“If he's dead, what's the rush at two in the morning?” I asked.
“One of Mancini's guys got off a few shots. Hitman got away, but a group of college students found him bleeding out in the street a few blocks away. They called 9-1-1. He's in critical condition at Mass General Hospital. Docs say he won't make it to dawn. I want to talk to him while he's still got a pulse.”
“This was obviously a play to take out the Mancini crime syndicate,” I said. “Any idea who is behind it?”
I took a sip of my coffee while Burke responded. “There is a list of perps as long as my arm. But Eddie Garavito is at the top.”
“There has been bad blood between Eddie and Angelo for years,” I said. “If Leo was as weak as people seem to think ...”
“It would be a perfect time to make a move,” Burke said completing my sentence for me.
“Should we also consider this is related to my conversation with Nevin Barlow?” I said. “Timing seems more than a coincidence.”
We were moving at a fast clip along a largely deserted Broadway. Being in a cop car had its advantages when you wanted to get somewhere fast. Burke considered my question for a moment. He said, "I've considered that possibility. But it seems like a bold move for someone other than another mob boss."
I nodded my head and took a bigger sip of my coffee now that it had cooled enough so it wouldn't burn my tongue. Cambridge was zipping past us. Or maybe we were zipping past Cambridge. At any rate, we were moving very fast in a state cop car.
Burke and I were silent for a while. The blue lights flashed out in front of us as we hurtled along Broadway. We crossed Longfellow Bridge. The Charles River was dark and still beneath us. We turned left onto Charles Street and raced to the entrance of Mass General.
A State Police trooper was waiting and brought us to the hospital room where the hitman would spend his remaining moments of life. Additional State Police troopers stood watch along the hallway. We entered the room. The hitman was in bed with tubes and wires attached to him. Hospital equipment beeped and whirred.
“What's the latest?” Burke asked Detective Lieutenant Sanchez.
She replied, “He can talk.”
“Have you been able to id him?” I asked.
“His name is Brody Walker. He's known to every law enforcement agency as a suspected assassin. Until now no one has ever gotten close to him.”
Special Agent Mark Sumners walked into the room.
“Now the gang is all here,” I said.
“Brody Walker. I'm Detective Captain Robert Burke with the Massachusetts State Police. This is Special Agent Mark Sumners of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The other guy is Drew Patrick. He's a private detective. You've already met Detective Lieutenant Isabella Sanchez. Now, before you slip into the great beyond, we want you to tell us who hired you.”
Brody Walker's eyes fluttered. He looked around the room. He took a long and difficult breath. Then he said, “Go screw yourselves.”
"This is your chance to do something good in your life," Sumners said. "Your last and only chance. You have nothing left to protect."
Brody Walker turned away. A single tear streamed down his face.
“Or maybe you do have something to protect. More appropriately, someone to protect,” I said. “Who is it?”
“I have a little girl,” he said. “She’s not aware of me. Her mother wanted it that way. I don't blame her for that.” He paused a moment to catch his breath. Then he continued, “I have money saved for her in a safe deposit box. If I tell you the bank and where to find the key, will you promise me she'll get the money?”
“Your blood money?” Sumners said. “We can't be part of that.”
“Law enforcement can't,” I said. “But I can.”
“Drew,” Sumners said to me.
“I didn't say I like it. I don't. This guy disgusts me. And, yes, it is blood money. Who knows how many people he killed to get it. But we need to find out who hired him.”
“It could help us prevent a mob war,” Sanchez said. "I know it looks like Garavito did order the hit, but it makes little sense. It's not his style."
“And if it wasn't Garavito, then it makes it all the more likely it is connected to our case. It may help us get who we are after. The only one we can go after now that Leo is dead.”
“Drew's right,” Burke said. “And who knows, maybe the little girl will use the money to go to college and contribute to the betterment of society.” He paused a beat. “Unlike this crapbag.” Burke tilted his head at Walker.
Sumners nodded. Burke, Sumners, and Sanchez left the room.
“Okay,” I said. "First give me the details about the money. Then you will tell me who hired you for this hit. And I also want information about any other jobs you have done in Boston. Let's help the State Police and FBI solve some cold cases. If there is anything else you want to get off your chest before you die, I'll listen. But I won't try to make you feel better or offer you forgiveness, or anything like that.”
“You promise you'll get the money to my little girl?”
I nodded. He told me her name and and that she and her mother lived in San Francisco. Walker gave me the name of the bank on Market Street in San Fran. The key to the safe deposit box was in a locker at the Greyhound station two blocks from the bank. Walker gave me the locker number and combination. I wrote them down with the other information.
Then he said, “I don't know who has been hiring me. Not the main guy. I only know the man who made the arrangements with me.”
“Who is he?”
Walker shook his head. He took a breath. His breathing became labored. "He never gave me his name. He's a big-bellied guy with a fat nose. Looked like someone broke his nose at some point."
“That's all you've got?” I said. “No deal.” I turned to leave.
“Wait,” Walker said. He took another breath. It was getting harder for him to breathe. “I can tell you where I was going to meet him to collect the rest of the payment for the job.”
“Where?”
“Same place as last time. Boston Common Parking Garage.”
Walker gave me the parking location of the car. “It's a silver Toyota Camry. I get in the front passenger seat.”
“Okay. That's where. When are you scheduled to meet him?”
“Tonight at ten. There's something else.”
“What?”
“You were next on my list,” Walker said.
“Another good reason one of Mancini's guys got off a good shot,” I said.
I didn't like learning I was on the hit list, but sometimes it came with the job. I needed to let it go and stay focused on getting what I could out of Walker before he passed.
"You mentioned the same guy hired you for other jobs. Any of them here in Boston?"
Walker nodded. “Yeah. Lady named Laura Powell.”
When Walker said her name I felt the rage well within me. Enough that I wanted to deny him what little time he had left. But I wasn't surprised by the news. It fit with how this was all unfolding.
“She didn't die,” I said. I wanted him to be aware he hadn't succeeded in that job. Walker had no reaction.
“Someone bumped her into the street,” I said. “Who was your accomplice?”
“A local guy named Oscar Ricardo.”
“What was the other job?” I asked, fairly certain what Walker's reply would be.
“Guy named Phillip Swanson in Washington, DC.”
Walker took several more labored breaths. Then he said, “I don't even know why somebody wanted them dead. I never cared.” He wasn't necessarily talking to me. His blank and unfocused eyes stared into nothingness. Suddenly he looked over at me. "I only did a few jobs here in Boston."
He told me the names and dates of his other hits. I wrote them down. Then Walker rattled off more names, places, and dates. He had committed every hit to memory. I wrote those down too until he stopped talking to take one last, final breath.
CHAPTER 34
Burke, Sumners, and Sanchez were standing in the hallway when I came out.
“He killed Phillip Swanson and was the driver in running down Laura Powell,” I said. “A local guy named Oscar Ricardo helped him with the hit-and-run.”
“Ricardo is probably in the system,” Burke said. “We'll scoop him up.”
“Here is a list of other hits he has made over the years,” I said holding up the piece of paper.
Sumners took the sheet of paper from me and looked it over. “The local hits are Bureau cold cases,” he said. “I'm willing to bet the same is true in other FBI field offices around the country for the others.”
“Did he give up who ordered the hits on Swanson and Powell?” Burke asked. “I'll go out on a short limb and assume it is the same person who hired him to take down Leo Mancini.”
“They are connected,” I said. "Walker claimed he wasn't informed about who ordered the hits. But he gave me the details on who made the arrangements with him. He's a fat man parked in a silver Toyota Camry in the Boston Common parking garage at ten tonight."
“So we grab this fat guy in the Camry and get him to flip on who ordered the hit,” Sumners said. “But do any of us doubt it is either Barlow, Galloway, or both?”
We all shook our heads. Then I said, “Especially since I was next on Brody Walker's hit list.”
Burke, Sumners, and Sanchez were quiet until Burke said, "Walker tell you that?"
I nodded. “Yep. And as far as I know, Eddie Garavito does not currently have a reason to want me dead.”
“But you are definitely pissing off Burke and Gallaway,” Sumners said.
“You could have led with that information,” Sanchez said.
“I didn't want to make it all about me.”
“Let's all get some sleep,” Burke said. "It's going to be a late night."
CHAPTER 35
State Police in plain clothes and FBI agents, trying not to look like FBI agents, were staked out around the Boston Common Parking Garage. I doubted a fat man driving a Camry was a threat, but one could never be too careful. At ten o'clock I walked over to the silver Toyota Camry and got in the front passenger seat.
The fat man looked over at me. His nose did match his rotund figure and had been broken at some point in his life.
The fat man glared at me. "Who the hell are you?"
“I should start wearing a name tag.”
“Get out of my car before I put a hole in you.”
I glanced down and the fat man was pointing a .38 at me.
"Just so you're aware before you shoot me, there are a dozen state troopers and federal agents surrounding us."
“You're lying.”
“Wave guys,” I said.
The state cops and federal agents in our line of sight stepped out of the shadows and waved at us with one hand while they held rifles in their other.
“I don't know who you think I am,” the fat man said, “but I have done anything wrong. You have me mistaken with someone else.”
“Really? Then why is there a gun pointed at me?”
The fat man lowered the gun. He must have realized there was nothing to be gained by shooting me. “I carry it for personal protection,” he said. “I have a license to carry.”
“Do you?” I said.
The fat man didn't respond. I continued, “Brody Walker is dead. He died last night after sustaining gunshot wounds from one of Leo Mancini's men. But not before killing Leo.”
The fat man's eyes grew wide. Anyone would recognize that as a tell.
"I never heard of Brody Walker," the fat man responded.
"This will go much quicker if you just answer my questions," I said. "Walker told us you are his contact. He was coming here to collect the second half of his payment for the hit on Leo Mancini. Oh, and me."
The fat man's eyes were now the size of moon pies.
“That's right,” I said. “I'm Drew Patrick. The other guy Brody Walker was hired to kill last night.”
"I'm only the messenger and I hand deliver the cash," the fat man said.
“We realize that,” I said. “Who is your boss?”
"I have no idea," the fat man said shaking his head. He was also beginning to perspire. It wasn't pretty. He continued, “The guy is real careful. He uses middlemen.”
“Who do you meet?”
“I don't know his name. We don't use names. But he's regular height and medium build. Oh, and he's bald.”
I immediately thought of Gallaway's buddies in Georgetown. Either Thompson or Carson.
"That describes a lot of guys," I said. "Anything else about him?"
The fat man thought for a moment. Sweat rolled down his forehead, and he was soaking through his shirt. Finally he said, “He has a scar below his eye. Shaped like a small hook.”
“You've been a big help,” I said. I got out of the car. Burke, Sumners, and a swarm of state cops and federal agents approached the car. The fat man exited the car with his hands raised high.
“Gallaway ordered the hits,” I said. “Our friend here described one of the guys with Gallaway at the restaurant in Georgetown."
“Looks like we need to bring Agent Gallaway in for questioning,” Sumners said.
"Be good to chat with Nevin Barlow, too," Burke said. “All of this happening after Drew's talk with him on the golf course.”
“From Barlow's lips to Gallaway's ears,” I said. "And down the chain from fish hook scar to the fat man, to Brody Walker."
“Now we've got guys to flip on Barlow and Gallaway for contracting the murders,” Sumners said. “Almost doesn't matter if we can get them on money-laundering.”
“But it would be a nice bonus,” I said. “Bring it full circle.”
Then Burke said, “Want to take on bets on who will flip first?”
We placed our bets and went to see who would collect.
CHAPTER 36
Nevin Barlow sat in an interrogation room at the FBI Boston field office in Chelsea. “We've issued a BOLO in the Washington, DC metro area for Vincent Gallaway,” Sumners informed Burke and me. It would only be a matter of time before they caught him. Hard to stay hidden for long when the FBI, Washington Metro Police, and Virginia and Maryland local and state police forces received a Be On the Look-Out for him.
We entered the interrogation room. "I am not speaking without legal representation," Barlow said.
“That is your right,” Sumners said.
“But you should know your guys are singing like Barbara Streisand,” Burke said.
Sumners and I looked at him. “What? I like Babs,” Burke said in his defense. “She was great in the original A Star Is Born. Although that Lady Goo Goo was first-rate in the remake.”
Sumners snickered. “Lady Gaga,” he said.
“Whatever,” Burke said.
“And I think Barbara Streisand's 1970s A Star Is Born was a remake of a 1950s original,” I commented.
“I don't care,” Burke said.
“If Siskel and Ebert are finished, I'd like my lawyer,” Burke said.
“He's on his way,” Sumners said. "But as Captain Burke stated, we have enough evidence to make this case without you. The only question is if you go down for the murders of Phillip Swanson, Leo Mancini, and the attempted murders of Laura Powell and Mr. Patrick.”
“Your cop routine won't work on me,” Burke said. “You've got nothing. And I'm not talking without my attorney present.”
“Okay,” Burke said. "But we are also aware that you and Vincent Gallaway hired Brody Walker for the hits. In addition, there is evidence of your involvement in money-laundering with the late Leo Mancini. And Angelo Mancini before that."
“You've got nothing,” Burke said.
“That's not what Gordie at the Kitten Club told us,” I said. “And he has turned over all his records.”
“There is nothing to connect me,” Barlow said.
“Vincent Gallaway will provide everything else we need,” Sumners said. “He would rather not end
up in the same federal prison with the drug kingpins, gang members, and other sociopaths he has sent away over the years.”
Sumners didn't actually say we had Gallaway and that he was talking. However, Barlow could infer that. If he did, he was likely to give us the information we wanted. We gave him time to think. Silence can be golden.
“I never ordered anyone to be killed,” Burke said after several minutes. The door to the interrogation room opened and two sharply dressed men entered. I felt like singing the chorus to the ZZ Top song.
“I'm Bradley Hughes and this is Johnathan Waterford. We are representing Mr. Burke.”
“Wow,” I said, “both your buddies at the firm are representing you.”
“We need time to confer with our client,” Waterford said.
“Take all the time you need,” Sumners said. “We won't be needing anything from Mr. Barlow.”
“But expect murder and money-laundering charges to be raining down on your client,” Burke said.
“Brad, John, we don't need a consult,” Barlow said. “I will tell them everything.”
“Nevin, do not say a word,” Hughes said.
“He was just getting into his story,” I said. “I'd like to hear how it ends.”
“What have you said?” Waterford asked Barlow. “You know better than to speak.”
“It's over,” Burke said. “If I don't give them what I have, Vincent Gallaway will frame me for murder.”
“Shut up, Nevin,” Hughes said.
Barlow was shaking his head vigorously. “No. This has to end. No more lies.” Then he turned to Sumners. “But if I talk, I want a deal. There are different types of federal prisons. All I am looking at are white-collar crimes.”
“Nevin, be quiet!” Waterford shouted.
“It won't exactly be the Oak Country Club,” Sumners said, “but you won't serve with hardcore criminals.”
“We need time with our client,” Hughes said anxiously.
“It's okay,” Barlow whispered. “I deserve whatever comes to me. I broke the law. I helped the Mancini crime family launder drug money. I set up the business fronts and took a cut of the laundered funds. I'll sign a confession. I also possess financial records.”
Deception Page 13
