by Andrew Case
“Look, Len. It’s conspiratorial. You want me to say what, exactly? ‘Sources are looking at the community board?’ Hill and Associates is so desperate to put up condos that they have stooped to kidnapping the children of those who oppose them? And this is Hill and Associates, run by the daughter of McArthur Hill? You want me to go to my editor with that?”
Tony had always been a realist, an old-school tabloid gumshoe. Someone who got inside the hangar where they were reconstructing the airplane to write about where the hole in the fuselage really was. Who snuck into the morgue and counted the number of bullet holes in the body before comparing them to the autopsy. He wasn’t afraid to call out power. He wasn’t ashamed that his main goal was to put his own name on the front page. But he wasn’t naïve either. He wouldn’t just take Leonard Mitchell’s word for anything. They had done each other their share of favors. But there is a line that can’t be crossed, and Leonard knew it.
“Just mention in the article that Adam Davenport is on the community board. Play up that angle while you’re talking about who he is. You want to make him look prominent. Make it seem like he’s some kind of activist, fending off the developers.”
“You must have mistaken this office for the Times next door. I get eight hundred words. I don’t get to do a think piece on the victim’s politics.”
“You can fit it in. Look, Tony. Ralph Mulino has this case. The DCPI can feed you all he wants about what Missing Persons is doing. I’m sure they are knocking down doors. But the interview with Adam this afternoon was at OCCB. And it was done by Ralph Mulino. So you want to be the one who gets the call when there is going to be a handoff? When someone touches base and they are going to meet in the park and leave the boy and fifty officers are going to be hiding in the bushes to jump the offender? Then give us something now. We want to see if it gets any traction. If the person we are looking at blinks.”
It was a small lie, throwing that “we” out there, as though Ralph Mulino agreed with Leonard. As though Mulino even knew he was out here, bargaining with a reporter, promising he would be there when they caught a bad guy someday in exchange for a few inches of ink tomorrow.
But this was Tony Licata’s language, and his currency. You give a little to get a little. You slip a few lines into the story that don’t technically need to be there, and three days later you’re the one with the scoop on how it all went down. Every word in a tabloid story is there for a reason. They are written so close to the bone that there is no room for excess. So anything that seems like excess is in fact a favor that someone negotiated. Leonard knew that Tony gave and received favors with the best of them.
“And how is Ralph, nowadays?”
It was Leonard’s turn to be patient. “He’s good, Tony. He got his own squad. He made SDS. He supervises a couple of detectives. He was on the crane accident until Homicide concluded it had to be a murder and yanked it away from him.”
“Still playing second fiddle to someone else, then. Still can’t finish his own cases.”
“Well, he’s on this one now. And I think he’s going to finish it. Maybe if you throw him something that will help him close it out. Just a sentence or two. Where everyone else goes on about how his wife was the DIMAC commissioner, and how she was murdered, you put in who he is. What he’s been doing. Because what he’s been doing may be what got him in trouble.”
“You kill me, Leonard. I’ve got a very clean statement from the DCPI.”
“We’ll remember you.” Leonard patted Tony’s knee and stood up. He knew better than to think he would get a firm answer from Tony one way or the other. He had put in his pitch and he could open the paper tomorrow like everyone else to see what came of it. He wheeled out through the tiny hallway and onto the landing of the second floor of One Police Plaza, the broad staircase leading to the lobby ahead of him.
He saw a familiar figure coming out of the elevators. Detective Peralta. She had followed the Valiant case to Homicide. It had been only a few hours, but she looked different, like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. He noticed for the first time how attractive she was too, her high cheeks and thin lips suddenly visible, as she owned the room. He couldn’t help but stare at her from above as she turned past the bored cop at reception and out onto the dull plaza.
Mulino had told her to call Frauds. Likely the Homicide team had told her to come in person. The team would be canvassing now, doing things the old-fashioned way, looking for an angry friend hot-headed enough to kill Wade Valiant. Whatever she had found, she was proud of it. Leonard had to get back out to Brooklyn himself. He hurried down the stairs and trailed the detective, his head down just far enough that he would be able to deny seeing her if she spun around.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
It was a lovely little house. Detective Mulino stood on the sidewalk of Guilder Street and surveyed a whole street of lovely little houses. Stoop on the left, bay window on the right. There would be a short stairway underneath to a finished basement or a rental apartment. Before hitting the street, Mulino had looked up the property records. Forty houses had been put up over the course of twelve months in 1911, back when this part of Brooklyn was just being captured from farmland. The shuttle train had been put in and could take commuters to the bustle of downtown Brooklyn in fifteen minutes. The subway would come later.
Now the row houses looked quiet and stately, protected by their age. But when they had been put up, they were just as much of an eyesore to the local farmers as the condos were now. Probably there were complaints then about newcomers staking out houses, ruining the agricultural character of the neighborhood. Change comes quickly to Brooklyn, but over the long haul the same stories are told over and over again. Now it was the homeowners’ turn to complain.
Mulino double-checked his notebook. Stephanie Gray. Twenty-five Guilder Street. She was the leader of the group of protesters who was disrupting the community board meetings, someone who had no qualms about getting her own name in the paper. She had been gathering people to stand in the way of Eleanor Hill’s bulldozers, should the bulldozers ever come. It was the same movie that had been played out in Prospect Heights, where protesters had complained and stammered about building an arena on top of the old rail yard. The enormous Barclay’s Center, with two full blocks of thirty-story condominiums spiraling north from it, was a testament to how the story ends.
Stephanie Gray was not going to be happy being visited by a detective. Mulino didn’t have probable cause that any of the protesters, anyone on the community board, or anyone associated with Hill and Associates had anything to do with the disappearance of Adam Davenport’s son. But if the community board protesters were involved, Stephanie Gray would know. And the only way to get probable cause was to go ask questions.
As he climbed the steps, Mulino’s knee reminded him that it had been a long time since he had sat down with his leg propped up. His knee ached from a day of running from the hospital to OCCB and now back down here to Flatbush again. Since the promotion, he had been able to spend more time in the office. Not that he was lazy about it, but it was getting harder and harder to walk and run. He shook out the leg and rang the doorbell.
She opened it quickly. Mulino thought for a moment that she had been watching from the window. Stephanie Gray was a short woman in a broad African-print dress, graying hair tied back tight, her dark cheeks and chin soft and slightly plump. The softness of the skin made her look younger than she probably was. She had perfect posture and spoke slowly.
“What can I do for you, Detective?”
Mulino hadn’t taken his badge out. If she had been watching from the window she would have seen him in the Crown Vic with the four extra antennas coming out the back. Then again, some people can just tell. And Detective Mulino wasn’t under the illusion that he could fool anyone into thinking that he was anything but a cop.
“I’m Ralph Mulino. Can I come in?”
“Are you cold?”
Mulino didn’t care much for the song
-and-dance about getting into someone’s house. You can’t go in without probable cause unless they give you consent. But consent is a funny thing. Mulino once knew a traffic control officer who had stopped a guy for a broken taillight. The guy had been out of control, screaming that he was being racially profiled, that the cops thought he was buying drugs because he was a white guy driving through Harlem. He eventually shouted that, “You could take this car apart piece by piece and you won’t find any drugs in it!” That sounded like consent to Mulino’s friend, who proceeded to bring in a specialized team to take off the wheels, remove the seats, and lift out the radiator. It had taken them six hours in the end, and the guy was right: they hadn’t found any drugs. But when he sued the department, a judge agreed with Mulino’s friend that his angry outburst, on the face of it, consisted of consent to take the car apart. There was a moral there somewhere.
But this woman was too sly to accidentally give Mulino access to the house. So he had to play it carefully. “I’m a little cold, ma’am. But I just thought we’d both be more comfortable inside.”
“I am inside. I’m plenty comfortable. You can stand where you are.” She had opened the door wide enough to stand, but still had her hand on the handle. She could give up on him and close it at any moment. But closing the door could be suspicious. That could give him probable cause for something. He looked over her shoulder, hoping to see maybe a bong on a table or a gun on a dresser or a stolen Rembrandt on the wall so he could force his way in and sit down. Mainly he wanted to sit down because his knee was hurting.
“You heard about Adam Davenport?”
“The new guy? The professor with the kid? I know him.”
“But you haven’t heard anything.”
“I know he joined the community board. I know they came to their senses and voted against the towers they are trying to put in. He hasn’t bought his raffle tickets for the block party yet. But I don’t think you’re here about the block party.”
Mulino watched her eyes. He thought he was pretty good at telling whether or not someone is lying. But then again, so does everyone. The woman didn’t seem to be hiding anything. He’d play it slow just the same.
“You know he’s on the community board?”
“We went in last week to talk some sense to them. To tell them that enough is enough. There are six new buildings on Flatbush. We don’t need any more over here. Seems like eventually someone is going to listen. But they had us removed. They called the local precinct. Are you here investigating my complaint against the arresting officer who removed me from the community board meeting?”
“No ma’am. If you filed a complaint, you can talk to the investigator. Internal Affairs, DIMAC, wherever you went.” Mulino was cautioning himself not to react. She had probably complained that the handcuffs were too tight. No one has ever been arrested and failed to complain that the handcuffs were too tight. When you’re constantly yanking your arms while you’re cuffed, they certainly seem that way.
“I know better than to complain to the city about a city police officer. I complained to the state. I filed with the Attorney General’s office.”
“Then I guess you’ll have to follow up with them, ma’am.” Always ma’am. Always polite. Don’t give her a reason to accuse you of anything. It’s too important to keep the conversation going.
“So then what are you doing here, Detective? If it isn’t about my unjustified arrest last week.”
Mulino hadn’t seen an arrest when he had looked up Stephanie Gray. That meant that the precinct had voided it. They had removed her from the building and erased it from the system. They didn’t even bother to give her a Desk Appearance Ticket, not even a summons. Cops usually like to keep a record, even if all you’ve done is pee on the sidewalk. The guys at the precinct were either great friends of hers or afraid of her. Or maybe both.
“Mr. Davenport’s son went missing from school this afternoon. We’re just trying to talk to anyone who might be able to help us out.” That was the moment to keep his eyes on her. To see if there was any flash of recognition. To see if there was too much or too little of a reaction to the news. Stephanie Gray stared hard at the ground when she heard the news. She seemed to actually be distressed. But some people can fake that too.
“Oh, that’s—” She pursed her lips. “That’s awful.”
“So I’m just trying to see if anyone has seen anything. If anyone knows anything. He lives just halfway down the block.”
“Yes. Of course. I . . . I don’t know anything.” She was looking at her sandaled feet. Very still. Very quiet. Mulino thought he would wait her out. See if she offered anything before he pressed her. He took one step down from the stoop. To give her space, to give her the sense that he was about to leave her alone, even if he really wasn’t.
She stopped as he took a step and looked up at him. Searching in her eyes now. “Why did you come to ask me?”
“We’re talking to anyone we can.”
The woman stepped forward from her door. She looked left and then right. Down the row of houses going either way. “No you aren’t. I was in my window and saw. You came to my house the very first one. You could have canvassed the block. Why did you come to my house first?”
“We know there was some kind of incident at the community board meeting. I’m going to talk to everyone I can. I started here because we had heard there was some kind of conflict.”
The woman turned and pulled the door half shut. Mulino couldn’t see past her into the house anymore. “You came to talk to me because you think I might know something? You think that the fact that I want to protect my neighborhood and protect my house and keep developers from coming in here and sweeping away everything I have grown up with my whole life means I could harm a child? What is your theory? That I got arrested at the board meeting so I’m going to start kidnapping people’s children? Is that what you think of me?”
“We know there was some kind of dispute. Maybe you saw something. Maybe you saw someone acting strangely.”
“All of them on stage were acting strangely. Because they were preparing to destroy our neighborhood. I went in with my neighbors and we rallied for our rights and they had us arrested. And the handcuffs were too tight. You don’t fool me for a second. If a boy was kidnapped in Westchester I bet you wouldn’t go hassling the neighbors to intimidate them. To find some crime to arrest us for. This is reserved for the people of Flatbush, and don’t think we don’t know why.”
Mulino stepped down again. He wasn’t going to get any further with this woman. He happened to know a cop in Westchester who had investigated a kidnapping a few years ago. Three of the adjoining houses had in fact been searched basement to rafters, all of the owners white. But Mulino figured that telling that to Stephanie Gray wasn’t going to make any difference now. Like Peralta and Bruder at McArthur Hill’s church, Mulino had stepped into an immovable object.
At least, though, he kind of believed her. She hadn’t seen anything. She hadn’t done anything. He would continue up the block. He would talk to the other neighbors. He would check in with the officers who were guarding Davenport’s house itself. But he knew that this afternoon would not give him anything of value. A few more people would yell at him. A few more doors would be slammed in his face. And he would have to take it and smile, and he would be no closer to finding Henry Davenport than he had been the moment the boy had vanished.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Leonard stood in the lobby of his building and looked it over as though for the first time. It didn’t seem so bad: new paint, new tile, the mailboxes were clean and secure. But Leonard knew that was for show, to lure in new renters. They always kept the lobby up to date. And whenever an apartment would turn over, it would look nice too: a crew would come in to yank out the kitchen, install a new stove, lay hex tile in the bathroom. It would be hard for a renter to tell that the new cabinets would start to droop in six months, and the stove would fail within a year. Leonard knew. Once upon a time
his cabinets and his stove were new too. But that was life in the Ebbets Field Apartments.
Leonard had volunteered to look after Adam while the department hunted for his son. If someone really was after Adam, his house might be a target. Plus, the police had to keep the place secure to preserve evidence. Because—and they couldn’t tell Adam—no one was yet sure that he was totally in the clear. You cover all your bases. Adam had packed an overnight bag while a patrol officer stood guard. A couple of pairs of underwear, a toothbrush, and a short walk into a different world across Empire Boulevard.
Leonard looked over at Adam. His foot was tapping. He was nervous, and probably thought he was in a housing project. The elevator finally arrived, and Leonard stepped inside. Adam stood tapping his foot in the lobby, distracted.
“You can come on in, Adam.”
Or maybe Adam was tapping his foot because his son had vanished that afternoon. Leonard had to remind himself not to judge. Christine had seen something in the guy, after all. Leonard pushed the button for eleven.
“I’m sorry we have to do this. I know you’d feel more comfortable in your own home.”
“I wouldn’t feel comfortable anywhere. I want to go out and find him.”