Fixed in Fear (23 page)

Allie smoothed her hand over the soft wool of her trousers and looked away. She took her time, as though considering whether or not to answer. When she did, her voice had a ring of finality to it. It was the voice of a woman who was finished bargaining.

“If that doesn't happen the world will know that you, Dr. Lydia Corriger, are The Fixer. The vigilante serial killer responsible for dozens of assassinations. Your lair in Olympia will be exposed. No more secret arsenals or communication centers. No more poses. No more pretending for Daddy that you've turned over a new leaf. You'll spend the rest of your life in a cage. And I can assure you, there'll be no glass of second-rate merlot to take the edge off your days.”

Lydia felt an ancient rage spark to life deep within her. She'd made herself a promise as a young girl. No one would ever have power over her again. She shook her head. “I'll not be blackmailed. You hold no threat to me. Do your worst, Allie. It means nothing to me.”

Allie's smile held no warmth. “Ah, but you're wrong. Because exposing The Fixer is only half the story. Unless I'm welcomed back into the bosom of my family, the world will also know that Daddy Dearest was the cop who let you go. The dirty detective who lied and redirected evidence to keep you safe. What will Robbie and Claire think of the sainted Mort Grant then? You see? You get it? It's not only you in that cage for the rest of your life. It's Mort Grant, too. There'll be no badge to protect him. He'll be all alone when he walks through that prison yard. Surrounded by all those men he worked so hard to put in there. How do you think that little tea party would go down?”

And there it was. Allie was willing to see her father jailed, ruined, and beaten in order to have her needs met. She'd not hesitate to have his legacy turned from that of dedicated civil servant into disgraced accomplice to an international assassin. She would rather have the man who raised her disappear into a concrete cell for the rest of his life, left to suffer and bleed, than be denied anything she wanted.

The muscles in Lydia's hands tightened and pulled as if of their own volition. She had to mindfully hold them in place to keep them away from the gun resting against the small of her back.

“I'm in town until Tuesday. I expect to hear from you by this evening. A Sunday brunch with my family would be nice. I'll leave the details to you.” Allie stood and crossed to her front door. She placed her hand on the knob. “Call me with the restaurant you've selected. I'm sure you have my number.”

Lydia stood and walked to the door. She stopped in front of Allie, holding her gaze. “I'm not going to do this, Allie. And I'm not going to let you hurt your father any more than you already have.”

“Don't doubt me, Lydia. I'll have what I want or the entire law enforcement world will be devastated by the exposure of Mort Grant's criminal exploits. Tabloids will enjoy a scoop of monumental proportions. The girls will never see their Papa again. Robbie will lose the object of his eternal devotion. And you? Well, you'll not even have visiting day to look forward to. The only person who cares one whit about you will be in a prison cell of his own.” She shook her head. “Call me by seven this evening. Make it a nice restaurant. It will be my treat, of course. And there's no need for you to attend. It'll be just family.”

Allie opened the door.

“You sure this address is right?” Mort pulled his Subaru to a stop in front of a beautifully kept two-story home in West Seattle. Rhododendron bushes lined the wide driveway holding a late-model SUV and what looked to be a brand-new minivan. “This is where Tommy Apuzzo lives?”

Rita Willers double-checked her notepad. “Costigan said Auggie Apuzzo's kid would be around seven or eight. There's only one Thomas Apuzzo registered in the Seattle school district. He's eight years old. Records list his father's name as Augustus Apuzzo. It's gotta be him, right? Mother's name is Cheryl Hayes. This is the address on file.”

Mort took in the potted chrysanthemums on the front porch and the bright purple University of Washington flag hanging next to the front door. “I would have lost this bet. No way would I have thought this would be the place a kid of an ex-con like Apuzzo would be living.”

Chief Willers looked down the street of similar homes. “Well, we're officially nowhere with Apuzzo. The address his parole officer had for him doesn't exist. Auggie's smart. According to his PO, Auggie never misses his check-in. Always shows up sober and smiling, telling him just what the guy wants to hear. Never gives him any reason to check on him. So if we've got any chance of finding Auggie, this is the only place we've got to start.”

Mort checked his watch. “It's just past four. Everybody should be inside.”

“What makes you say that?” Rita asked.

Mort nodded toward the house. “It's a Friday special. The Huskies usually play on Saturdays. We're playing Auburn. This family's a Husky-boosting lot. Kickoff was at three o'clock. We should be about halfway through the second quarter. I got ten bucks says the family's sitting around the television. Probably licking the buffalo sauce off their fingers even as we speak.”

Rita gave him one of her rare smiles. “I had no idea you were such a student of the habits of the Huskies.”

Mort thought of college game days past, when his own family would huddle around the corn chips in the den of that big old house to cheer on their favorite team. Edie loved those Huskies. She even died holding a pair of tickets to the season opener in her hands.

He noticed that that memory brought a smile to his lips instead of a lump to his throat.

Maybe this was progress.

“Let's just say it takes one to know one,” he told Rita. “You ready?”

Rita nodded. “Good thing we're both in plain clothes. This strikes me as a neighborhood where the arrival of a couple of uniforms would set the telephone tree buzzing.” She opened her car door and got out. Mort met her and they walked up to little Tommy Apuzzo's house together.

A smiling man answered when they rang the doorbell, which played the University of Washington's fight song. Mort made him for just south of forty, just north of six feet. Despite his worn and baggy college sweatshirt, Mort could see the man kept himself in good shape.

“Can I help you?” the man asked. Mort could hear the roaring chaos of a football game broadcast over a television set somewhere in the distance. The volume was turned up loud enough for anyone watching to feel like they were at the stadium.

“Is this the home of Tommy Apuzzo?” Mort and Rita held up their shields.

The man's smile vanished. He looked over his shoulder, stepped onto the front porch, and closed the door behind him.

“Tommy's my son,” the man told them. “Well, technically my stepson. He's not done anything wrong, has he?”

“No, sir, he sure hasn't,” Rita answered. “But he lives here, right?”

The man looked confused. “You're both cops?”

“We are, Mr….” Mort needed an ID.

The man hesitated for a heartbeat before sticking out his hand. “Hayes. Wilson Hayes. Cheryl, that's Tommy's mother. Cheryl and I have been married five years now. Tommy's a good kid. What do you want with him?”

Hayes stood in front of his door, looking like a man who'd face any danger to protect his family.

“Tommy's birth father,” Rita said. “Is he Augustus Apuzzo? Sometimes called Auggie?”

“That what this is about? Auggie's done something again? And what? You think Tommy knows something? Let me tell you about that no-good piece of dirty excuse for a human being. Tommy gets nowhere near him, and Auggie gets nowhere near my son. If I ever have to—”

Wilson Hayes's rant was interrupted when the front door swung open. A petite redhead with a round and pretty face looked up at Hayes, putting one hand on his arm and the other on her robustly pregnant belly.

“Will?” she asked, while looking at the two strangers standing on her porch. “Everything okay here? It's almost halftime. Time to fire up the charcoal.”

Wilson Hayes put a protective arm around his wife's shoulders and pulled her outside just enough to close the door again.

“These folks are cops,” he told her. “Looking for Auggie.”

Cheryl Hayes slipped her arm around her husband's waist. Her face was twisted in disgust. “What's he done now?”

Mort apologized for interrupting the game. “We need to locate Auggie Apuzzo. The address he gave his parole officer doesn't make sense. There may be a mistake, but—”

“There's no mistake,” Cheryl interrupted. “Auggie doesn't like to be found. Sees himself as a lone wolf or some such bullshit.”

“Cheryl!” Wilson Hayes chastised his wife. “There's no need for that kind of talk.”

The woman looked up at him with tired but adoring eyes. “Sorry, honey. That guy brings out the worst in me every time.”

Mort tried to imagine how different Cheryl's life was when she was married to a career criminal like Auggie. He was confident foul language was the least of her concerns.

“So you have no idea where we might find him?” Rita asked. “We need to ask him a few questions.”

“What's he done?” Cheryl rubbed her bulbous belly. “Wait, don't tell me. Not unless you can tell me he's going away long enough for there never to be the slightest chance of Tommy or me being forced to see him ever again.”

“Like Chief Willers said, we just have a few questions.” Mort hoped he could reassure the anxious parents.

Cheryl turned to Rita. “You're the chief?” She nodded toward Mort. “You his boss? A woman? For real?”

“I'm chief of police down in Enumclaw, Mrs. Hayes. Detective Grant is a detective here in Seattle. We're teamed up on a case. Nobody's working for anybody. We're a team.”

“And this case involves Auggie?” Cheryl asked.

“Again,” Mort said. “We just have a few questions for him.”

“Yeah, I have a few questions for the weasel, too.” Wilson Hayes sounded like he wanted to do more than ask Auggie something. “Like what's it going to take for him to stay away from my family and how the heck can he look himself in the mirror every morning.”

“So he's not staying away?” Mort asked. “You've seen him?”

“Not for a long time,” Cheryl answered. “But he came by, what?” She looked up to her husband. “Was it yesterday? Day before?”

“Yesterday.” Wilson Hayes had an angry glint in his eye. “That lowlife always waits till he knows I'm at work to show up. He knows I don't want Cheryl or Tommy anywhere near him.”

“He threaten you?” Rita asked. “Or Tommy?”

Cheryl Hayes shook her head. “No. Nothing like that. Just came by long enough to drop off an envelope. Bum owes me tens of thousands of dollars in back child support. For all he cares Tommy would be starving and naked.” She gave her husband a squeeze. “It's my Will here who cares for Tommy. Keeps him safe. Teaches him stuff.” Her smile was a combination of adoration and embarrassment. “Gives him a little sister sometime this month.”

“Congratulations,” Rita said. “I wish you a speedy delivery.”

“From your mouth to God's ears,” Cheryl said. “Tommy had me in labor for thirty-one hours. Of course Auggie was nowhere to be found.” She pressed closer to Will. “This time's going to be different.”

“You said Auggie came by yesterday.” Mort needed to keep the conversation on topic. “With an envelope?”

“Yes. An envelope filled with cash.” Cheryl went back to caressing the daughter resting in her womb. “Bum wanted me to stop the state from hounding him for back support in exchange for the money he was offering. I told him I'd do just that and he could even keep his money. ‘Sign away your parental rights,' I told him. ‘Let Will adopt Tommy nice and legal and you won't owe me a thing.' Asshole wanted nothing to do with that.”

“Cheryl,” Wilson Hayes warned again against the harsh name calling.

“Sorry, honey. Anyway, Auggie says a few choice words over that suggestion, shoves the envelope into my hands, and storms off.” Cheryl alternated her attention between Mort and Rita. “Probably the last I'll see of him for another year.”

“How much was in the envelope?” Auggie had paid Costigan in cash, too. Mort wanted to get some idea of the profit Auggie had made for killing five people.

“Two grand.” Cheryl glanced at her husband with apologetic eyes. “Sorry. I meant two thousand. Two thousand dollars cash.”

Mort nodded. “And you have no idea where we might find him?”

Cheryl thought for a bit, then shook her head. “Wait. It's Friday. I don't know if he still does it, but back when we were married there wasn't a Friday went by that Auggie Apuzzo wasn't down at Finney's playing poker, talking smart, and getting as drunk as he could on someone else's dime. He'd start in the afternoon and run right through to bar time…or until somebody caught him cheating, whichever came first. Might be worth swinging by.”

Mort glanced to Rita, who nodded in response. They each thanked the Hayeses, wished them the best with the upcoming birth, and turned to leave.

“By the way.” Mort stopped at the bottom of the steps. “How we doing?”

Cheryl's smile was as wide as her belly. “Up by nine at the half. Looking real good for the Dawgs.”

Mort returned the smile, wishing Edie could have had one more winning season with her team.

“You know this place?” Rita asked as she and Mort walked up to the yellow brick bar that sat like an island in a sea of cracked asphalt and hearty weeds. Finney's was the kind of joint that might have been considered a neighborhood bar back in the day when there was a neighborhood in this part of south Seattle. A place where men who worked in blue collars to build Seattle's airline manufacturing dominance could wet their whistles after a long day on the line before heading home to families they supported with steady union wages. But the area fell into disrepair when the industry collapsed forty years ago.

Streets that once held hundreds of three-bedroom, one-bath ranches were abandoned when the jobs dried up. The bankers came in first, foreclosing and trying to sell the homes off at bargain-basement prices. When that didn't work, the government stepped in, hoping subsidized rent payments would lure folks back to the blighted area. Then came the dope dealers and the wretched souls they fed off. Crack houses brought the police, along with furious demands from the good citizens of Seattle's luckier neighborhoods to clean things up. That brought a brief fiscal boom for heavy equipment operators as entire blocks of neglected properties were bulldozed. Now all that was left was the occasional strip mall, a couple of fast-food joints, and Finney's Bar and Grill.

“I remember coming here as a kid, actually.” Mort recalled his father's best friend swearing Finney's had the best deep-fried cod in town. “It was different back then. Kind of a family place. Now it's a watering hole for regulars to drink without anyone asking any questions. Cops get called in every now and again, but never anything serious enough to get the liquor license pulled.” He held the door open and let the chief enter first.

A polished wood bar ran down the north-south wall of the space, and every stool at it was filled, despite it being just after five o'clock on Friday afternoon. A few tables in the open area were occupied as well. But this was no end-of-the-week let's-mix-and-mingle crowd. Men and women sat hunched over their drinks, turning their heads to watch Mort and Rita enter. Mort thought they looked disappointed to see it wasn't anything more exciting than an unfamiliar man and woman arriving without fanfare and returned their attention to the glasses in front of them. Only the two bartenders kept their eyes on Mort and Rita as they walked up and stood at the only space wide enough to accommodate them. One bartender, older than the other by at least two decades, looked at his partner and gave a
you take care of this
nod of his head. The younger man smirked, gave a weary shake of his head, and sauntered over to where Mort and Rita stood.

“What can I get you folks?” He wore a Seattle Seahawks sweatshirt over worn jeans and a dingy white service apron tied around his waist. “Happy hour special is anything on tap two for one till six.”

Mort looked around the room. A neon Budweiser sign sputtered on and off in a dusty corner. An ornate jukebox sat against one wall, unlit with its power cord duct taped to its side. The out-of-order sign taped to the front glass had the yellowed look of age. The linoleum tiled floor was marked with grime caked into so many cracks, no amount of mopping would ever get it clean.

It would take more than BOGO beers to make any hour in this place happy.

Mort waved the bartender closer. “I'm police.” He kept his voice low. He nodded toward Rita. “She is, too. We're looking for Auggie Apuzzo. Comes in here to play cards.” Mort jerked his thumb to the back wall where three doors were evenly spaced across it. The one on the left was marked
MEN,
the door on the right was marked
WOMEN
, and the center door was labeled
PRIVATE
. “I'm assuming that's the game room?”