Under the Knife: A Beautiful Woman, a Phony Doctor, and a Shocking Homicide (19 page)

Greg pulled out his planner and narrowed down the date: April 13.
Did he
kill
her? If he did, where would he put the body?
The questions rolled through Greg’s head for days, dark and grotesque scenarios playing out in his mind. He knew a large old home like Dean’s in Newark had lots nooks and crannies for hiding objects large and small. He didn’t known if Dean was capable of such a horrible act but the logic of the possibility made sense to him.

Mentally, Greg traveled through the house at 212 Elwood. He moved from room to room, remembering details, peering in closets and crannies, trying to determine where the best hiding place might be.
Where could he stash a body without the new owners finding it?

His head full of visions of the house, Greg went to a home on Park Avenue to fulfill a contract to decorate a Christmas tree. In the middle of hanging ornaments, Greg’s mind raced to the carriage house, the memory of Dean pouring concrete flashing before his eyes. Before he knew it, he had blurted the whole story out to the woman assisting him. She burst into tears.

Up until then, Greg thought he was being paranoid, allowing his imagination to run amok. Now, he believed his suspicions that Dean killed someone were true.

AS A COSMOPOLITAN CENTER IN CENTRAL AMERICA, SAN JOSE
was a relative newcomer. It did not develop into a city of any size until the late 1800s. As a result, it does not have the strong colonial flavor often associated with cities in that region. Although there are some graceful old buildings in the heart of town, the structures that dominate San Jose’s landscape were erected during the building boom of the 1950s and -60s.

The streets of San Jose sprawl across the city in a manner similar to those of Manhattan. Numbered
calles
—streets—stretch in one direction intersecting numbered
avenidas
—avenues—running perpendicular. Unlike Manhattan, though, even-numbered streets and avenues are stacked on one side of the city center—odd-numbered ones on the other.

On the surface, the consistency of this pattern would suggest an easy set-up to learn and navigate, but there is one sticking point. No businesses or residences have street addresses in all of Costa Rica.
Josefinos
use intersections and landmarks to give directions.

Unfortunately for newcomers like Dean, in San Jose, as in any vital urban center, change is constant. Yesterday’s landmark gives way to today’s parking lot. However, locals seldom provide such significant details. For
example, the Coca-Cola building is mentioned with great frequency, even though it’s been a bus depot for years.

Dean’s ability to find his way around the city was hampered by that eccentricity, as well as the language barrier. English-only North Americans flock to a neighborhood called Gringo Gulch and mingle with bilingual ex-pats. They congregate in its hotels, its McDonald’s and at its many bars, including the New York Bar and Nashville South.

There, imported drinks come with a very high price tag.
Ticos
rely on
guaro
, a harsh spirit distilled from fermented sugar cane, local beers, like Bavaria and Imperial, and a selection of wines. Unlike the vintages made up North, these wines are not made from grapes, but from spiny palm sap or from blackberries and other locally grown fruits.

In the evening, a plethora of discothèques and dance halls fling open their doors and blast music into the streets. Entry is free or cheap. With drinks, they serve
bocas
, heaping plates of appetizers like
cerviche
, chicken wings and bean soup. No matter the musical taste—or the sexual preference—there is a club for everyone.

Dean soon found his favorite spots to frolic in the gay night life of San Jose. He spent many nights at El CantaBrico at Calle 11 and Avenida 3, where the focus was on drinking and meeting men.

Another of Dean’s favored hang-outs, Pucho’s Night Club, had a regular set of drag queens and male strip-tease acts. A block and a half away was Bochinche, a velvetroped, multi-leveled disco with huge video screens, and drag queen routines that alternated with DJ’s playing dance music.

Businesses that catered to gay clientele extended beyond nightclubs. There were bathhouses like Jano and Paris. Hispalis, an upscale sauna—the largest in Central
America—boasted twenty-five years of experience providing treatment and service for men.

There was even a gay-friendly Internet café, 1@10, near the Plaza de la Cultura in the center of town. They lured gay patrons with a $1-an-hour access rate and a promise that 1@10 was “the place to go where you can be yourself.” Typically, though, Dean checked his email—two or three times a week—at the Cyber Café on Avenida 2.

From there, he sent emails to friends in New York. To one, Dean claimed he had left town because of a botched tattoo removal, in which the patient had to be hospitalized. Of course, he never mentioned the real secret, left buried in Newark.

DEAN HAD A COURT DATE IN MANHATTAN ON OCTOBER
8, 2003. He did not make it. His attorney, Margaret Shalley, admitted to the judge that she had no idea of her client’s current whereabouts. The court ruled that Dean’s bail was forfeit. Dean Faiello was now officially a fugitive from justice. A new date for sentencing was set for December. That day came and went, and still no sign of Dean. The judge issued a warrant for his arrest.

When a bail bondsman sent Greg a bill for $6,000, he was confused. The original bail amount was $5,000 and he’d already given the company $2,500. Why was the bill higher than the balance on the bond? Before he could figure out the situation, the bond company went out of business. That debt, at least, was off Greg’s back.

SAN JOSE KICKED OFF THE
2003
HOLIDAY SEASON WITH THE
Festival de la Luz
—Festival of Lights. More than a million people gathered for the night-time parade with its light-adorned floats and elaborate fireworks display. Dean loved the color and celebration of Christmas and threw
himself into the unique elements of the festivities in a foreign land.

The
ticos’
spirit of celebration is enhanced by the
aguinaldo
, a government-mandated Christmas bonus each worker receives from his employer—the equivalent of one month’s pay. Costa Rica pioneered this concept in Latin America, and their example of Christmas largesse is now mimicked by other countries in the hemisphere.

Homes bustled with holiday activity as families prepared their personal
portal
, a nativity scene that was often an ambitious life-sized project taking up an entire room. Bright tropical flowers and colorful fresh fruit decorated the displays.

Dean was amused to see the Christmas tree he knew in the States replaced here with a new tradition: a big evergreen branch, a small cypress tree or several dried coffee branches decorated with white paint, brilliant strips of paper, colored balls, small figurines and lace, and topped with a gold star to represent the Star of Bethlehem. As he walked through the city, he saw door after door of homes and businesses decorated with cypress wreaths trimmed with red coffee beans and ribbons, and strings of multicolored lights that made the city glow. Everywhere, he heard heart-felt greeting of
Feliz Navidad
. He walked through the
Zapote
section of San Jose watching it come to life with an improvised amusement park filled with rides, games of chance and food booths.

On Christmas Eve, the celebration became more insular, and Dean was an outsider as families gathered at their churches for
Misa de Gallo
, a special holiday service, afterwards enjoying the traditional Christmas dinner featuring chicken and pork tamales stuffed with potatoes and vegetables and wrapped in plantain leaves. The adults wash their meal down with rum punch or
rompope
—eggnog laced with dark rum or brandy. For the children,
they serve
aguadulce
, a sweet, fruit-based beverage. A quiet descended over the night club scene as doors shut so that employees could join their families.

It all cut loose again the day after Christmas with Dean parading in the thick of the
tope
. Originally a prelude to a bull fight, consisting of men on horseback, the procession Dean saw had developed into much more. In addition to equestrian performances,
caballo
-drawn carriages and oxcarts trailed through the street. Floats, marching bands, dancing girls and clowns added to the festive atmosphere. As it wended its way through the byways of San Jose, revelers mingled and celebrated. The party did not stop until January 6, the day traditionally observed for the arrival of the Magi.

It was an intoxicating season in San Jose—a month-long celebration of drink and good cheer. And in 2003, Dean partied through the whole holiday—all day and all night long.

For the Cruz family, on the other hand, that Christmas was a solemn occasion: Maria was still missing. Nine months had come and gone and still no sign of her. The traditional high spirits of the Filipino Christmas—one that rivaled Costa Rica’s for its length and exuberance—were muted. The Cruzes went through the motions, but any feelings of renewal or good cheer were lost under the shadow of the mystery of Maria. The pain went even deeper in her parents’ hearts, her disappearance coming as it did before the first time in more than a decade that Maria planned to return to the Philippines for Christmas.
Where was she?

GREG WAITED TO HEAR BACK FROM BRIAN FORD. THE HOLI
days came and went. Still, the investigator did not call. Greg grew annoyed, not realizing until much later that Ford was doing all he could to convince others to pursue Greg’s lead. Once there was a possible homicide, however, it was no longer Ford’s case. The investigative responsibility moved from the attorney general’s office to the detective bureau of the New York Police Department.

Greg sat down and composed a letter to Ford, describing the haunting scenario that played on a continuous loop in his mind. He wrote of Dean pouring a concrete slab and added his suspicion that it wasn’t big enough to conceal a whole human body. In closing, he asked that, whether he was right or wrong, he really would like to hear back from Ford.

Greg went to the mailbox, envelope in hand. Suddenly, having it all down in writing intimidated him. It was so final. He stood rooted to the sidewalk, the letter burning in his hand. He knew it was a betrayal of the man he loved. He knew that if he mailed it, there was no turning back—ever. Greg didn’t want to hurt Dean—but he did want to do the right thing.

He pulled down the metal door and slid the letter inside. It hit the pile of mail in the bottom of the box with a
muted thump. For a few moments, Greg could not move. He had the sensation of having just stepped off of a steep cliff.

He waited for a response with a numb mind. He paid close attention to the local news, suspecting that if he was right, he’d hear word there that someone had taken action. Although it was unlikely, he continued to hope that somehow the authorities would disprove his suspicions. He hung in limbo not knowing what, if anything, he should do.

Greg didn’t hear from Ford or any other official for weeks, but he did connect with a friend—one who’d recently gotten a lengthy email from Dean. In it, Dean described his tropical home, complaining that no one in Costa Rica spoke English. The friend was concerned that she’d get in trouble for communicating with a fugitive.

Greg didn’t think getting an email was a crime, but he encouraged her paranoia just the same. Contact the authorities, he urged her. Maybe if they wouldn’t respond to him, they would respond to someone else. “If you talk to them,” he told her, “please tell them to call me.”

She did talk to police, who came to her house and picked up a hard copy of the email that same day. The next day, Joe Della Rocca visited Greg. When Greg told him about the concrete slab and his concern that a part of a body or other evidence could be hidden within, Della Rocca said, “Faiello’s too smart to do something like that.”

“Is it smart to get busted for practicing medicine and then start practicing medicine again? Is that very smart?” Greg retorted.

“You’ve got a point,” Della Rocca said.

THE ISSUE SURROUNDING JASON OPSAHL’S PENSION WAS AT
last resolved after the first of the new year—in Dean’s favor. Debra and Patty visited attorney Tom Shanahan and pressured him to give them Dean’s money. They said that was what Dean wanted. Shanahan balked—Debra was not his client, Dean was. He asked Debra where Dean was, and she responded, “You don’t want to know.”

The duo returned again, leaning on Shanahan to wire the money to a bank in Costa Rica. Neither Debra nor Patty mentioned that Dean was a fugitive on charges of practicing medicine without a license. Tom insisted on speaking with Dean before he did anything with the money.

Dean called Shanahan and explained, “I’m taking a long vacation from my troubles with my business partners. I’m in the jungle.”

At his request, in early February, Shanahan wired $50,000 to Banco Popular in San Jose to the account of Dean Faiello. With this inheritance in hand, Dean began squandering extravagant sums of money as he explored more of the country.

Debra Faiello, on the other hand, assuaged her guilt with a concession to Jason’s memory. She made a contribution of $5,000 to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.