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Adam and Cray stood outside their cars, looking down the road at the mobile home. In better shape than similar homes they’d driven past but not a candidate for Palace of the Year. The siding was more grayish than the original white, and the maroon shutters hadn’t seen a new coating of paint in years. Adam had the fleeting thought the occupant should ask Vernon Atkinson for some of that leftover cranberry paint.
“You like cranberry?” He asked Cray.
“The fruit?”
“And the color.”
“Can take or leave either. You thinkin’ of getting into interior decorating, Dutton?” Cray unzipped his jacket revealing his gun holster.
“Just asking.” The blinds on the unit were shut, and Adam didn’t see any fingers lifting up the slats as they approached. He led the way up the three stairs to the tiny front deck and rapped on the door.
The man who answered the door looked like he could be Italian. Olive complexion, black hair swept back with a healthy dose of hair gel, pencil mustache, and a “soul patch” goatee. He also wore a leather necklace with small silver metal beads—suspiciously like the silver circle Adam had found in the woods at the crime scene.
Adam asked, “Bruno Giacometti?”
The man licked his lips. “Yeah. Who’s asking?”
“My name is Dutton. Detective Adam Dutton. I want to ask you about a shipment of minerals that—”
He didn’t have a chance to finish his sentence before Giacometti slammed the door in their faces. Cray said, “Well, now, that’s downright rude. Too bad we’re past the days of battering rams.”
Just then, they heard the sound of a door being slammed in the rear of the trailer. Cray took out after Giacometti, with Adam following through the woods. Their quarry didn’t look like a star athlete, but he set a fast pace. Cray was falling behind, and Adam made a note to tease him about his cheeseburger diet later.
Adam was gaining on the guy. He kept an eye on flashes of the guy’s blue shirt as they hurdled over fallen tree stumps and zigzagged around tall pines and shorter barberry shrubs. When he recognized a tree they’d passed, with two knothole-eyes and a mouth-like opening that made it look like a screaming face, Adam suspected Giacometti was doubling back toward the mobile home.
Sure enough, Giacometti headed straight to his truck in the driveway. But when he fumbled in his pocket for his keys, Adam saw his chance. He lunged at the other man’s legs and tripped him to the ground.
Cray got there seconds later, picked up the prone man as if he were a mere sack of potatoes, and put him in a headlock. He waited for Adam to cuff Giacometti and stuff him into Adam’s car.
“Now see, Dutton, here’s what I don’t get. This fellow here could have saved himself a trip down to your lovely little police station by answering a few questions. Or maybe he’s training for a marathon.”
Giacometti scowled at both of them.
Adam headed back to the station with Cray’s car following behind. As they stopped at a red light, Adam turned around to face his “guest” and said, “You’re looking at some potentially serious charges. Grand larceny, evading, resisting arrest, murder.”
“Murder? The guy ain’t dead. He’s in the hospital.”
“I was referring to Wallace Ryall. Who is very much dead.”
Giacometti clammed up after that, and they rode the rest of the way in silence.
§ § §
After leaving their catch to stew in a cell, Adam and Cray met with the chief to fill him in, with Cray promising to write up as much as he knew and felt he was able to tell. He wouldn’t budge on his “mystery client,” however. Adam could tell Chief Quinn considered throwing him into a holding cell along with Giacometti. But Adam had a good idea who the client was and raised an eyebrow at the chief as a signal, so Quinn relented.
Adam had hoped the time it took for the meeting, plus getting Cray’s details, plus filling in Jinks, would make Giacometti ready to sing. Instead, the “Italian Stallion” took the opportunity to call an attorney. Or try to call an attorney.
The sergeant watching him through a glass partition said the first two calls didn’t end very well, with the accused pleading and cajoling to no avail. According to the sergeant, Giacometti’s mumblings afterward revealed he’d contacted lawyers who knew him well enough to tell him to take a hike.
Meanwhile, Adam discovered Giacometti had a rap sheet—fraud, theft, drug possession. Plus, his name was fake, and he wasn’t Italian at all. He was really Bruno Smith.
Adam had Smith/Giacometti brought to the interview room where the first words out of the guy’s mouth were “I want a lawyer. I know my rights.”
Adam nodded. “You’ll get one.” He waited without saying anything else for several minutes, continuing to stare at the other man, which made the guy start to fidget.
“You can’t pin anything on me. Not larceny or murder. You ain’t got nothing.”
“We’ll see what your partner has to say about that.”
“Partner?” Giacometti stopped fidgeting.
“She’s been quite helpful.”
“You’re nuts. She wouldn’t—” He bit his lip, then slipped down in his seat.
The door opened, and Jinks breezed in, a paper in hand. She handed it to Adam, then stood in a corner, putting on her very best “don’t mess with me” look.
Adam read it and looked up at Giacometti. “Seems we got a partial fingerprint on the poisoned coffee cup that put Braddon Hopper in the hospital. Surprise, surprise, it’s yours.”
“You’re making it all up. You cops always make it up. Get your jollies sending innocent people to prison.”
“Be a shame if you go to prison, but your partner goes scot-free.”
Their prisoner muttered. “I ain’t no rabbit coward.”
Adam gave him a sharp look. “Funny you should say that. Not a common phrase. Yet, it was on the alleged ‘suicide’ note sent to me on my cellphone.”
He snorted. “So what? That the best you got?”
Jinks spoke up. “I looked that phrase up yesterday. Un coniglio is popular Italian slang for coward. And coniglio means ‘rabbit.’”
Adam smiled, “Giacometti—that’s Italian, right? Even if it’s fake Italian?” The other man gave him a middle-fingered ‘salute.’
“Come now, Mr. Giacometti. We’re one big melting-pot happy family here, right Jinks?”
She grinned, and Adam asked her, “Jinks, remind me again. What’s the difference in typical sentences between larceny, attempted murder, and murder? I keep forgetting.”
“Grand larceny and attempted murder might get you eight to ten. Murder, well, that’s life right there.”
Seeing Giacometti’s stoic expression and arms wrapped across his chest, Adam shrugged. “Guess we’re done here, then. Be seeing you in court, pal.”
Adam and Jinks got up to leave and had almost closed the door when Giacometti called out after them. When they ducked their heads in, he said, “That state’s evidence thing. That’ll reduce a sentence, right?”
Adam looked at Jinks, they walked back inside, and this time, their canary started to sing.
