Treasure of Saint-Lazare (21 page)

Ginepri had divided her group into two squads, one for the barn and the other for the house. She waved the house group on its way and led the remaining deputies around the barn. Paul followed her closely. His goal was Eddie and he figured four big men should be able to handle Sommers in his wheelchair and his one scrawny assistant.

The three deputies, Paul, and Thom walked carefully on the grass around the barn. They stopped under a window and Ginepri looked carefully inside, then ducked quickly. She turned to the men following her and held up one finger of her left hand, then stuck up her thumb and held her hand out to simulate a handgun.

She called Thom to her side and asked him to stay, and when the others had reached the front of the barn to make a noise at the side in an effort to bring out the man inside. “It’ll be easier to get him if he opens the door himself,” she said. He nodded.

They took up their positions on each side of the door. Across the yard, they could see the other team looking carefully in the windows of the main house. She reconsidered and signaled to Thom he should wait. The sound of the break-in at the house might flush out their man.

Paul stationed himself under the window so he could look inside and learn the layout after the action started. He still had no idea how the barn was laid out and until he knew that it would be too dangerous to enter.

The deputies and FBI agents at the back door of the house could see through the kitchen into the living room, where Sonny sat watching television. They could not see Sommers and hoped he had gone to bed. The largest of them first tested the door but found it locked, then without ceremony kicked it in and charged through.

Sonny jumped up from the sofa in front of the television and reached quickly for a drawer in the table at its end. One of the FBI agents put a hand on his wrist. Don’t make a sound, he whispered. Sonny didn’t.

“What’s going on out there?” Sommers called from his bedroom. The other FBI agent and a deputy followed the sound and quickly arrested him.

The deputy who kicked down the back door was six-foot-four and weighed 230 pounds. The door split at its lock like a ripe melon and separated easily from its frame, and the glass in two of its four panes splintered and fell inside the room. Dmitri heard the noise and knew immediately what it was. He had no thought of leaving the barn.

As soon as he heard the attack on the house, Paul stuck his head above the window frame to see Dmitri stand up directly in front of him, fortunately looking the other way. Dmitri glanced at the barn door, then ran around the white car to look out the window on the other side, where he could see that every light in Sommers’s house was on. He ran quickly toward the door at the front of the car, heading for the entrance to the fallout shelter. Paul knew now where Eddie was held, and that he’d reached the moment of greatest risk to his friend.

He tested the window and found he could raise it. He turned to Thom and made a stirrup sign, then pointed up at the window to indicate he would go through. Thom hesitated, then laced his fingers together. Paul rolled over the windowsill, dropped to the floor and crept to the door Dmitri had used. Then he stopped and listened.

The padlock clattered as Dmitri dropped it on the steel door, then Paul heard him grunt as he lifted the heavy door. Then a shout and a single gunshot. Dreading what he’d find, Paul dashed to the open cellar door.

Suddenly there was the sound of something scraping on the floor above, then a thud from the steel door at the top of their stairs. “Woody. Ready? Somebody’s about to open the door. Lie down. Play dead,” Eddie said in a hoarse whisper.

There was the sound of metal falling on metal, the padlock dropping on the door after Dmitri unlocked it. Then the stairway flooded with light and Dmitri shouted to them, “Stand away from the door. You guys are my ticket out of here but I’ll shoot the first one of you to move.”

He walked slowly down the steps. Eddie first saw his feet, then the gun.

“Woody’s badly hurt and I’m still tied up,” Eddie told him, hands behind his back. The gun sagged slightly.

Dmitri stepped into the room. He looked first at Eddie, then over at Woody’s supine form on the floor. “Is he dead?” he asked. He could have been asking about a stray dog found lying in the street.

The brief distraction was all the time Eddie had. He jumped on Dmitri, grasping his gun hand by the wrist and bending it down, at the same time forcing the sharp end of the wire deeply under his skin. A howl of pain and surprise filled the little room, then stopped suddenly as Dmitri realized he was in a fight for his life.

Meanwhile, Eddie reached across him with his other hand and drove the sharp end of the other wire as hard as he could into Dmitri’s stomach. The sound stopped and his body went rigid as the electricity coursed through him. In a final involuntary reaction, his finger tightened on the trigger. The blast was deafening in the tiny concrete space. Dmitri fell like a stone as Eddie pulled the wire from his stomach then reached for the gun, a Glock 9mm. It hadn’t been used by the Army during his time because it had no external safety lever, so he handled it very carefully. He considered putting it in his waistband but changed his mind and laid it on the top shelf near where Woody had found the matches. Dmitri lay motionless on his back, knees in the air, his face a rictus of pain, eyes staring.

He kicked Woody’s foot and told him to stand, then shouted up the stairs. “This is Eddie Grant with Woody Matthews. We have Dmitri. Identify yourself before you come down those stairs or be shot.”

“You wouldn’t want to do that, Eddie. The area is secure.”

“Jeez, Paul, I’m glad to hear from you. Do you have the cavalry with you?”

“Right behind me. Another group stormed the house and got Sonny and Sommers. At least I think they did. I didn’t hear any shots. How’s Woody?” he asked as Paul came carefully down the stairs.

“Woody’s been beat up pretty bad but he’ll survive. You used to be a pretty good medic. Take a look at Dmitri, would you? I think he shot himself in the thigh. It’s bleeding like he hit that big artery.”

Paul felt his neck for a pulse and said, “We should get him an ambulance just in case, but I think he’s past help.”

“The cops!” Paul said. He dashed up the stairs and unbolted the barn door. “Eddie and Woody Matthews are safe. Dmitri’s been shot and looks pretty bad. You’d better get an ambulance out here,” he told Ginepri. Her expression said she wasn’t happy to be kept waiting outside the door, but she said nothing. The drama had taken only 30 seconds.

“We put one at the nearest fire station just in case. I’ll get him,” Ginepri said, raising her radio to her lips.

Eddie came slowly out of the back room, supporting Woody’s half-conscious weight on his shoulder. “You’d better get one with two beds. They beat Woody up pretty badly.”

“I never did like the bastard,” Woody mumbled.

“Sommers clammed up and called his lawyer,” Thom told Eddie as they sat in the detective’s small office. It was 8 a.m. Neither had been to bed, and Eddie had been waiting patiently in the office while Thom and another detective questioned Sonny. He’d occupied the time hunched over his MacBook Air, composing his own statement of what had happened from the time he arrived at the airport. It had reached ten double-spaced pages.

Paul was doing his own statement, in longhand, in a neighboring office. He’d resisted learning to type and didn’t own a computer.

Thom came back into the office and told Eddie, “Sonny finally quit talking. He did tell us Dmitri killed Deus and set the fire at Arturo’s house, but that’s no surprise because Dmitri’s dead, and we know Sonny was somewhere else at those times. I’m pretty sure Sonny was more than an onlooker, but when we pres
sed him on his role in the fire at Ms. Wetzmuller’s house he shut us down completely, which means he was there. I expect he’ll get a lawyer from the same firm Sommers uses, and that Sommers will pay for it, so I have a lot of hard detective work ahead of me before we can bring them to trial.”

He said the FBI agents had brought the silver cups and other loot into the interrogation room and tried to get Sommers to explain how he got them, but he’d refused and said Dmitri or Sonny must have planted them there. “If the rumors are right there’s a lot more stuff like this in their house in Naples. We’ve started the process of getting a warrant and I hope to go down this afternoon to take part in the search.

“Just so you know, the FBI is planning to interview Ms. Wetzmuller later today. I heard one of the agents say she has a brother who might be involved.”

Eddie nodded. “I don’t think he’s a real brother, but the son of the man her mother was married to for a couple of years when Jen was a teenager. I learned in Washington yesterday that she sponsored him for citizenship ten years ago and claimed he was her brother, but it was a false name. He’s the one in that picture you have of a man standing outside the Navigator on the airport parking lot. I’m pretty sure he was the kidnapper Roy shouted at — he knew him from when he was a teenager and, according to Jen, he was a really bad character even then. God knows what he’s like now.

“I have a hard time believing she was a willing partner in all this, but yesterday I heard some things that make me wonder…” He shook his head sadly and added, “I think if you’ll call Dr. Carole Westin in Icky Crane’s office she’ll give you more information.”

“I talked to Mr. Crane day before yesterday. He said you’re one of the good guys. Were you two in the Army together?”

“He was my number two in Desert Storm, and Paul was our company sergeant. The three of us go ‘way back — I’ve known Icky since we were college freshmen together.”

“Ah, now I understand a little better,” Thom said. “I’ll call Dr. Westin as soon as I can, because I sure don’t want the Feds hijacking my murder investigation. If they catch him they’ll hide him somewhere I’ll never find. There’s going to be a lot of press if they arrest a big looter, and they love publicity. Me, I just want Roy Castor’s killer in prison. I’m also going to whisper to Sonny that Sommers is trying to hang it on him. That might help us get something.”

Eddie told him the story of Eric Kraft the father, Erich the son, and his new identity as Erich Wetzmuller. “Carole should be able to tell you if he was spotted leaving the country, but I’m sure he’s back in Europe right now. Problem is, we don’t know where. It would be a lot easier to get him if Philippe could find him in France.”

“Wouldn’t he have to coordinate it with other police departments if Erich is not in Paris?”

“There’s only one real police department in France, and that’s the national police. There are municipal police and local branches and different divisions, but it’s the Interior Minister who’s in charge, and Philippe has his ear.”

The iPhone in Eddie’s shirt pocket chimed. Caller ID told him it was Philippe.

“Philippe? I’m with Detective Thom Anderson in Sarasota right now.”

“He will be interested in this too.” Eddie turned on the speaker and laid the iPhone on Thom’s desk.  “I just came from talking to the Germans and they’re willing to give us a little bit of information right now. Not much yet, but I think they will talk more after they understand they’re going to be in jail for a very long time if they don’t.

“They tell me their boss was contacted by someone named Sonny and asked to pick up Jen for questioning because the effort to talk to Roy had been a failure. They did not confess to killing Roy, however. They also didn’t admit to ever being in Sarasota, but we’ll be able to determine that from Customs records.

“Can you see if there is a Sonny in this case anywhere in Sarasota?”

Thom said, “I can tell you right now. We arrested him last nigh
t at Al Sommers’s house. His partner in both life and crime, a Russian mobster named Dmitri, is dead. Sonny spent time in federal prison for securities fraud, which is where he met Dmitri.”

Eddie asked, “Philippe, can you ask them another question? Do they know anything about Artie? Or Lauren and Sam?”

The policeman responded, “I’ll pass that question on to the team that’s actually doing the questioning, but don’t get your hopes up. These guys are tough, and they won’t want to admit to knowing anything about another crime, especially murder. They’ve obviously learned how our system works, and they know they’re looking at going to trial and starting their sentence within a month or two.”

Thom interrupted. “You can do it that fast?”

“Our system is a little different from yours,” he answered. “Our code goes back to Napoleon, not England. The only part of the United States that uses it is Louisiana.

“An investigating judge will look at the evidence on both sides before the trial starts. There’s no endless cycle of motions. They won’t be released on bail, and even if they were they’d have to go back into prison for the trial. When it’s over they will start their sentences. They have the right of appeal and that works in a few cases, but for a violent crime like this there’s a very small chance of winning on appeal, especially since half of Paris saw them chasing Eddie that night.”