Angelina Bonaparte Mysteries Box Set by Nanci Rathbun (surface ebook reader TXT) 📗

another icon and a thumbprint appeared under Hank’s face. “This is from the Nivea shaving lotion bottle that Marcy provided.” Then he clicked again. Under Karl Jorgensen’s picture, another thumbprint was displayed. “This is from the checking account papers that Augusta gave Bobbie.” Another click. “We don’t have a photo of Beltran, but I got this partial print from the paper you found in the fuse box of his car.” With a swipe, he superimposed the prints and turned to us. “They match, as you can see.”

“So that confirms that Wagner, Beltran and Jorgensen are all the same man,” Bobbie noted.

“Right.” Spider grinned. “Now for the good part. You ready for another identity?”

Spider was enjoying the moment. I decided to play along. “At this point,” I said, “you could tell me he’s Pope Francis on a sabbatical from the Vatican, and I wouldn’t be surprised.”

With a glance my way, Bobbie waggled his right fingers in the classic ‘gimme’ gesture. “C’mon, man.”

“Okay.” Spider took a breath, turned back to the table, and opened a file on the second of his three monitors. A newspaper clipping appeared. “Read this.” Spider handed Bobbie and me individual copies of the clipping, from the Philadelphia Enquirer, dated nineteen years ago. “PPD Calls Off Search for Mafia Accountant,” read the headline.

Sources report that the police have called off their attempt to locate Tommaso Severson, reputed bookkeeper for the South Philly Mob. Severson’s sister Letizia reported Severson missing four months ago. Rumor on the street is that Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino, reputed leader of the crime organization, has offered a $100,000 bounty for information leading to Severson’s whereabouts.

Severson is the son of a Sicilian mother, whose family has close ties to the mob, and a father who emigrated from Sweden and opened an apparently legitimate accountancy business.

I looked up, puzzled. “Hank had something to do with this man?”

Spider clicked on a file and a very young Hank Wagner appeared on the screen. The head shot was quickly followed by a thumbprint. “This is from the FBI’s database.” He dragged the print over to the other monitor—don’t ask me how that works!—and released it when it hovered over the superimposed prints of Wagner-Beltran-Jorgensen.

It was a perfect match.

Bobbie leaned forward and stared, then sucked in a fast breath and blurted, “What the hell!”

“Exactly,” Spider said. “What the hell.” He looked at me, waiting.

My brain shifted from astonishment to logic. I focused away and mused out loud. “So Severson ran from the Mob to Milwaukee, where he built a new life as Hank Wagner. Then, for reasons still unknown, he disappeared as Hank and resurfaced a few years later as Jim Beltran. That’s when he masterminded his own death.” A horrifying thought intruded. “He married Marcy ten years ago. He wasn’t already married, was he?”

Spider shook his head. “That’s one thing he didn’t do to her.”

“Thank God.” Still, I felt slightly sickened at the thought of telling Marcy about her husband’s past. With a jolt, I wondered, Is the marriage valid if he used a false name on the license? I needed to find out before I broke this news to Hank’s supposed wife. I frowned. “If the marriage is legal, Marcy must decide whether to file for divorce or wait for Hank to contact her. And she can’t claim the life insurance, with him still alive somewhere.”

“Don’t see why not,” Bobbie said. “Unless we out him, who will know?”

“I will. I can’t be a party to fraud, Bobbie, and you’d never get your license if it came out.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Too bad. Marcy can use the money. But I get your point.”

Focus on the case, not on Marcy. “Why did Tommaso run?” I asked Spider.

“There’s a lot of conjecture about that.” He pulled more papers from his desk and gave them to me and Bobbie. “Some of these publications speculated that he embezzled from the Mob and skipped out to avoid getting caught and executed. Others believed he couldn’t stomach Merlino’s tactics. Skinny Joey was young when he took over. He used violence to manage an unstable organization.” He shrugged. “There was even a rumor that Tommaso went into the Witness Protection Program. I doubt it, since he never testified against the Family and there’s nothing in the FBI database that leads me to that conclusion. So either Tommaso got scared and ran, or he got righteous and ran. One thing’s for sure, he did a fine job of hiding.”

I nodded. “He certainly did.”

Spider shuffled his papers into a neat pile and checked his watch. “I need to leave in ten. Where do we go from here?”

The multi-layered ramifications of exposing Hank gave me pause. “Do we have to report this to the police or FBI?” I asked.

He thought about that for a moment, eyebrows working. “Severson’s not wanted. I say no. But they sure would like to talk to him, Angie. What he knows can still bring down some major bad guys.”

“If he can be found,” Bobbie said, “and if he’ll talk.”

“The good thing is, Severson doesn’t know anyone is still looking for Hank Wagner,” Spider said.

Bobbie gave me a look. “Busted!”

Spider swiveled toward me and waited, one eyebrow up.

Feeling cornered, I admitted that I’d sent a new message to Hank via S-Mail, one that connected Hank and Beltran.

Spider’s eyes rose to the ceiling as he thought about my dumb move. “Well, he hoped that someone would uncover the trail from Hank to Jim, or he wouldn’t have hidden the S-Mail login and password as Beltran. As far as he knows, we all think he died as Jim Beltran.”

I slumped back into the booth, relief flooding over me. “So I didn’t expose Marcy to danger?”

Spider shook his head. “Not from Hank, anyway. Seems as if he wanted to shield her and the kids, not place them in harm’s way.”

“I agree,” Bobbie said. “After all, he set up this elaborate scam so they could get the insurance payout. That’s not the action of a man with