The Vendetta Defense raa-8

by Lisa Scottoline

  JIMMY: Is that you? WOMAN’S VOICE: Who do you think it is? Cher? JIMMY: I don’t like Cher. Cher don’t do nothin’ for me. WOMAN’S VOICE: Um, how about Pamela Sue Anderson? JIMMY: The one with the tits? Her, I like. WOMAN’S VOICE: Okay, I’m her.

  Judy fast-forwarded, with nausea. It made her never want to have sex with an Italian. It made her never want to have sex again, which was turning out to be a given anyway. Poor Marlene. Jimmy Bello was a pig. Judy hit PLAY when she thought she had gone far enough.

  MAN’S VOICE: And don’t forget the baby oil. JIMMY: What do you need that for, Angelo?

  It was Angelo Coluzzi, and Judy’s ears pricked up despite her fatigue. His voice was deep and brusque, and his English much better than Pigeon Tony’s. So far there had been just a few conversations between the two men, and they revealed only that Jimmy was a glorified errand boy. He ran personal errands:

  ANGELO: I told you, get the Cento. I like the Cento. Sylvia likes the Cento. She don’t want Paul Newman. What the fuck’s she gonna do with Paul Newman?

  JIMMY: So I forgot, I’m sorry.

  ANGELO: What’s so fuckin’ hard to remember? Cento! Cento Clam

  Sauce! White! What’s hard? Cento, that’s hard? JIMMY: Cento, I got it. I’ll bring it this afternoon. ANGELO: Cento, for fuck’s sake! It’s the only one without the MSG.

  Sylvia can’t take the MSG, I tol’ you that. You know that.

  He also ran pigeon errands:

  ANGELO: You mix oil with the malathion, stupid. JIMMY: Baby oil? ANGELO: The oil holds the malathion. You mix it and brush it on the perches. The fumes go in the birds’ feathers at night. Kills all the mites. JIMMY: So you don’t want the borax now? ANGELO: Of course I want the borax. Bring the borax, too! You’re so fuckin’ stupid! And pick me up at ten tomorrow.

  And he wasn’t always the best errand boy at that:

  ANGELO: The peanuts you dropped off, they’re the wrong kind. JIMMY: What? Whatsa matter with the peanuts? ANGELO: They’re the wrong kind. JIMMY: They’re normal. They’re normal peanuts. ANGELO: You need raw Spanish peanuts, not roasted, no salt. The kind you got, they got at the ballpark. You can’t feed ’em to the birds. Why’n’t you just bring ’em a hot dog and a Bud Lite, you idiot? And make it two o’clock tomorrow, not three.

  He also ran errands for the construction company:

  ANGELO: No, stupid, I said 20,000 square feet of plywood, builder’s grade. They shorted us, the bastards. JIMMY: You said 2000 square feet. I wrote it down, Ange. 2000. ANGELO: 2000? I didn’t say 2000! What am I gonna do with 2000 square feet of plywood in a mall, for fuck’s sake? And pick me up at nine o’clock, can you get that right? Don’t be late.

  Judy took notes on every conversation between Jimmy and Coluzzi, but as the tapes rolled on, her hopes sank. There was nothing to suggest that they had caused or planned the car accident with Frank’s parents. She flipped back through a legal pad full of notes. The only evidence she’d gotten was on the first tape, for January 25, the day of the crash:

  ANGELO: I’ll be ready at ten tonight and I’m gonna be thirsty.

  JIMMY: You got it. I’ll bring the Coke.

  ANGELO: Good. Don’t be late.

  Judy had listened to it over and over, excited when she first heard it. But on her notes she could see it for what it was. Nothing. All it proved was that they were together that night, not that they killed two people together. But still it was interesting, and it motivated her to keep going, despite her growing fatigue.

  Judy checked her watch. It was three in the morning. Maybe she could lie down and listen. She put her legal pad on the floor, stretched out on the soft wool of the conference room rug, and curved her back against Penny’s, which felt surprisingly warm and solid. It was good to have a dog around, and Bennie couldn’t fire her for it, since she did it herself most of the time.

  Judy snuggled back against the puppy, who leaned against her in response, then she rested her head on her arm, picked up her pen, and hit PLAY. She closed her eyes and listened to the tape drone on, hoping that, in the still of the conference room, in the middle of the night, she would hear the sound of men planning murder.

  A lawyer’s lullaby.

  The next thing Judy knew the tape had gone silent and the telephone on the credenza was ringing. She must have fallen asleep. Her navy suit bunched at the skirt. Her brown pumps lay discarded on the carpet. She looked at the windows. It was dawn. An overcast sky, with the clouds showing a pink underbelly.

  Ring! Ring! Judy propped herself on an elbow and checked her watch through scratchy eyes. It was 6:30 A.M. Ring! Penny lifted her head and blinked dully, clearly hoping voicemail would pick up.

  Ring! Judy got her feet under her, sleepwalked to the credenza, and picked up the phone. “Rosato and Associates.”

  “Judy! You there? It’s Matty, Mr. DiNunzio.” His voice sounded urgent, and it woke Judy up.

  “Sure, what is it?”

  “We been callin’ you all night, at home. What’s the matter with your phone?”

  “I don’t know, what’s the matter with it?”

  “It don’t work. I called the company, they said there was something wrong with the line, inside the house. They can’t even send a guy to fix it, they only fix the outside lines.”

  Judy felt a tingle of fear. Her apartment, unlocked. Her phone, possibly tampered with. It sure sounded like a trap. Her gaze found Penny, who had gone back to sleep curled into a golden circle on the rug, reminding Judy of a glazed doughnut. The dog had saved her life. Judy resolved to be a better mother.

  “Judy, you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I stayed here and worked. I got these tapes of Coluzzi and Jimmy, but they’re not much help—”

  “Judy, I don’t have time to talk. I’m at a pay phone and I don’t have another quarter and I’m almost out of time.”

  Judy couldn’t remember the last time she’d spoken to anybody calling from a pay phone, but it had probably been Mr. DiNunzio. In fact, the DiNunzios still had a black rotary phone at home, resting on something that they called a telephone table. Soon the whole family would be on display in the Smithsonian.

  “You gotta come,” Mr. DiNunzio said. “Now.”

  “Where? Why?”

  “Down by the airport.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, but we need your help. Come now. Get a pencil.” He recited an address as if it were familiar, and Judy grabbed a pencil, scribbled it down, and reached for her clogs lying under the table.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  But the line went dead.

  The metal scrapyard lay alongside the highway in an industrial section of South Philly, and it was immense, taking up at least three city blocks. Mountains of rusty oil barrels, fenders, bumpers, aluminum duct work, brake drums, and railroad wheels reached like houses to the sky, and between each was a dirt road. It looked like a veritable City of Scrap, and if it was, its city hall sat at its center: a huge metal tower of dark corrugated tin, with a series of conveyor belts reaching to it in a zigzag pattern, like a crazy walkway. Judy had never seen anything like this, except in the cartoon The Brave Little Toaster, but she didn’t say so. It didn’t seem like the sort of thing you’d want your lawyer knowing, much less saying.

  Cyclone fencing, concertina wire, and a heavily chained and padlocked gate kept the world out of the scrapyard, although the only world interested in entering was Judy, Tony-From-Down-The-Block, Feet, Mr. DiNunzio, and a golden retriever puppy, sitting patiently and only occasionally nosing Judy’s hand to be petted. Judy hadn’t wanted to leave her at work without telling anybody, and Penny was already turning out to be useful, finding ossified dog turds where nobody else could.

  Three senior citizens, the puppy, and the lawyer stood in a stymied line facing the front gate. Everybody but the dog held a take-out coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts, and a half a dozen glazed were left in the car. Judy was coming rapidly to the conclusion that no Italian went anywh
ere or did anything without a saturated fat nearby. It turned a job into a party, even a job this filthy. Trash lay everywhere, litter clung to the Cyclone fencing, and the increasing traffic on the highway spewed air scented with hydrocarbons. Soon it would be the morning rush hour, and they all would suffocate.

  Mr. DiNunzio read the sign on the front gate, a long notice posted by order of the court. “No admittance, it says, and then some court lingo. What’s it mean, Jude?”

  Tony-From-Down-The-Block snorted, an unlit cigar in the hand with the paper Dunkin’ Donuts cup. “It means you can’t go in, Matty. Whaddaya think it means, siddown and have a cuppa coffee?”

  Judy ignored them in favor of the notice. It had been posted by the bankruptcy court and was dated February 15, a year ago. She juggled Penny and the coffee cup to run a finger along the fine print. “Apparently the business that owns and operates the scrapyard went into receivership, and its assets—the land, the machinery, the equipment—were frozen pending the outcome. In other words, this scrapyard is just the way it was on February fifteenth.”

  “That’s what Dom from Passyunk Avenue said,” Mr. DiNunzio added, and Judy looked over.

  “Tell me how you found it, Mr. D.”

  “Well, we figgered that the truck that they died in, Frank and Gemma, was totaled. I mean, the way it went over the overpass, and the fire, it couldn’t not be.” Mr. DiNunzio swallowed at the memory, his eyes, behind his bifocals, still puffy from lack of sleep. He had a fresh shave, a new brown cardigan, a white shirt, and baggy pants. It was a given that he smelled like mothballs.

  “So we knew it had to be sold for junk, and the junkyards everybody uses in South Philly are the ones on Passyunk Avenue, because it’s close.”

  Feet nodded eagerly. “Also that’s where you get the best deal. They got five or six there, and you can bargain. You can—”

  Judy interrupted him with a wave. “Don’t say ‘Jew ’em down,’ okay, Feet?”

  Feet’s lips parted in offense. “I wasn’t going to say ‘Jew ’em down.’ I never say ‘Jew ’em down.’ I’m Jewish.”

  Judy closed her eyes, mortified. “Sorry. I don’t use that expression either. I never say it. I just know that some people do.”

  Mr. DiNunzio cleared his throat. “There are Italian Jews, Judy. Many people don’t realize that. They assume all Italians are Catholic, but they are incorrect.”

  Feet resettled his T-shirt huffily. “Well, I hope you don’t use that term, Judy. It’s not nice.”

  “I don’t, I swear.” Judy crossed herself, backward. This religion thing was so confusing. Maybe she should get one. She turned to Mr. DiNunzio. “Anyway, you were saying, Mr. D.”

  “So we asked all the junkyard dealers ’til we found the one they brought it to, named Wreck-A-Mend. Ain’t that a stupid name? Anyway, the guy’s name is Dom and he had a record of the title and he said that he sold it to these guys for scrap, right after they were killed, which was on January twenty-fifth. I know because I still got the Mass card. He said if they didn’t scrap it yet, or whatever they do, then the car should still be here.”

  “Great work, gentlemen!” Judy said, excited. It was more than she’d hoped when she gave them the assignment, yesterday in the conference room. But her bomb theory wasn’t panning out. “Did the junk dealer really say the truck was still whole, though?”

  “Yes. He said he had enough to sell. Got two hundred and fifty bucks for it, which ain’t bad.”

  “Tullio’s car ain’t worth that now,” Feet said, but Judy was thinking ahead.

  “So they couldn’t have planted a bomb on it, or there wouldn’t be anything left. But if they tampered with it somehow, there should be some evidence of it. Or what’s left of it.”

  Mr. DiNunzio sipped his coffee reflectively. “I still don’t unnerstan’ why the cops didn’t think that, if it’s really a murder.”

  Feet looked over. “They weren’t lookin’ for it. They thought it was an accident. It’s possible that it wasn’t, and we’ll know when we find it, like Judy said. She said she’d get it tested, like from a professional car tester guy. Right, Judy?”

  “Right. A car tester guy.” She nodded, relieved that Feet had apparently forgiven her gaffe. “Way to go, gentlemen.” Judy felt a cool nose under her hand and petted the dog, who apparently felt left out of the praise. “So where are the junked cars?” Feet pointed to the left, and Judy looked over with a start. On the far side of the scrapyard, behind piles of dark, shredded metal and bales of crushed aluminum cans, sat junked cars stacked as high as skyscrapers. Judy almost dropped her coffee. “Are you serious? There have to be a zillion cars there.”

  Feet shook his head. “No, only two thousand forty-four. We counted while we were waitin’ for you. We had nothin’ else to do.”

  Judy blinked, astounded. “But how will we know which one it is?”

  “It’s an ’81 red Volkswagen, a pickup. He used it for the construction business. It had a gold Mason emblem on the back, because Frank was a Mason.”

  Judy smiled. “How do you know their truck, Feet?”

  “Frank and Gemma lived down the block from me. We all know each other’s cars in South Philly. How else you gonna double-park?”

  Mr. DiNunzio nodded. “We were thinking, if you only look at the red ones, that narrows it down to only 593 wrecks we gotta look at.”

  “But we gotta check the burned ones, too,” Tony-From-Down-The-Block added, “since I think the truck caught on fire.”

  “How many burned trucks are there?” Judy asked, but Feet shrugged.

  “We didn’t count. We got tired and ate doughnuts instead.”

  Judy smiled and faced the Cyclone fence around the scrapyard. She didn’t know how’d she’d scale it, much less get them over. It was easily ten feet high, and the concertina wire would slice like a razor. “Only one obstacle left. We gotta climb the fence.”

  “The hell with that,” Feet said, and Mr. DiNunzio laughed.

  “You think a fence can keep out a coupla boys from the neighborhood?” He hooked an arthritic index finger on one of the fence’s wires and yanked. A waist-high door opened in the fence, its metal crudely severed. “I know it ain’t right, so don’t tell my daughter on me.”

  Judy’s eyes widened. “Mr. D, this is breaking and entering.”

  “No, it ain’t,” Tony-From-Down-The-Block said. “We didn’t break nothing.”

  “Let’s go.” Feet ducked down and shuffled with his coffee through the makeshift gate, and Tony-From-Down-The-Block went behind him, while Mr. DiNunzio held open the door for Judy, who balked.

  “I can’t do this,” she said, albeit reluctantly. All the Italians were going inside to have fun. Even the puppy tugged at the leash. “I’m an officer of the court. I’ve never broken the law in my life. It’s the only rules I follow.”

  “Don’t be a party pooper!” Tony-From-Down-The-Block shouted from the other side of the fence, and Feet agreed.

  “You tol’ us to find the truck, we found the truck. Now come on, Jude! It could be in there somewhere. We gotta get goin’.”

  Judy thought hard. She could petition the bankruptcy court for permission to enter, but that would show her hand, publicly and to Frank, and they wouldn’t grant it in the end. Maybe if she called the counsel for the scrap company, but that could take days. She couldn’t see any alternative.

  “You gotta do it, Judy,” Mr. DiNunzio said. “For Pigeon Tony. How’s he ever gonna get justice if we don’t help?”

  Judy smiled at the irony. “Is it okay to break the law to get justice, Mr. D?”

  The old man’s eyes narrowed, and though none of them had ever discussed the direct question of Pigeon Tony’s guilt, Mr. DiNunzio knew just what she was saying. “Sure it is,” he said with certainty.

  Judy considered it, standing her ground, feeling like a hypocrite, then a fool. It had started as a simple question but had become freighted. Still, an ethical question didn’t have to be a momentous one to pr
esent the issue; the fact that it seemed minor only eased glossing over the ethics. Judy was confronting the white lie of break-ins.

  “Penny, come! Come!” Feet shouted suddenly, with a loud clap, and Penny, on the leash in Judy’s hand, leaped forward and tugged them both through the gate, lunging for the doughnut Feet was offering.

  “No fair!” Judy said, landing confused on the other side.

  Mr. DiNunzio came through and patted her on the back. “Let’s go save a life,” he said, but Feet shook his head.

  “What’s the big deal, Jude? You may be a lawyer, but you can lighten up a little.”

  Tony-From-Down-The-Block threw an arm around her, with a cigar between his fingers. “Sometimes education makes you dumb,” he said.

  Judy wasn’t sure she agreed, but she was already on the other side of the fence.

  And the gate was closed behind her.

  Chapter 32

  The toxic wind from the expressway lessened inside the scrap-yard, and Judy and The Two Tonys, the puppy, and Mr. Di-Nunzio made their way to the junked cars, past a thirty-foot-high pile of car parts. “Looks like crab shells,” Feet said.

  They passed a lineup of used rubber tires.

  “Looks like chocolate doughnuts,” Feet said.

  They passed bales of smashed tin cans.

  “Looks like shredded wheat,” Feet said.

  Judy smiled as they walked by a yellow crane that said KOMATSU on the side in black letters. “What’s that look like, Feet?”

  “My mother-in-law,” he said, and everybody laughed.

  They walked on, down one of the makeshift streets of scrap, and in time Tony-From-Down-The-Block took on the role of tour guide. “See, Judy, that thing there”—he pointed at the corrugated tower, his cigar between two fingers— “that’s the shredder. It shreds the metal.”

  “Interesting,” Judy said, meaning it. She thought all cars got flattened, like in The Brave Little You-Know-What.