Kill for Thrill (15 page)

“I think he might have taken some electrical cable from my work truck, too,” Bernard Travaglia added at last.

Tom was very interested. As Bernard Travaglia’s wavering voice dropped the rest of the bits of information one at a time, Tom scribbled the words “Carol Cable” on the bottom corner of his notebook in big letters.

Whether the hardworking patriarch of the Travaglia family fully grasped the gravity or significance of the information he had just given the affable investigator was unclear to Tom. What was clear is that those seemingly innocuous strands of random data bounced around in Tom’s head all the way back to the barracks. He knew that he was tracking the right man.

That evening, with the winter sun well below the horizon, Tom Tridico sat in his living room clearing away the jagged details of his day. The monotone voices of velvet baritone newscasters rattled off the highlights and lowlights of another average Steel City day, and Tom drifted in and out of a light slumber. Filtered words bounded around in his head, and the flicker of images that crept through his half-open eyelids washed over him without effect.

Suddenly, one sharp word poked his amygdalae, jolting his eyes open. The word was “murder.” By the time Tom cleared the fog from his eyes, the news anchor had handed off the story to a shivering field reporter positioned strategically in front of a yellow ribbon of police barrier tape draped in front of the swirling circular ramps of the Smithfield Liberty garage. Now fully engaged, Tom drank in every detail.

As the velvet-draped body rolled behind him on a rickety gurney, the frozen reporter recounted the details of the recovery of a woman’s body from the third floor of the Gimbel’s Department Store parking garage downtown. “Shot twice with a small caliber handgun, police speculate that the motive for the killing is robbery,” the reporter said. Tom heard nothing more; he only saw. Sitting in the background of the frame, surrounded by evidence technicians and police detectives, Marlene Sue Newcomer’s new Dodge Ramcharger—two-tone brown with window curtains—screamed at him, “Look at me.” He scrambled from his chair and reached for the phone.

As he dialed the phone, his mental checklist rattled off to-do items at a mile a minute. Eventually, after working his way through the phone bureaucracy, he heard the voice of Sergeant John Flannigan, night supervisor for the Pittsburgh Police Department’s homicide squad, on the other end.

“Sergeant Flannigan, this is Sergeant Tom Tridico, PSP out of Greensburg,” Tom began as his mind started to equalize. “I think I might have some information on that body recovery you had out at the Gimbel’s parking lot this morning.”

As the two bosses exchanged information and began to align the details of their respective cases, it became more and more clear to Tom Tridico that Michael Travaglia and his partner were not only responsible for the murder of Peter Levato, but also for that of Marlene Sue Newcomber and possibly numerous other armed robberies. These are very bad men, Tom decided.

After their brief conversation, Tridico and Flannigan agreed that meeting in person would be best. They set an appointment for 9:30 a.m. the following morning at the downtown headquarters of the Pittsburgh Public Safety Department. Tom Tridico would not make it to the meeting.

Michael hated Doggone Sam’s hotdog shop. The tiny eatery always stunk of onions, stale bread and fresh Pine-Sol. He tried not to breathe through his nose. The fidgety fluorescent bulbs overhead washed the dingy little shop in bile-green coolness. It reminded him of Halloween. The swirling snowflakes outside the window threw themselves against the glass and then leapt into the night sky, oblivious to the men inside hatching plans of murder and robbery. Michael Travaglia had full control of the meeting. John and fifteenyear-old Ricky Rutherford sat in studied contemplation as Michael laid out the new plan.

Earlier in the day, Michael and John had stopped at the Smithfield Street arcade long enough for Michael to drop the last of Marlene Sue Newcomers quarter’s into a game of
Galaxian
. Ricky was already leaning against one of the machines when the men strolled in, and he insisted that they let him tag along. Michael didn’t have a good feeling about Ricky, but the kid had been so persistent that he figured what could it hurt? Michael knew he would regret it.

Michael preferred that his partners had only as much information as they needed, so he figured that his concise instructions to “wait outside in the alley” were plenty and abruptly adjourned the meeting. With a nod of agreement, the men stood up from the table and then hustled out the side door.

Pushing headlong into the cold, the men headed down Ninth Street toward the Edison Hotel. The familiar brown weathered stones of the Edison loomed a few hundred feet farther down Ninth Street. Tiny squalls of snow scattered under Michael’s feet as they walked quickly in the direction of French Street. Michael’s new plan had energized them. When they reached the front door of the Edison Hotel, Michael peeled off from the other two men and disappeared inside.

John and Ricky continued halfway down the street and then ducked into the darkened alley behind the Edison, where they waited in frozen silence. As the minutes crept by, Ricky nervously moved about, trying to stave off the chill that permeated the January night. Trying to keep warm, he banged his hands together. It didn’t help.

“It must be an hour already,” he mumbled to himself. John turned to him, “When you see a car coming down the alley and hear a horn beep, that will be Mike.”

Ricky nodded and then went back to banging his hands together. He wiggled his toes in his shoes to try and get the feeling back. That didn’t help either. His feet were frozen chunks of flesh, and he was starting to regret begging so hard. The idle of an engine crept up behind him and he spun around.

Bill Nicholls sat proudly behind the wheel of his new silver blue Lancia. He had been the proud owner of the new sports car for all of eighteen hours, and he was eager to show it off to his new friend. As they pulled into the alley behind the Edison Hotel, Michael reached over and tapped the horn. Bill thought this was a bit odd but didn’t give it a second thought—not until the two figures bounded from the shadows toward his car.

The passenger door flew open and John hurled himself inside the car. Bill was too busy watching the scruffy, disturbing man climbing into his backseat to see Michael slip the .22 revolver from his jacket.

Bill felt the sting of the bullet before he heard anything. It took him quite by surprise. The bullet screamed through Bill’s arm. It ripped into his flesh, and he jerked his body back against the seat. All he heard was the ruckus created by John and Ricky clamoring into the car. They drowned out Bill’s shrill screams of pain.

“How did it sound? Was it loud?” Michael asked as John and Ricky clumsily piled in.

“It sounded like a firecracker,” said John.

Bill Nicholls writhed in pain as blood poured from the soft flesh of his right bicep and quickly began to soak the sleeve of his jacket. “Get in the back.” Michael ordered as he shoved Bill toward the backseat, where John had already settled in. Michael slid behind the wheel, and Ricky jumped into the passenger ’s seat. Moments later the three men and their captive were speeding down Penn Avenue, headed out of town and into the darkness.

As the car hurtled along, darting in and out of the snowy hillsides along Route 119 headed toward Indiana, John Lesko began to torment the injured man in the backseat. Already handcuffed and bleeding heavily, Bill tried hard to defend himself from John’s meaty fists as they crashed into his body. He could not stop the beating.

Eventually, Bill surrendered to his attacker’s onslaught and collapsed, exhausted, against the backseat. Undaunted by Bill’s submission, John continued laughing and taunting the bleeding man. Harder and harder he drove his fists into his victim as Bill drifted in and out of consciousness. Again and again John hit him, each blow harder than the last. Bill couldn’t escape the pain.

With every fist fall, the shrieks of pain that exploded from his wounded arm drove Bill Nicholls closer and closer to unconsciousness. Drifting back and forth between lucidity and stupor, Bill could feel his bloody and broken body slowly dropping into unconsciousness.

Illuminated by only the eerie green fluorescence of the dashboard lights, the three men and their victim rocketed along the winding country highways for what seemed like an eternity. After an hour and a half of inflicting brutality on the semiconscious Bill Nichols, the bright lights of the Steel City were far behind them. Michael veered off Route 119 onto Route 110. A mile past Grove Chapel Road, there was a tiny, unmarked road that wound off into the darkness.

The silver blue Lancia turned off Route 110 onto Blue Spruce Road and skidded to a halt. Michael Travaglia glanced in his rearview mirror and then sat for a moment. Confident that no one was following them, he gunned the engine. The car jerked forward like a shot back out onto the road.

As the car picked up speed, tiny swirling snowflakes began to dance along the highway in little pirouettes and then threw themselves underneath the speeding car. Coaxing the car along the gently winding road, Michael regripped the wheel and then glanced out into the dark woods. The surreal landscape hurtling past them in the inky black night was familiar to him. The monotonous thrum of the drilling machinery and the acrid aroma of natural gas had worked into his brain, poking and prodding it, catapulting him back in time fifteen years until he was once more sitting in the backseat of the family car as they drove out toward the family cabin on Blue Spruce Lake.

Dragging himself back into the present, Michael shifted in his seat and refocused on what he had to do. William was silent. The bitter odor of burning gunpowder, singed flesh and warm blood still filled the cabin of the car, and Michael pushed harder on the gas pedal.

He knew this road by heart and mindlessly pushed on to his destination. In the distance, the faint amber glow of the Lakeside Center Pavilion caught his eye. Nervously, he scanned the parking lot for any signs of life. In warmer times, it was not uncommon for young lovers to steal away to the shores of this secluded lake hoping to find eternal love among the whispering pines—tonight there was no one. Relieved, he raced headlong around the next curve.