Am I the Killer? - A Luca Mystery - Book 1

by Dan Petrosini

  “How about the smokes?”

  “The cigarettes were his brand. We got his DNA off most of the butts except one, a menthol, Newport. No DNA, but there were trace latent prints on the butt. I’ve got the lab doing their best, but there just doesn’t seem to be enough of a print.”

  Cremora crept to the edge of his chair. “Newport’s a chic brand, no? Think the girlfriend smokes?”

  “Mary? Don’t think so. We were with her for a while the other day, and interviewing is when they all seem to want to puff their brains out.”

  “I’ll check it out.”

  “You know, maybe there were two of them?”

  “Huh?”

  “Could be two people involved. The guy driving the car, and a neighbor saw someone cutting through the yards.”

  “I don’t know, both girls who saw the car pull up said only one person was in the car.”

  “Maybe he dropped him off on the street behind and was waiting out front.”

  Cremora shook his head. “Usually, the getaway car is hidden on the block behind.”

  “I know, I know, just brainstorming.”

  “You mean brain drizzling.”

  Luca laughed and checked his watch. “I gotta get moving, or Deb’s gonna throw me out before I move back in.”

  ***

  When Vinny walked in the door, Peter was doing exercises with his therapist in the living room. As he said his hellos, the phone rang, and Vinny took the call in the kitchen.

  “Hey, Vinny, it’s Tony.”

  “Hi Tony, how are you doing?”

  “Good, man, how’s Petey?”

  “Okay, he’s doing PT right now, but making progress.”

  “Good, good. I tried calling him like five times but never got through. Left a bunch of messages, but—”

  “Yeah, I got them and told him, but he’s pretty forgetful these days.”

  “He still pissed about Mary?”

  “What?”

  “You know, when we went out for my brother’s birthday, out of nowhere he got all pissed off and made me take him home. I didn’t know what was going on, and he wouldn’t tell me. But when I got back to the bar, I found out he heard about Mary getting married and all, and that was what set him off.”

  “Oh, uh, well, he’s, he’s doing okay, pretty good. Look, I gotta run, can I have him call you back?”

  ***

  Just after the therapist left, Vinny came into the living room, where I had already palmed the remote. As I flicked through channels, Vinny approached.

  “That was Tony, again, said you never called him back.”

  “Oh, guess I forgot.”

  “Said that night he was here you guys went out.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Anything happen?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He said you heard about Mary and Billy and freaked out.”

  “So? What did you expect me to do? Dance? Get ’em a fucking engagement gift?”

  Vinny snatched the remote out of my hand and shut the television just when The Price is Right was coming on.

  “We gotta talk.”

  “But my show’s—”

  “What happened that night?”

  “Uh, what night? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Not good enough. When you heard about Mary.” Vinny lowered his voice a notch. “It’s okay, you should be mad, but what happened?”

  I turned my attention to the ceiling. “We were at the bar, and I was having a good time, then this bitchy bar girl blabbed her mouth off about Mary and that fuckhead Billy.”

  “Okay, so you were pissed. Then what?”

  Pissed? That’s the understatement of the year. “I donno, I wanted to get out of there, so we left.”

  “Tony brought you home? Straight home?”

  I kinda remembered the ride home, and I nodded.

  “Then what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? You came home and that was it?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “You think so? What did you do when you got home?”

  I couldn’t really remember even walking in the house. “I don’t remember.”

  Vinny crouched in front of me and softened his voice. “Did you go anywhere? Do anything?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Petey, you gotta be straight with me, man. I’m here to help you.”

  “I told you, I don’t remember. What’s the big deal?”

  “The big deal is, that’s the night poor Billy got murdered.”

  I was really getting sick of hearing about Wyatt. “Poor Billy, my ass! Now leave me alone.”

  ***

  That night, still at work and preoccupied with the day’s developments, Vinny picked up the phone.

  “Mary? It’s Vinny. I know it’s late, but do you have a minute?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “How you doing and all?”

  “I miss him terribly.”

  “I know, me too. Look, I know you have a lot on your plate, but I’m really worried about Pete.”

  “What’s going on?” Mary asked.

  “I don’t know, he seems down, depressed and stuff. I know he found out about you and Billy getting married and—”

  “Yeah, but you know what? He seemed cool with it. He called me when he found out that night, but he was, like, not mad or anything. I was kind of surprised, but happy that he seemed to be finally moving on.”

  “What do you mean? He called you the night Billy got killed? What did he say?”

  “Yeah, that night. It seems like yesterday.” Mary paused. “Anyway, he just asked if it was true what he’d heard. I told him yes, and he was quiet. I expected an outburst, but he kept it together. He just asked me if that was it. I told him I was sorry if I hurt his feelings, but he cut me off and said, like, well I hope you’re happy.”

  “Has he been calling you?”

  “He left a message the day after Billy was, you know, uh—”

  “You call him back?”

  “No, too upset, anyway, I figured he just wanted to offer condolences.”

  ***

  When Vinny pulled onto the driveway after work, he remembered that when he returned from Texas, the car was closer to the garage than where he normally parked. At the time, he didn’t give it much thought, but now it added to the whispering in his head. Vinny sat in the car for a few minutes before gingerly stepping through the front door.

  Peter was snoring on the couch as cartoons played on the television. Vinny tiptoed over to the sofa and grabbed his brother’s cane. Then he took the cane into the laundry room, looked it over closely, and then washed it down with bleach. He examined it again, washed it with soap and water and leaned it back against the couch.

  Chapter 13

  Luca punched the keypad, and the door buzzed open. The detective sipped his morning java as the door clicked shut behind him. Running late, he breezed past dispatch as a new girl, who Luca thought was hot, called out, “Detective, someone from DMV dropped off a report for you. I put it on your desk.”

  Luca flashed his best smile, “Thanks.”

  Cremora was at his desk chomping on a bagel when Luca asked, “You go through the DMV report?”

  “Toilet paper, Luc. Seems red Chryslers are pretty popular in Jersey.”

  Luca thumbed the five-inch stack centered on his desk.

  “Shit.” Luca tugged his ear. “Why don’t we have ’em run it against the database of assault convictions?”

  His partner grinned. “Made the call while you were still getting your beauty sleep.”

  “Look at that, a good cop, and funny, too.”

  “They promised it quick. Told Carey the info was needed for a grand jury.”

  Luca rolled his eyes.

  “You never know. Hey, I forgot to tell you that Mary Rourke doesn’t smoke, never has.”

  “It was a long shot.”

  “Yeah, and to boot, the c
ell phone logs confirmed her version of the morning she found Wyatt.”

  Luca couldn’t help but think the news about Mary lined up with one of three things every case he’d been on had—information that seemed like it would be a key to solving the case slams right into a stone wall.

  The detectives were about to call it a day when the fax machine hummed, spitting out a cover page from the DMV and a page that Cremora scooped out of the tray. Luca’s partner put the still-warm page of detail on Luca’s desk.

  “That’s it? Thirty, thirty-five names?”

  “Guess so. Cover page said only one page attached. I’ll call to verify.”

  “Okay, I gotta run. I’m getting together with Deb.”

  Luca grabbed his jacket and nearly ran into a uniformed officer in the hallway.

  “Uh, sorry, Detective. Sarge said to let you know we got a hit on a Wyatt credit card.”

  “Where?”

  The young cop pointed to a piece of paper. “This morning, Keyport 7-Eleven by Route 36, near the intersection with 35.”

  Luca grabbed the sheet from the officer and thanked him. The detective pulled his cell phone out and stared at it. He quickly dismissed the thought Debra would understand that something had come up. Luca then pondered going to the 7-Eleven in the morning before punching in her number.

  The parking lot was busy with a stream of hopefuls buying tickets to a heavily promoted Powerball jackpot, interspersed with commuters picking up essentials and night carousers grabbing their six-packs of beer.

  Luca slid up to the counter, caught the eye of the fellow pumping out lottery tickets and flashed his badge. The kid nodded, jabbered something in Pakistani to a woman ringing up cigarettes, and told Luca they’d get the manager.

  A balding, heavyset man with a stained shirt appeared and waved Luca over to a glass cubicle. The detective stepped into the small area and was hit with the pungent smells of the food laid out on the man’s desk. The guy, Tarif Sahib, who turned out to be the owner, pushed his dinner to the side.

  “What’s wrong, Officer?”

  Luca scanned the six screens displaying feeds from security cameras and said, “A credit card used this morning is connected to an ongoing investigation. We’d like to see any video footage you have during that time period.”

  “Of course, no problem. No problem at all.”

  Luca showed the Visa printout to Sahib. Sahib swept his hand toward the monitors. “We’ve got many cameras. The whole place is covered. I even have one the workers don’t know about.”

  “How long you keep the tapes?”

  Sahib smiled, revealing a mouthful of gold fillings.

  “No, no tapes. We use DVDs, and we keep them one month.” He stepped to the side and opened a drawer lined with DVDs.

  “Don’t write over any of those until we have a chance to see if we’ll need anything further.”

  “Okay.” Frowning, he shut the drawer. “You want to see the counter feeds?”

  “Let’s start there. The printout gives us a transaction time of 10:07 this morning.”

  Sahib loaded the DVD and hit the fast-forward button. Images blurred by as the time stamp morphed from six in the morning into the ninth hour of the day.

  Luca spoke as it passed the half hour, “Okay, slow it down to real time.”

  The detective leaned in, staring at the herky-jerky images of the morning’s patrons. As the time stamp crossed ten, Luca asked him to slow it down, and he inched closer to the screen.

  A lull in the flow of customers from 10:02 to 10:05 was broken by a young man buying what looked to be Red Bull. As he left the counter, a man in a baseball cap and tee shirt, whose head was down, sided up to the counter with what looked like two six-packs of beer. Luca noted a large blotch on the man’s forearm, pegging it as a tattoo. The clerk turned around, grabbed two cartons of Newport cigarettes and set them next to the man’s beer. The customer then handed off what must have been the credit card in question. Luca checked the time stamp, and, sure enough, it had moved to 10:07 as the clerk swiped it. The customer pocketed the credit card, stacked the six-packs and piled the cigarette cartons on top. He slid the goods off the counter onto his hip and walked away, head down, through the exit.

  Luca watched it three more times but couldn’t make any determinations other than it was a male about six feet tall. He moved onto the parking-lot footage, but nothing seemed to tie the credit card user to a specific car.

  Luca ran the counter footage again before deciding to confiscate all the footage inside and outside the store from nine to eleven. He hoped the guys down at the lab could manipulate the images and give him something to work with.

  Chapter 14

  There were thirty-four people convicted of assault who had red Chryslers in Monmouth County. Luca cautioned his partner to pursue the angle with restraint as it was limited to Monmouth County and precluded someone borrowing a car.

  The detectives discussed the list and eliminated any of the targets who had just one assault and those records that were over seven years old. They also excluded the six women in the report, narrowing the focus to the seven men with multiple arrest records. Then Luca asked Gesso to dispatch officers to visit the reduced list of suspects.

  Gesso’s men quickly boiled the list down to three, as one suspect had been in the hospital and another in a locked-down drug rehab at the time of the crime. A third man, suffering from late-stage cancer, was also discounted.

  Gesso dropped in to see Luca about the remaining suspects and handed over three files.

  “Luc, we hit ’em all and—”

  “Who’d you send?”

  “Donofrio and Messina.”

  Luca nodded. “Both top-notch. What’s their gut telling ’em?”

  “Didn’t like this Griswald character.”

  Luca shuffled the files. “Okay, give me Griswald first.” He beckoned with his hand, opened Don Griswald’s file and looked at a mug shot stapled to the left-hand side.

  Gesso settled into a chair. “Big dude, said he put on fifty pounds since his last arrest.”

  “He’d be slower, and Wyatt was an athlete, back in the day.”

  “Biker and Skull member. In and out of prison his entire adult life.”

  Luca paged through his rap sheet. “Yeah, a real upstanding citizen.”

  “Donofrio said he was a cagey bastard. Claimed to be in a gin mill. Originally said he couldn’t remember what bar it was. Pressured, he said it was Heels, that titty joint in Keansburg. But they swung by it, and nobody seems to recall seeing him. You ask me, and it’d be pretty hard to miss such a big bag of shit.”

  Luca chuckled and said, “Where’d they leave it?”

  “Donofrio wanted to lay on Griswald, but I told ’em we gotta run it by you.”

  Luca gave him a thumbs-up. “Thanks, leave it with me at this point. What else they got?” He opened the next file. “How about Waters?”

  “Seems this Waters guy knew Wyatt pretty well, but he said he was working at Pacer on the night shift loading trucks, and it checked out.”

  “You sure he was there all night? Couldn’t he have broken away?”

  “It seems that way. They looked at the video feed on the loading dock, and from six to eight he was there.”

  He shuffled the Waters file to the bottom. “Let’s move on to Brown.”

  Gesso stroked his moustache. “Brown claims to have gotten religion. Says he became a devout Muslim in the can. Said he was at a brotherhood meeting. Those bigots backed him up, but you know those bastards, they’d lie to the cops to protect one of their own.”

  “You’re telling me? Have ’em nose around some. Talk to the brothers we have leverage with. See if any cracks appear in his alibi.”

  Luca had a patrol car pay a visit on Griswald to ask him to come in and talk. The threat of arrest for obstruction if he didn’t gained his cooperation.

  Luca waited over an hour, letting him stew, before he opened the door. A hulk of a man in a bl
ack, sleeveless tee shirt scowled at him. Luca thought he was thirty pounds too heavy to get away with the tough-guy, tee-shirt look and smiled in return. Griswald, who turned away, had a matching set of skull tattoos on either side of his neck and a huge dragon tattoo that snaked its way up one arm and down the other, grabbing Luca’s attention.

  Luca eyed the biker chain that hung on his grungy jeans, wondering how the hell he was allowed to keep it on.

  “I’m detective Luca.”

  Griswald jumped out of his seat. “What the fuck am I doin’ here?”

  Luca hit a button under the desk. “Easy, big boy, we need to talk. Now sit back down!”

  As the detainee pawed the chair, the door opened, and a uniformed officer poked his head in.

  “Everything okay, Detective?”

  Luca nodded. “My friend’s a little upset.” He looked at Griswald and cocked his head toward the two-way mirror. “Why don’t you keep an eye on things in case our friend gets claustrophobic?”

  The officer left the room and Luca began.

  “We asked you to come in for a chat.”

  “Asked me? What bullshit! You threatened to arrest me, man.”

  “You shouldn’t have lied to our guys about your whereabouts.”

  “Look, I donno what you want, but I didn’t do nothing.”

  “Good, then this should be easy. Where were you on the night of May fifteenth?”

  Griswald squirmed in his chair. “May fifteenth?”

  “Yes Friday, May fifteenth, the day William Wyatt was beaten to death.”

  Griswald pulled his chin in. “Hey, man, I had nothing to do with that. Don’t go trying to pin that shit on me, man.”

  “Well, where were you?”

  “I donno, I think I was out drinking. You know, we roamed to a few places.”

  “You claimed to be at Heels, right?”

  Griswald brightened. “Yeah, yeah, that’s it, I think.”

  Luca shook his head. “Didn’t check out, Donny boy.”

  “Look, man, I swear I didn’t do anything. On my mother’s grave, man.” Griswald put his hand over his heart.

  “That’s means a lot, you swearing and all, Donny. It’s not that I don’t believe you, but you see, here we deal with facts, evidence, things like that.” Luca poked a forefinger across the table. “And the fact is there’s no evidence you were at Heels that night.” Luca leaned in and clasped his hands. “We talked to a couple of your biker pals. Nobody saw you there, or, for that matter, anywhere that night. So, where were you?”