“Thanks for the warning, Sergeant. Although I’ve had some bad experiences with aforementioned over officious law officers, I realize in most cases they’re simply cynical. I know this scene isn’t cut and dried, but the detectives would be goofy not to take into consideration the fact all three robbers were packing Uzis, right?”
Boniface shrugged comically. “One would think so, Nick.”
* * *
Nick grinned while looking around the bleak interrogation room smelling of desperation. Donatello politely seated him in the room but promptly left saying he would be right back. That had been forty-five minutes ago. At least back in the day when he took sanctions regularly, Nick seldom hung around long enough to be waiting anywhere, especially in a police station. Yep, he thought, this was going exactly the way he expected. He texted Grace and Tim about what happened and the fact he might be getting railroaded for unknown reasons. Tim texted two words back: ‘on it’.
At the fifty minute mark Donatello and Samson jovially entered the room with a few sheaves of files which they placed between them as they sat down facing Nick. Donatello wore his David Caruso/Miami CSI sun glasses.
“Sorry about the wait, Marshal, or since you don’t work in the field often, we could stick with informality if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind at all, Tony.”
“There were a couple of shocking facts we noticed at the crime scene, Nick,” Floyd Sampson stated with a friendly smile while taking crime scene photos out of a file casing and spreading them in front of Nick.
Nick looked over pictures of the robbers’ dead bodies he’d killed with interest. He then met Samson’s gaze with a steady interested one of his own. “Okay. What is shocking besides a broad daylight robbery of a jewelry store where the banditos died instead of innocent bystanders?”
“Floyd and I don’t think all the bystanders were innocent. Did you identify yourself as a law officer before opening fire?”
“Are you stupid?”
“There’s no need to get confrontational, Nick,” Floyd said soothingly.
Nick smiled at Floyd, clasping his hands in front of him. “Listen. If getting confrontational means labeling an asinine statement like Tony just made as stupid or he is, then we’ll be in confrontational land until the end of the interrogation. I’ll be cooperative, but I’m not listening to incredibly idiotic statements made about a combat situation. The robbers armed themselves with fully automatic Uzis, charged into a jewelry store with ‘smash and grab’ utensils. The lead one fired a fully automatic burst into the ceiling. I had two choices: kill, or hesitate. In hesitating I would have left my wife and two best friends at the mercy of three Uzi armed robbers. If you don’t understand the choices, you need to ask a different person.”
“The store owner is unsure whether you acted as law officers are required to act in any confrontational situation – namely by identifying themselves, and clearly stating to the suspected criminals demands to disarm immediately,” Tony said.
“That’s a lie. I hope you’re recording this session. I don’t know why you’re doing this, but it would be in your best interest to simply state the real beef you two have with me. Then at least we can address the real problem instead of a made up one.”
“You shot each of those men three times, striking the heads twice, and once in the chest,” Floyd said. “They were clearly incapacitated when they struck the floor. You administered a kill shot after they were down. You executed those men.”
Nick pointed out the weapons lying within hand’s reach of each robber. “Turn up your hearing aids, guys. “They were armed with Uzis. They had a driver I needed to stop or apprehend. I also had the lives of four other innocent people relying on me to make sure they were safe. Since I had no idea whether they were dead or not, I took no chances on one of them firing a burst at us with his dying breath, or the driver busting in with another Uzi while I inspected them.”
“How exactly did you know a driver waited outside?”
“Really, Tony, it’s not fair you were saddled with all the truly moronic questions.”
“Answer the question, Nick,” Floyd said.
Nick leaned back in his chair, hands to his head. “Let me think. Three robbers with automatic weapons, smash and grab tools, full face masks, and a mission to rob a jewelry store in broad daylight – however would they arrive at the scene of the crime? It’s a tough question. They wouldn’t arrive by helicopter. They certainly wouldn’t walk there. They would want to streak off the moment their mission of robbery was over. Yep. They had a driver. I knew it. I captured her and now you two can do some real police work by connecting as many robberies of the same M.O. as you can to them. I would call it a definite win/win situation.”
“We don’t need some pulp fiction writer telling us how to do our jobs,” Tony blurted out, ignoring his partner’s silent admonitions. “Between the Feds’ useless task force and your meddling in police affairs, now we have a serial killer free to roam again. Then you hang around executing people while acting like you should be getting a medal.”
“Getting to the real problem – I can handle that. I was asked in on the Kensky case. I caught him. If not for my key witness being murdered, he would be in prison. Just as you detectives lose suspects, evidence, and your minds once in a while, happenings on my end don’t always come out right either. I’ve explained this many times, but I’ll take a shot at the truth once more. I went into Saul’s jewelry shop with my wife and friends for a wedding ring set. Three guys in masks without Halloween ‘trick or treat’ bags jammed in through the doorway with Uzis. The leader fired into the ceiling. I then shot to kill and captured their driver. That’s it. As to hero status, I didn’t ask for anything but to go home to Pacific Grove.”
Tony started a toxic reply but his partner grabbed his arm. “A word outside, Tony?”
Tony nodded, his sunglasses still in place, stood and leaned slightly forward with his hands on his hips. The detective’s pantomime of David Caruso’s famous stance in ‘Miami CSI’ impressed Nick so much he smiled and clapped.
“Sensational Horatio Caine, Tony. Can you speak any one liners to expand on the famous stance?”
Not realizing he was becoming an instant caricature as Nick enticed him to do, Tony said, “I don’t like you, McCarty.”
“Perfect!” Nick applauded again as Floyd dragged on his partner’s arm while suppressing amusement.
Floyd had to bear hug Tony out of the room as the detective lost all sense of being goaded into making a fool out of himself. Nick waited another fifteen minutes, sending Jean selfies of himself in different places in the interrogation room. He wrote, ‘the coppers haven’t broken me yet’ on each one. Jean sent pictures back of Rachel tapping her foot while looking at her watch. Detective Samson came in a moment later alone.
“That wasn’t very smart baiting my partner, McCarty. You must think you’re some kind of big shot. We should have taken all your communication devices off you when we put you here in interrogation. We’ve been notified by none other than the Attorney General’s Office to let you leave with weapon. How does a ‘Penny Dreadful’ hack novelist have the pull to get the United States Attorney General’s office to intercede on a police matter?”
Intuition concerning this ‘smash and grab’ lot triggered a memory in Nick while he traded one liners with Floyd. “I’ve saved people, jobs, and exposed traitors, so they would have reason to think of me as a guy deserving of consideration. I’m sure you and Tony think hassling me over a clear case of self-defense by a federal officer somehow offended the local police department. If you have no other personal grudges to try and settle, may I leave now?”
Floyd handed Nick his Beretta. “We ran your Beretta through ballistics. It’s surprisingly clean of other self-defense acts. I imagine it must be your spare. What do you think of the woman getaway driver?”
“She’s a bubble-head that fell in love with one of the ‘smash and grab’ boys, agreed to do the d
riving on a romantic kinky lark. Offer her a deal to find out where the boys have the rest of their loot stashed. She’ll whine and cry otherwise until you want to throw her off the building. Make sure you type in a clause concerning her part in some other venture the boys have been part of, voiding her deal because she withheld information. I’ll write it for you if you’d like. She’s more than she seems. I am sure of that.”
“You really think they had something else in the works too?”
Nick shrugged. “It’s a hunch. There was something about her bearing after capture when Sergeant Boniface and I informed her of how many charges could be brought against her. Did you find out who she is? My hunch on that detail was some lawyer’s offspring, breaking away from mommy and daddy, but with diamonds sparkling in her brain. I’m thinking they did the ‘smash and grabs’ to get money for a buy-in on some other venture worth a lot of money. I know you may think this farfetched, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s the mastermind behind the crimes.”
Floyd stared at Nick with furrowed brow, frowning concentration. “She’s the daughter of two well connected defense attorneys. They specialize in defending high profile rich clients in serious jeopardy. They’re also very good at what they do. Her name is Lisa Monroe. Both parents, Liz and Allen Monroe, streaked down here to right this injustice brought upon the head of their innocent daughter. They want your head, our heads, and millions in monetary damage for wrongful incarceration and defamation of character. I like your take on her part in this. Any theory what the buy-in would be for?”
“It’s not black market art or political favor. I think you need to stick with simple: drugs. I’ve seen this before.”
Nick’s amused look upset Floyd. “What’s so funny, Marshal?”
Nick remembered taking a contract on four brutal killers in New York for mob boss Salvador Costiga. An enterprising employee of Costiga’s, Brenda Fayers, tipped the location of numerous shipments of goods handled by Costiga’s network to friends of hers – small time street hoods. Fayers acted as the brains of the crew, thinking no one would find out, especially Costiga, whom she was sleeping with. She also ordered her crew to leave no witnesses. Salvador wasn’t stupid. After three hits on his shipments, and the deaths of his men, He called in Nick for three times his going rate to find out who hijacked his rigs, and kill them.
Nick agreed with his usual payment up front anonymously, and full access to Costiga’s shipments and personal relationships. Nick didn’t like acting as his own detective agency then. As he explained to Costiga only someone near to him could be doing it. Nick suspected Fayers immediately. He arranged for Costiga to allow Fayers to plainly obtain information on the next large shipment by truck coming in that night. Nick tailed the shipment from point of origin.
Fayers’ crew used a rigged cop car to stop the eighteen wheeler, also carrying a cover shipment of furniture. Nick had been following the rig with lights out. He drove to the passenger side of the rig, parked and ran for the front with a Colt SMG 635 submachine gun. Nick executed Fayers’ crew as they stood near the fake police car with short 9mm bursts. With precision, he had then shot them each again where they fell. Without pausing, Nick ran to the driver’s window, shouting at the ducking driver to smash a hole and continue on course. The driver did as told, pulping two of the bodies as he smashed through the left rear quarter panel. Nick took pictures, DNA samples, and left. Nick created his first and favorite assassin’s line from the time crossing the country with Rachel and Jean with their lives in his hands in relation to the Fayers’ sanctions. Shortly after killing her gang, Nick dealt with the last Costiga target: Fayers.
Remembering the night Rachel began to suspect Nick’s reality changed everything in their dangerous co-dependency at the time. Nick remained silent as Floyd Samson became more annoyed by the moment, not caring what the detective thought of his pause in discussion. Nick had gone after Brenda Fayers the morning after he ruined her hijacking plan. Knowing she walked her dog Boo every morning at seven, Nick walked toward her in a yellow jogging suit the next morning. He smiled and stopped to pet Boo, drawing his silenced 9mm and shooting Fayers through the head twice, once as she lie twitching in her death throes. He delivered the dog, his pictures, and confirming DNA samples later to Costiga’s residence along with a note to take very good care of Boo. Then on that special night of deadly recognition when deciding to go on the run with Rachel, Jean and Deke, he admitted to Rachel he had killed a woman while petting her dog. Rachel had asked, ‘if she was bad’, Nick answered, ‘she was to someone’.
Nick recognized he had changed a bit during the fugitive flight with Rachel and Jean, but not enough that he wouldn’t put a bullet through both Floyd and Tony if they became a threat over this small plan alteration to help them. The more he thought of Lisa and Brenda, the more he saw them as formed from the same clay. He wanted to take a whack at Lisa. A thought struck Nick’s eerie sense of humor in regard to the similarities between the women, at least in their ability to mold witless petty crooks into kill crews doing their bidding.
“Sorry, Floyd. I remembered a lot of details in the other case I mentioned similar to Monroe’s.”
Samson relaxed from his impatient stance. “How did you nail the perps in the other case?”
“I didn’t legally,” Nick told Floyd a partial truth. “They crossed a mob boss in New York during their escapades. The mob boss, Salvatore Costiga, hired a hitter to take them out. I wasn’t consulting with anyone at the time, but I was writing assassin novels. I researched everything having to do with high ranking criminals and assassins. Rumors were all that ever surfaced in the case. Costiga was never charged. You can get through to Lisa with fear. She doesn’t care innocent people were hurt and robbed in the prior crimes. Lisa mentioned Lou first in rattling off her crew’s names. I’m betting he’s the one she was boinking. He’s dead, and she’s facing felony convictions even her idiot lawyer parents know they can’t get her out of. We can fish around first, get her to admit to the ‘smash and grabs’, then go after a bigger score. That is, if you want to.”
Floyd smiled. “You think you can do all that, hotshot?”
“Let me write the deal quickly on some official paper and I’ll show you.”
“Would I ever love to shut those two slime ball parents up. As you stated, we have a felony case nearly airtight on her, not to mention threatening the life of a federal agent. We haven’t sprung any of that on the parents yet. Lisa doesn’t know the parents are here yet.”
“Good. We’ll do this in sequence right to the payoff. Get me to a desk with a computer. Bring me some District Attorney type letterhead paper, and I’ll write the deal we’ll need. Then I’ll go in and sell the con to Lisa before she begins howling for a lawyer.”
“Okay, but let me handle Tony. You can work from my desk. I’ll handle my partner.”
“Works for me.” The comic book Muerto mentality began surging within Nick as he followed Floyd out of interrogation. He quickly texted Rachel he was helping and would be a while longer. Rachel’s aggravation face appeared on his next instant message with a warning text in all caps – ‘YOU ARE ENTERING THE DANGER ZONE OF MY LAST NERVE’.
Nick laughed and replied in text, ‘been there, done that’.
* * *
Nick entered holding where Lisa enjoyed the city’s hospitality. She looked at him with sullen hatred upon recognizing her gang’s killer. “Hi Lisa. I have a very good deal for you. Would you like to hear it?”
Lisa watched Nick wave a manila letter sized envelope before letting it drop on the table in between them. Nick sat down and waited.
“Well? Are you going to show me the deal or not?”
“I have to wait for you to wave the rights you’ve heard so I can proceed. I don’t want any misunderstandings.” Nick used his most endearing and interested face during the initial hook.
“My parents are lawyers. I know when I’m being screwed.” Lisa sat with arms folded, smiling at Nick in an all-kn
owing featured format of bluff.
I’ll play. “I’m sure you would like to know what you’re facing and why before making a decision though. I can show you those items. It’s just I assumed you were smarter than to keep playing as if you don’t know you’re in bad trouble.”
Nick started out with the crime scene glossies, starting with her presumed lover’s body, Lou Atigua, followed by proof of where the getaway van she drove was parked. Then he produced testimony from Sergeant Boniface and his partner concerning Lisa’s threat on the life of a federal officer. Nick finished with fingerprint proof her dead crew touched nearly everything in her van. Nick watched Lisa’s face melt into terrified little girl mode with every intention of crying out for her Mommy. Nick slammed a hand down on the table.
“Don’t bother with the histrionics, Ms. Monroe! We have all the physical proof we need to put you into prison for life. If you start wailing, I will put you in touch with a lawyer of your choosing, including your Mommy and Daddy. You will be charged formally in court today on a multitude of federal felonies, all of which we can prove.”
Nick took a sheet out of the envelope with a full confession on it in plainly worded descriptions of the crimes. He pointed out a line for her to sign and date it. Then he pointed out another blank section. “I want you to write in your own words that you understand you have waved the right to an attorney, and that you have of your own free will chose to cooperate fully in hopes of court consideration. Don’t leave anything out, especially since we know you were the one behind the robberies. You have until I count to three before I walk out the door, deal in hand. One… two…”
Nightmare in Red Page 7