Some guy was waiting there at the security barricade. Looked as if he had been for a while. He was sprawled out on the grass in the shadow of his motorcycle, which was a wicked vintage Norton Commando. When Mitch pulled up there in his Studey, the guy stirred and climbed to his feet, slinging a knapsack over one shoulder.
“Nice bike,” Mitch called to him through his open window. “Is that a ’67?”
“Sixty-eight,” he called back. “Inherited her from a friend. He started a family and decided it was time to part with his toys.”
“Lucky you.” Mitch used his coded plastic card to raise the barricade. “Are you waiting here for someone?”
“I’m waiting for you, dude,” he replied. “You’re Mitch, aren’t you? Sure you are. I’d know you anywhere. Although the last time I saw you, up close and personal, you had a scraggly beard and a Jewfro yay-high.”
Mitch studied this guy more closely. He was thirty or so. An unshaven rock and roller with a lot of wavy black hair, an earring and those soft brown eyes that women get jelly knees over. He was dressed in a sleeveless gray sweatshirt, torn jeans and black biker boots. He wasn’t particularly tall but he was in shape-his biceps and pecs rippled. He was also intensely hyper, nodding his head up and down to a beat that he alone could hear.
“I’ve kept track of you over the years, natch.”
“Natch?”
“And I’m a large fan of your work. It’s Very.”
“Very what?”
“Very, Very. It’s my name, dude. Detective Lieutenant Romaine Very.”
Mitch was still trying to figure out how they knew each other. He hadn’t worn his babe-repelling chin spinach for at least ten years. “You’re the Major Crime Squad guy who’s taking over for Rico Tedone?”
“Not exactly, dude. I’m not local. I’m from the two-four.” He fished his shield from the back pocket of his jeans. It was an NYPD shield. And the license plate on his Norton, Mitch now noticed, was a New York plate. “I was wondering if I could talk to you.”
“What about?”
“Augie Donatelli. I’m kind of Dawgie’s next of kin. The man had no family. Just me. He changed my diapers, metaphorically speaking. Broke me in when I was new on the job. He was a cop’s cop. The best.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, but what does this have to do with me?”
“I owe the man, okay? Have to make sure the state police out here do right by him. I’ve been trying all morning to find out what’s up with the investigation. I hear you folks have an ongoing situation with a weenie waver, but beyond that I can’t get squat.”
“Again, why are you talking to me?”
“Because the detective who’s running the show, a Sergeant Snipes, won’t return any of my calls. And the unis won’t let me within ten feet of Dawgie’s apartment until she green lights me. I’ve got information, okay? I’m in a position to help. Word is you’re tight with the resident trooper. Besides, you and me go back a few years.”
“You said that before. I’m still not placing you.”
“Really? I sat next to you all of the time in postmodern European lit.”
“You went to Columbia?”
“Try to get the incredulity out of your voice, will you? It’s insulting.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
“I was a year behind you. Majored in Romance languages-which did me beaucoup good. Wore my hair down to my shoulders in those days.”
“Hold on a sec…” Mitch shook a finger at him. “You’re the Jiggler.”
“The what?”
“Your knee. It used to jiggle all through class and drive everyone nuts. Sounded like there was a woodpecker in the room.”
“I had an energy situation, as in I had too much of it. Still do.”
“And how did you end up becoming a cop?”
“It was a family thing.”
“Your dad’s on the job?”
“Not really,” Very said, leaving it there.
“I’d like to help out, Lieutenant, but I really don’t know anything.”
“I’m down with that. I’m just asking you to listen. Can you do that?”
“Sure, I can do that. Come on out.”
Very jump-started his Norton with a roar and eased his way across the wooden causeway behind Mitch. When they reached the cottage he killed his engine and climbed off, glancing around. “Stabbin’ cabin, dude,” he observed, his head bobbing up and down, up and down. “If you have to be out of the City, I mean. Me, I get ootsie if I’m not standing on good, solid pavement.”
“I’m sorry, did you just say ootsie?”
“Why, you got a problem with ootsie?”
“No, no. It’s a fine word. How long are you planning to be here?”
“For as long as it takes. I took some vacation time.”
“Do you have a place to stay?”
“Figured I’d find a motel room somewhere.”
“On the Connecticut shoreline in August-without a reservation? Good luck with that.”
Inside of the cottage, Very made straight for Mitch’s sky blue Fender Stratocaster, which was propped against his monster pair of Fender twin reverb amps, stacked one atop the other with a signal splitter on top. “Ow, mommy-mommy! Awesome setup, dude.”
“I make some noise.”
“I’ll bet you do.” Now Very went over toward the table where Mitch’s computer sat amidst heaps of printouts, notepads and DVDs. “Mind if ask what you’re writing about this week?”
“Icebox questions.”
“Icebox… hunh?”
“It’s an expression coined by Hitchcock. His way of shrugging off really obvious lapses in logic or credibility. He believed that as long as the audience was loving the movie they wouldn’t care. Like, say, in The 39 Steps…”
“Never saw it.”
“You never saw The 39 Steps? You must. That scene with the finger totally slays. Anyway, Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll have to spend the night handcuffed together in a room in a remote country inn, okay? And she’s convinced that he’s an escaped killer on the run. It’s really tense. Also pretty damned sexy for 1935. They’re actually lying on top of the bed together, okay? And she’s even removed her wet stockings. You’re totally into the scene. So into it that, in Hitchcock’s words, it isn’t until you get up for a glass of milk in the middle of the night and are standing there at your icebox that you ask yourself: ‘What did they do when one of them had to go to the bathroom?’ Just like with his famous crop duster scene in North by Northwest.”
“Okay, that one I did see. It was incredible.”
“So incredible that it’s not until later that you ask yourself why James Mason went to the trouble of sending Cary Grant all the way to an Indiana cornfield when he could have bumped him off in any back alley in Chicago. And, by the way, who was flying that crop duster? Was it one of Mason’s henchmen? Where did he score a crop duster that’s outfitted with machine guns on such short notice? Did he steal it? Kill the real pilot?”
“None of which matters,” Very conceded. “Because it’s not real life. It’s just a movie.”
“Sorry, did you say just a movie?”
Very held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Whatever, dude.”
“Can I get you something to drink, Lieutenant?”
“I could go for anything cold.”
Mitch went in the kitchen and poured two glasses of chilled well water. Came back and handed Very one. “I have to tell you something you’re not going to like,” he said. “The resident trooper had serious issues with Augie. They even had an altercation on Friday. She said he’d been drinking.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. But I’m not surprised. Dawgie didn’t exactly roll with the times. He could be sexually inappropriate, politically incorrect, you name it.” Very paced around the living room as he talked, bristling with intensity. “He started drinking a lot after his wife, Gina, passed. His fuse got shorter and, well, last year, he got into it with a black female officer over some totally minor detail on a case. Called her an inappropriate name in the squad room. You don’t use that kind of language in the workplace. Or anywhere else. She slapped him. He slapped her back. Our captain tried to smooth it over. You know, let’s keep this inside the room. She wouldn’t hear of it. Was going to file all kinds of official charges. So the captain had to convince Dawgie to take early retirement.” Very paused to gulp down some water. “All of which is to say he had a grudge against black female officers. Especially young, good-looking ones-which I’m told the resident trooper is. Damned shame, really. Dawgie was in a position to provide her with some valuable intel. If he’d established a better rapport with her he might still be alive.”
“What sort of valuable intel?”
Very yanked a fat manila file folder out of his knapsack and set it down on Mitch’s coffee table. “You ever hear of the Seven Sisters?”
“Sure. There’s Vassar, Bryn Mawr, Wellesley, Smith…”
“Not those Seven Sisters. I’m talking about the crime family.”
Mitch shook his head. “No, I can’t say I have.”
“Again, I’m not surprised. The Seven Sisters are one of the great untold stories in the annals of twentieth century crime.” Very flopped down on Mitch’s love seat, then jumped right back up again, pacing, pacing. “Dude, I am talking about a vast, highly sophisticated Jewish crime empire that dates back to New York’s Lower East Side in the early 1900s. According to the birth records there were seven Kudlach girls-Eva, Sonia, Esther, Thelma, Fanny, Bea and Helen. All of them the daughters of Moses and Sarah Kudlach. Moses was a Russian immigrant who sold stuff off a pushcart on Orchard Street. Anything he could get his hands on. The old lady, Sarah, was descended from a long line of Roumanian street gonifs. Jewish gypsies, really. Her girls started learning the family trade as soon as they were old enough to walk. By the time they were six years old, each of them was fanned out across the city all day long, scamming people for money, picking their pockets, snatching their purses, watches, jewelry. Then they’d bring everything home for Mom and Pop to unload. A nice, tight, one-family crime ring. All of it small stuff. But they flourished. Especially after Sarah married each girl off. She chose their husbands carefully. Each one was a neighborhood guy with a legit trade-a tailor, watchmaker, pawnbroker, kosher butcher, auto mechanic, truck driver. Their businesses formed a network for moving stolen merchandise of greater and greater value. By the twenties the family had ownership stakes in high-end dress shops, jewelry stores, restaurants, parking garages. They’d also expanded into bookmaking and loan sharking. No bootlegging or drugs or prostitution. They concentrated on what they knew. They were careful. And smart. And, with one notable exception, they never came to the attention of the law. Just kept growing from one generation to the next, expanding their empire out of New York into Miami, Los Angeles, Las Vegas. You wouldn’t believe the family tree, dude. Dawgie’s got it here in his file somewhere.”
“Lieutenant, are you telling me they still exist?”
“A lot of the third and fourth generation are totally legit-doctors and lawyers, college professors. Some operate businesses that were financed by criminal activity but are now totally clean. But, yeah, quite a few of them are still living the life. It’s in their blood.”
“And you’re telling me all of this because…?”
“You’re tight with Beth Breslauer-or so it appears from the last roll Dawgie FedExed me. Here, I just got these yesterday…” Very opened the file and handed Mitch a batch of eight-by-ten color photos.
Mitch flipped through them. They were surveillance shots of Beth and him drinking smoothies together at The Works on Friday afternoon. Buying fish. Chatting in the parking lot. Her kissing him good-bye. “I don’t understand,” he said slowly. “Augie was following me?”
“Following her. How well do you know the lady?”
“We used to be neighbors in Stuyvesant Town. I was friends with her son Kenny.”
“That would be Kenny Lapidus,” Very said, nodding, nodding. “He’s shagging your yoga teacher, Kimberly Farrell, whose parents live in the same building as Beth Breslauer-which so happens to be where Dawgie lived, too.”
“Welcome to small town life, Lieutenant. But why on earth was Augie following Beth?”
“Because Beth Breslauer’s great-grandmother was Esther Kudlach, one of the original Seven Sisters. Esther’s married name became Pincus. Beth’s grandfather, Saul Pincus, was a major New York racketeer in the thirties. The only high-profile one of the bunch. Movie-star handsome. A real tabloid star-right up until the night he was gunned down eating a bowl of matzoh ball soup in Lindy’s. Saul liked to live large. A thirteen-room apartment on Park Avenue for the wife and kids. And a penthouse on Central Park West for his mistress-a hot little bad girl who danced in the Billy Rose Aquacade. Her name was Bertha Puzewski. You know her as Bertha Peck.”
So that explained it, Mitch reflected. Beth landed her condo in the Captain Chadwick House because Bertha Peck had been her grandfather’s girlfriend. If any of this tale was actually true, that is. Big if.
“A freakin’ gold mine,” Very went on. “That’s what Dawgie called the place. He had Dex Farrell, the world-class Wall Street swindler, in one unit. He had Saul Pincus’ granddaughter living across the hall from Farrell. And Saul’s old girlfriend parked upstairs, passing herself off as WASP royalty.” Very sat back down in front of Augie’s file, leafing through it. “Yeah, here it is-Saul and his wife, Minnie, had two boys, Sam and Nathan. Sam was Beth’s father. He made his living as a bookie. Same as her first husband, Sy Lapidus.”
“You mean Kenny’s dad? No, you’ve got that wrong. Sy’s an accountant, albeit a louse. He deserted them when Kenny and I were kids. Moved out west.”
“He didn’t desert them, dude. He was serving a nickel at the Fishkill Correctional Facility. Didn’t move out to California until years later.”
“That’s not what Kenny told me.”
“Then Kenny doesn’t know the real story. Or he’s not being straight with you. It’s all right here in the file,” Very tapped it with his finger. “His dad’s whole criminal history.”
“Beth sold handbags at Bloomingdale’s,” Mitch said stubbornly. “She was a nice lady. Still is. She’s not a criminal.”
“I didn’t say she was.” Very looked at Mitch curiously. “You still with me? Because you look a little shook. I don’t blame you. This is some crazy stuff.”
“Very.”
“Yeah, dude?”
“It’s very crazy stuff.”
The lieutenant resumed his pacing. Clemmie came padding down from the sleeping loft and watched this hyper stranger in her midst, highly suspicious. After giving the matter considerable thought, she voted with all four paws to go back upstairs to her nice, calm bed.
“The day Dawgie moved in he called and told me Bertha Peck smelled wrong,” Very recalled. “The man just had a sixth sense when it came to phonies. She had him do a job for her, touching up some paint in her bedroom, and he spotted those old cheesecake shots of her on the dressing table. Professional studio stuff. When he asked her about them she clammed right up. So he got curious. Spent his days off at the Lincoln Center branch of the New York Public Library combing through old Playbills until he found her-Bertha Puzewski. One of his drinking buddies, an old-timer who used to work on the Daily News, remembered the tabloid items about her and Saul Pincus. A couple of months go by and, sure enough, Saul’s granddaughter, Beth, bought a unit there. Right away, Dawgie got interested. Started filing reports of Beth’s comings and goings. FedExing me rolls of film…”
“You just said ‘rolls’ of film again. It’s a digital world. Who still…?”
“Gina gave Dawgie an old school Nikon camera as a birthday present not long before she died. No way he was switching to digital. He’d have been dishonoring her memory. Plus the man was a total trog. He wouldn’t buy a laptop. Didn’t do e-mail. He wrote everything out longhand. It’s all right here in the file. Everything he sent me.”
“Why you?”
“I happen to have a personal interest in the Seven Sisters.”
Mitch narrowed his gaze at him. “Which is…?”
Romaine Very didn’t answer him. Just let the question slide on by.
“Well, what did he find out about Beth?”
“For starters, she has herself a boyfriend. His name’s Vinnie Brogna. Ever meet him?”
“Can’t say that I have, no.”
“Vinnie calls himself a hairstylist. He owns Salon Vincenzo, which is that overpriced barber shop in the Comstock Hotel on Sixth Avenue. I happen to know that he runs a profitable bookmaking operation out of the salon. Also rotates a crew of high-end working girls in and out of the hotel for the pleasure of out-of-town businessmen. The dude’s totally mobbed up. And I’m not talking any Seven Sisters here. He’s in with the Albanese crime family. His wife, Lucia, is the niece of Big Sal, the family boss. Vinnie and Lucia have four kids, a nice big house in Great Neck. And, on the side, he has Beth Breslauer. He spends at least two evenings a week with her at her apartment in Manhattan. And he’s out here on weekends whenever he can swing it. Vinnie likes the action at the Mohegan Sun Casino. The man’s been known to drop twenty large in one night. Usually, he and Beth get a room together there.”
Very handed Mitch more photos from the file. A photo of Beth climbing into a black Lexus on Dorset Street, halfway down the block from the Captain Chadwick House. A photo of her and a dapper middle-aged guy getting out of that Lexus at the palatial front entrance to the Mohegan Sun. Photos of them eating dinner together in a fancy restaurant, their heads close together, eyes gleaming. Waiting for an elevator. Embracing, kissing…
“My sources tell me that Beth and Vinnie have been a steady item for something like ten years.”
Mitch’s eyes widened. “How many?”
“Did I just stutter?”
“No, but that would mean-”
“She was seeing him while she was married to Irwin Breslauer, I know. And I’m sorry if that’s a buzzkill but stay with me-there’s more. I hear she’s been pressuring Vinnie to marry her ever since Irwin died. Only, he won’t leave Lucia. The man’s a devout Catholic. Doesn’t believe in divorce.”
“But it’s okay to screw around?”
“People are going to do what they’re going to do,” Very said with a shrug. “And, according to Dawgie, screwing’s not the only thing those two have been up to…” He fanned out another set of photos of Beth and Vinnie walking past a well-dressed couple in the casino parking lot. Beth apparently bumping into her. The lady’s handbag falling to the pavement. Beth picking it up for her. Apologies all around. The two couples going their separate ways. “Pay particular attention to the other lady’s right wrist, dude. Before the bump she’s got a gold bracelet on. See it? After the bump, she doesn’t.”
“Lieutenant, are you suggesting that Beth stole the lady’s bracelet?”
“Dawgie sure thought so.”
Mitch studied the photos more closely. “Hell, these don’t prove anything. Look, the lady’s sleeve is hiked up before the bump. Here, afterward, it’s not. For all we know she could still be wearing the bracelet and it’s just covered up.”
“Could be,” Very conceded. “Except Dawgie believed otherwise. He was convinced that Beth’s still active in the age-old family business. And has been fencing her pickings through a cousin of hers who runs a pawnshop on Eleventh Avenue and West 41 Street.”
“Lieutenant. I know this lady. She’s no thief. Besides, she doesn’t need the money. Kenny told me that Irwin left her very well off.”
“You’d better get used to the idea that when it comes to his parents, your friend Kenny knows bupkes. Either that or he’s gas facing you.”
Mitch looked at Romaine Very reproachfully. “Do you have actual hard evidence that Beth has done anything wrong?”
“That’s exactly what Dawgie was going after last night,” Very responded. “Until somebody beat his brains in.”
“Let me see if I’ve got this straight… You’re suggesting that his murder may have nothing to do with the Dorset Flasher and everything to do with Beth Breslauer trying to protect her secret criminal identity.”
“Exactly.”
Mitch shook his head at him. “I don’t believe this.”
“Believe it, dude.”
“So some killer from this Seven Sisters crime family rubbed him out?”
“No, the Seven Sisters never get their hands dirty. Killing is strictly for thugs and goons. But her boy Vinnie knows thugs and goons through the Albanese family. He could have arranged for a contract hit easy. Somebody from out of town. Providence, maybe.”
“Why do I suddenly feel as if I’ve wandered into a Scorsese film?”
“I need to get this information to the right people,” Very said, his voice rising with urgency. “Help me get a foot in the door with this Sergeant Snipes, will you?”
“Not a chance. Once you bring up Beth’s so-called connection to this so-called Seven Sisters of yours, she’ll be dragged into an official state police murder investigation. She’s my friend. I’m not going to throw her to the wolves based on Augie’s say-so. Or yours. I want to talk to her first. Hear what she has to say.” Mitch mulled it over for a moment. “But if you give me your word that the Seven Sisters won’t come up then that’s a different story.”
Very frowned at him. “And how do I do that?”
“By telling Sergeant Snipes that Augie was tailing Vinnie, a well-known member of the Albanese crime family. Who, it so happens, has been dating Beth. And who, it so happens, doesn’t take kindly to being tailed. You can flesh out the rest after I’ve had a chance to sit down with Beth-assuming there is more to flesh out. Which I highly doubt there will be.”
Very paced Mitch’s living room, back and forth, back and forth. “I can get with that,” he agreed. “But I’d like to be with you when you talk to her.”
“Why?”
“I have a personal interest, like I said.”
“What kind of a personal interest?”
“There’s a reason why it’s called personal,” Very shot back. “Look, either I come with you when you talk to Beth Breslauer or when I finally do get through to this Sergeant Snipes on my own-and, word up, I will-then she gets the entire package.”
“Deal.” Mitch reached for his cell phone. “I’ll call Yolie.”
Very froze. “Did you just say Yolie? Sergeant Snipes is Yolie Snipes?”
“Yeah, why?”
The lieutenant got a dreamy, faraway look on his face. “Woo…”
Mitch frowned at him. “Woo…?”
“Just make the call, dude.”
She got there in twenty minutes.
Mitch went out to greet her as she climbed out of her cruiser. “Thanks for coming, Yolie.”
“No prob, hon. I was intrigued by your message. So mysterious.” Yolie flashed a sly grin at him. “Plus I was hoping to accidentally run into Dorset’s resident trooper.”
“Des isn’t here.”
“She will be five minutes from now. Just spoke to her on the phone.” Her gaze fell upon Mitch’s visitor, who was lingering somewhat bashfully in the cottage doorway. “Who’s the biker boy?”
“It’s Very.”
“Very what?”
“Very Very. That’s his name. He’s a police detective from New York City. Told me he’s been trying to get you on the phone.”
“Oh, right. I do have a gazillion messages from some lieutenant named, like, Romeo Very.”
“Romaine.”
“Mitch, I don’t need a New York City hot dog sticking his nose in my case.”
“I understand completely. But you may want to talk to him. He was tight with your murder victim. Seems to think he has information that can help.”
Yolie heaved a sigh of annoyance before she waved Very on over.
He approached her slowly, the two of them sizing each other up like middleweights in a ring.
“You the detective who’s been calling me?”
“That’s me.” Very showed her his shield. “And you’re Yolie Snipes. No introduction necessary, believe me.”
She drew back from him, her nostrils flaring. “We know each other?”
“We’ve never met, Sarge. But I’m a huge fan of Big East women’s hoops. I saw you play at the Garden must be a half-dozen times. You wore number twenty-six. Averaged just under seven assists per game throughout your career. Played killer defense. And no one, but no one, settled her sweet self at the charity stripe like you did when you were shooting a free throw.”
“Is that a fact?” Yolie growled. Although Mitch could tell she was warming to the guy. She’d settled into her left hip just enough so that she was no longer taller than Very. “Coach Vivian always told us it was to be balanced right.”
“Oh, you were balanced plenty right,” Very assured her. “Still are, from where I’m standing.”
“Where you’re standing, hon, is about a hundred and twenty miles outside of your jurisdiction. You got information for me?”
Very nodded. “Also some questions.”
“What kind of questions?”
Very didn’t answer her. His attention had been drawn to the Saab that was making its way across the causeway toward them.
“This must be your lucky day, Lieutenant,” Mitch told him. “You’re about to meet Dorset’s resident trooper.”
Des got out of her car wearing a polo shirt, shorts and an extremely troubled expression. Mitch really, really didn’t like the way she looked. Something heavy was weighing on her. “Who’s your friend?” she asked him quietly.
“Master Sergeant Desiree Mitry, say hello to Detective Lieutenant Romaine Very of the NYPD. He and Augie Donatelli were friends.”
“And he thinks he can help,” Yolie added dryly.
“Can he?”
“Dunno. All he’s done so far is flap his gums about ball.”
“Mitch told me that you and Dawgie didn’t get along,” Very said to Des. “That’s messed up. And I’m sure it was entirely on Dawgie. He had his demons. I’ll be real happy to tell you all about them sometime over a cup of coffee if you’d-”
“Is there a point here somewhere?” Des asked him.
“Yes, there is. The guy was like family to me, okay? He didn’t have anyone else. And he didn’t deserve what happened to him.”
“Agreed,” she allowed.
“You were saying you have questions,” Yolie put in. “What questions?”
“Have your people conducted a search of Dawgie’s apartment?”
She crossed her big arms in front of her chest, eyes narrowing. “Why are you asking?”
“Did they find a camera?”
“Yeah, an old-school Nikon. Top of the line model, all sorts of lenses.”
“Was there any film inside of it?”
Yolie blinked at him. “I don’t recall, offhand. But I’m sure they looked. We’re very thorough out here, Lieutenant. We wear latex gloves. We floss our teeth daily.” To Des she said, “Not that you asked, but I got what you need in the front seat of my ride. They’re in the big white envelope.” She meant crime scene photos. She knew Des. Knew Des would want to draw a portrait of Augie.
“You’re the best,” Des said, smiling at her gratefully.
“How about notepads?” Very asked Yolie. “Did they find any of those?”
“Don’t recall any, no.”
“Was his apartment locked?”
“Yes. So was his GTO.”
“Did your-?”
“They searched the glove compartment and trunk. Found nothing of interest.”
“Mind if I take a look around for myself now that you’re done?”
“I don’t mind-if you tell me what you’re looking for.”
“Nothing in particular. I’m just curious.”
“You’re curious, all right.” Yolie’s cell phone rang now. She glanced at the screen and took it. “Hey, Rico, how’s Tawny doing?
… No, no. You stay with her. She needs you right now. I can bring you up to speed tomorrow… No prob, don’t worry about it.” She rang off, her face tightening with determination.
“Is Tawny okay?” Des asked her.
Yolie nodded. “False alarm. Hospital sent her home. She’s seeing her doctor first thing in the morning. Rico will be back down here after that-unless the doctor says otherwise.”
“So they’re not assigning a different lieutenant to the case?” Very asked.
“Not yet,” she replied. “Not that it’s any of your concern.”
“But it’s huge for you.” He’d picked right up on just how ambitious Yolie was. The man was no dummy. Not that Mitch had thought for one second that he was. “If you crack this by tomorrow afternoon it’s a career maker. I can help you, Sarge. We can help each other.”
Yolie rolled her eyes. “Lookie here, Romeo…”
“It’s Romaine.”
“You’ll have to bring some game if you want stay on the court with me. You said you had information…”
“Yeah, I’m getting there. First tell me about how Dawgie died, will you?”
“Two blows to the head. It went down in a neighbor’s yard after dark. Someone came up on him from behind, near as we can tell. First blow sent him to his knees, second one finished him.”
“Did the killer take his wallet?”
“Money and credit cards were still on him.”
“Have you recovered the murder weapon?”
“At the scene. It was an old baseball bat.”
“Wait, wait, don’t tell me-a Louisville Slugger model 125 Mickey Mantle with a nicked-up handle. Dawgie’d had it since he was a kid. You found his prints and no one else’s on it, am I right?”
Yolie frowned at him. “I just got word about the prints a half-hour ago. How did you…?”
“Anyone who has enough game to ambush him would also be smart enough to wear gloves,” Very explained. “Dawgie’s wife, Gina, was terrified of guns. So he used to sleep with that bat underneath his bed in case someone tried to break in during the night. No doubt still did. He was your classic creature of habit. Since your techies are so thorough, they no doubt found the outline of it in the dust bunnies under there.”
Yolie said nothing to that. Just stared at him.
“If he kept it under his bed,” Mitch said, “then what was it doing out in Rut Peck’s backyard? And how did the killer get hold of it?”
“Dawgie must have been carrying it.”
“He wasn’t,” Des told him.
“How do you know that?”
“Because I was tailing him, that’s how. He didn’t have a bat on him.”
“Time out, you just lost me…” Very’s right knee was jiggling, jiggling. He had to be the most hyper person Mitch had ever met. The man was a human hummingbird. “You were tailing Dawgie?”
Des nodded. “Your friend was doing a little freelancing, Lieutenant. Thought he might have a bead on the Dorset Flasher. I was sitting on the Captain Chadwick House last night. I saw him leave his apartment on foot and decided to shadow him. See where he led me.”
“So you were in the vicinity of the murder scene?”
“I’m the one who found him. Tripped right over his body, in fact.”
“And since you and he didn’t get along, I’m guessing the bosses now have you chained you to a desk far, far away.”
“Correct,” Des said stiffly.
“Which sucks.”
“Also correct.”
“You folks are figuring one of two thing,” he said to Yolie. “That this Dorset Flasher spotted Dawgie and took him out. Or that Dawgie was the Flasher and got taken out by someone looking to punish him. Am I right so far?”
“Well, yeah…” she acknowledged grudgingly.
Very shook his head. “No way. That’s not what happened.”
“How you know that?” she demanded. “You got special superpowers?”
“What else did your people turn up this morning?”
“Actually, I was just about to bring Master Sergeant Mitry up to date.”
He flashed a grin at her. “Well, don’t let me stop you.”
“As if you could.”
“You’d be surprised. I’m very resourceful.”
“I’ll just bet you are.” Yolie opened her notepad, glancing through it. “Hasn’t rained for a week. The ground near the body was bone dry. No shoe prints. But score one for your side, girl. The techies found fresh shoe prints down by the riverbank just like you said they would. Someone who appeared to be running away from the crime scene. Wearing sneakers, they think. They took impressions. They’re working on them up at the lab right now. And the ME has the victim on the table as we speak.”
“Has anyone turned up that ski mask?” Des asked her.
“Not yet,” she replied, squinting down at her notes. “I hooked up with Rut Peck at Essex Meadows. He confirmed that his house is currently unoccupied. Ray Smith, his neighbor from across Maple Lane, was playing checkers with him at Essex Meadows when the murder went down.”
“Checkers?” Very repeated. “I didn’t know people still played checkers.”
“At last, we found something you don’t know,” she shot back.
“Yolie, did you get anything more out of Nan Sidell?” Des asked.
“The neighbor with the barking dog? Oly recanvassed her this morning. She had nothing else for him. Why you asking?”
“I thought her boys might have been holding something back. Just a feeling. How about Dex and Maddee Farrell?”
“They heard the commotion afterward. Not the incident itself. Were in their den reading and listening to a Brahms Piano Quartet on National Public Radio. They’re a pair of cuties, aren’t they? Mrs. Farrell yapped at me nonstop. Mr. Farrell, the world’s biggest scam artist, just sat there, staring at the wall. I was about ready to stick a pocket mirror under the man’s nose. Make sure he was still breathing.” Yolie leafed through her notepad some more. “We can cross their daughter’s ex, J. Z. Cliffe, off of our list. He was throwing down tequila shooters at the Monkey Farm Cafe when it happened. His girlfriend Maggie Gallagher, who’s a barmaid there, vouches for him. So do the bartender and couple of regulars. Hal Chapman’s another story. He claims he was getting busy on White Sand Beach with a slammin’ blonde named Terri. Married lady from New York who was in Dorset visiting friends. But he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, give me her last name-beyond the letter E as in maybe Edsen. Or the name of her friends. Or the make or model of her ride. All I’ve got is that she works for some big outfit that recovers assets for people.” She raised an eyebrow at Des. “Maybe that’s something you can sink your teeth into while you’re chained to your desk.”
Des nodded. “I’m on it.”
“Which brings me to Kenny Lapidus…”
“Not a chance,” Mitch said heatedly. “Kenny’s no killer.”
“We have to check him out, hon. That’s what we do. Kimberly said he was in his bedroom e-mailing people at the time of the murder. That’d alibi out your average human, what with e-mails being time coded and all. But Kenny’s a full-time practicing geek. There’s no doubt in my mind that someone with his skills knows how to hack into a server and alter those time codes. Girl, I need you to nail down his travel schedule with Amtrak. Find out if any of the Dorset Flasher sightings occurred while he was in transit from Boston.”
“Sometimes he drives down,” Des pointed out. “Like this weekend, for instance.”
“In that case we’ll have to-”
“Wait, wait,” Very interjected. “It sounds to me like you’re Krazy Glued to this idea that the Flasher’s your prime suspect. Unless, that is, Augie was the Flasher. In which case your prime suspect is, well, dead. But let’s say your Flasher and your killer are one and the same person. This guy waves his thing on weekends, right, Sarge?”
“Right,” Yolie affirmed.
“Today’s Sunday. Will he be out there tonight?”
“My guess? He won’t be flashing anyone for a good long while. But I’m stepping up our sweeps of the Historic District tonight just in case. There’s always a chance this murder will embolden him. We’re not talking about someone who has his head screwed on straight.”
Very nodded. And nodded. “You have any other persons of interest?”
“Beth Breslauer,” she replied. “The lady slipped out of her condo on foot shortly before the murder. But we still have nothing on her whereabouts.”
“Um, okay, I may be in a position to help you there.”
Yolie batted her eyes at him. “It’s about time, hon. Step right up.”
“Dawgie was keeping an eye on her.”
“We already know about that,” Des said. “Beth told me he was following her all over the damned place.”
“It wasn’t Beth who he was following,” Very said with a glance Mitch’s way. “It was the married man who she’s been seeing on the quiet. He’s a New Yorker. Dawgie got a bad hit off of him. Asked me to check him out. His name’s Vinnie Brogna. Vinnie’s hooked up with some baaad boys. A member of the Albanese crime family. And maybe he wasn’t too happy about Dawgie’s interest in him.”
“Keep talking,” Yolie said, keenly interested.
“The dude visits Beth every weekend he can get away. They hit the Mohegan Sun together. According to Dawgie’s surveillance photos, it’s not uncommon for Vinnie to pick her up down the block from her condo. Which just might place him right there on Dorset Street at the time of Dawgie’s death, bat in hand. Or at least that’s one possible scenario.”
“What’s another?” Yolie asked.
“That he hired an outside pro take him out.”
“I don’t suppose you have these surveillance photos, do you?”
“They’re inside the house. Care to have a look?”
“Lead on, Romeo.”
“It’s Romaine.”
“Yolie, we have to talk before I split,” Des called to her. “Girl to girl.”
“You got it,” she said as she followed Very inside.
Mitch took Des’s hand and squeezed it. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Wrong with who?”
“Your dad.”
Her pale green eyes widened. “How on earth…?”
“You weren’t answering your cell phone after you met with Rundle. I called Bella and she told me you’d just gone rushing off in your own car-to go see the Deacon, I figured. And now you show up here looking worried sick.”
“He has to have coronary bypass surgery,” she said grimly.
“When?”
“On Wednesday.”
“And you’re just finding out about it today?”
“He said he didn’t want to worry me.”
“And there’s absolutely no reason to worry. My Uncle Miltie was back on the golf course in no time. It’s actually fairly-”
“If you’re about to say it’s minor surgery, please don’t or I’ll have to slug you.”
Mitch put his arms around her. She stood there stiff and unyielding. It was like hugging a six-foot length of cast iron. “Listen, he’s going to be fine. And I’m here for you. We’ll get through it together.”
“Mitch, I’m really not up for this right now.”
“Up for what?”
“This. The whole touchy feely thing. It’s not me. So let’s just not.”
“If you say so, girlfriend.”
“I do say so, okay? Because I can’t. I-I really…” Then, with a shudder, she surrendered into his arms and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.