House Witness

by Mike Lawson

  One month before Dominic DiNunzio was killed, Vinnie Caniglia and his boys were involved in an altercation in Atlantic City, and the event made the papers because of the mayhem that ensued. Vinnie had been playing craps at the Borgata Casino—and into the same casino comes another hood, named Carmine Fratello, accompanied by his girlfriend and a couple of his pals.

  According to the press, there was a history of bad blood between Carmine Fratello and Vinnie Caniglia, and the next thing you know, Vinnie and Carmine are chest-bumping and screaming at each other, their entourages get involved, a punch is tossed, and a brawl commences. Innocent bystanders are knocked to the floor, chairs are overturned, drinks are spilled, chips are scattered, and every security guy in the casino is needed to break up a fight involving six or seven beefy Italians. Naturally, after the fighters are pulled apart, Fratello and Caniglia threaten each other: “I’m gonna kill your fuckin’ ass.”

  And Ella knew all this because, as is often the case these days, bystanders had videotaped the combatants on their cell phones. One guy posted a video of the fight on YouTube, showing blood pouring out of Vinnie Caniglia’s nose. But it wasn’t Vinnie’s broken nose that interested Ella.

  It was Carmine Fratello who caught her eye.

  Carmine Fratello was a big, overweight man who looked Italian and had short dark hair. Dominic DiNunzio was a big overweight man who looked Italian and had short dark hair. Otherwise, Carmine didn’t really look too much like Dominic. By comparison, Toby Rosenthal and Dante Bello looked enough alike that they could have been first cousins—whereas Carmine’s face was rounder than Dominic’s, his nose was longer, his chin was more blunt, and his hair was receding faster than Dominic’s.

  But it didn’t matter. Close enough was all that Ella required.

  Ella needed one crucial piece of information when it came to framing Dante Bello for Dominic DiNunzio’s murder—and this could be a deal breaker if she didn’t get the answer she wanted.

  What she needed to know was where Dante had been the night Dominic DiNunzio was killed. If Dante had a credible alibi for his whereabouts that night, then Ella was screwed and would have to start all over. But based on what she’d seen during the four days she followed him, Dante was most likely eating dinner with his mom or was with his low-life friends at Frank’s Lounge the night Dominic was shot—and if that was the case, he had no alibi at all. If one of Dante’s goombah buddies swore that Dante was with him, no jury would believe the goombah. Ditto with Dante’s mom. What mother wouldn’t lie to protect her son?

  On the other hand, if Dante was in jail or if there was a photo of him passing through a tollbooth or a date/time-stamped credit card receipt showing he was in Jersey on that fateful evening … well, then Ella was screwed. And to find out where he was, the only way she could think was to ask him.

  Ella didn’t want Dante to see her face, so she called his apartment at eleven a.m., figuring he would just be getting out of bed to take his dog out for its midday dump. His mother answered, and Ella asked to speak to her son.

  “He’s in bed,” Lena said.

  “Wake him up,” Ella said. “My name is Detective Margret Ross, NYPD.” There actually was a Detective Margret Ross who worked robbery/homicide at the 105th Precinct in Queens.

  “A detective?” Lena Bello said.

  “That’s correct,” Ella said, “and this involves a serious criminal matter and I need to speak to him.”

  “My boy didn’t do anything.”

  Ella didn’t bother to say, Yeah, right. She said, “I need to speak to him, Mrs. Bello. Immediately.”

  Five long minutes later, Dante picked up the phone and said, “Who the fuck is this?”

  What a charmer. “As I told your mother, Mr. Bello, my name is Detective Margret Ross, NYPD.”

  “Yeah, so what?”

  “On March fifteenth of this year, a man fitting your description killed a clerk named James Kim in a liquor store in Queens.”

  “What?” Dante said.

  “Last week a witness came forward and provided us with a telephone video record of the man leaving the liquor store, and facial recognition software led us to you.”

  “Oh, bullshit,” Dante said.

  “No, Mr. Bello, it’s not bullshit. I will tell you, however, as this will come out in court anyway, that the photo of the man’s face in the video is somewhat blurred, and our facial recognition software also made possible matches with five other men who look similar to you. But only you and one other suspect have criminal records, which is the reason I’m investigating you.”

  “Hey, I didn’t have anything to do with a goddamn liquor store. I’m telling you, this is bullshit.”

  “Calm down, Mr. Bello.”

  “Fuck you, ‘Calm down.’ You call me and tell me I killed someone and—”

  “Mr. Bello, the reason I’m calling is to give you the opportunity to tell me where you were at approximately seven-thirty p.m. on the night of March fifteenth. If you have a credible alibi, I can eliminate you as a person of interest.”

  “March! That’s over four fuckin’ months ago. How the hell would I know where I was? Tell me where you were four months ago.”

  “I don’t need an alibi, Mr. Bello, but unless you want to be arrested for Mr. Kim’s murder, you do. Now, I can send a couple of cops over to pick you up and bring you to the precinct, or you can cooperate with me.”

  “How the hell can I cooperate? I don’t know where the fuck I was!”

  “Mr. Bello, I’m going to give you two days to do some research. If you have a calendar on your phone, take a look at it. Look at your credit card bills and see if you made a purchase at the time Mr. Kim was shot. Call your credit card company if you have to. See if you had an appointment with someone, an appointment that can be verified. If you can provide some documentation that proves you were not in Queens the night Mr. Kim was killed, I’ll be satisfied. If not, well, I’ll just have to proceed with my investigation, which probably means that I’ll arrest you.”

  “You gotta be shittin’ me.”

  “I’ll call you the day after tomorrow at this time, Mr. Bello, and if you’re not home when I call, I’m going to put out a warrant for your arrest. Have a good day.”

  Two days later, as promised, Ella called Dante Bello back.

  “Well,” she said. “Where were you on the night of March fifteenth?”

  “I was at a Knicks game. I went with a couple of friends.”

  “Really,” Ella said, making it clear she found that alibi a little too convenient.

  “That’s right. I did like you said and checked my, my calendar and it said ‘Knicks game.’ I should have remembered, cuz the fuckin’ Knicks lost and it cost me fifty bucks.”

  What Bello had done was obvious. He couldn’t prove where he’d been on March fifteenth and had checked the Knicks schedule and saw they played a game that night at the Garden. To make the story ring a bit truer, he noted that they’d lost and decided to embellish the story with the part about how he’d lost a fifty-dollar bet.

  “Do you still have the ticket stub from the game, Mr. Bello?”

  “Fuck, no. Who the hell keeps ticket stubs?”

  “How did you pay for the ticket? Online? By credit card?”

  “Nah, we bought ’em from a guy outside the Garden and paid cash. Going to the game was a last-minute thing, so we scalped the tickets. You gonna arrest me for that?”

  “What are the names of the men who went to the game with you?”

  “Joey Netti and his cousin, Jimmy.”

  “What’s Jimmy’s last name?”

  “Netti, just like Joey. I told you, they’re cousins.”

  “And where do they live?”

  “Here. Manhattan.”

  Ella didn’t say anything for a moment, letting the silence convey her doubt. “Mr. Bello, do you understand that if I learn that you’ve lied to me—”

  “Hey! I never ripped off no liquor store. I’m not some fuckin’ junki
e punk. I don’t do shit like that. I’ve never done shit like that. You asked where I was and I told you. So you can take your face recognition software and shove it up your ass.”

  Dante slammed down the phone—and Ella smiled. Dante had no alibi. No jury was going to buy his story—backed up by two hoods like himself—that he’d been at the Knicks game when Dominic DiNunzio was killed.

  34

  DeMarco sat in Justine’s office, watching her eat her lunch in between court appearances. Lunch today was a hot dog purchased from a street vendor.

  DeMarco said, “I’m spinning my wheels here. I can’t find Ella Fields. I can’t prove she had anything to do with Esther’s stroke or the busboy splitting town. I can’t prove she’s had any contact with the other witnesses.”

  “What are you saying, you wanna give up?”

  DeMarco shrugged. “Right now, as far as you know, the three witnesses you have are solid and they’re going to testify against Rosenthal. So unless they change their testimony, you don’t really have a problem.”

  “But I won’t know that I have a problem until I get them on the stand and they suddenly can’t remember what they saw that night. Do you want to take the chance that your cousin’s killer may get away with what he’s done?”

  Goddamnit! DeMarco thought. It irritated the hell out of him, how this woman kept trying to make it his responsibility if the case went south on her. But rather than say that, he said, “The only thing I can think to do at this point is talk to the witnesses. I’ll ask them if anyone has spoken to them about the case, but mainly I just want to see how they react.”

  “I don’t know,” Justine said around a mouthful of hot dog. “It gets tricky, interviewing witnesses. You can’t say anything to them that might later be construed as trying to influence their testimony to better support the prosecution’s case.”

  “I know that,” DeMarco said.

  “Yeah, all right, go ahead,” Justine said once she’d finished chewing. “But be careful.”

  DeMarco decided to start with Rachel Quinn. The barmaid and the bartender both worked the evening shift at McGill’s, so he’d save them for later and catch them at the same time.

  Quinn worked in the Financial District, on Water Street, just off Wall Street, in Lower Manhattan. DeMarco called her office and spoke to a secretary, saying he represented the Manhattan DA and needed to speak to her. The secretary told him he’d have to wait until four p.m., as Ms. Quinn was in meetings until then.

  DeMarco found Rachel Quinn very attractive, and he couldn’t imagine why a woman who looked like her would have to use eHarmony to find a man. He also wished he wasn’t using the cane, and hoped she’d give him the chance to explain how’d he suffered an “athletic” injury and that the cane was only temporary.

  “You told my secretary you’re here regarding the Rosenthal case,” Rachel said.

  “That’s right,” DeMarco said. “I just have a couple of questions and I’ll be out of your hair.”

  Instead of telling him that she had time for only a couple of questions because she was a Very Important Wall Street Person whose schedule was chockablock, she said, “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  “Sure,” he said, and discreetly admired her backside as she walked over to a credenza and poured him a cup. He took a sip of the coffee and could tell it wasn’t the Folgers he normally drank at home. It was probably made from some exotic Hawaiian bean that cost forty bucks a pound. And judging by the woman’s corner office, which had a view, he realized that Rachel Quinn was in a whole different league financially than a GS-13 civil servant. He needed to tamp down the sexual fantasies and get to work.

  “I can’t give you a lot of the specifics, Ms. Quinn, but—”

  “Call me Rachel.”

  “Thanks. As I was saying, Rachel, I’m afraid I can’t share the specifics with you, but the district attorney is concerned that someone might tamper with the witnesses in the Rosenthal case and—”

  “Tamper how?”

  “By attempting to bribe or intimidate them into changing their testimony.”

  “Do you think someone could bribe me?” Rachel said—and now there was a spark of indignation in her kind brown eyes.

  “No, I’m not saying that, and please don’t take offense. I just want to know if anyone has approached you to discuss your testimony.”

  “No. No one has talked to me about the case, except for the ADA, what’s her name, Potter.”

  “Porter. Justine Porter.”

  “Right. And all she did was go over the statement I’d made to the police to make sure I agreed with the statement the way the cops typed it up.”

  DeMarco hesitated, and Rachel asked, “Is there anything else?”

  DeMarco wanted to show Rachel Ella Fields’ photo but knew if he did he was taking a risk. If Fields had gotten to her in some way, Rachel would lie about knowing her, then might warn Fields that DeMarco was hunting for her. But DeMarco was convinced, based on the way she had responded to his questions—and based on his gut—that Rachel was honest.

  “Yes,” DeMarco said. “Have you ever seen this woman?” He passed her Ella Fields’ passport photo.

  Rachel didn’t just glance at the photo; she studied it. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen her, and I think I would have remembered someone as striking as her. Who is she?”

  “All I can tell you is that she’s someone I need to talk to.”

  He could tell that his answer didn’t satisfy her, but he didn’t want to go into detail about Fields.

  “Has anyone tried to discuss the case with you at all?” DeMarco said. “I’m not talking about someone asking directly about your testimony. I’m talking about someone you just met taking an interest in the fact that you’re a witness expected to testify at the trial. This person would be subtle about it.”

  “No. I’ve talked to a lot of people about seeing that man getting killed; it was pretty traumatic. But the only people I’ve talked to are people I know, like my family and friends and people here at work.”

  “Good,” DeMarco said. “But if a stranger does try to talk to you about the case, or if you see the woman whose photo I just showed you, could you let me know right away?”

  “Am I in danger?” Rachel asked.

  “No,” DeMarco immediately said. “I have no reason whatsoever to believe you’re in any danger.”

  He wasn’t being totally honest with her. What he should have said was that he didn’t think she was in any danger. In only one of the six cases he’d investigated had a witness been killed, and in all the other cases it appeared as if Cantwell had gone out of his way not to kill people. The damn guy had even arranged for one woman to get a new liver to keep her from dying. Regarding the mercy killing of Randy White’s sister, she hadn’t been killed because she was a witness.

  On the other hand, DeMarco didn’t really know how the busboy in the Rosenthal case had disappeared. Did he leave New York voluntarily or was he paid to leave—or was he buried in a strawberry field in New Jersey? Then there was old Esther Behrman and her stroke. If Esther’s stroke wasn’t an accident, then it was attempted murder.

  Still, he didn’t really think Rachel Quinn was in danger, because no way would anyone be crazy enough to murder a witness when two of five witnesses were already gone. That would trigger a manhunt for sure.

  But Rachel Quinn wasn’t a dummy. She asked, “Has someone attempted to get to the other witnesses?”

  Fortunately for DeMarco, he could answer that question honestly. “Not that I know of,” he said, which was the truth, since he didn’t really know what had happened to Esther or Edmundo Ortiz. “And you’re the first witness I’ve spoken to,” DeMarco added, which was also true.

  DeMarco decided it was time to leave, before Rachel asked more questions he didn’t want to answer. He said, “Thanks for the coffee. It was very good.” He placed a card on her desk that had his cell phone number on it and said: Joseph DeMarco, Special Investigator for t
he Manhattan District Attorney. He’d had Sarah make him fifty of the cards on her computer and print them out on heavy bond paper. “Please call me if anyone tries to discuss the case with you in a way that seems odd.”

  “I will,” Rachel said.

  DeMarco turned to leave, then stopped and faced her again. “Would you mind if I asked you a personal question?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “What’s the question?”

  “I saw from the police reports that you were on an eHarmony date the day Dominic DiNunzio was killed.”

  “Yes,” Rachel said, now looking a bit defensive.

  “Well, I’m single myself, and I’ve been thinking about looking into one of those computer dating sites.” He wasn’t, but he wanted Rachel to know he was available.

  “I can’t recommend it based on my experience,” Rachel said, “but it’s worked out very well for some friends of mine.”

  “I have to tell you that I’m surprised a woman as attractive as you wouldn’t have all sorts of men trying to date her.”

  Instead of appearing to appreciate the compliment, Rachel looked annoyed. “I work a lot and really don’t have many opportunities to meet single men. I don’t hang out in bars and I don’t date coworkers. So far the online dating thing hasn’t worked out, but maybe it will for you. Now I have to get to a meeting.”

  As DeMarco was leaving he thought: I’m an idiot. He’d been thinking that maybe when the Rosenthal trial was over he’d give her a call, but the way she’d reacted, like he’d accused her of being an unmarriageable spinster … Sheesh.

  DeMarco decided to have dinner before heading over to McGill’s. He wanted to get there about seven-thirty, the time Dominic had been killed. He ate at a Thai restaurant about six blocks from McGill’s and decided to walk there afterward instead of taking a cab. That turned out to be a mistake, because by the time he reached the bar his leg was throbbing. He usually carried a couple of Motrin with him, but wouldn’t you know it, he hadn’t tonight. He was starting to think that the damn doctor had misread the X-rays that showed the bone was healed.