Cliff Walk: A Liam Mulligan Novel

Read Online Cliff Walk: A Liam Mulligan Novel by Bruce DeSilva - Free Book Online Page B

Book: Cliff Walk: A Liam Mulligan Novel by Bruce DeSilva Read Free Book Online
Authors: Bruce DeSilva
Ads: Link
tubes.”
    “Thanks. I will. That why you wanted to see me? To offer me a job?”
    “One of the reasons.”
    “What else?”
    “You looking into that Colfax Street child porn bust?”
    “I’m not,” I said.
    “Maybe you should.”
    “And why would that be?”
    “Day after the raid, this guy shows up in my office. Six two, blue eyes, gray hair, expensive razor cut. Wearing an Armani suit and a TAG Heuer watch. Maybe fifty or fifty-five. Wants to know do I have any Providence police contacts.”
    “Which you do.”
    “Of course.”
    “And?”
    “He asks could I give him a heads-up if his name surfaces in the child porn investigation.”
    “What’s this guy’s name?”
    “He says I don’t need to know until I agree to take his case.”
    “What did you do?”
    “I pulled out the top drawer of my desk, reached in, and told him I was going to shoot him if he didn’t get the hell out of my office.”
    “Got a gun in the top drawer, do you?”
    “I keep my Sturm, Ruger in the safe, but he didn’t know that.”
    “Recognize him?”
    “I didn’t. But it was a busy morning. Hard to find a parking space on the street. I figured he must have left his car in the municipal lot behind the town hall. As soon as he went out the door, I slipped out the back, checked the lot, and watched him get behind the wheel of a black, year-old Jaguar XJ.”
    “Piece of shit,” I said.
    “Yeah. Shouldn’t drive one of those unless you can afford to have a mechanic follow you around in a tow truck.”
    “Get the plate?”
    “Of course.”
    “Run it?”
    “Duh.”
    “So who is he?”
    “Charles B. Wayne.”
    “ Doctor Charles B. Wayne?”
    “The same.”
    “No shit?”
    “No shit.”
    I thanked him and got up to go.
    “Mulligan?”
    “Um?”
    “If the good doctor is a chicken hawk, do me a favor?”
    “What?”
    “Bury the sonuvabitch.”

 
    11
    The most interesting thing about Mary and Joseph Mendoza was that they had eight children and had named the three girls Mary and the five boys Joseph. I wondered how Joseph Sr. would manage now that his wife, just thirty-seven, had died from what the undertaker described as “a short illness.”
    I had two obits to go when Jimmy Cagney screamed, “You’ll never take me alive, copper!” The line from his 1931 classic, Public Enemy, was my ringtone for incoming from law enforcement sources.
    “Mulligan.”
    “Steve Parisi.”
    “Afternoon, Captain.”
    “Thought you’d like to know Vanessa Maniella and her mother came home Tuesday.”
    “Three days ago?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Guess you’ve been a little busy,” I said.
    “Be grateful I called at all, smart-ass.”
    “They ID the body?”
    Five seconds ticked off. Maybe six. “No, they did not.”
    “It’s not him ?”
    “We still don’t know.”
    “ What? Okay. Start from the beginning and tell me the whole story.”
    “You’re joking, right?”
    “Hey, you called me, remember? What can you tell me?”
    Five seconds again. “Just that they’re home. When I drove up to their place on the lake again Tuesday night, they were pulling a couple of big suitcases out of the Lexus.”
    “Where’d they been?”
    “They declined to say.”
    “Did they say anything ?”
    “I asked when did they last speak to Sal.”
    “And?”
    “Vanessa informed me that she and her mother had nothing to say to the police and referred me to her attorney.”
    “Why would she act like that?”
    “Been asking myself the same question.”
    “Makes you wonder if maybe she had him killed, doesn’t it?”
    That five-second delay again. “The thought crossed my mind.”
    “Got tired of waiting for the old man to turn the rest of the business over to her, did she?”
    “I wouldn’t want to speculate.”
    “Of course you wouldn’t,” I said. “So who’s the lawyer?”
    “Some broad named Yolanda Mosley-Jones.”
    “At McDougall, Young, and Limone,” I said.
    “You know her?”
    “We’ve

Similar Books

Three (Article 5)

Kristen Simmons

Naughty

Ann Voss Peterson, J.A. Konrath, Jack Kilborn

The Tour

Jean Grainger

Full Circle

Irina Shapiro

In Her Day

Rita Mae Brown

Cross

Ken Bruen