BETTER OFF DEAD
Start Reading FREE: Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3 • Chapter 4 • Chapter 5
After years of chasing murderers, now they’re the ones chasing him…
Philadelphia homicide detective Frank Conti thought his biggest challenge would be adjusting to life after the badge. But just one day into retirement, the police storm his home and discover a dead body. In less than twenty-four hours, he’s gone from celebrated officer to prime suspect.
To clear his name, Conti must do the one thing he’s spent his career excelling at… solving the murder. But the deeper he digs, the more dangerous the truth becomes. Conti soon uncovers a pattern of similar deaths stretching back years. He isn’t just hunting a killer, he’s walking straight into the middle of a deadly game. Because the murdered woman isn’t who she seemed, and her death has attracted the attention of a ruthless Russian crime boss determined to get revenge.
With a rival detective eager to see him fall, a serial killer who’s starting to unravel, and the mob closing in, Conti has one chance to prove he’s not the murderer… But first he has to stay alive.
Read the first four chapters of this fast, darkly funny, twisty crime thriller, perfect for fans of Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen.
CHAPTER ONE
Friday, March 14
Aleksei rhino-charged down the mirror-walled hallway and planted his heavy, six-foot-four frame in the doorway. An ornate crystal chandelier hung from the twenty-foot ceiling of the room he looked into, directly over the tank-sized, gilded desk. Behind the desk, light washed through a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. The other three walls were hung with insanely valuable oil paintings, some stolen, others won in anonymous bids through Christie’s in New York. Big Boss loved his oversized opulence. Little Boss had more elegant tastes.
Aleksei watched Little Boss studying a spreadsheet on the desk, then took a step into the room.
“We found her.”
Little Boss glanced up, blinked once. The icy eyes elicited, as always, a shiver in Aleksei. Big Boss sated his rage in vast swaths of bloodshed. Little Boss was more surgical, but every bit as lethal.
“Where?”
“America,” Aleksei answered. “Philadelphia. We have a man there.”
“We have a man everywhere.” Little Boss took a deep breath. “What did she do there?”
Aleksei hesitated.
“Never mind,” Little Boss said. “You don’t have to say it.”
Aleksei paused as Little Boss walked around the desk. The size disparity between the two of them was striking: ten inches and seventy kilos.
“What you’re holding—let me see it.”
He lifted the single sheet of copier paper. “Our man emailed this to me a few minutes ago. It was from her… website.”
The image on the paper was striking. Silky, yellow-blond hair, sharply cut just below the jawline. An oval face framing liquid blue eyes above a thin nose. Flawless, alabaster skin. A provocative smile. An email address, a number to send text messages to. Separate rates for in-calls and out-calls.
The temperature in Little Boss’s eyes dropped twenty degrees. “Call the plane. I want wheels up in two hours. I’m bringing her home.”
“What if she doesn’t want…”
Little Boss’s eyes dropped another ten degrees.
He turned quickly. “I’m on it.”
CHAPTER TWO
Saturday, March 15
Anya gave three quick brushstrokes to her short blond hair. She dropped the brush, lifted the container of lipstick, and painted her mouth cherry red. Holding the lipstick, she studied her eyes in the mirror. The blue eyes which, along with her hair, made her father hate her. Made him sell her when she was twelve years old to another man, who then sold her to many men.
Against her will, Anya’s mind dragged her back to the night they were taken. The long ride in the back of the bumpy truck, huddling against the cold with the other terrified girls. The ensuing days spent in the wet basement, dimly lit by a single yellow bulb. Relieving herself in a bucket in the corner, sharing a dirty washcloth with the other prisoners. Then, finally, marched up the steps with the other girls and transported to a big stone house in the middle of nowhere—the place where the real hell began. There, the girls were herded into a bathroom with a community shower, ordered to scrub themselves in the searing spray. When they were done, older women arrived, painted their faces, handed them shiny dresses, some sequined, all very short, all very tight.
“You are to smile and behave like grown-ups,” one of the older women said. “Most importantly, do whatever the men want you to do.”
Later, in a large, paneled room, Anya was approached by a white-haired man with fat fingers and a bulbous nose bursting with blood vessels. He didn’t waste time, just took her by the hand, led her upstairs to a bedroom. He pulled off her dress and ordered her to lie down. When he unbuttoned his shirt, a whale-sized gut spilled out. She closed her eyes and turned away as he removed his pants. What the man did to her hurt very badly. She started to cry but this only increased his enthusiasm. When he was finished, he dismounted her, dressed and left the room. He said nothing. Didn’t look back before he closed the door.
The following night, another man approached her. It went on that way for several weeks, until a truck hauled her and some of the other girls to another large house. The days bled into weeks, the weeks into months. Before she knew it, she was sixteen years old and on her way to Belarus, then a year later, to Germany, then England. Arriving in the United States when she was twenty-four, she was shuffled from state to state, made to work out of low-end motel rooms. She watched a lot of television and stole newspapers and magazines, and, over time, she learned to speak and read English.
She also learned that the only way out of the “life” was to die or to come so close that no one wanted her anymore. So, she took to the needle and let the weight melt off her bones, the hair fall from her head. Finally, they dumped her during a rainstorm beside a lonely stretch of highway. She laid still for a while before making her way to the road. Seeing headlights in the distance, she stood as upright as she could and pasted a smile on her face. The car slowed, then sped up and raced away. Another car approached, then another. She dropped to her knees and closed her eyes. After a while, she heard a car door slam and she opened her eyes. A large man in a uniform stood over her. He lifted her and carried her to his squad car, gently placed her onto the back seat. The next morning, she woke in a rehab hospital.
She got clean and sober and checked herself out. Using the small amount of spending money they gave her, she took a bus to New Orleans. After six months, she went to Reno then Vegas then Los Angeles. Then Chicago, then New York. Philadelphia, Washington, Lauderdale, Miami. She danced and she stripped, and, selectively, she whored. On her thirtieth birthday, she paid an IT professional to help her set up a website to make appointments in cities along the East Coast, where she planted herself for a couple of weeks at a time.
Anya closed her eyes, shook her head to clear it. She laid the lipstick on the bureau, lifted the novel, The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen, folded the page to mark it. Reading was her escape. It was how she kept herself sane. She’d read Carlos Castaneda, Gabriel Garcia Marques, Camus, Flaubert, Hugo, Proust, Zola, Bronte, Austen. For the past year, she’d been burning through the Americans—Norman Mailer, Philip Roth, John Updike, Margaret Atwood, Cormac McCarthy, Toni Morrison, Michael Chabon, Dave Eggers. But nothing from the Russians. Fuck the Russians.
And now, at thirty-two, she was, by her calculations, three years from having enough money saved to buy a nice home on a quiet lake and spend the rest of her life reading. Reading and swimming and taking long hikes, and learning to cook. Alone.
Anya glanced at her wristwatch, a fake, blue-faced Rolex. She had twenty-five minutes to meet tonight’s client, a recently acquired regular. Some men hired her to chide them for being pieces of shit. To restrain them, put a plastic ball in their mouths. Degrade them, belittle them. Even to slap them. Most men, though, wanted her to tell them how great they were. To pretend that she understood them, saw in them the strong, good men their wives had gone blind to.
It was cold outside and she put on her fake Loro Piana coat. She grabbed her handbag and was about to leave when her cell phone rang.
CHAPTER THREE
Saturday, March 15—Sunday, March 16
Frank Conti swirled the brown liquid in his tumbler.
“Staring into your retirement, Frank?”
Teresa stood behind the bar, a wry smile on her face. She knew that two days from now, he’d be out west for a month of skiing.
“Funny, T.”
He closed his eyes, envisioned the brilliant blue sky, the fat sun reflecting off the white powder. He could almost inhale the fresh, cold air. He opened his eyes and saw the newspaper article, coated in clear plastic.
“I had it laminated for you,” Teresa said. “So, you can put it on your trophy wall.” She paused. “Should I have had it framed?”
“You’re all in on the standup tonight,” he said. He was the last cop who’d have a wall of newspaper clippings, and Teresa knew it.
Teresa walked to the other end of the bar to serve a grizzled old guy in a red flannel shirt who was there every night. Her shoulder-length braids, painted blue in the past month or so, swaying as she moved. Frank watched her pour beer from a spout into a large mug, her movements at once graceful and precise. As always at work, she wore jeans that hugged her slim figure and a white button-down shirt. At five feet nine, Teresa was only one inch shorter than he was. He enjoyed the view for a moment then glanced at the newspaper article. A Philly reporter whom Frank befriended in the wake of the murder of the man’s wife—a murder Frank had solved—wrote a three-column spread under the headline:
Philly’s Top Murder Cop Retires.
It was a puff piece lavishly praising his accomplishments as a homicide detective, boasting that he had the highest clearance rate in Philadelphia history. Saturday was a slow news day and the article ran on the front page of the morning’s Inquirer.
Frank glanced at the article, which featured a photograph from his retirement party on Friday evening, last night, held right here in the bar. Teresa had put out a nice spread—pizza, hoagies, fries, chicken wings, burgers. A hundred people crowded the bar—friends from the department and the DA’s office, some people from the neighborhood he grew up in—buying him drinks, slapping his back, presenting him with adult diapers, blue pills, a phone with giant buttons. Assisted living brochures. “I’m fifty!” he’d said a dozen times. “Not a hundred and fifty.”
Tapping the article, Frank called out to Teresa, “Does this get me any free drinks?”
“Who’s the comedian now?”
He laughed and threw back the whiskey, enjoying the burn in the back of his throat. He raised his glass to signal to Teresa that he was ready for another, then glanced around the bar. Paddy’s Irish Pub was a two-story brick stand-alone in Northeast Philly. It had a spotless, fifteen-foot bar, a pool table, a couple of wall-mounted TVs to watch the Phillies, Flyers, Eagles, and Sixers, three four-tops and some booths. There was a back room where guys played cards. Teresa’s father, Ed Burnett, an ex-Philly cop, bought the place when he retired and ran it until he was shot to death five years earlier behind the bar. Teresa, herself a cop at the time, left the force and took over. When questioned about the bar’s name, Ed, an African American, used to answer that he was “Black Irish.”
In the mirror behind the bar, Frank studied the two men at the table in the corner. The linebacker and the featherweight. Dark hair, pasty white complexions. Eastern Europeans, he figured. They’d been there for about fifteen minutes, nursing their beers and hardly talking to one another. A few minutes ago, he’d caught the linebacker looking at him, and they’d locked eyes until the little guy whispered something and the bigger man looked away. Something wasn’t right about them and Frank’s cop hackles were up.
He was about to stand and walk back to them when he heard, “Frankie.” He recognized the voice, turned around.
“Jim, back again so soon?” Frank’s FOP union boss, Jim Hornsby, was a big guy, tall and overweight. One of those guys who always had a smile on his face. He was at Frank’s retirement party last night.
“Going to play a couple of hands with some guys in the back room,” Hornsby said. He called out to Teresa for a Coors Light.
“I didn’t have much of a chance to talk to you last night,” Hornsby said. “Too crowded.” He accepted the Coors from Teresa, laid down a five. “So what do you have planned for your future? Security work?”
“Skiing. Maybe learn golf. Fish.”
“I’m giving you six months until you’re bored out of your skull.” Hornsby took a swig, thought for a minute. “Now that you’re off the force, maybe it’s time to think about settling down. Find someone and raise a family.”
Teresa, walking by, chuckled. “Not a chance.”
“I’m serious, Frank. Getting married was the best thing I ever did. My wife, she’s wonderful, makes me feel like a king. The kids are great, too. Tough at times, sure. But I wouldn’t trade them for the world.” He patted Frank on the shoulder. “Think about it. You’re not getting any younger.”
“Later, Jim,” Frank said as Hornsby walked away.
Frank was about to call out to Teresa when he saw a woman enter the bar. Early-to-mid thirties, wearing an expensive looking ankle-length wool coat. The sharp cut of her blond hair, and the way she carried herself as she moved across the floor conveyed confidence. She walked up next to Frank, put her hand on the bar, and Frank spotted the blue Rolex.
“So, is this what they call a cop bar?” the woman asked Teresa.
“What would you like to drink?” Teresa’s voice had an edge to it.
“You’re English?” Frank said.
“Good guess.”
“Your accent,” Frank said.
“But you’re the one with the accent.”
“I’m thinking wine,” Frank said.
“Red, please.” The woman turned to Teresa. “Something good, if you have it.”
Teresa stiffened. Mumbled, “If I have it.”
“My treat,” Frank said.
“Ah, a gentleman.” The woman took the stool next to Frank, laid her coat over the bar. She and Frank both watched as Teresa grabbed the coat, carried it to the coat stand.
“I don’t think she likes me,” the woman said. She extended her hand. “Anya.”
They shook. “Frank. Conti.”
The woman glanced at the newspaper article, still on the bar. “So, you’re a Supercop.”
“Not any kind of a cop now.”
“You solved eighty-two percent of your homicide cases. Compared to a forty percent clearance rate on the force as a whole.”
Teresa laid the wine glass on the bar.
“Impressive,” Anya said. “What’s your secret?”
Teresa rolled her eyes and walked away.
He shifted in his seat. He didn’t want to tell her the truth. That his high close rate wasn’t because he was a genius investigator, but because the murderers he pursued just weren’t very good at being murderers. That the reason he returned his badge the same day he turned fifty was because he was bored at handling essentially the same cases over and over. The businessman who killed his partner when he caught him embezzling; the businessman who killed his partner before the partner could catch him embezzling. The unhappy wife who pressured her boyfriend into killing her well-insured husband. The husband who abused his wife for years and finally went too far. The guy who walked into a liquor store or clothing store or jewelry store or pizza shop intending to rob it, but things went south and the owner or some poor clerk ended up bleeding out on the floor. And, of course, the endless stream of gangsters, who killed for street cred, street corners or just for something to do. Crimes as hard to peel as a two-layer onion.
Then, there was the other thing: he was slowing down. His daily five-mile run outside had become three miles on the treadmill. His weekly stints sparring at the boxing gym in Kensington were now monthly social calls where he spent fifteen or twenty minutes on the speed-bag and heavy bags, jumped a little rope then shot the breeze with Archie Barone, the manager, and some other guys for an hour. It was like he told Archie: “My relationship with gravity isn’t as easy-breezy as it once was.”
“No secret,” he said to Anya. “Just hard work and long hours.” He turned toward her. “So, what brings an English girl to Philadelphia?”
“I’m a reporter. London Times. We’re doing a series of articles on the opioid crisis in the United States. I’m in Philadelphia for two days, then up to New York, and on to Chicago.”
He considered asking her why the Brits would care about America’s drug problem but stopped himself. “Too bad you didn’t show up sooner. I could have shown you around the city. Taken you up to the hot spots. Kensington. Fairhill. Largest open-air drug markets in the country. But I’m leaving for vacation on Monday, and tomorrow, I have to pack.”
She leaned into him, lowered her voice. “You could show me tonight. It’s not that late.”
“No, but it’s dark, and those places I mentioned aren’t where you want to be after the sun goes down.”
“I see.” She sat back. Served him a flirty look. “Where do I want to be after the sun goes down?”
Behind Anya, Teresa shook her head.
“Depends,” he said. “What were you looking for?”
“Depends. What do you have to show me?”
“I… uh…”
“You can think about it while I visit the loo. That’s British for…”
“I know what it means.” He watched her walk to the hallway at the back of the bar, and the word feline popped into his head.
“Seriously?” Teresa’s voice.
“What?”
“This is way too easy.”
“What do you mean?”
“Come on, Supercop. You don’t think there’s something fishy about this broad? The way she’s coming onto you?”
“Maybe she likes older men. You do. Did.”
“I was desperate and heartbroken. You took advantage of me.”
“That’s how you remember it?”
“To keep my self-respect, that’s how I have to remember it.”
He smiled to himself as Teresa disappeared into the small office behind the bar. Turning, he saw the guys standing by the pool table start clapping at the TV, telling him the Sixers were doing well. They quieted down when Anya reappeared from the restrooms, watched her move, took in her long legs, athletically trim figure. The blond hair.
Approaching him, Anya said, “So, I’m wondering how a Philadelphia police detective lives.”
Frank hopped off his stool. Teresa’s right; way too easy. Which made him curious.
“I’m two blocks away,” he said. “If you’re up for a walk.” He led her to the door, lifted her coat from the stand and helped her put it on.
Anya took her time buttoning up, looked around the bar.
“I hope you have some wine at your place,” she said.
He told her to wait a minute and returned to the bar, asked Teresa for a bottle he could take home with him. She shook her head, disappeared into the back. After a few minutes, she was at the bar, holding out a bottle.
“I’d say don’t try too hard, but I’m thinking you won’t have to,” Teresa said. Frank reached for the wine but couldn’t pull it away because Teresa had a chokehold on its neck. “Joking aside, Frank, I have a bad feeling about this woman. Don’t do this.”
She locked eyes with him, then released the bottle and turned away.
The walk to his row house was pleasant enough. It was low thirties, but they were both bundled up and the air was clear and the sidewalks free of ice and snow. He asked Anya what the weather was like in London at this time of year and she told him it was about the same, though wetter, of course. She asked him about his vacation, where he was going, and whether he was glad to be retired. Not once did she bring up the opioid crisis. Every now and then he caught her glancing up at him, and he tried to figure out what game she was playing. When they reached his house, he paused and grinned. “Enter of your own free will.” The Bela Lugosi line from the vampire flick. She didn’t seem to get it.
“Sorry,” he said. “Bad joke.” Something cold flashed in her eyes, but she forced it down. Inside, he took her coat, waved her to the couch, told her to make herself comfortable. “I’ll open the wine,” he said, then turned toward the kitchen. When he returned with their glasses filled with red, Anya was still standing. She only sat when he did. He leaned forward over the coffee table, and they clinked glasses. He sipped and sat back in his chair.
“So, what’s it like being a TV reporter?” he asked.
“But I told you, I work for the paper.”
She held his gaze for a couple of beats. “You must have forgotten.”
He nodded. So, we’re going to circle for a while. He liked the idea. But first… “If you’ll excuse me for a minute.” He stood and walked to the small bathroom he’d installed a few years back. He was only fifty, but already his prostate was announcing its intentions. When he returned, Anya was still on the sofa, holding her wine. He took his chair, asked Anya if she’d like something to eat. “I have a bunch of cheeses, and crackers. Olives. Bologna sausage. I got a big basket from Di Bruno Brothers, for my retirement.”
“The wine is enough,” Anya said.
They both took long sips of the wine. Traded small talk. Emptied their glasses.
Then, she looked funnily at him. “The wine… I’m starting to feel… lightheaded.”He thought it was odd that she said that because he was starting to feel the same way. His head was suddenly very light, then very heavy. Then, nothing.
He was wrenched from the darkness by the sound of heavy footsteps moving quickly across the floor. He lifted his lids and his eyes were stung by the bright wash of morning sunlight. “What… the…”
“Remain in your chair, sir!”
He tried to push himself up, but a palm on his chest held him down. A uniformed police officer was standing over him. He tried to read the patrolman’s name tag, but his eyes were too bleary.
“Do not move until I tell you.”
“What’s going on?”
A second patrolman, young, like the first one, spoke into his radio as he moved across the room. From the code the officer gave dispatch Frank realized he was calling in a homicide. Standing quickly, he stumbled forward before either cop could push him back into the chair, and he found himself on the floor, directly above a body wrapped head-to-toe in clear plastic kitchen wrap. When he saw the blank blue eyes staring up at him through the plastic, he moaned. The patrolmen wrenched him up by the arms and marched him toward the door. They dragged him across the front porch, took him down the steps to the pavement, put him on his knees and cuffed him.
“No! No! No! This isn’t right! This isn’t right!”
“No shit, Sherlock,” one of the cops said.
CHAPTER FOUR
Sunday, March 16
“You want some more coffee, Frank?” Yoshanda Green, a detective Frank had known for going on ten years, poked her head around the door of the interview room. They were at police headquarters, recently relocated from the Roundhouse to the Inquirer Building.
During the two hours he’d been sitting here, Yoshanda brought him two cups of coffee, and a glass of water. A male uniform escorted him to the men’s room once, re-cuffing Frank in front of his body so he could handle himself. When he was done, the uniform wanted to cuff him behind his back again, but Frank made a big stink about it and a sergeant he was friends with stepped in and said it was okay that Frank remained cuffed in front.
“When is someone going to come in and talk to me?” Frank demanded. “Come on, Shanda. I’m going crazy just sitting here.”
“Now, Frank. You know the detectives need to get some things done back at your house before they can question… talk to you.”
“This is fucking ridiculous.” He shook his head as Yoshanda shut the door. Closing his eyes, he took some deep breaths to calm himself. After a moment, he opened his eyes again and took in the space—the four metal chairs around the small steel table; the camera mounted across the room; the cinderblock walls; the one-way mirror used to watch the perps sweating it out. How many times had he been in rooms just like this, questioning some suspect? A thousand? Ten thousand? But how different it felt to him now. Claustrophobic.
For the tenth time that morning, he replayed the events of the night before. The woman, Anya, walking into the bar, flirting with him, all but throwing herself at him. Teresa knowing something wasn’t right. Him knowing something wasn’t right, knowing Anya was playing him somehow but taking the woman back to his place anyway. The wine that she said was making her woozy and him, too, before everything went dark. And somehow, she ended up mummy-wrapped and dead on his floor and now he was in handcuffs.
“How?” he asked himself aloud. No, not how. Who. Because surely someone else was involved. Someone who followed them to his place and… and what? Slipped a Mickey into the wine without either of them seeing it? Not possible. He shook his head. Stop. Don’t skip ahead. One step at a time. Focus on the who before the how. Focus on—Those guys! The two guys at the table in the back of the bar. The big one and the little one. They must have seen that he and Anya were getting along. Must have decided to leave and lie in wait. Follow him and Anya to his house. There was no one else at the bar he didn’t know, so it had to be them.
He sensed motion and lifted his head to see the door opening. A young woman, short with dark hair, a detective’s badge on her belt, entered the room and behind her was… shit… Leland Cavanaugh. Of course, it had to be him.
Cavanaugh walked his tall, lean frame up to the table, paused while his partner made her way into the corner of the room. As always, Cavanaugh was dressed in a stylish two-piece suit. He grinned, his perfectly aligned white teeth making their appearance. “Well, Frank. Looks like you’ve gotten yourself into quite a pickle.”
“I didn’t get myself into anything, Leland. And don’t tell me for a minute that you think I killed that woman. You know better.”
Cavanaugh lifted his hand. “Frank, I don’t know anything. One way or the other. I’m just here to talk to you, get your side of the story. One question up front. Those two rookies who brought you in—they read you the Miranda thing, right?”
He glowered at Cavanaugh. “Am I under arrest?”
“Who said anything about arresting you?”
Frank held out his hands, and Cavanaugh took the hint. “Hannah, be a sweetheart, take off the cuffs.”
Cavanaugh’s partner frowned at the sweetheart thing but moved to the table and unlocked the handcuffs. Frank thanked her and rubbed his wrists. “How long have you been watching me, Leland? Through the mirror.”
“Hey, I just got here. Your house, man,” he shook his head, “there was a lot to process.”
“Yeah, like what?”
“Well, the dead girl, for one thing.” Cavanaugh chuckled. “The empty wine glasses, the half-full bottle in the kitchen. The empty box of cling film. And, of course, the dope kit in your bedroom.”
Cavanaugh paused and Frank knew he was studying his reaction.
“What are you talking about?”
“The whole kit n’ caboodle. Needle, plunger, rubber tie-off, lighter, spoon. And the bag of brown powder. I’m guessing heroin, maybe laced with fentanyl. Was that what happened, Frank? She shot up in your bedroom, but it turned out to be bad stuff and she OD’d? You panicked and decided to get rid of the body. Thought it would be less messy if she were shrink-wrapped before her fluids started leaking out.”
“This is bullshit. I was sitting in my living room with her. We were both drinking wine. She said she felt woozy, and I got lightheaded, too, and then I was out. Next thing I know two patrolmen are in my living room.” He glanced at Hannah. “On the way here, I agreed to let the patrolmen take me to the hospital to have my blood drawn. I’m sure when the results come back, they’ll show I was drugged.”
“Before or after you wrapped the girl?” Cavanaugh asked.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Come on, Frank. You know where I’m going here. The girl dies. You pull out the plastic wrap. You slip a Mickey into your own wine, drink it to put yourself out and wait for the cops.”
“That makes no sense. If I wanted to cover things up, I’d just take the body somewhere and dump it. And how could I know the cops would show up? How did they know to bust into my place?”
“But they didn’t have to bust in, Frank. Because you left the door open, thinking one of your neighbors would come to close it, discover the crime scene, and dial 911. Which was exactly what happened. Mrs. Roundtree, your next-door neighbor. She’s quite upset, I can tell you that. No eighty-year-old woman should have to see what she saw in your living room.”
He swallowed and his throat was raw. “Goddamnit, I’m parched. Can you have someone bring me another glass of water?”
“Are you hot, Frank? You’re sweating. Me? I think it’s cold in here.”
Fucking Cavanaugh. The thing Frank liked about working homicide, in the early years, before he got bored, was answering the riddle. Solving the mystery. But Cavanaugh was different. Cavanaugh loved the hunt. He enjoyed making the perps squirm. Other detectives tried to get a confession out of a suspect as fast as possible. Cavanaugh, though, liked to make the perp sweat. Liked to draw out the interview as long as possible, circle the guy at the table. Frank had watched Cavanaugh more than a few times through the one-way mirror, and each time he did, it reminded him of an old gray cat his grandmother used to keep in her basement as a ratter. The cat would corner some poor rodent and toy with it, torment it, let the rat think it was going to escape before capturing it again, mauling it to death. Slowly.
“Just get me some water, Leland.”
“Sure, Frank.” Cavanaugh nodded to Hannah, who left the room. When she’d gone, Cavanaugh took a seat across the table. “Look, I apologize for coming at you.” He leaned forward, lowered his voice. “But I have people watching this. So I need to put on a good show.”
Hannah reappeared with a plastic cup. She handed it to Frank who drained it in one swallow. “Just ask your questions, Leland. I’ll answer everything you put to me.”
“I appreciate that, Frank. Your cooperation is duly noted.” He glanced at Hannah, then opened his folio and slid a sheet of paper across the table.
“Forget it, Leland. I’m not signing the waiver.”
“You know I can’t question you unless you waive your right to have an attorney present, Frank.”
“You sure as hell can question me. The waiver just gives you protection against me later claiming you didn’t tell me I had the right to counsel.” He leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms. “You want me to sing, I’ll sing. But I’m not signing the waiver.”
Cavanaugh pulled back the paper, returned it to his portfolio, and pulled out small tape recorder. “Have it your way, Frank.” He glanced again at Hannah, then back at Frank. “All right, then. Let’s take this from the top. When did you first meet the woman? And where? Tell me everything you can remember.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Sunday, March 16
Two hours later, Cavanaugh turned off the recorder. He shook his head, blew out some air.
“Well, Frank, I have to say, that’s quite a story—”
“It isn’t a story. It’s what happened.”
“I’ve never been the kind of guy to pull women in like that myself, but I guess it was just another night at the disco for you. With your dark eyes and swarthy complexion.”
“I told you I knew something wasn’t right, that it was too easy. Teresa thought so, too, and said so.”
“Still, you—”
“Look, Leland, I’m climbing out of my skin here. I need some fresh air and time to think. So I’d appreciate you letting me out of here. Unless you mean to…” He let the words hang in the air.
“No one’s booking you, Frank. You’re free to go. From here, at least. You’ll need to stay within the city limits. And you can’t go back to your house, of course. It’s still a crime scene.”
“I’ll need to get some clothes.”
“Sorry, Frank. We need to play this by the book. That way, when we find some evidence that exculpates you—and I’m sure we will—no one can claim we play favorites.”
Frank pushed himself up from the metal chair and walked toward the door without saying goodbye. He felt Cavanaugh’s eyes boring into his back the whole way and of one thing he was absolutely certain: his old friend had every intention of arresting him. Probably as soon as the forensic analysis was finished. Maybe even before then, after the medical examiner did the autopsy. Leland Cavanaugh had had a hard-on for him for years and there was no way he’d give up his chance to get even. How long did he have on the street, before Cavanaugh came for him? A week? Two days? He had to act fast.
* * *
Hannah Gonzales waited until Frank had left the interview room then took a seat across the table from Cavanaugh.
“You buy Conti’s story about the woman coming onto him at the bar, throwing herself at him?” Cavanaugh asked.
“He’s a good-looking guy,” Gonzales said. “But it just doesn’t work that way.” She paused. “Unless…”
“Unless what? She was desperate to meet someone and zeroed in on the first guy she saw?”
Gonzales shook her head. “No. Even if she were looking to hook up, she wouldn’t make it that easy.”
Cavanaugh glanced away for a moment, then returned his gaze to her. “The victim targeted Conti before she ever met him.”
Gonzales nodded. “She walked into that bar with a plan.”
“Unfortunately for her,” Cavanaugh said, “Frank Conti had a plan of his own.”
* * *
Outside police headquarters, Frank called an Uber and pulled out his cell phone as soon as he’d settled in the back seat. Someone was trying to frame him and he had to find out who. He dialed the number for Lonnie Gorman, a friend who worked for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections.
“Lonnie, it’s Frank Conti.”
A pause at the other end. A long pause.
“Frank. I heard…”
“Bad news travels fast. Look, I’ll cut to the chase. I need a favor. Can you get me a list of people released from the state prisons in the last month or so? Just hard cases. Homicide convicts who’ve run their course.”
“You believe it was someone you sent away, finally got out and decided to get even.”
“What I’m thinking.”
“You might be right about the revenge angle. But maybe not about the timing.”
“What do you mean?”
“You could be looking for a guy who has been out for a while. Someone with the patience to hold tight until you were off the force, wait until you didn’t have a badge to flash around anymore.”
Frank sighed. “Shit. You could be right. Can you go back a year?”
“I’ll get you two years.”
“Thanks, and I don’t mean just for the list.”
“For what else?”
“For not asking the big question.”
“In my mind, Frank, there is no question. There was no way you did it.”
Frank hung up and walked into the bar. It was early afternoon, and Paddy’s was empty except for Teresa and some guys at two of the tables, chowing down on burgers, and fish and chips. Another guy was at the bar, his right hand wrapped around a beer mug. Next to the mug was a plate cleared of everything but some ketchup and a lone French fry.
When she took over the bar after her father was killed, Teresa updated the kitchen, hired a decent cook, some waitresses. Frank would stop by sometimes with his partner, grab something to eat, make time with Teresa. Her father was standing right about where she was now when the little bald guy—Myron Willkie, it turned out—walked in. He strode right up to the bar, smiled at Ed. “Remember me?” he said. Then he pulled out a .38 and put three holes in Ed’s chest. It was just before closing time, but there were still half a dozen off-duty cops in the bar, all carrying. When the shooting was done, what was left of Myron Willkie had to be hosed off the floor.
Teresa saw it all go down and it broke her. She turned in her badge then disappeared for two months. The day she came back, she walked behind the bar and hadn’t moved since. Which Frank thought was a damn shame because Teresa Burnett was one of the smartest people he’d ever met. She didn’t belong behind a bar any more than she belonged behind a badge. In the early days, Frank talked to her about the need to move on, but she wouldn’t hear it. She also paid no heed when he told her it was crazy of her to take up with him, and six months later, when he told her she was crazy to cut him loose. The only voices Teresa heard since the day her old man hit the floor were the ones inside her own head.
Why am I rehashing all this? Frank wondered as he approached Teresa.
“What the hell, Frank?”
He took a stool, planted his elbows on the bar, rubbed his head.
“I told you—”
“I know! It was too easy. Damn, T, the last thing I need right now is a lecture.” He looked up and saw that Teresa had poured him two fingers. “That won’t help, either,” he said, but threw back the glass anyway.
Teresa refilled the tumbler. “I heard Cavanaugh’s been assigned the case. How long do you think you have before he pulls you off the street?”
She knew about the enmity between Frank and his old classmate at the Academy. She didn’t know the real story behind Leland’s hatred, though; no one did. Like everyone else, she figured it was all about professional jealousy, Frank being Tiger Woods to Cavanaugh’s Phil Mickelson—the guy who would have gotten all the trophies if Frank hadn’t been around.
“I don’t know. I’m just hoping that when he does make his play, he won’t try to hit me up with Murder One.” In Philadelphia, a first-degree murder charge kept a perp in prison until trial. “If that happens, I’ll have no chance to clear myself.”
“You’re going to have to move fast.”
“I already called a contact with the D.O.C. He’s getting me a list of names, people I sent away who’ve gotten out in the last couple of years.”
Teresa thought on this. “What about guys on the on-deck circle? You have anyone waiting trial? Maybe one of their family members was looking to keep you off the stand.”
“A good point. Though the forensics would likely be enough to… wait a minute. There was a guy. Killed some kid riding a bike in Fairmount Park. He confessed to me when I picked him up. Broke down in tears. Said he just wanted the bike, but the rider put up a fight. I Mirandized him and brought him in, but when I got him on camera, he shut down. Denied everything. The forensics weren’t great; good enough to bring him to trial, but the ADA says a conviction’s a longshot. The only reason it’s going to a jury at all is that the killer won’t take a deal. Cooper. Cooper Carr. One of three brothers, each worse than the next. But…”
“But you don’t think it was him? Or his family?”
Frank shook his head. “Dumb as snow globes, all three of them. What was done to me took some brains. Planning.”
“So, what’s next?” Teresa asked.
“What’s next is I’m going to walk to my house, persuade the patrolmen to bring me my car keys so I can go to the store and buy something to wear for the next few days while I try to figure out how to figure this out. And on that score, there’s no choice. I have to solve this fucking case. I have to find out who killed that poor woman. And why they want me to take the fall for it.”
He emptied his glass and set it on the bar. Teresa put her hand on his forearm.
“I won’t say I’m not worried for you. But hear me on this: you’re Frank fuckin’ Conti. The best homicide detective this city’s ever seen.” She smiled. “I read that in the paper just yesterday.”
He forced a smile of his own. But his insides were roiling. He was a fraud and he knew it. He’d been coasting for years, flipping the pages of his well-worn playbook, checking boxes, and rounding up squirrel-brained killers. Whoever did this to him was a different animal entirely.
He watched Teresa putting on her coat.
“Where are you headed off to?”
“Guess?” she answered.
“Cavanaugh.”
“He called me just before you got here. Wants me to come in for an interview.”
“Meaning he sees you as a nail for my coffin.”
“I can hold my own, Frank.”
“He’s smart.”
“I’m smarter. Plus there’s the other thing you have going for you.”
He looked at her.
“You’re innocent, Frank.” She turned and he followed her out the door.
* * *
Half a block down from the bar, Aleksei sat behind the wheel of a black Cadillac Escalade. He watched as Frank Conti kissed the attractive black woman on the cheek, watched as she wrapped her arms around him. They hugged for a good while, then the woman walked to a blue Honda Accord parked just beyond the bar and climbed in. Conti remained still until the woman pulled away, kept his eyes on the car until it turned the corner.
“The woman is important to him,” Little Boss said. “Have our man find out who she is, and who she is to him.”
Aleksei nodded. He watched the ex-detective cross the street, headed for his house, no doubt. “The great detective, once the predator, now the prey. What he must be thinking now, eh?”
“It’s not what he’s thinking that I care about,” Little Boss said. “But what he’s feeling. Fear.”