Plane in the Lake Page 4

  Walton snorts and waves my comment aside. “I think it’s time for you gentlemen to leave.”

  I lock eyes with him as I languidly get to my feet. “With partners like you folks, it’s pretty clear that Billy and Rick will need their own lawyers.”

  Walton’s color is up as he points at the door. “Get the fuck out!”

  “Roger that,” I answer back. “Fucking off now.”

  War has been declared.

  Chapter Four

  Life is good. I’m in the kitchen, up to my neck in preparations for a backyard dinner of Tony Valenti’s Famous Burgers. Family occasions such as this are a big reason why my daughter, Brittany, and I came to the Valenti family home in Cedar Heights when we fled Atlanta last summer in the wake of my failed marriage to Brittany’s mother. My mother may be gone now, having passed away a little over a year ago, but my father, Francesco—“Papa” to us—and my fifteen-year-old daughter are making up for lost time.

  Papa is washing a batch of his prized homegrown tomatoes at the kitchen sink. “You want the tomatoes?” he asks Brittany.

  “Those yucky things?”

  “No?”

  “I’m just kidding!” she exclaims as she eases closer to Papa. “I’d love a few of your tomatoes.”

  He gives her the stink eye as he pulls the bowl away from her. “No tomato for you! You have only the one chance when I ask!”

  My father stands a couple of inches under six feet, has a wiry build, and tufts of thinning gray hair. The most prominent features on his olive-complexioned face are wild, bushy eyebrows over a pair of piercing hazel eyes. He talks and walks fast, always has. I recall oftentimes running to keep up with him when I was a kid. There’s a fair amount of him in my features, although I keep my eyebrows carefully trimmed. I have his hazel eyes, but inherited Mama’s lengthy eyelashes and a more rounded face in comparison to Papa’s sharper features. You’d be hard pressed to find much family resemblance between my daughter and father. Brittany’s lithe build, bright blue eyes, and striking good looks owe much to her mother.

  As I turn away from yet another faux grandfather-granddaughter confrontation to survey my meal preparations—raw hamburger patties, German-style potato salad, and pasta salad—I see Papa wink and flip a tomato to Brittany. She catches it and pops it into her mouth in a single motion. What in hell makes these two think their fake dramas are so amusing is beyond me, but that might be because I’m neither young nor old enough understand the dynamic. Or maybe I’m just dense. What the hell, they seem to enjoy it.

  I’ve prepared a dozen of my signature half-pound patties—two each for my father and myself, one for Brittany. The rest will find their way down Papa’s gullet within a day or two. I pick up the platter of uncooked burgers and head for the door leading to our backyard while Papa smiles in anticipation. He came late to the burger party—burgers hadn’t been a thing where he grew up in Calabria, Italy. He and Mama tended to favor Italian dishes in the years after he immigrated to the United States, yet Papa loves the damned things nowadays. It’s a wonder he hasn’t chained me to the grill for the entire summer. Deano, our plump fourteen-year-old black Labrador retriever, lumbers along in my wake, wagging his tail at the prospect of a stray bite to inhale.

  “Hey, Ed,” I say when I reach the beige flagstone patio.

  Ed Stankowski is a retired Cedar Heights detective we’ve hired to provide a little security for Papa. After my father was acquitted of murder charges and our home was rescued from a predatory developer last year, he often faced harassment when he ventured out in public. The abuse had eventually followed him home. Hence the security.

  Ed dips his chin in my direction. “Tony.”

  I lift the platter of patties. “We’ve got plenty of burgers if you want one.”

  Ed glances at his watch. “May as well. Jake’s gonna be late picking me up.”

  “Again?” I ask with a wide-eyed chuckle.

  “Yeah,” he grumbles, but he’s smiling as he does so. “Another big case, or so he says. He might just be out having a pre-brew brew, y’know? Maybe with one of those young women cops they’ve got nowadays.”

  I lift the lid on our Weber grill and start tossing patties on the rack. “Nah, Jake’s a one-woman kinda guy, don’t you think?”

  Jake Plummer is the Cedar Heights PD homicide detective who was the lead investigator in Papa’s case. To my immense surprise, Plummer turned out to be a good guy. He’d put me onto Ed when it became clear that Papa needed a little temporary security.

  Ed laughs at my observation. “You’re damned right. Jake has the good sense not to piss off his wife by chasing after young women. We old farts need people to care for us in our dotage. It’s not as if the gals are interested in us old farts, anyway.”

  I soon have a veritable bonfire going on the grill. I’m using two spatulas to move the patties around in an almost futile bid to keep them out of the grease flares that always threaten to overwhelm me when I cook burgers. It’s like playing whack-a-mole with continuous bursts of flame.

  Ed watches with an amused smile. “Y’know you need a bigger grill for that many burgers, don’t you?”

  “Oh, I know,” I reply dryly. I’ve been thinking that I might be able to get Papa to spring for a larger grill by telling him I could cook two dozen patties at a time on a bigger grate. My appeals for a grill manufactured within the past century have fallen on deaf ears. “Papa seems to think a Civil War-era grill is all we need.”

  “Lemme talk to the old coot and knock some sense into him.”

  I give Ed a skeptical look. “Good luck with the old coot.”

  His eyes stray around the backyard sanctuary my parents built over the years. Papa and Mama added plenty of Mediterranean flourishes, including a creamy four-foot-tall stucco fence that features a mural my late sister, Amy, painted the summer after she graduated from high school. A rock-and-rose garden rises in the middle of the yard. Papa’s tomato plants line the north side of the fence. To the surprise of everyone—no one more than me—I managed not to kill Mama’s prized rose bushes over the summer.

  “Every time I come here, I find myself thinking about what a cool yard this is,” Ed says. “Makes me wanna do something with my own place.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “Too fucking lazy,” he says with a chuckle.

  Papa eventually saunters out. Deano trots over to join him—another bloodhound hot on the scent of fresh meat. My father appears surprised but happy to discover that Ed is still here. They get along well, and I’m pleased that my retired father has someone to hang with. They’re of an age, and Ed appears to enjoy the company as much as Papa does. He seems to be in no hurry to wind things up. It’s not as if he’s charging us much, so I’m happy to play along.

  “Plummer, he late again?” Papa asks Ed in his fractured English. After forty-plus years in the US, he still hasn’t mastered the language.

  Ed nods, then points at the grill, where I’m just visible within a blanket of smoke as I battle to keep from charring the burgers. “Your kid needs a bigger grill, Francesco. Stop being a cheap bastard and get him one!”

  “Yes?” Papa asks him with an appraising glance my way.

  Ed nods. Papa nods. There must be a generational wavelength at work here. I may be getting a new grill!

  Papa wanders back into the house. Deano stares after him but isn’t prepared to abandon his burger quest.

  Jake Plummer lets himself into the backyard a minute later. The detective is in his mid-fifties, maybe five feet eight inches tall, is well on his way to bald, and is dressed in a nondescript gray suit that probably came off the rack at a department store. Cheap suits seem to be his detective uniform. “Ski!” he exclaims.

  Ed turns to look at his friend. “Hi, you culturally insensitive son of a bitch!”

  Plummer’s frosty mustache twitches as he laughs. He swears that his use of “Ski” to refer to Ed is nothing more than commentary on his friend’s rather prominent nose, wher
eas Ed insists it’s a slur on his Polish ancestry.

  Plummer makes a point of sniffing the air, which is still thick with smoke pouring out of the grill. “Smells pretty damned good out here.”

  “Good timing,” I tell him as I start transferring the cooked burgers into a CorningWare serving dish. “Want one?”

  Plummer takes another sniff and smiles. “Don’t mind if I do.”

  “Would one of you guys mind poking your head inside to let everyone know that we’re ready out here?” I ask.

  When Ed nods and starts to stand, Plummer puts a hand on his shoulder to stop him. “Got something I need to talk to you two about without anyone else listening.”

  Ed settles back into his seat. I plop the lid on the CorningWare bowl and set it on the side shelf, where the heat from the grill will keep the burgers warm. Something in Plummer’s demeanor puts me on edge.

  “A pal of mine from Chicago PD intelligence dropped in on me this afternoon,” he begins. “That’s why I’m late.”

  Ed cocks an eyebrow. “And?”

  “Some organized crime wise guy gave him a heads-up about a visitor from Italy who’s in town putting out feelers about Francesco.” Plummer studies me intensely. “Any idea what that’s about?”

  I might have an idea, but I need to think this through before answering.

  Plummer pauses for a beat to let me answer before he continues, “My first thought was that this has to be bullshit, but then my guy told me a little bit about who this character is supposedly associated with. You familiar with an outfit in Italy named Ndrangheta, Tony?”

  My sphincter muscle contracts. Yeah, I know who they are—mafioso on steroids.

  “Those are some nasty bastards,” Ed mutters.

  Jake nods in agreement, then turns back to me. “No screwing around here. What’s this about?”

  How the hell do I handle this? On his last night in jail during his murder trial, Papa had told me a horrible story about the rape and kidnapping of his sister from their hometown of Orsomarso in Italy when he was twenty years old. She was taken by members of the Cosche, a local offshoot of the national Ndrangheta. Papa had found her and killed the man who abducted her. He’d then spirited his sister and mother away to a monastery in a different Italian province before he fled to the United States with a price on his head. I tell Jake and Ed the story and end with a request to keep the information as confidential as they can. They both nod.

  “So, you think we need to take this seriously?” Ed asks.

  Plummer is looking at me as he nods. “Good call telling us about this, Tony. I get the feeling it was a tough call for you to make.”

  I nod. No shit. The story was meant for my ears only and I’ve respected Papa’s confidence ever since. Much as I’d like to continue doing so, this is no longer about keeping a secret. If the Ndrangheta has finally caught up to Papa, he may not be the only person at risk.

  “If you’re worried about legal jeopardy in the US over what Francesco did, don’t be,” Plummer says. “It happened ages ago and thousands of miles away. It’s nothing I’m inclined to act on.”

  Ed weighs in. “The fucker deserved to be blown away.”

  “Ain’t that the truth?” Plummer agrees. “Anyway, the question is: What are we gonna do about this?”

  “Why is this coming back on Papa now?” I ask. “It’s been almost fifty years.”

  Plummer purses his lips. “Francesco’s trial was pretty big news. Maybe word got back to the wrong ears in Italy.”

  “Most likely to this Orsomarso place,” Ed says. “I’ll bet this is personal. Some old asshole from back in the day wanting to settle a score. An outfit like the Ndrangheta ain’t likely to bother with shit like this, but if they did, they wouldn’t have come fishing for information. They would’ve just sent someone to take Francesco out.”

  Plummer nods thoughtfully. “Ski’s probably right.”

  “So, how do we play this?” Ed asks.

  I haven’t got a clue, but I think I know what I have to do next. “Papa needs to know. You guys decide what needs to be done, and we’ll do it.”

  Ed appears skeptical. “You think Francesco will just go along with whatever we tell him to do?”

  “Normally, I’d say no, but I’m not giving him a choice,” I reply.

  “He’s probably gonna be pissed that you told us this story at all,” Ed counters. “I doubt he’ll be in any mood to play along.”

  I’ve been thinking this through as we’ve talked, and my nonnegotiable bottom line is already clear. “Papa’s got a choice. He either does whatever you say needs to be done, or Brittany and I are out of here.”

  “Good call,” Plummer says.

  Ed nods. “Agreed.”

  Papa can rant and play the stern patriarch all he wants, but Brittany’s safety comes first. I glance down at the burgers. “Let’s go eat before these things congeal. Then I’ll talk to Papa, and we’ll go from there.”

  “Sounds good,” Ed says. Plummer agrees.

  I walk Papa to his bedroom after we eat and bring him up to speed. He’s pissed at me for spilling the beans to Ed and Jake. I let him rant for thirty seconds and then put my foot down. “We’re going to do whatever Ed and Jake suggest.”

  My father’s face morphs into that of the stern father of my youth. “You no tell me what to do, Anthony.”

  I raise a hand to cut him off. “Here’s the deal, Papa. It’s either that, or I take Brittany somewhere safe. Tonight.” That gets his attention. “Let’s go. Jake and Ed are waiting in the backyard to talk with us.”

  My father blows out a long, lingering breath that seems to deflate him a little, then nods and gets to his feet.

  “Boy talk,” I tell Brittany glibly as we pass through the kitchen on our way to the backyard. “Back in a few minutes.”

  Plummer and Ed are in quiet conversation with their heads close together when Papa and I emerge from the house. Their eyes track from my father to me in silent question.

  “Papa’s on board,” I announce.

  “What we do?” Papa asks.

  “We’re having a little disagreement about that,” Ed says, getting the jump on Plummer, who appears annoyed to be beaten to the punch. “I suspect you’re gonna agree with my plan, Francesco.”

  “Tell me this plan,” Papa orders him.

  “We’ve got a little group who call ourselves the fossils,” Ed says. “We’re a bunch of retired old cops who sometimes dust ourselves off to take on a security job. I’ll talk to a few of the guys tonight. Hell, this will be a little welcome excitement for the old bastards. Checkers, darts, and dominoes can only fill so many hours in a day. We’ll have guys here round the clock starting tomorrow morning while Jake tries to figure things out.”

  Plummer shakes his head and turns to me. “I’d sooner see you folks go somewhere for a week or two while I investigate.”

  “Nah, we can manage things here,” Ed says confidently.

  Plummer sighs. He’s skeptical. Worried. Should I be?

  “I no run away!” Papa proclaims in an outburst of machismo.

  Plummer meets my eye. “Sounds like we’ll have to dynamite Francesco’s ass out of here if we want him to go.”

  I spread my hands and suggest, “Maybe we should.”

  “I no go!” Papa reiterates.

  Ed, damn him, reassures Papa that he and the fossils can handle things.

  Plummer shuffles close and whispers, “I’ll expedite things, Tony—put out more feelers tonight to try to get to the bottom of this. If the threat seems real, we need to get your asses out of this house until we neutralize whoever the hell is gunning for Francesco.”

  “Agreed.”

  And so, against our better judgment, we surrender to Papa’s and Ed’s display of aging testosterone. For now.

  The detectives stick around for dessert. I feel a little naked after they depart. Ed’s fossils won’t be here until tomorrow, which leaves only me to protect Brittany and Papa. The gun
Papa purchased and used last year is long gone, trashed after he was acquitted of murder in the shooting it was used in. Looks as if I’ll be staying up tonight with only 911 on speed dial to defend us.

  Chapter Five

  I pull my car to the curb in front of Pat O’Toole’s Humboldt Park home just over a week later. Pat’s an old high school classmate who re-entered my life in the midst of last year’s turmoil. She’s a local reporter for the Chicago Tribune newspaper. Pat had been steadfast throughout Papa’s ordeal, even during a period when we had a falling-out. Our victory in the battle over the redevelopment plan for Liberty Street owed a great deal to her reporting. After a few bumps along the way, we’ve settled into a comfortable friendship with undertones of more.

  Pat suggested going for a little run in the park, so I’m decked out in a pair of fraying royal blue cotton shorts, a graying Marquette University T-shirt, and a pair of severely scuffed Nike cross-trainers—an outfit that indicates how little I get out to jog, let alone run. She wants to discuss her concerns about our upcoming lunch meeting with an aviation journalist who contacted me about the Windy City crash. She meets me at the door.

  “All good on the home front?” she asks. Pat knows that Ed Stankowski has stepped up Papa’s security but doesn’t know the details.

  “Ed and a couple of buddies are on duty,” I reply. “So far, so good.”

  Pat holds the door open and lets me in, then sits me at the breakfast counter with a sunshine yellow, smiley-face mug of steaming coffee. The mouth-watering aroma of bacon lingers in the air. Alas, I’ve come too late to partake.

  “Tell me a little more about Stankowski,” she says.

  “Ed’s an old detective who was pensioned off after he was shot in the leg during a domestic dispute. He says he’s too young to call it a day, so he keeps his hand in with security jobs, like babysitting Papa.”

  “And the fossils?” she asks with a quizzical smile.