by David Ellis
I pulled up a chair to his desk, and he planted himself behind it. “You want coffee or anything?”
I shook my head. “You had a web that night,” I said. “Your CI snared someone and my brother was in the wrong place, wrong time.”
He seemed amused. “That a fact?”
“Yeah. The guy you wanted got away, by the way. If you had audio, you already know that. If anyone was running guns and buying in bulk, it was that guy. My brother, he was just looking for a score—some powder. It was his bad luck that his supplier was into something ambitious just at that moment.”
“The whole thing was a coincidence. A misunderstanding.” DePrizio made a show of looking around his desk. “I think I’ve got a hankie here somewhere.”
“Yeah? Well, I’ve got a half-dozen witnesses who’ll say they were out with Pete, he left to go pick up some blow, and he never came back. I mean, come on, Detective. You know who your CI was bringing in, right? It wasn’t my brother.”
DePrizio leaned into me. “This CI—this guy must be the single most confidential ‘confidential informant’ I’ve ever had. Because even I didn’t know about him.”
He was denying that Marcus Mason—“Mace”—was his CI. “Then help me out,” I said, playing along.
He fell back in his chair and studied me. “You think if this was a spi derweb, someone would’ve gotten away? What am I, a rookie?”
I didn’t have an answer. I waited him out.
“I used to work the warehouse district, back when it was only warehouses,” he said. “Drugs and whores, right? Maybe I got to know a tavern owner or two. So I’m over at Poppy’s enjoying a couple refreshments with some pals. I walk out a little past, maybe half-past midnight, give or take. I see some asshole meandering around that building, used to be the old Lanier’s Amusement Supply place. Abandoned now, like a lotta stuff around there. Getting ready for the wrecking ball, word is. So this loser, anyway, he doesn’t look like the Avon lady, right? I mean, I worked patrol there and I did a stint in narcotics. I know these fleabags. I fucking know ’em.”
I nodded. He was saying he spotted J.D. heading toward the entrance to the warehouse, where he was to meet Mace—Marcus Mason.
“So I called it in,” DePrizio continued. “Possible 401 in progress, request assistance. Then I see your boy, driving right up to the damn place—and he pops in. So I’m a curious guy, right? I go take a peek.” He shook his head. “Problem is, one of ’em looked like they got spooked—rattled. I had to go in and freeze it. So I did.” He waved a hand. “Maybe five minutes later, a patrol has my back. So yeah, one asshole got away, two assholes got collared.”
“What happened to the other guy you collared?” I asked, referring to Marcus Mason without letting on that I knew anything about him. “He wasn’t in lockup.”
A look of recognition crossed DePrizio’s face. “Oh, so that’s why you’re thinking he was my CI. No, this guy was one of the Tenth Street Crew. And we already had a few of those in lockup that night. We didn’t need to turn that jail cell into a reunion.”
That was true. One of the T-Streeters, Cameron, watched over Pete that night.
“Plus, I figured, I put your preppy little brother in with that guy—well, he’d see your brother as a witness against him. Might not have been such a fun night for your boy. I sent the T-Streeter over to the one-five”—the neighboring precinct—“to cool his jets. You should thank me, Counselor.”
I didn’t thank him. I was watching him, looking for a crack in the armor. I was alternatively enraged and despairing. The detective’s story was entirely believable. I struggled for a minute, not hiding my distress, dropping my shoulders, blowing out air, shaking my head.
Then I took another look at Detective Denny DePrizio, who was observing me with some interest. So much of this was going with your gut, trusting your instincts. I had a plan. It was the whole reason I’d made this trip today, but still I found myself second-guessing it. I thought again about the story DePrizio had laid out, sized him up, and made a decision that I hoped I wouldn’t regret.
I decided to test DePrizio.
“I think my brother was set up,” I told him.
36
DEPRIZIO WATCHED ME closely as I laid out my story—the part, at least, I was willing to share with him. When I was done, he shook his head slowly. “You’re telling me there’s a guy who’s extorting you. He wants you to perform a legal service for him, but you don’t want to do it.”
“Correct.”
“So this guy, he set your brother up for this bust. If you don’t do what he wants, your brother goes to jail.”
“Right again.”
“But you don’t know this guy’s name.”
“I don’t.”
“All you can tell me is he’s five-ten, maybe two hundred, graying hair, maybe fifty, fifty-five. Which describes about two or three million people in this city.”
“Best I can do.”
“What’s the nature of this legal service the mystery man wants you to perform?”
“I can’t say,” I told him. “Attorney-client privilege.”
DePrizio was silent a moment, like he was awaiting a punch line, before letting out a small burst that was akin to a laugh. “And you expect me to believe all of this.”
“Actually, I don’t. But I’m hoping you’ll keep an open mind.”
DePrizio moaned, seemingly conflicted between openly rejecting a far-fetched story and showing me some courtesy. Seemingly, I say, because the more he played along with me, the clearer it became that Detective Denny DePrizio was full of shit. He was Smith’s partner, part of the entire plan to frame my brother, and I had to tread carefully here.
Luckily, nobody was fuller of shit than me, so I kept going. “I can stand in your shoes, Detective. People lie to you every day. You get so you don’t believe anything. But I figure you for a guy who still cares about the job. I mean, how many cops would check out that warehouse when they’re off-duty past midnight, when they’ve got a couple of pops in them, when they’re on shift the next morning—how many would say fuck it and walk away? But you didn’t. The job still matters to you.”
It was hard to say this with a straight face, but I thought I sold it. DePrizio studied me, and slowly nodded. “You sure know how to sweet-talk a fella.”
I opened my hands. “This guy has me boxed in. I don’t have the resources to take on this guy. I don’t have private investigators or even associates to help me. I just need to know who this guy is.”
That point was an important one. I needed to show him that I wasn’t a threat to him or Smith.
The detective made a big show of doubt, rubbing his face, shaking the head, an Oscar-worthy performance. What he was really doing was thinking hard about this unexpected development. He’d performed a task for Smith and probably thought his job was done. What now? he was wondering. Do I tell this lawyer to take a hike, or do I use him?
My guess, he’d come to the conclusion, very quickly, that he and Smith would benefit if I took him into my confidence. Keep your enemies closer, and all that.
“Look,” he said, “I’m not saying I believe you, Kolarich. Right? But even if I did, what could I do?”
Well done. Inching closer to me, but feigning reluctance.
I needed to reel him all the way in.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged my shoulders. “Like you said, three million people fit his description. It’s not like I have a picture of him.” I tapped my hand on the desk. “Forget it. You’re probably the wrong guy to ask, anyway. You’re the arresting officer. I can’t ask you to work against your own case. I’ll find some other cop—”
He raised a hand. The mention of some other cop was my ace. The last thing DePrizio and Smith wanted was for me to start sobbing to another cop about all of this.
“No,” he said. “It’s my case. If there’s something wrong with it, it’s my problem.”
I got out of my chair. “I appreciate that. If I think
of anything, maybe I’ll—I don’t know.”
“Well, hang on here,” he said. “I’m not saying there’s anything to this. But you seem like a pretty straight-up guy here, Mr. Kolarich. If I can help you find this guy, maybe I’ll see what it’s all about. Maybe it affects your brother’s case, maybe not. But I’ll listen.”
Good. I’d reeled him in. It’s always more fun when the person you’re playing thinks he’s playing you.
“Well, there might be one thing,” I said, “but we’d have to be discreet.”
37
TEN YEARS. TEN YEARS.” Sammy Cutler played the idea over in his head. “Out in five, hopefully. Already got one in. So—four more.”
“I can get you better,” I said. “They don’t want the publicity, now that Griffin Perlini’s notorious. It puts the county attorney in an uncomfortable spot, having to prosecute his killer, especially when that guy was avenging his sister’s death.”
Sammy nodded along.
“Allegedly,” I added.
“Well, I ain’t doing four more here.”
“I can get you a better deal. But we’d be dumb to rule it out entirely, Sam.”
He wasn’t inclined to fight me. “What about Archie Novotny?”
“Haven’t checked out his alibi yet for the night of the murder—the guitar lesson. I will. Meantime, we’ve been looking all over him and not finding much of anything.”
“Right.” Sammy fiddled with the smoldering cigarette between his fingers. “Been thinking more ’bout that. I could see it. I could see Archie doing this.”
I couldn’t decide if this was an innocent man talking, or a man trying to see things through the eyes of a jury. I was also beginning to doubt my perception. I was bone tired. I’d managed about four hours last night, but the previous forty-eight hours of sleep deprivation were taking their toll. Sometimes a few hours’ sleep is worse than none.
“Novotny fits your general description,” I said. “Put the green stocking cap on him so you can’t account for the difference in hair color—he’s got about the same build. He could work. I could sell that to a jury, I think. But that’s not the problem, Sam. You know what the problem is?”
He nodded. “My car.”
He was right. Before I ask questions of a client, I like to give him the lay of the land, so he’s clear on what the prosecution knows and what they don’t know. It’s always nice to demonstrate the wiggle room before giving the client the chance to wiggle.
I started with the obvious. “The convenience store down the street—its security camera is posted in the back corner of the store and points toward the register. It also happens to catch a little bit outside the store. Your car is parked right outside the store, just enough so the camera can catch the back end of your car—and the license plate. The vid is clear on it being your license plate, so we’re stuck with that, right?”
He nodded.
“It doesn’t capture who got into the car because that part of the car is out of the camera’s range. So it’s your car, Sammy, but they can’t say who drove it there or who drove it away.”
“Well, yeah, but . . .”
I was giving him the wiggle room here, but he seemed content to sit still.
“It was me,” said Sammy.
I deflated. “Then we have some ’splainin’ to do. That’s a pretty big coincidence.”
“Not really.”
“Why not really?”
“They got that one store video? From that night? That’s it?”
“Correct.” I didn’t get where this was going. “Just the one.”
Sammy stubbed out his cigarette and blew out the remnants of smoke. He didn’t look well. The sleep deprivation didn’t help, but it was more than that. He had a heavy drinker’s complexion, a smoker’s wrinkles, a natural frown. He’d lived hard.
“About a week before he died,” said Sammy, “I saw him. I saw the fuckin’ guy.”
“You saw Perlini—”
“I was in the grocery store where he worked, at the checkout, and some manager or something starts calling out for ‘Griffin.’ I tell ya, Koke, I heard that name and I—I just froze. We were kids and all, but man, I knew it was him, soon as I laid eyes on him. Soon as I fuckin’ laid eyes on him.” He lit up another cigarette silently before continuing. “So I waited ’til his shift ended and I followed the guy. I followed him to those apartments. I knew where he lived. And I tell ya, I thought about it every night. Every night for a week, I drove over by his place and I thought about Audrey, and what he did to her, and I wondered if I had the stones to do it—to kill that scumbag.”
Sammy’s story would not be found in the Guinness Book of World Records under “all-time greatest alibis.” I was there, contemplating murdering Perlini, when someone else did it. And it was a hell of a coincidence. The week Sammy sees Griffin Perlini in a grocery store and begins to stalk him is the same week that Perlini takes a bullet between the eyes?
“So that night,” I said, “you drove over there and thought about killing him?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you get out of your car?”
He shook his head, no.
“If you did, Sammy—if you liked to walk while you think, instead of sitting in the car—it might explain why those eyewitnesses saw you. Like, you were standing somewhere around the building, you heard a gunshot, you started running, and that’s when that nice elderly couple saw you. We’d have some kind of explanation—not the greatest one, but—”
“No, not the greatest one. I’d have to explain why I was hanging out, doing my thinking, right by his damn building. No, I was in the car the whole time. Camera can’t say different.”
Sammy had had a long time to think about this. This was his story and, apparently, he was sticking with it.
“Huge coincidence,” I said.
He shrugged. “Life is full of ’em, right?”
Wrong. But we didn’t have much to play with here. They had his damn car on video, parking at 8:34 P.M. and leaving at 9:08 P.M.—which happened to be the precise window of time in which Griffin Perlini was murdered.
My good friend Smith had suggested that we tag-team on an explanation for Sammy that night. I thought Sammy might be willing to go along with something, if we could drum something up, but how do you explain why you drove across town, parked there for only half an hour—the precise half hour in which the murder happened—and left?
But I let it go for now. If Smith and I could come up with a better alibi—and dollars to doughnuts said Smith was working on it—I could always try it out on Sammy.
As I was heading back to my car, my cell phone rang. The caller ID was blocked.
“Mr. Kolarich, it’s Jim Stewart.”
“Thanks for getting back,” I said. His parents must have been awfully big fans of the actor, because, I mean, come on, you give a kid a name like that, he’s gotta deal with the comments his entire life, the crappy impressions—Ah, ah, say, now, ah, ah—and Christmastime must have been hell with that damn movie playing every other minute.
“Your message mentioned Lightner? You work with Joel?”
“Yeah, he gave me your name. Said you were stand-up.”
He laughed. “He probably said I was a good-for-nothin’ drunk.”
“That came up, too.”
“Right, right. Anyway,” he said, “sounds like we should meet?”
I looked up and down the street for my tail, which at the moment I couldn’t see.
“You got some time for me this afternoon?” I asked.
“ HONEY, I’M HOME!” I call out, something out of a ’50s sitcom, a standing joke with my wife. It’s a not-so-hectic week for me at the office. They don’t come often so I try to make them count.
“Daddy!” Emily hears the door. She comes bounding down the stairs as I open my arms.
“Hey, princess!” I say, in that soothing voice I reserve for my daughter. We go through the usual routine, kisses, tickling, gleeful squealing. As E
mily and I climb the stairs, I hold Emily upside down to her nonprotest ing protest.
I find Talia in the bedroom, just having walked out of the master bath, wiping at her eyes. She smiles at me but there’s something besides innocuous happiness to her look.
“Hey, babe.” I set down Emily and fix on my wife. There is something equivocal in her expression, not necessarily good or bad, but important. My eyes find their way to the bed, to an open box, a thin strip of paper next to it, a set of folded instructions.
“Oh.” My eyes shoot back to meet hers. We’ve talked about it in a serious but casual way, serious in that she knew I meant it, casual in that we hadn’t been formally trying.
“Is it—are you—?” I move around the bed and take her hands in mine. “We’re gonna have a—?”
My forehead touches hers, an instant connection of body heat. She can no longer restrain her emotions. “This is what you want, right?” she whispers.
I wrap my arms around her. “Of course this is what I want, babe. Of course it is.” I turn to Emily, who seems to understand that she is being left out of a secret. “C’mere, sweetheart,” I say. I crouch down and lift my daughter into the air. “How’d you like a baby brother or sister, Em?”
I LEFT THE cemetery a little after one, a surge of bitterness gripping me, the mixing of anger with the ubiquitous anguish. I resented Talia. I wanted to close the book on what happened. I wanted to pretend that I’d never met her, we’d never had Emily. But the book, I knew, would never close. I’d just flip back to the beginning, or the middle, when I reached the end.
I wanted to understand it. I really did. I wanted to believe that there was a God, and He had a plan, and this was all a good thing in some way, but there was no way that a beautiful young woman and our precious, innocent child dying violent deaths could possibly be for the greater good.
The sky was debating another rainfall, and the temperatures had fallen. Midwestern October always does this, flip-flopping between extended summer and early winter, occasionally giving us the autumn we desperately prefer.
