Caught Dead (23 page)

Chapter Thirty-three

That afternoon after I left, Ardolino read Kristen her Miranda rights, had her sign off on them, and then led her through a taped confession. Then he got an arrest warrant for Danny Trinh. In her bumbling way, Kristen finally came clean.

“I sort of…you know…figured…”

She would be charged, but first Ardolino wanted to deal with Danny, who, escorted from Bank of America, said nothing, just glowered at the officers who cuffed him. In the back of a squad car he slumped down, his head folded into the folds of the Armani sports jacket.

According to an arresting officers, an older woman commented to another as Danny was led out the front door of the bank, “Good-looking young man like that!” as she shook her head.

The other, grinning, added, “Looks good even in handcuffs.”

When Ardolino told me the anecdote, he laughed. “People crack me up.”

I'd spoken to him before the arrest, and the two of us pondered the still-unfathomable question—what is the motive for two horrific killings? It didn't make any sense. Danny clearly had no great love for Kristen, was in fact using her for quickie sex, and obviously fed into her mushrooming delusions with talk of marriage and fidelity and kids up against a white picket fence. So her puppy love was convenient for him, I agreed, but for what end? Kristen's remarks, now being transcribed in Hartford, identified him as the murderer, or at least provided sufficient information to begin serious questioning of Danny. But, again, why? Because Mary was too nosy? He dabbled in smoking weed—dabbled. Recreation—a great word for it, I thought cynically. Dabbled, with Tommy.

You don't murder two women because of it. You just don't. And you don't go to such bizarre strategies to mask the murders as drive-bys, attempting to throw the police way off the track. This was overkill. Worried about Bank of America? Maybe. But…overkill. Definitely. The drive-by machinations smacked of deliberate planning…and desperation.

But Mary, I said to Ardolino, was trying to contact the police. Danny
feared
that. Could it be that Danny was afraid something more sinister would emerge? That he'd be scrutinized more closely? What was going on here?

So Danny was hauled in, protested his innocence, eventually got a lawyer present during the interrogation, and said the things Ardolino and I expected him to say: Kristen was a little slow—“No,” he said, “a lot slow.” She “misinterpreted things.” He and Kristen were playing some sort of prank, admittedly to “scare” the women. Kristen must have made those phone calls on her own. They'd joked about it, especially after taking that detour and ending up in Goodwin Square. One wrong turn and you miss Saigon, he said. Get it? Miss Saigon. So the murders were, indeed, accidental drive-bys. What evidence was there to convict him? He had nothing to do with it.

In the first hour he kept protesting his innocence, with his lawyer doing most of the talking. Then Ardolino played part of the Kristen tape and Danny winced, hearing the fragmented bits and pieces of Kristen's chatter, especially as she moved from talking in circles about what had happened, and ended with her caving in—her acknowledgement that something had to be done. Her mother was going to end their once-in-a-lifetime love affair.

After three hours Danny started to crack. An hour later, wiped out, over the protests of his lawyer, he confessed to arranging Mary's murder, and then Molly's, both done in by a hit man he'd located in New York City. Then, exhausted, he shut up. Why did you do it? Ardolino asked. But Danny had stopped talking.

I'd headed home directly after the interview with Kristen, called Hank and Liz to fill them in on Kristen's handing over of Danny, and then tried to decide what to do. There still were a number of unanswered questions. Then the phone rang, Harry Jacobi calling from New York. We talked for ten or so minutes, and I jotted down notes. When I hung up the phone, I knew where I might get some of those answers.

***

Larry Torcelli was busy, his secretary said, but when I told her it had to do with his dead wife, her face got long and mournful, and she buzzed him: “Go right in.” Larry stood behind his desk, pointed to a chair, and thinly smiled.

I'd never been to his office before. In the North End of Hartford, off Albany Avenue, the Hartford office and showroom, the original building of his father's massive corporate empire, were dwarfed by the gaudy edifices he'd built in New Haven, Bridgeport, Greenwich, and even Agawam, Massachusetts. Yet Larry still ordered his empire out of the 1920s Hartford building, surrounded by a decaying city landscape. But his office was no cheap walnut paneling board, gray industrial carpets over old linoleum, with the obligatory awards from the Rotarians or the Elks Club lopsidedly mounted on the wall. No, this spacious office, obviously once two rooms now joined as one, was like any other elegant room in his home, with carpeting so deep I felt I'd never see my shoes again, a mahogany desk that could hold a meeting at the UN, and on the wall behind him a line of Dali prints, which I suspected were real. And though the view from the back window was of a parking lot, a corner of a shabby housing project, and a sagging stockade fence the victim of too many harsh New England winters, the window itself had draperies so effectively hung they gave the impression of cascading water. I was impressed.

“It's about Molly?” he asked impatiently as I gazed around the office. “You have some answers.”

“Some. I need more.”

“And?”

“And I'm hoping you can give me some.”

“Well, I've talked to the police and said everything I know.”

“There are new developments. Did you know that your daughter Kristen was sleeping with Danny?”

He looked confused. “Well, I had suspicions. Molly mentioned something, but Kristen has these wild fantasies, always has had, so I never knew what to believe. She can go off, you know…”

“A guy like Danny could manipulate her very easily.”

“But Danny's a gentleman.”

I laughed. “You know, in all my talks to people the last few weeks, and a lot of it about Danny, I've never heard anyone call him a gentleman.”

“He's a success story.”

“Well, that he is, which I've also heard too many times. But he's also a player, as you well know—you know his history with casual sex.” Larry frowned. “He led Kristen to believe he loved her. It knocked her off-balance. Molly thought he was on drugs, and Kristen, too. Mary was already calling the police. But Kristen told Danny that Molly was going to forbid him from seeing her—from coming to the house, in fact.”

“That will never happen. I wouldn't allow it. Danny is—like a son.”

“So I've heard, over and over again. Another familiar line. But things backfired on Danny. He tells her to keep their affair a secret, and she really can't. Worse, once she starts talking, she can't stop.”

He looked confused. “What does this mean?”

“It means that Danny put a lot of pressure on Kristen to keep quiet about things. More so, he got her to
do
things she shouldn't have done—supposedly in the name of love.” I paused. “Would you have allowed Kristen to marry Danny?”

“That has nothing to do with anything.”

“I was just curious. She felt her mother would fight it, but you'd cave in.”

“I'm not following this.”

“You and Danny worked as a team.”

“Not really. He's a banker in charge…”

“He introduced you to Jack Williamson.”

Larry looked puzzled. “Who?”

“Danny's old roommate at Harvard. Now a resident of New York City. In fact, the creator, owner, and CEO of AsiaConcepts and its subsidiary, AsiaAuto.”

“Danny isn't a
part
of that. He got me to invest. I run the AsiaAuto division out of—here. I handle it personally.” He waved his hand out toward the showroom. “It's fairly lucrative.”

“I'll say. In the past year moneys from that enterprise have saved your ass, got you out of near-bankruptcy, and made you a lot richer.”

“I said it was a good deal.”

“Did Danny get a cut?”

“No, of course not. Everything went through his bank, but no. Maybe some finder's fees at the start. A few thousand.”

“He deposits periodic checks for a thousand here, a thousand there, sudden entries into his bank account.”

Larry rubbed his jaw, nervous. “Okay, so I manage to keep paying him—to help him out. I give him a percentage of
my
profit. He squirrels it away somewhere. I can spend my dollar any way I want, if that's the point you're making. It's legal. But he's a kid starting out. It was
his
connection that got me into it. So who is the loser?”

“Good question.”

The conversation was making him edgy. He got up, turned to look out the window. Sunlight glinted off the rows of parked cars. When he turned back, he seemed more in control. He sat back down. “I don't see how a minor business indiscretion relates to Molly's death.”

“And Mary's. Don't forget her.”

“They were drive-bys.”

“They were, indeed.”

“So?”

“But, as it turns out, not by Spanish thugs in low-slung armored Toyotas.”

“Then?”

I changed the subject, determined to keep control of the conversation. “Why did Danny want you involved with AsiaAuto Enterprises?”

He looked perplexed. “Well, simple. His old roommate started AsiaConcepts, as you know. It really took off. But he wanted to tap into China's other growth—the automobile. I got connections, expertise. I flew to China last year to talk the talk with auto industry types there…” He paused. “It's a new market, a new concept, in fact, and Danny said I should jump in. I should
operate
it. It's paid off…”

“Beautifully,” I finished.

“I still don't see…”

“Let me put my cards on the table. I've done some research on AsiaConcepts and AsiaAuto in New York City. Frankly, it raises a few questions. I just learned that some investigators are asking questions. The Department of Consumer Protection has something to say about it. The Feds. You see, Jack Williamson did form the company, there is an office in Soho tucked between two art galleries, and a filed prospectus explains the rationale of the company. And, quite frankly, AsiaConcepts is an idea that works. And works well.”

“So?” Impatience in his voice. “That's what they do.”

“The only problem is, Larry, that AsiaAuto seems to be a shadow corporation, papers filed, but largely nonfunctional. Sure, the money is there, profitable as hell, but some digging by the New York Attorney General suggests that the investing companies here in America are not real. What I'm saying is that the sources of that money are questionable. In other words, AsiaAuto is beginning to look to some investigators like a bogus corporation, tucked comfortably into the shadow of a legit operation like AsiaConcepts. Lots of money has flowed through your hands, through Danny's at the bank, and back to Jack Williamson. Millions of dollars.”

For the first time I saw sweat on his upper lip. He licked it.

“I don't know where you're going with this.”

“I'll tell you what I think. It strikes me as a little money laundering going on here, all seemingly legal. Fake investors pay into AsiaAuto, all documented on paper. You broker the money, deposit that money into a special account at Bank of America, Danny sends off all but twenty-five percent to New York, and you keep the rest, with a cash allotment to Danny. Nice scheme. Smoke and mirrors. Legit investment in the Chinese auto industry. Neat documentation. You pay legit taxes on it. Seamless, in fact. But fake investors, real money. Probably drug money that needs to be laundered. And Danny, at the bank, could be a watchdog for any surprises that might arise.”

“You're making this up.” Larry lowered his voice.

“Am I?”

“I can prove…”

“It must have been real tempting, this offer, a surefire, permanent way to ease your cash flow problems and to keep your business solvent.”

“But this has nothing to do with the murder. How can it? You
don't
think I…”

I waited a moment. “Right now Danny is being questioned by the Hartford police in the murders of Molly and Mary.”

He stood up. “What?”

“Sit down. Just sit.”

He deliberated, but sat down.

“A couple hours ago your daughter Kristen told Detective Ardolino—and me, too—that she made the call to get Mary to that spot, calling from Danny's apartment. Then she set the trap for her own mother to go there a week later, all at Danny's bidding.”

He was pale. “This has nothing to do with me.”

My cell phone rang. While he watched, I answered it, turning sideway from Larry. “Yes.” And then said “yes” a number of times. With a few “uh huhs” and “wells” tossed in. I said little else. Then I hung up. “That was Detective Ardolino. He told me he'd check in with me. It seems your golden boy Danny has finally confessed to orchestrating the murders. He used your own daughter to set them up…”

“No,” he yelled. “No. What does this mean?”

“What do you think it means?”

“You're not saying that I had anything to do with this?”

“That's what Danny is saying right now. He says you were part of the whole horrible deal.”

“That's a lie. A fucking lie.”

“Is it?”

Then, sinking into his chair, his face dissolved, his shoulders slumped, and for a second his head dipped onto his hands on the desk. When he looked up, his face was awash in tears. “I had nothing to do with those murders, for God's sake. I had nothing to do with killing my Molly. She was my wife, damn it. I loved her. How can you believe that?”

I sat there, waiting. He sobbed and sobbed, started to talk, then stopped, sputtering. “Not my Molly. Not her. My beautiful wife. I loved her. Not her.” Then, an edge in his voice. “That fucking Danny. He did it.”