by JJ Partridge
20
HOW DO YOU GUYS do it?”
I was on the overpass from the Convention Center over West Exchange Street to the Omni, walking briskly past the riotous colors and shapes of artist Joseph Norman’s huge mural Vision of Providence.
“What were you thinking?” Puppy Dog, breathless, a worn and heavy valise in hand, was catching up to me. “Half the people in that room are Italo-American. Columbus Day’s part of their DNA. And you thumb your noses at them? I just heard some bozo on the radio comparing Columbus to Hitler!” Then, his voice lowered as he grabbed for my elbow at the top of the escalator. “Thought I should tell you so you won’t be surprised on Friday. I got hired as local counsel for the son in the Palagi estate case. The Luccas will represent Italy. But we’ll work as co-counsel.”
He got his desired reaction: my jaw dropped. But he didn’t see it because he was two steps behind me in our glide to the lobby.
“So, this old man finds out he fathered a kid fifty years ago, after he’s left his millions to you guys?”
“Bad timing,” I said over my shoulder.
“How well do you know Judge Cremasoli?” The Providence probate judge. Didn’t know him at all but guessed that Puppy Dog had participated, as Sonny Russo’s legal beagle, in the politics of the City Council’s annual reappointment of the probate judge. “He’s old school, a family guy. He’s not going to allow Carter to benefit from an injustice.”
Puppy Dog pursued me through the lobby’s bustle of arrivals and departures, bellmen and hospitality aids. “Tramonti’s suddenly got a tin ear. He’s got a city council full of Italo-Americans who will gag at his appointing Carter University’s lawyer to the Commission with all this Columbus Day stuff.” Then, he added, smugly, “Bad timing.”
He followed me through the slow spin of the revolving door to the hotel’s porte-cochère where a valet took my parking ticket and disappeared. “Bobby Lucca owns the popular side of this. You guys are fucked on the tax treaty.”
The Mini appeared, I tipped the valet and got in; Puppy Dog stooped to peer through the passenger side window, smiled, and waved.
Marcie glumly reported she had watched the News at Noon on Channel 11 and it was rough on Carter; it probably didn’t help that its popular male anchor was Italo-American. Sonny Russo was interviewed and spewed vituperative nonsense. I asked for her appraisal of the situation. Marcie, practical and focused, lived and breathed Common Cause idealism and NPR liberalism that often prodded me into reflection. Unlike Nadie.
“If it was up to me, we wouldn’t have any day-off holidays named for a single individual, including Columbus. That’s what got us into trouble.”
“Great idea! Get rid of Columbus Day and the only named day-off holiday would be Martin Luther King Day. We’ll change that to Minorities Day.”
She wagged a finger at me.
I closed my office door and tackled a lease for the Medical School in the reborn Jewelry District across the Providence River from the main campus, occasionally checking media websites for painful Columbus Day updates. At four-thirty, I entered Marcie’s office as she was about to leave. As she put on her rain coat, she said, “Why can’t it be like St. Patrick’s Day. It’s fun, everyone is Irish, drinks beer, has some corn beef and cabbage, great parades.”
She always was trying to figure out why the rest of the population didn’t share her worldview.
“Marcie, can you imagine insulting the Kennedys in Southie on St. Patrick’s Day?”
“No.”
“That’s what we just did to Federal Hill, half the City Council, twenty percent of the population of Providence. Retribution is coming.”
21
IT WAS AFTER FIVE when I stepped out of College Hall on to the trimmed lawns of The Green on my way to the parking garage. The sky had cleared during the afternoon; the smell of air cleansed by rain—petrichor I remembered from a Sunday Times crossword—was refreshing.
A bench in the shade of majestic elms invited me to stop; I put my valise at my feet, took off my jacket, loosened my tie, and stretched my arms heavenward, my head circling my shoulders, releasing audible creaks. Above me, the canopy of leaves had taken on the rich intensity of early autumn. In another two months, the trees would be stripped for winter, their limbs becoming a pattern of intricate lines against the prevailing high winter clouds. Bleak days were coming, as bleak as the outlook for a tax treaty with the city.
I shook my head and replaced the Columbus Day debacle with a question: Why did Italo Palagi include me in his end-of-life disclosures, his allegations of faithlessness, his suggestion of murder?
The answer was not felicitous. A conversation with me, Nadie once said, could be like an interrogation. Years of depositions and witness examinations had not honed conversational skills. If he thought of me as a resolute inquirer, Palagi might assume an inclination to investigate his allegations. What he might not have expected was that I would also feel compelled to probe his confession.
With two hours to kill before the Shoot-Out Gala, I was drawn to where Benno suspected Palagi went into the Providence River.
Before it was officially dubbed the Old Harbor District by a well-meaning urban planner, the warren of warehouses, factories, wharves, taverns, whore houses, and rooming houses along the Providence River and into India Point had not changed much since its days as a center of the rum, slaves, and molasses trade. The sixties and seventies brought the Hurricane Barrier to the river and the incursion of Route 195, but even then, the area took another thirty years to be reinvented by boutiques, galleries, antique stores, expensive condos, upscale restaurants, trendy bars, and a marina. Only Hard Core, the strip club pimped up in a garish orange stucco and lit by twenty-four hour neon, the oldest continuing business on the riverfront, and some adjoining bars, survived gentrification.
I parked the Mini in the late afternoon shadows of the Corliss Landing condominium where Palagi had lived. Once, its thick red brick walls housed Corliss Steam Engine Works, manufacturer of the world’s most powerful steam engines, a sprawling factory where iron and steel were noisily formed into machines designed to govern nature, shorten distances, and reduce time. A thoughtful renovation retained the building’s architectural integrity, its perfect sequences of granite sills under multi-paned windows, its ornamental masonry, and even a fifty-foot brick chimney, all of which evoked the practical engineering skills and brilliant mechanics once employed there.
I peered through an ornate iron entrance gate lined with vertical spear point rods into an interior courtyard paved with cobblestones, a carefully tended lawn, a spouting fountain, and two unoccupied tables under open striped umbrellas. A portly, ginger-haired security guard in gray uniform, badge on his chest, radio at his wide belt, waddled toward me. He screwed up a freckled face and said, “Can I help ya?”
I stammered out, “A friend of mine from the University, Italo Palagi, lived here.”
His “Yeah?” invited a further response.
“Said it was a safe place, security tight.”
The guard’s shoulders snapped back. “Never had a break-in since I’ve been here. Can’t get in through here,” he clutched the gate’s bars, “and the windows on the first floor are nine feet off the ground. And if you did get in, with all of the security stuff, we’d still get you. That’s how I seen you. Camera up there.” He pointed above the gate and let his gray eyes drop to my toes and range back up to my face. “You interested in his unit?”
“Walking by and thought of him. Terrible that he drowned.”
“Yeah,” the guard agreed, letting a hand run through gray bristled hair. “Can’t understand the crime-scene tape at his apartment. Finally came down today after the owners complained.” The guard tugged at his belt that held up trousers slipping below his gut. “Nice old guy. Never any trouble. I was on duty that night. Must have gone out through the rear exit to South Water because I never seen him.”
“So, that’ll be on video?”
“Nah
, not back there. That’s only an emergency exit, although some owners use it for convenience if they want to go in or out to South Water. He …” He abruptly stopped, realizing I had been nosy.
I smiled and said, “Have a good night,” and walked away. I heard the clink of the gate latch as it was opened so he could watch my leaving.
The sidewalk led me past the rear of Al Forno, Providence’s most renowned restaurant, where kitchen exhaust fans gave hints of its menu, and down to South Water Street to the rear exit of Corliss Landing. From there, I crossed the street and cut through Hard Core’s mostly empty parking lot to the pedestrian walk along the river bank. A chest-high metal rail with vertical metal slats six inches apart protected the drunks from Hard Core from a fall of ten feet or more to chunks of sharp edged granite, meaning that Palagi’s point of final departure had to be either up river off one of the marina docks, or down river closer to the Hurricane Barrier.
Walking north to the marina, I kept pace with the putt-putt of a small engine pushing a skiff up the river. Benno’s Asians, short, brown-skinned men in baseball caps, T-shirts and jeans, stood along the railing every twenty or thirty feet or so, some casting vigorously to where the striped bass and blues hide in the warm water discharge from the Manchester Street Power Plant. Others were in conversation with their poles propped up against the railing next to plastic bait and catch buckets. Judging from their reactions to me, Benno was right; someone would remember a white, old geezer with a cane in their territory on a foggy night.
The Old Harbor District Marina, smaller than its grandiose name suggested, consisted of a half dozen floating docks stretching out to mid-river off identical gangways, serving watercraft from Sea Doos and Whalers to Sea Rays and Bayliners to cigarette boats, houseboats, and cabin cruisers. Each gangway had a gate that required a punched in code to open, making it unlikely Palagi could have gotten out on a dock unless invited or a gate was wedged open for the convenience of guests. There would be activity on an August night, even with a fog, at the party boats tied up for the convenience of booze, music, and food from bars and waterside restaurants and from the houseboats supposedly permanently reserved for the intimates of Hard Core. Not a place for anyone to jump into the river—privately.
I retraced my steps, and continued on, stopping for the moment at a new laminated storyboard detailing the history of the Providence & Fall River Line overnight steamers to New York. The railing ended behind the storyboard; the embankment became guarded by a four-foot-high metal fence, its posts anchored in concrete, with cords of wire about a foot apart, possibly wide enough for the rotund Palagi to slip through, but still at least ten feet above the rocks and river. Not there.
The last fence post was close to the eastern abutment of the mechanically purposeful Hurricane Barrier, leaving a gap of ten feet or so without metal protection, but filled by clutches of red leaf sumac, a thicket of briar bushes, and garbage trees on the steep slope to the water’s edge. If Palagi managed to get down there, no one at street level or up river could have seen him.
Following a rough path down the slope—it was easier than I thought it would be—I came to a slab of granite bridging two boulders to form a natural bench; at its base was a high-tide line of green and yellow slime, straw, tangles of fishing line, and trash. A few feet away, a stagnant shallow of viscous-brown water allowed neither the sun’s reflection nor a ripple’s sparkle. The river’s briny smell had become acrid and metallic.
I heard the crunch of footsteps before a blue windbreaker was visible through the brush.
“What are you doing here?” I asked Benno Bacigalupi. He could have, but didn’t, ask the same question of me.
“What the detectives should have done. Walking the shoreline. Recognize these?” he asked. He took two strides toward me and thrust a pair of rimless eyeglasses at me, one lens shattered, the other one perfectly round. “Found them right there,” and pointed to the tide line by the slab.
I ran them through my fingers. “Palagi’s?”
“And so is this.”
In his hand was a brownish plastic prescription vial, its cap missing, its CVS Pharmacy label washed out but still legible, as were the typed words Palagi, and OxyCodone, a prescription number, and a date, two days before Italo Palagi’s death. “Caught in the rocks under that slab. In case you were wondering, that night, high tide was at ten-eleven. Water would be right up against the granite. Fall off and you’re in the river.”
22
ACROSS THE RIVER, THE power plant’s four chimneys were black candles against the sky, its red warning lights glowing wicks. A boat engine at the marina roared to life, muffling the slap of water on the docks. The breeze brought a smell of salt and seaweed.
We were on a bench, protected from the sun’s glare by a bank of purple clouds. Benno twirled Palagi’s broken eyeglasses by a stem, his face thoughtful. I said, “On Monday, I heard a recording Palagi made shortly before he died. He said he wouldn’t commit suicide.”
The spectacles stopped their twirls. “When can I hear it?”
“Give me some context first.”
Benno folded Palagi’s eyeglasses and slipped them in his jacket’s pocket. He leaned back on the bench and began.
“Maybe four, five months ago, Palagi called me. Didn’t say where he got my name. I met him here, on the walkway. Wanted information on a woman by the name of Maria Ruggieri. Told me she was born in Basilicata, Italy, her approximate age, that she may have recently died in New York City area. I wasn’t looking for work right then and told him so but he insisted he needed the information and didn’t have the time himself. So, I gave him my rate and he peeled off five hundred as a retainer. Gave me a phone number for my report.
“Seemed easy enough. I’d check her name online through Vital Statistics in New York and Jersey, phone listings, tax rolls, routine. Turned out to get into their Vital Statistics records, you got to have some information, like a parent’s name, date and location of birth or death, etc. Without that, nada. So, I traced obits in the newspapers and I came up short for the couple of Maria Ruggieris I found. Wrong birthplace or age, always something. So, I started on the death records for New York City. All five boroughs. I went back six months, then back a year. Then two. Still nothing. Then, I tried Suffolk County, that’s Long Island, and I found a Maria Ruggieri, spinster, approximately the right age, from Basilicata. Know where Basilicata is?”
I didn’t get a chance to show my geographic knowledge of Italy before he went on, pointing to a mud-caked shoe.
“Basilicata is the instep of the Boot, poorest region in Italy. North of Calabria, south of Naples. Biggest export is people. My people came from Foggia, in Puglia, next region over, so I know. Anyway, this Maria Ruggieri died last April in Babylon Beach out on the Island.” His head bobbed up to look at me. “Ever hear of the place?”
“No.” Babylon Beach sounded like a Frankie Avalon–Annette Funicello beach blanket movie from the sixties.
“It’s on the Sound. Big houses protected by ten-foot fences, watch dogs, and mean-faced guys, the kind of place popular even today with what’s left of the Five Families—the Gambinos, the Genoveses, the Bonannos, the Lucheses, and the Columbos. The original gated community.”
He pulled out his notebook from his windbreaker and found a place about halfway through. “This woman’s death certificate said she died from pneumonia. The address where she died turned out to be a hospice. I called the hospice, faked it like I’m a relative, and got her home address in Babylon Beach. The real estate tax records online showed the place was assessed in the millions, owned by a limited liability company, an LLC. And who owns the LLC according to the New York Secretary of State? Another LLC, this one from Nevada. I know that this is going nowhere so I checked who was listed as the attorney for service of process on the LLC form.” Benno referred to his notebook. “Gucci, Montecalvo and Ottavani, attorneys, in Queens.”
The names registered. The New York lawyers representing Vittorio Rugg
ieri. Unlikely a coincidence.
“So, I looked them up, criminal defense lawyers, a partner, one Anthony Cimininni, well-known in certain circles as consigliore for the Giambazzi family, the New York cell of the ‘Ndrangheta. Ever heard of the ‘Ndrangheta?” I didn’t respond to his question and my recently acquired knowledge of the powerful gang; anyway Benno was on a roll. “The Mafia is patty-cake compared to them. Not much happens in the Boot without the ‘Ndrangheta dipping their beaks. Would kill their mothers for money—and they love their mothers.”
“Did you tell Palagi?”
“I called him. I was surprised he took it with no emotion at all, said I was to wait for further instructions. I didn’t hear back so I called again in a couple of weeks. He told me to send a bill or to keep what’s left of my retainer, said it was all resolved. I got the impression that resolved didn’t mean happy ending.”
“So, after you learned how he died, you …”
“The connection to the Giambazzis bugged me. Then, three weeks ago, a PI from New York I’ve known for years called. His client is Assicurazioni Generali, a huge Italian insurance company. Like a Met Life. He needed info on Palagi’s death but didn’t want to spend a lot of time in Providence. I said I wouldn’t mind mucking around.”
An insurance policy? “Who’s the beneficiary? How much?”
Benno ignored my questions. He had a train of thought and was not getting off.
“Before I got going, he called me again, right after the medical examiner’s report was released, and told me that the insurance company ended the investigation, was paying the claim. Kind of abrupt but that was their business.” He turned to face me. “So, what’s with the recording?”
I paused to consider if I was morally obligated to consult with Father Pietro. Was disclosure left as a joint decision? I decided that Benno was likely to keep pressing his investigation no matter what; better to have him inside our tent. “Benno, can you work for me?”