The Dog Killer of Utica (18 page)

“Yeah, his
sensibility
, man.”

“Not to mention the level of cleanliness.”

“Man, my mother is totally anal.”

“I admire your parents, Angel, always have. How are they doing?”

“I miss them, boss.”

“You all live under the same roof. Children and parents together—that’s the way it should be. Nothing better than that.”

“Same roof, boss, that’s only technical. My father works seven days a week and the little guy is exhausted 24/7. When
he’s home he’s like falling into a stupor while eating, the food falls on his pants directly from his mouth. The little daddy is like here but not here and the mother not so bad, but bad enough. They come through the door, they don’t have the energy to say hello. This is America, Jefe, the fuckin’ Hispanic wave.”

“They love you. That’s always been obvious. They do their best, I know this. One love under one roof.”

“Totally agree, but neverthefuckinless, Jefe.”

“You want more of them.”

“You said it.”

(Silence, as Conte’s mind flies thirty years back to California.)

“Jefe.”

“Sorry.”

“Where did you go, Jefe?”

“When you’re older, I promise, I’ll tell you.”

“Jefe, you be like all of the sudden in the total dark.”

“No, Angel, I’m in a place of light and goodness. Your house. And I’m thinking about your father and me planting the spring garden again.”

“You into poetry shit?”

“You’re a person of light and goodness for me, just wanted you to know.”

“Going all wobbly on me, man?”

“Got a problem with that, little guy?”

“Nah. On occasion I dig the heartfelt thing. What I’m saying, I need
involvement
and propose you require help.”

“Help?”

“Yeah. Don’t think I don’t know you’re in hot pursuit of the maniac.”

“How do—you’ve been into my e-mail?”

“Don’t hold it against me, Uncle. I propose a team. Me Tonto, the cool Indian, you the Lone Stranger.”

“Forget about it.”

“You need help, Mr. C.”

“You deaf?”

“But you do.”

“So I’m told.”

“Is that what the fox is sayin’?”

“No comment.”

“Listen to the fox and take me on!”

“She wasn’t referring to
that
type of help.”

“Total head case type help?”

“No comment.”

“Don’t feel bad, Jefe. Angel is a whack job too.”

“This thing is no joke. Listen. Get serious. It’s dangerous, and I’m not letting you near it. Do you understand? End of discussion. Do you hear me?
Finito
.”

“I’m here if you need me, Mr. C, including totally free psychological counselling.”

Without another word they eat—all the cookies and all the doughnuts, gulping down the big cold glasses of milk in long, long drafts.

Back home, nothing to do, three hours since she said she’d come by, and beside himself and considering taking a dose of his sleeping meds to get through the hours until she—the phone, his landline. Caller I.D. CCruz.

“On my way.”

“I’ll throw some dinner together.”

“Don’t. I picked up Vietnamese.”

She enters and first thing he says, “I have something important to tell you about the case.”

“So do I. Let’s eat first in peace.”

They do. In silence. Wolfing it.

He says, “I’ll do the dishes and then—”

“Let’s cut to the chase.”

“About the case I—”

“No. About what you have cold in the refrigerator.”

“It’s nonalcoholic. Nonalcoholic.”

“Nice. A trace of alcohol is in it, as if you don’t know what all drunks know. The gateway drink for people in The Program who can’t embrace The Program. Like you. The slippery slope. For people like you who can’t control their impulses. Who can’t keep their shit together.”

Conte opens and empties the remaining nine bottles into the sink.

“Did you do that, El, in order to please me?”

“No. And yes.”

“Let’s emphasize the no part.”

“Michael Coca, Catherine.”

“What about him?”

“He’s our shooter.”

“Oh, El.”

She refills their glasses carefully to the brim with unsweetened iced tea. She says, “This pathetic man, whose insanity is on display in the stores and on the streets of East Utica, for the last year, whose wife has reported lunatic behavior in the privacy of their home, is none other than our killer of men and dogs. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“If I was you listening to me, I’d be sarcastic too.
Remember Don’s observation that all shootings occurred in
proximity
to me, as he put it? Close to the truth, but not close enough. All shootings
because
of me. Because I tortured Coca.”

“You did
what
?”

“Antonio claimed that his assistant chief was a serial rapist on the loose.”

“Michael Coca? A serial rapist?”

“Antonio was desperate to have me put him out of commission. He had no evidence, it was bullshit I quickly learned, but he wanted something extreme done to Coca. Because Coca was blackmailing him.”

“About what? Are you telling me he wanted you to kill Coca?”

“No doubt. But we only extracted key information out of him.”

“We?
Extracted
?”

“Bobby and I. We tortured him. In wild disguises. We were beyond recognition. Don’t ask for details.”

“Who have I been sleeping with for the last six months? You and Bobby did actual torture?”

“Strictly psychological.”

“Strictly psychological? I’m supposed to find that comforting? And what else? Witty? You want me to applaud your wit?”

“It was Coca who coughed up Antonio’s complicity in the triple Mafia hit. This was the subject of the blackmail. Coca wanted to be chief. After we were through with Michael, we brought the Mafia hitter to Antonio.”

“Don told me when I came onto the force that Coca suffered a total breakdown. Don told me he’s in a mental
ward for six weeks about a year ago. Because you and Bobby? Don told me Coca retires from the force one month after the mental ward because you and Bobby? First you and Bobby are accomplices in murder.”

“Yes.”

“Now this.”

“Yes.”

“Coca’s motive.”

“Yes.”

“Any more violent secrets you want to reveal? Are there more?”

“No.”

“Are there
more
?”

“No.”

She pushes back against her shock. She’ll stay in the hunt.

“It’s obvious, Catherine. Unlike you I don’t trash thinking about motive. Now he’s turned the tables and I’m the subject of torture. He wants me alive to suffer the suffering and deaths of those close to me. I’m to be spared for impotent suffering.”

“Didn’t you just tell me you and Bobby were disguised beyond recognition? Did either of you speak?”

“Just Bobby, whose voice he never before heard.”

“How then could Coca possibly know it was you and Bobby?”

“Somehow he does.”

“Somehow. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, somehow.”

“Legally my theory is without foundation. It’s a joke. I understand that.”

“Explain why Antonio didn’t eliminate Coca too.”

“No need to, a guy that far off the planet.”

“You were not close to Freddy Barbone. How does he fit?”

“The shattered bottle of Johnnie Walker near Freddy’s body. I think it was a message.”

“An old pop tune. Remember? Dionne Warwick. A Message from Michael. Or was it a Message
to
Michael?”

“Make light of my thinking. Go ahead. But—”

“You’re calling this
thinking
?”

“His public and private acts of madness are pure theater, Catherine. No, please, take me seriously for a moment. It’s been a yearlong performance at home and on the streets guaranteed to place him far beyond the zone of suspicion. Who would ever believe he’s the one?”

“Only you.”

“He’s insane by any measure—but lucidly insane—brilliantly insane. Don’s latest theory that it’s Antonio with Tino as agent of Antonio’s intentions proves Don’s over the hill. Ridiculous. Implausible.”

“But less ridiculous and less implausible than yours.”

The phone. Antonio on the answering machine: “You there, El? You listening like a fuckin’ pervert? Guess who we got locked up for at least forty-eight hours? Our friend Michael Coca, who Cazzamano and Crouse arrested on Bleecker and Mohawk about an hour ago for indecent exposure. He grabs Cazzamano’s crotch. He offers him a blow job, which knowing Victor’s democratic appetites I’m surprised he didn’t accept. Victor puts the club to him. Man, you and that Rintrona did a job on that son of a bitch. What can I say except
fuckin’ bravo. Speaking of sons of bitches, that call you made to me? You cunt.” He hangs up.

“Theater, El? More theater?”

“The only question now is who’s next? You? But not me. Never me. Who’s next?”

“On your theory, with Coca behind bars, everybody’s safe well into Saturday night.”

He nods.

“El, this afternoon we had another murder.”

“Who? Someone close to me. Yes?”

She has difficulty getting it out. “Billy Santoro.”

“Something happened to Billy?”

“He was murdered.”

“What are you trying to say? What do you mean, murdered?”

“Murdered. Deliberately hit by a car on Humbert Ave.”

“I saw him today at Toma’s. When we left he was still at Toma’s. Am I wrong? Are you suggesting I’m wrong? What are you trying to say?”

“I went to the scene on Humbert Ave. after we parted. That was what the text from Don was about. The responding patrolmen thought it was a simple hit-and-run fatality. They were wrong. He was hit and then the driver backed up and ran over him backing up. Put it in drive and ran over him again. This is what the tire skids on either side of the body tell us. Initial hit—hard brake. Reverse. Hard brake. Forward. Billy’s body, in all my time in Troy I never saw such a brutalization. Eliot?”

He’s gotten up, back to her, hands on wall.

“Eliot?”

“I’m here.”

He sits. Leans across the table, takes her hand—squeezing too hard.

“Billy wasn’t complaining about his prostate today. He pronounces it ‘prostrate.’ ”

“I’ve interviewed,” pulls her hand away, “the guys, Gene, Remo, Don, Paul. They’re shattered. They couldn’t give any help. Paul said the last few days in Utica are like a horror movie. God help them. Gene said Billy wanted to walk home. It’s not that far, after all. He usually walks to Toma’s, then gets a ride home, usually from Remo.”

“I gave him a ride once.”

“I know how you feel about the guys at Toma’s.”

“I know how I feel.”

“I want to talk to you about a pattern.”

“A pattern of funerals. I need to be at Billy’s wake. I need to be at the Ivanovic wake. Do Muslims have wakes? Kovac is from Cleveland. They’ll ship him back to Cleveland. A closed casket for Dragan Kovac and a closed casket for Billy. His kids will put a framed eight by ten on top of the casket.” (Pause.) “I just can’t sit around. I can’t be expected to sit on my hands. I need to do something.”

(Softly:)

“I want to discuss a pattern, El.”

“I want to discuss Michael Coca. He was at Toma’s when we left. Have you forgotten?”

“El, I asked Don Ayoub if he noticed anything unusual when he left shortly after Billy did, and he said he saw Coca’s
vintage Mustang across the street in the Aroma Café parking lot. I asked him why he was telling me that. He said because it was unusual to see Coca’s car anywhere. At the time, I thought nothing of Don’s observation. Just an old friend of the victim trying to be helpful to the investigating detective.”

“Please don’t call Billy the victim.”

“Maybe I’m willing to rethink my reaction to your theory. Rethink but not necessarily accept.”

“He sat in that car, Catherine. He saw Billy start to walk home. He drove to Humbert Ave. and waited for Billy. This is how it went. Pick them off one by one who have proximity to me. To my list of the vulnerable we have to add all the guys at Toma’s.”

“Murder and brutalize the body. Barbone, Mohawk at South. Kovac, Mohawk at Lansing. Billy, Mohawk at Humbert Ave. Valley View Road where Milly’s dog was shot and Milly wounded. Valley View Road is essentially an extension of Mohawk, is it not? A pattern of Mohawk, El, what does that tell us?”

“Mohawk is beside the point. The insult, the desecration of the bodies. That’s the point.”

“El, what is the point, exactly, of the desecration?”

“I don’t know. Coca’s point is irrelevant.”

“Whoever it is—”

“It’s Michael. Stop resisting me, Catherine.”

“He’s shrewd, whoever it is. He picks his times. When he won’t be spotted by witnesses. Though Humbert Ave. at midday is risky.”

“He’s losing control.”

“Will you lose control?” He averts his eyes.

“Let’s say it’s Coca, El, because he wants revenge on you. Wants you to suffer a living death. Okay. How do we tie him
evidentially
to the killings?”

“If we can place him in the rental car—”

“That would be huge—”

“If we can show that he had access to gun storage at UPD—”

“Where does he get the keys, El?”

“He had them when he retired. He had them duplicated before he left the force.”

“No locksmith—it’s against the law, El, to duplicate those keys.”

“Catherine, this is Utica.”

“Why would he return the guns to storage?”

“To make sensible people like you and Don and me make stupid conclusions about Antonio. Which we did. What do we know now about Onondaga County car-rental agencies?”

“Nothing. One of our clerks went to work on it late this afternoon. She’ll be back on it in the morning.”

“You know damn well I’m right.”

“We have nothing except your guilt and fear, but I half buy your idea.”

“Stay here tonight.”

“Okay.”

“Shall we get some arctic air? Let’s take a walk around the block.”

“Let’s do that, El.”

As he takes his jacket off the coatrack his .357 slips out and clatters to the floor.

She says, “I don’t think we need that for a walk around the block.”