Chapter 5
     
     
     
Valenti was too drunk to go to the morgue, Barrone told him. An embarrassment, and Valenti agreed. He was a man who recognized his own weaknesses and limitations and he hadn't been looking forward to the morgue trip anyway. He had seen his wife for the last time and preferred to remember her the way she was.
     McKenna and Barrone rode in silence, each lost in his own thoughts until the skyline of Manhattan came into view. "Did Tommy tell you the cause of our dispute?" Barrone asked.
     "Yeah, said you welshed on a deal with him."
     "He's right, but he didn't understand the nature of politics. At the time, neither did I. We've both learned a lot since then, painfully at times."
     Barrone wasn't inclined to say more and they drove on in silence for another few minutes, but McKenna's curiosity was whetted. "Why did you do it?"
     "I was a first-term city councilman running for reelection in a tough race. My opponent had all the unions behind him and my district was working class. I thought I was going to lose, then Tommy came to me with his tenure deal. I was desperate and I took it, and nobody was more surprised than me when Tommy pulled it off. Won me the election, I'll be the first to admit. However, at the time I wasn't able to keep my part of the bargain and he never forgave me."
     "Why couldn't you?"
     "A few reasons. As a two-term city councilman, I didn't have the weight. Besides, the mayor wouldn't hear of it. There was a scandal going on in the police department at the time and he knew that heads would have to roll if he was to get reelected himself. Tenure would have tied his hands when it came to the detectives and he couldn't be seen making concessions to the police when your popularity was down in this town."
     "Which scandal was that?" McKenna asked, trying to get a handle on the time frame. It seemed there was one every five years to be suffered through by bosses, cops, and detectives who had nothing to do with the incident that had provoked the public outrage.
     "The stun gun."
     The early eighties scandal, McKenna knew. The 106th Precinct in Queens. Questioning a drug dealer while using a stun gun to refresh his memory. Heads rolled from the top on down and every cop on the Job was given a black eye. "Bad timing for a tenure deal," he said, understanding Barrone's position.
     "I tried to explain that to Tommy, but you know how he took that."
     "Sure. A deal's a deal. He delivered on his end and it was your turn to deliver. That's the way he would see it, no matter what."
     "Exactly, but tenure just wasn't possible at the time and I told him that we'd have to wait. Tommy wasn't prepared to listen and didn't understand that I had to ally myself with the mayor if I was ever going to have any real power in the city council. Eventually, I was able to keep my end of the deal and get tenure for the detectives, but by that time Tommy was the enemy. Caused me a lot of problems over the years, but I never retaliated."
     "Until now," McKenna observed.
     "Yes, until now. But you can understand my position, can't you?"
     "I understand how you're thinking, but you're wrong. Tommy would never use your daughters death to hurt you."
     "I see that now. Seems he even went out of his way a bit to help me with the press."
     "He did."
     "Would you have done that?" Barrone asked.
     "I guess so. The dead person isn't the only victim when there's a murder. The family suffers as well and I try never to cause unnecessary damage or pain to them."
     "Then I made the right decision," Barrone said. "Got all of the benefits and maybe a better detective to catch my daughter's murderer."
     "You made the wrong decision. When it comes to homicides, Tommy's better than me. He's the expert."
     "I'm told by some cops that you're better. In light of Tommy's failure to find the killer eighteen years ago, I'm inclined to agree. I've also heard that you're more discreet, and I might need some of that discretion."
     "Why's that?"
     "It's possible that I know the person lying next to her in the morgue. If so, I'm not asking you to cover it up. All I ask is that you throw the best possible light on an unfortunate situation."
     "Who do you think this poor guy might be?"
     "I don't want to step out on a limb unnecessarily. Let's wait and see if it's him before we start talking about Cindy's love life."
     "Fair enough. We'll wait and see. If it's who you think, I'll try to help--but I don't do cover-ups."
     "Fair enough."
     McKenna reflected for a moment on the tacit deal he had just made and found nothing wrong with it because he got nothing out of it. "While we're being somewhat candid with each other, mind telling me what's going on between Valenti and you?"
     "Since we're being somewhat candid and discreet, not at all. He hates me because I backed out of a deal with him and I loathe him because he's weak and lazy. He used all the ambition he had in him just to get out of medical school and marry my daughter."
     "What was the deal you had with him?"
     "A promise, really. When they got married, I told him that after he got some more experience, I would get him on the board of the Health and Hospitals Corporation."
     "A nice, cushy job?"
     "I suppose so, and right up his alley. It soon became apparent that he'd rather drink than work, so I couldn't afford to have my name linked with his by recommending him for a public position. He would've turned out to be an embarrassing political liability, one that Tommy would be sure to point out the next time I came up for reelection."
     "Did the drinking bother Cindy?"
     "No, the lack of ambition was what did it. She no longer loved him, so I urged her to get a divorce and start over. She didn't, hung on because it was convenient. He basically gave her her freedom to do whatever she liked."
     "Does he know that you wanted her to divorce him."
     "I guess it came up. Gave him another reason to hate me, which I think makes him happy. He likes to think of himself as the aggrieved party."
     Who is to blame in this family mess? McKenna wondered. Oh well, doesn't make much difference now.
     
     *      *      *

     The New York City morgue is a modern four-story building located on the corner of First Avenue and East 30th Street in Manhattan. In a city with more than its share of unpleasant places, it was the one McKenna hated most, the place where death was treated casually in an analytical fashion. Aside from being used as a temporary storehouse for unclaimed bodies and those who died in police cases, the main activity of the professionals working there day in and day out was to determine how the piece of meat on the table in front of them wound up there in the first place.
     Years spent in the Manhattan South Homicide Squad had done nothing to assuage McKenna's distaste for the building. Although he had long ago gotten used to the sights of bloody, mangled bodies at crime scenes, the sight of those same bodies at the morgue, cleaned up, professionally dissected and probed, sickened him and filled him with sadness. The passing of a human being, he felt, should never be treated so impersonally.
     McKenna took Barrone to Andino's second-story office, but his secretary told them that he was "working on the floor." She would call him and he would meet them downstairs. McKenna took Barrone down and they waited in the large room dominated by a large refrigerator with banks of stainless steel doors. Two autopsy rooms were on their left and each door had a porthole, but neither man thought about looking in to locate Dr. Andino. They were content to wait for him, both men uncomfortable with the strong smell of antiseptic assaulting their nostrils.
     Five minutes later Andino emerged from one of the autopsy rooms, buttoning a fresh white smock. "Sorry to keep you waiting, Paul, and I can't tell you how sorry I am about your daughter." Andino offered his hand and Barrone shook it warmly.
     "Thank you, John. I appreciate your feelings."
     McKenna wasn't surprised that the chief medical examiner knew the speaker of the city council. Andino would have been before the council many times to justify his budget. What surprised him was that the two men appeared to be friends.
     "I wish it could be avoided, but this is going to be an unsettling experience for you," Andino said. "You should prepare yourself for a shock."
     "I was a medic in Korea. I can handle it, so let's get it over with."
     Andino opened the refrigerator door number 103 and slid out the stainless steel tray containing the body. It was covered with a sheet and Andino pulled it back just far enough to reveal the battered, tortured, savagely damaged face that, until that morning, had been so beautiful.
     Barrone was visibly shaken at the sight of his daughter. "My god!" he wailed, losing all reserve.
     McKenna thought Barrone was going to faint and was prepared to catch him, but he recovered sufficiently to support himself by holding on to the sides of the tray. He stared at her face for an uncomfortably long time. Neither Andino or McKenna said a word. "That's my daughter, Cindy Barrone Valenti," he said finally, making it official.
     Andino started to cover up Cindy's face with the sheet, but Barrone stopped him by grabbing his hand. "John, show me what else he did to her."
     Andino looked to McKenna for guidance and McKenna nodded. He pulled off the sheet, revealing the full horror, but Barrone was prepared this time. He inspected the damage with an almost-clinical, detached manner. Then he bent over and kissed her forehead. "Good-bye, baby. I'm going to miss you," he said softly.
     Although Barrone was dry-eyed, McKenna was so touched that he felt his own eyes filling with tears. He wiped them with his coat sleeve, hoping Andino and Barrone wouldn't notice, but of course they had.
     "Thank you, Detective McKenna," Barrone said, placing his hand on McKenna's arm. "Just another reason why you're the man for the job. I have every confidence that you'll catch this monster and prevent him from doing this again to someone else."
     "I'll do my best," McKenna said, but it sounded weak to him as he said it.
     "That's all I can ask, isn't it?" Barrone said, but it came across to McKenna as, "Your best better be good enough to do the job."
     Andino replaced the sheet on the body and slid the tray back into the refrigerator.
     "Where's the other body?" McKenna asked.
     "I just finished autopsying him. Pretty straightforward, death instantaneous caused by one bullet to the head. He's being stitched up now, should be out in a moment."
     "I'd like to show that body to Mr. Barrone as well. It's possible he knows who it is."
     Andino weighed the implications of that statement, but said nothing.
     "What kind of shape is the bullet in?" McKenna asked.
     "Slightly deformed, but usable. Looks to me like a .380 or a .38 caliber. You want to take it with you and deliver it to Ballistics yourself?"
     "Please."
     A few minutes later two morgue attendants emerged from the autopsy room pushing a stretcher with a covered body on it. Andino stopped them and pulled back the sheet to expose the face.
     "Well?" McKenna asked.
     "That's Arthur McMahon, one of my aides. A very nice young man."
     McKenna had been prepared to learn that Barrone knew who his married daughter was spending time with, but one of his aides? Did Barrone introduce them and encourage the relationship? he wondered. If Roger Valenti already knew about Arthur McMahon, it was another reason he hated his father-in-law. If he didn't know, he soon would. No way to keep this under wraps. A scandal's brewing here, McKenna concluded. Nothing criminal, but unsavory all the same. "How old is he?"
     "He was thirty-two yesterday."
     So Cindy and her lover were having a little birthday celebration, McKenna thought. "How long has he been working for you?"
     "About two years. Very ambitious young man and extremely bright. He was a cop in Arlington, Virginia and he put himself through law school at night. I had gone to law school with his father and we persuaded Arthur to join my staff right after he graduated.
     "Where does he live?" McKenna asked.
     "Inwood, near the Cloisters. He was saving to buy a co-op downtown in a much better neighborhood and closer to my office in city hall."
     "Any relatives in New York?"
     "No. Would you like me to notify his family?"
     "Please. That would be a burden off my mind."
     "I intend to make myself unavailable to the press until after the funeral. I would appreciate it if there were no major news conferences on this matter until then."
     "That's going to be difficult. They're going to be clamoring for information."
     "I'm confident you can handle them," Barrone stated.
     "I'll try, but before I do I'll run your request by Commissioner Brunette. If it's okay with him, it's fine by me. No news conference, but I'm still going to have to handle questions from individual reporters and there's no way I can withhold this man's identity and occupation."
     "I realize that and wouldn't ask you to withhold that information. Just no news conferences, if you can."
     McKenna understood Barrone's motives. He wasn't as worried about the print reporters as he was about the TV people. News conferences meant TV cameras and embarrassing questions asked over the air and replayed on the nightly news. Visual images were more easily recalled by voters than something they might read in the papers. Barrone wanted to do the news conference right after the funeral, probably so it would be carried at the same time on the nightly news.
     Folks seeing him screaming for justice after watching him follow his daughter's casket out of the church would remember that in the voting booth. The sympathy factor would cause a great many of them to disregard the fact that his daughter, a married woman, had died in a lovers lane with her boyfriend and her father's aide, the same man. If politics is played right, every kick's a boost.
     

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