“Lead on.”
On the side of the house, near the back corner, they found a window into the kitchen that showed them a partial view of the dining room. It also revealed a fifth body slumped on the floor near the door between the rooms, and a broken window at the back of the house that was the likely source of the earlier sound of breaking glass.
They rounded the corner into the backyard and immediately spotted the reason why the window had shattered.
Lying on a cement patio, below the window, was a sixth victim.
They jogged over to see if the man needed assistance, but from the angle at which his head was twisted, there was no need to check his pulse. In addition to being dead, he also had a gag in his mouth, and his hands, which peeked out from under his body, were zip-tied together.
“Does he look familiar to you?” Stone asked Jack.
Jack took a good look at the man. “No. Does he to you?”
“Yeah, but I can’t place him.”
From the distance came the sound of several approaching sirens.
“You should make yourself scarce,” Stone said to Watkins. “Jack and I can deal with the cops.”
“If you’re sure.”
“I am.”
With a nod, she sprinted around the house, out of sight.
“They’re going to want to know why we’re here,” Jack said.
“I assume you’d rather keep the extortion story off the front page of theTimes,” Stone said.
“Very much.”
“Then we can say we were in the area scoutingpotential investment properties?” Stone suggested. “We heard the house might be for sale soon and were about to knock when the shooting started. We can tell them everything we heard and saw from there, but without mentioning Watkins.”
“I like it.”
It sounded like at least one of the sirens had turned onto Gennaro’s street.
“It would probably be better if we met them out front rather than back here,” Stone said.
“Agreed.”
The first cops to showup were not pleased to find Stone and Jack on the property and locked each in the back of different police cars.
When Dino arrived twenty minutes later, Stone’s and Jack’s confinement was terminated posthaste, and they were asked to wait on the front porch for Dino.
While there, two detectives came out to question them. Stone and Jack were just finishing up their story when Dino opened the front door.
“If you’re done with them,” Dino said to the detectives, “I’d like a few minutes of their time.”
“I think we have all we need,” the lead detective said. “Thank you, gentlemen. We’ll call if we have more questions.”
“Come inside,” Dino said to Stone and Jack.
They walked into the house, and Dino led them into the living room. The bodies that had been in the dining room were gone, but the signs of the gunfight remained.
“And to think we almost stepped into the middle of this,” Jack said.
“I would not have liked your chances,” Dino said.
