Butterface(8)
It was time to make a new life for herself, and it started with renovating her grandfather’s home that had been sitting vacant for umpteen years by getting rid of the random boards still left standing after her spin with the sledgehammer. Her grandfather would have been proud of his girl finishing the renovations that he’d started so long ago. It may not be the usual tribute to a grandparent, but it was one he would have appreciated.
“Alexa,” she called out to the electronic hockey puck plugged into the wall near the stairs. “Play my renovation playlist.”
Instead of her normal happy, female singer-songwriter tunes, the alto growl of chicks done wrong who weren’t gonna take it anymore boomed through the speakers. Now this she could get her hammer swinging to.
Chin high, shoulders back—and gait lopsided because the sledgehammer was heavy—she marched back over to the half wall. In the movies, this is where she would have gone to town on what was left of that wall, smashing it to smithereens and turning in a circle triumphantly to view her accomplishment. Her life was a different kind of movie, though, because instead of the hammer coming down and taking out the two-by-four, it went flying out of her hands—thanks to a mixture of palm sweat and condensation from the water bottle—and sailed across the room, landing with a thud on the floor on the unfinished side of the attic.
“And you wonder why you don’t have your own home reno show,” she muttered to herself as she crossed the room to see the damage she’d inflicted.
Stepping carefully because there weren’t any floorboards laid across the insulation on this side of the attic, she held her arms out for balance and tiptoed across the crossbeams to the east wall where the sledgehammer lay in a puff of pink-wrapped insulation. The light coming in through the stained glass window danced across the insulation like mini-rainbows on a pink sky. It would have been pretty if it hadn’t been another reminder of the amount of work she still had to do on the house.
As she was reaching for the hammer, a glimmer caught her eye. It was different than the other colored spots from the window, more solid and golden. She leaned forward. The sparkle was coming from a spot under the bent corner of the insulation. A tool dropped into the space between the beams?
She moved the hammer over and pulled back the insulation, careful not to tear the wrapping so she wouldn’t inhale the probably poisonous strands inside, and revealed a narrow strip of open space that, though dark, seemed to go on down to the basement, judging by the cool, still air wafting up from it. The space had to be the top of one of the walls, which were built with tight crawl spaces inside them. She’d learned about that the smelly way, when a squirrel who’d been squatting in the attic found its way into one and couldn’t get back out. The exterminator had given her all the gory details.
Did squirrels collect shiny objects? Maybe it had left behind some doodads? She grabbed her phone from her back pocket, slid her thumb across the screen to turn on its flashlight, and shined the piercing beam into the darkness.
Four spindly sticks lay in a line, one with a gold ring around one of them. That’s weird—
Realization slammed into her, knocking her back onto her ass. She didn’t care, she just did the crab walk on her hands and feet in her rush to get away from the crevice between the walls, because it hadn’t been four sticks. They’d been bones. Finger bones. And the ring? It had been her grandfather’s.
…
“Hartigan,” Captain Grant hollered across the Waterbury detectives’ bullpen as he stood in the door of his office. “In here. Now.”
Ford’s shoulders jerked closer to his ears before he could stop the reflexive reaction. This wasn’t good. Not being called into the captain’s office, but that bark of an order usually meant a shit assignment was incoming.
The last time he’d gotten that, it was after the deputy chief’s son had gotten picked up on a pot bust. That case had been radioactive. They’d given it to Ford because he wasn’t the kind of cop who gave a rat’s ass about whose kid a perp was. Rules were rules, and they were meant to be followed.
He got up from his desk, shoving aside a box of Chapstick with the word bleach scrawled in Sharpie across the label. No doubt they were from Ruggiero and Gallo. The way they were describing what happened at the wedding to the rest of the squad was that they’d set him up with a life-sized Troll Doll who happened to have mob connections for that Kiss Cam stunt. Everyone had gotten a good laugh about that. Assholes.
At least the idiot duo hadn’t gone on to tell everyone about them giving Gina his hotel room key. That meant either the two of them finally discovered they didn’t have to be dicks all the time, or they were just holding onto that little tidbit until the worst possible moment—like when he got called into the captain’s office, so they could watch as the captain dialed up internal affairs and informed them of a possible compromised detective on the task force.
Ford strode into the captain’s office in the corner and stopped inside the door. “You wanted to see me?”
The captain didn’t look up from his computer screen. “Shut the door and sit down.”
The hairs on the back of Ford’s neck did the conga, but he did what he was ordered, just like he always did. Anyway, if this was going to turn into an internal affairs colonoscopy, he’d rather get the bad news without the entire squad listening in.
“I understand you had an incident this weekend with Gina Luca.” The captain turned in his chair, slid his glasses down low on his nose, and watched Ford over the rims of his bifocals. “Something about a Kiss Cam?”
Ford let out a breath. That had been embarrassing, but not something that internal affairs would want to talk to him about. “Yes.”
The captain took off his glasses and cleaned them with a small cloth beside his keyboard in total and complete silence. First the right lens, then the left, then flip the glasses and do it all over again. Slow. Deliberate. Total power move. The captain loved to make subordinates wait on his next words, and it drove some guys nuts. Ford wasn’t one of them. He just took the opportunity to let his brain spin out the possibilities of what could come next and options for dealing with them.
Finally, the captain replaced his glasses, then folded the cloth in half and then half again before placing it on his desk at a perfect parallel line to his keyboard.
“Is there any reason why you couldn’t interact with Ms. Luca in a professional manner?” the captain asked once he finally looked up at Ford.
“No sir.” He could get past having seen her naked—having trailed his fingers down her smooth skin—even if he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about it.
“Good, because we need to use that perceived connection on her part to our advantage.”
Of the forty-eight possibilities he’d worked out, that wasn’t one he’d been expecting. “Sir?”
“She just called in a deceased person in her attic.” The captain templed his fingers and tapped them to his chin, silent and waiting for Ford to pounce. When he didn’t, the captain went on. “The body’s been there a while, decades, probably. Cold cases should take it but, as you know, her brothers have been making moves.” Another dramatic pause. The captain was a main player in the Waterbury Community Playhouse, and it showed. “We need someone who can give us intel on how much progress they’re making and if it’s tied to the heroin shipment that informant mentioned this week.”
“And you think she knows this?” Gina was close to her brothers, he could tell from the way they’d interacted at the hotel, but according to mob organization rules it would be beyond unusual for Rocco and Paul to share inside information with her. And on the off chance that they did, she wouldn’t be the kind to rat out her brothers. Her sense of loyalty might be misguided, but—after watching her with her brothers—it had been as obvious as the raspberry jelly on Gallo’s tie this morning. Still, there was something to be said for being in the right place at the right time, and since Kapowski’s stakeout the other night had turned up exactly nothing new, the task force couldn’t afford to turn down any opportunity as the date for the shipment got closer and closer. Fuck. He hated to admit it, but the plan to use Gina had merit.
“No,” the captain said. “All indications are that she’s clean. However, a good investigator can pick up all sorts of information—especially about something as big as that Esposito heroin deal is rumored to be.” Off came the glasses again. He picked up the cloth and unfolded it. Wipe. Wipe. Flip. Wipe. Wipe. Fold. Fold. Cloth down. Glasses on. “Are you a good investigator?”
“Yes sir.” It wasn’t ego. It was the truth. And he was beyond ready to prove it. “So, the plan is to get close to Miss Luca to gather intel about the workings of the Esposito family and the upcoming deal?”
All he had to do was get Gina, an innocent bystander, to trust him so that her brothers would as well. People said a lot without ever opening their mouths, every detective knew that. Still, guilt coated his tongue like he’d just taken a swig of rotten milk. That Kiss Cam kiss and the silk of her skin had been on almost constant replay in his mind since the wedding.