Death by Chocolate

by Steven Henry

  “His blood-pressure medication,” Erin said. “We knew about that.”

  “It was a significant concentration,” Levine repeated. “Propranolol can cause cardiac arrest in sufficient quantity.”

  “You saying he overdosed on his heart meds?”

  “That is my preliminary conclusion,” Levine said. “However, his weight and tobacco use were both significant risk factors for heart disease. It’s possible the cardiac event was unrelated to the medication.”

  “But you don’t think so?”

  “I have approximately eighty-five percent confidence the event was triggered by propranolol.”

  “Not cyanide?”

  Levine gave her a funny look. “The deceased’s symptoms were not at all consistent with cyanide poisoning.”

  “Or any other kind of poison?”

  “As I said, I’m eighty-five percent certain—”

  “Propranolol is a medicine, not a poison.”

  “That’s an academic distinction,” Levine said. “Many poisons can serve as medicines in the proper dosage and situation, and vice versa.”

  Erin nodded. “It’s all drugs, I guess. But you didn’t find anything else?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  * * *

  Vic had arrived while Erin had been downstairs. He was drinking Mountain Dew out of an enormous plastic cup and glaring at the whiteboard.

  “Morning, Sunshine,” he said when he saw her. “You teach Rolf to like coffee yet?”

  “Caffeine is poisonous to dogs,” she said, thinking of what Levine had said about poison and medicine.

  He looked surprised. “Really? Man, take me off the stuff and I’d eat my gun, if I ever found the energy to pull the trigger. How’s that poor mutt manage to keep on living? Anyway, what’ve you got there?”

  “Bloodwork.”

  “What’d Sewer Pipe have in his pipes?”

  “Just his heart meds.”

  “So, not poisoned.”

  “Actually, maybe he was.” Erin explained what Levine had told her. Vic frowned.

  “You think he offed himself?” he asked. “By accident, or maybe on purpose?”

  “He didn’t seem suicidal to me,” Erin said. “I guess an accidental overdose is possible. Any idea how long he was on the meds? Maybe if he wasn’t used to them, he just took too many.”

  “Nope,” Vic said. “And good luck getting a court order for his pharmacist. If we even knew who was filling his prescriptions. I wish I’d taken a look through his bathroom trash. The bottle would’ve had the date on it.”

  Erin snapped her fingers. “Right! Paulie said he found an empty bottle in the trash.”

  “So?” Vic asked.

  “So who throws away their prescription bottle before getting it refilled?” Erin asked. “If my dad runs short of his pills, he sets the empty bottle out as a reminder.”

  “I must not be awake yet,” he said. “I don’t follow.”

  “Whoever emptied that bottle didn’t intend it to be refilled,” she said.

  “You think someone got rid of his pills?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “But you said he overdosed, not that he ran out. What’d they do, hold him down and force-feed him? I can think of fifteen easier ways to kill a guy.”

  “What if they put the pills in something else?” Erin replied. She sat down at her desk and brought up her web browser. She looked up propranolol, specifically its flavor. “It’s got a strong taste. Bitter.”

  “So whatever it was in would have to be pretty strong-tasting itself,” Vic said. “Like, I dunno, maybe spicy pasta sauce? With peppers?”

  Erin grinned at him. “Damn right.”

  “I like it,” Vic said. “Of course, that would mean it was either the wife or the son who poisoned him.”

  “My money’s on the wife,” Erin said.

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “She’d have had an easier time slipping it into the food. Plus, she planned the meal. There’s just one problem. You know what the Lieutenant would say about this.”

  “It’s thin,” Erin said, using one of Webb’s favorite words. “Circumstantial evidence, jumping to conclusions. We don’t have proof.”

  “But if she did…” Vic said.

  “Then she might’ve tried once before,” Erin said. “Like, say, with a box of candy?”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “Unfortunately, I don’t think we can tie that to her, either.”

  “But we should definitely look closer at her,” Erin said. “Maybe find a motive, a receipt for rat poison and candy at the local drugstore, I don’t know. Something may turn up.”

  “I always wanted to investigate the Mafia,” Vic said. “But I never thought their girls were loudmouth bitches from Long Island.”

  “You got a problem with loudmouth bitches from Long Island?” Erin retorted, giving it her best Queens inflection.

  “No,” he said, grinning. “They grow on you.”

  * * *

  Lots of spouses killed each other. Something like half of all women who were murdered were done in by a romantic partner. Crimes of passion, trying to collect life insurance, wanting to clear the way for a new lover, or any number of stupid reasons were enough. Some people even did it just to avoid the hassle of divorce court. But there was always a reason, however trivial. And the most common reasons were sex and money.

  They couldn’t find out much about the Bianchis’ love life, but they could look into the household’s finances. Erin and Vic started slogging through the dead man’s files without much hope. Lorenzo was retired Mafia. After Al Capone had gone down for income tax evasion, the Mob had wised up and gotten good at laundering money. Accordingly, when Lieutenant Webb arrived, they had nothing to show for their labor. The visible part of the Bianchis’ finances was completely innocuous.

  “Interesting theory,” he said when they explained what Levine had said. “You thinking the wife tried to poison him with the chocolate, failed, and tried again with his medication?”

  “Why not?” Erin replied.

  “Why’d she want to kill him?” Webb asked.

  “Besides the obvious?” Vic interjected.

  “Enlighten me,” Webb said.

  “You were there,” Vic said. “Those two hated each other. It was just bitch, bitch, bitch the whole time.”

  “Reminded me of my second marriage,” Webb said. “But I didn’t kill my wife.”

  “You’re not in a Mafia family,” Erin said.

  “If you’re right, and the food was poisoned, there’s only one way to prove it,” he said.

  “We gotta get our hands on the dishes,” Vic said.

  “She’ll have washed them by now,” Erin said.

  “And we’d need a warrant to retrieve them anyway,” Webb sighed. “Which we won’t get. It was a thought.”

  “I’m wondering something, sir,” Erin said.

  “I’m listening,” Webb said.

  “If this was a marital thing, a personal murder, then where’s Vinnie the Oil Man in all this?”

  “Vinnie the who?” Vic asked.

  “Moreno,” Webb said, nodding. “Did your CIs give you anything useful on him?”

  “He’s a big player in the Lucarelli family,” Erin said. “According to a couple guys I talked to, he basically runs things for them in Manhattan, since their old man’s in jail.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Vic said. “Big guys don’t usually sweat the small shit. He shouldn’t have been there in person.”

  “It could be that he knew Bianchi,” Erin said. “They might’ve been close. I haven’t had a chance to look into their dealings.”

  “Make that your next step,” Webb said. “There’s a connection, I’d bet three packs of smokes on it. Moreno stuck his neck out for this.”

  “So did that dirty doc,” Vic said. “Seems like they went into panic mode. Crazy, really. I mean, if all he had in his bloodstream was prescription meds, what the hell w
ere they worried about?”

  “Maybe they didn’t know what killed him,” Erin said. “And they assumed it was something that would cause trouble if we found it.”

  “Like what?” Webb asked.

  “I don’t know,” Erin admitted.

  “See if you can find out.”

  So Erin went back to her computer. While Vic kept going through bank records, she pulled Vincenzo Moreno’s police jacket. It was thinner than it ought to be for such a senior figure in the Mob. He wasn’t called the Oil Man for nothing. Vinnie had slipped out of the DA’s clutches more than once. He’d done some time in his youth, eighteen months for assault. He’d been busted for a weapons charge once, twice for possession of heroin. None of it was unusual for a young gangster. Once he’d grown up, he’d either gotten more careful or gotten luckier. He’d kept his head down and his nose clean while quietly accumulating power and influence. He’d avoided the big cleanup of Mafiosi during the ‘90s, somehow dodging all the big RICO cases. When the dust had cleared, Vinnie the Oil Man was the tallest guy left standing amid the wreckage. Now the NYPD knew he ran the Lucarelli rackets in Manhattan; they just hadn’t been able to prove it.

  Once she had a sense of the guy, she checked Vinnie’s file against Lorenzo’s, looking for points of contact. She’d only just started looking when she got a hit.

  “Hey, guys,” she called. “Come over here.”

  “What’s up?” Vic asked. “Let me guess. They killed Jimmy Hoffa, and you found out where he’s buried.”

  “Not quite,” Erin said. She wondered in passing whether Corky might have a story about what had happened to the infamous union leader. He’d just been a kid, still in Ireland, when Hoffa had vanished, but he did know lots of Teamsters bigwigs. General consensus was that the former Teamsters’ president had been murdered by Irish hitman Frank Sheeran, but it had never been proven. She filed the thought away for future reference and brought her mind back to the current task.

  “When Bianchi was running the Mafia’s garbage business on Long Island, Vinnie worked for him,” she said.

  “Doing what?” Webb asked.

  “On paper, he was a driver,” Erin said, clicking through the pages of the file the NYPD had built on the garbage racket. “But it looks like he might’ve been into heroin distribution. The Narcs tried to build a case on Bianchi. They got some tips that his garbage business was a front for a drug network.”

  “What happened?”

  “Insufficient evidence,” Erin said. “Three of Bianchi’s trucks got destroyed on their lot. Ammonium nitrate fuel oil explosives.”

  “Like the Oklahoma City bomb,” Vic said.

  “Or the IRA,” Webb said, giving Erin a sharp look.

  Erin didn’t say anything. She was pretty sure her current boyfriend had built at least some of those bombs.

  “So the Narcs gave up on it?” Vic asked.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Bianchi was out of the trash business after that. Anyway, he may have been some kind of mentor to Vinnie while the Oil Man was coming up through the ranks. And it sounds like both of them may have been in the drug trade.”

  “What, so he thinks Lorenzo died from shooting up heroin?” Vic demanded. “That’s crazy. I’ve seen plenty of hop-heads, and Bianchi was clean. Cleaner than he should’ve been, you ask me. That guy could’ve used a little pick-me-up.”

  Erin was trying to think like a mobster. What would Carlyle say? He’d remind her the Mob was a business concern, first and foremost. People getting killed only mattered to them if it got in the way of business.

  “What if there’s something in the apartment?” she said suddenly.

  “Huh?” Vic blinked at her.

  “As long as we don’t have enough evidence for a homicide investigation, we won’t get a search warrant,” Erin said. “That means we can’t get our hands on whatever’s in the apartment.”

  “What do you think is there?” Webb asked.

  She shrugged. “Beats me. Drugs? Guns? A secret lasagna recipe?”

  “Stop it,” Vic said. “You’re making me hungry.”

  “We’ve got to get eyes on that apartment,” Erin said. “It might already be too late.”

  Webb nodded. “I’ll call Patrol division, get them to send a plainclothes unit. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  “I like plans that go, ‘I hope we get lucky,’” Vic said. “Those are the best plans.”

  “Should we go over there?” Erin asked.

  Webb shook his head. “I don’t know that it matters,” he said. “Maybe one of us can chaperone the Patrol guys.”

  “I’ll do it,” she said, before Vic could chime in. Anything was better than hanging around the office. Erin hadn’t become a cop to ride a desk all day, and Rolf could use the exercise.

  “Okay,” Webb said. “I’ll put you in touch with the plainclothes guys. Keep your eyes open, and will you please, as a personal favor, try not to get in any gunfights?”

  “I’ll give it my best shot,” she said.

  Vic grinned. “Word choice, O’Reilly. Word choice.”

  Chapter 11

  Erin had plenty of time, over the course of that endless day, to reflect and regret that the only thing more boring than office work was manning a stakeout. She sat in her Charger, half a block down the street from the Bianchi apartment, and waited for something to happen. She couldn’t read a book, or surf the Web on her phone, or catch up on paperwork. The whole job boiled down to keeping her eyes on the building and watching. She didn’t even know precisely what she was looking for. Ultimately, it was anything that triggered her instincts, honed by more than a decade on the Patrol beat.

  Another unmarked car was on the other side of the building, with a pair of officers doing the same thing she was. At least those two could have a conversation. Rolf was a great listener but didn’t contribute much.

  She glanced over her shoulder at the K-9. He was lying on the floor of his compartment, chin on his paws. He gave her a mournful look.

  “Hey, it could be worse,” she told him. “Most dogs have to sit at home all alone. At least you get to come with me.”

  The tip of his tail wagged slightly. He knew the words “come with.” They were two of his favorites.

  “I don’t even know what the hell we’re doing here,” she said. “Unless they’ve got, like, two tons of cocaine in the basement, they probably shifted anything incriminating hours ago. Now we’re just sitting here like assholes.”

  Rolf didn’t disagree.

  “I guess I could call someone while we wait,” she said. “Ask some questions about drugs.”

  Rolf cocked his head at her.

  “It’s not just because he’s my boyfriend,” she said. “He might be able to help with this. And I don’t need your permission.” She pulled out her phone and called Carlyle. He changed burner phones every month or so, texting her the new number. She’d asked him about that, since the main reason for doing it was to avoid police attention and she was, in fact, a cop. He’d just shrugged and said it was force of habit. It was one of the quirks of dating a mobster.

  “Afternoon,” he said, picking up on the second ring.

  “Hey there,” she said. “Staying out of trouble?”

  “If I’m not, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “Are you somewhere you can talk?”

  “I’m upstairs at the moment. If you must know, you caught me just out of the shower. I’d been to the gym, and now I’m sitting on my couch in a dressing gown, a glass of Scotch in my hand, talking to a sweet colleen. I daresay life could be a good deal worse. What is it you’re wanting, darling?”

  She smiled at the mental image. “They ought to use a picture of you in a cologne ad in Esquire,” she said. “I’m afraid this is about work. I want to know about drugs.”

  “That’s rather a broad topic, and one beyond the reach of my personal expertise.”

  “What do you know about Lorenzo Bianchi and Vinnie the Oil Man being involved i
n drug smuggling?”

  “I heard some stories, back in the old days. My understanding is that Bianchi never had more than a sideline in the business. Strange to say, being a dustman was more lucrative.”

  “Dustman?”

  “Garbage collector, darling.”

  “More money in garbage than drugs?”

  “It’s the world we live in,” he said. “Not everyone takes drugs, but every household needs its waste hauled off. America’s a culture of consumption, and that means it’s a culture that throws a great many things away.”

  “So Lorenzo wouldn’t have been in the drug-running business now, as far as you know?”

  “Not that I’ve heard. I’ll make inquiries. But from what I understand, it’s his son that’s a bit more in that line these days. Strictly small-time, of course.”

  Erin sat up in her car seat. “Paulie? Yeah, we thought he and Rocky Nicoletti might be into that. You hear much about them?”

  “They’re not big players,” Carlyle said. “Go into a bad neighborhood and toss a half-brick. Odds are it’ll land near a lad like him.”

  “So why would Vinnie be protecting him?”

  “The Oil Man’s a canny lad,” he said. “He’s a bit too young to be one of the true old guard of the Family, but he’s one they look to as a man of respect. He has to keep them happy, while keeping abreast of the changing times. He’s got one foot in each camp, old and new. It’s a delicate balance he’s keeping. I’d imagine he’s wanting to curry favor with his boss by keeping Lorenzo’s bairn out of trouble. Don’t assume that means he actually cares what happens to the lad, however. Everything Vinnie Moreno does is for a particular tactical purpose.”

  “He’s shoring up support with the old geezers,” she said. “Gotcha. I think I better talk to our Narcotics guys. They may have something on the kid.”

  “Is this really your area, Erin? Chasing small-time drug dealers isn’t precisely what the city’s paying you to do.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “But what else am I supposed to do? I have to figure out the poisonings, and that means working out all the angles. We’ve got two dead so far, and I’m hoping we’ll close this thing before any more bodies pile up.”