Authors: Nancy Martin
“No problem. If you don’t mind, how come you’re asking all these questions?”
“I knew Clarice, Sugar’s mom. And I hate the thought of her kids growing up without a mother. Without answers.”
She bobbed her head. “That’s nice. Patrick says you’re nice.”
That surprised me. “Then he hasn’t been paying close attention.”
With a smile, she finished her beer and set it on the bar. “He says you’re funny, too. That can be very sexy.”
“Yeah, well, the sex was never the problem.” I pulled some cash from my hip pocket and waved it at the bartender. “Thanks for talking with me.”
“Sure. Tell Patrick I said hi.”
Fat chance.
I climbed back into the truck and started the engine to warm up. The late-afternoon air smelled like snow, and I found a pair of gloves in the mess of junk behind the front seat.
I’d learned a lot from Jenny. More than I’d expected.
I tried phoning Bug Duffy, but he didn’t answer his cell. I decided not to leave a message.
I needed more information—the kind the cops probably had already. For me, there was only one way to learn stuff from the police without actually asking an officer of the law.
I dialed Sage’s cell phone.
“Mom!” She sounded guilty. “How are you?”
“Drop the innocent routine, kid. I’m not calling about where you’ve been all day.”
“What do you mean? I’ve been at school.”
“Save it. I need Zack Cleary’s cell phone number.”
“Zack,” she said blankly. “What for?”
“I just need some information.”
“Is everything…? Are you…?”
“You have his number or not?”
She rattled off Zack’s cell phone number, and I scribbled it on my hand with the leaky ballpoint I kept under the sun visor.
Then Sage said, “Are you mad at me, Mom?”
Maybe my parenting skills weren’t the best. But I knew sometimes it’s better to let the guilt simmer.
I said, “I’ll see you tonight. We’ll talk.”
And I hung up.
Half a minute later, I reached Zack Cleary on his cell phone. He was equally surprised to hear from me.
“Hey, Mrs. A. What’s up?” Then, sharper, “Is it Sage? Is she okay? What’s wrong?”
“Sage is fine. Jeez, kid, I didn’t realize you panicked so easily.”
“I just—aw, hell. With that Brian guy hanging around, I wasn’t sure. What are you calling me for?”
“Information. Where are you?”
“I’m still at work. You wanna pick me up? My car’s in the shop. You’ll save me a bus ride.”
I debated. Did I want this kid to start thinking he could call me every time he had an empty gas tank?
He said, “I’m off in half an hour. I could tell you what I heard about the Crabtree case.”
“I’ll pick you up,” I said.
He laughed. “Okay, I’m at the gun range, Bullseye Target. Know where that is?”
Of course I did.
I didn’t like the suburbs. Everything looked the same to me—and I liked them even less during rush hour. But I took the dreaded Route 28 along the Allegheny River and eventually drove onto the Fort Pitt Bridge and through the tunnels. The Parkway traffic moved pretty fast, and other drivers tended to get out of my way, so it wasn’t long before I took an exit and popped up in a commercial area that featured a sprawling cemetery and a couple of hotels that filled up only when downtown overflowed or the airport hotels were jammed.
Bullseye was a squat cinder-block building that some genius had painted bright red with a gigantic cartoon bull on the side. A target had been painted around the bull’s staring eye, and I parked right under it. A motion-detector light came on, casting a circle of illumination around my truck.
Unlike rural rod and gun clubs that truly facilitated hunting and fishing in more rural areas of western Pennsylvania, Bullseye attracted mostly suburban gun advocates—churchgoing middle-management types beset with work-related anger issues that needed an outlet.
Only a couple of cars sat in the otherwise empty parking lot. One was a Toyota sedan with bumper stickers advertising Ducks Unlimited, the Sierra Club, and a local high school basketball team. The other vehicle was a beat-up Ford Escape, painted green. It sported a Steeler flag on the antenna—a standard automotive accessory in Pittsburgh between September and January.
I jumped down from the truck and went inside, pushing through a door decorated with signs warning patrons to keep their weapons holstered until they were on the range.
The narrow lobby—little more than a hallway with a concrete floor and fluorescent lights—featured a trophy case displaying rifle team pictures and a couple of tarnished trophies dated twenty years ago. Somebody had also posted a photo of himself with the carcass of a twelve-point buck. The dead animal’s tongue was hanging out, and the hunter was imitating him. The rest of the case showed empty boxes of ammunition—all the brands offered for sale.
“Can I help you?”
I turned around and strolled over to lean my hip on the sale counter. Behind the thick glass stood Irene Stossel. I had just seen her a couple of nights ago in Loretta’s kitchen, delivering wedding cookies.
Tonight she was methodically checking the chambers of a rack of handguns. She took each one out, slammed the moving parts around, and peeked into chambers—all with the aplomb of a woman flipping burgers at a griddle.
“Irene.” I took off my gloves. “I forgot you worked here.”
“I sure do.” She didn’t break rhythm. Her voice echoed from behind the bulletproof protection. “What can I do you for, Roxy?”
She was dressed in jeans and a puffy down vest that made her shoulders seem broader than ever. A set of muffling earphones was slung around her neck. She’d pulled her brown hair back with a no-nonsense rubber band into a ponytail. In the holster at her hip, though, I could see the butt of a sidearm. I was willing to bet she didn’t carry the weapon when she drove her mother to the church bingo hall.
“I talked to Zack a few minutes ago. He said he needed a ride home.”
“He’s with a client at the moment. He’ll be done in ten minutes or so. I thought maybe you came to shoot some targets.”
“Me? Nah, I don’t carry.”
“No kidding?” She plunked the last weapon into the rack and leaned her elbows on the counter. One odd tic was that Irene didn’t blink much. “Why not?”
“It’s just not something I think is necessary in my line of—okay, to tell the truth, guns make me nervous.”
She grinned. “I never took you for the nervous type.”
From her tone, I got the impression she was needling me, but I shrugged. “I get nervous all the time.”
I didn’t know Irene very well, but she’d always been around the edges of my life, I guess. Her family owned the neighborhood bakery where I stole the occasional cannoli, and her mom was one of the bossy ladies behind the scenes at St. Dom’s.
She said, “That surprises me. I didn’t think Abruzzos were scared of anything.”
“Not much,” I agreed. “You going to Shelby Martinelli’s wedding this weekend?”
“I don’t know yet.” She stretched her arms overhead, and her puffy vest opened just enough to show she was wearing Kevlar protection underneath and a handgun on her belt. “Shelby’s mother is my mom’s cousin, so I should probably go. But I may have to work.”
“This place is open on Saturday night?”
“One of our busiest nights. Where do you think all those single guys go who can’t get dates?”
“Sounds dangerous for you.”
She shrugged. “If I got worried every time some jagoff pointed a gun at me, I’d be in a mental hospital by now. Hell, last year, a guy almost took off my earlobe, see?”
She pulled back her hair and showed me her ear. Sure enough, part of the lobe was missing. I couldn’t help noticing a couple of long scratches down her neck—the kind Rooney sometimes gave me when he got carried away.
I said, “You must save a bundle on earrings.”
“I never thought of it that way.” She laughed with a weird hiccough. “I stopped in to visit your uncle Carmine yesterday. I took him some of my mom’s soup.”
“Oh yeah?”
“He hasn’t been feeling well.”
“Yeah, Carmine puts out that bulletin when he needs a favor done. Brings everybody running.”
From inside the shooting range, a series of muffled gunshots had been steadily kapowing while we talked, but finally the shooter was out of ammunition. A minute later, two guys pushed through the steel door—both of them pulling earplugs out of their ears. The first was Zack. The second was a burly man wearing a button-down shirt and khaki pants with a Windbreaker. Wedding ring, tassel loafers. He looked like your average suburban insurance agent except for the shoulder holster.
“Good job today, Mr. Glick.” Zack twirled his ear protection. “Best score yet.”
“Thanks, kid. Hey, Irene. See you next week.”
Irene waved through the glass. The customer gave me a warm once-over before he went out into the parking lot.
Irene said to Zack, “Did that creep try to impress you with his new Python?”
Zack shrugged into his coat. “He’s pretty excited about it.”
Irene rolled her eyes. “Big man needs a big gun, I guess.”
“Right. See you, Irene.”
“You want some extra hours? I could use you Saturday.”
“Sorry. Can’t.”
“Let me know if you change your mind.”
I almost dragged Zack out of there by his ear. When we reached the parking lot, I said, “Man, she’s a weird chick.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Why doesn’t she ever blink?”
“She asked me about you when I got hired.”
I missed a step. “Really? What did she want to know?”
“I forget. Just if you were still in business, I guess.”
I found myself frowning. “Exactly why did you get this job?”
Zack zipped his coat against the cold. “Because she needed somebody who could handle firearms, I guess, and she heard I just finished the police academy.”
“You and forty other guys, right? Out of all of them, why you?”
“Maybe she heard I was the best on the gun range.”
I snorted.
“Well, it’s true!”
We climbed in out of the wind, and I started the engine.
“How’s Sage?” Zack asked.
“She’s skipping school with that Brian kid.”
“I knew it!” Zack kicked the dashboard. “I knew he was going to be trouble.”
“Worse yet? He’s taking her on a ski weekend this Friday.”
“Like hell he is. I mean—” Zack turned to me. “You’re not going to let her get away with that, are you, Mrs. A?”
“Why didn’t you do something about this situation before it got started?”
“What was I supposed to do? Punch the guy in the nose?”
“Surely you could be more creative than that.” I pulled out of the parking lot and headed back toward the Parkway and the city. “Get in the moment. Envision something.”
Zack turned to me on the seat. “What kind of envisioning?”
“You hang around with cops, for cripesake. You can’t pick up a few pointers from them?”
“You mean, something sneaky?”
“There are lots of ways of slowing down a guy like Brian.”
Zack said, “Why don’t you do it?”
“Because I’m Sage’s mother. If I get caught, it’s a world scandal. But if you get caught, it’s no big deal. And besides, wouldn’t it feel good?”
Zack mulled over whether or not he’d be happy to have Sage’s new squeeze out of the picture. “I want to be a cop. I need a clean record.”
“If you can’t think like a criminal, what kind of cop can you make? Jeez. What do I have to do? Lead you around by the nose?”
“Okay, okay, I get it.” He slumped in his seat, staring ahead without really seeing the road. His brain cells cooked for a while. “What should I do?”
I sighed. “Nothing dangerous. Drive him crazy a little. Every time he gets near Sage, put a banana in his tailpipe. Or siphon the gas out of his tank. Get some weed killer and use it to write a rude message on his old man’s yard. Or—hey, you know what’s a good trick? Go buy one of those birthday cards with the electronic song inside. Throw the card away, but stick the little music thing under the hood. It’ll play for hours. Very annoying.”
“Wow, really. You have a lot of ideas for pranks.”
“Now that I’ve jogged your imagination, when do I get the return favor?”
“Huh?”
“I need information.”
“Okay, sure.”
“The Crabtree murder. What does your dad have to say at the breakfast table?”
Zack Cleary’s father—a former colonel in the United States Army, a Gulf War veteran, and a local cop who climbed the ranks by virtue of an immaculate record and a rumored interest in becoming a political candidate eventually—was the city’s newly appointed chief of police. He looked good on camera and supposedly ran a tight ship. So far, he hadn’t presided over any police scandals, although it had been a near miss when two undercover cops arrested a high school honor student a few months back. The kid’s family claimed he had been arrested for nothing more than Walking While Black, but later it came out that he’d been running drugs into a local high school and was the baby daddy of no fewer than six toddlers, so the scandal blew over before it turned into the kind of mess that took down chiefs of out-of-control undercover cops.
Zack said, “I heard him on the phone when he left the house this morning. They think one of her husbands killed that lady.”
“What’s their proof?”
“I didn’t hear anything about proof. He said they were going to lean on both husbands today and see which one breaks first.”
That would be a toss-up, I thought. Neither one of Clarice’s husbands seemed particularly strong-willed to me. “What about an autopsy?”
“Uh–it was pretty obvious she died from two gunshots.”
“Yeah, but what caliber?”
“This morning was too early for those results. They’ll know by now, I suppose.”
“Can you call your old man?”
Zack looked anxious. “Mrs. A, I really, really want to get a job on the force. I think the department will take a dim view of me blabbing about police business before I’m even sworn in.”
“Okay, okay.”
“There’s one interesting thing I did overhear,” Zack said.
“Oh, yeah?”
“The Mitchell guy. One of his friends heard him on his cell phone the afternoon before his wife died. He was having a hell of a fight with her.”