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“Those arguments should have been raised earlier. Baxter’s waived the right to raise them now.”
Big Dick was right. But Marinelli still didn’t like it. He had to think this through. To buy time, he simply said, “Fine. Whatever,” and left it at that.
*****
Marinelli prepared a standard response to Baxter’s motion, but put off filing it. Meanwhile, he continued investigating Father Ramirez. He wondered why the cops hadn’t investigated Ramirez before, if there was word on the street of his gang connections. The Archdiocese, he thought. He’d lay odds someone in the Archdiocese pressured the police to leave Ramirez alone.
Marinelli asked his detective friend to set up another call with his CI. He promised confidentiality in exchange for names—Ramirez’s contacts in Los Diablos, his biggest buyers, whatever he had. Once he had some names, maybe he could prod someone on the force into investigating the connection, seek warrants to obtain some hard evidence. If a case could be made against someone in Los Diablos for the murder, he wanted to make it. If it led to more, so much the better.
*****
Marinelli was eating dinner at home, when he heard a tap on his door. When he looked through the peephole, he was surprised to see Dawson. He opened up.
“Sir?” he said. “What brings you here?”
“Bad news, I’m afraid. May I come in?”
“Of course,” Marinelli said. Dawson, looking dapper in a camelhair coat and matching kidskin gloves, stepped inside and closed the door quietly behind him. Marinelli turned and led Dawson to the kitchen.
“I was just having dinner. I made a lot of spaghetti—too much. Would you like some? Or something to drink?”
“This won’t take long.” Dawson said. “I’m sorry.”
Marinelli turned. Dawson was pointing a gun with a silencer at him.
“You’re fired,” Dawson said and shot twice.
*****
Dawson called an impromptu staff meeting to announce that someone had apparently forced his way into Dan Marinelli’s apartment and
killed him. It looked like a professional hit, possibly ordered by someone involved in one of his high-profile cases. Marinelli’s cases would be reassigned. Finnegan volunteered to take the Hernandez case, since as he put it, “it’s such a slam-dunk for us.” Dawson said he knew the case would be in good hands.
That night, Dick Dawson left the office late and went directly to an out-of-the-way cocktail lounge that featured low lighting, scantily-dressed waitresses and a privileged customer base. It was the opposite of a networking venue, Dawson thought. A place one went so as not to see or be seen.
Dawson slid into the back room booth and ordered a double scotch, straight up. “It’s done,” he told the man across from him.
“You’re sure? No loose ends?”
“No, sir. No loose ends. The gun’s in the river. Even my nice new gloves went in the drink.” He shrugged.
“And you’re sure your new man on the case won’t go digging into Father Ramirez’s life?”
“Yes, sir, I’m sure. Finnegan is a ‘yes man.’”
“Glad to hear it.” The middle-aged man across from him was half-hidden in shadow. The parenthetical lines creasing the sides of his mouth and the tangle of crow’s feet around his eyes were deepened by the gloom, but his teeth gleamed as he spoke. They were big teeth, Dawson thought. “I told Ramirez I couldn’t make those molestation suits just disappear. Would he listen? No, that sick padre started blackmailing me. When he threatened to expose my part in his drug operation, I had to get rid of him.” He downed half his drink in one swallow and added, “He was ready to go after you, too, you know.”
“I know that, sir. About Hernandez ...”
“He won’t be missed and he won’t give us up. Once I told him I was doing it to protect the Diablos and he had to take one for the team, the poor sap was scared shitless to say otherwise. Even put the fear of God in the interpreter. And with what happened between Hernandez and the priest, he was as good a scapegoat as any.”
“Was he, your honor?”
Judge Gardena leaned forward and gave Dawson the look he’d reserved for many a defendant when pronouncing sentence. “When I heard from our friends what your boy Marinelli was up to, I don’t have to tell you how much heartburn it was giving me. And you know what would have happened if he’d started looking too closely at who Ramirez was using to sell that shit.”
“You and I would both be out of a job.”
“Then we’d actually have to work for a living.” Judge Gardena bared his big teeth and laughed. He laughed for what seemed to Dawson like a full minute. And Dawson forced himself to smile in response.
