Ocean Prey (A Prey Novel #31) - John Sandford Page 0,136

the subject, she conceded that she’d had a long-standing sexual affair with Behan. The resultant shouting, Cattaneo on his feet, Behan with his head down on the table, Sansone laughing like a madman, was eventually contained by the federal marshals who worked for the court.

* * *

The two exceptions to the life sentences were Matt Lange and Sylvia Sansone. Lange got fifteen years with the possibility of parole, for his testimony about the other members of the organization. Sansone was sentenced to eight years on a charge of aggravated assault on a federal officer for shooting at Kerry during the final chase in Elizabeth, NJ. She accepted the plea and the sentence in return for the government dropping a list of additional charges that, if proven, would have added years to the sentence. Both Sansone and his wife were hit with huge fines, and the government seized, and auctioned off, their house, cars, and donut shops. A wealthy fan of Mama Ferrari’s Donuts won the auction and expanded the chain down the East Coast, and became even wealthier. Damn good donuts.

* * *

Patty Pittman, Alicia Snow, and Magnus Elliot were all killed by Jimmy Parisi and a couple of assistants. One of the assistants, given a modest deal, took Miami-Dade homicide cops to an area of the Everglades where the bodies had been dumped. A body was found, but it was in an advanced state of decay, and DNA analysis proved that it was not one of the three people known to have been killed by Parisi. The body was never identified. A jury took the assistant’s word for it, however, and Parisi went to prison for life without parole.

* * *

Don Romano and Larry Bianchi walked. There’d been a fundamental error in the arrest—there was nothing illegal about possessing a hundred and twenty handguns in Florida. If they’d transported the guns across a state line, they would have been up to their necks in felonies. As it was, the driver of the van took some heat about leaving New York without notifying his parole officer, but given the prisoner-population problems in New York, he eventually got away with it. The legbreaker riding with him had no warrants or parole problems. Final score: Mobsters 4, Feds 0.

* * *

Christopher Colles, the Florida senator, held a press conference in Miami, thanking “all the federal law-enforcement agencies, including the FBI, the Marshals Service, and the Coast Guard” for breaking the Coast Guard murder case. He shook Weaver’s hand on camera, and the hand of the Coast Guard district commander, but that part of the video was cut by most TV stations. After the show, Colles phoned Lucas and said, “I owe you and I pay my debts. When you need something legal that I can get you, call me.”

* * *

Virgil told Lucas, “Rae saved my life. If she’d been a little slower, we’d both be dead. No doubt in my mind. She’s the most impressive cop I’ve ever met.”

“Present company excepted, I imagine,” Lucas said.

“I don’t know, Lucas. She’s something else. If you need me to do this again, working with Rae, all you have to do is call me. I’m in. I love that chick.”

“I’ll do that,” Lucas said. “I mean, you’re the only cop I know who shot down an airplane with a pistol.”

“Another episode in the growing legend of Virgil Flowers, Minnesota lawman,” Virgil said. “I’ve got another question. A delicate one. Rae and I turned in all the payment money we got from Behan and Cattaneo, of course, but we used some of it to buy stuff—it was really a necessary part of the work. They would have been suspicious as hell if we hadn’t. I got this pair of crocodile cowboy boots . . .”

“Used cowboy boots now,” Lucas said. “Weaver told me you’d turned over the cash and asked what I thought about Rae’s shoes. We talked to Mallard about it, he says you guys should keep what you bought. He says you can even keep the scuba gear, if you want it, in case you work for us again. He said it was necessary equipment for the charade and now it’s used and surplus to requirements.”

“Cool,” Virgil said.

* * *

Rae said to Lucas, “I couldn’t believe that thing about the shoes. I even asked, ‘Am I only supposed to wear them when I’m on duty?’ Weaver said, ‘As a marshal, you’re required to carry a pistol at all times. That means you’re sort of