“Inaccurate,” Raleigh said. “Only one phone call. And Griffin wasn’t ‘staying’ with me.”
“But some have asked exactly what has motivated Shinn to pursue this case so relentlessly. A source close to the case reports that Shinn has received payments—tens of thousands of dollars—from a Swiss bank account, and that she has been in almost constant communication with Leo Simonetti.”
Raleigh was out of her chair. “Oh, my God.”
“Shinn was not answering her phone as of this morning.”
“Because my apartment is a crime scene! Exactly how hard did they try to get hold of me?”
The anchor moved on to another story and Daniel switched off the TV. “This report is libelous. Jillian is trying to get hold of someone at CNI as we speak. I’m asking for an immediate retraction.”
“Daniel, you know I haven’t been receiving kick-backs, right? And that I’ve never talked with Leo Simonetti in my life?”
“Raleigh, of course. You don’t even have to ask. I’m more concerned about this ‘source close to the story.’”
“You think it’s Griffin?” The possibility was almost unspeakable.
“Who else knew the details of the deposit? And the falsified phone records?”
“I told Beth…no, that’s ridiculous. She would never betray a confidence.”
“I trusted him.” Daniel shook his head. “I’m usually a good judge of character. But I was obviously wrong about Griffin Benedict. It’s not just that he violated his word. That would be bad enough. But he’s passed on to the network information that he knows to be false.”
“I can’t believe he would do that.”
“You have…feelings for this man?”
She wanted to lie, but she couldn’t. Not to Daniel. “I did. Now, I want to shoot the son of a bitch through the heart.”
That Jason was one lucky son of a gun, even if he was dead. Hell, Griffin must have been pretty far gone if he could be envious of a dead man.
Now, Griffin’s only priority was to finish what he’d started. He needed to see this story to its conclusion, publish it, then try to expunge memories of Raleigh and their lovemaking form his mind.
Finishing the story meant finding out who wanted to kill Raleigh. Which was why he was in an old-fashioned barbershop downtown—not far from the Project Justice offices, actually—with hot towels on his face, preparing to get a shave and a haircut.
If his sources were right, Leo Simonetti would shortly be sitting in the chair next to his. Leo came once a week, like clockwork, to Sam’s Barbershop, for his regular trim, shave and manicure.
There seemed no other way to get access to Leo. Although he was the CEO of a legitimate business, a car-leasing outfit aimed at executives, you couldn’t get in to see Leo unless he knew you. And he liked reporters even less than did Daniel Logan.
Sam’s had three barbers and a manicurist on staff this morning, and the place seemed to be doing a steady business. Maybe it was the nostalgia factor. Maybe there were others waiting to meet Leo.
Griffin heard a flurry of activity coming from the direction of the front door.
“Mr. S! How good to see you.” It was the voice of the shop’s obsequious owner, whose name was Enrico, not Sam. “The usual today?”
“Think I’ll have one of those avocado things on my face, too,” Leo Simonetti said. “My skin seems a little dry.”
Funny, hearing a man who’d killed an enemy with a machete and cut him up into small pieces requesting an avocado face mask. But he was wealthy, and wealthy people could afford to be pampered.
Griffin peeked out from beneath his hot towel and saw Leo Simonetti in person for the first time. He was shorter than Griffin had pictured him, and very round, though his well-tailored suit disguised his girth. He stripped off his jacket, and another man, who must have been a bodyguard, took the jacket and draped it over a chair in the area where people waiting for haircuts sat.
Leo didn’t wait, of course, since he had a standing appointment. He showed himself to the chair to Griffin’s left.
The barber, Enrico himself, fastened a cape around Leo’s neck, then leaned his chair back and applied a hot towel to his face.
“Yow. Enrico, what are you trying to do, send me to the burn unit?”
“Just trying to give you a nice, smooth shave, how you like.” Enrico sounded unperturbed, as if maybe this dialogue was a comforting routine they went through every week.
“Mr. Simonetti?” Griffin injected what he thought was just the right amount of respect and awe.
“Who wants to know?”
“My name is Griffin Benedict. Wow, I can’t believe I’m sitting right next to you.”
“You’re a reporter.” Leo sounded disgusted.
Griffin was unnerved to realize he was on the radar of a homicidal mobster. Coincidence? Or did he know exactly who Griffin was because of his interest in Raleigh?
“Have to earn a living somehow,” Griffin said, trying to make light of Leo’s negative feelings toward the press. “Don’t worry, I’m not writing a story about you.”
“Good. ’Cause if I hear the words ‘machete man’ coming out of your mouth—”
Enrico pulled the towel off Griffin’s face. “Mr. Simonetti is my best customer. I don’t stand for him being badgered in my place.”
Leo laughed. “Ah, leave the kid alone, Rico.”
“I don’t mean to cause you any trouble, Mr. Simonetti,” Griffin said as another barber, whose name tag identified him as Theo, lathered up Griffin’s face. “But I’m curious how you feel about the possibility of your son’s conviction being overturned.”
Leo whipped the towel off his face and sat up, focusing his infamous laserlike black eyes on Griffin. “They’re gonna let Luigi go? Since when?”
Luigi was Leo’s oldest son, doing ten to twenty for bank fraud. Griffin observed Leo out the corner of his eye. “Ah, not Luigi. Anthony.”
“Anthony.” A different expression came over Leo’s face. Griffin would almost call it tender. “He don’t talk to me no more. But I knew all along he didn’t do it. That gun they found—I bet they traced it to Little Louie. Am I right?”
Who the hell was Little Louie? “All I heard was they might have found the murder weapon, and they might be able to tie it to someone other than Anthony.”
Theo sharpened his straight razor on a strop. Griffin was acutely aware of how vulnerable he was, surrounded by a mob leader and his protective friends.
“I already know that much,” Leo said. “A man in my position hears things.”
Not surprising. Leo probably had plants at the police department. Every good mobster had a few cops on his payroll. Sad but true fact.
“Of course, Anthony doesn’t tell me. Like I said, he don’t talk to me.” Leo sounded put out.
Enrico soothed the mobster back into the chair and lathered up his face.
“But that gun they found,” Leo continued, “it’s not Anthony’s, that’s for damn sure. Kid would never touch a gun. Even when he was little. ‘Guns are bad, Papa.’ He would cry if he even saw one. Sometimes I wonder how I sired that kid. But I still love him.”
Griffin actually felt for the guy. His paternal feelings seemed genuine.
“So, Mr. Smart Guy Reporter, you think this gun thing might pan out? He might get out of jail?”
“I don’t know all the details, just that there’s a possibility. Who’s Little Louie?”
“Louis Costanza. Nutcase. His father, Christophe, is someone I do business with. A few years ago I got a little irritated with Christophe ’cause he delivered some counterfeit auto parts to my mechanic. Supposed to be Mercedes, German crafted, and instead he shows up with Chinese fakes. So maybe I didn’t pay him and he got irritated right back at me.
“But Christophe and I, we go way back, we work things out. Louie, though, the son, he’s a whack job. Thinks he’ll earn some brownie points with the father by getting even with me, shooting my son.”
“Except Anthony wasn’t home,” Griffin concluded. “But his girlfriend was.”
“You got it.” Then, more to himself, he added, “So wrong, on every level.”
Holy hell. Was Leo telling the truth? “Do you know for sure Louie did it?”
Theo ran the straight razor cleanly around Griffin’s chin. The blade was so sharp it felt like a satin ribbon.
“Louie couldn’t keep his mouth shut.”
“The police never named him as a suspect.”
“The police weren’t interested in my theories about my son’s girlfriend’s murderer. They said I was unreliable, that I was just making stuff up. But, you know, what goes around comes around. Few weeks later, Louie died behind the wheel. Driving drunk.”
A convenient accident. “But Anthony still paid the price.”
“He wouldn’t accept my help. Pigheaded like his mother, that one.”
If Griffin had been in Anthony’s shoes, maybe he wouldn’t have accepted the gangster’s help, either. Leo’s brand of help might have involved bribing a judge or engaging in a bit of jury tampering, which could have exploded in Anthony’s face.
“Have you talked to Anthony?” Leo asked. He sounded thirsty for any news of his son.
“No. Just to one of his lawyers.” Griffin was loath to bring Raleigh or Project Justice to Leo’s attention if he didn’t already know about them.
“If you talk to him, tell him all’s forgiven.”
“I will.”
“And you write one word of this conversation in your stinking newspaper, I’ll cut off your family jewels and stuff them down your throat.”
Griffin tried to swallow, but his mouth had gone suddenly dry. Why was everyone threatening his private parts? “No worries about that.” As of this morning, he no longer worked for the
Telegram.
He’d had a difficult conversation with his longtime editor, Marvin Gussler—told him everything. To his credit, Marvin hadn’t gotten mad. But then, nothing much ever ruffled the guy. He’d told Griffin to take a leave of absence, give it a week, then decide. Marvin had even hinted that a raise wouldn’t be out of the question.
Now, at the barbershop, Griffin didn’t say another word, and he prayed for Theo to finish his work quickly.
Raleigh cleared her throat. “Maybe I should go make myself busy.”
“Nonsense. Raleigh, I never took you for a coward. Face the bastard head-on. Don’t let him see you hurting.”
Wise words. But Raleigh wasn’t sure she could follow the advice. Already, her chest felt tight and her eyes burned, and she hadn’t even seen Griffin yet.
Still, she couldn’t leave. Her boss had given her a direct order. She’d never seen Daniel in his dangerous mode, and she made a note never to cross the man. She wouldn’t want to be in Griffin’s shoes.
A couple of minutes later, Griffin strode into the dining room as if he owned the place. He didn’t even have the good grace to show remorse.
And he looked incredible. He’d gotten a
haircut?
At a time like this?
“You have a lot of nerve,” Daniel said with deceptive mildness.
Griffin looked confused. Not rueful. “You already know?”
“Of course we know. CNI runs continuous news feeds all day long. You didn’t think they would sit on a juicy story like that for more than a few minutes, did you?”
“Wait…how would CNI know anything about my meeting with Leo Simonetti?”
Now it was Daniel’s turn to look confused. Jillian, too. And Raleigh was pretty sure her own consternation radiated out of her like a lighthouse beacon.
“You met with Leo?” Raleigh couldn’t help asking. “God, Griffin, the man is a cold-blooded killer.”
“A killer who loves his son. He’s not the one trying to stop you from exonerating Anthony. He would like nothing better than to see his boy free and back in the bosom of his family. Now, your turn. What story are you all talking about?”
“The whole story is out,” Daniel said through clenched teeth. “Finding the gun, our attempt to free Anthony, Raleigh’s stalker. Everything.”
“Griffin,” Raleigh said, unable to hold her tongue, “I would have understood if you’d just written the story. Journalism is your calling, not to mention your livelihood, and you have a lot riding on reporting this situation. But the spin you gave it—I thought you believed me when I said I wasn’t accepting bribes—”
Griffin held up his hand. “Stop. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t know anything about a certain story that broke on CNI this morning, shortly after you left? And you wouldn’t be the anonymous ‘source close to the investigation’?”
With every word she spoke, Griffin’s face got harder. “I haven’t written any stories. Not for CNI or the
Telegram.
”
“No one else knew the details in the story,” Raleigh said quietly, trying not to cry. If he would just admit he’d done it, that he’d fallen prey to greed or weakness, maybe she could have dealt with it, found some way to forgive him. But to stand there and deny he was involved—convincingly, she might add…
“What details?” Griffin demanded.
Daniel intervened. “The deposit from a Swiss bank account. The supposed phone calls to Leo Simonetti. Falsified phone bill. Tests being done on the gun. The phone threat. Only four people knew all of the details, and I’m pretty sure Beth, Raleigh and I didn’t speak with anyone at CNI.”
Griffin’s eyes hardened to chips of granite. “You’re forgetting one other person who knew everything. The man who’s behind all this. I have no idea what he hopes to accomplish with heightened publicity, but I’m damn sure going to find out.”
He looked at Daniel and Raleigh in turn, daring both of them to continue their accusations. Raleigh didn’t have the nerve. If anything, an angry Griffin was more intimidating than Daniel at his most deadly. But she was surprised Daniel had nothing to add to the argument.
“I came back here to tell you something. I have a lead for you. The name of the man who might actually have killed Anthony’s girlfriend. Louis Costanza, aka ‘Little Louie.’ Apparently he chose an odd way of settling a score between his father and Leo.”
Raleigh struggled to get her mind up to speed, processing the startling new information. “You’re saying this Louis might be the one trying to stop me from exonerating Anthony?”
“Probably not, since he’s dead.” Griffin turned to leave.
“Wait, where are you going?” Raleigh asked. She couldn’t just let him leave like this.
He turned, and the look he gave her chilled her blood. “I’m gonna do what I set out to do—find the person who’s trying to hurt you and put a stop to it. Then, I doubt you’ll see me again.”
Daniel, Raleigh and Jillian took turns staring at one another for a good thirty seconds after Griffin cleared the room.
Finally, Daniel broke the stunned silence. “Of course. If it wasn’t Griffin, it had to be the real villain.”
Raleigh tried to work through it. “When Griffin wouldn’t take the bait, my stalker found some other reporter to tarnish my reputation.”
“Well, he’s not going to get away with it,” Daniel said fiercely. “Jillian, get someone on the phone at CNI. Someone capable of making a decision.”
“I’ve left three messages already this morning.”
“This time, get through to them. Tell them their ‘anonymous source’ might well have tried to kill Raleigh. And if they don’t hand over his name—to the police, if not to me—they could get slapped with an Obstruction of Justice charge.”
“I like it,” Jillian said with a smile before departing.
“Come on, Raleigh,” Daniel said when they were alone. “Smile. This is coming to a head, and soon. Your enemy is getting desperate. His plan is unraveling. He’ll make a big mistake soon, and then this will all be over.”
Raleigh didn’t feel much like smiling, despite the fact that Griffin had just handed her a huge bone. Louis Costanza? The name meant nothing to her.
“Daniel, I know I’m supposed to be on vacation, but I need to follow up on the name Griffin supplied.”
“You have an office with a phone, computer and internet at your disposal. Let me know what I can do.”