Fury From Hell (33 page)

***

Forty minutes later, Betty parked in front of a white house with a wooden fence.  It had brightly colored window boxes with dried flowers in the dry beige crusted earth still trying to survive November’s chill.  An even nicer touch was the thick hedge on the sidewalk in front of the pretty home.  They were waist-high and still green.

Whoever lives here certainly enjoys landscaping.

Jennifer appreciated the well maintained trimmed hedges and didn’t hear her partner speak.

“We’re here.  Will you accompany me?  Or, do you want to stay in the car?”

Jennifer gazed at the picture-perfect home for a moment.  Still looking out the window she said, “I’ll stay in the car and keep watch from here.”

Feinster squared her shoulders bracing herself to face this alone but still felt a deep concern for her friend.  Betty sent a prayer-wish to the Goddess for Jennifer’s continued protection.  She reached out and squeezed Jennifer’s shoulder giving her friend a bright smile.  Betty shocked herself because the smile was genuine and not tinged with the anxiety she felt.    However, it did no good as Jennifer was still staring out the window.

Getting out of the car, Feinster approached the house and opened the picket fence.  She rang the bell and heard it tinkle throughout the house.  Betty didn’t hear any voices, no dogs barking and no feet coming to the door.  All was quiet.  A wrinkle appeared in between her eyes and she rang again.

From the squad car, Jennifer noticed that the curtain in one of the second-floor windows moved slightly.  Narrowing her eyes, her cop instincts came out shoving the fear that was warring with the depression into the background.  She leaned closer to the window and trained her gaze upon the upper window.  It moved again after a few moments.  Someone was definitely up there.

Jennifer slid over to the driver’s side making sure to keep down.  She opened the door and slid out onto the ground trying to move the door as little as possible.  She kept her movements slow and scuttled towards the rear of the car stopping by the back wheel, truly grateful for the hedge now.  She pulled out her ankle piece and removed the safety hoping she wouldn’t have to use it.  Eyeing the hedges with admiration she dashed towards them running bent at the knees; her head nowhere near the top of the hedge.

She heard Betty press the bell again.  This time, there was a sound.  A single shot rang out.

“Shit!”  Betty cursed and Jennifer heard her dive into the shrubbery under the flowerboxes in the front yard.

“Giordano!  We just want to talk to you.  Put down your weapon.”

“Like hell I will!”

Another shot rang out and hit the patrol car knocking out the back passenger window.  Safety glass sprayed on Jennifer but she stayed in place.  From the sound of it, the shot came from the first floor.  Jennifer darted over to the second set of hedges and scuttle-walked to the end of the hedge and peeked around them to see if there was a break in the wooden picket fence so she could get into the back yard.
Hell and damnation.  Nothing!

In that instant, Jennifer realized the fence could be a cover, a flimsy one especially with her dark clothing in the early afternoon but it was all she had.  She took a breath and ran towards the fence on the far side of the house.  Controlling her breath, she reached it without incident.  Crab-walking around the side of the house and down the driveway of the neighbor’s property Jennifer dared a half-crouch and ran the rest of the way to Giordano’s back yard where she jumped the low white wooden fence and flattened herself against the back wall of the house underneath the windows.  From the front of the house she heard her partner again.

“Giordano, I’m Detective Feinster and I’m here to ask you some questions about your whereabouts last weekend.  This is not exactly the best way to have that conversation.”

His reply was another shot.

Jennifer gritted her teeth and went for the back door.  It was unlocked and she slid in noiselessly, finding herself in the kitchen. Jennifer assessed her surroundings.  There were two exits; one a stairway leading upstairs, and the other into a hallway.  She assumed the hallway would take her up front to where Giordano was crouched probably in the living room, or dining room.  Keeping low and quiet she went into the dimly lit hall and avoided the bric-a-brac table with the crocheted doily and yellow Capodimonte single rose sculpture.

Her eyes adjusted to the gloom.  She forced her breath to slow, and her mind to focus.  Coming up to the doorway she took a chance and peeked in.  There was a man crouched by the front windows.  As she watched, he raised a few inches to peer out the window with his Glock firmly held in his right hand.  Taking aim, Jennifer shot, aiming for his right wrist, and was rewarded with a gurgled scream and the clatter of his weapon.  She dove behind the wall in case a shot discharged from his gun.  Hearing nothing, Jennifer charged around the corner and saw Giordano cowering by the window clutching his hand as blood dripped freely through the fingers of his left hand.  Kicking the gun away she called out to her partner, “Get in here!  Got him subdued.”

“Already on it, partner.”

Startled, Jennifer smiled without taking her eyes off of Giordano and asked her partner, “What took you so long?”

Smirking, Feinster came from behind Jennifer and frisked Giordano.  She made sure he had no other weapons on him and handcuffed him securely, bloody hand and all.

He sat sullenly and said nothing.  He only glowered at them.

Dragging him to his feet Feinster said, “I think you’d better start talking now.  Assaulting an officer of the law with deadly force is a pretty serious charge.  You could lighten up your load if you tell us where you were last Friday evening.”

“Go to fucking hell!  I want my lawyer.  This is breaking and entering as far as I’m concerned.”

“My squad car has a busted window and the bullet from your gun will be found in it.  I’m sure that your claim of breaking and entering without cause will not be substantiated.  Oh, by the way, this here’s my partner, Detective Holden, if you were wondering.  So, do we talk here, or at the precinct?”

“You gonna let me bleed to death?”

Feinster looked down at his wrist and back up into his hawk-like grey eyes. “It looks like a flesh wound to me.  What you think Holden?”

She grinned mirthlessly, before replying, “Yeah, it’s just a little scratch, is all.”

“So where were you Friday night?”

A bit of fear crept into the man’s eyes as his eyes swung back and forth between the two cops who had their guns trained on him.  His boxer’s frame no longer seemed imposing and his big left hand clutching his right wrist made him appear frail.  With the bass leaching from his voice he started to talk. “Can’t a man go to the casinos in peace?”

“Which casino?”

“Resorts World.”

Betty shot Jennifer a look before turning back to Giordano. “Which one?”

“The one in Disneyland.  Where the fuck else?  The one in Queens,” he used the wall to push himself upright.

“What were you doing there?  I know it wasn’t just for pleasure…”

A look of pure terror crossed his face before he clammed up. “I want my lawyer.  I don’t have to say nothing more.”

Jennifer putting her gun away slowly.
Wait a minute.  I recognize this guy from somewhere…

She came to stand in front of Giordano who was now leaning against the wall.  So, while Jennifer stood a half foot shorter than him, the steely look in her eyes made up for the height difference.

In a low voice that Betty could barely hear Jennifer made herself crystal clear.  “Look, you bastard, we’ve got a lot riding on what you’ve got to say.  We know you were at Resorts Friday night.  We have you on surveillance.  And we know you had something to do with Rennkler getting whacked early Saturday morning.”

At the mention of the billionaire’s name Giordano’s eyes became wider.

A second later, the memory of the security disc filled Jennifer’s mind and she refocused on Giordano and gave him a toothy grin before continuing, “We have you on disk walking into the parking lot with him and his daughter.  Why?”

Licking his lips his eyes darted back and forth between Feinster and Holden.  They could almost smell his brain frying.

After a long sixty seconds, he sighed and began talking.  “I didn’t have nothin’ to do wit him bitin’ the bullet.  I was just the con man.  I was there to lure him away from the crowds.  That pretty daughter of his was easy to lure.  She took to my physique quite nicely.  I wanted the rock on her hand, and since my brother Joe’s got a jewelry shop, I knew what to say to make her feel I was an expert making it easier to boost it.  I told her I could get her a deal on another exquisite piece to add to her collection but to show her she had to come with me.  Figured her Pops wouldn’t let her go off alone.”  He shrugged and looked squarely at Holden. “Men dote on their daughters, you know?”

When she did not respond in any way, Giordano looked away into the distance and continued. “So’s I get them to the parking lot and these three goons appear and grab the girl and zapped her with something in a syringe.  She’s down without a sound and they nab the Pop, same way, but they’re carted off into different cars.”

Jennifer and Betty exchanged glances both thinking the same thing — why hadn’t Chelsea Rennkler told Clift and Yearwood about this?

“Then, I was given a suitcase full of money and told to forget about my involvement…or else.”

Holden found her tongue first.  “So, shooting at us was your way of holding your tongue?”

Giordano darted his eyes at her, but said nothing.

***

Tuesday, November 13
^th
, 3:17 P.M.

The EMS team finished bandaging up Giordano and the Forensics team was on its way to sweep the tidy little house.  Feinster was on the phone with Clift, and Holden was content to listen to the one-sided conversation.

“Yeah, Giordano was the con man.  He was the lure to get Rennkler and his daughter out of the casino without raising any red flags.”

“Uh-huh, exactly — but, he says he had nothing to do with the actual murder…right.  Yeah, he’s an accomplice.  Yeah, yeah, he is.”

Betty listened for a minute and said, “No, Holden only grazed him making sure he couldn’t fire off another round.  No serious damage.  He’s fine.  Uh-huh.  Uh, she’s right here.”

Feinster looked at her nervously and slid her eyes back to the ground in front of her before turning her back.  “Sir, do I have to?”  With a heavy sigh, she clicked off and turned back to Jennifer.

Without bothering to look at Betty, Jennifer stripped off her waist holster and pulled out her ankle piece, handing them over without batting an eye.

Feinster’s eyes were glassy but no tears fell.  “How did you figure it out?”

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why you couldn’t look at me all of a sudden.  Yearwood and Clift are back at the precinct?”

“Yeah, they just got back.”

“IAD told them to strip me.”

Betty nodded as she headed to the trunk to put away the weapons.

“So, am I off-duty?”

“Well, not yet, but it seems it’s coming, soon.  You can’t have your weapons.  You’re officially on desk-duty as of this minute.  It was supposed to happen this morning, but since —”

“Yeah, whatever.  My actions speak so loudly that I’m a threat to all of society and my fellow officers.”

Slamming the trunk Feinster came around and grabbed hold of her shoulders and hissed, “You listen to me!  If it wasn’t for you and your
actions
I may very well have gone home in a body bag today.  I don’t care what any of them say you’re an excellent cop and I’m going to fight with everything I’ve got to prove it.  You did not kill Derrick Palmer.  We will find a way to free you of that rap,” Betty used a low voice that wouldn’t carry to officers milling about.

“What about the others I did kill?”  Jennifer parried.

The challenge took Betty aback but a sharp gleam came into her eyes but said nothing allowing Jennifer to continue.

“Remember there are three others, and two I did without the Fury, ‘member?”

“You shot those three with your ankle piece right?  Is it the same one that’s in the trunk?”

Jennifer paused and searched her partner’s eyes seeing the craft in them.  “Yeah, I used my ankle piece but not the one you have —”

“So, as long as the piece you did use never surfaces, there’s nothing that anyone can pin on you, right?  You’ve not been linked to those other two murders only to Derrick Palmer’s.”

It took several moments for it to sink in to Jennifer’s brain.  “You’re saying I’ll only have to answer for one of them — Palmer?” she whispered.

Betty nodded with a grim look on her face and lowered her hands.  She looked around to see if they had been overheard but no one was paying attention to them. “Provided that the weapon never shows up, it may be very difficult to pin anything on you.  And, if we can go for temporary insanity due to the triggering of your past trauma due to the Barnes case we might stand a chance.  Then, we showcase your exemplary skills in breaking open this Rennkler case I
think
we can get this done with minimal time in the psych ward.  This is all depending upon forensics, of course.  Are your prints anywhere on the scene?”

Mind spinning, Jennifer shook her head. “No, I don’t think so.  When the Goddess brought back my memories, I saw that I was real careful and got rid of everything.  The torching part was overkill.”

“Good.  Damned good.  Let’s see them build a case.  Ball’s in their court.  All they’ve got is you on video at the casino leaving with the guy.  Anything could have happened between then, and his death.  It’s all probable cause on their part.  Oh, will Lady Ariella find the other one?”

Jennifer jerked her head up and nodded. “Yeah, if she looks deep in my bedroom closet she’ll find it and the safe holds the bullets.”  She rattled off the code quietly.

Betty memorized it and stalked off, pulling out her phone.