Pushing water, p.10
Pushing Water, page 10
“We saw you on TV last night,” Ellen said.
“Me? Mike Zywiciel and Stush handled the press.”
Tom put down his utensils. “You were in the background. They were showing the cops and the crime scene tape and you were talking to some woman looked like she might be a doctor.”
“Ah. Probably the medical examiner from Allegheny County. That must’ve been right after we found Stoltz’s body in his car ’round back.”
“Looked like more TV there than cops,” Tom said.
“You have no idea. Even worse today.”
“Why today?” Ellen said. “Everything happened yesterday.”
Doc sipped his drink. “Pretty much all the media yesterday were local. Quite a few of them knew us, so we came to an understanding pretty quick. Today the networks are here. I stopped by and they were taking turns slipping under the crime scene tape while Mike Zywiciel and a couple other cops played Whac-A-Mole with them.”
“I saw a little of that,” Tom said. “Shoulda locked their asses up, interfering with a police investigation.”
“They have a job to do. I understand that. What some of them forget is that we have one, too.”
“What’d you do with them? I know better than to think you walked out in the middle of a situation.”
Another sip. Doc had no interest in rehashing the day he’d come here to escape. Finish this one and go home. Should be some Sugardale hot dogs in the fridge. Buns less certain. What the hell. Wouldn’t be the first time beanie-weenie came to the rescue after a long day. “I pulled them over to the side and described the local dos and don’ts while Mike got his cops to move the tape out from Dale’s a little. Things settled down pretty quick after we reset the perimeter. And put two guys with shotguns on the doors.”
That got Tom’s attention. “Really? You had guys with shotguns?”
“Bean bag rounds. It was all for show. I told everyone there was nothing to see in Dale’s, but there were people who’d talked to actual eyewitnesses working in all the other stores. Said I was sure they’d be happy to see their names in the paper or their pictures on television. Might be even more forthcoming if some money got spent.”
“They go for it?”
“Most of them. One jagov from CNN kept giving me shit about the First Amendment so I reminded him we could’ve locked down the whole parking lot instead of just that corner.”
“It wasn’t that Cuomo asshole, was it? He looks for trouble.”
“No, it wasn’t Cuomo. Who I kind of like, by the way. I think it was a producer. Guy with a face made for the other side of the camera.” Doc raised his glass. Stopped short of a drink. “He was just doing his job. Of course, so was I. Today, I won.” Winked at his dad.
“What’s on for tomorrow?”
“Crime lab results will be back. I hope, anyway. Nailing things down a little more. Rick Neuschwander will probably cross-reference the victims’ cell phones with the shooter’s. See if there are any relationships we don’t know about. Maybe do a re-enactment so Dale’s can have their store back. The manager’s shitting bricks worrying we’re going to take all the stuff out the back and sell it.”
Tom rose from the kitchen chair and made his way to his recliner. Took him a while. He told people he retired early because he’d saved enough money he didn’t have to work. Truth was rheumatoid arthritis sent him home. Hands unable to grip things and feet that couldn’t spend a day supporting him, even at five-ten and one sixty. Surgery helped enough for him to work an hour or so a day in his shop, but everyone knew where this road led.
Eased himself into the recliner. Said, “Dumbass.” Started up again.
“What?” Doc said.
“I left my water in the kitchen.”
“I’ll get it.”
Doc went into the kitchen for the glass. Ellen said, “You sure you don’t want any meatloaf? Before I put it away.”
“No, thanks, Mom. I still have some in the freezer.” He didn’t. Bothered him that she might think he stopped by just for the free meal, though he knew it would delight her. Walked back to the living room. Gave his father his drink.
“Thanks. Hey, why the hell are you going to all that trouble tomorrow? The kid that shot them’s dead. How can the city afford this?”
Doc stifled a sigh. This happened more all the time with both parents. He couldn’t decide if they were forgetting or just not paying attention. “It’s the job, Dad. We do what they tell us.” Finished his drink. Made a point of checking his watch. “I better go. Give Mom time to clean up before Jeopardy comes on.” Ellen Dougherty tracked the time leading up to Jeopardy with the same passion Rain Man showed for Judge Wapner. “I’m beat, anyway.”
The motion-sensitive light came on when Doc stepped off the expanded stoop where Tom kept the grill next to the house. Paused at the bottom of the stairs next to the garage’s entry door. Saw the imperfectly repaired bullet holes in the brick, perpetual reminders of the Russians who came calling for his cousin Nick one night. Looked up the stairs at the front door and the warm glow from the kitchen and living room. Almost went back. Knew he’d fall asleep on the couch and that would just worry his mother even more.
Picked up a dozen wings with celery at the Edgecliff. Beanie-weenie wasn’t going to cut it after the two days he’d had.
CHAPTER 20
“You’re from Vermont? I don’t think I ever met no one from Vermont before. Least not that I knew about it.”
Jacques using his Bob Gainey persona in the Penns River Inn, talking to Mary Pugliese. “Way up there, though. Little town on the lake called Alburg. Aboot—not much more than an hour from Montreal.”
All work and no play would make Jacques a dull boy. Mary looked like she might play. He hadn’t planned to stay in Penns River but brother Sylvain couldn’t just walk into a currency exchange and convert ninety-three thousand dollars Canadian into American without drawing attention. Doing it in under-the-radar-sized increments took time. Jacques looking for a temporary address to receive Sylvain’s package when the opportunity presented itself to work against an overwhelmed police department that didn’t strike him as too sharp even when undistracted. Tied down, he decided to kill two birds with one stone and found a source for the documents needed to pass as American.
Mary was five-three or so with dark hair and dark eyes. Light olive skin Jacques could live without was more than made up for by having a house of her own, hard earned through a divorce from a husband who sounded like a real shitheel the way Mary described him: “Jimmy was a real shitheel” her exact words. Jacques made sympathetic noises in the right places. Not too sympathetic. She’d be suspicious if he sounded like too much of a pushover. Worked the middle ground, understanding of her situation, not so much he came off as a pussy himself.
He waved for another Crown Royal and a Bud Light for Mary. “What do you do all day?” he said while they waited for the refills.
“I was working at Dale’s until that guy went nuts in there.”
“You were there?”
Mary sipped her fresh beer. “Not yesterday. It was my day off.”
“Lucky you.”
“Least them that was working got paid for the whole day. Now I might as well be laid off until the cops quits screwing around in there.”
“They are still there?”
“All day today and the store won’t open tomorrow, either. They said they’d call if we was opening Friday but not to count on it. Once the cops is done they’re bringing in some company from down the other side of Picksburgh that cleans up crime scenes. Might not be open till Monday from what I heard. We could collect if we was laid off. Now we can’t even do that.”
“It’s a tough break for you.”
“People never think of that. How it fucks everyone up for days after.”
Jacques sipped his Crown. “Does kind of free up your time, though.”
Mary gave him a look that might have meant anything. “I guess I do have some time on my hands. You got something in mind?”
“I might, if you’re interested.”
“I might be. What did you say you did for a living?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You some kind of shady character, not saying?”
“You didn’t ask. I didn’t want to volunteer anything and have you think I was trying to impress you.”
“What do you do that’s gonna impress me so much?”
“I didn’t say it was impressive. I just said I didn’t want you to think I was trying to impress you.”
“Go ahead. Try me.”
Jacques’s turn to give her a look that might mean anything. “A man could take that a couple different ways, you know.”
“Impress me enough and who knows what else you could try?”
Jacques figured he had all evening to find out. “I’m self-employed. A consultant. I travel all over the area.”
“What kinds of things you consult on?”
“Security. I go to gas stations, convenience stores, check cashing places and make sure their security is good.”
“Any money in that?”
He smiled. “Sometimes.”
CHAPTER 21
Stretch Dolewicz thanked his nephew for the fresh beer. “I wished I never heard of that shithole up the river. That was all The Hook’s doing. All of it. He wanted to live there because the old time Mannarinos did. Cocksucker wasn’t even from the connected side of the family.”
Mike “The Hook” Mannarino not connected to any family since Stretch found out he’d been informing for the feds. Now even the thought of the two-faced prick broke Stretch’s balls, all they’d been through together. Sipped his beer, said, “Okay. What’s going on in Penns River now that I have to deal with?”
Ted Suskewicz even taller than his uncle. Six-seven in sneakers. A good kid. Slouched in his chair to look shorter, Stretch’s sitting posture not what it used to be since a crew from New York put three shotgun pellets in his hip. “Someone’s pulling robberies. Running around like their hair’s on fire. Three today, last I heard.”
“Three? Today? You’re shitting me.”
“And one yesterday. That payday loans joint on Sixth Avenue.”
“Can’t be all the same guys.”
Ted made an apologetic face. “I just got back from there, Uncle Stretch. The descriptions match and the cops think it’s the same crew. One thin guy with a pistol and a fat guy with a shotgun.”
“White guys?” Ted nodded. “You know which cop’s working it? Is it that prick Dougherty, used to fuck with Mike all the time?”
“He answered the first call. Left when those people got rained on in Dale’s. Now that woman’s got it. Shimp, I think her name is.”
Stretch had no idea how Ted got so much information from inside Penns River. Didn’t really want to know. Anything that reminded him of Penns River gave him more of a pain in the ass than he already had. “I don’t know her. Dougherty’s an asshole, but he’s smart. He think it’s the same crew?”
“That I don’t know.”
Stretch swallowed beer. Took his time. “Understand, I wouldn’t give a shit this crew stole the whole goddamn town, put it on a barge and floated it down the river.” Took a second to savor the thought. “Except Fred Kaparzo pays protection to make book out of the back of that loan joint. They only got the legit money, but Fred’s pissed. We don’t do something, he’s the kind to start getting people worked up, they ain’t getting what they pay for.”
“Plus, these guys ain’t paying the tax.”
“Yeah. The tax.” Stretch exhaled, shifted in the chair. Knocking over a place that paid protection and not kicking anything up to Stretch. Two unforgiveables. Now he had a fucking task. Almost enough to make him miss Mike. Let him have the worry. With Mike and Buddy Elba both gone and the books closed, New York didn’t have any made guys to run Pittsburgh full-time. Stretch more like the caretaker than the boss. Probably kicked up as much money as Mike ever did, but he wasn’t Italian, so no button. Which meant he couldn’t be the boss. Which was okay with him, learning every day how being the boss was more trouble than it was worth. Sometimes he wished they’d straighten out someone in the Burgh until he remembered who the prime candidates were. In moments of weakness he fantasized about walking away from Penns River and making up the lost income other ways. Then he’d figure in how much money he spun off from the casino with the loan sharking, drugs, women, and a couple of poker games.
“Gówno.” Stretch saw the question on Ted’s face. Smiled for the first time that day. “Shit. My dziadek taught me that one. Worked down the old powder plant. Used to come home dark as a nigger coal miner. Curse up a blue streak. Grandma’d give him holy hell if he swore in front of the little ones so he always did it in Polish so we wouldn’t understand.” Stretch repositioned his hip again. Getting so he couldn’t sit more than a couple minutes in any position. “Then when Grandma turned her back he’d teach us every fucking word. Proper pronunciation and all. I loved that old bastard.”
Stretch swallowed beer. Fussed with the TV remote. Nothing worth watching was on, not with Pitt basketball in the shitter.
Ted must’ve got tired of waiting. Said, “About this crew in Penns River…”
“Put the word out. If they come to us, pay the tax, make restitution for Kaparzo’s inconvenience, we can come to an arrangement. If we have to go looking for them, a little pissant two-man crew? That won’t go so well.”
CHAPTER 22
Rick Neuschwander tried to break it to Doc gently. “I know you’re not happy with some of the things that don’t add up here. I’m not, either.”
“Doesn’t sound like you’re going to make me any happier.”
Rick gave a don’t shoot the messenger face. “I spent all day going through the cell phones and social media accounts of every victim and the shooter. The only connection I see is that Monica Albanese and Tim Cunningham both worked at Dale’s and had been dating for a couple of months. The only other relationship I can find between any of them is that Nicole Sobotka and Eloise Scheftic both shopped at Dale’s. Nothing associates any of them with Michael Stoltz.”
Doc recognized a losing battle when he saw one. It still bothered him that they’d walked into such a crime scene and found everything as tied up as it would ever be. “Humor me a minute, Noosh. He spends the morning target shooting and hanging out with Ron Blewett. Ron knows him pretty well and sees nothing out of the ordinary. Stoltz leaves and drives directly to Dale’s to kill people.”
“It’s not like he hot-footed it up there.”
“Damn near. Ron says he left at one thirty. By—what?—two-oh-nine everything’s done.”
“So? It can’t be more than five miles.”
“Six-point-seven. I measured it myself yesterday.”
“Ten minutes using the bypass. Twelve, tops.”
“I also checked the logs. There was a serious accident at the intersection of Seventh Street and Stevenson. Call came in at one thirteen. Two units, a fire truck, and two ambos dispatched. Traffic was fucked up for an hour.”
“That time of day, it still couldn’t have held him up more than five minutes.”
Doc slumped in his chair. “Still, this was a man with a mission. He wades through the traffic to go directly to Dale’s to shoot people he doesn’t know. He had such a hard-on to kill someone, what’s special about Dale’s? Why not break it off and go downtown? Shoot up the crowd at the new community center?”
“Maybe he didn’t know about it. The ceremony, I mean. Wasn’t it done by then, anyway?”
Doc did the math. “Yeah. It was breaking up by the time the robbery call came in.” Tossed a ball of paper into the trash. “Walk me through the connections. Or lack thereof. For my peace of mind.”
Neuschwander spread his notes across the desk. “First thing—the easy part—was to check all the calls in and out stored in the cell phones, along with all the phone numbers saved. Only Albanese and Cunningham had any in common, and the only numbers they had in common with anyone else is each other and some Dale’s employees. Which makes sense, since we know they were dating.”
“We know this how?”
“Witness statements from other employees who knew them both.”
They’d done this before. Doc would sit, hands fooling with some small item, not looking at anything. He’d interrupt with the occasional question so it was clear in his mind. Sometimes they switched roles, though Neuschwander took notes and doodled when he was the audience. Their way of making sure neither took anything for granted.
Neuschwander went on. “So the phones are a dead end. We opened their email accounts. The only cross-references are between Albanese and Cunningham. Then we checked Facebook. Same thing. Lots of mutual friends between Albanese and Cunningham—mostly people they worked with—and nothing else. Aside from those two dating, these people are as random as it gets. The only thing I can find they have in common is they were all in Dale’s at two Tuesday afternoon.”
“You ready to call it?”
“I’d like to wait for the lab results. Maybe see if the autopsy shows a brain tumor or something that might explain it.”
“A tumor would be sweet. His parents are nice people. I’m all for anything that lets them sleep easier not thinking they raised an evil prick for a son. Any idea when you’ll hear back?”
“You know how they are.” Penns River too small for a lab of its own. Sent everything out to either the state police, the feds, or a private company. Allegheny County handled autopsies. Penns River’s work was rarely a priority.
“Even for this? Goddamn, this is national news. You’d think they’d want to look good.”
“It was national news. You looked around lately? We’re back to just the locals. They find anything, they pass it along and do the national stand-up themselves.”
