Mike nodded. “I think that’s true. We had a friend at the FBI run her passport and as far as we can tell, she’s still out of the country. Her passport hasn’t been swiped back in, so she probably fled as soon as she realized what her husband did to her father, if what you say is true.”
“I suspect you’re right,” Kershaw said, shaking his head. “When she found out what happened, she left in fear for her life.”
I picked up the pictures of the three mobsters again. “I don’t get one thing.”
“What’s that?” Kershaw asked.
“Well, if the mob is extorting the business owners down in the jewelry mart, how is it that Eli Goldfarb hired them to kill his father-in-law? Wouldn’t he be a victim of extortion just like all the other business owners down there?”
Kershaw smirked. “What better recommendation for a hitman could Goldfarb get, than choosing men he knows threaten to kill people if they don’t pay them money? My guess is he figured out a plan to get total control of his business and hired men he knew he could count on to get the job of killing Feldmandone. In his mind, he probably figured if arrested by you two—provided you didn’t decide to pin the robbery on his father-in-law—he could point to an extortion ring operating at the jewelry mart and put the blame on them.”
“What a fucking idiot! You really think he’d cross the mob like that?”
Kershaw sighed. “I think Eli Golfarb is quite possibly the greediest son-of-a-bitch I’ve come across in a looong time. He’d probably already agreed to give his future ex-wife everything she asked for and wasn’t about to give her half of his interest in the business. Perhaps he thought you two were too stupid to figure out whatreallyhappened, hoping you’d pin the robbery on Abraham Feldman because he was the only other person who had the combination to their safe. The fact that Feldman turned up dead would just further exonerate Goldfarb.”
I nodded. “Because Goldfarb would hire a lawyer to say Feldman took the jewelry from the safe to pay the extortion money and got killed for his trouble.”
Kershaw nodded. “Right and if, by some fluke, Eli Goldfarb wasevercharged in Abraham Feldman’s murder, his lawyer would make a jury declare him innocent based on his father-in-law’s mob ties.”
“Yeah, all his lawyer would have to do is plant the seed of reasonable doubt, and Goldfarb would go free,” Mike said.
“Wow, this is quite a break, Kershaw,” I said. “Good work.”
He sat forward. “If you two hadn’t gotten these artist sketches from those FBI agents, I wouldn’t have.” He frowned. “How’d that happen?”
Mike and I explained everything that had happened, from little Marigold Bishop to her sketch of the man she saw in thealley. I pulled out the sketch and passed it across the desk to Kershaw who compared it to the big enforcer’s mugshot.
“I’ve seen this sketch. It looks remarkably like Kyle Newman. The girl has a good eye,” Kershaw said.
“Well, that’s only part of our story,” Mike said.
Kershaw sat back in his squeaky chair. “Do tell.”
We explained how we’d initially thought the sketch matched Weston Chaudry. And how we’d been called out to Father Gilmartin’s residence to interview him after he’d been assaulted by the two men we now knew as Vinnie Vitelli and Bennie Marino.
“So, you two wasted time on this Chaudry guy because he looks just like Kyle Newman,” Kershaw stated. He must have read the anger in my face because he held up two hands in a placating gesture. “Sorry, that…came out all wrong. I’m not accusing either of you of being lazy detectives. Newman does look just like Chaudry. I probably would’ve fallen down that rabbit hole too especially because he was there when the priest was assaulted by these two jokers.” He pointed at the photos of Vitelli and Marino.
I sat back, feeling somewhat vindicated. “Well, we still have a problem.”
Kershaw pursed his lips as he sat forward. “What’s that?”
I pointed to the three mugshots. “Somehow, these three found out about Weston Chaudry and they went after him.”
“Well, I imagine it’s not hard to figure out why they’re after him, Ryan.” When I didn’t respond, he pointed to the police sketch Marigold Bishop gave. “This was widely distributed to every precinct in the city,” Kershaw said. “You know the mob has rats in the police department.”
“Yeah.” I knew there were cops who’d sell their own mother if the price was right.
Kershaw went on. “What do you want to bet, a dirty cop saw this sketch and told our three bad guys? They probably went looking for Chaudry to silence him before he could proclaim his innocence in the murder of Abraham Feldman. And, if Chaudry turned up dead, all the better. An attorney for the three of them could argue that Marigold Bishop’s sketch is an exact match for the man who killed Feldman, and since dead men can’t talk—”
“Vitelli, Marino, and Newman would walk free.”
Kershaw smiled. “Yep.”
I picked up the photos again. Then it clicked. “Damn. The eyes. The color. All the sketches were in black and white.”
Kershaw frowned, and Mike grunted with disbelief beside me as the penny dropped.
“The different colored eyes,” said Mike, groaning.
