Angelina Bonaparte Mysteries Box Set Read online

  I woke, groggy and disoriented, to the sounds of buzzing and pounding. The digital clock read 4:48. Groaning, I pawed for the “off” button. Still, the sounds persisted. I sat up and listened more intently—telephone, doorbell, hammering on the entry door. Good grief, I thought, has the world exploded?

  I picked up the phone with a raspy “Hello?” as I pulled on my robe and slid my feet into slippers.

  “Angie, it’s Bart Matthews. Listen closely, there isn’t much time until the police get to you.”

  “I think they’re already here, Bart,” I responded, as I looked out the peephole at two men, one of whom I knew. “Joe Ignowski and another guy are pounding on my door.”

  “Okay, before you answer the door, I want to hire you on behalf of Anthony Belloni.”

  “Just a minute, I’m getting some clothes on,” I yelled at the door, hoping to stifle them before all my neighbors heard. The pounding and buzzing stopped. Why, I thought, would the infamous “Mafia attorney” (media phrase, not mine) be representing Tony? Adultery isn’t illegal. “Bart, I have a conflict of interest in that regard.” I was trying not to name Gracie.

  “I know, Gracie told me. She also told the police when they arrested Tony tonight for the murder of Elisa Morano. I don’t want you talking to the cops without a briefing. If you’re employed by me, you’re covered by attorney-client privilege.”

  “Hang on, Bart, I’m thinking.” I opened the door and motioned the detectives in. “Give me a minute,” I told them.

  “Hey, Angie,” Joe whined, but I ignored him as I walked into my bedroom and shut and locked the door.

  From the back of my walk-in closet, surrounded by sound-muffling clothing, I resumed my conversation with Bart. “Let me get this straight. Tony’s in the slammer for killing Elisa and Gracie wants me to help him?”

  “Right. She’s in a ‘Stand by Your Man’ mood.” He paused and I heard the click and the little explosion of butane flame, then the sucking sound as he took a drag. Bart weighs at least three hundred, smokes non-stop, and works eighty hours a week as legal counsel for the Family. I doubt he’ll see forty.

  Ignowski and partner were now pounding on my bedroom door. “Give me a minute, Bart.” I exited the closet, opened the bedroom door and stood there, one hand brandishing the phone and the other on my hip. “You guys will have to wait. I’m talking to my attorney.” Joe’s partner started to protest, but I raised my hand and pointed. “Go press the Start button on the coffee-maker in the kitchen. It’s loaded and ready. Pour yourselves a cup and I’ll be out as soon as I can.” Before either man could respond, I closed and locked the door and walked back into the closet.

  “I can’t say yes or no to the offer, Bart, until I know whether Tony did it. I won’t protect him if he did.”

  “No way, Angie. He never touched her.” Hoarse cough/laugh. “Well, at least he never touched her that way.”

  “But they were making it?”

  “Yeah, they were. He’s properly ashamed, believe me. He and Gracie had it out tonight, after she told him about hiring you. He broke down and confessed, told her he wanted to end it with Elisa, that he’d never cheated before. Then the police came to the door and she lost it and told them the whole story, how Tony couldn’t have done it because he loved her and not Elisa. Silly twit just couldn’t keep her yap shut.”

  “She’s under a lot of pressure, Bart. Four little kids and another on the way, and a lying husband accused of murdering the girlfriend. I think you should cut her some slack.”

  He had the grace to apologize, and even sounded sheepish as he did. “Sorry, Angie, you’re right. Gracie’s got a lot to deal with. That’s why she’s begging you to help clear Tony.” He let it lie there for a couple seconds. Every good lawyer or interrogator knows the technique. I use it myself. That doesn’t make it easier to handle.

  “Can you get me into the jail tomorrow? I want to talk to Tony in person.”

  “No problem. You can go in as part of my staff. You’re taking the job, right?”

  “For now. You’re lucky, I didn’t find anything incriminating on him, just the affair. Now I’d better get out there and talk to Iggy and his partner before they explode.”

  “Lucky draw, getting Iggy, huh? Could be worse. I’ll call you first thing in the morning.”

  “It’s already morning, dammit. Don’t call me before ten.” I hung up the phone and washed my face before joining the men, who were drinking coffee at my dining room table.

  There’s a lot of common ground between criminals and cops. Both savor power, thrills, control. The good cops know they’re only a step or two away from the crooks they’re arresting. Iggy is one of the good cops. I heard that Iggy’s new license plates arrived in the mail one year with a little message scratched on the back from the prisoner who stuffed the envelopes—HI IGGY. Go figure.

  Iggy introduced his partner to me. “Angie, this is Detective Ted Wukowski.”

  I extended my hand. “They call you Wookie?”

  “Only once.” He gave me a real Sergeant Friday look, no smile, no expression, all business.

  Iggy coughed, a little embarrassed by Wukowski’s manners. “Angie, we’re here to talk to you about Tony Baloney, uh, I mean, Anthony Belloni.”

  “I know, Iggy. I was just on the phone with Bart.” We both knew who I meant, and if Wukowski was in the dark, what did I care? “I’m on retainer to help him represent Belloni, so I can’t talk to you.”

  Wukowski stood, looming over me as I sipped from my coffee. “You know the rules, lady. You can lose your license for withholding evidence of a crime.”

  “That’s right, Detective. But the last I heard, running around on your wife isn’t a crime. It’s dishonest and lowdown and immoral, but if I had to report everyone I knew who cheated, the streets would be pretty empty.” I gently set my cup down on the table, pushed back my chair and stood up. I knew I didn’t hold the advantage, five-three to his six feet, dressed in slippers and robe, with my hair in its wild bed-head mode, while he wore a navy blue suit and his dark hair was perfectly combed and parted.

  Nevertheless, I stuck out my chin and took a step toward him. He backed up. I graciously extended my hand toward the foyer. “If you gentlemen will excuse me, I have business to attend to. You may direct any further inquiries to Bart Matthews.”

  “That scum,” Wukowski muttered under his breath.

  Iggy grabbed his arm and pulled him to the door. “Ange, a woman is dead. We need to find out who did it.”

  “How’d she die, Iggy?” I asked.

  He hesitated. “The coroner will have to decide. There was a gunshot to the chest, and a lot of cuts to the face and hands. It wasn’t pretty.”

  After they left, I sank down on the couch and stared out at the panoramic view of Lake Michigan. Light was just breaking over the horizon. A new day, but not for Elisa Morano. I slowly recited the prayer for the dead that I learned as a child:

  Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. May her soul and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

  Considering her lifestyle, I wasn’t sure that Elisa was one of the faithful, but I figured there was no harm in asking.

  Chapter 3

  The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything. Except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands.

  Oscar Wilde

  Bart called on the dot of ten o’clock. “Angie, you up?” he asked.

  “Yes, Bart, I’m up.” My voice was edgy. I don’t do well without my usual seven hours of sleep. “What’s the story?”

  “You can see Tony at one o’clock, at the county jail. You’re listed as on my staff.”

  I heard the intake of yet another of Bart’s cigarettes. “Bart, those things will kill you.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it all before. Read my bumper sticker—‘Eat right, exercise, live heal
thy, die anyway.’ I figure I might as well die from something I enjoy.”

  No sense arguing. My Aunt Teresa would say, “Save your breath to cool your soup.” Switching gears, I took out a legal pad and started to make notes. “Did they charge him yet?”

  “Nah, the DA is tap-dancing around it for the moment. It’s all circumstantial.”

  “Tony still claims he’s innocent, right?”

  “Right.” He hesitated. “The thing is, I believe him, Angie. And you know I’m no sucker for a story.”

  That made me pause. Bart had probably heard every low-life excuse there was, every alibi, every outright lie. I’ve seen him break a guy’s story with just a raised eyebrow and a long silence. If he believed Tony, it carried weight with me. “What line do you want me to follow, Bart?”

  “If Tony didn’t do it, someone else did, right? She didn’t shoot herself. Even disregarding the cuts, there was no gun at the scene. We need to find some other plausible suspect. We don’t need to prove anything, but we need to cast doubt on the Tony angle. Dig into her past and see who might have had a beef with her. Let’s sling a little mud.”

  He was right, in a crude way. I’m not saying Elisa deserved to be murdered, because I don’t think anyone has the right to make that decision for another person. But she wasn’t an innocent bystander who was gunned down on the street; she was a kept woman who was murdered in her own apartment. Somebody hated her pretty badly, or was so afraid of her that murder seemed the only way out. Either way, it didn’t look like Elisa’s reputation would be lily-white when we were done.

  We ended the conversation with Bart promising to fax the police report to me. I dressed and headed for the office.

  Susan was already hard at work when I got in. Looking up from her computer monitor, she raised an eyebrow and glanced at the clock. I’m generally in the office by eight, with a cup of Starbucks in hand, ready to lay out the day’s work. “Bad night,” I responded to her unspoken question.

  “You and Kevin finally made it?” She grinned.

  “No. But I did have three men vying for my attention at four this morning.” I slipped behind my desk, uncapped the coffee and poured it into a ceramic mug. I hate drinking from Styrofoam or cardboard.

  Susan lifted her ever-full teacup in a toast. “Way to go, girl.”

  I told her the real story, leaving out Tony’s name. She just shook her head in wonderment as the details unfolded.

  When her phone rang, I turned to my mail. The business side of my profession is not one that I can afford to ignore. Too many independents fold because they don’t get their bills out on time. Most of it was junk mail, which I shredded anyway. I don’t put any paper in the garbage, and I contract with a company that hauls my bags of shreds away and burns them. Even landfills are not secure. The city doesn’t just roll the garbage truck in and randomly dump it. They have a systematic plan for what garbage goes where, based on the day, and a committed snoop with enough hands to help can usually find something that she knows was discarded on a particular day.

  There was one envelope that I dreaded opening. The return address read “Marcy Wagner.” Marcy hired me four years ago. Fifty-three months, to be exact. Every single month, I get a check in a letter from Marcy, asking if there’s any news on her deadbeat husband, Hank. When he first ran off and left her high and dry, I spent time tracing his contacts and family members. I had Susan run forensic accounting programs on him. I did all the usual things, but every avenue ran dry and Marcy couldn’t afford the charges for an intensive ongoing investigation. So we reached an agreement. For a small fee, I would continue to check the usual online sources each month—DMV records, credit reports, online court judgments, marriage licenses, even death certificates.

  I logged on and did my monthly search. Still no luck. I sure wanted to find that creep. He’d cleaned out their bank account and left Marcy with three kids to raise. She worked two jobs while her mom watched the kids, and still found a way to get to school conferences and scout meetings. In my mind, women like Marcy are the saints of this world. I composed a short note telling her that I still hadn’t traced Hank, wrote VOID across her check, tucked the note and check into an envelope and sent them back to her.

  Next, I called Gracie Belloni. She answered on the first ring. “Gracie, it’s Angie Bonaparte.”

  “Angie, thank God it’s you. I don’t know what to do. The TV crews are camped outside the driveway, and the phone’s been ringing nonstop with reporters. I’m so scared for Tony.”

  “Try to stay calm. This will be a three-day wonder. They’ll disappear as soon as they realize they’re not going to get an interview with you. I need to talk to you about our contract, but I don’t want to say too much on the phone. Bart Matthews told me that you want me to work on Tony’s case. I just want to be sure you understand that I can’t represent both of you at the same time, due to the possibility of conflict of interest. In the course of my investigation for Bart, I might find out something that I can’t tell you without Tony’s permission. You hired me, though, and if you want, I’ll turn down Tony’s case.”

  “No, don’t do that. I understand about your representing Tony, and right now, that’s the best thing for me and the family. I’ll deal with the other issues when Tony’s free.”

  “Then with your permission, I’ll put the original case on hold and I won’t issue a report until after Tony’s cleared.” Although I had no idea if Tony would be cleared or not, I couldn’t send Gracie into a panic. “I’m going to see Tony this afternoon and I’ll call you later. Bart’s on it and he’s the best. Now take a deep breath.” I heard her inhale. “Let it out real slow, Gracie, kind of like the breathing you use in early labor.”

  That drew a shaky laugh. “If there’s one thing I can do, it’s labor.”

  “Good girl,” I said. “Are you on a cordless phone right now?”

  “No, I’m using the regular phone in the bedroom.”

  “That’s at the back of the house, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Now, I don’t want you to get upset, but I need to give you some instructions so the press won’t hound you to death. Here’s what I want you to do. Don’t answer the phone, let it go to voice mail. If it’s someone you want to talk to, you can always call back. Don’t talk to anyone you don’t already know. Don’t use a cell phone or a cordless, they’re not secure. Anyone with half a brain will call you to tell you they’re coming over, so unless you’re expecting someone, don’t answer the doorbell. Keep the shades down and the drapes drawn, so no one can photograph you or the kids through the glass. Keep the kids indoors for the day. Don’t have a conversation about anything confidential while you’re in a room with a window or a patio door. With the right equipment, you can actually pick up conversations through the glass. Got all that?”

  Gracie made a low groan. “We can’t live like this. What are we gonna do?”

  “It’s just for a little while. After I talk to Tony, I’ll be over to see you. Then we can discuss options. Meanwhile, just keep a low profile and don’t let them get to you. You’ve got four little kids to think of, and Tony. You can’t fall apart now. You can do this, I know you can. It’s no harder than running a house, right?”

  “Right.” Her voice sounded strained. “Angie, is it okay if I call Father Martin? He’s our parish priest. I’d like to talk to him about Elisa.”

  “If you’re thinking about a separation or a divorce, I have to tell you that it couldn’t come at a worse time for Tony’s defense.”

  “No, that’s not it.” There was a long pause. “I just need to get some things off my chest. I guess I always thought of myself as a good Catholic, a good person, but right now, I’m all mixed up. I love Tony, but I hate him, too, for what this is doing to our family and to me. And I’m sorry that girl was killed, but in a way, I’m glad. Now Tony can’t be tempted.”

  Did she really think that Elisa was the cause? Did she really believe that with Elisa gone, Tony would
never look at another woman? Of course, I couldn’t challenge any of that. Let her live in her fool’s paradise for now.

  “I’m sure that what you’re feeling is pretty normal, kind of like feeling relieved when your teacher is sick on the day of the big math test.” She giggled a little. “Ask your priest if he can meet with you at home. If not, just follow the rules when you talk to him, use a landline and maybe drag the phone into the closet or the bathroom, just to be safe.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you later?”

  “It’s a promise.”

  I hung up, worried about Gracie and the kids and madder than hell at Tony. Once I showed up at the Belloni home, the press would surround me like hungry sharks circling a bleeding swimmer, but I couldn’t see any way to avoid it and still keep my word to Gracie. Crap.

  Chapter 4

  In jail a man has no personality. He is a minor disposal problem and a few entries on reports. Nobody cares who loves or hates him, what he looks like, what he did with his life. Nobody reacts to him unless he gives trouble. Nobody abuses him. All that is asked of him is that he go quietly to the right cell and remain quiet when he gets there.

  —Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

  At noon, I drove over to the Milwaukee County Criminal Justice Facility—the jail. In my experience, those who wear uniforms respect others in uniform, so I wore my best business attire—green pinstriped navy blue skirted Nine West suit, plain white button-up blouse, plain hosiery, low-heeled navy pumps. After seeing a female attorney humiliated by having to remove her bra in order to pass through the metal detector, I now took care to only wear a sports bra for jail visits, one with no metal hooks, eyes or underwires. I waited for Tony in one of several interrogation rooms. I’m not really intuitive, except where my kids are concerned, but these rooms always evoked feelings of desperation, fear and anger. The smell of bodily secretions was palpable.