Down and Dead in Dallas, page 27
"Miss Grant . . . Daisy, sit down." Detective Keller waited until I did, then closed the door. "I don't want to be overheard, and I'll deny having said anything I'm about to tell you. You understand me?"
The inside scoop. Definitely worse than suck-lemon bad. Bracing, I nodded.
"It's too late to change your mind."
"I'm not changing my mind," I lied. "I was a little tied up falling and wrecking my shoes and hitting the concrete.” I lightly rubbed the burning raspberry scrape on my face. “Edward was across the street and it was dark. I didn't have a clear look, you know?" I had seen perfectly. Edward had stood right under a streetlight, but I didn't want any part of this situation.
No doubt my denial would supremely tick off Edward's dad, Victor. Ticking off the head honcho of a mob family could not be a good thing. But ticking off the Marcellos and the Adrianos had to be even worse. This mess absolutely called for ignorance and distance. Lots and lots of distance.
Worried and more than a little annoyed, Keller frowned. "You don’t get it, Daisy. These families have connections everywhere, including inside this police station. If it took five minutes for Victor Marcello and the Adrianos to find out you'd identified Boudin and Tony as Edward's shooters, I'd be shocked. Honestly, they probably heard it within fifteen seconds of the words leaving your mouth."
Fear and dread slammed into me. Acid churned in my stomach and the irritating smell of pine cleaner intensified, making me nauseated. "Well, what am I supposed to do?" Before Keller could say anything, I held up a finger. "Don't tell me to testify and everything will be fine, because I really am not that stupid. If I talk, Boudin and the Adrianos will want me dead to shut me up. If I don't talk, Victor Marcello will want me dead to punish me. Either way, I'm dead, Keller."
"Either way, you're in jeopardy, but we've got a plan," he said, trying to stave off the hysterics hinted at in my shrill voice. "The FBI is on board because of the organized crime ties. I talked with a friend of mine, Special Agent Ted Johnson. He's deeply concerned about your safety."
"I'm not feeling too confident about it myself." I swiped at a dust smudge on my dress at the thigh and anger rose with the sting on my skin. "If you and Johnson know these jokers are mob members, then why are they still on the loose?
Keller looked me straight in the eye. "Because every time we nail them, the evidence disappears or the witnesses do, or else they end up dead before the trial."
I slumped back in my seat. Daisy Grant's death warrants numbers two and three, right there. Boudin or Adriano or Victor Marcello—one of them would do the deed. No way around it. This was the mob honcho's son, no less. The Marcellos and Adrianos obviously were already rivals, but now the Adrianos had declared war. Murder isn’t a subtle hostility that passes unnoticed. And, lucky me, I don't have to mess with one mob family. No, not me. I have to tick-off two of them—at the same time.
"Don't panic, okay?" Keller glanced back at the door. His eyes darted and his hand shook. He wasn’t happy to be stuck in the middle of this mess, either. "Like I told you, we've got a plan."
I grunted. "No offense, Detective, but if all your witnesses are missing in action or dead before trial, I'd say, your plans aren't working out very well." I squeezed my Grant coin. “Have these families killed cops, too, or just witnesses?”
My question irked him and stung his pride, but he chose to ignore it. "Special Agent Johnson is coming to get you. He'll hold you in protective custody until—"
"Protective custody?" Keller had to be kidding. "I can't do protective custody. I have to work or I don't eat. Understand? I can't hide out—and from what you've said, there is nowhere to hide, anyway." Some plan. They might as well paint a bulls-eye on my forehead.
"You'll be safe with Johnson," Keller said, then softened his voice. "Miss Grant, I know this is hard. You've built yourself a life and it hasn't been easy, being on your own. But if you were my own daughter, I'd be making this same suggestion, okay?"
"What suggestion?" I hadn't heard any suggestion.
"You need to enter the Federal Witness Security Program. It was created for witnesses needing protection. Organized crime, drug traffickers, terrorists. You’ll get a new identity and be relocated— everything you need to start fresh somewhere else.” He talked fast, then added, “Johnson's setting it all up with the U.S. Marshals."
New identity? Moving? Starting fresh? "No." I couldn't believe it. "You can’t just kick my whole life to the curb like it’s a piece of trash. I won’t let you do it.”
“You need to run.”
I need to run. “Why am I being treated like the criminal here? If you guys would do your job, then I wouldn't be in prison—and don't think just because your Witness Security Program doesn't have walls it isn't a prison because it is."
"I am doing my job, okay?" Keller stood up, leaned toward me over the table. "Listen to me, Daisy. This is serious."
"No joke." He did think I was stupid.
"I didn't mean it like that," he said, and had the grace to flush. "It's just . . . well, you have no idea what these people are capable of doing."
"They're going to kill me, Keller. That clear enough?" I frowned at him. "I'm not stupid, and I'd appreciate it if you'd stop treating me like I am."
"I didn't intend..." He sighed and gave up. "I'm sorry," he said, and then started again. "Your best shot is protective custody and then to go straight into witness security. Seriously."
"No, that’s what’s best for your friend, Johnson. He needs a witness. I don’t need any of this.”
“Okay, look. Johnson does need you. Without you, he has no case. But you need him and his protection, too.”
I’d end up dead like his other witnesses. “I don't believe this." I stood up then hobbled a short path alongside the table, dragging my cracked heel. "My life isn't much compared to most, I'll admit. But it is mine. I’ve made it from scratch by myself, and I want to keep it. What you're suggesting isn't fair, and I'm not catching a whiff of justice in any of this. I lose everything, Keller. How can a witness losing everything be right?"
"Who says it's right? Or fair? Or just, for that matter?" Keller raked a hand through his hair. Its tips spiked and caught the light. "It's not any of those things. But this isn't a lip-service warning to get you to testify, okay?" He cut to the chase. "If you enter the program, at least you'll have a life."
"Will I?" Always looking over my shoulder. Expecting them to find me every second of every day. What kind of life is that? None. And—I gasped, looked at Keller. "What about Jackson?" I asked.
Lost, Keller cocked his head. "Is he your boyfriend?"
"He's my baby brother," I said. "Well, he’s not a baby. He’s only two years younger than me, but if I did your witness security thing, I'd never see him again, right? Or is that just how it is in the movies?"
"No, I'm afraid that's how it is in real life." Regret scratched through Keller’s voice, turned his tone gruff. "You wouldn't be able to have any contact whatsoever with Jackson or anyone else currently in your life."
No Jackson. No bailing out Lester. Alone. Totally and completely alone. Again. Everything in me rebelled. “No. Thank you, but no. I won’t do it.” My knees threatened to give out and the pain shooting through my ankle had me seeing stars. I stopped and leaned against the chair. "I—I can't..."
Keller stood up, stuffed his hands in his pants pockets. "You don't have any choice."
Something in his eyes scared me in a way I hadn't been scared since I was six and Mom gave me the two Grant coins then dumped Jackson and me out of the car at the front door of the Piggly Wiggly. She went to park her car and never came back. "Why not?"
Keller looked at my neck. He tried but couldn't meet my eyes. "Because if you don't agree to witness security and protective custody, you're going to be held here anyway—as a person of interest in Edward Marcello's homicide."
Shock pumped through my body. I planted my hands on my hips and glared at him. "You're gonna arrest me?"
"Technically, no." He blinked hard. "We can hold you forty-eight hours without arresting you."
Oh, no. Two mob families and a professional hitman after me and I'm taken prisoner by cops in a police station full of moles. Great. Anything else? Through now, or do You think I need a couple more body slams?
"Daisy, I don't want to do this. But if we cut you loose, you'll be dead in an hour." Keller motioned outside. "We can't protect you out there."
Too rattled to care about manners, I snorted. "You can't protect me in here, either."
He frowned, then stilled. "Your odds in here are a lot better."
I stared at Keller a long minute. My highly-honed BS detector swore he was being straight with me. At least he wasn't one of the moles. But his being straight about this also meant he’d been straight about my odds. Stay or go, it was just a matter of time before one of them got to me and I started my toe-tag stint. While being off my feet sounded really good, being laid out on a slab in the morgue held no appeal. What I needed was a plan. My plan.
My success record might not be great, but I had kept myself and Jackson alive and out of trouble. Their witnesses were all dead. I couldn’t do worse. So the time had come to shift tactics. "Well.” I sucked in a sharp breath. “I guess that’s it, then."
"You agree to protective custody and witness security?" Keller sounded surprised.
"You said it yourself. I don’t have any choice. If I somehow managed to elude them, they’d go after Jackson, and I can’t have that." My eyes burned and I blinked hard, clenched the half-dollar until it dented my palm. "But I have to at least tell him good-bye. I'm —" I swallowed hard to get the crack out of my voice "—I'm all he's got."
"I'm sorry, Daisy." Keller said and meant it; the truth shone in his eyes. He might not be alone now but he had been. I saw it in the lines grooving down his face. "We can arrange a final conversation with Jackson. It’ll have to be on the phone, though. We can’t risk a face-to-face meeting."
“No. It’d put him in too much jeopardy. A phone call will have to do.” I sniffed, looked down at the scuffed tile floor. "If you'll excuse me, Detective, I need a minute alone." I shuddered and crossed my chest with my arms. "Where is the ladies' room?”
He seemed torn. Surely he wouldn’t refuse me even restroom privileges to preserve my dignity. "Detective?"
"Right this way."
He led me down a short dimly lit hallway, took a right and then pointed. "Second door," he said, stopping. His shoe squeaked on the worn white floor. "I'll wait for you right here."
"Thanks." He truly was afraid the families would kill me even in police headquarters. Not good. So majorly not good.
I went in and closed the door behind me. Two stalls. Both empty and painted a garish blue. One window—small but I could fit through it in a pinch. And two sinks with the crooked silver pipes sticking out underneath. I limped over, still wearing my cracked-heel shoe. Forget going barefoot in a public restroom. I'd seen a bacteria- and-germ segment on Oprah . . . or was it on the Health Channel? Whatever. Even restrooms that looked clean were infested. I took a closer look at the window. If I got out, Keller would likely have someone outside waiting to snag me the second my feet hit the ground. But even if he didn't, where could I go? Home?
Not bloody likely. I didn't even have my car here; I'd ridden in with Keller. That should have warned me, right there. Normally, it would have. But I don't see people blown wide-open everyday, you know? Edward Marcello’s death rattled me; I admit it. I didn't think.
"Miss Grant, you okay?" Keller called to me through the door.
Nice of him to worry. Sweet, actually. Not that I was crazy enough to think he really was worried about me. He wanted to nail his case. That's what Keller was about. Special Agent Johnson, too. Not me. I provided the means to an end. That’s it. They were all about the case. Likely had been trying to nail both of the mob families for years.
"I'm fine. Thank you." I turned on the tap and tried to think through this witness security program business. Never see Jackson again? Ever? I couldn't do it. I wouldn't. Because I really was about to cry and I didn't want to humiliate myself by blubbering like an idiot, I washed my face and then ripped off some paper towels and patted my skin dry in front of the mirror above the sink. My hair had fallen out of its neat chignon and shot out in blonde streaks in all directions. I plunked street grime out of it, tread lightly over a sore spot, and knew I’d be fighting embedded sidewalk grit for a week. Dabbing the streaked mascara from my face, I avoided the raspberry but nicked its edge anyway. Pain seared my jaw. Cringing, I glimpsed the ceiling in the mirror. Those big tiles . . .
One of my old foster parents, Mr. Venier, had crawled all over the ceiling in the attic once. He hid pot up above those big tiles, too. I looked at these tiles more closely.
The police couldn't protect me. The FBI or U.S. Marshals couldn't, either. I had to protect me. And I needed to buy a little time to figure out how to do it.
I opened the window and left it cracked. Inside the first stall, I stood on the stool then lifted the ceiling tile and slid it aside. I walked up the sides of the stall like I'd seen Bear Grylls walk up sheer-faced cliffs back when I’d had a TV and watched it. Scaling the wall looked easier than it was, especially with a bad ankle. Pain shot through my foot and up my leg. The whole mess throbbed. By the time I hoisted myself up into the dead space and straddled the rafters, I was in a cold sweat and my muscles burned so badly I shook like somebody half-frozen. Biting my lip to keep from groaning, I slid the tile back into its slot.
"Miss Grant?" Keller's voice carried up to me. "Miss Grant?"
I didn't dare answer. Crawling on hands and knees across and down the wooden beams, I made it to the other side of the building. Lifting the corner of a tile, I peeked down.
Keller was going nuts; he'd discovered I was gone, and he and half the force were looking for me, inside and outside the police station.
A younger man with a flat nose and short brown hair wearing a black suit and a bad attitude hooked up with Keller near the door. "Are you sure they didn't take her?"
"No, I'm not sure, Johnson." Keller shouted back. "I wasn't in the john with her. I was in the hallway. I’m not Superman. I can't see through walls, okay?"
"But the window was open, so they could've taken her," Johnson pushed.
"Yeah, the window was open." Johnson whipped out his phone and barked orders into it.
Special Agent Ted Johnson. The FBI guy Keller had said was coming for me. I hunkered down and stayed put. Once the dust settled, I could get out of here, get some money, and then get out of Biloxi.
They'll just hunt you down, Daisy. You know they will...
They would. Fear blew up inside me crowding into so much space I could barely breathe. Doubt crept in and took up the rest. Could I do anything to protect myself better than Keller and Johnson could protect me? They had training, I didn't. They had a track record—a bad one, yeah, but they did know what hadn't worked. I knew nothing.
You can't afford this kind of thinking, Daisy...
I couldn't. So okay, I wasn't formally trained, and I didn't have their kind of track record, and I didn't know what hadn't worked. And—just to not delude myself, rationalizing my situation—I was scared spit-less, which isn't the best condition to be in when you're making life-and-death decisions. The cops, FBI, and Victor Marcello wanted me alive to testify. Lou Boudin and Tony Adriano wanted me dead so I couldn't testify. Both groups would undoubtedly go to any lengths to get what they wanted. That left me with no choice but to be willing to go to any lengths to get what I wanted.
Well, I thought. I do have one thing the families, the police, the FBI and the U.S. Marshals lack, and it’s nothing to sneeze at. Actually, it could be pretty powerful—and on several occasions in the past, it had been powerful enough to save my backside. I have a personal, vested interest in the outcome of this situation that is bigger and stronger and runs deeper than their interest or investment— singularly or even combined.
This is my life on the proverbial chopping block, and I want to survive to live it.
Dixie Chapter 2
Down and Dead in Dixie
The hustle inside the police station dulled to a quiet roar, and then fell to silence.
Except for a skeleton crew left to man the station, the cops on duty had hit the streets, looking for me. Between the underside of the roof and the backside of the musty ceiling, I'd crawled all over the building, rafter to rafter, and while my tights and skirt were now in about as good a shape as my once-white shirt and torn-up shoe, I had finally pegged a way out of the station—the side exit door I now watched through a hiked corner of ceiling tile.
Problem was the keypad on the wall beside the door. It had a four-digit code; I'd counted the beeps. But until now, I hadn't been in position to see the numbers the officers exiting the building punched into it. Straddling two wooden beams like a contortionist on crack, I had a clear view and only hoped my left hipbone held out. The constant pain in it had me dripping sweat and seeing spots, but I didn't dare move. The exit had been fairly active. It wouldn't be long...
A uniformed officer approached the door, lifted a hand to the keypad and tapped in the numbers. Three, seven, three, seven. The door opened, and he walked outside.
I waited a couple minutes, then slid back the tile just enough to drop down to the floor. I landed with a thud. My ankle gave out, and I crashed on my butt. Grunting and groaning, I scrambled to my feet. To me the racket sounded like a small explosion, but no one entered the hallway so I guess the real uproar was inside my head. I punched in the code and shoved the door hard.
Seconds later, the night swallowed me. I ran two blocks on the battered ankle with pain screeching up my leg before I slowed down, then standing on the side of the dark road, I wondered. What do I do now? I had my mobile phone, but the police would be monitoring it —I'd given Keller the number, for crying out loud.
