Hard Freeze

CHAPTER TWELVE

Chief of Detectives Captain Robert Gaines Millworth, aka James B. Hansen, went into his office on Saturday morning at the main precinct station on Elmwood, just across from the courthouse. It was snowing.

The sergeant at the desk and a few duty officers were surprised to see Captain Millworth, since he had the rest of his weekend off for the last of his vacation. "Paperwork," said the captain, and went into his office.

Hansen called up the file on the ex-con that Brubaker and Myers were tailing. He'd run across Joe Kurtz's name before, but had never paid much attention to it. Rereading the previous arrest file and the man's thin dossier, Hansen realized that this lowlife Kurtz represented everything Hansen despised—a thug who had parlayed a short stint as a military policeman into a private detective's license in civilian life, had been tried for aggravated assault fifteen years earlier—dismissed on a technicality—and then plea-bargained out of a Murder Two charge into a Man One twelve years ago because of the laziness and sloppiness of the district attorney's office. The penultimate entry in the file was an interrogation by the late Detective James Hathaway the previous autumn, relating to an illegal weapons charge that was dropped when Kurtz's parole officer, Margaret O'Toole, had intervened to report to the watch commander that despite Hathaway's report, the perp had not been armed when arrested by the detective in her office. Hansen made a mental note to make life miserable for Miss O'Toole when he got the chance… and he would make sure that he got the chance.

There were several pages in the file speculating on Mr. Joe Kurtz's connections with the Farino crime family, specifically with his prison connections with Stephen "Little Skag" Farino in Attica, and the brief report of an interview with Kurtz the previous November after the gangland killings of Don Farino, Maria Farino, their lawyer, and several bodyguards. Kurtz had an alibi for the evening of the murders, and no forensic evidence had connected him to what the New York City TV stations and papers had called "The Buffalo Massacre."

Kurtz was perfect for a role that Hansen had in mind: a loner, no family or friends, an ex-con, a suspected cop-killer, probable mob connections, a history of violence. There would be no problem convincing a jury that Kurtz was also a thief, someone who would murder a visiting violinist just for his wallet. Of course it should never come before a jury. Send the right detectives to arrest this Kurtz—say, those clowns Brubaker and Myers—and the state would be saved the cost of an execution.

But there would have to be evidence—preferably DNA evidence at the scene of the crime.

Hansen shut off the computer, swiveled his chair, and looked out through the blinds at the gray heap that was the courthouse. As he often did when events seemed confusing, Hansen closed his eyes and gave a brief prayer to his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. James B. Hansen had been saved and born again in Christ at the age of eight—the one thing his miserable excuse for a mother had ever done for him was to connect him to the Evangelical Church of Repentance in Kearney. He never took that for granted. And although he knew that his special needs might be looked upon by others as an abomination in the eyes of the Lord, Hansen's own special relationship with Jesus reassured him that the Lord God Christ used James Hansen as His instrument, Culling only those souls whom Jesus Christ Almighty wished Culled. It was why Hansen prayed almost ceaselessly in the weeks leading up to his Special Visits. So far, he had been a true and faithful servant to the will of Jesus.

Finished with his prayer, the captain turned back to his desk and dialed a private number, choosing not to make a radio call.

"Brubaker here."

"This is Captain Millworth. Are you on the Kurtz surveillance now?"

"Yes, sir."

"Where is he?"

"The Red Door Tavern on Broadway, Captain. He's been in there about an hour."

"Good. There may be something to your idea that Kurtz murdered those three Attica ex-cons, and something may turn up that might connect him to the death of Detective Hathaway. I'm authorizing your continued surveillance until further notice."

"Yes, sir," came Brubaker's voice. "Do we get at least one more team?"

"Negative on that," said Hansen. "We're short on people right now. But I can okay overtime pay for you and Myers."

"Yes, sir."

"And Brubaker," said James B. Hansen, "you report directly to me on this matter, understand? If this Kurtz is really the cop-killer you think he is, we're not going to leave a paper trail for Internal Affairs, or for the bleeding-heart Public Defenders' Office, or for anyone else to follow, even if we have to bend the rules with this punk."

There was a silence on the line. Neither Brubaker nor Myers nor anyone else in the division had ever heard Captain Robert Gaines Millworth talk about bending rules. "Yes, sir," Brubaker said at last.

Hansen broke the connection. As long as John Wellington Frears was sitting out at the Airport Sheraton, James B. Hansen did not feel comfortable or in total control of events. And James B. Hansen did not like feeling uncomfortable or out of control. This unimportant loose end called Joe Kurtz might prove to be very, very useful.

It was snowing harder when Kurtz took the toll bridge from the city of Niagara Falls onto Grand Island. The Niagara Section of the New York Thruway was a shortcut that ran north and south across the island from Buffalo to Niagara Falls. Grand Island itself was larger in size than metro Buffalo, but was mostly empty. Buckhorn Island State Park sat at its northern tip and Beaver Island State Park filled its southern end. Kurtz exited to West River Parkway and followed it along the Niagara River West, turning east again along Ferry Road, near the southern end of the island.

Kurtz pulled Arlene's Buick to the side of the road and lifted the Nikon with the 300-mm lens attached. The Gonzaga compound was set back a quarter of a mile from the road, recognizable only by distant tile roofs just visible above a high wall that ran completely around the complex. The long access road was private and monitored by video cameras. Kurtz could see razor wire along Ferry Road and more lines of fence between the outer perimeter and the actual wall. The entrance to the compound was gated; there was a Mediterranean-style guardhouse at the gate, and with the long lens, Kurtz could see the silhouettes of three men inside. One of the men was lifting a pair of binoculars.

Kurtz put the Buick in gear and drove east, getting back on the highway and turning north toward Niagara Falls

The helicopter tour usually cost $125 and included a swoop over Niagara Falls and the Whirlpool downriver.

"I've seen the Falls and the Whirlpool," Kurtz told the pilot. "Today I want to see this property I'm considering on Grand Island."

The pilot—an older, redheaded man who reminded Kurtz of the actor Ken Toby—said, "That would be charter. This is just tourist. Different rates. Plus the weather's pretty shitty with these snow squalls. FAA doesn't want us flying tourists if the visibility isn't great or if there's a real chance of icing."

Kurtz handed him the two hundred dollars he had borrowed from Arlene.

"Ready to go?" asked the pilot.

Kurtz grabbed his camera bag and nodded.

From a thousand feet up, the layout of the Gonzaga compound was pretty obvious. Kurtz shot two rolls of black-and-white film.

Driving back to Buffalo, he called Angelina Farino Ferrara on the private line.

"We need to talk privately," he said. "At length. In person."

"How do we do that?" said the woman. "I've got two extra assholes these days."

"Me too," said Kurtz without elaborating. "What do you do when you want to meet some guy to screw him?"

There was a silence on the line. Eventually she said, "I presume this is relevant."

Kurtz waited.

"I bring them here," she said at last. "To the marina penthouse."

"Where do you pick them up?"

"A bar I go to or the health club," she said.

"Which health club?"

She named it.

"Expensive," said Kurtz. "Use the phone I gave you to call and leave a guest pass for me tomorrow at one. Your goons haven't seen photos of me, have they?"

"No one has except me," said Angelina.

"You and the guys you hire to kill me."

"Yes," she said.

"When do your bodyguards report to Little Skag?" asked Kurtz.

"I'm pretty sure it's Wednesday and Saturday if nothing really unusual happens," she said.

"We have a few days then," said Kurtz. "Unless screwing a stranger would be considered unusual for you."

Angelina Farino Ferrara said nothing.

"Do Tweedledee and Tweedledum actually work out with you?" asked Kurtz.

"They stay in the weight room where they can see me through the glass," said Angelina. "But I don't allow them to get close." She was silent for a minute. "I take it that you and I are going to discover an instant attraction, Kurtz."

"We'll see. At least we'll be able to talk at the health club."

"I want my two pieces of property back."

"Well, one of them you might not want to keep," said Kurtz. "I donated part of it to a Native American today."

"Shit," said Angelina. "But I still want it back."

"Sentimental value," said Kurtz.

"Yes. So are we going to discover an immediate attraction when we meet at the health club?"

"Who knows?" said Kurtz, although he had no plans to return to the Farino headquarters at the marina tomorrow. But if she didn't have him killed at the health club, he might need to spend more time with her if his Gonzaga plan was going to work.

"Assuming we do hit it off in this alternate universe, when the time comes are you going to ride to the penthouse with the Boys and me or will you be driving yourself?"

"Driving," said Kurtz.

"You're going to need a better car and a much nicer wardrobe."

"Tell them you're slumming," said Kurtz, and broke the connection.

Late that evening, Arlene drove Kurtz back to the Red Door Tavern—he had to pound on the alley door of the place to get the bartender to let him in so he could walk through—only to find Brubaker and Myers gone from their surveillance and his Volvo scratched down the length of its driver's side. Evidently one or the other of the detectives had looked inside the bar, found Kurtz gone, and then vented his frustration in true professional form.

"To protect and serve," muttered Kurtz.

He drove out to Lockport carefully, checking for tails. No one was following him. These cops have the stick-to-it quality of an old Post-it Note was Kurtz's uncharitable thought.

Down the street and around the corner from Rachel's home, he used the electronic gear he'd brought and checked on the various bugs. Donnie was out of town, as promised. Rachel was home alone, and except for the sound of the TV—she was watching Parent Trap, the Hayley Mills version—and some humming to herself, and one call from her friend Melissa in which Rachel confirmed Rafferty's absence, there was nothing to hear. Kurtz took the humming as a good sign, shut down his equipment, dropped the electronic gear by the office, and drove back to the Royal Delaware Arms.

The plaster dust was undisturbed since that morning. The repairs to his door allowed him to get the police bar in place. Kurtz cooked a dinner of stir-fry on the hot plate and ate it with some cheap wine he'd bought on the way home. The apartment had no TV, but he owned an old grille-front FM radio that he tuned to Buffalo's best jazz/blues station and listened to that while he read a novel called Ada. The wind was cold and seemed to blow in through the plaster cracks and seep up through the floor. By 10:00 p.m., Kurtz was cold enough to check his locks and police bar, flip the big couch into a fold-out bed, brush his teeth, make sure his.40 S&W and Farino Ferrara's two.45s were in reach, and turn in for the night.