House Witness Read online

  Also by Mike Lawson

  The Inside Ring

  The Second Perimeter

  House Rules

  House Secrets

  House Justice

  House Divided

  House Blood

  House Odds

  House Reckoning

  House Rivals

  House Revenge

  Rosarito Beach

  Viking Bay

  K Street

  House Witness

  MIKE LAWSON

  Copyright © 2018 by Mike Lawson

  Cover design by Cindy Hernandez

  Cover photographs: gavel © Danita Delimont/Getty Images; skyline © Rawpixel/Getty Images

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove Atlantic, 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011 or [email protected].

  FIRST EDITION

  Published simultaneously in Canada

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition: February 2018

  This book was set in 12 pt Garamond Premier Pro

  by Alpha Design & Composition of Pittsfield, NH

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data available for this title.

  ISBN 978-0-8021-2666-5

  eISBN 978-0-8021-6560-2

  Atlantic Monthly Press

  an imprint of Grove Atlantic

  154 West 14th Street

  New York, NY 10011

  Distributed by Publishers Group West

  groveatlantic.com

  18 19 20 21 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For all the caretakers. My wife, Gail, took care of an elderly neighbor, Betty Ash, for about the last twenty years until Betty died at the age of ninety-eight. I know that there are a lot of people out there like my wife who simply always do the right thing when it comes to others—they just can’t help themselves—and my hat is off to all of them.

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Mike Lawson

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Part I

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Part II

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Part III

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Part IV

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Part V

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Back Cover

  Prologue

  Mahoney disconnected the call, then just stood there staring out the window.

  From his apartment in the Watergate complex, he could see a portion of the Kennedy Center, the broad black ribbon that was the Potomac River, and the lights of Northern Virginia. Had it been daylight, he would have been able to see some of the white headstones in Arlington National Cemetery, a view, that when he was in his cups, often brought tears to his eyes.

  Tonight there were tears in his eyes, but not because he’d been contemplating the final resting place of so many valiant Americans. The tears had welled up after the call he’d received.

  His wife said, “John, is something wrong? Who was that?”

  Mary Pat could tell the call had stunned him, but he couldn’t tell her why. No way could he tell her why.

  He wiped a big hand across his face to brush away the tears, and finally turned to face her. She was standing in the living room doorway, in a robe. She’d been about to go to bed when he’d received the call. Her face was scrubbed free of makeup, and he thought: Geez, she looks old. But then, if Mary Pat—who, unlike himself, didn’t drink or smoke and exercised daily—looked old, he knew he must look like the walking dead. He supposed it was the call that had made him think about what little time they both had left on this capricious planet.

  He said, “I gotta … I gotta go out for a bit.”

  “At this time of night?”

  It was almost midnight.

  “Yeah, I need to …”

  He didn’t finish the sentence. He couldn’t tell her that it felt as if the walls were closing in on him. He needed air. He couldn’t breathe. And he was afraid he might burst into tears—and then he wouldn’t be able to explain to her why.

  He headed for the door, and Mary Pat said, “I hope you’re not planning to drive anywhere. You’re in no shape to be driving.”

  That was probably true. He’d been drinking since he got home from work, but he always drank when he got home from work—and usually drank while he was at work. He was an alcoholic. But he wasn’t planning to drive. He just needed to be alone.

  He said, “I’m not driving. I just need some fresh air.”

  “John, what’s wrong?”

  “I’ll tell you tomorrow. Go to bed.”

  Now he was going to have to make up something to tell her. He didn’t know what; he’d figure it out later. He opened the door, and she said, “John! Put on a coat. You’ll freeze out there.”

  She was right. It was March. It wasn’t raining at the moment, but the temperature was in the low forties, and he was wearing only the suit pants he’d worn to work and a white dress shirt. He grabbed a trench coat off a hook near the door and shrugged it on. Mary Pat was saying something as he closed the door, but the words couldn’t penetrate the fog surrounding his brain.

  John Mahoney had just been told that his son had been killed—and his wife didn’t know that he had a son.

  Mahoney stepped outside the building and started walking in the direction of the Lincoln Memorial, a couple of miles away. The wind whipped the trench coat around his legs and stung his cheeks, but he didn’t notice.

  Mahoney was a handsome, heavyset man, broad across the back and butt. His most distin
ctive features were sky blue eyes and a full head of snow white hair. When he appeared on camera, he had the makeup lady cover the broken veins in his nose.

  He was currently the minority leader of the United States House of Representatives. He’d been the Speaker of the House for more than a dozen years, then lost the position when the Republicans took control, but he was still the most powerful Democrat on Capitol Hill. When he’d had the affair with Connie DiNunzio, he’d been in Congress for only three years.

  Connie, like him, grew fat as the years passed, but when he met her she was … hell, she’d looked like Sophia Loren: thick dark hair, a long straight nose, full lips, heavy breasts, shapely legs. She’d been an absolute knockout—and Mahoney was a man who rarely met a temptation he was able to resist. Connie was neither the first nor the last affair he’d had—he’d had a lot of affairs over the years—but she was the only one to bear him a child. Connie DiNunzio wasn’t too Catholic to sleep with a married man, but she was too Catholic to get an abortion.

  When she’d told him she was pregnant and that he was the father, he’d had no doubt she was telling the truth. He also figured that if she had the kid it could be the end of his fledgling political career. But Connie never told anyone. She’d been an aide to a New York congressman when they met and she quit the job, went back to New York, and had the child. And she never asked anything of Mahoney—at least not for herself or her son. She did ask for a favor later—and Mahoney was still paying back that favor.

  Anyway, time went on. Connie married a guy she later divorced and ended up becoming a career bureaucrat in Albany and a major player in the backstabbing, bare-knuckles world of New York state politics. As for the kid, he went on to college, got married, had three kids, and started his own accounting firm in Manhattan. Mahoney had kept tabs on his illegitimate son—but he’d never met him.

  The call he’d gotten had been from Connie. She’d told him that her boy—their boy—had been shot and killed in a bar in Manhattan. She wasn’t crying when she called. She didn’t intend to share her grief; she’d called because she wanted vengeance. She told him that the man who’d killed her son was the son of a rich guy, a guy rich enough to buy his way out of anything. She said, her voice as cold and hard as ice, “You make sure this little prick gets what’s coming to him, John. Dominic was the father of the grandkids you never met, and you damn well better do everything in your power to make sure that the man who killed him pays for what he did.”

  Mahoney had three daughters, but none of them were currently married and none of them had given him and Mary Pat grandkids. As Connie had said, the only grandchildren he had were as much strangers to him as their father had been.

  Mahoney sat down on a bench and thought for a time about all the mistakes he’d made in his long life. He thought about his son’s wife and his grandchildren, and made a promise to do whatever it took to make sure they were financially okay. Regarding what Connie had told him—how he’d better make sure the killer went to prison—he could think of only one thing to do immediately.

  He took out his cell phone. The face of the iPhone informed him that it was now one a.m.—and Mahoney didn’t give a shit. He called a man who worked for him. A guy named DeMarco.

  He woke DeMarco up. After DeMarco said a sleepy hello, Mahoney said, “Dominic DiNunzio was killed this evening in Manhattan. Get your ass up there and find out what’s happening with the case.”

  DeMarco said, “What? Dominic? Dominic was killed?”

  DeMarco knew Dominic DiNunzio. He just didn’t know he was Mahoney’s bastard.

  Connie DiNunzio happened to be Joe DeMarco’s godmother because Connie was DeMarco’s mother’s best friend. Connie DiNunzio was also the only reason that DeMarco had a job working for John Mahoney.

  The way it all came about was that DeMarco’s Irish mother had had the misfortune to fall in love with a man who worked for the old Italian mob in Queens. DeMarco’s dad had been a mob enforcer. A killer.

  When Gino DeMarco was killed, young Joe DeMarco—who was a few years younger than Connie’s son—had just graduated from law school and couldn’t find a job, as no law firm on the eastern seaboard wanted the son of a Mafia hit man on its payroll. And that’s when Connie had called Mahoney and asked for the only favor she’d ever asked. And actually she didn’t ask for the favor—she demanded it. She told Mahoney, who at that time was the Speaker, to give young Joe a job. If he didn’t give young Joe a job, well then, Connie might … Mahoney hired young Joe.

  Over the years, DeMarco had become Mahoney’s go-to guy when Mahoney had problems he couldn’t or didn’t want to solve by going through normal channels. He was also Mahoney’s bagman—the one he sent to collect contributions some nitpickers might construe as bribes. DeMarco was smart enough—and ethically bent enough—to do the job well, but he was also lazy. He was a guy who would rather play golf than work, and Mahoney knew he was just marking time, doing as little as he could until he could collect a federal pension. That is, he’d collect one if he didn’t get indicted and go to jail first. One thing about DeMarco, though, and even Mahoney had to admit this, was that if he had a personal stake in an assignment he could be as determined and devious as he had to be to get results. And this time Mahoney knew it would be personal for DeMarco, because he loved Connie DiNunzio and had known her son.

  DeMarco called Mahoney from New York the next day and said, “There’s no doubt whatsoever that the guy who killed Dominic is going to be convicted of second-degree murder. The case is a slam dunk for the prosecutor.”

  DeMarco was dead wrong.

  Part I

  1

  Manhattan—March 15, 2016

  The night Dominic DiNunzio died

  Toby Rosenthal couldn’t remember killing Dominic DiNunzio.

  He remembered what happened before he killed him, and he knew what he did afterward, but the killing itself …

  He’d been drinking all afternoon. Actually, he’d been drinking for the last three days, ever since Lauren dumped him. He’d also been snorting coke—he’d bought an 8 ball off a guy he knew—which was why he’d hardly slept in three days, too. He stopped by McGill’s because it was close to Lauren’s office and she often went there with some of the girls she worked with. Since she wouldn’t answer her doorbell or her phone, he didn’t know what else to do.

  He ordered a scotch, slammed it down like a tequila shooter, then ordered another that he drank more slowly. He never saw Dominic DiNunzio lumber into the bar and take a seat. Fifteen minutes later Lauren hadn’t shown up, and Toby was trying to decide if he should check out some of the other bars near her office, or go to her apartment and ring the bell again. He decided to wait a bit longer—and have one more scotch. He waved at the bartender, but the guy just stood there, looking at him, scowling. Finally, reluctantly, he walked over like he was doing Toby a fuckin’ favor.

  “Another Glenfi …” It was hard to say Glenfiddich sober, let alone drunk. “Another one, same thing.”

  “You don’t think maybe you’ve had enough,” the bartender said.

  “Hey, what are you? My mother?”

  As soon as the words left his mouth, Toby knew he shouldn’t have said them. The bartender was a tall guy, skinny but with a paunch, like a martini olive in the middle of a swizzle stick. He was in his sixties, maybe seventies, but his hair was jet black. The hair had to be dyed, and it looked ridiculous with his seamed old face. But Toby could tell, the way the bartender’s mouth was set, that he was going to eighty-six him from the bar.

  Toby pulled a hundred off his money clip—money was the least of his worries—and slapped it on the bar. “That’s for the drinks I’ve already had and the one more I’m gonna have. The rest is for you.”

  “Yes, sir, another Glen,” the bartender said. He didn’t say “Thank you”; it was like he thought he deserved a forty-buck tip.

  Toby caught sight of his reflection in the mirror behind the bar and realized he looked like shit: unshaven, h
is eyes like glowing embers in his pale face, his hair all wet and matted down from the rain outside. The last thing he needed was Lauren seeing him like this. He could at least go comb his hair, splash some water on his face; he wished he had some Visine to squirt into his eyes. He stepped off the bar stool, stumbled, and almost fell—and noticed the bartender, who was now pouring his scotch, give him a look. Fuck him.

  He walked back toward the restrooms, bumping into a table where two old ladies were sitting. One of the women lost half her drink and let out a little shriek. “Shit, sorry,” he muttered.

  The restrooms were down a long, narrow hallway, and he could feel himself lurching from side to side, like he was walking along the passageway of a rolling ship. Maybe he should just call it a day and go home. He pulled open the men’s room door, and at the same time a guy came through the opening, and they collided.

  The guy was a whale. Toby was only five foot seven, so most men were taller than he was—but this guy had to be at least six four and with a gut on him like a potbellied stove. He was wearing a tan trench coat and one of those flat skimmer hats, and his coat was dripping water as if he’d walked miles in the rain. Before Toby could apologize for bumping into him, the guy said, “Watch where the hell you’re going.”

  “Hey! Who the fuck you think you’re talking to?” Toby said, taking an aggressive step toward the man as he spoke. Not something he normally would have done with a guy this size, but he’d had a lot to drink and his life sucked and he wasn’t in the mood for taking shit off anyone.

  It should have ended right there: two New Yorkers trading fuck yous, two urban gorillas pounding their chests, then going harmlessly on their way. But it didn’t end there.

  The man put a hand the size of a catcher’s mitt on Toby’s chest and pushed.

  He actually didn’t push that hard—he was mainly moving Toby out of his way—but Toby was having a hard time maintaining his balance as it was, and he bounced off the wall opposite the restroom door and fell to the floor. Then Dominic DiNunzio sealed his fate. Looking down at Toby, he said, “Today’s not the day to screw with me, you little shit.”