The Blind Pig (12 page)

“I have issued an all-points bulletin for the arrest of twelve men whom we have identified from our agent's reports.”

Phelps then read a list of names, including DeJesus, Morazon and Casabianco. “We have prepared a brief bio on each
man and it will be appended to the handouts you will receive after this briefing.”

“Pretty slick, eh?” McClain whispered. “These Feds like to do it up brown.”

Weinberg was back on his feet. “That's about it,” he said. “As of now, there is no civil emergency. Conditions have been returned to normal, and we feel fortunate that there was not more damage or loss of life from the derailment.

“Homicide is in charge of the murders, with assistance from ATF, the FBI, and some precinct detectives. ATF has taken command of the hijacking itself. What you have heard this morning is basically the information that will be released to the media"—he glanced at his watch—"in a few minutes. If any of you feel that you need more information, please contact the proper bureau or agency, or myself. Thank you.”

There was a moment when Mulheisen thought that applause would break out in the audience, but it passed.

Phelps appeared at Mulheisen's side. Mulheisen didn't quibble: “You sure blew Mandy's cover, didn't you?”

Phelps didn't react. “If her cover isn't blown by now, it means she isn't with the hijackers. Did you see Vanni?”

“I stopped by his office,” Mulheisen said, lighting a cigar. “Cecil wasn't there, neither was DenBoer. It was kind of early, though. Vanni was irritated, but not alarmed. He didn't see either of them after they left the office yesterday afternoon, he says. I asked him to come in to the precinct this afternoon, with Cecil and DenBoer.”

“Well, I'll leave Vanni and DenBoer to you,” Phelps said. “We're pretty busy hunting for DeJesus and his pals.” He looked pensive for a moment. “It would be nice to know if Vanni is really a part of this or not.”

“Why don't you pick him up?” Mulheisen suggested. “Federal business sometimes scares punks like him.”

“I don't have time,” Phelps said. “Besides, it's your case. You're legitimately investigating him about the dead burglar, the shoot-out, and now this break-in last night. You can reasonably lean on him a little. All I've got on him is the fact
that he was on the air base at the time the M-16s were stolen. For that matter, DenBoer was there, too.”

“He was! You didn't tell me that,” Mulheisen said.

“He was driving one of the trucks for Vanni. I didn't mention that?” Phelps shrugged. “I tend to overlook DenBoer sometimes.” He glanced at his watch. “Gotta go. Good luck, Sergeant.” He patted Mulheisen on the shoulder. The gesture annoyed Mulheisen; it seemed patronizing. Phelps was back across the room shaking hands with the mayor and the commissioner.

Lieutenant Moser, from the 15th, came up to Mulheisen. “What a load of crap! Now I have to attend a ‘mini-briefing'! You ever hear of such a thing? These guys are organization-happy. After the mini-briefing I suppose they'll want us to break up into encounter groups.”

Mulheisen laughed. “Find anything else at the cemetery, Del?”

“Not much. We're calling funeral homes about a funeral party.”

“There wasn't any funeral yesterday at Gethsemane,” Mulheisen said. “I thought I told you that. I checked with the corporation.”

“You did tell me, but maybe you better check again. Half a dozen people in the neighborhood saw a small funeral procession in the cemetery, or near it, at about the right time.”

“That could be the way the hijackers dispersed,” Mulheisen said. “Who are you checking with?”

“I had the boys start with nearby and most frequent users of the cemetery, among the funeral homes. There's a hell of a lot of undertakers in this town, Mul!”

Mulheisen agreed. “Who's running this mini-briefing?” he asked Moser.

“McClain. Phelps is supposed to drop in, to ‘coordinate our activities,’ as he put it.”

Mulheisen smiled. “Ask Mac—or Phelps—if anyone checked the City Airport out.”

“You think they might have escaped by airplane?”

“Phelps mentioned that one of the Cubans—DeJesus—had been a pilot. It's worth a try. Well, see you later. Have fun at the mini-briefing.”

Mulheisen was glad to be outside, even if it was a windy, chilly day. The sun was out and there were a few ragged cumulus clouds being chased past the towers of the Renaissance Center, a few blocks away. He began to revive in the brisk air. Passing by the Recorders Court, he decided to pop in and see how the Parenteau case was progressing.

He met Ray Wilde just coming out of the courtroom. “All over?” Mulheisen asked, surprised.

“Yep,” Wilde said. “Bobby skated. Brownlow bought the whole package. He hasn't announced his sentence yet, but I don't have any illusions. It'll be the State Hospital at worst, and possibly outpatient.”

“You didn't use the homosexual angle,” Mulheisen said.

Wilde shook his head. “It wouldn't have helped. Brown-low's hip enough to believe in insanity, but he wouldn't believe that a fag could kill someone out of jealousy. To him, homosexuality is itself an indication of insanity. Oh, well, that's the last time Epstein gets a break from the prosecutor's office. Thanks for the testimony, anyway, Mul.” Wilde hurried off.

Mulheisen trailed slowly after him, thinking about Bobby. He shivered in the wind when he got outside, whether from the breeze or the thought of the state hospital he wasn't sure. He found his car in the parking lot and drove away, still thinking about Bobby Parenteau. It was almost a welcome distraction from worrying about Mandy. It seemed to him that Bobby's case had been a much simpler, easier one. True, it had taken four years to wrap up, but really only a few weeks of investigation. Mulheisen hoped that whatever had driven Bobby to open fire at Witt and the other youngsters wasn't still bothering him. Obviously, the four years of exemplary behavior had impressed Judge Brownlow.

But here, the ATF had already spent several months investigating
Vanni and his friends with little result except the fortuitous “spin-off,” as Phelps called it, of the Cuban investigation. It was all a tangled and confusing mess, as far as Mulheisen could see. He didn't expect that it would ever be completely sorted out. But he was used to that. Hardly anything is ever completely explicable when it comes to criminal investigation. Even when a case is more or less satisfactorily concluded, as with Bobby Parenteau, the nagging little mysteries remain. How much more so would it be in the present case?

Normally, there was a powerful tendency for investigators to abandon old, unproductive cases in favor of new, active ones with interesting new leads and unfamiliar witnesses to interview. To be sure, the sheer pressure of the horrendous caseload made that necessary. But Mulheisen knew that many detectives were adept at avoiding complicated or controversial cases in favor of “grounders” —typically, the crime that comes equipped with its own solution, as when the wife telephones the precinct to inform them that she just shot her husband to death and will they please come and get her.

Mulheisen turned up Vernor Avenue en route to the precinct, and shortly afterward drove by the signal tower where three men had died. It looked normal and routine this morning. A switch engine rumbled down the track, looking for something to hook on to.

Mulheisen mused on. There were other detectives, of course, who looked for sensational cases. It was one way to get ahead. You took a chance, naturally. If the case couldn't be solved in good time, you were on the spot. Some guys didn't mind the heat. But most, he thought, preferred routine. “It's just a job,” they would say, although he didn't know any detective who really believed that his job was ordinary. No detective thought of his job in the sense that an assembly-line worker, a mailman or a garbage collector thought of his job. Detectives thought of themselves as something special. It was an important job. Routine, at times, but still not “just a job.”

Come to think of it, he told himself, probably the mailman and the garbage collector feel the same way. Why shouldn't they? But he doubted they had the same intensity of feeling about their jobs.

At the precinct there was a note from the medical examiner's office. They wanted to know if “John Doe number nine-eighty-nine” could be released from the morgue. The medical examiner wanted to dispose of the cadaver. It would go either to the Wayne State University Medical School or to a private research organization upstate. Mulheisen talked to Dr. Brennan, the autopsist.

“I don't see why we can't clear this one, Mul,” Brennan said. “There isn't any legal action pending, is there?”

“No, but I'm working on some related material. Can't you just bury him? Then if we have to, we can dig him up again.”

“We could, but that costs the county money. The other way we make money.”

“You mean you're selling corpses?” Mulheisen said.

“I wouldn't say ‘selling,’ “ Brennan replied. “We are compensated. It isn't much, but it helps to keep the refrigerators running. Have you gotten anywhere on an identification? If he had some relatives, or even some friends, we could cheerfully release the body for burial.”

Mulheisen admitted that he hadn't been able to identify the man. Probably there was no reason to hold the body, but somehow he was reluctant to let it go.

“If he goes to the med school or this other place, this research outfit, he'll be all chopped up and disappear, won't he?” Mulheisen asked.

“Sometimes, Mul, you have a way of making things sound worse than they are,” Brennan said in a wry tone. “Your John Doe won't ‘disappear,’ but he will get scattered, certainly.”

“Doc, I feel terrible. I haven't had much sleep, not much breakfast, too much coffee . . . this conversation is gagging me.”

“How have you been feeling, generally?” Brennan asked,
with evident concern. “Why aren't you sleeping?”

“Every time I go to bed, the telephone rings.”

“You're sure that's all it is?”

Mulheisen was surprised by the doctor's interest; he knew Brennan, but they weren't close friends. “How's your stool?” Brennan asked.

“My stool's fine! What is this? A little loose, maybe.”

“You been drinking a lot lately?” Brennan asked.

“No more than usual,” Mulheisen said.

“Do your hands feel puffy? Any heaviness in the legs?”

“Doc, I'm okay,” Mulheisen said. “I'm sorry I mentioned it. I'm just not getting enough sleep. As soon as this case I'm on is wrapped up, I'll go to bed for a week. Okay?”

“When's the last time you took a vacation?”

Despite himself, Mulheisen reflected. “My God! It's over three years.”

“You're working too hard,” Brennan said. “What for? You ever ask yourself that? Keep it up, Mul, and I'll be looking at you on my table one of these mornings. You're getting into the forties, aren't you?”

“I'm thirty-nine,” Mulheisen muttered. “All right, I'll put in for a vacation. I've got a couple months coming. I'll go to Florida or something.” Yeah, Florida, he thought. They've got Cubans there, too.

“Are you taking any kind of medication?” Brennan asked. “Any speed? Something to just keep you going?”

“Caffeine,” Mulheisen said.

“Go see a doctor. Get your blood pressure checked. Hell, come down and see me. I'll do it for free.”

“Thanks, Doc. I'll do that, I mean it. In the meantime, hang on to John Doe for me, okay?”

“I'll give you a week,” Brennan said, “but only on the condition that you stop by to see me. I don't get to do much live-people doctoring. I need the practice.” He laughed and hung up.

Thirteen

“Where's DenBoer?” Mulheisen asked.

“Search me,” Vanni replied, shrugging.

Mulheisen looked at the man. He felt a growing discontent with Vanni. He didn't like to show his irritation with him, however. He said mildly, “All right, let's go back to my office.”

As soon as they reached the cubicle Vanni started right in, without sitting down. “Sergeant Mulheisen, I don't have much time. I've been waiting ten minutes already. DenBoer didn't come in this morning, and neither did Mandy. I'm swamped! I got the agency to send over a girl to answer the telephone and type a few letters, but I've got to . . .” Vanni faltered under Mulheisen's baleful stare.

“Sit down, Vanni,” Mulheisen said. He himself was slumped in his chair behind the gray metal desk, one foot deposited in the open bottom drawer. He dragged shallowly on a cigar. Vanni sat down stiffly.

For several seconds Mulheisen watched him. The man was infuriatingly fresh, despite his complaint of a harried morning. He looked so clean and dapper that Mulheisen had a fleeting vision of Vanni as a raccoon, daintily rinsing his
lunch by the streamside. The notion was amusing enough to quell Mulheisen's impatience.

“Have you tried to get hold of DenBoer or Cecil?” Mulheisen asked.

“Yes. There was no answer at either number,” Vanni said.

Mulheisen made some notes on a note pad. “Let's see,” he said, “DenBoer lives where?”

“He lives with his parents, on East Canfield,” Vanni said. He gave Mulheisen the address and the telephone number from memory.

“And there was apparently no one at home? What time was this?”

“Well, no one answered the telephone, anyway,” Vanni said. “I called about ten o'clock, I guess. And then I called Mandy and there was no answer there, either. Do you want her number?”

“I've got her number,” Mulheisen said. He picked up the telephone and dialed DenBoer's number. There was no answer. He hung up the telephone and sat back in his chair, drawing thoughtfully on his cigar.

“Vanni,” he said finally, “I'm afraid you are in heavy water.” He lifted a hand quickly to forestall Vanni's indignant reaction. “No, no, don't give me any bullshit. I don't want to hear it. One"—he ticked off on his fingers— “a gunman is surprised and shot to death behind your garage. Two, a couple of mob soldiers come into the Town Pump, a bar you are known to frequent, possibly looking for you. Not finding you present, they shoot up a couple of vending machines that they have taken the trouble to find out belong to you. Three, a burglar breaks into your house but doesn't steal anything; in fact, there's hardly any trace that he was there—just a lucky eyewitness account.”

Mulheisen looked across at Vanni, who sat upright, noncommittal.

“Okay, four,” Mulheisen went on, still ticking on his fingers, “your secretary is seen in a blind pig with members of a gang now being sought for a spectacular gun hijacking
which, incidentally, included the brutal murder of eight men and considerable danger to the public when a train was deliberately derailed.”

Vanni looked surprised at this statement.

“I'm glad to see you're paying attention,” Mulheisen said. “Now. Five, the secretary disappears. Six, perhaps coincidentally, one of your most trusted associates disappears at the same time. Both of these disappearances roughly coincide with the time of the hijacking.”

“Sergeant, I—” Vanni started to interrupt.

“No, one minute"—Mulheisen held up his hand—"I'm not through yet. Clever detective that I am, I have discovered that you also knew the suspected hijackers. That, in fact, it was through you that Mandy Cecil came to know them. I have also discovered, rather belatedly, I'm afraid, that Mandy Cecil was no ordinary secretary. She was an undercover agent for the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Bureau. I see you're shocked. Well, just let me say a few more words and then I'll listen to you.

“Apparently, the ATF believed that you had something to do with the robbery of some M-16s from Selfridge Air Force Base several months ago. In telling you this I am violating the confidence of the ATF, but I don't give a damn about that. They haven't done me any favors lately. I don't care whether you were involved in the Selfridge deal or not. It's none of my business. I'm just putting my cards on the table.

“You're a poker player, Vanni. Tell me I'm bluffing. Better yet, call me.”

Mulheisen watched the young man. Outside of the show of surprise at the revelation of Mandy's undercover role, Vanni did not display any emotion. Mulheisen saw that the man was a good poker player, after all.

“I now have to ask you some questions. The answers to these questions may, in one way or another, tend to incriminate you and your answers could be used against you in a court of law. You are not, at this time, being accused of any crime. Still, it may be advisable for you to have the benefit
of professional counsel. Do you have an attorney?”

“Yes,” Vanni replied.

“Do you wish to contact him?”

Vanni unbent a little. “Uh . . . what kind of questions?”

“They're questions about Mandy Cecil, about Leonard DenBoer, about the hijacking suspects. I'm not asking anything about the Selfridge deal, but I do want some straight answers about your relationship with the mob.”

“I can tell you right now,” Vanni asserted firmly, “that I have no connection with the mob. As for the rest, I guess you might as well ask the questions and I'll consider whether I want Homer when I hear them.”

“Homer? Is that your attorney? Homer Ferman?” Mulheisen asked. Vanni nodded. Homer Ferman was well known to Mulheisen. He was a pleasant, fat man with a deep and reassuring voice. He always reminded Mulheisen of a jovial innkeeper, but he was also the most respected criminal lawyer in Detroit.

“Okay,” Mulheisen said, “but you do understand that you may have your lawyer here, if you like, and that if you do answer it is of your own free will?”

Vanni nodded. Mulheisen got up and went out. He came back a few seconds later with Maki and, in his presence, repeated the whole litany again and got Vanni's agreement. Then, with Maki lounging against the wall, Mulheisen proceeded.

“First of all, do you know where Mandy Cecil is, or what might have happened to her?”

Vanni said no.

“Do you know where Leonard DenBoer is, or where he might be, or what might have happened to him?”

Again Vanni said no.

“Do you know, personally, any of the following persons: Angel DeJesus, Francisco Morazon, or Heitor Casabianca?”

Vanni said that he knew all three of the men, but that he knew them only casually and socially. He had met them at a restaurant and had later seen them at a blind pig, known
as Brandywine's. To further prodding, he said that he had no business dealing with the men and that he did not know they had intended to rob the Cadillac Gage Company, nor that they had intended any kind of criminal activity.

“Did you know, or do you know, of any reason why the man presently referred to as John Doe number nine-eighty-nine—the man apprehended and killed at the scene of your garage—was in that garage?”

“No,” Vanni said.

Mulheisen looked at Maki and shook his head wearily. Maki scowled at Vanni. Vanni sat calmly upright, as unperturbed as a boy scout.

Mulheisen sighed. “Can you account for your whereabouts between the hours of four-thirty
P.M
. yesterday and one
A.M.
this morning?” Mulheisen asked.

Vanni sat silently, considering. Then he said, “I'm afraid I can't answer that.”

Maki leaned forward abruptly, his face only a few inches from Vanni's. He shouted, “Why not? What are you covering up?”

Mulheisen jumped up and took Maki by the arm. Maki angrily shrugged his arm away. “Look at him, Mul! He's lying, the son of a bitch! Why doesn't he answer.”

Vanni smiled. “Don't pull this old ‘Mutt and Jeff’ crap on me, fellows,” he said.

“ ‘Mutt and Jeff? I'll give you ‘Mutt and Jeff'!” Maki shouted.

“Don't mind him,” Mulheisen said calmly. “He's working on a case, you've probably heard about it—the ‘Mutt and Jeff robberies? Yeah, well, why can't you tell us where you were yesterday, Vanni? What's the problem?” He sounded very understanding.

Vanni sat very straight, with a stubborn expression. “I just can't,” he said. “It's . . . it's a matter of honor.”

“A matter of honor?” Mulheisen said, puzzled.

“A woman's honor,” Vanni said stiffly. He clamped his mouth shut.

It was Mulheisen's turn to be outraged. “Woman's honor? You talk about woman's honor?” he shouted. “I'm talking about a woman who's been missing for twenty-four hours! A woman whose life may be in danger! Don't give me this bullshit, Vanni! You fucking Lothario! Where the hell were you for eight hours yesterday, and let's have names!”

Vanni leaped to his feet. “Did you hear that?” he demanded hotly of Maki. “You heard him! He called me a name. He thinks I'm some kind of dago, or wop, that he can insult! I don't have to put up with that! I'm an American! I own my own company! I want my lawyer, right now!”

Mulheisen and Maki both looked at him with surprise. They looked at each other. There was a long moment of silence, then Mulheisen said placatingly, “Okay, okay, sit down. Take it easy.”

Vanni looked furiously from one to the other, then he sat down and was silent, his arms folded defiantly across his chest. Mulheisen sat down, too, and fiddled with his cigar, which was out. He got out another and clipped it, then lit it. “Go get us some coffee, Maki,” Mulheisen said. “You want some coffee, Vanni? What do you take—black? Two blacks, Maki.” Maki left. The two men watched each other in silence until Maki returned with the coffee in paper cups.

Finally, Mulheisen said quietly, “Now, what's all this about a woman?”

“You called me a name,” Vanni said petulantly, sipping at the hot coffee.

“I called you a Lothario,” Mulheisen pointed out. “It's not necessarily an insult. I meant no slur on your nationality or anything else. A Lothario is, well, it's used to connote a lover. You're pretty popular with women, aren't you, Vanni?”

Vanni permitted himself the hint of a smile.

Mulheisen said reassuringly, “Of course you are. Why not? That's no crime. You're young, good-looking, successful. Now, what's all this about a woman's honor? Come on,
spill it. Who is the woman and where did you spend eight or nine hours with her yesterday?”

Now Vanni smiled outright. “Actually, it was two women,” he said smugly.

Mulheisen nodded. “At the same time or separately?”

“Separately, of course,” Vanni snapped. “I don't go for that kinky stuff.” He then revealed his activities for all of the preceding evening. He had left the trucking company office at 5
P.M.
and had driven to a bar on Eight Mile Road, where he met one Shyla Lasanski, who was a married woman. They had dinner together in a restaurant connected to the bar, and afterwards they had driven to a nearby motel, where Vanni had rented a room. By 9:30
P.M.
, he was out of the motel, parting from Mrs. Lasanski, and had driven downtown to an apartment near Wayne State University, where he had visited with one Kari Wordlaw, a student at the university. He had left Wordlaw's apartment by midnight, alone. He had stopped at the Alcove Bar, on Woodward Avenue, for a drink and around one o'clock had arrived home, where he found Mulheisen and two patrolmen.

“The thing is,” he explained, “Shyla's married to one of my drivers. I don't want to get her in trouble with her husband.”

Or yourself in trouble with her husband, Mulheisen said to himself. “What about this Wordlaw woman? You're not worried about her?”

“Kari can take care of herself,” Vanni said. “But Shyla, she's had a hard time with Dick, her husband. Hell, she already feels so guilty that she wants to tell him all about our affair, for Christ's sake!”

Mulheisen said that he would have to check it all out. He asked for the names and addresses of the two women and copied them down on a sheet of notepaper. “Now, when did you last see Mandy Cecil?” he asked.

“She left the office about four-thirty. She and Leonard both left about the same time.”

“Together?”

“Well, more or less. See, Lenny's always after Mandy, if you know what I mean. Always asking her to have a drink with him after work, that sort of thing. So I guess he finally talked her into it. Anyway, he had to drive one of our trucks down to LaCasse's garage, to leave it for some repair work. Mandy was supposed to meet him at LaCasse's and they were going on from there.”

“What's LaCasse's number?” Mulheisen asked.

Vanni consulted his pocket secretary and read out the number. Mulheisen dialed it.

“I'm calling about a truck that was supposed to be dropped off yesterday, from Vanni Trucking?” Mulheisen told the man who answered the phone.

“Yeah,” said the man, “where is it? If you get it in here real quick I'll try to slip it in this afternoon.”

Mulheisen looked up from the telephone. The guileless face of Jerry Vanni gazed back at him.

“I'll see what I can do,” Mulheisen said into the telephone. He hung up and turned to Maki. “Get a stenographer, have him make a full statement and sign it.”

He got up and left.