by Blake Banner
It was, and it smelled of stale sweat, tobacco, and weed. The sheets were rumpled and her two chairs were covered in unwashed clothes. She sat curled up on the bed and switched off her TV. “Just throw the clothes on the floor. I have to wash them anyhow.”
We did as she suggested and sat. I studied her a moment. She was probably thirty two or three, though her skin looked older; but her manner was that of a teenager. She said, “What do you want?”
“We’re from the cold case unit at the 43rd Precinct, and we are investigating your sister’s murder.”
“No shit.”
“I was wondering if there was anything you could tell us about that?”
She shrugged. “No?”
“The night before last, Sly, Coy and Greg were arrested in Lee County, for drug trafficking and attempted murder…”
Her jaw dropped, and her face, which had been ghostly, turned a whiter shade of pale. “Who…?”
“Me. They tried to kill me, and Detective Dehan.” I waited a moment and she seemed to try and crawl inside herself. “We are not Vice, Pat. We are not interested in the part you played in selling the dope here. We are only interested in your sister’s murder. Do you understand that?”
She nodded.
“Good. I just have a couple of questions for you. I want you to think back five years, to just before Kathleen’s death. Things were pretty tough back then, financially, right?”
“I guess.”
“Your dad was dead…”
She nodded.
“Mo had lost his job.”
Again she nodded.
“So it was just Kathleen and Isaac earning. Is that right?”
“Uh-huh…”
“And you.”
She swallowed.
“You were making money selling Sly and Coyote’s merchandise.”
She nodded. “We needed it pretty bad. That’s the only reason I did it.”
I smiled sympathetically. “You were pretty young, and from what I’ve heard, pretty wild back then. Is that true?”
She smiled uncertainly. “Back then. Now I just smoke a bit of weed. Mom don’t know about it. You won’t tell her, will you?”
I shook my head. “So, business was beginning to go well. You were making a few grand on each shipment. No questions asked at home, everybody grateful, and Greg, Sly, and Coy happy as Larry.” She nodded, looking sheepish. “But then you blew it. Or should I say snorted it. What was it, a night? A weekend?”
“A long weekend.”
“How much did you blow?”
“Five grand.” She giggled. “It was wild. I just wish I could remember it.”
“Were you scared of what Coy might do to you?”
“Yeah, pretty scared. I didn’t think he’d kill me or nothing, but he’d beat me up before, for having the wrong money, or not doing things right. Greg told him to lay off and he did. But I knew he was gonna be real mad about this. I was pretty sure Greg would too.”
“What about your mom and Mo and Anne-Marie?”
She was quiet for a bit, just looking at me. Eventually she said, “They were mad, too. Especially Anne-Marie.”
I stood and walked to the window. The drapes were drawn but I moved them with my finger and looked out. In the gathering dusk I could see the large, well-tended garden. The lawn was freckled with October leaves, and a wind, which I could imagine touched with ice, was rattling a few that still clung to the silver branches of the trees. The shed stood at the end of the garden. Sheds are to Brits and the Irish what garages and basements are to us. They are places where guys go to escape from wives and mothers. It’s where they go to smoke, drink beer, and play with power tools.
“Who uses the shed, Pat?”
“We have a gardener, he comes once a week. But mainly it’s Mo. It’s his shed and his tools.”
“That’s what I thought.”
We left her in her room. As Dehan closed the door we heard the TV come on again, and Mel’s voice came up the stairs. “Are yiz done already? I was just bringing up the tea. Will you have it in the parlor?”
I smiled warmly at her. “That sounds wonderful, Mel. Now, while you and Carmen have a chat, do you mind if I have a peek in your tool shed?”
She shrieked with laughter. “Whatever for?”
“Like your son-in-law, I am a DIY nut. I cannot see a tool shed without going in and having a snoop. You don’t object, do you?”
She looked confused for a moment, then shrugged. “The key is there, by the window. The switch is inside the door.”
I crossed the lawn and unlocked the wooden door. I pushed it open and felt for the switch. The light was from a single bulb with a green shade that hung suspended from the ceiling. It was neat. He had a workbench on the right, with all his tools hung on a board. There was a smell of creosote and sawdust. At the back, there was a lawnmower and a collection of digging tools, a hose on a reel, and a pitchfork. On the left, there were a couple of chairs and a wood burner. There was also a small fridge. Two got you twenty there was beer in there. Under the bench, there were three plastic storage crates, and I knew that’s where it would be.
It was buried under everything else at the bottom of the box, but it didn’t take long to find it. It was in a black, canvas bag with a drawstring. Using my handkerchief I extracted the machete from the bag and took a photograph of it. The blade was still stained. I put it back in the sack and replaced it where I had found it. Then I sent the photograph to the captain, with a message. Was given permission to look in shed at Melanie Vuolo’s house. Found this. Please get warrant to search property and seize evidence for tomorrow AM.
I switched off the light and locked the door, then went back inside. Mel and Dehan were in the parlor drinking tea. Dehan’s face bore a rigid rictus, while Mel, oblivious, talked about every and any thought that, like a butterfly on a late summer breeze, wafted into her mercurial consciousness.
She jumped up and smiled, clasping her hands, joshing and poking fun at me as I came in. “Well, was it everything you hoped it would be?”
“That, and much more.”
She turned to Dehan. “Men! Simple minds are easily pleased!” She squealed and slapped my arm. “Simple minds are easily pleased!”
Dehan stood and she clung to her arm. “Simple minds!”
Dehan laughed, put her arm around her and shook her head. “I know, easily pleased.”
“We must go,” I said.
“And you never had your tea.”
“It’s an excuse for me to come back.”
“Ooh, you’re a charming divil, so y’are!”
“You won’t say that when I come back.”
She laughed again and we left, stepping into the cold evening air. The door closed behind us and we made our way to the car, with our breath fleeing before us like urgent ghosts. And it wasn’t even Halloween yet.
TWENTY THREE
October had finally decided to start moving toward winter. It was nine thirty in the morning and there was frost on the road and on the lawns, giving the green grass in the front gardens a silvery glint. Dehan and I climbed out of my Jag as the uniforms climbed out of the two patrol cars: Karen and Bret, Sean and Lou. Even the echoes of the slamming doors sounded icy. There was some foot stamping and hand rubbing, and with hunched shoulders we climbed the steps and rang at the door.
Dehan had with her a shoulder bag.
Mel opened the door with her usual big smile, but as she caught sight of the four cops behind me and the paper in my hand, her smile faded into incomprehension. “Detectives, for the love of God, what is it?”
I handed her the warrant. “Mel, I have a warrant to search your house and the shed in your back garden, and to seize any evidence pertinent to my case.”
She looked stunned, then stepped aside. “Surely you could have just asked…”
The uniforms filed in. Dehan sent Karen and Bret upstairs and told Sean and Lou to wait. I paused a moment with Mel. “I’m sorry, Mel. It has to b
e this way. I called Mo last night and asked him not to go to work. Are they here…?”
“I’m here, so’s Anne-Marie. What is this all about?”
He was in the kitchen doorway, staring at me. I turned to Dehan. “Can you gather everybody in the parlor, Detective Dehan? I’ll join you in a moment.” I turned back to Mel. “This won’t take long. I just need to ask you all some questions. Where’s Sinead?”
“She’s at the nursery, God love her…”
Pat appeared on the stairs, accompanied by the two cops. She looked even more pale and scared than she had the evening before.
“Mom? What’s going on?”
Mel’s face was bitter. She looked me over from head to foot, like she was seeing the real me for the first time. “It’s all right, love. It’s some kind of misunderstanding. They’ll be gone soon.”
Anne-Marie appeared at Mo’s elbow and everybody was shepherded into the parlor. I turned to Sean and Lou. “Go in there with them. Nobody leaves.”
“You got it, Detective.”
They stepped inside and closed the door.
“Karen, Bret, get Pat’s cell phone and her laptop and take them over to the lab. Tell Frank to go through her social media, her emails, her calls and text messages, everything. We are looking for communication between her, Greg, Sly, and Coyote. Then come back.”
“Got it.”
“OK, Detective Dehan, you are with me.”
I took the key from where I had left it the previous evening and we crossed the garden to the shed, with the morning frost crunching under our feet. We let ourselves in and pulled on our surgical gloves. Dehan took a large, plastic evidence bag from her pocket.
The machete was where I had left it, in its canvas sack at the bottom of the crate. I laid it on the workbench, withdrew the blade and laid it on top. In the morning light, it was clear that the steel blade still had gore on it. Dehan reached in her shoulder bag and pulled out a camera and a bottle of Luminol. She set up the camera on a small tripod on the bench and I closed the door and the shutters on the window, then dowsed the light. She sprayed the blade and as it started to glow blue, she took a long exposure photograph.
“It’s blood,” she said.
“Next thing is to prove it’s hers, and that his prints are on the handle.”
“Why the hell would he keep it? Why didn’t he ditch it?”
I shook my head. “You’d need a psychologist to answer that one, but I’m guessing it’s some kind of trophy. The moment he decapitated his wife, it obviously meant something to him. Some kind of liberation, or triumph.”
She bagged it and the canvas sack separately and we took them inside.
Everybody looked up as we stepped into the parlor. Mo and Anne-Marie were sitting on the sofa together, holding hands. Pat was curled up in one armchair and Mel was in the other. She looked mad, but the other three looked scared.
They had a fire burning in the grate, and opposite it, between the sofa and the two chairs, was a coffee table. I laid the machete on it and looked at Mo. His eyes were like saucers and he was very pale. I glanced at Anne-Marie, then at Mel and Pat. They were all staring at it with no expression at all. Then they all looked at Mo.
“That’s blood on the blade, Mo. That’s a nice Micata handle, composite of linen and paper. It’s expensive, but it looks good and it’s comfortable, right?” He was staring at me. He didn’t answer, so I went on. “It will also hold a fingerprint for years. In about half an hour, Officers Bransen and Murphy will return, and they will take this machete, and the canvas sack, to the lab for analysis. I am willing to bet they are going to find the blood is Kathleen’s and the prints are yours. Have you anything to say, Mo?”
The entire room seemed to have gone into some kind of catatonic shock. I looked at Mel. She was transfixed, staring at her son in-law. Anne-Marie was still looking at the blade.
Finally he gave a big blink, like he was dragging his mind back from some nightmare. He said, “No. No! This is wrong. You are lying to me.” He pointed at the weapon. “That is not her blood. And you cannot prove it is. It is not possible.”
Anne-Marie gave her head a quick shake. “He’s right. You’re trying to trap him. There is no way you can prove that is Kathleen’s blood.”
Dehan folded her arms. “Why not?”
Mo went to answer but Anne-Marie cut across him fast. “Because in the first place, it ain’t hers! And in the second place, even if it was, after five years it would be so deteriorated it would be useless.”
She smiled. “You an expert in forensics, Anne-Marie?”
Anne-Marie scowled at her bitterly. “We all are. When you are the victim of this kind of crime, you become an expert in all sorts of things you never expected. Look at the semen they found in Kathleen! The poor girl was raped, and after just a few days the sample had become unusable. You want us to believe that after five years, the blood on that blade will give you a DNA profile?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Is that how old it is, five years?”
She went pale and stammered, “If it were, it would be…”
I walked to the bow window and rested my ass on the windowsill. I crossed my arms and stared at Mo for a moment. “I’m glad you brought up the subject the of semen, Anne-Marie. It’s something that has been troubling me. You see, when I talked to you both yesterday, you lied about where Mo had spent the night.”
She came back quick. “We didn’t lie, we just didn’t tell the whole truth. He did spend the night at Mel’s house. We just didn’t mention we were having an affair at the time, until you tricked us.”
I scratched my chin. “But here’s the thing, Mo. If you spent the night with Anne-Marie at Mel’s place, and the next morning—you say first thing, Anne-Marie says around eleven—you went home, argued with Kathleen and she left, at what point exactly did you have sex with her?”
His face had gone the color and the texture of a church candle. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do, Mo. DNA technology is advancing faster than you can imagine. We resubmitted the semen sample for testing and they got a match. It was yours. You had sex with Kathleen just before she died.”
Mel closed her eyes. “Jesus, Mary and sweet Joanna!”
Anne-Marie had turned and was staring in horror at her husband. “You did what? What kind of…?” She stopped herself and turned to me. “Is this true or is it another trick?”
Dehan said, “Think about it, where did he spend the night?”
She turned furious eyes on her husband. Her hands were trembling. He was shaking his head.
“I swear, baby. It ain’t true. I promise you.”
Mel’s voice came like she was biting each syllable as it came out.
“Don’t—say—another—word!” She glared at me as though I had somehow betrayed her. “Lies! Lies and trickery! He is a good lad! Him and Isaac, God love’em both! They stood by me when Kath was taken from me and I will not believe these lies! Lies and feckin’ trickery! Ashamed of yourself, you should be!” She turned back to Mo. “Not another word, you hear me?”
I watched her a moment before answering. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bright. Her mouth was a hard line and her jaw was stubborn. “He raped and murdered your daughter, Mel.”
“Mrs. Vuolo, to you! I will not believe it. I will not! How you could do this to us after what we have already been through. Shame! Shame on you!”
I looked back at Mo. Anne-Marie had removed her hand from his and had crossed her arms. She had tears in her eyes.
“How about it, Mo? You ready to tell the truth? What are we going to find when we analyze the machete? You know, and I know, that your only hope now is leniency in sentence. And the only way you are going to get that is by coming clean. Tell me what happened, Mo.”
Mel’s face had started to crumble. Her cheeks were wet. She was staring at Mo, appealing to him. “You didn’t do it, Mo. Tell me you didn’t. I’ll believe you. We’ll get you a
good lawyer. Don’t say nothin’ till we get a lawyer. We’ll get through this, love, like we got through everything else. Stick together. Remember? That’s what we promised each other. A family. Stick together….” Her lip curled, she buried her face in her hands and started to sob, begging God to help them.
I sighed. “Here’s what happened, Mo. Anne-Marie had already broken up with your brother. You were the one she had always liked, anyhow. And you were getting a bit tired of Kath. She’d served her purpose, which was to get you to the big city. But now she was becoming a pain in your ass. I don’t know exactly why, maybe she was a goody two shoes. Maybe she was a bit too puritanical. Maybe it was just that she now had a baby…”
Pat’s voice was startling in its suddenness and the venom it contained. “Maybe it was all those things…”
Mel turned on her. “Pat! Don’t you dare!”
I raised my eyebrows at Mo. “Maybe it was all those things. Point is, you were ready to move on. One of the things that had me and Detective Dehan scratching our heads was why you didn’t just divorce her. But we’ll come back to that a little later. For now, let’s just say that you couldn’t.”
Mel turned her large, wet eyes on me, and her twisted wet mouth. “He couldn’t because he loved her. Please, I’m begging you, stop attacking my family…”
I ignored her and went on. “I’m guessing you’d spent a few nights with Anne-Marie at Mel’s place already. She’d been staying there since she had split up with Isaac. And, even though you were unemployed, and Kath was the one who had to get up for work, you used the excuse that little Sinead would not let you sleep so you could go there and spend the night with your mistress.
“But that night was different. That night you stayed home. What did you do? Pretend you were hoping for a reconciliation? Or were you just on some kind of power trip?” I pointed at the machete. “The fact that you kept that, as a trophy, with her blood on it, that tells me it was probably a power trip. I think you bludgeoned her, raped her while she was half conscious, strangled her, and then took her downstairs to your car. I think you dumped her in the trunk and you drove her all the way to Lefthand Canyon.”
