All He Saw Was the Girl (21 page)

    Two
weeks later the Macomb County Sheriff's Department went to his house with a
search warrant and found the wife's torso in a garbage can in the garage. The
husband confessed he'd cut up her body in his dad's machine shop and strewn her
body parts in a wooded area behind their house. A detective working the case
said, when the wife's missing the husband is always the main suspect.

    Ray
said, "Sharon will call you, explain everything when she's ready."

    DeAnn
said, "Does she have cancer, can you tell me that?"

    Ray
said, "She's not dying." He hoped she wasn't.

    DeAnn
said, "Tell her we love her and she's welcome back whenever she
wants."

    Ray
was suspicious, didn't believe it. Sharon would've called, not sent an email.
That wasn't like her. She was conscientious and responsible, loved her job, and
made a lot of money, more than he did and he was well paid for a federal agent.
It didn't seem plausible that she'd just up and leave with someone like Joey
Palermo, either. But she had to be lonely, starved for attention and affection.
He certainly hadn't helped the situation. She was alone most of the time and
when he came home he made her miserable. He couldn't see it before or maybe he
didn't want to stop and consider her point of view. It was as if his life had
been out of focus and now everything was in perfect register. He wanted her
back and wondered if what he was feeling was possessiveness or love. Did he
still love her? Did he ever?

    But
if she planned to go away with Joey she would've told someone, wouldn't she?
Her sister? Her friends? The way she did it didn't make sense. That's why Ray
had his doubts. Until he knew better he'd have to assume something was wrong,
something had happened to Sharon.

    He
drove downtown to the McNamara Building, where he'd worked for the first two
years as an agent. Parked in an open lot across from the office, went in the
building and asked for Jim Teegarden.

    Teeg
came down and got him, shook his hand and said, "Good to see you, Ray.
This take you back?"

    "Deja
vu all over again."

    Teeg
was compact and meticulous, dark hair going gray, wearing a blue Oxford-cloth
shirt with heavy starch, gold cuff links, and a designer tie. They took an
elevator up to the tenth floor, a bullpen of cubicles where Ray had worked. He
said, "Looks exactly the same. Like I walked out yesterday."

    "What'd
you think, the Service was going to change?"

    Teegarden
had fifteen years in. He was a GS-15, same as Ray had been, and had his own
office. Ray stood at the window, glancing at the GM Building a few blocks away,
and beyond it the Detroit River and the shoreline of Canada. With the casinos
and new construction Detroit looked better than ever. But Ray didn't care, he
liked it the way it was. Liked its rustbelt, blue-collar charm.

    Teeg
said, "Here's Joey, take a look."

    He
had a stack of photographs in his hands, sliding three off the deck like he was
dealing cards, and arranged them on his desk that didn't have anything on it
except a phone. Ray stood there looking down at a black-and-white shots, a
close-up of Joey's face. Nice-looking guy, heavy beard, dark hair slicked back,
Joey grinning, Joey smoking a cigar in the second one, getting in his car in
front of the Messina Spaghetti Company, his office, a two-story cinderblock
building on Grosbeck.

    The
next series showed Joey in his boat on Lake St Clair; Joey outside the
Roostertail, the riverside, partying with his
buddies,
and Joey on a street in downtown Detroit, making his daily collections.

    Teegarden
put three more shots on top of those, showing Joey with a baseball bat. He was
in a batters stance, and it looked like the inside of a restaurant. There were
tables in the background but nobody sitting at them. Another shot showed Joey
swinging for the fence. And in the third one, Joey was outside the restaurant,
big smile, bat resting on his shoulder.

    Teegarden
said, "Surveillance photos, courtesy of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation. "

    Ray
said, "He ever play ball?"

    Teegarden
said, "He only swings at things that don't move - inanimate objects, and
people."

    He
slid three more photos off the deck: busted-up cases in a jewelry store, smashed
car windows on a dealership lot and the shattered storefront window of a fur
shop. He could read the name on the door in the left side of the frame:
Dietrich Furs.

    Ray
said, "He likes to break things, I see."

    Teegarden
said, "You don't pay for protection, this is what happens."

    "They've
got pictures of what he did and people he threatened, right? What's the
problem?" Ray said.

    "Call
the police," Teegarden said, "and you might end up like this."

    Teegarden
showed him a guy on the floor of a party store, head resting in a pool of
blood.

    "I
see your point." Ray didn't understand how Sharon could fall for someone
like Joey Palermo. She was too smart, too aware.

    Next,
he put down pictures of two fat, balding old men wearing black horn-rim
glasses.

    "This
is Vincenzo 'Vito Uno' Corrado," he said, pointing to the photo on the
left. "The boss of all bosses. And this is Joey's father, Joseph 'Joe P.'
Palermo, the under-boss."

    Ray
said, "They all have cute nicknames, huh?"

    "They'd
have a field day with you," Teegarden said. "I could see Ray 'His
Eminence' Pope in a second."

    Ray
said, "That's not bad. I'd have to be the top wop with that name."

    "Vito's
got stage two prostate cancer," Teegarden said. "And Joe P.'s got a
heart condition, takes Coumadin."

    "What's
Coumadin?"

    "Blood-thinner
medicine."

    "Doesn't
say much for the vitality of the Detroit Mafia, " Ray said, "does it?
What's Joey's title, where's he fit in?"

    "Runs
a street crew, he's a lieutenant. They go into a store, tell the proprietor he
needs protection. The guy objects, tells them they're crazy, you saw what they
do."

    Ray
said, "Interesting business model."

    "Is
he still bothering Sharon?"

    "He
calls the house," Ray said. "Leaves messages."

    "He
obviously doesn't know what you do, or did."

    "I'm
not sure," Ray said.

    "What's
Sharon say?"

    "She
doesn't."

    Teeg
stared at him probably wondering what the hell was going on, but didn't say anything.

    Ray
said, "Where's old man Palermo live?"

    "Bloomfield
Village," Teegarden said.

    "You
have an address?"

    "What're
you going to do?"

    "I
don't know." And he didn't, but if anyone knew where Joey was, his dad
did.

    Ray
cruised by the house, a 4,500-square-foot red-brick colonial with a circular
drive on a street called Glengarry in the heart of the Village, one of the
wealthiest areas of suburban Detroit.

    "What
a country," Teeg had said. "The mob under-boss living among affluent
professionals: doctors, lawyers and auto executives."

    He
drove one block over and looked between two houses and saw the back of Joe P.'s
place. Ray drove home and had an early dinner. He cooked a strip steak on the
grill and had a baked potato and a bottle of Sam Adams. He got in bed at seven
and set his alarm for 2:00 a.m. He woke up before it went off, 1:57, got up and
put on black Levis and a black turtleneck. He unlocked the gun box in his
closet and chose the Walther PPK over the Colt because it was small and light,
easier to carry.

    Ray
went back to Bloomfield Village and parked on Williamsbury. It was very dark,
the moon a sliver. He felt odd, out of his element. He opened the car door -
he'd disconnected the interior lights - and got out and pressed the door
closed. He walked between two houses that were big and spaced apart, looked
like there was an extra lot between them. Both had swimming pools that were
covered for the season. It was so quiet the only thing he heard was the sound
of his footsteps on the hard grass. It was cold and clear and smelled like fall
and when he let out a breath he could see it.

    The
back of Joe P.'s place was straight ahead. Ray hopped a white picket fence and
crossed the yard to the back of the house. There was a brick patio with nothing
on it. He noticed a small sticker on one of the windows that said: Protected by
Alert Security Services. Ray didn't believe it. Why would the under-boss of the
Detroit Mafia need a security system?

    There
were French doors that opened onto the patio. He tried the handles, no give at
all. The doors were locked top and bottom with deadbolts. He moved along the
back of the house to the garage, three-car attached, single door and a double.
Next to the garage doors was a glass-paneled entry door.

    Ray
looked in but couldn't see much. He turned and stood facing the backyard and
threw an elbow and broke the bottom left pane. He watched and listened, didn't
see or hear anything. He reached through the broken pane and unlocked the door
and went in. There was a dark-colored Lincoln Town Car and a silver Ford Edge.
There were trashcans, and patio furniture taking up most of the third space.

    He
tried the door to the house. It was locked but it moved, gave half an inch or
so. He flipped a switch on the wall and six recessed ceiling lights came on. He
studied a pegboard attached to the wall that had rakes and shovels and brooms
and saw a crowbar. He went over and picked it up off the hook and went back to
the door and jammed the tapered end of it into the seam between the edge of the
door and the jamb, and bent the crowbar back, heard the wood groan, and the
door came open.

    Ray
went through the kitchen and dining room and living room into the foyer. It had
a marble floor and a grand sweeping staircase that rose up to the second floor.
He started to go up the stairs and stopped, glanced left into a room with
paneled walls and a fireplace.

    He
went back down, crossed the foyer and went in the wood-paneled room. He sat
behind the desk, and turned on a small lamp that was on the desktop. It had to
be Joe P.'s office, the room fifteen by fifteen, two chairs and a table against
the far wall in front of a window that looked out on the front yard. He checked
the drawers looking for something from Joey, a letter, a postcard, but didn't
find anything.

    It
was 4:05 when he took out his cell and dialed the number on the desk phone, Ray
reasonably sure it was Joe P.'s private business line that only rang here, the
number different from the one Teegarden had given him. The only unknown: who
else was in the house? Joe P. and his wife for sure, but what about his
bodyguard, a big dude named Angelo who had played defensive end for another Joe
P., Joe Paterno at Penn State.

    The
phone on the desk rang, and even though he was expecting it, the sound startled
him. God it was loud. It rang ten times before he heard voices at the top of
the stairs.

    "I
know it's the middle of the night. Don't worry about it, go back to bed."

    Ray
heard someone come down the stairs, and come across the foyer, and come in the
room, a silver-haired guy about five seven, wearing a bathrobe and black
glasses with big frames that reminded him of Aristotle Onassis. Joe P. reached
over the desk for the phone and brought it up to his face and said, "This
better be fucking important."

    Ray
said, "It is."

    Joe
P. turned and said, "You have any idea who I am?"

    He
put the phone back in the cradle.

    Ray
drew the Walther PPK and said, "Who else's in the house?"

    "My
wife."

    Ray
said "What about Angelo?"

    "He
don't stay with us."

    A
voice from upstairs said, "Joe, who you talking to?"

    "I'm
on the fucking phone, will you go back to bed."

    Ray
said, "That's no way to talk to the little lady."

    Joe
P. said, "What do you want, the silverware, a TV? Help yourself and get
the fuck out of here."