‘So nobody else has opened this box besides Danziger?’
‘Not since they closed the case. Could have been hundreds of people pawing through it before it got sent down here. I can’t control that, you know.’
‘Is there any way to tell who requested this file be black?’
‘A ’course.’ He lifted the form to reveal another. ‘Lowery. The DA.’ Doolittle turned to leave, then paused to ask, ‘Hey, you guys want coffee or something?’
Amazing what a call from the Commissioner can do.
‘No, thank you, Jimmy.’ Kelly smiled. He waited until the clerk left the room, then asked, ‘Alright, now, what are we looking for?’
‘The Homicide detectives’ notebooks. Anything that didn’t make it into the reports, anything that connects Trudell to Frank Fasulo.’
‘And we’re doing this because Braxton says so?’
‘You got any better ideas?’
We scavenged through the boxes, which contained mostly papers. The physical evidence — bloody clothing, slugs extracted from the walls, drug paraphernalia — had all been buried in some other archive, presumably. A few items remained, including a thick file of gory photographs. As for the papers, most of them I had already seen photocopied in Danziger’s own file on the case. He had apparently created a duplicate file of his own containing copies of every scrap in these boxes. Only one thing had been missing from Danziger’s file: the detectives’ original notebooks. The absence of these notebooks sent up a red flag. Obviously if Danziger’s theory was that the detectives had missed something the first time around, their contemporaneous notes would be a crucial bit of evidence. ‘Danziger copied the notebooks,’ I told Kelly. ‘Somebody took them out of his office. I’m sure of it. Danziger wouldn’t have left them out.’
The notebooks themselves were not fancy. Most were the spiral-bound type that students use. A few were breast-pocket-sized. Only one of the detectives had assembled his notes into a three-ring binder. Kelly and I read through the notebooks for the better part of the morning. Each was a diary of mundane tasks, the meticulous combing-out of good leads from bad (interviews with neighbors, friends, suspects, snitches), and daily interactions with others in law enforcement (telephone calls with prosecutors, forensics labs, other cops). It was grunt work and it yielded nothing. In the late summer of 1987, Mission Flats had been struck by a plague of amnesia and lockjaw. What evidence the investigators had obtained, including the murder weapon, had been recovered within minutes of the shooting.
The needle in the haystack was this note, scribbled by a Detective John Rivers the day after the Trudell shooting:
Per JV [Julio Vega?] V [victim, i.e. Trudell] upset, ‘not right,’ consulted FB [Franny Boyle]. JV unsure re. Nature of problem?
Time to talk to Franny Boyle again.
As Kelly and I drove to Government Center, where the SIU office — Boyle’s office — was located, it occurred to me that I had nearly forgotten the morning’s other revelation. ‘I didn’t know you were friends with the Commissioner,’ I said.
He gave me a skeptical glance.
‘No, really. I’m impressed.’
‘Ben Truman, don’t be daft. I wouldn’t know the Commissioner if he stood up in my soup. That was Zach Boyages from Admin.’
I cleared my throat. ‘Oh.’
46
Franny Boyle saw me at the door of his office and tried to manufacture a little of his old muscular presence. He pressed his head down into that thick, bullfrog neck and tightened his pecs. ‘What’s going on, Opie? You look real serious.’ But Franny’s act was not convincing anymore. For all his puffing, he seemed to be shrinking before my eyes. He was seated behind an enormous oak desk, an aircraft carrier of a desk, and its size diminished him further.
‘Franny, we need to talk.’
‘Oh man, this is serious. Nothing good ever comes after “we have to talk.” Last time someone told me “we have to talk,” I wound up divorced.’ Franny gave me a wiseguy smirk. It was an invitation to smirk along with him, which I declined.
I closed the door behind me.
‘Where’s the old man? Kelly?’
‘He’s outside. I thought we’d just talk, you and me.’
‘You gonna read me my rights?’
‘You need to hear them, Franny?’
He pursed his lips, disappointed he could not jolly me out of my solemn tone. ‘Well, sit down at least.’ He pointed to a chair that was covered with files. ‘Just throw that shit on the floor.’
‘That’s alright, Franny. I’m good here.’
Seated in his desk chair, he laced his hands on top of his bald head, flaunting two crescent moons in his armpits.
‘Franny, I’m not going to bullshit you. Kelly and I just came from the Records Room at Berkeley Street. We were looking through the Trudell file. We know Artie Trudell came to you with some kind of problem.’
‘Lots of cops used to come to me with problems. I was the only lawyer a lot of them knew — personally knew, I mean. People give lawyers too much credit. They figure we can answer questions about any kind of problem. I’ve had cops come to me with questions about divorces, real-estate closings-’
‘Franny, this wasn’t about a real-estate closing.’
‘No? How do you know?’
‘Wild guess.’
‘So what do you think it was about, hotshot?’
‘Frank Fasulo.’
Franny smiled. ‘Frank Fasulo?’
‘That’s right.’
A poker player who reveals the value of his hand with a gesture has what is called a tell. Franny Boyle, I could see, had a tell: to mask his concern, he smiled too quickly and too much.
‘Where’d you come up with Frank Fasulo?’ Franny said.
‘I got a tip.’
‘You got a tip? From who?’
I thought about naming Braxton. I had promised Franny I would not bullshit him. But then, I’d made other promises too.
‘Let’s say I got it from Raul.’
‘No, really. Who?’
‘I can’t tell you that, Franny.’
‘Jesus, you certainly learn fast. Who the hell are you getting tips from? Not Gittens, I know that.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Gittens usually plays it close, and he doesn’t know you well enough. No, my guess is it must be Ms Kelly. I hear you and Princess Caroline are getting… close.’
He studied me, looking for a tell of my own.
‘Franny, before he died, Artie Trudell came to you with a problem. We know he did because he told Julio Vega. Vega said he was upset, he “wasn’t right.” I’m asking you: What was Trudell so worried about?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know meaning you don’t remember? Or you don’t know meaning it didn’t happen?’
‘I don’t know meaning I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
