Funeral Hotdish (10 page)

Joya left the fifth floor at night and hit the computer in her home office, writing up scenes like how Sergeant Cope stumbled on Sammy—this wasn’t a story she’d compose in the usual way. The way Joya normally worked, she’d do all her interviews and gather all her documents and then sit down and map out the story. She wasn’t a journalist who made up her mind and then went looking for the evidence to support that—she worked the opposite way, wherever the evidence led, that’s where she went.

But this story was different. This story had a plausible premise that was yet to be proved, but if it were, would be a blockbuster. When this story broke, she wouldn’t have the luxury of days or weeks to write a story, she’d have only hours to get it in print. This wasn’t a comfortable way to work and she prayed she wasn’t skating on thin ice. She hoped that by writing as she went—writing while the words were still fresh in her ears and her notes made total sense—eventually she could string the scenes together.

One of the ways Joya passed the time on the fifth floor was reading Sammy’s book. She knew he hadn’t really written it, but Peter Maas had taped him for hours and then transcribed his thoughts. The stories were riveting. She created this scene for her story:

If you ever read Sammy’s book, you came away realizing there really are people whose value systems are out of whack.

Nobody dares get too haughty here about how ruthless and revolting that subculture of crime is; after all, much of America wallows in it most Sunday nights when HBO runs
The Sopranos
.

So it’s not surprising the book sold well.
Time
’s review probably summed it up best: “
Underboss
is fascinating for its anthropologically detailed portrait of a subculture some of us can’t get enough of.”

In the book, Sammy talks about killing nineteen people without emotion—even supplying the detail that his first kill was to the radio playing a Beatles song. He talks about his indescribable joy at becoming a “made man.” He talks about feeling justified in betraying Gotti because Gotti had betrayed him.

But nowhere is he more animated than when he talks about how his family reacted to his decision to turn on his friends.

To quote from the book: “I called them to come see me [in prison], my wife and daughter, not my son, who was only fourteen. I told them I was going to cooperate.

“Debbie says, ‘No!’ She’s shocked, she’s scared, she’s everything. My daughter is hysterical. Completely and totally. Her idol, her father, is about to join forces with the enemy. And I’m thinking, Jesus, how did I fuck up my whole life so badly? She’s crying, ‘No, Dad,
please!’
and she runs right out of the visiting room.

“My wife’s eyes are full of tears. She says, ‘I have to tell you, Sammy, I’m not going into any witness protection program. I’m not going to be part of this. I was never part of that part of your life, and I’m not going to be part of this. I’m not going to be part of anything.’

“I said, ‘Deb, I understand your position and I respect it. You’re a mother, not a gangster. You do what you got to do as a mother and I’ll understand it one hundred percent.’

“She gives me a hug and she leaves. My heart is breaking. I’ve never been through anything like this, never thought it could happen. But I know in my gut that for the first time in my life, I’m finally doing the right thing. I was going the route I chose. I wasn’t turning back.

“I was thinking of my son. I was worried about him. I had all kinds of thoughts about him. His father, the underboss, is going to jail. His father is a big hero in the neighborhood. And my son might try to follow in my footsteps and I can’t stop it because I’d be in jail. He’s going to be running around, his father is this big underboss, and people are going to cater to him and he’s going to wind up in the fucking life. He’s a tough kid, but a good kid. He’s not for the life. I had always sheltered him from it. And if he winds up in the life, he’s sure to end up either being whacked or going to jail himself.”

***

It surprised Joya that she felt sick to her stomach when she learned Sammy was right to worry about his only son.

It was the day she heard on the wiretap, “Do you have the money for Shorty Whip Wop?”

The captain was tilted back on his chair, twirling a pen between his fingers, when he plunged his feet to the floor and started scribbling. He snapped his fingers at her and pointed to the door. She ran out and yelled to the other detectives, “He wants you in here now.”

They rushed in, listened, looked at the notes, and started slapping each other on the back.

“Yes, yes, yes,” someone chanted, under his breath so they wouldn’t miss any phone chatter. These were the words they were waiting to hear. It was the day Joya started breathing easier. Because the known drug dealer named Mike Papa, who hung around with Sammy’s son, was asking Gerard if he had the drug money for Sammy.

Drug deals are done in code. Nobody’s so dense they’ll say something stupid like, “Do you have the money that’s owed to Sammy the Bull who’s heading this drug ring?”

So the sentence didn’t mean anything by itself. Hardly anything meant anything by itself. It was like building a wall brick by brick and some of the bricks were a little wonky. But this brick was solid. This coded message was important. Drug dealers were talking about Sammy.

***

By Thanksgiving, Phoenix Police had monitored hundreds of conversations, but they still hadn’t built the wall. The slow pace was wearing on Joya.

She had begun this story like she always did, thrilled and excited and convinced it was going to be such fun. At first blush, it was. But that wore off quickly when the real work to get the story set in. She’d overlooked this part of investigative work—the fatiguing, uninteresting, stupid, dull, humdrum part. Surviving this is what separated regular reporters from those who earned the title of investigative journalist. Regular reporters spent a day to a week on one story, then moved on to the next topic. They never spent enough time on one thing to get bored. Investigative journalists spent months, sometimes years, developing the information that blew the lid off something. Joya had been through this before, but always forgot about it when the next story came around. It was like women who forget the pain of childbirth and get pregnant again.

She wondered how cops did it, day after day, week after week, always dealing with the ugliness of crime. Not all her stories were about this underbelly of the law. She wrote about wonderful, beautiful things, too.

She’d spent a week at a burn camp in northern Arizona with children with hideous outer appearances but whose inner souls were beautiful. This camp was a haven where others resembled their wounds and nobody cared. Joya had never been more touched.

She knew what it was like to write about good things that made people feel better. Here she was writing about a murdering criminal who’d gotten a ridiculous second chance and turned back to crime all over again and what was the point? You can’t change the stripes on a tiger—who didn’t know that?

She wanted this story so much because it was so explosive, it had a guaranteed readership; it would give her great street creds; her “inside” status would be the envy of every other reporter; her paper would show up every other news outlet in town; and she’d show up Peter. That a criminal would be put away wasn’t the end all for her, it was the delivery system of her ego dope.

But over the last month, only a few bricks were in place, and Joya knew her editor wouldn’t let her hang on here forever. She’d fudged a little in her reports to him, making little things sound bigger than they were. Making tiny steps appear as Size 12s. She was in deep now and could never justify throwing away a month of her time—this story had to pan out. They had to catch Sammy selling drugs. And as the days passed and the clues got harder to see, she got more and more anxious.

The first one to suffer was Rob.

“Why is everything taking so long?” she asked him one night in bed, and he didn’t like the question.

“Oh, maybe because we’re not doing our job and are just playing around for the fun of it.”

“Okay, Mr. Sarcastic. That’s not what I meant. I mean, if there’s really a big drug ring out there that Sammy’s running, shouldn’t you be catching them selling drugs? So far I’ve sat through hours of wiretaps and heard only hints. I haven’t heard one drug deal set up. I haven’t heard Sammy utter a word. Maybe the captain is right and this is all smoke and mirrors.”

Rob threw back the chenille bedspread and sat on the edge of the four-poster bed.

“I tried to tell you that stakeout work is tedious. You want the version you see on television. You want action and you want it delivered on a silver plate. Sorry, babe, that’s not how it works. If you think we’ve got nothing, then maybe you shouldn’t be wasting your time hanging around the fifth floor.”

He got up and she could hear him getting a drink of water in the bathroom.

She knew she’d gone too far. Damn it. She’d fooled herself into the fantasy that she and Rob would come home at night and talk about the case and salivate over the evidence, and laugh about the FBI. None of that happened. It couldn’t be farther from the reality of fighting about this case every time they opened their mouths.

She’d vowed she wouldn’t talk about it anymore with Rob, but that was ridiculous, too. What else was there to talk about? She spent her days and nights studying Sammy the Bull, and Rob was out scouring the hillsides, trying to find the links, and when you’re that consumed with one subject, not talking about it reduces you to silence.

She felt him slipping away. He felt her slipping away. She feared she was pushing him away. He was pushing back. None of this was good. A sex life that had taken up three out of five nights was down to—maybe—one night a week. Weekends when Rob went off with his kids were a giant relief from the strain both endured.

She turned the volume up to ten. That’s the way she thought of her manic attempts at normalcy. If she walked farther on Saturday mornings and shopped more intently at the Farmer’s Market, and gardened until her hands were chapped, she could set things right. When that didn’t work, she started baking.

“I always cut out those delicious recipes from magazines, but I never bake them,” she told a friend. “Well, I’m going to bake them now.”

She bought exotic ingredients that were useful for one dish and stocked up on spices she couldn’t always pronounce, and she baked her heart out.

Cakes. Pies. Lemon bars. Date-filled cookies. Brownies. Muffins. Madelines. Popovers. Strudels. Bars.

She’d carry her latest creation to a neighbor because, God-forbid, she’d eat this fattening stuff herself. On a stroke of genius, she started taking her sweets to the police station with her. It’s almost comical how the way to a man’s good graces is through a piece of chocolate cake.

“Hey, Joya, what am I, chopped liver?” Chief Tomayer asked her one day when he came up to the monitoring room. “I hear my detectives are getting fat on the goodies you’re bringing in, but I never see any.”

“I won’t make that mistake again, Chief,” she cooed, and started preparing special plates for him.

None of this relieved the anxious feeling that this would blow up in her face. What if they never caught Sammy? What if she’d wasted all this time? How could she justify her salary if she wasn’t producing anything? How long would her editor be patient?

Even the Sunday calls home to her folks were strained. She couldn’t tell them about the story she was working on and some weeks it took too much energy to make up a story they’d believe. She’d ask about one relative after another and they’d give the latest. Sometimes it was rote.

“Oh, they’re okay.”

“Just the same.”

“Nothing new.”

In her turmoil, she yearned for the same, nothing new, okay kind of life.

“If I went back to Northville, I’d have my folks. Church on Sundays. The casino on Mondays. Coffee every morning at Cousin Alice’s bakery. I’d join the women gossiping and watch the men shooting dice. I’d have a garden with real vegetables. I’d never have to take another blood pressure pill.”

That wasn’t going to happen. So she usually fed off the Sunday calls that reminded her what life could be like. But something was off.

“Everybody here just feels shitty,” her mother announced one Sunday. Then she launched into another sad story about how Nettie wasn’t getting past Amber’s death.

“And Gertie has gotten so old, so fast, since Amber died.”

Joya understood grief and lost. What she didn’t understand was why these calls included an ugly undertone.

“So what’s really up?” Joya finally asked, coming out of her own fog to ask about her parents’.

“The town’s still reeling over Amber,” her mother announced, and Joya was surprised. Amber had died in mid-October. It was almost Thanksgiving. Shouldn’t things have calmed down by now?

“Still?” she asked, before she could catch herself.

“Joya Ann Bonner, you may live in a world where good girls die needlessly every day, but we don’t.” Her dad spit out the words.

“No, of course not. I’m so sorry, that’s not what I meant. I meant it’s been a month or so since she died, and I would have thought the town would be healing by now.”

“Healing? How the hell are we supposed to heal?” She could see her dad’s contorted face in her mind and knew it was bright red in anger.

“Johnny’s still in a coma,” her mother said, as though that were all of it.

“Oh boy, that’s gotta be tough.” Joya felt ashamed she’d forgotten all about him. “That poor kid. Do they think he’ll be alright?”

“They don’t know. His mother says she thinks he will, but who knows? There probably will be brain damage.”

“He better wake up because the sheriff’s not going to do anything unless Johnny fesses up,” her dad declared.

“Fesses up about what?” How did she have so little information about a very big deal in her hometown?

“About the drugs. About how Crabapple sold him the drugs.” Her dad’s tone was now one of a man who thought his daughter was a dolt for not understanding the simplest thing.