by Tom Fowler
The window was on the side of the church tower to the left of the building’s center. Below it, damaged concrete steps yielded to grass. I had the sun to light things for me now, but I wanted to be sure of what I saw, so I still used the flashlight when I crouched. Sure enough, Sam and his crew of at least one minion had neglected some of their clean-up duties. I saw bits of broken glass, varying in size from tiny all the way to pieces attaining full shard status. The window had been plain glass, not stained, so the bits with dried blood on them stood out from the rest. I used my tweezers, gathered a few, and dropped them into another plastic bag, my last one. I added it to the other plastic bags in my small satchel and walked back to my car.
I would need to get these samples examined. But how get the job done without turning the whole thing into an official police investigation, thus alerting Vinnie and endangering Alice?
Chapter 18
Once I got home, I went upstairs, took off my gun and holster, and lay down for a nap. Getting up at five-fifteen is a fate I did not wish to suffer often. While I was still young enough to rise early and go on with my day, a nap would be preferable. Rich and Alice wouldn’t be up for a while yet, and Vinnie didn’t know where Alice went. I set my phone to rouse me in ninety minutes, and I don’t remember being awake long after my head hit the pillow.
Ninety minutes later, at the more reasonable hour of five after nine, the hard-rock strains of the alarm pulled me from my nap. I went downstairs and made sausage and toast for a second breakfast. At some point, I had to go to the grocery store. Man cannot live on carry-out alone, unless he also makes frequent trips to the gym. When I finished, I called Rich.
“Hello?” he said.
“I’m wondering how far we can push the unofficial nature of this investigation,” I said.
Rich’s sigh hissed in my ear. “What did you do now?”
“Always so negative, dear cousin. I discovered some evidence which might break the case.”
“You did?”
“Yes.”
“You?” he said.
“You seem surprised.”
“Please don’t tell me you went and messed up a crime scene.”
“Of course not,” I said. “I’m a licensed investigator.”
Rich snorted. “And I’m the fucking commissioner. What did you find?”
I told him about the church where I had been held, what I found there, and what I did in terms of evidence gathering. “Looks like you were right—they held Paul Fisher there. They probably worked him over in the upper room. Then I guess they threw him out the window.” I paused. “Huh.”
“What?” Rich said.
“It explains the injuries in the car crash. Hitting the pavement from four stories after being beaten and thrown through a window probably looks a lot like crashing your car and exiting through the windshield.”
“It probably looks worse, but I think the injuries would be similar enough. We’ll have to ask the ME once we know more. You have this evidence in plastic bags?”
“Yes,” I said. “How are we going to get it analyzed and keep this whole thing off the books? We don’t want an official investigation yet. If Vinnie gets spooked, things could go poorly for Alice.”
“He doesn’t know where Alice is, though,” Rich said.
“True, but we can’t presume he’ll never find out,” I said. “She might slip up and do something to get herself noticed somehow.”
“How?”
“She’s a compulsive gambler and emotionally traumatized,” I said. “I’m sure clear thinking isn’t first among her virtues right now.”
“Good point,” said Rich. “I can ask one of the CSI guys to run the evidence for me. He owes me some money from a poker game.”
“All right. Have you checked on Alice yet?”
“No, I was going to take some food over there for breakfast.”
“OK,” I said. “I’ll take her lunch. Then I can give you the evidence, and we can strategize going forward.”
“You’re really taking to this, aren’t you?”
“It’s a lot more interesting than the simple adultery case I got handed at first. I can handle interesting.”
“We’ll make a real detective out of you yet,” Rich said.
“Don’t wish such a fate on me,” I said.
Alice deserved to know what I found. I don’t know if she shared my suspicion about Paul’s murder; I think she simply got caught up in the tragedy of it all. In the end, it doesn’t matter how someone’s loved one died, only the fact the person’s not there anymore. Car accident, murder, or heart defect, the cut feels the same. Still, Alice deserved to know, especially because Vinnie might try and take her out, too.
I made sure to run a few miles between breakfast and lunch since I would be doing carry-out again. Bill Bateman’s was the most convenient place to go, and I liked the menu, so I went there again. When I got to the room, Alice opened the door with a small, resigned smile on her face. I took the carry-out inside. She ate on the bed while I ate on the desk.
“How are you doing?” I said.
“Bored,” she said, her eyes landing on me a little more often than normal. “I’m getting tired of being in this room all the time. The TV and books can’t keep my interest.”
“I’m sure it’s frustrating. I wouldn’t like it, either. Right now, though, you’re safe here.”
“But I want to leave the room, C.T. There’s a shopping center across the street. I want to wander around Wal-Mart and look at all the random people who shop there. I want to have a dessert in the Dairy Queen. I want to feel sunlight and wind on my face.” She shook her head. “I can’t do any of it in here.”
I nodded. “I’ll take you across the way to Dairy Queen for dessert.”
“Thanks,” Alice said. She smiled a bigger smile, one looking happier and less defeated. “It’s a start.”
We ate a little while longer until we both almost finished our lunches. I wanted to tell her what I found, but how could I work such a thing into the conversation? I’m sorry you’re cooped up in this hotel room. By the way, a Chinese midget beat your husband to a pulp and threw him out a third-story window. Can you pass me a mustard packet? There had to be an easier way. While I pondered my lack of bedside manner, Alice solved the problem for me.
“You seem a little troubled,” she said. “Something happen in the case?”
I finished my mouthful of food. “Yes,” I said. “You know a couple of Vinnie’s guys held me hostage for a while.” She nodded; I continued. “They were holed up in an abandoned church. It occurred to me they probably used the same building before. Since I already suspected they had done something to your husband, I went back early this morning and looked around.”
Her eyes widened. “Were they still there?”
“No, they left. Once I got away, they must have abandoned the place. They left in a hurry, though, and haste makes people sloppy.”
“What did you find?” Alice leaned forward on the bed. Her eyes stayed on me for a change.
“A lot,” I said. “There’s a room in the church tower right next to where the bell was. I found dried blood on the floor and collected some of it. I also saw a window boarded up. The other windows were covered with old wood. This wood was brand new. I looked at the ground and saw pieces of broken glass. A few had some bits of dried blood on them. I collected those, too. I’m going to give everything I found to Rich and have it analyzed.”
Alice didn’t say anything for a minute. She looked at me with a constant gaze I found a little unnerving. I had gotten used to her eyes never landing on anything for more than a second or two. Finally, she let out a slow, deep breath. “They killed him,” she said.
“Looks like it,” I said.
“Why would they do that?”
“Vinnie thinks Paul had life insurance. You’d get a windfall, and he’d lean on you for his cut.”
She shook her head. I saw her eyes well up. “Why did I have to place all th
ose bets?” said Alice.
“Don’t blame yourself. It’s Vinnie’s fault Paul is dead. Rich and I are going to prove it. He’ll get what’s coming to him.”
Alice wiped her eyes and nodded. “All right,” she said. “You two be careful, though. Vinnie is dangerous.”
“We’re trained professionals,” I said. At least it was half-true.
After finishing lunch with Alice, I drove to Rich’s house in Hamilton. He owned a very nice Victorian with a huge screened-in porch and large front and back yards. Rich’s parents—my paternal aunt and uncle—died a few years ago. They left Rich and his brother decent sums, and willed the rest of their money to various charities. Rich used the money to buy the house and invested the rest toward his retirement.
I gave Rich the brown bag holding my evidence Ziplocs when he opened the door. He looked in the bag. “This almost looks professional,” he said with an approving nod.
“Well, I’m almost smart enough to pull CSI stuff off,” I said.
“You did a good job considering you’re not trained for it and don’t have professional tools.”
“I’ve watched years of cop shows,” I said.
“Did those shows tell you the value of taking pictures?”
“They did. I’ll email them to you so you can print them.”
“All right,” Rich said. “The guy who owes me money doesn’t start his shift for a couple hours. I’ll take everything to him then and tell him to put a rush on it.”
“How much does he owe you?” I said.
“Two fifty.”
“Must be some poker game. High stakes for a bunch of public servants.”
“We do it once a month. Maybe I’ll invite you sometime and win back my money from your stack.”
I snorted. “Please. You’re not winning anything from me. I can handle your little game.”
Rich grinned and shook his head. “Maybe we’ll see one of these months,” he said.
“Maybe we will.”
Rich and I both went to the hotel room for dinner. On the way, I told him about Alice going stir crazy. We could only hope she wouldn’t wander outside and get herself noticed by the wrong people. I wanted to think she had more sense, but with all she had been through recently, I couldn’t be sure. We all wanted a change from Bill Bateman’s, so we stopped for food at Panda Express. Alice looked a little disappointed when we got there, but she shrugged it off and ate. I got an assortment of food, including pepper steak, sweet and sour chicken, vegetable lo mein, and hunan chicken. American Chinese food always reminded me how much better real Chinese food in Hong Kong had been, and Panda Express reminded me more than most.
We left about an hour later, after stressing to Alice the importance of staying in the room and not being seen. I offered to loan her a tablet, but she said she would be OK. I drove us back toward downtown. “What now?” Rich said.
“How long until we get those results?” I said.
“Tomorrow at the earliest.”
“We need to go after Vinnie’s people if we’re going to keep this off the books. They have to roll over on him when the time is right.”
“Want to start tonight?” Rich said.
“No time like the present, right?”
“Sure. Who first?”
“Might as well go after his lover.”
Rich grinned and shook his head. “Of course you want to go after the girl first.”
“You know me all too well, dear cousin,” I said.
I stopped at my apartment and made a pot of coffee for the thermos. We were still sated from dinner, so we snagged some snacks at a convenience store and headed to Canton Square. I parked the Lexus around where I had the last time Rich and I staked out Margaret Madison’s house. When we got there, she had only the token light on in the front of the house. I looked up her home number and dialed it. No answer.
“Looks like she’s not home,” I said.
“Good thing we have coffee, then,” said Rich.
“This time, I think we should avoid breaking in. You have your badge and gun on you?”
“Of course.”
“Good. When we present our case, I think having a real cop in the house will make it that much more convincing.”
“You think you can get her to roll on Vinnie?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I think she’s OK with collecting bets and maybe beating someone up here and there, but she may draw the line at murder.”
“We don’t know the blood is Paul Fisher’s,” Rich said.
“She doesn’t know we don’t know,” I pointed out.
Rich nodded. “All right, we’ll see what we can do about turning her.”
Novembers in Baltimore can be brisk, and this one was no exception. I fired up the engine periodically for some heat, but we didn’t want a running car to give anything away. Rich and I had each had a cup of coffee within the first half-hour. I looked around at the holiday decorations. Margaret Madison had eschewed any festive accoutrements on her house, but her neighbors showed more holiday spirit. I counted three Santas, a handful of illuminated reindeer, one large and tacky Nativity scene, and a bunch of lights strung around bushes and draped over doorways and gutter spouts.
It was almost nine o’clock when Margaret Madison walked to her front door. Rich and I got out of the car once we saw she had gone inside. We ambled the half-block to her house, climbed her three front steps, and knocked on the door. She opened it, and we both showed our IDs. Margaret looked better up close. She had bright blue eyes and a face that belonged on magazine covers. “We need to talk,” I said.
She frowned and looked at us in turn. Margaret had taken her coat off and now wore a purple sweater atop a pair of black jeans. At least she wore the Ravens’ colors. “What’s this about?” she said.
“Your boss,” I said. “There are some things going on you might not be aware of. Can we come in?”
“All right,” she said and stepped aside. We walked into the small foyer, which yielded to the living room. I admired the new hardwood floors and leather furniture. Margaret sat in a leather recliner. Rich and I seated ourselves facing her on the comfortable sofa. “What’s going on?” she said.
“We know you work for Vinnie Serrano,” I said, “and we know what he does. We know you take illegal bets, and I’ve seen you beat up a man in a parking lot not far from here.” She looked like she wanted to say something, but I held up my hand and continued. “Your boss and his cronies killed a man, though, and now they’re terrorizing his wife.”
Margaret leaned back in the chair and sighed. “Vinnie isn’t a killer. He’s a simple bookie.”
“He’s trying to get into loan-sharking, too,” Rich said.
“That’s why he has the new guy,” Margaret said.
“Sal?” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Sal might have killed a man. The victim got roughed up and thrown out a window. Then they staged a car accident to cover it.”
Margaret stared at us with wide eyes. “You’re serious.”
“We had some evidence tested,” I said.
“Why hasn’t Vinnie been arrested, then?”
“He’s made it clear his arrest would spell bad news for the dead man’s widow. We’re keeping this off the books as long as we can.”
“Basically, Vinnie is going down,” Rich said. “If you want to go with him, it’s up to you. If you don’t, we can make things easier for you.”
“I’ve never killed anyone,” Margaret said. “Vinnie never asked me to. I just take bets and make some collections. Sometimes I have to rough the marks up, but I’ve never done worse than break a bone here and there.”
“Would you be willing to testify against Vinnie?” Rich said.
She sighed again. “I don’t know. How can I be sure you’re not just giving me a bunch of shit?”
I took out my phone and called up the photos. “Here,” I said, standing and walking to her recliner. “These are the pictures I took of the r
oom where they beat up a man and threw him out of a fourth-story window.” I handed her the phone. She scrolled through the photos and frowned.
“It’s not exactly a smoking gun,” she said.
“We had the evidence tested. You see those pools of dried blood? I had them and some glass samples analyzed. A man is dead and your boss did it.”
“Or ordered people to do it,” Rich said. “Legally, they’re the same. Anyone who works for him is going to go down with him.”
Margaret looked at us for a minute and didn’t say anything. Her lustrous blue eyes looked between us, then closed as she shook her head. “I don’t want to go to jail with him or because of him,” she said. “I’m not a killer. I don’t want any part of that.”
“You’ve made the right decision,” Rich said. “If you testify against Vinnie, the state’s attorney will go easy on you. I can’t promise you anything now, of course.”
“What am I supposed to do until Vinnie gets busted?”
“What you normally do,” I said. “Act like nothing has changed. Try not to make him suspicious.”
Margaret nodded slowly. “OK, I think I can do it.”
“Here’s my card,” I said, giving her a business card from my wallet. “Don’t let Vinnie see it. Call me if anything unusual happens or if you think he’s on to our plan.”
“I will.”
Margaret showed Rich and me out and closed the door behind us. We walked back to my car. “What’s the next move?” I said once we were in the car and I had turned the heat on.
“We hope she’s not calling Vinnie right now,” Rich said.
“Let’s presume she’s not.”
“Try to flip someone else, then, I guess. Sal’s new. He might be easy.”