The Good Lawyer: A Novel (35 page)

“Hi, Mary,” Joey said politely.

Mom’s expression of discomfort and weariness didn’t change. “Hi ya, Joe,” she said weakly. Her concerned eyes fell upon me. “A friend of yours just called. Vinny Repoli. Something like that. He sounded awful. Said you’d better get over to 25 Sutton Place right away. Isn’t that where Eleanor lives?”

I sobered in an instant, grabbed Joey’s keys, and ran toward the 98’. Joey jumped into the front passenger seat as I pulled away. Mom remained on the porch looking like I felt—helpless and frightened.

Twenty minutes later I was approaching the Midtown Tunnel toll, which I ran without hesitation. Joey held onto the dashboard and back seat, shouting a string of obscenities as I raced through the narrow two-lane tunnel cutting past cars and mowing down a succession of rubber lane dividers.

Minutes later we were at Eleanor’s building. Two blue and white police cars were angled out front with their doors wide open. Two others were double-parked inches away. Roof sirens on all four silently spun red and yellow warning lights.

But there were no cops in sight.

I slammed the 98’ into a park and jumped out. The brightly lit lobby was empty and there was no doorman to be found.

I ran for the stairs, spitting up bilious rye as I scaled steps three and four at a time.

When I opened the door to the seventh floor hallway I saw two police officers and a paramedic conversing like businessmen outside Eleanor’s apartment. An elderly woman peeked out her apartment door then pulled in her head and slammed it shut. One of the officers had his hand resting on the butt of his holstered pistol; resting, not readied, I thought to myself.

I walked down the hallway toward Eleanor’s apartment while letting my fingertips run along the wallpaper as if feebly searching for something to hold onto. I had yet to be noticed by anyone.

The officers and the paramedic entered the apartment with slow motion reluctance. When I got to the door I noticed three nickel sized drops of dried blood on the welcome mat. They were scattered like fallen points on a triangle.

The murmuring of indecipherable baritone voices came from inside as footsteps moved about faintly, creaking on the bare wood floor.

I clutched the doorframe, held my breath, and stepped inside.

Four cops were standing with their backs to me, facing the sofa. In front of them two paramedics struggled with the zippered flaps of a black body bag. The figure inside was female. The hair shoulder length and light brown. The frame slight.

I stepped closer.

Clear plastic had already been wrapped around the corpse. A puddle of blood had accumulated inside the plastic wrap under the body.

When the zipper closed over her face, I could see that Carolyn’s eyes were wide open. I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Joey.

“It’s not Eleanor, Joe,” I said, instantly recalling Carolyn’s last words to me:
If you want to talk, I’ll be staying at Eleanor’s.

“What the hell are you doing here?” A dark haired man of fifty flashed a gold detective’s shield at me. “Do you know this girl?” He was over six feet tall and hunched slightly. He had a Roman nose, but his skin was light, and his eyes Donna Gillis blue. Though he didn’t have all the obvious traits, I knew he was Italian-American. He also reminded me of John Mannino, with his tall thin build, sloping shoulders and stern manner.

“This is my girlfriend’s apartment. That’s not her, though. It’s—It’s our friend, Carolyn. She’s a writer.”

The blue uniforms backed away while the paramedics placed Carolyn on a gurney. The body bag lifted to reveal a sofa soaked with blood. I had slept there just days earlier, a heating pad on my side, Eleanor looking after me.

“Does your girlfriend have any enemies?” the detective asked while twisting a paperback book wrapped in plastic in his hands.

“No. Not at all.” I thought again, and though I knew it might send him in the wrong direction, I added: “She’s an Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan.”

“And you don’t think she had any enemies?” he said incredulously.

“No enemy from her work did this,” I said.

“And how can you be so sure?”

“Because they would have seen her in court, and would know what she looks like.” I withheld how much Carolyn looked like Eleanor. It would again lead him in the wrong direction. For reasons I was not ready to disclose, I didn’t want him going in the right one.

My eyes fell back on the bloodstained couch.

“Where is your girlfriend, if I may ask?” The detective lit up a cigarette with a silver lighter that had F. Spina inscribed on it.

“Atlanta. With her family.”

“Then what brought you here at two in the morning?” No
Columbo
, subtlety was not Detective Spina’s forte.

“I did,” Vinny Repolla said from the hallway. A press ID was clasped to the lapel of his brown blazer. When he started into the apartment the detective shouted at him to stop.

“Isn’t anyone concerned about securing this crime scene? Everybody out! Forensics still has to go over the place.”

When we all left the apartment, the oldest of the plainclothes detectives told Spina they would meet him downstairs. Spina grumbled an acknowledgment and locked the front door with a set of keys that must have been Carolyn’s. He then took two yellow strips of crime scene tape and crisscrossed them over the doorframe.

“So tell me now how you”—Spina pointed at Vinny—“know him?” Spina pointed at me.

“I’m a friend of Nick’s and I’m also a crime reporter for
Newsday
.”

Spina huffed as if everything Vinny would say from that point on was tainted.

“When I got wind of the police response to a homicide and heard the address, I called Nick. I knew his girlfriend lived here.” Vinny was unruffled by Spina’s manner. I suspected he had become quite used to dealing with cranky detectives.

“I’m a Legal Aid lawyer in the Bronx,” I added. “That’s how I know Vinny.”

“That how you met your girlfriend?” Spina sounded suspicious, like he was being jostled.

“No. We met a long time ago.” Lifetimes it seemed. “When I was in law school.”

“Wonderful,” Spina grumbled. He looked at Joey. “And I suppose you’re a sitting Supreme Court Judge.”

Joey didn’t absorb or appreciate Spina’s humor and sarcasm. I gave Joey a good long look for the first time since we left Long Island. He was ashen faced, no doubt from the sight of Carolyn in the body bag.

“I’m just a friend of Nick’s,” Joey said. “I’ve been with him all night, since about eight-thirty.”

“Well that answers my next question. Thank you.”

The elevator arrived, and we all stepped in. Vinny introduced himself to Joey, who was still badly shaken. They pumped hands like old friends at a funeral.

Vinny turned to Spina. “What the hell happened here anyway?”

“Maybe we can help,” I said.

Spina rolled his eyes. “Sure you can.” He then answered Vinny’s question as if accepting a challenge. “The killer it seems got in the apartment by breaking the doorframe and double bolt lock with a crowbar of some sort. I figure he caught her sleeping. She may have awoken from the intrusion, but I guess he got to her while she was still dazed.”

The elevator was dropping, and nauseatingly fast. I looked at Joey. He had heard enough. So had I. But I had to listen on.

“And?” I said loudly.

Spina turned to face me, and blurted: “And he gutted her like a fish from her crotch to her sternum.”

Joey vomited his White Castle hamburgers into the corner of the elevator. Vinny casually handed him a handkerchief.

I again noticed the paperback, folded this time in Spina’s left hand.

I pointed to it. “What is that?”

“Seems your writer friend was also a reader,” Spina answered indifferently. “One of the officers found this on the end table next to her body. Figured I’d look it over. Maybe it will tell me something I don’t know. And I don’t know much.” Spina held it up. “Stupid book, probably doesn’t count for shit.”

It was a paperback edition of William Shakespeare’s
Othello
.

Outside 25 Sutton Place I hugged Vinny and thanked him for calling. I then offered silent thanks that Eleanor had gone to Atlanta, whatever the reason, and prayed she wouldn’t return. Not yet. Though none of my prayers of late were being answered.

Thoughts of Carolyn caused my eyes to well up. I gave Detective Spina my office and home numbers. In his best
Naked City
voice he told me not to leave town. He’d be in touch.

Joey remained stupefied during the entire drive back to Merrick, where I dropped myself off and gave him the wheel. I hugged him too, and thanked him for sticking out the awful night with me.

Once in the house I shut off the living room lights, got a blanket, and covered Mom, who was asleep on the living room sectional. It was 4 A.M.

Miraculously, and probably from an irrepressible exhaustion, when my head hit the pillow, my mind was cleared of all thoughts of Terkel, Guevara, and Carolyn’s murder, and in seconds I fell asleep. But what was even more miraculous was that I did so with the realization that somewhere there was a bald muscular black man in his twenties, who had an insatiable hunger for human suffering, and whom Guevara and Terkel knew all too well.

Chapter 71

I
woke up in the early afternoon. After picking at Mom’s ill conceived breakfast of eggs, pancakes and toast, I left for the beach again and spent the balance of the day walking slowly along the boardwalk of Field Four. When the sun set low in the sky and the beach was nearly deserted except for a few young lovers brazing the elements, I telephoned Mom from a booth near the concession stand.

She said that Eleanor had called earlier, crying, said a friend of hers had died, and that she was planning to catch the next flight to New York. I said I would call back, but had no intention of doing so.

I told Mom I would be home late. She reminded me as she often did when she sensed something was wrong, that she loved me and that I was all she had in the world. I told her not to worry.

Minutes after leaving the beach I was on the Southern State Parkway heading west toward Brooklyn.

I was driving my Malibu this time.

The Carroll Avenue Hunt and Fish Club appeared closed. But then it always did. Fat Julee let me in.

The bar area was full and aside from a few retirees in attendance, I knew practically no one. Sallie was in a corner talking intently to three younger men. He turned slightly as I entered. Uncle Rocco was standing at the end of the bar. I parted cigarette smoke to kiss him on the cheek before we stepped into the dining room. Rocco and I sat down at the same table where we had eaten macaroni and meatballs and discussed Oscar Jefferson’s murder a month before. Rocco spoke first. His tone was businesslike.

“Nickie, I can’t help you right now with that Bronx thing.”

I had read that Carmine Capezzi was sick, drifting in and out of consciousness after suffering his second stroke at the age of eighty. It was in times like these, with the boss of bosses out of commission and fading fast that rival capos looked to jump the chain of command and wars broke out. Rocco’s loyalty to Capezzi was legendary, which meant his life was in danger. Sallie’s too.

“It’s OK, Uncle Roc. I’ve read the paper. That’s not why I’m here.”

His eyes widened. “Tell me anything else I can do for you. Anything.” He spoke softly, caringly.

“I would really appreciate it if you could get me a gun, a pistol, for my own protection.”

His face filled with disapproval. “That’s a mandatory year in jail if you get caught. It’s a new law.”

“I know all about it. With mitigating circumstances it’s a misdemeanor plea and probation.” He looked unconvinced.

“Protection from what?” he asked.

I told him about Carolyn’s death and how I was convinced Guevara had something to do with it.

“This is New York City. Women get killed, raped. Stuff happens all the time with no rhyme or reason.”

“The same night I go see this Doctor Terkel?” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “The same guy who had Oscar Jefferson killed and posted nine thousand dollars of Guevara’s bail?”

“Why the hell did you go see him anyway? You want to get
yourself
killed?” He poked the table with a stiffened index finger. “If so I’ll give you a job right here, right now.”

“Uncle Roc, this guy Terkel, he’s not who he says he is. He’s a fucking monster.”

“A monster? Would you really know a monster if you met one?”

“They never found Ernest Leskey, alive or dead, did they Uncle Roc?”

His eyes dropped to the table then turned up at me. “No, they didn’t,” he said icily.

“He was on the swim team in college wasn’t he?”

“Yes, but that’s not how I know he survived.”

All warmth and charm had left Rocco Alonzo. I was talking now to a cold-blooded criminal, the Brooklyn
capo
who in his younger days carried out orders to kill with calculating ease. I leaned forward slightly, encouraging him to continue.