Sunday, November 16, 2014

More on the Silence about the Argument at the Holy Cross Athletic Club

Several posts (September 22, 2010, July 28, 2011, April 18, 2013, and October 17, 2014) have raised the problem of the personal argument between my brother and Salamanca police officer Mark Marowski at a local club that resulted in Marowski calling in to have Mark arrested for DWI. My initial concern focused on the fact that although the argument took place the very day before my brother’s truck suspiciously burst into flames in the field across from his house and he himself was found on fire some sixty feet away, Marowski was not investigated by the New York State Police in connection with Mark’s death.

That concern has been intensified in light of a recent letter claiming that Marowski and my brother’s wife Susan were having an affair (see posts of August 11 and September 14, 2014). In addition, the previous post (October 17, 2014) raises the related issue of Marowski’s subsequent boasting that he had got Mark arrested for DWI. It is thus all the more important to know what went on during that altercation at the Holy Cross Athletic Club. Because no one thus far has publicly acknowledged witnessing the argument, this post considers the problem of one individual who insisted that he was not there.

It is difficult to understand why not one person has admitted to being present during the altercation. That silence is particularly strange in light of an affirmation that some patrons were so regular that when they heard the door open, bartenders knew who was coming in just by looking at the clock. The argument between my brother and Ofc. Marowski took place on September 22, 2003, which was a Monday. Not long ago, I learned the names of two individuals who were among the regulars at the Holy Cross Club on Monday afternoons, in part because it was the last opportunity to sign up for the drawing for a regular Monday pool.

Of course, I do not know for a fact that the two men were there on that particular Monday. But their insistence that they were not present is a concern to me. The reasons in one case will be explained below. This issue reinforces the problem that even if the State Police investigator knew who had been at the Holy Cross Club during that argument, he admitted to Atty. Michael Kelly that he had not questioned anyone about it.

One of the two individuals who I learned were regulars at the Holy Cross Club on Monday afternoons was Pete Rapacioli. Because he called to rebuke me for putting him on my blog (see post of June 26, 2013), I explained to him that I had the right to question why the police investigator had not checked the phone records for the alleged call between him and my brother’s wife for almost half an hour immediately before the truck fire. Since my conversation with Rapacioli involved numerous issues, I will not summarize it here but will refer to points relevant to the argument that led to Mark’s arrest for DWI. Being given the opportunity to pose some questions to him, I asked Rapacioli whether he had been at the Holy Cross Club during the argument between Mark and Marowski. He replied that he had not been there, explaining that he “didn’t drink much” and that he wouldn’t have gone to the club in the afternoon but rather after 5 p.m. or in the early evening.

Perhaps Rapacioli wasn’t there at the very time of the argument. But shortly after Mark’s death, I was told by numerous individuals that people in the community were concerned and talking about that argument at the Holy Cross Club. Since I have it on good authority that he regularly came on Mondays to sign the book for the Monday pool and thus would likely have been there at least shortly after, if not actually during, the quarrel between Mark and Marowski, it is very surprising that Rapacioli gave no indication whatsoever that he even knew about it.  By contrast, shortly after Mark's death, a woman who answered the phone when I called to speak with Rapacioli on the advice of one of Mark's friends informed me that Pete had told her about the argument at the Holy Cross Club.

According to individuals connected with the Holy Cross Club officially at that time, Rapacioli drank there regularly. In fact, I mentioned to one of them that in explaining why he would not have been at the Holy Cross Club during that argument, Rapacioli had said that he didn’t drink much. That person laughed and said, “Well, if he wasn’t there, he would have been at the Legion or the VFW.”

Like Marowski, then, Rapacioli was at the Holy Cross Club on a regular basis, including afternoons, where he drank and gambled routinely. He appears to have had a good amount in common with Marowski.

Rapacioli’s failure to be straightforward about his frequent presence at the Holy Cross Club and his drinking there is troublesome. It appears, unfortunately, to be characteristic of much of his conversation with me in June 2013. Saying that Mark had been his friend, he claimed that they had grown up together and had gone through school together. I certainly knew who my brother’s friends were when we were growing up, and they were all in his own age bracket. Mark was in fact seven or eight years younger than Rapacioli: they would never have even attended the same school in Salamanca at the same time and were certainly not friends. In later years, Rapacioli was at best a friend only in a casual sense, more accurately an acquaintance whom Mark saw at the local clubs and with whom he did some charity work.

I am also concerned about Rapacioli’s failure to explain why he would have been talking with my brother’s wife for almost half an hour in that (alleged) phone call immediately before the truck fire. Certainly, giving his results for the football pool would have not entailed much time, and 10:30 to 11 or so is late for business or a chat (see post of June 26, 2013).

I am equally concerned about Rapacioli’s unwillingness to tell me his daughter’s name after he insisted that she and her husband had slept through the entire incident of the truck fire, in spite of their location on Cross Rd. opposite the field where Mark’s truck went up in flames and in spite of the blatant noise from the sirens of police cars and emergency vehicles and from the Medivac helicopter (see post of December 24, 2013). Why did he apparently not want me to know that her name is Myers and that she is married to the brother of the current Salamanca police chief, who, like Marowski, was at the time of the truck fire a veteran member of that police force?