Blood of My Brother (10 page)

“I’m writing a story for tomorrow’s paper relating all this, and again raising the issue of the connection between the Powers deaths and Danny’s killing.”

“Good. I have something else for you. Bryce Powers worked in Mexico City in the seventies. He was in charge of commercial development for an international real estate company, Gentex. Now two Mexicans show up at Danny’s apartment.”

“Is Gentex still in business?”

“Yes.”

“Anything else?”

“It has to be off the record.”

“Sure.”

“Kate Powers wrote me a bunch of letters telling me that Bryce was bribing government officials in Mexico, and that he had close ties to some big-time drug dealers.”

“Do the police know this?”

“I don’t think so. My file was returned by one of Judge Moran’s court officers. It didn’t even look like it was opened.”

“Why do you want this off the record?”

“Because I represent the daughters in lawsuits against them and the estate. Any damage to Powers’s reputation would hurt my clients.”

“Did you use the letters in court in the divorce?”

“No.”

“Who was your adversary?”

“Bob Flynn.”

“Does he know?”

“I told him about them, but I didn’t send him copies.”

“Why not?”

“I wasn’t going to use them in the case. Kate wasn’t in her right mind. She was drunk most of the time, and drugged out. I thought the letters were worthless.”

“Can I call Flynn?”

“I’d rather leave him out of it.”

“Okay, he’s out of it.”

Even if Linda confirmed the existence of the letters via Bob Flynn, Jay would still be her original source. To his relief, she clearly understood that he could not let her make an end run around his ethics issue.

“I’ll have to use your name, though, Jay,” she continued, “regarding the FBI’s involvement. I already talked to my editor. The story needs credibility, especially since I’m naming Markey and quoting the FBI’s denial. I’m identifying Davis, but that won’t be enough against the word of the FBI.”

“Did you clear that with Davis?”

“Yes. Those two Mexicans scared him, and he feels like he’s being a good citizen in helping to track them down. Plus, he really liked Danny.”

“Who didn’t?”

“Can I use your name?”

“Of course.”

“What will you do with them? The letters?”

“First I have to get rid of Melissa and Marcy as clients. They’re making me sick.”

“Your judgment is no longer being clouded by lust.”

“Right.”

“Then what?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll give Agent Markey a call.”

“Can I see the letters, off the record for now?”

“Stop by my office tomorrow. And one last thing.”

“Yes?”

“If you win a Pulitzer Prize on this, then all comments about my relationship with Melissa Powers have to stop. Is that a deal?”

“That’s a deal. One last thing.”

“Shoot.”

“Does Frank Dunn know about any of this?”

“I’ve told him about the letters, but not my talk with Bill Davis.”

Jay looked down at his drink, which he had stopped sipping during his conversation with Linda, and which was now mostly melted ice. After a couple of nights of quiet and murderous drinking with the detective, Jay had stopped returning Dunn’s calls, and avoided the places where he might run into him. Dunn and Danny respected each other’s nerve, realistic take on life, and intolerance of phonies, but there was also a natural tension between them that did not take too long to spring up when they were in each other’s presence. Danny’s cockiness irritated Dunn, and Dunn’s secretiveness irritated Danny. They often provoked each other to anger while Jay watched, trying not to smile. Next to Jay, Dunn probably knew—and loved—Dan as well as anyone, and it occurred to him now, for the first time since Dan’s death, that Dunn had sustained a loss, too, and that
he
possibly
needed comforting. God placed self-pity, it has been said, next to despair, the cure beside the malady.

“Jay?” Linda’s voice came to him over the wire.

“Yes?”

“How are you?”

“I’m okay, Linda. I’m getting better.”

Frank Dunn had not been involved in the hands-on investigation of the Powers case. That had been conducted by the two homicide detectives attached to Al Garland. But he had talked to them, and he had read the file, and he was not comfortable with the rapidly reached conclusion of murder-suicide. Normally he would not care, especially in a case involving the death of two rich socialites. But the Powers murder-suicide was linked, via Donna Kelly, to the torture and death of Frank’s friend, Dan Del Colliano. And so he took an interest. Naturally, he related Jay Cassio’s account of Donna Kelly, her cash, and her hiring of Danny, to Ralph Greco, the detective in charge of the case, the obvious point being: where there is five hundred thousand in cash floating around, there is a motive to murder. Greco took a statement from Jay, but was not inclined to reopen the case.

On the surface, Greco’s reasons were sound. There was no sign of forced entry into the Powers house; they had found a bloody kitchen knife with Bryce’s fingerprints on it; Kate’s headless body had been found in her bed, the sheets a bloody mess; Bryce’s body had been found slumped at his desk, his insulin paraphernalia and hypodermic needle nearby; the autopsy on Kate’s body had revealed traces of the
antidepressants Prozac and Haldol, as well as a very high blood-alcohol level.

Greco and his team quickly discovered that Mesa Associates had been losing money. They knew about the contentious divorce. They surmised that Bryce had found Kate passed out, as usual, in her bed, had beheaded her, driven to the river, only a few miles from their home, dropped the head in, returned, and calmly injected himself with five hundred cc’s of insulin, enough to kill an elephant. Yes, they had found some cash deposits in some of Bryce Powers & Company’s banking records, but didn’t tenants frequently pay their rent in cash, especially garden apartment tenants?

In Florida, Danny had last been seen by the clerk at the South Miami Beach Motor Hotel when he checked in, alone, on the night he was killed. His body had been found the next morning by a cleaning woman. There were no prints in the room that matched anything on record, and no one had heard or seen anything unusual. Seven Donna Kellys were listed in the phone books for the Dade and Broward County area, but none matched Danny’s description. There was no record of a Donna Kelly working currently or in the past for any of Bryce Powers’s companies or properties.

The Miami Beach PD’s working theory was that Danny was carrying stolen drug money and had been killed by its rightful owners, with a little torture thrown in to see if they could find out who he was working for. But, with no description of the killer or killers, no weapon, and no leads of any kind, a quick resolution was not likely.

The Florida findings Frank learned from his friend, Angelo Perna, who had been advised of the status of the case by his contact, a homicide detective at the Miami Police Department. One thing that Angelo told Frank intrigued him,
that is, that the FBI had taken an interest in the crime, that a Special Agent Chris Markey had reinterviewed the clerk at the hotel, and even visited Jupiter, where Danny, because of his postcard to Jay, was known to have been.

Now Frank reads in the paper that the same Agent Markey is investigating Dan’s murder in Jersey, looking for “two swarthy young Mexican men”—who he has photographs of—and that Jay Cassio is the person who has uncovered this. Frank had been in law enforcement long enough to know that the FBI would be furious that such information had been disclosed to the public without its consent. Sipping his scotch at his usual back booth at the Colonial, the
Star-Ledger
opened to Linda Marshall’s bylined article, on the table in front of him, Frank was fairly certain that the FBI, whose denial he did not believe for a second, had made a major mistake in not talking to Marshall. It was always a pleasure to see them suffer, especially when it was their own arrogance that brought them low.

Lost in his thoughts, reading his paper, Frank barely looked up when Jay Cassio sat down across from him, a scotch over ice in his hand. Frank continued to read the paper. He looked at Jay a couple of times, but otherwise just read and sipped his drink and smoked his cigarette. The minutes passed. Finally Jay touched his glass against Frank’s and said “Your enthusiasm is overwhelming.”

“Always a pleasure to pass the time of day with you, Jay,” Frank said. “What’s on your mind?”

“Nothing, what’s on yours?”

“I was thinking,” Frank replied, “of how pissed off Special Agent Chris Markey is at you at this moment.”

“He should have spoken to Linda,” said Jay. “He could have spun it his own way.”

“They don’t like it when their mistakes are made public.”

“It’s good to know they’re doing something.”

“That I agree with.”

Jay took a sip of his drink and remained silent.

“Al Garland wasn’t too happy, either,” Frank said.

“You talked to him?”

“Early this morning.”

“What did he say?”

“He says you’re a troublemaker and a wise guy. He was trying to be calm, but you could see his eyes starting to bulge.”

“What’s his problem?”

“Markey, probably.”

“Speak of the devil,” said Jay, looking over Frank’s shoulder. Al Garland, lanky, wearing thick glasses, an ex-Marine still with a military haircut, approached and stood in front of the booth.

“Jay, Frank,” Garland said, nodding to each of them. “Can I join you?”

“Sure,” Frank answered, sliding over to make room for his boss.

“You want a drink, Al?” Jay asked.

“No, I can’t stay.”

“So how are you?” Jay asked the prosecutor, eying him across the table. “I haven’t seen you since the wake.”

“I’m good,” Garland replied, “but I don’t like the article in the paper today.”

“Why not?”

“It’s obvious you called Linda Marshall.”

“The last time I checked it wasn’t a crime to talk to a reporter in this country.”

“It makes you look bad,” Garland said, “like you’re trying to stir up trouble.”

“Is the FBI investigating Danny’s murder?”

“They say they’re not. I believe them.”

“Al, we know each other a long time,” Jay said. “Don’t bullshit me. Up or down, yes or no, you’d know if they were on the case.”

Frank Dunn had worked for Al Garland for five years. The brunt, on several occasions, of the prosecutor’s wicked temper, he was expecting it to flare now, and would not be unhappy if it did. A good melee, he had always felt, was the equal only of a good drunk when it came to clearing a troubled head. Taken together they worked wonders. He was surprised therefore at the tone and substance of Garland’s reply.

“I didn’t come over here to argue with you,” Garland said. “I came over to ask you, as a favor, not to call any more reporters. You’re involved with the estate, you’re representing the Powers sisters. If you come across anything in either case, call me, don’t go to the papers.”

“You’re patronizing me, Al,” Jay replied. “I can’t believe it.”

“I’m not,” Garland answered. “You’ve got it wrong.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Jay said, “you give me your word that the Powers case is closed, and that the FBI isn’t working on Danny’s case, and I’ll promise to come to you with anything I come across.”

“The Powers case,” Garland promptly replied, “is closed, and as far as I know the FBI is not working on Danny’s case.”

Jay sat back in his seat, his body language very open and innocent, and nodded.

“Is that good enough?” Garland asked as he rose to leave.

“Of course,” Jay answered.

“The new Al Garland,” Jay said after the prosecutor left.

“You pushed him pretty hard,” said Frank.

“I wanted to see how far up Agent Markey’s ass he was.”

“Pretty far, it seems.”

“I’m sorry you were in the middle like that.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“You work for the guy.”

“I’m thinking of quitting.”

“Quitting? Why?”

“I spoke to Lorrie today. She says the kitchen knife
could
have been the murder weapon, but she thinks it was something heavier and sharper. A machete maybe.”

“Did she tell that to Garland?”

“Yes, but he wasn’t interested. He says it’s speculation. He knows you can’t take castings if the entire head is severed.”

“He’s probably right.”

“That’s not all Lorrie had to say. She did a liver stick on both bodies. She says they died within minutes of each other.”

“Is she sure?”