House Reckoning: A Joe DeMarco Thriller

by Mike Lawson

  “Carmine, you’ve got nothing you can use to control me anymore. You can’t tell people I killed DeMarco and Jerry Kennedy. Well, I suppose you could tell, but who’d believe you? I mean, they might believe you if you said you’d ordered me to kill them, but then you’d go to jail as an accomplice. And as for me accidentally shooting Connors, since you gave me the name of the witness, I can always take care of the teacher if she ever becomes a problem. So you have nothing, Carmine. From this point forward, you stay the hell away from me and just pray that all my friends in the department don’t come after you.”

  And that’s when Carmine had said, “I got something I want to show you, young Officer Quinn.”

  Quinn almost threw up when he saw the photos.

  He remembered the night he killed DeMarco, how brightly lit the warehouse had been, but he hadn’t thought too much about it. The story Carmine had given Gino DeMarco was that the warehouse was used for a high-stakes Saturday night poker game, and Quinn was one of the players. The warehouse was lit up, Quinn figured, to match the story—so the poker players wouldn’t have to stumble around the warehouse in the dark to make their way back to the office where the game was played. When he saw the photos, however, he understood why every light in the warehouse had been turned on.

  Quinn figured out later that the photographer must have been hiding up on the catwalk, partially hidden by the warehouse overhead crane or under the tarps stored on the catwalk. He positioned himself so he could look directly down at the main aisle of the warehouse—the aisle he knew Gino DeMarco would walk down. The photographer hadn’t used a flash—Quinn would have seen a flash going off—and Quinn didn’t hear the clicking noise a camera makes as the film is advanced because of all the noise on the pier.

  He never did find out who took the photos—the photos that could prove he was a murderer—the photos that Carmine had used to squeeze him for years. Whoever it was, the guy had to have been a pro.

  He did everything he could to find the photographs and the negatives after Carmine died—but he never could. Then Carmine’s pushy bitch of a daughter shows up after he executed a search warrant on her house and tells Quinn that he and his wife are going to become her political guardian angels. The fact was, supporting Stephanie Taliaferro Hernandez hadn’t been all that painful and from everything he could see, she was actually a fairly decent politician.

  And maybe that’s why she sold him out—because she was a politician.

  Quinn walked over to the National Mall and started walking in the direction of the Lincoln Memorial. He noticed that the Washington Monument appeared to be fully restored after the earthquake that had occurred in 2011. It had taken them forever to repair it.

  One thing he was going to have to do was stop seeing Pam. He hated to do it—he really did love her—but in order to save himself, he needed Barbara’s influence. And he really needed her money. Whichever lawyer he hired to defend him would have to be one of the best in New York, and it was going to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend himself against a murder charge. He was somewhat worried that Barbara might not stand by his side—but not too worried. Barbara had always been an extraordinarily loyal person and her reputation would be damaged almost as much as his if he were found guilty.

  As for his defense, the obvious tactic was to impugn the photos. If experts could demonstrate how the photos could have been manufactured, it wouldn’t be hard to make a case that his enemies—like people in the mafia—had tried to engineer his downfall. Yes, with his reputation, any decent attorney should be able to get him acquitted if it could be shown that the photos might not be real. And he was going to have more than a decent attorney and he’d buy all the experts he needed.

  Another possibility was the one he’d mentioned to Joe DeMarco: admit that he’d indeed shot Gino, but he did so only in self-defense and while trying to arrest Gino. That was going to be tougher to sell to a jury. Like DeMarco had said, how would he explain why he didn’t come forward immediately and admit to killing Gino that night if the shooting was in the line of duty? Maybe what he could do was . . .

  Ah, a pay phone. Over there, by the Hirshhorn. He’d always liked the sculpture garden in front of the Hirshhorn Museum, particularly the famous Burghers of Calais by Rodin. Rodin’s human figures were so real he could imagine them coming to life and talking to the tourists in the garden.

  “Boss!” Hanley called out.

  He’d actually forgotten Hanley and Grimes were trailing along after him.

  “I’m just going over to use that phone, Hanley.”

  “Boss, aren’t you supposed to be over at the Hoover Building for lunch?”

  Quinn laughed. “Not today, Hanley, not today.”

  “Boss, are you sure you’re all right?”

  Quinn just waved a hand—a mild quit-bugging-me gesture. He picked up the phone, then realized he didn’t have any change and he’d probably need three or four dollars to call New York. He called Hanley and Grimes over—they didn’t have any change, either—so he had to wait until Hanley could get change from a street vendor.

  “Tony, do you know who this is?” Quinn said when Benedetto answered the phone.

  Tony didn’t answer, but Quinn could hear him breathing.

  “Tony! Goddamnit, can you hear me? Do you know who this is?”

  “Yeah,” Tony finally said. He sounded really weak, like he might die any moment.

  “I want you to call off the hit on . . . on you-know-who. Do you understand?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Tony, are you sure you understand?”

  “Yeah.”

  Shit, Quinn thought after he hung up. Tony had sounded so out of it that he couldn’t be sure that Tony had understood a thing he’d said. From this point forward, he needed to make sure that he had people around him constantly in case DeMarco was killed. He needed credible alibis.

  Tony hung up the phone, wondering who had just called. He’d been hitting the morphine pretty heavily; he was having a hell of a bad day.

  Quinn walked for almost two hours on the Mall, and while he walked he came up with a plausible way to explain why he’d killed Gino DeMarco in that warehouse and never reported the shooting. In order to make it work, he would need the cooperation of one man, his first mentor in the department, the man who’d been the chief of D’s when he was still a rookie. Leo Boyle was eighty now but still sharp, and he loved Quinn like a son—not to mention that Quinn had done a lot for Leo’s grandson when he joined the force. Yeah, he might have to sweeten the pot in some way, but Leo would most likely be willing to commit perjury to save him; Leo wouldn’t care that he’d killed a thug like Gino DeMarco. He’d still prefer to impugn the photos, but if he couldn’t . . .

  It was time to go see Barbara. He would tell her how he was being framed, and then they’d fly back to New York the next morning. Before they left D.C., he’d call Adam Morse and ask Morse to represent him. It was almost funny. He’d always despised Adam Morse for his ability to convince juries to acquit the criminals he represented; tonight he’d ask Morse to meet him for lunch tomorrow to discuss strategy.

  He turned and said to Hanley, “Get the car. I want to head back to the town house.”

  “Boss, the car’s all the way back at the parking lot near the Russell Building. Remember?”

  “Oh, that’s right,” Quinn said. It would take Hanley at least half an hour to retrieve the car. “Well, see if you can get me a cab, then you go get the car and Grimes will go with me.” At this point, he preferred Grimes to Hanley because Hanley kept asking what was bothering him.

  Barbara wasn’t at the town house when he arrived. She must still be out looking at real estate. Quinn drank only sparingly and hardly ever had a drink before six in the evening—but now seemed like a good time for one. He prowled the town house until he found the liquor cabinet and filled a tumbler full of scotch. Excellent scotch.

  Barbara finally arrived and he was a bit drunk by the time she got there.
As soon as she saw him, she said, “Have you seen the news? Brian, what’s going on?” She wasn’t talking—she was screeching—and she looked wild-eyed. Barbara, with all her money and her pampered upbringing, was a woman who rarely lost her composure.

  “What did they say on the news?” Quinn asked.

  “They said, he said . . .”

  “Who? Who made the announcement?”

  “The president’s press secretary.”

  “So what did he say?”

  “He said the president has withdrawn your name for the FBI job.”

  “But did he say why?”

  “Not really. All he said was . . . I was watching at the Four Seasons, having a drink with the real estate agent when the news came on. My God, Brian, it was humiliating. I didn’t know what to say to the woman.”

  “Barbara, calm down. What reason was given for the president dropping me?”

  “All he said, all the press secretary said, was something like ‘Certain information has come to the president’s attention, information that is currently being evaluated that has caused the president, for the time being, to reconsider Commissioner Quinn’s appointment.’ A bunch of gibberish like that. Brian, what’s this all about?”

  “Sit down, Barbara. I need to tell you something, something that happened when I was young.” He took her hands into his and looked deeply into her eyes. “I need you, Barbara, more than I’ve ever needed you before.”

  42

  DeMarco had told Mike and Dave it would be too much of a hassle to get them passes to come into the Dirksen Building and that even if they could get in, they wouldn’t be able to carry weapons. So what use would they be? He’d told them to wait for him on the steps on the north side of the building and, to his disappointment, they were still there when he finished with Quinn.

  “I’m not going to be needing you guys anymore,” he said. “You can take off.”

  DeMarco figured that no way in hell was Quinn going to make a run at him after Stephanie Hernandez showed the FBI the photos. If DeMarco was killed, Brian Quinn would be the prime suspect—and Quinn didn’t need to be a suspect for more than one crime at a time.

  “Yeah, well,” Mike said, “we’re not exactly working for you. We’re working for Emma. So she needs to tell us if it’s okay for us to take off.”

  DeMarco was in too good a mood to argue with him and tell him that it was his decision and not Emma’s regarding whether or not he needed their continued protection—which consisted of them primarily sitting around his house, eating his food, and playing cribbage. All he said was “Then I’ll give Emma a call in a while, but right now I’m heading over to the Monocle for a drink. I feel like celebrating. You can tag along if you want.”

  “What are you celebrating?” Mike asked.

  “Karma,” DeMarco answered.

  Yep, Brian Quinn might still be alive, but he’d eventually pay for what he did. Or at least DeMarco was pretty sure he would pay. It would probably take two or three years with a legal system that moved slower than slugs could travel, but in the end, Quinn would go down. He was concerned, of course, because Quinn was bright and slippery and well connected—and because his wife was so goddamn rich—that Quinn might be acquitted. But DeMarco didn’t think so.

  The Monocle restaurant—a well-known watering hole for the denizens of Capitol Hill—was only a few blocks from the Dirksen Building and it was too nice a day to take a cab, so they walked. As they were walking, Dave suddenly tensed up and said, “Hey, Mike! That guy over there, across the street, the guy in the tan jacket? Is he the one we saw this morning near DeMarco’s place, getting into his car?”

  DeMarco looked over at the man they were talking about. He was pretty sure it wasn’t the same guy; although he was tall and balding and wearing the same color jacket as the man they’d seen near his house, this man was younger. Mike apparently thought the same thing because he said, “Nah, I don’t think it’s him.”

  At the next corner the man in the tan jacket turned and headed west and Dave said, “Yeah, it probably wasn’t him.”

  DeMarco almost said, Probably? He was going to tell Emma that in the future, if she thought he needed bodyguards, to hire people with twenty-twenty vision.

  In the Monocle, DeMarco ordered a vodka martini. Mike and Dave ordered draft beer; apparently drinking beer on duty—as opposed to the hard stuff—didn’t violate whatever sacred oath they took as bodyguards.

  DeMarco looked up at the television over the bar as he waited for his drink; CNN was on, the sound muted, and captions were running across the screen too fast to read, but DeMarco saw enough to understand that the maniac who ran Iran was up to something screwy again.

  His martini arrived, and as he was sipping it, it occurred to him that he needed to call his mother. He didn’t want her to be surprised when the news broke that Quinn had been arrested for killing Gino DeMarco. Dealing with her husband’s death had been hard enough the first time; he wished there was some way he could spare her from having to go through it all over again. Maybe the best thing would be to call his Aunt Connie first, give her the news, and ask her to stay with his mom for a couple of days. Yeah, that sounded like a plan.

  “How long we gonna sit here?” Mike asked.

  “Until I’m through celebrating. Just relax and drink your beer.”

  At that moment, he looked up at the television and saw the CNN guy’s lips moving and on the caption were the words Brian Quinn and FBI director. “Hey,” DeMarco said to the bartender, “would you mind turning on the sound for just a minute?”

  The bartender’s expression made it clear that it would be a major inconvenience for him to pick up the remote and hit a single button, but he did, and at that moment the president’s wimpy press secretary appeared behind a podium and told the nation that the president had decided to drop Brian Quinn.

  DeMarco raised his martini and made a toast: “Here’s to John Fitzpatrick Mahoney.”

  “What?” Mike said.

  DeMarco sat there a moment longer, noodling things over as he finished his drink. What the hell? he thought to himself. What do I have to lose? He took out his cell phone and made a call. “Is he available?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Mavis said. “For exactly twenty-two minutes.”

  “I’ll be right over.”

  It was time for DeMarco to go beg for his job back.

  “I’m heading over to the Capitol. You guys can come along if you want.”

  “Can we go inside the building this time?” Dave asked.

  “Sure,” DeMarco said. “You just go over to the visitor’s center and get in line with all the rest of the tourists.”

  Mahoney was on the phone when DeMarco walked into his office. He glared at DeMarco briefly, then said into the phone, “All right, Stephanie, and thanks. I’ll talk to Barlow in the next couple of weeks—I gotta figure out what to do with him—then after I talk to him I’m going to send you a guy who’ll help with your campaign.”

  He put down the phone and said to DeMarco—or maybe he was talking to himself—“She’s going to be a real pain in the ass. I know I’m going to regret getting her a seat in the House.” Then he said to DeMarco, “What do you want?”

  “I, uh, just wanted to thank you for what you did.”

  Mahoney just stared at him, his small blue eyes boring into DeMarco’s. DeMarco was about to open his mouth and go into the spiel he’d prepared, telling Mahoney how he was sorry that he’d lost his temper and threatened him, how he shouldn’t have done that even though he’d been understandably upset, and how if Mahoney . . .

  Mahoney opened the center drawer in his desk and pulled out a key and tossed it to DeMarco. It was the key to DeMarco’s office—the office of the Counsel Pro Tem for Liaison Affairs. The office where the red fire axe resided.

  “Get the fuck out of here,” Mahoney said. “But if you ever pull something like that again . . . Go on, beat it.”

  As DeMarco walked past Mavis’s desk, a smil
e on his face, he remembered what Jake had told him the first time he met Mahoney: “I thought that went pretty good.”

  Now DeMarco really felt like celebrating and he also realized that he hadn’t eaten lunch and he was starving. He called Emma so he could shed himself of Mike and Dave but Emma didn’t answer her phone, which didn’t really surprise him. Emma viewed her cell phone primarily as a one-way communication device.

  DeMarco decided to treat himself—and Mike and Dave—to an early dinner at a sports bar in Georgetown. Once they arrived, Mike and Dave proceeded to drink more beer, and DeMarco got the impression that they weren’t pacing themselves. DeMarco, not being a big beer guy since beer usually gave him a headache, decided to stick with vodka martinis.

  At one point, while waiting for his next drink to arrive, he called Emma and this time she answered. He gave her a recap of all that had transpired with Mahoney and Brian Quinn. She’d already seen the news conference announcing that Brian Quinn would not be occupying the big chair in the Hoover Building.

  “I appreciate you hiring Mike and Dave to watch over me,” he said, “but I don’t need them anymore. Quinn’s not going to do anything now.”

  “Probably not,” Emma said, “but I want them to escort you home and make sure there’s no one lurking around your house. Plus it sounds like you’re in some bar and about three sheets to the wind.”

  “Hey, I’m celebrating.” He didn’t bother to say that Mike and Dave were probably as drunk as he was.

  “Whatever. Put Mike on the phone and I’ll tell him what I want him and Dave to do.”

  “Thanks, Emma. For everything.” Then he added, “You saved my life.”

  By the time DeMarco got home, it was dark outside. Dave made a tour around the exterior of the house, looking, DeMarco assumed, for evidence that somebody had broken into his home. Mike stood next to him while Dave was searching, glancing casually about the neighborhood. DeMarco wasn’t too sure about Mike’s powers of observation since he knew how many beers the damn guy had had; he’d paid for the beers.