Done for a Dime (28 page)

He’d paid a fine on the campaign charges. The results of the second investigation were strangely vague. There were rumors Bratcher and his lawyer were cooperating, which of course made sense. Amazing, the crap you can manage with federal juice.

Then last fall, Bratcher resumed contact with Ferry. He had a different problem, he said, a bigger one. He didn’t need to drive out just a few problem bangers. He needed more.

It was tricky, given the rumors that he stooled for the feds. But Ferry knew this about Bratcher: he was too cutthroat to betray someone still useful to him, too hard-nosed to let the law badger him into it. And Bratcher could hardly bring down Ferry on his drug dealer drop plays and killings—juries never let the paymaster snitch off his muscle, it went against the American grain. Besides, Bratcher was earnest, he wanted this thing done, and from just a glance you could see the money at stake. It made sense. That kind of making sense, it protected you, unless you got sloppy.

Manny’s killing the old spade, that was sloppy. Demented and sloppy. Which was why Ferry could feel his heartbeat kick a little as finally, pulling onto the gravel at the end of Green Island Road, Bratcher’s Escalade appeared—big and white with gold hardware and gaudy horsepower—kicking up dust as it left the asphalt.

Bratcher parked beside the van, got out, removed two fly rods from the back of the Escalade, and charged forward.

“You weren’t supposed to take me serious, Clint, when I said I wanted to fish.”

“You showing up like that, it’s no good, understand?” Bratcher’s face was red; he gripped the two fly rods tight in his huge hands. “End of the day, the risks you thought were no big thing, they’re the ones do you in.”

Ferry didn’t like the feel of this. “Clint, we’ve met there before, alone, first time, remember?”

“That was then. I brought you into this thing because you’ve got the kind of head can handle it. Pull a stunt like that, I gotta think—”

“I poked my nose in the damn door. Get real. Anybody recalls my face he’s lying. I page you, beep you, call your cell, there’s a record. I did the right thing.”

Bratcher grunted and held out one of the rods. “Grab that. Walk with me.”

Ferry obeyed. Secretly he preferred not meeting in the Escalade, which could be bugged. That was paranoia for you, it never slept. The rod Bratcher gave Ferry came fitted with a Penn Sixty reel, a decent rig for the stripers he said were here. Not that Ferry’d seen any. All he’d spotted so far was a few schools of threadfin shad darkening the water, surging upriver from the bay.

“I’m not seeing any bait here, Clint.”

“Shut up for once, will ya? I’m gonna practice casting, used to do it here all the time. You can do what the hell you want.”

Bratcher pulled up at a divide in the cattails edging the water, then let out his line, stretching it to remove the memory. Ferry didn’t bother to do the same. He was thinking. It was a good sign, he decided, Bratcher’s foul mood. The crankiness seemed genuine. That and his plan to come out here, where they might get seen but not noticed.

When Bratcher started to restrip his line, Ferry said, “It’s gonna happen tonight.”

The look, you’d have thought he’d tried to feed the guy a clump of mud.

“You’re not serious.”

“It’s okay, we’re ready.”

“That’s not the point.”

On the far levy, a woman in a sweat suit walked down to the dock beneath her house, accompanied by a toddler and a dog. The woman threw a tennis ball into the water, the dog sailed in after it, and the toddler applauded with mittened hands.

“Some old dusk got killed last night up on the St. Martin’s side of the panhandle. Turns out my guy was crashing at the house next door. Cops found that out.”

Bratcher stopped what he was doing. “Gonna tell me how?”

“Guy they’ve got as their chief suspect, he’s a banger, works for people my guy hung with.”

Bratcher grimaced and shook his head. “Nice class of people you bring into this.”

“Yeah, well, I thought about an ad in
Boys’ Life,
but the last couple issues, I dunno, just didn’t ring my bell.”

“You think this is funny?”

“Cops’re looking for my guy now, got him pegged as a possible material witness.” Ferry had thought it through. This seemed like the most readily defensible lie at his disposal. Besides, it was at least half-true, which was pretty good as lies went.

Bratcher twitched, shook his head. “So keep him under wraps, like you shoulda done in the first place.”

Oh, sure, Ferry thought. Blame me. “Too risky, Clint.”

“He goes in, says he didn’t see anything.” Bratcher turned, glared. “Did he?”

“Not the problem. He’s got baggage, he’s suspected in some heavy fires up north. He goes in for questioning, he stays in.”

Without warning, Bratcher snapped his rod back to two o’clock, listened for his line to hit ground, then snapped the rod forward. One smooth movement. No de-barbed lure or yarn ball for this guy. Hook catch your eye? Shoulda ducked. The lure hit water with a
thunk.

“This thing’s gotten so fucked up,” Bratcher said.

What else has gone wrong, Ferry wondered, knowing better than to push his luck and ask. He’d already heard Bratcher’s rag about the last project that had fallen through. His buddies Glenn and Craugh had bought up a dozen warehouses near the river, operating under long-term leases from the city at negotiated low rents due to promises to rebuild. But then the project got tied up by the city when it tried to squeeze out extra CAM charges and pass-throughs. None of Bratcher’s muscle had gotten the city to budge. Craugh was overleveraged and couldn’t get more financing. Now squatters had taken over some of the buildings.

Worse, the city, feeling its oats after backing down Bratcher, had dug in its heels. It wanted any businesses lined up as tenants to pay triple rents, working it through a Municipal Services District that didn’t exist when the leases were formed. The city had also invoked Mello-Roos and tried to form a new district for extra taxes to bounce up school funding. As if all that weren’t enough, insurance was going through the roof due to the World Trade Center attack and the threat of reparations lawsuits.

It was that last part that really galled Bratcher. In their first meeting, when Bratcher explained the vision he had for Baymont—gated community, all wired for satellite or cable, high-speed Internet, multiple phone lines, exterior surveillance and home theater surround sound, the wiring package alone worth five grand, plus peninsula kitchens, built-in gas fireplaces, master baths with jetted tubs and custom glass—he described his plan for ridding the hill of its current structures and tenants by saying, “Think of it as reverse reparations.” He got the biggest kick out of that.

“There is,” Ferry said, “a bright side to what happened last night. Rains got the sewers backed up, which means the gas will move slow through the system. Fumes will build up and ride high. You got smoke crews working the top of the hill, where everybody can see. Nobody’s gonna second-guess the problems up there with the storm drains. And every other Sunday night, mom-and-pop gas station up top, it gets its delivery. That’s tonight. It’s the key to the whole thing.”

“Gonna be true as long as there’s an every other Saturday night. Besides, the rain cuts both ways, it’s too wet.”

“There’s a good wind today. Dry enough.”

“That’s crap.” Bratcher scanned the westward horizon. “You got storms coming in. What’s the point, the thing doesn’t spread?”

“It’ll spread. We’ve got eight houses that’ll go up quick, the fire source is inside, not out. And they’re gonna burn hot. Radiant heat’ll dry things out as things move.”

Bratcher’s eyes darkened. “Who’s talking about eight houses?”

“You’ll have the sewers full of gas fumes. They’ll back up through the drains. All they have to do is hit a pilot light.”

“Just because you got fumes and a flame source in the same room doesn’t mean—”

“Fumes back up into a sewer, they find a flame source every time. Ask anybody who’s worked on a flipped tanker.”

Bratcher screwed up his mouth, shook his head. “Don’t like it. Too soon. No. Feels all wrong.”

Ferry bit his lip to control his impatience. “You get eight houses, fast full engagement, plus others on top of the—”

“I understand the plan. I’m the one came up with it. I’m just saying—”

“You came up with what and where. How and why and when are my department. I’ve got the kind of head that can handle this sort of thing—your words, remember? I’m serious, it’s gotta be tonight.”

Bratcher rolled all but about thirty feet of his line back onto the reel. Slow. Thinking. “If this chickenshit backwater worked the way it ought to work, none of this would be necessary.” He grimaced, like an ugly premonition had just snuck up on him. “The hoops you gotta jump through anymore,” he muttered, “just to build something, make life better for a place like this.” He turned toward Ferry and shot him a baleful look. “Give most people half a chance, they’ll waste their lives sitting in their own stink. The only thing new and better they’ll ever make is the next excuse for why nothing’s ever their fault.”

Ferry’d heard this before, or something much like it. In this rendition, though, he detected a hint of regret in Bratcher’s tone. More likely, it was fear. “Not much point worrying over things like that.”

“Yeah. Sure. True enough.” Bratcher turned back to the water, shook off his mood. “Back to the point—this was supposed to happen in April, you know? After we get Polhemus in, have a majority in place.”

“Can’t wait that long, Clint.”

“Fire doesn’t solve squat without the council on board. Haven’t got the votes for the package we want—the right consultants, the bond brokers, the lawyers we need to write up the DDA.”

“With the way that hill’s gonna look tomorrow morning, the council will come on board in a heartbeat.”

“What do you know about it?” Bratcher shot Ferry a rum look. “Know what I think? I think there’s something you’re not telling me.”

Ferry shook his head, looked off. “There’s a lot I’m not telling you. That’s the way you want it, believe me.”

“Yeah? Why’s that?”

“Get too hands-on, you’ll wear it on your face. I’m doing you a favor.”

“Don’t worry about what I do or how I handle it.”

This is getting too strange, Ferry thought. He laid his rod on the ground, turned to leave, then heard a cry from the far side of the river. Something was wrong with the dog; it was struggling in the current. The woman was calling to it, her voice becoming shrill. She crawled down onto the pier and into the water as the little girl began to shriek, sobbing hysterically. Ferry and Bratcher stood there, helpless, watching. Serves her right, Ferry thought, cold as that water must be. Poor dog.

“One other thing,” he said finally. “This goes tonight, I’m gonna need my money tomorrow.”

Bratcher laughed. “You nuts?”

“Route it the same as last time.”

“No way I can move it that quick. No way I should. That’s insane.”

“Don’t do this, Clint. Take you thirty minutes, tops, you move it over the Internet. Just like last time. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know.”

Bratcher readied to cast again. “Maybe that’s not the point.”

“Think of it this way: First installment bought performance. Second buys loyalty.”

Bratcher stopped his cast and shot Ferry a thin, hateful smile. “You trying to shake me down?”

“I’m letting you know what you’re paying for.”

Bratcher grabbed his arm. “No. I’ll tell you what I’m paying for. And it ain’t eight houses. It ain’t
eighteen
houses.”

16

N
o sooner had Murchison arrived back at the station than word came from the front desk that a lawyer wanted to see him. Tina Navigato, he thought, and it put a little kick in his step as he headed toward the lobby. Through the lettered glass of the final door, however, he saw that the lawyer there to greet him was a man. Murchison knew him. His name was Grantree Hamilton and he specialized in civil rights law—suing cops for use of force—in addition to handling the headline drug case now and then, the occasional murder. Murchison had suffered through a few of the man’s cross-examinations and had a grudging respect for him, despite the shaved head.

Murchison wondered if Sarina Thigpen had hired Hamilton to protest Arlie’s treatment in custody. Or maybe Carvela Grimes had retained him on behalf of Francis Templeton; she’d said she’d talk to her lawyer at church and Hamilton looked dressed for Sunday services: cream-colored suit with a double-breasted jacket, sky-blue shirt, navy-blue tie. The shoes were two-tone Stacy Adams, a little touch of old school, still the homeboy. As Murchison finally stepped through the door, the lawyer charged forward, plowing the air with his outstretched hand.

“Detective, good to see you.”

He smiled that shameless smile; it could give you sunburn. In contrast, the handshake was limp, indifferent.

“Mr. Hamilton.”

“I understand you’re lead detective on the Carlisle matter.”

“You represent?”

“Veronique Edwards.”

Murchison couldn’t help himself, he smiled. “No fooling.”

“She’s Mr. Carlisle’s next of kin.”

“Not the way I hear it.”

“Yes, well.” Hamilton gestured for time, opened his briefcase, sorted through some papers, and withdrew a manila envelope. “I believe this may interest you.”

Murchison took the envelope, opened it, and removed two photocopied documents. The first was a birth certificate: Tobias Marchand, no middle name. The father was listed as George Prescott Marchand. Felicia Marchand’s signature appeared under the heading “Parent or Other Informant.” The second document was a petition for child support—Felicia Marchand, Complainant; George “Sonny” Marchand, Respondent. One page was marked, where “Children of the Marriage” were listed. There were two girls. And Toby. More to the point, Hamilton had them on a Sunday morning. He and his client had been ready.

“The petition for support, that’s penalty of perjury,” Hamilton said. “So if there’s been any talk, from Ms. Marchand in particular, that this Toby individual is the decedent’s son—”