Another Word for Murder (20 page)

“No big deal. I have a back up. We'll probably go with Classic Autobody over on Airport Boulevard.”

“Classic?” Sonny made no attempt to disguise his disapproval. “That's the worst shop in town. Come on, Rick, you can do better than that. Those guys couldn't repair a tricycle.”

Rosco shrugged. “It's the
look
we're after. And the light. They've got a lot of north-facing windows. It works well for TV; it makes your actors look healthy.”

“It's your funeral, my friend.”

Rosco looked around the front parking lot of Sonny's Autobody. “That's not why I came back, though. I'm not trying to twist your arm—or your mom's arm. And I don't intend to get into an argument over your competition…. What I want to ask about is that Explorer you said came in yesterday morning. I talked your suggestion over with my wife, and she said if I liked it, to go for it. She's always been an SUV type of lady. The bigger the better, that's her.” Rosco smiled, visualizing how much that last statement would have annoyed Belle.

Sonny produced one of his own bright and gleaming smiles. “Now you're talkin', Rick. Stu's working on it in the paint shop. Just needed a couple of dings buffed out, remember? Come on, let's go take a peek at it.” But as they began to walk through the mechanic's area Sonny stopped and placed his hand on Rosco's forearm. “You know,” he said, “I was just thinking. Remember I told you I was asking nineteen five for the vehicle?”

“Yes?”

“Well, see, I haven't even had a chance to flip the papers on this baby. I mean, it just came in yesterday morning, right? So, what I'm sayin' is this: If you want it, we can make like you just bought it directly from the babe who owned it. Get it?”

“Not really.”

“I like to call it a
quick-flip
. I mean, it's technically illegal, but it goes down all the time in this business. We're just cutting
me
out of the picture, as far as the state of Massachusetts is concerned, that is. You know, it's half the paperwork, taxes, and registration fees…. And I can knock a grand off the price for you.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that; let you have it for eighteen five … if you're paying cash. And ready to roll on it today.”

“Sure,” Rosco said with feigned enthusiasm for this possible bargain. “Can I take it for a test drive?”

“As long as Stu's done with it, you bet.”

They continued through the shop, past the autobody crew, and stopped on the other side of one of the paint bays where Stu was on his knees working with an electric buffing tool on the Explorer's passenger-side door panel. He straightened when he saw Sonny approaching.

Sonny said, “This is Rick Richards, Stu. He's from ABC-TV up in Boston. He's in the market for an Explorer just like this. How's the work coming?”

“I've got everything cleaned up, Sonny. Just need to give it a couple shots of lacquer, bake her up, and she's as good as new.”

Sonny leaned through the driver's-side window. “Less than six thousand miles. You're getting a real deal here, Rick.”

Rosco kicked the front tire for no reason other than he assumed that was what one was supposed to do when examining a car. But when he glanced down at the tire he saw a few tiny flecks of red paint. He looked at Stu and said, “You haven't done your touch-up, right? Does that mean I can't take it for a test drive?”

Stu removed his work gloves. He wore surgical-type latex gloves beneath them. “No, I haven't done my paint work yet, so I'd rather it didn't go out right now and pick up a bunch of road grime. Anything she picks up is bound to show in the new paint job. It'll only take me twenty minutes to spray her up, and an hour to bake. It'd be better if you could swing back here this afternoon or tomorrow.”

Rosco pointed to the paint on the front tire. “If you haven't done any touch-up yet, how come there's red flecks on this tire?”

The two men walked around the front of the car and crouched by the tire.

“Huh,” Sonny frowned, although the expression failed to convey a sense of surprise and confusion. “Beats me. No tellin' where that came from. Any ideas, Stu?”

Stu remained silent, so Rosco opted to cut to the chase and voice his suspicion. “The Explorer hasn't been totally
repainted
has it? I mean, the entire car? Could it have been another color at one time?”

Sonny laughed, although the sound was not a relaxed one. “Hey, Rick, it's only got six thousand miles on it. Why would someone repaint it? Where's the sense in that? I mean, red's red. It's not like the babe wanted some custom color to match a new outfit or anything …”

“I don't know. That's why I'm asking.”

Sonny took Rosco by the arm and led him away from the Explorer. “Let's go back to the office. We can work out a deal on this baby. You come back this afternoon with your cash, take your test drive, kick some more tires if you like, and you've got yourself a brand new car.”

“I don't know …”

“Rick, Rick, I'm ready to talk turkey. I'll tell you what I'm gonna do; I'm gonna let you have this car for seven hundred dollars more than I paid for it. That's the best I can do. I've put some money into it. I've cleaned it up, but I'm not gonna rake you over the coals. How's that?”

Rosco laughed. “How do I know what you paid for it?”

Sonny draped his arm over Rosco's shoulder. “Let's step into the office, Rick. These fumes and all … I prefer talking where the air is clean.”

The office was broken into two rooms. The first had a large steel desk on one side, and facing it were two blue metal chairs with matching vinyl cushions. The opposite wall held a couch appointed in genuine leather. The walls were decorated with prints of European sports cars. A wood-veneered door and plate-glass window opened into the second office. On the far side of the glass, Rosco spotted another desk behind which sat a woman who appeared to be in her late sixties. Like Sonny, she was immaculately attired; and her chocolate-brown helmet of hair seemed to have come directly from the hair salon. She looked up from her paperwork when they entered and never took her eyes off Rosco the entire time he was there.

“I guess that must be your mother.”

“Yeah. Don't let her bother you. She's a worrier…. Probably thinks I'm gonna let you persuade me to let you use our shop for your shoot—or I'll run off and become a full-time actor.”

Rosco nodded. His own mother could have also been deemed a “worrier”—to say nothing of his two elder sisters.

“But shouldn't I say hello? That's how things work in my family. My mom would consider it rude of visitors not to speak to her.”

“Nah, she doesn't like to be bothered.” Sonny sat behind the metal desk and pulled a file from a side drawer. “Have a seat, Rick.”

Rosco sat, angling the chair so that his back faced the window and the scrutiny he could still feel being leveled at his shoulder blades. He had a strong sense that the brains behind the operation didn't want her son revealing certain information. But Sonny seemed unaware of his mother's watchful presence. He removed a stamped envelope from the file folder, opened it with a brass letter opener, then withdrew a check and placed it on the desk in front of Rosco.

“Ya see, Rick … I'm bein' one hundred percent above-board with you on this thing. Let's just say I'm tryin' to make up for not letting your people use the shop for their location.” He tapped the check with his index finger. “This is the check I was going to mail to the woman who owns that Explorer. Pick it up. Go ahead, I want you to look at it.”

Rosco picked up the check. It was for fifteen thousand dollars and made out to a Karen Johnson.

“Fifteen grand,” Sonny said as he retrieved the check from Rosco. He then ripped the check up into several small pieces and tossed them into the plastic trash basket by his desk. “So that's what I was going to pay her. Now, I'm going to let you have the car for fifteen seven, just like I said would. You come back this afternoon with the cash, take your test drive, and we're all set.”

“Then you pay this Karen Johnson her fifteen thousand in cash, keep seven hundred, and we have no record that the car was ever in your shop. Is that it?”

“Hey, Rick, you make it sound like
The Great Train Robbery
. We save ourselves twelve hundred in sales tax. The car flips once instead of twice.”

Rosco appeared to think for a moment then said, “Mind if I take a look at that envelope?”

“What for?”

“I just want to see if the stamp's canceled. I figure if it's a new stamp, then you really intended to mail it, and you're not giving me the runaround on the price.”

Sonny laughed, and pushed the envelope across the desk toward Rosco. “I like that, Rick. That's a cool move. I'll have to remember it. I guess that's the kind of clever stuff you use on
Back Bay D.A.
, isn't it?”

Rosco also laughed, but his eyes were focused on the envelope's address. He recognized it immediately. It was the Tacete home. Rosco returned the envelope to the desktop and said, “Yeah, I see your point. Why give Massachusetts any more than we have to?” He glanced at his watch, thinking it would probably take Al Lever an hour or so to get a judge to sign an impound order on the Explorer.

“I think we've got ourselves a deal, Sonny.”

The two men stood and walked back outside to Rosco's rental car.

“How about I come back just before noon for my test drive? The Explorer should be ready by then, right?”

Sonny smiled. “You got it…. And, Rick?”

“Yes?”

“Don't forget the fifteen seven.”

CHAPTER 25

The only person more anxious than Rosco to locate Dan Tacete's missing Ford Explorer was Al Lever. Rosco had called him from his cell phone less than twenty seconds after leaving Sonny's lot. Al, in turn, had scrambled up an impound order, enabling the two of them to return to Sonny's Autobody slightly before noon. They were in Al's NPD sedan, which was the first vehicle to drive through the gate in Sonny's high chain-link fence. Immediately behind Lever's brown sedan was a blue and white police cruiser; on its tail was a flatbed traffic enforcement tow truck. The moment he saw the three vehicles grind to a halt and the officers—and Rosco—emerge, Sonny ran out of the shop like a New England Patriots' linebacker on an all-out blitz.

“What the hell is this, Rick? I thought I could trust you. You go to the cops? You turn me in for trying to skim a lousy twelve hundred bucks off the state?”

Rosco said nothing as Al removed his gold shield from his belt and held it up for Sonny to see. “My name is Lieutenant Lever, Newcastle Police Department. I'm impounding the red Explorer in your shop as criminal evidence. I'd like to ask a few questions while my boys load it up.”

Sonny continued to bluster and roar. “Like I didn't know you were a cop? Like that ‘unmarked' heap of yours doesn't scream law enforcement all over the place? You can't do this to me. You can't come barging in here. I'm calling my lawyer. This is a legitimate business I run here.” He looked back toward the shop entrance. His mother was now standing in the doorway with her hands resting belligerently on her hips. Her hairspray glinted in the sun and made her brown coiffure seem even more rigid and fierce. “You gotta read me my rights,” Sonny argued as he returned his attention to Al and pointed at Rosco. “You're not getting away with this, Rick.”

“Relax, nobody's under arrest,” Al said. “Not yet, anyway…. I just want to ask some questions and take the car in for examination.”

“Sonny! Get over here,” his mother demanded from the doorway. “Now!”

Al held up his hand. “I need to talk to you alone, Sonny. I don't want to have to go in there with a warrant, but I will if necessary. I'll impound your books if need be.”

“Let me go settle her down a bit first, okay? My mom gets a little tense sometimes.”

Without waiting for an answer, Sonny trotted back to his mother. They spoke for three minutes in harsh and angry whispers, but what they said was impossible for Al or Rosco to make out. Eventually Sonny returned to Lever, but his mother maintained her ferocious stance by the shop door.

“Okay, what do you want to know, Lieutenant?” Gone entirely was the adamant tone Sonny had used before.

Al waved to the police mechanic driving the tow truck, who then began backing the flatbed into the autobody shop. The beep-beep-beep of the truck's reverse warning system droned in the background as Lever spoke. “Are you the one who repainted the Explorer?”

“No. No way, Lieutenant. It was like that when it came in here yesterday.”

“But you knew it had been repainted?”

“This is a quality shop. Any professional can tell you in a second if a car's been retouched.”

“That's not what I'm asking. My question is whether
you
knew the vehicle had been repainted when you took possession of it.”

Sonny's gaze shifted from Al to Rosco while his shoulders twisted in an effort not to look in his mother's direction. “Yeah …” he muttered.

“I didn't hear you.”

“Yes. Yes, I did.”

“What color was it originally?”

This time Sonny turned toward his mother; he looked as though he were hoping she could supply the answer. “White,” he finally admitted. His voice was hushed and hesitant.

“And you didn't paint it red?”

“No. I told you that. I swear I didn't paint it. I only got it yesterday; and it was red. Just like it is now.”

Opting not to blow Rosco's cover, Al said, “But you weren't going to tell
Rick
here, were you? That you knew it had been repainted?”

Sonny didn't reply, but his head seemed to sink into his neck.