Black Velvet

by Steven Henry

  The newspaper fell from her fingers. “What the hell?” she murmured in disbelief. Her mouth hung open at the sight of the front page headline.

  ALLEGED COP-KILLER SLAIN IN SHOOTOUT

  Last night, just after midnight, the Queens ESU Tactical Unit stormed an apartment after receiving an anonymous tip that a suspected armed robber and slayer of an NYPD officer was present. A massive manhunt has been underway for Jacob Gallagher, 24, suspected in the daring heist of a Renaissance painting from the Queens Art Museum. Officer John Brunanski, 46, was mortally wounded when he attempted to thwart the robbers’ escape. Mr. Gallagher is alleged to have worked with several accomplices, all of whom are now in police custody, according to a source in the department.

  The same source states that the Tactical Unit acted on a so-called “no-knock warrant,” meaning they broke forcefully into the apartment without warning. The details of the incident are still undergoing departmental review, but the source states that Mr. Gallagher brandished a pistol. The Tactical Unit officers fired rather than risk further police casualties.

  Mr. Gallagher was taken to Queens Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival from multiple gunshot wounds.

  The NYPD is expected to release a press statement this morning. At the moment, the location of the stolen painting remains unknown, as does the identity of the officer or officers who fired the fatal shots. Per standard police procedure, those officers involved have been placed on administrative leave pending internal review of the shooting.

  “A source in the department,” Erin muttered. “I’ll bet I know who. Detective goddamn Spinelli.” She banged a fist on the table. The toaster ejected two pieces of crispy toast as if in answer. She knew how this was going to go. Her dad always said the right way to fight a war was to declare victory and go home. From Homicide’s perspective, the case was now closed. Four men had participated in the shooting. Three had been arrested, one was dead. Simple enough.

  But it wasn’t that simple. The painting theft would be kicked over to Central Robbery Division, but they had a huge backlog of cases. It wouldn’t be their chief priority. And where was the Madonna? Who had set up the heist in the first place? Erin ate quickly, dressed, and took Rolf outside. While he sniffed at fire hydrants and signposts, she tried to think.

  The thieves must have already made delivery of the painting. That meant two things: one, that the mastermind was going to be hard to catch, especially if Gallagher was the only one who’d dealt with him; and two, if the police did manage to find the boss, they’d have incontrovertible evidence in the form of the painting itself. But to find that, they’d need a name and a search warrant, and that’d be hard to come by, especially now that the urgent pressure to catch the cop-killer was off.

  The only real hope was that one of the other thieves, those still breathing, knew something the DA would be willing to trade for a sentence reduction. Otherwise, it was a dead end, the threads of the investigation neatly snipped off.

  Erin paused, pulling Rolf up short on his leash. The Shepherd looked quizzically at her. “What if…” she began, trailing off into silence. Her partner waited patiently.

  “It’s awfully convenient,” she said at last, “that an anonymous caller happens to bring the cops down on the last fugitive. Our guys went in primed for action. It doesn’t take much to get a cop-killer shot. A tip that he’s armed and dangerous… it’s practically a setup for murder-by-cop.”

  That didn’t prove anything by itself. Lots of cases broke on the basis of anonymous tips. That was one reason it was so important for a police force to be on good terms with the community it was trying to police. But still, it bothered her. The whole thing was just a little too tidy.

  “Okay, boy,” she said to Rolf. “Time to go back to work.” It was Sunday, and her shift didn’t start until Monday morning, but she was going in to the office. She needed access to the precinct, and with the press conference about to happen, she knew Lyons and Spinelli would be otherwise occupied for a while.

  She stepped back inside for a moment, strapping on her Glock just in case. Then she was moving.

  * * *

  Erin was right about the precinct. There were a lot of cops and reporters around, but they were all clustered in the press room. The watch sergeant nodded a greeting to her, but she didn’t meet anyone else as she headed for the computers. She didn’t rate her own desktop machine, but Patrol Division had a few communal computers. She slid into a chair and started typing.

  She knew she was risking her job. She’d been explicitly ordered off the case by the ranking detectives. She was interfering with an ongoing investigation. But Erin didn’t care. She needed to see this through.

  “Sitz, Rolf,” she said, signaling him to a spot behind her chair. They had the room to themselves for now. If someone else showed up, Rolf would give her at least a little warning.

  Erin brought up the case file on the Brunanski killing. She didn’t have full access, but she scanned the information she could see. It wasn’t much. She swore softly. There was only one thing she was really looking for, and it was sealed off in files only the case officers could get at. If she wanted those files, she needed to get into the Detective Bureau and onto Spinelli’s computer.

  She couldn’t break into the Bureau. That wouldn’t just get her fired; it could get her jail time. There had to be another way.

  She drummed her fingers on the base of the keyboard, willing herself to think, damn it. Her dad, as straightforward a cop as ever there was, had told her, “You don’t want to bang your head against a wall if you don’t have to, kiddo. Go around the problem. There’s no point kicking down a door when there’s an open window just around the corner.”

  What she needed was a phone number. She couldn’t get it from the case file. But maybe she could get it from the other side. She punched up the log of Dispatch calls. She had to look for patterns, since she could only see the numbers themselves, not the names attached to them. She could ask Dispatch, but that would put her on the record.

  Erin didn’t know exactly when the anonymous call had come in, but she knew what to look for. The moment it happened, the phone net would have caught fire. Calls would have gone out to Tactical, Detective Bureau, Patrol Division, the Precinct Captain’s office, everybody. So she just needed to find the call that had opened the floodgates.

  Nothing was ever that easy. Though she could see a massive spike in internal call volume Saturday evening, the 911 line for a city as big as Queens was constantly in use. Restricting herself to calls which had come in less than ten minutes before the alert went out, she still had half a dozen possibilities. And that was actually fewer than she could’ve expected. Erin sighed and brought up her reverse directory and an online map of Queens.

  Two calls were from private residences. She checked the addresses against her directory. They appeared to be from ordinary citizens in blue-collar neighborhoods. Three others were from cell phones. If any of them were prepaid burners, they might be what she was looking for. But the sixth call had come from a pay phone. That by itself was unusual, in this day of smartphones. Erin was always a little surprised that phone booths still existed. She checked the reverse directory to locate the booth.

  “Huh,” she muttered, sitting back in her chair. “How about that.”

  She’d been expecting the booth to be on the street, near the apartment where Jake Gallagher’s life had ended. But it was a phone in the lobby of the Crowne Plaza Hotel, next to JFK Airport.

  Erin did a quick cross-check and saw that no police had responded to the Crowne Plaza. Whatever had led someone to call 911 from the hotel, it hadn’t resulted in any officers showing up there.

  “That’s gotta be it,” she told Rolf, who looked suitably impressed with her police work. “So how does someone at the hotel know about an armed fugitive hiding out in an apartment halfway across town?”

  The problem was, the call had come from a lobby phone. Anyone could have made the call, including a
guest, or someone just passing through on their way…

  “On their way to the airport,” she whispered. “No. Dammit, no!”

  Erin leaped out of the chair and ran from the room. Rolf scrambled to his feet and trotted after her. As she sprinted out of the station toward her car, she glanced at the clock above the front desk. It read 8:50.

  “Where’s the fire, O’Reilly?” the watch sergeant called after her. She didn’t bother to answer. She might already be too late.

  * * *

  Erin took the Long Island Expressway to the Van Wyck Expressway. Thanking God for the light early-Sunday traffic, she flipped on her flashers and siren, pushing the Charger as hard as she dared. Other drivers made rude gestures at the police cruiser, in typical New York fashion, but they got out of her way. Rolf, in his quick-release box, was alert and attentive. They were chasing something, and he wanted a piece of the action.

  She exited to Van Wyck Boulevard and throttled down to a speed that was only a little bit crazy. Her tires squealed as she hung a hard left onto 133rd Avenue and crossed the Expressway eastbound. She took another sharp turn, south on 140th Street, and hurtled down the residential street. She and Rolf both noticed a woman walking a German Shepherd who paused to stare at them. Then she was coming up on the turn to 135th Avenue and the hotel. She put on the brakes and turned off the lights and siren. It wouldn’t do to scream into the hotel parking lot like a demon if her quarry was still inside.

  She parked, released Rolf, and jogged across the lot to the hotel lobby. As she reached the doors, she remembered that she wasn’t in uniform. She’d dressed in her usual off-duty clothes, slacks and a dark blue blouse. At least she had her shield and gun.

  The clerk at the front desk looked fresh-faced, clean-scrubbed, and helpful. “Good morning, ma’am!” he said brightly. “How may I—”

  She cut him off by holding up her wallet, flashing her shield. “NYPD, sir. I need to see your guest list right away.”

  His smile faltered. “Ma’am—officer—I really need to talk to my manager about this. If you could just hold on a moment, I can call him and—”

  “We have reason to believe a dangerous fugitive is currently staying here,” she interrupted. “I need to see the list now.”

  “I don’t know,” the clerk said, blinking rapidly. “I think I’m supposed to see a court order, or a warrant, or something.”

  Erin held her rising temper in check. “I just need to know if the guy’s still here, or if he’s checked out.”

  “Certainly, ma’am,” he said, recovering a bit. “What’s the name?”

  Erin froze. She still didn’t know who she was chasing. Thinking quickly, and running down her list of suspects, she said, “He could be using an alias. He could be under Adlai Martin, Roy Atkins, Phineas Van Ormond… or Schenk. Rudolf Schenk.”

  “Just a second,” the clerk said. He was much happier to look for specific names than to give unfettered computer access to a cop without official paperwork. His fingers clicked rapidly on the keyboard, but to Erin the time dragged agonizingly.

  “I don’t see…” he said. Erin closed her eyes and lowered her head. “Wait!”

  Erin’s heart skipped a beat.

  “Got it!” he said triumphantly. He pivoted the monitor and showed it to her. There was a familiar name.

  “Yes, good, great,” Erin said. “Has he checked out yet?”

  “No. He’s still there. Looks like he called up room service just a few minutes ago. I guess he’s having breakfast in his room.”

  “What’s the room number?” Erin demanded.

  “He’s in one of the Executive Suites,” the clerk said. “On the tenth floor, Room Ten-oh-Five. Ma’am, please don’t cause any trouble here. We need to preserve our reputation and—”

  Erin was already halfway to the elevator, Rolf right beside her.

  Chapter 19

  Erin spent the elevator ride thinking about her next move. The main question was, should she call for backup? On the one hand, this could be the most important bust of her career. If something happened to her, the mastermind would get away. At the moment, she was the only cop who had any idea what was going on. But what was going to happen? She was on her way to confront an art collector, not a desperado. And she had her partner with her. She looked fondly down at Rolf, wondering whether any human partner would have followed her into this mess as willingly. And she was supposed to be off the case. If she called backup, there’d be a lot of explaining to do. Besides, what if she was wrong? What if she called in the cavalry for nothing?

  The elevator bell chimed as the car came to a smooth stop. She unconsciously put her hand on the butt of her Glock. But this was a highly-rated New York hotel, not a gang’s headquarters. There were no thugs standing guard in the hallway. In fact, it was totally empty. The style of décor was modern and off-putting to her working-class sensibilities, all cold grays and whites with the occasional splash of brilliant crimson. The carpets had an odd design of black lines on gray, forming geometric patterns that reminded her of spider webs.

  She moved down the hall, checking room numbers until she came to 1005. The door was closed, of course, and she couldn’t help but smile at the little white “Do Not Disturb” sign in the keycard slot.

  Erin raised her hand to knock, and then hesitated. What was the best way to do this? Play it cool, pretend not to know what was going on, get invited in? What reason could she give for being there? No, he’d remember she was a cop. And without a warrant, she couldn’t legally enter the room without permission. She needed probable cause, and at the moment, she didn’t have it.

  She could just kick the door in and storm the suite. That was if she wanted to end the day without her shield, her gun, or her future, having traded them all in for a couple of lawsuits the perp and the Crowne Plaza would have filed against the New York Police Department. The case would be thrown out before she could see straight.

  She looked down at Rolf again and had to laugh at herself. She was a K-9 officer, all right. She’d come up against that most insurmountable of obstacles to even the best-trained dog—a closed door.

  Her best bet was probably to find a place where she could watch the door and just wait. He couldn’t stay in there forever, and she had nowhere else to be. Follow him downstairs, or better yet, get in the elevator and take him quietly into custody. After all the rush and hurry to get to the hotel, it went against everything in her gut, but maybe patience was what was called for.

  Erin turned to retreat, and then paused. The inquisitive little girl in her made her lean carefully against the door, pressing her ear to the wood. She didn’t expect anything, maybe the sound of the TV, but she was hoping to hear something that would convince her the suspect was still inside.

  She heard a voice. It was guttural, harsher, and definitely angry. And it belonged to Rudolf Schenk.

  “—sort of man do you think me? You think this is about the money? It was never about the money!”

  Another voice answered, much more quietly. She couldn’t make it out, but thought it had an English accent. In any case, Schenk didn’t let the other finish.

  “Yes, I know you will run now. But I was right about you, Herr Doktor. I told the police Fräulein of my suspicions.”

  “You did what?”

  Those words were loud enough for Erin to recognize the other speaker. It was Phineas Van Ormond, and his voice had lost its cool.

  “Ja, I spoke with her yesterday. She is more clever than I thought, and more clever than you, I think. She will find you out, and—”

  Apparently Van Ormond had heard enough, because the next sound Erin heard, even muffled by the door, was unmistakable. It was the crack of a pistol shot. Schenk’s voice cut off into a grunt.

  Erin jumped back from the door, one hand instinctively reaching for a police radio that wasn’t there, the other unsnapping the safety strap on her Glock. She drew the gun, chambered a round, and held it pointed at the door while she backed away
and fumbled out her phone with her left hand. She keyed Dispatch on speed-dial without a moment of hesitation. The equation had just changed. She now had probable cause, an armed felon, and a man who was either dead or wounded on the other side of the door. The cavalry couldn’t get there fast enough for her.

  “Dispatch.”

  “Officer O’Reilly, shield four-six-four-oh,” she said, speaking quickly and quietly. She took a breath and ran through the list of signal codes. “I’ve got a 10-34S at the Crowne Plaza, Room ten-oh-five. This is a 10-13Z. Suspect is Van Ormond, Phineas.” The codes indicated a violent assault in progress, with shots fired, and an officer in civilian clothes requesting assistance.

  “Ten-four, O’Reilly,” came Dispatch’s unflappable answer. “Units inbound, ETA five to ten.”

  “I also need a 10-54S forthwith,” Erin added, indicating a serious ambulance case. “Am entering to render assistance.”

  “Ten-four, O’Reilly,” Dispatch said again. “Exercise caution.”

  Erin wasn’t about to exercise anything but her leg. She gauged the distance to the door, cocked her foot, and kicked the door right next to the knob. She’d been hoping for cheap veneer over hollow core, but this door was exactly the hardwood it appeared to be. She could no more kick it to pieces than she could punch through a brick wall. Fortunately, the doorframe was another story. Erin was glad she wasn’t bursting into a drug den. Those guys knew how to reinforce a door. This hotel was built for show, so the guests could feel the reassuring solidity of the door as they closed it for the night. The receiving slot for the latch and lock was held in place by a thin strip of wood that gave way at once, tearing completely free of the wall and flying into the room in a shower of splinters. The door swung open so hard it hit the wall and began to bounce back again.