Page 41 of So Smitten

“You might know him as Bobby,” Michael added.

Roman’s eyes widened. He might not know Laura, but he definitely knew Bobby. He caught himself and turned his face to stone.

“Before you decide not to talk,” Faith said, “Let me paint you a picture. First, we know you’re not the killer. That’s pretty obvious, because we found Bobby Evans dead earlier this morning.”

Roman’s face flickered in surprise.

“So that’s good news for you,” Faith continued, “and here’s why you want to help us find his killer. Right now, the Syndicate is going to be pissed. They’ve just lost three very important revenue streams in the Atlanta region because someone decided to turn into a slasher horror star and brought a lot of heat on their operations here. That someone is still out there causing trouble.

“Now, as it stands at the moment, they’re going to want someone to answer for that, and you are, if you’ll permit the irony, the biggest dog in the kennel. Frankly, whether you talk or not, I wouldn’t give you very long to live.”

Roman’s eyes flickered again, and his shoulders slumped slightly.

“But,” Faith continued, “if you help us out and as a result, we find the person who is responsible for all of this, we cut a deal. We can’t make all of the charges go away, but we can make a lot of them go away. Suddenly, fifteen years turns into five, out in two if you behave yourself. And, we let it slip that a source within the gang gave us the information we needed to stop this murderer, so your bosses deduce that you helped put a stop to it. Maybe you don’t get to be management anymore. Maybe that’s not enough for you to keep your job. But even criminals have some standards. I’d be willing to bet you can keep your life.”

Roman was silent for a long moment, but Faith could see in his eyes that he was breaking, so she didn’t press further. Finally, he sighed and slumped. “All right,” he said, “you can really help with the charges?”

“You give us our killer, we do everything we can to make this easier on you,” Faith confirmed.

“Okay,” Roman said, “Yeah. I knew Bobby.”

Bingo.

“How?” Faith asked.

Roman shrugged. “It’s good to have someone clean to work with. Someone who won’t have a record pop up if a cop pulls him over. I always told Harris that Vinny was a bad bet. He had a past with the mob in Boston, not much, but enough that if he ran a stop sign, a lot of priors were going to show up. Me? I looked for civilians.”

“Where did you find Bobby?”

“At a club. Harris ran sex in Atlanta, but a lot of us had fingers in the pie. I kept my eye out for someone divorced, older but not too old and overconfident who didn’t have a record. You’d be amazed what guys will do for a young woman who won’t say no.”

Try me, Faith thought.

“So you found Bobby,” Michael said, “what did Bobby do for you?”

“Whatever I needed him to do. Nothing too crazy. It wouldn’t help me out if I ended up giving him a record. I just had him run errands.”

“Give me an example of an errand.”

“Well, I had him pick stuff up for me. Dogs, usually.”

“You didn’t want him to have a criminal record, so you hired him to steal dogs?” Faith said incredulously.

Roman chuckled mirthlessly. "It's a lot easier to steal things than you'd think, agent," he said, "Yeah, I had him pick up dogs. He actually got Franco.” Roman nodded at Michael. “That was my champion dog until Vinny found that pit bull. Big dog. Wolfhound. I gave him a bonus for that.”

“Who did he steal Franco from?”

Roman shrugged. "I didn't need to know, so I didn't ask. It helps to know as little as possible in this business, agent. That's why a guy like Vinny can work fifteen years for the mob and get off with a slap on the wrist, but a guy like me runs a few things for a few years, and the best the FBI can do is a reduced prison sentence and a felony record."

“So Bobby never mentioned anything about where he got the dogs?”

“I made sure he didn’t. My exact words to him were, ‘I want the product to show up under my tree like Santa Claus, you feel me? I don’t want a shipping label, a return address or a collar. As far as I’ll ever know, the Lord just blessed me. Got it?’ He got it.”

Faith and Michael shared a look, then stood. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Kerry. We’ll see what we can do about your charges.”

***

The original home of Franco the Wolfhound turned out to be harder to find than Faith expected. No shelters reported any Wolfhounds found within the past six months, and there was no police report filed.

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