Spectrum (The Karen Vail Series) (9 page)

13

>ASTORIA, QUEENS

Friday, April 27, 1973

There was no call from Gus. As the days passed, they both acknowledged that Basil was not going to get his job back.

“Maybe Gregor didn’t tell his father what I said.”

“Just leave it be,” Livana said. “You tried. For whatever reason, it didn’t work out.”

On Wednesday morning, they took the subway to surrounding areas that offered promising employment opportunities. They walked where the train did not go, and after four days their feet were aching and blistered.

Basil finally found a job at the Fulton Fish Market in Manhattan. Al-though the supervisor said he had read about his altercation with Gregor from coverage in the
Post
, he had no stake in the matter and joked that he had been in his share of bar fights. Livana, on hearing this story, asked if Basil had corrected the man—it was a bowling alley and alcohol was not a factor.

“He seemed to like the idea it was a bar fight. So if he wanted to think it happened in a bar …” He shrugged. “Whatever. He gave me a job. I start tomorrow.”

Livana embraced her husband: things had finally turned and she was convinced their run of bad luck had ended.

On Saturday morning, the phone rang. Fedor called for Basil and handed him the handset. “It’s Gus.”

Livana, in the kitchen making coffee, nearly dumped the sugar on the counter.

“Gus,” Basil said. “It’s good to hear from you … Yes, that’s what I told Gregor. I was just trying to smooth things over, find a solution that could make everyone happy … No, I understand that Gregor will never see again … No, of course he won’t be
happy
. That’s not what I meant—” Basil looked at Livana, concern creasing his forehead. “I—I got another job, so it’s not a problem. No, Gus. I was just angry. I’m not gonna tell anyone, I’d never do anything to hurt you … Right, yeah, not counting Gregor. But it wasn’t my fault—” He held the phone away from his face, then handed it back to Fedor. “He hung up.”

“He wasn’t offering your job back, was he?” Livana asked.

“He said that as a father, he couldn’t see me every day, knowing that I’d hurt his son, even if I didn’t mean for it to happen. I guess I understand.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Fedor said. “You got a new job. A new start.”

Basil smiled—perhaps for the first time in weeks—and then gave Livana a big hug.

WITH THE ARRIVAL of Basil’s first paycheck, they signed a lease on an apartment in Fresh Meadows, a pleasant community not far from Shea Stadium and Queens College. The neighborhood was middle class and safe, by New York City standards. The schools were on par with those in Astoria, but it would mean some upheaval and adjustment for the kids. Overall, though, it would be a healthier environment for all of them.

They found a garden apartment to rent that was a bit of a stretch, but the hope was that Livana could find work as well, relieving some of the financial pressure. It would be tight, but they would get out of Astoria and into an area where they would not be pariahs.

Fedor walked into the kitchen with a large chocolate cake in his hands. “This is for both of you, a housewarming present.”

“I want some,” Dmitri said, jumping alongside Fedor as he carried the dish to the table.

Livana took it from him and set it on the table. “I think we owe you a chocolate cake. We can’t thank you enough for taking us in.”

“You’re like family. This is what family does for one another, right? It was no trouble at all.”

Livana knew it was trouble—
they
were trouble, by association—but Fedor was right: if the situation had been reversed, she and Basil would have done the same for Fedor and Niklaus.

While they ate dessert, Fedor turned on NBC News on his old RCA black-and-white console television so they could watch the special report of the day’s big event, NASA’s launch of Skylab, America’s first space station.

“I want to be an astronaut,” Cassandra said.

Fedor laughed. “There are no girl astronauts.”

“If my daughter thinks she can be an astronaut,” Basil said, “she will be one. The best ever. Right, sweetness?”

Cassandra smiled, then turned back to watch a replay of the launch.

“I’m gonna go to the moon,” Niklaus said. “Apollo 25!”

“Twenty-five?” Livana pursed her lips and nodded. “I think it’d be more like Apollo 30, if they go that long. Apollo 17 went up last December.”

“Well, okay. Apollo 30, then.”

After the dishes were cleared away, talks of moon walks and colonies on Mars continued as they began loading Fedor’s Dodge Club Cab pickup truck for a more mundane undertaking: a trek to Basil’s and Livana’s newly leased Fresh Meadows apartment.

The entire clan pitched in, carrying items outside to Basil, who deftly packed everything with bungee cords and ropes. They did not have expensive possessions, but they still had bedding, towels, clothing, kitchenware, and some pieces of furniture.

As dusk faded to darkness, Livana announced they were nearly done—she estimated they each had one more trip out to the truck—when she heard yelling coming from the street.

Livana and Fedor went outside and, in the dim streetlight, she saw four men with baseball bats striking something on the ground.

Not something. Some
one
.

“Basil!” Livana, frozen in fear, brought both hands to her head as Fedor raced past her. When he brushed by her shoulder, it jolted her back to awareness and she followed, screaming for help.

“Get away from him,” Fedor yelled as he ran toward the truck. “Stop!”

The men turned and ran, but Fedor tackled one of them from behind. Though they hit the grass hard, the attacker quickly scrabbled to his feet, inadvertently helping to right Fedor, who had a firm hold on his leather jacket. Fedor maintained his grip as the man twisted and pulled and wriggled out of the coat, then continued on down the street.

“Basil,” Livana said, cradling his bloody head in her hands. “Basil—”

Dmitri forced his way to his father’s side. “Daddy!”

“I’m gonna get an ambulance,” Fedor said as he ran toward the house, still clutching the thug’s jacket.

“Nik,” Livana said, “get me a blanket. We’ve gotta keep him warm.”

As Niklaus ran off, Cassie leaned in closer. “Mom! Dad’s trying to talk.”

Livana stroked Basil’s blood-smeared face. “What? Honey, say it again.”

Basil opened his eyes slowly. “Not … my … fault.” His body went limp. And then he stopped breathing.

“No …” Livana’s tears rolled off her face and onto Basil’s cheek.

“Daddy,” Dmitri said, “wake up.” He slapped his chest. “Get up.”

Basil’s head went limp in Livana’s hands. “No! Agapi mou, open your eyes, look at me. Stay with me.” She swung her body toward the house. “Fedor, hurry!”

Fedor ran out the front door, followed by Niklaus. “They’ll be here in a minute. I didn’t give them our address ’cause if they knew it’s us, they wouldn’t come.”

Fedor knelt alongside Dmitri and locked eyes with Livana.

“Is he … is Daddy dead?” Cassandra asked.

Dmitri looked at his mother, at his sister, at Niklaus, Fedor—none of them answered. Livana leaned over, grabbed Dmitri and Cassandra, and pulled them close.

Off in the distance, the whine of a siren pierced the sudden stillness of the night.

14

>ASTORIA, QUEENS

Monday, May 14, 1973

Livana stood curbside, a few houses away from the children, who were sitting on the stoop in silence, staring at the patrol car and its colored lights as they flashed at regular intervals.

The police arrived first—Officers Kennedy and Morgan—the same ones who had responded at the bowling alley where the entire fiasco began—followed by the ambulance six minutes later.

The paramedics declared Basil dead.

While the officers cordoned off the area and asked Central to assign a detective to the case, Livana took time to gather herself. Fedor comforted her as best he could, but she knew there was nothing he could say or do that would help her get over the stunning reality that her beloved husband was now dead, brutally murdered, rendering her children fatherless.

He did the only thing a friend could—hold her. She felt a strange sense of solace, knowing that she was not alone, that she did not have to face her loss in a vacuum. But beyond that, she was overwhelmed by a sense of hollowness as large and jagged as a post-earthquake crack fissured in bedrock.

She and Basil had only been married for fifteen years, but they had known each other since they were youths in Kastoria, Greece. They grew up together, explored together, found love together. The thought of life without him was frightening.

She could not turn away from her husband’s blanket-draped body lying in the street behind the pickup truck, loaded down with all their belongings but now void of the most precious cargo of all.

Kennedy approached her and asked if he could chat with them for a few moments about what they had seen. She and Fedor provided statements as Morgan took copious notes.

“Just so I got this straight,” Kennedy said. “One of the attackers—you grabbed the coat off his back. And this is it.” He held up the black leather jacket.

“Yes,” Fedor said.

Kennedy began examining the garment, patting it down from top to bottom, when he found something inside the breast pocket. He shifted the heavy jacket and inserted a few fingers. He rooted out a matchbook and maneuvered it so that Morgan could shine his flashlight on it.

As soon as the beam hit it, the two officers looked at one another. Morgan’s jaw went slack.

“I saw the guy’s face,” Fedor said.

Kennedy cleared his throat. “You sure about that?”

“Yeah, I can describe him if you want. You got one of those sketch artists? He can draw a picture, you can find this guy. I’ll never forget that bastard’s face.”

Kennedy shifted his weight as he looked again at the matchbook.

“What?” Livana asked. “You need to find the people who killed my husband. Fedor can help you. Is there a problem?”

“Give us a moment, will ya?”

Kennedy turned around and conferred with Morgan.

“I’m gonna go check on the kids,” Fedor said, then jogged off toward the stoop by his duplex where the kids were seated.

A few minutes later, Kennedy turned back to Livana. “We’re gonna wait till the detective gets here.”

“No, I want to know what the problem is. Something’s obviously wrong. Tell me.”

“As soon as the detect—”

“My husband was murdered in front of me, goddamn it. Just tell me.” She glanced over at the kids, hoping they hadn’t heard her words. Best she could tell, they were talking with Fedor, unaware of her outburst.

“The matchbook I found in the jacket, ma’am. It’s from a members-only club in the city. A well-known club.”

“Okay. So?”

“So I guess there could be another explanation, but really the only way to get one of those matchbooks is if you’re there. And the only people who are allowed in are members.”

“You’re talking in circles, officer. What are you trying not to tell me?

Kennedy licked his lips. “The people who are members of that club. The
only
people who’re members of that club, they’re mafioso. The mob. You know about the Mafia, right?”

Livana nodded tentatively.

“Did you see
The Godfather
last year?”

“We don’t—” She stopped herself, suddenly aware that the present tense no longer applied to them as a couple. “We didn’t like violent movies.” Livana shook her head. “You’re saying my husband was killed by a mobster?”

“All I’m saying is that we found the matchbook of a club in the pocket of the guy’s jacket. And the people who have access to that club are … made men. Wise guys.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Basil had no connection to the Mafia.”

Kennedy shrugged. “My partner and I have been talkin’. We’re not detectives or anything, but if we put all this together, you need to go back to the bowling alley incident. I personally believe your husband was only defending himself. But the guy he cut, he was well-connected.”

“Connected?”

Kennedy shrugged. “He has people who care about him, who look after him.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Your husband hit some bad luck. Wrong place, wrong time type a thing, you know? I think he had to defend himself, but the guy who started that fight was not a guy you wanted to have a dispute with. Let alone one you wanted to stab in the eye with a piece a glass.”

Livana pinched the bridge of her nose. As hard as she was trying to absorb this information, it was not getting through. “So what are you saying?”

“It might be better for you to back off filing this report. At least take a night to think about it.”

“What’s there to think about? Find the men. Arrest them. Put them in jail.” She stomped her foot. “I want justice! My husband was innocent. He didn’t deserve this. None of us did.”

Kennedy looked at Morgan, who tilted his head in a “suit yourself” gesture, then reluctantly moved over to the police car and lifted the radio from its perch on the dashboard.

Kennedy leaned close to Livana’s ear. “Look. All I’m sayin’. The people who did this, they won’t be happy your friend is gonna finger them. They’ll do whatever they need to do to protect their own.”

Livana took a step back. “It sounds like you’re afraid of them. You’re the
police
.”

Kennedy stood there staring at her.

That the officer did not dispute her statement made a cold sweat break out across her forehead. “If we don’t do this, if we let them get away with it, what happens? Who’s really running this city? Are they? Or are the police?”

Kennedy tightened his jaw. “I’m not sayin’ you shouldn’t do this. I’m gonna take your statement. And your friend’s. I just want you to know what you’re getting yourselves into. It’s my job to protect all a you. And sometimes you gotta let something go to keep your loved ones safe. That’s all I’m saying. Now I said my peace. I did my duty. The rest is up to you.”

15

>284 E 32nd STREET

Manhattan

Monday, November 4, 1996

Vail walked into the brownstone on East 32nd Street. The crime scene technicians had already set up shop and were deep into documenting the scene by the time she arrived.

Vail was wearing dress slacks and a blue blazer—in other words, she was out of uniform—having changed two hours earlier when her shift ended. But she did not think Russo would mind her looking more like a detective than a beat cop. Officers did not get to frequent crime scenes after they turned over their initial write-ups to a case detective. For that matter, Vail was not even the first on scene, so she had no business being there at all.

Except that her boss called her.

Vail held up her badge and “tinned” the cop at the door. She slipped on a pair of booties and found Russo who took a lingering look at her attire and let his expression register his disappointment.

Did he expect me to go back to the precinct to change into my uniform?

“I hope I’m not interrupting your evening.”

“Not a problem. What do we got?”

“Male vic, forty-six.” He led the way down a wide hallway, past expensive pottery, oil paintings, and built-in walnut cabinetry polished to a high gloss. Red and yellow tulips in delicate Chinese porcelain vases were showcased with downlights in furniture alcoves along the wall.

“Nice digs,” she said as she followed. “They had money. Where’s the wife?”

“How’d you know he was married?”

“Just a feel. The place has a woman’s touch.”

Russo stopped in the hallway and looked her over. “Yeah, it does. Good.”

“Good?”

“I like the way you think.”

“You’ve told me that before.”

“My opinion hasn’t changed.” He winked at her, then turned and continued toward the back of the house. “In fact, that’s why you’re here tonight.”

I was wondering about that.

Russo stopped into the living room, where a stout male victim sat in a leather recliner. “Oh—congratulations.”

Vail pulled her gaze away from the man. “What?”

“Your shoot. You did good.”

“How do you know about it?”

“I’m keeping tabs on you, Karen.”

Tabs on me, or my career?

“It’s called suicide by cop. In case no one pointed that out.”

Vail forced herself to look at the corpse in the recliner, willed herself to focus on the crime scene. Why was Russo bringing this up?

“They teach you that at the academy? Suicide by cop?”

“Can we get to the victim sitting across the room? That’s why I’m here, right?”

“Except you didn’t cooperate. The perp wanted you to kill him, but you missed your kill shot.”

Vail swung her eyes over to Russo. “I didn’t miss. I wasn’t trying to kill him.”

Russo tilted his head back. “An unstable perp was running at you with a loaded .38 and you weren’t shooting to kill? I’m sure they taught you to—”

“I made a judgment call. I could disable him without ending his life. I knew I’d hit my target in the thigh. He was going down. Even if he got a shot off, it wouldn’t have hit me.”

Russo squinted. “Not sure if that was very smart or incredibly stupid. Not to mention naive.”

“It all worked out, so let’s just say it was very smart.”

Russo frowned. “Next time you’re faced with a similar situation, I want you to take that bastard down. No aiming at the legs bullshit. You shoot to kill, like you were taught. Can you do that?”

“I can do that.”

Russo rocked back on his heels, appraising her, seeming to weigh her response, deciding if he had made his point. Apparently he felt that he had, because he said, “So what do you see here?”

Vail took a deep breath and turned to the dead middle-aged man. She advanced on the body and knelt in front of him. A deep gash coursed from the man’s left temple across both eyeballs. A jagged slice of glass was protruding from his neck, in the vicinity of the right carotid.

“I see the same MO as that woman victim, Carole Manos, from a year ago.”

“First day on the job,” Russo said. “Sticks in the memory, doesn’t it?”

“Perp was right-handed. He sliced the man’s eyes facing him, from right to left, then brought his hand back and stabbed the neck.”

“Maybe,” Russo said. “That’s one possibility. We’ll have CSU check for prints on the glass shard. Even if the perp was wearing gloves, we may be able to determine the position of his fingers.”

“The position of his fingers?” Vail asked.

“If he was standing behind the vic when he stabbed the neck, the four fingers would be on the top. If he was standing in front of him, the fingers would be on the bottom of the shard. It’d be a backhanded movement to stab the right side of the vic’s neck.”

The sound of footsteps drew their attention. A second later, the medical examiner walked into the room.

“Doc.” Russo nodded at his friend. Finkelstein returned the greeting and glanced dismissively at Vail.

“Your project,” Finkelstein said, turning toward her. “Name again?”

I’m a project?
“Karen Vail.”

“Right. Officer Vail.” Finkelstein pulled out his reading glasses and stuck them on his nose, then unfurled a set of latex gloves. “You’re out of uniform, aren’t you?”

“This isn’t my case.”

“Hmm.” Finkelstein glanced at Russo. “Your doing?”

Russo did not reply. Instead, he said, “Officer Vail seems to think this is related to that case from a year ago. Manos.”

“She does, does she? That was a female vic. This looks like a male.”

Vail rolled her eyes. “The method of death appears to be the same. The way he cut the victim, stabbed the neck.”

Russo cleared his throat. “Could be a coincidence. Or a copycat. That info was unfortunately released to the papers. Not my doing.”

Vail pursed her lips. “I guess it could be a different killer. But it … feels like the same one.”

Finkelstein made some kind of noise that Vail could not interpret. “
Feels
like the same one. You know what a defense attorney—and a jury—would do to me if I ever said that on the witness stand?”

Russo and Finkelstein shared a laugh.

“We need objective measurements,” Finkelstein said. “Something scientific that’s reproducible, something that can’t be discredited.”

“I’m just saying, not everything is a measurement. I think it’s helpful to step back and ask yourself, What’s going on here? Why is that guy lying dead there? And why does he look like he was killed by the same perp as the woman who was murdered a year ago? I think we should look into their backgrounds, see if there’s some common thing. Like, did they know each other? Work together? Did they usually go to the same place to eat dinner? Or maybe they did their dry cleaning at the same store? If we answer those types of questions, we may get a better idea of who could’ve killed them both.”

Finkelstein had stopped what he was doing. He was listening. Finally he turned to Russo. “She’s smart. I think she’s a keeper. Wasted in patrol, though.”

I’m starting to like this guy.
“What’s the status of the Carole Manos investigation?”

Russo folded his arms. “Not a whole lot to report. Some fits and starts but basically, we got shit.”

“No leads at all?” Vail asked.

“Nothing that went anywhere. Nothing even worth mentioning.”

Vail sighed in resignation. “And this guy?”

“Dominic Crinelli. Already checked, he’s got no obvious connection to the Manos vic. But that was just a preliminary search. A lot more work needs to be done.”

There’s gotta be a connection. I feel it.

“You’ll work it with the case detective,” Russo said. “He’s en route. It’ll be a good learning experience. Unless that’s a problem for you.”

“Not for me, Vail said. “Unless it’s a problem on his end. I’m a beat cop with a little over a year under my belt.”

“Let me take care of that.”

Finkelstein lifted a brow, then removed a speculum from his kit.

Vail took Russo’s comment to mean that he knew what strings to pull, and how to pull them.
Who am I to argue?

“What about Leslie?”

“Who?”

“Leslie Johnson,” Vail said. “My partner.”

“She’ll get assigned a temporary partner for a while. That’s not your concern right now. This vic is. And you should start by knowing that Mr. Crinelli here was a member of the Castiglias.”

“The crime family?” Vail asked. “Mafia?”

“Correct. A made man. Started out as a soldier about twenty years ago and eventually became a capo.”

“Proved his worth, I guess.”

“They’re gonna be all over this,” Finkelstein said as he headed out of the room. “They’re gonna want to know who offed one of their ranking family members.”

Russo chuckled. “Then that puts us in the strange position of being on the same side. Or at least having our interests aligned.”

“Except,” Vail said, “we’re looking for the guy to arrest him.
They’re
looking for him so they can beat his brains in, then chop up his body and drop it in the Hudson for fish food.”

“Or just put a .22 round in his brain.”

She studied the wounds on Crinelli’s face. “You think the killer knew who he was?”

Russo rubbed his hands together. “Good question.”

“Maybe
the
question. Because I’m guessing the answer could key us in on who did this. But it all comes back to what Crinelli and Carole Manos have in common.” She examined the victim’s hands and face for a moment, then said, “A capo has a good sense of criminality, right?”

Russo walked back to the hallway and started examining the photos. “He knows one when he sees one, if that’s what you mean. What’s your point?”

“Just that there’s no sign of a struggle. Didn’t look like a break-in, right?”

“Right.”

“So he knew his attacker, or at least he trusted him. Or wasn’t afraid of him. He didn’t see him as a threat.”

“Not sure that helps us.” Russo leaned in closer to one of the framed pictures. “A guy like that, there’s not much that scares him. So someone who may raise the hairs of an average person, this guy may know he can off him like that.” He snapped his fingers. “If he wanted to.”

“I guess.”

“But keep going. I like the way you’re thinking.”

Vail considered things a second. “Let’s go back to him knowing his killer. Either our perp’s a big guy who killed Crinelli near the door and then carried him all the way back to the living room, or Crinelli invited him in. And if he invited him in, he felt comfortable enough not to have his guard up. As far as we know, he hadn’t drawn his gun. I assume all mafioso have guns.”

“Safe assumption. And true, in this case. CSU found two downstairs. A Beretta .40 and a Tanfoglio 9 millimeter.”

“Tanfoglio?”

“Italian made,” Russo said. “From what I know, they’re used more for protection than assault. But in this case, Crinelli never removed it from his drawer. And the Beretta was still in the desk.” He stood there thinking a moment, then said, “Okay, I agree with you. Whoever he let through that door did not present a threat to him.”

“Someone he knew then?”

“Someone who didn’t present a threat,” he said with emphasis. “That’s all we can say for now.”

“He’s in an easy chair. Carole Manos was in her bed. Why the difference? And what do you make of that?” Vail gestured at the victim’s right hand. “Curled into a fist. Looks glued into position. Just like Manos.”

“Manos’s fingers were curled into a ball but her index finger was extended, and bent.”

“Still, I think there’s some similarity here we can’t ignore.” She walked around the chair containing Crinelli’s body and stopped behind his right ear. “You got a flashlight?”

Russo fished around his pocket and pulled it out.

“Shine it right here.”

He pointed it at a location along his hairline, near the base of the neck.

“See that?” Printed in what appeared to be black marker was an X, no more than an inch high. In the top quadrant formed by the crossed letters was a D; the bottom contained an r, and in the left wedge was an E. The right had an I. All were uppercase letters except for the r.

“Well, beat me with a stick. Just like Carole Manos.” Russo lifted his chin and yelled, “Hey, doc. Come back in here.”

Finkelstein appeared seconds later. “Yeah?”

“Manos. Remember that marking at the base of her skull?”

He thought a moment. “The X. Yeah.”

“Take a look.” Russo backed away and allowed Finkelstein some room.

He slipped on his reading glasses, bent over, and took the penlight. “Yeah, that’s it. Exactly the same. Well, almost. It’s a little different.” He stood there a moment thinking, then straightened up. “The other one had a d where the r is.”

“You sure?”

“I’ll check it when I get back to the office,” Finkelstein said, “but my memory’s still pretty sharp. For an old fart.”

Russo tilted his chin back and looked at Vail. “So, Officer Vail. Looks like you’re right. This is the same killer.” He must’ve noticed Vail’s confusion because he immediately explained his comment. “Those markings were not released to the press. Other than us, only one person knows about that X, and that’s Carole Manos’s killer.”

“Now that we’ve got that out of the way,” Vail said, “the next major question is, What do those letters mean?”