A Mighty Fortress (49 page)

“Are you out of your mind?”

“I’m serious, I can’t breathe.” I tried the door, knowing full well it would be locked. The ramifications of my mistake started unraveling like a slow, painful IV drip. Angie had trusted me, and I’d led her right into the devil’s den and turned her over to Shields. I was so certain of C-Rod’s involvement all week that I’d missed the fact that Shields was playing me all along.

“I need to get out of here, C-Rod. Shields has her.”

“Easy, Porter.”

“I know why you’ve been alone all week, C-Rod. Come on, you’ve had your suspicions, right? You’ve been investigating your own partner, haven’t you?”

“Are we really having this conversation?”

“Just tell me this,” I gasped. “Remember at lunch the other day when I told you about the video I’d seen at Wilcox’s office? Did you share that with Shields?”

“Why?” he asked.

“Seriously? I mean, the same day I tell you about that video, Wilcox’s office is turned upside down?”

“Porter, stay out of it. You’ve made enough of a mess.”

I caught my breath. “Let me guess: Shields and Mitchell are really tight?”

C-Rod shook his head. “This has nothing to do with Mitchell. Say what you want about Shields, but leave Mitchell out of this. He’s a good man.”

“Then who is it? You’re saying the buck stops with him?” Was Shields really Mr. Silver? Angie sure as hell seemed to recognize someone in the courtroom. But she also thought that Mr. Silver had matching hair. Or did she?

Just then, I looked out the window at groups of campaigners that were waving their signs at passersby on Florida Avenue.

Then it hit me in the gut, and I knew the buck did
not
stop with John Shields.

I read the nearest campaign sign for the third time.

I mouthed the syllables to the name that now seemed to be mocking me. And then I realized why Judge Pinkerton had been pointing down the street. He was pointing at the campaign signs. 

More importantly, he hadn’t been repeating my name.

No, he’d been saying, “
Parker. It’s Dane Parker
.”

“C-Rod, listen to me. I need your help.”

He was still shaking his head in the rearview. “You need more than that, Porter.”

“I’ve made a mistake.” My blood pressure was boiling, and my nerves were getting crispy in the frying pan. “You have to call Shields right now.”

C-Rod checked the traffic and started the engine. “You can talk to him soon enough. Then we’ll get this all sorted out.”

“No I can’t, C-Rod. He won’t be there. You have to trust me. He’s going to kill her.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I had this all wrong. I thought you were working with Mitchell to protect him. All the signs pointed to a police cover-up, a cover-up for someone with power and a lot to hide. I thought you were covering up for Mitchell.”

“Porter, I’m done listening to your theories. You need to just keep your mouth shut.”
 

I took a deep breath and tried to get my mind wrapped around how much C-Rod might’ve known and how much he didn’t. Then I realized I’d left out an important detail. “Hear me out. Why do you think Shields went back there? The girl was there. Angie, the girl who worked for Scalzo. I brought her there to identify… well, to identify you. But she didn’t know you. She knew Shields. And he saw her, C-Rod. I swear this on my mother’s grave. I met with Shields last night, right before midnight. I told him what my suspicions were about you and Mitchell, and he played along with it. Don’t you get it? He was throwing you under the bus.”

“Of course he did, so he could lure you out to the courtroom this morning. That was
our
plan to get
you
. He wanted backup. And it worked pretty well, don’t you think?”

“No, C-Rod, that wasn’t the plan. You might’ve
thought
that was the plan, but Shields’s plan was really to get her, to get the girl. And
that
worked out well.”

“But he doesn’t have her.”

“But he does. Think about it. He’s not going to say he captured her. I need you to call him. Call him right away. I can guarantee you he’s not at the police station.”

“So maybe he’s getting lunch.”

“He’s not getting lunch. Besides, think about it. How’d he recognize her so easily in the first place? You sure as hell didn’t.”

“’Cause I had my eyes on you.”

“It just doesn’t make sense.”

“Porter, a lot of things in this case don’t make sense. All I know is what I saw last night.”

“Listen, I know what I did last night, and you’ll see why I did it when we get all the facts out. The guy was trying to kill us. But we don’t have time for that now.”

“We got plenty of time.”

“Just do this, C-Rod. Call him, and see where Shields is right now. I need you to tell him something, right away. It’s a matter of life and death.”

He killed the engine, eyeing me carefully all the while.
 

Then, he pulled out his phone. I watched as he placed the call, looking as anxious as I felt. I knew he was talking to Shields. He asked him where he’d gone. He listened for a long moment, and then he said, “Porter? Yeah, I got him.” He listened again. “I’ll bring him in. But what about her?” Then, he listened some more. Whatever Shields was saying made C-Rod look like he wanted to reach in the backseat and take his frustrations out on me. “All right. See you there.”

Finally, he hung up and nodded at me in the rearview.
 
He couldn’t hide the anger and confusion, and I couldn’t blame him.
 

“I take it he wasn’t at the station,” I said.

C-Rod said nothing.

“What about Angie?” I asked.

He sighed. “He said she escaped. He never caught up with her, so he wanted me to put out a BOLO for her.”

“What else did he say?”

“He …” he started to say but sighed again. “He wanted to meet us at the station so he could talk to you.”

“That won’t end well, C-Rod, and you know it. He’ll probably jump us before we get there.”

“So what do you propose? I could always take you to the sheriff, unless you think he has someone working there, too.”

I couldn’t tell whether C-Rod was serious or mocking me. “I don’t know who he’s working with. I just know if you take me anywhere, I won’t be able to help Angie.”

“Angie?”
 

I sighed. “She’s the call girl who worked for Scalzo. And presumably the last person alive who can ID whoever the hell Shields is trying to protect.”
 

“And who do you think that is?” C-Rod asked.

I wasn’t quite ready to mention anything about Dane Parker. First, I wanted to see the proof with my own eyes. And second, I needed to know I could trust C-Rod. Really trust him. “I have my suspicions,” I said. “And I want to show you something that might answer your question and a lot more about the case.”

“And what is that?”

“I need to know I can trust you, C-Rod.”

“Trust me? You’re wanted for murder. We’re sitting here a block from the police station shooting the breeze, and you want to be able to trust
me
?”

All I could do was nod.

He looked like he wanted to laugh, then cry, but instead he shook his head incredulously. “Let’s build some trust, then,” he said before he opened his door, walked around the car to open mine, and told me to get out.
 

I stepped out into the sweaty air, and C-Rod removed the cuffs. Then he opened the front passenger door. “Get in,” he said. I took the seat and waited for C-Rod to round the front of the car and return to the driver’s seat. After he slid in, he looked me dead in the eyes and said, “You want trust, Porter?”
 

I nodded.

“You tell anybody what I’m getting ready to tell you without my permission, I’ll kill you. You understand?”

I was about to clarify that he’d
try
to kill me, but to expedite matters, I just nodded.

“Shields killed Don Alexi.”

He had my attention now. “How do you know this?” I asked, wide-eyed.

He leaned forward and opened the glove box. Then he tossed a plastic bag holding a cheap cell phone onto my lap. “Because he had this.”
 

I stared down at the bag, careful not to touch it.
 

C-Rod took a deep breath before he continued, “I got a copy of Alexi’s cell phone records. I noticed that he received a call from a number the morning that he died that also showed up a few times over the last few weeks. I confirmed the number was a pay-as-you-go deal. Well, last night, on a hunch, I dialed the number, really just to see if anyone would answer it. Wouldn’t you know, I heard this rattling in Shields’ desk?”

“Probably right around the time I was meeting him,” I said.

C-Rod shrugged. “There’s only one reason he’d be calling Alexi over the last few weeks.”

“Alexi was trying to sell some guns,” I said.
 

“That’s right. Shields, or someone working with him, was buying them. But Shields didn’t kill Scalzo. I know that for a fact, because we were together last Sunday night.”

C-Rod had earned my trust. “I know he didn’t.”

“Then who did?”

It was time we tracked down Judge Pinkerton.

C-Rod followed my directions and looped back to Twiggs. We drove by the courthouse and surrounding streets, but I didn’t see any sign of Pinkerton. I figured he’d already taken a cab back to his condo, and that’s where C-Rod and I found him fifteen minutes later. In fact, he was just reaching the top of the steps outside his unit when we arrived.

“Judge!” I called to him.

He turned and frowned when he saw my companion.

“What’s he got to do with this?” C-Rod asked.

“Just hang tight,” I muttered. Then, I yelled up the stairs: “Judge, did you find something?”

He rubbed his beard and took a moment. “You sure you want to discuss this around him?” He nodded at the detective behind me.

“I’m sure, judge. Unless you tell me he’s in one of those videos.”

The judge shook his head, but still looked incredulous.
 

“I was wrong about C-Rod,” I said.

“Well let’s hope so,” the judge said. “Because his partner’s as guilty as sin.”

C-Rod followed me up the steps. “What do you mean?” he asked once we reached the top.

Pinkerton glanced around, and then invited us to come in.

The judge had left his laptop open on his kitchen table, next to a notepad filled with scribbled notes. He took another moment to rub his chin, as if figuring out where to start. Then he nodded, hit Eject, and put a new disc in the drive. “Let’s start with this one,” he said. After cueing it up to a certain spot he hit play, and the grainy footage I was so used to seeing appeared on the screen. Unfortunately, the room was empty.

Pinkerton squinted and checked his notes. “Ah-ha,” he said. “I just need to move it
here
.” His bony index finger aimed at a point on the mouse pad. “Okay, that’s a little farther than I wanted, but you get the picture.”
 

He stood aside to give us a good look at the screen. There was no question who the man having his way with Angie was: none other than Dane Parker.

“You know who that is?” the judge said.

I nodded, but C-Rod appeared to be in a mild state of shock. I was about to fill in the blanks for C-Rod, but the judge spoke up first. “Well, I have a feeling you’ll recognize
this
one.”

The judge took out that disc and put in the one that he’d removed when the show started. He checked his notes again and found the spot he was looking for. This time, Parker was behind Angie; but he was joined in a threesome by someone else. “Son of a
bitch
,” C-Rod gasped.

“I take it you recognize your partner?” the judge said.

C-Rod moaned again.

“You don’t know who he’s with? The other man, I mean?” I asked C-Rod.

He shook his head.

“That’s Dane Parker,” the judge said.

“Leading candidate for Attorney General in tomorrow night’s primary,” I added.

C-Rod looked like he was putting a lot of pieces together in his mind.

I was doing the same thing. “They’re about the same age,” I said. “They’re both Gulf War vets. I’d bet anything they served together.” I remembered how when I was in Parker’s office, he kept acting nervous and knocking photos over on his shelf. Probably photos of him and Shields overseas.

“Where the hell did you get this?” C-Rod asked.

I looked to the judge and then to C-Rod. “From Don Alexi. He planted a hidden camera in Pilka’s sex shops. Then he started blackmailing Scalzo’s clients with the footage.”

“So Parker and Shields…?” C-Rod said.

I nodded. “Parker was one of Scalzo’s most important clients. It makes perfect sense. I can’t believe I missed it. Of
course
Parker was the last one to talk to Scalzo. Scalzo probably called him right after I served him with the subpoena Sunday night. He knew Angie was Parker’s favorite, so he offered Parker a night with her at his apartment if he’d take care of the subpoena Monday morning. Little did Scalzo know that Parker thought Scalzo had been blackmailing him with videos of Angie. Scalzo invited him over and gave him the perfect opportunity to take care of his blackmailers right before the election.”

C-Rod was shaking his head with a bad case of a truth-ache.

“That girl was lucky she didn’t show up that night,” the judge added.

I nodded. “Parker must’ve gotten there, waited for her, and finally gave up and just whacked Scalzo. After all, with a friend like Shields, he was pretty sure they’d be able to track her down.”

C-Rod caught his breath. “Porter, don’t jump to too many conclusions.”

“What other conclusion is there?” I said.

“Just what I said. Besides, if everything you’re saying is true, there’s gonna be hell to pay across the board. It could ruin this city.” He stared at the video. “So how’d you say you got this?”

“Alexi gave it to me.” All of a sudden I didn’t like the way he was staring at it. I wondered if I’d put too much trust in him too soon. “And don’t get any funny ideas, because this is just a copy.”