A Scourge of Vipers (16 page)

“No,” she said. “I'm not
that
young. It's taken me a long time to even
think
about letting my guard down.”

“And now?”

“Like I said, I've been thinking a lot about you lately.”

“Why me? You're a goddess, Yolanda. You can have anybody you want.”

“Baby,” she said, “didn't Rosie tell you not to say anything stupid?”

Our entrees had barely been touched, and they were getting cold. I picked up my burger and took a few bites. She nibbled again at her Cobb salad. When the waitress returned, we declined coffee and dessert. I reached for the check. Yolanda beat me to it and fished an AmEx card out of her purse.

“Don't let male pride get in the way,” she said. “I make way more money than you.”

We finished our drinks. Then I took her by the hand and led her outside. Empire Street was nearly deserted. She turned to face me, and I wrapped my arms around her. She draped her arms around my neck and pulled me closer. Then she tilted her head the way women do when they want to be kissed.

*   *   *

“So then what happened?” Joseph asked.

“I said, ‘Your place or mine?'”

“You were gonna bring her
here
?”

I looked around at the salvaged furniture, the ravaged pizza boxes, the crushed beer cans, and Joseph sprawled on the couch where he'd been sleeping in his boxer shorts for a week. The couch had started to smell like Joseph.

“I guess her place would have been better.”

“And what did she say?”

“She said, ‘Let's not rush things, baby.'”

“Aw, fuck. Well, at least she called you baby.”

“She calls the mailman baby.”

“So when you gonna see her again?”

“Lunch tomorrow.”

“Lunch? Sheee-it. Not much bangin' goes on at noon. But I guess it's better than nothin'.”

But that's not the way it worked out.

 

24

“We found the Colt forty-five you reported stolen,” Wargart said.

“Where?”

“We think you know where,” Freitas said.

“I don't.”

“Oh, no?” she said. “Get up. You're coming with us.”

“Sorry, I said, but I have a prior engagement.”

“Get out of that chair, or I'll drag you up,” Wargart said. “You're under arrest.”

He ordered me to empty my pockets and toss everything on my desk. Then he pulled my arms back, snapped the handcuffs on tight, patted me down, and read me my rights. Chuckie-boy came out of his office and watched openmouthed as they led me out. He didn't ask what was going on. He didn't ask if he should call a lawyer. He didn't say a word.

At the station, they shoved me into an interrogation room, removed the cuffs, and forced me into a metal chair that was bolted to the floor. Then they cuffed my hands in front, left the room, and let me stew for more than an hour.

The acoustic ceiling tiles looked to be twelve inches square. There were eight of them running along the wall to my left and twelve along the wall in front of me. If my math was correct, that meant the room was ninety-six square feet in size. It also meant that ceiling was covered with exactly ninety-six tiles. I counted them anyway. Yup. Ninety-six. Then I counted them again. The distance from floor to ceiling looked to be the standard eight feet, which meant the room had a volume of seven hundred and sixty-eight cubic feet. The scuffed and gritty floor tiles were the same size as the ceiling tiles. That meant there had to be ninety-six of those, too, but I still counted them. Three times. Then I counted the coffee cup rings on the heavy oak interrogation-room table. There were sixteen. It was something to do.

When Wargart and Freitas returned, they brought a video camera on a tripod and three paper cups filled with black coffee. They pulled up chairs across from me, sat down, pried the lids off the coffees, and plunked one of them down in front of my face.

“Be easier to drink this if you take the cuffs off,” I said.

“Not gonna happen,” Wargart said.

“Wow. I'm considered an escape risk? That's quite the honor.”

I grasped the cup with both hands and drank. The coffee wasn't bad, but it wasn't the lunch, or the lunch company, I'd been planning on. I pictured Yolanda waiting, wondering why I'd stood her up.

Freitas recited Miranda again for the benefit of the video camera. I waived my right to a lawyer. I wanted to hear their questions. I figured it was the best way to find out what the hell was going on.

“How well do you know Frances Mirabelli?” Freitas asked.

“Never heard of him.”

“It's a she,” Wargart said. “But of course, you knew that.”

“No, I didn't.”

“She knows you,” Freitas said.

“Oh, yeah?”

“She says you've been sniffing around her place for a couple of weeks. Claims you've been trying to pork her.”

I couldn't help laughing. “Pork? Nobody says pork any more unless they're ordering barbecue.”

“Let me rephrase,” Freitas said. “She says you've been coming around trying to
bang
her.”

“Is she hot?” I asked.

“If you like 'em doe-eyed and stacked,” Wargart said.

“Then it does sound like the sort of thing I might do.”

“So you admit it,” Freitas said.

“Admit what? Did our state legislature outlaw the horizontal bop when I wasn't looking?”

“God, I hope not,” Freitas said, “but the law does take a dim view of this.”

She slid a photograph out of a manila file folder and placed it on the table.

“Jesus! Is she saying I did this to her?”

“Signed a sworn statement to that effect,” Wargart said.

“It's not true,” I said. “I've never seen this woman before. Besides, I have a strict policy against sleeping with anyone named Frances. Got the same issue with Leslie, Dana, Casey, Jackie, Hilary, and Leigh. Too much potential for gender confusion.”

“You're a liar,” Freitas said.

“Okay,” I said. “Now I understand why I got dragged in here. But why you two? Why are the homicide twins wasting time on a routine assault case?”

“Homicide twins?” Freitas said.

“S'what people are calling us,” Wargart said.

“Really?” she said. “I hadn't heard that.”

“Yeah,” Wargart said. “I kinda like it.”

“You haven't answered my question,” I said.

“This is part of an ongoing murder investigation,” Wargart said.

I looked at the photo on the table again.

“Murder? The girl took an awful beating, but she doesn't look dead.”

“She's not,” Wargart said.

“So who is?”

“Her boyfriend,” Freitas said. “Is that why you killed him? So you could get in his girlfriend's pants?”

“Who's her boyfriend?”

“Mario Zerilli,” Wargart said.

“Mario? I'd never put my dick anyplace his has been. Wouldn't even want to use the same urinal, for chrissake. Besides, in case it's slipped your mind, he's not dead either.”

“Oh, no?” Wargart said.

“The corpse they pulled out of the Blackstone was somebody else,” I said.

“True,” Wargart said. “But that doesn't mean Mario's still sucking air. Nobody's seen him in weeks.”

I looked up at the ceiling for a moment and thought things over.

“I gather all this has something to do with my gun,” I said.

“It does,” Wargart said.

“Where'd you recover it?”

“In Frances Mirabelli's apartment,” he said.

“Huh,” I said. “Mario must have left it there after he trashed my place.”

“That's not how she tells it,” Freitas said. “She says you had it with you when you kicked down her door. It fell out of your waistband when you were knocking her around, and she managed to grab it. She pointed it at you, and you bolted out the door.”

“And you want to hear the best part?” Wargart said.

“You mean it gets better?” I said.

“We ran the ballistics,” he said. “Turns out it's the same gun you used to shoot Phil Templeton.”

I couldn't help myself. I laughed out loud.

“I'm confused,” I said. “Who is it I killed again? Phil Templeton or Mario Zerilli?”

“We're thinking both,” Freitas said.

“I already told you,” I said. “The gun was stolen.”

“You reported it stolen after Templeton was killed,” Wargart said.

“True,” I said.

“So even if we believed your bullshit story, which we don't,” Freitas said, “you could have used it on him.”

“Why would I kill Templeton? Did I want to bang his girlfriend, too? Oh, wait. That can't be it. Templeton was gay.”

“You shot him because he was a key supporter of the governor's gambling bill,” Wargart said.

“Why would I care about that?” I asked.

“Because you're scheming to take over Dominic Zerilli's bookmaking business,” Freitas said.

“
What?
Where the hell did you get that?”

I figured they weren't going to tell me, and they didn't. It must have been something else they got from Mario's girlfriend.

“We hear Mario was mad as hell about it,” Freitas said. “We think that's why you killed him, too.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “You're losing me again. I thought I killed Mario because I wanted to hump his girlfriend.”

“Two motives are better than one,” Wargart said.

I tried to come up with a snappy riposte, but nothing came to me, so I picked up the paper cup and swallowed the last of my coffee.

“Where were you when Templeton was shot?” Freitas asked.

“No idea.”

“And why is that?” she asked.

“Because I don't know when he was shot,” I said. “Nobody does. Nobody knows what he was shot
with
either. No way you linked my gun to it. That's bullshit.”

“What makes you say that?” Wargart asked.

“Because the slug was never found.”

“Where'd you hear that?”

“I'm a reporter,” I said. “I hear all kinds of stuff.”

I picked up the photo with my cuffed hands and took a closer look at Frances Mirabelli's split lip and blackened eyes.

“Poor thing,” I said. “You know Mario's been abusing her for years, right? He even did six months in the state pen for it. This time, he must have told her to blame it on me.”

“Why would he do that?” Wargart said.

“You'd have to ask him.”

“Dead men don't talk,” Freitas said.

I placed the photo back on the table.

“Look, when does she say this happened?” I asked.

“Last night,” Wargart said.

“What time?”

“You got to her apartment at nine thirty and left about ten minutes later.”

I rattled off a ten-digit number.

“What's that supposed to be?” Freitas asked.

“My alibi,” I said. “And when you call it, please tell attorney Yolanda Mosley-Jones I'm very sorry I had to miss our lunch date today. I was unavoidably detained.”

 

25

“Lunch would have been nice,” I said, “but dinner is better.”

“Why is that?” Yolonda asked.

“Because we've got the whole night ahead of us.”

She didn't respond to that. Instead, she picked up her fork and went to work on her lobster and crab cakes. I shoveled in a forkful of the wagyu beef with wasabi arugula. The Capital Grille, located in the city's renovated old Union Station, was Yolanda's kind of place. She'd chosen a bottle of La Crema Pinot Noir from the wine list. They didn't carry Killian's, so I settled for Samuel Adams Summer Ale that was served in a tall glass instead of the bottle I preferred.

When she finally spoke, she changed the subject.

“You should have called me, baby. It's not smart to talk to homicide without a lawyer present.”

“I don't like lawyers, present company excepted,” I said. “Besides, if I asked for one, the interrogation would have ended, and I wouldn't have learned anything.”

“And you learned what?”

“That Mario Zerilli tried to frame me. He stole my gun, planted it in his girlfriend's apartment to place me there, beat her up, and got her to lie to the cops.”

“What's he got against you?” she asked.

I took out my wallet, removed a five-dollar bill, and slid it across the table.

“What's this?” she asked.

“A retainer. We are now covered by attorney-client privilege.”

“It's like that?” she said.

“It is,” I said, and then told her about Whoosh's offer.

“Don't tell me you're seriously considering this,” she said.

“Not exactly.”

“What does that mean?”

“When I get it worked out, I'll let you know.”

“It sounds like Mario isn't the only one out to get you,” she said. “Wargart and Freitas seem to have it in for you, too.”

“They do. They've been eager to pin something on me for a couple of years now.”

“Why?”

“I've written a lot of unflattering stuff about the Providence PD over the years. The homicide twins always seem to take it personally.”

“Let me help,” she said.

“How?”

“I can get a restraining order against Mario. Might be able to get one against the Providence PD, too.”

“Thanks,” I said, “but no thanks.”

“Why not?”

“I don't want them to go away,” I said. “Every time they show up, there's a chance I might learn something.”

Later, as we sipped our coffee and shared a slice of coconut cream pie, Yolanda turned the conversation back to us.

“Ever dated a black woman before?”