Wicked Is the Whiskey: A Sean McClanahan Mystery (Sean McClanahan Mysteries Book 1) (20 page)

The next morning, I drove back to West Virginia to check in on Erin and Elizabeth. They greeted me at the front door.

“How are you feeling?” I said to Elizabeth.

“Couldn’t be better,” she said, smiling.

“And you?” I said to Erin.

“Almost 100 percent,” she said. “We've been talking about John. Come join us.”

I followed them into the kitchen. Gertrude Miller sat at the kitchen table.

“Coffee, Sonny?” she said.

“That would be grand,” I said.

“I’ll get it,” said Erin, pouring me a cup at the kitchen counter.

“Sit with us,” said Elizabeth, taking a chair at the table. Erin returned to the table with my coffee and sat next to me.

“We’ve been sharing our memories of John,” said Erin. “Elizabeth and Gertrude have the most wonderful stories about him.”

“When he was 4, he carried around a tattered old blanket that he called his bubbers,” said Erin laughing.

“It is so sweet the way he doted on his Mother all these years,” said Elizabeth, smiling. “I’m so glad I finally got to meet you, Gertrude!”

“It's amazing how different his public persona was from the way he was in private,” Erin continued. “It's not that there was anything wrong with his public persona, but he was so much warmer and sensitive and sweet in private.”

Elizabeth smiled wide.

“He was also very shy,” said Elizabeth. “A lot of people never knew that. In the early years, he was terrified to talk before an audience. Goodness, I had to spend hours coaxing him. He'd finally go out and wow them.”

They fell into a spell in which both were telling stories about the man they loved. They laughed and giggled the way women do when men are not around and I felt invisible. I knew it was good for all three of them to share stories and laugh. 

“Well, ladies,” I said standing, I just wanted to check in on you. “If you have a chance later, see if you can find where John may have hidden that financial ledger.”

“We plan on doing just that,” said Erin. “We promise we’ll find it.”

“Call me when you do,” I said.

I left them to their conversation and headed back to Pittsburgh.

As I drove back to Pittsburgh, I flipped on the radio.

The news report I was about to hear would come as no surprise:

“We’re live outside of the Gutbuster Comedy Club. Guido Mosconi, the club’s owner, was found dead inside this morning from an apparent heroin overdose. Mosconi, the only son of alleged mob boss Salvatore Mosconi, was 48. Police say they found $68 thousand dollars in cash, as well as several bricks of heroin in Mosconi’s office in the club.”

Tony and Terry must have arrived shortly after I’d left.

That meant I had to find out who Guido was with in his car the night they left Hall’s house — before Hall got to him, too.

It didn’t take much research to find out who Guido dropped off at the South Side residence. According to the Allegheny County Real Estate Assessment site, the house was owned by Mildred Kowalski.

When I Googled her name and address, I was able to quickly identify family members related to her. They included Stanley Kowalksi. When I googled his name, several news stories popped up. Stanley had been a promising Carnegie Mellon University computer science student who was kicked out of the university after he got caught hacking into powerful government agencies just to see if he could do it.

I drove a half dozen blocks from the pub to his house and knocked on the door. The door opened a crack, but the chain was still attached. I saw the head of a small woman look at me through the crack.

“Mrs. Kowalski, my name is Sean McClanahan. I’m a private investigator. I need to talk with Stanley.”

I pulled out my PI license and showed it to her.

“What’s this about?” she said.

“It’s important, ma’am.”

“Are you with the other men?” she said.

“What other men?”

“The big one with the black hair and the small one with red hair.”

“When were they here?” I said.

“Fifteen minutes ago. I told them Stanley was out.”

“It’s very important that I see Stanley right away,” I said. “He’s in danger.”

“I can’t imagine what he’s done now,” she said.

“We don't have much time,” I said. “Those men will return. They will take Stanley away and you will never see him again.”

She looked directly into my eyes as I spoke. She paused for a moment, then closed the door. I heard the chain unlatch. She opened the door all the way.

“Follow me,” she said.

We walked down the hallway and descended narrow steps to the basement bedroom where Stanley lived. The room was cluttered with piles of clothes, books and papers lying on the floor. Star Trek posters covered the walls. Stanley was so consumed with the video game he was playing, he didn't notice me standing there.

“Stanley,” said his mother.

He ignored her, shoving his computer joystick back and forth as he shot at characters on the screen.

“Stanley,” she said louder.

Nothing.

“Stanley!” she said, shouting.

He looked up.

“I'm busy, Ma,” he said.

He didn't acknowledge my presence.

“This man says you’re in trouble,” said Mrs. Kowalski. “What did you do now?”

Stanley looked at me.

“Hello, Stanley,” I said. “We need to talk.”

* * *

“Guido is dead?” said Stanley, his face pale as a ghost.

We talked as I drove Stanley and his mother to his uncle’s house 35 miles from the city.

“That’s right,” I said. “Hall had him killed. And she was coming for you next.”

“Why’d she kill him?” said Stanley.

“Because he knew too much about her operation,” I said. “Like you did. How did you know Guido?”

“I was doing a little stand-up comedy and knew him from his club,” said Stanley. “When I got kicked out of school for breaching government computers it was all over the news. Everyone knew I was a computer whiz. So Guido asked me to write a software program to help launder some of his drug cash through his club. I gave him what he wanted in return for stage time.”

“Guido introduced you to Hall?” I said.

“That’s right, about four years ago,” said Stanley. “She wanted to launder cash, too. So I came up with a clever way to it. It was lots of fun to set it up.”

“How many people know about it?”

“Just me, Hall and Guido.”

“Did Hall give you money for this?”

“Yeah, she gave me 20 grand,” said Stanley. “But I didn’t do it for the money. I only did it to see if I could pull it off. I don't think anyone ever breached credit cards before without the owners of those cards ever finding out. After we breached them, we were able to continue to use legitimate cards whenever it suited us. This allowed Hall to create legitimate-looking financial statements, so that she could launder millions.”

“Do you know how much money was laundered?”

Stanley smiled.

“You wouldn’t believe it,” he said. “See, Hall doesn’t know I know. She wanted me to just set up the software and show her how to run it on her own computer server. It’s easy to operate and it works the same whether you're laundering $5,000 or $50 million. But she doesn’t know I set it up to send me batch reports every single night.”

“You have records of all her transactions,” I said?

“Every single one,” said Guido.

“Then how much money did she launder?” I said.

“Since she began using the program four years ago, Hall moved nearly $200 million through Preston’s company,” said Stanley. “Some of that was used to pay bills, staff and taxes, but Hall was able to wash about $120 million for her personal benefit. She is one rich lady.”

“Why did you meet with Hall last night?”

“She told me she wanted to dismantle the system,” said Stanley. “She wanted all traces of it to disappear.”

“Is that a complicated process?”

“Not really,” said Stanley. “I did it this morning. Hall told me to call her as soon as I was done.”

“And you called her?” I said.

“Yeah, about an hour before you got here.”

Which means I’d got to him just before he became Hall’s next victim.

As I neared Pittsburgh, my phone beeped. I had two voice messages — I must have lost coverage while dropping off Stanley and his mother and it beeped to alert me to the voice messages once coverage was restored.

I pulled the truck over and called my voicemail.

“Sean, this is Erin,” said the first message. “We found it. We found the ledger! We called Lou and arranged a meeting with him. We’re on our way there. Call me back on my cell.”

I hung up on voicemail and called Erin. I got her voicemail. I waited a minute then called her again and was sent to voicemail again. I left a message for her to call me immediately, then dialed back into voicemail to listen to my second message.

“Sean, this is Lou. Great news that Erin and Elizabeth found the ledger. Combined with the heroin evidence you found and any information the Maryanne chief has assembled, I’m sure we’ll have enough to get a judge to expedite a search warrant. Call my cell as soon as you get this.”

I disconnected voicemail and called Lou. He picked up after two rings.

“Where are you now?” I said.

“About 20 minutes from Maryanne,” said Lou. “I told Erin and Elizabeth to meet me at the Eat’n Park diner 10 miles south of town, where it would be safe.”

“Why didn’t they wait for me?”

“I told them they should do just that, but they were insistent that you’d done more than enough for them already — that it was their problem and that they needed to do something to solve it. They said they’d call you as they drove.”

“What are they driving?”

“They told me they’re driving Preston’s mother’s car, a green Subaru with West Virginia plates.”

“Did they talk to Chief Sarafino?”

“No,” said Lou. “I took care of that. The chief was out on patrol, so I called the dispatch service and left a message with them to tell her to meet us.”

Oh, hell.

I told Lou that Hall owned the dispatch service — that his message would go directly to Hall and her goons.

“I’m sorry,” said Lou, cursing to himself, “I had no idea.”

“When did Erin and Elizabeth leave?” I said.

“About 45 minutes ago.”

“We need to get there asap,” I said.

“My siren is on,” said Lou. “I’ll be there in 10 minutes.”

I tried Erin’s cell phone again and got her voicemail again.

I tried calling the Maryanne police department and was told the chief was out on patrol — that she was tending to an emergency — but I offered nothing else.

I dropped the truck into gear and drove as fast as I could to Maryanne — hoping to intercept a dark green Subaru with West Virginia plates before Victoria Hall’s goons did.

As I pulled into the diner parking lot, I saw a green Subaru with West Virginia plates abandoned on the highway.

I jumped out of my truck and saw Chief Sarafino and Lou attempting to question one of Hall’s mercenaries, who lay on the pavement 20 feet away, bleeding and moaning as he held a wound on his side.

“Where are they?” said the chief to the man.

He said nothing.

“Looks like Erin and Elizabeth put up quite a fight,” said Lou, walking toward the car. He looked inside and picked up a shotgun — likely the same shotgun Gertrude Miller pointed at me the day I’d met her.

Lou smelled the gun.

“This was recently fired,” he said.

We looked inside the car for blood. Thankfully, we found none.

“My guess is that they were rammed from behind by a bigger vehicle and pushed into the pole. They fired a few shells through the back window as Hall’s men surrounded them and hit at least one before they were overcome.”

“Where are they?” said to the chief to the man more assertively as Lou and I walked toward her and the mercenary.

“I don’t know nothing,’” said the man, breathing hard.

The chief pressed her foot down on his wound. He moaned.

“Where?”

He said nothing. She pressed harder. He screamed, but would not talk.

“They’ll kill me,” he said.

My cell phone rang. It was Erin calling from the phone I had given her. I answered.

“We have your ladies,” said a gravely male voice. “

Then he hung up.