Simply Lies

Chapter 17

“Why the hell should I tell you anything else?” barked Rick Rogers in a clearly annoyed tone on the phone with his daughter the following morning. “Since you clearly didn’t take my advice.”

Gibson said, “Look, don’t get pissed at me, but I have to work this thing a little longer. And I’m not saying I won’t go to the cops. In fact, I tried to, but it didn’t work out.”

“What happened?”

“It doesn’t matter. I went in for cover and got none.”

“What are you angling for here, Mick? I’ve told you all I know about Langhorne.”

“But you might know someone from the old days who knows more,” countered Gibson.

He let out a long sigh and she waited, patiently. Experience had taught Gibson that her father almost always reached the right conclusion when it came to him, meaning the conclusion she wanted. She just had to give him time, space, and the understanding that it was ultimately his decision and not hers.

“I actually might know a guy. He was a detective in Newark, but he worked on the case because it crossed all sorts of jurisdictional lines. He and I talked shop about it over the years.”

“Is he retired?”

“Oh, yeah, he was older than me. Let me make some calls and I’ll get back to you.”

“Thanks, Dad, I really appreciate this.”

“Yeah, yeah. I shouldn’t be doing this, you know.”

“You’re just trying to help out your little girl.”

“Right, my little girl who has Daddy wrapped right around her little finger.”

“You need to stop listening to Mom.”

“You try that. And I wish you luck. You’ll need it.”

He clicked off and she headed to her office.

The kids were with Silva. With the situation the way it was, she had arranged with the woman to come over every day for the next week, and luckily Silva’s schedule allowed for that.

As soon as she got to her office her phone buzzed. It was Wilson Sullivan.

“You busy?” he asked.

“I’m never too busy to help you, Detective Sullivan,” she replied brightly.

“You know, you’re very good at that.”

“At what?” she said innocently.

“Exactly. Anyway, we have some developments. Can you meet me at Stormfield? Or do you have kid stuff to do?”

“I have a babysitter today. I can be there in about an hour and a half. What developments?”

“I’ll fill you in when you get here.”

Gibson thought, Did I just get my official cover?

She quickly changed into jeans, a white blouse, and a dark jacket, checked in with Silva, hugged her kids, and drove off in the van. When she arrived at Stormfield, Sullivan was standing out front. Nearby, a trooper was sitting in a marked car.

She walked up to Sullivan, and he said, “Let’s go inside.”

As they entered the home, she suddenly had a weird feeling that this might be a setup.

Did someone see me dusting the mailbox for prints and rat me out? Am I about to be arrested for obstruction of justice, tampering with evidence, or for just being stupid?

He led her to where the body had been discovered.

“What I’m about to tell you goes no further, okay?” he said.

She made a show of locking her lips and throwing away the key.

He pointed to the chair where Pottinger had been found. The fan had been taken away and everything was coated in fingerprint powder.

“First of all, like you intimated before, Daniel Pottinger was not his real name.”

She managed, she hoped, to look suitably surprised. “But you said people around here knew him.”

“He hadn’t owned the place for all that long, and he wasn’t here full-time. In fact, he was almost never here. So local people never got to know him.”

“So who is he really, then?”

“Fellow named Harry Langhorne.” He studied her in the dim illumination provided by a pair of battery-powered police work lights set on tripods. “Ring a bell?”

She pretended to think on this. “Not really. Should I know the name?”

“I only asked because he was from your neck of the woods, but a totally different generation.”

“He was from Jersey City?”

“No, sorry. In the south we just tend to lump all of New Jersey into one place. He was from Trenton.”

“What do you know about him?”

“He was an accountant for the mob decades ago. Apparently he turned state’s evidence on them, and brought down some mafia families.”

“So you think they finally caught up to him? All this time later?”

“I don’t know. I don’t have much experience with the mob.”

She smiled. “And since I’m from Jersey, I do? Is that why I’m here?”

“I didn’t mean to imply that. But I suspected he was mob related even before we had identified him.”

“Why?” asked Gibson.

In answer Sullivan held up his hand, palm facing her. “He had a burn mark here on his right hand.”

“How’d he get it?” she asked.

“As an initiation the mob would prick the person’s finger, smear the blood on a picture of a saint, and set the picture on fire, and the initiate would have to hold the burning picture while repeating the oath of loyalty to the mob.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah. And if you break the oath, you burn like the saint did. I didn’t know that beforehand. I had to research it after I was shown the mark.”

Gibson decided to take control of this opportunity. “Look, I’ve got contacts back in Jersey. I’ll talk to them and maybe they can put us in touch with somebody who knows something.”

“ ‘Us’?” said Sullivan.

“Look, you called me. I’m just trying to help. But if I’m going to call in some markers to help you, I feel an obligation to at least be in the loop on this sucker. I do have a reputation to maintain.”

He studied her for an uncomfortably long time. For some reason her gaze dipped to his ring finger, and she saw that it was naked of gold, silver, or platinum.

“Well?” she finally said.

“Deal.”

“Do we shake on it? I don’t want to do the burning-picture thing,” said Gibson.

They did so and she said, “So how did he die?”

“Why do I think I just got suckered?”

“My request is pretty reasonable if I’m going to help you on this.”

“He was poisoned,” said Sullivan.

“If it was poison, how do you know he was murdered? It could have been suicide.”

Sullivan touched his wrist and pointed to his ankles. “He was restrained.”

“I didn’t see any evidence of that.”

“You wouldn’t. The restraints were removed after he was dead. The marks were under his clothing.”

“So they watched him die?” said Gibson.

“Could be. Which might dovetail with this being a revenge killing.”

“Okay, I’ll call you as soon as I know something from my sources.”

“Thanks.”

“You could have told me all this on the phone,” Gibson noted.

“I also wanted to show you something.”

“Where?”

“Follow me.”