The Inn - James Patterson Page 0,33

a problem,” he said. We stopped by the corner of the porch. “I actually know those guys back there.”

“Cline and his crew?” I said.

“Yeah.” Clay kept smoothing his shirt over his belly like he might be able to flatten his gut with his hands. “The missing guy? Newgate? He was one of them. I’ve got a witness says she saw two of Cline’s guys, Russell Hamdy and Christopher ‘Simbo’ Jackson, dropping Newgate’s kid at his house on the morning he went missing. Newgate leaves with the kid, then later the kid’s dropped home, no one sees Newgate again. A cleaner found his phone and wallet in a garbage can near the beach.”

“He’s dead,” I said. “Must have pissed off the boss somehow. These guys go through soldiers like tissues.”

“It gets worse.”

“How?”

Clay took a deep breath. “They found a head.”

“A what? A head? Newgate’s head?”

“Nope.” Clay massaged his brow. “Local woman named Mary Ann Druly. Her daughter’s an addict. Couch-hopping around Boston, so I heard. Mary Ann Druly confronted Cline in a restaurant last night. Made a big scene. I get a call at five this morning at the station from a couple of hysterical tourists down from Maine. They found a head in front of the memorial.”

The memorial to fishermen lost at sea was a bronze statue of a man at the helm of a ship positioned right on the waterfront in town. It was a symbol of all that was Gloucester, its pride in its history as America’s oldest fishing port, its tenacity in times of crisis.

“I’ve never seen a head before. Just a head on its own like that.” Clay looked queasy. “The crime-scene tech picked it up by both ears like it was a soup pot.”

“Did they find the rest of her?”

“Mary Ann’s husband followed her cell phone signal out to Dogtown and located the body in the woods. Got there before we could.” Clay looked helplessly at the sky. “I’m out of my depth here, Bill.”

“You’re not out of your depth,” I said. “You just need to take this one step at a time. Bring in the witnesses from the restaurant. The ones from outside Newgate’s house. Get the security-camera footage from the waterfront.”

“That’s the thing,” Clay said. “The witnesses—the ones in the Newgate case and the Druly case—they talked to me on the phone and told me everything they saw. Then I sent my guys out to get it on the record, and suddenly no one knows anything. All the witnesses have clammed up. The cameras on the waterfront seemed to have been working last night but no one can find the tape. It almost makes me think … but no. It’s not possible.”

I waited. Clay lowered his voice to a whisper. “It makes me think they might be on Cline’s books. My guys. That’s ridiculous, right?”

“Clay.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “Just do what you can. Keep working on it from your end. Don’t accuse anyone of anything.”

“I gotta stay calm.” He took a deep breath. “But if you get anything, bring it straight to me, okay? I don’t know who I can trust right now.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

VINNY ROBETTI WAS just where I expected him to be, on the corner of the porch, soaking up the last remnants of fading sun. Siobhan’s first resident, he’d spent three days alone in the house with my wife before I arrived from Boston, where I’d been packing up the last of our belongings.

We were both startled by the sight of each other. I knew Vinny Robetti by his birth name, Leonardo Roberri. In his prime, he’d been one of the deadliest gangsters in Boston history. I’d conducted raids on Roberri’s properties a bunch of times as a patrolman and I’d guarded him on his trips in and out of court for murder charges and RICO violations, none of which ever stuck. I’d responded to the scene when some stupid-ass cugine tried to make his bones with a rival family by shooting Roberri; he’d hit him in the back, paralyzing him from the waist down.

I might have objected to the old wiseguy’s presence in my house if Siobhan hadn’t loved him so much. The two had been like spaghetti and meatballs by the time I arrived. Vinny and I silently decided to leave our prior affiliation unmentioned.

As I neared the old man on the porch, I saw a bucket by his feet and a glimmering knife in his fingers.

“What’s all this?”

Vinny gave that classic Mob-guy shrug. “I’m