Lloyd Corricelli - Ronan Marino 01 - Two Redheads & a Dead Blonde

by Lloyd Corricelli

  “Good. So um, I should be going.”

  “Great, I’ll call you.”

  “Don’t you want to know my first name?” she asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Then you’ll just have to make sure you do call to find out.”

  I had a good feeling about her, hoping she’d turn out to be a normal average woman. Of course, I had that same feeling about Karen once and that didn’t turn out so well.

  ****

  There was a large box waiting for me on my porch when I got home. Duffy was damn quick; I didn’t expect to see anything from him for at least a few days. I also found another message from Diane on my machine. There was no hint of concern in her voice as she asked me to call. Duffy had her pegged perfectly, a black widow.

  I opened the package and found it full of videos, books and DVDs. The first book I looked at was jammed with eight by ten nudes of Karen, the same ones I had seen at her apartment. I also found a couple of original contracts she had signed including the one for the porno movie. In time, I’d figure out what to do with the contents. Winter was coming and I’d need something to keep the fireplace going.

  I grabbed a Sam Adams from the fridge, sat down on the couch and looked some more through Karen’s book. There was no doubt she could have done Playboy with little airbrushing needed.

  There were footsteps on the porch and Tony walked through the door with Cassie. She hugged me and kissed my cheek.

  “Easy,” I said. “I’m a broken man.”

  “Poor, baby,” she replied. “So is it true?”

  “You’re free as a bird.”

  She squealed and hugged me so tight I thought she’d pop my new stitches.

  “Ow,” was all I could muster.

  “Sorry there, broken man,” she laughed.

  “Ronan’s serious, Cassie. He nearly died a few times getting this resolved for you,” Tony stated. “He spent the night in the hospital getting patched up and he got blood all over my leather jacket.”

  She looked at me and held my hands.

  “You did that for me?” she asked.

  I just nodded. This time she held me very gingerly and started to cry.

  “Karen was lucky to have you in her life,” she whispered in my ear and I almost started to cry myself.

  “We need to celebrate,” Tony said.

  “There’s still one more thing I have to do,” I replied.

  “What’s that?” Cassie asked.

  “You have to see that other broad, Diane,” Tony stated. “Why torture yourself?”

  “This is a matter of pride, you know that. What would you do if you were in my shoes? Would you just let it go?”

  “No way.”

  “And neither can I.”

  “I wish I knew what you guys were talking about,” Cassie said.

  “I’ll explain it to you later,” I replied.

  “Okay,” she said with a shrug.

  She looked in the box of items.

  “What’s all this?”

  “A little gift for you. I tried to make sure they would never have anything left to hold over your head.”

  She picked up a book and opened it. There were pictures of her and another woman engaged in various sexual acts. She flipped through as Tony looked over her shoulder.

  “Ma’don,” he said.

  “You like?” she asked.

  He nodded, drool practically dripping out of his mouth.

  “Maybe I’ll give you one of these. I don’t know if I want them. This is a part of my life I think I’d rather forget.”

  “That would make this entire thing worthwhile,” he said.

  TWENTY-ONE

  I waited outside Diane’s apartment, parked across the street in my Jeep. Cassie and Tony stayed back at my house, probably celebrating in my hot tub. Note to myself; add extra chlorine.

  It was around ten o’clock when LaValle’s limo dropped her off. She chatted with him briefly and made her way up to her apartment.

  I crossed the street, dodging the nighttime bar traffic. I knocked on her door and could hear her on the other side, looking through the peephole. She opened it and her eyes grew wide.

  “Ronan, you’re okay!”

  She hugged me but I shrugged her off.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Knock it off, Diane.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She cocked her head seductively letting her hair fall down over one eye.

  “I’ve been so worried about you. I heard about the shootings and was worried you’d been hurt.”

  “Worried I’d been hurt, or hoped I’d been killed? Tell me, what was that the other night, a goodbye fuck?”

  She let out a little sarcastic laugh and walked into the living room.

  “You wearing a wire?”

  I lifted up my shirt and showed her I wasn’t.

  “Just you, me and God,” I said.

  “Yummy.” She was insatiable, evil but insatiable.

  My temper got the best of me and I pounced on her like a panther to his prey, pinning her to the couch with all my weight on top of her. I barely felt my bad shoulder as the adrenalin flowed inside me.

  “I’m not here to screw around. Don’t take me lightly.”

  “I fantasize about you forcing yourself on me. Rip my clothes off and fuck me now,” she cooed.

  “I’ll snap your fucking neck right now. You think I won’t?”

  “I could just scream rape.”

  I grabbed her throat and started to squeeze. Her face started to turn red and her eyes bugged out.

  “Go ahead and scream. The Lowell Police Department is well aware of your bullshit.”

  I stared in her eyes and saw them harden. It was a look I’d never seen from her before. I let up on her neck and stood.

  “I suppose you have think you have it all figured out?” she said rubbing her neck from my grip.

  “Fortunately for me, you let it slip about the drugs they found in Karen the night she was murdered. Nobody knew that other than the cops and me. It was never in the paper.”

  “Looks like I fucked up, Ronan,” she said nonchalantly.

  “I also know you had Morley kill Karen.”

  “That’s only the tip of the iceberg.”

  She strutted around the room, proud of herself and confident she’d gotten away with it. This was the part of the story when the super-villain explained their evil plot to the hero.

  “Your little girlfriend asked Dan to help her get away from the escort service. She’d tried to quit but they refused to let her go. Dan told her there was nothing he could do but she insisted he talk to Duffy Fitzpatrick and if he didn’t; she’d go to the press with their relationship. He came to me and asked what he should do and I told him I’d handle it.”

  “Does he know what you did?”

  “Probably figured it out, but we never discussed it again.”

  “You always clean up his messes?”

  “Usually. Like most men he’s very easily manipulated.”

  That one was a dart right at my heart. I tried not to react to it and let it show, but she was an expert at hurting people emotionally and knew it had found its mark.

  “I warned her that she better back off and stop making threats.”

  “Or else?”

  “Or else, but she wasn’t scared. She said she had a new boyfriend who’d protect her. She thought you were fucking Superman.”

  She tossed her head back and her long red hair shifted to the other side of her face.

  “I figured she’d been screwing some heavyweights as part of the business so I checked around and found out about you. I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect scenario,” she explained.

  “So you had her killed, hoping I’d blame Duffy and kill him then your boss couldn’t be blackmailed anymore.”

  “Very good, Ronan. Unfortunately, I didn’t count on you being more interested in investigating than getting revenge.”

  “
You think you’ll get away with this?”

  “I already did. There’s no evidence linking me to the crimes other than your testimony and you can’t do that.”

  “You talked to Duffy?”

  “Right after you met with him. That was a very fortunate twist, don’t you think? You taking pity on that whore, how pathetic. Thankfully, I know you won’t go back on the deal you made.”

  “You assume too much.”

  “Don’t kid yourself. Men like you live by that stupid code of honor that really limits your potential and makes you so predictable.”

  “Duffy knows you wanted him killed,” I said.

  “He doesn’t seem to care. I’m much too valuable to him.”

  She was overestimating her worth, but that was her load to bear. Her eyes changed back to the sexpot Diane that had drawn me in initially.

  “That girl Karen was beneath you. A man like you deserves a powerful woman.”

  “Let me guess, one like you.”

  “We would be an incredible team.”

  She put her arms around my waist and I started to feel like a boy on his first date, vulnerable and confused.

  “Your brains and my steel?” I asked.

  “Yes, a romantic way to put it but very effective.”

  She kissed me but as her lips touched mine, the image of Karen face down in the cold waters of the Merrimack flashed into my mind. I also remembered Duffy’s words and pushed her away so hard she landed on the floor on her butt.

  “There’s no way you and I could ever be together, Diane.”

  She stood up and brushed herself off. Her eyes again hardened.

  “Your loss. I was probably the best fuck you ever had.”

  “If I were you, I’d pray to never cross my path again. Don’t think that this is over either. I might have cut a deal with Duffy not to testify, but that doesn’t mean I can’t make your life miserable.”

  I turned away and left, her last comment ringing in my ears. Maybe the bad girls are the best in bed. Was that what kept attracting me to them? All I really wanted was a good girl who was loyal and loved me that didn’t work for an escort agency or conspired to have me killed. Was that asking too much?

  Cassie and Tony were still at my house when I got there sitting on the couch watching the Bruins’ game. There were half a dozen empty beers on my coffee table.

  “Hey Ronan, you gotta’ see this one porn we found,” Tony said.

  “I’m really not in the mood.”

  “You’ll really like it,” Cassie added.

  Tony stood and rifled through the box and found the DVD he was after.

  “This was attached to it,” he said.

  He handed me a handwritten note on Dubliner stationary. I read it aloud.

  “Ronan, remember when I said everyone has a dirty little secret? I thought you might enjoy this video. You’re free to do what you’d like with this after the election. In fact, I think Dan LaValle might enjoy it too.”

  It was signed with a big “D.” Tony popped it in the machine and hit play. A younger Diane, I guessed by about ten years, was nude and on her knees pleasuring two guys at once. When Duffy had alluded to the cost of Harvard Law, this never once occurred to me. The mental and physical fatigue I’d been dealing with had apparently taken a bigger toll than I thought. Normally I would have been right on top of that. It also explained why she had changed her last name; I never really bought the excuse she gave me.

  “You know, for a murdering scumbag, Duffy is an okay guy,” I said.

  “Tonight I would have to agree, paisan,” Tony replied.

  I fell back on the couch next to Cassie. She hugged me and Tony slapped me playfully on the back of the head. I laughed so hard that tears started to stream down my face. On screen, Diane performed all kinds of different sexual acts, some that she had never got a chance to share with me. We must have watched it three times before the night was over. It was definitely a keeper.

  I burned a copy onto two additional discs and sent one to Diane with a little note. She needed to know I could take her out anytime I chose to. We all have skeletons in our closets that if ever came to light might change our lives and the way people viewed us. Diane teetered on the edge of ruin, her fate in my hands. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she’d have to live with that fact, always wondering when it would happen. Being the miserable bastard I was, I’d let her suffer with that knowledge until the time was right.

  TWENTY-TWO

  I had a few restless nights when I should have been sleeping soundly after the somewhat successful resolution of the past six weeks’ events. My conscious was bothered though by the moral compromises I’d made, even though the list of pluses far exceeded the negatives in the final outcome. I could have done the dime novel tough guy thing and kept it inside, drinking myself into a near coma in a vain attempt to make myself forget. Instead I decided that it might help to talk to someone. I figured it should be someone who I was close to yet had been kept insulated from the entire situation.

  That person was my father. Yes, I’d often privately scoffed at his transformation into the “touchy feely” type of person, but today I was glad he did. I found him out behind his house chopping wood for winter and despite the chilling fall temperatures we sat out on his patio drinking beer. I told him everything that had happened recently leaving out a few sordid details like sleeping with Diane that I didn’t think he needed to really know. My Dad was a pretty astute guy and I’m sure he figured that out on his own even if he didn’t specifically ask the question.

  “That’s a pretty incredible story,” he said. “Want another beer?”

  “Sure,” I replied crushing my can and tossing it into his recycle can across the patio.

  He handed me a fresh can from his generic white foam cooler. “Surprised you’d drink my Budweiser.”

  “I’ve drank my fair share of Bud through the years,” I replied.

  “Usually you’ve got the expensive stuff in your refrigerator,” he noted.

  “Sam Adams is not the expensive stuff, Dad.”

  He just nodded and we shared a moment of silence as he processed everything I’d told him.

  “So in the end, everyone but this Diane woman got what they deserved?” he asked.

  “Everyone living. Morley gets to die a hero while all along he was Karen’s killer.”

  “As I told you from the time you were a little boy, Ronan, life isn’t always fair,” Dad said. “If you believe in the almighty however, the afterlife may be the fairest place of all.”

  “You mean he’s burning in Hell?”

  “I’d say that would be his just reward but it’s not my judgment to make.”

  “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” I replied.

  “If you went to church a little more often then perhaps you would have. I suppose today’s not the time to lecture you about that though.”

  I was way too old to be chastised by my father for not going to Mass regularly but he right on that topic. I was one of those Catholics I had mocked in my younger days; the kind who typically only went to church on Christmas and Easter. Somewhere on each of those holidays, there were people talking about me in the same derogatory terms I had once used.

  “So what does it hurt for his family to think this detective died a hero?” Dad asked. “I doubt they knew what he was up to.”

  I nodded. “You’re right. I’m just sorry I didn’t piece it together sooner. I might have been able to prevent a few of these other deaths.”

  He put his hand on my shoulder. “You did the best you could and have absolutely nothing to be sorry for.”

  “Thanks, but I still have regrets. I mean how could I have been so blind about Karen’s side job?”

  “None of us are perfect,” he noted.

  “That’s for damn sure,” I replied solemnly. “What’s it say about me when I break my own moral code without a fight?”

  “Don’t be so melodramatic. You did it all for the good of oth
ers,” he replied. “What you did was something to be proud of.”

  He finished his beer and popped open another. The foam drizzled from the top of the can and dripped down the side. He wiped it on his plaid jacket and took a deep breath.

  “I also think you learned more about who you really are and a few valuable life lessons as well,” he added.

  “Well, maybe but things still doesn’t feel right. To be honest, everything has felt out of balance since I left the Air Force. I wake up some days and I almost feel lost without a real purpose in life.”

  “The military was where you felt you belonged and excelled. You winning the lottery was a life changing event and now you have to search for your new place in the world.”

  “You mean now that I don’t really have to work?”

  “You do have to work, Ronan,” he said. “You just have to find the right work that suits your current situation. Men like you will never be satisfied just sitting around watching the world go by. Despite all your money you should seriously consider putting a uniform back on and doing the things you’re best at.”

  He was to right to some extent; the part about me having to work in one capacity or another. I needed to find something worthwhile to do with my life and just playing in my mediocre band and whittling away the hours watching Sportscenter wouldn’t cut it. The problem was I was struggling with what my life should be from this point on. Finding the right woman to share it with would be a great first step and as I’ve noted repeatedly, I’ve been a miserable failure in that department.

  ****

  I spent the next couple of days reflecting on what my father had said. As I often do with complicated situations, I ran through my future options which ran the gamut from doing nothing to the near unthinkable; giving most of my money away and seeing if I could get back into the Air Force. I hadn’t been close to reaching an answer, so I decided to take a ride out to the cemetery where Karen had been laid to rest. I didn’t expect to find an answer there but since I had never really said goodbye to her, I felt like this might be the right time.

  On one knee, I touched the face of her polished granite stone, feeling each letter of her name with my finger. I couldn’t help to think that if she had only come and told me about her problems, I could have prevented her murder.