“I do not know what you are talking about.”
“Do you remember going to that storefront and asking two Sheriff’s deputies about the body that was found there?”
His breathing was becoming labored and he reached forward with one hand to hold onto the rail before him.
“No.” It was more of a croak than a word.
At this moment, a thought occurred to Peter and he decided to play the hunch that had just popped into his head.
“Finally, Mr. Sica. When the deceased robber spoke to you in the wine store, what was he saying when he spoke to you, using words that sounded like ZA ZA?”
His eyes widened and then he fell forward onto the rail, clutching his chest. The security guards scrambled forward to assist the witness and the judge ordered a recess. Even though he was expecting to plead out this case, Peter made a point of maintaining a concerned look on his face for the benefit of the jury. He suspected that this was just another part of Sica’s stonewalling, but he had been able to confirm many of the suspicions that he and his police colleagues had about Mr. Bruno Sica.
Just outside the courtroom door, Dave Grace, who had been watching the testimony, caught up with Peter, smiling broadly. “That was interesting, Peter.”
Looking back into the courtroom where Sica was lying on the floor being attended by the security guards, Peter said, “Hmm. Heart of a lion, that one.”
They both fought back the urge to laugh out loud.
“Now you have got to tell me…What made you think to ask him about ZA ZA?”
“I don’t really know. But I have learned that when I feel such sudden urges, it is usually worthwhile for me to act on them. I’d say that has proven true, again.”
Dave replied as he held open the DA’s Office door so Peter could struggle through, carrying his box of files, “That’s for sure. Like so much in this case, we don’t know what it means yet, but we do know that it is a key of some sort.”
Dave had been referring, in part, to some recent snippets of information from a confidential informant, usually referred to as a CI, known within the task force as “Crazy Nancy”. In an interview with Mike Connolly and Guy Lorenzo, “Crazy Nancy” claimed that she and Sica had grown up in the same town in Italy, and that he still had his wife living there in Avellino, just outside of Naples. She claimed that his real name was Enrico Madonna and that he was a lawyer with mob connections. While this might be true, the task force would not be able to corroborate the information until they heard back from either INTERPOL or INS-Rome.
Later that afternoon, the attorneys met with Judge Ginola in his chambers. Peter explained that he would be moving to dismiss the felony murder charge and offering John Doe the opportunity to plead to Attempted Murder in the Second Degree, with a sentence of 6 to 18 years in prison in satisfaction of the indictment. The judge became angry when Peter declined to explain, in detail, the reasons behind this change in position, simply telling the judge that he did not want to risk having the jury come back with a blanket acquittal. Peter was concerned that the judge would make mention in open court, of any reason that Peter might give. The look in Gary Knobb’s eyes made it clear that he realized that there was a lot more going on but was content to go see his client in the holding cell and convey the new offer.
By close of business, Doe had pled guilty, the rest of the indictment dismissed and the jury was sent home with the Court’s thanks.
The inevitable game of catch-up began for Peter as soon as he sat down behind his desk the next morning. The pink blizzard of message papers with the printed message: “While You Were Out.” coated his desktop and clogged his Inbox. Holding his coffee in one hand as he sipped, he sorted with the other and began to prioritize his morning. Nearly midway through the stack was a message from Tanner Saint. He had interviewed the son of the man who had owned that storefront when it was Alphonso’s. Peter peered into his coffee mug and decided that a refill was far more important than these blasted messages.
Coffee mug reloaded, Peter sat down in front of Tanner’s clear and neat desk, and Peter was left wondering whether he was going to start off this day with more surprises. Vito Santon, Tanner began, was very cooperative and possessed an excellent memory. A couple of years older than Peter, Vito had been put to work in the restaurant on a limited basis when he was still a child, much like Peter at his parents’ small motel.
Tanner described how, after some general discussion of growing up in a resort town, Vito admitted that there had been some strange goings on during the early summer of 1958, when Vito was ten and working in the kitchen as a dishwasher. He said that just prior to the end of the tourist summer, marked by Labor Day weekend, there was a period of several days during which he recalled a group of well-dressed Italian men meeting at the restaurant each afternoon and remaining until late at night. Vito’s memories were fragmented but the men spoke their native language in a number of accents and dialects, including Neapolitan and Sicilian. Vito’s father was very excited to have this party at his establishment, and he made a point of introducing his son, Vito, to each of these clearly important men.
On the third or fourth evening, Vito was sent into the private dining room in the rear of the restaurant, where the Italian group was eating. As he bussed the table, Vito overheard an excited discussion of news that the State Police were seen setting up observation spots and roadblocks near Oneonta, because they thought that there was going to be a big meeting there. As he was carrying the plastic tub full of dirty dishes out of the room, Vito heard part of a conversation:
“Now we know who told them about last year.”
To which another replied, “So what do we do about it?
“Wait. The kid is still here.”
The next day was the last day of this meeting, and the party, which had appeared grim and subdued in the afternoon, loosened up somewhat as the evening went later and later and the sambuca and campari flowed. After the patrons had all left and Vito and the rest of the staff had finished clearing away the debris, Vito went upstairs to his family’s apartment. As he went to brush his teeth, he remembered that he had left his Yankees baseball cap downstairs in the kitchen area. He quietly went downstairs and let himself into the restaurant through a private door.
Just as he began to ease shut the swinging kitchen doors behind him, he became aware of angry voices coming from the store room near the back of the kitchen. Peeking through the small round window in the door, that he reached by climbing some shelving, he saw two men struggling to hold a third by the arms, while a fourth man, who was behind the others seemed to be pulling back on the man being held. As he watched, the held man who had been straining against the others, went limp and Vito suddenly caught the strong smell of feces. Vito could hear that the two who had held the other man were gasping to catch their breath
As quietly as he could, Vito climbed down from his perch and snuck to the other side of the kitchen where his cap hung next to the dishwasher. Unsure of what he had just seen or who the men were, he lingered just outside the kitchen doors until he heard several loud thuds and then a crunching sound together with the rhythmic squeak of a handle being turned.
Vito, who was now too scared to sleep, let himself out the front door of the restaurant and walked around the back to the lake’s edge, sitting beneath a small, thick tree near the boat dock. He dangled his feet off the retaining wall over the water and brushing a few crumbs off of the sleeve of his shirt, watched a small pair of perch drift to the surface to explore what had landed on the surface.
One of the fish had just tentatively nibbled at a crumb when suddenly the back door to the restaurant swung open and banged against the rear wall, startling both the perch and the boy, and a man hurried out onto the dock. The man picked up speed down the narrow rickety planks until he was running toward the end of the dock and hurled something out into the lake that landed with a clear but distant splash. When pressed on this point by Tanner Saint, Vito described the thrown item as being lik
e a tool, maybe a foot or so long, perhaps a hammer, that had spun end over end when the man threw it. Vito agreed that it could have been a hatchet.
The next morning, Vito was unexpectedly told that he would not be working in the restaurant. Instead he’d be going with his mother to visit his cousins in Brooklyn. Vito and his mother were in Brooklyn for four days and the morning after they returned,
Vito went back to work in the restaurant. He was immediately struck by the smell of bleach and another, wet smell, like mud. The store room had been thoroughly cleaned and the entry to the back door had been bricked over. A day or two later, Vito had gone out back by going around the building to walk along the lake. He noticed that the back door had been removed and had also been bricked over.
Although Vito did not recognize most of the men that met at the restaurant that week in 1958, he did remember Uncle Gennaro, a Montreal restaurant owner who had helped his father start his business in Lake George. Gennaro’s last name was DiGiorno.
“For God’s sake! Are we ever going to receive information about the ‘Sica’ cases that doesn’t give my brain a hernia?” Peter began to bang his palms against his forehead in mock frustration.
Tanner said, “Vito’s recollections were amazingly complete and detailed given the thirty-year span and the fact that he was ten years old at the time.”
“I wonder what was meant by that bit about the State Police surveillance down by Oneonta and some reference to the previous year. We are going to have to do some real digging to find anyone involved in that operation.”
Tanner nodded in agreement. “On a more basic level, finding and interviewing Gennaro DiGiorno may help us with the homicide case of ‘Wally.’ Vito said he was still alive and gave me his home address in Montreal.”
Chapter 11
Peter had been digging around in the local library, where he found some articles on the Mafia that referred to publications not carried in that library. The librarian was very helpful in assisting Peter as he applied for inter-library loans of the books. It was just as well that it would be a few days before they arrived. Eileen’s parents had invited the family to join them for Thanksgiving at their time-share in Bermuda.
Peter and Eileen had honeymooned on that island where years earlier his parents had also honeymooned and years earlier, still, Peter’s dad had been born. Fairly recently, Peter learned that the reason his dad had been born in Paget was because his English grandparents, who had been in New York City when it became clear that their child was about to arrive, did not want their first-born to be saddled with shame of American citizenship. As it was February, 1922, their choices were to drive to Canada on US Route 9, risking delays due to weather or to sail to the nearest British possession. Ten or so months later, the couple returned to New York City, carrying their new bundle of joy, a native British subject.
For all of its beauty and charm, Bermuda had a single drawback; it was brutally expensive to live there, even briefly, as everything consumed on the island, with the exception of a few locally grown onions, had to be imported. Eileen’s parents had warned her of this and Eileen planned the trip to reduce costs as much as possible. She decided to bring everything with them. While she had told this to Peter, he had not fully grasped what she was planning until he loaded their minivan to go to the airport. He began to appreciate what Hannibal had gone through in bringing his army and their elephants through the Alps to invade ancient Rome. Years later, he learned that only one of the pachyderms had actually made it over the mountains and into Italy.
Eileen had found that flights to Bermuda were much cheaper by flying out of Hartford, Connecticut rather than Albany, so they drove out and stayed the night at a motel near the airport, in order to catch the early morning flight. A vacation full of laughter was ushered in by Susie that evening. After settling in to their motel room and putting the kids to sleep in one of the double beds, Peter walked down to a nearby mom and pop store and came back with beer, soda and a large bag of popcorn. He curled up with a Robert Parker novel and opened a beer and the popcorn bag.
A couple of minutes later, Susie popped up from under the covers, sat bolt upright in the bed and turning her head back and forth as she tried to blink the sleep out of her eyes. She then looked over at her mother and said, “Mommy? I smell something - and it smells delicious!” Eileen’s expression dared him to say “no” to such cuteness. Peter couldn’t help but spread a tissue in Susie’s lap and placing a handful of popcorn on it, as he and Eileen laughed.
The flight from Hartford, Connecticut to Bermuda was largely uneventful, as Susie and Gary had flown several times before and so slept through much of the trip. When they landed, the mobile stairs were rolled up to the side of the plane and soon the four were walking across the concrete to the set of tables that acted as baggage pickup area. Eileen put Gary into an umbrella stroller and had Susie hold onto a rolling suitcase that Eileen pulled toward Customs.
Peter brought up the rear, loaded down like a pack mule, with suitcases and duffel bags filled with clothes, disposable diapers, fruit juice, cereal, and all of the fixings for a Thanksgiving dinner for six, right down to the slowly thawing frozen roast beef. As he staggered and swayed under the weight and bulk of his load, he was able to see Eileen and the kids chatting with the sole Customs official, an unassuming, but ample middle-aged man who broke into a loud laugh as he saw the mound of luggage with legs wobble toward his station. Instead of pointing to the inspection countertop, he walked over to the exit gate, opened it and, still laughing, beckoned Peter through with a wave of his arm, wishing the family a pleasant visit and Happy Thanksgiving. Looking behind him, Peter saw that his concern about ill feelings by other passengers lining up to have their bags inspected was unnecessary, as they were congratulating the Customs man for his courtesy and good sense.
One visit to the local market convinced Peter that all of the extra luggage had been worth it. Everything they had brought from home sold for three or four times as much locally. Peter splurged and bought an apple for a dollar. When they returned to the time-share, Peter made a production of precisely slicing the apple into six equal pieces, which they all carefully savored. Despite the exorbitant cost, it was nowhere near as good as the New York State apples that the family had picked a few weeks earlier.
Once settled in, they began to travel around, including a visit to the home of Eileen’s college roommate’s parents, who welcomed Peter and the kids like family. The trip back to the time-share that evening was an adventure all its own, as they crammed into a small sedan taxi, with Peter sitting next to the driver holding Gary on his lap, and the rest stuffed into the back seat. The driver took them on what seemed like a wild ride, as the overloaded car leaned into the tight turns. Peter whispered “wee” and “whoa” into Gary’s ear and his little son immediately began calling out “wee” for turns to the left and “whoa” for turns to the right, much to the amusement of the driver and Gary’s grandparents.
Thanksgiving Day was rainy and dreary outdoors, but busy and noisy in the time-share, which had its own small kitchen. Everyone pitched in to prepare the dinner, while a small black and white TV showed the Thanksgiving Day parade and then a Detroit Lions versus Green Bay Packers game.
Peter’s in-laws even took care of the kids one morning, allowing Eileen and Peter to spend a day travelling by bus and sightseeing. Bus travel in Bermuda was a wonderful way to take in the island, as the speed limit was 25 miles per hour, and all went well until the return trip, which coincided with the end of the school day. At each stop, neatly dressed and well-scrubbed children climbed aboard, chatting excitedly and saying “hello” to the bus driver as they clambered aboard. Suddenly the bus pulled over and stopped. The bus driver, a formidable black woman, stood and faced the passengers. In the beautifully melodious accent of the island, with the flavors of England and the Caribbean, Madame Bus Driver addressed her fares:
“Now it would be a wonderful day for a walk, and if you children won’t be qui
etin’ down and bein’ respectful of our guests to our island, then you be getting off dis bus just now.”
Eileen and Peter, who had glanced around the bus and realized that THEY were the only guests in question, silently prayed that no youngster would be jettisoned on their account. Surprisingly, none of the children took offense at the warning and no accusing looks were directed at the two guests.
As Eileen and Peter walked from the bus stop to the time share, they spotted a policeman they had met during their honeymoon ten years ago. Eileen’s college roommate, a native Bermudian, had introduced them to a number of the local cops. This officer, in particular, was hard to forget, as he stood seven feet tall plus his Bobby helmet. As they looked on, the officer was issuing a speeding ticket to a woman in a mini- Cooper with a sun roof.
The driver removed her license from her purse and this officer reached down through the sun roof to retrieve it, looking like some sort of blue-and-white heron collecting a fish. The woman took it in stride, craning her head back and conversing with him through the sunroof. When the officer had taken down all the information, the woman reached up through the sun roof and retrieved her license. Peter wondered if that officer had ever been assigned to stand in the large police birdcage at the main intersection on Front Street, directing traffic in downtown Hamilton.
Wiseguys in the Woods Page 15