SISTER (ALTON RHODE MYSTERIES Book 4)

by Lawrence de Maria

  “They’ll probably have to hire a couple of more illegal aliens in the kitchen by the time we leave,” I said.

  “I think sprouts stimulate the appetite,” Mac said.

  While we waited for our food, I told him what I was up to.

  “More windmills,” he said. “You never learn.”

  “I have to do it.”

  “Does Alice know?”

  I told him what she said.

  “Man, don’t ever let that one go. She’s a keeper. And don’t pork it up with this trip down memory lane. Now, what do you need?”

  “From what I was able to get out of the Worcester cops, it seems unlikely that it was a random killing.”

  “You think she was targeted? By someone she knew?”

  “Either that, or the killer was after a particular type of victim.”

  “A jogging nun?”

  I knew Mac was being facetious. But if you wanted what he could give you, you had to put up with what came with the territory. In truth, his sense of the absurd wasn’t that different from mine, so who am I to judge? So I played along.

  “Perhaps. Or just a nun. Or just a woman. But it would be helpful to know if there have been similar murders. You have access to crime statistics, regionally and nationwide.”

  “The Worcester cops sound competent. Especially that Broder guy.”

  “Broderson.”

  “Whatever. Point is, you know they will check that out.”

  “I don’t want to ask them for too much information. Besides, I’m not sure how much they’d share.”

  Our lunch came, by way of our waitress and a helper. It looked and smelled delicious. I knew that was no protection against ptomaine or a terminal case of the runs, but I ordered more beer and we both dug in, and were silent for a while. Or at least as silent as a table can be when Cormac Levine is eating. There was a considerable amount of grunting, lip smacking and burps.

  “OK, I’ll check it out,” Mac finally said, something green dribbling out one corner of his mouth. It was either guacamole or he was having a seizure. “I’ll go back a couple of years. See if anything fits the profile. If there is someone doing this kind of thing, he usually sticks to the same weapon. If it’s a he.”

  “Odds are it is. One thrust, right to the heart. Up and in. Long blade. Cops think it might be an ice pick or something similar. It’s not that easy. Takes arm strength.”

  “Yeah. A woman typically slashes with a knife. Downwards. So it’s probably a man. Could be G.I. Jane, though. I hear the Marine Corps is even taking broads in the infantry.”

  “Let’s go with the odds on this one, Mac. A man. But don’t ignore the possibility that he used other weapons.”

  “If he exists at all. Still could be random, or a local grudge.”

  “I’m just covering all the bases.”

  “Sure.” A serious look crossed his face. “Don’t you want that taco?”

  ***

  I also had to make sure someone looked in on Scar. As a huge, battered tomcat who skipped right past the feral phase and was now an independent contractor, Scar could take care of himself for a couple of days. I hadn’t even bothered to leave out any food when I went on my weekend fishing trip, but if I was going to be gone for any length of time I didn’t want him adopting anyone else. True, a few other neighbors on my block occasionally threw him some scraps, and, in a pinch, he could make do with an unwary bird or squirrel, but I could tell by the way he treated me with disdain that I was his favorite.

  So, after I dropped Mac off, I drove around the corner to the St. George Precinct, better known as the “120”, and pulled into a slot in the rear parking lot. I put my “Marine Corps Chaplain” plaque on my dash. There is no such thing — Navy Chaplains take care of the Marines — and the local cops are familiar with my ruse by now, but I wanted to make sure they recognized my car. I realize that using a familiar ruse to alert the authorities that it’s you probably only makes sense in New York City, but I’d built up a lot of street cred with the cops during my past couple of cases and they were starting to cut me some breaks. Anything to make their job easier.

  It was a short walk from the precinct to the St. George Theater on Hyatt Street. Once one of New York City’s premier vaudeville and cinema palaces in the 1930’s, with almost 4,000 seats and one of the largest cantilevered balconies ever built, it closed in 1972. But after more than 30 years it was renovated and turned into cultural arts center attracting some of the top performers in the country. It is also used for television and film shoots, touring companies from Broadway and the Kennedy Center, the New York City Opera, and all sorts of local productions and events. I know all this because Alice is on the board and I’ve been the victim of many a presentation before the cocktail parties she’s dragged me to. Well, maybe dragged is not the right word. We’ve also gone to several shows. Saw Tony Bennett, k.d. lang, and Don McLean, which were treats. Less so was an opera, which Alice said would do me good. I’m as big a Paul Potts fan as anyone, but that was five minutes on YouTube. The only thing I could say about three hours of opera was that it probably cut a few thousand years off my stay in purgatory, so it wasn’t a total loss.

  When I went into the theater it was obvious they were setting up for some sort of show. People were bustling about. I caught one kid in mid-bustle and told him to find Wayne Miller for me. Wayne is the Artistic Director and Production Manager, and he and his wife live up the block from me. He’s always busy, and easier to catch at work than at home. While I waited, I took time to look around. Even someone as architecturally-deprived as I am could appreciate the restored beauty of the St. George. The theater’s interior is spectacular, with a mix of Spanish and Italian Baroque styles, or so I learned, pre-cocktail. Its foyer has huge stained glass chandeliers and winding staircases that lead up to the mezzanine level. There are paintings and murals, and niches with sculptures. I was admiring one statue when I heard someone walk up behind me.

  “How come I always find you looking at sculptures of naked women?”

  It was Wayne. Al Lambert was standing next to him.

  “With all you artistic types flitting about,” I said, “I don’t dare look at a statue of a naked man.”

  “We rarely flit, except with potential donors,” Al said. He and Wayne were two of the straightest men I knew. “How’s the new car running?”

  “Like a charm.”

  Al once owned a used-car lot, and during the years I was struggling to get my business off the ground went out of the way to supply me with reliable transportation at a good price. He’s now running a Ford dealership and since I was currently thriving had told him to keep an eye out for something a bit more upscale. When you find an honest car dealer, you stick with them for life, wherever they go. I was now driving a new Fusion hybrid with all the bells and whistles. Al even gave me a decent trade in on my Chevy Malibu, which he’d sold to me for a song after it survived a hail storm with only cosmetic damage. I was fond of that car, but I had gotten tired of trying to explain all the little round indentations on the rear panel. Most people didn’t buy my bullet-hole story.

  “You in the show, Al?”

  In addition to selling cars, Al was a professional singer, one of the best ever produced on Staten Island.

  “Nah. Just helping Wayne with the auditions. Got to run back to the dealership now. Good to see you Alton. How’s Alice.”

  “Still in Paris.”

  “So, that’s why you’re looking at that sculpture.”

  After he left, I said, “Wayne I need a favor.”

  “Shoot.”

  I told him.

  “I didn’t know you had a cat,” Wayne said.

  “I don’t. He has me. If you can leave out a couple of cans of Bumble Bee every couple of days and maybe some water, I’d appreciate it. Just as a backup. He usually makes other arrangements, but I just want to be sure. I suspect that he’ll have a ball with the cicadas.”

  Staten Island was being inundated by bi
llions of cicadas emerging from their 17-year underground life cycle. The loud but harmless big green insects were everywhere.

  “He eats bugs?”

  “No, but they attract birds. For a few of them, the cicadas will be a last meal. It will be like a buffet for him.”

  “Just leave the food and water out? What about if a raccoon or possum gets to it first?”

  “Hasn’t happened yet. I think they are pretty wary. Probably think Scar’s setting a trap for them.”

  “Scar?”

  “Kind of says it all, don’t you think?”

  CHAPTER 10 - NANDO’S MOUTHPIECE

  I went back to my office. I wanted to find out more about Harry Frost.

  When a lawyer leaves Staten Island suddenly without a trace there are only two possible explanations: alien abduction or malpractice. I ruled out aliens. Malpractice can take many forms, but it usually involves client money. To lawyers of a certain bent, escrow accounts are like pots of honey to a badger. I checked with the Staten Island Bar Association and someone got back to me fairly quickly, saying that there was no record of any disciplinary action against Harry Frost, Esq. My call to them was more or less pro forma. The old-boy network is very powerful on Staten Island and the bar association’s list of lawyers it sanctioned probably took up the back of a stamp. Hence the quick reply. It’s an open secret in legal circles that attorneys who skate the ethical line are often nudged toward judgeships where they can do less damage.

  I called contacts at both the daily Staten Island Advance and the weekly Register and, after the promise of a couple of lunches, got them to go through their old morgue files. There were a handful of stories in which Frost was mentioned, but they all involved community or bar association events tangential to his practice. They were all so brief that my contacts just read them to me over the phone and I dismissed them. They weren’t worth a cup of coffee, let alone a lunch. But I was stuck for the lunches.

  Next, I tried the D.A.’s office. None of the younger D.A.’s remembered a Harry Frost so I eventually got bumped up to the man himself.

  “I knew him slightly when I was starting out,” Mike said. “Heard some talk that he wasn’t exactly Learned Hand, ethically. But I don’t think he was ever accused of anything. Officially, that is. I could check.”

  “Don’t bother. Something like that would have made the media. I was just wondering if anyone in your shop had a problem with him.”

  “Before my time, Jake. Did you try the Bar Association?”

  “Just to say that I did. If he wasn’t indicted for anything, what are the odds the bar association would care.”

  “I hear you. I’m hoping things will change once the new court complex is built. I guess I benefited as much as anyone from the ‘old boy’ network on Staten Island, but maybe it will prompt a new sense of professionalism in the bar.” Sullivan was referring to the new five-story, $230 million, State Supreme Court building was nearing completion nearby, part of a much-ballyhooed rejuvenation of the St. George area that was scheduled to include the world’s tallest Ferris wheel, a shopping mall, retail shops, a hotel and condos. The new courthouse complex would centralize all the local judicial departments, criminal and civil, which were now spread throughout several communities on the North Shore. “Of course, with our luck, they’ll find Jimmy Hoffa’s bones on site and it will never open.”

  The courthouse project had been delayed for years after construction workers uncovered the remains of 19th-century immigrants who had died in the quarantine hospital that once sat on the site. The plan was to rebury them in a memorial green at the complex, where presumably dogs and vagrants will supply fertilizer. As far as I was concerned, all the new courthouse meant was that parking in the area, which is also a commuter hub to Manhattan for tens of thousands of people, would go from unlikely to nonexistent.

  “Is it true that the new courthouse will be entirely funded by parking tickets?”

  Sullivan laughed. I thanked him and was about to hang up when he said, “Why don’t you try Sam Rosenberg?”

  “Nando’s old mouthpiece?”

  “Yes. I said I didn’t know Frost well, but I seem to remember that he and Sam had something going. Not partners, exactly, but interests in common. I could be wrong about that, but Sam knows a lot of gossip anyway. It’s his stock in trade.”

  “He must hate my guts. I cost him his biggest client, both financially and literally.”

  The corpulent Nando Carlucci had broken most laws and quite a few scales in his time.

  “Since when do you care about people hating your guts?”

  “Good point. By the way, since we’re talking about my popularity, or lack thereof, my credentials came through. I want to thank you again.”

  “You don’t have to thank me, Alton.”

  We left it at that. Mike thought he owed me, probably forever, for contriving the coverup that saved his career, and probably his sanity, after the Denton murder case blew up in everyone’s face and left bodies strewn all over the borough. Because of the personal tragedies involved, I had never asked him for any special treatment from his office, above and beyond what I always had been able to finagle out of it. But knowing he could make my professional life easier, he had made me a non-paid “consulting detective” to his office, with an I.D. and Law Enforcement Officer carry permit to match. That meant I could take my gun into any American jurisdiction and, more importantly, on a plane. Cormac, acting on Mike’s behalf, had also crafted a letter saying that I was basically always on official business for the N.Y.P.D. Mac suggested that Sullivan probably got the idea (“which is probably as illegal as the deck I had two moonlighting firemen attach to my house”) from the TV show, Sherlock, where a modern-day Holmes character has the same designation. I didn’t care. Whatever bureaucratic doors might still be closed to me, I could easily lie my way past them. The only downside was that I just knew that Mac would start calling me “Sherlock.”

  “Give my love to Alice, will you?”

  “Will do. You know, Mike, this is the first time I asked for information and you didn’t want to know what I was up to.”

  “New strategy. I’m going to try it out for a while. I think I’ll sleep better that way.”

  ***

  I headed back to St. George. I began to think I should move my office there.

  Samuel L. Rosenberg was a mob lawyer without a mob client. Since he used to have a very lucrative one, the late, unlamented Nando Carlucci, I was right in suspecting that he would not be thrilled to see me. Even Sam could probably make the case that I was the principal reason Nando was late and unlamented.

  Sam was a slippery devil, so I thought it prudent to drop in on him unannounced in his office on Central Avenue just up the block from the D.A.’s office. I had been in the building many times and knew he was on the third floor, although I never had the occasion to meet him there. It turned out he was so slippery his office wasn’t on the third floor anymore. It wasn’t even in the building. The new occupant, some sort of financial consultant, told me that Sam had downsized and was now operating in a smaller office next to a pizza restaurant in West Brighton, near Bard Avenue.

  Oh yes, he’d be delighted to see me.

  I drove to West Brighton. I thought about buying a couple of slices in the pizza parlor to bring him as a peace offering but decided against it. He might take it as a dig about Nando, who was known to eat two pies at a sitting. I had no trouble getting past Sam’s receptionist. He didn’t have one. I found him buried in paperwork at his desk. He smiled expectantly when I walked in, perhaps thinking I was a potential client. Then he recognized me.

  “What do you want, you rotten son of a bitch?”

  “Is that any way to talk, Sam? How do you know I’m not a potential client?”

  “I would represent Himmler at this point, Rhode, but I draw the line at you. You made Nando Carlucci disappear and he took most of my practice with him. Look what I’m reduced to.”

  He waved an arm
at his surroundings, which I was forced to admit, were dismal. Early-American Goodwill. There was a brown bag on his desk and a slight pastrami overlay cut through the tomato sauce smells wafting from his neighbors.

  “Accident cases. Slips and falls. Workman’s comp. Do you know how much paperwork is involved dealing with insurance companies and the meshugganah Government? I was a respected criminal attorney. And now this?” I wanted to say that no one had ever respected him, and his criminal experience was limited to one crime family. I was pretty sure he’d never actually handled a case at trial. I might have even mentioned that I hadn’t actually been a party to Nando’s “disappearance.” Arman Rahm never told me which landfills he deposited the fat rival mobster in, and I never asked. I probably could have also noted that Carlucci had tried to kill me, several times in fact, but why bother?

  “Look, Sam, I’m sorry if I caught you between ambulances, but I need some information. So let’s cut the bull. You’ll never get another meal ticket like Nando, but maybe I can put in a word for you with some people I know. Throw you some business.”

  A gleam came to the old shyster’s eyes.

  “I have heard that you’re tight with the Rahms. I wouldn’t mind an introduction there.”

  “That wouldn’t be a conflict of interest for you?”

  “I’ll recuse myself if Carlucci ever shows up. Him and Lazarus.”

  So much for Nando.

  “I’ll see what I can do.” I sat down in a client chair that could have doubled for lawn furniture. “Now, what can you tell me about Harry Frost.”

  “That rotten, thieving son of a bitch. He should rot in hell.”

  I suspected that this would be a productive interview.

  “I thought you worked together.”

  “We worked on some deals before I decided to concentrate on criminal law. Real estate stuff, probate, estates, trusts, that sort of thing. Then one day he took a powder. Left me holding the bag with a lot of angry clients.”

  “Why were they angry?”

  “A lot of them had money, and I emphasize ‘had,’ when they came to us. You remember how Staten Island was after they built the Guinea Gangplank?”