Nickel City Storm Warning (Gideon Rimes Book 3)

by Gary Earl Ross

  Ignoring the ADA, Aronson pressed ahead. “It’s plausible those prints got there as he struggled to keep Mr. Rimes from putting a throw-down piece in his pocket!”

  The judge motioned both men to the bench and covered her desk mike with her hand. All three lowered their voices so spectators could not hear, but I heard them.

  “This is an attempt to create doubt a felon violated his parole by possessing a loaded firearm,” Tripp Caster said. “That’s the reason for this hearing, not this witness’s actions.”

  “The men did not attack Mr. Rimes,” Aronson said. “He attacked them. In combat, he depended upon quick violence to survive. Being a police officer desensitized him to actions and behaviors most of us can’t begin to imagine. While most cops are never in one, he was in two shootouts that left three dead and his partner paralyzed. All these experiences haunt him, and in times of stress, his training kicks in, fueled by his proclivity for—”

  “Enough, Mr. Aronson. There’s no jury to entertain. Don’t make me regret saying yes to your request for this hearing.”

  “But the criminal code does not permit hitting someone back before he hits you.”

  “Three large men, your honor, threatening him. Mr. Rimes clearly feared for his life. Why would he stomp a hand before putting the gun in somebody’s pocket?”

  “Your honor, the day we permit self-defense because of perceived intent—”

  “I said, enough! Both of you.”

  Tripp took a step back and clasped his hands. Upper lip caught between the teeth of a faint smile, Aronson lowered his gaze, as if uncertain but hopeful he had scored a point.

  “We’ll get into the specifics of this gun when the CSI tech testifies,” Judge Vassi said. “Right now, Mr. Aronson, do you have any further questions that do not transfer to this witness possession of the gun or stain him with the deranged combat veteran stereotype?”

  “No, your honor.”

  “Then you can both return to your tables, and you, Mr. Rimes, may leave the stand.”

  I joined Mira and Phoenix and watched the next three witnesses bury Joey Snell’s hopes of avoiding a trial. Larry and Corey told the same story: Joey offered them money to help him beat up someone. “This ni—I mean, this black guy,” Larry said. Joey never told them he had a gun in his pocket. Tripp ended each examination with the same question: “If Mr. Rimes had not struck you when he did, would you have, in fact, beaten him up?” Each answered yes. On cross, Eli Aronson asked each man if he had given his testimony as part of a plea deal. Both said yes.

  Justin Battles established that Joey had sole possession of the gun before the event, not only by coat fibers, pocket lint clinging to the hammer, and partial prints on the grip and frame, but also by the presence of thumb and forefinger prints on the shell casings inside the cylinder, which meant Joey alone had loaded the Ruger.

  Judge Vassi retreated to her chambers to consider her decision and remained there long enough to smoke two cigarettes. At the bailiff’s command, we all rose as she returned to the bench. She handed the bailiff a slip of paper before dropping into her chair. We all sat. Then Aronson and Joey both stood when she announced she had reached a decision.

  “First, Mr. Aronson, I must take you to task.” She cleared her throat but failed to reduce the rasp. “Preliminary hearings are rare enough today, but preliminary hearings with witnesses are rarer still. I agreed to this one in the spirit of extending to the accused every opportunity to get the gun disqualified, which you insisted would be difficult to do without questioning witnesses. But if you think trying to turn a hearing into a trial is artful lawyering and not a waste of the court’s time, you need to sue your law school.”

  “Yes, your honor. I apologize for my…zeal.”

  “Then take my advice. If you can’t sleep at night, try a talk show instead of a Perry Mason rerun. Getting the guilty to confess on the stand doesn’t happen in real life.”

  “Yes, your honor.”

  When Judge Vassi said the case would go to the Grand Jury, Aronson’s shoulders sank. Meanwhile, Joey looked back at me and shouted, “Don’t get comfortable, Rimes! He’ll just send somebody else!”

  Phoenix squeezed my hand as the gavel hit. “Calling out Hellman as a wild stab at a plea deal,” she said to Mira and me. “Good luck with that, pal, you and your asshat lawyer.”

  “I’m still a thrift shop hit,” I said.

  As we moved toward the courtroom door, the bailiff caught up to us and tapped me on the shoulder. Then he handed me a slip of paper with my last name on it in blue ink. I opened it as he drifted away. The note was unsigned, its writing tight, controlled:

  Law enforcement officers sometimes say it’s better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6. You were lucky to be right this time but without the benefit of a doubt that comes with the badge, you must be careful in the future.

  “Plausible deniability,” Phoenix said when I passed the note to her. “Vassi didn’t want her admonition to be part of the record. But she’s right. You have to be careful.” She handed it to Mira, who scanned it and returned it to me without comment. Her disdainful look as I shoved the note into my back pocket told me never to hesitate if my life hung in the balance.

  Coats buttoned against the lake wind tunnels created by tall downtown buildings, we walked into the parking ramp together. Mira’s white Mazda Sport and my metallic blue Honda CRV were on the third level. Mira would have returned to the medical examiner’s office on the Erie County Medical Center campus. I would have dropped Phoenix, who had walked to court from her loft, at the offices of Landsburgh, Falk, and Trinidad on Franklin. Then I would have taken Elmwood to my gym in North Buffalo. But as we left the elevator, the iPhone in my front right pocket vibrated.

  I pulled it out and saw a number I didn’t recognize. “Hello?” The voice on the other end was unfamiliar but full of urgency. My breath caught as I listened. When I broke the connection, Phoenix and Mira were staring at me as if I were in the middle of a stroke.

  Phoenix put her fingertips to my cheek, her pinky at the corner of my mustache, and looked into my eyes. “Gideon, what is it?”

  “That was Rory Gramm, chairman of APP.”

  “Hey, isn’t that the—”

  But I cut Mira off with an uplifted hand. “Bobby was attacked. He’s at Buffalo General for emergency surgery.”

  5

  Glasses dangling from a neck chain and long coat open, Rory Gramm met us in the lobby of Buffalo General. About fifty, with the rosy cheeks and tousled dark hair of a child painted by Norman Rockwell for a 1950s magazine cover, he had three inches on me and weighed at least forty pounds less. He apologized for taking so long to call. Bobby had been in surgery for an hour when Gramm remembered being introduced to a godson or nephew—a meeting of which I had no memory. Fortunately, my godfather almost never locked his phone. Unable to recall my name, Gramm had scrolled through Bobby’s directory until something sounded familiar.

  A professor in the University at Buffalo School of Social Work, Gramm was the founding chairman of the Alliance for Public Progress. The police had already interviewed him, but he gave me a case number for follow-up. After the woman on duty at the hospital security desk checked our IDs and issued visitors’ passes, he took us to a third-floor waiting room. A handful of others, men and women, sat in plastic shell chairs, flipping through magazines or watching the early afternoon cooking show that filled the flat screen high on the wall. While I checked in as next of kin for Robert Chance, Gramm led Phoenix and Mira to chairs along the far wall. I joined them after I was told someone would be out to speak with me shortly.

  I had refrained from seeking details in the lobby or on the crowded elevator. Now I asked what happened.

  “This morning we held our annual public meeting to discuss priorities for the state funding awarded in the new fiscal year,” he said. “We seek public input as well as that of stakeholder agencies in the Alliance. We discuss community goals and programs we give financial and
logistical support. Sponsorships, education action plans, sustainable housing, remediation of food deserts, environmental concerns, special events. Then we vote to prioritize.”

  “A long agenda,” I said.

  “Things usually move quickly. This year, however, we had a…hiccup.”

  “Oh?”

  Gramm took a deep breath. “Two months from now we’ll have our biggest special event ever, the NCADI.”

  “Bobby mentioned something like that a few months back,” Mira said.

  “A conference,” I said. “I remember him talking to Sam about it.” I looked at Gramm. “What’s it stand for again?”

  “The National Conference on American Diversity and Inclusion, our most ambitious undertaking ever.” Gramm waited as Phoenix, Mira, and I exchanged looks. “It’s a mouthful. But it’s not all ours. APP is one of many major sponsors and a pass-through for donations and grants. During the last four days of June speakers from all over—academics and educators, agency heads, politicians, community organizers, authors, panelists from various fields—will discuss every aspect of a multicultural society. Civic. Political. Economic.”

  “Our friend’s cousin is one of your speakers,” I said. “Drea Wingard.” Sam Wingard, the super at Bobby’s Elmwood Village apartment building, had a cousin from the DC area whose book on racism had sold well last year. A copy I had not yet read was on my living room bookshelf. “But what does all this have to do with what happened to Bobby?”

  “This year the meeting was at Temple Beth Zion.”

  Which explained why Bobby had been brought to General. Housed in a modernist circular building whose ten scalloped walls symbolized the Ten Commandments, the reform synagogue was nearby on Delaware. On the National Register of Historic Places, it was home to the largest Jewish congregation in Western New York, a massive Casavant Frères pipe organ, and an estimable museum of Judaica.

  “One of the men at the meeting had serious misgivings about APP’s sponsorship of such a conference,” Gramm continued. “I had never seen him before. Neither had anyone on our board or staff. He identified himself as Dr. C.J. Lansing. He began in a pleasant enough voice. But by the time he got around to accusing us of having a liberal bias and pandering to political correctness, tempers were high.”

  “As I understand it, you’re a liberal think tank,” Phoenix said. “What did he expect?”

  “I don’t know.” Gramm looked off for a moment. “But the more agitated people got, the more he seemed to enjoy things, until he was confronted. Then he got agitated.”

  I made a mental note to find Dr. C.J. Lansing. “He the one who attacked Bobby?”

  Gramm shook his head. “That happened outside. Lansing was still inside then. But Dr. Chance was his main challenger, matching him point for point, dismantling his argument with facts, logic, and humor. If it had been a real debate, your godfather would have cleaned his clock.”

  I felt my jaw clench. “How did Bobby get outside?”

  “One of our principal donors was there,” Gramm said. “Catherine Cathcart.”

  “Cathcart? The media people?”

  He nodded. “But the family made their fortune in pharmaceuticals long before they sold the business and formed the Cathcart Broadcast Group. Her grandson William is the current CEO.” He smiled as he began to describe the woman, obvious affection finding its way into his voice. “Mrs. Cathcart’s about ninety and rather frail. But she’s a dear, still sharp and devoted to APP. She rarely spends more than a couple of hours outside her home. She uses a cane but is grateful for an arm when it’s offered. It was late morning when Maury, the parking lot attendant, stuck his head inside and told one of my staff her car had arrived.”

  “When was that, relative to Dr. Lansing’s complaint? And Bobby.”

  “At the height of it. I think the interruption helped relieve some of the tension. Dr. Chance offered to put the Marquess of Queensberry Rules on hold so he could escort a lady to the parking lot. That got a laugh.”

  I bit back a smile myself. When he had taught me to box, Bobby had stressed the importance of knowing when to follow the Queensberry Rules and when to abandon them.

  “So Lansing sat down.” Gramm glanced down at his hands and flexed his fingers. “A few minutes after they went out, as I was regaining control of the meeting, Mrs. Cathcart managed to get back inside the entry and scream for help.”

  “What happened?”

  “A gang of young men—nine or ten, Maury said. Skinheads maybe. They surrounded him and the driver and Dr. Chance, when he tried to help.” Gramm’s jaw tightened. “They beat three men in their sixties or older and hurled slurs at them.”

  “Jesus,” Phoenix said. “Who treats old men like that?”

  “Bigots who saw two Jews and a Black man,” I said. “How are the other two?”

  “Still down in the ER, with Mrs. Cathcart and her grandson. She refuses to leave until her driver’s released. He’s got some cuts, Maury’s got a black eye. I’m afraid Dr. Chance got the worst of it. By the time I got out there, the men were running toward Main. But first responders were on the scene in minutes, so Dr. Chance got immediate attention.”

  I thought about Jasper Hellman. His surname could have been Jewish or could have belonged to an anti-Semite. Either way, I doubted he knew Temple Beth Zion existed or had the brains to organize gang violence. “This could be nothing but a random attack,” I said.

  Gramm nodded. “On a synagogue. Maury did catch them defacing two walls—”

  “Family of Robert Chance?”

  A tall woman in green scrubs had stepped into the waiting room. Surgical mask hanging below her chin, she gazed about, calling for us in an accent that screamed Brooklyn.

  Mira and I stood at the same time. The woman motioned us toward her. Phoenix and Gramm behind us, we reached her in seconds. She was thin, Asian-American, fortyish, with filaments of blonde hair protruding from beneath her cap. “I’m Dr. Zhao,” she said, snapping off a plastic glove and offering her hand.

  Her smile made me swallow some of my anxiety. But Mira was still taut beside me, hands clasped beneath her chin, lips pressed into a bloodless line. I took the doctor’s hand. “We’re the next of kin. Gideon and Mira.”

  Dr. Zhao led us into the corridor. “The surgery went well. He’s strong for a man—”

  “What kind of surgery?” Mira cut in. She winced at the answer: ruptured spleen from blunt force trauma. “What grade? How much intra-abdominal bleeding was there?”

  “Grade Two and very little,” Dr. Zhao said. “He didn’t need a splenectomy but the rupture was large enough to require sutures. Laparoscopically. There’s additional bruising, and a ruptured eardrum, but he’s strong for a man his age. In a few weeks, he’ll be fine.”

  Mira’s eyes filled with held-back tears and her shoulders sagged with palpable relief. “Then his prognosis is good, barring complications?”

  Dr. Zhao narrowed her eyes at my sister. “Are you a physician?”

  “Medical examiner,” she said, shaking the woman’s hand. “Mira Popuri.”

  “You’re Dr. Popuri. I’ve heard good things about you.” Dr. Zhao nodded as she released Mira’s hand. “The prognosis is good. Very good. He’s in recovery and you can see him, but not in your office anytime soon.” She smiled again. “Someone will come for you in a bit.”

  As Phoenix slipped her arms around Mira, Dr. Zhao moved off.

  “I’m glad her surgical skills are better than her stand-up,” Phoenix said. “Are you okay? Both of you?”

  As Mira nodded, I said, “I am now.”

  “The board will be happy to hear this.” Rory Gramm pulled a cell phone from his coat pocket. “And Mrs. Cathcart. Dr. Chance is well-liked at APP.”

  “Mr. Gramm—” I began.

  “Rory, please. Gideon.”

  “Rory, before you call anyone, I’d like as detailed a description as you can give me of this Dr. Lansing and copies of anything he might have signed, like an attendance l
og.”

  “Happy to. I’ll go you one better. I’ll try to find out if anyone with APP took a picture of the unpleasant bastard. If they text it to me, I can pass it to you.”

  “Great. Also, you were saying something about the parking lot attendant catching those men defacing a wall?”

  “Yes.” He stretched his answer into a hiss of disgust. “Maury said they were spraying swastikas on the walls. Can you imagine? What screams hate more than swastikas in red Krylon?”

  Now I was certain Jasper Hellman had not sent the gang to beat up Bobby. But knowing I might have to ignore Queensberry Rules did nothing to make me feel better.

  Excerpt One

  From In the Mouth of the Wolf by Drea Wingard, with Grant Gibbons (1)

  The night you are widowed by the wolf is seared into your brain precisely because it comes at the end of such an ordinary day. Yes, it is Halloween, but apart from buying three jumbo bags of bite-sized chocolates on your way home from work—for the trick-or-treaters who will come to your Annandale home—you cannot recall the day. What you had for breakfast or lunch, what you wore, the tasks you left on your desk at the Library of Congress for the next day—all are lost to you. Forever.

  You remember with great clarity your celebration of thirty-three years of marriage, four days earlier. It was an unseasonably chilly evening, with a temperature in the forties. Instead of taking you to one of your favorite restaurants, Grant prepared dinner himself, serving bourbon chicken, collard greens, baked squash, and buttermilk biscuits on a blanket in front of your living room fireplace. Then you ate off paper plates, seated on the carpet as if you were still the impetuous grad students who went two months after their elopement with only a mattress, a few crates of books, and a small color portable in their Manhattan studio apartment. After dinner, as you moved aside the paper plates and shed your clothes to make love before the crackling fire, you recalled it was Roscoe, Grant’s classmate at Columbia, who gave you a used card table for Christmas that year. Had kidney failure not taken him a decade ago, he would have been pleased to see you made it to your Pearl Anniversary. You remember him fondly.