I hadn’t even charged Lifkin for my services, figuring a future favor would be worth more than an hour’s billing. I had no doubt that he’d remember me.
I found his number and dialed him up.
“Hi, Mr. Lifkin? This is Jake Lomax calling from Denver.”
“Thank you for calling Lifkin Investigations, Mr. Lohmaus. How may I help you?”
“That’s Lomax.” So much for his memory.
I told him I wanted the service record for Martin Blyleven, birth date so-and-so, serial number such-and-such. He said he could probably have it by the end of the day.
“What is your billing address?” he asked me.
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
“Should I?”
“I did a little work for you three or four years ago.”
“That must have been my father. He’s retired.”
“Oh.”
“What is your billing address?”
I gave him my office address and told him I’d call him back before six P.M. his time.
Then I flipped through the Rolodex for my man in Arizona.
Hal Zimmerman had worked for both Denver dailies before moving south to escape the winter’s snow and cold. Who could blame him? On the other hand, who’d want to spend their summers where it was hot enough to melt asphalt?
The switchboard put me through to him at the city desk.
“Hal. Jake Lomax.”
“Hey, Jake, how you doing?”
Hal and I had first run into each other when I was just starting out in the PI business. At the time we were both looking for the same guy but for different reasons, and our paths had crossed several times. Finally, we threw in together, shared information, and made certain promises to each other: I wouldn’t grant interviews with any other reporters, and he would leave my client’s name out of his story. It had worked out well. My client was introduced to her long-lost father, and Hal won an award for his series “Adoption—Love Lost and Found.”
We exchanged a few exaggerations, and then I asked him about the Mafia in Arizona.
“Joseph Scolla,” he said without hesitation. “Or Joey the Jap as he’s fondly known, due to the slight slant to his eyes. A reputed member of the Bonanno crime family. Don’t you love that word? Reputed. He lives in Tucson, but he controls everything in the region.”
“By everything, you mean …?”
“Drugs, gambling, prostitution, loan sharking. You know, the four basic food groups.”
“Does he have any interest up here?”
“In Colorado? Not that I’ve ever heard of. But who can say for sure. His type rarely talks to the media about business affiliations.”
“Have you ever heard of Franklin Reed’s Church of the Nazarene?”
He thought for a moment. “It sounds familiar.”
“How about World Flock?”
“Sure. Oh yeah, that’s right, World Flock is run by Reed. Headquartered in Tucson, right?”
“Right.”
“Wait a minute. First you mention the Mafia and then World Flock. Are you suggesting there’s a connection?”
“I’m not suggesting, I’m just wondering.”
“Now that would be a story.”
I told him about the plane crash four years ago, how Blyleven had been working for the church and World Flock, and that I’d been looking into his death.
“And out of nowhere comes this Mafia type,” I said. “Well, not nowhere. Tucson. Blyleven had been on his way to Tucson when he died. Maybe there’s a connection, maybe not.”
“How do you know the man from Tucson is Mafia?”
“It’s a long story, but trust me, I do. And he seems to have it in for me. He was sent by his ‘boss,’ who resides in Tucson and—”
“Who would be Joey the Jap.”
“Presumably. And his name is Manny.”
Hal hesitated. “Manny? Do you mean Anthony Mancusso?”
“I don’t know.”
“What does your Manny look like?”
I described him.
Hal exhaled audibly. “That sounds like Mancusso, all right. He works for Scolla. A very nasty character, this Manny. He’s suspected in several gang-style murders down here. The victims were mutilated. I won’t go into the gory details, but the medical examiner said it was done while they were still alive. Believe me, Jake, you don’t want to mess with that guy.”
“I’ll try to keep that in mind. Meanwhile, you could do me a favor.”
“Name it.”
“See if you can find some tie, no matter how slight, between the Arizona mob and World Flock or Franklin Reed.”
“I’ll ask around and get back to you.”
“I appreciate it, Hal.”
“No problem. Hey, if anything comes out of this, we have the same deal as before, right?”
He meant he’d get an exclusive story and my clients wouldn’t be mentioned.
“Same deal,” I said, and rang off.
18
I GUESS I SHOULD’VE felt lucky to be alive.
But I doubted luck had anything to do with it. If Hal was right, Manny was a professional hit man, a stone-cold killer. He could have snuffed me in my apartment, no problem. And if that had been his intention, he wouldn’t have been deterred by the intrusion of old Mrs. Finch.
So he wanted me alive. Probably hoping I’d lead him to Blyleven.
Which meant he was nearby, watching me.
Maybe I should lead him in a circle, get behind him, and deal with him the way I’d dealt with Jack. Then I could ask him all the tough questions. Why does the Mafia want Blyleven dead? Who blew up the plane four years ago? Did it involve World Flock and Franklin Reed?
There were a few problems with talking to Manny, though. First of all, it would be difficult if not impossible to ambush him. He was too crafty a predator to let himself be easily trapped. Second, even if I somehow managed to knock him down and tie him up, I doubted that he’d be as cooperative as Jack. He’d spit in my eye. And third, it was quite likely he didn’t know all the answers. He didn’t need to know them. He’d been hired to do a job. And when guys like Manny are told to kill somebody, they don’t ask, “Why do you want him dead? What did he do to deserve it?” No, they ask only one question: “Where is he?”
Manny was hoping I’d answer it for him.
But who could answer my questions?
I’d bet that Joseph Scolla could. Or course, even if I went to Tucson, it was doubtful that Joey the Jap would grant me an interview.
There was someone else, though, much closer to home.
I phoned the Church of the Nazarene and asked for Reverend Reed. I got as far as Matthew Styles.
“How may I help you, Mr. Lomax?”
“Grant me an audience with your boss.”
“I’m afraid Pastor Reed is tied up for the rest of the day.”
“Tell him it has to do with Joseph Scolla.”
He hesitated. “Who?”
He knew. “A friend of Reed’s in Tucson. Go ask him. I’ll hold.”
He hesitated again. “Just a moment.”
I listened to dead air for ten minutes before Styles came back on the line. “As it happens,” he said with forced nonchalance, “Pastor Reed has a break in his schedule at three this afternoon.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Not at the church. The reverend will meet you at his home.”
He gave me the address. Not exactly the poor side of town.
“Please don’t be late,” he said, and hung up.
So Reed and Styles knew Scolla. But why were they being so obvious about it? Styles could’ve simply hung up. Maybe Reed wanted to find out exactly how much I knew. The trouble was, I knew very little. I needed to pick up a few more facts before I met with him.
I dialed a number in Castle Rock. A young girl answered.
“May I speak to Earl?”
“Grandpa’s working in the garden. Hang on and I’ll go get him.”
“I’ll call later,” I said. In person.
There were large, cottony clouds floating over the hills west of Castle Rock. Nothing like the thunderheads I’d seen on my visit a few days ago. I parked before the two-story brick house, went up to the porch, and rang the bell.
The screen was latched, but the front door was open. The house looked quiet and empty. An invitation to a burglary. If it had been Denver. But this was a small town, and people still trusted each other.
I rang again and waited.
No answer.
I walked around the side of the house.
A thigh-high white picket fence enclosed the backyard. It was half lawn and half garden. There were rows of corn stalks as tall as a man, a trellis thick with pea vines, tomato plants pushing through their chicken-wire cages, heads of lettuce, onions, pumpkins, acorn squash, carrots, and a few other rows of leafy plants—maybe turnips or beets. The growing season here runs from about Memorial Day to a little after Labor Day, and Earl Wilson was making the most of it.
At the moment, he was on his hands and knees, hunting weeds.
I unlatched the little gate and crossed the yard, calling “Good morning” as I went.
Earl gave a start when he saw me. Then he went back to his weeding.
He was wearing brown denim pants that had been washed a hundred times and a faded blue work shirt with ragged, cut-off sleeves. There were dark blue sweat stains down the middle of his back and under his arms, and the nape of his neck was the color of terra cotta, a burn over a tan. He also wore a battered ball cap and gloves soiled with clean earth. He dug out a ground-hugging weed with a trowel and tossed it in a half-filled bucket.
“Nice garden.” I stood between a pair of plants bursting with tomatoes.
He snorted, not looking at me. “What do you want here?”
So much for small talk. “There’s something I need to clear up.”
“What?”
“The night before the plane crash.”
“I already told you all about that.”
“I don’t think you did.”
He moved forward a few feet on his hands and knees and dug out another weed. Then he sat back on his heels, still not looking at me. When he spoke, it sounded like a plea.
“Why don’t you just leave me alone.”
“Can’t do it, Earl.”
Slowly, he got to his feet. He dropped the trowel on the ground, then pulled off his gloves and dropped them, too. There were dark stains on his knees.
“I’ve got a nice family here,” he said, looking me in the eye. “A wonderful daughter, a good son-in-law, and three beautiful grandkids. They don’t give a damn about my past, do you understand? They love me for who I am. And they don’t deserve to be hassled by you.”
“Fine. Talk to me and I’ll leave.”
“Like I said, I’ve already told you everything.”
“Not according to Vivian Armis.”
“Who?”
“Martin Blyleven’s widow.”
He licked his lips and shifted his gaze. The bill of his cap dropped a shadow over his face, and his eyes seemed to be hiding in there. “What about her?”
“She told me that her husband went on a mysterious errand the night before the crash. It was late at night, and he was gone for several hours. I think he went to Centennial Airport to put a bomb on his plane.”
He swallowed hard and said, “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“You’re a liar.”
His face darkened behind the shadow of his cap, and his hands bunched up into fists. “Don’t you ever call me that.” His voice was low and harsh. I thought he might take a swing at me.
“Go ahead, Earl, give it your best shot. You might even knock me down. But I’m not going away. Not until I have the truth.”
He glared at me a moment longer, then he looked away. His shoulders seemed to sag.
I said, “Vivian Armis has kept that a secret for four years. She’s told no one but her present husband and me. Not even the federal authorities. But if I told them… well, you talk about being hassled. They’ll swarm around you like flies.”
He hesitated, pain in his face.
“Talk to me, Earl. It’ll stay just between us, I promise.”
“How can I be sure of that?” His voice was small.
“I guess you’ll have to trust me.”
He gazed out over his garden. When he spoke, it was almost as if I weren’t there.
“I was a cop for twenty years,” he said. “In all that time I never once took a bribe. And believe me, I was offered more than a few. Drug dealers, pimps, they were always loaded with cash, always ready to give you a share for looking the other way. But I never did, not once. I was a good cop. Okay, I drank. But I never cheated and I never stole. Same thing when I was a security guard. Always did my job, always played it straight.” He paused. “Except for that one time.”
“What happened, Earl?”
“Blyleven approached me one day,” he said, still looking out over his rows of corn, as if he were addressing them not me. “I’d spoken to him before plenty of times, but not at length, you know? Just, ‘Hi. How are you? Nice day.’ Like that. But this time he pulls me aside, smiling and secretive, taking me into his confidence. He wants me to help him play a trick on Larry Foster. A surprise for Foster’s birthday.”
“His birthday.”
“I know, I know,” he said, half turning to face me. “It sounds stupid now. But at the time… Anyway, I knew Foster pretty well, knew he was a good guy, and besides …”
“What?”
He turned away again, not talking to me, hating to admit it to another person. “Blyleven offered me a thousand bucks. Said I could buy something nice for my grandkids.”
“What did he want you to do?”
“Unlock the hangar at a certain time and stay away from it for an hour.”
“And you did.”
“Yes, yes, that one time I took the money. What was the harm? The aircraft belonged to Blyleven—well, to his church. I didn’t think he was going to steal it. All he wanted to do was string some banners inside the plane, stuff like that, surprise Foster. At first I said no, but he kept after me. He said Foster would get a big kick out of it. ‘Be a sport, Earl,’ he kept saying. ‘Be a sport.’”
“When did he approach you?”
“A few days before the… explosion.”
“Tell me about that night.”
He heaved a sigh. “I did my normal rounds, and at eleven I swung by the hangar and unlocked the door. I didn’t like doing it. I was getting a bad feeling about the whole thing. So I stayed in the area and kept an eye on the hangar until I saw Blyleven’s car drive up.”
“Are you sure it was his car?”
“I recognized it, yeah. A white Honda Accord. Anyway, Blyleven and another guy got out of the car, and I drove away.”
“Another guy? Who was it?”
“I don’t know, I was too far away to see.”
“What did he look like?”
“I told you,” he said, turning toward me, “I was too far away.”
“Was he short or tall? Skinny or fat? Young or old? White, black, or brown?”
“Goddammit, what did I just say?”
“Right. But you’re certain one of them was Blyleven?”
He frowned. “I assumed it was him. Same car, same general build. Besides, this whole thing was his plan.”
“Did you see them take anything out of the car?”
“No. I drove away, went back to my rounds. At midnight I returned to the hangar. The two guys and the car were gone, so I locked up. That was that. The next day, I waited to hear how the big surprise had gone.” He sucked in a deep breath and let it out. “Of course, what I heard was that the plane had blown up in midair.”
“The feds questioned you about that night.”
“They questioned everybody.”
“And you didn’t tell them any of this.”
&n
bsp; “What was I supposed to say? ‘Sure, guys, I took a bribe, I unlocked the hangar so Blyleven could go in there and plant a bomb.’”
“Then you think that’s what he did.”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” he said loudly. His face was flushed with anger and shame. “I’ve had to live with that every day for four years. If I would’ve told the feds back then, they would’ve locked me up and lost the key. They wanted somebody to take the blame, and I would’ve been it.” He set his jaw. “But you know the worst thing?”
I waited.
“Blyleven knew all that. He conned me, got me to help him kill himself and Larry Foster, and he knew I’d never be able to tell anyone afterward. Unless I was prepared to share the blame and go to federal prison. Which I wasn’t then, and I’m not now. An ex-cop in prison? I’d eat my gun first.”
I said nothing. I was thinking about the people Blyleven had used. Earl Wilson, Larry Foster. His own wife. Who else, I wondered.
“So now you know everything,” he said. “So now you can get the hell out of here and leave me alone.”
“I’m sorry for you, Earl,” I said. I meant it.
I left him staring down at his soiled gloves and trowel and trying to decide if he was still in the mood to weed his garden.
19
BACK IN DENVER I stopped for a late lunch at a Mexican place on South Broadway. There were about a dozen tables with mismatched chairs, and all but three were empty. A mean-looking character with a drooping mustache and a straw cowboy hat was shoveling chili con carne in his mouth like he was one step ahead of the Federales, and a young couple in the corner were sharing beers and chips and salsa and meaningful smiles.
I ordered, and the meal arrived about four minutes later on a chipped plate. The steak was thin, but it was smothered in excellent green chili and the beer was cold. Two out of three ain’t bad.
It was two-thirty when I got to my office—four-thirty in Washington, D.C. I phoned Mr. Lifkin to see if he’d dug up Blyleven’s service record.
He had.
“Shall I fax it?”
Again with the fax. “You’ll have to mail it, my machine’s got a broken whatsis. Do you have his record there in front of you?”
Grave Doubt (The Jacob Lomax Mysteries Book 5) Page 11