Detective Lorena Evans may have been a brilliant detective, but she didn’t know shit when it came to being hit on. It was comical really. She had a bloodhound nose for crime and catching criminals, but when Mrs. Sarchione’s lawyer hit on her, she’d missed that by a mile. Yesterday when they’d gone to a diner where a lot of the cops in the area frequented, one of the detectives from another precinct had hit on her, too. Bob just looked at Jack and grinned knowingly. Jack had also smirked, and the poor cop had slinked away in confusion. Unlike Evans, Jack knew when a woman was interested in him. He knew Muriel Papacostas was flirting with him, but he just wasn’t interested in her. Not that he hadn’t found her attractive, but he just wasn’t looking for a relationship with anyone.
So far in two weeks, they’d interviewed the help, some of the people at the food factory where Mr. Sarchione employed over three hundred people, and another neighbor, who turned out to be an annoying asshole. He was just nosing for his own information, likely to spread gossip and leak it to the press to get some quality face time on television.
They were on their way, just he and Lorena, to talk with one employee in particular, who the human resources secretary said had reported off every day since the murder even though the factory reopened a few days after the murder per Mrs. Sarchione’s mandate. They’d also been tipped off by another employee about the same potential suspect. She’d said that the man hated their employer and talked about blowing up his mansion.
Bob was in route with another detective to search the Sarchione’s office again. It was still early in the day, but Jack also needed to meet back up with the queen, who called last night to tell him that he had invites for the big party. He’d also asked Jack if he would meet him at a bar down on 18th street for a drink where he’d turn over the tickets. Jack just hoped it wasn’t a cross-dressing bar. He was going to stand out like a sore thumb. He didn’t even own a proper pair of heels.
Lorena was on her phone checking stats on the guy they were about to interview when her phone buzzed in a call.
“Evans,” she answered it. “Got it. Thanks.”
A moment later, she hung up and hit Jack with a meaningful stare, “We’ve got ourselves an official suspect. The guy we’re going to see? Travis Campenelli? Not only has he not been to work all week, he’s a real gem. This guy skipped his court appearance about three months ago.”
She scrolled through her phone looking at the rap sheet that was just sent over.
“He’s got a warrant for B & E, history of selling and buying crystal meth. Sounds like a nice guy.”
“Sounds like the kind of guy I’d want working for me,” Jack joked.
“Or living next to me,” she remarked.
Jack said, “Wonder if he owns any wigs?”
He pulled his Jeep to the curb in front of an old home in a particularly low-rent district. Apparently Mr. Sarchione hadn’t paid his employees enough to live in the same area where he once lived. Jack pulled down the bill of his Cleveland Indians baseball cap and laid his sunglasses on the dash.
“Think this’ll go smoothly?” he asked, ducking to peer out Lorena’s window up at the suspect’s house.
“Yeah, sure,” she said with sarcasm. “People love it when we arrest them on warrants.”
Jack grinned and they both exited the Jeep. The front yard hadn’t been mowed more than once this summer, the stems and tips of the grass having long since turned brown from the Cleveland heat. They let themselves in through the front gate, which hung crookedly on one hinge. The chain-link fencing sagged in places. An upstairs window was boarded up with plywood. A bed sheet was being used as substitute draperies on the other second-floor window. A car sat in the driveway nearly behind the house on a jack. Music blared from the garage area near it. Jack indicated they should go that way, and Lorena nodded.
When they rounded the corner of the house, they found a man’s legs sticking out from under a car, a ’78 TransAm that had seen some weathering and hardly resembled a car-show ready competitor.
“Mr. Campenelli?” Lorena called as they drew near. “Travis Campenelli?”
The man rolled out from under the car on a mechanic’s creeper. He shoved upward and came to his full height. He was even taller than Jack and built like a bull.
“Who wants to know?” he asked abrasively.
“Are you or are you not Travis Campenelli?” Jack asked with less patience.
“Fuck you, hotshot,” the man said, his long black hair- mostly concealed under a black bandana with white skulls- sweating and dripping onto the front of his sleeveless concert tee.
“Do you live here?” she questioned.
“What’s it to you, bitch?” the man asked.
Jack shook his head. Campenelli was exposing his gentlemanly manners. He was a real charmer.
Lorena pushed the flap of her navy blue blazer to the side and flashed her badge, which was hooked to her waistband. The man’s dark eyes immediately darted around in a panic. Jack stepped forward right before Travis tried to make a break for it. He grabbed the man’s wrist, cranking it severely around. He spun him, slamming Campenelli’s chest onto the hood of his jacked-up car. Lorena squeezed in and cuffed him quickly. She didn’t mess around. Jack was thankful that it went so smoothly. He never really enjoyed running through streets chasing down suspects.
A woman came down the back three stairs of the run-down house and started screeching at them. Lorena met her before she got to them and subdued the haggard-looking young lady. Jack kept an eye on Campenelli, forcing him to sit down on the cement curb out front while they waited for a car to pick him up.
Lorena called it in and within ten minutes a squad car came to take their potential suspect down to the station where they could question him. Having that outstanding warrant had made the pick-up and now questioning so much easier.
Once the man was gone, they sat down with his girlfriend in their flea-infested hovel and questioned her. He was surprised that she invited them in. Lorena had spoken to her alone for quite a while. Apparently she was good at getting people to do things they really didn’t want to do.
They found out that her name was Bobby Lynn, and she and Campenelli had been together for about eight months. Jack tried not to flinch when she offered them a seat at the dirty kitchen table. It reminded him of the metal tables and chairs with the vinyl top that all old homes had when he was a kid. This one had long since seen better days and would be better repurposed to a scrap yard.
“Where were you two weeks ago Thursday, the fourth?” Lorena questioned.
“I don’t know,” Bobby Lynn answered with genuine confusion. “Lemme’ think a minute.”
She lit a menthol and blew the smoke out through her nose.
“I got it,” she said, her eyes dazed from whatever she’d already been imbibing today. “We were at Sonny’s.”
“Is that a friend?” Jack asked.
She shook her head, sending dirty blonde around her face. “No, man. Sonny’s. The bar?”
“And you were there between what times?” Lorena drilled.
“I think we went there around six after I got off work,” she said and rubbed her nose. Mascara, likely from the day before, was smeared under both eyes.
“Where do you work, ma’am?” Jack asked next.
“I work part-time at the Speedway and clean houses on Sundays,” she answered and chewed the nail on her third finger.
She didn’t wear a wedding ring but three, thin silver rings on her index finger.
“And you and Mr. Campenelli went to the bar, Sonny’s?” Lorena asked, getting a nod. “When did you leave?”
“Leave? We closed it down, girl,” she answered as if they had some sort of camaraderie.
“So that would’ve been around…” Lorena repeated for clarification.
“’Round two or thereabouts,” Bobby Lynn said, flicking ashes haphazardly into a nearly full ashtray.
“And…” Lorena asked but was interrupted.
Bobby Lynn demanded, “You never said yet what my Travis’s been arrested for. What’s the deal? Why you guys take him like that?”
Jack answered for them, “Just have a few questions for him. He has an outstanding warrant, so I’m not sure if he’ll be able to post bail. But we need to speak with him about another matter, too.”
Bobby Lynn’s eyes darted around nervously. Jack could tell that she already knew about her boyfriend being wanted by the police. Hell, this woman could have her own list of outstanding warrants.
“Was it his job?” she asked after a few moments of uncomfortable silence.
Lorena immediately asked, “Why would you ask that? Did he have trouble at work?”
Bobby Lynn shrugged and said, “He didn’t like his job. Or his dick of a boss.”
“Is that so?” Lorena said rhetorically. “Why not?”
“He was a rich asshole. Treated his workers like shit. That’s why.”
“Lots of people don’t like their employers,” Lorena remarked. “I don’t like mine, either.”
Jack was pretty sure this was a blatant lie just to get the woman to spill the beans. He’d seen Lorena chatting it up with their captain just this morning. She had been laughing at something he’d said, and she hadn’t complained once during the past few weeks about him. He knew plenty of cops who hated their lieutenant or the mayor or whoever was in charge of them.
“Oh, yeah? Me, too. Most bosses are pricks, you ask me,” Bobby Lynn confirmed.
“Did he ever complain about his employer in a manner that would make you think he would do anything in retaliation against him?” Jack asked cautiously, trying not to alarm her.
“Oh, sure!” Bobby Lynn volunteered. “Don’t we all? I’d like to burn down half the houses I clean for rich assholes.”
Lorena frowned and redirected to ask, “But did you ever get the impression that he would actually do anything?”
“Nah, he was just shit talkin’ as usual,” she said. “Used to call him a pig. He really hates that prick.”
“Why did you ask if we picked him up because of his job?” Lorena asked again.
Jack’s eyes met Lorena’s across the small table and she nodded nearly imperceptibly. They’d both picked up on the use of the word “pig.” It was one of the words scrawled on the wall in blood behind Mr. Sarchione’s bed.
“I figured ‘cuz he called off all week and that someone he works with turned him in for his warrants,” she blurted and then looked startled that she’d done so.
“Friends at work, you mean? Like one of them would’ve narced him out for having warrants?” Lorena asked, scribbling away in her pad.
“Yeah, maybe,” she confessed. “He’s got a few pals at work. Goes out drinkin’ with ‘em sometimes.”
Jack noted the names of the two men after some gentle prodding for them. They thanked Bobby Lynn for her cooperation and left the hovel. There were places all over Cleveland like Campenelli’s. Homes that should’ve been torn down or at the very least, condemned. Jack was hardly surprised anymore at the condition in which people could live. He’d seen it all working in Portland and Miami, both of which had an enormous population of homeless people, as well.
As soon as they were in the car, Lorena called in to ask their captain if he’d send someone over to question the bar owner. It was one less place they’d have to visit and the task should be fairly simple. They had a date with Campenelli down at the station. He should just about be through booking and ready for them to question.