by Tyler Colins
“The door's open.”
He looked surprised. “How'd they get the key? Fugger?”
I nodded.
“I'm impressed. He's not that accommodating most of the time.” Snatching his knapsack, he slipped from the car and waited while I gathered my purse, bag, and sweater.
“Hey-ho.” Rey waved from the kitchen entrance. “Look what I found in the den.” She held up a handsome Sako 85 rifle with a walnut stock. “There are a dozen other rifles tucked in a den cabinet. Picolo must have been into hunting.”
“That looks like an Ozark hillbilly special,” Kent smirked.
“It's elegant in its simplicity, sugah,” Rey offered in a superb Southern drawl. “But, moh importantly, it shoots varmint real good.”
He offered a dazzling smile. “With that accent and those looks, all you need is Daisy Mae's sexy little outfit, and you'd make a standout Southern belle.”
She chuckled and looked from him to me. “What's up?”
“Where's Linda?”
“Lying on Picolo's vibrating bed and eyeing herself in the ceiling mirror.”
I had to laugh and Kent hooted.
“I'll get her.” Clutching the rifle haphazardly to one side, she moseyed to the master bedroom.
“And I'll get a drink to warm up; it's getting a bit cool.” Hitching the knapsack over a shoulder, Kent strolled to the bar as I turned on one of three unusual table lamps of polished bronze and Alabaster diffusers. Dimness dissolved.
“Needs soda.” Holding a tumbler with an extremely generous shot of whiskey and now wearing a lightweight Bugatchi zip jacket, he ambled to the kitchen. “What answers are we hoping to find?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Let's wait for our colleagues,” I smiled. “Then we can hold a confab on nabbing a killer and closing this case.”
He stopped in the doorway. An eyebrow arched and an impertinent smile pulled at those sexy, full lips. “We couldn't have done this at my place? Or yours?”
“Jimmy P's sets the mood,” I responded merrily.
* * *
Five minutes later we were seated in the living room, Linda on one loveseat and Kent on the other. I was perched on the sofa beside Rey, the Sako on her lap. While he nursed his drink, we sipped small bottles of Perrier. As rain drummed the ceiling like an enthusiastic bongo player, four sets of eyes continued ping-ponging like a Kit-Cat clock.
Finally, Kent broke the silence. “Aren't we suppose to figure out who the murderer is? Or look for clues or something?”
Rey and I had shared a quick conversation while in the kitchen. Our belief re the killer's identity (the only possible conclusion): it had to Kent. Who else would care enough about nutty, nut-less Coco Peterson to want to seek vengeance for his murder? So as not to have Linda in the dark, Rey had whispered our belief in her ear as she passed Perriers.
“No need to go lookin', sugah. We know who done in poh Coco Peterson,” Rey drawled with a perky smile. “Y'all did.”
He gazed impassively from one face to the next. “Funny.”
“It can only be you,” Linda affirmed.
“No one liked your stepbrother,” I pointed out. “The only person who'd care enough to ensnare the killer is the person who cared enough about Coco. You.”
“Do you have proof?” he asked with a cross smile. “Or just private-eye gut feelings?”
We remained mum. In truth, we had nothing concrete.
“Ya got bupkis. ladies.” He smirked, toasted us, and took a long sip.
“Now that we've determined it was you, we'll be searching for – and finding – that proof,” I stated casually.
“It won't take long,” Linda affirmed. “We know Coco's timeline. We know the whens and wheres. Someone out there saw you and they'll confirm you were in the vicinity the day he died.”
He snorted. “The only one person who can confirm he's dead is Buddy. Do you really think she's about to admit anything? In your ever-loving dreams.” With that tone and expression, it was surprising he didn't stick out his tongue like a smart-alecky little boy.
Linda and Rey said nothing as they gazed at me. I offered the barest nod to their silent question. I should have shared Buddy's dark secret beforehand and not decided to keep it for when we met here.
My colleagues remained straight-faced and Rey flashed a smile as salty as the Dead Sea. “You went to extreme measures to set her up, all because Coco the Nutbar got himself put on Jimmy Picolo's shit-hit list.”
“From what we've heard, if she hadn't killed your stupid nit of a stepbrother, someone else would have,” Linda added. “It was only a question of time.”
Kent's gaze grew sinister. “Yeah, but it was Buddy who killed Coco, thanks to Bruddah Jimmy's contract, so she deserved to pay.” Suddenly realizing he'd confessed, he clamped his lips shut. To use an old expression, if looks could kill, we'd have been dead – five times over.
* * *
Casually, I took Rey's rifle. Linda, catching my warning glance, extracted a Taser from her Hawaiian Spirt bag and leveled it. I'd shot a Winchester for target practice at the range on one occasion to get a sense for it, but I'd not felt very comfortable using it. If it came down to our lives or his, however, guess who'd prove one helluva marksperson?
With that easy grin and that glossy blond hair hanging like twining weeping-willow tendrils in those unusual cinnamon-brown eyes, he looked anything but a cold-blooded, calculating killer … kind of like handsome Star Trek villain Khan Noonien Singh, who after losing his wife, allowed vengeance-fueled rage to consume him.
“What are you going to do? Shoot me?” he asked nonchalantly, as if having a weapon in his face was an everyday occurrence.
Was this guy cool or what? And was yours truly beginning to sweat or what? I shifted, refusing to let apprehension show. “If necessary. What would be really sweet is if you told us everything. You'd enjoy a clear conscience and we'd be all the wiser.” Ensuring it was cocked and close, I lowered the rifle cautiously.
His brow creased and his grew lips taut as he surveyed me, then Rey, then Linda. Was he starting to worry? Or was he considering how he'd flee this over-the-top theatrical situation?
“Would you like to tell the players the how and why?”
“How and why frigging what?” was the snappy reply.
I held up a finger on my free hand. “Why you killed Eb Stretta on top of Jimmy Picolo.”
Rey held up another. “Why you shot Razor.”
Linda another. “Why you ran Petey May off the road.”
I held up one more. “What you were planning to do, given Buddy was going to get off.”
His response: a baleful look.
“Fine. We'll answer for you. Feel free to correct us if we're wrong,” I advised.
He salaamed.
“Let's start with the day Coco died. You went to Ralston's, but arrived too late. The last couple of weeks or so, you'd tried to warn Coco to watch his back, because you'd heard Jimmy P was gunning for him. Literally. Unfortunately, as you intimated, Coco was all over the map: physically, emotionally, and mentally. Because you and Coco had bonded back when, you'd become true brothers, so you took his death badly and you wanted revenge – big time. You could have killed Buddy on the spot, but that would have proven too easy. You wanted her to pay as much as you wanted Picolo to.”
Rey sensed where I was headed. “Your brain swung into vigilante mode. Sure, why not kill Picolo and have Buddy take the fall? But why leave it at that? You knew Eb Stretta was her best friend, so why not let her feel the loss of someone close while having her take the rap, too.”
I shot my cousin an appraising glance; she proved smarter than I often gave her credit for.
A need to boast took precedence over surly silence. “Stretta didn't know what hit him,” he simpered. “He hit the dumpster hard and fast, and died thinking he would have a couple of thousand dollars in his pocket to burn, courtesy of a North Shore linehaul.”
“You were the one who call
ed him regarding that 'better-n-good' job,” I put in.
“I told him something personal had come up and that Buddy needed him to cover a job that would pay excellently well.” His gaze, like his tone, reflected arrogance.
My cousin's gaze narrowed. “How come he meets you in an alley and isn't suspicious?”
“We'd met on a patio an hour earlier and over beers I told him about a great pub a couple of blocks over with darts and pool, and good-looking chicks. He was game and we took a shortcut.”
“Too bad JJ was with Buddy when Razor hit the pavement, so she couldn't be blamed for that murder, too,” Linda declared with a saccharine smile. “You're a damn good shot. I'm betting you acquired that skill in Alaska.”
The wattage in that smile could have lit the entire house. “I perfected it there.”
“You should have considered a career as a hit man,” Rey said caustically.
“I'm not big on traveling,” he chuckled and sat upright. “This is kind of like those old TV mysteries – you know, where the detective sums it all up at the end? If you follow the script, ladies, you should go over all the details first, the clues and suppositions, before I break down and confess.”
“Let's break custom,” Linda suggested gaily.
A heavier stream of rain started to pummel the walls and roof as if a thousand fists were punching the house and the sky had darkened so much it looked as if nightfall had descended. The room was suffused with ominous shadows in varying shades of black and gray, giving Kent's face a menacing cast. I turned on the other two lamps. With the warm amber glow, the room looked homey, hardly a setting for a melodramatic confrontation.
“Why not? I saw her at Ralston's slicing and dicing Coco. Never in a million years would I have imagined Jimmy's hitman was Buddy Feuer. I mean, look at her: does she seem like gun-for-hire material?” He grinned and then appeared confused. “I never did learn how she got the job.”
“How did you know to go to the gym?” Rey asked, puzzled. “Why didn't you do anything – like call the police – if you suspected something was going down?”
“Because I only suspected. Sure, there was twaddle drifting around, but that's all it seemed to be. I knew he liked to work out there Mondays and Wednesdays, as his schedule allowed, and George had mentioned he thought Coco might be headed there, so I took a chance.
“As I was having breakfast across the street, I saw Buddy slip down a side alley where a rear door is. I waited a bit longer and, sure enough, there he was. Right then, I sensed something major was definitely going down,” he explained with a tart expression. “It took me a bit to release the locked metal doors … a bit too long.”
Kent stared into the past and sighed woefully. “By the time I'd picked my cautious way over, Coco was pretty much toast. Calling 911 or jumping in to help wouldn't have helped. Maybe I could have crept up behind and stabbed her or something, but when I saw her start to carve into him as if she were slicing a birthday cake, I knew in that blink, that nanosecond between life and death, I couldn't and wouldn't let her off easily.” He tossed his hair for some sort of dramatic effect, but looked silly. “You know, even though it was Coco laying there in a pool of red, I was impressed. She was so cool about it all, even when she slipped his tattoo into a cooler bag … like she was packing for a picnic. I'd always had a thing for Buddy and, man, she really turned my crank that day, in some weird way.”
“It could have been indigestion. Your stepbrother, half-brother, whatever-brother, had that effect on a lot of people,” I suggested, exchanging an is-this-guy-for-real glance with my colleagues.
Kent threw his head back and laughed. Actually, he howled. With obvious amusement. The word “weird” didn't do him justice.
“What were you planning to do now that she was getting off?” Linda asked, curious. “That had to be a royal piss-off, having witnesses corroborate her innocence.”
“I'd have planted other incriminating evidence once I was positive you three had nothing else to uncover. Or maybe I'd have killed her. Tit for tat. Something like that.” He arched a shoulder lamely.
“Really?” Rey appeared dumbfounded, but there was a hint of rage in those grass-green eyes. “Wouldn't that have been overkill?”
I shifted uncomfortably. The last time the word “overkill” had been used during the Howell case, it had been.
“What about Petey May?” Rey demanded coolly. “Did you run him off the road?”
“I didn't run anyone off the road,” he responded flatly.
“Who did?”
“Didn't I read about an accident where a guy by that name lost control and hit a wall?”
“He did not,” I answered with the same flat tone. “Did your colleague sideswipe him?”
Instead of answering, he gulped back whiskey.
Fine. Next. “For the record, did you kill Otto Trott?”
He looked from me to his drink and remained silent.
“What about those journals you found last time we were here?”
The last of the drink disappeared. “What about them?”
“Did they serve a purpose?”
“Jimmy was old-school. The names and amounts were safer with me than being found by snoopers.”
Rey, Linda and I looked at each other, and shrugged.
“Was it you or Colt that called Buddy with the 'I saw what you did' threat?” Rey asked.
The barest of smirks pulled at his lips.
“With Coco missing, a red flag has been officially raised. How long will it take before something surfaces, which ties you and Colt – and everything else – together?”
As he returned my cousin's pointed gaze, smugness radiated from his face like bright wave lines on a scorching summer sidewalk. “There's nothing to show I've been involved with anything illegal. I've covered my ass from the get-go. The cops aren't the brightest bulbs on the pub patio, but you three are.”
“We're not nearly as brilliant as you, Kent.” I hadn't meant to sound complimentary. What I'd really wanted to say was: “You're as f'g nutty as Coco.” That, however, would not have gone over well. Not that he could have done much about it. We had the weapons.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Kent crossed his hands across his chest, looking weary and about ten years older. Was he tired or simply pretending to let down his guard?
“Did you know about the trophies?”
He looked at me blankly. Apparently not.
With a wary gaze, Rey shifted to the edge of the sofa. “Man, when this is over, I'm gonna need a big drink.”
“Help yourself,” he jerked a thumb at the bar.
I recalled the first time we'd come here and how easily he'd moved the bar panels. Anyone visiting for the first time would not have known how to maneuver those tricky panes. “You've been here before.”
He didn't respond.
Whatever. It didn't matter at this stage. “Colt detonated that cell-phone bomb at the Bishop Street office, didn't he?”
Kent offered a Mad Hatter grin.
“How'd you two connect?” Linda asked, keeping the Taser poised as she moved to sit alongside her best friend.
He studied his manicured nails. “I have no idea who or what you're talking about.”
“Give him up,” I advised. “He wouldn't save your neck if he were in your shoes.”
Kent feigned a yawn.
“Fine. We'll continue filling in the blanks on your behalf. To ensure no illicit business doings or ties with Colt or C.O.L.T. could be found, the bomb demolished everything on that floor: documents and files, a vault and server.” Linda eyed him keenly. “But even if he'd bombed every last one of Picolo's businesses, information would still exist. Technology ensures permanency. With effort and time, all could be located.”
“If someone wanted to search that hard, yeah, sure.” He sniffed. “But who would, unless there was a bona-fide reason to do so.”
“There's certainly one now,” I pointed out.
“Why not
have done the bombing much earlier, like when Jimmy was in the office?” Linda asked, then snapped her fingers. “Right. It would have been harder to pin a bombing on Buddy than a shooting. …Weren't you the least bit worried you'd be blown up by accident in the Bishop Street office? And why detonate it so close to departure? As a forewarning of things to come…?”
The Mad Hatter grin returned.
“It probably never seemed urgent before, but when Picolo had to die, the likelihood of documents and records being scrutinized during his murder investigation made it a very real necessity,” Rey offered. “As for your bomb-happy bud, you trusted him enough. Nothing would have gone wrong … unless he'd wanted it to.”
Looking bored, he returned to his nails.
“It must have been fun watching your carefully crafted handiwork unfold, seeing how far you could take it.”
“Kent did do pretty good,” Linda acknowledged.
Overhead, thunder sounded like a dump truck dropping a heavy load.
He didn't seem to notice.
It was time to bring closure.
“How about we drive you to the police station and you give yourself up?” I suggested.
A malevolent gaze answered that.
“Let's go.” Linda motioned with the Taser.
He snickered. “Do you think I'm going to go willingly or confess?”
“Have you noticed there are three of us and only one of you, and that we have weapons?” Linda asked tartly.
As if to add a maniacal edge, white lightening appeared on cue. The lights in the room flickered, went out for two seconds, and then came back on as more thunder crackled.
My finger reacquainted itself with the rifle trigger. “This thing could probably fell an elk. Imagine what it'll do to you.”
He nodded at Linda's weapon and then mine. “Are you betting women like Annia?”
“Not when it comes to our lives.”
“Too bad.” Wrathful laughter erupted as blindingly intense lightning illuminated the room. Under the eerie silver glow, Kent's face looked unreal, like a mannequin molded of candle wax or someone who'd taken a cement-shoes swim in New York's East River for a few hours.