Win (Windsor Horne Lockwood III #1)(84)

“Of course,” I say, lying with ease (but not immorally). And then, because words are so very, very cheap, I thicken it with, “You have my word.”

Leo Staunch is facing the window. “Where to begin?”

I do not say, “At the beginning,” because that would (a) be a cliché and (b) really, I would rather he just get to it quickly.

“I was sixteen years old when Sophia was killed.”

Sigh. So much for getting to it quickly.

“She was twenty-four. It was just the two of us—me and Soph. After my mother had her, the doctors told my mom that she couldn’t have any more kids, but eight years later, surprise, there I was.” I see him smile via the reflection in the window. “You can’t believe how much they all spoiled me.” Leo Staunch shakes his head. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

I see no reason to interject here, so I stay quiet.

“You know who we are, right?”

Curious question. “You mean, your family?”

“Exactly. The Staunch family. Let me give you some quick background. Uncle Nero and my dad were brothers. They were super close. With these kinds of, shall we say, enterprises, you need one leader. Uncle Nero was older and nastier, and my dad, who everyone tells me was a gentle soul, was happy to stay behind the scenes. Still that didn’t save him. When my dad got whacked back in 1967, well, maybe you know about the outcome.”

I do a bit. There was a mob war. The Staunches won.

“So Uncle Nero, he became like a father to me. Still is. You know he comes in here a few times a week? At his age, amazing. He had a stroke so it’s hard for him. He uses a wheelchair.”

I look at the handicap railings. I remember the ramp at the door.

“Let me skip ahead, okay?” he says.

“Please.”

“When those college kids killed my sister, no one had to say anything because we all understood: The family was going to avenge Sophia’s death. In Uncle Nero’s eyes, this was worse than what happened to my father. That, at least, was business. The Jane Street Six to us were a bunch of spoiled, overeducated, anti-war, draft-dodging, leftist pinkos. It made Sophia’s death, in our eyes, even more senseless.”

I could see that. Someone like Nero Staunch would see these rich, pampered kids—students who would look down at someone like him, make him feel inferior—and feel even more enraged.

“So Uncle Nero put out the word. He started searching for them. He made it very clear that anyone who gave us information on any of the Jane Street Six—or heck, could prove he killed one—would be richly rewarded.”

“I bet you received some leads,” I say.

“We did. But you want to know something surprising?”

“Sure.”

“None panned out. For two years, we got nothing.”

“And then?”

“And then Lake Davies got caught or turned herself in, I don’t even know which. Lake understood the score. Once she got into the prison system, we would be able to get to her. And if by some chance we couldn’t—if they put her in protective custody, for example—we would get her when she got out. So her lawyer came to us to deal.”

“Davies gave you information,” I say.

“Yes.”

This all made sense to me. Lake Davies would make a deal with the Staunches so as to protect herself. When she was released from prison, she then changed identities and, in short, went back undercover just in case the Staunches chose to no longer honor their deal.

I remembered what Lake Davies had said to me when we met up at her pet hotel, the Ritz Snarl-Fun. I asked her whether she’d gone into hiding in West Virginia because she feared Ry Strauss would find her. Her reply: “Not just Ry.”

“So who did Davies give you?” I ask.

A shadow crosses his face. “Lionel Underwood.”

The room falls silent.

I ask, “Where was he?”

“Does it matter?”

“No, not really.”

“I always figured they were hiding on hippie communes or something. But Lionel, maybe because he was Black or something, I don’t know, he was living under the name Bennett Leifer in Cleveland, Ohio. He worked as a trucker. He was married. His wife was pregnant.”

“Did the wife know who he really was?”

“I don’t know. Doesn’t matter, does it?”

“No,” I say. “I guess not.”

“You can probably guess the rest.”

“You killed him?”

Leo Staunch says nothing, which says everything. He collapses back into the chair hard, as though someone had taken out his knees. For a few moments, we just sit there in silence. When Leo speaks again, his voice is low.

“We own the entire row of warehouses on this side of the street. There is a building two doors down. It’s a muffler shop now, but back then…” His eyes close. “It took three days.”

“You were there?”

His eyes are still closed. He nods his head. I am not sure what to make of it, so for now, I go with the obvious. Lionel Underwood is dead. Of the Jane Street Six, I now know the fate of three—Ry Strauss is dead, Lionel Underwood is dead, Lake Davies is alive. I still have three to go—Arlo Sugarman, Billy Rowan, Edie Parker.