by Dana Donovan
“You mean that?”
“Yes! This equipment is topnotch.”
“No. I mean you really have a cottage in Rhode Island?”
He looked at me and winced. “Yeah, about that. It’s a shack, really. I was going to tell you about it.”
I plugged his arm with a stiff punch. “Forget it.” He fell back, but caught himself on replanted footing. “Listen. Do you really believe I can help you with your case?”
“Tony, listen,” he said, and I have never seen a more serious look on his face before. “You’re the best I know at this game. You’re old school, but your aptitude for understanding criminal behavior is uncanny, and your deductive talents are immeasurable. I think we owe it to Karen Webber and the other women to do this.”
“And to Travis,” I said. I put my hand out and we shook on it. “All right, then. Where do we start?”
“My office. This way.”
“You have an office?”
We started down a long hallway, past a checkpoint where they issued me a temporary VIP pass and scanned me for weapons.
“It’s not really an office,” he said, as we single-filed through a door that required him sliding an ID card through a barcode reader before opening. “We call it a think tank, though I suppose that term really means something else. Anyway, you’ll see.”
We went through a door that opened into another hallway, this one wider and longer with a carpeted floor and acoustic-paneled ceiling that absorbed stray sounds like a recording studio. Along the walls, large plate glass windows overlooked rooms with smartly organized computer desks, workstations and oversized conference tables. Carlos told me they were branch offices for every municipality in the county, designed to allow representatives and first responders from each to communicate with state and federal government entities in times of crises. When I asked him which room was New Castle’s, he said, “I’m not supposed to tell you.” Then he pointed to the third window on the left.
Further down the hall, we came to another door, this one perpendicular to the main hall. Carlos swiped his card through the reader on the wall. The door buzzed and let us in. This led to another hallway like the last, only there all the rooms were considerably smaller and the plate glass windows were etched with the emblems of the police departments working behind them. I noticed that the room designated for the New Castle PD was larger than the others. When asked why, Carlos explained that the other municipalities only share police resources at the justice center, whereas New Castle’s entire police force worked from that single location.
“So then this is the entire NCPD now?” I asked.
“Oh, this is only the detectives’ area,” he replied, smiling. “The uniforms still work downstairs where booking and processing takes place. There’s no need for them to go through all the layers of security that we go through here. Come, I’ll show you my workstation.”
I followed Carlos behind the glass where he introduced me to the gang. Some I knew, old faces I had worked with for years. Others were not so familiar. We headed to the back of the room where the best desks sat situated by the outside windows overlooking the parking lot. It wasn’t the greatest view, but it was a view, and that’s more than what I had with my old desk for nearly forty years.
Carlos sat down and motioned for me to take a seat across the desk from him. There were no cubicles or half-walls separating his workspace from those of his coworkers. But careful placement of potted trees and furniture-styled filing cabinets, along with cushioned chairs and muted-colored carpeting, gave the room warm character and an impression of personalized space. I kicked back in my chair and started to prop my feet up on the desk, when Carlos shot me a look as if I might burn the place down with just the thought of it. I apologized with a simple, “Sorry,” and he dismissed it with a wave.
A young man entered the office area. I say young because he looked like a kid to me, skinny, glasses, crew-cut hair and one of them pen protectors in his shirt pocket. Carlos acknowledged him with a nod and waved him over. The kid approached the desk and handed Carlos an envelope. He looked down at me and smiled politely. I smiled back. I noticed he wore an ID card on a chain around his neck and a detective’s badge on his belt. The ID card said his name was Spinelli, Dominic, Detective, Second Precinct, New Castle, Massachusetts. I am sure it meant to read, Eagle Scout, 2nd class, Boy Scouts of America.
“What’s this?” Carlos asked.
“It just came up from evidence,” Spinelli replied. “I thought you’d want it.”
“It came up? Or…” Carlos made little quotation marks in the air with his fingers. “It came up.”
The kid smiled. Carlos pointed to me and then to the kid. “Tony. I want you to meet my partner, Detective, Dominic Spinelli. Dom, Detective Anthony Marcella.”
“Retired,” I said. I reached up and shook his hand.
His eyes lit up like a Jack-O-lantern. “Detective Marcella? Wow! What a pleasure to meet you, sir! You’re a legend around here!”
I turned to Carlos and laughed. “Nice. You put him up to that, didn’t you?”
“Not me, amigo. The kid read up on you. You’re like a second hobby for him.”
“Second? What’s the first?”
Carlos looked at Dominic and gave him a little nod. I turned back to the young detective. “Well?”
He smiled and blushed. “Actually, my hobby is the occult. I study Neo-Pagan religions, customs and traditions.”
“Do you?”
“Yes sir. Oh, but I don’t practice none of that. I’m Catholic by heritage. I just think the off-religions are fascinating.”
I thought he was putting me on for a moment. I half-smiled to let him know the jig was up, but he didn’t break. And so I turned to Carlos and gave him the old highbrow. When that didn’t work, I decided to play along. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with that case Carlos and I worked on last year, would it?”
“Would what have anything to do with it?”
“You know. You’re trying to get me to talk about the Surgeon Stalker case.”
“Tony,” said Carlos, bluntly. “Dominic knows all about the case. He’s read every report ever written by every cop, inspector, paramedic, detective, Indian chief and shoeshine boy. He’s combed over every newspaper article, watched every newsreel, talked to every witness and pored over every Internet site on the subject since the story first broke. He can probably fill you in on a few details.”
“Really?” I turned to Spinelli and saw panic fill his eyes.
“Oh, n…not that you need any details,” he stammered. “I’m sure you and Detective Rodriquez handled the case most expertly at the time.”
“At the time? So, what you’re saying is that you would conduct matters differently now.”
“No, not at all. I…I just…I mean….”
“Relax, Dom. Detective Marcella’s playing with you. Tell him, Tony.”
“He’s right,” I said, laughing a little. “Spinelli, tell me, son. How old are you?”
He straightened his shoulders back. “I’m twenty-six, sir.”
“Twenty-six, you still have time. Listen, kid, don’t make excuses. Learn to say what you mean and mean what you say. I know that sounds cliche, but it’s true. When did you make detective?”
“A month ago, sir.”
“A month ago?” I turned to Carlos. “And they partnered him with you?”
“I asked for him.”
“You did?”
“Sure. After all those years with an old fart like you, I figured I deserved a break.”
I picked the folder up off his desk and threw it at him. He blocked it with the reflexes of a cat. I heard Spinelli start to laugh at that, but a cutting glance from Carlos put an end to it quickly.
“All right,” I said. “Enough horseplay. What’s in the envelope?”
“Surveillance photos,” Spinelli replied. “Detective Webber tailed that suspect for weeks before she died. These are some of the photos she took.”
Th
at seemed promising. I pointed at the package. “Let’s see them.”
Carlos opened the envelope and spilled the contents out onto the desk. There were six photos in all, two taken at night, but on different nights, and four in daylight. All were of the same man, dark-skinned—likely Hispanic, not too tall, good-looking, well-dressed, mid-to-late thirties and well built. The day shots showed the man coming and going from an office building, nothing unusual and always alone. The night shots, though grainy and distant, appeared to show the same man meeting someone at an outdoor cafe. Carlos gave the snapshots a gratuitous look before sliding them my way.
“You don’t want to see them more closely?” I asked.
“Don’t have to. I know who it is.”
“Oh?”
“That’s Ricardo Rivera. He’s a lawyer with Hartman, Pierce and Petruzelli. I believe you know him, too.”
“Yes,” I answered, as I thumbed through the pictures. “I recognize him now. Wasn’t he a criminal defense attorney somewhere?”
“He was, and a damn good one before the firm recruited him.”
“So, how did he end up on the other end of Karen’s lens?”
“To answer that, we have to know what she was working on before she died.”
“And that was?”
“We don’t really know, but I can guess.”
“Yes?”
“Well, she was supposedly working a string of warehouse burglaries down by the docks, but anyone related to that case will tell you they hadn’t seen or heard from her in weeks.”
“So, what’s your theory?”
Carlos scooted forward in his chair and planted his elbows on the desk. Spinelli and I both leaned in closer, understanding that he didn’t want anyone nearby to hear. “Remember I told you over the phone that Karen’s suicide made three in as many weeks?”
“Of course.”
“I don’t suppose it’s any coincidence that the first suicide victim was Bridget Dean, a lawyer at Hartman, Pierce and Petruzelli.”
“Where Ricardo Rivera works.”
“Exactly.”
“So then, Karen must have thought Rivera had something to do with Dean’s death.”
Carlos nodded. “Why else would she have him under surveillance?”
“But why wouldn’t she tell somebody what she was up to?”
Carlos eased back into his chair. “Because there wasn’t a case. The coroner ruled Bridget Dean’s death a suicide. If the captain knew she was spending department resources investigating a suicide when she should have been working the warehouse burglaries, he would have reprimanded her.”
“Interesting.” I picked up one of the night shots of Rivera and studied it more closely. “Hey, check it out. Is it me, or does that guy at the cafe with Rivera seem sorely out of place?”
“Carlos pulled up for another look. “What do you mean?”
“Well, look. Everyone else in the photo is wearing business attire and office dress. This man is sporting a sleeveless shirt, cutoffs and flip-flops.” I fanned the photo over the others before pitching it back onto the pile. “I’d sure like to know who he is. I mean he looks more like someone Rivera would defend, not socialize with.”
“Maybe he is,” said Spinelli.
Carlos and I both looked up. “Come again?”
“Maybe the guy’s a criminal, or should I say accomplice?”
“Keen observation, Dom,” said Carlos. “It’s probably why Karen took the picture. Maybe she had the same thought.”
“What about the other one?” I asked.
“What other one?”
“The other suicide victim. You said there were three. Did she also work for Hartman, Pierce and Petruzelli?”
Carlos shook his head. “No, I believe she was a waitress somewhere.”
“But she did work in the same building.” Spinelli said.
Again Carlos and I looked up at him. “What?”
“Yeah. I read that in the papers. There’s this coffee shop in the Hartman, Pierce and Petruzelli building, downstairs from the offices. The woman worked there as a waitress. I remember thinking that she had to know Bridget Dean, and how coincidental it seemed.”
“Maybe too coincidental,” I said. I turned to Carlos, who looked slightly embarrassed. “You didn’t know that, Carlos?”
“No, I didn’t,” he said, almost stuttering. “Dominic, why didn’t you point this out to me before?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t realize you didn’t know.”
For a while we all just stared down at the photos on the desk, scratching our heads, trying to make sense of it all. To believe that two women working in the same building committed suicide only weeks apart, but that there were no other connections between them seemed ludicrous. Unless someone had put something in the water there, our suspicions, like Karen Webber’s, drew a very different conclusion than that of the coroner’s. I tapped on the photo of Rivera and his cafe mate to get Carlos’ attention.
“Look, we need to know more about what Karen was working on,” I told him. “I know her surveillance of Rivera flew under the radar, but she had to have kept a record of her investigation if she ever thought it might come to prosecution. We need to see her files. She’s probably hidden clues among her caseload.”
Carlos shook his head. “Can’t. Her files aren’t ours. Karen worked out of the First Precinct. We have some of her people here in the satellite office down the hall, but they’ve been no help.”
“They won’t help you?”
“Not that they won’t. They can’t. Her death was ruled a suicide. They had no reason to sequester her files. Her supervisor divvied up her caseload and dispersed it throughout the entire department. I’m afraid we’re starting from scratch.”
I looked down at the photos again. At least we had those, so it wasn’t really like starting from scratch. But we did have a long uphill battle ahead of us. I turned to Carlos and then to Spinelli. Both seemed ready and eager, and probably both had more confidence in me than I deserved. But their confidence felt like a shot in the arm. I had flown back to New Castle with reservations about getting involved in another serious case. My fear of failing notwithstanding, the thought of letting Carlos down I thought would crush me. I gathered the photos and stacked them into a neat pile.
“That’s fine, then,” I said. “Starting from scratch might prove the best place to start anyway. Let’s take it from the end and work backward.”
“The end,” said Spinelli, almost to himself, “for Detective Webber, the end was the sidewalk outside her apartment building last Friday night.”
Carlos and I traded looks. We were undoubtedly thinking the same thing. Dominic Spinelli may have been one of the youngest detectives ever assigned to the Second Precinct, but he had an experienced sense of investigative direction. I stood up, pressed my hat to my chest and asked, “Do we have the address?”
Carlos answered, “We do.” He scooped the photos back into the envelope and handed it to Detective Spinelli. “Dom, will you do me a favor?”
Spinelli took the package and tucked it under his arm. “Sure.”
“Find out everything you can on this guy, Rivera. I mean it. I want to know where he lives, what he drives, who he sees, if he’s ever had run-ins with the law: EVERYTHING.”
“All right.”
“And see what you can dig up on that waitress, too. You got it?”
“Got it,” Spinelli answered, and he vanished down the hallway like a ghost.
Carlos turned to me and smiled proudly. “Huh? How’s that for diligence?”
“Nice.”
“Damn straight. Does he remind you of me when I was just starting out?”
“A little,” I said.
“Yeah? Why, because of his tenacious thirst for knowledge?”
“No, because he’s just a tad clumsy.” I pointed down the hall at the trail of photos that spilled from the envelope Spinelli had carried away under his arm.
Carlos shrugged it of
f. “Yeah, well you should taste his lasagna. The kid’s got marinara running through his veins.”
I shook my head and laughed. “Oh, like that’ll come in handy in this profession.”
“It could,” he said, as we started down the hall, picking up photos of Ricardo Rivera along the way. “Especially on long stakeouts. Hey that reminds me. You hungry?”
I considered it. I hadn’t eaten since the day before and it was already pushing noon. But I didn’t feel very hungry, only anxious. I attributed that to the thought of going back to work on a new case. It was bad enough that the last one still haunted me. The possibility of a new one ending poorly frightened me to tears. Eating anything just seemed like a bad idea. Nevertheless, I knew Carlos. The guy is always hungry. And unless we could close the case on Karen Webber by simply scooping up the photos of Ricardo Rivera, then I knew I would have to sit down and eat with the man sometime.
“Sure,” I said. “I could eat. What did you have in mind?”
“I was thinking maybe The Percolator. They have some awesome lunch specials there.”
“The old Perk, huh?”
“Yeah, it’ll be like old times. What do you say?”
What could I say? The Percolator was like a second home to me for nearly forty years. I started going there when coffee was just a nickel. Of course that was the price for civilians. Cop coffee was always free. I started thinking that maybe Carlos was on to something. Still, I had to ease into the idea of putting solid food into my belly.
“I’ll tell you what, Carlos,” I said. “How `bout we go check out things at Karen’s apartment first, and then we’ll grab some grub?”
He soured his face at that. “I guess.” He sounded disappointed. “In that case….” By then we were back in the lobby. Carlos dug deep into his pocket and pulled out a fistful of change. “Let me grab a Snickers.” He dropped some quarters into the vending machine and relieved it of its last Snickers bar. To see the look in his eyes, you would have thought he had rolled three cherries on a Vegas slot machine, only the pay out here was much more satisfying. I slapped him on the back as he joined up with me at the front door.
“That going to hold ya?” I asked. He just smiled and held the candy bar to my face—minus one very large bite. I smiled back. “Very nice. Maybe I should drive.”