Mommy, Mommy : A Danny Boyland Novel

by Henry Hack

  On Tuesday morning, after seeing Frankie off on the school bus, I began to pack my things in suitcases and boxes. I got them all into the trunk of the Chevy, except my dresses and coats which I laid down across the back seat. I then returned inside the house for a last look and for my final task – a brief note for Frankie telling him what to do. I put the note under his milk glass, locked the kitchen door and went out the front door locking that behind me, leaving this crummy house forever.

  I backed out of the driveway and headed for Interstate 495 – the Long Island Expressway. I reached it in ten minutes and drove west to freedom and a new life. I was almost thirty-two years old and all I had was $2,700 and an eight-year old car with over 100,000 miles on it. Jim’s meager life insurance policy just covered the funeral expenses and there were no IRA’s or 401(k)’s between us. But I had a new start and I promised myself I would make a better life for myself – much better.

  Since it was not yet rush hour I went over the Williamsburg Bridge into Manhattan and crossed downtown on Canal Street, through the Holland Tunnel and onto Interstate 78 to Interstate 81. I got off at the Chambersburg, Pennsylvania exit and found a used car lot where I traded in the Chevy plus $500 for a five-year old Honda Civic with a new Pennsylvania tag and only 43,000 miles on it.

  I continued south on the interstate always observing the speed limit and reached the bottom of Virginia in full darkness. I ate a burger and fries from the drive through at a fast food place located on the corner of a large shopping mall. After dinner I drove around the mall’s parking lot and found what I was looking for after five minutes – a dark area with an open slot between two vehicles. I unscrewed my new tag and replaced it with the Virginia tags from the car parked to my left. After dumping my old New York tags and the new Pennsylvania one into a large, smelly dumpster at the rear of the mall, I drove off. Four hours later I pulled up to a motel just inside Tennessee. I paid the clerk in cash and registered with a phony name. I planned to go right to bed, be up with the sun and back on the road the following morning. I should arrive in California in four days.

  Sleep would not come. I had been focused on my plans and my escape to a new life, but the old life would not leave so easily. The questions and recriminations shot through my mind – Did I really have to kill Jim? Could counseling have helped? Was his abuse really that bad? And Frankie – what would happen to him? No father and now no mother. When would he find out I wasn’t his real mother? How would it affect him?

  And finally, oh, my God, what have I done? Should I go back and re-claim Frankie? Or was it already too late?

  I lay there tossing and turning until the sun came up. I took a shower and checked out grabbing a coffee and a bagel from the breakfast area to take with me on the road. I approached Interstate 81 and hesitated – do I go north back home or south to Interstate 40 and points west. I took a sip of the coffee and drove up the entrance ramp and onto the interstate. The sun was rising brightly on my left. California, here I come.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Wally Mason’s eyes focused on the granite doorstop but he said, “We’d better check for other possible weapons while we’re here.”

  Frankie was still watching TV, seemingly engrossed in SpongeBob Squarepants, so I headed upstairs and Wally went down to the basement. I checked the two upstairs bedrooms, small study and bathroom for other possible weapons, but there were no items that fit the bill. There was a Little League baseball bat in Frankie’s closet, but I couldn’t see Angela taking it, using it, and returning it while Frankie slept. I looked it over anyway and it was clean and shiny with no visible stains on its silvery surface.

  Wally was coming up the basement stairs as I returned to the main floor. “Hardly any tools down there. I guess Jimmy wasn’t the handy-man type. The only thing that may have been used as a weapon is this hammer.”

  He showed me a small claw hammer that he held in his hand with a rag wrapped loosely around the handle.

  “The place is a rental,” I said. “I guess the landlord fixes what needs to be fixed.”

  “It doesn’t look like there’s anything on this thing,” Wally said, “but I’ll have the Lab check it anyway while they check out the doorstop.”

  Mason went through the kitchen cabinets and drawers and discovered the red address book mentioned by Frankie. He flipped through it and noted only about a dozen entries and slipped it into his jacket pocket. He was about to go out to the garage when the doorbell rang and Wally opened it and let in a woman. He smiled and said, “Thanks for coming so soon, Pam. We have a case for you.”

  Pamela Saunders was introduced to me as a veteran case worker in the Child Protective Services area of the State’s Social Services department. An attractive blond in her mid to late thirties, she gave the appearance of a harried, worn-out, over-worked civil servant who had seen a lot of tragedy over the years. Mason briefed her on the situation then led her into the den where Frankie was engrossed in the TV.

  “Hi, Frankie,” she said, smiling at the sad-eyed boy. “I’m Miss Saunders. Can we talk a while? Just you and me?”

  I asked Wally if he wanted me to check out the garage and he said yes while he would give one more check to the rest of the downstairs area. The garage was small and there were no tools hanging on the walls. Several cartons of old toys were on the clean cement floor along with a new, blue boy’s bicycle resting on its kickstand. A basket of small garden tools and a few packets of seeds rested on a shelf. No obvious murder weapons here.

  As I returned inside the house Pam was just coming out of the den. She said, “Frankie claims he knows of no relatives who could take him in, so I guess he’s got to come with me.”

  “Are you going to place him in the State Home?” I asked.

  “Yes, until we locate his mother or a relative who’s willing to take him in.”

  “Poor kid. What a fucking world.”

  “You seem to be taking this personal,” Pam said.

  “Damn right, I am. I was once a ward of the State of New York. I’m intimately familiar with the Home and the joys of foster care.”

  Wally looked at me and said, “I guess that’s what you meant before about a story for another time. Maybe we can locate Angela soon and re-unite her with Frankie. Maybe she’s not a murderer. Maybe she just snapped over the death of her husband and the thought of having to raise a kid alone with no money. Maybe…”

  “Wally,” Pam interrupted. “Frankie just told me that his parents argued a lot – loudly. He told me that Daddy hit Mommy many times, too. He told me that on the night of the accident he thought Mommy was screaming because Daddy was hitting her again.”

  “Murdering bitch,” Wally said immediately reversing his previous speculations.

  “Let’s go tell Frankie what’s going to happen,” Pam said.

  After she finished explaining things Frankie asked, “What about my toys and bike?”

  “I’m afraid you can’t take them all. Only your clothes and a couple of toys.”

  “But my bike! I just got it last Christmas,” he said as the tears began to roll down his cheeks.

  “Don’t worry, Frankie,” I said. “If it’s okay with Miss Saunders I’ll take the rest of your toys and your bike and store them in the storage closet in my apartment until we find your mom.”

  “That would be fine with me,” Pam said. “Is that all right with you, Frankie?”

  “Yes,” he said, smiling at me. “Thanks.”

  We gathered up Frankie’s clothes and put them in Saunders’ car and watched them drive away. Back in the house Mason picked up the doorstop with a paper towel and placed it in a big zip-lock plastic bag. “I’m going to have the experts in the Lab go over this with every test in their arsenal. I know she popped him with this.”

  “Yeah, but that won’t help Frankie if you ever hang a murder rap on her, will it?”

  Wally put his arm on my shoulder and said, “No, it won’t. That kid will have the words on this note burned into his brain
forever. Let me call the landlady and let her know what’s going on. Then we can get out of here.”

  Mrs. Bennett told Mason she would come over in the morning to check the place out. “The rent’s paid up until the end of the month,” she said. “Too bad the boy couldn’t stay there with someone.”

  “There doesn’t seem to be anyone, Mrs. Bennett,” he said. “We’ll lock the place up when we leave.”

  “Thank you, Detective,” she said. “Oh, please turn the heat down to fifty-five?”

  Mason turned down the thermostat and left with the note, the address book, the hammer and the doorstop. I took Frankie’s toys and bike in my patrol car. “I’ll see if I can track down a relative,” Mason said.

  “Keep me in the loop, okay?”

  “Sure, I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  Wally Mason called me in off patrol at eleven the next morning. When I arrived in his office, Pam Saunders was already there. We poured coffee and waited for Wally to begin. He did not look happy. “I went through the phone book and found a number for Angela’s mother and father in Brooklyn, but it was crossed out.”

  “Both dead?” Pam asked.

  “No, just the mother – Maria. Dear dad is serving a life sentence upstate for killing her,” he said holding up Cono Capozzi’s rap sheet.

  “I guess Angela didn’t want the same fate,” I said.

  “I guess not,” Wally said, “which lends additional weight to the fact that she probably killed him.”

  “What about Frankie’s other grandparents?” Pam asked.

  “Unable to contact them. The local police department in Colorado said the Chandler’s notified them a month ago that they would be travelling in Europe for three to four months.”

  “Any other blood relatives?” I asked.

  “Not in this book,” he said, tapping it on his desk. “Only a few not-too-close friends from their jobs.”

  “So I guess Frankie becomes a ward of the state until Grandma and Grandpa come home,” I said.

  “Maybe I can try to locate them through Interpol. If they use their charge cards over there, it may not be that difficult.” Wally said.

  “Okay,” Pam said. “I’ll call the shelter and tell them to make the arrangements to transfer Frankie upstate. I hope Interpol finds his grandparents or somebody finds Angela real soon.”

  “Me, too,” I said with a shudder as Frankie’s future as a ward of the state for the next eight and a half years flashed through my mind. The picture was grim indeed.

  A week later Wally Mason called me with some good news. They had not located Frankie’s traveling grandparents yet, but Detective Paul McKay from the Blood Analysis Section of the Police Lab had gotten a hit. Wally said, “Paul, using a high-powered microscope, found a slight chip on one of the granite block’s corners. Within the chipped surface was a tiny fissure with a small amount of dark-red crust embedded in the bottom of it. He extracted it and was able to get a DNA profile.”

  “Was it Jim Chandler’s blood?” I asked.

  “Bingo!” he said. “An identical DNA match.”

  “What now?”

  “I go see the Homicide Squad and set up a meeting with the District Attorney. I try to get Angela indicted in absentia for the murder of her husband. That way we can get the warrant into NCIC, the national criminal database. If she ever gets stopped or background checked, it will pop up and she’ll be arrested.”

  “Any chance of me being at that meeting?” I asked.

  “It would be a little irregular, but I’d like you there, Danny. I like your interest and enthusiasm. I’ll see if I can clear it with my boss and your boss. I’ll let you know.”

  “Thanks, Wally. I appreciate it.”

  True to his word, Wally got the necessary permissions for me to attend the meeting set for two days later at ten o’clock in the morning. I was working a four-to-twelve tour and, although allowed to attend, I would do so on my own time. My commanding officer, Inspector Jack Switzer, while appreciating my eagerness and interest in this case, did not appreciate it highly enough to throw me a couple of hours of overtime pay. It mattered not at all to me. I was really enjoying this investigation and was motivated to help do something to make Frankie’s life a little easier. But now – if Angela Chandler was indeed a murderer – his hopes of being re-united with her would be dashed.

  At the meeting Wally Mason introduced me to Detective Willy Edwards, a smiling gray-haired investigator from the Nassau Homicide Squad, and to Assistant DA Jesse Regan, Chief of the Homicide Bureau. We all listened patiently, without interruption, as Wally went over the details of the case. When he finished he handed over the lab report and the autopsy report to Regan with a satisfied smile on his face.

  Regan laid the reports on his desk, looked at Wally grim-faced through his steel-rimmed glasses and said, “This is it? What else do you have?”

  “Whaddya mean?” Wally said. “What the hell else do you want?”

  “How about a signed confession from Angela?”

  “Very funny. You got the murder weapon and Jim Chandler’s blood is on it. That should be plenty for you to present this case to the Grand Jury.”

  “Really? What do you think, Detective Edwards?”

  “We have some problems here, Wally.”

  “Like what, Willy?” he asked, his annoyance obvious in his voice.

  “Jim Chandler lives there. He could have cut himself on that chipped corner once or twice when he picked it up on any number of occasions to block the door. Or Angela could have gotten Jim’s blood on her fingers when she went down to check on him and transferred it to the block when she moved it.”

  “Wait a minute,” Wally said. “Chandler blocked the door open prior to going down the stairs.”

  “Says who?” Regan asked. “And if he did, why weren’t his fingerprints on it?”

  “Because Angela washed the block clean, that’s why,” Wally said through gritted teeth.

  “Did she admit that to you?” Regan asked.

  Wally just glared. I sat there just observing and listening and chose, wisely, to remain silent.

  Removing his glasses and softening his usual officious tone of voice, Jesse Regan said, “Wally, I agree with you that she probably did it. I’m sure Willy Edwards and Danny Boyland agree that she did it. But we have to find a way to prove it.”

  “She fucking skipped town didn’t she?” Wally asked.

  “Yes,” Willy said, “which confirms our belief, but doesn’t provide proof.”

  “What do you think, Danny?” Regan asked startling me as all eyes turned my way. I thought for a few seconds and then said, “I don’t like your conclusions, but I’m not experienced enough to argue against them.”

  “Then we’re done here?” Wally asked. “No grand jury presentation?”

  “No,” Regan said. “There’s just not enough.”

  “At least we still have the original alarm out on her,” I said. “Maybe if she gets picked up, Wally and Willy can get her to confess.”

  “Unfortunately, we don’t even have that,” said a very dejected Wally Mason. “When my boss found out what I sent out, he made me cancel the murder part, and the county won’t extradite for a misdemeanor child abandonment charge.”

  There was silence in the room and there was obviously no more to say so Willy Edwards said, “C’mon Wally, I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”

  “I need more than coffee,” he said. “This system sucks. Angela got away with murder.”

  “She isn’t the first,” Willy said, “and she won’t be the last.”

  I knew how Wally felt right now, because I felt the same way – beaten.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I was sitting alone in a room next to Miss Saunders’ office wondering what was going to happen to me now. I was getting hungry and just then she came in with a tray of food and a glass of milk and set it down on the desk in front of me. “I figured you’d be hungry around now,” she said. “It’s almost six o’clock. Is t
hat the time you normally eat at home?”

  I nodded my head yes and she told me to go ahead and dig in. Then she said, “I have a son a couple of years older than you and a daughter about the same age. I have to go home and feed them, too. Someone will take you to the children’s shelter to sleep tonight and I’ll come over there in the morning to see you. Try to sleep well, Frankie. Good night.”

  “Good night,” I said. “Thank you.”

  I ate my sandwich and potato salad and drank the milk. There was no TV in the room so I just sat and waited and thought about my mother and the note she left me. I knew all the words by heart, especially the last ones where she said maybe we would see each other again someday and that she loved me. I knew she would come back for me when she could. I just knew it. But now she was probably afraid to because of the police. I know they think she killed Daddy, and I think maybe she did, too.

  The next morning Miss Saunders came to me at the shelter and told me the detectives couldn’t find my grandparents or any other relatives who I could live with.

  “I’m going to have to place you in the state boy’s school for awhile,” she said. “When we find your mother or your grandparents, they’ll come get you.”

  “How long will it take to find Mommy?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Hopefully, only a few days.”

  That was what I remembered, hopefully, a few days. That was fourteen years ago. Nine years old and my new life – a life without parents, grandparents, relatives or friends – was about to begin. Two months had gone by before Miss Saunders came upstate to visit me and the news was bleak. “No, Frankie,” she said, “the police still haven’t found your Mommy. How are you doing here?”

  “I hate it,” I said. “I hate living with all these other boys. I hate the food. I hate everything about this place.”