“And don’t forget all the medical benefits,” Stella pointed out. “When you retire on full disability from an on-duty injury, you receive the same insurance and benefits that a regular officer receives.”
Mario gave a low whistle. “No wonder the city is in financial trouble,” he said. “They should give you a medal, sis.”
“I’ll settle for the money I owe Sam,” Stella said. The phone rang and she picked it up at the counter.
A feminine voice said, “I’m sorry, but I may have the wrong number. I’m trying to locate Stella Cataloni. The jail gave me this number. Stella listed it for her next of kin when she was booked.”
“Who’s calling?” Stella asked, fearful it might be a reporter. The press had been waiting out front when she’d left the police station. As soon as Stella had seen them, she’d turned around and slipped out the back instead.
“My name’s Janet Hernandez,” the woman said. “Do you remember meeting me? Until today, I was Holly Oppenheimer’s secretary.”
“Certainly, I remember you,” Stella said, thumping Mario on the back to get his attention. “You said ‘until today,’ Janet. You no longer work for Holly?”
Janet didn’t want to take the time to explain. “Listen,” she said, “I have something for you. Can you meet me at the corner of Oak and Clover in about thirty minutes? There’s a Mobil station on the north side of the street. I’ll be waiting in a blue Camaro.”
“I can’t get away right now,” Stella said. “If you need a letter of reference—”
Janet interrupted. “It’s not that,” she said. “I think I’ve got a lead on the person who killed your parents.”
chapter
SEVENTEEN
When Holly came out of her office at the end of the day, she saw the note Janet Hernandez had left. Snatching it off her desk, she crumpled it up in her fist. “Bitch,” she said, heading to Frank Minor’s office to advise him that her secretary had jumped ship. No wonder she had got so much work done, she thought. The phones had all been on hold.
Halfway down the corridor, she remembered the information Janet had given her and went back to the office to retrieve it. Now that she was gone, she’d have to find someone else to continue the research. She started flinging open drawers in Janet’s desk and digging through all her files, but she didn’t find it.
Returning to her own office, she found Janet’s home number and called her. “I don’t give a shit that you quit,” she told her, “but the least you could have done was leave me the damn paperwork on the Cataloni case. Where is it?”
“What paperwork?” Janet said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Holly.”
“If you don’t tell me what you did with that paperwork. Til make certain you never get another job in this town.”
Janet knew Holly meant it, but she no longer cared. She’d been about to walk out the door to meet Stella when Holly had called. “I think I put it in the trash,” she lied. “If you look, Holly, I’m sure you’ll find it.”
“Great,” Holly said, hanging up and rushing to the other room to check the trash can. It was completely empty. She ran next door to the adjoining office and yelled at the secretary, “Did they just come to pick up the trash?”
“A long time ago,” the woman told her. “They always pick it up around lunchtime.”
“Where do they take it?”
“To the incinerator, I guess,” she said, shrugging. “I’m not really sure.”
Holly reviewed her options. “Where do the janitors stay?” she asked.
“In the basement somewhere,” the woman answered.
Holly had already boasted to Minor that she was on to something big. She had to get the paperwork back before it went up in smoke. Kicking off her heels, she sprinted down the hall in her stocking feet.
Friday morning Stella got up and showered, trying to be quiet so she didn’t wake Mario. Once she was dressed, she went to make a pot of coffee. The living room floor was strewn with cardboard boxes, file folders, and bound transcripts, and she had to step around them to get to the kitchen. The materials were from the Happy Day lawsuit, courtesy of Janet Hernandez.
Mario, Janet, and Stella had worked until three in the morning, sifting through the mounds of paperwork in an attempt to find the name of the subcontractor who had poured the foundation. But there was simply too much paperwork, and Stella knew it would take more than a night’s work to sort through it.
The realization that someone other than her uncle might be behind her parents’ deaths had left Stella reeling in confusion and disbelief. Had she brought another senseless tragedy to the Cataloni family? She had tossed and turned in her bed, unable to sleep, asking herself why her uncle had committed suicide. If Janet’s speculations were true, it didn’t make sense. Once the ballistics tests were in, she told herself, things would be more conclusive. If they came back with a positive match on her uncle’s gun, then she would know he was the person who had shot Brenda Anderson.
Stella poured water into the coffeepot, inserted the prepackaged filter, then stood at the kitchen window staring off into space. Too many conflicting thoughts were racing through her head, and she decided to wake Mario after all. Walking into his room, she gently shook his shoulder.
“God, Stella,” he mumbled, “what time is it?”
“Six,” she said. “I’m going out to visit Mom and Dad’s grave. I thought you might want to go with me. I have to be in court at nine. After the hearing, we’ll go back to work on the transcripts from the lawsuit.”
Mario dropped his head back to the pillow and groaned. “I don’t want to go to the cemetery,” he said. “I feel like I just went to bed, Stella. Can’t we go another time?”
“No,” Stella said. “I’m going back to Dallas this weekend. If you don’t want to go, forget it. I just thought I’d ask.” She turned to leave the room when Mario called out to her.
“I’ll go,” he said. “Just give me a few minutes to put my clothes on.”
On the drive over, the morning air was fresh and crisp. A fragrant breeze from the Gulf of Mexico drifted in through the open window. “If Janet is right,” Stella said, “and Clem didn’t set the fire, why did he kill himself? Do you think he did it just to avoid going to jail over the pension scam?”
“Yeah,” Mario said. “You know how tough it must be for a cop in prison.” He shivered, imagining the kind of abuse his uncle would have suffered. “Shit, I’d probably blow my head off too if I was a cop facing a prison sentence. Then again, Stella,” he added, “nothing may come of this stuff from the lawsuit. Just because Dad had something to do with the Happy Day kindergarten disaster doesn’t mean someone killed him over it.”
The cemetery was located on a hill overlooking the Houston Ship Channel, and the air was heavy with the scent of the sea. Stella reached in the backseat and pulled out a bouquet of flowers she had purchased at a grocery store on the way to the cemetery. “Have you ever been out here?” she asked.
“No,” Mario said. “I’ve never seen a reason to come out here. Mom and Dad are dead and gone. It doesn’t make sense to stand around and stare at a grave. What does that accomplish?”
Stella got out of the car and Mario reluctantly followed her. They trudged across the grass, both of them searching for the markers bearing their parents’ names. “It’s a matter of respect,” she said. Once they located the graves, she bent down and placed the flowers between the two stones.
A gust of wind came up, whipping Stella’s hair back from her face. Mario stared at her scar. “I never even knew them,” he said, pulling his eyes away.
“You’ve just forgotten,” Stella whispered.
While Stella stood there without speaking, a strange feeling descended on Mario. Things he hadn’t thought of in years came to mind. “Dad called me sport, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” Stella said.
“He used to take me down to that park on the corner and play catch every Saturday,” he continued. “I don
’t know why he called me sport, though. I was a terrible athlete. Mom was always pumping me full of carbohydrates. I was so fat I couldn’t run for shit.” He turned and glanced behind him at the ship channel. “Didn’t he take us to watch boats or something?”
“In Galveston Bay,” Stella answered. “We used to go on Sundays after mass.”
“He built a boat in the garage one time,” Mario said, chuckling at the memory. “I remember because we took it down to the lake to try it out, and it sank in about ten minutes.”
“That’s why I insisted on this cemetery,” Stella told him. “I wanted Dad to be near the water. He always loved it.”
For five or ten minutes, they both stood perfectly still, each lost in thought. Mario moved closer and squeezed Stella’s hand. She leaned against him. “I’m glad you came.”
“I guess I knew them better than I thought,” Mario sighed. “I should have come a long time ago, Stella. For some reason, being here brings back a lot of memories.”
“It’s all right,” Stella said, linking arms with him as they headed back to the car. “You’ll come now.”
As they got closer to the street, Stella saw a dark brown Chrysler parked at the curb behind her rental car. “Was that car here before?”
“I don’t remember,” he said. “Why?”
Stella turned and looked behind her at the cemetery. “We’re the only people here, Mario, and I’m certain that car wasn’t here when we arrived. It looks like an unmarked police car.”
“Over there,” Mario shouted, yanking on Stella’s arm. “Quick, get behind the tree.”
Stella threw herself on the ground instead, placing her hands over her head. “Get down, Mario,” she shouted, certain someone was about to open fire. When her brother had dropped to the ground beside her, she panted, “What did you see?”
“Shsssh,” he said. “Look through the branches of that tree, Stella. Do you see it? It looks like the barrel of a shotgun.”
“Oh, God,” she said in terror. “We have to get out of here. We can’t just wait for them to kill us.” She scrambled to her feet, in full panic, but Mario pulled her back down.
“If you run for it, Stella,” he said, his eyes glued on the object in the trees, “they’ll pick you off in a second. Just stay calm. Maybe it’s a piece of wood or something, and I was mistaken.”
Stella clenched her eyes shut and prayed. A few moments later, she heard leaves crunching, followed by the sound of a man’s voice. “Well, look what we’ve got here,” the voice said, kicking out and connecting with Mario’s rib cage. Mario started to retaliate when the man swung a shotgun from his side and placed the muzzle against Mario’s cheek. “Two birds in the bush instead of one,” he said. “This must be my lucky day.”
Stella’s eyes flew open. Sergeant Phil McDonald was standing over her, his blue eyes burning with hate. He laughed, dropping the shotgun back to his side. “You fucking bastard,” she snarled. “What are you doing? Following me?”
Phil McDonald walked off, turning to yell back over his shoulder. “Better be careful out here, Stella,” he said. “You don’t want to end up in one of these graves.”
Dressed in a pale blue suit with pink trim, Stella made her way to Judge Maddox’s courtroom, her heels tapping on the linoleum as she walked down the corridor. Once she had dropped Mario at his apartment and dashed inside to change her clothes, she had driven to Fitzgerald’s office to tell him what had occurred at the cemetery. He had been sympathetic, but he had not been reassuring. His best advice was for Stella to leave Houston immediately. He could reprimand Sergeant McDonald, he’d told her, but he could not control the entire police department.
Stella’s steps slowed, then faltered as she saw Brad waiting outside the door to the courtroom. “What are you doing here?”
“I was worried about you,” he said. “I read about what happened in the paper. It was terrible. How’s that woman, the one who was shot?”
“She’s getting better,” Stella said. Glancing at her watch, she saw it was almost nine. “Are you going to stay for the hearing?” she asked. She couldn’t help feeling pleased that he had come.
“Might as well,” Brad answered. “I thought I’d take you out to lunch when you’re finished. Are you available?”
Her suspicions flared. “To discuss the financial agreement?”
“Not exactly,” he said. “I thought we’d talk, you know. Spend some time together.”
Stella didn’t know what to think. His face was haggard and pale, and he looked older than his fifty-four years. Was he ill? Had something happened with his girlfriend? Or did he have something else up his sleeve? Maybe he was trying to soften her up so she would go easy on him when they finally got around to settling their affairs. “Let’s see how it goes in court,” she said, opening the door and stepping through.
Stella parted company with her husband and took her seat at the counsel table. Judge Maddox called the case, then looked at Holly. “I was informed that the People are prepared to dismiss in this matter. Is that correct?”
“No, Your Honor,” Holly said, glancing over at Stella and seeing the look of surprise register on her face. “New information has recently surfaced regarding this crime. Whereas the people are prepared to admit that Ms. Cataloni may not have been responsible for the deaths of her parents, we are not willing to terminate these proceedings until she returns the evidence that’s currently in her possession.”
“What evidence are you referring to?” Judge Maddox asked.
“The pieces of metal found in the house,” Holly answered. “This evidence should never have been released directly to Ms. Cataloni, Your Honor. We agreed that the defense could conduct their own examinations, but the evidence was to be under our control at all times. I’m not even certain where it is right now.”
“Ms. Cataloni,” the judge said, tossing the ball to Stella.
“Your Honor,” Stella said, “the evidence in question is presently in my brother’s apartment. Because of what occurred, I never had it sent to a lab. All I need is an hour or so to drive to my brother’s apartment to retrieve it.”
“If so,” Judge Maddox said, “and it’s agreeable to the prosecution, we could trail to the end of today’s calendar and resolve this issue then.”
“I’m sorry, Your Honor,” Holly said, a smile flickering on her lips. “I have a sentencing hearing this afternoon and I anticipate it’s going to run late. We’ll have to continue until Monday morning or later in the week.”
Stella tensed. If she stayed in Houston, she might not survive until Monday. After the incident in the cemetery, she knew her uncle’s friends would stop at nothing to get back at her. “It’s not even ten o’clock,” she said. “With the court’s permission, I can call and see if my brother can bring the metal chips to me right now. That way we can take care of this before the noon break.”
“That’s not going to work,” Judge Maddox said, studying her calendar. “I have another matter set for ten that will run all the way to lunch. Ms. Oppenheimer, would you consider dismissing and taking Ms. Cataloni’s word that she will return the evidence?”
“No, Your Honor,” Holly said. “We must have this evidence. As I just stated, we have new activity on this case and may find ourselves prosecuting another individual in the future. We refuse to dismiss until we have the evidence back in our possession.” She paused, thinking. “In addition, we need time to examine this evidence and verify that it’s in the same condition as when it was delivered. My suggestion is to have Ms. Cataloni get the evidence to us today. Then we’ll have a chance to conclude this matter next week.”
“Monday it is, then,” Judge Maddox said, jotting down the date and time in the file. “This matter is continued until ten o’clock Monday.”
Stella was furious. Grabbing her briefcase, she gave Holly a scathing glance before heading down the aisle.
“Stella, wait,” Holly said, catching up to her. “I need to talk to you.”
&nbs
p; “I have nothing to say to you.”
They hit the double doors at the same time. “You’re making a mistake,” Holly said. “Didn’t you hear what I just said in there? Your uncle might not have been the one who set the fire. My secretary left me in a bind, or I would have been able to follow through on this by now.”
“Oh, really?” Stella said, arching an eyebrow. “You’re a little behind, Holly. Fitzgerald told me the ballistics tests on my uncle’s gun came back this morning. The tests were positive. My uncle shot Brenda Anderson. His cronies at the police department probably don’t believe it, but we have the evidence to prove it.”
Holly massaged her temples. “But this is something different, Stella.”
“You couldn’t even trust me to return those stupid pieces of metal?” Stella shouted, “If you had, I could get out of this frigging town. Because of you, I’m stuck here until next week.” She saw Brad emerge from the courtroom, and before he had a chance to speak, she snapped, “I can’t go to lunch. I have too much to do.”
“Stupid pieces of metal?” Holly exclaimed. For all I know, those pieces of metal could be the key to this entire case. If you were in my shoes, you’d have done the same thing.”
“Sure, right,” Stella said. “And I’d fuck your brother too.”
Holly’s face turned ashen. She recovered quickly, though, and the same confident look appeared on her face. “What’s the big deal, Stella? We’re both single. I didn’t seduce him, anyway. He seduced me. You can’t have me disbarred for sleeping with your brother. Except for the cocaine, he’s a nice guy. To tell you the truth, I kind of like him.”
“You tried to manipulate him,” Stella spat at her. “It was bad enough you agreed to prosecute me, but going after my brother was disgusting.”
When she arrived at Mario’s apartment to pick up the metal chips, Stella found the door locked. After searching in her purse for the spare key he had given her and not finding it, she started beating the door with her fists. “Shit, damn, hell,” she yelled. Where was Mario? If she didn’t get the evidence back today, they might not be able to examine it and the case would be held over again.
Trial by Fire Page 30