Chapter 9
Ronan
Ronan was back in the office early the next morning. Now that he had a bit more information about Maria, namely her maiden name and a possible connection to a notorious mob family, he needed to dig up as much information as possible before he, Jude, and Ten went back to the rehab after lunch.
“I knew you’d be here early,” Jude said, walking into the office, carrying a cup of coffee.
“I feel like an asshole,” Ronan said.
“Any particular reason, or is this just any other Tuesday?” Jude flashed a cheeky grin.
“When Sofia mentioned Maria’s last name was Marino, I recognized it instantly, but then there was something wrong with Ten, and Fitz called to remind us about Everly’s cheer practice and I never did any research on the name.
I almost forgot to tell Fitzgibbon in the first place. ” He felt like he’d dropped the ball.
“None of us did any research, Ronan. Not even Cisco. He never mentioned the name Marino. I think he was so caught up in the drama of taking this case from Homicide and giving it to us, that he didn’t look into Maria at all.
When he assigned tasks for yesterday, he told Fitz and Greeley to search the missing persons database to find Head Doe and wanted us to get a statement from Maria.
Don’t be so hard on yourself. I hate to say this, but with the information Ten gave us about Maria’s health, I think she’ll be more willing to talk to us. ”
“Or knowing her private medical condition will push her off the deep end and then her father shows up at our houses with guys who’ll make us sleep with the fishes.
” Christ, that was the last thing he needed.
Ronan’s interactions with mob boss Vito Dragonni were enough to last him a lifetime.
He didn’t want to deal with another mobster, past, present, or retired.
“Okay, guys, huddle up,” Fitzgibbon said, walking into the office.
Greeley was behind him. “I know I said I wanted you to go see Maria Cullen today, but change of plan. I don’t want to get caught flat-footed again.
Let’s work on Maria’s history. Guys, look into her life; criminal record, marriages, kids, public records, and gossip.
What does the internet say about this woman?
Once you have all this information, then we’ll make a plan of battle. ”
“I asked in the beginning if this might be a mob hit. Maybe it is,” Ronan said. “It’s the kind of thing they do to send a message.”
“It absolutely is, but whose message? Did Maria kill this guy? Was it her father? One of his people? We need solid answers here before we approach this dying woman and/or her mobster father. Greeley, reach out to the medical examiner, see if he’s got the lab results. We need this info ASAP.”
“You got it,” Greeley agreed, pulling out his phone.
“Find out what you can about the Marino family. What were they into? What’s their status now.” Fitzgibbon sighed. “I know this case might not have anything to do with Maria’s family, but we have to rule them out.”
“The mob angle might also explain the six spirits Ten saw in Maria’s room yesterday.
They all had duct tape over their mouths.
Maybe they were snitches who got more than stitches.
Ten doesn’t know if the ghosts were friends or foes.
If we can figure out who they were, maybe that will give us a leg up as well. ”
“Good idea, Ronan. Let me know if you need anything. I have a conference call with Cisco. He’s not going to be happy with what I have to tell him about this case.”
“Keep Maria’s cancer diagnosis off the record for the time being,” Ronan said.
“We both think it’s our ace in the hole.
One I think Jude is going to be able to work with the best out of all of us.
If Cisco or someone from the organized crime unit shows up there and tries to press her, we might not get anything. ”
“I agree,” Fitz said with a nod. “The most important thing for the time being is identifying Head Doe. Once we can bring him back to his family, then we can worry about who killed him.”
“I’ll take criminal record,” Ronan said. “For Maria and the Marino crime family.”
“Sounds good,” Jude said. “I’ll get on Maria’s personal life.”
After making himself a cup of coffee, Ronan settled in at the conference table one seat over from Jude.
He turned on his computer and pulled up the criminal records database, typing “Maria Marino Cullen” Her results were clean.
Maria hadn’t had so much as a parking ticket over the course of her life.
Next he went to public records and found a bit more information about the woman. “She’s got no criminal record.”
“Interesting,” Jude said. “Especially in light of what I found. Maria was born on May 4, 1955 to Antonella and Salvatore Marino. She was a first generation American, with her parents having passed through Ellis Island as children in August of 1939. Talk about a lucky break.”
“What was lucky about that?” Ronan was a lot of things, a student of history was not one of them.
Jude shot Ronan an are-you-kidding-me look. “Hitler invaded Poland two weeks after Maria’s parents arrived in the United States.”
“And the Marinos had been living in Poland?” That didn’t make a lot of sense to Ronan.
“No, dumbass. Hitler invading Poland started War II. The families had made it out of Europe just in time. Italy lost half a million people over the course of the war.” Jude shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe he had to explain this to Ronan.
“How the hell do you know that?” When had Jude become the Mr. Wizard of 20th Century European Warfare?
“We watch a lot of war documentaries on Netflix after the kids are in bed. Cope was sick and tired of watching idiotic reality television, his words, and suggested we try something different. I wanted to keep getting my dick sucked, so I agreed.” Jude snorted.
“The other benefit of watching those shows with Cope was learning a thing or two about history.”
“Interesting. Maybe text me the name of your favorite later.” It hadn’t crossed Ronan’s mind to study history once he’d graduated from high school, but it was obvious Jude’s knowledge was coming in handy in this case. “What else did you discover?”
“Maria’s parents, Antonella and Salvatore married in 1947. Over the next five years, Antonella gave birth to two stillborn sons before Maria was born in 1955. Antonella died in childbirth in July of 1958, her son, named Giovanni, passed three days later.”
“How awful.” Ronan sighed, he couldn’t imagine how hard it was for Maria not to have grown up with her mother.
Ronan had lost Erin when he was in his early twenties and not a day had passed that he hadn’t wished she was still with him.
“It must have also been incredibly difficult growing up in the shadow of three dead brothers. Sons are prized in Italian families, especially ones where La Cosa Nostra is the family business.”
“So you haven’t watched war documentaries, but you’re well versed in The Godfather?” Jude asked with a chuckle.
“Something like that.” Ronan rolled his eyes. “What else did you learn about Maria’s life?”
“In 1979, Maria married Brian Cullen, who happens to be the son of Lawrence “Lucky” Cullen, rumored to be Salvatore Marino’s trusted advisor or consigliere.
” Jude obviously knew a thing or two about The Godfather as well.
“Moving on, Salvatore gifted the newly married Cullens with a house, the one in Salem where Head Doe would later be found. Lastly, there’s a divorce decree issued in 2001, which awarded Maria the house, and split the remaining assets 50/50. No spousal support had been ordered.”
“They were married for twenty-two years. Any kids?” Ronan asked.
Jude shook his head. “No biological and no adoptions. After what Maria’s mother went through, I’m not surprised.”
“Okay, so wait a minute. If Maria had no surviving siblings, where did these nieces and nephews come from? Sofia said Maria was her great-aunt. So did the Neanderthal nephews, Tony and Little Sal.”
“In all those mob movies, family isn’t just blood. Maybe the kids are related to one of Fat Sal’s crew.”
“Good point.” Family had always been the thing Ronan had been most interested in when it came to mob movies.
His mother had been an only child, so there were never aunts, uncles, or cousins.
Erin’s parents were dead before Ronan got to high school and when she died, Ronan had no family left.
He’d always dreamed of having a big family of his own and thanks to his time at the Boston Police Department, he’d found Fitz, Jude, and Tennyson. “Got anything else?”
“No, that’s it for me. How about you?”
“When I saw that Maria had no criminal record, I did a complete background check. Maria graduated from Salem High School in 1974 and had graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Education from UMass in 1978.”
“She married Brian in 1979, so maybe they met at college?”
“Sounds likely,” Ronan agreed. “After graduation, Maria became a first grade teacher at Salem Elementary. She retired in 2005, when she was fifty. I wonder why?”
“Maybe the school system offered early retirement?” Jude asked. “Remember how we were hoping the kids would have Mrs. Roberts for second grade, but she left at the end of last year.”
“Right, she said something about retiring to Fort Myers where she’d be close to Sanibel Island and could see the Red Sox Spring Training games.
” Ronan sighed. With as cold and as snowy as this winter had been, he wouldn’t mind retiring to sunny Florida either.
“Anyway, back to Maria, she has good credit, not one late payment and no moving violations of any kind. Lastly, she was drug tested twice a year while she was a teacher. All the results were negative.”
“Shit,” Jude muttered under his breath. “How the hell did a retired elementary school teacher with no criminal record end up with a frozen head in her house? Do you think she killed Head Doe?”
“It’s always the quiet ones who surprise you.
” Ronan had come up against several killers in his career who were the absolute last suspect he would have ever considered.
None of them had been school teachers, but that didn’t mean teachers were incapable of killing people.
“But with her father being a notorious crime boss, it certainly ups the ante on human remains ending up in a freezer.”
“That’s just a stereotype, Ronan. Shit from the movies.” Jude grabbed his coffee cup and took a long sip.
“I hate to say this, Jude,” Greeley said, walking into the conference room, “but you’re wrong.
Richard ‘The Iceman’ Spaventosa was a famous hitman in New Jersey.
He worked for the Puglisi crime family who made their legit money as butchers.
He put his hits in commercial freezers belonging to his family’s enemies after he killed them.
It made time of death hard to confirm. And made the other families look guilty as hell. ”
“Guess I’m not the only one who finds mob history interesting.” Ronan waggled his eyebrows at Greeley.
“I worked for one of the Boston families when I was on the streets growing up,” Greeley said.
“WHAT?” Ronan and Jude said together.
Greeley snickered. “Calm down, I wasn’t a hitman or anything.
I was a runner. I delivered messages. Picked up lunch and dry cleaning.
Stuff like that. They never cared that I was a homeless, gay kid.
I worked hard, followed the rules, and kept my mouth shut.
I was always well-fed and had a bed to sleep in. ”
“Holy shit!” Ronan said, as Fitz walked into the room. “Does your father know?”
“Know what” Fitz asked, his eyes moving back and forth between Ronan and Greeley.
“That I was a mob runner.” Greeley grinned at Fitz.
“Yeah, I knew that,” Fitz agreed. “Is your former profession helping us out on this case?”
“Only to prove to Ronan that the mafia did, in fact, hide bodies in freezers.”
Fitz frowned in obvious disappointment. “You guys get any leads?”
“We found out that Maria was married for twenty years to an Irishman, named Brian Cullen.”
Fitz’s eyes widened. “Lucky Cullen’s son?”
“How the hell did you know that?” Ronan asked.
“Homicide worked closely with Major Crimes on a lot of joint investigations. I worked a couple mob hits with that department. Several of the active hitters had a call sign they’d leave at the scene of their kills.”
“Don’t tell me that Lucky’s was a shamrock.” Ronan snorted at his own cleverness.
“No, asshole. Lucky would remove his victim’s hands with a meat cleaver.”
Ronan gasped. He was all business now. “Are you serious?”
“As a heart attack. Why?” Fitz narrowed his eyes on Ronan.
“The medical examiner told us that Chilly Willy’s head could have been severed by a meat cleaver.” Jude turned to Ronan. “I mean that can’t be a coincidence, right?”
“Doesn’t sound like one to me.” Ronan sighed. “Let’s pay Brian a visit and see if he learned a thing or two from dear old dad.”
“Take Tennyson with you,” Fitz said. “Cisco wants me to hold a press conference asking for leads on the head’s identity.”
“You got it.” Ronan grabbed his phone and jacket. Jude followed him out the door.
With Maria on her death bed, Ronan and Jude needed to work fast to bring Head Doe’s killer to justice.