Lion & Lamb, page 8
“See, I don’t think you do. He probably told you that Francine Pearl was just a bitch or something. But no, the dude flat-out stole stuff from the house. Watches, jewelry, sports memorabilia. And he was caught on a nanny cam.”
Veena frowned. “That doesn’t sound right. Who’s your source?”
“Nobody you’d know.”
“Is it Red from Atlantic City? Your old army buddy?”
“Damn it. I wish I’d never told you about him. Look, Red knows his stuff. Including the fact that your boy Roy owed a lot of people in Atlantic City a lot of cheddar. Which would explain the not-so-petty larceny from the Hughes home.”
Veena considered this and replayed some of their lunchtime conversation. She thought about her legal-pad list of suspects. She thought about Maya Rain. But mostly, she considered that the day had been a very long one.
“Throw that crap away,” she said, “and let’s have that cocktail.”
Chapter 32
9:08 p.m.
EARLY IN his career, Mickey Bernstein had spent a few years undercover. He’d told his superior he just wanted more street experience. But his real motivations were more complex.
A lot of it was wanting to be out from under his dad’s thumb. But it was also the secret thrill of letting himself disappear into the rougher sections of the city and enjoying some of the pleasures associated with those places. Being the son of Philly’s most famous cop meant he’d grown up under constant scrutiny, both inside his home and out. It was nice to slip into another man’s skin.
And he could still do that from time to time.
Like now, walking toward a dive bar near the infamous intersection of Kensington and Allegheny. They said this area was slowly gentrifying, just like nearby Fishtown, but Mickey knew better. Woe to the hipster moron who stepped off the El looking for avocado toast and a craft IPA. Mickey didn’t want to look like that. Or, even worse, like a cop. So he’d pulled on workman’s clothes, skipped his evening shave, and got into character.
Bernstein opened the door to Dmitri’s and found an empty barstool. People gave him the usual once-over, but nobody seemed to make him. He ordered a shot of Jack, a Bud back, and a fifty-cent bag of greasy potato chips. In the corner was a long-defunct Donkey Kong console that now doubled as an ashtray and a place to hang Christmas lights, which were apparently up all year.
Mickey’s dad loved places like this. Real salt-of-the-earth joints in the old working-class nabes. For all he knew, his dad had dragged him and his mom here at some point. Young Mickey had probably pumped some quarters into that very Donkey Kong machine.
When Mickey was two rounds in, Crazy Percy walked through the front door. Nobody bothered to look up. According to Mickey’s regular snitches, Crazy Percy was always in here this time of night. Mickey didn’t even have to come up with a tactic for the approach; Crazy Percy slid his large frame into the empty stool to Mickey’s left.
“Hey, Crazy. Want a beer?”
“Oh, shit, man.” Percy’s frame deflated a little. “Gimme a Jack instead. A double.”
Mickey nodded his permission to the bartender, who didn’t exactly measure as he poured the whiskey into a tumbler.
“You look like garbage,” Percy told Mickey, which was quite a statement coming from a man nicknamed “Crazy.” This was not a nickname Percy embraced, but for years he’d been the guy who was willing to do pretty much anything (steal cars, break legs, maybe even murder) for low, low prices, so the moniker was hard to shake. Percy was forever looking for a way to turn a fast buck, but he always undervalued himself. With a little ambition, Mickey thought, he could be a proper criminal.
“I couldn’t be better,” Mickey said. “In fact, I’m getting married.”
“Thought you were married.”
“I’m in the market for a ring, and here’s the thing—my sweetheart is a huge Birds fan. I mean, she, like, lives for it. So I’m looking for something like…a Super Bowl ring.”
Percy groaned, then downed his whiskey as if it might be taken away from him.
“Heard you had a line on one,” Mickey continued. “Something really special that just came on the market.”
“I wouldn’t even know what a Super Bowl ring looks like. What, does it have little footballs or buffalo wings on it or something? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Percy, you’re breaking my heart here.”
“Look, okay, I know where you’re going with this. I didn’t have anything to do with Archie Hughes.”
“But you saw his car.”
Crazy Percy stared at his drink, knowing that this conversation could go one of two ways. He decided on the easy way. “Yeah, I did. There was another fancy car parked nearby too.”
Mickey tried to hide his excitement. “You remember the make and model?”
“A Bentley. Red or maroon, something like that. The thing was gorgeous. Couldn’t believe somebody had left it out there that time of night.” The thought of boosting it had clearly crossed Percy’s mind. But maybe he wasn’t that crazy.
“Did you see anyone behind the wheel? A woman, maybe?”
“Nah, there was nobody in the car. Unless they were hiding in the back seat.”
“You sure?”
“I didn’t see a soul. Not until you cops rolled up, and then I got the hell out of there.”
The car, though. That was enough.
Francine Hughes drove a red Bentley.
Chapter 33
9:32 p.m.
“WHAT’S THAT? Hang on, kiddos, let me find out. Excuse me, miss?”
The waitress at the Rittenhouse Hotel bar was the same one from the night before, but gone was any hint of flirtation. In its place was an icy veneer. Veena must have really rubbed her the wrong way. That’s what Veena did for a living, but Cooper needed to make it right. He liked it here.
“Yes?” she said quietly.
“I’m on the phone with some old war buddies…okay, that’s a lie.” Cooper showed her his best smile. “My kids are on the phone, and they have a very important mixology query. What’s the real difference between a Rob Roy and a Shirley Temple? I mean, is it the same thing only sexist?”
“Order your kid a Rob Roy,” the waitress said, “and I could have you arrested.”
“Come again?”
“You’re thinking of a Roy Rogers, which has Coke in it. A Shirley Temple uses Sprite. That’s the difference.”
“You hear that, kiddos? This impossibly beautiful woman just saved me from prison.” Cooper looked up at her and mouthed, Thank you.
But it was something else—probably the words impossibly beautiful—that melted the ice, and suddenly all was calm and good in the lounge at the Rittenhouse Hotel once again.
That is, until Veena Lion arrived, pulled out her chair with a teeth-shredding scrape, and barked out an order for a double martini with three blue-cheese-stuffed olives, easy on the vermouth. Cooper said good night to his kids, told them he loved them, and placed his phone on the table.
“Okay, what the hell is going on with this case?” Veena said.
“So are we finally past the whole ethics thing? Can we talk straight?”
“We shouldn’t be talking at all, but I need to know the truth.”
“Amen to that. And here come our libations.”
They drank in silence for a while, recalibrating their nervous systems. Then Veena said, “Speaking of the nanny cam…”
“Ah,” Cooper said. “So you’ve met the lovely Ms. Rain too.”
“Eh. She’s too good to be true.”
“I like her.”
“Based on?”
“Gut feeling. I know, I know, I’m keeping an open mind. But I’m going to be terribly disappointed if she had any part in Archie’s murder.”
Veena watched him carefully with her green eyes, analyzing every word, every micro-expression. “My God. How did you do it?” she asked.
“Do what?”
“Fall in love so quickly.”
“It was easy. Happened the minute she slipped her arm through mine and escorted me into the garden.”
Cooper’s intention was to playfully jab back at Veena for that falling-in-love wisecrack. But she surprised him by leaning across the table and kissing him on the cheek.
“That almost hurt,” Cooper whispered.
“Rowrr,” Veena whispered back.
“Does this mean you want to come for a sleepover tonight?”
“No, it does not.”
“Well, that hurt even more.” Cooper was confused about where all of this was going. Was it the usual flirtatious banter? Or were they about to cross all the lines in their professional relationship?
He had just resolved to hang in there and find out when a harsh buzz on the table broke the spell, followed by a second buzz a moment later.
Both of their phones.
Lion and Lamb scooped up their devices quickly to read the incoming flurry of texts from Janie and Victor, respectively. The TV newscast droning in a corner of the lounge had the same breaking news one minute after that.
“Holy God, Chef Nguyen—” Cooper muttered.
“Didn’t make it,” Veena said.
Wednesday, January 26
Chapter 34
3:13 a.m.
THE CELL phone on Cooper’s nightstand vibrated. Lupe gave a short, muffled bark—more of a woof—to alert his master. But his master was already on full alert. “Shhh,” he whispered. The pup immediately fell silent.
Cooper reached down and grabbed the shotgun he kept clipped to the underside of his bed. Cooper knew the easiest way to disorient a target in his home at night was to call him. While your target fumbles for the phone in the dark, you take your shot; it’s over before he’s even fully awake. Cooper refused to make that mistake.
Only with the Winchester SXP Defender pump-action shotgun in his hand did Cooper answer his cell.
“Honey,” he said calmly, “I told you never to call me at work.”
The person on the other end of the line hesitated. Cooper heard a confused muttering before the caller finally snarled: “Walk away. That’s what Chef Boyardee should’ve done.”
Cooper said, “Red—is this you?”
Click.
Chapter 35
EARLY MORNING was the best time to do a home search, in Detective Mickey Bernstein’s professional opinion.
Surprise ’em while they’re not fully awake and still in their pajamas. When you have a choice, serve that search warrant before the coffee machine drops its first drip.
In this case, however, Mickey didn’t have a choice.
He’d left Dmitri’s around ten o’clock and pulled an all-nighter that involved the commissioner (already on board), his homicide captain (a pushover), a federal judge (an elderly political hack), and his counterpart at the Radnor Police Department (a nobody). Even with the dice loaded, for a while there Mickey wondered if it would actually work. Testimony from a lowlife named Crazy Percy wasn’t exactly the strongest piece of evidence. However, that piece was needed for all of the others—most important, the murder weapon in the Hugheses’ flower bed—to click into place.
It helped that the judge was a longtime pal of his father’s and was used to wild Bernstein hunches. The moment His Honor signed off on the search, Mickey mobilized his team but pretended that the Radnor PD was taking the lead.
They knocked at exactly 6:03 a.m.
Francine was up and looked almost as if she’d been expecting company. Nobody rolls out of bed this put together, Mickey thought, not even a multiple Grammy winner. She was breathtakingly gorgeous. She even smiled at him.
“Good morning, Detective.”
“Sincere apologies for the early-morning call, Ms. Hughes. I hope you understand that an investigation like this follows its own timeline.”
Mickey had rehearsed what he would say to Francine on the ride over; this was the best he could do on zero sleep and in his wrinkled clothes. She seemed to take it in stride.
“You’ve got quite a crew with you,” Francine said, looking over his shoulder at the small army of uniformed officers waiting for the signal to proceed. “I’d better put on more coffee.”
But even a super-gracious host like Francine couldn’t keep up with the sheer number of investigators examining every inch of her house. Little Maddie Hughes tried to pitch in, bringing the uniformed officers homemade chocolate chip cookies (“Our friend Maya helped us bake them last night”), organic lemonade, and helpful pieces of advice such as “Remember to check the bottom of the hall closet!” and “Don’t forget the safe room!”
Mickey floated around the house checking in with various teams who’d been assigned different parts of the sprawling mansion. “I’m sure the Oval Office is tucked away somewhere here,” grumbled one of the uniforms, who probably lived with a wife and three kids in a cramped Northeast Philly twin. Mickey shot him a look that told him he agreed but stow it right now.
Whenever he could, Mickey put eyes on Francine Pearl Hughes. She was eerily calm for a woman watching more than a dozen strangers examine every detail of her home. Calm for a woman suspected of murdering her husband.
Two developments threatened to break that calm. First, Archie’s $400,000 Patek Philippe watch, which was reported missing from his body the night of the crime, was found mixed in with Francine’s jewelry. How do you misplace nearly half a million bucks?
And second, ammo for a Glock was found in the garage, tucked behind gardening supplies. Not exactly hidden, but a weird place for live rounds.
“Keep searching,” Mickey told his men.
“Hey, Detective?” said a tech named DeNardo. Mickey couldn’t remember his first name for the life of him. Something like Dan or Drew? Whatever. He was the computer forensics guy working for the Radnor PD.
“Yeah, whaddya got?” Mickey said.
“I found a text to Archie Hughes. Something you probably haven’t seen before.”
“I doubt that, DeNardo. We seized all of his devices, remember? We’ve had techs all over his cell phone, his laptop, his tablet—”
“True, but I guarantee you haven’t seen this.”
This turned out to be a PlayStation 5 hooked up to a flat-screen TV that took up half the wall. This was Archie’s toy; the kids weren’t allowed to play video games—Mom’s rules, no ifs, ands, or buts. Right now, a game was on-screen. Looked like elves with machine guns…or something. Mickey wasn’t a gamer.
“What’s this, DeNardo? You think one of the pistol-packin’ little people did it?”
“Ha-ha, no. This is Worlds of Wrath—the shared-world FPS game?”
“You’re speaking Latin, only dorkier,” Mickey said.
“I won’t get into it, but you fight monsters throughout history while you chat with other players. What makes this game unique is the social media component. You can send screenshots and short clips as messages out into the real world, and vice versa.”
Mickey’s blank expression encouraged DeNardo to hurry it up.
“Anyway,” the computer guy said, “at some point, Archie must have sent Francine a clip of an awesome move or something, because she responded via text. He kept that up, and at first it was all playful, but things devolved over the past few weeks. And then, just a few days before the murder…”
DeNardo thumbed the game controller and a series of text messages from Francine to Archie appeared in giant letters on the flat-screen, as if it were evidence presented in court:
I’m tired of this. So, so tired
And:
You can’t hide forever. We have to deal with this
And, most damning of all:
Maybe someone will teach you a lesson someday
Chapter 36
8:17 a.m.
“WE’RE TOO late,” Lisa Marchese said.
“No such thing as too late,” Cooper Lamb replied.
“What are you talking about? This is the textbook definition of too late!”
To be fair, this did seem to be the case. The Hughes home was crawling with law enforcement as well as local news teams hoping to capture the perp walk of the century. News vans up and down the street, two—no, now three helicopters circling, live feeds picked up internationally. At this moment, there was no other breaking story in the world.
Word had spread with lightning speed: Francine Pearl Hughes was about to be arrested for the murder of her legendary husband.
Thanks to Victor—who was alerted the minute a Mickey Bernstein–friendly judge signed off on the arrest warrant—Cooper had had a half-hour head start, time enough to pick up Francine’s attorney and start racing to the Main Line.
But reporters still beat them to the house, most likely tipped off by their secret sources inside the Philly or Radnor PD. They were not going to miss this shot.
“Why didn’t she call you the moment Bernstein showed up?” Cooper asked Lisa Marchese as they climbed out of his car.
“I don’t know, Lamb. My client said she had her kids to worry about.”
“Well, you find her and make sure she doesn’t say a word to anybody,” Cooper said. “I know she’s Philly’s sweetheart, and she’s going to want to reassure her fans, but—”
“Come on,” Lisa interrupted. “This isn’t my first murder case.”
“Yeah, but this is your first Francine Pearl Hughes case. Besides, that’s not the point. I want you to stall until I can figure out a way to keep your client from being paraded in front of the cameras. Once that happens, she’s as good as guilty.”
“Hold on,” Lisa said. “You work for us, remember? I need you to chase something down.”
“Whatever you’re about to tell me,” Cooper said, gently leading Lisa by the arm toward the house, “I can guarantee it’s not as important as the next five minutes.”
“Just let me say this! The rumors about the chef are true.”
Cooper Lamb stopped dead in his tracks. “Tell me quick.”
“Roy Nguyen was up to his puffy white chef’s hat in debt. The man was a serious gambler.”
