Chapter 42
Anticipating a scathing response, Wrga blurted defensively, “Benzino didn’t talk.” All of the conversations he’d had with his employer had been one-sided, sarcastic diatribes filtered through an electronic voice changer. “He was a tough old bastard,” he continued in the hope of mounting an adequate defense to support the reason for his failure. “He practically dared me to cut his throat.” He felt edgy while anticipating his employer’s cynical response.
“That’s not good,” the mechanical voice said, sounding beaten, as if the batteries in the electronic device had suddenly died. “I was hoping it wouldn’t go this far, and now with Benzino dead …” A defeated sigh came over the line. “What are our options?”
“There’s still—”
“I wasn’t asking you,” the voice snapped, once again cutting and cold. “I was thinking out loud.”
Wrga remained silent while he waited for further instructions.
“Whether Otho or Faciamano knew anything is still up for grabs, but Benzino … Benzino surely possessed the information we were looking for, and now he’s in a morgue somewhere.”
“There’s still the other two.”
“Thank you,” the altered voice said sarcastically. “I know who’s dead and who’s still alive. Do you know their whereabouts?”
“Not Rossetti’s,” Wrga replied. “He’s gone into hiding, and his daughter’s house has police protection twenty-four seven.”
“That leaves Al Mather.”
Wrga thought about how hot it must be in Florida and how his tender skin would blister under the subtropical sun like an egg in a hot skillet. He finally offered, “I can get in the car and drive down. I’ll be there this time tomorrow. I already have his address. What do you think?”
“I don’t know.” The voice sounded reticent. “I need time to think.”
A civil response, Wrga mused. Go figure.
The next electronically modified words sizzled hot over the phone line, masked by pops and squeals. “Forget about Mather for now. We’re running out of time. You find Rossetti or I’ll find you!”
“What?”
The line went dead.
Chapter 43
“This is not happening,” Longinus squealed. “It’s just not happening.”
“I assure you it is happening, and the only thing standing between you and six inches of cold steel is me. The assassin, whoever he is, appears to be quite handy with a knife.”
He shivered. He was not handling the news well nor could he have been expected to; he was a thief and an embezzler, but he was not a hardened criminal per se and clearly ill equipped to handle a death threat. “Who’s behind this?” he asked with distress in his voice.
That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, now isn’t it, big fella? “I don’t know, but what is clear is that you’re only hurting your chances of survival by withholding information. Let me do my job. The more you tell me, the better. All three men have been killed within a relatively short period of time, so I wouldn’t procrastinate if I were you.”
He gazed at me sheepishly. Caught between a rock and a hard place, he felt pressured knowing that he needed to confess to grand larceny charges, charges that could put him in jail for a very long time. I eased his burden. “Listen, Stan, I don’t give a good goddamn about the money you stuffed in your pockets while you worked for the town. There are others who may be in danger, and I’ve got to find this assassin before everyone else ends up in the morgue along with Benzino, Faciamano, and Otho.”
“But I don’t know why this is happening,” he pleaded. “What do you want me to tell you?”
“Start at the beginning. Give me names, places, and events as best you can remember them.”
He glanced at his watch. “Sure. Okay, only … can we go somewhere else? My wife will be home any minute and …”
“And you don’t want her to know that the good life the two of you have been living was paid for by bribe money?”
I had him on the ropes. He reluctantly nodded.
“Sure. Let’s go for a walk.”
“But my neighbors will ask questions.”
“For a guy who’s barely one step ahead of the grim reaper, you’re very concerned about appearances.” There was no way I was getting into a car with him. With only one good arm, a man of his size would be difficult to control. If he tried something stupid, as cornered criminals sometimes do, I’d have to bring him down with a point blank .45 to the head, and pulling my gun was not even open for consideration. “It’s a walk or nothing. I don’t have the time or the energy to dick around with you any longer.”
“But …”
“No buts, Stanley, start talking or start walking; it’s your choice.”
“Fine,” he grumbled. He searched the coffee table and saw his key ring poking out from under the TV Guide. He grabbed it and we walked out of the house together.
His house was at the end of a long circular drive. As we walked toward the road, I remembered that there were few other houses in the immediate vicinity.
“So what do you know, Stanley?”
He shot me a worried glance but didn’t speak.
“I told you, I don’t care about the illegal money. I’m here to save your life, so start talking.”
“You’re sure?”
“I already said yes!”
“Okay.” His mouth must’ve been dry because he swallowed in a slow and labored manner. “A lot of dumping took place over in Bohemia before it became Francisco Desicero Park. Trucks went in and trucks went out, and I got paid not to ask any questions.”
“And you weren’t afraid that you were taking a big risk?”
“Not really. The town board had been talking about building a park there for ages without anything happening, and I figured it was never going to happen.”
“But then the park got approved and you realized that you were in deep shit.”
“Yes and no. The only real problem—” His eyes grew large and I could see that he was really concerned about compromising himself.
“Don’t stop now, Stanley. I told you, no games!”
“So the town finally found the money to build the park, but before they could start …” He sighed, long and troubled. “I recommended capping the existing site, covering it with a vinyl membrane to keep the dumped crap from working its way to the surface. I made up a cock-and-bull story and told the town board that local people had reported seeing building contractors going in and out of the landfill after hours. I told them capping the landfill was the environmentally responsible thing to do because we didn’t know what might have been illegally dumped.”
Shifting the blame … clever boy. “But you did know, didn’t you?”
“Not specifically, but …” Beads of sweat broke out on his temples. “Beacon Hill wouldn’t have been shucking over big bucks if they were dumping safe inert building materials.”
“So what happened then?”
“Bureaucracy. Politics.” He shrugged. “The town wouldn’t approve the unbudgeted expense, and the park was built without being capped.”
“And you kept quiet about it all these years?”
He nodded ashamedly.
“So little children have been rolling around in the dirt, absorbing God knows what into their bodies for decades?”
He drew a deep breath, then nodded slowly and deliberately.
Son of a bitch! “God. How do you sleep at night?” I already knew the kind of garbage that had been dumped at the landfill from my father’s admission: asbestos, PCBs, and toxic heavy metals like mercury. My stomach began to churn. It wasn’t bad enough that he was a letch and a deserter; Al Mather, my flesh and blood, was likely responsible for an untold number of sick kids and possibly mortalities, my father, mine! I suddenly felt nauseous. The situation was getting progressively worse and worse as layers of the onion were peeled back. The current toxic dumping was merely the microscope focusing the authorities in the area of recen
t illegal waste disposal, but the real crime had been committed many years earlier.
“You all right?” he asked. “You look a little—”
“No. I’m not all right. I’m fuming. How dare you? How dare you risk the lives of children to make a few bucks? I’m trying to save your life and you’re responsible for harming innocent children?” He was the recipient of my fury, but that was only because I couldn’t vent at my father, the real culprit. I shook my head woefully. Why am I here? Why am I helping this slug and my father? The conflict twisted in my gut like a large serrated knife. No sooner had fury swept through me than it was replaced with reason. Take a deep breath. These creeps will get the punishment they deserve, but neither fatso over here nor Al deserves to have their throats slit. “Give me some names, Stan. Who else was involved? Who’s still standing?”
He seemed to be thinking, probably searching for the names of those who were still alive.
“Who else, Stan?” I demanded.
“Aside from me …”
Yes, aside from you. Moron!
“The only names that come to mind are Albert Mather, the guy who owned the company the bribe money came from and …” He seemed momentarily confused. My guess was that he had seen enough of my name on my ID to put two and two together, but wasn’t completely sure of what he had seen and lacked the courage to confirm my family name.
“Who else, Stan?” I repeated, hoping to break his train of thought.
“One other guy,” he finally said. “Monte, Monte Rossetti.”
A name at last. Finally!
Chapter 44
Liz Turner yawned while she waited for the underground parking garage security gate to rise. She had just driven four hours home from Boston, was exhausted, and couldn’t wait to go to bed. “About time,” she complained as the security gate clattered slowly upward. She had taken the day off to celebrate her wedding anniversary with her husband, who was in Boston attending a conference and couldn’t get away. Turner hit the gas and tweaked the wide tires on her Range Rover as she entered the Westside Manhattan garage located in the basement of her co-op. She thought she had noticed movement in her rearview mirror just as she pulled into the underground garage, but whatever she might have seen was gone by the time she looked back to check on it.
Her space was one of two, set in between support columns. She shook her head in dismay because the enormous Maybach in the space next to hers was once again parked over the line, forcing her to squeeze into her spot. “Jerk!” she barked, partially because of frustration at her arrogant parking mate and partially out of exhaustion. She had to hold onto the door handle to prevent her door from dinging the Maybach. “It would serve him right if I chipped his precious paint,” she swore. But who needs to be abused by that moron over a tiny little scratch. The space between the two cars was so narrow that she had to slide-step sideways between them.
The tailgate on the Range Rover was already up so that she could retrieve the groceries she had picked up at the North End Farmers’ Market when Sand came up behind her and snapped her neck. She collapsed in his arms and he heaved her into the back of the truck like a large bag of laundry, right on top of the case that contained her FBI-issued laptop.
Turner was not a field agent and could not be blamed for losing her edge, that innate sixth sense that kept law enforcement agents from becoming victims. She had, however, committed a cardinal security violation, one that would allow Sand to hack her computer and explore those areas an FBI personnel administrator had access to. She didn’t trust her memory and maintained a journal of password clues, one that Sand would be able to decipher and use to locate his targets.
Chapter 45
Stakeouts are much better with a partner. It’s easier to pass the time with friendly chatter and it allows you to take a desperately needed tinkle break when you need to. Ordinarily Cabrera would have had his butt firmly planted in the shotgun seat, but with my leave of absence being in effect and Sand still at large … well, I just had to go it alone.
I was waiting in the parking lot of the Bethpage Motel, sipping a venti-sized cup of Starbucks rocket fuel, watching the hourly rate trade come and go, and hoping Monte Rossetti would soon return to the motel room he had rented. His credit card history had given him away—in addition to the room rental, he’d been buying gas at the filling station across the street and taking all his meals at local eateries. Hit men don’t have access to financial records in the way that law enforcement personnel do, but it would’ve been much smarter for him to have withdrawn a wad of green and covered his tracks by spending nothing but cash—credit card bills leave a paper trail that lives on until the end of time. I’d found him in no time flat, or at least I’d found his motel room: #19 on the ground floor. I don’t think the front desk clerk had ever met a living breathing FBI agent in the flesh and almost soiled his drawers in his urgency to provide me with the information.
Three hours had passed and there was still no sign of Rossetti. The pretty blonde in the next room had already seen three gentlemen callers. I’m sure they all had the same first name, John. She was obviously popular and must’ve been very accommodating … or double-jointed … or at the very least bargain-priced. In any case she was greeting more motorists than a toll collector on the New York State Thruway.
I’d visited Rossetti’s home and found it empty with the den door forced open. My instincts, and the rotted bananas in the fruit basket, told me that Rossetti had left suddenly and was unquestionably on the lam. I was hoping that he’d be able to provide some helpful insights as to where Al might’ve gone, although, come to think of it, his shot-in-the-dark hunch about Benzino being Mr. Big turned out to be way off target. Still, for the moment he was all I had.
The news I’d learned from Stan Longinus was not sitting well with me and presented a probable moral dilemma. I now understood why my father had been so dead set against going to the authorities. If, indeed, children had become sick or had died due to his willful abuse of vital environmental laws, no statute of limitations would be able to protect him. He’d be prosecuted civilly and criminally and would no doubt spend the rest of his life in jail. Nothing could stop that now except the preemptive swipe of the assassin’s blade, the one who had taken the lives of Benzino, Otho, and Faciamano. My father’s fate depended on who found him first. In either case his short future would most certainly be less than rosy.
Life as Grace and I knew it would also be irrevocably altered. We’d be the wife and daughter of a social pariah, the family of a man whose greed sickened and killed innocent children. Reporters would hound us around the clock, asking questions like, “Did you know what your father was doing? Do you condone his actions?” No. Of course I don’t. He’s an animal, and I hardly know him. Disgrace would follow us all the days of our lives. The name Mather would become synonymous with greed and moral wantonness. We’d be the selfish millionaire’s family, who profited while innocent children were poisoned. Bernie Madoff would look like an angel by comparison, and we all know what a terrific guy he was.
All right, so I’d finished most of the coffee and was badly in need of a john or, as Grace called it, the loo. I’ve got a pretty large bladder for a gal, but twenty ounces of high-octane coffee can put anyone to the test. I tried to distract myself by poring over the crime files I had pulled on the recently departed. I had already scanned Faciamano’s and Otho’s files and was now ready to look over Benzino’s. Faciamano had done three years on a grand larceny conviction. Otho’s record was clean.
Benzino’s, on the other hand … He had done a stint in the navy as a young man and his record showed frequent criminal activity after he’d been discharged from service. It wasn’t so much what the record showed but what it didn’t. I’ve been trained to read between the lines. Like the inference that is drawn from a long silent pause rather than an admission of guilt, I understood the kind of man that Benzino had been and knew that his painful death had been a long time coming. His life hadn’t been prema
turely curtailed—Enio Benzino had likely been outrunning death for years. He’d been an early juvenile offender and had done a few prison stretches in his early years on a variety of charges, anything from assault to robbery, but he had obviously grown wiser with age. His criminal records ended when he was still in his thirties. I didn’t think that meant he had gone straight. On the contrary, I presumed that he’d been on the wrong side of things so long that he had become expert at staying beyond the grasp of the authorities. Seasoned criminals learn how to fly under the radar, and I was sure Benzino fit that profile. There had to be a lot more to Beacon Hill Partners than met the eye. Most of those who had been associated with it were now either dead or in hiding.
A car rolled past me in the dark and pulled into the parking spot between Rossetti’s room and the room occupied by the popular blonde. I saw her peering out through blinds she’d pulled a finger-span apart at the man sitting behind the wheel of the newly arrived car to see if he might be her next appointment. The blinds snapped shut almost immediately, which could only mean one thing. She recognized him as the man staying next door. He got out of the car and walked toward the motel. I bolted from the car, hoping to get my foot in the door before Rossetti slammed it shut.
Chapter 46
He must’ve heard rapid footsteps coming up behind him because he turned abruptly and seemed prepared for an attack with his fists clenched. His expression softened a bit when he saw that it was a woman. “Who the hell are you?” he asked with concern.
“Monte Rossetti?”
“Who’s asking?”
“Chloe Mather, Al’s daughter.”
He blew a sigh of relief. “I don’t know why I’m surprised you were able to track me down. “Come inside,” he said with urgency. “I don’t know who else might be watching.”
The Mather Triad: Series Boxed Set (Chloe Mather Thrillers) Page 61