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Who's Afraid of Joe Vincente?
A Kenneth Hall Mystery
Chapter Four
By ten o'clock the next morning, with the cooperation of the USPS, Ken knew what street still had a corner mailbox, and he was supplied with the names of everyone who lived on that street. At least, he had the names which were registered with the post office. For all he knew, some of them could be aliases.
Hoping that Joe would recognize one of the names, he called his soul-mate. He was glad to have an excuse.
"Watcha doin'?" Ken asked coyly.
"Well, first off, I called Judge Goldman. He said he'd have the guardianship papers for me to sign by this evening. In the meantime, one of his staff is getting Tom's birth certificate, baptismal certificate and his school records, even his inoculation records. By tomorrow I'll be able to get him into school. In the meantime, we're on a shopping spree. I'm having the time of my life."
"When you're through having the time of your life, could you get your ass down to the station? I have the names of everyone who lives on that street with the mailbox. I want to know if you recognize any of them. By the way, that street is only two blocks away from you."
"I could come directly from shopping. Your boss won't give Tom a bad time, will he? I don't want to leave him alone yet. I'm afraid he might want to run off."
"I don't think the lieutenant will care, and if he says something, I'll say he's your nephew. Italians and Latinos don't look that different."
"I found out Tom's grandparents emigrated from Costa Rica, so you don't have to refer to him as Latino. Try Costa Rican descent."
"Whatever! Get here as soon as you can. There's a murderer on the loose out there."
Joe and Tom arrived just in time to have lunch with Ken. All through lunch, Tom kept taking Joe's hand in his and he was smiling broadly. This young man wasn't going to run off anywhere, as Joe feared. He was well aware of his good fortune.
"When will Sal's body be released?" Joe asked Ken. "I want to plan his funeral."
"I'll let you know as soon as the coroner signs off on him."
After lunch, they returned to the precinct, and Joe studied the list of names.
"I don't seem to know any of the names," he announced.
"I'm going to ask you the same thing I asked Tom," Ken said. "Close your eyes, and concentrate real hard. Do you recognize any names?" Does anyone of them ring a bell with you?
Joe didn't close his eyes, but he stared long and hard at the list. Suddenly, he jumped out of his seat and pointed to a name.
"I know that name," he declared.
"Michael LaVerne!! Are you sure?"
"When I was a little kid, my father had someone working for him named Jules LaVerne. I actually thought he was Jules Verne. The names were so similar. Now, that's a name you don't forget. I remember that Jules had a son who was a year or two younger than me, but I don't remember his name. Anyway, Jules was trying to go into business for himself, and he started to poach my father's employees. One day Jules failed to show up to work. He just disappeared."
"Michael could be Jules's son seeking revenge. I'll have someone check birth records," Ken said.
"This is fascinating," Tom said. "I think I want to be a cop."
Joe groaned and Ken laughed.
Michael was four years old when his father failed to come home from work one day. In fact, he never came home from work again. Nobody knew what had happened to him.
During Michael's growing-up years, he heard plenty of gossipy conjecture as to the cause of Jules's disappearance. Michael wasn't a very smart kid. He had multiple learning disabilities, which were never diagnosed. His widowed mother clothed and fed him, and that was it. Nevertheless, he was smart enough to conclude that Joe Vincente, Sr. had murdered his father. He was not smart enough to figure out why.
Unfortunately, Joe, Sr. died of lung cancer when Michael was eleven. Joe, Sr. was a heavy smoker, but neither his wife nor his son could get him to quit. His wife Marsha died three years later of brain cancer. She had never smoked, so Joe, Jr. concluded that it was second-hand smoke that did her in.
Michael kept track of the Vincente family from a distance. When he learned that both Joe, Sr. and his wife had died, he vowed revenge on Joe, Jr. He wanted to be in Joe's neighborhood so that he could keep an eye on him, and he conceived a great plan. Given his limited brain power, it was sheer genius.
He got a job delivering mail with the post office. When he found out who delivered in Joe's neighborhood, he bribed his co-worker into switching routes with him. Michael's bribe was minimal, but his fellow postman didn't care. The route he was taking away from Michael was even posher than the one he had. He was sure that his Christmas tips would be greater.
The first day he delivered mail to Joe, Michael observed the cellar door, which was below street level. It could not be seen from the street in the dark, so he decided that he would use this door to get into the house at night, and murder Joe in his sleep.
He made another `friend' on his route. Martha Dougherty was a very lonely old spinster. She would sit in her window watching for Michael. When she saw him, she would open her door before he climbed the stairs, and engage him in a short conversation.
Michael learned that she had no family at all. She only left her home to go food shopping. All she ever got in the mail, besides fliers and junk, were bills, a monthly brokerage statement, and her social security check.
One day, Martha was not at her door to greet him. He thought nothing of it, and he dropped her mail through her door slot. When she wasn't there for the next two days either, he grew concerned. He knocked on the door and got no answer. He tried the door handle and found the door unlocked. Looking around to make sure that he could not be seen, he entered the house, closing the door behind him.
There didn't seem to be anyone home, so he decided to tour the house. He had never been in a house this ritzy and ornate before. He found Martha sound asleep in her bed. Only she wasn't asleep; she was dead.
He completed his mail route and returned to Martha's house in the dead of night. He intended to take up residence there to be closer to Joe so that he could act quickly when the opportunity arose. He carried her body downstairs and into the cellar. There was a nearly empty deep freezer there, and the electricity was going full blast. He placed Martha in the deep freezer, and then retired for the night in her bed, without even changing the sheets.
He was smart enough to take some precautions. When Martha's social security check came, he marked it `Return to Sender, Recipient Deceased' and put it in the outgoing mail. When her brokerage statement came, he opened it. Her dividend income was substantial, but it was all deposited back into a checking account.
He didn't think that he would be in this house for a month, and he was relatively certain that the lack of activity in her checking account would not be noticed before he left. He also decided to ignore her bills. He'd be long gone before she got dunned. As careful as he was, his mentally challenged brain did him in. He put in a change of address at his post office indicating his new ritzy address. He used his real name, and he was now listed as a resident on that street.
Michael's only sex life was with prostitutes. He was living in Martha's house for five days when he decided to go down to 10th Avenue in midtown Manhattan and get himself a woman. He was really excited thinking that he would bring her `home', and she would think that he was loaded.
He was leaning against a lamp post on a corner when a young man approached him. Michael had never before seen such a beautiful face. He started walking toward the young man. Almost immediately, the beautiful youngster offered to blow him for whatever money he could spare. Michael didn't think he could even get it up for a man, but he reckoned that maybe he could pay the lad to jimmy open Joe's cellar door. He figured that if someone else did it, it would lessen his risk.
"You look cold and hungry," Michael said. Come home with me. I'll warm you up and give you something to eat."
"Gee mister that would be great."
"What's your name boy?"
"Tom."
Michael had no trouble getting it up for Tom.
At approximately 3 PM, Michael was brought into the station in handcuffs. Joe and Tom had left only five minutes earlier. It was fortunate that Michael didn't lay his eyes on either Joe or Tom. Ken ordered Michael to be taken to the interrogation room.
"I didn't do nothin'," Michael kept sobbing.
"How about hiring some homeless kid to break into your neighbor's house? Is that nothing?"
"I didn't hire him. I just gave him a crowbar. He said he wanted to rob the place."
"Let's move on," Ken said. "What happened to Mrs. Dougherty, the woman you live with? Where is she?"
"See, you're wrong again. I don't live with her. She's dead."
Ken was becoming unnerved. "Did you kill her?"
"No, I wouldn't kill anybody, except maybe Joe Vincente. I found her dead and I buried her in the deep freezer."
"Good God, Michael, you've got to be kidding."
"No, it's true."
You say you wouldn't kill anybody. Did you ever hear of Harry and Jerry Parker, Adam Carboneri, or Sal Galli?"
"I never heard of the other guys, but Sal Galli is Joe Vincente's bodyguard. If he wasn't around all the time I could have gotten to Joe already."
"Is that why you killed them all?"
"Why are asking me if I killed them. I didn't even know them. I didn't kill nobody."
Michael was driving Ken crazy. He left the interrogation room, and told one of the policemen to read him his rights, and book him for failing to report a death, breaking and entering, and squatting in someone else's home. He would have liked to have booked Michael for aiding and abetting a felon, but he didn't want Tom involved, so he let that crime slide.
"Oh, by the way," Ken said to the police officer, "you'll probably have to get him a public defender, and please have homicide go to 415 East 84th Street. There's a body in the deep freezer in the basement. I'm sure they'll want an autopsy."
Ken went straight to Lt. Morton's office.
"Well?" Morton asked.
"He's confessed to some misdemeanors but denies knowing anything about the murders. You know what? I believe him. He's not operating with a full deck. He's not smart enough to have conceived these murders."
"So we're back to square one," Morton said.
"Remember, Joe believes that we were being fed red herrings? They don't come any redder than this one."
To be continued...