The Hidden Man (39 page)

“Unbelievable,” Carlo said, shaking his head slowly. It was more unnerving to witness a calm reaction from Carlo than to watch one of his patented eruptions. “This lawyer is good?”

It was a question he’d asked before, but he was certainly entitled to the comfort of repetition. “That seems to be the case,” Smith said.

“Seems like he knows what he’s doing,” said Tommy cautiously, still reticent over his screw-up.

“He believes that his brother will die if he doesn’t deliver?”

“Yes,” Smith said.

Carlo poised his hands with a slight tremble, owing to his advancing age, perhaps, but Smith thought otherwise. “I don’t—I don’t know what to do. I don’t.”

Smith had never heard anything of the kind from Carlo. Carlo hadn’t always made the right call, but decisiveness had never been a problem.

“What about Jimmy DePrizio’s boy?” Carlo asked.

“Denny?”

“Right. Denny got any bright ideas?”

“Not recently.” Smith shrugged. “I’ll check in with him. He’s supposed to be keeping an eye on Kolarich.”

Carlo nodded, then sunk into a thought. “What if we kill the brother?” he asked. “Tell the lawyer he’s next, if he doesn’t deliver?”

Smith inclined his head. “I don’t know, Boss. Jason Kolarich is hard to predict. But I think it wouldn’t help.”

“
You
think.” Carlo focused on Smith. “How we doin’ so far, on what
you
think?”

Smith didn’t answer. There was no winning this argument. Carlo ran his hands over his bare forehead. He was showing his age, for the first time, his movements more tentative, the tremble in his hands.

“Maybe—maybe this is comeback,” Carlo said. “For past wrongs.” He dismissed the two men with a wave.

Smith and Tommy left the office.
I don’t know what to do
, Carlo had said. But Smith thought otherwise. He thought that Carlo was beginning to warm to a decision that would affect all of them.

54

H
E WENT to the construction site, then to St. Agnes Hospital to visit someone, then to his father Carlo’s home,” said Joel Lightner.

I was driving, talking to Joel with my earpiece. I was done making phone calls to the eyewitnesses placing Sammy Cutler at the scene of the crime. I was going to make a personal visit.

“Why so suspicious of this guy, Jason? Wasn’t he your witness?”

I probably should have figured on Tommy Butcher earlier on. A guy shows up a year after a murder and remembers something? I guess I wanted his testimony to be true so badly that I let myself believe the unbelievable.

“Smith knew all kinds of detail about the hearing involving Butcher’s testimony,” I explained. “But the county Web site didn’t provide any details. And the guy Smith put up—Sanders—didn’t know about it at all. So the only way Smith could have known was from Butcher himself. That, and his obvious lie about being at that bar on the night of the murder.”

“You think he’s the killer?”

“My gut would be no, though I don’t know what a child killer looks like. But I’m going to find out.”

“And how are you going to do that?”

“Powers of persuasion, Mr. Lightner. Keep an eye on Mr. Butcher, would you?”

“I will. Hey, what’s cooking with Jimmy Stewart?”

“That’s
Jim
, my friend. It’s going fine, I think. Just trying to rattle the cage.”

“Jimmy’s good for that,” said Joel. “I’ll say that much.”

“ KOLARICH ISN’T TALKING to me.” Denny DePrizio ripped a piece of bread from the loaf and dipped it into a plate of olive oil.

“Then talk to
him
,” Smith said. “Make sure his priorities are straight.”

DePrizio smirked. “He’s got you by the balls, doesn’t he?”

“That’s funny to you,” Smith said, as he saw a number of men in suits approaching their table. The leader of the four-man group was short and wide, with tightly cropped hair.

DePrizio looked up. The color drained from his face. Smith noticed that the front man, in fact all of the men, were wearing police shields on their belts.

DePrizio froze for a moment, then recovered, grabbing the bread again and focusing on the plate of olive oil. “Well, well,” he said. “If it isn’t Jimmy Stewart, king of the rats.”

“Sorry to interrupt your lunch, Detective,” said Stewart.

“And what can I do for the men of Internal Affairs on this fine day?”

“Take a ride with us.”

DePrizio, in a flash of anger, threw down the chunk of bread. “Now, why would I do that, Lieutenant?”

Stewart looked over at Smith, debating whether to engage. “Not here,” he said.

“Here.” DePrizio wiped his hands on his napkin.

Stewart waited, then nodded. “Okay. You’ll want to help explain how a guy named Peter Kolarich got dropped from a multiple-count narcotics and weapons beef only a few days after his arrest.”

“Kolarich. Kolarich.” DePrizio was struggling to keep the brave front. “They blur together, Jimmy.”

“Let me see if I can help you out,
Denny
. This was the one where your CI had a sudden change of heart.”

“It happens.” DePrizio’s level of enjoyment was quickly evaporating.

“Does it usually happen after someone delivers you a briefcase with ten thousand dollars in it? That usually happen, Denny?”

DePrizio didn’t move. He didn’t speak.

“How about we have a look in the trunk of your car, Denny? You think we’ll find a briefcase like that? The one we have you on videotape receiving from Jason Kolarich at that coffee shop?”

DePrizio worked his jaw, trying to find words. “I want my delegate,” he said.

“No problem, Denny. Not a problem at all,” said Stewart. “But let’s take a ride. We don’t—we don’t need a scene in front of this lunch crowd.”

Denny DePrizio slowly pushed himself from the table. His planted smile quickly deteriorated into a scowl. His eyes flashed across Smith, who remained still.

GEORGE AND MILLIE Robeson lived two blocks north of the Liberty Apartments, where Griffin Perlini was murdered. The whole area was pretty much a dive: streets littered with garbage and broken-down automobiles, convenience stores with garish signs for cigarettes and lottery tickets and phone cards, competing gang graffiti advertising the reign of the Latin Lords and the Columbus Street Cannibals.

The apartment building where the Robesons lived was the exception to the rule, a well-kept, if humble exterior with a clean brown awning noting that the structure was a “residence for seniors,” which in some cases might be an invitation for mayhem, but an armed doorman, who spent a lot of time in the gym, helped ensure a sense of security.

I introduced myself to the guy, showed him my bar card, and waited while he dialed a number on his phone and mispronounced my name. He mostly listened, then hung up the phone and stared at me, like I was supposed to say something.

“They don’t want to talk to you,” he finally said.

“They have to talk to me. Or I come back with a court order and a police officer, and I
make
them talk to me. Call them again, Lou,” I said, noting his name tag. “Be a sport.”

Lou wasn’t in the sporting mood. He made a point of dropping his hands to his lap, telling me he was done debating with me. But he wasn’t done.

“I’ll make sure to come back when you’re on duty,” I said. “Interfering with an investigation. Witness tampering.” I removed a small notepad from my breast pocket and slipped the pen out. “What’s your last name, Lou? For the affidavit.”

He waited a beat, to show me his resolve, before he dialed the number again. He turned away from me, but I didn’t really need to hear what he was saying, anyway.

“Mr. Robeson’ll be down,” he told me.

“You’re the best, Lou.” I paced around the small foyer, decorated with a few pieces of decent furniture and some sports magazines on a round table. The elevators were behind a thick plate of glass and a secure door. One of the elevators chimed and a man walked out, a tall, thin African American with ivory-white hair, wearing a sweater, trousers, and a displeased expression.

He pushed open the secured door, enough for a conversation, but didn’t walk through.

“Mr. Robeson.” I approached the door.

“You’re representing the guy on trial,” he said, his voice matching his feeble frame.

“Yes, sir. I’ve tried to call—”

“I didn’t see nothin’, okay? Didn’t see nothin’.” The man’s eyes were ablaze with fury, with pure hatred.

I paused. I wanted him to calm down. “Mr. Robeson, you told the police—”

“You stay away,” he interrupted. “I said I didn’t see nothin’, now you stay away from us.”

I drew back. “I’ve never spoken to you.”

“
You
never did.
You
never did.” The man directed a bony finger in my direction. “I fought for this country,” he said. “I fought, y’hear? I didn’t put my life on the line so’s people could threaten good people who come forward and do the right thing.”

Don’t worry about the witnesses
, Smith had cautioned me. His goons had reached this man and his wife.

“Someone threatened you,” I said.

Robeson’s eyes narrowed. “You oughta be ashamed.
Ashamed
. Now, I told you, my wife and me, we didn’t see nothin’. Don’t remember anything of the kind. You stay away.”

Robeson let the security door close with a
click
. He kept mumbling angrily as he walked back into the elevator.

I turned back to the doorman, who looked like he wanted to draw his weapon on me.

“These are nice people,” he said. “They don’t hurt anybody. They just wanna be left alone. So
leave
them alone.”

I didn’t have a response. There was no sense trying to convince the Robesons that I wasn’t the one who threatened them. There was nothing I could do but leave.

As I was walking to my car, my cell phone rang, the caller ID blocked. Smith, presumably.

“Kolarich, you’ve tested our patience. What did I tell you?”

I didn’t know what he meant, but I had an idea. I figured it wouldn’t take long before Lieutenant Jim Stewart and his boys at IAD would pick up DePrizio for questioning about the briefcase full of money I’d handed him.

It occurred to me that I might have made a big mistake. My plan had been to pinch DePrizio, make it look like he was extorting money from me, to help spring my brother from the criminal charges he faced. But that was before I’d managed to get Pete’s charges dropped. And that was before they’d abducted Pete. The landscape had changed. Now, I was pissing off the very people who were holding my brother.

“I said no police, Jason. That includes Internal Affairs.”

“I didn’t sic the police on you, Smith,” I said quickly. “Maybe on DePrizio, but not on you. Internal Affairs doesn’t know about you. They’ve got DePrizio on false arrest and extortion.”

“Go home,” Smith said. “And then we’ll talk.”

“Why am I going home?”

“Because you’ve got mail,” Smith said, before hanging up.

I broke about twenty different traffic laws on my way home, my imagination running wild. He was talking about Pete, I knew. He had something to show me.

I pulled up to my house just fifteen minutes after Smith’s call. I slowly approached the front door of my town house, then the gold mailbox next to the front door, as if there were a bomb inside. Instead there was a series of junk mail and a large, unstamped envelope. I held my breath, opened it up, and removed an object wrapped in thick bubble wrap.

I ripped the first few layers off, until it was clear that it was holding a severed finger.

55

I
TAPED BACK UP the bubble wrap holding the finger and put it in my freezer, not sure if there was any point to it, realizing that the odds of my ever seeing Pete again were dwindling. I was playing high-stakes poker, but it was my brother, not I, who was suffering the consequences.

“I didn’t know they were going to kidnap you,” I said aloud. “Jesus, Pete, I didn’t know. I thought I was
helping
you.”