Vieux Carré Detective

by Vito Zuppardo

  “Drugged, like Olivia?” Mario frowned. “Isn’t that odd?”

  Truman wrinkled his nose. “Sure sounds the same, except he hit a pole and died instantly. Word has it the guy was straight-laced. Didn’t drink or do drugs.”

  Mario sat, eyes wide open, and stared at empty air. “Maybe Olivia was supposed to hit a pole, car, or something that should have killed her at impact.” His finger ran down a list of names in a folder. “It’s not farfetched.”

  Howard’s head jiggled up and down in approval, “Not farfetched at all.” He read from his folder. “Alton Simmons? Still works the desk at the archives. We should pay him a visit.”

  “I agree,” Mario said. “You and Truman go. Might spook him if I show up too.”

  Their meeting went on for a half hour, planning Olivia’s investigation when Mario remembered Little Pete’s phone call. Grabbing the message, he passed it to Howard. “What do you think this call is about?”

  “I got a call too; we talked,” Howard said. “Lorenzo wants us to join the Savino family tomorrow on an evening cruise around the lake.”

  Mario nodded his head. “Not sure I have time.”

  “An opportunity to ask questions about Tony Nazario,” Howard looked at Mario but wasn’t sure he was listening.

  Mario had plenty of time but thought he might clean the condo, take in a movie, or fill the empty pantry with groceries. There was a lot of personal things he could do on his Friday night instead of floating around a lake with a mob boss on his yacht paid for by illegal activity. He almost chuckled, realizing that outside police work he had no life. Everything Mario might prefer doing was always overpowered by the love of the job. He had no one waiting for him at home, not even a dog or a cat. The only person who knew what time Mario got home was the doorman.

  Mario broke the silence. “Sure, let’s take in the smell of stagnant water and cruise around Lake Pontchartrain.”

  The meeting was about to break when Mario asked Truman, “Would you check into Billy Jean Ravis? Touch base with the chief and see why after so many years Olivia looked into that case.”

  “Thought you’d never ask,” Truman said. “Had a breakfast meeting with the chief.” He slipped a folder, labeled Billy Jean Ravis, across the table.

  Mario gave Truman a thumbs up. “You’re always ahead of the curve.”

  The meeting ended, and Mario quickly dug into Billy Jean Ravis’s file. The write-up was mostly to the point. Billy Jean was seen on camera walking into a liquor store. Then the camera feed went dead. The investigation showed the wire was cut. A .38 snub-nosed revolver found nearby in a street drain had Billy Jean Ravis’s fingerprints all over the handle, and two casings still in the gun matched one in the wall of the liquor store and one in the chest of the owner, Jerry Ginn.

  The last page of the report had Mario’s blood boiling when he read Gaspar Ricci’s name. Nostrils flared as he punched numbers on the phone harder than he should. The sound of each button pressed echoed through the high ceiling of the old building.

  “Good morning, Mario,” Chief Parks said, looking at the caller ID.

  “Not so good,” Mario blurted.

  “Bad morning, detective?”

  “When were you going to tell me about Gaspar Ricci?” Mario’s voice was close to shouting.

  “Detective, you might want to hang up and call me back,” Parks said. “I’ll pretend we didn’t talk.”

  “Sorry, Chief,” Mario said, taking a deep breath. “You know I’ve been working a case against Lorenzo Savino for a long time. Why didn’t you fill me in? Gaspar Ricci works for the Savino family.”

  “Look at the date,” she said. “This all came down just yesterday. I left you a message.”

  Mario flipped through the messages again. The chief’s note was stuck to another pink slip. He pulled it apart. There it was, underlined important, a note taken by the night desk sergeant. He quickly glanced at the wording, Holding a guy you need to interview, wants a deal. Call ASAP.

  Mario took a deep breath and made the only move he could. “Hey, Chief, just got your message,” Mario grinned. “What’s up?”

  “Now that’s the Mario I know and love—eating humble pie, and you do it with such grace,” Parks said. “Meet me at Central, one hour.”

  “Yes, ma’am, Chief,” he said and hung the phone up. He leaned back in his chair and gave a loud laugh. He’d wormed his way out without getting reprimanded.

  Mario looked at the clock; it was close to ten. Time for Olivia to rise and shine. Arrangements were made with Howard to swing by the condo and get Olivia home. Two patrol cars were dispatched to the area to float around the neighborhood. If anything went down, Olivia would hit them up on her police radio.

  Mario gathered Billy Jean Ravis’s file and headed to Central Lockup for a face to face with Gaspar Ricci, a career criminal. Why in the world would we cut this guy a deal?

  Chapter 10

  Central Lockup was buzzing with the noise of too many people talking simultaneously. Some were detained in a holding cell until they sobered up; others were cuffed and sent straight to booking.

  Mario flashed his badge at an officer and was let into a more organized area. There he found the chief sitting alone in a room, gazing out a window long overdue for cleaning the dirt and grime collected from the outside, facing a busy interstate.

  “Good morning,” Mario said, closing the door.

  “You ever wonder what people in cuffs think when looking out this window,” Chief Parks said, watching cars speed down streets. “Other people going about their lives, the sun beaming down, making for a beautiful day. What are they thinking from their jail cells?”

  “I don’t know, maybe ‘where did I go wrong?’” Mario shot back. “How about, ‘I’ll tell these assholes anything to get back on the street’?”

  The chief smiled. “That too.”

  “Why is this creep Gaspar Ricci booked anyway?” Mario asked. “What’s the charge?”

  “Manslaughter,” the chief replied. “A bullshit fight over a parking space and some poor working stiff is dead.”

  Mario shot her a look. “Will the charge hold?”

  “Probably not,” the chief said. “A good lawyer will push self-defense; Ricci will do little time.”

  A knock at the door viewed two officers and a prisoner through the square, double-panel glass in the center of the door. In cuffs attached to a chain around his waist, Gaspar Ricci entered with two prison guards by his side. Shackled to a steel bar on a table, he sat. Once a clean-shaven man, hair groomed, wearing a designer silk suit, he now sported gray whiskers and an orange jumpsuit pulling at his crotch.

  “Gaspar, last time we were in contact, you gave me a one-finger wave as you walked out of court a free man,” Mario went straight for the insult.

  “Detective, Chief, how are you this morning?” Gaspar said. Known for his dislike of the police, he could have easily matched insults with Mario but kept a professional demeanor, until he got what he wanted.

  “I understand you’re trying to save your ass with some bullshit story,” Mario continued the abuse. Gaspar was one guy you could easily hate, just by looking at him.

  “No, detective, to make right a wrong. An innocent woman served eight years of a twenty-five-year sentence,” Gaspar said, blank-faced. “In return, I benefit.”

  Chief Parks observed and let Mario do what he did best, intimidate. He stood, white knuckles pressed on the table, wanting to rip this once smart-mouth thug’s head off.

  “Where is your superstar attorney?”

  “I didn’t ask for an attorney,” Gaspar said. “I also didn’t admit to any crime. I told your chief I knew things. Things that might put Lorenzo Savino away for a long time.”

  “You’re just going to give your boss up?” Mario said. “After all these years.”

  “Don’t you want to be the hero of my story, Detective?” Gaspar knew how to play Mario; he had done it for years. Now he played him with a slow, gent
le voice, responding to Mario with a question.

  The prisons were full of psychopaths, and Gaspar was a case study. They would love to book him, so the prison headshrinkers could try to get inside this nut job’s head.

  Mario, a trained professional, handled him. “What went south between you and Lorenzo that makes you want to be righteous?” Mario walked the room. It’s what he did when wanting to think before spitting out another question. Gaspar Ricci, a first-class scumbag psychopath, was puzzling to Mario. Why was he giving up Lorenzo so easily?

  Mario glanced at Chief Parks. She gave a nod of her head.

  “Okay, Mr. Righteousness. What do you want?” Mario said, squeezing into a chair.

  “Immunity, full immunity from any prosecution. All charges, including the one that got me locked up yesterday.”

  “Including murder?” Mario shot back.

  “I believe that’s what full immunity means.” Gaspar sat, arms folded, blank-faced, not even a blink of an eye, then he looked down at the table speechless.

  It took a lot of resistance for Mario not to slam Gaspar’s face into the steel bar on the table, not once but two or three times until his nose was hanging by a thread. With cameras rolling and the chief as an eyewitness, he cooled his jets for a better opportunity.

  Mario stood and walked, again glancing back at the chief.

  She rolled her eyes, “Let’s get it on film.”

  Gaspar asked for a bottle of water and once delivered, he went into detail in front of a camera how and why Billy Jean Ravis took the fall.

  Jerry Ginn was known as White Jerry in New Orleans and to most of the drug traffickers in the South—a nickname that stuck from selling so much white powder, better known as cocaine, the drug choice on the streets. He was a great businessman, setting up liquor stores in the drug areas of the city. His love for gambling got him in trouble with Lorenzo, running up a bill of two hundred large, a debt hard to work off.

  White Jerry sold little liquor at his store. Its primary purpose was a stash house for cocaine. His runners kept one gram of cocaine, cut into four, small plastic, zipper bags. That amount, if arrested, couldn’t draw much more than a minor charge and positively could never be charged for distribution. A good lawyer and his thirteen-year-old street pushers, being underage, would never see the inside of a jail. When the underage corner pushers sold out of product, it was back to White Jerry. An exchange of cash reupped their supply.

  When it became apparent that White Jerry had no intentions of paying his gambling debt of two hundred thousand, Lorenzo became enraged. Killing White Jerry might start a war between the Italians and the Russians, Jerry’s supplier.

  Billy Jean Ravis, a high society girl Lorenzo found in Los Angeles, proved to be a bad idea when he brought her to New Orleans and put her up in a fancy hotel. Things turned sour really quick when he tried to shake the gal and purchase her a one-way ticket back to Los Angeles. She wouldn’t go peacefully, and that’s when Lorenzo came up with a plan to handle two birds with one stone.

  Billy Jean liked guns and often shot a .38 revolver out at Lorenzo’s fishing camp in New Orleans East. Lorenzo sat on the dock and watched while she shot fish, cans, and whatever might float by. Soon she used up most of the bullets; one complete round was left in the gun.

  The two took a ride to White Jerry’s place and parked out front. Billy Jean went in and asked for the money owed. There were no customers when Billy Jean entered. She told Jerry she was there for a sizeable payment.

  That’s when the surveillance camera wire was cut. Lorenzo walked in with white gloves, pointing the .38 pistol at White Jerry. “Time to pay up,” Lorenzo said. Then put a bullet in White Jerry’s chest. Off balance, Jerry wobbled to reach for a shotgun, and Lorenzo put another bullet in his head. Billy Jean ran out the liquor store screaming and jumped in the car. They drove off. One hour later, a call from a payphone went to the detectives working the case. They were told where to find the shooter and the gun, with two empty casings that would match the bullets that killed White Jerry. Target practice earlier was part of the plan—fingerprints on the gun and powder blowback on her clothes prompted an easy arrest for the murder of White Jerry.

  Mario interrupted, “The gun she shot at the camp is the same weapon?”

  “Of course, how do you think the powder got on her and her fingerprints all over the gun?” Gaspar chuckled. “I have to give it to Lorenzo; it was a perfect plan. The Russians took it as a random drug deal gone bad, and Lorenzo got his revenge with White Jerry.”

  The chief wrinkled her face; her nostrils flared. “That’s not going to hold up in court.”

  “I was the one who cut the camera wire,” Gaspar said.

  “Doesn’t matter if you were an eyewitness,” Mario said. “You’re just another thug having differences with a mob boss. His lawyers will chop you up in court, and after Lorenzo walks, he will chop you up.”

  Gaspar smiled, “What if there was another camera that caught everything on tape?”

  “Lorenzo pulling the trigger?” Mario’s eyes were blinking rapidly, anticipating the answer.

  “Two cameras were working off separate VHS recorders,” Gaspar said. “I cut the wire to only one camera.”

  Mario squinted his eyes in disbelief, then gave a glance at the chief. She had a blank look on her face.

  Parks stood and leaned over the table into Gaspar’s face. She never blinked. “You have Lorenzo on tape?”

  “You see about getting me immunity,” Gaspar said. “I’ll see if I can remember where I put that VHS tape.”

  Chapter 11

  Mario’s visit with Gaspar at Central Lockup was hard to believe, and he pondered the details during his drive back to the office. There had to be a lot more to the story for Gaspar to give up Lorenzo Savino. The question Mario failed to ask, not sure he would have gotten a truthful answer, was when did Gaspar come up with his plan? Did he see the second recorder and say, “This is a good time to fuck over Lorenzo”? Not likely, Mario thought.

  Mario’s radio beeped, and a voice came over, requesting him to respond to the Crime Lab and Evidence Division on Broad Street, in a building the New Orleans Police Department kept heavily secured. DNA evidence of clothing, blood samples, and anything marked essential to a case was held there until the trial and verdict. The same department Olivia oversaw for several years.

  Mario pulled up to the entrance of the forensic laboratory, secured by two armed guards. One approached Mario and asked for his identification. Mario flashed his badge. The guard wrote the badge number down on a pad and asked, “Your name, sir?”

  “Mario DeLuca, homicide, Vieux Carré Eighth Police District.”

  The guard nodded his head, “Who are you here to see, Detective?”

  Mario kept his cool, he thought his badge and name should have been enough. “Beverly Stonebrook.”

  The guard walked to the gatehouse and made a phone call. A few seconds later, he waved Mario through. The place was no joke; it was locked down.

  Beverly Stonebrook’s name was listed on the door labeled Forensic Department along with three others. Olivia’s name was on top as director. It set Mario back seeing Olivia’s name on a silver plaque mounted to the door. Remembering the hard times he gave her when she started. A rookie, only a year out of Tulane University, had been their badgering point for years. Mario was proud of his degree from Loyola. Seeing her name in print made him proud. Her accomplishments working up the chain of command paid off.

  Beverly Stonebrook, a nerdy little petite gal, opened the door and introduced herself. “Detective, I was told to contact you as soon as I discovered anything worth looking into.”

  Mario raised his eyebrow. “What case are you talking about?”

  Beverly shot him a glance from the corner of her eye. “Olivia’s attack.”

  Mario had a lot of cases and should have known Olivia’s assistant would be working hard running down leads of her attack.

  “Detective Truman asked
me to look at a second camera he pulled from the Library Sports Bar. There are only about two frames, out of an hour recording, but I think this might help,” she said.

  Beverly walked Mario to a room where the only light was coming from a computer monitor. She played a one-minute clip she had put together. Mario watched the clip once and asked to see it over again.

  “Sorry, I don’t see anything.”

  “I didn’t either, the first twenty times,” Beverly said. “Then I broke it down into frames.”

  The pictures came across the screen one frame at a time. “Okay, see the bartender,” she pointed at the screen. “Maybe someone called him by name; it doesn’t matter. The next frame he turned around.”

  She looked at a piece of paper and fast-forwarded ten frames. “The guy is not in the picture but must have ordered Olivia the drink from a distance. As you can see in this picture, the bartender is placing the drink on the counter.”

  Mario exhaled, then rubbed his face. “The bartender said the guy ordered the drink but never came close to the glass.”

  “He also said he didn’t know the guy, but yet he caught two to the back of the head,” she said. “He definitely was part of the attack on Olivia.”

  Beverly’s voice sounded shaky. She moved a few frames down. “A hand is in the picture, dropping a twenty-dollar bill. The bartender picks the money up and turns to the register.” Beverly took a deep breath. “Here is your money shot. See the hand? He dropped something in the drink.”

  Mario stood staring at the screen, not sure what Beverly was so excited about, “I see the hand, and, yes, he dropped something over the glass, I guess in the drink.”

  “Here is a frame from a camera across the room. It’s focused on the register,” Beverly pointed at the picture. “You did the same thing I did twenty times. Look in the mirror.”

  “Holy shit!” Mario whispered.