LAURA LEE (ALTON RHODE MYSTERIES Book 2)

by Lawrence de Maria

  “What do you think of my new building?”

  From what I saw it was going to look like every other building in the corporate park, which itself looked like every other corporate park.

  “Very clean lines. Almost nautical. I like your use of glass.” You can’t go wrong saying stuff like that. “Are you moving out of Staten Island?”

  “No, no. At least not right away. But we have a lot of business in New Jersey. I see it as the future of the company. Staten Island is getting built out. And, frankly, as you might imagine, it’s lost its charm for me. So, what do you need?”

  “I spoke to your daughter.”

  “Long was there, right?”

  “The whole time.”

  Not a lie, exactly. The lawyer was in the house.

  “What do you think?”

  “Even if she is innocent, she’s in big trouble.”

  “I’m not paying you to state the obvious. I know Beth’s in trouble, for Christ sake!”

  “Do you think she killed Denton?”

  He bristled.

  “I already told you she didn’t.”

  “No you didn’t. And even if you implied it, her lawyer was with us when you and I met at the club. I’m asking you straight up now. Do you think she killed him?’

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Is that her father speaking?”

  “Yes, of course. But I know my daughter. She’s no killer. She didn’t even love the man.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Olsen ran his right hand through his hair.

  “Because she told me. I’m not sure Elizabeth has ever loved anyone. And certainly not Denton. It was just a fling.” He paused and looked out a trailer window. “One of many.”

  “You don’t approve of her lifestyle?”

  He turned back to me.

  “She sleeps around, a lot. I don’t like it. I’m not a prude, mind you, but it would have been easier to accept that kind of behavior from a son. We argued about it. I called her names. I’m not proud of it. I was just worried, that’s all. But she’s 32, never married. She told me I should be happy she’s not a lesbian. Can you imagine? She’s got balls, that one.” We both laughed at that remark, which broke the tension. “She had no reason to kill him.”

  “What did you think about Denton?”

  “Oh, hell. I know some people thought he was a bastard, but I kind of liked him. Being a bastard goes with the territory if you want to make any money in his business, or mine for that matter. He was too old for Elizabeth, almost my age. But she’s no kid, so it wasn’t a perv type of deal. Hell, if I came across someone like my daughter I probably wouldn’t pass up the shot. We’re men, ain’t we.”

  “So you think there was someone else there when Elizabeth walked in?”

  “Of course. She says there was.”

  “Any idea who it might have been?”

  “No, but if I had to guess it was a woman. Shot his face all up. I don’t think John was into boys, but who knows?”

  “Where were you that night?”

  “I was playing…. Jesus, you think I did it?”

  “Mr. Olsen, I’m pretty sure I didn’t do it, but that’s where my certainty ends. You all live close to each other. Maybe you’re lying through your teeth and hated Denton for sleeping with Elizabeth. You went over there to confront him, argued, blew his head off and were interrupted by your daughter.”

  “That’s sick. The gun was Denton’s. Where would I get it?”

  “There’s a million explanations for that. Where were you that night?”

  He looked exasperated, but then smiled.

  “I guess that’s why Long wanted you. He said you’re a thorough prick. I was playing poker with a bunch of guys. Regular weekly game. We rotate. This one was at Biondolillo’s house.” Frank Biondolillo was a city councilman, locally famous for his “Beyond a Doubt, Biondolillo” campaign slogan. “Couple of judges there, too. Reporter from the Register. Long can give you their names. Sometimes he sits in on the game.”

  “Elizabeth is your only child, Mr. Olsen?”

  A look of sadness crossed his face.

  “Yes. We wanted more but Mary, that’s my wife, was prone to miscarriages. She was on bed rest for two months carrying Elizabeth. Miracle she was ever born. She was two months premature. So tiny. Probably the reason we spoiled her so much. And after Mary died, I spoiled her even more. She’s all I have. Olsen Construction will be hers someday, and, hopefully, her children’s.”

  “Will she want it?”

  “Don’t sell Elizabeth short, Rhode. She’s more than a playgirl. I brought her up in the business. She knows almost as much about it as I do and she’s tough as nails. If she can beat this Denton thing I think it will straighten her out. Sometimes you gotta dodge a bullet to come to your senses.”

  I could have said that dodging bullets was something Denton hadn’t done. But I didn’t. Instead I finished my coffee and said goodbye to Olsen. He seemed happy to get back to work.

  CHAPTER 12 – BATTLE OF BRITAIN

  I decided to take a local road, State 46, back home. I turned off my GPS, knowing that Gladys would have fits and prompt me to make innumerable “legal U-Turns.” I wanted to see if the 94th Bomber Group restaurant at the nearby West Caldwell private airport was still in operation. It had been a favorite of my childhood, a place worth the trip to celebrate special occasions once or twice a year. I knew I could find it in my sleep.

  I got lost. I realized that I had never driven to the restaurant from the west. In fact, I had never driven there at all. My dad drove from Staten Island, and I usually slept on the way home. The trips ended when I turned 13 or so, when going out to dinner, or anywhere with your parents, became uncool. I probably would have stopped going sooner, but the Bomb Group was in New Jersey, where no one was likely to see us.

  Now, of course, I wished those days and nights could have gone on forever. My parents, who married late in life died within a year of each other when I was in college.

  I switched on my GPS and punched in a query for “Airports.” I half expected Gladys to say, “I told you so,” but she didn’t. A half dozen airports popped up on the screen, including the major ones like Newark and Teterboro. The North Caldwell strip was two miles away and after I made a “legal U-Turn” I found it quickly. Someday I’ll probably be able to punch in “Suspects,” or “Nearby Fugitives” or “Philandering Spouses” and save a lot of legwork.

  The restaurant was still there, adjacent to the airport’s single runway, and memories flooded back. The place was designed to mimic a World War II British air base during the Battle of Britain. From the outside it looked like an air operations center with a barracks attached. The buildings themselves were faux-corrugated and splotched with camouflaged paint. There was a sandbagged anti-aircraft pit out front, with a realistic looking ack-ack gun. Military signage and posters abounded.

  But the touch every kid remembers was the tail section of a Spitfire that protruded from one of the buildings. Even as a kid I always wondered why it wasn’t a Messerschmitt or Focke-Wulf, since it made more sense for a Luftwaffe fighter to have been shot down over a British base. My father had suggested it was the sad end of a gin-drinking English flyer, a remark that brought a sharp retort from my Anglophile mother. Whatever its rationale, the plastic and balsa wood wreck now also undoubtedly reminded people that West Caldwell was where JFK Jr. had kept his private plane. He and his wife and her sister had taken off from there on their ill-fated trip to Cape Cod.

  It was still a little early for the dinner crowd so there weren’t many cars in the lot. It’s never too early for dinner for me so I parked and went in, despite my desire not to travel too far down memory lane. A young hostess, all legs and big boobs, asked me if I had a reservation, despite the fact that the place was almost deserted. I told her I’d go to the bar. She seemed happy about that and started to point the way. I told her that wasn’t necessary. I knew where it was.

 
; It wasn’t. The bar, which used to be on the left, was now on the right, and twice as big. Probably moved after a bomb hit. But I found it quickly enough. The day I need a GPS or a hostess to find a bar is the day I hang it up.

  I stopped in the men’s room. The walls were still covered with wartime posters and the front pages from newspapers for the 1940’s. You could go from urinal to urinal and follow the progress of Nazi aggression and the Allied counterattacks. And Winston Churchill’s wartime speeches were still being piped in, a kind of martial Muzak. I recalled listening to that marvelous voice intoning about “their finest hour” and “blood, toil, tears and sweat,” although as a Staten Islander I knew that Winston borrowed the latter phrase from Giuseppi Garibaldi, the Italian revolutionary who lived for a time on Staten Island. I had been to his museum there as well. But Winston said it better and I remember my father, standing next to me, telling me to pay attention, although at first I thought he was concerned about my urinal aim.

  When I got to the bar I ordered a Maker’s Mark on the rocks and a burger. The bartender put a bowl of mixed nuts in front of me and after I picked the cashews out of it and ate them I turned to look out at the runway. There was a family of four sitting at a table by the window. The parents were deep in conversation and their two kids, a boy and a girl who might have been twins, were looking at their iPads. They did look up when a plane took off and landed, which I thought was a good sign. I wondered if they, or their parents, knew much about World War II. I wondered if they even knew about the war their country was currently fighting. I decided I was being pejorative; at least they came to this restaurant instead of a Pizza Hut. I went back to my nut bowl. I had exterminated the cashews, but I’m not a fanatic, and even the worst nut is better than no nut.

  After a while my burger platter arrived. It came with lettuce, tomato, onions, French fries, pickles and coleslaw and could have fed the Allies for a week. But the burger itself was everything a burger should be, and so were the two more bourbons I ordered. While I ate I thought about being a kid out with parents, and Elizabeth Olsen, and whether Konrad had ever taken her to places like the 94th Bomber Group restaurant, and to museums and plays. He probably did. Being a girl, she probably hung out longer with her parents than I had. That didn’t make her better than me. I hadn’t shot anyone in the face five times. At least I didn’t think I had. In combat, at long distance, who knows? Then I remembered she said she was innocent. I suddenly realized I believed her. I finished my burger and ordered black coffee. The waiter brought it and asked if I wanted to look at the dessert menu.

  “Only if they still have bread pudding with whiskey sauce on it,” I said.

  It was the only dessert I ever ordered at the Bomber Group, excited because of the daring whiskey sauce.

  “They do,” he said.

  It was good, but not as good as it would have been eating it along with my folks.

  When I finished, I pushed my maudlin memories back where they belonged and drove home.

  CHAPTER 13 - OTTOMAN SEX

  The next morning I drove down to St. George and went to Sullivan’s office to see Paul Vocci. Cormac had told me that Vocci, the D.A. Squad’s lead detective, was in charge of the Olsen investigation. Vocci and I had a history. I had been angry, with probably no reason, when he got Cormac’s job. He knew it and reciprocated the feeling. But we had run across each other on a few cases and by now had tempered our dislike for each other with mutual respect. Vocci thought I was an out-of-control hot dog who played fast and loose with the rules, but generally got the job done and kept his word. I thought he was a know-it-all who was too ambitious, but also got the job done and kept his word. We weren’t friends but could have donuts or drinks together without duking it out, especially if I was buying. He wasn’t that straight-laced.

  “Mike says I have to cooperate with you,” Vocci said when I sat in the small room the D.A. Squad occupied, “up to a point.”

  Another detective I didn’t recognize was the only other person in the room. He looked up from a nearby desk and then went back to his paperwork.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Sullivan thinks you need help. Probably over your head on this one.”

  I opened up a paper bag I was carrying and passed him one of the coffees I had brought.

  Ignoring the remark, he said, “What’s in the other bag?”

  “Cinnamon raisin bagels.”

  “Not donuts?’

  “I bought a couple but the court officers at the metal detector downstairs confiscated them. Said they looked too dangerous.”

  “Cream cheese or butter.”

  “Both. Want to split them. Have half of each?”

  “Sounds fair.”

  We chewed and drank for a while and then I said, “Anything bother you about the Olsen case?”

  “Yeah. I wish they were all this easy.”

  I told him Cormac’s line about the Lindberg baby.

  “Levine’s a good cop. We could use him around here. I know you think I screwed him, but it wasn’t my call.”

  “I know. Any chance he can get back?”

  “Better than 50-50. Couple of us are working on it.”

  “Not a problem for you?”

  “Mac was never gonna be lead detective here. He’s too much like you. I’m not threatened.” He drank some coffee. “Anyway, what do you need?’

  “I’d like to see the murder scene, maybe with a cop who doesn’t hate my guts and won’t give me a hard time.”

  “Well, maybe we can bring in someone from Idaho. I’m surprised you don’t want our files, witness list, that sort of crap.”

  “Sullivan is shooting very straight on this. Long tells me he’s being bombarded with disclosure.”

  “You’ve got that right. You’ve been around. You know that sometimes the prosecutor holds back stuff until it’s forced out of him. Not this time. Just between you and me I think he wants to convince Long that he has to plead Olsen out.”

  “Long doesn’t need convincing. But Elizabeth Olsen is adamant. She says she’s innocent. Won’t budge.”

  “Maybe you can convince her.”

  “Actually, I think she’s innocent.”

  Paul Vocci stared at me.

  “Jesus, Rhode. I think your last case went to your head. You’ll have an easier time finding someone else in witness protection.”

  So, Vocci knew about it, too. I could see by the look on his face that it was a slip. He looked over quickly at the other detective, whose head was still buried in a file. Since the Feds weren’t breathing down my neck, it was further proof that the locals were covering my back. I may be a pain in the ass to them, but I was their pain in the ass. I smiled.

  “Willing to bet a dinner on it, Paul?”

  “Choice of restaurant? Any conviction?”

  “Even jaywalking.”

  Vocci was a happy camper now.

  “Hey, Smitty,” he said, “come over here a second.”

  The other cop left his desk.

  “Tom Smith, Alton Rhode.”

  We shook. Smith was a good-looking guy with a middleweight body and a Marine buzz cut. Friendly smile, wary eyes. First impression: good, tough cop. Vocci explained what I wanted.

  “Tom’s new to the squad. Couple of weeks. He’s up to speed on the case file but hasn’t been to the Denton house yet. You can run out there together. Kill two birds with one stone. Don’t let him steal any silverware, Smitty.”

  “This how you do things on Staten Island, Paulie? Chauffeur private dicks around?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Ongoing education. You get extra credit.”

  That got a smile out of Smith. I turned back to Vocci.

  “Paul, you mind if Cormac makes the tour with us?”

  I knew Vocci couldn’t stop Mac from doing anything, but it did no harm to show a little professional courtesy.

  “No problem.” He looked at Smith. “Now you have to keep an eye on the fridge, too.”

  In a spirit of collegiali
ty, I offered to drive Smith to Denton’s house. I called Cormac and he said he’d meet us.

  Smith said, “Heard about Levine.”

  “I thought you just got to the squad.”

  “I did. Guys in my former precinct in the Bronx told me to look him up. Pick his brains when I got out here.”

  “You won’t go wrong.”

  “Heard about you, too.”

  “Yeah?”

  “No comment.”

  Mac was already there when we pulled up. I made the introductions. Smith took out a set of keys and opened the front door.

  “Place has been empty since the murder,” he said. “Been dusted for prints and they apparently got more DNA from the bedroom than there is in the known universe. Just try not to break anything. After we’re done, Detective Levine, I’d like to talk to you for a moment.”

  “Sure, kid.”

  We went in. The house had an unused, musty smell and I could see dust motes wherever the sunlight peaked through a window. Smith turned on lights as we went along. It took us just under an hour to walk through the two-story, five-bedroom house, starting in the basement. That was just to be thorough. We all wanted to concentrate on Denton’s bedroom area and the den where he was killed.

  “Big place, for a man living alone,” Mac commented.

  “It’s one of the smaller homes on the club grounds,” I said. “Probably bought for the location. He was a banker. Might have gotten a deal and the mortgage wouldn’t be a problem.”

  The second-floor master bedroom was, as expected, huge. Denton’s king-sized bed had been stripped for DNA examination. At the base of the bed was a large cabinet.

  “I’ve seen one of these,” Smith said. He walked over to a small console on a night table and pushed a button. There was a whirring sound and a large combination flat-screen TV and DVR system rose out of the cabinet. “Hot shit, ain’t it.”

  I went over to the night table and opened the top drawer. We all looked. There must have been a hundred condoms, in all shapes and sizes, and several bottles of Viagra. I could see traces of powder and other residue of police fingerprinting.