David Ellis - The Hidden Man

CARLO BUTCHER SATpassively in the kitchen, his three children-Marisa, Jake, and Tommy-having joined him and Smith for a late dinner. Nobody was eating. Marisa, though in her mid-fifties, still reminded Smith of a child. She’d done quite well for her mental impairments; she’d kept a home of her own-even if it was next door to Carlo’s-and she’d done a fine job of raising her only daughter, Patricia. Still, Carlo had propped her up her entire life, financially, emotionally, in every way, and she was leaning heavily on him now. But there was only so much Carlo could do. This wasn’t a problem that could be solved with money or influence. Marisa’s daughter, Carlo’s granddaughter, was sick. Marisa spent every visiting hour at the hospital, as did Carlo, helpless, each of them, as Patricia slowly declined.

Carlo looked terrible. Smith had been around when Carlo’s wife had passed away, but it was nothing compared to watching Carlo suffer along with his daughter and granddaughter. Carlo had waged war his entire life, from the city’s northwest side, as a white kid in a predominantly black public school, through a brief run in the Capparelli family before he started into the construction trade at the lowest level, working as a laborer and later a foreman, finally taking a chance and building from scratch a construction company of his own, Butcher Construction, turning it into a multimillion-dollar enterprise.

He’d made compromises at every level, payoffs and side deals for preferential treatment in contracting, political contributions, and off-the-books cash payments, but Smith had always found Carlo well-grounded by his family. He was a man of substantial means at this stage, in his mid-seventies, but he never left this rather modest home, where he’d lived with his wife. He drove a simple car, wore simple clothes, rarely took vacation or time off, except to spend with his daughter and granddaughter. He’d worked hard to save for the time when he was no longer around for Marisa and Patricia, stowing away millions in long-term securities and investing heavily in life insurance.

Tommy pushed himself away from the table first, leaving the chicken and rice virtually untouched. He walked down the hall to Carlo’s office, where he and Smith would break the news of today’s events to Carlo. Carlo would not take it well. He’d always been hard on Tommy, the oldest of the three kids and not saddled with developmental disability, and Tommy had not always lived up to his father’s standards. There had been the two scrapes with the law, meeting with Carlo’s disapproval more for their stupidity than their illegality.

But today-today was a disaster. It had been Tommy’s responsibility, visiting the scene of Griffin Perlini’s murder, walking the neighborhood, settling on Downey’s Pub as the anchor of his story. In fairness, Smith thought, how could Tommy have known that Downey’s had had its liquor license pulled during the month of September 2006? But these distinctions would be lost on Carlo, in his distracted, even panicked state. Tommy would endure his father’s wrath.

“Jake, stay with your sister,” Carlo said. Jake was the outcast in many senses. He hadn’t joined the family business. He’d done quite well in real estate development and often partnered with his family’s construction company, but he’d largely kept his distance. He was different. He was his mother’s child. He hadn’t been involved in any of the seamier tactics necessary to run a construction company relying on public-works contracts, nor had he been involved in the most recent family project, other than vouching for Tommy.

Smith followed Carlo, moving gingerly, into Carlo’s office. Smith closed the door behind him. Tommy was already seated, his leg crossed, his foot wagging nervously. Smith, as was his usual practice with Carlo, got right to the matter of delivering the bad news. Carlo liked hearing bad news like he wanted to remove a bandage, as quickly as possible.

“Unbelievable,” Carlo said, shaking his head slowly. It was more unnerving to witness a calm reaction from Carlo than to watch one of his patented eruptions. “This lawyer is good?”

It was a question he’d asked before, but he was certainly entitled to the comfort of repetition. “That seems to be the case,” Smith said.

“Seems like he knows what he’s doing,” said Tommy cautiously, still reticent over his screw-up.

“He believes that his brother will die if he doesn’t deliver?”

“Yes,” Smith said.

Carlo poised his hands with a slight tremble, owing to his advancing age, perhaps, but Smith thought otherwise. “I don’t-I don’t know what to do. I don’t.”

Smith had never heard anything of the kind from Carlo. Carlo hadn’t always made the right call, but decisiveness had never been a problem.

“What about Jimmy DePrizio’s boy?” Carlo asked.

“Denny?”

“Right. Denny got any bright ideas?”

“Not recently.” Smith shrugged. “I’ll check in with him. He’s supposed to be keeping an eye on Kolarich.”

Carlo nodded, then sunk into a thought. “What if we kill the brother?” he asked. “Tell the lawyer he’s next, if he doesn’t deliver?”

Smith inclined his head. “I don’t know, Boss. Jason Kolarich is hard to predict. But I think it wouldn’t help.”

“ You think.” Carlo focused on Smith. “How we doin’ so far, on what you think?”

Smith didn’t answer. There was no winning this argument. Carlo ran his hands over his bare forehead. He was showing his age, for the first time, his movements more tentative, the tremble in his hands.

“Maybe-maybe this is comeback,” Carlo said. “For past wrongs.” He dismissed the two men with a wave.

Smith and Tommy left the office. I don’t know what to do , Carlo had said. But Smith thought otherwise. He thought that Carlo was beginning to warm to a decision that would affect all of them.

HE WENT to the construction site, then to St. Agnes Hospital to visit someone, then to his father Carlo’s home,” said Joel Lightner.

I was driving, talking to Joel with my earpiece. I was done making phone calls to the eyewitnesses placing Sammy Cutler at the scene of the crime. I was going to make a personal visit.

“Why so suspicious of this guy, Jason? Wasn’t he your witness?”

I probably should have figured on Tommy Butcher earlier on. A guy shows up a year after a murder and remembers something? I guess I wanted his testimony to be true so badly that I let myself believe the unbelievable.

“Smith knew all kinds of detail about the hearing involving Butcher’s testimony,” I explained. “But the county Web site didn’t provide any details. And the guy Smith put up-Sanders-didn’t know about it at all. So the only way Smith could have known was from Butcher himself. That, and his obvious lie about being at that bar on the night of the murder.”

“You think he’s the killer?”

“My gut would be no, though I don’t know what a child killer looks like. But I’m going to find out.”

“And how are you going to do that?”

“Powers of persuasion, Mr. Lightner. Keep an eye on Mr. Butcher, would you?”

“I will. Hey, what’s cooking with Jimmy Stewart?”

“That’s Jim , my friend. It’s going fine, I think. Just trying to rattle the cage.”

“Jimmy’s good for that,” said Joel. “I’ll say that much.”

“ KOLARICH ISN’T TALKING to me.” Denny DePrizio ripped a piece of bread from the loaf and dipped it into a plate of olive oil.

“Then talk to him ,” Smith said. “Make sure his priorities are straight.”