by David Ellis
Shauna dropped her hands on her knees. “Then that’s how we find Pete. We find Audrey’s killer.”
I made a sound, a cross between a chuckle and a moan. “Yes, that small task. Solving a thirty-year-old case that the cops couldn’t solve when the scent was fresh.”
“Yeah, but we know something they didn’t,” Shauna offered. “We know Griffin Perlini didn’t kill Audrey.”
That was certainly a distinction. She was right—the police had jumped onto Griffin Perlini almost immediately and focused on him. He was a natural suspect, but it took their focus off any further investigation.
“But we don’t have anything to go on,” I said. “We don’t have any witnesses. Sammy was a kid, like me. Sammy’s mother died from kidney disease long ago. And Sammy’s father left the house just a couple of weeks after Audrey was taken.”
Shauna snapped to attention. “Say that last part again? About Sammy’s father leaving?”
“He left—I mean, I think Mrs. Cutler threw him out.”
“He left two weeks after?”
“You had to know the situation,” I said, defensively, though I didn’t know why I was being defensive. I’d always viewed this through the prism of a child’s eyes. Maybe it was time that I approached it through the clinical eyes of an adult, of a skeptical attorney.
“He—I mean, look, he was always kind of a shitty father. He gambled and drank a lot with his buddies. He wasn’t around much. He was out drinking the night Audrey was taken.”
Shauna made a face. “Oh, really.”
“Yeah, I mean—I think Mrs. Cutler had just had enough. She blamed him for not being there at a time when Audrey needed him. I mean, she didn’t blame him blame him. But I think it was just a microcosm of a bigger problem. She threw him out. I think—I think I saw him maybe a couple of times after that, but at some point he took off for good. When Sammy got sent to juvenile detention, when Sammy’s mother died—he wasn’t there for any of that. He was ancient history by then.”
Shauna gathered the food wrappers and my empty coffee cup and tossed them in the garbage. “Well, Counselor, I’d say we have someone we should talk to. Do you know where this guy is?”
I didn’t have the slightest idea. But I knew someone who might.
“I can’t get in to see Sammy until tomorrow morning,” I said.
“Then go home and get some sleep. You can’t function like this, Jason. Tomorrow’s another day.”
“Tomorrow’s another finger off of Pete’s hand,” I said. “Or a toe or an ear or—or—”
“You can’t do this without sleep. Tell you what.” Shauna hit my shoulder. “I’ll go through these files and look for anything about Sammy’s dear old dad. Any interviews, vital statistics, anything. I’ll go through this whole thing tonight, and you get some sleep.”
I rubbed my face, feeling my eyes sink as my eyelids shut.
“We’ll touch base in the morning,” said Shauna.
I got off the couch and grabbed her arm. I wanted to thank her, but it felt like an insufficient way to express the old emotions that welled up at that moment. Then again, I needed help—I’d needed help for over three weeks—and Shauna was coming to my rescue. I told myself that was it, nothing more, as I loosened my hold on her forearm. For her part, Shauna, other than looking down at my hand, didn’t acknowledge anything, but even her stoicism suggested something. Neither of us spoke for a moment, and when I released her arm, I did so gently, my hand suspended as if it had committed a trespass.
“Go get some rest, Kolarich,” she said, the flip use of my last name concluding whatever may have just transpired. As usual, Shauna was making the right call. I was in no condition, mentally or circumstantially, to do anything but head home.
The depth of sleep deprivation was sudden and heavy. Maybe it was the power of suggestion. Maybe it was a release of tension, having let Shauna in on the secret, knowing that I finally had some help in all of this. Either way, the walk to the elevator, then across the street to my car, felt like the Bataan Death March, cast in shadow, my movements awkward and timid. I made it home at an hour that I would typically be eating dinner, just getting started on an evening of isolation, shitty paperback novels, and insipid television sitcoms. I hit the pillow thinking of Pete, how I’d failed him, how I was getting some shut-eye as he faced another day of torture. But the guilt, however powerful, was no match for my exhaustion. I was asleep in minutes, leaving me with my dreams, with an insecure, troubled sibling fighting various demons of the human and inhuman kind, a wife and child struggling for air underwater, a young next-door neighbor being swept out of her bed in the midst of sleep, wondering where the scary monster would take her.
57
I AWOKE WITH A START, to the vanishing sensation of being electrocuted, only to find my cell phone still in my hand from last night, now buzzing. I’d slept like a rock. I hadn’t moved all night. I was still in my clothes. The clock at my bedside read half past seven. I’d slept over ten straight hours.
“Today’s the day,” said Smith, when I answered the cell phone.
I was dazed, still coming out of a heavy fog.
“Today’s the day you make things right with DePrizio,” said Smith. “Or it’s not a finger. It’s an entire hand.”
I sat up in bed, shaking out the cobwebs. “Denny’s gonna rat you out,” I said.
“Something you don’t want,” he countered. “What do you think will happen to your brother then? You think we’ll let him live?”
I was still in recovery mode. I didn’t have my wits about me. “Talk to me later today,” I said. “Maybe I can make you happy.”
“Yeah? You’ve thought about how you’ll explain this away to the police?”
“I have some thoughts, yes.”
“I’d like to hear them.”
“I’m sure you would.” I hung up the phone and got out of bed. I took a quick shower, dressed, and drove to see Sammy at the detention center.
“ I ’ L L TAKE EIGHT.” Sammy Cutler said these words the moment the sheriff ’s deputy left us alone in the all-glass interview room at the detention facility. His eyes were clear, his chin up. He’d been thinking about this, clearly, at great length since we spoke and seemed comfortable with the decision. “This guy Perlini, he was a bad guy. He did bad things. But he didn’t kill Audrey. Right?”
“Right.”
“So I can’t walk away from what I did. I don’t want a life sentence for killing this scumbag, but killing’s killing, right? I shouldn’t get off, either.” He nodded. “I can do eight. Out in four, one already served, right?”
My first thought, I had to admit, was my brother, not Sammy. I could close this thing off right now. Smith’s people would avoid a trial. He would get his certainty right away, no delay. I thought about my conversation with Shauna Tasker last night, parsing through all the information we had, distinguishing what we knew from what we thought:
They want Sammy to win this case, and win it now.
Was an eight-year plea enough of a “win”? I couldn’t imagine why Smith would care about that. The case would be over. He’d have the conclusion, the certainty that he wanted. From Smith’s standpoint, this should be a satisfactory resolution. And from Sammy’s standpoint, it was acceptable as well.
From my standpoint, I still had a problem. I still had to assume that they’d kill Pete—and me—as soon as they didn’t need me anymore.
“The prosecution has offered twelve,” I said. “I can try for eight.”
Sammy softly patted the table between us. “If it’s twelve, it’s twelve,” he said. “I can do twelve, too.” His fingers began to caress the table as he lost himself in his thoughts. I couldn’t imagine what runs through your mind as you contemplate surrender, a long prison term.
“I told her,” he started, and then his throat choked off. His eyes filled with tears. It was a long moment before he was able to continue. “I know it’s funny but I still talk to her, Koke, y’know? She�
��s still that little girl. Still that little kid following us around.” He looked at me. “I told her last night, I fucked up again. My whole life, I fucked up everything I did, and then I see this guy in the grocery store, and I think to myself, here’s your first chance to do something right. To do something for Audrey. And I couldn’t even do that right. I killed the wrong guy.”
“I’ll find the right guy, Sammy. I promise. I promise you that.”
He nodded; then a partial smile broke out on his face before evaporating. “Koke, if it was me with the talent, I’d have done the same as you. I’d have gotten out of our sorry-ass neighborhood quick as I could and not looked back.”
I drew back. Something I hadn’t expected. “But if the roles were reversed,” I said, “would I have taken the fall on the drug charge and let you walk?”
“Course you woulda. Course you woulda. They already had me. What was the point a makin’ you go down, too?”
Maybe. I didn’t know. I wouldn’t ever know. All I could do was go forward, the advice I’d received so many times over the last four months, since the death of my wife and daughter. Go forward. Do better. Keep motoring until the day your ticket is punched.
“You still pray?” he asked me.
“Do I—no, I don’t.” I shook my head. “No.”
“It helps.” He took a deep breath. “I mean, we was kids, we just went ’cause our moms made us go. But, y’know, I’ve been gettin’ back to it since I’ve been inside. I mean, before, I was inside for drugs or such, and I never really saw why I had to be locked up for messing up my own life. But since this thing—since I killed somebody—I been talkin’ to Him. You kinda work things out that way.”
I packed up my stuff and signaled to the guard. “We should quit while we’re ahead,” I said. “Let me see what I can do about this plea. We’ll get you the hell out of this place in a couple of years and get you back on track. Okay, my friend?”
Sammy lifted his manacled hand and shook mine. “Okay, Koke.”
AS I DROVE back to my law firm, the cell phone buzzed, the caller ID blocked.
“Any progress?” Smith asked. “You told me you might have something that makes me happy. You should really want to make me happy right now, Kolarich, because my friends are just itching to keep going on your brother.”
I took the ramp onto the highway to head back to the city’s commercial district. “I can end this whole thing for you,” I said. “A plea bargain. I have the structure of it already in place.”
“You have—a plea bargain?”
“Sammy cops for a reduced sentence, and I promise not to come looking for you if you let my brother go. No hard feelings, is how I see it. You get this thing over, which is what you want, no delays, and I pretend the whole thing never happened. And the reason I pretend the whole thing never happened,” I added, because Smith would need convincing on this point, “is that I know you could always come after Pete and me again. So we call a truce.”
I knew that I would never rest until I found Smith, until I found Audrey’s killer, but it was the best sales job I could give Smith.
“Tell me about the plea bargain,” said Smith.
“Eight years.”
“Oh, no—”
“With good time, out in four, and he’s already served—”
“No. No, absolutely not. You can’t do that, Kolarich. You can’t do that!”
He was on the verge of panic. I didn’t understand.
“Why the hell do you care how long he serves, if it’s okay with him?” I tried to process this information, as I tried to control my frustration. “What’s the diff—”
“An acquittal,” said Smith. “Acquittal. Do I need to spell that word for you? You cut a deal with the prosecution, Jason, and your brother will be dead five minutes later.”
They want Sammy to win this case, and win it now.
“And if I don’t hear, in the next few hours, that you’ve found a way to clear DePrizio of that charge, your brother won’t be right-handed any more.”
The phone line cut out. I coaxed the accelerator, weaving through traffic as my car picked up speed, on my way to my office, until I saw an endless row of brake lights. Something up ahead, an accident or construction, had brought traffic to a standstill.
58
HE WON’T DO IT. Kolarich won’t save DePrizio’s ass.” Carlo Butcher stood in his bathrobe, a cup of morning coffee in his hand, looking out his back window at the half-acre in his backyard. “If he did, he wouldn’t do it in a way that we could trust.”
“We have his brother,” said Smith. He’d called Kolarich only moments ago from his car and had now arrived at Carlo’s house to inform him of recent developments.
Carlo turned momentarily, gave Smith a look of disgust, before looking back out the window. “You keep telling me, ‘We have his brother.’ Look how much that’s gotten us. He’s shoving this thing right up our ass.”
It was true. Smith, himself, was beginning to doubt the plan. The only thing he could think of was to make Kolarich recant his accusations, find some way to conjure up an innocent explanation for the handing over of the briefcase to DePrizio. But Carlo was right. Kolarich wouldn’t do it, at least not in a way satisfactory to them.
He wondered about Carlo. He, ultimately, was calling the shots and had always willingly done so. Now, he was being quiet, keeping his decisions to himself.
“Y’know, Jimmy DePrizio and I—Jimmy was like a kid brother. He used to follow me around when I did my rounds. I’d let him hold my money for me. Christ, he’d guard it like it was Fort Knox, that kid.”
“I remember Jimmy,” Smith said. Denny DePrizio’s father had died five years ago.
“His boy, Denny—you got any special feelings about him?”
Carlo looked back at Smith. Smith made an equivocal face—the reaction, Smith knew, that Carlo wanted. He’d already made the decision, and Smith wasn’t going to get in the way.
Carlo’s eyes broke from Smith’s, and then he slowly nodded. “Okay, then.” He looked back into Smith’s eyes, and that was it.
It wasn’t the first time that losses had to be cut, and in this instance, it was the only decision Carlo could make. DePrizio was an even larger threat to them now than Kolarich. DePrizio could take down everyone—not just Carlo but Tommy and Smith, and the other men whom Butcher had borrowed from the Capparelli family for this venture.
“This lawyer,” said Carlo, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his bathrobe. “He’s getting close.” He looked back at Smith again. “Isn’t he?”
“We don’t know that, Carlo. This could still work.” Smith wanted to believe it as much as he wanted Carlo to believe it. But he knew there was plenty of reason to doubt it now, and he could see the same opinion washed across Carlo’s face.
Carlo drank the last coffee from his cup. “Well, all right, then.” He looked at Smith. “I had a pretty good run.”
“Carlo—”
Carlo put a hand on Smith’s shoulder. “Always do right by your family.” He raised his index finger. “Most important thing. Only thing, at the end.” Carlo moved past Smith into the living room, where he settled into a chair with a groan.
“Carlo,” Smith said, more gently.
Carlo shook his head, his way of indicating he wasn’t in the mood for debate. “What happened back then,” he said. “It was on me. Not you, not Tommy, not Jake, not Marisa. Me. Understand?”
Smith, in his near-panic condition, felt some relief with Carlo’s words. He was telling Smith, this wouldn’t blow back on him. Carlo wouldn’t let him take the fall.
“Carlo, this can still work,” Smith insisted. “Kolarich could win at trial. It could happen. Why not wait, at least? We take out DePrizio now, yes, agreed, his time has come, but not Kolarich—”
“And in the meantime?” said Carlo. “In the next couple of weeks before the trial even starts, this lawyer figures it out himself? Then what? Then it’s everybody. Everybody. This way,” he s
aid, pointing to himself, “it’s only me. We do this on my terms. That’s the decision. Collect the garbage. DePrizio, the lawyer, and his brother.” He raised his eyebrows to Smith. “And that’s final. We clear?”
Smith paused, then nodded. “DePrizio, the lawyer, and his brother,” he confirmed.
“Start with the lawyer,” Carlo said. “And do it now.”
IT TOOK ME TWO HOURS, with the overturned truck on the highway, to get back downtown. When I returned to my office, I found a stack of papers on my chair, compiled neatly with binder clips and tabs. Shauna had performed admirably, going through the old files on Audrey Cutler’s case to find any information relating to Sammy’s father.
“Oh, hey.” Shauna popped her head into my office. “I gotta run to court. There’s a Social Security number there, and a little information on what Sammy’s dad was doing that night that Audrey was taken. Not much, I’m afraid. But the Social might help.”
“Thanks, Shauna. Really.” I leafed through everything briefly, still troubled by the conversation I’d just had with Smith. I was missing something. I knew it.
I called Joel Lightner. “Same story with Tommy Butcher,” he told me. “He goes home, he goes to his father Carlo’s house, the hospital, the job site—”
“That’s fine, Joel. Here, I have a Social Security number I need you to track down, okay?” I read it to him.
“I suppose you need this fast, like you need everything else fast.”
“Faster,” I said. I placed the papers down and separated them. I focused on a portion of the investigator’s notes that summarized an interview with Sammy’s father after Audrey’s abduction:Mr. Cutler indicated that at the time of the incident, approx. 2:00 A.M., he was at McGilly’s Tavern, 2602 South Marks in Travis Heights. Mr. Cutler indicated he was at the tavern with Daniel Caldwell, Rick Eisler, and Rusty Norris. Mr. Cutler indicated that he was a union plumber who had recently completed work on the library addition at Mansbury College and that Caldwell, Eisler, and Norris were laborers with Emerson Construction Company, the general contractor on the project. Caldwell, Eisler, and Norris confirmed that Mr. Cutler was with them until approx. 3:00 A.M. at that establishment.
