Dead of Winter

by Stuart Melvin Kaminsky

  "Shoot," Helen shouted.

  Jake fired and missed. His hand was shaking, but Stevie's weren't. Lying on his stomach on the desk, he lifted Dario from the chair and snapped his neck.

  Helen was on his back now, clawing at his face, grunting, screaming. Jake looked for an open shot. Dario Marco's body slipped down, eyes open in surprise, chin resting on the edge of the desk. Stevie threw Helen Grandfield off of him. She tripped backwards, going over a chair.

  Stevie tried to stand. He turned his head toward the Jockey, who had backed away trembling, two hands on the gun. No way Stevie could make the lunge before he was shot. He dug into his pocket and clutched the dog Lilly had given him.

  "Stop," said a voice.

  Jake over his gun, Helen over the overturned chair she had fallen behind, Stevie over his shoulder, saw the uniformed cop, the one who Stevie had bypassed at the front door on his way in. The cop had heard the shot.

  The cop, whose name was Rodney Landry, was a bodybuilder with four years on the force. He knew what to do: aim his weapon at the tiny man next to the desk. From the description he had been given, Landry knew that the man with the bloody leg, who, for some inexplicable reason, was lying on the desk, was the one he had been told to look for.

  From where he stood, Landry, weapon in hand, did not see Dario Marco.

  "Put the weapon down on the floor very slowly," Landry ordered.

  Jake wanted to hurry, but he forced himself to bend slowly and place the weapon on the floor. Stevie managed to turn his body and get up on one elbow.

  "He broke in here," Helen Grandfield screamed, pointing at Stevie. "He killed my father."

  Landry could see it now. It looked like a joke, a Halloween joke. The dead man's head seemed to be resting on his chin behind the desk. His eyes were wide open and he looked surprised, very surprised.

  Stevie, feeling nothing in his leg now, reached into his pocket, clutched the painted dog, and smiled.

  * * *

  Ed Taxx made the deal. States evidence against Dario Marco and his daughter in exchange for Murder Two minimum. He talked it through and then wrote it out. He knew the drill, followed it. He also had enough money hidden away to take care of his family and he didn't want the police going into his life or looking through his bank accounts.

  "I take down Dario Marco and Helen Grandfield with me and you drop any further investigation of me or my assets," said Taxx.

  "And whatever you have on Anthony Marco," Ward said.

  "I don't have much there," said Taxx.

  "We'll take what you can give us," said Ward.

  Taxx sat across the table from Assistant DA Ward and CSI Investigator Danny Messer, prepared to tell his story.

  "So what do I get?" asked Taxx.

  "Depends on your story," said Ward.

  "It's a good one," said Taxx.

  He had been approached by Helen Grandfield, who didn't tell him how she knew he had been assigned to the Alberta Spanio protection detail nor how she knew he had prostate cancer that had spread to his other organs. Taxx really didn't care how she knew. He hadn't told his wife or family about the cancer. He had some money put away but it would have drained whatever his family would have to live on just to make his final months stretch into a less painful year. Now the irony was that the state would have to pay for his treatment.

  When he met with Dario Marco he had been offered one hundred and fifty thousand in cash to simply give Alberta Spanio an overdose of sleeping pills, and leave the bathroom window unlocked after screwing the hook into it.

  "Why?" asked Ward.

  "Helen Grandfield told me later that someone was supposed to be let down to the window from the room above, but the storm made it impossible. Then at three in the morning I was to have a coughing fit that lasted three minutes to cover the noise if there was any."

  Taxx accepted, got the cash in advance.

  "So far," he explained to Assistant DA Ward, with whom Taxx had worked for fifteen years, "no problem."

  "And then?" asked Ward.

  "Night it was supposed to happen I got a call," said Taxx. "Cell phone. Collier was in the room. I pretended it was my wife. It was Helen Grandfield. She told me what to do: break down Spanio's door in the morning, send Collier to check the bathroom because there was obviously a window open, get to the bed fast, and stab Spanio in the neck. No problem again. I was careful with my words, saying something like, 'No, honey, tell him it will have to be what we already have plus double.' Collier was watching a basketball game on television, but I knew he heard. Helen put her hand over the mouthpiece I think, checking with Dario, came back and said it was a deal. I don't think they ever planned to send anyone through the window. I think they counted on my killing Alberta from the beginning."

  "And?"

  "Spanio was out from the pills and the cold when we broke the door down. I stepped in between him and the bed so he couldn't see the body and nodded toward the bathroom. Collier went into the bathroom. I took the knife out of my pocket and stabbed Alberta in the neck. Four or five seconds at most. Collier came out of the bathroom. I had stepped back so he could see the knife in her neck. I watched him head into the other room to call for backup."

  "And that's when you had a problem?" said Ward.

  Taxx nodded.

  "I went into the bathroom. The window was open. "My first thought was, 'Great, Collier saw that. He thinks the perp came in through the window and went back out through the window.' That's when I realized the snow was piled up on the sill. No one could have gotten through the window without disturbing the snow."

  "And that's when you made your mistake," said Ward.

  Taxx nodded.

  "I swept the snow out the window with my sleeve," he said. "Instead of inside into the tub. I could hear Collier on the phone in the front room. I came out of the bathroom before he could come back in, saying we had a crime scene and should wait in the other room for CSI. I didn't want him back in the bathroom seeing the snow gone."

  "And?" Ward coaxed.

  "Yesterday I went to a Chinese restaurant and met with Helen Grandfield," said Taxx. "Collier must have been suspicious. He followed me. I spotted him across the street. He could check with my wife and find out she hadn't called me the night before. He could look at the crime-scene photographs and notice that the snow had been cleared from the bathroom window."

  "So, you told Helen Grandfield, who told you that she would take care of it," said Ward. "And she paid you the rest of the money."

  "I have nothing to say about that," said Taxx.

  "You knew they were going to kill Collier," said Ward.

  Taxx didn't answer for a beat and then said, "I didn't want to think about that."

  "Where's the money they paid you?"

  Again, Taxx didn't answer. In addition to the money he had put away and what he had gotten from Dario Marco, he had a million dollar life insurance policy.

  "I'll tell Stella," said Danny Messer.

  * * *

  Aiden opened the top drawer in Louisa Cormier's desk.

  "It's not here," she said, looking up at Mac.

  "Someone must have stolen it," said Louisa.

  "You have a safe?" asked Mac.

  Louisa turned to Pease, who sighed.

  "Your client can open it or we can," said Mac. "My guess is that it's in this room, but we can…"

  "Open it Louisa," said Pease. "Cooperate."

  Louisa Cormier went to the bright-red painting of a flower by Georgia O'Keeffe and flipped it back. On the wall was the safe.

  Louisa looked at Pease who nodded at her to open the safe. She shook her head "no" but he urged her on.

  "We can deal with this," Pease said gently. "You acted in self defense."

  Louisa opened the safe and with a gloved hand Aiden reached in and pulled out the.22 Walther. This time she felt certain she had a match for her bullet.

  "You made a mistake my Pat Fantome would never have made," said Louisa.

  "Lo
uisa," Pease warned, but his client couldn't resist.

  "You didn't check the serial number on the gun in my desk when you first came here," she said. "You would have found that it wasn't my gun, that it was Mathew Drietch's, but you had no reason to check it. I came this close to succeeding."

  Louisa held up her right hand showing a quarter of an inch of space between thumb and finger.

  "Charles Lutnikov's Pat Fantome might have checked that serial number," Mac admitted. "But Pat Fantome isn't real. We are. We make mistakes and then we take care of those mistakes."

  Mac read Louisa Cormier her Miranda rights.

  * * *

  The metal mesh door swung open and Anthony Marco in prison orange looked at Ward and Mac.

  "No pretty woman this time?" Marco said.

  "She's a little under the weather," said Mac.

  "I'll send her flowers," said Marco with a smile.

  "What's this about?" asked Marco's lawyer.

  "Trials moving fast," said Marco. "We've got a deal."

  "No, we don't," said Ward. "We don't need your cooperation."

  Anthony Marco looked over his shoulder at his lawyer and then back at Mac and Ward.

  "What?" asked Marco.

  "You know a Steven Guista?"

  "No," said Anthony, sitting up straight.

  "He knows you," said Ward. "He knows a lot about you and your brother and he's been added to the witness list. He'll be testifying."

  "Against me?" asked Anthony, pointing to himself.

  Mac nodded.

  "Word has it he murdered a cop and kicked the shit out of another one," said Anthony.

  "I thought you didn't know him," said Ward.

  "I lied."

  "Guista's testimony won't stand," said Anthony's lawyer. "What did you offer him to commit perjury?"

  "Nothing," said Ward. "He didn't ask for anything. We didn't offer him anything. You go right ahead and ask him when he's on the stand."

  "I had nothing to do with having that Spanio woman killed," Anthony insisted. "That was Dario's idea."

  "Your brother is dead," said Mac.

  "No," Anthony protested.

  "Have your lawyer make a call," said Mac.

  "Dario's dead? The stupid son-of-a-bitch died and left me with… Can they do this? Can they do this to me?" Anthony asked his lawyer.

  The attorney didn't answer.

  Epilogue

  THE SNOW HAD LET UP, but not the bitter cold. Mac stood, hands in his pockets, feet apart to keep the wind from pushing him away from Claire's gravesite. The tops of headstones peeked out of snow and Mac remembered that there had been some graves with simple brass markers, now buried two feet under snow.

  The snowplow had come through carefully, and Mr. Greenberg, who had arranged for the clearing of the site, had shown up and supervised, pointing out where the plow should go and how a path through the snow from the parking circle should be opened.

  Mac stood with the flowers in his hands, feeling the wind pulling at the bouquet of various colored roses- red, pink, white, yellow- which had been hard to get in the aftermath of the storm.

  A thin wind whistled mournful music across the chill, peaceful silence of the morning. Greenberg, a thin little man who was at least sixty, with pink cheeks and a huge overcoat, stood discreetly back, hands folded in front of him. Mac took a few steps toward the grave.

  Behind him he heard the sound of a vehicle coming down from the cemetery gates to the turnaround where Mac had parked.

  He didn't turn. He was now right next to the headstone, reading the etched words in the stone. He heard footsteps on the path, and now he did turn around. Don Flack, Aiden, Stella, and Danny were moving toward him. Stella leaned a little on Danny's arm.

  "You shouldn't be out of the hospital," Mac said as they approached.

  "It's your anniversary," Stella answered. "Wouldn't want to miss that."

  They gathered around the grave and Mac knelt to place the flowers on it against the stone to give them a little protection from the wind.

  Greenberg moved in quickly and secured the flowers with a smooth rounded rock. Then he stood up and handed each person there a small stone.

  "If you like," said Greenberg. "It's a tradition. We place a stone of remembrance each year by the grave of a loved one."

  Mac looked at the small brown stone in his hand and placed it atop the granite tombstone. Stella, Aiden, Danny, and Flack followed. Then all except Mac stepped back.

  There was nothing to say. There was nothing he needed to say. He stood for what seemed like a long time before turning and joining the others in the walk back down the path.

  Stuart M Kaminsky

  ***

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