by Peter Manus
Rocco’s – A Gentlemen’s Club sits on a spread of blacktop between a sixteen-pump truck stop and some sort of gravel op along a light-industrial strip not far from the interstate. Not a terrible location for a naked lady lounge, all things considered. Essentially, the place is a warehouse—wood plank sides, corrugated roof, and nothing resembling a bush, tree, or weed anywhere near the place. Only clue it’s a destination for fun and frolic is the signage that looks as if it would light up like a bunch of separate bulbs at night, reminiscent of an old burley house. Sheet glass doors down one end are the grand entrance, currently roped off with tattered yellow police tape and an official “Keep Out Crime Scene Violators Will Be Prosecuted” notice taped to each window where the “Live! Nude! Girls!” signs would normally dangle. There’s one car in the lot—an unmarked Dodge complete with fancy grillwork and double side-views—affirming that H.P. has scored us backstage passes to the murder room. I should point out that while I’m pretty sure I would not have been totally straight-armed by the local fuzz, we’ve all met cops who get super turfy about their assignments, especially sizzly cases like a strip club murder. Nobody wants his shot at the we-interrupt-this-program press conference yanked out from under him.
The locals are waiting in the vestibule. Guy in charge is middle-aged and wire thin, with carefully razored white-blond hair, matching white eyebrows and lashes, and a hatchet-sized Adam’s apple. Name’s Jeff Shanko. Naturally, when I hear this, I barely refrain from a friendly crack about him playing “bad cop” during interrogations. Luckily I hold back, because it doesn’t take all that long for me to suss out that I’m the only card-carrying Batman fan club nerd present. Shanko has a mild voice and an ice-cold handshake, and comes off as almost preternaturally humorless. The uniform he’s brought along, Alec something-or-other, apparently takes his behavioral cues from his mentor. On the bright side, neither seems the least bit ruffled to be giving a couple of nosy parkers from Boston the crime scene tour.
Club seems like a typical strip joint—bar, stage, seats for ogling the deluded chicks who think their very own J. Howard Marshall’s about to drop in. On our way up to the dead man’s office, Shanko recites the story in a toneless way, just this side of sadistic. A couple nights back, Rocco was found dead by a bartender who went looking when he didn’t come down for the dinner shift. I interrupt to remark on the fact that strip joints have dinner shifts, a fact that would not have occurred to me. All three men nod in a noncommittal way—either they share my surprise, or they’re assuring me that all strip clubs serve steak tips and onion rings.
Rocco’s office is a classic firetrap—clumsy egress, tinderbox paneling, one itty-bitty sprinkler poking through the asbestos ceiling tiles. Fire marshal’s lucky day was when Rocco died some way other than a total conflagration. Body tape is curling back from the shag. We bend over to get a look at the stain remnants of whatever he’d been vomiting when he died.
“What am I smelling, garlic?” Harry makes a face.
“Picking up a licorice scent, too,” I comment. “Like ouzo, but not. What was in his gut?”
“Might have been ouzo,” Shanko hedges. “The other odor, possibly zinc phosphine.”
“Providence lab a bit timid about commitment?” I ask, standing up.
Shanko drops one about life not being a CSI show. So he knows about TV, at least. I’m already hunting around for just the word to describe his particular brand of patronization.
“This zinc phosphine something a bar man like Rocco would usually use to chase his ouzo?” Harry asks lightly. Unlike me, H.P. always sticks to topic.
“It’s a common rat poison, used less often than it was some years back,” Alec offers. “But whatever he was drinking isn’t what killed him.”
Harry’s incredulous. “Man dies in a pool of his own vomit and it turns out the rat poison in his system wasn’t the cause?”
“No sir,” Alec says, because every remark is meant to be taken at face value. “The vomiting expelled enough to make it nearly impossible for it to have been lethal. In addition, even a lethal dose of zinc phosphine wouldn’t have killed him as fast as he died. Bartender spoke with him fifteen minutes before he was found dead and says he sounded fine.”
“So?” I say, glancing at Harry, then back at our android counterparts. “This idea that Rocco was murdered at all comes from where?”
“Oh, he was murdered,” Shanko says. “Someone strangled him. Used some sort of wire or plastic cord. The killer didn’t leave it behind.”
Alec lays photos on the desk. Rocco was early forties, if you can read a swollen face in profile and slimed in vomit. But I’m a woman in her thirties—I read crow’s-feet and forehead creases like a forester reads tree rings. Speaking of creases, Rocco’s got one round his neck that might have severed an artery with only a touch more effort. The fat ball of tongue, dead black, protrudes from between his teeth like a massy growth of fungus, making it hard to believe the rat poison didn’t at least assist in the guy’s demise. I note the gold potency necklace lacing his chest, the moustache carefully elongated into his cheek fur, the modified duck’s ass up top. Everything says woman-hater so loud I can barely repress stating the obvious.
“So how do we know it was wire?”
“No fibers.”
“Poisoned, then strangled? How’s that make sense?” muses Harry. He’s talking to me.
“Might have been electric cord,” I say, thinking aloud. “An extension cord?”
They look at me.
“Something he found around the room,” I say.
“Sure, okay?” says Harry, wanting more.
I explain myself better. “If someone slipped our friend a mickey, then found he wasn’t dying fast enough, he might grab at something else to finish the job impromptu. Guy vomiting his guts out might be easy to strangle from behind, even by a person who’d thought they only stood a chance with poison.”
“Like a woman,” Harry observes.
“I could imagine Rocco being on a couple of girl-approved hate lists,” I agree.
“Interesting,” says Shanko woodenly. Phlegmatic! That’s the word I’ve been trying for.
“Certainly plausible,” Harry sides with me opaquely.
“The strangler had substantial muscular strength,” counters loyal-to-the-bone Alec.
Meantime, I’m busy ignoring them. I take a go at the window. It’s one of those cheap metal-framed sash jobs. Not a ton of room for anyone to hop through. Still, it would do in a pinch. Outside is rubber roofing. Judging from the number of exhausts piercing the expanse, the back wing’s the kitchen. I get one of my tickly premmie feelings around the eyes and turn away quick before I find myself watching a ghost hurrying along the edge of the roof in a crouch. I cannot afford to go all vishie in front of the Rhode Island Robocops.
“Exit route?” I offer. “Anyone talk to the—whatever we call the guy dunking the fries at a strip club, and do not tell me it’s ‘chef’—about whether he heard the pit-a-pat of soft criminal feet overhead at any point?” That bit of snark was for you, Zoey—appreciate it.
“No prints on either the glass or the rubber,” Alec points out. “Neither hand nor shoe.”
I turn round from the window, shrugging stagily, palms up. “Guess our strangler whistled his way back down the stairs and slipped past an entire crew of professional men as they tarted up for a lively shift at Rhode Island’s number one slut shop.”
Shanko and Sidekick respond—or don’t, you might say—with absolutely blank facial expressions. Harry, behind them, gives me his “what are you trying to do to me?” look.
We kick around the kitchen a little, thinking about routes in and out that someone could take unnoticed. I’m harboring this distinct premmie that I’m looking for something, and I find it out back. There’s this ten-gallon canister, sitting amid the garbage spills around the base of the dumpster. White plastic, totally nondescript. Got a metal ladle handle sticking out. I remember the feeling that a near-identic
al visual gave me that night in the Hampstead. I peek—it’s filled with some sort of greyish liquid, probably rainwater mixed with lard or whatever gunk had been in the bottom of the thing when set out. I prod around with the ladle and come out with a roll of thin cable wire. The Beantown Babe scores—oh, yeah.
“Have we found ourselves a murder weapon?” Harry gloats ever so slightly. I notice he does not sound surprised. More like he’s been waiting.
I watch the water drip off the thing. Sometimes I think Harry’s picked up on my so-called gift, but this is not something I’m ready to discuss. “Maybe someone did use the roof. Could have hopped down to the dumpster right over there,” I indicate.
“Also hints that the strangulation was improvised,” Harry adds. He turns to Shanko. “Might want to check if the cable connection’s been ripped out in the vic’s office.”
Shanko seems indifferent to the idea. Nevertheless, he carefully bags the cable as Alec runs up to check out Rocco’s office for where one such item might be missing. Sure enough, Rocco’s TV is plugged in, but can’t function without its absent cable.
Out in the lot, we let the local boys motor off first. Not that I was expecting effusive praise for my brilliant detective work, but the lack thereof gets me daydreaming about how fun it’s going to be to have our Superintendent of Police call their Superintendent of Police to josh about how groovy it is when homicide teams cooperate—you know, just in case our new BFFs forget to mention who got their get for them today.
And that, Zoey, is when we get the real break we’ve been waiting for without knowing it. Harry’s around the side taking a leak for the road when I spot this girl, trundling along from way, way across the median, heels scraping the roadway as she fools with her hair. She’s got some hair, at that—so blonde let's call it yellow, and cast in fat ringlets that tangle amongst themselves to about halfway down her jacket, which looks to be constructed of a faux rabbit fur in brown, black, and white splotches. Her ample thighs stretch her fishnets to the breaking point. Weirdly, the overall effect is less of a car wreck than it ought to be, maybe because her face is young and essentially pretty, in that unobstructed-by-thought kind of way. In her hand she holds a little music player. Earphone cord disappears into her locks.
“Someone’s missed the news,” I think aloud.
Harry concurs. “Early for work, too.”
The girl approaches, smiling at Harry, then noticing me better and catching on that I’m not a dude. I smile real nice, and she comes along, encouraged. It seems to dawn on her around then that there are no cars in the lot other than ours, and she stretches a piece of gum from her mouth thoughtfully as she makes to circle on past us toward the back, where she’s probably been taught to enter. The gum’s neon green.
“Excuse me, Miss?” Harry tries. She ignores him until he jogs around in front of her and waves, at which point she pops her pods with a gentle tug.
“Sorry, I’m not allowed,” she says. Her pronunciation is slurry. I wonder if she’s intellectually impaired. “Not on the premises, anyways.”
Harry flips his badge. “Boston police. Not allowed?” he asks.
She stares at the badge but doesn’t otherwise react. “To talk to the clients. Len says only when they’re buying me a round.” She looks from the badge to Harry’s face. He smiles, so she does, too. “I’m of age,” she says helpfully.
I come around to join them. “Back from a couple days off?”
“Yeah,” she says. She pats a couple of red nails against a big plastic-coated purse, also red, that she’s got over her shoulder. “Mr. Petrianni said to not come back till I could show Len proof of age. So I got it.”
“From where?”
“Binghamton.”
“Ouch. Long bus ride.”
She shrugs. “They got TV.”
I introduce us. “Mind telling us your name and answering a question or two?”
The girl glances up at the club. “I don’t want to get in trouble,” she says, taking a tentative step to one side. “I’m kinda in the weeds with Mr. Petrianni already.”
“Club’s closed for now, Miss,” Harry says. “What can we call you?”
She looks past Harry again, staring at the club, her mouth open, the gum lodged patiently against her molars. “Donnalinda,” she says, eyes now wandering to the police tape.
“Got a last name, Donnalinda?” Harry says, not unpleasantly.
“Tonite,” she says, then turns more of her attention to Harry. “I mean Witzkowitz. Donna Witzkowitz. I go by Donnalinda Tonite, like, professionally.”
“Nice,” Harry says. “You come up with that yourself?”
She smiles at him and pulls absently at one of her curls as she shakes her head no.
Much as I have a feeling that this girl has something for us that’s worth coaxing out, I figure we ought to drop the bomb. “Donna, we got some bad news. Mr. Petrianni is dead. Happened two nights ago. Were you here at the club that night?”
My turn for the vacant stare. Then she puts it together. “So I’m out a job?”
I admit it. “Temporarily, anyway. But the sooner we can get to the bottom of this, the sooner someone might be able to reopen the place.”
She blinks at the dark front doors hopefully. “Len around? Maybe he’s thinking of opening back up or something?”
“He’s not around, and we don’t know his plans. We’re just investigating the death.”
“Oh,” she says. Once again, she catches up after a couple of seconds. “So Mr. Petrianni was, like, murdered? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Could be,” says Harry.
“Huh,” she says. Then she refocuses. “So how come you’re down from Boston? I mean, wouldn’t the cops from around here be the ones doing this?”
I’m actually impressed that she put that together. “Mr. Petrianni had connections with Boston,” I say. “We’re looking into those. So, Donna, can you remember last Saturday?”
“Yeah, of course I can remember it,” she says, adjusting her shoulder strap. I’ve offended her, but it’s okay because now she’s out to prove her memory. “I had the early, and after was when Mr. Petrianni told me about me needing to get proof of my age. I got my braces off, too.” She displays her teeth at me in a fake smile, then closes her lips spitefully.
“Nice,” I say. “You bleach?”
“Yeah, of course,” she says. “Yours look good too.” We’re friends again.
“Donna, did you notice anyone besides the regulars at the club last Saturday?”
She nods, chewing her gum and looking down to concentrate. “There was some cute guys. Mr. Petrianni kicked them out after one of them gave me a twenty. I don’t know what was so wrong about it. I mean, we’re here for the tips, right?”
Harry jumps in. “Agreed. Those guys seem pissed about being given the boot?”
She shakes her head vaguely, shrugging at the same time. “I left the stage when it started happening, so I didn’t see too much. Sorry.”
“That’s okay,” I assure her. “So was that it? The last time you saw Mr. Petrianni he was escorting those guys out?”
“I guess,” she says glumly.
“Except he managed to send you to Binghamton to get a copy of your birth certificate,” Harry points out.
She looks up at him. “Oh, yeah. So that was the last last time, come to think of it.”
“He did that right after he kicked out those kids?”
“I guess so. I don’t know how long that took him.”
“Anything you notice about Mr. Petrianni? He seem his normal self?”
She nods vaguely. “Actually, he did something kind of mean. He squeezed my face, like this.” She demonstrates on her own face. “It’s like a thing someone might do to be nice, like if they’re saying you’re cute, right? But he didn’t mean it like that.”
“Why’d he do it? Just because he was pissed about those guys, or about your age?”
“I guess.” She does her shrug-nod
again and stares off across the parking lot. Harry's about to say something when she adds, “Plus he was showing off.”
My ears prick up. “Showing off, Donna?”
“You know, like guys do. They have to show off they’re in charge.”
“Showing off in front of…?”
She feels at her face where she’d squeezed it. “The lady.”
Bingo, huh, Zoey? Not that we got much of a description out of Donna—“the lady” was tall, old (my age, that turned out to mean), and in need of implants. Hair dark in a fancy up-do—Donna shows with her hands and a lot of rattling jewelry how she would fashion her own hair in the style, which made me think of a chignon. Cashmere turtleneck, top-of-the-line manicure, pricey kidskin boots. Other than that, “just some lady.”
I give Donna my card and ask her to call me if anything new occurs to her. She looks at it, front and back, before tucking it away in the pocket of her faux rabbit jacket.
Good deed for the day completed, Harry and I head north.
EIGHT
Marina Papanikitas’s Personal Journal
Yo, Zoey,
Back at the keyboard, m’sweet. As you don’t seem to be showing up to throw dinner on the slab for your home-girl, I took a break to slip a frozen pizza in the oven. Life in homicide—remind me, next time you see me, of why I was so hell-bent on scoring this gig. Better yet, Zoey, whisper it in my ear tonight. Just don’t wake me, babe. Beat detective needs sleep.
Driving up to Boston, Harry and I opt for quiet, both of us kind of buzzing about what we have and haven’t found out. Donna’s description of the woman she’d seen with Rocco had been sketchy. Even with pressure all we got was that she’d had heavy eyelids, sad lips, and ski pants tucked into the tall boots—I play out how receptive Shanko would be if I were to tip him that he should be on the lookout for Natasha from Rocky and Bullwinkle.