by Dan Mahoney
The co-op boards were the problem. Included as part of their screening process for prospective new owners was a family interview; invariably one of the boys would start wailing while McKenna was struggling to convince the board what wonderful, quiet residents they would be. “Thanks for coming, but sorry and good-bye,” was all he and Angelita had heard so far over the screams of the twins.
“Give me a little time and maybe I’ll be able to come up with something for you,” Chip said after listening to McKenna’s litany of woe.
“That would be kind of you.”
“Can’t guarantee anything, you understand. Remember I’m just a bartender.”
McKenna was relieved to hear that. It was Chip’s usual disclaimer before he used his influence, contacted Lord-knows-who, and arranged some miracle. “Sure, Chip. I know. You’re just a bartender.”
“How’s work going?” Chip asked.
“Not bad. Doing mostly note-passers. Easy stuff, but kind of boring.”
“And no glory?” Chip asked, knowing the arrangement. The Major Case Squad got the bank robbery cases where a note was passed to the teller but no weapon was shown. The Joint Bank Robbery Task Force, composed of NYC detectives and FBI agents, took the real bank robberies.
“No, your other pals get the glory.”
“Ready for something different? Still boring, but different?”
Here it comes, McKenna thought. “Sure, what is it?”
“A missing person case.”
“Chip, I’m not in Missing Persons. I’m in Major Case, remember?”
“Makes no difference. This is about to become a major missing person case and you’re going to be assigned to it.”
“How do you know that?” McKenna asked, then instantly regretted the question. Chip just knew, every time, but would never reveal a source. McKenna expected nothing more than an innocent-but-reproachful look in reply to his question, but this time Chip deigned to answer.
“Because Ray’s having lunch with the cardinal right now. His Eminence is laying out the problem for Ray and he’s going to ask that you be assigned. Naturally, Ray’s gonna agree.”
Now how would Chip know that? was the first silly question that popped into McKenna’s mind. I thought I was the only one who knew about the visit to the cardinal. Then he remembered the time Chipmunk had brought him and Angelita to a big-shot FBI retirement dinner. Angelita had been a little miffed, thinking that Chip’s table was too far from the dais where Ray, the FBI brass, and all the politicians were seated. Then the cardinal had arrived and took his seat between Angelita and Chipmunk, and she still hadn’t stopped talking about it. So instead McKenna asked, “Why would the cardinal want me assigned?”
“Because somebody heard about it, through a friend, and then somebody suggested to the cardinal, through channels, that you were the one to handle it.”
So Chip assigned this case to me, McKenna realized. Good enough. “Tell me about it.”
“There’s an Irish girl named Meaghan Maher who works at Jameson’s. She’s been missing since February nineteenth. Had a fight with her boyfriend and she’s gone without a trace. She’s a pretty little thing, maybe a bit on the wild side.”
“You mean a little bit on the loose side?”
“That wouldn’t be possible. Her brother’s a priest.”
Sure it’s possible, McKenna thought, but kept that to himself. Ray Donovan, the manager of Jameson’s, was another good friend of Chip’s. “Her brother wouldn’t happen to know the cardinal, would he?”
“Matter of fact, he’s serving one year as the cardinal’s aide. He’s on some sort of transfer program from his order in Ireland.”
“Is she legal?”
“Not exactly. She’s got a green card, though, and it’s not a bad job. Even the number’s good.”
McKenna understood. Without illegal aliens to work long hours and exercise charm at slightly lower-than-legal wages, the entire New York restaurant industry would collapse. The first to fold would be the Irish pubs scattered throughout every Manhattan neighborhood south of 96th Street.
Current legal immigration quotas from Ireland were much lower than that necessary to round out the staffs at the Irish pubs, but that didn’t stop the prospective bartenders, waiters, and waitresses from abandoning the Emerald Isle and heading for the Bright Lights. There were paper requirements to be circumvented since Immigration had begun cracking down on restaurant owners who hired people without alien registration cards stamped with a work permit. Most of the newly arrived Irish obtained one in a hurry and the more resourceful among them got two, just in case.
McKenna knew Chipmunk was telling him that the green card was a forgery, but that somewhere there was a legal Meaghan Maher who had a card with the same number. Such a card was an expensive item, so Missing Meaghan Maher was a girl with foresight and backing. McKenna saw Chip’s fingerprints on that one. “Where does she live?”
“Somebody got her a studio apartment in my building. A sublet deal,” Chipmunk answered, deadpan.
“Lucky, huh?”
“She’s a nice, hard-working girl from a good family. She deserved a little luck” was as far as Chipmunk was going to go on that subject.
“Has it been reported to the 19th Squad?”
“Her boyfriend reported it on February twenty-third.”
“Four days after she disappeared? Why’d he wait so long?”
“He’s not exactly legal, either.”
That shouldn’t be a problem, McKenna and just about every illegal alien in the city knew. According to a mayoral executive order, city agencies are prohibited from informing INS about illegal aliens who apply for assistance or are victims of crimes. “I take it he’s not too bright.”
“Not a real dummy, but certainly not the sharpest knife in the drawer.”
“Who caught the case.”
“Walsh.”
So Chipmunk’s arranged a conference, McKenna realized. Greg Walsh was the old-time detective sitting at the end of the bar. McKenna considered him to be a good man and a competent investigator. “And?”
“He worked on it, but the case doesn’t fall within the guidelines for further investigation. On the surface, it looks like a voluntary disappearance with no evidence of foul play. Walsh did what he could and came up blank.”
Chipmunk gave the barest nod to the end of the bar and Walsh ambled over. He was dressed in a expensive three-piece suit in the 19th Squad fashion and had a case folder in his hand.
After the handshake and the pleasantries, Walsh reported. “The boyfriend calls himself Chris O’Malley. Nice kid, pretty distraught and a little emotional. Bit of a bruiser, works as a bouncer at O’Flannagan’s. Surprised the piss outta me when he started blubbering right in the squad office.”
“You don’t think he had anything to do with Meaghan’s disappearance?”
“If there is any dirty business here, no, I wouldn’t classify O’Malley as a suspect. He came clean with me, even made a statement that’s not in his best interests. They got into quite a tiff at her place a few days before she disappeared. He wound up smacking her.”
“Any injury?”
“Just to him. He had the good sense to apologize right away and thought he had her soothed over. They climbed under the sheets to make it official and then he took a little snooze. Woke up kinda sudden when she clocked him with the vacuum cleaner.”
“She hit him with a vacuum cleaner?”
“Yeah, can you believe it? I guess it was the heaviest thing she could find and still swing. Took out his uppers and loosened his molars.”
“What happened then?”
“Says he smartened up quick. Apologized for putting his face in the way while she was trying to vacuum and went to the NYU clinic to get some stitches in his gums and some Darvon for the pain.”
“And that was the last time he saw her?”
“Last time anybody saw her, far as I can tell.”
“What was the fight about?”
“Serious stuff. They both were starting vacation together on Thursday, February nineteenth. They were supposed to hang around town for a couple of days, partying it up a bit, and then head to Florida to spend the rest of the week in the sun. Then O’Malley changed the plan and had a little surprise for her. He’d booked them to Ireland instead.”
“And she didn’t like that?”
“You kidding? She’d been working out for months, bought new bathing suits, had her legs waxed, and spent a fortune at the tanning parlor. This girl was ready for the sun, not the rain. But that wasn’t her main concern. O’Malley wanted to bring her back to meet his parents.”
“I guess she wasn’t ready for commitment,” McKenna guessed.
“I guess not, especially since somebody told me that O’Malley wasn’t the only one in the picture.”
“Who’s the other guy?”
“Nobody knows.”
“Not even somebody?” McKenna asked, stealing a glance at Chipmunk.
“Not even somebody,” Walsh said. “Not yet, anyway.”
“What else you do?”
“Checked the hospitals and morgues, put out an NCIC alarm nationwide, asked around at Jameson’s and all the Irish bars O’Malley says she liked. Got nowhere.”
“Talk to Ray Donovan?”
“Sure. He’s the one makes me think there’s something to this. Says he wasn’t too worried until she didn’t show up after her vacation. Says she’s a little wild, but real reliable. Never missed a day in the two years she was working for him. Never even late without a phone call and a good excuse.”
“So now he’s worried?”
“Real worried. Turns out his family knows her family back in the Old Sod and he’s getting some pressure.”
And applying some pressure, besides, McKenna thought. Chip and Donovan go back a long way together. “You talk to her family?”
“Called me every day until Justin closed the case. He went out on a limb and let me work it for a week.”
McKenna wasn’t surprised. The rules stated that the precinct detective squad would work on a missing person case for only three days. If the subject wasn’t a minor, wasn’t mentally unbalanced, wasn’t the suspected victim of a drowning, or if no evidence of foul play was uncovered, then the rules clearly stated that the case would be classified as a voluntary disappearance and closed after the three days. If any of the mitigating factors were present, the case would be sent to the Missing Persons Squad downtown for further investigation.
McKenna knew Lt. Justin Peters, the 19th Detective Squad commander, and had always recognized that he would go out on a limb and bend the rules whenever he thought necessary. Keeping a missing persons case open and a squad detective assigned for a full week would have required a lot of lies on paper from Justin, a task he excelled at and maybe even relished. “So what happened then?”
“Somebody called Justin and whispered something about extraordinary connections in this case. He reopened it and sent it to the Missing Persons Squad with a suggestion they work hard on it.”
“Who’s got it there?”
“Swaggart.”
“Swaggart? I don’t know him.”
“You wouldn’t. He’s a real zero and a boob to boot. He’s been hiding out down there as long as I can remember.”
“So how come Swaggart’s got it?”
“I can’t say for sure, but I think it’s the old Peters-Mosley thing.”
Of course it is, McKenna thought. The feud between Justin Peters and Lt. George Mosley, the CO of the Missing Persons Squad, was old and legendary. It had begun when Mosley was overheard telling some chief at a cocktail party that those 19th Squad detectives were nothing but a bunch of prima donnas in three-piece suits and hands adorned with diamond-studded pinky rings.
Naturally, Mosley’s impromptu and ill-advised remark had found its way to Justin’s ears before the party had ended and he had called Mosley, at home, the next day. Reportedly, Justin’s response went something like, “Sure my detectives are prima donnas, but they deserve to be. After all, it’s the 19th Squad. We cover Manhattan’s politically important and very prestigious Upper East Side, and nobody pops into my squad by accident. They work hard to get here and they have to be good and work hard to stay here. As for the three-piece suits, of course, I’d throw them out if they showed up to work in anything else. And the diamond-studded pinky rings? Well, maybe.”
Justin had ended the terse conversation by demanding a public apology. Mosley had unwisely balked and so it had begun. Justin never missed an opportunity to throw a few darts Mosley’s way, characterizing the Missing Persons Squad as a bunch of lazy, empty suits who were hidden, sheltered, and nourished by a big-mouth, incompetent lieutenant who wasn’t smart enough or man enough to clean his own house and sweep out the trash that festered and flourished there.
And so Mosley suffered, continuously. Everyone knew that Mosley wasn’t in the same league as a political heavyweight like Justin Peters and all wondered why Justin didn’t just squeeze the life out of Mosley and get it over with already. The more astute among them finally figured out that Mosley had become Justin’s hobby, like a cat playing with a mouse for hours before it tired of the game and finally bit the helpless little thing’s head off.
This case might finally end it, McKenna thought as he imagined the scenario. A case comes to Mosley from the 19th Squad, a case that, according to the rules, should have been closed. Adding insult to injury, attached to the case is a suggestion from Justin that it be thoroughly investigated. Now what would Mosley do? Why nothing, of course, McKenna realized, nothing taking the shape of Mosley assigning the case to the laziest and most useless detective he could find.
Justin has finally tired of the game, McKenna realized. The cagey squad commander suspected there was something to this case when he bent the rules and kept Walsh on it. Then he sent it to Mosley with his suggestion, knowing what Dopey’s reaction would be. The case goes bad, young ecclesiastically connected Meaghan Maher turns up kidnapped or murdered, and Ray chops off Mosley’s head. Game, set, match to Justin.
Then a slightly disconcerting thought hit McKenna: He realized he was carrying the axe for Justin. Oh, well. Good-bye Lieutenant Mosley. Not nice knowing you. “You got any pictures of Meaghan?” he asked Walsh.
“Plenty.” Walsh reached into his case folder, took out an envelope full of photos, and passed them to McKenna. A quick pass through them told McKenna that Meaghan was a very pretty girl with some fire in her eyes and that the photos came from O’Malley. He was in a few of the shots with her and Walsh was right—he was large enough to be classified a bruiser, but to McKenna he looked like a big teddy bear. From the way O’Malley was looking at Meaghan in two of the photos, the big guy was lost in love for that red-headed little girl.
“Did you check her apartment?” McKenna asked.
“Yeah, gave it a good toss.”
“O’Malley give you the key?”
“No, she never gave him one.”
“Then how? The super?”
“He only had one of the keys, but this girl is real careful. She’s got three locks on her door, and the two she put on are real tough ones.”
“Then somebody hooked you up with a locksmith?” McKenna guessed.
The indignant look that crossed Walsh’s face told McKenna he was wrong. “Hey, I don’t need somebody for everything, you know. I hooked myself up with a locksmith. Guy’s good, but it still took him twenty minutes to get in.”
“How long to get out?”
“No time. Left those tough ones unlocked and I took the key from the super.” Walsh reached into his pocket and passed McKenna a key.
“How did the place look?”
“Neat and clean.”
“Clothes?”
“Plenty of clothes in the closet, underwear in the drawers, nightie under her pillow.”
“Bathing suits?”
“Three. Two new ones, still have the tags on them.”
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“Luggage?”
“Four suitcases. Two new, two of them old and kinda beat up.”
“Any pets?”
“Not even a goldfish.”
“She have any credit cards?”
“Victoria’s Secret.”
“No Visa or MasterCard?”
“O’Malley says no.”
Delicate question coming up, McKenna thought. Getting credit information is illegal without a court order, and a judge wouldn’t issue one in a voluntary disappearance case. However, a good detective willing to bend the law wouldn’t need a court order to scam his way past any credit bureau. “What do you say, Greg? Does Meaghan have a Visa or MasterCard?”
Walsh looked him straight in the eye. “I say no. This Meaghan Maher doesn’t have a Visa or a MasterCard under the date of birth on her phony green card. The real Meaghan Maher with that INS number does, but she lives in Brooklyn.”
“Does our Meaghan have any bank accounts?”
“She’s got a checking account at Chemical under her green card date of birth. Balance of ninety-two dollars and change. Last check was her rent check, seven hundred and fifty dollars, presented to the bank for payment on February twenty-second.”
“When was her rent due?”
“March first.”
“Know if she ever paid that early before?”
“Sure I do. Talked to the woman she’s subletting from. She says only once in the two years she’s been there. Usually Meaghan’s a week late getting her the rent.”
McKenna noticed that the FBI agent, Timmy Rembijas, had been staring down the bar at them. Timmy had been in the FBI’s JFK Task Force for so long that he had earned the nickname Timmy JFK. “What’s Timmy’s role in this?” McKenna asked Walsh.
“He’s in a better position than me when it comes to dealing with the airlines. You know how they are about divulging their passenger lists without a court order.”
“Yeah, I do, but I guess somebody asked him to check around. Unofficially, of course.”
“Somebody did. From February nineteenth to yesterday there hasn’t been a Meaghan Maher booked on a flight outta any of the New York airports.”