The Fourth Angel

by Suzanne Chazin

  “You were a dispatcher,” she stammered. “I filed a complaint against you.”

  He yanked up her white blouse, now smeared with grime, and fingered her lace bra underneath.

  “I like the other bra better—the one with the little pink bow in the middle?”

  My green bag of laundry. That bra was in there. He has my clothes.

  “You sick son of a bitch!” she screamed, squirming out from under him and jerking her right knee up quickly into his groin. He grunted. She twisted her right hand from his grasp and poked her fingers deep into his eye socket. He shrieked, pushing her away from his face. It bought just a second or two, but that was all she needed. She rolled over to the pile of leaves and grabbed her gun.

  “Freeze, asshole,” she yelled, aiming her semiautomatic at him with both hands. “Face the rocks, hands above your head.”

  He did as he was told, but kept talking. “You beat me, Georgia,” he said hoarsely as she cuffed his hands behind his back. “That’s what you like, isn’t it? To beat men?”

  “Shut up.”

  “That guy you were dating? Back when you took the test to become a firefighter? You beat him too, didn’t you?”

  “Shut up, goddamnit!”

  “You got the job and he didn’t…and he dumped you big-time after that…left you to raise his kid…”

  “What the hell?” She could hear sirens somewhere in the park now. She sucked in a couple of deep breaths and tried to fight off the excruciating cramp in her side. Then she turned him around. The face was older, but even in the dim lamplight she recognized him now—after ten years, she still recognized him.

  “The fire department physical,” she mumbled, staring into his pale blue eyes. “You were in my recruit group. You dropped out after you hurt your ankle on the mile run—”

  “You tripped me, bitch.”

  “No, I…” Georgia frowned. “If I did, it was an accident…I don’t remember…” She massaged her forehead. “My God, Finney, you wanted to be a firefighter. You were a dispatcher. How could you set these fires? How could you kill sixty innocent people?”

  He leaned against the damp rocks, his face bathed in shadows, his hair backlit by a streetlamp twenty feet down the path. A small mocking exhale escaped his nostrils. She couldn’t see his eyes—only his icy smile when he spoke. “What makes you so sure I did?”

  39

  By the time Georgia, filthy and dazed, arrived at the Midtown North Precinct to book Ralph Finney, the television news vans were parked two deep, and dozens of reporters and cameramen were already on the scene. It seemed they’d put the case together before she’d even had a chance to make it.

  Although the NYPD’s bomb squad had indeed found an incendiary device under Annette Nolan’s car, Georgia was alarmed at the level of extrapolation in the news reports as she hustled Finney through the front doors. Somebody was leaking stuff she couldn’t even prove yet.

  “Preliminary word tonight is that the fire department has apprehended a suspect in a string of deadly arsons…

  “Fire department sources say the suspect, Ralph Finney, a former fire dispatcher, let go from his job for unspecified reasons last November, is likely to face charges for last Monday’s fire in SoHo that killed fifty-four people, including Nuance editor Rubi Wang and a firefighter…

  “No official word yet, but it appears New Yorkers can breathe easier tonight with the arrest of a serial arsonist…”

  Inside the station house, the scene was just as chaotic. Burly cameramen and newspaper photographers jostled one another and Georgia to get a good head shot of Finney. Men with freeze-dried hair and women with too much makeup—television reporters, Georgia guessed—paced the worn linoleum tiles and shouted into their cell phones. Lawyers tried to muscle their way to Finney and press their business cards into his manacled hands. Everyone else seemed to be sporting some kind of badge—FDNY, NYPD, FBI, ATF.

  Commissioner Lynch and Chief Greco were there. So was Brennan. The mayor was on his way. Georgia saw Gene Cambareri standing next to a vending machine, a Milky Way in hand, and began to walk over, as much for the candy bar as for word on whether Carter or Glassman had surfaced. She hadn’t eaten since early morning. The commissioner got to her first.

  “Congratulations, Marshal,” Lynch said, pumping her hand. “A superb collar. Superb. There’s just one thing troubling me.”

  “Me too, sir. Those reporters outside. They’ve got the story—”

  “My concern, Marshal, is why you’ve booked Finney only for the attempted murder of that female dispatcher. Are you waiting to get a search warrant for Finney’s apartment?”

  “Well, sir, I’d like to get a search warrant, yes. But—” Georgia looked over at Cambareri. He was licking the last of the Milky Way from his fingers. She could taste the caramel from here.

  “You’ll get your warrant before the weekend’s over, I promise,” said Lynch. “In the meantime, why not pile on the charges and let the district attorney sort it out later? Spring Street, especially. That’s the biggest charge of all.”

  “I would, Commissioner. Except I’m not sure he did it.”

  Lynch’s beady blue eyes scrunched up, leaving his jowls as loose and unresponsive to gravity as a water balloon. He smiled condescendingly, a small set of lips in a big, fat face.

  “And may I ask why, after days of convincing everyone that a serial arsonist was on the loose, you’ve had this sudden change of heart?”

  “Sir, I know this sounds crazy, but I think Finney may not be responsible for all—”

  “Skeehan,” he barked, then took note of the scores of cameras and reporters milling around the station house and softened his tone. “Ask him again,” he said tightly. “Until he gets it right.”

  Georgia found a sympathetic female police sergeant who loaned her some soap, shampoo, and a clean red sweatsuit. She showered quickly, then found Cambareri, Suarez, and Marenko in a small file room beyond the chaos of the precinct lobby. She closed the frosted glass door, shutting out the noise that seemed to resonate like a tuning fork through the old building.

  “Did you find Carter?”

  Marenko rose from a chair and spoke first. “No. What’s going on? Tell us the truth.”

  “Oh, there’s a good one,” said Georgia. “Coming from you—”

  “Skeehan,” Suarez interrupted, laying a firm but gentle hand on her shoulder. “We’ve been all over. We’ve got all-points bulletins out on Carter’s and Glassman’s vehicles. And we can’t find either of them.”

  “My bunions have bunions,” complained Cambareri. Suarez looked at Georgia levelly now. He was a compact man with warm brown eyes and the kind of soft-spoken demeanor that always calmed people down. “You’ve got to tell us what you know.”

  Georgia sighed. “Cassandra Mott, the pregnant victim from the Spring Street arson? She was Randy’s daughter…by a prior relationship.”

  Marenko fell back against a desk and cursed. “And you knew this?”

  “Not right away. And then Randy asked me not to—”

  “That was a dumb-ass rookie mistake, girl.” He slammed the desk for emphasis. “Rule number one: never work a case you’ve got a personal stake in. Carter knows better. And so should you. We’ve finally got our perp, and instead of celebrating, we’re baby-sitting—”

  “We don’t know for sure Finney’s our perp,” Georgia interrupted.

  “It’s looking mighty likely,” said Marenko. “Walter Frankel was able to match the guy’s right thumbprint with the print from that bucket bottom at Howard Beach. And Finney’s fire department medical records list his blood type as A positive—same as the blood found on that broken glass at the fire in Washington Heights. Suarez and I have already started the paperwork for a search warrant on his apartment. When that comes in, we’ll probably have all we need to make the case stick.”

  “Gee, Mac,” said Georgia dryly. “Thanks so much for letting me be a part of your investigation.”

  “H
ey, you screwed up with Carter. You think I’m gonna let you screw—”

  Suarez threw himself between them. “Cool it, you two. You’re both playing mind games. Meanwhile, Finney could be sitting in his holding cell, laughing his ass off because we’ve got that letter promising a big fire for Monday, and we don’t even know if he wrote it, let alone where that fire could be.”

  “You’re right, Eddie,” said Georgia. “We’ve got to get a formal statement from the guy before he lawyers up.”

  “And I think Gene and I should take it,” said Suarez. “Mac’s got his hands full with the evidence chain. And you had a problem with Finney when he was a dispatcher. Mac’s right, you know. You can’t get personally involved in a case.”

  Georgia glared at Marenko “Yeah. Good piece of advice, Mac. Never get personally involved. I’ll remember that.”

  The interrogation room had gray cinder block walls, bright overhead lights, and a scattering of molded, light blue plastic chairs. In the center stood an oatmeal-colored metal table, covered with graffiti. There were no windows, only a large one-way mirror. Behind it, in a darkened, soundproofed room, Georgia, Brennan, and Lynch observed the interchange.

  Suarez sat at the table, smoking a cigarette and drinking a can of Coke. Cambareri waddled about the small room, his belly hanging over his pants and straining at the buttons of his shirt, while he loudly slurped coffee and munched a stale doughnut that had been lying around the station house since this morning. Cambareri being Cambareri, he didn’t seem to mind.

  A police sergeant led Finney in, still dressed in his navy blue sweatshirt and black sweatpants, stained from their tussle in the tunnel. But he’d had a chance to wash his face and, for all the scuffling, looked surprisingly cool and handsome. Even with the cuffs on his wrists, he managed to lean forward and shake Suarez’s and Cambareri’s hands. If Georgia hadn’t interviewed Annette Nolan, hadn’t arrested Finney in the tunnel, hadn’t felt what she was certain was his hot breath on her neck last night in the car, she’d have sworn they’d gotten the wrong man.

  Finney sat down in a plastic chair opposite Suarez and smiled shyly at the trim, compact marshal with the coppery skin. Then he gestured to Cambareri, leaning against a wall. “You were a union delegate when you worked in One-thirty-eight Engine, weren’t you?”

  Cambareri reared back, astonished. “Yeah. How youse know that?”

  “My old man, Bob Finney, was head of the UFA for fourteen years.” The Uniformed Firefighters Association was the all-powerful New York City firefighters’ union.

  “Your dad was Bobby Finney?” asked Cambareri, nearly spilling his coffee down the front of his shirt. Suarez was staring wide-eyed, the ash from his cigarette burning a new pockmark in the table. Behind the one-way mirror, Lynch got up from his chair and stormed about furiously.

  “What the hell is this?” he boomed. “A high school reunion? The guy’s a friggin’ mass-murder suspect and he’s talking to Cambareri like they’re having a few beers in a bar after work.”

  Georgia said nothing, which was just as well. Brennan was ignoring her anyway.

  “It’s not gonna make a difference who we put in there, Bill,” said Brennan. “Hell, if this joker’s Bobby Finney’s son and he’s got that kind of memory, he probably knows every son of a bitch in the department, down to what size underwear they buy. Jesus, I knew Bobby Finney. This asshole probably knows me.”

  They turned their attention back to the interrogation room. Cambareri and Finney were laughing. Georgia flinched. She just hoped Suarez had the presence of mind to work this to their advantage.

  “Ralph,” said Suarez, his voice soft with just a trace of Spanish accent. “My man, you’re in a lot of trouble here…”

  Finney nodded and pursed his lips. “Yessir. I lost my head. A lover’s quarrel, it was. And…well.” He made a face. “I feel really bad about how it got out of hand.”

  Georgia leaned forward, confused.

  “A lover’s quarrel?” Suarez repeated.

  “Yessir. I wanted to break things off with Annette, and well…she started hollerin’ that if I did that, she’d make up stuff about me, make me lose my job. And”—Finney shrugged—“you know how much power these women carry in the department. I mean, look at you. You’re a class act. A guy with what? Ten years in rank? Fluent in Spanish, I’ll bet. Hardworking with a good conviction rate, right? And you’re taking orders from a political appointee with less than two years as a marshal, because she’s a woman.”

  Georgia seethed. She could see Suarez tapping a pen vigorously on his notebook. She couldn’t quite read his dark, deep-set eyes, the smooth planes of his face, the set of his muscular shoulders on his solid frame. Was there a shade of agreement there? Had Finney managed to touch a nerve? Gain some sympathy?

  Suarez took a puff of his cigarette, blinking away whatever emotions Finney had managed to call up from the recesses of his brain.

  “Where are we going with this, Ralph?” he asked evenly.

  “I’m telling you, sir, why I did such a stupid, impetuous thing. I stopped dating Annette, so she blackmailed me. And the department being the department, they took her word over mine. I lost my job, sir. I’d been a good dispatcher for eight years and I lost everything. I just wanted to scare her, that’s all. Not hurt her—just scare her…”

  Georgia blanched, replaying her conversation with Annette in her head. The woman had been somewhat evasive about the extent of her relationship with Finney. Georgia hadn’t pressed too hard. Now she wished she had. Was it possible Ralph Finney was telling the truth?

  In the interrogation room, Suarez seemed to wonder the same thing. He frowned. “Okay, Ralph. I see what you’re saying. But I’m talking more serious stuff even than that car bomb. I’m talking about those fires—the one in Howard Beach…the one on Spring Street…that warehouse in Washington Heights and those two vacants…”

  Finney leaned back in the molded plastic chair. “I didn’t set any fires.”

  Suarez held out his pack of Newport Lights and Finney declined. The marshal stubbed out his own, then licked his lips, stringing out the moment to make Finney as nervous as possible.

  “Your thumbprint was found on a bucket in the basement of that row frame in Howard Beach—”

  “My old man used to be a firefighter in the firehouse next door. I’m a housepainter. I gave him stuff all the time. Maybe he gave the super some of my leftover materials.”

  “Your blood type matches a smear on a broken window at that burned-out warehouse in Washington Heights. We can do the DNA, if it comes to that.”

  Finney cocked his head. He looked first at Suarez, then pleadingly at Cambareri. “Mr. Cambareri, sir, tell the marshal here. I didn’t set any fires.”

  “How about the letters?” Cambareri mumbled. “You write those letters, kid? Hide a camera and make that videotape at the VFW hall?”

  “The tape that was on the news?” Finney shook his head. “Why would I do that? I love the guys in Howard Beach. My old man worked there. I went to Sean Duffy’s wake…Went to school with his older brother.”

  Suarez pushed his notebook and pen across the table at Finney now. “Write something for us, Ralph, will you?”

  Finney stared at the blank page of notebook paper and licked his lips. His eyes were wide when he looked at the men. He tried to cross his legs, but a jingle of manacles made that impossible. “Why are you guys trying to frame me?” he asked softly.

  Cambareri put a fatherly hand on Finney’s shoulder. “Maybe youse didn’t mean to kill anybody, Ralph…”

  “No. That’s not it. Don’t you believe me, Mr. Cambareri?” When Cambareri didn’t answer, Finney looked down and kicked at an imaginary speck of dust on the floor. “I want to speak to an attorney.”

  Suarez’s eyes flicked to Cambareri’s. This was the moment every marshal—every cop—dreads. Once the suspect asks to speak to a lawyer, the game’s over.

  “You can do that anytime, my man,” Suarez said slo
wly, reasonably. “But then we gotta handle this whole thing differently, see? We gotta charge you with all these fires. Tell the press—the people in the FDNY who knew your dad—that you did this stuff. That’d be mighty embarrassing for your family, not to mention the stain it’d leave on your late father’s name and reputation.”

  Finney put his head in his hands. Georgia assumed he might be breaking down. It wasn’t uncommon at this stage of an interrogation, when a suspect was confronted with cold, hard evidence, for the person to break down and cry. But when Finney took his hands away, his expression was icy, almost serene. The eyes that just a minute ago had been so warm and seemingly sincere were now two little chips of hardened granite. The half smile on his lips was creepy enough to make Suarez push back from the table.

  “Go ahead, Marshal, sir,” Finney said softly, almost mockingly. “Tell them. Tell them anything you want. You’re the ones who are gonna look like fools—not me.”

  “How’s that?” asked Suarez.

  Finney leaned back casually in his chair now and studied his nails. “Well, here are the two scenarios as I see them.” His voice took on the same timbre it had last night in the car, Georgia noticed. A sort of flat, nasal tone, full of surface calm with only a fleeting hint of the menace beneath. He flicked dirt from his nails on the floor.

  “One is, you got the wrong guy. Oh, you got a few little damaging pieces of evidence, but you don’t have shit on the fire you really want—Spring Street—do you? And without that, all you’ve got is a guy with no criminal record who went a little overboard in scaring his ex-girlfriend. That ain’t gonna make your lady boss happy, is it? And since she’s got you and the whole friggin’ department by the cojones, you gotta do what she says, don’t you?”

  Georgia shifted uncomfortably in her seat behind the one-way mirror. She sensed Finney knew she was watching. She shot a sideways glance at Brennan, who was drumming his fingers tunelessly on the armrests of his chair. Even Lynch sneaked a look at her. Finney knew the right buttons to push. Suarez was fighting hard to stay in control. His jaw was clenched. His fingers were pressing so hard on his pen, they were white.