Mr Jones Read online

  They end the session with an agreement to talk over a possible trip down to Asheville for Frank and whether it’s time to see each other again. Her last words are,

  ah: ‘i miss you frank.’

  And she signs off.

  Chapter 3 Disappointment

  Feb

  If you let your head get too big, it’ll break your neck. Elvis Presley

  FBI Agent David Juvieux is ready to tell Detective Henson, Addie, that Gennarro Battaglia killed Joey Riggoti. Everyone thinks Riggoti fled Miami to avoid arrest in the very bloody killing of Battaglia’s wife, Elsie. Gennarro Battaglia had retired to Heritage Hills golf community just six months earlier. Retired as overboss of the DiCaprio crime Family at the age of seventy-six. Battaglia set up camp in this exclusive, posh, and gated retreat west of Asheville in the Blue Ridge Mountains and changed his name to Ken Jones, shedding his given name and his nickname “Biggie”. He needed to blend in.

  He had his new home built into the side of a high mountain valley, costing in the tens of millions. He took a short trip back to Chicago to tidy up some things, but when he returned, he discovered his wife—her battered face caved in, blood and tissue all around, crows and flies feasting on her remains.

  But now, with what appears as Riggoti on the run, having disappeared suddenly, the commissioner ordered the case of Elsie Battaglia’s murder closed. He needed closure for her influential family in Chicago, and he needed to get the mayor of Asheville off his back. It’s a neat and tidy ending, but Juvieux is going to ruin that. He saw Gennarro Battaglia, Alberto Gangi and Michael Seppi meet Riggoti and his bodyguard inside a small home outside Miami. It was recorded. He saw them dump Riggoti’s body and ordered Miami P.D. to recover it. Now, he has the evidence he needs to pressure Gennarro and his boys to talk.

  “Enjoy your home while you can, Biggie!” Juvieux inwardly taunts. “You’ll be my new bitch!”

  With what Battaglia has done, killing Riggoti, and with what he knows about the crime scene in Chicago, it’ll be months of hard, satisfying work taking the syndicate down. Juvieux’s future looks bright, and Biggie’s is, well, over!

  Now that the case concerning Elsie’s death is closed, Biggie can be arrested and the truth exposed; that Riggoti is dead, and not fled. He knows it will mean reopening the case, but that’s not his problem. After Addie returns from vacation, he’ll tell her.

  He liked working with Addie, even though his first impression of Detective Adelaide Henson was that she was a stuck up, snotty witch. He wants to help her, and he wants to arrest Biggie. So, things are falling into place, and the next months and years will bring huge changes.

  He’s looking forward to it.

  ◆◆◆

  His office phone ringing, Juvieux picks it up, and listens. After the brief conversation, David Juvieux cradles it, glances at one of his agents, and sighs. “That was Henson. She’s going to reopen the case. I was this close,” and holds his right hand up illustrating a pinching gesture, “this close to telling her about Battaglia and his boys Gangi and Seppi killing Riggoti.”

  “She knows something. Addie went to Miami. She probably knows more than we do. Shit, this is embarrassing,” David laments, and he begins pacing.

  The agent he had spoken to first suggests, “Maybe she knows something and maybe not, it’s out of our hands. Not anything to get sick over.”

  David replies angrily, to no one in particular, “She met with Joey Riggoti’s cleaner, Daisy Fuendes. That’s all she would tell me. That and the reopening of the case. She’s meeting with the commissioner and her captain. Today. That was some vacation she took. I don’t know how she does it. How’d she find Fuendes anyway!? Addie is totally unafraid. She spent what amounts to thirty-six hours there and came back with enough back-story to reopen the Elsie Battaglia murder case. Shit!”

  The agents in the room feel the frustration, disappointment. They all know this will mean extending the assignment to watch Battaglia’s sprawling country house, follow him everywhere. Now, they can’t openly disclose how Riggoti was killed. It’ll interfere with Addie’s murder investigation. Murders trump mobsters, and money.

  Juvieux puts in the call to his regional director in Atlanta, bad news is best delivered quickly. The man answers and he happily greets Juvieux, “Hello David. Been waiting to hear from you. Ready to get started?” He’s referring to the operation to net the largest number of organized criminals, ever. They have Battaglia, cold, in Riggoti’s death. He and David are expecting Gennarro Battaglia to roll on the Chicago syndicate, on all the Families. It amounts to the most information ever received, and will result in arrests in the hundreds. It’s going to be a big operation. The regional director of the Atlanta FBI station is eager to begin planning.

  So, David doesn’t answer right away, and the director feels impending doom, “What is it David? You’re my number one agent. What’s happened. Battaglia eat a bullet?”

  “It’s not that bad John. But the murder case on his wife is being reopened. Detective Henson came away from Miami with some inside information. She’s not sharing it with me. She says the case is back on.”

  “Shit, David. We have to wait,” John states, disappointment heard in every word. “We can’t even tell the intelligence community at large that we have Riggoti’s body. I’ll have to make a few lousy phone calls. I think I’ll dress it up a little though.”

  David is quizzical, “Like what?”

  “I’ll buy us some time. I’ll tell the director we have a planning snag, and that the enormity of what we’ll act on needs to be better crafted. He usually won’t ask me specifics, he’s got more on his mind than this one operation. We haven’t stumbled yet, in all these years. He’ll ask for a more frequent update though.”

  John continues, “And that’s exactly what we’ll do, craft a wide operation. Keep the surveillance ongoing of Battaglia’s home in Heritage Hills. At the same time, you and I and the regional team will be planning, just like we intended.”

  “Agreed, John. I’ll be in the office in two days. See you then,” and Juvieux hears a click, the call is over.

  David slams the receiver into the cradle, almost shattering it.

  Chapter 4 Addie

  Feb

  I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it. Thomas Jefferson

  Addie pulls up to the stationhouse and parks. She has a lot on her mind. Her partner Rob has been reassigned due to personal issues, dealing with his divorce from wife number three. Addie’s real troubles begin after that. Today, she’s meeting with the captain and the commissioner about the Elsie Battaglia case. She gave them a heads-up already, and they’ve made some time for her. They know what she wants, and they’re going to resist. But Addie has a plan. Entering the stationhouse, she takes the stairs to the second floor, finds her desk, and gets her papers in order. She saw the captain poke his head out and acknowledge her arrival. The meeting with the two of them is in a few minutes.

  Taking her paperwork with her, she heads over to the captain’s office where she takes out her cell and makes a call. He’s watching her do this, and he knows that she’s up to something. And, deftly, she’s wants him to know that she’s up to something. The two leave his office without saying a word to each other and take the elevator to the ninth floor. There, they step out from the elevator and walk to Commissioner Bill Evans’s office where they’re shown inside.

  “Good morning, Commissioner,” Addie politely says, greeting him and extending her hand.

  “Good morning, Detective. Good morning, Captain.”

  The greetings made, they all take a seat at the small round table apart from his desk.

  “I’ll come right to the point, commissioner,” Addie says, “I want to reopen the Elsie Battaglia case.”

  The commissioner looks sideways at Captain Leary and then back to Addie, to whom he replies, “On what grounds do you want to reopen this case?” He knows what she wanted to see him for, he’s also
prepared. He gets the nagging feeling he’s not going to like the outcome of this meeting. But he has ideas.

  Addie tells the two of them, “I have solid information that Riggoti did not kill Elsie Battaglia. I have other information that you’re going to want to know. It’s not good.”

  And the captain looks at Addie, “And you got this information in the short day and a half of your ‘vacation’?”

  Addie replies, “Yes.”

  The two men look at each other, raise their eyebrows and the commissioner tells Addie, “Go on.”

  Addie explains to the two of them, “The underground is like a club. Only they are privy to certain types of information, and they keep this information tight. If a hit was placed on Elsie and Gennarro Battaglia, then that type of information might be shared between the cleaners, the people that do this sort of thing, but most likely not. A hit was ordered by Anthony Spadaro. Helen Richter was tasked with carrying it out, we know that from our informant, Spadaro’s housemaid. When Richter arrived on the scene, Elsie was already dead. Riggoti’s cleaner does not know about this hit. Also, I have reason to believe Riggoti is dead. Joseph Riggoti revered Elsie Battaglia. When I questioned him in September, I came away 99.9 percent sure that he was not our man.”

  At this, the Commissioner interrupts and bluntly states, “If you’re not 100 percent sure, with evidence, then Riggoti is still our man.”

  “Then why is he dead?”

  The commissioner pauses because he doesn’t have an answer for her and asks, “How do you know he’s dead?”

  Addie stands up, walks over to the door, and opens it toward where the commissioner’s secretary is seated. She asks someone there to join her.

  Addie sits down, back at the table, and waits.

  When Daisy Fuendes appears at the doorway, the two men are all eyes. Daisy is a catching figure, muscular and beautiful—and dangerous.

  “This is Ms. Daisy Fuendes, she works for Joseph Riggoti,” Addie tells them.

  “Gentlemen,” Daisy says in greeting.

  “Ms. Fuendes,” the two of them reply quietly. It’s some effect she has on them.

  Daisy walks toward the table and takes a seat, her deep brown eyes fixating.

  The commissioner says to Addie, “Okay, convince me. Let’s see the evidence you have.”

  Addie looks at Daisy and tells her, “You have the floor. Tell them what you told me.”

  Daisy begins, “Joseph Riggoti is, wired, for lack of a better word. I know all his movements. All the time.”

  Evans is not impressed, “So he’s bugged. It’s not evidence he’s met his demise.”

  Daisy, looking at Addie and then the commissioner, says, “I said I have him wired. He himself is wired.”

  Captain Leary asks, “What do you mean?”

  “He’s implanted with a chip, a satellite tracking chip.” Daisy looks pretty satisfied with herself. Addie looks at Daisy; she’s enjoying this.

  The commissioner asks, “Where is he?”

  Daisy looks a little uncomfortable, “Somewhere in Atlanta.”

  “What do you mean, ‘somewhere’?” Leary asks.

  “His implant stopped transmitting,” Daisy answers. “Whoever has him found the implant and disabled it. That’s a sophisticated move,” Daisy tells them, raising her brow.

  The commissioner points out, “So you have him wired. It doesn’t make him dead.”

  Daisy’s saved the best for last, and she tells the two men, “My tracking of Joey is like a webcam. It stores weeks and weeks of his travels. When he didn’t show for a long while, I looked at his whereabouts. One night last week, he disappeared for a short time, late at night. He was off the radar for around thirty minutes. That never happens unless he’s under water, or in outer space.”

  “So he was swimming, diving,” the commissioner says skeptically.

  Daisy scoffs and smacks her lips, appearing impatient, “Tracking pinpointed him in the Everglades. Nobody goes swimming in the Everglades. His body was dumped into the marsh and it resurfaced before it got eaten, recovered by someone. Then it traveled northward the next day, to Atlanta.”

  “Who did it?” Captain Leary asks.

  “I don’t know. But he’s definitely dead. This is bad news.”

  Commissioner Evans looks tired. He sees trouble ahead.

  Addie looks at the group, “Elsie Battaglia was murdered on July 18th of last year in her Heritage Hills home, her face battered and caved in by someone using a heavy ornamental bowl, which was found beside her. This is a secluded place, with the homes spaced far apart. Still, there are a lot of people that live there, especially at that time of year, golfing, playing tennis, enjoying the club and its restaurant. Outside Battaglia’s home, on that day, at the time of the killing, two women saw each other. One is Helen Richter, Anthony Spadaro’s hitman. The other we don’t know. Another woman was also seen at that time, walking her dog and staring at the house from behind a tree, but she was seen on FBI surveillance on other days before and after. It’s safe to conclude she was there on July 18th also. Her name is Reggi Thomas, and she also saw a woman near the Battaglia’s home on that day. Both Richter and Thomas are looking at photographs to identify the woman they saw.”

  Addie puts her hand on the commissioner’s shoulder, addressing him by his first name, for the first time, “Bill, I am your cop. Joey Riggoti did not kill Elsie Battaglia. I will find Elsie Battaglia’s killer, Riggoti’s, too. Let me do this, Bill, it’s the right thing to do.”

  Captain Leary is staring at the commissioner, nodding in agreement, “It’s the right thing, Bill.”

  The commissioner looks at Daisy, “Are you sure Riggoti’s dead?”

  Daisy squarely says, “I’m always sure. You know what I do for a living. I have to be sure.”

  “I have one last question,” he says, “How’d you get that tracking bug in him?”

  Daisy knows this will drive it home, so she waits a moment, giving it impact, and, looking at both men, she explains in a voice that carries finality,

  “It was his idea.”

  ◆◆◆

  The commissioner releases a sigh and looks at Addie, “What would you do if you were me?”

  Addie’s prepared for this, “I’d open a recovery case to find Riggoti’s body and conduct the investigation at the same time.”

  Both her captain, then the commissioner, nod, “That’s what we’ll do. It keeps the case closed as is…it allows for Riggoti to be found and the identity of the murderer to be made. Good idea.”

  They open a new case—the recovery of Riggoti. Both men know Addie is going to do whatever she wants. She begins to detail her next moves, and the two men tell her not to bother. Just come back with results.

  Addie leaves the stationhouse with Daisy.

  Captain Leary, still with Evans, says, “I told you she was going to come back. Like you said a few months ago, she’s going to find that bone. The bone Elsie’s family wants.”

  Elsie Battaglia’s family, the Griffiths, they’re a dog in search of a bone,

  And Addie’s going to find that bone.

  Chapter 5 Jericho

  Feb

  I’ve learned more from pain than I could’ve ever learned from pleasure. Unknown

  Biggie Battaglia’s doubts fill him. Did Riggoti not do it? Not kill his wife Elsie? He knows he’s out of control. They practically fried Joey Riggoti alive to make him confess. Biggie’s ready to kill anybody to find out. Mete out justice, DiCaprio style. He knows he’s a very dangerous person with hundreds, maybe thousands, of killers at his command. Being the retired overboss of the Chicago DiCaprio crime Family has its perks. Still, he knows he failed. He couldn’t protect Elsie. He only wants closure for his wife. It’s his final farewell. Closure.

  He thinks back to that night they tortured Riggoti to make him confess. He thinks about Junior, Michael’s machine, and shudders treble up and down his spine. His mind keeps running, replaying the trip to the everglades with R
iggoti’s body. Michael chopped him up pretty good. It was Gangi’s plan.

  The DiCaprios had relocated Joey Riggoti’s family in order to make him look guilty. They were flown by private jet to South America in the middle of a dark, dark night. The kids, almost all adults now, are used to their father’s lifestyle and weren’t surprised; just inconvenienced. Their new digs are opulent, which should make the move easier to stomach. And they were told their father would be joining them in a few months. When he doesn’t show, they’ll just think he changed his mind.

  Moving into Heritage Hills, that exclusive golf community east of Asheville, with Elsie turned out to be a bad decision. He had changed his name to Ken Jones to blend in. It worked. But then his past caught up, bringing a killer to his new home. His cherished wife Elsie was butchered. Murdered while he had returned to Chicago. Most likely murdered while he was screwing Jennifer, his goomah. If that’s not guilt, then what is?

  It haunts him, the memory of his wife Elsie lying in the living room of their new home in Heritage Hills, beaten and bloody. The smell fills his nostrils, her rotting remains chasing him—perhaps forever. Maybe he wants it that way, stench and all, he wants to remember all of it. When he returned home after his trip to Chicago last July, he was startled to find a big, black crow flying from the living room to the outside through the open sliding glass doors. Except they weren’t open, they were shattered, and he looked down and found a body, the face covered by a swarm of horseflies. It was Elsie. She was unrecognizable, but it was her, fully dressed as if to go out and run errands. He became repulsed and violently ill, making it to the kitchen and regurgitating, then running wildly from the house onto the street. Later, after he settled down, the dark side of himself swelled, becoming the cold, calculating, dangerous man that lives inside. He knows he’s a paradox, that you have to be in the business he was in. One side cold, making decisions, taking actions, controlling and deadly. The other side a husband, a friend, a lover, warm and engaging, honest and loyal.