The Sour Cherry Surprise (16 page)

Des studied him curiously. “Something you feel like getting off of your chest?”

“Hell, yes, there is. It’s because of
you
that this went down. You’re the one who arranged for the victim to move in with the old lady when he got released.”

“We don’t really need to go here, do we?” Cavanaugh said to him.

“Why not?” Grisky shot back. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

“It absolutely is,” Des acknowledged. “Because the poor man had nowhere else to go. And because when I made those arrangements I had no idea the Procter home was a stash house. That’s on you, gentlemen. You’re the ones who chose to keep me in the dark about your operation. So don’t lay your stink on my doorstep, agent. I was just doing my job.”

“And these jurisdictional battles are not helpful,” Brandon asserted, speaking up for the first time. This was how he operated. He watched. He listened. Then he stepped in and took charge. “We are all fighting the same battle.”

“Sure, take
her
side,” muttered Grisky, just like a petulant little boy in need of a spanking. Trouble was, he’d probably enjoy it.

“I am not taking sides, Agent Grisky,” Brandon said abruptly. “And I would urge you to get on board or first thing tomorrow morning I will recommend you be drop-kicked from this operation.”

Grisky bristled but held his tongue, his chest rising and falling.

Des’s cell phone rang now. She glanced down at the illuminated screen, then excused herself and stepped out in the hallway, closing the door behind her.

Amber Sullivan was calling to tell her that Carolyn’s sister, Megan Chichester, had just arrived from Maine in her beat-up Chevy pickup. Upon being told the awful news about her brother-in-law, Megan had rushed over to Kimberly and Jen’s to be with Molly. She wished to see her sister as soon as possible, reported Amber.

“Absolutely,” Des said. “Carolyn is being treated at Middlesex Hospital. Can you tell Megan how to get there?”

Amber told Des that would be no problem. Des thanked her and returned to the conference room.

“Let’s review where we’re at, shall we?” Brandon said, glancing down at a lined yellow note pad as Des sat back down. “If no one was observed fleeing the crime scene then Professor Procter was most likely killed by a resident or residents of Sour Cherry Lane, correct?”

“Unless our search of the area tomorrow morning reveals evidence to the contrary,” Soave said. “And our prime suspect appears to be your boy Clay Mundy, with an assist by Hector Villanueva. Unless I’m missing something. Did anybody else have a good reason to be pissed off at the guy?”

“How about his wife?” Yolie asked. “She’s an all-out methrage
monster. Also strong as a bull. I wouldn’t cross her off of my list.”

“Fair enough,” Soave said, turning to Des. “Anyone else?”

Des thought it over carefully before she replied, “Not that I’m presently aware of.”

“Then it seems we have ourselves a situation here,” Cavanaugh said. “It so happens that your prime suspect is the very same individual who is the target of our own investigation. Now what are we going to do about that? Because we do not want to compromise Operation Burrito King if we can avoid it.”

“I don’t wish to belabor the obvious,” Brandon said to him, “but this particular facet of our operation is already compromised. There is virtually no chance the crystal meth shipment from Atlanta will arrive here as planned. Not with the entire vicinity crawling with state police.”

“No chance,” the Aardvark concurred, thumbing his chin glumly. “You also got to figure that Mundy’s plenty spooked right about now. He’s pinned down there with a major stash
and
a murder rap hanging over him. I wonder why he and Hector didn’t just try to run?”

“Admission of guilt,” said Brandon.

“Plus they’re responsible for that ice,” Grisky added. “The Vargas family would not be happy about them ditching it. I’ve seen what they do to people who bail on them. Trust me, it ain’t pretty.”

“Those two can’t run and they can’t hide,” Soave said. “They are totally screwed.”

“And they’re in it together,” Yolie said. “Unless we can convince one to flip on the other.”

“So what’s our next move?” the Aardvark wondered. “Do we go ahead and show them our hand? Swoop down and nail them for possession with intent to distribute?”

“No way,” Grisky argued. “If we do that then this ends right here. We can’t connect it to the cartel.”

“Then again, maybe we can,” the Aardvark countered. “Clay and Hector are a pair of pros. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t expect either of them to rat out the Vargas family. But Mundy is staring at a murder charge. That gives us big-time leverage.”

“No question,” Brandon agreed. “And my office would certainly consider a plea deal in exchange for detailed sworn testimony about the Vargas operation. Depending on how far he’s willing to go, we might be able to reduce the whole package down to involuntary manslaughter.”

“Sure, he thought the professor was a prowler,” the Aardvark said, warming to it. “The man was defending his own home. He’d get, what, five years?”

“And shanked his first night in jail,” Grisky said.

“So promise him witness protection,” the Aardvark fired back. “I say we go right at him. And if he don’t want the deal then maybe Hector will. We can play one of them against the other, like Sergeant Snipes said.”

Cavanaugh stayed strangely silent throughout this back and forth exchange. Just sat there with his hands clasped before him, his eyes cast downward at the table. The supervising agent looked as if he were saying grace. Until he raised his eyes and said, “In principle, I agree with everything you’re saying, Captain. And I appreciate your input. But I’m not ready to make such a move yet. Agent Grisky and I have been dogging these people for a whole lot longer than you folks from the state have. We’ve invested a lot in Operation Burrito King. I am talking months and months of man-hours, millions of taxpayer dollars. We are tasked to go after the really big game here. Not just a couple of petty hoods.”

“You mean murderers, don’t you?” Soave said.

“Nonetheless,” he went on, undeterred, “I’d like to see how the
next twenty-four to forty-eight hours play out before we show our hand. We still have our wiretaps and cell phone traces in place. Maybe Mundy will get shook enough to do something dumb—like break silence and reach out to Atlanta. Why not wait and see what he does before we roll up the whole damned operation?”

Des didn’t like what she was hearing. If it were her call to make they’d land on Clay and Hector that very night. Swarm the house and sweat a murder confession out of them. Hell, they had the bastards right where they wanted them. So take them. Because if you didn’t, if you got greedy and held out for more, then things had a not-so-funny way of slipping through your fingers. But it was Cavanaugh’s case, not the Aardvark’s and for sure not hers. And the Feds were always going to have it their way—because they could.

“Besides which,” Cavanaugh added, “we don’t even know where the damned dope is hidden.”

“Actually, we do,” Des said, all eyes turning her way.

“Don’t play cute, master sergeant,” he said, glaring at her. “What do you know that we don’t?”

“That right after he moved in Clay Mundy ordered Molly Procter to stay out of the root cellar. It’s directly under the kitchen, which is where the trapdoor is. It’s a dirt floor crawl space, most likely. That’s how they built the old farmhouses around here. Especially in low-lying areas like Sour Cherry. A full basement would just flood during the rainy season.”

“Why didn’t you tell us this yesterday?”

“Didn’t know it then.”

“It plays,” Grisky said grudgingly. “We’ve never seen them go near the barn or anywhere else. And I’ve heard about dealers burying their crystal under dirt for safekeeping.”

“Which leaves us where?” Soave demanded impatiently. “Last time I looked I still have a homicide investigation to run.”

“So run it,” Cavanaugh said easily. “We’ll stay on the sidelines, watching and listening. Just do us a small favor and stay out of that root cellar for now. We can’t have you stumbling over our evidence.”

“But what if there’s evidence down there that links Mundy to the murder?”

“Actually, you gentlemen are getting a bit ahead of yourselves,” said Brandon. “I seriously doubt that a judge would even grant you a warrant to enter the house. Not based on what I’ve heard so far.”

Soave shook his shiny dome at him. “Why the hell not? We’re looking for the murder weapon and bloody clothing. The stuff’s got to be somewhere.”

“Somewhere
doesn’t constitute probable cause for entering a home.”

“Mundy and the professor fought in that very driveway just a few nights ago,” Soave argued, stabbing the table with his index finger.

“Not good enough,” Brandon reasoned. “No one saw the victim entering the home tonight. No one saw Mundy or Villanueva leaving the murder scene and going in the home. The two men claim they were playing cards at the time of the murder. You have no evidence or testimony to the contrary. Neither man has so much as a single prior arrest. Consequently, you have no reason to believe the evidence is in that house. What you have barely even rises to the level of a suspicion.” He paused to take a sip of his coffee. “Furthermore, Agent Cavanaugh makes an excellent point. You do not want to go anywhere near that meth while in the process of looking for something else. You’d be leaving the door wide open for defense counsel to claim an illegal search and possibly get it thrown out. You haven’t even undertaken your search of the area yet, let alone exhausted it. If I were you, lieutenant, I’d stay out of that house altogether for now. If there’s anything down there, it’s
not going anywhere. And neither are Clay Mundy or Hector Villanueva.”

“I’ll have to talk to my C.O. about this,” Soave grumbled.

“Do what you have to do,” Cavanaugh said with cool condescension. “Just touch base with us regularly so there are no communications lapses.” To Des he said, “Yesterday, you had safety concerns regarding the family. The wife has now been hospitalized, correct?”

“Correct. And Molly’s tucked in across the street with the Beckwiths. I’ve made it very clear to them that she’s to stay out of her own house.”

“Are they hip as to why?” Grisky wondered.

“No, they’re simply of the belief that Clay and Hector are too unsavory for the girl to be around.”

“Which, real, they are,” Yolie said.

“Then I think we’re all done here.” A faint smile creased Cavanaugh’s impassive face. “I’d like everyone to know that I’m extremely comfortable with our game plan.”
His
game plan. “In fact, I have a remarkably good feeling about our chances.”
His
chances. “Let’s suit up, shall we?”

To:
Mitch Berger
From:
Bella Tillis
Subject:
Unhappy Turn of Events

Dear Mr. Hot Shot New York Movie Critic—I know you told me that you no longer feel “connected” to this place but I have some very sad news to send along concerning little Molly.

Her father, Richard, was murdered last night. Des found him floating in the river at the end of Sour Cherry Lane with his throat cut. Apparently his killer dumped him there thinking he’d drift out to sea. Although chances are he would have washed up right here on our little beach, as you know. Thank God he got snagged on a tree or I probably would have tripped over him on my walk this morning and suffered horrible nightmares for weeks.

They don’t know who did it yet. Poor Molly was up in her tree house when it happened. She actually heard her father’s screams. Such a thing for a child to cope with. Carolyn has been hospitalized, so for now Molly is bunking across the lane with Kimberly and Jen Beckwith. My impression is she’ll soon be relocating to her aunt’s farm in Maine for the summer, if not permanently. My point is, I’m not sure just how much longer Molly is going to be around Dorset. She is very, very fond of you, Mitch. I know you were once fond of her. And even though you no
longer feel “connected” to this place if you could phone her or drop her a note at Kimberly’s it would mean a lot to her.

Do you remember Des’s friend Yolie? The one with the cazongas? And Soave, that strutting little weasel with no neck? They’re both on the case, and currently of the opinion that Richard was done in by Carolyn’s boyfriend, Clay Mundy. Possibly assisted by Hector, his hired man. But they haven’t filed charges yet. About fifty men in uniform have spent all day today searching the countryside around Sour Cherry Lane for the murder weapon and other evidence. They’ve uncovered nothing so far, although the crime scene technicians did find some shoeprints near the murder scene that may have belonged to Richard’s killer. They’re from a man’s shoe, a sneaker. The professor was wearing hiking shoes. Scuba divers are scouring the river bottom. Or trying. The bottom is so soft and muddy that anything like a knife would sink out of sight. They have to use a metal detector. The forensics people are searching Richard’s body for any sort of hair or clothing fibers that may point them to whoever did this. All of which is slow, painstaking work that takes a great deal of patience. Certainly more than I possess.

You’re probably asking yourself how I know so many details. The answer is that I just ran into our resident trooper at The Works and she filled me in over a cup of their fancy, shmancy hazelnut flavored coffee. Which, if you’ll pardon me, still doesn’t compare to Chock full O’Nuts back in its heyday. I used to get a cup of good, strong coffee
and a
slice of date nut bread with cream cheese for a nickel. That was my lunch when I was going to City College. Now it costs $3.95 for the coffee and you get no date nut bread, no nothing. But business is booming. The
parking lot was loaded with state troopers standing around
drinking their overpriced coffee and yukking it up. Not exactly how I choose to see my tax dollars being spent, but I’m just a fat
old woman and no one ever asks me my opinion on this or any other matter.

Between you, me and the lamppost I think there’s more going on here than Des is willing to let on. More than just the professor’s murder, I mean. When I was on my way home I swung by Town Hall to pick up my new dump sticker and
someone
has taken over the auxiliary conference room. I spotted a few state troopers in uniform. But the rest of them had that smug, self-important look that is peculiar to federal agents and Republican members of Congress. Could it be that this Clay Mundy is involved in something even worse than cutting a man’s throat? Des certainly wouldn’t say, but I suspect that drugs are involved. The illegal kind. Because she did tell me that Carolyn Procter is all messed up thanks to him. Her exact words were, “If you saw the lady on the street you’d think she was a crack whore.” Can you imagine such a thing happening to someone like Carolyn? Why is it that good women have such bad taste in men? Are they blind? Or aren’t there enough good men like you to go
around?