Loud Pipes Save Lives

by Jennifer Giacalone

  “You mean Frankie Beanbags?”

  “No. I mean the Sparr family trusts held by Lyonsbank.”

  She paused. “Yeah, Finlay was worried about those too.”

  “Well, Erik didn’t want to see it go that way, and as a board member at the bank, he had access to certain information. He went to talk to your father, off book, off the record, about backing off before Frederick Schulze did real damage.”

  Lily snorted. “In other words, he was a blackmail messenger.”

  Corey shook his head. “No. Frederick didn’t know what he was doing. Erik wasn’t even supposed to know that there was any discussion about this. He went to your dad, hoping he could work something out where everyone got to save face. His sister was well pissed at him for going behind everyone’s backs about it, I assure you.”

  Lily wasn’t buying it, but she let him go on. “So, let’s say he went with honorable intentions. Is that his booze, then?”

  Corey smiled. “How’d you know?”

  “Because nobody who actually knew my father would have brought him that as a gift. Anyone who actually knew him knew he was exclusively a scotch drinker.” She eyed him for a moment. “So, he followed him down to the garage after this party, with this bottle of booze as a peace offering, I’m guessing? And then what happened?”

  Corey sighed. “Your father had the same initial reaction you did. He thought Erik was blackmailing, not peacemaking. They were both half in the bag after this Christmas party, and when Erik started trying to talk to him about it, your dad didn’t take it so well.”

  Lily’s mind raced as she stared at the photographs spread out in front of her.

  “So it broke down to insults, and then Erik took a swing at him. They struggled a bit; your dad took a couple of hits in the face, managed to shove Erik onto the ground, and decided that was his moment to get the hell out. He jumped in the car, Erik tried to stop him from leaving, and he got his hand slammed in the door. Pretty good, too.”

  “His right hand,” Lily ventured.

  Corey nodded.

  “Slamming in a car door…. That’s not usually enough to require a partial amputation,” she remarked.

  “It is if you don’t treat it. Couple of breaks, internal bleeding…gangrene doesn’t take all that long if you don’t get it taken care of. He spent a few days hiding out up at Frederick’s place on the Cape with his busted hand, afraid that the injury would tie him back to the accident somehow.”

  Lily looked again at the pictures. The shoe scuffs on the cement. Not hard to believe they’d thrown a few punches.

  “So, he slammed the door on Erik’s hand, then what?”

  Corey sighed. “He got back out of the car. To see if he was all right. Erik had stumbled back, and he was crouched down over here”—he pointed to a photo that was pulled back a little more, and she could see a row of three cement bollards, painted yellow, a few feet from the car—“and he came over to try and help him up, not realizing how seriously he’d hurt Erik’s hand. Erik—he still had his good hand, mind you—got a grip on your dad’s lapel when he leaned down, but your dad reached out and grabbed Erik’s injured hand, and Erik kicked his leg. Just out of pain; it was just a reflexive reaction. And with some of his weight already pulling down on Graham, he ended up pulling him headfirst into the bollards.”

  “So, he basically did a Million Dollar Baby, is that about right?”

  Corey nodded.

  Lily shook her head. “Why didn’t they just do what normal fucking people do? Call an ambulance? Hire expensive lawyers to get Erik off? Why put you through a cover-up? Why drag Dooley and Franks and Giacometti and Stone through it? Why force you to frame up Lamont?”

  Corey shrugged. “Because they could.” He sighed heavily. “Lina Schulze knew Tommy was going to be running for mayor; she couldn’t have that kind of a black mark. Accident or no, your uncle going down for manslaughter doesn’t look great.”

  “A cover-up looks worse,” Lily countered.

  “Not if you don’t get caught. I don’t know how many she’s engineered in her day, but I think she just thought it would be one more.”

  Lily felt sick. “I want to see the coat.”

  They went down to the evidence lockers. Corey instructed the young cop on duty: “Open up locker 338G, please.”

  The officer hesitated. “Uh, sir?”

  “Do it.”

  They followed him back into the rows, and Lily remarked, “You know the locker number by memory?”

  “I always remember where I bury a body.”

  They opened up the plastic, and she looked quickly at the items scattered inside before pulling out the coat. Holding it in her hands now, she was entirely certain that it wasn’t her father’s. Even without forensics looking it over, she could see some blond hairs stuck to the velvet on the lapels. She turned out the pockets but found nothing much—until she noticed a hole in the left one. She dug inside the lining of the coat and found a dog-eared, wallet-size photograph of a very young Lina Schulze. As beautiful as she was now, she’d been stunning when she was younger. Lily dropped it on the table with unhidden disdain.

  She turned the coat over and found the large pocket inside. It still held a large, sealed, unmarked manila envelope. She popped the seal and slid the thick packet of papers out.

  Her phone rang. It was Ainsley, checking in. Five minutes late, but whatever. She answered. “Sparr.”

  “It’s me. You good, or do I need to call this person up?”

  “No, I’m good. Check back with me in twenty.”

  She hung up.

  She turned the packet over and started to leaf through it. Surely enough, there were rundowns on all of her family’s trusts with Lyonsbank, as well as printouts of a number of obliquely-worded emails from Frederick Schulze that were nonetheless clearly referring to items in the Sparr family trusts and considering the ramifications of inflicting financial pain on them in various ways. “He was bringing this to show him, to prove he was telling the truth.”

  Connolly nodded.

  She wouldn’t have believed it a week ago, but she was standing here, alive, because Erik had warned her brother about the deputy mayor’s planned attempt on her life. The man wasn’t a killer.

  “So, what now, sir?” she finally asked.

  Corey took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Well, that’s up to you. You could arrest Erik with what you have right now, and he’d probably go away for a long time. And you’d bring me and the deputy mayor along with him. I don’t know if you want to collapse the power structure at the top of the city government, but you know, it’s up to you.”

  Lily looked at him for a long moment. “Sir, why are you telling me the truth about this now?”

  “Because I’m hoping we can make a deal. You have what you need now to bring down Erik and Lina, too. But if you can find a way to leave me out of it, I’d be much obliged.”

  Lily shook her head. “I don’t think I believe you. Maggie Burnett had me moved here so that I could work on this case. You had to know she was doing it. You had to know I would have found all this sooner or later. Why’d you let her move me?”

  Corey smiled, weary beyond measure, and replied, “I told myself at first it was because it would attract suspicion if I tried to block it.”

  “You don’t want anything more to do with these people, do you, sir.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “You know there’s no way I can bring them down for this without involving you, sir.”

  “Of course. Not without playing with the evidence.”

  “Sorry, sir. No deal. I’m not playing with any evidence.”

  Corey smiled. “Of course, technically, you’re not supposed to be working this case, and if you go forward with these arrests, you’re going to find yourself in a bit of trouble for having done so.”

  “Suspension?”

  “Maybe.”

  “That about it?”

  “Probably.”

 
; Lily thought it over. She packed everything back into the bag, tucked it under her arm, and started toward the door.

  “Detective,” he called after her, his voice echoing off the pale green cinder block walls. “What have you decided?”

  “I think I’m going to phone a friend,” she called over her shoulder as she walked away.

  “Hello, Detective.”

  Maggie Burnett’s voice was brisk and bright and interested in what she had to say.

  “I found what I was looking for,” Lily said.

  “And?”

  “Well, I’m not sure it’s what you were looking for, but it may still be of interest to you.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “So, you were right. Lamont Hartwell didn’t kill my father. Erik Schulze did. But it was an accident, or so it appears. The deputy mayor engineered the cover-up to protect Tommy Leon because she already knew he was going to run.”

  Maggie was silent for a moment. Lily could hear her wheels turning. “So then what was Erik Schulze doing in the parking garage that night?”

  “He went there to talk to my father. Frederick Schulze did have it in for my father, but his intended malfeasance was going to be financial, not a sloppy-ass whacking. He just intended to hold my family’s trusts hostage.”

  “You said intended malfeasance. Do you have evidence that he was doing this?”

  “It was planned, but never executed. I don’t have much apart from a few emails that aren’t terribly specific about what he intended to do or why, but the reason was the stories. Lina Schulze has Commissioner Connolly’s balls in her pocket, and she strong-armed him into helping her cover up the accident. He’s been taking mob money for years now, organized by Lina Schulze and laundered through Lyonsbank.” She paused, expectant. “So, what do you think?”

  Maggie sighed. “Well, I don’t like that Corey is mixed up in all this. And unfortunately, this is really about a simple manslaughter charge on Erik Schulze, who I’m not interested in, and a conspiracy charge against Lina Schulze, who I don’t particularly like, but if I bring her down, I have to bring Corey down, which I’d rather not do. He’s the best commissioner we’ve had in decades.”

  “Even when you factor in this mob thing?” Lily was incredulous.

  “Yes, even when you factor in the mob thing. This man’s been through a lot in his life. I’d rather not see his career end this way.”

  Lily’s cheeks grew hot with frustration. “But surely the emails? I mean, you have evidence that they were preparing to commit financial malfeasance against my family’s trusts in order to get the stories killed. Isn’t that worth something?”

  She could hear Maggie tapping with her pen on something on the other end of the phone. “Well, it’s hard to say without seeing them. Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite sound like it draws the clean, A-to-B line I was hoping for. It’ll probably be nice to have for support, but it doesn’t really help too much in terms of moving that line of inquiry forward, do you understand?”

  Lily was unimpressed. “Someone tried to kill me tonight because I was investigating this. Don’t you think your office ought to be having a look at it?”

  Maggie Burnett was circumspect. “Well, put all your evidence together, and let’s meet for lunch tomorrow and we can look at it.”

  Lily hung up, furious. She wasn’t waiting for lunch tomorrow.

  She called Finlay and quickly told him everything.

  “It’s no good,” he said without hesitation. “Too much Lyonsbank crash-related stuff baked into this whole thing; we can’t touch it.” He paused for a moment. “But you know what? I think I know who can.”

  Lily knew who he meant. “Fuck no.”

  “You know as well as I do that he can touch it, and he will because he has no shame.”

  She cursed again and started scrolling through her phone. Of course it would be him. She knew she had to have that asshole’s phone number somewhere.

  34

  Qualified Justice

  From the Borough Record, November 5

  MOBSTERS, MURDERS AND MAYORS: FINANCIAL SCANDAL LOOMS, THREATENS DEPUTY MAYOR, COMMISH

  By Kyle Klotzman

  Controversy has long swirled around Lyonsbank, the multinational bank that has towered over Wall Street for decades and has always, impossibly, come out on top.

  Exclusive information reveals that the bank now appears to have played a role in laundering money for Brooklyn’s Corrato crime family in a scheme orchestrated by Deputy Mayor Lina Schulze and ensnaring none other than top cop Corey Connolly. Connolly’s involvement appears to date back to 2009, while he was serving as Manhattan Borough Commander, and his family suffered seemingly insurmountable losses in the financial meltdown….

  Lily set the paper aside in disgust. She hated giving that scoop to Kyle Klotzman more than she could even express. But it was the only way. It didn’t matter that SparrMedia’s publications couldn’t touch the story. Once the Borough Record ran it, it would bloom across the city in a matter of hours and become a national media feeding frenzy in days.

  She picked up the phone and called Maggie Burnett one last time.

  “Hello, Detective.”

  “So?”

  “So what?”

  “I know you saw the Record this morning. What are you going to do about it?”

  There was a pause as Maggie Burnett shuffled some papers around. “I see. Well played, Detective.”

  “It’s not a game,” Lily responded coolly. “My dad died for nothing. Someone has to get some justice, and you’re the damn district attorney. Seems to me this is your wheelhouse.”

  “I told you, Detective, I’m not interested in Corey Connolly.”

  “Erik Schulze needs to pay.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Lily wasn’t satisfied. “You’re smart. You can use what I dug up for your purposes. I know you can.”

  Maggie considered her, and then responded brightly, “Well, I suppose frogmarching Lina Schulze out of City Hall will make her a little more cooperative. If not for herself, then certainly on behalf of her brother. Those two are weirdly close, if you ask me.”

  Lily wasn’t amused. “Whatever you have to do. You know I’m meticulous. My files are good. Once she sees what you’ve got on her, I’d be surprised if she didn’t give you everything you ever wanted on her father, Lyonsbank, and the crash.” She was getting agitated. She paused and found her cool again. “Look, I’ve done what you wanted me to do. So give me what you said you would. Give me justice. Give me Erik Schulze.”

  “Fine.”

  “And the city needs to pay damages to Lamont Hartwell’s mother.”

  “I’ll look into it.”

  Lily visited the hospital in Brooklyn where Frankie Beanbags lay, recovering from his gunshot wound to the chest. He was lying in the bed, alone in his room, with an IV sticking out of one arm and an oxygen tube in his nose. He looked decidedly unthreatening.

  She came and sat down by the bed, staring at him while he slept. He had broken her aunt’s heart. He had soiled the record of Corey Connolly, a man who, deep down, Lily suspected really was as decent as people said. He had taken every greasy payoff to do God knew what for Lina Schulze. He’d killed…how many people? She didn’t know. And he had almost killed her. It would be easy to see him as the villain of the piece.

  But that wouldn’t be the truth. He was just one bad man in a world full of them. Justice would come for him eventually. She leaned forward and gently slapped his cheek a few times. “Tick tock, motherfucker,” she said quietly. She thought of Ainsley and smiled.

  He wheezed and, with great effort, pushed his eyes open. When he saw Lily, they widened with alarm. He couldn’t muster enough breath to speak.

  She took hold of his arm and settled her thumb in the crook of his elbow where the IV needle entered. “Hi, Frankie. Remember me?”

  He wheezed again and tried to withdraw his arm, but he was too weak.

  “So listen,” she sa
id breezily, “here’s how it’s going to work. My aunt shooting you? That was an accident.” She pressed her thumb down on the IV needle, and he gurgled in pain. “That’s what you’re going to tell anyone who asks you, when you’re well enough to speak.”

  He looked at her, panic in his eyes, his chest heaving in short, shallow breaths that had to hurt, given the location of his wounds.

  “The D.A.’s office has your ledgers. So, Tony Corrato, once he hears about it, is going to probably send someone to your room.” She pressed again on the IV needle, and again, he gurgled and wheezed. “I can get some cops posted outside your room, Frankie. Would you like that?”

  He managed a single, jerky nod. She smiled and patted the back of his wrist.

  “Congratulations. You’re officially in custody now. Hope they gave you enough morphine.”

  From the Borough Record, November 17

  CALAMITY IN CAPE COD: LEON ADMINISTRATION’S WOES CONTINUE AS MAYOR’S UNCLE IS ARRESTED IN CAPE COD FOR THE DEATH OF GRAHAM SPARR

  By Kyle Klotzman

  Mayor Tommy Leon’s troubles continued last night as his uncle, Schulze family scion and Lyonsbank board member Erik Schulze, turned himself in to police custody in Barnstable township on Cape Cod last night. Local and regional authorities had been looking for Schulze for the last twelve days, since his sister, Deputy Mayor Lina Schulze, was arrested on charges of attempted murder, conspiracy, money laundering, campaign finance violations, and half a dozen other serious charges. Erik Schulze is not implicated in any of the crimes. However, authorities have indicated that he has confessed to involvement in the death of Graham Sparr in Midtown Manhattan nearly five years ago. It’s unknown at this time whether any of the charges against the deputy mayor are related to Sparr’s death. District Attorney Maggie Burnett has indicated that charges will be forthcoming…