Secondhand Smoke

by Karen E. Olson

Dick had thought it was my father. I had thought it was my father. But it was Pete. He was the one who shot at us.

  “How do you know this?” I asked.

  “We got word.” Which meant the guy Pete was supposed to meet must have been there, must have seen the whole thing.

  “Vinny said the cops were watching you, so I knew you’d be okay overnight,” my father was saying. “But I wanted to see you this morning.”

  He took a deep breath. “Just so you know, Annie, Pete really fucked up when he shot up Dom’s house. Until then, I might have been able to help him. But you can’t do that shit and get away with it. Dom’s a respected member of the community.”

  The cop cars swung into the parking lot as I digested that information. I recognized Tom’s car, and when the ambulance turned the corner, I sighed with relief.

  I glanced at my father’s face, which had gotten even grayer. I pushed his hair back off his forehead. “Are you doing okay, Dad? The ambulance is here.”

  He closed his eyes, and he tried to catch his breath. It was as if a vise had clamped itself across my chest.

  Tom’s car door opened, and I saw him using it as a shield, his gun drawn.

  “It’s okay, Tom,” I shouted. “He’s gone, but my father’s been shot.” I looked at my dad, and he stirred a little; he was way too quiet. His lips were colorless.

  Tom jogged over with a few uniforms close behind and pulled me away from my dad, and I struggled for a minute before I saw the paramedics and their gurney.

  “They have to take care of him. I’ll take you to the hospital,” Tom said gently.

  I let myself go limp then, and I felt Tom’s arms around me, leading me away. “Who shot him, Annie?”

  “Pete Amato. But he’s gone.” It wasn’t a lie.

  He frowned. “Why?”

  “He thought my dad killed Sal.” I tried to glance back, to see what was going on with my dad, but Tom steered me back. “I should go with him,” I tried.

  “We’ll be there as soon as we can,” he said. He flipped his chin at another detective. “I’ll take her to the hospital, Dave. Can you handle this here?”

  Dave nodded.

  “Pete Amato,” Tom told him flatly. “Find him.” He turned to me. “What’s he driving?”

  I described the battered blue pickup, and Tom nodded at Dave, who was writing everything down in a small notebook.

  The TV vans were lined up just outside the fence surrounding the rink on State Street. I glimpsed Dick Whitfield and Wesley Bell, his cameras dangling around his neck, but I let Tom put me in his car and turned the other way.

  “I don’t want anyone to see me,” I said.

  “Don’t worry. Just scootch down a little,” Tom said as he got behind the wheel.

  We drove out of the lot, Tom looking straight ahead and ignoring everything that was going on around us. I huddled on the floor like a fugitive. After a few minutes, Tom said I could get up.

  “So tell me what’s going on,” he said. “Where did Pete go, and why did he think your father killed Sal Amato?”

  I told him almost everything I knew, which was fairly substantial once I started telling it. When I was done, I started shaking so much that Tom pulled over, parked, and put his arms around me.

  “It’s okay. You’re okay,” he whispered into my hair as I sobbed. His voice was so soothing, and I turned my face up toward him. Without thinking about it, I kissed him, but we both knew I didn’t mean it. I just wanted to feel something.

  It was too bad it didn’t work.

  “So who killed Sal Amato?” Tom asked, and I was thankful he was ignoring the kiss.

  I shrugged, then told him how Sal was in the restaurant to kill the chickens.

  “That’s when I found out my neighbor’s crazy,” I said, telling him about Amber’s penchant for poultry.

  Tom chuckled. “We had a couple of uniforms over there making sure those picketers didn’t get out of hand,” he said. “What the hell’s wrong with those people?”

  “She keeps leaving those stupid tofu recipes under my door. . . .” My voice trailed off as I remembered our exchange this morning. Or, rather, what she was wearing when she left.

  “It was her,” I said quietly.

  “What?”

  “Amber. She was wearing a big puffy coat with a hood this morning, just like the person I saw in the restaurant when I found Sal’s body.” I stared at Tom.

  The reality of what I was saying started to dawn on him. “You can’t mean that she killed Sal because he killed those chickens?”

  I had no doubt that she would sacrifice a human for a stupid bird.

  “We better find her, then, bring her in and talk to her,” Tom said, and I listened as he called headquarters and arranged to have a couple of uniforms go over to my building.

  “I should call my mother,” I said, remembering then that my cell phone was in my purse, which was still in my car at the ice rink.

  Tom handed me his phone, and I called my mother’s office. Her secretary said she’d already heard about my father and was headed to the hospital. Without thinking, I dialed Vinny’s office number.

  The phone rang and rang, the machine didn’t pick up. So I dialed his home number.

  “Hello?” It was a female voice.

  I wasn’t in the mood to talk to Rosie, but I had to let Vinny know what was going on. “Is Vinny there?” I asked.

  “Who is this?”

  “Annie Seymour. Listen, I need to talk to him. It’s urgent.”

  I heard a heavy sigh. “He’s not here. He hasn’t been here since yesterday morning. I’m surprised you don’t know where he is. Try his office.” She hung up.

  Tom was watching me out of the corner of his eye as I dialed Vinny’s cell phone. It rang and rang, just like his office phone.

  Something wasn’t right.

  “Tom, Vinny was on to Pete last night, he was checking the computer, tracking the money. And now I can’t find him.” I hated asking him this, but I had to. “Can we stop at his office? That’s where he told me he was going last night.”

  I was asking a lot, I knew that. But a fear started growing in my gut that something awful had happened to Vinny, maybe worse than my dad. And in that instant when I heard Tom say, “No problem,” I knew. I knew that it was completely over with Tom, even if Vinny never left Rosie.

  Tom drove to Vinny’s office on Trumbull Street, and we pulled up and got out. Cobb Doyle let us in, but Vinny’s office door was locked. We could see through the frosted glass that it was dark inside.

  “I just got in, but I don’t think he’s here,” Cobb told us.

  “Vinny!” Tom called out, but only silence answered him. My mouth was too dry to say anything. Tom turned to me. “It doesn’t seem like he’s here.”

  “What if he’s hurt or something?”

  “Give me your scarf.”

  I handed it to him, and he wrapped it around his hand and crashed it through the glass. He reached inside and turned the knob. I watched as he went in and quickly searched the office.

  “He’s not here,” he said, coming back out, and I took a deep breath, relieved on the one hand but still worried.

  Tom’s phone rang. After answering he nodded a couple of times and said, “Yeah . . . okay . . . no problem,” before he hung up. “Your father’s in surgery. Your mother’s at the hospital. What do you want to do?”

  A thought dawned on me. “Maybe Vinny went to Dominic Gaudio’s looking for my father,” I suggested.

  “I’ll check that out,” Tom said, “after I take you to the hospital.”

  I nodded mutely and followed him back to the car. I stared through the window but didn’t see anything along the way. Tom pulled up in front of the hospital entrance.

  “I’ll let you off here,” he said.

  “You’re not coming in?”

  “I’m going over to Gaudio’s, and I have to find out if anyone’s found Amber. You have to go see your mother.”

&nb
sp; I smiled weakly. “Thanks, Tom. I really mean it.”

  He touched my chin gently and smiled. I got out of the car and went through the big automatic doors without looking back.

  Chapter 28

  My mother’s face was almost as gray as my dad’s. She stood up, smoothing out the black wool skirt of her suit, and smiled weakly.

  “He’s in surgery.” Her voice was almost a whisper as she pulled me into her arms. I started to cry, and I felt her hand stroking my hair. “He’ll pull through this. He’s tough, you know that.” Her words wrapped themselves around me as we sank into the stiff chairs in the waiting room.

  I forced myself to stop crying and pulled a tissue out of my pocket. “Who called you?”

  “Your detective.”

  “Tom?”

  She nodded. “I was at the courthouse, with Mickey. For the arraignment. One of my colleagues was there on another case, and he offered to take over for me.”

  “Mickey’ll be out soon,” I said, and I went into the whole story, reciting it the way I’d write it, without emotion, without judgment. She listened, frowning at times, especially when I told her about the shooting at Dominic Gaudio’s, but didn’t say anything and sighed when I finished with my father getting into the ambulance.

  “Mickey thought LeeAnn was killed by the Mob.”

  “Why?”

  “Mickey found out in Boston that LeeAnn had been delivering Sal’s payments. She made a payment when they were up there. He’d followed her, then confronted her. She told him it was no big deal, really downplayed it, but he knew better.”

  So he wasn’t stupid.

  “They had a big fight, and she took off. When he got back and found out she was dead, he got nervous. He found out from Mac that your father was in town, and he tried to get him to tell him what was going on.”

  I remembered how he’d found me that day after the diner and asked where my father was. “Why would he talk to Dad?” As soon as I asked it, I mentally kicked myself. That was a stupid question.

  My mother thought it was a stupid question, too, I could see that from the look on her face.

  Another thought seeped into my head. “Tom’s looking for Vinny. He’s not home and not at his office.”

  “He was at the courthouse. I saw him when I got there.”

  “He’s not answering his cell phone.”

  “That’s odd. He was talking on his phone when I saw him.”

  Pete was already following me to the ice rink when my mother saw Vinny at the courthouse. So Vinny must be okay. But where the hell was he?

  “You didn’t see him when you left to come here?” I asked my mother.

  She shook her head. “I don’t think I noticed anyone on my way here. I just had to get here.”

  I smiled involuntarily, and her eyes narrowed. “Don’t think it’s because I’m still in love with your father, Annie. I do love him, but I’m not in love with him. I can’t erase twenty years of marriage, raising a child with him. Of course I had to be here.”

  “Did you call Suzette?”

  “Yes. She’s going to call when she gets a flight, and I’ll get a car to pick her up in Hartford and bring her down here.”

  Just then the door at the far end of the room slammed open, and I saw Paula walking toward us. Vinny was right behind her.

  “Tom told us you were here,” Paula started, but before she could finish, I was standing with Vinny’s arms wrapped around me.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  I nodded, then pulled back. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been worried sick.”

  He nodded his head at Paula. “Blame her. She picked me up in front of the courthouse before I could even go in to Mickey’s arraignment.”

  Paula stared at the floor for a second, then looked up at me. “We found out your father had been at Dominic Gaudio’s, but no one was there when we got there this morning. We thought for sure Vinny knew where he was.”

  “So you were going to try to strong-arm him into telling you?” I asked.

  Her face turned pink. “We had no idea what was going down.”

  “I told them our suspicions about Pete,” Vinny said. “I didn’t find out too much from the computer, but there was a lot of money being deposited, then taken out in cash. I knew you’d come to the courthouse and we could figure out a game plan from there.”

  “I tried to call your cell phone,” I said to Vinny.

  He glanced at Paula. “Blame her. They turned it off when they questioned me.”

  “Where are the rest of your G-men?” I asked Paula.

  She snorted. “They said I could handle this. Yeah, now that they have egg all over their faces.” Her eyes darted around the room. “I didn’t say that.”

  Vinny squeezed my hand. “How’s your father?”

  “We haven’t heard anything yet.”

  “He’s going to make it. He’s strong,” Vinny said, echoing my mother’s words. I knew that, I just needed to hear it.

  I sat next to my mother and noticed for the first time the two cops on the other side of the room.

  “They have to be here. They have to talk to him after the surgery,” my mother said.

  I knew Tom would be back. This time he would be the one asking the questions, and I’d have to answer. I couldn’t get away with “No comment” in an official police investigation.

  Which also meant, yes, there was Dick Whitfield loping through the doors toward us. He had no business being here.

  But I wasn’t in the mood for a fight. Or an interrogation from the boy wonder. This one I could say “No comment” to. I braced myself, tightening my grip on Vinny’s hand as Dick stood before me.

  “Hey, Annie, I’m sorry,” he said.

  I would’ve done the same thing. Play on the emotions, get those barriers to go down. He had to have known I knew all the tricks, all the ways to get the victims to talk.

  “Tell Marty I don’t have anything to say, okay?” I said, my voice hard.

  He shrugged. “I’m not here to write a story, Annie.”

  The look on my face and the fact that I couldn’t say anything invited him to continue.

  “Marty thinks I have a conflict. You know, because of the shooting last night and the restraining order threat and all. He’s putting Renee on the story. I just wanted to let you know how sorry I am about your dad.”

  I finally found my tongue. “He’s not dead, Dick. He’s just in surgery. How the hell did you get up here, anyway?”

  “I know someone at the desk downstairs.”

  He knew someone? Oh, God, I didn’t want to think about it. He actually had a source at the hospital. Which was a fucking smart thing.

  “And what’s this about Renee? Christ, she’s good for the soup kitchen stories, but this? How the hell does Marty think she’s going to be able to handle this?” I found myself standing face-to-face with Dick.

  He shrugged again. “I don’t know, but he’s got Kevin down at the courthouse dealing with the Mickey Hayward angle, and Renee’s talking to the cops about Pete Amato.”

  I was going to have to tell Marty what happened. The cops wouldn’t tell Renee anything, and I didn’t want the story fucked up.

  Vinny’s arm was around me. “Annie, I think maybe you need to relax a little.”

  I snorted. “Relax?”

  “Forget about the paper for a little while and be here with your mom. I have to get going.”

  And with his words, I forgot about the paper, I forgot about Marty, and I forgot about Dick Whitfield, even though I could still smell the McDonald’s French fries scent emanating from his person. I looked at Vinny. “You have to go?”

  He walked me away from everyone and to the doors that led back into the hallway. “I have something that can’t wait.” He put his fingers under my chin and lifted my face toward his. “I’ll be back.” His lips brushed mine, and he left me standing there.

  MY MOTHER WAS touching my arm, asking me to wake up. I squinted an
d caught the blue scrubs of a masked doctor standing in front of us.

  “He’s still critical, but he’ll pull out of this,” the doctor was telling my mother.

  She nodded, smiling, tears in her eyes, and she pulled me up and hugged me.

  “It’s going to be a bit of a recuperation. I understand he lives in Las Vegas?”

  I didn’t hear anything more. The doctor spoke softly to my mother, and I glanced around and saw Tom leaning against the wall across the room. I went over to him. “Hey,” I said. “Doctor says he’s going to be okay.”

  He nodded, smiling, but something was missing, something I’d gotten used to seeing and was gone for good now.

  “Do you need my statement now?” I asked.

  “We can go across the hall and do it there, okay? Paula’s coming along.”

  I noticed her then, still waiting, like the rest of us. “Sure.”

  Something else, or rather someone else, was missing, too. Vinny hadn’t come back yet. Had he said he was going to?

  The questions just kept coming and coming. I told them everything I knew. My father would have to fill in the holes when he woke up. I still couldn’t believe that Pete Amato had tried to kill both of us. Had killed LeeAnn.

  But then I remembered Amber.

  “Did you find my neighbor, Tom?”

  Tom and Paula exchanged a look.

  “What?” I asked.

  “This isn’t the first time she’s been involved in something criminal,” Tom said. “Six years ago, she was living in Virginia and a farmer got killed. Seems he owned a chicken farm, but he wasn’t looking to sell eggs. He was raising chickens to be slaughtered for one of those fast-food chains. They found him with his throat slit and the chickens were gone.” He paused. “Amber’s boyfriend is serving a life term. She was never charged. She testified against him, but he claims it was all her idea. So it’s he said/she said. Jury bought her story and locked him up.”

  “And she moved here,” Paula said. “One of the cops down there called us when she moved, said we might want to keep an eye on her. He thought she had more to do with it but couldn’t prove it. But she kept her nose clean here. She still protested the treatment of chickens, but the protests were uneventful. We stopped paying attention to her, especially after 9/11. We just didn’t have time for someone like her.”