by Rick Reed
Jack said, “He was a judge in Superior Court here in Evansville. He was killed by the same guy that got Sonny. Spike through the ear. Monkey carving stuck in his throat. Set on fire.”
“Well, I can’t say I’m unhappy about either of them—Sonny or Knight. Hey, hang on a minute. I don’t know how I could have forgotten this. Be right back.”
Jack heard the phone put down and rustling of papers before Yankowski came back. “I forgot about Little Bobby. Robert Touhey Jr. He’s Big Bobby’s kid. He was killed a couple of weeks back. Not my case. But I remember hearing something about a monkey carving.”
The papers rustled again. “I’ve got some crime scene pics here. Jeez, what a nasty way to go. He was disemboweled and castrated. His body was hung with steel cables. Is that what you have?”
“Yeah. Sonny was hung by steel cables and meat hooks. What about the spikes?”
Yankowski let out a low whistle. “He was castrated and his man parts were staked to the floor with a railroad spike. He was cut from stem to stern.”
“The carving?”
“Yeah. Stuck down Little Bobby’s throat.”
“Do you have the autopsy report?” Jack asked.
Chapter 30
Dr. John had called after they finished talking with Detective Yankowski. Jack and Liddell drove back to the morgue.
“This can’t be a coincidence,” Liddell said, and turned down Walnut Street. Yankowski had told them Little Bobby was found by a wino in a vacant house near a housing project. He was stripped naked, with Taser burn marks on his chest, neck, and back. He was hanging from a wall with wire cable wrapped around his neck. He was eviscerated. His penis and scrotum had been cut off and were nailed to the floor with a nine-inch-long railroad spike. The kicker was the carved figurine of a monkey that had been found during the autopsy, jammed far down his throat. Steel cable tied his hands over his bloody groin area, mimicking the pose of the monkey carving, Do No Evil. The coroner ruled the death due to exsanguination—blood loss. Secondary cause of death was strangulation. Little Bobby hadn’t died quickly.
“I don’t think Uncle Marty is our killer, but I’m starting to agree with Tunney that he is an important piece of this puzzle, Bigfoot.”
“Yeah. Me too. I mean, even Angelina couldn’t find anything much on the guy. If Angelina can’t find it, it’s not there. Funny that he disappears at the same time that Mindy and Sully take a hike. You don’t think they’re dead too?”
“Took a hike more than likely,” Jack said.
“I don’t think the killer’s going anywhere until he kills Speak No Evil. I guess that’s Sully. Think about it. Attorneys are referred to as a ‘mouthpiece’.”
Liddell turned off Walnut heading toward the morgue.
Jack said, “The next victim could be Uncle Marty.”
Liddell said, “Maybe killing Sonny was only a way to get Sully here? Sonny and Knight were already here.”
“Could be,” Jack said. “Sonny, Knight and Sully are all connected by circumstance to Missy Schwindel’s murder. All three of them resign their jobs in Boston and scatter.”
“Knight basically gives a confessed murderer a walk. Five years, pod’na.”
Jack added, “And don’t forget Yankowski said the guy was killed in prison.”
“Big Bobby?” Liddell said.
“Probably,” Jack said. “Mindy is connected to all of this through Sonny and Sully. We don’t have anything on her.”
“Mindy’s a life-support system for a pair of jugs, if you believe Jerry O’Toole and Yankowski,” Liddell said, and parked in front of the coroner’s office.
“You really have a way with words, Bigfoot.”
Dr. John showed them inside and said, “I might have something for you.” He handed Jack a paper. “Toxicology on Sonny Caparelli.”
Jack handed the paper back without reading it. “You know I can’t make heads nor tails of this stuff, Doc.”
Dr. John said, “Sonny was poisoned. Cyanide.”
“Are you sure, Doc?” Liddell asked.
“Prunasin is a form of cyanide. It’s found in some plant leaves, twigs, and blooms, flowering trees. The cyanide level in his blood wasn’t lethal, but if it increased any more it would have killed him.”
Jack remembered the trees on the lawn around Sonny’s house. “There were cherry trees in Sonny’s landscaping. They were still blooming.”
Dr. John said, “Cherry blossoms are used to make tea. They contain small amounts of Prunasin.”
“But why would Sonny eat that stuff?” Jack asked.
“He may not have known,” Dr. John explained. “The Japanese make tea from cherry blossoms and leaves. If they are dried properly before making tea, they are not quite as poisonous. But if wilted leaves, twigs, or wilted blooms were introduced in enough quantity, the poison created could act on the lungs as a nerve agent. Cyanide is one of the oldest poisons used to commit murder.”
Everyone Jack had talked to in Evansville had praised Sonny as a good guy, although Yankowski in Boston had a different opinion. The only one from Boston who had consistent access to Sonny’s food or drinks here in Evansville was Mindy. Maybe she wasn’t just a dumb blonde.
“I guess we’re going back to Sonny’s house,” Jack said. “We’ll need a search warrant this time. We may have enough probable cause to detain Mindy for questioning. If we can find her, that is.”
Liddell called dispatch and asked them to tell Sergeant Mattingly to call via cell phone. “What are we looking for? I need to name something for the search warrant.”
“Tea leaves, plant material. You’re the experts,” Dr. John said.
Sergeant Mattingly called and Liddell said, “Sarge, can you send a car by Sonny’s house again? We need to find Mindy.” He listened then said, “We’re getting a search warrant for the place. If you find Mindy or this Vincent Sullis guy, hold on to them.”
When he hung up, he called Sergeant Walker and told him what Dr. John discovered in the toxicology report. Walker said he’d take care of getting the search warrant.
Dr. John said, “Japanese cherry trees. Japanese monkey carvings.”
“Shit!” Jack said.
* * * *
Henderson County Deputy Sheriff Bart Findlay walked along the bank on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River. An anonymous caller reported that a body had washed up on the shore west of the Twin Bridges. He was freezing his ass off checking the shoreline on foot. There was no way to do it in a vehicle—which is where he wished he were right now. He hoped with all his might that what the reporter saw was a log or something else. If it was a body, he’d be standing out here all day. When he was a rookie, almost twelve years ago, his training officer had told him, “Bart, there’s three things a cop never does. Get wet, get hungry, or get cold. Especially cold.” How he wished it were his training officer standing here right now instead of him.
He cursed out loud as he pushed his way between rows of tall sticker bushes. Thorns snagged at his Tuffy uniform jacket, and pulled little tufts of material from his brown twill uniform trousers. He was just thankful the needle-sharp thorns weren’t pricking him.
He pushed through the bushes and found himself surrounded by another thicket. “Damn it to hell!” He pushed on. Going back now wasn’t an option. He made it through the thicket to a small clearing and carefully pulled a branch of the wicked thorns away from his pants, sticking his finger in the process. He pulled his glove off, put the injured finger in his mouth, took a step, and stumbled over the body.
Chapter 31
Liddell was driving. “If we’re going to Sonny’s house, can we at least go by a drive-thru? There’s a McDonald’s on highway 41. I’m starving, pod’na.”
Jack’s stomach was screaming profanities too. “Okay. The warrant won’t be ready for an hour at least. Drive-thru, Bigfoot. You pick the plac
e. We need to get to Sonny’s in case Sully is there. I don’t want our guys to have to listen to his shit.”
“Now you’re talking, pod’na,” Liddell said, and picked up speed. “If we’re lucky, Uncle Marty will be there too.”
Jack wasn’t that optimistic. Murphy’s Law says, If something can go wrong, it will at the worst possible time, and screw you sideways.
It took Bigfoot less than five minutes to pull into a spot at the Sonic on Covert Avenue. He ordered two number-five deals for himself, and a cheeseburger and drink for Jack.
“I said, drive-thru,” Jack pointed out.
“Same thing,” Liddell said, unclipped his seat belt, and loosened his belt.
He reminded Jack of a Sumo wrestler poised to do battle with a twenty-thousand-calorie meal. Their food arrived and Liddell tipped the girl an extra dollar. She put on a fake smile and said, “Gee. I guess college will have to wait.” She walked away shaking her head.
Liddell didn’t seem to notice. He was stuffing fries into his mouth when dispatch called on the car radio. “One David fifty-two.”
“One David fifty-two, go ahead,” Jack said.
“One David fifty-two, you are requested to call a Deputy Findlay, Henderson County Sheriff’s Department ASAP.”
“We’re on a run. If it’s not in reference to what we’re working now can you get a phone number?” He wanted to serve the search warrant at Sonny’s house. He didn’t have time to deal with anyone else’s needs.
“They requested you to call ASAP, Jack.”
“Give me the number,” he said, and punched the number dispatch relayed into his cell phone. He hit the send button.
The call was answered, “Go ahead.”
Jack asked, “Is this Deputy Findlay?”
“Who’s this?”
“This is Detective Murphy, Evansville Police Department, calling for Deputy Findlay, Henderson County Sheriff Department.”
“Just messing with you,” Findlay said. “This is Findlay. Your dispatcher gave me your cell phone number in case you didn’t call me right back.”
Jack put the call on speakerphone. “Sorry if I’m being a little short with you, Deputy. We’re in the middle of something here and—”
“That’s why I’m calling you,” Findlay said. “I’ve got someone over here you want. An older gent named Martin Crispino.”
Liddell pumped a big fist in the air. “Ba-boom! Something’s going our way.”
Findlay heard Liddell. He said, “Don’t get too excited. This guy’s maybe not going to talk to you.”
“Did he ask for a lawyer?” Jack asked.
“No. He’s unconscious. He’s in ICU at Our Lady of Mercy Hospital. I’ve been here for two hours.”
“What’s going on? Is he under arrest?” Jack asked. They obviously had the EPD’s All-Points Bulletin or they wouldn’t have known to call Jack. What took them so long to call?
“No. He’s not under arrest. I found him on the riverbank over here and we had a little problem identifying him. Let me start at the beginning.”
Deputy Findlay explained getting dispatched to check out a report of a body on the riverbank. Findlay said Crispino was half in, half out of the water, fully clothed—shoes, overcoat and all. He felt for a pulse and didn’t find one. He thought the guy was dead. He called for a detective, coroner, and AMR. He felt for a pulse again, thought he felt a weak one, but the guy wasn’t breathing. He started emergency breathing and felt for a pulse again. Nothing. He performed CPR until the ambulance arrived and took over. The medics packaged the guy and beat feet for the hospital.
“This guy had a big gash on the back of his head, but he didn’t seem to be injured anywhere else. He was suffering from hypothermia. Bled all over my damn coat and pants before the paramedics got to him. I damn near froze. Anyway, the ambulance got another run as they were dropping him off at the ER and left like their ass was on fire. They still had Crispino’s clothes. Hence, the delay in calling you guys. When I got his clothes, his wallet was in his jacket pocket. He also had a holster on his belt for a handgun.”
Liddell said, “He’s got a 9mm Beretta. He showed us a carry permit from New York.”
“Well, no gun. He must have lost it when he was thrown in the river. He’s lucky he didn’t die out there. But that’s not the interesting thing. You’re gonna love this.”
Jack really doubted he was going to love anything to do with Marty.
Findlay said, “There was more than one ID in the wallet. Three driver’s licenses in different names from three different states. Three concealed carry weapon permits. I ran all the names through records and that’s when we came up with your APB on Martin Crispino.”
Jack didn’t know what to say. The handgun permit and driver’s license they’d been shown had checked out. He was a little embarrassed that he’d been conned by Uncle Marty. Liddell wrote down Uncle Marty’s other names that Findlay found.
“There was almost five grand in his wallet. Five grand! You believe someone carrying around that kind of money, gets knocked in the head, and they don’t take his cash?”
Before Jack or Liddell could respond, Findlay said, “Hey. You think he will spring for a new coat and pants?”
“Is he expected to live?” Jack asked.
“Doc says he needs to warm up. He said hypothermia does different things to different folks, and I don’t know how long he wasn’t breathing before I got there. He’s a tough old buzzard. He opened his eyes a few times. Who the hell have we got here?” Deputy Findlay asked.
“Can you do me a favor, Deputy Findlay?” Jack asked.
* * * *
Jack and Liddell were back on Highway 41 heading south toward Our Lady of Mercy. Deputy Findlay had given them the room number. He said the doctor was coming in and he would ask the doc if Crispino could be woken long enough to answer a few questions.
Jack called Captain Franklin and updated him on their progress. Captain Franklin said he would assign a detective to run down the type of vehicle and license plates for Marty’s rental vehicle.
“It shouldn’t take the deputy long to run Uncle Marty’s prints through AFIS,” Jack said. He had asked Findlay to take Crispino’s latent fingerprints and have them run through AFIS. To Findlay’s credit, that was already being done and he was waiting for the results.
AFIS, or the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, was managed by the FBI and was the most comprehensive fingerprint database in the world. If Crispino had ever been entered into the database, AFIS would get a match. Even with the technology available to hackers, it was almost impossible for an individual to change their identity and disappear from police records. Almost. It still took some heavy-duty connections and money to have three separate sets of identification that could pass law enforcement scrutiny.
They were just going over the Twin Bridges that separated Indiana from Kentucky, Evansville from Henderson when Liddell said, “I guess we can cross Uncle Marty off our list of suspects.”
“Not necessarily,” Jack posited.
“You think he gave himself a concussion and almost died from the cold?” Liddell asked seriously.
“The killer might not be working alone.”
“Well, when you put it that way,” Liddell said.
“Captain Franklin is going to have dispatch add Crispino’s vehicle information to the BOLO. We can give it to Findlay and ask him to do the same thing here. Crispino had to get over here in something,” Jack said.
“Unless he took a bus or a cab or swam.”
“Bigfoot, you belong in a circus.”
Liddell drove into Henderson and followed the signs for Mercy Hospital. They parked and met a deputy at the ER door, who took them to ICU and handed them off to Deputy Findlay.
Findlay caught a nurse as she came from the ICU and asked, “Is Dr. Ahmad still in
there?” He was. Findlay said, “These are Evansville detectives. Tell Dr. Ahmad they’re here?”
She didn’t have to. The doors opened and a tall man in a white lab came out. He was blond-haired, blue-eyed, pale complexion, and not exactly what you would expect with the name Ahmad, but the nametag on his coat said he was.
Dr. Ahmad held a hand out and said, “You must be Detectives Murphy and Blanchard. You two have quite a reputation around here. Jack Murphy, Evansville’s Clint Eastwood.”
They shook hands and Ahmad said, “You are just in time. The patient is waking up. I must caution you that he will be in great pain. Imaging revealed a concussion and his core body temperature was eighty-nine degrees when he was brought in. He may not be able to talk, or make any sense of what you are asking. His MRI shows he may have a mild a TBI. He’s strong, and he’s a fighter or he wouldn’t have made it this far.”
“Do you expect him to make it further?” Liddell asked.
“I suspect he’ll be able to go to prison if that’s what you want with him. Deputy Findlay told me he’s tied up in a murder investigation. I’ll go in with you, but you must be brief.”
“We understand,” Jack said.
Dr. Ahmad opened the door and they followed him to a private room, more of a cubicle with curtains, and Jack could hear beeps and other noises he associated with his memories of spending time in hospital rooms just like this.
Dr. Ahmad pulled the curtain and went to his patient. Crispino’s coloring was gray, his eyelids, lips and fingertips blue. The machines surrounding the back of the bed were active and none showed a straight line. Jack took that as a good sign. For Marty, at least.
“Mister Crispino,” Ahmad said. “Martin.”
Jack said a little louder, “Uncle Marty. It’s me. Cubby.”
Jack said to Ahmad, “Cubby’s his favorite nephew.”
Crispino’s eyelids moved. His breathing became heavier. Jack wondered if Uncle Marty was going to live. He’d promised Frank Tunney that he could be present when Marty was found. It might be too late for that.
