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Authors: Frank Lentricchia

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BOOK: The Accidental Pallbearer
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“You found them fascinating? I take pride in my prose style.”

“As well you should. I take it you saw the pallbearer substitution?”

“I didn’t – interviews with some onlookers later that day gave me the story and the description. What I was focused on at the time was what everyone wanted to see – the arrival of Aristarco and the Barbones. The level of their security was impressive. Their own goons, of course, and a tight circle of Utica’s finest. There was quite a crowd milling around.”

“You never saw the pallbearers?”

“I saw them carry the casket into the church. I must have, but have no recall, because … Eliot, why would I? Why would anyone? Nothing remarkable to stick in the mind. It was a funeral fifteen years ago. You have pallbearers at a funeral.”

“But you named Raymond DePellaccio in your article.”

“Filomena Santacroce’s grandniece gave me the name. Later.”

“Did you talk to DePellaccio about his convenient lower-back spasm?”

“That’s what it seemed like. Convenient. Raymond is the key to the set up. So of course I – not to mention detectives
from the force – was eager to talk to him. He was laid up in Saint Elizabeth’s for three weeks in traction – under heavy sedation.”

“The back thing wasn’t –”

“Bullshit? No.”

“How do you know he wasn’t faking it all the way through? The plan included hospitalization. Why not?”

“I thought of that, Detective. His doctor was Ronald Sheehan. Ring any bells?”

“I’ve heard the name, but not for some time.”

“You’ve heard the name because he was the most esteemed physician in the area. Honorary degrees, Syracuse and Cornell. You haven’t heard his name for some time because he was killed in a one-car accident four months after the assassinations. Your father, who was his patient, delivered the eulogy at Saint Louis Gonzaga, the church where all the faithful Lebanese attend.”

“Eventually you must have talked to DePellaccio.”

“I intended to, naturally, but I was too late.”

“I did a search on him – natural causes according to the obit. When would that have been? Not long after the hospitalization?”

“A week later. Heart attack is how the family wanted it reported. It was suicide. By hanging. In his attic. According to my source in the coroner’s office.”

“These deaths … this isn’t a paranoid movie conspiracy.”

“I entertained the thought. Occasionally still do. Where’s the evidence, Detective? Good luck.”

“You were not at the scene of the van accident, obviously.”

“No. There were three witnesses, whom I interviewed.”

“You interviewed the driver of the bus and the policeman driving the van?”

“Those were not witnesses, Detective, but I did interview Frank Doolin, you remember Frank? Former mayor, friend of your father’s, the bus driver. How the mighty fall. Frank said he had the green light, so did some of his riders, who came forward to see me down at the paper.”

“And the van driver? You talked to him?”

“No. Chief Criggy put a clamp on it. Told me when I requested that these good men didn’t deserve such publicity. He wouldn’t release the names.”

“I can’t believe a reporter of your, uh …”

“Astuteness?”

Conte toasts the Polish Prince.

“You dug into it, Rudy, I know you did, and determined the name of the driver of the van, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t have to dig, Eliot – someone came to see me, at home, no less, that night, and told me who it was.”

The Polish Prince sips his wine, enjoying the feeling that he has Conte on the edge of his seat.

Conte says, “But that name never appeared in print, either, as far as I know.”

“He spoke on condition that his anonymity would be preserved. Said he feared for his job and his life.”

“Would you like to tell me, Rudy?”

“Absolutely, Detective. It gives me pleasure to know that you’re looking into the source of the stench. The man who came to see me is our current assistant chief of police, Michael Coca. The man who was driving the van is our current chief – your pal, Antonio Robinson. At the time, I believe
they were both corporals. Buddies. Ambitious and on the rise.”

Conte breathes out heavily. “You see something dirty, Rudy?”

“Do you? I think you do.”

“Some petty jealousy might be all it is, Rudy. Maybe they were rivals of some sort.”

“No idea, Detective. What Coca told me was that the light was red – that the van stopped at the light and when the bus hit the intersection the van lurched hard forward – perfectly timed to crash the bus broadside.”

“Robinson was maybe spaced out and didn’t –” Conte cuts himself off, feigns a shrug. “Maybe Coca lied about the red light.”

“Maybe. Maybe. I’m not a grassy-knoll type, except the three witnesses I mentioned had no doubts about the van and the red light and there were no discrepancies among their accounts.”

“Their names never appeared in your story. Edited out?”

“Yep.”

“Your editor’s rationale?”

“He wouldn’t give me one.”

(“Grassy knoll” – not an allusion lost on Conte, who’d written an essay at UCLA on novels about the JFK assassination and its major, explanatory conspiracy theory. When asked by his professor if he, himself, believed that a second shooter, in addition to Oswald, who fired from behind, had fired from a grassy knoll
toward
which Kennedy’s limo was heading, Conte replied, I half-believe. To the professor’s argument that, psychologically, there was no such
thing as half-belief, Conte said, I agree. Nevertheless, I half-believe.)

“From the perspective of the grassy knoll, Rudy, these witnesses were lucky not to be identified, or they would have joined Dr. Sheehan and DePellaccio.”

“Your tone is ironic, Detective, but I believe that you believe there was a conspiracy. Who is the spider at the center?”

“Do you by any chance?”

“Have the notes? I certainly do. I’ll call the names in to you this afternoon.”

“On my land line. You have the number?”

The Polish Prince smiles, says, “I’m a reporter.”

“Thanks, Rudy. One more thing. The paper’s chief photographer at the time, Enzo Raspante – he’s been retired for some time. Is he mentally in order?”

“He’s these days at Our Hearts Are Full Assisted Living, up near the college. Has a brother, that’s it, who I hear moved to Florida. I’m sure he’d love the company. I visit Enzo occasionally – sharp as a tack and bored.”

“Thanks, Rudy.”

“One favor, Detective. Should you get to the bottom of the sewer, give me a heads-up.”

“I promise.”

“We’ll do the book and film script together.”

Synakowski quaffs the remainder of his wine. Gets up to leave. Conte says, “Wait.” Brings him from the freezer a container of frozen pesto sauce. Synakowski thanks him, then adds, “But what will Lisa and I have for dessert, Detective?”

Conte quickly replies, “You could stop by Ricky’s – or you could treat your special angel to some special Blue Velvet.”

After Synakowski leaves, Conte empties the half-full bottle of wine into the sink. This time with no desire to lean over and inhale.

An hour later, as he’s about to leave for Our Hearts Are Full, the phone. Synakowski with the names of the three witnesses to the accident – one dead, the second moved away, address unknown, the third, Nelson Thomas, 414 Ontario Street, no phone. “And one other thing, Detective. Several at the cemetery saw the shooter fall twice as he fled on foot. For what it’s worth. They said he seemed clumsy on his feet.”

CHAPTER 13

Conte asks the coiffed senior-citizen receptionist at Our Hearts Are Full if Enzo Raspante is available for visitation. She responds, “Shall I assume you’re a friend or relative?”

“We have a mutual friend at the
Observer-Dispatch
.”

“How nice! It’s a darn cold day you-know-where when he gets company. I’ll call … Enzo, dear, you have a visitor … A Mr. Eliot Conte … No, not Connolly … No, not Connery … CON-TEE … C-O-N-T-E … Just a moment, I’ll ask him … He wants to know if you’re Irish … No … he’s not, dear … Enzo … Enzo … I’m Irish and you like me, don’t you? That’s very naughty of you to talk that way, Enzo … You know I won’t … He wants to know if you’re related to Silvio … Yes, he is … He’s on his way, dear.”

Enzo Raspante’s living room features a treadmill, dumbbells of various weights, photos signed “To Enzo” by Rocky Marciano and Joe DiMaggio, as well as the usual family pictures. In sweat clothes, Raspante: steel-grey crew cut, little hair loss, none of the obvious collapses about the face and neck, a flat stomach. At eighty-three, he looks like an extremely fit sixty-year-old who could pass for mid-fifties.

He shakes Conte’s hand, “You got me in the middle of
my daily workout,” and proceeds to do fifteen rapid push-ups and twenty-five squats. Offers Conte a seat, “So what the heck is a man of my tip-top condition doing in this place? Walkers and wheelchairs galore, they constantly stare into space, odors of an unmistakable, drooling at the dinner table? Not to mention late-afternoon concerts given by off-key twelve-year-olds? My choice was to live alone without family, and friends all dead or with Alzheimer’s, what’s the difference, and who comes over except Rudy Synakowski once in a while, I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Conte. I chose, as you can see, without hesitation, the droolers and the incontinent. I’m a little hard of hearing. I have a car and can come and go as I please, but I rarely go. Shall we go off-campus or is this acceptable?”

Conte tells him what he does for a living and that he’s come to see him about photos he may have taken on a legendary day, fifteen years ago at Saint Anthony, when Filomena Santacroce’s coffin was carried into the church.

“Silvio’s son’s a private eye? Why didn’t I know that? I knew and forgot it on the road to dementia? You’re in luck, Eliot. I kept negatives of tens of thousands over a fifty-year period, but when I made the move here, I dumped everything except a box of special things – mostly my kids when they were little, got married, you know … they live now in Miami, Santa Fe, Chicago … Larry, my oldest … Larry. Yes. I see them once a year, if I’m lucky. The grandchildren … yes … tell the truth – am I too garrulous? Excessive garrulity is a sign. There are a few folders relating to very special events of a public nature, like the one you’re interested in. That was a big doozy. Everything nicely labeled.”

“Enzo, the shot of the mobsters arriving at the church that appeared in the paper and was picked up by the major –”

“That’s the one he wanted – the boss looked at the others but decided on that one.”

“You had shots of the pallbearer exchange?”

“Does the bear do number two in the woods?”

Raspante excuses himself, goes to the bedroom closet, returns with a folder. “Here we are.” They move to the couch, go through the file, isolate five negatives of interest.

“Who said no, Enzo, to the pallbearer shots?”

“Editor-in-chief. Rudy and I at the time discussed this
pezzo di merda
. We have our theories. Rudy calls them the grassy knoll perspective.”

“Who was editor-in-chief at the time?”

“Still is. Sanford T. Whitaker. That high-toned WASP who’s been writing editorials against your father for years. Thinks his shit doesn’t stink. Your father the corrupt political boss, this and that. Tell you what, I’ll get these developed by tomorrow afternoon. Ordinarily, it’d take a week, but Donny at Daniels’ Photography is a friend of mine.”

“Didn’t you show these photos to the police?”

“To Chief Criggy himself, who must’ve buried them, because nothing was ever done that I know of.”

“But you had the freedom to contact other news outlets and sell your photos for a bundle, I’d guess, and that way it would have been nationally publicized in a hurry – the image of the shooter, no? The
National Inquirer
? The
New York Post
?”

“Did I say they were my pictures?”

“Who else’s would they be?”

“Up to four days, Detective, before Filomena Santacroce was buried in Calvary Cemetery, everything I shot was technically mine. But I never had a contract. Nobody below Sanford had a contract. We got paid twice a month, that was it. I was no big-deal photographer working for the
New York Times
on a cushy contract. You follow me? Then four days before she’s buried, Sanford calls me in and offers me a five-year contract with a twenty-percent raise. Because my work is so wonderful, he says, for so many years, and it’s about time the paper showed its gratitude. So I signed right on the spot! What the fuck did I need to read the contract for, which when I read it, one hour after he says the pallbearer shots are not going in, I find out that what I signed says I own nothing. The paper owns my photos from now on, and if I violate the contract I lose my job and get sued on top of it, and where can I at that age get another job in this area that’s equivalent? Now you have them, you’re the right man, and I hope to Christ you’ll raise holy hell.”

“Would you like to have dinner at my house tomorrow night? I’m a decent cook.”

“Being of sound mind and wishing to stay of sound body, I don’t allow myself to drive at night.”

“I’ll pick you up at 5:30. How’s that?”

“I’ll be good to go, Houston.”

Conte rises to leave.

“Enzo, I can’t thank you enough.”

“Tell me something, Detective, do you sense a comic quality to my personality?”

“You’re a delight, Enzo.”

“Tell me something else. Do you think people on the
dementia superhighway are as effortlessly humorous as I am?”

“Never, Enzo.”

“Would you join me now in a cup of coffee, Detective, so that we might enjoy everyday chatter? The Yankees and so forth? It would please me greatly if you would. Please, linger awhile.”

“I’ll take mine black with sugar.”

“Detective Conte, I am not the man I used to be. That’s my truth. What’s yours?”

“I was never the man I used to be.”

CHAPTER 14

Home from Our Hearts Are Full, Conte finds a UPS package at the front door: his new BlackBerry. At his desk: the light flashes on the answering machine. Tom Castellano:

BOOK: The Accidental Pallbearer
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