Northwest Cozy Mysteries #1

by Dianne Harman

  The moment was interrupted by the sound of Roz’s voice shrieking in her ear. “Hey, guys, that’s enough! Come on,” she said, dragging DeeDee away from Jake by the arm. “I’m about to throw my wedding bouquet, and then Clark and I are leaving for the Four Seasons. You lovebirds can smooch to your heart’s content after we’re gone.”

  DeeDee turned to grin at Jake who was following along behind. “I think we’ll be going soon, too,” she said, and Jake nodded in agreement.

  The crowd of guests gathered outside the front of The Catch restaurant to send off the newlyweds. Looking around, DeeDee couldn’t see Vinny and Al among the assembled group, and thought they must have left already. After what Jake had just said, she was glad she didn’t have to see Vinny again, especially if it would bother Jake. She was sure their paths would cross in the future because of Roz, but she’d deal with that another time. Jake’s hand laced through hers as she watched Roz turn her back to the bunch of women who had stepped forward, and raise the bridal bouquet in the air.

  “Aren’t you joining them?” Jake joked. “You might get lucky.”

  DeeDee looked up at him. “I think I already did.”

  She turned back in time to see Roz toss the bouquet, which was the cue for several women to scramble forward with their hands waving above their heads. After a mock scuffle, it was a jubilant and giggling Tink who emerged holding the bouquet.

  All that was left was for the crowd to throw rice at Roz and Clark as they climbed into the bridal car that would take them to their hotel. When the car drove off, the crowd laughed at the rattle of tin cans hanging off the back of it and the lopsided ‘Just Married’ sign stretched over the license plate.

  “Shall we go?” DeeDee said to Jake, after Roz and Clark had left.

  “Sure, I’ll get the car,” Jake said, walking off.

  While she was waiting, DeeDee watched the crowd disperse as many of the guests also began to leave. In the distance, she could see a burly man standing at the edge of the grass, who she recognized as Al. Two things vaguely occurred to her before Jake pulled up in her SUV and she climbed in. The first was that Al was wearing sunglasses at midnight, and the second was that Vinny was nowhere to be seen.

  CHAPTER 8

  After the bride and groom had left, Al returned to the black sedan with tinted windows and settled back in the leather driver’s seat to wait for Vinny. The parking lot was beginning to empty as the guests wandered back to their cars, some lingering to chat with friends. The mood was light, with everyone smiling and laughing. Several taxi cabs pulled up at the front of the building for the people who weren’t driving.

  Al pressed the button on the dash to change radio stations. That bozo cop was on the radio again, telling people not to drink and drive. If Al had heard the segment once that week, he must have heard it ten times.

  “I’m glad the police have their priorities straight,” Vinny had commented when the same recording had been aired earlier that day on their drive to the church, and he and Al had both started to laugh. “I guess everyone gets their fifteen minutes of fame,” Vinny said when they stopped shaking with mirth. “And Officer Denton just had his. He’s a sorry excuse for a cop, if his legacy to the Seattle Police Department is Chief DUI Buster.”

  “Wasn’t his old man the cop that brought down the Colonnas?” Al asked.

  “He sure was,” Vinny said with a nod. “Old Joe Denton was a great cop. If there is such a thing.” And then they had both roared with laughter again.

  Al checked his watch and scratched his head. It had been over thirty minutes since he’d seen anyone leave the restaurant, and much longer from when he had left Vinny inside the restaurant. By now, there were only a couple of cars remaining in the parking lot, and the guests who had been milling around after the bridal party had left were all gone. Al guessed that the cars belonged to people who were leaving them there overnight and had gone home in taxis. He turned off the engine, which had been idling the whole time, and strolled toward the restaurant, his hand on the gun concealed inside his suit jacket. Knowing Vinny, there was a chance he was inside settling the bar tab, and trying to get a discount for paying in cash. The restaurant was totally dark. Al’s senses heightened and his step quickened.

  Another possibility was that Vinny had been talking to DeeDee, the bride’s sister who he’d been very interested in. Maybe he’d gone somewhere with her. But Al was pretty certain that he’d seen DeeDee outside with her boyfriend when the bouquet was thrown, so that theory didn’t stack up. His trusty sunglasses had military night vision capability, which was another reason why he rarely had any reason to take them off.

  Al walked up to the building and pushed on the closed door. He pushed it again, hard, but it was shut tight. The rattle he heard on the other side of it alerted him to the chains and padlock attached to the door hardware. Taking a tour round the side of the building, he tried a couple of windows and the back entrance, but everything had been secured. His eyes were drawn to the twinkling lights on the other side of Lake Washington, and he headed across the grass to the pier that led out over the water. The only sound he heard was his footsteps on the creaking wooden boards.

  A bright moon was visible through a break in the clouds overhead, the water still in the moonlight. Al stopped and looked around, the thud of his heartbeat crashing through his chest. Checking his surroundings from the view on the pier, nothing was amiss that he could see, but the knot in his gut alerted him otherwise.

  Retracing his steps back along the pier, he turned where it met the grass of the garden outside The Catch, and walked down the bank to the sand below. As he walked across the beach, he could make out the silver shimmer of a fish bobbing at the water’s edge. Walking faster, he approached the object, but stopped abruptly when it became clear that the flash of silver did not belong to a fish. It was the back of a human head.

  His natural urge was to run towards the body, but his years in the Mob had taught him to be very cautious. For all he knew it could be a set-up for a hit. He drew his weapon and checked 360 degrees around him to see whether he was alone on the shore. The night vision heat sensors in his glasses confirmed there was no one else there.

  It was only then that he allowed himself to run towards the water, wading in up to his knees, and to turn over the body of his lifelong friend and companion, Vinny Santora. The silence was broken by Al’s guttural sobs as his body heaved, racked with grief. He carried Vinny’s body out of the water as carefully as if it were a glass statue. Vinny’s body was cold, the icy waters having accelerated nature’s task. Al laid him on the sand, the man he had guarded for over forty years, before blessing himself and starting to pray. Kneeling beside Vinny’s body, Al said a prayer that Vinny would rest in peace, and a prayer of forgiveness for himself.

  I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you tonight, my brother.

  Vinny looked like he was sleeping. The only marks on him were two bullet holes in his dress shirt and a small pool of red that had seeped through it caused by the bullets that had killed him. Al pulled Vinny’s gun from where it was still nestled in the concealed pocket inside his tuxedo and emptied the contents of his pockets. There were a couple of soggy cigars, a gold lighter, a wallet full of cash, and a business card for a catering company. Then he leaned down and kissed Vinny’s forehead, before standing and starting the slow walk back to the car.

  He spoke quietly into the microphone in his shirt collar, to let Charlie know what had happened.

  “Vinny’s been whacked.”

  *****

  Back at the car, Al placed Vinny’s personal effects, together with both their guns, in the glove compartment before calling 911 to report the death of Vinny Santora.

  Within minutes the parking lot of The Catch was crawling with police cars and the first of the press corps to arrive. In the distance, Al could hear the sound of a news helicopter before it came into view, hovering above Vinny’s body as the police authorities began their investigation.

&n
bsp; After explaining to the first responding officer that he worked for Vinny and that they had been attending a family wedding, Al wasn’t surprised when the line of questioning started to take a nasty turn.

  “Can you tell us, Mr. De Duco, what line of business Mr. Santora was in? And why anyone might want to kill him?”

  Al looked blankly at the police officer. “I told ya’, I’m not sayin’ nothin’ without my lawyer present.”

  “Is it true,” the police officer continued, “that Mr. Santora has connections with the Colonna family and the chain of licensed premises known as Tooters?”

  Al chewed his gum and stared down at his feet. “Never heard of ‘em.” His pants were still soaking wet from the knees down, his shoes waterlogged and covered in sand.

  “Please remove your sunglasses when we are speaking to you, sir.”

  Al obediently removed his glasses and placed them in the inner pocket of his suit jacket.

  “Let me ask you again, Mr. De Duco, where were you between the time of approximately 11:35 p.m. and 12:45 a.m. this evening, when you found the body of Mr. Santora?”

  “Let me tell ya’ again, I was right over there, in my car.” Al jerked his head over towards where the black sedan was still parked in the same place where he had parked when he and Vinny had arrived at the restaurant. “Only exception was when the bride and groom said their goodbyes. I was standin’ at the edge of the crowd with everyone else watchin’ them leave.”

  “Did anyone see you during this time, Mr. De Duco? Do you have anyone to corroborate your story?”

  Al exhaled. “It ain’t a story. If you want to charge me with somethin’ go right ahead. In which case I guess I’ll be callin’ a lawyer. Till then, you can sit on it.”

  The police officer started to say something, then changed his mind and made some notes on his pad.

  “We’re not charging you with anything, Mr. De Duco. For now. But we will be in touch. In the meantime, if you think of anything, please get in contact with us.”

  “I guess I’ll be seeing’ ya’,” Al said with a nod. He made his way through the crime scene investigators and took one last look at the body of Vinny, lying on a gurney about to be loaded into an ambulance.

  Bit late for that, he thought to himself.

  Getting into the car and driving off, Al was lost in thought as he sped through the deserted streets. He’d been detained by the police for a couple of hours, not that he was in any hurry to get anywhere. When he finally arrived at Vinny’s gated residence, it was after 3:00 a.m.

  He made his way into Vinny’s office on the ground floor. Turning on the light, he walked across the wood-paneled room to Vinny’s desk, where he eased himself into Vinny’s chair, before burying his face in his hands. Everything was just so, the way Vinny liked it. There was a neat pile of paperwork on the side of the desk, alongside which sat a well-leafed crime thriller paperback, the genre Vinny loved to read when he relaxed. There were several fountain pens and a small bottle of ink. On the leather desktop were several yellow sticky notes with various scribbles written in Vinny’s distinctive handwriting.

  Al placed Vinny’s gun, wallet and lighter in the top drawer of the desk and locked it. He smiled sadly as he looked at the wet business card in his hand that he’d removed from Vinny’s pocket. The card was for Deelish, DeeDee Wilson’s catering business on Bainbridge Island. Al placed it beside the sticky note that Vinny had left on the desk with DeeDee’s name on it.

  He lifted the phone on the desk and made the call he knew the family in Chicago would be waiting for. Charlie would have already informed them of the situation before it hit the network news channels.

  “Al,” said the voice that picked up. “Sorry for your trouble.”

  “Thanks Joey,” Al said, his voice cracking. “The cops are all over it.”

  “Little Fingers is sendin’ Baby Face out there pronto. He’d come himself, but his wife is about to give birth. She told him if he goes to Seattle he needn’t bother coming back.”

  Al wasn’t surprised. ‘Little Fingers’ Gambino was the head of the family now that his father Fingers was dead, and the only person Little Fingers was afraid of was his wife Elena. “That’s okay, Joey. I understand.”

  “We need to clean up the business, so there’s no loose ends. You can show Baby Face the skims and introduce him to the bar managers. We’d still like you on board in Seattle, Al, if that’s what you want. Or you can come back to Chicago when the heat dies down.”

  “I’ll think it over. Send me Baby Face’s flight details, and I’ll pick him up at the airport and arrange a hotel. Vinny’s place is being watched.” Al didn’t need Charlie to tell him that. He’d seen the plainclothes police officers parked across the street from Vinny’s property when he arrived at Vinny’s house.

  The phone clicked dead, and Joey was gone.

  Al knew there was no point trying to sleep. Ever since he’d walked into the water to get Vinny, his mind had been working overtime thinking about who could have been responsible. Judging by Joey’s reaction, the guys in Chicago weren’t expecting Vinny to get hit. For that reason, Al was pretty sure Vinny’s death hadn’t occurred at the hands of one of the Chicago Mob or even the much less visible Mob presence on their doorstep in Seattle. But if not a Mob member, then who?

  Al lifted Vinny’s favorite fountain pen and started to scrawl a list of names. He decided if he waited for the Seattle Police Department to catch Vinny’s killer, it would be a long wait. There were certain people in the police force that would be glad to see Vinny gone, and one name immediately came to mind. He hadn’t mentioned it to Vinny, but that cop on the radio had been sniffing around some of the bars asking a lot of questions.

  Officer John Denton

  Al was no detective, but in those books that Vinny read he said it was usually someone close to the victim that committed the murder. Family, more often than not.

  Clark Blackstock

  Al paused, then crossed Clark’s name out. He didn’t care what the crime books said, there was no way Clark would hurt a fly, never mind his beloved Uncle Vinny.

  He tried to remember the name of Vinny’s cousin with the awful wife that didn’t get along with Vinny. Cecil Larkin, that was it. Cecil was no murderer, but his wife Theresa was bitter and twisted.

  Theresa Larkin

  There was something else niggling at the back of his mind, a conversation Vinny mentioned to him the previous week. Vinny had lunched with Clark, who said he was having some trouble with a guy at work, and he was regretting inviting him to the wedding. Vinny had been annoyed about it, and said his name was Sean something or other. Al wasn’t sure if Sean had any connection with Vinny, but he wrote it down anyway.

  Sean ??? - guy at Clark’s work

  It wasn’t a very long list, but Al was sure more ideas would come to him. He wasn’t in any hurry. It had taken him ten years after Fonzie Santora died to bring his killer Robbie Rivlin down, and Al was willing to spend the rest of his life finding whoever killed Vinny, if that was how long it took.

  He made a mental note to himself to check his offshore bank balance in his Cayman Islands account, since there was a good chance he’d be retiring there sooner than planned.

  CHAPTER 9

  DeeDee’s arm stretched across the nightstand beside the bed, as she tried to turn off the alarm. She was half asleep, confused, and disoriented. It was only when she realized she wasn’t at home, but in the hotel room they were staying in after Roz’s wedding, that she knew it wasn’t her alarm. Her phone was ringing, and she sat up in bed with a start.

  “Roz?” DeeDee said, glancing at the caller ID. She was still groggy. “Is everything alright? It’s 5:00 a.m. I thought you weren’t leaving for the airport until after breakfast.”

  Roz didn’t speak, and DeeDee wondered if somehow her sister had called her by mistake. Jake rolled over and DeeDee whispered so she wouldn’t disturb him. “Mrs. Blackstock, you should be enjoying the benefits of being a newl
ywed. Go back to bed and call me in a couple of hours. Whatever it is, it will wait until then.” She was about to end the call when she heard Roz trying to speak, her voice rasping with sobs.

  “DeeDee, please don’t hang up,” Roz whispered. “Something horrible has happened. Clark’s just been taken to the police station for questioning.”

  Always a light sleeper, Jake had overheard both sides of the telephone conversation, and he bolted up in the bed beside DeeDee. He looked at her questioningly. A stricken DeeDee handed him the phone in silence.

  “Roz, it’s Jake. What’s going on?”

  “Uncle Vinny was murdered at the wedding reception. His bodyguard, Al, found him on the lakeshore. Jake, he was shot,” she wailed. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Roz, I know how upset you are, but this is important. Take a couple of deep breaths, and then I want you to tell me everything from the time the police came to when they left. Just take it slowly. Whenever you’re ready, I’m here.”

  Balto had also stirred and came padding across the room from his dog bed in the corner. At home, Balto liked to sleep at the end of DeeDee’s bed, but when Jake was there he wouldn’t allow it. DeeDee patted the comforter and Balto jumped up on the bed, while DeeDee leaned closer to Jake to try and follow the conversation between Jake and Roz.

  Roz was quiet for a few moments, and DeeDee could hear her gulping for air. Finally, Roz was able to continue. “The police knocked on our door about an hour ago. We ignored it at first, and then the knocking got louder. ‘It’s the police, open up.’ they said. ‘Clark and Roz Blackstock, we know you’re in there.’ They made it sound like we were criminals.”

  “It’s okay, Roz, try and keep calm. Go on,” Jake said. He looked at DeeDee with a grim expression.

  “Clark got out of bed and opened the door, while I put on a robe. Then they told us that Uncle Vinny had been murdered. Poor Clark. He started crying. He couldn’t believe it. Neither could I. This is like some kind of a nightmare.” Roz began to hiccup.