finally four times before Marlene picked up. “You’re alive!” Judy said.
“Last time I checked.” Marlene laughed in her throaty, smoke- cured way. “Very alive, in fact.” “Oh, yeah?” “Yeah, you want to talk to Tony?” Judy raised an eyebrow. “Tony? Tony who?” “Tony-From-Down-The-Block. He’s paying me a visit, for lunch.
He says to tell you hi.” Judy smiled. So he hadn’t been as tired as she’d thought. She filled Marlene in on the story of the tapes and told her to watch her back. “Don’t you worry about me, sugar. I keep a Beretta in my purse.” “Great, I guess.” Judy wondered fleetingly how many Mary Kay reps carried concealed. “You didn’t make copies of those tapes by any chance, did you?” “No way.” “You think the PI you hired did?” “Doubt it. He died anyway, three months ago.” Judy paused, suspicious. “How’d he die?” “Kidney failure.” Marlene put a hand over the phone, then came back on the line. “Hold on. Tony’s buggin’ me for the phone. He wants to tell you something.” “What?” “First, he says, ‘Don’t be mad.’” Judy knew instantly what he meant. “Damn him! Put him on!”
Chapter 34
The detective at the front desk was on the phone, but Judy wasn’t waiting for him to get off. She passed the desk and entered the squad room, where most of the Homicide Division looked up without surprise. Their ties loosened and their jackets off, they’d been eating lunch and waiting for jobs. Yellow Blimpie’s cups dotted the messy desks and the oily papers left over from take-out hoagies remained, many with a pile of shredded onions scenting the air. The detectives had undoubtedly been alerted to Judy’s visit, since she’d called Wilkins before she came, and she wondered if they’d been taking bets on whether she’d come bare-legged or not. She had. No pantyhose could withstand the way she lawyered.
“Miss Carrier,” Detective Wilkins said, standing and hitching up his slacks on slim hips. His white shirtsleeves were rolled up and his tie was on and knotted tight. “You came to file another complaint.”
“Let’s review. A bomb on my car, my apartment broken into, and now a fake temp in my office. Call me crazy, but I think someone’s trying to kill me.”
Detective Wilkins smiled without mirth. “We don’t think you’re crazy. We take all of your calls and complaints very seriously, and I’m glad you came down to talk to us about it.”
It sounded like the policeman-is-your-friend lecture they gave in third grade. Evidently Judy couldn’t have this conversation in an open squad room. “Is there someplace we could talk in private?”
“I’ll do you one better,” he said, lifting his jacket from behind his chair. “Come with me.”
Ten minutes later she was sitting in the beat-up passenger seat of Detective Wilkins’s ancient blue Crown Victoria, telling him everything that had happened over the past two days, with the exception of that silly little felony at the scrapyard. She felt vaguely hypocritical, seeking police protection after she’d conspired to boost a junker. In the law, this was known as “unclean hands.” Judy tried to put it out of her mind. In the law, this was known as “denial.”
There was almost no traffic, it being the lull between the lunch and the evening rush hours, but Detective Wilkins drove as if there were, rushing even to red lights and gunning the engine when they turned green. They were heading toward her apartment in Society Hill, and Judy was glad it wasn’t far.
“So we’re checking out my apartment?” she asked, and he nodded. He kept his gaze straight ahead and his hands loosely on the wheel. His eyes were flinty in the sun coming through the windshield.
“I heard your message when I came in. You said your apartment door was open, but so was the front door downstairs. You said there were no signs of a break-in or forced entry of any kind.”
“There wasn’t, but someone got in there. I’m not imagining this, Detective.”
“I didn’t say you were. But isn’t it possible that you left your apartment door open?” The Crown Vic lurched to a red light.
“I didn’t. I never leave my door open. And the front door wasn’t open when I left yesterday. I had to unlock it to get in last night.”
“We’ll do a walk-through together when we get there and you’ll tell me if anything is wrong.”
“Okay.” Judy thought a minute. “What about the guys who were shooting at us and then wrecked? Is there anything new on that?”
“No new leads. We’re still canvassing the neighborhood. Talking to the neighbors. Trying to get a description of whoever stole the car. So far, nothin’.”
Judy sighed. “What about the bomb on my car bumper? What did they say about it?” It was like a laundry list of calamities.
“It’s a pipe bomb. Homemade, nothing fancy.”
“That’s a relief. I wouldn’t want a fancy bomb.”
Detective Wilkins’s eyes went flintier. “We don’t have enough to charge anybody for it. We dusted the car bumper for prints and got nothing.”
“What do you mean?”
“No matches to any known felons. No matches to anybody with a history of arrests for making bombs or incendiary devices. No matches to any of the Coluzzi family members or even their associates. That enough for you?”
Judy remembered what the fake temp had said, about the Coluzzis liking to commit their own murders. It gave new meaning to the term do-it-yourselfers. “Does John or Marco Coluzzi have a criminal record?”
“Not your business. But no.”
“So you have no record of their prints?”
“No.” The Crown Vic sped past the new federal prison, rising like a grim, gray nail next to the huge, red brick United States Courthouse, and Judy gazed out the window in frustration.
“All this law and order, and it’s not protecting anybody.”
“Yo, enough of that. I don’t do this for everyone, you know. I’m not even on this tour. I got ten uncleared cases on my desk right now. My partner’s in court for four days. I’m doing it because of the car bomb and the case you’re involved in. The department has done more than its part for you. There’s no flies on us, dear.”
“But I’m no safer. That temp could have killed me today. I’m a defense lawyer, and I spend all my time defending myself.”
“Well, you don’t make it easy, do you?” Detective Wilkins’s tone sounded testy, and he fed the big engine more gas. “Filing lawsuits. Holding press conferences. Thumbin’ your nose. What did you think was gonna happen?”
Judy’s head snapped around. “You saying that makes it right?”
“I’m saying that you gotta expect that. You can’t have it both ways, lady.”
The argument had some force, but she still had a problem. “Did you question the Coluzzis about any of this? The car chase? The bomb? The apartment?”
“I paid them a visit this morning, but I couldn’t find Big John. Marco was otherwise occupied, and his secretary said he’d call me back.”
“Can he just say that? That he’s too busy to see the police?”
“When he’s in the middle of a riot, I cut him some slack. He’s not a suspect, not officially, and you don’t know what those offices were like today, after he took over. It coulda been a riot. We put twenty uniforms on it just to keep the peace.” The Crown Vic zoomed down Sixth Street, with Independence Mall on their left. A dappled draft horse, sluggish in the heat, carted tourists past the Constitution Hall, with its ivory spire and cupola.
“So what should I do? Should I hire protection?”
“You could do that. But if I were you, I’d get off the Lucia case.”
“No,” Judy said reflexively, but something made her stop. She had a fleeting suspicion that Wilkins could be involved with the Coluzzis, but dismissed it as paranoia. Maybe. “Why do you think I should get off the case?” she asked, fishing.
“Your client’s going down, and I don’t think a killer’s worth gettin’ killed for.”
“Do you know the Coluzzis?”
“No.” The Crown Vic shot down Market Street, past the Greek restaurants, gentrified coffeehouses, and junky storefronts of Old City selling men’s clothes, gold jewelry, and Liberty Bell thermometers.
“You never met John or Marco?” she asked.
“No.”
