The phone rang and startled Gus. “Five more minutes,” he pleaded.
“Shhh.” I grabbed the phone and pulled the bedroom door closed behind me. I went into the kitchen so that Gus could get a few more minutes rest. “Hold on,” I said into the phone.
“Stephanie, it’s me, Nick.” Sonellio’s voice was filled with panic and anger.
“Boss? What wrong?”
“Did you run those prints yet?” He wasn’t asking nicely. He was upset, and his tone was urgent.
“I dropped them off right after we had breakfast with you. Why, has something happened?”
“Turn on the news. A family was murdered last night.” I worked for Nick Sonellio for years, and as hard as it is for me to say, we had both heard this kind of news before. We worked homicide. Death was our business. Death is what pays our bills. In all that time, I had never heard Sonellio sound so dire. I had never heard such utter devastation in his voice.
“Boss, what’s wrong?”
“I told you! I told you something was wrong.” Sonellio began to cough into the phone. His cough grew significantly louder. It sounded as if he couldn’t control it.
“Boss, settle down. Talk to me.”
Toni’s voice came on the line. “Just a minute.” I heard a hiss. “Easy, Nick, easy. Breathe,” I heard her say. She was silent for a moment. I strained my ears and listened carefully to the sound of Sonellio’s labored breathing. I had spent enough time in hospitals to know what I was hearing. He was inhaling oxygen. It took a couple of moments, but his coughing eventually subsided. I turned on the TV and flipped to the local news station. A news reporter was interviewing neighbors. The information banner at the bottom of the screen read: Staten Island Family Slain.
“Stephanie?” Toni was back on the line. “Can he call you back? He—” I could hear Toni sobbing.
“Toni, what’s wrong? Tell me what’s going on.” The news camera pulled back, providing a wide-angle view of the street. I was able to read the corner street signs: Bancroft Avenue and Edison Street. It took a second, but then I understood why Sonellio was in such distress. The family that had been slain lived around the corner from him. They were his neighbors.
Chapter Twenty-four
I felt an ache in my chest as we retraced the very same route we had taken to Sonellio’s house just the other day. Gus was feeling better and was behind the wheel as we crossed over the Verrazano Bridge to Staten Island. I was preoccupied with the thought of Sonellio’s dead neighbors and was glad that Gus was driving. Sonellio was a righteous man. I couldn’t imagine how hard the news had hit him. He had most likely been accurate—someone had used his yard to case his neighbors’ homes. He was so close. Close enough to prevent what happened? Never! But Nick Sonellio was not the kind of guy to let himself off the hook. He must be devastated.
We were on our way to pick up Sonellio. A courtesy call had been made to the Staten Island assistant chief of detectives, who was a longtime friend of Sonellio’s. He graciously extended investigative privileges to the three of us.
I felt myself growing more and more tense as we got closer. I had the same directions in my hand as the other day and was reading out the turns: Richmond Road, Bancroft Avenue, and then finally Clawson Street. Toni was sitting on the front steps, blotting her eyes with a tissue. She looked up and I could see that her eyes were bright red. I had the door open before the car came to a stop. I ran to her. She stood, and I threw my arms around her. “Toni, I’m so sorry.”
She began to cry. “Jesus, Stephanie, my girls used to babysit for them.”
Gus joined us a second later. It was a truly terrible moment.
The front door opened, and Sonellio stepped out. He was dressed in a dark suit. His expression scared me—I could see the enormous strain on his face. The timing was terrible—it seemed as if whatever time he had left had been cut in half by this new emotional nightmare. It was a hell of an ordeal for a mortally-ill man to face.
Sonellio tugged on his tie to straighten it and then approached us. Toni looked at him with tears in her eyes and kissed him on the cheek. She recognized the look on her husband’s face: all business. It was time for her to step aside and let him do his job.
“It’s cold out here,” Sonellio said to her. “Go inside. I’ll call you when I’m on my way home.”
“You don’t have to call,” she said. “It’s only around the—” Toni started to shake. She gazed at us with a horrified expression on her face and then quickly ran into the house.
Sonellio barely looked at us as he got into the car. The car doors slammed. The interior compartment was completely silent, silent in an unnerving way.
“Did you bring the evidence?” Sonellio asked.
“Yes,” I replied. Sonellio’s find had not yielded any meaningful results. The binoculars did not bare any fingerprints, and the prints on the tape were only partials that the lab was unable to match through IAFIS, the FBI-maintained Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System. “I’ll take them, thanks,” he said and held out his hand. I handed the evidence bags back to him. “I thought I was one step ahead of this bastard,” he continued “I wasn’t. We will find him.” There was no question as to his resolve. “This SOB killed my neighbor, his wife, and their two boys. I know that I have no right to ask for your help on this case, but I’m going to ask anyway.”
“It’s all right, boss,” Gus said. “You don’t have to ask—whatever you need, you’ve got. We’re here for you.” I’m sure Sonellio assumed that we were working on other cases. It didn’t seem to matter to him.
Sonellio reached over and patted Gus on the cheek. He rested his hand on my shoulder. I looked back—in that glance, he shared with me his most private thought. It was as if he was saying, one last time, okay? I nodded and turned away before I lost control. I just couldn’t deal with the implication—it was his way of saying goodbye.
When we arrived at the crime scene, Sonellio surrendered the evidence bags to a crime scene investigator and related the circumstances under which the items had been discovered, ensuring that the chain of evidence had not been broken. Richard Forzo, the Staten Island assistant chief of detectives, arrived shortly afterward. He called out to the boss from the doorway. “Chief Sonellio.” They embraced for a long moment. Sonellio had known Forzo for years. He had appointed Forzo to the assistant chief’s position. “I’m so sorry, Nick. We’ll catch this son of a bitch. I promise you.” He took a step back. I saw that he was giving Sonellio a quick once over. It didn’t take much of an investigative mind to evaluate his current state of health. I saw Forzo’s expression become concerned. In the next second, he switched gears. “Everyone, a moment,” he called out to the NYPD staff on site. “This is my former boss, Chief of Detectives Nick Sonellio. He is assisting the department with this investigation, and you will extend him every courtesy. Am I understood?” The investigators all confirmed with nods. He pointed to Gus and me. “These two detectives are assisting Chief Sonellio, and you will treat them with the same level of courtesy.”
Forzo continued to instruct his staff, but I was already thinking about the crime scene. His voice faded into the background as I began to look around the house. Pictures of the family were displayed on the wall that led to the upper level of the home. The Jacobys had been a handsome family; now they were murder victims. A crystal vase on a side table near the stairs was filled with white lilies. The proximity of the flowers to the family pictures seemed so sad and final to me. What kind of person murders an entire family?
“I guess we never know what life has in store for us.” Forzo was standing behind me. “A beautiful family like this . . . so much to live for.” He extended his hand and waited for me to accept. “You’re Detective Chalice, right?”
“Call me Stephanie.”
“I knew your dad. He was a good man. I learned a lot from your father and Nick.” He shook his head. “What’s going on with my old friend? He doesn’t look very good.”
My head dropped. “He’s got lung cancer.”
“Oh Jesus.” Forzo covered his mouth for a moment. “That’s not fucking fair. Nick worked like a dog his whole life and now this? I don’t think he’s retired a year yet.”
“Just over six months.”
“Terrible. The people who say police pensions are too rich should know what this job takes from us: our health, our sanity, and our futures. I know how close the two of you are. Nick talks about you like you’re one of his kids.”
My throat started to tighten. “Don’t do this to me now. I won’t be able to focus on the case.”
“Sorry.” Forzo reached into his pocket and handed me his business card. “Call me,” he said. “Anytime, day or night. Nick is that important to me. Good luck, Detective. Help us catch this monster. Let’s do it for the boss.” He turned and walked away.
The killer must have surprised Sherri and Bruce Jacoby in the kitchen. He was efficient and precise. They had both been shot through the heart, taken down with just one bullet each. The two boys had been shot in an upstairs bedroom. They were both wearing headphones and playing video games. I doubt they heard their parents being murdered or the assailant’s footsteps as he crept up behind them and took their lives too. As with the parents, he had killed each boy with one fatal bullet.
“He knew the exact location of the heart,” the blood spatter expert said. “Just left of center—the shooter has a working knowledge of the human anatomy. A lot of people think they know where the heart is located, but they don’t. Especially when he shot the boys upstairs. It’s hard to approximate the position of the heart from a dorsal view of the target.”
“What kind of animal does something like this?” I asked him.
“I don’t know. I don’t see many like this; you?”
“An entire family? No. What motive could someone possibly have for causing this much pain?”
“You’d know better than me, Detective. I just determine how the killer did it. These kids and their folks were all shot at extremely close range.”
“He shot the kids in the back while they were playing video games. They had both been wearing headphones. The first responder said that when he removed the headphones from the boys, the volume was deafening—they never heard him coming.”
I thought about my baby. Life is so precious. How could anyone . . . “I don’t think I’ll ever understand this level of mental illness, no matter how hard I try.” But I knew someone who might. “Excuse me,” I said and walked just outside the front door to where it was a little quieter. I took out my cell phone and called Nigel Twain.
Chapter Twenty-five
I met Nigel at Josie’s West on Amsterdam at 74th. Honestly, the prospect of eating at a restaurant known for its veggie and vegan specialties didn’t exactly turn me on. I had a craving for eggplant parm and garlic knots—tofu and kale was just not going to cut it. Fortunately, I discovered that they served lots of other great stuff. I had a warm, macadamia-crusted, chicken breast salad and was already drooling over the prospect of devouring a chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream pie for dessert.
Nigel Twain was a dear friend, an inspired thinker, and psychiatrist who had helped with cases before. He was what you might call an unconventional soul. I valued his thoughts on the human mind and hoped that he could better help me understand the warped individual who had stolen the futures from the members of the Jacoby family.
“This salad is absolutely scrumptious.” I still had food in my mouth as I spoke. “I have to say that I was really surprised when you picked this place.”
Twain was a gorgeous, dark, and complicated man with a sexy English accent. I always found his voice stimulating. Now, however, with the workings of my body all atwitter, my response to the sound of his voice was even stronger. You can blame it on the hormones if you want to, but for some reason every one of my erogenous zones seemed to resonate in sync to his deep baritone vibrato. I have had to practice extreme self-control from the very first day I met Nigel, and it wasn’t getting any easier. I was doing my best to ignore his manly good looks—staring down at my salad instead of making contact with his piercing eyes—but his voice . . . I mean what could I do? I couldn’t stick my fingers in my ears. There was no way to block it out.
“I’ve given up absolutely everything that’s bad for me,” Twain replied. “I was getting too indulgent.” He patted his stomach, which by the way was as flat as a washboard. “I’m getting to that age where I have to pay more attention to what I put in my mouth.”
“No pot?”
“Not a puff.”
“No absinthe?’
“Not a sip.”
“Sounds pretty boring.”
“Oh, it’s bloody tedious and going to the gym is even worse. I much prefer imbibing, indulging, and carrying on.”
“You left out cavorting.”
“That word does not deserve a place in an English gentleman’s vocabulary.”
“English gentleman, really? Is that how you see yourself?” Twain smirked. “You look like you’re holding up pretty well.” Twain had been a wild one, all right—he had experimented with LSD in his younger days as a method to better understand the human psyche. He was obsessive-compulsive when I first met him—and germophobic to the nth degree. He’s much better these days, but who really knew what was going on in his head. I’d learned to look past all that. Twain was a sincere and loyal friend with a mind equaled by few. Oh by the way, the scent of his truffle-infused mashed potatoes was driving me out of my mind. “Can I steal some of those?”
Twain looked down at his plate. “The beef or the potatoes?”
“The potatoes. The aroma is driving me wild.”
Twain was generous to a fault. He hesitated, and I immediately understood why—he wouldn’t be able to go near his food once I had touched it with my fork. I guess a few of those germy little bugs were still scurrying around inside his head. I grabbed a sparkling clean fork from the next table. “Spotless—can I? Just one bite. I promise.” Twain gestured to his plate. Those heavenly potatoes were in my mouth and caressing my taste buds within seconds. “Oh my God, those are incredible.”
Twain plopped a pile on my dish. “Never let it be said that Nigel Twain deprived an expectant mother. Better, mum?”
“Much. You’re a real friend.” I was scoffing down his potatoes along with my macadamia-encrusted chicken. It was so good, I think in some ways it qualified as a religious experience.
“A pity that Gus couldn’t tag along. I haven’t seen him in ages,” Twain said.
I couldn’t tell Twain about this, but Gus was a little jealous of him. Gus once caught me talking about Twain in my sleep while in the midst of a hot and steamy fantasy. It caused hurt feelings, and to this day, Gus still looks at Twain as an opponent. Nothing has ever happened between the two of us, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I found him incredibly desirable. Twain was the flickering flame, and I had to be extra careful not to dance too close to the fire. “He’s reviewing the crime scene findings back at the station house . . . while I probe you about the psychological aspects of the case.” Probe, now that was a word I could have easily left out of our conversation—practice better self-control, girl. “Do you want to look at the crime scene photos now, or do you want to wait until after we’ve finished eating? They’re pretty bad.”
“I didn’t think you asked me here to look at Disney World snapshots. Let’s have at ‘em.”
I pulled a folder out of my bag and slid it across the table. Twain cut a piece of steak and examined the photos while he ate. I watched his expression. He didn’t seem overly distressed. I didn’t break stride either—I was still munching away on the heavenly combination of chicken and mashed potatoes.
“May I ask the caliber of the bullet that was used?”
“9mm.”
“Anything special about the slug?”
“Special?” Twain knew little about bullets and guns, so I was surprised by the question. �
�There’s only limited information back from the lab—what are you looking for?”
“Just the basics.”
“I see. The slugs are hollow points, soft metal, unjacketed.”
“That’s what I was looking for.”
“Really? When did you become a ballistics expert?”
“Only one of the victims had an exit wound—follow?”
I understood immediately. I smiled at Twain to acknowledge the fact that he had impressed me. Bullets made of soft metal and bullets that are unjacketed tend to flatten out upon impact. They transfer their energy more efficiently than hard metal, jacketed bullets, which are more likely to keep on going until they exit the body. Whoever killed the Jacoby family had committed four murders and used only four bullets in the process. “So you believe that the killer specifically chose hollow points, knowing that they do the most internal damage?”
“There’s more to it than that, love—small entrance wound, less chance of an exit wound, and all the damage occurs inside the body.”
“Meaning?”
“He didn’t want the bodies mutilated. He wanted them to appear pristine in death. He wanted them to appear serene and peaceful.”
“Why?”
“Any number of possible reasons, but right now I’ll have to go with I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“But you’ve got a hunch, don’t you?”
“Most certainly.” Twain finished chewing his bite of food and then met my gaze straight on. “You take good care of the things you want to keep. My guess is that these victims are the assailant’s trophies. Whoever did this wants to retain the image of this family as they were in life and didn’t want that image tarnished with a lot of blood and exposed flesh.”
Our Honored Dead (Stephanie Chalice Thrillers Book 4) Page 9