Our Honored Dead (Stephanie Chalice Thrillers Book 4) (14 page)

Vetrov’s eyes were wide open. He screamed when Tillerman pulled the duct tape off his mouth. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. His eyes were filled with terror as he looked up at Tillerman. “Why?” he said in a trembling voice. Blood gurgled in his throat from the socket Tillerman had made removing his teeth—he struggled not to choke. Tillerman had snapped his neck, but the trauma had not proven fatal—Vetrov was paralyzed from the shoulders down.

Tillerman said nothing and lined up the cremation box up with the opening of the furnace. Vetrov angled his glance and saw the furnace in front of him. His lips began to quiver, and tears ran down from the corners of his eyes. “Why?” he repeated as he tried to make sense of what was going on. “Don’t do this!”

Tillerman picked up the lid of the cremation container and held it over Vetrov. He looked down at the paralyzed giant and then closed his eyes. “Blessed are the elements of life. May the fire consume you.”

He reignited his chant. “Fire, fire, fire!” He grew louder and louder, summoning his innermost reserves. He slammed the lid down on top of the box and sealed it. He set the controls and then pushed the cremation box into the furnace. “Death by fire!” he roared as the flames leapt up inside the furnace and consumed his sacrifice.

Nick
Sonellio pushed on the glass door to enter Café Baci. It was early morning, hours before the café opened for lunch. The restaurant was so quiet that he would have been able to hear a proverbial pin drop if it hit the polished, cherry-wood floor.

He looked around at the familiar setting. He had been a regular at the café ever since he and Toni moved into the neighborhood almost thirty years ago. The food at Café Baci was a cut above the rest, but it was not the kind of place that you brought your wife and kids. Baci was for gentlemen only, a place to drink wine and smoke a cigar. The
No Smoking
law did not apply within the hallowed walls of Café Baci. It was a private club, a place to discuss business—by invitation only.

He heard the sound of footsteps and then the kitchen doors swung open. Giacomo Babocci had a tray of clean wine glasses on his shoulder as he entered the dining room. “Nick!” Babocci said with surprise. He set the tray down on the bar and rushed over to give his old friend a hug. He kissed him on both cheeks. “Nick, you son of a bitch, where have you been?”

“Maine,” Sonellio replied. “At my cabin.”

“You’ve got a cabin? I didn’t know that. You hunt or fish?”

“Fish—they’ve got bass up there the size of tuna.”

“
Madonna
, what about branzino?”

“Jaco, it’s Maine, not the Mediterranean.”

“No branzino?” Babocci said lightheartedly. “Ah, too bad.”

“Same old Jaco.” Sonellio laughed, and then he coughed. His cough had become worse. Each cough was accompanied by a wheeze. It sounded like wind whistling through an old window.

“That’s a bad cough you’ve got there, Nick. Bronchitis?”

Sonellio shrugged and framed a helpless expression. “Cancer.”

“Oh Jesus Christ, Nick.” Babocci grimaced. “You hit me right between the eyes with that one. Come here. Sit down for God’s sake. Have a glass of wine.”

Sonellio pulled out a chair and sat down at the closest table. Babocci inspected the wine rack and selected a bottle. He sat down at the table and proceeded to open the bottle with a corkscrew. “Tuscan Chianti,” Babocci said. “A glass of this will fix you right up.” He filled two glasses and slid one across the table to Sonellio. He lifted his glass and fanned the bouquet toward his nose. “What an aroma . . . like liquid fire.”

“Here’s to the good old days,” Sonellio said as they toasted.

Babocci stared at Sonellio for a moment without talking. “You hungry, Nick? I’ll have Alfredo whip you up a nice bolognese—how ‘bout it?”

“Jaco, it’s nine thirty. I just had breakfast.”

Babocci’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t’ know . . . you’ve made me very sad. What happened?”

“For God’s sake, Giacomo, I’ve been smoking since the Eisenhower days. What the hell do you think happened?”

“They can’t do anything for you?”

Sonellio took a mouthful of wine. “Nothing this Chianti can’t do better.” He put the glass down on the table and turned the base while he stared at it. “Jaco, you heard about the Jacoby family, yes?”

It took perhaps two seconds for Babocci to transform from a mellow restaurant proprietor into a raging, seething maniac. “Some motherfucker comes into our neighborhood and guns down an innocent family like that—it’s a fucking disgrace. We’re gonna get whoever it is, and we’re gonna fix them good. It shows a total fucking lack of respect. The police have any solid leads?”

“No, we don’t. That’s why I’m here. I know that you’ve got your ear to the ground.”

Babocci clenched his fist so tightly that his knuckles popped. He pointed at Sonellio. “I tell you one thing—if I do hear something, that piece of shit will be dead in a hurry. I guarantee it.”

“Just calm down, Giacomo. You know they were my neighbors, right? I came home from Maine and saw that someone was using my backyard to case the neighborhood. I figured it was some crack addict looking to score some spare change, but I was wrong.”

“You told the police?”

“Of course I told the police. I’ve devoted my entire career to law enforcement.”

“And the Jacobys are dead anyway. You should’ve come to me—we would have found the prick before he did it.”

“Giacomo, the whole thing happened in about ten minutes. Once I realized that someone had been in my yard, the police acted right away, but it was too late.”

Babocci poured the glass of wine down his throat. “Like I said, it’s a fucking disgrace. I knew those Jacoby boys; they were good kids.” He sighed to evidence his extreme exasperation. “So what can I do for you, Nick? This has turned into a very bad morning.”

“You know a lot of people, my friend. You haven’t heard anything?”

“I’m gonna look, Nick. Believe you me, I will. I’ll find something . . . trust me.”

Sonellio flipped a business card on the table. “This is my old card, but the cell number is still good.” He took a ballpoint pen out of his pocket and circled his cell phone number on the card. “I expect to hear from you if you find something—don’t take matters into your own hands,
capisce?
These people were my neighbors, and I take their murders as a personal offense.” He reached across the table and took Babocci’s hand. “Come here,” Sonellio said and pulled Babocci toward him. He kissed him on the cheek. “I’m not going to the grave in disgrace. Are we good?”

“Yeah, Nick, we’re good,” he said reluctantly. The two men stood and hugged.

“Remember,” Sonellio said. “No vigilante shit. You bring this guy to me, and I’ll fry him.” For a brief moment, the disease had retreated into the background, and Sonellio was once again a force to reckon with. “You do this for me. Okay?”

“Yeah, okay, Nick.” Babocci kissed Sonellio on the other cheek. “I’ll bring you the motherfucker.”

Rocco
Sclafani sat in the funeral parlor parking lot, listening to the exhaust burble of his six hundred and sixty-two horsepower Shelby Mustang, sipping coffee. The funeral parlor was his by inheritance. His family had owned it for decades. He had grown up around the dead: draining blood and dressing corpses. He hated it, despite the money he made. He watched the clock.
Just two more minutes.
He revved the engine and listened to the growl of the immensely powerful engine.
Jesus, what the hell am I doing? I could sit here forever.
He shut the engine and walked to the building.

He unlocked the basement door and switched on the lights. The hot air from the cremation furnace hit him immediately.
What the hell?
The heat of the furnace imparted a distinctive arid quality to the air that he felt in his nostrils and lungs. He raced down the stairs and saw a red streak on the painted brick stairwell. He stopped and examined it for a moment. “Blood?”
Jesus, what’s going on?

He could hear the furnace roar as he approached. “I don’t believe this.” Sclafani knew that there were no bodies scheduled for cremation. He also knew that no one would be stupid enough to leave the furnace running unattended. He inspected the gauges on the outside of the furnace and then quickly shut the unit down. He peered through the viewing panel and saw a charred cremation container. “This is unbelievable,” he said. “This is just un-fucking-believable.”

I
was juggling a lot of balls at the same time. I was thinking about Ambler’s case in one corner of my mind and the wanton murder of the Jacoby family in another. There was my pregnancy of course, absurdly high levels of hormones, my worries about Sonellio, a colossal appetite, erotic dreams, and let’s see . . . was there anything else I had to concern myself with? No. I’d covered it. Needless to say I had a lot on my mind.

“I don’t know how you can handle it all,” Gus said. “I’ve got a migraine and
my
hormones are in check. Too bad you can’t smoke pot.”

“Smoke pot? Do I have to worry about you as well? Your back is better, isn’t it? I hope this isn’t going to become a way of life with you. If I wanted a pothead, I would have gone after Tully.”

“I just found it relaxing, that’s all. It’s not like I do it every day.”

I gave Gus a look that said,
tread lightly
. I didn’t want him to become one of those fathers who sneak off to the bathroom to rock a joint while his kid is watching Sesame Street. “No more shit in your lungs, got it?” He nodded to confirm his understanding.

We were back in Staten Island. As if things weren’t bad enough, we had just arrived at a funeral parlor. I mean that was depressing in any respect, right? An unexplained body had been found in the furnace of the Sclafani Funeral Home. The owner, Rocco Sclafani, had found the body himself. He also saw blood smeared on the stairwell wall that led to the basement crematorium.

Richard Forzo, the Staten Island assistant chief, was waiting for us when we arrived. He was just outside the basement entrance speaking on his cell phone. We waited several minutes for him to end his call. “Where’s Nick?” he asked.

“We gave him the day off,” I said. “He’s not feeling great. Toni called us and asked if we could give him a pass.”

Forzo didn’t look very happy. In fact, he looked as if he would have strangled someone if he could have gotten dispensation to do so. “There are days when this job just plain sucks. Today’s one of those days.” He straightened his back. “Is he getting worse?”

“I don’t like what’s happening to him,” Gus said. “He’s taking this Jacoby thing really hard. It’s cutting him down fast.”

“Shit!” Forzo looked off into the distance for a moment before turning back to us. “A crazy amount of crime has come down the pike in the last few days, and it’s making me angry,” he explained. “I mean the Jacoby murders are at the top of the list, but we’ve had a break-in at a pharmaceuticals company, and now this half-incinerated man. It’s one thing on top of another. We usually get a lot of penny ante stuff, but crimes like these are pretty uncommon, and I don’t like it when so much goes down at once.”

Forzo was feeling responsible for the sudden spike in Staten Island crime, but for the most part, all the police could do was fix something after it was already broken. As much as we’d like to pat ourselves on the back, almost all of what we did was reactive and not proactive. “So what’s going on here?” I asked. “A body was being incinerated?”

“Yeah,” Forzo said. “The proprietor came in early this morning and noticed that the furnace was running, even though there were no bodies scheduled for cremation.”

“Do you think someone was incinerating a body to dispose of evidence?” Gus asked.

“That’s my guess,” Forzo said. “It’s pretty crowded down there, but I want the two of you to take a look. There’s something I know you’ll find of interest. Shall we?” He turned and entered the building.

We followed him. He had broad shoulders. It almost looked as if they would touch the sides of the staircase as he descended. The smell of burnt flesh was just awful. The crime scene team had brought in fans to help move the air around. Even so, the odor was terrible.
Dig down deep, girl. Tough it out.

The basement was chaotic with police crime scene investigators hovering around a charred body. A civilian stood in the center of the crowd. I assumed he was the proprietor. He was ranting like a lunatic. I suppose I couldn’t blame the guy. Forzo made straight for him. Perhaps it was Forzo’s size that caused the man to quiet down, which he did as soon as we approached. “Mr. Sclafani, I’d like you to meet Detectives Chalice and Lido.”

“More detectives?” Sclafani asked. “There’s only one burnt body. How many policemen do I need down here?”

“As many as it takes,” Forzo said pointedly. “From the top, please tell these detectives everything that took place from the time you arrived this morning.”

“Okay,” Sclafani said. “It’s just that this whole thing is driving me a little nuts.” He reached out and shook our hands. “Rocco Sclafani,” he said.

“Just another day at the office, huh?” Gus said. “Tell us what you found.”