The Hook

by Tim O'Mara

  ‘How long has she had the video drone?’ Edgar asked.

  I was not surprised his first response was about the drone. ‘It’s pretty new. Today was the first I saw it.’

  ‘Those things are amazing. Some of the higher-end ones – like the one I just bought – shoot at 4K with a one-eighty tilt gimbal. It’s got a three-axis image stabilizer and two-point-eight lossless zoom. Operates over a distance of more than two miles.’

  When Edgar had difficulty dealing with emotions, he always found comfort in his technology.

  ‘But,’ he finished, ‘hers is good for what she needs.’ Edgar, a single man with no kids and a good pension, didn’t understand why everyone could not afford top-of-the-line technology.

  ‘What’d ya think of the story?’ I asked.

  He shrugged. ‘Good, I guess. Got all the facts out and no fake drama.’

  ‘You think you can give her a quote or two for the follow-up piece? Be good for her readers to see how MoJo was getting his life back together and becoming a productive part of society. Most people don’t understand the importance of rehab and how it affects society as a whole. You saw it firsthand.’

  Edgar held his breath and put both hands on his pint glass. After maybe a ten-count, he said, ‘Yeah, but I’m not gonna speak on video. Just for print.’

  ‘I’m sure that’ll work.’

  ‘What will work?’ Allison asked as she came back to the bar.

  ‘I’ll talk to you about MoJo,’ Edgar said, ‘but not on video.’

  She touched his shoulder. ‘Thank you, Edgar.’

  Mikey came by and gave Edgar and me fresh beers and Allison her first. ‘You guys eating with us?’ he asked.

  ‘Absolutely,’ I said. We gave him our orders and I included the turkey burger and rings for Detective Royce just as he came through the door. When he saw me, he headed our way and gave us something that might have been a wave. ‘And another pilsner,’ I said. ‘Long day, Detective?’ I pulled out a stool.

  ‘I’m gonna stand,’ he said, waving off the seat. ‘Back and shoulders have been acting up again lately. Too much damn sitting in this job sometimes.’ He looked at Allison. ‘How about you, Lois Lane? Long day?’

  ‘So long it hasn’t ended yet, Detective.’ Allison pulled out her reporter’s notebook and pen and placed them both on the bar. ‘Ever vigilant and all that.’

  He smiled and grabbed the pint glass Mikey had just slid in front of him. He took a sip and turned to Edgar. ‘Sorry about your loss, Mr Martinez. I understand you and Mr Joseph were close.’

  Edgar nodded. ‘Yeah. He was my friend and we worked together so I guess you could say we were close.’

  Royce took out his notebook. ‘Would you mind grabbing a table with me so I can ask you a few questions?’

  Edgar got a little flustered by that. ‘Can Ray come with us?’

  ‘That’s not normally how we do this.’

  ‘You also don’t normally interview people at bars,’ Edgar said. Look at him, I thought. Sticking up for himself. ‘I’m a bit nervous about being asked questions.’

  I knew exactly what was going through Royce’s mind: Do this by the book and it’ll take hours to get through it. Do it here and now with me next to Edgar and he’s eating dinner in ten minutes and heading home soon.

  ‘Why don’t the three of us go get a table?’ he said.

  THREE

  ‘About two years ago at the Hudson Valley Technology Expo,’ Edgar answered. ‘We were both checking out this German company’s video enhancement software. You know that stuff on TV – CSI and all that – is all horse hockey. You blow up a blurred video image in real life and all you get is a bigger blurred image. Now with this software – that is not on the market yet – you get enhanced—’

  ‘I get the point, Mr Martinez,’ said Royce. ‘And where was Mr Joseph residing at that time?’

  ‘In Queens. Sunnyside, 47th and Bliss on the 7 train. Before his stay in rehab.’

  ‘Was he married then?’

  Edgar looked at me and then back at Royce. ‘Why are you asking me all these questions? Can’t you look all this up? Ask his wife, Lisa?’

  ‘Yes,’ Royce said and took a sip of beer. ‘But we’re waiting until tomorrow to interview her and, as I’m sure you know, there are some questions you can’t get the answer to on a computer.’

  Royce might as well have told Edgar that the Earth was a cube. Edgar got almost all his answers from the Internet. This interpersonal stuff was still new to him.

  ‘What Detective Royce is saying, Edgar,’ I said, ‘is that it’s always best to back up your second-hand sources with primary sources.’

  Royce looked at me and smiled. ‘Thank you, Mr Donne.’ The smile wasn’t real; it was Royce’s way of telling me to shut up.

  Edgar went on. ‘He met Lisa at Newer Leaves after we met. She was a counselor – she still is – and they started dating. They got married right after he was released from the residential program. They have a rule about clients and counselors dating. I was asked to wear a tuxedo and be in the wedding party.’

  ‘And you two have remained friendly?’

  I wasn’t sure why he was doing this with Edgar, but Royce was using the old interrogation technique of repeating a question using different words. Old habits?

  ‘We started a business together, so, yeah, we stayed friendly.’

  ‘No problems with the business?’

  Edgar squirmed. ‘What kind of problems?’

  ‘Financial, personal. Client disputes.’

  ‘No, no, no. Nothing like that. We get along just great. He does most of the dealing with the clients and I do most of the office and field tech work.’ He paused. ‘I’m not as good with people as MoJo is. He’s always been …’

  And there it was: the point where Edgar realized he was still talking about MoJo in the present tense. Royce gave Edgar time for that to sink in. Edgar stared at his beer as if there were an answer or two to be found in the amber liquid. I knew that wouldn’t last long; he and I both knew many regulars of The LineUp who’d been down that path.

  After a few deep breaths, Edgar picked an onion ring off his plate and held it with all five fingertips of his right hand, almost like he was showing a rookie pitcher how to throw a knuckleball. He took the ring, dipped it in a mixture of ketchup and Tabasco and shoved it into his mouth. As he chewed, Nancy, the server, came over to the table and I signaled for three more beers.

  Royce said, ‘Not for me. Just some more water, please.’

  I’d forgotten he had at least an hour drive back home to Long Island. Like most city cops, Royce commuted to work from the outer suburbs: Long Island, Jersey, or Westchester. A lot of teachers did the same thing. Firefighters, nurses, EMTs. There were so many people needed and willing to help the residents of New York City. Not as many wanting – or able to afford – to live in the five boroughs. They didn’t know what they were missing. Having grown up on Long Island, I had taken a vow never to return as a resident. If I died without ever owning another car, that’d be fine with me.

  ‘He … was … good with people,’ Edgar continued. He looked at me. ‘He was a lot like you, Ray. People liked to talk to him. He sponsored a few guys in his support group.’

  ‘Did he talk about his support group a lot?’ Royce asked.

  ‘No. He took the anonymous part real seriously. It was through Newer Leaves. They met a few times a week at a church in Greenpoint.’ Edgar mentioned the church. It was a few blocks from school. Greenpoint and Williamsburg were next-door neighbors; if they’d been twins, they would have been conjoined, hard to tell where one started and the other ended. I was of the belief that McCarren Park was the borderline. ‘He went at least once a week.’

  Royce finished his beer as Nancy put down two beers and Royce’s water. ‘Did he ever mention anything about relapsing? Falling off the wagon?’

  ‘Not to me,’ Edgar said. ‘Why?’

  Royce got uncharacte‌ristically silent
as he took the last bites of his turkey burger.

  ‘Detective?’ I said when I realized he was ignoring Edgar’s question.

  Royce swallowed and took a long sip of water. Barely above a whisper, he said, ‘We found something in his room.’

  ‘His what?’ I said, knowing for a fact MoJo didn’t have a ‘room’ at the school. He had what little space could be cleared out of a book closet. We were able to find him an old desk, a chair, and a filing cabinet that looked like it had been last used when Eleanor Roosevelt visited the school shortly after it opened in the late nineteen-forties. And, MoJo being MoJo, he had found a way to get hooked into the school’s WiFi.

  ‘We found a hole in the wall behind some books,’ Royce explained. ‘About forty copies of The Great Gatsby. There was a toolbox inside. It contained a couple of cell phones – we’re checking them out now – some computer cables, and …’

  It was a rare occurrence when Detective Royce was at a loss for words. Edgar picked up on it after about ten seconds.

  ‘And what, Detective Royce?’ Edgar asked.

  ‘A shoot-up kit.’

  ‘What?’ I asked. Not because I didn’t hear him, but because I did.

  Royce spoke a little louder. ‘A shoot-up kit. It’s a—’

  ‘I know what a shoot-up kit is, Detective. Are you saying MoJo was using at school? Did you find any drugs in the kit?’

  ‘No. Just the instruments: a few needles, a spoon, a lighter, and a rubber tie-off.’

  ‘He was not using,’ Edgar said too loudly. ‘I would’ve known if he was using. We worked together. He was still going through the program. He was sponsoring people.’ He looked at me. ‘I woulda known if he was using. Right, Ray?’

  Like I don’t answer enough tough questions at work. ‘I think so, Edgar. But it’s hard to tell with …’ I struggled to find a better word, but MoJo himself would have said there was no better way to say it. ‘It’s hard to tell with addicts.’ I turned to Royce. ‘I never saw any of the signs. I’m not an expert, but I’ve seen enough junkies on the street to know a little more than your average person.’

  ‘He wasn’t a junkie, Ray,’ Edgar said.

  ‘You’re right, Edgar. Bad choice of words,’ said the man who took another sip of his fourth beer of the evening. ‘I meant addicts.’

  Royce directed his next question at me. ‘And you met with his case worker?’

  ‘It was one of the conditions of his working at the school. She came by once every week or so to check up on him, and he had to call every day he worked from the school’s landline to prove he was there.’ I thought about how close we were – freak April snowstorm not withstanding – to the end of the school year. ‘He had less than three months to finish up. Then he was pretty much free to work full-time with Edgar at the security company. I don’t see him blowing that – or his family – by bringing drug paraphernalia into the school.’

  ‘Like you said,’ Royce said. ‘You never know with addicts.’

  I was about to say something about that when Royce’s phone went off. He looked at the number, stood up and said, ‘I gotta take this.’ He walked away.

  ‘I don’t like calling MoJo an addict, Ray,’ Edgar said.

  ‘I hear ya, Edgar, but it’s a fact of life. There’s no such thing as a former addict or former alcoholic. They’re in recovery or they’re inactive, but they’re always looking over their shoulders for the dragon.’

  ‘The dragon?’

  ‘A lot of active users call it that. “Chasing the dragon.” When you’re fighting the addiction, sometimes you realize the dragon’s chasing you.’

  ‘And you know this because …’

  ‘It’s not just people on the street, Edgar. I know a lot of cops who’ve had problems with drugs.’ I took another sip. ‘A lot of them will tell you it’s the job, nobody understands them, the pressure at home. But I think most of them come to the job with problems. They may not be active, but the potential is there. The job becomes a pretty good scapegoat.’

  ‘You boys done with your interview?’ Allison had come over to the booth. I slid over to make room for her.

  ‘Not sure,’ I said. I motioned with my head toward the detective. ‘Royce got a call and went for a stroll.’

  ‘How are you doing, Edgar?’ she asked.

  He nodded. ‘Better now that I ate. Thanks.’

  Allison took out her notebook, opened to a blank page, and put it on the table between herself and Edgar. ‘Feel like telling me a little about Maurice? Something I can use to flesh him out a bit, make him sound less like a victim and more like a person?’

  Without missing a beat, Edgar said, ‘He knew more about audio and video surveillance than anyone I ever met.’

  Allison’s face could do nothing to hide her surprise at that comment. ‘More than you?’ Even if it were true, I couldn’t see Edgar admitting to it.

  Edgar thought about that. ‘It was probably close, but he was teaching me a lot of stuff over the past year.’

  ‘What kind of stuff?’

  Edgar got quiet again. ‘Is this for your story?’

  ‘It’s on the record unless you tell me otherwise,’ she said and lowered her voice. Royce was still about twenty feet away and on the phone, so he couldn’t hear us. ‘Was Maurice into stuff you don’t wanna tell the detective? Any illegal activities?’

  Edgar slowly moved his head back and forth. ‘No, no, no. Not MoJo. Since he’s been out of rehab, he was keeping clean. For his wife and his kid.’

  ‘Then just tell me the stuff he was working on.’ She tapped her pencil twice. ‘And don’t get too technical. Our readers want a good story, not a tutorial, but the technical stuff could help flesh him out a bit. Make him more than just a murder victim. Keep it simple, though.’

  That would be tough for Edgar. Things he considered common knowledge would be above most people’s heads. It was hard for the best of us to talk about things that we took for granted. One of the problems with the educational system in this country – if you ask me – is most subjects were taught by people who were always good in those areas. Math majors taught math, English majors taught ELA, and so on. They had problems understanding when others didn’t grasp something right away. Just because you know more than most people about a subject, doesn’t make you a good teacher. And Edgar was not so good at dumbing things down.

  Allison read the look on his face. ‘Just speak to me like I’m an intelligent person who knows nothing about what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Like the time we talked about baseball?’ he asked. ‘And you wanted to know how ERAs were calculated and slugging percentage?’

  ‘And that in-fielder’s flying thing.’

  For the first time since we’d arrived, Edgar laughed. ‘The in-field fly rule.’

  ‘That’s it. Just speak to me like that.’

  Before he got started, Royce came back. ‘They’ve notified Mr Joseph’s wife,’ he said to all of us. Then to Allison, he said, ‘You can use his name in your next report.’

  Allison nodded. ‘Edgar was just about to talk about MoJo’s knowledge of surveillance equipment. Are you done with your interview, Detective?’

  ‘For now, yeah. I’ll talk with Mr Joseph’s wife tomorrow.’

  ‘Can you give me a quote for my update?’ Allison held up her phone to record.

  Royce took a few seconds to think. He let out a deep breath. ‘One particular challenge we’re gonna face in this investigation – almost unique for us here in the city – is you can’t run ballistics on an arrow. There’s no shell casing to be found, and so far none of the neighbors have told us anything of real value. We’ll go back and knock on some more doors tomorrow.’ He reached out and finished his water. ‘That good?’

  ‘Great,’ Allison said. ‘For now. Thanks.’

  He offered his hand to Edgar, who took it reluctantly. ‘Thanks,’ Royce said. ‘I may have some more questions after we speak with Mrs Joseph. You want to exchange cards?’ They
did and then Royce reached into his wallet and pulled out a couple of bills.

  ‘It’s OK, Detective,’ I said. ‘We got this.’

  ‘Not while I’m on duty and still wanna keep my job, you don’t. Can’t take a free cup of coffee these days. Had to sit through a three-hour training session to re-learn that. And, apparently, I’m still not allowed to have sexual relations with witnesses or suspects.’ He put down a twenty and a five. ‘I’m sure we’ll be in touch soon.’ I guessed that was his way of saying goodbye, because he turned around and left the bar.

  ‘Guy’s a real stickler for the rules, huh?’ Edgar asked.

  ‘Not so much that he’s above conducting an interview here,’ I said.

  Edgar nodded. ‘Guess you’re right.’ He turned to Allison. ‘You ready for me to tell you about the business?’

  ‘Whenever you’re ready,’ she said.

  ‘MoJo was real up-to-date on all the German and Russian technology,’ Edgar began. ‘The Russkies still make a lot of the best stuff. He had recorders – audio – that could pick up clear audio from thirty-two feet away, worked on a timer, and could record on one battery charge for eighty-five hours. That’s over three-point-five days. We’re talking top-of-the-line.’

  I did my best to suppress a smile; Edgar loved talking in decimals. Most people would have said three-and-a-half days. Edgar was not most people.

  ‘We just bought some cell phone recorders. Voice-activated, up to six days’ storage, twenty-hour battery.’

  ‘Who’s the market for those?’ Allison asked. ‘No names, of course, but what was your typical client for something like that?’

  ‘Bosses who don’t trust their employees, jealous and suspicious spouses, parents who want to know who and what their kids are texting and talking to.’

  ‘Jesus,’ she said.

  ‘We even showed folks how to use an iPhone recovery stick. They’re a big seller. You can find where Junior or Hubby was going on their phone. Porn detection software’s a big seller.’ Edgar took another sip. ‘Most people think they’re going on the web, no one knows what they’re doing. Horse hockey. You can’t go online without leaving a trace. Privacy is an illusion.’ He paused, maybe considering that for the company’s motto. ‘I remember in high school we read 1984 and everyone, including the teacher, was talking about how scary it all was. I was the only one who thought it was pretty cool. And Orwell didn’t even imagine half the stuff we can do now.’