Clever Fox

by Jeanine Pirro

  Neither Gallo nor Bianchi noticed, but good ole Carmine blocked me.

  “Nobody goes back unless the boss says so,” he announced.

  I noticed that he was still holding a large butcher knife that he’d been using to trim a sirloin. I also noticed that O’Brien was looking at the cuts of meat in the locker. I stepped back and after a few minutes, a buzzer behind the counter sounded and Carmine, who was still holding the carving knife, said, “You can go back now.”

  He opened the door and I saw Bianchi on the other side. He led us through the oblong back room where four men in white coats and paper hats were chopping pieces of beef from the sides of freshly slaughtered cows hanging from hooks. A fifth employee was using a band saw to cut through the bones of a large hog. None of them looked up as we walked by. I figured they were good at not seeing who came and went here.

  Bianchi led us into the office in the back of the store, which contained a large table and folding chairs and featured a large plate-glass window—mirrored so people on the outside couldn’t see in. The photographs on the wall were no different from portraits that might have decorated any family-owned shop: Five men in bloody aprons standing outside the front of the butcher shop in the early 1900s and then a series of similar snapshots taken at different years as the business grew and the number of employees expanded. In the center of each photo was a man wearing a suit. The Persico family patriarch, father and son. I also noticed a large crucifix on one wall next to a color photo of the pope. I wondered if they said grace whenever they met here late at night after killing someone and chopping up the corpse.

  Attorney Gallo and number-one henchman Caruso were seated on either side of a portly, older man with snow-white hair and a jagged scar on his left cheek. Bianchi took a seat next to Gallo, nodding toward an empty chair apparently meant for me. The table could have accommodated all of us and I could see folding chairs stored in a half-opened nearby closet. They had made sure O’Brien would have no place to sit. A calculated snub.

  I looked at the old man and said, “Mr. Persico, my name is Dani Fox. I’m an assistant district attorney in Westchester County and this is Detective O’Brien.” I made no effort to shake his hand and he didn’t bother to extend his or even make eye contact. No one sitting near him uttered a word. In fact, Persico looked bored, as if he had been through this before with a dozen other prosecutors. He probably had, although I didn’t know how many had dared to enter his butcher’s den. I met their group silence with a demand. “Detective O’Brien needs a chair.”

  Caruso smirked and Gallo broke out in a grin, but Persico remained stone-faced. No one moved nor spoke. And neither did I. I remained standing behind the lone chair at the table as if on strike. After several uncomfortable moments, Persico lifted the second finger on his right hand, which was resting in front of him on the table. Caruso immediately said, “If youse want a chair, there’s the closet.”

  O’Brien pulled out the chair at the table for me. I sat down and then he rested most of his butt on top of the conference table next to my chair, keeping one foot firmly planted on the floor. He now towered over the rest of us. He unbuttoned his jacket, casually letting it open, exposing the holster on his belt and his .38-caliber police-issued revolver. Slipping his toothpick from his mouth, he said, “I’m good. But thanks for noticing.”

  Macho games now over, I got right to it. “Isabella Ricci was found murdered yesterday in an apartment rented by Gallo & Conti.”

  Persico stayed mute.

  “Mr. Persico, you were seen entering that same apartment building at the same time as the murder.”

  “Who says my client was there?” Gallo said loudly.

  Did Gallo really think I was that stupid? I wasn’t going to tell a Mafia capo the name of an eyewitness. Ignoring Gallo, I said, “Mr. Persico’s limo delivered him to the Midland Apartments at two-thirty. We’d like to know why you visited Mrs. Ricci.”

  “My client has nothing to say about this matter,” Gallo snapped.

  “Your client was seen leaving the building a few hours later in a hurry. He was later observed changing his clothes before he went home.”

  I wanted Persico to know that he’d been watched. I wasn’t worried about Persico going after FBI Agent Walter Coyle. But I was concerned that he might go after Roman Mancini, since the Midland Apartments manager had been outside the building, fixing a light fixture, when Persico’s limo had arrived.

  My ruse didn’t work.

  Persico didn’t show any emotion or even open his mouth. It was pretty obvious that the only reason he had agreed to meet with us was that he was curious to learn what evidence we might have on him.

  I decided I was being too subtle. “Mr. Persico,” I said, in my most polite voice, “how long have you and Isabella Ricci been having an affair?”

  My question clearly irritated Gallo, but before he could answer for his client, Persico looked into my face and said, “Me and her?”

  “Twice a week, regular as clockwork,” I said. “Every Tuesday and Friday.”

  “You think I was banging that broad twice a week?” Persico chuckled.

  “We’ve heard enough,” Gallo said.

  But Persico lifted his right finger again and his paid counselor abruptly stopped talking. “Listen, who I sleep with and when I do it is none of your damn business. Unless I’m banging you,” he sneered.

  I refused to react and instead asked, “Then tell us why you went to see Isabella at the Midland Apartments.”

  Gallo leaned over and whispered in his client’s ear.

  Persico nodded.

  “Miss Fox,” Gallo said, “unless you are prepared to charge my client with a crime, he has nothing more to say to you.”

  Bianchi immediately stood to escort us out of the conference room. I got up from the table and said, “Gentlemen, this has been interesting.”

  O’Brien slid from the table and stepped behind me. I could feel their eyes following me as we left the room and assumed they were still watching from behind the tinted glass as we made our way to the front lobby.

  O’Brien and I had just rounded the meat counter’s corner and were walking out the front door when Carmine yelled after me. “Hey you,” he said. “The boss wants you to have this.” He held up a white package of meat. “It’s pork chops.”

  I wasn’t certain if Persico was making a joke about law enforcement or if he knew about Wilbur back at my house. Either way, it wasn’t funny.

  “Tell your boss, ‘No thanks!’ ” I said loud enough for a handful of waiting customers to hear. “I take my arsenic with beef.”

  PART TWO

  EENY, MEENY,

  MINY, MOE:

  SUSPECTS APLENTY

  My husband and I split up because I finally faced the fact that we’re incompatible. I’m a Gemini and he’s an asshole.

  —ANONYMOUS

  11

  By now, it was 6:45 p.m. and I was supposed to meet Will for dinner at 7, but we wouldn’t meet until closer to nine.

  “Let’s interview Isabella’s husband,” I said.

  O’Brien replied, “Makes sense. Always an obvious suspect.”

  As we drove toward White Plains, I asked, “What the hell was all that folding chair bullshit at Persico’s about?”

  O’Brien shrugged. “Telling me I ain’t worthy of sitting with them.”

  “Men and their mind games. I don’t get it.”

  “Oh yeah, like women don’t play ’em.”

  As we neared the gated driveway of a lavish French-style house in a pricey neighborhood in Scarsdale, O’Brien exclaimed, “Hey, I know him!” He pointed toward a burly, uniformed security guard posted outside the driveway entrance at the home of Isabella Ricci and her husband, Marco. “Hey, Pete, you bastard!” O’Brien hollered through his rolled-down driver’s-side window.

  The guard strolled over to the unmarked police cruiser. “Tommy Boy, fancy seeing you here,” he replied in a thick Irish accent.

  “What
the hell you doin’?” O’Brien asked.

  “And you call yourself a detective, Tommy Boy? What the fuck you think I’m doing standing out here. I’m getting rich. Time-and-a-half just farting in the wind.”

  “The easy life of a rent-a-cop,” O’Brien said. “A crying shame. A mediocre cop turned hired babysitter.”

  “What’s that? The way I heard it, you work for the tit patrol now. You and a bunch of bra-burning broads tormenting their poor husbands. Homicide to pantycide. Tell me, Tommy Boy, who’s worse off?”

  “Pete,” O’Brien said without missing a beat, “say hello to Dani Fox, my boss.”

  Pete leaned down and peered into the car. “Oh, sorry, ma’am, I figured you was just another cop.”

  “No, I’m the chief of the tit patrol,” I said. “Is Marco Ricci in his house?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said with a reddening face. “No disrespect intended.”

  “How long you been standing out here protecting the pavement?” O’Brien interrupted.

  “Dr. Ricci called our office first thing this morning—as soon as he heard it was his wife who got butchered yesterday in Yonkers.”

  “Wait,” I said, interrupting. “He didn’t know until this morning that his wife had been murdered on New Year’s Eve?”

  “That’s what I heard, ma’am.”

  O’Brien asked, “Who else is standing guard here? Anyone I’d know?”

  “Naw, bunch of kids. Got one inside the house and two walking the grounds. Dr. Ricci’s up there shaking like a one-dollar-a-pop whore after she’s done a platoon of Marines.” He suddenly remembered that I was there and lowered his head down to the window again. “Sorry, ma’am.”

  “He’s shaking because he knows you’re protecting him,” O’Brien said.

  “Don’t let this gray stovepipe fool you, Tommy Boy. I can still take you with one hand while enjoying a cold one at O’Toole’s with the other.”

  O’Brien said to me, “Pete retired two years ago and me and the boys gave him one hell of a send-off. He was arm-wrestling anyone who’d put a ten-spot on the pool table. Drunken bastard.”

  I looked at Pete and he flexed his right arm. “I beat this youngster twice that night,” Pete said.

  “If you think he’s a youngster,” I replied, “then you needed to retire.”

  O’Brien guffawed. “She got you good on that one, Pete.”

  I decided to interrupt the frat boy reminiscing. “Any idea why Dr. Ricci and his wife didn’t spend New Year’s Eve together?”

  “I heard a few theories,” Pete said. “The doc and his missus weren’t exactly on peaceable terms. Nasty divorce in the works.”

  “Who’s divorcing whom?” I asked.

  “She was dumping him, according to Adalina.”

  “Adalina?”

  “Pete’s better half,” O’Brien volunteered. “She owns the Bellissimo Beauty Boutique over near Scarsdale.”

  “We call it the Three B’s for short,” Pete said proudly. “Best salon around. Ain’t much Adalina don’t hear from her clients and Mrs. Ricci is, well, she was a regular.”

  “At the precinct,” O’Brien said, “if we wanted to know who was cheating on who, we’d check with Adalina. She was our Deep Throat.”

  “Whoa, that’s my wife you’re talking about,” Pete said, in mock horror.

  “Pete’s wife is a looker,” O’Brien continued. “He robbed the cradle. What, twenty, maybe thirty years between you?”

  “Ten, but I’ll tell her that, Tommy Boy. I’ll say you called her a child bride.” Once again, he leaned down so he could look inside and see me. “You should go by the Three B’s and ask her to fix you up. She does a lot of the guys’ wives from the precinct.”

  “Thanks,” I said, feeling a bit insulted but also wondering what those cops’ wives’ hair looked like after a visit to the Three B’s. If Adalina was anything like her talkative husband, I’d be afraid to let her get close to me with a pair of scissors. I said, “Did your wife say why Isabella was divorcing him?”

  “Either he was poking his pepperoni into places it didn’t belong or she was playing hide-the-wiener with someone else. Adalina said lots of insecure women came through his office, him being a plastic surgeon, you know. A nip and a tuck and maybe a bit more.”

  “Like a dip and a stick?” O’Brien said, laughing at his own joke.

  “You’d think if you looked at tits and ass all day you’d get tired of seeing them,” Pete said. “But then, I never would, right, Tommy Boy?”

  I tried to elevate the conversation. “Has anyone been out here to interview Dr. Ricci?”

  “Yeah,” Pete said. “Some Yonkers detectives.”

  “Why the heavy security?” O’Brien asked, emphasizing the word heavy.

  “You still a detective, Tommy Boy?” Pete asked in a mocking voice. “It’s as obvious as dots on a Dalmatian. The doc’s dead wife is Tiny Nunzio’s daughter.”

  I said, “Can I assume Nunzio isn’t a fan of Dr. Ricci?”

  “Whenever there’s a nasty divorce and one of them that’s getting divorced ends up dead, who do you blame? I heard Tiny wasn’t real buddy-buddy with his son-in-law anyway, ’cause of his cheating ways.”

  Without waiting for either of us to reply, Pete added, “It’s a real shame, Tommy Boy, how young people today are getting divorced. Me and Adalina, we got thirty-five years in.”

  “She’s a saint,” O’Brien said. “And if you cheated, Adalina would turn you into a soprano.”

  “I’m a lucky man, Tommy Boy. I ain’t going to bed alone at night with only my pillows to comfort me.”

  “Neither am I,” O’Brien said. “Your mother and sisters can testify to that.”

  I’d heard enough. “Let’s go interview Ricci.”

  As we drove up the circular drive, I said, “Why do men, who are friends, show it by insulting each other? Are you afraid of being called a homosexual if you exchange niceties?”

  O’Brien jammed on the brakes. “Homosexual? What the hell? I didn’t say nothing homosexual to him. You got that? We was just busting each other’s balls.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  Another security guard was standing at the front door. Pete had already alerted him so he opened the front door for us without asking for IDs. The foyer led into a cavernous living room, where a man was sitting all by himself smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee. Marco Ricci was small-framed, with black curly hair, delicate features, and a panicked look in his eyes.

  Before either of us could ask a question, he began talking. “I’ve not seen Isabella’s body yet. They called but I’ve not dared go to the medical examiner’s office or to a funeral home. I’m not leaving this house.”

  “Why?” I asked, playing dumb.

  “Why? Why? Because her father is Tiny Nunzio, for God’s sake! Isabella and I were getting a divorce. He hates me and isn’t going to want me anywhere near her body. I doubt he’ll even let me attend the funeral, especially after he sees what happened to her.”

  “You mean how she was butchered?” I said.

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean,” he replied in an irritated voice. “The Yonkers police told me the man who did this cut off pieces of her flesh. It was on the radio, too. To tell you the truth, I’m glad her father is going to take charge of the funeral. I don’t want to see her like that.”

  “How far along were you in the divorce process?”

  “She’d filed papers against me last year and we both had lawyers but we were a long way from getting everything settled. It should have been a snap since we didn’t have any children together.”

  “Then why the holdup?”

  “We’re dealing with a big estate.”

  “How big?” O’Brien interjected.

  “About five million, plus this house.”

  “Where was she living?” I asked.

  “Right here. It’s a rather large house—more than seven thousand square feet. She was staying on one floor and I wa
s staying on another. The lawyers warned each of us to stay put; otherwise we might be forfeiting our claim to the property. Naturally, we did our best to avoid each other.”

  Marco Ricci looked around his massive living room. “Isabella decorated this house and wanted it. But I wasn’t going to hand it over, because I owned it before we got married. As you can see, we had different tastes. I like period pieces; she liked Andy Warhol.”

  The furniture and wall coverings were modern, which didn’t match the French architecture at all. But Isabella’s choice in art and furniture showed she had a good eye.

  “Where were you New Year’s Eve between two and six?” I asked.

  “Oh please. You don’t really think I killed her, do you? I was in my office.”

  “Witnesses saw you?” O’Brien asked.

  “My secretary was there. She’ll vouch for me. And patients.”

  I asked: “Do you know of any reason why someone would want to kill your wife?”

  “No, not one,” he replied, nervously smashing his cigarette in a black ceramic ashtray by his chair. “But Tiny will blame me. I know he will. That’s why I need protection. I asked the Yonkers cops for help but they said I had to hire guards. You need to find out who did this so Tiny will leave me alone.”

  Ricci fired up another cigarette, took a quick puff, and then continued talking. “Isabella was trying to take me for everything I own in the divorce. Everything I built. The definition of hell is being divorced by an Italian woman. There’s no reasoning with them. It’s all emotion and anger. I’ve been divorced twice and never had the sort of fight that she was giving me.”

  “She was wife number three?” O’Brien asked.

  “Yes, and to answer your next question, Detective, both of my ex-wives are still alive and collecting alimony.”

  “You don’t seem too upset that Isabella has been murdered,” I noted.

  “Would you prefer crocodile tears? I’ve met someone and there will be a fourth Mrs. Ricci. Hopefully, the last.”

  His candor surprised me. “Did Isabella file divorce papers after you met the fourth Mrs. Ricci?” I asked.