“For one thing they may see something we have overlooked. Something we have missed.”
“Give me a break. We haven’t missed a doggone thing. We know why he is doing this and we know that until we catch him, he will continue. Look, we are headed back to the latest crime scene and taking another run at the residents and the people who live in the area to see if anyone is willing to help us get a useable description,” I told him.
“And you really think that will help?”
“Probably not but I don’t want to leave anything to chance. All I am asking is that you don’t call in the FBI just yet. Give us a chance to work on this a little longer.”
“Alright Bartoni but the press is starting to eat us alive. They haven’t linked this last murder to our guy but it is just a matter of time. Once that happens I won’t have a choice.”
“Alright captain. Thanks.’
“No thanks needed, just get this guy off the streets.”
***
Mike Bigaletto, AKA ‘Mr. Big’ had quite a racket going. He ran prostitution, drugs, protection, and a gambling operation centered around the Washington Street corridor. He was totally ruthless and responsible for the murder of countless people.
For the past three years he had been expanding his area of operation by simply taking control from other operators. He was notorious for making his competitors disappear.
He had been rounded up at least a dozen times by the police on various charges but in each case he had slipped through the hands of the system.
“Are you telling me you made five hundred for the entire night,” he said while grabbing one of his tricks around the neck and slamming his fist into her stomach.
“Big, it was just a slow night. The rain kept a lot of Johns away.”
“Yeah?” he said, tightening his grip on her throat causing her eyes to bulge out, “Then how comes everyone else brought in at least a grand? Are you getting useless to me?”
“No, please Big. It was just a bad night. I swear.”
“Let me tell you something little girl. I ever catch you skimming on me I will kill you. You understand?” he said punching her in the stomach again and throwing her to the ground.
“I ain’t skimming, I swear Big.”
“I’m gonna’ be watching you real close. You do not want me to have this conversation with you again. Understand?” he said shaking his finger at her.
“Yeah, I understand Big. You want me to make it up to you Big. I could make you feel real good.”
“Save it slut. All I want from a skag like you is money.”
“Okay Big. I won’t let you down again.”
“You had better not,” he said walking away.
Of course she had ripped him off. Drugs were costing more every day and he never supplied them with enough. She had started going to another source to get what she needed. She knew she was going to have to be very careful with him watching her. She had only taken seven hundred dollars. She didn’t think he would notice.
She knew good and well that all the other girls were skimming same as her. She would just have to be more careful.
***
Bigaletto had just stepped out of his Cadillac Escalade to check on his drug take from the previous evening. He was cocky, knowing he was in his own territory and carrying a .50 Desert Eagle in a holster behind his back. No one would dare mess with him. Not here.
“Excuse me,” A voice said behind him as he was reaching for the door.
“What the…”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to bother you. I’m rather lost. I was hoping you could give me some directions.”
“Lost? You’re more than lost you stupid jerk. Get the hell out of here,” he said.
“That’s the problem. I don’t know which direction to go.”
“Look moron. Get out of here right now or I’ll break your face,” he said taking his hand off the doorknob and turning to face the man.
“There’s no need to be rude. I was just asking for a little help,” the man replied.
“I’m gonna give you some help,” Bigaletto said starting toward the man.
“I guess what they say about you is true. You are an uneducated, ignorant, useless piece of trash with absolutely no redeeming qualities.”
“What? What did you just say?” Bigaletto demanded, starting to reach behind his back.
That’s when everything went wrong. The first shot caught him in the knee causing his leg to buckle and he fell hard to the dirty pavement. He was still trying to reach behind his back to get his gun when the second blast caught him in the right elbow, nearly taking his lower arm off.
He was screaming in agony when the man came over and lifted his face so he could look into his eyes.
“You see Mr. Bigaletto, I know all about you. I know about the gaudy looking gold plated Desert Eagle, your method of intimidation, your total lack of morals and above all, just being a totally useless waste of space on this planet. You see, I have made it my life’s work to get rid of vermin like you.”
“Look, take what you want man. Please just don’t kill me.”
“I wonder, how many have said that to you over the last few years? How many begged for you not to kill them? Did it ever do any good? No, I doubt it did,” he said placing the barrel of the gun against the top of Bigaletto’s forehead.
“Please man. I can get you all the money you could every want.”
“And there is your problem. I don’t need money. I need you gone. What I am doing is making the world a better place for good people to live. I hope you rot in hell,” he said and pulled the trigger, blowing the better part of Bigaletto’s head off.
***
I think I’m getting more like Doc Sorenson every day. I’m becoming more grumpy and see less good in humanity. I also hate to get phone calls at home. Especially in the middle of the night. Since I have no social life, I know it isn’t someone calling to whispers sweet nothings in my ear. It means bad news.
I had polished off the better part of a bottle of Pinot Noir while lying in the tub thinking about things in general. Actually I was thinking about two specific things. The first being why I had not been able to make a commitment to Doctor Warman. I was still agonizing over what the hell was wrong with me. What am I looking for? The guy was terrific and he loved me. What a jerk I am.
Of course the second thing was the case we were working on. This guy was smart. He wasn’t some dummy running around killing people for the thrill of it. He had a plan and picked his targets carefully. He saw himself as a righter of wrongs, a person seeking out injustice and taking the necessary steps to see that it doesn’t happen again.
So what triggered this? A person doesn’t just wake up one day and say ‘I think I will go out and make all things wrong in the world right again’. What makes him step over that line to actually kill people? If we knew that, maybe we could get this guy.
And that brings me to another point. I don’t feel the same about getting this guy as I do most criminals. That doesn’t mean I am going to slack off or cut him any breaks but I do understand how someone could just become overwhelmed with the evil going on in the world.
I had just dried off, put the cork in the last of the Pinot Noir, and jumped into my jammies. I was determined to let it go and get a good night’s sleep. I am such an optimist.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It seemed like I had just closed my eyes when the dreaded phone rang. I tried to work it into a dream but eventually I realized it was my cell phone. I fumbled around in the dark trying to find the damn thing but managed to knock it onto the floor. After a few not so lady like words I found it.
“Bartoni.”
“Morning sweet cheeks.”
“My cheeks are not sweet right now so this had better be damned important.”
“We have a body. Mike Bigaletto, AKA Mr. Big. A patrol car found him with most of his head missing in an alley in the 900 Block of Rockville Avenue. You won’t have any problem finding it
,” Sargent Winters told me.
“Yeah, yeah. Look for cops standing around drinking coffee.”
“Hey, what else have they got to do until you big shots show up.”
“Roberts know yet?”
“Yep. He is on his way.”
“Okay, got it,” I said trying to sit up.
“What? No thanks for calling.”
“Give me a break Winters. You are messing with my beauty sleep,” I replied.
Now I said that without thinking, I knew what was coming next before he even said it.
“That is one thing you could certainly stand a lot of. Sorry I woke you,” he said and hung up before I could say something else not mother approved.
I tried to get dressed in the dark so I wouldn’t have to turn on the light but that didn’t work out so well. I finally turned on the light, cussed and got dressed. I looked in the mirror and realized Sargent Winters had not been lying. I looked like hell. I fussed with my hair for a few minutes before finally settling on a hat to cover it up. I pinched my cheeks to get a little color in them so no one would mistake me for a zombie.
I got my vest, gun and shield and headed out to warm up the Healey. It sputtered and stumbled before finally settling down. When it gets this cold, the transmission is really stiff for the first few miles. Once it warms up, it is fine.
I pulled up at what looked like one of those ‘Payday Loan’ rip-off joints. There were probably half the city cop cars parked in all different directions. There were more flashing lights than at a KISS rock concert. I didn’t see Dan’s car but that didn’t surprise me any. He will be late to his own funeral unless they are serving food. Then he would be first in line. Knowing him he stopped off for breakfast. I slipped under the crime scene tape.
“Hey Bartoni, you didn’t need to get yourself fixed up just for us,” one of the officers said.
A real jokester. Ha-ha. Chortle-chortle. Remind me to laugh later. I just kept going around to the back of the building. My old, and I emphasize the word ‘old’ buddy, Doc Sorenson, was just putting on his rubber gloves. He looked up and waited until I walked over to him.
“You know Bartoni, a little makeup wouldn’t hurt if you are going to improve your social life.”
“Don’t. Don’t start. I will shoot you, put a gun in the dead guy’s hand and swear he rose up like a zombie and shot you before I could react.”
“Could stand to work on your disposition too,” he said, obviously not intimidated by my sorry threats.
“Can we just get to it?” I asked.
“Sure. The guy is dead. There’s not much left from his eyebrows up. Most of his brains are on the wall behind him. Definitely a shotgun.”
“Our same guy?”
“Most likely. This guy is racking them up pretty good. I suppose you saw the television trucks on your way in. They will be all over you and this. There is blood in the water and the sharks are smelling it. You need to be prepared,” the ME said.
“This is getting out of hand. We still don’t have squat on this guy other than the letter he left for me. It turned up totally clean according to the lab. Common brand of paper and envelope. Nothing we can trace.”
“And no real description of him yet,” Sorenson said.
“Hey guys,” Dan said walking down the alley.
“Gee, glad you could join us,” I said in my ‘you are in trouble voice.’
He didn’t seem too concerned. He handed Sorenson and me a bag of bagels and cream cheese. He also had a coffee for Doc and a Diet Coke for me. It was hard to be too mad at him.
“So is this the work of our same guy?” Dan asked.
“It appears that way,” Sorenson answered.
“This guy is starting to get on my very last nerve,” Dan said taking a huge bit from his bagel.
“I think the media is going to have a field day. This is going to get ugly very quickly,” I replied.
“Yeah. I would say the FBI are as good as on their way here.”
“FBI?” Sorenson asked.
“The boss said if we couldn’t come up with something positive he was going to ask the FBI for help,” I told him.
“Well that can’t make you very happy.”
“It certainly does not,” I said.
“And you have nothing to go on?”
“Other than a stack of dead bodies, nothing substantial,” I answered.
“I don’t want them poking around my lab. I don’t have warm fuzzy feelings about them,” Sorenson said.
“If we get Pendergrass and his crew it should be okay. If they send someone we haven’t worked with before it won’t be quite as comfortable for any of us,” I replied.
“Is it okay for me to get his guy out of here?”
“Pictures been taken?”
“Yep. They are all finished.”
“Then take him away. By the way, I assume you know his name?”
“I took the liberty of checking his billfold,” Sorenson said.
“Hey, you can’t do that until we get here,” Dan said.
“So sue me Junior G man,” Sorenson replied, walking off to get his crew to put the body in a bag and take it to the morgue.
“He can’t do that,” Dan repeated.
“He obviously can. Sorenson knows what he is doing. He would be the last person in the word to disturb a crime scene. Leave Doc alone.”
“Well it’s not proper procedure,” he insisted.
“Like stopping to get food on the way to the crime scene is?”
“That is totally different.”
“I know. It involves your stomach,” I replied.
***
The media was on us like the proverbial stink on do-do. They started yelling at us the minute we rounded the corner of the building.
“Detective Bartoni. Detective. Hey Bartoni. Angie, Angie. Detective Robert,” came the yells.
I’m thinking they were probably waking up the entire neighborhood. As if they cared. There was really no way to dodge their questions.
“You ready for this?” I said to Dan as we walked toward the reporters.
“Sure, as long as you answer the questions.”
“Thanks for your support,” I shot back.
“No problem,” he answered.
We stopped at the tape and they rushed over all of them trying to yell out questions at once. Now most of them know I will simply stand there looking at them until they stop shouting out questions. There is no way you can answer questions with people yelling out all the time. It took about two minutes before they finally quieted down.
“I’ll make a statement then answer your questions in a rational fashion. I won’t answer any just shouted out. The person we found tonight was shot around 2:00 a.m. according to the ME. His name is being withheld pending notification of the next of kin. Right now all we know is that he was shot once in the knee, once in the arm and once in the head. The time between each shot has not been determined. We have no suspects and have just started to canvas the area for witnesses. That is all we have at this time.”
“Detective Bartoni, this seems very similar to the Cauldron murder. Are the two related?”
“There is no way of knowing that at this point. Cauldron was killed at home and the murder was called in. He was a pedophile. The current victim has no pedophile attachments that we are aware of at this time and he was obviously killed in the alley and found by a patrol car on routine rounds,” I replied.
“But there could be some connection. They were both criminals.”
“Really? We know about Cauldron but have nothing to indicate that on our current victim.”
“Come on Bartoni. ‘Mr. Big’ is a criminal known by every one of us here. He is a pimp, drug dealer, and who knows what else,” the reporter said.
“And you know this is your so called Mr. Big? And just how do you have that bit of information?” I asked.
“Give us a break. We do our work the same as you. You may not like us much but we aren’t s
tupid.”
“Well, all I can say is that until this is confirmed by the ME or the Police, I suggest you be careful about what you say or print. We are certainly not confirming that the victim was your so called ‘Mr. Big’,” I replied.
“And none of these murders are related to the others taking place in this particular area?” another reporter asked.
“Not that we are aware of,” I said and slid under the tape.
They continued to yell out questions but we just pushed our way through and I finally got to my Healey and headed out. There was no use going home so I drove to headquarters. I knew the captain would want answers and unfortunately I wasn’t going to be able to give him much.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
At nine o’clock the captain came rolling in and immediately crooked his finger at me to come to his office.
“You ready for what is coming?” Dan asked.
“Probably not,” I answered.
We entered like dead men walking and sat down on the old leather couch.
Now you have to understand Captain McGregor. He really is a good egg. I like him but there are times I want to just murdelate him. I know what he is going to say to us and it is really going to stick in my craw.
“So, was this last victim related to the others?” he asked, sitting back in his chair and placing his hands over his stomach.
“Gee I don’t think so. They didn’t have the same last name,” I quipped.
I crack myself up sometimes. Oops, from the look on McGregor’s face he was less amused than I was. Even Dan sort of scooted over, distancing himself from me in case it got really ugly.
“You know Bartoni, with the number of bodies piling up, I am not in the mood for your less than successful attempt at humor. Now, let’s start again. Was Bigaletto’s murder related to the other ones?”
“I would say there is a darn good chance that it is. The type of weapon appears to be the same,” I answered.
“Bigaletto was a pretty big fish in the underworld. He was very aggressive. He was pretty savvy as well so how did this guy manage to pop him?”
Victim's Advocate: Angie Bartoni Case Flie # 12 (Angie Bartoni Case Files) Page 9
