I stood and advanced six inches, close enough to look down at him. “I’m the guy Vic needed the old Toyota for. He and two other goombahs tried to whack me, Eddie—twice.”
The whites of his eyes widened. He tried to step back, but his chair was already against the wall. He glanced around the room, but I stood between him and the door.
I pushed on his chest. He fell into the chair.
“The first hit didn’t take, Eddie, and I made their car, the blue Altima. So they came to you for another car before the next try, which they made last night.”
I leaned over him, inches from his face. “Eddie, I shot Vic Martin twice before he could even lift his gun. But I didn’t get the other guys. I want their names.”
Eddie held up his hands between us. “I never saw nobody but Vic. Honest. All I know is he told me he needed a four-door sedan.”
“Show me the paperwork on Martin.”
He started to object, and I grabbed the front of his shirt. “Don’t give me any bullshit about the car being stolen, Eddie. You still have the paperwork because you expected Vic to bring it back.” I pressed my fist against his chest. His heart pounded beneath my knuckles. “Now get the paperwork.”
He eyed the door as he walked around me.
“Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. Go ahead and run; I won’t try to stop you. But where would you go? Your inventory is here, remember? Be glad I’m not a cop.”
He deflated. “Okay, it’s in the file cabinet.” He pulled out the file and handed it over. It contained the bogus paperwork and a photocopy of Victor Martin’s driver’s license with an address the cops already had. They were probably searching the place right now.
Chapter 33
Simonetti walked around his desk to shake hands. “Chuck, good to see you. Lorraine and I are going to a fund-raiser right after this, so she asked to join us.”
“I have news. I don’t know whether it’s good news or bad news, but it is news. There’ve been two attempts on my life since our last meeting.”
Both Simonetti and Wallace started to speak and I raised a hand. “The attacks may not be connected to your case. But they could be. The first attack came a couple days after our conference. The second happened yesterday about six o’clock when I returned from Cleveland.”
“Cleveland?” they said simultaneously. Simonetti frowned Wallace into silence. “What were you doing in Cleveland?”
“I’ll get to that. First, the DNA results. I suspected Ramon Gomez is Ramona Gamez’s father. DNA results confirm that.”
Wallace said, “That doesn’t explain the trip to Cleveland.”
“I’m getting to that.” I told them about Ramon’s criminal record. “My operative followed Ramon, and we learned that he’s an experienced electrician. He’d know how to set an electrical fire. And he was arrested for arson in California a few years ago.”
Simonetti interrupted. “So you think he…”
I nodded. “Yeah. The fire at the Montrose mansion was an electrical fire. I put two and two together and decided to investigate.” I outlined what I found in Cleveland.
Simonetti followed my report with rapt attention. “So Ramona sent Ramon to Cleveland to burn the house.” It was a statement, not a question.
“That’s my current theory. They may have a family criminal enterprise. My operative in Mexico is researching Ramona’s background. The Cleveland fire department is looking for fingerprints and evidence of arson. But after so many months, I doubt they’ll find anything.”
Wallace cleared her throat. “For the paternity case, you don’t have to tie Ramona to the fire. If you prove Pop is not Gloria’s father, she’s bounced from the will anyway.”
“True. But if she did it, I’d like to prove it.”
“But it’s not part of the case.”
“I want to see the murderer caught.”
She smirked. “So you’re a crusader.”
I raised my hands in mock surrender. “I admit it. Truth, justice, and the American way. That’s me.
“Well, it’s Ike’s decision, of course,” Wallace said, “but if it were mine, I’d concentrate on determining who Gloria’s father is. If we can prove that, the rest is moot.”
“Yeah. Well, changing the subject...Ike, if Ramona did have Danielle and Melinda murdered, I’d expect her to take a run at you too. Did anything strange happen to you around the time of the fire and before your father died?”
“Nothing that I remember.”
“What about a near hit-and-run from a car or truck?”
He looked up at the ceiling for a few seconds. “No, that was just a close call.”
“What was?”
“Last fall, a car almost hit me when I got out of my Ferrari.”
“Did you get a good look at the car?”
“Just a car. I didn’t notice. I was shook up.” He looked a little sheepish. “Sorry.”
“Any unexplained electrical phenomena around your home like a shock in the bathroom?”
“Nope.”
“Any strange happenings at your office?”
“Unh-uh. Just that near miss from the car.”
I glanced at my notes. “Okay, moving along. I went to see Dr. Virgil Norris. He gave your father a prescription for an erectile dysfunction drug. Did you find any ED drugs in Sam’s effects?”
“I remember a yellow plastic pill bottle in his medicine cabinet.”
“Do you have the bottle?”
“Tom would know.” Simonetti pressed a button on his intercom. “Tom, can you come in for a minute?”
A side door to Simonetti’s office opened and a thirty-something man walked in. Short brown hair, almost military, with a slight scar on the left side of his chin.
“Good afternoon, Lorraine.” He turned to me and extended his hand. “You must be Chuck McCrary.”
“You two hadn’t met?”
“Not in person,” I answered. “Good to meet you.” We shook hands.
Simonetti asked, “Tom, do you have the medicines from Dad’s medicine cabinet?”
“I put all of Sam’s things in storage, including his medicines.”
“Good,” I said. “Can you meet me at the storage facility at 9:30 tomorrow?”
“Sure thing.” He looked at Simonetti. “Anything else, boss?”
“That’s all, Tom. Thanks.”
I interjected. “One other thing, Tom. If you beat me there, don’t touch anything. I want to examine the bottle and some of Sam’s other personal effects for evidence.”
“You mean like fingerprints? My fingerprints will already be on the bottle from when I packed it.”
“That’s okay. I just don’t want any additional prints or smudges.”
Chapter 34
The address Collins had given me was a four-story, concrete block building painted beige with We-Store-More in six-foot letters.
Collins greeted me in the lobby, wearing jeans and a Texas Aggie ROTC tee-shirt. “You’re early.”
“I like your shirt.”
Collins glanced down at the faded maroon shirt. “It’s dusty in the storage unit, so I wore old clothes.”
“You were in the Corps?”
“And four years in the Army after graduation, but I didn’t reenlist. I had one tour in Iraq.”
“I had one of those myself.”
He nodded. “It was no picnic, but I survived.” He handed me a key. “This opens the door. I’ll show you.”
Collins led me down a long hall with concrete floors and dim lighting. I unlocked the door and put on latex gloves, handing Collins a pair also. The light in the store room was brighter than the hallway. Barely. Scrimping on the electric bill.
I pulled a Maglite from my kit and searched the piles of cardboard boxes. “Where did you stack the medicine cabinet items?”
“It’s the box on the end, on top.”
There were three prescription bottles in it. I bagged each one separately.
Collins leaned over my shoulder. “I saw
on television where they can get DNA from a hairbrush.”
“That’s right. Also from a toothbrush.” I poked through the contents. “Like this one.” I bagged it. I also collected a bottle of mouthwash, an electric razor, an old-fashioned glass thermometer, and a few other items that could have DNA on them. “Okay, Tom, how about Sam’s shoes and hats?”
“Let me borrow the flashlight.” He scanned the boxes stacked against the wall until he found the right ones.
I cut the first box open and bagged a pair of old house shoes.
“I don’t get it. House shoes?”
“House shoes have dried perspiration which contains DNA. And there are epithelial cells inside house shoes and gloves. Also sweatbands, so I’ll take some hats.”
###
I took the DNA goodies to the lab and called Felix. “This is Carlos.”
“Hola, gringo. What jail do you need me to bail you out of?”
“I have news, Felix. Ramona Gamez Simonetti is the daughter of Ramon Gomez. Now that we know her birth name is Gomez instead of Gamez, maybe you can find something on her. I have DNA on both if that will help.”
“I don’t need no stinking DNA. That reminds me that I still haven’t heard anything on the fingerprints for the man, either. Let me light a fire under someone.”
“Thanks. Keep me in the loop. By the way, I have a date with Ramona tonight. She invited me to take her to dinner.”
“I’m sure this is part of investigating your case, right gringo?”
“It has nothing to do with the fact she’s as hot as Acapulco at high noon.”
“Wear a condom; you don’t know where she’s been.”
“Yes, Daddy, I will.”
“Don’t enjoy it too much. You may end up turning her over to the cops.”
“I intend to, Felix. And there’s one other thing I ought to tell you.”
“What’s that?”
“Three guys tried to kill me.”
“So who wants you dead?”
“Beats me. It could be someone from back when I was a cop.”
“Keep your head down, gringo. And your pecker up.” He laughed and hung up.
My phone played the Dragnet theme and Lieutenant Weiner’s picture showed on the screen. “Hello, Mother.”
“I sent a team with a search warrant over to the address on Victor Martin’s driver license. We got a lot of prints and we’re running them now.”
###
The next day was Saturday but Mother called me at 8:00 a.m. “If you’re not awake by now, you should be.”
“I’ve finished my workout and just started my run. What you got, Mother?”
“We got two more hits on the prints from Vic Martin’s apartment. The other two honyocks who attacked you are Charlie ‘Bones’ Bonano and Hector ‘Scrambles’ Scarpetta.”
“They from a mob family?”
“The Santorini family.”
“Don’t know them and I never heard of the Santorinis. Are they local?”
“No,” the lieutenant said. “They’re imported talent from Houston.”
“Houston? As in Texas?”
“What other Houston would there be?”
“I don’t have any enemies in Houston.”
“You’ve got at least one. Anyway, we got mug shots from the Houston PD and we’re showing them around town. I’ll let you know if we get any hits.”
Houston? That’s a surprise.
Chapter 35
“Mexican Hat Dance” played on my phone; Felix’s picture popped up on the screen. “Hola, Felix. ¿Que pasa?”
He spoke Spanish. “Gringo, it’s good you’re alive after your date with Ramona.”
“I managed to survive.”
“How did your date go?”
“Uncle, you always told me that a gentleman doesn’t talk about such things.”
“I never said you were a gentleman, so how did your date go?”
“It went as you’d expect. She seduced me, and though I resisted, I took one for the team. Actually, I took three for the team. Why do you ask?”
“I got your results on both sets of fingerprints. You’ve heard of a can of worms?” Felix said can of worms in English.
I answered in Spanish. “That’s an American idiom, but yes, I know it.”
“This is a bucket of snakes. I got a hit on the man’s prints yesterday afternoon after you called.”
“That’s good news.”
“Yes, but there’s other news that isn’t so good. I emailed you the files, but the bottom line is: she’s a black widow. Her father is her accomplice. But I can’t prove it yet.”
“Okay,” I replied. “Tell me what you’ve got.”
“She is thirty-five-years old, born Ramona Elena Gomez Cristobal in Leon, Guanajuato. At age twenty-two, she married a fifty-four-year-old widower named Alejandro Sanchez Velasquez. She became Ramona Elena Gomez Sanchez. Ten months later he was killed in a mugging. The mugger was never caught.”
“Hmm. And you think she or her father had him killed?”
“You don’t know the half of it, gringo. There’s more. She cremated her husband. He was moderately wealthy and had a large insurance policy taken out right after they married. Her father Ramon lived in Leon at the time. He has a rap sheet for bar brawls. He’s put several people in the hospital. Also, he has a record for credit card fraud.”
“You think the father did the mugging?” I asked.
“No evidence yet, but he shows up at other places where Ramona’s lived. If I had to bet, I’d say he was involved.”
“Okay, go on.”
“Then Ramona moved to Veracruz. She married Hector Cordoba Colon, a forty-two-year-old bachelor, never married before.”
“That’s unusual for Mexico.”
“You don’t know the half of it. Hector’s father owned the controlling interest in a local bank, and Hector had a significant minority interest. She became Ramona Elena Gomez Cordoba. Eighteen months into the marriage, he dies in a mugging outside a gay bar.”
“How convenient for her.”
“Yeah. The detective who drew the homicide tells me Hector played for the other team. When he reached forty years of age and was still unmarried, the rumors began.”
“So she was Hector’s beard,” I observed.
“Apparently you can’t be a successful gay banker in Vera Cruz. Anyway, the cops went through the motions, but there wasn’t much evidence. They never caught the mugger. Ramona had Hector cremated. She was the beneficiary of a large insurance policy.”
“Let me guess: taken out right after they married?”
“You must be psychic. Then she sold Hector’s shares in the bank for a small fortune. Ramona’s father moved to Veracruz three months before the mugging and got a job in construction. He’s an electrician.”
“He’s working as an electrician here in Port City right now.”
“Okay. Anyway, after Hector’s death, Ramona moves to Ensenada. A year later she marries sixty-year-old widower Rafael Gutierrez. She becomes Ramona Elena Gomez Gutierrez. He lasts for over two years. Then he has a heart attack. He had no history of heart trouble. She cremates him. And guess what?”
“She owns stock in a cremation company?”
“Close, gringo, he had a large insurance policy.”
“What an amazing coincidence. Did you find anything on the father?”
“He was also in Ensenada working as an electrician for a local company.”
“Okay. Anything else?”
“Yes. After the insurance pays off, she puts her late husband’s house on the market, over the objections of Rafael’s three adult children. As soon as she gets a contract, the children sue to stop the sale. They settle by letting the children buy it. Then Ramona withdraws the money from the sale and disappears.”
“How much did she withdraw?”
“The house sold for eight hundred thousand Yankee dollars.”
“Quite a house.”
“Yeah. Her
husband was rich. Anyway, no matter how much she had from the earlier marriages, she had a lot of capital when she arrived in the U.S.A.”
“I’d wondered how she supported herself in the United States, Felix. The house sale plus the insurance proceeds were enough for her to set up shop in Port City and finance her campaign to marry Sam Simonetti.”
“Who?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute. How come she had no criminal record in Mexico?”
“She committed no crime. She had three legitimate names from three husbands and lived in three states. We didn’t even know she existed until you sent the name and fingerprints of the father. Since we knew the father, we were able to track down his record. Then we got her birth certificate. The rest we did from his employment records and her marriage licenses. As I said, you’ll have the email in your inbox. Is she in Port City now?”
“Yeah, and she’s a widow again. This time she hit the lottery and married a billionaire. I’m investigating her on another matter. Did she have any children from the other marriages?”
“Let me see—no. Anything else you need?”
“Not right now, Felix. You’ve been a big help.”
“Okay, gringo. Now I want a favor.”
“Sure. Anything.”
“This woman and her father are dangerous. Be careful around them. Now that we suspect multiple murders, we have a good chance of proving it. I’ll work the murders from this end. You keep me up to date on your end.”
“You got it, Felix. By the way, Ramon has a criminal record in La Jolla, California from five years ago, the same time Ramona was marrying the man in Ensenada. But how could he be in two places at the same time?
Felix laughed. “The border between Mexico and California is so porous it’s on the honor system. He could practically commute back and forth. I’ll contact La Jolla police and get an up-to-date report on him. Thanks for the tip.”
“There’s one other thing I ought to tell you.”
“What’s that?”
“Two of the three guys who tried to kill me are from Houston.”
Six Murders Too Many (A Carlos McCrary Mystery Thriller Book 1) Page 12