Chapter 4
     
     
     
Harney and Messing had been joined by two photographers. McKenna was content to let Tommy show them around the crime scene and explain what had happened. The photographers wanted to photograph the uncovered bodies, but Tommy wouldn't permit that. He gave them free rein to shoot whatever else they liked, but there wasn't much that interested them. They took pictures of the tree, the BMW, and shots of the covered bodies being loaded into the morgue wagon.
     To save the Barrone family some dignity, Tommy asked Harney and Messing not to print that the male victim's pants were down. He also asked them not to characterize the murders as "lovers lane killings" when they filed their stories. They said they wouldn't.
     Then came the official interview. McKenna gave the story for the record and they had very few questions for him. After he told them about the 1981 murders, Harney and Messing wanted to interview Tommy once again.
     Fine by McKenna. These murders were his case and those were Tommy's. Even Barrone would have to understand that.
     Because so much work had been done on those old murders, it took Tommy a while to tell them about it. McKenna listened with interest and learned a few things. By the end of Tommy's interview it was clear to him that Tommy had done everything that should be done, and then some.
     "Off the record, Tommy. Is Barrone the reason Brian's in charge of this case, not you?" Messing asked.
     "He's the reason. The PC doesn't know about that old case yet, and neither does Barrone. Barrone and I have got some bad blood between us."
     "But you're still going out of your way to be nice to him, asking us not to print things in this story that would be embarrassing to him."
     "Not nice. Just decent. No reason to make this any worse for him unless we have to."
     
     *      *      *

Uhlfelder had given Tommy the DMV printout on Cindy's car. It listed her address and he knew just where it was. They decided to take two cars there. After talking to Barrone and Cindy's husband, McKenna would drive one or both of them to the morgue to ID her body. Tommy would make the rounds, picking up the crime scene photos and sketches at headquarters and delivering the fingerprints to Walsh at his office in the 20th Precinct.
     It took them half an hour to drive to Cindy Barrone's residence in Bayside, Queens. It was a large colonial, a nice house in a nice neighborhood. Paul Barrone's official car, a new Mercury, was parked at the curb outside. Its plate number was number NYC-2, second only to the mayor. Another new BMW, a black one with MD plates, was parked in the driveway.
     "Looks like they were doing all right, before today," Tommy said. He took a black briefcase from the trunk of his car and the two men went to the door. A maid answered the bell and admitted them to the living room.
     Paul Barrone was a tall, slim man in his sixties. His gray hair was thinning, but that didn't detract from his appearance. He had a patrician face with thin lips and a straight, aquiline nose and was dressed for the occasion in a black suit, white shirt, and black tie. As expected, he appeared distraught, and he had a drink in his hand.
     Cindy's husband was nothing like Barrone. He was a short, paunchy man in his late thirties with a full head of brown curly hair. He wore jeans, a Polo pullover shirt, and brown loafers without socks. He sat on the sofa dressed for watching a ball game on TV, not to grieve over a dead wife. However, he had placed a framed 8x10 photo of Cindy on the coffee table next to the sofa, and McKenna could easily see that she had been a stunning beauty before that day.
     A surprised look flashed across Barrone's face when he saw Tommy, but he was prepared to be the gracious host in trying circumstances. He stood up, offered his hand to McKenna, and said, "Thank you for coming, Detective McKenna."
     McKenna shook his hand and then Barrone turned his attention to the other McKenna. "Tommy, I have to admit that I didn't expect to see you here," he said, offering his hand.
     Tommy took it, a short perfunctory handshake. "I'm sure you didn't, Mr. Barrone, but here I am. I don't know if you'll believe me, but I'm truly sorry about your daughter."
     "I always believe whatever you say. Despite our differences, I've never known you to lie."
     Cindy's husband had sat up on the sofa, but he remained seated. "I'm sorry, sir, but I don't know your name," McKenna said.
     He shook his head, amused. "You don't know my name? Then how did you find my house?"
     "Cindy's car is still registered in her maiden name, but this is the address listed."
     "I see. My name is one of the many things she decided she didn't like about me," he slurred, clearly drunk. "Always used her maiden name on everything--checkbook, credit cards, driver's license, you name it. I'm Dr. Roger Valenti."
     I didn't ask your occupation, I just asked your name, McKenna thought, deciding he didn't much care for Dr. Roger Valenti's attitude. "I'm here to tell you how Cindy was killed, answer your questions, take your fingerprints, and then I'll take one or both of you to the morgue to identify her body."
     "Why do you need my fingerprints?" Valenti asked, belligerently. "Are you considering me a suspect?"
     In any other circumstances I would, McKenna thought. "No, you're not a suspect. Some fingerprints were found in Cindy's car that don't belong to her or the other victim. I need the prints of everybody who had access to the car and I'm assuming you gentlemen were in it at one time or another."
     "I've used it a few times, but not much," Valenti said.
     "When was the last time?"
     "I backed it out of the driveway yesterday. She had me blocked in, as usual."
     "And you, Mr. Barrone?"
     "We went shopping for some shirts and ties for me last week," Barrone replied.
     "Who was the guy she was with?" Valenti asked.
     "We don't have him identified yet. The killer stole his wallet. You'll be able to take a look at him at the morgue, maybe tell us who he is."
     "I doubt if I know him. She wouldn't embarrass me by going out with anybody I know. She wasn't mean that way," Valenti explained without emotion, and then he had a question. "Were they going at it when they got shot?"
     McKenna had worried about explaining that part of the story, but Valenti was making it easy for him. He obviously knew his wife had a lover or lovers and he obviously didn't care. "I take it you and Cindy haven't been getting along lately."
     "Cindy and I agreed to dislike each other, but we got along in our own way and I certainly never wished her any harm. What she did whenever she went out no longer concerned me, but I would like you to satisfy my curiosity."
     "His pants were down when he was killed, but she was apparently fully dressed at that time."
     "Too bad for him. He missed a really great time. Cindy was good and really liked her sex, as long as it wasn't with me."
     McKenna couldn't believe Valenti was talking like that in the presence of his murdered wife's father. He stole a glance at Barrone and saw that he was glaring at Valenti with undisguised hatred.
     "Don't worry about me, Detective McKenna. Both Cindy and I realized a long time ago that she had married classless dirt. Educated, but crass and classless," Barrone said, and then he forced a polite smile back onto his face.
     "Yeah, I'm dirt and you're great. A real classy man of the people, a loving father, and a great father-in-law. Right?" Valenti casually asked.
     Barrone ignored him. "Detective McKenna, I hope it's not necessary that the lurid details be given to the press. The public will certainly draw their own conclusions about what my daughter and her friend were doing there, but I see no reason to spell it out for them."
     "Nor do I," McKenna said. "A few reporters were at the scene and know about it, but it happens that they're friends of Tommy's. They've promised him that it won't appear in their stories."
     "Thank you, Tommy," Barrone said. "Quite decent of you, considering. Now, which of you is going to tell us what the killer did to my daughter and how she died?"
     McKenna had expected that Tommy would tell them how Cindy had died, but Tommy wasn't there to rankle Barrone. "The detective in charge will tell you," Tommy said, then turned to McKenna.
     "Fine, but I have a question before we begin," Barrone said to Tommy. "What will be your role in this case, exactly?"
     "The loyal assistant."
     "Murder expert and trusted advisor," McKenna said.
     Barrone eyed McKenna shrewdly, but he didn't challenge the statement. "I'm ready to hear about Cindy."
     "No you're not," Tommy said. "Finish your drink first and pour yourself another."
     "That bad?" Barrone asked, terror in his eyes.
     "Horrible. You should pour yourself another one, too, Roger. Love her or hate her, what happened to Cindy shouldn't happen to anyone."
     
     *      *      *

     There were no questions as McKenna told the tale of Cindy's death. There was no need; since they would be seeing the body shortly, he told them everything to prepare them for the shock.
     The problems began when McKenna told them about the 1981 murders.
     "Do you mean to tell me you've had eighteen years to catch this man, and you haven't?" Barrone asked, pointedly directing his question to Tommy. "I didn't read about that one in your book."
     "Haven't even gotten close. No idea who he is," Tommy admitted.
     "So that case is gone and forgotten until now. Two people murdered with impunity."
     "It's not forgotten by me. Isn't a week goes by that I don't do something on it, but it's been a waste of time."
     "What, exactly, have you been doing all these years to waste this time?"
     "Checking to see if he's killed again."
     "That shouldn't take you long."
     "Not only here. I check all around the country, mostly by phone, but I also spend a lot of time at seminars on serial killers with homicide investigators from all over. I always make a point of asking them if they've ever had a case like mine and got nowhere."
     "Then it would seem to me that he only became a serial killer this morning," Valenti said, taking a gulp of his drink. "Before that, he was just a murderer."
     "That's the way it looks, but it just doesn't seem possible. According to everything I've seen, read, and heard, they never stop after one. If he's got it in him to be that kind of animal, once he got his first taste of blood he didn't just quit for eighteen years. He's been killing all along, and probably for a lot longer than eighteen years."
     "Because even back then, he was so good that you couldn't find him?" Barrone suggested.
     "Basically, yes. He didn't make any mistakes."
     "Did you?"
     "None I'm aware of."
     "Did he make any when he murdered my daughter?"
     "I'm hoping he did."
     "But probably not?"
     "Probably not," Tommy conceded.
     "If he's been killing as many people as you think, where are the bodies?" Valenti asked.
     "I don't know. Maybe he buries them."
     "I don't mean to disparage you personally, but I'm sure we all realize the harm your failure has done to me," Barrone said, glaring at Tommy. "Maybe it's good that there's some new blood working this case."
     McKenna was braced for the explosion, but Tommy was true to his word. "Maybe."
     

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