by Neil Turner
“If anyone is about to get handed over to the police, my money is on it being you,” Penelope snaps.
“You sure you want Jones here to listen to this kind of talk?” I ask Walton. “You might want to get Oliver and Caitlyn in here instead. Jones’s ass isn’t on the line. Theirs are.”
“Along with yours,” Penelope adds sweetly, lest Walton feel left out.
When Walton hesitates, I turn on Jones, whose eyes widen when he takes in my battered face. He’s a big boy, though not Joe and his goombahs big. Not as tough, either, I’d wager. I lean in just a bit and say, “Miss Brooks is right. If anyone’s getting frog-marched out of here today in cuffs, it’s probably gonna be your boss. I suggest you go back whereber you came from and keep your head down.”
Walton goes pale at the mention of handcuffs.
“That’s right,” Penelope says with anger bleeding into her voice. “It hasn’t hit the news yet, but Tony helped rescue his daughter last night.” As Walton’s eyes widen in surprise, Penelope’s voice turns glacial. “Your Luciano family friends kidnapped a couple of kids and murdered one of them to put pressure on Tony to fix the case against R & B Ramp Services, Mr. Walton… and I’m betting you knew it. Expect a visit from the FBI sometime today.”
I can tell Walton is wondering how to play this as his eyes flit about the room and his tapping foot goes into overdrive. There’s always someone else to blame, some flunky to take the fall.
Not this time, asshole.
“Better call Caitlyn and Oliver,” Penelope reminds him.
Walton nods at Jones. “Go ask Miss Tyson and Mr. Franklin to join us, then wait in your office until I call.”
Jones shoots a final glance my way before he turns to go. He looks unnerved, as he should be, working for an asshole like Walton. Who knows what mischief Jones has been up to at this dick’s behest?
I pull a copy of Sapphire Larkin’s deposition out of my pocket and toss the papers on Walton’s desk after Jones leaves. Select screenshots from Megan’s social media account are attached. “Interesting interbiew, Jonathan. Give it a read. Then we’ll talk.”
Oliver Franklin and Caitlyn Tyson file in a moment later. Penelope hands both their very own copies of Sapphire’s deposition. Then we step back, rest our butts against a side table, and let them read. Franklin is as white as a grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan when he finishes. He sits and fidgets while the others continue reading. Tyson finishes last, slams the papers down on Walton’s desk, and turns a look of hatred on me. Maybe she’s still miffed about my showing up to dash their hopes of setting Billy and Rick up a couple of months back? It’s the only time we’ve met, after all. The loathing in her fiery eyes deepens when her gaze shifts to Walton.
“Is this true?”
“That’s not all,” Penelope pipes up before passing along the news that Walton was in cahoots with the Luciano crime family. “Were you two in on that, too?” she asks Tyson and Franklin.
After Tyson delivers a blistering twenty-second tirade at Walton, I step into the void. “We’ll leab you folks to sort this out among yourselves.”
“And the FBI,” Penelope adds.
“Yes, them, too,” I agree before I walk to the door and look back. “You know how to reach us.”
“I think we can safely say that Rick and Billy are in the clear now,” I mutter to Penelope as the Willis Tower elevator whisks us back to ground level. “Those shits are going to chew each other up trying to save their sorry asses.”
She nods and says, “It seems so much longer ago than six or seven weeks since Billy first walked into our office with this mess.”
And only five since the worst of this bloody nightmare started the first time Ed Stankowski was shot. Things got steadily worse from that point on.
Penelope helps me back into the car and shakes her head.
“I hope that made you feel better,” she says.
“Maybe a little,” I reply. “I’m just so furious at that bastard for putting Brittany at risk!”
“I get it,” she says, then adds with a hint of a grin. “And you’re stoned out of your mind.”
She’s got that right.
“You should be home resting with her,” Penelope says firmly.
She’s right.
Chapter Thirty-Two
We’re well into our open house at Forty-Seven Liberty Street the day after Christmas when Penelope and her roommate, Becky Seguin, arrive.
“Hi, handsome!” Becky says while she pinches my cheek, pats it affectionately, and plants a chaste kiss on my lips. We’ve always gotten along but have ramped it up a notch since I inadvertently walked in on her and Penelope sharing an intimate moment at the office a few weeks ago. It had happened on the occasion of the grand opening and christening of the new Executive Offices and World Headquarters of Brooks and Valenti, Attorneys No Longer Shoehorned into a Strip Mall Shithole.
Penelope had blushed in embarrassment but thankfully hadn’t felt any shame. I was glad to finally solve the riddle of why she wasn’t attached. If anyone deserves to be loved and happy, it’s got to be her. I’ve always liked Becky, and now that she’s totally free to be herself with me, we’re getting along like gangbusters.
“Sometimes I’m jealous when I have to listen to her rave about you,” Becky had admitted with a grin an hour or so after I walked in on them. “If she’s ever gonna do it with a guy, it might be you.”
“Nah, I hear we’re all assholes.”
“That’s true,” she agreed with a sly smile. She says the nicest things.
Trish, who’s been spending quite a bit of time nursing me back to health, hugs my arm close to her and shoots Penelope a mock scowl. “Hands off.”
They share a chuckle before Becky stands back to give me an appraising look. “You’re looking almost back to normal.”
It’s true. Joe’s head left me with a couple of horrific black eyes that had morphed through almost every color of the rainbow over the following weeks. I can now breathe, pronounce the letter V properly, and am recovering from the concussion I suffered from either the head slam with Joe, smashing my head into the driveway, or both. “At least now you’ve got an excuse for being a doofus,” Brittany tells me from time to time.
The Luciano family has taken a few good blows from law enforcement in the wake of Brittany’s kidnapping and the murders of Ed Stankowski and Bobby Harland. I’ve been looking over my shoulder, but Jake and Max assure me that the mobsters currently have their hands full just trying keep their asses out of jail. If Jake and Max are to be believed, the thugs are either lying low or lying on beaches somewhere far from Cedar Heights. It’s comforting to think so, yet I worry that they’ll circle back to take vengeance on me when the dust settles.
But today isn’t the time to think about that.
Billy and Rick used the occasion of our office opening to treat the entire firm to beer and pizza in a show of appreciation. There’s been plenty to celebrate on the R & B front over the past few weeks. The NTSB finally issued its report on the investigation into the September eighth crash. They laid primary blame for the tragedy on the doorstep of pilot Megan Walton. It turns out that Megan had been drinking the night before, in contravention of FAA rules, and had made at least three critical errors after she got into trouble over Lake Michigan. She hadn’t feathered the prop, hadn’t raised the landing gear, and had sealed their fate by attempting a tight turn back to shore when she should have made a wide, sweeping turn. The Cessna engine hadn’t been running at the time of the crash, which suggested fuel starvation as the inciting cause of the accident. The NTSB noted Billy’s and Rick’s testimony suggesting Megan may not have bled the fuel tanks that fateful morning. Had she done so, she might have discovered the faulty fuel before taking off. Because of the missing fuel samples, AAA Avgas is off the hook for the accident, although fuel samples collected from their supplies the next day proved to be tainted, so at least they haven’t gotten away scot free. Windy City and its preferred flight
instructor also came in for brutal criticism. The tour company lost its license to operate aircraft after Megan’s flight instructor cut a deal with prosecutors, admitting to the bribe from Jonathan Walton and agreeing to testify against him. The scuzzball escaped jail time by rolling over on Walton, but he won’t be doing any more flight training. Walton, of course, has a battery of high-priced lawyers trying to get his sorry ass out of the crack it’s in.
The best news is that R & B has been absolved of any responsibility by the NTSB and FBI. Senator Evan Milton has removed them as a defendant in the lawsuit filed against those responsible for the death of his wife, child, and parents. He was even gracious enough to stop by their little airport office to unnecessarily apologize for initially including R & B in the lawsuit. Penelope made the wreckage of the Cessna available for him to use in his case against Windy City. As soon as R & B are free of any risk from a lawsuit, Penelope has arranged to sell Milton what’s left of the plane. I hope it happens soon. We can’t afford to have money invested in the damned aircraft.
I, on the other hand, must be a miserably vindictive bastard, because I’m reveling in every new snippet of misfortune that befalls the rancid former owners of Windy City Sky Tours. I’ve especially enjoyed the FBI rolling out a string of charges against the shits. The cherry on the cake was a court ruling that opened them up to personal civil liability based on Jonathan Walton’s machinations to put Megan in a Windy City cockpit. Predictably, they’ve turned on one another with a vengeance as they try to limit the hit on their personal fortunes. As for the self-evident truth that Walton was in bed with the Luciano family in the campaign against Billy and Rick—including the kidnapping of my daughter—the FBI has so far been unable to turn up evidence or a single witness to buttress that case. I hope the Windy City assholes end up slitting one another’s throats. Maybe Franklin and Tyson can both take a turn on Walton.
After I fetch drinks and snacks for Penelope and Becky, I settle back in a corner and observe the festivities as people drift back and forth between the kitchen and living room. It’s nice to have this intimate group of family and friends together after the hell of October and November. The deaths of Ed Stankowski and Bobby Harland hover on the edge of everyone’s thoughts, threatening to cast a pall over the party, but there are other lives to celebrate… some of which were almost cut short, as well.
Deano is doing that Deano thing where he presses his snout into Papa’s lap to demand attention. Papa flew home within a week of Jake Plummer getting word to him that his old nemesis from Orsomarso was no longer a concern. The dog abandons my father without so much as a glance back when Brittany settles onto the corner of his doggy bed. He may have lost a step since his Mafia encounter, but he’s on his back in tummy-rub position within seconds. Deano remembers who nursed him back to health. Given the price of his treatment and rehab, I suspect that his vet and her family found lots and lots of goodies under the Christmas tree yesterday. BMWs. Mercedes-Benzes. Diamonds. That sort of thing. Deano’s worth it. Right?
My eyes shift from Deano to Brittany. I’m relieved that she seems to have come through her ordeal in reasonably good shape. She catches me looking, gives me a teasing smile, and rubs her shirt sleeve just about where a couple of buckshot pellets nicked her when the shotgun discharged during the collision with Joe.
“I wonder if anyone would care to make me a cup of hot chocolate?” she wonders aloud. When nobody leaps at the opportunity, she turns her big drama-class eyes on me. “Not even the father who shot me? I might forgive him if he made me some nice hot chocolate.”
As I laugh and get up, she says to the room at large, “My therapist thinks I may eventually get past the trauma of attempted filicide if Dad makes me at least one cup of hot chocolate every day.”
“I had to look filicide up, too,” I say when I notice some blank looks. “Think infanticide for kids and teenagers. Think mercy killing for parents.”
My thoughts stay on Brittany after I put the kettle on to boil. To my immense relief, she’s rebuffed Michelle’s attempts to convince her that she would be better off living in Europe with her mother. Brittany refuses to even visit unless her mother withdraws her legal effort to win custody. While I stand in the kitchen doorway watching, I notice her drifting away with a pained longing on her face that suggests her thoughts have turned to Bobby. She’s pretty much quit mentioning him over the last week or two, but I sense that the loss remains acute and that my daughter is in more emotional pain than she lets on. At least she’s not consumed by guilt, which was a distinct possibility given that the kidnapping was related to our family and that she survived while Bobby did not. The idea that she is in any way responsible for what befell Bobby is ridiculous, of course, but the unfathomable twists and turns that guilt and grief follow are often beyond understanding.
Papa, for instance, was utterly devastated and inconsolable after the death of his newfound friend, Ed Stankowski. My father blamed himself for Ed’s murder and yet, since his return from Italy, he hasn’t seemed to have given his deceased friend a thought. I hope that’s not the case, but sometimes I wonder. Papa is a bit of an enigma to me these days, distant and preoccupied. I’ve seen glimpses this melancholy in him ever since the dramas he went through last year, which left him shaken and scarred. Now that he’s finally free of the specter of retribution for his long-ago crime in Italy, I have a sneaking suspicion that he’s on the verge of decamping to Italy permanently to make up for lost time with his sister and her family. It will do him good to escape the Liberty Street memories that haunt him: the murder, Mama’s death, and the trauma we’ve been through over the past few months.
The doorbell rings, attracting a lazy sideways glance from our watchdog, who promptly nudges Brittany, gives her hand a quick little lick, and sighs in contentment when his tummy rub resumes.
I find Jake Plummer and Max Maxwell on the doorstep. Max holds the screen door open wide while Jake maneuvers a walker over the threshold and shuffles inside. He’s dressed in shiny maroon sweatpants, a matching zip-up hoodie, and a pair of unlaced black sneakers. Nothing difficult to get on and off. There’s even a little stubble on his chin.
“Is that a nascent goatee or a shaving oversight?” I ask while touching a fingertip to the whiskers.
“One or the other,” he replies irritably.
We exchange a handshake and hello before Max pushes inside, flicks a thumb toward the walker, rolls his eyes, and mutters, “Big fuckin’ production for a flesh wound, ain’t it?”
“Fuck you, Max,” Jake answers softly, then lowers his voice barely above a whisper to add, “and watch your fucking language, will you? There’s ladies and a teenager present.”
We all chuckle, and then Max and I follow Jake into the kitchen. Jake suffered considerably more than a flesh wound during the shootout at the farmhouse the night we rescued Brittany. His survival had been touch and go for several hours after he’d caught a couple of slugs. Fortunately, the bullets had missed vital organs and arteries when they tore into him, but Jake is facing a long, painful stretch in rehab and is being pensioned off his detective job with the Cedar Heights PD. Unlike my daughter, who did suffer a flesh wound, Jake doesn’t demand a beverage, so I pour him a nice glass of his favorite Glenfiddich 21-Year-Old Scotch without making him play the guilt card to be served. Brittany slides a plate of Joan Brooks’s terrific chocolate chip cookies under his nose and plants a kiss on his cheek.
“How are you doing?” I ask after setting his drink in front of him at the kitchen table.
“Can’t complain,” he replies.
I shoot a sideways glance at my daughter and bounce an eyebrow. “Nobody would blame you for doing a little complaining, Jake.”
“You don’t have to listen to all his damned griping and moaning and groaning the way some of us do,” Max grumbles. Jake is in good if not sentimental hands. The first time we’d gotten together after Jake was released from the hospital, it was clear that Mrs. Plummer was going to need help
. Max had immediately volunteered, but had laid out the ground rules for Max Care. “There ain’t gonna be an any schmaltzy bullshit, pal. Don’t get used to being waited on hand and foot, you old bastard. I ain’t your babysitter or a fuckin’ nurse.” From what I’ve seen over the last few weeks, Max is doing a surprisingly good imitation of both.
My cop buddies add considerable spice and humor to the proceedings for the next little while as I bask in the camaraderie and, yes, the love that permeates these relationships. In one way or another, everyone here has been through his or her own version of hell over the past few months and understands that we’ve all played a part in seeing one another through. We share a bond that I hope doesn’t diminish as events recede into the rearview mirrors of our lives. Somehow, I just can’t see that happening.
Penelope and Becky are the first ones to call it a night.
“I need to get a good night’s sleep for a big meeting in the morning,” Penelope says before she deposits her glass in the dishwasher and circles the room to dole out kisses and hugs.
“What about you?” Jake asks me. “Are you going to this meeting, too, or are you still making her do all the work?”
I shrug and say, “She’s the brains of the organization.”
Max snorts. “I suppose you think you’re the brawn after our little escapade in Wisconsin?”
“Hardly,” I reply, and mean it. I hope to never again find myself in a situation that even vaguely resembles that night. Joe was an asshole and I hated the son of a bitch, yet I still have nightmares about killing him and inexplicably wonder if I couldn’t have played those chaotic few seconds differently. I guess that makes me different from guys like him. I can live with that.
“What’s this big meeting tomorrow about?” Trish asks Penelope.
“Hopefully, the final settlement negotiation between R & B and the principals of Windy City. I’ll be happy to get back to our mom-and-pop cases when this is finally over.”