“Signora,” Palumbo said, “if I was all out of apricots, they’d be thirty-five cents a pound, too. You want them, si or no?”
“I’ll take them,” Mrs. O’Grady said, her green eyes twinkling, “but it’s highway robbery.”
Palumbo opened a brown paper bag and dropped a handful of apricots into it. He put the bag on his hanging scale and was piling more apricots into it when the bullet came from the station platform above him, entering his head at a sharp angle from the top of his skull. He fell forward onto the stand. The fruit and vegetables came tumbling down around him as he collapsed to the sidewalk, the polished pears and apples, the green peppers, the oranges and lemons and potatoes, while Mrs. O’Grady looked at him in horror and then began screaming.
8
Carella and Meyer did not learn that an Italian fruit dealer named Salvatore Palumbo had been shot to death until they got back to the squadroom at 4:00 that afternoon of May 1. Up to that time, they had been poring over the records of Anthony Forrest and Randolph Norden at the university.
The records were puzzling and contradictory, and supplied them with almost no additional clues as to just what the hell was happening.
Anthony Forrest had entered Ramsey University as a business-administration major in the spring semester of 1937, when he was eighteen years old and a graduate of Ashley High School in Majesta. By the spring of 1940, which was when Blanche Lettiger enrolled at the university, he was entering his senior year. He had been only a fair student, averaging C for almost every semester at the school, barely qualifying academically for the football team. He was graduated 205th in his class in January 1941, with a BS degree. He had been a member of the ROTC while at the college, but he was not called to active duty until almost a year after graduation, when the attack on Pearl Harbor startled the world.
Randolph Norden had entered Ramsey University in the fall of 1935, when he was eighteen years old and a graduate of Thomas Hardy High in Bethtown. He enrolled as a liberal-arts major with intentions of eventually going on to Ramsey Law. In the spring of 1937, when Forrest entered the school, Norden was halfway through his sophomore year. In the spring of 1940, when Blanche Lettiger entered the school, Norden had already completed his three-year pre-law requirement and was in his second year of law school. He was graduated from Ramsey Law in June 1941, and he went into the Navy almost immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
His records showed that Norden was an excellent student throughout his entire stay at Ramsey. He had been elected to the student council in his sophomore year, had made Phi Beta Kappa as a junior, was listed in Who’s Who in American Colleges and Universities, and—in law school—was a member of the Order of the Coif, as well as editor of the Ramsey Law Review.
A closer search of the records showed that Randolph Norden had never been in any of Anthony Forrest’s classes. Nor did it appear as though either of the men, one of whom was a graduating senior in 1940, the other of whom was in his second year of law school, had shared any classes with the entering freshman named Blanche Ruth Lettiger.
“So what do you make of it?” Carella had asked.
“I’m damned if I know,” Meyer had answered.
Now, entering the squadroom at 4:00 in the afternoon, they still did not have the answer. They stopped off in the clerical office and bummed two cups of coffee from Miscolo. A note on Carella’s desk told him that the BCI had called. It no longer seemed important to know the names of the criminals Randolph Norden had defended, but he dutifully returned the call anyway, and was talking to a man named Simmons when the other phone rang. Meyer picked it up.
“87th Squad, Meyer,” he said.
“Let me talk to Carella, huh?” the voice on the other end said.
“Who’s this, please?”
“This is Mannheim of the One-Oh-Four in Riverhead.”
“Hold on a second, will you?” Meyer said. “He’s on the other line.”
“Sure,” Mannheim said.
Carella looked up.
“The One-Oh-Four in Riverhead,” Meyer whispered. “Guy named Mannheim.”
Carella nodded. Into his own phone he said, “Then all but one of them are still serving prison terms, is that right?”
“That’s right,” Simmons told him.
“What’s the story on the one who’s loose?”
“His name’s Frankie Pierce. He’s been back with us since last November. He was serving a five-and-dime at Castleview, came up for parole last year, was granted.”
“What was the rap?”
“Burglary Three.”
“Any other arrests in his record?”
“He had a JD card when he was fifteen, pulled in twice on gang rumbles, but that was all.”
“Weapons?”
“A zip gun in one of the rumbles. They threw the Sullivan Act, but his lawyer got him off with a suspended sentence.”
“He was paroled in November, you say?”
“That’s right.”
“Where’s he living now?”
“Isola. 371 Horton. That’s down here near the Calm’s Point Bridge.”
“Who’s his parole officer?”
“McLaughlin. You know him?”
“I think so. Any trouble?”
“He’s been sound as a dollar since he got out. My guess is he’ll be back at the old stand pretty soon, though. That’s the pattern, ain’t it?”
“Sometimes,” Carella said.
“You got some burglaries up there, is that it?” Simmons asked.
“No, this is a homicide.”
“How does it look?”
“Pretty cool right now.”
“Give it time. Homicides work themselves out, don’t they?”
“Not always,” Carella said. “Thanks a lot, Simmons.”
“Don’t mention it,” he said, and hung up. Carella pressed the extension button.
“Hello?” he said.
“Carella?”
“Yep.”
“This is Mannheim, the One-Oh-Four in Riverhead.”
“How are you, Mannheim?”
“Fine, fine. Listen, you the guy who’s handling this sniper case?”
“I’m the guy. Have you got something for me?”
“Yeah,” Mannheim said.
“What is it?”
“Another stiff.”
Rose Palumbo spoke very bad English even when she was coherent, and she was practically incoherent by the time Carella reached her at the old frame house in Riverhead. They tried sparring in the king’s language for a while, with her repeating something about “atops” that Carella didn’t understand at all until one of her sons, a man named Richard Palumbo, told Carella she was worried about them cutting up her husband when they did an autopsy. Carella tried to assure the woman, in English, that all they were interested in establishing was the cause of death, but the woman kept repeating the word “atops” between her flowing tears and her violent gasps for breath until Carella finally took her shoulders and shook her.
“Ma che vergogna, signora!” he shouted.
“Mi dispiace,” Rose said, “ma non posso sopportare l’idea che lo taglino. Perchè devono tagliare?”
“Perchè l’hanno ucciso,” Carella said, “e vogliamo scoprire chi è stato.”
“Ma che scoprirete tagliandolo?”
“La palla è ancora dentro. Dobbiamo trovare la palla perchè ci sono stati altri morti. Altri tre.”
“E tagliarono gli altri?”
“Si.”
“È peccato contro Dio mutilare i morti.”