They Disappeared

17

Manhattan, New York City

Nearly four miles south of where Jeff Griffin stood, Sheri Dalfini was on the brink.

At any moment this redheaded piece of work from the Bronx was going to give up something. Brewer was sure of it as he turned the laptop so she could see the arson-homicide photographs.

A little visual aid.

The two figures in the pictures were barely recognizable as human. Amid the two black masses there was a piece of shirt here, a shoe there, something that looked like a hand.

Sheri’s gasp bounced off the walls of the interview room at One Police Plaza where Brewer had been questioning her relentlessly since they’d released Griffin. Brewer was using a different strategy with her than he’d used with Griffin.

“Take a good, long look, Sheri,” Brewer said, “because if you don’t start telling me what I need to know, things are going to get real bad for you.”

Brewer showed her slide after slide.

The victims looked like charcoal mannequins. Their hair and facial features had been burned off, leaving split skin and white teeth exposed in a death grimace.

“Who are these people, Sheri?”

She shook her head.

“Where are Sarah and Cole Griffin?”

She continued shaking her head, frustrating Brewer.

“We’re talking about charges with four victims, Sheri-two dead and two missing.”

Tears began rolling down her face.

“You’re not telling me everything you know.” Brewer shoved two sticks of gum into his mouth and stared at her impassively. She was something, all right, with that explosion of red hair, the T-shirt with the pit bull and the Harley. Butterflies, flowers, dragons and angel warriors swirled along her arms. Brewer never got the tattoo craze and never would.

While Sheri sniffled at the crime scene pictures he resumed flipping through his folder on Sheri Marie Dalfini, age twenty-nine, born in Brooklyn, married to Donald Dean Dalfini, age thirty-four. Two children: Benjamin, age eight, and Saleena, age five.

Sheri’s occupation: mostly salesclerk. Donnie had been a factory worker at the Jebzite Foundry where they made sledgehammers before he was laid off about six months ago.

Sheri and Donnie were known to the police.

When she was nineteen Sheri was charged with shoplifting cosmetics. The charges were later dismissed. When she was twenty-two Sheri was charged with felony credit card fraud. She’d bought concert tickets, clothes and jewelry from someone who’d obtained them with a stolen credit card. Again, the charges were dismissed.

As for Donnie, two years ago he was charged with assault after beating up a guy outside a bar in the Bronx. Donnie claimed self-defense. The case against him was dropped.

The handgun at Sheri’s home was registered to Rosie Dalfini, Donnie’s mother. Sheri said Donnie wanted it in the house because they feared the people who stole their SUV might come after their family.

The SUV, the white 2010 GMC Terrain, was the key.

Brewer’s task force was alerted as soon as the SUV had emerged in Sarah and Cole Griffin’s abduction. And when the Brooklyn patrol unit saw it ablaze a few hours later, a second alarm sounded.

The Dalfini SUV was listed with scores of stolen vehicles suspected of being tied to the major organized-crime operation under investigation by the task force. The operation involved a mind-boggling number of local, state, federal and international law enforcement agencies. It went far beyond stolen cars, and had been designated a classified priority reaching the highest levels of government security and secrecy.

As tragic as the abductions and homicides were, they had yielded Brewer his first solid leads.

Sheri and Donnie Dalfini were critical to advancing those leads, Brewer was certain of it. Clicking his pen and chewing his gum, he reread the file. Something about this pair didn’t sit right.

Brewer saw a tiny red flag that went back almost a year.

At that time, Donnie had made an insurance claim after reporting that a large flat-screen valued at three thousand dollars was stolen from their home. He had a receipt from the New Jersey store where he’d said he’d purchased it. The store had since closed down, but while verification of the purchase was difficult, the insurance company paid out on the claim.

Not long after the payout, the New York State Insurance Frauds Bureau got an anonymous tip that Donnie had bought the TV at a garage sale in Connecticut for three hundred dollars, had staged the burglary and submitted a false claim. An investigation by Frauds Bureau investigators from General Unit was inconclusive, but Donnie Dalfini’s file was flagged.

They were watching him.

Some six months ago, at the time Donnie lost his job, he and Sheri purchased a fully loaded 2010 GMC Terrain for $34,391. The financing they got, based on Sheri’s job, meant high monthly payments, on top of all of their other bills.

It made no sense.

Not the brightest people in the Bronx, Brewer thought, unless they had a plan, some sort of scheme.

Three weeks ago, they reported the SUV stolen from the parking lot at the Neverpoint Mall. Donnie made an insurance claim. While it was being processed, the Insurance Frauds Bureau’s Auto Unit was alerted and the SUV was flagged as a potential fraudulent claim. The NYPD Auto Crime and Insurance Fraud Unit were notified. That unit then alerted Brewer’s joint task force.

And now here they were, with Brewer losing it with Sheri.

“Where are Sarah and Cole Griffin?”

“I told you, I don’t know.”

“Who are the dead people in the picture?”

“I don’t know. Why do you keep asking me the same thing? I told you everything I know from the moment the police came to my home and asked me to come down here and help answer questions about our stolen SUV.”

“We keep going around in circles.”

“Maybe I should have a lawyer?”

“You waived your rights when we brought you in.”

“That was when I thought you were treating me as a victim and not someone who is part of-part of this! Oh, Jesus, let me go home and see my kids.”

“How do you know Jeff Griffin?”

“He’s a freakin’ stranger to me. I told you what happened.”

“Where’s Donnie?”

“I told you, he’s looking for a job in New Jersey.”

“Did Donnie kill the people in the SUV?”

“No. He’s in New Jersey.”

“Where? The numbers you gave us don’t seem to work?”

“Bayonne, or Elizabeth. I don’t know.”

“Does he have Sarah and Cole?”

“God, no! We got nothing to do with that shit!”

Pages snapped as Brewer flipped through the file again. His jawline started throbbing.

“Do you know what insurance investigators at the State Frauds Bureau found out after you made the claim for the SUV?”

“How would I know?”

“They found that just before the claim you had an extra key made.”

“So?”

“Mall security cameras show you touching a wheel before leaving the vehicle and then an unidentified suspect touching the same spot before driving off with it.”

Sheri said nothing, then flinched when Brewer’s hand whip-slapped on the table.

“We know what you and Donnie did! We know you staged the theft!” Brewer stood and raised his voice. “Listen good, Sheri. As we speak we’re preparing to execute search warrants at your house in the morning. You will be charged in connection with two homicides and the kidnappings of Sarah and Cole Griffin. You will sleep in a holding cell tonight, you will not go home and you will never see your kids again.”

Sheri didn’t move.

“Now, you can bring in a lawyer and we’ll call the D.A. and prepare charges. Or, you can tell me who else is involved, help us and we’ll tell the D.A. you’re being cooperative. Sheri, you’re facing a world of trouble and this is your last chance, the only way you can help yourself. Our offer is going to expire in about five minutes.”

Sheri was frozen.

“Do you understand what’s at stake for you? This is the end of the road for you, Sheri Marie Dalfini. You’re going to prison.”

She stared through Brewer to a lifetime of hard living, a lifetime of mistakes, bad choices and anguish. She couldn’t take it anymore. Her chin began to quiver. Brewer had played his hand and at this point he’d let her have the quiet. The life she’d had, as sorry as it was, was over.

He had her.

“I told Donnie it was stupid for us to buy that goddamned SUV. We couldn’t afford it. But no, he had to have it. He said he needed it after losing his job at the foundry so he wouldn’t look like a loser.”

Brewer slid a box of tissues to her.

“The payments were too much. We had to go to his mother for money, then for food. When it finally sunk in with Donnie, he started asking some of his asshole friends at the bar about people who could help us out of our jam.

“He found a guy who would pay us two thousand for the SUV if we left it in the lot. He’d make it disappear, then we could make the insurance claim and still be ahead to pay off some bills.”

“Who is this guy?”

“I don’t know.”

“Think!”

“I can’t remember his name exactly, but after the SUV was gone, Donnie never got the money. Donnie couldn’t find the guy. Donnie’s friends warned Donnie not to mess with the guy, to shut up about the money, which we would never see, and that if we told anybody we’d be ratted out to insurance. That’s when Donnie got scared and got his mother’s gun.

“Then out of the blue, friends get word to Donnie that the guy that owes him the money has a one-time high-paying job, or something, that was yesterday.”

“Is this the Bayonne or Elizabeth thing?”

“I don’t know, because I haven’t heard from Donnie since the day before yesterday. I don’t know nothing and I can’t find Donnie. We got bill collectors calling, then this Montana guy scares me to death by showing up at our home looking for his wife and kid and I’m losing my freakin’ mind and now our SUV is-” Sheri began choking on her words “-and those people in the pictures and, Jesus, I don’t know anything…I swear.”

“Who, Sheri?” Brewer said. “Who is the guy that Donnie went to work for, the guy who owed him for the SUV? Give us the names of the people involved, the people who wanted your SUV.”

Brewer slid a pad and freshly sharpened pencil toward her.

“Give us names and if they’re real I’ll do all I can to help you.”

Sheri nodded, brushed the tears from her cheeks, took up the pencil.

“I don’t know-I’m not sure of the spellings.”

“Give us what you can.”

As her tears stained the paper she began printing, slowly and carefully.