Tainted Evidence

by Robert Daley

  The surprised Muldoon joined him on the pavement. "What did you do that for?”

  Within seconds three cars converged on the corner. Their drivers angled them in like the points of a star, and six cops wearing bullet proof vests and bulky with gear around the waist, advanced on the detectives. One of them was a woman.

  Negotiations began. Barone wanted to unload his prisoner. He wanted one of these sector cops to take him--take the arrest, do the paper work, count the crack vials, take the prisoner to court.

  The surprised Muldoon wanted to protest: wait a minute, Mike, don't give that arrest away, I'll take it. But he was not quick enough.

  The two pairs of male cops shook their heads, returned to their cars and drove away. But the woman seemed interested. Her name, Muldoon remembered, was Maureen something--he was too far away to read her name tag--and Barone had been addressing his arguments principally to her anyway. He was practically courting her.

  Muldoon hadn't had a good arrest recently. He needed one before some superior officer, the nigger lieutenant for instance, noticed and got on him. But it seemed beneath his dignity to insist on taking this one, not in front of a female officer--he didn't really think of Maureen as a female officer, but as "this young cunt."

  While the woman's partner, a big burly guy almost as old as Muldoon, stared off in the other direction, wanting no part of it, Barone made his arguments in a low, persuasive voice. Maureen was about 23, and not long out of the police academy. It was a good strong arrest, Barone told her, and she hadn't had many of those yet. True, she'd be up all night doing the paper work, perhaps taking the prisoner to court if she wasn't finished when the van came by, but he knew she was newly married and the overtime would surely come in handy.

  "What about you?" Muldoon heard her ask somewhat suspiciously. "It would be a good arrest for you too."

  "I want you to have it," Barone said, looking directly into her eyes.

  Muldoon found himself imagining her with no clothes on. In the dim light she seemed to him gorgeous, and underneath all that gear she probably had a sexy figure. He supposed she wouldn't look twice at a man his age and girth, despite his knowledge of the streets and experience on the job.

  Not long ago he was newly married himself, he heard Barone say. He remembered all the things you need to buy. If she would do him this favor, he would owe her one another day.

  Finally Maureen grinned and agreed to take the arrest, and the prisoner was bundled across into the sector car.

  Barone's gonna have her on her back before long, Muldoon thought enviously. I wonder if she knows it.

  But as he watched the sector car drive off, he became angry. "Why did you give away our arrest?" he demanded of his partner.

  The answer was exactly as he expected. "I can't work overtime tonight, I got a date with a lady.”

  They got back into the car. As they continued to circulate, Muldoon continued to burn.

  Finally Barone headed back to the stationhouse. It was after midnight by then. They parked in front. Up in the squad room Muldoon heard Barone on the phone to his wife. They lived sixty miles upstate in Rockland County. A number of other New York cops lived in the same town, Muldoon believed. Barone's two children were girls six and eight. Muldoon had been up there once: a barbecue for the guys in the squad and their families. Bunch of fucken little kids running around.

  Barone told his wife he wouldn't be home tonight, that he had an early court appearance and would grab a bed in the stationhouse dormitory. Muldoon overheard that much. But Barone spoke in too low a voice to hear the rest. He appeared to be sweet-talking her. Evidently she didn't believe in any court appearance, perhaps knew or suspected he was staying over to meet some woman.

  Muldoon heard him say: "Kiss the little girls for me."

  When he had hung up Barone gave a sigh. "That's a highly suspicious woman."

  "I wonder why," Muldoon said. There was irritation in his voice, but admiration too. "Let's go back out on the street."

  "Why?"

  They had about thirty minutes left in their tour. "Something may happen," Muldoon said.

  "I want to see how Maureen is getting on."

  She and a uniformed sergeant were in the interrogation room, a windowless cubicle off the squad room. They could see them through the open door. The rule said that drugs seized by a uniformed officer had to be counted in the presence of a sergeant. Maureen was seated at the table placing crack vials into empty bullet boxes. The sergeant was reading a newspaper, paying no attention.

  "Have you fucked every female officer in this precinct, or what?” Muldoon asked his partner.

  "Well," answered Barone with a grin, "not her.” And he gestured toward the interrogation room.

  "Yet," said Muldoon.

  There were thirty women assigned to the Three-Two, up from zero when Muldoon was a young detective.

  Barone got up and went in there.

  "I'll take over now, Sarge," Muldoon heard him say.

  The sergeant came out and went downstairs. Barone did not close the door, and the reason, Muldoon suspected, was to display his presumed triumph to the rest of the squad. Maureen had taken off her hat, her gear, the vest. She had blondish hair and a rather big bosom. Her uniform blouse looked stretched tight across it. To Muldoon she looked very young and very nice.

  He saw Barone sit down opposite her and begin helping her put vials into bullet boxes, all the time talking to her in a low voice. The boxes held fifty bullets or fifty vials. When finished she would have to count only the boxes.

  About twenty minutes later Muldoon looked in again. They had finished counting, but were still talking. Or rather Maureen was talking with great animation, while Barone, opposite, gazed directly into her eyes.

  Muldoon decided to interrupt. "How many vials?" he asked, standing in the doorway.

  "One thousand eight hundred and eighty two," said Maureen.

  "Maureen lives near me upstate," Barone said. "Her father was a sergeant in the Five-One. Both her brothers are cops too. That's why she came on the job herself. Her husband is a plumber. That's high paying work. For the last several months she's been trying every way possible to get pregnant, but no luck so far."

  Muldoon was offended by the reference to pregnancy. To him such private subjects should not be talked about to strangers or in mixed company. At least Maureen had the grace to blush, he noted.

  "I really appreciate this, Maureen," said Barone, getting up from the table. "You working tomorrow night? I'll take you out after work and buy you a drink."

  But Maureen was off the next two nights.

  "Friday night, then," said Barone.

  Maureen went back downstairs and the detectives--there were five of them in the squad room at this time--straightened out their desks and prepared to sign out and close up.

  "Quiet night," Barone commented, waiting his turn to sign. "Absolutely routine."

  "Nothing happened," said Muldoon.

  But just then the phone rang.

  Muldoon took it: "Three-Two Squad, Detective Muldoon."

  The caller was a detective from the Four-One across the river. He wanted any information they might have on a perpetrator named Lionel Epps. "Do you guys know him over there?”

  Muldoon knew him, but pretended otherwise. "Would you spell that name," he said. "Has he got a B-number?"

  He pretended to take this information down.

  "I'll ask around," said Muldoon. In the police business you gave up information only in exchange for something else. He said carefully: "What's he supposed to have done?"

  The conversation lasted some minutes, during which Barone stood attentively over Muldoon's desk. Finally Muldoon rang off.

  "Lionel Epps is wanted in the Four-One," he announced looking up.

  "Homicide?"

  "Yeah."

  "Doesn't surprise me."

  "The guy says he's become a major mover in the South Bronx."

  Barone thought this over. "It's possib
le. Who's he supposed to have killed."

  "A dealer bigger than him. Rolled him up in a rug, shot him eight times and set him on fire."

  "Nice," said Barone.

  "He's supposed to be taking over the entire division."

  "I didn't figure he was that enterprising," said Barone. "Or that smart. Where is he supposed to be?"

  "In the wind."

  Barone nodded. "Came back here most probably."

  "Guy says he knows they're after him and that he's armed to the teeth."

  "Dangerous, yes," said Barone. "That I believe,”

  The two detectives went back to the book and signed out. They were the last to leave the squad room.

  "What are we going to do?" said Muldoon.

  "Look for him," said Barone. "We'll start looking tomorrow. If he's in the precinct he shouldn't be too hard to find."

  They went down the stairs and out past the desk and the offices and stood on the stoop outside. The city was quiet and they breathed in the night air.

  "Sleep well, Dan," Barone said.

  Muldoon gave him a leer. "You won't be doing much sleeping, if I know you."

  "I'm late," said Barone. "Maybe she won't have waited."

  "For you they usually wait.” In a way Muldoon was proud of his partner's supposed sexual prowess.

  They walked across the street to their cars. "And tomorrow we'll look for Epps," said Muldoon.

  "See you tomorrow," Barone said. "Go on home now, and don't drink too much beer when you get there. Try to get a good night's sleep for a change.” There was concern in his voice. "You've been looking lousy lately.” He put his arm around Muldoon and gave him an affectionate squeeze. "Good night, Danny."

  "Good night, Mike."

  Barone's thoughts as he got into his car were already focused on the woman who waited for him ahead. He started the engine and pulled out of the slot.

  As he watched his partner drive away, Muldoon felt the loneliness come down on him hard. He was used to it. It happened every night once he had signed out and left the stationhouse, and tonight was no exception.

  Chapter 4

  The village of Bronxville, one square mile, six thousand people, is one of the smallest and closest New York suburbs to the north, and one of the most exclusive. It is a place of steep hills and narrow streets under great old trees. It reeks of money. The houses are English Tudor, or Georgian, or French Chateau, and they are big, mansions most of them, built in stone or brick with slate or tile roofs, and full of turrets and gables, with leaded windows and terraces bordered by wrought iron fences. The houses and the trees towering over them stand close together as if someone had jammed them in there, each on a piece of property that is too small for it, like a woman in a too tight dress. All of the lawns and plantations are impeccably tended by gardeners, the hedges and bushes cropped just so, the flowers of each season always in bloom.

  The main street, called Pondfield Road, descends past the houses, passes several handsome churches, and then the police station, itself a noble brick edifice that puts the Three-Two stationhouse to shame. It passes the school which is a city block long and which, with its Gothic windows and tall chimneys, resembles the vast manor house of some English duke, and then enters the village proper, the shopping district. Two story buildings stand at either side of the tree-lined street, and most of them are timbered in the Tudor style. Antique shops, art galleries, and real estate offices. Chic clothing shops too, at least one of which sells maids’ uniforms. The real estate agents call Bronxville the “Golden Square mile,” for obvious reasons. Though only about ten miles north of Harlem it is, as they say, a whole world removed. Karen Henning’s house was on the outskirts of all this, and much less grand, a rambling Victorian that was in need of a coat of paint. She stood this morning in her kitchen making pies to go in her freezer. Today was her baking day, and her hands were dusty with flour. It was pleasant, mindless work. She thought of it as something to clear her head, help her forget the sordid details of her job.

  When she and Hank were house hunting they had searched this whole area, wanting to finds clean air and good schools for the children. They had settled on Bronxville not to be among the wealthy but because they had found a house which, because it was in poor condition, they could afford. They had barely been able to make the down payment and even with both of them working they sometimes had trouble with the carrying charges. But it was good here, especially for the kids. She was under no illusions about Bronxville. Compared to New York, it sometimes seemed unreal. “We have no poor people, no Blacks, no crime,” she sometimes remarked, adding with a laugh: “In every other way our town is as typical as any place in America.”

  She was alone in her house this morning. Hank was playing tennis, Hillary was out on her bike, and Jackie, calling, “I’m going, Mom,” had just gone out the front door. From the kitchen window she saw the car go by a moment later. The back seat was full of kids. Jackie was sitting beside Betty Price, who was driving, and he waved to Karen.

  Not five minutes later her front doorbell rang. She went to it and an agitated woman she didn’t know aside: “Come quick, three’s been a bad accident.

  Instant, heart stopping terror. Karen wore an apron over jeans and a sweater. Her hair and sleeves were white with flour and her only thought was that Hillary on her bike had been hit by a car.

  She rounded the corner and it wasn’t Hillary, it was Jackie. Mrs. Price’s car was wrapped around a tree and Jackie lay on the grass beside it bleeding from the face and moaning. She was vaguely aware that there were other moans beside his, someone else on the grass and bleeding badly: Betty. Price. People were standing over her, and over Jackie too. And that the other boys, the ones from the back seat, stood close together as if afraid they were going to be blamed. And that ten or a dozen people had come out of nearby houses; they were gawking too.

  Karen ran to her son, and those around him backed off. His face looked ruined, especially his mouth, and there was blood everywhere. She was on her knees and she lifted his head and cradled it.

  “Mommy,” he said, “Mommy.”

  “Mommy’s here darling, you’re going to be fine.”

  His front teeth had been bashed in. She couldn’t tell, there was so much blood. She did not want to look. It’s not fair, she thought, those teeth are almost new, he only just got them. She wanted to weep or faint, but her child needed his mother, meaning he needed her calm. She wanted to cry out for Hank but did not even know where he was.

  She looked up at the people standing around and said in a voice as calm as she could manage: “Did anyone call the ambulance?”

  “It’s on its way,” someone said.

  A police car turned into the street and a young cop got out. Karen heard him on his radio call for a wrecker.

  First things first, she thought. It’s not his son.

  Next she heard him say to the crowd: “Did anybody see it happen?” No one had. He went over to Betty. Price and tried to get her name, but all he got was moans. The woman’s face was badly lacerated, Karen saw, and she glanced over at the car. The windshield was pushed out where heads had struck it. It was splintered and opaque, and part was missing.

  There was a picture stuck in her head of her twelve year old boy having to wear false teeth. She could think of almost nothing else. Now the cop was trying to move the bystanders back, though why? They weren’t really close and not in the way. They would take two steps back and then, as soon as he had moved on, two steps forward.

  He said to the other boys: “What happened?”

  “The ball went in her lap,” one boy said.

  “And she hit the tree,” said another.

  “Who threw the ball?”

  The boys looked at each other. No one answered.

  Two ambulances came. They loaded Mrs. Price into the first one, Jackie into the second. The wrecker was just pulling up. Karen got into the ambulance with her son and held his hand all the way to the hospital. He seemed to be at
least partly in a state of shock. From time to time he would look up at her and say: “Mommy.” Otherwise he said nothing.

  In the emergency room she sat holding his hand while waiting for the dental surgeon. On the other side of the curtain Betty. Price sometimes moaned, sometimes screamed as a doctor plucked shards of glass out of her face. Karen heard him say: “You’re going to need some plastic surgery, I’m afraid.”

  The dentist came. He was very young. Karen wished he were older. He cleaned the blood off Jackie’s face and she saw that his face was intact. Most of the blood had come from the inside of his mouth.

  The dentist injected Novocain and while they waited he and Karen occasionally smiled at each other. She wanted to ask about Jackie’s teeth but didn’t dare. She could not accept the idea of her little boy with false teeth.

  The dentist went to work. First he sewed up the inside of the mouth, all the while humming a tune of his own invention. Then he started on the teeth. He had his gear in what was almost a fishing tackle box, and he put bands on the teeth and began to wire them up. Karen could not look. She went outside the curtain where she stood silently weeping.

  “Mrs. Henning,” the dentist called.

  She wiped her eyes and went back in.

  “We’re one short.”

  “What?”

  “There’s one missing.”

  He peeled back Jackie’s lip and showed her.

  It started her weeping again.

  “Where could that sucker be?” the dentist said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think you could find it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  ”If you could find it, I could stick that baby back in.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Find the car and you find the tooth. Of course, sometimes they swallow it. Or spit it out on the grass.”

  She took Jackie’s hand. “I have to go out and find your tooth, baby. I’ll be right back.”

  He seemed calm, so she left him. She didn’t want to leave him but had to. She ran out through the emergency room determined to find the tooth but with no idea how she was going to do it, and the young cop was there copying Mrs. Price’s name off the admission form.