Clever Fox

by Jeanine Pirro

  I heard my interrogator punch a button and the reel-to-reel recorder began to slowly turn.

  “Who’s these other suspects you got?” he asked, referring to the Isabella Ricci murder.

  I needed to be careful because I knew Nunzio and his goons would not hesitate to go after Donnie Gilmore if I told them that he had been stalking Isabella.

  “Marco Ricci was another suspect,” I said. “He had good reason to hire someone to kill his wife, including a life insurance policy.”

  “Yeah, who else you got? Like you said, Marco’s dead.”

  “If Marco hired someone, then we’ll find him,” I said, stalling.

  “Don’t bullshit me,” he snarled. “You got someone else in mind. Protecting some asshole isn’t worth the pain I can cause you. Got it? You’ll talk. I’ve had men stronger than you sitting in that chair, crying like a baby.”

  He was right, Donnie Gilmore was an asshole. Just the same, I wasn’t going to name names. I didn’t want Gilmore’s blood on my hands. “Okay,” I said. “Here’s what I know. We got a tip someone was stalking Isabella. But I haven’t had a chance to run it down. Someone she met at a sex party in Scarsdale.”

  I’d dealt with a lot of witnesses who lied during trials and I’d learned from them that the best way to lie is to hide behind bits and pieces of the truth. I was hoping that I had told him enough truth that he would stop peeling back the layers. To make my story even more convincing, I said, “You kidnapped me too soon. I asked an FBI agent last night in Yonkers for help identifying Isabella’s stalker. If you’d waited a week or so, we’d have had him.”

  I had intentionally mentioned meeting with Coyle because I now suspected that it had been Nunzio and his goons following me home from IHOP. I was trying to corroborate my own story.

  Apparently, my dodge worked because instead of asking me more about the stalker, he said, “Your boss called Persico in for a lineup. That means he did it. He killed Isabella.”

  “Not necessarily,” I said. I knew I was being recorded and didn’t want to explain how that lineup had been a publicity stunt, so I asked, “You ever been called in for a lineup when you were innocent? People get called in all the time. Don’t you think we’d have arrested Persico by now if we knew he’d done it? You know how much heat is on us about this? If we were convinced, he’d be in jail.”

  My last comment must have triggered something because I heard him step away from me, turn off the recorder, and walk to the door, which I heard open and close. I assumed he was going out of the room to report to Nunzio and to get further instructions since I was obviously not telling him the answers that they wanted to hear. Knowing what I did about the mob, I figured the next round of questioning was not going to be as easy or as painless.

  I sat there listening to the only sound in the room—the annoying buzz of the fluorescent lights. And then I heard a different sound. A frightening sound. It was the sound of gunfire.

  27

  “Dani! You okay?”

  It wasn’t one of Charlie’s Angels who’d come to rescue me.

  It was Coyle.

  I felt fingers untying the hood. He pulled it off and I squinted until my eyes could adjust while he dropped to his feet to untie my ankles and then moved to the back of the chair to undo the ropes and handcuffs.

  “Lucky for you, most handcuffs use the same keys,” he said. “Can you stand?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  He took my arm and helped pull me to my feet. For the first time, I was able to see where I had been held. We were inside an abandoned, walk-in storage freezer, which explained the odd noise the door made when it was opened and closed. As I had suspected, there was a reel-to-reel tape recorder on a table a few feet from the chair where I’d been bound. I removed the microphone that was still duct-taped to my chest.

  “Nunzio and his men?” I asked.

  “They won’t be hurting you. I’ve dealt with them.”

  “Dead?”

  He nodded.

  “Where’s everyone else?”

  “I’m alone,” he said. “I didn’t have time to wait.”

  “They knocked me out. How long have I been here?”

  “Not long.”

  “It felt like hours,” I said. “How’d you find me?”

  Coyle looked sheepish and said, “You told me not to follow you and I didn’t. At first. Then I changed my mind. I turned around and drove to your house. Don’t be angry at me.”

  “Angry? Thank you for not listening to me!”

  I put my arms around him and gave him a hug. He leaned down and kissed me hard on my lips. I hadn’t expected that, but I didn’t resist. I wasn’t sure if the reason was gratitude or if there was something that I had secretly wanted.

  “We need to go,” he said. “Staying here isn’t safe.”

  Coyle led me out of the freezer door, pausing only long enough to retrieve a twelve-gauge pump shotgun that he’d apparently used during my rescue and leaned against the wall when he’d come inside the freezer. We hurried down a narrow hallway and entered what looked like an old employee lunchroom.

  “Nunzio owns this old warehouse,” Coyle said, “but it’s been boarded up for years.”

  “He didn’t stop using that abandoned freezer for beating people,” I said.

  “You could have screamed your heart out and no one would have heard.”

  Again, I felt grateful that Coyle had found me.

  There were steel tables bolted to the floor in the lunchroom and as we started to make our way through them, I saw a body on floor. It was a man with a gaping hole in his chest.

  “He was supposed to be a lookout,” Coyle said.

  A half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a half-eaten sandwich were on the table closest to the corpse.

  “Where’s Nunzio?” I asked.

  “A room next to the freezer along with his second in command.”

  “The man interrogating me,” I said.

  “That’s right,” Coyle said. “Let me guess, Nunzio was trying to get proof that the Butcher had killed Isabella.”

  “Just like you predicted. Only one odd thing.”

  “What?”

  “Nunzio’s underboss claimed they hadn’t killed the Mancinis or Marco Ricci. That doesn’t make sense.”

  “They were lying. Don’t worry about it.”

  We reached an exit and stepped outside into the early morning air. A black limo was parked close by. It had to be Nunzio’s.

  “I’m parked around the front of the building,” Coyle explained. “Follow me.”

  We’d hurried across the back of the warehouse and turned the corner into the building’s side parking lot. I could see Coyle’s unmarked car on the street. I went to the passenger’s side while he opened the trunk and deposited his shotgun before getting behind the wheel.

  “I need to call this in,” he said, reaching for the car’s two-way radio.

  “Why didn’t you call for backup on your way here?” I asked. It was the prosecutor in me kicking in.

  I thought I saw a flash of anger in Coyle’s eyes. He didn’t like me questioning him.

  “I told you,” he said. “When I got to your house, I saw them driving away. I had no way of knowing that they’d kidnapped you. You could’ve been sound asleep inside your house. I followed them here. It wasn’t until I saw them carrying you into the warehouse that I knew what they had done. At that point, I had to act fast. Once they got you into the warehouse I knew I was dealing with a hostage situation or worse. I got my shotgun and came in after you.”

  I reached over, touched his hand, and said apologetically, “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t rescued me.”

  “I do,” he said. “You’d have ended up buried in the Meadowlands.”

  “I’m not so sure. I was told they were going to let me go.”

  “Don’t be naïve,” he said.

  The first wave of emergency vehicles began arriving at the warehouse with
in minutes. I was hustled into an ambulance that parked near the back entrance even though I assured everyone I hadn’t been injured. The next familiar face I saw was O’Brien’s. He knocked on the ambulance door and stepped inside, where a paramedic was taking my blood pressure.

  “What the hell happened?” he asked.

  “It was Nunzio and his goons. They kidnapped me outside my house. They were trying to get me to tell them that Persico killed Isabella Ricci.”

  “You hurt?”

  “Not to worry. My childbearing days are over.”

  “Nunzio hit you?”

  “No, one of his goons.”

  The paramedic gave me a thumbs-up.

  There was another knock on the ambulance door.

  “Let’s go outside,” I said.

  FBI Agent Longhorn and D.A. Whitaker were waiting next to Coyle in the parking lot.

  “How you doing?” Whitaker asked.

  “A bit shaken, but fine.”

  “Nunzio has some balls kidnapping a prosecuting attorney,” Whitaker said.

  “Had some balls,” Longhorn said, correcting him. “My boy here is quite a hero.” Someone hollered my name so I turned and saw Will, who was standing on the opposite side of the bright yellow crime-scene tape that had been stretched around the warehouse’s perimeter.

  “Just a moment,” I said, walking toward him.

  Judging from Will’s face, I must have looked horrible. My hair was a tangled mess. Whatever makeup I’d been wearing had been smeared by the wet hood that had been covering my face. I also was beginning to feel the impact of having bruised ribs and was walking slowly.

  “Tell me you’re okay,” Will said. He reached out his arms to embrace me.

  “I’m sore as hell, but no broken bones,” I said, stopping on the opposite side of the tape, well outside his reach.

  Will gave me a puzzled look. “I was afraid I’d lost you.”

  My intent was not to be cruel but my words came out in a burst of pent-up frustration and emotion. “Lost me? Like you lost your baby?”

  Will looked hurt.

  “I know about your baby, Will!” I exclaimed. “I know about the SDS protests, about Moonbeams being sent to prison, and Stardust being suffocated. I know all of it—the drugs—everything that you kept hidden from me. And that hurts—even more than what happened to me tonight.”

  Coyle tugged on my sleeve. “We need to go. You can deal with him later.”

  “Leave her alone,” Will said. “This doesn’t concern you.”

  “We’re just trying to do our jobs here,” Coyle said.

  “He’s right, Will,” I said. “This isn’t the time or the place.”

  I turned with Coyle and started to walk back toward the others.

  “Are you Agent Coyle?” Will called after us.

  Coyle glanced over his shoulder and shot him a cocky grin.

  “Yeah, that’s me. I’m the one who thinks you’re an asshole.”

  28

  “Agent Longhorn and I are going to hold a joint press conference later today,” Whitaker announced the moment we got back to the ambulance.

  “I’m not sure I’m up for that,” I replied. I was both physically and emotionally exhausted. The last thing I needed was to have reporters shouting questions at me—assuming Whitaker and Longhorn planned to let me actually talk at their press briefing.

  “Not a problem, little lady,” Longhorn declared. “We’ll let Agent Coyle cover for you, like he did tonight!”

  I ignored his dig. Let the boys bask in the spotlight.

  Agent Coyle volunteered to drive me home, but I asked O’Brien to do it. I noticed other reporters gathering outside the yellow-taped perimeter. Several television news trucks with antennas jutting from their rooftops had arrived. Word about the kidnapping and Nunzio’s death was spreading.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said to O’Brien. “I don’t need anyone taking my photo. Mom will kill me if I’m in the paper looking like this.”

  O’Brien escorted me to his car, but not before several photographers started snapping pictures. “Find a back way out of here, please,” I told him.

  Rather than drive out the front of the parking lot, past the crowd assembled there, O’Brien headed behind the warehouse into an alley that dumped us out several streets away. The sun was starting to rise.

  I glanced through the passenger window at the closed buildings that lined the empty streets. I didn’t see any people, but there was plenty of graffiti and trash, especially broken bottles. “O’Brien, where the hell are we?”

  “A wharf area along the Hudson, on the Jersey side,” he said. “Most of these warehouses closed years ago.”

  We rode in silence. As we approached the Holland Tunnel, I looked at the Manhattan skyline and thought about the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who were waking up to begin their day. They would soon be scurrying inside the city, some destined for church, others to brunch, still others to visit family or shop or go to museums. For most, this would be a routine Sunday. But I realized I was lucky to see this sunrise—thanks to Agent Coyle.

  I’m not usually quiet when O’Brien and I are riding together. O’Brien noticed: “Out with it.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I replied.

  “It’s Will?”

  “I don’t want to think about him.”

  “We’ll talk about the weather.”

  “I just can’t understand,” I said, “how he could hide his past from me.”

  “So the FBI has some dirt on good old Will, huh?” O’Brien said with a smirk. “Big deal.”

  I realized that O’Brien didn’t have a clue about what was in the FBI file, because only I had read it.

  He said, “So what’d your reporter boyfriend do? Spray-paint graffiti on a federal building? Forget to put enough stamps on a letter? Or drive across state lines with his high school girlfriend? He don’t exactly strike me as the dangerous type.”

  “He fathered a baby who was murdered by its mother. That’s not an insignificant detail from your past that you forget to mention.”

  “Dani,” O’Brien said in a now-serious voice, “no one hides good things from their past.”

  “But how could he lie to me like this? What else don’t I know?”

  “In Will’s defense, lots of men do stupid things in college.”

  “Stupid things? Stupid is getting drunk and running naked across campus,” I replied. “It’s not failing to realize that your baby is being smothered because you’re too stoned to hear.”

  “Coyle shouldn’t have sent you Will’s files,” O’Brien said. “That was a dirty trick.”

  “He wanted to warn me.”

  “Bullshit! Coyle’s been sniffing around you like a dog in heat.”

  “Thanks for that warm-and-fuzzy image.”

  “His John Wayne heroics at the warehouse this morning are going to be tough for Will to match.”

  I thought about how relieved I’d felt when I’d heard Coyle’s voice in that warehouse freezer.

  “Does Nunzio have sons?” I asked, abruptly changing the subject.

  “Yeah, a couple, all shitheads like their old man. Why? I don’t think they’ll be coming after you.”

  “It wasn’t me I was thinking about. Do you think one of them would take up their father’s vigilante crusade against Persico?”

  “Who cares? Let those guinea bastards all kill one another.”

  “You’re such a tough guy,” I said mockingly.

  “Let me tell you a story,” O’Brien said as we entered the tunnel.

  I prepared myself for one of his “from the O’Brien files” reminiscences and smiled.

  “When I was working the street, there was a little old man who owned a clock shop. He could fix about anything, just a self-taught Irishman tinker. People brought him stuff and he made it work. One day, this guinea bastard sees the old man’s granddaughter walking into the store. She was just a kid, maybe fifteen. But she�
�s a beauty so he waits for the shop to close and when they come out, he beats the old man to death on the sidewalk and rapes the girl.”

  “That’s awful,” I said.

  O’Brien honked at the car in front of us. “That old man never lifted a finger against anyone and his poor granddaughter was never the same.”

  “What happened to the dirtbag?”

  “Not a damn thing. He was Johnny Battaglia and his old man paid off the cops, the judges; he had everybody in his pocket.”

  “The same Johnny Battaglia who’s in prison now? The head of the Battaglia family?”

  “The same. He took over after his father died. He’s the bastard pulling Persico’s strings from prison. A real wop son of a bitch. I say let ’em all kill each other.”

  I knew O’Brien had investigated hundreds of homicides but this one seemed different.

  “You knew the clock shop owner?” I asked, taking a guess.

  “Knew him? I was married to his daughter but the girl wasn’t mine. Her first husband died.”

  I knew that O’Brien had been married a couple of times, but no details.

  As we emerged from the tunnel into Manhattan, he said, “I was a cop and I couldn’t protect them. Sometimes, Dani, the people you love let you down.”

  29

  Mom was waiting at my house when we got there. O’Brien had tipped her off and had arranged for a squad car to be parked out front to keep pesky reporters from disturbing me. The phone was ringing when I went inside with O’Brien and Mom.

  “Do me a favor, O’Brien,” I said. “Unplug my phone while I feed Wilbur.”

  By the time I returned to the kitchen, Mom had made coffee, brought out the tabouli, and was warming up the chicken with rice that she’d brought over.

  “I gotta get goin’,” O’Brien said.

  “You need to have some food,” Mom insisted.

  “Just a bite.”

  After two huge helpings, O’Brien pushed back from the table and I walked him to the front door.

  “Thanks,” I said, giving him a quick hug.

  “For what? Taxi service?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Taxi service.”