by Anthony Izzo
The whole thing didn’t wash. First Rafferty treated her like she had a contagious disease, and then nothing turned up in the paper.
Her cell phone rang. She picked up. It was Bob.
“Find anything out?” he asked.
“Rafferty’s clamming up. I’m going over to the house, have a look.”
Slurping on the other end and ice cubes clinking. “Can you do that, sis?”
“I’m sure the homeowner’s association will give me a wonderful welcome.”
“I mean is it legal?” Bob asked.
“You leave the fancy cop work to me,” Donna said. “How you holding up?”
“You know.”
“Made any arrangements yet?”
The ice chinked again. He was probably drinking J&B, she thought.
“We’ll do it at Lowe’s. They did a nice job with Mom’s service. I guess, ah, shit.”
He took the phone away from his mouth. She heard his muffled sobs.
“Sorry, sis. I was trying to say she wanted an open casket, but, uh, I guess that’s not going to be possible.”
Christ Jesus. He knew more than she did about Rhonda’s death at this point. And she was a cop! “What’d they say?”
“Rollie Lowe told me she was in bad shape. That’s all he would say.” She heard his heavy breathing, and then he said, “I gotta go.”
She wondered how bad it had to be in order for the casket to be closed. “I understand.”
She was about to hang up when he said, “Hey, Don?”
“Yeah?”
“One other thing. Rollie told me that when they called to get the body, he had to go through the hospital and the county and they didn’t have anything on Rhonda. So they dial the police station in Lincoln and they tell her their doc is examining her. That’s when he found out how ... bad she was. Is that weird?”
“Very frigging weird.”
“I really got to go.”
He killed the connection.
Why would the police say they were using their own doctor? The county medical examiner did the autopsies. What happened in Lincoln stayed there, was that it? At least that was the way Rafferty did it. She reached over and picked up the flashlight from the seat. After unscrewing the top, she popped in the batteries. She screwed the top back on.
Time for some digging, she thought.
He had enough roses to satisfy three dates.
Matt took a look at the heaping bouquet, the roses taking up half the bench seat in the pickup truck. He knew Jill was health conscious and chocolates wouldn’t be the best idea for a fitness nut, so he opted for flowers.
A bumblebee buzzed in through the open passenger side window, humming and hovering over the flowers before landing on one. Matt shooed it with his hand and it dive-bombed him once, whizzing past his left ear before he finally backhanded it out the driver’s side window.
His heart beat hard and his palms sweated like a teenager on prom night.
While stopped at the intersection four blocks from Jill’s house, he did a quick check in the rearview mirror. Satisfied that his hair was in place and there was no food stuck in his teeth, he gave it the gas when the light turned green.
He revved it a little, getting the truck up to forty, knowing that most cops wouldn’t stop you unless you were driving like Jeff Gordon. Anxious to get to Jill’s house and liking the feel of the big V8 as it throbbed under the hood, he got it up to forty- five.
The police car’s lights popped up in his rearview mirror.
“Son of a bitch,” he said.
That’s what I got for forgetting where I am: in Lincoln, home of the world’s angriest police chief. Stupid, he thought.
Pulling the car over, he rested his arms on the steering wheel and waited. He watched in the side view as Ed Rafferty strode toward the truck, a huge grin plastered on his face.
Rafferty popped his face into the window, his eyes obscured by the standard-issue cop sunglasses. “License, registration and proof of insurance.”
Lifting his butt off the seat, Matt reached for his wallet, gave his license to Rafferty and then took the insurance card out of the glove box and did the same. He fumbled for a moment, looking for the registration and not finding it.
“Registration?” Rafferty repeated.
“It’s my aunt’s truck. I’m using it for the day,” Matt replied.
“Your aunt’s name?”
“Bernadette Lapchek.”
Rafferty crossed his arms. “Never heard of her.”
“She lives in town. I’m surprised you don’t know the name. She’s lived here as long as I can remember.”
Rafferty, his head down, scanned Matt’s license. “Okay. Get me the registration within twenty-four hours and we won’t have a problem.” Rafferty handed Matt’s license and the insurance card back to him. Matt let a little sigh of relief escape. He hadn’t hassled him over the missing registration, and for that Matt was grateful.
“Now, any idea how fast you were going?”
“About forty-five.”
“Right,” Rafferty said. “You think that’s a smart idea?”
“Probably not.”
Rafferty pushed his shades up with his index finger. “Well, I’m writing you a ticket.”
Rafferty opened his book, took a Bic pen out of his breast pocket and began writing the ticket. After a moment, he tore it off and handed it to Matt. Matt looked over the ticket.
“So when’s my court date?” Matt asked.
Rafferty started to speak and then paused. He looked at Matt thoughtfully and those big yellow choppers appeared for a second in a grin. “You been drinking, Mr. Crowe?”
“No.”
“Why don’t you step out of the car?”
Matt’s first instinct was to start the truck up and floor it, screeching away from the Chief. Instead he unfastened his seat belt and stepped out of the car.
Rafferty had pulled him over on Elmwood Avenue, one of the main drags in town. They were pulled over about a block from a Dairy Queen and cars passed them on a regular basis. Rafferty would not try anything out in the open with a crowd of spectators in the vicinity—or at least Matt wanted to believe that.
“Say your alphabet backward for me.”
Matt did. He also walked a straight line at Rafferty’s request, closed his eyes and touched his finger to his nose and touched the tip of each finger to his thumb. He expected a Breathalyzer to follow, but Rafferty didn’t demand he take one.
“Well, I guess you aren’t drunk, but I really don’t like speeders in my town. Especially speeders that get mouthy with me. Where you from, anyway?”
He doesn’t recognize or remember me, Matt realized. “The West Coast. San Francisco.”
“Probably a little queerboy, aren’t you?”
“No.”
“They’re all queer out there. I like them even less than I like speeders.”
As Matt opened his mouth to say something, the butt of the nightstick stung him below the right eye. His head snapped back. He shook his head and took a few steps back. He wanted to charge Rafferty, knock him down and beat him, maybe gouge his eyes or kick him until his ribs shattered.
He touched the skin around his eye and felt the warm, swollen flesh. He would have a shiner under that eye in the morning.
“You don’t speed in this town again. Got that?”
Matt lowered his hand. He thought of the Beretta, how easy it would be right now to blow holes in Rafferty, right above the badge, spin him around with bullets.
“You got me?” Rafferty said, and lifted the nightstick as if to deliver another blow. Matt didn’t flinch.
“I got you.”
Matt glanced along Elmwood. A steady stream of cars whipped past. No one had stopped to gawk or offer assistance.
“Get out of here. And don’t let me catch you again. Or you’ll get it worse.”
He turned and walked toward his patrol car, his stink enveloping him like a rotten cocoon.
It was time to shake Rafferty up a little. “Hey, Chief.”
Rafferty stopped and turned around.
“This is the second time you’ve messed with me. There won’t be a third.”
A look of confusion crossed Rafferty’s face, as if Matt had just spoken in Latin instead of English. “You threatening me?”
“No sir, I wouldn’t threaten an officer of the law.” Matt climbed in the truck and started the engine. He peeked in the rearview mirror. Rafferty leaned against the patrol car, the cop sunglasses glinting in the sun.
He half expected Rafferty to come back to the car and try and deliver another beating, but he opened the door and climbed in the police car.
As Matt pulled back on to Elmwood he said, “Think about that for a while, you son of a bitch.”
Rafferty watched the punk pull away in his big Chevy.
Taking his glasses off, he rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger, thinking. He couldn’t remember where he had seen Matthew Crowe before, but he knew it would come to him sooner or later. There had been so many Outsiders he had harassed over the years, so many times when he used a nightstick on one of them just for the fun of it. He couldn’t possibly remember all of them.
He followed Matt Crowe down Elmwood and then down Wharton. He watched as the pickup pulled into Jill Adams’ driveway.
Very interesting, he thought.
The cold little bitch has a boyfriend, and she was probably going to give it up for him real good. He was half tempted to follow them to wherever they were going, but he had a better idea; he would pay little Ms. Adams a visit on his own. Maybe teach her a few lessons about who her real man should be.
If Rafferty had been completely human, he would’ve recognized his thoughts as jealousy, but his kind only recognized hatred for others. It was raw and primitive, the emotion bubbling up inside him like rancid crude oil until it eventually hit the surface and exploded.
Pulling down the street, he decided to make another stop before heading back to the station house.
“God, Matt, he really nailed you one.” Jill said, handing Matt ice cubes wrapped in a washcloth.
“Yeah, good old Chief Rafferty.”
“Well, we can stay in tonight if you want,” Jill said. “Maybe it’s for the best, especially if Rafferty hasn’t cooled down and is out patrolling. He could get you all over again. And you know how he feels about me.”
“I’m not letting him ruin our date.”
“What about your eye?”
“Maybe they’d give me a nice raw steak to put on it at Morotto’s.”
Jill laughed. “Well, as long as you’re okay with this. Let me just use the bathroom and we’ll go.”
She went into the bathroom, peed and checked her makeup in the mirror. She only wore some pink lipstick and some eye shadow. Her mother always told her she didn’t need much. You’re pretty enough, Jill, you don’t need all that greasepaint on your kisser, Mom would say.
Straightening the strap on her dress, she had to admit she did look pretty good. The sundress was flowered and hugged her hips, but not too tight. The hem stopped two inches above her knees, enough to show a little leg, but not enough to make her look cheap. She had caught Matt sneaking a few peeks at her tanned legs, but that was okay; she would have been disappointed if he hadn’t looked.
When she came back into the living room, the ice pack was gone; Matt had set it in the sink. They went downstairs into the driveway and Matt sprang ahead of her.
“What’re you doing?” she said.
“I forgot to bring these up. I was so mad when I got here, I forgot them.”
He reached into the open window of the truck and wrestled out a dozen of the most gorgeous roses she had ever seen. They were wine red and she could smell them from five feet away.
He walked over to her, gave a little bow and handed her the flowers. “Flowers for the lady,” he said, in a bad Cockney accent.
“Why, thank you, sir.”
She kissed him on the cheek, careful not to bump the shiner that was rising below his eye.
“Your chariot, m’lady.” He opened the passenger side door for her and she set the roses on the seat and climbed in.
He backed the truck up, looked both ways down the street, and pulled out.
CHAPTER 12
The sun set, streaking the sky with pinks and vermilions.
Donna Ricci knew it was time to get to her destination.
Her brother’s address was 317 Dorchester. The houses were mostly big old Victorians, some with black shutters, some with pink trim, and a few with widow’s walks at their peaks.
Most of the yards had towering maples that gave a ton of shade, and there was one big old oak tree that had a rope and tire tied to the branch. Maybe one of the fat cats who lived up here had it planted special.
Her brother had a room at the Radisson in downtown Buffalo so the house was still empty.
As she passed the house, she scanned the yard. The windows were dark, giving the house an odd, lonely look. It somehow reminded her of a dog waiting by the front door for a master that would never return.
She noticed an old man watering his lawn at the house next door. He was stoop-shouldered, scrawny and wore a yellowed tank top and plaid Bermuda shorts. His old-man breasts hung saggily, clinging to the fabric of his tank top. As she passed him, he followed her with his gaze, scowling and suspicious.
She didn’t need the locals harassing her, or maybe getting on the phone and bringing Rafferty onto the scene. Originally, she had intended to pick the lock at the side door and slip into the house. If any of the neighbors got nosy, she would flash her tin and count on the badge intimidating them enough for them to butt out.
She had found over the years that most civilians were afraid of a badge, like a vampire backing away from a cross; it had a certain talismanic power.
After she thought about it for a moment, and especially after recalling her conversation with Rafferty, she decided to go under the cover of darkness to lessen her chances of being spotted. She would maybe slip into a basement window. Getting caught breaking and entering would serve as the death knell for her career. But she figured getting a firsthand look at the scene was the only way to find out what really happened to Rhonda. She drove to Delevan, hoping to find a restaurant.
There were a lot of shops on Delevan, and she supposed this was as close to downtown as a small town got.
There was a Rite-Aid pharmacy, a Hollywood video store, a florist and then finally Niko’s Restaurant. Up ahead, more stores and shops, but Niko’s was what she wanted.
She pulled the Ford over in front of the restaurant and got out.
There was an orange, lighted sign that proclaimed: NIKO’S—FINEST GREEK FOOD IN LINCOLN. Donna imagined it was also the only Greek food in Lincoln.
She entered the restaurant; inside the door was a glass counter filled with chocolates: pecan turtles, chocolate-covered pretzels, peanut clusters and goobers. There were chocolate suckers, squares of dark and white chocolates and chunks of fudge. A teenage girl with a bouncy ponytail scooped out sponge candy, placed it in a wax paper bag and handed it to a woman in a fur wrap. The sweet smell of candy filled the air.
After Donna had waited a moment, a heavyset waitress with a sunflower-colored perm materialized beside the counter.
The waitress led Donna to a table, her heavy rear end swaying as she walked. She pulled a greasy looking rag out of her back pocket and wiped the table down. Donna sat down, ordered a Pepsi, and waited for darkness.
“So how bad does it look?” Matt asked, touching the swollen area under his eye.
“Like you caught Evander Holyfield on a bad day,” Jill replied, twirling her linguine.
They sat in front of the big picture window that overlooked Delevan Avenue, eating and casually watching the passersby. Presently a trio of gum-chewing teenage girls bopped past, giggling and wearing shorts that nearly exposed the bottoms of their asses.
> Jill relished the food and the overall ambiance of the restaurant. Unlike most Italian restaurants, Morotto’s was brightly lit and had a vase of fresh-cut flowers on each table. Watercolor paintings of the Roman Coliseum and the Leaning Tower of Pisa adorned the walls. It was a welcome change to the thick shadows and checkered tablecloths that characterized most Italian eateries.
Now on her second glass of wine, she enjoyed the pleasant rush of heat that it provided. The company wasn’t bad either.
They had been discussing Matt’s Aunt Bernie.
“Did you keep in touch with her at all over the years?”
“No. And I feel rotten about it. I basically withdrew from the world and focused all my energy on the Rangers. And thought a lot about my family. Still do.”
“What’s it like jumping out of planes?” she asked.
“Scary. Exhilarating,” he said. “I’d do it again.” He took a bite of veal Picatta.
“You’re nuts. First jumping out of planes and then single-handedly taking on the law,” she said.
“Yeah. I fought the law ...”
“And the law won. Big-time in this case.”
“He’s going to kill again if someone doesn’t stop him. And what about him harassing you?”
Jill looked over her shoulder and then back at Matt. “You’d better lower your voice. Remember what you said to me about people listening in?”
“Right. That was stupid of me.” Matt said in a hushed tone. “Anyone could be listening. Anyone with ties to Rafferty.”
Jill finished off the last of her pasta and pushed her plate aside. It had gotten dark and a swarm of sand flies buzzed around the globe lamp out front.
“So do you still believe my story?” he asked.
“I believe something traumatic happened to you. And that your family was murdered.”
“But what about the part about the creatures?”
“I’m getting there. Let me tell you about something that happened to me at work.”
She leaned forward and he did the same. She told him about her supervisor, Dorothy Gaines, and about the awful smell coming off her.