by Nick Dorsey
Now her theories about Ernesto’s death ranged from execution by crooked police officers to a mob hit. She couldn’t wait to hear what Eason would have to say about that. After Tom finished talking, she put on her shoes back on. “Mr. Connelly, I thought you were going to bring a bit of professionalism to this.”
“You wanted me to get a timeline. This is all part of that. I pull threads and see what unravels. That’s the job. This is a thread.”
“It sounds like mission creep to me. What do you think?” She said the last to Patton and hoped he would have a better answer.
“I think the old guy was weird and he was kind of interested in the case.”
“His cousin is dead. Of course he’s interested.” Jean was tired, and this conversation wasn’t helping.
Tom pointed to Patton. “You’re right. He was interested. And nice, too. He invited us to dinner.”
“Man also said he wanted her to get the death penalty,” Patton pointed out.
Tom shrugged. “I just have a feeling.”
Jean waved a hand to cut them off and she stood, “Alright. I’m going home. Write up the interviews and we’ll talk more about it. Don’t either of you dare write the words mafia or organized crime, okay?”
“But Cosa Nostra is alright?” Tom half-smiled at her.
She didn’t smile back.
“We don’t have a full interview with the cousin, Sal. Or the sister. They were close to the deceased. They could shed some light on this.”
“These are LaRoccas?”
“They are.”
“The mob kids.”
“Niece and nephew of the main guy, yeah.”
“Alright. Talk to them. Just… let me think about all these ins and outs. Go interview the old man. But don’t go down a rabbit hole here, okay?”
“Okay,” Tom said, and she ushered them out into the hall. Jean was already making a mental list of the things she wanted to do when she got home: order a pizza. Drink two or three beers. Take a bath. Get rid of today as fast she could and wait until tomorrow to deal with tomorrow.
Tom stopped right outside her door, looking at his phone. Puzzling over something. He mumbled, “Shit,” and scratched his chin. Jean could hear the sound his fingers made, rubbing his stubble the wrong way.
“Mr. Connelly? You alright?”
“No.”
Jean didn’t like the sound of that. If she ordered now, she could race the pizza to her shotgun double. Instead of telling him to take the phone elsewhere, she said, “Bad news?”
Tom smiled at her and waved the phone. “No. My kid is beating me at this game. Chess. Over the phone. Who knew he would be so good?”
She hadn’t pictured the man with a kid. “How old is he?”
“Nine.”
“And he’s already got a phone?”
“Yeah. Already using it to kick my butt, too.” He wasn’t talking to her, though. Not really. He was looking down at his phone. She stood in the doorway.
“Alright, I’ll leave you to it.”
He got the message. “Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. You have a good day.” Jean watched him walk down the hall. So Connelly had a kid. Weird.
She waited ten minutes to leave, giving Tom and Patton time to clear the building so she would avoid seeing them and getting wrapped up in another conversation about Sofia Adelfi or the mafia or whatever they would come up with next. She was walking off the elevator on the ground floor, almost home free, when she saw Eason meander out of the little coffee shop there. He waved a giant latte at her. “Hey, want to join me?
Jean sighed. “I’m out of steam today.”
“That’s why God invented a Venti latte. Venti means full steam ahead.”
“I’m out. Do you need something?”
Eason held up both hands, surrendering. “Hey, sorry to bother you. I’m just a working man. And I have to do it all with the investigator I was assigned to. Nobody is throwing extra shekels at a second investigator for me, even though I’ve got that Uptown double homicide.”
Jean rubbed her eyes. “Who told you?”
“Karen in client services mentioned that you put in the paperwork for a contract. The new guy isn’t good enough?”
“Patton is fine. But he’s green.”
“And you need all hands on deck for your plea bargain?”
Here we go. “No. She doesn’t want to plea .”
Eason shook his head and slurped his coffee. “It’s your job to get her to take the plea, alright? You know Juanita won’t give you shit. She wants it done. Maybe she signs off on a couple days for your guy to look around, but only if he comes up with something useful.”
“I know.”
“Don’t embarrass yourself, Jean. Work it if you’re going to come out on top. If you can prove abuse, an affair, even. Get yourself a crime of passion angle. Anything you can use to paint Sofia Adelfi as a victim and not a lady who shot her husband. And make that woman take a fuckin’ deal. You know you come to court with weak shit and you’re done. Hell, you tell Juanita some weak shit after she gives you a second investigator, you’re done.”
“Done?”
“It’s not like people mind an attorney grasping at straws. Shit, that’s the job, find the straws. Leave no stone unturned. And don’t get me wrong, I mean, it’s your first homicide case. You lose, that’s fine. All part of the game. But you spend that extra cash and only come up with some crazy theory? You have a plea cooling on the window sill you can’t get your client to touch, and you still lose? That’s breaking the only commandment. Don’t waste money. Even Juanita has her limits.”
When Jean finally made it outside Tulane Tower, she put in a delivery order. She hoped she could beat that pizza home.
Her little Mazda did beat the delivery guy, but she quit eating after a slice of pepperoni and half a beer, already feeling greasy and bloated. She drew a bath and then paced her shotgun home, marching up and down the row of rooms and thinking. Her cat, Chicory, watched from his place on the couch, tail flipping back and forth. Finally Jean undressed, tossing her clothes on the floor right in the hall. Instead of grabbing a towel, she pulled her black leggings and a hoodie from the dresser she had bought from goodwill. She found her batting helmet at the bottom of the pantry. She couldn’t remember why she had put it there. It didn’t matter. Ten minutes later Chicory was fed and Jean was gone.
The spotlights of the batting cages enveloped her. Just the pitching machine, the yards of green, and Jean at the plate. The net strung up over the lane completed the illusion. The rest of the world was far away. She switched the machine over to slow-pitch and waited over the plate.
The machine fired and she swung. Sometimes she connected, sometimes she didn’t. What mattered was her swing. Her form. She didn’t care about the contact, because losing was part of the game. It happened.
Like with Kile Robinson. Nothing she could do.
She swung. The ball snapped into the net behind her. She kept swinging.
After twenty minutes a guy walked up behind her. He hung on the net there, whistling when she smacked the ball.
“Not bad, but your swing is off, you know?”
She ignored him.
“Hey, that’s not how you hit a baseball.”
This wasn’t new. Jean didn’t have time for an intramural league, so the cages it was. These were the only cages open at night, and they were a decently kept secret. Now and then someone, usually a man, would watch her downward softball swing and try to give her lessons. Maybe they were attempting some clumsy pick-up line. Maybe not. Either way, she would swing her swing. She would miss a few balls, she would smash a few balls into the net, and she would ignore whatever ape was hanging on the net behind her. This latest would-be coach left after another minute. Off to find someone else to help.
Jean stopped the machine and caught her breath. Thinking about what Eason said, about her being done.
Thinking about Sofia, and if she believed that the woman had nothing to do with Ernesto
’s death. She couldn’t say she did, to be honest. And she had to be honest with herself.
Thinking that she only had one swing at this. She either connected in court or didn’t. She pulled her phone from her softball duffel.
“Mr. Connelly? It’s Jeanette Perez. Listen. Forget the cousins, or whoever. The LaRoccas. Just put a hold on them. I think it’s a dead end. I’ll need to talk to the head defender on this one. For now, just stick to Sofia and Ernesto. Patton’s got a list of Sofia’s friends. Yoga, I think. It’s not a long list but he’s got numbers and addresses. See if Ernesto was the saint people seem to think he was. And find me a timeline, okay? Thanks.” She tossed her phone back in her duffel and raised the bat to her shoulder, gripping it tighter than she should have.
Losing was part of the game.
The machine fired away. She swung. She missed.
Losing was part of the game, but that didn’t make it any easier.
I’m a fighter.
She swung. The bat cracked as it made contact.
I’m a warrior.
Crack.
I’m a badass bitch.
Crack.
CHAPTER TWELVE
A fter he got the call from Jean, Tom decided to call in sick. He suffered a barrage of questions and answered them quickly without elaboration. Was it the flu? Tom didn’t know. Was he contagious? Tom didn’t know. Would he be better by midnight? Tom doubted it.
He put on his LSU sweatshirt and paused at his apartment door. He turned on a heel and five minutes later he was leaving in his grey suit, no tie.
He thought about calling Patton. Nah. Jean had specifically told him, in no uncertain terms, not to do what he was about to do. And Patton was Jean’s. He’d rat Tom out in a hot minute.
He was going to see what the Pan Dell’Orso was all about.
Not to work the case. Just to try the food.
Really.
The Pan Dell’Orso looked like a diner that someone tried to convert into something like a high-end restaurant but it hadn't quite made the jump. That fit right in with the neighborhood. On one side of any given street, there were houses that had been old before the storm, now they were ancient, rotting things. On the other side, there would be houses raised five feet off the ground and new McMansions courtesy of Katrina money that residents had somehow squeezed out of their insurance companies. The Pan sat right on Severn, just past the interstate overpass, held in place by a latticework of power lines. The neon sign was dark, but the card in the window read Open . That was the Pan Dell’Orso.
The guy behind the bar looked like Elvis on steroids. Big mutton chops and broad shoulders stuffed into a white tuxedo shirt. His tie looking like a ribbon hanging down the middle of his chest. Tom stood at the hostess stand until he caught the guy’s eye. The big man shrugged, “She’s on break. Um.” He lumbered out from behind the bar and peeked into the dining room. “Go anywhere you like. I’ll get your waiter.”
Tom thanked him and walked across the black and white tile, past the red leather barstools and brass-lined counter and into the dining room.
A half-wall cut the room into two, the wall forming the backs of booths that faced outward on either side. To get around the room you would have to walk down one side, make a U-turn, and walk back up the other side.
Tom walked about halfway down and sat in a booth. The tablecloth was spotless white, a napkin had been carefully folded into some sort of seashell and stuffed into his water glass. The black leather seat was cracked but clean. The place was only about a quarter full, even now in the evening. Dead at dinner time. Business was not booming.
He scanned the photos hanging on the wall and picked out Dean Martin, Frankie Valli, and Frank Sinatra. The big guy with the beard he recognized but couldn’t place. Pavarotti? On the other wall were Robert De Niro and Marlon Brando. On the wall in front of Tom’s table hung a picture of a young Sylvester Stallone. Signed and everything.
A crooner with a cracked voice was singing overhead. Tom didn’t recognize the song.
From the bar, he heard the big bartender with the mutton chops say, “I don't know. I guess she's on a smoke break or something.”
Another voice said, “Right now, during the dinner rush? What is she, retarded?”
The deeper voice of the bartender again, “Nobody come in but one guy.”
“Christ. Just one table?”
“No, just one guy. Young guy.”
Tom smiled to himself. He was young compared to the rest of the clientele. The youngest in the place by a good 20 years.
The man the other voice belonged to was actually young, not Tom’s 40-years young. He came around the corner and gave the dining room the once-over. His eyes caught Tom’s and he quickly dropped the petulant look and plastered on a smile and walked over. He had that weeks-worth of manicured stubble that was somehow fashionable now and was wearing the same tuxedo shirt and tie that the bartender had on, but he had the suit jacket to go with it. Tom guessed he was management.
“Good evenin’ sir, have you been helped?” He had a thick New Orleans accent, all soft R’s and dropped G’s.
“No, I just sat down.”
“Sorry about that, our hostess is having, uh, issues, if you know what I mean.” Tom didn’t. The guy continued, “I’m Dominic. Can I get you something to drink, a cocktail maybe?”
“How about a club soda and lime.”
“I can do that.”
The guy turned away but Tom called out, “One more thing. Is Mr. LaRocca in?”
The young man reacted. Just a slight narrowing of the eyes. “Not right now, no. I think he's with some vendors from the Farmers Market.”
Tom said, “Alright. Thanks.” He flipped open the laminated menu. Veal. Manicotti. Angel hair pasta. Eggplant parmesan. Chicken nuggets for the kids.
No Sal LaRocca. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing. He could get his dinner to go and stay in Jean’s good graces. She may be young, but she made it clear she was the boss. Just calling him out of the blue and telling him to pull back. That took nerve. He liked that. He had ignored her directives, sure, but he liked that she made the effort.
He was looking around for someone to take his order when an old man shuffled out from a back room with an uncorked bottle of wine and two glasses in his gnarled fingers, and he was singing along with the crooner. He was wearing an apron over dark trousers and had on the same tuxedo shirt that everyone seemed to be wearing. He stopped at a table for two and bent down to chuckle with the grey-haired woman there. He performed a little half-bow, then Sal LaRocca left the table and set his sights on Tom.
He set the glasses on Tom’s table and then sat down, reaching to shake Tom’s hand. “Mr. Connelly, right? What you know good ?”
“I know the Farmers Market is probably missing you.”
“They close at two. I told Dominic, tell people during the lunch crowd I'm down at the Farmers Market. If anybody asks at dinner I say, tell him I took the missus out for my anniversary or something. You know? Just so I'm not bothered. But the kid gets it all confused.”
Tom said, “Don't people wonder why you're celebrating your anniversary every week?”
“If I'm not out in the bar, it's not like people are looking for me all that often.” He gestured around the room. “Plus, you see these people? They don't remember what they had for lunch yesterday.” He poured two glasses of wine. “Where’s your buddy? The black kid?”
“Patton’s busy.”
“His loss.” Sal shrugged and pushed a glass of wine towards Tom.
“I don’t drink,” Tom said.
Sal frowned. “It’s part of the meal. It's good for you.”
“Maybe so. But I don’t drink.” Wine had never been Tom’s weakness, anyway. Still, a good meal and a good glass of wine were tempting.
Sal peered at him. “Is this a wagon thing?”
“It's a wagon thing.”
Saw looked forlornly at the bottle of wine. “Well, this is a good one. Do you
mind if I go ahead?”
Tom said he didn't. “But I ordered a club soda.” Sal leaned back in his chair and called Dominic over. He ordered Tom another club soda and then he ordered food for both of them.
Later, after fried eggplant for the table and a few glasses of wine for Sal , Tom tried his hand. “How long have you owned this place?”
“My uncle started the butcher shop in 1947, he made sandwiches too. He ran it, then his son ran it. They turned it into the fine-dining . I took over in 1990. But I'm semi-retired now. Ernesto, rest his soul, managed the place for ten years.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “Dominic wants to run the place. He’s okay. A little cocky, maybe. I’m letting him play boss for a minute. We’ll see.”
“This was your Uncle Freddy who started it?”
Sal grinned. “I knew I liked you, Mr. Connelly. No. Uncle Mike started this. Different uncle. I got so many uncles and cousins I can barely keep track. First cousins, second cousins, first cousins once removed, whatever that is.”
“But Ernesto ran the place. He was the manager?”
Sal said, “Yeah, I was the, what do you call? A silent partner. Money guy.” Sal put two stubby fingers on the base of his wine glass and swirled it, the red lapping dangerously close to the rim of the glass. When he stopped the wine dripped back down like streaky tears. “I got to say something to you. I always liked Sofia. My sister thought she was stuck up but I don't think so, I think she was just shy. But, get to know her and she would kid around a little bit. She was alright. That's what makes the rest so difficult. Because Ernesto’s dead and she was right there with the gun.” Sal drank deeply. Then he shrugged and patted his hands together, wiped them off. Washing his hands of the whole mess. “So that's that. I'm not a doctor or a great legal mind or a cop like you, but that's that.”
Tom ignored that last bit about him being a cop. So Sal had done a little digging. That’s okay. Sal was just letting him know that he knew who Tom used to be. Tom said, “You and Ernesto were close?”