Driving Reign

by TG Wolff

  “Trying to set you up. We’re smarter than that.” He pulled out his cell. “We’ll turn the tables on him. Call your commander, tell him to bring IA.”

  “Who are you calling?”

  “Catherine Williams. Nothing like bringing a nuclear weapon to a gun fight.” With the wheels in motion, Cruz dug into his steak and pepper sandwich and pile of fries.

  Yablonski was more enthusiastic about the bowl of chili and side of applesauce after he spoke with Catherine. “This is almost as good as Erin’s. Hers has just enough heat to keep it interesting, you know. You talk to Aurora about the no show at her parents?”

  “No.” His friend’s good eye called him pathetic. “Don’t look at me like that. Something got in the way. I got it covered. I planted a bug in my truck. Next time she isn’t where she says she is, well, shit, I hope there isn’t a next time.”

  “You don’t think she’s cheating on you?”

  It was the first place his head went, and it froze him to the core. Worse, he didn’t have a second place. “I know Aurora. She doesn’t have it in her. But everywhere she goes, men are after here. Every time we come here, I have to stay within arm’s distance or some dumb shit is asking her to dance or play darts. Worse is I can’t come up with a single, legitimate reason why she would be sneaking out on me. What could she be doing that she couldn’t tell me about? You sure Erin hasn’t said anything?”

  “Come on, I’d tell you if she knew anything. What are you going to do?”

  He shrugged. “Keep her close. Show her how good we are together. Hope. Pray.” His phone rang, the number familiar. “De La Cruz.”

  “Detective, Lieutenant Peabody. Maintenance found an ID tag last night and put it in lost-and-found. It may not have anything to do with DeMusa but wanted to let you know about it. It’s a City of Cleveland employee tag.”

  “Let me guess. Percival Hannigan?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Thanks, Peabody. I’ll send someone to collect it.” He ended the call. “Hannigan went after Sophie again last night. Nearly succeeded, too. Time to pay another visit to 601 Lakeside. You with me? Your face alone will get him to confess.”

  “Can’t. Sasha’s death will have me working overtime. Plus, the commander wants me to keep a profile so low, it’s subterranean. Showing my pretty face around city hall will get my ass kicked.”

  Cruz studied his friend, trying to read between the lines on his battered face. There was something there, and it was being bottled up. “Meet back here tonight. Call Erin. I’ll call Aurora.” He threw money on the table, enough for both meals. “See you in a few hours.” He shoved his arms in his coat, waiting for Yablonski’s agreement. “I said—”

  “I heard you. Fine.”

  “Don’t you bail. I will hunt you down.” When the thick-necked bastard didn’t answer, he pulled his gloves back off. “Fuck it, I can stay.”

  “Go.” Yablonski made it an order. “You’ve got an asshole to catch and I don’t need to be babysat.”

  “You call if you need me.”

  Inside city hall, he was directed to a forgotten office on the lowest level where interns had an eight-by-ten patch of linoleum, a desk, and a computer. Tamara Lipinski was the chief in charge of herding the cats. Though barely older than her charges, she had the air of competency that said she would excel at any job. “Val Hannigan left around eleven this morning. He had a few errands for the chief of staff and mentioned stopping home for lunch.”

  “Do you have a cell number for him?”

  “I do, but it’s his private cell. I’m sorry, I can’t give it out.”

  Cruz approved of the way she handled him, even if he had wanted the number. “Which desk is his? I’d like to take a look at it.”

  “I guess that’s okay. Rear left.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Lipinski.” Cruz nodded at the curious gazes as he approached the unoccupied desk.

  “Detective.” The man snapped out his title as though it were a curse. “I believe I told your supervisor that the next time you came to talk to me, you better bring a lawyer.”

  “Oh, no, Mr. Posey,” Tamara stammered. “Detective De La Cruz isn’t here for you.”

  Cruz turned to find the confident admin crumbling under a bully. “It’s alright, Ms. Lipinski,” he said, relieving her of responsibility. “I’m here to talk to Percival Hannigan, Posey. Do you know where he is?”

  “He is paid to keep up with me, not vice versa.” He purposefully looked to the vacant workspace. “Tamara, where’s Val?”

  “He’s delivering packages to Burning River Developers, Cleveland Hopkins Airport, and the Cleveland Metroparks.”

  “There you have it, Detective. Mr. Hannigan is working. Now I’ll thank you to stop interrupting my staff.” Taking a step back, he made it very clear it was time for Cruz to hit the road.

  Cruz ignored the invitation. “Percival Hannigan has been working for you since when?”

  “Shocking as it might be, I don’t keep the start dates of my interns in my head. Tamara, do you—”

  “January the fourteenth. It was a Tuesday.”

  He smiled to intimidate, to move the game along. “Tuesday, the fourteenth.”

  “Did you know he had a relationship with Sophie DeMusa?”

  “No, Detective. That is not one of the standard questions I ask when interviewing a potential intern.” He marched to the door, forcing Cruz to follow if he wanted answers.

  The lack of reaction didn’t fit. So, he followed, and he didn’t let go. “He must have known you had a relationship with Ms. DeMusa. Everyone with a four-four zip code knows. Funny that you hired the one man trying to date her.”

  “First, I have no idea what Val knew or didn’t know. It wasn’t a subject of conversation, and I’m not a psychic. Second, what’s between myself and that woman cannot be called a relationship.”

  “Did Mr. Hannigan talk about her?”

  “Not in front of me.” He bit his tongue, stopping from saying what was certainly not politically correct. “Get this through your head, Dellacourt: I don’t answer to the B-team. Once Yablonski digs himself out of the hole he’s in, you have him call me and have him bring a lawyer. Get out of here or the chief will hear from me.”

  Cruz froze for an instant, just long enough to ensure the fire Posey lit didn’t show on his face. Slowly, he reached into his pocket, withdrew a card, and gave it to the irate bastard. He stalked out of city hall, calling Yablonski as soon as he was clear. Voicemail. “Call me.” More determined than ever to unravel the knot wrapped around Sophie DeMusa, he drove south to a neighborhood of square brick homes.

  Cruz rang the doorbell and waited. Minutes later, the jolly snowman decorating the front door was moved aside for a questioning face. Cruz held up his badge, kept it up as the door opened. “Mrs. Hannigan?”

  “Yes. I’m Wendy Hannigan. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m Detective Jesus De La Cruz, Cleveland police. Is your son Percival home?”

  “Val? No, Detective, he’s working, down at city hall. What is this about?”

  “Your son’s name has come up as a potential witness to a crime. I need to talk to him. May I come in, ma’am?” Within minutes, Cruz understood that Hannigan’s mother knew only what the son wanted her to know. The position at city hall. The story about preserving this home. She knew nothing of Sophie DeMusa. Nothing of her mother’s sleeping pills.

  “Do you want me to call him, Detective? I’m sure we can straighten this whole thing out.”

  Certainly, Val Hannigan would know soon the Cleveland police wanted to talk with him, if he didn’t already. With the right message, maybe Cruz could get him to come in voluntarily. “Please.”

  The phone was answered on the third ring. “Hi, Mom.” The sound was loud enough to hear without being on speaker phone.

  “Val, honey, there’s a police detective here who needs to talk to you.”

  “What’s h
e doing there?”

  “Looking for you. He said you might have witnessed a crime. Is that true? What happened?”

  Not trying to box Hannigan into a corner, Cruz signaled for the phone. “Val. My name is Detective Jesus De La Cruz.” He signaled the mother to wait as he took the phone into the kitchen to keep the conversation private. “It’s just me and you. Your mother is in the other room.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Just to talk. There’s a lot that needs to be said about Sophie DeMusa and what happened last night.”

  “Last night?”

  “In Sophie’s room. Mr. Hannigan, Val, we know you were there. Let’s talk about why and what happened. We know you didn’t want to hurt Sophie, not really. You just needed her to take you seriously. Meet me and we’ll talk. Just you and me.”

  That’s when the call ended.

  Cruz encouraged the mother to have her son call him, then returned to his car and did the paperwork that would have Val Hannigan brought in for questioning.

  Hours later, a throng of women were huddled around a single chair. “Throng’s not a real word,” Czerski said. “Thong is, throng is not.”

  “Gaggle,” Smitty said. “That’s what you call geese and see the way their heads are bopping up and down? Just like them.”

  “It’s not a horde,” Cruz said, “because they aren’t mad. It isn’t a swarm because they aren’t buzzing.”

  “Giggling,” Smitty interrupted, “sounds a lot like gaggle to me.”

  True enough. The gaggle of women was huddled around a single chair occupied by Yablonski’s Mack-sized ass. He was soaking up the “poor babies” and “let me kiss it and make it betters.”

  While the attention he was getting might have been a joke, the reason behind the injuries was very serious. His friend’s edge had been harder when he’d walked through the door, toughened by a very bad day at the office. If a little TLC balanced it out, Cruz himself would have held his hand. Fortunately, there were enough female Yablonski fans in the house that his bluff didn’t get called.

  “Okay ladies, my man needs breathing room.” Erin shooed away the groupies fussing over her man. She shouldn’t have been imposing, but she was a nurse who routinely had to take people and situations in hand. A two-ton weight was more easily moved aside than the woman studying her fiancé. “I don’t like the way that cut looks, Matt. Maybe we should go home.”

  “Feels just fine,” the big man said, kissing her fingers and, yes, getting around her.

  Aurora drifted further down the table, returning to the chair Cruz saved for her. “I hate seeing him hurt. And only two weeks before the wedding. I hope the colors fade or the pictures will be ruined.”

  “They’ll fade,” Cruz said. “Besides, it’s all about angle. The photographer can make him look like The Rock if she has the notion to. A black eye and swollen cheeks are beginner stuff.”

  She cocked her head, her gaze on Yablonski’s unusually colorful face. “You think?”

  Looking at Czerski and Smitty, he mouthed No idea. To her he said, “Absolutely. You’re an artist. You know what can be done with a little smoke and mirrors.”

  When his dart partners snickered, she cut her gaze to their too-innocent faces. “Maybe…”

  Erin leaned into the table, speaking around the men to Aurora. “I don’t know when I’m going to get these table toppers done. We have a big family brunch and I have to work.”

  “I thought we were going to do them tonight,” Aurora said. “Nothing says party like margaritas and hot glue guns.”

  “That was before.” Erin didn’t turn away from her fiancé, continuously touching him, checking the bruising.

  Yablonski caught her hand, holding it this time. “I’m fine. Really. Aurora, there’s three boxes of the stuff in the car. I’ll go get it.” He began to rise.

  Erin bounced up. “We can get it. You just sit and rest.”

  Aurora signaled the waitress. “Can we get a pitcher of margaritas at the back table? Ladies, we have tables to top.” The last of the gentle pats and soft kisses were given as the women receded to a corner. Aurora and Erin slipped out the side door while three tables were pushed together. Aurora and Erin came back in, followed by two firefighters carrying boxes with artificial flowers, ribbons, and vases. Erin directed the boxes while Aurora laughed at something one of the men said.

  Cruz started to stand, then eased down when Aurora shook her head and pointed to him. The poacher got the picture and got the hell away from his woman.

  “Easy, tiger. She’s cool.” Yablonski spun his chair to face the table then lifted his longneck bottle to his healing mouth. “What?” he barked when Czerski and Smitty smirked at him.

  Czerski put his hands over his heart. “Oh, Matt,” he said in a bad falsetto, “your eye looks like a sunset, all red and blood shot.”

  Cruz laughed, letting himself be distracted from watching over Aurora.

  “Fuck you. You’re just jealous Amy wanted to sit on my lap and not yours.” The exchange that followed was rude, crude, and didn’t include words with more than four letters.

  “Speaking of fuckers,” Cruz said, “I ran into Posey today. He was trying so hard to insult me, the vein on the side of his neck was popping out. I got under his skin, man.”

  “And that’s a good thing?”

  “It was and it wasn’t. He fucked up.” Cruz glanced over his shoulder, making sure no extra ears could hear. “Yablonski, he knew you were in the middle of a mess. There was more than knowledge in that arrogant tone. There was pride.”

  Their conversation sailed under the piped-in music. There was a mole in their midst. No one wanted to believe that of their own men and women. But the facts pointed to a single conclusion. Together, they ran through who knew about Yablonski’s snitch. His commander, two of the other narcotics detectives, Catherine Williams. They added the narcotics admin, his contact at the Water Department, the waitress from lunch.

  “Ramsey needs to know,” Cruz said.

  “What are you guys doing with your heads together?” Erin said as she infiltrated the space. “You planning the bachelor party?”

  “You caught us,” Yablonski said. “I just wanted a nice steak dinner but Cruzie is insisting on strippers. A dozen of them. You finish your flower thingies?”

  “Centerpieces, and we have about half done. Not bad.” Erin looked to Aurora, who held a box with fake flowers poking out the top.

  “Let’s meet back here tomorrow,” Yablonski suggested. “You all can do what you do.” He indicated the box of arranged fake flowers. “And we’ll do what we do.”

  “Tomorrow?” Aurora’s voice squeaked out a little too high. “I can’t. I promised one of my coworkers I would come over and help pick out paint samples.”

  Erin took the box from her. “Oh, so Cathy is finally going to redo her house?”

  Cruz didn’t buy it for a minute. Yablonski quirked an eyebrow, casting his vote. Cruz was about to call bullshit when Yablonski gave him a quick shake of his head. They let the women drift out ahead of them.

  “I got an idea,” Yablonski said. “The GPS is still in your truck, right?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Another morning lost to administrative work. And it was work. Reports to read and approve, schedules to update, authorizations to sign. It wasn’t Cruz couldn’t handle the work or that is wasn’t important—this lame ass paperwork kept the department in lights and weak coffee—it was that the detective work had to take a back seat. He had wondered why commanders didn’t try to keep their hands more in the game. It had been his opinion the more distance between leading and doing, the worse the leading and less productive the doing. Maybe he was getting a taste of why they were separate.

  He was deep into his own work when his phone rang. On the other end was D’Arcy Whitsome’s secretary. His presence was needed at one o’clock. It didn’t leave him a lot of time to push through on the lab reports an
d follow-ups on yesterday’s interviews.

  Magliotti stalked across the room, signaling for his attention. “Margot Hennessy and her attorney are ready for you. That is one furious woman. I’m going to sit in with you. You need muscle, I’m your man.”

  Cruz gathered his notes. “I take it she didn’t appreciate your invitation?”

  “No, but the girls in the sorority house did. There’s no love lost there.”

  They entered the room and the lawyer went straight to closing arguments. Hennessy sat straight, her back not touching the chair. Her face was locked in a grimace that conveyed her outrage at being where she was and disgust at what might be lingering on the chair and table.

  Her lawyer was dressed in a suit and had gold twinkling on her fingers, wrist, neck, and ears. Not the standard for a criminal attorney. The lawyer hadn’t stopped talking since Cruz and Magliotti stepped in.

  Cruz hadn’t started listening.

  He held up his hand and she paused. He started the recorder and read in the requisite information. Then he started listening.

  “I am Christine Hartford. I want to know: why is my client here?”

  “Ms. Hennessy is a person of interest in the assault on and attempted murder of Sophie DeMusa.”

  Hennessy was on her feet, which brought Magliotti to his. “Sit,” he ordered.

  “This is ridiculous,” Hennessy said but lowered to the chair. “I have nothing to do with Sophie’s condition.”

  “Then this will be easy to clear up,” Cruz said. “You went to Sophie’s place of employment on Friday, January tenth seeking her signature on a document, correct?”