“Now it could be explained away that your son killed him, and it was unrelated to the assassination of Governor Behler.”
“How does this tie back to my son?”
Leone noticed the pulse in Pietro’s cheek, an unrestrained sign of anger.
“The markings on him. TSK TSK. This is similar to fifteen years ago.”
Pietro tossed the photo onto the table. His attention was on the fire that burned wildly in the fireplace. “Why are you telling me this?”
“As you mentioned. I am loyal.” Pietro remained silent; Leone felt wrath permeate the air between them. The aura was powerful enough to strangle.
“We don’t touch dignitaries. It is a rule,” Pietro said.
Leone bit back his initial reaction. He wanted to say something to the effect of dignitaries were easily bought and paid for. Instead, he said, “Well, that’s what I thought.” Leone scooped up the photograph and placed it back in his shirt pocket. He went to stand up and Pietro followed his lead.
The man near the window averted his eyes to outside. Leone had noticed him glance over periodically as he spoke to Pietro.
“Sorry to have disturbed you,” Leone said with an extended hand.
Pietro’s jaw tightened and a pulsing twitch tapped in his cheek. He gestured toward the door.
“Actually, one more thing,” Leone said.
Pietro’s eyes met with Leone’s and enlarged when he saw the gun pointed at him. Seconds later, he lay dead and bleeding on his rare and expensive carpet.
Leone shrugged. He never did like the rug.
-
Chapter 76
OUTSKIRTS OF DETROIT, MICHIGAN
MONDAY, JUNE 14TH, 3:00 AM
“YOU DID ALL OF THIS TO PROVE YOURSELF.” For some reason, I found myself provoking Christian, taunting him as a schoolyard bully. I may be the one tied to a chair, captive, by all standards, vulnerable, yet I possessed something Christian never had—mental strength. If a man could be overpowered in mind, he was the weakest sort. Why I felt the need to prove my theory with a gun pointed on me, I didn’t really know.
“Ah!” Christian let out a wail and retracted the gun. His hand went into a pocket and he pulled out a knife. “Basta!”
With his lash out of anger, I remembered the man who stood at the corner bar in Pietro’s back room. His rings were oversized for his fingers, and his eyes were darkened in shadow. “He was going to leave everything to someone else.”
The knife tore into my flesh with relative ease, right through my clothing and into the meat of my thigh. I focused on another place, another time, than the now.
“What? You think you’re so smart.” He thrust the knife into my open wound, the blade biting further into my flesh.
The pain sent shivers down my legs and up my torso. The sting bit inside my chest. I dropped my head.
“Finally, you show weakness, Hunter.”
It took everything from within to lift up my head. The throbbing pain threatened to deplete all my strength, physically as well as mentally. I needed to keep talking so I wouldn’t blackout. “Why did you want her dead?”
“She…” The knife motioned in erratic movements in the air; the steel stained crimson. My other leg instinctively prepared itself for impact with the blade. He never executed on my suspicion.
Unpredictable.
“I don’t answer to you, Hunter. I answer to no one.”
“So it’s the truth. Everything was just out of reach for you. Power, money, happiness.”
“Basta!”
“That’s how you deal with it. You scream enough, you wave a gun, cut with knives. You’re a coward!” The pain had seized control, rendering me a man gone mad.
“How dare you?” Christian’s hands gripped at the collar of my jacket. He spoke inches from my face, spittle projecting with each syllable. “You don’t know me.”
“I do—more than you like.”
Christian released me. His eyes fell downcast, and I felt sadness in the air. “He sent you to kill me.”
“I want my family back.”
“But he sent you to kill me in exchange for them!”
I didn’t say another word—there would be no advantage.
DETROIT, MICHIGAN
“BRAVO!” HANDS CLAPPED, and the man at the picture window stepped toward Leone.
He knew that voice, the exaltation. Agostino? Leone had suspected that the mysterious man at the window had his back. Leone handed the envelope Pietro had given him over to the Consigliere for the Caparelli Family.
“You keep. You earned it.” He shoved it back toward Leone. “Now you must finish things.”
Leone nodded his allegiance to this man. He had originally questioned why they had chosen him to take care of their house cleaning and had concluded it was a matter of deciding who was trustworthy. Their trust had been betrayed by the Russos and that was unacceptable. Leone made the perfect candidate as they would have known he had access to both Pietro and Christian. They knew Leone could be bought.
The door opened and another Italian walked in, darkened crescents highlighted his deeply set eyes. He laced his fingers together, oversized rings on most of them, including both pinkies. He passed a glance to Roman and then extended a hand to Leone. “Welcome to Detroit.”
Leone smiled and bowed his head slightly to display respect. The man he shook hands with would become Pietro’s successor as the new Don.
OUTSKIRTS OF DETROIT, MICHIGAN
YVONNE FELT EYES ON HER and the shiver that ran through her core shook her awake. She bolted straight upward. It took a while for her eyes to focus. She saw her mother on the floor near another cot. “Mom.” Her word came out not much stronger than a whisper.
“Mom.”
Yvonne looked to her side and noticed her brother lying there. She could hear his breathing and knew he would be okay. She wondered if she would ever see her family again yet here they were, all alive—at least for now.
“Mom!” Finally, her voice came back with some strength.
“Yvonne, my baby.” Her mother opened her eyes and crawled along the ground, moving in between her and her brother. “You all right?”
Yvonne nodded, but the tears flowed. She wrapped her arms around her mother. “I’m sorry…for everything.” She spoke through sobs as her chest heaved for a solid breath.
“Don’t be, sweetheart. I’m sorry too.” Her mother held her tighter than she had ever remembered. Even as a little girl with a scraped knee, her mother’s embrace never communicated as much love as it did now.
She had always considered her father her favorite parent, even though she knew something wasn’t right about choosing one over the other. Maybe most teenage girls went through the stage where their mothers knew nothing about what it was like. They had forgotten about the boys and the desire to be pretty and fit in. Somehow they gave that up in exchange when they became mothers.
“Why are they doing this?” Yvonne asked. In response, her mother grouped her daughter’s hair with both hands and then let it fan against her shoulders.
What wasn’t her mother saying? Her mother was never quiet.
CHRISTIAN LEANED OVER ME WITH the knife swaying erratically. He went to my wrists and I shivered backward in fear. This man was an unpredictable missile that would take on another target with a newly appearing heat signature.
“Don’t!” I felt the pain; I lived it as if he had sliced my wrist. I envisioned the blood spraying as the knife slit through the artery. My thoughts went to my family, how they would be without a father, searching for answers, and yet never getting them satisfied.
Christian didn’t say a word as the knife moved closer to my wrists. He cut the ropes that tied me to the chair.
“Get up!”
He refused to look at me, and I rose. The throbbing in my leg bit, and
rendered me temporarily immobile.
“Move it!”
My attention went to the table with my weapons. My interest on the flashlight.
Christian shoved the butt of the gun between my shoulder blades. Each step shot fiery twinges through my entire body. My mind blurred. All my senses were encompassed with pain. I had to think about something else. I exaggerated a jab in my lower back and moved closer to the table. I lost the strength in my legs and caught myself on the edge of it. I struggled to get up and as I did slid the flashlight from the table into a pocket.
“Move!” Christian pulled up on my arm and forced me to my feet. I wondered if he was going to kill me. His energy spoke of homicidal rage, yet there was something about him that I couldn’t read.
He dragged me down the hangar like a bird with a wounded wing. I could barely move or keep pace with the knife gash in my upper thigh. He hauled me through the doorway I had opened earlier in search of my family. It was the hallway that led to the room filled with blood and the decapitated head.
“Think about what you’re doing.” The plea fell weak, pathetic to my own ears. He was playing with my mind, instilling hope when my fate had likely been sealed.
He unlocked the door to the first room where I had found a swatch of Max’s pajamas. “In there!”
Maybe it meant I would be spared?
With the door opened, he pushed me hard enough that I lost my balance between the momentum and my busted leg. I crumpled to the ground. My back was to him. I prepared for the sound of a firing gun and the impact of a bullet. Instead, the door closed with a loud thud.
“Christian!” My yell fell on the empty room and the four walls that encased me—my prison cell.
I went to spring upward, for an instance forgetting the wound to my leg and quickly fell back down. I willed myself to move. Crawling along, dragging my injured leg, I finally reached the door. Inching up I put a hand on the knob, and my fear had been confirmed. Christian had locked me in. As my arm came down the door, the dire reality of the situation set in.
Blood had left a trail a foot wide as I had shimmied across the floor. The bleeding needed to be stopped. Coaxing myself up with my back to the door for support, I worked at tearing off my jacket.
The pain bit with razor-sharp teeth as I leaned forward to undrape the jacket from behind my back. I held it up and assessed the length of the sleeve. When I determined it would work just fine, I ripped it off and wrapped it around the wound. I applied pressure and bit down on the other sleeve as a means of preventing the pain from becoming audible.
The sleeve was just long enough to wrap and tie it into a tight knot. With the pressure on the wound, the blood would congeal and the bleeding would eventually stop. The pressure brought its own source of pain, yet comfort at the same time. My mind knew this needed to be done in order to survive.
I slid a hand into the pocket with the flashlight and pulled it out. Inside the jacket was a hidden pocket where Christian’s men had searched but left alone. They came out with the single .22 bullet and had put it back in.
“What’s he gonna do with this when we have all his guns?” The smaller man, Limpy Scarface, had a good laugh over stripping me down.
I looked down at the flashlight in my hands. When Christian came back, I’d be ready for him.
-
Chapter 77
DETROIT, MICHIGAN
MONDAY, JUNE 14TH, 5:30 AM
HOURS HAD PASSED AND LEONE knew time was running out. Daylight would be here soon enough and he preferred the cover of night. He knew Clinton would be expecting answers come mid-morning about his findings on the Rolex guy—Rick Carson. But Leone had another agenda, and it paid a lot more than some Federal job.
Christian’s house was empty when Leone had shown up after popping off Daddy Dearest. The kill had embedded an adrenaline rush in his bloodstream and had filled him with hunger to kill again. He was disappointed to meet with an empty bedroom. The bed was made and the house had been tidied. In fact, Christian’s house didn’t even appear to have been lived in for at least a couple days.
He rooted through the nightstand and office. The entire time he wondered why the house of a Don’s son would be left unattended. The scenario blanketed him with a sense of uneasiness.
There was a safe in his den, a predictable, stereotypical type. Fireproof with a large combination dial on the front of it. Leone viewed it as a waste of effort to even try to open it. And he knew even if he got inside, there likely wouldn’t be any information there that would help him determine Christian’s location.
He had stood there, in the middle of the room for a while, hand to his chin contemplating his next step. As he did, he imagined the clock ticking off the seconds.
He thought long and hard about any possible place the man could be, knowing that anything he came up with would be best guess and founded on nothing substantial.
When he came up to meet with Pietro Russo the first time, fifteen years ago, he had been offered a flight to anywhere in the world. He had taken him up on that and went to St. Lucia. It was a beautiful island matched only by the women who lined the shore in bikinis. Many of them were topless. It had been a terrific vacation. But he didn’t leave from the regular airport on a commuter flight. Pietro had sent him on a private jet.
It was a long time ago now, but Leone bet he could still find the place. He fished a cigarette out of his pocket, lit up, and was on the move.
NIAGARA FALLS, NEW YORK
THE CELL PHONE RANG ON his nightstand and dragged Clinton from a good dream he was having. He could only recall sketchy details even fractions of a second later when he reached to answer. It involved the beautiful ME that much he knew.
“Hey.”
There was a few seconds’ pause on the other end.
“Detective Clinton?”
It was a man’s voice and one he didn’t recognize. His head was still in a foggy trancelike state. “This is.”
“This is Chief Unger from Detroit PD. You find out more about the Governor?”
Clinton sat up, sliding up the wall and bumped his head in the process on the bottom of a picture frame that hung over his bed. He rubbed his head. What time was it anyhow? The clock read five thirty. He fought off a yawn.
“I just have some questions,” Clinton said.
“You have questions, but you can’t answer how the investigation is coming along with the Governor of Michigan?”
Too many departments wanted to have control. Now it was the Detroit PD. “It’s coming along.”
“Well, that couldn’t get any more vague.”
“With all due respect, we don’t have time for that. And this is regarding another case. The Riley murders from fifteen years ago. You worked on the case with the FBI.”
The line went silent. It told Clinton the man on the other end wasn’t sure whether to discuss the case or not. He probably wondered what his old case had to do with this current one.
Clinton continued, “We believe the same person involved with those murders may have had something to do with the assassination attempt.” Clinton was certain the Detroit PD hadn’t been informed of the successful assassination. It was to be contained as much as possible.
“You believe the Mafia is involved?” Unger asked.
“The investigation is leaning that way.”
“The Mafia doesn’t hit dignitaries. They make a public spectacle of honoring them.”
Or of buying them off. It was time to redirect the conversation where Clinton desired it to go. “What happened to the Riley case?”
“Well, four murders. The motive, the knife wounds on the husband, were all tied back to the Mafia from Detroit. But nothing on the bullet.”
“Specifically Christian of the Russo family,” Clinton said.
“You’ve been doing your research.”
“The same markings have shown up here in Niagara Falls, New York and there’s a connection between that and Behler’s case. Why was the case against the man dismissed?” Silence again. Clinton felt he may have pressed his luck too hard.
“Maybe we shouldn’t be talking.”
“What aren’t you saying Chief?”
Another delayed pause. Unger broke the silence. “All the evidence against him was proven inadmissible as everything had been obtained without the proper warrants. And the knife went missing from lockup.”
“But all the evidence had pointed to him. Robert Riley owed the Russo family thousands in gambling debts.”
“The law doesn’t always account for the evidence as past generations would have. These days they like to see the forensic proof align as well. We didn’t have that. Combine that with unlawful search and seizure…” Unger let his words trail off.
“So a guilty man walks.”
“I guess.” Unger went quiet again. Clinton wondered if he was thinking what he was: someone in charge was bought off to make the evidence inadmissible.
Clinton could also relate to the Chief’s distaste for the modern way requiring forensic evidence to catch a killer. What happened to the good ol’ days when detectives did their legwork, held interrogations, and established motives, and built on lack of alibis? If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, it’s a duck. But that line of reasoning didn’t fly these days. They’d need a sample of its blood to check the DNA coding.
“Do you remember FBI Special Agent Leone?” Clinton asked.
“Well, of course. We had called in the FBI for help with the murders. Your research should have told you that.”
The mention of Leone’s name established another facet to the Chief’s tone of voice. He didn’t care for the man either.
“He was given the lead on the case,” Clinton said.
“That’s correct, yes. Why?”
“I’m just confirming my research.”
“Does your research also show the number of good men who lost their jobs due to that man?”
Assassination of a Dignitary Page 29