The shimmering blond sister bam-7

by David Handler

  “Des isn’t here.”

  “She will be five minutes from now. Just spoke to her on the phone.” Her gaze fell upon Mitch’s visitor, who was lingering somewhat bashfully in the cottage doorway. “Who’s the biker boy?”

  “It’s Very.”

  “Very what?”

  “Very Very. That’s his name. He’s a police detective from New York City. Told me he’s been trying to get you on the phone.”

  “Oh, right. I do have a gazillion messages from some lieutenant named, like, Romeo Very.”

  “Romaine.”

  “Mitch, I don’t need a New York City hot dog sticking his nose in my case.”

  “I understand completely. But you may want to talk to him. He was tight with your murder victim. Seems to think he has information that can help.”

  Yolie heaved a sigh of annoyance before she waved Very on over.

  He approached her slowly, the two of them sizing each other up like middleweights in a ring.

  “You the detective who’s been calling me?”

  “That’s me.” Very showed her his shield. “And you’re Yolie Snipes. No introduction necessary, believe me.”

  She drew back from him, her nostrils flaring. “We know each other?”

  “We’ve never met, Sarge. But I’m a huge fan of Big East women’s hoops. I saw you play at the Garden must be a half-dozen times. You wore number twenty-six. Averaged just under seven assists per game throughout your career. Played killer defense. And no one, but no one, settled her sweet self at the charity stripe like you did when you were shooting a free throw.”

  “Is that a fact?” Yolie growled. Although Mitch could tell she was warming to the guy. She’d settled into her left hip just enough so that she was no longer taller than Very. “Coach Vivian always told us it was to be balanced right.”

  “Oh, you were balanced plenty right,” Very assured her. “Still are, from where I’m standing.”

  “Where you’re standing, hon, is about a hundred and twenty miles outside of your jurisdiction. You got information for me?”

  Very nodded. “Also some questions.”

  “What kind of questions?”

  Very didn’t answer her. His attention had been drawn to the Saab that was making its way across the causeway toward them.

  “This must be your lucky day, Lieutenant,” Mitch told him. “You’re about to meet Dorset’s resident trooper.”

  Des got out of her car wearing a polo shirt, shorts and an extremely troubled expression. Mitch really, really didn’t like the way she looked. Something heavy was weighing on her. “Who’s your friend?” she asked him quietly.

  “Master Sergeant Desiree Mitry, say hello to Detective Lieutenant Romaine Very of the NYPD. He and Augie Donatelli were friends.”

  “And he thinks he can help,” Yolie added dryly.

  “Can he?”

  “Dunno. All he’s done so far is flap his gums about ball.”

  “Mitch told me that you and Dawgie didn’t get along,” Very said to Des. “That’s messed up. And I’m sure it was entirely on Dawgie. He had his demons. I’ll be real happy to tell you all about them sometime over a cup of coffee if you’d-”

  “Is there a point here somewhere?” Des asked him.

  “Yes, there is. The guy was like family to me, okay? He didn’t have anyone else. And he didn’t deserve what happened to him.”

  “Agreed,” she allowed.

  “You were saying you have questions,” Yolie put in. “What questions?”

  “Have your people conducted a search of Dawgie’s apartment?”

  She crossed her big arms in front of her chest, eyes narrowing. “Why are you asking?”

  “Did they find a camera?”

  “Yeah, an old-school Nikon. Top of the line model, all sorts of lenses.”

  “Was there any film inside of it?”

  Yolie blinked at him. “I don’t recall, offhand. But I’m sure they looked. We’re very thorough out here, Lieutenant. We wear latex gloves. We floss our teeth daily.” To Des she said, “Not that you asked, but I got what you need in the front seat of my ride. They’re in the big white envelope.” She meant crime scene photos. She knew Des. Knew Des would want to draw a portrait of Augie.

  “You’re the best,” Des said, smiling at her gratefully.

  “How about notepads?” Very asked Yolie. “Did they find any of those?”

  “Don’t recall any, no.”

  “Was his apartment locked?”

  “Yes. So was his GTO.”

  “Did your-?”

  “They searched the glove compartment and trunk. Found nothing of interest.”

  “Mind if I take a look around for myself now that you’re done?”

  “I don’t mind-if you tell me what you’re looking for.”

  “Nothing in particular. I’m just curious.”

  “You’re curious, all right.” Yolie’s cell phone rang now. She glanced at the screen and took it. “Hey, Rico, how’s Tawny doing?

  … No, no. You stay with her. She needs you right now. I can bring you up to speed tomorrow… No prob, don’t worry about it.” She rang off, her face tightening with determination.

  “Is Tawny okay?” Des asked her.

  Yolie nodded. “False alarm. Hospital sent her home. She’s seeing her doctor first thing in the morning. Rico will be back down here after that-unless the doctor says otherwise.”

  “So they’re not assigning a different lieutenant to the case?” Very asked.

  “Not yet,” she replied. “Not that it’s any of your concern.”

  “But it’s huge for you.” He’d picked right up on just how ambitious Yolie was. The man was no dummy. Not that Mitch had thought for one second that he was. “If you crack this by tomorrow afternoon it’s a career maker. I can help you, Sarge. We can help each other.”

  Yolie rolled her eyes. “Lookie here, Romeo…”

  “It’s Romaine.”

  “You’ll have to bring some game if you want stay on the court with me. You said you had information…”

  “Yeah, I’m getting there. First tell me about how Dawgie died, will you?”

  “Two blows to the head. It went down in a neighbor’s yard after dark. Someone came up on him from behind, near as we can tell. First blow sent him to his knees, second one finished him.”

  “Did the killer take his wallet?”

  “Money and credit cards were still on him.”

  “Have you recovered the murder weapon?”

  “At the scene. It was an old baseball bat.”

  “Wait, wait, don’t tell me-a Louisville Slugger model 125 Mickey Mantle with a nicked-up handle. Dawgie’d had it since he was a kid. You found his prints and no one else’s on it, am I right?”

  Yolie frowned at him. “I just got word about the prints a half-hour ago. How did you…?”

  “Anyone who has enough game to ambush him would also be smart enough to wear gloves,” Very explained. “Dawgie’s wife, Gina, was terrified of guns. So he used to sleep with that bat underneath his bed in case someone tried to break in during the night. No doubt still did. He was your classic creature of habit. Since your techies are so thorough, they no doubt found the outline of it in the dust bunnies under there.”

  Yolie said nothing to that. Just stared at him.

  “If he kept it under his bed,” Mitch said, “then what was it doing out in Rut Peck’s backyard? And how did the killer get hold of it?”

  “Dawgie must have been carrying it.”

  “He wasn’t,” Des told him.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I was tailing him, that’s how. He didn’t have a bat on him.”

  “Time out, you just lost me…” Very’s right knee was jiggling, jiggling. He had to be the most hyper person Mitch had ever met. The man was a human hummingbird. “You were tailing Dawgie?”

  Des nodded. “Your friend was doing a little freelancing, Lieutenant. Thought he might have a bead on t
he Dorset Flasher. I was sitting on the Captain Chadwick House last night. I saw him leave his apartment on foot and decided to shadow him. See where he led me.”

  “So you were in the vicinity of the murder scene?”

  “I’m the one who found him. Tripped right over his body, in fact.”

  “And since you and he didn’t get along, I’m guessing the bosses now have you chained you to a desk far, far away.”

  “Correct,” Des said stiffly.

  “Which sucks.”

  “Also correct.”

  “You folks are figuring one of two thing,” he said to Yolie. “That this Dorset Flasher spotted Dawgie and took him out. Or that Dawgie was the Flasher and got taken out by someone looking to punish him. Am I right so far?”

  “Well, yeah…” she acknowledged grudgingly.

  Very shook his head. “No way. That’s not what happened.”

  “How you know that?” she demanded. “You got special superpowers?”

  “What else did your people turn up this morning?”

  “Actually, I was just about to bring Master Sergeant Mitry up to date.”

  He flashed a grin at her. “Well, don’t let me stop you.”

  “As if you could.”

  “You’d be surprised. I’m very resourceful.”

  “I’ll just bet you are.” Yolie opened her notepad, glancing through it. “Hasn’t rained for a week. The ground near the body was bone dry. No shoe prints. But score one for your side, girl. The techies found fresh shoe prints down by the riverbank just like you said they would. Someone who appeared to be running away from the crime scene. Wearing sneakers, they think. They took impressions. They’re working on them up at the lab right now. And the ME has the victim on the table as we speak.”

  “Has anyone turned up that ski mask?” Des asked her.

  “Not yet,” she replied, squinting down at her notes. “I hooked up with Rut Peck at Essex Meadows. He confirmed that his house is currently unoccupied. Ray Smith, his neighbor from across Maple Lane, was playing checkers with him at Essex Meadows when the murder went down.”

  “Checkers?” Very repeated. “I didn’t know people still played checkers.”

  “At last, we found something you don’t know,” she shot back.

  “Yolie, did you get anything more out of Nan Sidell?” Des asked.

  “The neighbor with the barking dog? Oly recanvassed her this morning. She had nothing else for him. Why you asking?”

  “I thought her boys might have been holding something back. Just a feeling. How about Dex and Maddee Farrell?”

  “They heard the commotion afterward. Not the incident itself. Were in their den reading and listening to a Brahms Piano Quartet on National Public Radio. They’re a pair of cuties, aren’t they? Mrs. Farrell yapped at me nonstop. Mr. Farrell, the world’s biggest scam artist, just sat there, staring at the wall. I was about ready to stick a pocket mirror under the man’s nose. Make sure he was still breathing.” Yolie leafed through her notepad some more. “We can cross their daughter’s ex, J. Z. Cliffe, off of our list. He was throwing down tequila shooters at the Monkey Farm Cafe when it happened. His girlfriend Maggie Gallagher, who’s a barmaid there, vouches for him. So do the bartender and couple of regulars. Hal Chapman’s another story. He claims he was getting busy on White Sand Beach with a slammin’ blonde named Terri. Married lady from New York who was in Dorset visiting friends. But he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, give me her last name-beyond the letter E as in maybe Edsen. Or the name of her friends. Or the make or model of her ride. All I’ve got is that she works for some big outfit that recovers assets for people.” She raised an eyebrow at Des. “Maybe that’s something you can sink your teeth into while you’re chained to your desk.”

  Des nodded. “I’m on it.”

  “Which brings me to Kenny Lapidus…”

  “Not a chance,” Mitch said heatedly. “Kenny’s no killer.”

  “We have to check him out, hon. That’s what we do. Kimberly said he was in his bedroom e-mailing people at the time of the murder. That’d alibi out your average human, what with e-mails being time coded and all. But Kenny’s a full-time practicing geek. There’s no doubt in my mind that someone with his skills knows how to hack into a server and alter those time codes. Girl, I need you to nail down his travel schedule with Amtrak. Find out if any of the Dorset Flasher sightings occurred while he was in transit from Boston.”

  “Sometimes he drives down,” Des pointed out. “Like this weekend, for instance.”

  “In that case we’ll have to-”

  “Wait, wait,” Very interjected. “It sounds to me like you’re Krazy Glued to this idea that the Flasher’s your prime suspect. Unless, that is, Augie was the Flasher. In which case your prime suspect is, well, dead. But let’s say your Flasher and your killer are one and the same person. This guy waves his thing on weekends, right, Sarge?”

  “Right,” Yolie affirmed.

  “Today’s Sunday. Will he be out there tonight?”

  “My guess? He won’t be flashing anyone for a good long while. But I’m stepping up our sweeps of the Historic District tonight just in case. There’s always a chance this murder will embolden him. We’re not talking about someone who has his head screwed on straight.”

  Very nodded. And nodded. “You have any other persons of interest?”

  “Beth Breslauer,” she replied. “The lady slipped out of her condo on foot shortly before the murder. But we still have nothing on her whereabouts.”

  “Um, okay, I may be in a position to help you there.”

  Yolie batted her eyes at him. “It’s about time, hon. Step right up.”

  “Dawgie was keeping an eye on her.”

  “We already know about that,” Des said. “Beth told me he was following her all over the damned place.”

  “It wasn’t Beth who he was following,” Very said with a glance Mitch’s way. “It was the married man who she’s been seeing on the quiet. He’s a New Yorker. Dawgie got a bad hit off of him. Asked me to check him out. His name’s Vinnie Brogna. Vinnie’s hooked up with some baaad boys. A member of the Albanese crime family. And maybe he wasn’t too happy about Dawgie’s interest in him.”

  “Keep talking,” Yolie said, keenly interested.

  “The dude visits Beth every weekend he can get away. They hit the Mohegan Sun together. According to Dawgie’s surveillance photos, it’s not uncommon for Vinnie to pick her up down the block from her condo. Which just might place him right there on Dorset Street at the time of Dawgie’s death, bat in hand. Or at least that’s one possible scenario.”

  “What’s another?” Yolie asked.

  “That he hired an outside pro take him out.”

  “I don’t suppose you have these surveillance photos, do you?”

  “They’re inside the house. Care to have a look?”

  “Lead on, Romeo.”

  “It’s Romaine.”

  “Yolie, we have to talk before I split,” Des called to her. “Girl to girl.”

  “You got it,” she said as she followed Very inside.

  Mitch took Des’s hand and squeezed it. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “Wrong with who?”

  “Your dad.”

  Her pale green eyes widened. “How on earth…?”

  “You weren’t answering your cell phone after you met with Rundle. I called Bella and she told me you’d just gone rushing off in your own car-to go see the Deacon, I figured. And now you show up here looking worried sick.”

  “He has to have coronary bypass surgery,” she said grimly.

  “When?”

  “On Wednesday.”

  “And you’re just finding out about it today?”

  “He said he didn’t want to worry me.”

  “And there’s absolutely no reason to worry. My Uncle Miltie was back on the golf course in no time. It’s actually fairly-”

  “If you’re about to say it’s minor surgery, please don’t or I’ll have
to slug you.”

  Mitch put his arms around her. She stood there stiff and unyielding. It was like hugging a six-foot length of cast iron. “Listen, he’s going to be fine. And I’m here for you. We’ll get through it together.”

  “Mitch, I’m really not up for this right now.”

  “Up for what?”

  “This. The whole touchy feely thing. It’s not me. So let’s just not.”

  “If you say so, girlfriend.”

  “I do say so, okay? Because I can’t. I-I really…” Then, with a shudder, she surrendered into his arms and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.

  CHAPTER 12

  Captain Richie Tedone of Internal Affairs lived in a vinyl-sided raised ranch in a charm-free development of nearly identical vinyl-sided raised ranches in the Hartford bedroom community of Glastonbury-better known to Des as Shoot Me Right Nowville. Cousin Rico lived in the neighborhood. Half of the Brass City boys did, having abandoned the crumbling brick remains of Waterbury years ago for greener ChemLawn pastures. A red Chevy pickup sat in Richie’s driveway next to a blue Dodge minivan. His slicktop was parked at the curb.

  And Des was parked three houses down the street in her Saab, watching the place through the zoom lens of her Nikon D80. And waiting.

  Richie was out in the driveway in a T-shirt and jeans, helping his little daughter learn to ride her tiny pink tricycle-pushing her along, yelling helpful encouragement to her as she pedaled around and around, laughing with delight. Richie’s plump, dark-haired wife was weeding a flower bed, their newest arrival dozing in a stroller next to her. Just a typical Sunday afternoon in Richie World, where life was beautiful and nobody tried to put the screws to anybody.

  Des waited. It was warm in the car. She had a chilled bottle of water for company. And her brain pain. It bothered her how easily Mitch had blown by her defenses. She hadn’t said one single word about the Deacon. Yet Mitch knew from the second she got out of her car. How? Because he’s your soul mate, that’s how. It also bothered her that her father had purposely chosen to shut her out of his life. She was his only child. She cared about him. She loved him. How could he not tell her that he had a serious heart condition? Because he’s a stubborn butthead, that’s how.

  There was some movement now Chez Tedone. The chesty lug nut was taking a call on his cell. Barking into it, one hand on his hip, ultra take charge. He flicked it off and went inside of the house. Came back out two minutes later with a gym bag. Heading out to hit the weights with a lifting buddy, it appeared. He kissed his wife good-bye, then hopped into the pickup, backed it out of the driveway and took off down the block.