The Now-And-Then Detective

by William Wells

  The Cohiba smelled great, but we both declined.

  Tiny looked at Bancroft and said: “You’re not going to arrest me for having these contraband cigars, are you?”

  Bancroft smiled. “Got bigger fish to fry, Tiny.”

  “Why did you decide to work for a man like Stewart Leverton?” I asked him.

  “Business was slow,” he answered. “And I didn’t know he was a man like that. It was our first job for him.”

  “I suppose your experience with him was not unique,” Bancroft commented.

  “I’ve since learned that the plumbing and HVAC subs also have liens on the same property. If you look into it, I’m sure you’ll find that situation with Leverton’s other developments.”

  Tiny took another puff on the cigar, held it up horizontally in front of his face, smiled, and said, “A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.”

  “You a fan of Rudyard Kipling?” I asked him. That was a line from his poem, “The Betrothed,” a favorite of mine.

  “Couldn’t graduate from Cathedral High School without passing English Lit,” he answered.

  “Hey,” Bancroft said, “I went there, too, but I must have missed that day.”

  I stood, followed by Bancroft, and said, “Thanks much for your time, Tiny.”

  “Not a problem,” he said, adding, “Just curious. You mentioned a murder. Does Florida have the death penalty?”

  “It does,” I answered.

  “Good,” he said.

  25.

  The Enforcer

  When we got back to the Taurus, Bancroft asked, “You got enough on Leverton for me to get a warrant to look at his financials?”

  “Not yet.”

  He pulled away from the curb. “Where to next?”

  I looked at notes I’d made on my legal pad and said, “The Carpenters Local Union 327 in Dorchester, 1252 Massachusetts Avenue.” I looked at my watch. “We’re running a little late.”

  “Not a problem,” Bancroft said and turned on the Taurus’s lights and siren.

  “So what’s this guy’s name?” Bancroft asked as we rolled up to the Carpenters Union building and parked at the curb.

  “It’s a she,” I said. “First name Rae, that’s R-A-E. Last name, believe it or not, is Carpenter.”

  “Rae Carpenter, president of the Carpenters Union.” Bancroft chuckled. “Like me being named Steve Detective.”

  We got out of the car and went into the grey single-story, wood-frame building. No concrete block construction for the carpenters. The front door chimed when we opened it and, after a moment, a woman appeared from a hallway. She was young, with short brown hair, late twenties I guessed, very attractive, and she was wearing a Suffolk Law School sweatshirt and khaki slacks.

  “Can I help you?” she asked us.

  “We’re looking for Rae Carpenter,” I told her. “She’s expecting us. Detectives Jack Starkey and Steve Bancroft.”

  “That’d be me,” she said. “Let’s go to my office.”

  We followed her down the hallway and into an office. She gestured us to a leather sofa and rolled the desk chair out for herself. The office was a veritable man cave: stuffed game fish on the knotty-pine walls, a mounted deer head, various Boston sports memorabilia around the room, a silver hammer on a plaque, and a framed photo of a husky man in a plaid shirt and jeans standing near the home plate of a baseball field with another man in a Red Sox uniform whom I recognized as Carl Yastrzemski.

  Rae smiled at what she knew was the incongruity of herself in this male environment.

  “This was my dad’s office until he died just under a year ago,” she said. “Raymond Carpenter. My mom died when I was ten. I grew up on construction sites and joined the union when I was sixteen. I worked carpentry summers during college. I’m in my third year of law school. When dad died, the union officers asked me to fill in for him as interim president. I keep asking when they’ll identify permanent candidates for the job, but so far they haven’t done that.”

  “As I said when I called, I’m investigating a murder in Florida and you might have some information that would be helpful,” I told her. “Detective Bancroft of the Boston Police Department is assisting me while I’m here.”

  “You mentioned Stewart Leverton when you called,” she said.

  “He’s a person of interest,” I told her. “What experience has your union had with his company?”

  She frowned. “The worst. We won’t work on Leverton Properties jobs anymore.”

  “Why is that?” Bancroft asked her.

  “About a year ago, we had two guys hurt at one of their job sites. They weren’t following proper safety procedures. When dad complained, they did nothing, so he threatened a strike. They sent a guy to talk to dad at the site. Bobby Amendola. He said he was vice president of security for Leverton Properties. Amendola said he hoped there wouldn’t be any more accidents. It was a threat. A few days later, the union struck the site and put up picket lines. That night, my dad’s house burned down. Dad was asleep. The smoke detectors went off and he got out. Dad knew Amendola had done it. But there was no proof.”

  “I remember that,” Bancroft said.

  “Then what happened?” I asked her.

  “The strike continued for another two weeks. There were anonymous threats to union members. Calls in the middle of the night. One guy’s truck was set on fire in his driveway.”

  “Our detective, Tom Laredo, looked into that but he couldn’t tie those incidents to Leverton Properties,” Bancroft said.

  “How did it end?” I asked Rae.

  “Dad died of a heart attack at his desk right here in this office,” she said. “I know it was from the stress. I called the Boston Globe and they did a story. Then the Boston building department ordered Leverton Properties to correct the safety violations. They did. The union ended the strike, but we wouldn’t go back to work there, so they finished with another contractor. We’re in court with Leverton now over the money we’re owed. About seventy thousand dollars.”

  “I’m sorry to hear about your dad, Rae,” I said. “Thank you for your help.”

  As Bancroft and I were leaving her office, she asked, “Does Florida have the death penalty, Detective Starkey?”

  “Yes, it does,” I answered.

  “Good,” she said.

  Back in the Taurus, Bancroft said, “Interesting that Stewart Leverton has an enforcer on his payroll. That Amendola guy.”

  “We’ve got two more union officials to see,” I said. “But I’ll postpone them so we can go back to headquarters and see what we can find out about Bobby Amendola.”

  On the way, I called Lucy Gates and asked her to see if she could find an electronic trail connecting Amendola to Stewart Leverton or Leverton Properties. She said she’d get back to me right away.

  When I ended the call, Bancroft said, “I don’t want to know about that, do I?”

  “Know about what?” I answered.

  “Right,” he said.

  At the office, Bancroft fired up his desktop computer, typed on the keyboard while I stood looking over his shoulder, and Bobby Amendola’s police record came up on the screen.

  “Okay, he’s in the system,” Bancroft said.

  He used his mouse to scroll down the file.

  “Let’s see … Stole a car when he was thirteen, suspended sentence in juvie court … Aggravated assault at fifteen, sentenced to three months in the Worcester County Detention Center … Did adult time at eighteen in MCI-Framingham, two years for breaking and entering … Yada yada yada. Our boy’s got a rap sheet as long as a Red Sox fan’s hatred of the Yankees.”

  “Military service?”

  He scrolled down and said, “When he was twenty-four, a judge gave him a choice. Enlist in the army or go to prison for assault.”

  “You got his military record in there?”

  Bancroft scrolled and said, “Nope. But he must have been discharged early because, just over a year later, he was back
in Boston losing his license for a DUI.”

  “I’m betting he doesn’t have an honorable discharge certificate hanging on his wall at home,” I said.

  “There’s more,” Bancroft told me. “But you get the picture. He was a criminal and a thug from the get-go.”

  “Yet he ended up as vice president of security for Leverton Properties.”

  Bancroft hit a few keys and up came mug shots of Bobby Amendola through the years, looking meaner and tougher each time. In the most recent one, from three years ago, he was a forty-two-year-old man with cold dark eyes, a furrowed brow, a buzz cut, and the crooked nose of a fighter.

  “Let me try something,” I said.

  I found the number for Leverton Properties under recent calls on my cell phone, hit the call button, and put the phone on speaker.

  “Leverton Properties, how may I help you?” the receptionist answered.

  “I’d like to speak with Bobby Amendola,” I told her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “We have no one here by that name.”

  No surprise. I thanked her and ended the call.

  “He’s either gone, or employed off the books,” I said. “Off the books is my guess.”

  “I wonder if he took the Leverton jet to Naples,” Bancroft commented.

  “What’s his last known address?” I asked.

  He logged on to the DMV website, entered a police password, waited for the secure site to come up, and said, “Here it is … 2409 Allenton Road in Billerica … Huh.”

  “What?”

  “It’s interesting that he chooses to live in a town with a county lockup. The Middlesex Jail and House of Correction. Must make him feel right at home.”

  “How far is Billerica from here?” I asked him.

  “About a forty-five-minute drive.” He smiled. “That’s without lights and siren.”

  “Better to not let him know we’re coming,” I said.

  We went outside to Bancroft’s car and he programmed Amendola’s address into Google Maps on his cell phone, saying, “I’ve been to Billerica to visit the detention facility. But I don’t know the residential areas.”

  Traffic was heavy. Driving at the speed of civilians, we rolled up in front of a white two-story, wood-frame house which the Google Maps lady said was our destination. A concrete driveway led to a detached, two-car garage behind the house. A mailbox on a pole in front with the house number on it had its red flag up to alert the postman to outgoing mail. There was a black Cadillac Escalade parked in the driveway.

  “Nice house, nice wheels,” Bancroft commented. “The murder and intimidation business must pay well.”

  “Let’s go ring the doorbell and fake it till we make it,” I said.

  Bancroft drove down the block, out of sight of the house, and parked in front of a fire hydrant. We got out of the Taurus and Bancroft said, “I’ve got two vests in the trunk. We are, after all, calling on a possible killer.”

  We went around to the trunk. He popped open the lid, pulled out two Kevlar vests, and handed one to me. Also in the trunk were two combat helmets, a twelve-gauge shotgun, an AR-15 assault rifle, a Heckler & Koch MP5 machine gun, boxes of shotgun and rifle shells, a cardboard box with hand grenades, probably flash-bangs, and a grey plastic-sided briefcase.

  “Sweet Jesus, Steve,” I said. “You got enough weaponry in there to arm an infantry platoon.”

  “Better than being left holding your dick in a gunfight,” he said.

  “What’s in the briefcase?”

  He grinned. “A little something for those long stakeouts. It’s a bartender’s kit with two shot glasses and a bottle of Maker’s Mark.”

  I slipped off my leather jacket, put on one of the vests, adjusted the fit with the Velcro straps, and put my jacket over it. Bancroft opened the rear driver’s side door, took off his suit coat, folded it and placed it on the seat, put on the other vest, took a tan raincoat from the seat, and slipped it on over his vest.

  Like me, he was carrying a Glock in a belt holster at the small of his back. We both took out our pistols, checked to make certain that a shell was chambered, and put them back into the holsters.

  I saw Bancroft smile and wave toward the single-story redbrick house we were parked in front of. I looked at it and saw an older woman peering out at us from between the curtains. She waved back and disappeared.

  As we walked down the sidewalk to Amendola’s house, Bancroft said, “I wonder if he lives alone.”

  “People in his line of work usually do,” I said. “Unless they have a pit bull.”

  We went up the walk to Amendola’s front door and I rang the bell. Bancroft, with his Glock in his hand, stood off to one side where he couldn’t be seen by whomever answered the door.

  No response. I rang the bell again. I heard footsteps on a wooden floor.

  The door opened and a very large man, shirtless, with a scowl on his face, said, “What the fuck do you want?”

  Amendola in the flesh.

  Thinking on my feet, I said, “We were just wondering if Leverton Properties offers you a good benefits package.”

  Bancroft showed himself and added, “Health care, with dental?”

  Amendola looked at us as if deciding whether or not to slam the door or to say, “Just a minute,” and come back with a gun. Instead of either of those options, he said, “Never heard of Leverton Properties.”

  “A little bird told us you’re in the company’s employ, Bobby,” I said.

  I noticed that his right hand was out of sight behind the door jamb. I did a quick calculation. He wouldn’t be holding a shotgun or rifle in one hand, too awkward, so it was a pistol. Even at close range, our Kevlar vests would stop a .44 Magnum or .45 ACP round, although we’d have very sore ribs for a long time. But 9mm and .357 bullets travel faster and could penetrate our vests.

  While I was working that through, Amendola asked, “What little bird, and who the fuck are you guys?”

  “We never reveal sources and methods,” Bancroft told him. “As to our identity, we are your worst nightmare.”

  Rather dramatic but I liked it.

  “Beat it, assholes,” Amendola said, and slammed the door.

  26.

  Code Violation

  We walked back to the Taurus, slipped off our vests, put them in the trunk, got in the car, and Bancroft said, “We got his attention. What next?”

  “I want to try Libby Leverton again,” I said, and gave him the address.

  Bancroft pulled away from the curb and said, “We might need to armor up with the Kevlar again.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “That’s a high-crime neighborhood.”

  “Beacon Hill is a high-crime neighborhood?”

  “In the sense that you have to commit crimes to afford to live there.”

  Bancroft found the Levertons’ row house without difficulty and we parked in front of my favorite fire hydrant. He waited in the car while I went to the door and rang the bell. I was getting good at it. The butler answered and I told him, “I need to speak with Mrs. Leverton about an important family matter.”

  He nodded and closed the door. When it reopened, Libby Leverton looked at me with a surprised expression and said, “I thought I made it clear that I have nothing more to say to you, Detective Starkey.”

  She was wearing a tennis outfit, no pearls. Wouldn’t want to sweat on your Mikimotos while playing a match.

  “There’s been a new development,” I told her. “We arrested Bobby Amendola on the charge of the murder of your Uncle Henry. Under interrogation, he implicated you and Stewart in the crime, in the sense that you ordered it.”

  Case law over the years had established that police can lie to suspects.

  Libby drew in a breath and said, “It’s cold out here. Come inside.”

  I followed her into the foyer and then into the living room, where a wood fire was burning in the fireplace. Very cozy. Maybe they planned Henry’s murder sitting by that fireplace, swirling sni
fters of brandy. The decor was what I’d call Antique Robber Baron. Libby gestured toward a yellow sofa, where I sat, and she took an upholstered armchair beside me.

  “I’ve never heard of that person, whatever his name is,” she said.

  “Bobby Amendola,” I reminded her. “He is employed by your husband to do odd jobs and I think that your Uncle Henry was one of them.”

  She glared at me and said, “Now you must go away or we will sue you for harassment and whatever else our lawyer comes up with.”

  She could have told me that while I was standing on the front porch, but Mayflower Society members were too polite to leave a visitor out in the cold. It was now clear that Libby Leverton wasn’t a pushover. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link and she was not one. After all, she’d gone to see me in Florida and, without flinching, pointed the finger of guilt at Scooter Lowry, and then faced me down here in Boston. I now had no doubt that she and Stewart were a murderous team who ordered the hit on Henry because they needed his inheritance money. But convincing myself and convincing the criminal justice system was a whole other ball game.

  “Will there be anything else, Detective Starkey?” she asked.

  “Are there any leftovers from your dinner party?” I asked her. “Maybe some lobster bisque, or a chicken leg to go?”

  She looked at me like she didn’t get my humor. Maybe I should have asked for scrod.

  “Never mind. That covers it for now,” I said, and followed her to the front door. She opened it and I went outside and back to the Taurus, got in, and told Bancroft, “Even under my withering interrogation, she didn’t confess.”

  “A stand-up broad,” he said, using a slang term for a female I hadn’t heard since the days of Sinatra and his Rat Pack.

  Lucy Gates called me as we were on the way to police headquarters.

  “If Bobby Amendola works for Stewart Leverton, they’re careful about not leaving any evidence of it,” she said.