Aarestad’s concealed files also led SAC Squires to the leak inside Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office—Superintendent Callum’s Judas on the Special Prosecutions Bureau—who turned out to be none other than Peter Feist’s right-hand man and executive administrator: Marty Kolles—the same son of a bitch that got all choked up when giving a eulogy at Feist’s funeral. Squires figured they had enough to put Kolles away for three twenty-year terms. Consecutive terms, of course.
Kippy figures that Jethro Aarestad will ultimately skate.
The others? Not so much.
One of the reasons I’m home instead of watching bad movies at my CPD safe house is due to what happened to Frank Cappelli Sr. several nights ago. Although Cappelli Jr. remains in custody, Cappelli Sr. was arrested in SAC Squires’s initial sweep, but he posted bail within hours. Perhaps it would have been best for Cappelli Sr. and his wife of thirty years had he not. The maid discovered them both—still in bed—last Friday morning. The missus had taken one shot to the forehead; Frank Cappelli Sr. took three. SAC Squires believes a decision had been made by others in the Outfit—said decision being that Cappelli Sr. would not be taking them down with him in case he got the notion that the feebs might lighten his sentence—or the sentence of his psychotic son—were he to sing them some lullabies. Squires figured no assassin had snuck past Cappelli’s security team as much as Cappelli’s security team had been ordered to stand down by the new powers that be.
As for Frank Cappelli Jr., he’d been singing like a canary. Alas, it was all low-hanging fruit per Agent Squires or candy ass shit per Officer Kippy Gimm. Perhaps it would knock five minutes off his four consecutive life terms.
About the time I was signing out of Northwestern Memorial, SAC Squires made his move. Police Superintendent Gerald Callum must have caught wind of it as he pulled his service revolver and held it against the side of his head—the crooked cop thought to take the coward’s way out—but he hesitated long enough for one of Squires’s men to zap him with a Taser. Callum dropped to the floor and squirmed about next to an empty bottle of Baileys.
I’m sure Stateville Correctional Center will welcome the former Chicago police superintendent with open arms.
On the second day of my safe house interment, Kippy kidnapped me on a surprise field trip to the offices of the Michael J. McCarron Investment Group … the place where it had all begun. Just like Man-mountain let slip behind Feist’s cabin at Rock Lake, Cappelli’s pal, Michael J. McCarron, was far from the frightened church mouse everyone—Siskin, Feist, Kippy, and myself—had believed him to be. In fact, based on Aarestad’s systematic recordkeeping, the shingle that hung outside McCarron’s door would have been more accurate had it read Cappelli & McCarron Investment Group. Michael J. had been in league with the devil for quite some time and ran to the mob boss when it became apparent that his Minneapolis partner, David Siskin, would neither be coerced nor intimidated, when it became obvious that Siskin wasn’t going to play ball … and may well have already contacted the authorities.
Frank Cappelli Sr., in turn, had contacted his partner in law enforcement—Superintendent Gerald Callum—for remediation. Callum immediately checked in with his people on the inside—originally got nada—but then Marty Kolles called him back the next day to inform him David Siskin had showed up at the Special Prosecutions Bureau first thing that morning as an unscheduled walk-in, had sat patiently in the waiting area for nearly an hour, and was now in a closed-door meeting with Special Prosecutor Peter Feist.
And a situation such as that could not be ignored.
“What the hell is this all about?” McCarron demanded of Special Agent Squires as he was hauled out of his high-back brown leather chair, and frog-marched from behind his mahogany desk, cuffed, and read his rights. And though McCarron protested his innocence as his executive secretary cowered outside the door of his office, both hands over her mouth—the quivering of his voice and look in his eyes told a far different tale. McCarron must have spent the past two days sweating bullets, hoping he’d somehow miraculously slipped through the cracks, and praying that Cappelli Sr. truly practiced that renowned code of silence his family preached … Omertà.
Kippy and I thanked SAC Squires for allowing us to be there as his team took out the final piece of trash—Michael J. McCarron … the man who’d set everything in motion.
Mayor Carter Weeks was the only one to go gently into that good night when the FBI came knocking. Last I heard from Kippy, she mentioned Weeks would agree to plead guilty if the charge of murder in the first degree was taken off the table and replaced with a smorgasbord of corruption, conspiracy, bribery, and racketeering charges, but, due to the severity of the crimes—David Siskin, Peter Feist, Dave Wabiszewski—that may be a plea bargain too far.
Ultimately, the mayor had been in Superintendent Callum’s back pocket—been his puppet—since the get-go, from back when Weeks first began representing Ward 25 after his father’s death.
It was Chicago-style politics at its nastiest.
I’d attended a memorial service for Officer Wabiszewski. The first hour was intended for family and close friends, but the group was kind enough to let me slip in. I’d never been prouder of Kippy as she spoke for fifteen minutes straight about how much Wabs had meant to her, how much he’d taught her, how a million years could pass and she’d never forget him. I sat off to the side and worked my way through a packet of Kleenex. Afterward, a procession of fellow officers came by to express their condolences, to share a memory or two, to mingle. Not being one of the boys in blue—and knowing this was a first step in the healing process for Kippy—I quietly made my goodbyes and snuck off into the night.
* * *
I walked over and picked up the limping Maggie May and gave her a kiss on the forehead. Kippy is stopping by later. We’re thinking of barbecuing chicken as the overcast weather is nothing a jean jacket can’t handle. Hopefully, Bill will allow us to enjoy ourselves and not screw it by rolling in some skunked-up carcass thus forcing us to reopen the car wash. Paul and Sharla are also coming over with one of Sharla’s homemade desserts. It’ll be nice for them to meet Kippy under more traditional circumstances.
Whenever my thoughts turn to Kippy, I remember how she came to visit me on my second and final night at the hospital with Vira in tow.
“I brought Honey Bear to cheer you up,” she’d told me that night, using her term of endearment for Vira.
“Her name is Vira,” I replied.
“Well, we’ll see about that,” she said. “Anyway, I figured you could use a therapy dog.”
“Vira’s the perfect therapy dog.”
“Hey, I’ve got some news for you.”
“What?” I wondered if something further had broken in the case.
“I’ve been giving it a lot of thought lately,” she said, taking my half-eaten plate of hospital corn, mashed potatoes, and meatloaf off the tray next to my bed and setting it on the floor for Vira to complete. “Remember when I told you I was off guys?”
“I have a murky recollection of that.”
“I think I may be ready to get back on,” she said.
“Back on guys?” I asked.
Kippy smiled and sat next to me on the bed. “You’re turning red.”
“It’s the meds,” I said. “Any guy in particular?”
“There is this one fellow,” she replied, taking my hand in hers. “He’s kind of cute, but I may have to buy him a comb.”
“Does this fellow know how lucky he is?”
Kippy leaned in and kissed me on the lips. Then we stared at each other a long moment. It might have been the mild sedatives they’d been feeding me, but I swear I heard the shattering of our just-friends covenant.
“You’re really turning red,” Kippy said.
I glanced down at Vira for moral support. She peeked back up at me—as if to say is there anything you can do on your own?—and then went back to licking clean the hospital plate.
First and foremost, I need to acknowledge the entire gang at St. Martin’s Press—from senior editor Daniela Rapp to copyeditor Sarajane Herman to editorial assistant Cassidy Graham to marketing manager Sara Beth Haring to associate director of publicity Hector DeJean. You are all extremely talented and wonderful to work with. I can’t thank you enough. I must also recognize my agent—the incredible and forever-upbeat Jill Marr at the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency. And, lest I forget—mega kudos to my photographer, beta reader extraordinaire, and wife, Cindy Archer-Burton, as well as my sounding board, editor, and father, Bruce W. Burton. A heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you.
ALSO BY JEFFREY B. BURTON
The Finders
The Eulogist
The Lynchpin
The Chessman
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JEFFREY B. BURTON is the author of many novels including The Finders, The Chessman, and The Eulogist. He is an active member of Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers and the Horror Writers Association and lives in St. Paul, Minnesota with his family. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Part One: The Special Prosecutor
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Part Two: Chicago
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Part Three: Rock Lake
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Part Four: Cadaver Dogs
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Acknowledgments
Also by Jeffrey B. Burton
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
First published in the United States by Minotaur Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group
THE KEEPERS. Copyright © 2021 by Jeffrey B. Burton. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Cover design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein and Rowen Davis
Cover art: dog © Anastaslia Cherniavskaia/Shutterstock.com; lakehouse and landscape © Grisha Bruev/Shutterstock.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Burton, Jeffrey B., author.
Title: The keepers: a Mace Reid K-9 mystery / Jeffrey B. Burton.
Description: First Edition. | New York: Minotaur Books, 2021. | Series:
Identifiers: LCCN 2020056381 | ISBN 9781250244567 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781250795861 (ebook)
Classification: LCC PS3602.U76977 K44 2021 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020056381
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First Edition: 2021