Clever Fox

by Jeanine Pirro

  At this point, I was simply going through the motions.

  “No, Your Honor,” I said. “The people rest.”

  “Mr. Gallo, you may begin your defense.”

  “Your Honor, we ask that the jury be excluded at this time. We have an application to the court.”

  “Fine, bailiff, remove the jury,” Judge Cerrato said.

  Here it comes, I thought.

  Gallo immediately asked that the murder charge against his client be dismissed because the state had not established its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

  Judge Cerrato looked down at me and said, “In my many years on the bench, I have not seen such a flimsy excuse for a murder charge. Ms. Fox, as a representative of the people, you are responsible for upholding the highest standards of conduct. The eyewitness identification of Persico by Agent Coyle in view of Mr. Mancini’s statement in the newspaper creates substantial doubt regarding that eyewitness identification. The fact that Agent Coyle would believe that Persico had committed a murder and the FBI did not bother to obtain a search warrant for the supposed bloody clothing that Persico wore at the crime scene and changed out of at the butcher shop later that afternoon raises serious doubt in my mind regarding Agent Coyle’s testimony and the value of this circumstantial evidence.”

  I thought about defending Coyle by stating the obvious—that an experienced killer such as the Butcher would have known to destroy bloody clothing after a murder—but it seemed pointless. Judge Cerrato was in no mood to be interrupted.

  “Further,” he said, “I have heard no evidence in this case that links Persico to this murder other than the circumstantial evidence that you have thrown at him, hoping it will stick. The only evidence you have is Agent Coyle’s testimony, which frankly I find to be questionable in terms of its credibility and problematic in that Agent Coyle failed to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence as required by Brady v. Maryland. For these reasons, I am granting the defense’s motion and dismissing the charge lodged against Mr. Persico.”

  Judge Cerrato turned his attention to the Butcher. “Sir,” he said, “you are free to go and on behalf of this court, I would like to publicly apologize to you for the time that you have spent in jail awaiting this trial.”

  As soon as the judge left the room, Gallo and Conti hugged their client. I heard cussing from behind me and noticed the Nunzio family members hurrying from the courtroom.

  Agent Coyle tugged on my arm.

  “Dani,” he said. “Look, I’m really sorry about how—”

  “Don’t talk to me!” I exclaimed. I shoved my files into my briefcase and marched out of the courtroom. A gaggle of reporters had surrounded Gallo, Conti, and their client as soon as they exited the building. I watched Gallo break away to answer questions and, undoubtedly, assail me and our office, while Conti and Persico continued toward a waiting car.

  The mobster and his lawyer were about ten feet from the limousine when a man wearing a black jogging suit appeared from a car parked nearby with a raised handgun. The sound of his pistol firing caused immediate panic as reporters and onlookers scrambled for cover or fell to the ground. The attacker’s first shot hit Persico in his chest, knocking him to the sidewalk. A stunned Conti stood in shock over his client, uncertain what to do. The gunman continued to shoot as he walked deliberately toward Persico, this time aiming at the Butcher’s face.

  Crack. Crack. Crack.

  Each shot caused Persico’s body to shake from the bullet’s impact. I sensed movement from behind me and remained standing still as two court security guards burst from the building’s entrance with their guns drawn. Both began firing at the assailant. A White Plains police officer who had been standing across the street when the first shots were fired ran toward the lone gunman. As I watched, Persico’s assailant collapsed, discharging his final two shots into the sidewalk near his feet. Within seconds, it was over. Persico was dead and so was his killer. One bystander had been wounded by a stray shot. A reporter had a busted nose from being hit by a television camera when its operator swung the heavy device sideways, pointing away from Gallo to take footage of the shooter. Defense Attorney Conti was rushed to a hospital after complaining of chest pains.

  The assailant who’d killed Persico would be identified later as a low-level member of the Gaccione crime family. I wondered if he had voted for Whitaker in his last campaign, because he’d certainly done our office a favor by giving the evening news a more sensational story to lead with that night than our blotched courtroom drama.

  38

  I felt beat-up when I arrived at my office the following morning. I’d not slept well. I could still hear Judge Cerrato’s stinging words in my ears. I had fallen on my sword in the courtroom for a case that I’d been reluctant to prosecute. When I reached my desk, the receptionist informed me that Agent Coyle had already called five times.

  “Good to hear your voice,” Coyle chirped when he came on the line.

  I thought he would be apologetic and ask for forgiveness. Instead, he chattered on about how great it was that Persico had been gunned down outside the courthouse. “An assassin killed the Butcher and I took out Tiny Nunzio. All in all, yesterday didn’t go so badly.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I replied. My profanity got his attention.

  “What’s your problem?” he asked.

  “Don’t try to gloss over what happened in court,” I said. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me about those Brady materials?”

  “I didn’t think they were important.”

  “Judge Cerrato certainly thought they were, didn’t he?” I replied sarcastically. “Gallo and Conti certainly thought they were, didn’t they?”

  “Who cares? They’re assholes. Those tape recordings were a sham. You thought so yourself when you first heard them. Persico’s attorneys just got lucky exploiting a loophole but in the end justice prevailed because Persico is dead.”

  “Justice didn’t prevail and that loophole happens to be federal law,” I said. “You’re an FBI agent sworn to protect those laws. I don’t know whether you’re a crooked cop, a moron, or both!”

  “Who in the hell do you think you are to talk to me like this?” Coyle exploded.

  “Who am I?” I repeated. “I’m the assistant district attorney who got her ass chewed off yesterday by a judge because of your arrogance, stupidity, and your asshole FBI ways.”

  “And I’m the FBI agent who saved that same ass when you were kidnapped. Don’t you ever forget that!”

  The gloves were off and during the next several minutes, our conversation went from ugly to uglier. At one point, I accused the FBI of intentionally withholding the Brady material to undermine our prosecution so that Jack Longhorn and the Justice Department could pursue a federal racketeering case against Persico without us. Coyle called me paranoid and accused me of having a grudge about Longhorn.

  “You’re being dramatic and overreacting,” Coyle said. “Did it ever dawn on you that maybe you aren’t as smart as you think you are?”

  “And who do you think you are, Albert Einstein?” I asked. I couldn’t believe that I’d actually kissed this guy.

  “It’s time you woke up and realized you’re nothing but a two-bit local prosecutor who gets away with her uppity attitude because she has a pair of tits and nice legs. If you weren’t a woman, no one would pay attention to you and your constant whining.”

  I’d tapped into a vicious side of Coyle that I’d not seen before. Before I could react, he let loose with attack. “You lost in court yesterday because you’re a loser, just like your loser, baby-killer boyfriend. I thought maybe Longhorn was wrong about you, but what he told me was dead-on.”

  “Fuck you. I’m going to hang up now,” I said.

  “Longhorn called you a stupid cunt,” he said. “And he was right!”

  I slammed down my phone.

  I was still fuming when O’Brien knocked on my open office door two hours later. I waved him in.

  “Rough day y
esterday,” he said. “You got thrown to the wolves.”

  “I should have told Whitaker to send Vanderhoot to the wolves when they insisted I go forward with that indictment.”

  “That wouldn’t have worked. Whitaker would have canned you for insubordination and then what? Remember that before you, no one gave a damn about battered women around here. You go, and this program goes. I go. Remember that.”

  He was right.

  “Here’s something you got to see,” he said, handing me a folder. “It ain’t pretty.”

  Inside was an eight-by-ten-inch black-and-white photograph of a nude man’s body. The victim had been wrapped with chain and tied to four concrete cinder blocks.

  “A dredging crew fished him out of Kensico Reservoir,” O’Brien explained. “Recognize him?”

  The body was too badly decomposed. I said, “Besides making me wish I hadn’t eaten breakfast, what’s the point of this?”

  “That’s Donnie Gilmore, our sexual stalker.”

  I took another look at the bloated face. “Oh my God! Who did this? A jealous husband?”

  O’Brien said, “Check out his chest.”

  Someone had cut a long slit from Gilmore’s pubic area up to his neck.

  “That lets the gases out so he wouldn’t come floating up,” O’Brien said. “The killer knew what he was doing.”

  “Tiny Nunzio’s crew?” I asked. “Maybe Nunzio found out he was stalking Isabella.”

  “He did more than stalk her,” O’Brien said.

  “We got another homicide tied to the Isabella Ricci murder,” I said, rising from my desk. I walked over and taped the photo of Gilmore on my wall of murder photos.

  “I thought you’d be taking them down today, not putting more up,” O’Brien said as he dropped into the chair across from my desk and helped himself to some of the chocolates that I keep in a bowl for clients. “Your boss won’t be pleased if he drops by and sees your display.”

  “Why do I have to remind you that he’s your boss, too, and Whitaker hasn’t ever darkened my door. He summons us to Mount Olympus.”

  O’Brien said, “Maybe it’s time to get back to domestic abuse cases, Dani. We got other dragons to slay.”

  I pointed up to a photo of Isabella Ricci. It was one that was taken before her brutal murder. It was a head shot and the raven-haired beauty looked like a model. She looked happy.

  “I have this here to remember what she looked like before she was cut to pieces,” I said. “This is the woman I made a promise to on New Year’s Eve.”

  “Your New Year’s resolution,” O’Brien said. “Sometimes, you can’t keep them.”

  “Sometimes,” I replied, “you got to.” I glanced at the wall and said, “I’m missing something. It’s right in front of us but I can’t see it.”

  “Try fresh eyes.”

  “Fresh eyes?”

  “You got a case you can’t figure out. You go back to square one. Start over. Forget about everything you’ve already done.”

  Looking at my files perched in a cardboard box, he said, “The answer is somewhere in that box.”

  I thought about what he said and looked at the photo of Isabella Ricci.

  “O’Brien,” I said, “you’re a genius.”

  “I know,” he said, scooping up another handful of Junior Mints. “What took you so long to figure that out?”

  “The first question that popped into my head when I walked into that apartment and saw Isabella hanging there was ‘Who was her lover?’ And that’s the one question no one has ever answered.”

  “So how are you going to answer it?”

  “By asking the most logical suspect. Little Pauly Persico.”

  39

  “You’re gonna do what?” O’Brien asked, nearly choking on a candy.

  “I’m going to ask Little Pauly if he was having an affair with Isabella Ricci.”

  “His father hasn’t even been planted yet. Probably not the best timing for asking that hothead if he was banging Isabella.”

  “My gut has been telling me from day one that something isn’t right about her murder. It all begins with Isabella Ricci, and if you look at these murders, the only thing they have in common is her death.”

  “Maybe you just got bad gas,” O’Brien said. “That’s why your stomach hurts.”

  I picked up my bag and started out the door.

  “Christ almighty, wait for me,” he complained, scrambling out of his chair. “I’ll drive you. But you’re gonna get us both killed.”

  Nicholas Persico’s house was on a hilltop in the historic Cedar Knolls neighborhood of Bronxville, about fifteen minutes from his Yonkers butcher shop. Built in the 1920s in a Spanish style, it had a light yellow stucco exterior, a red tile roof, and was surrounded by manicured grounds. All of the windows were protected by iron grillwork but there was no wall around the property.

  O’Brien parked across the street and motioned toward several black Lincolns stationed directly in front of the residence. All of them had drivers and none of those men looked especially welcoming.

  “Dani, the fact that you’re an A.D.A. and a woman isn’t going to mean squat,” he said.

  I flung open the car door and started across the street. One of the chauffeurs saw me and immediately stepped from his Lincoln to block the stone walkway leading to the house. “Where you going?” he asked.

  “I’m Assistant District Attorney Dani Fox from the Westchester District Attorney’s Office and the man coming up behind me is Detective Thomas O’Brien,” I announced.

  “So what?” he replied, giving me the once-over with his eyes. “I’ve seen you at the courthouse. You got a lot of balls showing up here.”

  I started to walk around him, but he turned and blocked my path.

  “You got a warrant? ’Cause this is private property,” he said.

  “You an attorney moonlighting as a driver?” I asked sarcastically. I noticed that four other drivers had encircled us.

  “Nobody goes up to the house without an invite from the family and I know you don’t got one of them.”

  O’Brien seemed nonplussed about the odds, but I knew he didn’t want to put me in danger. He said, “Maybe we should come back later.”

  But I stood my ground. “Tell Little Pauly that I don’t think his father killed Isabella Ricci. I’m here to help clear his name and possibly avoid more violence between the Gacciones and Battaglias.”

  The driver sneered. “You kidding me? Aren’t you the broad who was just busting Mr. Persico’s balls in court?”

  “If Little Pauly hears I was here and you didn’t let me talk to him, then it will be your balls that will be getting busted.”

  The driver pondered that for a moment and then said, “Wait here.”

  Everyone watched as he walked up the stone path. None of the other knuckle-draggers around us spoke. They simply tried to look threatening. It worked. Finally, the driver returned from the mountaintop.

  “Little Pauly says you can come up but not the cop. And I need to check you for a wire.”

  “You gotta be kidding.”

  “Them’s the rules.”

  “You do not put your hands on me,” I said firmly. “But if there’s a woman up at the house, she can frisk away.”

  He just stared, so I added, “And if you or anyone here lays a finger on me, I’ll see to it that you’re arrested for assault.”

  The driver looked up at the house and then back at me. Little Pauly must have been waiting. “Okay,” he said. “You come but the cop stays put.”

  “You sure you want to go up there alone?” O’Brien asked.

  “It’s probably safer than being here with these guys,” I said.

  “You got fifteen minutes,” O’Brien said. “You’ve already been kidnapped once.”

  I started to move to the steps, but the driver stopped me. “Hey, no purse. You could have a gun in there.”

  Actually, I did. I handed my bag to O’Brien to hold, which caus
ed the goons watching him to break into ugly grins. I fell into step behind my tour guide and walked up the hill to the front arched door, which was painted bright red and protected by a thick iron grille. He rapped on the door and one of the biggest men I’ve ever seen unlocked the gate. I stepped into a narrow foyer with a large mirror and pale yellow walls.

  “She ain’t been checked for a wire,” the driver said. “She wants a woman to frisk her.”

  The giant said, “Don’t move—both of you.” He disappeared through an archway to our left and returned moments later with a familiar face: Angelica Persico from the butcher’s shop and courtroom. She had been crying and at first I thought her tears had caused her mascara to run, but on second glance, I saw that she had two black eyes. “Leave us alone,” she told the two men. “I’ll call you after I’m done.”

  “Little Pauly told me to stay put,” the brute said.

  “And I just told you to get the hell out of here and give us some privacy,” she replied. Speaking to the driver, Angelica said, “You can go back out to the car.”

  Both men looked nervously at each other and did as she had ordered.

  “Thank you,” I said softly. “I’m not wearing a wire.”

  She gave me an angry look. “Take off your jacket and unbutton your blouse. Otherwise, Paul won’t meet with you.”

  “What?”

  “I need to see your chest and feel your back.”

  I got the impression that this was more about Little Pauly lording his power over me than checking for a wire. I happened to be wearing a pantsuit—gray pants with a gray jacket over a checkered silk top with gray and white polka dots. I removed the jacket and undid the buttons, opening my shirt a crack to expose my abdomen. I wasn’t wearing a bra. “Take off the blouse or stand still while I touch you,” she said.

  I didn’t like the idea of being topless so I said, “Feel away.”