Secondhand Smoke

by Karen E. Olson

  That “kid” was almost forty, like me. I didn’t say anything. I knew my dad liked Vinny and wanted to see us together. I didn’t have the heart to tell him it was probably a lost cause.

  “So it’s snowing,” he said in response to my silence.

  “Like a bitch.”

  “Drive safely.”

  I heard the dial tone and put the receiver back in its cradle. When the Indians built the Foxwoods and then the Mohegan Sun casinos, I’d hoped my dad would leave his general manager job at the Sun Casino in Vegas and come back here to work. But he said he didn’t want to deal with the winters, he loved the desert, and anyway, Suzette, his longtime girlfriend, would kill him if he uprooted her.

  I had just started putting Dick’s quotes into my story when the scanners started screaming.

  “Hey, Henry,” I said, looking in his direction, “there’s a bad accident at State and Grand. I’ll finish this up when I get back.”

  In most newsrooms, there are no walls. No cubicles. There are aisles between desks, and if you stand up, you might see the sports department at one end of the room and the features department at the other. Sometimes there are dividers between departments, but at the New Haven Herald, we’re all out in the open—nothing is sacred, not our conversations or our bagged lunches or our bodily noises. I doubted I could work any other way.

  Henry glanced up from The New York Times and nodded as he sipped his coffee. “Think it’s bad enough to get a photographer out there?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.” But he didn’t move.

  Dick did, though. In a second, he was next to me.

  “I’ll go, Annie, if you want to finish up that fire story.”

  I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. “Now why would you want to do that?”

  He shrugged. “It’s a holiday, and you’ve got a big story.”

  “So what? As far as I know, you’re not even on the schedule for today. Why don’t you go home and have dinner with your family?”

  Dick shrugged. “Dinner’s not until three.”

  “Go home, Dick. Really. You need a life. Don’t become me.” What was I saying? That fire must have burned my brain.

  I grabbed my coat and my bag. “Go home,” I repeated as he just stood there, staring at me like a zombie. “Jesus, Dick, you’re freaking me out.”

  “Dick, stop freaking Annie out,” Henry called from his desk. “Annie, get your ass over to that accident.”

  He didn’t have to tell me twice.

  Chapter 4

  The snow hadn’t let up, and I could barely see past the hood of my car. I was beginning to regret going out. With the way it was snowing, one false move of my Honda and the scanner would be announcing my demise at any moment. I should’ve walked over. It would’ve been faster and safer.

  I made my way down State Street, past the Knights of Columbus museum, which had a faded tapestry depicting Pope John Paul II—he’d been pretty popular here, and the museum was featuring some sort of traveling exhibit about him.

  I skidded past a few buildings, a couple of empty lots, and through the little hole the wipers had made in my windshield, I could make out the mass of steel that used to be a car. Had to be a fatal. No one could survive that. I carefully pulled over to the side of the road, parked, and walked up the street.

  “Haven’t seen anything like that on a city street in a long time,” one of the cops was saying when I approached the scene. “The truck that hit him had to have been going at least eighty.”

  I could smell the smoke that hung in the air from Prego, just a few blocks away. The car had been sitting at the light, and someone smashed the shit out of it, pushing it into a Jersey barrier along the side of the road that was supposed to be protecting cars from bridge construction next to the State Street train station.

  “Where’s the truck?”

  The cops turned to stare at me.

  Tony Martino’s mouth broke into a grin. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

  Okay, so my hair was sopping wet from the snow, not to mention my puffy coat, which shouldn’t be exposed to too much moisture or it starts looking like something died on me.

  “Where’s the truck?” I asked again, ignoring him.

  Tony pointed up the street and I squinted, making out a Ford pickup, the front end totaled. “Anyone survive this?”

  “Lucky fuckin’ bastard,” Tony said, indicating the driver of the pickup, who was leaning against his truck, surrounded by cops and paramedics.

  I pointed toward the mangled car, the whine of the Jaws of Life echoing through the air as two firemen worked on it. “What about that guy?”

  Tony snorted. “Another lucky bastard. Must have nine lives.” He turned back to his partner.

  I wasn’t going to get anything else out of Tony, so I moved across the street to get a better vantage point of the cops interrogating the pickup driver. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t make out his features since he kept his hands up near his face, massaging his cheeks, running his palms through his hair. But suddenly he straightened up and looked across the street, right at me.

  Jesus, it was Pete Amato. Sal’s son.

  Before I could react, someone slammed into me, pushing me forward.

  “What the fuck . . .” I looked over to see Wesley Bell, his camera hung over his neck, his usually neatly combed hair flying in the snow.

  “Sorry, Annie. Slipped.” I looked down at his feet and saw the penny loafers that shouldn’t be out in such weather.

  Wesley Bell was the antiphotographer. While most of our staff wore jeans and made sure they had boots in their car trunks, Wesley’s outfits included paisley ties and slacks. It was impractical, but it didn’t matter in the long run. When Wesley looked through his camera lens, something wonderful happened, something miraculous. He saw pictures that no one else saw, and they were goddamn award-winning pieces of art.

  “Is he dead?” Wesley asked, his face obscured by the camera.

  “A miracle he isn’t.”

  “Saw you over at the fire.”

  I hadn’t seen him, but Wesley had an uncanny ability to be invisible.

  “Got some pretty good shots, I think.”

  He didn’t understand his own power. My eyes strayed back to Pete Amato. “Gotta find out what happened.”

  I left him there, knowing he’d get his shot. He’d been at the paper only a year, but he gave me a little hope that journalism hadn’t used up its own nine lives just yet.

  “You can’t get any closer, Annie.” This time it was a cop that stopped me, about five feet from Pete.

  “Was he driving the truck?” I indicated Pete.

  The cop, Ronald Berger, nodded. “He said he heard about his dad and was on his way to his mother’s. Said some guy was on his ass, and when he tried to speed up to get away from him, the road was too slick, he just slid into the car.”

  That wasn’t what I’d heard Tony say on the other side of the street, but I wrote it down anyway. Maybe it really was what happened, but from the look of the other car, I wasn’t so sure.

  “So where’s the guy who was following him?” I asked.

  “Said he took off when he hit the car.” Ronald snorted. “Said it was a Cadillac. One of those new ones with the big grille. Guy probably thought he was in a goddamn SUV.”

  Ronald moved a couple of steps, and I caught Pete’s eye.

  “Hey, Pete, you okay?” My voice came out way too loud, and everyone looked up.

  He nodded. “Annie, can you go tell my mom that I’ll be there as soon as I can? Don’t tell her about the accident.”

  “Sure.” That would be the last thing Mac would need right now.

  I surveyed the accident scene again, asked the cops a few more questions, what time did it happen, how long would it take to get the victim out of the car, which hospital were they taking him to, all the standard things. I didn’t want to be out there too much longer—the snow was still coming down pretty hard, and I was going to have to
scrape my car windows again.

  “Are you writing Pete up?” I asked Ronald.

  “Yeah. I hate to do it, considering what happened to his father and all, but he’s at fault.”

  “What’s the charge?”

  “Reckless driving.” He paused, his eyes traveling down the road to the other car. “Hopefully, that guy’ll be okay. If not, Pete could be in a lot more trouble.”

  I had to get out of there while I still could. “Can you fax me the report when you get back?”

  Ronald nodded. While it was hard getting police reports in a timely manner, Ronald knew that Pete and Sal would want all the facts straight since it would be in the paper anyway.

  “Thanks.” I shuffled back to my car, looking around for Wesley, but he was already gone.

  My car moved slowly down State and over the bridge to Water Street. I circled around to Wooster Street and aimed the Honda toward the square.

  A crowd stood outside Sal and Mac’s two-story house a block from Prego. I eased the car along the sidewalk and parked.

  “Need an update?”

  For someone I hadn’t seen in a while, I certainly was getting my fill of Vinny this morning.

  I pulled him in the opposite direction of the neighbors. “Pete Amato was in a bad accident.” I saw the look on Vinny’s face and said quickly, “He’s fine, but the other guy, well, he may or may not be.”

  “Shit,” Vinny said quietly.

  “I have to tell Mac he’s on his way, but he doesn’t want me to tell her about the accident.”

  Vinny brushed a strand of wet hair off his forehead. “I’ll take care of it. I can say he called me because he couldn’t get through to her. Her phone’s been ringing constantly all morning. She might wonder why he would get in touch with you.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. “Okay.”

  I looked up toward the remains of the restaurant. Firefighters and cops moved back and forth, getting their jobs done. The TV vans had all arrived, late for the party as usual but pretending they’d been there all along. The satellite dishes swung high above us, and for a moment I wondered if any of them had ever come crashing down on top of some poor, unsuspecting reporter.

  Tom saw me and beckoned. “Thanks, Vinny,” I said, not looking back as I walked away from him.

  “What’s up?” I asked as I neared the scene.

  Tom took my arm and steered me down the block.

  “Shit, Tom, my feet aren’t even touching the ground,” I said.

  He finally stopped, closer to my apartment building than to Prego. “What do you know about Sal Amato?”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “Does he have a vacation home somewhere, does he have another woman somewhere, anything like that?”

  “Jesus, Tom, what the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Annie, I know you grew up with these people, you know everyone, and that’s why I’m asking you before stirring up anything with anyone else. If you know anything, you have to tell me.”

  I tried to read his face but couldn’t.

  “I don’t know what you’re looking for, Tom. You’ve got to be straight with me. What are you asking this for?”

  Tom glanced over at the restaurant and then down at the pack of neighbors before looking back at me. “The FBI’s here.”

  I glanced back at Prego, searching for a telltale jacket with the large “FBI” on the back, but didn’t see one.

  Tom shook his head. “They’re inside.”

  “Jesus. What the hell for?” This was definitely out of the ordinary.

  Tom took a deep breath. “Sal Amato wasn’t killed in that fire. It was a woman’s body we fished out of there, not a man’s.”

  Chapter 5

  Once he realized I didn’t have a clue about Sal Amato’s private life, and unwilling to give me any more information, Tom left me standing on the sidewalk, his words swirling around in my head. A woman? And what was the FBI doing here?

  As I was asking myself these questions, I spotted Jeff Parker, the head of New Haven’s FBI division, ducking under the yellow crime scene tape and walking toward a very nondescript brown car just a few yards away. I gave myself a fifty-fifty shot that he’d tell me anything.

  “Hi, Jeff,” I said as I approached him, careful not to slip again.

  He blinked a couple of times. “Oh, hi, Annie,” he said casually, as if we were at a cocktail party instead of a fire scene.

  “So why is the FBI investigating a fire at Prego?” I asked, pulling my notebook out of my purse.

  Jeff Parker smiled condescendingly. He was over a head taller than me, with shocking red hair and a maze of freckles covering his face. His jacket was open despite the cold, revealing a slim physique that probably saw more than a few hours at the gym. “Now, Annie, why do you think I’d tell you that?”

  The FBI was even more closemouthed than the city cops, but I had to try. It was my goddamn job. “Because even if you don’t say anything, it’ll still be in the paper that you were here, and then everyone will be speculating and no one will talk to you.” Not that they’d talk in this neighborhood anyway.

  This was a place that didn’t take kindly to anyone nosing around, especially the FBI, since business may not always be what it appears. I hate to stereotype, but it is a very old Italian neighborhood that hasn’t changed much over the years, despite the fancy trellis over Wooster Street proclaiming it New Haven’s “Little Italy,” like anyone who knows anything about New Haven didn’t know that already.

  Jeff’s smile didn’t waver. Apparently he wasn’t concerned, or he was just stupid. “You’ll find out soon enough,” he said, unlocking the trunk of the car and pulling out a small case.

  “So you’re investigating something. Is it the woman who was found in there?”

  He pushed past me. “I can’t tell you,” he said gruffly.

  I watched him for few seconds as he went back under the yellow tape, but a movement to my left distracted me.

  A white Lincoln Town Car with tinted windows sidled up against the curb and sat idling. The passenger door opened, and a woman with a short brown bob and wearing a camel hair coat got out. She leaned into the car and an elderly man stepped out, holding on to her arm, his back a little hunched, his white hair slicked back. He pulled his wool coat closer around him, and the woman cupped his elbow, helping him along the sidewalk, toward Mac and Sal’s house. I could see the resemblance between them in their profiles.

  He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. And why the hell didn’t the driver get out? The car just sat there, exhaust filling the air, wafting toward me. If I didn’t move soon, I’d end up like one of Dr. Kevorkian’s patients.

  “What’re you doing?”

  Tom’s voice startled me. “Shit, you scared the crap out of me.”

  “It’s Dominic Gaudio,” Tom said, indicating the man now going up Sal’s front steps. “And his daughter.”

  Jesus. Dominic Gaudio was a fucking legend. He’d been indicted more times than I could count on both hands, but nothing ever stuck. Gambling, racketeering, money laundering—no one could prove anything.

  “They say he’s got Alzheimer’s now,” Tom was saying. “I think it’s just another scam.”

  Dominic Gaudio disappeared into the house, his daughter behind him. “Why would someone pretend to have Alzheimer’s?” I asked. “That’s too cynical, even for you.”

  Tom ignored me. “So did you get anything out of Parker?”

  “You just want to know because you don’t know anything either,” I said. It was well known that the city cops and the FBI never told each other anything.

  “Okay, fine, don’t tell me.” He scowled and turned away, but I reached out and grabbed the corner of his jacket.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. It worked. Go figure. Tom stopped and faced me.

  “Do you have an ID of the body in the restaurant yet?” I asked.

  “No ID yet.” He paused a s
econd. “The body was pretty burnt.”

  I took a deep breath and let go of him. “It must have been someone connected to the restaurant, right?”

  From the look he was giving me, I knew he wasn’t going to say a damn thing about it. “I have to go to the Amatos,” he said.

  “Have you told Mac yet that it’s not Sal?”

  He blinked a couple of times, and I could see that he hadn’t and that he was about to. I shrugged, like I didn’t care, and he turned toward the white house with the gingerbread porch.

  I waited until he was safely inside before heading there myself. The reporter in me wanted to be there when he told Mac, even though the daughter of Joe Giametti wanted to be as far away as possible when he lowered the boom.

  I slogged through the slush and followed a couple of women carrying large covered baskets up the steps to the house. One of them was Vinny’s mother, Mary DeLucia. To anyone who didn’t grow up here, it would look as if she didn’t even see me. But to my trained eye, she never took her eyes off me.

  A woman wearing a light blue jacket, her hair completely hidden by a flowered scarf, tapped me on the shoulder so I’d let her pass. An aluminum-foiled tray balanced neatly on her forearm.

  I moved from the foyer into the living room, glancing around. The whole neighborhood had turned out. They were my father’s friends, people who had places in my childhood memories, but I hadn’t seen too much of them in the last twenty years or so while I was busy keeping to myself and establishing my career. I was Joey Giametti’s “reporter daughter.” Dad thought it was funny, but we both knew it distanced me from the neighborhood even though I lived in the middle of it.

  I didn’t see Mac, so I started toward the dining room. A man with a shock of white hair blocked the doorway.

  “Hey, Uncle Louie.” I smiled. “Long time no see.”

  “When’s that father of yours moving back here? We miss him.” Uncle Louie and my dad had worked together at Prego when they were teenagers.

  Someone pulled on my arm, and I saw the kind gray eyes of my longtime baby-sitter, Auntie Kay. I grinned as she leaned in to kiss my cheek.

  “I hope you’re not up to no good here,” she said in her raspy voice. “Your father’ll have to have words with you.”