Rizzo’s Fire Page 30

  DeMaris opened her mouth to speak, but Rizzo held up a hand to silence her.

  “No need to comment,” he said. “I got all I need, and I know more about you than I want to. Let me be blunt, Ms. DeMaris. Far as I’m concerned, you’re a thief and a callous, calculating, coldhearted bitch who’s gettin’ away with murder. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  The door to the interview room opened and Detective Morris Schoenfeld stepped in.

  “Here you go, Joe,” Schoenfeld said, handing some papers to Rizzo. “Signed, sealed, delivered.”

  Rizzo glanced at the legal papers he held. “Thanks, Mo,” he said.

  Schoenfeld nodded, turning to leave. “This little favor squares us for that counterfeit prescription case you handed me and Rossi. We’re pickin’ up the perp to night.”

  “My plea sure,” Rizzo said. He turned to Priscilla as Schoenfeld left the room. “Here, take this court order. Call Homeland Security, give ’em the order number so they can put a freeze on Bradley’s passport.” He waved the other papers at her. “These are the warrants.”

  Priscilla left the room. Rizzo turned back to DeMaris, speaking in a softer tone. “I called a friend a mine over at Brooklyn South Homicide. He’s got some juice at the D.A.’s office. They got hold of the homicide bureau chief. He’s comin’ down personally to hear you out, and once he sees that half-assed statement I took, he’s gonna want you to give him a better one. You refuse and speak to him only after your lawyer gets here. I’ll fill the bureau chief in. Because of your cooperation and statement, plus some circumstantial evidence I already had, Detective Schoenfeld was able to go down to court and secure a search warrant for Bradley’s home. I’m hopin’ to get the physical evidence I need to tie him to the Lauria homicide. Without you as his alibi, and with your testimony as a cooperating witness, he’ll fall on the Mallard case, too. Any defense lawyer in the city can cut you a deal you’ll be satisfied with. Bradley’s my target here, he’s the strangler.”

  He reached across the table and patted her hand. “Relax, you’re doin’ the right thing. If you’d have bucked me on this, I’d have gladly crucified you. And your boyfriend, too. He was done for either way, so you might as well look out for your own ass. Most you’ll probably do is a couple a years.”

  Rizzo stood, his expression now stern. “Not too bad for stealing a play from a lonely, sad dreamer so you could line your own pockets.”

  He shook his head and turned to leave. “What ever jail time you wind up with, lady, it ain’t enough. Not nearly enough.”

  BACK AT his desk, Rizzo began making phone calls, first to Dan Cappelli, the Daily News reporter he had spoken to on Thanksgiving night, then the Six-Two squad boss, Vince D’Antonio. He made a perfunctory apology to D’Antonio for disturbing him at home, then filled him in with the briefest of outlines. D’Antonio said he would be at the precinct in less than an hour.

  Next he called Lieutenant Dominick Lombardi at Manhattan South. Lombardi was one of the senior investigators assigned to the Mallard homicide. Upon hearing Rizzo’s summary of the situation, he promised to be at the Six-Two as quickly as possible.

  As he hung up on Lombardi, Priscilla stepped up to his desk.

  “Passport is frozen, boss,” she said. “They got it into the computer while I was still on the line with them.”

  “Good, Cil,” Rizzo said. “Sit down. I gotta talk fast, so let me get started. Vince is on his way, and Lombardi from Manhattan South. When they get here, I’ll fill them in. Then Lombardi makes his play to push us off the case and have Manhattan pick up Bradley. That’s when we bend him over and shove it up his ass.”

  Priscilla smiled. “Tell me,” she said with a wink.

  Rizzo laughed, then grew serious. “Few years back, a bunch of local teenagers jumped a black kid down by the highway. They beat ’im up a little, then chased him. Kid ran out on the highway and got hit by a car. Hurt pretty bad, almost lost a leg.”

  “Racial thing?” Priscilla asked.

  Rizzo nodded. “Couple a nights before this happened, some old white man got mugged on Cropsey Avenue. Perp was black. So these neighborhood kids figured they’d go vigilante, even up the score, so they grabbed this poor kid. Well, the case got a lotta ink—politicians, activists, all the usual parasites. Me and my partner at the time, Johnny Morelli, we were the assigned.”

  “Okay,” Priscilla said. “What’s this got to do with anything now?”

  Rizzo continued. “We locked up a bunch of kids. One of ’em wound up sentenced seven-to-ten upstate, a few others did some time, too. One of the kids, Stevie Cappelli, was the son of a guy I happened to know. Well, Stevie wasn’t a bad kid, he was just hangin’ around on the wrong night at the wrong time with the wrong bunch. I couldn’t see ruinin’ his life on account of it. So me and Morelli got a little creative with the DD-fives and the witness statements, and next thing you know, Stevie Cappelli was outta the picture.”

  Priscilla shrugged. “Okay,” she said.

  “Yeah. Okay. Anyway, how I knew the kid’s father, Cappelli—he was a beat reporter for the Daily News. Handled the Brooklyn police blotter. Nowadays, he’s a big-time feature writer and mainstream reporter. Needless to say, he was very grateful to me for savin’ his kid’s ass. Cappelli was always a flamin’ liberal, very PC. How would it look if his son got caught runnin’ with a lynch mob? So the old man tells me, ‘If there’s anything I can ever do for you …’ Like that.” Rizzo shrugged. “Seems like nowadays Stevie boy is a senior at some journalism college up in Massachusetts, getting all the liberal indoctrination he’ll need for a career in the impartial world of print news.”

  “So,” Priscilla said, impatient, “you saved the kid’s life.”

  “Yeah, sorta. With a little help from his SAT scores and his old man footin’ the tuition bill. Anyway, I been sittin’ on this payback for a lotta years, Cil. It’s not something I can hand off or pass down to anybody, and Morelli retired to the bottom of a vodka bottle. So the time to cash in is now. It’s why I asked Schoenfeld to run down to the court house for those warrants and the court order freezing the passport instead of sendin’ you to do it. See, Cappelli’s gonna show up here at the precinct. And he’s gonna wanna talk to Vince. Seems as though an anonymous source down at the court house tipped him off to the warrants and this impending bust on the Mallard case. Maybe it was the cop who applied for the warrant, maybe one a the court officers on Cappelli’s payroll, a court clerk—who knows? But Cappelli learned that two Six-Two cops are about ready to break open the infamous Avery Mallard murder. That would be us, Cil, me and you.”

  Priscilla laughed. “So when Lombardi tells Vince to pull us off the Lauria case so the Plaza can cut us out of the Mallard case, this reporter, Cappelli, tells them, ‘Not so fast, guys, I already wrote the story.’ ”

  Rizzo nodded, smiling. “Exactly. Cappelli gets his liberal righteousness all in an uproar. ‘How dare you bureaucrats attempt to deny the citizenry of its right to know the full truth. If Sergeant Rizzo and Detective Jackson—African-American female Detective Jackson, I might add—are not given their due desserts by the NYPD, the Daily News will demand, in headlines, to know exactly why not.’ ”

  “So Cappelli makes a deal,” Priscilla added. “He’ll hold off on breaking his exclusive story until after we lock up Bradley, and the Plaza is forced to let us plant the flag on both cases.”

  “Bingo,” Rizzo said. “Everybody and their brother’ll figure we leaked it to Cappelli, but they can’t prove shit. They’re stuck with us. Best they can do is capitalize on my generosity for even callin’ this guy Lombardi. That call will take the edge off, pacify them a little. They can get their pictures in the papers, too.” He paused. “And bottom line, Cappelli still owes me. After all, I’m gettin’ him an exclusive on the Mallard murder.”

  “Sounds good,” she said. “Now let’s hope the search warrant turns up a blue raincoat that matches the fiber found on Lauria’s corpse.”

  “Oh, it’
ll be there, Cil, and it’ll match. But even without it, now we have DeMaris’s testimony. And she’s damn lucky we grabbed her so quickly. Once the pressure started to build on Bradley, he’d have come to one conclusion, that he had to kill DeMaris, just like you’ve been scared of since all this started.”

  Priscilla shook her head. “Always treat murder like a solo act, boys and girls. A partner in crime’ll get you busted every time.”

  “Amen, sister,” Rizzo said. “Amen.”

  “So now?” she asked.

  Rizzo shrugged. “Now we wait for everybody to get here. Let the D.A. bureau chief make his preliminary arrangements with DeMaris’s lawyer. Then we talk to Vince and Lombardi, and don’t forget to look surprised when Cappelli walks in.” He stood up. “But right now I want to calm DeMaris down a little, tell her what to expect. I don’t think she realizes she’s gettin’ locked up to night, maybe for two nights before bail is set and posted. Come on, Cil, come with me, I need a witness in there so she can’t claim I copped a feel of her sweet-lookin’ ass.”

  “Just give me a heads-up before you do, so I can look away. That way I won’t be lying when I tell I.A.D., ‘Hey, I didn’t see nothin’.’ ”

  VINCE D’ANTONIO, his face tight with anger, glared across the desk at Rizzo. They, along with Priscilla, Lieutenant Lombardi, and Assistant District Attorney Raymond Kessler were in D’Antonio’s office.

  “Damn it, Joe,” D’Antonio said, “you shoulda told me about all this, you shoulda kept me posted from day one.”

  “This aspect of it just come up, boss,” Rizzo said lightly. “Check the DD-fives; everything we had is in there. We just didn’t see the whole picture till now. We followed the leads and next thing we know, we’re lookin’ at this Mallard thing.”

  D’Antonio shook his head sharply. “That’s bullshit. You knew where this was goin’ from the moment you and Cil first found Lauria’s play.”

  “You’re givin’ me too much credit here, Vince. I ain’t that sharp.”

  D’Antonio frowned and began to speak, then suddenly changed his mind. He glanced to Priscilla.

  “You got anything to add here, Jackson?”

  “Not really, boss,” Priscilla said. “It’s like he told you: we just followed our noses and kinda tripped over Mallard.”

  D’Antonio held her eyes for a moment, before turning to Lieutenant Dominick Lombardi.

  “What can I tell ya?” he said to Lombardi. “It’s the first I’m hear in’ about any of this.”

  Lombardi, a thirty-year veteran of the NYPD, smiled. “Yeah, I got that impression.”

  “Well, what ever,” Rizzo said, addressing Lombardi. “What’s done is done. We should drop the warrant on Bradley and look for that raincoat. We got enough in DeMaris’s statement to lock him up right now. Then we wait for the lab test on the fiber. Should be a slam dunk.”

  Lombardi’s face brightened. “We?” he said. “I’m not followin’ you here, Sergeant. What do you mean, ‘we’?”

  “I mean, we, like us,” Rizzo said. “Like me and my partner. And, of course, you’re welcome to come along.” He reached into his shirt pocket, extracting a packet of Nicorette. “Being how it was your case and all.”

  Lombardi laughed. “I like a guy with balls, Rizzo,” he said. “Refreshing change from most of the Plaza boys and girls. But, in this particular case, I gotta say, you’re outta line.”

  “Yeah, well, I can see where you might figure that, Loo. But you can ask Vince here—I don’t go outside the lines.”

  Raymond Kessler, the homicide bureau chief from the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, interjected from Rizzo’s left.

  “Maybe you do and maybe you don’t, Rizzo,” he said curtly. “But you could use a little work on your statement-taking skills.”

  Rizzo responded, wearing a puzzled look. “Oh?” he asked. “And why’s that?”

  “Oh, I think you know,” Kessler said. “That statement you took from DeMaris has more holes in it than Swiss cheese. A kid straight outta law school could convince a jury DeMaris was just in it for the plagiarism angle, didn’t know shit about the murders. She can practically walk away from this. The prosecution will have to spit nickels for even a conspiracy count to stick, let alone felony murder.”

  “Yeah, Rizzo,” Lombardi said. “If a guy didn’t know better, he might figure you lobbed it in for DeMaris to get her to bury Bradley for you.”

  Rizzo turned to Lombardi with a hard expression, his eyes hooded. It drew a shrug from Lombardi.

  “If a guy didn’t know better,” the lieutenant repeated.

  Rizzo let his expression soften. “Well, what ever,” he said. “It’s moot now, water under the bridge. Me and Cil made this case, with help from Mike McQueen. Least you can do is accept that, and let’s just move on.”

  Lombardi shook his head. “You two are out,” he said simply. “And whoever McQueen is, he’s out, too. As of now, Manhattan South is takin’ jurisdiction on the Lauria case.” He paused before adding, “Sorry, Joe, that’s how the brass wants it.”

  Rizzo leaned over toward the man. “You know, Dom, I made a call on you,” he said softly. “Looks like twelve days from now, you get promoted off the captain’s list. If you break the Mallard case, next stop for you is deputy inspector.”

  Lombardi shrugged. “Could happen,” he said.

  Rizzo turned to D’Antonio. “You gonna sit there, Vince? You gonna let this happen?”

  “Look, Dom,” D’Antonio said to Lombardi, his tone hard. “There may be some irregularities here, and maybe you got a right to be pissed. But my guys broke this. Rizzo and Jackson, yeah, but the squad pitched in, too. I can’t let you walk in here …”

  Lombardi held up a hand. “Who you need to hear from, Vince?” he asked casually. “Inspector Kelly? The PC? The fuckin’ mayor? Let me know, I’ll make the call.”

  Color came to D’Antonio’s face. He shot an annoyed glance at Rizzo, then turned back to Lombardi.

  “Don’t lean on me, Dom,” he said. “Don’t try and push me aside. It pisses me off.”

  Lombardi sighed. “It’s a tough business, Vince. I’m just a cog in the wheel, is all.”

  A tense silence developed, broken after a moment by a knock on the closed door of D’Antonio’s office.

  “Sorry to interrupt, boss,” a uniformed officer said as she stuck her head into the room. “There’s some guy here to see you, says it’s important.”

  “Not now,” D’Antonio said, his face still flushed with anger.

  She hesitated, then spoke again. “Guy’s from the newspapers, boss,” she said, her voice low. “Says he’s here about the Avery Mallard murder. Says he wants to talk to the two cops who broke the case.” She glanced around the room.

  “He says he’s writin’ the article now, and he needs to talk to the two cops right away,” she said to D’Antonio. Then, looking at Rizzo she added, “You know, boss. Rizzo and Jackson.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  SATURDAY MORNING, RIZZO SPED the Impala along the Gowanus Expressway, once again heading for Manhattan. Priscilla Jackson sat in the front passenger seat, Detective Lieutenant Vince D’Antonio in the rear behind her.

  “You have the warrants?” he asked Rizzo.

  Rizzo sighed. “Yeah, boss, for the third time, I have the warrants. Relax, okay?”

  D’Antonio shook his head. “Yeah, relax,” he muttered. “Easy for you to say. Tomorrow, you and Jackson are the stars of the city, media darlings of the week. But I get Plaza brass chasin’ after my ass with giant hardons in their hands.”

  Priscilla chuckled. “Don’t you just hate when that happens?” she said sweetly.

  D’Antonio glowered at her profile. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “Just what I need. A female version of Rizzo to deal with.”

  “You won’t have to deal with her for long, boss,” Rizzo said. “Next stop for Cil is Major Case, Brooklyn homicide, Manhattan South, wherever she wants to go. And me, I’m outta here in about
nine months.”

  D’Antonio shook his head. “Nine fuckin’ months,” he grumbled. “Like a goddamned pregnancy.”

  After a moment, D’Antonio spoke once again, his tone now conversational. “I gotta admit, though, Joe, runnin’ Cappelli past Kessler and Lombardi, that was pure genius. Did you see their faces when he quoted tomorrow’s headlines? ‘Brooklyn Cops Crack Mallard Murder’?”

  Rizzo shrugged. “Wasn’t me, boss. Somebody down at the courthouse must have tipped Cappelli, remember?” He turned slightly to Priscilla. “You didn’t have anything to do with it, did you, Cil?”

  “Innocent as you are, Partner,” she answered. “I never even heard of Cappelli till he walked into Vince’s office.”

  “Well, what ever,” Rizzo said, then addressed D’Antonio. “Like I told you yesterday, these personal accusations, suspicions, where’s it all get ya? No place. Let’s just go get this prick Bradley. That’s our main goal here.”

  D’Antonio laughed. “Yeah, Joe,” he said. “Spoken like the true public servant you are.”

  Rizzo met D’Antonio’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “What ever you say, boss,” he said.