Momma Lupe, Book 1 in the Ty Connell 'Novella Series. A Mystery/Suspense Thriller. Cooking or killing -- Momma Had Her Funny WAys (3 page)

The men looked first at one another, then at
Ma.

"Ma this ain't cookies.
What
is
this?" the
senior man asked.

She huffed dismissively,
"Cookies? Of course it's not cookies. It's coquille …
coquille
… coquille St.
Jacques," she said, losing a bit of patience

"Well, what
is
that?" the fellow
asked.

"Coquille," she repeated. "Oh, how you say in
English … scallops."

The son returned with a manila envelope and
handed it to the man. It was obviously stuffed with bills.

"You want to count it?" she asked.

"No. That's okay, Ma. We know you're a
straight shooter," he said and tucked it into his inner jacket
pocket.

The son began to chuckle.

"That's good," he said. "I like that. Ma's a
straight shooter."

Momma looked at him sharply.

"I mean, it's funny," the son said, trying to
explain his way out. "You know— shooting straight."

"Theo, shut your face. You know we don't talk
about such things at the dinner table."

The two men glanced at each other a little
surprised: this from a woman who had just listened to a tape of a
man pleading for his life and being shot on her order before
soup?

The son hung his head, well scolded, and
moved back to his position at the rear door.

The men choked back just enough to humor
Momma, then said they had to cut out.

Ma turned again to her son. “Theo, move away.
Let these men downstairs to get their phone.”

Theo moved away from the door and the men
started down.

Their first inkling that all was not well was
when they saw the entire lower portion of the stairs and the floor
at the foot of the stairs covered in a heavy clear plastic, like
painter’s drop sheets.

The second inkling was the
two loud
snick clicks
from behind them —hammers being drawn back.

Two blasts, one right after the other, from
both barrels of a twelve gauge shotgun at close range shattered the
air like cannon fire, the tight pattern of shot hitting each in the
back, upper left, behind the heart, propelling them down the stairs
on top of one another onto the sheeting. Blood quickly began to
ooze.

From the top of the stairs Ma looked over the
bloody scene. She set the shotgun back where it had been, behind
the door.

“Theo,” she said. “Go down and help your
brother clean that up.”

The son was clearly distressed by the cleanup
job facing them. The blood. The bodies. Packing and rolling it all
up. Disposing of them Momma’s way.

“What about the money?” he said. “It’s going
to be a mess.”

“
What
money?” she asked, looking at him
like he was crazy. “You think I was going to give them
money
?”

She huffed and went back to her stove.

The next
day Connell entered the C-11 looking less well rested. He'd pushed
it till well
into the small hours that
night on a stubborn case and, when he showed up at two that
afternoon, he looked more like the haggard, bleary-eyed Connell
they were accustomed to seeing around the stationhouse.

He took off his belt, his back hip holster
and weapon and, with a yawn, wound the whole thing into a bundle
and dumped it into his lower desk drawer like he always did when he
had deskwork in front of him. That day he had a hard day's slogging
at the keyboard ahead, catching up on reports.

John Henry was at his desk across the
aisle.

"How's it going, bro?" Connell asked before
settling in, wondering where things stood with Vinnie.

Morgan had a vexed expression.

"Aw, man, I hate these mob
cases," he said. "They're like a big ol' black hole that sucks you
in and you know you never gonna come back out. You might figure out
who did it. You might even figure out
why
they did it. But you
know
you never gonna
figure out how to get the sucker wrapped up and into a
court."

"Like I said, bro, glad it ain’t mine."

"Aw, come on, man," Morgan said. "You got a
good feel for these things."

"What things?"

"Mobbed up cases. Cases that ain't
straightforward. How am I gonna get going here?"

Connell could see that the big guy was
stymied before he even began. Morgan was also a religious man and a
righteous man, a deacon in his church, and mob cases of any kind
never sat well with him. As if any kind of murder case could sit
well.

"You got a start-point yet?” he asked. “Any
idea who might have ordered it?"

Morgan shook his big head in
the negative. "But I know who had to
bless
it.
The
Man
—Big Paulie. Paul Veltro. Who else? You
can't hit a wiseguy in this town as high up as Vinnie without
Veltro giving the OK."

"So, somebody in Veltro's crew probably took
it and did it. That's a start."

"Mmm. Big help. I'll ask them 'bout it next
time we's sitting down over tea after church."

"Well, at least that narrows it down from
three point five million people in the greater metropolitan area to
maybe under a hundred guys."

Morgan grunted. "Yeah, that
is
if
the shooter
didn't come from out of town. That would bring it back up to three
point five million."

"Any idea what Vinnie might have been doing
to get his brethren so pissed at him?"

"Near as I can figure, nothing unusual. I ran
it by the guys over at the Mob Squad, and it seems Vinnie was just
engaged in his usual chamber of commerce activities. Skimming,
scamming, extorting, stealing, embezzling, dealing dope."

The Mob Squad was what they called the
Organized Crime Unit, based out of HQ up town. It tracked and
coordinated motorcycle gangs, the Italian and Russian mobs,
Vietnamese gangs, and any other gang activities across the GBA. The
Greater Boston Area takes in most of the entire population inside
the I-95 highway that rings the city from the south, well out to
the west, and rounding in again well north. Dozens of smaller
cities, towns, and neighborhoods making up that census
area.

"How about parolees and ex-cons recently back
on the street?" Connell suggested.

"I checked. Nobody with contract killer
credentials."

"How about new talent? Anyone noteworthy
arrive in town lately?"

"Not that came in and signed the big red
guest book over at city hall."

Connell felt for his partner. This was
exactly why he hated such cases.

"How'd you get stuck with it, anyway?" he
asked. "How come they didn't just move it over to the Mob
guys?"

"I made the mistake of
getting there first. I had no idea on the drive over that it was
mob business. We thought it was an old money case. Once we got
there, and the media guys got there, and it became this big front
page item, Ms. Nolan jumped all over it and decided she wanted to
keep it in-house. Make points with the Captain. Made it sound like
a big break-through moment.
Take it an
run
. I’m s’posed to push it into some kind
of prelim shape so we can bring the team in later.”

Connell rolled his
eyes.
Right
.
Departmental politics. Lt. Catherine Nolan was head of Detective
Services, the C-11.

"John, good chance this thing is going to
dead end anyway. I wouldn't spend too much time on it."

"Easy for you to say, man. You ain't the one
with Nolan on your tail."

Connell realized that his partner was hitting
the wall.

"Tell you what," he said. "I'll do some
nosing around for you. See if I can find out anything."

"Naw, man," Morgan said. "You can't do that.
Nolan'd be all over your sorry ass, you go putting time in on
this."

"Don't worry about it, bro. Most days Nolan's
got no idea what I'm doing. I'll just mix in a few inquiries for
you while I'm on about my own stuff."

At six-foot five and a
still
mostly
muscled two-hundred and eighty pounds, Morgan was forty-nine
and twenty years Connell’s senior. He had stepped in and helped
Connell out a time or two where a certain intimidation factor had
helped move things along. The favors went both ways.

Morgan nodded. "Yeah, okay, little brother,"
he said. "I'd 'preciate that. Nolan's really pushing on this
one."

That night, Connell devoted some time to see if he
could stir something up for John.

He decided to start with
pool halls.
So
he headed
outside his usual territory, across the channel into the northern
part of the city which.

Connell split his time between regular duties
at the C-11 and his INSOURCE rounds. INSOURCE was Intelligence
Sourcing. A trial project of the BRIC, Boston Regional Intelligence
Center of the BPD. Its mandate is to build a network of reliable
informants— ICs, Intel Contacts, from the criminal world; and CIs,
Confidential Informants from the civilian sector. The city that
brought the world Whitey Bulger was trying once again to the get
the intel business right. Connell had volunteered for the
experimental unit and, at the C-11, he was a squad, so far, of
one.

There were a number of pool halls in close
proximity to each other along an long industrial-commercial stretch
of small shopping and commercial malls along Highway 145 which runs
past Logan Airport and northward. Some of these halls were big,
well-lit, and well known. Others more dingy little
hole-in-the-walls.

Connell’s approach was to go in, watch a game
or two in progress, watch some soccer on the overhead TVs, and
generally try to blend in while he sniff around for a certain
promising type of individual. For this he went on gut instinct.
He’d know his guy when he saw him.

He went into three establishments and sensed
that each was out of the loop. Finally getting a good feeling about
the fourth. It was a smaller more casual joint in an upstairs unit
in a small commercial mall around the corner from a strip club.
Also less than a mile from one of Paul Veltro's "front" businesses,
a discount furniture store. So its location was promising.

Connell walked in in his jeans and scuffed-up
leather jacket with a Boston Herald folded and tucked under his
arm, looking like a working guy out to kill a few hours. No one
raised an eyebrow.

He sat at the bar and nursed a beer and
browsed the paper, getting the lay of the place, and a particular
table of players caught his attention. He took his beer and moved
over and sat on a bench nearby and watched. He made the occasional
comment about some of the shots that were made, and got himself
noticed.

After a while, one of the players inquired if
had any money to wager.

He let it be known that,
yes, he did have
some
money to risk, that he had just signed on as a driver with a
small trucking firm around the corner, and that he had a few hours
to kill before his shift. He was also a fanatical fan of the Irish
National Soccer Team —"the best flipping soccer team in the world!"
That quickly struck a competitive chord among the Italian National
Soccer Team fanatics present and he was immediately razzed for his
poor taste in soccer teams. Another beer or two and he was
cautiously accepted by the small group of players, all young Ginos
in their twenties.

For most of an hour Connell played with good
humor, lost steadily, and told bad jokes. He gained more cautious
acceptance.

He noticed that one of the players was a
little more reserved and a little less talkative than the others.
He sensed, from long experience, that this was the guy to get close
to.

His opportunity came when he was playing
against the guy and managed to get up a few points on him. They
were pretty close on points when the cue ball ended up behind a red
with the seven on the other side, three inches from the corner
pocket.

Connell eyed the shot from all angles.

The guy said, "You'll never bank that shot.
You're done, pal."

Connell was only a fair pool
player and, like most fair pool players, he had just one good trick
shot. It was a shot he had practiced until he could pull it off
most times he attempted it. It involved coming
down
on the cue ball and jumping it
over an obstructing red to drive another ball into the pocket. Most
other players, when they tried to "jump the ball," as often as not
the cue ball itself followed the struck ball into the pocket. But
Connell had learned how to put a backspin on the cue ball so that
it ran up to the lip, then pulled back. But it was considered a hot
dog maneuver by serious players, and wasn't much appreciated, so he
only pulled it out on rare occasions.

He knelt and eyed the shot again and said, "I
think I can drop it. You want to bet on the shot?"

They already had a bet going on the game.

The Italian guy glanced at Ty, then glanced
at his friends: he'd already committed himself by saying the shot
couldn't be drain.

"Yeah, sure," he said. "How much?"

"That's up to you, amigo."

"You got a hundred?"

Connell paused as though
coking on the amount. He got that
do-I-even-have-a-hundred
look and dug
out his wallet. He turned his back for a moment to have a private
peek inside.

When he turned back, he
said, "Yeah. Okay. I’m good …
just
."