A Mighty Fortress (11 page)

I took some relief that his body wasn’t found at the garage. I wasn’t going to bring that up and hoped the good detective didn’t go there, either. I shook my head in disbelief. I knew I was pushing it, but I decided to give it a try anyway. “So how’d he die?”

He smirked and said, “That’s not public record yet, I don’t think.” It was time for him to resume control. “So when you saw Scalzo at Armani’s, it was just him and this Angie?”

I shook my head. “There were two others there. Another woman, a blonde, and some buff, nerdy-looking guy with a ponytail.”

He was still taking notes. “The blonde, can you describe her a little more?”

“I didn’t get a good look at her, but to use your term, she did look a little like a porn star, too. A lot like Angie, but she was probably ten years older, a little rounder. Maybe some plastic surgery around the edges.”

“So this Angie, then, what was she, about twenty?”

“I doubt a day older than twenty.”

“And the blonde?”

“Like I said, maybe thirty going on forty.”

“So, like the MILF type?”

“I guess you could say that.”

Just then, C-Rod returned with two cups of coffee. I didn’t have to worry about him poisoning me, because one cup was for him and the other for his partner. After Shields thanked him, C-Rod looked to me. “You didn’t want one, did you, Porter?”

Shields answered for me. “We were just talking about a MILF, C-Rod. Sorry you missed it.”

C-Rod’s eyes were burning hotter than the coffee he was holding.

Shields got us back on track. “So when you were at Armani’s, you didn’t see any other goons with Scalzo? Say, like a three-hundred pound Italian?”

I knew he was talking about Kiki, but I hadn’t seen him at Armani’s, so I shook my head.

“Is that a no?” C-Rod asked.

“That’s a no,” I said. “I didn’t see him at Armani’s.”

“You see him anywhere else?” C-Rod asked with a dead glare.

I answered his question but looked to Shields. “He stopped by the condo when I was leaving in the morning. I think he was taking Angie somewhere.”

“Where?” C-Rod asked.

“I think on a date,” I told Shields, who was still taking notes.

He set his pen down again. “Anything else you think we should know?”

“Like I said, I didn’t know this Scalzo guy. I just served him.”

“Just doing your job, right?” Shields asked like a good cop.

“That’s right.” I checked the time again. I was starting to feel claustrophobic, and maybe a bit anxious. I slid my card across the table. “Feel free to call me if you have any other questions, lieutenants. But if you don’t mind, I got a lot of work to do today.”

Shields picked up my card and read it carefully, as though searching for some hidden clue. “P-I-P. Porter Investigations and Process. That has a nice ring to it.” He dropped the card in his shirt pocket. “He must be a good investigator, eh, Chris?”

C-Rod grumbled something while his eyes tried to drill a hole in me. “Actually, I have another question,” he said abruptly. “Who the hell did that to your face?”

“Yeah, you missed that part, too,” Shields said.

“So enlighten me,” C-Rod said.

“Like I told your partner, a couple of goons tagged me last night.”

“You don’t say. You press charges?”

I shook my head. “Didn’t see the point.”

He was studying me hard now, and I knew the money shot was coming. “You said you didn’t go back to Scalzo’s place after Armani’s. Did you see him anywhere else?” C-Rod had a way of getting under your skin. Good bad cop.

I reminded myself of the penalty for obstructing justice, and nodded. “He had his goons pick me up last night. We met him at a garage off Gandy.”

“Hillsborough or St. Pete side?” C-Rod asked.

“Pinellas, I think.” I checked Shields, but he sat stone-faced.

“And these are the same goons that did this to your face?” Shields asked.

“That’s right. One of them fit the bill for the three-hundred pound beast you described. I think his name was Kiki.”

“Kiki?” Shields looked to his partner with amusement. “What kind of name is that?”

I shrugged.

“You like having your face danced on like that?” C-Rod asked.

I shook my head.

C-Rod to Shields: “I wouldn’t either. In fact, someone did that to me, I’d want revenge.”

Shields nodded back; good point. What a duo these two were.

“I’ll tell you, lieutenants. I’ve had my fill of revenge over the years.” I looked C-Rod right in the eyes. “And it doesn’t satisfy.”

C-Rod tried looking mean and unimpressed, but I could see in his eyes that he agreed with me on some level, and if he was angry about anything now, it was that he agreed with me.

Shields nodded at me. “We know about your service, Porter. I spent some time over there myself during the first Gulf War.”

“Then you might know what I’m talking about.” But I was still looking at C-Rod.

C-Rod pulled his eyes back to mine, and something flickered in them, something that looked like anger, fear, and regret all balled up together. He said nothing, but swallowed hard. “So let’s hear the rest about the garage,” he said.

I looked to Shields. “Scalzo left the garage last night. He seemed to have received an important call about somewhere he had to be. I don’t know who or what. I left about five minutes after he did.”

“If we find this garage, we going to find extra bodies?” C-Rod asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, let’s hope not, for your sake.” He glanced at Shields and then looked back to me. “So after you got out of there, where’d you go?”

“Home.”

“Anyone vouch for that?”
 

“My neighbor, Hector Garcia. He was with me until after midnight.”
 

Shields wrote that down.
 
Then he looked up. “You know a guy named Don Alexi?”

It took a second to place the name, uttered by Scalzo as he was giving me a beating. “Not really.”

“Not really?” C-Rod asked.

“Not really. I’ve heard of him. I don’t know him.”

Shields and C-Rod exchanged glances, asking each other if they had any other questions.
 

I stood. “Am I free to go?”

Shields nodded back. “Yeah, just don’t go far.”

“You both should know,” I said, “that I’m probably going to be working this case, too.”

C-Rod rubbed his chin. “Free country. Just don’t get in our way.”

Shields stood to show me out. C-Rod remained seated. He took out his phone and started dialing as the door closed behind me. Shields led me by a row of cubicles, and when we turned, we passed Mitchell’s office. I wasn’t surprised to see Dane Parker in there. They were really chatting it up like long-lost friends. They looked to be about the same age, and I wondered if they’d gone to law school or ever worked together.
 

Shields walked me to the office lobby. “So, this same lawyer hired you to stay on the case?” he asked.

“Something like that.”

“Well, what C-Rod said is right. Don’t get in our way.”

“That won’t be a problem,” I said.

“And let me know if you find anything helpful.”

I nodded. “Sure thing.”

Shields turned, but I called him back.

“Any chance you could get me in to see the crime scene?”

He grinned and shook his head. “Sorry, Porter. You should know better.”

I should have, and I did. But his eyes told me a lot about our level of trust.

Outside, I was hit by a few gusts of humid wind from different directions, vying for my attention. They dissipated as quickly as they hit me, almost like a prelude to the few cracks of thunder that ripped through the sky. The funny thing was, the sky above me was blue and I could feel the August sun tearing into my back. I walked a block south on Twiggs and from there I could see a few thunderheads rolling in from the southwest. It was probably storming in St. Pete right now, and we’d be getting our share of it soon.
 

Before I went any farther in the investigation, I needed to get up to speed on the lawsuit. The clerk’s office would be closing in ten minutes, so I’d have to settle for reviewing the court file in Mattie’s office. And I had a few questions for Mr. Wilcox himself.
 

I didn’t call to tell him I was on my way.

As the rain came down, I ran a few blocks south to the Hilton, where I knew a line of taxis would be waiting for guests checking out. The Haitian driver didn’t seem to mind that I sat drenched in the backseat for the short ride to Mattie’s office. We crossed the Hillsborough River and took a few wrong turns at my direction before I finally spotted the old converted blue bungalow in Hyde Park that housed the office of Wilcox and Associates, P.A. Last time I’d checked, there were in fact no associates working for Mattie. To save cash, he’d started outsourcing research and drafting duties to contract attorneys, some of whom were in India, and none of whom were in Tampa. He liked to keep his above-the-line expenses lean. I guessed it helped pay for the new Porsche he seemed to lease every two years. I was pleased to see his newest one parked behind his building.

The front door was locked. I saw a cheap plastic door ringer and pressed it hard as I peered through the etched glass panes on the front door. There was a desk in the lobby, but no sign of a receptionist. The place looked deserted. I knocked as loud as I could without doing damage to the glass. A moment later, Mattie appeared.

He pushed the door and held it open for me. “What you got for me?”

“Nothing but questions,” I said. “More importantly, what have you got for me?”

“Your money’s in my office. I’ll get it out of the safe.”

I got a better look at the lobby: old floors of loosely-fit tongue-in-groove planks, and prints of black and white photos of downtown Tampa around the turn of the twentieth century decorating the otherwise bleak walls.
 

“Where’s your receptionist?” I asked.

He rubbed his eyes with the back of his palm. “A call center in St. Pete. She answers phones for a few dozen sole practitioners at a nice, cozy data center.”
 

“We need to discuss what you’re going to pay me to stay on this job.”

Mattie sighed and leaned against the wall with his foot planted against it. “I think the six grand I paid you to get him served should cover today as well.”

“I don’t think you’re asking me to work for free.”

“What do you want, Porter?”

I hadn’t really thought about what I expected to be paid for this part of the job, but I knew it would keep me from doing much of anything else this week. “I’ll give you a discount for the six grand you already paid me. How about a grand a day, plus expenses, and this job gets my complete, undivided attention this week.”

Mattie thought about it for a moment before nodding. “Only for this week. This case is going to trial Monday, so I need you to give me a reason to get a continuance. Or better yet …” He trailed off, stared at the floor.

“What would be better yet, Mattie?”

He looked me dead in the eyes. “Give me a reason to withdraw.”

“Withdraw?”
 

He nodded. “I don’t trust my client.”

“You think Pilka had something to do with Scalzo’s death?”

“I wouldn’t put anything past him. Kind of strange—he wanted to make sure Scalzo couldn’t leave, and then the guy dies?”

“Yeah, but he wasn’t leaving until Monday. If he wanted to whack him Sunday, why go through the drill of serving him?”

Mattie’s glare glazed over. “I don’t know. That’s just the thing: nothing about this case makes sense anymore.” He checked his BlackBerry, as tense as ever.

“This trial seems to be getting to you, Mattie.”

He sighed. “Strangest case I ever had. The other side wants to just walk away. My client says no. He keeps saying he’s waiting. Waiting for something.” He caught his breath.

“Like waiting for Chad Scalzo to catch a bullet?”

“Is that how he died?”

I shrugged. “That’d be my guess. All I know is they found him in his condo.”

Mattie nodded and stared into space, sporting a look of indifference.

“Then again, you seemed to know back there that Scalzo had been murdered.”

“What?” Mattie said.

“At the courthouse, you said you wanted me to find his murderer.”

“What are you saying, Porter, that I had something to do with it?”
 

“I’m just saying, I got to push everyone’s buttons. You know the drill.”

“Not the buttons that are paying you. Forgive me for presuming it was murder. The cops show up talking about the guy being dead and wanting to interview you, I think it’s safe to say he was murdered.”
 

“Fair enough.”

Mattie seemed to be studying my face. “So his guys, they really did that to you?”

I nodded. “I didn’t fight back that hard.”

He crossed his arms. “Listen, Milo, I’m gonna be your attorney now, so everything we say will be privileged. I want you to tell me what happened after you got out of there last night.
Did
you go back to Scalzo’s place?”

“That would simplify matters, wouldn’t it? Sorry, I was home having a beer with my neighbor.”

“The cops buy that?”

“They seemed to.”

“What else did you find out?”

“That’s about it.”

He shook his head. “Then why are you here? You could have called to tell me that.”

“I want to see your file. The court file was checked out. Plus, I have a few more questions for you.”

He nodded and motioned for to me get on with it.

I started by asking, “Who’s Don Alexi?”

“Why do you ask that?”

“’Cause Scalzo seemed pretty convinced Alexi was behind having him served.”

Mattie stared off into space again. “Why’d he think that?” The question seemed more for himself than for me.

“I was hoping you could answer that question.”

He snapped out of his trance. “I’m not a mind reader.”

“Then let me see your file.”

I thought he was about to tell me to pound sand or argue about why I needed to see the file. But instead, he just moaned with resignation and yelled, “Kara.” Then louder, “Kara!” Then he looked to me and lowered his voice. “My paralegal will show you the file.”