Stuart Kaminsky - Dead of Winter

Louisa Cormier offered Aiden and Mac no coffee this time. She was not sullen, surly, or impolite. In fact she was cooperative and gracious, but coffee and charm were clearly not on her agenda today for the CSI duo that came bearing a search warrant.

She let them into the apartment looking a bit frayed, tired and red-eyed wearing a loose-fitting flowered dress.

"Please wait," she said once they were inside.

Mac and Aiden were under no obligation to wait for her to finish the call she made to her lawyer from the wireless phone on a delicately inlaid table just inside the doorway, but they did so anyway.

"Yes," Louisa Cormier said into the phone, her eyes avoiding the investigators. "I have it in my hand."

She looked down at the search warrant.

"Shall I read it to you?… All right. Please hurry."

Louisa hung up the phone. "Why are you here?" she asked. "I understand someone has confessed to killing Mr. Lutnikov."

"We don't believe him," said Mac. "His name is Jordan Breeze. You know him?"

"Slightly. My attorney will be here in fifteen minutes," she said. "I must ask you to put everything back just as you find it."

Mac nodded.

"I plan to watch," Louisa said. "Front-line research for my next book."

"You finished your latest?" asked Mac politely.

Louisa smiled and said, "Almost."

Aiden and Mac stood silently for a moment, waiting for her to continue. Louisa put a hand to her forehead and said, "It may be my last, at least for a while. As you can see, it has taken a great deal out of me. May I ask what you're looking for? I might be able to save you some time and keep my carpets clean and my privacy intact."

"Among other things, a.22 caliber pistol," said Mac. "Not the one you showed us yesterday. And a bolt cutter."

"A bolt cutter?" she asked.

"The lock on the box at the firing range where you keep a pistol was cut, probably some time yesterday."

"And the gun from the box is missing?" she asked, her eyes meeting his.

"No," said Mac.

"I'm afraid you'll have to look," Louisa said. "You won't find anything. I should take notes about how it feels to be a murder suspect. I am obviously a prime suspect aren't I?"

"Looks that way," said Mac.

"A prime suspect without motive," she added.

Neither Mac nor Aiden responded. They put on their disposable gloves and began with the entryway in which they were standing.

"They were going to kill me," Big Stevie said to Jake the Jockey.

Stevie was sitting on the sofa, sunk deep, leg hurting, thinking not about his birthday or the pain in his leg but the betrayal by Dario Marco. That's all it could be, the only explanation. Stevie was a liability. He knew what had happened to Alberta Spanio. Marco couldn't take a chance on Stevie's being picked up and talking, so he had set him up at the apartment in Brooklyn.

Stevie wouldn't have talked. He had little besides a small apartment, a job driving a bakery truck, some favorite shows on television, a bar he sort of liked hanging around in, Lilly and her mother across the hall, and Marco. Until yesterday that had been enough to make him content.

"Want some coffee, a drink, something?" asked the Jockey, himself sitting at the table in the studio apartment.

"No, thanks," said Stevie.

Stevie and the Jockey had done jobs together, mostly for the Marco family. The Jockey did most of the talking when they were together, not that he was one of those can't-stop talkers, but compared to Stevie he was Leno or Letterman.

"What're you gonna do?" asked the Jockey.

Stevie didn't want to think about his options, but he forced himself. He could gather whatever money he could, which was not all that much, maybe twenty-thousand or so if he could get it out of the bank after checking to be sure it wasn't being watched by the police. He could turn himself in, testify against Anthony and Dario Marco, maybe duck the murder charge, go into witness protection. What did he owe them now? He had given them total loyalty and they had tried to kill him.

No, even if he got a good lawyer and made a good deal, he would have to do some time. He had strangled a cop. No getting around that. Stevie was seventy-one years old plus a few hours. He'd die of old age in prison if the Marcos didn't get to him first.

Stevie could more than hold his own now, but in a few years maybe, he wouldn't be fast enough to stop a prison shank from being plunged into his back. Maybe, if he was lucky, he'd be isolated from the population, live and die in a cell.

No, there was really only one thing he could do. He could kill Dario Marco. Killing Dario had no reward other than making things even. He probably should have killed the two who had tried to trap him in the doorway of Lynn Contranos's apartment building. Maybe he did kill one of them, the one he had punched in the stomach. Maybe he was off somewhere or in a hospital dying of internal bleeding. He had broken the nose of the second guy. Stevie seemed to remember his name was Jerry. Stevie had taken the gun from Jerry and thrown it away. Maybe he should have kept it, but Stevie had never liked guns. Maybe he should also kill this Lynn Contranos. When he put it all together, there really weren't many options other than to be the last man standing.

There was a knock at the door. The Jockey stood up suddenly, looked at Stevie, looked at the door.

"Who's it?" asked Jake.

"Police."

Not many choices of places to hide. The closet or the bathroom. The Jockey pointed to the bathroom. Stevie got up. Jake whispered, "Get behind the door. Don't close it. Flush the toilet."

Stevie struggled out of the deep chair and limped toward the bathroom while Jake went to the door. He glanced behind him as he moved, checking the floor for telltale drops of blood. There were none he could see.

Stevie flushed the toilet and stood behind the open door.

"I'm opening," the Jockey said, looking back to see that Stevie was inside the bathroom.

He unzipped his pants and opened the door. Jake zipped his pants back up. The cop was alone, plain clothes, leather coat.

"Jacob Laudano?" asked the cop.

"Lloyd," the Jockey replied. "Jake Lloyd. Had it changed legal."

"Can I come in?"

Jake shrugged and said, "Sure, I got nothing to hide."

He stepped back and Don Flack entered the small apartment. One of the first things he looked at was the partially open door of the bathroom.

There were eighteen employees at Marco's Bakery in Castle Hill. They were all at work except for Steven Guista.

Stella had a list of names which she checked off as each man and woman came into the office supply room where the CSI investigators had set up.

By the time they had talked to and gotten DNA and fingerprint samples from the first nine, it was clear that every employee was either an ex-con or some kind of relation of the Marco family, or both.

Jerry Carmody was number ten. He was big, broad, about forty, going to fat, and wearing a bandage on his nose. His eyes were red and swollen.

"What happened to your nose?" Stella asked after Danny had taken a throat culture from the man.

"Accident, fell," he said.

"Fell hard," she said. "Mind if I take a look?"

"Went to the doctor this morning," said Carmody. "He set it. It's been broke before."

"You're lucky the bone didn't get driven back into your brain," Stella said. "You were hit hard."

"Like I said. I fell hard," Carmody said.

"You in Brooklyn last night?" she asked.

Carmody looked around at Danny and the uniformed cop who had brought him into the supply room.

"I live in Brooklyn," Carmody said.

"Know a Lynn Contranos?"

"No."

"We'll need some of your blood," said Stella with a cough.