Chapter 27
"So, it seems the NYPD still has my number," Luigi Cappelli smiled at the two detectives after they introduced themselves. He offered them seats at his kitchen table. Olivia was surprised how clean his little apartment was. Luigi was indeed pushing three hundred pounds and confined to a wheelchair. He didn't move around great, but he managed.
"We do. Want to guess why?" Elliot asked.
"Well considering a Captain is here to see me, I'm willing to bet it's because of my former employer," Luigi figured before continuing, "want something to drink? The nurses don't like it when I have an espresso so close to bedtime, but I can't help myself. Too many long nights, I guess."
"I'll have one," Elliot smiled. It seemed that their quarry was more than happy to help. Not what they expected but that was a good thing.
"You got it. Captain, anything for you?" Luigi wanted to know.
"I'm good, thank you," Olivia smiled slightly.
"Oh, I bet you are. The NYPD I knew didn't have too many female higher ups. How is old Ralph Costanzo anyway?" The man asked as he fiddled with the Mr. Coffee © espresso machine. Elliot watched him expertly operate it and was fairly impressed. The unit was a small one, probably only a foot tall, and the countertop was at the right height that the wheelchaired man could still reach everything without much of an issue.
"Ralph retired quite a while ago. Went to Florida," Olivia explained.
"Good for him." Luigi rolled over to Elliot with his drink and then went back to making his own. Once he was done, he wheeled back to the table, using one leg and a hand on a wheel of his chair, refusing Elliot's offer of help.
"Not as good as mother used to make but reminds me of home," Luigi smiled.
"I just came back from Italy myself. Still have family there?" Elliot wondered.
"We're all here now, but Taglietti still has his connections back home. Quite a few have gone underground. That's why he got into the business of working outside the Families," the man admitted.
"You remember Phil Bartoli?" Olivia wanted to know.
"Thought he passed away back in oh-seven," Luigi said.
"Well, he did, but his son-in-law, Ron Davidson, went missing about eight years before Phil died. We just busted his grandson for rape and murder," she explained, not wanting to
"Geez. You wanna know about the son-in-law huh? One investigation kind of bleeding into the other?" The former private investigator asked.
"Seems your boss had a connection with Bartoli's family and a ring of car thieves at the same time. Car thieves stole the son-in-law's car but swear that they didn't see the man or take him. Can't talk to the thieves since they're dead and the two guys running the ring didn't know anything. It was odd to us that Taglietti would have represented someone like Bartoli and then represented one of the ring leaders. The ring had no mob ties," Olivia gave him some more information.
"Well sometimes Tony would do a favor for someone. Admittedly, stolen cars and their parts doesn't sound like something he'd take on back then," Luigi frowned before sipping his cooling espresso. After his sip, he set the cup down and wheeled down the hall to a closet.
"Detective Stabler, could you help with this box? My notes from back then are not exactly handy," he admitted. Elliot went and helped him grab a box off the floor. They headed back to the table.
"Who are we looking for?" Luigi asked.
"Thomas Luling," Olivia said. The elder man started digging for that name in his files. It took about fifteen minutes before he found what he was looking for.
"Busted for a car theft ring," Luigi frowned as he read into his notes.
"What?" Elliot wanted to know.
"I noted that I asked Luling about Ron. Guy swore he didn't know anything about him. Also swore that he didn't know who called him to come get the vehicle. I called Ralph and he said there was no mention of a phone call in the file. I went digging into the phone records, figuring that this Luling guy was making things up," Luigi dug a little further into the aging manila folder that held his notes. He found what he was looking for and then removed the entire folder from the box.
"I imagine your guys would have looked for those phone records had they known to look. Here is what I found," Luigi handed them a list of phone numbers from the folder. One was circled multiple times.
"Who does this number belong to?" Olivia asked.
"Tony always made a big deal about it. He said that his clients could reach him anytime. Cell phones were starting to take off big time here in the city. So, I ran Tony's number, just for shits and giggles. There were calls to a number that I recognized there too," Luigi handed them a second list.
"Luling had hired your boss to defend him so him getting a call from his lawyer wouldn't have been such a big deal. Why would he say that he didn't know the number or who called him?" Elliot gave him a look.
"That's the thing. Tony was hired by Luling after he was arrested. Not before. The calls to that other number, it was Phil Bartoli's daughter's house. I knew that Tony would only call Phil at that number because Phil didn't want it traced to his place or anywhere else. Tony could say that the family was a client and the cops couldn't do much about it while the daughter passed on the messages. After all, who would question a daughter calling her father?" Luigi gave them a look.
"So, you stopped digging because you figured that Bartoli might have wanted his son-in-law gone and couldn't make it look like he did it," Olivia figured.
"I wasn't about to get involved. Phil whacked people for a living and I needed the job and the money. Plus, I didn't have anything more than a suspicious phone call, which I couldn't go ahead and bring up anyway without saying how I found it. It never dawned on me that the calls listed from Tony to Phil, might not have been to Tony to Phil. I mean I didn't have a way to prove it either," the man admitted.
"Another question that if you asked, would lead to more questions. It would, however, explain Karen's behavior," Olivia frowned.
"Hard to be upset about your missing husband, if you're the one ordering the disappearing," Elliot nodded.
To Be Continued…