Rough Justice raa-5

by Lisa Scottoline

  Judy held her head high. She didn't have anything to be ashamed of. Her only regret was hurting Bennie and the firm. "I'm sorry it turned out this way. I'll see you at the hospital, probably. Or around."

  "Not so fast." Bennie held out her hand and was pleased to see it wasn't shaking. "You said you had a notebook. Give it to me and I'll turn it over to the police."

  "No."

  "What?"

  "I'm not giving you the notebook."

  "You can't refuse me."

  "Why not?" Judy cleared her throat. "You're not my boss anymore. I'm single again."

  Bennie didn't laugh. "Stop screwing around and give me that notebook."

  "No."

  "You're keeping it from the police, who might be able to figure out what it means."

  "I'll figure it out myself. I know the case. I'm smarter than they are."

  "You're not trained the way they are. They're professional. They have tools, resources at their disposal."

  Judy's mouth dropped open in mock surprise. "I can't believe my ears. Bennie Rosato, destroyer of cops, defending them? They almost deep-sixed you last year."

  Bennie pursed her lips. Shit. This kid was a whip. Too bad the firm was losing her. "The cops can handle it."

  "Not tonight, in this weather. You said so yourself, they weren't even at the office. Did they find the notebook or did I?"

  "It's not a competition, Carrier."

  "Yes it is," Judy said, her voice suddenly urgent. "That's exactly what it is. It's a race. I didn't find out in time to save Mary, but I can still save myself."

  Bennie paused. She should have realized it. Of course Carrier would have been scared. "You're in greater danger if you keep it. Did you ever think of that?"

  "It's my judgment, not yours. Like you said."

  Bennie didn't know what to say or do. She couldn't beat the notebook out of her, and Carrier was right about the attention the police would give it tonight. She opened the apartment door and walked out, torn. Conflicted.

  "Good-bye," Judy called after her, but Bennie was too upset to answer.

  * * *

  Blinking against the flurries, Bennie stood in the snowstorm outside Judy's building and looked up at the associate's apartment. Warm light spilled out of the large, uncurtained window but Carrier wasn't in sight. Bennie's emotions wrenched her chest. She was tempted to go up and retract what she'd said but she couldn't. She couldn't sanction what Carrier was doing, it was dangerous and wrong, but she wouldn't thwart it, not yet anyway. Bennie looked up at the snowy sky, which was brightening. It had to be close to dawn, almost morning. The jury would be back in deliberations soon. Carrier didn't have time to stop the verdict even if she tried.

  Snow fell on Bennie's face and thick knit hat. So Carrier had found a notebook of Eb Darning's with numbers in it, and had learned something about Eb and street money. And Bennie's old friend Bean had told her that Eb worked at City Hall for cash. Was it connected? Was Darning's notebook a record of cash payments? Money for votes? The answer would be at the heart of the city.

  City Hall.

  Bennie turned from the building, jammed her hands in her pockets, and began the trek. If she could figure out what was going on, maybe she could protect Carrier. She trudged down the street in deep drifts. Every step felt heavy but it wasn't the snow. Bennie was thinking about DiNunzio. What's in your veins, ice? It had hit home. Bennie had been feeling more responsible for Steere than for her two associates. Where was her loyalty to them?

  Bennie tucked her head into her chest against the driving snow. She was responsible for the associates as well. She was the one who had accepted the Steere representation without a second thought; she'd seen financial viability and a dramatic opening for her law firm. Bennie had never dreamed it would turn out like this, with one associate terrified for her life and another near death.

  She kept her head down and turned north into the storm. If there was a way out of this, Bennie had to find it. That was part of being the boss, too.

  46

  Marta dug through the sand like a terrier as soon as her shovel hit something. It was hard, whatever it was, and it wasn't a clamshell. It rang when the shovel struck it, a metallic ding. Marta shoveled in a fever. Sand flew until a tan spot appeared at the bottom of the hole. It was camouflaged, barely visible in the morning sunlight. Something was there. What was it?

  Marta fell to her knees, dropping the shovel beside the deep hole and uprooted erosion fencing. She clawed with her gloves and shoved the wet sand to either side of the hole. The sun shone cold on her back but she still had time. It wasn't too late. It wasn't over. She had found it!

  Marta's heart raced with excitement and exertion. She dug and dug, perspiring in her heavy coat. The patch of tan metal widened in the wet sand. She clawed faster. Her fingers raked the sand in five deep ridges. Underneath it was a metal box of some kind. It existed.

  The hole began to widen. The circle of tan metal grew. Five inches, then eight, then ten. Marta burrowed around the box. The top was smooth metal, like a strongbox. Sunlight winked on the water covering the box in a thin layer. Marta rooted in the sand until she exposed the thick lid of the box. She heard herself laughing, giddy with relief and delight. What was it? It was good. It was something. It was it! What Alix Locke had been looking for. What Eb Darning had died for. What Elliot Steere had killed for. It was almost hers!

  Marta cleared the perimeter of the box and tried to wrench it out of the sand and snow, but it was stuck in the sand. She tore off her gloves and rammed her fingers between box and sand. Her fingers were bloody but she didn't care. She flattened her hand between the box and the sand and wedged her fingers straight down, deeper and deeper. Her fingertips drove to the bottom of the box and she yanked with all the strength she had left. The box came free in her hands.

  Marta fell backward onto her butt and scrambled to sit upright. It was a locked strongbox about the size of a legal pad, six inches thick and apparently watertight. Marta sat on the frigid beach with the box on her snowpants, momentarily stumped by the large Master padlock, of heavy gray metal. She'd have to break it to get inside.

  Marta struggled to her feet with the box and looked around. The beach was deserted and the storm had passed. The wind had died down and the snow had formed a thick, icy crust. But the sun was high. It was morning. How long before somebody found Bogosian's body? How long before they came after her? What was in this fucking box?

  Marta shook it and something inside jostled. Not rattled, not clanged, just jostled. Shifted. It made almost no sound. Was it paper? Was it money? What was it? She had to get inside. She thought about looking for a key, but that would take too long. She didn't want to search Steere's office again or the Piratical. There had to be a better way.

  Christopher's pickup truck. The back of the truck was full of evil tools. One would break the padlock. Marta tucked the box under her arm and ran up the beach. She picked up her pace to a sprint like a star receiver, the box in the crook of her arm. She could bust the padlock with a hammer. Saw it off. File the fucking thing down.

  Marta's heart lifted as she dashed across the snow, her boots crunching through the hardened top layer. An ocean breeze blew sweet and clear. A slight wind gusted at her back. So the box was locked. So what? She giggled as she ran. Her breath came easily as she scooted past Steere's house. Her coat was soaked but it felt light on her shoulders. She wasn't even tired. She'd blow the box wide open. She'd melt the thing in the forge. She'd chew her way in.

  She hit the dune running, up, up, up and over the crest, then down again, almost falling. The box felt secure under her arms and she kept running, down the glistening white valley between the dunes. There were no footsteps in the snow except Marta's. She ran up the dune and caught sight of Christopher's pickup, parked by the snow-covered curb.

  She half ran, half skidded into the truck, fumbled for the keys, and nestled inside the driver's seat with the strongbox on her lap. She twisted around and thrust
her hand into one of the tool chests. Out came a hammer with a spike at the top. The nail set! Rock and roll!

  Marta set the strongbox between her padded knees, held it steady, and brought the nail set down against the padlock. The box slipped. She tried it again and hit the padlock, but it remained intact. She hit it again and made solid contact. Clang! The padlock stayed locked. Fuck!

  She tossed the nail set aside and went fishing again in the tool chest. She found a saw with a fine-tooth edge, held the box still on top of her leg, and applied the saw to the lock. Marta had never used a saw in her life and it showed. The saw went crazily left and right. She pushed too hard and it wouldn't move against the lock. She pushed too easy and it went too fast, barely scratching the metal. An emery board did more damage.

  Marta flopped the box over on its back and sawed the latch with vigor. The padlock wiggled back and forth but the saw's teeth barely etched the surface of the metal. She sawed again and almost amputated her index finger, which was frostbitten anyway. Not a good idea. She threw the saw back in the truck and searched the chest again. An old iron horseshoe! Marta hooked the shoe through the lock and tried to wrench it off. No go. There had to be something in the truck that would open this goddamn padlock! The truck was a hardware store on wheels!

  Marta got out of the truck with the strongbox and slammed the door behind her. She stormed to the back of the truck and yanked the back door open. The forge, a tiny oven without a door, was on the left. She could melt the strongbox down!

  Marta tried to shove the box into the forge, pressing with her shoulder. The box was too wide. She grabbed the box and slammed the lock against the back edge of the forge, but succeeded only in denting the forge. The padlock stayed fast. What a product! What a company! Marta wondered momentarily if it were publicly traded, then grabbed the box and drop-kicked it across the snow. It landed in a snowdrift and disappeared. Uh-oh.

  Marta ran after it, growling, and dug it out. Fucking padlock. They weren't kidding in those commercials where they shot the shit out of the thing. She set the box down out of the snowdrift and jumped on it over and over, like a trampoline. She climbed off and looked down at her handiwork. The lock survived, as did the frame of the box. This wasn't funny anymore. Marta snarled and whirled around. Her gaze fell on the pickup truck. Of course.

  She left the box in the center of the street and sprinted back to the truck. She climbed into the driver's seat and slammed the door. The driver's clock said 7:01. She still had time. She could make this happen. Christopher would be working for her. Everything would be okay as soon as she cracked the box. She released the emergency brake and twisted on the ignition. The truck coughed twice and turned over.

  Marta heard herself cackling softly as she gunned the engine. A padlock against a lawyer? No contest. She wrenched the steering wheel to the left and aimed straight for the box.

  47

  Bennie barreled in her wet parka down the marble corridor of City Hall, past the glass-etched sign that read ADMINISTRATION REPORTERS. The elegance of the sign belied what was beyond the next door. The City Hall press room was even filthier than a precinct house, which was why Bennie loved it.

  She flung open the mahogany door and deftly avoided the newswire machine that obstructed an entrance hall choked with empty vending machines and a grimy shelf of mailboxes. The floor was a gritty brown tile strewn with crumpled memos, discarded gum wrappers, and curly faxes. A dusty dictionary with marbleized endpapers sat on a battered bookstand. An old wooden coatrack had fallen against the wall with the weight of reporters' coats. The air smelled vaguely electrical with a hint of body odor.

  On either side of the entrance hall stood eye-level partitions covered with dirty burlap and wrinkled clippings. Beyond them were offices filled with cluttered wooden desks and dingy file cabinets. Bookshelves were packed with papers, plastic spiral notebooks, and superseded style manuals. Each newspaper had its own office in the press room and on the door of the News office hung an open shark jaw.

  Bennie peeked over the left partition at the starchy back of an old friend, Emil Gorebian. Emil sat erect at his keyboard and tapped with an expert's skill. He had covered the City Hall beat for thirty-four years but had been demoted to the night shift when he declined to retire early. The city editor had told him the newspaper "wasn't downsizing, it was right-sizing," and Emil had politely allowed as how a human being wasn't a suit. But it didn't matter, the suits were in control. Which was why Bennie could never work for anybody else. "Emil!" she called over the partition.

  "Bennie!" Emil said, the alarm in his voice tinged with a courtly Middle Eastern accent. "What am I hearing about you? Your office, murders. How terrible!"

  "I know." Bennie dripped into the office, slipped out of her snowy hat and parka, and popped them on the back of an empty chair. She looked around. The other desks were empty. The dirty gray computers were on, their screen savers ever-changing, but the scuffed chairs sat vacant. "Where is everybody?"

  "The young Turks? Most can't get in because of the snow, they are too tender. The others are hounding the innocent, like good reporters. Myself, I am waiting for my editor to call, to give me some very important instructions like I don't know what I'm doing. So tell me, what is going on?"

  Bennie flopped into the ratty chair and shook the chill off. "I'll sue the paper for you, I told you. We don't have to go to court, it's a union paper. We can grieve it. It's easy."

  "No." Emil pursed his lips, which were full and vividly pink under a frosty gray mustache. His eyebrows were shaped like thick commas over round eyes. His nose was a parrot's beak set against exotic olive skin. "They are not worth my anger, or yours."

  "You've given over thirty years to this newspaper. You've won awards and your experience—"

  "Please. Times have changed. It's a spot news operation now. They care nothing for history. Experience has no value. It's what happened today, not yesterday. Now tell me what is happening. Can I help?"

  "I need information about someone who used to work here in the sixties."

  "Who?" He cocked his head, his interest piqued. "I know everyone who worked here then."

  "His name is Eb Darning."

  "I don't know him," Emil said immediately.

  "What? You sure?"

  "Yes."

  "Think about it. You know everybody here?"

  "I do. If I don't know him, he wasn't here." Emil patted his tie, which he wore with a white oxford shirt, still pressed despite the lateness of the hour. Or the earliness.

  "How can you be sure so fast?"

  "I'm sure that fast. How slow do I have to be to make you feel confident of my answer? I told you, I don't know him, so he didn't work here."

  Bennie smiled, remembering that one of the reasons she liked Emil was that he was the only person more hyper than she. One day she'd introduce him to Bean and they'd kill each other. "Darning may have worked for L and I or Fleets. Maybe the Parking Authority."

  "Very specific."

  "Work with me, Emil."

  "Is this about those murders?"

  "Yes."

  "Fine." Emil's gray head, with its puffy side part, snapped to his computer. He hit a few keys and pressed ENTER. "Eb Darning, you say his name is. Eb is a name?"

  "Yes."

  Emil frowned at the screen. One neat wrinkle creased his forehead deeply, as if even his brow had been starched. "What kind of a name is that?"

  "Not Armenian. He was black and a youngish man at the time. He might have had a daughter. He definitely had a drinking problem."

  "In City Hall, it's a job qualification," Emil muttered as he focused on the screen. "These old 286 machines annoy me. They take too long. Here."

  "What?" Bennie scooted her chair closer. On the computer screen was a list of names.

  "Here are the L and I employees for 1960. No Darning is there."

  "Let's try 1961."

  Emil hit a key and drummed his fingers while the computer cranked away. "Why aren't you m
arried, Bennie? You should be married."

  "I'm dating a very nice man, who's unfortunately out of town."

  "Dating isn't married." Emil frowned at the monitor. "I have someone I want you to meet."

  "No. Your last fixup was a disaster."

  "This one likes women who work."

  "How enlightened."

  "An Armenian, of course. A member of my church. His wife died and he wants to remarry."

  "Forget it."

  "Bennie," Emil said, his eyes focused. "I want to see you happy. I hope you will find a husband."

  "I don't need a husband. I need Eb Darning."

  Another list finally materialized on the flat matte monitor. Names in faint green letters floated in an inky background. Emil's sharp eyes ran down the list. "No Darning." He hit another key. "I'll try the next year."

  "Thanks." Bennie struggled to keep up with Emil as he read. "Darning might have been a building inspector."

  "Not here," Emil barked before he was off to the next list. He and Bennie checked employee lists for all the City Hall departments for the past thirty-odd years, but Eb Darning's name didn't appear on any of them. Then they checked variations on Eb Darning's name, including Heb Darnton, for the same time period. No variations appeared either. Confused, Bennie produced Eb's clean-shaven photo and showed it to Emil.

  "Never saw the man," he said, handing it back.

  Bennie returned it to her jeans pocket. She didn't tell Emil that Darning was the same man Elliott Steere had killed, for the same reason she hadn't told Bean. He didn't need to know it to help her. "Emil, I know Darning worked here and he might have gotten paid in cash. How is that possible?"

  Emil smiled tightly. "I was afraid of this. Perhaps he was a party employee, not an employee of the city."

  "So?"

  "So he worked for the party. He performed jobs for the party. City Hall was a different place then. You know that. You're a hometown girl."