Boric Acid Murder, The

by Camille Minichino

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  MATT LEANED BACK in his old gray office chair. The aging springs and patched-up vinyl seat gave out sounds halfway between creaking and groaning.

  “There are a lot of gaps here, Gloria.”

  None that I could see. I’d laid it out for him, and in my mind it all fit. Yolanda Fiore, the reporter, doing what reporters do, investigates the disappearance of her grandfather. She determines that Sabatino Scotto never got to Italy. The young Brendan Byrne murdered him and buried him in the lot behind the library. Yolanda figured it out, and he had to kill her, too. And, of course, that was the reason Byrne had to stop the excavation for the library expansion, lest his crime be exposed.

  “First, we can’t prove Scotto didn’t go to Italy. We only know the people Yolanda contacted denied seeing him there.” Not what I wanted to hear. I’d been so relieved to find Matt in his office, it hadn’t occurred to me that he’d dispute my theory of a double homicide, with the killings fifty-five years apart.

  “It was a pretty exhaustive search of several families. The Pallavos, the Avallones—”

  “OK, but they have every reason to lie, to preserve a family secret, and to hide their own crime.”

  “Do you think harboring a fugitive is a crime in Italy?”

  Matt laughed. “Maybe not.” He was not to be distracted very long, however. “Say Byrne did murder Scotto—and at this point I think you’re picking on him because he’s the only one we’ve been looking at who was an adult in 1940—if we dug up a body, how would we know it was Scotto? Maybe it was a legitimate burial, like the Church is saying we’ll find there. What makes it a murder victim?”

  “We use DNA.”

  “Scotto’s DNA is not on file. Where would we get data to make the comparison?”

  “We could match to Yolanda, and show it’s her family.”

  “We just happen to think of trying to match to Yolanda?”

  “No, she just happens to have determined that her grandfather didn’t go to Italy. So she’s suspicious when a body is dug up. And let’s not forget revenge. Byrne finally has a chance for justice.”

  “In his mind.”

  “Of course. She’s a Scotto, and at least one Scotto will pay, if not the right one.”

  A nod, but not a concession. “OK for now. Let’s start down another track. Why would Byrne think anyone would point the finger at him?”

  “Well, Byrne would be worried that we can make a match to Yolanda, and everyone knows he had motive to kill Scotto.”

  “Didn’t you tell me …” Matt flipped through his small notebook, but I knew the gesture was for show, teasing me. “Let’s see, your interview with Dorothy Leonard. Here it is. The library expansion project is likely to go through anyway?”

  “Yes, but with Yolanda out of the way, it’s less likely anyone will care about some bones that are dug up. As you pointed out, they could just say it might be Horatio Alger.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “I forget.”

  Matt’s big grin and obvious approval of me, combined with the sight of my photograph on his desk, gave me a cozy feeling, inappropriate for the gravity of the matter at hand.

  Matt refocused quickly. “You haven’t told me what ties Byrne to this crime, to make him worried enough to murder Yolanda.”

  Finally, one I was ready for. “He threw the murder weapon into the grave and it has his fingerprints on it.”

  “Hmmm.”

  I folded my arms across my chest. So there. “And Byrne worked for the city government, so his prints are on file.”

  “Hmmm. Then we wouldn’t need Yolanda at all would we? So why would getting rid of her end Byrne’s troubles?”

  This time the hmmm was mine, and followed by a very soft “I don’t know.”

  “What was that?”

  “Let’s go have an early dinner. My treat.”

  AT SEVEN O’CLOCK, having left Matt at the curb, I walked past Mrs. Patira in Parlor A and Mr. Rinaldo in Parlor B and climbed the stairs to my apartment. Matt had a meeting with a community service group and would be over later.

  I plopped down on my glide rocker, too full of the chicken piccata special to concentrate. I made the mistake of reviewing all I’d done in the less than two weeks that I’d been back from my California vacation, which had been anything but restful. I picked up the Web-use sheets from Yolanda’s computer, and fell asleep.

  I WAS JOLTED AWAKE by my ringing phone, in the middle of a strange dream no doubt prompted by Matt’s attack on my double homicide theory and my own circular reasoning. I couldn’t remember the details of the images, but I knew a spiral staircase was involved.

  “Gloria, it’s John.” His voice seemed to come from my dream.

  I rubbed my eyes and hoisted myself to a sitting position. John who? I almost asked, never one to make the transition from sleep to wakefulness very easily.

  “Where are you?” I asked instead. “Your mother is worried sick …and that’s no way to greet you, is it? How are you?”

  “I’m OK. I’m at a pay phone.”

  “I don’t think anyone is taping this conversation, John.”

  “Sorry. I’m in Detroit. You probably figured that out. I really wanted to be at Yolanda’s funeral. I’d met her sister, Gabriella, once when she visited Yolanda in Revere. No one here knows the details of the murder investigation, that I’m—”

  His voice cracked, almost imperceptibly, and I felt a catch in my throat. “I’m glad you went, John.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” Speaking as your Aunt Gloria, of course, not as an adviser to the RPD, nor even as your mother’s best friend.

  “Let me tell you, it has been very interesting. Yolanda’s grandmother, Sabatino’s wife, is still alive. Mrs. Pallavo. Ninety-five, but very sharp. Reads the newspaper every day, does the crossword puzzle.” Either John was adopting his mother’s habits, or he was building his case for a credible witness in Yolanda’s grandmother. “Mrs. Pallavo says Sabatino would never have disappeared like that. They had a plan all worked out. A way to get messages back and forth, everything. And she never heard from him.”

  “And she sounded believable to you?”

  “Yeah. I’m convinced that Sabatino Scotto never got to Italy. Not only that, but Yolanda grew up with this story. Her grandmother has been urging her for years to look into it. I’m sure that’s why she came to Revere, but maybe that’s even why Yolanda became a reporter in the first place. It’s as if she was meant to find the truth.”

  And to die for it, I thought.

  I gave John a few details of my own that corroborated his findings. I might also have misled him slightly, with a tiny exaggeration about how good our case was against the councilman. The coast is clear, was my message.

  “Are you coming home soon?”

  “Oh, and get this,” John said, skirting the issue of his truancy. “Here’s a small-world story that reporters love—after Sabatino disappeared, Celia became very ill from depression. Irving Leonard’s father was the doctor who treated her. She says he was very good to her, the only one who believed her, and she wanted to be remembered to him. I had to tell her he died ten years ago. I think he’s the only one in Revere that she remembers. She’s blotted out the ones who turned against her, I guess.”

  “This is all interesting, John. We can talk more when you get home.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, OK. I get it. I’ll take an early flight tomorrow. Will you tell my mother? I didn’t want her to get all hysterical.”

  “Too late.”

  He laughed. “I know, I have a lot to make up to my parents.”

  “They’ll just be happy to have you back. And it would really be better if you called yourself.”

  “I’ll think about it. Thanks, Gloria.”

  I put down the phone and smiled, as if I believed the story I’d given John.

  I PICKED UP the printouts Tony had delivered, amused at the image of him, behaving like an overanxious d
efense attorney, determined to produce enough paperwork to keep me busy and off the track of talking to his wife or the police.

  The computer security administration at the Charger Street lab had done a thorough vetting on Yolanda, tracking her Web use over two weeks. They’d been so successful that she was fired at the end of the period. I thought back to my occasional nonwork-related browsing—mainly to frivolous interactive science sites—at BUL in California, and wondered who’d been looking over my shoulders electronically.

  I reviewed the list of Web sites Yolanda had visited, many of which I recognized from my search for information on Prohibition. I pulled down my locator menu and typed in the first unfamiliar URL.

  The address brought me to an article about the recent surge of moonshine, especially in the southeastern part of the country. A group of history-minded citizens in West Virginia had filed a petition to erect a museum to commemorate the heyday of the wood alcohol business, in what they called the moonshine capital of the world. The plan was to sell a safer version of hootch, billed as “boutique liquor.”

  I tried to imagine what Brendan Byrne or Yolanda Fiore might think about celebrating a “business” that cost lives and the destruction of families.

  Another URL listed local Web sites and links to the library project. I should have realized the expansion proposal would have its own site. Didn’t even every day-care center have one nowadays? I clicked through links that took me to the past, to the library’s history, landing on one labeled OBITUARIES. A dark, formal look-and-feel took over my screen. A black banner, with long-stemmed calla lilies along the length of the page. The year, 1985. The deceased, Irving Leonard.

  Mr. Irving Leonard, 46, director of the Revere Public Library, died in a tragic accident at the library on Friday. Mr. Leonard was the beloved husband of Dorothy, and father of Sarah, 21. Private burial will be followed by a public commemoration at Revere City Hall on Tuesday, 2 p.m. Besides his wife and child, Mr. Leonard is survived by his father, the retired Dr. David Leonard. Donations may be sent in Dr. Leonard’s name to the National Library Fund, Washington, D.C.

  The next page—if Web frames could be called pages—had the text of speeches and eulogies delivered at the City Hall service. I had no way of knowing which links Yolanda had searched, but I scanned all of them, as I felt she must have done. Eventually, I found a link I was sure Yolanda paused over—the text of a lengthy address by Brendan Byrne, an active Council member at the time. He’d peppered his testimony with anecdotes about his friend Irving.

  No one worked harder than Irving. And, sadly, it was that devotion to duty that caused his untimely death. Imagine a guy with a lovely wife waiting at home working late on a Friday night, with one last chore he doesn’t want to leave for his weekend staff. So he picks up a broken, old crate marked for cold storage and … well, that was Irving. Nothing was beneath him, he’d do anything to make the Revere Public Library, and all our lives, the better for his presence.

  Another aha escaped my lips. But I had one more connection to make before the aha would survive the scrutiny of Sergeant Matt Gennaro.

  I checked the clock on the wall above my desk. Not even ten-thirty. Still early enough to call Dorothy Leonard. This judgment by one who’d recently had a nap. I quickly flipped through the recent additions to my telephone and address book, and found her home number.

  “No, it’s not too late, Gloria. What can I do for you?” Not an enthusiastic tone in her voice, but who could blame her? I’d uncovered her document scheme, and come very close to accusing her of murdering either her husband or Yolanda Fiore or both.

  “I need to know if Yolanda Fiore called you during the two weeks or so before she was murdered.” I heard a grunting sound that said oh-oh. I hastened to reassure her. “I’m not still … investigating you, believe me. But this is very important. Did Yolanda have any questions for you about the circumstances of your husband’s death?”

  A sigh, remembering. “She did, as a matter of fact.” I fought not to fill the silence that followed. Misleading the witness was not out of the question for me. Fortunately, not necessary as Dorothy continued. “She wanted to know something about that crate. Was it written anywhere what the crate was like. That it was old and broken and marked for storage, that kind of thing.”

  “Was it?”

  “Not that I recall. It was kind of a joke between Irving and his staff. The basement where they stored things was so cold, they called it, well, cold storage. But no, it never appeared in any public record that I know of.”

  “And you told Yolanda this?”

  “Of course. I didn’t know how she’d found out about it, and she wouldn’t tell me even why she cared.”

  I wasn’t surprised that the grieving Dorothy Leonard missed the slip by Councilman Byrne at her husband’s service, nor that police detectives wouldn’t be paying attention either. He was an elder of the city, after all, even then.

  I was about to hang up when another question came to my mind, a nagging connection from my phone call with John.

  “Do you remember your father-in-law talking about a Mrs. Celia Scotto who would have been his patient in the forties?”

  “Oh, you mean the Scottos who were involved in the moonshine tragedy?”

  “Yes, are you familiar with the case?”

  “Not specifically, except of course that it involved Derek’s family, but I do remember Irving bringing it up once or twice. He got interested in it for some reason. Why are you asking?”

  I realized Dorothy probably had no knowledge of Yolanda Fiore’s connection to Sabatino Scotto. “Nothing you need to worry about. Thank you very much for your time.”

  I hung up and sat back on my rocker.

  I’d been wrong. It wasn’t a double homicide. It was a triple homicide. Scotto in 1940, Leonard in 1985, and Fiore in 1995.

  TWENTY-NINE

  MATT WAS DUE any minute—I had just enough time to lay out my story.

  I bookmarked the relevant Web sites on my computer. To put order to the tangled threads in my brain, I opened a new document and made a timeline.

  1940—Eighteen-year-old Brendan Byrne intercepts Sabatino Scotto on the way to the airport, murders him, buries body behind the library. (Jewelry still missing, likely on Scotto’s person.)

  1984-5—1. Library expansion proposed; exposure of grave threatened. 2. Irving Leonard discovers Byrne’s secret. (How? Through his father, the doctor who treated Sabatino’s wife—Irving decides to investigate, Byrne’s vehement opposition to project alerts him and he figures it out? Possible!)

  1985—Byrne murders Leonard; throws crate down stairs after body to fake accident.

  1995 (before?)—Yolanda Fiore investigates grandfather’s disappearance, and also the library expansion controversy (why?), which leads her back in time to Byrne’s incriminating gaffe at the Irving Leonard memorial service.

  June, 1995—1. Yolanda confronts Byrne? (Is discovered by him in the library? No, not a random meeting at eleven o’clock at night.) 2. Byrne murders Yolanda.

  A few questions to ask Byrne when he was arrested, I thought smugly, but no serious gaps in my theory this time. I was ready for Matt.

  I thought my high school class deserved some attention since it was Jamel’s observation about bodies buried in a waste pool that inspired me to think about Scotto’s body beneath the library lawn. I searched the Internet for the latest map of the active nuclear power plant units in the world, but I was too agitated to concentrate on anything other than my triple homicide theory. In the end, I decided to take a shower and lie down until Matt arrived.

  I WOKE UP to the smell of coffee, the sound of sparrows, and the sight of Matt, dressed for work, standing by my bed. It was Friday morning.

  “I was going to apologize for not showing up last night, but I see you didn’t notice. The meeting went very late and I was completely exhausted.”

  So was I, I thought. I almost suggested how nice it would be if we could fall asleep exhausted,
together. Instead, I asked, “What time is it?”

  “By my imprecise analog wristwatch, nine o’clock.”

  I’d slept almost ten hours, a new record for me. I felt rested for the first time in a while. Who knew what I could accomplish with this much energy—too bad the case was solved.

  Matt had made coffee and toasted fresh bagels he’d picked up. Two plain for him, one cinnamon raisin for me. I showed him my timeline, and got about a B response, since there were “still a lot of questions.”

  “Big article in the Journal this morning—the library expansion project has been approved and funded. I can’t believe Byrne is surprised. So that means the big question is still what Byrne would gain by killing Yolanda. Other than simple revenge.”

  The phone saved me from reviewing the string of books, movies, and television shows that thrived on that “simple” notion.

  “Good news,” Elaine said. “I’m dating again.”

  “That’s great, Elaine. But you got up pretty early to tell me.”

  “He just left.”

  I laughed. “Anyone I know?”

  “It’s Gil Hardin. You may remember him. He’s a physicist in lasers.”

  I didn’t know him, but I was happy for Elaine. “It’s about time you tried a physicist. How many times did I tell you—?”

  “I know, I know. I don’t know why I didn’t catch on. You’re a physicist and I love you. We get along. We’ve been friends for longer than all my male relationships combined.”

  “My news is I think we’ve solved this case.” I gave Matt a deliberate look, and a smile.

  “Terrific. And the case of Matt Gennaro, also?”

  “That, too, I think.”

  “He’s there?”