Found guilty on charges of murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and other lesser offenses were Arthur Pingree of Millerville, Sonny Racine of East Canton, and Norbert “Doc” Vitti, also of Millerville. Pingree and Racine were given life sentences without parole. Vitti, who testified for the prosecution, received a 15-to 25-year sentence, with the possibility of parole.
The jury deliberated for just under three hours, delivering the verdict shortly before lunchtime.
The charges stemmed from a home invasion at 32 Cain Street on January 17. The house was occupied at the time by Luis Dominguez and his brother, Esteban, both of whom had long criminal records for various drug offenses.
The plot, as outlined in the prosecution’s case and seemingly corroborated by the testimony of Vitti, involved stealing the large amounts of cash that the three men believed were kept in the house. On the stand, Vitti said, “Guys like that, heroin dealers and such, they’re not the type to go crying to the cops.”
What actually occurred after Pingree, Racine, and Vitti broke into the house became the subject of conflicting testimony during the trial, which lasted three days.
Millerville police captain William Mack testified the department had been aware for months of the activities of the Dominguez brothers and patrolled Cain Street on a regular basis, including on the night of the break-in.
Police entered the house just at the finish of a wild gun battle, finding the Dominguez brothers both wounded, eight-month-old Antonia Morales, daughter of Esteban Dominguez and his girlfriend, Maria Morales, shot in the head, and Maria Morales, the mother, dead.
Pingree and Vitti were arrested on the spot. Racine was found hiding in nearby woods shortly after. The murder weapon, a. 22 handgun according to forensic evidence, was not found.
Vitti testified that Racine was the shooter, although all three of the convicted men are equally guilty under the law.
In a separate trial last month, the Dominguez brothers, both illegal aliens, were found guilty on drug charges and sentenced to federal prison in Colorado. On completion of their sentences they will be turned over to the INS for subsequent deportation to Mexico. The child, Antonia Morales, survived with the loss of an eye, and is now in foster care.
Wyatt looked up from the page. He felt sick, that perfect home-cooked breakfast threatening to come back up. Greer stood behind him, reading over his shoulder. “That’s some of the worst writing I’ve ever seen,” she said. “The story barely makes sense.”
“Horrible,” Wyatt said. “The baby.”
“Yeah,” Greer said. “Take that away and it’s almost funny.”
“Funny?”
“In a dark kind of way. Like a Joe Pesci movie.”
“I don’t get the joke,” Wyatt said. He ran his eye over the story again. “And there’s nothing here about any possibility of Sonny Racine being innocent.”
He turned to her. She still didn’t look well, and maybe because of that-the chalkiness of her skin, the bruised smudges under her eyes-the beautiful underlying structure of her face was all the more apparent. “I didn’t say he was,” she said. “I’m just reporting the opinion from inside.”
“From inside the prison, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“The opinion of criminals.”
“I don’t like that word. Not the way you say it.”
“How do I say it?”
“So judgmentally.”
“They’ve already been judged,” Wyatt said, surprising himself with a not-too-stupid remark.
Greer laughed, a strange laugh, not amused. “I’m either going to end up loving you or hating you, no in-between.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Nothing,” she said. “It’s just a feeling. But one thing I know is that one particular criminal, the criminal a.k.a. my father, doesn’t claim to be innocent.”
“So he did it? Burned down the amusement center?”
“Torrance Family Fun and Games-might as well get the name right.” Greer went to the window, looked out. “He admits he did it,” she said. “Whether he did or not…” She went silent.
Wyatt thought of what Aunt Hildy had said: A firefighter of my acquaintance got burned that night. And even more: Pretty clear that she was involved, too-they couldn’t prove it, is all.
“The point is,” Greer said, “they drove him mad, just out of his mind.”
“Who did?”
“That bank in San Francisco. All he needed was more time, just to ride out this slump, but those bastards wouldn’t do it.” She turned, and now there was color in her face, coming back in patches. “They cut his balls off instead. And guess what I hear, irony of ironies-now the bank’s in receivership, too.”
“So maybe it was hopeless from the get-go,” Wyatt said.
“What are you saying?” Greer’s voice rose. “What the hell was the point of that?”
Wyatt wasn’t really sure. Also, he didn’t know why she was suddenly angry. Maybe because of all that uncertainty, he blurted out what was bothering him the most. “Did you help him?” he said.
“Whoa,” Greer said, her voice much quieter. She backed up, bumped hard into the window. “Whoa. Who have you been talking to?”
“Nobody.”
She came forward. “Liar.”
Wyatt got up, faced her across the table.
“Let’s get this straight,” Greer said. “You’re asking whether I helped my dad light that fire.”
“You don’t have to answer. But it’s a logical question.”
“Oh, really?” Greer said. “Here’s one for you-friend or foe?”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you. One assumes friend after what we’ve been doing together, but a woman never fucking knows, does she?”
“Aw, come on,” Wyatt said.
She mimicked him. “Aw, come on-Mister Almost Seventeen.”
Wyatt felt himself reddening. “What’s wrong with you? It’s kind of…”
“Go on.”
“Kind of understandable, if you did help him.”
“Except what? Spill it. You’re thinking something-it’s all over your face.”
“Except for the firefighter who got burned,” Wyatt said.
Greer’s cheeks flushed, one brighter than the other, as though she’d been slapped. “Who have you been talking to? And don’t say nobody.”
Wyatt said nothing.
“That aunt of yours?”
“She’s not really my aunt.”
“But it’s her,” Greer said. She smacked her fist into the palm of her other hand; a gesture Wyatt had seen lots of guys do, but never a girl. “Small towns suck so bad,” she said. “She knows about you and me, right? This aunt-like figure, I’m talking about.”
Wyatt nodded.
“And she doesn’t approve.”
“I don’t care what she thinks.”
“Has she introduced you to Freddie Helms yet?”
“Who’s he?”
“The firefighter. Do you know how awful my dad feels about that?”
“No.”
“It’s why he pleaded guilty, didn’t even put up a fight, even though the lawyer said he had a good case.”
“Meaning he didn’t actually do it after all?” Wyatt said.
“Christ,” Greer said. “Meaning the case wasn’t solid, was going to be hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Don’t you know how justice works?”
Wyatt was getting tired of her tone. “But it ended up working here,” he said, “because your dad did it.”
Greer tilted her head to one side, as if to see him from a new angle. “You don’t care at all, do you? About me.”
“That’s a stupid thing to say.”
“Maybe you should go.”
Wyatt just stood there.
“Yes,” she said. “No maybes. Go.”
Wyatt nodded, his mind made up about lots of things. The most important: he was going home. He glanced down at the remains of his delicious breakfas
t, then headed for the door. All too much, nothing fitting together: Wyatt’s mind was in a kind of silent uproar. He opened the door and looked back. Greer was standing by the table, arms folded across her chest.
“Did you help or not?” he said.
“Curiosity killed the cat.”
“That’s your answer?”
“Don’t like it? How about this? I did the arson all by myself and my father took the fall for me. Like that better?”
“Is it true?”
“Sayonara,” Greer said.
Wyatt walked out and closed the door. Halfway down the stairs, he heard a crash from above, the kind of crash a table getting overturned might make. He kept going.
Wyatt walked toward the Mustang, parked halfway down Greer’s block. The wind blew between the buildings; from somewhere nearby came the sound of a baseball thumping into a glove. He glanced around, saw nobody. Not quite true: a man was sitting in a dented old car across the street. As Wyatt unlocked the Mustang, the man got out and approached.
“Hi, there,” the man said.
“Hey,” said Wyatt, pausing, one hand on the open door.
The man gave him a careful look. “Yeah,” he said, “I can see it.”
“See what?”
The man smiled; a normal-looking middle-aged guy, small and pudgy, with a double chin. “The resemblance,” he said, “between you and Sonny.”
Wyatt felt his heart rate speeding up.
“Name’s Delino, by the way-Bob,” the man said. “And you’re Wyatt, no doubt about that. Sonny wants to know how things are going, settling in okay, that kind of thing.”
“How do you know?” Wyatt said.
Bob Delino smiled again. “Got his smarts, clear to see.” He reached into the pocket of his frayed denim jacket, took out a pack of cigarettes. “Smoke?”
Wyatt shook his head.
Bob Delino lit up, flicked the match into the gutter. “How I know,” he said, pausing to inhale, “is that he asked me personally to check up.” Smoke drifted out of Delino’s nose and mouth. “He knew I was getting out, see? From Sweetwater. We were friends inside.” He took another drag, squinted at Wyatt through the smoke. “I did sixteen months-all on account of a stupid misunderstanding about some copper pipe, but that’s nothing you need to know. Important thing is the sixteen months was up yesterday, so here I am.”
“Okay,” Wyatt said.
“A free man,” Delino said. “Feels not bad, the first few days. After that is when…” He tapped a cylinder of ash off the end of his cigarette, watched it disintegrate in the wind. “Anyways, I’m heading back up to Minnesota, right after I get done seeing how you’re making out.”
“I’m fine,” Wyatt said.
Delino stared at him. “How old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
Delino shook his head. “Boy oh boy. Must be nice. School okay? Sports?”
“Yeah.”
“This your ride?”
“Yeah.”
“Sweet. Things are going good, obviously.” He glanced at Greer’s building, back to Wyatt. “That’s it, then. Done my job.” He reached into his pocket again, took out an envelope. “Sonny said to give you this. He’s a good man, plus bein’ a standup guy-don’t see that combo every day.”
Delino was holding out the envelope, but Wyatt made no move to take it.
“Not gonna bite you,” Delino said.
“What’s in it?”
“Money,” Delino said. “Couple hundred bucks.”
“No, thanks.”
“C’mon, man.” Delino shook the envelope.
“No.”
“But I’m s’posed to give you this.”
“I don’t want it.”
“Send it to the Salvation Army, then. Makes no difference to me, long as I do my job.”
Wyatt shook his head. “You keep it.”
Delino laughed, a harsh smoker’s laugh. “That’s a good one,” he said. Then, very quick, he leaned forward and spun the envelope like a Frisbee. It sailed by Wyatt and into the backseat of the Mustang.
“For Christ’s sake,” Wyatt said. He climbed into the car, couldn’t find the envelope at first, finally spotted it under the front passenger seat. By the time he got back out, envelope in hand, Bob Delino was zooming past a stop sign two blocks away.
14
Back in his room at Aunt Hildy’s, Wyatt counted the money. Ten twenty-dollar bills = $200. They were all crisp, like they’d just come from a brand-new stack at a bank teller’s window. He was holding one up to the light, seeing nothing obviously fake except Andrew Jackson’s hair-could it possibly have looked like that in real life, so Hollywood? — when Aunt Hildy knocked on his door.
“How does Chinese food sound?”
“Great.” Wyatt stuck the money under his pillow. Real money: kind of paranoid to think it might be fake. He didn’t want this money, but no good plan for getting rid of it came to mind. He couldn’t just throw money away, or burn it, or anything like that. Returning the $200 to where it came from seemed best. Could you mail money into the prison? Or-or maybe Greer could take it inside on one of her visits. But Greer was out of the picture. She’d said go, and he was going-back to East Canton and soon. Period, finito, end of story-except that at that moment nothing would have pleased him more than the sight of her walking through the door.
East Canton had no Chinese restaurants; Silver City had two. “This is my favorite,” said Aunt Hildy as a waiter led her, Dub, and Wyatt to a corner table at the Red Pagoda, although they could have had just about any table, the place being pretty much empty. “I love the fish tank.”
The fish tank stood nearby, a tall glass cube with coral fans and rocks at the bottom and three fish drifting through the water at different levels.
“Which one are you having?” Dub said.
“Very funny,” said Aunt Hildy.
“Like in the Depression,” Dub said. He had a reddish band across his forehead, pressed into the skin from wearing the catcher’s mask. “Didn’t people get so hungry they ate live goldfish?”
“You’re thinking of the Roaring Twenties,” Aunt Hildy said. “And those were prep school kids and Ivy Leaguers, not the poor.” The waiter came. Aunt Hildy ordered a gin and tonic; the boys had soda. “My first husband,” Aunt Hildy said, taking a sip, “was an Ivy Leaguer. Princeton, to be precise. He had a ratty old black-and-gold-striped robe. He was wearing it pretty much twenty-four/seven by the time I threw him out.”
Wyatt and Dub looked at each other. Aunt Hildy took another sip, this one longer. “Go, Tigers,” she said.
“How do you get into a place like that?” Wyatt said.
“Princeton?” said Aunt Hildy, making a dismissive wave. “It’s overrated. They all are. He had beautiful manners, hubby numero uno, but no spine. Nothing beats spine, boys, and they don’t teach that in college. How about we start with the Peking ribs?”
They had Peking ribs, moo shu pork, orange chicken, crispy duck, another round of Peking ribs, plus rice, egg rolls, fried wontons. Aunt Hildy ordered another gin and tonic. She described a trip to Cancun, where she’d met husband numero dos, who turned out to have had neither manners nor spine, though at first she’d been fooled on both counts. She also taught the boys how to use chopsticks, which Wyatt picked up right away and Dub had trouble with, actually splintering one by mistake. Wyatt was having a great time, just with all this great food, and being with Aunt Hildy, who turned out to be pretty funny, and totally forgetting his problems.
The check came. Wyatt dug out some money, his own, the $200 left under the pillow. “None of that, young man,” said Aunt Hildy. “My treat, and besides, this is kind of a farewell dinner, now that you’re going home and all. I spoke to your mom today-she’s so excited.”
“So it’s for sure?” said Dub.
Wyatt nodded. “Leaving tomorrow.”
“But what about baseball?” Dub said. “Next year, I’m talking about.”
“Maybe the e
conomy’ll pick up and we’ll have it again in East Canton,” Wyatt said.
“Think that’s possible?” Dub said.
“Anything can happen,” Aunt Hildy said. “And if not, Wyatt can always come back.”
She paid the check. They rose and headed toward the door. Some men in navy-blue uniforms were on the way in. The two groups met by the fish tank. One of the men turned.
“Hey, Hildy,” he said. “How’s it going?”
“No complaints,” said Aunt Hildy. “Yourself?”
“Not bad at all,” said the man.
“I’d like you to meet my nephew, Dub,” Aunt Hildy said. “And his friend Wyatt. Boys, say hi to Freddie Helms.”
They shook hands with Freddie Helms. “Hey, guys,” he said. “Did you check out those ribs?” Freddie Helms was a handsome guy with a strong grip; handsome except for one side of his face. It gleamed in the light of the fish tank like glass, a sheet of glass that had been broken and then melted roughly back together.
“Did they ever,” said Aunt Hildy. “Take care.”
“See you, Hildy. Nice meeting you, guys.”
They went outside. Wyatt took a deep breath. All of a sudden he didn’t feel so good, as though the meal wanted to come back up.
“What happened to him?” Dub said.
“Freddie?” said Aunt Hildy, answering Dub but looking at Wyatt. “He’s the firefighter that got hurt when the amusement center burned down. Bert Torrance’s place. Freddie thought he heard someone trapped inside and went in, but it turned out to be voices on one of the video games, something about a pulse through the wiring just before it melted.”
“Is there anything they can do about it?” Dub said.
“Oh, Freddie’s had a bunch of treatments,” Aunt Hildy said, eyes still on Wyatt. “He looks much better now.”
They got into Aunt Hildy’s car, Wyatt in back.
“This was that arson thing?” Dub said.
“That’s right,” said Aunt Hildy, driving out of the parking lot.
“The father of, um…?” Dub said.
Aunt Hildy nodded. They drove back to her place. Dub burped a few times but there was no more talk.
Bullet Point Page 9
