David Ellis - The Hidden Man

“Tell me about the plea bargain,” said Smith.

“Eight years.”

“Oh, no-”

“With good time, out in four, and he’s already served-”

“No. No, absolutely not. You can’t do that, Kolarich. You can’t do that!”

He was on the verge of panic. I didn’t understand.

“Why the hell do you care how long he serves, if it’s okay with him?” I tried to process this information, as I tried to control my frustration. “What’s the diff-”

“An acquittal,” said Smith. “ Acquittal . Do I need to spell that word for you? You cut a deal with the prosecution, Jason, and your brother will be dead five minutes later.”

They want Sammy to win this case, and win it now .

“And if I don’t hear, in the next few hours, that you’ve found a way to clear DePrizio of that charge, your brother won’t be right-handed any more.”

The phone line cut out. I coaxed the accelerator, weaving through traffic as my car picked up speed, on my way to my office, until I saw an endless row of brake lights. Something up ahead, an accident or construction, had brought traffic to a standstill.

HE WON’T DO IT. Kolarich won’t save DePrizio’s ass.” Carlo Butcher stood in his bathrobe, a cup of morning coffee in his hand, looking out his back window at the half-acre in his backyard. “If he did, he wouldn’t do it in a way that we could trust.”

“We have his brother,” said Smith. He’d called Kolarich only moments ago from his car and had now arrived at Carlo’s house to inform him of recent developments.

Carlo turned momentarily, gave Smith a look of disgust, before looking back out the window. “You keep telling me, ‘We have his brother.’ Look how much that’s gotten us. He’s shoving this thing right up our ass.”

It was true. Smith, himself, was beginning to doubt the plan. The only thing he could think of was to make Kolarich recant his accusations, find some way to conjure up an innocent explanation for the handing over of the briefcase to DePrizio. But Carlo was right. Kolarich wouldn’t do it, at least not in a way satisfactory to them.

He wondered about Carlo. He, ultimately, was calling the shots and had always willingly done so. Now, he was being quiet, keeping his decisions to himself.

“Y’know, Jimmy DePrizio and I-Jimmy was like a kid brother. He used to follow me around when I did my rounds. I’d let him hold my money for me. Christ, he’d guard it like it was Fort Knox, that kid.”

“I remember Jimmy,” Smith said. Denny DePrizio’s father had died five years ago.

“His boy, Denny-you got any special feelings about him?”

Carlo looked back at Smith. Smith made an equivocal face-the reaction, Smith knew, that Carlo wanted. He’d already made the decision, and Smith wasn’t going to get in the way.

Carlo’s eyes broke from Smith’s, and then he slowly nodded. “Okay, then.” He looked back into Smith’s eyes, and that was it.

It wasn’t the first time that losses had to be cut, and in this instance, it was the only decision Carlo could make. DePrizio was an even larger threat to them now than Kolarich. DePrizio could take down everyone-not just Carlo but Tommy and Smith, and the other men whom Butcher had borrowed from the Capparelli family for this venture.

“This lawyer,” said Carlo, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his bathrobe. “He’s getting close.” He looked back at Smith again. “Isn’t he?”

“We don’t know that, Carlo. This could still work.” Smith wanted to believe it as much as he wanted Carlo to believe it. But he knew there was plenty of reason to doubt it now, and he could see the same opinion washed across Carlo’s face.

Carlo drank the last coffee from his cup. “Well, all right, then.” He looked at Smith. “I had a pretty good run.”

“Carlo-”

Carlo put a hand on Smith’s shoulder. “Always do right by your family.” He raised his index finger. “Most important thing. Only thing, at the end.” Carlo moved past Smith into the living room, where he settled into a chair with a groan.

“Carlo,” Smith said, more gently.

Carlo shook his head, his way of indicating he wasn’t in the mood for debate. “What happened back then,” he said. “It was on me. Not you, not Tommy, not Jake, not Marisa. Me. Understand?”

Smith, in his near-panic condition, felt some relief with Carlo’s words. He was telling Smith, this wouldn’t blow back on him. Carlo wouldn’t let him take the fall.

“Carlo, this can still work,” Smith insisted. “Kolarich could win at trial. It could happen. Why not wait, at least? We take out DePrizio now, yes, agreed, his time has come, but not Kolarich-”

“And in the meantime?” said Carlo. “In the next couple of weeks before the trial even starts, this lawyer figures it out himself? Then what? Then it’s everybody. Everybody. This way,” he said, pointing to himself, “it’s only me. We do this on my terms. That’s the decision. Collect the garbage. DePrizio, the lawyer, and his brother.” He raised his eyebrows to Smith. “And that’s final. We clear?”

Smith paused, then nodded. “DePrizio, the lawyer, and his brother,” he confirmed.

“Start with the lawyer,” Carlo said. “And do it now.”

IT TOOK ME TWO HOURS, with the overturned truck on the highway, to get back downtown. When I returned to my office, I found a stack of papers on my chair, compiled neatly with binder clips and tabs. Shauna had performed admirably, going through the old files on Audrey Cutler’s case to find any information relating to Sammy’s father.

“Oh, hey.” Shauna popped her head into my office. “I gotta run to court. There’s a Social Security number there, and a little information on what Sammy’s dad was doing that night that Audrey was taken. Not much, I’m afraid. But the Social might help.”

“Thanks, Shauna. Really.” I leafed through everything briefly, still troubled by the conversation I’d just had with Smith. I was missing something. I knew it.

I called Joel Lightner. “Same story with Tommy Butcher,” he told me. “He goes home, he goes to his father Carlo’s house, the hospital, the job site-”

“That’s fine, Joel. Here, I have a Social Security number I need you to track down, okay?” I read it to him.

“I suppose you need this fast, like you need everything else fast.”

“Faster,” I said. I placed the papers down and separated them. I focused on a portion of the investigator’s notes that summarized an interview with Sammy’s father after Audrey’s abduction:

Mr. Cutler indicated that at the time of the incident, approx. 2:00 A.M., he was at McGilly’s Tavern, 2602 South Marks in Travis Heights. Mr. Cutler indicated he was at the tavern with Daniel Caldwell, Rick Eisler, and Rusty Norris. Mr. Cutler indicated that he was a union plumber who had recently completed work on the library addition at Mansbury College and that Caldwell, Eisler, and Norris were laborers with Emerson Construction Company, the general contractor on the project. Caldwell, Eisler, and Norris confirmed that Mr. Cutler was with them until approx. 3:00 A.M. at that establishment.

It took me a second before it took hold, the reference to Emerson Construction. When I was quizzing Tommy Butcher about his prior criminal history-the false bid application he’d filed-I hadn’t focused on the company for which he was working at the time. But Lester Mapp had mentioned it in his cross-examination of Butcher at the hearing. Butcher, back in 1982, had worked for Emerson Construction Company. I’d been so caught up in the possibility of losing that hearing that I hadn’t focused.

I recalled it, then, the celebration picnic held by the construction company following the successful completion of the Mansbury library project, which I had attended with Sammy’s family. It had been my last vivid memory of Audrey, scampering across the grassy park, holding the candy in her hands. Emerson M &M’s , we tried to get her to say, laughing when she couldn’t navigate the tongue-twister. Emoson-ems.