Assassin (36 page)

He looked at her and then finally relented.

"All right. How 'bout we just take it from when you set the bombs at the warehouse," Ron said placatingly and Rain reluctantly sat down again.

"All right."

"Now, you said Cassandra Jacobson, otherwise known as Case, woke you up yesterday morning, telling you that you had a new hit job, meaning you were supposed to kill someone."

"Yes, but she wouldn't tell me who the target was. I found out later that was because she didn't know either. Once we were done placing the bombs where she'd been instructed, we went to lunch."

"Without detonating the bombs," Dawson interrupted skeptically, though he'd seen the explosion take place himself as they'd been driving down the road to the warehouse.

"Like I said before, I was surprised that we didn't blow up the place then, but she told me our job was just to set up the bombs and nothing more," Rain replied.

She waited for another interruption, but Ron gestured for her to continue.

"Anyway, after we finished lunch, we went to Antonio Carlotti's mansion. Case told me she needed to get the next part of her assignment from him..."

"I thought you said..." Ron looked down at his notes. "A man named Doc issued the assignments for hits. Why wasn't Doc handling this one, too?"

"Case said Antonio had told her this one was special and that he was overseeing it personally. He also liked to see her in person every now and then to check up on her, but Case said she thought they would probably end up talking about me and my training."

"To be a hit woman like Case," Ron added.

"Right," Rain confirmed. "So, Case took me up with her to meet Carlotti."

"What time was that again?" Dawson asked casually.

"I remember looking at the dashboard clock before we got out of the car, and it read three-forty-six," Rain said, though she'd given him that information at least ten times by now.

"So, you met with Antonio Carlotti," Dawson prompted.

"Yes. He greeted us and asked us to please sit. He told one of his bodyguards... there were three of them in the room with us... He told the bodyguard to call in another man who he referred to as Ricky. I never caught a last name."

"And you'd never met him before?"

"No. This was the first time I'd met anyone from Carlotti's inner circle, besides Case."

Ron added a note to his pad and looked back up at Rain expectantly, so she went on.

"Case said that she didn't know he, meaning Ricky, had gotten a promotion. She appeared to be agitated, though I don't know why. I can only assume that the two had a history together. Carlotti said he'd decided the man's talents were better used as a delivery boy than a chauffeur, and then the bodyguard returned with Ricky."

Case had decided to use one of the chauffeurs that had been near her body double when they'd both been killed in the explosion, though neither of them knew whether the man would ever be identified. If he were, then it would just add to the credibility of Rain's story. If he wasn't, then Rain was hoping it would be assumed he got away.

"Carlotti told Case to give Ricky the detonator. Case handed it over, though she appeared reluctant to do so, and Carlotti told Ricky to go to the warehouse on State Street and wait until a quarter after seven and then blow up the building."

"A quarter after seven?"

"Yes, those were his exact words," Rain replied, trying to keep her temper in check.

Dawson made another note and Rain continued.

"Anyway, Ricky left, and Case asked who the Target was and why she wasn't finishing the job herself."

"Do you remember her exact words?" Ron inquired, though Rain had already given a complete transcript of the conversations she'd heard that day.

Rain frowned.

"Of course I do," Rain said contemptuously.

Case had spoken the dialogue that had supposedly taken place between herself and Carlotti so that Rain could record it in her memory. It would also help her pass a lie detector test if they decided to go that far.

"She said, 'Who the hell pissed you off so bad you're blowing up you're favorite warehouse, and why is that idiot the one who gets to push the button?' Then Antonio said, 'I'm trying to break Little Ricky in slowly. I also wanted to talk to you. It's been weeks since we had a nice chat. So, how is Rain's training coming along?' Then Case said, 'It's going well. I've been testing her on the range and teaching her how to plan a job from beginning to end. I think she'll be ready for her first assignment in another few weeks.'"

Rain and Case had discussed whether or not she should say anything about the hit on Danny Cutillo. Since there was no evidence that they'd ever been connected with that particular job, Rain had decided to not even mention it. It was easy enough to skip, and she'd almost convinced herself that it had never happened. Almost, but not quite.

"Was there any mention of what that first assignment would be?" Ron asked.

"No. Probably whoever was on his shit list at the time," Rain said.

"So, you talked for a few minutes. Then what happened?"

"Actually, Carlotti and Case did all the talking. I just listened," Rain clarified, and Dawson nodded.

As Rain continued, she tried to make herself see it all happening in her mind's eye.

"Anyway, Carlotti said that Doc had found out that a group of his seconds were planning on killing Carlotti and then taking over. So, Carlotti had decided to take them all out and replace them with people he could trust. He said he'd gotten them all to agree to the meeting by telling each of them that he planned to make them his successor because he wanted to retire. They shared a laugh over that and I joined in. I've been studying Carlotti for years, and it just doesn't fit his profile to retire. He enjoys the power too much," Rain added.

Dawson nodded for her to continue.

"Well, then, just as Carlotti said he was going to have one of his servants bring us all some drinks, the door slammed open and a group of men ran into the room with their guns drawn. I didn't know what the hell was happening, but I drew my own guns and looked for cover. Case did the same, but Carlotti headed for the back exit. He was shot in the leg before either of us could get to him and so were the three bodyguards. I dove behind the desk for cover and Case dragged Carlotti with her to join me. Then a firefight ensued. Case said she recognized them as Carlotti's guards, but that they obviously weren't taking orders from Carlotti anymore. More guards showed up, but Case and I were able to take them all out."

"You mean you killed them," Dawson interrupted her.

"Yes. They would have killed us, and I was trying to maintain my cover as being loyal to Carlotti," Rain defended her actions.

"I was just clarifying," Ron half-apologized. "So, after your assailants were dealt with, what did you do?"

"Case ordered me to stay with Carlotti to keep him safe, while she went to check the rest of the house."

"For what?" Dawson asked, though Rain had answered that particular question several times now.

"More renegade guards. I think Case took it as a personal affront that Carlotti had gotten hurt while she was around. And after what had just happened, there was no way to know what the situation was outside that room. For all we knew, we were going to have to fight our way out of the house to get Carlotti to safety."

"Then why didn't you go with her to back her up?" Ron asked pointedly as he leaned forward to add more emphasis to the question.

Rain sighed in exasperation.

"Case had ordered me to keep Carlotti safe. And Case is a very capable woman. It never even crossed my mind that she wouldn't be able to handle a few bodyguards."

Dawson studied her for a few moments and then sat back in his chair again.

"All right. So, then what happened?"

"While we waited for Case to come back, I ripped off one of Carlotti's sleeves and made a tourniquet for Carlotti's leg to lessen the bleeding. He'd lost a lot of blood in those first few minutes and he'd already passed out."

Rain and Case were both taking a gamble that the amount of blood and timing would match up. Carlotti had been shot over an hour earlier than Rain had reported, since she was trying to make it look like Carlotti had made all the phone calls on his own before they'd arrived at the mansion, rather than having been coerced by Case into making the calls.

Though he'd had the tourniquet on for over two hours before Case had shot him, in Rain's version of events, it had been barely an hour before Carlotti was killed. He still ended up with the tourniquet on for a while, so the amount of bruising and tissue damage would hopefully make enough sense when the autopsy was performed.

"When Case returned, she told me it was Doc who had orchestrated the ambush. She said she'd shot him in the hall heading towards Carlotti's office. Since he'd also been the one that was feeding Carlotti the information about his lieutenants, Case was pretty sure that meant they hadn't betrayed him, only Doc had."

"She said Doc told her this?"

"No. She said, 'Doc tried to kill me, but I got him first. He was leading a bunch of guys here, but a couple of them got away. Did they come here?' I said, 'No, I've been alone the whole time.' Then she nodded and said, 'They must have cut out of here when they realized things weren't going their way. I think they intended to finish Carlotti off. Doc must have been the one that set this whole thing up. He goes and gets Carlotti to kill off all his best people and then he sweeps in and takes out Carlotti and becomes the new don. Fucking bastard. I bet the only one who betrayed Antonio was Doc himself. Come on. We need to wake him up and let him know what's going on.' That was when we helped Carlotti into his chair and tried to wake him up. Case finally got him awake by dumping water on him and she told him what had happened. He was pretty out of it from shock, but he finally understood and told her to get to the warehouse to stop the bomb from going off. He told her not to come back if she didn't succeed. Case told him not to worry and then ordered me to watch after him again. Then she took off."

"And what time was that?" Ron questioned.

"I don't remember looking at my watch again until after Carlotti was shot, which was five-oh-seven, so I would guess it was about five o'clock at that point."

Rain was pushing the time forward by about twenty minutes, since they'd left the premises by quarter to five, but forensics would never be able to pinpoint the man's death down to the minute.

Dawson nodded and Rain continued.

"Once Case left, Carlotti told me to call his personal physician for his knee, but he couldn't remember the number. The phone in the room had been shot to hell, so there was no way to call up his electronic phone book. So, he told me to go to his bedroom and use the phone there. I left to make the call and was barely down the hall when I heard shots being fired. I pulled my gun and ran back to the office."

This was the one part of her story where Rain had to trust Case completely since she'd been unable to remember which guards she'd shot during all the chaos. But Case's photographic memory had been clear. She'd assured Rain that the guy they'd given the gun with which Case had used to shoot Carlotti had been one of Rain's victims. They'd had to reposition the man's body in the room so that it looked like he fell while facing the door to the hallway, but other than that, they'd been able to leave the room pretty much as is. Rain remembered to put in the fact that she was squatting so that the bullet paths would add up.

"I crouched down and looked around the door to see what the situation was. I saw Carlotti, presumably dead, and the shooter standing over him. The shooter had a wound in his arm from where he'd been shot during the earlier gunfight. He turned when he realized I'd come back, but I shot him before he could fire at me. Then I moved in to check Carlotti's vitals, but he was dead. It was at that point that I glanced at my watch and saw that it was five-oh-seven," Rain put in and Dawson nodded.

"I checked the rest of the room to make sure there were no other potential threats, but everyone was dead. Then I searched the house for other survivors, but they were all dead, too."

Case had switched a couple of her guns with several of Doc's men so that it looked like they'd shot the rest of Carlotti's staff. Since their deaths had all taken place within less than an hour of each other, there was no way to prove that Doc had died before Case had cleared the house herself. And Case had assured her that the bullet-matching for the guns would add up during the forensics investigation, since she hadn't used the same guns for the staff that she'd used on the bodyguards and Doc's men. And since she'd said that a couple of the men had taken off, any bullets without a matching gun could be attributed to the missing men.

Rain just hoped Case's memory was as perfect as she'd made it out to be.

"I waited for Case to return, but after another hour and a half, I realized it was possible that she'd run into trouble with Ricky. That's when I made the call to you. I knew you had a team in the area and I hoped you'd be able to get there in time to keep the bomb from going off and arrest Carlotti's people. But I guess you didn't," Rain commented as though she hadn't seen the cars pulling up to the blazing warehouse.

"Why didn't you call sooner?" Dawson asked suspiciously.

Rain looked away. She knew she looked guilty, but one of the tricks to lying well was being able to come up with good reasons for why you appeared so uncomfortable. Self-recrimination tended to work very well.

"I think I was still a little shell-shocked from everything that had happened. I mean I'd finally made it into Carlotti's inner circle, and then the next thing I know the man is dead. I admit I wasn't thinking as clearly as I should have been. I was still worried about blowing my cover, though I should have realized it didn't matter anymore. I just kept thinking that if Case returned and found Carlotti dead and me gone, it wouldn't look very good. But another hour went by and Case didn't return, so I decided to head over to the warehouse myself. When I saw the bomb had gone off, I realized Case hadn't been successful, which meant she was probably dead. With Carlotti dead, and most likely all the bosses that Carlotti had called to the meeting dead too, I decided you should bring me in. So, here we are," Rain finished.