The Dread Line

by Bruce DeSilva

  “Not football?” Eliason asked.

  “Not in Providence,” I said, “but we should make inquiries in Massachusetts. And I think we ought to see if the kid’s made any trips to Las Vegas.”

  “Agreed,” Cruze said. He paused and added, “Can you find out if he’s been placing bets online?”

  “Sure, if we can access his credit card records and hack into his personal computer,” McCracken said.

  “Can you?”

  “Not legally.”

  Cruze and Eliason exchanged glances again.

  “The New England Patriots,” Cruze said, “cannot officially condone the violation of any state or federal statutes.”

  “Of course you can’t,” McCracken said.

  “Do we understand each other?” Cruze asked.

  McCracken nodded.

  “Well then,” Eliason said. “As I’m sure you know, damned near everybody bets on sports now and then, so this isn’t necessarily a deal breaker. But if you turn up evidence that he’s bet on any of the Boston College games he played in, that would be a different story.”

  “Understood,” McCracken said.

  “We need you to stay on this until draft day,” Eliason said. “In fact, keep looking for red flags—about gambling or anything else—right up until the dreadline, when the Patriots go on the clock.”

  “Dread line?” I said.

  “A slip of the tongue, but it’s apt,” Eliason said. “You wouldn’t believe the pressure we’re under preparing for draft day every year.”

  “One thing I don’t get,” I said.

  “What’s that?” Eliason asked.

  “Bowditch projects as one of the top five players in the draft. With your win-loss record, you won’t be picking anywhere near that high.”

  Eliason paused to consider how much he should tell us. “The kid’s a monster—a cross between J. J. Watt and Ndamukong Suh. Coach Belichick is considering trading up for him.”

  “I see.”

  “I assume I don’t need to tell you how crucial it is that you don’t reveal that to anyone,” Cruze said. “And that you conduct your investigation in strict confidence.”

  “How are we supposed to do that?” McCracken asked. “As soon as we start making inquiries about the kid, other teams are bound to hear about it.”

  “We have no problem with that,” Cruze said. “Every team will be doing due diligence on him as a matter of routine. But anything you learn that could give the Patriots an edge on draft day must remain secret.”

  “Especially from the Jets,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Eliason said. “Belichick hates the fucking Jets.”

  When they were gone, McCracken went to his bar, clinked ice into two glasses, and returned with a Johnny Walker Black for him and a Locke’s single malt for me.

  “I assume you got the dope on Bowditch from Joseph,” he said.

  “A logical deduction, Sherlock.”

  “Good work. You impressed the hell out of them.”

  “Thanks. But twenty-two hundred a day? That’s nearly twice our normal rate.”

  “If I asked for less, they’d figured it was all we were worth.”

  “How do you want to handle this?” I asked.

  “You’ve still got the bank heist to deal with, so I’ll take the lead. I’ll nose around Vegas for a few days and then head up to Boston to check in with the Massachusetts cops, drop in on the local bookies, and see what I can learn from Bowditch’s coaches and teammates.”

  “What should I do?

  “Talk to the Rhode Island State Police and the cops in Providence and Newport. Find out if the kid’s gotten into any scrapes that didn’t make the papers. Then chat up his high school friends and coaches to see where that leads us.”

  “What about the online betting angle?”

  “For that,” McCracken said, “I need to know what credit cards he carries and get a look at his phone and his computer hard drive.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Let me see what I can do about that.”

  But first, I had to attend to another piece of business.

  * * *

  “We’re going to run the story whether you comment on it or not,” my old friend, Edward Anthony Mason III, barked into his desk phone as I strode into his office. Mason, son of The Providence Dispatch’s former publisher, was the owner and managing editor of The Ocean State Rag, an online news site that had recently surpassed the newspaper in both readership and advertising revenue. “Okay, Mayor. It’s your funeral,” he said, and hung up.

  “Big story?” I asked.

  “Another city hall no-show jobs scandal.”

  “Is that news? Be more surprising if there wasn’t one.”

  “It’ll have to do until we come up with something better. Got anything for me?”

  “I do. There was an armed holdup at the Pell bank branch in Jamestown back on September eighth, and both the bank and the local PD have been keeping it under wraps.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  I ran it down for him.

  “So you’re telling me Ellington Cargill will be apoplectic if we name him?”

  “You bet.”

  “Then be sure to work that asshole’s name into the first paragraph.”

  I found a vacant desk in the newsroom and spent a half hour banging out the story. Then I downloaded the insurance photos of the stolen jewelry into the Web site’s computer system. Publishing them might make the swag harder to fence.

  When I was done, I bought a cup of weak coffee from the office vending machine and drank it while I waited for Mason to read the copy. About fifteen minutes later, he waved me into his office.

  “Just one question,” he said. “What’s the stolen jewelry worth?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can you find out?”

  “Maybe tomorrow. I’ve got a morning meeting with Cargill’s chief of security and an investigator for the insurance company that’s on the hook for the loss.”

  “Any chance we’ll get scooped if I hold the story for a day?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Okay, then.”

  “One more thing,” I said. “Can you leave my byline off this one?”

  “Why?’

  “The bank hired McCracken to investigate the robbery, and he put me on it. If people know I wrote the story, my sources will dry up. And the bank will probably fire us.”

  “I see,” Mason said. “I guess I’ll have to give you a pen name.… How about Richard Harding Davis?”

  “Love it.”

  Davis was a swashbuckling reporter who got famous covering the Spanish American War for Joseph Pulitzer’s New York Herald. Teddy Roosevelt even made him an honorary member of the Rough Riders. But in the hundred and eighteen years since, his star had faded and blinked out. Mason and I might have been the only people in Rhode Island who remembered his name.

  9

  Tuesday morning, I was sitting on the porch before sunrise with the Daisy air rifle across my lap. In the eerie glow of a false dawn, the tabby materialized at the waterline. He prowled through the wet sand and then turned toward the house. I waited until he was no more than fifteen feet away and slowly raised the gun.

  The cat caught the movement and froze. I snapped off a shot, then fired two more BBs in quick succession. Cat the Ripper never flinched. He just tossed his head, turned, and slinked away into the shadows.

  I always was a lousy shot.

  I sat there in the gloom, thinking things over. I was working as a private detective, freelancing for a news Web site, and supervising an illegal bookmaking racket. I was trying to solve a jewelry robbery, investigating one of the country’s best college football players, and hoping to prevent the next dog burning. I’d annoyed one of the richest men in America and pissed off his thug of an ex-bodyguard. I was resisting the advances of a sexy bank employee and sorely missing the woman I loved. I’d taken on the responsibility of raising a dog and was carrying on a v
endetta against a stray cat.

  Perhaps I had too much on my plate. It took a while to find the autographed Manny Ramirez Red Sox jersey, but as soon as I did, I clipped a leash on Brady’s collar and led him to the RAV4.

  * * *

  Fifty minutes later, the sun slipped over the horizon and lit up the top of Pastor’s Rest Monument, an obelisk that marked the final resting place of Providence’s leading nineteenth-century ministers. Using it as my guide, I led Brady a hundred yards through Swan Point Cemetery, passing the graves of thriller writer H. P. Lovecraft, Civil War hero Major Sullivan Ballou, and legendary mobster Ruggerio “the Blind Pig” Bruccola.

  We circled a row of rhododendrons and knelt in the grass beside a headstone. I replaced the dead flowers with fresh ones and ran my hand over the letters carved in the granite. I knew who was buried there, but I needed my fingers to say her name.

  ROSELLA ISABELLE MORELLI.

  FIRST WOMAN BATTALION CHIEF OF THE

  PROVIDENCE FIRE DEPARTMENT.

  BELOVED DAUGHTER. FAITHFUL FRIEND.

  TRUE HERO.

  FEBRUARY 12, 1968—AUGUST 27, 2008.

  Rosie and I had been best friends and confidants since kindergarten. The crash that took her life as she raced to a house fire one foggy night had changed many things, but it could never change that.

  I draped the Ramirez jersey over her gravestone, just as I did every time I visited. Rosie had been Manny’s most devoted fan. She was gone before the Sox traded him to Dodgers, before he was suspended for using performance-enhancing drugs. But I never saw the need to bring any of that up. I wrapped my arms around the stone and gave her a hug. Brady, ever sensitive to my mood, whimpered and rested his head in my lap.

  “It’s a beautiful morning, Rosie. The sun is just coming up. A yellow tug is churning up the Seekonk River. The flock of Canada geese that made such a racket the last time I was here must have reached the winter feeding grounds on Chesapeake by now, but a dozen stragglers are honking and picking through the grass.…

  “I want you to meet my new pal, Brady. He’s only been with me for a few weeks, but he’s already got my heart. I’ve been telling him what’s going on with me, but it’s hard to know what he’s thinking. I could use some advice.…

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I need to prioritize.… Let’s see. The Patriots are the most important client. But, dammit, the bank robbery is the most intriguing case.… Cat the Ripper? He’s just a nuisance. But the dog burnings? That’s what’s really got me pissed off.… I guess I should start with the bank. See if maybe I can knock one thing off the list.”

  Once she’d helped me sort that out, I plucked the jersey from her stone shoulders and led Brady through the graveyard to our car.

  10

  Shortly after ten thirty that morning, I tied Brady’s leash to a parking meter, walked into the Village Hearth Bakery, bought a coffee at the counter, and looked the place over. Only two people inside the popular island breakfast spot were wearing suits and ties. I took a seat at their table, one facing the window so I could keep an eye on Brady, and introduced myself.

  Ford Crowder, Cargill’s security chief, stretched a big mitt across the table and shook my hand. Harvey Booth, the insurance investigator, offered a wrinkled left, explaining that the arthritis in his right was killing him.

  “We over-ordered on the pastry,” Booth said, “so help yourself.”

  I selected a scone and said, “Can you two run down what you’ve got so far?”

  “Well,” Crowder said, “as I was just tellin’ Harvey here, it seems clear the perp knew Cargill was goin’ to the bank that mornin’. Must’ve known why, too. I’ve been tryin’ to dope out where he got his information.”

  “Who have you talked to?” I asked.

  “First off, the household staff—three maids, the butler, the valet, the cook, the chauffeur, and the gardener.”

  “That’s eight people,” I said. “Cargill told me there were seven.”

  Crowder shrugged. “Man like him don’t take much notice of the help ’less one of ’em spills a drink or misses a spot washin’ the limo. Then he throws a conniption fit—like Sean Penn whenever some shutterbug has the nerve to snap his picture.”

  “What did you learn?” I asked.

  “Not a damned thing.”

  “Can you give me their names?”

  “Why? You want to take a run at ’em?”

  “Couldn’t hurt,” I said.

  “Okay, then. I’ll text you the list.”

  “What about Cargill’s bodyguards?” I asked.

  “Yuri Bukov’s the only one he brung with him to the island.” Crowder smiled and added, “I hear tell you all met.”

  “He invited me to dance,” I said, “but we haven’t been formally introduced.”

  “According to Belinda Veiga’s vague description, Bukov is the about same height as the perp,” Booth said. “Of course, so’s about three percent of the male population of the United States.”

  “What did he have to say for himself?” I asked.

  “Claims to be clueless,” Crowder said. “The way he tells it, he got a tad fretful when Cargill took so long inside the bank. More so when a couple of Jamestown police cars pulled up. But Cargill had told him to stay in the car, and Bukov’s the sort who follows orders.”

  “Ex-military?” I asked.

  “Nah,” Crowder said. “Just too freakin’ simpleminded to think for himself.”

  “He’s Russian?” I asked.

  “Wasn’t born there, but his granddaddy was.”

  “Any Russian Mafia connections?” Booth asked.

  “I vetted him myself,” Crowder said, “and I never come across anything to suggest that.”

  “Is he still on the island?” I asked.

  Crowder cracked a smile. “Worried he might come gunnin’ for ya?”

  “The thought has crossed my mind.”

  “I s’pose he still could be hangin’ around,” Crowder said, “but nobody’s seen hide nor hair of him since you got his ass fired.”

  “What about Fabiola and Alexander?” Booth asked.

  “Both of ’em swear they never spoke of the bank run to anybody outside the family,” Crowder said.

  “What do you know about Fabiola?” I asked.

  “Laid eyes on her yet?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Crowder grinned. “She’s as hot as a goat’s butt in a pepper patch, but don’t let that fool ya. That lady’s one sharp cookie. She was one of the world’s top runway models when she roped and tied Cargill about five years ago. Before the marriage, she had a net worth of three hundred and fifty mil, and since then she’s been spending his money. Don’t strike me as a gal who’d need to steal her own jewelry for the insurance money.”

  A goat’s butt in a pepper patch? Crowder’s shit-kicker slang was starting to sound like an act.

  “What about Alexander?” I asked.

  “He’s a polecat,” Crowder said. “Snorts blow. Screws high-priced call girls. Trashes hotel rooms. Gets into drunken nightclub brawls, and always gets the worst of ’em. The little shit’s already crashed two European sports cars. If he was my kid, he’d be doin’ time, but his daddy always buys him out of trouble.”

  “Think he’s wild enough to help somebody steal his stepmother’s jewelry?” I asked.

  “Don’t seem likely,” Crowder said. “His daddy’s got him on a pitiful allowance—just twenty-five grand a month. But he gets control of a big fat trust fund soon as he turns twenty-one.”

  “How big?” I asked.

  “Four hundred million, the way I heard it. Hard to picture him being fool enough to risk that.”

  “Which brings us back to Bukov or one of the household staff,” Booth said.

  “That’s how I see it,” Crowder said.

  “What was the stolen jewelry worth?” I asked.

  “It’s insured for six point three million,” Booth said. “Of course, anybody trying to fence it wil
l have to settle for about twenty percent of that.”

  “Suppose you had the goods,” I said. “How would you dispose of them?”

  “Half of the pieces are unique designs,” Booth said. “Unless you wanted to get caught, you’d have to break them up, melt down the settings for the gold and platinum, and reset the stones. The other half were bought over the counter at Harry Winston, Van Cleef, and Chopard. There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of pieces just like them, so you probably could get away with selling them out of a pawn shop or on eBay. Happens all the time.”

  “How would you know which ones were unique?” I asked.

  “A fence who specializes in rare jewelry could figure it out,” Booth said.

  “How many fences like that are there?”

  “In the U.S., we’ve identified a couple of dozen, but there are sure to be others we don’t know about.”

  “Any of them local?”

  “The closest one is Max Barber up in Boston.”

  “Have you had a chat with him?” I asked.

  “I have,” Booth said. “Gave him photos of the stolen jewelry, asked him to be on the lookout, and promised him fifteen percent of the insured amount if he helps with recovery.”

  “Did you make the same offer to the others?”

  “The ones we know of, yeah.”

  “Does this ever work?”

  “More often than you might think.”

  “Have you talked to Carmine Grasso?” I asked.

  “Who’s that?”

  “The go-to guy in Rhode Island for disposing of stolen goods.”

  “Does he have the expertise to handle something like this?” Booth asked.

  “He deals mostly in pilfered electronics and hijacked liquor,” I said. “But there are a lot of jewelers in Rhode Island, Harvey. Expertise can be bought.”

  “Guess I should pay him a visit, then. See what the man has to say.”

  “I know Carmine,” I said. “Why don’t you leave that to me?”

  “Okay,” Booth said. “That makes sense.”

  “I’ll need photos of the stolen jewelry, then.” Booth and Crowder didn’t know I already had them, and for now I wanted to keep it that way.

  “Have to clear that with my supervisor,” Booth said. “If he’s okay with it, I’ll e-mail them to you when I get back to the office tomorrow.”