by JJ Partridge
Puppy Dog and Lucca looked at me and I had my opening for my first surprise. “Joe Laretta has been retained as our special counsel.”
Puppy Dog blinked. Lucca’s lips pursed in surprise. Before they recovered, it was time to carpet bomb the opposition. “We have two other matters,” I said. Their faces drained of color as I disclosed that Palagi’s trust had been decimated by the Sugarman scandal. Lucca slipped lower into his chair with every revelation as to the status of Ravensford Capital and the loss of assets. When I finished, Lucca’s chin was only inches above the table top.
“Why didn’t you tell us this before?” he croaked.
“We only learned on Monday that Palagi’s investment manager had placed the funds with Sugarman. And that had to be verified.”
“Crap!” Lucca exploded, sitting bolt upright, his fingers drawn into a fist to pound the table. “You had us come here to … to… be embarrassed.” Lucca’s eyes sparked with the imagined insult, his lungs filled with heated air. “As Consul of the Republic of Italy, I am outraged! The man’s estate has been dissipated. You let this happen! Negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, tortuous interference with an inheritance. This is an infamy to Italy.” He stared at Puppy Dog, expecting him to join in the fray; Puppy Dog’s fingers were tightening on the pencil, his face becoming florid.
“Hold on,” I responded calmly before Puppy Dog met his challenge. “Palagi had the right to invest his own trust money and he did. Not the University. We were not negligent or otherwise culpable. The University has Champlin & Burrill pressing claims against Ravensford Capital. If your client wants to join in the costs of the prosecution …”
Snap! Something flew from Puppy Dog’s fingers. He had been applying pressure to both ends of the pencil and it broke, one piece winging its way across the table, nicking Pine on the shoulder before rattling onto the table. “My God!” Pine yelped.
“Sorry.” Puppy Dog’s tone was unapologetic, even surly.
Pine, recovering from the pencil assault, delivered the coup de grâce. “You should read this document.” Copies of Palagi’s letter to Father Pietro slid across the table. Lucca and Puppy Dog took all of fifteen seconds to go through it, and look at each other.
“What is this? Where did this come from?” Lucca brusquely demanded, thrusting his copy at Pine.
“Hand delivered to my office on Monday by Father Pietro Sacchi of the Philosophy Department of Providence College. The original is in my safe and will be filed with the court on Tuesday. As you can see, Palagi specifically stated that nothing covered by his will and trust was to be affected by the existence of your client. This was months after he may have acknowledged your client.”
“This … letter … constitutes an amendment of the will. It has to be witnessed,” Lucca blustered, waving his copy of the disconcerting letter above his head.
Pine’s lips played with a smirk. “If Italian law were to prevail, the letter could be a tes-ta-mento o-lo-Ä£rafo. A holographic will. It is dated and signed and notarized. There is no need of witnesses, or an attestation clause under Italian law.”
Another one for Pine!
“But,” he continued, “we don’t assert it is a will or an amendment. This letter is an affirmation of Professor Palagi’s intent.” He said that too triumphantly for the situation. “It is simply clear, notarized evidence of his manifest intent to keep his estate plan as it was.” He turned his attention to Puppy Dog. “Perhaps, he didn’t find your client … congenial? As you may know, under Chisolm v. Tillinghast, a nineteen thirty-three decision, when having made a will at a time when the testator is unaware of an heir, a later affirmation of the will by the testator, with knowledge of an heir, must be considered by the court as prima facie evidence of his manifest intent to not make any change in the document. I’ve brought copies of the decision for your easy reference. It is controlling case law in Rhode Island.”
Neither lawyer touched the copies of pages taken from a volume of Rhode Island Supreme Court cases that Pine sent their way. Lucca’s hands trembled with rage and he went on the attack. “Under what mental duress was Signor Palagi at the time he wrote this? Did the University pressure him? Threaten him?”
“That’s not called for,” Pine replied, raising his voice in indignation. “You don’t trust the University?”
“Trust?” Lucca sneered and reprised Puppy Dog’s complaint. “We ask for a copy of his trust and you won’t give it to us, even though you must have a copy with you. Trust? You insinuate Vittorio Ruggieri is an impersonation, a fraud? Trust? You tell us that Palagi’s assets are lost and that it is a surprise? Trust? You deliver a previously undisclosed and unwitnessed amendment to his will that disinherits our client? Trust? We should trust you when your client exhibits prejudice against Italians and Italo-Americans?” Seemingly exhausted by his blast, he stood, took a deep breath, heaved his case under his arm and stormed out of the conference room.
Puppy Dog stood to follow. I was blunt. “Leon, as to anything that’s in Palagi’s estate or trust, you should know that we’ll fight forever, here and in Italy. That’s institutional policy, even if it’s only for the principal. The son may never see a nickel in his lifetime. So, if this is a contingency case …?”
“Rudy has his orders.”
“After payment of legacies, there won’t be much left.”
His yellowish eyes brightened. “All I can do is urge my client to be practical. Can’t see litigating about nothing.” Then, he cackled, “You hired Joe Laretta? Getting political after all these years?”
I smiled just the tiniest bit as he left.
34
AT FIVE MINUTES TO one, I was across town in my Range Rover at the security gate at the Eaton Street entrance to Providence College. A warming sun had broken through hazy clouds and stoked up humidity. The security guard put down his newspaper and greeted me with a how ya doin, and I said I was to pick up Father Pietro at the Priory. He pointed up a tree-lined way toward an imposing neo-Gothic structure at the top of a slight incline.
I circled the several brick and glass buildings, grassy knolls and playing fields looking for a parking spot, as streams of kids crossed in front of me, as oblivious as any on Carter’s Green, some in the company of white-robed Dominicans. Like most native Rhode Islanders, I was very familiar, even proud of the success of the College, administered by the Dominican Order, how when its basketball team, the Friars, became a national power, the small school was transformed from a tiny liberal arts college into a Catholic college of choice for four thousand undergraduates.
I found a vacant parking spot in front of the Priory, where I was cordially greeted by a male receptionist in a white habit who introduced himself as Brother Thomas. Alert to my visit, he used a phone to summon Father Pietro and directed me to a bright, comfortably furnished parlor with three starkly spare oil paintings of the Madonna, the Crucifixion, and Christ’s Ascension on its walls. Father Pietro, in a black suit, a white vestment folded over his right arm, soon joined me; the paintings, he said, were by a contemporary French Dominican he knew well and evidentially admired. As we left the Priory, he picked up a pamphlet from the reception desk on the history of the Dominican Order “from our founding by Saint Dominic in 1216 to today’s mission. O.P.,” he said, “stands for Order of Preachers.”
Our fifteen minute drive to Swan Point Cemetery took us past the State House into the edge of downtown, up College Hill on Waterman Street through the Carter campus, then down a long incline to chic Wayland Square and the leafy expanse of the East Side’s parkway of new money, Blackstone Boulevard. Father Pietro was engaging in conversation, inquiring about my duties as University Counsel, avoiding any reference to Palagi’s recording. I mentioned that Nadie and I were soon to be married and our honeymoon destinations of Rome and the Amalfi Coast.
“You will be in Rome? Wonderful. While there, it would be my pleasure to escort you and your wife on a tour of the Vatican if you have the time.” He chuckled. “It will not be what
they now call a Dan Brown tour, but you would find it of interest.”
I replied we would be honored and gave him particulars as to our travel dates. He asked where we were staying in Rome. “The Hassler,” I said and felt a touch of embarrassment as he repeated the name slowly in appreciation of its reputation as Rome’s finest, most exclusive hotel.
We entered Swan Point Cemetery through massive iron gates softened by gardens of brilliant early fall color and parked in the chapel lot next to my mother’s ancient Volvo station wagon. Its low license plate number 24 had instant cultural status in Rhode Island although to her it was just part of being a Temple family member symbolizing nothing else than owning one of the first registered cars. The chapel was a low lying stone building with arched windows, a sharp roofline of slate, and truncated steeple. I remarked to Father Pietro that I expected few of Palagi’s colleagues since Carter University’s faculty had a long-standing preference for on-campus memorial services months after a colleague’s death.
“A difference between our institutions, our communities,” Father Pietro replied. “We say farewell to our brother Dominicans with formalities that are centuries old and pray for God’s continued providence. These are moments of thanksgiving for a life, allowing us to reflect on our own goals and purposes.”
I almost said “Amen.”
Within the cool precincts of the chapel, Father Pietro excused himself and disappeared into a kind of sacristy as I slid into a pew next to my mother and Sylvia Odum, her live-in companion, a self-described African-American lady of a certain age. The two handsome, spry, nearly octogenarian ladies, dressed appropriately for the service, smiled at me, and resumed their hushed conversation.
We were about fifteen in attendance, including a handful of professors from the Institute. Light filtered through Tiffany glass windows splashed a spectrum of colors across blond oak wall panels and two stands of floral arrangements; somber organ music piped in the background. The last to arrive was Senator Rudy Lucca who strode portentously down the center aisle to a front pew. We could begin; the Republic was now present.
At precisely two o’clock, Father Pietro, vested for the service, entered the sanctuary, snapped on a lectern light, asked us all to remember that we were in the presence of God, made the sign of the Cross, and read from Saint Paul and the Gospel of John. His softly accented voice gave depth to the positive characteristics he associated with Palagi, like genial conversation, love of intellectual discussion, generosity, a passion for the opera, and his use of wry anecdotes to make his point. At the end of his gracious, thoughtful talk, he alluded to Palagi’s secretive and lifelong battle with the ‘demons of pessimism’ that reminded us all of a suspected suicide. After final prayers in Italian and English, the priest left the sanctuary and we filed out of the chapel. I thought he had acquitted himself as a member of the Order of Preachers.
In the gravel parking lot, Rudy Lucca drove past me in a shiny black Cadillac sedan without acknowledgement as I chatted with my mother and Sylvia until they left to inspect the formal gardens surrounding our family’s nearby crypt. Palagi’s colleagues, hovering nearby, were now drawn to me, anxious to let me know their positions on Columbus Day—decidedly mixed—unanimous in their complaint that Cosimo Brunotti was not in attendance. Father Pietro joined us; they complimented him on his depiction of Palagi and returned to their voluble criticism of their boss as we left them and headed down a cinder path bordered by thick arborvitae.
“A fittingly serene place,” the priest said solemnly, “so well-maintained, like an arboretum.” Which it was: stands of willows, a few remaining elms, clusters of birch, ash, scattered somber dark beeches, gnarled oaks, acacias, and early autumn colorful maples.
“Claudia Cioffi did not come,” the priest began. “I called to invite her to the service. Her excuse was that tomorrow she leaves for Rome. She complained of sickness to be treated there.” We came to the cemetery proper and walked past obelisks, urns, mournful statuary mottled with yellow-brown lichen, rows of marble and granite headstones, and neo-Grecian crypts, many with tiny fluttering flags indicating the graves of veterans, then skirted a pond nestled among hillocks where willow branches dipped into dark water and brushed stone benches. “You heard, in Italo’s own words, how they grappled, in deepening hostility. Claudia’s tragedy is that she has outlived Italo, her protagonist is dead. She has been reduced, in her old age and illness, to live the rest of her life on the sustenance of spite.”
We took a sloping path lined in places by cobblestones and fieldstone walls and approached a pond with a spouting fountain edged by swaying brownish reeds. I followed the priest out on an ornamental bridge that spanned the pond; the snouts of hungry golden carp broke the water’s surface. He grasped its wooden railing and, looking straight ahead, said, “Mr. Temple … Alger, if I may …” his voice steeped in what could only be described as melancholy, “… I have had time to consider why Italo gave me the recording. At first, I thought of it as his confession. But I have concluded, after prayer, it was more. I now believe that his motive was devious.”
He left the railing and crossed to the other side of the pond to sit on a low granite bench. I joined him.
“The recording was to remind me that I failed him, that I did not lighten his burden of pessimism and depression, and to spite me for my failure. He had to blame someone other than himself. He long considered himself a victim of fate’s thousand cuts. Since I failed to provide him, an unbeliever, any solace he could accept, he mocked my failure, suggested my complicit guilt in the duplicity he found in his life.” He sighed. “I forgive him but it is sad, is it not?”
I didn’t respond since it seemed likely he would continue.
“Today in my talk, when I recalled that he could be a raconteur, witty, generous of spirit, I did not say it was often defensive in nature. But it was. Di Lampedusa wrote aptly, He who has the courage to laugh is the master of the world, much like he who is prepared to die. Was Italo following this dictum?”
We sat in silence, our gazes fixed on the play of light in the spray of the fountain, and I decided the priest should know of the loss of Palagi’s assets in the Sugarman fraud. Shocked, he said Palagi would have been devastated.
“Perhaps the trigger to a suicide?” he said. I also told him that in addition to her legacy under Palagi’s will, Claudia Cioffi benefitted from an insurance policy, a tontine, a policy that might have resulted from his fear of exposure.
He didn’t react as I expected. Instead, he was silent as though lost in thoughts. Then, he said, “Tell me, are you familiar with Aida? The libretto?”
“Vaguely,” I said, remembering the stage-filling Zeffirelli production at the Met from twenty years ago, complete with horses and elephants in the Triumphal March of the second act.
“You will recall a final scene when Prince Radames, condemned to death by Pharaoh for disclosing a military secret to the Ethiopians, the people of Aida, had the opportunity to be saved by Pharaoh’s daughter who loved Radames despite his treason and his love affair with Aida. All he had to do was embrace Pharaoh’s daughter and he would be saved. But instead Radames casts aside his chance to live and utters words that have always chilled me; It is not death I fear, it is your mercy. Such words seem so applicable.”
To which of Italo or Claudia would these words apply? Or was it both?
35
I HAD TWO MATTERS to deal with before leaving Congdon Street for Young Jimmy’s exhibition match at the Dunk: seeing what could be done to obtain Palagi’s autopsy report and a call to Arnie Gershowitz. I settled in a recliner in the loft, a Jameson within comfortable reach. The first call went smoothly. My contact with the medical examiner’s office was a former client, now head of the Department of Pathology at City Hospital and a professor at the Carter University Medical School. I reached him at home, explaining my need, and asked for assistance. He promised he would call the medical examiner and let me know in the morning. Completing the call, I was pleased that
I might have something positive to report to Benno.
As for the Gershowitz dilemma, I had a brainstorm that provided an additional benefit for a loan from the TF, had obtained Nick’s concurrence by telephone, and had worked out the conditions in my mind. I called Arnie Gershowitz using the phone number from the card given to me by his mother. He was at his home and fortunately, his brother Simon and his family were there for Shabbat dinner. The brothers decided to use a speaker phone in Arnie’s home office.
Shock treatment was required to get their full attention. I began with “You guys are crooks.”
Gasps. Arnie croaked out, “You are accusing us …?”
My voice, timely for a change, went into super-WASP mode. “Your financial records are worthless, your books don’t balance.” A dry cough for emphasis. “The homes’ operating account is mixed in with the clients’ burial trusts and has provided liquidity and paid operational expenses of the homes. And money was invested in the burial trust by third parties.”
I could almost hear the thumps of their heightened pulses before Arnie shouted, “The books are good. I got back up!”
“You’re telling me you never tapped the burial trust account for operations? That it is segregated and spent only for required burial purposes?”
Silence. Arnie must have pushed the mute button while he and Simon came up with an explanation. “It’s simple,” Arnie eventually said, his voice lacking conviction, “we had two accounts with Bernie. A was for the operations, B was for the burial trust. Somebody dies with a burial trust, we service the burial, we bury them, whatever, Bernie would send us the money from Account B.” Simon must have said something I didn’t hear because when Arnie continued, his voice had gone up an octave. “Sometimes … we borrowed from one for the other. If A was short, we would hit B. If B didn’t have enough cash, we’d hit A.”