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The second was D’Amato’s response to a dispute resolution over the same issue. Marty accused D’Amato of stealing Mrs. Bolo’s lighter. D’Amato said he hadn’t done it. He was quoted saying that when he left the complainant’s bedroom, the lighter was on her night table. He later added a note to the file, an official notice that he was leaving the department. He added that this was a cautionary attachment for the file that Marty Boxer was known to take personal effects from victims. In one case, the object was medication and the victim had later died. A note from the captain confirmed the victim’s death.
“I have no intention of going to war over this,” D’Amato’s note concluded. “Just be apprised that as Martin Boxer’s onetime partner I saw evidence of multiple petty and major crimes.”
Alvarez said, “Oh, my God. If Marty was questioned about this—”
“—there would be no ‘all is forgiven’ handshake with D’Amato,” I said. “And here’s D’Amato’s letter of resignation.”
Alvarez said, “I wonder what that lighter was worth.”
An image of a gold lighter came to me. It was on Leo Spinogatti’s desk. Had Marty pocketed it, given it to Leo?
Pushing the thought out of my mind, I scrolled digital pages until I found D’Amato’s third complaint to the commissioner.
I read that it involved dereliction of duty. Their lieutenant had assigned Marty and D’Amato a new partner, Dillon Kennedy, to stake out a payday-loan check-cashing shop.
There was an armed robbery at that shop while Kennedy and Boxer were on the job. Kennedy was shot dead inside the store and so were the two shopkeepers. The safe was empty. Marty was nowhere around.
According to the notes and transcript of the board review, Marty reported he had a kidney infection, and that claim was backed up by a note from his doctor. He told the board that he’d left the stakeout and his partners to find a place to relieve himself. He went to the Fillmore Hotel a few blocks away, got to talking with a hotel clerk, and when he returned to his post, he saw that bloody hell had broken up the payday-loan storefront. And that Kennedy, his new partner, had been killed.
The money, calculated to be in the tens of thousands, was never recovered. Nor were the surveillance camera’s hard drives. They had been pulled by the robber or robbers and also not recovered. The only witness was a frightened teenage kid who’d been smoking weed on the other side of the street.
The kid, Rocco Baldacci, said that masked men robbed the store, that two cops went in, only one cop came out and from a lineup, he identified Marty as the survivor.
I kept reading. Marty’s response to the holy-hell screwup was when he returned from his break, he went into the shop to check the damages, and then he had called in the robbery and homicides.
There was no proof that Marty had been involved. His gun hadn’t been fired, there was no money on him or in the car, the hotel clerk who had let him use the bathroom confirmed his alibi. But to D’Amato this charge was strike three.
As Alvarez and I knew, Marty quit the force not too long after, then headed down to Mexico before coming back to join up with Leo Spinogatti.
I said to Alvarez, “Here’s how it sounds to me. He was either innocent. Or he made his last big score and was in on the theft. I swear it’s a fifty-fifty guess.”
Alvarez looked up and said, “Do you know that man?”
I followed her gaze. At the reception desk manned by Bobby Nussbaum on Brenda’s days off stood a white man in his sixties, round of face, a port wine birthmark on the left side of his neck, of medium build, wearing a canvas jacket, jeans, loafers, no socks, and an LA Lakers baseball cap.
That’s all I got by the time Bobby called my phone, and even though we were thirty feet away, when I picked up, I heard Bobby’s voice in stereo.
“Sergeant, a Mr. Bill D’Amato is here. He says you’re expecting him.”
CHAPTER 29
I BROUGHT BILL D’Amato to the break room, where he stowed his jacket. We poured coffee for ourselves, then took a short walk to the interview room.
I asked D’Amato, “How does it feel being back in this place?”
He said, “Mixed. Let’s talk in the box.”
Interview One was the bigger of the two interrogation rooms, and a little homier. There was a padded desk chair in the corner and a small fridge. Pads and pens were on the table, and I knew that the videotape would be rolling.
We sat at the table and D’Amato said to me, “Can you please turn off the tape?”
“Why is that necessary?”
“Because I don’t want to go to court for anything that might throw a bad light on anyone, even me.”
I got up and, with regret, shut off the switch by the door.
“Turn off the mic to the observation room, too, okay, Lindsay?”
