Deadline for Lenny Stern, Peter Marabell [sneezy the snowman read aloud .TXT] 📗

wispy gray hair flattened behind his ears. His idea of getting dressed up to deliver a eulogy at Kate’s memorial service.

“Lenny,” I said.

“Good morning, Michael,” Tina Lawson said from the seat behind Lenny. Her eyes were puffy and red, her hands clutched tissues.

“Hello, Tina.”

“Shouldn’t be much traffic this early,” Henri said. “We going up US 31 to Alanson?”

“Easiest way. Want me to lead, or you want to take it?”

Henri shook his head. “I’ll drive, you ride,” he said, pointing at the passenger seat. “I watch the road, you just … watch.”

“Get in the back seat, Lenny,” I said, opening his door. He swung his legs out and went around to the other side.

“Are we going to have trouble on the way to the church?” Tina said. She seemed startled by the idea, even though we’d been stuck in the middle of trouble for a while now.

“Just being careful,” I said, as calmly as I could get away with.

“We don’t want to be surprised,” Henri said. “That’s all.”

I climbed in the passenger seat, closed the door, and we were off.

Henri went up Howard, turned on Mitchell at the old J.C. Penny store, and drove through town. Traffic was light over to 31. The fairways of the Petoskey-Bay View Country Club were crowded with golfers, mostly men, in colorful, baggy shorts and an array of visors and summer hats to shield them from the sun.

“You have your remarks ready for the service, Lenny?” I said.

“What can you say when she was too young to die?”

“Well, if anybody can do it …”

“Yeah, yeah. I jotted a few things down last night.”

We rode in silence up 31 and out of town. As we passed Crooked Lake, I turned around and said, “Meant to ask you something, Lenny.”

“What’s that?”

“Talked to Joey DeMio the other day …”

“Not exactly breaking news.”

“He told me you used to pal around with Carmine in Chicago, when his old man still ran the Baldini family.”

“We didn’t pal around, exactly.”

“What would you call it, then?”

“We’d drink some wine, eat some pasta. You know, stuff like that.”

I’d been at Carmine DeMio’s table before, only at his invitation, only on business, and only when his business and mine overlapped. Carmine was not a generous man unless it suited him to be so.

I’d known Lenny Stern a long time. His reporting and my job sometimes involved the same people. In all that time, he’d never said a word about Carmine DeMio that might have been taken as personal. I wondered why. By the time we slowed for traffic in Alanson, I concluded there could be only one reason.

“Lenny?”

He stopped writing in his notebook. “Yeah?”

“All those stories you wrote about the mob in Chicago.”

“What about them?”

“Was Carmine a source?”

“Carmine DeMio, long-time mob boss? A press source about the Mafia? Seriously, Russo?”

“Lots of phony astonishment, Lenny,” Henri said, “but you didn’t answer the man’s question.”

“Does it really matter, Russo? The Don’s retired. He reads books on the front porch of his Mackinac Island cottage all summer.”

“I don’t care if he tossed you tips, Lenny. What I don’t like are surprises. I’m involved with Joey; that means Carmine, too. And Carmine’s still a dangerous man, if he wants to be. He reads books on the porch, but two gunmen are only twenty feet away. I need to know as much as I can. I’ll live longer that way.”

Henri inched his way through a mesh of cars and trucks in Alanson. He turned at the light and went east on M-68 toward Indian River, heading for Transfiguration Episcopal Church.

“I haven’t even seen Carmine in, hell I don’t know, two, three years. The last time was probably on the island, the Jockey Club or the Gate House. He likes those restaurants.”

“Anything else I should know?”

“No,” Lenny said, a touch of annoyance in his voice. “Didn’t seem important, what happened in Chicago a long time ago. I’ll remember you see it differently, Russo.”

“Do we know where the church is?” Tina said, changing the subject.

“About a half mile short of the light at US 27,” Henri said, pointing at the nav screen.

“Didn’t you tell me you’d met Kate’s sister?” I asked Tina.

“Once. Lois joined Kate and me for breakfast in Brutus.”

“The Camp Deli,” Henri said, phrased in a way that suggested a favorable critique. “Gone but not forgotten.”

“She’s quieter than Kate, shy maybe. They were really quite fond of each other, comfortable together. That was obvious when you were with them.”

“How’d she end up in Indian River?” I said. “Weren’t they from Indiana?”

“Evansville,” Tina said. “Lois won a scholarship to Northwestern, the year before Kate took off for Champaign-Urbana. Lois met a messed-up guy, from what Kate said. From Indian River. He dropped out, Lois followed him. He dumped her.”

“Familiar story,” Henri said.

“Uh-huh,” Tina said. “Kate and I hit it off. We were both rookies at Gloucester. She was eager to learn, be a professional on the way up. Living in downtown Chicago was a world away from southern Indiana. We learned the business together.” Tina let out a small laugh. “We learned about life in Chicago, too. I liked her. So sad.” Tina put the tissue to her eyes, holding it there.

Our ride across M-68 was happily uneventful. Around the south end of Burt Lake we passed driveway after driveway that disappeared into the woods, leading to lakefront houses. It was a familiar northern Michigan saga. Many of the original clapboard-sided summer cottages had been replaced over the years by more expansive and expensive year-round houses. The quaint charm of another small summer community had vanished.

“On the right,” Henri said. “The church.”

I looked up as Henri slowed, turned off the highway, and followed the curvy drive up into the woods. Three cars were parked away from the walkway that led to the traditional red doors of an Episcopal church. Several more cars and trucks dotted the lot.

A black Chevy Tahoe with heavily tinted windows sat by itself in the last row, shadowed by overhanging trees.

“We’ve got company,” Henri said.

30

“What’s the matter?