SISTER (ALTON RHODE MYSTERIES Book 4) (16 page)

That did it. Frost’s mouth opened and he howled like a wild animal as he went for his gun, just like I hoped and expected. I drew my .38 Taurus revolver, which because it only has five rounds in the cylinder makes it light and fast out of the holster. I put all five into his chest before he got his first shot off, which went harmlessly into the ceiling as he fell backwards into his chair and toppled over. Some plaster rained down and his right foot wound up on his desk, where it hit the box he had been filling. It fell to the floor and its contents rattled across the floor, including a couple of medals.

“Jesus Christ!”

It was Noyce. Her Glock was only half out of her holster.

“I’m a New York hotshot,” I said. “He was right about that.”

The smell of cordite was strong. I could hear cops running in the hallway.

“Sarge, you all right!”

“I would prefer not to get shot to pieces,” I told her.

“I’m fine,” she yelled. “It’s all over. Put your weapons away. We’re coming out. Call an ambulance.”

CHAPTER 25 - BIT OF A STIR

The ambulance wasn’t needed. Matthew Frost was effectively dead when he hit the floor.

I said my goodbyes, went out, got a cheeseburger and flew home.

Well, not exactly.

Even with the best of intentions, one can’t shoot a police detective five times in his own station house during his retirement party without creating something of a stir. Or, as the local prosecutor and the state police captain who interviewed me both put it, “a world-class shit storm.”

I wasn’t held in custody. In fact, the D.A.’s office paid for a motel room and kept a patrol car outside my room to keep the media away from me. And to make sure I stuck around.

As with all police investigations, there was a lot of down time, which I put to good use.

I called Broderson in Worcester.

“Son of a bitch,” he said after I filled him in. Then he laughed. “I bet you thought it was one of us, didn’t you?”

“If it’s any consolation, I was hoping it was Huntley.”

“I can’t wait to tell him that,” Broderson said.

Next on the list were Delaney in Denver and Loccisano in Chicago.

“I can’t believe it was a cop,” Delaney said. “Jesus. I even spoke to Tyrone and traded notes on our murders after you left.”

“I bet he was delighted to talk about a serial killer.”

“Every other word, the son of a bitch.”

Loccisano was annoyed. 

“You should have come to us with it right away,” he said.

“Next time.”

I called Principato, gave him Rosenberg’s phone number and told him to sit tight. I also told him that the Vegas cops might want to look more closely at how Harry Frost died.

“He had cirrhosis,” he said.

“His liver had help.”

I reluctantly called Rosenberg on Staten Island because he knew who Harry’s bilked clients were. I told him he would be hearing from Principato and that the victims probably could be made whole. I could almost hear Rosenberg salivating over the phone, so I also told him that I would be keeping an eye on him. He mentioned that a finder’s fee on $5 million would be considerable and he certainly would be amenable to sending some of it my way.

“Are you trying to bribe me, Sam?”

“Just having a conversation, Alton.”

Now, I was Alton. Well, it was certainly better than the “you rotten son of a bitch” from our last conversation.

Finally, I called Alice and told her everything.

“The poor girl. What a family. It’s to her credit that she rose above everything and devoted her life to helping others. Are you all right?”

“I think so.”

“You killed her brother.”

“Somebody should have done it a long time ago.”

We were quiet for a moment.

“Why did you fly to California? Couldn’t you have just called the police or the F.B.I.?”

“I needed one more flight to get platinum status on my frequent flier card.”

“I’m serious, Alton.”

“I was hunting a shadow for two weeks. I still wasn’t a hundred percent sure. I wanted to be there at the end, if there was an end.”

An even longer pause.

“You wanted to make sure there was an end.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I’m coming back early,” Alice said. “Don’t try to talk me out of it this time.”

“I won’t. I need you.”

***

It was a week before Noyce said I was in the clear for shooting Matthew Frost. It didn’t hurt that she, the commanding officer, witnessed the whole thing, and that I probably saved her life. Or that Frost as Tyrone wasn’t a beloved figure among his colleagues. The fact that I quickly proved he had murdered five other people, including a local priest, was icing on the cake. By the time some Special Agents from the F.B.I.’s San Francisco office showed up to take most of the credit, everyone was pretty anxious for me to leave town. I was getting a lot of media attention everyone else thought were rightfully theirs. I got my gun back, promised to return for any legal proceedings, which I suspected would never happen, and drove to San Francisco, where I caught a red-eye to Boston.

I slept the entire way. No dreams.

EPILOGUE

I was alone in my office, staring out the window. The sun was going down but New York Harbor was still busy. I suppose it is always busy. Two big Moran tugs were easing a container ship around the bend into the Kill Van Kull, the tidal strait between Staten Island and New Jersey. It looked like an impossible feat of navigation, but Bayonne was still in one piece, so all those tug captains obviously knew their jobs.

A Staten Island Ferry was just passing the Statue of Liberty on its way to Lower Manhattan’s South Ferry Terminal, only recently restored after Hurricane Sandy. A Navy destroyer, or frigate, I forget the difference now, was just gliding under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. It looked so small compared to some of the freighters and tankers it passed, although I knew it probably had firepower equivalent to an entire World War II fleet. A huge seagoing yacht, almost as large, passed the warship in the opposite direction. It was undoubtedly owned by a hedge-fund bigwig who probably avoided enough taxes to pay for one of the destroyers protecting his private jet, house in the Hamptons and offshore bank accounts. 

I looked down at a 185-foot-long wreck whose prow jutted halfway into Front Street, courtesy of Sandy. I could just barely make out its name on the port side:
John B. Caddell.
The ancient single-hull tanker had been moored at a pier in Rosebank waterfront until the tidal surge sent it on its last voyage. There had been a story about it in the papers. A Staten Island judge had declared the rusting hulk abandoned and it was sold at auction. The
Caddell
was built at the beginning of World War II and saw service as a fueler for warships. After the war, the tanker, named after the owner of the Caddell Dry Dock Company that still is in business, plied New York Harbor delivering gasoline. A workhorse, it was on its last sea legs before Sandy, but I thought the $25,000 price it brought at auction was a sad end for a vessel that had survived the U-Boats. It would be broken up for scrap and probably wind up as rebar in some highway.

Sic Transit Gloria.

I heard the door to my reception area open, and a moment later Arman Rahm and Maks Kalugin walked into my office. As long as I had known them they always walked into whatever room they wanted to without asking. I smiled at the thought of someone telling them to knock first.

I turned from the window. Arman, who was carrying a small tote bag, took a client chair and I went behind my desk and sat. Maks leaned up against the wall by the window I’d just left. I half expected the wall to give way, but it didn’t.

“What happened to the cactus?” he asked.

He was standing in the spot the plant, given to me by Nancy Robart at the Staten Island Botanical Garden, had formerly occupied.

“It died.”

“Hard to kill a cactus.”

“I guess I didn’t water it enough.”

He shook his head and then switched his gaze to the doorway. I wasn’t expecting any more visitors but Maks always expected trouble, which is why everyone he wasn’t planning to kill always felt safer in his presence.

“How’s the Rahm Institute of Medical Malpractice doing, boys?”

“I’m beginning to understand why Golovanov and the others were able to steal so much,” Arnan said. “I’m making more money from the clinic run honestly than from some of my less-distinguished enterprises. Did you know that doctors charge Americans $5,000 for a colonoscopy that costs $400 in Iceland? And Medicare picks up most of the tab?”

“They shit icicles in Iceland,” Kalugin said.

“What did you finally name the place, Arman?”

He smiled.

“The Carmichael Clinic. Porgie is thrilled. I installed his wife as Nursing Supervisor. She’s a hell of a nurse and a very capable administrator. Possibly the most-scrupulous woman I’ve ever met.”

Porgie Carmichael was once a small-time hood with a long-suffering wife and a couple of nice kids. He was never a shooter. When the Carluccis ordered him to kill me he refused and they beat him to a pulp. I asked the Rahms to find him a place in one of their legitimate enterprises and Porgie, who had augmented his hood income by working on fishing boats, was now running their marina operations.

“I like it,” I said. “Sounds classy.”  

Arman opened the tote bag and brought out a bottle of 23-year-old Pappy Van Winkle's bourbon, which the last time I looked — and only looked — went for $300 a bottle. I reached into my drawer for some paper cups.

“Don’t even think about it,” he said and pulled three heavy crystal rocks glasses out of the tote. “This is the finest bourbon on the planet.”

“I thought you stuck to vodka.”

Recently, Rahm had regaled — and bored — me with the qualities of his latest discovery, Versailles Vodka, made from “pristine Norman spring water and filtered six times.”

“I’m feeling very American tonight,” he said.

“You are American,” I said.

“And the vodka I like is French, Alton. Please don’t ruin the moment.”

“I’m not sure about the ice in my fridge. It probably smells like the meatball sub that’s been in there since Christmas.”

“No matter. If you tried to put ice in this fine bourbon I would have Maks shoot you many times.”

He cracked the seal on the bottle and poured three drinks. Even from where I sat I could smell the rich aroma of the aged whiskey. He slid my glass across the desk to me and then brought one over to Kalugin. Maks looked at it cautiously. I knew his taste in liquor ran to vodka filtered, maybe once, through canvas.

“You know, I knew him back then,” Rahm said. “Matthew, the brother. He was a warped son of a bitch. Always figured there was something wrong with him.”

“Right to the end,” I said.

“Rosenberg tells me that you were also able to recover much of the money Harry Frost stole,” Arman said.

“So, you hired Sam.”

“If he was good enough for Nando, he’s good enough for me. I gave him some work. I try not to overburden all my lawyers. And as shysters go, he’s not bad. Totally greedy and amoral. My kind of counselor.”

Perhaps only on Staten Island could the lawyer for a mobster who tried to kill you wind up as your attorney.

“It would be nice if the families Frost bilked saw most of the money,” I said. “I told Rosenberg I would keep an eye on him.”

“I’ll have Maks have a heart-to-heart with him. I think that will be more effective.”

I couldn’t argue with that.             

“Rosenberg also said you turned down a substantial portion of the finder’s fee, Alton.”

“Not exactly. I gave it to the school where Ronnie taught. Ave Maria. In her name.”

Kalugin grunted. He had several grunts. This was his grunt of approval.

“Why didn’t you at least use some of it to cover your expenses?’

“It didn’t seem right. I got plenty of frequent flier miles out of it, though.”

“When is Alice coming home?”

“Next week.”

“Good.”

Arman stood up. So did I. We walked over to the window together and stared at the harbor.

“This never gets old,” he said, “does it?”

Russians like harbors.

“Never.”

“One thing I don’t understand,” Rahm said. “Why did Frost go for his gun inside a police station? He must have known he couldn’t get away. It was suicide. Especially against you.”

“Rhode goaded him,” Kalugin said. “He wanted to kill him.”

Rahm looked at me closely.

“Is that true, Alton? You went in there to kill him.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Benn Donn,” Kalugin murmured. “Like a Russian.”

Rahm turned and looked at the harbor again. He raised his glass.

“To Ronnie,” he said.

“To Sister Veronica,” I said.

We all drank.

“It is a beautiful night,” Rahm said quietly

“Yes, it is.”

The End

If you’ve enjoyed this novel, we hope you will review it on
Amazon.com
. Here is a handy link:

REVIEW

And we hope you will try all the author’s thrillers and mysteries on Amazon or his website,
www.lawrencedemaria.com
.

***

Alton Rhode returns in GUNNER. Here is an excerpt:

Prologue

From his rental car across the street, the killer watched as the man clearing the snow from the driveway paused every few minutes to lean on the shovel handle to catch his breath.

The man in the car shook his head and mashed his cigarette in the ashtray, immediately lighting another one. It wasn’t a long driveway, but the old guy should know better. Typical of a spring snowstorm, the accumulation was wet and heavy. Each shovelful probably weighed 30 pounds. Kids were roaming the neighborhood asking residents if they wanted their sidewalks and driveways cleared. As a teen-ager, the assassin had made good money doing just that when he was sent to live with relatives in Boston. He wondered what the kids charged now. Probably a fortune. Hell, he thought, I once cleared over a hundred bucks in one day, and there were just two of us doing it. Whatever the cost now, the man should have hired some young muscle. He’s overweight and obviously out of shape. His face is mottled red with the exertion. Might have a damn heart attack.

And, the killer knew, he wouldn’t get paid if the man did a face plant in his driveway slush. He smiled. Maybe I should give him a hand, just to make sure he lives long enough for me to ace him. 

It was getting dark, and that was good. The man lived, apparently alone, on a quiet street in a secluded neighborhood, Eltingville, on Staten Island’s south shore. The assassin in the car had reconnoitered the job for days. He was quite sure that no one would pay any attention to a well-dressed white man walking up to Panetta’s door. This would be a piece of cake. The guy didn’t even have a dog. He could never understand why anyone living alone didn’t have a dog. But he was happy when they didn’t. He loved dogs and didn’t like killing them, something he’d had to do a few times. Dogs didn’t turn on you like most of the people in his life. He smiled at the memory of the dogs he’d had before he went into the Army. Hunting dogs. Labs and pointers. Smart as all get out. He was a crack shot, with good dogs. Life in rural Kentucky was just about perfect before the family lost the farm to foreclosure. Maybe someday he’d get a job that involved killing some Wall Street types or bankers, who he blamed for all the country’s ills. He often fantasized about doing some pro bono work along those lines on the side. He lit another smoke. Shit. I’m probably working for some of those pricks half the time, he thought in disgust.

John Panetta finished his shoveling and slowly trudged into his house. Some cars turned onto the street. Most pulled into driveways. People probably coming home from work. There was a train station nearby with a commuter lot. The killer liked the neighborhood. It wasn’t what he expected on Staten Island, so near to Manhattan. It was his first time in the borough, although he did know someone who lived there. His platoon leader in Afghanistan. I wonder how the Skipper is doing, he thought. Love to see him. But that just wasn’t in the cards.

The killer waited another 45 minutes until the street quieted down and then got out of his car and calmly walked across the street to Panetta’s house. He carried no weapon on his person. There would be something suitable to use in the house. In his pocket was a plastic bag containing some hairs and skin fragments from a man long since buried. The dead man was black. The killer wasn’t a racist. He was only playing the racial card to throw the cops far off the scent. Staten Island was a conservative borough, he’d been told. His other instructions had also been clear. Make it look like a home invasion. Take some cash and the guy’s watch, which would go in the plastic bag, and then in the nearest body of water, which wouldn’t be a problem. It was an island, after all. The killer knew that murders were rare on Staten Island. He had done some homework with recent crime statistics. Only six people had been murdered the entire previous year in the borough. He had a hard time getting his head around that figure. Six! Out of a population approaching half a million. It was so safe, he might have to move here. True, robberies had jumped 16 percent, to 476, a figure that had local law enforcement in a froth. As he approached the front door, he smiled. He knew of cities with many fewer people that would have loved such a low robbery incidence. He wondered where the Panetta hit would fit in. Homicide or robbery? Probably both. Jesus, he was going to boost the murder rate in Staten Island by about 15%! If he were in sales, he could put that on his resume. 

The killer had no idea who John Panetta was. Or who wanted him dead. It didn’t appear to be a mob hit, despite the victim’s name. Guy’s a nobody. Living too openly and too modestly. Shovels his own walk, for God’s sake.

Moreover, he didn’t care. All Panetta was to him was $20,000. He did wonder, however, why a nobody rated such premier treatment.

It started snowing again as the killer ascended the steps to the porch. Not that he was particularly worried about leaving any traces, but he appreciated the fact that the snow would cover any footprints. Looks like it would be a couple of more inches. He put a smile on his face and rang the doorbell.