Rizzo’s Fire Page 29

  “I was around eighteen before I even tried a piece of turkey on Thanksgiving Day,” young Jessica said. “By the time it would come to the table, I was always full.”

  Grandma Falco snorted. “Turkey,” she said. “Ameri-cahn.” Then she glanced sheepishly at Karen. “Which is good, too. But … try my braciole. Go ahead, try it. Then you’ll see.” She shook her head. “Turkey,” she repeated, baffled.

  “So,” Carol said to Karen, “when did you and Cil meet?”

  Karen smiled. “About two and a half years ago.”

  Grandma Rizzo muttered. “Oh, ma-don,” she said.

  Priscilla smiled down the table toward her. “This manicotti is unbelievable,” she said. “Best I’ve ever had.”

  The elderly woman’s face lit up. “Really? You think so?” she said. “Take another piece, don’t listen to my son, you can have more than two, there’s plenty. I made extra.”

  “I may just do that, Mrs. Rizzo,” Priscilla said.

  Beaming, Grandma Rizzo waved a hand at Priscilla. “Eat, eat, and call me Marie, dear. Please.”

  Priscilla broadened her smile. “Like Joe’s oldest? Marie?”

  She nodded proudly. “Yes. My granddaughter, the doctor.”

  “Not yet, Grandma Rizzo,” Marie said. “Not quite yet.”

  Jennifer’s mother leaned forward. “And Jessica is named after me,” she added. “Try the meatballs, Priscilla,” she added. “They’re delicious. I made them.”

  LATER, WHILE coffee and dessert were being prepared in the kitchen and Joe dozed in his recliner in the den, Carol, Karen, and Priscilla gathered in the living room.

  “It doesn’t make sense, Cil,” Carol said, her face set in anger. “He works with a female cop every day, then he tells me it’s not a job for a woman. And after a lifetime of listening to him preach about equal opportunity … Apparently it was all just bullshit.”

  “Carol, your father means well,” Priscilla said. “Believe me, his heart’s in the right place. And to tell you the truth, if I had a kid, girl or boy, I’d probably steer him away, too. It’s not the right choice for a lot of people. It’s complicated. It’s not just about male or female. And what he’s not telling you is, he’s just plain scared. Afraid you’ll get hurt, shot maybe. He doesn’t want to say it. A lot of old-time cops believe saying it out loud is a jinx. Believe me, he’s scared.”

  Karen added, “Cil and I may have a child of our own someday, and I wouldn’t want to see him or her become a police officer, either. Your father only has your best interest at heart.”

  “And what I want isn’t important?” Carol said.

  “Nobody’s even suggestin’ that,” Priscilla said calmly. “That’s just your defensiveness talking. But here’s what I think you should do: hear your father out, weigh what he’s got to say. And keep in mind, he’s tryin’ to do right by you, his motives are good. You know, after all those years on the job, Joe knows what he’s talking about. Hear him out, and you respect his opinion.” She shrugged. “But keep in mind, it’s your life. Ultimately, you gotta decide. And when you do, he’ll go along with it, either way.”

  Carol leaned forward. “What about you, Cil? Do you regret having become a cop?”

  “Not for one second,” Priscilla said with a smile. “Your old man would ring my neck if he heard me tell you this, but the truth is this is the greatest job on the planet. I love it.”

  Priscilla reached out and patted Carol’s knee. “I think I know this guy, Carol,” she said, “in ways you never can, bein’ his daughter and all.”

  She leaned back on the couch, pursing her lips. “When all is said and done, if you come on the job, he’ll be there for you. I guarantee it.”

  LATER THAT evening, after the guests had gone, Rizzo went down to his basement office, cell phone in hand. He sat behind the desk, taking a Nicorette from his pocket, absentmindedly calculating the remaining hours before morning when he would once again have access to the Impala and its secret glove compartment stash.

  Rummaging through the desk, he found his phone book containing the number he needed.

  The call was picked up on the third ring.

  “Hello?” he heard.

  “Hello, Dan, Joe Rizzo here. From the Sixty-second Precinct.”

  There was a pause. “Hello, Joe, how are you?” the man said. “Is everything all right?”

  “Yeah, Dan, couldn’t be better. How was your Thanksgiving?”

  “Great, just great. And yours?”

  “Perfect,” Rizzo said.

  “Glad to hear it, Joe. So what can I do for you?” Dan asked, a slight tone of resignation barely apparent.

  “You’re still with the Daily News, right?” Rizzo asked.

  “Yeah. My seventeenth year.”

  “I thought I still saw your byline.” After a slight pause, Rizzo continued, his voice pleasant, his tone even.

  “So, Dan, remember that little favor I did for you couple a years back? You know, with your son?”

  Rizzo could hear a slight sigh come through the line. “Of course. How could I ever forget that?”

  “Yeah, well, I guessed you would remember,” Rizzo said in the same pleasant manner. “See, at the time you said how grateful you were, how if there was ever anything you could do, I shouldn’t hesitate to call.”

  “Yeah, Joe, I remember.”

  “So I can assume you meant that?”

  “Yes. Of course I did.”

  Rizzo smiled into the phone. “Okay then,” he said. “So, here’s the thing …”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  AT EIGHT-THIRTY THE FOLLOWING MORNING, traffic was lighter than usual as Priscilla Jackson drove the Impala toward Manhattan.

  “I still say there’s a good chance DeMaris won’t be home when we get there, even if she is still breathing,” Priscilla said to Rizzo. “Friday after Thanksgiving, long four-day weekend.”

  “Maybe,” he said, “but we know the office is closed, so she isn’t workin’ today. Like I told you when we went to the literary agencies, it’s best we catch this broad cold, unannounced. It’ll scare her.” He paused before continuing. “And that’s how we want her—scared. The scareder the better.”

  “Scareder?” Priscilla asked. “You mean more scared?”

  “Yeah, okay, Professor, what ever the fuck,” Rizzo replied. “You get my point. See, by now Bradley had to warn her we’re comin’, but not until next week sometime, so he probably hasn’t face-to-faced with her yet to firm up her story. If we catch Ms. DeMaris in her hair curlers and skivvies, cup of coffee in her hand, her blood pressure is gonna spike, Cil, believe me.”

  “So: bad cop / worse cop?” Priscilla asked.

  “Yeah, like we discussed,” he said, enjoying himself. “If she proves to be what most murder-for-profit people are—a spoiled, conniving, self-centered bastard—we lean on her hard. Both of us.”

  Priscilla responded. “Which one am I?”

  Rizzo pondered it for a moment. “Bad cop,” he said. “I know the script a little better’n you do, so I’ll be worse cop.”

  “Okay, boss, what ever you say. I just hope we don’t find this chick lyin’ on her kitchen floor with her eyeballs poppin’ out.”

  As she accelerated onto the Williamsburg Bridge, Priscilla was silent. After a few moments, she said, “Imagine the luck of this poor guy Lauria? There had to be—what?—six, seven book-length manuscripts in his apartment? Plus God knows how many short stories? Thousands of freakin’ pages.”

  “Yeah,” Rizzo said. “So?”

  Priscilla shook her head. “So he decides to write one damn play, and it winds up a big smash under some other guy’s name, Mallard’s name. And it gets them both killed.”

  She turned to face Rizzo briefly. “Lauria couldn’t get anything published in over twenty years of writing. Then, his play hits the big time, and he’s dead. It’s just sad, man. Really sad.”

  Rizzo pondered it. “Well, I guess. Sad life, sad death. Some guys get d
ealt a hand like that. And who knows, maybe some of those other books a his are just as good as the play’s supposed to be. If we learned anything from this case, it was that it helps to have some big name on a play if you’re lookin’ to get it produced.” He shrugged. “Maybe it’s the same with getting a book published. Maybe we should take one of Lauria’s manuscripts and put Norman Mailer’s name on it, hype it up like a newly discovered work of a deceased American master. We might come up with a best seller.”

  Priscilla pursed her lips. “If we can tie Lauria’s murder to Mallard’s, and it breaks big in the news, Lauria gets his fifteen minutes. I oughta take those manuscripts to my agent, Robin Miller. Maybe the poor schmuck will get published after all.”

  “Or maybe we should just steal ’em,” he suggested. “Put your name on them if they’re any good. Better yet, put my friggin’ name on them.”

  “We can do the same thing Bradley did, only this time everybody who needs killin’ is already dead,” Priscilla said.

  “Yeah, Cil,” Rizzo said. “We can be grave robbers.”

  They both laughed, and she added, “What other job can offer that kind of opportunity? And you tryin’ to keep Carol away from all this fun.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah. Imagine that.”

  “Which reminds me,” Priscilla said. “Yesterday at dinner, your mother said something in Italian to your mother-in-law. I got the impression it was about me. What’d she say?”

  “You sure you wanna know, Cil?”

  She shrugged. “Sure. I can take it.”

  Rizzo replied. “Okay. You had just explained to Karen that ah-leech is Brooklyn-Italian slang for anchovies.”

  Priscilla nodded. “I remember.”

  “Well,” Rizzo said, “I think my mother had the impression your prim and proper WASPY girlfriend wouldn’t put an anchovy in her mouth if her life depended on it.”

  “Yeah, probably right,” Priscilla said. “So what’d she say in Italian?”

  Rizzo laughed. “She said, referrin’ to you, ‘I bet this one would eat them.’ ”

  Priscilla laughed. “Damn,” she said. “Don’t bother to explain, Joe. I get it.”

  THE FEAR in Linda DeMaris’s eyes was reassuring, Rizzo thought, as he and Jackson sat across from her at the kitchen table in her small, Lower East Side apartment.

  “Recognize that?” he asked deliberately, jutting his chin at the paper he had placed before DeMaris.

  She dropped her eyes to the sheet of paper, color coming to her cheeks.

  “Pick it up,” he said softly. “Look at it.”

  DeMaris, thirty-seven years old with long, jet-black hair and large, beautiful brown eyes, reached a pale hand to the paper, her fingers trembling as she obeyed Rizzo’s order.

  “Recognize that?” Rizzo repeated.

  Steadying the paper in both hands, she placed it back on the table.

  “No,” she said.

  Priscilla leaned forward. “No?” she said. “Did you just say ‘no’?”

  DeMaris nodded and turned toward Priscilla, avoiding the dark coldness in Rizzo’s eyes.

  “It’s … it’s a letter,” DeMaris said.

  “Yeah,” Rizzo said. “It’s a letter. A letter from the literary agency where you used to work. And with your signature on it.”

  DeMaris nodded but remained silent. “

  ’Course,” Rizzo continued, a transparent casualness in his tone, “that’s just a photocopy.” He sat back in his chair. “We got the original in the precinct evidence lock-up. In a plastic bag. See, at some point, we’re gonna lift prints off that letter. One set will be Robert Lauria’s. We gotta figure the second set will be yours.”

  Rizzo smiled. “You know who Robert Lauria was, don’t you, Ms. De Maris?”

  She shook her head. “No, I … I can’t say that I do,” she said. “I see the letter is addressed to him, but I handled hundreds of letters like that, maybe a thousand over the years. I can’t be expected to remember—”

  Priscilla cut her off. “Lauria is dead,” she said. “Murdered.”

  DeMaris’s anxiety seemed to intensify. Rizzo could only speculate how much or how little Bradley had told her in anticipation of this interview.

  “Yeah,” Rizzo said. “And in the same way Avery Mallard was murdered.”

  DeMaris sat back in her seat, eyes wide, breathing shallow. “Why are you here?” she asked in a strained, tense tone.

  “Do you wanna tell her or should I?” Rizzo asked.

  “Go ahead, Joe,” Priscilla said. “Ruin her day.”

  Rizzo folded his hands on the table, hunching his shoulders and leaning slightly forward, closer to the frightened woman.

  “We’re here because you stole Lauria’s play A Solitary Vessel. You rejected the work, then took it to your boyfriend, Thomas Bradley. Or maybe you took it to Bradley before you rejected it, I don’t know. But you knew the play was pure gold. Maybe in the beginning, you were legit, who knows? Maybe you figured you and Bradley would just cut the agency out. But then, somehow, Lauria got cut out, too. Then Bradley spoon-fed the play to Mallard—word by word, scene by scene, act by act. Mallard was desperate, blocked for nearly ten years. He was more than willin’ to use what he believed was Bradley’s inspiration. Of course, Mallard did get a little creative, throwing in the love story on his own initiative, and he and Bradley bumped heads over it. So Mallard went to his agent, Kellerman, and got backing for the love triangle; Bradley had to give in.”

  Rizzo sat back. “And everybody lived happily ever after,” he said. “Except for Lauria, of course. He got fucked good. And when he contacted Avery Mallard to complain, Mallard went to Bradley and demanded an explanation. Then, one rainy night, Bradley rides over to Brooklyn. He calls Lauria from a pay phone on Fourteenth Avenue and tells him he represents Avery Mallard, and asks if he can stop by for a few minutes. To discuss the play. Lauria says sure, come on. Bradley rushes right over, Lauria doesn’t even have time to put up some tea and get dressed. Bradley walks through the front door and strangles the guy.” He paused, smiling coldly. “Maybe his original plan was to just blow Lauria off if he ever turned up bitchin’ about how his play got stolen. Buy him off or accuse him of runnin’ a scam. But once Mallard got wind of it and refused to cooperate, Bradley had to take some drastic action.

  “But … what was one little man in the face of all a this? Who’s more important: Lauria, you, Bradley?” Rizzo leaned in again. “I’m thinkin’ you figured you were, Ms. DeMaris. You and your boyfriend. The only thing left to threaten you both was Avery Mallard. Maybe Mallard kept insisting on doing right by Lauria. So Bradley had to kill him, too. And convince you to alibi him for it.”

  DeMaris looked from one cop to the other, her heart racing in her throat, her palms growing moist with perspiration.

  “I want a lawyer,” she said hoarsely.

  “Yeah, I bet you do,” Priscilla said.

  Suddenly Rizzo stood up. “You want a lawyer,” he said harshly. “See, Cil, like I told you, no use tryin’ to be nice to her.” He turned hard eyes back to DeMaris. “You want a lawyer, you can get one at the precinct. You can call one from there. You want a fuckin’ lawyer, you can have one for when we’re grillin’ you. We can get you some kid from Legal Aide.” Now Rizzo placed his hands down on the tabletop and leaned forward, bending to bring his face closer to DeMaris.

  “But understand somethin’, lady,” he hissed. “I ain’t some college boy cop from Manhattan South. You’re comin’ to Brooklyn now. And I don’t give a fuck who killed Mallard or Lauria—you or Bradley. For all I know, Bradley’s clean and you killed ’em both. Maybe he’s alibiing you for the night of the murder. I pin this all on you, I clear two cases and still walk away a hero. So if you’re thinkin’ this is about justice, think again. Far as I’m concerned, real justice would be somebody stranglin’ you and Thomas Bradley. That’s fuckin’ justice. Anything else is politics, lady, just politics. And maybe I figure it’s my turn to get elected.”
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  DeMaris shrank in her seat, perspiration glistening on her forehead. Desperate, she turned toward Priscilla, her eyes imploring the female detective for help.

  Priscilla smiled at her, then raised her gaze to Rizzo’s face.

  “You know, Joe,” she said in a cold, low tone. “I think maybe she did kill ’em both.”

  “No,” DeMaris said loudly, her voice cracking. “I didn’t kill anyone, I swear.”

  Rizzo shook his head slowly. “Understand me, lady: it don’t mean shit to me. You want a lawyer, fine. We go to the precinct, you call a lawyer. I arrest you on suspicion of murder, second degree, two counts. Then the lawyer can handle it. If he’s good, better than your lover boy’s lawyer turns out to be, he gets both murders pinned on Bradley. You take a fall on two counts a conspiracy, second degree. You do maybe ten, fifteen years. Bradley does twenty-five to life, twice.” He shrugged. “Best you can hope for. And only if your lawyer is better than lover boy’s.”

  After a moment, Priscilla stood and walked around the table, laying a hand on DeMaris’s shoulder. She bent slightly, speaking in a soft, even tone into the right ear of the frightened woman.

  “Or maybe you’d like to hear what me and Sergeant Rizzo can do for you?” she asked.

  LATER, RIZZO and Jackson sat at a table in the small interview room of the Six-Two squad room, a pale, tired-looking Linda DeMaris opposite them.

  “Like we promised, Ms. DeMaris, I deliberately kept your statement vague,” Rizzo said. “Far as anyone can tell from readin’ it, you brought the play to Thomas Bradley ’cause you recognized it to be a masterful work. Bradley convinced you to let him handle it, told you to turn down Lauria on behalf of the agency. You were unaware of any problems that occurred later on, after Mallard got the letter from Lauria and confronted Bradley. You were not further involved until Bradley asked you to alibi him for the night of the Mallard murder.” Rizzo paused. “Lucky for you, I’m not a real good statement taker, Ms. DeMaris. The way your statement reads, it’s a little unclear exactly when Bradley approached you for the alibi. Coulda been before he killed Mallard, coulda been after. Better for you, of course, if it was after. We’ll let your lawyer, when you get one, clarify that. As to Lauria, your statement is a little unclear there, too. Seems like Bradley told you Mallard was wise to the plagiarism, but Lauria himself never came up as bein’ the specific source of Mallard’s knowledge and possible anger about the whole situation. Not to you, anyway. So, reasonable doubt could certainly exist as to whether or not you could have known any harm would ever come to Lauria. Far as anybody’s concerned, it could seem reasonable that you didn’t even know about Lauria’s murder till this mornin’ when me and Detective Jackson told you about it.”