Snowjob (33 page)

“So she sends it, sits there rubbing her hands. And the money’s never left the bank?”

“Exactly.” He allowed himself a smile.

“So that’s what all this was about. Manatelli started the business of buying credit slips just to get into the bank so he could take it over.”

Maloney nodded. “That’s how I read it.”

“But why here? There’s all kinds of banks closer to his home than this.”

“That was part of its attraction, I’d imagine. He was far enough from his own sphere of action that he could operate without fear of his employer’s knowing what he was doing. Remember, he has a million dollars of his own money in this sting. That almost certainly came from his employer and just as certainly his employer did not know.”

“Yes, but why here? Why Chambers of all places?”

“The only connection I can see is Jack Grant’s gambling.”

“That’s a possibility. But the amounts he lost are just spit to these guys. I saw his slips. His biggest loss was five grand at one time. That’s not enough to bring a big fish like Manatelli out of New Jersey.”

“Maybe that’s where it started.” Maloney held up one finger. “Atlantic City. There’s gambling there. Grant went at least once, about a year ago. I remember his father telling me. He had a very good time there, came back with money in his pocket.”

“And you think someone scouted him down there in New Jersey and followed him back here to check this place out?”

“We’ll never know unless Manatelli tells us when he’s arrested, and I doubt he’ll say anything he doesn’t have to,” Maloney said. He checked his watch. “Paul Grant is due in to see me.” He glanced up. “If you like, I can make arrangements for him to settle whatever indebtedness he’s incurred with you.”

I thought for a moment. “No. That’s okay. I was only over at his place an hour or so. Forget it. But there’s one thing he could help me with, if you could spare a couple of minutes before you get down to business.”

“Sure.” He checked his watch again. “He’s always very punctual. I’ll see if he’s here yet.”

He went to the door and opened it. I heard him say, “Good morning, Paul, come on in.”

Grant came in. He looked as if he hadn’t slept at all. His face was gray and the circles under his eyes seemed to rest on his cheekbones. He nodded at me and grimaced, as close as he could come to a smile.

I stood up. “Good morning, Mr. Grant. I was just leaving but I wondered if you could help me on something before I go.”

“I’ll try.” He sat and Maloney went to the coffee server and poured him a cup. He took it without a word and tilted his face up to me politely. Let’s get this over with, his expression said. I have a life to return to after you’ve gone.

I started carefully, not wanting to cause him any extra pain. “This has nothing to do with your son’s death. The police think it’s a whole separate case.”

“What is it?” It had worked. He was relaxed.

“They found an explosive device this morning. They’re checking it of course for fingerprints and so on, but I wondered if you might know, from running a hardware and building supply outlet, where in Chambers you could get the materials to make a bomb. The trigger device and the explosive? I wouldn’t know where to look.”

He seemed relieved at the question. It hadn’t involved his son. He set down his coffee cup in the saucer and leaned back. He might have been sitting in a lodge meeting. “Even in a town as law-abiding as this it’s no problem to get your hands on four sticks of dynamite.”

His words hit me like the shock wave from an explosion. And in the sudden horror on his face I could see he had realized the significance of his words.

“No. It wouldn’t have been,” I said. “Not for you.”

He stood up, blustering. “What’s this man saying? Frank?”

Maloney looked at me but didn’t speak.

“Four sticks of dynamite. Plus the kind of five-buck security system window latch you sell.” I shook my head at him. “Really, Paul. I wasn’t sure until you said that. What happened? Did Jack tell you about the money? Is that why you knifed him? And threw him off the chair lift on the way up there?”

Perhaps a month or even a week later he would have risen above the accusation. He hadn’t said anything incriminating. Some cops might even have missed the clue he’d dropped. A good lawyer could have laughed the case out of court. But too much had happened to him in the last week. He sat down wearily and spoke to Maloney. “Frank, I want to retain you on this,” he said.

NINETEEN

Maloney reached out and rested one hand on his shoulder. “Count on me, Paul.” Then he turned to me, his face filled with sadness. “Have Mary call Chief Williams to come over, would you please?”

I did, then waited on the street until the chief turned up, with Pat Hinton beside him in the car. The chief got out and strode up to me. “What made him open up? Did you pressure him?”

“No, sir. I asked about the bomb and he said, right away, it would be no problem, even in a town as law-abiding as this, for a man to get his hands on four sticks of dynamite.”

The chief rubbed his chin. “That’s not a case.”

“I know. But it seemed obvious to me that he knew about the bomb and I went on. I suggested that he’d killed his own son, to reclaim the money from the shack. That’s when he turned to Maloney and asked him to represent him.”

“If Maloney tells him to dummy up, we’ve got nothing,” Hinton snapped.

“I know. But Maloney was the one who suggested I call the chief. I think he wants his client to cooperate.”

“Jesus Christ,” the chief said. “Come on, Pat. Let’s go check what’s happening.”

I watched them go, then let Sam out of my car and walked down the street to a phone. My wife answered on the second ring. Her voice was music.

“Hi, Fred. It’s your wandering boy.”

“Reid. Lovely to hear your voice. I was beginning to think you’d found yourself a bouncy little ski bunny and settled in for the winter.”

“I had to beat them away with a stick, but no sweat. How’s Louise?”

“The world’s most incredible infant. Mensa material, I’m sure. Plus she’s going to be an Olympic athlete. She’s beautiful, Reid.”

“So are you,” I said. “I’ll be home tonight, late and weary but all yours.”

“I’ll prepare a warm welcome.” She laughed. “Two warm welcomes, if you include a late dinner.”

“You can skip the dinner. It’s not meals I’ve been missing.”

She laughed again. “Can’t say too much, old spot. Peter Horn’s here, talking to Mom, playing with Lulu, drinking coffee. He’s been dropping in a lot the last few days.”

“I asked him to. Wanted to keep all the marauding Murphy’s Harbour bachelors away from your door.”

“They’re staying away in droves.”

“Well, that’s good. Everything’s going well here. Doug is free and clear. The case is all wrapped up. I’ll tell you about it when it’s not long distance.”

“I can’t wait. Drive carefully. I want you here in one big oversexed piece.”

“Be there around midnight, I’d say.”

“Fine. You can change your daughter when she wakes up atone.”

“Be glad to. Bye, love.”

“Tell Doug I’m glad it’s over. Bye, dear.”

She hung up and I did the same and paced slowly back to Maloney’s office. The chief’s car was still there so I sat in my own and cranked up the heater for a while. It eased the stiffness in my back and I was half dozing when the chief and Hinton came out with Grant walking between them. I got out of my car and stood there until Pat ducked away to have a quick word with me.

“I think Maloney’s going for an insanity plea. He let Grant ramble away without stopping. And when Grant said he didn’t want him to come to the station he said ‘Okay’ and sat down.”

“Grant say anything worth listening to?”

“Did he? Christ! I’ve never seen such a can of worms. He killed the girl because she got in the way when she heard what he wanted his son to do, which was to dig up the money for him. Then he took his son up the hill. The kid said he would squeal to us about Wendy Tate being killed so he knifed him.”

“Who killed Cindy Laver?”

“Jack did, and planted the money in Doug’s car.” Hinton glanced over to where the chief was letting Grant into the back seat of the car. “I’ve got to go.”

“Quick question. Just for my satisfaction. What’s Grant senior using for an excuse? Does he say he was avenging Cindy Laver, or what?”

“Pretty much.” The chief had got into the passenger side and was beckoning to Hinton who pulled himself away from me. “Sounds like a crock to me. I figure he did it because the kid wouldn’t stop gambling and was still involved with Manatelli. He came at you that night in the parking lot on Manatelli’s say-so.”

The chief waved again, this time angrily, and Hinton ran to the car. I watched them drive off and went upstairs to talk to Maloney.

He was sitting in his office with a Bible open in front of him. He looked old and sad. “Matthew 7:1. The King James Version,” he said, and I could see tears in his eyes. “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” He left his finger on the text as he spoke to me. “Ironic, isn’t it. I want to be a judge but I can never get that text out of my mind.”

“I guess it means we shouldn’t judge people by our own standards. The Indians put it differently. They say ‘Never judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his moccasins.’”

“It’s so hard to sympathize, you know,” he said. “Money was at the back of all of it. Cindy Laver? Killed out of greed. Jack Grant told his father that he felt so bad killing her he cleaned up the mess and laid her out on the bed. But he did it, nevertheless. For money. To settle a thirty-thousand-dollar gambling debt with Manatelli.”

“There weren’t any betting slips that big in his papers.”

“I know,” he said. “Paul and I had a long talk while we were waiting for the police to arrive. He told me he pulled out all the heavy betting slips before he let the police search the room. He wanted enough evidence that they would think Jack had a motive, but not enough to make anybody think that he himself had a reason for killing his son.”

“That doesn’t sound like a crazy man talking. Sounds like a businessman.”

“That’s what he is,” Maloney said. He closed the Bible and put it back into his desk drawer. “I’ll be pressed to make an insanity plea stick. He was clever enough to call on you when the police didn’t find the secret drawer. He thought you’d be more thorough than they were.”

“It’s a tangle,” I said.

“It’s untangled now. The chief took a call while he was here. They’ve arrested Ms. Corelli at the bank. She put the transaction through and was heading out to her car when they picked her up.”

“So it’s all wrapped up,” I said. “Doug’s free and clear. The bank’s safe. There’s a warrant out for Manatelli and Grant’s inside. Time for me to go home.”

He stood up and thrust out his hand. “Thank you for coming here. Without you, this would have gone very differently.”

“Maybe.” I shook hands with him. “I think you’ve got a pretty good department here. A guy like Pat Hinton wouldn’t have let things rest. Especially after the bank folded. That would have got everybody reopening the case. They’d have cleared Doug.”

“That would have been after the fact of the bank collapse. This way is much better, for the town, for everyone.” He came around the desk to pat me on the shoulder and walk me to the outer door. He was a good man, courteous, compassionate. I hoped he made it to judge.

I went back to the station house to turn in my badge and gun and talk to Doug Ford. The chief was still busy with Grant but Doug was free. He seemed flat, overwhelmed by the pace of things, I guessed, but he got us a couple of coffees and we went into the detective office.

“There’s a new development,” he said soberly.

“If you mean the bank, I heard, from Maloney.”

“Yeah, that too,” he said. “More than that. This was a flash from New York.”

“They’ve picked up Manatelli?”

“They picked up a stiff, from the first-class lounge at Kennedy. Middle-aged Latin-looking businessman. Keeled over while he was waiting for the flight to the Caymans.”

“Manatelli?”

“That wasn’t the name on his ticket and passport. But the cop was sharp. He dug through the guy’s pockets and came up with his real passport. Manatelli. He just happened to stop in for a coffee. Just happened to drop dead. Waddya make of it?”

“I don’t believe in divine justice. Sounds to me like there’s a leak in the New York police organization and our friend Mucci got wind of what’s been happening.”

Doug pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Not their trademark, is it? Bullet in the head is more their speed.”

“That’s the old way. They’re in a lot of legitimate business now. Bloodstains are messy. They could have dropped something in his drink.” I shrugged. “He’s just as dead.”

We sat down and looked at one another, but without focusing, the thousand-meter stare of combat fatigue. Doug spoke first. “That makes five killings.”

“You’re not feeling sad about Manatelli?”