by Joanne Pence
“Sure you would.” Goatee spat the words at her, then said to his partner, “I think we should start to send little pieces of her to her sister. That’d get us the chain real fast.” He glanced over his shoulder at her and grinned. “Maybe first an ear, then a little finger.”
“The wife, Nell Ferguson, is ready to deal on the Flora Piccoletti murder,” Paavo reported to Lieutenant Eastwood. It was early morning. “She and her husband were paid to make Flora talk—to tell them where to find her son. Flora refused. The wife said Leonard kept getting rougher as his frustration grew with the old girl. Finally, he wrapped her bathrobe sash around her neck, threatening to pull it tight if she didn’t talk. She spit at him, and he yanked. Nell tried to pull him off, but couldn’t get him to stop until it was too late.”
“The loving wife,” Eastwood said. “I had one of those once. Did she say who paid them?’
“She swears she doesn’t know. Len Ferguson made the contact. She also claims no knowledge of Marcello Piccoletti’s murder, and added that if her husband did it, he should fry.”
Eastwood grimaced. “At least we agree on that.”
“Your wife gave you up,” Paavo said to Len Ferguson. “She fingered you for Flora Piccoletti’s murder. She said she tried to stop you, but she couldn’t.”
They were in an interview room at City Jail, Ferguson’s attorney by his side.
“That bitch!” Ferguson added a few more choice words. “None of it’s true! She’s the one who killed the old lady. She was just supposed to hold the tie around her neck to scare her, not pull it tight, but she was mad because it was taking too long. I can’t believe she’d blame me! All I was doing was asking the woman some questions.” He did all he could to look wide-eyed and innocent. This time his act didn’t work.
“Tell me about Marcello Piccoletti.”
“I know nothing about Piccoletti,” Ferguson said, “except that him and his brother had pulled some kind of switch. One pretended to be the other or some damned thing. That’s all I know, except that he was supposed to have gone to Italy on Monday. The house was supposed to be empty.”
Paavo’s stare was icy. “But it wasn’t.”
“No. Both brothers were there.”
“Why were you there, Leonard? You’d already set up a deal for some men to buy the chain from Piccoletti. What were you trying to do?”
Ferguson shrugged. His attorney shook his head. “No comment,” Ferguson said.
Paavo leaned toward him. “When the men you worked with sent Marcello to buy the chain from Rocco, they cut you out of the deal, didn’t they? Suddenly, you were useless to them.”
“No comment.”
“There was nothing in it for you except to get a few debts forgiven.” Paavo watched every nuance of Ferguson’s expression. “By this time, you’d learned exactly how valuable the chain was. You wanted more.”
The attorney placed a hand on Ferguson’s shoulder. “My client doesn’t wish to comment on that line of questioning at this time, Inspector.”
“You were wearing a priest’s costume.” Paavo never took his gaze from Ferguson. “Why?”
“No way!” Ferguson replied.
“We showed your photo to the owner of the costume shop. He identified you.”
Ferguson sucked in his bottom lip. “I was . . . I was curious about what was going on. That’s not illegal. I wanted to watch. Most people don’t really see priest’s faces, you know. They just see the collar.”
Paavo didn’t know that Ferguson’s assertion was true at all. Just the opposite in his experience. He moved on. “As you headed for Piccoletti’s house, what happened?”
“I heard a gunshot,” Ferguson said. “I hid and waited. Soon I saw the realtor. She followed one of the Piccolettis. I figured she was there all along, working with them.”
Suddenly the attorney put up his hand to stop Ferguson from saying anything more. “Inspector Smith,” he began, “my client might have a statement to make. Before he does, I’d like you to discuss with the D.A. what good it would do for Mr. Ferguson to be so cooperative. Until we get a reply to that, my client will answer no further questions.”
Paavo stood. Ferguson was at the point where he’d explain who sent him after Flora Piccoletti and Charles. He wasn’t smart enough to do anything on his own.
Frustrated, Paavo ended the interview.
Goatee drove around the block while the Hulk looked for Cat inside Da Vinci’s. It was lunchtime, but she wasn’t there, and no one had seen her.
Angie listened with horror as the goons each tried to one-up the other with the dreadful things they were going to do to her eventually. They didn’t, however, seem to know what to do with her or where to take her right then.
How had she gotten herself into this? Why hadn’t she simply stayed in her beautiful apartment in San Francisco, gone to her interview with Chef Poulon-Leliellul, and planned the perfect wedding for her and Paavo? No, she had to get involved. When would she ever learn?
She wondered if Father Daniel had woken up or if he was lying there with a concussion and no help. Had Cat found him or even knew that Angie was gone? Were Cat and Father Daniel trying to find her?
No one knew who these men were who had her, why they were here, or who they were working for.
Given all that, how would anyone rescue her . . . ever?
Paavo hated law-enforcement politics and game playing. They wasted time, and he had no time to waste. He also hated making deals with criminals. And he particularly hated that where his old boss, Lieutenant Hollins, had been a good cop who’d worked his way up in the ranks and whose main goal was to see that bad guys were put away, Lieutenant Jim Eastwood brought whole new elements of politics and complexity to the bureau.
Paavo had to go to him before approaching the D.A. for a deal for Ferguson. Ferguson not only could provide evidence to charge someone with Marcello Piccoletti’s murder, but also the person who hired him to go after Flora and Charles.
Paavo needed that name.
Ferguson was a pawn—a murderous one, but a pawn nonetheless. Paavo wanted the king.
Eastwood insisted on talking to the D.A. alone and personally, and Paavo got the definite impression that this arrest was suddenly going to be presented as Eastwood’s own. That Eastwood wanted the chief of police job was clear to everyone from the moment they met him. To do so, he needed the D.A.’s support to break into the “old boy and girl network” that was a huge part of San Francisco’s political scene, both locally and nationally. Even in Washington, D.C., California’s most powerful politicians were a female triumvirate from San Francisco. Those women all frequented the same San Francisco social set. So did the D.A. and the current police chief. Eastwood was going to find getting ahead in this small, close-knit town a lot more difficult than he ever imagined.
Which might be a good thing. Eastwood just might slink back under the Southern California rock he came from sooner rather than later.
The only problem was that Paavo’s case was being delayed in the meantime. And any delay could be making things worse for Angie. He’d never been so frustrated, so completely in the dark for hours and days about what was happening to her. Once he got her home—and he had to believe he would—he never wanted to let her out of his sight again!
As Paavo waited, word came that Marcello Piccoletti’s Volvo had finally been located. He contacted the CSI team that would impound the car and do full forensics work on it.
He also checked the airlines in hopes that Angie was on a flight home and simply couldn’t phone for some reason. She wasn’t.
Paavo seethed as he waited for Eastwood to return. As he watched his boss’s office, Office Justin Leong knocked on Eastwood’s door, then opened it and stuck his head in as if he was expected. Finally Paavo knew where Eastwood had gotten so much information about him and the case early on.
As Leong backed away from the empty office and shut the door, he must have felt Paavo’s eyes boring a hole in him because he sud
denly glanced toward Homicide’s main room.
When he saw Paavo, his face paled. He bowed and bobbed a couple of times before he turned and fled.
Paavo sighed, checked his watch, and went back to his desk.
When Eastwood finally returned, he glanced at Paavo, declared, “No deal,” and turned toward his office.
Checking the expletive burning on his tongue, Paavo stood. “I’d like an explanation!”
Eastwood stopped, head down. When he heard Paavo’s footsteps behind him, he lifted his chin. “The D.A. says our case is a slam-dunk against Ferguson for Flora Piccoletti’s murder, along with kidnapping your soon-to-be brother-in-law, and he wants that prosecution. The public is getting antsy about his record, and next year he faces reelection. He’s decided to change his image. The killer of an old lady in her home is important. The mastermind behind a plot that ended up with some shady character dead is not. In fact, according to him, whoever did that should get a civic award.”
“Did you tell him—”
“I told him as much as I could. Don’t harass me about this!” Eastwood went into the supply closet/office and slammed the door.
Obviously the meeting hadn’t gone as he’d hoped.
But Paavo was left with the problem.
Chapter 37
“There’s no deal because your wife already made one.” Paavo had hurriedly put together another meeting with Len Ferguson and his attorney. “The D.A. is through dealing.”
“No good, Inspector.” Ferguson’s attorney began stuffing papers back into his briefcase to leave. “You’re wasting our time.”
“The only way I can do anything for you,” Paavo said, addressing the prisoner directly, “is if I can show that all of this wasn’t your idea, but that you were only working for someone else. Cooperate with me on this, and everything will go easier on you.”
“My client has nothing more to say at this time.” The attorney stood. “Come back to me when you can deal. It’ll be worthwhile, believe me.”
“Mr. Ferguson?” Paavo didn’t avert his gaze.
Ferguson looked ready to speak when the attorney stopped him. “I . . . I’ll have to think about it,” Ferguson mumbled.
Paavo knew he had to get out of the interview room fast before he reached across the table and throttled Ferguson or his pigheaded attorney to force cooperation. For now, his hands were tied, and the interview was over.
He met Yosh and Charles back in Homicide. Paavo again checked his phones for messages, and again Angie hadn’t called. He nervously ran his fingers through his hair. The sickening fear that something was wrong filled him.
“We’ve got to figure this out logically,” he said, forcing his attention back to what he could do. He wondered how much Charles really knew. “Did Cat ever mention Marcello to you before he became her client?”
“No, not that I remember.”
Paavo pulled out the financial records he’d gotten from Piccoletti’s store. “She shows up as a purchaser of some items.”
Charles looked it over. “That’s when she was doing her interior decorating. It looks like she bought some things from him.”
“Cat had high-end clients, and Furniture 4 U sells cheap merchandise. Does that make sense?”
Charles shook his head. “No, but now, I remember something strange. A while back, when she asked me if one of my clients might want to buy a Christian relic Piccoletti wanted to sell, she said this one was ‘real.’”
“‘This one’?” Paavo repeated, puzzling over the words.
“Let’s go back to the handkerchief,” Yosh said, still eyeing Charles with suspicion. “It belongs to you, Mr. Swenson. How did it get to Piccoletti’s house?”
“I had nothing to do with it!” Charles picked up on Yosh’s look. “I can’t imagine Cat would have either, unless you’re suggesting Piccoletti was at my house at some point . . . in my bedroom, and helped himself.” He clamped his mouth shut. “That’s impossible!”
“Who put in your security system?” Paavo suddenly asked.
“I’m not sure. Cat handles the household bills. I think she said something about going with a new company that impressed her.” Paavo had Charles use his computer to access the Svenson family’s online bank information. “She learned about it through someone at Moldwell-Ranker,” Charles said. “They deal with a lot of household professionals. . . . Oh, my. Our company is Assurance! That’s the name on the van I was in!”
“Ferguson knew how to override the system.” Yosh looked over Charles’s shoulder at the computer screen. “He could have gone in, taken the handkerchief. But why? And why steal something of Charles’s?”
“It was white, satin, and had Caterina’s initials,” Paavo said. “He might have thought it was a woman’s.”
“I hardly think so!” Charles exclaimed indignantly.
Since both Yosh and Paavo had thought it was Cat’s, neither responded.
“Someone had to send Ferguson to get the handkerchief, right?” Yosh said after a moment. “And most likely to frame Cat.” He looked at Paavo and Charles for agreement. “I think Cat showing up at the crime scene was a fluke. No one could expect that she’d go to Piccoletti’s house at that time.”
Paavo recreated the crime in his mind. “That was where the problem came in,” he said. “If Cat hadn’t gone to the house, we’d have found the handkerchief, learned she was the realtor, learned she’d been accused of stealing something of value that was also missing, and we would have wasted all kinds of valuable time proving her innocent while the murderer took off with the chain! Cat and everyone else would have had no idea what really happened.”
He began to pace as the original plan grew clearer. “We wouldn’t have found out that Rocco Piccoletti was in Italy because we wouldn’t have even had a reason to look for Rocco. We’d have found the body. Flora would have identified it as her son, Marcello. Once he was identified, there’d be no reason for anyone else to look for him. Besides, he was shot in the head. Closed casket. No one would have told the police that Rocco had been pretending to be Marcello for several years.”
Yosh’s and Charles’s eyes widened as they recognized the truth of what Paavo was saying. Paavo continued. “I want to think we would have easily gotten Cat off—the evidence against her is small and circumstantial. But we’d be stumped as to where to look for the real killer. Only because she was there and followed Piccoletti to the airport did the entire plan fall apart.”
Charles gaped. “You have to admit, it was a clever idea.”
Paavo nodded. “Not Ferguson’s.”
“Never,” Yosh said. “We’ve just got to find out from him whose it was.”
“We don’t have time to pussyfoot with him and his attorney!” Paavo said, his anxiety about Angie reaching the breaking point. “Whoever came up with this is a lot cleverer than we thought. And a lot more dangerous.”
“Cat and Angie still haven’t called,” Charles’s desperation matched Paavo’s.
Yosh put out his hands to calm both men. “Let’s back up, guys. The answer is here. We’re just not seeing it yet. Start at the beginning. What was the first thing that happened?”
“Marcello wanted to sell the relic,” Charles said, “and he put his house up for sale. I guess he was going to cash out.”
“Especially since he wasn’t Marcello,” Paavo pointed out.
“But the relic didn’t sell, and neither did the house,” Charles said. “Cat was lamenting that. I do remember.”
“And then?” Yosh asked.
“Then all this.” Charles threw his arms up in frustration.
“Wait,” Paavo said. “Then out of the blue, Meredith Woring said Marcello called to accuse Cat of stealing the St. Peter chain. That’s the piece that never made sense. Why would he do it? I never did contact Woring. You neither, right, Yosh?”
“Whenever I called, I was told she was still with her mother somewhere in Los Angeles and would return ‘the next day.’ I left messages on her c
ell phone, but she never answered.”
Paavo glanced at Charles. “We know there were two groups after the chain—Ferguson all but admitted to it.”
“He did?” Charles said.
“The first group ditched him to deal directly with Rocco and Marcello. They cut Ferguson out of that deal. He wanted more, so he had to go somewhere with his complaint. And the place he went had to have a connection to Cat because she was the red herring. Which means”—Paavo and Yosh looked at each other and said at the same time— “Meredith Woring.”
Angie sat docile and in tears in the backseat as the goons drove through the streets of Rome. She had no idea where they were taking her, but she’d determined that to get out of this, she’d have to do it alone.
Her chance came when Goatee turned a corner and she saw a double-parked police car up ahead. A policeman stood beside it, looking up at a building. The Hulk took his eyes from Angie to watch the officer.
As quickly as she could, she glommed on to Goatee’s head and stuck her fingers in his eyes. As he yelled and reached up to grab her hands, she managed to evade him just long enough to jerk the steering wheel toward the police car before the Hulk got hold of her and flung her hard against the backseat.
Goatee was too slow to free himself from Angie, adjust the wheel, and put on the brakes—or his brain wasn’t big enough to think of three things at once—because the little Fiat headed straight for the cop’s car.
Angie ducked and covered her head.
The cars collided with a shrieking, clanging crunch of metal.
For a moment the goons sat stunned, then they leaped from the Panda and ran. A little dizzy, Angie heard shouts and more running. She popped her head up behind the backseat.
First she saw the cop chasing the goons.
Then she saw the car keys still in the ignition.
“I’d like to speak to Meredith Woring,” Paavo said to the receptionist after introducing himself and showing his badge. Yosh and Charles were beside him. “Is she in the office yet?”