Wiseguys in the Woods

by John P. M. Wappett

  “So what other gadgets or gizmos have you conjured up for use in this search?” Peter, despite the cold, was enjoying himself.

  “Well, there is the grid that we will use if the metal detector sweep search is unsuccessful. It is a ten-foot by ten-foot square of PVC pipe. Each pipe has holes drilled at one foot intervals and ropes are woven through. The PVC frame is not glued together, so that the whole thing can be folded and dropped through the hole in the ice.”

  Peter picked up on the concept. “So, when the pipes are put together, it looks like an antique bed frame with the ropes making one foot squares. Now did you know that those bed frames could be adjusted using wooden wedges to take out any slack in the ropes. Hence the phrase ‘Sleep tight!’ Now just think of how much better you will sleep tonight, knowing that.”

  Shawn laughed. “Where DO you come up with this stuff?”

  “I don’t know, but my wife often suggests where I should store it. So what do you do with this ten foot grid setup when you get it in the water and reassembled?”

  “It’s simple really. We set the grid at one end of the search area. The search divers then manually search each of the one-foot squares with metal prods. When finished, the divers tip the grid up on end and lower it over on the next area to be searched. In this way the search area is completely covered without gaps or overlaps. When they reach the far end of the search area, the grid is flipped forward to start the next row. It is slow work though, and because there is not a lot of physical work involved, the searchers get cold sooner.”

  ***

  The first team had been able to complete four widths of the grid; a forty-foot by ten-foot swath across the nearest part of the search area. As Shawn circled around the area, he could see the disturbances in the silt from where the first team had worked. When he and Gary positioned themselves at the grid and each gave a single tug on their lines, they received two tugs each, the signal to flip the grid.

  The resistance of the water made the maneuver slow, but straightforward. As the grid landed in its new position, a small grayish cloud poofed up in the shape of the rectangle. Shawn and Gary began on opposite sides of the grid, poking large screwdrivers into the silt beneath the first rope grid and moving them back and forth in a zigzag pattern. The screwdriver would strike anything within the square. Patiently, but efficiently, the two went through the squares in a few minutes. Aside from a couple of rocks and bottles, they came up empty.

  Two tugs by each and mirrored answers signaled the next flip. When they reached the buoy line, the exchange of tugs were in groups of three to indicate the outward flip to start the next row. On they went, for some twenty minutes more. Shawn then got Gary’s attention and tapped on his own wrist watch. Gary made an “o” with his thumb and forefinger to signify okay. Shawn then gave a thumbs-up to indicate that he was going to the surface. He smiled to himself, remembering his very first dives, when he got confused with signals, using the thumbs-up to signal that he was okay. Keep It Simple, Stupid!

  Although it had not seemed too strenuous, Shawn found that he was nearly too tired and cold to lift himself out of the lake. As it was, he felt strong arms reach down onto his shoulders and lift him out of the triangle. Once he had removed his dive fins and was helped out of his scuba tank and weight belt, he was almost able to stand fully upright.

  The air temperature had risen to a whopping 15 degrees Fahrenheit and the two divers were shivering uncontrollably by the time that they had staggered back to the Dive Team van. The blast of warm air that greeted them as they entered the van was almost delicious; and the mugs of hot soup definitely were. They would not be drinking coffee or anything with caffeine, until they finished their last shift of the day. Caffeine dilates capillaries near the skin and that would make “crash time” happen sooner. The two stripped down and toweled off, then sat down to some sandwiches and more soup. When they had finished, they wrapped themselves in wool blankets and stretched out on the benches.

  The hours passed, the shifts of searchers and safety divers trudged back and forth between the Dive Team van and the triangle of open water and monotony began to seep in. Monotony was the insidious danger to divers, particularly under the ice. The best protection against this peril was routine and repetition in training – and mandatory safety procedures.

  It wasn’t until midway through the third day, that a line tender received the long-awaited four tugs on the line – Found something! The wait was cold and interminable. After all, something did not necessarily mean THE something. Finally, the water in the triangle began to churn, and a few moments later, a line was held up out of the water by a diver’s hand. One of the other team members reached down and took the line and began pulling. The evidence tube broke the surface and was lifted onto the ice. At that moment, Shawn and the others felt a pang of disappointment that there was no maiden’s arm reaching straight out of the lake’s surface, holding aloft a hatchet, like the sword, Excalibur.

  The next dive team due to do a shift, instead jumped in to help the other team bring up their gear and less than a half hour later, after unfastening the safety line anchor, the dive teams prodded the triangle of ice out from underneath the ice and let it bob up into the hole in the ice. Several buckets of water were poured into the seams and the re-freezing process began immediately.

  Shawn got to the phone in the van and made the call. “Peter! I do believe that we have ourselves a hatchet. And it appears that there is a hunk of wood out of the handle.”

  ***

  The satisfaction that the weapon used to chop the hands off of “Wally” had been found had barely begun to warm Peter, when his day was ruined. An old friend of Peter’s had come up from Albany to talk about a closed case.

  Mary Afrim had become a specialist in criminal appeals and brought with her some disturbing news about an old rape conviction. Harlan Boisvenue had been convicted of burglary and rape and sentenced to state prison. Despite the fact that the victim had never seen her attacker in the darkness of her bedroom, Peter was confident of the correctness of the verdict because of the fact that Boisvenue’s fingerprints had been found on the windowsill where the victim’s air conditioner had been pushed in to allow the attacker to gain entry to her apartment.

  These fingerprints had been compared with a set of his fingerprints that had been obtained by police due to an earlier, unrelated arrest for possessing another person’s prescription medication. This set of fingerprints was on file with the Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) even though the prescription charge had been pled down to a violation and he was sentenced to a fine and a conditional discharge. As the conviction was only for a violation, his arrest file should have been sealed and the fingerprints obtained by the police should have been destroyed, leaving DCJS without access to those prints for comparison.

  As there was no other evidence connecting him with the crime when he was detained by the police, the defendant’s confession and the blood sample taken from him for comparison with a small amount of blood left on the sharp edge of the air conditioner, would all be fruits of the poisonous tree. All because the fingerprint comparison in the rape investigation took place after the disposition on the violation, but before notice was received by DCJS to destroy the prints.

  As tempting as it might be to try and lay blame for this fiasco on someone or some organization, Peter recognized this as just one of those crazy things that sometimes happen. Each of Boisvenue’s arrests had been by a different agency, so there had been no way to know that the evidence of his guilt in the burglary and rape was improperly obtained. Peter just shook his head and agreed to meet with Boisvenue’s attorney and Judge Ginola at the earliest opportunity to dismiss the indictment and order the young man’s release. In the meantime, he would research the point in hopes of finding some way to argue that the comparison, while improper, was accidental and not a reason to throw out the other evidence, but he did not hold out much hope.

  Basically, it all came down to that old Latin
saying: Shit happens!

  The next day, Peter got the news that he had been expecting – the chunk of wood found on Wally’s body was a perfect match for the missing portion of the hatchet from the lake. Well, we have a murder and a murder weapon. Now, all we need is a murderer!

  His return to the office after lunch was delayed by a few minutes. After he had gotten out of his car, Peter walked up to a group of the county’s Buildings and Grounds personnel, who were huddled together outside the entrance to the Municipal Center, smoking cigarettes. Peter, who was notoriously bad with peoples’ names, greeted them and began chatting with them about the typical work for this time of year. Peter did not speak with them out of any sense of obligation or other personal motives. He just enjoyed chatting with people who were doing a lot of the same type of work that he had grown up doing.

  While growing up on the family motel, Peter’s parents had instilled in him the notion that anyone who did their work well, whatever it was, deserved respect. It was the fact that they were living to their potential, not the level of their potential that was important. The Drakes’ motel, Falcon’s Nest, was also one of the establishments in the area, during the early ‘60’s, that did not discriminate. In fact, the collage of races that used to spend their vacations at their place, prompted his dad on more than one occasion to suggest that they should fly the United Nations flag off the side of their house.

  After the others had gone back to their work, Peter continued to stand on the steps, smoking, and remembering.

  ***

  It was the weekend after the Fourth of July weekend in 1965 and Peter was thirteen. In return for a dollar per hour, he handled the office of the motel, while his mother worked on the bookkeeping in the room next to the office. As 6 P.M. approached, Peter was wondering if he would be able to rent out the last room soon. Dad was treating the kids to going to the drive-in to see Mary Poppins, which had first been released the previous year. While it might not have been Peter’s first choice for a movie, it was a night out - and popcorn.

  The act of turning on the “No Vacancy” sign would signify that there would be no TV’s available to watch. Their home TV was the spare in case one of the TV’s in the motel needed repair, which was nearly always the case.

  The crunching sound getting louder announced the arrival of a car coming up the long gravel-covered driveway. Through the cloud of road dust thrown up by the tires, Peter could see a Ford station wagon with the standard fake wood panel sides. As Peter opened the porch door and stepped out to meet the customers, the driver, a tall black man unfolded himself out of the driver’s side of the wagon. He hesitated momentarily when he saw young Peter, but seemed to make up his mind and started to walk toward the office.

  “Good afternoon! May I help you?” greeted Peter.

  The man did not answer until he had reached Peter and then asked him, in a voice barely above a whisper: “We’ve been on the road for fourteen hours and we are beat. Do you have anything that could fit five? I promise that we will stay indoors during the daytime and the kids are real quiet.”

  Peter was thoroughly confused by the man’s last comment, but went ahead: “We have one vacancy left, Cabin number three that can easily handle a family of five. It’s the one right down there at the turn in the driveway. It even has its own barbeque and picnic table. Let me take you down to see it?”

  “No need. We’ll take it. And thank you so much.”

  The man’s look of relief and gratitude added to Peter’s confusion. “There is also the pool of course. Your family can use it anytime and you certainly don’t have to stay in the cabin during the day.”

  After he got the registration card completed and payment for a week, Peter gave the man the key and promised to be down shortly with extra towels. The family drove back down the driveway to the cabin and Peter went through the back door of the office into his home. His mother, who had overheard the whole exchange, sat him down and explained that the man had probably been refused accommodations by other motels because of his race. While all of this was largely incomprehensible to young Peter, he did feel some inexplicable pride that he and his family did not behave this way.

  ***

  It was finally the Ides of March and Peter was gratefully scanning the large lawn around the County Municipal Center, where only a few patches of unmelted snow hid behind signs and shrubs or were the blackened remains of what had once been a fifteen foot high snow bank which finally gave up the ghost. Fifty miles to the south, Albany was already well into springtime.

  Despite the balmy weather, Inv. Mike Connolly and S/A Dave Grace were hard at it and arranged for a follow up teleconference chat with Inv. Falcone, their NYPD organized crime background source. Giovanni had learned that Gennaro DiGiorno, the man in the Canadian nursing home, had been an old time “made” man with Caruana-Cuntrera clan in Montreal back in the 50’s and 60’s.

  Peter’s reading had told him that a “made” man was a full fledged soldier in an organized crime family, and that the term “made” referred to the initiation ceremony where he had been made a member and had in turn made several oaths. According to the prevailing rumor, in the back on Sicily, he had made his bones as a hit man for Georgio Cuntrera.

  Although Sicilian in origin, the Caruana-Cuntrera clan with its large presence in Montreal, had long been especially tight with the Genovese family in New York City. This connection was probably enhanced by the two families’ proximity, connected by U.S. Route 9, with Lake George as the convenient midway point. This revelation of DiGiorno’s past increased the focus on him as a possible suspect in Wally’s murder.

  Aside from the occasional updates from the task force on the ongoing debriefing of Madonna, Peter’s life was slowly returning to normal. Madonna’s assurances of cooperation were selective and largely useless. He did seem to take delight in describing the benefits of having access to supplies of drugs.

  “The women, you know. They will do anything for the cocaine.” He smiled wickedly and whispered. “Anything!”

  While he was open and detailed in his descriptions of his activities and colleagues in crimes locally, his recollection became foggy whenever the topic was the Camorra. He was coy with the task force investigators, but his veneer of matter-of-fact ignorance was shattered when he was confronted by a delegation of carabinieri investigators and prosecuting magistrates from Italy. Madonna was only able to maintain his façade for about twenty minutes and then began hyperventilating and complaining of chest pains. That interview had to be discontinued and he was taken to the hospital.

  Peter drove home a little early from work, as he usually did when Eileen had afternoon OB-GYN appointments. He did this so she would be able to fill him in on what was going on. It had only been a few weeks since she told him the news of her pregnancy, and he still hadn’t gotten over the excitement. Without letting on why they had needed a babysitter, he thanked Althea, their neighbor, for taking care of the kids and assured her that he could struggle through their mealtime without maiming or poisoning them. He had just gotten them started on their dinner, and gone to the back pantry to get a beer, when he heard the garage door opener activated.

  In the instant that he first saw her before their eyes met, he knew, and he could feel his heart nearly stop. She had clearly been crying before, but looking at him brought the tears back with a vengeance. As they held each other in the hallway, they shook with her silent sobs and his tears dropped shamelessly onto the top of her head, to follow the strands of her long black hair down to where they would mingle with her own.

  In whispers, so as not to upset the children in the nearby kitchen, Eileen choked out that she had thought something might be wrong when she woke up that morning. Her doctor had assured her that such feelings were normal, but became concerned when she could not hear any fetal pulse. An ultrasound gave them the answer she had feared.

  To make matters worse, the lateness of her appointment meant that there were no openings in the OR schedule and she wo
uld have to wait until tomorrow morning to go in for a D&C. Eileens’s sadness and disappointment was cruelly magnified by what lay so still in her womb. She kissed Peter and went up stairs to lie down.

  Peter took a deep breath and went back into the kitchen to continue with the kids’ dinner.

  “What’s the matter, Daddy? Why are you crying?” Susie asked.

  “It’s okay, honey. Your mother and I just heard some sad news” assured Peter. There was no way that a child her age would be able to process that the Good Lord could take back such a wonderful gift. Most adults found that difficult, if not impossible to fathom.

  As Peter went about the business of assisting young Gary in eating his dinner, Susie began to quietly cry, out of sympathy for her daddy’s sadness. As Peter reached with the spoon to refill it, he felt Gary’s tiny finger touch his cheek and saw that his son had caught one of his tears and was examining it curiously. Peter held it together long enough for them to finish and took them into the family room to watch TV.

  For the next few minutes, Peter wandered around the downstairs, searching for the bottle of beer that he was certain he had brought out of the pantry. He finally found it sitting on a step of the stairs leading to the second floor. He then went into the dining room and looked through his LP record collection until he found the one that had come to mind while he was feeding Gary. Peter had been brought up with a lot of music in his life, and he tended to play music that went with his moods and life. Pavan for the Dead Princess by Maurice Ravel was the only appropriate choice for tonight. The moving rendition by the composer had been recorded with a complex player piano that preserved intonation and poignantly conveyed a parent’s sadness at the loss of a child.