Ruthless (16 page)

CHAPTER 55

The next morning—a Saturday—Alton and Mallory stayed true to their routine, accompanying Chelsea and Pam in their apartment. Despite the late evening she had spent tracking down Doug Mancini, Fahima had opted to join them, and David had naturally accompanied her.

As cheerful shafts of sunlight pierced through the apartment’s windows, the friends enjoyed a brief respite from their recent troubles. Alton read Charles Dickens’
Our Mutual Friend
and David dozed on the couch, while the ladies engrossed themselves in surfing the Pinterest website for romantic places to travel. It was a moment of tranquility they all sorely needed.

The friends broke for lunch. While they ate, Mallory turned to Fahima. “So, exactly how did you know where Doug Mancini would go last night?”

“Well,” replied Fahima, “remember I say that in Afghanistan, we have gangs like this Mancini family?”

“Yes,” acknowledged Mallory, “and I also remember telling you that Doug was a prime suspect in his brother’s murder. He had the motive and the means.”

Fahima paused. “I understand that. But I also think… what if Doug cares for his brother, like the gang families in my country care for one other? This idea is one of two reason I think maybe Doug will go to his brother’s house.”

Alton leaned towards Fahima, curious. “And those two reasons are…?”

“My first idea is this,” replied Fahima. “What if Jay had some important information about his family’s bad activities? With Jay and his girlfriend both dead, what will happen to Jay’s things? Does Jay have information or papers that will show the police the bad things his family does? Maybe Doug comes back to get those papers before the police can find them.”

“It makes sense,” said Mallory. “I should have thought of that—Doug wanting to pick up incriminating documents before we discover them. And what’s your second idea?”

“My other idea is this: maybe Jay does not have any bad papers. Maybe he had something that is important to the hearts of his family. Chelsea has a whole scrapbook about the Mancini family, and she never lives with them in California.”

“That’s true,” admitted Chelsea.

“Maybe they want to have Jay’s things to remember him,” concluded Fahima. “Maybe Jay have something that is important to Doug.”

Alton mulled in silence for a moment. “Both of your reasons make sense. There’s potentially a third reason, too. Maybe Doug realized Louise had some kind of proof that Doug was Jay’s killer. Doug might have returned not just to collect incriminating documents in general but specifically to remove some kind of “smoking gun” document or other evidence linking him to his brother’s assassination. He may have become aware of its existence only recently. That would make his trip back here to Atlanta worth the considerable risk.”

“Well,” said Mallory, “Doug is with Agent McElroy as we speak. The truth should come out pretty soon.”

Moments later, Mallory’s cell phone rang. After a minute of conversation, she placed her hand over the receiver and murmured to Alton, “Speaking of McElroy, this is him now. He wants us to meet him at the downtown FBI building. He says he’s finished the background checks on our suspects and wants to review the findings with us. He also mentioned that Alpharetta PD forwarded their file on last week’s break-in here. And he has a statement from Doug Mancini.”

“Sounds like we need to go,” agreed Alton.

They were ready to depart within minutes. For safety’s sake, David, Fahima, and Chelsea accompanied them to the FBI office. The absence of the others afforded Pam the opportunity to shop for groceries.

After arriving at the FBI building, Chelsea lounged in a secure room with David and Fahima, while Alton and Mallory met McElroy in a separate conference room. They used a phone in the middle of the table to teleconference in Agent Stewart from the Washington office.

“First, Agent Stewart, let me start with a piece of news I think you’ll be particularly interested in,” said McElroy, leaning toward the Polycom teleconferencing device. “As you know, Doug Mancini gave our guys the slip yesterday afternoon. But last night, Agent Wilson phoned in a tip which got us back on track. We nailed him.”

“So, how’d it go down last night?” asked Mallory in an unsuccessful attempt to suppress her curiosity.

“Smooth as silk,” replied McElroy. “Two of my best agents rounded up him without a struggle.” He studied Mallory with his own curious expression. “So how’d you know where he’d be? I would’ve never guessed.”

“Honestly,” said Mallory, “it was a…consultant who figured it out. She had a theory, which she tested by staking out the place herself. Once she saw a big guy get out of a black Trans Am, she phoned me. I was just the messenger.”

“Well, it all worked out in the end,” interceded Stewart over the phone with quiet jubilance. “I’ve been waiting to bag this scum ball for a while.”

“Before you hop off the line, let me share some more information,” said McElroy. “In addition to getting a statement from Doug Mancini, we’ve also finished the background checks on Winston Lewis and Brent Tanaka, the two Kruptos employees. We’ve also wrapped up our initial investigation of Victor Durov, Miss Mancini’s neighbor, and Eddie Delvecchio, the pizza guy. And we obtained copies of the crime scene report from the break-in at Miss Mancini’s apartment a few days ago. We’ve made some interesting discoveries.”

McElroy proceeded to brief the others for almost an hour.

When McElroy concluded, Mallory spoke up. “I’ve been working a different theory for the last week or so. At first, it struck me as unlikely, and I didn’t want to pull in other Bureau resources until I did a bit of research on my own to see how it would stand up. The information you just shared fills in the missing pieces of this theory and—I believe—confirms it.”

Mallory spent the next twenty minutes describing her investigatory efforts over the past two weeks.

At the end, McElroy nodded in confirmation. “Yeah—it makes sense.”

Mallory asked, “What do you recommend as the next step?”

“We need to round up all the persons of interest so we can arrest the guilty and explain events to the innocent,” replied McElroy.

“Could we have them all meet at Chelsea’s apartment?” asked Alton, tapping his fingers on the tabletop in thought. “Gathering there wouldn’t put people on their guard quite as much as being in this FBI building would.”

“I don’t see why not,” said McElroy. “We have to meet somewhere.”

“It’ll make the collection of two people particularly easy,” said Alton. “Durov lives in the same building, just a couple of doors down. If Chelsea invites him over, I feel pretty certain he’ll be there. And to get Delvecchio there, all we have to do is order a pizza from Marco Polo.”

After agreeing to rendezvous at Chelsea’s apartment at 7:00 p.m., they concluded the meeting.

Alton and Mallory collected Chelsea, David, and Fahima. As they exited through the front entrance of the FBI building together, Chelsea asked, “Did you learn anything helpful?”

“Yes, we did,” replied Alton. “This case will be resolved before the day is over.”

CHAPTER 56

Hoodie caught the hoped-for break. Having witnessed everyone leave Chelsea’s apartment—one of the scenarios that had been anticipated while preparing the booby-trapped laptop—Hoodie managed to enter and quickly located Alton’s laptop on the dining room table.

Hoodie removed the duplicate, electrified laptop from a backpack and switched it with Alton’s, stuffing his original machine into the backpack’s cavity.

“Mr. Blackwell, the next time you go to check e-mail, you’ll be in for the shock of your life!” cackled Hoodie.

CHAPTER 57

Alton, Mallory, Chelsea, David, and Fahima traveled directly to Chelsea’s apartment. They prepared and began consuming a quick dinner using the groceries Pam had purchased earlier.

“So how did your visit to the FBI office go?” asked Pam.

“We learned a few things,” said Mallory, “I won’t go into too much detail now. The truth will be fully disclosed during tonight’s gathering.”

“Speaking of that, perhaps we should start getting ready for it,” said Alton. They quickly wrapped up their meal.

After helping clear the dishes, Alton placed his laptop on the dining room table. As he did so, Fahima stopped and cocked her head to the side. A faraway look appeared in her eyes, as if she were trying in vain to recall a distant memory. Alton left the laptop in place and began to move a few chairs into the den in preparation for the pending gathering.

At about 6:00 p.m., Alton ordered a large pepperoni pizza from Marco Polo. He felt reasonably confident he could guess who the delivery person would be.

As they waited, a cadre of FBI agents as well as a handful of other invitees arrived and began to fill the room.

Just after seven o’clock, the occupants of Chelsea’s apartment heard a knock on the door and the call of “Pizza delivery!”

Alton glanced through the peephole and accompanied his single snort of derision with a shake of his head. He motioned to Chelsea to open the door. She cracked it and said, “Hi! Can you put it on the table?”

As soon as Delvecchio entered, two FBI agents who had been deployed on either side of the door each grabbed an arm. Alton reached up and removed the blond wig.

“Going to a costume party?” he asked Delvecchio. “Next time, you better take care of your eyebrows. They don’t match the do.”

As one of the FBI agents holding Delvecchio led him to a chair, the other searched his belongings and quickly discovered the Smith & Wesson hidden inside the insulated pizza carrier.

“Any particular reason you’re packing this kind of heat delivering pizzas?” asked the agent, smiling at his unintended joke.

“Hey, it’s a dangerous world out there,” replied Delvecchio. “I got a permit for it. Don’t worry.”

The rest of the evening’s participants gathered in Chelsea’s living room, occupying the couch, the loveseat, and a few chairs borrowed from the dining room. Winston Lewis and Brent Tanaka sat together but weren’t speaking. A burly FBI agent sat next to the scowling and equally-burly Doug Mancini. Victor Durov had arrived promptly at seven o’clock and looked miserable as he hunched over in one of the dining room chairs. Upon learning earlier in the day that the case would be concluded that evening, Supervisory Agent Wiggins—Mallory’s manager—had joined Agent Stewart in flying down from DC. They were seated on one side of Mallory, while Alton occupied an adjacent chair on the other side. David and Fahima were ensconced on the loveseat. Chelsea and Pam sat together, close to the dining room.

With a nod from Wiggins, Mallory rose and addressed the assembled group.

“Hello, everyone. I’m FBI Agent Mallory Wilson. This is my manager, Supervisory Agent Stan Wiggins, this is Atlanta FBI Supervisory Agent James McElroy, and this is our consultant, Mr. Alton Blackwell,” she said, nodding to each of them in turn. She turned to the room’s others occupants. “Most of you are here because of your association with at least one of four recent deaths.

“After I recap the details of those deaths, Mr. Blackwell and I are going to share some additional information we’ve gathered over the past few weeks. Those of you who are innocent will have the burden of suspicion lifted from your shoulders, while those who are guilty will be introduced to the Federal justice system, which—incidentally—has no provision for parole.”

Mallory provided a concise yet thorough summary of the published facts surrounding each death. As she concluded, she glanced apologetically at Chelsea, who had teared up. With her mouth forming a grim line of determination, Chelsea wiped her cheeks with the back of one hand and nodded for Mallory to continue.

Mallory gathered her thoughts. “Frankly, most of you had a reason for committing at least one of these murders. Take Doug Mancini, for instance.” She looked squarely at Jay’s brother. “There’s a line of reasoning that points directly at you.”

“Really?” snorted Doug. “How do you figure?”

“Let me describe this train of thought. You hadn’t spoken to your brother for several years—ever since he moved here to Atlanta,” replied Mallory. “You’re also the designated enforcer of your family’s solidarity code of conduct, a code your brother Jay broke.”

Doug began to protest, but the agent sitting next to him laid a beefy hand on Mancini’s arm and barked at him to be quiet.

“You got nothin’ on me,” said Mancini.

“Ah, but we do,” continued Mallory, “You used an alias to visit Atlanta secretly just days before Jay was killed, and you were back in San Diego in time to establish an alibi.”

“What? You tryin’ to pin that on me? My ‘alibi’ was that he was my flesh and blood. You don’t kill your flesh and blood.”

Mallory ignored the outburst. “A few days after you returned home,” she continued, “Jay Mancini was killed in a manner that can only be described as a professional execution. But then you had a problem. Louise Sinclair, Jay’s live-in girlfriend, declared on TV that she had information potentially helpful to the police. Her ‘information’ was merely the fact that Jay’s family has ties to organized crime, a fact we’ve known for a long time. But the Mancini family didn’t know what information Louise was going to share, did they? They didn’t know how much Jay had told her about the family business. The family couldn’t take a chance, so they hired a professional assassin to ensure Louise Sinclair never talked.”

“I want my lawyer. I ain’t saying no more to you guys.”

“But then you returned to Atlanta again this weekend, again using your ‘James Franklin’ alias.”

Doug looked up, surprised.

“Yes, we know that’s the pseudonym you used on both trips. But you surprised us with your itinerary. Before you arrived yesterday, we had several theories about the purpose of your trip, but none of them included your breaking into Jay’s condo. Even then, we didn’t expect that the only object you’d take from it was a photograph. It was the only thing the arresting officers found on you, besides your tools.”

Doug’s eyes glistened. “Look, like I told your guys back in San Diego, me and Jay had a falling out when he moved out here. But he’s still my brother, see? I wanted him to move back to the west coast…let bygones be bygones…come back to the family where he belonged. I knew it’d be a hard sell with the rest of the family. It’d only work if Jay agreed to come back into the family business again…which is a perfectly legitimate landscaping franchise,” he added.

“It wouldn’t go over too well with the rest of the family if they knew I was gonna try to talk Jay into coming home,” Doug continued, “so I traveled under a different name. I tried to stay under the radar, you know what I mean?

“But a funny thing happened when I got here on my first trip. It turned out Jay didn’t want to come back. And you know…he seemed really happy out here, with his girlfriend and his auto shop and his dog. I thought, ‘What the hell? As long as he’s happy. Life is short.’ He promised he’d never say anything about…anything. So we went to a
Hooters
and stayed half the night, talking about old times, getting drunk, and admiring the staff. The picture I was carrying when you arrested me? It was from that night, the last time I saw my brother alive.” He swallowed. “I knew it would end up gettin’ thrown out or put in some evidence locker somewhere. It don’t mean nothing to no one but me.”

Alton limped over to Doug’s chair and handed him a manila envelope. Doug opened it to reveal the single item it contained: an eight by ten photo of the two smiling brothers standing arm-in-arm, each holding a mug of draft beer high in the air.

“I think this is yours,” said Alton.

As Doug hung his head, Agent Stewart growled, “Don’t think this clears you of anything else, so you’d still better keep your nose clean. However, there’s been no illegal activity on either of your visits to Atlanta, except for traveling under an assumed name. Knowing the circumstances, I won’t refer that violation to federal prosecutors. If it happens again, rest assured I will. And by the way…you can keep the photo, but you’re not getting the burglary tools back.”

Doug nodded his head but remained silent with his gaze averted. He clutched the manila envelope in both hands. Nobody spoke for a moment, and Doug’s single, loud sniff broke the silence.

“So the question now,” said Alton, still standing, “is if Doug Mancini wasn’t involved in the murders, who was?”