“We already know about that,” Des said. “Beth told me he was following her all over the damned place.”
“It wasn’t Beth who he was following,” Very said with a glance Mitch’s way. “It was the married man who she’s been seeing on the quiet. He’s a New Yorker. Dawgie got a bad hit off of him. Asked me to check him out. His name’s Vinnie Brogna. Vinnie’s hooked up with some baaad boys. A member of the Albanese crime family. And maybe he wasn’t too happy about Dawgie’s interest in him.”
“Keep talking,” Yolie said, keenly interested.
“The dude visits Beth every weekend he can get away. They hit the Mohegan Sun together. According to Dawgie’s surveillance photos, it’s not uncommon for Vinnie to pick her up down the block from her condo. Which just might place him right there on Dorset Street at the time of Dawgie’s death, bat in hand. Or at least that’s one possible scenario.”
“What’s another?” Yolie asked.
“That he hired an outside pro take him out.”
“I don’t suppose you have these surveillance photos, do you?”
“They’re inside the house. Care to have a look?”
“Lead on, Romeo.”
“It’s Romaine.”
“Yolie, we have to talk before I split,” Des called to her. “Girl to girl.”
“You got it,” she said as she followed Very inside.
Mitch took Des’s hand and squeezed it. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Wrong with who?”
“Your dad.”
Her pale green eyes widened. “How on earth…?”
“You weren’t answering your cell phone after you met with Rundle. I called Bella and she told me you’d just gone rushing off in your own car-to go see the Deacon, I figured. And now you show up here looking worried sick.”
“He has to have coronary bypass surgery,” she said grimly.
“When?”
“On Wednesday.”
“And you’re just finding out about it today?”
“He said he didn’t want to worry me.”
“And there’s absolutely no reason to worry. My Uncle Miltie was back on the golf course in no time. It’s actually fairly-”
“If you’re about to say it’s minor surgery, please don’t or I’ll have to slug you.”
Mitch put his arms around her. She stood there stiff and unyielding. It was like hugging a six-foot length of cast iron. “Listen, he’s going to be fine. And I’m here for you. We’ll get through it together.”
“Mitch, I’m really not up for this right now.”
“Up for what?”
“This. The whole touchy feely thing. It’s not me. So let’s just not.”
“If you say so, girlfriend.”
“I do say so, okay? Because I can’t. I-I really…” Then, with a shudder, she surrendered into his arms and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.
CHAPTER 12
Captain Richie Tedone of Internal Affairs lived in a vinyl-sided raised ranch in a charm-free development of nearly identical vinyl-sided raised ranches in the Hartford bedroom community of Glastonbury-better known to Des as Shoot Me Right Nowville. Cousin Rico lived in the neighborhood. Half of the Brass City boys did, having abandoned the crumbling brick remains of Waterbury years ago for greener ChemLawn pastures. A red Chevy pickup sat in Richie’s driveway next to a blue Dodge minivan. His slicktop was parked at the curb.
And Des was parked three houses down the street in her Saab, watching the place through the zoom lens of her Nikon D80. And waiting.
Richie was out in the driveway in a T-shirt and jeans, helping his little daughter learn to ride her tiny pink tricycle-pushing her along, yelling helpful encouragement to her as she pedaled around and around, laughing with delight. Richie’s plump, dark-haired wife was weeding a flower bed, their newest arrival dozing in a stroller next to her. Just a typical Sunday afternoon in Richie World, where life was beautiful and nobody tried to put the screws to anybody.
Des waited. It was warm in the car. She had a chilled bottle of water for company. And her brain pain. It bothered her how easily Mitch had blown by her defenses. She hadn’t said one single word about the Deacon. Yet Mitch knew from the second she got out of her car. How? Because he’s your soul mate, that’s how. It also bothered her that her father had purposely chosen to shut her out of his life. She was his only child. She cared about him. She loved him. How could he not tell her that he had a serious heart condition? Because he’s a stubborn butthead, that’s how.
There was some movement now Chez Tedone. The chesty lug nut was taking a call on his cell. Barking into it, one hand on his hip, ultra take charge. He flicked it off and went inside of the house. Came back out two minutes later with a gym bag. Heading out to hit the weights with a lifting buddy, it appeared. He kissed his wife good-bye, then hopped into the pickup, backed it out of the driveway and took off down the block.
Des waited until he was a safe distance away before she started up her Saab and went after him. She had good reason to. The man had smelled like a player to her. He’d sure leered at her like one in Captain Rundle’s office-which was why she’d asked to speak to Yolie back at Mitch’s house, girl to girl.
And here’s what Yolie told her about Captain Richie Tedone of Internal Affairs who, contrary to popular wisdom, she had not been romantically involved with back when he was single: “We worked cases together, period. He was plenty hot for this, but I was not about to give him any.”
“Why not, Yolie?”
“Wasn’t interested in picking up an STD, that’s why not. That man had seriously skeejie personal habits. No doubt still does, if that’s your next question. Guys like Richie don’t change their ways when they become family men. They just cheat on their wives.”
“You think his wife knows any of this?”
“No way. Those Brass City boys go out of their way to marry girls who are sheltered, naive and-wait for it- dumb. Real, the man has Mr. Sleazeball tattooed across his forehead. You’d have to be dumb to marry that.”
Mr. Sleazeball got onto Route 91, heading south in the direction of Middletown, which was where he’d turn off if he were heading to the headmaster’s house in Meriden. He drove fast. Pushed it up to eighty. Des kept right with him, staying two cars back.
He wasn’t heading to the headmaster’s house. He stayed on 91 south past Middletown, all the way down to New Haven, the city that was one part Yale University for the privileged and two parts ghetto for the not-so privileged. Most of those black, some Hispanic. Richie steered his pickup onto Whalley Avenue, which took him around the historic, beautiful campus and into a business district that turned rundown fast. Liquor stores, check- cashing stores, fried chicken joints. Most everything was closed on Sunday. A few idlers hung out on the sidewalk doing nothing good.
When he got near Edgewood Park he made a left onto a street of ratty old three-story wood frame houses that had been broken up into apartments years ago. His destination was the Edgewood Vista, a 1960s-era two- story cinder block apartment complex that had been erected around a parking lot. The downstairs apartments had entrances right off of the parking lot. And bars on their windows. Richie pulled in and parked. Des parked across the street and watched him get out. He had his own key to one of the units. He let himself in, closing the door behind him. Des rolled down her window, reached for her camera and zoomed in on the door. It was apartment C. There was an air-conditioner in one of the windows. The curtains were drawn. She snapped a couple of pictures, then sat and waited. A couple of boys went by her in the street, dribbling a basketball and talking trash. A shirtless middle-
