by D. J. Palmer
“So what are you two thinking?”
“Paternity test,” Grace said. “We want Vince’s DNA.”
“His DNA?” Navarro looked like he’d been blindsided.
“That’s right,” said Annie. “If there’s a match, I think it would be enough to get Detective Allio from Lynn to give Rapino a much closer look. There’d be a clear connection between the victim, the accused, and the boyfriend. Vince is hiding something, we’re sure of it.”
“And you want the police to go on a fishing expedition, see what they catch, is that it?”
“Cast as wide a net as possible,” said Grace.
“Not a bad idea, not bad at all,” Navarro concurred. “Who knows what you might snag that way.”
“Can you force him to give it to us?” asked Annie. “He’s been arrested. Isn’t his DNA on record somewhere?”
“Sure,” said Navarro. “It’s possible, but it doesn’t mean it’s accessible to us.”
Grace’s eyes went to the floor.
“Getting Vince’s DNA from police evidence to use for paternity testing would require an emergency motion from family court,” Navarro explained. “Just because they dated in high school won’t be enough to convince a judge to issue an order.”
“Do you have a judge who owes you a favor?” Grace had hope in her voice.
“I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way,” Navarro said. “It’ll take all kinds of time and effort to chase after this—time I don’t have to give, and there’s no guarantee I’ll be successful, either. My focus has to be on the trial. We’re so close. Maybe after, Grace, but not before.”
“It’ll be too late after,” Grace lamented.
“If she’s found guilty we’ve still got our appeal,” Navarro reminded her. “I get it, I do. It’s a good idea, but it’s wasted effort, and it will be counterproductive at a critical juncture.”
“Well, what do you suggest?” asked Grace.
Now Navarro took the coffee cake. He sat at a small foldout table in the study and ate in silence. He appeared to be mulling something over.
“I know Rapino from outside this case … from here, the North Shore, from his rep. Bad hombre.” He took a bite and seemed to be chewing harder on some thought. “I can’t reveal where I got this information from, Grace. It could get me in a lot of trouble. But I know there’s a criminal probe going on about Vince Rapino right now, about his auto body shop, a counterfeit auto parts scam that he’s running. A client of mine is caught up in it, and he’s contemplating copping a plea. Honestly, I don’t want to suggest it.”
“Suggest what?” Annie asked. All three were now sitting and having cake.
“Start with the police,” Navarro said. “Go to Detective Jay Allio with what you have. Ask him to look into Maria again, and make the DNA ask on Vince. I don’t think it’ll fly, but it’s better than my plan.”
“And what’s your plan.”
A weighty look came to Navarro’s eyes and face. “Go get his DNA yourself,” he said. “His shop is local. I can’t really advise you here, you understand, right? What I’m saying … it’s all off the record.”
“I understand. But how do we get his DNA?” asked Grace. “We can’t just waltz in there and ask him for it.”
“No, but you may be able to snag something, an object, something he touched.”
“Okay,” Grace said, mulling over his suggestion, not liking it one bit.
“I get it,” Navarro said. “Mitch has done great work, but I don’t think it’s enough. The hit list, those murder fantasies she and Maria wrote—those are what’s really in our way. They speak to premeditation, and we’ve no proof that Penny suffered a psychotic episode. We are fifty-fifty here, and that’s being generous. You could be right. Maybe something with Rapino tips those scales in our favor.”
“I’m thinking hell yes,” said Annie with her gung-ho spirit. “We got something on him. Forget asking, we could pressure him hard.”
“Caution here, ladies,” Navarro said, taking in a forkful of cake. “Guys like Rapino are tough to bend, but they’re even tougher when they break.”
CHAPTER 40
WHEN THE BUILDING CAME into view, Grace saw that two of the auto shop’s garage bay doors were open. Large yellow lettering mounted to a piece of metal siding above those bays read: Vince’s Auto Service. She pulled her Mini Cooper to the curb. From this vantage point she and Annie could see the garage, while keeping mostly out of sight.
This part of Lynn was not the nicest. Across from a row of crumbling brick buildings marked with graffiti, a dilapidated chain-link fence spread out along the road, crushing an overgrowth of weeds and scattered saplings.
Not thirty minutes ago, Annie and Grace had wrapped up a scheduled meeting at the Lynn Police Station with Detective Jay Allio that had not gone particularly well. It had been over a year since Grace had seen Allio, but he still had the signature paunch and thin mustache she remembered vividly.
Detective Allio was familiar with Penny’s diagnosis, her DID, all the basics, but Grace still had to catch him up on what had transpired since they last spoke. Then, she tried out her theory about Vincent Rapino, thinking maybe he’d consider a warrant to get a DNA sample. Soon enough, Navarro’s discouraging words regarding police cooperation were confirmed.
“It’s an interesting theory, I admit, and I really appreciate your efforts, but you’re not giving me enough to work with here. I have to give you a firm no.”
Now, it was up to them.
Vince might not have been a stickler for the law, but judging by the number of cars parked in his lot, he was a half-decent mechanic. It was a jumble of old sedans, SUVs, and trucks, but other than a Lexus needing extensive front-end repair, there were few cars on the higher end. Grace wondered how many of the waiting vehicles would be outfitted with counterfeit auto parts.
From inside the garage bays, Grace heard the clank of ratchets and wrenches, along with the hiss of hydraulics. Loud classic rock thrummed through tinny speakers, mixing with occasional spurts of laughter from the men at work. The bright sky blazed cobalt blue, but Grace took no comfort from the glorious day. Her thoughts were jangling like alarms going off in her head. She’d never done a stakeout before.
As a pair, they appeared as utterly out of place here as they had at Lucky Dog—Grace in a light green top with dark slacks; Annie in her usual denim outfit with a flashy rhinestone belt buckle. They couldn’t have intimidated a mall cop, but here they were, steps away from Vince’s place, and from the owner, a known criminal who could very well be a killer.
As if confirming Grace’s fears, two men emerged through one of the open bay doors. She immediately recognized one of the rough-looking fellows as part of the duo who had accompanied Vince into Big Frank’s the night he dumped Coca-Cola on the floor. They were dressed in heavy-duty work pants stained like a Jackson Pollock painting. Each had on a brown work shirt with patches saying Vince’s Auto Service stitched to the left breast pocket. Both were smoking cigarettes.
Moments later, Rapino appeared, and bummed a smoke from one of the men. Vince took a few drags off his cigarette before dropping it on the cement floor just inside the garage. He put it out with the sole of his boot.
“That’s our DNA,” Annie said, getting out of the car. Grace followed, and seized Annie’s arm, pulling her to an abrupt stop.
“You don’t have to do this,” she said in a whisper—as if the two men still outside could hear them over the racket. “You can wait in the car.”
Annie shook her head. “We’ve come this far,” she said.
From her pants pocket, Annie produced a plastic bag to collect the evidence. The bag also contained cotton swabs they’d use if they had to go with a more direct approach.
“Okay,” said Grace, like it was a relief.
“I can’t believe you talked me out of bringing a gun,” Annie grumbled.
“I told you, having a weapon might give us a false sense of security,” Grace said as the pair passed the
two men continuing their smoke break outside. Annie leered at the one Grace hadn’t seen before, who had light eyes the color of a husky’s.
“I wouldn’t mind a bit of that false security right about now,” whispered Annie.
Grace hadn’t expected a big scene when she stepped into the garage, but everything came to a screeching halt like a needle pulled across a record.
Vince extracted himself from under the hood of a nearby car to send Grace an assessing stare. He approached. There was no way she could bend down and pick up the cigarette butt without him noticing—and asking questions. He didn’t seem to recognize her, and Grace got the sense this man hid his smiles like he did his past. Same as that day in Big Frank’s, Rapino gave off an uneasy vibe, the way an unlit firecracker never feels perfectly safe to handle. Grace had to wonder how he had any customers at all.
As he neared, Grace got a good look at his thick black eyebrows and close-cropped dark hair. She didn’t see any signs of Penny in him, but Grace looked like her mother, nothing like her father, so she made little of it. Still, there was nothing sweet and gentle about him. Grace supposed some men came out of the womb with a chip on their shoulder and fists to fight for survival. Vince was definitely that kind of man.
“Help you?” he said, still no smile. He came to a stop, his work boot directly over the discarded cigarette they’d hoped to retrieve. His work shirt was unbuttoned, revealing the stained white tank top he wore underneath.
Grace jacked up her resolve like she was the car on that lift. “Hello, Vince,” she said.
Vince put his hands on his hips, and cocked his head to appraise her. Eventually something of a smile came to his face, but it wasn’t warm or welcoming, not in the slightest.
“Well, look at that, wontcha?” he said, eyeing Grace up and down. He had an accent born of the street, hard-edged as his demeanor. “Grace Francone. Whatcha you doing here, Gracie? Car broke down?”
The smokers returned from outside to flank Vince like a pair of sentries.
At that moment plan A (sneak a sample of his DNA) and B (ask for it directly) seemed to Grace like incredibly stupid ideas, but then she thought of Penny. Desperation trumped her better judgment, and she pressed ahead. “I’m sorry to intrude like this, but there’s been a development in the case, Vince,” Grace said, biting back her fear.
As Vince stepped forward, a flash of his silver necklace caught in the overhead light. “I’ve kind of lost track of time,” he said. “Isn’t the trial two weeks away? Or is it three? I’ve got that date circled on my calendar in the office.” He took another step toward Grace. His eyes were the deep shade of brown that almost looked black. “You must be getting nervous, real nervous, to come here.”
“The trial is coming up soon, yes,” said Grace. “And yes, I’m very nervous. May we speak in private?”
She was thinking maybe Annie could snatch the cigarette butt while they conferred in his office.
“What you say to me, you can say to them.” Rapino gestured to the men behind him.
“Very well,” said Grace after taking a readying breath. Plan B it is. “The reason we’re here is we recently met someone who thinks you might be Penny’s father.” She didn’t bother burying the lead, because small talk with Vince wasn’t going to happen.
Vince screwed up his face like she hadn’t spoken English. Grace carried on. “You and Rachel were together a long time ago. Boyfriend and girlfriend back in high school, on again, off again after … The timing, it works.”
Vince spit out a chilling laugh. “Yeah? Ya think? That’s a hard no.” He kept his gaze locked on Grace; his two closest companions stayed still as statues. Other workers began to gather, thinking maybe this might escalate into a must-see event.
“So you’re saying you’re not Penny’s father?”
“Damn straight I’m not that girl’s daddy. I got my kids.”
“Are you willing to prove it?” Annie asked boldly, holding up the bag with the cotton swabs in it.
A cracked smile broke over Vince’s leathery face. He laughed again, and some of the tension left the room like a tire leaking air. “You going all CSI on me, Denim?” He gestured at Annie’s shirt to explain the nickname.
“If you want to prove you’re not Penny’s father, you can give us the sample and avoid any, ah, investigation into the matter.”
The smile that had been on Vince’s face faded fast. “Whatcha talking about, investigation?” he said through clenched teeth.
“I haven’t told anybody yet about you and Rachel being an item back in the day.” Grace found the lie came easily. “The police didn’t do much looking into you because they already had their suspect for Rachel’s murder: my daughter. Now, well, this new information might be of serious interest to them. Suddenly you’re more connected to the victim than anyone knew. That’ll raise some eyebrows at a minimum, Vince. All the police need is a motive, no matter how thin, to start looking into you more aggressively. Then, well, who knows what they’ll find.”
“Are you saying I’m a suspect?”
“I’m not saying anything,” Grace clarified quickly. She remembered Navarro’s warning about pushing too hard. “I’m telling you that if you’re sure you’re not Penny’s biological father, let us help you prove it. If it’s what you say it is, then we don’t bring it up to the police, and they don’t investigate you and maybe find more than just your … DNA.”
Grace felt she’d gone as far as she could. She wasn’t about to reveal what Navarro had shared regarding Vince’s illegal auto parts scam. A strong hint would do the job just fine, she told herself. She rested her arms at her sides. That was it. She’d made her big play, her big bluff, and had nothing more to offer. The smell of cigarettes, grease, and fried food tickled at her nose.
Vince didn’t seem to know how to react, but a smile played at the corners of his mouth. He took another step forward, putting himself within arm’s reach of both Annie and Grace. The cigarette butt was visible now, but it might as well have been a mile away. Vince’s two buddies stayed back, keeping an eye on things like good handlers should.
“You are one gutsy bitch,” Vince said, almost with reverence. “I’ll give you that.”
Grace didn’t bother responding.
“Let me get this straight,” he said. “I give you some DNA right here, right now, or you go to the police and try to get them to shake me down? And you think shaking that tree’s gonna get them something else … like my private affairs, that it?”
“That’s it,” Grace said, lifting her hands like they were two scales for Vince to weigh his decision.
He thought a moment. “I was with my wife and kids the night your crazy bitch-ass daughter killed my girl.”
“And you do know you’re not supposed to have a wife and a girlfriend at the same time,” Annie said to him—like that would make him suddenly sprout a conscience.
“Well, I ain’t got no wife no more. Don’t see my kids much, either, not after all that shit went down and the news people decided to drag my name through the mud,” he snapped at Annie. He raised his hand to show off a finger without a wedding band. But as his arm lifted, Grace saw something else, a better look at his silver necklace, that made her take note.
“You don’t know what you’re messing with, ladies, but I’ll tell you right now, it’s not a smart move.”
“Rachel needed investment money for something she thought was going to make her rich. That’s what she told Morgan, her bartender buddy at Lucky Dog,” Grace said, breathing quickly. Every muscle in her body was telling her to go, but her legs wouldn’t budge.
She studied the necklace again as the pendant around his neck caught the light. Her resolve strengthened as her fears melted away. Vince scared her, but she had something on him now, something potentially game-changing. It bolstered her confidence to go for broke.
“Now—and I’m thinking out loud here, Vince—but maybe you didn’t know Penny was your biological daughter. They’d just r
econnected, so maybe Rachel was excited to share the news. But you—you snapped. It happens. You killed her in a fit of rage. Or, I like this even better—you and Rachel had a little falling out. You tried to break it off, but she needs you to keep paying her rent, so she decided you could be her banker instead.”
“What would she have on me?” Vince asked.
“You’ve been before a judge quite a number of times. I’m sure there’s something in your closet Rachel knew about, something you’re involved in, that you’d like to keep out of the public eye. That was a secret she wanted money to keep.
“You show up at Rachel’s place. There’s a fight, some altercation, whatever, and you kill her. But you don’t know that Penny’s also in the apartment, hiding in a closet, because Rachel knew there could be trouble when you showed up, probably unexpected and uninvited. Penny overhears you stuffing Rachel’s head into a bucket of ammonia, torturing her with those fumes to get her to back off her threat—maybe that’s when you told her to leave town, to ‘be gone and gone for good.’” Grace used the same words Penny had said to her, and thought she saw a flash of recognition bloom in Vince’s eyes.
“But Rachel’s a tough one. She doesn’t respond to your intimidation tactics, so out comes the knife. You thought Rachel was dead, but she could still call nine-one-one, even with her throat slit open. Now, the hard part is that the police already did their investigation, and they were happy with your alibi. As far as they’re concerned this is in the past. But if you’re Penny’s father, you get a hard second look, and I get a second chance to make my case to them. Might go your way again, might not—or maybe something else comes of it. Either way, if you’re not Penny’s birth father, I’ve got nothing new to give the police, we go to trial, and I hope for the best.
“So why don’t you help us help you? Give us a swab.”
Taking that as her cue, Annie again held up a cotton swab for Vince.
He got right in Annie’s face, showing a flash of anger that Grace sensed could easily explode into extreme violence at any moment. He took the swab from her, bending it in half with his fingers.