Private: #1 Suspect (26 page)

CHAPTER
123

COLLEEN’S FRIEND MIKE Donahue and I were at Santa Monica Airport, where I kept my Cessna 172 Skyhawk.

I’d told Donahue that I’d flown with Colleen a few times, and that she’d taken over for me when we were in the air. She had done a couple of loop-the-loops and had shrieked with laughter every time.

Now Donahue wanted to do it too.

We ducked under the wing, and I said to him, “It’s not like you see in the movies, like flying a plane is a step or two over driving a car. In a plane, you control the mixture of fuel and air that goes to the engine, you monitor exhaust temperatures, you reset the compasses. It’s ninety-nine percent procedure and checklists. A minor screwup on the ground means something entirely different when you’re in the air.”

“Like what, for instance, Jack? No. Don’t tell me.”

“For instance, you forget to put the gas cap on. Gas just vaporizes out of the tank. Your plane turns into a glider, and you don’t want that.”

Donahue pointed, said, “Is that the gas cap?”

“Yes.” I smiled at him. “The cap is secure.”

We finished the walk-around, and I gave Donahue a leg up to the cockpit. I got into the pilot’s seat, strapped in, and adjusted Donahue’s headset so that we could talk and he could hear my conversations with the control tower.

I was cleared to taxi to the active runway, and Donahue stared straight ahead, unblinking, as we rolled.

We stopped at the end of the taxiway and I went through another checklist, reported to the tower, and began my takeoff. As always, because of the way the propellers turned, the aircraft pulled to the left, so I gave it some right rudder as I built up speed.

I watched the airspeed indicator, and when we got up to about sixty, I came back a touch on the yoke.

The nose angled upward and we climbed. And I exhaled.

It was a beautiful evening. The sun was going down, leaving a luminous band of sky-blue and pink along the horizon. I headed west and took us out over the ocean. Colleen used to call out the many hues of blue and green as the water went from the shallows to the deep.

I told Donahue that right here, at this altitude and distance from land, was where Colleen liked to take the controls.

“I’ll think of her flying,” Donahue said to me, “but I’ll just be a passenger.”

“Maybe you’ll fly some other time,” I said.

I took the plane into the clouds, and for a few moments there was nothing to see but condensation wicking across the windshield. Then we were above the castles in the air, and for a passenger and the pilot too, it was easy to put motors and magnetos and gas caps into the back of your mind, just feel the magic and the majesty of flight.

Donahue was smiling broadly as we sailed above the pastel-colored cotton balls of cumulus, and then his voice came to me loud over my headset.

“I changed my mind,” he said. “I’d like to take a turn at the controls, boy-o.”

I told Donahue how to do a loop-the-loop, and he did as I said. He pulled lightly up on the yoke. The plane climbed straight up, curved, and flew upside down. Donahue screamed in a very manly way, then yelled into the mic, “This is what we call ass over teakettle.”

His laughter almost popped my eardrums.

Donahue completed the loop and we were heading west again. He took his hand off the yoke and reached out to me. I matched his palm with mine, and we looked at each other, grinning like fools.

Our way of saying good-bye to our dear, sweet friend Colleen.

CHAPTER
124

I GOT HOME at around nine p.m., still jazzed from too much adrenaline and not enough sleep.

I locked the front door behind me, walked around the house and checked the windows, went to the newly improved security system monitor station and ran through the front- and back-door security tapes, reviewing them on fast forward. I didn’t see anyone in my driveway or approaching my deck from the beach, and the log showed that the alarm hadn’t gone off.

I swept the phones and the interior, and as far as I could tell, my house wasn’t bugged.

There was a case of beer in the fridge and not much else. I popped the top of a Molson and swigged half of it down. I paused, then drained the rest of it.

Knowing Tommy was in police custody should have been relief enough, but I checked all the window locks, the sliders, the front door again.

Then I stripped off my clothes and left them where they fell.

The multihead shower was in the master bath, and I headed for it. The water was hot and rejuvenating. I was thinking that I was finally ready to move back into my bedroom, sleep in my new bed, new linens.

If I couldn’t sleep in my bedroom, fuck it, I would sell the house.

So I tried it out.

I went into my bedroom, checked the perimeter once more, and dropped my gaze to the bed. I looked at it for a long minute and still saw just a bed, not a bad image of Colleen lying there dead.

In my mind, at least, Colleen was at rest.

I turned down the covers and turned on the TV.

I flipped around the dial, found twenty-four-hour cable news, and when I saw a talking head standing in front of a lot of flashing red-and-blue lights, I put down the remote.

The reporter’s name and the station call letters were on the screen, “Matt Galaburri, CNN.” There was a headline in small type under that: “DEA busts organized-crime drug haul worth $30 million in Renton, Washington. Four men arrested.”

I jacked up the sound.

It had happened as I hoped it would, but I wanted to hear the details to be sure that Private was in the clear.

The reporter was excited, kept turning his head as he talked, so that half his words were lost. He was looking at a white panel van surrounded by law enforcement, both unmarked cars and those with the initials DEA on their sides.

The location was a parking lot outside a warehouse that, judging from the camera angle, looked to be on a highway. The warehouse was one of those unremarkable square buildings you drove past on your way to somewhere and never thought a thing about.

The reporter said, “What you see behind me is mop-up of one of the largest drug busts in recent history. A spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Agency has told CNN that narcotics valued in the tens of millions have been confiscated and four men were arrested, men who are known to have strong ties to organized crime.”

He then filled in the backstory, how the van had stopped to transfer the cargo at a warehouse just south of Seattle that had been under surveillance for the past year.

There was a cutaway to a video shot earlier by a dash cam mounted inside a DEA vehicle. The scene was illuminated by headlights.

Four men were shown briefly unloading a white transport van with a vegetable decal on the side. A split second later, cars screamed into the lot.

There were loud shouts, and cops rushed the four men on foot. Two of the men ran, two put up their hands. Law enforcement agents brought all of the men down, cuffed them on the asphalt.

The video cut away again, this time to a man in a suit standing behind a podium marked with an official insignia. The lettering in the lower portion of the screen identified the man as Brian Nelson, director of the DEA.

Nelson said to the cameras, “The officers involved in this operation saved a lot of lives today—”

My phone rang and I dragged my eyes from the screen, saw Fescoe’s name on the caller ID. I thought,
What the hell is this now?
as I picked up the call.

CHAPTER
125

MY OLD FAIR-WEATHER friend, chief of police Mickey Fescoe, said, “Jack. Turn on the TV. Something you’re going to want to see.”

“I’ve got it on,” I told Fescoe. “Looks like the DEA took a lot of illegally obtained drugs off the street.”

“That’s right, buddy. I didn’t say anything about your role in this. That’s what you wanted, right?”

“Right. I don’t want any credit. Don’t say anything to anyone,
ever
.”

“I hear you, Jack. The DEA is elated. All that van needed was a red bow on top. Didn’t even need that. Noccia family fingerprints are all over this deal. Can we get Carmine? I don’t know, but this bust isn’t going to help him any. Maybe he’ll have a heart attack. Maybe someone will whack him. We can hope.”

We exchanged a few more words about the good outcome for America, and then Mickey said, “By the way, I’m glad you’re free of the Colleen Molloy murder rap. I kept my eye on Tandy and Ziegler throughout. I don’t want any credit either,” Fescoe said, “but I hope you feel that the LAPD treated you fairly.”

I said, “I have no complaints.”

There was a beep in my ear and I checked the caller ID.

Just when I thought there wasn’t a drop of adrenaline left in my body, I got a rush of panic as I saw that Carmine Noccia was on the line.

Noccia’s drugs were gone. His customers were going to go crazy, and the DEA had Noccia’s men in custody.

I told Fescoe I had incoming fire and congratulated him on his part in the DEA score.

Then I switched to the second line.

As I said hello to Carmine Noccia, I was hoping to heaven that he didn’t know I was behind the DEA bust. If he did, he was calling to tell me to put my affairs in order.

Noccia said to me, “You heard about our unfortunate run-in with the DEA.” His tone of voice told me nothing.

“I just saw it on CNN. That’s rough, Carmine.”

“You had nothing to do with that, right, Jack?”

“No. Of course not.”

“I had to ask.”

There was a long pause as I listened to my blood hum a very nervous tune. Then Noccia started speaking again.

“The Feds say they’ve been watching our transfer station. Shit, maybe someone said something and the Marzullos found out. Called in a tip.

“Either way, I’ve got no one to blame but myself. I should have arranged a transfer at another point, but we own that place, never dirtied it. We could get in and out fast, it being right on the highway like that. Hide the van until we could chop it up. Or so I thought.

“Anyway, it’s my problem, Jack. I’m calling to tell you to keep the fee.”

Was it safe to draw a breath?

I said, “You want me to keep the six-million-dollar fee?”

“You got the van out of the warehouse without incident, right? You handed it off to us. You gave us the names of the guys who took it. You executed the mission and so I’m paying you. That’s how it works between us.”

Crap.

Classic case of good news, bad news.

Noccia trusted me. He was saying we were like brothers. That there was honor among thieves—and US Marines. The six million dollars in Private’s bank account meant that Carmine and I were friends.

I never wanted to hear from Noccia again, but I didn’t think I was going to be that lucky.

He hung up the way he always did—suddenly.

He didn’t say good-bye.

CHAPTER
126

I PUT THE phone down and tried to absorb the shock of my conversation with Noccia. I wondered if I was really safe. If Mickey Fescoe could keep my involvement in the DEA bust a secret. Or if it was just a matter of time before some Noccia hoods confronted me in a dark alley.

I wanted to call Justine.

I wanted to hear her voice. I wanted to fill her in on Noccia and on my twin brother, who was in lockup for grand-theft auto and suspicion of murder.

Justine’s number was first on my speed dial. I listened to the ring, imagined the call going through. I hoped she was at home, having a glass of wine out by her pool. I hoped she’d tell me to come over.

Justine answered the phone on the third ring.

“Don’t hang up, girly. I mean it.”

Justine laughed. “Okay. You got me.”

She said she’d been cleaning out her fridge. That it was her first evening off in about a month and she had a few chores to do.

“You mind taking a glass of wine out to the pool? It’s how I pictured you just now.”

She laughed again. “Let’s see. Yep. I happen to have an open bottle. Give me a second.”

I heard glassware clinking, her pit bull rescue, Rocky, barking. I heard sliding glass doors open, and then she said, “I’m all set. What’s on your mind, Jack?”

I started talking, surprised to hear what came out of my own mouth.

Maybe the phone gave us both the intimacy and the distance we needed to at last discuss what I had done and why.

“I want you to understand that I know I did a wrong thing. I can’t excuse myself, especially not to you, but you can believe me, Justine. I’m sorry. I couldn’t be sorrier.”

Justine said, “Stop blaming yourself for Colleen’s death, Jack. You did what you did, but you didn’t kill her.”

Justine told me how much she’d liked Colleen, that she understood my feelings for her.

“I thought that you two had broken up for good. And then you hadn’t. Not really or not yet. That hurt me, Jack. I think it would have hurt anyone, but I’m over it now.”

I thanked her, and when the silence dragged on for too long, I told Justine about Clay Harris, how Tommy had shot him and that Tommy was currently in jail.

“Knowing Tommy, they won’t be able to prove anything,” Justine said. “He’ll say he bought the car for Clay so that Clay wouldn’t have to pay taxes on a bonus. Something like that. He’ll say that he was taking it for a drive. I’ll bet Tommy
did
buy Harris that car. I can’t imagine Clay Harris walking into a Lexus showroom in Beverly Hills. I just can’t see it.

“Tommy will get off the murder charge too,” she went on. “The cops will know he killed Clay, but they’ll never find his gun. You can’t testify against him. He can’t testify against you. Stalemate.”

I sighed.

“Jack, I’m not angry at you anymore.”

I said, “Good.” I was on the very edge of saying I’d like to come over, when she said, “I’ve got to go, Jack. I’ve got a dog to walk, kitty litter to change, a freezer to scrub. I may even paint my nails. You should get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”

I said, “I’ve got some critical life-or-death chores to do myself, Justine. I’m going to run a couple loads of wash.”

Justine laughed with me. “You do that,” she said.

I said good night.

What else could I do?