Campanelli: Sentinel

by Frederick H. Crook

  “I have someone,” Lyman sent. His heart was pounding with adrenaline as he placed his hand over the firearm tucked underneath his coveralls.

  “We’re almost there,” Campanelli replied.

  Lyman nodded at Davies, who, like himself had placed his back against the wall outside Beritoni’s front door. The droning of the carpet cleaner was maddening, but it was at the southern end of the hall, too far away to stop manually without leaving his partner and neither detective had thought to get the machine’s command codes to control it via implant. In any case, Lyman was too busy guiding the snake to do anything else.

  ***

  Campanelli and Williams left the cruiser at the curb and ran into the building’s Monroe Street entrance, where there was direct access to the elevators. Flashing badges at the private security personnel seated comfortably at their monitoring station, Frank’s loafers slid to a hissing stop upon the polished marble as his outstretched finger punched the ‘up’ button. Williams was just behind. The doors of the elevator to their left silently opened and in a shot, they were inside and on their way.

  ***

  The snake’s camera lens was pinhole tiny and as a result, the viewing area was narrow. Nonetheless, as Hank Lyman thought the command for the device to raise its front end up in a posture resembling that of a striking cobra, he angled the head to the right and around the corner. To Lyman’s dismay he found pants crumbled around the ankles of the feet that had nearly stomped on the little spy. Tilting the head up, bare skin was found there, folded around the white porcelain fixture.

  “Ugh,” Hank spewed. Daryl Davies frowned and jerked his head as if to ask what was wrong. Lyman waved it off. He simply did not wish to explain it. The device was recording its findings anyway.

  Tilting the camera even higher, the snake found the face of the toilet’s squatter. It was a man, unshaven and disheveled. After another moment, the man’s head turned toward the camera as he reached for toilet paper and stood. Lyman winced in embarrassment, but the gesture meant nothing as the view was internal, not something he could look away from unless he shut down the snake.

  “What?” Davies whispered as loudly as he dared.

  “It’s him…it’s him,” Lyman answered and once he had confirmed it, he shut down the connection expediently to keep from seeing more. “We have Antony confirmed inside the residence,” Hank composed and sent to Campanelli and Williams.

  “Wait for us,” his captain ordered.

  “No problem,” Lyman replied. “We might want to give him a few more minutes to wash up.”

  A scant few seconds later, the elevator doors slid open revealing Campanelli and Williams. Both had their weapons drawn. Frank stepped to Lyman’s side of the hall.

  “Where is he?” he sent in text.

  “The bathroom,” Lyman replied in kind, “just beyond the front door and to the left.” The man’s expression made the unpleasantness evident.

  “You’ve got positive ID?” Frank asked aloud.

  “Yeah,” Hank answered.

  “Williams,” Campanelli hissed over his shoulder and pointed at the door. “Get ready to take it down.”

  Marcus nodded and stepped to the door, careful to remain out of the peephole’s range.

  Looking to Davies, Frank sent audibly, “Ready on the EMP?” Davies nodded and brought it into view. He had retrieved the nonlethal weapon from the maintenance cart as they waited for their backup to arrive. Campanelli urged Davies to follow Williams with a hand gesture. “Get low and stay down. Knock him on his ass as soon as you see him,” he directed.

  Williams checked the doorknob and was not surprised to find it locked. With a police issued passkey, he waved it over the lock and it clicked free, though far too loudly to be missed by anyone inside so close to the front door.

  Campanelli need only look to Lyman to get his message across. Reestablishing the connection with the snake, he saw that the cop killer had heard the lock. Antony hurriedly replaced his pants and flew from the bathroom. In doing so, he stepped upon the spy device, destroying it.

  Lyman nodded vigorously to confirm to Frank that their element of surprise was gone.

  “Now, Williams!” Campanelli shouted. Davies lay flat on his stomach and aimed the pulse rifle ahead.

  Marcus turned the knob and shoved the door hard. It swung soundlessly until it had gone fully open, banging into the foyer wall behind it.

  Davies saw the running figure of a man in black pajamas scramble down the short hallway. He wasted little time pressing the trigger.

  Thwump!

  The electromagnetic pulse slammed into the criminal’s upper back and head, sending him tumbling headfirst to the floor where, upon contact with it was carried into a clumsy forward roll. Antony came to a stop just inside the dining room/living room and, without wasting a second, hopped up and scampered to an unseen room to the left.

  Williams followed the first EMP blast into the condo. “Halt!” he bellowed as the murderer disappeared around the corner. Recalling the layout of the residence, Marcus knew that a bedroom with a closet and attached half bath lay in that direction. There were plenty of places to hide a gun. He scampered to the end of the hall, searching for anything that might have a reflection of his quarry. He was out of luck. His eyes adjusted to the dim, drapery suppressed sunlight, scattered in uneven golden thorns at their edges.

  “James Antony! This is the police! We have a warrant for your arrest and there is nowhere to go!” Frank Campanelli shouted from behind his partner.

  Williams got into a low crouch and peeked around the corner, looking into the bedroom doorway from behind a chair. He could see no one inside, but he verified the fact that there was no place to go.

  “Hold up, Williams,” Campanelli ordered in a whisper. He had rushed to his partner’s side, afraid that the ex-Navy Seal was about to charge in after their cop killer. Waving behind him, he called Daryl forward. “I’m going there,” he whispered and pointed to the end of the large couch near the windows. “As soon as I move, cover the doorway.”

  Davies nodded and prepared to move, tightening his grip on the EMP rifle and taking a deep breath.

  “Marcus,” Frank sent, “if you see a gun and Daryl can’t get him, take the shot.” Williams replied in the affirmative and without another thought, Campanelli darted to the couch, making sure to step heavily and loudly.

  As the Captain of Detectives suspected, Antony was armed. The criminal picked up the moving target heading for the flimsy cover of the couch, and followed it with the handgun. In so doing, he unintentionally exposed his arms to Davies and Williams. Antony was quick however, and discharged a shot from the antique revolver. The round sounded like a cannon blast in the close quarters, triggering the audio receptors of each policeman’s implant. Davies fired the pulse rifle, sending Antony’s hands into the doorjamb hard. The gun fell from his fingers and onto the carpet with the sound of muffled metal on wood.

  Antony dropped to the floor and screamed in pain. He cursed Williams as the big detective subdued him by kneeling upon his back, forcing much of the air from Antony’s lungs.

  “Cap’n? Cap’n?!” Davies shouted, keeping his rifle on Antony as Williams attempted to place cuffs on him.

  “Yeah,” Campanelli answered as he tried to get to his feet.

  “Are you hit?” Lyman asked as he sprinted to Frank’s side. He clumsily pulled at the round end table that the older man had dived behind, sending a lamp crashing to the floor.

  “No,” Campanelli answered as he regained his feet, “I’m fine.” Looking about the room, he soon found the expelled round, buried deep into the wall where Frank’s upper body had just been. He took a deep breath and blew it out hard.

  Williams got up from placing the cuffs and as soon as air returned to the cop killer’s lungs, he began to wail in agony. “My hand! My hand!” he yelled in between obscenities. Marcus pulled the much smaller Antony to his feet by his belt and collar. The big man had fifty pounds of musc
le on his prisoner and almost a full foot height advantage.

  Antony howled again once he was on his feet. Frank became incensed by the fact that the same perpetrator had taken yet another shot at him. Campanelli rushed to the other side of the room and gave the killer of Officer Albert Kelly a right cross.

  Jimmy Antony lost consciousness, but did not fall to the floor, held firm by Williams. Marcus glared at his Captain for a few seconds, knowing that if the video of the attack was found, it would have been construed as assault. He manhandled the limp man upright like a marionette over to the couch and, aware of Antony’s broken left wrist laid him face down upon the comfortable piece of furniture. In a minute, Jimmy Antony groaned and awoke.

  “Jimmy Antony,” Frank began loudly, leaning down into the injured man’s face, “you are under arrest for the murder of Detective Albert Kelly and two counts of attempted murder of Captain of Detectives, Frank Campanelli. That happens to be me, jackass!!” he finished with a brief squeeze of the cuffed murder’s left wrist, now swollen and purple.

  “Frank!” Williams yelled over the screaming man on the couch. He grabbed his Captain’s left hand and stepped in between them.

  “Easy, Marcus,” Frank warned. “I’m just letting him know who he’s dealing with.”

  As Frank did appear to be calm on the surface, Williams released Campanelli’s hand and moved off with a nod. The look of concern did not waver, however.

  “Well, it looks like we can go after Giovanni Beritoni for harboring a fugitive,” Frank announced to the room, but focused on Antony. “Get him on his feet, Marcus. Let’s get him booked.”

  Marcus nodded and brought Jimmy Antony vertical. Frank turned to Davies and Lyman as his partner read the cop killer his rights. “You two stay here. I’m sending Chavez and Morgan next door to arrest Beritoni. In case he leaves the office and comes here, you two can bag him.”

  “Yes, sir,” Lyman answered as Davies nodded.

  Campanelli opened the door for Antony and Williams and the trio went to the elevator. Once in the lobby, Frank and Marcus both witnessed the curiosity of the security guards. Williams wondered if one of them would alert Beritoni.

  “There’s nothing we can do about that, now,” Frank stated.

  Placing Antony in the rear of Frank’s cruiser, they headed for the District One Station.

  ***

  Williams removed the handcuff from Jimmy Antony’s left wrist and connected it to the interrogation room’s metal table.

  “Man, is somebody gonna do somethin’ about this?” the mobster groaned with tears in his eyes.

  “We’re bringing a doctor in here to look at it,” Williams said flatly and left. He stepped to the next room where he joined Frank at the wide flat screen monitor. “Okay, I have to know. Why did you beat the prisoner?”

  “He killed a cop and tried to kill me,” Campanelli explained angrily. “As a cop, you oughta know what that feels like.”

  “I don’t want to take a risk that he’ll get a lighter sentence because you tortured him,” Williams fired back.

  “I punched him and gave his wrist a squeeze!” Campanelli turned on his bigger partner now, not showing any trace of intimidation.

  “You knocked him unconscious, Frank!” Marcus went on. “That wrist is broken and you don’t know how badly.”

  “So what?!”

  “So? You want him let off?” Williams pushed. “Your evidence that he shot Kelly is hearsay.”

  “Did you get a look at the gun he used today? Did you?!”

  “No,” Marcus was forced to admit.

  “It was a three fifty-seven Magnum,” Frank said with his fists set tightly into his hips. “The same caliber that killed Al Kelly. Now, how many a’ those d’ya think are still around these days? Huh?” he drilled his partner vindictively. Marcus quieted but he met Campanelli’s eyes and his jaw was tense.

  “While it is likely that it is the same gun, Frank, we haven’t tested it…”

  “Tested it?! Goddamn it, Marcus!! A cop is dead! To hell with the test, it’s the murder weapon if I want it to be! Now quit acting like you’re my fuckin’ boss and get the hell outta my face!!”

  Williams nodded and smiled vaguely. Turning from his partner he shoved the door hard then slammed it, shaking the walls and rattling the items on the observation room’s desk.

  Frank smiled and composed a message to his partner. “That was good. Come on back in.”

  Marcus had not traveled far. The door opened immediately and he closed silently, making sure it was shut tightly behind him.

  “Jesus, you almost took the door off da frame,” Campanelli whispered through a mild grin.

  “Sorry,” Marcus shrugged.

  “Now we wait for the doctor to patch up his wrist and then you’re up, good cop.”

  “You have to admit, my argument actually has merit,” Marcus said lowly, his eyebrows arched.

  “I know,” Frank replied, “I’m thinking we can crack this nut before Beritoni’s brought in. Rothgery’s testing the Magnum now. If it is the gun, we have him anyway.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Marcus supplied, “I’d hate to have to go into Little Italy again to get that barber to come in to testify.”

  “Yeah,” Campanelli said soberly. He was certain that even though Ilario Ardello was an informer, it would take more than just a threat on his life for him to take the extra step and testify in court. Even then, it was not as solid as identifying the murder weapon. “Look at him, though,” Frank jerked his chin to the monitor, which sent his partner’s attention to the sweating, scared mess that the cameras next door centered on. “He’ll crack.”

  The doctor arrived momentarily, so Frank took a moment to call Rothgery about Antony’s car.

  “I’ve checked the car over, but all I found on the interior was his DNA and that of another person that’s not in the criminal database,” Lincoln said. “Under the hood, I found fingerprints all over the place, probably from his mechanic.”

  “What about the gun?”

  “I was just about to compare the rounds when you called,” Rothgery said, somewhat distractedly. Frank could hear the sounds of metal clinking and unidentified items being shuffled. “Wait one.”

  “Okay,” Campanelli mumbled, though the forensic genius had put the receiver down already. Frank turned to the criminal on the screen. The doctor was about done applying the cast to Antony’s left wrist. Marcus Williams was there watching closely. Frank shut his eyes tight and pursed his lips in the anticipation of Howard Lincoln’s findings.

  “Frank?” Rothgery’s voice fluttered loudly from the receiver.

  Campanelli had been unconscious of how hard he had been holding it against his ear until that point. He took it away abruptly and answered, “Yeah.”

  “We have a match,” Lincoln said with great satisfaction. “The bullet that killed Al Kelly matches the one I just spat out of this handgun.”

  Frank was struck dumb with relief as a tingle shot through his spine. He stood from the chair and threw a punch toward Jimmy Antony’s image on the screen.

  “Campanelli? You there?”

  “Yes, Lincoln, yes. That’s great news,” Frank answered with barely restrained excitement. “Thank you for getting to that so quickly.”

  “I’m happy to help put that asshole away, Frank.”

  The two men ended the call and Frank rang the interrogation room phone. Williams picked up and Frank relayed Rothgery’s findings. Marcus looked right into the main camera, the one focused on Antony’s face and smiled, balling up one fist in triumph. Without a word, he hung up the receiver.

  A moment later, the doctor departed and Williams sat across from the cop killer. “Well, Jimmy,” he began, “I’m happy to tell you that we’ve just matched the bullet that killed Detective Albert Kelly to your handgun. You’re going away for a while.”

  There was no reaction from the man on the other side of the table. His eyes barely passed over Williams’s face before dr
opping to the fresh cast.

  “You know,” Marcus added, his voice dripping with gratification. “I bet they’ll send you straight to Statesville.”

  Antony blinked in mild shock and looked to Marcus. It was clear that he had not considered that.

  “You’ve heard what’s going on…or should I say, ‘going around’ Statesville?” Williams pressed with a great smile stamped upon his face.

  Frank saw the toothy, wide-eyed and animated expression and was immediately reminded of an ancient cartoon he had seen at the theater. It was from the nineteen thirties or forties and was a retelling of Red Riding Hood. Williams seemed to embody that cartoon wolf, sans any form of humor whatsoever.

  Antony remained quiet, perhaps under the detective’s spell.

  “I give you maybe two weeks, unless you’ve gotten a booster shot in the last year,” Marcus squinted as he scrutinized Antony. “I’m thinking by the way you’ve just started to sweat that you haven’t, but even if you have it’ll give you…what? An extra two years at the most.”

  “So, I’m caught,” Jimmy broke his brief silence, lifting his broken wrist into the air and placing it gingerly upon the stainless steel table. “I’m dead anyway.”

  “Really?” Marcus feigned ignorance. “Why do you say that, Jimmy?”

  “Come on, man,” Jimmy smiled humorlessly. “The big guy wants me dead for my screw up. You and I both know it.”

  “And by ‘boss’, you mean…?”

  “Oh, I get it,” the disheveled wise guy spat and shifted in his seat. “For the record, right? Fine. For the record: My boss is Fillipo Ignatola.”

  “Very good, Jimmy,” Marcus commended as if speaking to a child.

  “You can knock that shit off, cop,” Antony dared to regain some of his gangster attitude. He pointed his casted left hand into Marcus’ face. “I’m not…Hey!! Aaahh!!”

  With speed that startled Campanelli, Williams’s right hand shot out, bypassing Antony’s pointing finger and, with his own extended appendage, poked Antony in the bright red bruised cheek that the cop killer had earlier received from Frank. Marcus’s hand came back with the same eerie speed and left the criminal holding his face with his bandaged hand.