Three Wilde Months (A Tommy Wilde Thriller Book 3) Page 2

  Tommy felt his blood pressure peak.

  It is what it is? How can she possibly reduce killing a cop to something as mundane, and clichéd, as ‘it is what it is’?

  “I never killed anybody, Aurora. Nobody.”

  Darrell killed himself. I just watched him die. And Scooter… well, Vinny did that. I just arranged the checker pieces and watched the game play out.

  “Maybe not, but you’re far from innocent. You work for my dad, and you get rid of bodies… it’s just a short step from there to actually pulling the trigger.”

  Tommy had an argument at the ready, but he knew that nothing he could say now would move this conversation forward. Besides, there were better times to discuss the philosophy behind the Trolley Problem than now; there were more pressing issues to deal with at present.

  “I can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t do this. I’m not—”

  Tommy froze when there was a sudden knock at his front door. Aurora, who seemed to have the emotional scope of a dehydrated snail, startled. When her eyes drifted over his shoulder, the woman’s bright green eyes went wide.

  Tommy, his face a mask of fear now, slowly swiveled around.

  The knocking returned.

  “Hello? Anyone in there? NYPD. Anyone home?”

  Chapter 3

  Run! Just fucking run, Tommy… get the fuck out of here and run! Don’t take anything, don’t look back, just run!

  But he knew that Aurora was standing directly behind him. Not only would this complicate the ‘run’ scenario, but she still had a gun… one that she’d used at least once and would perhaps use again.

  He had to give Aurora credit, though, she was anything but borrring.

  Tommy took a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves. If he wasn’t going to run there were only two other options available to him: remain completely silent and hope the officer went away or open the door.

  For some reason, despite Marv’s still warm corpse at his feet, he was leaning toward the latter. And when Aurora gave him a gentle nudge forward, Tommy’s decision was made.

  Before the officer could knock a third time, Tommy strode forward, grabbed the door handle, and opened it just a few inches.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, sir,” a man in an NYPD uniform began. Unlike Marv and, to a lesser degree, Scooter, this didn’t appear to be the typical alpha male police officer with a short man complex. The man on the stoop was heavyset with a thick chin, pockmarked cheeks, and dark circles around his pale eyes. “But we had a complaint about a sound coming from this residence? Something that might have been a gunshot?”

  Tommy gawked.

  “G-g-gunshot?” he stammered. “I didn’t hear anything, especially no gunshot. I mean, we were just—”

  A hand came to rest on Tommy’s shoulder, and it took all of his willpower not to slam the door closed.

  “Please excuse Tommy,” Aurora said. She pulled the door open a little wider so that the officer could get a glimpse of her face. “He hasn’t been sleeping well lately. We had a fuse blow—ran the toaster at the same time as the microwave—that might have been the sound someone heard. Although—” she looked around the officer. “—I don’t know if it was all that loud.”

  Tommy followed Aurora’s stare and was relieved to see that there was only one cop car by the curb, which meant that either Marv had come in his civilian vehicle or he’d parked out of sight. There was, however, a sandwich splattered on the walkway and for some reason, the thought of Carm’s masterpiece being wasted struck him nearly as hard as what had happened to Marv.

  “All right, all right—I’m sure that’s what it was. Listen, if you notice or hear anything—”

  The man’s eyes suddenly narrowed.

  This is it, Tommy thought. This is it; he saw the body and now he’s going to pull out his gun and aim it at us. Aurora’s going to raise her weapon in response, and I’m going to be caught in the crossfire. Unlike Dustin, the bullets are going to pepper my back and chest and—

  “Wait a second, did you say your name was Tommy?” the officer asked. “You wouldn’t happen to be Tommy Wilde, would you?”

  Confused as to what was happening now, Tommy just stared blankly at the man’s round face. Once again, Aurora came to the rescue.

  “Yeah, Tommy Wilde.”

  She nudged him in the back.

  “Yeah, that’s me,” Tommy confirmed dryly.

  “The guy that—” The officer’s jowls quivered. “Aw, shit, I’m-I’m sorry, Tommy. I know you and Scooter were close.”

  Tommy finally clued into what was going on.

  “What do you mean? What happened to Scooter?”

  “Oh, ah, you-you don’t know? Oh, of-of course you wouldn’t know, I just heard about it over the radio.”

  “What? What happened?” Tommy tried to sound alarmed without coming across as aggressive.

  “Scooter—aw, shit—he got into a shootout, Tommy. I think it was at a house that you were cleaning. I don’t…” The man let his sentence trail off, clearly as confused as Tommy should’ve been.

  “Is he—is he okay? Is Scooter okay?”

  The officer cleared his throat and averted his gaze.

  “No; no, he’s not. Everyone’s over there…” He wiped his nose and shook his head. “I’m going to go there now, too, to the house. You wanna come with?”

  Tommy instinctively opened his mouth to say no, but Aurora must’ve expected this as she quickly spoke up.

  “You go ahead, Tommy. I’ll clean up here, get the breaker fixed.”

  Tommy looked over his shoulder at Aurora.

  Civilian car or not, Marv didn’t just materialize inside his house; his vehicle was parked around here somewhere. And being Scooter’s partner, it wouldn’t be long before the entire NYPD started to look for Marv and his car if they hadn’t already.

  They had to get rid of the body and the car.

  “Wow, I can’t… I don’t think—” I can go with you, he meant to say, but the officer cut him off.

  “Tommy, I’m sorry. I-I-I wasn’t really close with Scooter, but I knew the man. He was a good—”

  “He’ll go,” Aurora insisted. Tommy opened his mouth to contradict the woman, but she poked him in the back again. This time it wasn’t an elbow or finger, however, but something harder.

  Something metal.

  “Yeah,” he relented. “Sure, I’ll go.”

  Aurora smiled and Tommy started to frown.

  The last thing he wanted right now was to be in the presence of any cops… dead or alive.

  But once again, his hand had been forced.

  Chapter 4

  Tommy tried to act naturally, but he was having a hard time knowing what exactly that entailed. For him, normal had become something very different than he was used to. And now, heading to a crime scene that he’d orchestrated, that had resulted in the deaths of a cop and a goon, normal had once again shifted.

  The good news was that it didn’t appear as if the police officer, who had since introduced himself as Officer Derek Alma, didn’t appear to know how to behave either. What was clear, however, was that while Officer Alma had admitted to knowing Scooter, they were men cut from a different cloth.

  Deciding that silence was his best option, Tommy allowed his thoughts to turn inward.

  He was still having difficulty coming to grips with what had happened back at his house. For as long as Tommy had known Officer Marvin Pendergast, the man had been the alpha in the room, someone who could dole out insults with the best of them and take none in return.

  But he’d fucked with the wrong woman when he’d put a gun to Aurora’s head.

  And Marv had paid for this mistake with his life.

  I have to get rid of his body, Tommy thought, shaking his head. This was becoming a fairly common refrain recently, which he was, unfortunately, becoming used to.

  Even if Tommy had had no knowledge of where Scooter had been killed, the dozens of cop cars that they were forced to weave through would have been a dead giveaway that something had gone down here. The sight of so many officers in one place made his heart thump in his chest. He was no idiot; he knew when he planned this whole thing that Scooter’s death would cause an uproar, but this was some next-level shit.

  What the fuck are you doing here, Tommy? Do you want to get caught?

  Officer Alma rolled down his window, said something to another cop, and was waved through a makeshift barricade.

  “I don’t know if you want to see this, but that right there?” Alma said, parking behind another cruiser and aiming a finger across the road. “That’s where it happened. Some low-level mobster was rooting through his trunk, which just happened to contain a body, when Scooter approached. Looks like the perp got the first shot off, but Scooter took him down. Unfortunately, both died right here at the scene.” The cop cleared his throat. “You can stay here if you’d like.”

  Tommy shrugged.

  “No, it’s okay—I’ll be okay.”

  Officer Alma held Tommy’s gaze for a few moments as if to say, you don’t need to impress me. If this is all too much for you, just say your respects from here. I understand.

  Tommy averted his gaze, feeling strangely guilty for deceiving the man in this way.

  He couldn’t be more different than both Scooter and Marv, he thought. No wonder Alma isn’t too broken up over what happened.

  “I’ll be fine,” Tommy reiterated as both men got out of the car.

  Most of the action was focused on Vinny’s car, with several officers standing with arms crossed over their chests observing men in hazmat suits collecting evidence from Darrell’s corpse.

  Both Scooter and Vinny’s bodies were still on the scene, but they had thankfully been covered by matching white shee
ts. Numbered yellow placards were placed on the ground around them, identifying spent shells. This was more action than he’d anticipated, but Tommy had been to enough crime scenes to know that this sort of fervor was short-lived.

  After all, how much manpower would go into investigating a crime that was as cut and dry as this one?

  The only sticking point would be why Scooter had come to this location in the first place. There was always the risk that the man had said something to a colleague about meeting up with Tommy, but this was unlikely given that Scooter had been intending on collecting his extortion money.

  In the end, Tommy expected that eventually, it would go in the books as a random, albeit unfortunate, encounter.

  Or so he hoped.

  And after Vinny’s relationship with Nick Petrazzino was discovered, if it hadn’t been already, the focus would once again shift. And then the big man who had taken Tommy’s finger would really start to feel the squeeze.

  According to Marv, the NYPD was already cracking down on Nick’s stash houses. They would double—no, quadruple—their efforts after this news broke.

  Tommy had been so focused by this line of thinking that he hadn’t realized that Officer Alma had stopped walking and that someone was calling out to him.

  A hand grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around.

  “What the hell are you doing here? This is a closed crime scene, buddy. Why don’t you—”

  “Kramer, he’s with me,” Alma said, waddling quickly to catch up. “It’s okay, he’s with me.”

  Kramer, who, judging by his physique and the twisted snarl on his face, was more of the Marv variety than the Alma, growled.

  “This ain’t no spectator sport, Greg. I don’t want no pictures of one of our own.”

  Tommy slid from Kramer’s grasp and was about to speak up in his defense when Alma did it for him.

  “No, it’s not like that; this is Tommy Wilde, he is—was—friends with Scooter.”

  Rather than ease the man’s concerns, Kramer’s expression seemed to harden, if only a little.

  “The cleanup guy?”

  Tommy nodded and held out his hand.

  “Tommy Wilde of Wilde Clean-up,” he said. When it became clear that Kramer was in no mood for customary greetings, Tommy let his arm fall to his side. “I’m sorry about what happened to Scooter. Was he a friend of yours?”

  Instead of replying, Kramer just continued to glare at Tommy.

  What the fuck is wrong with this guy?

  Not knowing how to react to this aggression, Tommy just stood there, trying his best not to incite any more anger.

  Eventually, Officer Kramer looked away, his gaze drawn toward the sheet that covered Scott ‘Scooter’ Spencer’s body.

  “Scooter was a good man,” the officer said solemnly. He turned back to Tommy. “You should hang around for a little bit. After we figure out exactly what the hell happened here, we’re going to need someone to clean this shit up.”

  There was something in the man’s eyes when he said this that suggested to Tommy that he was speaking about more than just the crime scene.

  That there was a deeper underlying meaning to Officer Kramer’s words.

  Chapter 5

  Despite his initial apprehension, Tommy realized that being here, at the scene of the crime, might be a good thing. While pretending to pay his respects to a man who had done nothing but torture and exploit him, Tommy had an opportunity to observe how the investigation was going. It soon became clear that the person in charge was a man who looked to be in his mid- to late-40s. He had dark circles around his eyes and smoked furiously every chance he got.

  Twice, Tommy had overheard this man being referred to as Sergeant Yasiv, and once as Hank. The man had a no-nonsense approach, and the other officers appeared wary of him—all but one. Sergeant Yasiv’s right-hand man was a Detective Dunbar who, while he appeared less weathered than his boss, was drinking the same Kool-Aid.

  This bode well for Tommy; these weren’t Marv and Scooter clones, nor were they like Officer Alma, either.

  These men were old-school, determined, hard-boiled, and not prone to fucking around.

  It took about an hour for all the evidence to be collected and the corpses to be removed from the scene. Tommy stayed out of the way as he watched the process with interest—normally, he was called only after the police work had been completed. When the bodies were removed, the number of officers on the scene also thinned. Those who remained spoke to one another in hushed tones while a select few canvased the neighbors. Based on all of the darting eyes and head shakes, Tommy concluded that nobody seemed to have seen anything out of the ordinary before the gunshots rang out.

  Once again, he applauded himself for keeping his company name and corporate logo off the side of his van. Discretion was key in both of his lines of work, it seemed.

  “Yo,” Officer Paul Kramer, one of the final members of the NYPD to stick around shouted.

  Tommy, still trying to stay out of the spotlight, tucked his chin to his chest and tried to appear solemn.

  “Yo, you the cleanup guy, right?”

  Tommy’s eyes shot up.

  “Yeah, he runs a crime scene cleanup crew,” Officer Alma said, once again coming to the rescue. “You know the one that Marv and… and…” For some reason, the man had difficulty finishing his sentence.

  Tommy didn’t have the same problem.

  “…Scooter. Yeah, the two officers usually recommended my services.” Tommy looked at the bloodstain that started on Ruth Redds’s driveway and had since run onto the street. “If you guys are done, I can get this cleaned up. Not a problem at all.”

  Their voices—Kramer’s in particular—drew Sergeant Yasiv and Detective Dunbar’s attention. The two men stepped by Kramer and briskly approached Tommy.

  “Tommy Wilde of Wilde Clean-up. Scooter and Marv—”

  As he spoke, Tommy held out his hand and unlike Kramer, the Detective didn’t hesitate in shaking it.

  “Yeah, I’m familiar with your work. I’m Detective Dunbar and this is Sergeant Yasiv. We need to get this place cleaned up, make it look like nothing happened here. If the press finds out this is the location of Officer Spencer’s death, they’ll swarm.”

  Tommy nodded.

  “I understand.”

  “Good. You think you can help us out?” Detective Dunbar asked. During this exchange, Yasiv remained silent, which was worrisome, to say the least. Silent often meant thoughtful, and right now Tommy wanted these officers to stop thinking about what happened and close the damn case.

  Evidently, the Sergeant wasn’t quite there yet.

  “You know this house?” the man said, his dark eyes locked on Tommy’s. He took a heavy drag from a cigarette, which gave Tommy a moment to consider his answer.

  He didn’t need that long; lying to this man would be a terrible mistake, he knew.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “You do?” Alma nearly gasped. Tommy ignored him.

  “I did a clean up here just yesterday. Fucked up coincidence if you ask me.”

  Another drag from his smoke and an expression that suggested not only had Sergeant Yasiv not asked for his opinion, but it was unwelcome, as well.

  “Really?” Dunbar this time.

  Tommy nodded, his gaze not leaving Yasiv’s heavily lined face.

  He had known that this information would eventually come to light, he just hadn’t thought it would be this soon.

  “Yeah, a woman committed suicide inside, and her husband hired me to clean up the mess. It’s their second home and I thought that they’d want to put it on the market as quickly as possible, so I made every effort to make it presentable.”

  Worried that he might start rambling, Tommy made a concerted effort to keep his mouth shut. Dunbar leaned over and whispered something in Yasiv’s ear.

  When the sergeant spoke again, his eyes narrowed to slits.

  “Is that right? And did you know the man in the driveway? In the black car?”

  Tommy opened his mouth to answer, before licking his lips and biding his time. This smelled like a trap to him, although he wasn’t sure what had raised the sergeant’s suspicions.

  You didn’t, he’s just desperate. They don’t know anything.