The Dog Killer of Utica

by Frank Lentricchia

  “Did you do that, El, in order to please me?”

  “No. And yes.”

  “Let’s emphasize the no part.”

  “Michael Coca, Catherine.”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s our shooter.”

  “Oh, El.”

  She refills their glasses carefully to the brim with unsweetened iced tea. She says, “This pathetic man, whose insanity is on display in the stores and on the streets of East Utica, for the last year, whose wife has reported lunatic behavior in the privacy of their home, is none other than our killer of men and dogs. Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “If I was you listening to me, I’d be sarcastic too. Remember Don’s observation that all shootings occurred in proximity to me, as he put it? Close to the truth, but not close enough. All shootings because of me. Because I tortured Coca.”

  “You did what?”

  “Antonio claimed that his assistant chief was a serial rapist on the loose.”

  “Michael Coca? A serial rapist?”

  “Antonio was desperate to have me put him out of commission. He had no evidence, it was bullshit I quickly learned, but he wanted something extreme done to Coca. Because Coca was blackmailing him.”

  “About what? Are you telling me he wanted you to kill Coca?”

  “No doubt. But we only extracted key information out of him.”

  “We? Extracted?”

  “Bobby and I. We tortured him. In wild disguises. We were beyond recognition. Don’t ask for details.”

  “Who have I been sleeping with for the last six months? You and Bobby did actual torture?”

  “Strictly psychological.”

  “Strictly psychological? I’m supposed to find that comforting? And what else? Witty? You want me to applaud your wit?”

  “It was Coca who coughed up Antonio’s complicity in the triple Mafia hit. This was the subject of the blackmail. Coca wanted to be chief. After we were through with Michael, we brought the Mafia hitter to Antonio.”

  “Don told me when I came onto the force that Coca suffered a total breakdown. Don told me he’s in a mental ward for six weeks about a year ago. Because you and Bobby? Don told me Coca retires from the force one month after the mental ward because you and Bobby? First you and Bobby are accomplices in murder.”

  “Yes.”

  “Now this.”

  “Yes.”

  “Coca’s motive.”

  “Yes.”

  “Any more violent secrets you want to reveal? Are there more?”

  “No.”

  “Are there more?”

  “No.”

  She pushes back against her shock. She’ll stay in the hunt.

  “It’s obvious, Catherine. Unlike you I don’t trash thinking about motive. Now he’s turned the tables and I’m the subject of torture. He wants me alive to suffer the suffering and deaths of those close to me. I’m to be spared for impotent suffering.”

  “Didn’t you just tell me you and Bobby were disguised beyond recognition? Did either of you speak?”

  “Just Bobby, whose voice he never before heard.”

  “How then could Coca possibly know it was you and Bobby?”

  “Somehow he does.”

  “Somehow. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, somehow.”

  “Legally my theory is without foundation. It’s a joke. I understand that.”

  “Explain why Antonio didn’t eliminate Coca too.”

  “No need to, a guy that far off the planet.”

  “You were not close to Freddy Barbone. How does he fit?”

  “The shattered bottle of Johnnie Walker near Freddy’s body. I think it was a message.”

  “An old pop tune. Remember? Dionne Warwick. A Message from Michael. Or was it a Message to Michael?”

  “Make light of my thinking. Go ahead. But—”

  “You’re calling this thinking?”

  “His public and private acts of madness are pure theater, Catherine. No, please, take me seriously for a moment. It’s been a yearlong performance at home and on the streets guaranteed to place him far beyond the zone of suspicion. Who would ever believe he’s the one?”

  “Only you.”

  “He’s insane by any measure—but lucidly insane—brilliantly insane. Don’s latest theory that it’s Antonio with Tino as agent of Antonio’s intentions proves Don’s over the hill. Ridiculous. Implausible.”

  “But less ridiculous and less implausible than yours.”

  The phone. Antonio on the answering machine: “You there, El? You listening like a fuckin’ pervert? Guess who we got locked up for at least forty-eight hours? Our friend Michael Coca, who Cazzamano and Crouse arrested on Bleecker and Mohawk about an hour ago for indecent exposure. He grabs Cazzamano’s crotch. He offers him a blow job, which knowing Victor’s democratic appetites I’m surprised he didn’t accept. Victor puts the club to him. Man, you and that Rintrona did a job on that son of a bitch. What can I say except fuckin’ bravo. Speaking of sons of bitches, that call you made to me? You cunt.” He hangs up.

  “Theater, El? More theater?”

  “The only question now is who’s next? You? But not me. Never me. Who’s next?”

  “On your theory, with Coca behind bars, everybody’s safe well into Saturday night.”

  He nods.

  “El, this afternoon we had another murder.”

  “Who? Someone close to me. Yes?”

  She has difficulty getting it out. “Billy Santoro.”

  “Something happened to Billy?”

  “He was murdered.”

  “What are you trying to say? What do you mean, murdered?”

  “Murdered. Deliberately hit by a car on Humbert Ave.”

  “I saw him today at Toma’s. When we left he was still at Toma’s. Am I wrong? Are you suggesting I’m wrong? What are you trying to say?”

  “I went to the scene on Humbert Ave. after we parted. That was what the text from Don was about. The responding patrolmen thought it was a simple hit-and-run fatality. They were wrong. He was hit and then the driver backed up and ran over him backing up. Put it in drive and ran over him again. This is what the tire skids on either side of the body tell us. Initial hit—hard brake. Reverse. Hard brake. Forward. Billy’s body, in all my time in Troy I never saw such a brutalization. Eliot?”

  He’s gotten up, back to her, hands on wall.

  “Eliot?”

  “I’m here.”

  He sits. Leans across the table, takes her hand—squeezing too hard.

  “Billy wasn’t complaining about his prostate today. He pronounces it ‘prostrate.’ ”

  “I’ve interviewed,” pulls her hand away, “the guys, Gene, Remo, Don, Paul. They’re shattered. They couldn’t give any help. Paul said the last few days in Utica are like a horror movie. God help them. Gene said Billy wanted to walk home. It’s not that far, after all. He usually walks to Toma’s, then gets a ride home, usually from Remo.”

  “I gave him a ride once.”

  “I know how you feel about the guys at Toma’s.”

  “I know how I feel.”

  “I want to talk to you about a pattern.”

  “A pattern of funerals. I need to be at Billy’s wake. I need to be at the Ivanovic wake. Do Muslims have wakes? Kovac is from Cleveland. They’ll ship him back to Cleveland. A closed casket for Dragan Kovac and a closed casket for Billy. His kids will put a framed eight by ten on top of the casket.” (Pause.) “I just can’t sit around. I can’t be expected to sit on my hands. I need to do something.”

  (Softly:)

  “I want to discuss a pattern, El.”

  “I want to discuss Michael Coca. He was at Toma’s when we left. Have you forgotten?”

  “El, I asked Don Ayoub if he noticed anything unusual when he left shortly after Billy did, and he said he saw Coca’s vintage Mustang across the street in the Aroma Café parking lot. I asked him why he was telling me that. He said because it was unusual to see Coca’s
car anywhere. At the time, I thought nothing of Don’s observation. Just an old friend of the victim trying to be helpful to the investigating detective.”

  “Please don’t call Billy the victim.”

  “Maybe I’m willing to rethink my reaction to your theory. Rethink but not necessarily accept.”

  “He sat in that car, Catherine. He saw Billy start to walk home. He drove to Humbert Ave. and waited for Billy. This is how it went. Pick them off one by one who have proximity to me. To my list of the vulnerable we have to add all the guys at Toma’s.”

  “Murder and brutalize the body. Barbone, Mohawk at South. Kovac, Mohawk at Lansing. Billy, Mohawk at Humbert Ave. Valley View Road where Milly’s dog was shot and Milly wounded. Valley View Road is essentially an extension of Mohawk, is it not? A pattern of Mohawk, El, what does that tell us?”

  “Mohawk is beside the point. The insult, the desecration of the bodies. That’s the point.”

  “El, what is the point, exactly, of the desecration?”

  “I don’t know. Coca’s point is irrelevant.”

  “Whoever it is—”

  “It’s Michael. Stop resisting me, Catherine.”

  “He’s shrewd, whoever it is. He picks his times. When he won’t be spotted by witnesses. Though Humbert Ave. at midday is risky.”

  “He’s losing control.”

  “Will you lose control?” He averts his eyes.

  “Let’s say it’s Coca, El, because he wants revenge on you. Wants you to suffer a living death. Okay. How do we tie him evidentially to the killings?”

  “If we can place him in the rental car—”

  “That would be huge—”

  “If we can show that he had access to gun storage at UPD—”

  “Where does he get the keys, El?”

  “He had them when he retired. He had them duplicated before he left the force.”

  “No locksmith—it’s against the law, El, to duplicate those keys.”

  “Catherine, this is Utica.”

  “Why would he return the guns to storage?”

  “To make sensible people like you and Don and me make stupid conclusions about Antonio. Which we did. What do we know now about Onondaga County car-rental agencies?”

  “Nothing. One of our clerks went to work on it late this afternoon. She’ll be back on it in the morning.”

  “You know damn well I’m right.”

  “We have nothing except your guilt and fear, but I half buy your idea.”

  “Stay here tonight.”

  “Okay.”

  “Shall we get some arctic air? Let’s take a walk around the block.”

  “Let’s do that, El.”

  As he takes his jacket off the coatrack his .357 slips out and clatters to the floor.

  She says, “I don’t think we need that for a walk around the block.”

  “We’re taking a walk around the block—that’s why we need it.”

  CHAPTER 14

  She’s back in his bed after a three-night absence and for the first time in years Conte sleeps the sleep of an innocent youth—nine unbroken hours. He awakes to find Catherine gone. A note on the kitchen table.

  El—

  Don texted at 8:00. Rental agencies refuse cooperation unless an officer with UPD credentials appears in person. The Chief nominates me. The list is long. If you don’t hear from me, we’re still up the creek without a paddle. Get some exercise. Talk to your paesan Melville.

  Love, C

  Get some exercise. Talk to your paesan Melville. Just a few ordinary, a few lighthearted words—that’s all it takes to quell the rising anxiety about her absence. Catherine of Troy, as he likes to call her, is not—on this morning—among his troubles.

  After his cappuccino and favorite toast—a slab of crusty Italian bread slathered with mango-ginger chutney—he calls Kyle Torvald to ask how he and Mark are holding up. Kyle tells him that Mark is in D.C.

  “They’re grateful, they’re going to take care of him.”

  “You two moving back to D.C.?”

  “Inside the Beltway, Eliot, politics—they eat it, they drink it, they defecate it, then they eat that. They slurp it up. He’s moving back. I’m not.”

  “You’re breaking up with Mark?”

  “It’ll be a commuting relationship, but I’m not commuting. Utica for me.”

  “You’re really calling it quits?”

  “I am, but Mark isn’t. He’ll come up every weekend. After awhile, every other. Then once a month. Eventually he’ll realize there’s no point. You missed your Wednesday workout. Want to make it up? I’m free at noon.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Uh, Eliot, that call you made the other night? They’re shooting dogs and their owners? Et cetera?”

  “It’s true.”

  “It’s true?”

  “Yes.”

  “Uh, Eliot, a lot of people in this town have dogs. Why me? Explain that.”

  “Because you’re a friend of mine.”

  “Buddy, you need the cure, and I’m going to administer it.”

  “What’s that, Kyle?”

  “The Enhanced Suicide Stairs. Which I’ll do with you in case you require mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Will you accept, needs be, mouth-to-mouth from a nonflaming gay man? Noon.”

  “Seven flights?”

  “No. To the top.”

  “Ten flights?”

  “You heard me.”

  “I doubt I can handle that.”

  “Save your whining for Catherine.”

  After cappuccino #2, he switches to a double-shot espresso, thinking about all those double shots he used to spike with anisette—the anisette progressing, at his worst, to half the volume. Calls Antonio Robinson at the office:

  “Robby.”

  “Don’t Robby me.”

  “Listen—”

  “You want something from me?”

  “No. From us. Our friendship as it used to be.”

  “It’s over. Think I don’t know what you were implying on the phone call you made? Supposedly concerning Milly? You think I shot my dog and accidentally wounded my wife? You motherfucker.”

  “I don’t think you were the shooter.”

  “When I told you she went to Florida for the fuckin’ holidays? It was bullshit.”

  “I know.”

  “You knew when you called?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bastard.”

  “Yes.”

  “You want information on our friend? Is that why you called?”

  “What’s his behavior like?”

  “Why should I tell you?”

  “Eventually I’ll get to that.”

  “Get to it now or this conversation is over.”

  “He’s done them all. He’s the shooter.”

  “Including JFK?”

  “In Troy and Utica. Including your dog. He’s the shooter.”

  “Last night, at dinnertime, Molly Barnes, who brings the trays to assorted scumbags for twenty-three years, who takes communion every morning, when she gets to his cell she finds your shooter buck naked. He proposes marriage. He’s nuts for a year at home, he’s nuts all over town, he’s nuts here.”

  “It’s an act. Utica public theater.”

  “You don’t sound like you’ve been drinking again.”

  “It’s a diabolical cover.”

  “You’re not slurring or have you just lost your mind like the naked man who wants to spend the rest of his life with Molly Barnes?”

  “He’s the one.”

  “You have evidence, brother asshole?”

  “Nothing now that’ll hold up, but I have confidence that Catherine—she’s going to come back with a name, Robby. Because you obviously can’t rent a car without showing a license and proof of insurance.”

  “She comes back with a name, sure, we’re almost home.”

  “How long can you hold him?”

  “Forty-eight hours. She doesn’t come back with the go
ods, he’s out tomorrow night.”

  “Six acts of violence in four days, Robby. Yesterday, Billy Santoro. You’ll see nothing today and nothing tomorrow while he’s still locked up. Mark my words.”

  “This maniac, let’s say it’s who you think, why does he switch to first degree vehicular homicide? Tell me why. Tell me what you have that will stand up in court. Tell me something besides your finger up your ass.”

  “Revenge on me for what I did to him.”

  “So he kills my dog? Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “I can explain it all.”

  “Right now I have something major on my agenda.”

  “What’s that?”

  “My morning crap.”

  At noon, after two cappuccinos and three double-shot espressos, Conte enters POWER UP! and hugs Kyle—he’s not done that before—and Kyle responds, “Out of sympathy for my situation you’ve decided to come out of the closet? What happened to your face? The first time I saw you you’d just been taken apart by someone you know, but won’t reveal. Who did it this time? Same guy?”

  “I did it to myself.”

  “I don’t know what to say, Eliot—except you scare me.”

  “It was an accident.”

  “What did you do to make Catherine so angry?”

  “Come over tonight and I’ll cook you a fine dinner. Bring the dog.”

  Kyle shakes his head, sadly, puts on his hard-ass personal trainer mask, orders Conte to the rower, five hundred meters, “but don’t go all out, or you’ll be sorry.” After a few gentle stretching exercises, leads him to the airless interior stairwell where he says, “On second thought, for this challenge, I’m not going to join you. You need to face your fate alone.”

  The Suicide Stairs is a timed exercise consisting of running as fast as one can, two steps at a time, if one can manage that, to floor #7 (in past iterations), then down as fast as one can, to floor #1. Then back up to #6, then #5 et cetera. A somewhat merciful descending ladder—the hardest ascents coming at the beginning. “To assuage pussies,” Kyle says.

  “This time,” Kyle smiles, “ten flights in ascending order, up to two, down, up to three, down, so forth because it pleases me to reserve the hardest ascents for the end. When you start up on the final ascent, ten, death speaks as you reach landing five, and I won’t be there to distract you. At landing six, you welcome actual death alone. Ready? Wait. At each landing, five push-ups.”