Three to Get Deadly (26 page)

“So I guess you’re not treating for dessert.”

“What have you got?”

“Both men belonged to the Montgomery Street Freedom Church.”

My first reaction was stunned silence. My second was a hoot of laughter. I clapped my hands. “The Montgomery Street Freedom Church! That’s perfect.”

Morelli ate the rest of his sandwich. “I knew you’d like it.”

“It’s a natural alliance. Mo wants to get rid of drug dealers, so he goes to the extremist Reverend Bill, and the two of them take vigilantism to a new level. Then, for reasons we aren’t sure of, Mo decides to bail out and turn evidence against the good reverend.”

Morelli finished his coffee and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “This is all speculation.”

And I could speculate one further. I could speculate that this wasn’t just about drug dealers.

“Well,” I said, “this has been nice, but I need to run. Places to go. People to see.”

Morelli wrapped his hand around my wrist and held my palm flat to the table, bringing us nose to nose. “Are you sure there isn’t something you want to tell me?”

“I heard Biggie Zaremba had a vasectomy.”

“I’m serious, Stephanie. I don’t want you messing with this.”

“Jesus, Joe, don’t you ever stop being a cop?”

“This has nothing to do with being a cop.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Another sigh, which sounded a lot like self-disgust. “I don’t know why I worry about you. God knows, you can take care of yourself.”

“It’s because you’re Italian. It’s chromosomal.”

“There’s no doubt in my mind,” Morelli said, releasing my wrist. “Be careful. Call me if you need help.”

“I’m going to go home and wash my hair.” I held my hand up. “I swear. Scout’s honor. Maybe I’ll go shopping.”

Morelli stood. “You’re hopeless. You were like this as a kid, too.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You were nuts. You’d do anything. You used to jump off your father’s garage, trying to fly.”

“Didn’t you ever try to fly?”

“No. Never. I knew I couldn’t fly.”

“That’s because from the day you were born, you had a one-track mind.”

Morelli grinned. “It’s true. My interests were narrow.”

“All you ever thought about was S-E-X. You tricked innocent little girls into your father’s garage, so you could look in their under-pants.”

“Life was a lot simpler back then. Now I have to get them drunk. And, let’s be truthful, you were hardly tricked. You practically knocked me over trying to get to the garage.”

“You said you were going to teach me to play choo-choo.”

The grin widened. “And I kept my word.”

The coffee shop door opened, and Vinnie cha-chaed in. Our eyes met, and Vinnie laughed his nasty little laugh and I knew he had something good for me.

I left Morelli and pulled Vinnie outside the coffee shop, so we couldn’t be overheard.

“I got an address,” Vinnie said, still smiling, knowing his bond was close at hand, pleased to report on a fellow sexual deviant.

A rush of excitement shot from the soles of my feet clear to the roots of my hair. “Tell me!”

“I hit pay dirt with the first phone call. You were right. Moses Bedemier, everyone’s favorite uncle, makes dirty movies. Not the kind you can rent in a video store either. These are the real thing! Genuine underground, quality porn.

“He goes under the name M. Bed. And he
specializes in discipline. According to my source, you want a good spanking flick, you look for an M. Bed movie.” Vinnie shook his head, grinning ear to ear. “I’m telling you the man is famous. He’s done a whole series of fraternity initiation films. He did
Tits and Paddles, Gang Spank, Spanky Goes to College.
Real collectors’ items. No holds barred. Lots of close-ups. Never fakes anything. That’s the difference between the commercial junk and the underground. The underground stuff is real.”

“Hold it down, Vinnie,” I said. “People are staring.”

Vinnie didn’t pay any attention. He was waving his hands, and spittle was forming in the corners of his mouth. “The guy is a genius. And his masterpiece is
Bad Boy Bobby and the Schoolmarm.
It’s a historical, done in period costume. It’s a classic. The best ruler-spanking scene recorded on film.”

I thought of Larry Skolnik with dropped drawers and a dunce cap and almost passed out.

“Once you set me in the right direction it was easy,” Vinnie said. “I got a friend in the business. Only he does stuff with dogs. He’s got a Great Dane that’s hung like a bull. And he’s got this dog trained to…”

I slapped my hands over my ears. “
Ugh! Gross!
”

“Well anyway,” Vinnie said. “I was able to find out where Mo makes his movies. This friend of mine uses some of the same actors and actresses as Mo. So he gave me this woman’s name. Bebe LaTouch. Heh, heh, heh. Says she’s the Dane’s favorite.”

I felt my upper lip involuntarily curl back and my sphincter muscle tighten.

Vinnie handed me a piece of paper with directions. “I called her up, and according to Bebe, Mo has a house south of here. Off in the woods. She didn’t know the address, but she knew how to get there.”

This corresponded with the information I’d received from Gail and Larry. Gail told me that Harp had done business with Mo at a location other than the store. She remembered the place because she’d ridden along once when Harp had delivered a “virgin actress.”

I took the directions and looked in at Morelli. He was picking at his potato chips and watching me through the door window. I gave him a finger wave and got into the pickup. I rolled the engine over and listened to the idle. Nice and even. No embarrassing backfires. No stalling.

“Thank you, Bucky,” I said. And thank God for doohickeys.

I took 206 South for several miles and cut off at White Horse, leading toward Yardville, dropping south again to Crosswicks. At Crosswicks I followed a winding two-lane road to an unmarked cross street where I stopped and checked my map. Everything seemed okay, so I continued on and after about five minutes hit Doyne. I turned right onto Doyne and checked my odometer. After two miles I started looking for a rusty black mailbox at the end of a dirt driveway. I’d passed one house when I’d first made my turn, but nothing now. It was wooded on either side of the road. If Mo was out here, he was well isolated.

At three and a half miles I saw the mailbox. I stopped and squinted through the bare trees at the clapboard bungalow at the end of the driveway. In the summer the bungalow wouldn’t be visible. This was the winter, and I could clearly see the carport, and the house. There was a car in the carport, but I had no way of knowing if it belonged to Mo.

I eased down the road about a quarter mile and dialed Ranger’s cell phone.

Ranger answered on the fourth ring. “Yo.”

“Yo yourself,” I said. “I think I have a line on Mo. I’m staking out a bungalow south of Yardville. I need a backup for the takedown.”

“Give me directions.”

I gave the directions, tapped off on the cell phone and opened the small duffel bag I had on the seat beside me. I was wearing jeans and a turtleneck under my black leather jacket. I took the jacket off, zipped myself into a flak vest and put the jacket back on over the vest. The next item I took out of the duffel was a black nylon webbed gun belt with pouches to hold pepper spray and bludgeoning batons, not to mention my Smith & Wesson. I got out of the truck and strapped on the gun belt, filling the pouches, buckling in my gun. I adjusted the Velcro straps that held my .38 secure to my leg, tucked cuffs into the back of the belt and stuffed two spare nylon cuffs into my jacket pockets.

Now that I knew what Mo was up to I sort of wished I had rubber gloves, too.

I got back into the truck and cracked my knuckles, feeling nervous and stupid, all decked out like SWAT Princess.

I sat there until Ranger rolled to a stop behind me in the Bronco. I walked back to him and saw him smile.

“Looks like you’re serious.”

“People keep shooting at me.”

“That’s about as serious as it gets,” Ranger said.

He was already wearing his vest. He strapped on his gun belt while I explained the situation.

“This is your takedown,” he said. “Do you have a plan?”

“Drive in. Knock on the door. Arrest him.”

“You want the front or the back?”

“I want the front.”

“I’ll leave the Bronco here and circle around through the woods. Give me a couple minutes to get in place, then you do your thing.”

It was a long shot that Mo would be in the house. If I’d had more time I’d have set up surveillance. As it was, either we’d scare some poor soul half to death, or we’d risk getting drilled at the door. Then again, maybe Mo really didn’t do any of the killing and wasn’t all that dangerous.

I gave Ranger a lead and then drove down the driveway, parked behind the car in the carport and walked directly to the bungalow’s front door. Shades were drawn in all the windows. I was poised to knock on the door when the door opened, and Mo peered out at me.

“Well,” he said, “I guess this is it.”

“You don’t seem surprised to see me.”

“Actually, the sound of a vehicle on my driveway gave me quite a start. But then I realized it was you, and to tell you the truth, I was relieved.”

“Afraid it was Reverend Bill?”

“So, you know about Bill.” He shook his head. “I’ll be happy when this is all cleared up. I don’t feel safe here anymore. I don’t feel safe anywhere.”

I stood just inside the front door and looked around. Two bedrooms, one bath, living room, eat-in kitchen with a back door. The rug was threadbare but clean. The furniture was shabby. Not a lot of clutter. Colors were faded into a blur of neutral nothing. A couch, an overstuffed club chair, a TV and VCR. No dust on the coffee table.

“I imagine you’re not safe either,” Mo said. “You’ve been making Bill real nervous.”

I did a mental head shake. I’d unwittingly camped out in front of the Freedom Church. Mo and Bill must have been panicked, thinking I was on to them. Sometimes I amazed even myself. How could a person’s instincts be so wrong and at the same time so right?

Mo pulled a shade aside and peeked out the front window. “How did you find me?”

“I took a sort of roundabout route through the burg grapevine.”

Mo turned back to me, horror etched onto his face. I looked into his eyes and saw his mind racing a million miles an hour.

“That’s impossible,” he said, anxiety pinching his lips, turning them white. “Nobody in the burg knows about this house.”

“Larry Skolnik knows. You remember Larry? The kid who wrote secret messages on his arm. Works in his father’s dry cleaning shop now.”

I walked to the open bedroom door and looked in. Bed, neatly made. Throw rug on the floor. Bedside table with lamp and clock. The second bedroom was empty. Tracks on the rug from a recent vacuuming. A few indentations in the rug from furniture or whatever. Clearly the room had recently been cleaned out. I checked the bathroom. There was a heavy drape on the small single window. Darkroom, I thought. Mo probably did some stills of his stars. I walked back to the front door.

“I know about the movies,” I said to Mo.

He gaped at me. Panicky. Still not believing. I rattled off his list of credits. Asserting my dominance. Letting Mo know that the game was over.

Mo pulled himself together and raised his chin a fraction of an inch. A defensive posture. “Well, what of it? I make art films involving consenting adults.”

“Consenting, maybe. Adults is questionable. Does Reverend Bill know about your hobby?”

“Reverend Bill is one of my most devoted fans. Has been for years. Reverend Bill is a firm believer in corporal punishment for bad behavior.”

“Then he knows about this house.”

“Not the location. And it’s not a hobby. I’m a professional filmmaker. I make good money off my films.”

“I bet.”

“You don’t expect me to retire on the money I make selling ice cream cones, do you?” Mo snapped. “You know what the profit is on penny candy? The profit is nothing.”

I hoped he didn’t expect me to be sympathetic. I was having a hard time not grimacing every time I thought about my picture on his kitchen wall.

He shook his head, the spark of indignant fire sputtering out. Mo collapsing in on himself. “I can’t believe this is happening to me. I was making a good living. Putting money away for retirement. I was providing enter
tainment to a select group of adults. I was employing deserving young people.”

I did some mental eye rolling. Moses Bedemier paid street dealers to recruit fresh blood for his porno movies. The street dealers knew the runaways and street kids. They knew the teenagers who still looked healthy and would do most anything to get a new high.

“I made one mistake,” Mo said. “One mistake and everything started to unravel. It was all because of that awful Jamal Brousse.” He paced to the window, clearly agitated, peeking around the shade, clasping and unclasping his hands.

“I hope you were careful not to be followed,” he said. “Bill is looking for me.”

“I wasn’t followed.” Probably.

Mo kept going, wanting to share his story, I guess, looking slightly dazed that it had all come to this, talking while he continued to pace. Probably he’d been talking and pacing for hours before I arrived, trying to talk himself into calling the police.

“All because of Brousse,” he said. “A drug dealer and a purveyor. I made a single unfortunate transaction with him for a young man to model for me. I just wanted some photographs.”

He held up and listened. “Bill will kill us both if he finds us here.”

There was no doubt in my mind. As soon as Ranger showed up we were moving out. “What about Brousse?” I asked, more to distract myself from thoughts of Reverend Bill arriving before Ranger, than raw curiosity.

“I honored my agreement with Brousse, but he kept coming back at me, making more and more demands. Blackmailing me. I was desperate. I didn’t know what to do. I might not make much money from my store, but I have a certain position in the community that I enjoy. Brousse could have ruined everything.

“And then one day Bill stopped in at the store, and I got an idea. Suppose I told Bill about this guy, Jamal Brousse, who was selling drugs to kids. I figured Bill would put a scare into him. Maybe punch him in the nose or something. Maybe scare him enough so he’d go away. Trouble was Bill liked the idea of community justice so much he killed Brousse.

“But Bill made a mistake on Brousse. Dumped him in the river, and Brousse bobbed in to shore two hours later. Bill didn’t like that. Said it was messy. I wanted to stop there, but Bill pressed me to give him
another name. I finally caved in, and next thing, Bill had killed another dealer and buried him in my cellar. Before I knew it my cellar was full of dead drug dealers. Even after I got arrested, Bill kept up the killing. Only now it was harder to get to the cellar, so we just hid the bodies as best we could. Cameron Brown, Leroy Watkins.” Mo shook his head. “Bill was obsessed with the killing. He organized a death squad. And that was so successful Bill started killing not just dealers but hard-core drug users. The death squad learned how to kill the addicts with ODs, so it’d look more natural.

“That’s why I hired an attorney. I couldn’t be part of all that craziness anymore. They were even talking about killing you. And you wouldn’t believe who was taking part in this. Cops, shoe salesmen, grandmothers and schoolteachers. It was insanity. It was like one of those cult things. Like those militia people you see on the television out in Idaho. I even got caught up in it for a while. Carrying a gun. And then that police officer discovered it, and I panicked. It was the gun that had killed Brousse. What was I thinking?”

“Why did you hire a lawyer? Why didn’t you just turn yourself in?”

“I’m an old man. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in jail. I guess I hoped if I was cooperative and had a good lawyer I might get off easier. I didn’t kill anyone, you know. I just gave Bill some names and set up some meetings.”

“You were still participating after you’d gotten a lawyer. You set up Elliot Harp.”

“I couldn’t get out. I was afraid. I didn’t want anyone to know I was talking to the police. As it is, every time I hear a car on the road out there I break into a sweat, thinking it’s Bill, and he’s found out and come to get me.

“I just wish I’d had some other choice right from the beginning. I feel like I started this in motion. This nightmare.”

“There always are choices,” Ranger said, laying the barrel of his .44 Magnum alongside Mo’s head.

Mo rolled his eyes to look at Ranger. “Where’d you come from? I didn’t hear you come in!”

“I come in like the fog on little cat feet.”

I looked at Ranger. “Very nice.”

“Carl Sandburg,” Ranger said. “More or less.”

Gravel crunched under tire treads outside, and Mo jumped beside me. “It’s him!”