“Hey Pat, the police are here to see you about what happened to Chaz,” the bartender said.
“Thanks Jerry,”
The bartender left and Taggart stuck out a clammy hand.
“Detective Parker, Detective Knight, it’s good to see you again, but I’m sad about the circumstances.”
“Yes sir,” Parker said, “However, we were wondering if you’ve thought of anything new that might help.”
Patrick shook his head. “No, nope, not a thing,”
Jo took out a sheet of paper and read from it. The sheet contained the details of Charles Woolley’s recent bank statements.
“We see from his account records that you recently paid Mr. Woolley three thousand dollars over and above his wages; can you tell us why?” Jo said.
“A... a signing bonus,” Patrick stuttered. “Mr. Woolley only joined us back in July, as I’m sure you know.”
“A signing bonus to manage a restaurant?” Parker said, sounding doubtful,
Patrick nodded his head.
“Yes, he was ah, well sought after in the industry.”
Jo and Parker exchanged glances and an unspoken understanding passed between them. They had been standing in front of the desk, mostly because there were no chairs other than the one occupied by Patrick, but Jo moved closer and stared down at Patrick as Parker leaned on the desk, glowered, and spoke in a harsh tone.
“Taggart, we think you know something about Charles Woolley’s murder. Stand up; you’re coming to the station with us.”
As Parker spoke, Jo took out her handcuffs.
Patrick’s head swiveled back and forth between them and then he slumped deep into his chair.
“I’ll tell you everything I know.”
“Vandalism, did you report it?” Parker said.
“Oh yes, at first, and they were minor incidents, a broken window, spray paint on the rear doors, but then, a man showed up and took credit for the incidents. His name is Nico Umbria.”
“Why would he take credit?” Jo asked. “Did he want you to pay him to stop?”
“Well, he didn’t come right out and say that he was the one who committed the acts, but he did insinuate that they would get worse if I didn’t take him on as a partner.”
“A partner? He didn’t simply ask for money?” Parker said.
“No, in fact, he offered money for a fifty-percent stake in the bar, but the amount was laughable, given the amount of business we do.”
“So what happened when you turned him down?” Parker said.
“Nothing, he just smiled and said that maybe we could do business in the future.”
“But then the vandalism escalated, am I right?” Jo said.
“Yes, and this time it was damage done to several customer’s cars. I blamed it on teenagers and paid the damages out of pocket.”
“Why didn’t you report this to us?” Parker said.
Patrick sighed.
“I wanted to, but my grandfather balked at it. If he knew I was talking to you now he’d be furious, he’s... not fond of the police.”
“Not many former bootleggers are, although, there aren’t many around anymore, are there?”
“Yes, he’s quite old and set in his ways, but he’s the one that owns the bar, in truth, I’m just a manager.”
“But you’re the one that handles the books for the bar, and you’re the one that hired Charles Woolley. What was the three thousand dollars for?” Parker said.
“Chaz was the confident type, and like yourself, Detective Parker, he was a big man and I think also an ex-Marine. When I told him about Nico Umbria, he called him a punk and said that he would handle things the next time Umbria showed up.”
“And what happened when Umbria did show up?” Jo asked.
“Chaz sat in on the meeting and things got quite loud. Nico’s not very big, and Chaz was very aggressive and threatening in his manner. At the end of the meeting, Nico seemed cowed and swore that he would never bother us again. In gratitude, I paid Chaz that bonus.”
“But Nico came back, correct?” Parker said, and Patrick shook his head.
“Not at first, and when Chaz stopped showing up for work, I thought nothing of it. He wouldn’t be the first manager who quit without a word. However, after your last visit, when you said that Chaz was missing, it got me to thinking, but still, Nico made no contact, and so, I thought the two things weren’t connected.”
“But this Umbria has contacted you since?” Jo said.
“Yes, yesterday, after the body was found, he confronted me in the parking lot and offered his condolences, he also made another ridiculous offer to buy the bar, the whole bar this time, not a partnership, and his offer price is a fifth of what the bar’s worth.”
“You must suspect that he killed Chaz Woolley; why didn’t you come to us?” Parker said.
“My grandfather told me not to, but he’s wrong, this is a job for the police. Can you help me?”
“Absolutely, but we’ll need your cooperation.”
Patrick stood and offered his hand again.
“I’ll do whatever it takes. This man, Nico, if he killed Chaz... the thought of it makes me sick, and my other employees must be kept safe.”
Parker thought of Heather.
“No harm will come to them. I swear it.”
Chapter 14
In a bar in Camden, New Jersey, Nico Umbria met with the leader of a gang called Muerte Soldados or Death Soldiers, and transacted a little business.
Nico was twenty-four, five-foot-nine and a muscular one-seventy. He was wearing a dark suit with a blue shirt and no tie, and his long black hair was tied back in a ponytail.
The gang leader was known only by the name Dos and was nineteen-years-old. He had lived in the gang since he was five and just recently became its leader when his brother, Uno, the former leader, was sentenced to life for killing a man who owed him money. Dos was about Nico’s height, but weighed a sinewy one-forty.
“So what’s up?” Dos said.
“I need a job done up in Washington Township.”
“Which Washington, there’s like five or six towns with that name, right?”
“Yeah, but this is the one off of I-95,”
“Oh yeah, I know it, lot of new shit being built up there, ain’t there?”
“Yeah, but it’s an old bar I care about, a place called Taggart’s.”
“So what’s the job?”
“I need to cause some damage to the place, you know, bust up the bar, harass some customers and staff, shit like that, but not too violent.”
“You want to give the owners grief, I got you. I’ll send a few of the members up there, even if they get caught they won’t say shit, but when do you need it done?”
“Tomorrow is good, say around three, after the lunch crowd.”
“It’ll be history by four o’clock,”
“Cool, how much?”
Dos thought that over, and said. “Two large, plus two bills for expenses, but I’ll send four guys,”
“Expenses?”
“Gas for the car and baseball bats and ski masks to do the job,” Dos explained.
Nico laughed, and then, beneath the table, he handed over an envelope with two-thousand dollars in it. He had guessed right about the fee, but hadn’t factored in Dos’s greed and business savvy. Along with the envelope, he handed over two-hundred from his wallet. It was all being paid for by his employer anyway, so what did he care? And anyway, he would tell him it cost even more and turn a profit in the bargain.
“The next time I visit Uno in the can I’ll tell him that the gang’s in good hands. Expenses? You’re a trip, Dos.”
Dos smiled. “It’s all about the green, brother,”
Nico sent him a fist bump, and then got up and left the bar.
The following afternoon, Jo and Parker were staking out Taggart’s while waiting for Nico to show. Jo was actually working undercover as a bartender, a job she had done while in college. Parker was outsid
e in the lot, sitting in the Chevy, deep in the shadows cast by an old elm tree.
Both he and Jo had mug shots of Nico that were taken when he was arrested for breaking & entering three months earlier. Parker’s photo sat on his dashboard, while Jo’s sat on a shelf under the bar. Nico was exonerated of the B&E charge, but was suspected of being involved in other home break-ins, and possibly auto thefts.
They had also wired Patrick Taggart’s office with a camera and a microphone. If Nico threatened Taggart or tried to extort him, it would be captured on video.
They had tried tracking Nico down but came up empty. What they didn’t know is that Nico had no address of his own, but rather, he lived at different times with one or the other of the mothers of his three children. Nico paid the bills of all three women and so came and went as he pleased.
Near three o’clock, the bar grew quiet, and Heather Jones approached Jo to talk.
“I’ve been watching you, you’re a good bartender.”
Jo smiled. “Thanks, I did it for years and I always liked it.”
Heather lowered her voice.
“Can I ask you something, what’s your partner like? He seems... I don’t know, sad, I guess. Has he lost someone recently?”
Jo stared at her, surprised by her perceptiveness.
“No one died, but he just got divorced,”
“Oh, and does he have kids?”
“No, no kids, but you know, you really should be asking him these questions. He’s right outside in the car.”
“I didn’t know if I should; I mean he is working.”
Jo grinned. “Trust me; he’d love to have you visit.”
Heather smiled back and then called to one of the other waitresses.
“I’m going on break.”
Parker saw Heather approaching and was thankful that he had just sucked on a breath mint. In the shorts and revealing shirt of her waitress uniform Heather was especially enticing, and Parker felt his pulse race.
She is so damn beautiful,
Without waiting for permission, Heather climbed into the passenger seat.
“I thought you could use some company.”
“You thought right,” Parker said, and then an uncomfortable silence began. Heather ended it with a question.
“I heard that you recently got divorced, were you married long?”
“Um, not very long I guess, about four years.”
“What happened?”
“Is this an interrogation?”
“I know it’s rude, but I’m curious,”
Parker gave a shrug.
“She cheated on me. I forgave her the first time, but not the second.”
“I’m sorry, that must have hurt.”
“Yes.”
“Can I call you, Rick, at least when we’re alone? It seems odd to keep calling you Detective Parker.”
“I would like that.” Parker said, he then checked out the driver of a vehicle that had just arrived, but recognized the man getting out of it as an employee of a local business.
Heather turned sideways in her seat.
“Do you really think Mr. Woolley’s killer will come back here?”
“I hope so. I’m looking forward to this case being closed.”
“So that you can ask your question?”
“Yes.”
“Catch the bad guy, Rick. I look forward to giving you an answer.”
Heather smiled, got out of the car, and sent him a wave as she headed back inside.
It was only a few minutes later that Parker spotted the four figures running out of the woods wearing ski masks and carrying baseball bats, he thumped the button on the radio.
“Trouble Jo, four guys with bats,”
Knight didn’t reply, and Parker was still getting out of the car when one of the bats shattered the windshield of a pick-up truck, even as the three other men raced into the bar.
Nico’s cell phone rang; it was his employer.
He had been ignoring the man’s calls ever since Woolley’s body had been discovered, and at their last face-to-face meeting, he had sworn that he had nothing to do with the man’s disappearance, but was certain his employer knew he was lying.
He took the call this time, because this time he had good news to deliver.
“What’s up, partner?”
“Have the police questioned you?”
“No, and they won’t, because they don’t know where to find me.”
“I want out, Nico; I think things have gone too far.”
“Don’t wimp out on me now. I’ll have Taggart ready to sell by the end of the week.”
“Why? What have you done now?”
“I sent more trouble his way, just like you wanted.”
“Is anybody going to be hurt?”
Nico smiled into the phone.
“Oh yeah, count on it,”
As one of the men smashed windshields, Parker took out his gun and ran towards him while shouting, “Police!” and the man immediately dropped the bat and sprinted back into the woods. Parker ignored him and entered the bar.
The first thing he saw was a customer lying on the floor, his teeth, gritted against the pain of a newly broken arm as one of the punks stood over him. The second thing he saw was the man standing atop the bar threatening his partner with a baseball bat.
The man must have leapt onto the counter before Jo could get to her weapon. Movement on the left caught his eye and Parker saw the fourth man, his bat raised high and threatening as he stared at Parker’s gun. A clatter came from the right, and Parker saw that the punk who had injured the customer had dropped his bat and was now holding a small shotgun, a Serbu super shorty that was smaller than the bat, but far deadlier.
Parker was about to tell the man to drop the weapon when Heather, who was carrying a tray of food, burst through the swinging doors that led into the noisy kitchen.
Her sudden appearance startled the man with the shotgun and he jerked his gun at her and fired, even as Parker leapt into its path while firing off a desperate shot. All this took place so quickly, that Parker had only entered the bar three seconds earlier.
The shotgun went off, spraying Parker with pellets, as his own shot hit the man in the chest.
Jo’s back had been turned when the men entered the bar, and before she could react, there was a man standing over her with a baseball bat, threatening to strike her.
The two other men went in different directions, and one of them hit a customer in the arm.
As the injured man fell to the floor, Parker entered with his weapon drawn. As he turned his head to look at the man on his left, the one on the right dropped his bat and grabbed a shotgun from a makeshift shoulder rig beneath his jacket.
That’s when Heather stepped out and everything went to hell.
As Parker and the man traded shots, Jo swept the feet out from under the punk standing atop the bar, sending him crashing backwards to the floor. An instant later, she reached beneath the counter, took out her gun, and aimed it at the last man standing.
“Get down on the floor, now!”
The man dropped his bat and laid down, even as Heather dropped the tray of food and knelt beside Parker, who was fighting back waves of agony caused by the impact of the pellets.
“Talk to me partner!” Jo shouted.
“I’m good.” Parker said through clenched teeth. “My vest took most of it.”
Jo climbed over the bar and went to the man Parker had shot, to relieve him of his weapon.
“He’s alive, but unconscious,”
As Jo called for an ambulance, Heather helped Parker to rise and take a seat on a bar stool. She was crying as she looked at the bloody wounds in his right arm, chest, and shoulder.
After Jo cuffed the men and called in the attack, she checked on Parker.
“Let’s see that arm.”
“It’s not bad, I took the hit sideways, also, I think there was bird shot in the shell, not double-ought buckshot pellets; if I’d been hit
with double-ought it might have penetrated the vest.”
Jo patted him on the cheek. “Thank God you were wearing your vest.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine; they just came in so fast that I couldn’t get to my gun.”
“I think this Nico just upped the stakes.” Parker said.
Three ambulances arrived one after the other and Parker watched as the man he shot was loaded into the first one and taken away. The man turned out to be a seventeen-year-old kid, but he stood six-feet tall and was carrying a shotgun, so Parker felt little regret at having shot him,
The customer who had his arm broken was next and then Parker climbed aboard the last ambulance. Jo was staying behind to deal with the aftermath, in between attempts to comfort a distraught Patrick Taggart.
As the attendant was swinging the door closed, Heather grabbed it and swung it open.
“I want to ride with him.”
The attendant protested but Parker overrode his objections and Heather climbed aboard. As the ambulance headed toward the new hospital, Heather took Parker’s hand and laid her head on his good shoulder.
“You saved me. If you hadn’t jumped in front of me... I might have died.”
“I would never let anyone hurt you.” Parker said.
They grew quiet, and the only sound beside the wail of the siren, was the voice of the ambulance attendant as he spoke into a cell phone.
Heather lifted her head from his shoulders and stared at him.
“Rick?”
“Yeah?”
“That question you want to ask me? The answer is yes, hell yes,”
Parker had just faced death and been wounded, but as he looked at Heather’s smiling face, he knew he was having one of the best days of his life.
Chapter 15
The new hospital was eight stories high and sat on land that was previously a cornfield. There was also an annex building to house the administrative branch and teaching center, and despite being only three stories in height, it was sprawling, and covered nearly as much land as the hospital,
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