The Window Washer

by Eric Rill

  “He doesn’t want to meet at the bank.”

  Maggie looked up from her half-eaten dish of eggs Benedict. “Where?”

  “A restaurant on Route 23, out past I-270.”

  “Did he say why?” Maggie asked

  “No, but he sounded agitated,” Grant said. “You don’t think he could have caught on to me, do you?”

  Maggie knew Grant’s file was in her laptop, but she didn’t remember whether she had reset her password after the meeting with Albertson. And even if she had, it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to disable it. After all, the Bureau did it all the time. “I doubt it,” she said. “But we’ll wire you, like always, and have backup nearby.” She knew she should get Rigby’s permission, given the fact that she wasn’t even supposed to be talking to Lawrence Grant anymore, let alone putting a wire on him and sending him into battle. “When is your little get-together?”

  “Friday morning, eight-thirty, for breakfast—at the Nosh Box.”

  “Okay. Meet me at my office….” Maggie paused for a moment. She wasn’t going to get into this with Rigby. “No, I’ll come by your office at seven.”

  *

  Lawrence Grant slipped into a spot outside the Nosh Box, took a deep breath, and got out of his car. He nodded imperceptibly at Maggie, seated in her Mercedes by the side of the building, then continued into the restaurant. Jonathan Craven waved him to a back corner booth. “Good morning, Lawrence,” he said, a wide smile on his face.

  After a quick breakfast and small talk, Craven said. “I’m thinking of buying a few acres a little farther out on Route 23. Why don’t you take a ride with me and we can continue our conversation.”

  Grant’s body twitched. “Sure. But I’ll follow you. My next appointment is over in New Albany.”

  Craven shrugged his shoulders. “Fine. It’s not far from here,” he said, dropping some bills on the table. “Let’s go.”

  Three cars left the parking lot, Maggie hanging back behind a blue van. Less than a mile down the road, Craven and then Grant slid through an orange light. “The fucking asshole!” Maggie hissed to herself, her car practically smacking the rear fender of the van.

  Grant bent his head to his chest and spoke into the microphone under his shirt as if he had heard her. “Agent Parks, I thought you would make the light. I’m slowing down, but I can’t be obvious.”

  Maggie backed up slightly and then swerved to her right, overtaking the van, only to run into a stream of cars following a tractor-trailer at thirty miles an hour.

  “Agent Parks, I don’t see you, and Craven just put on his left turn indicator,” Grant said. “It looks like an abandoned gas station. It’s across from a McDonald’s.”

  Maggie wondered for a second if she should stick the bubble on top of her car, but she knew the McDonald’s Grant described was only about a mile up the road, having been there less than a month ago when she met up with a fellow agent who had trained with her at Quantico.

  Craven pulled behind the station and Grant followed. Craven couldn’t bring himself to “take care of the problem,” as Massimo had put it, so he got hooked up with a man whom he knew only as Keith—an innocent-enough name for a hulking, savage-looking creature with more scars than you got playing hockey in the NHL.

  Keith appeared at the other end of the building as Craven and Grant got out of their cars. Craven nodded at him and then jumped back into his car, spinning his wheels as he shot out of sight.

  “I have a problem here,” Grant said in a quivering voice, his head stooped toward his chest.

  “Looks like it’s just you and me now,” Keith said as he pulled a .38 from his belt.

  “Who are you?” Grant asked the man.

  “My name is Keith, and you’re dead,” the man said, putting one bullet into Lawrence Grant’s forehead and another into his chest.

  Maggie heard the shots and turned on the lights and siren, clearing the convoy ahead of her. Less than two minutes later, she pulled up behind the station. She coaxed her Glock from its holster as her eyes swept the area. Grant’s body was splayed out ten yards from his car. She reached down and felt for a pulse and then for the body-pack recorder that had witnessed his murder.

  31

  Jimmy Rosa slouched in a swivel chair in his cubbyhole at the far end of the bullpen, staring at the Columbus Dispatch headline: Local Hotel Magnate Shot by Unknown Assailant.

  “I was looking for you,” Hank Morton said as he popped his large head into the cubicle. “That’s quite a story,” he said, eying the front page of the newspaper.

  “Yeah,” Rosa said. “And those Grants are quite a family!”

  “Look, Bones, I hate to add any more to your plate right now, but Thompson’s mother bought the farm yesterday and he’s headed back to Boston for a week. And Bretton has jury duty, of all things. So our two lead detectives on the Grant case are out of commission.”

  “They ain’t going to let a dick onto a jury, Captain.”

  “Probably not, but the panel’s big and selection will take a day or two. It’s a huge lawsuit.”

  “And?”

  “And I need you to help me out—at least till one of them comes back on duty.”

  Rosa pulled himself up to an erect position, cocked his head to the right, and smiled. “Only ’cause it’s you, Captain. I wouldn’t do it for nobody else.”

  “If you need any help, you can use Parks,” Morton said.

  “Parks is bogged down with the Dorsey case,” Rosa said. “I’ll finish up some paperwork and get on it.”

  “Thanks, Bones,” Morton said, turning to leave. “I owe you one.”

  “I’ll take you up on that one day,” Rosa said as Morton disappeared. A few minutes later, he grabbed a set of keys from the rack and headed for the door.

  The paper said Maggie Parks had found Grant’s body up in the north end of the city. Rosa decided he would pay her a courtesy call. He pulled up across the street from a modern building that housed the FBI Resident Office. The sign said No Parking. He left his sedan there anyway and headed toward the entrance. The lobby was deserted. Rosa slipped into the elevator and jammed his thumb against the tenth-floor button.

  Two agents—he could spot those overeducated assholes in fancy suits a mile away—pushed their way into the elevator before he could get off. “Is Agent Parks still in there?” Rosa asked, flashing his badge.

  The shorter of the two—no more than a hair’s-breadth taller than Rosa, but with pounds of muscle—looked back at the doors sliding together and said, “Is she expecting you?”

  I’m the last person she’d be expecting, Rosa thought, smiling to himself. He approached a glass door that framed a large American flag behind the reception desk and kept the tip of his index finger on the buzzer until a young agent in a crisp white shirt appeared. He was sporting a buzz cut and wearing a .40-caliber Glock in a shoulder holster. “I’m looking for Agent Parks,” Rosa said, holding up his badge.

  The agent opened the door. “Just down the hall, Detective,” he replied, motioning toward an office with Maggie Parks engraved on a plastic nameplate beside the door.

  Maggie was sitting on a small side chair, her stubby legs straddling a mound of files piled in front of her desk. “Well, well. If it isn’t one of Columbus’s finest,” she said, looking up at him over her half-moon glasses. “I figured you might show up one of these days.”

  “And just how did you figure that?” Rosa asked.

  “Let’s just say one of my sources told me the dick who was heading the Grant case was taking some time off—his old lady was sick or dead, or something—and I knew Homicide wasn’t going to send my ex over to interview me, although it would have been interesting, don’t you think?”

  “I’m only on this till Thompson gets back.”

  “That suits me,” Maggie said. “Suits me just fine.”

  “What was Grant doing behind a boarded-up gas station?” Rosa asked, casting around for a place to sit. “Mind if I move those paper
s over and grab that chair?”

  “I already told you guys I have no idea,” she said.

  “You trying to tell me you was just passing by, Agent Parks?”

  “That’s Special Agent Parks, Detective. And yes, that’s exactly what I’m telling you.” While Maggie was lifting Lawrence Grant’s body-pack recorder at the crime scene, she had toyed with the idea of coming clean about what had gone down, but then figured she’d be toast. Best case, she’d be demoted to somewhere like Middletown, working for some asshole. Worse case, she’d be waiting tables at a Denny’s. Worst case, she’d spend some time in jail. In any scenario, not only wouldn’t she be replacing Leo Rigby, she wouldn’t even be at his retirement dinner in December.

  “You should buy a bunch of lottery tickets, with luck like that,” Rosa said.

  “Why don’t you just tell me what you want, Detective,” she said. “I’m a busy lady.”

  Rosa picked up some papers on the chair and dropped them on Maggie’s desk. Then he dragged it over until it was touching Maggie’s and leaned in toward her. “Look, Special Agent,” he said, “I don’t buy that shit now and never will, so why don’t you just tell me what’s going on?”

  *

  Maggie pulled up in front of a gray-shingled apartment building on Acorn Court, on the south side of Grove City. She looked down at the scribbles she had jotted down before she left the office. When her ex-husband had given her his phone number and address more than a year before, she never figured she’d use it. Never figured she’d have to use it.

  Virgil Parks opened the door. “Well, this is a surprise!”

  “Yeah,” she said, curling her lips. “Just let me in. I need a drink.” Maggie followed Parks toward the kitchen, picking her way around the Walmart furniture.

  “Virgil, I’m in kind of a jam and I thought you could help me out,” she said as she pulled out a metal folding chair and plopped down.

  “Beer, okay? I’ve got Budweiser and Miller Light.”

  “Bud’s fine,” she said.

  “I’ve got some cold pizza I could warm up,” he offered as he rummaged through the fridge.

  “Virgil, I think I screwed up big-time,” she said, squeezing her eyes together.

  Parks pulled his head out of the fridge and pivoted around until he was standing directly over Maggie. “FBI Special Agent Margaret Parks screwed up?”

  “Cut the crap, Virgil. It wasn’t easy for me to come down here.”

  “You mean because the area isn’t fancy enough for you?”

  “I guess this was a mistake,” Maggie said, standing up, her head barely coming up to Parks’s chest.

  “Relax, Maggie,” Parks said, taking her by the shoulders and gently pushing her back in her seat. “I was just giving you the same shit you’ve doled out to me for the last umpteen years. What’s the problem?”

  “It’s the Grant murder.”

  “Yeah, saw your puss in the Dispatch yesterday. Not very flattering, I must say.”

  “I didn’t exactly have time to get my hair done,” Maggie said, forcing a smile.

  “Forget the hair. You looked like a beaten old lady,” he laughed.

  Maggie drilled Parks with her hollowed brown eyes, then blurted out, “Grant was wired.”

  “I guess that happens sometimes—things not going down like you expect.” Parks stroked his chin for a moment. “Wait a minute… I didn’t read anything about a wire.”

  “Virgil, this wasn’t an authorized operation. I initiated it on my own.”

  “No one in your shop knew anything about it?” Parks asked.

  Maggie stared at the white-tile floor. “I was so close to taking the Pascale family down—until someone hit Castellano and they started folding their tent. This was my last chance. Virgil, I busted my butt for almost two years on this case.”

  “The law’s the law, Maggie. Doesn’t matter how lofty your goals.”

  “Don’t pull that sanctimonious crap with me,” she barked. “Christ! The paper said you guys planted shit on dealers in the Bottoms when you couldn’t find any.”

  “Those were bullshit allegations by some DA into those assholes for big money to pay for his gambling habit,” Parks retorted.

  Maggie took a deep breath, reached up, and touched Parks’s massive arm. “I’m sorry. I’m just freaked out about this.”

  “Where’s the body pack?” Parks asked, still hovering over her.

  “I sent Lawrence Grant to his death,” Maggie said as she banged her cigarette pack against the table and pulled one out with her teeth. “Virgil, if it ever comes out, I’m dead meat.”

  “Maggie, you’ve got to give it up.”

  “They don’t even know he was wearing it.”

  “But it must have caught the whole thing—I mean the murder and…”

  Maggie nodded and then looked up at her ex-husband. “Everything,” she said in a muted tone. “It recorded everything.”

  Neither one spoke for a few seconds. Then Maggie continued, “I don’t know who pulled the trigger, other than he called himself Keith.

  “That’s all?”

  “It may not even be his real name, for all I know,” she said. “Virgil, I led Grant to the gas station—and his death. Can’t you chase this thing down and leave me out of it?”

  Parks took a swig of his beer and expelled a long breath. “That’s obstruction,” he said.

  “No. That’s omission. There’s a difference. And you’ll be able to sweat the killer’s real name out of the guy responsible for this when I tell you his name. Then you can nail them both.”

  “It’s not even my case. And even if I would agree, what about Rosa? What if it comes out later that I knew and concealed it?”

  “You think this was easy, coming down here and asking you? Begging you?”

  “I’m sorry, Maggie. I’m not going to risk jail time for you.”

  “Even if I dig up some info that could bust open the Castellano case and make you a hero?”

  Parks’s eyes narrowed. “Leave it alone, Maggie. There’s nothing you could dig up on the Castellano case that would make me look like a hero.”

  32

  Nick Grant pulled at a few pieces of lint on his dark suit, drew himself up from the leather sofa, and rubbed his hands together. The family room beside the main chapel didn’t have air conditioning, but Grant still couldn’t shake the shivers.

  “Do you want any more coffee?” Angela asked.

  “I’m jumpy enough already,” he replied. “I’ll never get through my eulogy.” Grant ventured toward the coffin. “It would have been Dad’s birthday on Friday,” he said in a distant voice as he rubbed the rich oak wood. He wished he had been able to tell his father that he knew he had tried his best, knew how hard it was for him to show emotion, and how much he loved him in spite of his angry tirades. He took a sip from a Styrofoam cup Angela handed him and grimaced. “Dad’s lawyer called me last night,” he said. “He left his shares in the company to some offshore charitable trust, after carving out the Crown for me.”

  The last of the mourners entered the chapel. It was a full house, just what Lawrence Grant would have wanted. Attended by the mayor, lieutenant governor, state attorney general, and several state legislators, as well as prominent business leaders. Across the street, two FBI techs in a white van filmed the comings and goings, while down the block a man in a pewter-colored Chrysler from the AG’s office clicked off a slew of pictures with his state-issued Canon camera with a telephoto lens. Neither was aware of the other’s existence.

  Jimmy Rosa slid into an empty seat in the second-to-last pew just as the service was starting. Moments later, Maggie Parks skulked in, grabbing a seat near the front on the far aisle, next to Jonathan Craven. He glanced over and offered up a sympathetic smile before returning his gaze to the pastor, leaving her with a puzzled look on her face.

  The air was hot and stale, and as the service dragged on, some of the congregants removed their jackets, but not Craven, who ju
st sat there toying with his gold cuff links. Lawrence Grant would have enjoyed the cloak-and-dagger goings-on, had he not had to die in order to bring it about.

  The service ended and the pallbearers carried the coffin down the center aisle to a shiny black hearse. Nick stood at the bottom of the stone steps, accepting condolences before slipping into a limousine for the short ride over to the crematorium. But not before he buttonholed the state attorney general and arranged an appointment for the next morning.

  *

  Millie Landry sat behind her desk, flanked on one side by the state flag of Ohio and on the other by Old Glory. Nick Grant pressed his back against an American Chippendale-style chair.

  “Your father was a very kind and generous man,” Millie said in a syrupy voice. “You must have been proud of him.”

  Landry had never had the time of day for Lawrence Grant—until he started filling her coffers. Even then, she found him boorish and a snob, but, as she once told her mentor over at her former law firm, she would do anything short of sleeping with Grant to keep the money rolling in. And if she were honest with herself, she would have held her nose and screwed him if it meant the difference between winning and losing an election. Now he was six feet under, her fund-raiser had been canceled, and she was meeting with his loser of a son—a window washer!

  “I appreciate your taking a few minutes with me,” Grant said, trying to control the twitch in his left eye. “I don’t quite know how to start.”

  “I heard your name mentioned at a meeting a while back. Seems you’re involved with this Ferraro woman,” she said, watching his eyes. “Is that why you’re here?”

  Grant’s muscles tensed. “Madame Attorney General…”

  “Millie will do. And what do you know about her?”

  “I met her while I was working at the Langham Apartments.”

  “Was?”

  “My father left me the Crown Hotel and—”

  “That’s wonderful,” Landry said, flipping through some papers on her desk.

  “She ran into some trouble and was arrested,” Nick continued.

  “Do you know much about her?” Landry asked.