A Brilliant Death (10 page)

Travis began rolling through the microfilm, trying to locate the front page of each edition, spinning it, stopping it, backing it up, stopping it, moving it forward, stopping it, backing it up. It had a hypnotic effect; I stood behind him and watched until I found myself listing to the left with a case of motion sickness. “We’ll be forever trying to find stories this way,” he complained.

I was already walking away from the microfilm machine, reaching for a seat at an oak table in the middle of the research area. That’s when I remembered “Fast Freddie” Doucette.

When we were in Florence Braatz’s sixth-grade class and given an English assignment to write a five-hundred-word essay about a living hero, my immediate choice was “Fast Freddie” Doucette, who was a flanker and kick returner for the Wheeling Ironmen of the United Football League and my favorite player. A patient librarian in the research section showed me how to use the microfilm machine, then showed me a book that had the name of anyone mentioned in the Steubenville
Herald-Star
and the dates their name appeared. As I sat down at the table to regain my equilibrium, I looked across the room and on a shelf opposite the microfilm machines spotted a row of books bound in black leather. On the spine of each was printed,
Steubenville Herald-Star News Index
.

I wobbled over, snatched the 1953 and 1954 editions and sat down next to Travis as he whirled through the reel.

November 21 had been the last story filed about Amanda Baron in 1953. It was another follow-up on the futility of the search. I also found her name in the 1954 directory.

Baron, Amanda—Jan. 14

“Get the microfilm for January 1954,” I said.

He slipped the microfilm into the reader and rolled to the date. Again, the story consumed the top of page one.

The remainder of the article was a recap of earlier stories.

Oddly, it was the only story about Amanda Baron to appear in the Steubenville
Herald-Star
the entire year. There was no one-year anniversary story and never a follow-up on the progress of Tornik’s investigation. “That’s bizarre, don’t you think?” Travis asked. “This was a big deal. How can you write a story about a homicide investigation, then never have a single follow-up?”

As with most of Travis’s questions about his mother, I didn’t have an answer. “Maybe they investigated it and found out there was nothing to it.”

“Okay, but shouldn’t there have been a story that said so? And that still doesn’t answer the big question, which was why did this detective think she might have been murdered?”

“Don’t make too much out of it,” I suggested. “Maybe the guy was just grandstanding, trying to get an article for his scrapbook.”

Travis adjusted the story on the screen, pointed at the critical passage and read, “‘
We believe foul play may have been involved or we wouldn’t be looking into the case,’ Tornik said.
”

Throughout our work on Project Amanda, I continually reminded myself that this was Travis’s mother. He had many unanswered questions, and this article had just added to it. I pondered this for a minute, then suggested, “We’re three blocks from the sheriff’s office. Let’s walk over there. Maybe that Tornik guy is still a detective. If he is, I’ll bet he’d tell you.”

Travis nodded. “That’s a good idea.”

“I have those once in a while,” I said.

There was no acknowledgement from Travis, who simply started rewinding the microfilm reel.

The sheriff’s office was in the courthouse annex, just north of the main structure. It was a two-story building that housed the county jail in the basement, the sheriff’s office on the first floor, and juvenile court on the second floor. The lobby of the sheriff’s office looked like the inside of a bank, with a single window opening covered with chrome bars. The door to the left led back to the sheriff’s department; the one to the right into a stairwell. Both had magnetic locks that could only be opened by a worn-out looking platinum blonde with thick hips sitting at a desk behind the grated opening. We stood at the opening for several moments before she raised her eyes from the paperback she was reading. “Yes?” she asked, cracking her chewing gum.

“Uh, does Detective Chase Tornik still work here?” Travis asked. “We wanted to talk to him about a murder investigation.”

Without any sign of emotion, she picked up the phone and punched in a number. “There are two kids up here who are asking for Chase Tornik. . . . No, I’m not kidding. . . . They said it’s about a murder investigation. . . . I don’t know. . . . I don’t know.” She took an exasperated breath. “I still don’t know. Why don’t you come up here and ask them?” She hung up her phone and went back to her paperback. “Someone will be up in a minute.”

Sheriff Beaumont T. Bonecutter could block out the sun. He stood an imposing six-foot-four and had shoulders like a bear, which caused the light blue, polyester shirt to strain across his chest. A pair of thick, muscular forearms extended from the short sleeves, revealing a mat of curly, gray hair the same shade as those projecting from his nostrils and ears. His black tie was a clip-on and he smelled of Vitalis and bay rum. He had two of the biggest hands I had ever seen on a human being, and when he set the paws on the counter I noticed a wedding ring being suffocated behind a mound of flesh. His arms were spread wide, and through the bars he asked, “What do you boys want?”

“We wanted to talk to Chase Tornik,” Travis said.

There was a moment of silence. “Chase Tornik?”

“Yes, sir.”

Bonecutter snorted—part laughter, part disgust. He looked at Travis, then me, then Travis again. “What do you want with him?”

“We wanted to ask him some questions.”

“I don’t have time to play twenty questions with you, junior; what’s this about?”

“My mom. My mom was Amanda Baron. She drowned . . .”

“I know who your mom was. Were you the one looking for that report?”

“Yes, sir.”

He nodded. “Okay, so what’s that have to do with Tornik?”

“We found an article in the newspaper that said he was investigating her death as a homicide, but there was only one story. I want to find out why he thought it was a homicide and what happened.”

Bonecutter chewed on his upper lip, frowned, then said, “Let ’em in, Sally.”

The electronic latch on the door to our left released and I followed Travis, who followed Bonecutter, into the inner sanctum of the sheriff’s office. “Is Mr. Tornik in?” I asked.

The sheriff never broke stride as he led us toward his office. “He doesn’t work here anymore.”

“When did he quit?”

“He didn’t. We fired him when he went to prison.” Bonecutter pushed open the door to his office and motioned us in with his head. “Have a seat.” As I walked by I could smell the cigar smoke that clung to him. He walked around a mahogany desk that was as big as my bed, sat in a leather-padded chair that exhaled under his weight, and asked, “What are you trying to find out?”

“I’m just trying to track down information about my mom,” Travis said. “We were looking up articles at the library. That’s where I found the one about Detective Tornik investigating her death as a homicide. That’s why we wanted to talk to him.”

“You’re not familiar with Tornik?”

“Not at all,” Travis said.

He nodded slowly for several seconds, twirling a bent paper clip in his fingers. “Best goddamn detective I’d ever seen,” Bonecutter said. “I was his patrol sergeant when he cracked the DiCarolis case, but I don’t suppose you know about that, either?” We both shook our heads. He pulled a Marsh-Wheeling Stogie from a package, fired it up, took several puffs, and slid the silver lighter across his desk blotter. “The DiCarolis family was a very powerful crime family out of Youngstown. In December 1948, there was a triple homicide at the Little Napoli Restaurante . . .” He pointed over his shoulder. “It’s not there anymore, but it was a little hole-in-the-wall place north of town on Jewett Road by the Pottery Addition. We got a call about a shooting, and Tornik was the first officer on the scene. He goes in, finds the restaurant’s owner, Eddie LaBaudica, they called him Sweet Fingers, and his brother-in-law, Santino Potenzini, dead in the dining room. It had dropped well below zero, and the power had gone out in a storm. There was frozen blood everywhere. Sweet Fingers was facedown, his face frozen solid in a plate of angel hair pasta and marinara—I’ll never forget that—and he had a pair of .22-caliber slug holes behind his left ear. The cook, I can’t remember his name, died the same way. Potenzini, however, had apparently put up a struggle, and he was lying on the floor, his gun still in his hand, blood everywhere.

“Potenzini was a lieutenant in the Antonelli crime family of Pittsburgh. The Antonellis controlled gambling in the Upper Ohio River Valley. The don was Salvatore Antonelli—Il Tigre. You’ve heard of him, right?”

We both nodded. Everyone in the Ohio Valley knew of Il Tigre. He had a reputation as the most ruthless mob boss in the country. My dad played the numbers and bet on pro football games at Carmine’s Lounge in Mingo Junction, and he once saw El Tigre there. He said the don had a complexion like a gravel parking lot and such girth that he gulped down air in bursts and gurgled when he exhaled. Dad also said he had the dark, depthless eyes of a predator and he was happy to place his bets and get out of the lounge.

Beaumont T. Bonecutter continued, “The Antonellis used the Little Napoli Restaurante as their base in the Valley. The DiCarolis family had been trying to move in on the action, and this was meant as a wake-up call for the Antonellis.

“Since Tornik was the first one on the scene, the detectives asked him to help out with the investigation. We’re a small department, and we all pitch in. Tornik is looking around and he finds a butter dish lying upside down, frozen. He picks it up and it has a perfect imprint of three fat fingers—a deep scar running the length of the middle one—and a man’s ring—a square face with a large, centered rock, chipped, surrounded by the initials ‘JS.’

“He puts the butter dish in the freezer and gets the art teacher at the high school to make a plaster cast of it. She used that to make a latex mold, which we used to make several plaster casts.” He pointed to one of the casts on the shelf behind his desk. “‘JS,’ we figured, stood for Joey Sirgusiano, who was this slob of a numbers runner and enforcer who worked for DiCarolis. Tornik brings Sirgusiano in for questioning. He shows up with an attorney who is wearing a suit that cost more than I make in a year. I’m watching from behind a two-way mirror. Sirgusiano’s attorney says, ‘The only reason I’m agreeing to this interview was because of the ludicrous suggestion that Mr. Sirgusiano is somehow involved in the tragic murders at the Little Napoli.’

“Sirgusiano and the attorney are looking at each other and smirking. Sirgusiano says, ‘Hey, sonny boy, are you old enough to carry a real gun?’ Tornik was only about twenty-three and looked sixteen. Then Sirgusiano points at the two-way mirror, which I’m behind with the county prosecutor and two detectives, and says, ‘Hey, guys, how come you’re sending a boy to do a man’s job?’

“Tornik starts asking questions, acting timid. Sirgusiano’s answering them exactly as the attorney had scripted them. He had never in his life been in the Little Napoli Restaurante, although he heard the eggplant parmesan and risotto were the best in the Ohio Valley. Which, by the way, was true. Eddie ‘Sweet Fingers’ LaBaudica? Never heard of him. Never in his life. Santino Potenzini? Him neither. Were those two of the men who died? They were? How tragic. No, he didn’t know nothin’ about nothin’.

“Finally, the lawyer asks, ‘Officer, my client is a very busy man. How much longer is this charade going to take?’

“This is where it got really good. Tornik says, ‘Oh, not long at all, actually.’ He points toward the ring finger on Sirgusiano’s right hand and says, ‘That’s a beautiful ring, Mr. Sirgusiano. May I see it?’

“The lawyer says, ‘What? Absolutely not. Keep it on your finger.’

“Tornik reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a search warrant. He says, ‘Do you see this, counselor? This is a search warrant. The location of the search is the person of one Joseph Dominic Sirgusiano.’ He winks at Sirgusiano and says, ‘That’s you, dipstick. The object in question is a ring—flat face, chipped center stone, initials JS.’ I swear to Jesus, every bit of color drained from Sirgusiano’s face. He didn’t know whether to shit or go blind. He couldn’t even work up a spit. The attorney reads the warrant, then shrugs and says, ‘Give him the ring. We’ll get it back.’

“Sirgusiano tugs it off his fat finger and slams it down on the middle of the table. Tornik held the ring up close for several minutes before reaching back into his jacket pocket and pulling out a plaster replica of the ring and the three chubby fingers. He says, ‘You know, your ring bears a striking resemblance to the one in this cast. And wouldn’t you say the scar on the middle finger of this mold matches the one on your middle finger, Mr. Sirgusiano?’