by Fred Galvin
“Good, good. Here’s your next case.” Billy slid a folder across the table but he slid it to me instead of Ronnie, which would have been protocol. “Ronnie, I’d like to have our independent consultant Deckler take the lead on this one if it’s okay with you.”
Ronnie sat back, eyebrows raised. “Sure, Captain, if you say so. I think he’s ready to venture out of the nest. I’ll keep an eye on him.” I couldn’t tell if she felt slighted or not. Maybe a little.
I opened the folder and scanned the summary page and understood. “You’ve got to be shitting me!”
Billy leaned back in his chair. “I shit you not. You remember your beach corpse? Well, it looks like he has a name, was murdered, and has come home to roost. Forensics said he died from blunt-force trauma to the head with some sort of cylindrical bat-like object and they got a match on the guy’s DNA.”
I sat back, chuckled, and handed the folder to Ronnie. She opened it and looked up at both of us. She suddenly sat up and seemed more sober, like an old painful memory had been brought forward. She hesitated briefly, then, “Well, I’ll be damned. Dan, do you remember the case we caught just before you retired? One of my old CIs who was found in a dumpster? Louie Calzone?”
“Yeah, I remember Louie Calzone. It was established that he was a regular customer of the Lower East Side bookie operations of the Mariucci Family. A baseball bat to the head if I remember correctly.”
Ronnie, still unusually serious and seemingly preoccupied, was intently reading the folder’s contents. It seemed wise to just wait until she was done. She tapped the folder and looked to Billy, then to me.
“Right. We had always thought this guy had done Louie as a message to his delinquent bookie clients but we could never pin it on him. Trying to nail down alibis was like chasing your tail. We wrote it off as a mob hit and cool-cased it.”
She stared at the picture staring back at her from the open folder. Then she looked up with a faraway look. “So, that body that washed up at your feet out on the Island was Fast Frankie Finacci! How the hell did he end up out there? Amazing. I’ll bet Louie Calzone is somewhere thinking ‘What goes around, comes around.’ He’d be right.”
Chapter 25: I truly had no idea.
You may recall when I first described Ronnie Deveaux I said something to the effect that she revealed nothing personal below what she wanted to show on the surface. She was an expert in deflection. I took the cues and never really pushed, figuring she had her reasons for keeping her personal life close to the vest.
But I have to admit there have been plenty of times when I was more than just a little curious.
I was quite sure she wasn’t gay, not that it would have mattered if she was, but I never heard her speak of any romantic relationships. When I asked if she had been tormenting any special men lately, her usual explanation was that she “was too busy protecting and serving the people of New York City to be distracted by men. Besides, I haven’t yet met one worth my time—besides you. And you’re taken.” She said that in her rolling Caribbean accent with a wink and a smile.
When we discussed family, or rather when I discussed family (because she never initiated such topics) I’d try to turn it her way and got nowhere. I once asked about her younger brother. She seemed surprised that I even knew she had a brother until I reminded her that she had mentioned him once. “Oh, he has his own business back home.”
Then she quickly changed the subject to baseball or something else I couldn’t resist, like how I was better with a Glock than she was. “So, tell me DD, do you inhale, exhale, or hold your breath when you shoot?” I had to admit that I had no idea but I did start thinking about it the next time we were on the firing range. She beat me in accuracy shooting that day. That was the equivalent of asking a serious golfer if his shadow bothered him when he swung. “Well, it never used to until now!”
Given the above, I hope you believe me when I insist that I never, ever knew or even suspected that Ronnie had a gambling habit and that she supported it by placing bets with a known mob bookie through a proxy who doubled as one of her confidential informants.
While that was happening behind the scenes, I was blissfully and obliviously working away my otherwise lonely time consulting for the NYPD as Daniel Deckler, retired homicide detective. My cases came from Captain Billy Smart through Ronnie Deveaux. Ronnie and I had fallen right back in step as partners and we were solving our share of homicide cases.
I truly had no idea.
Now, that being said (and I really shudder to use such a trite idiom but it’s appropriate here) let’s continue from the disclosure of Frankie Finacci as the identity of the corpse that washed up on the shore of Garbage Cove, almost literally at my feet, that June day.
Chapter 26: Case No. 19-218
Ronnie and I were in Captain Billy Smart’s office after roll call. He had just assigned a case to us with me as lead. If this had been a Perry Mason episode, it would be called The Case of the Garbage Cove Corpse.
We had looked at the file folder Billy had passed to us. Both of us were surprised to discover that my waterlogged friend was identified as Fast Frankie Finacci, our prime suspect in the murder of Ronnie’s CI Louie Calzone two years prior. While we were certain Finacci had wielded the bat that had crushed Calzone’s head, we were unable to gather enough evidence to formally charge him. Hell, we hadn’t gathered any physical evidence linking Finacci to the murder. But all circumstances pointed directly at him. Consider the following and you be the judge.
Calzone was one of Finacci’s regular clients and was known to lose much more frequently than he won. It was also known that he owed Finacci, and thus the Mariucci Family, a considerable sum from back losses. Street wisdom had him in the hole somewhere in the five-figure range. He had been issued several “warnings” to get square with Finacci but he was unable to do so by the latest deadline. In the mob world, a message had to be sent to all who would dare to fall behind. In Calzone’s case, it came in the form of a baseball bat to the head in a back alley.
He also was one of Ronnie’s CIs and she was notably upset and frustrated that Frankie had walked free on Louie’s murder two years prior. Now Frankie had literally resurfaced.
There was something about Ronnie’s demeanor that was off once Billy gave us the folder. She seemed to stiffen a bit and looked distracted. Maybe she was just preoccupied somehow or perhaps it had brought back memories of Louie and how she was unable to hold Finacci accountable. She acknowledged remembering the case and her frustration over not being able to pin the killing on Finacci.
“I’ll be right back.” She abruptly got up and turned to head for the bathroom. Hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go. Besides, ladies have more physiological issues to deal with than men do.
Now please don’t judge me for that! I don’t mean anything derogatory. Just sayin’. After all, women have all those switches and dials which rev up their emotions and feelings while men … well, men just have two settings: ON or OFF.
She seemed to be gone a bit longer than for just the usual nature call break. When she returned, she was more composed. She smiled at me, but it wasn’t the usual Ronnie smile. It seemed forced. I decided to let it go. If she needed to tell me something, she would tell me when she was ready, without my pressing her. But I had to admit, I was curious and a bit concerned. This was unusual for her.
~~~
Now, let’s see all that from Ronnie’s perspective.
Somehow Ronnie had the gut feeling the case Captain Smart had handed to DD to take lead on was Frankie Finacci. She had a premonition but no solid reason to believe it. Her curiosity peaked as DD opened the folder, scanned the summary page, and said, “You’ve got to be shitting me!”
That had done it for her. Although she hadn’t shown it, her heart sank. At least she hoped she hadn’t.
Billy had grinned, saying to DD, “I shit you not. You remember your beach corpse? Well, it looks like he has a name, was murdered, and has come home to roost. Forensics s
aid he died from blunt-force trauma to the head with some sort of cylindrical bat-like object and they got a match on the guy’s DNA.”
Ronnie involuntarily shuddered, hoping she had kept her reaction internal. DD’s reaction and Billy’s acknowledgment could mean only one thing. When DD handed her the folder, she glanced at the case tab:
Case No. 19-218
FINACCI, F.
She shuddered again, her suspicion confirmed. Neither Billy nor DD seemed to notice. She could feel herself flush, her temples throb. Her paranoia was kicking into a higher gear. She was surprised that Captain Smart had assigned lead on the case to DD rather than her. It seemed like no big deal to him and she assumed it was because DD had found the body. But still …
Did Billy know what had happened on the Sea Nymph? No. How could he possibly know? If he did, she would surely have been questioned and probably arrested and a warrant would have been issued for Roje (she made a mental note to call Roje and confirm he was okay). Instead, she and DD were assigned to investigate the case. Did DD know? Were they setting her up? No way. DD could not have that kind of knowledge without discussing it with her. They were too close, had too long a history.
She checked herself, her guilt mounting. She had to exert more control. That long history had never included her confiding in DD about her gambling problem and her debts to Finacci, indirectly through Louie Calzone as they were. She knew, against all her strongest desires, that eventually he would find out the truth.
She also knew that she would have to be the one to tell him before he found out via another source. The closest she had ever come to even implying she had a problem was when they went to Atlantic City after Jen had died. But she chickened out then too. She felt hypocritical.
Ronnie had to excuse herself for a few minutes before they noticed her reactions (if they hadn’t already). “I’ll be right back.” She hustled to the bathroom. She flipped the tag hanging on the door, which was marked M on one side and F on the other, to F (it was a “no sex” bathroom, which officially meant there was no differentiation as to which sex could use it and unofficially meant there was to be no sex in the bathroom). She shut and locked the door.
She looked in the mirror. Who was looking back at her? A gambling addict? Yes. A murderer? No. An accomplice to murder? No. Her brother had defended her. A cop complicit in a cover-up? Yes. And for that she felt guilty but it seemed too late now. She splashed cold water on her face and then sat down, breathing heavily. Shit! She hoped she hadn’t yelled that out loud. But hey, it was a bathroom, not a rose garden.
She had thought the Calzone/Finacci nightmare was behind her, although she still had been suffering from guilt. After all, it was mostly her money and her bets that Louie had made with Frankie and most of the thirty thousand he “owed” was hers. She had been scraping as much together as possible (but nowhere near 30K) when Louie was found dead. So her guilt was heavy and she very much had wanted to hang Finacci with the killing and put him away, partly to get justice for Louie, but mostly to ease her own guilt.
Just before he was killed, Louie had told her that he had been threatened. He asked her to hurry up with the cash. He had never threatened to blackmail her with disclosure to the NYPD. That was not Louie. She assured him that one or two more winners would net her enough to get him off the hook. But he knew how the game was played and that her winning enough was unlikely. He understood her inability to control her gambling impulses. He had figured he could keep holding off Finacci or his goons.
Ronnie had gambled with Louie’s life and lost the ultimate bet. She had contemplated confessing but couldn’t pull the trigger on that one. Instead she vowed to make Finacci accountable for the crime no matter how long it would take.
How can it be possible that the beach corpse was Fast Frankie Finacci? She and Roje had secured the old anchor chain to the body, or so they thought. The anchor chain may have come a little loose but it still should have dragged Frankie to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean for eternity, or at least until the sea creatures made a meal of him. But somehow, like the sleaze that he was, he had slipped free and floated to the surface. The storm’s waves must have pushed him to shore and it seemed there was enough of him left to yield the DNA that led to his identification.
She couldn’t believe it. His head was crushed by Roje’s club, his body wrapped in sheets, and thrown into the Atlantic with an anchor chain, and still he ends up on a Long Island beach among a bunch of surfers and at the feet of her former partner!
And what were the odds that DD would be sitting on that beach, on that day, at that time, and Frankie’s corpse would be deposited on a platter? If DD hadn’t been there the case would most likely have ended up with the Nassau County or the State Police. But, since a former NYPD detective had found the body (or rather the body had found him) and that detective had an official history with Finacci, the case had been dumped on the 7th, which the locals figured was better equipped to handle an apparent mob hit-and-dump.
Now Ronnie had to participate in an investigation of Finacci’s death, with DD in the lead, an investigation with questions to which she already knew the answers. She could imagine two possible outcomes. Either DD would do his usual thorough investigative work and that would eventually point at her and Roje. She would go along for the ride as he did this, not contributing much, but also not inhibiting, and then take her medicine.
Or, she could steer the investigation in different directions, away from her and her brother. She certainly would not implicate an innocent person, unless she could aim at someone like Lucci or some other Mariucci mobster. That she could live with. They were all murderers anyway. But that could backfire if alibis were solid. Rather, she could steer the case right into a dead end. They simply could not definitively bring charges against a specific culprit for lack of concrete evidence. That shouldn’t be too difficult to swallow. Billy Smart was a cop with high standards but if this was simply a case of mobster whacking mobster, he probably wouldn’t press it too far. The case would go cool and then be allowed to go cold. Ronnie would have to live with her conscience. She thought she could do that but knew it wouldn’t be easy. She may have to end up resigning.
That bastard simply would not go away! she thought venomously. Even the ocean spat him out as unpalatable. PTUI! Here, you take him back.
Chapter 27: “It just doesn’t smell right … ”
So, the partnership of Detective Ronika Deveaux and Retired Detective, Retired PI, Active Homicide Consultant Daniel Deckler was assigned Case No. 19-218: FINACCI, F. Good old Fast Frankie Finacci. Captain Billy Izzy Notso Smart had seen fit to name me the lead. I guess it was because of my descriptive title. Even so, I tried to argue that Ronnie should be lead since she’s the only detective in this partnership and a consultant shouldn’t be a lead detective.
Billy wasn’t having it.
Billy’s a good man, is a good captain, and is savvy in precinct house politics. If he thought my being the lead on this one would cause problems, he would never have done it. But he figured that since I was not your typical consultant, given my decades of preretirement detective service, the nature of the relationship Ronnie and I had, and my “relationship” with the deceased, an exception was okay.
But just to be sure he held both of us in his gaze, which could really get your attention when he turned on the lasers. He waited a brief moment then asked, “Are you two okay with this? No bullshit now. Ronnie?”
Ronnie didn’t hesitate. “Sure, Captain. I have no problem with Dan-the-consultant taking the lead on this investigation.” Hearing her slide in the Dan-the-consultant stiletto insult told me she really was okay with it. Billy and I waited for the zinger that was sure to follow. We didn’t have to wait long. Turning on her gentle rolling island accent she added, “Sheet mon, I’ll even let heem drive—but only when we are working thees case. Otherwise, I drive.” Any ice there may have been was broken and we had a laugh.
Billy leaned back. “Well, Dan-the-consultan
t, it seems right that you take it since Finacci quite literally landed at your feet.”
Actually, he kind of flopped ashore at my feet. “Sure, Captain, I’m fine with this arrangement if Ronnie is.” Then I extended my hand to her, palm up, fingers gesturing to hand them over. “Keys please.”
With an eye roll, Ronnie fished around in her purse, stood up, dangled the keys to the Crown Vic over my hand, then dropped them on the floor. “Oops! Sorry mon. We’d better get going. Let’s get some breakfast and figure how we, I mean you, are going to conduct this investigation.” She turned and left, heading for the garage.
Billy and I looked at each other, eyebrows raised. “Good luck. It looks like you’re going to need it. My advice to you, my consultant friend, is to wrap this one up quickly.”
I rose to follow Ronnie, leaving him with a half-ass salute. “Big 10-4, Captain.”
When Ronnie had suggested breakfast I knew she meant only one place: the EATS 24-7 Diner. Even though it was in Brooklyn, the 24-7 was always our default diner of choice, as it was for several other local cops and detectives. It didn’t matter if we had already had breakfast at home. Breakfast at the 24-7 was more of an event than a meal.