Exception to the Rule, page 12
“Why?”
“You had him long?”
Hatcher frowned. His broken nose twisted closer to his right eye. “Been a week or so. Hell, I can’t remember one day from another in this hellhole.”
Ottice smiled without friendliness. “I know. Your new buddy is most likely a close friend of the Pitelli organization, and they’ll know exactly when you come up for parole, the minute you set foot outside these walls.”
Hatcher stared sullenly at Ottice. Realization dawned slowly. He swallowed and twitched in his chair, glanced at the guard. “You through talking? I got to get back.”
“I can make sure you don’t run into Pitelli’s goons too quickly when you leave here if you help me out.”
“I don’t know nothin’.”
“How’s McCarver working Cleansweep? When’s his next attempt and what will it be? Why is he threatening the life of a teenager? That’s low, even for somebody like McCarver.”
Hatcher glanced nervously over his shoulder and said nothing.
Ottice leaned forward. He spoke low and confidentially. “I got this thing about my boss lady. Anybody, anything bothering her makes me itch, and when I scratch it lights powder to whatever I’m checking.”
Hatcher grinned, bad teeth like dirty scars behind thin lips. “Yeah. I hear the last powder ‘bout blowed your head off.” As soon as the words left his lips, his face tightened and blanched.
Ottice studied the man. “You’re right.” His voice dropped to a coarse whisper. “Tell me what McCarver’s up to or Alonzo Pitelli gets assistance in ridding the world of one Wilfred Hatcher. No great loss, I can tell you. And make no mistake, Willy, there are ways, no matter how many bodyguards you have and how far they put you in isolation and change your name under government protection.”
“I’ll call the guard and tell him you’re threatening me.”
“Go ahead.” Ottice stood and stretched, shrugged thick shoulders which showed gigantic arms flexing, a threat without even trying. He turned away.
“Wait.” When Ottice faced the prisoner again, Hatcher motioned him back to the chair.
Ottice sat down.
“Look, Watson, you gotta believe me. I don’t know who the big boss is. It ain’t McCarver. He’s taking orders from somebody else. I’d tell you if I knew, you know that.” He whined now. “McCarver passes instructions to somebody who works at Cleansweep, but I don’t know who it is. It’s the truth.” Hatcher pleaded. He’d seen Ottice’s face when he started to leave and he didn’t want that kind of reprisal coming from outside the prison. He knew what happened to prisoners who crossed the big bosses on the outside, and he had enough to put up with on the inside.
“What’s McCarver after?”
Hatcher fidgeted. “Cleansweep’s beginning to make inroads on his territory. They undercut him on contracts and that makes his kickbacks a lot less. Cleansweep put up stock options when the company was only a year old, and that woman running Cleansweep, she reinvests for her employees, gives bonuses so they can buy more stock, then she lets them convert if they want to. McCarver sold some of his stock when he was trying to take over a couple of more companies and had to borrow. Found out Madigan bought his stock and is the one he now borrows from. Made him mad.”
“What difference does that make? Garnet Madigan’s fair and won’t foreclose on him without giving him a chance. More’n he’d do for her.”
“That ain’t it, Watson. Madigan’s a woman, and ….”
Ottice’s gruff laughter rumbled at Hatcher across the narrow opening. “She’s all woman, and you can tell McCarver not to forget it for a minute. Better tell him she’s a woman likes to fight for what she thinks is right. And threatening her daughter is the right way to get taken out of circulation if he don’t cease and desist.”
“McCarver can take care of her.”
“Uh huh.” Ottice leaned towards Hatcher. “You got a way to get a message to McCarver, you tell him to tell his boss that Cleansweep ain’t for sale or for hire, and it ain’t ready for a takeover. You tell him that for me.” He stood. “And you can add that Alonzo Pitelli likes Garnet Madigan.”
Ottice motioned for the guard and walked away without looking back, but he knew Wilfred Hatcher watched him until he was out of sight. He also knew that McCarver would have his message before bedtime.
Outside the neatly kept gray stone walls, he turned to look back. Goose pimples raised along his thick biceps, and he felt the skin crawl beneath his kinky black scalp cover.
Leaning over, he vomited.
* * * *
“The black man Mrs. Madigan hired went upstate to visit somebody in the federal prison. Rumor says it was Hatcher he saw.” Snooks faced Alonzo Pitelli across a few feet of floor space and the wide desk.
“Hatcher due for parole?”
“Two to four months, according to the grapevine. Probably won’t make it first time around.”
“If he does, I see him before anyone else does.”
“Yessir.”
“Who’s watching Lyn Madigan?”
“Nestor. He’s janitor in the halls outside her afternoon classes.”
Pitelli nodded, his eyes on sketches in front of him. “We decided two years ago that Cleansweep wasn’t anything we wanted to fool with. Not enough cash flow to launder money. Not enough big profits to pay for the hassle. Is that still a valid determination or do we need to reassess?”
“You gonna tackle Mrs. Madigan? I thought you wuz kinda, well you know, taken by her.”
Pitelli leaned back, eyes narrowed until only blue slits remained. “I get the company, I get the owner. Right?” He drew a line across the paper. “The company isn’t that important. Mrs. Madigan is.”
Snooks regarded his boss with new light in his eyes. “You interested in a woman more’n money?”
“I’ve never known a woman like her, one who could think beyond her next fur coat. Not since mama and grandmama.” The tanned skin drew tight across his cheekbones and a bit of color left his face.
Snooks didn’t move. He knew the look meant Pitelli was thinking of what had happened to his family in the little town outside Palermo on that sunny day years ago. He wouldn’t talk about it. He never did, but the furious and helpless anger surged through him, visible to a man as close to him as Snooks.
Pitelli shook his head like a dog coming from underwater. “Garnet Madigan is a fighter. I like that. How has she prevented hostile takeovers or underbidding to knock her out of the business?”
That wasn’t Snooks’ area of expertise so he kept quiet. The boss was talking his way through a problem.
“She’s had Cleansweep almost four years, and except for the first year, has made a steady profit. Doubled payments on her loans. Keeps her credit in good standing. Has loyal employees.” Pitelli looked up. “I’ll bet her inexperience was one of her best assets, Snooks. She’s not afraid to try things others wouldn’t touch. Didn’t she hire women? Besides office workers, I mean.”
“Yessir.”
Pitelli thought about that. “And it’s working. For her, anyway, because she believed it would work. Same as with the lightweight compaction front-loader she used before anyone else. Also found out she’s got one of the cleanest operations around. Not the least expensive, but she offers more service for the money.”
“You checked her out good.”
“My people are thorough.” Pitelli smiled. “Mrs. Madigan always had loyal employees. Until two quit recently. Did you pick up the one following her?”
“Downstairs with Saverno.”
“I’ll talk to him later.”
* * * *
Garnet opened the door when Ottice identified himself. She smiled, tired lines disappearing for an instant, and then settling back around her eyes.
“Shouldn’t you be at home?” She motioned him to the comfortable club chair big enough to hold a man his size.
“Called Amelia to let her know I’se coming here first.”
Without asking, Garnet poured two coffees and sat down to face Ottice. “Lyn got home safe and sound.” She gave him a brief smile. “Bart’s going out of town next Friday for a long weekend in New York and Canada. He’s taking Lyn with him. At least, it will get her out of the line of fire.”
“You think she’ll be safe?” Ottice blinked, thought of that upstate prison with its network of information. It was uncanny how suppressed news found its way through those stinking hallways.
“The visit is unscheduled. Bart didn’t know for certain until lunch today, and he came by to tell me rather than call.” She smiled again. “He sometimes uses common sense.”
“Maybe. I’se you I’d call that detective.”
“I’ve already called and left word for him to get back to me.”
Ottice leaned forward. “Found out McCarver’s only a go-between for slime like Hatcher and somebody else they call the boss. Hatcher claims not to know who that is.” Black eyes rolled. “I b’lieve him cause I threatened to throw him to Pitelli if he lied.”
“You really think Pitelli’s still waiting on him about Istanbul Island?” Garnet remembered the club as a fancy disco in the area best described as upper class ghetto. Rumors were its main business was cover for drug-related operations. Illegal gambling. Prostitution.
“Know for a fact he is. Pitelli never forgets. Nothing.”
Mafia never forgets. Yet he’d let her threaten him and Snooks and walk out without retaliation. Or had he? Was he really doing her damage while sweetly asking her to have dinner and taking her to his fabulous house for a drink?
That alone had made David Mellencamp mad. He thought Pitelli a crook and lowdown mobster. What the hell? David criticized everything she did even before she did it, so maybe Pitelli was as innocent as she was.
She grinned. Not hardly.
“So what did we gain from your going back into that hellhole, Ottice?” Her eyes went over the scarred face, chocolate skin laced with pinkish scars and angry welts. Her own anger surfaced.
Ottice stood. “What I went looking for was to find out if McCarver was your real enemy. He is. But there’s someone else. You gonna tell the detectives?”
“What do you think?”
“I think yes because this thing is going to get bad, Garnet, and chances for people to get hurt. Bad hurt. People like Hatcher and his associates, they mean. Real mean.”
“What do you mean: get bad?”
“I don’t know McCarver personally, but what I’ve heard, he ain’t gonna give up easy. He got a boss, then that boss gonna push while he thinks he’s got a foothold.”
“Where’s his foothold?” Garnet was intrigued by the workings of the so-called simple human mind. How could Ottice, until a few months ago, locked away for years in a federal penitentiary, figure out from his limited information that she was going to have a lot more trouble from an entirely unforeseen source? He could almost pinpoint it. All he needed was that one name from McCarver. But how to get that name . .
“I don’t rightly know where it would be. Maybe somebody got a hold over him. Maybe he got a debt overdue. Anything like that.”
“What about Pope?” She related her experience with the man that morning. “Think he and McCarver could have a connection?”
“Yeah. That could be it. Guess I oughta go over and see Mr. Pope.” He thought about that for a second. “See, McCarver don’t know I’m out of the hospital. I asked doc not to list me as a dischargee. Nobody oughta notice if I drop by to see Pope.”
“Ottice,” she said. “Just look. Don’t touch.”
Chapter Twelve Garnet breathed a sigh of relief as a key turned in the lock, and Lyn breezed in, hair glistening with raindrops. She’d made the decision to stay with Garnet until the weekend.
“Someday, I’d love to live in Hawaii where rain isn’t wet and there are never any gray days.”
“Who told you that, Love?” Garnet couldn’t help smiling at the grumpy look on the girls’ face.
“Dad. He was stationed there for a couple of years.”
“Yes. I know.” Bart wanted everything perfect, even the weather. Hawaii came close. The Gulf Coast with its impromptu hurricanes, high humidity and stifling heat left a lot to be desired, weather wise. “Anything exciting happen at school?”
“Yeah. Roy Pope blew a hole in the wall of the science lab with his C-4 explosive experiment.”
“C-4? In the school lab?”
Lyn laughed. “We make our own. It’s easy. You take….”
Garnet listed in astonishment as Lyn described the fairly simple ingredients and formula needed to make a facsimile of the deadly plastic explosive. Dennis Pope’s son, Roy. A Cleansweep vehicle blown up by suspicious explosive that could be set off anywhere.
Dammit, Dennis, you’re an idiot. Would he do that to her? Damn right. She wouldn’t kowtow to his and Shaw’s badgering her to unionize, buy into protection rackets, bribes. Easy to get explosives without signing for them when your son is a chemistry student. And a simple matter to plant it on familiar property.
Maybe I oughta talk to Calvin and see if he knows of dangerous plans involving more damage to Cleansweep. Or to Lyn. Or to me. He’d follow blindly, but he’d never rat on his friend, Dennis.
“Oh, yes, Mother.” Lyn’s casual voice interrupted her musings. “Dad’s going to Albany on business, and he said if I could get excused from school on Friday and Monday, he’d take me. Maybe go up into Canada. Combine business and pleasure.”
Bart could be sensible. Sometimes.
“Yes, he mentioned it to me. Sounds like a nice trip. Will you need a heavier sweater than what you have? Might be chilly this time of year that far north.”
“I’d love a bright red one. Could I?” Something had calmed Lyn’s feelings towards Garnet. Was the thin aura of danger enough to make her aware of her own as well as her mother’s vulnerability?
“Red will go well with the plaid skirt your dad and Sue bought you.”
There was a time when a bright red handkerchief would have caused second thoughts, but her years of hard work, some lucky investments, and a good comptroller had put her in a position of, if not riches, at least solid prosperity. Whether Bart thought she was capable or not, she’d fought her way from bottom to top, packed five years of hard labor into a short period. Just on the verge of expanding her business horizons and getting really comfortable, and someone’s trying to knock down her playhouse.
Fury sent adrenaline through Garnet. Who the hell is this bully who thinks he can scare me off with threats? Someone who knows Lyn is the most important person . . . most important anything …. in her life.
Who?
* * * *
The dimness of the police station entryway intimidated Garnet, caused her to glance over her shoulder as she rounded the corner into the hall that led to David’s office. Maybe that was what scared her: the thought of approaching David in the same room where he’d accused her of …. of what? Seducing him while his wife lay dying? Being in the wrong place at the wrong time?
She braced her shoulders and knocked on the closed door.
“Come in.” The sound was muffled as though someone covered his mouth.
Hesitantly, she let the door open and waited for another invitation. David’s shoulder pressed a phone to his ear, and he wrote on a yellow legal pad. He didn’t glance up, and she took her time observing him.
Dark hair lay in wide waves, just enough dressing on it to keep it from falling into his face. An uneven part went from crown almost to forehead where it was covered by a lock of hair. His left hand propped his chin, and she could see the wide gold wedding band.
She flinched. She’d forgotten he was a widower of just weeks. Everything seemed to have happened so long ago.
Why the hell wasn’t he like other humans and stay away from the job and nurse his hurt alone? Because David was David.
She jumped when he slammed the receiver down, ripped off the sheet from the tablet, and yelled, “LeVeau!”
He hadn’t looked up until now. He stood, frowned impatiently straight at her because she was between him and the door. It took an instant for recognition to reach him. She started to speak when the door behind her opened.
“Yessir?” It was a young-sounding voice.
David held out the paper without taking his eyes from Garnet.
“A shooting on Walthrope. Go with Sergeant Peterson.”
“Yessir.” The door closed once more.
“Anything wrong?”
“I have some questions,” she said. “If you’d rather I speak with someone else, tell me.”
He shrugged. “There isn’t anyone else. With the chemical spill, fourteen accidents, two suicides, and three liquor store robberies, one involving homicide, I’m what’s left.”
“You look tired.” It was seven o’clock at night, and she wondered what time he’d come to work and when he’d go home.
The familiar icy glaze settled in his eyes. “What’s your question, Mrs. Madigan?”
His tone hurt, but damned if she’d let him see it. “I went by Dennis Pope’s house on my way here, but his wife says she hasn’t seen him since early this morning. Early this morning, he followed me to the hospital when I went by to see Mr. Watson.”
“Is he working?”
“I don’t know since he quit me.” She rubbed her chin. “Lyn told me Roy Pope, Dennis’ son, did some damage at school with a facsimile of a C-4 explosive he built in chemistry class. I wondered if that’s the same type used on my vehicle.”
“We don’t have the complete lab reports yet.”
“Takes a long time, doesn’t it?”
“Your problems aren’t the only ones we have, Mrs. Madigan.” David’s voice was pleasant, but she had an idea he was gritting his teeth.
“Had I a choice, Lieutenant, I’d take my business elsewhere, but since I don’t, I guess I’ll have to wait my turn with your department. Make sure you keep an eye on Lyn whatever else you must do.”
“Any more phone calls?”
“No.” She turned towards the door. “I’ll let you know when Lyn goes out of town with her father. Good evening, Lieutenant.” She left, extremely conscious of the terrible letdown feeling that seeing David caused.
