by Dana Donovan
When she buried Travis a nearly a year ago, Karen reserved a plot right next to him for her own eventual interment. I’m sure she never expected to join him so soon. Had she known, she might have told them just to dig one large hole and wait for her before filling it in. I know that sounds sick, but trust me. I wasn’t the only one there thinking that. Cops can get cynical sometimes, especially at funerals. And there were a lot of cops at Karen’s.
Carlos, Spinelli and I stood back a ways, under a large elm for shade, the same tree Carlos and I stood beneath to get out of the rain last year. Back then, we kept our distance because the attendees were mostly participants in Doctor Lieberman's workshop. This time we held back to let the men and women of the First Precinct have front row to honor their own. It’s not that Karen wasn’t one of us, or we one of them. But cops are like family, and as with all families, you have your pecking order.
The service was just winding down, the American flag already folded and presented to Karen’s kin, when Spinelli tapped me on the shoulder.
“What is it?” I asked. His face looked pale white.
“Over there,” he said, pointing.
I looked out at a sea of police uniforms with black suits and dresses peppered within. “Where?”
“There!” he said again, pointing harder, straighter, as though he might reach all the way to his target. The guy wearing the dark sunglasses.”
“Everybody’s wearing dark sunglasses,” I said.
“Yeah, but I’m talking about the guy with the short sleeve shirt and tattoos. Isn’t that Piakowski?”
“It is!” I said. I grabbed Carlos by the arm to tell him, but he had already heard us and picked Piakowski out from the crowd. “Let’s go have a chat with him, shall we?” I motioned in two semi-circles. “Carlos, you go around the left. Spinelli, go right. I’ll come up the middle and flush him out.”
We headed out, just as the crowd began to break up. I spotted Carlos moving fast along the left flank, but lost Spinelli among the taller heads filtering to the right. I felt confident Piakowski had not realized we were on to him, but in his haste to make tracks, he was moving pretty good. Beyond the break in the stone wall where it fed into the older section of cemetery, I spotted Spinelli. He dashed out ahead of Piakowski and was coming back at him head on. I quickened my pace. Carlos began to slide in from the side. We were putting the squeeze on Piakowski and he never saw it coming. When I got close enough, I called out to him. “Greg! Gregory Piakowski! You got a minute?”
He turned and looked back over his shoulder. I waved and smiled like we were old friends. “Greg! It’s me. Wait up!”
He hesitated, thought twice about it, and then started away in a trot. This time I called for him to stop. Half a dozen police officers heard the command and drew their weapons. Spinelli charged him head-on, his arms crisscrossed at his chest. The two collided just as Carlos drilled in from the side, knocking both to the ground. I reached them not two seconds later and already Piakowski had five Glock 9’s pointing at his head, and three nightsticks thumping the back of his legs.
“All right, thank you, guys! Thank you,” I said, patting backs and shaking hands. “I think we can take it from here. Thanks again.”
The swarm of blue hornets dispersed as quickly as they descended. Carlos and Spinelli pulled Piakowski to his feet, and the three spent the next half-minute brushing grass and dirt from their clothes. I grabbed Piakowski by the wrist gave it a twist.
“You’re not going to try and run, are you?” I said. “Because if you do, next time I’ll have these fine officers shoot first and ask questions later.”
Piakowski shook his head. “I’m not gonna run.”
“You ran once already.”
“I didn’t know who you were.”
“Who did you think I was? You’re at a funeral for a cop.”
“I dun`no. Reporters maybe?”
“What, newspaper?”
“Ah-huh.”
“Why would you run from a reporter?”
“Don’t know. Thought maybe you found out.”
“Found out what?” said Carlos. He grabbed Piakowski’s other wrist.
“Nothin`. I dun`no nuthin`.”
“Why did you come here?”
“To say goodbye.”
Carlos jerked his wrist and gave it an unnatural twist. “Didn’t you say goodbye to her when you killed her!”
“Ouuugh! Stop! It hurts!”
I signaled for Carlos to ease up. “So what it hurts? You don’t think Karen Webber hurt when you threw her off that balcony?”
“I didn’t throw nobody off no balcony. I swear. I came here to say goodbye. That’s all.”
“What do you know about the deaths of Anna Davalos and Bridget Dean?”
“Nothin`! I swear!”
“Why were you and Ricardo Rivera together recently at an outdoor café? What were you planning?”
“Nothin`. We was just havin` coffee.”
“Why did you kill Karen Webber?” With that, I motioned for Carlos to turn up the heat again.
“Ouuugh! I didn’t do it! Stop! I swear I didn’t do nothin`. Ya gotta believe me!”
“Tell me what you don’t want the reporters to know.”
“I cant! Aghh! Please!”
“Tell me!”
“Ouuugh! All right. All right, I’ll tell you. Just please stop!”
I signaled for Carlos to stop, and both he and I released Piakowski’s wrists. He grabbed hold of the one Carlos had twisted and tucked it to his gut.
“All right, Piakowski. Talk. What’s so earth-shattering that you don’t want the papers to know?”
“It’s Karen,” he said. “We had plans that night.”
“What plans?”
“Friday. We were going to get together for dinner at her apartment.” He reached for an inside pocket in the lining of his jacket. Out of reflex, Spinelli drew his weapon, fell into a shooter’s stance and lowered it at Piakowski’s chest. Carlos and I barely flinched. As rookies, instincts might have had us to do the same thing Spinelli did, but experience told us not to. I waved my hand over Spinelli’s Glock. He looked at me and then at Carlos. I could almost see the question mark over his head. Piakowski removed his hand slowly from his jacket and Spinelli holstered his weapon accordingly.
“It’s just a Marlboro,” Piakowski said. I nodded okay and he finished getting the pack from his jacket. His hands were still shaking as he lit the cigarette, but his first two puffs seemed to calm his nerves considerably. I waited until he went for his third drag before stopping his hand halfway to his face.
“Wait. Tell me more.”
“It’s true,” he answered, eyeing his smoke with anticipation. “We started seeing each other a few weeks ago. I met her downtown where Ricardo works. Karen came there a lot to see Bridget Dean. The two went to lunch together all the time. One day I asked Ricardo to introduce us.”
Carlos crowded Piakowski and nudged him back a step. “That’s a lie! Karen would never date a thug like you. We’ve seen your record.”
He stiffened his back and shoulders. “I know that’s what Ricardo said. He told me she was a cop. But I didn’t care. I wanted to meet her.” He looked at me, and then at his cigarette. “Please?” I let his hand go and watched him suck the life from that cigarette like it was his last. He snuffed the butt out under his heel and continued. “Listen, guys, you gotta believe me. I did my time. I’ve gone straight. I told Karen that. She believed me. She believed in me. She gave me a chance.”
Spinelli stepped in. “She would never go out with a murderer. And you’ve been convicted of murder-one.”
“That wasn’t murder. That was self-defense. I got that conviction overturned. If you reviewed my file, you know that.”
“No. Your hot-shot, fast-talking lawyer got that conviction overturned.”
“He couldn’t have done it if the evidence didn’t support it.”
“Forget that,” I said. “What happened the night
you were supposed to meet Karen for dinner?”
He looked off into the distance, as if the answer might play out for him somewhere in the trees. “She wanted me over around five,” he said. “I was only runnin` a couple of minutes late, so I didn’t bother to call.” I looked at Carlos, remembering that I asked him to check Karen’s phone records for about that time. He gave me a subtle nod. Piakowski continued. “I was walkin` like I always do, seeing as I got no driver’s license. From a few blocks away, I hear all these sirens, cop cars, fire engines, ambulance. I think, boy, that’s some fire. Then I turn the corner by her apartment and I see all them fire and police men and whatnot. So I hold up a minute, I mean, cops make me jumpy, you know.
“But then I look down on the sidewalk, and I can’t believe my eyes. They’s throwin` a sheet over Karen. I started to shake inside and all over. They’s gonna think I done this, I say to myself. Who’s gonna believe I didn’t? So I turned and ran. I already knew about Bridget and that girl from the coffee shop. I told Ricardo I was scared, and he hid me in his guesthouse. I wouldn’t have ever come out, but for Karen’s funeral. I hadda see her and say goodbye. I just hadda. You gotta believe me. That’s the gawd’s honest truth.”
I put my hand out to shake Piakowski’s. He took it reluctantly, and shook it. He probably expected me to slap the cuffs on him and throw him in jail. I saw in Spinelli’s eyes that he wanted me to do it. In Carlos’, I wasn’t so sure. The old Cuban’s getting harder to read these days. Of course, none of what Carlos, Spinelli or I thought mattered. Guilty or not, we hadn’t a shred of evidence to haul Piakowski into jail. But he didn’t need to know that. I still had his hand in mine. I pulled him in close so that he could not mix my words.
“Listen, Piakowski, the department will have you under constant surveillance from now on. If you plan to change your place of residence, you better tell us. And tell Rivera if he tries to help you leave town, we’ll have the bar pull his license for aiding and abetting a felon. You got it?”
“Got it, I got it. Thank you so much. You won’t be sorry, believe me. Thank you.” He turned to Carlos and Spinelli. “Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you.”
He shook hands with Carlos, but Spinelli would have none of it. The three of us watched as Piakowski hurried off through the cemetery, zigzagging and crisscrossing headstones like a bumblebee. Carlos turned to me and smiled. I knew that look, spontaneous though it was. Spinelli had not yet learned to read all the subtleties and nuances that came with it, though those mostly only hinted at the depth of his impulse. I pulled my wallet from my back pocket and opened the fold.
“Yeah, Carlos, I guess so,” I said. His smile broadened by degrees. “Where is it this time?”
“Where else?” he answered, his hands splayed, palms up.
“The Perk?”
“Turkey Tuesday,” He said. “You gotta love it.”
Turkey Tuesday is everything Meatball Monday is and more. I never knew that a turkey could be baked, boiled, broiled, braised, barbecued, poached, seared, stewed, steamed, sautéed, roasted, grilled, fried, deep-fried and fricasseed. And don’t get me going on the multitude of stuffing fixings. They have a plate on the menu they call, Super Turkey Sampler. To date, only Carlos has ever been able to finish one, lock, stock and barrel. He told me this on the way to The Percolator. I thanked him for that information, and seeing that I was paying, made him promise he wouldn’t order one.
“Fine. I’ll have room for dessert,” he said, like that might sway me.
We got to the Perk and placed our orders with Natalie, who graduated from lunch counter to booths and tables for the afternoon. Then after waiting for Carlos to return from the restroom (he pees like a Chihuahua: often and quickly), we settled in for a round of brainstorming over the case and the latest developments concerning Gregory Piakowski. Carlos was of the opinion that Piakowski lied about everything: dating Karen Webber, coming up on the calamity at her apartment after her fall, and especially about going straight. He reasoned that an innocent man wouldn’t run, and reiterated his belief that Karen would never knowingly date a convicted felon. I pointed out how Piakowski did know about Karen’s dinner plans, a detail of the case never released to the public.
“It took place at dinner time,” he argued. “He didn’t have to know about her plans to guess she eats around then.”
“So why did he throw Rivera under the bus? Piakowski didn’t have to volunteer where he’s been hiding out. He could have said he’s been laying low.”
“He’s a thug, Tony. You put the squeeze on a thug and he’ll squeal like a pig. You know that. Why are you sticking up for the guy?”
Natalie showed up. I sat back as she distributed a round of iced teas to the table. She served Spinelli first and then me. When she set Carlos’ tea down, I saw them exchange glances and a wink. We all thanked her. She told us we were welcomed, her smile never failing. As soon as she walked away, I hit Carlos on the shoulder.
“What was that?”
He gave me that guilty, eye-blinking routine that’s supposed to look like wounded pride. “What?”
“That wink. Don’t think we didn’t see it. You saw it, Spinelli, didn’t you?”
“He shrugged non-committal. “I don’t know. It might have been something in his eye.”
“It was,” said Carlos. “I had something in my eye.”
“Yeah, and so didn’t Natalie, right?”
“Sure, probably a lash.”
I looked to Spinelli and waved a stern finger at him. “You. He’s corrupting you. Do you know that?”
“You didn’t answer me,” said Carlos, in his subtle way of changing the subject.
“What?”
“I asked why you were sticking up for Piakowski.”
“I’m not sticking up for him. I’m only trying to get you to look at all sides of the puzzle.”
“I’m looking at all sides.” He took a sip of tea, emptied six packets of sugar into his glass, gave it a stir, and sipped again. “But no matter how I turn it, I still see Piakowski as a liar, a thug and a killer.”
“And that’s okay if that’s how you see it, just so long as you’re looking at it through a prism and not a straw.” I turned to Spinelli. “How `bout you, son? What’s your gut telling you?”
He rocked his head to one side. “I don’t know. After the show Piakowski put on for us at the cemetery, I’m less sure now. I think if Rivera were going to help Piakowski after murdering someone, then instead of hiding him in his guesthouse he would have helped him get out of town altogether.”
“Not if they weren’t done knocking off people from their hit list,” Carlos said.
I agreed. “A reasonable assumption, but to assume that, is to suggest that the link the victims share with the workshops conceals another motive, and if so, then someone else from the workshops will die next.”
Spinelli said, “That still doesn’t explain why Piakowski came to Karen’s funeral. If he had a hand in her death, that’s the last place I would expect to see him.”
Carlos snapped his fingers and pointed at Spinelli. “Exactly! Piakowski felt comfortable enough to go to the funeral and scope out his next victim because he knew no one would look for him there.”
“So the question is if he’s going to kill someone, who is it?”
“Who from the old workshop is left?”
“Lilith,” I said, “and of course, Benjamin Rivera and Carol Kessler. And we don’t know for sure, but we can’t forget the three amigos that dropped out of the workshop early: Stinky, Lucky and Crazy.”
Carlos laughed at that. “Sounds like a nightclub act. Maybe they should go out on the road.”
“Maybe they already have,” said Spinelli.
“What do you mean?”
“Connect the dots. Think about it. Instead of potential victims, maybe one of them is our suspect?”
“We can’t rule that out,” I said.
“I recommend we concentrate on the victims at hand,” said Carlos,
“before we focus on future victims.”
“All fine and good I suppose, but we still have one very large question to answer. If Piakowski or Rivera or both are culpable in the deaths of those women, then how did they do it?”
That silenced the table. The answer seemed as far from reach as the moon. I considered that Rivera might have manipulated the security video to wash out visual records of him shooting Bridget Dean and planting a gun in her hand. I also accepted the possibility that he or Piakowski could have forced entry into Anna Davalos’ apartment and slashed her wrists while holding her at gunpoint. But in my wildest dreams, I could not wrap my mind around the idea that one or both somehow broke into Karen Webber’s apartment, forced her to jump to her death, and then escaped the apartment undetected. I entertained, but then quickly dismissed, the possibility that the dark force of magic might have somehow played a hand in this evil affair when….
“Mind control!” Spinelli shouted.
Carlos and I jumped so high we nearly fell out of our seats. “Come again?”
Spinelli lowered his voice. Still, his excitement had the veins on the side of his neck bulging. “Sure, think about it. What if someone got to those women, I mean, got into their heads and made them commit suicide? That would explain how the murders could occur while the women were alone and behind locked doors.”
“Could that happen?” I asked.
“Why not? You’ve seen stranger things,” he said. “Carlos told me all about the weird paranormal and supernatural stuff you and he witnessed last year.”
“But we never saw total mind control.”
“It makes sense though, doesn’t it?”
“I guess, but…. Carlos, what do you think?”
“I’ve seen stranger things, Tony. And you told me about that thought form thing that played out on the window that time. That was strange.”
“Yes, but that was a manifestation of energy harnessed by collective thought. It never got into anyone’s mind.”
“What if it wasn’t just energy, but a someone?” Spinelli asked.
“What do you mean?”