The Guilty: (P.I. Jack Marconi No. 3)

by Vincent Zandri

  But that wasn’t the most interesting thing about the photo collection. Because what really caught my eye were the half dozen or so more recent shots which were taken at a pre-ground-breaking ceremony on the western edge of the city limits near the state university. It was the site for the new Nanotech research facility, which was arguably one of the most expensive facilities ever to be constructed in Albany. It would also provide jobs to brilliant minds from all over the world. Judging from the picture, the line-up of happy-faced dignitaries at the ceremony didn’t just include Mayor Jennings and the David boys, but it also included Prosecutor Waters and one more smiley faced big shot: My present employer, Harold Sanders.

  My heart started to pound, my shoulder throbbing more than ever.

  Seeing Sanders standing beside his present enemy nearly robbed me of my breath. Funny how he didn’t think to inform me of his professional working relationship with the Davids. Or perhaps he conveniently held the information back. But for what reason, I had no idea.

  For now, there were more pressing issues to attend to. Reaching into the interior pocket of my blazer, I pulled out the zip drive that contained information stored on Junior’s laptop. If Sanders was right, I knew it would contain the surveillance video of the exterior of his house. If it contained the video, I could only hope that Junior was too stupid to have deleted it. Or perhaps the sadist in him made him want to view the video again and again.

  I popped the zip-drive in and waited for it to boot up. I clicked onto videos and opened up a few dozen which for certain had been shot inside his basement sex play-room. I didn’t have time to run through them, but the still shots of the videos that appeared on the screen contained enough of a visual to give me a precise idea of what went on down there. Several men and women dressed all in leather, all of them wearing black masks, all of them holding whips and chains, and doing things to a naked woman who was bound to that big wood wheel. The woman being tortured and raped in each case was Sarah.

  I had to ignore these videos and instead look for the surveillance video. There was a series of dates listed vertically. Maybe one hundred or about three months’ worth of them. I scanned the dates. When I found one dated February 18, I knew I had a winner.

  I clicked on it.

  The video contained two simultaneous black-and-white, side-by-side shots. One of the home’s front and the other of the backyard. The sides of the house were evidently ignored since they didn’t contain any egress openings or present any possibility of security breaches. Naturally I focused most of my attention of the video being shot of the home’s front exterior.

  There was a time counter set in the upper right-hand corner of the video. By using the tool at the bottom of the video, I fast-forwarded until the time on the counter read 7:08 p.m. That’s when a car pulled up in the driveway. A new model red Volvo wagon. The woman who got out of the Volvo was Sarah. She was carrying a leather overnight bag over her shoulder as she made her way up the steps, careful not to slip on the ice. She used her key to let herself into the front door, and then she disappeared.

  I kept watching for a while until I fast forwarded to 8:00 PM. That’s when several cars showed up all at once. Expensive cars. Foreign makes, all of them. One of the people who got out was Daphne. She too was carrying an overnight bag. Several men got out whom I could not recognize in the grainy black and white digital film. But I was able to recognize one of them. I shared a donut with him not too long ago inside the front seat of my 4Runner. It was the Albany Times Union food blogger, Ted Bolous. I recognized two more people too. The last two who parked their car at the very end of the driveway. It was a man and a woman. The man was Robert David Sr. and the woman was his new wife, Penny. Apparently it wasn’t enough for Penny to play around with her stepson. She also enjoyed a little extra S&M quality time with her stepson’s fiancée. Good to keep things in the family.

  I quickly scanned three more hours of film until the guests politely took their leave, including Daphne and David Sr. But not Penny. By midnight, the only car left in the driveway was Sarah’s. Obviously, she had made plans to spend the night, but with David and Penny? Was Robert Sr. allowing this to happen? Maybe he didn’t have a choice. Maybe Penny did what Penny wanted and that’s that.

  More hours passed with nothing happening. Nothing that is, except for the weather, which had gone from clear and dry to snow mixed with ice. Using the fast forward tool one last time, I set the time for two in the morning. At precisely three minutes after two, the front door opened again and out stepped Sarah onto an ice and snow-covered landing illuminated in bright light from several exterior wall-mounted fixtures. She was wearing her coat and her leather bag was once more slung over her shoulder. She stepped outside onto the slippery top step but turned and shouted something back inside. That’s when I saw Junior take hold of her arm while apparently attempting to pull her back inside.

  She yanked her arm back and freed it from his grasp. She then tried to claw him in the face. But did so unsuccessfully.

  The T-shirt clad Junior stepped out onto the landing. At one point, he turned and shouted something back into the house through the open door as if there were another person standing inside and out of camera range.

  Penny.

  Without sound, it was difficult to tell precisely what he was doing or make out what he was saying. But there was no mistaking his actions when, turning back to Sarah, he took hold of her arms and from the look of things, began pleading with her. But once more, she yanked her arms back and started clawing at him again. But as much as she lashed out at him, he was able to deflect her attacks. That’s when she slid and almost lost her balance entirely.

  Even in the grainy black and white you could see the fear in her face.

  But the fear did nothing to stop the rage and violence that was spewing out of her like a suddenly opened vein.

  Reaching out with both her arms, she attempted to claw at his face yet again. But he managed to avoid her by grabbing her right wrist, tearing apart her bracelet, the beads of which scattered all over the now ice-covered sidewalk. He then grabbed her by the hair, as if he had no other choice. She dropped her bag and began to scream again, in obvious pain. I could only wonder how the neighbors didn’t hear her. But then the neighbors on Marion Avenue not only lived in castles surrounded by lots of land, but the homes would be locked up tighter than a snare drum in the middle of a cold winter’s night.

  I kept watching until Junior did precisely what I suspected he’d do.

  He let go of Sarah’s hair, grabbed her arm, and tried to pull her back in the house. But she let loose with her right leg, kicking him in the crotch. At the same time, she lost all her footing and the momentum of the kick propelled her backward. She went down hard on the ice-covered steps and dropped down and down, bouncing off each tread like a rag doll, until she landed hard at the bottom.

  The video showed what appeared to be a panicked Junior racing down the steps, slipping once onto his backside just before he came to the bottom. He tried to revive her there, but she was unconscious. He tried picking her up, but he kept dropping her onto the pavement as if her dead weight were impossible for him to manage. And it was. That’s when he stood up straight. He looked one way, then the other. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his cell phone and began to dial. He talked on the phone for a minute or two. Then he shoved the phone back into his pocket.

  Junior ran up to the house then, slipping once onto his chest as he climbed. When he came back out, he was holding a blanket, which he draped over Sarah’s unconscious body. A few minutes later, David Sr. reappeared in his black Lexus. He got out and the two of them examined the still unconscious Sarah. Together, they shoved her into the backseat of the Lexus and drove her away.

  End of a story which neither proved nor disproved that Junior tried to intentionally harm Sarah. But what it did prove is that he would be liable for her injuries. Not only did the video reveal his picking her up and dropping her, but no doubt a judge would
see to it that he was responsible for physically fighting with Sarah on a set of steps that hadn’t yet been properly de-iced.

  I stood up, glanced at my watch.

  “We need to go,” I said to Blood who handed me a coffee with milk in it.

  “We’re already on our way,” he said. “Allow me to gather the hardware.”

  He disappeared into his bedroom with his own cup of coffee in hand. Meanwhile, I thought about the pictures of Sanders and Robert David Sr. Especially the ones taken at the groundbreaking for the Nanotech facility. Is it possible the Davids and Sanders had been working together prior to Sarah’s brain damaging incident outside Junior’s house? And if they were, did it really make any difference at all what projects they did or did not work on together? I could only suppose that it didn’t. But then, why was I finding it hard to ignore this nagging, tight feeling in my gut that told me something more was at play here. The Davids and Sanders both were richer than God and the devil put together. Maybe they were working together to get richer.

  One thing is for certain, David Sr. and his new young wife had been doing bad things to his son’s fiancée in the basement of that Albany Marion Avenue home. For all I knew, she welcomed their participation in their bizarre sex games. For a while anyway. But what about her father and my employer? What about Michael Levy, her ex-husband? Had they been aware of the dangerous games being played inside that basement playroom? And if they were, wouldn’t they have tried to put a stop to them?

  Questions. But no answers. Not right now. The only thing I did know for sure was how the local food blogger got his rocks off at night and now he was enjoying his little moment in the sun by blogging about the Davids. If anybody should know all about playing with fire and how badly you can get burned, it should be a food blogger.

  Blood came back into the kitchen. He handed me a 9 mm Smith & Wesson. An identical model and make of the APD standard issue. He also handed me two extra clips. I stood up, thumbed back the clip it already housed, checked the existing load. Cocking a round into the chamber, I then thumbed the safety on, and stuffed the barrel into my waistband and hid the exposed butt with my blazer.

  I couldn’t see any weapons on Blood, but I knew he was packing. Probably his Glock 9 stuffed in his waist and a smaller caliber revolver around his ankle. Somewhere in the mix would be a knife. Blood was good with a knife.

  “You driving?” I said, popping the zip drive out and stuffing into my blazer pocket.

  “You gotta ask?” he said.

  We exited his Sherman Street house, headed for the 4Runner.

  Marconi Released on Lack of Evidence

  By Ted Bolous, Albany Times Union Senior Food Blogger

  So, dear food lover, yesterday I reported a mouthful to you about the Davids and their generous donation to the Albany Food Pantry. You also read the tragic news about Manny’s employee, Daphne Williams, losing her head, literally, in the bed of Harold Sander’s personal private detective-for-hire, Jack ‘Keeper’ Marconi. While Marconi was arrested yesterday afternoon for the murder, it seems that now the APD have changed their mind and decided they didn’t have enough evidence to keep the gumshoe behind bars.

  Huh? Williams was found inside his home, in his bed.

  Meanwhile, the search continues for a missing Sarah Levy.

  Before you all go off half-cocked once more pointing the blame-game fingers at the Davids, perhaps you should take another look at this Marconi character. Funny how he keeps popping up like a Butterball thermometer and all around him people either go missing or go very dead.

  As usual, your comments will be scrutinized carefully for their ingredients.

  Comment by HiImBi

  Really, Teddy boy, seems to me this Marconi guy is just doing his job. You ever heard of the term “setup?” If the Davids have enough money to block the police from doing their job in the Sarah Levy head injury case, they sure as heck can take care of a big mouth like Daphne Williams and make it look as though the private detective is the perp.

  Comment by Robert

  As I said from the start, this whole thing stinks. And now poor Sarah is gone and someone else is dead. Things are imploding. If this were a mystery novel, I’d say the ever crucial climax is about to reveal itself.

  56

  THIS TIME WHEN WE arrived at the Valley View Rehabilitation Facility, we didn’t park in the designated parking lot where my 4Runner would surely be spotted by the parking lot attendant. Instead, we drove around back to the maintenance entrance. Before we made the drive in, Blood stopped the 4Runner. I got out and immediately got back in via the vehicle’s backseat, where I lay down on the floor, making myself invisible. Blood drove slowly until he came to a stop at the guard shack.

  The guard asked him his business.

  “I’ve got a job interview with Mr. James Slater.”

  A few seconds of silence ensued as if the guard were checking his manifest for information confirming the interview. Naturally, he wouldn’t find anything no matter how much he looked.

  “You sure he’s expecting you?” the guard said.

  “He just called me. Told me I could come right away if I wasn’t busy, and since I’m not busy, here I am. Probably hasn’t had the time to tell you. You want me to wait here while you call him? I got no problem with that.”

  Blood was bluffing. I could only hope that the guard did not call it.

  “No problem. You can go ahead.”

  “Thanks, man,” Blood said. “Hoping to be wearing the same uniform as you pretty soon.”

  “Good luck,” said the guard.

  Blood drove on.

  We stopped outside a pair of glass sliding doors. Blood made a three-point turn and then backed the 4Runner into place. You never knew if we might need to make a hasty exit. I got out and so did Blood, pocketing the keys.

  “Let’s do this,” I said, as we approached the doors which automatically opened for us.

  There was a big plastic board mounted to the painted block wall to our right. It offered a listing of all the basement level offices in two neat vertical columns, along with the office numbers and the names of the occupants. I found “James Slater, Director for Security” easily enough and made a mental note of his office number.

  “Lucky thirteen,” I said to Blood.

  “Lucky for us,” he said. “Bad luck for Mr. Slater.”

  We proceeded through the dimly lit, dungeon-like basement corridor, passing by the many steel and glass doors until we came to number 13. Blood stood on one side of the door and I stood on the other, each of us glancing in through the wire-reinforced glass at a man seated behind a metal desk. The man was middle-aged, balding, and he was talking to someone on the phone. He was wearing a pink polo shirt with the collar standing up at attention. Over the polo shirt, he wore a big gray hooded sweatshirt that had the word “Nantucket” printed across the chest in big bold white letters. A pair of reading glasses hung down against his chest by a leather strap attached to the earpieces. He was sitting far back in his swivel chair and smoking a cigarette while laughing his ass off with whoever occupied the other end of his connection.

  “Doesn’t look like much of a director of security to me,” Blood said.

  “More like a preppy boy just come off the golf course,” I said.

  “Sure we gonna need guns?” he said. “Maybe we attack him with some tennis rackets.”

  “Or toss some golf balls at him.”

  I reached out for the doorknob, slowly twisted it. The door was unlocked. Then, pushing the door open with my good shoulder, I pulled the 9 mm from my pant waist with my left hand.

  “You going to take lookout?” I said.

  “’Less you want me to torture the preppy by pulling his collar down.”

  “That’s inhumane.”

  I opened the door. Slowly. Walked on through.

  I saw Slater look up wide-eyed, the phone still pressed against his ear.

  “I’ll call you back,” he said into the receive
r and hung up. Then, eyes locked on my own. “Who the fuck are you?”

  I didn’t point the gun at him. I merely allowed the barrel to dangle down by my lower thigh, the piece aimed at the painted concrete floor. But he got the message clear enough.

  “I’m the guy who’s going to make you tell me who took Sarah Levy and where they took her to.”

  I gazed quickly over my bad shoulder, saw that Blood was standing hidden to the left side of the closed door, his eyes peering out the glass in anticipation of anyone who might want to barge in while I was having my little one-on-one with preppy Mr. Slater.

  Slater sat up straight, then stood. He was on the shorter side, and he was wearing tan Bermuda shorts.

  “Thought you were the head of security?” I said.

  “I am,” he said.

  “Strange uniform you got there.”

  “I happen to be leaving for the Cape in a half hour. Not that it’s any of your goddamn business.”

  I thumbed back the hammer on the .9mm. Inside the little office, the mechanical noise sounded louder and more powerful than the metal bars slamming closed on an inmate’s cell.

  “Back to my original question,” I said. “Who stole Sarah Levy? Who paid you off to make it happen?”

  His tan pallor went pale.

  “Listen, Slater,” I pressed, “I’m aware that Slater isn’t your real name and that you got kicked out of the cops for taking a few too many hum jobs from the boys and girls of your choice.”

  Now his pale pallor turned a distinct shade of green. Matched perfectly with his pink collar.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

  “I do, actually. Lots of security support staff roaming these grounds. Be a shame to have to tell them the nasty secret about their boss.”