The Criminal Mind

by Thomas Benigno

  The veterans’ facility that Charlie and ninety-nine other disabled veterans called home was the result of a plan I had launched years earlier with my wife, Eleanor. It began with the purchase of a building located on the west side of Eighth Avenue between 54th and 55th Streets that had previously housed over 300 City College students. Though acquiring the property at a reasonable price was no easy task—having to battle higher bids from Fortune 500 retailers, tech giants, real estate barons, and several worldwide hotel chains—our project was finally green-lighted when the New York Post published an article outlining our intentions: The creation of a home for impoverished and disabled American combat veterans.

  Fortunately, no one ever questioned the source of our funds, especially where I was concerned. Eleanor was the product of old Southern money—the beneficiary of an estate that would make even the Wall Street turn-of-the-century robber barons froth at the mouth. As for me, my humble Brooklyn roots notwithstanding—an inheritance from my mobster uncle (my mother’s younger brother) precipitated by decades of crime and violence, was much easier to part with, and so I did so at every chance I got—this son of a high school cafeteria lady who tossed a little extra into every student’s dish. Abandoned by my biological father while I was still in diapers, Mom met my stepfather, John Mannino, one year later. A second-generation Sicilian, he was strict, but loving, generous, and the only father I ever knew. Consequently, upon turning 18, I made an application in Supreme Court, changed my last name to his, and have been known ever since as Nicholas Mannino.

  Having invested my mobster uncle’s inheritance wisely—resulting in a tenfold return since his death—a serendipitous consequence that provided the seed capital to build the Veterans’ Center and bankroll numerous investigations into missing adults and children. I just never thought I would, on occasion, be risking my life in the process. But in the end, it was always worth it, and each time I parted with the product of decades of criminal activity and laundered money, it was like slowly ridding myself of sheaths of heavy armor that I had been sentenced to wear uncomfortably for the rest of my natural life.

  As a teenager in the 1960s, the implacable Vietnam lotteries would be forever etched in my memory—the precarious bouncing of bingo-like balls inside two plexiglass Plexiglas barrels that on March 8, 1973, combined to give my birth date the random number 238. Numbers 1-95 were placed in “a readily inductible pool” to be drafted, or so we were told. It didn’t matter if you were an only child. It didn’t matter if you were in college. It was a matching of birth dates and numbers—a lottery of life and death, plain and simple. As a result, I had always been sympathetic to the plight of Vietnam veterans, especially those who were poor and disabled, which is why I insisted that the bylaws of the not-for-profit corporation that ran the Center make specific reference to the “forgotten heroes of the Vietnam War.”

  Though I never thought that any accomplishment in my life would have been greater than obtaining a law degree—with its 100 studio apartments, grand dining room, visitor’s lounge, regulation basketball court, squash courts, and game room—the Veterans’ Center was one shining success story. And it gave me the best opportunity to put the money I inherited from my mobster uncle—which I never expected, wanted, or needed—to the best possible use.

  It was during the construction of the facility that Eleanor and I purchased an apartment in Manhattan. Since we wanted to oversee the development of the Veterans’ Center, and both our adult children were now living in the city, this served a dual purpose. Then in 2016, after battling pneumonia and a failing heart that had been cruelly and unknowingly beating with oncoming finality for years, Eleanor was taken from me.

  And when she left to meet the angels, all I wanted to do was go with her.

  But the God of life and death had other plans for me.

  It was after Eleanor’s passing that I found myself visiting the Veterans’ Center more often—on a daily basis whenever I was in New York. I enjoyed spending time with the veterans and ate lunch with them every chance I got. If not for my high lottery number and the de-escalation of the war in 1972, I might have been one of them. While it broke my heart to see these great men and women in walkers and wheelchairs, the more I got to know them, the more I came to appreciate their individual trauma, their struggle, as well as their courage and perseverance. And in no other veteran was this more evident than Charlie Malone.

  An often cranky and outspoken man who never took off his marine fatigues (may I never again make the mistake of calling them army fatigues), Charlie was the genuine article. He was smart, tough as nails, and caring about the facility and everyone in it—almost to a fault. We quickly became friends. Our lunch meetings and the banter that ensued was a singular source of solace and comfort to me during the saddest and loneliest time of my life—and more than I cared to admit at the time.

  I came to know Charlie quite well, and the story of how he came to join the Marines was as tragic and unforgettable as he was.

  It was on a rainy afternoon in March when I decided to hang around long after the other veterans had left the cafeteria—some escorted by aids, most of them moving on their own in wheelchairs and on crutches—that Charlie and I had a heart-to-heart. Maybe it was the loneliness we shared—although I quickly came to learn that Charlie’s had no equal—but we sat and talked for hours. I fessed up about my Mafia uncle—something I had never done before with anyone except Eleanor. Charlie in turn bore his soul about the most painful time in his life—before he ever considered joining the Marines and serving in Vietnam.

  “I grew up north of Syracuse, in the village of Phoenix, New York, where the Oswego and the Seneca Rivers combine,” he began. “My father’s name was John, same as your stepdad’s. He had a small landscaping business. My mother, Frances…she was a homemaker who made extra money babysitting children after school. A real beauty, inside and out, she had such a natural way with kids…so much so that many figured she should open up her own daycare center. But she wouldn’t have it. Being a mother to her own two children ‘to raise them proper,’ she’d say, ‘was a full-time job in itself.’ But the real reason: No wife of John Malone was going to work. That was the man’s job, and with his landscaping business running full-speed from the spring through the fall, and snow removal keeping him busy throughout the winter (and Lord knows there were plenty of snow days in and around Syracuse) we rode out the worst of times, year-after-year. There was even a little extra for a vacation drive to Niagara Falls, or Canada. We even went to Florida once. ‘But every family has at least one cross to bear,’ my mother would often say.”

  “I heard my own mom say that very same thing,” I added, woefully.

  Charlie nodded. “That cross was my younger sister, Peggy, though my mom would never admit it. You know, it wasn’t easy for moms back then, and my dad…he was no prize package either. I tried not to be more of a burden to either of them. Peggy tried, too. I know she did. Three years younger than me, she was physically indistinguishable from other girls her age. Though only five foot two, she excelled at every sport she played…soccer, tennis, and especially track. There seemed to be no limit to her energy, and boy, was she determined! By her sophomore year in high school, she had made all the varsity teams.”

  “She sounds like a real star to me,” I added. “So what was the problem? Did she have a learning disability?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. Peggy barely passed her classes, and it wasn’t for lack of trying. With each school year, the harder she worked, the harder it was for her to skirt a failing report card. She just couldn’t seem to concentrate. And sitting with my mother for hours after school didn’t help. As my father once crudely put it: ‘We just have to face facts. Peggy isn’t very smart.’ And because my uncle on my mother’s side had been diagnosed as mentally retarded, my father was quick to blame Mom’s genetic line for all of Peggy’s problems. Though ‘learning disabled,’ like you said, would have been a more
accurate diagnosis, it was 1965, and the world then was not a kind place for those with special needs. As for Peggy, adding to the complexities of her life, was her not-so-little junior year secret. His name was Howard.”

  “That doesn’t sound too bad,” I said with a sigh of relief.

  “You never met my father,” Charlie continued. “Howard was a senior and captain of the high school football team. His dad owned the lumberyard in nearby Cartersville. Put simply, they were ‘well-off,’ to say the least. The problem was that Peggy had yet to turn 16, and because of her learning disability, my parents wouldn’t let her date. Though my mom would appear to soften at times, as far as my father was concerned, she suffered from a mental illness, and a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship at her age, especially with an older football player, was out of the question. My dad was part of the first Marine division, who fought in the grueling Battle of the Chosin Reservoir during the Korean War, where the allied losses were so great, its survivors were known as ‘the Chosin few.’ Tough as nails, he felt it was his duty to protect his daughter, and no one was going to take advantage of her on his watch. Frustrated by this wall of objection, Peggy would sneak away after school to meet Howard while claiming that she was headed to her girlfriend’s house to do homework. When a family friend spotted the couple on Howard’s motorboat as it passed through the one of the Oswego Canal Locks, Peggy was grounded for a month. Afterward, the two had to settle for necking by their lockers and in the school’s stairwells.”

  “Like you said, your mother had her hands full.”

  “It gets better, or should I say, worse…much worse,” Charlie said sadly. “The day after Peggy turned sixteen, Howard showed up at the door to ask my father for permission to take her to the senior prom. My mom let him in. Howard began by apologizing for seeing Peggy on the sneak and then swore that he would have her home by eleven. It was as if he was begging for his life. As for my father, cemetery headstones displayed more emotion as he sat stone-faced in his favorite chair while Howard, standing before him, pathetically pled his case. Whether it was the perverse image of my sister being deflowered on prom night floating around in my father’s head or not, I couldn’t tell, but the look of unflappable consternation never left him. Then, all of a sudden, my father got up, pointed to the front door and shouted: ‘I’ve heard enough. You get the hell out of my house right now!’ My mom, who was standing by the kitchen door, dropped her head to her chest. Peggy was devastated but undeterred. Come the night of the prom, she put on her favorite pink dress, called Howard, and lied. She told him that, thanks to my mom, my father had finally changed his mind. Howard said that he would pick her up in under an hour. Of course, Peggy told him not to…that one of my father’s conditions was that my mother drop her off.”

  “I’m going to need more coffee,” I interrupted. “Depending on where this is going, maybe a shot of rye. I’m not sure.”

  “Well, you’d better get it then, but all you’ll find is coffee, and you’ll have to go in the kitchen for it,” he answered. “They cleaned up out here already.”

  Even though Charlie didn’t ask for one, I left and returned with two cups. Mine was the light and sweet one. The black coffee was Charlie’s. He thanked me and continued.

  “Howard rushed to shave, shower and dress, and then waited, all the while imagining Peggy stepping out of my parents’ car looking as radiant as an angel. After an hour passed, he called the house. I picked up the phone in the kitchen. Confused and concerned, I told him to hold on, and then without uttering a word to either of my parents, I ran up to Peggy’s room. Her bedroom window was open, and she was gone. Now I knew that the relationship between Peggy and Howard was a hotbed of controversy. So I went to check on my father first, and found him in his usual spot—sitting in his favorite chair, watching television. I then checked the rest of the house. My mother was nowhere to be found, but before I could breathe any sigh of relief, I looked out my bedroom window. And there Mom was—digging in the front garden with the family car parked in the driveway. Wearing an apron, patches of dirt on her face and hands, she hadn’t gone anywhere. I rushed back to the phone. ‘Peggy must be walking,’ I said nervously. ‘Maybe you should give her a little more time.’ Howard immediately hung up the phone, got in his car and for over an hour drove up and down the roads between his house and ours, hoping to spot her. But he never did. No one ever did. Peggy was never seen nor heard from again.”

  “Dear God!” I moaned loudly, causing two members of the kitchen staff to peek into the room. “I am so sorry, Charlie. Your sister…your only sibling…”

  “A woman in town, who had a small sewing shop, said that she saw a young girl who resembled Peggy chasing a crosstown bus later that same day. She didn’t say whether the driver ever stopped to pick the girl up. But as time passed, and it became apparent to the authorities that this wasn’t the case of a runaway teen, search parties were formed. As word spread about Peggy’s disappearance, the newspapers picked up the story, and local television stations flashed bulletins on the ‘Case of the Small-Town Missing Teenager.’ My mom even pleaded on-air for Peggy’s return, but to no avail. My parents became depressed, angry and frustrated, which over time turned into guilt and accusation. Six months later, a skull was found near an off-road construction site on the outskirts of town. Dental records identified it as Peggy’s. The following day, my father went into our backyard, held the point of his favorite hunting knife against his chest, and fell on it. He wanted his death to be painful. Nine months later, my mom sold the house and moved to Florida. Since I refused to go, just before she boarded her plane, she kissed me on the cheek, handed me an envelope filled with two-hundred-dollars cash and made me promise to take care of myself. I was nineteen years old at the time.”

  As Charlie went on to tell it, it took him all of one hour to deposit the money in the bank and join the Marines. Ten months later, he was in the thick of the Vietnam War, crawling through the jungle in the rain, a rifle in his arms, all manner of dirt, mud and insect life making a home in his boots and trousers. But it wasn’t until his fourth combat tour in January of 1968 (the record was five) that he lost his legs during the TET Offensive in a field outside Hanoi. All he remembered before his world went dark was seeing the ground explode around him amid a barrage of gunfire.

  According to his VA file, he had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

  It was also during one of our lunches at the Veterans’ Center, sometime in early 2018, that Charlie first mentioned Mia to me. “Maybe it was her age, her size, and her big brown eyes that reminded me of Peggy,” he said.

  Or maybe it was the pain of losing his sister at such a delicate moment in their lives that always stayed with him. Or maybe he was just one old cranky bastard looking to revisit a time of wistful innocence before tragedy came that destroyed his family, and forever changed the world as he knew it. Now this old man, who earned medals for bravery and a Purple Heart, was at the tail end of his life and had nothing and no one, until a petite eighteen-year-old girl came along with a simple act of kindness that reminded him of the sister he lost, but could never forget. Mia’s innocence, her youthful energy and an apparent inner struggle seemed to crack open a door of purpose and meaning in Charlie’s life.

  I understood him more than I cared to admit.

  What he remembered about his sister came from a time so long ago it must have seemed like a horrible dream that came and went like an inexorable reminder he could not vault away—no matter how hard he tried, no matter how overwhelming life became with its struggles and complexities, no matter how many bombs went off, no matter how muddy the ground beneath him, no matter how many legs he lost.

  He still felt the pain of that nineteen-year-old boy whose life suddenly and without warning was blown to bits.

  I suppose that when tragedy strikes, whether you’ve lost your legs, or your wife, we all have our coping mechanisms. Mine were frequent
trips to the Veterans’ Center. It was a delicate time for me—less than a year after Eleanor’s death.

  Early in our marriage, and after my very first confrontation with a serial killer as a young lawyer in 1982, I’d made a promise to Eleanor that I would leave all forays into the legal defense of the innocent and capture of the guilty behind me. But it wasn’t long before I broke that promise and again selfishly immersed myself in my work in callous disregard of wife and family. Since I hadn’t been a man of my word, she was a woman of hers, and—to my foolish surprise—she left me in the summer of 2005. After we reconciled five years later, determined to keep her by my side, I sold our Long Island home and moved us into the heart of the South—Franklin, Tennessee, to be exact—something I never thought this New York born-and raised-kid would ever do. But it was Eleanor’s unspoken wish to return to her Southern roots, and I loved her that much.

  For months after her passing, I wallowed in my own self-imposed exile of despair that was so debilitating, I do believe there were times I enjoyed the suffering. It was as if I deserved it: The cataclysmic loss, the ultimate emotional defeat—the absolute deepest and darkest depths of sadness. My mother was a survivor, and so am I, I repeatedly told myself. So somehow, some way, I had to pull myself out of the dungeon of depression I was in.

  Idyllic Franklin—its gray Civil War history and its classic Main Street—a cardboard cutout from a 1950s movie with its town theater, antique shops, restored Victorian buildings, and historic public square. Sometime after Eleanor’s passing, I began taking early morning walks, at the end of which I’d stop at the local diner where a waitress named Maureen kept regular hours. She would often sit with me, if merely to chat about absolutely anything and nothing, and bring me a slice of fresh morning pie, whether I asked for it or not. Those pieces of pie back then were the only thin rays of light in my otherwise bleak and solitary existence. So out of sync with the world was I, that it took me weeks to realize that it wasn’t the pie, but Maureen—with her bright blue eyes and charming smile—that provided the welcome trickle of joy in my morning. And I’ll swear before a firing squad that I hadn’t an impure thought about her—at first. But as winter turned to spring in Franklin, she continued to fill my thoughts at all hours, and for no apparent reason.