Murder at Union Station

THIRTEEN

Bret Mullin was up early and at his desk at First District headquarters. He’d slept fitfully, visions of the busy scene at Union Station, the still body, and the many questions they raised interrupting his sleep.

Detective Vinny Accurso, twenty years with MPD, arrived minutes later.

Accurso was shorter than Mullin, solidly built, and with an outgoing disposition. He liked Mullin. More important, he respected the twenty-six-year veteran. Mullin was a good cop, with solid instincts. He’d broken some big cases over the course of his tenure with MPD, and had put his life on the line more than once.

Those positive traits aside, Accurso had two problems with being paired with the big, caustic detective.

The first had to do with Mullin’s reputation for taking the law into his own hands on occasion, resulting in formal complaints filed by citizens. Mullin had what others described as an Old West approach to law enforcement. He’d been known to collar recognized drug dealers and thugs, and rather than arrest them, rough them up, take them to the bus station at 12th Street and New York Avenue, and put them on the first bus out of town, warning that if they returned to D.C., they’d wish they hadn’t. Mullin’s unconventional handling of such criminals had been brought to the attention of internal affairs by disgruntled previous partners. Ever defiant, Mullin stood firm behind his actions and received no more than a series of official sanctions on paper that were inserted into his personnel file.

The second problem Accurso faced was Mullin’s reputation for hard drinking, the subject of MPD rumors, jokes, and concerns. The chief of the detective unit to which Mullin and Accurso belonged had engaged Mullin in heart-to-heart talks, encouraging him to take advantage of counseling available within MPD or to seek help from AA. Mullin, of course, denied that he had a drinking problem, and because no one had ever made the case that drinking interfered with his official duties, no further action was taken beyond those friendly suggestions from superiors.

Accurso carried two coffees from a luncheonette around the corner from headquarters and handed one to Mullin. “What’s up this morning?” he asked.

“The shooter at Union Station, that’s what up. Here.”

Mullin handed Accurso a composite sketch drawn overnight by an MPD sketch artist, based upon descriptions of the shooter provided by witnesses.

“Good-looking,” Accurso said. “It’s been distributed?”

“Uh-huh. Chief wants us to hand it out around black sections of town. I told him it was a waste of time. If this guy is from D.C., he’s long gone by now. Besides, this was no crackhead from the neighborhood out for some fun. This was a professional hit, Vinny.”

Accurso nodded his agreement and sipped the coffee.

“Look at this,” Mullin said, handing a file folder to his partner. “Just came in.”

Accurso opened the folder and read a report generated by the FBI’s central database. His eyebrows went up as he read, eventually accompanied by a smile and a slow shaking of his head.

“He’s an old mobster,” he said.

“Yeah. Catch his background. Italian father, Jewish mother.”

“Maybe that’s how he ended up in Israel.”

“No. Read further, buddy.”

Accurso went to the second page and frowned. When he’d finished reading, he looked up at Mullin and said, “Witness protection program. Mr. Russo ratted out his buddies.”

“Yup. Gambino family. He testified against some of his spaghetti-bender friends and put ’em away.”

Accurso, son of an Italian-American family, didn’t take offense at his partner’s derogatory reference to Italians. Mullin routinely used politically incorrect terms for every ethnic and racial group, but Accurso had learned over time that Mullin was not a prejudiced man, at least no more so than other cops he knew. He used ethnic and racial slang with every member of the force; if there was resentment, no one expressed it, at least not to his face.

“It was a hit, Vinny, plain and simple. It took the family twenty years to get even, but they did.”

“Looks that way.”

Accurso read further.

“He spent his first year in the program in Mexico. That’s a first.”

“Nah. The Bureau’s got some sort of agreement with the Mexicans to take in snitches like Russo. Gets ’em outta the country. Harder to find ’em that way. You see where Russo complained about being southa the border, said he didn’t like his accommodations. How about that? Maybe it was the spicy food.” Mullin snickered.

“So he goes to Israel. We have a deal with them, too?”

A shrug from Mullin. “Why knows? Maybe. You read the last paragraph?”

Accurso again looked at the report. “They lost interest in Russo,” he said. “Looks like the FBI had other things to worry about.”

“I love the way they describe it,” Mullin said, taking the paper from Accurso and reading aloud from it: “‘Operational contact with subject made low priority. Subject firmly settled in Tel Aviv with Jewish female companion. Age and deteriorating health render subject unlikely to leave the country.’”

“They got that wrong,” said Accurso.

“Big-time. So, Vinny, what was Mr. Louis Russo doing here in D.C.?”

“Playing tourist?”

“Look at this list of what he was carrying. Enough pills to stock a pharmacy. A doc’s name over at GW hospital. A medical history. Hell, judging from that, he was damn near dead already when he got it.”

“They contact this woman he was with in Israel?”

“Yeah. I don’t know whether they reached her yet. You watch TV news last night?”

“No, Katie and I watched one of those reality shows.”

“This place isn’t real enough for you?”

“Stupid show.”

“They all are. Sometimes reality is, too. I watched the news. Fox had this gal reporter who was at the station right after the shooting. She says some young guy asked about the victim. When she said she didn’t know, he blurts out the name.”

“Russo? Louis Russo?”

“That’s what she says.”

“We talk to her?”

“Eldridge did. She put out on the tube last night we want him to come forward. So how come this young guy knows the victim is Russo? Who the hell is he?”

“She give much of a description?”

“No. Kind of tall, heavyset, she said. Says she only saw him for a second. Excited. But not exactly broken up. I’d love to find this guy.”

“Maybe he will come forward.”

“Depends on what his game is. And mob connection, if there is one.”

“The Italian Mafia using black hit men these days?”

“That bothered me, too, except so many of the dago mob are in jail, maybe they have to go outside.” He grunted and stood. “Well, let’s head over to Northeast and spread the sketch around to some of our more prominent citizens, like the boss wants. That’ll kill the morning, and we can grab lunch at that joint we were at last week.”

As they walked to the unmarked car assigned them this day, Mullin said, “You know what I think, Vinny?”

“What?”

“Black, white, mob, no mob, Israel, offing a guy nearly dead anyway-I think this one ain’t going to go away any time soon.”