Doppelgangster - Laura Resnick [22]
“I’m a witness, not a suspect, and I’m tired. I’ve told you everything I know, it’s late, so I’m leaving.”
“You’re not a suspect yet,” he said ominously. “But your behavior isn’t helping your situation. And don’t think that your personal involvement with Detective Lopez will protect you from the law, either.”
“I don’t need protection from the law,” I snapped.
I slung my purse over my shoulder and stomped out of the squad room, wishing a bad case of shingles on Napoli.
It took me hours to fall asleep that night.
In my mind’s eye, I kept seeing Charlie’s shocked expression as he keeled over dead. I also kept remembering his ranting about how he was marked for death and nothing could change that.
He knew he was going to be killed.
I hated imagining what that must be like. Charlie had been a loathsome specimen, but I recalled his terror in his final minutes of life, and I felt sorry for him.
I also recalled Napoli’s parting comment to me, and I wondered what Lopez was thinking right now, if he was still awake (which seemed likely—I suspected the cops would be working the case most of the night).
Napoli would be hard on him, I had no doubt about that. But did Lopez also think I was lying, since there was a discrepancy between what the cops thought had happened and what I had actually seen?
Oy. He and I really did have a lot to talk about. And, despite how much I had looked forward to his return, I wasn’t looking forward to the conversation we were going to have.
It was very late by the time I fell asleep. And it was very early when the shrill ring of the phone startled me awake. I flinched, choked, rolled over, reached toward my nightstand, and grabbed the phone.
“Hello?” I croaked.
“Were you asleep?”
“Who is this?”
“It’s me! Lucky!” His tone suggested this should be self-evident.
I glanced at my alarm clock. “Lucky? It’s six thirty in the morning. On a Sunday.”
“I know. We need to get there early.”
“Where?” I asked, my eyes stinging from lack of sleep.
“St. Monica’s.”
“The church?”
“It’s a safe place to talk,” Lucky said. “But we gotta get there before people start piling in for the first Mass.”
“I don’t want to talk, I want to sleep.”
“Time enough for sleep in the grave,” he said.
“Ohmigod!” His mentioning the grave made me remember what had happened last night. “Charlie.”
“Yep, that’s what we gotta talk about. Can you be there in thirty minutes?”
“What? Why?” Then I remembered the cops’ conviction that I was in danger. I sat bolt upright, suddenly wide awake as a terrible fear flooded me. I was being lured to my death! “Lucky . . . do you have orders to bump me off?”
“What?”
“Are you—Is this—” I couldn’t force out the words.
“Jesus,” Lucky said. “Those cops really did a number on you, huh?”
“I-I—” I panted a little.
“Calm down, kid. Breathe. Breathe.”
Feeling the first trickle of relief, I said, “You’re not going to kill me?”
“Madre di Dio, of course not!”
“I didn’t see anything,” I assured him.
“No one saw anything,” Lucky said. “It don’t make no sense. I been instructed to find out what happened. Before the cops find out. That gives me some time, obviously, because they’re idiots. But I still need to see you right away. You’re the last person who talked to Charlie before he got whacked.”
“I’m not sure about Napoli, he might be an idiot,” I conceded. “But Lopez is very sharp. You don’t want to underestimate him.”
“Then I guess I got less time than I thought,” Lucky said. “Be at the church in twenty, instead of thirty.”
“But—” I heard him hang up.
When a notorious hit man—even a semiretired one—tells you to get up, get dressed, and get downtown in twenty minutes, it’s amazing how fast you can comply, even on only a few hours of sleep.
I entered the hushed, shadowy sanctuary of St. Monica’s only twenty-five minutes after talking to Lucky.
The church was not very big or fancy, but it had a hallowed, sacred feel. The dawning sun shone through the stained glass windows lining the high walls. The tidy rows of dark wooden pews gleamed softly as the muted morning rays bathed them with