As Will had promised, his exclusive interview with Roman Mancini was printed across it under a sensational banner headline: GANGSTER’S SECRET SEX DEN! In smaller letters was a secondary headline: MURDERED BY “GODFATHER” LOVER? A photo of Mancini standing proudly outside the Midland Avenue apartment building with his arm pointing skyward at the window of Isabella’s third-floor “love nest” took up the entire top half of the newspaper.
When I got to the third paragraph of Will’s exclusive, I grimaced.
Mancini said that the murdered woman, who called herself “Vicky,” met twice a week in the apartment with an older man.
“He was a real-life Godfather,” Mancini declared. “He always arrived in a limo and had his chauffeur wait outside. I tried to talk to the driver once but he wasn’t friendly. There’s no question in my mind that he and his driver were both mobsters.”
When asked, Mancini said he’d only seen the face of “Vicky’s” lover once because the older man generally wore a hat and turned up his collar. But on the afternoon of the murder, the woman’s “boyfriend” arrived without a hat and turned-up collar, Mancini said. “He had the eyes of a stone-cold killer. Looking at his face scared me.”
“Fuck!” I exclaimed out loud. The anger in my voice caused Wilbur to flinch.
Will’s article had created a legal problem. It would give a defense attorney all the ammunition that he needed to create reasonable doubt in jurors’ minds if we tried to use Mancini to identify Persico during a trial. How could Mancini have looked into Persico’s “stone-cold killer” eyes and not notice his ugly scar? How could he have not mentioned it to Will for his story?
I still also suspected that Will’s story had put Mancini’s life in danger. I let loose with another expletive. My phone rang just as I finished the last sentence of Will’s story.
“Why’s your witness’s face splattered across the front page of the White Plains Daily?” a male voice asked.
“Who’s this?” I replied in a suspicious voice.
“FBI Special Agent Walter Coyle.”
“How can I help you, Agent Coyle?”
“I want to offer you some friendly advice. Send someone to tell that idiot witness of yours that he needs to stop posing for newspaper photos and to keep his mouth shut—at least until after you arrest Nicholas Persico. He’s going to get himself killed.”
I didn’t appreciate Coyle referring to Roman Mancini as an idiot, even though he clearly was. Just the same, Mancini was my idiot witness, not the FBI’s. And I didn’t need Coyle telling me how to do my job.
“I informed the Yonkers police last night that a newspaper story was coming out this morning and that Mancini might need protection,” I said. “I also urged my boss to call the newspaper and try to get parts of the story cut.”
“Well, that didn’t work out too well, did it?” he said sarcastically. Then he chuckled and said, “Although it is funny thinking about District Attorney Carlton Whitaker III actually calling a newspaper to get a story cut. Jack Longhorn told me that Whitaker is a news whore.”
Who did Coyle think he was? “And Agent Longhorn isn’t?” I said.
In a more relaxed voice, Coyle said, “Point taken. Look, I just called to ask if Mancini and his wife are under police protection. A dead witness isn’t going to be good for this case.”
For a moment, I considered telling Coyle that it wasn’t any of his damn business if the Mancinis were under wraps. Instead, I said, “The Yonkers cops said they couldn’t afford to assign an officer to babysit Mancini round the clock, but their chief did promise to step up patrols near the Midland Avenue apartment complex until we make an arrest.”
“That’s why you locals need to join forces with us,” Coyle said. “We have all the resources you’ll ever need. We can move the Mancinis out of Westchester County so that Persico can’t get to them.”
I thought for a moment about what he was saying. Maybe the couple needed to be put into a short-term federal protection program to protect them from Isabella’s killer and the mob.
“Are you prepared to take them into the Federal Witness Protection Program?” I asked.
“I don’t have that authority. There’s a special office in the Justice Department that decides who gets to disappear. But I could file a request if you convince me tonight at dinner that I should.”
“I didn’t say anything about us having dinner tonight,” I said.
“I know, but I just did. Look, we need to get together to compare notes about Persico anyway, so we might as well mix work with pleasure—I’ll even pay.”
“I generally have dinner with my boyfriend,” I replied.
“What a lucky guy,” he said coolly. “But I’m sure he’ll understand, since it’s work related. What time is better for you, seven or eight?” Agent Coyle certainly was pushy. But he also had information I needed.
“How about seven at Bistro Bistro in White Plains?” I replied.
“It’s a date, then,” he said.
“No, it’s not a date. It’s business.”
“Oh, I totally understand, counselor, but tell me one thing before I hang up,” he said seriously.
“What’s that?”
“What are you wearing?” He laughed and put down the receiver before I could reply.
I didn’t know what to make of Walter Coyle. Clearly, he was cocky, and as a general rule, I hate FBI interlopers, mostly because of Longhorn. But I wasn’t certain what I thought about this one.
My phone rang again. This time it was O’Brien. We talked for a moment about the newspaper and the problems that Will’s story had caused.
“I’m heading over to Yonkers,” he announced. “Maybe now we can get the chief to beef up security for the Mancinis. Assuming the chief there can read.”
“Great,” I said. “I’m getting my hair done.”
“What?” he replied. “We got a murderer to catch, remember?”
“The Three B’s.”
I got to the Bellissimo Beauty Boutique on the outskirts of Scarsdale a few minutes after it opened at 9 a.m.
“You have an appointment?” asked the receptionist.
“I’m a walk-in. Is Adalina available?”
“Oh, honey, she never does walk-ins. She’s booked weeks in advance. But Liza can do you in about an hour. We’re swamped today.”
“Tell Adalina that her husband, Pete, sent me. It’s important.”
“This really isn’t about your hair, then, is it?”
When the receptionist left her station to find Adalina, I surveyed the shop. Every chair was filled. The customers were draped in bright pink cover-ups monogrammed with three B’s and a flying bumblebee. The sole male stylist was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, had a Tom Selleck mustache, and was using a straight razor rather than clippers to sculpt his chatty client’s hair.
The receptionist returned with a fortyish-looking woman wearing skintight Gloria Vanderbilt jeans, a sexy lace top, and inch-thick makeup. Her hair was huge, teased, and sprayed into place. She looked as if she were about to attend an Aerosmith concert.
“My Petey sent you?” she asked.
“Yes, Adalina,” I replied. “My name is Dani Fox. I’m an assistant district attorney.”
“Oh, let’s go back to my office.” She nodded toward the rear of the shop. I followed her into a cluttered cubbyhole. “Sorry, it’s pretty dumpy in here,” she apologized. “I spend my time at my station cutting hair. I only come here to do book work.”
“I’d like to ask you about Isabella Ricci.”
“I know. Although, you could use a newer look if you don’t mind me saying it, honey. I could work you in for a cut next week.”
Instinctively running my fingers through my ironed-out hair, I said, “What would you do? I had a total makeover several months ago, but there’s not much I can do with my hair.”
“I’d make it bigger. Use your natural curls. The straight look is dead now. Maybe a nice big Afro.”
“I’ll thi
nk about it,” I said. “What can you tell me about Isabella?”
“She had gorgeous hair. Black and silky.”
The image of Isabella dangling from a rope with her hair splattered with blood popped into my head. “I’m more interested in hearing about her marriage to Marco Ricci,” I said.
“I bet. And I could tell you plenty about Dr. Marco Ricci. To begin with, he’s a bully and a real sleaze. You know they were getting a divorce, right? She’d come in here crying because of how he abused her.”
“He beat Isabella?”
“Oh, not physically. Her old man would have cut Marco’s balls off if he laid a finger on her.” Adalina paused. “You know who her old man is, right?”
“Tiny Nunzio in New Jersey.”
“God, if he knew what Marco was doing, he’d have killed him years ago. Isabella was too ashamed to tell him. That Marco was a mean son of a bitch. He beat her down emotionally until she believed she was a worthless piece of shit. He went out of his way to degrade her just so he could feel like a big shot.”
“Degrade? How?”
“He forced her to fuck other men. Again, excuse my French.”
“She told you that?”
“Therapy here is cheaper than on some shrink’s couch, and I’m a hell of a lot better than most of them Sigmund what’s-his-name types.”
“Freud.”
“Yeah, him. Hey, you read that book called Open Marriage? One of my clients gave me a copy. Petey got angry when he saw me looking at it.”
I sat quietly. Adalina was on a roll.
“My client tells me there’s couples all around Scarsdale who are swapping and that same day Isabella came in and I mentioned it. Turns out she was one of them—she broke down and told me the whole story. Marco forced Isabella to fuck, ah, screw these guys because he wanted to screw their wives. And it wasn’t just men, neither.”
“He wanted her to have sex with another woman?”
“Kinky stuff. Listen, if my Petey wanted to start swapping, I’d cut off his balls, even though there are a few guys around here who I wouldn’t mind getting down and dirty with. You know, I’m married but that don’t mean I can’t look, right?”
I nodded. “What sort of kinky stuff?”
But Adalina ignored my question.
“Isabella’s problem was her old man. He’d ruled the roost. She always did what she was told. No backbone. No fight. Plus, she had that whole Catholic guilt thing. You Catholic?”
“Yes. I went to Catholic schools.”
“But you ain’t Italian, right?”
“No.”
“Being Catholic and Italian makes you crazy. You got all that pent-up Catholic guilt about no sex unless you want a baby popping out. Then you’re Italian, which means your husband expects you to be a virgin like his sainted mother but wants a whore in bed. I think sex confused her, you know. She really hated it when Marco took her to sex parties.”
“Sex parties? Where? In Westchester County?”
“Please! They’re everywhere. But Marco hung out in Scarsdale. A better class of pervert, I guess. Isabella said Marco heard about this one party at the country club. Couples would meet there on a Friday night and then go to a house. Everyone started shedding clothes and screwing. Mostly guys on girls, but also girls and girls, some three-ways—even daisy chains.”
“Daisy chains?”
“Gosh, you need to work here a week. A daisy chain is a circle on the floor where men and women lie down and perform various sexual acts on each other. Marco loved it but not her. She cried the first time he forced her to give another man, well, a blow job. But once she did it, Marco went wild.”
“The kinky stuff you mentioned,” I said. “Was it at these sex parties?”
“Yeah, but there was a different house he took her to. Some bondage place.”
“He tied her up?” I asked timidly.
“Oh, honey, much worse than that.”
I could feel my face turning red.
Adriana noticed and laughed. “It’s okay, honey. Isabella said Marco and her went to a house in Scarsdale where the men tied a woman onto a table spread eagle and raped her, only she’d agreed to it first. Then they spit on her. It made Isabella vomit because that’s what her sicko husband wanted her to do.”
I was half afraid to ask. “Did she do it?”
“She said she didn’t. Threatened to tell her dad. Then Marco came up with a new idea. He told her to strip, put on just a coat and heels. Then he drove her to some sleazy hotel and blindfolded her. That way, she didn’t know who was doing things to her. I warned you, the guy is a fucking pervert.”
“Isabella told you that she went to a hotel room where she was blindfolded and had consensual sex with a stranger?”
“If you’re asking me if someone screwed her in a hotel while she was blindfolded, the answer is yes.”
“Adalina,” I said, “is it possible that Isabella secretly enjoyed bondage and having sex with strangers?”
“I know why you’re asking me that,” she replied. “ ’Cause I wondered the same thing when the cops found her tied up and tortured. I thought to myself, if she really was disgusted with it, then why didn’t she tell Marco to go fuck himself.”
I suddenly thought about the women who’d come through the Domestic Violence Unit and how they often were blamed because they hadn’t left their physically abusive husbands. If Marco had destroyed Isabella’s self-esteem, standing up to him might not have been as easy as it seemed. I said, “Well, she did finally stand up to him. She sued him for divorce. That must not have been easy for her, especially since she kept living in the same house.”
“She’d met someone. That’s why she was dumping him. It’s easier if you got someone waiting.”
“So Marco lost his power over her because of her new lover?”
“That’s right. Three months ago, she comes waltzing in with a big, happy smile. She was in love but she said they couldn’t be seen together. You know what that means?”
I wasn’t sure.
“He was married. That’s what it always means when a woman says her new guy can’t be with her.”
“What did she tell you about him? A name? Anything that I could use to identify him? Do you know, for instance, if he had a scar on his face?”
“She didn’t say. I got the impression that he was older and much more thoughtful than that jerk she married. But she never said a name. She did say that her father would kill him if he found out. Her family knew his family and they hated each other. That’s what she told me. Marco must have suspected that she was having an affair. I mean, she was suddenly happy, really happy. That would have really pissed him off.”
“You think Marco was angry enough to kill?”
“Marco? I’m not sure he has the balls because he was scared to death of her father. But that don’t mean that little shit wouldn’t hire someone to do his dirty work. It all makes me want to puke. She was such a beautiful human being. Like a flower.” Adalina paused to collect her thoughts, then grinned and said, “Oh, now I remember. You’re working with Tommy Boy. Pity you, getting stuck with that lunkhead. And please tell him I said that.”
“I will. Actually, the two of us get along fine.”
“What’s wrong with you, then?” she said, laughing softly. “Just teasing. Tommy Boy is like an old teddy bear. All he does is work, work, work, and drink. He needs a woman in his life to straighten him out.”
I thought about Miss Potts back at the courthouse. I guess Adalina didn’t know all the juicy gossip. “Back to Marco Ricci,” I said.
“Let me tell you what he did one day here at the shop. He was flirting with my receptionist and when I told him to get lost, he hit on me. My Petey would have decked him if I’d told him. I heard he’s already found some stupid bitch to marry him. Plus, Isabella was divorcing his ass, which is not something that someone with a giant ego like Marco Ricci is going to like. And then there’s that whole life insurance policy thing.”
“Only two million bucks’ worth! Pretty good motive, I’d say.”
“Only if you live long enough to spend it.”
“Yeah, Tiny Nunzio. I had to laugh when Petey told me how Marco had called, all terrified, asking for twenty-four-hour protection. If Marco did hire someone to kill Isabella, he sure as hell would have made sure that he had an airtight alibi—not because of you, but because of Nunzio. That’s the only way he could save himself.”
“Adalina, I need you to do me a favor.”
“Honey, I don’t cut anyone’s hair for free.”
“No,” I said. “I want you to talk to your husband. Have him tip off O’Brien if it looks like Marco might be fleeing town late some night.” I stood up to leave.
“Sure. But how about your hair?”
“I’m not sure big hair would look good on me.”
“You should try it. I don’t have to go real big. Just bigger than what you got.”
Five minutes later, I was driving away from the Three B’s, with an appointment for the next month. Adalina was not easy to refuse and I wanted to keep her as a source. The more I learned about Marco Ricci, the more I began to doubt that the Butcher was our man. All this talk about swingers, gang rapes, bondage, and blindfolded escapades with strangers in hotel rooms had not only turned my stomach, it had also put several new twists in what already was a bizarre murder case.
14
I decided to drive to Yonkers to have a friendly chat with Roman Mancini. I wanted to scold him for blabbering about Isabella’s death to Will and I also needed to interview his wife, Maggie. Mostly, I wanted to make certain they were both safe.
The Midland Avenue apartment building looked less dreary in the noonday sun than it had in the rain on New Year’s morning. The building’s entry was pretty standard for an apartment building. I pressed the top button and waited. I pressed it again and waited a bit longer. It was nearly 1 p.m. and I figured they were at lunch or simply didn’t want to deal with any more strangers.
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