Tanzi's Luck (Vince Tanzi Book 4)

by C I Dennis

  “Rose, you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t I?” The needle on the speedometer had crawled up toward ninety, and we were flying past the rest of the morning traffic like it was stopped.

  “No, you don’t. Not at all. I was married to one woman for twenty years, and I loved her. Barbara and I didn’t work out, but that doesn’t mean that I’m some kind of playboy. And yes, I like Karen. And I like you too. You’re a really nice person.”

  “Oh, so I’m Miss Congeniality. That’s every woman’s worst nightmare, in case you wondered.”

  I tried to answer, but it was the end of the conversation as far as she was concerned. We rode in silence the rest of the way to Burlington. I reached behind the seat to calm myself down by stroking the fur of Chan’s neck. For once his deep brown eyes showed sympathy rather than disdain.

  “I’m right on this,” I whispered to him.

  Maybe so, he said. But you still lost.

  *

  The crowd in the waiting room of the Fletcher Allen hospital intensive care unit was a who’s-who of Vermont politics. The governor stood near the entryway, surrounded by assistants, handlers, and the press. One U.S. senator had already come and gone. State legislators and their minions abounded. Lobbyists, business leaders, and various other influence-peddlers crowded out the nursing staff, and even though Angus Driscoll was still clinging to life somewhere beyond the doors, it felt like a wake.

  I had left Rose in the car to sulk with the dog while I found the waiting room and waited. I didn’t approach anybody, and I didn’t ask any questions. I quietly took a seat and tried to be as inconspicuous as the six-month-old magazines that were stacked on the table next to me. All I wanted to do for now was to observe. Pallmeister and his group would be working the obvious angles. They would be all over Clement Goody’s place, looking for bombs—the real kind, not the emotional kind like Rose and I had been tossing back and forth. My job was to look for the nuances: the body language, facial expressions, and the possibly unguarded comments from people who were in Driscoll’s circle and might accidentally drop me a big hint, because I needed one if I was going to wrap this up and get back to my life.

  I thumbed through a tattered golf magazine while I listened to the chatter around me. The waiting room smelled of old carpet, stale coffee, and worry. I was one of the worriers, and I had every reason to be one. In the eight days since I’d come up to Vermont to get my head looked at, three people had died, another one was in bad shape down the hall from me, and I wasn’t exactly all roses and sunshine myself after Fish had hit me hard enough to send me back to surgery. Pretty soon I would be in this very same hospital making my own recovery, although it was unlikely that the press would cover it, or that a senator would be by my bedside. I needed to get in touch with Dr. Jaffe and schedule an appointment, but that was low on my list because I currently felt better than any time since I’d been shot. Maybe Clement Goody was right, and sex was the cure for everything. If the scientific community ever decided to research that, I would volunteer, although I’d probably end up in the control group.

  The double doors to the patient area opened, and a doctor came out with Trish Lussen at his side. I’d seen them both shortly after I’d arrived, when the surgeon had briefed the press about the extent of Driscoll’s injuries. The bomb had landed more or less in Fish Falzarano’s lap. The fragments had traveled low, passing through the front seat and into Angus Driscoll’s legs and lower torso. The doctors believed that they could save his legs, but his intestines were a mess, and there was already trouble with sepsis.

  “Is he conscious?” I heard someone ask.

  “Yes,” the doctor said. He seemed young for someone who would be assigned to a high-profile guy like Driscoll. He was my height, with a goatee and a shaved head that was deeply tanned like he’d been somewhere warm. “Mr. Driscoll is sedated, but he refuses to go under. He asked me to thank you all for coming, and to go home.”

  “No way,” a young guy in a suit said, but others in the room began to filter toward the exit. Trish Lussen saw me and made her way through well-wishers who shook her hand or hugged her. By the time she got to me she looked spent, but there was the same resolve in her expression that I’d seen when I had been on the doorstep of her farmhouse.

  “He wants to speak with you,” she said. “I made the mistake of telling him that you were here.”

  “What about?”

  “His girlfriend, I presume,” she said. “He thinks that I don’t know about her, but men are blind in that regard. Even the smartest ones. My father is in a hospital bed and my husband is dead because of Grace Hebert.”

  “Do you think that she killed your husband?”

  “One way or the other,” she said. I noticed that her teeth were crooked at the bottom, although nothing else about her was out of place. She must have had less sleep than I had, but she looked perfectly composed. “You’re the investigator, Mr. Tanzi. You tell me.”

  “The police thought that it was Matthew Harmony. Your mechanic. And they also think that he killed himself, out of remorse.”

  “Come with me,” she said. She took my elbow. “Let’s get this over with.”

  *

  Angus Driscoll’s huge body draped over the sides of the hospital bed like a too-big slab of prime rib on a dinner plate. It was a natural human response to be intimidated by people of his physical stature, but that had never applied to me. Evil can come in any size, and I was starting to think that Clement Goody was more of a threat than his much larger rival, who took up a lot of real estate but didn’t appear to be a threat to anyone at present.

  Driscoll’s eyes were open when Trish and I entered the room, but it was clear that he was struggling for consciousness, and even survival. He raised a weak hand and motioned for me to draw closer. I leaned over him to hear what he was trying to say.

  “Want to hire you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “To protect Trish,” he said. It was no more than a whisper, and his daughter was across the room. I wondered if she could hear him. “Fish is dead. Can’t do it myself.”

  “Protect her from who?”

  “Whoever did this,” Driscoll said. “I’ll pay triple your rate. You stay with Trish, and if you can find Grace and protect her too, there will be a bonus.”

  “Who tossed the bomb in your car? Did you see them?”

  “I was reading the newspaper,” he whispered. “Fish must have known the person, or he wouldn’t have stopped.”

  Driscoll began to cough violently. Two nurses rushed into the room and pushed us aside. Trish Lussen took my elbow again and led me out. “Let’s hope you didn’t just finish him off,” she said. “And in case you’re wondering, I heard what he said. I don’t need your protection, Mr. Tanzi. You can leave now.”

  I seldom take on two clients at the same time, but Angus Driscoll had thrown me a curve ball. He was worried about Grace, and I was thinking that this might be the break that I had been looking for.

  “You heard him,” I said. “I’m accepting his offer.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “Nobody is going to babysit me.”

  “I have a car outside,” I said. “The muffler is shot. It sounds like a Sherman tank. There’s a pissed-off female customs agent in the front seat and a hundred-pound dog with a bad attitude in the back. You’ll fit in nicely.”

  *

  I dropped Rose DiNapoli and Trish Lussen off at the estate on Shelburne Point. The local cops had already posted a patrol car at the end of the driveway, and I had a word with them. Trish had bitched the whole way over from the hospital while Chan growled at her, but eventually we made a deal: she would stay in the house for a minimum of twenty-four hours while I did my job. Rose would stay with her for a couple of days, with the added security of the police car at the end of the drive. Chan and I took the car, despite Rose’s strong protest, but I made the case that the best way to protect Trish was to assist John Pallm
eister, find the killer or killers, and locate Grace. I had inside knowledge of the players, and I needed to be out there circulating and stirring things up. I promised Rose that if I had the slightest hint of another whiteout I would call her for help, but I was still feeling at the top of my game, thanks to Karen Charbonneau’s unique brand of physical therapy the night before.

  I knew exactly where I was headed: the West Eden Bible Camp. Pallmeister had texted me an hour earlier, saying that they had a warrant and were on the way. By the time I arrived they would probably be done, and even if they couldn’t apprehend Clement Goody and sweat him, they’d be able to give the forensics team a sample of the bomb and match it to the one that had killed Fish. If Goody was still there, he’d be arrested for possession of the explosives, which would easily earn him a year or more of jail time. But he was too smart for that, and I wondered where he might be right now. A guy with his money and resources could go anywhere.

  I also wondered if Cindy Charbonneau was with him. Cindy had worked her way up my suspect list because of Karen’s revelation that her sister was an expert with a bow and arrow. Karen had also told me that Cindy would do Clement’s bidding. Did that extend to tossing a bomb into somebody’s car? Possibly. The evidence was mounting up, but I couldn’t figure out the motive. Goody was a rich guy. A power broker, like Driscoll, and those types weren’t usually killers, at least not overtly. They settled their scores in other ways. Unless they had lost control, because they were infatuated with a beautiful young woman.

  My phone buzzed with a text. I pulled the Marquis into the driveway of a farm a few miles short of Johnson and called Roberto. I had put him on a research task the day before, and my cell displayed the answer: Found the weapon. It was sold on Craigslist.

  He picked up on the first ring. “Vince?”

  “You found it how?”

  “The ad was deleted, but we retrieved it,” he said. “It was kinda complicated, so I got some friends to help.”

  Aha. Roberto had a cadre of hacker buddies with whose assistance he could find out what Vladimir Putin had eaten for breakfast. “So the bow was sold on Craigslist?”

  “Yeah, about two weeks ago.”

  “Same description that I gave you? With the quiver and the carbon arrows?”

  “It’s the same make and model bow,” he said. “There wasn’t anything about the arrows. Where are you?”

  “On the way out to Clement Goody’s.”

  “I called the seller,” he said. “He said he’d already sold it, which I knew, of course. To a woman. I could trace his street address.”

  A woman had bought Donald Lussen’s murder weapon on Craigslist? “No need,” I said. “You answered my question, although I don’t like the answer.”

  “Was it the girl that you’re looking for? Grace?”

  “No,” I said. “One of Goody’s friends is an expert archer. He must have put her up to it.”

  “Why?”

  “I wish I knew,” I said.

  We hung up, and Chan climbed into the front seat as I left the farm driveway. In a few minutes we’d be at Goody’s house, the place would be swarming with cops, and Goody and Cindy Charbonneau might already be in custody. I would pass the information about the Craigslist buy to Pallmeister, and he would build his case. They would be arrested. Interrogations would happen, lawyers would be hired. Clement and Cindy might cop a plea and get fifteen or twenty years, or they might get life. It didn’t matter to me, because all that I cared about was that Grace Hebert would be found, rehabilitated, and given another chance. I wanted that to happen, for her grandmother’s sake if for no other reason.

  “I think we’re close to wrapping this up,” I said to the dog. He didn’t look so sure.

  *

  John Pallmeister wasn’t in Clement Goody’s driveway when I arrived. Neither was anyone else, except for a sleepy-looking deputy in a Lamoille Sheriff’s cruiser who was listening to the radio chatter with his window rolled down as it was an unusually warm October day.

  He told me that the State Police crew had shown up along with three local deputies. They’d gone through the entire house. There were no pipe bombs to be found. The room that I’d directed them to was empty—not even a bullet remained. The place had been left open, but no one was home. Food was in the refrigerator. The plants were freshly watered. But no guns, let alone explosives, and the deputy told me that Pallmeister had left in a foul mood, which was an uncharacteristic display of emotion for the cool-headed lieutenant.

  Goody had somehow cleaned up and cleared out. Pallmeister would be questioning what I had told him. After all, I was a P.I., not a cop, and I’d screwed up plenty in the past, plus I’d taken a few hits and might be as reliable as a punch-drunk boxer. I thought about calling him and telling him about Roberto’s discovery on the bow, but I was at a loss.

  I sat in the car for a while to consider my options. I could go back to Shelburne and consult with Rose. I could hang around at Pallmeister’s barracks and hope for some scraps. Or I could fly back to Vero Beach, where I was way overdue with my young son, and say to hell with it. Sorry, Mrs. T, I couldn’t locate your granddaughter, and she’s a lost cause anyway, so let’s all move on.

  Rose might be right about Grace. She could be a black widow, and I realized that I hadn’t bothered to ask Roberto if he’d gotten a description of the woman from the seller of the bow. Grace and Cindy didn’t look at all like each other. A simple inquiry about the buyer’s hair color would solve that one, but I was too discouraged to call Roberto and have him pursue it. I would just hand the information over to Pallmeister, and they could go interview the guy. I felt like a loser. A hack who was past his prime. I had no business here. Pallmeister and Patton were trying to help me out, but I was in over my damaged head. Florida was looking better and better.

  “What am I missing?” I asked the dog, who was curled up in the back seat. “And don’t you do anything besides sleep?”

  I get more done sleeping that you ever will awake.

  “Meaning what?”

  Meaning use your brain for once. What’s left of it.

  “I’m missing something?” The animal didn’t respond, nor did I expect him to. I was simply using our imagined conversations to work things out, and what was clear in the work-out process was that I was missing something. The hair color of the woman who bought the bow? Was that important? Possibly, but that didn’t seem to be it—obviously Cindy Charbonneau had bought the weapon, given her archery background.

  Bow and arrow, Ruger .44 magnum, pipe bomb—there were three murders now, with three different weapons and entirely different sets of circumstances. The level of violence was escalating with each killing. All three deaths were connected to Grace Hebert. And Clement Goody was connected to all three of the weapons, via his female companions, or his armaments cache, which had conveniently vanished right before the cops arrived. I’d stood in the room and seen it only a few days ago. There was a lot of nasty, lethal stuff in there—way too much to sweep under a bed at the last minute. Goody had moved it, very deliberately, and it must have taken him some time.

  He was a prepper, according to Eric the Electrician, and this was his ultimate hideout for the End Times, fully stocked with canned food, hot women, and bullets galore. The recent circumstances had disrupted his preparations for the apocalypse and the weapons had been moved temporarily, but this was ground zero for when the Huns started running up the driveway.

  Or was it?

  I began to suspect what it was that I’d been missing.

  One of the great things about Vermont is that you don’t need a phone book, or Google, or any high-tech snooping devices to find someone: you just stop in at the local store. I drove the Marquis to Johnson Farm and Garden, less than a mile from the bottom of Clement Goody’s road, and waited to speak with the proprietor, who was in the middle of demonstrating a chain saw to a customer who looked like he might be there for a while. I was in a hurry to get the information, but the
quickest way with Vermonters is to wait your turn. The customer finally made up his mind and counted out bills for the saw. I approached the owner.

  “I’m looking for a guy named Eric,” I said. “He did some electrical work for Clement Goody, up the road.”

  “You with the police? They were there today,” the man said. He wore coveralls and had a broad moustache that covered his dark-stained teeth. “You don’t look like a policeman.”

  “Private investigator.”

  “They got some shenanigans goin’ on up there, by jimbo. Nobody’s gonna miss that guy when they take him away.”

  “Except Eric,” I said. “He told me there was some money to be made.”

  “Oh yeah, Eric, he cashed in,” the man said. “Mr. Goody never spent a dollar here. Don’t care for the man, personally. I got two daughters, and that fella would screw a heifer if she mooed at him.”

  “I’d like to know how to get in touch with Eric,” I said. “I don’t know his last name.”

  “Gagnier,” the man said. “He’s in my contacts. Hang on.” He took a cellphone from his pocket and dialed. He handed the phone to me.

  “Eric?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Vince Tanzi. You and I met at the bottom of Clement Goody’s driveway, when you were installing an electric fence.”

  “I remember you.”

  “I’m a private investigator. I need some help. You said that he had a lot of weapons in his house.”

  “So?”

  “I saw them. Guns, ammo, even a box of pipe bombs.”

  “Don’t know about no bombs.” He sounded sleepy, like I’d woken him.

  “He had a box of them, but they’re gone now. The cops just searched the place.”

  “He’s in trouble?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a long silence. “My wife don’t like this,” he finally said. “We heard that the State Police was there. There ain’t no easy money, is there, Mr. Tanzi? Money for nothin’, like the song says?”

  “No,” I said. “How much did he pay you?”