Rizzo’s Fire

by Lou Manfredo

  Rizzo nodded. “I thought so. Anyway, Uncle Jim kneels down right on the sidewalk in his good suit, probably the only one he owned. He puts his hand on my shoulder and gets real serious, looks me right in the eye. ‘Kid,’ he says. ‘Relax. This is just to make your mother happy, that’s all. So just relax. At the end of the day, it’s all just bullshit.’ ”

  “What an upliftin’ Christian message of hope,” Priscilla said.

  “Wasn’t it, though? But this here Lauria case. It brought old Uncle Jim to mind.”

  Priscilla’s brow furrowed. “Why? I don’t get it.”

  Rizzo reached for a third Chesterfield. “I dunno, Cil, maybe ’cause that’s what this case looks like. Maybe, at the end a the day, it’s all just bullshit.”

  He lit the cigarette, eyeing her through the smoke.

  “All just bullshit,” he said again.

  AT SEVEN o’clock Tuesday evening, Jennifer Rizzo took a seat next to her husband on the double recliner in the den of their Brooklyn home. She turned and smiled into his dark brown eyes, noting the TV listings in his hand.

  “I’m very proud of you, Joe,” she said.

  He looked puzzled. “Proud of me?”

  “The invitation,” she said. “To Priscilla and Karen for Thanksgiving. You’ve come a long way, baby. You’re maturing nicely.”

  “Maturing? I’m eighty friggin’ years old.”

  Jennifer shook her head. “Not quite. Let’s not rush things, time is flying by fast enough. But I am proud of you. And impressed with your bravery.”

  “Bravery?”

  “Yes, Joe, bravery. The girls and I will welcome your guests with open arms. But we will also disavow any and all responsibility for their presence. As far as my mother and your mother are concerned, this will have been your idea and yours alone.” Jennifer paused, smiling again. “It takes a very brave man to face that. Just remember: there’s a difference between bravery and stupidity.”

  Rizzo wrinkled his brow. “What?”

  Jennifer raised a pointer finger as she replied. “Inviting them was bravery,” she said flatly. “Not checking with me first—that was stupidity.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  WEDNESDAY MORNING AT SEVEN-FORTY, Jackson sat at her desk in the Six-Two squad room. She fingered some precinct crime reports, scanning them perfunctorily, initialing them with an absent mind.

  Her mother. Priscilla shook her head slightly, frowning at Karen’s continued insistence on a reconnection.

  “Can’t reconnect somethin’ never was connected to begin with,” she said softly.

  In the chaos that had been her childhood, the one facet of Priscilla’s character and personality that had proven instrumental to her ultimate survival had been her deeply ingrained pragmatism. At an age when most young girls were hanging posters of pop stars and gossiping on the telephone, she had been dealing with her mother’s alcoholism and all its inherent baggage. Priscilla had soon come to a self-preserving conclusion: the act of birthing a child was merely the physical manifestation of the biological rules of nature. In and of itself, it conferred no special powers or privileges, talents or virtues. It was the simple culmination of an earlier physical act, unrelated and even alien to any professed blessings of maternal love.

  An actual mother, Priscilla realized, was a woman who loved you unconditionally, stood by you, taught you, nurtured you. A woman who would never abandon or hurt you by virtue of careless acts of indifference and selfish neglect.

  By Priscilla’s definition, the reality of her own life was that she never had a mother. Not as a child, not as an adolescent. And certainly not as an adult.

  Priscilla sighed heavily. Her partner, she realized, could never come to such a conclusion about her own life. Karen had bestowed the magical, mystical qualities of a child’s love upon the woman who had given her birth. She could never understand the consequences—the torment, the anguish, the agony—Wanda Jackson’s maternal failures had imposed.

  An empty coldness spread slowly within Priscilla’s chest, memories straining beneath veils of darkness, struggling to reach her consciousness. She willed them away, forcing them into the abyss of the deepest corner of her soul.

  “Fuck it,” she said aloud, bitterly.

  “Fuck what?” she heard.

  Raising her eyes, she found herself looking into the curious face of Joe Rizzo. He stood at her desk, his approach having gone unnoticed.

  “You okay, Cil?” Rizzo asked, concern tugging at his tone. “You look like you just swallowed a rotten clam.”

  She shook her head, clearing it. “These freakin’ precinct reports,” she said, indicating the papers before her. “Pain in my ass readin’ all this, signing off on ’em like it makes a rat’s ass bit of difference if I see them or not.”

  Rizzo’s face remained impassive, and Priscilla realized he didn’t believe her answer. “Okay,” he said. “What ever you say.”

  Later, Priscilla watched as Vince D’Antonio crossed the squad room to Rizzo’s desk and sat down, conferring briefly with her partner.

  Rizzo raised his eyes in her direction, meeting her gaze. He gestured across the room, summoning her. Priscilla rose and walked to his desk.

  “Pull up a chair,” Rizzo said. “We need to work out some details.”

  She slid a chair from the unoccupied desk near Rizzo’s and sat down. “Mornin’, boss,” she said to D’Antonio.

  “Good morning,” the lieutenant said. “I just need a few minutes to get this straight. Rizzo tells me you’re going to interview Lauria’s cousin tomorrow.”

  “Yeah,” Priscilla said. “The M.E. released the body and she’s tied up making funeral arrangements.”

  D’Antonio turned to Rizzo. “Refresh my memory: What’s your schedule look like?”

  “Later today I’ve gotta be at court for a grand jury thing. Tomorrow we got the cousin, then me and Cil are RDO till we start midnights Sunday into Monday, then midnights all next week. Tough to work a homicide from midnight to eight, Vince. Some people like to sleep those hours.”

  D’Antonio considered it. “Look, let’s do this. I’ll reschedule you both for steady days to work the Lauria case. Take RDOs Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. After your interview of the cousin, prepare a laundry list of grunt work you figure needs doing—license plates, phone reviews, and junkie roundup. Somebody needs to check out the relatives of the landlord, see if there’s a potential perp among them. I’ll have the squad handle it all while you’re RDO, then DD-five the results for you by Monday morning. You come in fresh and go to work.”

  Rizzo shrugged. “Monday I’ve got to be at the range, Vince. I already postponed it twice and if I don’t requalify, they rubber gun me and stick me on a desk. I can’t work a homicide from a desk.”

  “So, Tuesday then,” D’Antonio said. “On Monday Cil can review the reports of what the squad got done and work the phones to follow up. Then Tuesday you both hit the streets on it.”

  “I never seen this happen on television, guys,” Priscilla said with a tight smile. “Not even once.”

  “Yeah, well,” said Rizzo. “The world don’t stop turning ’cause two cops caught a homicide. Only people who think that are the ones putting those shows on. And you’ll have to use Monday for more than just Lauria. That counterfeit prescription case, for instance. Those phony Rx’s are turning up all over the borough. Try and get a lead on that girl who worked in the doctor’s office for two weeks, then disappeared. We find her, we find our stolen script pads and our writer.”

  Priscilla stood up. “Okay, Joe, what now?”

  D’Antonio also stood. “I’ll leave you guys alone. Talk to the cousin. Get me that list of things you need done. The squad’ll pitch in.”

  He turned and crossed the room to his office.

  THE FOLLOWING morning, a cold gray November day, with heavy, dark clouds and the faint scent of a threatening early snowfall, the two detectives were speeding eastbound on the Belt Parkway, Priscilla at the wheel.


  Closing the note pad he had been scanning, Rizzo said to Priscilla, “Vince means well, but the squad won’t accomplish nothin’ over the next three days.”

  Priscilla glanced at Rizzo. “Oh? Why’s that?”

  “Well, for one thing, checking out plate numbers is a waste of time. Only reason for it is to see if some out-of-neighborhood car was parked near the scene, maybe the killer’s car. But those plate numbers were taken November tenth, after the body was layin’ in the apartment ten, twelve days. It don’t mean a goddamned thing whose car was parked where on the tenth. We need to know who was there the date of the murder.”

  “A date we don’t even know,” Priscilla said.

  “Yeah, exactly.”

  “Well, what about Lauria’s phone record?” Priscilla asked. “Vince said the squad would get it for us.”

  “Yeah. That might help, but I doubt it. We’ll see.”

  “Maybe,” Priscilla said tentatively, “we should cancel our RDOs, come in the next few days.”

  Rizzo shook his head. “No, let the squad do some of the work, it won’t kill them. It has to be done, even if it won’t help us. I especially don’t want to do the junkie roundup. Let them handle it. After I qualify at the range Monday, we can focus on Lauria. One day at a time.”

  “What ever you think, Joe.”

  They rode in silence until they reached the house in Canarsie. It was a two-story, semiattached one-family home. The house was neatly kept with a concrete driveway on the left side leading to a detached one-car garage.

  Priscilla glanced at the dash clock. “Right on time,” she said. It was eleven a.m.

  MaryAnn Carbone, Robert Lauria’s first cousin, was a thirty-eight-year-old house wife and part-time school aide. She was expecting them, and once the three were seated at the large kitchen table, Rizzo spoke across to the sad-eyed woman.

  “We’ll try not to take up too much of your time, Mrs. Carbone,” he said. “Just some routine questions.”

  “Of course,” she said. “I understand. I hope I can help somehow … I wish my husband were here.” Her voice trailed off. “It’s just unbelievable. I mean, you hear about this stuff, read about it … but …”

  “Yes,” Priscilla said. “It’s a shock. We understand.”

  Carbone nodded. Then she said, “I can call my husband, if you’d like. He can be here in fifteen minutes.”

  Rizzo cleared his throat, slipping the Parker from his inner jacket pocket and flipping open his note pad.

  “Hold off on that,” he said. “We’ll call him later if we need to. Let’s get started. We’ll ask some questions, you answer as best you can, okay?”

  Still silent, the woman nodded again.

  “When was the last time you saw Robbie?” he asked.

  “About two months ago, maybe. No, wait, I went to his place around Columbus Day, that weekend. My internist is in Bensonhurst, and I was in the area, so I stopped in to see Robbie.”

  Rizzo glanced at the calendar page of his notebook, then raised his eyes to Mrs. Carbone.

  “Columbus Day was celebrated Monday, October thirteenth. When did you see the doctor? Saturday, the eleventh?”

  She thought for a moment. “It must have been. He doesn’t have hours on Sunday, just half-days on Saturday. It must have been.”

  “How was Robbie that day?”

  “He was Robbie,” she said. “He was always the same. Quiet. Polite. In his pajamas, by himself.” She sighed. “He was just Robbie.”

  “I see,” Rizzo said.

  “Did he have anyone in his life who could have done this to him, Mrs. Carbone?” Priscilla asked. “A friend, an acquaintance, a coworker—anyone like that?”

  Carbone seemed confused, glancing from one cop to the other.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “I thought it was a breakin. A burglar.”

  “Who told you that?” Rizzo asked.

  “The young cop who came here. He told me there was a breakin and that Robbie had been killed.”

  Priscilla nodded. “That’s what it looks like, ma’am.”

  “But you don’t seem to be convinced,” she said.

  Rizzo interjected. “We need to check all the possibilities, Mrs. Carbone,” he said. “Did your cousin have anyone like that? Anyone who could’ve gotten mad at him, mad enough to kill?”

  She shook her head forcefully. “Absolutely not. Robbie was a lost soul, Sergeant. As far as I know, he didn’t have a single friend, not since he was a young boy. The only kids he ever played with were me and my brother and another cousin or two.”

  Rizzo jotted a note, then raised his eyes to Carbone. “Has your brother stayed in touch with Robbie?” he asked.

  “My brother hasn’t seen Robbie in ten years.”

  “Oh?” Rizzo said.

  “My brother’s in the Air Force, Sergeant. Has been for over twenty years. He’s currently stationed in the Middle East in Kuwait. He’s been there for six months.”

  “What’s your brother’s name?” Rizzo asked.

  “My brother didn’t murder Robbie, Sergeant Rizzo,” she said without anger.

  “Of course not,” Rizzo agreed. “I just want to give him a call. In Kuwait. Ask him a few questions, like I’m doin’ here with you.”

  The woman laughed. “Non mi pisciare sulla gamba e poi dirmi che sta piovendo,” she said.

  Now Rizzo replied in kind. “Non farei mai una cosa del genere, Signora Carbone,” he said casually.

  The woman appeared stunned. “Oh. I didn’t realize you spoke … you would understand …”

  Rizzo waved a casual hand at her.

  “Forget it,” he said pleasantly. “Happens all the time, but I’d like your brother’s name and contact info, if you don’t mind. And those other cousins you mentioned, and maybe you should call your husband now.”

  “I’ll get it for you, and call him. He can be here in a few minutes,” she said, still flustered. She stood and quickly left the room.

  Priscilla leaned inward toward Rizzo. “What’d she say?” she asked in low tones.

  Smiling, Rizzo replied. “She said, ‘Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining,’ ” he said happily. “I told her I’d never do anything like that.”

  Priscilla laughed. “I’ve heard that expression,” she said. “Sounds a lot classier in Italian, though.”

  Rizzo chuckled. “Cil,” he said with a wink, “everything is classier in Italian.”

  When Mrs. Carbone returned, calmer now, they continued their questioning.

  “How often did you see your cousin?” Rizzo asked.

  “Not very often. Holidays, mostly. Robbie would come here.” Her eyes filled with tears. “He was supposed to be coming for Thanksgiving.”

  “Was he ever married?”

  “No. I don’t think he ever even had a girlfriend.”

  “Was he heterosexual?” Jackson asked.

  Carbone raised her shoulders. “Well,” she said, “if I had to guess, I’d say he was—what’da you call it?—no sexual?”

  “Asexual,” Priscilla said.

  “Yes. Maybe that. I don’t know. But definitely not queer. I’d have known that. I can always spot them.”

  “How’d he spend his time?” Rizzo asked, with a glance at Priscilla. “Any hobbies, interests, anything like that?”

  She looked from one to the other, settling her gaze on Rizzo, but avoiding eye contact.

  “No,” she said, a casual lilt in her tone. “Not that I know of.”

  Priscilla leaned forward. “What about his writing, Mrs. Carbone?” she asked pointedly.

  The woman seemed surprised. “Oh, that … You know about that?”

  “Yeah, we do,” Rizzo said. “We found a suitcase full of manuscripts in his closet. They date back over twenty years.”

  Jackson spoke up. “And a shoe box of rejection slips, too. In his dresser drawer.”

  Rizzo tapped his pen against the note pad. “You know, Mrs. Carbone, your obliga
tion to Robbie is to help us out here. We can’t be pullin’ teeth on every little detail. You’ve gotta help us find out who killed him, not protect secrets that died with him. Anything from his personal life could be relevant if he was killed deliberately and not by a random burglar. I been doin’ this a long time, Mrs. Carbone, and even I can’t guess what may or may not be important. So please, don’t you try. Just answer our questions as fully as you can. Okay?”

  “Of course,” she said. “I understand. But Robbie told no one about his writing. Only me. It was a very personal thing for him, a secret.”

  Priscilla spoke warmly, trying to establish a bond of trust with the woman. “Well, that speaks highly for you. I know how private a thing like that can be. Believe me. He must have respected you a great deal to confide in you like he did.”

  “I’m not sure about that, Detective Jackson,” Carbone said with a sad smile. “Robbie liked me, of course, and in his own way, maybe he loved me. I was really his only relative. No one else in the family has seen or spoken to him in years, except for the occasional holiday when they may have seen him at my house.”

  “Well, believe me,” Priscilla said, “if he let you in on his writing, he had to think you were very special.”

  Carbone dipped her head from side to side. “Personally, Detective Jackson, I think it was more about storage space than anything else.”

  “Oh?” Rizzo asked. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, Robbie needed a place to safeguard his manuscripts. See, in addition to his other idiosyncrasies, he was a little paranoid, always worrying that his apartment might burn down and his writings would be destroyed. So he’d bring copies of his works here. For safekeeping. That’s probably the only reason he told me about his writing.”

  Priscilla spoke. “So you have some of his belongings here, in the house?”

  “Well, not really belongings. Just manuscripts, stories, stuff like that.” She looked from one cop to the other. “They’re in the garage. In an old suitcase.”

  After a moment of silence, Mrs. Carbone continued. “It’s so sad,” she said, her eyes welling up again. “Robbie wasn’t a bad guy, just odd. But he was family.” She looked from Rizzo to Jackson. “And that’s what’s important, you know.”