Dead Man's Song

Ferro was too tired to care either way, so LaMastra stirred the soup vigorously, replaced the lid and sat down across from his partner. Vince LaMastra was a big blond ex-jock who had played wide receiver for Temple University before entering the police academy. At thirty he still had the narrow hips, broad shoulders, and bulky muscles of a college ballplayer, but now there were the beginnings of crow’s feet at the corners of his bright blue eyes and laugh lines etched around his mouth. Not that he was laughing at the moment as he sat hunched over, forearms on the table, frowning at Ferro. “Gus was right—this case is getting away from us, Frank.”

Ferro snorted. “We never really had our hands on it. This was a runaway train from the first.” Frank Ferro was older and more battered than his partner, his dark brown skin marked here and there by faded pink scars—souvenirs from his days walking a beat in North Philly. His manner was quiet and refined, but his eyes were cop’s eyes. Quick and hard.

“Not what I mean,” LaMastra said, shaking his head. “These killings, Frank…they bother me—and don’t give me that look. I’m not talking about how it makes me feel, ’cause I’m just like every other cop here. It makes me sick and angry and I would give my left nut to have five minutes in a locked room with Kenneth Boyd—if he’s actually the prick who did this. No, what I’m saying, Frank, is that I just don’t get why Boyd would have done this.”

“Maybe he hung around Ruger too long. Perhaps homicidal mania is contagious. I don’t know.”

“How sure are you that Boyd is the killer here? You yourself said this wasn’t like Boyd. A guy like Boyd shouldn’t even have been at that drug bust that went south. I think Ruger probably planned to screw the deal and then take the money so he could split. He must have found out somehow that Little Nicky suspected that Ruger’d killed his grandparents down in Cape May. The mob’s not big on due process, so Ruger figured that a suspicion alone is more than enough wind up on a meat hook somewhere. So since he had to get the hell out of Dodge anyway he set up the drug buy and then deliberately jacked it so that he and his crew could wipe out the Jamaicans and keep the money all for themselves. Main reason to support this is Boyd being there for that buy. He’s not a soldier, he’s a travel agent. The only reason on earth that Ruger would drag him along is to help him get out of the country afterward. Nothing else makes sense. Boyd’s a tool, not a killer. That’s one of the things that just doesn’t fit.” He got up and began stirring the soup.

Ferro shrugged and rolled his coffee cup between his palms, staring at the liquid as it agitated. “Apparently we underestimated Boyd. Maybe he and Ruger partnered because they were cut from the same cloth. Both of them…just plain crazy. Just because it’s not in Boyd’s jacket doesn’t mean we really have insight into who he is.”

“Let’s look at that.” LaMastra put the lid back on the pot, turned, and leaned a hip against the counter as he began ticking items off on his fingers. “First, we got Karl Ruger’s car breaking down here in Pine Deep. Okay, that makes sense, anyone can have a breakdown. Two, we got Ruger having a serious dispute with Tony Macchio. Who knows why? Maybe he’s really, really pissed at Macchio, or maybe he’s just a sick psycho son of a bitch and tearing people up is how he unwinds. Either way, he focuses on Macchio and tears him up. Spoils him. Eats him, for Chrissakes.”

“Perhaps I’ll pass on the soup.”

“Now, maybe he’s trying to scare the living piss out of Boyd at the same time. You know, make a point? Scare him so bad that he won’t ever think about double-crossing him.”

“But maybe Ruger overdid it,” Ferro offered. “From what we were able to get out of Valerie Guthrie, Ruger believed that Boyd broke his leg in a gopher hole and was cooling his heels out in the cornfield, waiting for Ruger to come back with a stretcher. According to her, Ruger was really torn up when he found that Boyd had bugged out, but that whole thing might have been a dodge. Boyd might have pretended to be injured so he could slip away from Ruger.”

“Maybe. Point is Ruger’s royally pissed and starts blasting away to vent his anger. Shoots Guthrie, beats the shit out of everyone else. Then he dances with that guy Crow and unexpectedly gets his ass handed to him. Okay, so, that leaves Boyd missing. That leaves the money missing.”

“And the coke.”

“And the coke, right. It also leaves Karl Ruger all messed up and it leaves him as one very pissed-off individual. He goes psycho and maybe he figures that Val Guthrie and Crow are the reasons why his life has suddenly turned to shit, sneaks into the hospital for a little payback, but it turns out bad for him and he gets shot to shit. Exit Karl Ruger from the equation.”

Ferro smiled thinly. “Okay, so what is the part you don’t like?”