Wild Justice (11 page)

27 Bobby Vasquez knocked an empty bottle of whiskey into two empty beer bottles as he rolled onto his side. The three bottles crashed to the floor, and the sound of breaking glass brought Vasquez partway out of his drunken stupor. He opened his eyes and blinked. His first thought was, What time is it? Then, What day? Then he wondered why he cared. Since his suspension every day had been shit. Vasquez struggled into a sitting position, squeezed his eyes shut against the light and waited for the throbbing to subside. After his humiliation and destruction at the motion to suppress, action had been swift. Vasquez had been placed on suspension, and Internal Affairs was conducting an investigation. Milton County would probably indict him for perjury, obstruction of justice and any other crime they could stick him with. The union lawyer represented him in front of Internal Affairs, but he had to foot the bill for his criminal lawyer, and that would probably wipe out his savings. If he was convicted or thrown off the force, he could kiss his pension goodbye. Vasquez looked for something to drink. All the bottles he could see were empty. He lurched to his feet and stumbled into the kitchen. He smelled. He had not shaved in days. He didn t care. He wasn t going to see anyone, and no one was going to see him. Yvette had called, but he had been drunk and insulted her. She did not call again. So much for true love. There had been calls from some of his cop friends, but he let the machine take them. What could he say? He had no excuses. He d just gotten caught up in the thing. First there d been his desire to avenge Mickey Parks. Then he d found the heads, and he d wanted Cardoni so badly that he had broken the law. To make matters worse, it was Breach s man who had brought him down. Now he was probably going to go to jail, and a man who had butchered nine human beings was walking free. Vasquez went through the kitchen cabinets until he located the only liquor bottle left with something in it. He tilted it up and sucked down all of the remaining whiskey as his last thought echoed in his head. He would be in jail soon, and Cardoni would be free. His life was over, and Cardoni s would continue. The psycho fuck would kill again, and Vasquez would be responsible for each new death. Why go on? Why face disgrace and jail? He was starting to believe that the answer to his problems was a single shot through his brain when an alternative suddenly occurred to him. The brain in question did not have to be his own. If he was really willing to end his life, he could do anything he wanted to do. It was like having a terminal disease. No one could punish you worse than you were going to be punished. There was no threat that could deter you. The rules no longer applied. If he killed himself, Cardoni would still be free to cause untold suffering. If he killed Cardoni, he would be a hero to some and his conscience would be clear.

28 Art Prochaska entered Martin Breach s office in the Jungle Club and yelled, Ed and Eugene are in the hospital, so that Breach could hear him over the blaring heavy metal music to which a buxom ecdysiast named Miss Honey Bush was disrobing. What happened? Cardoni surprised them. Both of them? Martin Breach asked in disbelief. Prochaska nodded. They re in pretty bad shape. Motherfucker! Breach screamed as he leaped up from behind his desk and started pacing. When he stopped, he leaned forward on his knuckles and glared across the desk at his enforcer. Breach s fists were clamped so tightly that his knuckles were white. You take care of this personally. When I m through with Cardoni he s going to beg to tell me where he s hiding my money.

29 The phone was ringing. Amanda sat up in bed and groped for it in the dark. Frank, I m in trouble. It was Vincent Cardoni, and he sounded desperate. This is Amanda Jaffe, Dr. Cardoni. Put your father on. He s in California taking depositions. If you give me a number where he can reach you, I ll have him call tomorrow. Tomorrow will be too late. There s something that I have to show him right away. The best I can do is give my father your message. No, you don t understand. It s about the murders. What about them? Amanda heard heavy breathing as Cardoni whispered into the telephone. I know who committed them. I m at the cabin in Milton County. Get up here, right away. The cabin? I don t You re my lawyer, goddamn it. I pay your firm to represent me, and I need you up here. This is about my case. Amanda hesitated. Frank would never refuse to help a client who sounded this desperate. If she didn t go, how could she explain her inaction to her father? How could she practice criminal law if she would not help a client because he frightened her? Criminal lawyers represented rapists, murderers and psychopaths every day. They were all frightening people. I ll leave right away. The line went dead, and Amanda instantly regretted telling Cardoni she would meet him. It was midnight, and it would take her a little over an hour to drive to the cabin. That meant that she would be alone with Cardoni in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. Her stomach churned. Amanda remembered what had happened in that cabin. She saw Mary Sandowski s face drained of all color and all hope. What if Cardoni had done those things? What if he wanted to do them to her? Amanda went downstairs to the den. Frank liked guns, and he d had her on a pistol range as soon as she was old enough to hold one. Amanda enjoyed target practice and knew her way around weapons. Frank kept a .38 snubnose in the lower drawer of his desk. Amanda loaded it and slipped it in her jacket pocket. She had never shot a handgun off a range. She d heard and read that shooting a person was totally different from shooting at a metal cutout, but she was not going to meet Vincent Cardoni in the woods after midnight without protection. The temperature was in the thirties, so Amanda had thrown her ski jacket over jeans and a dark blue turtleneck. The rain started shortly before one and changed to snow near the pass. Amanda had four-wheel drive, so she was not worried, but she was still relieved when the snow fell away to a light rain. She was within eyesight of the turnoff to the cabin when a car suddenly swept out of the narrow dirt road and sped past her. Amanda thought she recognized the driver in the brief moment when the two cars were side by side. Then the taillights of the other car faded in her rearview mirror. As soon as her headlights illuminated the house Amanda was certain that something was wrong. The lights were on in the living room and the front door was wide open. The wind had picked up and was blowing sheets of rain slantwise into the house. Common sense told her that she should turn the car around and speed toward safety, but she knew her father wouldn t turn tail and run. Amanda sucked in a deep breath, took her gun out of her pocket and walked toward the cabin. The first thing that Amanda noticed when she entered the house was the blood that dampened the planks of the hardwood floor in the living room. The stain was not large, but it was wide enough to let her know that something bad had happened in the room. Dr. Cardoni, Amanda called in a trembling voice. There was no response. She scanned the large front room cautiously and saw nothing else that was odd. The other lights on the main floor were off, but the lights were on in the stairwell that led to the bottom-floor operating room. A blood trail led toward the stairs. Amanda eased down the stairway, the .38 leading the way. The door to the operating room was wide open. Amanda edged along the wall. She stopped opposite the entrance to the horror chamber and stood in the door frame, her heart hammering in her chest. It took a moment for Amanda to understand what she was seeing. The operating table was covered with a fresh white sheet. Drops of blood radiated outward from one large stain that covered the middle of the sheet. In the center of the stain was a severed hand. Amanda bolted up the stairs and through the door. She covered the space between the house and her car in a flash and dove inside. The ignition would not catch. Amanda panicked. She looked toward the house while she fumbled with the key, half expecting to see an apparition streaking toward her, blood pumping from its severed limb. The engine started. The car burned rubber. Amanda was shaking. She was cold. Terror forced her to drive faster, never slowing even when the road curved or the car went airborne after bouncing out of a pothole. She stared in the rearview mirror and almost fainted with relief when she did not see headlights bearing down on her. She brought her eyes forward and spotted the highway. The car careened onto it, and she drove as fast as she could for five minutes before her heart rate slowed and she started to think about what she would do next. Amanda parked in front of the cabin and waited for the sheriff s deputies to pull in before getting out of her car. Fred Scofield had ridden from Cedar City to the cabin with her. He got out of the passenger side and turned up his collar against the wind, which had turned fierce while Amanda was giving her statement at the sheriff s office. The DA gestured through the storm toward the still-open front door. Are you sure you want to go back in there? Scofield asked solicitously. I m fine, Amanda answered with more confidence than she really felt. Let s go, then. Clark Mills and four deputies fought their way through the gusts of snow and entered the cabin. Amanda and Scofield followed the policemen inside. Amanda surveyed the brightly lit front room. As far as she could see, except for a dusting of snow just inside the front door, everything was as she had left it. Scofield looked over his shoulder at the front yard. It s too bad that the snow waited until after that car drove off. We might have gotten some tracks. He looked back at Amanda. How certain are you that the driver was Art Prochaska? My window was streaked with rain, the interior of the other car was dark and it went by very fast. All I had was a momentary impression. I don t know if I could swear that it was Prochaska in court. But I think the man I saw was bald and his head was unusually large. This floor is clear, Sheriff Mills said to Amanda and Scofield after his deputies completed a sweep. We re going downstairs. You can wait up here if you like, Miss Jaffe. Let s go. Amanda hung back and let the sheriff, the DA and two armed deputies precede her down the stairs. When she reached the lower hall, she saw that the door to the operating room was still open and the lights inside were still on. Everyone but Clark please wait in the hall, Scofield said before entering the room. The men who crammed the narrow hallway blocked Amanda s view. She edged along the wall behind them until she found a spot where she could see between two of the deputies. The hand still sat in the center of the operating table. Drained of blood, it looked chalky white. Scofield and Mills approached it cautiously, as if afraid that it might spring from the table and grab them. They leaned over it and stared intently. The amputated hand was large and a man s, judging from the hair on the back. Scofield lowered his head until he could make out the letters on a ring that covered part of one finger. Vincent Cardoni had graduated from the medical school in Wisconsin whose name was engraved on the ring. Amanda crossed the Multnomah County line a little after four in the morning and, without a second thought, headed toward Tony Fiori s house. The house was dark when she parked in Tony s driveway at four-thirty. She walked onto the porch and rang the doorbell. A light went on after the third ring, and Amanda heard faint footsteps coming down the stairs. A moment later Tony peered through the glass panel in the front door. Then he opened the door a crack. What are you doing here? Tony asked uncomfortably, and she knew instantly that she d made a big mistake. Over Tony s shoulder, Amanda saw a woman wrapped in a silk dressing gown descending the stairs. The gown parted to reveal bare legs. Amanda looked from the woman to Tony. Then she backed away from the door. I m sorry . . . I I didn t know, Amanda stuttered, turning to go. Wait, Tony said. What s wrong? But Amanda was already opening the door of her car. As she backed out she saw Tony staring at her. Then the woman was beside him in the doorway, and Amanda got a second look at her. While she was finding Vincent Cardoni s severed hand in the cabin in Milton County, Tony Fiori had been spending the night with Justine Castle.

30 Amanda spotted her father coming off the 9:35 P.M. plane from LA before he saw her in the crowd at the gate. He looked agitated, and his head swung back and forth as he searched for her. Amanda stepped forward, and Frank threw a bear hug on his daughter. Then he held her at arm s length. Are you okay? I m fine, Dad. I was never in any danger. How was your flight? Damn the flight. You don t know how upset I ve been. Well, you shouldn t have been upset. I told you I was fine this morning. They started moving with the crowd toward the baggage claim. Now that he saw that Amanda was in one piece, Frank s face darkened. What were you thinking, meeting Cardoni in that place in the middle of the night? I was thinking of what you would have done. I even brought your thirty-eight with me. You re not serious, are you? Did you think Cardoni would stand in front of you and let you shoot him? No, Dad, I thought he was a client in trouble. Don t tell me that you would have stayed in bed with your covers over your head and told Vincent to come to your office in the morning. He sounded desperate. He said he knew who murdered the victims at the cabin. It looks like he may have been right. Amanda had given Frank a capsule version of her Milton County adventure early Friday morning. He had wanted to fly straight home, but Amanda convinced him to finish his deposition. As they waited for Frank s luggage Amanda told him everything that had happened at the cabin. Do they know yet if the hand is Cardoni s? Frank asked as he hefted his bags and headed toward the parking garage. Amanda nodded. Mr. Scofield called me at work. The prints match. Jesus. Frank sounded subdued. You must have been scared out of your wits. If I could move as fast in the pool as I moved when I ran out of the cabin, I d have Olympic gold on my wall. That got a grudging smile out of Frank. What about the body? he asked. They re digging up the property, but they hadn t found a thing when Scofield called. Frank and Amanda walked for a while without talking. He loaded his bags in the trunk, and Amanda started the car. On the way back to town Frank told his daughter about the deposition and asked about the office. When they were halfway home on the freeway, he asked Amanda twice about a research project he d given her before getting an answer. Is something besides what happened at the cabin bothering you? What? I asked if something else is worrying you besides what happened to Cardoni. What makes you think that? Amanda asked warily. I m your father. I know you. Do you want to tell me what s wrong? Nothing. You forget who you re trying to con. Some of the best liars in the state have tried to fool me. Amanda sighed. I feel like such a fool. And what s made you feel that way? Not what, who. Last night the police let me go around three in the morning. I was still upset, and it was dark when I got back to Portland. I just didn t want to be alone, so I drove to Tony s house. Amanda colored. It was so embarrassing. Frank waited patiently while she collected herself. He wasn t by himself. He . . . There was a woman with him. Frank felt his heart tighten. It was Justine Castle. I . . . I ran off without talking to him. I shouldn t have. It was immature. We just went out a few times and we never . . . We weren t intimate. It s academic now, anyway. Tony was just accepted into a residency program in New York and he s not even going to be here. How do you know that? Amanda s color deepened. I called him to apologize. Amanda sighed. I really liked him, Dad. I guess I m just disappointed, she said in a way that broke Frank s heart. Tony might not be the best person for you to get serious with. Amanda turned toward Frank for a moment before bringing her eyes back to the road. You don t like Tony? Did he tell you that he was seeing Justine Castle at the same time he was seeing you? We weren t serious. He never even made a pass at me. If he was seeing Justine, that was his business. He didn t lead me on. I . . . I just got my hopes up. Anyway, like I said, it s all over. Tony is going to New York.