Jackpot (Frank Renzi mystery series) (27 page)

But it didn’t sound like Franco was going to arrest the Jackpot Killer anytime soon. He had a suspect, but when she asked why he didn’t arrest him, all Franco did was talk about evidence and search warrants. He wanted to talk to the suspect’s mother while he was at work.

But tomorrow was Memorial Day, and on Tuesday Franco would be in court all day testifying on a murder case. But she wouldn’t.

She smiled, recalling the ploy she’d used to worm the suspect’s name out of Franco. She sounded out the name: Kar-a-pitch-oo-lik.

She had no idea how to spell it. But he lived in Sandwich, and Sandwich wasn’t New York City. How many people with a weird name like that would be living in a little town like Sandwich?

She went back in her room, took out her cell and dialed information.

A bored-sounding female voice said, “How may I help you?”

“I need the phone number of a Sandwich, Massachusetts, resident. I’m not sure how to spell it, but it begins with K.” She sounded out the name for the woman: “
Kar-a-pitch-oo-lik
.”

“One moment please,” the woman said.

Gina gripped her cell phone.
Please find the number.

The operator came back on the line. “I checked the Sandwich residents with names that start with K-A-R. There aren’t many. Do you have a first name?”

“William,” Gina said, and waited anxiously.

Thirty seconds passed, an eternity.

At last the operator came back and said, “There’s a William Karapitulik living at 14 Bittersweet Lane. K-A-R-A-P-I-T-U-L-I-K.”

Gina scribbled down the address. “Thank you. May I have the number?”

Monday, May 29 — Swampscott, MA

It was a beautiful day, bright and sunny, too nice to be at a cemetery, Frank thought, but that’s what you did on Memorial Day. He stood three paces away from his father, giving him space to grieve. Lost in thought, Salvatore Renzi stared blankly at the carved granite headstone he’d bought five months ago for Mary Sullivan Renzi.

His father still had a full head of black hair but now it was speckled with gray. At seventy, he seemed as sharp as ever, but today he looked old, his face lined, thin and stooped in his dark suit.

Was that new, Frank wondered. Or hadn’t he noticed?

Maybe he just never appreciated what great parents he’d had until one of them was gone. He made a resolution to spend more time with his father.

This morning he’d driven to the house in Swampscott where he’d grown up, a small two-story Cape, nothing fancy. His father had bought it in 1960, two years before Frank was born. Back then his father had been an assistant DA and didn’t make much money. The firstborn son of Italian immigrants, Salvatore Renzi was the first in his family to graduate from college.

Grampa Sal owned a grocery store in the North End; Grandma Rose stayed home to raise Salvatore, Jr. and their three daughters. Frank hadn’t seen his aunts in years; they were living with their husbands in California, Arizona and Florida. A child of the Depression, his father had heard his parents sing the praises of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, which was why he’d named his son Franklin. Frank’s middle name, Sullivan, was a concession to Mary Sullivan Renzi’s Irish heritage.

This morning, driving through Swampscott, a seacoast town fifteen miles north of Boston, he realized he missed his hometown. As a kid he loved going to the beach, gazing at the skyscrapers across the water in Boston, the ever-present lure of the city. Swampscott had a great school system and a terrific basketball coach, but when Evelyn got pregnant, she had insisted that they live in Milton near her parents. She had no interest in visiting Frank’s parents. So they’d bought the house in Milton.

“I can’t believe she’s gone,” his father said, drawing him closer. “Some days I go home and walk in the door thinking Mary will be waiting for me in the kitchen. She was a beautiful person.”

“Yes, she was. I miss her a lot. I wish—”  He stopped, thinking:
I wish she were here so I could tell her about the divorce
. He loved his father, a man well-respected in the legal community and a wonderful role model. But he’d always been emotionally closer to his mother. Only now did it dawn on him how often he’d relied on her to be the intermediary. Tell his mother about some problem and she would relay it to Sal.

“What?” his father said, gazing at him with his dark Sicilian eyes, eyes that intimidated crooks and lawyers alike when they entered Judge Salvatore Renzi’s courtroom.

“Nothing. I was just thinking what a great mother she was. She was always there for me.” He squeezed his father’s shoulder. “You were too, but you didn’t bake the chocolate-chip cookies.”

That brought a faint smile to his father’s lips.

“I miss her a lot, but not as much as you. Married, what, forty-three years?”

Fighting for control, his father nodded. “Forty-three wonderful years.”

“I’ve got something I need to tell you. Want to go have coffee?” He hadn’t wanted to deliver the news in a phone call. That seemed cowardly. But how could he tell him while they stood at his mother’s grave?

“No,” his father said. “What is it you need to tell me?”

He spit it out fast. “Evelyn and I are getting a divorce.”

His father remained silent for a moment. Then, “I’m not surprised.”

Stunned, Frank stared at him. Not surprised? That was a shocker.

“I haven’t seen much of you and Evelyn lately, but . . .” His father smiled faintly. “Over the years I’ve developed a certain ability to read people. You two haven’t looked happy for quite a while.”

“Years,” he said. Anything to fill the void, anything so he wouldn’t have to explain.

“Your mother always said you had a way with women.”

Another shocker, and an opening as big as a house. “Not a way with women. One woman in particular. For the last nine years.”

“Nine years.” His father puffed his cheeks. “That’s a long time. Almost half your married life.”

That was true enough. The last half anyway. No need to tell him about the first half.

“I won’t bother asking why you didn’t get a divorce. I’m sure you had your reasons. You need to talk to a divorce lawyer. I’ll make some calls and get you some names. Does Maureen know?”

Pain knifed his gut, cutting him to the core.

“Yes. Evelyn told her.”
Told her more than she needed to know
.

“How’s she taking it?”

His throat tightened.
Mom says you’ve got a girlfriend. Is that true?

“She’s pretty upset. She won’t talk to me. I’ve called her several times but she won’t answer. I left messages asking her to call me back, but . . .” He stopped, unable to finish.

His father put his arm around him. “I guess Grampa Renzi better give her a call and tell her she needs to talk to you. Can’t have my favorite girl in the world not talking to her dad.”

Frank felt a wave of relief. If anyone could reach out to Maureen, it was his father. She was his only grandchild and he adored her. “Thanks, Dad.”

But the words seemed inadequate. He wanted to say more, wanted to tell his father how much he loved him, wanted to tell him how much he enjoyed talking to him about police work and legal matters and NBA basketball games and the Boston Celtics.
So open your mouth and say it, stupid
.

“You’re the best, Dad. I love you more than I can ever say. Thanks for being there when I need you.”

His father smiled. “That’s what fathers are for, son.”

____

Gina got up at nine, ate a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs at a nearby diner, left her motel at ten and set out for Sandwich. It only took her a half hour to get over the Sagamore Bridge onto Cape Cod, but vehicles headed in the other direction leaving the Cape were backed up for miles.

She passed a roadside billboard:
WELCOME TO SANDWICH, SEASHORE RESORT FOR ALL SEASONS.
Sandwich had the largest collection of Victorians on Cape Cod, the perfect excuse for her interview. Last night she’d called the number for William Karapitulik, poised to hang up if a man answered.

But after one ring, his mother answered. It had been surprisingly easy to convince her to do an interview. What Gina knew about architecture would fit in a thimble, but last night she’d used her laptop to find photographs of Sandwich’s historic landmarks on the Internet.

She entered Sandwich’s Historic Town Square, taking mental notes as  passed the Hoxie House, a seventeenth-century saltbox, the Town Hall, built in 1734, and the First Church of Christ, easily identified by its soaring white steeple. Along the main drag beyond the square, Victorians were lined up like wedding cakes. Several times she slowed to a stop, gawking at the mansard roofs, the steep-pitched gables and the elaborately-carved wooden shutters around the multi-paned windows.

But then she thought, forget the architecture. Find William Karapitulik’s house. She sipped from her container of take-out coffee, recalling the news report she’d seen this morning on television, gruesome details about the murder in Nashua that Franco had told her about. Last week someone had beaten an elderly lotto winner to death, striking her head repeatedly with a blunt object. While trying to protect her, the woman’s dog, a small fox terrier, had also been beaten to death.

The Jackpot Killer was a monster.

No wonder Franco wanted to catch him.

She’d used her laptop to map the address the telephone operator had given her so it was easy enough to find.

She drifted down Bittersweet Lane and slowly drove past Number 14, a two-story cottage with blue-painted clapboards and a small front porch.

A white van was parked in the driveway beside the house.

William Karapitulik’s van, Gina assumed.

An icy chill rippled through her. Was he the Jackpot Killer?

But she wasn’t interviewing Mrs. Karapitulik today. This was Memorial Day, a holiday. Her appointment was at eleven tomorrow morning.

Franco’s suspect wouldn’t be home tomorrow, he’d be working.

____

Dorchester

Frank poured himself another glass of wine and glanced at the clock. 2:05 a.m. He’d been lying on the bed in his motel room since midnight, unable to sleep. Now that he’d read through the divorce papers, his mind was grinding away like a blender chopping nuts. How had it come to this?

When Evelyn got pregnant, he was thrilled. Evelyn seemed happy, too. Maureen arrived in February 1983. The first few months went by in a blur. Evelyn was breastfeeding so he didn’t get up for the late-night or early-morning feedings, but he didn’t get much sleep either.

In November he turned twenty-two. He was horny as hell, but Evelyn wasn’t interested. She was too tired. She had a headache. Whatever.

The third time she rebuffed him, he asked her what was wrong. He didn’t think it was normal for a couple their age to stop making love. She said her gynecologist had diagnosed her with post-partum depression. She’d been on Prozac for three months. It annoyed him that she hadn’t told him before, but he didn’t want to seem unsympathetic.

He decided to let her make the first move. After five months passed, he decided nothing was going to happen. Restless with energy, he walked the streets of Boston. He loved the activity, the streets alive with young couples and college kids. When that got old, he started going to movies, losing himself in fantasyland, Jennifer Beals dancing seductively in
Flashdance,
Richard Gere and Debra Winger getting it on in
An Officer and a Gentleman
.

In April 1984 he caught a burglary call one Saturday night. Saul Bergman let him into his fourth-floor condo on Marlboro Street, took him in the living room and introduced him to his wife. Janine Bergman was a knockout, wearing a fancy black dress with sequins, the low-cut neckline showing a generous amount of cleavage.

Frank figured the dress cost more than he made in a week.

Janine appeared to be in her late twenties. Saul had to be twenty-five years older. A distinguished-looking man with silvery hair, Saul had the air of confidence that accompanied significant wealth. Condos on Marlboro Street cost big bucks, and their two-bedroom unit was luxurious: plush wall-to-wall carpeting, granite countertops in the kitchen, a king-sized bed and built-in teak bookcases in both bedrooms.

They showed him the circular hole the burglar had cut in one bedroom window above the supposedly burglar-proof lock. Several items of jewelry were missing, Saul’s diamond-studded cufflinks, Janine’s pearl necklace and matching bracelet. “We should have left at intermission,” Saul said.

“We were at a Boston Symphony concert,” Janine explained, gazing at Frank with her big brown eyes.

“The Brahms violin concerto was the only thing worth hearing,” Saul said, and stifled a yawn.

Janine said to Frank, “I kind of liked the Rite of Spring. Decadent.”

Her expression didn’t change, but he felt something pass between them.

When Janine escorted him to the door, he wrote his
cell phone number on his card and said, “If you think of anything important, call me.”

A tiny flicker appeared in her eyes. “Thank you, I will.”

Three days later at 4:15 on a Tuesday afternoon, she called and said she had something important to tell him. When he went to her condo, she led him into the living room and gestured for him to sit on the couch. Fancy cocktail napkins were tastefully arranged on the smoked-glass coffee table.

Was she having a party? She had on a clingy mauve top and a pair of black stretch pants, toying with her long dark hair as she sat down beside him on the couch. He got a hard-on just looking at her.

But he was here on police business.

“You said you had something important to tell me?”

“Yes,” she said, gazing at him with her expressive brown eyes. “Saul’s in Phoenix all week.”

It took him a second to get it. When he started to laugh, Janine did, too.

He gestured at the cocktail napkins. “You expecting someone?”

“Yes. Would you like a beer or would you prefer a glass of Merlot?”

And so on a Tuesday afternoon in April 1984, their affair began.

In February 1985 Maureen turned two. She was cuter than any kid had a right to be, talking up a storm. Frank was totally captivated, but equally captivated by Janine. Saul was a real estate developer and traveled a lot. When Saul was out of town, he and Janine would meet for dinner and then go to her condo. She had a gorgeous body, full breasts with dark-pink nipples, a slender waist and a gorgeous ass. But her enthusiasm was the biggest attraction. She enjoyed sex and wasn’t afraid to show it.