“So where in Jersey?”
“Trenton.”
Near my old stomping ground.
“Could he be your guy?”
“Maybe. Thanks, I owe you, Kate.”
Gibson clicked off and tapped a finger against her desk. She glanced over at a still-passed-out Darby, and then at Tommy, who was getting all droopy-eyed because he had been running a million miles an hour since six a.m. and was about to fade into a nap.
Me too. If only.
Her phone buzzed again. It was her ProEye boss, Zeb Brown.
She watched as Tommy lay on the floor with his dinosaur pillow tucked under his head and his thumb in his mouth. And now we have nap launch, thank you God.
She spoke quietly into her headset. “Hey, Zeb, what’s up?”
“I’m sorry if I was a little stern with you earlier.”
“I did think about calling you before I went out there, but then stuff happened. But it was my fault, buck stops with me.”
“The detective on the case, Sullivan I think his name was, contacted me. He said the person was super slick and would probably have talked him right out of his badge.”
“He did?”
“Yes, so I’m sorry for flying off the handle.”
“Apology accepted.”
“Do they know anything more about who killed that man?” he asked.
“Not that they’re saying, but I’m not involved in the investigation, either.”
She crossed her fingers on that one. White lies are good for the soul.
“Right, right. Well, I wanted to let you know that we nailed Larkin’s assets. All two hundred million. The clients are very happy.”
“That’s great.”
“Look, you might want to take some time off before jumping back in on your other assignments.”
Gibson’s eyes narrowed along with her thoughts. “Time off?”
“With pay, of course. And I’ve recommended a performance bonus for you in connection with the Larkin matter.”
“That’s great. Thank you so much. But as far as the time off, I’m fine, Zeb, I can keep—”
“Jesus, Mickey, you did find a dead body. And you do have someone out there who made direct contact with you and who was obviously listening in on our phone conversations. I have to be honest, it freaked lots of people out here. We’re doing a full, internal security audit.”
“I saw lots of dead bodies in my old career. And why would time off help with the rest of what you just said?”
“I just think you need to decompress and—”
A terrible thought bolted through her head and she voiced it without really thinking. “Zeb, will I have a job to come back to?”
But he had already clicked off.
Coward.
Gibson looked at her kids. Damn.
She used her thumbs and index fingers to squeeze her eyeballs tight. To make the image of her and her kids kicked to the curb go away. But they could live with her parents for a bit.
No, you did nothing wrong and you haven’t lost your damn job. Yet.
She had a sudden thought and called her father.
“What’s up, Mick?”
“Got a lead on something. Harry Langhorne? Name sound familiar?”
“Hell, if that ain’t a blast from the past.”
“So you recognize it?”
“Oh, yeah. Harry Langhorne was the bookkeeper for the Giordano crime family back in Trenton.”
“Giordano? Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Way back. I was just a beat cop myself in Jersey City when it happened, and you were just a little kid. It was all over the news.”
“What did they do?”
“The usual. Drugs, hookers, blackmail. And they had the local garbage-haul business, a string of storefront laundering operations, and their street enforcers cracked the heads of any merchant who didn’t pay them protection money. All local politicians were in their pocket. They robbed and kidnapped and assaulted and killed, right up until the Feds came down on them like Thor’s hammer. They took out some of the New York mob at the same time. It was a big deal back then, let me tell you. Lots of heads rolled and it wasn’t just the Giordanos.”
“And Langhorne was the bookkeeper? He doesn’t sound Italian. He sounds Presbyterian.”
“If memory serves me, his mother was... let me think, Ida Giordano, yeah, that was her name. She was a cousin or sister of the top guy, Leo Giordano. Funny, I remember that and I have no memory of what I had for breakfast. Anyway, she married Langhorne Sr. I’m not sure if he knew what he was getting into, but their son Harry apparently did. When he grew up, he got his CPA license, went to work for the mob, and kept all the books, knew where all the bodies were buried. I guess he was a whiz with numbers.”
“What happened?”
“Big-time trial, witnesses murdered, evidence tainted, cops paid off, political pressure brought to bear, but, still, all the sons of bitches were convicted.”
“And Harry Langhorne?”
“He didn’t even testify. Wasn’t even charged. But I think he gave them lots of dirt and named the names and opened the cooked books. Then he just vanished. I mean, like gone, gone. You know, like your dick of a husband.”
“Thanks for the reminder, Dad, I’d almost forgotten. So what about all the money generated by the Giordano family?”
“Funny thing, you never heard much about that. I bet we were talking big bucks. They had a ton of real estate and other hard assets that the Feds confiscated, but there must have been mounds of cash lying around. It’s not like they accepted barter or IOUs. And I never heard about that being recovered, and I think I would have. Why are you asking about Langhorne?”
“Because I think he was the guy who I found dead in the creepy mansion.”
“Bullshit, seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“I’m sure he did a preemptive plea. If so, he was smart. Government comes after the mob, the first thing they do is deep-six the accountants with cement shoes.”
“Spoken like a true Jersey cop with lots of experience in that realm.”
“Hey, I know what I know, you know?”
She could almost see her old man grinning.
“So what are you going to do?” he asked.
“Keep digging.”
Her father’s tone instantly turned serious and warning. “You do not want to get mixed up in anything like that, Mick. I know it was a long time ago, but there are still Giordanos out there. They couldn’t get them all. And little mobsters grow up to be big mobsters. And if they did just off this guy, some of them are alive and killing, so you don’t want to be on their radar.”
“I don’t want to be involved with any of this. The thing is, I may not have a choice. But if there is an exit ramp, I promise to take it.”
“Shit. You got your gun?”
“Of course.”
“Should I come and sleep over at your house?”
“For what, the next forty years?”
“This is not good, Mick. I can feel the ulcer forming in my gut right this minute.”
“I promise to be really careful. And thanks for the history lesson.”
“I’m not telling your mother.”
“Smart man.”
She clicked off, drew a deep breath, and let out a silent scream that made a muscle in her face lock up. She put her head down on her desk and took several long breaths.
“Mommy, you okay?”
Gibson looked over to see Tommy staring anxiously at her from the floor with his dinosaur pillow. She gave him a reassuring smile.
“Mommy is just fine.”
Around six thirty, she fed her kids dinner. Then they had some play and reading time. Later she put them to bed.
When she got back to her home office after cleaning the kitchen and taking a quick shower, the phone rang.