The Woman In Blue (Nick O'Brien Case Files)

by David G. Johnson

  She is just about to answer when the phone rings. She keeps looking between me and the phone like she isn’t sure which one to answer first.

  “Nick, if you’ll excuse me. Don’t go anywhere. I must take this.”

  She slips past a perfectly good blower in the main room and steps into the bedroom, closing the door behind her. Well, I think this is something I might want to hear at least this end of. I slip up to the bedroom door and lean with my ear as close to the crack as possible to catch what I can.

  “Hello?...Yes, I see. I’m a bit busy at the moment, but I’m sure we can work something out that will benefit us both…All, right. When will someone be there?...I see. I will be there straight away to do what needs to be done. Thank you for calling…Goodbye.”

  As she hangs up the phone I slip back over to the couch. The door opens and she’s got a look in her eyes that is a thousand miles away.

  “So, sweetheart, anything important?”

  “No, Nick, but there is something I must take care of.”

  “Well, I’ll be off then.”

  She looks agitated. “No, you mustn’t. Please stay here. You can call room service to bring dinner up and we’ll eat here. Oh, Nick, promise me you will stay until I get back. There is just something urgent I must take care of, but if you are not here when I get back, I’ll be so disappointed.”

  “But you can’t go around while those thugs are after you. I’ll come with you to make sure you’re safe.”

  She grabs a large handbag out of the bedroom and begins bustling toward the door.

  “No, that won’t be necessary. I don’t plan on leaving the hotel, but it is a meeting I must go to. Please, just order us a nice dinner and a bottle of wine and I will be back as soon as I can. Promise me, Nick. Promise.”

  “Okay, doll, I promise. I’ll call up some food and we’ll finish our little talk once you get back.” She blows me a kiss and heads out the door.

  Ain’t that a fine kettle of fish?

  Well, I can’t leave Gabriella’s place unguarded. I’ve got to get Jimmy down there to keep an eye on things. I pick up the phone and call Jimmy’s office. Hopefully with the long hours the DA has them on, I can catch him before he leaves work.

  “Hiya, Jimmy, it’s Nick. Listen, something has come up and I had to leave Miss Rosario’s house unwatched…Yeah, some goons who may be working for Scalice were after Marjorie, and I had to see her back…Heck if I know what she was doing out alone, but I’m here at her room at the New Yorker. She stepped out for an errand, something inside the hotel, she said, but I promised I’d stay with her until things are settled…Yeah, I’m sorry to have to call you out, Jimmy. Grab a quick sandwich from the deli and peel out of there as soon as you can and get down to the Bowery. Given the fact that Scalice may have some folks in play in addition to Lupo possibly showing up, you might want to bring a bluecoat or two with you, or at least let them know you are there…I’ll join you as soon as I can, but if you don’t see me by, say, ten-thirty, put the cops on alert to keep an eye on the place tonight and we will regroup in the morning…Thanks, Jimmy. I owe you one…Goodbye.”

  I pick the phone back up, dial room service, and order a couple of platters to be brought up in about an hour. Hopefully Marjorie will be back by then. In the meantime, I avail myself of a bottle of beer on the counter, pull out a cigarette, light it, and sit back contemplating how exactly I am going to extract all the truth from Marjorie while trying to extract her from the violent intentions of Frank Scalice. I said I was bored with humdrum cases. I’ve got to be more careful what I wish for. Whatever life with Marjorie might be like, I have a feeling it would be anything but boring.

  It’s nearly ten o’clock by the time I hear the key rattling in the door of the hotel room. I had begun to doze off and the sound of imminent entry startles me awake. I move my hand to my Colt, sitting on the couch beside me still in the holster, which I had removed while waiting for Marjorie. The shimmer of a blue dress and tussle of raven locks let me know there is no cause for alarm.

  “Oh, Nick, I’m so sorry. Things took much longer to get squared away than I imagined they would. And I bet dinner is cold too.”

  I glance over at the table which hosts one finished plate and one covered and untouched.

  “Well mine wasn’t. Where in the world have you been, Marjorie?”

  “I had some things to take care of with the hotel manager and time just got away from me.”

  The eyes aren’t the only giveaway this time.

  “Yeah, well when you weren’t back by the time the food arrived, I called Chauncey to see if he’d seen you. He said you lit out of the hotel after what looked like a heated but hushed conversation with the manager, so how about you stop trying to pull the wool over my eyes and own up. Where did you go?”

  She reddens and looks like she is searching that mind of hers for something plausible that can pass for the truth.

  “Oh, Nick, it’s not like that. It’s just…” The phone rings before she can toss out whatever she came up with. “I’ll get it.”

  She slips into the bedroom again to take the call, but this time I’m not settling for half the conversation. I pick up on the extension in the main room.

  “Hello?”

  “Miss Dillon? This is ADA O’Brien, Nick’s brother. Is he still there by chance? It’s urgent I speak with him.”

  “Yes he is. Just a moment.” She raises her voice and calls through the door, “Nick, it’s your brother. He’s looking for you. Can you pick up that end?”

  I cover the mouthpiece with my hand to muffle the call, yell back, “Yeah, I got it here”, and put the phone up to my ear. “Yeah, Jimmy, it’s Nick. What’s going on?”

  I hear the click on the phone indicating Marjorie hanging up in the other room. She exits the bedroom and looks at me like she is still fishing for something to say when we continue our conversation. On the other end of the phone Jimmy answers.

  “It’s bad, Nick. I came to Miss Rosario’s like we talked about, but when I got here someone had beaten me to it. The front door was jimmied and she’s been killed. From the looks of the place it seems to be a robbery gone bad. How soon can you get here?”

  I find myself struggling between the shock of this happening and the guilt of having left the stakeout. I left a window for this to happen.

  “I’ll hop a cab straightaway, Jimmy. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes, give or take a bit with traffic.”

  I hang up the phone without saying goodbye. From my pale demeanor, Marjorie surmises something is amiss.

  “Nick, what’s wrong?”

  “Don’t worry about it. Listen, you just stay put. Don’t go outside the hotel again, and I mean it. Something bad has just happened, and I fear you might be next.” I put on my holster and grab my hat and coat.

  “Oh, Nick, let me come with you. I only feel safe when you’re around.”

  “Enough of that. I told you, you don’t want to be where I’m going, and it’s not safe for you to be out and about, so just do what I told you. It’ll give you some time to think up a better story for where you were than you were ready to give me when Jimmy called. Don’t think that conversation is over, yet.”

  Without another word or a look back, I am out the door and at the elevator to the lobby. Yep, quite a long way from bored.

  As I exit the cab and approach Gabriella’s house, I spot Thelma Bronstein standing out front among the gawking neighbors. She approaches me.

  “Oh, my dear, detective O’Brien. Something terrible has happened to Gabriella.”

  “I know, Thema. Did you see anything?”

  “Well I heard this noise just after dark, and I saw the lights flickering in her living room. There was a terrible commotion. Then the lights went off and I saw two shadowy figures go out her front door.”

  “Did you get a good look at them?”

  “Oh, heavens no. My eyes aren’t what they used to be, and it was dark already you see. But there were two of
them, I’m certain. Then the third came.”

  “Third?”

  “Yes, a few minutes after those two left, I saw someone else go into the house alone. She came out not a minute or so later and disappeared into the night.”

  “She? How do you know it was a she?”

  “Well who else would be wearing a dress? I couldn’t see details, but my old peepers are good enough to spot a shadow of a long skirt sure enough.”

  “Thank you, Themla.” I motion for one of the officers present. “This nice young policeman is going to ask you some questions. You be sure to tell him everything you told me, okay?”

  Thema smiles. “Anything to be helpful, detective.”

  “This lady lives across the street and saw what happened, or some of it at least. You be sure and get her statement.” The officer leads Thema over to a police car and I head inside mulling over what Mrs. Bronstein has just told me.

  Gabriella’s place is a mess. Despite the hour, the house is crawling with police and lab boys. Jimmy is there as well, talking with one of the detectives. The living room looks like it was hit by a tornado, and Gabriella’s bludgeoned body lies under a sheet on the living room floor. I kneel beside it, pull back the sheet for a look, and quickly cover her back up.

  “So what do we know, Jimmy?” It is the lead detective who answers.

  “Looks like a break-in gone bad. Somebody forced the front door. Miss Rosario seems to have gone for her gun, but apparently didn’t have a chance to use it.” Jimmy and I exchange looks.

  “A gun? Are you sure?”

  The scowl on the detective’s face shows he isn’t accustomed to being questioned, and likes it even less in stereo.

  “Yeah, some weird-looking automatic with 8mm ammo. One of the boys who’s a gun buff says it’s some kind of Jap pistol called a Nambu Type A. Supposed to be pretty rare. The lab boys are going to check it out more and run some ballistics. Clip was full, though, so apparently she never got a shot off.”

  Gabriella hates guns. Something doesn’t add up.

  “I’m not sure you have a break-in here, detective.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You see Miss Rosario has been a witness in a case I’ve been collaborating with the DA’s office on. She hated guns. Had an aversion to them, because of an incident with her father. Where did you find the gun?”

  “In her hand. Why?”

  “Any fingerprints?”

  “Just hers. Look, you gonna tell me what’s on your mind, or am I gonna have to haul you down to the station to get answers?”

  “Take it easy, detective. It’s like this. Gabriella hated guns, but you found her with a gun with only her prints on it. There is no smell of gunpowder on her, and the gun wasn’t fired. I bet you won’t find any extra bullets anywhere in the house and you will find there is nothing important missing either. So somebody busts in the door of her house, and she’s got time to get her gun and hold it, but doesn’t squeeze off so much as a single shot? Then, despite someone nearly taking her head off, and clearly knocking her around, she somehow manages to hold onto the gun? I’m sorry, but sounds like a bill of goods to me, and I’m not buying it.”

  Jimmy steps in. “I believe Nick is right, detective. Treat this as a murder scene and handle the investigation that way. Also have the lab boys check those ballistics against the body we found in the bay last week and the warehouse investigation Lieutenant McGregor has open. They dug an 8mm slug out of that warehouse, and seven more out of the corpse in the bay. I’m confident you will find a match.”

  “Also, one of your officers is taking a statement from a witness outside. Says she saw two goons coming out after the ruckus started, then soon after a skirt goes in and comes out right away.”

  “Witness?” Jimmy asks.

  “Yeah, our Nosy Nell across the street, Thema Bronstein. Says she caught the tail end of it all.”

  The detective nods and scribbles something in his notebook. I shake my head and scratch my chin.

  “It just don’t add up, Jimmy. Somebody wants us to think Gabriella killed Tommy. From the looks of the beating she took, this fits Lupo’s M.O. Do you think it was Lupo that got to her?”

  “Lupo’s got no allies here in New York as far as we know. If your Nosy Nell saw two guys, and a girl, I’d say it is pretty doubtful it was Lupo.”

  An officer standing nearby snaps to attention. “Did you say Lupo? As in Danny Lupo, the heavy out of Boston?”

  “Yeah.” Jimmy answers.

  “Well whoever it was that done this, it wasn’t Lupo. He busted up a speak-easy this afternoon. Took six of us to haul his drunken carcass in. He’s been sleeping it off in the tank since before suppertime.”

  This one just keeps getting more and more tangled.

  “So someone wants us to think Gabriella killed Tommy and Lupo killed her, but it neither one is the truth. We have a dead Hispanic burlesque dancer with a hatred for guns holding a rare Japanese pistol, and a crime scene that looks like a break-in gone bad, but nothing is stolen. The girl is holding a gun, but never gets a shot off, yet the burglars run off without taking anything. Then some skirt follows them in and runs off soon after, not calling the police or trying to help at all. It also looks like the M.O. of a Boston heavy who has been in lockdown all night and can’t have done it. This is a setup every way you turn it.”

  “It looks that way, Nicky. Little brother, what in the world have you landed us in the middle of this time?”

  “I wish I knew, Jimmy. I wish I knew.”

  Chapter Eighteen – The Best-Laid Plans

  (Little Italy, Manhattan, NYC)

  Charlie Ferrano and Vinny DeLuca approached the door of the apartment in Little Italy that served as Frank Scalice’s base of operations. They had news that Frank was not going to like, which was becoming a situation all too common lately.

  “You know what, Vinny,” the twitchy and sweating Ferrano said to his partner, “I just remembered I got this thing. You go fill Frankie in, and I’ll meet you later.”

  “This thing is being anywhere out of bullet range of Frank when we dump this news on him, I guess.”

  “No, Vinny, it ain’t like that.”

  “It’s exactly like that you little codardo! You want me in front of Frank tellin’ him his plan went to pieces so if he decides to shoot somebody it won’t be you.”

  “Hey, Vinny, I’m no coward, but truth be told, I’m not on Frankie’s favorite son list like you. No way he loses it and blows away you or CC. Me, he might figure he can do without.”

  “Get lost, Charlie, but if Frank does shoot me, I’m comin’ to haunt you.”

  “Thanks, Vinny. I owe you one.”

  “You owe me a box of cannoli, and I mean Mama Leone’s, the ones with the real mascarpone inside, not those bakery custard things either. You best pick ‘em up fresh. I’ll meet you at Lou’s for lunch, if I’m still breathin’.”

  Ferrano peeled off down the block not looking back, just in case DeLuca changed his mind. Vinny took a deep breath and headed inside. He nodded to the two goombahs hanging out near the entrance, and they gave him the nod that Frank Scalice was in. He approached the door to the room Frank used as his office and knocked.

  “Yeah, come in,” was the answer from the other side of the door.

  Vinny entered the room and saw Frank and CC seated, looking content. That was about to change.

  “Vinny, my boy, tell me the good news. I take it all went well? I see in the morning paper that dancer was found dead. You boys finally got one right.”

  “Oh, we got it right, all right, but you ain’t gonna be happy.” Frank’s face twisted with concern and CC sat up straighter in his chair.

  “Why, what happened?”

  “Me and Charlie did just like you said. We found her at home, busted in, smacked her around and made it look like a Lupo job. But word on the street this morning is they ain’t lookin’ to finger Lupo for it. Lupo got himself busted last night breakin’ up a speak-
easy. We had no way to know, but Lupo was in lockdown when we offed the girl. He’s clean for it.”

  “This can’t be happening! Even when everything goes right it goes wrong.” Vinny was relieved that Frank didn’t seem to be looking for someone to blame this time.

  “Yeah, and weird thing was, cops showed up almost as soon as we left. They shouldn’t have found her ‘till this mornin’ at the earliest, but they was all over that place an hour after we was gone. Like they was watchin’ her or somethin’.”

  CC, interjecting while Frank processed this latest setback, asked, “So if they ain’t looking for Lupo on it, who are they looking for?”

  “That’s the weird thing,” Vinny answered. “Our guy inside the precinct says they found a gun on the girl. But I tell you, we didn’t use no guns, and we sure didn’t leave any. Somebody must have put the gun there after we left but before the cops showed.”

  Frank snapped, “Why would someone do that?”

  Vinny shrugged, “Beats me, Frankie. I’m just the messenger, but word is they think that floater they pulled out of the drink last week is Tommy. Guess we know now why he ain’t showed up yet.”

  Frank turned a pale white. “So Tommy is dead?”

  “That’s what our friend inside says. They got the ID on the body from a tattoo.”

  “So now if someone puts the pieces together, they are going to be looking at me for Tommy, which I didn’t do, and now his girlfriend since Lupo can’t be fingered for it.”

  “Likely as not,” CC added, “that gun must’ve been the one that Tommy was done with, so whoever put it on the dancer wanted to tie all the pieces together. If they question Lupo, it might not be too big a stretch to put the pieces together and drop ‘em all in your lap, Frank.”

  “Get out! All of you, out! I need some time to think. This goes south and I’m cooked with Boston and with the five families both. Give me some time, but stay close. We may need to move fast to clean all this up.”

  Carlo Capricci and Vinny DeLuca filed out of the office and closed the door behind them. They could hear Frank stomping angrily as he paced back and forth. A storm was coming, and it was only a matter of time before they saw how big a storm it would be.