THE CLUB - ANGIE BARTONI CASE FILE

by Marshall Huffman

  “You’ll get there Dan. You have come a long way but remember I have a few more years of experience on you.”

  Wisely he let the ‘few more years’ remark pass without comment.

  **

  It suddenly dawned on me, “Dan, I know where they are headed. Take the next exit and then go right.”

  “You know?”

  “I’m pretty sure. They have a safe house near Farmington. It looks like a big old farmhouse but it has open ground on all four sides and state of the art detection systems in place.”

  “Why would they take him someplace like that?”

  “He knows something and they are trying to protect him or...”

  “Or they are taking him someplace to shut him up?”

  “It is a possibility but I sure hope not. That wouldn’t say much for Mr. Falls and his team would it?”

  “Damn Bartoni you have a suspicious mind.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I didn’t mean that as a compliment,” Dan replied.

  “I know.”

  “So if they have all this fancy detection equipment what good will it do for us to go there?”

  “This is a shortcut to the place. They are taking a more evasive route. I want to be there before they do and be sitting on the porch when they drive up.”

  “You just want to rub their noses in it? Sort of an up yours? That doesn’t sound like a very good idea. I don’t see Falls as having a great sense of humor,” Dan replied.

  “Hey, he cut us out because they are so much smarter than the local yokels. Time for him to find out that stereotyping isn’t always a good idea,” I told Dan.

  He drove in silence for several seconds before saying, “Angie, I don’t really think this is our best move.”

  “Look Dan, you can just drop me off and go on. I’ll just wait for them. You know where I am so I won’t be in any real danger if things do go wrong.”

  “Yeah, like that’s going to happen,” he said bitterly.

  Dan wasn’t very happy with my decision but like a good partner he wasn’t going to go against the plan. He had his say and got it off his chest. Now he would just let it play out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY- THREE

  They came out of the car like Marines storming the beach. Guns drawn, eyes searching everywhere. Falls came running up, his M-16 at the ready, finger off the trigger but near it.

  “What in the hell do you think you are doing here detective,” he sputtered, his eyes almost bulging out of his head.

  “Oh, just waiting for you. Took you long enough. We were just about to go in and see if you had some food,” I shot back.

  “How did you even get here?”

  I just pointed to the car.

  “That’s not what I meant and you know it. How did you know about this place and how did you know we would be coming here?” he demanded.

  “Oh that. Well you see, I’m a detective. I detect things. It didn’t take me long to figure out that the FBI has no real creativity. You have used this same safe house for the last three cases you have been involved with in the area. It is the most up to date and easiest to defend. Using my detective skills I figure this is where you would bring him.”

  “You think you’re pretty damn smart don’t you?”

  “Why thanks for noticing. And yes I am pretty damn smart. Smart enough to figure out where you were going despite changing cars and a shadow. You could have saved yourself the embarrassment if you had just told us what you were really up to in the first place,” I told him.

  “There is a reason for that,” he said, cooling down somewhat.

  He was starting to realize that if this story got around it wouldn’t make him or his teams look very professional. A local cop outthinking a crack FBI team. How well would that play?

  “Look detective, Mr. Rotelli is in a dangerous position. We believe he will be the next target of those who killed his wife and Asher. Out best bet was to get him out of his house and into an environment that we could control. The fact that you are here may have jeopardized his safety.”

  Ah, I had been anticipating his change in tactics. He was looking for a way to lay the blame on someone else if something went wrong.

  “Special Agent Falls that is a crock and you and I both know it. You didn’t even know we were shadowing your shadow. We know we weren’t followed here because we came a totally different route,” I told him, lying just a little.

  “The point is…=”

  “No, the point is that you screwed up by using the same safe house too many times. You should have used the Greenfield one that hasn’t been used in quite some time.”

  “Geez, you know about Greenfield?”

  “And Mont Pearlier”

  “This is a damn nightmare.”

  “Hey, budget cuts hurt everyone. I know that safe houses cost a fortune to keep up.”

  He just shook his head.

  “So what do you want now that you’re here? Just to rub our noses in it?”

  “That too but no, I wanted you to understand that you are on our turf and we know more about what is going on than anyone that you can bring in. Use us as advisors or whatever you need but do not just drop us like we are the village idiots,” I told him.

  “Point taken. Alright, let’s not waste any more time. I want to get everyone inside and this place secure,” he said walking back to the SUV.

  I saw Rotelli get out and look around nervously before guards surrounded him and whisked him inside.

  “Detective Bartoni, I would like a word alone with you please,” Falls said.

  I thought for a second. I include Dan in all my conversations but he did say please. I looked at Dan and he just shrugged and walked into the house.

  “Special Agent Falls?”

  “Detective I have heard very good things about you. Pendergrass and his team have done nothing but sing your praises. In fact Agent Pendergrass said you were the best local officer he had ever worked with. I pulled your file and I must say that it is very impressive. You have a lot of extraordinary commendations. Your Captain McGregor thinks very highly of you as well.”

  “I sense a ‘but’, coming,” I said.

  “But sometimes you just don’t have enough of the full picture to make a wise decision. This is one of those times. I know you wanted to rub our noses in the fact that you got here before us and knew where we were going but there is more than that at risk. Mr. Rotelli has information that could not only get him killed but perhaps some of my agents as well, and if you get in the way, you and your partner too. This wasn’t some routine murder. It involves some very high up and powerful people with resources that you simply cannot deal with.”

  Okay, he definitely had my attention. What could Rotelli possibly know that would put a professional assassin after him? I have to give Agent Falls this, he was right, I didn’t have all of the information and I had been a bit on the rash side.

  “He knows enough to have a professional assassin sent to kill Mrs. Rotelli and Asher? Now they are after him as well?”

  “That is precisely correct.”

  “What the hell does he know that is so compelling? I mean he is a doctor, not a spy.”

  “You saw his net worth. It is close to 350 million all total. What you probably don’t know is that only about 125 million comes from the royalty stream off of his inventions. I don’t mean to make that sound like small potatoes but you have to ask yourself, where does the rest of the money come from?”

  “Interest, investments and that sort of thing.”

  “You’re right to some extent but nothing like the amount he has accumulated.”

  “Drugs?”

  “No, nothing so mundane,” Falls replied.

  “Crap. The sex club angle? They have been blackmailing people.”

  “Not just those on the list, there are some who didn’t make the list you saw.”

  “Government officials?”

  “Exactly.”

  Well Angie, you ha
ve stepped into it big time. Actually if I were Falls I would have me yanked off the case. Instead he said, ”Come on inside and we can discuss what we need to do next.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY- FOUR

  Six of us were sitting at the dining room table. I wasn’t sure where Rotelli had gone to but I assumed he was under guard someplace in the house.

  “Did Detective Bartoni bring you up to speed?” Falls asked Dan.

  “She did.”

  “Good. Here is what we know as of this time. Mr. and Mrs. Rotelli were definitely in this together no matter how much he protests that he didn’t know what his wife was up to in the basement. It was simply called The Club and nothing to denote what it was about. Mr. Rotelli would steer certain influential people his wife’s way and she would do the rest. While the patrons were victims it’s hard to feel too sorry for them since they were willing to fork over twenty grand to join The Club. What they didn’t know was that everything was filmed and recorded. For rich and powerful people they were pretty naive. At some point greed entered into the equation. The Rotellis started blackmailing some of the high profile clients. Not a great deal, just a few thousand but you know how that works,” Falls said, pausing to look around the table.

  “Once they got their hooks in they upped the amount,” I added.

  “Exactly.”

  “So someone decided enough was enough and they killed Mimi and made it look like a love affair gone bad between her and Asher. Then they hung him and tried to make it look like he was so distraught that he hung himself.”

  “Exactly detective.”

  “And out there is the detail of Mr. Rotelli. He knows the members and all of the sordid details. We need him to tell us the missing names from the list.”

  “Right again. We know that the list, while it had some pretty important people, is incomplete. There are others even higher up politically and they are the ones that have really been paying through the nose, so to speak,” Falls said.

  “Man. How stupid of everyone. The Rotellis had a good racket going with The Club and the clients didn’t seem to mind the membership fee. If they hadn’t gotten greedy they could have milked this for quite some time,” I replied.

  “That is often the case. If it’s working, try to make it better,” Dan replied.

  “So we need to have Rotelli tell us who the big members are that they were blackmailing.”

  “That is essentially correct. He is holding out for some kind of a deal. He will tell us if he gets immunity.”

  “Like hell,” Dan said, slapping his hand down on the table.

  “Yes, well we need to get that information one way or another. Actually it probably won’t be my call. I would imagine the US Attorney General will make that determination,” Falls told us.

  “They would actually cut a deal with this slimeball?”

  “You see...oh well, I’ve told you this much. In for a penny in for a pound, they say. One of the members of The Club may be someone high enough in government that it is just possible the Rotellis got more than just money.”

  “What? You mean national security information?”

  “We don’t know for a fact but it is a real concern. You know how it is in today’s world,” Falls replied.

  I’m sure my mouth dropped open as I tried to piece this all together.

  My brow must have been furrowed because Dan said,”What?”

  “I’m not sure. I guess I just don’t see the Rotellis as being any kind of international spies.”

  “You can’t go by the way people look,” Falls said.

  We sat and talked for another twenty minutes before we broke up. Dan and I were going to go back to headquarters and bring the captain up to speed and get his reaction. He may let us continue or he may decide this was over our heads and pull us off the case entirely. At this point I’m not sure I would have fought it.

  **

  Dan was driving as we headed back to the station. I hadn’t said much, I was still trying to sort out this whole crazy Rotelli thing. Something else was bothering me but it was elusive. Something.

  “Dan, do you think they would actually offer him immunity?”

  “Hey, we’re talking about the feds. They do all kinds of crazy things.”

  “What about Falls? I mean did you notice the only ones with him were the people he brought? He sent Pendergrass and his team off on some other project. I mean what the hell else is there that is more important than keeping Rotelli alive if he has this valuable information.”

  “Maybe they are running down other Club members.”

  “I guess that could be it but it still seems odd to me.”

  “We can ask them when we get back to the station,” Dan replied, swerving to avoid some jerk talking on a cell phone.

  “Something just doesn’t feel right. I wish I could put my finger on it but I can’t. You’re right, we do need to talk to Brad as soon as we can find them.”

  Brad and his team weren’t in the conference room so we went to see the captain.

  **

  “Angie, I don’t think that was your best move,” McGregor said when I told him of our exploits.

  I just shrugged.

  “Come on. You know that if something goes wrong this will all end up being your fault. You will be the one that the Feds point the finger at,” he said.

  “Hey, they used the same place three times,” I said trying to defend my actions.

  “Doesn’t matter. I’m surprised they didn’t have you arrested for interference with a Federal investigation. They could have you know.”

  He was right and I knew it so there was no use trying to deny it.

  “What I don’t get is, captain, if he is so important why not get him back into federal custody? They know, or said at least, that he was the target of an assassin. Wouldn’t getting him to a federal facility be better than a safe house in the boonies?”

  “Maybe it takes time. Hell Bartoni, you know the feds. It takes a committee and a weeklong conference to decide if the director needs to take a leak.”

  “All I can say is it doesn’t feel right to me. Something is wrong and I don’t like it when I have that feeling.”

  “Well get over it. You have other things to do.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  I wanted to turn in the SUV and return to my Healy but my poor knee just wasn’t ready yet. I could get the clutch pushed in if I used my hand on the top of my knee but holding it for any length of time was just miserable. As much as I hated it, I just wasn’t ready for prime time.

  I sat in the kitchen chewing on a pork chop I had cooked up a couple of days ago and trying to process everything that had happened so far. The more I thought about it, the more muddled it seemed.

  A multi-millionaire allowing his wife to have a sex club in the basement of their home. Why the home? With that kind of money, why not rent or buy a place? How did they recruit people? You can’t very well just go up and say ‘we put on some really kinky sex shows and for only twenty thousand you can come and play.”

  Another thing was what was the doctor’s real involvement in all of this. Obviously he lied and knew a good deal more than he shared with us. With his contacts, was he the recruiter for Mimi’s Club? What could he possibly know that would make him the target of a professional killer?

  The last thing I thought about was Doctor Warman. I needed to drop my guard or he was going to just give up on me. If he did, I can’t say I could blame him. It certainly wouldn’t have been anything he had done wrong. It would all be on me.

  I woke up before the alarm went off which is rare. Usually I try to grab it and throw it across the room. A morning person I’m not. It was sunny outside but my window thermometer was hovering around twenty-two degrees. I was anxious to see the snow melt. It was hard enough hobbling around on my knee inside let alone out in the snow.

  I finally managed to pull myself together to make a presentable package and drove the SUV to headquarters. Sargent Allen was on the desk
and all smiles when I came in.

  “Getting around better I see.”

  “Somewhat,” I replied.

  “Gonna snow again,” he informed me.

  “No way. Have you looked outside? Sun’s out and it’s getting warmer. I don’t know where you are getting your information but they got it wrong this time.”

  “Five o’clock.”

  “Five o’clock what?” I asked.

  “When it will start snowing. Just as people are headed home from work. Lots of fender benders for sure,” he said.

  “Not today,” I quipped heading up the stairs.

  “Want to bet ten bucks on it?” he asked.

  “You’re on Sargent. Not a chance in hell.”

  “Want to go for twenty?” he shouted

  “Heck yes. Easy money,” I yelled back.

  Dan wasn’t in yet which was pretty normal. He usually strolled in just under the gun. I liked to get there a little early so I could enjoy my coconut donuts and Diet Coke without the snide comments.

  I had just sat down when the captain came in with a box of Dunkin’ Donuts. Talk about rare. This made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. The captain squeaked when he walked and for him to spring for donuts was a bad omen.

  “What’s up captain?”

  “Nothing. Why?”

  “The donuts.”

  “Oh, I just thought I would bring some in for everyone,” he told me.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “No. Really. No big deal.”

  “Captain.”

  “Okay. Okay. We may have to pull some overtime tonight. A huge blizzard is headed our way and we could get up to a foot of snow.”

  That doggone Allen. He knew. He played me like a fiddle. I gotta start watching the news. It’s just that I hate to turn on the television. What they call entertainment is enough to gag me half the time. I mean ‘Reality Television?’ No one notices a camera stuck in their face? Well duh I didn’t know I was on the TV. Give me a break. Even shows like Survivor are faked. The producer actually determines who is voted off the show, not the participants. How dumb do they think we are? Oh, that dumb huh.