Rizzo’s Fire

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Wednesday morning at seven-forty, Jackson sat at her desk in the Six-Two squad room. She fingered some precinct crime reports, scanning them perfunctorily, initialing them with an absent mind.

Her mother. Priscilla shook her head slightly, frowning at Karen’s continued insistence on a reconnection.

“Can’t reconnect somethin’ never was connected to begin with,” she said softly.

In the chaos that had been her childhood, the one facet of Priscilla’s character and personality that had proven instrumental to her ultimate survival had been her deeply ingrained pragmatism. At an age when most young girls were hanging posters of pop stars and gossiping on the telephone, she had been dealing with her mother’s alcoholism and all its inherent baggage. Priscilla had soon come to a self-preserving conclusion: the act of birthing a child was merely the physical manifestation of the biological rules of nature. In and of itself, it conferred no special powers or privileges, talents or virtues. It was the simple culmination of an earlier physical act, unrelated and even alien to any professed blessings of maternal love.

An actual mother, Priscilla realized, was a woman who loved you unconditionally, stood by you, taught you, nurtured you. A woman who would never abandon or hurt you by virtue of careless acts of indifference and selfish neglect.

By Priscilla’s definition, the reality of her own life was that she never had a mother. Not as a child, not as an adolescent. And certainly not as an adult.

Priscilla sighed heavily. Her partner, she realized, could never come to such a conclusion about her own life. Karen had bestowed the magical, mystical qualities of a child’s love upon the woman who had given her birth. She could never understand the consequences-the torment, the anguish, the agony-Wanda Jackson’s maternal failures had imposed.

An empty coldness spread slowly within Priscilla’s chest, memories straining beneath veils of darkness, struggling to reach her consciousness. She willed them away, forcing them into the abyss of the deepest corner of her soul.

“Fuck it,” she said aloud, bitterly.

“Fuck what?” she heard.

Raising her eyes, she found herself looking into the curious face of Joe Rizzo. He stood at her desk, his approach having gone unnoticed.

“You okay, Cil?” Rizzo asked, concern tugging at his tone. “You look like you just swallowed a rotten clam.”

She shook her head, clearing it. “These freakin’ precinct reports,” she said, indicating the papers before her. “Pain in my ass readin’ all this, signing off on ’em like it makes a rat’s ass bit of difference if I see them or not.”

Rizzo’s face remained impassive, and Priscilla realized he didn’t believe her answer. “Okay,” he said. “What ever you say.”

Later, Priscilla watched as Vince D’Antonio crossed the squad room to Rizzo’s desk and sat down, conferring briefly with her partner.

Rizzo raised his eyes in her direction, meeting her gaze. He gestured across the room, summoning her. Priscilla rose and walked to his desk.

“Pull up a chair,” Rizzo said. “We need to work out some details.”

She slid a chair from the unoccupied desk near Rizzo’s and sat down. “Mornin’, boss,” she said to D’Antonio.

“Good morning,” the lieutenant said. “I just need a few minutes to get this straight. Rizzo tells me you’re going to interview Lauria’s cousin tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Priscilla said. “The M.E. released the body and she’s tied up making funeral arrangements.”

D’Antonio turned to Rizzo. “Refresh my memory: What’s your schedule look like?”

“Later today I’ve gotta be at court for a grand jury thing. Tomorrow we got the cousin, then me and Cil are RDO till we start midnights Sunday into Monday, then midnights all next week. Tough to work a homicide from midnight to eight, Vince. Some people like to sleep those hours.”

D’Antonio considered it. “Look, let’s do this. I’ll reschedule you both for steady days to work the Lauria case. Take RDOs Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. After your interview of the cousin, prepare a laundry list of grunt work you figure needs doing-license plates, phone reviews, and junkie roundup. Somebody needs to check out the relatives of the landlord, see if there’s a potential perp among them. I’ll have the squad handle it all while you’re RDO, then DD-five the results for you by Monday morning. You come in fresh and go to work.”

Rizzo shrugged. “Monday I’ve got to be at the range, Vince. I already postponed it twice and if I don’t requalify, they rubber gun me and stick me on a desk. I can’t work a homicide from a desk.”

“So, Tuesday then,” D’Antonio said. “On Monday Cil can review the reports of what the squad got done and work the phones to follow up. Then Tuesday you both hit the streets on it.”

“I never seen this happen on television, guys,” Priscilla said with a tight smile. “Not even once.”

“Yeah, well,” said Rizzo. “The world don’t stop turning ’cause two cops caught a homicide. Only people who think that are the ones putting those shows on. And you’ll have to use Monday for more than just Lauria. That counterfeit prescription case, for instance. Those phony Rx’s are turning up all over the borough. Try and get a lead on that girl who worked in the doctor’s office for two weeks, then disappeared. We find her, we find our stolen script pads and our writer.”

Priscilla stood up. “Okay, Joe, what now?”

D’Antonio also stood. “I’ll leave you guys alone. Talk to the cousin. Get me that list of things you need done. The squad’ll pitch in.”

He turned and crossed the room to his office.

The following morning, a cold gray November day, with heavy, dark clouds and the faint scent of a threatening early snowfall, the two detectives were speeding eastbound on the Belt Parkway, Priscilla at the wheel.

Closing the note pad he had been scanning, Rizzo said to Priscilla, “Vince means well, but the squad won’t accomplish nothin’ over the next three days.”

Priscilla glanced at Rizzo. “Oh? Why’s that?”

“Well, for one thing, checking out plate numbers is a waste of time. Only reason for it is to see if some out-of-neighborhood car was parked near the scene, maybe the killer’s car. But those plate numbers were taken November tenth, after the body was layin’ in the apartment ten, twelve days. It don’t mean a goddamned thing whose car was parked where on the tenth. We need to know who was there the date of the murder.”

“A date we don’t even know,” Priscilla said.

“Yeah, exactly.”

“Well, what about Lauria’s phone record?” Priscilla asked. “Vince said the squad would get it for us.”

“Yeah. That might help, but I doubt it. We’ll see.”

“Maybe,” Priscilla said tentatively, “we should cancel our RDOs, come in the next few days.”

Rizzo shook his head. “No, let the squad do some of the work, it won’t kill them. It has to be done, even if it won’t help us. I especially don’t want to do the junkie roundup. Let them handle it. After I qualify at the range Monday, we can focus on Lauria. One day at a time.”

“What ever you think, Joe.”

They rode in silence until they reached the house in Canarsie. It was a two-story, semiattached one-family home. The house was neatly kept with a concrete driveway on the left side leading to a detached one-car garage.

Priscilla glanced at the dash clock. “Right on time,” she said. It was eleven a.m.

MaryAnn Carbone, Robert Lauria’s first cousin, was a thirty-eight-year-old house wife and part-time school aide. She was expecting them, and once the three were seated at the large kitchen table, Rizzo spoke across to the sad-eyed woman.

“We’ll try not to take up too much of your time, Mrs. Carbone,” he said. “Just some routine questions.”

“Of course,” she said. “I understand. I hope I can help somehow. .. I wish my husband were here.” Her voice trailed off. “It’s just unbelievable. I mean, you hear about this stuff, read about it… but…”

“Yes,” Priscilla said. “It’s a shock. We understand.”

Carbone nodded. Then she said, “I can call my husband, if you’d like. He can be here in fifteen minutes.”

Rizzo cleared his throat, slipping the Parker from his inner jacket pocket and flipping open his note pad.

“Hold off on that,” he said. “We’ll call him later if we need to. Let’s get started. We’ll ask some questions, you answer as best you can, okay?”

Still silent, the woman nodded again.

“When was the last time you saw Robbie?” he asked.

“About two months ago, maybe. No, wait, I went to his place around Columbus Day, that weekend. My internist is in Benson-hurst, and I was in the area, so I stopped in to see Robbie.”

Rizzo glanced at the calendar page of his notebook, then raised his eyes to Mrs. Carbone.

“Columbus Day was celebrated Monday, October thirteenth. When did you see the doctor? Saturday, the eleventh?”

She thought for a moment. “It must have been. He doesn’t have hours on Sunday, just half-days on Saturday. It must have been.”

“How was Robbie that day?”

“He was Robbie,” she said. “He was always the same. Quiet. Polite. In his pajamas, by himself.” She sighed. “He was just Robbie.”

“I see,” Rizzo said.

“Did he have anyone in his life who could have done this to him, Mrs. Carbone?” Priscilla asked. “A friend, an acquaintance, a coworker-anyone like that?”

Carbone seemed confused, glancing from one cop to the other.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “I thought it was a break-in. A burglar.”

“Who told you that?” Rizzo asked.

“The young cop who came here. He told me there was a break-in and that Robbie had been killed.”

Priscilla nodded. “That’s what it looks like, ma’am.”

“But you don’t seem to be convinced,” she said.

Rizzo interjected. “We need to check all the possibilities, Mrs. Carbone,” he said. “Did your cousin have anyone like that? Anyone who could’ve gotten mad at him, mad enough to kill?”

She shook her head forcefully. “Absolutely not. Robbie was a lost soul, Sergeant. As far as I know, he didn’t have a single friend, not since he was a young boy. The only kids he ever played with were me and my brother and another cousin or two.”

Rizzo jotted a note, then raised his eyes to Carbone. “Has your brother stayed in touch with Robbie?” he asked.

“My brother hasn’t seen Robbie in ten years.”

“Oh?” Rizzo said.

“My brother’s in the Air Force, Sergeant. Has been for over twenty years. He’s currently stationed in the Middle East in Kuwait. He’s been there for six months.”

“What’s your brother’s name?” Rizzo asked.

“My brother didn’t murder Robbie, Sergeant Rizzo,” she said without anger.

“Of course not,” Rizzo agreed. “I just want to give him a call. In Kuwait. Ask him a few questions, like I’m doin’ here with you.”

The woman laughed. “ Non mi pisciare sulla gamba e poi dirmi che sta piovendo, ” she said.

Now Rizzo replied in kind. “ Non farei mai una cosa del genere, Signora Carbone, ” he said casually.

The woman appeared stunned. “Oh. I didn’t realize you spoke… you would understand…”

Rizzo waved a casual hand at her.

“Forget it,” he said pleasantly. “Happens all the time, but I’d like your brother’s name and contact info, if you don’t mind. And those other cousins you mentioned, and maybe you should call your husband now.”

“I’ll get it for you, and call him. He can be here in a few minutes,” she said, still flustered. She stood and quickly left the room.

Priscilla leaned inward toward Rizzo. “What’d she say?” she asked in low tones.

Smiling, Rizzo replied. “She said, ‘Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining,’ ” he said happily. “I told her I’d never do anything like that.”

Priscilla laughed. “I’ve heard that expression,” she said. “Sounds a lot classier in Italian, though.”

Rizzo chuckled. “Cil,” he said with a wink, “ everything is classier in Italian.”

When Mrs. Carbone returned, calmer now, they continued their questioning.

“How often did you see your cousin?” Rizzo asked.

“Not very often. Holidays, mostly. Robbie would come here.” Her eyes filled with tears. “He was supposed to be coming for Thanksgiving.”

“Was he ever married?”

“No. I don’t think he ever even had a girlfriend.”

“Was he heterosexual?” Jackson asked.

Carbone raised her shoulders. “Well,” she said, “if I had to guess, I’d say he was-what’da you call it?-no sexual?”

“Asexual,” Priscilla said.

“Yes. Maybe that. I don’t know. But definitely not queer. I’d have known that. I can always spot them.”

“How’d he spend his time?” Rizzo asked, with a glance at Priscilla. “Any hobbies, interests, anything like that?”

She looked from one to the other, settling her gaze on Rizzo, but avoiding eye contact.

“No,” she said, a casual lilt in her tone. “Not that I know of.”

Priscilla leaned forward. “What about his writing, Mrs. Carbone?” she asked pointedly.

The woman seemed surprised. “Oh, that… You know about that?”

“Yeah, we do,” Rizzo said. “We found a suitcase full of manuscripts in his closet. They date back over twenty years.”

Jackson spoke up. “And a shoe box of rejection slips, too. In his dresser drawer.”

Rizzo tapped his pen against the note pad. “You know, Mrs. Carbone, your obligation to Robbie is to help us out here. We can’t be pullin’ teeth on every little detail. You’ve gotta help us find out who killed him, not protect secrets that died with him. Anything from his personal life could be relevant if he was killed deliberately and not by a random burglar. I been doin’ this a long time, Mrs. Carbone, and even I can’t guess what may or may not be important. So please, don’t you try. Just answer our questions as fully as you can. Okay?”

“Of course,” she said. “I understand. But Robbie told no one about his writing. Only me. It was a very personal thing for him, a secret.”

Priscilla spoke warmly, trying to establish a bond of trust with the woman. “Well, that speaks highly for you. I know how private a thing like that can be. Believe me. He must have respected you a great deal to confide in you like he did.”

“I’m not sure about that, Detective Jackson,” Carbone said with a sad smile. “Robbie liked me, of course, and in his own way, maybe he loved me. I was really his only relative. No one else in the family has seen or spoken to him in years, except for the occasional holiday when they may have seen him at my house.”

“Well, believe me,” Priscilla said, “if he let you in on his writing, he had to think you were very special.”

Carbone dipped her head from side to side. “Personally, Detective Jackson, I think it was more about storage space than anything else.”

“Oh?” Rizzo asked. “What do you mean?”

“Well, Robbie needed a place to safeguard his manuscripts. See, in addition to his other idiosyncrasies, he was a little paranoid, always worrying that his apartment might burn down and his writings would be destroyed. So he’d bring copies of his works here. For safekeeping. That’s probably the only reason he told me about his writing.”

Priscilla spoke. “So you have some of his belongings here, in the house?”

“Well, not really belongings. Just manuscripts, stories, stuff like that.” She looked from one cop to the other. “They’re in the garage. In an old suitcase.”

After a moment of silence, Mrs. Carbone continued. “It’s so sad,” she said, her eyes welling up again. “Robbie wasn’t a bad guy, just odd. But he was family.” She looked from Rizzo to Jackson. “And that’s what’s important, you know.”

They nodded at her, remaining silent.

“My kids called him uncle. Uncle Robbie. He liked that. Even my husband, who doesn’t trust anybody, was comfortable with Robbie being around the kids. You know, these days… sometimes with relatives. .. But Robbie was just a big, dopey, gentle guy who didn’t want anything out of life except to see his name on the cover of a book someday.

“You know,” she said sheepishly, “I have to admit, I was curious and I went out to the garage one day. I read some of Robbie’s stories.” She shrugged. “I’m not much of a reader, I’d rather see a movie or what ever, but I have to say they seemed pretty good to me. I don’t know, maybe if he had had some guidance… I think he just didn’t know how to go about it. Getting himself published, I mean. Maybe if someone had helped him… Who knows.”

With a sigh, she went on. “Or maybe he just aimed too high. Imagine? The guy couldn’t even hold a menial job for more than a year or two at a time. And he aimed too high.” Resignation came to her eyes. “Imagine that?”

After nearly an hour of further questioning Carbone and her newly arrived husband, the two detectives made their way down the concrete driveway toward the detached garage. Wispy snowflakes floated before their eyes, the sky growing darker, the air crisper.

“Last winter was bad enough,” Rizzo said. “Now it’s gonna start snowin’ before Thanksgiving?”

“They’re just flurries, Joe, relax. But I gotta ask, why are we checking out here? We already saw this stuff, in his apartment. These are just copies.”

Rizzo glanced at her as they reached the garage. He raised the borrowed key, unlocking the weathered doors.

“Remember Tucci, Cil? That kid who got shot in the foot? Remember him?” he asked, swinging one hinged door open.

“Yeah, I remember,” she answered. “What?”

Rizzo reached into the garage, throwing a switch and flooding the musty interior with bright, buzzing fluorescent light.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “We were all set to call out the cavalry, pushin’ Vince to get a sketch artist, remember? Then Vince tells us to talk to the vic first, get the whole story before we start draftin’ help. And what happened next? The vic turned us on to that dental angle, we followed it up and made the case.”

“Okay,” Priscilla said with a nod. “And this is like that how?”

Rizzo looked around the garage. No car was present on the worn, oil-stained concrete floor, the parking area surrounded by sundry family items and outdoor furniture stored for winter.

“We’re doin’ it by the book, Cil. Bein’ thorough. Just because Carbone told us there’s nothing here but copies of manuscripts don’t necessarily make it so. Let’s take a look and make sure.”

He turned to face her. “Thoroughness,” he said. “Ga-peesha?”

“Yeah, Joe,” she said. “I ga-peesh.”

Minutes later, the two detectives were seated on the cold concrete floor, another old suitcase open before them. They leafed slowly through its contents.

Rizzo thumbed through a thin, weathered manuscript, the pages stapled together. He knitted his brows.

“Hey, Cil,” he said. “In that other suitcase, the one we found at Lauria’s place, were there any plays?”

Priscilla looked up from the book-length manuscript she was examining, a duplicate of one she had seen at Lauria’s.

She shook her head. “No. Why?”

Rizzo held the pages in his hand out to her. “Look at this,” he said. “It’s a play Lauria wrote. I didn’t see anything like this in his closet.”

Priscilla took the script from him and skimmed through some pages. Minutes later, she whistled softly and raised her eyes.

“Jesus,” she said. “This is strange.”

“What?” Rizzo asked, looking up from another manuscript.

“This play, the play that wasn’t in the suitcase in Lauria’s apartment.” She held it out to him.

Rizzo dropped the papers he’d been examining onto the floor and took the play back from Priscilla and began to read.

“What about it?” he asked.

“I’m not sure. Give me a few minutes, let me read this from page one.”

“Knock yourself out,” Rizzo replied, shrugging. “I’ll write up my notes on the Carbone interview while you read.” He handed the stack of pages back to Priscilla.

After twenty minutes, Priscilla called to him, her dark eyes wide and sparkling in the bright light of the small garage.

“Remember I told you me and Karen saw that Broadway play, the last play Avery Mallard wrote? The Pulitzer Prize winner who was murdered eleven, twelve days ago?”

Rizzo’s eyes narrowed. He dropped his gaze from Priscilla and looked down to the pages in her hand.

“Yeah, I remember that.”

Priscilla laid a hand on his forearm. She leaned in closer.

“This is the fuckin’ play,” she said. “The same play me and Karen saw on Broadway.”

She pointed to the top page of the script. “Look at the date, Joe.”

Rizzo looked to the inscription in what he recognized to be Lauria’s handwriting, then raised his eyes to meet hers. “Over three years ago,” he said.

“I’m almost sure of this,” she said. “The characters have different names, there’s no love interest like the Mallard play has, and it’s set in New York, not Atlanta. But it’s the same story, the same conflicts, the same ending. Hell, even a lot of the same dialogue.” She handed it to Rizzo. “That in your hand is Mallard’s play, Joe.”

Rizzo fingered the pages. “Or, if you’re right, Mallard’s play is Lauria’s.” His eyes narrowed. “What the fuck, Cil?” he asked.

“I don’t know. But I’ve read about Mallard. He came off a long dry spell with this play. He told Charlie Rose he wrote it over a two-month span while he was in the Hamptons, maybe two years ago. Those pages in your hand are dated a year earlier than that. Shit, the play’s only been runnin’ a couple of months, three at the most.”

Rizzo scratched his head, then rubbed at his right eye to soothe the nervous tic as he spoke.

“Coincidence? One play. Two separate murders within a few days of each other. Maybe both vics tied to the play.”

He touched lightly at Priscilla’s cheek.

“There ain’t no coincidences like that, Partner,” he said.

Then, reaching for the last of his cigarettes, he dropped the play back into the open suitcase.

“No fuckin’ way,” he said.