Dead of Winter

by Stuart Melvin Kaminsky

  "Janowitz the Jabber," said Danny.

  Carmody rolled up his sleeve.

  Ned Lyons was the twelfth employee to be led into the supply room and both Danny and Stella knew they had a bingo.

  Lyons was lean, well-built, worn face older than his thirty-four years. He was also obviously walking with some pain, which he tried, without any success, to hide.

  "You all right?" Stella said as Lyons sat slowly on the wooden chair at the table.

  "Stomach flu," he said.

  "Should you be working in a bakery with stomach flu?" she asked.

  "You're right," said Lyons. "Maybe I'll tell the boss I'm sick."

  "Lift your shirt please," said Stella.

  Lyons looked around, sighed and lifted his shirt. The bruise on his solar plexus was about the size of a pie plate. It was already turning purple, yellow, red, and blue.

  "So what does that tell you?" asked Lyons.

  "What did Mr. Lyons have for dinner last night?" Stella asked Danny, who, looking at Lyons, answered, "Pepperoni, sausage, and a lot of pasta," said Danny. "Mr. Lyons likes his sauce spicy."

  "How do you know what I-?" Lyons began.

  "Open your mouth, Mr. Lyons," Stella ordered.

  A now-confused Ned Lyons opened his mouth and Stella leaned forward to look.

  When she sat back, Stella said, "Got some good news for you. We found your missing tooth."

  * * *

  In Louisa Cormier's third book, the killer, an outwardly mild-mannered office manager, had entered a locker in his third victim's basement by using a fourteen-inch long two-and-three-quarter-pound steel-handled bolt cutter.

  Louisa had described what it felt and sounded like to cut the lock and hear it thud to the concrete floor. Louisa knew how to use a bolt cutter. The lock on the box at Drietch's firing range had been cut with a bolt cutter. An examination of the lock had made that clear. On the morning of the murder, according to doorman McGee, Louisa had gone out on her usual morning walk carrying a large Barnes and Noble cloth bag, easily large enough to conceal a bolt cutter like the one the author had described in her book.

  There was no bolt cutter in the collection of objects in Louisa Cormier's memento case in her library.

  No bolt cutter, no.22 caliber weapon, after thirty-two minutes of looking. What Mac did find in the bottom drawer of Louisa Cormier's desk below her computer was a bound manuscript. He placed it on the desk as Louisa Cormier protested.

  "That's the draft for one of my earlier books, when I was still using a typewriter. It was never published. I've been meaning to return to it, get it in publishable condition. I'd rather you not…"

  Louisa looked at her lawyer, Lindsey Terry, who had arrived a few minutes ago. He held up his palm indicating that his client should hold her protest.

  Mac placed the manuscript on the desk, opened its thick green cover, and looked down at the top page.

  "Now if you would just put it back," she said. "It has nothing to do with bolt cutters or guns."

  Mac flipped the manuscript open to approximately the middle of the book and looked down at the two round holes that ran through the pages.

  Mac pointed to the pages before him.

  "Nothing sinister," Louisa said. "I shot the book."

  Mac tilted his head to one side like a bird examining a piece of something curious that might or might not be edible.

  "When I finished it," she said. "I hated it. I lived in Sidestock, Pennsylvania, at the time, working for the local newspaper, free-lancing to supplement my less than considerable wages. I read the book, thought it was a complete bomb, a waste of a year of my life. So I took it outside to the woods behind the house and shot it. I thought my potential life as a writer was over before it really got started. Pure impulse."

  "But you didn't throw it away," said Mac.

  "No, I did not. I didn't have to. I had gotten rid of my despair. I couldn't bring myself to get rid of the manuscript. I'm glad I didn't. The manuscript is a reminder of the fact that the muses can be fickle. And now, I actually think someday I'll be able to salvage it."

  "Do you mind if we take this?" said Mac, turning to the last page of the manuscript. "We'll return it."

  Louisa again looked at her lawyer, Lindsey Terry, who had stood silently at her side and said nothing. Terry was nearly ancient, had retired more than a decade earlier but had come back after concluding that he no longer had the passion he had once had for raising exotic fish. Ancient or not, Lindsey Terry was formidable. He was smart and knew how to play the age card. Mac was also sure that if charges were brought against Louisa Cormier, Lindsey Terry would step aside for another lawyer, someone with a much higher profile.

  "Does that manuscript have any bearing on the crime for which you obtained a warrant to search?" the lawyer asked.

  "Yes sir," said Mac. "I think it does."

  "I don't want him reading it," said Louisa.

  "Will it be necessary for you or anyone else to read Miss Cormier's manuscript?" the lawyer asked.

  "I've become a fan over the last two days," said Mac, looking down at the open page.

  "Can't you…?" Louisa began, looking at the bald, freckle-headed, and clean-shaven old man at her side.

  "I cannot," said Terry. "I can but warn Detective Taylor that he is engaged in a search which may well be tainted by his exceeding its conditions."

  "I understand," said Mac rising.

  Aiden entered the room. Before Cormier or her lawyer spotted her, Aiden gave a nod to Mac to indicate that she had found nothing.

  "The name of your new novel?" asked Mac.

  "The Second Chance," she said.

  Aiden moved to the chair Mac had vacated and turned on the computer.

  "What is she doing?" asked Louisa.

  "Finding the program with your new novel," said Mac.

  Aiden's fingers moved quickly from keyboard to mouse and found herself looking at the desktop page. At the right side of the page was a file titled The Second Chance. She clicked on it and scrolled to the bottom of the document.

  "Page three hundred and six," Aiden said.

  "I'm almost finished," said Louisa.

  Aiden went to the hard-drive icon, clicked, opened it, and found files for Louisa Cormier's novels. She looked at Mac and shook her head.

  "We're finished," said Mac, taking off his gloves and putting them in his pocket. The manuscript was under his arm, his kit in the other.

  When they left the apartment, Mac looked back at Louisa Cormier and decided from what he saw that the famous author no longer thought it would be interesting to be a murder suspect.

  "What's the manuscript?" Aiden asked as the elevator descended.

  Mac handed it to her. Aiden opened it and looked down at the holes.

  "Last page," Mac said.

  Aiden flipped to the final page. By the time the elevator stopped at the lobby she had skimmed it enough to know that the words she had been looking at were exactly the same words they had found on the typewriter ribbon of Charles Lutnikov.

  14

  "STEVIE GUISTA," Don Flack said to Jacob Laudano, the Jockey.

  From where he stood in the doorway to the apartment, Don could see the whole room and the toilet and sink behind the open bathroom door.

  Don closed the door behind him.

  "Haven't seen Big Stevie for months," said Jacob.

  "He was at the Brevard Hotel night before last," said Flack. "So were you."

  "Me, no," the Jockey said.

  "You won't mind a line-up then," said Flack.

  "A line-up? What the hell for?"

  "To see if any of the staff at the hotel recognize you," said Don. "If they do, you move up the list to murder suspect."

  "Wait a minute here," said Jake, going to the table and sitting. "I didn't murder anybody. Not night before last, not never. I've got a record, sure, but I've never murdered anyone."

  "Never that we could prove," said Flack.

  "Maybe I was at the
Brevard," said Jake. "I go there sometimes, drop in. Between you and me and the lamppost there's a floating card game that rents a room there sometimes."

  "Night before last?" asked Don.

  "No action. Went somewhere else."

  "Who runs this card game?" asked Flack, moving closer to Jake who backed away.

  "Who runs it? Guy named Paulie. Don't know his last name. Never did. Just 'Paulie.' "

  "I want Steve Guista," said Don. "If I have to step on you to get him, I'll just be leaving a small stain on the carpet."

  "I don't know where he is. I swear."

  "Right," said Don. "Why would you lie?"

  "Right," agreed Jake.

  Don was standing in front of the little man who may well have been lowered down to Alberta Spanio's window the night before last, swung in, and stabbed her in the neck.

  There was no solid evidence. No fingerprints. No witness. There was just the Jockey's acquaintance with Guista, who had rented the room, and the Jockey's size and violent background that made him a good candidate for the crime.

  Don took out a card and handed it to the Jockey, who looked at it.

  "Call me if Guista gets in touch with you."

  "Why would he?"

  "You're friends."

  "I told you. We hardly know each other."

  "Keep the card," said Don, leaving the apartment and closing the door behind him.

  When he felt reasonably sure the detective was gone, Jake looked up and watched Big Stevie limp out of the bathroom.

  "He went too easy," said Big Stevie.

  "He had nothing," said Jake.

  Stevie took the card from the Jockey and read it.

  "He could have leaned on you harder," said Big Stevie. "I busted his ribs. He should be mad as hell."

  Stevie pocketed Don Flack's card and continued, "I gotta get out of here. Check the hall. See if he's out there."

  "Where you going?" asked Jake, moving to the door.

  "I've got something to do before he catches up to me," said Stevie.

  The Jockey went to the door, opened it, looked down the hall, and turned to Stevie saying, "I don't see him."

  Stevie had come up to Jake's apartment by the back stairwell, and that's where he headed after pausing to thank the Jockey.

  "Sure, wish I could do more," Jake said.

  Stevie limped toward the back stairwell.

  "Happy birthday," said Jake.

  It was a stupid thing to say. He knew it, but he had to say something. He watched Stevie open the back stairwell door and go through it. Then Jake moved to the phone and punched in a number.

  When someone answered, he said, "He just left. I think he's coming for you."

  * * *

  "Let me get this straight here. You want me to turn in my own brother?" asked Anthony Marco.

  The wire-meshed visitor's room at Riker's Island was crowded. Marco, in a modest dark suit and pale blue tie, hands cuffed in front of him, sat behind the table, his lawyer, Donald Overby, a high-priced member of the firm of Overby, Woodruff and Cole, sat at his client's side. Overby was tall, slim, about fifty with a no-nonsense military haircut. His colleagues called him "Colonel" because that had been his rank when he worked in the JAG office in Washington during the first Gulf War. His client, in contrast, was called "Bogie" only behind his back because it was safe. He looked vaguely like Humphrey Bogart, and had the same sense of being in on the secret of human vulnerability. But Anthony had a dangerous edginess, a nervous impatient energy, which had brought him to the second day of his trial for murder.

  The assistant district attorney handling the case was Carter Ward, an African-American who was statesmanlike, in his late sixties, heavy, and deep-voiced. He talked to juries slowly, carefully, and simply and handled witnesses as if he were disappointed when they seemed to be telling lies.

  Ward and Stella sat across from Marco and Overby. Stella was feeling woozy. She had gulped two aspirin and a Styrofoam cup of tepid tea before they entered the cage, which, on one of the three coldest days of the year, seemed oppressively hot to her.

  "This is Crime Scene Investigator Stella Bonasera," Ward said calmly. "I asked her to come to this meeting."

  Which was, strictly speaking, true. Ward had asked her to come to Riker's, but it was Stella who had suggested the plan, made refinements, and gotten it approved after she and Ward talked to the district attorney, who very much wanted Anthony Marco tied in a red bow and delivered upstate to prison. A death sentence would be nice, but given the vagaries of the system, the DA was willing to settle for whatever sentence the public would accept as long as it was long, very long.

  Marco nodded at Stella. She didn't nod back. Ward opened his briefcase and took out a pad of yellow lined paper.

  "We all know," said Ward, "that news of the murder of Alberta Spanio has been given prominent coverage in the media. We also know that the jury, now sequestered, was exposed to the news of the murder of our principal witness against you."

  Neither Marco nor his lawyer responded, so Ward went on.

  "It would be foolish to assume that the jurors will not, have not concluded that your client was behind her murder, and though the judge and you will direct them to deal only with the facts presented in the case, every juror will believe Anthony Marco did on the afternoon of September sixth of last year murder Joyce Frimkus and Larry Frimkus. Killing Alberta Spanio was a nail in your coffin."

  Ward was looking at Anthony Marco, who met his gaze.

  "Let's try this," Ward continued. "Whoever had her killed may well have known how much damage it could do to you. Alive and testifying, Alberta Spanio was a hanger-on on the fringes of organized crime. Your very able counsel might have, certainly would have, attacked her credibility. But now that one of the two men who was guarding Ms. Spanio, a police officer, has been murdered, murdered inside of the bakery belonging to your brother Mr. Marco…"

  "That murder is irrelevant," said Overby.

  "Probably so, probably so," said Ward. "But I'll find a way to let the jury know about it before the judge rules it inadmissible."

  "What do you want, Ward?" asked the Colonel.

  "Let Investigator Bonasera tell you what she has," Ward answered.

  Stella told the story of her investigation, about the Spanio murder, tracking down Guista, the evidence of Collier's murder in the bakery.

  When she finished, Stella wanted to find a washroom and sit with her eyes closed, waiting for the full-fledged nausea.

  "Give us enough evidence to squeeze your brother for a major felony," said Ward. "And we'll take the death penalty off the table."

  Prisoner and his attorney whispered and when they were done, the Colonel said, "Murder Two, you ask for minimum sentence. Mr. Marco gets twenty-to-life, gets out in ten, maybe a lot less if you leave the door open."

  "Agreed," said Ward. "If the information your client gives us is true and incriminating."

  "It is," said the Colonel.

  Anthony smiled at Stella, who tried to glare back but felt a feverish heaviness around her forehead and sinuses.

  "What the hell," said Anthony. "Dario screwed up, on purpose or not. Doesn't make a goddamn difference. My son-of-a-bitch brother wants to take over my business operations."

  "Which are?" asked Ward.

  "Private," answered Marco. "That's part of this deal if we go that way."

  Ward nodded his understanding.

  "My brother, Dario, is a shrewd idiot," said Marco, who shook his head. "A dwarf or a jockey through a window. What kind of stupid idea is that?"

  Stella held her peace, not just because she was sick and wanted to get out of there but because she was sure that no dwarf nor Jacob the Jockey had murdered Alberta Spanio. The truth was tricky on the surface, but easy to figure out when you had the crime-scene evidence.

  Ward put his pocket tape recorder on the desk and sat upright with hands folded.

  Anthony Marco began to talk.

  * * *

&n
bsp; Sheldon Hawkes had received the call from Mac gasking that the body of Charles Lutnikov be brought out of the vault.

  When Aiden and Mac arrived, Lutnikov's naked, white body, skin flap pulled back to reveal his rapidly decaying organs, lay on the metal table that gleamed under the intense white light.

  "Put the skin flap back," said Mac.

  Hawkes put the skin flap back in place and Aiden produced the manuscript with two holes they had taken from Louisa Cormier's apartment.

  She held the book open for Hawkes to see. He examined the book and nodded. He knew what Mac and Aiden wanted. There were two ways to go, at least two ways. He chose to remove a canister of clear, two-foot-long plastic trajectory rods from the cabinet, extract two, and put the rest away.

  Then he inserted the rods into the holes in the body. The body had gone flaccid. He had to probe gently to be sure the rods were following the path of the bullet. It took him about three minutes, after which he backed up and let Aiden approach the corpse. "Can you clip off most of the rods without moving them?" she asked. He nodded, went to a cabinet, removed a large glistening metal clipper, and snipped the rods down so they protruded about an inch out of the body. Then, with Hawkes's help, she lined up the rods with the two holes in the manuscript. It was a match. She could have pegged the book to the dead man with a little exertion, but it wasn't necessary.

  "Conclusion," said Hawkes, leaning over to remove the rods. "The gun that shot Charles Lutnikov was used to make the two holes in your manuscript."

  "He was holding the manuscript up in front of him when she fired," said Mac. "Bullet went through the paper, bounced out, and when it exited, dropped down the elevator shaft."

  "Sounds right to me," said Hawkes.

  "But," said Aiden, "do we have enough for an arrest?"

  "She'll need a good story," said Hawkes.

  "She's a mystery novelist," said Aiden.

  "No, she's not," said Mac. "Lutnikov was the novelist."

  "Back to square one and her best defense," said Aiden. "Why should she want to kill the goose that was laying best-selling novels?"

  "Back to the lady," Mac said.