Craving Vengeance, a Nick Spinelli Mystery

by Valerie J. Clarizio

“Ms. Carter, we need to know for sure. I need you to confirm the victim’s ID. Can you come with me to do that?” Spinelli asked.

  Cindy nodded slowly before she placed her trembling hands on the table to steady herself as she stood to follow Spinelli.

  Chapter Three

  Spinelli had just delivered Cindy Carter to the front door of the precinct when his cell phone rang. Walker’s mug flashed across the screen.

  “Spinelli here.”

  “Hey, you need to get back here. We gotta go.”

  “Why, what’s up?”

  “We got another one.”

  “Another dead body?” Spinelli inquired.

  “Not just another dead body but another freaking dead cupid.”

  “You gotta be kidding me.”

  “Nope. Hurry up.”

  Spinelli met Walker in the parking lot where they climbed into their unmarked police car. He’d instructed Marsh to hang back to work on gathering and analyzing information about Carter. Perhaps he’d find something useful in Carter’s financial records, or maybe one of the people on his contact list would be able to shed some light on what he was up to and what went down.

  The morning traffic was terrible. It took them nearly thirty minutes to arrive at the crime scene.

  A uniformed officer approached them the second they entered the bar. He pointed at a distraught older woman talking to another officer as they stood at the opposite side of the room near the entrance to a long hallway. “That’s Gail Boyd. She’s the cleaning woman. She found the vic in the office when she arrived at 8:00 a.m. The office is down the hall on the left, just past the bathrooms.”

  “Okay,” Spinelli acknowledged as he studied the woman who looked to be in her late forties. She was of healthy size. She wore faded jeans and a dark gray sweatshirt. Her sleeves were pushed up to her elbows. Her eyes were red and swollen, and she’d been crying for a while.

  He and Walker headed toward the office and stopped in the doorway to take a look. Sure enough, there was another cupid sprawled out on the desk buck-naked. His thin, pillowed, satiny wings pressed between his body and the surface of the desk. The quiver full of arrows lay on the floor next to the bow. Just like the first dead cupid, this one was also a tall muscular man with dark hair.

  “Jesus Christ. What the hell? Two in one day and on Valentine’s Day of all days,” Walker said as he eyed the dead man.

  They stepped closer to inspect the body, peeking around Debra, the medical examiner. She glanced up at them, “Cause of death isn’t blatantly evident.”

  “What?” Spinelli questioned as the acidic stench of vomit stung his nostrils and caused his eyes to water.

  Debra looked up at him again. “He wasn’t shot or stabbed, no sign of struggle. Judging from the vomit and strong smell of almonds, I’m guessing he was poisoned. Did you get any reports back from Bethany on the first cupid yet?”

  “No, nothing yet. I’ll talk with her when I get back,” Spinelli replied as he shot her a frown. “You smell almonds?”

  Debra arched a brow. “You don’t?”

  “Christ, how can you not smell that?” Walker questioned.

  Spinelli shifted his gaze to the vomit splatter on the floor. “To me, it smells acidic, almost tinny.”

  Debra shifted her gaze between the detectives and shrugged. “For some reason, the almond smell associated with poisoning isn’t always evident to everyone. I don’t know why, it just isn’t. No big deal.”

  Spinelli and Walker went back into the bar to question the cleaning woman. She was still talking with the uniformed officer when they approached her. She looked a bit calmer than when they first saw her.

  “Ms. Boyd.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Detective Spinelli,” he gestured toward Walker. “This is Detective Walker. Can you tell us what happened?”

  Ms. Boyd blew out a heavy sigh. “I clean the bar five days a week. I came in through the back door as I always do, and the door to the office was open. It’s never open, so I peeked inside and found Tony, the bartender, sprawled out on the desk. At first, I thought maybe he’d just passed out or something, but when I stepped closer, I realized his wide-eyed stare at the ceiling was that of a dead man.”

  “So, you didn’t see anyone else here this morning?” Walker asked.

  Ms. Boyd shook her head. “Nope, just Tony.” She shifted her gaze between them. “So, you think someone murdered him?” she asked as her voice cracked.

  “That’s what we’re trying to determine. How well did you know Mr....”

  “Rosso,” Ms. Boyd finished for Walker. “I didn’t really know him that well. I’d see him sometimes when he opened the bar as I was finishing the clean-up. We’d chat for a moment before I left. He was such a nice young man. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to kill him.”

  They asked Ms. Boyd a few more questions, but she wasn’t much help.

  “Ah, Christ, not on my desk. On all my papers,” a gruff, smoker’s voice bellowed from down the hall. Spinelli looked in that direction to find a large older gentleman standing in the hall staring through the office doorway.

  “Sonny,” Ms. Boyd yelled as she waved him over, “these detectives need to talk to you.”

  Sonny’s head snapped in their direction. His jowls jiggled. He nodded and headed toward them.

  “That’s Sonny Tomes. He owns the bar.”

  Sonny waddled toward them. The cigar pinched between his teeth smelled sweet. Smoke trailed behind him. He pulled the cigar from his mouth. “Hi, I’m Sonny. What in the hell happened here?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to figure out. I take it Tony worked last night,” Spinelli inquired.

  “Yeah, he was scheduled to close.”

  “Was anyone working with him?”

  “No, it was a weeknight. During the weeknights, he closes on his own. Once we’re through the happy hour rush, I go home.”

  “So you worked with him until what time?”

  “I tended bar until about 7:00. Then I worked on paperwork in the office until I left at about 8:00.”

  “How was Tony last night? Was he acting unusual?”

  Sonny paused for a moment. “He seemed fine. We were kind of busy, so we didn’t talk much.”

  “How about the clientele? Was there anyone unusual or anyone acting different last night?”

  Sonny nodded and smirked. “This is a bar. It’s not uncommon for people to act strange.”

  Spinelli shot him a hard-eyed scowl.

  Sonny shifted from one foot to the other. “No, sir. It was like any other routine night.”

  “Can you think of anyone who’d want Tony dead?”

  “No...I don’t know. He was just my bartender.”

  “We’re going to need an employee contact list and a list of any of Tony’s acquaintances you know of, including regular customers, friends, and girlfriend or wife.”

  Sonny chuckled. “What’s so funny?”

  “If I knew their names, the list of his women friends would be extensive.”

  Spinelli arched a brow. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Look at him. I hate to say it because I’m a guy and all, but Tony was a hell of a good-looking guy. He did wonders for my business. I swear, all the professional women that work downtown came in for happy hour just to watch him work. Some of them hung around on occasion if you know what I mean.”

  “I think I get the picture. Make sure to include their names on the contact lists.”

  They followed Sonny to his office, and he compiled the lists they’d asked for while the ME and her crew took Tony’s body away.

  Sonny pissed and moaned the entire time he drafted the list of customers. He set his pen down and hesitated for a brief moment before he handed the list to Spinelli. “Are you sure this is necessary? Do you really have to talk to all these people? Tony’s murder will be bad enough for business as it is, but to question my regulars on top of it. I may as well hang the ‘Out of Business’ sign u
p right now.”

  Spinelli grabbed the list and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. He and Walker headed back to the precinct. They hoped to have some news from the pathologist about Mike Carter, their first cupid. With two murdered cupids, they were sure Bethany would be directed to make the cupid case her priority.

  They also hoped to have some news from Marsh. Perhaps he found something useful about Mike Carter as well.

  Spinelli shrugged out of his coat and flung it across the back of his chair. He walked up to Marsh’s desk and looked over his shoulder to see what he was looking at. Walker did the same. Marsh pointed at the printout of Carter’s bank record. “Look here. His account showed a decent balance for a middle-income wage earner six months ago before he lost his job at the brokerage firm.” Marsh skimmed his finger down the printout. “Then here, by month three of being unemployed, he blew through most of his savings.” He slid his finger further down the page. “By month four there was pretty much nothing left, and that’s about when he moved in with his sister. There wasn’t any account activity from then until about a week ago.” Marsh tapped his finger on the last deposit line. “Look at this, a $2,000 cash deposit all of a sudden.”

  “Where did that come from?” Walker asked.

  “Good question. We can ask his sister if she knows anything about it when we go over there.”

  As they drove to Cindy Carter’s house, Spinelli and Walker got Marsh up to speed on what little they knew about their second cupid, Tony Rosso. They decided they should pay visits to some of Rosso’s acquaintances after they finished at the Carter house.

  Spinelli dialed the ME. He thought it would be better to go through Debra rather than talk to Bethany directly. Bethany could sure hold a grudge. He feared even looking at her; he was certain her dagger-shooting eyes would slice him into pieces.

  Debra answered her cell on the second ring, “Hello.”

  “Hey, Debra, Spinelli here. Did you get Bethany’s report on Mike Carter yet?”

  “Not yet. I just got back. I’ll head down there now and tell her what we found with our latest cupid. I’ll see what she’s found. I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”

  “Thanks.” Spinelli disconnected the call.

  Walker parked in Cindy Carter’s driveway. She greeted them at the door. Her eyes were even redder and more swollen than when they’d seen her earlier. She invited them in and showed them to Mike’s room. It was a small space. The bed was pushed up against the far wall. A nightstand covered with books and magazines, a reading light, and a TV remote stood next to the bed. Across from the foot of the bed was a chest of drawers. A small flat panel TV sat on top of it along with a jewelry box. Next to the chest was a small desk with a couple of drawers. His laptop sat at the center of the desk. Papers, envelopes, and pens cluttered the top as well.

  The three of them and Cindy nearly filled the remainder of the room.

  Cindy blotted her eyes with a tissue and cleared her throat. “As you can see, my house is small. There wasn’t much room for Mike’s stuff when he moved in so he rented a storage unit. All that’s here are the necessities.”

  Spinelli stepped toward the desk and then shot her a glance over his shoulder. “Would you mind if we took a look around?” They’d probably need to comb through the storage unit as well at some point.

  Cindy nodded. “Go ahead. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.”

  They went through Mike’s meager belongings. They didn’t find much in his desk either, just a few past due notices and some employment rejection letters. Mixed among the paperwork was an envelope with a Milwaukee County pre-stamped return address. It had already been opened and the contents removed. He glanced at the return address again just to verify its origin. At a fast glance, it was easy to confuse the county and city pre-stamped envelopes. Definitely county. Curiosity nearly killed him. He set the envelope down and thumbed through the stack of papers again, looking for anything on county letterhead. Nothing surfaced. What had the county mailed to him? Spinelli couldn’t seem to clear his mind of the empty envelope. He flipped through the papers again. All the paper shuffling released a familiar scent. Where was that aroma coming from? Spinelli inhaled deeply. The envelope? He picked it up again, held it under his nose, and inhaled. The aroma was strong. It was as if someone intentionally sprayed the envelope with perfume—not just any perfume but a familiar scent to him as well.

  Walker craned his neck around Spinelli’s shoulder. “What are you doing?”

  Spinelli held the envelope in front of Walker. “Smell this.” Walker inhaled and shrugged.

  “It’s an envelope from the county.”

  “So?”

  “Don’t you find it strange a government envelope smells of perfume?” Spinelli asked.

  “I guess.”

  Spinelli shifted and held the envelope out to Marsh.

  Marsh took a whiff. He didn’t seem nearly as enthralled as Spinelli. “It smells familiar to me, but I can’t quite place it. Help me out, guys,” Spinelli said as he sniffed at the envelope again. A hint of unease coiled in the pit of his stomach.

  Walker and Marsh both shook their heads dismissively.

  Marsh flipped open the laptop. It required a password to log in. He looked at Spinelli. “It may take me a while to crack this. Why don’t you see if she’ll let us take it back to the precinct?”

  Spinelli nodded. Marsh was somewhat of a technology wizard, which was part of the reason Spinelli was glad when Marsh had been assigned to his team several months ago when his partner, Mad Dog Maxwell, had retired. Spinelli had worked with Mad Dog for over six years. He really missed Maxwell, the mentor who taught him everything he needed to know about being a great homicide detective. But now Spinelli had his own team, Walker and Marsh, and things were working out better than anyone had thought they would. Spinelli was the intuitive one, Walker the analytical and politically correct one, and Marsh the technology wizard. There wasn’t a case the three of them couldn’t solve. But this case was moving fast, and they needed to get a handle on it before they wound up with another dead cupid on their hands.

  They left Cindy’s house and headed over to Tony Rosso’s downtown apartment located on the lakeshore in a high rise. The building was home to mostly upper-middle-class tenants. Tony lived alone. Spinelli thought it odd that a single-income bartender could afford such a place. It didn’t make sense. What was Tony into, besides bartending?

  The super let them in, and they milled around the apartment. Tony had good tastes. Large oversized leather furniture filled the living room and faced a 60-inch flat panel TV. His marble-topped end tables were lined with bronze Roman warrior statues. A laptop sat on the center of the cocktail table. They’d take that back to the precinct and search its contents for anything that may lead them to the killer.

  A glass case stood in the corner of the room. It was filled with swords. Spinelli didn’t know much about swords, but he guessed they were expensive. They were displayed in velvet-lined holders and looked old.

  A large aquarium lined the opposite side of the living room. It had to be at least a fifty-gallon tank. Spinelli watched Marsh as he eyed the bright colored fish. A few different species swam about.

  Marsh pointed at a bright blue fish trimmed in gold. “This is a Dwarf Angelfish. It would take about two weeks of my take-home pay to buy just one of these Resplendent Angelfish, and this bartender has at least four in this tank. Something isn’t right here.”

  They snooped about the rest of Rosso’s apartment. He had a lot of clothes and shoes, the expensive kind, not the kind one wears to bartend. Several thick gold chains hung on hooks just inside his walk-in closet. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d bet that Mr. Rosso is a kept man,” Walker joked.

  Spinelli didn’t laugh. Judging from what he was seeing, that statement just might be true.

  Chapter Four

  Shannon sat in her office perusing paperwork, incapable of any coherent thoughts. She pressed her fingers to
her lips. They still tingled from Spinelli’s early morning kiss. Though they’d been dating for over two months already, his kisses still had that effect on her.

  She glanced at the photo of herself and Spinelli that sat on the corner of her desk. She picked it up and pulled it closer. The photo was taken last Christmas while they were working at the mall. Spinelli was wearing his Santa outfit and sitting in the plush red velvet chair in the Santa Village. Shannon stood behind him wearing her little red Santa helper dress trimmed with white fur.

  She’d never forget the first day he played Santa Claus. The horrified look on his face was priceless as he studied the endless line of children waiting to see him. She giggled. He was like a fish out of water.

  They’d met when he’d been reassigned from the Homicide Division to the Social Services Department to assist her with child recovery and placement for the holiday season. Both departments were short staffed, and neither of them accepted the assignment willingly.

  He had no experience with children, and she had no patience for his unconventional ways. But when Santa Claus and an elf turned up dead, and she appeared to be next on the killer’s list, it was Spinelli who came to the rescue. Without hesitation, he stepped out of his comfort zone, way out, and took on the undercover role of Santa Claus to keep an eye on her. Spinelli caught the killer, saved the day, and in the process, he captured her heart.

  “Earth to Shannon, come in Shannon.”

  Shannon shifted her gaze up to meet her boss’ eyes. “Huh?”

  Anna chuckled. “Where is your mind? I’ve been talking to you for the past thirty seconds.” Anna’s eyes shifted down to the photo. She perched her hands on her well-rounded hips and smiled. “You’re staring at that photo again?”

  Shannon set the photo down, and Anna snatched it up. “Chrissake, he’s good-looking, even in the fat suit. And those eyes. He could talk a woman into anything without saying a word. I’ve never seen such dark, mysterious eyes. If I was twenty years younger, single, and you weren’t dating him...well I’ll just say he could eat crackers in my bed anytime.”