MURDER ONE
I was feeling great when we got to the county courthouse. The stately brick antique stood alone in the
center of a city square surrounded by ancient oaks big enough to pass for California redwoods, and
palm trees, which seemed somehow cheap and out of place beside them. The old place seemed to
groan under its burden of history. One story had it t1at Button Gwinnett had drafted his amendments
to the Declaration of Independence in one of its second-story offices. Another that, on Christmas Eve,
1864, in a secret meeting in one of the courtrooms, Sean Findley, Chief‟s grandfather, had turned
Dunetown over to General Sherman without a shot, after Sherman agreed to spare the city from the
torch. It was a story Teddy loved to tell, although the way he told it, old Sean‟s role in the surrender
came off more selfish than patriotic. Others apparently thought so too. The old man was assassinated
on the front steps of this same courthouse as he was being inaugurated as Dunetown‟s first post-war
mayor.
So much for history.
The DA‟s suite was on the first floor, protected by a frost-panelled door and little else. The door to
Galavanti‟s office stood open. The tough little district attorney „as poring over a sheaf of legal
documents as thick as an encyclopaedia, her Ben Franklin glasses perched on the end of her nose. I
leaned on the edge of the door and rattled my fingers on the jamb.
“Hi, kiddo,” I said. “Send anybody to the chair today?” She glowered at me over the top of her
glasses.
“I‟m not your kiddo, Mr. Kilmer,” he said. “We‟re not that familiar. How about the Harry Raines
tape?”
“A bust,” I said. “Nothing but a lot of rataratarata.”
She narrowed her eyes as if she didn‟t believe me and said, “I should have guessed that would
happen.”
“Now that‟s no way to talk to someone who just laid the biggest case in the county‟s history right in
your lap,” I said.
She leaned back, still staring warily at me.
“And just what case is that?”
I paused a little for effect, then said, “The State versus Sam Donleavy.”
She leaned forward so quickly that her chair almost rolled out from under her.
“You busted Sam Donleavy?” she said, her tone sounding like I had Just accused Billy Graham of
indecent exposure.
“He‟s being booked right now,” I said, as casually as I could make it.
“On what charge?”
“First-degree murder.”
She jumped up, all five feet of her, and stood with her mouth dangling open.
I held up a forefinger and repeated the news: “Murder one.”
She gulped. I had never heard anybody gulp before, but she definitely gulped.
“Who the hell did he kill?”
“How about Harry Raines for starters?”
“Oh my God!” she said, and the “God” stretched out for several seconds.
I walked into her office and dropped the Baggie-cased .38 on her desk.
“I‟d feel better giving this to you than the Keystone Kops down in homicide. It‟s the gun Donleavy
used to do the trick. We dug it out of the river about half an hour ago.”
“Harry Raines,” she said with awe, staring at the .38.
“Donleavy has an alibi but it won‟t hold water,” I continued. She hadn‟t caught up with me yet.
“Harry Raines?” she repeated, still staring at the gun, as though she expected it to say something back.
“You may have a little trouble proving premeditation,” I went on. “I don‟t think the idea occurred to
him until about thirty minutes before he did it.
This time she heard me and cut me off in midsentence. “That‟s plenty of time,” she said quickly.
“Hell, if he gave it five minutes‟ thought, that‟s premeditation enough for me.”
“If you can make it work in court, that‟s okay by me.”
“Why did he do it?”
I gave her the basic details as quickly as I could, including background on the pyramid accounts, the
Hollywood boxes, and Seaborn‟s questionably benign role in the matter.
“So the motive was fear of exposure by Raines,” she said. “Seems to me he was on borrowed time,
anyway. Tagliani would have surfaced sooner or later.”
“By that time Donleavy hoped to have established such a strong power base of his own that he could
override his „error in judgment.‟ That‟s what he likes to call it.”
“What do you call it?” she asked.
“Craft,” I said. “Besides, as I told Donleavy, murder leads to murder.”
“You mean he killed somebody else?” she asked, her eyebrows flirting with the ceiling.
“Accessory,” I said.
“Before or after the fact?”
“Both.”
“Who was it?”
“Ike Leadbetter.”
“Ike Leadbetter! Ike Leadbetter!”
“Yeah, you remember him, don‟t you? He used to be chief of police.”
“Leadbetter‟s death was an accident,” she said.
“Only because you couldn‟t prove otherwise,” I told her.
She closed one eye and gave me her sternest look. “Don‟t get uppity with me,” she said.
“Dutch Morehead thinks it was murder and I‟m inclined to agree. At first I figured Dutch was angry
arid wanted to make a case out of the Leadbetter drowning. It wasn‟t Tagliani‟s style to kill a police
chief, particularly when Tagliani was on the dodge. And there weren‟t any other likely suspects. Then
I thought better of it.”
“Oh? How come?”
“I don‟t believe in accidents any more than Dutch does. Not in this town. Not when the police chief is
the victim.”
“Why was Leadbetter killed?” she asked.
“Look, Ms. Galavanti, if one person in this town was likely to make Tagliani, it was Leadbetter. He
had done some time on the force in Atlantic City before coming here, so he was more than just a little
familiar with LCN and how it operates.”
“You think Leadbetter recognized Tagliani?” she said.
“Right, and Leadbetter went to Donleavy with it, the natural thing to do. After all, Donleavy was
Harry Raines‟ personal choice to head the Committee. Donleavy was facing exposure himself, so he
panicked and took it to Tagliani, who had Leadbetter burned. That‟s when Rio was set up and
Tagliani put Donleavy on the sleeve.”
“And had him on the hook forever,” Galavanti said.
“You get an A in the course. Want to try Cherry McGee next?”
“Cherry McGee? How about the Kennedys and Anwar Sadat?” she said. “Let‟s not leave anybody
out.”
“You want to finish the story for me?‟ I said.
“Go ahead, you‟re doing great,” she said. “Except that Long-nose Graves killed Cherry McGee arid
his hoodlums.” She paused for a moment, then added, “Didn‟t he?”
“Nope.”
“Humph,” she said. “I‟ll admit we tried everything but prayer to hang it on Graves.”
“And couldn‟t,” I said, “because he didn‟t do it. At least Graves says he didn‟t and I‟m inclined to
believe him.”
“Why?”
“I kind of like him.”
“Well, that‟s one hell of a good, legitimate reason,” she said caustically.
“Why would he deny it?” I said. “Everybody thinks he did it anyway, and he wanted to. Somebody
beat him to it.”
“Any ideas?” she asked, then, waving her hand vigorously in front of her face, said, “How silly of me,
I‟m sure you do.”
“Same cast,” I said.
“Are you saying Tagliani killed his own man?”
“Cherry McGee and Graves were in a Mexican standoff and Donleavy was on the spot again. He had
to stop all the shooting before Raines got nervous. When Tagliani couldn‟t nail Graves, he eliminated
McGee. McGee was a hired hand, he wasn‟t family. Tagliani couldn‟t have cared less.”
She whistled softly through her teeth. “Can we prove any of this?” she asked.
“Donleavy and Seaborn may break down and unload it all,” I said. “But if you‟re as good as they say
you are, it doesn‟t make any difference. Donleavy can only hang once, and most of the Taglianis who
were involved are probably dead.”
She looked at me like she was waiting for a second shoe to drop. Finally she said, “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Well, what do you want out of all this?”
I said, “Cohen, alive and spilling his guts. Then I‟ll have my RICO case. It would help me a lot if you
got a court order to freeze the pyramid account until we can get into it. I‟d like to know nobody‟s
going to push the erase button on the computer before we get there.”
“I‟ll take care of that in short order,” she said, running in high gear, her eyes as bright as a Mexican
sunrise. “Nobody‟s going to believe this,” she said, standing up and flipping her glasses on the desk.
“There is one more little favour I began.
She eyed me slyly. “I knew it,” she said.
“Did either Winslow or Lukatis have any priors?” I asked.
“I wish you‟d let me in on this thing you have about Lukatis.” “It‟s personal,” I said.
She pondered my question a little longer.
“Yes, there was a case on the books against Winslow,” she said finally.
“For what?”
“Controlled substance.”
“What happened to it?”
“Dead-docketed.”
“For...
“Lack of evidence.”
“Ah, good old lack of evidence,” I said.
“Look,” she said, “if I don‟t have the goods, I can‟t go to the grand jury. My buck and wing is
terrible.”
“I‟m not blaming you,” I said quickly. „Was it dropped before or after the trip with Lukatis?”
“I really don‟t remember.”
“Guess.”
“You son of a bitch.”
“Well?”
“Probably after.”
“Beautiful. And Titan asked you to drop the case, right?”
She had to think about that one for a while.
“Not exactly,” she said. “He just didn‟t come up with the goods for an indictment.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “Okay, we‟re even, kiddo. By the way, I suggest you push for a no bond on
Donleavy. If I‟m right, he probably has half a million dollars waiting for him in Panama. If he gets on
the street, he‟1 turn rabbit.”
“Over my dead body,” she snapped.
“Don‟t say that,” I groaned. “We‟ve got enough of them already. Who knows, kiddo, you just might
ride the Raines case into the governor‟s mansion.”
I winked at her as she scurried by and headed for the booking desk:
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