by Dan Mahoney
When he finished his calls, McKenna went upstairs to Brunette’s office on a hunch. It was three-thirty in the morning, but Brunette was in and sleeping with his head on his desk cradled in his arms. He woke up as soon as McKenna closed the door. He looked tired, with bags under his red eyes, but he still had a smile for McKenna. “Welcome home, buddy. What brings you here at this hour?”
McKenna pulled up a chair across from Brunette’s desk. “Some new stuff on Mulrooney and a request,” he said.
“Okay, let’s start with the request. What is it?”
“I’d like Pao or two other tough guys assigned to my house whenever I’m not there.”
“You’re taking Vernon’s opinion on what to expect from Mulrooney very seriously, aren’t you?” Brunette asked.
“Sure am. He can’t know where I live now, but I don’t want to take any chances. He’ll try reaching out for my family if we manage to put his back to the wall.”
“Okay, you’ve got Pao. What else?”
“We’re gonna be waking up that poor judge again for two more eavesdropping warrants,” McKenna answered, then told Brunette about the information he had received from McGuinn and of Thor’s impending arrival.
“Can you think of anything else we should be doing?” Brunette asked.
“Just one thing. We should get down to Missing Persons and find out if they’ve got any young girls reported missing recently.”
“I’ve already done that, but I was sort of hoping you wouldn’t have burdened your mind thinking of that.”
“I have a hard time thinking of anything else. If Mulrooney’s running true to form and he’s planning something soon, a young girl is going to be kidnapped, tortured, and then killed. He might even have her now.”
“He doesn’t, as far as we know. I made Justin Peters the new CO of Missing Persons and he’s on top of it.”
So Mosley’s gone already, McKenna thought. I wonder what Brunette did to him, but I’ve already heard about enough murders for one night. “I was thinking that maybe we should go public on Mulrooney,” McKenna said. “Big as he is and conspicuous with whatever’s left of the shiner Meaghan gave him, somebody here would have to remember seeing him.”
“Why go public now and risk scaring him out of town when we’re so close to getting him?”
“Maybe if we publicize his picture and warn the public, we could wind up saving some young girl’s life.”
“Maybe, but if he runs and gets away, what then? He’ll be under pressure and he’ll kill again—maybe again and again until somebody else finally stops him. But that decision might be out of our hands before long, anyway.”
“Why’s that? You getting any indications that the press knows something’s up?”
“I’ve already had calls from the News and the Post, but that was inevitable. I stonewalled them, but I can’t keep that up for much longer.”
“What put them wise?”
“I had Mulrooney’s picture shown at every hotel in town and they found out about it. Somebody from one of the hotels blabbed to some reporter and made the rest of the press curious.”
“What do they know so far?” McKenna asked.
“Just that we’re looking real hard for somebody, but they don’t know who yet. Sheeran’s told everybody working the case that their lives would be over if they whispered anything in their favorite reporter’s ear, but I still think we’ve been lucky that it hasn’t been leaked already.”
“You’re right, and it can’t last forever,” McKenna agreed. “If Mulrooney starts talking on his phone again, the press is sure to pick up our radio traffic as we track him down.”
“So can we agree on this? We don’t have long before the press is on to us, but let’s keep it under wraps as long as we can,” Brunette suggested, then looked at his watch. “If we can last another twenty-nine hours, we’ve won. Better yet, we might even get lucky and get him before he goes to pick up his kids.”
“Or before he kidnaps another young girl,” McKenna added. “You think there’s a shot of that?”
“Why not? We’ve been lucky so far.”
“I’ll agree that we’ve gotten a lot to go on, but that information has made us indirectly responsible for three murders and a suicide.”
Brunette leaned back in his chair and eyed McKenna shrewdly. “Your conscience is really acting up, isn’t it?”
“This case has it working overtime,” McKenna admitted. “I don’t know when I’ve felt more miserable or unsure of myself.”
“Then clear your mind and get that conscience in check. You keep doing just what you’ve been doing and leave the hard thoughts to my conscience. That’s my job.”
“Isn’t yours bothering you?” McKenna asked.
“Killing me, but it’s performing exactly to specifications. Heavy’s the head that wears the crown and the throbbing conscience comes with the territory.”
“Okay, you’ve got my vote. We’ll keep the wraps on as long as we can.”
McKenna didn’t know why, but something Brunette had said worked. He left Brunette’s office exhausted, but confident and feeling better than he had felt for days.
Twenty-Eight
The apartment was lovely, but McKenna hadn’t been able to enjoy it. After spending a long two hours with Angelita, she had eventually forgiven him and permitted him to get a few hours’ sleep. Angelita was up with the kids before him, but she managed to keep them reasonably quiet. He was up at nine, still tired, and had gotten dressed and eaten breakfast by the time Pao arrived at ten.
Like McKenna, Angelita was another one of the few people in the world who understood and liked Johnny Pao, but McKenna had neglected to mention that Pao would be staying and the reason for his assignment. That took some embarrassed explaining to her while Pao stood by listening with a noncommittal look on his face, but Angelita saw the wisdom of having Pao around until Mulrooney was captured. She was making Pao breakfast while he watched the kids when McKenna left for headquarters in Pao’s unmarked car.
Sheeran was already back at work by the time McKenna arrived, and Eddie Morgan was still manning the base radio set. After signing in, McKenna went to Sheeran’s office. “Anything been happening?”
“Lots,” Sheeran said. “Mulrooney’s been using his phone, but we missed him.”
“We get any more information?”
“Some, and it leads to a lot of speculation. I’ll play you the tape.” Sheeran took a cassette player from his drawer and placed it on his desk. “First call was at eight-nineteen this morning. He called Ambery’s sister.” Sheeran turned the machine on and McKenna heard the phone ringing in Levittown. A woman answered. “Hello?”
Then McKenna heard Mulrooney’s voice with the Northern brogue ringing through. “Hello, Margaret. It’s Mike. Is Billy there?”
“No. He didn’t come by last night, so I was thinking he was with you. He was supposed to pick up the rest of his stuff,” Margaret answered, also with a Northern brogue.
“It wasn’t me he was with, but you’ll be seeing him soon enough.”
“I surely hope so. That worthless sod’s been owing me a quid for over a week and I could sure use it now. Can you do something about that, Mike?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll tell him to take care of it.”
“Thanks. Seems you’re the only one he pays any mind to. I can’t even get him to see a doctor and I know he’s hurting.”
“I’ll take care of that as well. Bye.” The call ended and Sheeran shut off the cassette player.
“Do we know where he was when he made that call?” McKenna asked.
“That’s part of the problem. He was in Staten Island and moving fast, in a car and headed north on the West Shore Expressway. Nobody figured Staten Island, so we had only three teams there this morning. Closest one was at least five miles behind him on the expressway, but I had the other teams waiting for him at the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge toll plaza in case he was headed to Brooklyn. His next call was a minute late
r to one of the beepers, so there’s no audio on it. Just the sound of Mulrooney punching in the last two digits of his phone number. Kiernan Crowley answered the beep at eight-thirty-two and he’s been up to something.”
“Where was Mulrooney then?”
“Unfortunately, Elizabeth, New Jersey. He must have used the Goethals Bridge to cross over, so he beat us this time. We had no teams in Jersey.” Sheeran turned the cassette player back on. First came the sound of two beeps as Mulrooney punched the last two digits of his number into his phone, and then came the incoming call. It was another Northern brogue and a short conversation. “Kiernan here. Where do you want to meet?”
“Where are you now?” Mulrooney had asked.
“A pay phone in the Bronx.”
“You get the van?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
“Any problems?”
“Not a one. I don’t think they’ll even miss it for days.”
“Good. Meet me at Billy’s at noon.”
“How about Billy?”
“He should be there by then,” Mulrooney said, then ended the call.
Sheeran turned off the cassette player. “What do you think?” he asked.
“They’ve stolen a van from a corporation big enough to have many of them, so I’d have some good people handle the investigation if any large corporation reports one of their vans stolen.”
“I’ve already put that process in motion. We’re going to be notified immediately by the Alarm Board if that happens,” Sheeran said. “Are you thinking he’s gonna load up that van with explosives and park it near a place owned by people he doesn’t like?”
“Maybe. He pulled the same stunt in Londonderry, but if it’s a car bomb, it sets my mind at ease a bit.”
“Why?”
“Because I was worried he was going to pull some stunt at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade to impress his kids. Now I’m thinking that he’s planning something else we might be in a position to prevent. We got the British UN embassy covered good, haven’t we?”
“That and their ambassador’s apartment, their consulate, and the British Airways office in Rockefeller Center. I have enough people there to grab them in case they try to drop a van in front of any of those places, but we should have them all captured by noon.”
McKenna checked his watch. It was ten-forty-five. “Shouldn’t we be leaving now?” he asked. “Even on a Sunday, Levittown’s got to be at least an hour away.”
“By car it is, but by chopper it’s only fifteen minutes. Ray’s got one standing by for us at the Wall Street Heliport.”
“How about manpower?”
“Five teams waiting at the Nassau County Eighth Precinct, about a mile from the house, but there’s a problem. I had to tell the Nassau PD something and they weren’t happy about us pulling a major operation in their bailiwick. They insisted on supplying the heavy weapons teams and their Bomb Squad.”
“And the surveillance on the house? It has to be difficult to watch it from a residential neighborhood like that without being noticed.”
“That was the easiest part. I went through the Personnel Record File and found we’ve got a detective from the Queens Robbery Squad living right across the street from the sister’s house.”
“What’s his name?”
“Her name,” Sheeran corrected. “Detective Lisa Marchese. She and her partner are now assigned to the case, watching the house.”
“Does Lisa know Ambery’s sister?”
“For years. Even met our pal Billy once when he visited a couple of years ago and said she saw him there last week. He looked loaded and was walking real stiff.”
“What does Lisa think of her neighbors?”
“Thinks the sister’s nice enough, but her husband’s an oiler, Billy’s a wise guy, and their kids are spoiled rotten.”
“How old are the kids?”
“Nine and eleven. They went to church with their father this morning and now they’re at an amusement park with him. The only one home right now is Margaret, so there shouldn’t be much of a problem if our boys show up.”
“We got a warrant for the house?” McKenna asked.
“Getting it right now. Anything I missed?”
“As usual, Inspector, you haven’t missed a thing.”
McKenna had twice had bad helicopter experiences and he hated flying in them, but the trip to Levittown went fast enough. He and Sheeran were on the ground in the large parking lot behind the Nassau County Eighth Precinct by eleven-thirty. The NYPD helicopter, the five unmarked NYPD cars, the three Nassau County PD Emergency Service trucks and their large Bomb Squad bomb disposal truck had been noticed by the local residents and were drawing quite a crowd of local people.
The Nassau County cops blocked off their parking lot, but Sheeran wasn’t happy with the picture and figured it was only a matter of time before the press arrived. Worse, he knew that he had very little control over the Nassau cops and what they would tell the press, so he, McKenna, and ten NYPD detectives spent the better part of the next hour sidestepping questions from the Nassau County cops and an increasingly annoyed and very skeptical Nassau County chief.
The party line dictated by Sheeran and followed by his detectives was that information had been developed by Scotland Yard that a group of wanted IRA terrorists might be meeting in the house at noon. According to Sheeran, that was all they knew.
The Nassau cops weren’t buying it and the situation became increasingly uncomfortable. McKenna and Sheeran both realized that many fences would have to be mended once Mulrooney was captured.
The agony was ended at 12:35 P.M. by Mulrooney himself. Sheeran and McKenna were sitting in the back of one of the NYPD unmarked cars, hiding from the Nassau County chief and talking to two detectives from the Joint Terrorist Task Force when a transmission came from Morgan over the radio. “Headquarters Base to all units. Be advised that the subject just dialed a beeper number.”
Both Sheeran and McKenna reached over the front seat to grab the radio lying on the dashboard, but Sheeran got to it first. “Squad CO to Headquarters Base, you got a location on the subject?”
“Manhattan, Inspector. He wasn’t on long enough to get a definite location, but he’s in a cell bounded by Fifth Avenue and Seventh Avenue, 23rd to 27th Streets. Any units close enough to respond?”
There were four teams left in Midtown. All answered and were on their way to the area.
Now what the hell is he doing in Manhattan when we’re all waiting for him here? “They’re meeting at Billy’s Topless Bar, West 24th and Sixth,” McKenna shouted.
“Of course they are,” Sheeran shouted back, just as loud. He keyed the radio and transmitted. “Squad CO to all responding units. Set up outside Billy’s Topless Bar, West 24th Street and Sixth Avenue.”
The four units acknowledged the order, and then Sheeran asked over the air if there were any Emergency Service units available in Midtown to assist with heavy weapons. ESU Truck One-three and Truck One-five were available and responding with heavy weapons.
Sheeran threw the radio back on the dashboard, left the car, and ran to the helicopter with McKenna close behind him. Less than a minute later the pilot had them in the air and headed for Manhattan. McKenna had left his radio on the seat in the helicopter and they heard the teams and the Emergency Service units report in. All were in position outside the bar. Sheeran ordered that a team be sent in to have a beer and check the place out, and that drew a chuckle from McKenna. He imagined that there would be no shortage of volunteers for that assignment.
Cisco Sanchez and Bobby Garbus from the Major Case Squad won the job and the helicopter was over Queens before they reported back. “Team Fourteen to Squad CO.”
Sheeran recognized the voice. “Go ahead, Cisco. What have you got?”
“Sorry, Inspector. I’ve got nothing at all. They might’ve been in there, but they’re gone now. You want me to go back in and ask around?”
“Negative. Have all units return to their
assigned areas. I want everybody ready in case his beep gets answered,” Sheeran transmitted, then turned to McKenna. “That was strike two for today, but I’ve got a feeling we’re gonna get a few more pitches coming our way.”
“And I’ve got a feeling that O’Reilly’s the one he beeped. Ambery and Crowley are with him, so the other beeper has to be O’Reilly’s. Know where he is right now?”
“Uh-huh, tending bar at the Pioneer. We’ve got a unit watching the place, so let’s see if you’re right,” Sheeran said, then keyed the radio. “Squad CO to the unit with the meter reader.”
“Team Nineteen. Go ahead, Inspector.”
“Let me know if your man makes a phone call.”
“You’re right on the money, Inspector. We can see him through the window and he’s on the phone.”
“Headquarters Base to Squad CO. The subject’s getting that incoming call.”
“Where is he?”
“West Side in the Fifties and heading north up Eighth Avenue, but we’ve got no teams there yet.”
“Damn! What a fiasco!” Sheeran said to McKenna. “He’s in the Fifties and our teams are still way behind him in the Twenties.”
“Team Twenty-one to Squad CO. O’Reilly just hung up.”
“Headquarters Base to Squad CO. The subject’s done with his call. Total conversation time, twenty-four seconds. He’s not much of a chatterbox.”
“Anything interesting?”
“I’d say so. The subject wanted O’Reilly to bring both suitcases when he picks up the kids tomorrow morning.”
“That’s not good news, but at least it’s not strike three,” McKenna said. “I’ll bet he’s got kids’ clothes in those suitcases and he’s planning on snatching his boys, so whatever he’s planning is gonna happen soon. Maybe we should be talking to one of the auxiliary players now.”