Mike Lawson - House Divided

So for at least a week he was on his own, and he intended to take advantage of the situation by doing only things he liked to do-one of those things being golf. He took his place on a square of green Astroturf, placed a ball on the rubber tee inserted into the carpet, pulled his driver from his bag, and made a couple of practice swings to loosen up. Wham! The heavy-set grandma on his right hit a ball-smacked it about a hundred and fifty yards. Using a three iron. Jesus! He wished he’d found someplace else to stand. He stepped up to take his first shot of the year-and his cell phone rang. Shit!

“Is this Joseph DeMarco?” the caller asked.

“Yeah,” DeMarco said, relieved it wasn’t Mahoney calling from his hospital bed to make his life miserable.

“This is Detective Jack Glazer, Arlington County Police. I’d like to talk to you.”

“Police? Why?” DeMarco said.

“Hasn’t the FBI called you or been to see you?” Glazer asked.

“No, why would they?” DeMarco said.

“Huh,” Glazer said. To DeMarco it sounded as if Glazer was surprised the FBI hadn’t already contacted him.

“What’s this about?” DeMarco asked.

Glazer hesitated. “Mr. DeMarco, I’m sorry to have to tell you this over the phone, but Paul Russo was killed last night. You were listed as an emergency contact on a card he had in his wallet.”

“Paul Russo?” DeMarco said-and then he remembered who that was. Geez, he hadn’t talked to the guy in three, maybe four years.

“Are you saying you don’t know him?’ Glazer said.

“No. I know him. He’s like a second cousin or something. His mother was my mother’s cousin. How was he killed?”

“I think it would be better if we talked about this face-to-face. Would you mind coming to my office?”

Glazer’s office turned out to be a desk in a room filled with half a dozen other desks-and the room was bedlam. Guys in shirtsleeves that DeMarco assumed were detectives were sitting at some of the desks, shouting into phones, and four uniformed cops were also in the room. Two of the uniformed cops were holding on to a guy who had a shaved head and tats all over his arms. The guy’s hands were cuffed behind his back and he was screaming obscenities at the top of his lungs.

DeMarco told one of the detectives that he was there to see Glazer, and the detective pointed to a man sitting at a cluttered desk at the back of the room. When DeMarco introduced himself, Glazer stood up, said, “Let’s go someplace where we can hear each other talk,” and led DeMarco to a small, windowless space equipped with a table and four metal chairs. DeMarco noticed a surveillance camera mounted high on one wall, pointed down at the table, and assumed he was in an interrogation room, which, for some reason, made him feel uncomfortable.

Glazer was a stocky, serious-looking guy in his fifties. He was wearing a wrinkled white shirt, his tie was undone, and he appeared harried and tired. After he thanked DeMarco for coming and asked if he wanted a cup of coffee, which DeMarco declined, Glazer told him that Paul Russo had been found dead last night at the Iwo Jima Memorial, killed by a single gunshot wound to the head.

“He was shot?” DeMarco said, unable to believe what he was hearing.

“Yeah. What can you tell me about him?” Glazer asked.

Still stunned by what he’d been told, DeMarco said, “I barely knew him. He moved to Washington about five years ago. He said he wanted to get out of New York and try someplace else, that he needed a change of scenery. When he got here, he looked me up, probably because my mother told him to, but, like I said, I hardly knew him. When we were kids, I didn’t have much to do with him because he was younger than me, and the only times I ever saw him were at family things-weddings, funerals, things like that.”

“So why would he have your name in his wallet as an emergency contact?”

“I don’t know, but I’m the only relative he had that lives around here. He wasn’t married, both his parents are dead, and he didn’t have any brothers or sisters, so maybe he couldn’t think of anyone else to write down. When he first moved here, we had lunch one day and I showed him a few areas where he might want to rent an apartment, but that was about it. I spoke to him a couple times on the phone afterward, but I never saw him again.”

“Huh,” Glazer said.

DeMarco wasn’t sure what that meant. “Huh” seemed to be something Glazer said whenever he heard something that didn’t match what he was thinking.

“Was your cousin wealthy or famous or connected to someone important?”

“Famous? No, he wasn’t famous. He was just a nurse, as far as I know. Look, I appreciate you calling me, but if you’re thinking I can help you figure out who killed him, I’m afraid I’m not going to be much help.”

“And you said the FBI didn’t contact you?”

“Yeah, I already told you that. Why would they? Are they involved in this?”

“Yeah,” Glazer said. “Actually, it’s their case.”

“Then why are you-”

“Like I said, Russo was shot at the memorial, which is in Arlington County, and when the body was discovered the Arlington P.D. responded. But the thing is, the park’s federal property and it was sort of a toss-up as to who had jurisdiction, us or the feds. Well, I had just gotten to the scene-this was about two A.M. -when an FBI agent shows up and takes the case away from me. And that’s what I don’t get, Mr. DeMarco. I mean, if your cousin had been some kinda big shot I could understand it, but based on what you’re telling me, he wasn’t. So why’s the FBI so interested in him?”

“I have no idea,” DeMarco said, but what he was really thinking was: since there wasn’t anyone else to do it, he was going to have to get Paul’s body and arrange for a funeral. Shit.

“One thing I didn’t tell you,” Glazer said. “When we found your cousin he had cash in his wallet and his credit cards hadn’t been taken, so he wasn’t killed in a robbery. So there’s a possibility-no offense intended-that he might have been pedaling meds. I mean, since he was a nurse he probably had access to all kinds of medications and maybe he was dealing painkillers, tranks, things like that. But-”

“Narcotics? Paul? I kinda doubt that. Like I said, I didn’t know him too well, but he always struck me as being pretty straitlaced.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right, and that’s what I was going to say. He didn’t have a criminal record, and guys who get killed over narcotics usually do. Which made me wonder if he was a witness involved in some sort of federal case.”

“Well, if he was, I wouldn’t know,” DeMarco said. Glazer started to say something else, but DeMarco interrupted him. “Detective, if this isn’t your case, why do you care why Paul was killed or why the FBI’s involved?”

Glazer rubbed a hand over his face as if trying to scrub away the fatigue. Finally he said, “Because he was killed on my turf, DeMarco. And because there’s something strange going on here. If your cousin was just some ordinary schmuck who had the bad luck to get shot, the feds wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with him and would have insisted I take the case. But that’s not what happened and it bugs me. I was hoping you could help me figure out what the hell’s going on.”

It sounded to DeMarco like this was some sort of pissing contest between the local cops and the Bureau, and he had absolutely no interest in it. “Well, I’m sorry, but I can’t help you,” he said. “Unless there’s something else, I need to get his body and make arrangements for a funeral.”

“You’ll have to talk to the FBI about that,” Glazer said. “And they won’t release the body until an autopsy is done. The agent in charge is a guy named Hopper.”