Hurt Machine

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  “I recall,” she said. Her expression remained unchanged, but something changed at the corners of her eyes. “What is it you think I can do for you, Detective Fuqua? I told you all I could on the evening in question.”

  “I’m aware of that, Lieutenant Winston, but there are times that, with some prodding, people can recall details they may have left out or remember after the fact.”

  “My daddy says that people who remember things long after they happen aren’t very dependable witnesses. That most of the time their minds are just embellishing or trying to make sense of things that don’t make sense to begin with.”

  “Your father is a wise man,” Fuqua said. “What does he do for a career? An attorney perhaps?”

  She actually giggled. It made her look very young. “Oh my, no, he hates lawyers. Daddy is a police detective down in Mobile.”

  She pronounced Mobile like MO-beel.

  “Alabama?”

  “Yes, sir, Detective, Mobile, Alabama.” But just as she was beginning to relax, she reminded herself why she was here and stiffened up rod straight in her chair. “We aren’t here, though, to discuss home or my daddy.”

  Fuqua ignored that. “You’re a West Point grad.”

  “I am. Soldier’s the only thing I ever wanted to be. Even as a little girl, I pictured myself in uniform.”

  That was my opening. “So you’d do just about anything to protect your career, wouldn’t you, Lieutenant Winston?”

  “I don’t see what this has to do with that night.” She looked to Fuqua for help.

  He obliged. “Never mind my colleague, Lieutenant. He has some very silly notions. It occurs to me that I failed to ask you what you were doing at the Gelato Grotto on the evening the Conseco woman was murdered. Would you mind telling me now?”

  “I was hungry for pizza,” she said with another giggle, but this one caught in her throat. “It’s not all that far from the fort and some of the soldiers from this area are always bragging on it. We don’t get pizza like that at home.”

  “So you went by yourself to the restaurant, not with other officers?” Fuqua asked.

  I didn’t let her answer. “Bet you’re happy to be away from home. I mean, I’m sure you miss your daddy and the rest of your family, but it’s easier to be who you really are away from home. Am I right?”

  She looked to Fuqua again, but this time no rescue was forthcoming.

  “Why, Mr. Prager—I’m sorry, I never did get your rank—I could not possibly know what you mean.”

  “Oh, sorry, it was a kind of don’t ask don’t tell thing, Lieutenant Winston.”

  That did it. She held herself together, but there was real panic in her eyes. She tried playing for time, but I didn’t let her.

  “Look, Lieutenant, all we’re interested in right here right now is the truth about what you were doing at the Grotto that night.”

  “As I’ve previously told you, gentlemen, I was hungry for—”

  I kept at her. “If you cooperate, we’ll walk out of here and you’ll never hear from us again. You can go on and have the career you’ve always wanted and deserve. Or if we don’t like your answers, we can all walk over to Colonel Madsen’s office and have a nice chat.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Please don’t make me do this,” I said. “Please.”

  She jumped out of her chair. “Do what?” she asked, a slight quiver in her voice, the panic spreading. “I’m leaving now and I suggest you never contact me again concerning—”

  Fuqua came once more to her rescue. “Please sit.” He waited for her to do so before continuing. “We know why you were there, Lieutenant. We know you went to meet Alta Conseco and we fully realize the pressures you are under. We understand that you could not have said these things in your statement, that to do so might have risked the career you love. And while we are not interested in you, per se, we do have an unsolved homicide to deal with. I would ask you to help us, to be fully honest with us in answer to our next questions.”

  “Or what?” she asked.

  “Or we’ll have to produce witnesses who will testify to having seen you with Alta Conseco in places your commanding officer would most assuredly not approve of, and then there are the pictures.” All of it was a bluff on my part, but especially the stuff about the pictures.

  “I don’t respond well to threats.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Forget the threats. Tell us the truth because it is the right thing to do and because you owe it to Alta.”

  Tears rushed out of her, her body convulsing, but there was scarcely a sob. This had been a long time coming. Fuqua and I sat there silently and let it happen. When she was done, she was done. The lieutenant wiped her cheeks with the backs of her hands, then her palms.

  “I was in love with her, yes,” she said.

  “Alta Conseco?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you went there to meet her?”

  “Yes. I had seen very little of her since … since the incident and it was killing me. I told her no one would recognize her, that people had moved on.”

  My turn. “So the Grotto was your idea?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did she come, eat with you, then leave or had she not yet shown up?”

  “I was getting up to leave because she was so late. I wasn’t mad at her, just disappointed. I thought she had gotten scared about coming to such a public place and decided not to show. Then … that’s when she—”

  “That’s okay, Lieutenant Winston,” I said. “You’re not a suspect and we really do understand how hard this is for you. What we’re more interested in is what you and Alta talked about. What did she tell you about the incident at the High Line Bistro? What did she tell you about why she and her partner were there in the first place and why they let Robert Tillman die?”

  Winston sat there, squeezing her hands together so hard the blood went out of them. There are times you can literally see people struggling with themselves. This was one of those times.

  “I can’t,” she said, her voice shaking. “I gave my word.”

  I asked, “And you would sacrifice your career to keep your word?”

  “If I had to, yes, sir, I would. How can you measure yourself if not by the value of your word?”

  This wasn’t the time for more pressure. She would have shut down. Instead, I took a picture out of my wallet and slid it across the table to her. It was a photo I’d carried for nine years. I hadn’t looked at it for nearly as long. I saw the recognition in her eyes and there were more tears.

  The lieutenant picked up the picture. “That’s Alta’s sister Carmella, Israel, and you,” she said. “I didn’t make the connection. Alta used to talk about missing her.”

  “That’s right, Kristen, I’m Moe. I used to be married to Alta’s little sister. So do you understand why I’m here and why it would be okay with Alta to tell me?”

  The lieutenant never looked up, but kept staring at the photo. “Maya, Alta’s partner, was being blackmailed. She wouldn’t tell me about what because she had made a pact with Maya that she would never tell anyone, that they would never even speak about it.”

  “Blackmailed? Blackmailed by whom?”

  “She never told me, but Alta said they had gone to the restaurant that day to confront the man who was doing it. Maya didn’t want to go through with it. She begged Alta not to, but Alta said she wouldn’t let Maya keep paying, that she would take care of things even if it meant killing him. That was Alta. She was really protective of the people she—” Winston put the picture down, finally.

  I reached across the table and took her right hand in mine. “I’m sorry for the things I said before, but …”

  “I understand. Just find the person who did this, please.”

  “Is there anything else, any other details you’ve left out about any of it?” Fuqua asked.

  “No, I don’t think so. Alta didn’t give me any details. It was hard for her to even tell me what she di
d. Her word meant a lot to her too.”

  That’s how we left her, sitting at the table, collecting herself, her thoughts, and her feelings.

  Fuqua waited until we exited the fort before giving voice to what we were both thinking. “It was him, Tillman, who was the blackmailer.”

  “Looks that way to me, Detective.”

  “But to let him die … What could he have been blackmailing her about to let things get to such a point?”

  “There’s only one person who knows that answer,” I said.

  I excused myself, telling Fuqua I needed a restroom break. What I needed was to call Pam. When I got her on the phone, I related to her what the lieutenant had just told us about Maya being blackmailed and that it looked like the late Robert Tillman had something to do with it. She said she didn’t know when she’d get back to my condo and told me not to wait up for her.

  Fuqua was in the car waiting for me just outside the door of the building. I got in. Neither of us spoke. No need. We knew where we had to go and who we had to speak to. Out of the fort, he turned onto the Belt Parkway east toward Queens and Maya Watson’s condo.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  We weren’t quite to the Flatbush Avenue exit on the Belt when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I didn’t recognize the number, but I’m such a curious bastard, I picked up anyway. It was a real flaw of mine that it was difficult for me to ignore a ringing phone or a knock at the door. Over the years I had done a lot of talking to Jehovah’s Witnesses and kids selling fundraising raffles. Someone once said your biggest weaknesses are also your greatest strengths. Might have been Ben Franklin. Might have been Charles Manson. I forget. Well, curiosity was an abiding weakness of mine. I could never just stand back and let it be. Wasn’t in my nature. I wondered about what would happen to my curiosity when I was dead. Where would it go? What happens to the energies that drive the engines that drive us? Do they just vanish?

  “Is this Moses Prager?” a man’s voice on the other end of the line asked.

  “You tell me. You’re the one calling this number.”

  He repeated the question. “Is this Moses Prager?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “Detective John DiNardo, NYPD.”

  “And what’s this in relation to, Detective?”

  That got Fuqua’s attention and he mouthed, “Who is it?”

  I covered the mouthpiece and told him.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “The name is not a familiar one.”

  I could hear the detective talking, but couldn’t make out his words. I went back to him.

  “I’m sorry, Detective DiNardo, I was interrupted there for a second. What’s this in relation to again?”

  “Do you know a Maya Watson?”

  “I might.”

  His previously flat affect turned decidedly hostile. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. What’s this about?”

  “This is a homicide investigation, Mr. Prager, and I suggest you stop fuckin’ around with me and answer the questions.”

  “Is Maya Watson dead?”

  There was silence on his end of the phone.

  I covered the mouthpiece again and turned to Fuqua. “I think Maya Watson’s been murdered.”

  He crossed himself, mumbled something in French, then asked for the phone. I obliged.

  “Detective DiNardo, this is Detective Jean Jacques Fuqua of Brooklyn South Homicide, shield number 814. Mr. Prager is assisting me in an investigation that also involves Maya Watson. Mr. Prager will cooperate with you fully, I can assure you. Can you please tell me what happened? Oh … Suicide … Yesterday … How long had she been dead? … Three days … A neighbor … The One-O-Seven … On Parsons Boulevard … We will be there within the hour.”

  “Christ,” I heard myself whisper.

  Fuqua clicked off and handed back the phone. “Definitely a suicide, but you know procedure. It is treated as a homicide until other possibilities are eliminated and the ME makes the final determination. They found your number and messages on her cell phone. He was just doing his job.”

  “Did she leave a note?”

  “He did not say, but we will know soon enough.”

  …

  Detective DiNardo was a forty/forty man: forty years old with a forty-inch waist. He was counting the days until he could put in his papers, collect his pension, and move down to South Carolina. I knew a lot of John DiNardos when I was on the job. They were sort of the opposite numbers to ambitious guys like Larry McDonald and Jean Jacques Fuqua. For the DiNardos of this world, making detective third was as far as their reach extended. They were content to wear Walmart wardrobes, work the cases that came across their desks, and to get fat on fast food. That was fine. In the opera of the law, someone’s got to sing in the chorus. And the fact that DiNardo didn’t aspire to be Sherlock Holmes made him easier to deal with. To him Maya Watson’s suicide was an easy case to clear, so he had no qualms about sharing information with us.

  DiNardo handed Fuqua two plastic, amber-colored prescription bottles in an evidence bag. “She swallowed about fifty of those. This was no cry for help. She meant to do the job right.”

  Fuqua handed the bag back. “Why was there no report of her death in the media?”

  “We didn’t put two and two together at first,” DiNardo said. “That thing with her and her partner letting that guy die, that was months ago. None of us made the connection. Only when I started digging a little did I put it together. It’ll be in the papers tomorrow.”

  “Suicide note?” I asked.

  “No need for one,” DiNardo said, handing me another evidence bag. “That’s the letter from the FDNY officially dismissing her. I figure it was the last straw and that was that.”

  I wanted to argue with him, but what he said made too much sense. I had seen the way Maya had shut herself in and closed herself off. I had smelled the cigarettes and seen the cups and cups and cups of coffee. I had heard her talk about her unending grief over what had happened to Alta. Sure, that day when we went to Coney Island, she seemed better, feisty even, but I was no shrink. People killed themselves for all sorts of reasons, sometimes not very substantial ones. No one could argue that that was the case with Maya Watson. Her reasons seemed substantial enough to me.

  It struck me, though, that her suicide had shut the door on the only lead we had. We might now never know what she was being blackmailed about, if Robert Tillman had been the man behind it, or if the blackmail had anything to do with Alta’s murder.

  “Detective DiNardo, did you call all the other numbers in her cell phone in and out box?” I asked, not quite sure why.

  “I did.”

  “And did you get everyone on the phone?”

  “Nah. I couldn’t reach one or two of them.”

  “Would you mind giving me those numbers and letting me keep trying?”

  “Not a problem. Let me get them for you.” He transcribed the numbers from the file onto the back of his card and handed it to me. “Anything else, gentlemen?”

  Fuqua and I looked at each other and silently agreed that we had no more questions.

  “Nothing I can think of,” I said. “Thanks.”

  We all shook hands like captains at the center of a football field before the coin toss.

  “Good luck with your case, Fuqua,” DiNardo said. “What these women did was wrong, but I don’t think either one of them deserved their fates.”

  I changed my mind about DiNardo. He wasn’t like the guys I’d known on the job. None of them would have been thoughtful enough to look beyond their own gut reactions. The guys I had known would have looked at what had befallen Alta and Maya and said good riddance.

  THIRTY-NINE

  It was her apartment, but it wasn’t, and we didn’t need a crystal ball to know what we would find. She hadn’t answered the door and she hadn’t responded to our knocking at her windows. We knew all we needed to know when the foul
stench of rancid flesh seeped under the door and around the window frames like fog. Old death’s signature is as distinctive as John Hancock’s. I knew that if the fog could get out, flies could get in. The image of her body as the hostess of flies made me sick to my stomach and I covered my mouth to hold back the vomit. That image would be as hard to erase as the stink that filled up my senses.

  Fuqua handed me a cell phone. Where was mine? I punched in her number like a silent prayer. Silent or not, God said no, and the call went straight to voicemail.

  “It is the Tonton Macoute,” Fuqua said, his hands shaking. Then he turned and kicked in the door. It crumbled into dust as if it were made of chalk and a wave of thick black coffee came pouring out the empty doorway, thousands of cigarette filters riding the surf. Our clothes remained perfectly dry. “Watch out for the Tonton Macoute,” he whispered, his index finger across his lips.

  We walked into the apartment. The walls were papered in hate mail, the carpeting covered in tobacco stains and sticky brown resin. There was a makeshift altar in one corner of the living room. On it was a framed photo of Alta Conseco kissing Kristen Jo Winston. The photograph was surrounded by hundreds of Hanukah candles; blue and white wax dripped into a two-foot high mound on the floor. Odd, I thought, this altar was just like the altar in John Tierney’s house, the man who had been accused of kidnapping Sashi Bluntstone. But this wasn’t his basement, or was it?

  Fuqua nodded at the altar. “See, see?”

  We were in her bedroom now. It was so thick with flies that we breathed them in like black air, but the beating of their wings was only a whisper. John DiNardo was now there with us. He pointed at the bed. Her body lay under a quilt that conformed perfectly to her outline.

  “This is how we found her,” he said. “She’s still under there. Look!”

  And when Detective DiNardo pulled back the quilt, nothing was in bed but a cell phone.

  I didn’t wake up screaming because I’d been complicit in my dream. It was as if I was rooting from the sidelines for me to keep moving ahead, to find what I was looking for, to find an answer. No, I woke up feeling like an old-fashioned percolator. Things were bubbling up inside me. Sure, there was regret over Maya Watson’s suicide, but death had been her choice, a luxury I didn’t think was going to be afforded me. Besides, I didn’t hold with those people who believed that suicide was an act of cowardice. Those were the same people who saw addiction as a moral weakness, the same people who thought of posttraumatic stress as a disease for pussies. Suicide wasn’t exactly an act of heroism either, not in my book. It was an act of control, the ultimate proof of propriety.