Inspector Specter (29 page)

Her comment had given the young woman time to think. “It's not really my apartment. I'm a . . . friend of the landlord,” she said. “He lets me use empty apartments when I'm going to the beach, you know?”

“Oh, I know,” Ferry said, a leer in his voice. “She changes clothes in my old bedroom.” I shot him a look, and he appeared defensive, holding up his hands.

“It's fine,” McElone reiterated to the girl.

“If you're sure,” the girl said. She stepped aside, which gave Ferry a better look at her profile. I glared at what the others thought was a blank wall as McElone and I walked in, and Dad floated behind us.

“We don't want to hold you up if you're going to the beach,” McElone told her. We really weren't looking for anything in the apartment, and having no one there would make it easier for me to talk to the dead detective.

“I don't know if Larry would want someone in here without me watching,” she answered.

“Larry?”

“The landlord.” Right. Her “friend.”

“Don't worry,” the lieutenant told her yet again. “Nobody's getting into any trouble here.”

The woman thought. It was an effort for her, as she clearly hadn't stayed in practice. “I do want to get out there before I lose the sun.” It was going to be ninety-seven degrees today, and she was worried that she might not tan.

“Absolutely,” McElone told her. “Go ahead, Miss . . . ?”

“Fiona.”

Fiona flounced at the door with a beach bag hung over her shoulder. Ferry watched her from behind and, in a triumph of restraint, made no comment. I waited until the door was closed behind her and her footsteps faded on the stairs.

“She's maybe two years older than your daughter,” I said to him. McElone stared at me for a moment, then saw where I was looking.

“Is Marty here?” she asked.

Ferry pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and waved it at her. “I'm right here, Anita,” he said.

She stared at it for a moment, then waved her hand. “Get that thing out of my face, Marty. I don't have time to be freaked out right now.”

Ferry, chastened about the handkerchief if not the leering, put the cloth away. “Sorry,” he mumbled. I did not pass it along, deciding he was apologizing to all women everywhere.

McElone scanned the large—now, since it was empty—living room. “We can set up in here,” she said. “Anyone coming in will come through that door; it's the only entrance. And hopefully we'll have surprise working for us.”

“What are we waiting for?” Ferry asked.

“We've let it be known that there are some very sensitive computer files hidden in this apartment,” I informed him. “Whoever comes looking for them is a decent candidate for who shot you.”

“That's not a whole lot to go on,” Ferry said, slipping into thoughtful detective in a flash. This was business. “How are you going to make it stick?”

I passed the question on to McElone, the professional, who answered, “We're hoping for a confession.”

Ferry snorted. “Like that ever happens.” Assume I only echoed useful comments back to the lieutenant.

McElone had held on to the gun I'd gotten off Buster, and she took it out of her pocket to check it. “Only three bullets,” she said. “I should have stopped back at the station house.”

“There used to be a gun in the desk,” Ferry reminded me. “But the desk is gone now anyway.”

“What's left?” I asked him.

“Not much. What Natasha didn't take, the landlord carted away. I didn't know then he was going to use the place to hide his little pal away from his wife.”

“Larry is married?” I said.

“Grow up,” Ferry answered.

“Quiet,” McElone hissed. “I hear something.”

The ghost and I fell dead silent—one of us more so than the other—and we listened. Sure enough, there were steps on the stairway outside the apartment, getting louder. None of us said a word. I figured the footsteps would either turn at the landing and walk in the other direction or keep going up the stairs to the next floor.

They did neither.

Instead, the steps came as close as they could come, and I heard some fumbling around the door. McElone felt for the key she'd taken from the notch behind the molding outside and found it in her pocket. She put it down on the windowsill next to her and removed the gun from her shoulder holster. She checked it again, to be safe.

The fumbling around the door stopped. Ferry's eyes narrowed, anticipating the sight of the person who had shot him.

“We can't catch them if they can't get in,” he noted. What the hell; the killer couldn't hear
him
.

After a moment, there was the sound of metal scratching metal, very faintly, from the direction of the door. It didn't last long. Something clicked inside the lock, and the doorknob turned.

McElone motioned me behind her, and I was all too happy to comply. She stood in an anchored position, legs apart but not spread, the gun in her hand pointed in the direction of the door, which was swinging open toward us, shielding us from view.

“Dammit,” Ferry said.

Lay-Z, dressed in a loose basketball shirt with the number 65 printed on it and a pair of shorts that almost reached his skinny ankles, walked straight into Ferry's former apartment as if he owned the place. By the time he recognized there were people in the room (although two more than he might have been able to see), it was too late.

“Freeze,” McElone said in a normal conversational tone, as if she were thanking him for bringing the pizza and asking if they'd remembered the extra pepperoni. “Just stand still and you'll be okay.”

But Lay-Z just looked surprised. Unfortunately, he wasn't nearly as surprised as we were when Vinnie ‘the Goldfish' Monroe appeared behind him in a sharp suit. Behind him was a tall, slender man with a shaved head and a goatee dyed blond.

“Buster,” McElone said.

The problem was Buster Hockney was holding a gun, which he pointed directly at Lay-Z's head.

“Hey!” the kid protested. It was the most intelligent thing I'd ever heard him say.

“Thanks for getting the door open, Lamont,” Buster told the skinny kid. “Now just stand there and be a nice human shield.”

“Gun!” my father shouted. I don't think he believed we hadn't seen it. It just surprised him.

The sweat that popped up on Lay-Z's face wasn't entirely due to the ovenlike conditions in the apartment. Did Larry have to turn off Ferry's air-conditioning, too?

“I expected you, Buster,” McElone said in a conversational, almost friendly, tone. “But I am disappointed in you, Vinnie.”

But Vinnie was staring at me, no doubt remembering our previous encounter. “You can do what you want with those,” he told Buster, gesturing toward Lay-Z and McElone. Then he pointed at me. “But that one's mine.”

“Stop pretending you're in a Tarantino movie,” Buster told him. He kept his gaze on McElone. “Now I'll ask, and then I'll shoot: Where is the flash drive?”

“I could grab him, but not before he could fire,” Ferry said. He was moving around like he had drunk too much coffee, trying to figure out what to do. Dad, by contrast, was stock-still, just a different reaction to the same stimulus.

“There is no flash drive,” McElone said. “We put that out so you'd come here and get caught. Nice work, Buster.”

Buster's eyes took on a steely look. The more intelligent of the two, he believed the lieutenant.

But Vinnie had no such insight. “You're lying.”

“She's not,” I said. “There's no flash drive here.”

Buster jerked the semiautomatic pistol up to Lay-Z's temple. “Well, that's a problem for our friend Lamont,” he said.

McElone had not lowered her weapon, so the standoff continued. “That would be stupid, Buster. All I've got you for now is your drug business. You shoot the kid in front of me, and I can put you away for homicide.”

Buster's voice was quiet and controlled. “You'd have to be alive to put me away.”

“You fire at the kid, and I fire at you,” McElone told him.

Martin Ferry circled around (and, to be honest, through) Buster, looking for a way to get his hand away from Lay-Z's head. The kid, for his part, whined, “Come on, Buster, I didn't do nothin'.”

“You're right,” Buster said, and, amazing everyone, released the kid, who fell to his knees and just stayed there. Buster trained his gun on McElone.

The situation was not looking better, and our reaction to Buster's move meant Vinnie had time to grab me by the arm, swing me around and put his gun to my head.

“Hey!” I shouted. Well, it had worked for Lay-Z.

“Baby girl,” Dad said quietly.

McElone gritted her teeth. “Don't be stupid,” she told Vinnie. “You killed your own grandfather. You and a couple of your guys, maybe even Lamont here, found him at my bungalow. You thought he was my CI, but you were wrong. I'd never met the man before. So you drowned him because he hated the water, then you drowned him again, and you stuck him in his car—why? Because you thought it was funny?”

“Come on,” Vinnie said. “You have to admit that was funny. A drowned guy in a car?”

Buster turned, still keeping the pistol pointed at McElone. They weren't circling around each other but keeping very still, and yet Buster could turn his head just enough to sneer at Vinnie and say, “Will you shut up? They don't know anything.”

I was still feeling the barrel of Vinnie's gun against my temple and watching the two ghosts in the room try to figure out how to act without getting someone they liked shot.

McElone knew I had my voice recorder in my pocket. We'd already gotten Vinnie to confess to the murder of Harry the Fish; why not go for broke? “Yeah, Vinnie. You already said you drowned your grandfather. Don't add that you killed Martin Ferry. Don't make it worse.”

“He killed me?” Ferry said, mostly to himself. “I remember Lay-Z coming in, but then it gets hazy.”

“I didn't kill the cop,” Vinnie said, and Buster looked annoyed.

“Why'd you kill Harry?” McElone demanded of Vinnie. “He was cutting you in.”

“Peanuts,” spat Vinnie. “Two percent. Nothing. But I did it because my ‘grandmother' paid me sixty grand. She'd had enough.”

“But you didn't kill Martin, huh?” McElone tried to circle around to get a clear shot. I was getting tired of having Vinnie's arm around my shoulders and thought I might be able to squirm out just from the sweat. I pictured myself doing that but couldn't raise the nerve. Do it wrong, and it would be my last mistake. Melissa would never forgive me.

“How about you, Lamont?” McElone said. “Your mother tried to cover for you, and now she's going to jail. Are you going to let Buster say you killed Detective Ferry? Spend the rest of your life behind bars?”

“I just picked the lock for him,” the skinny kid said from the floor. “I didn't kill nobody! Marty was in his bedroom, so I picked his lock and then opened his desk drawer. Buster wanted his gun so it would look like suicide. I swear, that's all I did!”

“Will you shut up!” Buster hollered. He stared at McElone.

By now, I was hot, I was terrified and more than anything, I was spitting mad. If Vinnie killed me, The Swine would get custody of my daughter. That was not acceptable. I looked up at my father. “Get him,” I said.

“I'm not playing that game again,” Vinnie said.

“It's no game.” I decided Ferry was the better bet. “Detective, I need your help.”

Lay-Z looked up. “What detective?”

McElone looked at me like I was in need of mood-altering drugs, then glanced in the direction I was looking.

At Ferry.

“Okay,” she told Buster. “You win. I can't give you a drive that doesn't exist, but I'm putting my weapon down.” And she lowered her gun and let it fall to the carpeted floor. Vinnie was so busy looking at that he didn't notice her put her hand on her belt.

“That's my daughter,” Dad told Ferry. “I don't have time for you to be stunned.”

Ferry swooped down in a nanosecond and took the gun from the floor. McElone smiled just a bit as the gun raised itself (in her view and that of the three living men in the room) and leveled itself directly at Buster's eyes.

“What the hell!” Lay-Z yelled.

Vinnie said something a lot stronger. Then he added, “Not again.” I heard something click next to my ear.

“That's it,” my father said.

I couldn't see what he did, but I felt him move to my right and suddenly the barrel of the gun was gone from my temple. Vinnie's arm loosened its grip, and I dropped to the floor, remembering that that move had saved me in the pizzeria.

“This trick is getting real old,” Vinnie said.

What I saw was Dad holding Vinnie's arms behind him, and Martin Ferry holding the gun on Buster. Ferry had a very serious expression on his face.

“Marty,” McElone said.

“Tell him to let you go or I'll blow his brains out,” Ferry told me.

McElone was already grabbing her belt and advancing on Buster, who had not dropped his gun.

“Detective Ferry is very mad at you for killing him,” I said. “He says you'd better let me go or he might return the favor.”

“I might anyway,” Ferry threw in. I saw no reason to pass that bon mot along.

“Don't do it, Martin,” Dad said. Dad becomes friends with everybody he meets; he hasn't lost that salesman's talent even after dying.

“Why not?” the detective asked. “What are they going to do, execute me?”

McElone was already grabbing Buster's arm and twisting it behind his back. There was some talk of remaining silent and what could be used in a court of law. But Ferry didn't move the gun from Buster's face.

Lay-Z, true to his name, sat on the floor looking dazed. It's possible he'd been sampling some of his product before Buster and Vinnie had brought him here.