“The onion capital of the world.”
“Yeah. Next town over from Statesboro, just about. Was a freshman on the JV football team at Vidalia High, palled around with some of the guys from the Statesboro High team, who clued us in on the action Laura Lee was providin’. She broke my cherry.”
Ricks looked over at Sharon Sullivan.
“I bet you don’t even remember me, Laura Lee. Hell, I know you don’t. You passed me so many times up here at the club and never said a word. But I sure as hell remembered you. Guy never forgets the first gal he screws. Talk about a small world. I damn near died when I found out you were married to the goddamn District Attorney. I just knew that kind of information could come in handy. The borough’s top lawman married to a hooker. Can’t make that shit up.”
Sharon, or Laura Lee – I thought about asking everyone to pick one name for her that we could all use – began to cry, quietly.
“Why didn’t you blackmail her to begin with? Why go to Denton?”
Ricks smiled.
“I wasn’t thinking blackmail back then. Too dangerous. Besides, I heard some of the members talkin’ about how Denton’s bank might be in trouble with the Feds. You’d be surprised how loose some of these rich assholes up here talk with a bunch of drinks in them. Like we’re not even around.”
“Star Trek extras.”
“What’s that?”
“I said you were just a Star Trek extra. Nobody pays you any attention.”
“Hey, you’re right. Anyway, it occurred to me that a crooked banker might appreciate having something on the local D.A. Hell, I knew he’d use it just for the sex if nothing else. He was some horn dog. You shoulda seen some of the gash who traipsed through here. And he had videos of them all. Sick son of a bitch.”
So, there were videos.
“What was in it for you?”
“Two grand a month, cash, and the promise of a lot more down the road. Then Denton fucks it up by getting himself killed. I’d seen Laura Lee go in the house. I was passing by again on my rounds when I heard a bunch of shots. Then I hear another shot and Elizabeth Olsen comes out. I thought I was hallucinatin’. Hell, tell you the truth, I didn’t know what to do. But I figured I’d better play it straight, so I called it in. Then I found out Olsen said she’d fired at someone else and I knew who it was. So, plan B.”
“Blackmail.”
“Yup. Not only did I have Laura Lee on the hook for hookin’, but murder, too. I’d let the Olsen woman take the fall and squeeze Laura Lee for years. Who knows what I could have done after that.” His face clouded. “It was perfect. Until you started looking for fingerprints on the chair. Sherlock Fuckin’ Holmes. I couldn’t take the chance that you’d find out about Laura Lee.”
“So you killed Elizabeth Olsen.”
“Sure.”
I felt the gall rise in my throat.
“Must have been easy, Ricks. Breaking the neck of a small, helpless woman like that.”
“They taught me a lot of stuff in the Army. I didn’t like doing it, but I had no choice. If it makes you feel better it was quick. With her dead, obviously guilty, the investigation would end. But you wouldn’t leave it alone. You figured out she didn’t kill herself.”
“With your help, as I recall.” I had a mental picture of Ricks holding the tape measure for me when I calculated how far Elizabeth Olsen had dropped. He had been good, even feigning reluctance to let me in the house when I found the body. “Why did you try to kill me in Snug Harbor?”
“You’re such a pain in the ass I was afraid you might figure out who I was and tie me to the Olsen broad’s murder.”
“Thank you, I think. You must have been a rotten sniper in the service.”
That angered him.
“I was damn good. But I’m not used to shooting in the woods in the fuckin’ dark. And you were moving. I didn’t think things through.”
“Yeah, it’s not like shooting some innocent goat herder standing in an empty field, is it?”
It was his goat I wanted to get. I wanted him angry. He might do something stupid.
“I got mixed feelings about killing Laura Lee,” he snarled, “but I’m sure gonna enjoy shooting you.”
“Why hurt Laura Lee now? You still have something on her.”
He shook his head.
“Can’t let you live cause you’d have figured it all out. But killin’ just you would get too many people thinkin’ and all riled up. Besides, I missed my chance with you in the woods. You’d be on your guard. But if you kill Laura Lee, that opens up a whole other can of worms.” He tapped my Taurus in his waistband with his free hand. “The bullets in her will be from your gun. I’m supposed to be here. You’re not. I’ll be a hero for shooting you. Too late to save the D.A.’s wife, but I’ll get credit for trying. Who knows how far that will get me in the N.Y.P.D.?”
“You’re crazier than I thought, Ricks. Whatever your problem, it must be hard to spell. How will you explain why I killed her?”
“I won’t. Someone will come up with a wacky theory. Maybe you killed Denton. Maybe you and Olsen were in it together and Laura Lee found out and you lured her here.”
“There are people, cops, who know what I’ve been doing. Who know I was shot at in Snug Harbor.”
Ricks shrugged.
“Hey, what do you expect? It’s a fuckin’ plan C. I’m wingin’ it. The rumors will fly, lots of dead-end leads, headlines. It will be like a Chinese fire drill. But nobody will ever suspect the security guard. The Star Trek extra. Man, I really like that.”
Time was my only currency and I was down to spare change. I had to keep Ricks talking. It wasn’t hard. He was enjoying the stage.
“How did Denton do it?”
“Do what?”
“Video the sex.”
“He grinned and ‘beared’ it,” Ricks said, cackling.
I looked at him. He nodded his head toward the fireplace. I turned and looked at the bear head over the hearth. Its gaping mouth was aimed directly at the Eames chair.
“I don’t believe it.”
“Yeah. He put a video camera in there. Worked it with a remote. The scumbag even filmed his own murder. That video would have been the most valuable of all. You’ve cost me a fortune, asshole.”
“Where are the videos now?”
“With all the others, in a safe place. I enjoy watching them from time to time. I got to say, Laura Lee, you don’t seem to be enjoying all the weird stuff Denton made you do. Not like some of the other woman. They were so loud I had to turn the sound down in my apartment. But you got the best body of all of them by a long shot. It sure brought back memories. Tell you the truth, honey, I’m kind of proud of you. Trashy Laura Lee Litton from Bulloch County, Georgia, a Rockette. To think I got an early piece of your snatch….”
Ricks didn’t get to finish the sentence. Maybe it had been building up inside of her. The humiliation. The hopelessness. Maybe it was the mention of the Rockettes, which reminded her how far she had come, how she had transformed herself, only to lose it all to a slimy, peckerwood blackmailer. Whatever it was, Sharon Sullivan snapped.
She screamed and rushed at Ricks, coming off the couch with a dancer’s speed and agility. It took him by surprise. She had almost reached him when he shot her. That was a mistake. He should have killed me first. He realized that and tried to shoot me, but Sharon was on him and he had to shoot her again. And again, and again, his Glock pressed against her body, muffing the sound. By the time I got to him, she was slumping off him onto the floor, leaving a smear of blood down his front.
I plowed into him like a linebacker and knocked him halfway across the room into a table, my left hand grabbing at his automatic. Both the table and the lamp on top of it shattered with our impact. Ricks tried to pivot his gun hand to shoot me in the head but couldn’t as we rolled together on the floor amid broken glass and ceramic. I felt shards go into my back. He cried out. Not all the glass was going into me.
I got hold
of his gun hand and violently shook the Glock loose. Then we both remembered my revolver in his waistband and wrestled over it until it, too, went flying across the room. Now, it was just the two of us, man-to-man. Which sounds fairer than it was, since he was 10 years younger and had me by 30 pounds, at least. But he had been a sniper, which I hoped meant he preferred to do his killing from afar. And, as they say, this wasn’t my first rodeo or, more specifically, my first hand-to-hand combat. I would have liked a knife, though.
We flopped around on the floor, trying to keep our respective hands off each other’s throats, slippery work when sweating and bloody. He managed to get a grip on mine but pulled it away with a scream when I dug a thumb in his eye. Did I mention that the first thing they teach you in Unarmed Combat 101 is that anything goes? The next yell was mine, when he brought a knee up into my groin. He was learning fast. I slammed my forehead into his nose and broke it. His nose, that is, although for a second I saw double. We split apart and I rolled away and jumped up. So did Ricks, his face covered in blood. We stood facing each other. All we needed was an ultimate fighting cage and a breathless announcer.
We both glanced around the room looking for the guns. Sharon Sullivan was slumped motionless on the floor. My revolver was nearest, next to the fireplace about halfway between Ricks and me. He got to it first, but only because I made a stop along the way to grab a poker from a stand next to the hearth. I whipped it across the side of his head as he bent for the gun. The blow should have ended the fight right there but he was tough. He roared in pain and lunged at me in a rage. His second mistake. That’s when I knew I had him. I chopped him in the throat with my curved knuckles of my left hand. As he staggered back I shoved the pointed end of the poker into his Adam’s apple with both my hands. He fell to the floor on his back and I followed him down all the way, pressing the poker with the full weight of my body behind it until I felt it go all the way through and out the back of his neck. Like I say, anything goes.
I must have hit an artery because bright red blood spurted up the poker shaft as I heard its tip hit the tile that surrounded the fireplace. My gory hands slid down the shaft. We stared at each other, faces inches apart. He gurgled horribly and the life began to leave his eyes.
“Star Trek extras always get killed, asshole.”
I wondered if he heard me. I hoped so. It was a damn good line. I stood up, breathing hard but, as usual, surprised how easily I took to killing.
I staggered over to Sharon Sullivan. She was lying on her side with her head resting on one arm. She was dead. But for her staring, sightless eyes, she could have been sleeping. I knelt beside her. I closed her eyes and stroked her hair.
“You were quite the gal, Laura Lee. I won’t let anyone ever say different.”
My cheeks were wet. It wasn’t blood or sweat. I realized I was crying.
CHAPTER 32 – THE SAME PAGE
I thought I had a little time. I was pretty sure no one heard the shots, only the first of which was loud. But pretty sure was not the same as sure. Ricks’s home address was on the driver’s license in his wallet. I started making calls.
Cormac Levine, whose quotient of alarm decreases in direct proportion with the gravity of a situation, listened quietly and said he’d come right over. He’d call Vocci on the way. I’d thought about asking Mac to go to Ricks’s apartment and find the videos but breaking and entering wasn’t his forte. Besides, I needed him with me to run interference with the homicide and other cops who would soon arrive in D-Day numbers. I had another option. A potentially better one. I hit another speed dial.
“No one must know you were there,” I said after I finished.
“Please,” he said. “I’m insulted.”
Finally, I called 911, just to be on the record. Then I went back to the den to make sure I hadn’t missed anything that would jeopardize the story still forming in my head.
***
Two young cops came through the door, guns drawn. One was black, the other Asian. The new face of the N.Y.P.D. I could tell they were nervous. They had that just-out-of-the-academy look. I doubted they had ever been at a crime scene quite like this one. The room was a shambles, with blood splattered everywhere.
The black cop looked at Ricks with the fireplace poker sticking out of his throat.
“Jesus, what was he, a vampire?”
The other said, “Who’s the broad?”
They were obviously shocked and trying to out-cool each other. I thought I’d better bring them up short and maybe save their careers.
“The lady’s name is Sharon Sullivan. She’s the wife of the District Attorney. The dead guy killed her. I killed him. Do yourselves a favor and wait for some senior people. A Detective Paul Vocci on the D.A.’s squad will be here soon and he’ll vouch for me.” At least I hoped he would. “Don’t ask any questions, don’t speculate, act like you do this all the time.”
They both looked down at Sharon.
“Who the fuck are you?” It was the Asian cop. “How do we know you didn’t kill her?”
“I called it in. I wouldn’t be standing around waiting for you guys if I murdered the D.A.’s wife, would I? You’re asking too many damn questions. Do what I tell you.”
Maybe it was my tone, or my logic. Whatever it was, they got it.
“Jimmy, do what the man says,” the black cop said. He looked at me. “You hurt bad?’
“Nothing the E.M.S. can’t handle.”
We heard sirens, doors slamming. Two more cops came in, one a sergeant. He took in the carnage and didn’t look as surprised as I expected.
“Jesus. What’s with this fucking house? Last time I was here there was only one body. This is gonna knock the D.A.’s crime statistics all to shit.”
The young black cop cleared his throat.
“This guy says the br…., I mean, the lady, is the D.A.’s wife.”
That got the sergeant’s attention. He walked over and looked down at Sharon.
“Mother of God.” Then he moved on to the other body. He leaned down for a closer look, careful to avoid the poker. “I know him, too.”
“Ricks, the security guard,” I said. “He killed her.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Rhode. Private cop working the Olsen case.”
More cars arrived. Cormac came in and flashed his badge. Vocci and Smith were right behind him. They both stared at Sharon Sullivan.
“Pete,” Mac said, addressing the sergeant by name, “secure the crime scene. We want to talk with this guy.”
They obviously knew each other from working in the same precinct.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Vocci said. “Let’s take this outside.”
More vehicles pulled up. Squad cars. An E.M.S. van. A fire truck. The U.S. Marines couldn’t be far behind.
We walked around to the side of the house. Vocci spoke first. He was badly shaken.
“What the hell happened here?”
“We don’t have time for a long version, Paul, so I’ll give you the highlights. You’re not going to like them. And your boss would like them even less, so we have to figure out how much to tell him. Personally, I don’t think it will do anyone much good if the real story gets out. But you guys are big boys. It will be your call.”
When I finished I said, “I’d like to hang all three killings on that piece of crap inside.”
I knew Mac was on board. The other two looked at each other and read each other’s eyes. Partners can do that.
“It won’t be easy,” Vocci said.
“But it might be fun, Paulie,” Mac said. “As long as we get on the same page.”
“I’m getting to like Staten Island,” Smith said.
***
Vocci and I sat down with Michael Sullivan and broke the news of Sharon’s death and her real identity in a conversation the likes of which I hope never to repeat. It had to be done. If there was going to be a cover up, it had to start at the top.
“She loved you, Mike, and died
trying to protect you,” I said.
“She killed Denton,” Sullivan said.
“He was a sexual predator and blackmailer. She wasn’t in her right mind.”
He looked at me. His eyes were red and he was barely holding it together.
“I laughed at you when you suggested that might be a good defense for Elizabeth Olsen. If I do what you’re both suggesting, I’ll dishonor my office. I’ll be a hypocrite.”
“You’ll be human. Not a bad thing in a prosecutor.”
“Listen to him, Mike,” Vocci said. “Don’t throw your life away.”
“And Sharon’s,” I said. “Do you want her remembered for what she fought so hard to leave behind? Or for the wonderful woman she became and you loved? Who loved you enough to debase herself. I was willing to risk my neck to protect both of you until I had real proof she killed Denton. I even lied to Konrad Olsen, who just wanted to clear his daughter’s name. Don’t throw the fucking honor word at me. What we want you to do is the honorable thing.”
***
“You were pretty rough on him,” Vocci said as we walked from Sullivan’s house, a two-story Tudor on Bard Avenue in West Brighton. “The man just lost his wife.”
“It was the only way.”
Two squad cars pulled up. A captain and a priest got out of one and the head of Sullivan’s political party got out of the other. They walked past us without a word and rang the doorbell.
“It begins,” I said.
“Everyone thinks you’re a cupcake, Rhode. But you’re a cold bastard.”
“Let me tell you something, Paulie. Sullivan was right. He is a hypocrite. Probably has to be, being a D.A. He spent his early career on Wall Street keeping crooks out of jail when he wasn’t helping them avoid taxes. Now he prosecutes low-level drug dealers and convenience store robbers who can’t afford good lawyers. Most get sent away without a trial, since everything gets pleaded out. The goddamn legal system is broken. Prosecutors, defense lawyers and judges all drink in the same bars. They belong to the same clubs. Their wives go to the same parties. Hell, some of them vacation together. The poor schmucks who get caught up in the so-called wheels of justice are just paydays to them. The whole rotten structure is held together by hypocrisy.”
LAURA LEE (ALTON RHODE MYSTERIES Book 2) Page 18