The Body Mafia (12 page)

“Why would someone rent a car from one airport and drive to another?”

“Well, get this, the name used for the rental cars took an immediate flight to Cleveland.”

“It’s got to be her! It’s got to be! What was the name?”

“Michelle Faulkner.”

“Get your asses back up here and start checking every goddamn motel and hotel in the city for anyone registered in that name.”

“I’m already on it. Nothing so far, but we still got a shitload more to go.”

“Let me know the minute you find her. What’s going on with Miglia? Are they going to be able to tie him to her?”

“Nah. She did a damn good job of covering her tracks. We talked to a source at the police department, and they don’t have a clue.”

“Good. Keep checking in from time to time to see if anything turns up.”

“Will do. Alan, you know that if Salvatore thinks she’s responsible for Miglia, they’re gonna come at her harder and harder until they find her.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Joseph suggested we meet later for dinner to go over some plans. Little did he know, I had a daily itinerary mapped out for the next week or two.

He wasn’t overly surprised that he was being followed by the FBI; he had suspected as much. But now that he knew what kind of car they were in, it was easier for him to give them the slip. We agreed to meet at a parking garage downtown. He would pull in, park, get into my car, and hunker down while I drove back out.

Predictably, the green Pontiac was parked on the street about a block down from the parking garage. They didn’t even glance my way when I pulled out. When I gave Joseph the okay that we were safe, he chuckled to himself as he crawled from the backseat to the front passenger seat. Once we were several
miles away from the waiting Pontiac, I took off my wig and sunglasses. I hadn’t bothered with the contacts today. Joseph smiled.

“Definitely better. You know, you’re a very attractive woman, CeeCee.”

“Thanks.” His compliment made me uncomfortable. It made me feel guilty somehow.

After circling the block of the restaurant several times, I was satisfied no other cars were tailing us, so I parked. We chose a small, quiet table at the back of the dimly lit room, and Joseph ordered a bottle of wine. Even though I knew our meeting was strictly business related, my guilt began to grow rapidly. I missed Michael more than ever at that very moment.

Joseph wanted to know definitively what I had planned, down to the minute, regarding our newly formed partnership. I had a few questions for him as well.

“Did you tell your father about me, Joseph?”

“Absolutely not. He would’ve become unglued and sent hit men out for you and Salvatore both.”

His response startled me a little. “Why would he want to kill me?”

“You don’t know my father.”

Apparently not, and the more I heard, the more I realized I didn’t want to get anywhere near Leon Filaci. Before we got into details, I learned a few minor facts about Joseph.

He was forty-three years old, and surprisingly, like me, he was widowed. His wife had died two years ago from cancer, and they’d had no children. He had been seeing someone off and on for the last year, but I got the impression she was more serious about him than he was about her. Joseph didn’t seem to be as
interested in the family business as his brother Niccolo had been, a fact that made Niccolo the favorite in Leon’s eyes. Not resentful of the superior sibling like one would see in most families, Joseph clearly loved his deceased brother.

“What about you, CeeCee?”

“What about me?” I knew I appeared defensive.

“You seem so mysterious, hardened.” He paused. “You must have loved him very much.” He referred to Michael.

“More than life itself.” I didn’t like the direction the conversation was going, so I quickly redirected it. “Let’s get down to business. I think we need to go to Youngstown first thing in the morning.”

He smiled, openly amused at my avoidance of personal questions.

“That’s fine, but one of the things I don’t understand is how you can gather evidence against the Iacconas? How will any of it be admissible?”

“I’m a private citizen now. I don’t have to abide by the rules of search and seizure. I can gather all the information I want, drop it off anonymously on the FBI’s doorstep, and they can use all of it. They won’t even know where it came from.”

“So that’s why you resigned.”

“Yes, it is.”

“I have to tell you, these are some pretty dangerous characters we’ll be dealing with. You’re obviously familiar with Frank Trapini, but there are others: Tommy Miglia and—”

“Tommy Miglia is dead.”

“He is? How?” Joseph put down his glass of wine.

“Let’s just say it was an unfortunate accident.” My face was expressionless.

“I see,” he said quietly, while grasping the underlying confession I had just given. “I’ve heard stories about you, CeeCee, a strong-willed, tough cop, but mostly brilliant. I guess Tommy Miglia didn’t know who he was up against.”

Looking down at the table, I twirled my fork in between my fingers.

“You realize they’ll be looking for you, CeeCee?” Joseph said.

“They’ve been looking for me for quite a while already. In fact, they’d already ordered Tommy to kill me in Florida when I had to defend myself, which resulted in his ill-fated swim in the Gulf of Mexico.” I was sullen. “You know, Joseph, they may think your family is responsible, as an act of revenge for Niccolo.”

He put his face in his hands and sighed before taking another drink of wine. We were interrupted by the waitress, who was ready to take our order. Since my appetite was still on a permanent vacation, I ordered a light salad.

“CeeCee, why are you telling me all of this? You didn’t have to tell me about Tommy. How do you know I won’t turn you in?”

“Because I have a tape recording of you and your family ordering the murder of my husband, that’s why. Call it collateral. As long as I’m alive and a free citizen, that tape will never surface. Understand?” I asked stiffly.

“You certainly play hardball.”

“I wasn’t aware there was any other way. You help me, and you can have the files,
and the tape
, as promised.”

From that point on, Joseph and I had an understanding.
He knew where I stood and where I was coming from, and most importantly, I trusted him. There was no one else to turn to.

We agreed to meet the following morning in front of the diner where we had first met. From there we would drive to Youngstown and check into a motel Joseph was familiar with. He would rent out both rooms under an assumed name. After that, we would be trailing the Iacconas night and day.

Arriving back at my own motel room, I quickly called Eric and talked to the girls. Hearing their voices on the phone brought me immediately to tears. How I missed them. Next, I grabbed my laptop computer so I could go online and check the Florida newspapers for any word of Tommy’s murder investigation. I already knew they had found the body almost a week ago, but as each day passed, the articles grew smaller and were printed farther toward the end of the paper.

Today, there was a small article below the weather, asking anyone with information to call the detective bureau. I breathed a sigh of relief. I knew that meant they had absolutely nothing to go on, as far as his murder went. The evidence I had put in the trash bin was long gone by now, and other than that, there was nothing.

Next, I read an article in the Mansfield paper about the recent murder Justin had told me about. The victim, thirty-three-year-old Christopher Albert, had been out walking his dog in a middle-class neighborhood when he had been abducted. His body was found a mile and a half from his home, in a nearby park. I felt disconnected, reading about murders in my own jurisdiction in the newspaper,
having to constantly remind myself I was no longer a police officer. One thing the article told me is that the killer or killers were getting desperate. They were no longer targeting homeless, displaced citizens, but had moved on to whoever they could get—the last two, Alisha Cross and Christopher Albert.

I turned off my computer and undressed to get ready for bed. I had a long day tomorrow, and probably each day after that. Regardless, what ever questions that remained unanswered today, I was sure I would find the answers to all of them in Youngstown.

Frank Trapini dreaded meeting with Sal. As he walked down the long hallway to his office, he prepared himself for a verbal lashing. Sal was already pissed at him before he went to Florida. Now, with Tommy gone, whom Sal had looked upon as a son, he was sure this was the last time he would walk down this particular hallway. He knocked lightly on the closed door and opened it when the loud, gruff voice told him to come in.

“Sit down, Frank.”

Frank complied, nodding at Henry Mastragna and William Petrosino standing against the wall. Sal’s own sons, Antonio and Petey, stood behind Sal’s desk with him.

“She’s in Cleveland,” Sal announced.

Frank was shocked. “But how?”

“Because you fucked up, that’s how.” Sal rose from behind his desk, walked around it, and stood in front of Frank. “I’ve done a lot for you, Frankie. You’ve been at the top of your game for a long time, but lately…lately, I don’t know what’s going on with you.”

“I’ll fix it, Sal!” Frank pleaded. He knew what was coming. “I swear, I’ll fix it! She won’t be hard to find, I know it!”

Sal had never seen Frank so weak. He had always been such an intimidating man, but as Sal knew, even the strongest of men had their breaking point. It was too bad. He had hoped Frank would eventually be able to help Sal’s son Antonio take over the family when Sal was dead and buried. But it wasn’t meant to be. Frank could no longer be trusted.

“Why should I give you another chance, Frankie? You know I don’t give second chances.” Sal crossed his arms and stared at Frank.

Frank stood up, facing Sal. “Because! I promise, Sal, I promise! I won’t fuck up this—”

The blast of the gun came from the right. Henry Mastragna walked up from behind Frank and was able to angle the gun about six inches from his temple. Frank never saw it coming. As his body fell to the left, the blood, brain matter, and bone fragments sprayed against the farthest wall before Frank, eventually, hit the floor. All of them stood looking over Frank’s body as the smell of gunpowder permeated the room. Finally, Sal spoke.

“Petey, Billy, clean up the mess and dump him under the construction site.” Petey Iaccona and William Petrosino moved immediately. “Henry, you’re now in charge of the deliveries. The truck will be there first thing in the morning for you to pick up the shipment and deliver to the Philippines.”

Sal sat down again behind his desk and watched as Petey and Billy wrapped Frank’s body in large, industrialsize garbage bags. He decided to warn each of them.

“Let this be a lesson to all of you. Don’t fuck with me or fuck with my business. We’re already behind on orders, and I’ll be damned if I get cut out because of simple incompetence like Frank’s.” They all nodded. “Tony, you and Billy, as soon as he’s done dumping Frank, have a job. That job is
to find Gallagher and finish what Frank fucked up. If you don’t, you’ll both be lying next to him. You got it?”

“We got it.”

“My source tells me that she’s using an alias, Michelle Faulkner. She’s checked into a room at the Days Inn on Lake Road, just outside the city limits, in Lakewood. As soon as you’re done, get your asses to Cleveland and take care of it.”

Joseph thought it best if we met early in the morning at a coffee shop just outside of downtown. We would drive my new rental car to Youngstown. I had taken the old one back, claiming it wasn’t running right, so they replaced it. Joseph had our motel rooms reserved, and we would go there first to get settled in before setting out on our surveillance of the Iacconas.

The looming black and gray clouds in the sky above us were full of snow. The weather forecast was calling for several inches, and it was unbearably cold. Joseph was verbally thrashing my rear-wheel-drive rental.

“If this snow hits before we get there we’re gonna have to find some dogs or something to pull this goddamn car.” He looked up at the sky through the windshield as he drove.

“I asked for an SUV, or at the very least a front-wheel drive, but they didn’t have any available,” I explained.

“Let’s just keep our fingers crossed.”

It must’ve worked, because we had no sooner crossed the Youngstown city limits than the sky opened up and unleashed six inches of heavy, blowing snow. We were able to find our motel, but we wouldn’t
be leaving it for a while. It was well into the following day before the snow began to subside enough for road crews to get their own trucks and plows out. In the meantime, Joseph and I took the time to go over every little detail of our mission.

“Our best bet is to get the recording devices you have into Sal’s personal office at the ware house. I’ve been doing some checking, and it seems that all of the confidential meetings take place there. Sal keeps another office to throw off the feds; they apparently don’t know about this one. But we do.” Joseph looked at the blueprint of the ware house he was referring to.

“What makes you think that the feds don’t know about it? You came across it easy enough.”

“Trust me, CeeCee. If we’re going to work together, you’re going to have to trust me.” The frown on his rugged face deepened as he looked at me. “I have people that know people that know people, you get it? I can always find something out, except the main part of their business. They’re all being tight-lipped about that.”

Joseph was sitting on my bed with the blueprint spread out before him, marking off areas that we would be able to enter without being seen. He evidently had been to the ware house before, because he told me that no one was there until at least ten in the morning, but they stayed very late. I had learned not to ask Joseph too many questions. While he worked on our entry plan, I started gathering all of my recording equipment to make sure everything was running properly. I was in the pro cess of hooking one of the pieces into my laptop when I found Joseph staring at me.

“What the hell is that?” He referred to the
checkbook-sized black and silver contraption I was currently holding.

“It’s kind of like a pen register, but better.”

“What the hell is a pen register?”

Realizing Joseph wasn’t wise to police lingo, I explained. “A pen register is hooked up to someone’s phone line and traces every call that goes in and out. The main box, which would be at the police station, spits out the numbers on a roll of paper. It looks a little like cash-register tape.” I held out the small machine. “This one will not only trace all of the calls, but it will actually record the conversations.”

“Let me see that so I can make sure one of those things isn’t hooked up to my own goddamn phone line at home.” I handed it to him, smiling. “You know how to hook this up, CeeCee?”

I nodded. “The phones will be a piece of cake, since the phone cable is on the outside of the building.” I picked up a larger, heavier piece of equipment about the size of a brick and held it out. “This is going to be a little harder.”

“What is it?”

“The FBI uses something called a pole camera. It’s hooked up to an electrical box or something directly across from the building they want to watch. They use it to get license plates, facial close-ups, etc. But the bonus of the pole camera is that you can operate it using nothing but a telephone keypad—zoom, directions, focusing, night vision, anything you can think of. It’ll even take still photos. That’s what I have, but better. It goes inside.”

“Yeah, but where are you going to put it so they don’t see it? You’ve never been in there before.”

“I’ll find a place, believe me. And the beauty of the
whole enchilada is that we can watch and hear everything from my laptop. Record it all, too.”

“I don’t want to burst your bubble, CeeCee, but there’s a pretty good chance that Sal doesn’t have a phone in there. He’s not an ignorant man.”

“If he doesn’t, I have these, too.” I held up two small silver microphones that looked like dimes, only a tad thicker. “They record sound up to thirty feet. I can put these anywhere.”

“The rumors were true. You
are
brilliant.” Joseph smiled and looked at me in a way I didn’t like.

We had been spending a lot of time together. Under different circumstances, for Joseph or me to develop feelings for the other would not be unthinkable. Unfortunately for Joseph, under these circumstances it
was
unthinkable to me. Maybe in another life, but not this one. I surmised it would take years, if ever, to get over Michael. The thought alone terrified me. Joseph, clearly sensing my apprehension, began slowly folding up the blueprint.

“It’s late. I’m going to head back to my room to get some sleep. You should do the same. Tomorrow, we’ll watch the ware house, if we’re able to drive anywhere. If we can’t get out before ten in the morning, we’ll just follow everybody later.” He avoided eye contact.

“Good night, Joseph.”

After he had gone, I spent the remaining hours of the night lying on my bed and staring at the ceiling. There were so many thoughts, with no place to put them all. They ran about, frantically searching every last corner of my mind, looking for somewhere to call home. My thoughts crowded each other, a cyclone of images and voices compressed together in my head with such ferocity that I thought it would
explode. I sat up, craving a drink and desperately wanting Michael.

Sleep decided to play hide-and-seek with me tonight. In an attempt to stay positive, I figured I might have slept close to three hours. In reality, it was closer to two. I went over and over all of my plans to ensure there wasn’t anything overlooked or left out. It was this particular night that I decided dying was not an option. I would see my children again, no matter what I had to do. All of my previous fears would be filed away. They were there to keep me on my toes. The last few months I had been weak, but no more. As hard as it was to imagine, my life would go on without Michael—for my children, and for myself.

“She checked into a room at the Days Inn on Lake Road, but it doesn’t look like anyone’s been there for a few days.”

“Are you sure it’s her?” Alan Keane was hopeful.

“Pretty sure. The front desk has security cameras, and we pulled the tape from the day she checked in. She had a dark wig on and a hat, but I’m confident enough to say I’m one hundred percent sure.”

Alan breathed a sigh of relief as he nodded at the man who was sitting in a chair directly across from him, having come from Erie two days ago. At this moment, he looked like a rocket ready to take off. Alan’s nod made him relax considerably.

“Alan, there’s something else that I don’t think you’re gonna like,” Agent Nicholas sighed into the phone. “Joseph Filaci is gone, too. We think they’re together.”

Alan stiffened. “Together as in he took her, or together voluntarily?”

“We think voluntarily. Keith and Steve saw someone matching her description go into the diner Filaci goes to
about fifteen minutes before he went in. They sat together. They saw the same woman pull out of a parking garage later on that Joseph drove into, but they didn’t see him with her. He might’ve been crouched down in the seat or something.”

The man across from Alan stood up and faced him, fists and jaw clenched. His relaxation was short-lived.

“Now relax,” Alan coaxed him as he hung up the phone. “It may not be a bad thing. If she’s with Joseph, she may have a better chance of getting the information.”

The man walked out of Alan’s hotel room, slamming the door behind him. This wasn’t good, Alan thought. If she was with Joseph, she might be giving him information as well. Alan picked up the phone again and called Agent Nicholas back.

“Go to Youngstown,” he ordered.

“Huh?”

“I think they’re in Youngstown trying to get the Iacconas. Grab Keith and Steve if you need to. Don’t worry about surveillance on the Filacis right now. Just get your asses there and see if you can find them. Remember, don’t let them see you!”

“We’re on our way.”

“Gary, wait. What have you turned up on the mole? If
we
know she’s here or in Youngstown,
they
will soon enough.”

“Didn’t I tell you, Alan? We haven’t identified him yet, but we know where he’s at. The mole is in Mansfield.”

Because of the snow, Joseph and I didn’t get going until after two the next afternoon. We decided to go directly to the ware house, and I wasn’t the least surprised to find it located in a run-down, deserted-in-daylight part of town. Then again, what part of
Youngstown wasn’t? Almost all of the buildings and shops were boarded up or had bars on the windows. Only a handful of cars lined the litter-strewn, potholed street, and a sole homeless man sat on the steps of a long-since-closed-up convenience store. The building Joseph pointed at was one of the smaller warehouses on the street. Lined with broken windows and gray chipped paint, it resembled an old assembly shop.

“Is that it?” It didn’t look to me like a living human being had ventured into the building in years, and I stress the word
living
.

“That’s it.”

“Eeks. How do we know who’s inside?”

“Usually it’s janitorial services and such, but I don’t see their trucks here. Sal comes rolling in around four or five,” he said matter-of-factly.

“How do you know—?” I stopped. I didn’t want to hear it.

“It looks like we might be in luck, CeeCee. The snowstorm probably kept everyone else at home today. We might be able to get in there right now.”

“What are you waiting for, partner?” I raised one eyebrow at him.

Joseph smiled and began slowly circling the building to confirm no one else was there. When he was satisfied, he parked on the street that faced the rear of the building, almost a block away. He had already determined that the way into the ware house would be through one of the loading docks. The door on the dock had its hinges rusted out, and according to Joseph, flapped back and forth like a rubber pet door. We would be able to get in with no problem.
Taking one last glance around, we started for the ware house. As cleaned up as we were, and wearing our dark trench coats, we would probably be mistaken for real-estate agents by most people. The black duffel bag that harbored the electronic equipment was over my shoulder, concealed under my coat.

Getting through the dock door was, as predicted, a breeze. Finding Salvatore Iaccona’s secret office was not.

“I’m fairly sure it’s on the second floor. I watched them once before and saw a light on in the rear corner,” Joseph said as we climbed the two flights of stairs.

The second floor was enormous. Small offices, closets, inventory rooms, and file-storage rooms were everywhere. We searched for at least half an hour before Joseph called out to me.

“I found it!”

Following his voice, I found him standing in the doorway at the end of a long hallway in the front of the building. He had been wrong about the office being in the back.

“Are you sure it’s the one?” I asked, out of breath as I jogged toward him, taking off my coat.

“I’m sure.” Joseph’s voice was flat and he was looking at the floor.

As I made my way to the doorway, Joseph stepped aside so that I could walk into the small office. I looked at the large bloodstain on the floor that he was staring at.

“Is that what I think it is?” I asked, my trepidation growing.

“Yes, it is. Someone pissed Sal off again.” Joseph looked at me intently. “We need to hurry up and get out of here. They would never leave this stain unless they had something else to tend to. They’ll be back to clean it up—and soon.”

He had me terrified as I anxiously looked around the mostly empty office for a place to conceal the camera. As Joseph had predicted, there was no phone. Taking the small, dime-size microphones out of the bag, I placed one underneath a lonely plastic plant that sat in the corner. The other was placed inside one of the tears of a chair that sat facing the desk. I manipulated it as far into the foam of the chair as possible. The camera was going to be a problem. I needed to think, and Joseph wasn’t helping.

“CeeCee, hurry up! We need to go!” he urged.

My heart, which was already racing, kicked up to breakneck speed. I was sweating from nervousness. My eyes veered to a hole in the wall that was directly in front of the desk. It wasn’t big enough to hold the camera, but it could be widened. I grabbed a switchblade from the duffel bag and began to dig out the wall.

“What are you doing? They’re going to see all that drywall and shit on the floor!” He almost looked panicked.

“Don’t worry, I’ll clean it all up. You just keep watch.”

Digging violently, I needed to keep the hole the exact same size on the outside, but make it deeper. By now, even though it was below freezing outside, I was soaked with sweat. Joseph made it worse when his face turned to sheer horror.

“Jesus Christ! Someone’s coming! Forget the camera, CeeCee, let’s go!” he whispered loudly.

“Just two more seconds.” After placing the camera in the hole and flipping the switch on, I brushed all of the broken pieces and chips of drywall into my hands and dumped the mess into my pockets.

I blew the drywall dust and scattered it with my hands, then grabbed the duffel bag as Joseph grabbed my arm.