Big Money (Austin Carr Mystery) (15 page)

FORTY-ONE

The electronic phone chime doesn’t slow my mouth down. Neither does Franny plucking a slick, black Motorola cell phone from the inside pocket of her business jacket, holding up her hand. What works is Franny saying, “Carr. Shut up.”

It’s the story of my life, really. Always talking too much. Even when I’ve asked for the order and I
know
the sales manual says to keep quiet and wait; even when I should just embrace a woman and kiss her. No, whenever patience is most at a premium, whenever silence is truly golden, you can count on Austin Carr—Mr. Blabbermouth—to deliver entirely pointless and mood busting oratory.

I get nervous, I suppose. I tend to run on, delay the moment of rejection or acceptance. It’s a major flaw in the old Gift of Gab.

Franny pushes the cell phone against her ear. “Dahler-Chapman.”

Illegible blue symbols flash across the telephone’s glossy-black screen like a stock-market tape. The late afternoon sun glows like a florescent orange ball in the louvered kitchen windows. Stuart’s browning a whole chicken on an eight-burner, cast iron stove. In his white dress shirt and tie, the potholder mittens, Stuart could be taping a half-hour show on the Food Network.

Another Arresting Recipe from
Cooking with Cops
.

That’s right, I’m back at Trooper Bat Cave, being bullied by Franny and cooked for by Stuart. By her own order, I was describing to Franny, for the third time, exactly how Bluefish and Jerry killed my golf-partner Al. Although I suppose I was still specifically elaborating in some detail about my wild first putt when Franny’s cell phone rang.

“Repeat that,” Franny says to her Motorola.

El Capi
tan
wears her strawberry blond hair differently tonight, pushed over to one side like a 1940s movie star. Remarkably symbolic of her general mood, actually. Obviously bent out of shape. Like the Queen of New Jersey Cops already suspects I have reached some tit-for-tat with Bluefish.

Listening to her cell, whatever it was the poor man or woman had to repeat, Franny’s forehead wrinkles. Now she glances at her diamond-studded Rolex. “You’re certain about the subject’s condition?” Her gaze lifts, finds mine. Her eyes are unreadable. Cop eyes. “I’ll make sure he gets there.”

I swear my heart stops. “What?”

Franny slips the phone ba
ck in her jacket. “Your daughter walked into the Rumson police station fifteen minutes ago. Beth claims that she’s fine, safe and sound.”

My heart restarts right into double-time. “She’s all right?”

“A bruise or two. Scratches on her back she says came from being locked in a car trunk. She’s on her way home right now in a State Police cruiser. If you want, Stuart and I will drive you to meet her.”

I throw off the anger about her being mistaken for a spare tire. She’s alive. Not even seriously hurt. Thank God. Thank God. Relief chases a rock of tension from my
neck and shoulders. I sip suddenly sweeter air, then gulp richer breaths. Beth’s sunny-morning blond hair fills my mind’s eye, then her untrained but genetically true, someday-famous Carr smile.

Thank God. Oh, thank God.

“You made a deal with Bluefish, didn’t you?” Franny says. Her voice is a growl. Her green eyes are pure fury. By the stove, Stuart slides a step farther away from us.

“I didn’t make any deal.” For my purposes
—that is, to produce a better lie—I choose to think of my arrangement with Bluefish as an offer I couldn’t refuse. Offer and deal are not the same thing. I did not make a deal.

Franny shows me a Mona Lisa smile, then grabs my forearm. She leans in close, so close her breath warms my neck. “If you don’t testify against Mama Bones tomorrow, Carr, you...are
...fucking...dead.”

I don’t kno
w why she’s whispering. Stuart has moved so far away, he must register a different GPS number.

When the mother of my children sees me on her
porch, the one I built with my own hands, my ex-wife Susan becomes a gargoyle. Her nose flares. Her lips, eyes and ears pull back into a mask of ferocity. Fangs flashing.

Susan saying, “You are
dead
to these two children, Austin. Do you hear me?”

I think the ex-wife might be upset.

“What happened to Beth is your fault, you miserable, slime-sucking worm,” she says.

Definitely upset. But
Susan never cursed like this before—you know, so ladylike. Her only four-letter word was dead. Must be that new boyfriend Ryan told me about at dinner a few weeks ago. Can’t remember the turkey’s name. The Presbyterian minister that goes to AA meetings.

Susan lets Franny inside the house, but blocks
my
path. Well, this could be a problem. Not only does Susan weigh enough to give me a good wrestle, but if I’m forced to push past her, lay hands on her, I’d be in violation of my court order. Possibly committing a crime.

A surreptitious elbow may be needed to precipitate my crossing of the threshold. There. And a wee-
bit little shove. I came to see my daughter Beth and that’s exactly what—

Fr
anny knees me in the nuts. Next, she throws a forearm under my chin, grabs my belt and throws her weight into my Adam’s apple
and
my belly at the same time.
Whoa.
She governs my center of gravity like ace pitchers control a baseball. Lifting and pushing...back we go.

Franny’s bum rush forces us both outside, narrowly missing Susan, but
El Capitan
doesn’t stop until I’m sailing off the porch. And what a shove by Ms. Strawberry. I’m on the cement walkway leading to Susan’s porch, looking up at Franny Dahler-Chapman two seconds after brushing past Susan

“When you feel like getting up, go wait in the car, Carr,” she says.

Funny.

FORTY-TWO

Understanding and maturity often arrive late in a boy’s life. Like youth, dreams are hard to leave behind. But when the dawn finally comes, and a boy grasps at last that his life will never involve five hundred thousand dollar European sports cars, million dollar yacht parties and famous beauties like Scarlett Johansson...well, that’s when a boy becomes a man.

At least I sure the hell hope so. Because it’s about time I grew up. Way overdue, in fact. See, worrying about my testimony tomorrow before a
Special State Grand Jury, it occurs to me, were I rich like I always figured I should be, I’d have a hotshot attorney postponing my appearance or otherwise devising some totally legitimate loophole to excavate my ass.

But no, Big Money is not mine. I can’t afford an unbeatable mouthpiece. I never will. Nice things like top
shelf defense attorneys are forever beyond my reach. So is Scarlett Johansson. I believe I understand this now. The Fast Lane down Easy Street is closed to Austin Carr.

Tomorrow, I can either identify Mama Bones and make Franny happy, or I can somehow
not
identify Mr. Vic’s gray haired mother and make Bluefish smile, not to mention Mama Bones.

The consequences of both are obviously the subject of some concern. If I please Franny, Bluefish might kill not only me, but probably Beth, Ryan, Susan, Susan’s friends and neighbors, not to mention everybody's lawns, dogs and goldfish. On the other handjob, if I fulfill my verbal agreement with Bluefish and refuse to point the finger at Mama Bones, Franny promised me jail-time for perjury and conspiracy to commit murder.

Why can’t one of my options be careful and supervised use of a reliable time machine? Why can’t I go back to that afternoon in Luis’s restaurant and tell Bluefish “fine” when he first mentions doing business with Shore?

At least it’s nice to know I’ve reached maturity.

I take my mattress off the bed in my Trooper Mansion bedroom and lean that sucker against the wall. I start with a few kicks, then step closer and start punching, right, left, right, left, until my arms are tired and I go back to kicking, kicking, kicking until my legs feel like wet cement.

I take up punching again.

I go on like this for, I don’t know, half an hour. When all four of my limbs are numb with exhaustion, I crumble to the floor. My mouth is open. I’m panting. Sweating.

Tears slowly fill my eyes. When the water finally overflows and tickles my cheeks, I stand up, fists trembling and bellow like a wounded bear for all my lost dreams.

“Scarlett!”

FORTY-THREE

“Could you repeat the question, please?”

Quiet, individual sighs blend into a raucous, collective groan that echoes around the oak
paneled Trenton courtroom like a barking pit bull. The wave of verbal animosity finally crashes over me and dissipates.

Seems my dumb responses and other delaying tactics wear thin on the assembled State Grand Jury. Gee, I’ve only been on the witness stand two hours. And I’ve already given them my name
and
address.

“Mr. Carr, please pay attention,” Franny says. “This is very important. You’re taking up the grand jury’s time. Now, once again, look around the courtroom. Do you
see the woman
who had Anthony Farascio's body removed from the restaurant that night?”

Franny sports quite the courtroom demeanor. Impressively dressed. Authoritative. Articulate. In possession of all the facts. And pissed as hell at me for dragging this out, although staying very much in control for her audience.

“Please, Mr. Carr. Look at the target of this investigation. Do you
see that woman
from the restaurant here today?”

I have to admire the way Franny uses word emphasis. Every gaze in the courtroom focuses on Mama Bones. Hard not to, the way Franny drags her description out. I’ve heard any good prosecutor includes acting classes in his or her training, but Franny
is so good she might need an agent.

I stare at Mama Bones. Her gray hair. The sharp eyes that miss nothing. And dressed today like the sweetest grandma you ever saw, including blue hair, hand
knitted shawl and aluminum walker.

“Mr. Carr. Please.”

Guess it’s time to get this over with. I take one last deep breath before I drop the five hundred pounder: “I can’t be sure.”

Franny’s cheeks flush. “What did you say?”

I search the back of the courtroom for something to focus on. I memorize the details of the double door’s right side, the six-inch brass hinges. “I said I can’t be sure it’s the same woman.”

El Capi
tan’s
sea-green eyes burst into flame. The small courtroom barks again with whispered conversations. A knot expands inside my gut.

Franny almost spits at me. “Mr. Carr, you identified this woman, by name, on two...no, three separate occasions. In your sworn statement to my office, in fact, you described Angelina Bonacelli exactly, and swore under oath, on the Bible, that you’d known this woman by sight for more than seven years.”

I nod in complete agreement. “Of course I know Mama Bones. She’s the mother of my business partner, Vic Bonacelli. I just don’t know for sure she was the woman in that restaurant.”

Franny snatches some papers off the prosecutor’s table. “You were certain before. My transcript shows you voluntarily mentioned Angelina “Mama Bones” Bonacelli, by name, as the woman who supervised the disposal of Anthony Farascio
’s body.”

What drama. Franny’s long pointing finger reminds me of Madame La Farge.

“Yes, that’s true,” I say. “That’s what I thought. What I’m saying now is, though, I can’t be sure the woman in that restaurant was the same woman I see sitting here today. I’m just not certain.”

First
Franny’s cheeks balloon. Then the air hisses out between her teeth like a punctured tire.

FORTY-FOUR

Franny Dahler-Chapman trashes her empty Starbucks cup, snaps open her briefcase and seizes a red manila folder. My Branchtown lawyer, Randall Zimmer, Esquire, begins to tap the eraser end of his pencil on a new pad of lined yellow legal paper. The preliminaries are over. It’s time, lady and gentleman, for the main event.

Franny pushes an eight-by-ten glossy photograph at us across the polished walnut desk. After handcuffing me in the grand jury room and locking me up, not letting me use the telephone for three hours, Franny now has questions. A minor Chapman-Zimmer skirmish in the hallway was followed by calmer negotiation which led to the three of us sitting down in this courthouse conference room.

“Talbot told you about the AASD report she’d prepared,” Franny says. “You knew those co-mingling charges would ruin your business. But when you went to her room that night, you probably weren’t intending to kill her. So what happened? You argued and lost your temper?”

I glance at the photograph. It’s a black
and white shot of Ann Marie Talbot after the murderer choked and burned her, a close-up of her barbecued head. At least that’s what the black marker printing says on the back. Could be a horror-movie prop or a ruined, bone-in roast. The disgusting, barely human thing seems to be oozing some kind of black gravy.

Mr. Zimmer saying, “My client’s alibi is well established, Ms. Chapman. Should you decide to prosecute him for Ms. Talbot’s murder, you will in fact be the first witness I depose.”

Zimmer’s hawk-like eyes are the same dark caramel as the walnut desk. Looking at him, feeling the love, I am deeply and truly sorry for every lawyer joke I ever told. When you need one, a clever, juiced and tough-in-the-clinches attorney can save your sorry ass. Spending the big bucks goes down easy when your job or even a prison sentence is at stake. Right this second, having Mr. Z for a champion glows inside me like a double shot of forty-year-old bourbon.

“Would you mind looking this over as well?” Franny says. She shoves a three or four-page document at me, loose pages stapled together in the upper left corner.

Despite Mr. Z’s mighty parry and thrust,
El Capitan’s
green eyes shine with confidence. I saw a lightning flash of defeat in the Grand Jury room earlier, but now Ms. Strawberry’s back on offense, certain of her superior power and numbers.

I pick up the stapled papers wondering what the hell Franny throws at me now, but I wait until Mr. Z gives me the okay before I read. If you’re paying five
hundred an hour for advice, it’s important to listen. Lawyers also like you better, work harder, when you follow orders. Especially big Germans.

Page one is like a cover sheet. A centered title. Oh, my. I’ve never read a Forensic Pathology Summary before. Must be like an autopsy report.

Should I put on rubber gloves?