Sure you are, Laura had thought.
As she now recalled, Turnbull’s most noticeable features were an exaggerated jaw and a self-important manner that didn’t quite mesh with his otherwise colorless presence.
“Which means it’s even more important that I stay out here,” she told Jardine.
“More important than clearing yourself of a double murder?”
“Yes.”
“How could it be?”
“There’s more to this, Scott. A lot more! I need freedom to operate.”
“What freedom, Sarah? You’re a federal fugitive!”
“And how close are they to catching me?”
A pause. “Point taken. So, why did you send me that video link?”
“Insurance. I need one person inside law enforcement I can trust.”
“You’re saying you trust me?”
“Am I wrong?”
“Just me? No one else? What about Homeland? Customs? What about your old boss? If she’s close to Turnbull, she could—”
“I can’t take the chance. This case … it’s not what you think.”
“Then what is it, Sarah? Help me understand.”
“That’s not my name.”
“What do you mean? Your prints, the warrant—everything comes back Sarah Lockhart!”
“They’re avoiding publicity.”
“Who’s ‘they’? It’s a murder case. Murders attract publicity.”
“Are you forgetting the ‘restricted’ notice that came up when you ran my prints? How much media coverage did those murders get?”
“Uh…”
Laura had already run an online search. Of course the story of the killings could never have been completely suppressed, but somehow Homeland had kept it small.
Very small.
Even more disturbing, they’d managed to keep it local. A truncated report had appeared in the back pages of USA Today and in a few other national papers, and then was mentioned no more. There was nothing about the suspected killer being a federal agent, and not a word about the victims being shot with a law officer’s service weapon. The reports did mention that the FBI had joined the investigation, but that was put down to the fact that the case involved the suspected kidnapping of a child. If the press had sought and received any explanation of the suspected modifier, it had not found its way into their finished reports. All the public had been told was that a woman named Sarah Lockhart was being sought for questioning.
“I think I remember something in the press. Can’t say for sure.”
“My point.”
“So, who is Sarah Lockhart?”
“A computer file.”
“A computer file charged with two counts of murder?”
“That’s right.”
“So what were they planning to do if you were found and arrested?”
“Let’s see … if I’m cleared before a trial, transfer me to some anonymous field office or pension me off early.”
“And if you weren’t? If it went to trial?”
“They wouldn’t be able to hide my identity any longer, and they’d be facing a media shit storm.”
“I’m not getting this. Why would—?”
“Scott, my real name is Laura Pace.”
It took a few seconds for Jardine to absorb what he had just heard.
“Holy shit.”
“My name was leaked after those arrests. But my photograph wasn’t.”
“I remember. The press hated that.” The detective actually sounded excited. “Wait a minute! I do remember a picture—”
“From my tenth-grade yearbook. I look a bit different now.”
“How did you manage to—?”
“By staying off Facebook, and making sure all public records were purged. Now … do you understand?”
“I’m beginning to.”
“Scott. Can I trust you?”
“That depends. Tell me why I should trust you!”
“Because your instincts are telling you I’m innocent, and you always follow your instincts.”
“How do you know that?”
“Intuition. Women have intuition; men have instincts. That’s how we manage to survive each other.”
An exasperated sigh. “Okay. What do you need?”
“Nothing right now. I have your number, and you have mine. Don’t call me; I’ll call you.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Visit a mob boss.”
“What?”
“His name is Dominic Lanza, and he’s behind all this.”
“Laura—”
“I’ll explain next time we talk. Meanwhile, I need to make some coffee, and you need to destroy that SIM card.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He paused. “But I want you to promise me something.”
“What?”
“When this is all over, I want to know everything.”
“You will.”
“No, not just about this. The senator. I want to know what really happened.”
For the first time in a very long time, Laura Caterina Pace allowed herself a smile. No wonder Scott Jardine had sounded excited when she’d told him her name.
He was a Laura Pace fanboy.
28
Laura had hung out the Do Not Disturb sign before she crashed the night before, and the maid had respected it. But she’d left her phone on. After her conversation with Scott Jardine, she checked for missed calls, thinking she might have slept through the ringtone.
No missed calls. Her jaw tightened with worry.
Knowing Dickie, he would have called her by now.
She quickly showered and dressed. She was about to take a risk and call him when her cell rang.
“What happened? Why’d you take so long to call?”
She listened, waiting for the warning words. Long ago, they’d agreed on a code. If he was in trouble, calling her under duress, calling with a gun to his head, he would say something about an upset stomach in the first few seconds: “Sorry I didn’t call … my stomach was acting up.” Or: “I might have to cut this short … my stomach’s bothering me.”
“No worries. My stomach’s fine.” He laughed. “It was my boss. He was crawling down my neck about a project I’d promised him for yesterday. How did it go with Jardine?”
She told him.
“You should’ve let him help you!”
“Not yet. What did you find out about Lanza?”
“Not much. Lots of rumors.” Laura heard rustling papers. “He’s a businessman who lives in Florham Park, New Jersey. He’s supposed to be connected to an extinct San Francisco crime syndicate, but that’s never been proven. He’s supposed to be the head of a so-called East Coast Lanza crime family, but that’s never been proven either. There’s pretty good evidence that his uncle, Tommaso Lanza, who died in ’91, was linked up with some crooked construction union people back when Nixon was president. But if this organization even exists, it operates way under the radar. The FBI doesn’t know what to do about Lanza because they’ve never been able to infiltrate his organization, assuming there’s one to infiltrate, and they’ve never been able to turn one of his soldiers, assuming his employees are soldiers.”
“Dickie, I read all this myself online.”
“I figured. But there’s one thing I’ve found that’s not on the internet. It’s in an intel report I found in the State Department’s database. It was passed to us from the FBI.”
“Tell me.”
“Two years ago, Lanza and one of his assistants visited Sicily for a week. There were two other people with them—an old guy, maybe an old friend, and a young woman, probably some kind of nurse because the old guy was pretty frail. They landed at Catania in a private jet. Interesting thing: the flight plan showed the jet arriving from Florida. Anyway, during the week they were there, eleven members of one of the Cosa Nostra families in Palermo went missing. None of them has ever been found.”
“What’s the connection?”
“The It
alian anti-Mafia police said there’s some kind of long-running feud between this Palermo crime family and the Lanza people, who come from somewhere farther inland. Their immigration records showed that Dominic Lanza had only visited Italy a few times in forty years, and his last visit was something like twenty years earlier. So, after all that time he suddenly shows up, a bunch of these local mob guys disappear, and then he flies home. The Italian cops thought it was too much of a coincidence. They passed the info over to the FBI in case they might be able to help with the investigation.”
“Any sign that the investigation got anywhere?”
“Nothing I could get my hands on.”
“What’s the name of this Palermo family?”
“Just a sec…” She could hear the whisper of turning pages. “They’re called the Mazzaras.”
“Spell it.”
He did. Laura was silent.
“Laura?”
“Hmm?”
“What’s next?”
“It’s time I took a ride.”
“Where to?”
“Florham Park, New Jersey.”
“Not a good idea!”
“I’ll stay in touch. Love ya.”
“Laura!”
She disconnected.
* * *
The rented two-bedroom townhouse tucked in the back of the complex on Delano Street wasn’t fancy, but it suited Scott Jardine just fine. It was close to the highway, and only thirty minutes from work. There were times when that half-hour drive was more than he wanted to face after a long shift, but he’d had a good reason for making the recent move. It was exactly halfway between the district 7 substation and the sheriff’s main office in Naples.
As tired as he was after a full shift, and then four extra hours on an emergency call out, he wasn’t so bushed that he missed the warning.
Movement inside his condo.
At this time of the year, the angle of the setting sun sent shafts of light through his patio doors, straight down the meridian of his railcar-narrow living room, and into his kitchen. He’d left in such a hurry this morning he’d forgotten to close the patio drapes.
A shadow had flickered across the inside of the slatted bamboo drop shade on his kitchen window.
He kept walking, rounded the end of the building, and climbed the trellis to his bedroom balcony. He had his key ready to unlock the sliding door, but it was already unlocked and open a few inches. There was no sign that it had been jimmied.
Did I leave that unlocked?
Shit, I did!
He removed his shoes and drew his weapon. Moving silently, he crossed his bedroom and then crept down the carpeted stairs to the main floor.
The first thing he noticed was that the drapes were now closed.
The second thing was the compact frame of a man with a tattoo on his neck examining titles on his bookshelf.
Jardine stepped into the open and leveled his weapon.
“Hands on your head and turn around slowly!”
The man did exactly as he was told. Jardine took in the dirty-blond hair, the angular face, the crooked smile … and the leather edge of a holster under the open jacket.
“Who are you, and what are—?”
“Please put your weapon away, Detective.”
A taut-faced woman was sitting at his kitchen table. She looked to be in her early forties.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Renate Richter.” She held up an identity card. “I work for the United Nations. This is Rolf Karppa. He works with me.”
“Well, Mr. Karppa is armed, and he’s in my house.”
“We’re not here to cause harm. We’re here about a mutual friend.”
“Who’s that?”
“Sarah Lockhart. Please put your gun away.”
Jardine hesitated, then holstered his weapon.
“Please join me.”
Jardine walked over, pulled out a chair, and sat. He studied Renate’s identity card, and handed it back.
“Okay. Why is the U.N. in my house?”
“From your reaction, I see that Sarah has not mentioned my name.”
“No, she has not mentioned your name, and neither has Laura.”
“You know this. Good. That will save us time. Now … you will recall her concern about a baby monitor.”
“I’ve seen the video.”
“Have you shared that video with the FBI investigators?”
“No. But you can tell her that the only reason I haven’t is because I don’t know how to explain where I got it.”
“I think, more importantly, you have withheld it because she asked you to.”
“That’s right. And I still don’t understand why.”
“You must be patient. You will have a lot more evidence to show your federal authorities when this operation is over.”
“What operation?”
“The one we would like you to join.”
Jardine glanced at Rolf Karppa, who was now standing near the window looking faintly dangerous, like an unexploded grenade.
“Listen. I believe Laura is innocent. I do. But aiding and abetting a fugitive? That will get me arrested.”
“No, it won’t.”
Jardine leaned back. This strange woman had him flummoxed. All he could think to say was: “You sound pretty confident.”
“I am. I’m here to tell you everything we know about this case, and about Laura herself. When I’m finished, I’m confident that you will want to help.”
“Does she know you’re here?”
“No, she does not.”
Seconds passed.
“I’m listening.”
Thirty minutes later, Jardine went upstairs and quickly packed a duffel.
29
It was over twelve hundred miles from Clewiston, Florida, to Florham Park, New Jersey—in other words, a tough eighteen-hour ride if Laura did it in one run. But that would also mean taking I-95, a route that had lots of tolls and lots of cameras. She resigned herself to a three-day grind, sticking to state highways and staying off the interstate system. Instead of trying to figure out her route on a tiny cell phone screen, she returned to the used bookstore where she’d found her stage prop law books and bought an old Rand McNally road atlas. She’d make her move early the next morning—up at four, on the road before five.
Just before six that evening, she went to find some takeout. She remembered seeing a Mexican restaurant when she rode into town. It was about a half mile away. Since she’d be sitting on her bike for the next three days, she decided to stretch her legs and go on foot.
Walking back with a boxed order of enchiladas, she noticed a black Escalade nosed in at the eastern end of the motel complex. Other than her motorcycle, there were no other vehicles in the lot. When she’d left for the restaurant, there’d been two pickup trucks and a VW Beetle parked in front of various units.
She dropped in at the office to buy a newspaper. The clerk who had checked her in three days earlier was on duty. The woman was just as indifferent as before.
As she exited the office, her phone rang. It was Dickie.
“Better get rid of that bike…”
“Why?”
“Somebody ran your name on DAVID.”
DAVID was the Driver and Vehicle Information Database maintained by the Florida Highways Department.
“All they’d find is the car I sold before I went to Italy.”
“They also ran ‘Silvana Pace.’”
Laura stopped in her tracks. Only she and Dickie knew the bike was registered in her deceased grandmother’s name.
At least, until now.
“When was this?”
“Yesterday.”
“Who ran the search?”
“I’m working on the tracker code, but it was definitely federal. They’ve got access to your file, so they’ll know about your Nonna. Someone must have taken a shot in the dark.”
“Thanks, Dickie. Call me when you know.”
She disconn
ected. As she moved slowly toward her room, her eyes swept the parking area. There was nothing to see except the Escalade, which was parked at the end unit a hundred feet away. As she approached her door, she studied the curtains covering her double windows. They were closed tight, with a deliberate ripple in the cloth exactly where she had left it. She set her newspaper and food package on the pavement next to the door. Then, as quietly as possible, she unlocked her bike and rolled it into the breezeway that separated her unit from the motel office. If she needed to make a fast getaway, that passage led straight into the alley behind the motel. She strolled back to her door and slotted in her key card. When the panel light clicked green, she shoved the door hard and stepped to one side.
With a bang, the door juddered off the wall and started swinging back.
Ready to sprint, she risked a quick check.
Her room was empty.
She scooped up her dinner and the newspaper, ducked into the room, and locked and chained the door.
She removed her jacket and was just about to hang it up when, directly behind her, the door to the adjoining room swung open.
She spun around.
Scott Jardine was standing there.
“Hello, Sarah. Sorry … Laura.”
“Scott? How did you—?” She moved toward him.
He drew his service weapon. “I’ve heard all about the hapkido moves, Laura. They won’t stop a bullet. You’re under arrest.”
“Where’s your SWAT team?”
“Didn’t think I’d need one. You won’t hurt me.”
“And you won’t shoot me.”
“So we’re even.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m the only cop on your side and you know it.” He circled behind her, holstering his weapon.
“Are you planning to cuff me?”
“Do I need to?”
He had her, and he knew it.
“God damn you, Scott! I trusted you!”
“Best investment you ever made. Let’s go.” He nudged her toward the adjoining unit.
Something’s not right.…
“What’s really going on here?”
“I’m arresting you so the FBI can’t. That’s all I can tell you right now. But first, there’s someone you need to meet.”
Killing Pace Page 16