Momma Lupe, Book 1 in the Ty Connell 'Novella Series. A Mystery/Suspense Thriller. Cooking or killing -- Momma Had Her Funny WAys

by Michael C. Hughes

  No wronged wife or a jealous husband in the heat of the moment here. It was exactly as it looked at first glance: a well-planned pro job.

  "So you got a pro-fessional hit," Connell pronounced. “What a surprise.”

  "Looks like they let theirselves in the garage early —the garage door lock was jimmied—and waited a while,” Morgan said. “Vinnie comes out and —"

  Connell nodded agreement, then seemed to spot something. He bent under the yellow tape and knelt down, looking over the late Vinnie Momesso closely, from head to toe. He glanced away briefly, like he was thinking something over, then turned back

  "They not only let themselves in early," he said, rising. "They had a little talk with the guy before they plugged him."

  "Now how do you figure that?" Morgan asked.

  "Vinnie's knees. Ground-in smears from grease on the floor. The fabric's dark, so it's not that noticeable right off. But it's still damp. More than from just sinking down and falling over. More like they made him kneel, had him on the floor for a while. Maybe got him to give up some information. Maybe a name."

  Morgan leaned in for a closer look at Vinnie's pajamas.

  "The sick bastards," Morgan said, then turned to Connell. "See, man. You already spotted something useful."

  The technique was something Connell called GSR, Guided Subconscious Retrieval. A bit of quantum psychology. Heightened observation. Heightened perception. Whatever people wanted to call it. Allowing the subconscious to bring forward details that the eyes see and the brain has registered but which the mind doesn’t immediately bring forward.

  "Come on, John," Connell said. "Nothing you guys wouldn't have spotted —eventually." He turned and headed again for the door. "Okay, guys. I had my look. I'm outta here. Catch you back at the station, bro."

  "Hey," Morgan called after him again, "You not even a bit curious 'bout what this is all about?"

  "Not a bit," Connell said with a wave, and he left.

  The gunmen reported to Isabel Lupanier's house, a modest brick bungalow in an unpretentious older neighborhood in the Mattapan district of southeast Boston. A working class district of several square miles of modest bungalows and row houses.

  "I can't believe she lives down here," the junior of the two said. "I heard she was big-time. Worth millions, and she lives like this? In a little dump?"

  "Ma’s pretty close with a dollar," the other said. "She also likes to keep a low profile. Besides, I heard she's got a huge place down near Orlando. The French-Canadian sector down there. Maple Leaf Village or whatever it's called. Who knows? Don't know why she don’t just retire down there. She's gotta be sixty. Who needs the grief?"

  "What's her main racket?"

  "She's got some sort of lock on the stripper market in town. Imports cute-assed little white girls right outta the backwoods of Que-beck. Some don't even speak the anglais but they know how to do the can can. Because most of ‘em don’t speaking much English, Ma taught ‘em jus to say oiu oiu to everything. Works out great. But mainly she moves tons of product for the bikers and for Paulie's guys through these girls, which is where the big dough is."

  They parked and knocked at the front door. The smell of cooking from inside was so strong you could smell it outside.

  "By the way," the first guy said. "When you meet Ma, don't stare."

  "Why would I stare?"

  "Just don't stare."

  Ma, herself, answered the door. She had on an apron and was drying her hands, like she had been working in the kitchen. Even with the warning, it was all the second man could do to keep from staring.

  "Good. It's you," she said simply, and she turned and headed back toward the kitchen, expecting them to follow.

  Momma Lupanier was a short, wiry woman in her mid-sixties with wild salt and pepper hair, a sharp hawk nose, and a bit of a limp from a bullet she supposedly caught in the lower back in her younger days. But her most distinguishing feature was her facial hair. She had pronounced curly black moustache hairs on her upper lip, chin and cheeks, as well as the hairiest legs under a rough skirt either man had ever seen on a woman. The junior man had obviously never seen a woman with a mustache and a wiry five o’clock shadow before.

  “What’s she? Some kind of mutant,” the man whispered lowly as they entered and the other shot him a quick glare: just keep your mouth shut.

  The two followed the strong smell of something steamy and heavy with garlic cooking on the stove. They entered a spacious old-style kitchen with spotless black and white tiles on the walls and bright red linoleum on the floor. A cook’s kitchen. Ma's two sons, both in their thirties and both still living at Ma's, were seated sullenly at the large kitchen table. The room was bright from a huge picture window which dominated the west wall. Obviously a window put in after the house was built.

  "Theo. Alain," Ma barked. "Get up and make room for these gentlemen."

  The sons stood and shuffled to the rear, standing in the doorway with arms crossed, awaiting any other orders that might come their way.

  "Sit," Ma ordered the two, so they did.

  "You get it all?" she asked.

  "Yeah," the senior man replied, digging out his phone.

  "We listened on the police band," Ma said, and nodded in the direction of the CB radio in the corner. "The maid called it in at nine. Most of the C-11 is still over there."

  Both men nodded. That was good, that Ma already had already confirmed on her own that the job had been done.

  The lead man handed the phone toward Ma, but she waved off touching it.

  "Just play it for me," she said.

  He hit play and the sons gathered around to watch the small screen.

  The sons grinned back and forth as it played and, when the video was over, she said a simple definitive, "So." Then added. “Give the phone to Alain.”

  The man was a little reluctant.

  “I want him to download the video,” she said, irritably. “He’s not going to harm your phone.”

  The man handed over the phone

  “Alain, take it to the computer in the basement,” she ordered. “Theo,” she ordered the other one, “Go get the envelope.”

  While they waited, Ma said, "Sit. Have some coquille." Obviously what she was cooking on the stove. She pronounced it quickly, the French way —co-key— so that it sounded like "cookie."

  Deciding to play it diplomatically, the senior man said, "Yeah, sure, Ma. I could go for a cookie. That'd be great."

  So Momma spooned out some lumps of white rubbery bits in a thick tomato broth from the deep pot on the stove and set a bowl in front of each.

  The men looked first at one another, then at Ma.

  "Ma this ain't cookies. What is this?" the senior man asked.

  She huffed dismissively, "Cookies? Of course it's not cookies. It's coquille … coquille … coquille St. Jacques," she said, losing a bit of patience

  "Well, what is that?" the fellow asked.

  "Coquille," she repeated. "Oh, how you say in English … scallops."

  The son returned with a manila envelope and handed it to the man. It was obviously stuffed with bills.

  "You want to count it?" she asked.

  "No. That's okay, Ma. We know you're a straight shooter," he said and tucked it into his inner jacket pocket.

  The son began to chuckle.

  "That's good," he said. "I like that. Ma's a straight shooter."

  Momma looked at him sharply.

  "I mean, it's funny," the son said, trying to explain his way out. "You know— shooting straight."

  "Theo, shut your face. You know we don't talk about such things at the dinner table."

  The two men glanced at each other a little surprised: this from a woman who had just listened to a tape of a man pleading for his life and being shot on her order before soup?

  The son hung his head, well scolded, and moved back to his position at the rear door.

  The men choked back just enough to humor Momma, then said they had to cu
t out.

  Ma turned again to her son. “Theo, move away. Let these men downstairs to get their phone.”

  Theo moved away from the door and the men started down.

  Their first inkling that all was not well was when they saw the entire lower portion of the stairs and the floor at the foot of the stairs covered in a heavy clear plastic, like painter’s drop sheets.

  The second inkling was the two loud snick clicks from behind them —hammers being drawn back.

  Two blasts, one right after the other, from both barrels of a twelve gauge shotgun at close range shattered the air like cannon fire, the tight pattern of shot hitting each in the back, upper left, behind the heart, propelling them down the stairs on top of one another onto the sheeting. Blood quickly began to ooze.

  From the top of the stairs Ma looked over the bloody scene. She set the shotgun back where it had been, behind the door.

  “Theo,” she said. “Go down and help your brother clean that up.”

  The son was clearly distressed by the cleanup job facing them. The blood. The bodies. Packing and rolling it all up. Disposing of them Momma’s way.

  “What about the money?” he said. “It’s going to be a mess.”

  “What money?” she asked, looking at him like he was crazy. “You think I was going to give them money?”

  She huffed and went back to her stove.

  The next day Connell entered the C-11 looking less well rested. He'd pushed it till well into the small hours that night on a stubborn case and, when he showed up at two that afternoon, he looked more like the haggard, bleary-eyed Connell they were accustomed to seeing around the stationhouse.

  He took off his belt, his back hip holster and weapon and, with a yawn, wound the whole thing into a bundle and dumped it into his lower desk drawer like he always did when he had deskwork in front of him. That day he had a hard day's slogging at the keyboard ahead, catching up on reports.

  John Henry was at his desk across the aisle.

  "How's it going, bro?" Connell asked before settling in, wondering where things stood with Vinnie.

  Morgan had a vexed expression.

  "Aw, man, I hate these mob cases," he said. "They're like a big ol' black hole that sucks you in and you know you never gonna come back out. You might figure out who did it. You might even figure out why they did it. But you know you never gonna figure out how to get the sucker wrapped up and into a court."

  "Like I said, bro, glad it ain’t mine."

  "Aw, come on, man," Morgan said. "You got a good feel for these things."

  "What things?"

  "Mobbed up cases. Cases that ain't straightforward. How am I gonna get going here?"

  Connell could see that the big guy was stymied before he even began. Morgan was also a religious man and a righteous man, a deacon in his church, and mob cases of any kind never sat well with him. As if any kind of murder case could sit well.

  "You got a start-point yet?” he asked. “Any idea who might have ordered it?"

  Morgan shook his big head in the negative. "But I know who had to bless it. The Man —Big Paulie. Paul Veltro. Who else? You can't hit a wiseguy in this town as high up as Vinnie without Veltro giving the OK."

  "So, somebody in Veltro's crew probably took it and did it. That's a start."

  "Mmm. Big help. I'll ask them 'bout it next time we's sitting down over tea after church."

  "Well, at least that narrows it down from three point five million people in the greater metropolitan area to maybe under a hundred guys."

  Morgan grunted. "Yeah, that is if the shooter didn't come from out of town. That would bring it back up to three point five million."

  "Any idea what Vinnie might have been doing to get his brethren so pissed at him?"

  "Near as I can figure, nothing unusual. I ran it by the guys over at the Mob Squad, and it seems Vinnie was just engaged in his usual chamber of commerce activities. Skimming, scamming, extorting, stealing, embezzling, dealing dope."

  The Mob Squad was what they called the Organized Crime Unit, based out of HQ up town. It tracked and coordinated motorcycle gangs, the Italian and Russian mobs, Vietnamese gangs, and any other gang activities across the GBA. The Greater Boston Area takes in most of the entire population inside the I-95 highway that rings the city from the south, well out to the west, and rounding in again well north. Dozens of smaller cities, towns, and neighborhoods making up that census area.

  "How about parolees and ex-cons recently back on the street?" Connell suggested.

  "I checked. Nobody with contract killer credentials."

  "How about new talent? Anyone noteworthy arrive in town lately?"

  "Not that came in and signed the big red guest book over at city hall."

  Connell felt for his partner. This was exactly why he hated such cases.

  "How'd you get stuck with it, anyway?" he asked. "How come they didn't just move it over to the Mob guys?"

  "I made the mistake of getting there first. I had no idea on the drive over that it was mob business. We thought it was an old money case. Once we got there, and the media guys got there, and it became this big front page item, Ms. Nolan jumped all over it and decided she wanted to keep it in-house. Make points with the Captain. Made it sound like a big break-through moment. Take it an run. I’m s’posed to push it into some kind of prelim shape so we can bring the team in later.”

  Connell rolled his eyes. Right. Departmental politics. Lt. Catherine Nolan was head of Detective Services, the C-11.

  "John, good chance this thing is going to dead end anyway. I wouldn't spend too much time on it."

  "Easy for you to say, man. You ain't the one with Nolan on your tail."

  Connell realized that his partner was hitting the wall.

  "Tell you what," he said. "I'll do some nosing around for you. See if I can find out anything."

  "Naw, man," Morgan said. "You can't do that. Nolan'd be all over your sorry ass, you go putting time in on this."

  "Don't worry about it, bro. Most days Nolan's got no idea what I'm doing. I'll just mix in a few inquiries for you while I'm on about my own stuff."

  At six-foot five and a still mostly muscled two-hundred and eighty pounds, Morgan was forty-nine and twenty years Connell’s senior. He had stepped in and helped Connell out a time or two where a certain intimidation factor had helped move things along. The favors went both ways.

  Morgan nodded. "Yeah, okay, little brother," he said. "I'd 'preciate that. Nolan's really pushing on this one."

  That night, Connell devoted some time to see if he could stir something up for John.

  He decided to start with pool halls. So he headed outside his usual territory, across the channel into the northern part of the city which.

  Connell split his time between regular duties at the C-11 and his INSOURCE rounds. INSOURCE was Intelligence Sourcing. A trial project of the BRIC, Boston Regional Intelligence Center of the BPD. Its mandate is to build a network of reliable informants— ICs, Intel Contacts, from the criminal world; and CIs, Confidential Informants from the civilian sector. The city that brought the world Whitey Bulger was trying once again to the get the intel business right. Connell had volunteered for the experimental unit and, at the C-11, he was a squad, so far, of one.

  There were a number of pool halls in close proximity to each other along an long industrial-commercial stretch of small shopping and commercial malls along Highway 145 which runs past Logan Airport and northward. Some of these halls were big, well-lit, and well known. Others more dingy little hole-in-the-walls.

  Connell’s approach was to go in, watch a game or two in progress, watch some soccer on the overhead TVs, and generally try to blend in while he sniff around for a certain promising type of individual. For this he went on gut instinct. He’d know his guy when he saw him.

  He went into three establishments and sensed that each was out of the loop. Finally getting a good feeling about the fourth. It was a smaller more casual joint in an upstairs unit
in a small commercial mall around the corner from a strip club. Also less than a mile from one of Paul Veltro's "front" businesses, a discount furniture store. So its location was promising.

  Connell walked in in his jeans and scuffed-up leather jacket with a Boston Herald folded and tucked under his arm, looking like a working guy out to kill a few hours. No one raised an eyebrow.

  He sat at the bar and nursed a beer and browsed the paper, getting the lay of the place, and a particular table of players caught his attention. He took his beer and moved over and sat on a bench nearby and watched. He made the occasional comment about some of the shots that were made, and got himself noticed.

  After a while, one of the players inquired if had any money to wager.

  He let it be known that, yes, he did have some money to risk, that he had just signed on as a driver with a small trucking firm around the corner, and that he had a few hours to kill before his shift. He was also a fanatical fan of the Irish National Soccer Team —"the best flipping soccer team in the world!" That quickly struck a competitive chord among the Italian National Soccer Team fanatics present and he was immediately razzed for his poor taste in soccer teams. Another beer or two and he was cautiously accepted by the small group of players, all young Ginos in their twenties.

  For most of an hour Connell played with good humor, lost steadily, and told bad jokes. He gained more cautious acceptance.

  He noticed that one of the players was a little more reserved and a little less talkative than the others. He sensed, from long experience, that this was the guy to get close to.

  His opportunity came when he was playing against the guy and managed to get up a few points on him. They were pretty close on points when the cue ball ended up behind a red with the seven on the other side, three inches from the corner pocket.