Disclaimer: No infringement of copyright is intended. All characters originated with CSI:NY. Poetry not otherwise referenced is original.
A/N: As always, thanks to readers and reviewers, and especially to those of you who are keeping me going. A special thanks to JuliaB, who corrected the German errors – this chapter has been re-posted with the correct expressions now.
Spoiler Alert: Spoilers for Seasons 2 & 3, up to and including "Silent Night".
Sitting on a Fence
Sitting in the sun waiting for a sign
Waiting for a sign that the world is still turning
Thought I'd worked it out, thought everything was fine
Then you turned it 'round and suddenly my heart is burning
'Cause you took me for a ride and let me spin out of control
You left me hanging in the air with my feet a'flailing
You took me on the Inter-state and made me pay the toll
Coaxed me up the tower and pushed me over the railing
So I'm sitting in the sun and waiting for an omen
Ravens circle above my head and call my name
War's been declared and I'm in battle-mode again
And nothing I had planned is the same.
SMT2007
Chapter 42
"Mac!" Sid greeted the investigator as he walked into the morgue.
"You paged, Sid?" And called him out of one of the most difficult conversations he had ever been involved in. He didn't know whether to thank Sid or blame him for everything that could go wrong now.
"Sorry, Mac. But I needed you to see this body."
Mac glanced at the case file. "Why? This isn't one of mine, is it?" No matter how tired he had ever been, he had never forgotten a body before, at least not while the case was still open.
"Not yet, no," Sid said grimly. He pulled back the cover and showed Mac the grisly remains of a male corpse that had been burned nearly beyond recognition. Mac covered his nose; even in the morgue, which was designed to circulate the air to keep odour under control, this body reeked.
"That gasoline?"
Sid nodded his head. "Tied up and set on fire. Victim, in his mid-thirties, died when he aspirated the heated air – breathing it into his bronchial system. Dead over 72 hours."
"He was alive when he was set on fire?" Mac said, looking over the chart.
"Briefly, yes," Sid said, taking his glasses off his nose and hooking them back together around his neck. He leaned on the table and looked at Mac carefully. "He was beaten first." He pointed to the x-rays on the lighted viewbox. "Broken mandible and zygomatic bones: jaw and cheek. Typical injuries for anyone taking repeated shots to the head."
"So far, nothing that pops for me, Sid. Why did you call me down?" Mac thought about the stack of files on his desk that he had not yet signed off on; Sid better not trying to palm something else off on him.
In answer, Sid rolled the body, careful to keep it from falling apart like over-cooked meat. "Look."
On the shoulder, where the body had been slightly protected by thick woolen clothing, could be seen a tattoo Mac and Sid both recognized.
Tanglewood.
-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY
Adam was whistling as he moved computer to computer, running air particle tests, running fingerprints through AFIS, running ballistics results through CODIS. When he had to wait on results, he would play air drums along with the music playing in his head, recreating an entire rock symphony in the lab.
"Adam. Adam!" The voice that broke into his happy place was not the least happy, and Adam dropped the pencils he had been using as virtual drumsticks and spun around in his chair so fast he overshot and ended up in the same place he had started out.
"Yes, sir." He snapped out, inching himself around to face his boss.
Mac sighed. "Adam, don't call me sir. I need the DNA results from that burn victim sooner than possible – yesterday is too late. And where is everyone? I can't find a single investigator on shift."
"Umm, Danny didn't come in today, Lindsay was here this morning but left at lunch, Stella went with her, Hawkes isn't in until the afternoon shift, and Jillian Penn is in the break room, sir. I mean, Mac," Adam corrected himself when he saw the long-suffering grimace.
Mac grunted and flipped open the file Adam had handed him while reciting the whereabouts of the various team members. Frowning, he turned to take the results back to his office, then glanced over his shoulder at the young tech. "Good job, Adam. Carry on. And if it's a jazz beat in that bridge, you need a little more high hat, a little less bass drum." He grinned as he left the room, aware of Adam's dawning smile.
Adam scooted his chair to his personal computer over in the corner. Now that everyone was back, he was circumspect about being on IM, although most people did it to some extent. Nothing froze Adam's blood like that look on Mac's face though, the one that radiated disapproval and disappointment, and Adam would do nearly anything to keep from causing it. So he double-checked that all the machines were working away quietly before expanding the screen and clicking on the IM window.
Islngrl: bin w8ting 4vr!
gEkskod: sry – boss
Islngrl: we on 4 2nIt?
gEkskod:-)
Islngrl: 10?
gEkskod: where?
Islngrl: pick u up at wrk?
Adam stopped for a second. At work? Where people could see her with him? Aisha was willing to do that? He had to swallow before hitting send on his casual reply.
gEkskod: ok – at 10.
Islngrl: xoxoxo
Aisha signed off, and Adam minimized the screen again. His hands were shaking a little. They had only had coffee the night before, then spent three hours on chat together. That conversation had become a little more … intimate than he had expected, and he was pretty sure Aisha was prepared to finish what they had started.
He glanced at the clock, and sighed. Only 6 hours, four tests, and three case files to go, as well as two missing co-workers to deal with.
In the mean time: jazz beat!
-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY
"Lorenzo Sassone? I don't know nothing about the Sassones, girlie. Not to tell, anyway." Mauser sat back in his chair, and waggled his cup suggestively. "A'course, the memory ain't what it used to be. A little grease never goes amiss."
With a roll of his eyes, John tipped another generous amount of whiskey into the coffee, and Mauser took a swig. "Ah, that goes down a treat. Now, who was you asking about?"
"Lorenzo Sassone and Maureen Riley. Do you remember them?" Stella asked patiently.
"Well, Lorenzo a'course. His family came over from Italy between the wars, set up on Staten Island. Fingers in every pie for a while. Hooked up with the Bonnano family, but not adverse to playing around. Or trying to move in on someone else, if need be." He paused to take another sip.
"Now Riley – that's another breed of cat altogether. The Westies – there was a lieutenant in the Westies called Riley – Jimmy? Jamie? Something like that anyway."
He saw Lindsay's slightly confused look, and explained to her, "Bonnanos are one of the Big Five, Liebling. The Italian Mafia – old-style. Sassones hooked up with them early on. But the Westies – they're Irish, and bad with it. They weren't called that back in the day, of course. Just a gang of Irish lads with quick fists and an eye to the main chance then. Maureen, though. That's not a name I remember."
"As if you would," a voice scoffed from behind the couch. "She was too young for you even then, you old goat!"
Mauser rolled his eyes, "Shut up, altes Weib. Like you'd know anything about it. Knee deep in Windeln und Scheiße, you were."
A tiny woman moved slowly into sight. She was smaller than Lindsay by nearly half a foot, and her hands on her walker were gnarled and curled around themselves. Her feet were swollen in loose slippers, and she shuffled impatiently across the floor.
But her eyes snapped with a force that seemed too big to be easily contained. She flung her head up with a snort, "At least the shit was on my hands and not in my head. Stupid old man. Maureen Riley? You remember? All that trouble she caused? The war in '68? Or was it '69?"
Mauser nodded vaguely, "Oh yeah. Was that her? I thought it was some Italian dirne."
"Mother's family was three generations from Italy, though to hear Mary Katherine talk, you'd think they were related to the Pope himself," the old woman tossed at him before turning to John and giving him a gracious smile, bright white dentures taking on a lively gleam all their own. "If you want to know anything, ask someone who remembers having been there, why don't you?"
With a quick glance at Lindsay, Stella sat forward and beamed out a smile of her own. "We'd love to know more, Mrs …?"
"Ms!" The woman sat herself down in a chair beside Mauser, who huffed and crossed his arms. "I believe in the emancipation of women," she announced firmly, digging an angular elbow into the old man's ribs when he muttered under his breath. "Ms Ethel Mergetz."
"Your Hermann would be spinning in his grave to hear you talk," Mauser grumbled.
"My Hermann has been spinning in his grave for near enough forty years; he better be used to it by now," she retorted. "Now, before I tell all I know…"
"Which won't take long," interjected Mauser, grinning with delight at the dig.
She regally ignored him, "Why am I telling you this, my dear?"
She stared Lindsay in the eyes, and discomfited, the detective looked down. "I need to know, Ms. Mergetz." She looked up and started to say more, but the old woman put her hand out and patted Lindsay's arm comfortingly.
"You need to know, I'll tell." She looked up at John with a twinkle, "But just a little coffee with a sweetener would make it easier!"
He laughed and went to stand in line for another cup of coffee, which he "sweetened" from his flask as he brought it back and ceremoniously handed it to the old woman.
"Ms Mergetz, I would be very pleased to get you coffee any time you ask!"
"They do grow them big out where you come from, don't they, my boy?" she said inquisitively.
He answered with a hint of drawl in his voice, "Montana, ma'am."
Stella sat back with a hint of amusement in her eyes. If John could charm the old lady, the old man was obviously her assignment. "Perhaps if you both told us what you know," she smiled at the disgruntled Mauser, leaning forward a little, "We could get a complete picture of what things were like back then. Mr. Mauser, you were around then?"
He nodded, only a little mollified by her attention, "I've always been around, girlie."
Ethel nodded her head, "True. We were around through it all. My Hermann owned a café: they all came to drink the coffee and eat my pastries. Best Gebäck and Strudel going," she said to John.
"So Maureen Riley? You knew her?" Lindsay jumped in. She was trying to be patient, but the thought of what Danny was going through was too much.
"The Rileys? Yes, I knew them. They were lace-curtain Irish, dear. And smug with it." The old woman shook her head. "Pride goeth before a fall, the Good Book says, and it certainly did for Mary Katherine Riley, let me tell you."
"Mary Katherine? Maureen's … mother?" Lindsay hazarded a guess. Danny had never spoken to her about his family except for Louie.
"Thought she was a cut above the rest of the neighbourhood, she did," Ethel's eyes snapped again in derision. "Six boys she had, and only the one girl. You'd think she could keep an eye on her. But with all those mouths to feed, and her man strong-arming the business for Spillane…"
"Mickey Spillane?" John asked, a little confused.
Mauser nodded, "Michael Spillane. Not the writer, boy. The gang leader."
"Of the Westies, was it?"
Mauser nodded again, "Although they weren't called that until later. Some clever-dick detective in the PD with an eye to public relations came up with that some time in the 70s. They ran Hell's Kitchen, connected to the Gambino family when they needed to be."
"And Jamie Riley, Maureen's father, was an enforcer?" John clarified.
"For Spillane's gang. One of the best, he was. Some punk took him out in the '80s – he's in a wheelchair now. Still runs a racket, but doesn't have the power he did once." Mauser looked down at his own legs, now wasted and near powerless under their plaid blanket.
"And Maureen?" Lindsay prompted.
Ethel took up the story, "She was a pretty little thing, you know. Black Irish mixed with Italian: blue eyes and dark hair. Could have posed for one of those Madonnas – at least on the surface. She had a fire to her, though, even when she was young. A wild girl, she was. Well, she could hardly help it – youngest of all those boys. They let her follow them around – wherever the Riley lads were, Mo was sure to be found."
"How did she get involved with Lorenzo?" Stella asked.
"You know – met at a local dance hall – eyes caught across the room – cue violins and slow motion photography," Ethel said cynically. "It was all a bit inevitable. Romeo and Juliet, d'you see. The families – Bonnanos and Gambinos, that is – were in the middle of a turf war." She shook her head, not unkindly. "And Lorenzo was love's young dream. Twenty-one to her sixteen, tall and cocksure. '66, maybe? '68? My five were still in school, I know that." She wrinkled her forehead, trying to remember, then waved a dismissive hand.
"And what happened?" Stella said.
Ethel sighed, "What always happened. Mo got knocked up. Lorenzo refused to step up – he was sent away to Sicily. Came back a few years later with a wife – proper little madam she was too. Mo was sent away in disgrace, came back with a flat belly and a bad attitude."
Lindsay asked quietly, "What happened to the baby?"
Ethel shook her head, "Mo would have gone to one of those Catholic homes for unwed mothers, I'm sure. Mary Katherine would want whatever blessings she could put on the event. There were lots of those places here in the city, but she left town, I know that. Don't know after that; put it up for adoption if it lived, I suppose." She shrugged casually. As she said, it happened.
"Jamie Riley shot Lorenzo," Mauser volunteered. "There was a big turf war going on – fighting in all the corners of the city. Bonnanos, Luccheses, and the Irish mob, while the rest sat back and waited to pick at the bones. Riley ambushed Lorenzo, shot him in the back."
"But didn't kill him, cripple him?" John said, offering another small shot of whiskey.
"Naw," the old man tipped his glass in John's direction. "Riley was under the Irish curse – nearly missed him altogether. Sent him to hospital for a few days though. Threatened to do more if he didn't step up and do the right thing."
"But the Sassones had no interest in a poor Irish girl. They wanted better things for Lorenzo," Ethel added. "As soon as he was out of hospital, he was on a boat back to the homeland."
"Sent him back to the grandparents, straighten him out," agreed Mauser.
"And Maureen? When she came back? What happened to her then?" Stella asked.
Ethel looked uncomfortably at Mauser, then out the window. "I don't know about that. It's not like I knew these people, you know, my dear. One simply heard the rumours, talked to people who knew. The Rileys lived in Hell's Kitchen with the rest of the Irish. My Hermann's café was in the Garment district."
Lindsay looked at Stella with a question in her eyes. Ethel hadn't seemed too concerned about class divisions a minute ago. Now she seemed nervous and watchful. What had happened?
PS: Happy birthday, marialisa!