Violet Darger (Book 4): Bad Blood

by Vargus, L. T.

  A little Honda hatchback rolled by. It had the bass turned up so loud it rattled the pile of change in Blankenship’s ashtray.

  “Anyway, we decided to go through the window via the fire escape. Don’t remember how I drew the short straw, but I did. Climbed up the ladder and stuck my head into the window. Didn’t have a screen or anything. And I could see the guy lyin’ on the sofa. I knew he was dead right there because I couldn’t even see his face for it bein’ covered in maggots. I mean crawlin’ with ‘em. Only reason I really knew it was a face was ‘cause he had on a pair of glasses.”

  Blankenship wiggled his fingers in the vicinity of his eyes.

  “I leaned over the railing right there and lost my cookies. Other guys down below had a good laugh at that, but they weren’t so amused when I went in and unlocked the door and they got their first look at the horror show in the living room. We had to wait around for the coroner’s guys after that. I was kinda curious what they’d do when they got there, on account of the bugs, ya know? They tried to knock away most of ‘em, I guess so there’d be something left for the doc to examine. And underneath, I’ve never seen anything like it since. He was green. And I mean green. Like Kermit the Frog. But the thing I’ll never forget is when they picked that guy up offa the couch to try to get him in the bag, his insides just kinda… spilled out everywhere. Like he was an egg that got cracked.”

  Huettemann’s mouth was half-full of pretzels. He stopped chewing, the salty bits having suddenly lost their flavor. Roughly fourteen ounces of Coca-Cola churned in his gut.

  “The smell…” Blankenship continued, shaking his head. “My God, I swear it sticks to ya. Gets in your pores or something. Couldn’t wait to get home and take a shower. I would’ve torched my uniform if it wasn’t considered department property.”

  Huettemann waited for the conclusion to the story, but Blankenship seemed to have lapsed into silence.

  “So?”

  The other man blinked a few times.

  “What?”

  “How’d the guy die? You never said.”

  “Oh,” Blankenship said with a nod. “Think the M.E. decided it was a heart attack. Natural causes.”

  Someone rode by on a bike with a pedal-powered headlight, and both men let their heads swivel to follow the path of the flickering light until it was out of view.

  “But my first homicide,” he said, shaking his head. “Someone called in that they heard gunshots in Herman Gardens. Nothing new. But you ever see one of those old cartoons — Bugs Bunny or maybe a Tom and Jerry — where one of the guys is in a gunfight, and it seems like he walks away untouched, but then he takes a drink of water, and it ends up leaking out of him through a dozen holes, like a sieve? I always thought that was the funniest thing when I was a kid. Wasn’t so funny in real life.”

  Blankenship swiped a paw over his mustache and continued.

  “It was just getting dark when we rolled up on the park. During the day it’s not so bad. Kids playing basketball and soccer. People jogging and walking their dogs. But at night there’s a lot of illegal activity. Drugs. Prostitution. Fights. There was just enough light left in the day that we could see the bodies lying on the blacktop of the basketball courts. Two kids, neither one of them could have been older than fifteen, and both of ‘em were just riddled with bullets. I couldn’t stop thinking about that cartoon thing. Those were the first dead kids I ever saw, and I’ve never forgotten it. It was just wrong.”

  Huettemann didn’t know what to say to that. He supposed there wasn’t anything to say, so he kept quiet.

  Time passed. A stray dog trotted by, nose pressed to the sidewalk. They watched the cars in the back lot of the bar dwindle as it neared closing time.

  When there were only a handful of vehicles left — none of which seemed worthy of extra attention — Blankenship broke the silence.

  “I say we call it a night.”

  Huettemann nodded his agreement.

  Just as Blankenship reached to turn the key in the ignition, the back door of Constantine’s swung open. His hand froze, and both men held their breath.

  The door seemed to stay open like that for some time, like time had gotten frozen or something. And then a garbage can on wheels squeaked into view. A lanky guy with tattoos pushed the cart from behind, steering it over to the dumpster. He tossed the black plastic garbage bags onto the pile before heading back inside. A few moments later, he appeared outside the door again, locking it behind himself this time. He got into a rusty Ford Taurus and drove away.

  “Yep, I’d say that about does it,” Blankenship said, starting the car and putting it in gear.

  It was a short drive to where Huettemann had left his own vehicle. He thanked Blankenship again for the food and the ride, and the two parted ways.

  Huettemann turned his headlights on, which reflected in the windows of the donut shop. The two men were nowhere to be seen, but there were several more racks of baked goods filling the display case now. He was sure they were in back kneading or glazing or something of the sort.

  * * *

  He drove north through H-town, the streets mostly empty by now. He hit a red light at the intersection in front of Constantine’s and took the moment to regard the front of the bar from the left turn lane. Hard to believe it was some kind of haven for illegal activity. It looked like any other dive bar in the area, even attracting a troupe of bachelorettes on a bar crawl.

  Same penis forever, they’d yelled, and he got it now. Marriage.

  He was still waiting for the light to turn when a large black SUV crept up beside him on the right. Huettemann thought nothing of it, at first. His gaze wandered that way simply because the movement caught his eye. But he caught a glimpse of the men inside the car — big, rough-looking dudes — and he felt a little tickle run up his spine.

  He must have been staring then, because the driver turned his head and glared down at him. The SUV rode quite a bit higher than Huettemann’s little Passat, but the height differential wasn’t the only thing that made him feel small. The guy was huge all on his own, and he had a real mean look to him, with a face that was all hard lines, like he’d been carved from a piece of granite. His hair was dark and slicked back, revealing a prominent widow’s peak in front. The man continued to stare him down, and all Huettemann could think to do was to look away. Even then, he still felt the man’s eyes on him.

  Finally the light changed, and Huettemann breathed a sigh of relief. He pressed on the gas, glad to leave the SUV behind him. He peered into the rearview mirror after he turned, half-worried the man might have followed. Instead, he saw brake lights. The SUV had turned in the opposite direction, thank God.

  A full city block rushed past as that sank in.

  The scary dude had turned toward the back lot of Constantine’s.

  Huettemann’s eyes went to the mirror again, just as the SUV slithered behind the building.

  Heart thumping in his chest, Huettemann considered going back to make sure.

  But the stake-out was over. Blankenship was gone. He didn’t even have his service vehicle or his laptop, though that wouldn’t stop him from running the plate, not really. He could log on to the county system with his phone.

  And yet some nagging feeling in his gut told him to leave it.

  Chickenshit. That’s what he was.

  He passed two side streets before jerking the wheel right and executing a large loop that would bring him up the side street that ran next to the bar. If he was lucky, he’d be able to read the plate from the street. Quick and easy, he’d barely have to stop the car.

  Two blocks from Constantine’s, he cut the lights and coasted slowly toward the place. When he was about fifty feet away, he stopped next to the curb. The SUV was idling near the back door of the bar. One of the rear doors opened and a man stepped out, fingering a ring of keys. While he unlocked the employee entrance, two more men exited the vehicle.

  Huettemann felt a little like he was in a dream. Here they’d wai
ted all night for something like this to happen, and now it finally was. He remembered how he’d been excited earlier, thinking about how much it felt like being in the movies, to be on a stake-out related to mafia doings.

  But now that he was here, by himself, spying on these thugs — murderers more likely than not — he didn’t think it seemed so exciting. It was downright terrifying. The mob didn’t mess around.

  The SUV’s taillights shut off and the driver side door opened. Huettemann’s throat felt dry and thick when he swallowed.

  The driver got out, slammed his door. Seeing the guy standing at his full height, it became obvious that he really was a hulk. Just massive. The other men had disappeared inside, but the driver seemed to linger in the parking lot, hesitating.

  Finally, he approached the door to the bar, reached for it, grasped the handle. And then he stopped and turned, looking straight down the sidewalk to where Huettemann was huddled in the dark.

  Huettemann felt his testicles shrivel a little, fresh sweat moistening all of his crevices. Did this guy just make him in the dark from fifty feet away? Was he some kind of supernatural creature with night vision or something?

  But no. The man swung back to the door and ducked inside.

  “Jiminy Christmas,” Huettemann breathed.

  It took a few deep breaths to gather himself, to get his heart rate under control.

  He waited another minute before he felt it was really all clear, and then he put the car in drive and drifted close enough to the SUV to read the plate.

  He scrawled the sequence of numbers and letters on the notepad with all the others they’d logged that night, but he put ten blocks between himself and Constantine’s before he stopped and actually ran the license plate through the system.

  A bar tracking the page’s load progress gradually filled up on the screen of his phone.

  23%.

  58%.

  89%.

  100%.

  The information popped up.

  Make: Ford

  Model: Explorer

  Year: 2014

  Registered Owner: Dominik Jaworski.

  Chapter 24

  When the shrill cry of Darger’s phone alarm went off the next morning, her first instinct was to shotput the device through the hotel window. She resisted that urge.

  The Norco had worn off, leaving her feeling groggy and irritable. But the headache was gone, at least.

  Something else had happened in the night, as well. Her mind had unraveled the knot of doubt that had been bugging her as she dozed off: Constantine’s had been too easy to find. Gary Howard, the victim’s brother, had known about it, and he’d had very little to do with any of this business. In fact, he seemed to make a point of not knowing much about his brother’s nefarious connections.

  So how had the task force — which had been watching the Partnership for years — failed to find out about the place?

  While she showered, she remembered something else. How she’d asked Lijah to describe the men, and the first thing he’d said about the way the smaller man was dressed was to point at Luck.

  “Just like him,” he’d said.

  Just like him? As in, a suit just like his, or was there something else similar? A way of holding oneself? A way of having authority over a room? A way of seeming to be in charge?

  Law enforcement. That was what Darger was thinking. Lijah had seen a cop or maybe even a federal agent with the Striga when he executed Angelo Battaglia.

  She knew the last bit was a stretch, a leap in logic she’d have a hard time explaining to anyone else, but in her gut it felt right. Like two pieces of the puzzle had just snapped together.

  Of course, organized crime all over the country had a long history of turning cops crooked in all manner of ways. Why should Detroit be any different?

  It made her sick to think about it. The men in the Partnership were violent thugs and thieves. Taking from anyone they could. Killing for profit, for power. Manipulating the world to serve their own greed. If someone in law enforcement was helping them, she was going to find the traitorous bastard.

  * * *

  She was waiting for Loshak in the parking lot of their motel when he emerged from his room. He saw her leaning against the rented Hyundai and gave a little wave. She waved back and felt a twinge of guilt. She’d already decided she’d keep her theory about the task force being compromised to herself. She only knew for certain that the mole couldn’t be two people: herself and Loshak. But Loshak was friends with Price. Would he insist on telling Price about her theory? About Lijah seeing a third man at the Angelo Battaglia murder? No, she couldn’t risk bringing in someone she didn’t trust. Not yet. If that meant keeping Loshak in the dark for now, then so be it.

  “Aren’t you looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning,” he said as he climbed into the driver’s seat.

  “The coffee machine in my room is broken. This is rage, not perkiness.”

  “Ouch. Say no more,” he said. “I was going to stop off for some goodies anyway.”

  Darger buckled her seatbelt and slid on a pair of sunglasses to fight the glare of the early morning sun.

  “Who got assigned to the Constantine’s stake-out, do you know?” she asked.

  “Agent Costello and Agent Frye took the first half.”

  Darger’s mouth puckered like she’d accidentally taken a swig of rancid milk.

  “Why do guys like that even stick around?”

  “Who? Costello?”

  “Yeah. He’s got a real shit attitude. It’s obvious he’s just milking the pay grade system until he hits retirement age.”

  “Well, I think you probably just answered your own question as to why he sticks around.”

  She scowled, wondering if Costello might be hanging on for other reasons as well. So he could continue leaking information to the Battaglias, for example. She shouldn’t think like that, though. Not until she had proof, anyway.

  “Who worked the late shift?”

  “Detective Blankenship and that patrolman from the Sheriff’s Department were watching until closing time.”

  “Huettemann?”

  “That’s the guy.”

  Loshak parked the car outside a local donut shop, and Darger followed him inside. While they waited in line, she considered Huettemann as an ally. He couldn’t possibly be the mole, because he’d only joined the task force yesterday. Not to mention the fact that he wasn’t even from the city.

  She ordered an iced coffee and an apple fritter and felt her edginess fade as she sipped the caffeinated brew. Loshak bought enough coffee and donuts to fuel a small army, and Darger helped him carry it all to the car.

  “Who are you trying to butter up this time?” she asked.

  “No one. I’m actually taking pity on poor old Casey Luck. Price is old school. Loves to put the new guys through the ringer. Test their mettle.”

  Rolling her eyes, Darger said, “I guess I should be glad you didn’t pull that crap.”

  She hadn’t been fresh out of the Academy when she partnered up with Loshak, but that wouldn’t have stopped plenty of senior agents from treating the new guy — or new girl, in Darger’s case — like a coffee-fetching gopher.

  Watching her partner out of the corner of her eye, she felt another pang of remorse for concealing information from him.

  Just as Darger was about to enter the task force meeting room, she caught sight of Deputy Huettemann approaching from the far end of the hallway. She dumped the boxes of donuts she was carrying in the conference room and hurried to intercept the deputy.

  “Deputy Huettemann! Just the man I wanted to see,” she said, pulling him off to one side of the corridor.

  “Me?” he asked, his freckled face flushing a little.

  “I heard you were on the stake-out last night. How’d it go?”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

  “Honestly, it was pretty dull for most of it. There was one thing…”

  “W
hat?”

  “Well, it was right at the end of the night. After me and Blankenship had parted ways, actually. I was on my way home and everything, and really the stake-out was over and done with. So I almost thought nothing of it—”

  Darger couldn’t help but give an impatient wave of her hand.

  “OK, well to get right to the point, I was stopped at the intersection in front of the place — Constantine’s, I mean — and this big dark SUV pulled up, and I don’t know why, but I just got all sorts of bad feelings about it. But I was turning left and they were turning right, and I—”

  A hard look from Darger urged him back on track.

  “Long story short, I went around the block and sure enough, the vehicle was pulling into the back lot of Constantine’s. So I waited, and I watched a bunch of rough-looking characters climb out and go into the back of the bar.”

  Darger perked up. This was interesting.

  “Did you get the plate?”

  “Of course.”

  “And you ran it?”

  “Yeah. Guy’s name is Jaworski. Dominik Jaworski.”

  Jaworski. A Polish name from the sounds of it.

  Cherie Howard’s words came back to her then.

  A big scary guy… Heard someone call him “The Polack.”

  Darger whipped out her phone and pulled up Jaworski’s driver’s license profile.

  Goose bumps prickled over Darger’s arms when she looked at his photo. He was just like Lijah had described: sharp nose, slicked hair, and cold, dark eyes. She glanced at the column listing his height. 6’6”. Pretty damn big.

  Darger dragged Huettemann a few steps further away from the meeting room.

  “Have you told anyone else about this? Anyone on the task force, I mean?”

  She lowered her voice to a whisper and glanced up and down the hallway to make sure no one was within earshot.

  “What’s the big— why are we whispering?”

  She stepped closer and fixed her eyes on his.

  “Did you tell anyone or not?”