by G. K. Parks
“Fine, I’ll be showing an apartment, but I’ll probably grab a quick drink before going home. If you can get there before I leave, then I’ll speak to you tonight. But only for five minutes. I’m a busy woman, and I don’t have time for this foolishness.”
“Yes, ma’am.” After writing down the address, I left the conference room, noting Lucca a few steps behind me.
“I won’t mention you or anything that you’ve discovered while at Coker’s gym,” Lucca said as we rode the elevator to the garage together. “Since your new friend is connected to the gym, we might need you to speak to him again, so I don’t want to burn you faster than you tend to burn yourself.”
“Whatever. You should know how to ask a few questions without someone holding your hand,” I deadpanned. “Just don’t piss them off. Linka’s like a bear, and Ron has a hell of an uppercut.”
“Thanks, but I’ll be fine.”
We parted ways, and I put on my game face, slipped back into the cool, impenetrable façade of a federal agent, drove to the bar, and went inside. Mrs. Britt was laughing and touching a woman’s forearm. Even from this distance, I could tell it was an act. The couple she was speaking to looked antsy. Perhaps they were on the fence about renting an apartment or making a buy, so I gave them space. The last thing I needed was for Britt to be in a foul mood before asking her if she recognized anyone from the photo array I had stuffed in my bag.
Taking an unobtrusive seat a few stools away from Britt and her clients, I ordered a sparkling water and studied my surroundings. The place was reasonably crowded, but no one stood out as sinister. Frankly, everyone looked overworked and exhausted, unless I was projecting. Ten minutes later, the couple left, exchanging a round of handshakes and promises to follow-up. I waited a polite fifteen seconds after they cleared the front door and then moved down to the unoccupied stool.
“Good evening, Mrs. Britt,” I greeted, “thanks for taking a moment out of your day.”
She sighed dramatically. “What do you want?”
“Look, two people are dead, actually three, and you might be able to help us find the killer. It’ll just take two minutes to go through these photos. Tell me if you recognize anyone, and I’ll be on my way. Unless something else surfaces, we won’t bother you again.”
“That’s what the agents said last time.” She took the stack of glossies and flipped through the images. Her manicured nails came to rest on the third photo. She laid it on top of the bar and scanned through the rest of the images before returning to the one she removed. “I don’t know. He sort of looks familiar.”
“From the open house?”
“No,” she squinted, “I’m thinking we might have bumped into each other a different day.”
“Where?”
“The office building where the open house was but before that.” She bit her bottom lip and shook her head. “I don’t know. People bump into me all the time. I could be wrong, or he could look like someone that was walking down the street that I passed today or something. I try to remember faces because that’s a good business practice. However, worrying with strangers isn’t one of my concerns.”
“What about the others?”
“No, they aren’t familiar.” She gave the photo of Elias Facini one last look and then put forty dollars on the bar. “Please make sure this is the last time I’m questioned. I’m far too busy to do my job and yours too.” Haughtily, she walked out of the bar.
Well, on the bright side, her generous tip covered my sparkling water. I went back to the car, wondering how Facini could keep popping up at every turn but without providing any evidence to use against him. Something was missing.
I was the first to return to the federal building, and there didn’t seem to be any reason why I couldn’t ask Facini a few questions while I waited for my cohorts to arrive. Once Facini was settled into an interrogation room, I made sure the AV equipment was working properly and a technician was monitoring the feed. Then I stepped inside the room, closed the door, and took a seat across from the fighter.
“Do you want to call an attorney?” I asked.
“No.” He leaned back. His hands were cuffed in front of him, which wasn’t exactly protocol, but I didn’t believe he planned to escape or harm me. “You were right.”
“On the off chance that it happened more than once, do you think you can elaborate on which instance you’re referencing?”
“Coker paid for my former representation. Tim offered since he encouraged me and Gavin to scare off that man that stopped by. Since it was his fault we were being charged with assaulting some slimeball attorney, he provided us with a different slimeball attorney. His words, not mine. I didn’t know anyone had been killed. I mean,” he swallowed and scratched at his upper lip, “obviously, I heard about Hector. I’m not a bad guy. I don’t want to be on the wrong side of things.”
“What can you tell me about the office building across the street from the federal courthouse?”
“Parking’s a bitch, and the damn chiropractor doesn’t even validate.”
“So you’re familiar with the building and the area?” This wasn’t going well for Facini, but he didn’t seem to notice. Either he was brilliant, or he was an idiot. “Are you aware of any other office spaces inside that building?”
“I don’t know. Lawyers, accountants, some people in suits were always in the elevator whenever I had an appointment.” He narrowed his eyes. “What? Is it some black site for the CIA or something?”
“I couldn’t tell you. My clearance level isn’t that high.” Offering a smile, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to play along. “Do you have back problems?”
“My shoulder mostly.” He manipulated the left one around as best he could with the cuffs, and it made an audible popping sound. “I played baseball in high school, and the boxing tends to aggravate an old injury. The guys at the gym suggested a chiropractor since it seems like something’s misaligned.”
“Has it helped?” I stretched, letting him hear my vertebrae emit a similar sound. “Ever since I bruised my spine, I creak and pop like a hundred year old house.”
“Honestly, I can’t tell the difference. I’ve been going to the same guy for the last six months. Sometimes, it feels like it’s worse when I leave.”
“Do you have a standing appointment?”
“I go Tuesday mornings on my lunch hour.”
“What do you do for a living besides box, Mr. Facini?”
“I’m a consumer hotline representative which is the fancy way of saying I answer calls from disgruntled customers and take catalog orders from the few people left on the planet who don’t know how to use the internet. It’s not exactly glamorous, but it pays the bills.”
“Where were you on Friday?” I consulted the file to make sure I had the correct date of the shooting, even though that was chiseled in my brain, along with the rest of the irrefutable facts we knew, which were few and far between.
“At work. You can check if you don’t believe me. At least a dozen people saw me there. That other agent, the older guy, he said he would look into it.”
“I’m sure he did.” I rubbed my face. “Elias, why did you assault Mr. Fletcher? You don’t seem like a violent man or a stupid man. So what the hell were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t. It was a mistake. The gym is practically my second home. Those guys are my brothers. I didn’t want someone to threaten my home or my family.”
“Why did you think Mr. Fletcher was a threat? Did he say or do anything that led you to believe that?”
“He came inside and asked to see the place. I figured he was just another guy wanting to sign up to fight. A lot of corporate guys do. Tim showed him around. The next thing I know, the two of them are arguing, and Tim tells him that saying things like that could have drastic repercussions. As soon as the lawyer walked out, he called Gavin over and told him to make sure he didn’t come back again. Then Gavin got me to help. Like I said, it was a stupid mistake. I really wish I could
take it back.” He looked sheepish. “You said you could have the assault charges dropped if I cooperated. Isn’t this cooperating?”
“Yes.”
“Then how come I’m in handcuffs?”
“Because you’re still considered a suspect in a double homicide.” I held up my palm before he could voice a protest. “I’m going to check your alibi, and if you’re willing to have your chiropractor release your appointment schedule to us, I’ll do my best to get you out of here by morning.”
“Sure, I’ll release whatever you want. If you want DNA and fingerprints, I’ll hand those over to. Whatever you want. I just want this to be done.”
“There’s one other thing. You need to stay away from Coker’s gym and everyone affiliated with it for the rest of the week. Can you do that?”
“Sure, I guess.”
“Okay. Let me check on some things, and I’ll be right back.”
Twenty-seven
When Mark Jablonsky came into the conference room, he took one look at my note-covered whiteboard, put the Chinese takeout on the table, and said, “I thought I told you not to speak to Facini.”
“Did you? It must have slipped my mind.”
“You promised to cut him loose tomorrow. Any particular reason?”
“Fletcher dropped his complaint. The PD is willing to let it slide, and the DA doesn’t seem to care one way or the other. If he’s free and he’s responsible for the extortion, O’Connell will bust him, and that’ll be it.” I turned, watching Mark dig into a container of lo mein.
He pointed his chopsticks at the container closest to me. “Orange chicken.”
“You remembered, how sweet.” I peeled the paper off a second set of chopsticks and opened the container. Until this moment, I didn’t realize I was starving. “Get this, Facini’s chiropractor is on the same floor as the office our shooter used. Too bad he has an alibi.”
“I ran it myself, but maybe it’s possible Facini slipped out when no one was looking. I’d say he looks good for the killings. He has the training and know-how. He had an excuse to scout the location, and we know he’s capable of doing incredibly stupid things to protect his precious coach and gym. Beating up a guy is just a stone’s throw away from murder.”
“Yeah, but I’d say he’d bludgeon someone to death instead of using a high-powered rifle to shoot them.”
“He shoots for sport. He might have rationalized it as target practice. It’s one way to stave off a guilty conscience,” Mark suggested.
“The only hitch is the fact that Facini was at work, and he has a dozen co-workers vouching for him.” I speared a piece of chicken with a chopstick and popped it into my mouth. Unfortunately, chewing only bought so much time to think, and with the way this case was going, I’d need at least a decade to sort it out. “If Facini isn’t our shooter, and that’s a big fucking if, then it’s someone intimately aware of everything Elias does. Nothing else can possibly explain it.”
“I’ll get a list of his friends and family,” Mark offered. “In the meantime, try to punch some holes in his airtight alibi.”
It was late, and no matter how I spun it, there was no way that Elias Facini magically transported himself from his job across town to the office building across the street from the courthouse, then got inside a cab, took it to a different neighborhood, hopped the subway, and made it back to work without anyone noticing. The entire event would have taken at least two hours, and too many people saw him at work during that timeframe. He wasn’t our guy. Every shred of evidence pointed to him, but it wasn’t him.
“Here,” Jablonsky said, tossing a yellow legal pad on the table between us, “family, friends, co-workers, and everyone from his social media friends list.”
“I hate social media,” I muttered. Thankfully, it looked like Elias did too since there were only thirty-eight names on the list.
“Our computer techs said the shooter is definitely male, so I took the liberty of crossing out half the names.”
“Do we have a gym roster?” I asked, assuming whoever killed Briscoe must have a boxing connection.
“Tim Coker wouldn’t turn over the names, and there isn’t enough to compel him to do otherwise. Plus, we can’t be positive the shooter is a boxer wannabe. I’d put my money on the killer being involved in the gambling scene.”
“I hope you didn’t spend too much time coming up with that one,” I replied. “O’Connell’s looking into it since we have no basis. None of our evidence points to that. Hell, our evidence doesn’t point to anything. We have a smoking gun, but we don’t know who fired it.”
“I’m gonna tell you what I think.” He leaned back in the chair. “Will Briscoe Jr. was pissed at the old man. He was daddy’s disappointment, and no matter what he did, he never felt good enough. So he takes up boxing because he wants to show the old man that he’s just as good as the fighter Briscoe’s training. Obviously, the circuits overlap. Maybe Junior didn’t make the cut to fight, or he had his ass royally kicked. Regardless, the kid couldn’t hack it, and he quits.”
“Making him an even bigger disappointment,” I add.
“Which pisses Junior off even more, so he talks to some of the guys at the gym, tells them about his dad, the way his dad helps train the fighters, and wants someone to make sure that Briscoe is humiliated as a coach.”
“Depending on who Will Jr. spoke to, it could have compromised his father’s coaching strategy and Hector Santos’ fighting style. That could be the reason Santos was so badly beaten. Do you think the fights are fixed?” I asked.
“I don’t know. But the coaches know their fighters’ capabilities, and Junior might have tipped the scales in Coker’s favor,” Mark said.
“We’ve gone through Briscoe’s financials. There’s no indication he was betting on the fights.”
“No, but Tim Coker has been having money troubles. I bet it’s gotten worse since he lost Hector Santos to William Briscoe.”
“That’s why Tim made sure that Santos was down for the count with the last fight.” I inhaled deeply. “Coker bet on the fights. Shit, I wouldn’t put it past Tim to have a fighter take a dive if he thought he was going to lose, but the only way we can even get close to proving that is to get someone to talk. Unfortunately, it still doesn’t give us the shooter. Tim doesn’t fit the bill. He’s too short and stocky.”
“It’s just a theory,” Jablonsky muttered, “but it’s the only one I have.”
“Which means we need Will Briscoe to talk to us,” Agent Lucca said from the doorway. I didn’t notice when he came into the room, but he couldn’t have been there that long. “I spoke to the Greenwoods. Wow, they really like to talk.” He met my eyes. “You weren’t being mean when you said Linka’s like a bear. Although, I’d say she’s more like a teddy bear and probably just as cuddly.”
“Great, you can face off against her in the ring. However, I would like my teeth to remain in my mouth.”
Lucca laughed. “Yeah, I can see how that could be an issue.”
“What’d you learn, Eddie?” Mark asked, gesturing at an untouched takeout container which was probably cold by now.
“Coker’s gym would be going under if it weren’t for the Greenwoods. Tim has a strict coaching policy toward the men. Along with a strict training regimen, no girls are allowed to hang around. From what I gather, Coker sounds like a misogynist.”
“I could have told you that,” I muttered under my breath.
“Which makes the situation pretty damn hilarious that the majority of his paying customers are women. The female fighters are keeping his business afloat, or rather, the female non-competitive fighters since they’re the only ones paying membership fees at the gym. Most of the men are getting trained on contingency, and they haven’t had any star fighters in a long time. Coker has three other coaches working for him. Each coach has three or four fighters, and seventy-five percent of those men train on contingency. A cut of the profits goes to the coach, and the rest goes to Coker.” Lucca reach
ed across the table for the plastic wrapped flatware set. “It looks like an upside down pyramid scheme with the way the money flows from the bottom to the top. It’s no wonder Coker can’t seem to make ends meet.”
“We know he has money troubles,” Mark said, hoping to cut the running commentary short.
“Sort of.” Lucca opened the container and skewered his beef and broccoli with a fork, adding another unlikeable attribute to the growing list. “His fighters can’t hack it. The training routine is basic. The equipment is outdated. Coker’s old school, and it shows. According to Greenwood, a lot of fighters have jumped ship and moved to greener pastures. They much rather pay to fight well than train for free and have their asses kicked.”
“Not to mention, Tim’s new three strikes and you’re no longer training on contingency policy,” I said, considering the implications. “That means Santos should have won the fight, but Gavin Levere knew his moves because the two trained together. Even though Coker was calling out the combinations, Santos should’ve had a few new tricks up his sleeve. Dammit, we need to see the spread.” I pulled out my phone and dialed Fletcher while Mark and Eddie stared as if I were speaking to an invisible third party.
“Hello,” Fletcher said.
“Hey, do you remember the odds on the Santos versus Levere fight?”
“It’s boxing. They use a moneyline instead of a spread,” Fletcher began, explaining the minus and plus system for the favorite and the underdog. “I can probably find the exact numbers somewhere, but Levere was the underdog. Whoever bet on him must have made a killing that night.” He gulped into the phone. “Sorry, that was a poor choice of words.”
“Thanks,” I said, prepared to disconnect.
“Ms. Parker, that’s why Detective O’Connell thinks I was blackmailed,” he volunteered. “Have you reached the same conclusion?”
“What exactly does O’Connell think?” I asked, and Mark’s ears perked up. “Hang on. I’m putting you on speaker.” I hit a button. “Okay, go ahead.”
