He picks up the photos and, too eager to wait until he gets home to examine them, begins to open one of the smaller envelopes when a late-model BMW pulls up a few parking spaces away. The driver emerges and walks hurriedly into Donny’s. The driver is Jed Kinter. Confident that he hasn’t been noticed, his paranoia on the rise, Conte drives rapidly away.
He’s spreading out five eight-by-tens on his desk. Arraying the larger ones on the floor. The eight-by-tens include DePellaccio (great fuckin’ actor) in back spasm, face contorted, bent over, at the rear of the hearse, casket not yet withdrawn; a man from behind in a black suit at the rear right side of the casket, hoisting; casket at the foot of the steps to Saint Anthony and the man in the black suit, dark glasses, visible in profile; casket still at the foot of the steps and the man in three-quarters profile glancing at the camera; man in black from behind, casket at open doors of the church. The five photos on the floor are detail eighteen-by-twenty-four blow-ups of the man in black. He appears to match the description given by Janice McPherson.
Conte’s fever is down to 99.5°. He’s suddenly quite hungry, but has no energy for cooking. Takes a package of Genoa salami from the refrigerator and eats five slices. A handful of spicy olives. Four Ritz crackers slathered with peach jelly. A few modest swigs of Excaliber. Opens his computer and searches the archive of the Observer-Dispatch. The day of the murders was a day of heavy overcast with a threat of light showers. (Dark glasses.) He calls Janice McPherson at the college. Could she meet for coffee, say, at 8:00?… How about the Wendy’s at Oneida Square?… Okay, your house … Some photos I need to show you … Yes, Janice, related to our discussion.
No sooner does he put the phone down than it rings. Tootsie: “El, I can’t put this in an e-mail, which is why I’m calling. Raymond DePellaccio deposited nine thousand dollars, in 450 twenty-dollar bills, one week before the murders. He was one of ours. He withdrew all of it about five weeks later. Jeez, I shouldn’t be doing this.”
EC: I owe you, Toots.
TT: Just between us. I could get fired.
EC: Of course. One more thing, Toots.
TT: Madon’! When will this end?
EC: What can you tell me about Antonio Robinson?
TT: I can’t do that.
EC: I understand.
TT: This is crazy … I’m searching … One of ours from way back … Nothing in the period you’re interested in.
EC: Thanks, Toots. I’ll bother you no more.
TT: Feeling any better?
EC: I’ll survive. Call you soon.
TT: Who else can I tell you about?
EC: When we have lunch, tell me all about you.
TT: You’re nice, El.
EC: Talk to you later.
TT: Hope so.
EC: Soon, Toots.
In a light rain, Conte hurries to her door. It opens before he has the chance to knock. She’s dressed to kill. He thinks she’s attractive. He thinks she’s ready for some action. He wants to banish the thought, and does, sort of.
“This weather,” she says. “Utica.”
“Good evening, Janice.”
They sit at the dining room table, which is set with expensive china and silverware. A carrot cake and homemade chocolate chip cookies.
She says, “Coffee? Tea?”
He wants to say neither, already feeling the urge to pee. Instead, he says, “You wouldn’t happen to have ginger twist, would you, Janice?”
She replies that she does and adds, with apparent irrelevance, “My son is out of town on business.” He understands the relevance.
She goes to the kitchen. He calls out, “Could you tell me where the restroom is?”
“Of course I could!” Laughing, warm and soft.
When he returns, she’s pouring his tea, saying “I decided to have what you’re having, Detective.”
“It’s nice tea. Hope you enjoy it.”
“I’ll enjoy it, Detective, why wouldn’t I if you do?”
He’s thinking, It’s been a while, approximately 114 years. Why not? He says, “I’m eager for you to see these photos.”
“What are they of?”
“I really can’t be sure, which is where you come in. Tell me what you think. There’s no right or wrong.”
“Okay.”
He’s thinking, Too sick to give her what she’s after. Maybe what I’m after.
“Detective, if I may say so, tonight you don’t look quite like yourself.”
“Who do I look like, Janice? George Clooney?”
She smiles and says, “Oh, you know what I mean. Are you feeling okay?”
“A little off, but okay enough. (But not enough to.) Showing her now the eight-by-tens.
After a moment she says, “Are you showing me what I think? He looks like … hard to say, really. I think, though … fifteen years is a long time.”
“Look at these,” showing her the blow-ups.
“That’s Jed’s visitor!”
“You’re positive?”
“Absolutely one-hundred percent! Why is he at a funeral?”
“Why indeed.”
“This is mysterious.”
“It is and it isn’t.”
“You won’t tell me?”
“After I solve the mystery.”
He’s sipping his tea, very small sips. Considering the low-cut blouse, unbuttoned down to her – enjoying the carrot cake immensely when she picks up two of the blow-ups, the full-length profile and three-quarter shots, and says, “I’m seeing something I bet you didn’t see, Detective.”
“What’s that?”
“Guess!”
“Please, Janice.”
“We women tend to see these things. We’re like detectives in our own way. Detectives of fashion.”
“Come on, Janice, stop teasing me.”
“Look at his shoes!”
“Okay.”
“And?”
“The soles. The heels. Is that it?”
“Those are special, Detective. We women can buy these platform shoes in a shoe store, but a man – why, I think you’d need to have them specially made. Not you, of course, you’re certainly tall and – but one of these shorties with complexes? You know how they are.”
“Great cake, Janice.” (They said he seemed clumsy on his feet.)
“Can’t say I made it, but if you allow me the pleasure of your company another time and give me fair warning, I’ll homemake you something real special.”
“And I’ll look forward to it, Janice.”
“Shall we get back on track, Detective?”
“That day the visitor left Kinter’s apartment, you described it as hot and humid.”
“It was during that awful heat wave.”
“Hot and humid you said?”
“Yes.”
“Sunny or overcast?”
“That’s beyond me, I’m afraid. Have I failed you? At the crucial point?”
“Far from it. Anything else strike you?”
She studies the blow-ups. Shakes her head in disappointment. She’s crestfallen. He puts his hand on hers. “You did great, Janice. You helped. Another time in a nonprofessional situation, maybe you’ll allow me the pleasure of sampling your specialty of the house?”
“No maybe about it, Eliot.”
Her refusal to pretend to remember whether the day in question was sunny or overcast convinces him that she’s a solid witness. He gets up. An intimate hug, initiated by Janice, enjoyed by both.
On the way home, Conte is struck by a wave of nausea. Stops the car, opens the door, leans out and vomits violently.
He’s in bed at 9:15, about to turn out the light on his bedside table when he decides he must call Enzo Raspante. Picks up his intimate bedside mate:
ER: That thing I thought I was coming down with?
I’m not. You sound like you got it. You sound bad, kid.
EC: Enzo, I need to ask you a question. Do you recall one of your co-workers named Jed Kinter?
ER: Quiet. Not too friendly. That’s about it. Kept to himself. That’s it.
EC: Any proclivity you might have sensed?
ER: What’s that mean? Proclivity?
EC: Put it this way. Did he have a special relationship with Sanford Whitaker?
ER: Nobody has a special relationship with that holier-than-thou son of a bitch.
EC: Put it this way. You never suspected that Whitaker and Kinter were sucking each other off?
ER: You running a fever or smoking something?
EC: You never told a co-worker that Kinter was seeing Whitaker in his office about fellatio?
ER: Detective Conte, I recommend lots of fluids, two aspirin every four to six hours, and as much sleep as you can get. If you don’t feel better in a couple of days, see a doctor. Good night, Detective, and pray to the Virgin Mother to be relieved of your affliction.
One more call to make. The automated voice at FedEx responds to his enunciation of the tracking number and tells him that delivery was made at 9:58 A.M. Pacific Coast time and signed by N. Norwald.
CHAPTER 17
After five and a half hours of sleep, uncompromised by his treacherous prostate, Eliot Conte is hyperalert at 3:35 A.M. – fever broken, anxiety rising. Three proven liars: Antonio Robinson, Millicent Robinson, Rudy Synakowski. He understands the motives of the Robinsons, but Synakowski? Why would he invent a sexual connection between Sanford Whitaker and Jed Kinter? And why had Whitaker suppressed the photos of the substitute pallbearer? And why would DePellaccio commit suicide after withdrawing the $9,000 he’d deposited just a few weeks before? DePellaccio was murdered. Was he not? By whom? The substitute pallbearer? Was he, Eliot Conte, the last to see Nelson Thomas alive as Thomas jogged down Gilbert to his death? Hit-and-run accident, or hit-and-run murder? But why, after fifteen years, would Nelson Thomas suddenly be targeted? Aside from Synakowski and Whitaker, who knew that Thomas had witnessed the police van crash the bus? Robinson? Who ran down Thomas? Was his, Eliot Conte’s, interest in Nelson Thomas, Thomas’ death warrant? Fortuitous that Kinter appeared at Donny Daniels’ Photography just after Conte collected the photos? Donny alerted him? Donny himself was involved? (Surely not Enzo Raspante. Surely not.) And Bobby Rintrona, so eager to help. Did Bobby believe that lending a hand to Eliot Conte would put him at the head of the line to collect Silvio Conte’s gratitude? Or was there something else in Bobby’s quickness for involvement? Bobby, whom he barely knew.
At 4:30, Conte goes to the kitchen for his infallible soporific: five tablespoons of peanut butter, a short glass of warm milk, and three ibuprofen. Back in bed he channels his roiling thoughts into an imaginary box the other side of the bedroom, lid locked down and soldered, then commences his version of counting sheep: titles of Melville’s novels, in chronological order, and the names and positions of the New York Yankees’ twenty-five-man roster. At 9:30 he awakes after five more hours without prostate interference – a total of ten in all since the night before and happy to be feeling healthy and looking reasonably decent for his dinner that evening with Catherine Cruz.
A quick shower, coffee, and ready to hit the road for his hour-and-a-half drive to Troy, to meet Rintrona at noon, when a knock at the door. Sweet-smiling Tom Castellano holding with two hands a large blue cast-iron pot.
“I caught you on the way out, Detective. Hey, I made this for you.”
“Tom, how kind. Please come in.”
“I have something else too, no matter how trivial, like you said. Have a couple of minutes?”
“I do, Tom, fifteen tops, then I need to leave for the Albany area.”
“You need to refrigerate it, Detective. My mother’s sauce, may she rest in peace. The recipe goes back from our mother to her mother’s mother and who knows how far. Mine is the unaltered version, unlike Ricky, who had to change it. I asked why change our mother and he comes back with some garbage about individualism. That, if you want to know, was when we went our separate ways. Fuckin’ Ricky. I’m wasting your time, Detective.”
“Thanks, Tom.”
“Enough here for three meals, unless you have guests, which you could use some, I’m thinking.”
“Thank you.”
They’re standing in the kitchen.
“He doesn’t pay his rent with a check.”
“Jed Kinter?”
“Too trivial, Detective?”
Conte pauses before answering.
“Are you saying he doesn’t have a checking account?”
“He has one. Don’t ask me how I know.”
“He has one but pays the rent in cash?”
“Yep.”
“Always?”
“Ever since he moved in three years ago.”
Conte says nothing. Did Kinter pay the McPhersons in cash? Must ask Janice.
“Trivial or interesting, Detective?”
“Not trivial, Tom. How much are you charging him?”
“It’s a very nice apartment. Nothing better on the East Side, you saw with your own eyes. Six bills a month.”
“Thanks, Tom. For the sauce and the info.”
“I have something else. His car? A new BMW?”
“Yes?”
“Three years ago he had a different new one then. What I wanta know, Detective, where the fuck does the money come from? This shitty, low-level reporter a new BMW every three years? See what I’m saying?”
“I do, Tom.”
“Mulling it over, Detective?”
“You’ve been helpful, Tom.”
“Have a safe trip, Detective, better Albany than here, if you ask me, after what happened last night.”
Conte looks at him blankly.
“You didn’t hear about it?”
“What?”
“The brutal murder.”
“No.”
“A woman bludgeoned to death in her own home. Face beyond recognition. Naked and wounded in the vagina with semen on display. Over in south Utica. Chestnut Street.”
Conte steps in close to Castellano. Castellano steps back.
“What’s her name, Tom? Do you recall?”
Steps in closer. Castellano steps back.
“Janice McPherson.”
With sudden violent abruptness, Conte picks up Castellano and holds him high against the wall.
“Whoa! Detective!”
“Don’t tell me what you told me. This is a warning. Don’t tell me what you just told me.”
“Please, Detective, I only repeated.”
Just as abruptly, Conte sets Castellano down. Walks over to the kitchen table and sits. Castellano frozen at the wall. Face in hands, Conte says, “I know her. Can you forgive me?”
A long pause.
“You know her?”
“Yes.”
“A friend?”
“Do they have a suspect? Can you forgive me, Tom?”
“No suspect. Hey! No harm, no foul. What happened just now, it didn’t happen. It was too quick to be real. Hope you like the sauce.”
On the way out, Castellano, in a cold sweat, stops briefly at Conte’s desk and stares down at the blow-ups.
Conte exits the Thruway at Schenectady, finds a liquor store, asks for a fifth of Johnnie Walker Black. When the clerk returns to the register with the bottle, Conte is gone. At 11:55 he pulls into the parking lot of the Q Shack. A minute later, a car pulls up beside him – Rintrona, who has arranged through Catherine Cruz to be let into the private office, where they sit now with their sandwiches and lemonade. Rintrona also has an order of hush puppies. Rintrona eats, Conte does not, gives Rintrona all the details, talking rapidly – his questions and puzzlements, his paranoia, the grief and guilt for Nelson Thomas and Janice McPherson – saying, at the end of his story, that the key may be Coca. Break him down, we get to the bottom of it all, the spider at the center.
Rintrona says nothing. Working on his sandwich and hush puppies. Eating and nodding. Even after Conte has finished speaking, he nods. Wipes his mouth. Drinks long from his sixteen ounce
cup of lemonade:
“That it, Eliot? Anything more you’d like to divulge?”
“Are you ready to help with Coca?”
“What exactly do you want me to do?”
“Did you acquire the chloral hydrate?”
“In the car. With the fuckin’ clown mask.”
“I don’t see Catherine until 7:00. In between now and then, I’ll take a room at the Super 8 motel, not far from here, where I intend to spend the afternoon – resting and writing out the scenario. Could you stop by at 6:30 to pick up your copy?”
“The clown mask. My copy of the scenario. Love the mystery. Okay. Listen. Here’s a few things in response to your story. No offense: I’ve been a real detective for years and there’s something I know which you, from your questions, I’m thinking you’re naïve. In the pursuit of a serious criminal, in this case extreme serious, there are cockteasing loose ends. You constantly think, if only I could tie those all up I would know everything there is to know and bring down all the ancillary bastards too. Total fuckin’ knowledge. But these loose ends can’t be tied up. Ever. You don’t get laid. No harmonious story awaits your brilliance that once you put it all together you never have to think about it again. You never stop thinking about who you didn’t bring to justice on this wretched earth. The only thing you can be sure of is you nailed your killer and some lawyer whose morals are worse than a terrorist’s can’t subvert the evidence. The truth of the evidence is your only truth. Forget this Polack and why he lied about Whitaker and Kinter being gay for each other. Forget this Donny and why Kinter showed up to see him while you were there. Donny is irrelevant. Whitaker is involved, but I doubt as a major force. I could be wrong. I’m often wrong. Coca must be broken down. Of course. He must be reduced. I agree. Your friend the chief of police is dirty. How dirty? We’ll see. Coca will tell us after we work him over. Enzo? Don’t make me laugh. Strictly speaking, we don’t know if Nelson what’s-his-name and Judy what’s-her-face were murdered thanks to you stepping in where angels fear to butt in. My guess is you were the innocent facilitator. Who killed these poor slobs? Kinter’s visitor? Who also did the assassinations? This picture here – look! Not only the shoes, but the suit jacket. It’s obvious. Built up in the shoulders by a bad tailor. The man inside the suit and shoes is smaller than he looks. My theory? Kinter and the visitor are the same person. This is a Mafia thing from the beginning.”
The Accidental Pallbearer Page 11