A Death In Calabria

by Michele Giuttari

  She then identified the maid, and, finally, the corpse in the den: her brother Rocco.

  Reynolds found it impossible to gauge the woman’s frame of mind as she did this. She was as impenetrable as a locked safe. Several times, he looked her in the eyes, but he couldn’t see in them any of the grief he might have expected. In his entire career, he had never seen a woman identify the bodies of her own relatives with such detachment. Angela Prestipino was unlike any other woman he had met. She was unique.

  ‘You’ll need to come down to the precinct house.’

  ‘I’ll follow you,’ was all she said in reply.

  ‘Your husband and daughter will have to come, too.’

  Angela Prestipino nodded her head slightly. ‘They’ll come.’

  She lapsed into icy silence.

  ‘Lieutenant, is it true there’s been a multiple slaying?’

  ‘Who found the bodies?’

  ‘What can you tell us?’

  ‘Have you arrested anyone?’

  Always the same questions. The barrage started as soon as Reynolds left the building with his hands buried inside the pockets of his raincoat.

  The sidewalks were swarming with people. TV vans, with satellite dishes on their roofs, were blocking the traffic, causing a long tailback of cars.

  The reporters had gathered in little groups, as if they had come for an impromptu press conference. As soon as they saw him, they descended on him like vultures, some with cameramen in tow, waving big microphones with various TV and radio station logos in front of his mouth. And yet they all knew him, and ought therefore to have known that they stood no chance of getting any information from him.

  In fact, his first reply was, ‘No comment.’ Then, as he quickly walked away, he added, ‘I can confirm that a number of people have been killed, but that’s all I’m able to say at the moment. As soon as we have anything we can release, the press office will let you know.’ He reached the car and opened the door, the reporters still in pursuit.

  ‘Did you find anything useful in the apartment?’ a woman reporter asked as he was about to get in, placing the microphone directly under his chin. ‘Is it true they’re Italians? Was it the Mafia?’

  He did not reply, but irritably slammed the door shut. The driver set off with a squeal of tyres, leaving the cameramen to film the back of the car until it turned on to Madison Avenue.

  It was 5.40 p.m.

  Evening was slowly falling over the city.

  The last marathon runners had already passed the finishing line in Central Park and the crowds were dispersing.

  Life was getting back to normal.

  But not for everyone.

  8

  Less than an hour later, Angela Prestipino was sitting in a waiting room in the 17th precinct.

  She was leafing through a magazine she had chosen from the pile on the table, the least dog-eared one she could find. Suddenly, her eyes fell on a feature about the new routes being used in the international drug trade. She was engrossed in her reading when she heard her name being called. Discarding the magazine, she got to her feet.

  Reynolds had just put down the phone. He had made two calls immediately after getting back: the first to the precinct captain, the other to the press office.

  As she sat down, Angela Prestipino glanced around the office, then put her hands together on her lap, looked at Reynolds and waited patiently for him to speak.

  Reynolds, very conscious of her scrutiny, immediately began asking questions, starting with general ones.

  It was 7.45 p.m. For the record, the woman provided her name and address, and stated, still with the same self-control, that she was married to Alfredo Prestipino and that they had one daughter, Maria.

  ‘You’ve already met her, Lieutenant,’ she said. ‘We don’t have any other children.’ She explained that in the 1980s they had left their birthplace in Calabria and had emigrated to America, along with her brother Rocco.

  ‘There was no work for anyone in Calabria. And my husband didn’t have anyone to keep him there. His parents died in a road accident when he was two years old.’

  Reynolds continued asking questions, as tactfully and respectfully as possible.

  ‘When did you last see your brother Rocco?’ he asked, looking closely at her. It was his turn to study her.

  ‘The day before yesterday, Friday. We had dinner together. ’

  ‘Did you notice anything different about him, anything unusual?’

  ‘No. My brother was a quiet man, a calm man. He was no different than usual.’

  ‘Did he live with a woman?’

  ‘No. He lived alone, apart from the husband and wife who worked for him.’

  ‘As far as you’re aware, was he having any particular problems? ’

  ‘No. I would have known. I wasn’t just his sister, I was his friend, his confidante. We were very close.’

  ‘So you have no idea who might have had a motive for killing him?’

  ‘No. But whoever it was should burn in hell!’ Her tone was curt, her eyes hard.

  ‘And when did you last see your other brothers?’

  ‘Last summer, when we visited our village in Italy.’

  ‘What line of business are they in?’

  ‘The same as my father.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘They’re farmers.’

  ‘Were they here on business?’

  ‘No. They came to see us. We made them promise when we said goodbye after our last visit.’

  Silence fell.

  Reynolds tried to put his thoughts in some kind of order. He had worked out a very specific strategy for handling the investigation, and every question he had asked so far had been in line with that. He decided the time had come to adopt a more direct approach.

  ‘Did your brother have any friends who were, perhaps, a little disreputable?’

  The woman took her time answering. She looked directly at him with eyes that were like ice and a malicious sneer on her lips.

  ‘How dare you, Lieutenant!’ she said at last. ‘My brother had many friends, but not the kind you’re referring to. Rocco was a hard worker. All he cared about was his family. Me. Our mother!’ She spoke with the pent-up fury of a volcano ready to explode.

  ‘That’s all right, Mrs Prestipino. I understand. There’s no need to get angry. We have to ask these questions. It’s part of our job.’

  ‘I know, Lieutenant.’

  ‘One last question and we’re done, at least for tonight.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘How do you explain your brothers’ death?’

  ‘Are you asking me, Lieutenant?’

  ‘Someone must have had a reason to kill them. Don’t you think so?’

  ‘Surely it’s up to you to find the reason. I don’t have the slightest idea. I already told you. Rocco was a quiet man, a hard worker, just like my other brothers. Whoever killed them will have to pay . . . The Madonna will punish them.’

  As she spoke, she took out a necklace from inside her blouse; at the end of the chain was a small medallion bearing a sacred image. She lifted it to her lips and kissed it several times.

  John Reynolds watched her intently, more convinced than ever that she was different from any other woman he had ever met. He would have liked to know what image it was, but did not ask her. The one thing he was sure of was that he had never seen anything like this in his career.

  He had always been guided by his intuition - the one thing no good police officer could do without - but this time it was no help.

  ‘Then how do you explain these murders?’

  ‘I think they were killed in error. It was a case of mistaken identity. That’s the only thing I can imagine.’

  Her voice was still emotionless, but on her face Reynolds read a clear message: If you don’t believe me, that’s your problem. Now stop all this and let me go.

  Reynolds realised it would be a waste of time to insist. ‘We’re done for now,’ he said
, ‘but I need you to remain available. We may have to speak to you again.’

  It was 8.10 p.m. Angela Prestipino asked, with barely a change in her tone, when the bodies of her three brothers would be handed over to her.

  ‘When the judge authorises it,’ Reynolds replied.

  ‘We have to take them home, to their village.’

  ‘I understand. You’ll have to wait a few days. We need to do post mortems. The law requires it in cases like this.’

  ‘I know. I just hope the law doesn’t forget . . .’

  She was about to say, That we are Italians - and, what’s more, Calabrians.

  But she stopped herself.

  She left the room, and, as she did so, she put her necklace back inside her blouse with a loving gesture.

  Reynolds immediately asked for her husband to be brought in.

  Passing him in the corridor, Angela Prestipino had time to throw him a silent message, which he caught without hesitation.

  Alfredo Prestipino was short and thin, with brown eyes and sparse, greying hair, and looked older than his forty-two years. He had a dark complexion, as if he spent most of his time sunbathing. He was exactly the way an American would imagine a southern Italian looked.

  He spoke quietly, his voice little more than a sigh. He seemed to stoop on his chair, sitting with his head tilted and his chin propped on his slightly unsteady hands, as if he were lost in thought.

  He added nothing to what his wife and daughter had already declared.

  Then it was the turn of Maria Prestipino, but she was interviewed by another detective in Bernardi’s team.

  She confirmed the statement she had given earlier. Only now her expression had changed. Reynolds, who saw her passing in the corridor with her head held high, almost proudly, had difficulty in recognising her.

  Someone was knocking at the door of the office.

  Reynolds had been gazing nostalgically at the photograph of his daughter taken when she was a teenager. Now she was married to a lawyer and lived in Miami. He was looking forward to celebrating Christmas with her.

  The knock at the door plunged him back into reality. It was Bernardi.

  ‘Sit down, Mike. Any new developments?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mike replied, sitting down on the same chair where Alfredo Prestipino had been sitting a few minutes earlier. His face looked drawn. The burden of responsibility was weighing heavily on him. Years of hard work and sacrifice could all go to hell if he screwed up on this one, especially now that his dream of taking Reynolds’ place seemed about to be realised. To think that, before this case had come along, everything had been going so smoothly!

  ‘Cabot’s examined the bodies. He reckons the victims had been dead for several hours. They were almost certainly killed last night.’

  Reynolds nodded.

  ‘Each victim was shot several times,’ Bernardi continued, consulting the notebook in front of him. ‘Apart from the man in the entrance hall, who had only one bullet to the head.’

  ‘How many wounds on the other victims?’

  ‘A lot. This was a real execution. Forty-eight cartridge cases have been recovered, and there were quite a few bullets lodged in the walls and floor.’

  Ghastly images of the bodies flashed across Reynolds’ mind.

  ‘How about your search?’ he asked. ‘What did you find?’

  They had taken away a substantial amount of material, Bernardi told him, all of it presumably connected with Rocco Fedeli’s business activities: diaries, notebooks, video cassettes, cellphones and photographs. He added that they had discovered another safe, this one in the bedroom.

  ‘Where was it? What was in it?’

  ‘It was behind a large painting. There were a lot of papers in it, also mainly financial. Right at the back was an envelope full of photographs. They’re all in black and white, and they’re yellow with age.’

  ‘Photographs of what?’

  ‘The same people. A boy and a girl, shown in various places: a house, a square, in the mountains. The boy’s definitely Rocco Fedeli, not much more than a teenager, just as he is in one of the two photos on the desk. In some of the photos, you can see the same church in the background.’

  ‘The same church that’s in the painting?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And who’s the girl?’

  ‘Apparently not his sister.’

  ‘A girlfriend?’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘Has the apartment been sealed?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Good.’

  The clock on the wall said 9.30.

  Bernardi sat behind a desk piled high with papers, rereading the reports, hoping desperately to make some sense of these murders.

  He was exhausted.

  He stood up, went to the window and looked out at the street. He saw a few uniformed officers leaving the precinct house for home and some getting into their patrol cars to head back to their beats. Soon the city would be transformed, as it was every night, into a maelstrom of emergency calls.

  He returned to his desk, lit a cigar and took a couple of puffs. He started reading again, but soon broke off and stood up. He started walking up and down the room. Something was stirring in his mind.

  At 10 p.m., his men came in and the meeting started. It was cold in the office, and they huddled side by side in their windbreakers. The oldest of them, a grey-haired, round-faced man, was the first to speak. He reported that no one had been admitted to any of the hospitals with gunshot wounds.

  ‘You can drop that, the bullet’s been found,’ said Bernardi, checking his notebook. Damn it, he’d forgotten to tell his men!

  Another man confirmed that the two brothers, Domenico and Salvatore Fedeli, had landed at JFK late on Saturday morning on an Alitalia flight direct from Milan. According to the form they had filled in on the plane, their brother Rocco’s hotel, the Jonio, was their place of residence in New York.

  Bernardi concluded by summarising the situation to date. There were no real clues, and they were still no closer to finding a motive for the murders. There was only one thing they knew for sure: the six people in the apartment had been killed around the same time as Bill Wells. That was the second major piece in the jigsaw.

  ‘So we’re dealing with seven murders, not six,’ Bernardi said. ‘You’ll need to check all security cameras in the area, and to question all store owners and employees in the vicinity of the building. And I don’t want any leaks. The media are hovering like vultures. Let’s get going on this. The Feds will be muscling in on our turf very soon.’ All the faces in the room fell. Having to share any success they might achieve wasn’t an encouraging prospect.

  He looked from one to another, as if to say, We’re in the shit, so let’s get this show on the road.

  The detectives filed out, just as they had come in.

  Alone once more, Bernardi began drafting an initial report for Ted Morrison. It was only a few pages, summarising the facts and what they had found so far and, most importantly, asking for authorisation to tap the phones of Angela Prestipino, the restaurant and the Hotel Jonio.

  New developments weren’t long in coming.

  They came from an unexpected source.

  And they came in person.

  Reynolds was drumming his fingers on the desk when Peter Murray, the head of ballistics, and Frank Porter, head of the detective squad at the 101st precinct in Queens, appeared in the doorway of his office. Porter was carrying a file.

  Surprised by this unexpected visit, he pushed back his chair and got to his feet to greet them.

  ‘What brings you two here?’ he asked. His curiosity was aroused, especially as he had seen Porter smiling broadly.

  ‘Ballistics just killed two birds with one stone,’ Murray said, also smiling.

  ‘Make yourselves at home,’ Reynolds replied, leading them into a little side room, where they sat down. Frank Porter laid the file on the table.

  ‘Lieutenant Reynolds,’ Murray said, �
�we’ve come up with something on the gun found next to Rocco Fedeli’s body: it was used in a homicide.’

  ‘What homicide?’

  Murray explained that, thanks to the Integrated Ballistic Identification System, they had been able to establish that the cartridge case and the bullet had come from a 7.65 calibre Beretta used in a homicide the previous year. He added that the bullet had the same helical dents as the barrel of the gun. It was a signature as unmistakable as a fingerprint. The cases, too, when compared, showed identical marks of percussion, extraction and expulsion.

  Good news at last! Reynolds thought. ‘Who was the victim of this homicide?’ he asked.

  ‘A woman who owned a real estate agency in Manhattan,’ Frank Porter said. ‘She was killed in her apartment in Queens in April 2002.’

  ‘And how did the case pan out?’

  ‘Well, we never found the perpetrator,’ Porter replied, still smiling, ‘but at least we now know who owned the gun.’

  ‘But we don’t know when Rocco Fedeli came into possession of it,’ Reynolds objected. ‘Between that homicide and the ones on Madison, a year and a half has gone by. Fedeli might have gotten hold of the gun some time after April 2002.’

  ‘Sure, but given what we know now, the case could be reopened, even though Rocco Fedeli’s dead. Plus, that investigation last year could be useful to you.’

  ‘True. Mind if I take a look at the file?’

  ‘Sure, that’s why I brought it. I’ll leave it with you.’

  ‘Thanks. Did Rocco Fedeli’s name come up at the time?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We have something else for you,’ Murray cut in.

  ‘What?’

  Murray explained that they had managed to discover the serial number of the gun by applying an acid that accentuated the rough areas of the metal where the numbers had been stamped. The weapon had been acquired in a gun store in Manhattan in 1990, and the man who bought it had reported it stolen when his house was robbed in 2002, one week before the homicide.

  ‘You’ll find a copy of the report in the file,’ Porter said.