“What about Shy? Isn’t there anything in the paper about Shy?”
“You mean Shy Whitney, the one who used to smoke those big Winston Churchill cigars at the Policeman’s Ball. The one with the lovely voice. His wife’s name is Joanie or Susie or something like that. The article says you solved the case by yourself, without a partner.”
“I did. Shy’s been killed. I thought it would be in the paper.
“Oh, my God.”
“Shot in the head at the train station waiting to pick up Mary.”
“Oh, my God.” She was crying softly into the telephone. I could hear a male voice that must have been Carlton’s. They began to have a heated conversation. “I’ll have to get back to you,” she said into the receiver and hung up before I could answer.
I called the front desk and canceled the wake-up call so as not to disturb Honey. I finished on the toilet, shaved, and quietly dressed in the same clothing I’d worn almost continuously for twenty-four hours. It was 7:45 and I was due in at 8:00. From my overnight bag I removed the retirement and request-for-pension papers the union lawyer had sent me. I put them in my breast pocket.
24
After reading the article about the Gandry investigation, I tossed the paper back on Gronk’s desk. It built me up too much. I had started my second cup of machine coffee when an unshaven Rocco DiGiacomo filled the doorway.
“Where’s your bodyguard?” he asked, pointing a thick finger at Tim Gronk’s empty desk. “Seen the paper yet?”
Before I could answer either question, he walked over to my desk and picked up the retirement and pension papers that I had set out.
“Filled them out. Why?” he demanded.
“On the flight from Belém to Miami.”
“You ain’t signed them yet. Give yourself some time. Stick around and testify in Gandry. What are they gonna do without you? Besides, Mendez from the FBI just called me. The article on the Gandry case got to him. He’s willing to meet you at noon in the steam room at the Y. Strictly confidential. Here’s a day pass for the health club. I don’t know if he’ll tell you anything about Figaro, or what, but at least he’ll talk to you.”
My face was expressionless, but my heart was circulating enough blood for a mountain climb.
“I’ve got the Gandry preliminary hearing at two,” I said.
“You’ll be back from the Y in plenty of time. Lou, if you need me on this thing with Covaletzki, I’m on your side. You know that. But I think it’s a dead end. If Mendez had anything, he’d have used it. He’s a good boy. Anyway, you’ll get a steam out of it. You seen the article? Hah?”
“Yeah, it was nice, Rock.” I picked up the retirement papers and put them in my pocket.
He smiled at me. “You sure are something, Luigi. I’d like to see you back in action. You know where I’d like to see you? In a hostage situation.”
I looked at Rock over the edge of my coffee cup as I drank. A habit I’d picked up in jail. I wondered when he was going to tell me about the rifle.
He continued, “I wish you hadda stayed with us this morning. That old fox Tramp Lloyd wouldn’t let us back in without another search warrant, and he put the word out for nobody to talk to us. He’s tougher than I thought. We went over to Aunt Esther’s house, but she wouldn’t answer the door. We could use some ideas.”
Before I could answer him the phone rang. It was Marian again. I cupped the phone and told Rock I was sorry, but I didn’t have any ideas, I needed some privacy just now, and I could see him in court at the preliminary hearing at two if he still needed me. He looked worn out and disappointed, but he left. I couldn’t help him. He needed Honey or somebody.
Marian apologized for hanging up so suddenly. She explained that she was overcome with grief over the news about Shy and that Carlton had walked in on her. He had to know all the details of her sorrow. She thought the scene would probably appear somewhere in his novel.
“It’s super how we’re talking. It’s just as if you’d never left. I know Sarah, or Sally, or whatever, is going to simply love you.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if we all called her Sarah? That’s what she calls herself, I’ll bet. Settle down. You’re unhappy with some of the choices you’ve made in life, but who isn’t? We all are. Don’t let all this excitement get to you. Everything’s going to be all right.”
“You’re right. You’ve always understood me. Please say you’ll come tonight after work. We’ll eat at eight, but you get here as soon as you can.”
“Okay. I’ll be there. I know where you live.” We said good-bye, and I hung up and walked over to the Y.
* * *
—
It felt like a child’s game, waiting to meet Mendez in the steam room in the nude. He sat down next to me and draped his white towel over one thin leg. We were alone. He had short, straight, yellow hair parted like Calvin Coolidge’s and a hard-to-see mustache. No other hair on his body except a little fuzz around his large penis.
I looked at it and wondered if he was showing off. I asked, “Why the steam room?”
“I just don’t want any wires. Understand? I’m doing you a favor.”
“I understand.”
He began, his voice sounding like Walter Cronkite whispering the evening news. “Figaro has always believed that your present chief was in some way implicated, but at no time was Figaro directly or indirectly told that by Hanrahan or anyone else. I am simply relating Figaro’s personal belief.” He stopped and took hold of his towel as if to leave.
“Is that it?” I whispered.
“Yes.”
“What occurred between them?”
“Your lawyer can subpoena the reports.”
“I’m not suing anybody. Everything’s settled. For God’s sake, don’t play with me. Give it to me straight. If it’s in the reports anyway, why not tell me now?” The room was getting hotter and the sweat was dripping from my lip as I whispered.
“All right.” He dropped his towel back on his lap. “Figaro handed Hanrahan the bogus bills and said, ‘Here’s a thou the hotshot missed. He thinks he’s so great.’ Hanrahan grasped them in his hand like they gave him inspiration. He said something to Figaro about college boy Razzi being too much of an altar boy for his own good and making trouble for people. He told Figaro that he’d heard that Figaro knew how to play ball and that he might be rewarded. He put his arm around Figaro’s shoulder and whispered in his ear: ‘We’ll just forget about these little bills, now won’t we?’ It was then that Figaro smelled a little whiskey breath masked by Sen-Sen. Figaro said, ‘What bills? I don’t see no bills,’ and winked at Hanrahan, who said, ‘You’ll go far in this world, my boy. You’re nobody’s fool,’ and walked out of the room. That is it.” He got up quickly and cracked the door that opened out to the lockers.
“Why did Hanrahan come in that night, Agent Mendez?” I said it loud enough for everyone in the locker room to hear, and loud enough to make him close the door and sit back down.
“This better be your last question,” he whispered through gritted teeth.
“It isn’t,” I whispered back. “I also want to know where Figaro is.”
“Then that better be it.”
“Deal.”
“Figaro actually did ask Covaletzki to get brass in that night. Covaletzki chose Hanrahan. It was just stupid talk out of a little twerp. You know, ‘I want to talk to your supervisor,’ that sort of thing, but Covaletzki took it seriously. That’s that part. As to Figaro, he skipped out of the Witness Protection Program and left some townspeople somewhere holding a lot of unpaid bills. He had used his new identity to set up a landscaping business. He ran up beaucoup debts. He went around taking deposits and never did the work, and the locals think he did a few burglaries the day he left. I will deny everything I told you if you ever quote me, and I won’t forget your cheap trick at the door. If you yell my
name this time, I’ll get back at you. You can count on it, mister.”
“Just don’t try to attack me with that thing of yours,” I whispered.
He couldn’t help himself. He started to smile, suppressed it, shook his head, and then left. Altogether we had spent two minutes in the steam, and I sweated it out two more to give him a head start. When I got to the lockers he was gone.
I got back to Youth Diversion by 1:30 and called Honey at the hotel.
“Sorry to wake you,” I said.
“That’s okay. I should be getting up. Where are you, can you come over?”
“I wish I could. I’ve got the Gandry prelim at two with your boss, Morris Dershon, and then I’ve got dinner tonight at the Crusets’.”
“Oh, crapola, I was going to invite you to my place for some Jewish lasagna. How about tomorrow night?”
“Deal. Call me tomorrow at work.”
“At work, at work. I love it. Bring all your arrests to me in intake.”
“I divert youth,” I said.
“Then come empty-handed,” she said. “But if I know you, you’ll figure out some way to get in the action. What about Shy Whitney? Did they find the dog?”
“Dead end,” I said. “See you tomorrow, buttercup. Fettucine and gefilte fish.”
“Deal,” she said.
25
IN THE MUNICIPAL COURT
FOR THE CITY OF WILMINGTON
STATE OF DELAWARE vs. JOHN GANDRY,
PRELIMINARY HEARING TRANSCRIPT…
JUNE 30, 1976, 2:00 P.M., BEFORE THE
HONORABLE VINCENT TALLY PRESIDING:
By Morris Dershon, esq., Chief deputy attorney general, for the state:
The State calls Sgt. Louis Razzi.
Q. By whom are you employed?
A. (Being duly sworn) Wilmington P.D.
Q. I direct your attention to the twenty-ninth day of June, 1976. Did you have an occasion to investigate an alleged assault on a three-and-a-half-year-old boy whom you determined to be one Steven Morris?
A. Yes.
Q. Please indicate to His Honor what you observed about little Stevie.
A. You mean you want me to tell the judge, right?
Q. Yes, please go on.
A. I saw petechial hemorrhages on his face and strangulation marks on his neck.
By Bernard Jones, esq., Assistant public defender, for the defendant:
Objection. This witness is not qualified to give a scientific opinion on strangulation marks.
By Mr. Dershon:
I’ll rephrase the question, Your Honor.
Q. Please share with us any marks you observed on Stevie without going to the extent of characterizing those marks. Is my question clear? You look puzzled.
A. No. I get what you mean. You want me to tell the judge. Okay. Stevie had multiple red dots on his face and red splotches all around his neck.
Q. Did you interview the boy?
By Mr. Jones:
Objection. I recognize that hearsay is admissible at a preliminary hearing, but it has to be reliable hearsay, and there has been no showing that this three-and-a-half-year-old boy, a child of tender years, would be allowed to take the stand and testify in a court of law.
By Mr. Dershon:
That’s a matter for the trial judge to determine, Your Honor. We’re merely here to determine whether there’s sufficient probable cause to believe a crime occurred and this defendant committed it so as to bind him over to the Superior Court for presentment to the Grand Jury.
By Judge Tally:
Objection overruled. I’ll hear the evidence. Whether the child could qualify as a witness to testify at trial, in view of his tender years, is a matter for the trial judge in the event I bind your client over.
By Mr. Dershon:
Q. What did little Stevie indicate happened?
A. He actually told me. He said a bad boy took him to a shack behind Shelton High School in the City of Wilmington, State of Delaware, and choked him. He referred to the boy as the “bad boy,” and by making comparisons to my own body I learned that the “bad boy” was my height, thin build, white, with short light-colored hair and something shiny on his teeth, apparently braces.
Q. What did you do with that information?
A. I went to the area of the shack and questioned a few truant boys who were hanging around. I got the name of a friend of theirs who attends Shelton and who wears braces and fit the description. I went to Shelton and observed the defendant sitting in class.
Q. Let me stop you there. At some point later in the day did you have occasion to interview a Mrs. Smotz, the maternal grandmother of the defendant?
A. Yes. I met with Honey Gold of the A.G.’s office, and after talking with her it was decided that I ought to interview Mrs. Smotz because the defendant lives with her and she might have some evidence to offer. The A.G.’s office gave me a cassette tape recorder to use.
Q. Do you have the recorder with you in court, or did you give it back to my office?
A. I’m sorry, but I still have it in my car. I’ll bring it in tomorrow.
Q. No problem, but you ought to get it out of your car before it gets stolen.
A. The tape’s in records.
Q. Fine. What did you learn from Mrs. Smotz, and I take it your interview of her was tape-recorded.
A. Yes it was, and I told her I was doing it.
Q. That’s all right. It’s legal even if you didn’t tell her. What did she tell you?
A. She said that her grandson, John Gandry, told her that he choked the boy with the boy’s own pants but didn’t mean to do it as he was under the influence of drugs and had blacked out. He said he thought the boy was dead when he left him.
Q. Your witness.
By Mr. Jones:
Q. Detective Razzi, you are a detective, aren’t you?
A. No, I’m not. At least I don’t think I am.
Q. Yes. I believe I read in this morning’s paper that you are temporarily assigned to Youth Diversion pending the processing of your retirement papers. You have been away from police work for quite some time now, haven’t you?
By Mr. Dershon:
Objection. Irrelevant.
The Court:
Mr. Jones, how is any of this relevant? Besides, I don’t think there’s a person connected with the criminal justice system in Delaware who isn’t familiar with Sgt. Razzi’s unfortunate case.
By Mr. Jones:
Very well, Your Honor. I’ll move along.
Q. You have been advised by the prosecution, have you not, that an alleged confession you obtained from my client is inadmissible at trial because you arrested my client and did not give him his Miranda warnings before questioning and, more importantly, because you proceeded to question him despite the fact that he affirmatively asked for a lawyer?
By Mr. Dershon:
All of this is irrelevant at this proceeding, but if Mr. Jones is trying to make a record for a future suppression hearing, he’s wasting his time. The State concedes that the confessions given by John Gandry directly to Sgt. Razzi, orally and in writing, are inadmissible under Miranda and Escobedo. Furthermore, under the current state of the law the out-of-court identification procedure in the principal’s office is inadmissible under Wade-Gilhert, as interpreted in State v. Clark by the Delaware Supreme Court. Additionally, the fruits of any search are inadmissible. Our case at trial will consist of what we presented at this preliminary hearing, relying solely on the confession the defendant gave to his grandmother, Mrs. Smotz. We will introduce her tape-recorded statement to Sgt. Razzi under 3509 by producing her at trial and making her subject to cross-examination.
By Mr. Jones:
May it please the Court. This is an interesting concession by the State and, I might add, a correct statement of the
law. It is especially interesting in light of what happened to Agnes Smotz last night.
The Court:
You look as if you expect us to say something, counselor. Do you have anything more to say or are you waiting for the Court to fish it out of you?
By Mr. Jones:
I am sorry, Your Honor, but I assumed that the State would have heard by now that Mrs. Smotz suffered a heart attack at 9:45 last evening and tragically passed away en route to the Delaware Division.
By Mr. Dershon:
Are you serious?
By Mr. Jones:
I wouldn’t kid about something like that. It’s easily checked, Your Honor.
The Court:
I suggest we do that right now. The Court stands in recess until the call of the Court.
26
Chief Deputy Morris Dershon, the man Honey said thrived on making the illegal legally legal, said he’d think of something. When we shook hands and said good-bye, the young lawyer looked me in the eye and told me not to worry, that it wasn’t my fault, that he’d think of something. He’d call me. I gave him my hotel number and Cruset’s number. But instead, he just let Gandry go.
I turned off the car radio. I breathed deeply and relaxed my stomach. The news account hadn’t mentioned my name. I told myself that it really wasn’t Dershon’s fault that he had to drop the charges and release Gandry to the public. My face felt hot.
It was an hour after the prelim, and I was on my way to Woodstone, the Cruset estate, in Centerville, millionaire chateau country, west of Wilmington, and a half mile from the Pennsylvania border.
I had just passed Olde Blayne’s Tavern and a strip of a dozen boutiques and specialty shops that had sprung up in century-old stone houses. It was 5:15. Rush hour. But there was never anything as ugly as traffic to worry about in this part of town. I stopped on the road, made a U-turn, and headed back to the strip, knowing there’d be no chance of another public phone along the road to Woodstone, just fenced-in rolling fields and horse pastures, with an occasional brown and white stone mansion high on a hill in the distance.
The Right to Remain Silent Page 14