Bagmen (A Victor Carl Novel) (26 page)

CHAPTER 44

PUBLIC POLICY

S
he was waiting outside my apartment when Maud dropped me off, sitting in a black-and-white illegally parked in front of a hydrant. Before I was halfway up the front steps she swooped out to intercept me, her figure as short and squat as the hydrant itself, in full uniform with gun weighing down her side.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said.

“Why don’t we avoid the meaningless patter,” said Officer Boot, “and just go where we have to go?”

“But meaningless patter is the basis of our entire relationship. What would we have if we didn’t have meaningless patter?”

“Nothing. That’s the point.”

“So you want to go deep.”

“If that means silent, like a submarine, then yes.”

“Where is he?”

“The Roundhouse.”

“Tell him I need to shower and change, because he won’t want to see me the way I am. And then I’ll meet him there.”

“No, sir.”

“No what?”

“You can shower and change, because I can smell you from here and I don’t want you fouling up my car. While you’re at it, you can fix up that wound on your cheek, which, I must admit, gives your face the dashing air of a violent meth addict. But my orders are to deliver you personally, and personally it will be.”

I had learned before that there was no arguing with Officer Boot. Resigned to a trip to the Roundhouse in the back of her squad car, I primped for the ride. The view in the mirror as I shaved was more unpleasant than usual; the left side of my face was swollen from Stony’s kick, the right side was scabbed from the wall. And my wrist, my poor damaged wrist, was raw as sushi. I patched myself as best I could before I put on a suit and tie, hoping to hide the damage.

“What the hell happened to you?” said McDeiss in the interrogation room.

I put a hand up to my raw, scabby cheek. “I got kicked in the face by a pony.”

“You should get that looked at.”

“You’re looking, aren’t you? You get my gift?”

“Yes, I did,” said McDeiss. “I wanted to thank you for that. It was—how should I say—out of character for you to be so generous with information.”

“And that’s why you sent Officer Boot to haul me in?”

“We still have some pressing questions.”

“Dry cleaning helps.” I looked around at the green walls, the large mirror, the locked door. In this place, time no longer belonged to me. I was going nowhere, this whole investigation was going nowhere, even as I knew the case was going somewhere deadly fast. The whole reason I sent the photographs to McDeiss was to get him up to speed, but he apparently hadn’t made the leaps I’d hoped he would make. This was my moment to get him to start doing what I needed him to do, and fast. I leaned forward and slapped the table.

“What have you done about the photographs?”

“Well, for one, we’ve got an APB out for Colin Frost. We checked at the rehab clinic and he’s not there.”

“Surprise, surprise.”

“And neither is another patient, one Jason Howard, whose description matches the second man in the photograph. Coincidentally, this Howard also matches the description of the man you gave us after the Duddleman murder. We’re looking for him, too.”

“Now what about Ossana DeMathis, are you looking for her?”

“She wasn’t in the photographs.”

“But she’s the one behind the killings, she’s the one behind everything. She was the one with the hammer.”

“The hammer with your fingerprints on it.”

“You’re not getting it,” I said. “What about the girl?”

“Red hair, playing around a tree. I thought they were just snapshots. What about her?”

“Are you protecting her?”

“From what?”

“You’re not getting it, not at all.”

“That’s why I dragged you here. Let’s start at the beginning. Where did you get the photographs?”

“From a card I swiped from a camera.”

“Mulroney’s camera, according to the note you scrawled on the envelope.”

“That’s right.”

“Any idea where that scum is?”

“No,” I said.

“Armbruster just called from his father’s old house. There was a mess in the basement. Handcuffs on a pipe, bullet holes through a water heater and in the wall. Stains that looked like blood. Do you know anything about that?”

“No,” I said.

“What’s with your wrist?”

I looked down at my left arm. Blood had soaked into the shirt cuff. “My digital watch exploded.”

McDeiss leaned back and stretched out his arms. “That’s the Victor Carl I know and loathe. Tell me about the pictures of Tommy Bettenhauser, candidate for Congress.”

“They don’t matter, they’re a sideshow. The girl is the story. You need to get somebody up to the Lancaster address I gave you, to protect the girl. The girl’s the reason for all of this, and Ossana now knows where she is. Did you check out the blood smear and the hair I gave you?”

“There’s a preliminary match,” he said. “The blood and the hair are of the same family.”

“Aunt and niece,” I said, nodding.

“Tell me why that is so damn important.”

“It’s why they killed Jessica Barnes, because she had the girl and was about to spill about the link. And why they killed Amanda Duddleman, because she was getting close to the truth. And why the girl is in danger from Ossana DeMathis.”

“What is it with you and her?”

“I know a demon when I screw one.”

“Ahh, I see.”

“See what?”

“It’s personal.”

“You bet it’s personal, as personal as blood, but not in the way you think. It’s personal because she’s a killer and I think that little girl is next on her list. I sent you the photographs and gave you the address so you would do something, and fast. I thought the pictures would be a spur in your ass.”

“You know I’m a little slow, right?”

“I’ve noticed.”

“Maybe you better explain it to me slowly.”

I took a deep breath, weighed the little girl’s welfare against any dubious claims of privilege I might have had, and then told McDeiss a story.

Once there was a girl who was rabidly devoted to her brother, a randy frat boy with political ambitions. At one point, when the brother was serving in the august House of Representatives, a baby was born, probably to one of the brother’s paramours and, for fear of scandal, it was given away to be raised by a family in Lancaster, home of presidents. All was well until the Great Recession hit and the family fell into hard times and the adoptive mother felt she had no choice but to try to blackmail the Congressman with evidence of the child’s existence. Her proof was a smear of blood on a card that showed paternity. She was paid off by the brother’s noble bagman, paid off exceedingly well, actually. All would have gone as it was supposed to go, except that the sister, with that crazed devotion to her brother, and in order to protect his career from continuing blackmail demands, murdered the woman before she could get home to the child, stealing the money to pay off the killers and setting up the noble bagman as a murder suspect. Later, a young reporter, who happened to be the Congressman’s lover, finally tracked the girl down, even getting a photograph as evidence from a doctor’s office. But before the reporter could pass along this newly discovered information to the noble bagman, the sister made sure the reporter also was murdered. And now, the sister intended to do something horrid to the little girl to finally end any threat the girl may present to the brother’s precious political career.

McDeiss listened to this all with the patience of a cat, taking notes now and then, asking a few questions to clear up this detail or that inconsistency. And when my little story was over, he leaned back and shook his head.

“It doesn’t add up,” he said.

“What doesn’t add up?”

“The motivations. They don’t make sense, or at least enough sense. The devoted sister? Who the hell is that devoted? What other evidence do you have that she was involved?”

“She sort of admitted it to me.”

“Sort of? Is that pillow talk?”

“No, more like fuck-off talk. And Stony sort of confirmed it for me.”

“And you believe that fat piece of corruption?”

“Yes.”

“Based on what you’ve said, even if Frost and this Howard did the killings, as the photos suggest, the person behind them might just as easily have been the Congressman, or the Congressman’s wife, or the Congressman’s chief of staff.”

“Or maybe it was the Congressman’s bagman,” I said.

“It makes more sense than the sister. All you have pointing to Miss DeMathis is that she might have a motive, but the motive is weak tea. And now you want us to run a police operation out of our jurisdiction to protect a girl who as far as we know has no connection to anything.”

“You have the DNA test.”

“And we know the blood is hers?”

I stared for a moment. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’ve been reached.”

“By common sense and self-protection, yes. It is the policy of the Philadelphia Police Department not to arrest congressmen, or their immediate family, without any proof of guilt, and your sort-of confessions and counterintuitive suppositions are not proof. Do you have anything else?”

I scraped my skull until it hurt. “No.”

“So there we are.”

I looked into his passive face and felt something in me deflate. “You’re not going to arrest Ossana DeMathis,” I said.

“Someone with a higher pay grade than me will ask to question her, but that’s as far as it will go.”

“You’re not going to protect that girl.”

“Someone with a higher pay grade than me will confer with the Lancaster police.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“Get more evidence, and the Department can do more.”

“I thought getting evidence was your job,” I said, standing. “I’ll be in touch.”

I was at the door when he said, “Carl?”

I turned around and raised an eyebrow.

“You’re going to do something stupid.”

“Character is destiny.”

He nodded sadly at all the sad stupidity in the world, and then said, “You want company?”

CHAPTER 45

RUNNING MATES

I
brought the thermoses, McDeiss brought the surly.

“What do we expect to happen exactly?” growled McDeiss.

“Sunset,” I said.

“When you said you were going to do something stupid, I didn’t realize you’d be so literal about it.”

“We’re just here to wait and see what there is to see,” I said.

“More like wait and wait.”

“What did you think, I was going to put on a costume and a cape and swing into action?”

“At least then I’d get to arrest somebody.”

“Who?”

“You, for a crime against spandex.”

We were in Lancaster, sitting in my small Mazda, parked behind that wide leafy oak on Irishtown Road. With a pair of binoculars, I was keeping an eye on the front door of the house where Stony and I had seen the little red-haired girl. McDeiss, wedged into the seat next to me, his head rubbing the roof, his knees chest-high, was letting loose an endless supply of pained sighs.

“I thought with all your experience you’d be more patient on a stakeout,” I said.

“Is that what this is? It feels more like a waste of good vacation time.”

“You’re the one who said you could only do this off duty.”

“And you’re getting paid?”

“I’ll keep track of my hours and submit a bill, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“To whom?”

“I wish I knew. You want more coffee?”

“I’ve had enough caffeine. What’s in the other thermos?”

“You don’t want to know.”

For a long time there was no action at the house, no evidence of anyone inside, and I wondered if my tour in Stony’s basement had given Ossana time to play it out without my interference. But then, just as I was about to do something reckless, Mrs. Gaughan appeared, Jessica Barnes’s mother, lugging a bag of groceries with a stuffed teddy bear sitting on top. She looked around and failed to spot anything suspicious, including us. The screen door closed behind her, along with my doubts about who was inside.

“Don’t worry about wasting your time,” I said. “I have the feeling that whatever’s going to happen is going to happen soon.”

“What is going to happen exactly?”

“I don’t know, but something.” I paused a bit and looked at his surly mien before saying, “And when it does, I’ll be glad you’re along.”

“But not until then.”

“No, until then you’re just a complaining pain in my ass.” I sat quiet for a moment, letting a thought or two burble. “You want to hear something funny? A prime political fixer who lunches at the Union League said I had the common touch. Can you believe such a thing?”

“I don’t know anyone more common than you.”

“What’s your great ambition in life? Head of detectives?”

“No.”

“Chief of police?”

“God, no. Last thing I need is a bunch of sycophants dancing around my desk like some troupe of modern dancers. I’ve worked hard all these years to avoid a management position and I aim to keep succeeding. No, sir, all I ever wanted was to be a homicide dick.”

“You’re lucky. My life can’t ever live up to my ambitions.”

“Penny-ante bagman isn’t high enough?”

“That whole common-touch thing got me to thinking. Maybe if this political thing worked out just perfectly, when the Congressman finally left office I could run for his seat. United States Congressman Victor Carl. Why the hell not? Can’t I mug for the cameras? Can’t I suck up money from rich widows and tell the mob what it wants to hear? Lower taxes, higher benefits, a flag pin on every lapel. And after a few terms of getting my smile on the Sunday shows, maybe I’d run for Senate and from there, who knows? Nab a VP slot? Go for the big seat itself?”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“Why someone else and not me?”

“And then what?”

“Well, you know what Nietzsche said.”

“‘God is dead’?”

“That means there’s an opening.”

He laughed at that.

“I’m cursed,” I said, “with unbridled ambition.”

“And yet you’ve done so little with it.”

“Thank you. But when your ambition is so wrought that you’re never satisfied, it takes a load of pressure off. Every spot on the ladder is equally disappointing because it is not the rung above. Which means I’ve perfectly fulfilled my potential; I’ve reached as high as I’ll ever get, the point of not good enough. Does that look out of place?”

“Yes, it does,” said McDeiss.

It was a Lincoln Town Car, black and sleek, making its way toward us on the dusty road. We had already been passed by pickups and vans, old beaters and a muscular Camaro with a blown muffler, but this was the first Lincoln Town Car, maybe the first in a decade.

“It’s Ossana, coming for the girl,” I said.

“Paying a visit? Saying good-bye?”

“She’s not that innocent. She’ll be with Colin Frost and that other murderer, that Jason Howard, and whatever she intends, it won’t be good.”

It wasn’t a surprise when the Town Car stopped right in front of the house we had been watching. For a moment the car remained idling, quivering not so much from the churning of its engine as from anticipation. I kept the binoculars tight to my eyes. McDeiss took out his gun and pulled back the slide to slip a round into the chamber.

The rear door opened, and I could just see a leg step out, a long shapely leg in a shiny high heel, the shoe red, the leg itself dark as coffee. An instant later the whole red-clad figure appeared in the circle of my binocular vision. She clutched a stack of blue-backed legal documents in her hand as she made her way to the house.

“Damn,” I said.

“She looks familiar,” said McDeiss. “Who is she?”

“Her name’s Melanie Brooks.”

“I think I know her.”

“She’s a lawyer in the firm of Ronin and McCall.”

“I’ve never heard of them. What are they? Criminal?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Who is she representing?”

“She does errands for the Congressman, but she’s working for someone else.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“What’s she doing here?”

“It won’t be too long until we find out.”

And it became clear a few moments later when Melanie Brooks came out of the house holding the hand of the little red-haired girl.

The girl was looking behind her all the while that Melanie was leading her to the car. And following the two of them with frantic hands was Mrs. Gaughan, staggering behind as if lurching after a disappearing dream. The girl stopped and turned around and tore away from Melanie. She ran to Mrs. Gaughan, who slowly collapsed to her knees, an old ruin finally going to ground, and hugged the girl tight as misery.

“Melanie, Melanie, you Machiavellian minx,” I said.

“That the girl?” said McDeiss.

“That’s the girl. Melanie, Melanie, Melanie,” I said, with a true sadness in my voice, certain now that she had gone the way of Stony. “What have you done?”

What she did, when Mrs. Gaughan completed her desperate hug, was to gently lead the girl into the backseat of the Lincoln in order to whisk her to someplace awful
.
Awful, I was sure, in the primary definition of the word: terrible, dreadful, appalling. There was a moment, between the hug and the car, when the girl looked around at her surroundings and, in my solipsistic gaze through the binoculars, it appeared that she was looking around for someone to save her, looking around for someone like me.

Without a word we watched as the Town Car turned around in the driveway and headed away from us, up Irishtown Road. Mrs. Gaughan stared after it with a broken gaze, a woman who had already lost her daughter and was now losing something just as precious. Without a word we waited a moment longer until Mrs. Gaughan began the long walk back to the house. Then I pulled out from behind the tree.

I kept the Mazda as far behind as I could, obeying McDeiss’s terse commands while the Town Car wended its way across the long rural roads. “Slow down. Speed up. Give it more room.” Not surprisingly, he was better at the whole follow-without-being-seen thing and I deferred to his hard-won expertise.

“Crap,” he said after the Lincoln had made still another turn. “They spotted us.”

“How can you tell?”

“The way they took that turn, hard and without a signal. Close on in.”

Suddenly our discreet following turned into a chase. I hit the gas, felt my tires slip before they engaged. The car screeched into a turn, I passed one of those buggies like a maniac, the car screeched again as I turned the other way. On either side of us were fields plowed straight as a comb’s teeth, silos and houses huddled within stands of trees, a rusty metal harvester pulled by three horses. There was a moment when I thought I’d lost the Lincoln, that the car had used its brawny power to escape, but McDeiss calmly directed me until there it was, ahead but in sight as it veered off onto a busier road called Old Philadelphia Pike.

It was harder to get close now, with a bunch of cars between us and the Lincoln. The black car weaved desperately to lose us in the traffic, but McDeiss acted as a lookout while I weaved just as desperately. The buildings on the side of the road thickened and turned quaint, and the traffic slowed to a crawl. We moved in a processional through a touristy spot called Bird-in-Hand, with antique shops, and restaurants promising authentic Pennsylvania Dutch cooking. A lean man with a straw hat and gray beard lifted a box of apples.

Melanie wasn’t after antiques or apple dumplings, I knew that, but where she was headed remained a mystery until, not far away and to our right we saw a small single-engine plane rise with twists and turns.

“Her plane’s probably waiting on the runway,” I said.

“I’m going to get on the horn to the local police now,” said McDeiss.

“And tell them what?” I said. “Whatever Melanie did, she has the law on her side. That’s what those blue-backed documents were all about. Let me find out from her what’s really going on.”

“You need to catch her first.”

“I’m trying.”

It wasn’t easy keeping track of her in the slow-moving jumble of traffic, but the kitsch on the sides of the road eased and the traffic accelerated and McDeiss caught a glimpse of the long black car taking a turn just past a gas station ahead on the right. I heaved past a long furniture truck and veered in front of it to follow with a right of my own, onto the road that led straight to the airport. And on that small airport road, with a pizza place on one side and a machinery shop on the other, I saw the Lincoln careening to the right again.

I took the right right after, sped through a small parking area, then jagged to the left when I saw the black car sitting on a wide piece of asphalt bracketed by a shed on one side and a low hangar with a prop plane facing out in the other. And in front of the black car, waiting on the airport runway, was a small blue-nosed jet, an engine with the word “Honda” rising over its narrow white wing.

I jabbed my Mazda beside the Town Car, leaped out to grab hold of the handle to Melanie’s door, and yanked it open.

In the backseat the child was crying and Melanie sat with her arm around the girl’s shoulder, her face shot full of terror. But when she registered who had thrown open her door, something changed, brightened.

“Victor,” she said. “Thank God it’s you.”