Unwanted Company - Barbara Seranella

by Barbara Seranella

  "Three?" Victor asked, his pen stopping.

  "Work with me, Vic," Raleigh said.

  "Only in America," the Romanian mumbled, as Raleigh jumped out of the Vega to open the door of an abandoned hangar. He pulled the car inside.

  "Where's my Cadillac?" Victor asked. I

  "It's coming. "

  Raleigh opened the trunk and pulled out a wad of pastel fabric. From a brown paper sack he withdrew a 9mm automatic.

  "Victor," he called as he squeezed clumps of swimmer's wax into each ear. "Come on over here."

  Victor walked to the back of the car.

  "No, over here," Raleigh said, moving toward a low steel cart covered with a canvas tarp. He handed Victor the gun.

  "Hold this like you're going to shoot it. We need your prints on the gun."

  "Is it loaded?" Victor asked.

  "Now, how safe would that be?" Raleigh said.

  Victor wrapped his hand around the butt of the gun and slipped his finger into the trigger guard. Raleigh grabbed Victor's hand and with one deft move was standing behind him. The gun now pointed at Victor's temple. Raleigh angled the muzzle away from himself and slipped his own finger over Victor's. The trick was to find the temporal lobe. He favored eye sockets, but those entries were rarely seen in suicides, and it was important this look authentic.

  Victor's body bucked in his arms. For all his excesses, Victor was still strong.

  "Time to pledge allegiance," Raleigh whispered into the man's ear, then he squeezed the trigger. The pop of the gunshot resounded sharply off the hangar walls. Victor jolted backward, nearly butting Raleigh's head. And then he was still. Raleigh allowed the body to drop, holding the gun hand so that Victor's grip stayed intact.

  Raleigh placed the hand with the gun still in it to the dead man's side and removed the wax from his ears. The finishing touch was the wad of pink fabric. Raleigh ran a finger lovingly over the embroidery, feeling a surge of his juices at the sight of the delicate little crotch panel between the seams of white elastic. He pressed that sweet spot of the panties briefly to his lips, regretting the need to give them up.

  "So be it." He sighed, stuffing them into Victor's pocket.

  "You're it, Vic. As my mother would say, you've been wicked. A very wicked boy."

  He brought up the edges of the tarp so that they covered the body, then wheeled it over to a door that connected to the next hangar. There was a brand-new taupe-colored Cadillac Eldorado with leather upholstery parked there already. He threw the canvas bag full of cash behind the driver's seat, then went back to mop up the trail of blood.

  He used industrial-strength floor cleaner and a high-powered hose, humming as he worked. This was the last time he would be cleaning up after this asshole.

  Twenty minutes later there was nothing to identify the hangar as a crime scene. He removed the Vega's license plates and brought them over to a neighboring hangar. The facility had been vacant for months, the lease and prepaid rent seized by the government when the former tenants had been caught smuggling drugs. The Vega, whenever it was found, would be untraceable.

  Raleigh let himself into a smaller room that had once served as an office for the former tenants. He sat down behind the desk and studied the posters lining the walls. Bikini-clad women sunned themselves on virgin beaches while cerulean blue waters lapped at their toes. He was due for an extended vacation. Lord knew, he had it coming.

  He looked at the phone for a minute before picking it up. Might as well make a clean sweep of things. He dialed his estranged wife's number.

  "Pam?" he asked when she answered the phone. "Please don't hang up."

  "What do you want?" she asked.

  "I was hoping we could spend some time together."

  "Oh, yeah? Who's Ellen?" she asked.

  "Ellen?" he echoed, his hand gripping the phone.

  "Yeah, she called this morning. She said she had some tape you left behind in her limousine. Some kind of bandage stuff. When were you in a limousine?"

  "It was part of a job."

  "Oh, I see," she said, the familiar coldness slipping back into her voice.

  "Did Ellen mention where I could pick up the tape?" he asked.

  "I don't know why I have to be involved in this. How did she even have my number? What's going on?"

  "Please, Pam," he said, feeling the blood pounding behind his eyes. "What exactly did she say?"

  "She said you owed her for damages. I told her we were legally separated and that I wasn't responsible for your debts."

  "You have no idea how much you're responsible for," he said. "None of you women ever think you have to pay." He slammed down the phone. That was going to change.

  CHAPTER 28

  "Did you know about this?" Mace asked Caroline, still feeling the devastation of watching Asia and Munch wrenched from each other. Goddamn her and her complicated life. The child had cried and screamed for her mother as she was led away, even beseeched Mace to do something, anything. The agents had at least had the sensitivity not to handcuff Munch in front of the kid.

  "I knew she wasn't the birth mother," Caroline said, hanging up the phone after leaving a message for her friend who worked for the Dependency Court system as a children's advocate.

  "Were you going to tell me?" Mace asked.

  "Where are the parents?" Cassiletti asked.

  "They're dead," Caroline said. "The mother died of a drug overdose when Asia was four months old. The father was killed in a shooting two months after that."

  "Munch said that he got on the wrong end of a dope deal with some bikers," Mace said. "She left out the part about not being the real mother."

  "The birth mother," Caroline corrected. "She's raised that child as her own for the last six years."

  "Sounds like the kidnapping charge is a stretch," he said.

  "It's complicated," Caroline said. "But I'm sure we can help her."

  We, Mace thought. She said, WE.

  "Sir?" Cassiletti said. Caroline and Mace both shifted their attention to the big man. "What do you suppose Ellen meant about turning over the rock he was lying under?"

  "I don't know," he said. "Why would they even want to draw the guy out?"

  "Perhaps she's angry," Caroline said. "That's always a powerful motivator. "

  "Look where it's got them," Mace said, choosing to ignore Caroline's irony. He was in no mood for another character lesson.

  "Can you help them?" Caroline asked.

  "I doubt if the feds will let me get near them. They'll probably slap a forty-eight-hour hold on them without filing charges. And you can be pretty damn sure they won't be allowing any phone calls or interviews? Mace picked up the phone and called Steve's pager. Two minutes later the phone rang.

  "St. John," Mace answered. It was Steve Brown returning his call.

  "We went out to the boyfriend's apartment," Steve said.

  "He's gone. A note on the door says he's taken a week's vacation."

  "Just ducky," Mace said. "Suddenly everyone inconveniently is out of the way. You know that picture you lent me?"

  "Yeah," Steve said.

  "My witness identified one of the men in it as Raleigh Ward."

  "That's not surprising. Ward and Draicu probably go back a long way together. "

  Mace felt a dull thudding in his temples. A kaleidoscope of thoughts tumbled through his brain, each theory uglier than the last. He felt his case spinning out of his control.

  "Hey," Steve said. "Hold on a minute. Something's coming over the radio." Mace waited, hearing the sounds of air chatter, call numbers. Steve came back on the phone. "Your troubles might all be over, buddy. "

  "Yeah, why's that?" Mace asked.

  "Victor Draicu has turned up. He blew his brains out."

  "Oh, really?" Mace said.

  "Yep, suicide—the sincerest form of apology."

  "How convenient. "

  "What's it take to make you happy?" Steve asked.

  "Now you sound like my"—he looked
over and saw Caroline watching him—"doctor," he finished. "I'll roll out there, now. Thanks for the heads-up."

  "What's going on?" Caroline asked.

  "Victor Draicu has apparently killed himself. I'm going to go check it out. "

  "Be careful," she said.

  "What do I have to worry about?" he said. "The bad guy is dead."

  Cassiletti's expression was that of a man trying very hard to figure out if what he'd just heard was a joke and, if so, what the punch line was.

  * * *

  The body was in a remote stretch of Balboa Park on the Encino-Reseda border. Two boys on bicycles had discovered it and called the police. When Mace and Cassiletti got there, the area was cordoned off with sawhorses, police cars, and yellow crime-scene tape. Channels 2, 4, and 7 all had sent satellite vans and their top reporters. Another news helicopter hovered overhead. Deputy Chief Tumpane was there, as was Captain Earl.

  "Looks like you were right," Tumpane said, as Mace approached the scene.

  "Thank you, sir," Mace said.

  The body was lying on a bed of leaves, under a canopy of morning glory vines. Apparently the sprinkler system had come on recently. The ground cover underfoot squished as they approached. Mace noticed something pink protruding from Victor Draicu's pocket. Using his pen, he extracted the object. It was a pair of little girl's panties. Monday, the script writing read.

  "There's a note, too," Earl said.

  "Confessing to everything?" Mace asked. He noticed the positioning of Victor's hand over his heart.

  "I'll be recommending a commendation," Earl said. "The mayor is going to be very pleased."

  "That's great," Mace said. 'just great. "

  * * *

  "How's the dog?" the FBI agent captaining the boat asked. Derek lifted his head and mumbled, "I think she's over the worst of it." He sighed and rolled over, taking a sip of his Diet Coke. They had been cruising the bay for the last few hours. The forty-foot ketch had formerly belonged to a Colombian drug lord, he was told. Now it was the property of the United States government, and Derek was their guest. The arrangements had been hurried, barely giving him time to grab a pair of swim trunks, a few changes of clothes, and leave a note on his door.

  They couldn't tell him how long his stay would last. Derek told them not to worry. He could get used to this. He was nothing if not accommodating. "Just keep the Diet Coke and Alpo flowing," he said.

  He looked now into the box where Violet lay whining miserably. Her long ears were matted with vomit. She turned sad eyes on her master and started to heave again. Derek dipped the edge of his towel overboard and used the damp corners to bring whatever comfort he could to the dog.

  Idly, he wondered what Munch was doing.

  CHAPTER 29

  Munch was released from the U.S. Marshal's temporary holding facility the following morning. Charges weren't going to be filed, after all. She was not surprised. Nobody apologized throughout the long release procedure. Not the deputy who fetched her bag of street clothes, or the cop in property who had her sign for her keys and pocket change that had been scrupulously inventoried and held for safekeeping in a manila envelope.

  Mace and Cassiletti were there in the lobby when she emerged.

  "Asia's fine," Mace said.

  "Where is she? " Munch asked, striding past them, anxious to be away from that place.

  "We took her over to the Bella Donna. Caroline was able to convince the court to let her stay with us until this is all straightened out."

  "I guess it's time to do that," Munch said, glad to hear they had had the sense to get away from the house. The train car was much more defensible, set out in the open, and girded with inches of steel. She stepped out into the bright sunlight and blinked. The next thing she did was rip off the plastic wristband and throw it at the building behind her.

  "You know," Mace said, "that's what I like about you. You never go for the easy way. You can't just have a kid. It's got to be somebody else's kid."

  "Mace—" Cassiletti said, looking nervously at Munch. "She's been through a lot."

  "Excuse me," he said. "Was I being insensitive? Where are my manners?"

  "What are you pissed off at me for?" Munch asked.

  "I'm sick of having to waste my time worrying about everybody," he said.

  She ran her hands through her hair, wishing she had a brush. Her mouth tasted like old coffee. She stopped at the stairs to bend down and tie her shoes.

  "Where's Ellen?"

  "Still in custody."

  "Where?"

  "I think you should be worrying about you," Mace said.

  She straightened and stared at him. "You got some kind of personal rule about not letting people think for themselves?"

  Mace looked surprised. Cassiletti, she noted, was almost smiling.

  "Your friend is still in federal custody pending transfer to county and a parole hearing. Feel better now?"

  "Yeah, tons." She sniffed.

  The three of them walked out to the parking lot, Munch and Mace side by side, Cassiletti bringing up the rear.

  "It's over," Mace said. "Victor Draicu killed himself. "

  "I'm sure he did the right thing," Munch said. "But it's far from over. Ellen saw him kill one of those men in Mexico. The younger guy went first, she said. Then Raleigh slit the older guy's throat. They didn't know she saw. The first chance she got, she slipped them a Mickey, then dumped their bodies by the side of the road."

  "We figured that much out," Mace said.

  "But what you didn't know was that when she went through their pockets she found a roll of Johnson & Johnson medical tape on Raleigh. He also had some weird kind of knife strapped to his shin. It was long and pointy and had some kind of modified brass-knuckles-looking thing for a grip."

  "Three-fingered thrust dagger," Mace said, nodding.

  "What did she mean," he asked, "about not hearing the last from Raleigh Ward?" He unlocked the car and opened the passenger door for Munch. She got in the front; Cassiletti slid into the back.

  "We called his ex," Munch said after Mace had come around to the driver's side and gotten in.

  "You did what?"

  "You know that woman he called from the limo at the end of the run? Ellen told her that he owed us for damages and that for a price she'd sell him back the roll of tape."

  "Do you have any idea what you've done?" Mace's eyes turned cold and hard. He slammed his hand on the dashboard. "Forget how much you've jeopardized the case. You put yourselves in danger. Why didn't you call me? Fuck!" He hit the steering wheel, took a deep breath, and gave her a look that would peel chrome. "Where is it now?"

  "You'd have to ask her that." His anger scared her, but she wasn't about to deprive Ellen of her hard-earned bargaining chip. Her little excursion to Mexico was a parole violation. Enough of a violation to put her back in prison for six months. Another stretch of CIW would not help her on the road to recovery.

  "Did his ex say she knew where he was?" Mace maneuvered his sedan out of the parking lot.

  "No, she was pretty hostile. She said they were almost divorced and had been legally separated since December."

  "What did you hope to accomplish?" Mace asked. His tone was quiet, low. It bothered her worse than his shouting.

  "I'm trying to help you grab this guy, in case you hadn't noticed." She tucked her hair behind her ears.

  "That's my job," he said.

  "I know," she answered. She realized she was close to tears. Tears she didn't want him to see. Out of reflex, she had begun braiding her hair. In the bad old days, when part of the evening's entertainment usually involved a fistfight, she always tied her hair back first. Glasses off, hair back. Those were the indicators that she was ready to get down to it. Tears had no place in the equation. Tears were for later. She turned to Mace with resolve in her voice, and asked, "You got an elastic band or something for my hair?"

  "Look in the glove box," Mace said, casting her a half amused smile.

  Mun
ch rummaged in the glove box, Finding a packet of maps bound together. She liberated the red rubber band holding them together and used it to secure her braid.

  "You know you've set yourself up as a target now," Mace said.

  "Better me than my kid," Munch said.

  "I'm not letting you out of my sight," Mace said.

  "I was sort of counting on that," Munch said. "Let's go pick up my limo. And then we'll go get Ellen. Don't worry. She'll corroborate the evidence. No way will this guy walk. We've got him cold."

  "We got nothing yet," Mace said.

  "We will," she said, squinting out the window.

  * * *

  Raleigh didn't get back home until four in the morning. Cassandra made a point of ignoring him until he made her her favorite treat of scrambled eggs with lots of butter. After seeing to the cat's needs, he fell into the deep, untroubled sleep of the righteous.

  It was nearly 9 A.M. when he woke up. He listened to the radio as he got dressed, putting on his black track suit. The top news story was the suicide found in Balboa Park. Police were attributing a string of murder/ rapes to the as-yet-unidentified white male.

  Raleigh reached into his pocket and pulled out a vial of pills. Who knew when he'd be sleeping again? He fortified himself with the last of his uppers. Another trip across the border was obviously in order.

  He grabbed his new gym bag by its straps and slung it over his shoulder. He actually whistled as he took the stairs down to the underground parking. He'd forgotten the simple pleasure of driving a fine automobile. The Cadillac handled like a dream. One thing he had to say about Victor, the guy had good taste in cars.

  If only Raleigh had known last night what he knew now, Victor would very probably still be among the living. Raleigh had at least five more victims in mind to credit to Victor's account. He'd start with Ellen Summers, Munch Mancini, and the little girl-child. He'd never had three at once. He'd like to take them somewhere where their screams wouldn't be heard. Where they'd be conscious to watch and let their fear build. He would take his time with them.

  On his way out of town, he'd make time for his ex-wives. He was unstoppable. He could feel the power running through him. Perhaps he was finally on his way to running the world. Even Victor was still helping from beyond the grave.