Текст книги "The Hidden Man"

Автор книги: David Ellis

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

35

I NEVER LIKED POLICE STATIONS, even when I was a prosecutor. It reminded me of a fraternity house, only the members of this particular fraternity had sidearms and batons and the authority to search, seize, detain, and arrest. I never really had much time for the individual cops, either, only that was probably due more to the disdain I had for them growing up than anything else. Aside from the few cops that were outright wrong—on the take, corrupt—there were plenty of corner-cutters in the bunch, guys and gals who were sure the ends justified the means, who remembered a knock-and-announce that never was, who kicked the drugs into plain view after finding them under the mattress, who had an extremely generous interpretation of a voluntary confession. But then again, I didn’t have to go through a door not knowing what was awaiting me. I didn’t have to pat down a suspect, wondering whether there was a needle in his pocket infected with the AIDS virus. I didn’t have to wonder, every shift, whether this was going to be the day. And I didn’t have a healthy sector of the populace that resented me without understanding all the shit I had to put up with.

In the end, I played the whole thing to a draw. Cops were like any other group of people—some were okay, others weren’t. On which side did Detective Denny DePrizio fall?

I leaned against my car, playing over my conversation with Lester Mapp earlier today, watching plainclothes and uniforms march in and out of the stationhouse as dusk settled over the city. A few of the cops had arrestees, the lot of whom submitted quietly save for a homeless guy, who was calling them “traitors” and mentioning, I’m pretty sure, Herbert Hoover, though my money said he meant J. Edgar.

I saw DePrizio pop out of his sedan as the sun was falling behind him. A partner, another white guy, got out of the passenger seat and said something to DePrizio that made him laugh. All in all, he seemed like a pretty affable guy for a cop, but in my mind that just made it less likely he was trustworthy. I prefer assholes. At least they tell you what they think.

I somehow caught DePrizio’s eye, probably an eye well-trained to spot, in his peripheral vision, someone standing and staring at him. He did a double-take, then stopped, pointed at himself, and raised his eyebrows. I nodded. So did he. So now we had both nodded. I guess that meant that I had to come to him, which was probably the proper hierarchical order of things, but that didn’t mean I liked it.

DePrizio cast off his partner and took a few steps toward me. “Counsel,” he said, more of a question. I wasn’t sure if he was having trouble placing me or just wanted me to think so.

“Jason Kolarich,” I said, slowly extending my hand, because you always avoid quick movements with cops. “Representing Pete Kolarich.”

“Kolarich.” Again, take your pick—tapping the memory bank or pretending.

“Clean-cut white boy,” I said. “Steady employment, no priors except petty possession who suddenly transformed himself into a major drug kingpin and gunrunner.”

“Oh, the one who’s innocent.” He snapped his fingers.

I didn’t smile. Neither did he. Denny DePrizio, in his white dress shirt open at the collar, brown sport coat and jeans, a youthful face and a full head of sandy hair, could have played the lead on a television show about cops. His eyes, dark and deep-set, were the only feature that suggested his age.

“You got something for me? I’m freezing out here.”

I followed him into the station, which was in the midst of rush hour on the ground floor. Upstairs, the detective’s squad room was more sedate, witnesses speaking softly to detectives, others typing on old computers, the smell of burned coffee and cheap cologne hanging heavily.

I pulled up a chair to his desk, and he planted himself behind it. “You want coffee or anything?”

I shook my head. “You had a web that night,” I said. “Your CI snared someone and my brother was in the wrong place, wrong time.”

He seemed amused. “That a fact?”

“Yeah. The guy you wanted got away, by the way. If you had audio, you already know that. If anyone was running guns and buying in bulk, it was that guy. My brother, he was just looking for a score—some powder. It was his bad luck that his supplier was into something ambitious just at that moment.”

“The whole thing was a coincidence. A misunderstanding.” DePrizio made a show of looking around his desk. “I think I’ve got a hankie here somewhere.”

“Yeah? Well, I’ve got a half-dozen witnesses who’ll say they were out with Pete, he left to go pick up some blow, and he never came back. I mean, come on, Detective. You know who your CI was bringing in, right? It wasn’t my brother.”

DePrizio leaned into me. “This CI—this guy must be the single most confidential ‘confidential informant’ I’ve ever had. Because even I didn’t know about him.”

He was denying that Marcus Mason—“Mace”—was his CI. “Then help me out,” I said, playing along.

He fell back in his chair and studied me. “You think if this was a spi derweb, someone would’ve gotten away? What am I, a rookie?”

I didn’t have an answer. I waited him out.

“I used to work the warehouse district, back when it was only warehouses,” he said. “Drugs and whores, right? Maybe I got to know a tavern owner or two. So I’m over at Poppy’s enjoying a couple refreshments with some pals. I walk out a little past, maybe half-past midnight, give or take. I see some asshole meandering around that building, used to be the old Lanier’s Amusement Supply place. Abandoned now, like a lotta stuff around there. Getting ready for the wrecking ball, word is. So this loser, anyway, he doesn’t look like the Avon lady, right? I mean, I worked patrol there and I did a stint in narcotics. I know these fleabags. I fucking know ’em.”

I nodded. He was saying he spotted J.D. heading toward the entrance to the warehouse, where he was to meet Mace—Marcus Mason.

“So I called it in,” DePrizio continued. “Possible 401 in progress, request assistance. Then I see your boy, driving right up to the damn place—and he pops in. So I’m a curious guy, right? I go take a peek.” He shook his head. “Problem is, one of ’em looked like they got spooked—rattled. I had to go in and freeze it. So I did.” He waved a hand. “Maybe five minutes later, a patrol has my back. So yeah, one asshole got away, two assholes got collared.”

“What happened to the other guy you collared?” I asked, referring to Marcus Mason without letting on that I knew anything about him. “He wasn’t in lockup.”

A look of recognition crossed DePrizio’s face. “Oh, so that’s why you’re thinking he was my CI. No, this guy was one of the Tenth Street Crew. And we already had a few of those in lockup that night. We didn’t need to turn that jail cell into a reunion.”

That was true. One of the T-Streeters, Cameron, watched over Pete that night.

“Plus, I figured, I put your preppy little brother in with that guy—well, he’d see your brother as a witness against him. Might not have been such a fun night for your boy. I sent the T-Streeter over to the one-five”—the neighboring precinct—“to cool his jets. You should thank me, Counselor.”

I didn’t thank him. I was watching him, looking for a crack in the armor. I was alternatively enraged and despairing. The detective’s story was entirely believable. I struggled for a minute, not hiding my distress, dropping my shoulders, blowing out air, shaking my head.

Then I took another look at Detective Denny DePrizio, who was observing me with some interest. So much of this was going with your gut, trusting your instincts. I had a plan. It was the whole reason I’d made this trip today, but still I found myself second-guessing it. I thought again about the story DePrizio had laid out, sized him up, and made a decision that I hoped I wouldn’t regret.

I decided to test DePrizio.

“I think my brother was set up,” I told him.

36

DEPRIZIO WATCHED ME closely as I laid out my story—the part, at least, I was willing to share with him. When I was done, he shook his head slowly. “You’re telling me there’s a guy who’s extorting you. He wants you to perform a legal service for him, but you don’t want to do it.”

“Correct.”

“So this guy, he set your brother up for this bust. If you don’t do what he wants, your brother goes to jail.”

“Right again.”

“But you don’t know this guy’s name.”

“I don’t.”

“All you can tell me is he’s five-ten, maybe two hundred, graying hair, maybe fifty, fifty-five. Which describes about two or three million people in this city.”

“Best I can do.”

“What’s the nature of this legal service the mystery man wants you to perform?”

“I can’t say,” I told him. “Attorney-client privilege.”

DePrizio was silent a moment, like he was awaiting a punch line, before letting out a small burst that was akin to a laugh. “And you expect me to believe all of this.”

“Actually, I don’t. But I’m hoping you’ll keep an open mind.”

DePrizio moaned, seemingly conflicted between openly rejecting a far-fetched story and showing me some courtesy. Seemingly, I say, because the more he played along with me, the clearer it became that Detective Denny DePrizio was full of shit. He was Smith’s partner, part of the entire plan to frame my brother, and I had to tread carefully here.

Luckily, nobody was fuller of shit than me, so I kept going. “I can stand in your shoes, Detective. People lie to you every day. You get so you don’t believe anything. But I figure you for a guy who still cares about the job. I mean, how many cops would check out that warehouse when they’re off-duty past midnight, when they’ve got a couple of pops in them, when they’re on shift the next morning—how many would say fuck it and walk away? But you didn’t. The job still matters to you.”

It was hard to say this with a straight face, but I thought I sold it. DePrizio studied me, and slowly nodded. “You sure know how to sweet-talk a fella.”

I opened my hands. “This guy has me boxed in. I don’t have the resources to take on this guy. I don’t have private investigators or even associates to help me. I just need to know who this guy is.”

That point was an important one. I needed to show him that I wasn’t a threat to him or Smith.

The detective made a big show of doubt, rubbing his face, shaking the head, an Oscar-worthy performance. What he was really doing was thinking hard about this unexpected development. He’d performed a task for Smith and probably thought his job was done. What now? he was wondering. Do I tell this lawyer to take a hike, or do I use him?

My guess, he’d come to the conclusion, very quickly, that he and Smith would benefit if I took him into my confidence. Keep your enemies closer, and all that.

“Look,” he said, “I’m not saying I believe you, Kolarich. Right? But even if I did, what could I do?”

Well done. Inching closer to me, but feigning reluctance.

I needed to reel him all the way in.

“I don’t know.” I shrugged my shoulders. “Like you said, three million people fit his description. It’s not like I have a picture of him.” I tapped my hand on the desk. “Forget it. You’re probably the wrong guy to ask, anyway. You’re the arresting officer. I can’t ask you to work against your own case. I’ll find some other cop—”

He raised a hand. The mention of some other cop was my ace. The last thing DePrizio and Smith wanted was for me to start sobbing to another cop about all of this.

“No,” he said. “It’s my case. If there’s something wrong with it, it’s my problem.”

I got out of my chair. “I appreciate that. If I think of anything, maybe I’ll—I don’t know.”

“Well, hang on here,” he said. “I’m not saying there’s anything to this. But you seem like a pretty straight-up guy here, Mr. Kolarich. If I can help you find this guy, maybe I’ll see what it’s all about. Maybe it affects your brother’s case, maybe not. But I’ll listen.”

Good. I’d reeled him in. It’s always more fun when the person you’re playing thinks he’s playing you.

“Well, there might be one thing,” I said, “but we’d have to be discreet.”

37

TEN YEARS. TEN YEARS.” Sammy Cutler played the idea over in his head. “Out in five, hopefully. Already got one in. So—four more.”

“I can get you better,” I said. “They don’t want the publicity, now that Griffin Perlini’s notorious. It puts the county attorney in an uncomfortable spot, having to prosecute his killer, especially when that guy was avenging his sister’s death.”

Sammy nodded along.

“Allegedly,” I added.

“Well, I ain’t doing four more here.”

“I can get you a better deal. But we’d be dumb to rule it out entirely, Sam.”

He wasn’t inclined to fight me. “What about Archie Novotny?”

“Haven’t checked out his alibi yet for the night of the murder—the guitar lesson. I will. Meantime, we’ve been looking all over him and not finding much of anything.”

“Right.” Sammy fiddled with the smoldering cigarette between his fingers. “Been thinking more ’bout that. I could see it. I could see Archie doing this.”

I couldn’t decide if this was an innocent man talking, or a man trying to see things through the eyes of a jury. I was also beginning to doubt my perception. I was bone tired. I’d managed about four hours last night, but the previous forty-eight hours of sleep deprivation were taking their toll. Sometimes a few hours’ sleep is worse than none.

“Novotny fits your general description,” I said. “Put the green stocking cap on him so you can’t account for the difference in hair color—he’s got about the same build. He could work. I could sell that to a jury, I think. But that’s not the problem, Sam. You know what the problem is?”

He nodded. “My car.”

He was right. Before I ask questions of a client, I like to give him the lay of the land, so he’s clear on what the prosecution knows and what they don’t know. It’s always nice to demonstrate the wiggle room before giving the client the chance to wiggle.

I started with the obvious. “The convenience store down the street—its security camera is posted in the back corner of the store and points toward the register. It also happens to catch a little bit outside the store. Your car is parked right outside the store, just enough so the camera can catch the back end of your car—and the license plate. The vid is clear on it being your license plate, so we’re stuck with that, right?”

He nodded.

“It doesn’t capture who got into the car because that part of the car is out of the camera’s range. So it’s your car, Sammy, but they can’t say who drove it there or who drove it away.”

“Well, yeah, but . . .”

I was giving him the wiggle room here, but he seemed content to sit still.

“It was me,” said Sammy.

I deflated. “Then we have some ’splainin’ to do. That’s a pretty big coincidence.”

“Not really.”

“Why not really?”

“They got that one store video? From that night? That’s it?”

“Correct.” I didn’t get where this was going. “Just the one.”

Sammy stubbed out his cigarette and blew out the remnants of smoke. He didn’t look well. The sleep deprivation didn’t help, but it was more than that. He had a heavy drinker’s complexion, a smoker’s wrinkles, a natural frown. He’d lived hard.

“About a week before he died,” said Sammy, “I saw him. I saw the fuckin’ guy.”

“You saw Perlini—”

“I was in the grocery store where he worked, at the checkout, and some manager or something starts calling out for ‘Griffin.’ I tell ya, Koke, I heard that name and I—I just froze. We were kids and all, but man, I knew it was him, soon as I laid eyes on him. Soon as I fuckin’ laid eyes on him.” He lit up another cigarette silently before continuing. “So I waited ’til his shift ended and I followed the guy. I followed him to those apartments. I knew where he lived. And I tell ya, I thought about it every night. Every night for a week, I drove over by his place and I thought about Audrey, and what he did to her, and I wondered if I had the stones to do it—to kill that scumbag.”

Sammy’s story would not be found in the Guinness Book of World Records under “all-time greatest alibis.” I was there, contemplating murdering Perlini, when someone else did it. And it was a hell of a coincidence. The week Sammy sees Griffin Perlini in a grocery store and begins to stalk him is the same week that Perlini takes a bullet between the eyes?

“So that night,” I said, “you drove over there and thought about killing him?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you get out of your car?”

He shook his head, no.

“If you did, Sammy—if you liked to walk while you think, instead of sitting in the car—it might explain why those eyewitnesses saw you. Like, you were standing somewhere around the building, you heard a gunshot, you started running, and that’s when that nice elderly couple saw you. We’d have some kind of explanation—not the greatest one, but—”

“No, not the greatest one. I’d have to explain why I was hanging out, doing my thinking, right by his damn building. No, I was in the car the whole time. Camera can’t say different.”

Sammy had had a long time to think about this. This was his story and, apparently, he was sticking with it.

“Huge coincidence,” I said.

He shrugged. “Life is full of ’em, right?”

Wrong. But we didn’t have much to play with here. They had his damn car on video, parking at 8:34 P.M. and leaving at 9:08 P.M.—which happened to be the precise window of time in which Griffin Perlini was murdered.

My good friend Smith had suggested that we tag-team on an explanation for Sammy that night. I thought Sammy might be willing to go along with something, if we could drum something up, but how do you explain why you drove across town, parked there for only half an hour—the precise half hour in which the murder happened—and left?

But I let it go for now. If Smith and I could come up with a better alibi—and dollars to doughnuts said Smith was working on it—I could always try it out on Sammy.

As I was heading back to my car, my cell phone rang. The caller ID was blocked.

“Mr. Kolarich, it’s Jim Stewart.”

“Thanks for getting back,” I said. His parents must have been awfully big fans of the actor, because, I mean, come on, you give a kid a name like that, he’s gotta deal with the comments his entire life, the crappy impressions—Ah, ah, say, now, ah, ah—and Christmastime must have been hell with that damn movie playing every other minute.

“Your message mentioned Lightner? You work with Joel?”

“Yeah, he gave me your name. Said you were stand-up.”

He laughed. “He probably said I was a good-for-nothin’ drunk.”

“That came up, too.”

“Right, right. Anyway,” he said, “sounds like we should meet?”

I looked up and down the street for my tail, which at the moment I couldn’t see.

“You got some time for me this afternoon?” I asked.

“ HONEY, I’M HOME!” I call out, something out of a ’50s sitcom, a standing joke with my wife. It’s a not-so-hectic week for me at the office. They don’t come often so I try to make them count.

“Daddy!” Emily hears the door. She comes bounding down the stairs as I open my arms.

“Hey, princess!” I say, in that soothing voice I reserve for my daughter. We go through the usual routine, kisses, tickling, gleeful squealing. As Emily and I climb the stairs, I hold Emily upside down to her non protesting protest.

I find Talia in the bedroom, just having walked out of the master bath, wiping at her eyes. She smiles at me but there’s something besides innocuous happiness to her look.

“Hey, babe.” I set down Emily and fix on my wife. There is something equivocal in her expression, not necessarily good or bad, but important. My eyes find their way to the bed, to an open box, a thin strip of paper next to it, a set of folded instructions.

“Oh.” My eyes shoot back to meet hers. We’ve talked about it in a serious but casual way, serious in that she knew I meant it, casual in that we hadn’t been formally trying.

“Is it—are you—?” I move around the bed and take her hands in mine. “We’re gonna have a—?”

My forehead touches hers, an instant connection of body heat. She can no longer restrain her emotions. “This is what you want, right?” she whispers.

I wrap my arms around her. “Of course this is what I want, babe. Of course it is.” I turn to Emily, who seems to understand that she is being left out of a secret. “C’mere, sweetheart,” I say. I crouch down and lift my daughter into the air. “How’d you like a baby brother or sister, Em?”

I LEFT THE cemetery a little after one, a surge of bitterness gripping me, the mixing of anger with the ubiquitous anguish. I resented Talia. I wanted to close the book on what happened. I wanted to pretend that I’d never met her, we’d never had Emily. But the book, I knew, would never close. I’d just flip back to the beginning, or the middle, when I reached the end.

I wanted to understand it. I really did. I wanted to believe that there was a God, and He had a plan, and this was all a good thing in some way, but there was no way that a beautiful young woman and our precious, innocent child dying violent deaths could possibly be for the greater good.

The sky was debating another rainfall, and the temperatures had fallen. Midwestern October always does this, flip-flopping between extended summer and early winter, occasionally giving us the autumn we desperately prefer.

“If you hate me,” I said, looking upward, “then I hate you back.”

I drove on, conscious of a black SUV a few cars back. These guys really didn’t have to switch cars every day. The fact that they did so told me that they were trying to maintain a surreptitious cover. They thought I wasn’t aware of them. That, in and of itself, told me something. These guys were serious customers but they weren’t pros, at least not in the cloak-and-dagger business.

I deviated from my normal destination and had to think a little bit about the proper route to St. John’s. It was the parish Talia and I had chosen, among many on the north side. It was hard to wave your arm in the city without hitting a Catholic church, but we settled pretty quickly on St. J’s, as most people called it. Talia liked it because of the choir. I preferred it because I liked Father Ben, a younger guy with a good sense of humor and a self-deprecating style. Catholicism, twenty-first-century style.

None of them had the feel of our parish growing up in Leland Park, St. Peter’s. St. Pete’s looked like it had barely survived an aerial bombing in World War II and hadn’t felt the need for an update in the interim. The priest at St. Pete’s preached his homilies like he was Moses descending from the mountain following his one-on-one with the burning bush.

But Father Ben, he was okay in my book, as okay as I could feel about a man of God today. When I walked into St. J’s, I found him coming up the stairs from the meeting rooms downstairs. I avoided looking to the right, to the sanctuary itself, to the altar where Emily was baptized at three months.

“Jason, it’s good to see you.” Father Ben was in a white shirt and dark trousers. His flyaway hair wasn’t in its usual order. It always seemed weird to see a priest out of uniform. I let him work me over a minute. I’d expected some gentle chiding for my lack of attendance since the funerals but didn’t receive it. We covered how I was doing, then talked a little football.

When the small talk subsided, he seemed to struggle with what would come next. I preempted him by saying, “Thanks for your help today, Father.” And for not asking me why, I didn’t add.

He gave a heavy sigh and surprised me by putting his hand on my shoulder. I raised my hand because I didn’t want to hear whatever he might say. “Please, don’t,” I said, drawing away.

“Okay, okay. No homilies today. But can I just say one thing?”

I could hardly deny him.

“He didn’t leave you, Jason. Don’t leave Him.”

I nodded slowly, a bitter smile creeping forth. “Or what?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Or what, Father? What’s He going to take from me, He hasn’t already taken?”

Father Ben deflated. His eyes searched me for something, I wasn’t sure what. I tapped my watch. “I gotta do this,” I said. “Thanks again for your help.”

I took the stairs down to the meeting room. Jim Stewart, it turned out, didn’t look anything like his namesake, the actor. This guy was short and stout and dour, a military crew cut, a guy who seemed like he didn’t have a lot of friends. In his line of work, he probably didn’t.

I thought of one of the actor’s best roles, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington . I thought I might like a sequel. Maybe Smith Goes to Prison.

Or Smith Goes to the Morgue.

“I’ve got a problem,” I told Jim Stewart. “I need your help.”