Killing Pace Read online

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I was going to be next. The only thing that saved me was my memory loss and that bastard’s sick fantasies. By the way, he won’t be using that sorry dick of his for a while.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Taught him a lesson.”

  “Sarah, turn yourself in! Let me help you! That car wreck! You were probably kidnapped yourself, locked in the back of that van! The whole thing stinks of frame-up. Let me help you prove it!”

  “It was more than a frame-up, Scott. I need to do this myself and I can’t do it from a jail cell. You’re a county cop. You won’t get anywhere if you try to mess with the feds. But there is one thing you can do for me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Those murders I’m accused of … find out if the detectives found a baby cam.”

  “What?”

  “A video monitor. People use them to keep an eye on their baby when they’re out of the room. I want to know if they found one in the nursery at the murdered couple’s house.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes. Goodbye, Scott. And thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For helping me get my life back.”

  She ended the call. She got out and tossed the phone into a slough that bordered the road.

  She got back behind the wheel and drove on.

  She had already planned her next move.

  11

  Jardine and Belrose arrived at Roland Lewis’s cabin ten minutes after Deputy Newman had used a bolt cutter on the chain at the gate and waved the ambulance in. After knocking on the door and receiving no answer, Newman and the paramedics had entered. Jardine had told the deputy about the locked room and the key on the table. They found Roland Lewis in the safe room, lying on the cot, covered in dirt, his face bleeding and swollen.

  Sarah Lockhart had laid a royal beating on him.

  When Jardine arrived, one of the EMTs said, “I’m not a doctor, Detective, but I’d say this guy won’t be seeing out of his left eye for a while. And you should see his nuts.”

  “I’ll pass. What about them?”

  “Black and blue, and swollen like you wouldn’t believe.”

  Jardine had a hard time feeling sorry for the creep.

  Newman pointed out the Beretta and its empty magazine lying on the table, along with Lewis’s empty wallet. Jardine took a quick look around while the paramedics were getting Lewis ready for transport, but he found little of evidentiary value. There were a few smears of blood on the floor between the front door and the safe room, but no visible signs of a struggle. The only indication that a female had ever lived in the cabin was the small pile of women’s clothing on the bed and the empty dresser drawer sitting next to it.

  As soon as they’d arrived, Belrose had located the trailhead marked by Lewis’s crutches and headed down the path behind it. As the ambulance pulled away, he appeared at the cabin door.

  “Scottie, we need the crime scene guys out here.”

  “What’d you find?”

  “That shed by the river … that vat she told you about … it’s there. Stinks to high heaven, and there’s a bunch of teeth lying at the bottom. Gotta be a few hundred of ’em.”

  “Teeth? Human teeth?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “Show me.”

  Belrose led him across the clearing. “See the scrape mark?” He pointed to an intermittent string of furrows in the gravel and across the patchy grass. “They run all the way up the trail. Looks to me like she took him out down at the shed and dragged him up to the cabin.”

  They arrived at the shed. The door was wide open. Jardine immediately noticed the bullet hole in the wooden flooring and a couple of sprays of blood on one wall.

  “Think you’re right. The fight started here.”

  “I doubt it was a fight. Your panther lady’s dangerous.”

  Jardine tugged a pair of latex gloves out of his pocket. He pulled them on and then lifted the lid of the huge stainless steel vat that sat in the corner of the shed. The smell from within made him recoil. Belrose was right—it was noxious. He couldn’t quite place it. It was something like a cross between toilet cleaner and a slaughterhouse he’d once visited.

  Belrose handed him a Maglite. Shining it downward, he craned to look.

  It was just as his partner had described—a mass of discolored teeth, lying in an inch of milky liquid at the bottom of the vessel.

  He dropped the lid and backed away.

  “My guess … this guy’s been dissolving bodies in acid and dumping them into the river,” Belrose ventured.

  “He’s a fucking pozole man.”

  “Pozole?” Belrose was not only mystified by the word, but startled to hear Jardine use the f-word. Jardine seldom swore like that.

  “It’s a kind of Mexican soup. That’s what the drug cartels call it. Great way to make their rivals disappear. They have guys who specialize in it.”

  “So you’re saying the only thing that saved that lady from an acid bath was this guy taking advantage of her amnesia so he could screw her?”

  “Yeah. Looks like that.”

  “Then if she hadn’t done that number on him, I mighta done it myself.”

  SARAH

  12

  The Tribunale per i Minorenni in Palermo was located on Via Principe di Palagonia. Sarah had figured that the best time to stake out the court building would be on a Friday afternoon, and her instincts paid off. At precisely 4:30 P.M., she spotted Carlotta Falcone among a mob of court officials spilling out the main door. She almost missed her. Her target was a string bean of a woman, a dark-eyed brunette with narrow, precise features, angling through the crowd. The only photograph Sarah had to identify her had been secured with Marco’s help. She’d persuaded him to pull up Carlotta Falcone’s Transport Ministry driver’s license file, while at the same time managing to avoid giving a straight answer to his curious questions.

  She’d enlisted Marco’s help right after she’d called the Swiss number Renate Richter had given her. After a few odd-sounding clicks, the line had rung once.

  “This is Renate.”

  “This is Sarah. I’m in.”

  “Very good. I will tell Gaetano. How will you begin?”

  “With Falcone.”

  Sarah had told her Italian team she had official business in Palermo—an explanation for her absence that, while not a straight-out lie, was not the truth, either. Her activities in Palermo were not exactly “official,” although they had the potential to become so.

  She had expected to follow Falcone on foot, but was caught off guard when the woman stepped into a waiting taxi.

  Caught off guard, yes, but not flat-footed. Sarah had positioned herself on a bench across the street. A dozen feet away, parked behind a sidewalk newsstand, was her rented Vespa. She pulled on her helmet, fired up the scooter, and slid into traffic. Keeping a few cars between her and Falcone’s taxi, she followed the vehicle as it worked its way north on Via Palagonia, and then swung east on Via Principe di Paterno. As each succeeding intersection rolled by, it crossed her mind that the cab was heading in the general direction of the U.S. Consulate. It wasn’t until the vehicle circumnavigated a final block and pulled to the curb on Via Vaccarini that she realized that was exactly where Carlotta Falcone was heading.

  On reflection, she wasn’t really surprised. As Renate Richter had said, in every suspect case, Consul Nicosia had recommended approvals of the adoptions and issuance of the required visas. Sarah had already noticed that Falcone was carrying a messenger bag along with her purse. She idled her scooter past the taxi just as the woman stepped out. She took a good look at the bag. Its bulk and the way it hung heavily from the woman’s shoulder suggested that it contained papers.

  This particular Juvenile Court file clerk must be paid pretty well, Sarah thought grimly, because Carlotta Falcone’s calfskin bag bore the logo of a world-famous designer. On Worth Avenue or Rodeo Dr
ive, that particular bag would sell for over five thousand dollars.

  Unless, of course, it was a knockoff.

  Life was filled with little ironies.

  As she rolled on to the next intersection, Sarah watched Falcone in her side mirror. She saw her stride directly to the main door of the consulate building and enter.

  She pulled over, dismounted, and walked her Vespa across to the broad median that, inexplicably, divided the two sets of northbound lanes of Via Marchese di Villabianca. After parking the scooter under a tree near a bus shelter, she took off her helmet and sat on the bench to wait.

  She didn’t wait long.

  Falcone reappeared on the sidewalk in less than ten minutes. She turned west, crossed Via Villabianca on the same crosswalk Sarah had just used, strode past her without a glance, and positioned herself at the curb. She was either waiting for a prearranged ride or planning to hail another taxi. She was still carrying the messenger bag, but now it hung loosely on her shoulder.

  With her target standing less than ten feet away, and no one else within earshot, Sarah decided on a move she hadn’t planned.

  She stood up.

  “Carlotta Falcone.”

  The woman spun around, her facial expression a muddle of puzzlement and fear.

  “How do you know my name? Who are you?”

  As a test, Sarah replied in English. “I’m the person who knows what you have just done. And I am the person who will stop you.”

  Carlotta Falcone went pale. She turned and fled into the traffic. Tires screeched and horns blared as she weaved across the thoroughfare and disappeared into the streets beyond.

  Sarah didn’t attempt to follow. She wasn’t concerned that she’d lose track of her quarry. She already knew where she lived.

  And in that short exchange, she had established two things: that Carlotta Falcone understood English, and that she was unquestionably guilty of something.

  * * *

  The address on Carlotta Falcone’s driver’s license was an apartment building off Via Torremuzza, in the historic Arab section of Palermo known as La Kalsa. Although still showing signs of wartime bombing, with some streets marred by peeling doors, grubby staircases that led nowhere, and the acrid smell of rotting masonry, the entire quarter was in the midst of an intensive revitalization program. After decades of neglect by Mafia-influenced city administrators, honest and imaginative investors had finally gained traction. Over the last few years, La Kalsa had been slowly transformed into a haven for urbane residents and popular wine bars.

  I suppose the hip address goes with the five-thousand-dollar bag.

  Sarah completed her survey of the rows of wrought iron balconies behind the screen of cotton trees that lined the street front. Lights were on in most of the apartments, and the faint odor of frying oil drifted on the still air. Nevertheless, she doubted that Falcone had made her way home in the fourteen minutes it had taken Sarah to ride her Vespa to this location. She located an observation spot in Piazza della Kalsa, the small park across the street from the apartment building, and settled down to watch.

  This time it was a long wait.

  It was nearly eleven when a taxi pulled up in front of the apartment block. Sarah spotted her target when the driver turned on his interior light to make change. A minute later, when she opened the door to her building, Sarah silently stepped in behind her.

  “It was stupid of you to run,” she said in Italian, as the door clicked shut. “You could have been hit by a car.”

  Carlotta Falcone’s features went pale. Her body swayed. Sarah caught her just before she collapsed. Her breath smelled of wine. Sarah kept a grip on one of her bony arms while she scanned the post boxes on the wall of the tiny foyer. “Number 11. I have a few questions. Shall we go?” Trembling, Falcone directed her toward a flight of steps. They climbed to the next floor and treaded along a narrow passageway.

  Falcone finally spoke. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Sarah Lockhart. I’m a United States Customs officer.”

  “United States? How can you be … here?”

  “I work with the Guardia.”

  Which is sort of true.

  “The Guardia! Are they here?”

  “Nearby. Shall I call them?”

  The bluff worked. “Oh, no! Please!”

  Carlotta stopped in front of a polished door. Keys jingled in her hand.

  “Do you live alone?”

  “With my grandmother.”

  “Does she know what you’ve been doing?”

  “No. Please! You can’t tell her!”

  “Does she speak English?”

  “No.”

  “Where will she be? I mean, right now.”

  “Probably in bed.”

  “Okay. Let’s go in.”

  The apartment was not what the building’s well-kept exterior had led Sarah to expect. A few dingy rooms, sparse furnishings, and a pervading sick-room smell mixed with undertones of ground coffee.

  And, to complete the picture, there in the parlor sat a wizened old woman watching the news on a small television set.

  Carlotta whispered to Sarah in English, “What shall I do? Please help me. Can I tell her you are a friend?”

  Sarah’s eyes were locked on the old woman. “Tell her I’m an American you met this evening. You asked me back for a glass of wine so you can practice your English.”

  It was done. During Sarah’s introduction to Signora Clara Falcone, she pretended to stumble over the Italian salutations. At the same time she noticed, with a flinch, that the old lady was missing the thumb and index finger on both of her hands. The remaining fingers were wrinkled, almost clawlike, appendages.

  After fifteen minutes or so—after wine had been ceremonially poured, and after Signora Clara had briefly joined in a three-way chat that Carlotta made a fluent show of translating—the old lady tactfully announced that she was going to bed. Carlotta helped her out of her seat and over to her bedroom. A few minutes later, she shut the bedroom door and rejoined Sarah in the parlor.

  Sarah was ready to get down to business, but her changing perspective of Carlotta Falcone prompted a few preliminary questions.

  “Are you comfortable to speak with me in English?”

  “That would be best,” Carlotta replied, her eyes sliding to the bedroom door.

  “Are you supporting your grandmother? I mean, financially.”

  “Yes.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Eighty-nine.”

  “Do you have a husband? Children?”

  “I have no family. Just my Nonna.”

  That simple statement resonated with Sarah. It was an exact replica of her own early life.

  “Does your Nonna have a pension?”

  “Not enough to live on.” Carlotta’s voice rose. “After the war, the politicians pretended there had been no civil war. They ignored her injuries, and they refused her the war disability benefits. They forced her into silence. She worked in a laundry until she could not work anymore.”

  Sarah had already guessed the truth.

  “Your grandmother fought in the Resistance.”

  “Yes.”

  “Her hands…”

  “She was captured. And tortured. Not by Germans. By Italians. The Fascisti who never paid for their crimes.” The bitterness of a fading generation lived on in this middle-aged woman’s voice.

  Carlotta stopped talking. She sipped her wine and sat very still, staring at Sarah.

  Sarah knew why.

  “You’re waiting to find out what I know.”

  “Yes.”

  Sarah felt a trace of admiration. The woman was suddenly showing some backbone.

  “Someone is supplying you with fake baptismal certificates. Based on those documents, you are creating fictitious Juvenile Court files and forged home study reports, along with forged court approvals.”

  There was no reaction, so Sarah went in with both feet.

  “You are delivering th
ose documents to Anthony Nicosia, the United States consul here in Palermo. In fact, that’s exactly what you were doing when I followed you.” She pointed at the messenger bag that was now sitting on a small desk behind Carlotta. “You were delivering fake adoption files to Mr. Nicosia in that bag right there.”

  Carlotta sat still and wooden faced.

  “How much are you being paid to commit these crimes?”

  That got a reaction.

  “It is for adoptions of lost children! There is no other way to get them out of that orphanage! They can go to America! How can that be bad?”

  “‘Lost children.’ You believe that?”

  No answer.

  “How much are they paying you?”

  Carlotta hesitated. “One thousand euros.”

  “For each file?”

  “Yes.”

  “Cash?”

  “Always.”

  “How many files have you created?”

  “I’m not sure. Many. Thirty. Or forty.”

  “Who is paying you?”

  “Two men, at different times.”

  “Names?”

  “That’s all I can say.”

  “Why?”

  “I … I could be … These people … this is Sicily, Sarah Lockhart! Do you know what that means?”

  “You mean, the Mafia.”

  “I don’t know for certain. But yes, maybe. I cannot take a chance. My Nonna … she needs to be comfortable, she needs her nurse’s visits, her medicines.”

  “You did all this for your Nonna?”

  “We could never live here on what I am paid. And now that you have come, now we will need to move. There are cheaper parts of the city, but they are dangerous. Drug dealers, illegal migrants. At night, people cannot go outside.”

  “If your Nonna’s care is so important to you, why did you spend thousands of euros on a designer bag like that?”

  “It’s not mine. The consul gave it to me. I only use it to deliver the files to him.”

  “Why? Why a five-thousand-dollar bag to carry documents?”

  “He told me it’s not real. He said he has a … he called it a ‘source.’”

  “A fake bag to carry fake documents?”