Vespers, page 26
It has to do with someone stabbing a priest, Fames.
Is that supposed to be a surprise?
I beg your pardon?
I mean, you're oh-so-very smart here, you, with your trick questions and
your all around the mulberry bush,, do you you're dealing with a fool
here? I have a successful business, I've been at the same location for
fifteen years, I'm not a fool.
No one said you were, Mr. Fames.
Oh, no, you didn't come right out and say it, of course not. With the
tape going? And this man taking notes? Of course not. But don't you
think I realize what you're trying to do here?
You're trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. You're trying to say
that because I had an argument with Father Michael, that means... Did
you have an argument with him?
I told you we had a misunderstanding.
Yes, but you didn't say you'd had an argument.
A misunderstanding, I said, a misunderstanding. Over a letter I sent to
the entire... Yes, but just now you said you'd had an argument. When did
you have this argument, Mr. Farnes?
A misunderstanding. Listen, I want to make this clear.., is that tape
still going? I want it made perfectly clear on the tape that I meant to
say misunderstanding, not argument.
Misunderstanding. Your detectives came to see me about that damn letter,
I told them the misunderstanding had been cleared up, Father Michael and
I settled the whole thing on Easter Sunday. There was no damn argument,
is that clear?
Q: On Easter Sunday, do you mean?
/k: On Easter Sunday or any other time. not argue. Period.
Q: Ever?
/,: Never.
O: Mr. Fames, I can ask for a search locate the inventory log you
mentione, feel certain you would want to help us fin wonder if you could
accompany "
t/
detectives to your store... /: No. I want a lawyer.
Nellie looked at Carella. Carella looked
The stenographer looked up from his pad.
Byrnes shrugged. The only sound in the the whirring of the tape
recorder. "Mr.
Nellie said at last, "am I to understand...?"
"You've got it, sister."
"Am I to understand that you will not locate that log?"
"Not unless a lawyer tells me you can do "What is it you think we're
doing?"
"Taking me to the store against my will."
"Very well, Mr. Fames, we'll request a warrant. Am I to understand
further that you wish questioning to stop at this time?" "You've got it,
sister," Fames said again.
Nellie snapped off the tape recorder.
"We're off the air," she said. "You ever call sister again, I'll kick
you in the balls, got it?" I'll mention that to my attorney," Farnes
said.
"Please do," Nellie said, and walked out of the It was not until one
o'clock that afternoon that ;lla and Hawes obtained both a search
warrant a Superior Court judge and a key to C&C 's Furnishings from
Sally Fames. Sally said she led it turned out that her husband had, in
fact, ;d Father Michael, and she hoped further that he be sent to prison
for the rest of his natural life. "he also mentioned that he usually
kept his inventory log in the lower right-hand drawer of the desk in his
office at the back of the store.
They found the office, they found the desk, and they found the log in
the lower right-hand drawer.
The log indicated that Farnes had indeed taken inventory of his stock on
the twenty-fourth of May.
"Nellie'll be disappointed," Carella said. "She was hoping we'd catch
him in a lie."
"This could still be a lie," Hawes said. "Just 'cause he wrote the
twenty-fourth doesn't mean he actually did it on that date. He could
have done it a Week earlier, three days earlier, whenever."
"Say he killed the priest," Carella said. "What do you see for his
motive?" "He's a nutcase," Hawes said. "He doesn't need a motive."
"Even a nutcase has what he thinks is a mo "Okay, he was annoyed that
his wife ratt "Then why not kill her? Why thepriest." 9" "Because he
had a further grievance witi priest."
"The whole business with the letter, huh?"
"Yeah, and being made to look foolish in of the congregation. Nutcases
take thems seriously, Steve." "Yeah," Carella said.
.Both men were silent for several moments.
Then Carella said, Do you think he did it.
"No," Hawes said.
"Neither do I," Carella said.
The way Martha Hennessy later described it was just another teenage wolf
pack. You read them all the time now, these gangs going to "/
crazy and doing unspeakable things. Thiswas m a dozen strapping young
men, all of them will Mrs. Hennessy could have understood it if the/
been black or Hispanic, but white? Came sto into the church around three
o'clock it must've she was in the rectory, heard a lot of noise in I
church itself, ran through the paneled corrwi/ leading to the sacristy
where three of them already there, knocking over things, tearing the pli
art. Inside the church itself, Father Oriella was in English and in
Italian, and his secretary, old Italian woman whose English was
atrocious, iwas screaming for them to stop. Mrs. Hennessy ran back into
the rectory and dialed 911 from the office telephone. A police car
arrived in about three minutes flat.
The responding car was Edward's car, because the church was in the
precinct's Edward Sector, and the two officers driving the car were the
same man and woman who'd responded to the fracas here on Easter Sunday.
The difference this afternoon, and the reason their response-time was so
rapid, was that after the priest's murder, they'd been called downtown
to Headquarters and asked a lot of questions about their behavior on
Easter Sunday, which Inspector Brian Mcintyre from Internal Affairs had
found somewhat less than exemplary in a community rife with white-black
tensions. Mindful of the inspector's diatribe and reprimand, the moment
Officers Joseph Esposito and Anna Maria Lopez caught the 10-39 -- a
Crime In Progress, specified by the dispatcher as a "rampage at St.
Catherine's Church" -- they hit the hammer and screeched over to the
church, where if this wasn't a rampage it sure as hell looked like one.
Officer Lopez got on her walkie-talkie and called in an Assist Police
Officer, and within another three minutes, cars from the adjoining David
and Frank sectors, and half a dozen foot-patrol officers assigned to
CPEP were responding to the lo swarming all over the church and the
church and the rectory, rounding up what eventually out to be six
teenagers, all of them white, all with Italian names, least of whom was
Robert Corrente. ::
Bobby and his pals all seemed to be rather an unidentified substance of
a controlled seemed not to care that he was now in
a police squadroom, being charged will assortment of crimes, among which
was an upon Father Frank Oriella with a brass
Bobby had seized from the main altar friends were knocking over the
altar, and altar cloths from it, and otherwise ransackin church. Bobby
was screaming that he w lawyer. His assorted friends, some i! desk legs
in various parts of the squadroom, I! already in the detention cage in
the corner room, parroted every word he said. Bobby lawyer, they wanted
a lawyer. He yelled father, they yelled for their fathers. It was an
here in the squadroom, with everyone in fine Carella wished he had ear
plugs.
When Vincent Corrente arrived at the sq at four P.M. that afternoon, he
looked much as he the day Carella talked to him, except thai he was
wearing a tank top undershirt. Or, if he was, it not visible under the
Hawaiian print, sports shirt he wore hanging outside his tan .wise, he
was still jowly and paunchy and and he was still smoking an E1 Ropo
cigar lent a distinctive olfactory dimension to the squadroom medley of
yelling teenagers, typewriters, ringing telephones, and cops everyone to
shut the fuck up. Corrente was It was difficult to tell, however,
whether he angrier with his son or with the people who'd him.
"You dumb bastard," he told Bobby, "wha'd you to the church, hah?" and
belted him upside the :head. To Carella, he shouted, "You! Take these
cuffs offa my son or you're in deep shit!"
Carella looked at him calmly.
"You hear me? I know people!" Corrente shouted.
"Mr. Corrente," Carella said, "your son has been charged with..."
"I don't care what he's been charged with, he's a juvenilel"
"He's been charged as an adult."
"He's only seventeen!"
"That's an adult, Mr. Corrente. And he's been charged with..."
"I want a lawyer!" Bobby shouted.
"Shut up, you dumb bastard!" Corrente said. To Carella, he said, "He
don't say anything till my lawyer gets here."
"Fine," Carella said calmly.
He was wondering when Bobby down off his high.
The lawyer Corrente called was a man I'll Dominick Abruzzi.
This was getting to be a regular reuni WOPS, the World Order for the
Prew Subterfuge, a watchdog society dedicated proposition that any
American born with an name must keep that name forever, neither it
completely, nor even Anglicizing it, lest mercilessly and eternally
hounded to his grave reminders that he is merely an ignorant hoity-toity
pretensions. Abruzzi looked as Richard Nixon. Carella guessed his teeth
capped.
Thirty-five, thirty-six years old, tailored suit, a button-down shirt,
and a somber he breezed into the squadroom as if he'd been (or one
similar to it) a thousand times before. hello to Corrente, waved to
Bobby who seemed sinking lower and lower into a depressive mire, then
asked, pleasantly enough, "What seems to the trouble here?" Carella told
him what the trouble seemed to The trouble seemed to be First-Degree
Second-Degree Burglary, First-Degree Mischief, and Reckless Endangerment
o f, Propert "That's what the trouble seems to be, he said "Well,
that's, your contention, Detective," .zzi said.
Carella was aware of the sense in which Abruzzi using the word
"Detective." His intonation
it sound like "Pig."
"No, that's not my contention, Counselor," he "that's what Robert
Corrente's been charged "
He did not like attorneys who defended criminals. especially did not
like Italianamerican ys who defended criminals, especially when looked
like Richard Nixon and smelled of snake and especially when the criminal
was himself an Italianamerican.
Abruzzi was aware of the sense in which Carella was using the word
"Counselor." His intonation it sound like "Shyster." Abruzzi hated high
mighty Italian-American Law Enforcement Officers who thought their
calling was as pure and exalted as a priest's. In a democracy, everyone
was entitled to counsel and everyone was innocent until he was proved
guilty, and Abruzzi was here to make certain that no American citizen
would ever be deprived of his fights, God bless America.
"If you don't mind, Detective," he said, "I'd like to talk to my client
and his father privately." "Sure," Carella said. "Go right ahead.
Counselor."
A uniformed cop escorted Abruzzi and the Correntes down the hall to the
Interrogation Room.
Carella went to the cage, threw back the opened the door, and said, "One
at a time, son. Want to step outside, please?" The eighteen and looked
fifteen. Dark hair, wide eyes, a pretty mouth. Like Bobby, he had co
from the high induced by whatever the hell ingested and now looked as if
he''d been run a railroad locomotive. Carella took him over desk. Hawes
was coming from the Clerical with a cup of tea; he liked his afternoon
tea.
"What's your name, son?" Carella asked "Rudy Perucci," the kid said.
"Rudy, you're in trouble," Carella said, him his rights. Rudy listened
gravely. Carell him if he'd understood everything he'd said he had.
Carella asked him if he w attorney.
"Do I need one?" Rudy asked.
"I'm not permitted to advise you on that," said. "You can have one or
not, it's entirely you. Either way, it won't reflect upon your
innocence." "It wasn't me who hit the priest," Rudy said.
"Rudy, before you say anything else, I know whether you want an
attorney. If you want you can have one. Either your own, or we're by law
to get one for you if you don't h.ave one. please tell me now if you
want an attorney."
"What else do they say I done?" Rudy Carella read off the list of
charges.
"That's serious, huh?" Rudy said.
Carella started to tell him exactly how serious it The assault charge
was punishable by a max of The burglary charge... "We didn't steal
anything," Rudy said.
"Rudy, please don't say anything else, okay?" arella said. "Let me tell
you what these charges i and then you can decide about a lawyer. You he
get to fifteen for the assault, fifteen for up years burglary,
twenty-five for the reckless ndangerment, and seven for the criminal
mischief."
"I only, went along," Rudy said. "I didn't do |anything."
"Do you want a lawyer, Rudy?"
"If I didn't do anything, why do I need a lawyer?"
"Yes or no, Rudy?"
"No, I don't need a lawyer."
"Are you willing to answer questions without a
lawyer present?"
"Yes. I don't need a lawyer, I didn't do anything."
"Can you tell me what happened?" "I only went along," Rudy said.
"How did it start?"
"We were trying some stuff Bobby got hold of."
"What stuff?. What'd you take, Rudy?"
"I don't even know the name of it. We just said yes."
He grinned. He had just made a joke about Nancy Reagan's famous and
foolish slogan. Anybody who'd ever smoked only so much as a joint knew
exactly how stupid the Just Say No campal been. Rudy was testing Carella
now. To knew how dumb it had been. Carella smiled Two old buddies
familiar with the ways abuse. But only one of them had gone berserk a
church.
"It was real good, man," Rudy said, still Carella was willing to bet it
had been real "So what happened?" he asked pleasantly.
"Bobby wanted to go get his stuff back."
"What stuff?."
"The stuff the nigger ripped off."
"Ripped off?."
"Yeah, you know."
"No, I don't know. Tell me."
This is the fifth episode of Rashomon.
there will be no more installments. This is the chapter. At least
Carella hopes it is the final They are back to Easter Sunday again, the
windy, shitty day, everyone seems to agree weather. And it is still
two-thirty, three o'clock afternoon, everyone agrees on the time as
well. the star player, or at least one of the star this tedious and
interminable little me once again coming up Eleventh Street, doing Rudy
calls his Nigger Shuffle, and grinning into wind like he owns the world.
Alexis has not anything about this part of the saga because she not
witness to it, but so far Hooper's, Bobby's, Seronia's versions are all
in agreement. But they to the dope part again, which dope Hooper first
there to sell, and next there to buy, and next off with after Bobby
accused him of using funny the last time they traded. And, sure enough,
are going into the hallway again, and another dope transaction is about
