SIREN'S TEARS (ALTON RHODE MYSTERIES Book 3) (7 page)

CHAPTER 9 – THE MONSIGNOR

On Thursday, I called the rectory at Our Lady of Solace and asked to speak to Monsignor Barilla. A woman with a pleasant, sexy voice informed me that the good Monsignor was at luncheon at the Jewish Community Center in New Brighton.

“Ah, ecumenism,” I said. “Good for the soul, but hard on the waistline.”

She laughed. It was a nice, strong laugh.

“What time will he be back?”

“Not before three o’clock.”

“Are they having lunch, or parting the Red Sea?”

She laughed again. I instinctively like women who appreciate my jokes, while questioning their sanity.

“I think they will be parting the Rabbinical wine cellar,” she said.

“Can I make an appointment?”

“And you are?”

I told her.

“Can I ask what this is in reference to?”

“I just won a church raffle and the prize was an air ticket to Lourdes.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, but I could hear a bubble of another laugh.

“It’s a one-way ticket. You can see where I might be concerned.”

When she finished laughing this time, she said, “That’s priceless.”

“Actually, I’m a friend of Father Zapo. He suggested I speak to Monsignor Barilla on a private matter.”

There was a short pause. I had the sense that she knew what the “private matter” was.

“Come in at 3:30, Mr. Rhode. I’ll let Monsignor know.”

“And you are?”

“Isabella Donner.”

She knew.

“Our Lady of the Xerox.”

“Pardon me.”

“Nothing, I’ll be there at 3:30.”

***

The rectory was a two-story, red brick building directly across from the church on Joline Avenue. An elderly Asian woman holding a broom opened the door. I told her my business. She stared at me. I repeated myself, louder, and she bobbed her head and motioned for me to follow her. She led me to a small office where a heavy-set woman wearing a shapeless black dress, with her back to me, was busy at a file cabinet. I could here a man’s voice through a door that led to an inner office. The woman with the broom announced my arrival in a heavily accented voice and then walked away. I could hear her sweeping her way down the hallway.

The view of the other woman’s ample rear was disconcerting, given my expectations from the sexy, pleasant voice on the phone. But I banished my uncharitable thoughts and waited patiently. She finally turned around and the view did not improve.

“Ms. Donner,” I said. “I’m Alton Rhode.”

I could just as easily have said Jack the Ripper for the look she gave me.

“Isabella left at 3,” the woman said shortly. “And it’s Miss Donner. She is not married.”

I could tell by the way she said it that she approved of women who were not married.

“And you are?”

“I am Imogene Bulger, Monsignor Barilla’s personal assistant.”

Imogene Bulger had a voice like a foghorn and the face to match. She waited imperiously for me to say something.

“Well, Ms. Bulger, I have a 3:30 appointment with the Monsignor.”

“It’s Miss Bulger. I, too, am unmarried.”

No surprise there, I thought.

“Isabella shouldn’t be making appointments,” she went on. “That’s my job. She’s only a part-timer and came because I had an appointment at the beauty parlor.”

I could have hit that one out of the park, but kept my mouth shut.

“But since you’re here, the Monsignor will see you. But he is very busy. Right now he is on the phone. You will just have to wait.”

There was a chair by the door. I sat. She looked at me as if I should have asked permission. After five minutes, her phone buzzed. I started to get up.

“Yes, Monsignor. Right away.” Miss Bulger put her boss on hold and punched a button on her console. “Mullah Yusef? Monsignor Barilla would like to speak to you. Please hold?”

Barilla undoubtedly had all the Island’s religious leaders on speed dial. She put the call through and squinted at me. I sat back down. I heard laughter from the inner office. I waited another 10 minutes I got up and went to the desk.

“Is the Monsignor in the habit of making calls when his appointment is waiting?”

Miss
Bulger looked at me.

“I told you, he’s busy. Besides, I didn’t make your so-called appointment.”

It was the “so-called” that steamed me. I smiled.

“Well, I have to be in probate court in an hour. Tell the good Monsignor that the law firm of Rhode, Rhode & Rhode is handling the Frobisher estate. Hortense Frobisher, the heir to the Frobisher buggy whip fortune, has left a sizable bequest to Our Lady of Solace in her will and there is some paperwork I’d like to discuss with him.”

She looked startled. I was glad I had thrown a tie on before leaving the office.

“Isabella didn’t say anything about a will.”

I chuckled good-naturedly.

“You know those part-timers. Can’t even take a proper message.”

I started to leave.

“Just a second, please, Mr. Rhode. I think Monsignor is just finishing up.”

She went into Barilla’s office and a moment later ushered me into his office.

“This is Mr. Rhode, from Rhode, Rhode and Rhode.”

With potential estate money walking into his office, Barilla stood and smiled expansively. He was a well-fed Monsignor, as they tend to be. His head was too small for his body, and he was almost bald, except for a fringe of brown hair that circled his dome, ear-high. We shook hands and he asked me to sit.

“I don’t think I’ve heard of your firm, Mr. Rhode.”

“Understandable. We used to be Rhode, Rhode, Rhode & Rhode, but Clarence, my great-grandfather, just died. He was almost 90.”

“I’m sorry. But he must have had a wonderful life.”

“Yes, he did. Active to the end. We warned him about his mountain climbing.”

I looked at Imogene Bulger, who face had unsuccessfully been trying to register sympathy. Now she just looked confused.

“Please shut the door on your way out, Miss,” I said. “I’m sure you understand that this conversation has to be confidential.”

After she left, Monsignor Barilla said, “What’s this about a bequest?”

“I lied. I’ll say three Hail Marys. I’m a private investigator looking into the deaths of three of your parishioners, John Clifton, Ralph Lydecker and Mario Spinelli.”

Barilla’s face went through several phases, starting with surprise, moving to anger, then frustration and finally arriving at what I assumed was Christian resignation.

“And who do you represent, Mr. Rhode? If that is your name.”

“It’s my name, Monsignor.” I handed across my card. “But I’m afraid that I’m not at liberty to identify my clients.”

I’d taken a chance. The battleship in the outer office had given no indication that Isabella Donner had mentioned my connection to Father Zapo and I couldn’t imagine that Barilla would expect a poor old priest to employ a private investigator. If he thought I had more than one client, the Monsignor would be further confused and perhaps more cautiously helpful. For all he knew, I could be working for the men’s widows. Or an insurance company. Hell, maybe even the bishop. It wasn’t really a lie, if you counted Zapo, and, by extension, Marat Rahm. I would love to have said that I had, in effect, been hired by an octogenarian cleric and the Russian mobster who once tortured him, but sometimes the best lines have to be sacrificed for the greater good.  

I took out a small Reporter’s Notebook and a pen. I rarely need to write anything down, but I suspected that Barilla might be less inclined to prevaricate if what he said was apparently recorded.

“Now, what can you tell me about the deaths of Clifton, Lydecker and Spinelli?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

“You mean their demise is news to you?”

I was enjoying myself.

“Of course I know they died. They were very active in the parish. Their passing was a tragedy.”

“You mean their deaths were not accidental, perhaps somehow connected?”

I wrote something down. Barilla couldn’t see it. It was the starting infield for the New York Yankees. Assuming A-Rod’s hip held up.

“I mean nothing of the sort! I didn’t say that. It’s always a tragedy when someone goes before their time.”

This was too easy.

“Well, maybe I’m the suspicious type, but I’d say that when three ‘someones’ kick the bucket before their time, maybe it’s more than tragic. Might not it be criminal?”

There. I’d said the word. The Monsignor looked nervous. He didn’t know what I knew. Which made two of us.  

“One of my priests may have had suspicions.”

I was surprised he said that. Monsignor Barilla looked at me closely. He was no fool. He was fishing.

“Indeed,” I said. “What’s his name?”

“I’m afraid that I can’t tell you.”

“Why not? I’m sure I can find out by just asking around. Do you want me to do that?”

I’d boxed him in.

“Father Zapotoski,” he said reluctantly.

“How do you spell that,” I said, wondering whether I was overplaying my hand.

He spelled out the name, which I dutifully wrote down. I wondered if Father Zapo could play third base. Now, unless Isabella Donner or Zapo himself spilled the beans, no one would know who first came to me.

“Father Zapotoski is a good man,” Barilla said. “But he’s getting on in years. I hope you will take that into account.”

I ignored him.

“You didn’t act on his allegations?”

“They weren’t allegations. He had no proof, other than the three obviously coincidental deaths of men of an age where death is not all that rare of an occurrence. Perhaps I shouldn’t be saying this, but Father Zapo, that’s what everyone in the parish calls him, came to the priesthood late, from a background that may have inclined him to be suspicious.”

“I don’t understand,” I lied.

Barilla then told me about Zapo’s military experience, as I tried to look interested.

“Amazing story,” I said.

“So, you understand Mr. Rhode, he may see things that are not there.”

“Isn’t it just as likely that, with his background, he sees things that others can’t?”

“The deaths were many months apart, Mr. Rhode. Doesn’t that argue for happenstance and coincidence?”

“Perhaps. But it’s not unusual for a serial killer to space his murders so as not to attract suspicion, or for psychological reasons only he knows. Look at it this way. If they were close together, we’d be able to call it a massacre.”

He was flabbergasted. I was really pushing it, using “serial killer,” “murders” and “massacre” in one paragraph. I was trying to shake Barilla’s tree, hoping something, anything, would fall out. Father Zapo told me he’d already burned his bridges.

“There are still the questions of proof, motive and opportunity,” Barilla said, trying to recover. “All lacking. Surely, someone like you understands that.”

The good Monsignor had obviously been watching too many TV cop shows.

“Perhaps he heard something that he can’t repeat. Maybe several somethings. Then put two and two together. He did hear confessions, didn’t he?”

Barilla looked aghast.

“I won’t go there, Mr. Rhode. And I would urge you to drop that line of questioning. The Seal of the Confession is one of the most sacred tenets of the Catholic faith. Your client confidentiality pales in comparison.”

“So Zapotoski wouldn’t confide something like that with you?”

Barilla now looked genuinely offended.

“Never!”

He would have said the same thing if Zapo had told him anything. Still, I couldn’t imagine the old priest breaking the Seal with anyone. I decided to move on.

“I’m sorry. I respect your position. It is an honorable one,”

He seemed mollified.

“What could I do, Mr. Rhode? I heard him out. I looked at the clippings he had. I even went so far as to speak, as delicately as I could, to the widows of the men involved. But only in generalities. None of them harbored the least doubt that their husbands had died natural deaths. But that wasn’t enough for Father Zapo. He went over my head to the diocese. Then to the police. He has apparently stirred up a lot of people. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

I smiled enigmatically and wrote something else down. I was working on the Bronx Bombers’ outfield now.

CHAPTER 10 – WIDOWS

I left my house Friday morning in a cold drizzle quite sure it was going to be one of the most miserable days of my life. And the weather had nothing to do with it. I’d arranged to see all three of the widows whose husbands’ deaths had aroused Father Zapo’s suspicions. The only break I caught was the fact that none of the widows had children still living at home.

My first stop, at 10 A.M., was at a house on Murray Street in Richmond Valley, a small town just west of Tottenville. Naomi Clifton, widow of John, answered the door. As with all the widows I’d called, I told her that I was investigating the possibility that some recent deaths on Staten Island had been caused by something in the environment. That was a story that anyone in the borough, a dumping ground for the city for years, would buy. I rationalized the lie by telling myself that if there was a killer at large, he or she could be considered part of the environment. All the women asked me who I represented. I told them that was confidential but hinted strongly that I was on their side. I might have dropped the phrase “class action” as well.

After we settled in with coffees at her kitchen table and finding out that she “was doing as well as could be expected,” I asked Mrs. Clifton if there was anything that bothered her about her husband’s death.

“You mean other than his dying?”

I richly deserved that.

“Sorry. I mean, the circumstances.”

“Well,” she said, “it was very sudden. John had just finished dinner and we were watching N.C.I.S. on cable. A rerun. The one where Abby goes bowling with the nuns and comes home to find a killer waiting for her.” She looked at me. I smiled. “Anyway, Jack’s head slumped forward. I assumed he had nodded off. But when I asked him for the remote he didn’t respond. He wasn’t breathing. I called 911, but it was too late. They said it was a heart attack. No one mentioned anything about the environment. But I wouldn’t be surprised. We’re so near to Jersey and the Fresh Kills dump isn’t all that far away either. I worry about the water.”

The Fresh Kills Landfill, so huge that when operating it was visible from orbit, had been closed a few years. But it still got blamed for a lot. As well it should. I clucked sympathetically, feeling like a heel. Then it got worse.

“Poor Jack wanted to move to Jersey, nearer his dealership. He sold Fords, you know. Would only sell American. He was a veteran. But I said no. Our family is on Staten Island. We raised our kids here. Now something here might have killed him. He won’t get to have any grandkids. I wish I had listened to him.”

She started crying then, quietly. Being a heel would have been a step up from how I felt now.

When she composed herself, I said, “Mrs. Clifton, it may not have had anything to do with that. This is all very preliminary. I just have a few questions. Are you up for them?”

She nodded.

“Did your husband complain of feeling ill in the days or weeks leading up to his death?”

“No. The normal aches or pains. But he always went to work. He was often tired. Had a lot of late meetings and such, but the car business is like that, you know.”

“Did he always work late, or was that something more recent.”

She thought about it.

“It seemed like he had more business meetings in the months before he passed. Why?”

“Well, if he was working so hard, it might mean he was under a lot of stress.” I took a deep breath. “What about other kinds of stress, perhaps in his personal life.”

She looked at me.

“Why do you want to know that?”

“I really don’t. But some lawyer will undoubtedly ask, trying to shift the blame. Looking for mitigating circumstances. You know how they work. Always trying to blame the victim. I just want to get it out of the way. I know it’s a difficult subject to address. You can’t imagine how many of these interviews I’ve done. Fortunately, many of the wives I’ve spoken to see the big picture. In cases like this, it’s better if we get a full picture of a victim, warts and all. We’re all human, after all.”

“John was a fine man. A little overweight, but he was working on that. We had a happy marriage. That’s what you’re getting at, aren’t you?”

I knew I had gone as far as I could. Or would.

“I’m sure you did, Mrs. Clifton. What you’ve told me is most helpful.”

Somewhat placated, she said, “When will you know if John’s death is connected to any others?”

“I can’t predict that. But if there is a connection, you will be notified.”

That, at least, was the truth. She would indeed be notified, but not for the reason she thought.

***

My next visit went a little better, although I still felt like I needed a shower when it was over.

I told the same lies to Carol Lydecker in a small storeroom behind her office at the family lumber business she was now running in Mariners Harbor. We were constantly interrupted by customers, salesmen and employees, which helpfully distracted her from some of my probing questions.

“I’m sorry,” she said after one man with a clipboard left. “Ralph was very hands-on and I’m still learning my way. I’m hoping my boys pitch in when they are on school break.”

“Do they want to come into the business permanently?”

“God, no. I want them to be doctors or lawyers. We can’t compete against Home Depot and the others. Ralph was planning to sell when they finished college. The only reason we’re so busy now is because of the hurricane.”

“Staten Island won’t be the same without Lydecker Lumber,” I said.

That, I meant, and she seemed to appreciate it. In any event, she was candid about her marriage. There had been rough patches, even a short separation a year before his death, but things had been fine between them after they patched things up. Her husband’s death had been a shock.

“Ralph kept in shape. He worked as hard in the lumber yard as any of our employees. He was a runner, played tennis every Sunday at Hillside Swim Club. To die in the middle of a round of golf seems so unfair.”

On the way to my final interview from hell, I mentally recapped what I had learned from the first two widows. It didn’t take long. Clifton and Lydecker seemed to be hard-working family men who died too young, leaving genuinely bereft families. The only possible anomaly was the fact that Clifton had a lot of late “business meetings” in the months just prior to his death and Lydecker had separated from his wife for a time.

Affairs?

***

The huge woman who answered the door at the Spinelli residence, which was just down the block from the funeral home, was too old to be Mario’s widow. She was wearing a shapeless black dress that looked like it was made by Omar the Tentmaker. 

“I’m Moira Regan, what’s this crap all about?”

“It’s OK, Ma, let him in,” said a voice from further in the house. “I spoke to him on the phone.”

“I know you spoke to him on the phone. That makes him the Pope?” She put a hand out. “Identification?”

I gave her my card.

“You can get these printed for free on the Internet.”

I held up my license. She looked at it and then moved into the house, motioning for me to follow her. Noreen Spinelli was sitting on a couch in the living room with her feet tucked under her wearing jeans and a purple turtleneck. She was a tiny woman, a redhead, with pale skin and a map-of-Ireland face. Her mother, on the other hand, could play linebacker for Notre Dame. She plopped down next to her daughter and looked at me as if I had personally shot Michael Collins after the Easter Rebellion. I silently cursed Father Zapotoski.

“Would you like some coffee, Mr. Rhode,” Noreen asked.

“Nobody wants any damn coffee, Noreen,” her mother said. “Or tea. Or roast pheasant. Let’s hear what he has to say.”

I went into my spiel. Noreen looked intrigued, but the old lady wasn’t buying it. I managed to get the basics, at least as related by Noreen. Mario Spinelli loved his wife and children, and was in good health until he face-planted in his lasagna at dinner.

“He loved my lasagna,” she said proudly as her mother rolled her eyes. “He said my sauce was better than his mother’s. Sweeter.”

“The man doesn’t want to hear about your gravy, Noreen. Move along.”

It was obviously a heart attack. The marriage was solid. The kids were running the funeral home. It would stay in the family. When I asked Noreen whether she had noticed any changes in her husband’s habits or demeanor, she didn’t take offense.

“Mario always worked hard. It is a stressful business. He didn’t keep regular hours. He was often called away at night.”

Her mother just stared at me. I decided to press my luck.

“Was he away at night more often in the months leading up to his death?”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “What do you think, Ma? Do you remember Mario working harder before he died?”

“I think this guy has wasted enough of our time. I’ll walk him to the door. You go rest.”

Noreen gave me an apologetic smile, shook my hand, and then did as she was told. Moira Regan followed me out the front door and shut it behind the both of us.

“What are you really after, buster? And don’t give me any more of that environmental bullshit. Why do you really want to know about my idiot son-in-law?”

I decided to take a chance. This was a tough Irish woman who apparently wasn’t too fond of Mario Spinelli. Maybe she knew something.

“I didn’t want to upset your daughter, Mrs. Regan, but I’m looking into the possibility that Mario’s death might not have been natural. Was the marriage as solid as your daughter claimed?”

She took a step toward me.

“You think my daughter killed him? Are you crazy? Noreen is a ditz, but she has a heart of gold. She really loved the bastard. Get lost.”

“Back off, lady. I don’t think your daughter did anything. I think someone else might be responsible, and not just for his death. But I’m running into a stone wall. Can you tell me anything?”

She crossed her arms on her massive bosom and smiled.

“You got balls, I’ll give you that. Noreen shouldn’t have married that guinea bastard. He’s been cheating on her for years. He had a goomah when he died. No funeral director makes that many night calls. You’d of thought the Island was hit with the bubonic plague or something the way he was always out at night.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve lived here since my husband died in 2004. Got my own apartment in the basement. It’s finished. Italians are big on finished basements, you ever notice that. Even has a kitchen.” She laughed. “To make the gravy.”

“Do you know who his girlfriend was?”

“No. You’re the detective. You find out.”

With that she lumbered back into the house and slammed the door. Having a battleaxe mother-in-law like Moira Regan living in the basement might be one reason Mario Spinelli rarely came home, but I was betting on her instincts. Father Zapo had said the dead men “weren’t saints” and I was now becoming convinced all three had affairs before they died. That didn’t mean they were murdered. But it didn’t mean they weren’t.