Peter Pan Must Die (42 page)

Gurney smiled. “Just a couple more questions.”

“I do have a live webcast scheduled in ten minutes, but go ahead, please.”

“What did you think of Mick Klemper?”

“Who?”

“The chief investigator at Carl’s shooting.”

“Ah. Yes. What did I think of him? I thought he might have a drinking problem.”

“Did he interview you?”

“I wouldn’t call it an interview. He asked a few basic questions at the cemetery that day. He took down my contact information, but he never followed up. He didn’t strike me as particularly thorough … or trustworthy.”

“Would you be surprised if you heard that he was guilty of evidence tampering?”

“I can’t say it would be a shock.” He cocked his head curiously. “Are you saying that he used illegal means to get Kay convicted? Why?”

“Again, that’s confidential within the appeal process at this point. But it does raise an important point. Assuming that Kay didn’t kill Carl, obviously someone else did. Does the fact that the real killer is out there roaming around free worry you?”

“For my own safety? Not at all. Carl and I were on the opposite sides of every business decision, every proposed action of Spalter Realty—as well as every personal matter that ever came up between us. We never had the same friends, the same goals, the same anything. It’s highly unlikely that we’d have the same enemy.”

“One last question.” Gurney paused, more for dramatic effect than because of any indecision. “What would you say if I told you that your mother’s death may not have been accidental?”

“What do you mean?” He blinked, appeared stunned.

“Evidence has come to light that connects her death with Carl’s.”

“What evidence?”

“I can’t go into that. But it seems persuasive. Can you think of any reason that the person who targeted Carl would also have targeted your mother?”

Jonah’s expression was a frozen mix of emotions. The most recognizable one was fear. But was it the fear of the unknown? Or was it fear of the
unknown becoming known?
He shook his head. “I … I don’t know what to say. Look, I need to know what … I mean, what kind of
evidence
are you talking about?”

“Right now that’s a confidential part of the appeals case. I’ll see that you’re informed as soon as possible.”

“What you’re saying is … absolutely bizarre.”

“It must seem that way. But if any explanation occurs to you, any scenario that you think might connect the two deaths, please let me know right away.”

The man’s only visible response was a small nod.

Gurney decided on another abrupt change of direction. “What do you think of Carl’s daughter?”

Jonah swallowed, shifted in his chair. “Are you asking me if she could … could have killed her father? And her grandmother too?” He
looked lost. “I have no idea. Alyssa is … not a healthy person, but … 
her father? Her grandmother?
”

“Not healthy in what way? Can you be more specific?”

“No. Not now.” He looked at his watch, as if baffled by the data it conveyed. “I really have to go. Really. Sorry.”

“Last question. Who else might have wanted to kill Carl?”

He turned up his palms in a gesture that conveyed frustration with the question. “Anyone. Anyone who got close enough to see the rot behind the smile.”

“Thank you for your help, Jonah. I hope we can speak again. By the way, what’s the topic of your webcast?”

“Sorry, my what?”

“Your webcast.”

“Oh.” He looked sick. “Today’s topic is ‘Our Path to Joy.’ ”

Gurney used the quarter hour prior to Hardwick’s and Esti’s scheduled arrival at nine o’clock to type and print out three copies of what he’d jotted down the day before on a legal pad—the case’s key points.

Esti was the first to arrive but only by a minute. As she was parking her hot blue Mini Cooper by the asparagus bed, Hardwick’s red GTO was rumbling up past the barn.

She stepped out of the little car, and her T-shirt, cutoff jeans, and relaxed smile all proclaimed a day off from the job. Her caramel skin glowed in the morning sunlight. As she approached the side door, she cast a curious glance at the flat stones marking the rooster’s grave.

Gurney opened the screen door and shook hands with her.

“Hey,” she said, “it’s so gorgeous today, we should stay out here.”

Gurney returned the smile. “That’d be nice. Problem is, I have some videos inside I want you and Jack to see.”

“Just a thought. The sun feels good on my skin.”

Hardwick pulled his car in next to hers, got out, and swung the heavy door shut. Without bothering to acknowledge her or Gurney, he shaded his eyes with his hand and began scanning the surrounding fields and wooded hillsides.

She gave him a sideways glance. “You looking for somebody?”

He didn’t answer, just continued what he was doing.

Gurney followed his gaze until it reached Barrow Hill, realizing then what was on the man’s mind. “That’s the most likely spot,” said Gurney.

Hardwick nodded. “At the top of that narrow trail?”

“It’s actually an overgrown quarry road.”

Hardwick stayed focused on the hill. “Pretty good distance from here. He’d need to be really good. Maybe twelve hundred feet?”

“Maybe a little more. Not too different from Long Falls.”

Esti looked alarmed. “You guys talking about a sniper?”

“A possible location for one,” said Gurney. “There’s a place near the top of that hill that would be my choice if I were targeting someone who lived in this house. Clear view of the side door, clear view of the cars.”

She turned to Hardwick. “Every place you go now, that’s what you’re checking out? Sniper spots?”

“With two rounds in the side of my house, it’s on my mind these days. Areas surrounded by good cover concern me.”

Her eyes widened. “So maybe instead of standing here like sitting ducks, staring at a place we could be shot from, we should go inside, yes?”

Hardwick looked like he was about to make a wiseass comment about her standing/sitting remark, but he just grinned and followed her into the house. After another glance up the hill, Gurney joined them.

He got his laptop and list of issues from the den, and they all settled down at the dining table. “Why don’t we start by getting up-to-date?” suggested Gurney. “You and Esti were going to make some calls. Do we have any new facts?”

Esti went first. “This Greek mob guy, Adonis Angelidis? According to my friend at OCTF, he’s a big deal. Low profile, compared to the Italians and the Russians, but a lot of influence. Works with all the families. It was the same with Gurikos, the guy who got his head nailed. He arranged big hits for big players. Major connections. Very trusted.”

“So why was he hit?” asked Hardwick. “Your task force buddy got any clue?”

“None. According to OCTF, Gurikos kept everybody happy. Smooth as silk. A
resource
.”

“Yeah, well, somebody didn’t agree.”

She nodded. “It could have happened the way Angelidis told Dave: Carl went to Gurikos to set up a hit on someone, then that someone found out about it and hired Panikos to kill them both. Makes sense, no?”

Hardwick turned his palms up in a gesture of uncertainty.

Esti looked at Gurney. “Dave?”

“In a way, I’d like the Angelidis version to be true. But it doesn’t feel quite right. Like it
almost
makes sense. The problem is, it doesn’t account for the nails in Gus’s head. A practical, preemptive hit on Carl and Gus is one thing. A gruesome warning about keeping secrets is something else. The two don’t fit together.”

“I’ve got the same problem with the mother,” said Esti. “I don’t get why she had to be killed.”

Hardwick sounded restless. “It’s not that big a mystery. To put Carl at the funeral, exposed, delivering a eulogy.”

“So why didn’t Panikos wait until he was actually standing at the podium? Why shoot him before he got there?”

“Who the hell knows? Maybe to stop him from revealing something.”

Gurney couldn’t see the logic in that. Why go to elaborate lengths to set up a situation in which someone would be scheduled to make a speech if you were afraid of what they might say?

“I’ve got one last thing,” said Esti. “About the Cooperstown fires? I found out something interesting, but strange. The four incendiary devices used on Bincher’s house were all different types and sizes.” She looked from Hardwick to Gurney and back again. “Does that say anything to you?”

Hardwick sucked at his teeth and shrugged. “Maybe that’s what little Peter happened to have in his toy box at the time.”

“Or maybe what his supplier had available? Any ideas, Dave?”

“Just an off-the-wall possibility: that he was experimenting.”

“
Experimenting?
For what purpose?”

“I don’t know. Maybe evaluating different devices with some future use in mind?”

She made a face. “Let’s hope that’s not the reason.”

Hardwick shifted in his chair. “You got anything else, sweetheart?”

“Yes. The headless body recovered at the scene has been positively ID’d.” She paused for one dramatic beat. “Lex Bincher. For sure.”

Hardwick was staring warily at her.

She went on slowly, “The head … is still missing.”

Hardwick’s jaw muscle twitched. “Christ! This is like some shit in a horror movie.”

Esti screwed up her face. “I don’t understand how this gets to you so much. That story about how you and Dave met—that incident involved a woman who got cut in half, right? I heard you laugh about that, tell sick jokes, right?”

“Right.”

“So how come when this head thing comes up, you get all disturbed-like?”

“Look, for Christ’s sake …” He raised his hands in surrender, shaking his head. “It’s one thing to find a chopped-up body. A body in ten pieces. You’re a cop long enough, you work the inner city long enough, that kind of thing is going to happen. It just is. But there’s a big difference between finding a cut-off head and
not
finding it. You get what I mean? The fucking thing is
missing
! Which means somebody is keeping it somewhere. For some reason. For some God-awful use he has for it. Believe me, that fucking thing is going to turn up when we least expect it.”

“ ‘When we least expect it’? I think you see too much Netflix.” She gave him one of her affectionate little winks. “Anyway, that’s all the new stuff I have for now. How about you? You have anything?”

Hardwick rubbed his face hard with his palms, as though he were erasing a bad dream, trying to give his day a fresh start. “I managed to locate one of the missing witnesses—Freddie, the one whose testimony put Kay in the Axton Avenue apartment house at the time of the shooting. Officially, Frederico Javier Rosales.” He shot a glance at Gurney. “Any chance of getting some coffee?”

“No problem.” Gurney went to the machine on the sink island to get a fresh pot going.

Hardwick continued. “We had a friendly talk, me and Freddie. We focused on the interesting little gap between what he actually saw and what Mick the Dick told him he saw.”

Esti’s eyes widened. “He admitted that Klemper told him what to say on the stand?”

“Not only did Klemper tell him what to say, but he told him he damn well better say it.”

“Or else what?”

“Freddie had a drug problem. Small dealer supporting a big addiction. One more conviction would give him an automatic hard twenty, no parole. When a skell’s in that kind of spot, a prick like Mick has a lot of leverage.”

“So why’d he open up to you?”

Hardwick grinned unpleasantly. “Boy like Freddie has a short attention span. Always sees the biggest threat as the one that’s standing in front of him, and that was me. But don’t get the wrong idea. I was very civilized. I explained that the only way for him to avoid the substantial penalties for having committed perjury in a murder case would be for him to un-perjure himself.”

Esti looked incredulous. “
Un-perjure
himself?”

“Nice concept, don’t you think? I told him he could get out from under the avalanche of shit that was about to come down on him if he described how his original testimony was concocted entirely by Mick the Dick.”

“He spelled all that out on paper?”

“And signed it. I even got his fucking thumbprint on it.”

Esti looked cautiously pleased. “Does Freddie think you’re with BCI?”

“It’s possible he may have formed the impression that my connection with the bureau is more current than it actually is. I don’t really give a shit what he thinks. Do you?”

She shook her head. “Not if it helps put Klemper away. You have any leads on the other two witnesses who dropped out of sight—Jimmy Flats and Kay’s boyfriend, Darryl?”

“Not yet. But Freddie’s statement, along with the recording of Dave’s conversation with Alyssa, should absolutely seal the deal on the police misconduct issue—which in turn should seal the deal on Kay’s appeal.”

Hardwick’s happy little rhyme scraped Gurney’s brain like nails
on a blackboard. But then it occurred to him that his edginess might be coming from another direction—from the unresolved question of Kay’s guilt, an issue quite apart from the fairness or unfairness of her trial. There was little doubt about the evidence tampering and witness tampering. But none of those illegalities made Kay Spalter
innocent
. As long as the identity of the person who hired Petros Panikos to kill Carl Spalter remained a mystery, Kay Spalter remained a viable suspect.

Esti’s voice broke into Gurney’s train of thought. “You said something about showing us some videos?”

“Yes. Right. In addition to my Skype conversation with Jonah, I have a couple of security camera sequences from Axton Avenue—a close-up view of someone entering the apartment building before the shooting, and a long-distance view of Carl getting hit and going down.” He looked at Hardwick. “Did you fill Esti in on how I got the videos?”

“Things were moving a little too fast. And there wasn’t much information in that thirty-second voice mail you left me.”

“And what information there was you decided to ignore, right?”