Felony Murder

by Joseph T. Klempner

  So, sometime during his second week in the Hole - he’s not certain exactly when, because he loses track of the days frequently now - Joey Spadafino reaches and passes the six-month mark of his confinement on Rikers Island.

  Dean’s phone was ringing as he arrived at his office Monday morning. He balanced his bike against a file cabinet and picked up the phone just as his answering machine clicked on.

  “Hello,” he said, switching off the machine.

  “Dean?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hey, Dean, Leo Silvestri. Surprised to catch you there this early. Figured I’d leave you a message.”

  “I’m an early bird. Listen, Leo, I just walked in. Give me a number, I’ll call you back in three minutes.”

  “No need,” said Leo. “I’ll hang on. Take your time.”

  Dean removed his backpack, tossed his helmet onto the sofa, circled around his desk, and lowered himself into the chair.

  “Thanks,” he said into the phone. “What’s up?”

  “Well, I got to thinking yesterday,” said Leo. “And I decided this thing we talked about Saturday night was too big to wait on. So I called the New York Director and ran it by him. He’s very interested. So interested that he got on the phone to Washington last night. They think you’re really on to something here. And they also think you, and the Killian woman, for that matter, may be in real danger. So get this. The Deputy Director for Investigations is coming up on the shuttle this afternoon. He wants me to set up a meet with you, Killian, himself and me. Nobody else, top secret, away from the office.”

  “When?”

  “ASAP,” said Leo. “As in tonight, if you can.”

  “Give me a time and place,” said Dean. “I’ll call Miss Killian and see if it’s good with her.”

  “How about eight o’clock? We’ll have a car, and we’ll pick you up any place you say. Then, so we can talk in absolute privacy, we’ll go to a safe house.” He put the accent on the word safe.

  “You at a phone where I can get back to you?”

  “Just beep me,” said Leo. “You’ve got the number?”

  “I’ve got the number,” said Dean.

  Dean waited until eight-thirty to call Janet. She had worked a four-to-midnight shift Sunday night, and he didn’t want to wake her. He needn’t have worried.

  “Been up since six,” she said. “Nicole doesn’t seem to understand about rotating shifts.”

  “Will she understand if I take you away from her again this evening?”

  “Is this a proposition?”

  “Not a very romantic one, I’m afraid. I got a call from Agent Silvestri,” said Dean, who had already filled Janet in on his Saturday-night meeting with Leo. “Some bigshot Deputy Director is flying up. Wants to meet with both of us this evening at eight.”

  “Where?”

  “A safe house,” said Dean, accenting the word safe as Leo had. “They’ll pick us up, probably in an armored personnel carrier or something.”

  “Sure,” Janet said. “Why not?”

  “How about I come to your place about seven?”

  “Deal,” she said.

  Several minutes before noon on the fifteenth day of his confinement, Joey Spadafino is released from the Administrative Segregation Unit of C-93, the Hole. He’s led out of his twenty-five-watt cell into a small yard, where the dazzling sunshine forces him to squint. He’s unable to shield his eyes with his hands, which are handcuffed behind his back. He remembers a scene from a movie he saw long ago, in which an army colonel POW was kept locked up in a tiny cell out in the fierce tropical sun. When his captors finally released him, the colonel was almost unable to walk, but he managed to stagger back toward his fellow prisoners, having survived the worst the enemy could throw at him. So Joey Spadafino feels now, emerging from the Hole into the blinding sunlight. He holds his head high; he wears his handcuffs proudly. He’s been set up and framed but has refused to complain or whimper. He’s done his bit in the Hole. He’s taken his captor’s best shot, and he’s still on his feet. He wishes he could remember the music they played in the movie when the colonel staggered back toward his men so he could play it in his head now as he’s led back to B Block and his old cell.

  The day seemed to drag on forever. Dean had two cases in court, and he was at the building before nine-thirty. One client, Pedro Quinones, had made bail; the other, Darnell Smith, was in jail. Pedro didn’t show up until after eleven, explaining that the trains were broken. By the time he got there, the sign-in sheet was two pages long, and it was twelve-thirty before the case was called and adjourned. Darnell Smith wasn’t produced by Corrections until quarter of one; by that time, it was too late to get his case called until after the lunch break. Dean went back to his office, where he opened mail, returned phone messages, and took two aspirins for a headache that the morning’s frustration had cost him. One of the calls he made was to Leo Silvestri’s beeper number. When Leo called back three minutes later, Dean told him they were on for tonight. Leo said to be at Famous Original Ray’s Pizza on Sixth Avenue and Eleventh Street at eight o’clock, and to make sure no one followed them there.

  He walked back to court at two. It was twenty to three by the time the courtroom reopened. Darnell Smith’s case was called at three-fifteen and adjourned. Dean finally got back to his office at quarter of four. Both cases had been adjourned; Dean had accomplished absolutely nothing.

  For his four and a half hours sitting in court, Dean would ultimately be reimbursed $180 before taxes. There were a lot of people who did worse, he told himself, as he downed two more aspirins.

  * * *

  By six o’clock, Dean gave up the notion that he was going to get any work done at the office that day. He also was anxious to see Janet. It had been more than forty-eight hours since he had dropped her off Saturday afternoon, and he missed her. He changed into jeans and sneakers and walked his bike out to the service elevator.

  Janet greeted him at her door, Nicole on one hip. “You’re early,” she said.

  “I missed you.”

  “Well, you’re here just at bath time.”

  “You’re going to seduce me with a scented bubble bath and exotic oils from the East?” Dean said wishfully.

  “Not me,” Janet laughed. “It’s Nicole’s bath time. It’s the high point of her day.”

  Dean watched as Janet partially filled a plastic tub and placed a naked, squealing Nicole into the water. Although he stood behind Janet during most of the process, he was almost as wet as the two of them by the time it was over. All three were laughing as Janet wrapped her daughter in an oversized white towel and said to Dean, “Take your shirt off.”

  “I’ll never fit in that tub,” he protested.

  “You’re probably right,” she agreed. “But imagine the pain if I iron your shirt dry while you’re still inside it.”

  He complied and took off his half-soaked work shirt. As she reached for it, she ran her index finger down his chest, causing him to shiver involuntarily.

  “Easy, big fellow,” she laughed.

  “Was it good for you, too?”

  “Best ever.”

  Dean occupied Nicole while Janet ironed his shirt. When she handed it back to him, it was warm, dry, and fresh. “Wow,” he said, buttoning it up. “I’ve got this apartment you might want to tackle next-”

  “Thanks very much, but I got a mental image of your apartment the moment you announced that you thought Mr. Chang’s place looked normal. I think I’ll pass.”

  Janet used the bathroom to change into fresh jeans and a ribbed top. “Do we tell these FBI guys everything?” she wanted to know.

  “I think so,” said Dean. “They seem to be taking it very seriously.”

  The doorbell rang. “Get that, would you?” Janet said. “It’ll be Mrs. Del Valle.”

  Dean opened the door, and Mrs. Del Valle presented him with her warmest smile yet. As she walked by him, she reached up and pinched his cheek, affectionately yet painfully, cau
sing Dean to pull back and say, “You’re not Jewish by any chance, are you?”

  Dean explained the plan to Janet. He would leave first while she watched from her window to see if anyone followed him. He would make a stop somewhere along the route to Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street, then fall in behind her to see if she was being tailed.

  “Check,” she said, in her most melodramatic fashion.

  When they met up at Famous Original Ray’s fifteen minutes later and compared notes, neither had anything suspicious to report. Dean looked around. There was no sign of Leo Silvestri. “How about a slice?” he said.

  “Sure. Mushrooms.”

  Dean jostled for a position at the counter and managed to come away with two slices in under five minutes. “I read an article once that said there are over fifty Ray’s Pizza places in the city,” he said. “And forty-eight of them claim to be the original Famous Original Ray’s.”

  “Yes,” said Janet, burning the roof of her mouth on melted mozzarella cheese, “but this is the best. Everyone knows that.”

  It was hard for Dean to argue, especially with his mouth full.

  “We could have got you some real food, you know,” said a familiar voice behind Dean.

  Before he turned, he knew it was Leo Silvestri.

  After introductions, Leo ushered them outside to a black Lincoln Town Car with tinted side and back windows that made it impossible to see inside. He held the back door open for them to climb in. A distinguished-looking man in a gray suit sat in the front passenger seat; Leo got behind the wheel and pulled away from the curb.

  “Hello,” said the man, in a voice that sounded like that of a network anchorman. “I’m Bennett Childs. I appreciate your meeting with us.”

  They drove downtown and entered the Holland Tunnel. Once in Jersey, Leo took side streets to an area Dean was unfamiliar with. The neighborhood gradually changed from factories to brownstones to row houses to private homes with small lawns and attached garages. They turned into a driveway, and Leo pushed the button on a transmitter clipped to the sun visor above his head. The garage door opened, and he pulled the car in, stopping alongside a maroon Chevrolet. Leo cut the engine and pushed the button on the transmitter again. They waited in the car until the garage door closed.

  A door led from the garage into the house, and Leo knocked on it three times. Almost immediately it swung open. A thirtyish-looking clean-cut black man wearing a shoulder-holstered revolver over his white shirt and tie held the door open while the others entered. Inside was the comfortably furnished ground floor of a suburban home. It looked like the occupants might be due back any moment except for the fact that all of the windows were completely covered with drapes.

  “Mr. Abernathy and Miss Killian,” said Bennett Childs, “this is Agent Jeffries. Please make yourselves comfortable,” he added, gesturing to a sofa.

  Dean and Janet seated themselves. Childs took a chair, as did Leo Silvestri. Jeffries excused himself and disappeared.

  “So,” said Childs, “Agent Silvestri tells me you’re on to something, Mr. Abernathy. He also says, I might add, that he’s concerned for the safety of both you and Miss Killian.”

  Neither Dean nor Janet said anything.

  “I’m here from Washington, representing the Director. I want you both to know that anything you tell me will be kept in strictest confidence. That means I report only to the Director, nobody else. I also want you to know that we’re prepared to offer you round-the-clock protection if you cooperate with us.”

  “What does that mean?” Dean asked.

  “Teams of agents assigned full-time to-”

  “No,” Dean interrupted. “What do you mean by ‘cooperate’?”

  “Ah,” said Childs. “Initially, tell us everything you know. Let us evaluate it, set up a discreet investigation. We’ll need your help in that, whether on an active or passive level. It may require some fairly dangerous undercover work on your parts. On the other hand, it may come down to doing nothing more than staying out of our way. Whatever it is, you give us that help.” He smiled at Dean and said, “That’s what I mean by cooperating.”

  Janet and Dean exchanged approving glances. “Sounds okay,” Dean said.

  “Why don’t you begin at the beginning?” said Bennett Childs, pulling a pipe and tobacco out of his side jacket pocket.

  Dean began at the beginning. As he had with Leo, he told the whole story of his involvement in the case, from his initial contact with Joey Spadafino and his early assumption that Joey was guilty as charged. As Childs puffed thoughtfully on his pipe, filling the room with the sweet aroma of what Dean thought he recognized as Captain Black, Dean recounted his awareness of the first inconsistencies, his mounting suspicions, leading to the discovery of the two Janet Killians, and culminating in the trip to Tall Oaks to find the comatose body of Mr. Chang.

  When he was finished, Dean sat back. Bennett Childs tapped his pipe to empty its bowl into an oversized glass ashtray. Then he said, slowly and quietly, “Wow.”

  “I told you this was hot stuff,” said Leo.

  “You may be guilty of gross understatement,” Childs told him. He looked very serious. Then he turned to Dean and Janet. “It is essential, absolutely essential, that you both carry on as though you have not met with us. For the present time, no heroics. Let’s just sit back for a few days and see what they do next. If there are any developments whatsoever, you should report them immediately to Agent Silvestri. That should be your exclusive method of contact with the Bureau.”

  “Who are ‘they’?” Janet asked.

  Childs took a moment to answer. “I hesitate to say this,” he said presently, “but ‘they’ seem to be a bunch of detectives in the New York Police Department who have developed their own agenda. I think you can imagine how volatile a situation that presents us with.” To Leo he said, “As of this moment, you’re temporarily relieved of all other duties. You’re to coordinate this investigation full-time. I’ll see you get everything you need.

  “Miss Killian, Mr. Abernathy, I’d like your permission to put a detail of men on you.” When they hesitated, Childs added, “Believe me, you’ll barely know they exist.”

  “Is it really necessary?” Janet asked.

  “I’m afraid it is. If Mr. Abernathy’s story is true - and I have every reason to believe it is - they’ve already silenced another witness, Mr. Chang. You could be their next target. Or you, Mr. Abernathy, if they realize you’re on to them.”

  “Okay,” said Janet in a small voice.

  Childs looked at Dean, who said, “I guess we have no choice.”

  “Good,” Childs said, standing up. “Agent Jeffries!” he called, and Jeffries reappeared on cue. “Jeffries, I want you to drive Miss Killian and Mr. Abernathy back to Manhattan. Take them wherever they want to go. Make sure you’re not followed and make sure they’re not followed after you drop them off. We’ll have other teams on them by midnight. Agent Silvestri, you’ll take me to the airport. I’ll be meeting with the Director tonight.”

  Childs walked over to Dean and Janet, who stood as he approached. He extended his hand. “I’m very grateful to both of you,” he said, shaking their hands firmly in turn. “You’ve done a very heroic thing in coming forward with this information. I promise you won’t be sorry.”

  Jeffries began to lead Dean and Janet to the door that connected with the garage, when Leo held out a set of car keys. “Take the Lincoln,” he said to Jeffries. “We’ll use your car.”

  “Okay,” said Jeffries, taking the keys and handing Leo the other set. Dean and Janet followed him into the garage, took their seats in the back of the Lincoln, and were soon on their way back toward the lights of the city.

  Back in his cell on B Block, Joey Spadafino recuperates. His fifteen days in the Hole behind him, he finds himself regaining his old strength. He’s able to sleep at night for the first time in months. His appetite comes back with a vengeance, and where he once gave much of his food away to other inmates, he
now looks around for portions that go uneaten. He begins to put back on some of the weight he’s lost, so he starts working out. In the weight room one day, he gets another inmate, an Irish kid named Eddie Clancy, to show him how to do curls and presses with weights, something Joey never learned in his boxing days. He does pushups on the floor of his cell first thing in the morning and last thing at night, and works himself up to where he can do seventy-five in a set. One afternoon when his cellmates are both signed out to court, Joey jerks off in the corner of his cell, not out of depression but out of actual horniness, and he comes with a force that makes him laugh. He begins to shave every morning and brushes his teeth more regularly. One day, he phones his mother in Jersey and asks her to come visit him. She promises to try, if she can get his uncle to drive her. He hums the theme song from Rocky as he jogs and shadowboxes with new energy each day in the yard. Getting strong now . . .

  On Wednesday, the Spadafino case appeared in Part 56, and Dean stood in court with Joey beside him for perhaps the twelfth time in the past six months. The press had long since lost interest in these routine calendar calls. They would presumably reconvene when there was a promise of something newsworthy. By now, all of the pre-trial discovery had been completed, leaving as the next order of business the setting of a date for the hearings that would immediately precede the trial, and the trial itself. Dean’s guess was that, in view of vacation schedules and the difficulty in getting jurors to sit on all but the shortest of cases during July and August, the court would probably suggest a September date. He was wrong.

  “Any reason we can’t start this case next week?” Judge Rothwax asked the lawyers at a bench conference.

  It was Walter Bingham who protested. “Judge,” he said, “I’ve got about a dozen cops and five or six detectives I’ve got to call, not to mention ballistics people, an ME, and some civilians. There’s a new departmental regulation that requires them to use their vacation time by the end of the year or lose it. There’s no way I can coordinate their schedules on such short notice.”

  “‘Short notice,’ says Mr. Bingham,” Rothwax mimicked. “I was led to believe that the arrest in this case occurred over six months ago. But, of course, I may be mistaken.”