Dead Heat (29 page)

“Do you know the exact location of any of these buildings?” Spraggue didn't recognize the questioning voice, didn't look up.

“One of them is 312 Commonwealth Avenue. The scam is still going on.”

“How did Collatos get involved in all this?” Hurley asked.

“Doing his job. He was working for Captain Menlo, assigned to liaison work with the Arson Squad. Maybe he couldn't figure why so little progress was being made. He was a maverick sort of guy. A little slow on the uptake, but once he got ahold of an idea, he kept at it. He probably saw Menlo's little cache of secret files, either stole them or copied them, took them home to work on. Maybe he put them aside to deal with later. He didn't know he had hold of one end of a live stick of dynamite.”

“But Menlo did,” Hurley added.

“Yes. And he told the senator. And the senator ordered him to get the files back, to find out what Collatos was after. But then Collatos got laid off.”

“And Donagher couldn't leave it alone.”

“He may have been obsessed with the upcoming election, with the idea that someone was going to tell his opponent, that Collatos was actually working for Bartolo. Donagher was uneasy. He wanted to get next to Collatos.”

“Go on,” Hurley urged softly.

“Donagher dreamed up the anonymous letter campaign. Menlo helped him out. Donagher probably did the letters himself. Those letters always bothered me. They were so damned meticulous, so obsessive.… Of course, Donagher would be careful, snip out words from the paper rather than print them. He couldn't afford to be linked to those letters. And he'd naturally spend more time on the makeup of the letters than the contents. He didn't care what they said, as long as they could be used as a reason to hire Collatos. He had Menlo do the mailing. And then Donagher called the police department for protection, and Menlo made sure that Collatos was touted for the job.”

“Once he met Collatos, Donagher must have realized he'd made a mistake.”

“I'll say. Pete made friends with Donagher's wife, started asking her innocent questions about her upbringing that must have made Donagher shiver. Donagher was having a hell of a time. Election coming up. His wife thinking of leaving—”

“Stay with what happened next.”

“What I think happened. Donagher decided he'd have to get rid of Collatos. He wanted to do it in a way that would not only leave him unsuspected, but would actually help his reelection. The marathon was obvious. Donagher wasn't going to make any great time, wasn't going to be the contender he'd been when he was young. But if somebody made an attempt on his life at the marathon, that would be news. And he fixed it so that, if the political assassination attempt idea wasn't accepted, Lila would come under suspicion. She was the one who was supposed to give him water at the top of Heartbreak Hill. Even if someone did figure out that the act wasn't political, but personal—an attack on Donagher the man, not Donagher the senator—our boy must have felt he could keep the wraps on under the guise of protecting his beloved wife. Maybe he even threatened to say she arranged the whole thing, tried to murder him. Maybe that was supposed to keep her in line until after the election. We were never supposed to get Pete as the target.”

“And you think Pete already had that Parnate stuff in him?”

“I don't know if we'll ever be able to
prove
that Pete was given Parnate. If Donagher's campaign manager hadn't made a misguided attempt to shield the Donagher family, I'd never have even heard of it. Question Eichenhorn. He must have had a powerful reason for getting it out of Donagher's house. Maybe it suddenly appeared in Mrs. Donagher's medicine cabinet. Maybe he saw Donagher trying to stash it someplace. Maybe the senator clammed up when Eichenhorn asked him about it. But it's the only way Pete's death makes sense.”

“How does it work?” Hurley prompted softly.

Spraggue shut out everything but the memory of typed words on paper. The tape recorder hummed insistently. It was the only sound in the room. “Let me see what I can remember. The drug doesn't take effect immediately. Donagher probably started feeding Collatos doses of it a week, maybe two weeks before the race. Collatos, when I met him running around the reservoir, back when it all started, told me that Donagher had both of them on some kind of crazy diet to prep for the race. That diet would have been crucial to Donagher's plan, because Parnate reacts with so many things. Donagher had to keep Pete under his nose all the time, regulate his behavior. That was easy; Pete hardly left his side. Pete probably got Parnate ground up in his spaghetti sauce the night before the race. He probably got a hit in his coffee just before the marathon began.”

“Then you're saying that the sniping at the reservoir was staged?” Hurley said.

“What better way to make the public believe in a later attempt on Donagher's life?”

“But how could Donagher count on his wife not showing up, not being there at Heartbreak Hill to give him water?” The question floated over from across the room.

“I hope you'll be able to find that out for yourself, by asking her. The story she gave me was that she and her husband had a fight before the race. Donagher waited until the morning of the race to tell her he wanted her at Heartbreak. He issued an order instead of asking her. He pushed all the right buttons, knowing that he'd provoke a certain reaction. You don't live with a person for all those years without learning how to manipulate that person. And Donagher was a master manipulator.”

“Then Donagher got in touch with JoJo?”

“I doubt Donagher had to get involved in the nitty-gritty. He called on the people who'd helped him before, when he needed money to get into politics. They provided a sniper for the reservoir scene, a flunky to hand over the tainted water—” Spraggue lifted a hand to his forehead, pushed forefingers and thumb against his temples. “God, yes, pick up a guy named Arnold Gravier; he's in this thing up to his neck. He burned my house down trying to get rid of Pete's files—and me.”

“We've been looking for him—”

“The mob picked JoJo for his acting ability, and his expendability. He may have been on a hit list already. Once JoJo was dead, all direct connections to the senator were severed—”

“Of course, a lot of the deal required us not to identify JoJo as the killer—”

“Right. Because JoJo was arson connected, mob connected. He made us wonder if the target might have been Pete all along. But then Menlo stepped into the investigation and shut the door. Even you,” Spraggue paused and focused his eyes on Hurley. “You had a dead man; you had a killer. You weren't planning to scratch around for the story behind the facts.”

“I got here,” Hurley said flatly. “I've been tailing Menlo since you called. That's what I call cooperation. Tailing another cop sucks. How did you get onto Menlo?”

Spraggue said, “The minute I got involved with Pete, Menlo was all over me. He even gave me his card so that I could call him if I heard anything else from Donagher's direction. Earlier today, I saw the same phone number Menlo had so kindly shoved in my face on a note Pete Collatos had left for his boss, pinned to the bulletin board at Bill Rodgers Running Center. Either Donagher never got it, or he never took it down. It said that Pete had left Brian on his own that Sunday for a brief spell while he went to call on Menlo. And I knew that Pete had discovered something that day—he called me and told me so. He sounded drunk—or sick.” Spraggue raised his hand abruptly to his forehead, realized as he did so that the gesture was pure Pete Collatos. His hand shook. “Dammit.” he said. “Find somebody who was at that party! Find out if Pete went off his diet, had a glass or two of red wine with his spaghetti. If he'd been dosed with Parnate, that would explain his sounding so wrecked on the phone.… Maybe one of Donagher's guests could testify to Pete's reactions to the food and drink. Then a doctor could verify that those reactions were consistent with Parnate—”

“That's not much to give a jury—”

“It may be all you have if Donagher doesn't break down and confess.”

Hurley said, “Why didn't Pete tell you what he'd found?”

“Someone came into the room. Donagher, probably. And Pete didn't realize the significance of what he'd stumbled across. Maybe he thought he'd grabbed onto some stupid police-department con: cops write anonymous letters to politicians so that the terrified politicians will hire laid off cops for bodyguards. Revenge for all the tax cuts that hurt the department. Lord knows what Collatos must have thought when he realized one of the anonymous notes was typed on Menlo's machine. But he wouldn't have wanted to tell Donagher about it. Not yet. Collatos would have wanted more evidence before he accused a cop—even a bum like Menlo.” Spraggue's recitation ground to a halt. His throat hurt.

“Any more questions?”

In the ensuing silence, Hurley pushed a lot of buttons, detached the microphone from the tape recorder.

“I have one,” Spraggue said.

“Yeah?”

“Have you found Donagher?”

“MDC unit called in half an hour ago. Saw a guy standing by the Charles River, near Soldiers Field Road. Just staring at the water. Thought they had a drunk or a potential floater, so they took him in. Collapsed in the prowl car. It's Donagher. Took some kind of drug. They've got him over at Mass General. No word, yet. But to my mind it's as good a confession as we'll ever get.”

“Don't bank on it,” someone said. “If he recovers, his lawyer'll tell us he was distraught over his wife's attempted suicide.”

“She still among the living?”

“They think she'll make it.”

“Another question,” Spraggue said. “Two. Can I leave now? And where's Sharon Collatos?”

Hurley put a clumsy hand on Spraggue's shoulder, scanned the room looking for objections, found none. “She's waiting in the hall. Go home. I'll be in touch.”

Sure, Spraggue thought, go home.

Sharon was asleep on a spindly bench in Lila Donagher's colonial foyer.

“Morning,” he whispered close enough to her ear to smell the scent of her perfume.

“Mmmmmphf,” she said.

“Time to go home,”

She sat bolt upright, blinked.

“Thanks for waiting,” he said.

“I called your aunt. Ed Heineman went to St. Elizabeth's to check on Mrs. Donagher. Your aunt says—”

“I know. Come home.”

“Right.”

Spraggue leaned down and kissed her, hard, on the lips. “Thank you,” he said.

“What for?”

“For saving a life, two lives, three—”

“Whoa. I would be honored to accept partial credit for Lila Donagher, but—”

“If you hadn't stopped me upstairs, I could have killed Donagher—and if I had—”

“You'd have stopped on your own.”

“Maybe.” He smiled crookedly. “I'm glad you came along.”

“So am I.”

Spraggue sat on the bench next to her, took her hand. “How are you holding up?”

“I don't know.… I feel so empty. Like none of this ever happened. Like the past two weeks have been one horrible endless day.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I don't know how I'm supposed to feel. Revenge is supposed to be sweet, but—Donagher—I liked him; Pete liked him. He was just a guy who messed up.… And Pete's dead.”

“Want to get out of here?”

She nodded silently.

The street was almost back to normal. The police cars had ceased flashing their lights; the neighbors had retreated to their beds. The first streaky clouds were changing from black to gray.

There was a huge red sign blocking the front window of the Porsche. It said: Do Not Move This Vehicle. The dreaded Denver Boot was affixed to the right front wheel.

One elderly gray-haired woman who hadn't been able to get back to sleep peeped out from behind her lace curtains and pursed her lips at the shameless couple laughing and hugging right there on the street in front of the house where all that commotion had been.

Turn the page to continue reading from the Michael Spraggue Mysteries

ONE

“Tell me about the man who was killed,” Spraggue said.

The Orleans Parish lock-up smelled of disinfectant and sweat. A woman sat on the narrow holding-cell bunk, her head cradled in her hands. Staring down at her, Spraggue thought that someone else, anyone else, would have made a spunkier leading lady for a police drama. Dora Levoyer, Aunt Mary's longtime cook, looked small and shrunken, as if she'd been trying to disappear and only partially succeeded.

“I wonder,” she said softly, “if I can make you understand.” She glanced up and studied his face as if she were committing it to memory.

“Try me.”

She used to leave him secret late-night snacks in the refrigerator. Years ago. Strawberry tarts with flaky pastry and chantilly cream. Homemade pâté smeared on crusty fresh-baked bread. If he mentioned her kindness, she'd blush and twist her apron in her hands. Compliments to the chef had to be relayed through the proper channels. When he'd moved out of the big house, he hadn't missed the family ghosts, the thick Oriental rugs, the Sèvres porcelain, the maid service. But he still dreamed about Dora's cooking.