The Hidden Man (42 page)
“This lawyer,” said Carlo, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his bathrobe. “He’s getting close.” He looked back at Smith again. “Isn’t he?”
“We don’t know that, Carlo. This could still work.” Smith wanted to believe it as much as he wanted Carlo to believe it. But he knew there was plenty of reason to doubt it now, and he could see the same opinion washed across Carlo’s face.
Carlo drank the last coffee from his cup. “Well, all right, then.” He looked at Smith. “I had a pretty good run.”
“Carlo—”
Carlo put a hand on Smith’s shoulder. “Always do right by your family.” He raised his index finger. “Most important thing.
Only
thing, at the end.” Carlo moved past Smith into the living room, where he settled into a chair with a groan.
Only
thing, at the end.” Carlo moved past Smith into the living room, where he settled into a chair with a groan.
“Carlo,” Smith said, more gently.
Carlo shook his head, his way of indicating he wasn’t in the mood for debate. “What happened back then,” he said. “It was on me. Not you, not Tommy, not Jake, not Marisa. Me. Understand?”
Smith, in his near-panic condition, felt some relief with Carlo’s words. He was telling Smith, this wouldn’t blow back on him. Carlo wouldn’t let him take the fall.
“Carlo, this can still work,” Smith insisted. “Kolarich could win at trial. It could happen. Why not wait, at least? We take out DePrizio now, yes, agreed, his time has come, but not Kolarich—”
“And in the meantime?” said Carlo. “In the next couple of weeks before the trial even starts, this lawyer figures it out himself? Then what? Then it’s everybody. Everybody. This way,” he said, pointing to himself, “it’s only me. We do this on my terms. That’s the decision. Collect the garbage. DePrizio, the lawyer, and his brother.” He raised his eyebrows to Smith. “And that’s final. We clear?”
Smith paused, then nodded. “DePrizio, the lawyer, and his brother,” he confirmed.
“Start with the lawyer,” Carlo said. “And do it now.”
IT TOOK ME TWO HOURS, with the overturned truck on the highway, to get back downtown. When I returned to my office, I found a stack of papers on my chair, compiled neatly with binder clips and tabs. Shauna had performed admirably, going through the old files on Audrey Cutler’s case to find any information relating to Sammy’s father.
“Oh, hey.” Shauna popped her head into my office. “I gotta run to court. There’s a Social Security number there, and a little information on what Sammy’s dad was doing that night that Audrey was taken. Not much, I’m afraid. But the Social might help.”
“Thanks, Shauna. Really.” I leafed through everything briefly, still troubled by the conversation I’d just had with Smith. I was missing something. I knew it.
I called Joel Lightner. “Same story with Tommy Butcher,” he told me. “He goes home, he goes to his father Carlo’s house, the hospital, the job site—”
“That’s fine, Joel. Here, I have a Social Security number I need you to track down, okay?” I read it to him.
“I suppose you need this fast, like you need everything else fast.”
“Faster,” I said. I placed the papers down and separated them. I focused on a portion of the investigator’s notes that summarized an interview with Sammy’s father after Audrey’s abduction:
Mr. Cutler indicated that at the time of the incident, approx. 2:00 A.M., he was at McGilly’s Tavern, 2602 South Marks in Travis Heights. Mr. Cutler indicated he was at the tavern with Daniel Caldwell, Rick Eisler, and Rusty Norris. Mr. Cutler indicated that he was a union plumber who had recently completed work on the library addition at Mansbury College and that Caldwell, Eisler, and Norris were laborers with Emerson Construction Company, the general contractor on the project. Caldwell, Eisler, and Norris confirmed that Mr. Cutler was with them until approx. 3:00 A.M. at that establishment.
It took me a second before it took hold, the reference to Emerson Construction. When I was quizzing Tommy Butcher about his prior criminal history—the false bid application he’d filed—I hadn’t focused on the company for which he was working at the time. But Lester Mapp had mentioned it in his cross-examination of Butcher at the hearing. Butcher, back in 1982, had worked for Emerson Construction Company. I’d been so caught up in the possibility of losing that hearing that I hadn’t focused.
I recalled it, then, the celebration picnic held by the construction company following the successful completion of the Mansbury library project, which I had attended with Sammy’s family. It had been my last vivid memory of Audrey, scampering across the grassy park, holding the candy in her hands.
Emerson M&M’s
, we tried to get her to say, laughing when she couldn’t navigate the tongue-twister.
Emoson-ems.
Emerson M&M’s
, we tried to get her to say, laughing when she couldn’t navigate the tongue-twister.
Emoson-ems.
I remembered Sammy’s mother, so content that day, trying to contain her hair blowing in the wind. A good moment, for her, her loser husband notwithstanding, as she watched her children run and play. As I thought about it, I realized that it was my last good memory not only of Audrey but of Mrs. Cutler, too—before the loss of her daughter sapped her spirit, before a terminal disease claimed her life.
They want Sammy to win this case, and win it now
.
.
“Oh my God,” I said. I sprung up from my chair and let the whole thing wash over me, every little piece finally fall into place.
Then I ran for my car.
59
I
RAN FROM THE ELEVATOR out of the building, across the street to the parking garage. I turned over the whole thing in my mind, gaining speed as it became clearer and clearer to me. I didn’t bother with the elevator, taking the stairs two at a time up to the third floor. I clicked the remote to unlock my car but it didn’t beep back to me. I opened the car door, threw the key in the ignition, and suddenly realized why the car hadn’t responded to my remote.
RAN FROM THE ELEVATOR out of the building, across the street to the parking garage. I turned over the whole thing in my mind, gaining speed as it became clearer and clearer to me. I didn’t bother with the elevator, taking the stairs two at a time up to the third floor. I clicked the remote to unlock my car but it didn’t beep back to me. I opened the car door, threw the key in the ignition, and suddenly realized why the car hadn’t responded to my remote.
The car had already been opened.
An arm strangled me from behind, from the left, pinning my head to the headrest. The butt of a gun sunk into my right temple.
“Don’t fuckin’ breathe.”
My mind raced, considering my options, but with the gun to my head, there were no options that would prevent the gun from discharging into my brain.
“Is this Nino, Johnny, or one of the other stooges?” I asked.
“Oh, that was my brother you cold-cocked, Kolarich. I’m the one who sliced off your brother’s finger. If you hadn’t heard, he cries like a little girl. I just want you to be real clear, Kolarich. Your brother’s next on my list, and I’m gonna enjoy it.”
An image of Pete at age thirteen, watching me catch the football at a high school practice. I remember the look in his eyes, the admiration, and how much it meant to me, wondering if I ever conveyed to him how
much
it meant to me. The first time I met Talia, my heart doing a leap as her eyes swept across mine, the subtle smile that told me so much about her, that made me want her love. And my little angel, my beautiful Emily, her tiny hands opening and closing, her unfocused eyes dancing, swelling me with an indescribable love.
much
it meant to me. The first time I met Talia, my heart doing a leap as her eyes swept across mine, the subtle smile that told me so much about her, that made me want her love. And my little angel, my beautiful Emily, her tiny hands opening and closing, her unfocused eyes dancing, swelling me with an indescribable love.
I closed my eyes as I heard the
click
of the trigger.
click
of the trigger.
Then I opened them again.
“Shit!”
I shot up my right arm, gripping my attacker’s wrist and forcing the gun butt upward. He’d lost his left-arm grip around my throat now, leaving me with the advantage of being in the front seat, both arms going for the misfired gun, while my attacker was forced to reach over from the backseat.
It was no contest, but he wouldn’t let go. I grabbed for the gun and his wrist with both hands and used my weight to fall forward into the front passenger seat, taking his arm with me. It was hard to tell what I’d done to my attacker—the sounds of bones snapping and joints ripping left me with a guess that I’d broken his arm horribly and dislocated his collar-bone. The garbled cries of my attacker confirmed that his arm had ended up in a position where no arm had been built to go.
I had the gun now, which had misfired once and could go off for any or no reason at this point, so I put it on the floorboard of my car. Then I turned to my attacker, his head between the car seats, his broken arm dangling helplessly. “You scream like a girl, too,” I said. I popped him a couple times around the nose—once or twice, or it could have eight or ten—until his eyes seemed firmly closed. I went around to the passenger side of the car and dragged his prone body out of my car.
I removed his cell phone, wallet, and keys as souvenirs. Just to make it that much harder for him, I removed his shoes, too, and dropped them down to the next ramp level of the parking garage. I would have loved to stick around and interrogate him, but that wasn’t necessary anymore. I knew where I needed to go.
I started my car, backed out of the spot, and drove down the ramp and out of the building. When I got outside into traffic, I looked back down at the backfiring gun, then up at the sky.
I PARKED IN THE GARAGE of St. Agnes Hospital and walked up toward the front entrance of the building. Several smokers lingered at the hospital’s front doors, some in scrubs or white uniforms, and a few others presumably visiting someone here. I held my breath and passed through them. I got to reception, signed in, and asked for directions. As I was fastening my visitor tag to my jacket and approaching the elevators, my cell phone buzzed. But I soon realized that it wasn’t my cell phone. It was the cell phone I had taken off the man who jumped me in my car.
I paused, looked at a caller ID that was blocked, and opened up the cell phone. I couldn’t do much of an impression of the man who attacked me, so I chose a whisper. “Yeah?” I said, keeping it short to make it harder to discern a difference.
“Is it done?” It was Smith’s voice.
I thought for a moment, then said, “Call back in two minutes.” Then I jumped in the elevator and hit the button for six.
I got out on six and looked around. The sixth floor of St. Agnes Hospital was the intensive care unit. Visitation was restricted, according to the signs everywhere. I walked up to the receptionist and said I was here to visit the Butcher patient.
“Your name?”
I thought about that for a moment. I had the driver’s license of the guy who’d just jumped me in my car—Nick Ramsey—but I was done playing games.
“Jason Kolarich,” I said.
SMITH SAT IN THE CHAIR outside Patricia’s room, waiting out the two minutes. He couldn’t tell if Nick had succeeded, or if he was still lying in wait for Kolarich. He’d just received a call from one of the other men, who had reported successfully on Denny DePrizio. DePrizio had been taken easily, a bullet through the forehead upon walking into his garage.
Kolarich, hopefully, would be just as easy.
An orderly approached the room and stepped inside. “You have a visitor,” the young man said to Carlo and Carlo’s daughter, Marisa.
“Who?” he heard Carlo say.
“Jason Kola—Kola-something?”
Smith’s head whipped around. He popped out of his chair and walked into the room. “Who?” Smith asked. “Jason Kolarich?”
“I think so, yeah.”
“Wait. Wait just a second.” Smith moved back into the hallway and dialed the cell phone number again for Nick Ramsey.
“Hello, Smith.”
Smith felt his stomach sink. “Where are you?”
“I think you know where I am, Smith. And judging from your reaction, I know where you are.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Either you let me in, or I bring the police. You have exactly one minute to decide.”
The phone cut out. Smith’s heart was rattling against his chest. He walked back into the hospital room. Carlo sat passively in a chair by the window. “Marisa, sweetheart,” Carlo said. “You and Raymond, go take a walk, would you? Would you do that? I need to speak with someone.”
“No,” Smith said.
Carlo dropped his chin and stared at Smith. He cupped his hand and motioned Smith over. He pushed himself out of the chair and whispered into Smith’s ear. “Marisa can’t see this. Get her out of the hospital and take her home. And keep your phone nearby. I will take care of this.”
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