Funeral Hotdish

by Jana Bommersbach

  Joya dismissed the grad student with an excuse, promising to resume the interview soon. Their next meeting would be months off, although she didn’t know that then. What she did know was this—nothing trumps a university scandal like discovering you’ve found the most famous Mafia snitch in the nation right here in your own backyard.

  She nursed a cup of coffee until he left, and followed him out of the coffeehouse. He got into a Lexus. Naturally, Joya nodded. She scribbled down the plate number: AZ476D.

  Joya rushed back to her office at Phoenix Rising and rummaged through the library. Hadn’t they just reviewed his book? Yes, they had.

  Underboss: Sammy “the Bull” Gravano’s Story of Life in the Mafia, by Peter Maas. A promo blurb promised, “Sammy ‘the Bull’ Gravano is the highest-ranking member of the Mafia in America ever to defect. In telling Gravano’s story, Peter Maas brings us as never before into the innermost sanctums of the Cosa Nostra as if we were there ourselves—a secret underworld of power, lust, greed, betrayal, and deception, with the specter of violent death always waiting in the wings.”

  Next, Joya found their review by Peter Roman, whose lifeblood pumped Mafia red. Oh, he loved this book. There was even a hint of admiration for the man whose testimony sent thirty-six of his former associates to prison, including John “the Teflon Don” Gotti.

  “To get the head of the Gambino crime family behind bars was so valuable,” Roman had written, “that Sammy’s own crimes were basically forgiven. He admitted to personally carrying out nineteen murders, but got less than five years in prison. Then he and his family entered the federal witness protection program.”

  The FBI program gave these witnesses a new name, a new home, and a new start. She’d heard that Arizona was the favorite dumping ground for people hiding out to stay alive.

  So Arizona got Sammy too, she thought to herself. But isn’t he supposed to be lying low? Isn’t he supposed to be underground so the Gambinos can’t find him and get their revenge? Why in the world is he holding court in a public ASU hangout where everyone knows his name?

  Unless, she thought as her journalistic skepticism kicked in, this guy is an imposter and the real Sammy is safely socked away someplace else.

  The possibilities swirled around in her head. What she should do is tell Peter Roman what she’d discovered and they’d work the story together. But she wasn’t going to do that because she wasn’t stupid—she’d already been burned enough times by that egomaniac who didn’t play nice with others.

  Last July still stung. Peter would steal this story as his own again. She wasn’t going to let that happen. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Plus, wouldn’t it be tasty to break a big Mafia story smack under Peter’s big nose? She could already see the headline: “Guess where the infamous Sammy ‘the Bull’ Gravano ended up? Arizona, of course.”

  It would kill Peter Roman to see her break a story like that. Which would be just fine with her, thank you very much.

  She headed home, reminding herself to be careful.

  Rob Stiller was already there, his Camaro parked on the street because the driveway was only long enough for one car, and since this was Joya’s home, she got the honors.

  She came in the front door, as she always did—the key to the kitchen door had been lost long ago—to see the dining table strewn with his badge, his holster, his black notebook, his car keys.

  “I’m home,” she yelled.

  He answered from the backyard, where he was having a beer. “Hi. How was your day?”

  “The same.”

  “Mine, too.”

  They always started that way—“dancing around the potato salad,” one of her friends called it—cautious and noncommittal, as though he weren’t a police detective nor she a reporter and their days were ever “the same.” But they had rules in this house, because that’s the only way it worked. He wasn’t supposed to ask what shit she was stirring up and she wasn’t supposed to ask what shit he was cleaning up.

  They met a year ago, when Joya was probing problems at the city’s morgue and Rob was getting autopsy results on a case he was working. He wore street clothes that day and didn’t identify himself as a cop. Preoccupied with trying not to upchuck, she didn’t ask, assuming he was one of the lab technicians.

  Her struggle amused him as they sat in the viewing room, watching a murdered druggie get cut up. Rob had been here countless times, but this was Joya’s first.

  She’d later write, “The American Heritage Dictionary defines ‘autopsy’ as ‘the examination of a dead body to determine the cause of death,’ It sounds so civilized. It’s anything but. ‘Brutal’ is a far more accurate word to describe what happens inside the Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office several hundred times a year.

  “It’s not an unkind brutality nor an uncaring brutality, but there is no gentle way to get beyond the skin and fat and muscle that give us our worldly appearance.”

  On the other side of the viewing window, Dr. Janet Hans wore green scrubs under a pale-blue paper gown. Her face was covered with a green-and-white-striped mask with a plastic face plate.

  “That’s called a splash mask,” Rob offered. Joya gulped as she wrote it down.

  Dr. Hans adjusted her microphone so she could not only make the recording she needed for the record, but could keep Joya informed on each step. “This is the standard Y incision,” the doctor said, and in three quick swipes of her scalpel, she cut the man’s chest apart. Joya was surprised there wasn’t much blood and what there was seeped out slowly.

  “There’s no beating heart to push blood through the body,” Rob explained. Joya nodded like she should have been smart enough to figure that out herself, then added, “Oh God, dead skin cuts just like bread dough.”

  Rob had to admit she was right, although he’d never seen it that way before.

  Joya held her breath as Dr. Hans peeled away the skin and fat of the man’s chest to reveal his rib cage, then took a long-handled tree clipper to cut apart his ribs to get at his organs—the lungs and stomach and liver and spleen and guts. Each one was measured and a piece cut off for testing, then thrown into a plastic bag nestled between the man’s legs.

  Her eyes got big when Dr. Hans fired up the electric drill to cut apart the man’s skull, then peeled away his scalp and face to get to the brain. Rob watched her closely now, but she didn’t lose it. She gulped a couple times, fighting her gag reflexes, but she didn’t vomit, she didn’t faint, and she was really proud of herself. She took notes furiously, and Rob decided that was her way of coping.

  She described it all in the story she’d write, ending, “When they’re done, they put his scalp and face back in place, stuff the plastic bag that now contains his organs into his empty chest cavity and sew him up. Viewing one autopsy is enough to last anyone a lifetime.”

  Rob thought she was cute—not beautiful, but not hard on the eyes, either—and he was struck by how resolute she was. It was only later, when they were outside and she was gulping fresh air, that she admitted she’d been fighting off nausea all afternoon.

  “But I knew the guys in homicide were just waiting for me to fold, and I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction,” she told him. When he laughed, she begged him, “Please don’t be a homicide guy.”

  Everyone back at police headquarters loved that story. Her investigation forced changes they’d all been wanting at the morgue, so Rob gave her points for being a reporter who actually made a difference.

  She had noticed him right away. Robert Stiller was a hard man to ignore, unless shoulders the width of a plow didn’t impress and a dimple didn’t entice. He might not be everyone’s version of handsome, but he was hers. She liked how he smiled at her. He oozed cool sureness. She was thankful she was on the down side of her yo-yo dieting the day they met—and the putrid smells from the autopsy room assured she had no stomach for any food the
rest of that day. Still, she never expected him to call.

  When he did, she surprised herself by saying yes. She’d never before even considered dating a cop—a firefighter, sure, but a cop? Not a good fit with a journalist. Cops were conservative and militaristic and by-the-book kind of guys, and none of that was part of her DNA. How could she dress him up and take him to an ACLU dinner, or a gay rights fundraiser or a theater party? He’d never fit. Besides, getting him to rent a tux would be impossible. No, she was used to men who owned their own tuxes and fit in just fine with the formal dinners where she wore her fancy gowns and elaborate rhinestone jewelry.

  He had to think twice before he made that first call, because she wasn’t his idea of the perfect match, either. His buddies on the force wouldn’t trust her, and she’d never fit in with the other wives and girlfriends. Besides, his ex was still a friend in this crowd and nobody was ready for him to bring someone new. But there was something about her, and he gave it a shot.

  She said yes, thinking it would be a lark. What could it hurt to have a drink with him? But the drink went into dinner, and then a second date, and before long, well, he wasn’t so conservative and militaristic. And he was so scrumptiously sexy. At least he didn’t watch Fox News, with its fixation on destroying President Clinton and fueling every right-wing fantasy.

  It wasn’t long before he started staying over and then bringing over some clothes, and for the last four months, he’d spent most of every week here.

  Social engagements weren’t an issue because his weekends were spent with his kids. She was free to do her own thing, which gave great relief to both sides.

  She told her mom and dad back in Northville that she was dating a cop, but left out the living together detail and didn’t mention he was divorced. Ralph and Maggie Bonner thought thirty-eight was a good time for her to be settling down and her dad especially liked the cop part.

  But Sheriff Joe Arpaio almost screwed it up, just as it was getting good.

  Back in July—two weeks after Rob started staying over regularly—local stations led their evening news with an explosive story. “Sheriff’s officers today foiled an attempt to blow up Sheriff Joe Arpaio with a car bomb. The sheriff was unavailable for comment, as he rushed home to comfort his terrified wife.”

  They showed “undercover” footage of a fresh-faced kid wearing a tee-shirt and Levis, arriving at the Roman Table restaurant on Seventh Avenue with a bearded man who slipped away as the kid walked toward the sheriff’s car with a homemade bomb. Officers rushed in and nabbed him. Arpaio’s chief deputy called a press conference in that parking lot, saying they’d caught the dangerous bomber through the help of an informant and good police work.

  “Holy shit.” Joya watched the footage of Jimmy Saville being caught red-handed in a city where the most famous crime of the last thirty years was a car bomb that killed Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles. Saville’s going to fry, she thought to herself.

  Robbie came home that night like an uncaged tiger. He threw his things down and started pacing—swearing and mumbling and ranting. His phone would ring and he’d go off for privacy, but she could hear him yelling. She couldn’t make out the subject and verb of his rant.

  How was she supposed to act at a time like this? Their relationship was so new. Maybe she could get his mind off his troubles? So she said, “Hey, did you see they caught that kid that tried to bomb Sheriff Arpaio?”

  That’s when Rob exploded. “Don’t be a fucking idiot. That kid was set up by the sheriff’s office. It was a goddamned publicity stunt.”

  Rob thrashed his arms, looking like he wanted to throw something. Joya finally realized why he was so mad.

  “That kid was just a patsy so the sheriff could get some prime-time coverage on television. Where did they get their ‘undercover’ footage? A goddamned pool reporter from Channel 3. The sheriff’s office had a television crew hiding in the parking lot to catch all the action. And the idiots in the press fell for it.”

  Joya was so shocked, she grabbed the hot handle of a copper pot on the stove. When she ran to the sink to douse her burnt hand in cold water, Rob didn’t even notice.

  “And guess where the kid got the bomb material? The sheriff’s office bought it for him. They showed him how to build it. They drove him to the restaurant. That bearded guy—that’s a deputy! We’re so goddamned mad about this we can hardly stand it.”

  Joya knew the “toughest sheriff in America” liked to prance and preen, but she never thought he’d go this far for a publicity stunt—entrap a kid into a bomb plot that wasn’t real. She knew damn well that the kid would spend the rest of his life in prison—what jury wouldn’t convict him? So the sheriff would steal a kid’s life? This was too outlandish. Too mean. Too horrible.

  “What is Phoenix PD going to do?” she finally asked. “You can’t let him get away with this.”

  “Oh, that’s rich,” he sneered. “Your mighty media are convicting this kid on the evening news and you expect one law enforcement agency to rat out another? What planet do you live on?”

  Rob was so angry, he begged off from dinner. “I gotta go. Think I’ll stay at my place tonight. No telling when I’ll be done.” He didn’t even bother with a peck goodbye.

  Joya sat at her kitchen table, steaming and stewing and breathless with this secret knowledge.

  Her first call was to Peter Roman. “Let’s get to that kid in jail and let him tell us what happened,” she ordered. Peter told her to hang on, he’d get with his contacts and call her back. But of course, he didn’t. He stole the story for himself, and their editor backed him up. Jimmy Saville told Peter just what Robbie had told her. So did the lawyer who rushed in to help out the hapless kid.

  Pete’s story the next week said the only chance the poor kid had was for a jury to find that he’d been “entrapped” by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.

  That had never happened in an Arizona court and no defense attorney in Phoenix would bet on it happening now.

  Rob went nuts when he found out Joya had shared his information with Peter Roman. “You can’t do that!” he spat at her. “I didn’t tell you that as a reporter. I told you as my girlfriend. God, I’m an idiot.”

  He walked out that night, too, angry and disappointed. She fretted all night, worried that she’d screwed things up for good. But she knew she’d do the same thing again if she had to. If Peter hadn’t stolen the story, she would have pursued it on her own.

  So if they were to have any chance, they had to make some rules. The Number One rule was No Shop Talk.

  Of course, Peter Roman thought she was throwing away a great opportunity. “What good is it to bonk a detective if you aren’t going to get anything?”

  “You do it your way, Peter, and I’ll do it mine. At least, I have some ethics.”

  “Ethics. Shit on ethics.”

  Peter Roman believed that. The SOB had once gotten his wife to cook a beautiful dinner for a politician “friend,” and then blindsided him, sneaking into the kitchen to take notes on the table talk that made City Hall look bad. Peter couldn’t see how that was an unethical betrayal of the first order.

  Joya knew betrayal when she saw it. She also knew she’d never been happier than since she hooked up with Robbie. The no-tell rule was their best hope.

  The exceptions were those things that neither saw as dangerous. If he had a cut-and-dried murder case, okay, but he didn’t discuss the controversial ones at home. She could discuss her exposés, as long as they didn’t touch the city or the police union.

  But Sammy “the Bull” Gravano was a whole new category. Should she share her delicious discovery? What could it hurt? Phoenix PD had no reason to be interested in Sammy. Wouldn’t it be fun to spring this news? Tell Rob how she happened on Sammy, and they’d both get a chuckle out of it? Show off for her detective boyfriend that she was a good detective, too! She’d swear hi
m to secrecy, because she sure didn’t want this getting out until she had her story in print.

  Besides, maybe this one time she could ask him a favor. Could he run the plate and see who owned the Lexus? On the other hand—journalists are infamous for their on-other-hand thinking—maybe it was better to keep her mouth shut. She could always tell him the whole story later.

  “I had that interview today about the ASU scandal.” She counted this as one of the non-dangerous things they could discuss.

  “How’d it go?” He had only a casual interest, but was polite enough to seem to care.

  “Oh, great. I got some really good stuff. My source says they’re scamming the Havasupai—you know, the tribe that lives in the bottom of the Grand Canyon. She calls it ‘genetic rape.’ How about you?”

  Rob pretended there was nothing special about his day, even though they’d heard some tasty things on the wiretap, and he turned the conversation to the Kentucky Fried Chicken he’d picked up for dinner—original for him, baked for her.

  “Great. Get me a side of green beans?” He assured her he had. “Say,” she asked in her most casual voice, “what do you know about the witness protection program?”

  It never occurred to her that this wasn’t a safe question. Phoenix PD had nothing to do with the FBI’s squirrel-away program. She was unpleasantly surprised when Robbie slowly lowered his beer and peered at her with those beautiful brown eyes.

  “What does that have to do with ASU?” He was using his “bad cop” voice, and it was that, more than his question, that alerted her something was up.

  “Just wondering. You know how my mind jumps around.”

  She quickly stood to mix herself a scotch and water, hoping she hadn’t tipped anything. Damn, I shouldn’t have asked.

  Ding, ding, ding, ding—Rob knew exactly how her mind worked and he didn’t like the neighborhood it was working right now. Six months ago, the question would have been received as innocently as it was asked, but that was six months ago, before they figured out the Lexus they were tailing was registered to a Jimmy Moran who was really Sammy the Bull.