Invasion of Privacy - Jeremiah Healy (42 page)

"Or to eliminate them as suspects in my client's
disappearance, the same as I'd done with the other neighbors."

The chief nodded. "But instead, the Stepanians
tried to eliminate you."

"As soon as I was in their unit, they got the
drop on me. The wife did a quick search, but she never thought of an
ankle gun."

"And after they told you their story . . ."

". . . the two of them had me get up and move to
the sliding glass door, which I did. Then I faked a stumble, drew the
revolver, and came up shooting."

To Hertel, Niebuhr said, "Check out?"

"Dispatch logged in calls from first an
Elmendorf, K-I-R-A, then three minutes later from a Robinette,
T-A-N-G-E-L-A. Both reported shots fired, and I interviewed them.
They confirmed that Cuddy made the rounds last week, talking to the
neighbors about all kinds of shit they thought was goofy." The
detective glanced at the crowd behind us. "Elmendorf looks like
a punker, but Robinette's a service widow and a steady head, far as I
can tell. Both the Stepanian corpses had weapons near them, two shots
discharged from the husband's. Assuming the crimescene techies don't
throw us a curve, the physical evidence I could see supports Cuddy's
version."

All three of us noticed the tugging on the tow-truck
cable, like a big fish had just taken the bait. The driver cranked a
lever, and the winch began drawing the cable tight, then whining a
little as it strained to break the inertia of something heavy on the
bottom. After five seconds, the driver goosed the lever, and the
cable started winding onto the reel of the winch.

Chief Niebuhr said, "I am not looking forward to
this shit."

The divers surfaced before anything appeared at the
bog end of the cable. They were ashore, walking backwards to
accommodate their fins, just as the roofline of the hatchback broke
water.

When the front doors were visible, the town diver
held up his hand to the truck driver, who stopped the winch. The
diver waded back into the bog, using a wet-suit glove to wipe the
gunk from the driver's-side glass. Then he shook his head.

Niebuhr said, "What've we got?"

"The stuff of nightmares, Chief," the diver
waving toward the truck to start the winch again.

As Hertel turned to the
uniforms, asking them to keep the crowd back, I said a silent prayer
for Olga Evorova.

* * *

Sitting at her kitchen counter, Tangela Robinette
said, "Would you like some privacy?"

I lifted the phone receiver off the wall. "No,
thanks."

Trying Nancy Iirst, I left a message on her machine
in Southie that I was fine, despite what she might hear from a news
bulletin. Then I dialed Claude Loiselle's home number.

A sleepy voice answered.

"Claude?"

"Yes?"

"It's John Cuddy, Claude. I'm sorry to be
calling so late, but something's happened, and I didn't want you
getting—"

"John, is Olga dead?"

I gave it a beat. "Yes."

"Aw, no." Then, not into the phone from the
pitch of her voice, "No, no, no."

"Claude, I'm so sorry."

Back at me, snapping. "How? How did that son of
a bitch Dees kill her?"

"He didn't. A couple that lived next door was
psychopathic, thought Olga had somehow hired me to look into their
lives, and they had something to hide they thought was worth killing
both Olga and Dees to protect."

"No. No, that's not fair, not fair."

"Listen, Claude. I'm sorry to impose on you, but
I think Olga's uncle ought to be told too. The problem is, I'm going
to be here in Plymouth Mills for a while longer, and I don't have his
number with me."

"I can get it." More determined. "Let
me call him. I'll be up the rest of the night anyway." Then,
"This psycho couple, what's going to happen to them?"

"It already has."

A pause. "I'm glad. Glad for that, and glad I
hired you."

Another pause, and I pictured Loiselle sitting up in
bed, trying to cope. "Look, I appreciate your letting me know, I
really do. If you're stuck with anything down there, have the cops
contact me, and I'll . . . I'll . . ."

When I hung up, Loiselle was still crying.

Tangela Robinette took a swig of coffee from a mug,
then pointed with it to a pot brewing on the stove. "Some of
this might help."

"No, thanks."

She set her mug down on the counter. "I
appreciate your keeping a lid on the situation here, far as the
locals are concerned."

"Too many cooks."

"That is exactly right. We just cannot be
cutting the town departments in on these group situations. First
thing you know, somebody talks in their sleep or lets it slip in a
bar. Then Geraldo and Oprah will be here next, elbowing each other
out of the way to film a show on location."

" 'Anonymous turncoat felons and the women who
love them.' "

"Your client." Robinette closed her eyes.
"Sorry."

"I'm the one brought it up." I started to
leave. "Thanks for the use of your phone."

"Cuddy?"

"Yes?"

"I truly believed that Andrew Dees had just
flown the coop. If I had thought—"

"Ms. Robinette, who are we trying to convince
here?"

When she didn't answer, I
walked through her living room and out into the night.

* * *

"Hey-ey-ey, Cuddy, how you doing?"

Zuppone's words were right, but the tone and facial
expressions belonged to a man hanging on by his fingernails. He stood
at the curb outside my condo building, behind the open door of his
own Lincoln. In the faint lamplight, my watch read 2:00 AM.

I went over to the car. "Primo, I figured you'd
be in bed by now."

"No way. You got a couple minutes?"

"Sure." I moved around to the passenger
side, glancing into the backseat as I did. Empty.

We both entered the Lincoln at the same time. Instead
of starting the engine, Zuppone hunched over the wheel, like a driver
having trouble seeing out the windshield. Then he started thumping
his thumb on the top of the dashboard.

I said, "Okay, where do we stand?"

"With the two organizations—mine and
Milwaukee?—pretty good, considering. The funeral home here's gonna
embalm Rick and Coco. Better than trying to semi-thaw the bastards so
their people won't know they bought it three days ago. The way our
coordinator put it over the phone tonight, Milwaukee thinks their
guys were fucking heroes, done in by the Judas and his girlfriend
before you and me got them."

"You and me."

"It was the only way made sense, Cuddy. We
avenged Rick and Coco by putting DiRienzi and your client in his car
and pushing it into the swamp there. Then we used the couple next
door as the cover for it. The Milwaukee people weren't happy, but
they ate up the shit about Ozzie and Harriet being brother and
sister. Incest, they don't like that very much, so it appealed to
their sense of morality, us icing 'the sinners' to fool the cops.
Speaking of which, everything go okay on your end?"

"It didn't, I probably wouldn't be here."

"Right, right." But distant. Then, "Cuddy,
you ever shoot a cop?"

"No."

"How about another soldier, then, like when you
were in the Army?"

"Came close a few times overseas."

I waited for him to get to it.

Zuppone cleared his throat. "This thing . . ."
He cleared it again. "This fucking thing is tearing me up."

"Shooting Ianella and Cocozzo."

Primo spoke to the windshield. "I can't eat, I
can't sleep. Shit, I had to take some pills for tonight, for what we
pulled off down there. Me, a fucking druggie now. It's like I told
you before, I swore this oath, a blood oath to the only fucking
people that ever did for me in my whole life, ever made me feel I
belonged to something. And now I betrayed them."

"By killing members of another organization
without orders to do it?"

"Right, right. Before, it was always . . ."
Primo turned to me. " 'Sanctioned.' I looked that up, because I
knew there was a word for what I was thinking, only I couldn't
remember what it was. Every other time I killed a guy, it was
'sanctioned' by the people above me, thought through and decided
after everybody weighed the risks and the bennies, you know, of
whacking the party involved. Only this time . . ." Primo faced
front again, his voice lugging like my Prelude trying to climb a hill
in the wrong gear.

"This time, back in that fucking slaughterhouse
there . . . I wasn't acting on orders. I was freelancing ....
Cowboying it to make things turn out the way I wanted them to. And I
been lying ever since." I realized Zuppone was choking back
tears. "Lying to the fucking people who made me . . . what I am
today. I don't understand it, and there ain't even anybody I can talk
to about it. I . . . I . . . " He gave out, sinking his chin
into his forearms on top of the wheel. I lowered my own voice.
"Primo, you crossed a line. Crossed it to save me, but like you
just said, you made the decision for yourself."

No reaction.

Fingering the Alasdair Fraser tape in my jacket
pocket, I said, "Maybe we could ride around for a while, listen
to some music."

After a moment, Zuppone lifted his chin from his
arms.

"Yeah." Snorting, he turned the ignition
key. "Yeah, matter of fact, I wouldn't mind that, you got the
time."

"I've got the time." Taking the cassette
from my pocket, I handed it to him.

"What's this?"

"Scottish fiddle music."

"Scottish fiddle?"

"Kind of 'Old Age' stuff." I thought back a
few nights to Nancy and me, awaiting the results of `her biopsy.
"It's good background for talking things out."

Primo looked over. "Tell you the truth, I
wouldn't mind doing that, either. The talking part, I mean."

After popping the tape into the slot by his radio, he
took a fresh toothpick from the ashtray and stuck it in his mouth.
"So," clearing his throat again, "what do you want to
talk about?"

Settling back into the buttery upholstery, I caught
myself almost smiling. "Whatever comes to mind."

Primo Zuppone nodded once. Checking all three
mirrors, he edged out into the empty street, his voice blending with
the fiddle's melancholy strings.