2 in the Hat (30 page)

“Please don’t hurt my mother,” she gasped. “She didn’t do anything. It’s me you want. I’ll do anything. But she’s an old woman. She’s having trouble breathing in here. She needs her medication. It’s in a small bottle on the nightstand next to her bed.”

Sleep heard another noise. He put the tape back over Natalie’s mouth. He put his finger up to his mouth and closed the closet door. He listened carefully.

The back door. Someone was jiggling the doorknob.

He moved into the kitchen, standing away from the window, in the darkness. Still, he saw nothing. Then Sergeant Mooney appeared in the shadows outside the window. He was holding something in his hand. A log. Sleep moved across the kitchen. The gun was in the front room. He was in the hallway when he heard the first blow to the door. He reached the gun just as the door came flying open and Mooney burst into the kitchen and made his way to the front of the house.

Sleep wheeled around and took one shot. He couldn’t get close the way he usually did. He aimed for the center of mass. Mooney went down and dropped his gun. Sleep made a move for Mooney’s gun just as someone pounced on him. Whoever it was tried to pull Sleep’s hands behind his back and cuff him.

It had to be Angel Alves. But he had made the mistake of underestimating Sleep’s power. Alves was not a street fighter. He had never been to prison, never had to use his fighting skills to survive every day.

Sleep sprang to his feet with Alves’s weight on his back. He repeatedly drove the detective into the wall until he felt his grip slacken and slip
away. The detective slumped to the floor. Sleep saw a gun in the middle of the floor. He wasn’t sure whose it was, but it didn’t matter.

As he made a move for the gun, he felt a bone-crushing blow to his ribs. He heard a crack as a sharp pain ran up his side, his breath leaving him. He tried a few feeble swings, but the room around them, the prosecutor holding the log, all of it was going gray.

H
ow’s Mooney doing?” Connie asked
.

“He got dinged up pretty good,” Alves said. “Zardino’s gun fired four rounds, caught Mooney with three of them. Luckily none hit any bone. Those small rounds do the most damage bouncing around,” Alves said.

“I plan to go to the hospital tomorrow,” Connie said.

“He’s not going anywhere for a couple weeks. Leslie’s been there regularly, keeping him company.”

“My victim witness advocate told me that Natalie’s mother had some chest pains for a day or so, but she’s doing okay. She’s out of the hospital and back in the house on Paris with Natalie.”

Connie watched as Alves ate his baked macaroni and cheese, the house specialty at Silvertone, a small upscale restaurant on Bromfield Street. Connie had ordered two plates of steamed mussels. Low in fat and high in cholesterol. Meeting for dinner had been Alves’s idea.

“How’s the case against Zardino?” Connie asked.

“Solid. He made incriminating statements to Natalie and her mother. We’ve got the wire he used to bind the two women. Matches the wire used on all the vics. We have the twenty-two-caliber Beretta. Ballistics is a match. And best of all, we have photos of the dead college students pasted into an album. We’re reopening the investigation into his father’s
death, too.” Alves tore a bit of bread and sopped up some mussel broth from Connie’s bowl.

“What about his sidekick Luther? He have any involvement in this thing?”

“Negative. In fact, Luther was able to corroborate that Zardino had the opportunity to commit the murders. Their program is funded by a grant, and Luther kept detailed logs of the time they spent working the streets at night. Zardino’s hours got pretty spotty over the last few months. When I talked with Luther at Crispus Attucks House he was beyond pissed that Zardino would betray ‘his kids’ trust’ this way.”

“I bet he’s glad we caught Zardino,” Connie said. “Imagine working that closely with a serial killer. Especially when Luther could have become a suspect in the murders. People are always willing to believe the black guy did it.”

“He’s not happy about anything. Still thinks the police care more about white college students getting killed than we do about poor black kids. Like his brother.”

“You think that case will ever get solved?” Connie asked.

Alves shook his head. “How’s your case against Stutter Simpson? Ray Figgs treating you okay? I ran into him last week. Looks like Figgsy went to Bridgewater for a spin dry. Word is he hasn’t had a drink in weeks. Working out at the gym again. Seems on top of things.”

“The grand jury has everything they need to indict, the murder weapon, motive—Stutter and Jesse Wilcox were shooting back and forth at each other for months before Jesse turned up dead. My problem is Figgs. He’s busting my chops, complaining we should do more investigation before we indict.”

“Probably just wants a solid case,” Alves said. “So it doesn’t go south on you at trial.”

“Stutter Simpson is a murderer. I’m going to indict and convict him for killing Jesse Wilcox.”

They ordered coffee. It was nice to be comfortable with Angel again—talking about their cases like old friends. He didn’t like it when Alves was guarded around him, keeping things from him. Things were getting back to normal.

A
lves held the door to Silvertone open for Connie, who was still
making his way up the stairs. The cold air smacked Alves in the face, waking him up, helping him shake off the effects of the heavy meal and the warm restaurant. “That was the best mac and cheese ever,” Alves said. “Now I need a nap.”

“You really are an old man,” Connie said as he buttoned his coat. “You’re not going to fall asleep behind the wheel are you? I knew I should have driven.”

“How can you call me an old man? You’re the one who drives a minivan. A single man with no kids tooting around like a soccer mom. That’s sad.” Alves could feel himself straining for the playfulness that used to be a natural part of their relationship. “I can’t be seen riding around the city in that thing with you.”

“It’s not just a minivan, it’s the ‘snitch mobile,’” Connie laughed. “My investigators use it to pick up witnesses and victims. And, as we say in the Gang Unit, today’s victim is tomorrow’s defendant. They’re all afraid of being labeled snitches. So we had the windows smoked out. It’s so dark, it’s an illegal tint. I have trouble driving the thing at night.”

“And you’ve got lights, siren, and a police radio installed. But no matter how you dress it up, it’s still a minivan.”

“It’s better than this shit box Ford you’re driving around in,” Connie slapped the roof of the car. “You’re on homicide and they don’t give you the honor of a ride like a Crown Vic or a real police car.”

“Shut up and get in,” Alves laughed. He had to keep the mood light. At some point he needed to get some information from Connie. He didn’t want to confront him yet. He just wanted to talk about the Blood Bath case. Bring up some of the things that were still bothering him.

“You want to come back to my house for a beer?” Connie asked.

“I’ve got a better idea. I have a six pack in the trunk. Let’s go to White Stadium and have a few.”

“Angel, you may not have noticed, but it’s almost November and it’s freaking cold.”

“Don’t be a crybaby. It’s a great place to drink. Back when I was a juvenile delinquent, me and my boys used to hop the fence and get trashed in there. Then we’d end up playing tackle football in the dark. What a blast. That’s where I played my games in high school.”

“Me, too, but I’m not jumping any fences to go have a beer and relive my high school glory.”

“No fence jumping. I used to work the detail for the mayor’s Friday Night Game of the Week. I’ve still got the key to the gate.”

“I don’t even have a drinking glove.”

Alves reached into the back seat and pulled out two ratty looking gloves. “We each have a drinking glove. Now you have no excuses.”

“I’ll go for a beer or two, but no football tonight.” Connie laughed.

C
onnie held the six-pack in his gloved hand while Alves unlocked
the gate. This was an interesting development, coming out to the stadium where they’d both played high school football games. With a fresh coat of paint in the stands and well kept turf, the stadium looked better than it had in years.

As they made their way to the bleachers, Connie imagined the smell of fresh cut grass on a field with neatly painted lines. He felt a rush of adrenaline. It was the same feeling he got every time the “Star Spangled Banner” played before a game or a wrestling meet. Most people never paid attention to the lyrics. Sure, they might mouth the words as the anthem was played, but they didn’t actually think about what the words meant. For Connie, the words meant a great deal.

He would go into a zone while the song played. Everything else around him disappeared. He would imagine himself watching the sun come up over Baltimore Harbor the morning after the Battle of Fort McHenry, the American flag undaunted, standing out like a beacon. No matter how it was bombarded it kept waving in the wind. The flag itself was like an absolute truth that could withstand any attack.

That was how Connie thought of himself, especially before a wrestling match. Connie was an Absolute Truth that could not be defeated.
He had never been defeated. Not in high school. And not in college.

Tonight, out on the cold ball field, a hint of doubt edged into his mind. Angel Alves might be
acting
as though things between them were back to normal. Acting a bit too normal, working him, trying to win back his trust. But why? There had to be more to it. Maybe Alves was working a hunch. Before that hunch developed into a theory and then an indictment, Connie needed to find out what Alves was up to.

It was time for some ultimate truth to reveal itself.

A
lves’s butt was numb. He stood up. “These metal benches are
brutal. Thank God I never had to sit and watch a game here. It’s like watching a Pat’s game at the old Foxboro Stadium. Or as Sarge says, Shaefer Stadium.”

Connie took a swig of his beer. “What are we doing up here anyway? Let’s go down on the field.”

“The moonlight is brighter up here. And there’s no place to sit down there.”

“I saw some benches down by the locker room entrance. C’mon,” Connie said.

Alves was surprised that the ground was hard, but not frozen. It must have warmed during the day. By morning, the blades of grass would be frozen crystals, snapping under your feet when you walked. But right now it was a perfect football surface. Walking out to the middle of the field felt right.

“Remember how much fun it was to be in high school,” Alves said. “Coming out here and playing games in front of a big crowd. The cheerleaders, the band, the whole atmosphere. How many times did I stand on this field, anxious to return a kick, each time, certain that I would run it all the way for a touchdown? At that moment, nothing else mattered in the world. Everyone in the stands was watching the ball, waiting for the
kick. Then, as the ball rotated through the air, end over end, everyone watched to see what I was going to do with it. I was a pretty good ballplayer, so I always gave them a show. I wasn’t the biggest guy on the field, but I had great feet. There was always some big goon or a speedster who thought he was going to come down and drill me as I caught the ball, but I always made them miss. The first guy never got me.”

“If you’d played a few years later, I would have been one of those goons,” Connie said, lunging at Alves.

Alves juked to the left and then back and Connie grasped at air.

“I’m still too quick for you, even as an old man,” Alves said.

The two men laughed and started to walk back toward the bleachers.

Alves looked up into the sky. “Connie, can I ask you something?”

“Sure, pal.”

“How did you know Rich Zardino was the killer?”

“I tried to think like the killer. It’s something I learned from you and Mooney and from FBI profilers. If you think like the killer, you can catch the killer.”

“But how did that lead you to Zardino? I can see if you came up with some characteristics that made him a possible suspect. But that’s not what happened.”

“I looked past the obvious. Everyone was looking at known sex offenders who had done time. But I got to thinking, what if this guy had never been caught for a sex crime. What if he had just been out of state? What if he had done time for something else? What if he had done time for a crime he hadn’t committed? Bingo. This guy’s flying under everyone’s radar because he’s some kind of martyr, a victim of organized crime and corrupt cops. What a great story. No one else took the time to dig any deeper.”

“So that’s what got you thinking it was him. But how did you
know
it was him?”

“Like I said, I made myself think like the killer. I became the killer.” Connie grabbed the back of Alves’s neck with both hands.

Alves was startled. He shrugged Connie off and turned to face him.

Connie laughed. “Not literally, but I tried to put myself in his head, to determine the who, what, where, when, why and how of it. How was he selecting his victims? That was the biggest question that needed to be answered. Then the mayor had his annual Peace Conference. I saw a news clip. Zardino and Luther talking about their involvement with the criminal system. I tried to learn more about Zardino and Luther after
that. I found out that Zardino was doing his lecture at all the area colleges. That’s when it started to fall into place. I started putting the pieces of the puzzle into Zardino’s life and they all fit.”

“Okay, Connie. That explains the Prom Night killings. But I got a question.” Alves knew that once he started this line of questioning, he’d have to push until he had all the answers. “I spoke with Sonya Jordan and Andi Norton. I need to ask you about Mitch Beaulieu.”

“What about?”

“Nothing big. Just a couple of things I want to clear up.”

“Angel, let’s go sit down. It’s windy out here.” Connie led him toward the row of benches against the concrete wall at the base of the stands. They walked out of the moonlight and into the shadow of the stadium. “I’m going to tell you the whole truth about Mitch, but you realize I’ll have to kill you afterward, right?” Connie laughed.