Tanzi's Luck (Vince Tanzi Book 4)

by C I Dennis

  Rose was looking through the barren wasteland that was my refrigerator. “There’s nothing in here,” she said. She left me in my recliner and came back an hour later with an armload of groceries. I helped her, but I felt like I was moving in slow motion, and I found myself staring at the labeling of whatever I was putting away. I held up a bag of crackers: Thiamin mononitrate. Monocalcium phosphate. Ammonium bicarbonate.

  “Do you want some of those?” Rose asked me.

  “What?”

  “The goldfish crackers. You look like you’re going to eat the package.”

  “I’m not hungry,” I said. Rose shook her head and continued to put things away. I gave up on helping her. I was just getting in her way. I went back to my chair and picked up the paper, but I got stuck on the weather report. Negative vorticity advection.

  “Where’s your salad spinner?” Rose said from the kitchen.

  “I don’t have one.”

  She came around the corner. “Everyone has a salad spinner.”

  “Not me.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” I thought about what Dr. K had said about being disingenuous with people who were trying to help me, and here I was doing it all over again. I wasn’t fine. I felt light-headed, slightly nauseous, and I couldn’t stop obsessing about small things that meant nothing. Fish Falzarano had messed me up good. But I had had enough doctoring for one day, and as much as I wanted to be honest with Rose, I couldn’t. I needed to tough it out and finish this job. As soon as Grace Hebert was located and stashed in a treatment facility, I would blab about my troubles to anyone who listened, and the doctors were welcome to open my head and take out whatever they wanted.

  “The jet flew to Burlington,” she said. “Just the pilots and Goody on the flight record.”

  “How hard is it to alter that? Grace had to be onboard.”

  “It’s not impossible. In fact, it’s pretty loosey goosey in some places, particularly when the flight gets in at two AM.”

  “She’s in Vermont,” I said. “We’ll get a flight in the morning. I’m going to bed.”

  “It’s not even dark yet. I’m going to make a stir fry.”

  “Thanks, but I have to pass,” I said. “You’re going to regret this assignment. I’m a real pain when I’m not feeling well.”

  “Go to bed,” she said. “I’m going to read up on your Reverend Goody. I want to know who we’re dealing with.”

  *

  Five hours later I was awake again, and Rose DiNapoli was asleep in the guest room. It had once been my wife Glory’s room, because I snore, and later on it had been Barbara’s room, because I snore. One of the things I liked about Rose was that she snored too, and the sound carried through the bedroom door as if someone was removing lug nuts with an impact wrench.

  I picked up a flight itinerary that lay on the countertop in my kitchen. Rose had booked us a flight out of Orlando at seven, meaning that we’d have to leave the house by four, and it was now just before midnight. We would be in Burlington by noon provided that there were no security hassles, as I would be bringing my Glock this time. The Vermont landscape had changed, and I wasn’t looking for colorful foliage—I was looking for killers, and for a mixed-up young woman who might be involved.

  A wise man would have had a glass of milk and gone back to bed. But the sleep had sharpened my senses, and I was frustrated because Grace Hebert had been within my grasp and I’d let her slip. Perhaps I had misjudged the situation, but I had tried to strike the right balance of stirring her up and offering her a way out. I couldn’t just grab her and haul her off to the nearest treatment center. She was twenty-one years old, and that would be a kidnapping, not a rescue, unless she fully consented.

  I needed to know what had happened to Donald Lussen and Matthew Harmony if I was going to understand why Grace was running. This was the same trap that John Pallmeister had fallen into: come up with an explanation, and then make the evidence conform to it. It’s other way around: sweat the details, and the conclusions will follow.

  My fixation on the doctor’s name, the snack food ingredients, the weather report’s meteorological jargon—this was my damaged brain telling me to focus harder on the small things. Why hadn’t my fingerprints been on the gun that had killed Matty? How come Grace believed that Angus Driscoll had the weapon, when the State Police had it? And where had the hunting bow come from? Somebody must have purchased it, and there would be a record. Pallmeister should be doing this kind of legwork, but he seemed to have lost momentum, and I was glad to be returning to Vermont because I would press him for some answers.

  I poured myself a small glass of milk and drank it in the dark kitchen. I would go back to bed, but between Rose’s snoring and my mind’s attempt to untangle events like so many knotted-up shoelaces I doubted that I would get any more sleep.

  WEDNESDAY

  Robert Patton met us at the Burlington airport in a rusted-out ’04 Mercury Marquis that had been painted flat black and looked like the illegitimate child of a stealth bomber. It had 260,000 miles on it, the brakes hissed, the steering squealed loudly, and the seat cushion felt like a bag of marshmallows. “Take it for as long as you need,” he said to us. I hadn’t seen him in over a year, but he hadn’t changed: short, stocky, and with a face that said: if you argue with me, you’ll lose. Patton was a cop’s cop.

  “Oh, thanks a bunch,” Rose said. “You obviously confiscated this from some drugged-up axe murderer.”

  “Rose, you exaggerate,” he said.

  “I’m wrong?”

  “It was a hatchet, not an axe.”

  We drove him to the Border Patrol office that adjoined the airport and made promises about getting together, but I had leaned on his generosity enough and I let him get back to work. I opened the rear door, which groaned like it was about to fall off, and moved up front. “We’re going to Clement Goody’s house in Johnson,” I said to Rose. “If you drive fast enough, we’ll be there in time for the show.”

  “What show?”

  “Have you ever been to a strip club?”

  She turned her head sideways. “Why would I go to a strip club?”

  “Have you?”

  “Once, in Fort Lauderdale. Girl’s night out. We were all pretty well lubricated.”

  “Prepare yourself,” I said. “This is the play-at-home version.”

  *

  Somewhere between the airport and Johnson the muffler of the Marquis decided that it was time to literally hit the road. I heard a bumping noise under the chassis, as if we had run over a log. Afterward, there was a continuous, muffled roar that made it impossible to talk.

  Rose was driving up Hog Back Road. The foliage had become a rust-colored carpet that circled the bare maples along the driveway into the West Eden Bible Camp. The afternoon had suddenly turned cold, and I remembered how fickle autumn was in this state: you could be basking outside one day and making a snowman the next.

  The perimeter gate was wide open. I hoped it meant that someone was home, as I was eager to confront Clement Goody. And if he fed me some line about how Grace needed to be rescued by his Love Society, I would feed him a knuckle soufflé. Rose pulled in front of the house and turned off the muffler-less car, which had announced our arrival at least a mile ago. Cindy appeared from the main house, and Clement Goody approached from the barn wearing coveralls and a John Deere cap. “Howdy,” he said, grinning as we got out of the car.

  “I’m looking for Grace,” I said. “I know that you flew her back here.”

  “Whoa, Vince, slow down, my friend,” Goody said. He held his hands up in front of him. He wore the smile that I had learned to distrust, because it wasn’t really a friendly gesture, it was a defense mechanism.

  “I can’t slow down. I’m in a hurry. Go get her, and we’ll be on our way.”

  “Aren’t you going to introduce me?” he said, gesturing toward Rose.

  “Agent DiNapoli, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” s
he said.

  “Interesting,” Goody said. Cindy Charbonneau was now at his side, staying silent. She stood next to her master like she would take a bullet for him.

  “Just get her,” I said.

  “Help me understand this, Vince—and Ms. DiNapoli,” Clement Goody said. “You’re here because you would like to pick up Grace and take her somewhere? And, for some reason, U.S. Customs is involved? Now, Grace is of the age of majority, and she hasn’t broken any laws that I’m aware of, much less done something that would involve Customs. So, I’m just curious—what would be your legal authority?”

  “Bring her out and I’ll establish the authority,” I said.

  “You know me, Vince,” he said. “I’m a southerner. We don’t rush things. Let’s go inside and we’ll have a drink.”

  “You don’t drink.”

  Clement Goody ignored me and addressed Rose. He gave her a wide grin. “Young lady, I have to confess something to you. I have a tremendous weakness for curly hair.”

  Rose turned to me. I fully expected her to roll her eyes and tell Goody what a jerk he was. Instead, she smiled.

  “We’re not in that much of a hurry,” she said.

  *

  “I prefer bourbon when the weather gets cool,” our host said. We were seated around the glass coffee table in the foyer where I had passed out the week before. Clement peeled the wax off the top of a large bottle of Maker’s Mark and poured each of us a generous shot of the brown liquor, including one for himself.

  “Karen told me you were sober,” I said.

  “Ah, Karen,” Goody said. “She was correct. I’ve been abstaining for several years now. But I have to admit, I’ve been under some stress lately, with Grace leaving us, and then Karen.”

  “Thanks to you,” Cindy said, glaring at me. “Pretty soon my sister will be strung out again.”

  “Or she’ll be living a normal life,” I said.

  Cindy said nothing, and Clement continued. “Your work is done, Vince. Grace is safe and sound. Away from temptation, and from that man.”

  “Angus Driscoll?”

  “He’s part of her problem,” Goody said. “You already found that out, didn’t you?”

  “And so you flew to Florida and got her?”

  “Yes.” He took a long pull off of his bourbon glass. People who have successfully abstained for years don’t usually jump back in unless something pushed them. Grace had ditched Goody, and flown to Palm Beach for a shack-up with Driscoll. Karen Charbonneau had checked out of the West Eden Bible & Sex Camp. Goody’s harem was down to Cindy and Lila, and I wondered if that had been the catalyst. In fact, Lila wasn’t even around.

  “Where’s Lila?” I asked him.

  “She had to go away,” he said. “She’s on a spiritual retreat.”

  “Is everything OK, Clement? Your women are deserting you.”

  “You worry too much, Vince. And you ask a lot of questions.”

  “Speaking of questions, do you hunt?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know how to use a compound bow? Ever owned one?”

  “No,” he said. “Go ahead. Keep asking. You’ll find that I’m entirely innocent of anything except for caring about Grace’s welfare.”

  “You know Driscoll? You’ve met him?”

  “We don’t talk about those things,” Goody said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “We call him Angus,” Cindy said. “We don’t use last names.”

  Ahh. The Program. Goody, Driscoll, and the Charbonneau sisters knew each other, all right. All of them were dealing with addiction issues, including Angus Driscoll, and they had become acquainted through twelve-step meetings. I knew a whole lot of people who had turned their lives around with the help of A.A., and I had nothing but respect for it. Also, I was aware that sometimes the members would develop a bond that went beyond the meetings.

  “Where does Donald Lussen come into this?” I asked. “And Matthew Harmony?”

  “Matthew was Grace’s most fervent admirer,” Clement Goody said. “Stone jealous. I believe that the police have that exactly right.”

  “You think he killed Lussen? And himself?”

  “He might have killed me too. Fortunately, the Lord took him first.”

  “I’d like to get Grace’s take on that,” I said. “Where is she?”

  “Do you read the Bible, Vince?” He pronounced it bah-bull.

  “I studied it some.”

  “Then you know about the book of Revelation. Have you any idea how close humanity is to the apocalypse? Do you realize that there are more than sixteen thousand nuclear weapons out there, and that any one of them can rain down fire and brimstone on us at the touch of a button?”

  “It’s not that simple,” I said.

  “Oh, yes it is,” Clement Goody said. He had his preacher voice on again, and he stood up from his chair with the bourbon glass in one hand while he gestured with the other. “It’s so simple that it was laid out in scripture, two thousand years before our time. Our lord Jesus will make his triumphant return, and those of us who have devoted our lives to him will be gathered by the angels under a glass dome. And the destruction will begin, and the sinners will perish from a fiery death without any hope of salvation or resurrection. We will then be transported to Heaven, to sit at the feet of our Lord. And that’s where Grace Hebert will be, because she has found Jesus, thanks to my program of commitment and love, just like Cindy right here. We’re going to be saved, and you can be, too.”

  Rose DiNapoli began to laugh, and the preacher stopped mid-rant. She turned to Clement Goody. “So, let’s think about this from the girl’s perspective. You’re a twenty-one-year-old drama major. And you get yourself messed up on heroin. And then two guys your grandfather’s age want to fuck you, because you’re young and beautiful—”

  “Now hold on—”

  Rose shushed him. “One of them gives you a bunch of money, and he even buys off your mother. And the other one tells you that he can cure your addiction and save your soul as long as you suck his dick whenever he feels like it. You can handle this because you grew up tough. But it starts to unravel, and you realize that you’re somebody’s whore.”

  “Ms. DiNapoli, you’re speculating, and—”

  “I’m a woman and you’re not, so zip it,” Rose said. “I don’t know if you’ve killed anyone, Goody, but that’s not why we’re here. We’re here to pick up the girl, and if you don’t tell us where she is, we’re going to rain down some shit on you. Actual shit, not your biblical fire and brimstone. You got that?”

  “She’s not here,” Goody said.

  “She flew back to Vermont with you,” I said.

  “I had to get her away from him,” he said. “She’s safe and sound, and frankly, y’all aren’t welcome in my house. Go on home.”

  Rose looked at me, and I gestured with my head toward the door.

  *

  We didn’t stop laughing until we reached the end of Clement Goody’s driveway. “You’re going to rain down some actual shit on him?” I said to Rose. “I could never pull off a line like that.”

  “Ah have a tremindous weakness for y’all ladies with curly hair,” she said, and we dissolved into giggles all over again. None of this was getting us any closer to Grace Hebert, but we needed to blow off some steam after a long day.

  “I was worried that he’d charmed you.”

  “Not a chance,” she said. “I just wasn’t ready to leave. You were giving up too early.”

  “He wasn’t about to tell us anything.”

  “On the contrary,” she said. “He told us that he’d started drinking again, and that’s a big deal. People don’t stay sober for years and then backslide without a reason. Something has to be very wrong in his life, and I don’t think it’s because all his girlfriends are ditching him.”

  “I thought the same thing. What is it?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Rose said. She had to yell over the noise of the c
ar’s exhaust to be heard. “We also found out that Goody knows Driscoll from A.A., and that may play into this.”

  “Do you think that Goody really believes all that stuff? I don’t remember a glass dome in the Bible. I’m wondering if he has any religion at all.”

  “He’s dangerous,” she said. “And yes, I think he’s sincere, and that worries me even more because he’s scared. His faith is shaken, and he’s in some kind of crisis. Where are we going, by the way?”

  “To my mother’s house.”

  “Aw, Vince, you’re taking me to meet your mother?” She flashed a smile from the driver’s seat. “That’s so sweet.”

  “Don’t get any ideas,” I said. “I’m taking you to meet my dog.”

  *

  The urgency that I felt about finding Grace was based on my concerns about her well-being, but there was also the issue of my waistline. If this case was going to take much longer I would to have to buy a new wardrobe, which I couldn’t afford, seeing how I wasn’t getting paid. My mother served us giambott, a vegetable stew that wasn’t all that fattening by itself, except that you couldn’t possibly do it justice without sopping up the remains of the sauce with garlic bread. She had prepared not one but two loaves, and with the help of Mrs. Tomaselli we polished them off like prisoners who were being served their final meal. I hadn’t stopped eating since Rose and I had arrived at my mother’s house: platters of sliced sorpressata, olives, marinated artichoke hearts, a wedge of aged asiago, and crostini from the oven drenched in olive oil and spices. And that was just the antipasti, not the meal.

  Chan watched us eat from the dining room floor. He was curled up at Rose’s feet, not mine. He had ignored me when we entered the house, as if my two-day trip to Florida had meant abandonment. I passed him a piece of the bread under the table, which he grudgingly accepted. “Good boy,” I said.

  Don’t even.

  My mother and Mrs. T debriefed us over the meal and a bottle of wine that Rose had bought on the way through Barre. I was abstaining, because it was going to be a work night. I’d already had a phone conversation with John Pallmeister and had prodded him about the origin of the bow. He said that he’d get me the serial number, but he was pretty sure that it had already been checked out and was deemed too old to trace. I would turn over whatever information he had to Roberto and would give him a crack at it. Roberto could go to strange, revelatory, and probably illegal places on the computer that the police only dreamed of.