by Andrew Lanh
“Convenient.”
He smirked. “Way back when, I knew Mom was listening to Molly’s crap. She thought drugs would be the end of me.”
“You know she called Detective Smolski?”
Surprise: “Why?”
“I don’t know. For advice?”
“What did he say?”
“He’s retired, and she hung up.”
“Maybe she wanted to turn me in.” He grinned. “Round two.”
“She was worried about you.”
“I always told her not to worry. Yeah, you know, when she told me Molly called about that antidrug charity, she looked at me suspiciously. When Danny was in the room, she stayed with us…wouldn’t leave.” He thought of something. “I think Molly poisoned her against Danny all over again.”
“Did Danny know Molly had warned your mother to keep an eye on you and him?”
“Yeah, I told him Molly and Mom were on their antidrug crusade again. Keep a low profile.”
“You did? Why?”
He shrugged. “Conversation.”
“Was Danny bothered that Molly suspected him?”
“No, he laughed, in fact. Said it was no big deal. ‘I’m not gonna lose sleep over a dime bag,’ he said.”
“You know, I thought you didn’t like Danny.”
He drew his lips into a tight, bloodless line. “I hate Danny.”
“And yet…”
“I told you—Danny and I go way back. I share a bag with him now and then. Infrequent. He Facebooks me—I get back to him. No big deal. But he knows I hate his guts.”
“But you still have contact with him?”
“I’m not his favorite person either. I’m a waste-of-space boy, the squanderer of opportunity. You know, we don’t travel in the same social circles, that’s for sure. Rick, we don’t have to like each other.”
I stood up, ready to leave.
“But,” Tommy also stood, “I don’t see how this has to do with Mom’s murder. Come on, think about it. Me and Danny smoking a bowl, each in our separate worlds, I gotta tell you, ‘cuz we never do that together. It’s just party-time crap. Nobody gonna get killed over a nickel or dime bag.”
“Where does Danny get the stuff?”
“It’s like a network. He gets his off a claims officer whiz kid at the Hartford Insurance Group.”
“Not on the street?”
“You mean like that square where Mom got shot? Come on. That’s one world. Danny lives in a white-collar world. Pot passes next to the water cooler. There’s enough shared drugs in that world to pay off the Connecticut state deficit.”
“But your Mom suspected drugs. Molly probably got her going on it. She wouldn’t understand how it is distributed.”
“But she’s certainly not gonna drive to some wild-west corner in Hartford looking for me,” Tommy said. “Look, Mom told me not to use drugs, and I told her I wouldn’t. Mom believed what I told her—at least until Molly started flapping her mouth.”
“She believed you?”
“I’ve always lied to Mom. It’s an art form.”
“A charmer like Danny.”
“No, he got it down to a science. But Molly was working her magic on Mom, I guess.”
“What do you mean?”
“She bad-mouthed Danny. Mom mentioned that Molly didn’t like having Danny around. I thought it was the old story…you know, Molly angry over the dumb rumors that Danny was Larry’s son. That’s what I thought it was about. Danny was…cocky. A bad influence.”
“She wanted you to stay away from him?”
“I’m telling you, we didn’t hang. He did me a favor. A little bit of guilt maybe—for the old days when I took the rap and he walked off into the sunshine.”
“So your mother didn’t know anything.”
“She never did.” He paused. “At least about my shit. But maybe she did. About other things. She knew something, maybe. She must’ve.”
“Why?”
“Like it got her killed.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Detective Ardolino called me on my cell phone. “Why am I always the one calling you?”
“What’s up?”
I could hear the clacking of computer keys and the constant buzz of phones. Worse, I could hear him eating. “I gotta finish this. You let McDonald’s shit sit, it’s like eating sawdust.” He described opening a packet of ketchup, squeezing the feeble contents onto the fries. Three fries slipped to the grimy floor. I heard a creaky chair shift.
“Did you pick them up?”
“Hell, no. We got a cleaning crew, you know.”
“What’s up?” I asked again.
“I’m gonna play the good guy and lay info on you. Mainly because you provided the first info.”
“What are we talking about?”
“You told me that Danny Trinh—real name Trinh Xuan Duong—was renting that happy apartment in Frog Hollow. Somehow that information, well, eluded me.” He stressed the word, humorously. “I know you got a bug up your ass about Danny, seeing him as somehow dirty. Based, I know, on nothing but Fu Manchu instinct.”
“Detective…”
“No lectures, okay? I checked out priors on that beehive of losers. The owner, the gent on floor one, relative of a.k.a. Duong, is a two-bit hood, but small potatoes, picked up a half dozen times—with his wife, no less—for welfare fraud, shoplifting, domestic battery, a string of shit a mile long.”
“No dope sales?”
“None. But he’s a low-rent, small-business type.”
“I was hoping there was a drug connection.”
“They’re probably all smoking, even the three-year-old, but nobody hawking wares outta that building.”
I told him about Molly’s worries about Kristen, as well as Molly’s and Mary’s eagle eyes on Tommy and Danny. Ardolino wasn’t surprised and told me what I already knew—Mary’s call to Smolski. “Everybody smokes,” he summed up.
“Tommy said Danny got his pot from a guy at the Hartford.”
Ardolino started to choke on his food. “Thanks for that good news. That’s my insurance company.”
“You’re one lucky man.”
He grunted. “Fuck.” A pause. “I just got ketchup on my pants. Now I gotta wash them. Thought I could get another week outta them.”
I smiled. “Tell people it’s blood. Say you were in a shootout.”
“I only exchange gunfire with the missus.’
“Tell them she’s getting closer to her real target.”
“Funny man. Hey, by the way,” he added, “your boy Danny a.k.a. Duong has a heavy foot.”
“Meaning?”
“Past year three speeding tickets across the border in New York. On the Saw Mill and I-684. Headed to the city and back. Last one recently, morning after Mary Vu’s funeral. In White Plains. That boy is always in a hurry. Boys with their fancy cars don’t believe the law is for them.”
“He pay the fine?”
“You bet.”
I smiled. “Good citizen.”
“Yeah, the best. The first time he appealed the fine. Claimed he was stopped because he’s young, Asian, and driving a Mercedes.”
“What did the judge do?”
“Probably wet his pants laughing so hard.”
“Danny pay?”
“Yeah, I told you. As you said, a solid citizen.”
***
Liz met me outside her office and handed me a stack of printouts. “I can’t stay. Too many meetings. But these should interest you.”
I leafed through them: phone records, not only for Susie’s home, but, more importantly, calls in and out of his secret apartment in Frog Hollow. And also the records for Benny Vu’s home and store, for Larry Torcelli’s mansion, for Tommy’s phone. Kristen had her own p
hone. “You have me doing illegal acts. Police channels.” She tapped the sheets. “And not for the first time.”
Back at my apartment, Hank was waiting, having used his key to let himself in. He was sitting by the front window, headphones on, and the base line of some song punctuated the air. He didn’t even hear me come in. I tapped him on the shoulder, and he jumped, then laughed. I waved the pile of printouts in front of him. “What’s that?” he said.
“I am always dependent on the kindness of Liz.” I fanned the printouts in front of me. “These are phone logs for a week before Mary was killed, up to the day of Molly’s murder.”
He was interested. “Cell phones?”
“We’ll see.”
“Anything good?”
“That’s what you and I will be finding out this afternoon.” I waved the sheets in front of him.
And intimidating it was. What Liz in her thoroughness had procured was formidable. So Hank and I sat with pen and pad and shifted through—a waste of time, perhaps, because most of the numbers called were not identified. Not that I could complain. Liz had dutifully and beautifully labeled all the prime players in the drama. The only problem, I told Hank, was that the unidentified calls could be the ones that were crucial—a number possibly appearing one time only—impossible to identify it. But we started. As expected, there were lots of calls from Susie’s home to Molly’s home, but not many going the other way: Susie calling in for whatever reason.
“Or,” Hank reasoned, “Danny calling the house.”
“Maybe for Kristen.” I checked Kristen’s phone. The girl talked on the phone constantly, it seemed. “But in that period she made three calls to Danny’s cell phone. All late at night.”
Hank pointed to another sheet. “The calls between Mary and Molly’s home, including to Benny’s store, are all over the place.”
We went back and forth, making notes, but it was obvious that these people were all involved with one another and liked to use the phone. Nothing stood out, other than Danny and Kristen’s brief late-night communication. “Well,” Hank noted, “he did admit to sleeping with her.”
“Let’s look at Tommy.” I made a notation on my pad. “He clearly believes his cell shouldn’t be separated from his ear lobe. We cross-referenced calls to the store, to his mother’s home, but none to the Torcelli household.
“This is crazy,” Hank said.
“What we need to do is look at the day Mary died and the day Molly died.”
“Makes more sense,” Hank agreed.
“In the morning someone from the Torcelli house called Mary at home. A couple calls back. But all real short—maybe just a message on the machine.”
“Look at this,” Hank pointed out. “At six o’clock the day Mary died, Danny called Tommy, but it’s a brief call, just seconds, maybe to leave a message. But then he called Benny’s store, also a brief call.”
“Looking for Tommy.”
“But,” Hank went on, “he later called Benny’s home phone, and that call lasted nearly ten minutes.”
“Why would he be calling Mary?” I wondered out loud.
“Maybe he was still looking for Tommy.”
“So three calls to get to Tommy.”
“But,” Hank said, “he ended up talking to whoever answered the phone there.”
“It had to be Mary. Or Cindy? But she told us she’d had a fight with her mother that morning and stormed out. Well, it wasn’t Tommy. He told us he didn’t see his mother that day. He told us he saw her the day before at the store.”
“Unless he’s lying.”
“And he is a liar,” I said.
“But let’s say Danny did talk to Mary.”
“But it could have been idle chitchat.”
“Ten minutes?” Hank was shaking his head.
“Two hours later she’s dead.”
“I wonder if he ever reached Tommy, after all.”
Hank suggested another call to Benny Vu, who sounded groggy when he answered the phone. No, he told Hank, he couldn’t remember who called the store that afternoon. This person called, that person called. “Did Danny call looking for Tommy?” Hank asked.
A pause. “No, I don’t think so. I can’t remember.”
“Around six o’clock? Danny. We know he called the store.”
Another pause. “Maybe. I don’t know. How can I remember? Danny did call one afternoon, but I don’t know what day.”
“Looking for Tommy?”
“I guess so,” Benny answered. “Yes, what else could it be? He’s called Tommy before at work. I frown on that.”
“Was Tommy working?”
“No. Not that day.”
“Danny called your home that day.”
“Maybe he thought Tommy was there. I don’t know.”
“But Mary didn’t tell you he called.”
A long, painful pause. “I never spoke to her again.”
“Oh.” Hank turned red.
“Is that all?”
Hank apologized for the call and hung up the phone.
“So,” he stressed, “Danny was looking for Tommy, calling three places late that day.”
“And never seems to have reached him.”
“But he did talk to Mary, most likely.” Hank was excited.
“He had to. Because Tommy said he didn’t see his mother that day.”
“Unless Mary wasn’t home and Tommy was there. She could have been headed into Hartford.”
“And what does that tell us? Just that Danny was anxious to reach Tommy.”
“Or maybe Danny was the last person to speak to Mary alive.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
When I pulled into the back lot of my apartment, headed to my spot next to Gracie’s, I noticed my spot taken by an ice-blue Mercedes. Leaning against it, arms folded, was Danny Trinh, himself ice-blue in bright white chinos and a cobalt-blue muscle shirt that said: Tina Turner Farewell Tour. He wasn’t moving. I couldn’t see his eyes, hidden behind dark sunglasses. But his lean, muscular body told me quite a bit—anger, frustration, resentment. You name it.
I parked my car and got out. “You waiting to see me?”
“No, I’m here to pose for animal crackers.”
I grinned. “If you came back as an animal, which one would it be?”
For a second I could see him simmer. “A fly,” he snarled. “That way it’s easy to track down a piece of shit like you.”
“Not bad. I’d be a…” I paused, thinking.
He jumped in. “Man, I don’t care what the fuck you’d come back as because in this life you’re just a big asshole.”
“So we have a problem. Wanna come upstairs?”
“Look, man, I just wanna know what you’re trying to pin on me.”
I leaned against my own car, the two of us perhaps ten feet apart, adversaries, arms folded, both in dark sunglasses, both dressed for a reunion of Beach Blanket Bingo. Frankie Avalon. I used to watch late-night TV when I couldn’t sleep, especially during my college days. The Americanization of the Viet boy. Now, standing there, Danny and I looked like two grim CIA agents slumming in South Beach.
“I’m not trying to pin anything on you. I’m just talking to anybody who knew Mary and Molly.”
The old charming Danny was gone now—in its place a cool, defiant anger, the words spaced out with deliberate care. “And that involves following me?”
“I followed you?”
“How else did you find my apartment in Frog Hollow?” He bit his lower lip. “Which has nothing to do with anything.”
“Then why did you keep it a secret?
He made a mocking laugh. “Maybe a secret to you, but not to my family. They know I live there.”
“Your mother?”
“Well, no. She wants nothing to do with my father�
�s family. As I grew up, his relatives were around. Not so much him, but an uncle, an aunt, some cousins.”
“And your father’s cousin gave you a place to stay?”
“I love my mother, but she can be a little nosy sometimes. Hey, I’m a young man. My mother spends her time talking to the Virgin Mary. Right now she tells me she needs me to live with her. For now. My cousin lets me rent the second floor. I pay him rent, I handle the mortgage and finances through the bank, and I have a little space to myself…”
“But that neighborhood?”
“It’s my family, you know.” He sneered. “You’re talking about my family.”
“Your mother doesn’t suspect?”
“Enough questions. I’m here to tell you to back off.”
“Why?”
“For one, I’ve done nothing wrong—as you’ve discovered—and, two, you’ll screw things up with my mother. You’re gonna make me into a bad guy. I’ve already talked too much to you.”
“I’m just asking questions.”
“No,” he yelled, pounding his fist on the fender. “Enough. My cousin Binh tells me you and Hank are sneaking around. He spots you in front of the house, spying. Asking questions. Of course, he calls me. Tells me. ‘Are you in trouble?’ he says. No, but I gotta worry.”
“Why the old Honda?” I asked.
He took off his sunglasses and glared at me. “I don’t wanna leave the Mercedes in the back lot there. It’s dangerous, as you pointed out. Even with an alarm. It’s my baby. The old clunker, well, I feel safe with it there.” He walked so close to me I could see a prominent vein throbbing the left side of his neck. “How does any of this relate to Mary and Molly’s murders? Tell me how.” He yelled the last sentence.
“I’m asking questions around…”
“Fuck you. You’re ruining my life. I built a successful life. I’m respected, I got a future, and this negative chatter—this nasty innuendo—if it gets out, to the bank, it’s gonna kill everything I built up. You’re fucking with my future.”
“Then I’m fucking with everyone’s futures. Kristen’s and Jon’s and Tommy’s and Cindy’s. Because I’m asking the same questions of them.”