Campanelli: Sentinel (14 page)

              “Yes, sir,” Lyman answered as Davies nodded.

              Campanelli opened the door for Antony and Williams and the trio went to the elevator. Once in the lobby, Frank and Marcus both witnessed the curiosity of the security guards. Williams wondered if one of them would alert Beritoni.

              “There’s nothing we can do about that, now,” Frank stated.

              Placing Antony in the rear of Frank’s cruiser, they headed for the District One Station.

***

              Williams removed the handcuff from Jimmy Antony’s left wrist and connected it to the interrogation room’s metal table.

              “Man, is somebody gonna do somethin’ about this?” the mobster groaned with tears in his eyes.

              “We’re bringing a doctor in here to look at it,” Williams said flatly and left. He stepped to the next room where he joined Frank at the wide flat screen monitor. “Okay, I have to know. Why did you beat the prisoner?”

              “He killed a cop and tried to kill me,” Campanelli explained angrily. “As a cop, you oughta know what that feels like.”

              “I don’t want to take a risk that he’ll get a lighter sentence because you tortured him,” Williams fired back.

              “I punched him and gave his wrist a squeeze!” Campanelli turned on his bigger partner now, not showing any trace of intimidation.

              “You knocked him unconscious, Frank!” Marcus went on. “That wrist is broken and you don’t know how badly.”

              “So what?!”

              “So? You want him let off?” Williams pushed. “Your evidence that he shot Kelly is hearsay.”

              “Did you get a look at the gun he used today?
Did you
?!”

              “No,” Marcus was forced to admit.

              “It was a three fifty-seven Magnum,” Frank said with his fists set tightly into his hips. “The same caliber that killed Al Kelly. Now, how many a’ those d’ya think are still around these days? Huh?” he drilled his partner vindictively. Marcus quieted but he met Campanelli’s eyes and his jaw was tense.

              “While it is likely that it is the same gun, Frank, we haven’t tested it…”

              “Tested it?! Goddamn it, Marcus!! A cop is dead! To hell with the test, it’s the murder weapon if I want it to be! Now quit acting like you’re my fuckin’ boss and get the hell outta my face!!”

              Williams nodded and smiled vaguely. Turning from his partner he shoved the door hard then slammed it, shaking the walls and rattling the items on the observation room’s desk.

              Frank smiled and composed a message to his partner. “
That was good. Come on back in
.”

              Marcus had not traveled far. The door opened immediately and he closed silently, making sure it was shut tightly behind him.

              “Jesus, you almost took the door off da frame,” Campanelli whispered through a mild grin.

              “Sorry,” Marcus shrugged.

              “Now we wait for the doctor to patch up his wrist and then you’re up, good cop.”

              “You have to admit, my argument actually has merit,” Marcus said lowly, his eyebrows arched.

              “I know,” Frank replied, “I’m thinking we can crack this nut before Beritoni’s brought in. Rothgery’s testing the Magnum now. If it is the gun, we have him anyway.”

              “I hope you’re right,” Marcus supplied, “I’d hate to have to go into Little Italy again to get that barber to come in to testify.”

              “Yeah,” Campanelli said soberly. He was certain that even though Ilario Ardello was an informer, it would take more than just a threat on his life for him to take the extra step and testify in court. Even then, it was not as solid as identifying the murder weapon. “Look at him, though,” Frank jerked his chin to the monitor, which sent his partner’s attention to the sweating, scared mess that the cameras next door centered on. “He’ll crack.”

              The doctor arrived momentarily, so Frank took a moment to call Rothgery about Antony’s car.

              “I’ve checked the car over, but all I found on the interior was his DNA and that of another person that’s not in the criminal database,” Lincoln said. “Under the hood, I found fingerprints all over the place, probably from his mechanic.”

              “What about the gun?”

              “I was just about to compare the rounds when you called,” Rothgery said, somewhat distractedly. Frank could hear the sounds of metal clinking and unidentified items being shuffled. “Wait one.”

              “Okay,” Campanelli mumbled, though the forensic genius had put the receiver down already. Frank turned to the criminal on the screen. The doctor was about done applying the cast to Antony’s left wrist. Marcus Williams was there watching closely. Frank shut his eyes tight and pursed his lips in the anticipation of Howard Lincoln’s findings.

              “Frank?” Rothgery’s voice fluttered loudly from the receiver.

              Campanelli had been unconscious of how hard he had been holding it against his ear until that point. He took it away abruptly and answered, “Yeah.”

              “We have a match,” Lincoln said with great satisfaction. “The bullet that killed Al Kelly matches the one I just spat out of this handgun.”

              Frank was struck dumb with relief as a tingle shot through his spine. He stood from the chair and threw a punch toward Jimmy Antony’s image on the screen.

              “Campanelli? You there?”

              “Yes, Lincoln, yes. That’s great news,” Frank answered with barely restrained excitement. “Thank you for getting to that so quickly.”

              “I’m happy to help put that asshole away, Frank.”

              The two men ended the call and Frank rang the interrogation room phone. Williams picked up and Frank relayed Rothgery’s findings. Marcus looked right into the main camera, the one focused on Antony’s face and smiled, balling up one fist in triumph. Without a word, he hung up the receiver.

              A moment later, the doctor departed and Williams sat across from the cop killer. “Well, Jimmy,” he began, “I’m happy to tell you that we’ve just matched the bullet that killed Detective Albert Kelly to your handgun. You’re going away for a while.”

              There was no reaction from the man on the other side of the table. His eyes barely passed over Williams’s face before dropping to the fresh cast.

              “You know,” Marcus added, his voice dripping with gratification. “I bet they’ll send you straight to Statesville.”

              Antony blinked in mild shock and looked to Marcus. It was clear that he had not considered that.

              “You’ve heard what’s going on…or should I say, ‘going around’ Statesville?” Williams pressed with a great smile stamped upon his face.

              Frank saw the toothy, wide-eyed and animated expression and was immediately reminded of an ancient cartoon he had seen at the theater. It was from the nineteen thirties or forties and was a retelling of
Red Riding Hood.
Williams seemed to embody that cartoon wolf, sans any form of humor whatsoever.

              Antony remained quiet, perhaps under the detective’s spell.

              “I give you maybe two weeks, unless you’ve gotten a booster shot in the last year,” Marcus squinted as he scrutinized Antony. “I’m thinking by the way you’ve just started to sweat that you haven’t, but even if you have it’ll give you…what? An extra two years at the most.”

              “So, I’m caught,” Jimmy broke his brief silence, lifting his broken wrist into the air and placing it gingerly upon the stainless steel table. “I’m dead anyway.”

              “Really?” Marcus feigned ignorance. “Why do you say that, Jimmy?”

              “Come on, man,” Jimmy smiled humorlessly. “The big guy wants me dead for my screw up. You and I both know it.”

              “And by ‘boss’, you mean…?”

              “Oh, I get it,” the disheveled wise guy spat and shifted in his seat. “For the record, right? Fine. For the record: My boss is Fillipo Ignatola.”

              “Very good, Jimmy,” Marcus commended as if speaking to a child.

              “You can knock
that
shit off,
cop
,” Antony dared to regain some of his gangster attitude. He pointed his casted left hand into Marcus’ face. “I’m not…Hey!!
Aaahh
!!”

              With speed that startled Campanelli, Williams’s right hand shot out, bypassing Antony’s pointing finger and, with his own extended appendage, poked Antony in the bright red bruised cheek that the cop killer had earlier received from Frank. Marcus’s hand came back with the same eerie speed and left the criminal holding his face with his bandaged hand.

              “What the fu…!” Jimmy tried to shout through the pain.

              “Shut UP!!” Williams howled, distorting the audio in the recording equipment. A difficult feat, Frank understood. “Believe it or not, I’m trying to help you.”

              To this, Antony remained silent, looking like a scared little boy in the presence of his drunken, abusive father.

              “Now, we have you for the murder of a police officer; that is undeniable. You’re going to prison. But we want Ignatola for human trafficking, too.”

              Jimmy’s face darkened with doubt. He removed his hand from his face and simply listened.

              “Oh, and we’re arresting your lawyer for harboring a fugitive. We’re gonna work on him to that end.”

              Antony’s face flushed for the first time since entering the interrogation room. He swallowed and looked down at his hands, then back up to the detective’s face.

              “Speaking of which,” Marcus said, adopting a much lighter mood, “why did Giovanni Beritoni go to such lengths to protect you…hide you? He’s a big shot in Ignatola’s lawyer’s firm. He must have known that Fillipo wanted you dead. He didn’t stand in the way for the other two idiots. They’re in Statesville now, not feeling too well, I’m betting.”

              Jimmy said nothing, but he did shift uncomfortably in the chair and lower his eyes again.

              “He went against the orders of his law firm and sprung you,” Marcus explained further. “We have the bank record that shows the money transfer from his account to yours, giving you the bail money.”

              “So, he lent me the money, so what?”

              “So, why’d he do it? Why for you and not the other two?”

              “Ask him,” Antony directed glumly. Fearing another lightning quick strike to the cheek he tried to lean back in his chair.

              “Oh, we will. He’ll be here in a short while and Frank will talk to him,” Marcus promised and pushed himself away from the table to leave.

              “Who’s Frank?” the criminal asked, though Marcus was sure the man already knew.

              “Frank’s the one that you shot at on two different occasions. He’s also the cop that turned your lights out for almost a minute,” Williams said and left the room. Closing one door behind him, he opened the next one and went in. “Any word?”

              “Not yet,” Frank answered with a thick drawl of boredom. Noting the time as after one in the afternoon, he added, “Should be any minute now.”

              Marcus sat down next to his partner and watched the multi-angled images of Jimmy Antony intently. The man fidgeted, unable to get comfortable in his chair. He cradled his injured wrist against his abdomen and looked about the room nervously, counting the cameras that were trained on him.

              “Why do you think Beritoni put himself on the line for this creepy slime?” Marcus asked almost to himself.

              Frank shrugged and ran his hand forward over the top of his head, the same direction the white hairs had been brushed. Marcus had seen this mannerism hundreds of times and knew it as the sign that his partner had an idea or was very, very tired.

              The wired telephone buzzed and Campanelli picked it up. The conversation was short and the receiver was quickly returned to its place.

              “Chavez and Morgan picked up Beritoni on his walk from the office. They’ll be here shortly,” Frank announced to his partner.

              The wait was indeed short. In a mere pair of minutes, Chavez escorted the attorney to an interrogation room two doors down from Antony’s. Williams set the big screen to show the two men in a split screen mode. Campanelli watched as Chavez attached the attorney’s handcuffs to the table and left the room.

              Frank reached into his gray tweed sport coat for his cigarettes. Marcus watched him, puzzled as to why there was time for a smoke. Campanelli lit the tobacco, clinked the lighter shut and replaced it to his inner pocket. He calmly and deliberately inhaled, held it briefly, and then exhaled into a great cloud of gray smoke that rose straight toward an air vent. Frank studied the cloud as if to indicate that it held more interest than the presence of Gianfranco.