Death On the Dlist (2010) (15 page)

THERE’S A MATCH? OH, MAN . . .
ARE YOU SURE?
”Before Kolker could answer, his partner, O’Brien, went on . . . “Does the press know? Now what do we do?”

“I know one thing: Before this gets out, I want to nail down every single detail, you know, dot the i’s and cross the t’s. I need to get it all figured out before we take it to the District Attorney’s Office. They leak like a sieve. It’ll go straight to the
Post
. Just like the Prentiss Love crime scene photos. Just like
Snoop
got the Leather Stockton shots of the body being wheeled out of the pool house. Somebody’s tipping them off.”

They didn’t want to talk about it at the office and had ended up back at the diner in their usual booth.

“Coffee, black?” Behind the counter and looking over a display of pies on a three-tiered plate underneath a glass cake cover, Shirley aimed the question in the general direction of Kolker’s booth.

“Make it two. Thanks.” Turning away from Shirley, he looked back at O’Brien.

“There’s no doubt about it. The medical examiner managed to fish one sliver of fragment out of Prentiss Love’s head, and bingo . . . it’s a match. He did a consult on Stockton. I’ve never seen anybody so fascinated with dead celebrities as that ME.”

“Same shooter?”

“Same shooter. No doubt about it. Kelley Trent over at Ballistics had it under the microscope for hours. He’s the best. I went over and watched him do it. Saw the markings myself. They definitely came from the same weapon. And whoever it is, he’s a decent shot. You know, even at close range, amateurs screw up.” Kolker kept his voice low even though no one was in the booth behind them.

“You know Trent’s thorough. Even tried to get prints off the one bullet from out in the Hamptons. No good. It was a long shot, but Trent tried. And the sliver from Love’s skull was barely big enough to analyze, much less get a print.”

“IBIS match?”

“Nope. Already sent it. Trent knows somebody. Got a rush. No match.”

“Well, did Trent keep it quiet?”

“Did he keep what quiet? We don’t have the murder weapon, so we didn’t have to do any shooting. Just looking under the microscope.”

To make a positive ballistics match to a specific gun, the tester takes the weapon in question, uses the same caliber as that in the murder, and fires the gun, usually into a tub of water with padding at the bottom. The high velocity of the bullet, hurtling down the gun chamber, causes distinct, identifiable tool markings on the bullet itself. Like a fingerprint, each gun leaves its own unique markings on the bullet. The inside of the barrel is made of metal, metal that cools after being heated in a molten state. Each gun has one-of-a-kind markings on the inner barrel left during the cooling process; hence, those unique markings appear on the bullet.

“I don’t mean the testing, and I know we don’t have the murder weapon . . . yet, that is. I mean, did Trent keep it on the QT that we think there’s one shooter? And who’d want to shoot these two, anyway? I mean, they’re D-Listers at best . . . What’s the draw?”

“Don’t know. I need to run it by some sort of strategist, maybe one of the profilers, somebody that knows what they’re doing. Somebody that can keep their mouth shut and has nothing to do with NYPD.” Instinctively, Kolker looked around to confirm no eavesdroppers.

“Good luck with that one.” The coffee came. “Motive?”

“I’m not even close. I haven’t even started with that one. I just found out it was from the same gun a little under an hour ago.” Kolker stared down into his coffee, at the little tendrils of steam floating up.

He’d turned into somewhat of an overnight local hero after the Hailey Dean case, despite the fact he arrested the wrong person for double murder. Hailey had always been tight-lipped about what happened and actually praised him and the Force in the press. So, while the public at large liked him, he couldn’t afford another screw-up. Kolker had to nail this one or he’d be looking at a desk job till he left the NYPD, which would probably be forced on him earlier rather than later.

They weren’t subtle about these things at the NYPD. He’d be directing traffic in the middle of First Avenue and Fifty-ninth, if he didn’t solve the case
before
he handed it over to the DA.

Kolker had a fleeting, horrible vision of the traffic piled up, snarled bumper to bumper, horns honking, exhaust spewing, radios blaring . . . Everybody trying to get on or off the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge. His insides turned hot and it wasn’t the coffee.

Then, it came in a flash.
Hailey Dean . . . Would she help him?

Was there any way? Probably not . . . but he could try. He could at least try.

She could have blasted him to hell and back over what happened . . . the way he’d treated her. She was in the hospital the first time he questioned her. He’d been so sure she was the killer. And he needed the collar so badly.

But what was he thinking? Knowing Dean, she’d probably punch him right there at the front door of her apartment when, and if, she opened the door. Or worse. He’d heard she was a pretty good shot. She could take aim at him and claim she thought he was an intruder . . .

He tried to make reparations. Bombarding her with flowers. That was pretty good for a cop, wasn’t it? But never any response. Now that she was back in the city, he’d tried again. But, after seeing her drench Todd, he definitely remembered her temper.

Kolker rubbed the side of his face, reliving the moment Hailey Dean had punched him right in the nose. It wasn’t the first time he’d gotten a snoot full of knuckle, but it had been, by far, the most memorable. And the only time a woman had ever decked him. Dean packed a pretty good punch.

And it had to hurt her hand, but he never even saw her rub her knuckles. Later, when he was questioning her at the station, he saw they had bled.

And you know what? He deserved the punch.

Maybe that’s the first thing he’d say, if he actually went to see her in person.

“Hey! Kolker! Where you going?” Kolker had gotten up from the booth, taken his jacket off the coat stand, and was heading toward the diner door.

“Is it something I said?” O’Brien was smiling, but he was confused. They had just been brainstorming . . .

“Hey, pay for the coffee this time. We’ll start getting a bad reputation as freeloaders! Tell Shirley I’ll see her tomorrow.”

“But what about breakfast? Aren’t you going to wait?”

“You can have mine. You always try to get it anyway.”

“You can’t wait five minutes?”

“Nah . . . I think I’m on to something.”

Let’s see . . . It was only 8 a.m. Bet she’d still be home. Kolker walked across the sidewalk dodging the New Yorkers who
never
look up when they walk along with the tourists who are
always
looking up.

He unlocked his unmarked squad car and got in. No reason to radio back to headquarters where he was headed. They didn’t need to know.

The less said . . . the better.

DAMN THE GROUNDSKEEPER TO HELL AND BACK. WHY WOULDN’T HE GO
away? Why wouldn’t he
leave
?

How long had he been here, anyway? Sitting crouched down in a cold, moldy-smelling mausoleum, Francis had a bird’s-eye view of the Crestlawn Sacred Grounds groundskeeper. He’d had the guy in his crosshairs for nearly an hour now, and Francis’s knees were all the worse for it. He was squatted down behind one of the crypt’s ornamental windows, windows which were really nothing more than tiny slivers cut in the mausoleum’s marble walls.

Why have windows at all? Like the dead want to enjoy the view? Absolutely no need for the dead to see out. Hunkered down on the cold stone floor, keeping his eye trained on the groundskeeper, Francis contemplated the need for windows in a crypt.

Was that a big, fat doobie the guy was smoking? Oh, hell! If it was, Francis might as well dig in for the duration.

Francis had tried his best to get rid of the arsenal he’d been amassing under his mother’s kitchen floor. He really had. But he couldn’t. The guns were his friends. They were even indexed in long, elaborate journal entries.

And his collection of HCBs, Homemade Chemical Bombs as the Feds insisted on calling them, were almost like his children. He’d spent hours upon hours researching them on the Internet, watching online videos about how to create them, days collecting just the right ingredients, and weeks finally putting them together. They were dangerous and beautiful. He adored them.

But now, knowing the Feds were coming down on him at any moment for what had happened to Leather Stockton and Prentiss Love, he had to do
something.
But what?

He wasn’t about to destroy them. A storage facility was out . . . that’s the first place the Feds would look. Attic? No. Basement? No. Hole in the backyard? No. Friend’s place? No. Other than his girlfriends, he didn’t have any friends anyway. And he didn’t want to jeopardize them. He
loved
them.

Crestlawn Sacred Grounds was his only alternative.

The few times he’d been here, mostly to visit his mother’s headstone and rub it in to her how great he was doing without her, he noticed the door hanging wide open at one of the mausoleums down the row. He’d never seen a single soul visit whoever was interred there, so the intermittently open door creeped him out all the more.

Was the dead person opening and shutting the door to his own mausoleum? It could happen. Francis believed firmly in the spirit world. So finally, he mentioned it to Danny, the groundskeeper.

He and Danny were somewhat kindred spirits, although Francis knew immediately that Danny was by no means his intellectual equal. They first met when Francis’s mother was buried. Danny caught him spitting a big glob down on the fresh dirt just raked over his mother’s casket. Instead of judging him as so many others would have, Danny started laughing.

They bonded instantly.

For one thing, they both hated the government. They both hated their mothers and they both had a thing for Prentiss Love. But Francis wasn’t jealous of Danny; he obviously didn’t have a relationship with Prentiss like Francis did.

Francis wasn’t one to kiss and tell, so he didn’t brag about himself and Prentiss.

During their long discussions about their mothers, Francis learned from Danny that the particularly creepy mausoleum was not only empty, but also a point of legal contention within the deceased’s family. Hours of conversation over the pint of gin Danny snuck into work every day yielded a lot of information about burials, cremations, grave diggers, dead bodies, and the like. Swapping off the bottle swig for swig, Francis learned all about the intended resident of the ornate crypt.

Specifically, she was ninety-six years old, Aunt Matilde Coco from Bayou Blanche, Louisiana. Aunt Matilde had a knack for plucking up the wealthiest men around and had been through quite a few husbands, each one richer than the last. Neighbors swore she put a love hank on them to make her irresistible in their eyes, because by all accounts, Aunt Matilde was not much too look at.

Maybe it was true. Plain and simple, Matilde, as Danny told it, practiced the ancient art of Santeria, or voodoo for short. Even though traditional Catholics frowned on sorcery, and the Vatican was firmly against it, Aunt Matilde was forever cooking up some foul stench on the stove in order to heal the sick, bring home a loved one, or seek Christian vengeance on an enemy. “Enemies” were normally gossips, cheats, liars, ne’er-do-wells, other members at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, evil neighbors, or anyone and everyone she believed had mistreated her beloved nieces and nephews.

On good days, her huge home smelled heavily of flower-scented potpourri, Glade PlugIns, and Creole cooking. On others, it reeked of boiling chicken entrails stirred up with God knows what. Aunt Matilde was notorious for smearing the gooey stuff near the target’s front door at an opportune moment, or in special cases, actually feeding a tiny voodoo replica of the enemy to the stank as it boiled on the kitchen stove in the apartment. They all knew better than to ask Aunt Matilde what exactly stank, but for safety’s sake, never, ever, casually grabbed a bite from the fridge.

Matilde never bore her own children, although she wanted them desperately. Outliving all five of her wealthy husbands, Aunt Matilde ended up with a fortune, which she left to her nieces and nephews and the rest to St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, Bayou Blanche Parish.

Half the family swore the old lady wanted to be buried above-ground in case of flooding. They were all from Cajun country down in New Orleans, where apparently, the dead face a distinct possibility of their own human remains floating away if buried six feet under.

The other half of the family insisted departure by water was not a possibility for Auntie in the casket. They insisted she keep pushing up the daisies. They were all a little afraid Aunt Matilde might have the power to visit them from the Great Beyond, and nobody wanted that.

With all of them steeped in Cajun tradition and brainwashed in voodoo superstitions, they’d nearly come to blows at Auntie’s funeral over the whole thing. The family finally had some money thanks to Aunt Matilde, so of course, a lawsuit ensued. With a pack of lawyers involved, it’d be years before Auntie was dug up and hence, the mausoleum inhabited, if ever.

Just think of all those billable hours.

Another thing for Francis to contemplate here on the floor of an empty crypt. Lawyers. Oh, how he hated them.

The court-appointed one he’d had for his last court case made him sick. He wanted to punch her out the moment she started talking to him. She looked at him as if he were crazy. She was the crazy one, not him.

The crypt was the perfect place to stash his guns and HCBs. Temporarily of course. He’d bring them home and stow them back under the kitchen table as soon as things cooled off. Plus, he had no idea which one was the murder weapon. It had all happened during one of his “episodes,” as his mother used to call them.

But it was true, he’d had plenty of blackouts. Hours, sometimes days where he couldn’t remember exactly where he’d been or what he’d done. He was known to drive around, sometimes great distances, make purchases, hold long conversations, and even check in and out of motel rooms during these periods. He’d checked the odometer on the car afterwards, when he’d come out of it, and sometimes there would be over a thousand miles registered.

Francis naturally kept a log of daily mileage on the old sedan, as well as every time he got gas, tune-ups, oil changes, even car washes.

You could never really be too careful.

All the shrinks called his episodes “psychotic breaks,” but they were all asses anyway. They just made their two hundred bucks an hour when they saw him, paid for by the government of course, after his court-ordered mental treatment. The judge was also an ass. A woman judge of course. That explained a lot.

Francis knew he didn’t have any such thing as psychotic breaks. He himself blamed it on the lithium. He’d taken it for years before he realized he could refuse to swallow the stuff. It was only after the old bag (his mother) died that he’d learned how she’d sneak it into his food when he chose to go off his meds.

But now, she was gone and he was off it for good. Things were so much clearer now.

Auntie Matilde’s vault was perfect. The Feds would never think to look here. Now, if he could only get out of here without Danny seeing him and becoming suspicious. He liked Danny well enough, that was true. But if it got out he’d hidden the murder weapon, if Danny found out somehow and got a subpoena to testify in court, their friendship would likely go straight down the crapper. Danny would sing like a bird if he had to.

Francis’s neck was cramping, and so was his left leg. He finally unfolded himself from his squatting position there at the slit of a window and sat down, stretching his legs out on the cold stone floor of the crypt. Leaning back against the wall, he forced himself to relax. No need to be anxious. He just had to wait.

Sitting there, he finally had a chance to admire his handiwork. It had taken days (and nights) to hollow out enough storage space to stash all the guns. But he did it, all right. After being kicked out of regular classes in high school, he’d been forced to go to shop classes to learn a trade. Well, guess what, Mother? They paid off. No one would notice the drill marks in Aunt Matilde’s vault.

To start with, the mausoleum was large and, of course, way over the top in predictable Cajun Catholic style. The Holy Mother Mary took center stage in the crypt; a large ivory-colored statue of her stood in the middle of the room, hoisted up on top of a large, square base. Around it were three separate benches, solid, oblong, rectangular seats. The benches, the statue’s base, even part of Mother Mary herself were now hollowed out and chock-full of guns wrapped in thick burlap sacks.

Perfect.

True, it had been hell lugging all these guns into the mausoleum. And especially his little babies, the liquid bombs in plastic Coke bottles. They had to be carried in just two at a time, each wrapped in layers of towels and stuffed down the front of his jacket.

They could all rest easy here, because with lawyers involved, it’d be years before they got the family lawsuit settled. Anyway, Francis had no reason to doubt Danny, and even though he’d witnessed the door left open on several occasions, he’d never actually seen anyone visiting. Plus, as far as he could tell, he was all alone in the crypt . . . No indication it was inhabited by a dead body. Just Francis and 253 guns, to be exact.

He had to be more careful. Just last week, with one of his last loads of guns stashed in his mother’s car trunk, Danny had noticed Francis lingering there. Danny had actually made a crack about how Francis was spending a lot more time lately at his mother’s grave.

It was totally out of character, since Francis, on many occasions, complained bitterly to Danny about how his mother had ruined his life. He better come up with a damn good explanation as to why he had a change of heart and was suddenly visiting now.

Details, details, details. The devil truly was in the details.

Francis peeked through the slot just in time to see Danny’s back disappear around a corner of tall hedges. He knew for a fact it was the spot where Danny hid when he wanted to take a nap.

Must have been a doobie he was smoking after all. Francis waited and watched for just a few more moments to make sure the coast was clear. With one last, quick glance around the vault, he headed for the door.

Just as he was stepping out, Francis stopped. Turning, he quickly stepped back into the vault just a few steps . . . just far enough to kneel down on his knees in front of the Mother Mary. She looked down at him mournfully. She looked sad, disappointed, as if she knew exactly what Francis had been up to. She looked like she knew about the red panties he’d stolen out of Leather Stockton’s bungalow at Shutters
and
what Francis did with them on a weekly basis.

He crossed himself three times because, you know, you just can never be
too
safe.