Kill for Thrill (19 page)

“Gay Avenue?” asked Condemi.

“Yeah. Travaglia’s suspected in the murder of this guy Levato. PSP’s intel points to Levato being gay. They think maybe he was trollin’ downtown and got picked up by the wrong guys.”

Condemi nodded.

“We’re also looking for a church organist from the south side named William Nicholls.”

“He a suspect, too?” Amity asked.

“No. Might be another victim though. Again, PSP’s working under the assumption he’s same deal as Levato. If that’s the case, they were all probably hanging out down around the Edison looking for some action.”

“Sounds like they got more action than they were bargaining for,” Tom Condemi quipped.

Flannigan pretended that he didn’t hear the remark.

“Where do you want us to start looking, Sarge?” Tom Liberti asked, breaking the tension.

“Me and Tony are headed over to Twenty-first on the south side. This Scalese guy owes me one anyway,” Amity interrupted.

Flannigan glanced at Tony. “Okay. You two find Scalese. Rest of you guys fan out downtown. Hit your local spots, roust your CI’s and rattle every goddamn cage in the city till these murderous pukes crawl out from under their rock. Remember, these guy’s are cop killers. Wait for backup and no bullshit heroics. I mean it.”

Before he had even flipped the cover closed on his notebook, Flannigan’s men were already out the door. Eager to get a few minutes alone with Michael Travaglia, each man left the briefing gunning for a confrontation.

Tom Tridico paced around the confines of his tiny office. At times like this the small space felt even more claustrophobic than normal. It had been an hour since any of his men had checked in. He had spoken with John Flannigan, but he didn’t have any news either. His men were saturating the city, hoping to flush out Michael Travaglia. Until they did, Tom was in wait-and-see mode. Four years in the navy and thirty years as a cop doesn’t prepare you for “wait and see.” They prepare you for “go and do,” which is just what Tom wanted. The problem was that right now, there was nothing for Tom to go and do, so he waited—and paced.

He reviewed his notes, worked on his report and began calling all the troopers whom he had out in the field. One by one, he checked with them all. Dickey and Boyerinas were getting nowhere. Likewise with Lutz and Luniewski. There wasn’t much more to report from any of the others, either. Tom’s men had been on duty since well before sunup. Under normal circumstances, the overtime that these men were working would have to be officially authorized. These weren’t normal circumstances. Administrative bullshit, Tom thought, could simply take a backseat to operational effectiveness.

Every time Tom sat down, Leonard Miller reminded him how much farther and farther away Michael Travaglia was getting. Tom began to wonder whether Travaglia was even in the state anymore. If I’d killed a cop, he thought, I sure as hell wouldn’t stick around. Then of course, he thought of the irony of this and brushed it aside, knowing full well that he did not think like a criminal, nor did this criminal think like a cop. He decided to assume that Travaglia had not gotten far and would show himself again.

Tom leaned back in his chair. It was an uncomfortable, fifteen-year-old wooden chair. He’d brought it with him when he transferred to the Greensburg barracks, but every time he sat in it he swore he’d throw it out the next day. Uncomfortable or no, as Tom leaned against the back of the wooden chair, his eyes drifted closed. Eventually, the tumultuous thoughts and fears began to recede. Finally, even the cold blank stare of Leonard Miller left his aching brain, and he began to drift into a fitful but deep sleep.

Frank Amity weaved his way through the light, post–rush hour traffic and made his way to Brady Street. Making the right onto Brady, he waited for an opening, merged onto Forbes Avenue and headed for the Birmingham Bridge. Connecting the Oakland neighborhoods surrounding the University of Pittsburgh with the south side, Birmingham Bridge empties onto Carson Street, and Frank hung a quick right heading west onto Carson.

Having dealt with him in the past, Amity knew that Ray Scalese was a lowlife. A perennial pain in Amity’s ass, Scalese was a local street thug with so little ambition that he barely made for a passable criminal. Frank figured that homicide was a pretty big step up for him. Covering the one and a half blocks to Twenty-first Street quickly, Frank made a left and headed out toward Mission Street and South Side Park. As he passed the dilapidated, dingy apartments that crammed the roadside, Frank kept his eyes peeled for Ray. He knew that Ray was hardly able to keep a job, so he figured it was likely that he was on foot.

Within a minute or two, Frank was pulling the unmarked city police car alongside the curb in front of Ray’s apartment building.

“Look, this skell is probably harmless, but if he’s wrapped up in this cop killing, there’s no sense in taking any chances.” He paused. Condemi stared at him as if to say, “And?”

“Let’s just be careful.” Frank Amity could not believe that he had said something so cheesy.

The door to Ray’s place was no different from the rest. Amity was working from memory, but he was sure that they were standing in front of the right door. Frank had his hand on his gun. He wanted to play this low key, so he figured that kicking in the door with guns out and throwing Ray around would be a bit over-the-top. He decided to try the subtle approach.

Amity rapped hard on the door in that unmistakable police knock that is practically standard academy issue. He heard stirring inside the apartment. Footsteps grew louder on the other side of the door and then stopped. He could feel eyes straining through the peephole. Frank imagined that he heard heavy breathing through the door.

A woman’s voice called out, “Who’s there?”

Frank looked at Tony. Tony’s contorted, puzzled look said it all.

“Police. Open the door,” Frank announced.

“Show me a badge,” the faceless voice retorted.

Frank fished inside his jacket pocket, pulled out his shield and flashed it in front of the peephole. Moments later, the rattle and clack of the safety chain clattered against the door and the deadbolt clicked. A second later, the door cracked open an inch and a middle-aged woman squished her face into the opening.

“What do you want?”

“I’m Frank Amity, Pittsburgh Police. I’m looking for Ray.”

“Ray Scalese?”

“Yes ma’am. He home?”

“Ray don’t live here no more. I’m his landlady. I kicked him out a couple days ago.”

Frank shot a dejected look to his partner. “You know where he went?”

“No. You might check out Doggone Sam’s. He works there, I think.”

“Downtown?” Frank confirmed.

“Yeah, Ninth and Penn.”

“Thanks.”

The door began to swing closed, stopped and flew wide open. “You see that bum, you tell Ray he owes me back rent,” she ordered.

“Yes ma’am, we’ll do.” Frank chuckled as he and Tony Condemi crept back through the hallways of Ray Scalese’s former home. When the two men reached the car, Tony turned to Frank and winked, “Feel like a hot dog?”

Frank Amity and Tony Condemi piled into their unmarked car and headed out of the south side and back into the city, still in search of Ray Scalese.

On the ride back across Birmingham Bridge, Frank radioed Flannigan. It was a long shot, but Frank figured that he’d better check out Doggone Sam’s just in case Ray was still holding down a job there. Without much detail, Frank let Flannigan know that he needed some backup to meet him around the corner from Ninth and Penn Avenues. Amity would fill them in when they got there.

Emerging from the north end of the bridge, Amity caught the light onto Fifth Avenue and made the left heading past Moultrie Street and Meyers Plumbing Supply. Fifth Avenue was a straight shot downtown to Grant Street and took forever during rush hour. With fifteen traffic lights in as many city blocks, timing was everything. Lucky for Amity and Condemi, traffic signals are optional when you’re a city detective on the trail of a cop killer. The twenty-minute drive took Frank a little over seven. When Frank hit Grant Street, he began crisscrossing across the heart of the city toward Penn Avenue. He zipped up Smithfield to Liberty and made a left onto Tenth. Killing his headlights, he flew down Exchange Way, barely missing the fire hydrant on the corner. Halfway down the alleyway, he pulled in behind a rancid Dempster dumpster and waited.

Tony Condemi looked at the more senior detective with a queasy, “Who the hell taught you to drive?” look.

“What?” Frank scoffed.

“You are one non-driving individual, Frank.”

Amity snorted and pushed his door open, banging it off the dumpster.

By the time Frank and Tony had closed the car doors, a second blacked-out, unmarked unit was rolling down the alley. Regis Liberi, Ron Freeman and John Leckei piled out of the dirt-encrusted police car and joined Frank and Tony. Frank briefed the other three members of the squad and gave them each perimeter assignments. Frank didn’t think that Ray would make a run for it, but then again, he hadn’t thought that Ray would be involved in a cop killing either.

Exchange Way dead ended on Ninth Street about one hundred yards south from the corner of Ninth and Penn. The five plainclothes detectives emerged from its shadow with a forced casualness that immediately telegraphed both their occupation and their mission. Nonetheless, with most people driven indoors by the frigid night, they walked the short block and a half to Doggone Sam’s unnoticed.

Amity stationed Liberi, Freeman and Leckei outside in case Ray bolted and then took Condemi inside with him. The perennial smell of stale hot dogs, onions and Pine-Sol still filled the tiny, cramped restaurant. Frank didn’t want a hot dog after all. Behind the counter, the old man was swabbing the floors with a one-hundred-year-old mop, and a young man in a heavy parka nursed a soda at a table near the door. Amity recognized the older man. He studied the soda-sipping boy. It was not Ray. He decided that the boy was not an immediate concern and continued walking.

Without missing a stroke of mopping, the old man nodded to Amity and Condemi as they walked up.

“I’m looking for Ray Scalese. He work here?”

“Yeah. He works here, but he ain’t in tonight. He’ll be here tomorrow,” said the old man as he jammed the frayed strands of mop into a crevice under the counter. It was another dead end. The two detectives turned to leave—empty-handed.

“Ray lives around the corner on Liberty Avenue,” the man in the parka said in a thick West Virginia accent.

Immediately, Amity halted in mid-stride. Condemi looked at Amity and then stepped between the seated man and the door. Amity approached him and asked him for identification. Cautiously, the man reached into his pocket, pulled out a brown leather wallet and flipped it open. As he handed Amity a tattered West Virginia driver’s license, the hairs on Condemi’s neck began to bristle.

Amity covertly signaled to Condemi with a gentle nod of the head and then took Daniel K. Montgomery by the arm.

“Let’s step outside for a minute.”

The three men stepped through the door onto Liberty Avenue. Liberi, Freeman and Leckei quickly joined them. They placed Montgomery up against the frozen brick building, and Amity pressed the point of his knee into the inside of Montgomery’s leg to keep him off balance. He searched him. Patting down the outside of his jacket, Amity paused when he reached the right pocket. He carefully pushed his hand into the pocket and then withdrew a silver .38-caliber revolver with a two-inch barrel. Amity handed the gun to Condemi, who flipped the cylinder open, showed Frank the six stuffed chambers and then snapped it closed, palmed it and stuffed it into his jacket for safekeeping.

Resuming the search with greater enthusiasm, Amity probed every inch of Montgomery’s clothing. When he was done, he added twenty unspent .38-caliber bullets to the handgun that his partner was now holding.

“Danny, you’re under arrest for possession of an illegal firearm.”

Daniel Montgomery began stammering and stuttering in his thick Appalachian mountaineer dialect. Daniel swore on everything he could think of that the gun wasn’t his.