“Why would I care about your investigation into the deaths of former cops?”
“These cops were all involved in a shootout with three robbery suspects in the mid-eighties. The robbers in question were suspected of having robbed an armored car during broad daylight in Boston, making off with nearly one and a half million dollars. These police officers were attempting to apprehend the men when the shooting occurred. When it was over, three robbers and one of the officers were dead.”
“And? I still don’t see how this pertains, in any way, to me.”
“You were a made man, Mr. Riccio. Nothing went down in Boston without your say so.”
Riccio allowed himself a tight smile. “The legend often exceeds the man, Sergeant Byron. Don’t you find?”
“You’re saying you weren’t behind the robbery?”
“You might be surprised to know not every crime committed in Beantown was connected to me. Let’s assume, for argument’s sake, I was behind this robbery of yours. It doesn’t explain why I’d want you dead.”
“There was speculation during the follow-up investigation by the FBI that one of the robbers was related to you.”
“Ah, the Federal Bureau of Investigation. So you’ve turned to the feds for help and they’ve pointed their far-reaching finger at me. Now you think perhaps I’m seeking to avenge the death of a relative?”
“Something along those lines.”
“If you’re expecting me to rat someone out, I’m sorry to disappoint, you’ve come to the wrong man. I didn’t survive this long in my particular line of work by selling out my fellow man.”
“I don’t suppose you did.”
“Are you a fan of history, Sergeant?”
Byron nodded. “I make my living reconstructing it.”
“Touché. Did you know John Edgar Hoover himself, while operating under the color of law, broke more federal laws than I’ve ever been accused of breaking?”
Byron didn’t like the uncomfortable feeling that Riccio had the upper hand. He’d done some research on Riccio prior to coming here but evidently not enough. Riccio didn’t act or talk like the stereotypical mob boss. He was articulate and well read, not at all what Byron had envisioned. “I wasn’t aware,” Byron said.
“It’s true. What’s the old adage about power breeding corruption? Laws were written to keep the people in line, Sergeant, rather ironic when you consider my alleged job description.”
Byron remained silent as he waited for Riccio to finish making his point.
“You’ve come here seeking information from me, yet I don’t expect you’ll believe anything I say. You strike me as a man who’s good at his job, thorough, a type A personality, like myself. I’ll tell you what I think, Sergeant, but you’ll have to do due diligence and check the facts yourself. Fair enough?”
Byron nodded again.
“I have no connection whatsoever to the imbeciles who committed the armored car robbery, nor am I responsible for the recent failed attempt on your life. I am, however, aware of things that might assist you. The money you mentioned, was it ever recovered?”
“No.”
“This suggests only two possibilities: either the men your officers killed weren’t the men who robbed the armored car or the officers themselves took the money.”
“There’s another possibility. The fourth robber was never captured. We believe he may have gotten away with the money.”
Riccio’s smile returned. “Making him the luckiest imbecile on the planet.”
“What are you saying?”
“Have you read the Bible?”
Byron wondered how it was that even in a federal prison while talking to a convicted murderer and mob boss, he couldn’t escape his Catholic upbringing. “Some.”
“I read a great deal, Sergeant, always have, more so as of late. Are you familiar with the story of Judas Iscariot?”
“Judas, yeah. Somewhat.”
“You may want to revisit that particular passage. Well, it’s been a pleasure meeting you, Sergeant Byron. Best of luck with your investigation. I’ll be sure and follow your progress.” Riccio looked toward the door. “Guards, we’re finished.”
Byron walked through the parking, lot toward an anxiously waiting Diane.
“Well, what happened?”
“A MOB BOSS who quotes from the Bible?” Diane said as she turned onto Route 2. “That’s whacked.”
“He didn’t actually quote from it, but yeah, he wasn’t what I’d expected.”
“Okay, so he threw a bunch of flowery prose at you. Do you believe him?”
Byron shook his head. “I don’t know. He did seem genuinely surprised about why I was there. What about his contacts?”
“I had the shift captain pull up Riccio’s phone and visitor logs for me. Nothing out of the ordinary. His daughter comes to visit every other Tuesday like clockwork, sometimes brings the grandkids. Every couple of months, his lawyer stops by to update him on the latest appeal attempt. And he gets the occasional call from one of his sons, but that’s about it.”
“Nothing different as of late?”
“Nope. I looked at his contact logs for the past two years and nothing stands out.”
“Well, one thing’s for certain—if my new paisan friend is right about Judas Iscariot, my problems are one helluva lot closer to home than Harvard, Massachusetts.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
DAVIS BILLINGSLEA SAT alone at his computer, typing madly. It was 8:55 and he’d already missed the deadline for tomorrow’s edition of the Portland Herald. He knew his editor would be all over his ass about it. He was now scrambling for the following day.
The police department had been very tight-lipped regarding the ongoing murder investigation ever since Stanton had gone public. Billingslea had gone to all of his usual police sources, and, as plentiful as they were, none of them had much in the way of specifics. Normally, they’d spew information as fast as he could write in shorthand, but on this particular case someone was playing it close to the vest. He knew Byron was behind this information drought.
Billingslea, forced to employ other methods, had been doing a little surveillance of his own, even resorting to payouts from petty cash, recorded under office supplies. The wagons were circled. It wasn’t every day a serial killer set up shop in the Great State of Maine. A killer of former cops.
His desk phone rang, startling him. He considered letting the call go directly to voicemail, but his gut told him it might be important.
“Newsroom, Billingslea.”
“Good evening, Mr. Billingslea,” a male voice said. “I’m calling to provide you with some information regarding the cop murders.”
“To whom am I speaking?”
The caller hesitated. “Call me Hawk.”
More like nutjob, he thought. “Okay, Hawk. What can you tell me about these murders?”
“I have it on good authority the cops think the killer is trying to take out all of the former members of their SWAT team.”
SWAT? It’s SRT, asshole. “Really? And how would you know that?”
“I’m not at liberty to share my source with you.”
“Why not?”
“How I come by my information is as sacred to me as how you come by yours, Mr. Billingslea. Let’s just say, if I tell you something, you can bank on it being true.”
Yeah, right. “Let’s assume you do know what you’re talking about, how can I confirm it?”
“If you drive out to Stroudwater in Westbrook, you’ll see a black Chevrolet Malibu parked down the road from number 875. Inside the Malibu, there’s a police officer on assignment.”
The hair on the back of Billingslea’s neck bristled as he scribbled on a notepad. He didn’t care for the caller’s tone of voice or the amount of detail he seemed to possess. “And exactly wha
t kind of assignment are we talking about?”
“He’s surveilling the home of former Portland Police Sergeant Eric Williams. Maybe you should check it out yourself.”
Billingslea opened his mouth to ask another question when he heard the sound of the call being disconnected.
Before leaving his office, he queried the City of Westbrook’s online tax records and located a large brick colonial-style house owned by E. Williams at 875 Stroudwater Road in Westbrook, just as the caller had said.
BILLINGSLEA COULDN’T SHAKE the ominous feeling the phone call had given him. Common sense told him to pack up his things and go home. But, as with any reporter worth his salt, the need to know always trumped common sense. Besides, if Byron wasn’t going to help him with this story, maybe Hawk, or whoever the caller was, would. He wasn’t going to be left out in the cold on the biggest story to hit this town since, well, ever. Breaking this story wide open might get him a desk at the real Herald, or maybe even the Times. Common sense would just have to wait.
He grabbed a nondescript gray sedan from the newspaper’s small motor pool and headed out toward Westbrook. As he passed through the Libbytown section of Portland, the little voice inside his head began to question him. “What do they say about cats and curiosity, Davis?”
“I don’t know,” he said aloud. “But I sure don’t know any cats who’ve ever won awards for journalism.” The little voice went silent.
Billingslea parked about a quarter mile down the road from where he guessed Williams’s house would be, hoping the black jeans and dark windbreaker would help to conceal his presence. He locked the car, switched off his cell, and proceeded on foot.
ROOKIE PORTLAND POLICE officer Anthony Galletti had only been on the job nine months. He’d taken the overtime assignment because the other guys on his team called it a “cake,” the term used for any outside job where you got to wear civilian clothes (or “civvies”), take one of the unmarked cars normally reserved for the detectives, and do absolutely nothing for eight hours, all while earning time and a half. Galletti’s girlfriend had initially been pissed, as they’d planned to go out for dinner and a movie, but she was over it quickly after calculating how much extra he would net in the next paycheck.
He didn’t understand it. “This Williams guy is supposedly some bad-assed cop, right?” he’d asked one of his buddies in the locker room before driving out to the detail, or “location three” as the dispatcher called it. “So why the hell are we babysitting an ex-cop? Can’t he take care of himself? And why can’t the Westbrook guys handle it? It’s in their city.”
Galletti grabbed a tall coffee and some munchies, having decided to spend the night watching movies on his smart phone. By 10:23 he was deeply engrossed in the Steven Seagal movie Under Siege, one of his all-time favorites. He’d always fancied himself a bit like Seagal. The rookie was so engrossed in watching Ms. July ’89 and Tommy Lee Jones’s band of terrorists step out on to the deck of the USS Missouri that he completely missed it as Billingslea, concealed in the shadows, snuck by on the far side of the road.
BILLINGSLEA’S HEART RACED with the exhilaration that accompanied going undercover. He wished his job was like this every day, instead of hanging around the police station and courthouse like a stray dog begging for scraps.
The idling Malibu was exactly where Hawk had told him it would be. The officer inside the car gave no indication he’d been spotted. Impressed with his own stealth, Billingslea crawled over a section of cyclone fencing surrounding the Williams’s backyard.
“Dammit,” he whispered as he heard his pants rip. After freeing himself, he got down on all fours and crawled around a short hedge of evergreens. His position afforded him an unobstructed view of the rear of the house. It was too dark to make out anything except shadows within the yard itself, but he could clearly see inside several of the lighted windows.
He struggled to remain calm, but his building excitement and racing pulse betrayed him. The silence was punctuated only by a symphony of crickets and the sound of a barking dog somewhere down the street. He was extremely grateful the dog did not belong to Williams. A motorcycle roared by on its way toward Portland. A bluish light flickered from one of the home’s windows; someone was watching television. Frustrated at not being able to see anything, he decided to move closer. He stood and moved carefully toward the house. A branch snapped beneath his shoe, nearly giving him a heart attack. He exhaled, closed his eyes, and waited for his pulse to slow again. He took another step toward the house, this one much quieter than the last. As he took his third step, he felt something hard press against the back of his head, followed by the unmistakable sound of a hammer being pulled back on a gun. His bladder let go.
GALLETTI WATCHED INTENTLY as the young soldier assigned to guard Steven Seagal began to question his orders. “ ‘You got shit for brains, Private,’ ” Galletti said, quoting the lines. “ ‘I know they brainwashed you at boot camp, but sometimes you gotta question authority. Trust me, boy, that’s gunfire. You get me out of here, I’ll go take care of it.’ ” Galletti was reaching into the paper bag for another chocolate chip cookie when he looked up and saw two men approaching his car. One of them had the other at gunpoint. “Ah, shit,” he said as he fumbled for the door handle, spilling hot coffee all over his lap. “Shit, shit.”
Galletti scrambled out of the car and drew his service weapon, a Glock 17. “Freeze,” he yelled.
Both men stopped walking. They were only twenty feet away.
“Drop your gun,” he ordered.
“Not gonna happen, son,” Williams said.
“I’m—I’m warning you,” Galletti stammered.
Calmly, Williams continued. “Son, I’m Eric Williams. I’m the guy you’re supposed to be watching.”
“Drop your—”
“Shut the fuck up, Officer!” Williams yelled, giving the young rookie the equivalent of a psychological backhand. “Now, you listen to me.”
Galletti did as he was told, his hands shaking.
“I am the former police sergeant you were assigned to watch. This asshole was sneaking around in my yard and I’m bringing him to you. Do you understand me?”
Galletti gave an exaggerated series of nods.
“I’m going into my pocket to get my identification, nod if you understand.”
The rookie officer nodded again. Williams slowly opened his credentials, displaying his badge to Galletti. “Are we good, Officer?”
“Y-yes,” Galletti said, wishing with all his heart that he’d turned this job down and gone out to dinner with his girlfriend.
“Say it.”
“We’re good.”
“Glad to hear it. Now, I’ll lower my weapon as soon as you get some cuffs on this asshole. Why don’t you get on the radio and tell the dispatcher what you have and request a uniformed backup. All right?”
“Okay,” Galletti said as he lowered his weapon.
Williams prodded Billingslea forward with the barrel of his gun. “Move it numb nuts.”
“LITTLE PRICK IS lucky I didn’t shoot him,” Williams said to Sergeant Pepin. “How the hell was I supposed to know he was a reporter?”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” Pepin said, staring at Billingslea, who sat handcuffed in the backseat of a black-and-white.
“That goes double for me,” the Westbrook sergeant agreed.
“So,” Pepin continued, “aside from criminal trespass, there isn’t much I can charge him with.”
“I don’t want to press any charges, but tell mister pissy pants from the Daily Planet to stay the fuck off my property.”
“You got it.”
“Look, Sarge, as far as the surveillance detail goes, I appreciate what you’re trying to do for me. I get it, but I can handle my own affairs just fine. Junior there would probably be more comfortable watching movies at home anyway.”
>
Pepin glared at the rookie. Galletti, a beaten man, looked down as his feet. “Okay, Rook, he’s your collar. I’ll follow you in the unmarked to CCJ,” he said, referring to the Cumberland County Jail. “Once we get there, you can tell him he’s not being charged, but not until. Think you can handle it?”
“Yes, sir,” Galletti mumbled.
Pepin turned to Williams and shook his hand. “I apologize again for all the trouble, Eric.”
Williams stood on the front porch watching as the parade of police vehicles drove away.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Williams was sitting in the living room watching television when the doorbell rang.
“Who the fuck is this now?” He was halfway to the door before realizing he’d left his .357 on the coffee table. He looked through the front door sidelight and saw a familiar face standing on his doorstep.
He opened the door. “What the fuck do you want?”
“Hello, Eric,” the man said before firing two rounds into the ex-cop’s chest.
Williams stood there for a moment in wide-eyed disbelief and pain. His mouth opened and closed as if in conversation, but not a word was uttered. He collapsed to his knees. Hawk stepped forward, firing one additional round into Williams’s forehead, then calmly turned and walked away.
“213.”
The voice of the male dispatcher calling his number over the radio startled Officer Denny Hutchins. He keyed the mic. “213, go ahead.”
“213, we are currently on the phone with your target. He is on Curtis Road in foot pursuit of an unknown subject. Do you have a visual?”
“Shit!” Hutchins put the car in gear and accelerated toward the intersection of Summit and Curtis. “I’m en route now, right around the corner.” He’d been watching the front of the house and hadn’t seen Humphrey leave. “213, what’s his 20?”
“He says he’s turning onto Abby Lane.”
The tires on Hutchins’s unmarked squealed and he quickly rounded the corner without slowing. “Does he still have a visual?”
“Stand by. We’re trying to get further.”
Among the Shadows Page 20
