Wicked Ways: Death at the DuMond (A Cozy Witch Mystery Book 1) (13 page)

I slipped and snaked through the crowd. The meatheads were gaining on me, bowling over pedestrians. I blurred past a newsstand and pulled over a magazine rack. It toppled to the ground. The meatheads hurdled it without slowing down.

 My lungs burned and my legs turned to mush. These guys were faster than I anticipated. My heart pounded. I was dripping sweat. I wasn’t so sure about my theory of only having to out run them for a few hundred yards.  I couldn’t make it much farther. With no sleep the night before, my body was passed the point of exhaustion.

I wanted to look back, but I knew it would be a bad idea. That little bit of diverted energy would slow me down.  I kept sprinting as fast as I could. But then I had to do it. I looked back over my shoulder. 

One of the meatheads was so close, he reached out his arm to grab me.

CHAPTER 20

BIG, THICK HANDS swiped at my collar. The dark haired man was almost on top of me. An old lady on the sidewalk stuck out her cane, tripping the six foot five slab of muscle. His face smacked the concrete. I’m sure he broke a tooth. His lips were drizzled with blood.

The blonde-haired idiot behind him tripped over the dark-haired man’s body. Grunts and groans filled the air. The two meatheads behind them added to the mound of muscle on the concrete.  It was like a massive pileup on a freeway. 

A city bus at the corner was starting to pull away. I dashed toward it and leapt through the doors just before they swung shut. The bus pulled away from the curb. I looked out the window at the meatheads picking themselves up off the ground. They brushed themselves off. The dark-haired man wiped away the blood from his mouth with his sleeve. His eyes blazed into me. 

I waved and smiled.

He shouted something, but I couldn’t hear.

“The fare, ma’am,” the bus driver said.

“Excuse me?” I asked, standing on the steps, holding on to the chrome railing.

“Everybody’s got to pay the fare,” the driver said. 

I dug into my pockets, but I didn’t have any money. After paying for the two skipped tabs, I was broke.

The driver pulled to the curb at the next block. The air brakes hissed. The doors creaked open. “No fare, no ride,” the driver said.

“But, this is an emergency.”

“Then have your emergency somewhere else. Now get off my bus.”

Through the bus’s warbled window tint, I could see the meatheads trying to cross the street a block over.

I flew down the steps to the sidewalk. At least I had a block head start this time. I ran hard, but my legs were rubber. I plunged down the subway steps and hopped the turnstile. I dashed onto the platform, peeling through a mass of people, then squeezed onto the train. The doors closed as I saw the meatheads sprint onto the platform. I waved at them again.

A transit cop tapped me on the shoulder. He smiled and said, “You’re under arrest, young lady.” Then he slapped the cuffs on me. The cold, hard  metal ratcheted around my wrists. 

“But I didn’t do anything.”

“Theft of service,” he said. “You jumped a turnstile. Violation of Penal Code section 165.15, a Class A misdemeanor. Punishable by up to one year in prison.”

I swallowed hard. “You’re not serious?”

“As a heart attack, ma’am.”

“So, you’re taking me to jail?”

“You’ll be taken back to the precinct, fingerprinted, and held in custody. If this is your first offense, you’ll be given a Desk Appearance Ticket. If this isn’t you’re first offense, you’ll be taken down to central booking with the rest of the lowlifes.” He grinned. 

I got the distinct feeling he enjoyed this whole process. 

The precinct was grimy. Busy with cops coming and going. Telephones ringing, keyboards clacking, prisoners shouting. I sat in a four by eight foot holding cell for hours. Once white walls were now dingy and peeling, revealing a yellowish-green underneath. If this was supposed to be nice, I’d hate to see central booking.

It was freezing in the cell, and I shivered constantly. The small space and sensory deprivation were getting to me. If you weren’t crazy when they put you in here, you would be by the time you left. The cell had the faint scent of bleach that tried to mask the stronger scent of vomit and urine. The cell door looked like a giant cheese grater. Through the holes in the crosshatched pattern I could see into the hallway. An officers creed was painted on the wall titled:
Core Values
.

The creed was a commitment to duty and honor, respect and dignity, right and wrong, and fairness to all. The department had recently come under fire for prison abuses. According to an article in the
New Gotham Times
, several officers were indicted for beating inmates and making false arrests. We had discussed the incident in my
Ethics in Criminal Justice
class.

Both the wall and the creed had been freshly painted. It stuck out like a sore thumb against the rest of the gritty facility. Clearly a response to the negative media attention. As if a creed on the wall was going to stop an officer from beating a mouthy inmate. But it was a good reminder for me not to get mouthy. I like to think that I have perfected the art of being a smart-ass, but that wasn’t going to go over well here. 

“Hey kid, what are you in for?” a voice asked. The question came from a man in the next cell. Years of whisky and cigarettes gave his voice a smooth thick texture, like a lounge singer.

I hesitated to answer. Jumping a turnstile wasn’t going to give me any credibility in here. “Murder,” I said, trying to sound tough.

“You’re a little bit fluffy for a murderer, aren’t you?” the voice said.

“I’ll have you know I’m very dangerous.”

“I’m shaking,” he said. “How many people have you killed? Allegedly speaking, of course.”

“I lost count after a hundred.”

“Oh, a mass murderer. Impressive.”

“What are you in for?” I asked.

“Cop says my dog pooped on the sidewalk. Cop says I didn’t clean it up.” Then he added, “I don’t have a dog.”

“Does the truth ever come out of your mouth, Mr. Falco?” another voice said. I peered through the cheese grater and saw Detective Gibbs standing in front of Falco’s cell.

“You’ve got nothing on me, Detective Gibbs,” Falco said.

“I’ve got a dead Giovanni capo and someone who will testify that you ordered the hit,” Gibbs said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I run a pizza parlor,” Falco said.

“You run at least a dozen businesses that we know about. And I use the term lightly. All fronts for organized crime. Your trucking company, your construction company, even your art gallery.”

“Prove it,” Falco said, confidently.

“I will,” said Gibbs. “And this city will be safer for it.”

“You give me far too much credit, Detective Gibbs.”

“Kids don’t steal from candy stores without your approval, Falco. And you know it.”

My body started to shake. I was in the cell next to Lou Falco. The head of the most powerful crime family. Rumor is that he put a hit out on his own mother. 

“Detective Gibbs?” my voice creaked. 

Gibbs tilted his head and looked confused. He peered through the grated door and frowned when he saw me. “What did you do?”

“Nothing, really,” I stammered.

“Don’t tell him anything, kid,” Falco said.

“Zip it, Falco,” Gibbs snapped.

“I jumped a turnstile.”

Gibbs rolled his eyes and sighed.

“But I had a good reason,” I said.

Gibbs shook his head and walked off. I wasn’t sure if he was coming back. The cell walls seemed to close in around me.

“A ruthless killer, eh kid?”

“I may have exaggerated a little, Mr. Falco.”

“Please, call me Lou,” he said. “What’s your name?”

My mouth was a desert. I could barely scratch out a sound. “Uh…”

“I don’t bite,” Falco said.

“Hannah,” I stammered. 

“That’s a pretty name. Nice to meet you, Hannah.”

“It’s nice to meet you too, Mr. Falco… I mean, Lou.”

Gibbs returned a few moments later with a guard, and I was released.

“Stay out of trouble now, Hannah,” Falco shouted as I was escorted from the holding area.

“How do you know that clown?” Gibbs asked.

“I don’t.”

“I turn around and you’ve got ties to organized crime,” Gibbs said, shaking his head.

Gibbs drove me back to the DuMond, and I explained to him everything that happened. 

“You need to stop poking around this case. Seems like you’re starting to stir up the hornet’s nest,” Gibbs said. 

“That just tells me I’m getting closer to the truth,” I said.

“The truth is Jake killed the old lady. That’s what the evidence says.”

“I don’t think you believe that any more than I do.”

“I don’t think you understand how dangerous these people are. There’s a turf war going on between the Giovanni and the Falco crime family. That’s something you don’t want to get in the middle of.” 

“I get it,” I said.

“No, you don’t,” he said. His face grew sad. “These people killed my brother. He was a good cop. He was this close to taking the whole organization down.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Be smart. Don’t get involved in this.”

“But you want to take these guys down, don’t you?”

“More than anything,” he said, steely eyed.

“I can help.”

Gibbs chuckled. “So, what’s your current theory?”

“I don’t know what my theory is. But I know Otto is dealing in stolen art. Whether he’s importing it, or just connecting people with buyers, I don’t know. Whatever he’s doing, he’s doing it with the mob’s help.”

“That’s a bit of a stretch, don’t you think?” Gibbs said.

“You said yourself that Mr. Falco has an art gallery. Mrs. DuMond found out about Otto’s dealings and threatened him. She would, in essence, be threatening the mob.” 

“Now you think the mob whacked Mrs. DuMond, and framed Jake?”

“That’s one possibility.”  

“And you think those guys that chased you down today were mob guys?”

I shrugged. “Maybe.” 

“Weren’t you rambling on about poisoned cupcakes earlier? You’re all over the map.”

“I’m looking into every possible avenue. It’s called good detective work.”

Gibbs shook his head.

“I’ve got a sample of one of the cupcakes that Isabella ate,” I asked. “Can you run an analysis on it?”

 “I told you, she died of natural causes. Isabella’s toxicology report was clean. Mrs. DuMond's toxicology report was clean.” Gibbs said. “I can’t just go wasting department resources on a hunch that you have about some cupcakes.” 

“Maybe the poison is something that wouldn’t show up on the toxicology report?”

“Leave the science to the experts. If something was there, we’d have found it.” Gibbs  pulled the car up to the DuMond.

“I’m not giving up on this,” I said.

“You better start being a little more careful.”

 I hopped out of the car and marched inside. I wanted this day to be over. It was miserable. A shower and a warm bed sounded really good. When I reached my apartment, there was an envelope taped to the door. I tore it open and pulled out a note.  Random letters had been cut and pasted from a newspaper to form sentences. The note read:
Back off, or die.

CHAPTER 21

MY BODY TREMBLED with fear. This was hitting a little too close to home. But this didn’t seem like the type of letter of the mob would write. The mob wouldn’t write a letter at all. They’d have four goons chase you down in broad daylight. This was a letter written by an arts and crafts type person.

To cut each letter out, and glue it into place, took time. I mean, it wasn’t like they were typesetting a five hundred page novel. But time, none the less. Sure, the FBI could track a page from an inkjet printer back to the make and model. Determine what type of paper it was printed on, and maybe trace it back to the store that sold the paper. Then go through purchase receipts. But the FBI was far from getting involved in this. 

So, why not just print the letter out? Unless, of course, you didn’t have a computer and printer.

Mrs. Abbott didn’t have a computer. She had asked me on more than one occasion to print something out, look something up on the Internet, or order something online. I think that’s why she always made me cupcakes. But why would she make a death threat?

I may have my suspicions about poisoned cupcakes, but they were turning out to be dead ends. I suspected Mrs. Abbott was lying about her whereabouts the night of the murder. She and Zoe were corroborating each other’s alibis. But why?

I thought for a moment about the best way to handle this. I could leave the note back on Mrs. Abbott’s door and see how she would react. But what if she didn’t write the letter? She might have a heart attack thinking someone is trying to kill her.