Old Wounds, a Gino Cataldi Mystery

by Giacomo Giammatteo

  “Gino Cataldi.”

  “We need to talk.”

  I paused, surprised that it was Tip, but half knowing what to expect. Tip was a lot of things but he wasn’t the type to tell me bad news over the phone. He’d want to meet in person.

  “Did you see Coop?”

  “Yeah, and we have nothing on the phone calls.”

  I breathed to take it in. “We? So we’re still best buddies and partners?”

  “Yeah, we asshole. Meet me at the coffee shop.”

  “So you still love me then?”

  “Fuck you. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  “See you then,” I said, and laughed like hell. My day had taken a major turn for the better. First Ron, now this.

  Tip was already at the coffee shop when I arrived. He couldn’t have been there long because I could see the steam still rising from his coffee cup. I went inside, ordered an espresso, and then joined him at the table.

  My ass had barely touched the seat of the chair when Tip started in on me.

  “I think you shot Rico and his men,” Tip said.

  I stared, not knowing what to think or how much he knew. “If you think that you should turn me in,” I said.

  Tip shot me a look, that said he wanted to hit someone. “Is that what you want?” he said. “You really want me to tell Coop or John what I think?”

  I took a sip of espresso, looked him in the eyes, and said, “No.”

  “Then shut the fuck up and listen.” He shook his head, looked around a bit, then back at me. “Part of me wants to turn your ass in. And part of me wants to kick your ass. But another part of me wants to pat you on the back for getting rid of that scum-sucking drug dealer.”

  I mustered up all the courage I could, and said, “Given those options, I’ll take the pat on the back.”

  Tip didn’t laugh, but he seemed to calm down. “I’m gonna hold off, but in the meantime, get your head out of your ass and on this case. I know your kid’s in rehab and your wife passed away, but we’ve got a case to solve and people are counting on us to figure out who did it.” He leaned forward, and said, “So, are you in or out?”

  “I’m in,” I said, and a smile chased my tension away.

  CHAPTER 23

  WOMEN LOVE SHOES

  Houston, Texas

  The next morning, I met Tip for breakfast at Cracker Barrel. While we ate, we went over the case, trying to think of anything we missed. “It still bugs me how this damn caller knows so much about the case,” I said. “And about me.”

  Tip shook his head. “People can find out anything nowadays. Suppose the caller has a contact with the insurance company—they’ve got your life history.”

  “You’re right, not difficult if she has access to personnel files or insurance records.”

  Tip looked at me. “Are you trying to say this is a cop?”

  “I don’t know what I’m saying, but something’s not right. This lady knows too much about me and about police procedure.”

  Tip stared off to the side, quiet. “I don’t know what’s going on either, but something’s screwy. We’ve got to think differently on this case.”

  “What about the shoes?” I asked.

  He signaled our waitress for more coffee, then told me about the talk he had with Elena. “She said a lot of places carry Ferragamo shoes, but we should check the Ferragamo store first because they have the biggest selection. She said if it was a woman who liked their shoes she’d probably go there.”

  “Looks like we’re going shoe-shopping.”

  “I guess so,” Tip said as the waitress poured his coffee. “Hey, darlin’, could you get me another order of that turkey sausage. Damn that’s good.”

  “Sure thing, Tip. You want more toast, too?”

  “No, just the sausage.”

  He watched her wiggle her way to the kitchen, then went back to sipping on his coffee. “We need this shoe thing to pay off. Gotta catch a break.”

  “All we need to do is get an ID on her. As soon as we know who she is, we’ll find the killer.”

  The waitress returned with the sausage, leaving the check on the table. “See ya’ll later,” she said. “Have a nice day.”

  “I’ll get this,” Tip said, and grabbed the check. He finished his sausage with a few hurried bites, gulped the last of his coffee, including grounds, then tossed two twenties on the table.

  “You expecting to get something more than free coffee next time we come?”

  “She’s a single mom with a boy who needs special attention. I try to help her out a little.”

  “You’re a damn good man, Tip Denton.”

  “You tell anybody and I’ll shoot you.”

  I grabbed a couple of mints as we left, then we got in Tip’s car and headed to the Ferragamo store. The manager looked at the shoes and said she’d be back with names in a few minutes. True to her word she returned with two papers in her hand. They must have better records than the FBI.

  “In that style and size we only sold two pair of those shoes in the past year to local people—Sahrina Mekkin and Barbara Camwyck. I printed the information. It comes from our frequent shopper program. If you want the purchases from out of town clients—”

  “How often do you have to purchase something here to be a frequent shopper?” I asked.

  She smiled. “Just once—everyone is a frequent shopper.”

  I nodded. “As far as the out-of-towners, we don’t need them yet. If we don’t have luck with these, we’ll come back.”

  “What other stores would carry these shoes?” Tip asked.

  Silvia seemed to give it thought, then said, “Donna, who else in town carries the suede slingbacks?”

  A good-looking, middle-aged woman turned to us. “Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, The Proper Lady, A Taste of Barcelona…I’d have to check and see if there are any others.”

  “Thank you, Donna.” Silvia turned back to us. “Anything else, gentlemen?”

  “Not for now, thanks,” I said, and Tip and I left the store.

  “I didn’t expect to get help that fast,” Tip said.

  I looked at the information on the printouts as we got in the car. “Look at this. Name, address, home phone, cell phone, work phone, email address.” I voiced aloud what I’d thought before. “These people collect more data than the FBI.”

  “Where do you want to start?” Tip asked.

  “Let’s start with Mekkin.”

  “Mekkin it is.”

  We called Sahrina and got an answer on the first ring. She was alive. “That narrows it down,” I said.

  “We called, but got no answer at Camwyck’s. About half an hour later, we tried again, but still no response. “Let’s go over there and knock on the door,” Tip said.

  “Not far from here,” I said.

  Barbara Camwyck lived in the Four Leaf Towers on San Felipe, the high-rent district. She wasn’t in the penthouse, but her place had to go for somewhere between one and two million. After a third phone call didn’t produce an answer, and after the manager wouldn’t let us in, we called for a warrant. We could have gone in for a welfare check, but if she wasn’t there, or we found her dead, we’d want the warrant for a full search.

  While we waited I got Julie to get us info on the victim.

  “Julie, it’s Gino. We need everything you can find on a Barbara Camwyck, spelled with a Y, not an I.”

  “I’ll see what I have on her.”

  I hung up and got with Tip.

  “Julie’s getting us the rundown on Camwyck,” I said. “If there’s anything of interest, she’ll find it.”

  “You have a warrant coming?”

  “It shouldn’t be long. Let’s grab coffee while we wait.” I said.

  Tip killed the engine and got out of the car. “You realize Camwyck could be out of town, or safe at work, or in the damn shower.”

  “I know, but I’m betting she’s dead.”

  “I hope so,” Tip said, and then he laughed. “Noth
ing against Ms. Camwyck, but we need a victim. At least this will give us DNA to check against the body, assuming she’s not lying on the floor.”

  ***

  Cindy knocked on Coop’s door before going in. “Have you got a minute, Captain?”

  “What is it?”

  “You told me to keep you informed on this case. Gino called to get a warrant.”

  Coop set her pen on the desk and sat up straight. “What’s the warrant for?”

  Cindy looked at her notes. “A lady named Barbara Camwyck. She lives—”

  “I know where she lives.”

  Cindy waited until the silence forced her to speak. “What should I do?”

  “Get the process rolling. Keep me informed on anything else.”

  “I will,” Cindy said.

  When she left, Coop picked up the phone. Three rings later, Cybil answered.

  “The shit is hitting the fan right now.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Gino and Tip just called for a warrant on Barbara’s place.”

  “You shouldn’t have given this case to them,” Cybil said.

  “Don’t try your haughty tone on me. It was Tip’s turn in the rotation and if I hadn’t assigned it to him it would have raised questions. I know how to run my department, Cybil. Besides, this whole goddamn mess was going to come out sooner or later.”

  “You better figure out how to cover our asses, Gladys. This one’s on you.”

  “I’ve got nothing to do with this. You know damn right well where the blame falls.”

  “What else do they know?”

  “How the hell do I know, but between Denton and Cataldi they’ll soon find out everything. You can bet your East Texas ass on that.”

  “This could ruin everything. We’ve got to do something.”

  Coop shook her head, even though Cybil couldn’t see. “It’s your problem. Not mine.”

  CHAPTER 24

  EVEN THE DEAD CAN TALK

  Houston, Texas

  The warrant took longer to arrive than we expected, but we finally got inside her condo. Lying on the floor was a dog that appeared to be starving. It greeted us with a sad look and a wag of the tail from a spot on the living room floor. It didn’t even get up or bark.

  Tip ran over and knelt next to it, carefully petting its head. “Get some water.” He turned to the uniform with us. “Nester, get somebody to take this dog to a vet. He needs attention.”

  “Sir, I—”

  “Goddamnit, Nester, just do it. I don’t want any shit.”

  I brought the dog’s water bowl to Tip and set it on the floor next to the dog. “He looks pretty bad. Probably been here a while.”

  “At least since she died. It’s a wonder he made it.”

  “That’s a big bowl. The water could have lasted a few days.”

  Tip nodded, then stood and looked around. “All right, let’s carefully and I mean carefully, check for bodies, and get the crime scene unit down here. We don’t want to contaminate the place until after they’re done.”

  An hour later, we were still waiting for them to process the scene. In the meantime, we took that time to canvass the neighbors, the manager, and even units across the street. If we got no answer we left cards. As soon as the crime scene unit finished, we started our work of processing the remainder of the data, looking for clues—first to determine if this was the woman, then to determine why someone would want to kill her, and finally try to figure out who killed her.

  Ben gathered enough DNA to compare against our victim, but Tip and I were operating as if she were dead. We were fairly certain she was.

  An area in the living room appeared to be set aside for work, a desk and file cabinet positioned against the wall off to the side. “There’s a cord for charging a laptop,” I said, “but no computer. I’d bet my ass the killer took it.”

  “Keep looking, I’m going to the bedroom.”

  While Tip checked the closets and drawers in her bedroom, I went through the files.

  “These files look like they’ve been gone through.”

  “How so?”

  “Get your ass over here and take a look.”

  Tip came down the hall and stood next to me. “Check it out. There’s plenty of room in this drawer for more files, so why does she put more in the next one. Someone took files out of here.”

  “It does appear that way.”

  “Appear my ass, the killer did this as sure as he took the rest of her stuff.”

  Tip pointed to a file in the drawer. “Hand me that one, the one that says Murphy.”

  I gave him the folder, ‘Murphy, TP’ and continued looking through the files.

  “Son of a bitch,” Tip said. “She’s got enough information in this file to hang TP.”

  “Who’s TP Murphy?” I said.

  “TP is a good friend of Rusty’s. Or was a good friend. They had a falling out a few years ago.”

  “What’s in there?”

  “Besides pictures of TP and Ms. Camwyck in a variety of positions, it looks like business documents that TP would probably want kept quiet.” Tip handed me the folder. “You have a file on Andrick Boudin in there?”

  I scanned the ‘B’ section and pulled it out.

  Tip thumbed through it. A smile popped on his face. “Same thing, Gino. And I’ll bet everything Charlie can eat that all the files are the same.”

  I flipped through the files quickly, just to confirm what Tip thought. After looking at more than a few dozen pics of Ms. Camwyck and her clients, I ran across a 1099 form. I handed it to Tip. “You know anything about Eastex Enterprises? This is a 1099 from last year.”

  He grabbed the paper from me and looked. “I’ll be a horse’s ass. This is Rusty Johnson’s company.”

  “The mayor?”

  “The one and only,” Tip said. He handed me back the form. “And if she worked for Rusty, then Cybil knew her.” He stared at me, a funny look in his eyes.

  I could see the wheels spinning.

  Tip said, “And if Cybil knew her, then Coop probably knew her.”

  “Hold on, Tip. We can’t go making that leap.”

  “I’m not leaping yet, but we’ll find out soon enough.”

  He took out his cell and dialed a number, but I could only hear his side of the conversation.

  “Julie, it’s Tip.

  “I’m fine, darlin’, but listen, I need a big favor.

  “Yeah, that means nobody can know about this. It stays between you and me. He looked over to me, then said, “And Gino.”

  “Gino already told you about Camwyck. Besides the normal stuff, I need all financials, phone records, employment, tax. All of it.

  Tip listened to Julie, nodding when she spoke. “Okay,” he said, “and while you’re at it, find out all you can about Eastex Enterprises. But this one you’ll have to keep real quiet. And one more thing, see if Camwyck had a car registered in her name.

  “Okay, thanks. I owe you for this.”

  Tip hung up from Julie, then signaled me closer. “We need to keep this quiet. I’d bet ten dollars to a doughnut that Coop knew Camwyck, and either Coop or Cybil must have recognized her from the picture in the paper.”

  “But neither one of them said anything.” I looked at Tip, knowing that Coop or Cybil—either one—had the juice to take our badges. “You realize we could be in deep shit.”

  Tip stared around the room and said, “I don’t think there’s any question about it. I feel it creeping up around my knees already, so we’ll have to watch our asses.”

  “With all that we found in that file cabinet, it makes me wonder what was in the files that are missing,” I said.

  “A lot of powerful people are in those files, Gino. I think I’m beginning to see why she might have been killed.”

  We finished up at Barbara’s place then headed out to grab a bite to eat and digest what we learned. Before the day was over we had more questions than we had at the beginning of the day, but
at least we had a path to follow, and it started with the victim.

  I spent a quiet evening at home, with no calls from the mystery woman. I arrived at the station early in the morning, hoping that Julie had something for us. Tip was already there.

  “Coffee?” He signaled me toward the break room—which might as well have been named the coffee room—and I followed.

  “You got something?”

  He closed the door and grabbed a chair, pulling it next to mine. “Julie gave me this when I got in.” He passed me a folder.

  As I scanned through it, I shook my head.

  “Our victim had a checkered past.”

  “Yeah,” Tip said, “and the most interesting part of that past is that it started in East Texas, the same town where Cybil came from, and, not coincidentally, the same town that our president and his chief of staff came from.”

  I looked closer at the file. “Says here that Barbara came to Houston 20 years ago, and was arrested for prostitution, but charges were dropped.”

  “Now that’s pretty interesting,” Tip said.

  “And did you notice where she worked—Baby Dolls.”

  “What’s the significance?”

  “Baby Dolls is Rusty Johnson’s favorite hangout.”

  I set the folder down and stared at Tip.

  “Son of a bitch! So the victim grew up with Cybil, then came to Houston and worked at a club that Rusty frequents, and then happened to end up as a “consultant” for Rusty’s company.”

  Tip stood and paced.

  “And now she’s dead,” I said.

  Tip picked up his cup from the table and sipped his coffee while he continued to pace. “According to Julie, there was a connection between almost all of her “clients” and our mayor. And there’s no way a stripper goes from dancing at clubs to entrepreneur with all of these connections without help.”

  “Possibly even mayoral help.” I looked at Tip. “How well do you know Cybil?”

  He poured more coffee. “Some. More by reputation than anything. She can be tough.”

  “So what do you suppose she might do if she found out that one of Rusty’s old stripper friends was now a consultant for his company, and making damn good money doing it?”