William Diehl - Seven ways to die

“Already have,” she answered.

“So the immediate cause of death was freezing,” Wolf said. “We’re looking for the proximate cause-what really killed him. I’m guessing we’ll find that in the blood sample.”

“And it won’t be drugs or thermal,” said Cody.

Annie nodded agreement. “Too obvious,” she said.

Cody thought for a moment and then pressed the button on his headset. “Hue?”

“Right here.”

“How’re you doing?”

“Ready for you.”

“Good. We’ll be over in a few minutes. Bring up Wolf’s list on the big board.”

“Gotcha.”

Sunday, October 28

Lou Stinelli was finishing his first cup of coffee and perusing the Sunday Times obits when he stopped at a headline.

“I’ll be damned,” he said.

“What is it?” Valerie asked, as she refilled his cup and doctored it with the usual three sugars and a generous dose of heavy cream.

“Remember Steamroller Jackson?”

She rolled her eyes. “Steamroller Jackson! How could I ever forget Steamroller Jackson, your old high school buddy? Our second date and almost our last, Mister Macho. I hated prizefighting then and I still hate it.”

Stinelli laughed, recalling the disastrous evening.

“Steamroller decked Jersey Kaminsky in the first round. You could hear that right connect in Albany and old Jersey went straight to the canvas…limp as a bag of marbles, and you…”

“Don’t start…”

“… almost fainted. I had to put your head down around your knees…”

“I said…”

“Okay, okay, darlin’.” He raised his hands in surrender. “Christ, that was over thirty years ago. You got a memory like an elephant.”

“Are you kidding, Louis? That’s one night I’ll never forget.”

“Well, you can forget old Steamroller. Poor guy died late Friday night. Found in an alley yesterday morning, slumped against a brick wall. Apparent heart attack. Says he probably o.d.’d on cocaine or alcohol. He was only sixty-one.”

“Oh!” She said, covering her lips with her fingertips. The private phone line rang, interrupting any further conversation. Stinelli scowled at it.

“Damn it,” he said, “it’s Sunday morning. I haven’t finished the God damn paper yet. Take a number. Tell whoever it is I’m in the shower or something.”

“You’d have me lie my soul into hell just so you can finish the paper,” she said sternly as she lifted the receiver.

“Hello,” she said sweetly.

“Good morning, Mizz Stinelli, this is…”

“I’d know that voice in my sleep, Micah. He says to tell you he’s in the shower-or something.”

“I’m sorry, Val, but it’s important.”

She looked over at Stinelli. “Is it going to ruin his day of rest?” Cody hesitated a second and said, “Just tell him I said Androg.”

“Androg?”

Stinelli looked up sharply. He jumped up and took the receiver.

“Micah?”

“Good morning, chief. Sorry to…”

“What about Androg?”

“He hit again.”

“How do you know it’s Androg?”

“Cause of death disguised. But that’s not the really bad news, Lou. The victim is Tony Crosetti.”

“Uncle Tony? My God what happened? When?”

“About one-thirty or two yesterday morning. Jimmy Farrell and I found him at about eight. Mama Crosetti called Jim because Crosetti didn’t come home Friday night. I happened to jog by Venezia while Jim was sitting there so we made a crime scene entry. We found Tony in the meat freezer. He was naked, sitting in a chair, frozen solid as an iceberg.”

“Oh, my God! Where are you?”

“At the Loft. Wolf’s doing the autopsy. So far it’s a state secret. We got him out of there fast. There aren’t many people around there at that time of day. The sign in the window of the restaurant says it’s closed due to illness in the family.”

“Christ, Cody, you can’t keep this quiet.”

“Jimmy’s going to front it. I expect the autopsy shortly but Farrell will make a prelim report that the cause of death is pending an autopsy tomorrow. He’ll blame it on the weekend.”

“Every cop in the lower end of Manhattan knows Tony.”

“None of the cops know any details and Jimmy won’t be talking; he’s busy helping with the funeral arrangements.”

Stinelli rubbed the back of his neck as he paced the kitchen.

“You know you got one helluva Monday coming up, pal. Two murders plus I promised you’d meet with that guy Hamilton about the Cramer case.”

“Don’t worry, chief, I’ll take care of it. Look, we got a very slick killer on our hands. The longer we keep it in the closet the better.”

Stinelli thought for a moment or two more.

“Okay…okay. But keep me up to speed on this. You turn up anything new, anything, you call me.”

“Maybe the less you know the better.”

“You let me decide what I should and shouldn’t know. Just keep me informed, kid. We clear on that?”

“Clear.”

Stinelli cradled the phone and sat down. He and Valerie had a rule: He never discussed business with his wife. But she knew Lo Zio and Venezia was one of their favorite restaurants. It was less than a mile from his office at One Police Plaza.

“Uncle Tony’s dead,” he said. “That’s all we know so far.” He took her hand as she sat down beside him, her eyes tearing up.

“Who’s Androg?” she asked.

“One of the bad guys.”?

Vinnie Hue was ready for the Sunday morning briefing. He had all the photographs and comments from the scene of Tony Crosetti’s murder as well as the exterior front and rear shots of the Venezia prepared for projection on the big board.

There was another addition: an alphabetical list of the categories with which forensic pathologists break down and identify how homicide victims are killed. They varied from one pathologist to the next but basically were pretty much the same. It was typical of the mordant humor of the enclave, much of it initiated by Vinnie, that the list, in his comic book script, was headed “Wolf’s Biggest Hits”:

1. Blunt trauma 2. Cutting, stabbing, piercing 3. Drowning 4. Drugs, including poisons 5. Gunshot 6. Suffocation 7. Thermal (electric, freezing, fire)

Individually, serial killers usually employed the same method to kill; strangulation and stabbing were popular because they enjoyed watching their victims die. Ted Bundy, one of its more prolific practitioners, once described serial killing as “a contact sport.”

Nearby in the lab, Wolf had moved the thawed corpse to the stainless steel table and was dictating his findings into an overhead mike.

Only Wolf, Rizzo and Bergman were absent. Rizzo was a few blocks away preparing to interview anyone who might have seen the killer. He was at a distinct disadvantage. Anyone working in the restaurants or on the street within view of the Venezia during the crucial hours between one and three a.m. would not be showing up for work until late afternoon. Bergman, meanwhile, had returned to the scene to go over Tony Crosetti’s receipts from Friday night, hoping something familiar might turn up since he was the last customer to leave the place. It was a long shot but at this point everything was.

But Larry Simon had some surprises for the crew and had provided Hue with several photographs and some documents for a presentation he would make following Cody’s briefing.

Simon sat back in his chair, patiently watching the panorama of death flick across the big screen as an obviously edgy Cody described in detail how Charley had led Cody and Jim Farrell to the freezer and thus to the harrowing discovery.

There was a murmur of discomfort as the first grotesque photo of Uncle Tony’s frozen corpse flashed six-feet high on the board. The entire crew was aware of the murder by then, but since they all knew the victim, the bizarre scene conveyed to each an ineffable sense of melancholy, of sorrow, despair, and, ultimately, anger. Nor did anyone in the room doubt for a moment that this was the work of the psychopath they knew only as Androg.