Killer Instincts v5 (5 page)

At least two years had passed since I’d seen Jamie last, and he didn't look much different. His hair, jet black laced liberally with grey, was cut short and neat, and I imagined he had it trimmed before the funeral. Clean shaven, his face was lean and handsome, and I knew that back when he was home from Vietnam, he had been something of a playboy during his years of wandering around the country. Jamie was still strong and very fit, wearing a white linen shirt and khaki slacks with light brown topsiders. He looked positively upper class, perhaps an ad exec on vacation, not at all the backwoods recluse in the jeans and leather jacket I usually saw him wearing.

Uncle Jamie was my father's brother. He was a Vietnam vet, five years older than my dad. Jamie had volunteered to "go over" in 1968, dropping out of college after his first year, joining the Army and immediately pushing to get into the Airborne Infantry. From there he made corporal, slugging it out through almost a full tour before being clipped by an NVA machine gun during the battle for Hamburger Hill, and going back to the States to recover. After his recuperation Jamie pushed for, and was eventually accepted into, the Green Berets.

Jamie went back into Vietnam in early 1970 as a buck sergeant, part of a four-man Studies and Observations Group “recon team”. He spent the next year living and breathing jungle warfare, special operations, clandestine maneuvers, and who knows what other kinds of insane shit. He was one of those rare few men, that small percentage of a small percentage, who not only survive in a world of constant peril and violence, but blossom in it, thriving and growing like some kind of deadly jungle flower.

During one of the few occasions Jamie and I ever spoke of the war, when I was a senior in high school, he’d asked if the recruiters had been after me yet. He told me how, as he flew away from his last mission in the belly of a Huey transport chopper riddled with AK-47 fire, he found himself weeping. Not tears of joy at leaving the insanity of war behind after four long years, but rather tears of sorrow because the war was over, at least for him. It was that comment, more than anything else, that made me hang up on every recruiter who called, before they could even start their recruiting pitch.

After Vietnam, Jamie just sort of wandered off. He spent ten years or so working a variety of odd jobs from one end of the country to the other. I met him for the first time when I was seven years old, and by then, Jamie had settled down in Maine, working in a small sporting goods store up near Moosehead Lake. Every few years he would come down out of the wild and visit for one random holiday weekend or another, but it was never consistent and it always felt strange.

When I got older, I could begin to perceive that my father and mother didn't really want Jamie around, especially around and talking to me, and I once caught a fragment of whispered conversation between my parents the evening before Jamie arrived, something about dad not wanting his brother planting any ideas in my head about the glory of going off to war. My mother had always thought that I should make my own decisions, for good or ill, but on this point my father was adamant. He had seen what the war had done to his brother, how it had pulled him close and unlocked something in him that could never be put away again.

I never really knew what my dad was talking about, but I did know that sometimes, every once in awhile, I would catch my uncle looking off into space, staring at nothing, with a secret smile on his face and the hint of tears in his eyes. I just knew he was thinking of the jungle again, not with sadness, but with a fond affection. It scared me like nothing had ever scared me before, because when he looked that way, I could see Death in my uncle's eyes, death dealt to more men than he could even count.

All of that went through my mind as I stood up from my chair and gave Jamie a warm hug. Despite the strained relationship he had with my mother and father, I had always thought well of my uncle. He might come across as damaged goods, but he was always friendly and warm with me, always speaking to me as an equal even when I was a child, never talking down, never coming across as condescending or babying in his manner or speech.

"How was your flight?" I asked.

He shrugged. "As good as could be expected. Landed in one piece and didn't blow up, didn't get shot at either."

I managed an awkward smile. “I'm glad you made the trip. The last couple of weeks have been rather peaceful. Healing, even. Although Beth went home, I think this was the sort of vacation my parents wanted me to enjoy."

Jamie nodded. "It might not have been an old fashioned Irish wake, but I think you did your family proud."

I could tell neither of us was willing to discuss the tragedy further at that moment, so we sat down to lunch. I gestured to the wine carafe, and Jamie poured himself a small glass. We tucked into the mussels with gusto; Jamie had landed in Paris hours ago, took the first train to Calais, and went to drop his luggage off at the hotel before taxiing over to meet me for lunch, so he was clearly famished. The waitress, a petite middle-aged woman who eyed my uncle very favorably, was back and forth to our table several times bringing more bread, butter, and mussels. We said little over lunch, mostly small talk about the food and the wine; a dry white that was paired well with our meal, no less that I would have expected.

By the time we had given up on stuffing ourselves and ordered cafe au lait to finish off the meal, Jamie turned back to the grim business we both knew had to be discussed.

"Before you left for spring break, did your father talk about the case he was working on in Boston?"

"All I knew was that it was a high profile murder. A college girl raped and strangled in a hotel room downtown. The guy was some kind of small-time wannabe mobster."

Jamie shook his head. "There's no 'wannabe' about it. The Paggiano family is one of Boston's last true Italian crime families, although it's hardly living up to the glory days of La Cosa Nostra. Still, the family has been connected to racketeering, prostitution, blackmail, even some smuggling over the years."

"So why didn't they get scooped up with all the other crime families? Isn't the Mafia pretty much dead and gone?"

"Not so much dead and gone as playing it very, very smart. Organized crime is still alive and well in America, and certainly in Boston, although it's probably more Irish and Russian than Italian these days. Still, the Paggianos have played cat and mouse with the feds and the locals for ages. Thing is, being smaller and more low-profile than a lot of the other families, they have seen all the tricks and traps law enforcement's put out for their cousins. So, they always manage to adapt in time to avoid the worst of it. A few members of the family or their hired help have gone behind bars over the years, but the family is still very much intact. Hell, they've got a seaside mansion up in Swampscott, something right out of the roaring 20's, with a groundskeeper's cottage, a wrought-iron gate, cliffs down to the ocean, the whole works."

"So what happened?” I asked, “Why did they kill my family?"

Jamie shrugged and shook his head. "To send a message, William. This day and age, we all think the idea of strong-arming our way out of the courtroom is a joke, but all the evidence pinning Pauly Paggiano to the murder of that girl was based on eyewitnesses who would have testified against him, saying they saw him leave the nightclub with the girl, enter the hotel lobby with her, and leaving the room supposedly after the murder. Without those witnesses, there was no case."

"Well, what about forensic evidence? Prints, hair, semen samples?"

"The killer wore a rubber, and they didn't find any prints in the hotel room. As for hair, fibers, that sort of thing? Well, easy enough for the defense to say they were picked up from Pauly by casual contact in the nightclub. He never denied meeting the girl and dancing with her, he even admits that he left the same time she did. He just won't admit to leaving with her, or any other contact with the victim after that point."

"So what happens to the case now?"

"After your family was killed, the stories of the eyewitnesses started to become muddled. Suddenly it was 'might have been' rather than 'was', the usual bullshit. The case is completely falling apart. One of Michael's co-workers told me over dinner last night that he doubts the case is even still strong enough to go to trial; the judge might just throw out the charges and let Pauly walk."

"That's bullshit," I said.

"Of course it's bullshit, but that's how it works. No eyewitnesses to tie him to the murder, you can't put him at the scene of the crime. And of course, he's got alibis for where he was the rest of the night. Court cases cost money, and they take a long time. DA office and the judge, they have to weigh that against the likelihood of a win.”

"So that's that?” I asked, “He gets off on the charges now that everyone's seen what can happen if they testify?"

Jamie nodded. "It's one thing for a witness's family to get threatening phone calls and see a car parked across the street, making them nervous. They get told to expect that, talked through the rough patches if they start to panic. But having your star prosecutor murdered in his own home, family beaten to death, house burned to the ground? That's not a message, or a threat, that's a fucking promise, William. That's telling those witnesses, 'you talk, we'll cut your goddamn heart out and make you eat it for lunch'. Better to play along and throw the fight, than to wake up one morning after you've done your civic duty to find you've been handcuffed to the bed while your house burns down around you."

I found myself staring out over the water for a minute or two. "And what about Mom and Dad and Danielle? What's happening with that case?"

I could see Jamie shaking his head out of the corner of my eye. "There isn't much to go on. The fire was reported around 2 AM. No one saw or heard anything before that. No discernible tire tracks. The fire destroyed most of the evidence, anyway. Not that these guys would leave much. Guns would have been throwaways, makeshift suppressor, wiped down so no prints. Accelerant was apparently kerosene, splashed all over the first floor of the house, probably two or three gallons. House was probably a fireball thirty seconds after the match was lit."

"And were they," I paused, unsure how to phrase it, "were they dead when the fire started?"

Jamie nodded. "Your dad died of gunshot wounds. Two to the head, at least two more to the body, as best as forensics can tell from the bone fragmentation patterns. Even that is hard to determine. The house burned to the ground, and the fire was...well anyhow, your mom and sister, both of them sustained blows to the skull that caused significant fractures. Blunt force trauma. If they weren't dead by the time the fire got to them, they were probably senseless or unconscious. Wouldn't have known what happened. Hell, they probably would have died from the smoke before..."

I waved my hand listlessly in front of me. "Enough. I get it."

Jamie frowned. "Sorry William, I know it's hard to take. Didn't mean to be so blunt about it."

"It's not about being blunt. It's just...I don't need the details. Dead is dead. Burned up or beaten or shot...they're in the ground now. They are gone. To prove a point, no less. To keep a murdering rapist out of jail."

"Pretty much sums it up, yes."

I stared off into the horizon some more, sipping my cafe au lait, my hands surprisingly steady. A couple of kids down on the beach were screaming and running around, parents chasing them without success. Two locals, an old couple wearing enormous sun hats, pointed and laughed without malice. This was how life should be, your greatest hardship trying to catch kids running around barefoot in the sand.

I thought to myself, I'm 21 years old and I'm an orphan. I have no siblings. My closest relative is an unstable vet who's holed up in the hills and sells ammunition and live bait for a living. I have no college degree, I have no girlfriend, I have no job, I don't know what I want to do with my life. I don't even like economics. I don't really like college, period. Or the idea of a real job.

I turned back to Jamie. "What happened with the insurance? Life, the house, stuff like that."

"Policies for your mom and dad were solid. So was the house. Your dad was set up pretty well by the firm, and your mom's policy wasn't anything to laugh at, either. And of course the house. Last estimate, it was worth over a million alone, never mind the homeowner's insurance on the possessions."

"So what are we looking at?" I asked.

Jamie gave me a strange look. "All told...maybe five million before taxes. That'd eat what, maybe sixty percent of it? So somewhere around two million dollars."

"Do you want some?" I asked.

Jamie shook his head. "I have my own money. That's yours, all of it. I wasn't even mentioned in the will except as the legal guardian of you and your sister, at least while you were underage. Now that she's gone and you’re an adult, it all falls to you."

I frowned. "Seems awfully harsh. I can't believe dad and mom wouldn't have included you."

Jamie shook his head. "I was included as long as one of you was a minor. But that's fine by me. Michael and your mother and I discussed all this when you two were little, and I told them I didn't want any of their money. I have my own nest egg set aside, and I live just fine within my own means and had no need of anything more. You were young and we didn't know what would happen in your lives, so we wanted the two of you to get it all. Now that it's just you...well the money is yours to do with as you see fit. On top of the payouts from the insurance claims, the assets in your family come in around another million, if you consider the savings accounts, CDs, bonds, and the stocks you'd be willing to part with."

"So all told, after taxes, around three million dollars?"

"Something like that yes. Young guy like you, smart, some of that economics degree under your belt, you take this semester off, since it's kinda blown right now anyway. Go back to school, ride out your last three semesters, you can put that cash someplace it'll do you good, invest it well, take a job you like rather than a job you need for the paycheck. You'll be able to live fairly well the rest of your days, as long as you don't do anything dumb with it."