Carolyn
Ifelt better after the first chocolate bar. Maria Calogero was still sobbing into the police department’s tissue, and I couldn’t blame her. She and her mother and all the rest of them had to be the most dysfunctional family I’d ever run into. I’d had my differences with my father after my mother died, but he’d never asked me to do anything illegal or dangerous. I’d have to give him a call when I got back to El Paso.
“Mom, could you stop crying, so I can get this over with?” said Salvatore, his voice coming over the microphone into our room.
“Of course, my son,” she agreed after a few more hiccupping sobs. “You must be so hungry. It’s past dinnertime.” She reached into her capacious handbag and fished something out, which she handed to Salvatore. He forgot about his testimony and began to eat.
“You brought me cannoli,” he mumbled happily around a mouthful, the cream catching in the bristles of his sprouting beard.
Detective Worski snapped the recorder back on and told the boy to start talking. Everyone wanted to get home to dinner. “Okay, but I’ll have to talk with my mouth full,” said Salvatore. I was surprised that his mother didn’t protest, but she beamed at him, as if the treat made up for the fact that she’d evidently never defended him from his grandmother. “So I searched on Google, looking for a liquid the color of cognac that would burn a turkey to ashes when it was set on fire and make Grandma happy.”
“Hold up,” said Benitez. “You said she wouldn’t tell you what the stuff was for.”
“That was before I actually figured out something that might work and synthesized it.”
“What was it?” asked Benitez.
The boy asked for a piece of paper and drew a formula on it with a pencil. “I forget the name, but that’s it. I learned how to make it on the Internet, too—there and from some books I borrowed from my chemistry teacher. I can write down the experiment if you want. Took me forever to get six cups, and I was scared to death the whole time. Like Mom said, I could have burned down the house and all of us with it. So then I hid it in canning jars and went over to Grandma’s to tell her. She’d been paying for the chemicals and the equipment, and she gave me more money. She was real happy and called me a good boy. Not often she’s said that to me.”
“Where’s the money? Did she give you a check?” asked Worski.
“Cash. I hid it in a shoebox and stuck it under a sheet of plywood in the attic, as far away from that liquid as I could get it. I was going to buy a subscription to CPU and a secondhand exterior hard drive for my computer.”
“Oh, Salvatore, we’d have helped you with that,” said his mother.
“I know you’d have wanted to, Mama, but we never have any extra money.”
“That’s her fault, too,” muttered the mother. “She doesn’t pay your father what he’s worth, and now your sister Agata needs her tonsils out, and Mama wants her own doctor to do it in the kitchen.”
Salvatore looked terrified. “Don’t do that, Mama. I’ll give you the money in my shoebox.” He turned to Worski. “Will you let me do that? Grandma’s doctor will probably kill Aggie. He’s a hundred years old, and nobody does operations on kitchen tables anymore.”
“So how did you get the stuff you made into Pettigrew’s?” Worski asked.
I thought he could have at least reassured Salvatore about his sister’s operation.
The boy’s shoulders sagged. “She got this uniform from our cousin in Queens. He works for the gas company.”
“He owes her money,” said Mrs. Calogero.
“Figures. Then she made Rosaria take the uniform in. Rosaria’s not so good at that kind of stuff, and I looked like a dork. I figured no way were they gonna let me in the back door when Grandma told me I had to pretend to be a gas man and order everyone out of the kitchen because of a gas leak so I could pour my stuff into the cognac bottles or whatever.”
“How were you supposed to find the cognac?” Benitez asked.
“Grandma sent Rosaria over with crostini first so she could look around for the pitchers with the stuff. Rosaria had to skip a whole day of school, and Grandma slapped her when she complained. She wouldn’t even write an excuse for her, or me either. You remember when they called you, Mama, to ask where I was, and you chewed me out for ditching school? Sorry I lied to you, but I was scared to tell you about Grandma and the stuff I’d made.”
“I’m the one who’s sorry, Sal,” said his mother.
“Anyway, they let me in with no problem. I’d have been twice as scared if I’d known there were cameras taking my picture. And then no one complained about leaving when I told them about the gas leak. I think they all wanted to have a cigarette or something. The hall was full of smoke when I left. And I found the pitchers right away, but one of them had this long spout. That was a bitch.” His mother frowned, and he murmured an apology.
“I had to pour the cognac out in a sink and run water to take the smell away while I poured in my stuff, which was in my tool chest, and man, my hands were shaking so bad, I spilled some and had to mop it up and stick the dish towel in the tool chest.
“I got the liquid on my clothes, too, and kept thinking all the way down to the street that I was going to catch on fire if I ran into someone with a cigarette. I had to take the stairs, because I smelled like the stuff, and then I threw up in the alley from being so scared.”
“Where in the alley?” asked Worski.
“Other side of the Dumpster from the back door.”
“Okay, anything else, Sal?” asked Worski.
“No, sir. I went back and told Grandma I’d done what she told me, and she gave me some more money and ordered me to keep my mouth shut. Then I went home and got balled out by Mama, and that was it.”
Detective Worski leaned so far back in his chair I was sure he’d fall over. Then he thumped the front legs down on the floor and said, “Here’s what we’re gonna do. Benitez, I want you to call out an evidence team to check for vomit behind the Dumpster.”
“In the snow? There’s not going to be anything left.”
“Don’t argue. Call the D.A.’s office, and tell them to get an arrest warrant and a warrant to search the Calogeros’ basement and attic.”
“What are you going to be doing?’ she asked angrily.
“Taking a piss.” He glared at her.
“You’re arresting my son?” cried Maria Calogero. “I knew I should have called a lawyer.”
“I’m not arresting your son. But I’m getting a warrant for your mother’s arrest, ma’am. I hope you got no problem with that.”
“Of course not. I can’t believe my mother betrayed us the way she did. You can search my house without a warrant. Should I write out my permission?”
“That would be good,” said Detective Worski. “Makes our job easier. Benitez, just get the vomit taken care of, round up a couple of uniforms, and we’ll head for Mrs. Randatto’s house.”
Benitez groaned. “Four people to arrest one old lady? You don’t need me.”
“Depends on the old lady,” said Detective Worski.
Salvatore asked what he and his mother were supposed to do, and they were told they had to stay at the station house until the grandmother had been interviewed.
“But you can’t let her see us,” said the boy, looking terrified.
“You can wait in the lounge with a female cop until it’s all over.” Detective Worski called for a woman in uniform to escort the Calogeros out. I suppose he was afraid they’d leave without a guard posted. Then he and Detective Benitez left, without even giving a thought to us in the next room.
“What are we supposed to do?” I asked.
“Go back to the hotel?” Luz suggested.
“No, I want to see this through. In fact, I want to sit right here while they interview Mrs. Randatto. Remember, we can buzz Detective Worski if we have anything to ask. We need to stay. We know more about what happened than he does. But maybe we could follow the Calogeros to the lounge for the time being. These are terrible chairs.”
“Right,” Luz agreed. “If you ass aches as much as mine does—”
I rolled my eyes and hissed, “Language,” at her.
“Come on, Caro. The kid can’t hear me. Anyway, he’s in high school. He probably knows more dirty words than you do. Lighten up, will you?”
“How did you two ever get to be friends?” Abraham asked, standing up to find, I assume, more comfortable chairs.
“It’s one of the miracles of the twenty-first century,” I replied, and collected my gloves and handbag, my coat, and my earflap hat, which I hoped never to wear again after that trip.