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He's trapped. He knows it. It's in the way his face sags and his shoulders slump before he lowers himself into the chair once again. “I know it's early,” he mutters, “but do you think I could have a drink?”
I give Romero a slight nod, and he goes to the bar, pouring two fingers of whiskey, which he hands to a shaking Ken. “Listen, I'm not here to give you shit over taking the money. We've paid our fair share to different contacts in the department over the years. And if a man could make a decent living in law enforcement, he wouldn't have to rely on... other sources of income.”
“I needed the money,” he murmurs, staring down into his glass. “My wife didn't recover well after she gave birth to our second kid. The bills piled up and I was drowning.”
“As I said, I get it. And Salvatore Costello must have seemed like a safe bet. He had a reputation for being a decent guy. It's a big part of the reason I got into business with him in the first place. He wasn't a hot-tempered sort of guy. And he lived by a code.”
“That's what I told myself,” he mutters before sipping his drink. “If I had to get into bed with somebody like that, I wanted it to be someone who wasn't out there shedding blood and destroying families.”
“But he did destroy a family, didn't he?”
His head snaps up. “I don't—”
“Ken, what did I say? Don't waste my time, and don't fucking lie to me. When I think about it, it makes perfect sense. I'm not saying you had anything to do with it.”
“I didn't. I swear to God, I didn't.”
“But he did have her killed, didn't he?”
His jaw ticks before his eyes fill with tears. That surprises me. I didn't expect the tears. The excuses, yes, but tears, definitely not. “It was supposed to be Charlie. He knew Charlie was after you and didn't want to get caught up in any of it. He paid me to…”
“He first approached you to get Charlie off my back, didn't he?”
“Yeah.” He snorts before throwing back the rest of the whiskey. “Look what a good job I did. I begged him so many times. To think about Jess and Bianca. To think about his job, to try to nail all the other bad guys out there.”
“You were unsuccessful,” I sigh. “So Sal decided to go ahead and take care of things.”
“I swear to God, if I had known...” He places the glass on my desk before bending forward, elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. The slight shaking of his shoulders tells me what I need to know. He doesn't want me to see the tears he can't hold back.
“She took his car that day, didn't she? And the gunman had no idea.”
“I don't know the details.” His voice is thick with emotion, shaky. “But as soon as I heard, I knew what happened. I went to Sal as soon as it felt safe and told him I knew what he did. I'm surprised I made it out of there alive. I was half out of my mind, horrified, grieving. She was my best friend's wife; she had a little girl. She was a special person. It shows he wasn't a total fucking monster at his core, or he could have had me executed.”
“Did he give you any idea of how he felt about it? The mix-up?”
“He swore he was sorry, and part of me believed him. He didn't want to kill an innocent woman. That's not who he was.”
“So why did his guy go through with it?” Romero demands. “I can see running the wrong car off the road, but he had to walk up to that car, open the door, and blow a bullet into her skull. He knew she was a woman when he did it.”
“He gave me some story about his guy panicking because she saw him. And she was badly injured. He figured she would be dead either way, so he wanted to be sure in case she made a miraculous recovery and identified him.”
I can see that happening. I might even do the same thing in that guy's shoes, whoever he was. Sometimes you do what has to be done to ensure your safety rather than leave anything to chance.
“I begged and pleaded for it to end there.” When he lifts his head, his face is wet, his eyes red-rimmed. “I told him Charlie would take it as a warning to back off—and if he didn't, I would see to it that he did. And I kept my word. I was the one who convinced him to back off. He didn't do it all the way, but he wasn't as determined anymore.”
That's the truth. There was a shift in Charlie's attitude after his wife's death. I didn't realize it at the time—Tatum and Bianca hadn't met at that point, and I was unaware of what went on in Charlie's personal life. Although when I look back at the timeline and piece things together, there's no denying he backed off after that point. Not entirely, as Ken said, but a great deal.
If he hadn't, Sal wouldn't have gone through with the deal. When Charlie backed off, Sal's confidence grew.
“If it weren't for me, Bianca wouldn't have either of her parents,” he insists. There's an edge of panic that creeps into his voice. “You can't kill me for this. I did everything I could.”
A glance at Romero tells me he's as confused as I am. “Nobody said anything about killing you, and while I don't particularly like Charlie, I know Bianca cares for you. It would hurt them both if anything happened to you.”
“Are you going to tell her?”
“There's a reason I had you here when she was out, remember?”
He lets out a deep, shuddering breath. I can imagine his relief. “Thank you. I couldn't take it. Charlie is like my brother. I couldn't... I can't... If he knew...”
