Joel Goldman - Motion to Kill

He called the number, tapping his fingers against the kitchen counter until she answered.

“Hi, it’s Lou.”

“I know who it is, you dope,” she said softly. “I recognized your number.”

Mason warmed at the sound of her voice. “What’s the latest?”

“You made CNN. Are you all right?”

He filled her in on the details of the shoot-out, answering her pointed and professional questions.

“Now it’s your turn,” he told her.

“I’ve still got some friends in the bureau’s Chicago office. They let me have a look at Vic Jr.’s file. He was busted in 1996, just like the computer records said.”

“Could you tie him to D’lessandro?”

“He was represented by Caravello and Landusky. That’s the same firm that represents D’lessandro and that signed off on the fixtures deals.”

“Seems like too much of a coincidence.”

“The FBI got involved because he was transporting across state lines.”

“Drugs or girls?”

“Both. And you don’t do that in Chicago without D’lessandro’s permission.”

“So, that’s it? There’s nothing else to tie Vic Jr. to the mob?”

“Maybe-not exactly-I don’t know for certain.”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

The line was lifeless for a moment, and then she answered, raising more questions.

“My partner, Nick, busted Vic Jr. I was off that weekend and he was working alone. He claimed that he got a tip, thought it might be a link to D’lessandro, and ended up with Junior.”

Her voice was heavy with sadness and uncertainty. Her partner-and dead lover-had arrested the son of Sullivan amp; Christenson’s biggest client. Then he ends up gut shot on a sidewalk in Kansas City, Junior disappears, and Mason becomes a moving target. No matter how he arranged these pieces, he couldn’t make them fit.

“Did D’lessandro make Nick dump the case against Vic Jr.?”

“I don’t know. But a week after the bust, McNamara took him off the case and reassigned it to himself.”

“Gene McNamara? St. John’s lapdog?”

“The same. I told you, we were all in Chicago at the same time.”

Sandra’s chaos theory was in full bloom, bumper cars in a major pileup.

“What about the bank accounts and passwords?”

“I’m still working on it. I’m on the Southwest flight that gets in at five fifty-five Sunday night. Will you pick me up?”

“No problem.”

“Lou, be careful. This isn’t over yet,” she said.

Mason got up before dawn, too wired to sleep. After a run and a shower, he decided it was a great top-down day and took the TR6 for a drive. He headed south, through the suburbs and into the country, following the same route he’d taken six days earlier to Harlan Christenson’s farm, shutting out everything except the sun and the breeze until he pulled into Harlan’s gravel drive.

Mason had missed Harlan’s funeral, so he’d come to the farm to pay his respects. Harlan was the one partner who had reached out to him, whose friendship seemed genuine. When he came to Mason for help, he still had a chance to find a way out, but Mason didn’t pay enough attention. Mason knew he’d carry that burden for a long time.

He left the car in the drive and went for a walk through the pasture that surrounded the farmhouse. The pond he and Harlan had fished in was a quarter of a mile away, surrounded by cottonwoods. There was a break in the trees at one end of the pond and a small dock that hung over the water. Mason found Harlan’s fishing rod lying on the dock. It wasn’t baited, but he cast the line into the water anyway.

At least three of the people connected to Harlan’s murder had been accounted for. Julio was dead, Jimmie Camaya was in the hospital, and Scott Daniels was somewhere over the rainbow. None of that meant that Harlan’s murder was solved. Whoever had given the order, whoever had set Vic Jr., Scott, and Harlan up in a money-laundering scam, whoever had ordered Mason’s death-was still in business.

Camaya was the best bet to nail Harlan’s real killer. He’d use the identity of his boss to make a deal with the U.S. attorney, a fact that wouldn’t escape his boss and would, for the moment, make Camaya a bigger target than Mason, unless his nurses were good with a gun.

But none of that explained Sullivan’s murder or Angela’s suicide. Angela’s confession to Sandra fit with his theory that the two murders were only indirectly related. Whoever killed Sullivan had set in motion everything else.

Angela bugged the offices to get something on Sullivan. After his death, she hit pay dirt with the CDs and decided to set Mason up as the fall guy and watch what happened. Only she never got the chance to cash in. Suicide made no sense for her. She’d already taken all the big risks. She may have been scared when Sandra told her about the shoot-out at the lake, but Mason couldn’t believe Angela was frightened enough to kill herself.

If she was murdered, her killer was more likely to have also murdered Richard Sullivan than Harlan Christenson. Death by lethal injection was not part of Camaya’s repertoire. In any case, he was digesting a.45-caliber slug when Angela died. Sullivan died by lethal injection. Mason caught himself humming “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” as he walked back to his car.

A short time later, he stopped in front of Pamela Sullivan’s house. He was going back over ground he’d already covered, but he didn’t know what else to do. A For Sale sign had been recently planted in the front yard.

Pamela greeted him dressed in a purple and yellow tennis warm-up suit. Judging from the boozy fragrance that hung over her, Mason doubted she would be hitting the courts anytime soon. Her face was puffy, her hair barely brushed. She wasn’t wearing makeup. Her eyes were slightly glassy. She was racing her demons to the bottom.

“What can I do for you, Lou? Did you come back for something else?”

“I just wanted to talk; that’s all.”

“Well, come on in, then. I’m long on conversation.”

She took him through the front hall, past Sullivan’s study, and into the kitchen. There was a bottle of wine on the kitchen table next to the morning paper. She fumbled in a cabinet for two glasses.

“Nothing for me, Pamela. It’s a little early.”

“Well, in my case, it’s a little late.” She poured herself a full glass. “My husband left one hell of a mess,” she said, pointing to the morning paper.

The headline read Shoot-out Widens Law Firm Scandal . A picture of the shattered locker-room mirror with Camaya sprawled on the floor promised more gory details on the inside pages.

Mason scanned the article, taking small comfort in the correct spelling of his name. There was a sidebar about Angela’s death. The coroner hedged his preliminary conclusion of suicide pending an autopsy.

“I’ve been in the middle of the whole thing, Pamela, and I still don’t believe what’s happened. I hope it’s about over.”

“So do I,” she said, the wine feeding her melancholy. “I’m heartbroken about Scott. Mostly for Gloria and their kids.”

“He probably didn’t intend for it to go this far-it just got out of control. Actually, I think your husband was on to Scott and Harlan and was going to confront them.”

“And probably demand his cut! Oh, don’t look at me that way, Lou,” she said as he picked up his jaw. “The man was a shit. I don’t think he would have cleaned house.”

“Did he ever talk with you about what was going on?”

“No. He made it clear early in our marriage that business was off-limits. I never made an issue of it.”