Vendetta

by Nancy Holder

  “I’m sure Robertson and Gonzales would just jump at that offer,” Cat said sarcastically. “And I’d be concerned that we’d be putting J.T. on the radar of people who shouldn’t know that he hacks into the Homeland Security surveillance system for us.”

  “I thought the same thing. So I got him to give me a list of questions to ask,” Tess said proudly.

  “That’s great. And very hot.” She grinned and looked through her notes. “Here’s the number to reach Hart.”

  Tess punched it in. Waited. Waited some more. Said, “Hello, Mr. Hart. This is Detective Vargas. We have a few more questions to ask you. Please call me back.”

  She hung up and they looked at each other. Cat tapped her fingers against her bottom lip. “Okay, say you’re in charge of the last line of security for a crime lord’s home and his son’s been kidnapped because your system failed. Do you not answer your phone?”

  “Maybe not if your boss has told you not to. Maybe if he has told you that you need to do nothing but work on your system.” Tess frowned. “Except, what’s that saying? ‘The barn door’s shut after the horse has bolted?’ I mean, the kid’s been taken.”

  Cat considered. “I’m sure DeMarco’s fearing for his own safety. And his wife’s. He’s probably got a thousand enemies. He must be afraid that if word gets out, he’ll be vulnerable.”

  “Speaking of the wife, Sleazy Pickin’s,” Tess said. “We didn’t go. We’re missing out on bargains on crotchless underwear.”

  Cat mock-shuddered. “And the good news is? That case will still be there once we clear this one.” The caseload of NYPD detectives was staggering.

  “If something has happened to Hart, we might never know it,” Cat mused. “Unless we specifically develop him as a case.”

  “I hate to say it, but he’s not our subject at the moment.”

  “Then we need to clear the case we’re on,” Cat said decisively. “What’s the next item on Angelo’s expenses?” She scrolled down.

  “Well, speaking of Maple Studios,” Tess said, pointing to the next line on the screen, “he paid for time about a month ago, just like your career counselor said. With a check he wrote himself.” She sat back. “So it’s doubtful those payments he made to Claudia McEvers were for studio time.”

  Cat used a pencil to tap the next item. “He paid for flowers to be delivered to Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. We haven’t established his mother’s status. Alive, dead, missing?”

  They tried to find out the delivery instructions for the flowers but both the florist and the cemetery refused to give out details. They put in for a warrant and while they were waiting to see if they were going to get it, they discovered that they couldn’t locate a death certificate for Angelo’s mother, who, they discovered by reading old Page Six entries, was, or had been, named Angelica. They also could not find a dissolution of marriage, which put Tony DeMarco’s marriage to Hallie in question.

  “What if the mom’s alive? Maybe she snatched him,” Cat suggested. “He’s almost twenty-one. A legal adult. Could be there’s an inheritance.”

  “Or a statute of limitations on some capital offense she committed,” Tess mused. “Maybe she went into hiding.” She blew air out of her cheeks. “You know, Cat, it looks like Tony DeMarco can redact anything he feels like. Public records should be available to us for inspection. You could make an argument for obstruction of justice.”

  “Could and won’t, just yet,” Cat said.

  “Chandler,” said Captain Ward, walking up to Cat’s desk. “Internal Affairs is waiting for you. They have a couple of questions.”

  Tess went bug-eyed and Cat’s heart stuttered.

  My father’s escape, Cat thought. Here we go.

  “They just said they had to go over a few things,” he said.

  “And you asked them for clarification, right?” Tess said.

  Ward eyed her coldly. “I’m sure Detective Chandler will do fine. He’s in Interview Room A.”

  He, Cat thought. Please don’t let it be Agent Hendricks.

  “And so is our union rep, right? In Interview Room A?” Tess said as Cat fought for composure. “And you’ll be there too? Sitting right beside your officer? ADA Lowan was there when he ran the precinct.”

  “It might not be your best move to remind me that Detective Chandler has been under scrutiny before,” Captain Ward advised Tess.

  “But you’re her captain,” Tess said angrily. “This is our house. You’re supposed to back her up. All of us. ”

  He flushed but said nothing. Cat wondered if he had been warned not to interfere, and that chilled her to the bone.

  “Justus Zilpho,” Tess shot back. “Ours. We are your stars.”

  “And it takes a village to convict a murderer,” Ward retorted. He gazed down expectantly at Cat. “I wouldn’t keep him waiting.”

  He moved away and Tess said under her breath, “I can’t believe he’s not going in there with you. Where’s your backup?”

  Cat rose and smoothed her white shirt. She put on the black jacket she had slung over her chair. She added some lip-gloss and wished fervently that she weren’t swimming in exhaustion. She reminded herself that she had lied to IA before to protect herself and Vincent and she had withstood the pressure of a subsequent cross-examination. She was a detective, so she was used to developing the narrative of a case and following it through the myriad false leads and distractions that inevitably arose. She would be able to anticipate where Hendricks was trying to go and if it was the wrong place, she could block him.

  Or try to.

  “If it’s Hendricks, I’ll just bite down on the cyanide capsule,” she told Tess.

  Tess smiled. “That’s the spirit.”

  Cat could tell by the way the other detectives and unis were shuffling away from her in the bullpen that they knew what was going on. Maryann, one of the civilian secretaries, flashed her a good-luck smile and Cat made a note to buy her some candy on Administrative Assistants Day. She pushed open the door to Interview A—

  —and there he was. FBI Agent Hendricks, with his video camera and his case file and his smug, smug smile.

  “Good afternoon, Detective Chandler.”

  “Good afternoon, Agent Hendricks.” She looked around. “No union rep.”

  “She said she was tied up in traffic. We can wait. I understand, however, that you and your partner are involved in a high-profile kidnapping case. Time being of the essence, perhaps your captain might feel the need to hand it off to another team?”

  I hate you, Cat thought. She was cornered. The reasonable thing to do would be to wait for her union rep and let the case go. It was a bad case anyway.

  Except that Curt Windsor was at least peripherally involved, and her boyfriend was wanted for his murder, and if she stayed on the case, she could monitor the information arising from the DeMarco investigation and feed it back to Vincent.

  “I reserve the right to stop this interview if I feel that I need to consult with my rep,” she said.

  Hendricks looked like a very full cat with canary feathers sticking out of his mouth. Alarm bells went off and she nearly announced that she wanted to stop right now. But she also wanted to know what he had on her. Correction: What he thought he had on her.

  He pressed a switch, and the digital recorder blinked red to let her know that it was recording her. They went through the preliminaries and then he began his witch-hunt.

  “You went to Rosie’s Bar early last night to celebrate a conviction,” he said.

  “Yes.” Oh, for God’s sake, he’s not going to write me up for drinking and then coming in to work the blackout, is he?

  “And then you met a confederate outside Rikers to prep for your father’s escape.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “What?”

  With an air of satisfaction, he flipped open the case folder on the desk and slid a photograph toward her. It was a picture of her talking to a C.I. from at least six months ago, but it was in front of Rikers. The pictu
re was grainy black and white, grabbed off security footage, and her C.I.’s face was away from the camera. She was glad of that, because he had risked a lot to come to her with information about gang activity.

  The date and time stamp on it indicated that it was recorded at 11 p.m. last night. She had been in bed with Vincent at 11 p.m., but of course she couldn’t say that.

  “I wasn’t there last night. This has been doctored.” He started to take it back and she kept her hand on it. She felt as if she were tumbling end over end in blackest space. IA would have checked and double-checked their sources. “Who gave you this?”

  “We received it directly from Rikers surveillance.”

  “Who?” she repeated. “I want to see the report.”

  “I’m not authorized—”

  “We’re done.” She rose.

  “Then you’re off DeMarco. And suspended. I believe you know the routine.”

  Damn it, she thought, and sat back down. “There is no way I was at Rikers last night. You know my father is former FBI, and that he was in charge of a lot of spooky stuff. I have absolutely no motive for helping him escape from prison.”

  “We’re not certain if he escaped or was abducted.”

  “But you’re certain, based on a picture of me with one of my C.I.s, that I participated.”

  “A C.I., or one of the masked, armed men who broke open his cell and hustled him out?” he asked. “Perhaps if you give us his name and contact information, we can verify your story.”

  “He is still in danger. And we gave him a bus ticket out of town. Six months ago.” And I wouldn’t give him up anyway. Not to you.

  “This raises serious questions,” Hendricks said, and Cat narrowed her eyes.

  “This raises no questions. As I said, this has been tampered with. Second of all, even if I had been recorded at Rikers last night, there is no way to link me to my father’s disappearance.”

  That last assertion was a fishing expedition, to see if he had more false evidence to smear her with. But he didn’t respond. He sat quietly. She glanced at the blinking red button. She was still being recorded.

  “I drove straight home from Rosie’s,” she said. “You can check the GPS on my car. I also got a phone call from my captain—”

  “—much later,” he finished for her. “Hours, in fact.”

  She fought to stay civil. “If this is all you have, I’ll get back to my case. You wouldn’t want a concerned citizen to learn that the investigation of his son’s kidnapping was held up for frivolous reasons, would you?”

  “Oh, this is anything but frivolous.” He reached forward and turned off the recorder. “I just wanted to give you a chance to come clean before it was too late.”

  “Don’t threaten me,” Cat snapped. And she was snapping. She was pumped full of coffee, anger, and anxiety. She made a point of keeping the photo though she expected him to ask for it back. But he remained silent as she walked straight-backed out of the interview room.

  Tess was waiting for her with a cup of coffee made just the way Cat liked it. She held it out to her and looked with concern at the way Cat’s hand trembled when she took the cup. Cat handed Tess the picture.

  “I can’t provide an alibi,” she said simply, and slumped into her desk chair.

  “This is ridiculous. Let me take this to J.T. Maybe he can figure out how to refute it.”

  Cat nodded. “Tess, he was so smug. Like he had more on me.”

  “Next time, union rep,” Tess said.

  “That’s just it.” Cat looked around to make sure no one could hear them. “He kept threatening to take me off the DeMarco case. And that wouldn’t have bothered me at all until we discovered a link to the Windsors. So… does Hendricks know that? Is someone feeding IA information about Vincent?”

  Tess caught the side of her lower lip and wrinkled her nose. “Okay, see, back when I knew you were hiding something and I wanted to stop being your partner? I miss those simpler days.” She laughed ruefully. “We’ll get J.T. on this and meanwhile, our warrant hasn’t come through and I thought we could drive out to the cemetery and wander around. Maybe there’s a row of headstones or, y’know, a bunch of DeMarcos stacked up in a tomb.”

  “Maybe it’s the anniversary of the death of a famous guitarist,” Cat said, grateful for the distraction of a puzzle to solve. Her insides were quivering.

  “Elvis. He played the guitar. Didn’t he?”

  “He’s buried in Memphis,” Cat told her.

  “Or… is he?” Tess whipped out her trilling phone. “Hey, yeah, how’s my favorite deputized computer hacker? Yes, it’s that time again.” She lowered her voice and said huskily, “Rikers.”

  Cat could hear J.T. sputtering as Tess held out her phone. She felt ten times better. She told Tess the approximate date she had met her C.I. and Tess relayed that to J.T.

  “I’ll scan it in for you,” Tess said into the phone. “Just use the fancy software. That’s what it was created for. I deputized you.”

  She disconnected. “J.T. fears a raid from Homeland Security.”

  “At this point, I don’t blame him.”

  Tess put the photo in the scanner’s bed and hit send. “Off it goes to hot smart guy.”

  “I hope he figures something out.” Cat turned to her computer and scrolled down to the bottom of the page she was on, to the section that listed signers on the bank account: Angelo Antonio DeMarco. As would be expected. But there was a second signer, and Cat stared at the name for a couple of seconds before she found her voice.

  “Hey, Tess.” She pointed.

  The second signer on the account was Tori Lynne Windsor.

  “Wait, what?” Tess said. She leaned forward until her eyelashes were practically brushing the screen. “Tori?” She looked up at Cat. “He knew Tori?”

  Cat didn’t respond. She was scared. This was too connected. Fake footage, DeMarcos, Windsors, Vincent. Her fingers lifted off the keyboard as if by their own accord as she drew in a slow breath and held it.

  “Okay, listen,” Tess said. “You stay on this. I’ll try to get the florist or the cemetery to tell me who he sent flowers to, and if I can’t find out I’ll drive there myself.” Cat didn’t respond, and Tess put a hand on her shoulder. “Cat, we’ll figure this out.”

  Wordlessly, Cat opened up a grave-finding search engine and clicked to Woodlawn. She typed in Tori’s name and death date. No match found, the computer reported. She opted out of specifying a burial place and tried again.

  No match found.

  “Tess,” she rasped. “What’s happening?”

  “We’ll find out,” Tess said again. She raised Cat from out of her chair and gave her a hug. Cat couldn’t feel Tess’s arms around her. She was numb from head to toe. “C’mon.” Tess gave her a gentle shake. “You’re stronger than this. We’re stronger. And we are smart, too. We’re Vargas and Chandler! We’ll get to the bottom of it.”

  And then Cat was back. She jerked and sucked in a deep breath as if someone had just shocked her heart. Exhaling, she nodded at Tess. “I’m okay.”

  “I’ve never seen you freeze like that,” Tess said. “Ever.”

  “I think it was because I could. I wasn’t standing in an alley with an armed suspect, or facing down IA. I’ve carried around such fear for him for so long. And I hate that you’ve been sucked into this.”

  “I sucked myself in,” Tess replied, and she made a face. “That sounds very wrong. But you know what I mean. I wouldn’t let it go. I pushed until I found out everything. And I am going to push on this, too. And so are you. It’s what we do, and we are good at it. And we need to do it. Fast.”

  “Yes.”

  “So let me work on the cemetery. You continue with our forensic accounting. J.T. will work on the Rikers footage. Vincent needs a job.”

  Cat hesitated. Then she said, “Take him with you to the cemetery. If Angelo sent flowers to Tori… he’ll be able to help.”

  Tess blanched. “Seriously.” When
Cat nodded, she made her bad-coffee face and said, “Okay. You want to set that up? I’m going to call the florist again, maybe save myself a trip. I don’t know why we’re not getting that warrant. Unless our judge is someone else’s judge.”

  They traded dour looks. Then Cat pulled out the bottom drawer of her desk, where she kept her purse, slipped out her burner phone and stepped out of the bullpen. In a stairwell, she called Vincent’s new number and he answered on the first ring.

  She told him everything, and in the telling, every part of her that had been frightened was angry instead. She tried to stay on an even keel so they could move forward, and she couldn’t tell how he was taking all the news because he was so quiet.

  “So I need you to meet Tess at the cemetery,” she said.

  “To look for Tori’s grave.” His voice cracked.

  To scent her dead body. That was what she wasn’t saying. He could do that. He had known that her mother wasn’t buried in the grave Cat had brought calla lilies to every anniversary of her death. And he had been able to confirm that she was buried in a lonely grave behind an old abandoned farmhouse. But this was a vast field of four hundred acres of graves. Hundreds of thousands of internments.

  What was she thinking? What would that be like for him? And how could he find Tori?

  By sticking to the newer graves. By beasting.

  “Wait,” she said.

  “Forget it.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “No. We’ll find it some other way. We’re developing information.”

  “I’ll do it. Tell Tess to meet me.”

  He hung up.

  Cat went back to tell Tess the plan. Tess had a funny look on her face.

  “Hey, remember that picture?” she said. “The one in the guitar. I just put it into our imagining system and aged it up.”

  She moved away from the monitor so Cat could have a look. The face of the young woman who stared back at her was unmistakably Tori Windsor.

  “Go. Quickly,” Cat said.

  “Gone,” Tess replied.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  OUTSIDE THE DA’S OFFICE, NYC