Unknown Remains

by Peter Leonard

  Ruben said, “Who’s the asshole sitting at the table we came in?”

  “Dominic Benigno, Frank’s enforcer.”

  Ruben shook his head. “That’s him, uh? He don’t look like much.”

  “Tell that to the people he’s killed. He shoots his victims in the head, then stabs them through the heart. Hangs the body over a bathtub and dismembers the person. Wraps the body parts in plastic and buries them. No body, no crime.” Cobb glanced in the rearview mirror. “He kidnapped the twelve-year-old son of an informer, Placido Gaspare, tortured the kid, sent pictures to the old man, a federal witness, so he wouldn’t testify against Frank. Ended up dissolving the boy’s body in a barrel of acid. The family couldn’t bury the kid, couldn’t mourn properly. Dominic Benigno’s a psychopath. You don’t want him after you. Believe me. That’s why we need to get the money, get this over with.”

  “You think I’m afraid of him?”

  “You’re not, you should be.”

  Cobb parked in the Holiday Inn lot and told Ruben he was going to his room. Ruben said he was going to drive to Darien and drop in on Diane McCann. Cobb’s phone beeped. He took it out of his shirt pocket and saw that Kathy Zack had called and left a message.

  According to Kathy, the phone number Jack had called the morning of 9/11 was registered to a guy named Joseph Sculley, who lived in a Jersey suburb called Ridgewood, forty-five minutes from Manhattan by car. Cobb remembered him. McCann’s friend with the fish-belly-white skin who gave the eulogy.

  He debated whether to bring Ruben with him and thought it might be easier to take care of this one alone.

  TWELVE

  Pushing her cart along the cereal aisle, Diane stopped to pick up a box of Cheerios and saw someone coming toward her. Jesus, it was him. She left the cart where it was and ran the other way, gunning it past shoppers who looked at her like she was crazy—not used to seeing a well-dressed thirty-seven-year-old woman sprinting through a Big Y. She ran down the dairy aisle toward the checkout counters, running out the door and across the parking lot to her car, glancing over her shoulder as she ran. She made it to the car and got in, locked the door and fumbled putting the key in.

  He appeared at the side window and banged on the glass with an open hand. She started the car. Diane, staying in the moment, didn’t stop or panic, but put the car in reverse and backed out of the space, the Heavy moving next to her.

  He held on to the window’s edge, running next to the car, till she floored it and left him in the rearview, out of breath, bent over, holding his knees.

  Diane didn’t know if she should go to the police or go home. She reached in her purse and gripped the Beretta, brought it out, resting the gun in her lap. If she went to the police, what would she say? This scary-looking guy stopped by her house a couple times, and she just saw him at the grocery store. It sounded lame. What would the police do? He hadn’t done anything other than scare the hell out of her.

  The clock on the dash said five thirty. She drove home and sat in the living room, gripping the Beretta, looking out the window, expecting a car to pull up, expecting to see the Heavy get out and pound on her door.

  At six thirty, Diane went in the kitchen and turned on the outside floods, lighting up the driveway and backyard. She made a drink and a ham and cheese omelet and sat at the kitchen counter, watching the evening news.

  She rinsed the dishes and put them in the dishwasher, turned off the TV. She set the security alarm and went upstairs, looking out the bedroom window at the front yard and empty street. Diane soaked in a hot bath for twenty minutes and felt relaxed for the first time since she had seen the Heavy in the grocery aisle. She put on flannel pajamas and got in bed, placing the Beretta within reach on the night table. She read two Raymond Carver short stories, eyes heavy, the book slipping out of her hands, decided not to fight it and turned out the light.

  The noise woke her, a sound like glass shattering. A few minutes later, she heard the stairs creak, grabbed the Beretta, ran into the bathroom, and locked the door. She knew who it was. Diane sat on the side of the tub. The night-light was on, and she could see the sink and toilet and the beveled squares and rectangles on the paneled door. The handle shook back and forth, and then he was putting his weight into the wood, trying to break the door open.

  “The police are on their way and I’ve got a gun.” She pulled the hammer back. “You hear that?” Diane held the Beretta with two hands, trying to steady herself. If he tried anything else, she’d put a couple rounds through the door.

  Ruben watched the patrol car pull in the driveway, surprised they got there so quick. Two cops, guns drawn, moved toward the house. Jesus, that was close. He was about to break the door down when the McCann woman had said the police were on their way and she had a gun, and the way she said it, he believed her.

  She must’ve heard it when he broke the window, and must’ve had a security alarm. Three in the morning, he thought she’d be asleep and he’d go upstairs and have a talk with her, explain the seriousness of the situation. This one had not gone well from the beginning, Ruben reviewing the moves he’d made, but didn’t think he’d fucked up. It was just bad timing, bad luck or something.

  When the cops disappeared, walking up the driveway with guns and flashlights, he started the car and drove to the end of the street with the lights off, turning them on before he got to the highway. He went back to the motel, thinking about Duane Cobb, who’d given him some bullshit excuse about not feeling well. Ruben went to Cobb’s room, and he wasn’t there. Ruben had never trusted Cobb. What the hell was Cobb up to?

  In the opposite corner, he had Frank DiCicco, Frankie Cheech, to deal with. Frank was playing him and Cobb against each other. Nothing felt right. Everything that looked good a few weeks ago had turned to shit in a hurry, and Ruben wasn’t sure how it was gonna end. He needed to find McCann’s money. He’d walk away if he could, but that didn’t look like an option, unless he took off, went to Puerto Rico or Miami, work again as a bodyguard. Protect some rich asshole, wait around till the guy wanted to go somewhere, or drive his wife or girlfriend to the beauty parlor, sit in the waiting room till they got their hair done. Or take the guy to a restaurant for dinner, sit in the car a few hours till he finished. Ruben had gotten paid to take a lot of shit and it was tough.

  Diane was still in the bathroom when the patrolmen came upstairs and called her name. “Mrs. McCann, officers Garner and Turowski, Darien Police Department. Please open the door.”

  She looked out the window and saw a patrol car in the driveway, slipped the Beretta in her robe pocket, and unlocked the door. The cops were big and young, helpful and reassuring. Officer Garner questioned her in the kitchen. She sat at the island counter and he stood across from her, writing in a pocket-size spiral notebook. Officer Turowski said he was going to check the house and walked toward the living room.

  OFFICER GARNER: Mrs. McCann, tell me what happened.

  DIANE: I was sleeping and heard a noise and woke up.

  OFFICER GARNER: The perp broke a window to gain entry.

  DIANE: I heard him come up the stairs and ran into the bathroom.

  OFFICER GARNER: Did you see his face?

  DIANE: No.

  OFFICER GARNER: Do you know him?

  DIANE: No.

  OFFICER GARNER: Anything distinctive about his voice?

  DIANE: Nothing.

  OFFICER GARNER: Anything else you remember?

  (Diane shook her head.)

  OFFICER GARNER: I’ll hand this over to the Detective Bureau. I’m sure you can expect a call sometime tomorrow.

  THIRTEEN

  Diane was in the bathroom putting on makeup the next morning when she heard a car and looked out the window. A Chevrolet sedan pulled into the driveway, and a man got out. Must be a detective from the Darien police following up. She heard him knock on the door, ran downstairs, and opened it.

  “Mrs. McCann, I’m Detective Marquis Brown.” He showed her his shield. “Do you mind if I
ask you a few questions?”

  “I’ve been expecting you.”

  “Have you now? Why’s that?”

  “’Cause of what happened last night. Come in.”

  Diane led him into the living room. He slipped out of the overcoat and folded it in half next to him on the couch, took off the hat and placed it on top of the coat. His clothes smelled of cigarettes. She could see the outline of a pack in his shirt pocket. Diane sat in a chair across from him. He looked older without the hat, head shaved clean, chocolate-colored skin that had an oily sheen in the morning light. His sport coat opened when he sat, and she could see a semiautomatic in a holster on his hip.

  Detective Brown said, “What happened last night?”

  “They didn’t tell you?”

  “Who’s they?”

  “The two officers who were here. Someone broke in, and I called the Darien police. Isn’t that what you’re here for?”

  “I’m with NYPD Homicide investigating a murder that occurred in Greenwich Village.”

  “Whose murder?”

  “Victoria Ross.”

  “My God.” Diane wasn’t expecting that. She didn’t especially like Vicki but didn’t want anything bad to happen to her.

  “When was the last time you saw Ms. Ross?”

  “The day before yesterday.” She crossed her legs.

  He opened a small notebook and wrote something. “Where’d this meeting take place?”

  “Her apartment.” Just tell him the truth. She had nothing to hide.

  “How long have you known Ms. Ross?”

  “I don’t really know her.”

  He gave Diane a questioning look. “You don’t know her, but you went to her apartment? That sound as odd to you as it does me?”

  Yeah, it did. Diane was nervous, uncomfortable now.

  “Where did you and Ms. Ross meet?”

  “The restaurant where she works. Balthazar.”

  “What was your relationship with the deceased?”

  “We didn’t have one.”

  “Vicki Ross had been your waitress earlier that evening. You confronted her. What did you say? What happened that made her leave the restaurant in the beginning of her shift? Hostess said Vicki didn’t feel well, but that didn’t happen till she saw you.”

  His dark eyes held on her and she looked away. “Why do you think I had something to do with it?”

  “Mrs. McCann, what’d you say to Ms. Ross?”

  “I asked her if she recognized me,” Diane said, looking at him.

  “But you’d never officially met, is that right?”

  Diane shook her head.

  “You’d seen her before, though, hadn’t you?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Where was that at?”

  “My husband’s funeral. He was killed on nine-eleven. His office was in the World Trade Center, the eighty-ninth floor, Tower One.”

  “Your husband and Ms. Ross were friends.”

  “Apparently more than that. Isn’t that why you’re here?”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “She showed up at the funeral lunch, a good-looking young girl I’d never seen before, and I asked one of Jack’s friends who she was.”

  “You were suspicious, thought your husband was having an affair?”

  “Not at all. I trusted Jack. I had no reason not to.”

  “How’d you feel when you found out?”

  “I was shocked, couldn’t believe it. Hearing it was like getting the wind knocked out of me.” Diane paused. “We got along, liked each other. I thought our marriage was solid, our relationship was good.”

  “Why’d you want to meet her?”

  “I was curious. My husband had had an affair with this girl, and I wanted to see her. You don’t understand that?”

  “So what’d Ms. Ross say when you asked, did she recognize you?”

  “She gave me a blank look and said no. I said, ‘I’m Jack’s wife.’ She took off, hurried away from the table, and left the restaurant. I followed her to her apartment, and we talked.”

  “About what?”

  “Jack, what do you think? She still had some of his clothes in her closet. There was a tie I had given him for his birthday last year. Seeing it in Vicki’s closet was strange, unexpected.”

  “Did it make you angry?”

  “No, it made me sad.”

  “How’d you and Ms. Ross get along?”

  “Okay, considering. It was an uncomfortable situation. She made an effort.”

  “Did it bother you, Ms. Ross and your husband had an affair?”

  “Of course it bothered me.”

  “Enough to go back later that night and kill her? You did it, didn’t you?”

  “Why? Jack’s dead. The relationship’s over. What would be the point?”

  “You’re getting even. Girl stole your man, people’ve been killed for a lot less than that.”

  “You really think I had something to do with it?”

  “You had motive, and you have a permit for a Beretta .380.”

  “My father gave it to me. He was a PO.”

  “So you know how to shoot, huh?”

  “I can hold my own.”

  “I bet you can. Where’s the gun at?”

  “Upstairs.”

  “Let’s go have a look.”

  She stood and he followed her upstairs to the bedroom. “It’s over there,” Diane said, pointing to the night table on her side of the bed. “In the drawer.”

  Detective Brown put on a pair of rubber gloves, opened the drawer, picked up the Beretta, and ejected the magazine. Now he took out a Ziploc plastic bag, opened it, picked the gun up by the trigger guard, dropped it into the bag along with the magazine, and sealed it closed.

  “You can just come and take my gun? You don’t need a warrant or a court order?” After what had happened last night, Diane needed it for protection.

  Detective Brown took a folded, wrinkled piece of paper out of an inside sport coat pocket and handed it to her. “It’s signed by a judge. Gives me permission to search the premises and confiscate evidence.” He paused. “Victoria Ross was killed with a thirty-eight cartridge. Ballistics will do a comparison with evidence recovered at the crime scene and determine if your gun is caliber-compatible, determine whether or not it’s the murder weapon.”

  “It isn’t. I’m telling you, I didn’t do it. I couldn’t do it. I’m not a violent person.”

  “But you have a semiautomatic, and it fires the type of round that killed Vicki Ross. You admit you were at her apartment the day before yesterday in the evening. Ms. Ross was murdered several hours later. Think this is all just coincidence?”

  “You find any shell casings?”

  “Why do you think it was more than one?”

  “I don’t. I don’t know anything. It wasn’t me.”

  “Who was it?”

  It was going from bad to worse, and now Diane wondered if she should refuse to say another word and call a lawyer. But that might make her sound like she was guilty. “Jack supposedly borrowed money from a company called San Marino Equity. The office is on Mulberry Street in Little Italy. A scary-looking guy has been showing up here trying to collect the debt.”

  Detective Brown wrote in his notebook and glanced at her. “Why’d he borrow money?”

  “Maybe he was supporting Vicki, buying her things, taking her on trips.”

  “You know this for a fact?”

  Diane shook her head.

  “You said your husband died. Why they coming after you?”

  “The guy showed me a contract for seven hundred fifty thousand dollars—a contract that I supposedly signed, making me responsible for the debt. Someone forged my name. The signature wasn’t even close.”

  “You have it here? I’d like to see it.”

  “It’s in the kitchen.”

  He swung his arm toward the door, gesturing for her to lead the way. “After you.”

  Diane had left the San Ma
rino contract on the counter, right there next to the salt and pepper shakers, but it wasn’t there now.

  “There a problem?”

  “I’ve been a little scatterbrained lately. I must’ve put it somewhere else.” She could see by the look on his face he didn’t believe her.

  “What’d your husband do for a living?”

  “He was a broker at Sterns and Morrison.”

  “Successful?”

  “He made about three hundred thousand last year.”

  Detective Brown whistled. “Man makes that kind of money, why he need to borrow more?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “So you were surprised when you found this out?”

  “I was wondering what else I didn’t know; then I discovered Jack was having an affair.”

  “Who’s this guy you say keeps showing up, what’s his name?”

  “I don’t know. He never introduced himself.”

  “What’s he look like?”

  “Dark skin, beat-up face, about five seven and thick through the shoulders. He has a Spanish accent. If I had to guess, I would say he’s Puerto Rican. I ran into him on the street after I left Vicki’s apartment. He must’ve been following me all day.” She told Detective Brown about the guy showing up on the train.

  “This the one come by last night?”

  “I think so. I never saw him.”

  “But you heard his voice.”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was him.”

  “Why didn’t you call the police the first time he harassed you?”

  “I don’t know; I should have. I’ve had a few other things on my mind.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like my husband getting murdered. That can throw you off.”

  “Was your husband’s body recovered?”

  “No but a death certificate was issued. As I said, Jack worked on the eighty-ninth floor of Tower One. After the first plane hit, that was it. Jack never made it out.”

  “You think the PR knew your husband and Ms. Ross were having an affair, went to see her?”

  “I don’t know. I guess it’s possible.”

  “You say the PR on the train rode back to Darien, is that right? Sat in your row, looked at you, but never said a word.”