilling I’m about to endure.
“Can we get this over with already,” I say, sipping my hot coffee. It takes like rust, but at least it’s got caffeine in it.
Miller clears his throat, stares at the two-way mirror.
“Can you hear me?” he asks.
“Good to go, Captain,” a tinny voice answers over the room’s internal PA.
He turns back to me.
“Name.”
“Steve Jobz. It’s short for Jobzcynski.”
“Age.”
I tell him.
“Place of residence.”
I tell him that too.
“Occupation.”
“I work for you.”
He looks at me with a scowl, as if he’s telling me to, Play right.
“To clarify, I’m employed by the New York State Unemployment Insurance Fraud Agency. On occasion, I work for the Albany Police Department when they encounter a job and/or a case they can’t tend to on their own, for whatever reason.”
“I’d say that covers it,” Miller says. Then, “Now, Mr. Jobz, do you have any idea why I’ve called you in this morning?”
“Let me guess,” I say. “Megan Barker, Esquire.”
“Very good,” he says. “Pathology performed an emergency autopsy on her last night. Turns out she’d had sexual relations with a male only a few hours prior to her murder. After performing an internal, the DNA sample collected was tested and found to match the same DNA sequence you have on file as both a former cop and now, a special contract employee of the APD.” He sits back in his chair, gazes quickly at the mirror, but then looks me in the eyes. “So how do you respond to that?”
For a brief few seconds, I see myself back inside Megan Barker’s State Street office. See her half standing, half seated on her desk provocatively. See her on the couch pressed up against me.
I steal a sip of coffee. Then, “As you know, Ms. Barker is, or was, Mr. McGovern’s lawyer. She was representing his lawsuit against Natalia Brezinski, an associate producer at the local FOX News affiliate they both work for. You’ll recall Ms. Brezinski accused McGovern of sending her texted photos of his genitalia. After spending some time with the McGoverns and after acquiring significant evidence that suggested the lawsuit against Ms. Brezinski was bogus since Mr. McGovern did, in fact, send the photos to Natalia, I decided to visit Megan Barker to get her take on the situation.”
“What did you hope to achieve in meeting with her?” Miller asks.
“Something isn’t right with the McGovern home situation.”
“How’s that?” Miller presses.
“Terry and his wife have a strange relationship. She is fully aware of his philandering yet puts up with it. She also messes around, and in fact, there’s ample evidence to suggest she is sleeping with and/or has slept with Anatoly Brezinski, aka, The Flower Man. If that’s not enough, the McGoverns are also broke and in grave debt. Dangerous debt. And even though the APD was originally called in after the McGoverns reported phoned-in death threats over the lawsuit, Terry strangely made the decision not to call the cops after being shot at by someone driving the same black sedan that had followed me back to my houseboat a couple of mornings ago. A black sedan that happens to be registered to The Flower Man’s parent company, Tsvesty Enterprises. The same sedan, we suspect that was used to transport Megan Barker’s head to the McGovern front lawn.”
Miller nods. “Let me back up a bit to when you were followed by that same sedan to your houseboat. That’s when you received your own death threat if I recall.”
I nod, drink some more coffee. “So, to get back to your original question, Detective Miller. What did I hope to accomplish with Megan Barker? I wondered if she might stretch the rules of client/attorney privilege and perhaps shed some light on Mr. McGovern’s situation. What exactly is it he and his wife are trying to hide? How is it they still live in a mansion they can’t afford? How are they able to spend money they don’t have on lavish dinners and household goods? Christ, how is it they’re able to pay the electric bill much less the glass repair for the living room window that was shot out by what we now suspect was Anatoly Brezinski and/or his men?”
“And did your meeting prove fruitful?”
“Barker told me she was dropping the case,” I say.
“She was doing this with or without Mr. McGovern’s consent?”
“Later on, Terry McGovern revealed to me that he had been calling Megan Barker, but not getting through, which he found strange.”
“The reason for his call?”
“He said he wanted to call off the lawsuit.”
“So, both McGovern and Ms. Barker wanted to drop the suit, irrespective of one another’s personal intentions.”
I cock my head, purse my lips.
“It’s possible that’s how it turned out.”
“So, in the course of your impromptu meeting with Ms. Barker, you both decided to have sex.”
“Is that a question, Miller?”
He smiles.
“It’s a statement of fact based upon the physical and circumstantial evidence at hand. What I’m trying to get on record here, Mr. Jobz, is that although you are intimate with what’s turning out to be Ms. Barker’s final case, and although you were physically intimate with her in every consensual manner possible, you had nothing whatsoever to do with her murder.” He gazes into the mirror again. “Will you be willing to back that up under oath if need be
? Maybe take a Polygraph?”
Picking up the donut, I steal another big bite, wash it down with a swig of coffee.
“So help me God,” I say with a mouthful of dough.
Miller nods at me, then gives the mirror one last look.
“I’m good if you’re good,” he says.
“I’m good,” says a voice through the PA. A voice different from the first voice.
Miller grabs his legal pad, stands.
“Let’s go back to my office,” he says.
“Good,” I say. “This room sucks.”
Miller goes around his desk, pulls his side-arm from his hip holster, sets it on the desk. He sits down, exhales, then rolls the sleeves up on his white button down. As a final gesture, he opens the bottom right-hand desk drawer, pulls out a bottle Jameson along with two drinking glasses. He fills them both with generous shots. Picking one of them up, he sets it on the edge of the desk just inches from where I’m standing.
The Flower Man Page 15
