“This the cat?” Oscar asked the moment Seth stepped out of his bedroom.
Oscar leaned back to show that the Manx cat was sitting on his lap.
“What cat?” Seth asked. “You know that I hate cats.”
Oscar smiled.
“How is her health?” Oscar asked.
“The vet said that she’s recovering from her treatment by that prick Panteli Jr.,” Seth said.
Oscar snorted at Seth’s anger. Seth lifted an eyebrow at the man and went to get coffee. There was a knock on the door, and Claire came into the apartment.
“I woke her up,” Oscar said, without looking up.
Seth gave Claire his cup of coffee and went to get another.
“And Bernice?” Oscar asked as Claire sat down.
“She had a difficult, emotional day yesterday,” Claire said. “She was a wreck when she got home last night. All of this is a lot for a seventy-plus-year-old. I thought it would be better for her to rest. Is that all right with you?”
Oscar nodded and drank his coffee. He didn’t say anything until R.J. came out of his bedroom. Seth gave R.J. a cup of coffee and made another pot.
“Claire’s made enough breakfast burritos for everyone,” Seth said.
He looked around the table. R.J. nodded, as did Oscar. Claire looked up at him.
“Would you like me to get them?” Claire asked.
“Nah, I’ve got it,” Seth said. “One for you?”
Claire nodded. Seth warmed the breakfast burritos in the microwave and brought the plates out two at a time. By the time he’d brought the last plate, everyone needed a refill of coffee, which he brought. Then he made another pot of coffee.
Through all of this, Inspector Oscar Dekay said nothing. He ate his burrito, drank his coffee, and kept his mouth shut.
Seth sat down across from the man.
“Well,” Inspector Oscar Dekay said.
“‘Well’?” Seth asked.
Oscar just looked at him for a moment before giving a slight shake of his head.
“Let’s start with this,” Oscar said. He took out three piles of money and set them one at a time onto the table. “As far as we can tell, the money is not connected to any known crime. There are traces of drugs on the bills, but that’s true for any money. It’s old. Not a single bill is less than fifty years old.”
“How much is there?” Seth asked.
“Five thousand,” Oscar said.
“Total?” Seth asked.
“Each,” Oscar said. “Fifties and hundreds. Spending money.”
R.J. gave a low whistle.
“I don’t need to tell you just exactly how much money five thousand dollars would have been in the 1960s,” Oscar said.
“A fortune,” R.J. said.
“So it’s likely that the money is part of Big Daddy’s estate,” Oscar said. “Since we can’t prove it, and, as far as we can tell, it wasn’t used in a crime. The money goes back to you.”
Seth nodded. As if he were playing cards, Seth pulled the money back toward him dramatically. This earned him a grin from Oscar.
“What are you going to do with it?” Oscar asked. “Maybe I shouldn’t ask.”
“You can ask,” Seth said. “I’m going to give it back to the people whose apartments we found it in — Carl, Che’Linda, and Louise.”
“What about Bernice?” Oscar asked.
“Bernice can’t take this,” Claire said. “It will mess up the arrangements that Seth made for her. We talked about it last night, and she wanted Che’Linda to have it. Che’Linda is a Navy wife with three kids. You can imagine what this money would do for their lives.”
“Carl’s, too,” R.J. said.
“And Louise?” Oscar asked.
“Louise deserves it,” Seth said.
“You’ll make sure they get it?” Oscar asked.
“We’ll take it there today,” Seth said.
“Good,” Oscar said. He let out a heavy breath. “I don’t know how you did it, O’Malley, but those ladies you found . . .”
“Billie, Ruby, Justine, and Hazel?” Seth asked.
“Them,” Oscar said. “They’ve put hair on this entire case. Between the forensics we have on Delmer and Delilah’s bodies and the ladies testimony, the DA is looking at charging Seurat for the murder of his mother and uncle. If somehow Seurat gets out of the other charges, we have enough to keep him in prison for the rest of his life.”
“You think the Pantelis are going to let that happen?” R.J. asked.
“Seurat’s been rotting away in prison for a long time,” Seth said.
“This one connects directly to Panteli Jr.,” R.J. said.
Oscar watched the men go back and forth. At R.J.’s words, Oscar gave a slight shrug. They silently drank their coffee for a moment.
“Speaking of Panteli Jr.,” Oscar said, breaking the silence. “Where is he?”
“How should we know?” Claire asked. “In case you’ve forgotten, Seth was held hostage. He was the victim of that man. Not his violent perpetrator!”
“When we were in the apartment of Mr. Carl Robinson, my technician thought that he recognized Mr. Robinson’s voice,” Oscar said.
“I don’t think he sings,” Seth said.
“From the tape of you and Panteli,” Oscar said.
“And?” Seth asked.
“Unbeknownst to me, my technician made an illegal recording of Mr. Carl Robinson’s voice,” Oscar said.
“And?” Seth asked again.
“It’s almost a perfect match for the voice on the tape,” Oscar said. “You know, the one that calls Panteli Jr. out of the room. If I were friends with Mr. Carl Robinson, I’d tell him that he should come in voluntarily to talk to me. Maybe you can pass this message when you give him the money?”
Seth gave Oscar a curt nod.
“You don’t seem quite your usual chipper self today,” Seth said, mildly.
“Well . . .” Oscar said.
He rubbed his nose as if it itched. Starting with Seth, he looked at each of them.
“What the fuck is going on?” Oscar asked in an impassioned voice. “Seriously. What the fuck?”
“What exactly to do you mean?” Seth asked.
“Who the fuck goes randomly over to some guy’s apartment and finds the murder weapon to close a case from fucking fifty years ago?” Oscar asked. “And your witnesses? Where the fuck were they when someone was working the case?”
“You know as well as I do that no one worked Delmer’s murder,” Seth said. “There is no file for Delilah. None. So don’t tell me that someone was busting his ass over her murder.”
“In 1955, no one gave two shits about a dead Negro whore,” R. J. added.
“You and Mitch were here!” Oscar said. “Why didn’t they come forward then? Christ, Justine was Delmer’s fiancée. You could see that she still loved him, fifty years later! Why didn’t she say something?”
Seth and R.J. started speaking at the same time. Oscar shook his head.
“I don’t want to hear it,” Oscar said.
“You asked,” Seth said.
“Let’s call it a rhetorical question,” Oscar said.
Oscar took the time to look at each of them again.
“I’m supposed to tell you that you’ve solved a cold case,” Oscar said. “The Chief is gearing up for another ‘Isn’t O’Malley great?’ celebration with champagne and photo ops. I’m supposed to come here and tell you ‘Thank you.’”
“And?” Seth asked.
“Fuck you,” Oscar said.
“Well, this is pleasant,” Claire said with a sniff.
Oscar scowled at Claire, but she was unimpressed.
“You cannot intimidate me. I’ve dealt with a lot worse than you, sir,” Claire said. “If you’re done with what you have to say, then I would ask you to please leave.”
Claire stood up.
“Now,” Claire said.
Oscar shook his head at Claire and looked at Seth.
“Who doesn’t?” Seth asked.
Oscar looked at Claire again.
“Please sit down,” Oscar said. “I’m sorry. I’m being an asshole. I just . . .”
“It’s hard to be shown up by Seth,” Claire interrupted.
“Same shit, different day,” Oscar said. “The thing that’s got my briefs in a twist is — where is Panteli Jr.?”
“No idea,” Seth said. “Anything else?”
“What the fuck is going on?” Oscar asked.
“We can’t really help you if we don’t know specifically what you’re asking about,” R.J. said. He nodded his head to Oscar. “You need to lay your cares out here. We’re trustworthy.”
Oscar didn’t say anything for a moment. He looked at Seth.
“Did you make more coffee?” Oscar asked.
Seth stood up, and Claire got up a moment later. Seth returned with coffee and Claire returned with tin of homemade chocolate chip cookies.
“I know it’s early, but sometimes a cookie is just what’s needed,” Claire said.
“You keep this place well stocked,” Oscar said, picking up a cookie.
“Seth’s oven is more even than mine, better,” Claire said. “I bought them at the same time, but this one cooks more evenly. I bake in his kitchen and leave it here so I don’t eat all of it. Seth’s not usually here, so I kind of live in these two apartments like they’re mine.”
Claire looked at Seth, and he gave her a kind smile.
“We talked about selling the building and Claire coming home with me,” Seth said. “But her grandkids are here and now Bernice. She won’t leave Bernice.”
Oscar looked at Claire for a long moment.
“You’re a good woman, Claire,” Oscar said. “I’m sorry for all the swearing.”
“It’s not worse than I’ve heard,” Claire said. She snorted a kind of sad laugh, “I was also a friend of Big Daddy’s.”
Oscar’s lips lifted in a smile.
“So what’s eating at you?” Seth asked.
“I don’t like it when things come together too easily,” Oscar said.
“Easy?” R.J. asked. “Seth talked some scared old women into talking to the police. There was nothing easy about it.”
“You were there?” Oscar asked.
R.J. nodded.
“I was, too,” Claire said. “They drank almost a bottle of Hennessey to get through it. It was hard. They were upset.”
Claire looked at Seth.
“We should bring them another bottle,” Claire said.
Seth nodded.
“They were upset when I saw them,” Oscar said. “Nice-looking, elderly women come out of an apartment down the hall and tell me everything I want to know. It feels . . . weird.”
“I understand,” Seth said.
“There’s something else,” Oscar said. “My guys are in touch with someone named ‘Nelson’ . . .”
“Dr. Nelson Weeks?” Seth asked. “He works for Ava.”
“With Ava,” Claire chided. “Ava would want us to say that he works with her.”
Seth gave an indifferent shrug, and Claire smiled.
“Doctor?” Oscar asked.
He dug around in his pockets and pulled out a pad of paper. Claire got up to get him a pencil. Oscar nodded to Claire in thanks.
“What kind of doctor?” Oscar asked.
“Emergency Medicine,” Seth said. “He got AIDS from a pinprick. He was too sick to work. Ava scooped him up when he was sick. He’s a great asset to Ava’s team.”
Oscar raised his eyebrows and nodded in agreement.
“Nice young man,” Claire said. “He stays here when he’s in town.”
“Why do you mention him?” Seth asked.
“This Dr. Nelson Weeks asked if we could trace the Pantelis’ finances,” Oscar said. “Then we get a notice from someone named ‘Fran’ . . .”
“Your cousin’s first wife?” Seth asked.
Oscar gave a silent chuckle.
“She wants to know about the institution the Pantelis put Seurat in when he was a kid,” Oscar said. “Then Dr. Nelson Weeks asks for some medical records for Seurat that are sealed. And . . .”
Oscar didn’t say anything for a moment.
“I don’t like passing out all this information and not knowing what we’re looking for,” Oscar said. “And Panteli Jr.’s gone. Missing. Dropped off the face of the planet. Likely at the hands of your friend, Carl Robinson.”
Seth raised his eyebrows. Oscar tipped his head down, his eyes looking up at Seth. His left eye squinted.
“What?” Seth asked.
“Did the Pantelis show up to your Mob meetings last week?” Oscar asked.
“Can’t you ask your guys?” Seth asked. “They were there.”
“Nope, I’m asking you,” Oscar said. “We’ve been passing out all of this information like we’re Coney Island vendors. We’re not getting nothing back. So I woke up this morning wondering what your wife might know that the rest of us don’t. It occurred to me to ask you if the Pantelis came to your meetings.”
“They did not,” Seth said.
“You invited them?” Oscar asked.
Seth nodded.
“Specifically?” Oscar asked.
“I went to the homes of each crime family,” Seth said. “I invited them to come to the table to deal with this before there was a Mob War. A few of them laughed at me — joking about some video game. But most of them just took the information, gave me a cup of coffee, and I left.”
“Irish, too?” Oscar asked.
“Sure.” Seth shrugged.
“No one threatened you?” Oscar asked.
“I know them from other businesses,” Seth said with a shrug.
“Like what?” R.J. asked.
“I brought a couple of children . . . well, four . . .”
“Five,” Claire said.
Seth nodded.
“ . . . home from various wars,” Seth continued. “Three from Vietnam, one from Panama — of all places — another from Iraq.”
He squinted at Claire.
“One from that pit in Afghanistan,” Claire said.
“Six. Sorry, I don’t really add things up very often,” Seth said. “Mitch and I worked a murder case for some Puerto Rican made-guys — little sister killed by her husband while they were on vacation in Central America. Turned it over to you guys. You’ll find it under ‘Perez?’”
“1998,” Claire said.
“What she said,” Seth said. “I was kidnapped to work on a mystery for another one. Very hush-hush. Involved an art thief. Irish Mob does things their way. I’ve played at a bunch of weddings, anniversaries, first communions . . .”
Seth shrugged.
“Just because they’re mobbed up doesn’t mean they don’t have puzzles of their own,” Seth said. “Plus, we were talking business. Some of them came to pick up business. Most of them came just to see what was going on. You know, get information on other business going down in New York City. Most people just wanted to be involved. See how it was done. We had a fixed timeline because the Feds were breathing down my neck.”
“Why do you ask, Oscar?” Claire asked.
“I guess . . .” Oscar looked at Seth. “What do you make of this?”
Oscar told Seth about all of the information Ava’s team had requested. He told them about the pressure he was getting from the Chief to wrap up Delilah and Delmer — “to make it a win” for the department — but Oscar felt like something wasn’t quite right. Seth, R.J., and Claire listened intently to what he said.
“The ladies we talked to yesterday said that this kid Seurat was sick,” R.J. said. “Some blood thing. Made this dude . . .”
“Panteli Jr.,” Seth said.
“Yeah, him,” R.J. continued. “Made him pissed off all the time.”
“Something in Seurat’s blood,” Claire said.
“There’s
nothing in the record,” Oscar said.
“Does Panteli have a relative who has a blood disease?” Seth asked. “Maybe an heir?”
Oscar blinked as he thought through what he knew.
“What is it?” Claire asked.
“Panteli Jr. has a fundraiser every year for some rare-disease charity. Very swanky. A Who’s Who of the Big Apple,” Oscar said. “I know about it because my daughter’s working on rare diseases at the NIH. She comes down from Washington to attend this fundraiser. Sometimes, she gives a lecture about her work. My wife . . . ex-wife . . .”
Oscar’s eyes flicked to Claire.
“We go together,” Oscar said. “To support our daughter.”
“So it’s likely that the Panteli crime family doesn’t have an heir to continue their work,” Seth said. He thought for a moment and nodded. He looked at Oscar. “What did Panteli Jr. ask me about?”
“That’s what I was thinking, too,” Oscar said. “If your Cigarette Killer is Panteli Jr.’s son, as your lady friends said, then the Pantelis are likely to be funding this bullshit appeal.”
Oscar nodded.
“Thanks,” Oscar said. “That’s a piece I would never have thought of.”
Oscar leaned back in his chair.
“I’ll tell you this,” Oscar said. “By the end of this day, I’m going to know everything there is to know about the Pantelis. I’m going to throw our whole department at this. Panteli Jr. is New York, born and bred; he’s our problem. We need to fix it.”
Oscar nodded.
“One thing,” R.J. said. “The ladies said that one of the girls knew some special medicine that seemed to help this kid, Seurat. She said that Di kept track of it.”
“Did you find Di’s book?” Oscar asked.
No one said anything.
“Fair enough,” Oscar said. “But if you find anything, you’ll be sure to call your friend Oscar, right?”
“We have so far,” Seth said.
“One thing,” Oscar said. He pulled a pile of laboratory gloves from his pocket and threw them on the center of the table. “Use some gloves next time. My lab’s getting tired of ruling out your prints.”
Oscar snorted a laugh. He drank down his coffee and left the apartment. Claire got up to see him out. They stopped at the door. Oscar said something. Claire smiled and nodded. She closed the door to Seth’s apartment and came back to the table.
The Cigarette Killer Page 19