by C I Dennis
“Driscoll saw you?”
Carmela turned to face me. Her cheeks were tinted with rivulets of mascara. “Yes, he saw me. I hate the bastard. And I hate myself for what I did to my daughter. I’ll take what’s coming.”
Angus Driscoll had told me that he’d had no idea who threw the bomb into his car, and that was a lie. A calculation. If he had told the police that it was Carmela, ugly things might surface. Safer to bide his time, find another enforcer like Fish, and quietly take her out. He might have already hired someone.
“I’m going to help you, Carmela,” I said. “And yes, I’m going to call the police, but I have friends there. You might be able to make a deal if you help them convict Driscoll. But you’ll still do jail time.”
She shrugged. “I’m already doing time, Vinny. Only the location will change.”
FRIDAY
November is as nice as it gets in Vero Beach. The snowbirds haven’t arrived yet, at least not in force, the worst of the hurricane season is behind us, the weather is still warm, and the kids are in school. I’d been doing double daddy-duty with Royal for the three weeks since I had returned home in order to compensate Barbara for her coverage, which had only added to my pleasure. My adopted dog, my little son, and I had settled into a routine of mealtime, playtime, naptime, and fun outings, and I wondered if I would ever work another case. The last one had turned out to be such a failure that I had lost confidence in my abilities. I hadn’t accepted a job since I’d been back.
On the plus side, I felt better than I had since being shot two years before, and I was reveling in my newfound abilities. My balance was good, my leg shuffle was gone, and the whiteouts were history. Noelle Jaffe had worked her surgical juju. I was healed.
I had stayed in touch with Robert Patton and John Pallmeister, and had kept an eye on the news from Vermont. Karen Charbonneau was cooling her heels in the women’s jail in Swanton. Carmela had been charged with Falzarano’s murder and was lodged in the Chittenden County Regional Correctional Facility. Angus Driscoll had been indicted for financing the heroin operation after Patton’s team had done the forensic accounting and Pallmeister had taken statements from Carmela and me. They didn’t have enough to charge him with conspiracy on the Matthew Harmony murder, but that was not a problem. I’d spoken with the Chittenden County D.A. who had told me—off the record—that Carmela would be looking at no more than ten to fifteen, but Driscoll was toast. The heroin epidemic in Vermont has been front-page news for the last few years, and people were outraged. Driscoll had coughed up two million bucks to post bail and was hiding in his compound on Shelburne Point, but he might have been safer in a jail cell. If the general populace didn’t tar and feather him first, the D.A. would put him away for life. Either way would be fine with me.
Royal was asleep in his toddler bed and I was in my recliner with Chan at my feet when Rose called. We spoke every day. She had come up twice from Fort Lauderdale to check my bandages, as she put it, although the dressing was gone and my hair was growing back—more quickly than my confidence. The unfinished business of finding Grace Hebert, combined with the stinging betrayal of Karen Charbonneau, had brought me down a few notches. I took the phone and the dog outside to the patio so that I wouldn’t wake Royal. The sunshine felt welcome, like Rose’s voice.
“Do you have plans for this evening?” she asked.
“Not unless you call ordering pizza and watching Sesame Street a plan.”
“Dinner and a show.”
“Exactly. What did you have in mind?”
“A babysitter,” she said. “Time for a night off, Vince. I’m taking you out to the Mermaid for a beer.”
The Kilted Mermaid in downtown Vero is my current favorite watering hole. They have a selection of beers that would require multiple visits to enjoy without getting busted on the way home. A man needs a goal, and this was mine.
“Deal,” I said. “Roberto will watch him. He wants the money for college.”
“Great,” she said. “I have something important to tell you.”
“What?”
“It can wait.”
“Let me guess. You’re pregnant.”
“Oh damn, you spoiled it.” She laughed. I liked the sound of Rose’s laugh, which alternated between a low hee-haw and a girly titter.
“It’s not mine,” I said. “Obviously.”
“Obviously,” she said. “I’ll pick you up at eight.”
*
We arrived at the restaurant just as the sky began to turn black. It’s dark at this time of night in November, but this wasn’t normal evening darkness; it was a storm approaching, and I could hear the rumble of thunder close by. Rose and I jogged hand-in-hand toward the entrance, dashing inside just as the first sheets of rain lashed against the front windows.
A lanky young dude with a man-bun seated us and took our drink order. I chose a Cigar City Tocobaga, and Rose ordered a Duvel. We glanced at the menu, but I was more curious than hungry. “So what’s the big news?”
“Let’s wait until the rain passes,” she said. “We’ll take our beers outside. It’s quieter there.”
“You’re going to make me beg, aren’t you?”
“It’s good news, Vince.”
“Good news would be nice.”
The storm continued for half an hour, and I ordered another pint while Rose switched to water. We ate a couple of light items from the menu while we talked. I caught her up on all of the adorable things that Royal had done and said, while she told me about her new job with Immigration and Customs Enforcement: she had been promoted to second-in-command for ICE’s activities in northeastern Florida from Melbourne to the Georgia line. Rose would be on the road a lot, but her pay grade was going up and she would be the top-ranking female agent in the state.
I hoisted my glass. “You’re right, that’s huge news. Congratulations.”
“That’s not the news,” she said. “Let’s go outside.”
We found a table on the rain-soaked patio under an awning that hadn’t deflected all of the water. Man Bun came out with a towel and wiped off two seats. Rose removed a tablet computer from her bag and fiddled with it.
“It’s three in the morning in Amsterdam,” she said. “That’s when she told me to call. She’s a night owl.”
“Who?”
“A friend,” Rose said. “Check it out. She’s on.”
She turned the tablet toward me. The face of a young woman appeared and then froze. It was Grace Hebert, who had shorn her hair down to the scalp like my postoperative haircut, only the effect was far more stylish. “Vince?” she said. “It’s you, right? The picture isn’t very good.”
“Hello, Grace,” I said.
“I’ve been talking with Rose,” she said. “Every day for the last week. I asked her to say nothing, so please don’t be mad at her.”
“I’m not,” I said.
“This is going to take some explaining,” she said. Her image was moving on the screen in fits and starts, but the sound was perfect. “Lila Morton sent me some money. She’s in Mexico. She freaked out when she found out how Donald died. She was in the dark about that, like I was.”
“Why are you in Amsterdam?”
“I’m at a treatment center,” she said. “I checked myself in. The Dutch know about heroin. They don’t make it into a huge deal like in the States. They just help you get beyond it.”
“That is really good news.”
“I have another month, and I should be out by Christmas. And then I want to go home to Vermont, and I’ll deal with the police, and I’m going to live with my grandmother and start over. I’ve already cleared it with her. She said to say hello, and to tell you you’re…”
“I’m what?”
“Oh my god, I can’t say this. It’s too weird.”
“Say what? You don’t know me that well, but I’m hard to shock.”
There was a silence, and then she spoke. “Grandma said to tell you that you’re hot.”
I heard her laugh, and watched her smiling image on the tablet that Rose was holding up. It was a beautiful sight.
“Tell her to take a number,” Rose said.
“They won’t release me from the program until I have an opdrachtgever,” Grace said. “Meaning, someone to watch over me. Someone super-trustworthy. Not a big deal, just a person to touch base with now and then and keep me honest. It wouldn’t be a lot of time on your part. I’m clean now, and I’m staying that way. People have died because of me, and I’m not going to let that happen again.”
“You’re asking me to sponsor you? Like A.A.?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll pay for your trip here. They interview you to make sure that you’re the right person. I know I’m asking a lot.”
“I have a question,” I said. “Why did you choose me?”
“You almost got killed trying to help me,” she said. “All the men I’ve ever known have wanted to take me to bed, but you’re not like that.”
Perhaps when Noelle Jaffe had entered my brain to clear out the remaining fragments from my bullet wound she had rearranged something. For most of my life I have been at a loss when it came to what women said versus what they really meant. It was not within the male cognitive realm to understand such things. But I did now. Grace Hebert needed to trust someone, because she’d never had that. She wanted to shed her demons, put the past behind her, and face the kind of future that a twenty-one-year-old woman should be facing. She needed someone to watch over her.
“I’ll be there,” I said.
“Thank you,” Grace said. “This means so much to me. I’ll be in touch.”
The screen went dark, and Rose put the tablet in her bag. “Surprised?”
“Yes,” I said. “I thought that she might be dead because I screwed up so bad. I was thinking about quitting the business. I—”
“Basta,” Rose interrupted. “Let’s go back to your place. It’s remotely possible that you could get lucky tonight.”
I took the last sip of my beer. “It’s remotely possible that I’d like that a lot.”
Chan wasn’t in the restaurant with us, but I could guess what he might say:
Oh, please, people. Get a room.
# # #
About The Author
C.I. Dennis is the author of Tanzi's Heat, Tanzi's Ice and Tanzi’s Game. He lives in Vermont and New Hampshire with his family and dogs.
www.cidennis.com
Acknowledgements
Heartfelt thanks to the Brain Trust: editors Joni Cole, Deb Heimann and Elizabeth Owens, and to early readers Bob and Heidi Recupero, Bee Bigelow, Kate Annamal-O’Connell, Roy Cutler, and especially to Dr. Betsy Jaffe for all things medical.
Cover art by Alexander Dennis
