Peter Pan Must Die by John Verdon Read Free Book Online

crime figure.” Hardwick paused. “You see the problem?”
    “I see several.”
    “Mick found out she was fucking the major wiseguy, but that left him with a dilemma. I mean, that’s not a can of worms you want opened in divorce court, or anywhere else. So he couldn’t take the normal legal steps. However, he used to talk privately about wanting to strangle the bitch, twist her head off, feed it to his dog. Apparently, he would also say this to
her
from time to time. One of those times, she made a video of him telling her in colorful detail, after a few drinks, how he was going to feed her sensitive body parts to his pit bull. Guess what happened then?”
    “Tell me.”
    “The next day she threatened to put the video on YouTube and flush his career and pension down the toilet if he didn’t give her a quiet divorce on her terms with a very generous settlement.”
    Hardwick’s thin grin conveyed a kind of perverse admiration. “That was when the homicidal hate started oozing out of old Mick the Dick like pus. He would have gladly killed her at that point, wiseguy connection or no wiseguy connection, if she hadn’t ensured that the tape would go viral if anything happened to her. So he was forced to give her the divorce. And the money. And ever since then he’s been taking it out on every woman who even remotely reminds him of his wife. Mick was always a little touchy. But after he got that divorce deal rammed up his ass, he turned into two hundred and fifty pounds of pure vengeance, searching for targets.”
    “You’re telling me he framed Kay Spalter just because she was fucking around like his wife?”
    “Worse than that. Crazier than that. I think his blind hatred for anyone like his wife made him believe that Kay Spalter actually
did
murder her husband, and that it was his duty to see that she paid for it. She was guilty in his fucked-up mind, and he was determined to put her away at any cost. He wasn’t going to let another unfaithful bitch get off scot-free. If that meant suborning a little perjury here and there in the interest of justice, so what?”
    “You’re telling me he’s a psycho.”
    “Mild way of putting it.”
    “And you know all this how, exactly?”
    “I told you. He has enemies.”
    “Could you be more specific?”
    “Someone close enough to the man to hear things gave me the details of his bile and bullshit on the job, snippets of phone calls, comments here and there, what he said about women in general, about his ex-wife and Kay Spalter in particular. The Dick got carried away sometimes, wasn’t as careful as he should have been.”
    “This ‘someone’ have a name?”
    “Can’t reveal that.”
    “Yes you can.”
    “No way.”
    “Listen up, Jack. You keep secrets, and there’s no deal. I get to know everything you know. Every question answered. That’s the deal. Period.”
    “Christ, Davey, you’re not making this easy.”
    “Neither are you.”
    Gurney glanced over at the speedometer and saw that it was creeping toward eighty. Hardwick’s jaw muscle was tight. So were his hands on the wheel. A good minute passed before he said simply, “Esti Moreno.” Another minute passed before he went on. “She worked under Mick the Dick from the time of his divorce right up through the end of the Spalter trial. Finally managed to get reassigned—same barracks, but a different reporting line. Had to accept an office job, all paperwork, which she hates. But she hates the paperwork less than she hates the Dick. Esti’s a good cop. Good brain. Good eyes and ears. And principles. Esti’s got principles. You know what she said about the Dick?”
    “No, Jack, what did she say?”
    “She said, ‘You do some kind of shit, some kind of karma is coming around to bite your ass.’ I love Esti. She’s a real pisser. Also, did I mention that she’s a Puerto Rican bombshell? But she can be subtle, too. A subtle bombshell. You should see her in one of those trooper hats.” Hardwick