“Or how about this one?”
Heather’s bedroom. The covers were in a bundle on the bed.
“You can get these little lipstick cameras at Sam’s Club and you can watch them from anywhere there’s cell service. Pretty cool.”
Tom thought of the cameras at Olivia’s school. The laptop at Abby’s day care. Anywhere there was a lens and an internet connection, Ernst could watch. He gave the impression that he was a group of people, not a single man, because he had eyes all over. But Tom was convinced it was just him; Ernst had taken out other possible conspirators and wasn’t working for Palumbo. He was alone and insane, wanting Tom to know just how clever he was.
Ernst waggled his eyebrows and swept the phone through the air like a magician about to perform a trick. “But that’s not all, Tommy . . .” He thrust the phone toward Tom again. “Note the man absent from this picture. Damien Lawrence Culpepper. Born November 4th, 1987 in Jacksonville, Florida. Not as much of an up-and-comer as you, Mr. perfect-score-on-his-SOCE, but Damien is a good boy. He listens when he gets a text from your supervisor that he’s to take the evening off.”
Ernst slipped the phone back into his pocket. “Our little machines tell us what to do, and we do it, no questions asked.”
“I just spoke to Culpepper.”
“So did I, as you followed me here. Or, I texted. It’s the newest thing, I just got it installed — a caller ID faker. No more 945 numbers even necessary.”
“He wouldn’t just leave without someone there to relieve him.”
“Sure he would. He’s only human. He’s dying for the relief you keep promising but don’t deliver. How long have you had him guarding Heather? Three days straight? Come on. She’s there, she’s alone, and in one phone call — I’ll tell her it’s urgent — I’ll have all three of them come here and meet me.”
Tom stared down at Ernst, wanting to wipe that little fucking smile off his face, but confused. “Why? You know all I have to do right now is arrest you.”
“Go ahead. You have your gun, you have your badge.”
Ernst just sat there. Tom didn’t move.
“Why don’t you?” The lawyer stood up abruptly, the wheelie chair rolled back and clunked against the wall. “I’ll tell you why. Because right now it’s just your word against mine. And you are a cop who lied to get into his department, a cop with a record, with documented emotional problems, with conflicts of interest in every direction. I mean, look at your fucking face. Have you looked at your face?”
Tom just breathed, could hear the air whistling through his own nostrils.
Calm. Stay calm.
Ernst pulled a set of keys from his pocket, the same ones he’d used to open the padlocked gate. “Meanwhile, I’m an upstanding lawyer, no criminal record. I got Heather Moss her daughters back after your partner had them taken away. And I’m going to clear her of all charges on the Howard Declan case.”
This close, his mask removed, Tom could see the damage in the man’s eyes, but also his cunning. He’d been planning this thing for months, maybe years.
“What do you think is going to happen, here?” Tom asked.
They were close together, noses a few inches apart, Tom could smell mint gum on the lawyer’s breath and it made him want to vomit.
“You called me, Tom.”
“You knew I was getting close.”
Ernst shrugged, then sauntered away, casually. Tom saw him check his watch again. Then, keeping his back to Tom, said, “Let me have your phone please.”
“I don’t think so.”
“That’s the only way this works.”
“The way what works? I’m losing patience here . . .”
Ernst turned. “The way we all get what we want.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The sun was extra-bright after the gloom of the garage and adjoining office. Tom squinted around at the site, at least a half an acre. An engine grew louder as some far off car gained speed, then the sound sank away. No human sounds, no voices. He looked at the second, smaller building within the enclosure. Saw the nose of an intact vehicle poking out behind it, a chrome grille.
“Ah, man,” Tom said. Ernst trailed behind as Tom stopped in front of the stolen Tahoe. The tags had been switched but he was sure running the registration would show it belonged to school teacher named Larry Boyle, that it was reported stolen a week earlier.
By André Rapp, Ernst’s client.
“Come on,” Ernst said. He nodded at the door to the smaller building.
Tom headed toward it. His footsteps crunched across the dirt yard. He’d given Ernst his phone, willing to see where this thing led, thinking Ernst had a point — even if Blythe backed him up, they had no physical evidence to link Ernst to the crimes, and he wasn’t about to consent to any confession. He’d been switching phones, rerouting his emails, orchestrating things from a safe distance.
“It’s open. Just push it.”
Tom faced the door to the smaller building. This one had a window, blinded on the inside. He felt like going through it was a step backwards.
“Tom, go through the door. Stop being a pussy. You know where this is headed, and you want it to go there. Just admit it to yourself, and let’s move on.”
Tom used his foot to open the door. The first room was a long rectangle with a bank of multi-paned windows overlooking the junkyard. The lights off, dust motes floated in the sunlight streaming in through the dirty, chambered glass. Two long desks faced the windows, file cabinets sat opposite, and a chest of drawers. In the middle of the room was an enormous table, piled with books, technical equipment, clothing. In addition to being a sociopath, Tom pegged the lawyer as a hoarder.
Or, he’d just inherited most of this crap when he’d come into this place. Tom doubted it was a primary location for Ernst, this was a hideaway, something he’d bought to carry on his twisted hidden life.
“So you’re Gary Reuben Enterprises? A little shell company you set up to buy this place?”
“First door on the left is the bathroom.”
The wooden door was ajar, and he saw a bathtub. One tiny window over the toilet, opaque. The fixtures were old-fashioned — the tub was claw-footed, the sink a small, water-stained basin, the toilet leaning slightly to one side.
Tom continued into the dusty space toward another closed door, a padlock hanging open.
“Step in.”
Three computer towers, two large high definition screens, two keyboard decks, a counter with a fleet of go-pro cameras, a pile of coiled cables, a couple microphones. He noted the sound-baffled walls. This was the control room he’d envisioned all along.
There was a single overhead work light, turned off. The screens were dark except for a screen saver on each — a flock of tumbling umbrellas drifting across the two-dimensional space.
“Sit down, I want you to see something.” Ernst gestured to one of the two swivel chairs. Tom sat. The lawyer moved toward one of the screens, tapped the keyboard, waking the system.
“I’ve set this all up for you. Every step of the way.”
“How did you get my information?”
Ernst gave him a sidelong look. “While you cops run around bumping into things, I’m the one who cleans up the mess. I know every judge in my district. Which one likes his coffee black, which one likes his wife to use the dildo on his ass. I know who to call, when to call them, where to apply pressure. And I know the judges from back in New York.”
He opened a file on the desktop, highlighted and enlarged several pictures, ones Tom had already seen showing Palumbo and Edgar Vasquez together.
“Here’s one of my clients — Edgar Martin Vasquez. I did the divorce from his first wife, and we kept in touch. Like I said, I’m a multifaceted lawyer. He came to me when Palumbo made the overture they start working together. He didn’t want to. Say what you want about the drug trade, but it was a family business, and Edgar had a lot of pride, a lot of tradition. He knew when Palumbo offered that he wasn’t going to take No for an
answer. So he put a few things in place.”
“Like you.”
Ernst shrugged and went on. “Sure, he put me in place because — you could say our interests dovetailed.”
“You need me to help the Vasquez family.”
“I don’t need you; I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to, unlike most people. Vasquez knew what Palumbo wanted, what he would try if Vasquez refused, and how likely it was Palumbo would get away with a murder. County VNB with their dicks in their hands, FDLE sniffing everyone’s ass, helping no one. You of all people understand how short the system falls, right?”
Tom stared at the picture of Edgar Vasquez while Ernst connected to yet another file. Howard Declan replaced Vasquez, his unhappy face filling the screen. “It’s all right here: Howard Michael Declan, auto mechanic for thirty years. He did jobs for the Palumbo family. He did one job, his last one, where he sabotaged Edgar’s vehicle.”
“There’s no proof of that.”
“Sure there is.” Ernst clicked a button and a video began to play. Howard Declan faced the camera. The surroundings looked familiar, like the video had been recorded in the garage:
“My name is Howard Michael Declan. This is my video confession. I’ve worked for Mario Palumbo for a decade, under the table. I’ve worked on his cars, on his employee’s cars.” Declan’s face was drawn, his eyes haunted. “Occasionally Mr. Palumbo would ask me to do something I knew wasn’t right. But, I did it. Like I did with Edgar Vasquez. It’s because of me his vehicle malfunctioned, causing the accident. If anything happens to me, that’s why. Because the County police did their investigation, and Palumbo got rid of me.”
By the end, Declan had tears rolling down his cheeks. He leaned forward and canceled the record button.
The video ended.
Tom was quiet a moment. “You asked Declan to record that. You found out he was a pedophile and you used that to leverage him. This is a coerced confession; he’s as stiff as a board.”
“Says who — you? Do we have to go over this again? You’re someone who lied on their state police application. So you already confessed to someone. Good for you on the contrition. But let’s not forget your documented history of bending the law — wasn’t it you who just last year threatened a man who was beating on his girlfriend? You threatened to deport his undocumented workers?”
Another couple flicks of the mouse and Ernst opened new pictures. These of Josh McDermott, now an inmate at Miami-Dade Correctional. One picture was McDermott’s headshot. Seeing his face transported Tom back to the attack in his condo, McDermott trying to kill him. But before that, Tom had gone into a bar where McDermott hung out after work as the owner of a landscaping business, threatened to investigate him and his likely undocumented workers, throw suspicion on him for the Carrie Anne Gallo murder. McDermott had been beating up his girlfriend and she was too scared to press charges. Tom had seen red.
Ernst said, “You’ve got anger management issues, Tom. I’ve seen it before. Probably comes from your past.”
Ernst clucked his tongue and shook his head in mock sympathy. “You’ve also been ordered to attend therapy — which you never completed, I might add. Not your fault, maybe, but still significant; no clean bill of mental health for you. And let’s not forget about the woman and her two daughters, who you took to your home, violating about a dozen statutes, and endangering those children. It’s by a slim miracle I was able to get them back into their mother’s custody.”
Tom felt the weight of it all threatening to crush him. This was how Ernst worked. This was what he did to people, what he had done to Declan. Found out where the wounds were, stuck in his knife, twisted.
“But now,” Ernst said with a touch of emotion, “look where you are. Look!” He grew animated, waving his arms, swinging around in the chair. “You’re at an auto salvage yard, a place where Declan still had the keys.” He lifted the jangling set of keys in the air, and swung them in front of Tom’s face like a hypnotist’s pendulum. “This is the spare set, but the originals are probably sitting in an evidence room because you never found what they went to, because you never thought to check his old place of business — it was sold to Gary Reuben Enterprises. You’re only part right. Gary Reuben doesn’t exist. Well, he did at one time, I think he was from Dayton, Ohio. But I had Hamer file some paperwork for Gary Reuben. That was Hamer’s specialty — tax fraud — before he became a loser. And, if you look again at Howard Declan’s recent correspondence, you’ll find emails between him and Mr. Reuben, where Reuben agrees Declan can use the old place to work on his cars, or whatever other crazy projects he’s up to.”
“What now?”
“What now is for you to do your job, Agent Lange. You’ve got a taped confession that Howard Declan sabotaged Edgar Vasquez’s car, killing him. More importantly, that he did it for Mario Palumbo. All roads lead to Palumbo. And you’ve got the Tahoe sitting out there, stolen by André Rapp, who was threatened into becoming a lethal delivery boy when Palumbo’s hacker, Brian Hamer, discovered he was a C.I. working for Sergeant Coburn.”
Tom felt the choke of claustrophobia again. He wanted to get out. But Ernst was still laying it on: “In the Tahoe are Rapp’s prints, DNA, and of course, his supply of potassium cyanide, one hypodermic needle and some capsules. Rapp supplied the package to Heather Moss, poisoned Hamer’s stomach medicine, and laced Sergeant Coburn’s tobacco.” The lawyer sniffed, looked over the images he’d collected on screen. “You’ll never find traces of me anywhere.” He stroked the mouse almost lovingly. “I did it all by remote control.”
“That’s great,” Tom dared. “You ought to be a drone operator.”
Ernst blinked. “What?”
Tom waved a hand, stood up.
Ernst sighed and shook his head. “I thought you’d push back a little. So let’s have one last look.” With a few quick gestures he opened a website.
It had been true when Tom told Heather that he thought of Nick every day, but it had been a few days since Tom had looked at his website. He slowly sat back down.
A picture showed Nick smiling handsomely in his suit. The text spoke to his love of people, his in-depth knowledge of the housing market, his nearly ten years of experience.
Ernst shrank the window down, navigated to a folder on the desktop and opened it up. The folder read “Coby.”
The first picture had been taken at the scene of the accident where Nick had flipped his rental car on highway 75, then been hit by a tractor-trailer unable to stop. In the image, Nick was being loaded into the back of an ambulance on a gurney, draped in a white sheet. A press photo.
Ernst scrolled through several more, and Tom watched as the images changed from press photos to surveillance shots. Pictures of Nick’s house, Nick getting into his Escalade. Nick outside the dog track, stepping into the poker room with the green awning.
And then, finally, shots of Nick and a bald man.
Ben Franco.
The images were fuzzy, looking through a lace of palm fronds, but it was fairly clear, at least to a cop’s eyes, what the men were doing. They were making an exchange, Franco handing off cocaine for Nick to sell.
“These pictures,” Ernst said in a quiet voice, “Were taken months before the Carrie Anne Gallo case.”
Ernst was now swishing through more surveillance photos, taken from afar. They showed Tom’s brother on the ground, fetal position, defensively protecting his head. He was getting kicked and beaten by two thugs as a shadowy figure looked on. Franco? Lamotta? Or even Palumbo? Hard to say the location, too; it was dark, an oval of light on the tarmac suggesting a nearby streetlight.
The final pictures showed Nick and Tom together. They also bore the mark of surveillance — shallow depth of field, taken from a distance. In one, Nick and Tom, both in sunglasses, having a coffee near the beach, they were smiling.
There was paperwork in the file. Tom felt numb as Ernst navigated through a few PDFs. He didn’t need to see much to get the full pictur
e: vice narcotics had known about Nick for some time. They had evidence of Palumbo’s men beating him up. But they’d been bound to confidentiality, legally unable to share that surveillance with Agent Tom Lange, even though he was Nick’s brother.
Tom understood it all, but felt the charge of anger anyway. Seeing Nick on the ground like that, his aggressor standing near, brought back the worst memories.
“Your department is as fucked up as you are,” Ernst said quietly.
“Alright,” Tom said.
“This is the truth,” Ernst said in that soft voice. “Your brother wasn’t important enough to Everglades County to jeopardize building their big case against Palumbo. His death was brushed under the rug, a casualty of the great war between cops and drug lords.”
Tom’s teeth were on edge. He struggled to keep composure. “Palumbo’s good at what he does, he keeps himself insulated. He’s got a squad of attorneys working for him.”
“See? Fucking lawyers, right?” Ernst came back. “Who would you rather deal with — lawyers who protect someone like Palumbo, who has caused all of this suffering, or someone like me? I get shit done. Where the law is slow and inadequate, I keep things liquid.” Ernst’s voice was raising now as his oration gained momentum. “This is how it has to be. The old ways don’t work! You know it, I know it. Palumbo is out there, Ben Franco is out there, day after day, and they’re protected by the law. You can’t tell me that’s not a broken system.”
Tom couldn’t help but stare at the images of Nick. The shots showing him and Franco were the most salient — Franco was well-established as a piece of Palumbo’s drug operation. Handing off product to Nick was clear evidence Nick was selling for Palumbo.
“Just take it down.”
“Why don’t you take him down, Tommy? This is your chance. This is our chance to do something. The enemy of my enemy is—”
“Fuck,” Tom said. He pushed back from the screens and stood up again.
Ernst got up quickly after, his gaze falling to Tom’s gun, snug in the shoulder holster.
Tom’s head was throbbing, the images of Nick getting beaten stuck in his mind. The grim statistics on Palumbo — the people he’d murdered, directly or indirectly; the countless lives touched by drug addiction, gambling, pain and suffering; just about anyone with rotted teeth or tracks on their arms in the whole of southwest Florida was likely to be a Palumbo victim. The greater good had to count for something. Taking down Palumbo, even like this, must be better than letting him walk away from yet another crime, creating more addicts, more people like Nick.
Special Agent Tom Lange Box Set Page 54