“Says here it was submitted by a Detective Edward J. Rinaldi,” the technician said. “But they say he’s retired from the force, so that’s probably not going to be much use to you. Sorry about that.”
Part Five: No Hiding Place
88
Mulligans-never an apostrophe-was a diner on Bainbridge Road in Fenwick famous for its Bolognese sauce, the subject of a yellowed framed article from the Fenwick Free Press on the wall as you entered. The headline was typical of the paper’s dopey, punning style: “A Meaty Subject.” This was the place Nick used to go at three in the morning, after the junior and senior proms. Frank Mulligan was long gone. It was now owned by a guy who’d been a few years ahead of Nick and Eddie in high school, Johnny Frechette, who’d done three years in Ionia for drug trafficking.
Nick hadn’t been here in years, and he noticed that the place had a staleness to it. The Formica tables had a faint cloth pattern, faded to white in the areas where mugs and plates had banged and scraped against it. They were serving breakfast now, and the place smelled of coffee and maple syrup and bacon, all blended into a single aroma: Eau du Diner.
Eddie seemed to know the waitresses here. Probably he came here for breakfast a lot. They were seated in a corner, away from the window. Aside from a few people eating at the counter, the place was empty.
“You look like shit,” Eddie said.
“Thanks,” Nick said irritably. “You too.”
“Well, you’re not going to want to hear this.”
Nick held his breath. “What is it?”
“They ID’d the gun.”
The blood drained from Nick’s face. “You said you tossed it.”
“I did.”
“Then how could that be?”
The two fell silent as an overperfumed waitress arrived with a Silex carafe, and sloshed coffee into their thick white mugs.
“They got all kinds of tricky ballistics shit these days,” Eddie said.
“I don’t get what you’re telling me.” Nick took a hurried sip of his black coffee, scalding his tongue. Maybe he didn’t want to understand what Eddie seemed to be getting at.
“They matched the bullets with the gun.”
“They matched the bullets with what?” Nick was aware that his voice was a bit too loud, and he lowered it at once. “There’s no gun, right? You said it’s gone!”
“Yeah, well, apparently they don’t need a gun anymore.” Eddie popped open a couple of little half-and-half containers and tipped them into his mug, stirring until it turned an unappealing gray. “All’s they need is bullets, ’cause of the big new computer database, I forget what it’s called. They must have matched up the bullets in Stadler’s body with the ones from the scene years ago where I got the piece-how the hell do I know? My source didn’t get into details.”
“Who’s your source?”
Eddie ducked his head to the side. “Forget it.”
“You know this for a fact? You’re one-hundred-percent certain?”
“It’s a fact. Suck it up.”
“Jesus Christ, Eddie, you said everything was cool!” Nick’s voice cracked. “You said the gun wasn’t registered to you. You-you said you picked it up at a crime scene, and there was no record of it anywhere.”
Eddie’s normally confident expression had given way, disconcertingly, to a pallid, sweaty discomfort. “That’s what I thought. Sometimes shit gets out of your control, buddy boy.”
“I don’t believe this,” Nick said, his voice hoarse. “I don’t fucking believe it. What the hell do we do now?”
Eddie set down his coffee mug and gave Nick a stone-cold look. “We do absolutely nothing. We say nothing, admit nothing, we don’t say a fucking word. Are you getting this?”
“But if they-they know the gun I used was one you took-”
“They’re going to try to connect the dots, but they don’t have it nailed down. Maybe they can prove the ammo that killed Stadler came from that gun, but they can’t prove I took it. Everything they got is circumstantial. They got nada when they searched your house-that whole thing was a scare tactic. They got no witnesses, and they got a lot of little forensic shit, and now they got this gun, but in the end it’s all circumstantial. So all they can do now is scare you into talking, see. This is why I’m telling you about it. I want you to be prepared. I don’t want those jokers springing this on you and having you crumble, okay? You got to be a rock.” Eddie took a sip of coffee without moving his eyes from Nick’s.
“They can’t just arrest us? Maybe they don’t need us to talk.”
“No. If neither one of us says a damned thing, they’re not going to arrest.”
“You wouldn’t say anything, would you?” Nick whispered. “You’re not going to say anything, right?”
Eddie smiled a slow smile, and Nick got a shivery feeling. There was something almost sociopathic about Eddie, something dead in his eyes. “Now you’re starting to understand,” he said. “See, at the end of the day, Nick, they don’t give a shit about me. I’m just some small-time corporate security guy, a nobody. You’re the CEO everyone in this town despises. They’re not interested in putting my puny antlers on the wall. You’re the monster buck they’re hunting. You’re the fucking twelve-point rack, okay?”
Nick nodded slowly. The room was turning slowly around him.
“The only way this thing unravels,” Eddie said, “is if you talk. Maybe you decide to play Let’s Make a Deal with the cops. Try to strike your own separate deal-good for you, bad for me. This would be a huge, huge fucking mistake, Nick. Because I will hear about it. You have even the most preliminary, exploratory conversation with those jokers, and I will hear about it in a matter of seconds, Nick-count on it. Believe me, I’m wired into that place. And my lawyer will be in the DA’s office so fast it’ll make your head spin, with an offer they will fucking jump at.”
“Your…lawyer?” Nick croaked.
“See, Nick, let’s be clear what they got me for. It’s called ‘obstruction,’ and it’s no big deal. First offenders get maybe six months, if any time at all, but not me. Not when I agree to tell the whole story, testify truthfully in the grand jury and at the trial. They get a murderer, see. And what do I get out of it? A walk. Not even probation. It’s a sure thing, Nick.”
“But you wouldn’t do that, would you?” Nick said. He heard his own voice, and it seemed to be coming from very far away. “You’d never do that, right?”
“Only if you change the rules of the game, bud. Only if you talk. Though I gotta tell you, I shoulda done this on day one. Why I ever came over to help you that night, I don’t know. Goodness of my heart, I guess. Help an old buddy who’s in deep shit. I shoulda said, Sorry, not me, amigo, and just stayed in bed. Look what I get for being a nice guy. Very least, I should have shopped you long ago. Rolled over, made a deal. I don’t know why I didn’t. Anyway, what’s done is done, but let’s be crystal clear, I am not going down for this. You try to make a deal, you talk, and at that point I’m gonna do what’s in my own best interests.”
Nick couldn’t catch his breath. “I’m not going to talk,” he said.
Eddie gave him a sidelong glance, and he smiled as if he were enjoying this. “All you gotta do, Nicky, is hold it together, and we’re going to be just fine, you and me. Keep your fucking mouth shut, don’t panic, and we’ll ride this out.”