The Wrong Man

14

“So he shoots Kathy Rubinkowski, he walks over to her dead body and he steals her purse, cell phone, and necklace.” Shauna tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “How is that consistent with PTSD? He’s reliving a moment in Iraq, he shoots her, and then he robs her?”

Lying flat on the couch in the corner of my office, I threw my football up in the air and caught it coming back at my face. “I saw a movie once where a soldier stole a cigar out of the pocket of the dead enemy soldier. The spoils of war, I guess.”

“I guess. It takes a little sympathy out of your sympathy argument, though.”

“Don’t forget, Tom apologized to her.”

“Yeah, that’s great. ‘Sorry I shot you, really I am, but as long as I’m here, no sense in letting all that money in your purse go to waste.’ That’s a real crowd-pleaser, kid.”

She winked at me. Shauna was my best friend. She was my lifeline. It wasn’t so long ago that she pulled my head out of my ass and forced me to share office space with her. I was on track to throw my legal career into the dumpster after I lost my wife and daughter. I’ll always wonder what I would have done for a living. Maybe an astronaut. The rodeo circuit would have been cool. Though I’ve never ridden a horse, much less a bronco.

I continued my one-man game of toss. “It’s worse than that. It’s not even impulsive. Tom didn’t have any blood on him. Right? That’s what the police report said. And you saw that pool of blood around the victim’s body.”

Shauna leafed through the photos of the crime scene. “You’re right. He took her purse, her cell phone, and yanked the chain off her neck without getting any blood on himself. That would have taken some work.”

“I know. So it makes our sell tougher. We convey this image of a soldier in the heat of battle, and then he’s carefully helping himself to her possessions.”

“Maybe soldiers really do rob their enemies,” she said. “We need to find somebody who’ll testify to that.”

“Already on my list. Lightner’s working the witnesses right now. Those that aren’t still in Iraq.”

“Whoa. A Mob shooting,” Shauna said.

“Huh?” I looked over at her. She was fondling the mouse to my computer, checking the Internet. Then a light went on and I sat up, popping to attention. “Who was it?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Let me pull it up.” Her eyes moved along the computer screen. “Lorenzo Fowler? Hey, wasn’t he-”

“Shit.” I jumped off my couch and read over Shauna’s shoulder. Lorenzo Fowler, age fifty-two, reputed lieutenant in the Capparelli crime family, found dead on the 2700 block of West Arondale. The article was complete with a photograph of poor Lorenzo slumped against a glass door that read T ATTERED C OVER N EW amp; U SED B OOKS.

“A bullet through the throat and one through each kneecap,” Shauna moaned. “Ouch.”

I revisited our meeting. Lorenzo was in the soup, or so he thought, for the beating of a strip club owner. He wanted to make a trade with the prosecutors, if it ever came to that-the name of the Capparellis’ assassin of choice.

“Do you have an alibi for last night?” Shauna asked me.

“Wow. Lorenzo Fowler.”

“Seriously, Jason. Did he tell you anything that would be helpful to the police?”

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll just run over there and give a full interview with the police and breach the attorney-client privilege. While I’m at it, I’ll stop by the state supreme court’s chambers and turn in my law license.”

Shauna turned back to look at me. “I’m your law partner, pal. The privilege holds. Did he give you anything?”

Poor Lorenzo. Sounds like his fear was well-founded.

“He gave me Gin Rummy,” I said. “The name of a Mob hit man. Actually, he didn’t like that term. He preferred ‘assassin.’”

I read through the article again. Gunshots to the throat and kneecaps. The throat was the only one they needed. The shots to the kneecaps would have been gratuitous. It was punitive.

A message, delivered along with the kill.