Season of the Witch (18 page)

Chief Detective Magnuson met me at the perimeter of the scene. He looked at me with empty, sorrowful eyes. “Longville . . .” He looked down, away. “She’s over here.”

I must have looked confused. He put his hand on my shoulder and turned me gently around. He spoke more to Broom than me.

“The postman was making his rounds and spotted the body. Back here, in the ditch.”

I followed him over to where the circle of detectives stood.

“From the bruising on the arms, it appears she was forcibly held while someone else shot her up with a pure dose.”

They always look smaller when the life has left them. I knelt beside the body. She lay against a pile of trash. Her face was serene, as if somehow in her final moment of passing, death had restored that peace she had lost.

Magnuson was standing nearby, with the inevitable clear plastic evidence bag.

Why had I done this? Why had I forced Big Daddy’s hand? Why was I not there when she needed me?

I knew that some part of me had gotten too close to her, that I had cared. I hadn’t wanted to admit it to myself, or to her. At that moment, I wished I had. Even though I knew it would have mattered little to Lena, even if she had known, there in that trash filled alley, before the darkness closed over her . . . maybe it would have counted for something.

They had held her down and put that final needle in her arm, and she would never be able to come back now; her chance to get well, to go home, had been stolen from her. I’d shown her a ray of hope, and then I had failed her. I hadn’t been there to make sure she got away clean from that deep dark hole she had fallen into. But I knew she wouldn’t blame me; I doubt she even blamed them, her killers—the lamentable trash who had done this thing to her, and who would do it again to someone else, given the chance.

We aren’t fit judges of them that wrong us.

I felt Broom’s heavy hand on my shoulder. It was all I could do to look at him.

“Come on, partner. Let’s go.”

Chapter 17

Once again, I found myself in the squad room of the West Precinct. I wasn’t ushered in with handcuffs on my wrists this time. Instead, Broom and McMahon had accompanied me. Chief Magnuson wanted the whole story. He wanted to understand how he had lost another man, this time a good man. We’d commandeered empty desks upstairs and sipped coffee and talked while yet another ice storm blasted into town. Lightning flashed and thunder grumbled outside.

“So Longshot had Hazelwood on the payroll,” Magnuson grunted. “That’s exactly what we thought. But how he got there was what we had wrong.” He was pacing to and fro in the squad room. It was ten o’clock, and no phones were ringing. The perpetual storm had kept crime indoors again.

“Right. Apparently, Eve was with Harry at the outset. After Danny Weber came into the picture, Harry and Eve befriended him because he had stolen the money from Don Ganato. They both wanted that money. It became more important than anything. Danny was too scared to show his face. They made sure that he stayed that way, so he had to trust them.”

“Eve had designs on the money. I guess she started wondering why she had to share it with Harry.”

“So they take Danny to get him high and try to wrangle his secret from him, one way or the other.”

“But they had bad luck; the happy little pot party gets raided.”

“Danny hid some of the money he had on him in Hazelwood’s car, on the way downtown. Why?”

“Probably didn’t want to have to answer a bunch of questions about where a purse snatcher like him found so many sequential hundred dollar bills. Maybe he was afraid the serial numbers were on record somewhere. Even so, he unintentionally gets Hazelwood scrutinized again and, at the same time, leads Eve to Hazelwood.”

“So she and Hazelwood take a shine to each other,” McMahon threw in.

“More likely, he took a shine to Eve,” Broom interjected. “She probably figured, here’s an alpha male, a tough guy, someone who’ll get me what I want. It’s obvious she was convinced that Danny and Harry were useless amateurs. She must have figured she needed a professional.” He clicked his tongue against his teeth and reared back, swinging his feet up onto someone else’s desk.

“Through Eve, Hazelwood and Longshot came to know each other.” It was my turn to pace around the empty desks, thinking aloud. “Hazelwood’s got a gambling monkey on his back, which Longshot Lonnie kindly removes in exchange for his integrity. So they begin their little collaboration. Meanwhile, Eve has them both caught in the tender trap, so to speak.”

“His results aren’t too good at first, and Eve is getting impatient.” Broom pointed a huge finger my way. “She figures two detectives on the case is better than one.” He raised an eyebrow at me.

“Yeah, she gets Harry to come to me. Maybe he knew what she had planned with me, or at least part of it. I doubt she ever let him in on it all. Obviously, she had Hazelwood tailing me all along. So she tried to get me in the sack, too, so she could control me. But I didn’t bite. That’s when she probably told Hazelwood that I knew too much, so he would come gunning for me. So Harry and Eve are playing Hazelwood and me against each other with neither of us knowing the whole score.”

“All the while, you got all the mob boys out looking for these three,” McMahon marveled aloud to the room.

There was a vicious blast of thunder, and the lights dimmed and came back up. I paused momentarily, then went on: “Ganato must have had Harry’s apartment staked out. I believe the apartment itself was all a front for me. They were never really living there, not full time, anyway. It was a place Harry and Eve had set up to dupe me. They were lying low, too, just like Danny—hiding from different gangsters and for different reasons. Eve and Harry didn’t know where the money was to start with. That’s why Ganato’s men were willing to play the long game, though, and wait until the moment was right, let Eve and Harry do the finding for them. But Lonnie couldn’t. He wanted Eve all to himself, so he had his men out trolling for some sign. Apparently, he’d also promised Big Daddy the money for future good will in the Zone.”

“Which is how we end up with a blood bath at the municipal airport.” Magnuson stared out the window at the lights of a 767 as it winged skyward, like an angel rising up from where there had been so much dying, just a few hours before.

“Don Ganato refuses to admit any knowledge of the money. Seems like his hoods were just on their way to take a flight to New York, and were caught up in a gun battle that erupted. No real proof of anything to dispute that. All the witnesses against him are dead, except you, Roland. It would be your word against his. He’s decided to eat his losses. Looks like we can’t touch him.”

“He never really wanted the money too awfully bad,” Broom rumbled. “Don Ganato . . . well,
he
wanted his revenge.”

“Looks like everybody got some payback today,” McMahon snorted.

“Sorry about Jake, Chief. I sure liked him,” I said to Magnuson’s back.

“He was a good cop,” McMahon added, after a pause.

Broom slipped into his overcoat and gave us a nod. He turned back to Magnuson. “We’ll all be at the service.”

Magnuson said nothing in response, but continued staring out into the night.

“I wish this damn rain would stop.”

Chapter 18

The wind buffeted the windows of the Brooks building, rattling the ancient panes. I was staring out into the black night, my mind a blank. I thought that I was holding together rather well, but when I looked up and saw Broom standing in my office, I realized I hadn’t even heard him come in . . . or speak to me, which I suddenly realized suddenly he’d done more than once.

Broom was standing over me, a sheaf of paper in his hands.

“What do you have there?”

“Warrants. I’ve been busy.” He held the vellum up high, as though illuminating the room with a torch. “I got them based on fingerprints we found on the syringe that was left at the scene.”

“Whose prints were they?”

“Big Daddy’s. I know you must be pretty tired, but I figure I’d ask you if you’d like to go for a little ride.”

“Where we going?” My voice sounded a lot like it had in the hospital, an old man’s croak.

“Big Daddy’s place. We’re going to bring the bastard in.”

With a little more effort than I thought it should take, I rose to my feet and followed him out.

* * *

Downstairs, we piled into Broom’s black Crown Victoria. As we pulled out, he hit his horn. Two likewise nondescript cars pulled out and drove behind us. Whenever traffic snagged, Broom would dispel it with a few quick flashes of the blue light mounted on the dash. He talked excitedly as he drove.

“Big Daddy’s set up shop over in Irondale, out past the old ironworks. He’s literally got a palace out there, a real freak show. The trouble is, someone else is always doing his dirty work for him, and he keeps it away from home. He keeps a low profile, but we’ve been keeping an eye on him for a while. He was probably present when the . . . act was committed, since the syringe puts him at the scene. He may even have performed the injection. Anyway, we’ve got him, and I wanted you to be there when we take him down.”

The old Birmingham Ironworks stood in stark relief against the gathering winter night. They were the vast ruin of a former glory, vacant and abandoned beyond the North Side, a titanic rusting ruin, alone on a desolate plain. Beyond, the blue and emerald foothills of the Appalachian range reached their terminus, and the Cahaba river served as a border between them and the gradually flattening landscape that began in central Alabama and ran on down to Mobile and the sea.

It was in those small hills that a few wealthy families had chosen to build their homes, beyond the ghastly ruin that lay behind them. The hills were each crowned with palatial homes, some visible from several miles away. It was in just such an eagle’s nest that Big Daddy had made his lair, far away from the city and the projects where the bulk of his vast wealth was made.

We snaked up a winding road under a thick canopy of pines and cedars. There was a mist falling now, and up through the evergreens the sky looked like an angry face ready to burst into tears at any moment. We slowed as the road took a steep curve close to the summit of the hill. Coming out of the curve, we were suddenly in a clearing, which was dominated by a giant house with a carefully manicured lawn and hedges.

The top of the house was a large A-frame. There were three cars in the yard, one of them instantly recognizable as Big Daddy’s; the other two were plain four-door Chevrolets. There was no apparent movement in or around the house. It looked like we had caught them napping.

By the time we piled out, faces became visible in the large upstairs windows, and there was an audible commotion within. Besides Broom, McMahon and myself, there were five uniformed officers. McMahon and one of the others were armed with shotguns; two others held a battering ram. Broom motioned to McMahon, and he and one of the officers went around to the rear of the house. One of the Boys in Blue beat on the door and gave the customary greetings.

“Open up! Police! We have a warrant!”

There was a garbled reply, but the door did not open. Broom spat on the ground.

“Okay boys, break it down.”

The two cops with the battering ram smiled gleefully.

They did a three count and hurtled toward the door.

“Knock, knock.” The one in the front shouted in a singsong voice. They hit it off center near the hinges. The entire door fell flat, revealing a spacious living area.

We had spoiled their party.

There were three girls lounging in various states of undress on leather couches around a glass coffee table. Two large screen televisions displayed porno flicks. My old pal Vince was standing behind the table, which was strewn with a wide assortment of drugs. Vince and the girls looked pretty stoned. At the rear of the room sat Big Daddy, in an oriental bathrobe. He seemed unconcerned by our sudden appearance. Maybe he was too fried to register what was going on.

McMahon and the uniform cop emerged with two people from the rear. One was a naked girl of perhaps twenty; the other was Steve, disheveled and shirtless.

“These two were on the floor in the kitchen. Disgusting.” His eyes played over the girl’s body.

“Put something on the girl, Mac,” Broom reminded him. McMahon stammered and draped a couch cover over the girl. She giggled vacantly.

Broom spoke to the figure sitting in the chair. “Get up.”

The figure didn’t move. He muttered, his voice low and thick on the verge of exhaustion, of utter boredom, of unknowable intoxication.

“Go ahead, break everything, you big tough assholes. It don’t make no difference. You got some stinking judge to say it was okay for you to come into my home, break down my door. It don’t matter to me. I can buy any judge in this stinking town; I can buy any of you stinking cops, too. What do you think about that?”

Broom grabbed him with one giant hand, eliciting an involuntary squeal from the man.

“Ricardo Lorenzo, you are hereby under arrest for the murder of Lena Constance Waters, for the possession and distribution of narcotics, and practically everything else in the Birmingham Criminal Code. Detective McMahon, read this gentleman his rights.”