“How long does it take you to do the office? What’s your procedure?”
“Fifteen minutes. The rest of the place is spotless. I personally check the whole restaurant before the cleaners leave. I do the polish when he’s down at the corner. He usually stops in to have a quick cup of tea with Mister Chow-he owns the Shanghai Palace-he’s never more than ten minutes with Chow. I put the rug on the desk, polish the floor-move the chair and computer desk around. Put it all back the way it was. When he comes back he locks the front door behind him, comes straight to the kitchen, I give him his glass of wine, and he sips while he checks every square inch of that kitchen. What I mean, there better not be a spot of grease on a stove or the oven or any of the pots and pans. He’s really freaky about that.”
“Where’s the wine kept?”
“He breaks open a new bottle every night from down in the wine cellar. What’s left after he has his couple of glasses goes out to the bar as bar wine the next day. First thing I do before the polish is uncork the bottle and pour him a glass, let it sit while I do the rest of the job. He likes to let it breathe. So, when he comes back he checks out the kitchen and sips his wine, then he goes to the office and I take him his supper-it’s always the special of the day-and a bottle of water. Sometimes a salad but he didn’t order one last night.”
“Do you leave the door ajar while you’re doing all this?”
“Yeah, air it out. It’s always pretty hot in there.”
“And the wine?”
“On the counter with the glass. I take the whole thing in on a tray, set it out for him, ‘ Buona notte, Padre,’ kiss him on the cheek, bring the tray back, close the shutters on the kitchen windows, lock the door as I leave.”
“The wine and water stay in there?”
“Right. He has another glass with his dinner, brings the plate, glasses, the bottle into the kitchen when he leaves, puts the dirty dishes in the sink, leaves the bottle on the counter, throws what’s left of the water in the garbage.”
“Always the same?”
“Every night. Rituals. That’s the way he is.” The dam broke as he said it. Ricky lowered his head and tears showered down his cheeks.
Cody shook his head. He looked at Farrell and nodded. “That’s all I have,” he said, and to Ricky, “I’m sorry we had to put you through this. Thanks, Ricky.” And Cody returned to the restaurant.?
“Yeah,” Cody said. “Vinnie and Winters are waiting in their car in the parking lot until the van leaves. They’ll assist Si running the grid.”
“Any signs of a struggle?” Si asked.
“No,” Annie answered. “Just some smudged footprints in front of the chair. I’m guessing they’re O.R. booties. Eight inches long, which is rather small. I pulled some blue fibers from the frost on the floor. It frosts up when you open the door; the temperature in there is zero Fahrenheit. There were also some red droplets on the floor. I assume they’re drops of wine. I’ve tubed everything from inside the freezer except the wine bottle and glass.”
Hardy returned with the gurney and a blanket.
“Brung a blanket,” he said. “He’s gonna be kinda slippery, don’t wanna drop the poor guy.”
“I’ll help you get him on the gurney,” said Annie. “We’ll lay him on sideways and cover him with the blanket.”
“Good,” Cody said. “I’ll give Si a quick tour back to the office. Meet us back there. You’ll wanna take the rug and plate with you.”
“Right.”
Cody led Si to one side. “Here’s what you need to know. Crosetti lived by rituals. Everything was done his way, every day. Everybody that works here is out by quarter after twelve. That leaves the old man and Ricky here alone.
“I think our killer knows all this. Follow me. He comes in, spikes the wine bottle and glass, walks down this hall, to the ladies rest room, comes in, comes back here to the third stall, and stands on the toilet seat. And waits. He’s in and safe. He waits until he hears Ricky give Tony his dinner, hears him close the window shutters in the kitchen, lock the door and leave, then he comes out, comes down here to the main dining room and waits in the dark. Watching. Watching Tony Crosetti eating his late night supper, sipping his wine. He waits and watches and…” Cody led Si across the darkened dining room to the office, “…at some point, Uncle Tony passes out and falls face forward into his dinner.”
Si stared at the plate and started to say something but Cody cut him off.
“Let me finish. Uncle Tony’s out cold. Our killer drags him out of his chair, lays him on the rug, wraps it up and drags him through that door to the freezer. You’ll find fibers in the tile grouting in the kitchen. Then he goes into the private dining room, takes a chair from the table, and puts it in the freezer. He undresses Tony, props him in the chair the way we found him, takes the rug back to the office and brings the wine bottle and glass back, puts it beside Tony, closes the door, and leaves. The whole trick doesn’t take more than twenty, thirty minutes. Look at the plate. Crosetti wasn’t half way through his meal when he took the dive.”
“That’s pretty good, Micah. Two questions. Why the clothes? And why put the wine and glass in the freezer?”
“You tell me, Si.”
“First of all, he froze faster naked.”
“Okay.”
“And second, there was something on the clothes, maybe some fibers, DNA, something the killer was worried about, so he copped the clothes. Why take a chance?”
“How about the bottle of wine?”
Si smiled. “He’s talking to us Micah. He’s telling us something. I told you, sooner or later they all have to mark their work, like a dog peeing on a fire hydrant. And I’ll make you a ten dollar bet.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ll bet you ten bucks Crosetti didn’t freeze to death.”
28
Frank Rizzo was leaning on the wall of a five-story building on the opposite side of the alley. He was facing the Venezia’s back exit, scoping out the adjoining area with his camera. Cody walked the forty or so feet to join him, unconsciously setting his pace with the sound of the camera-c lick, whrrrr, click, whrrrr- and remembering Rizzo’s initial disdain for the idea of learning to use a camera until he realized he had a natural eye for capturing details. Now the crew had to practically pry it out of his hands when he got started.
“See anything interesting?”
“Actually, it’s what you can’t see from here that’s interesting. Look around. There are no lights on this side of the alley. If you stood right here at, say, midnight nobody could see you. It’s black as a coal mine. But when Ricky comes out for a smoke, Androg can look into the kitchen and see the freezer. Step five feet to his right, he can see through the window, see the kitchen, see through the double doors into the bar, see Tony’s office door.
“Day or two later he drops into the bar for a quick drink, goes back to the men’s room, takes a leak, comes out and he can grab a look into the kitchen. Now he’s got the whole place scoped out.
“Now what does he know? He knows the help is out by eleven. He knows Tony goes down to the ATM and maybe stops off for a cup a tea and is back by one. He knows Ricky steps outside for a quick smoke, goes back inside while Tony’s gone and polishes the floor in his office. He knows Ricky takes about fifteen minutes to get that done. And Androg can hear the polishing machine so he goes over, enters the back door, spikes the glass of wine and the bottle, and vanishes around the corner into the ladies room. He’s inside and safe in a minute or two.
“Then he just waits for Ricky to shutter the kitchen windows and leave. The door’s locked. All the ambient light from the kitchen is blocked so nobody will see him when he finishes at, what? Two, two-thirty. The snake can take all the time he wants killing the rabbit.”
He was right, Cody agreed. The alley behind Venezia was like a boxed canyon; blocked at one end by a tall building, at the other by an unlit parking lot; tall structures crouched around it like sentinels. In the dark, even residual light from Hester Street would fade by the time it got to the alley. From their vantage point, Cody studied who might have caught a glimpse of the killer. Perhaps someone leaving the parking lot? Customers in the restaurants and shops to their right on the opposite side of Hester? Were any of them even open at two-thirty in the morning? Once again their wily nemesis had left little room for mistakes.