by Robin Yocum
I really didn’t care if the eggs were a little runny, but I liked my newfound assertiveness. I was looking for opportunities to give orders. The tab was $2.50. I made a bit of a show of dropping a ten-dollar bill on the table as I left for Carmel’s. Hootie was standing out in front of the store; he saw me coming and ducked inside. He was holding the suit by the hanger when I walked in.
“You’re a good boy, Hootie,” I said, snagging the hanger as I walked by and went into the dressing room. It was a perfect fit.
I bought a white shirt and the brightest red tie they had. After I paid for them, I tucked a ten-dollar bill into the breast pocket of Hootie’s purple shirt. “Here. Go buy yourself another ugly shirt.”
I liked the way the suit fit; Mrs. Sadowski had done a nice job. The tie and a highly buffed pair of black loafers set off the suit. When I left Carmel’s and walked back to my car, I could feel eyes on me from within the bank and stores along Market Street.
And I liked it.
Fifteen minutes after leaving Carmel’s, I walked into my brother’s steel-fabricating plant. As I made my way through the middle of the shop toward my brother’s office, one of his employees, Dwight Yakovac, said, “Hey, look who’s here. It’s John Wilkes Xenakis. Smoochie, you shoot anyone today?”
Everyone in the area laughed.
I stopped and turned to face him. “No, Dwight, I haven’t,” I said, giving him a quick wink. “But the day is young, isn’t it? Anything could happen.” I watched him swallow hard and continued on. As I grabbed hold of the door knob to my brother’s office, I turned and said, “By the way, my name is Vincent.”
I closed the door and stared out at Dwight through the open blinds in the door window. Without blinking, I slowly twisted the lever until the blinds closed. “Oh, my God, this is so much fun,” I said, pulling up a chair from the corner of Luke’s office.
“What’s fun?” Luke asked.
“Being a tough guy—a badass. I know I’m just pretending, but it’s a blast.”
“Where in God’s name did you get that suit? You look like Al Capone.”
I pumped my fists in front of my chest like a boxer, throwing jab after jab. “Perfect. That’s just the look I was going for. No kidding. This is the best. All of a sudden, everyone’s afraid of me. Dena Marie, I think she is flat-out convinced that I killed Rayce.”
“Good.”
“I know!” I scooted closer to his desk and hunkered forward so I didn’t have to talk too loud. “You know that feeling you get when you’re walking down the street and all of a sudden there’s a stray dog standing in front of you and he’s growling and showing his teeth and you have to catch yourself or you’ll piss your pants? I can tell from Dena Marie’s eyes that she’s that kind of scared. She looks at me like she really thinks I did it, and maybe that I would do it again.”
Luke tilted his head back and laughed. “This is excellent. You’re in control of the marriage for a change.”
“She’s terrified of me. Maybe that’s not right.”
“Oh, please. Considering everything she’s done to you, you’ve been a saint. Was it right for her to shack up with Rayce Daubner?”
I was smiling. “I’m going to try this on my boss, too.”
“Oswald?”
I nodded. “Sometimes, brother, the world can be a beautiful place.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
SHERIFF FRANCIS ROBERSON
It was like a toothache. Not the sharp, stabbing jolt that feels like the pulp of the tooth has turned to molten steel, but that dull throb that never quite goes away. Anchored somewhere deep in my skull, it pulsated with each beat of my heart, reverberating inside my ears. There were times when, for a few minutes, I could ignore it, but it was always there, gnawing away.
I pondered the train wreck that had become my life. And as I hid in the solitude of my office—elbows on my desk, palms pressed to my temples—I wondered how such a smooth-running machine could have gone so far south so quickly. Its genesis, I’m sure, was the tiny leap in my loins the day I stopped by the grocery to buy a pack of gum and Dena Marie was behind the counter in a white blouse that revealed her cleavage and the lacy top of her bra. I could have easily survived the indiscretion that followed. But then that goddamn Rayce Daubner had to go and get himself murdered. It was hard to believe that the death of someone as loathsome as Rayce Daubner could cause me so much grief. For the most part, nobody cared that Daubner was dead. But it was already causing me problems from which my career might never recover. The feds would certainly investigate the death of one of their informants. The man who at one time had been my best friend was locked in my jail, my nose was the size of a lemon, my wife was barely speaking to me, and I had a neo-Nazi running around town trying to kidnap the suspect in a murder case. As my father likes to say, “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”
I’ll tell you what I needed. I needed Allison to come in the office, crawl under my desk, and relieve a little of my stress. Once, sometimes twice a week, she would come in, lock the door, and give me head. That hadn’t happened since I screwed Dena Marie, and I doubted it would happen any time soon. If I wanted relief, I was forced to employ the solo technique of my adolescent years.
Because the door that separated the sheriff’s office from the main hallway of the courthouse building was warped, it skidded on the floor whenever it was pushed open, causing the frosted glass in the top of the door to vibrate in its molding. This effectively alerted us to visitors. At the FBI, we had a camera in the lobby; at the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department, we had a warped door with loose glass.
When the door skidded at about nine o’clock on this morning, the air was pierced by the squeal of my wife, who in a dancing, high-pitched voice said, “Oh, my God, I can’t believe it. Oh, my God, what are you doing here? Fran will be so happy to see you.”
She was wrong. I knew she was wrong because at that moment there was no one I wanted to see. I had no clue as to the identity of the visitor as I listened to the footfalls approach my office.
Whenever I’m ambushed—say, my wife walks into my office and asks whether I’ve been having an affair with Dena Marie Xenakis—a wave of heat races up my neck, I blink rapidly, and I nervously swallow. That was the reaction that came over me the instant Alfred Vincenzio walked through my door.
“Hey, Francis,” he said, extending his hand before I could get out of my chair. “Great to see you again.”
The saliva frothed in my mouth, and a scalding rash erupted under my collar and ripped up the back of my head, causing each follicle to scream and stand erect. The pounding in my head was deafening. Alfred Rockford Vincenzio—my nemesis at the FBI Academy and the man from whom I had stolen my wife—was standing there wearing a tailored suit and a phony grin.
“Al, Christ Almighty, what a surprise,” I managed. “What brings you down here?” I had to swallow again before I could return a phony smile. He didn’t respond. We both knew what had brought him to Steubenville—the corpse of Rayce Daubner. Not only was the bureau investigating his death, it was doing so with the one person in the world I least wanted to see snooping around Jefferson County. We shook hands, and Alfred squeezed too hard, still trying to impress.
“What the hell happened to your nose?” he asked.
“An unfortunate encounter with one of our jail residents,” I said.
“Looks like it was very unfortunate.” He gestured toward his partner, whom I hadn’t even noticed. He was a squat black man with a furrowed brow. “Francis, this is Agent Elvis Norwine.”
I extended my hand toward Norwine. His brows converged upon one another as he pumped my hand once. “Francis? That your name, Francis? You got a girl’s name?”
“Names can be funny. How many black guys do you run into named Elvis?” I shot back.
“You got a problem with that?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Just making an observation, that’s all.”
They both took uninvited seats
in front of my desk. Norwine was a bullish man with thick hands and fingers. His thinning stubs of hair were flecked with gray, and he had the nose of a former boxer. Vincenzio was his usual fastidious self, not a hair out of place, everything about him neat. “Francis and I were classmates at the academy,” he explained to Norwine, who was now boring in on me with a pair of dark eyes. “Francis was a rising star in white-collar crime with the bureau in Minneapolis until he resigned to become sheriff of Jefferson County.”
Norwine looked around the room and gave a little laugh of surprise. “You gave up a bureau assignment to work in this shithole of a town?”
“This is where I grew up.”
“I’m sorry for your luck.”
“He did it for political reasons,” Vincenzio said. “Francis is using this as a stepping-stone. Unless I miss my guess, he still wants to be president of the United States.”
Norwine laughed. “Yeah, and I want to pitch for the New York Yankees.”
“Better start working on your curveball,” I offered.
“I haven’t thrown a baseball since my senior year in high school, but I’ve got a better chance of standing on the mound in Yankee Stadium than you do of getting to the White House.”
“So, Alfred, did you and Elvis come down here to insult me, or is there a reason for this call?”
“It’s not a social call, Francis.”
“Really? I’m shocked.”
“We’re investigating the death of Rayce Daubner.”
“That’s interesting. Why would the death of a two-bit thug like Rayce Daubner be of interest to the Federal Bureau of Investigation?”
“He was a federal informant.”
I tried to sound surprised. “Get out! Rayce Daubner? A snitch for the feds?” They knew I knew. It was part of the game. “Things must be getting tough at the bureau if you’re forced to use the likes of Rayce Daubner as a snitch.”
“We prefer the term ‘informant.’”
“I’m sure you do.”
“He was actually a very good informant.”
“Is that a fact?”
Norwine said, “He told us that you were banging some little tart down at the grocery store.” His cramped little mouth turned up at the corners.
The heat was burning through my collar. “You can’t believe everything you hear. Maybe he wasn’t as good a snitch—excuse me, informant—as you thought. Besides, since when did the bureau turn into the morality police?”
“We’re not, but we take very seriously the death of an informant,” Norwine said.
“Look, Alfred, let’s put our cards on the table, shall we? I’m not so naive to believe that anyone at the Federal Bureau of Investigation gives a good rat’s ass about Rayce Daubner. The only reason you’re here is that you’re hoping to jam it up my ass sideways. Wouldn’t that be a nice trophy for your wall—local sheriff, former agent, and the guy who stole your girl.” This brought a smile to Norwine’s face. “Even so, the bureau wouldn’t let you waste your time like this, so what’s up?”
“The bureau has been interested in Jefferson County for quite some time. That probably doesn’t come as a big surprise to you, given the county’s history of corruption. We were using Daubner for inside information, and he was doing quite well. He said he was close to dropping the package on a high-ranking elected official in Jefferson County.”
“Really?”
He laughed. “No, I’m just fucking with you. He never said it was a high-ranking official. I made that up. What he actually said was he was getting ready to drop the package on you.”
I fought the urge to swallow. “He must have been on cocaine when he made that one up.”
“No idea what he was talking about, Francis?”
“He was delusional.”
“He said he was working closely with you on some projects. He said he might be getting close to some very embarrassing information on you. Are you sure you don’t know what he was talking about?”
“Rayce Daubner was a pathological liar, on top of his many other redeeming qualities. What were you paying him for this inside work?”
Norwine ignored my question and asked, “Who torched his house?”
“What makes you think it was torched?”
“Looks like a cover-up job to me.”
“That’s an interesting theory.”
“Was it?” Vincenzio asked.
“I don’t know. The fire chief hasn’t gotten back to me.”
Vincenzio frowned and nodded slowly. “Now, Francis, don’t you think it’s interesting that someone with arson training, such as yourself, and the chief law enforcement officer in the county, isn’t doing the investigation?”
“Why is that interesting? It’s not my jurisdiction.”
He shrugged. “You’re obviously the most experienced arson investigator in the county. I know Ohio law. The sheriff can take over any investigation within his jurisdiction. Why would you let some backwoods fire chief conduct the investigation?”
“Just because they’re not from Pittsburgh doesn’t mean they aren’t qualified investigators.”
“Maybe you don’t want the real cause found,” Norwine offered.
“I don’t care for the implication.”
Norwine puckered his lips and twice kissed the air.
“We’d like to see the investigative file on Daubner’s murder,” Vincenzio said.
“Not without a court order, you won’t.”
Now the red was creeping up around Vincenzio’s neck. “Sharing information is generally considered common courtesy among law enforcement agencies.”
“Is that so? When you come in here and tell me that one of your informants was trying to drop a package on me, that doesn’t make me feel particularly courteous. And I doubt my mood is going to swing any time soon.”
“I don’t think you realize who you’re screwin’ with,” Norwine said.
“Don’t flatter yourself. I spent more than ten years in the bureau, and I’m not intimidated. You want to go ask questions, be my guest, but don’t fuck up my investigation.”
Vincenzio stood to leave. “Francis, I was really hoping this wouldn’t get ugly.”
“I don’t believe that for one minute, Alfred. I think you’d like to make it as ugly as possible.”
He smiled. “Allison is still a beautiful woman.”
“Why wouldn’t she be?”
“I don’t know. Living in a place like this can wear on a person. What did she say when she found out you were screwing the little tramp down the street?”
He was trying to rile me, hoping I would lash out. “I’ve got a lot of work to do, boys.” I walked around the desk and opened the door. “See you around.”
“Count on it,” Norwine said.
When they were gone, I flipped the deadbolt on my door. I went behind my desk, dropped to one knee, and threw up in the wastebasket.
I tied up the plastic liner of the wastebasket, trying to stem the stench of a regurgitated ham-and-cheese omelet. When my head quit spinning, I stood, steadying myself with a hand on the corner of the desk, walked across the room, and opened a window.
After releasing the deadbolt on the door, I walked back behind my desk and eased into my chair. No sooner had I closed my eyes than my dad walked into my office unannounced, with the same entitlement with which he had entered my bedroom when I was twelve. He had taken just two steps into the office when he curled up his nose and said, “Phew, it smells like vomit in here.”
“There’s a good reason for that,” I replied.
“Sick?”
“Nah, my stomach’s just a little jumpy. I’ve got a lot on my mind. It got the best of me.”
“Little Miss Sugar Britches causing you problems? I hear she’s been visiting you lately.”
“Good Lord, do you have this place bugged? How do you hear this stuff?”
“I hear things, that’s all.”
“You’ve got some mole planted here, is what you’ve got.”
“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?”
“Yes, she’s been around, but it doesn’t have anything to do with—”
“Your romp at the no-tell mo-tel?”
“That’s right,” I said.
He poured himself a cup of coffee and slipped into one of the chairs in front of my desk. “What’s up, then?”
“Dena Marie says Smoochie killed Rayce Daubner.”
He nearly snorted coffee out his nose. “Smoochie Xenakis! Christ Almighty, I’ll bet he’s never even held a gun. She just wants to get him out of the picture.”
“I know.”
“Not because she’s interested in you, you understand?”
“I know that, too, Dad.”
He waved at the air. “If I were you, I wouldn’t bust my ass trying to solve that murder.”
I pulled a piece of gum from my top drawer and shoved it in my mouth. “That sounds a little odd coming from you. I figured you might see some political advantages for me if I solved it. Besides, you and Petey Daubner were pretty good friends.”
“Petey Daubner was a terrific guy. He’d do anything for anyone. He gave that boy everything. Worshipped him. And when Petey was lying in that bed down at the hospital, eaten up with cancer, do you think Rayce would go up and visit? No. Not once.” He sipped his coffee. “Rayce was nothing but a bully and a punk. His mom and dad are dead, so I guarantee there is not a person in this county who gives a rat’s ass that he’s dead. In fact, most of ’em are probably glad. Just let the investigation die. Tell the reporters that you’re working hard but there aren’t many clues. In a week or so, someone else will get caught screwing someone they shouldn’t, and everyone will forget about Rayce Daubner. You’re not going to win any votes solving the murder of someone most people in Steubenville considered a lower life-form.”
“I tend to agree, but I’ve got more problems. Daubner was a snitch for the FBI, so they’re in town sniffing around.”
“I wouldn’t think they’d be that interested.”
“Well, the truth is, it looks like they were trying to set up a sting operation here in the county.”