by Steven Henry
“You’re sure the bottle wasn’t already on fire when it went inside?” Erin asked.
“Yeah. Maybe he threw it into the kitchen and hit the stove? It would’ve been a hell of a good throw. I think maybe it had something that wasn’t just gasoline in it, maybe something that went off when the bottle broke and the air hit it? I’m gonna ask Mr. Reynolds, my chem teacher. He knows a lot about chemical reactions and stuff.”
“What happened then?”
“The two guys with the rifles kept shooting to keep the cops pinned down. Then they took off running around that corner.”
“Did you see their faces?”
“Yeah, but they were wearing hats and sunglasses, and they had the collars on their coats pulled way up, so I didn’t see much.”
“Were they white? Black? Middle Eastern? Italian?”
“They were white guys, I think. They had on gloves along with the masks, so it was hard to tell. But yeah, they were white. At least, one of them was. I saw his neck over the top of his coat.”
“What else can you tell me about them?”
“They had nice shoes.”
“Nice shoes?”
“Like, the kind of shoes guys wear if they work in an office. Not like sneakers, you know? Black shoes, black pants, black coats, black hats.”
“Kid’s a good witness,” Erin said, once they’d let Tim go.
“Plays too many video games,” Webb said. “I’m glad I have daughters. But yeah, he caught a lot of details. It definitely sounds like a professional hit. But he didn’t see the fourth shooter.”
“He wouldn’t have,” she said. “The fourth guy was around back the whole time.”
Finally, the fire captain announced the fire was out and the site was secure. The CSU team moved in to start sorting out the bodies from the rest of the burnt-out rubble. The meat wagon had arrived in the meantime, driven by those two guys from the city morgue, Hank and Ernie.
“Jesus, not them again,” Vic muttered.
“You think they volunteer for the bad homicides?” Erin wondered aloud.
“Wouldn’t surprise me.”
Hank jerked a thumb toward the back alley. “You want the brainless wonders or the barbecue?”
“Let’s save the leftovers,” Ernie said. “They gotta take pictures first. Meantime, I’m gonna live la vida loca.”
Hank raised an eyebrow.
“C’mon, man, Ricky Martin?” Ernie prompted. Then he sang, “She’ll make you take your clothes off and go dancing in the rain. She’ll make you live her crazy life, but she’ll take away your pain… like a bullet to your brain!”
Hank nodded and joined in on the chorus. “Upside, inside out, she’s livin’ la vida loca!”
The two of them salsa-danced into the back alley and out of view, still singing.
Vic exchanged a look with Erin. “I know the Lieutenant’s pissed about me letting off rounds,” he said. “But do you really think he’d mind if I kneecapped those two?”
She shrugged. “He might even help you fill out the paperwork.”
The detectives picked over the wreckage along with the CSU guys, but it was hard to figure what had happened. It was one of the messiest crime scenes Erin had ever seen; at least, the restaurant was. The back alley was almost too clean.
“This is weird,” Erin said for the second time that day. “It’s like two different crimes stacked on top of each other.”
“Say that again,” Webb said.
“What?”
“Two different scenes.” The Lieutenant spun an unlit cigarette in his fingers. “These MOs don’t match at all.”
“No,” Erin agreed. “You think the shooter in the back alley wasn’t connected with the firebombers?”
Vic shrugged. “Or it’s like we thought before, and the whole thing was a plan to drive them out the back.”
“Maybe we’re looking for two gangs,” Webb said thoughtfully.
“Or one gang and a lone wolf,” Erin said.
“If the shooter out back was a loner, he’s one hell of a confident guy,” Vic said. “One man with a handgun hitting a whole team of Mafia goons?”
“This is speculation,” Webb said. “And we don’t have enough facts to start making guesses.”
“I thought guesses were for when we didn’t have facts,” Vic objected.
“And that’s why you’re still a Detective Third Grade and I’m a Lieutenant,” Webb said.
Vic bristled.
“He means we need to make educated guesses,” Erin said. “Not wild ones.”
“I know what he meant,” Vic growled. “But even when he’s right, he’s kind of an—”
“Thin ice, Neshenko,” Webb said, pointing the cigarette at him like the barrel of a gun.
“—astronomical pain,” Vic caught himself, then added, “sir.”
“We’re done here, for now,” Webb said. “You missed the witness statements, O’Reilly. But there wasn’t much to them. We’ll go back to the precinct, check the traffic cams, go over the statements again, and wait for IDs on our victims.”
“Mafia,” Vic predicted. “This is a big batch of misdemeanor homicides, bad guys taking out other bad guys. My prediction is, we’ll find out some jackasses did the world a favor.”
“What about the rest of the people in the restaurant?” Erin asked. “We’ve probably got civilians in there, too.”
That shut Vic up.
Erin called her brother’s house from the car. Her sister-in-law Michelle answered the phone.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Shelley,” Erin said.
“Erin! We’re just about to set the table. We can hold dinner for you if you hurry.”
“Sorry, I can’t. That’s why I’m calling. I’ve got a work thing. Mom and Dad will understand.”
“So do I,” Michelle said. Her husband was a trauma surgeon, and she was no stranger to unusual hours and last-minute cancellations. “I’ll tell them. Anna was looking forward to seeing Rolf, though. You have to bring him by sometime soon.”
“You ever think about getting a dog?”
Michelle laughed. “Don’t let Anna hear you say that. She’s already leaning on me.” Then she lowered her voice. “Speaking of family pressure, your mom’s been pumping me for information about your boyfriend.”
“Oh, God.” Erin wanted to put a hand over her face. Michelle was the only member of Erin’s family who knew about Carlyle. Shelley didn’t know his name; Erin wasn’t crazy enough to spill that. But she did know Erin was seeing a guy with a criminal record, one who’d been involved in one of her previous cases. That by itself might be enough for her dad to crack the whole thing open. Erin often suspected the only reason Sean O’Reilly hadn’t made Detective was that he’d preferred to keep doing Patrol work. He was plenty smart, with great street instincts and a career’s worth of experience.
“Erin? You okay?”
“Yeah. What did you tell her?”
“Nothing!” Michelle sounded shocked. “You’re my sister. I would never!”
Erin smiled. “Thanks, Shelley.”
“But you should tell them. I mean, it’s good news, isn’t it? Mary’s been itching for you to find the right guy for years now, and I know you’re crazy about him.”
“That obvious?”
“That obvious.”
“It’s complicated,” Erin said. “Look, just sit on this for me, okay? I owe you.”
“Copy that,” Michelle said and giggled. “That’s what you say, right?”
“That’s what we say,” Erin confirmed. “I’ll come by when I can, but if it’s late, I’ll drop you a text instead. I don’t want to wake up the kids, and I don’t know how long I’ll be stuck on duty.”
“Okay, Erin. Take care.”
Information was already flowing through the pipeline by the time Erin, Vic, and Webb got to the Precinct 8 station. They had a statement from the main witness, recorded from an officer’s body camera, and preliminary IDs on the th
ree victims from the alley based on documents in their pockets. They also had snapshots from CSU waiting on their computers.
“Neshenko, plug these guys into facial recognition,” Webb said.
Vic got to work on the computer. It always amazed Erin how fast the NYPD’s software could get results. Just a few minutes later, he had their answer.
“Sal Pietro, Nick Carmine, and Marco Conti,” he said. “We’ll do the prints to make sure, but it’s them. They’ve all got records. Mafia, like I said. Pietro and Carmine were muscle, Conti was a mid-level associate.”
“Which family?” Webb asked.
“Lucarelli.”
Erin felt a shiver. She’d tangled with some of the Lucarellis on their last big case, and it hadn’t been pleasant. “These guys have any connection to Vinnie the Oil Man?”
“Of course,” Vic said, giving her a funny look. “I said they were Lucarellis. Vincenzo Moreno runs the family these days.”
“How nice,” Webb said dryly. “I was wondering how long it’d take the Oil Man to cross our path again. He’ll make it nice and slippery, I expect.”
“I don’t suppose he’s one of the stiffs in the restaurant,” Erin said without much hope.
“We’re not that lucky,” Vic said. “Do we want to talk to him?”
“Wrong question,” Webb said. “I think we’d all be happy never to see him again. But we may have to lean on him a little. Not that it’ll do any good. He won’t tell us a thing. Probably best to leave him out of it.”
“So it’s definitely a mob hit,” Erin said. “Who’s got a bone to pick with the Lucarellis? What side of the business was Conti in?”
“Narcotics,” Vic said. “He did some time for possession, but that was a long time ago. Nowadays I don’t think he was actually touching the product.”
“This wasn’t a drug rip anyway,” Webb said. “The shooters didn’t steal anything.”
“That we know of,” Erin put in. “Maybe the guys in back had something and the fourth shooter got it.”
“Okay,” Webb said. “Let’s get in with our underworld contacts. Find out who’s on the outs with the Lucarellis.”
“I’ll talk to Narcotics,” Vic said. “See if they’ve got anything.”
Erin knew where this was going. “I’ve got a couple guys I can talk to,” she said. “Maybe they know something.”
Somehow, she always came back to the Irish Mob.
Chapter 3
The closest bar to Erin’s apartment was the Barley Corner. She’d inherited her father’s fondness for good whiskey, and the Corner stocked the very best. As an added incentive, her drinks there were on the house, ever since she’d saved the pub, and its owner, from being blown apart. On top of that was the fact that the owner, Morton Carlyle, was her boyfriend. And right now, he was one of her best sources into what might have sparked the vicious mob hit.
The Corner was always full of Irish wiseguys, which was awkward. But most of those who knew about her were under the impression she was Carlyle’s insider with the NYPD. It pissed her off that anyone would think she was dirty, but it was a necessary deception to preserve Carlyle’s safety. On balance, it came out to a plus. Barely.
Erin parked in the police space near the pub, got Rolf in hand, and went in. The place was full of big tattooed guys with a scattering of girlfriends. They were watching a martial-arts match on the bar’s big-screen TVs, cheering a pair of sweaty, muscular goons who were beating the crap out of each other.
She threaded through the crowd to the bar. There sat Carlyle, slender, handsome, impeccably dressed in his customary suit and tie, elbows on the bar, watching the room. He saw her immediately, and Erin felt a rush of pleasure at the way his eyes lit up. He stood as she approached, always the old-school gentleman.
“Erin, darling,” he said. “I’d hoped to see you, but I’d no idea you were coming around this afternoon. I’d thought you’d be visiting with your mum and da, seeing as they’re in town. What can I get for you?”
She flashed him a smile. “Nothing for me, thanks. I’m working.”
His smile didn’t falter, but his eyes became concerned, almost wary. “As am I, darling. It’s a shame the city doesn’t permit you the same latitude it extends to publicans.”
“You really think that’s a good idea?” she replied. “A bunch of cops getting boozed up and running around Manhattan armed to the teeth?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened in this fair city.”
“That doesn’t make it smart.”
He nodded. “What’s this about, then?”
“I think you already know.” Carlyle’s sources of information were quick and competent. Erin suspected she wasn’t the only voice from the NYPD that came to his ears.
“The unpleasantness in Little Italy?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know that I can be much assistance on the subject.”
“Marco Conti,” she said.
He raised an eyebrow. “What is it you’re wanting to know?”
“Who is he?”
“I’ve no doubt your department has a file on him.”
“So he’s a wiseguy.”
Carlyle smiled thinly. “Did I say that?”
Erin smiled back. She wouldn’t admit it, but she’d gotten to enjoy their verbal fencing matches. “You said we had a file on him.”
“Your department has files on a number of citizens,” he observed. “Not all of them are in the Life.”
“But Conti was.”
“I see you’re speaking of him in the past tense.”
“Does that bother you?”
Carlyle’s shoulders moved in the slightest hint of a shrug. “Not particularly.”
“He was a Lucarelli,” she said, marveling at the way they could have a conversation like this in the middle of a crowded bar. The noise and activity around them acted as a screen, giving them a weird privacy in plain view.
He nodded. “I’d say that’s common knowledge.”
“He got whacked today,” she went on. “Thoroughly.”
“In my experience,” he said dryly, “that sort of thing is either successful, or it’s not.”
“Someone wanted him dead bad enough to take down a whole building, and everyone inside it.”
“How are you sure he was the intended recipient, if that’s the case?”
“They were waiting for him. They torched the joint, and when he ran out the back, a triggerman was waiting. He was targeted. Specifically.”
“What is it you’re wanting from me, Erin?”
“I want to know what Conti was into,” she said. “What side of the Lucarelli business did he work? Who wanted him out of the picture? Was it an internal job, or someone from outside his family? And what the hell did he do that warranted burning a whole building and killing a bunch of people just to get to him? They had to know the kind of heat that’d bring down. This is going to be a top priority. I mean, straight up to the Commissioner.”
Carlyle rubbed his chin. “I see your point,” he said quietly. “I’d no dealings with the man. His business is—was, I should say—the import and distribution of the sort of item you encountered the last time you brushed up against his people.”
Erin nodded. Her previous encounter with the Lucarellis had been a drug bust. Acting on a tip from one of Carlyle’s contacts in the O’Malleys, she’d worked with the Street Narcotics Enforcement Unit to seize a clean million dollars’ worth of heroin.
“How much pull did he have?” she asked.
“It’s my understanding that if you wanted to invest in a good horse in Little Italy, he was a fine lad to know,” he said, using one of the many street euphemisms for heroin.
“Have you heard anything about a drug war? Anything getting talked about on the street?”
He shook his head. “As you know, Erin, I keep well clear of the stuff.”
“But your people don’t,” she said. “What about Liam?”
Li
am McIntyre was the O’Malley narcotics man. Erin had met him twice. He hadn’t made a good impression either time, but he’d been useful in tipping her off to the drug shipment she’d taken down.
“Are you asking me what he knows, or are you asking me to set up a meeting with him?”
“Either. Both.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Carlyle said. “It may take a day or two, but I imagine I can sit the two of you down somewhere.”
“Do that,” she said. “I’ve got a feeling this might have something to do with what happened in February.”
“Continuation of the unpleasantness surrounding the loss of their product, you mean?”
“Maybe,” she said. “We’re not ruling anything out. Mostly I need to know if this was a one-off, or if there’s going to be more bodies getting dropped.”
“I understand your concerns. I’m afraid I’ve no idea what goes through Liam’s head these days, though I’ve a suspicion more than a little of his own product goes up his nostrils. The lad would hardly confide in me. He’s more comfortable with the likes of Mickey and Miss Blackburn.”
Erin suppressed a shudder. She’d met both the O’Malley associates he’d named. Mickey Connor in particular was a nasty piece of work. “I don’t want to see Mickey,” she said. “Just Liam. Set it up.”
“I’ll be about it,” he said. “Does that conclude our business?”