by Rex Burns
“Sounds as if you like the guy.”
“Hell, no.” Though maybe he admired Covino’s tenacity. It was always good to see someone under pressure who did not crack or give up; it restored Wager’s faith in humanity. “But I have the feeling he’s keeping secrets. Maybe he wants to even things up himself.”
“Yeah, it wouldn’t be the first time somebody tried that—you screwball Chicanos and your codes. Did he hint anything at all?”
“Not a word, and I don’t think he will, to us.” Wager gazed at the papers and photos on his desk. “Do you know who the arresting officer was on Gerald’s bust?”
Axton shook his head. “It wasn’t on his sheet.”
Wager pushed the telephone button for Records and asked the same question of the police person who answered; in a few seconds she came back to say, “Detective Franconi; Burglary and Stickup Division.”
Under the desk’s glass top with its rings of dried coffee and rubbery threads of old eraser was the month’s duty roster for all the detectives. It noted that Franconi was on the four-to-midnight shift, and Wager would have to talk with him then. Possibly the burglary detective had heard something about Gerald’s brother. It was a very slender angle, but Wager would play them all; sometimes the angle you missed, no matter how unlikely, was the one that would pay off. “What about Frank’s friends?” he asked Max.
“It took me all afternoon and half the night to locate eight of the people on that list—kids that age never stay in one spot more than ten minutes. But not a one of them knew of any reason why Frank would be killed. They all said he was a good kid, hardworking, a real boy scout.”
“Were any of them with him Sunday night?”
“Not that I talked with, and they all had verifiable statements. There’s five or six more, that I couldn’t catch up with; maybe we’ll have better luck today. I did go see the owner of that liquor store where Frank worked.”
“Same story?” That was a dumb question. If it had been different, Axton would have told him.
“Just about. According to him, Frank was very reliable and got along real well with the customers—which, he said, is no easy thing over there.” Axton sighed, the chair back ticking lightly as his torso rose and fell. “Gabe, I’m really beginning to dislike the bastards that killed this kid.”
Wager knew what Axton meant. There was a correlation between the kind of victim and an attitude toward the killer. If the murder was the result of a family fight, Wager might feel a little sorry for the husband or wife who did it; if it happened between criminals, the only feeling he could recall was a tinge of satisfaction at getting two for the price of one. But the victim who didn’t deserve it—the child, the waste of a decent, innocent person—that stirred Wager’s anger; and so far Frank Covino seemed to be the kind of Hispano Wager liked to contrast to the loudmouths and whiners. But, Wager reminded himself, all the evidence wasn’t in yet; what things are often turn out differently from how they seem, and the luxury of anger could wait for a certainty. He gathered the file together. “The Bulldog wants to see us.”
Chief Doyle’s thrusting lower teeth showed briefly when he said good morning, and Wager and Axton took it as a friendly snarl. “If you gentlemen want some coffee, there it is.” His office had its own machine and it was rumored that he ground the blend himself—by hand. It did not taste any different from the hot, metallic flavor that boiled out of the division pot, but the detectives always told Doyle how good it was. “Bring me up to date on this shooting.”
Wager did, Max adding a point or two about Covino’s acquaintances.
“Any chance it’s a thrill killing?”
“There’s the chance,” said Wager. “But it doesn’t have that feel about it.” He listed the reasons why. “A shotgun’s not a thrill killer’s weapon, there were no signs of torture or a struggle, and the killer didn’t walk around and look at the body when he apparently had a chance to. What it feels like is a professional hit.”
“Mistaken identity?”
“That’s a good possibility.” Wager told him about his suspicions concerning Gerald Covino.
“But the brother gave you nothing solid?”
Wager wouldn’t be sitting on his tail in the Bulldog’s office if he had something solid; Doyle knew that. Wager did not bother to answer.
“Marco and Dominick Scorvelli …. That’s one very interesting wrinkle.” Doyle’s gaze roamed the wall over their heads. “How reliable is your source for that information, Wager?” Doyle still had lingering suspicions about Wager’s Narcotics Division background, and they crept out every now and then in questions of judgment that he would not ask other experienced officers.
“He’s been around a long time and a lot of people talk to him. When he gives me something, it’s usually been good.”
“How much do we pay him for it?”
Doyle was always worried about that. “I drink a few beers with him now and then. He won’t accept any money.”
“Jesus,” said Max. “The taxpayers could use more like him.”
Doyle only grunted. Then he said, “Well, we’re getting some media interest in this shooting—nothing heavy, but I’d like to wrap up the case as soon as possible. Why don’t you drop by the Organized Crime Unit, Wager? You know those people over there; see if they’ll tell you what they have going on Dominick Scorvelli. Maybe we can come at this thing from another direction.”
Doyle had called the O.C.U. “those people” because they had their own budget and organization and liked to work without letting the regular units of D.P.D. know what they were doing. Security, they called it; arrogance was how most of D.P.D. saw it. But Doyle was right on two counts: it was worth a try since nothing else seemed any good; and since Wager had worked over there not too long ago, they might be a little more relaxed about giving information to him.
Outside the Bulldog’s office, Max asked, “You want to split up? I’ll take the remainder of this list of Covino’s friends while you go visit the O.C.U.?”
They would cover more ground that way, but sometimes it was better, as his grandfather used to say, to run with slow strides. “If we’re together we might come up with more.” Besides, there was still so much missing—still so much that he couldn’t squeeze between these ten fingers—that he was hungry to handle every fragment of the case. It was the same feeling as when he sat and stared at the photographs—the same need to absorb every detail he could.
As they left main headquarters by the rear corridor, a voice cut through the clatter of machinery from the building under construction next door. “Max! Max the Ax—wait up!” Police reporter Gargan, his familiar black turtleneck shirt showing through the open parka, jogged toward them from the new performing arts complex. “Max—can you give me something on this shooting?” The reporter ignored Wager and looked up at Max hopefully. “Anything at all?”
“Not yet, Gargan. The killer or killers didn’t leave much information. We’re just doing what we can with what we’ve got, and right now that’s not a hell of a lot.”
“Would you call it a gangland slaying?”
“Well, no … We can’t really … ”
“Do you think there’s any possibility of another gang war starting? Like, maybe, the unsolved Scorvelli killing last year?”
“There’s no link that we know of.”
“I heard the victim might have been connected with Scorvelli’s death.”
“Who the hell told you that?” asked Wager.
Gargan finally looked at him, his lips stretched in the kind of smile that twisted the corners of his mouth down. “You did, Wager. When you tried to find out from Mrs. Covino if her kid was tied in with the Scorvellis. That really got to her, man—you really have a talent for doing that to people. You must have hair on the bottom of your feet.” He turned back to Max. “All that poor old lady could talk about was how Frankie wasn’t like his brother in Cañon City. You got to admit that it looks like a gang killing, Max, and you guys were the ones
who brought up the Scorvelli name. What about it, now—is there anything to it?”
“It does look something like a gang killing, Gargan. But it could be that someone was just after his car; the street divisions haven’t run across his car yet. Why don’t you check back with us tomorrow? I hope we’ll have something by then.”
Gargan finished scribbling a few words in his notebook. “All right. It’s ‘possibly’ a gang killing, and the Scorvelli name’s been mentioned. That’s all I’ll say, Max, I swear. And thanks.” He left without nodding good-bye to Wager.
Max watched the figure hurry away between the parked cars. “What’s Gargan got against you, Gabe?”
“We had some fun and games a few months ago. I had him busted for drunk driving.”
“You set him up?”
Wager shrugged. “He had it coming.”
“That could have cost him his job!”
“That’s what he tried to do to me. It was a fair fight.”
Axton’s thick eyebrows bobbed. “Still, you start using the law like that …”
“Sometimes the laws aren’t enough,” said Wager. “Besides, Gargan did break the law—after a small shove.”
“You are one hard little bastard, Gabe.”
Wager unlocked the cruiser’s door and slid beneath the wheel, set his radio pack in the dash mount and reached to unlock the rider’s door for Axton. “I sure don’t feel bad about it.’“
“Well, you didn’t make any lifetime friend out of him.”
“Tough titty.”
Their first stop was a Buy-Rite gas station on North Federal, just past the city-county line in an unincorporated corner of the sprawling suburbs. They were looking for one Terry Valdez; his name had a little box around it in Wager’s notebook, indicating that he had been a close friend of Frank Covino’s. “His mother said he worked from seven to three,” Axton told Wager. They pulled onto one side of the concrete apron and the two detectives got out.
The station manager, from his desk near the cash register, watched them all the way into the small building. “You guys cops?”
“Are we wearing a sign?” asked Max.
“It’s the way you walk. You walk like cops. Who’re you after?”
“Do you have a Terry Valdez working here?” asked Wager.
“Yeah. He’s in the service bay. What’s he done?”
“Not a thing.” Axton smiled. “We just want to ask him some questions about a friend of his.”
“What friend? Is it something I should hear about?”
“Why should you?”
“I mean, he’s only been with me three or four months. They told me I got to hire a minority, so I got this Valdez kid. If he’s in trouble, I got a right to know about it, right? It’s bad enough they tell me who to hire, but I sure as hell don’t have to have a thief working for me.”
“We’re not after Valdez for anything, sir. We just want to ask him about one of his friends,” said Axton.
“Well, birds of a feather, you know.”
“Birds of a feather what?” asked Wager.
The manager looked at him closely and ran a pale tongue over his lower lip. “Nothing. He’s out there. Being paid by the hour.”
They went into the small service bay, the kind of unit that a few self-serve stations still have. “Terry Valdez?” called Wager.
“Down here.” The grease-streaked legs of red overalls stuck from beneath the end of a ’69 Ford. “Be with you in a minute.”
They waited until the young man slid from under the car on his creeper, then showed their badges. “We’d like to ask you some questions about Frank Covino.”
“Oh, God.” The thin face with its soft, struggling mustache paled slightly. “That’s awful. It’s like you’re walking down the street with your buddy and you turn to say something to him and he’s gone. Just like that.”
Axton asked gently, “You fellas were good friends?”
“Sure—all the way through school together. Grade school, junior high, high school. Just a couple minutes ago I was thinking about giving him a call tonight to see what was going on. It was a habit—give old Frankie a call.” Valdez scrubbed at his grimy hands with a wipe rag and looked at them closely. “Tonight’s the rosary. That’s what he’s doing tonight.”
“Do you have any idea who’d want to kill him?”
“Some fucking loco! If I knew, man, you people wouldn’t have to be bothered!” His glance shifted to Wager, the dark eyes suddenly shot with a mixture of anger and pain. “He was my compadre, you know?”
“Did you see him at all the night before last?” asked Wager.
“Sunday night? No. I saw him Friday at school; we had a beer and then he went to his class and I went to mine.”
“This is at the college?” asked Max.
“Yeah. I go to Community. I’m taking the automotive course. He’s at Metro State in this electronics program. He wanted to work in the space business. He could have, too—he was smart, man.”
“Did you see him after class on Friday?”
“No. He was on this work-study deal and had some stuff to do in some office. His old man was Italian—Covino—but his mother’s Chicana. So he applied for this minority grant. What the hell—it’s the same thing the chicas do who marry Anglos, you know? They keep their Chicano name so they can get the grants. Mrs. Martinez-Jones—like that.”
“You have a grant?”
“No, I didn’t want to be bothered. Too much paper work and crap. You should see the papers Frankie had to fill out—every cent his whole family made he had to put down.”
“Did Frankie need the money badly?” asked Wager.
“Well, he qualified for the grant. But he wasn’t hurting; he had this job over at the liquor store and his mother has her pension from his old man’s death. He was a miner. It was more that Frankie wanted it on his record. You know, for job applications and such. Frankie, he talked me into taking this job. I was going to work construction for more money, but Frankie says it would look better if I had a job in my field. Like an investment.” The thin face smiled for the first time, a flash of white teeth beneath the struggling mustache. “That old man, he don’t like it, but I’m as good as any he’s got and a lot better than most around here.”
“That’s the station manager?”
“Yeah.” The smile went as quickly as it had come. “Frankie was like that, always planning ahead. But not like a strainer—not like he was trying to jew somebody out of something; he just had good ideas about what to do.”
“Do you know anything about his activities last weekend?”
Valdez shook his head. “We didn’t have anything lined up. I had a date Saturday night, and he was working at the liquor store. I didn’t even ask what he was doing after work.” He studied the greasy wipe rag again. “Next thing I know is when I called up his house and Gracie told me what happened.” Suddenly Valdez moaned and slammed the rag to the concrete deck. “Aw, crap! Why’d it have to be him?”
Wager nudged the lifeless cloth with his shoe. “That’s one of the things we’re after—why.” And when they had that, who. “Was Frankie ever mixed up with the Scorvelli family?”
“Scorvelli?” The wide, dark eyes seemed genuinely shocked. “Frankie? Come on, man!”
“We heard he might be,” said Wager.
“You heard wrong! He wasn’t that way, man.” Surprise gave way to anger. “He wasn’t no pollo—he could look after himself; but I knew Frankie like my own family, and there was nothing like that he was into!”
“We’re sure of that, Mr. Valdez,” Axton soothed. “But we don’t have much to go on, so we have to ask all sorts of questions.”
“Yeah. O.K. But you talk to anybody—the priest, anybody. They’ll all tell you the same: Frankie was a good man.” Again Valdez’s voice almost broke. “Good!”
Wager convinced Valdez to give them the names and addresses of a few more of Covino’s acquaintances who might have seen him Sunday night, and
then, still watched by the seated service manager, they swung back toward town among the midmorning traffic on Federal. Here, north of I-70, the four-lane street made long rises and falls across the sandy flats of lower Clear Creek valley. This time Axton drove and Wager stared in silence out the window. It was one of those light-filled spring days whose sun stung hot through the windshield. Only when you saw the roadside dust scud across the highway or felt the shudder of the car did you know how hard the wind was blowing off the iron-colored mountains. Wager watched the snapping pennants and blurred plastic windmills over the truck and camper sales lots, the passing furniture warehouses and cut-rate lumber stores, the plaster horses that touted Western gear; just beyond the cluttered line of sprawling one-story commercial buildings rose a fringe of cottonwood trees not yet ripped from the stream bed to make room for more asphalt. Their sharp lines of branches had grown slightly fuzzy with the pale green of early leaves. Wager gazed at the faint spring greenness and wondered why someone wanted to tear up those trees instead of build around them—wondered what was in some people that made them search for the tallest and cleanest, the noblest, just to disfigure and destroy it.
Axton broke the silence. “I get the idea we’re going in circles. It all comes back to the same thing: he was a good kid and there was no reason for what happened.” He eased up on the gas, coasting until the distant traffic light changed and the column of waiting cars and trucks began to move; then he smoothly joined the line without wasting motion.
Axton was like that, Wager mused; he had the kind of forethought Valdez admired in Frank: looking ahead, planning the moves for the greatest economy of effort. Maybe that came from living in a body as big as Axton’s: you learned to look ahead for low doorways or jutting furniture, you stayed at the edge of crowds, you sat with care on strange chairs. “Do you think Valdez was telling the truth?”
“Don’t you?” Axton’s question meant “What did I miss?”
