by JJ Partridge
“Providence. Put in my twenty. Sergeant. I’m on disability though. Broke my foot in a chase. Some little bastard ...”
“I bet nobody gave you a medal for that,” Benno said sympathetically.
“You’re goddamn right!” he replied and turned to me, a civilian, for recognition of his public service. I smiled appreciatively.
Benno said, “As far as I’m concerned, we can go as soon as Sergeant Riley checks the place out.”
“Yeah,” Sergeant Riley said, but didn’t advance into the office. Instead, with his eyes still suspicious of me—after all, I didn’t share the brotherhood of blue—he said, “Next time you guys want to come in, you check with me or who’s on duty, right?”
“Right,” replied Benno, “but I don’t think we’ll have to be here again.” And he laughed, “Especially on a Saturday. We should get double time for this detail.”
Sergeant Riley grinned, “Wouldn’t be bad duty. We got air conditioning in the office, nice TV.” He gestured down the hall, we left the apartment, I locked up, and he accompanied us down to the courtyard, all the while giving Benno an earful on his career in Providence, his son’s lot as a patrolman in Cranston, the pains in the butt that make up the disability board, the threat of a pension reduction because the city was so cash poor. Benno had a new friend.
At the curb by his Taurus, Benno inspected the copies of the funeral card’s front and back. “Somebody wanted to throw a scare into Palagi and succeeded. The Giambazzi’s could do it but it’s not like the ‘Ndrangheta to be so subtle. From what we know, I put my money on Claudia Cioffi when she learned of the vendetta. Out of spite. I’ll go through the rest of the stuff later,” he added and used a key to unlock and open the trunk. He leaned in and removed what I immediately recognized as Palagi’s distinctive walking stick, its silvery knob covered in plastic. Benno, who allowed himself a smile at my reaction, dryly asked, “Ever been in a shanty town?”
38
THE DEBATE OVER THE future design and infrastructure of Providence created the opportunity for a homeless encampment under the ramp of an abandoned portion of the Route 195–Route 95 bridge intersection. The city could not decide whether to knock it down or use its abutments as the base for a footbridge across the Providence River, to join the ‘right’ bank anchored in the bio-medical Knowledge District to the trendy ‘left’ bank on South Water Street. Could be our Pont des Artistes, said Mayor Tramonti’s optimistic planners who envisioned a walkable urban span; from one side of empty to the other side of empty countered critics dismayed at the estimated construction cost. During the dithering, the shanties arrived and stayed.
The Taurus jumped a broken curb and parked behind a boxy, rusty VW wagon held together with bumper stickers for various causes. We got out, rain spitting again, Benno with the walking stick, and we plodded across beaten down, rutted, weedy ground to a collection of tents and lean-tos of framed plastic sheeting, plywood, and roofing materials in a ring of Porta Potties and centered on a huge Army surplus tent marked Office. The hum of a generator located the power source for lights strung from shanty to tent to shanty. I expected the squat to smell to high heaven but it didn’t; in fact, the only odor was that of fried food coming from a tent with a stove pipe piercing its canvas roof. Despite the dismal weather, a pregnant cat cleaned herself under a card table at the entrance of the Office where a bald guy in a sleeveless fleece and jeans, and badly needing skin care, played solitaire. We waited for him to look up but he didn’t.
Benno impatiently pulled aside the tent flaps without protest from the sentry and we entered. The furniture on a plywood floor consisted of a metal desk, a couple of flimsy beach chairs, two canvas camp chairs, a cot, a file cabinet, and a table with piles of clothes; a single mega watt bulb hanging from a tent pole lit the interior. A voice from outside shouted, “He’s comin’,” and seconds later, the tent flaps parted for a thin, ponytailed man in his forties with a black Pancho Villa mustache under a nose like a turnip, greenish eyes in a kindly round face, in a sleeveless sweatshirt over a plaid work shirt, jeans, and thick soled boots. He addressed Benno. “You’re back.”
“Yeah, like I said. Ray, meet Alger Temple. He’s got an interest in this stick your guy found.” Benno held up the walking stick like it was a royal mace.
Ray shook my hand. He said, “I picked up Joe this morning. I’ll bring him in,” and left us.
Benno explained that Joe Riposa had been in detox at General Hospital drying out. He snickered, “Funny name, huh, for a bum. ‘Riposa.’ Rest …”
We sat on the camp chairs; I gestured to Benno that I wanted to inspect the walking stick and he passed it to me. Stained hardwood tapered to a half inch diameter and a knob with an intricate design of sharp-edged rosettes and flourishes below the worn features of what could be the head of a lion or leopard. I remembered that Palagi was an admirer of di Lampedusa, the author of The Leopard.
Ray returned with a scrawny, wheezened, jaundiced-faced man about fifty with thinning white hair plastered over his scalp, wearing a clean denim shirt, leather vest, jeans, and new white sneakers. “Joe Riposa,” Ray said. “Joe, I told you about these folks. They’re not after you. But they wanna know about that cane you brought in.”
We got up to shake Riposa’s gnarled hand. He smiled nervously, revealing pinkish gums holding a few crooked teeth and a space where a bridge would have helped; his rheumy eyes and yellowish skin tone evidenced his life before detox. He lowered himself, arthritically, into a facing beach chair while Ray butted up against the desk. “So, wha’ ya wanna know?” Joe asked warily. “I didn’ do no’hin’.” His th’s, and g’s were lost in his lack of front teeth.
Ray, his arms resting across his chest, said patiently, “Just tell them what you told me. Don’t worry. It’s still your rent.”
His ward cleared his throat. I expected a glob of phlegm until he loudly swallowed it.
“So, dis is wha’ happened. I was in bad shape, see. I got a habit, ya know? I was strun’ out so I can’t come here, so I was across da river, over by Hard Core, a crummy night, fog like shit, nobody’s out and I couldn’t catch no’hin’.”
He sniffed, found a handkerchief in a back pocket, and blew his nose before continuing.
“I see dis old guy, he’s kinda stooped over, in the fron’ row of Hard Core’s lot. Has dis cane.” He nodded toward the walking stick. “Bangs on a car window. Door opens, he goes in dis car. I figure dere’s some kind of meetin’ goin’ on so I hung around. After a coupla minutes, da horn blows, a big guy comes over from Hard Core, opens da door, and pulls on da old guy. He’s strugglin’ and t’rows som’em, like pocket change, inside, and runs his cane across da car door. Big guy goes bananas, pushes ‘im up against da pole of da canopy, I figure he’s gonna get ‘im good when som’body in da car shouts som’hem and da big guy hustles da old guy down da sidewalk, keeps right behind ‘im, into da fog. I follow ‘em down to da Barrier. Da fog lif’s for a second or so and I see somebody’s at da end of da fence, and then da fog closes up. I was gonna wait…” he stopped and looked at Ray, “…but I was ya know, really sick, needed some s’uff bad, so I headed over ta Shoo’hers. Ya know Shoo’hers?”
“Yes,” I said. Shooters was a boarded-up night club at the head of the Bay next to the tugboat basin.
“Figured I’d get some s’uff, and a place to sleep. And I did. So nex’ day, I’m walkin’ by, gonna bum some change downtown, when I remember da old guy, and I go by da river and dere’s dis cane next to a flat rock by da water.” He took the walking stick from Benno’s hand. “Saw dis shiny knob, looked pretty good, so I figure I could buy in here. Gave it to Ray as an advance but I got pulled in for D ’n’ D. Got sent to City. Dat’s all.”
Like Benno, I believed him. I asked, “Did you see the big guy again? Was it him at the fence?”
“Man, I was slammed. Sick. And da fog. I can’t say but som’body bigger den da old man.”
Benno asked, “Anything else you remember, J
oe?”
“Naw, sorry. Wish I could help youse out.” Joe grinned his toothless grin and looked at the sleeves of his shirt. “One t’ing, when you come outta City, you always get new duds.”
Ray confirmed Joe Riposa brought the walking stick in for rent on a Thursday morning, was strung out, that it is against the rules to stay at the camp when you’re drugged up, so Joe had left it as an advance.
Benno shook his head, signaling we were done with Riposa. He took out his wallet and counted out five twenties which he handed to Ray.
“You gave me Joe’s rent yesterday …”
“Yeah, but now I got resources.” He shrugged toward me.
In his car, Benno placed the walking stick tip down, its knob leaning toward the passenger seat, and got in. I joined him as a spatter of rain hit the windshield. I said, “Palagi was under duress right before he went down the embankment.”
“Yeah.”
“Whomever it was could have …”
“Yeah.”
“… helped him into the river …”
“Yeah.”
“For Christsake, all you can say is ‘yeah’!”
“Yeah, and I’ll tell you why. You got a Cambodian fisherman who doesn’t speak English who saw an old man with a cane go into a car and a stoned homeless guy who thinks he saw somebody hustled down South Water Street. I keep telling you that you don’t have a credible witness who actually saw somebody with Palagi at the river.”
“But, the car,” I argued, “with the connection between Palagi and Zito because of the loan, it had to be Zito’s Bentley and his bodyguard that rousted Palagi and pushed him down toward the Barrier. C’mon, Benno … .” I knew I was right!
I saw a ghost of a smile on Benno’s lips. “Remember what I told you about shoe leather?”
“Yeah.” My turn to be monosyllabic.
He carefully removed the plastic cover over the knob of the walking stick. “Look close. See anything?”
I turned it slowly. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, then I noticed that two of its elaborate rosettes were filled by spots of a dark color. Grit? Paint? I held the knob up to the window to catch the pale light. The color was black … or maybe a very dark green? From a Bentley?
“The plastic is only so the paint doesn’t come off. Could never get into evidence. Handled by too many people. Any shyster lawyer would have a field day. But there’s a guy in East Providence who works on cars. Show him a color, he’ll get the formula, tell us from what car, what year. Too bad, he’s got a record. I put him away for two years for accessory to grand theft auto, so he’s nothing as a witness. He’s expensive but good at paint. If he says green from a Bentley, you got something.”
“Whatever it takes,” I said.
At least we agreed on something.
Later, in my office, we listened to Palagi’s recording. Benno didn’t comment until the recording finished. “I’d have liked to have been there. See him. I bet he was reading from something. All down too pat, like it was a script.” As I returned the recorder back to the safe, I made a full disclosure as to my run-in with Frannie Zito.
“I always thought you had it together,” Benno said sourly. “But I was wrong. You don’t. That was nothing short of stupid. You embarrassed Zito by taking that Commission appointment, called him out with that stupid ride. He can’t let that go unchallenged. You gotta call Tuttle. He asked you to. You’re a Commission member; maybe he’ll park a patrol car in front of the house.”
“I don’t want to alarm my fiancée. I’d have to tell her.”
“Then, tell her, for Christsake, before Zito shoves a poker up your behind!”
39
THE MEDICAL EXAMINER’S OFFICE that I imagined as I drove to Randall Square would be in a nondescript building with a loading dock and some delivery doors in the rear. Its examination room would be cluttered by dissection tables, sinks and troughs, chemical hoods, scales, surgical carts and gurneys, shelves full of plastic tubs and shiny metal containers; large amounts of disinfectant would barely cover up corporeal decomposition, a noisy ventilation system of ceiling fans and air filters would be on full blast and leave a trace of carbolic acid. Its walls would be glossy with an easy-to-clean paint treatment, the floor would be tile with strategically placed drains. Hoses would be rolled up on hooks. Probably computers, recording devices, maybe a video system, and refuse bins with plastic liners. The stainless steel ‘cooler’ would be down the hall.
All of this comes from reading too many Patricia Cornwell thrillers, watching CSI, and my one autopsy experience, a visit to the NYPD morgue along with three other fledgling Manhattan DA prosecutors to view an autopsy of a crime victim who sustained ‘massive cranial trauma.’ What I remember most of that morbid hour were the butch females who squirted testosterone in their morning coffee, the kinky male techies filling the role of white-coated Igors. In the examination room, the sheet over the body was removed to reveal a young, white male, with a skin color that made his hair and eyebrows darker, his genitals tucked away, and filmy eyes open in a skull that had been caved in. I was nauseated with the first Stryker bone-saw application to the scalp and was the second of the four of us to hack my way out.
The Rhode Island Medical Examiner’s Office turned out to be an ordinary looking three-story office building, brick with a flat roof, and large parking lot empty on this dreary afternoon except for an SUV with an ME license plate, a white delivery van similarly registered, and two or three cars. At least, I got the loading dock and delivery doors right.
A disinterested guard signed me in after checking my name off a list, gave me a badge, and I took the elevator to the second floor as she picked up a phone to announce my arrival. No smells or buzz sounds penetrated here, the walls, clad in gray vinyl, were even bare of a state office’s ubiquitous inspirational posters. The receptionist’s desk was unoccupied and I waited there until a tall, ruggedly handsome, fiftyish man, receding white hair, tinted glasses, dressed in casual clothes, greeted me. “Mr. Temple?”
“Yes.”
“Fritz Savage,” he said, extending his hand, which I pumped vigorously. “Sorry for the short notice. Come into my office.” I did as bidden and was directed to sit at a small conference table in front of a thick manila folder. Diplomas lined one wall; color photographs of mountains in winter and smiling children in ski regalia were the other principal wall decorations. His tone was neutral, professional. “As I believe you are aware, there is a procedure to obtain our records.”
“Yes, I am but …”
“And you are aware that Mr. Palagi’s body has been delivered for burial.”
“Yes.”
“I understand that you, as University Counsel, were both a colleague and a friend of the deceased.”
“Yes.” Why the interrogation? Was he making a protective voice recording?
“I also understand that the University is the principal beneficiary under his will. I further understand that you are asking to review our records in your official capacity.”
What official capacity? What did my friend say to him?
“You should be filing a written request and I understand you will do so promptly, that this accommodation to a colleague is irregular but under the circumstances seem to be within the broad discretion I have. Until your request is received and approved, I am unable to provide a copy of our records.” He pointed to a manila folder. “However, I am leaving it here while I attend to some other duties.” He stood. “No notes please. I’ll be back in … fifteen minutes?”
I was not sure if I should verbally acknowledge his gesture of goodwill, so I merely nodded as he left the room and sat before the folder. Palagi’s name was hand-printed on its front next to a series of boxes that gave choices in the manner of death: natural, homicide, accidental, and undetermined. Accidental was checked.
Inside the folder, clips fastened a dozen or so sheets of paper to each side. The cover sheet on the left was marked Preliminary Report and was unintelligible
in its columns and checked off boxes with codes. The following pages in plastic sheets consisted of color images of Palagi, some taken by an overhead camera, front, back, each side. His skin was bluish, appearing to be drained of blood, with reddish blotches and maybe scrapes, genitals shriveled, a slab of meat with a paunch. The head and face showed bloat in Palagi’s distorted features that had wiped out years of wrinkles and creases. His lips were pulled back to yellowish, chipped teeth, a contusion marred his right temple, scrapes streaked his chin, cheeks and jaw with flecks of what might be dry blood. His nose seemed larger than I remembered. Most chilling were his open, milky, opaque eyes.
Behind the images was a transcript of a terse pathologist’s narrative of the state of the body recorded during examination, and descriptions of chest incisions, stomach contents, and removal of organs like the liver and pancreas. A note was made to further examine the pancreas.
The top sheets on the right side of the folder contained statistics on Palagi’s general physical characteristics, like weight and height, a description of injuries, body temperature as found, swollen hands, and facial bloat. I flipped to a list of what he wore as found: dark trousers, white mock turtleneck shirt, black suspenders, black socks, one saddle loafer, cotton undershirt, and silk boxer shorts. In a pocket, the Beretta, in another, a single cartridge.
The next pages’ prose had a disinterested precision. Abrasions to his skin were considered post-mortem as unbloodied, maybe from a bumpy ride on the bottom of the Providence River. The contents of his stomach and analysis of blood were consistent with a pizza dinner, alcohol, and a lethal dose of opioids; the amount of water in his lungs was noted. A gas chromatography test and narcotics screen confirmed the wine and the opiates. Measures of body lividity, flaccid rigor, and decomposition concluded with an estimated time of death within a six hour span on Wednesday night and early Thursday morning; a cardiac examination indicated an infarction, probably in the act of drowning.