“Didn’t want to worry you unnecessarily.”
“Unnecessarily?” Her voice rose. “Unnecessarily? It couldn’t have been a chance meeting! He must’ve followed you!”
“He probably did, but nothing happened, he just wanted to talk.”
“What about? What did he want to talk about?”
“The past. About Maggie Swain and Constance Delavaria.”
“There’s gotta be more to it than that. What else did he say?”
“Well, he keeps saying he’s playing a game, and I’m in the game, but I don’t know what his game is, or how I’m in it.”
“Matt, he’s crazy!” she cried, emotion running over. “He’s going to do something to you. Please don’t go anywhere alone until he’s caught. Take Ed with you.”
“I’m not gonna hide, babe, not from Leon, not from nobody. If I take to hiding I might as well get a job making brooms.”
She came over and put her arms around me.
“I love you,” she whispered. “I would never want you to hide. But you can take precautions.”
“I take precautions, babe,” I said, kissing her back. “There’s nothing to worry about. As soon as I figure out why he’s taken a liking to me I’ll know where we stand.”
“Maybe he remembers your name from the Maggie Swain case. You were certainly in all the papers then. Maybe he’s saying you couldn’t catch him then and you can’t catch him now. Just taunting.”
“That’s possible. The first time I talked to him he asked if I was the Matt Doyle was with Homicide years ago. I told him I was. Just one more nail, toots. Leon’s the killer, but who’s Leon?”
“I don’t know, but I think we better find out pretty damn quick.”
Kelley left, still looking for Tamika Johnson, and a few minutes later Eddie Westphal came in. I told him about the latest developments and he listened quietly.
“You’re probably right about it being taunting,” he said when I’d finished. “Taunting you and the police. That’s all it is, Matthew. He killed eight women eight years ago and you didn’t catch him, and you aren’t going to catch him this time, either. The man is smart, Matthew. Crazy as hell, but smart. Probably knows all about DNA and doesn’t care. He’s left enough of it around. He probably doesn’t know about Driscoll’s mail, though, and that’s where Frank will get him. As for the phone calls and the meeting in the subway being threats, I think not. I think he’s just getting his kicks. When he’s ready to threaten you, he’ll tell you. For now, it’s just taunting.”
“That’s what I think too, Ed, though I’m not quite ready to accept Frank’s explanation that Bobby Micelli was killed during a robbery. If Leon blamed me for Maureen’s death, maybe he blamed Bobby as well. It was Bobby who put us together. Plus, Bobby saw him. Leon might not care about DNA, but he probably cares about his face being on a composite.”
“Let’s give it a few days, see what kind of evidence they come up with. You might be right, but I’m inclined to agree with Frank, it was robbery. Coincidences happen.”
“The guy’s nuts, Ed, and if he killed Bobby Micelli, then he’s branching out, and who knows who might be next?”
“He isn’t killing at random, Matthew. If he did Bobby, then it’s all connected somehow in his mind.”
“I think you’re right. What happened in Stone Harbor?”
“Well, I found our Max Kimmel. He came in after dinner and Jerry pointed him out to me. I sat next to him and engaged him in conversation. I told him I was interested in buying a boat. Seems like a good guy, interesting to talk to. I walked out shortly after he did and got his license number as he drove away. I’ll get somebody to run it and then we’ll have his address.”
“Good work, though I’m not sure how to approach him, or even if we should, at least until we know if he took possession of the diamonds.”
“I’d say to let him lay for a while, see if we need him. At least we know where he is. By the way, did you know Stone Harbor is real close to Avalon, Louise’s password? Just a thought. Incidentally, Jerry let me look at the bar accounts for two hundred dollars. I didn’t tell him who I was interested in. Max Kimmel was in the Stone Harbor yacht club bar the day before Tommy DeMarco got shot.”
“The day before, huh? The more we know the more it looks like the diamond merchant isn’t involved.”
“That’s how it looks to me too. Tommy was killed one of four ways. By Jimmy Pompo alone, the wife alone, the wife and Ray Villani, or the son. As far as we know, they’re the only ones who knew about the diamonds, or could’ve known about them.”
“What about Max?”
“There’s always Max, but I don’t see him driving up to South Philly to put a bullet in somebody’s ear. That’s not what he does. But whoever did put the bullet in Tommy DeMarco’s ear turned the diamonds over to Max. Jerry says Max headed out again on his boat a couple days after he got back.”
“Did he know which day?”
“He thinks it was a Sunday.”
“The Sunday after Tommy was shot?”
“Yes. Early afternoon.”
“Did Jerry know where Max was going?”
“He says not.”
“Sounds like you had a long night.”
“Things went pretty quick, all over by nine. Got home about eleven, wide awake, fired up the computer. Talked to all hours of the morning on CopTalk, laying out what we know, bringing them up to date. I told them about the killings and the spiders eight years ago and now starting up again. They seemed real interested.”
“I look forward to retirement.”
“I know. It’s a bitch. We went back and forth on it, and there were some pretty good suggestions. A retired homicide dick from Tucson said he had a similar case about twenty years ago. The perp shut down for a couple years, then started up again. When they caught him, it turned out he’d been in jail on something totally unrelated. When he got out he started up again.”
“Everybody has a story like that,” I said. “Remember Phil Merriman? Must’ve done twenty, thirty rapes, all in Mount Airy, Chestnut Hill, and then all of a sudden he stopped. Turns out he was in jail for armed robbery, held up a Seven Eleven. When he got out he started right up again.”
“They’re just interested, Matthew. That’s all it is, cop talk. We don’t have anything else to talk about, it’s been our whole lives, so when we retire we like to talk about it. Nobody had any spectacular insights. Just interested, is all.”
“Do you still have that list of names you got off Driscoll’s computer?”
“I have it. Only they weren’t real names, they were usernames.”
“I want to talk to some of those people. Can we get the real names without a court order?”
“We can, but it’s only been three days, Matthew. Why not give Frank a chance? Let him get his court order and get to work.”
“He has the court order. I offered to call the names on the list, but Frank seemed to think the suits upstairs wouldn’t go for it. He’ll try, but didn’t seem hopeful. They’re gonna try to match the names in Driscoll’s computer with names of guys recently let out of jail. In the meantime, Leon is killing people. The guy’s mad about something, Ed. There’ve been three killings in the last seven days, four if he did Micelli, and I think he did. Even if they already have the list from the service providers, they’re facing a big job. The guy might not even been in jail.”
“I’m sure they’re looking down more than one alley, Matthew.”
“Probably are, but we might be looking at another two weeks before they find him, maybe another couple of killings. Mrs. Latham put up ten thousand dollars reward money. Maybe somebody will be interested.”
“Why not, it might work. As it happens, I know a couple of people.”
“We don’t need the whole list, just the guys who contacted her in the week before her death. If it has to be narrowed down further, just the guys who live in center city.”
“Are you looking for anything in particular
?”
“Just grasping at straws. I’ll know him when I hear him.”
“All right, I’ll get to work on it.”
The phone rang. Sammy Weese had worked his usual magic. Steve the hoagie man would see us.
“Let’s go, Ed,” I said, my mouth watering at the thought of the smell of a South Philly hoagie shop. “Should be there in time for lunch.”
We found Ed’s car and started off. “One of the guys I was talking to last night on CopTalk,” Ed said, car in gear and running smoothly, “was a guy called Phil Connors, who said he had a similar incident in Cleveland three years ago.”
“Who’s Phil Connors and similar to what?”
“Phil Connors is an ex-homicide dick, retired like the rest of us. He says they had one in Cleveland three years ago but it wasn’t his case so he doesn’t know all the details. They had a woman found tied to a bed, throat slashed, but no rubber spider, at least not that he remembered. He also didn’t remember how she was tied.”
“Have you told this to Frank?”
“It might not be the same guy. Phil says he’ll get in touch with Cleveland Homicide and tell them what we have here. If it turns out Cleveland also had a fake spider in her vagina, I’ll tell Frank then.”
“I gather they never caught him, so it could be the same guy. Maybe he just didn’t have a spider handy that night. Was there only one in Cleveland?”
“Phil says there was only the one. Makes you wonder if there were others, in Columbus or Cincinnati, say, or maybe even Chicago. Our boy might have been wandering the countryside and nobody noticed a pattern. We have guys on CopTalk from all over the country, Matthew, guys from Seattle and St. Louis and Memphis and wherever. We talked about it last night, and decided we’d get in touch with people we know, people we worked with, check around, see if anybody else had a similar killing. There’s not a lot of coordination, Matthew. People have been talking about a central clearinghouse for law enforcement information for a long time, and now maybe we have it. Maybe more cops should get on the Internet, talk to each other.”
I agreed it sounded like a good idea.
Steve Marone was the name of the hoagie man. We walked into the sandwich shop at the appointed time, and I was submerged in the most wonderful smells imaginable. Hot peppers, lunchmeats, cheeses. Steve seemed cooperative, though not at all affable.
“Sammy asked me to talk to you,” he said gruffly, “so I’m talking to you. Come on in the back room. Danny, take care of things for a minute.”
We followed him through a door and into a narrow passage, Buster doing his usual great job. I heard another door open and we followed him in. Steve said, “Have a seat.”
“Thanks for seeing us, Steve,” I said. “Did Sammy tell you what we want to talk about?”
“Yeah. You want to know who I sold a Ruger Mark II target pistol to.”
“That’s right. What else did he tell you?”
“That’s all. Just who did I sell the Ruger to.”
“Who did you sell it to?”
“Tommy DeMarco.”
“Thanks, Steve,” I said, and got to my feet.
“Sammy said to make you a hoagie. We got the best hoagies in South Philly. Capicola, provolone, Genoa salami. You want peppers or on the side?”
Back in the office, we discovered Steve was right about the hoagies.
“I think we’ve about reached the end of the line,” Ed said, chewing his sandwich noisily. “I think we have to give this all to Acker. Let the cops talk to Steve Marone. If Steve tells them the same thing he’s told us, they’ve tied the murder weapon to the victim, and that usually points to the spouse. Tell them about the diamonds and Max Kimmel coming back from the Bahamas early.”
“I agree,” I said.
I was conflicted. I was under contract to Sammy Weese and had an ethical obligation to his client, but it looked to me like the quickest way to get his client off the hook was to let the cops look into the diamond business. That meant I had to tell them Jimmy was a participant in a million dollar armed robbery, abduction and kidnapping, and probably a couple dozen other related offenses as well, but as near as I could figure out, there wasn’t much could be done to him unless the victim came forward to report a crime, and according to Sammy, he hadn’t done so.
“One thing bothers me,” I said. “Why hasn’t the diamond merchant reported the crime?”
“Maybe he’s waiting to see what happens.”
“You’d think he’d report it just for insurance purposes.”
“Maybe he wasn’t insured. We don’t know anything about those people, Matthew. We don’t know how they work, we don’t know how they think. Maybe they’re waiting for Jimmy Pompo to get out of jail so they can even the score.”
“Jimmy’s out.”
“Right, and if he goes down we’ll know why they didn’t report it. Until somebody else gets murdered, Matthew, whether or not the diamond merchant reported the crime doesn’t affect us.”
“I guess you’re right,” I sighed. “In any event, I’ve gotta talk to Sammy, tell him what I think we should do.”
“He probably won’t like it.”
“Probably not. I’ll probably have to listen to some weeping and wailing, maybe even some gnashing of teeth.”
I made the call, and said, “Good afternoon, Sam. Got a few things I need to talk over. Firstly, Eddie and I are agreed, we gotta go to the cops. Steve Marone says the murder weapon belonged to Tommy DeMarco, he sold it to him personally. My money’s on Irene DeMarco, but this is about as far as Eddie and I can take it. You need the cops now, Sammy. You need somebody who can examine bank records for recent large deposits, you need somebody who can put large numbers of people on the street just to talk to the neighbors. Irene DeMarco had access to that gun, and it looks like she hired somebody to do her husband. Somebody knows about it, Sam, and that’s what the cops do best, find out who knows about it.”
Sammy didn’t say anything for a longish while. I have learned the art of patience. Finally, he said, “You think it was Irene?”
“Reasonably certain. She had enough motive even without the diamonds. She may not have acted alone, Max Kimmel might be involved beyond fencing the jewels, Ray Villani may be involved. We won’t know until Irene decides to talk.”
“If she did it, she certainly won’t admit it to you or me.”
“Exactly. That’s why we need the cops. Even so, I might have a hard time convincing Dan Acker he’s got the wrong man.”
I’ve noticed people sigh when they come to a reluctant decision. “All right, Doyle,” Sammy said slowly, “take it to the cops. I have the feeling you’re going to do it whether I agree or not.”
“Yes,” I said, “I am. Because it needs to be done. Because I think we’ve uncovered the murderer, and it’s my duty to tell the authorities what we’ve found. Look at it this way, Sammy. Now the cops will be looking for somebody else. That’s a plus, if you ask me.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Still, Jimmy won’t be happy to hear the cops know about the diamond merchant.”
“Tell him it’s that or sit on death row for thirty years.”
“I’ll tell him. In the meantime, keep on it for me. I don’t trust Dan Acker to give Jimmy up so readily. As near as I can see, to Dan Acker the diamond business merely gives Jimmy a solid reason to off his confederate over a business dispute. Up until now, the weakness in Dan’s case was he didn’t have a reasonable motive for Jimmy to kill his best friend. Now he has.”
“The cops are reasonable people. We give Acker the killer, he’s not gonna turn it down. The second thing we’ve got to do is find the shooter. Maybe another talk with Irene. See what she knows about that Ruger 22.”
“That might be too close. I don’t want to spook her. Let’s wait on that. If the cops don’t follow up, then we can talk to her.”
“Talk to some of your contacts, Sammy. Maybe the shooter talked about it with his buddies. Maybe somebody you know has a name for u
s.”
“All right,” Sammy said, “I’ll ask around. Let me know what Dan Acker has to say.”
I called the Roundhouse and Acker was there, said he’d probably be there all weekend. Everybody works when you have a madman running loose, even guys not directly involved. The Mayor was screaming, the papers were screaming, the TV suits and haircuts were screaming, and manpower gets stretched, and everyone has to double up. I briefed him on what we had and he invited us over, though he didn’t sound all that happy.
Twenty minutes later we were in the Roundhouse. Dan said, “Hiya, Eddie, hiya Doyle,” in a voice every bit as raspy as Frank Kopf’s. He led us down a corridor, and thanks to Buster I didn’t knock anything over. I heard voices in the background, the workaday sounds of squad room conversation, and from time to time someone said hello.
We got to where we were going, apparently, for we stopped and Dan said, “We’ll use this office here. You mind if I record this?”
Both Eddie and I knew Dan Acker from the old days. He was a big guy, as I remembered, six three, six four, about two seventy, two eighty. A big guy. He was in his early fifties then, and I had a feeling the years hadn’t changed him much. To me he would always be as I saw him last, arrogant, contemptuous of lesser minds, quick to anger, a big, unlit black cigar his constant companion, but with it all, an honest, hard working cop.
We found seats and Dan said, “I know what a big help you guys were to Frank. Finding that computer stuff was good work. On the basis of that, I’m prepared to listen to what you have to say, but I’m still pretty much convinced Jimmy Pompo did the DeMarco hit. Of course, I didn’t know about the diamonds.”
“How could you?” I said, showing him I understood, and didn’t hold it against him. “The victim never reported it.”
Acker grunted and I heard the chair groan. He must have shifted his bulk. “Tell me how you found out about the diamonds.”
“Jimmy Pompo told me, and it was confirmed by Billy DeMarco. Jimmy, Billy and Tommy grabbed a diamond merchant off the street and took about a million in diamonds, retail. Ed has a Sansom Street pretzel vendor saw the whole thing. We wouldn’t have wasted your time, Dan, if all we had was Jimmy Pompo’s say-so.”
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