The Guilty: (P.I. Jack Marconi No. 3) Read online

  “He sells drugs.”

  “Not really.”

  “He still works the other side of the tracks, even if indirectly.”

  I downed my shot.

  “Can we talk about the real reason we’re here?” I said. “We don’t have much time. If Junior took Sarah, and we can only assume he’s the one who did it, then she could already be dead or fast on her way to getting there.”

  He downed his shot and poured another. And another for me.

  “One very big problem,” he said. “We have no fucking clue in the world where he could have taken her. Again, assuming he did the taking in the first place.”

  “Why don’t you put every man you’ve got on finding Sarah? But first maybe it’s a good idea to pull Junior and Senior in. Make them open up for once. Damn their benevolence and generosity.”

  He nodded. It was the kind of nod that said he’s working on it, but not getting very far.

  I said, “You find anything at the house that might give you cause to bring one or both of them in?”

  He looked at me hard.

  “Right backatcha,” he said. “You find anything inside Junior’s computer that might cause me to cut to the chase and bring him in right now? You might have shared the laptop password with us. Being as we’re the cops and all.”

  I thought about the zip drive that contained all the information from Junior’s hard-drive. Photos, videos, and who the hell knew what else. I knew that if Harold Sanders had been right about his future son-in-law, his home surveillance video would be on there too and that it might actually reveal what happened on the night of February 18th, frame by frame. A day ago, I might have sat down with Miller and looked at the C-drive information together. But now that they were pinning me with Daphne’s murder, or at least making me the number one suspect, or should I say patsy, I needed all the leverage I could muster. That zip drive would prove to be some very heavy leverage if it assured without a doubt that Junior attacked Sarah Levy and nearly killed her. The only problem was, I wasn’t presently in possession of my clothing. And I’d stored the zip drive inside my interior blazer pocket. I could only hope that it hadn’t been snatched up by some overly curious cop.

  “I have no idea,” I said, in answer to Miller’s zip-drive question. He looked at me as though I were lying, but then I was telling the truth. Just not the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So help me Christ.

  “To answer your question,” he said after a silent beat, “we tore Junior’s joint apart. We found that room in the basement where he made Sarah, and probably a couple dozen others, do things for him.” He drank his shot and set the cup back down. “But nothing that would lead me to believe he tried to kill her. The place is the home of a pervert. Maybe even a Satan loving, vampire-like pervert who’s recreating some stupid bestselling book. So what, Keeper? We live in a free country and Junior knows we can’t bust him for having that weird room and for what he decides to do inside it along with some consenting adults.”

  “So now Daphne’s dead,” I said. “That’s so fucking what. In my house of all places.” I did my shot and slapped the mug down onto his wood desk. “Christ Nick, the Davids are playing you like a broken fiddle. They’ve already tried to kill me on two occasions. They’ve killed Daphne while trying to set me up as the perp, and now they’ve taken Sarah and probably already killed her too. And you still can’t find cause to bring them in.”

  He rubbed the back of his muscular neck with his hand.

  “Listen, Keeper,” he said. “I’m gonna tell you something that goes only as far as my lips. You understand?”

  “Clock’s ticking, so let’s hear it.”

  “Robert David Sr. is a wealthy man. A very. Wealthy. Man. This city’s mayor considers him a man of outstanding character and moral aptitude. As you are already aware, he is the largest donor not only to the Neighborhood Watch Committee Association of Albany, but also to the Albany Police Department Benevolence Society. He also is personally responsible for putting eight new blue and whites on the streets just last year alone. You catching my thread here?”

  I felt my blood heating at what I was hearing. This wasn’t the first time I’d been informed of special treatment extended to someone who was a benevolent supporter of crime fighting in Albany. It certainly wouldn’t be the last. If the general public knew precisely how things worked in law enforcement and how the wheels of efficiency truly got oiled, they wouldn’t sleep nights. The greasing didn’t just start and stop on a local level either. Even in maximum security prison, there were cold-blooded killers who could demand special treatment simply because they had the money to pay off corrections officers. Usually, these killers had direct ties to the mob and enough influence and power on the outside to make a prison official’s teeth rattle with fear if they didn’t play along. Now I was facing the same thing again, only not with the mob, but with an organization that was perhaps even more dangerous precisely because it appeared to be an honest and legitimate organization: David Enterprises.

  “Who’s holding you back on this thing, Nick?” I said. “Who’s been pulling your strings from the start?”

  He unscrewed the cap on the Dewars and poured yet another, larger shot.

  “It’s not strings that are being pulled, Keep,” he said. “It’s more like a chain leash that’s wrapped around my neck and yanked every time I even come within spitting distance of either Junior or his father.”

  “There’s something you’re not telling me. Something that goes beyond some nice contributions and a few blue and whites.”

  He drank some more booze and exhaled. Coming around his desk, he went to the door and pulled down on the Venetian blind just enough to get a peek outside onto the precinct booking room floor. Then he snapped the aluminum blinds closed and quickly reassumed his position back behind his desk.

  “This goes no further,” he said. “But the very union myself and my support staff patronize, Local 2841 of Council 82—”

  “—my old union,” I jumped in.

  “Yes,” he nodded. “The very same. Fifty percent of the pool was invested in Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. The loss we took was monumental. Over fifteen million in cash just disappeared overnight.”

  “I’m a member of that same union,” I said. “I never heard word one about the loss.”

  “That’s because the fifteen million was replaced almost immediately and news of the transaction held in absolute check.”

  “It was replaced?” I said. “You don’t just locate another fifteen million bucks that easily.”

  “It was replaced,” he said. “But it wasn’t replaced for free.”

  That’s when the imaginary light bulb flicked on above my head.

  “The Davids,” I said.

  “You got it,” he said. “You just might say the Davids own half the APD and then some.”

  I felt the adrenalin filling my brain. It caused a slight internal buzzing noise.

  “Dear God in heaven,” I said. “But you still somehow managed the warrant for searching his house.”

  “Yeah, I got the warrant,” he said, “but the place was so clean you could have eaten soup off the floor.”

  “They knew you were coming,” I exhaled.

  “And then some. I’m surprised they’re not barking about our little computer robbery.”

  “You replaced it,” I said with a shake of my head. “I’m wondering if Junior even noticed it missing in the first place. Maybe he hasn’t even been home in the past week while he goes to great lengths trying to kill me, kill his present girlfriend and kill his old girlfriend. Home will probably be the last place you find him.”

  He nodded and drank once more.

  “Of course, I put the computer back,” he confirmed. “But I put it back with the promise that you’d share its information with me. Gotta tell you, Keep, I’m feeling more than a little double-crossed here.”

  “That’s before you arrested me,” I said. “Come on, who’s yanking the leash and al
lowing the Davids to run the city?”

  “The mayor,” he said. “And the county prosecutor.” Waving his hands in the air. “Other cops, for all I know.”

  “Jesus,” I said. “Double and triple whammy.”

  “Mayor Jennings and Prosecutor Waters are like a brother and sister in arms. You know that. They are the capital city of Albany. So even without some of my brothers and sisters in arms giving me evil glares when I pass by them in the hall, I am effectively powerless. That is, I want to keep my fucking job. My pension. Maybe even my life.”

  It was all beginning to make some sense. I pictured the vestibule walls of David Enterprises. Pictures of Robert Sr. with the tall, tanned, and thick black-haired mayor. Photos of David Sr. with the blonde, blue-eyed, and forever smiling and stunning county prosecutor.

  “Meanwhile, my shoulder has been shot through, I’m suspected of practically cutting a young woman’s head off, Sarah Levy is nowhere to be found, and I have a bad case of heartburn.”

  “The leash is buckled tight around my neck, Keeper,” Miller said. “It’s cutting into my skin. But I’m gonna continue to be honest with you. While you remain the number one suspect in the murder of Daphne Williams, I’ve just realized that I might have been hasty in my decision to arrest you. Now that I think about it, I just don’t have enough evidence on hand to detain you any longer.”

  He looked me in the eye without blinking. He was letting me go. Freeing me regardless of the evidence against me. It told me I was his one and only hope of not only getting Sarah back, but seeing the Davids come to justice.

  “I guess that means I’m going to get my clothes back now,” I said. Once more I thought about the zip drive. I prayed no one had found it yet.

  “Yes, you’re getting your clothes back,” he said. Then, setting both hands flat on his desk, he leaned into me. “The head of security at Valley View is a former APD cop, goes by the new moniker of James Slater.”

  “Why the name change?”

  “He had a rough time here at the department after he was caught in blow-job-for-leniency scheme.”

  I raised up my eyebrows.

  “He’d wait outside a bar for a drunk patron to get behind the wheel of his or her vehicle,” Miller went on. “He’d follow them for a while and when the opportunity presented itself, he’d pull them over. Offer them a deal they couldn’t refuse.”

  “His cock, their mouth. Women and men too, huh?”

  “Hey, this is Albany, don’t forget.”

  “As much as I try . . .”

  “Think you and your sidekick can put enough pressure on this S.O.B. for him to give up what he knows? Short of cutting his over-used cock off?”

  “What about this mess with Daphne’s head in my bed?”

  “I’m happy to see it all go away. After all, we both know you aren’t capable of such a heinous crime.” His tone verged on sarcastic. But I knew that he knew that there was no way in hell I killed her.

  “And if I can’t make the happy former cop-speak?”

  He smiled.

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I’m acting under direct orders from Mayer Jennings. They want you in lockup. No bail. I can keep the heat off you, but for no more than a few hours. I need you to find Sarah now. Dead or alive. I can’t guarantee it, but it’s possible I can arrange for some backup. Maybe a couple of cruisers.”

  I stood up.

  “No cops. Not yet. Not with what I know about the Davids’ financing half the cop pensions. Junior sniffs something like that out, he’ll kill Sarah and make a run for the border. I’m begging you to leave it up to Blood and me to find her and bring her back alive.”

  He bit down on his lip. I knew he didn’t like the fact that I was going after her when I was a major suspect in a brutal murder case. But I also knew that what he didn’t like more was my going after her and not his own APD. I also sensed he knew that I was right. If he were to organize a posse to go after Sarah, there was a good chance there’d be a leak, and Junior would get wind of it and run. Miller just couldn’t risk that at this point. We both knew that in the end, I was the only jerk who could possibly go after her.

  “Keeper,” he added. “If Sarah’s alive, I want her brought back safely, and I want her to talk.”

  “What if she is alive, and what if she points the fingers at the Davids, your benefactors?”

  “So be it.”

  “It will mean the end of your career in Albany. Maybe without a pension.”

  He cocked his head over his left shoulder.

  “Been thinking about starting up my own landscaping business. Be my own boss.”

  “No more leashes. Give that neck of yours a break.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Where are my clothes?”

  “Let’s go find them,” he said, and together we made our way out of his office.

  54

  SOON AS I EXITED the precinct building, I checked the Ziploc plastic baggy that contained my personal effects for the zip drive. It was still there, lodged behind my wallet. Then, exhaling a sigh of profound relief, I pulled out my cell, called Blood, asked him to pick me up. He arrived a few minutes later in my 4Runner. As I got in, he tossed a couple of sheets of paper in my lap. The paper consisted of computer printouts of the local Albany Times Union. By the looks of it, Ted Bolous’s updated blog about the Davids.

  “Check that shit out,” Blood said, pulling away from the curb. “You getting famous.”

  The food critic’s blog started out by reporting about David Enterprise’s most generous donation of one million dollars to the Albany Food Pantry just yesterday afternoon. An unprecedented amount that would keep Albany’s bums, junkies and drunks in soup and bread for ten years or more. There was a picture of both the old man and Junior standing beside Mayor Jennings outside the brick walls of the Albany Shelter, a red, white and blue neon sign shaped like a Christian cross illuminated above them, the words “Jesus Loves You” embossed into its crossbeam. In my mind, it contrasted well with the portrait of the red Satan on his basement ceiling.

  The Davids and the mayor were each wearing lightweight summertime suits and they were smiling confidently as if Jesus really was on their side of the law. I knew that during the time the photo shoot was taking place, Junior’s house was being raided by the cops and Daphne Williams was begging for what remained of her short happy life. Or who knows, maybe she was dead already, the knife having severed most of her neck and that Satan-like serpent along with it.

  As if reading my mind, Bolous’s blog then went on to say that in related news, the murdered corpse of Manny’s Restaurant employee, Daphne Williams, was discovered inside the bedroom of an apartment belonging to local private detective, Jack “Keeper” Marconi, on early Sunday morning. It said that I’d been hired by Sarah Levy’s father to investigate the truth behind the incident that occurred on February 18th at Robert David Jr.’s Albany home. It also said that Sarah Levy had recently checked out of the facility and that at the same time, I’d been arrested as the number-one suspect in Daphne Williams’s murder and hauled into the APD for questioning.

  I took a glance at some of the comments left behind, the first one of which said, “Could be that Marconi has stepped into a hornet’s nest.” Another said, “Leave the Davids alone. They are very generous to Albany and Albany loves them.” Another, “Marconi ought to watch his back. The Davids can make his life a living hell if they want. They have the money and the power.” And yet another, “Why would Sarah Levy be checked out from Sunny View Rehabilitation if she was still under their care for serious brain injuries? Sounds like she was forcibly removed. Perhaps by someone who doesn’t wish for her to recover. Because, after all, her recovery will mean that she can remember everything that happened to her on that cold night back in February. And when that happens, all stiff little fingers will point to Robert David Jr.” The last comment was signed, “Anonymous.” I could only wonder the true identity behind “Anonymous.” Maybe Harold
Sanders himself. Maybe Michael Levy.

  I set the papers down and winced from the pain in my shoulder. I filled Blood in on our timeline and what would be our little unannounced come-to-Jesus with fallen APD blue angel, James Slater. But first I wanted him to take us to his place to change my bandages and to grab up some weaponry now that the APD was holding onto my .45. There was a lot of work to do in a very small amount of time. I couldn’t afford to waste even another second. Neither could Sarah Levy.

  55

  s

  BLOOD LIVED DOWN THE road from me on Sherman Street in a nondescript brick townhouse which he owned outright. He lived alone on the first floor while he rented the second floor to a single mother of two pre-adolescent boys. While he never said a word about it, I suspected he gave her the place for free or close to it, while I often found him playing stickball in the street with the two boys, or carting them off to their charter school or Pop Warner football practice. I even sometimes caught him carrying in plastic sacks of groceries. Blood might have been born of the streets and a survivor with the scars to show for it, but he was also a soft touch.

  Once inside his apartment, he escorted me to the bathroom where he changed my bandage and gave me four Advil for the pain, which I swallowed along with a cold glass of tap water. With my shirt off, we then went into his kitchen where he made coffee while I logged onto his computer and made a Google search of “David Enterprises” along with “Albany Mayor Jennings” and “Prosecutor Waters.” Instead of searching for articles, I cut to the chase, searching instead for images. When I clicked on Search, I was faced not with a few photos, but literally dozens.

  The images were all different versions of the same theme. Robert David Sr. standing outside some new building alongside Mayer Jennings, a pair of scissors in the Mayor’s hand positioned to cut a yellow ribbon that would signal the facility’s grand opening. Both Davids standing beside Prosecutor Waters at a fundraiser for the Albany Boy’s Club, the prosecutor looking ravishing in her black mini-dress and perfect shoulder-length blonde hair and, of course, that whiter-than-white Pepsodent smile. The photo-ops seemed never ending.