Witch House (3 page)

“That is a shame.”

“No, I mean about René. He was going to get
married, you know.”

“Oh? I did not know that. Who was the lucky
girl?”

“Her name is Stephanie Stiles. I never met
her, but René talked about her all the time.”

I cast a glance at Carlos and caught him
writing down the woman’s name in his notepad. I said to Tarkowski,
“Guess that explains the diamond ring we found on Landau this
morning.”

“You found the ring? Ooh, that’s not
good.”

“How so?”

“He had already given her that ring. If he
had it on him, then it must mean the wedding was off. Something
must have happened between then and now.”

“I’ll say something happen,” said Carlos.
“The man died!”

I turned to Carlos and gave him the gathered
brow look. It is not as effective as it was when I was sixty and my
brows were bushier, but he got the message. “Mister Tarkowski, let
me get this straight. As late—”

“Call me Frank,” he said, stopping me
flat.

“Excuse me?”

“Detective, we’re practically partners. I
know you two work in this building. I see you all the time out in
the courtyard, especially you, Detective.” That last mention for
Carlos. “We don’t need to be so formal.”

What could I say? “All right, Frank. So, you
say that as late as yesterday morning the wedding was still
on?”

“As far as I know.”

“Can you think of anyone else Landau might
have had contact with since he got out?”

“His son, maybe.”

“Son?”

“Yes, he is the only living kin René had left
in the world.”

“Does he live around here?”

“I believe so. He made it to the prison for
regular visits often, especially toward the end.” He stood and
headed for a file cabinet across the room. “Want me to see if I can
round up his address here?”

I held my hand up. “Thanks, I think we can
get it.”

“Okay then.” He reclaimed his seat. “Anything
else?”

“Yes, just one more thing. Do you know of any
enemies Landau might have had on the outside?”

Tarkowski shook his head, and it was funny
how his toupee did not shake with it. “Detective, any enemies René
had on the outside were old enemies he had when he went in, and I
suspect they were few. He was a likeable guy.”

“Any names come to mind?”

Again, he shook his head. I think I even
heard Carlos force back the urge to laugh aloud. “No. Sorry.”

“Yeah,” I said, “me too. Well, I guess we
have what we need, then. Carlos?” We stood, and I reached my hand
across the desk. “Thank you for your time.”

Tarkowski stood and shook my hand, and then
Carlos’. “You’re welcome, gentlemen, anytime. I mean it.”

We left Tarkowski’s office on the first floor
and rode the elevator up to the fourth, back to Carlos’
workstations and mine, which are virtually side-by-side. Spinelli’s
desk is up there, too, somewhere. You would not know it, though, as
he is always hanging around, sitting at or standing on some form of
office furniture belonging to Carlos and me. But that’s okay, he
pulls his weight, and then some. Lately I have been trying not to
be so judgmental of him. I have already admitted to myself that a
small part of me (or maybe not so small) is jealous of his
intellect, intuition and ingenuity. He has everything a good
detective needs, except experience, and he is picking that up
quickly enough. To make matters worse, he can now add hero to his
list of attributes. Not long ago, Spinelli saved Lilith and
Ursula’s lives. He even took a bullet to the chest for them, got a
medal and everything from the Massachusetts Department of Law
Enforcement. The governor even sent him a letter of commendation
and promised his first-born daughter’s hand in matrimony. Okay, not
that last part, but you get the idea.

So, is it any wonder I am jealous of him? I
am not proud of that fact, but I am proud that I can admit it. If I
were still an old man and on the way out, like Carlos, maybe I
could deal with it more easily. There is no threat of overlooking
an old man for the up and coming superstar, when an old man has not
a chance in hell to begin with. Lilith says I am paranoid. She says
that is normal when you go through the witch’s rite of passage. You
regain your youthful strengths but lose some of your wisdom-born
confidence. It is a trade-off, something along the lines of what
does not kill you makes you stronger. Oh, and have I mentioned how
Carlos wants me to call Spinelli by his first name? It is killing
me. That is all I can say. It is simply killing me.

We found Spinelli, I mean Dominic, at Carlos’
desk. I must say, the lad had turned up a boatload of papers,
documents and photos of everything we asked for. He sat us down and
started right in with information about our vic, René Landau; and
trust me, he had done his homework.

“His full name is René Laffer La Fayette
Landau,” he said, “first generation French.” There is something
about Spinelli’s presentations. They are always laid out so
methodically and precise. Like writing a book, he never turns the
page until he has punctuated his last paragraph with the proper
emphasis.

“Landau turned forty-eight on August
6
^th
,” Spinelli continued. “At the time of his
incarceration, he had a ten-year-old son, Adam, who had since moved
from foster home to foster home until emancipated at age eighteen.
He is now twenty-seven.”

“What about his mother,” I asked. “When did
she fall out of the picture?”

“Twenty-two years ago. She died of AIDS.”

“Ooh, tough break.”

“Yes, but Adam did okay. He finished school
and got himself a job as a carpenter’s helper until he learned the
trade well enough to go out on his own.”

“Does he live around here?”

Spinelli gestured out the west window. “Yeah,
just off Lexington by the Stop & Shop. I’ll give you his
address as soon as we finish up here.”

“Nice work. Continue.”

“The crime that earned Landau three hots and
a cot for the last seventeen years was an armored truck
robbery.”

“That we know,” I said. “We talked to his
P.O.”

“Did he tell you that a man was killed during
the robbery?”

“He did. Told us the driver of the armored
truck got his head blown off.”

“That’s right, by Landau’s accomplice, a
fellow named Johnny Allis, nicknamed Johnny Buck, because of his
bucked teeth. He and Landau were best friends from high
school.”

“Yeah, well like I said, Landau’s parole
officer mentioned something about that.”

“Did he mention that René Landau killed
Johnny Buck a few days later?”

“What!”

“All right, that part is speculation, but in
most circles it is a given fact. You see, René Landau and Johnny
Buck were hiding out at a lakefront cabin in the hills when
something very wrong went down between them. No one knows what
really happened, but most believe that the two got into an argument
over something, probably the money, and then Landau killed his old
pal, Johnny. Then, to make it look like an accident, he torched the
cabin with Johnny Buck’s body inside.”

“Incredible,” I said.

“Not yet. Incredible happened when Landau
tried to make his escape from the cabin. He hopped into his car and
drove barely a mile down a narrow dirt road when one of New
Castle’s finest stopped him and arrested him.”

Carlos gave a passive shrug. “That’s not so
incredible.”

Spinelli smiled coyly. “Yeah, well just what
do you think that cop found in his trunk?”

“The money,” I guessed.

“Wrong!”

“No?”

“The money was not in the trunk. It wasn’t in
the back seat, the front seat; it wasn’t anywhere.”

“What happened to it?”

“That is a debatable question. Landau swore
the money went up in flames with the cabin.”

“Did it?”

Spinelli splayed his palms up empty. “Again,
debatable. Do you trust the word of a robber?”

“No,” said Carlos.

“Well then, you are in good company, because
neither did the F.B.I., the I.R.S., the U.S. Attorneys’ office, the
U.S. Marshalls, Secret Service or the Bureau of Indian Affairs. All
had a hand in investigating the money. One thing is for sure,
though, they found no trace of scorched money alongside Johnny
Buck’s charred remains.”

“So where does this leave us?” I asked.

Carlos guessed, “The money must still be up
at the cabin somewhere, buried.”

“Sure,” said Spinelli, “that is the layman’s
consensus, except….”

“Except what?”

“Except that those agencies, along with every
Tom Sawyer wannabe with a pick and shovel, all took turns digging
around up there. Nobody has ever found it.”

“With no evidence, what exactly did René
Landau get sent away for, murder?”

Spinelli shook his head. “No, he went up for
the robbery. The D.A. produced a surprise witness who testified she
saw Landau driving the getaway car.”

“Who was that?”

“Don’t know. The courts blacked out the
records on that. But her testimony was enough to convict him on the
robbery with accessory to murder for killing the armored car
driver.”

I stood up and clapped for Spinelli. “Bravo,
I love a mystery,” I said. “Nicely done.”

“Thanks,” he said, and smiled modestly.

“Now then, what do you have on that phone
number from the bar napkin?”

His smile fell away. “Nothing.”

“What?”

“It’s a number to a local movie directory;
you know where you call in and a recorded voice tells you what is
playing in what theater?”

“A movie hotline?”

“Yes.”

Carlos said, “Maybe he took in a movie last
night.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Carlos, you have the name
of that woman Tarkowski gave us, Landau’s fiancée?”

He pulled out his notepad and flipped through
a few pages. “Stiles, Stephanie Stiles.”

“Right.” I pointed to Spinelli. “Check her
out. See what her story is, and while you are at it, find out what
you can about anyone else involved in the robbery or the trial.
This guy buck-tooth what’s his name—”

“Johnny Buck,” said Carlos, his finger
pressed to his two front teeth. “Johnny Buck Allis.”

I smiled at that. “Johnny Buck. Yes. See what
we know about him, too. Does he have any relatives around here that
maybe wanted to get back at Landau for killing him? Same goes for
the driver of the armored truck. You never know. He might have a
brother, son or whoever that has just been waiting for this day to
come.”

“Got it,” said Spinelli, penciling my
requests onto a tablet. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, find out what cops were involved in
this, too: the first responders, the investigating officers and the
arresting officer. If some of them are still around, then maybe we
can pick their brains a little.”

“Okay.” Spinelli punctuated the last order
with an exclamation point. “You want the kid’s address now?”

“The kid?”

“Adam Landau?”

“Landau. Yes, of course.”

He flipped through several pages of his
tablet, tore off a sheet and handed it to me. “He’s home now. I had
a black and white do a drive by twenty minutes ago to check for his
truck. It’s in the driveway.”

“Really?”

He gave us a light-hearted shrug. “The guy’s
a carpenter. I figured there was a good chance he got rained out
today.”

I took the address from him. “Nice work,” I
said, and with a look from Carlos to remind me, I added,
“Dominic.”

In a stroke of pathetic timing, it seemed the
rain began falling hard again just as we stepped foot out the door
of the Justice Center. Because we had returned to the office after
nine o’clock, the only parking spots left were all the way in the
back of the lot. I knew then if I wanted to stay dry that it was
going to cost me. I handed Carlos the car keys.

“Go on,” I said. “I’ll wait here.”

He stitched his brows in a permanent crease.
“I think not. You get the car. I’ll wait here.”

“Carlos, it’s your turn.”

“No, it’s your turn.” He tried pushing the
keys into my hand, but I would not take them. “You’re the one who
parked way the hell out there. I told you to use the handicapped
spot.”

“And you’re the one who left the umbrella. I
told you to take it just in case.”

“Why didn’t you take your umbrella?”

“Because it wasn’t raining then.”

“So why would I take mine?”

I could see we were getting nowhere. I
reached for the keys. “All right, fine, but you’re buying
lunch.”

He snatched the keys back before I could grab
them. “Are you saying you’ll buy lunch if I get the car?”

I knew that would get him. “Sure.”

“At the Percolator.”

“All right then.” Oh, I thought, if only life
were just that simple.

On the way out to see Adam Landau, I asked
Carlos what he thought about the case so far. He told me I might be
on to something with the vengeful relative theory. More than money
and second to passion, revenge is a most powerful motive.

“It makes sense,” he said. “The guy’s not out
of prison twenty-four hours and he gets whacked, yet he still has
his wallet, money, a diamond ring; clearly robbery was not a
motive.”

“So, what do you make of the ring? That he
had it would seem to indicate he met with his fiancée. Something
had to go badly there or I should think he would have spent the
night with her.”

“S`pose they had an argument?”

“Sure. Why else would he be drinking in a
bar? If I just spent seventeen years in prison without female
companionship, I know where I would want to spend my first night of
freedom.”

He agreed, adding, “We have to consider the
fiancée a suspect.”

“Of course. Listen, when you get a chance,
call Spinelli back and ask him to send you a picture of Stephanie
Stiles. We may need to show it around.”