The Alex Shanahan Series

by Lynne Heitman

  Southern’s expression soured even more, but Ling’s brightened. He seemed to be enjoying the challenge presented by the elegant stone wall that was Harvey Baltimore. I might have enjoyed it myself had I not been trying so hard to keep up. It was a side of Harvey I hardly ever got to see.

  “Good point by you,” Ling said. “We can’t really tie the list to you because the only usable prints are Roger Fratello’s. We don’t have the same problem with the cash.”

  He offered up the next exhibit, a photo of the individual stacks of banded U.S. currency he had spoken of. The stacks were arranged in rows—three across and two down—and wrapped in plastic. “We found that bundle in the same box in Brussels. That shrink wrap is great for prints. Yours were all over it. Can you explain that?”

  “I already—”

  Ling held up his hand to shut me up. He was polite about it. “If you don’t mind.”

  “I am an accountant,” Harvey said. “I handle money, typically other people’s money. I am not responsible for where it goes or what it is used for after it leaves my hands.”

  Good answer. We hadn’t even coordinated.

  “Do you do business with drug cartels? Because that’s where we usually see bills bundled that way.”

  “I certainly do not.”

  Ling nestled back against the couch, as relaxed as if he were sitting in his underwear at home watching The Untouchables on DVD, or whatever his tastes ran to. Maybe Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. “By the way, you both understand that you can go to prison for lying to us, right?”

  “Title 18,” Harvey said. “United States Code, Section 1001, makes it a crime to knowingly and willfully make any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation in any matter—”

  “That’s the one. Let’s talk about motive. That’s really the only part I don’t get, although, personally, I think it all comes back to Rachel.”

  “Rachel is not part of this.” Harvey’s answer came out in a high-pitched voice, too fast to be the truth.

  Ling noticed, too, and then he came out with his ace in the hole. He started pulling pictures out of his file and passing them over to Harvey, watching Harvey’s face the whole time. They were black-and-white surveillance photos, the kind divorce lawyers get from private investigators who do that sort of work. The only source I could think of was Susan Fratello. Maybe she had finally gotten fed up with Roger’s serial philandering.

  The first showed Rachel kissing Roger in the front seat of a car. Ling put down a second and a third. Harvey’s right leg twitched enough to send the pages on his lap sliding to the floor. I reached down and trapped them against his shin, and I saw it in his face. He wouldn’t last much longer.

  I collected all the exhibits and handed them back to Ling. “We get the idea.”

  “Maybe she came to you and asked for help in getting Roger out of harm’s way.”

  “That is not the case.” Harvey’s forehead was starting to glisten. His breathing was shallower. “Rachel is not part of this.”

  “Did I miss something,” I asked, “or did you gentlemen articulate at some point exactly what it is that you want?”

  Southern stared at Harvey. “He knows what we want.”

  “Then explain it to me.”

  “We want your partner here to tell us where to find Fratello so we can drag his ass home and nail him for the murder of Special Agent Walter Herald.”

  “Excuse me? Murder?”

  Ling was reassembling his file. “We believe Roger was involved in the murder of an undercover officer named Walter Herald. Walt was Special Agent Southern’s partner.”

  Gauging the look on Southern’s face, had I tried to express condolences, he would have pulled out his service weapon and shot me. “Roger Fratello killed your partner?”

  “Walt was undercover at Betelco for nine months. He approached Roger about flipping on his scumbag partners. After he agreed to do it, the cocksucker turned around and told them about Walt, and they killed him. We never did find Walt’s head or his hands.”

  No wonder he was so pissed off. “So, the Russians killed him?”

  Southern shot right back. “Anyone who was involved in the conspiracy to kill or cover up the murder of a federal officer is in deep shit.” He was talking to me and staring at Harvey. “Anyone in that position would be well advised to cut a deal and spill his guts rather than go down for felony murder.”

  I put myself between Harvey and Southern. “Are you planning on taking him in?” Neither man made a move, which meant the answer was no.

  “Here’s the thing,” Ling said. “One of the chief beneficiaries of Walt’s murder was Rachel. After his body turned up, no one wanted to testify. We couldn’t bring any indictments.”

  Harvey looked at him. “Rachel wasn’t the only beneficiary.”

  “That’s true.” Ling didn’t argue with him. “But you’re in with some bad people on this one. You don’t want to take the heat for them, and you don’t want to be screwing with the Russian mafiya. ”

  “We’ll certainly take that under advisement,” I said. “Can I show you to the door?”

  “We’ll find it.” Ling was his affable self as he stood to button his jacket. But Southern had one last shot to take. “An inmate in a wheelchair has a hard time taking care of himself in prison.” He stared down hard at Harvey. “All kinds of bad things happen to gimps in the can.”

  I walked Ling and Southern to the door anyway, and watched them to their car. After they had pulled away, gone down the street, and turned the corner, I went back to the office. Harvey had moved back to his wheelchair. His chin was resting on the collar of flesh that had formed around his neck in the past year or so. It made him look overly jowly. That the stakes had taken a gigantic leap in the past hour had not been lost on him. He was clearly shaken.

  “All right, Harvey. I need to know the truth. Did you have anything to do with the murder of that agent?”

  He was horrified that I would ask such a thing, but my new policy was to be thorough. I was tired of being surprised.

  “Yes or no?”

  “No.”

  “What about Rachel? She and Roger had a thing. Susan Fratello also thinks she was in bed with the Russians.”

  “In bed with the Russians?”

  “Not in bed with them.” At least I didn’t think so. “She told me Rachel brought the Russians into Betelco as investors. Does that sound right to you?”

  He looked up at me. I could see he didn’t want to think it could be true. I could also see that he wasn’t sure.

  “We have to ask her,” I said. “You have to tell me where she is so I can find her and bring her back here.”

  “I do not know where she is.”

  “Harvey, you don’t want her out there alone, running from Drazen and possibly the FBI.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I do not. I wish I could send you to her, but I made her promise not to tell me where she was going. She is supposed to call when she gets settled somewhere.”

  “All right.” I went over to the couch where Ling had been lounging and pulled my casework out from under the cushion. I found my backpack and stuffed everything into it.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to see Felix. I have him working on something to find Rachel. The three of us need to sit down and pool ideas and resources. That’s the only way I see this working—all three of us together.” I reached under the couch and coaxed out my laptop. My backpack had just enough room left for it. Even so, it took me four tries to get the flap zipped up. I was ready to go, but I had one item still open. Harvey had rolled his chair to within arm’s reach of the teapot. I helped him pour a cup.

  “You have to tell me,” I said, “because you promised. What is it about this woman that would make you act this way? As your friend, I would like to know. As a woman, I would really like to know.”

  “I am not sure I can explain it to you.”

  “
You need to try, Harvey, before I go and find her.”

  He set the saucer on his thigh. It had a design on it that looked like pink rosebuds, and it occurred to me that Rachel had probably picked it out. He balanced the saucer on the cup and looked at me.

  “I asked her to dance and she said yes.”

  “That’s it?”

  He sat back, and his gaze drifted to that tarnished tin ceiling. He seemed to be looking for his words up there.

  “There is a point in one’s life where it becomes impossible not to look back and say, my life has not worked out. It is neither here nor there. One cannot change what he is, but realizing what he is inevitably colors expectations, what he might expect his life to become. I learned to be satisfied with very little. One day, I met Rachel. I asked her to dance with me. I expected her to say no, but she said yes. When I asked her to dinner, she said yes. When I asked her to marry me, she said yes.”

  “You used to dance?”

  “I loved to dance. I loved dancing with my wife.”

  That’s what the music was all about. Now it made sense. It had been something he had shared with Rachel. It had been packed away in boxes, which was where he’d wanted it to stay. That’s why he’d told me to pack everything away and leave it alone.

  “She said yes for a reason, Harvey. She said yes because you gave her something, too.”

  “Whatever I gave her, it could never approach the happiness she gave me. I love her because I asked her to dance and she said yes.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  In my experience, houses were most easily broken into through the basement windows, which were either unlatched or easy to make that way. The basement window for the house where Rachel was hiding was so low to the ground I had to be on my belly in the dirt to check it out. The window was at ceiling height for the basement and had a simple latch lock that I could handle easily. I used my flashlight to look for the obvious signs of an alarm system. When I saw none, I put on my gloves, opened my tool case, and went to work.

  Not surprisingly, Rachel had found a nice house to hide in. It was a large, white, brick-front ranch-style, sitting on almost an acre out in Acton. That it was built on a cul-de-sac made it even more secluded and private. Perfect for hiding, but it’s hard to hide from Felix. He had talked Gary Ruffielo into providing a current cell-phone number for Rachel. After working the problem all day, he had finally managed to track her through the use of that very useful GPS chip.

  I finished with the latch, popped the window open, and gave thanks when no alarm sounded. If it was a silent alarm, I was in trouble. I cut the flimsy and rusted chains on each side that kept the window from flopping all the way to the wall. I gathered my stuff, turned on my belly, and wriggled in. When my feet hit the ground, I closed the window and did a sweep with my flashlight. It was dark and gloomy and haphazard down there, the way basements are. I saw nothing living or breathing of the human variety, but there was an old kitchen chair in the corner. I moved it to a position under the window in case I needed a springboard to a quick exit.

  At the top of the stairs, I put my ear against the interior door, listened, and heard nothing. I heard more nothing when I popped the door open, which was a good thing. No alarm sounded as I stepped into the kitchen. No motion detectors were tripped, so I kept moving. There were no lights on, which made it very dark in the house, but I heard something, and it wasn’t just the daily hum of household machinery. It sounded like a shower running upstairs.

  I cleared the downstairs as quickly as I could with a flashlight. The rooms were big and open, with few nooks, closets, and alcoves to hide in. But it took forever to get up to the second floor. The stairs creaked. I took each one in slow motion, checking for loose boards as I went. By the time I reached the top, my muscles felt as if they’d fused into one inflexible mass. The hallways were all dark up there, but, like the music in Harvey’s empty house, the sound of the shower running told me where to go: down to the room with the closed door.

  Given that I had broken in, I had to decide about the Glock. It was one thing if it was Rachel behind the door. It was quite another if it was the law-abiding owner of the house, hiding out, perfectly justified in shooting the home invader. But what if it was Rachel with a gun? I didn’t know her. I didn’t know how she would react. I decided I needed to go in with my weapon front and center. I twisted the knob, flattened against the wall, and pushed the door open.

  It was like a steam room in there, the steam billowing out from behind an interior door across the room. The light from behind the door provided the only illumination. It fell across the bed, where the sheets were twisted and the blanket mostly puddled around it. A rolling carry-on bag sat on the floor with its zippered flap lying open. Clothes were strewn about as if it had exploded. I stayed low and crept in, listening to make sure there was spraying and splashing and not just a steady hum. I got close enough to the bag to read the tag. Rachel Ruffielo of Quincy, Mass. It was good to know all the sneaking around hadn’t been for nothing.

  I was careful to keep an eye on the bedroom door as I worked my way across the room. On the way, I checked under the bed. I checked the closet on the far wall. When I got close to the bathroom, I stopped.

  I could feel my heartbeat in the tips of my fingers when I placed them on the damp door. I pushed. The hinges whined. The steam billowed out. My face got damp, and it was only as I was wheeling into the doorway that I realized there was now no interruption in the water’s flow, and unless she was standing perfectly still under the shower head, Rachel wasn’t in the shower at all.

  She stepped forward, emerging from the thick steam like some kind of poltergeist.

  “Don’t move,” she said, and I didn’t, because in her small hands, she held a 45-caliber revolver, and it was pointed straight at my right eye. Her .45 was bigger than my Glock, and her hands were shaking violently. There wasn’t much chance my gun would go off by accident, but I couldn’t say the same for hers, so I did as she asked.

  “All right.” I had to make myself heard above the roar of the shower. “Let’s calm down here. No one has to get hurt. I didn’t come here to hurt you.”

  “No? Let’s see, you track me down, you break into the house, you creep in here with a gun, and you didn’t come here to hurt me?”

  I knew I should have had Harvey call her first, but I was afraid she’d bolt.

  “I came to help.”

  “With a gun?”

  “You never know what you’ll find behind a closed door.”

  She raised one shoulder to wipe away the copious amounts of perspiration dripping into her eyes, and the barrel of the .45 twitched. A defibrillator couldn’t have made my heart jump more.

  “Be careful, please.” I put up my left hand, as if that would stop a bullet. “Let’s put the weapons down. We’ll do it at the same time.”

  “No.” It wasn’t even up for consideration. “You first.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “You’ve got no choice. You’re not gonna shoot me.”

  “How do you know what I’ll do?”

  “Because you’re Harvey’s partner, and I know Harvey.” The barest trace of a smile appeared. “But you don’t know me. ‘Maybe,’ you’re thinking, ‘she’s just desperate enough to do it. Maybe she doesn’t care if she lives or dies.’ Or maybe—” She pulled the hammer back. “Maybe this thing goes off accidentally.”

  “Dammit, Rachel, be careful.” I pushed my hand farther forward. That would surely stop a bullet. “Do you know what that will do if it goes off?”

  “Another good question. Do I even know how to use this?” Her smile broadened. She had slipped into something more comfortable—a Brooklyn accent. Either I had failed to notice it the other day, or it only came out in times of stress. She was also right. I had no idea what she was capable of. I did the high-stakes calculation again. I had a better chance of surviving if I put my gun down, even if she kept hers.

  “All right. I’m putting it aw
ay.” I flipped the pistol around so it was aimed at the ceiling and engaged the safety.

  “On the floor. Put it on the floor.”

  “No.” I reached around and slipped it into my waist holster. “I’m putting it away so it’s not pointed at you. You do the same.”

  “Put your hands up.”

  “Rachel—”

  “Put them up.” Her stress level was rising. It probably showed on her face, but I was watching the weapon, and all I could think about was the size of the hole a 45-caliber slug left in the targets at the shooting range, particularly from that close. I tried to keep my own nerves from showing as she moved to the shower and turned off the water. The silence was abrupt and welcome.

  “Listen to me. If that goes off by accident, you’ll kill me. If you don’t want to kill me, point it toward the floor.”

  I didn’t think she wanted to kill me, but I also didn’t think intent mattered at that moment. How light the trigger was, how twitchy her finger, how good or bad her aim—those were the things that mattered, and the longer she held the gun on me, the greater the chance that something would go wrong.

  “How did you find me?”

  “Your cell phone has a chip in it.”

  “Who put it there?” She pushed the .45 at me, and I couldn’t help but turn my head slightly, away from the wrong end of that terrible weapon. Not that it would help much. Instead of blowing my face off, the blast would simply blow away the side of my head.

  “Samsung…Nokia…Motorola…” She glared at me. “They come that way. We got your number from Gary, and we tracked you with the chip.”

  I watched out of the corner of my eye as she began, very slowly, to lower her arms. I felt the pistol’s sight track down my body. Given the way my luck was running, I expected to be shot through the knee any second. When I was finally out of the bull’s-eye, I peeled my tongue off the roof of my mouth.

  “Decock it, please.”

  She did. Without even thinking, I was on her. I couldn’t have stopped if I’d tried. I grabbed the revolver and wrenched it out of her delicate hand. With her other delicate hand, she tried to gouge out my eyes. She wasn’t very big, and I was really mad, so it was easy to spin her around and give her a hard shove out the door. She ended up sprawled facedown across the bed.