I parked half a block from my building. I carried my bag and tool satchel upstairs to my apartment, reloaded my Glock, and was back in the RAV4 in five minutes. Once I had turned around for a straight shot down Elmwood, I called back. The phone rang once.
“Rimes, it’s Terry,” Chalmers said. “Raf is with me and the door is closed.”
“I can’t tell you how I got some of what I’m gonna say,” I began, “but maybe it’s enough to keep the Butch thing going. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes, so save your questions. Oh, and I’d appreciate it if you can send down a parking pass for Phoenix’s car.”
“Will do,” Chalmers said. “I’ll send Raf down with it when we finish the call.”
I had been wrong about Cuthbert’s dual identity, I explained. Without revealing where and how, or my shooting through Tito’s door, I summarized my conversation with Loni Markham. Crossing Virginia Street, I ended with her daring me to find proof FBF and the church foundation were both laundering drug money. Then I shifted gears to my earlier visit to Sanctuary Nimbus.
Ileana and I, I explained, had found Veronica Surowiec there during our search for Keisha. It was that evening I noticed an infinity ring on the hand of Brother Jeremiah Grace, who had grown up in the village of Celoron, right next to Jamestown. I repeated what Ileana had told me she heard from Veronica just before her disappearance: “She called out of the blue and said they had made her do something she didn’t want to and now they were after her so she had to get away.” My theory was that Veronica may have refused to do it herself but had been forced to coach Felicity Sillers on how to inject an air bubble into an SVC line. Having tried to get away, she was beaten to death to keep her from talking.
Skirting the Niagara Square traffic circle in front of City Hall, I told them I would be there in less than two minutes. “One more thing,” I said. “I owe you an apology.”
“For what?” Chalmers asked.
“For not remembering sooner that the Sanctuary’s business manager, a guy I never met, has something in common with Butch. His name is Marco Madden.”
“Damn. All right. Get up here and make another statement so I can get a warrant.”
43
The warrant to go to Sanctuary Nimbus for the infinity ring took nearly two hours. There was much discussion about how to proceed. Given that the Sanctuary was a quasi-public shelter beginning to receive drop-ins for dinner, a no-knock warrant and caravan of squad cars would likely complicate matters more than necessary. Evidence and lives could both be lost amid chaos in a crowd that included drug users, petty criminals, the mentally ill, and people guilty of nothing other than being born poor or losing a job. In the end, the brass decided one unmarked car and one tactical SUV would go to the Sanctuary.
I was not party to official discussions but learned the specifics later. While Chalmers and Piñero were in a meeting to finalize details, I sat in front of Piñero’s desk in the homicide squad. I was on my phone, giving information to my car insurance company when Harlow Graves appeared in the doorway. He strode over to the desk, briefcase in hand. He wore the same charcoal topcoat he was in the other night, but the suit beneath it was black, not navy.
“You’re not Detective Piñero,” he said.
“Very observant,” I said.
He stared at me for a moment. “No, you’re that private detective, Gideon Rimes.”
I ignored him and finished my call. Then I stood to face him, not to intimidate him because I had only an inch or so on him, but to keep him from trying to intimidate me.
“Sir, I don’t recall ever meeting you. Yet you know who I am. I find that curious.”
“I really don’t care what you find curious, Mr. Rimes.” He threw his shoulders back a bit and took a breath. “I’m here to see my client. I want to know where he’s being held.”
“Does your client have a name this time, Mr. Graves?”
He said nothing. I was unable to read him. Was he stunned I knew his name and that he hadn’t known Felicity’s? Was he pleased his billboards all over town were working? Or maybe he was pissed off I had told Loni he would pay for associating with her.
“Do you find something curious, Mr. Graves?” I asked.
“Where is Detective Piñero?”
“Not at his desk,” I said. “But you must have noticed that already, the observant lawyer that you are. If you’d like to leave a message, I’m sure you have something to write with inside that fancy double-buckle briefcase.” I sat back down and returned to my cell phone.
Setting down his briefcase, Graves parked half his butt on the corner of the desk and glared down at me.
“You know, Rimes, you may think you’re a tough guy, wearing a bandage on your face like it’s a medal. But you’re going to be in a lot of trouble before I’m through with you.”
I wanted to offer him the opportunity to wear a bandage, but I held my tongue.
“You assaulted at least two people, a man and a woman,” Graves continued. “You broke both their noses, I imagine with some signature martial arts move. The woman says you tried to rape her. You discharged a gun on a public highway, causing a fatal crash. Add to that breaking into and entering a private home. All this without a shred of legal authority.”
“You already know about the broken nose and the expressway shootout,” I said. “She didn’t when I left the house, so somebody must have talked to her before she talked to you.”
Graves snorted. “When this whole affair is over—”
“What affair? Loni and Tito’s? Or are you screwing Loni too? Does Rosalind know?”
Graves stood, fists clenched at his sides. Loni had given him enough to identify me but not enough to let him know he couldn’t frighten me. Now he was unsure what to do. I hoped he would take a swing at me. But he stood there seething, cheeks darkening and flaring nostrils the only part of his body that moved.
“Whatever this affair is, my part is finished,” I said. “I found my clients’ daughter and got my car shot up and totaled in the process. I did my civic duty and gave police information I thought was evidence of a criminal enterprise. They don’t need me anymore.” I brushed my hands together a couple of times as if ridding myself of dirt. “You want to push the B&E thing, go ahead. With him dead, cops are gonna search Tito’s house sooner or later. They’ll find more than I did unless you give your client time to clear it out. If you think you can bring it up without implicating yourself—” I sat back and folded my arms. “You should tell Loni Markham the puzzle pieces are falling into place. She and her brother should get out while they can.”
“Her brother?” Graves looked confused. “Since when does she have a brother?”
“It was something she kept need-to-know,” I said. “Apparently, you weren’t on the list. So sorry, old man. But thanks for confirming she’s the one who sent you.”
“You’re not as clever as you think, Rimes.”
Just then a cluster of suits and uniforms emerged from a conference room across the hall. They stood near the squad room door, talking, shaking hands. A Buffalo police captain the size of a fullback and four other officers were in uniform. Three men and two women wore suits and carried briefcases. Chalmers, Piñero, Pete Kim, a man with a badge on his belt, and a woman with a badge on a neck chain rounded out the group. The captain, two of the uniformed officers, and the mix I thought must be lawyers and city officials moved out of sight down the hall. The detectives and two remaining uniforms came toward Graves and me. Having shared time on the other side of a two-way mirror, Kim and I exchanged nods.
“Detective Piñero,” Graves said. “I’m here to see my client, Delano Madden.”
Chalmers and Piñero exchanged looks.
“Didn’t Madden have counsel?” Chalmers asked.
“I thought so,” Piñero said. “Sarah Dockery, right?”
“Yes. She’s the one negotiating his…proposed deal.”
“If she wasn’t his lawyer, then who the hell was she?” Piñero feigned
shock. “She sure seemed to know an awful lot about the law. My God, we’ve been fooled again!”
“Don’t quit your day jobs,” Graves said. “I’d like to see Mr. Madden, now.”
“You must not have heard us.” Chalmers leaned close to Graves for a moment. “Mr. Madden has an attorney.”
“Dockery is a public defender. She was simply holding a chair until I could get here.”
“Did she know that?” Piñero said. “Let me ask her. She might still be at the elevator.”
“Ask her if she told him about Madden’s nose,” I said. “Somebody did.”
“No shit?” Chalmers said. “He knew?”
“Knew I did it.”
“Damn.” Chalmers leaned close again. “Who told you about Madden’s nose?”
Graves sputtered something unintelligible but full of pomp and indignity.
“Ask him who sent him to claim the client,” I said. “Ask him if he even knows Madden. Something tells me this guy couldn’t pick Butch out of a crowd of two.”
“Have you ever met Mr. Madden, counselor?” Chalmers asked.
“Well…”
“A yes or no answer.”
Graves hissed and turned to me again. “When I lodge my complaint with your superiors,” he said over his shoulder to Chalmers, “I’ll be sure to include that you’re now taking orders from a civilian with a PI license. That is certainly a breach—”
“Not a civilian,” Piñero said. “A retired investigator turned independent contractor. He’s on retainer with the mayor’s office. He works with us from time to time, when we need his special expertise. We have a letter to that effect from the city’s corporation counsel.”
“That’s right,” Chalmers said. “He’s a consultant.”
“That tired TV cliché?” Graves said. “Does the PBA know about this?”
“I’m a rep,” Chalmers said. “How could they not? Does the ABA know you’re trying to poach another lawyer’s client?”
Graves ignored the question. “His special expertise?”
“Is not your concern.” Chalmers gestured to those gathered around. “We’re busy right now, working on a case we’re not at liberty to divulge. So if you don’t mind—”
After Graves pushed his way through the crowd and stomped out, Chalmers turned to one of the detectives. “Marczak, see if Kirk Wiggins is working the front desk again. He got reprimanded last year for loose-lipping arrest details. If it’s not him, we need to be on the lookout for somebody else who might be trading info for money.”
A middle-aged man in a pin-striped blue shirt and wearing his badge clipped to his belt, Marczak nodded and left the room. But I doubted it was Wiggins. I expected that through the foundation, Loni had lots of sources who didn’t know what she was.
I looked at Piñero. “You guys have a copy of my letter? When I showed it to you a couple of months ago, you wanted to tear it up.”
“We had a copy even then,” Chalmers said. “Faxed over from the mayor’s office before you showed it to us. We were pissed at her, not you. Contract talks were in the toilet and here she was saddling us with you.”
“Now that we know you, G, we get pissed at you for being you,” Piñero said. “But if you’re coming with us to Sanctuary Nimbus, your letter’s gotta be in play.”
44
It was half-past six and dark when we got to Sanctuary Nimbus on Bidwell Parkway, with two officers in the SUV and Pete Kim in a winter trench coat, sitting beside me in the back of Chalmers’s car. The two uniformed cops took up positions outside two different exits. With Kim waiting outside the main entrance, Chalmers, Piñero, and I got in line to go inside.
Eyes ever distant and voice fragile, Pastor Paul was at the door that opened onto the softly lit, repurposed church interior. Beside him was one of his volunteers, a middle-aged woman in a knit sweater and long woolen skirt. She seemed to be there as much to look after the old man in monk’s robes as to greet entrants. As he shook hands with each person who entered, Pastor Paul smiled with a satisfaction reminiscent of the afterglow of a holiday meal, as if contact with another person in and of itself was enough to nourish him. He seemed not to hear the sounds around him: scraping feet, low-volume music from a handful of small players, the squeak of cots being shifted or sat upon, voices and occasional laughter. I had given his backstory to Chalmers, Piñero, and Kim on the way over. Because I had already met Pastor Paul and Brother Grace, Chalmers said, I would take the lead.
When we reached him, I took hold of his dry, cold hand and shook it gently. “Good to see you again, Pastor Paul. I’m Gideon Rimes, Ileana’s friend. I met you last week.”
“Ah.” The upward tilt of his head suggested recognition but may have masked doubt.
“These are my friends, Terry and Rafael,” I continued, as Chalmers and Piñero stepped forward to shake his hand. “I was telling them what a wonderful job Brother Grace does for you. Is he here tonight?”
Pastor Paul looked confused, his lower lip quivering. The woman beside him smiled and shook our hands. “I’m Camille,” she said. “Brother Grace is either downstairs in the dining hall or carrying supplies down there from the bell tower.” She pointed toward a nearby staircase, which had age-darkened steps winding in both directions. We thanked her and went toward it. So far, I noticed, about a third of the cots on the main floor had been claimed. Too many people if something went wrong.
The sound of voices from below pulled us downstairs. The church basement had a low ceiling and cold gray walls, with a large room on either side of the staircase. To the left was the main dining hall, which had fifteen rectangular banquet tables and a kitchen with a serving counter at the far end. Ten more tables were set up to the right, in a space that once held Sunday school classrooms, if the faded construction paper crosses and cut-outs of Jesus holding lambs or children were any indications. Only the main dining room had people in it, taking up fewer than half the seats.
Brother Grace was near the counter in the same pile-lined suede jacket he’d worn last week. He was talking to a winsome young blonde woman, probably a volunteer. She seemed to hang on his every word. I realized the Sanctuary was a perfect place for someone like him to seduce an attractive college student fulfilling volunteer requirements for a course. He would smile whenever he saw her and talk to her whenever he could. He would thank her for volunteering and look embarrassed when she said she admired his compassion. Then one night when the lights were out and the industrial snoring of the chronically lung-impaired began, he would invite her to stay up with him after the other volunteers turned in or left. He would take her somewhere they could be alone, probably not his room in the parsonage when he was on duty. But what about the bell tower he had said was unsafe but was somehow sound enough to hold supplies? Would he take her there, or elsewhere because the bell tower held things she shouldn’t see?
“That’s him,” I said to the detectives. “Give me a little room.”
I walked across the room quickly, smiling, holding out my hand, weaving around chattering people and empty chairs. “Brother Grace! Hey, man, it’s good to see you again!” His eyes narrowed. He took my hand when I reached him and let me pump it, but clearly I had startled him. “Friend of Miss Tassiopulos. I met you last week.”
“Mr. Rimes, right?” he said, pretending he had just recognized me. “What brings you back?” He crossed his arms over his chest. I saw the ring on his right hand.
“Who’s your friend?” I said as Chalmers and Piñero closed the distance between us. “My name is Gideon Rimes.” I took the woman’s hand and held it as if I might be interested.
“Brigid Blake,” she said, blushing a bit. “Are you a friend of Brother Grace?”
I smiled. “I said I met him just last week.”
Her blush deepened as I released her hand. “Right.” Then she smiled. Giggled.
“So, Rimes, what brings you back?”
The question was gratuitous. If Brother Grace had thought I carried myself li
ke a cop when I was an ex-cop, surely he would recognize the two men behind me, broad-shouldered and clad in long overcoats, were still on the job.
“My friends Terry and Rafael,” I said to Brigid and Brother Grace as I cocked my head toward the detectives. “We were just upstairs and Camille said you needed help getting supplies down from the bell tower. So here we are.”
Brigid giggled again. “You said it was hard to get help. I think these guys can carry a lot more than I can. But I’ll be here later if you want to talk some more.” Waving at Brother Grace and giggling again, Brigid went over to an old woman whose hands shook so badly she couldn’t steady the spoon she was trying to dip into her soup.
“Okay,” Brother Grace said. “You’re cops. What do you want?”
“I take it you heard about Veronica Surowiec,” I said. “She was found dead recently.”
“Who? Oh, you mean Nasty Nica.” He nodded, sighing a bit. “Yeah, I heard. Damn shame. Wasn’t she in the river or something? Drowned?”
“The Black Rock Canal,” Chalmers said, eyes shifting from Brother Grace to his ring.
“These detectives are friends of mine,” I said, leaning close to Brother Grace as if we were old friends. “When they heard I had seen Veronica here, they wanted all the particulars, which is why I’m back. They have some questions that I couldn’t answer but they don’t want to ask them out here in front of everybody.”
“Hey, bro, why don’t we go get that stuff you need from the bell tower,” Piñero said. “We all got strong backs. Kill two birds, you know.”
Brother Grace looked from one to the other of us, hesitated, and then shrugged. “Sure, why not. Let me show you where it is.”
He sidled past us and mounted the spiral stairs, his work boots thumping a steady pace. We followed, with Chalmers in the lead and Piñero behind me.
“So when did you last see—what did you call her? Nasty Nica?” Chalmers said.
“Her street name,” Brother Grace said. “I last saw her the night Mr. Rimes talked to her. She left in the morning and I never saw her again.”
Nickel City Crossfire Page 25
