A Cold Day in Hell Read online

  “We need to get this done as soon as possible,” he told her. “I have boxes of discovery material to wade through.”

  “All right, I’ll come over after my shift and we’ll go through the discovery material. Don’t have a cow. Or in your case, a calf.”

  “Just be here.” If he could have, he would’ve slammed the phone down in her ear. All she got was a brisk beep.

  Reese was crumpling paper up and shooting baskets when she walked in.

  “Bored already? It’s only eight thirty in the morning.”

  “It’s the Bronstein case.” His voice was laced with frustration. “The suspect died yesterday. All that work for nothing.”

  “The case was thirty-seven years old. We did the best we could. Sometimes we just can’t put it together in time.”

  “I know.” He stuffed his notes into the garbage can. “I know. So, did you and your daughter have fun Friday night?”

  “We had a lot of fun. Thanks for inviting us.”

  “My friend Dean is in love with you now.”

  “He’s nice,” she said noncommittally.

  “I told him to not bother, but he insisted on calling you anyway.”

  She swiveled around in her seat. “Why would you tell him not to bother?”

  He dumped another manila folder into the trashcan. “Because you only date losers and guys who treat you like crap.”

  “Thanks a lot, partner.”

  He looked up at her now. “Isn’t that the truth? You could go out with Dean. He’s a great guy. He’s not married, wouldn’t beat you up, won’t cheat on you, but you wouldn’t like that, would you? You want someone more broken than you are.”

  Lauren sat in stunned silence for a second. “Where the hell did that come from?”

  He tore a stack of papers in half. “Never mind. Forget it. It doesn’t matter.” He threw the last of the papers away, grabbed his jacket, and walked out of their office. Lauren waited. They needed to talk this through.

  For the rest of the day she stewed, perplexed about the scene with Reese. Reese was the one constant in her life. She thought they had an almost perfect working relationship. She knew he wasn’t happy about her working for Violanti. She also knew he was still messed up from the nasty turn the Stenz case had taken. Having a second suspect die in the same month was shitty luck, but that wasn’t anything he could blame her for. Maybe he did want to transfer out. Maybe she wasn’t the perfect partner. She’d wait for him to return and they’d talk it out, trading insults and jabs, like they always did.

  He never came back to work that day.

  61

  Lauren met Violanti at his office, still in a twist about Reese. She walked past his secretary without a word and presented herself.

  Violanti picked up on her mood as soon as she walked in. “What’s eating you?”

  “Nothing. What’s so important that you had to blow up my phone all weekend?”

  He pulled a big cardboard box out from behind his desk. “I can make a lot of hay with this stuff. I got the maid’s statement. I got Vine’s statement. He lied and said he fell asleep at his office. I got the security guard seeing David walking, not running, from the car. I got Vine’s phone records, Katherine’s phone records, and Jennifer Jackson’s phone records. This stuff is beautiful.”

  “You’re going with the theory that the husband did it?”

  “Look at this.” He pushed a stack of papers toward Lauren. “This is one month’s worth of phone calls to Katherine Vine’s cell phone. Anthony Vine called her an average of twenty times a day. Twenty times a day. The only other phone calls were made by her sister, her hairdresser, and the one call from the toy store on the night she was murdered.”

  “You think that’s enough for reasonable doubt?”

  “Combine that with a lack of alibi, a hell of a motive, and a tracking device. I think I got something here.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  There was a pause as Violanti studied her face. “What’s wrong? Is something bothering you?”

  “Oh, come on,” she snapped. “As if you didn’t know what this case would do to my career. You sit in here like King Shit of Turd Mountain and bask in your cleverness and I have to wallow in everything rolling downhill.”

  “Hey,” he shot back, “you’re a big girl. You’re getting paid for this.”

  “And now I’m a whore just like you.”

  “No, now you’re working for me instead of Church.”

  “I ought to slap you in your smug little face, Violanti.”

  “No need for violence, Detective Riley.” He pushed back from his desk. “I have a list of things for you to follow up on. I never expected us to become friends, but you will keep your hands to yourself. You have work to do.” He held out a piece of paper.

  Lauren knew her face was flushed. She snatched the list out of Violanti’s hand. “Screw you.”

  “Yeah well, screw you too. Do your job.”

  She stormed out of his office, clenching the paper in her fist. She was tempted to rip it to shreds and be done with the whole thing. The problem was, the truth hurt. She took the money, she signed on the dotted line, and she had no right to complain. Lauren Riley had never hated herself more than she did at that moment. As she crossed the plushly carpeted lobby of Violanti’s building, she whipped out her cell phone. I might as well be a total screw up, she thought as she punched in the number.

  He answered on the first ring. “Mark?”

  62

  Lindsey was eating popcorn and lounging on the sofa when Lauren got home. She had on a pair of short-shorts and an old tee shirt with her fuzzy pink slippers. She looked up as Lauren threw her bag in the closet. “I was getting worried, Mom. Why didn’t you call and say you’d be late? I was waiting.”

  “Did you eat?”

  “I made some frozen lasagna I found in the freezer. There’s a plate for you. It’s in the fridge.”

  “Thanks.” Lauren walked into the kitchen, away from her daughter. She wanted to go take a shower, but she was starving. She nuked the plate and sat at the table with a glass of water. There was a bottle of zinfandel in the fridge, but her head still held the echoes of her hangover from the weekend.

  Lindsey walked in holding the popcorn bowl on her hip. “Dayla called. And Dean again. Are you going to call him back?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?” she demanded.

  Lauren sighed and looked up. “I just don’t want to, okay?”

  “You still want to be with Dad.”

  “Mark. And it doesn’t matter what I want. Some things are beyond our control.”

  Sitting at the table with her mother, Lindsey put the bowl down and folded her arms. Like looking in a mirror, Lauren thought, or a time machine. It was like seeing herself at twenty again; thinking you knew everything, your whole life in front of you. “Besides, I want to focus on us while you’re home, okay?”

  “I just hate seeing you look so sad.”

  It must be written all over my face, she thought, and suddenly lost her appetite. Calling Mark was a mistake, she knew that from the second she dialed his number. Meeting up with him at his office was Lauren’s way of punishing herself. She wasn’t vain enough to think it might punish Mark too. The sex had been fast and angry on his desk. The phone next to them kept ringing until she threw it against the wall. Mark took that for excitement instead of rage. When she left, he looked satisfied and she felt empty. What bothered her the most was that she wasn’t sure who she should be mad at—Violanti, Reese, Mark, herself, or all of the above.

  “I’m just tired of this case I’m working on. It’s really starting to wear on me. And the suicide didn’t help. I just need to take a break from all this.”

  “Why don’t you take off tomorrow and we’ll go somewhere?”

 
Somewhere. Anywhere was better than where she’d been lately. “That sounds fantastic. Anywhere you want, just as long as there’s no police work involved.”

  Lindsey reached over and popped a forkful of lasagna off of Lauren’s plate and into her mouth. “Don’t stress. I’ll think of something.”

  They ended up going to the movies, something they hadn’t done together in maybe ten years, eating fake, buttery popcorn and drinking soda from jumbo-sized cups. The movie was a romantic comedy and it was passable. Lauren had forgotten how much more enjoyable going out to the movies was. When you shared it with someone special, when you were laughing together.

  Inevitably, on the way to the restaurant after the show, her mind drifted to the list Violanti had given her. There were no municipal cameras in Garden Valley; it was a safe suburb with very little crime. Most of the surveillance cameras were privately owned by businesses. Violanti had the brilliant idea that if Anthony Vine left his waterfront condo, he’d have to pass by the city’s camera, stationed at the intersection in front of the Naval Park. There was no other way to leave the complex and head south out of the city. If it had been one of her city cases, all she would have to do was walk downstairs and ask to see it. Because she was technically acting as a private citizen, Lauren would have to file a request under the Freedom of Information Act to get the camera footage from that day. That was the drawback to private detective work: more red tape. But not today, she thought as she pulled into the Blackthorn. Today, I’m enjoying my daughter.

  The Blackthorn was her favorite Irish restaurant on Buffalo’s South Side. Some beer cheese soup would take her mind off things, and a shot of whiskey. Maybe two shots.

  After a fabulous meal of thin sliced corned beef and potatoes boiled and salted to perfection, they sat at the bar enjoying the air conditioning. Unlike Flanagan’s, which was a fake Irish bar in the downtown theater district, the Blackthorn was as authentic as the imported polished wood figures carved into the intricate molding along the bar. Lauren’s friend Kevin had owned it, but he had passed some years ago, and his brother and sister had taken it over, keeping the feel of home and safety. She’d always taken the girls there to eat, or to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, but this was the first time Lindsey sat at the bar with her.

  Sean, the aging bartender, knew how old she was and put a black coffee down in front of her. “Come see me in a couple years.” He winked at Lindsey and then set Lauren’s Irish coffee on the dark wood.

  “Come on, Mom,” Lindsey pleaded as he walked away. “I’m not a kid anymore.”

  “You’re my kid and believe me, the longer you wait before you start drinking, the better off you’ll be.”

  “I drink at school all the time.”

  “Maybe I should have you change schools.”

  “Mom.”

  “You’re lucky I let you drink coffee.” She extracted herself from her stool. “I have to go to the bathroom. Don’t touch my drink.”

  “Mom.” She rolled her eyes.

  63

  Joe Wheeler watched from the corner of his eye as Lauren rose and headed upstairs to the bathroom. The bar was pretty full with the after-dinner crowd, so Joe had planted himself over in the farthest corner with his back to Lauren and Lindsey. Thankfully, two other couples had pulled a table up right next to him, blocking most of Joe from view. He had followed them from his new observation point. Across from the guard shack at the entrance to their neighborhood, there was an access road to an old library that was being restored. Joe could pull onto the road and watch who was coming and going without having to worry about covering his license plate. He sat there until he saw Lauren’s car pull out and had waited patiently as they went to see the chick flick. The Blackthorn was a perfect spot to surveil them because it was naturally dim due to the extensive dark woodwork that adorned the bar.

  He paused for just another second to make sure Lauren was all the way up the stairs and rose from his seat. He took his empty pint glass up to the bar and squeezed in next to Lindsey.

  “Shot of whiskey,” he told the bartender and pushed the empty glass forward. The man took it and plunked the shot glass down with a hard thunk. Lindsey looked over. “Nice and cool in here,” he said to her as the bartender poured his shot straight from the bottle.

  “I guess,” she replied noncommitally and turned her back on him.

  She doesn’t recognize me, Joe thought, enraged. I was like a father to her for two years and she doesn’t even know who I am. Lauren erased my memory from her kids’ minds.

  “I said, it’s nice in here,” he tried again.

  “I’m just waiting for someone,” she said over her shoulder, not bothering to turn around.

  He downed the shot with one gulp and smashed the heavy shot glass upside down on the bar.

  “Easy on the wood, pal,” the bartender admonished. Joe flicked a twenty at him and stalked out of the bar.

  Lauren returned five minutes later, settling into her barstool. “What’d I miss?”

  “There was the creepiest, sweaty old guy here. He tried to talk to me. Ughhh.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He got mad and left.”

  “Good.” Lauren scanned the bar, just to make sure. “Sometimes it seems like a girl can’t even enjoy a drink without some psycho hitting on her.”

  “You should’ve seen him, Mom. He was gross.”

  64

  Lauren was sad to see Lindsey leave, but Erin came home in short order and that took her mind off things again. Lauren had accrued a lot of vacation time and she took it. She and her youngest daughter went shopping and out to dinner and to the movies, just like she had with Lindsey. Erin was more the artsy type and, thankfully, was not interested in going to bars. Instead they went to galleries, where Erin explained light and texture and theme to Lauren. She was impressed with how much Erin had grown since she’d gone away to school the year before. Her baby was now teaching her things.

  “Mom, you really need to get a hobby,” she told Lauren as they sat in a new seafood restaurant at Canalside. Off to her left, out of the oversized window, she could see the remains of the terminus of the Erie Canal the city had dug up and built an amazing entertainment spot around. Restaurants, bars, the Erie County Naval Park, and masses of actual sightseers surrounded them. If someone would have told Lauren that Buffalo had the potential to be a tourist attraction fifteen years ago, she would have laughed in their face. Now, rising out of the ruins of the grain elevators, abandoned buildings, and broke-down factories, there was a glimmer of hope.

  She sipped her diet soda. “Yeah, I could join a book club. I’d be the only lady packing a gun and watching the exits.”

  “You have to do something.” Erin picked some of the salt off the top of her beef on weck. “Doesn’t anything interest you?”

  She shrugged. “I guess I never thought of it before. I’ve never had the time. But now that you and Lindsey are gone, I admit, I’m a little bored.” Lauren longed for the days when it would be just the three of them again. Probably at Thanksgiving, definitely for Christmas. “I promise I’ll find something besides work to keep myself busy. Don’t you start worrying about me.”

  The puppy? she thought. Maybe after the trial.

  When Erin went back to school the first week of September, Lauren found herself feeling more alone than she ever had in her life, and the golden retriever puppy was sounding better and better. Something had changed between her and Reese, something small, but important. Lauren had felt it the night of the Stenz suicide, and the vibration of it carried over into their everyday work. Reese had come in the day after he stalked out of work and acted as if nothing had happened. Lauren went along because she would rather ignore the situation than deal with it. She consoled herself that everything would be better once David Spencer’s case went to trial. Once it was over, she was convinced, things would go back to normal
between them.

  By the time they picked up the Ortiz file again it was the first week of October. It was time to try to talk to Shannon Pilski. Time to try to put Vinita Ortiz to rest.

  “You want to do this today?” Reese asked.

  Lauren began to thread her belt through the loops on her pants, stopping at the last one on her right side to slide her holster on. Buckling up, she adjusted her waistband, now weighted down by her gun. “She lives in my old neighborhood now.”

  “Want to stop by and visit the relatives?”

  “My folks are in Florida now, you know that.”

  “I did know that. I was hoping to see some of your less-talked-about extended family.”

  “Like my daughters’ aunt, who hasn’t seen them since they were in preschool?”

  “Now, now,” Reese cautioned. “Let’s not open up any old wounds while we’re out in South Buffalo.”

  She grabbed the radio. “Isn’t your dad from South Buffalo?”

  “He was the captain at the station on Hollywood and Abbott Road, right down from Mercy Hospital, but he grew up in the Ward.”

  South Buffalo was officially known as the Irish heritage district, but the old First Ward was the real ancestral home of Buffalo’s Irish community. People who came from the Ward wore their roots like a badge of honor. They were the real Irish, the original immigrants, the seat of Celtic power in the city. Reese liked to rub the fact in that even though Riley grew up on McKinley Parkway, in the heart of South Buffalo, his people were from the Ward and therefore profoundly more Irish.

  “I’m sorry, I forgot you were royalty.”

  He laughed. “It used to mean I was tough, back when the Ward was dumpy. Having a black mom and a white dad wasn’t exactly celebrated. Now the developers are snapping up the land and building high-end condos. Who knew anyone would want a view of the grain elevators?”