Rape (10 page)

Was it possible, Dromoor and Casey were aware of each other without so much as glancing at each other like creatures of identical species among natural enemies?

No news reports would suggest this. No official statements issued by the NFPD would suggest this.

Approximately 12:30
A.M
., Dromoor decided to leave.

Going where?

Home.

A coincidence, Dromoor decided to leave the tavern
almost immediately after Ray Casey left. Casey whom Dromoor had not seen at the bar, to whom he certainly had not spoken. Dromoor was leaving a few minutes after Jimmy DeLucca, also undetected, had left, slipping outside to wait for Casey in the parking lot.

Must've been like this. The chronology of events. What links events is never so clear as the events themselves.

Possibly, Casey used the men's room on his way out. Possibly, Dromoor did, too.

Such things aren't planned. Definitely, they are not rehearsed. You get one time, only.

This thing with DeLucca, Casey: possibly there'd been tension in the air, at the bar. Possibly these two had been aware of each other. Guys hating each other's guts. One of them thinking the other has got a serious grudge against him, he'd better take the first strike.

It feels like instinct. Deep in the gut. You'd have to know the men's personal histories to know otherwise.

Casey would insist, he hadn't been drinking heavily. Not for him. Only just beer. Shit, he could handle beer. He had a DWI since the thing with Teena Maguire and for sure did not want a repeat. Still, his judgment was somewhat impaired. Must've been. Why take such a risk, if he'd been fully sober? DeLucca spoke to him, or of him, a certain epithet to which Casey took offense. Possibly Casey only overheard this epithet, but knew it meant him. At another time and in another mood Casey wouldn't have risked fighting with this juiced-up punk a decade younger than he was, and twenty pounds heavier. But Casey was in the mood.

He used the men's room. He left the tavern. Outside in the parking lot the juiced-up punk was waiting.

Just came at me, Casey would say. Marveling, almost.

Just came at me unprovoked. Drunk son of a bitch saying he was gonna kill me.

At this time, approximately 12:55
A.M
., Dromoor was exiting the tavern. Immediately he heard the men's raised voices. He understood this was a fight, he would break it up. Dromoor had no hesitation acting on his own, without a fellow officer. His instinct was to move in the direction of any disturbance of the peace, to intercede. Before he saw the struggling men he heard Casey being beaten: groaning, crying out in pain. And another man grunting, and cursing. When Dromoor came closer he saw that Casey was fallen, and DeLucca was kicking him in the groin area. From out of his jacket pocket DeLucca drew a weapon: a switchblade Dromoor estimated to be between six and eight inches in length.

Immediately Dromoor called out identifying himself as a NFPD officer. He instructed the aggressor to throw down his knife, to keep his hands where Dromoor could see them. DeLucca cursed Dromoor and continued to kick at Casey, who was bleeding from the mouth. DeLucca began to make swiping gestures at Casey with the knife, missing the fallen man's face by a fraction of an inch.

Now Dromoor was running. Showing his NFPD shield. DeLucca made a certain obscene gesture at Dromoor with the switchblade and told him to keep the hell away. Dromoor continued to advance, now drawing his weapon. It was clear to DeLucca, both Dromoor and Casey would testify, that
DeLucca saw Dromoor's weapon, and heard his instructions. Dromoor ordered DeLucca to drop the knife. Dromoor ordered DeLucca to step away from Casey. Instead, DeLucca lunged forward, swiping at Dromoor with the knife, and Dromoor fired two shots in the area of the aggressor's heart, from a distance of less than three inches. DeLucca stumbled backward at once, dying.

It was over within seconds. It was nothing like Roy Jones, Jr. tormenting an opponent through twelve long rounds.

Afterward Casey would claim that the police officer had saved his life! Absolutely.

Crazy drunk guy wanting to kill me, saying he was gonna cut my throat like a hog's. I guess he knew who I was. I never knew who he was till after. Then it made sense.

The wildest luck, Dromoor had come along.

And you and Police Officer Dromoor were not acquainted?

No. We were not
.

You did not know that Dromoor was a police officer until he identified himself?

I had no awareness of him previously. In the tavern, I had not seen him
.

And you did not recognize James DeLucca?

Definitely I did not
.

Though James DeLucca was one of the accused in the rape case involving your friend Martine Maguire?

Must've been he looked different than he had. Or I never saw his face too clear
.

You would learn DeLucca's identity only after his death? This would be a total surprise to you?

I am totally surprised every day in my life. This was not so astonishing to me
.

Dromoor was interrogated at NFPD headquarters.

Dromoor had shot and killed a man in alleged self-defense. There was a civilian witness to corroborate his statement, but only one witness. The shooting was widely reported in area newspapers and on TV. Much was made of the fact that the dead man was scheduled to be tried on charges of rape and aggravated assault along with several others in what was locally called the boathouse rape case.

And you were entirely unaware of the identity of James DeLucca at the time of the incident?

Yes, Detective. I was unaware
.

It was a total surprise to you, to learn James DeLucca's identity after the fact?

No, Detective. It was not a total surprise
.

It was not, Officer? And why not?

Dromoor remained silent for a long moment, frowning at his clasped hands. His hair, recently cut, gave off a sullen glow, like pewter. The interview was being taped. Dromoor spoke slowly, each word to be chosen with care.

Because I am not surprised by much in life, Detective
.

You did not recognize James DeLucca, though you had seen him in a courtroom at close range, hardly a month ago when you'd given a statement in a case involving DeLucca?

I did not see DeLucca's face clearly in the parking lot, I had not seen him in the tavern
.

And were you and Raymond Casey acquainted before the shooting?

No, Detective. We were not
.

You did not know of Raymond Casey's connection with Martine Maguire at the time of the shooting?

No, Detective. I did not
.

It was purely a coincidence, was it? Like a shake of the dice? You, and Raymond Casey, and James DeLucca in a parking lot together, and no other witnesses? Only just what comes up, comes up? Only just chance?

Dromoor knew he was being baited. But would not acknowledge it as if to acknowledge it would be to diminish both his own and his interrogator's dignity.

No, Detective. Not just chance
.

Like what then, Officer?

Like it was meant to be. Like if there is God, or even if there is not. There was a purpose, and I discharged my sworn duty as a police officer
.

Dromoor was not penalized beyond thirty days' desk assignment. He surrendered his police service revolver for thirty days. It would be thirty days before he returned to active duty, and by this time he would be in training as a detective at the Eighth Precinct. The older detectives liked Dromoor, he listened respectfully and intelligently and rarely spoke unless spoken to. When they interrogated suspects and when
they discussed cases Dromoor observed them with the attentiveness of a young raptor among his elders. Soon he was accompanying the Eighth Precinct's senior detective, helping to secure crime scenes, taking photographs. It was a good time for Dromoor. He felt good about the future.
Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth
. In time.

Double-Edged Knife

I
N TIME YOU WOULD
fall in love with other men. More appropriate men. Men your own age, or nearly. You would marry a man older than you by eleven years, when you were twenty-one. But you would never love any of these men the way in your desperation and yearning you had loved John Dromoor in your adolescence.

Not until years afterward would you realize
I loved him for Momma's sake, too. Because she could not
.

So it had been a double love. Dangerously sharp, like a double-edged knife.

Vanished!

M
ARVIN
P
ICK
, L
LOYD
P
ICK
. One day in late October 1996, the two prime defendants in the Rocky Point rape case simply vanished.

One day word was out in Niagara County Courthouse circles that their lawyer, Jay Kirkpatrick, was negotiating a remarkable plea bargain with prosecutors for his clients in which charges of rape were to be dropped and “aggravated assault” would be lowered to the much lesser “assault”—and the next day the brothers had vanished.

It was assumed the Picks had jumped bail. They would not be seen again in Niagara Falls. Their family and relatives would not hear from them. After their initial arrest in the rape case the brothers had spoken recklessly of crossing the border into Canada, not at Niagara Falls but at some low-security crossing like Youngstown or Fort Niagara, make their way to the west or better yet the Northwest Territory where it was said able-bodied young guys like them could find jobs in lumbering, fishery canning, salmon fishing. And good wages, too.

Since before the trouble Marv had been laid off from
Niagara Natural Gas for eight months anyway. Lloyd was having trouble keeping a job and these were shithead jobs anyway: busboy at Luigo's Pizzeria, lawn crew for County Parks and Recreation. In the Northwest Territory of Canada it was said to be raw frontier like one hundred years ago in the northwestern United States. Employers did not scrutinize employees closely. Nobody gave a damn about education, past record, background. If the brothers weren't Canadian citizens, hell, they could be “issued work visas,” Marv had heard.

Marvin Pick, Lloyd Pick. After the arrests the brothers carried themselves with a certain public swagger. In their neighborhood it wasn't said of the Picks they'd raped, almost killed a woman and terrorized the woman's daughter, it was said
Those two! Their old man has hired a hot-shit Buffalo lawyer
.

The father Walt Pick was fifty-seven years old. A veteran welder at Tyler Pipe. A heavy-set coarser-skinned replica of the sons lacking their tufted sand-colored hair. His eyes were recessed in the ridges of his face with the slow-smoldering look of a welding iron. Where Marv and Lloyd had lifted weights, body-built their torsos into armor and their necks thick as hams, Walt Pick was naturally big, beefy. He stood only five feet nine but weighed two hundred forty pounds. When informed that his out-on-bail sons had disappeared, left Marv's car behind at Fort Niagara State Park, Walt had had to sit down, he'd been so shocked.

“Those fuckers! Sons of bitches! Jumping bail! All I done
for them! All I done for them!” Hot tears sprang into Walt's eyes. He was not a man susceptible to emotions of much subtlety. In the course of a day he swerved between irascibility and phlegmatic affability. He could be good-natured. He was given to say that he lived for summers, his outboard boat. Fishing on Lake Ontario off his brother's place at Olcott. He was a family man, too. He'd been married to Irma for thirty-three years. Six kids, most of them okay. The girls were the ones he'd most worried over. Marv and Lloyd, they'd always been trouble. Marv especially. And now this.

For each of the Pick brothers, as for the other defendants in the case, bail had been set at $75,000. The actual sum paid out by Walt Pick, to a bail bondsman, had been $7,500 each. It was the goddamned lawyer whose fee was astronomical: Kirkpatrick demanded a retainer of $30,000 for each brother. His hourly fee was $250 out of court, $350 in court. There would be other fees, Walt Pick didn't doubt. The Pick family, like the families of the other defendants, had had to take out a second mortgage on their home. Walt Pick had been humbled, forced to borrow from relatives. He'd had to sell, at a heartbreaking loss, his twenty-foot motorboat on whose scummy white prow was hand-painted in red letters
Condor II
.

Irma Pick believed fiercely that her sons were innocent, but Walt guessed they were guilty as hell. They'd been in trouble with the law before. And some of it female trouble. The other girls had not dared to press charges with the police but the others had not been hurt as badly as the Maguire woman. Walt was informed this was serious, rape and aggravated assault
were serious felonies, his sons could be sent to Attica for thirty years. Thirty years! They'd be old men when they got out. Old as their old man now. If they got out at all.

Walt was advised by Father Muldoon, the pastor of St. Timothy's Parish: hire the best damn criminal lawyer you can afford, he will plea-bargain the charges down to less than ten years, and for Lloyd, being younger, maybe less. If the boys behaved themselves in prison they could be out in as few as four or five years.

Jay Kirkpatrick was the man. Kirkpatrick will cost you an arm and a leg and your left testicle but Kirkpatrick is the man.

Others had spoken of Kirkpatrick, too. The Haabers had the idea the defendants should hire a “legal team.” Like O. J. Simpson, that kind of strategy. They could pool their resources. Kirkpatrick would be Marv's and Lloyd's lawyer but provide advice to the other lawyers. A team of lawyers, not individuals. A team made you think of sports, a game. A good rough game, that if you had Kirkpatrick as head coach, you might win.

Walt said shit, far as he was concerned it was no-win. It was lose-lose. His hard-earned money and
Condor II
down the drain. Goddamn those sons of his!