Cavallaro, now fully awake, sat up and leaned against the headboard, rubbing the sleep from his crusted eyes. “How did you hear about that already?” he asked, knowing better than to use the man’s name over the phone.
“I would think the more important question would be, why didn’t you contact us?”
He swallowed nervously, knowing that the outcome of this phone call would likely determine not only the future course of his life, but how long it might continue.
“Am I correct in assuming that you took a rather large hit?”
“Yes.”
“How large?”
“All of it.”
The long pause in the conversation did nothing to assuage the laundromat owner’s fears.
“And you thought it prudent to involve the police?” the voice asked at last.
“I didn’t,” Cavallaro said. “A customer walked in during the robbery. He called the police.” Even as he spoke the words, he knew how little they would matter to the man on the other end of the phone.
“Who did this, Michael?”
“I don’t know. The police shot one of them but they haven’t released any names yet.”
Several moments passed before the caller spoke again.
“I’m sending someone to talk with you.”
The sun had risen over Casco Bay. The fiery ball of vermillion portended the approaching storm. Sea smoke rose from the ocean like rainwater hitting hot pavement. A by-product of the single-digit temperature. Byron sat alone in his unmarked, jammed in workday commuter traffic on his way back to Kennedy Park. A local talk show droned on the radio, but he wasn’t listening. His focus was on the investigation. He glanced up at the Chapman Building on Congress Street, and the familiar winter warning caught his eye. Snow. Ban. One at a time the words cycled through the lighted billboard messaging system atop the landmark high-rise, also known as the Time and Temperature Building. Only two words, but the message was clear. Any cars left on the street overnight would be towed. Parking in downtown Portland was scarce enough when the weather was favorable. And a storm threatening to dump more than a foot of the white stuff was anything but favorable.
Byron made the left turn onto Anderson, nearly colliding with a tow truck whose driver was operating partially on Byron’s side of the road and treating the stop sign as if it were a yield.
“Watch it, asshole!” Byron shouted as he swerved to the right while making eye contact with the young male driver.
The wrecker was a flatbed type hauling what looked like a junk car. The long-haired driver gave Byron a sheepish look and continued his right turn onto Cumberland Avenue.
A moment later Byron pulled over and parked behind an idling black-and-white. Moisture-laden exhaust curled up and around the rear of the cruiser forming a small cloud that hung in the still air, a reminder of just how cold it was, not that he needed one. Farther down the road, two local news vans were parked in front of their own plumes, waiting like vipers about to strike. As Byron exited his unmarked Chevy he saw Nugent approaching on foot. The bald detective’s pace suggested there had been a break.
“Gabe is looking for you,” Nugent said. “Think maybe we found something.”
“Hang on a sec,” Byron said as he approached the officer seated inside the cruiser.
“Morning, Sarge,” the officer said, quickly stepping out to greet him.
Byron recognized the sandy-haired rookie instantly. “Officer Cody, isn’t it?”
“Didn’t know if you’d remember me,” Cody said.
Nugent piped up. “Not remember you? Kid, you’re a legend. Passing out during the Ramsey autopsy was priceless.”
Cody blushed. “Sir, how is Officer Haggerty?”
Byron was impressed with the rookie’s genuine concern for Haggerty’s well-being. Haggerty had been Cody’s first field training officer after graduation from the Maine Criminal Justice Academy in Vassalboro. Perhaps there’s hope for the “me” generation after all, Byron thought.
“Having a pretty rough time of it, I imagine,” Byron said.
“Think he’d mind if I called him?”
“I think he’d appreciate hearing from you.”
Byron made a show of pointing toward the news vans, as he knew they were watching. “See those vultures parked down there, Officer?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t let those assholes anywhere near my scene.”
Cody grinned. “You got it, Sarge.”
Byron followed Nugent across the street and down an alley between two buildings. Pelligrosso was standing on an upside-down five-gallon bucket, which looked suspiciously like the one Byron had seen doubling as a trash receptacle inside the evidence van only hours earlier. Byron made a mental note to request additional evidence funding. The flattopped E.T. was photographing something near the top of a cyclone fence while Murphy looked on.
“Nice ladder, huh?” Nugent said.
“What have you got, Gabe?” Byron asked.
“A torn piece of fabric,” he said, lowering his hands to allow Byron to see it.
Red in color, the material was no more than a tiny scrap of cloth.
“Might be from the other robbery suspect’s clothing,” Pelligrosso opined. “Haggerty said one of the males he was chasing got caught up on top of a fence. We also have those.” Pelligrosso pointed to a half dozen yellow markers in the snow.
“Shoe prints?” Byron asked.
“Yeah,” Pelligrosso said. “We’ve got three matches: the dead robber’s sneakers, Haggerty’s boots, and footwear impressions that match the one we cast last night.”
“Our missing suspect?” Byron asked.
“Maybe.”
Byron and Nugent looked on as Pelligrosso carefully removed the material and placed it inside the small paper bag Murphy was holding.
“I’ll go over this for hairs and fibers later,” Pelligrosso said.
“We locate anything else?” Byron asked.
“Not yet. Still need to find Haggerty’s mini-Mag, and I want to comb through the shooting scene again. If the gun described by the laundromat manager wasn’t a revolver, and Haggerty was right, there may be a shell casing still hidden in the snow somewhere.”
Byron could only hope they would be so lucky. Something as small as a shell casing, at this point in the investigation, might serve to dampen the public outrage that was likely to follow.
“Whatever you need, Gabe,” Byron said. “And take your time. With a foot of snow coming, we’ll only get one—”
Byron’s cell rang, interrupting him. The caller ID identified it as Sergeant Joyner. He stepped away from them to answer it. “Hey, Di.”
“Hey, yourself,” she said. “Any progress?”
“Not as much as I’d like. Trying to lock it down before the news media blows this whole thing up.”
“Actually, that’s why I’m calling. Mayor Gilcrest just announced a press conference of her own.”
“Goddammit,” Byron snapped.
Nugent and the others turned to look at him.
“I knew you’d want a heads-up,” Diane said.
“That’s all we need,” Byron said, trying to lower his voice. “Any idea what she’s planning to say?”
“No, but I’m betting it’s not gonna be good. She’s upstaging the chief by holding her presser at eleven, an hour before his.”
Byron knew exactly what Mayor Patricia Gilcrest was capable of. No fan of Portland’s finest, she’d spent four years chairing the public safety committee and had had more than her share of public battles with former Chief Michael Stanton. Gilcrest had been elected mayor in a landslide and was now rumored to have her sights set on the governor’s mansion, perhaps as soon as the following year. And if Gilcrest had stood up to Stanton, she’d eat Acting Chief Rumpswab for lunch. As if the impending snow wasn’t enough, they would now have to contend with the storm brewing at city hall.
“I just thought you should know, John,” Diane said. “I gotta run.”
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The call had no sooner ended when his phone rang again. It was LeRoyer.
And so it begins, Byron thought as he answered it. “Byron.”
Portland Herald reporter Davis Billingslea drove slowly past the scene of the shooting. A young blond police officer sitting inside a parked cruiser gave him the hairy eyeball as he passed. Billingslea wasn’t worried about being recognized. He figured the dark glasses and knit hat hid his face well enough. On the opposite side of the road from the cruiser, he spotted Detective Sergeant Byron among a group of other investigators. Byron was talking animatedly on his cell.
Billingslea parked his car one street over from where he’d seen the investigators working. The aging Honda’s hinges protested loudly as he opened the door. He grabbed the newspaper’s digital camera off the front passenger seat and stepped out into the cold.
He knew the police wouldn’t let him anywhere near the scene; Byron would’ve already taken care of that. But he needed an edge, something the other news outlets didn’t have. He could sit around like a trained circus animal waiting for someone at police headquarters to toss him a few scraps or he could take matters into his own hands. Billingslea backtracked around one of the row houses figuring he might get a peek at what the detectives were doing.
It took him several minutes and one heart-stopping face-to-face with a growling, and thankfully chained, Doberman before he found a decent shaded spot from which to surveil the investigators’ activity.
From the building’s shadow, Billingslea watched Byron turn and depart the area. It took ten more minutes of standing out in the cold before his patience was finally rewarded. Lifting the camera to his face, he zoomed in on the two evidence techs. They were working on something at ground level. Footprints, he thought. Or more accurately, shoe prints. The E.T.s were casting footwear impressions. Perhaps they’d found something left behind by the other robber. Billingslea grinned as he snapped a couple of pictures.
Byron returned to 109 before his nine o’clock meeting with Tommy Plummer’s parents, meeting briefly in the CID conference room with both his and Sergeant Peterson’s detectives for the sole purpose of dividing up the witness list compiled the previous evening. It was time to bang on some additional doors. He wanted written statements from everyone who lived inside Kennedy Park.
“I’m not trying to be a dick, but why are we knocking on every door again, Sarge?” Detective Bernie Robbins asked.
Robbins, one of Peterson’s detectives, was known for having a piss-poor attitude. When Robbins led with “I’m not trying to be a dick,” Byron knew that’s exactly what he was trying to be.
“Because, Bernie,” Byron said, drawing on every ounce of patience he had, “I don’t want to miss someone only to have them turn up later claiming to be a witness and muddying this up any further.”
Locking potential witnesses down to one story would be important, especially if it did turn out to be a bad shoot. Byron knew some people would still claim to have been there once the public learned they hadn’t found Plummer’s gun. He still remembered his father, Reece, telling him that more people claimed to have been in attendance during game six of the 1975 World Series, when Red Sox catcher Carleton Fisk hit the game-winning home run inside the left field foul pole, than there were seats at Fenway Park. Something like two to one. It was simply human nature to want to be where the action was. And second best to being there was being able to say you were.
The Plummers’ yellow Victorian stood at the corner of the Eastern Promenade and Melbourne Street. Overlooking Casco Bay, the grand home screamed of money.
The living room was too warm and too crowded. Tommy’s parents, Alice and Hugh Plummer, were seated on the couch opposite Byron and Detective Melissa Stevens. Standing behind and flanking the Plummers were a number of relatives and friends, including an older woman who may have been Tommy’s grandmother. The large room was filled with that same uncomfortable silence Byron had experienced inside courtrooms whenever a jury was about to render their verdict on a murder case. The feeling of dread was palpable.
“I can’t tell you how sorry we are for the loss of your son,” Byron began, addressing the Plummers.
Hugh Plummer gave a stiff nod while Alice, who was dressed all in black, stared off into the distance.
Byron continued. “Detective Stevens and I are still trying to piece together what happened last night. We’d be very grateful for any help you can give us.”
Mr. Plummer glared at Byron. “What happened is, your officer killed our son.”
“I realize this is extremely difficult for you,” Byron said. “And I’m not trying to add to your grief, but we need to know everything that led up to Thomas’s death. Do you know where your son was last evening?”
“No,” Plummer said curtly. “He had dinner with us, then he went out.”
Byron spoke as softly as he could, trying hard to get through the questions without further upsetting the Plummers. “Do you know who he was out with?”
Hugh exchanged a fleeting glance with his wife. It was the first time she appeared to be paying attention. Neither of the Plummers spoke a word, but Byron was sure that something had passed between them. Alice shook her head.
“We don’t know,” Hugh said.
“Can you think of anyone who might have supplied Thomas with a gun?” Byron asked, intentionally trying to offload the fault of possession onto someone else. It was far less accusatory.
“Tommy did not have a gun,” Hugh said, pausing to spit out each word as if it were a sentence unto itself. “No one in this house owns a gun.”
“Do you have any idea where your son might have obtained one?” Byron asked, scanning the room as he did so. “Maybe a friend or a relative?”
“I do not,” Hugh said. “And I have only your word that he even had a gun.”
Byron couldn’t refute this. Since no gun had been recovered, Byron had only Haggerty’s word.
“I have a question for you, Sergeant Byron,” Hugh said.
“I’ll answer it if I can.”
“When can we have our son back? We wish to bury him properly.”
Byron knew he was treading on uneven and dangerous ground. The autopsy was often paramount to any death investigation and rushing through it wasn’t an option. But he also knew that the longer they maintained custody of Tommy’s body, the more uncertainty and angst they would be creating for the family. By delaying the postmortem examination even one day he was risking a huge political backlash from his superiors if the Plummers objected to it. Byron didn’t want to provoke tensions further, but he did have a job to do. And much depended upon him doing it well.
“It’s my job to ensure the investigation is thorough, Mr. Plummer. I’ll make sure that Thomas is returned to you as quickly as I can. You have my word.”
Ten minutes later, Byron and Stevens departed the Plummer home without getting what they really wanted, a look inside Thomas’s room. Hugh Plummer had said that the detectives were more than welcome to look through his son’s room with him, but he would rather that they came back later in the afternoon, after he’d had a chance to grieve with his family. Byron, wanting to maintain some semblance of cordiality, hesitantly agreed, saying they would return at four.
Commander Jennings stood in the doorway to Mayor Patricia Gilcrest’s office. Gilcrest was seated with her legs crossed, elbows on the arms of the chair, and fingers tented together. She looked calm and composed, nothing like what he’d envisioned when her text requesting his presence popped up on his private cell a half hour earlier. Regardless of the mayor’s casual outward appearance, Jennings knew she was holding court, and he’d been summoned.
“Have a seat, Commander,” she said, gesturing to the chair directly across from her.
He entered the palatial space and sat down across from her. “Ms. Mayor.”
She gave him a well-rehearsed grin, but her eyes weren’t smiling. “Cut the Ms. Mayor stuff, Ed. How are things?”
“Things?
Well, they are a bit messy at the moment.”
“So I’ve heard. How is Mrs. Jennings?”
“Don’t do that, okay?” he said.
“Sorry. I didn’t know you were so sensitive about your marriage.” Her expression turned serious. “Tell me about the Plummer shooting.”
“How do you know the boy’s name already?”
“What? Tommy Plummer? I have my sources, Ed. You know you’re not the only friend I have at 109.”
“Not sure I’m supposed to be sharing details on this one, Patty. Besides, I probably don’t know much more than you do at this point. Have you spoken with Chief Rumsfeld yet?”
Gilcrest laughed. “I think you already know what Rumsfeld thinks of me. And he’s only the acting chief at the moment. I have it on good authority that this is a bad shoot, Ed. Word is the Plummer kid was unarmed. Is my information accurate?”
“Well, we haven’t located his gun yet, if that’s what you mean. He may have taken a shot at Officer Haggerty.”
“May have?”
“Haggerty said the kid fired first.”
“Any evidence to back that up?”
Jennings shook his head. “We haven’t found anything yet.”
Gilcrest stood up, smoothed her skirt, and began to stroll around the office. Jennings admired the way the high heels accentuated her well-toned calf muscles. If only my admiration had stopped there she wouldn’t own my ass now, he thought. And she did own him, unleashing him whenever she wanted to play or, like now, when she needed something.
“If you haven’t located the gun, nor any evidence that the boy had one, then it’s a bad shoot in my book,” Gilcrest said. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
“The guy who runs the laundromat said he saw one of the suspects with a gun. His description matched Plummer.”
“Then where is the gun now?”
“We think it’s possible that the other suspect got away with it.”
“Think? So, you don’t really know, right? You’re all just speculating.”
Hoping, he thought. “It’s a theory.”
Beyond the Truth Page 5
