Violet Darger (Book 4): Bad Blood

by Vargus, L. T.

  Her jaw ached, and she realized she was clenching her teeth. That had been happening a lot lately, especially when she slept. She woke some mornings with her whole mouth throbbing, her teeth feeling like they were some kind of buzzing electrodes. She thought of the bottle of Tylenol in her bag, but she shouldn’t. Not here. That was the rule. Only off-hours. At night to help her sleep.

  She steered her focus back to the car, cataloging the interior: stainless steel travel mug, dash mount for a cell phone, a pair of black Oakleys tucked in one of the cup holders. Aside from the blood, it was clean. No clutter. One of those guys that was a real nut about keeping his vehicle spotless, she figured. If the bullet hadn’t killed him, seeing the spray of gore crusted over the dash would have.

  Her hands were thrust in her pockets as she peered through the glass, wondering what sequence of events had led to this. Who did you piss off, Mr. Howard?

  A voice came from behind her.

  “Hi there.”

  She turned. Another local cop stood a few yards away. He didn’t look quite as newborn as Officer Grimes, but Darger didn’t think he could be a day over twenty-five. He had a wide, freckled face with friendly-looking eyes.

  “Hello,” she said, extending her hand. “Violet Darger. FBI.”

  “Deputy Huettemann. Oakland County Sheriff’s Department. I was driving by and saw you having a look. I—” he stopped and swallowed, as if he needed to compose himself. “I’m the one who found the body.”

  Darger turned to face him more squarely.

  “Really? You see a lot of this out here?”

  “God, no. We might have one murder every 3-4 years in this township. A handful of robberies, rapes, and assaults, sure. We’re the wealthiest county in the state, and I suppose that buys a certain amount of safety. Now, down Pontiac way they get their fair share of murders, but we don’t catch many.” He glanced at the ruined windshield, the glass broken in a spiderweb pattern. “Then again, I guess nowhere is immune.”

  “And what about organized crime activity?”

  Huettemann sighed.

  “I know that ballistics matched the bullet to that other murder, but…” he paused, at a loss.

  “You don’t buy it?”

  “You see enough craziness as a cop, you can believe almost anything. But I’d find it a lot easier to swallow if we were even fifteen minutes south of here. Look around, agent. This is a small town.”

  He stretched out a hand, gesturing at the landscape. Among the standard chain stores and restaurants like Starbucks and CVS pharmacy, Darger saw a family-owned hardware store, a local plant nursery, a taxidermist. Her eyes fell on the neon sign for the Coney Island restaurant. If she had to guess, it hadn’t changed since the 60s.

  The deputy was right. She’d already been thinking it herself. This wasn’t the kind of place she’d expect to come across a mob-related hit.

  “Dan Howard — the victim — he was well-respected in this community. Did a lot of charity work, fundraisers and whatnot. We even go to the same church.”

  “No rumors that he was tied up in anything? Drugs, gambling?”

  The deputy shook his head vehemently.

  “Nothing like that. No record. No known connections to anything sinister.”

  Darger glanced back at the car.

  “Well, two bullets to the head, point-blank range. Empty parking lot at night, semi-isolated. Killer left the iPhone and the wallet full of credit cards and $500 in cash untouched. Even if we didn’t have a match on the gun, it would sure sound like a hit to me.”

  Deputy Huettemann followed her gaze, his eyes lingering on the car for a long moment. Finally, he tilted his wrist toward his face.

  “Task force meeting starts in an hour. I better get a move on.”

  “Yeah, I’ll catch up with you there,” she said.

  Chapter 2

  The FBI field office was housed in the Patrick V. McNamara Federal Building, a 393-foot tower that stood among the other giants in downtown Detroit — big enough to rank 15th tallest in the city.

  Darger rode the elevator to the 26th floor, second from the top, surprised to find some semblance of nerves fluttering in her belly. Perhaps these weren’t quite butterflies. Some smaller insect life buzzed around in there, though. Made her feel half-sick.

  Was she really ready to be back here? No one had expected her to return to work so soon. Not the doctors or Loshak or even herself. But she’d had her fill of “giving herself time to recuperate” and “being patient with the process.” It was time to saddle up. Get back on the horse.

  She ran into Loshak in the hall outside the conference room where the task force was set to convene.

  “I thought you got in ahead of me,” he said, by way of a greeting.

  “I did,” she said. “I drove out to take a look at the scene in person.”

  “Ah, so that’s why you look like you just won the spelling bee.”

  She tried not to look like she was gloating.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Yeah, right. You’re not at all fired up to have more information than I do.”

  “It’s not a competition, Loshak. Besides, I assume you’ve read the same file I have.”

  “And just look how you’re dragging it out.”

  They ventured into the conference room and sat around the extended table.

  All eyes turned to the unofficial leader of this operation — Special Agent Ron Price. He stood on the far side of the table, flipping through papers in a manila office folder, looking more like a college professor than law enforcement — maybe that was mostly the tweed jacket with patches on the elbows. His gray hair showed signs of thinning on top, and there was something of a hound dog sag to the flesh around his eyes, though the look in them was piercing and intelligent. He looked about Loshak’s age, which made sense as apparently the two of them knew each other from way back.

  Now Price checked his watch, greeted everyone quickly, and launched right into it.

  “We’ve got some new faces with us today. Deputy Huettemann from Oakland County, who will be coordinating with us on the Howard murder investigation from last night. Am I pronouncing that correctly? Hoot-a-min?”

  The deputy nodded, his cheeks flushing a little.

  Price went on.

  “I’ve also called in a special favor from Quantico, and they’ve graciously let us borrow two of the BAU’s finest — Special Agent Loshak and his partner Special Agent Darger.”

  Loshak gave a single nod, and Darger followed suit, feeling like a fish stuck in a pet shop aquarium.

  Price clicked on a projector, names and faces glowing out of focus on the matte white wall. He signaled for someone to hit the lights, and the images sharpened in the dark.

  “I’ll give a quick summation of the current landscape of the Detroit Partnership,” Price said. “Power has been concentrated within the Battaglia family for the last 27 years with Vincent Battaglia at the helm — Vinny the Bull. Prior to Vinny’s coming into power, his cousin, Angelo “Mad Dog” Battaglia, was thought to be next in line. Angelo served as underboss for three years, developed a reputation as a cutthroat. Unfortunately for his ambitions, we nailed him for drug distribution in ‘91. Smuggling heroin over the Canadian border in mass quantities. He was sentenced to 50 years but was paroled a couple years back. He was back on the streets for a few months, and then he disappeared shortly before Christmas that year.”

  “Merry Christmas,” someone muttered, which got a few chuckles.

  “Agent Costello, everyone,” Price said, gesturing toward a figure slumped in one of the chairs at the table. “Our resident wise-ass.”

  Costello looked even older than Price, probably pushing the mandatory FBI retirement age. Overweight, red-rimmed eyes, rumpled suit. He had the look to him of someone that had been on the job too long, had seen too much evil and cruelty in the world to think that anything could be done about it.

  “That brings us to the family drama
angle. This is key. Upon Angelo’s release, many speculated that Vincent would step down and allow his older cousin to finally have a go at running things. He was the rightful boss, after all. We’re not sure exactly what went on behind closed doors, but Angelo was only out for a few short months before he went missing. Many suspected Vinny the Bull had his cousin taken out to protect his position. But there were also rumors that Angelo had turned informant, gone into WITSEC. This situation has been a powder keg waiting to go off for some time.”

  Price paused to take a sip of coffee from a paper cup. He gestured at a pair of side-by-side images: Angelo Battaglia’s mugshot and what looked like a pile of rags on a dirty floor. Darger recognized the photos from the file. She knew that if you studied the second photograph closely, eventually you realized that you were staring at a skeleton clad in moldering clothes.

  “Fast forward to this past January, when the dental records of badly decomposed body found in an abandoned apartment building match those of Angelo Battaglia. There’s your explosion. Chaos ensues. Angelo’s son, Rocco, finally has proof of foul play. He wants blood. Revenge. And the crown he believes was the rightful property of his father? Well, I don’t think he’d mind trying that on for size either.”

  The images of Angelo Battaglia currently projected on the wall were replaced by Rocco’s driver’s license picture.

  “Rocco’s making a major move, and it’s split the Partnership right down the middle. A lot of the older guys are loyal to Vincent, while the up-and-comers tend to favor Rocco. Any way you slice it, this fracture will surely lead to winners and losers, and those on the losing side may be willing to cooperate. Witness protection starts to sound really good when the alternative is dyin’ face down in the gutter.”

  Now another voice chimed in — Detective Rodney Blankenship of the Wayne County Sheriff’s Department.

  “We can’t stress enough how massive this opportunity is,” he said.

  Blankenship was African-American with salt and pepper hair that was more salt than pepper. He sat with his knees apart, his suit jacket folded and resting on his lap.

  “Guys who would never flip have a real incentive to do so right now because of the turmoil. Rocco Battaglia is feared like none other, and it looks like this will break his way. That’d leave a lot of the old guard out in the cold. Could be the crack we’ve been waiting for, a chance to take the whole operation down.”

  Price nodded along with Blankenship’s words.

  “We’ve got files on a few of these major players,” Price said. “Printouts we can pass out now — the higher-ups in the family, if you will — but the soldiers remain mostly unknown to us apart from street rumors and legends and the like. These guys are pretty good at concealing their names — it’s no mistake that most mobsters have nicknames, a custom going back 100 years or more. They can operate without most people knowing their real identities. Makes our job a lot harder. That’s one of the reasons I’m so excited to have Agents Loshak and Darger on the case. Their skills could be invaluable in terms of making intuitive leaps, cutting through the fog, pinning down real identities instead of street names.”

  “Sure,” Costello said. “Now that the mind-hunters are here, they can consult their crystal ball, and we’re sure to bust the case wide open.”

  Loshak’s mouth twitched as though to respond to this, but Price plowed forward with his presentation.

  “Let’s try to stay on topic, shall we?” he said, clearing his throat. “That brings us to our vic from last night. Dan Howard. We have yet to determine his precise connection, but the two bullets lodged in his brain all but prove he was mixed up in it somehow.”

  He gestured to a blown-up copy of Howard’s final repose: slumped forward in the seat of his SUV, face mashed against the steering wheel and covered in blood.

  “When an obvious hit turns out like this, it’s for a reason. The mafia can make a body disappear when they want. So leaving him out in the open is significant. They wanted it known, wanted it in the papers. This guy did something egregious, crossed someone, and they not only wanted him dead, they wanted his death to send a message.”

  Darger’s eyes followed the drips of blood running down Howard’s cheeks in the photo, her mind flashing on her own blood-streaked face in the rearview mirror of Leonard Stump’s truck. She blinked and looked away, studying the cheat sheet of mob profiles Price had passed out to everyone.

  In her peripheral vision, she noticed someone enter the room, hands laden with cup carriers.

  “Finally,” Price said, with mock impatience. “Everybody grab a coffee. The rook here is shadowing me, so he’s our glorified coffee boy for the time being. You want anything — coffee, Pepsi, cigarettes, a pack of gum — just ask Special Agent Luck here. He’s an excellent shopper. Knows his way around the Walgreen’s down the block. Pretty good with Starbucks orders, too, if you keep ‘em simple enough.”

  Darger froze, unsure if her ears had deceived her and not really wanting to look up to confirm what she’d heard. Slowly she let her gaze rise, and there he was. Casey Luck, in the flesh.

  Son of a bitch.

  Chapter 3

  Darger stared. Blinked. She couldn’t believe it.

  She’d met Luck back in Athens, Ohio, where they’d worked a serial murder case together. He’d been the lead detective, and somewhere along the way, she and Luck had wound up in bed together. Things hadn’t ended so well either…. Darger had sensed he was getting attached and broke it off. He was a single parent, raising a daughter. It was the best thing for everyone.

  So why did a nagging sense of guilt come over her as she looked at him now? Because of how things ended? Or for having gotten involved at all?

  Whatever it was, she couldn’t fathom how the hell this had gotten by her. Casey Luck had joined the FBI?

  She glanced over at Loshak to see if he was having similar feelings of disbelief. She thought they’d have one of their wordless exchanges, the kind where she gives a look that says, WTF? And he returns with a twitch of the eyebrows that suggests, I know, right?

  But that didn’t happen. In fact, Loshak seemed to be systematically avoiding her gaze.

  It didn’t take long for her radar to go off.

  Loshak already knew. Of course. Another thing he’d concealed from her.

  She sat through the meeting, her blood at a simmer. Fucking Loshak and his fucking secrets.

  While most of her focused on the rage, another part of her overheard Price begin to digress, share his deep knowledge of the mafia’s history in Detroit. He really was like a professor. At one point, he even took out a handkerchief and delicately blew his nose into it. Darger had no idea people still used handkerchiefs.

  “What’s going on here — the operation known as the Detroit Partnership — has direct ties to the original five families in New York, same as the outfit in Chicago originally run by Al Capone. In fact, all of what we know as the mafia in America today started in New York and spread West from there.”

  He paced the front of the conference room as he spoke.

  “Without getting too retrospective, it can help to understand the conditions that helped foster the growth of this particular brand of organized crime. For example, back in the early 20th century of the United States, when racial and ethnic prejudice was more overt and more accepted, it wasn’t uncommon to see signs about construction jobs that listed pay for potential groups of employees. White employees got paid the most. Black employees ranked second. Italians got paid the least.”

  Price froze for a moment and listed these off on his fingers.

  “Kind of hard to wrap our heads around these days, but the discrimination against Italians and other immigrant groups was very real. And this helped fuel a heated rivalry between Italian and Irish immigrants. Very bitter,” Price said. “Once the Irish got the upper hand, won a bunch of local elections and so forth in immigrant neighborhoods, they did everything in their power to block their rivals from achieving the same. It was
a way to keep power for themselves, of course. This scenario played a major role in seeding the development of the mafia. The Italian immigrants had no legitimate path to power available to them, so some of them found an illegitimate one.”

  With a hand resting thoughtfully on his chin, Prize gazed without focus at the floor.

  “In a way, I can sympathize with the conditions back then. I imagine it was a rough time for a lot of people, immigrants especially. But that’s no excuse to perpetuate organized crime these days. And of course the vast majority of Italian Americans have nothing to do with this tiny offshoot, either, of course. Good, honest people. Like Agent Costello over there.”

  “I try,” Costello deadpanned.

  She tuned him out again for a bit, but eventually his voice came back stronger than before. Bordering on urgent.

  “By all accounts, the boss-in-hiding, Vinny Battaglia, is not wired like the other mobsters. He’s a businessman. Kind. Funny. Likable. Maybe even gentle in his old age — he’s 66 and looks even older,” Price said. “Part of it is just down to him being old school. The younger generation is brutal. More violent than ever before. No sense of honor. Just paranoid animals always on the attack.”

  Detective Blankenship sat forward and rapped his knuckles against the table.

  “That’s why I think we might be able to flip him. If we could get to Vinny before Rocco and his crew, anyway.”

  At the head of the room, Price nodded along.

  “That’s the dream scenario, of course. Just imagine how that’d play in court. The kindly old grandfather, warm and smiling. A businessman who took steps toward turning this crime family into something legit, something less horrific. Imagine him testifying against the violent jackals who oppose him. That’d be checkmate, my friend. The whole family wiped out in one move. Trouble is, how do we find him?”

  Price finally trailed off, and Blankenship chimed in again.

  “Are we going to divvy up assignments?”

  “Right. Of course,” Price said. “I’ll be working with Agent Loshak. We’ve got some city hall contracts to sort through, and I want to bounce some ideas off of that big brain of his while we poke through Howard’s business affairs.”