The Hook

by Tim O'Mara

  ‘I like that page.’

  She finished her coffee and got off the futon. ‘I’m gonna shower and then call Royce. Soon as I know he’s in, I’m heading over to talk about the Roman numeral thing.’ She looked at the clock on the laptop. ‘You gotta get going.’

  I stood. ‘Yeah. Call me later and let me know what Royce says.’

  ‘Will do, tough guy.’

  I brought her into a hug. ‘Holy shit, Allie. You are good.’

  ‘Say that one more time and you’re coming into the shower with me.’

  ‘That would make me late for school.’

  ‘What are you now? A Boy Scout?’

  ‘A horny Boy Scout who doesn’t want to get into trouble with the Scout Master.’

  ‘Just tell him you were getting laid in the shower.’

  ‘Then I’d have to explain to him what “getting laid” means.’

  She laughed, broke the hug and said, ‘Later then?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  I was heading back into the school after letting all the kids in when I saw my principal waiting for me at the top of the stairs, holding a rolled-up newspaper in his right hand. If I were a dog who had just taken a shit on his carpet, I would have been nervous. Now I was just curious. Ron doesn’t usually come out of his office this early.

  ‘Morning, Ron,’ I said as I reached the top step.

  ‘Ray. I guess you’ve been too busy to see the paper this morning?’

  Only my boss could make doing my job sound like a bad thing.

  ‘That would be a good guess, Ron. What’d I miss?’

  ‘There’s been another murder.’ He sounded like an Agatha Christie character.

  I wasn’t sure why he was telling me this. We lived in – well, I lived in – New York City. Things were always getting better, but there were hundreds of murders a year in New York City. Instead of asking why he was bringing this to my attention, I decided to wait. I didn’t have to wait long.

  ‘The police found some poor son of a bitch under the Williamsburg Bridge last night. Or early this morning. Sometime around midnight.’

  ‘Damn,’ I said. ‘That’s too bad.’ And …?

  ‘He was speared, Ray.’

  That got my attention. ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me,’ Ron said. ‘Speared. Like in the movies. Like how MoJo got shot by an arrow; this guy was speared.’

  And another victim had been axed. Tomahawked? Jesus.

  I didn’t know what to say, so I said, ‘May I see the paper?’

  He handed it to me and I read the article. No photos, but the reporter clearly stated – three times – that the victim had been speared. It was a through-and-through injury; the weapon had been left next to the body. The very last line of the article was the one that had Ron upset.

  Because of the manner of death, a police spokesperson said they were looking into a possible connection between last night’s homicide and the killing last Thursday of Maurice Joseph, who died as the result of an arrow shooting as he worked on the rooftop of a Brooklyn school building.

  I read the article again and then handed the paper back to Ron. There was, of course, nothing in the article about Roman numerals. I wondered if Allison had gotten in touch with Royce and how the conversation had gone. I also found myself wishing I were in that conversation.

  ‘If I get any calls from the cops or papers today—’ Ron began until I interrupted.

  ‘Transfer them to me,’ I said. I went up to my office and called Allison. It went to straight to voicemail. ‘Call me after you talk to Royce.’

  I was in my office preparing some faxes that needed to be sent to the district office by the end of the day when my walkie-talkie summoned me. It was Mary from the main office.

  ‘You have a Mr Henderson here to see you, Ray,’ she said. ‘He didn’t tell me what it’s regarding.’

  When I got downstairs, Henderson was on his cell phone, pacing outside the main office. He was wearing the same suit he had on the last time we talked. When he saw me, he said goodbye and stuck out his hand.

  ‘Mr Donne,’ he said, ‘I hope I didn’t take you away from anything important.’

  ‘Just paperwork,’ I said. ‘You know how that is. What’s up, David?’

  He looked around the hallway. ‘Can we talk?’

  ‘Yeah. Let’s go up to my office. I’ve got about two—’

  ‘How about outside the building?’ he said, more than a touch of paranoia in his voice. ‘Someplace we can have a cup of coffee or something.’

  OK. ‘Yeah. I know just the place.’ This was Williamsburg, after all.

  As we headed for the door, we saw Ron Thomas in the hallway. He’d already left his office twice in one day. Maybe he was checking for his shadow, signaling another eight weeks of school. When he saw me with Henderson, he walked over.

  ‘Everything OK, Ray?’ He eyed Henderson nervously. He probably thought Henderson was from the Department of Ed. Or worse. Another reporter.

  ‘Yeah, Ron. Just going out for a bit of fresh air with—’

  ‘David Henderson,’ David said, and then surprised me by taking out his official ID. ‘Special Agent, FBI.’

  ‘FBI?’ Ron repeated as if Henderson had just said ‘Citizen of Venus.’

  ‘What does the FBI have to do with us?’ I could see the possibilities running through Ron’s head – none of them were good.

  David didn’t miss a beat. ‘Ray and I are old friends. From his time on the job. We’re discussing a possible visit to the school. Part telling your students what the FBI does – community outreach kind of thing – and part explaining to them the path to a career with the bureau.’

  David Henderson. Olympic Gold Medalist in Lying.

  ‘That’s a great idea,’ Ron said. He looked at me. ‘This is the kind of thing I should know about, Ray.’

  ‘I wanted to speak with David first,’ I said, adding onto the lie. ‘I wanted to make sure it was a bit more … structured before presenting it to you.’

  Ron nodded thoughtfully. ‘I like it, Ray. Be good for the school’s image. Let me know what you come up with.’ He shook David’s hand again. ‘And thanks, Agent Henderson.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You not only lie well,’ I said as we walked down the outside steps, ‘you lie quickly. Makes me wonder if I should even ask why you’re really here.’

  ‘That is why I’m here,’ he said. We got to the sidewalk. ‘Which way?’

  ‘There’s a good coffee place a few blocks up. A bit trendy for my taste, but since the government’s paying …’

  A few minutes later, we got our coffees and decided to sit on the bench outside. Part of being a trendy Brooklyn coffee shop is having the mandatory bench outside.

  ‘What’s up, Special Agent Henderson?’

  He ignored that. ‘First off,’ he began, ‘I shouldn’t even be talking with you.’

  I stood. ‘That’s fine with me. I’m at work and have stuff to do.’ I took a step back toward the school.

  ‘Sit down, Mr Donne,’ he said. ‘Please.’

  I did. ‘I’m gonna tell you this once, David. I even smell you lying to me, I go back to my school and the first thing I do is call the New York field office and have a talk with your supervisor.’

  He took a deep breath. ‘I’m not here to lie to you.’

  ‘Says the guy who’s been doing a lot of that since we met.’

  ‘I understand why you feel that way and you have every right to. But I’m here to come clean.’ He paused. ‘I also need your advice.’

  An FBI agent needs my advice? Take that, Mrs Fletcher.

  ‘Talk to me.’

  After a sip of coffee, he said, ‘I wasn’t completely honest with you about my relationship with Maurice Joseph.’

  I smirked. ‘No shit.’

  ‘He was working with me on gathering intel on Duke Lansing. What I should have added is that I do have someone on the inside. The problem is, I’m not sure how mu
ch I can trust him, which is why I asked Maurice for help.’

  ‘I asked you the last time we spoke,’ I said. ‘What did you have on MoJo that would make him do something so risky?’

  ‘Nothing on him, really.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  He took another sip. ‘I’ve got information that someone at Newer Leaves is distributing heroin.’

  ‘To the residents?’

  ‘And others. I’m not proud of this, but I used Maurice’s attachment to Newer Leaves as … leverage to get him to help me with Lansing.’

  I looked at my feet. ‘You telling me that you promised not to investigate the info about someone dealing at Newer Leaves if MoJo went along with your plan? You knew how much that place meant to him and how far he’d go to protect it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  I looked him in the eyes. ‘Your lack of pride here is well deserved, David.’

  ‘What I didn’t know was Maurice would look into who was doing what at Newer Leaves by himself. He found out stuff he then shared with me. Info I did not have.’

  I thought back to the spy pen that MoJo had used to record Eddie Price. We had originally considered the very real possibility that MoJo didn’t know he was recording at the time, that he was just using the old piece of technology as a pen. That didn’t seem to be the case anymore. Not if MoJo were up at Newer Leaves looking for a possible drug dealer. I kept that to myself for now.

  But it was my turn to reveal something. ‘Does it have anything to do with bags of heroin with double-eights on them?’

  ‘How the fuck did you—?’

  At the risk of sounding like a cliché, I said, ‘I have sources, too.’

  ‘You know he had them in his possession at the time of his death?’

  And in his system.

  ‘Yes. Did he tell you where – or who – he got them from?’

  ‘No. But I have someone looking into it.’ Me, too.

  ‘So I’m guessing,’ I said, ‘that you are now thinking MoJo’s murder probably did have something to do with the work he was doing for you or what he found up at Newer Leaves.’

  He gave me a pained look. ‘That is a distinct possibility, Mr Donne.’

  ‘Distinct? What other conclusion can you come to, Agent?’

  ‘If you asked me that question yesterday, I would have said it was more than a distinct possibility. It was the conclusion I was working on.’

  ‘What happened between yesterday and now?’

  Another pause, another sip. ‘You hear about the DB they found by the river last night? The spearing victim?’

  DB: cop-talk for dead body. Another way we distanced ourselves from the ugliness the job often threw our way. ‘I just read about it in the paper.’

  ‘There was also a guy killed by an ax the week before Maurice was killed. The police are saying a blunt instrument, but a guy I know said it was an ax of some sort.’

  I stayed silent. There was no need to tell him too much of what I already knew. The more he told me, the better.

  ‘Are you saying they’re all connected?’

  ‘I think we may have a serial killer out there is what I’m saying.’

  Whoa. This was turning into a movie.

  ‘Go on,’ I said.

  ‘We have three murder victims all killed in uncommon ways. More so to the fact, they were all murdered by what we can consider Indian – Native American – weapons. An ax, an arrow, a spear.’

  ‘That sounds like a connection to me.’ And he didn’t seem to know about the Roman numerals. ‘You speak to Royce about your theory?’

  ‘Not yet.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I wanted to bounce it off you first.’

  I was about to ask why me, but I knew. ‘Keeping it on the down low and doing a sanity check?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  I took a sip of coffee and went over everything Henderson had just told me. It must have been a minute before I spoke.

  ‘You need to go to Royce with the serial killer theory,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t sound crazy, but it does seem to argue against MoJo’s getting murdered because of the work he was doing for you or what he found out about Newer Leaves.’

  ‘I thought of that. They can’t all be true.’

  ‘And keep the connection to Newer Leaves between us right now. If it was important enough to MoJo to keep that from getting out, I want to respect that. Let me ask around up there. I met some of the folks the other day at the memorial.’

  Henderson let out a breath I didn’t know he was holding. ‘I appreciate that, Ray. Keep in mind, though. I’m purposely not asking you for anything but advice here.’

  ‘I hear ya, David. And there might come a time when Royce needs to know about what may or may not be happening at Newer Leaves. Now is not that time.’

  ‘Right.’

  With nothing more to say, I stood and looked down at Special Agent David Henderson. ‘How’s your ass, by the way?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I’m guessing after Royce called your boss, you got chewed out a bit. On the rare occasion that happens to me, it’s usually in the region of my buttocks.’

  He laughed and stood with me. ‘Not too bad, I guess. My boss, she’s not too happy with me, but she seemed to understand. Let’s just say I’m on a bit of a tight leash for the foreseeable future.’

  ‘I’ve been there,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not surprised.’

  I pulled my phone out and checked the time. I had to get back to school. I also asked him to keep me in the loop. I thought I deserved that much. He agreed and shook my hand.

  ‘I’m sure we’ll be in touch soon,’ he said. ‘This whole “keeping you in the loop” thing works both ways, right? You’ll let me know what you find out?’

  ‘Roger that,’ I said and went back to work, leaving him to finish his coffee.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ‘Uncle Ray.’ I had just sat down for the first time that day and was about to enjoy a lunch of rice and beans from the Dominican place down the block. ‘You’re not changing Easter plans on us, I hope?’ Secretly, I hoped he was calling to tell me Easter plans had been canceled. Jesus coming back to life and a big bunny hiding eggs wasn’t a holiday; it was a network sitcom.

  ‘You know what really infuriates me about you, Nephew?’

  ‘I could guess,’ I said, adding some hot sauce to my beans. ‘But that would take too long, so why don’t you tell me what it is.’

  ‘You were such a good fucking cop, who has unfortunately decided his time would be better spent teaching kids who are just gonna end up dealing with the authorities someday.’

  I agreed with half of what he had just said. He had conveniently left my injured knees out of his assessment. ‘Thanks?’

  ‘You were right about your boy Gator.’

  ‘How so?’

  I could hear the frustration in his breath as he let it out. I believe it truly bothered him that I was right sometimes. ‘I had some of my guys check around the houses the other day. Where Gator lives?’

  That was more than I had asked him to do. ‘And …?’

  ‘And they found the knucklehead who gave the stuff to Gator to hold.’

  ‘How’d they do that?’

  ‘Good old-fashioned shoe leather and knocking on a shitload of doors. And let’s just say the guys I had go over there were not sent because they’re overly polite.’

  I chose not to pursue that. ‘OK. Who was he? What’d the guy say?’

  ‘Knucklehead’s name doesn’t concern you. What does concern you – and by that I mean mind your own fucking business and leave it to Royce – is that he told my guys “some white guy in a pimped-out pickup” came up to him, asked if he knew Gator, and when he said he did, gave him a bag and five bills to give the bag to Gator.’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘The guys asking didn’t know Gator by name. Just what apartment he lived in and the whole overbite thing, right?’

  ‘Right.’

 
‘So our guy has no idea what this is about and figures he’s doing Gator a favor and making five hundred at the same time, what’s to lose?’

  ‘So he didn’t know Gator was being set up?’

  ‘Not that he said and he woulda said because my boys really sweated the guy, Raymond. I think our guy just got blinded by the easy five bills.’

  ‘So whoever gave … the knucklehead the bag more than likely called the cops on Gator. Told them he was holding.’

  ‘There ya go again, Raymond,’ my uncle said. ‘Acting like a smart cop.’

  ‘Any idea who the generous donor was?’

  ‘Not as of yet. We have the nine-one-one recording about Gator, traced the call to one of the few working payphones on the avenue, and our messenger didn’t think to pay attention to the license plate of the vehicle.’ Uncle Ray paused. ‘He did say it was red, though. With high headlights.’

  ‘That’s a big help. What happens now?’

  ‘I told you, Nephew. I gave the info to Royce and you’re to stay out of it. My guess is he’s gonna interview the knucklehead himself, check for any surveillance video featuring a redneck pickup truck and keep his fingers crossed. I’m just calling because as much shit as I give you when you do stuff like this, I wanted you to know you were right and to tell you again what a damn shame it is you’re not a cop anymore.’

  ‘I meant what happens to Gator now?’

  ‘Royce is gonna try and have a chat with him and his lawyer tomorrow. Royce called the ADA and it sounds like they’ll be able to reduce the charges to something like being dumb enough to take a bag from someone you hardly know.’

  ‘Is that enough to get him out of Riker’s?’

  ‘Everything goes right? My guess is in a few days. Ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law, but your boy did come up with some important information. That’ll play well with the judge and I don’t see a real problem here.’

  I thought about that. ‘So nothing yet on the vehicle or the guys who dropped off the bag?’ That was met with silence from my uncle. ‘What is it, Uncle Ray?’

  ‘The kid who took the bag and passed it to your boy?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Said the guy had a tattoo on the back of his hand.’

  ‘Really,’ I said. ‘Of what?’