Blood of My Brother (15 page)

On the evening of December 14, Angelo Perna and his brother Sam, in separate cars, picked up Jay Cassio and Frank Dunn at Miami International Airport, returning in one car to El Pulpo, Sam’s restaurant in Little Havana, leaving the other for the Jersey guys to use. The next day, Angelo caught the last three races at Hialeah with Miami PD homicide detective Gary Shaw, his friend of many years. Afterward, over drinks at the Paddock, a nearby bar, Angelo asked Shaw for an update on the Del Colliano case, first telling him that his detective buddy, Frank Dunn, and a lawyer, Jay Cassio, both good friends of the victim, were in Florida and were hoping to be filled in on the case.

“Why can’t the Jersey people call Miami Beach?” Shaw asked.

“There’s no case in Jersey. The Powers thing was closed out as murder-suicide.”

“Why are these two guys here?”

“I don’t know,” Angelo answered. “Fish, swim, play the horses.”

“Will you be helping them with all that?”

“Yes. I’ll be like a tour guide.”

“Fuck.”

Angelo remained silent, eyeing his friend, whose dark brown face was lined with thirty years of a cop’s worries. Shaw’s pale eyes, set in this face like amber or opal jewels, were half-lidded, as always, vaguely contemptuous, wary of the human frailty he saw all around him.

“Does Dunn know what he’s doing?” Shaw asked.

“Yes,” Angelo answered. “He’s a good cop.”

“What about the lawyer?”

“Dunn says he’s smart, and a good kid, but of course he doesn’t know shit.”

Angelo had been smiling during most of this conversation, grunting after each sip of beer, as was his habit, but he rearranged his face after this last statement. The first time he asked Shaw for information about the Del Colliano murder he didn’t mention the close connection between the Jersey private eye and his friend Frank Dunn, who he had gone through the police academy with in New York in 1968. Now he had no choice. Dunn would be off the reservation in Florida, illegally flashing his Jersey ID on someone else’s turf. He and Shaw both figured Del Colliano’s murder to be drug related, connected to one of the Mexican cartels that were running wild along the border and doing increasingly lucrative business in South Florida. These cartels had an army of killers at their disposal. So Shaw needed to know.

“Is there something you’re not telling me?” Shaw asked.

Shaw, Angelo knew, was planning on retiring at the end of the following year. The last thing he needed was any kind of a jam at this point in his life. Dunn or Cassio, or worse, a civilian, getting hurt or killed, with a trail leading back to Shaw, could cause him a lot of heartache.

“There was another murder in Jersey last week,” Angelo replied. “Dunn and Cassio believe the victim had ID’d two Mexican punks who they think killed Del Colliano and the
rich guy and his wife. They say it’s obvious, yet the Powers case is closed. That’s why they’re interested in the status of the case down here.”

“Where are they now?” Shaw asked.

The check had arrived. Picking it up, Angelo said, “This is on me. You picked nothing but losers today.” He took a twenty dollar bill out of his wallet and put in on the table.

“I guess you’re not telling me where they are,” said Shaw.

“I don’t know,” Angelo replied. “I just have a cell number.”

“Is someone in law enforcement looking for them, Ange?”

“They haven’t broken any laws,” Angelo answered.

“That you know of.”

“Correct.”

“How close are you to Dunn?”

“We’re close. Like you and me.”

“I’ll call you,” Shaw said. “Tell your friends to be careful. We don’t want any more Jersey guys killed down here. It’s bad for the tourist industry.”

Larry Warner, the detective who handled the Del Colliano case, had since had open-heart surgery and retired to New Mexico. Gary Shaw did not consider that he knew or trusted anyone else at the Miami Beach PD well enough to simply call and ask for the status of a case, especially now that the two Jersey guys would be in the area doing their own investigating. He would need an excuse, and, luckily, he was handed one on his drive home after his drink with Angelo. Over his police radio came word that one of his squad’s informants, a heroin addict named Princess Di—he was a transvestite as well—had been found dead in the street that afternoon in the Overtown section of Miami. The uniformed cop who was dispatched to the scene, recognizing the Princess and knowing his role, notified Shaw’s squad desk after getting him into an ambulance. One of Shaw’s detectives later went to the morgue to identify the body, and it was his call back to the desk, confirming that the deceased was in fact the Princess, that Shaw overheard.

That same detective had pulled Princess Di in, on a pretense, two days earlier, to question him about a triple homicide that had occurred in Shaw’s district the week before. While the Princess was at headquarters, Shaw had spent a
few minutes alone with him. Jumpy, needing a fix, the addict claimed to know nothing about the triple killing, which was thought to be drug related. Shaw had known the Princess for ten years, had observed him as he pathetically changed wigs each time the real Princess Di changed her hairstyle. He had hoped that if he sat alone with him, he could get something coherent from him, but that did not happen.

When he arrived at his office the next morning, Shaw put a call into Miami Beach, and asked to speak to the detective handling the Del Colliano homicide. A few minutes passed before he was connected to a Detective Ron Hernandez.

“Lieutenant Shaw?” said Hernandez, “what can I do for you?”

“Actually,” said Shaw, “I have something for you. How’s Larry Warner doing, by the way?”

“He’s well, pretty much recovered.”

“Does he call you guys?”

“Once in a while I have to call him.”

“Tell him I said hello. We went through rookie training together about a hundred years ago.”

“I will.”

“I’ll tell you why I called,” Shaw said. “I was interrogating a snitch a few days ago, an addict. He mentioned something about ‘the Italian dude from Jersey, with all the cash, who was offed on the Beach.’ It didn’t ring a bell at the time, but then I remembered the case from talking to Larry a couple of times, so I thought I’d pass it on. What’s up with the case?”

“What’s the snitch’s name?”

“He goes by the name Princess Di. He’s a transvestite.”

“Does he have an address?”

“Not really, but he’s always around.”

“Hold on. Let me get the jacket.”

A minute or two passed, and then Hernandez returned to the phone.

“Lieutenant Shaw?”

“Yes.”

“It says here, ‘Case taken over by FBI. Jurisdiction: Title 14. No further activity without authority of Special Agent Chris Markey, Newark Field Office, phone: 201-533-1333. Capt. Jankowski, 10/5/04.’”

“Are any of your people detailed?”

“It doesn’t say.”

“There’s no task force?”

“It doesn’t look like it.”

“Okay, I thought I’d pass this on.”

“Thanks. I’ll call Markey. Can you pick up the snitch if he wants us to talk to him?”

“Sure. Like I said, he’s always around.”

Shaw hung up and went to work reviewing the
State v. Taylor
file, a case that was currently being tried in the Dade County Circuit Court, and that would require his testimony, he was told, that afternoon. The case involved the killing, by contract, of a nine-year-old boy who had witnessed a murder. The assistant prosecutor who was trying the case had prepped him thoroughly over the past two weeks, but Shaw wanted to leave nothing to chance. While he was reading, one of his detectives, a woman named Naomi Teller, popped in to tell him that Princess Di had been found dead the day before, that it looked like an overdose, or bad dope, with no signs of violence. “We’ll talk about it at the squad meeting,” he said, returning to his file.

At around eleven o’clock, his phone rang, and Shaw was told by the desk clerk that an Agent Phil Gatti of the DEA was on the line.

“Agent Gatti,” he said after picking up his phone. “Gary Shaw here.”

“Lieutenant Shaw, Phil Gatti. How are you?”

“Good. I’m good. What can I do for you?”

“It’s about this informant of yours, Princess Di?”

“Right. I spoke to Detective Hernandez this morning.”

“Right. I just got off the phone with Chris Markey. We’re on an FBI/DEA task force that he’s in charge of. He’s in Houston. He’s booked on a flight that gets him into Miami tonight at seven. He’d like to meet with you, and the informant, tonight, if possible.”

“The informant’s dead. I just found out a few minutes ago.”

“Christ. What happened?”

“OD. No violence.”

“Well, Markey may still want to talk to you. One of us will get back to you.”

Shaw did testify that afternoon, and it did not go well. The case against the shooter was over. He had received a life sentence with no possibility of parole. But he was not talking. As a result, the case against the defendant then on trial, who was in jail, awaiting trial on the original murder charge when the boy was killed, was difficult to prove. It hinged on a statement from a rival gang member, whose trial testimony that morning was weak. Shaw had taken a meticulous statement from this witness after interviewing him over the course of several days. He was also in jail at the time, and no promises were made. Something must have spooked him, because on the witness stand, he went about 90 percent into the tank. Shaw was called by the state to, in effect, impeach its own witness. Given the rival gang member’s imprecision on the stand, the defendant’s lawyer was hard on Shaw, accusing him throughout his cross-examination
of coercing the witness into making a false statement.

Disgusted, praying that the judge would not throw the case out, Shaw returned to the Homicide Bureau to find a message that FBI Agent Chris Markey had called and asked to be called back at his hotel in Houston. Shaw was spent, but he called Markey.

“Agent Markey?”

“Yes.”

“Gary Shaw, Miami PD.”

“Hello, Lieutenant. Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. How are you?”

“I’ve been better. We have a guy on trial for ordering the killing of a nine-year-old kid—he witnessed a shooting—and it looks like the bad guy may walk.”

“Jesus.”

“Right.”

“Is Jack Kendall still the head of homicide?”

“Yes. Do you know him?”

“We were on a task force a few years ago. Give him my regards.”

“I will.”

“Tell me about Princess Di.”

“A heroin addict, very bad, especially in the last year or two. No help anymore, really. He mentioned something that I connected to the killing of the Jersey PI in Miami Beach.”

“What did he say exactly?”

“I was asking him about a triple murder here. He said he knew nothing. He’s sweating and swooning. He pops up and says, ‘the Italian dude from Jersey, with all the cash, you want them?’ I pressed him, but he’s a total mess, getting delirious. I didn’t know what he was talking about. We released him.
Then I remembered talking to Larry Warner when the case went down. So I called Miami Beach.”

“Was there any mention of the cash in the newspapers?”

“I have no idea.”

“I don’t think it was revealed.”

Shaw said nothing, surprised at Markey’s intensity, and wondering where this was going.

“What was Princess Di’s real name?”

“We think he was born Alan Douglas, in New York City.”

“Did he have family, friends?”

“He was a junkie. They don’t have friends, just people they get high with. I don’t know of any family.”

“Where did he live?”

“Sometimes he slept in the back of a beauty parlor in Overtown. The owner’s also a queen.”

“What’s the address of the beauty parlor?”

“It’s called Dixie’s Do’s. It’s on Thirty-sixth Avenue.”

“What do you know about Little Havana?”

“The usual.”

“Have you ever put anyone undercover there?” Markey asked.

“Yes. When I was working drugs.”

“How did it go?”

“We did well. But drug buyers and sellers are the same everywhere. It’s the rest of the community that’s hard to crack.”

“Do you have somebody we can put in there now?”

“On what?”

“This Del Colliano thing.”

“You’ll have to talk to Kendall about that.”

“Of course. Do you have any contacts in the community?”

“No, I don’t. Who are you looking for?”

“The woman. The Latin beauty.”

“You think she’s in Little Havana?”

“There’s a good chance she is.”

“Well, if Kendall wants me to help, I’m here.”

“Thanks. I’ll call Jack.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Good luck with your trial.”

“Thanks. We’ll need it.”

While Gary Shaw was talking to Agent Markey, Jay and Dunn were pulling into the parking lot of the South Miami Beach Motor Hotel. They had stopped by earlier that day, but the clerk who had checked Danny in was not there, and they were told she would not be on duty until five p.m. They had lunch in the cramped coffee shop, and then took a few minutes to look around. The guest quarters consisted of some six two-story concrete “villas” with names like Bougainvillea and Gardenia, although there was no evidence of any such flowers in sight. The oversized pool, devoid of swimmers, stood baking in the late day tropical sun. There were long, jagged cracks in its concrete apron, which was also empty and silent.

The desk clerk who greeted Jay and Dunn when they returned at five was a big-boned mulatto woman, around thirty, her skin creamy smooth, with green eyes and freckles and a surprising, beaming smile that turned her plain face pretty and sexy. They introduced themselves and explained their business, Dunn showing her his Essex County Prosecutor’s badge and ID, and telling her they were trying to tie up loose ends in the case. She confirmed that she was at the
front desk the night Danny checked in and, eying Jay from head to toe, said she’d be happy to talk, inviting them to sit in the “lounge,” a fifteen-foot-by-fifteen-foot space with plastic furniture to the right of the front desk. Her name was Rhonda.