by Nick Dorsey
Tom’s mouth became a straight, grim line. “You wanted me on this, remember? Not the other way around. You want somebody to do some surface-level bullshit, Patton can do that blindfolded. But you wanted somebody to work the case. So here I am.” Tom said, “Do you want to hear what I have or not?”
Jean rubbed the pale stripe of skin above her left eye. The conference room suddenly felt too small, even though they were the only ones there. She wanted to fire Tom for disobeying her and fire Patton just to send a message. She wanted to prove to Eason and Juanita that she could handle this case, that she could pull it back from the brink of failure and turn it into a win. Most of all, right at that moment, she wanted to hit something.
Jean pointed to his suit jacket and said, “You have a change of clothes?” Tom did not. “Then you're just going to have to go like that.”
Jean’s form was excellent. She felt that. A smooth action each time she swung, whether she connected with the ball or not. Settle in. Her back foot pivots. Hips swivel. Weight shifts. Shoulders, arms, bat. The solid crack of connection. Then do it again.
Tom Connelly stood behind the lane with his shirt sleeves rolled up, fingers curled around the chain link. She had expected him to correct her form, but he kept silent. Jean didn’t know if she was grateful for his silence or if she wanted him to say something. Just let him try to offer one small pointer about how to angle her swing upward. That way she could explode at him. He was finished explaining his reasons for going to the restaurant, which she thought were bordering on ridiculous, and relating everything Sal LaRocca said in return. Now he was just there, standing in silence.
She took one last swing and caught the ball. The hit felt good rattling up her forearms. Then she shut off the pitching machine. “So, you learned about the history of this restaurant and watched an old man get drunk. It doesn't sound like you learned very much to me.”
Tom untangled himself from the chain-link cage and came out into the lane with her. He held out a hand. “You know, I was thinking the same thing until he started talking about po’boys.”
“Don’t joke around with me.” Jean thrust the bat into his chest and had a small pang of satisfaction when the force of it caused him to take a step back.
“No joke,” Tom said. He then rambled on, standing there holding the bat and not hitting anything, but going through this inane story about po’boys.
Jean walked to the pitching machine. “None of this is relevant.”
“Can I finish a thought here please?” Tom glared at her. Jean waved him on. “Anyway, then he started talking about favors. About sticking together. If I was still a cop I would swear that he was trying to bribe me.”
Jean didn’t turn the machine on. Instead, she said, “With what? Where is the quid pro quo?”
He looked like a kid lying about to fail a test for a moment. He was standing there digging the bat into the ground. “It wasn’t specified, but there was an implication.”
“An implication.”
“The old man wanted me to throw the case.”
“You don’t have the power to do that.”
Tom was silent for a moment. Then he said, “But he didn’t know that. He just knew I was on the defense. Probably knew I used to be a cop and figured I was on the take.”
“On the take.”
“Yeah, It means-”
“I know what it means. You just sound ridiculous saying it out loud.”
“I don’t make the words up, I just say ‘em.” Tom hefted the bat. “Do I get a helmet, too?”
Jean took off her helmet. It wouldn’t fit him, she knew. It would be too small. She wanted to tell Tom he sounded like he was playing out some strange fantasy. Crooked cops, gangsters, bribes. Christ. Not that these things didn’t happen. Jean had seen enough to know they did. It was just that Tom seemed to enjoy the fact that it was happening to him. She had to ask herself if she wanted to entrust her career to a man like that.
The answer was easy enough.
She walked back down the lane and grabbed the bat from him. “Alright. I was wrong.”
“Thank you.”
“No. When I hired you. I wasn’t thinking straight. I’m sorry I wasted your time. It should take a week to process your check. You can pick it up at Tulane Tower any time after that.” She tossed her gear into a duffel bag. Tom hustled after her, grabbing his coat from the bench. His shoes slapped the blacktop behind her as he followed her to the parking lot.
“Hey. Wait! Shit. Just run it by Mrs. Adelfi.”
Jean spun around. “Run what by her? I need to do right by my client. As long as you’re out in the city chasing your tail, I can’t see her walking away from this.”
“What does she know about her husband’s family? I bet she knows a lot.”
“And it might have nothing to do with nothing.” But Jean was less sure now. She was thinking about the first time she met Sofia Adelfi, there in court in a plastic cube. She had spent the night in prison. She was accused of murdering her husband. When she finally talked to Jean, she didn’t give her any excuses. She didn’t say it was an accident. She only said two things. First, she didn’t kill her husband. Secondly, she wanted to talk to his family. Not her family. Not her mother. His family. When people are arrested, a certain lizard-brain mentality takes over. Self-preservation at all costs. And when Sofia Adelfi was arrested, her mind went to her husband’s family.
Jean threw her softball bag into the trunk of her Mazda and cursed. Behind her, Tom took a step back, holding his hands up. Surrendering.
“I’m innocent,” he said.
“The hell you are,” Jean snapped. She slammed the trunk and spun to face him. “You’re going to Templeman Five.”
She let herself enjoy the look on his face. He said, “What?”
“With me. We’re going to see her. Together. I’ll call you with a time. Until then, you’re fired.”
Jean left him standing there in the parking lot and drove home.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Tom Connelly wasn’t fired.
Instead, he got a call on Monday morning from Jean, asking him to meet her at the Templeman Five complex to meet Sofia. Tom dressed in his grey suit, no tie. He found himself nervous. Excited, even.
Jean said little as they waited inside the interview room. She just instructed him to stand and let her make the introductions. When the deputies brought Sofia in she was cuffed and manacled. A true danger to herself and others, Tom thought sarcastically.
She didn’t look like she could hurt anyone. She looked thinner and older than Tom remembered, but then again, a month in prison does a human no favors. She looked Tom over but didn’t express any interest. She simply sat down and said hello to Jean.
“How are you?” Jean asked. Sofia mumbled something about her cellmate. Jean made some sympathetic sounds, then gestured to Tom. “Do you know this man?”
Sofia shook her head.
“You never met him?”
She shook her head again. Jean turned in her chair and looked at Tom. “Alright, Mr. Connelly.”
Tom took a step forward and uncrossed his arms. “Mrs. Adelfi, do you remember coming to my office? This was a Thursday night, before your husband died. It was raining.”
Sofia’s mouth opened slightly as she listened to him speak. Then she grunted and waved him away. “I did not do this. I have never talk to you.”
“You did. We had a cold drink together. You smoked a cigarette and I gave you a few cards. I told you to go to a battered women’s shelter.”
Sofia looked back to Jean, angry now. “Why do you bring this strange man? He tells people I was in places where I was not. This is what the police officers say, I was in a place I was not. I do things I did not do.”
Tom watched her, trying to pinpoint the lie. There was one there, of course. But Tom couldn’t figure out the why of it all. As Jean spoke to Sofia, trying to calm her down, he thought of something. Jean was saying something about a plea deal and Sofia
was snarling back at her when Tom said, “How well do you know Sal LaRocca?”
Jean held up her hand. “No. Sofia, listen. A plea isn’t ideal but-”
“Salvatore is a good man.” Sofia placed her hands in front of her on the table. “He was good to us.”
Jean let out a long, resigned breath. She waved Tom on.
He said, “I spoke with him a few times. Went down to the restaurant. Met him, this kid Dominic. Whole bunch of people. They all miss your husband.”
“Me most of all,” Sofia shot back at him. She collected herself and said, “They think I did this?”
Tom shrugged.
“You must tell them I did not.”
“That’s what we’re trying to do.” Jean leaned across the table, stretching out her hands.
Sofia pulled away. “No. You want me to take a plea. No matter what else it says, it says I shot him.”
Jean’s voice gained an edge. “You’re not helping us go any other way. You say you had nothing to do with his death. Fine. Then you say you never spoke with Mr. Connelly. But he says he spoke with you. He was concerned enough to call the police and have them check on you.”
“He lies.” Not an accusation, just a statement of fact. Sofia went on, “You tell Salvatore I did not do this.”
“Then who did?” Tom said it louder than he had intended, but he liked the way that statement bounced around the small space and silenced the room. “Because we all know what kind of family Ernesto came from. And that family had pretty definite ways of settling family arguments.”
Jean sighed. Sofia recoiled, brought her hand to her chest, and said, “No. His Uncle Salvatore was like a father to him.” And that was all she would say.
Tom gulped in fresh air as they left Templeman Five. Jean took her keys out of her purse and began knocking them against the side of her dress. “She doesn’t know who you are.”
“I know. I think she’s lying.”
“But she’s not lying about the murder.”
“No. But I think she’s putting more faith in Sal’s relationship with her husband than she should.”
“Alright. I think you should talk to the yoga class. Sofia’s friends?”
“Jean-”
“Do it. Then you look into Sal.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. If this is going to trial, the jury is going to want a suspect. If it’s not Sofia, we need to give them someone else.”
“Uncle Sal it is.”
Jean shook her head and walked away. “Stay in touch.”
Tom waited until she rounded the corner. Then he let himself smile. He got on the phone and called Patton.
Two days later he found himself driving through the empty pre-dawn streets, taking back roads to an apartment complex just outside of New Orleans. The place looked like it used to be a motel. The doors all faced the parking lot and rickety-looking spiral staircases propped up the second floor. Patton squinted from the second-floor railing and slowly made his way down the stairs. He shook his head when he saw Tom’s Taurus, but he got in just the same.
“We can’t take my Jeep?”
“The old man knows it.”
Patton buckled his seatbelt and frowned. He sniffed the air dramatically. “Did you eat breakfast in here?”
“Coffee.”
“No.” Patton sniffed his jacket sleeve. “Why does it smell like pancakes?”
“It doesn’t.”
“It’s like you got syrup everywhere or something.”
“Oh, yeah. That. I think it’s a coolant leak.”
“Shit.”
“No kidding.”
“This car gonna make it all day?”
“I got a Saint Christopher medal here somewhere. I’ll say a prayer.”
Patton shook his head. Tom grinned and put the car in drive.
The day before, they went by Sofia’s yoga studio on Carrollton Avenue and talked to a few of the instructors and some regulars who happened to be around. Sofia was quiet, they said. At first, it felt rude, one regular said. But then they realized that was just Sofia. Did she ever come in looking like she had been hit? Abused in any way? No. Did they know Ernesto? One of the instructors met him a time or two. He wasn’t the yoga type, but he was nice enough. She walked them out to Patton’s Jeep and lit a cigarette. “It seemed fine. They seemed fine, I mean. But I guess you can’t know what’s going on in somebody’s relationship, can you?” They agreed no, you couldn’t.
That evening Tom managed to show up for his shift at the casino, take the requisite amount of shit from Ray as he lost at chess, and then go home. He even managed to sleep for a few hours before his alarm went off.
Now here he was listening to Patton snore in his passenger seat as he made his way to the Pan Dell’Orso. The plan was to watch, that’s what Tom had decided. So they parked across the street and down the block in a mechanic’s parking lot. Tom slid the Taurus into a row of beat-up cars. They were looking at the restaurant at an angle, and so had a partial view of the front doors and the back alley behind the place.
Patton grumbled awake but smiled when he saw where they were. “You gettin’ a tune-up real quick?”
“Shut up.”
“We’re here too early, man. Nobody’s showing up.”
“They do lunch at eleven, people will start showing up a few hours before then.”
“Yeah, but that’s a few hours from now.”
“I don’t want to miss anything. There’s a coffee shop around the corner if you want.”
Patton did want. He brought back coffee and pastries and the two of them ate in silence, listening to the news on the radio in the growing light. At around eight a sleepy mechanic opened up shop but either he didn’t notice them hiding in his lot or he didn’t care.
Patton drained the last of his coffee and said, “You really think there’s some mobster shit going on?”
“I think so.”
“Like Godfather-style whacking? Hits? Whatever?”
“The Adelfi guy didn’t die of a heart attack. I’d say Sal LaRocca is at least a person of interest.” Tom looked at Patton and realized the kid was giving him a strange look. Tom said, “What?”
“You know, we’re with the defense, right?”
“I know. I’m proving our client didn’t do it.”
“Alright. Just so you remember. We’re not chasing guilty folks. We’re proving them innocent.”
Tom thought about that for a minute. He decided he didn’t agree. “The DA is a pit bull. He’s not letting anything go unless we make him. And the only thing that’s going to make him drop his current case is another, better case. An iron chain of cause and effect with evidence to support it.” Tom caught movement down at the restaurant. “Look here.”
Two cars were pulling into the alley behind the restaurant. Several young men got out. Tattoos. Hip-hop on the radio.
Tom said, “The cooks are here. Prep work.”
“You think they’re gangsters?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the whole restaurant is part of whatever this is, but those guys didn’t have the look. What are those bags?”
Patton peered at the men entering the restaurant, then he shook his finger at the window. “Oh. Hey. Those are knife rolls. Like carrying cases for chef’s knives.” Then they were gone.
Patton wrote down descriptions of the cooks. They talked about football for a few minutes. After a lull in the conversation, Tom said, “So your name’s Patton?”
The young man looked at him.
“Like the movie? Or the general?”
Patton stared at him. “My name is my name.”
“Christ. Just trying to make conversation.” Tom thought for a minute while Patton looked over his notebook. Tom said, “What do you think about the Obama guy?”
Patton said, “The Obama guy?”
“Yeah, the president,” Tom said.
“I know who he is.”
“Well, what do you think? I like him. He’s young, I gu
ess.”
Patton rolled his eyes. “He a’ight.” He looked back down at his notebook.
Tom waited a beat. “So you want to be a lawyer?”
“I am going to law school, yes.”
“What made you want to be a lawyer?”
“What made you want to be a cop?”
Tom looked at him, knowing the kid was screwing with him. He relented. “I wanted to do good, I guess. And they were paying.”
“There you go. I want to do good, too.” Patton looked down at his notebook, then smiled to himself. He shrugged. “It’s like Jean has a little bit of the stick-up-for-little-guy in her, but she’s got a lot of the fight-the-power in her, too. So it’s that. That’s the combination.”
Tom nodded. Patton went back to his notebook.
Tom thought about trying another tact, or just outright telling Patton that stake-outs could be a bit easier to get through with a little conversation. Instead, he checked his phone and worried over his next chess move.
An hour later a big boxy Cadillac, fairly new, pulled into the parking lot. The big Elvis-looking bartender got out of the driver’s side and opened the passenger door for Sal LaRocca. Sal didn’t look like a restaurateur today. He was wearing a western-style shirt and black pants pulled up a bit too high. Sal and the bartender talked for a moment, then two cars pulled into the alley. Tom recognized the man driving the newer SUV, Dominic with his artful stubble. The other guy was tall with his hair a little long, parted down the middle. Hair curtains, with a long nose leading him.
“Alright. Here we go.” Tom pointed out the men he knew. “I don’t know Hair Curtains over there, the rat-faced guy. But the bigger guy tends bar.”
“Alright.”
The taller man walked swiftly over to Sal and shook his hand. Dominic trailed him, puffing on a cigarette. Sal was saying something and Dominic tossed his smoke and half-jogged passed them. He unlocked the front door and went inside, leaving the other men talking in the parking lot.
Patton said, “Should we go talk to them?”
Tom shook his head. “We just see what Sal’s day is like.”
“And hope he talks to a hitman?” Tom gave Patton a look that shut him up. “Alright, alright. I just want to know the plan.”