by Steve Richer
“Get back to One Police Plaza, Detective Beecher. You need to be here as soon as possible.”
“Okay, anything I should know before I walk in there?”
“It’s about Butterfield. I’ll explain at the office.”
The line went dead and he explained to Emma what was going on. She did a token cleanup of her kitchen and two minutes later they were in his car, pulling away from her apartment.
When they hit a red light, Donnie decided he couldn’t stop thinking about his daughter. He pulled out his phone and called Sierra, landing on voicemail again.
“Sierra, it’s dad. Call me back as soon as you get this message, okay? You know I don’t like it when you don’t return my calls, right?”
He was about to tell her he’d cancel her phone plan, but that would probably just convince her not to come back. Instead he wrote her another text, asking her to get in touch.
“Is anything wrong with your daughter, Donnie?”
“No, no, she’s fine. She’s skipped curfew before. I’m telling you, don’t get teenagers. Babies are amazing, toddlers are okay, kids in general are fine. But once they reach twelve, thirteen, forget about it. Give them up for adoption, that’s my advice. It’ll save your life.”
Despite his words, he was getting worried a little. He decided to listen to Nicole’s voicemail but there was no information there.
“Donnie, it’s Nicole. Call me back.”
He recognized that neutral tone. She was luring him in, but she would chew his head off as soon as he called, he knew it and he wasn’t about to fall into her trap. He put his phone back in his pocket.
“What do you think is going to happen with your family?” Emma asked.
“I don’t know. My marriage is officially over, that’s for sure.”
“You want me to offer advice?”
Donnie groaned and tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “I have a feeling you’re going to anyway. Is it part of the Nun Special Counseling package?”
“I think you should apologize.”
“Apologize?! I wasn’t the one holding another man’s hand and snuggling against him?”
“You said last night that you cheated on her once.”
“Yeah, once being the operative word. It never happened again. She’s been doing it for at least a year! If anything, she’s the one who should be apologizing.”
Emma didn’t reply and it was fine with him. He turned up the volume. Talk radio was all over the Pope’s death.
While he’d been blitzed out on whiskey last night, the US Attorney, State Department, and Police Commissioner had held a press conference to reveal that they were investigating this death as a homicide. Now every conspiracy nut in the country was on fire, if the radio show was any indication.
He didn’t speak to Emma again and soon they crossed into Manhattan. The traffic didn’t bother him this morning. The day was beautiful and he chose to focus on that instead everything else around him.
“Donnie?” she began softly as they approached Allen Street. “What if your wife dies?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if her cancer comes back? What if she dies? How will you feel if you never apologized?”
He didn’t have any answer to that. He said nothing at first, wanting Emma to stew in her own uncomfortable question, but something occurred to him.
“I’ve always been afraid of dying, Emma. I always thought, what if I go to work one day, corner some jacked up tweaker, and I end up dead? Back in the day, when me and Nicole were doing okay, I thought about this all the time. I…”
“What?”
He took a deep breath, pursed his lips, and accepted the agony that came with what was on in mind.
“I didn’t want Nicole to suffer through this, okay? I didn’t want my wife to be one of those widows with a folded flag. Thinking about that ate me up. I think… I think maybe that’s why I let our marriage slip away. It was the easiest solution. You decrease the love, you decrease the pain.”
Fuck, had he really said that out loud? It had been on his mind for months, but he had never mentioned it openly, not even to himself. He pretended his nose was itchy and wiped off his eyes. He gave Emma credit for noticing and not saying anything.
“I’m not afraid of dying,” she said.
“Good for you. You’re gonna go to heaven with St. Peter, the pearly gates, little angels, and the puffy white clouds.”
“I don’t know what heaven looks like, but I’m okay with puffy white clouds. I’m not looking forward to dying, but I’m not afraid of it. Still, I want to make sure of one thing first. I want to make sure I made a positive difference in the world before I die.”
Donnie snorted. “That’s nothing but self-help church bullshit, Emma. It’s nothing but make-believe for adults.”
They didn’t speak again until they reached One Police Plaza and went upstairs. When they got to the task force conference room, Special Agent Garza sprung up from his chair and met them at the door.
“What’s up?” Donnie asked.
“Perry Butterfield has a federal file after all.”
“You said the FBI didn’t vet him.”
“We didn’t, but he’s in the system. He has a DEA file.”
Donnie followed him to the conference table where the man grabbed a folder.
“It so happens that Butterfield used to be in the drug business and later turned confidential informant for the DEA. It’s why it took me and my boss all night to tear off all the red tape on this.”
“Jesus Christ…”
“The DEA didn’t want anybody to know that a guy who was basically one of their own is involved in this.”
“Jesus Christ,” Donnie said again. “How long did they intend to keep the lid on this? This changes everything.”
He had considered getting himself a cup of coffee but now it was the last thing on his mind. The puzzle had just gone from forty pieces to five hundred pieces. Why had a known criminal been personally recommended by someone at the Vatican for this job?
Had this been a professional assassination?
Chapter 21
Donnie wasn’t sure if the air conditioning was on the fritz or if he was getting stressed out. Whatever it was, he felt hot and he loosened his tie. He then realized the room was especially crowded.
With the homicide investigation cranking up, it seemed like everybody on the task force wanted to claim having worked on the case. They wanted time on the field, anything to advance their careers even if they weren’t needed here. Among others, there was Undersecretary Crim from the State Department, Rivers from US Customs and Border Protection, and even Knuth from the NYPD Transit Bureau.
“I want another office,” Donnie said, going to JoAnn, Galfy’s assistant.
“Uh, what kind of office?”
“I don’t care, some quiet place, not as busy. It’s like a three-ring circus in here. I’m expecting monkeys and lions any moment now.”
“Okay, I’ll see what I can find.”
She took off, a woman on a mission. Meanwhile, Garza was visibly confused, but Crim had heard and he’d understood what was going on.
“Something wrong with being with us, Detective Beecher?” he barked, standing up.
“I think better when it’s more quiet, that’s all.”
“You do know that this is a task force, right? That means that we’re supposed to work together as a team. Hell, you’re supposed to be the lead investigator!”
“I can’t breathe in here, sorry.”
Donnie almost told him that it was because of his deliberate use of aftershave but stopped himself just in time.
“That’s a serious lack of leadership skills, Beecher. I’ll make sure to put that in my report.”
“That’s great, really great. And while you’re at it, why don’t you write a couple of paragraphs about your usefulness here, okay? We know it’s a homicide so I don’t know what the hell you’re doing now aside from collecting
Brownie points for your resume. So you just quietly sit in your corner and you let me do my job.”
Crim had no immediate reply to that so Donnie chalked this one as a victory. Even Emma couldn’t keep herself from smiling.
A few minutes later, JoAnn announced that she had found some workspace for him. It was right down the hall, a small office with an even smaller window. There was a desk, two chairs, and a computer.
“That’s perfect,” he said, not wasting time and setting his files down while Emma sat across the desk from him.
“What’s the next move?” Emma asked once JoAnn had left. “Do you really think Butterfield is some sort of international assassin?”
She was visibly getting keyed up from participating in an investigation. He remembered that particular feeling. Every detective started out as an officer and there was a moment when you realized you were destined for more than writing up tickets and breaking up bar fights.
Donnie had heard his father talking about this before but hadn’t believed it at first. Mike Beecher had spent some time working for Senator Frank Church in the 1970s, on the Church Committee, unearthing some of the nation’s deepest secrets where it related to the intelligence community. He had previously been involved in some secret operation in Bolivia but had never given any details about it.
Around the dinner table, his father would often talk about the rush of a new lead, curiosity getting the better of you and making you forget everything except the investigation, the mystery to solve. Donnie had felt it a couple of years into the job when he’d been on patrol. And Emma was feeling it now.
“Before we jump the gun, let’s familiarize ourselves with his files. If the theory is wrong, we’re gonna wind up looking like a bunch of clowns, and not classy clowns either, but sad birthday clowns. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to avoid that as much as possible.”
Donnie stood up and changed seats with Emma. He instructed her to search everything she could find about Butterfield. At the same time, he started reading the DEA file.
He sighed with exasperation immediately. A lot of it had been redacted, entire pages straight up blacked out. These guys were taking themselves way too seriously, he thought. He doubted Butterfield had been involved with KGB agents or Middle Eastern terrorists.
Then again…
In any case, a picture began to form. Butterfield had been a ne'er-do-well junkie who’d gotten way over his head and had gone for easy money. He had stolen several kilos of cocaine from the REDACTED cartel before being busted by the DEA who were running surveillance.
After that, Special Agent REDACTED recruited Butterfield as a confidential informant for six years, being inserted in the REDACTED crew, famous for importing shipments from the REDACTED port. In spite of this, Butterfield played fast and loose with the terms of his contract with the government and found himself going in and out of prison.
“What did you find out?” he asked Emma.
“I have… well…”
Donnie straightened out. “What?”
“There’s something sort of relevant here, it’s about his relationship with the Catholic Church. But it’s tenuous at best.”
“Don’t hold out on me, Sister. We have to follow every lead.”
“Okay. Perry Butterfield grew up in Pennsylvania and I found his name on a list of alumni from St. Mark the Auspicious.”
“Oh my God, that’s it! You cracked the case wide open!”
Emma flinched. “Really?”
“No,” he deadpanned. “I’m messing with you. Tell me what you found.”
She frowned, not enjoying being mocked and it made him laugh. He welcomed the sensation, anything to break the tension this morning.
“St. Mark the Auspicious was a Catholic school. It closed in ‘92 when it was revealed that it had been involved in the… the pedophile scandal.”
“Oh shit.”
“I’m googling this now. There was a lawsuit, some articles. Teachers were arrested, some priests relocated to other parishes.”
Donnie rounded the desk and crouched next to her. For the next few minutes, they both read up on the school. The diocese had settled the case for millions of dollars, but it didn’t amount to much when divided between the lawyers and the hundreds of students, the abuse having stretched for over thirty years.
“Holy shit,” he mumbled.
“Like I said, a scandal.”
Donnie worked on controlling his breathing. This was getting exciting.
“We’re going on a field trip.”
Chapter 22
They left NYPD headquarters and headed north to East Harlem.
The game had changed. Donnie was no longer considering Butterfield as an international assassin even though the Vatican angle still bothered him. However, a much larger piece of the puzzle had fallen into place.
They had a motive.
Butterfield had attended a Catholic school with a reputation for its abuse of children. What if he’d been one of them? It would explain his addiction issues. It would explain his grudge against the Church. And what better way to retaliate than by killing the Pope himself?
So far, all of this was conjecture, but it was still the most plausible chain of events. A part of Donnie wanted to have a SWAT team swooping in, but they weren’t there yet. Butterfield was simply a prime suspect and they needed to learn more before they made an arrest.
They went up 2nd Avenue and made a right as they got closer to the address. The area hadn’t been gentrified yet. It was still very much Spanish Harlem here, El Barrio. The wall of one apartment building had been transformed into a mural featuring a colorful Puerto Rican flag, it was rather beautiful.
They parked and went to Butterfield’s building. Their suspect wasn’t there though. They knocked on doors and spoke to neighbors. The three who were there all said essentially the same thing, that Butterfield had never been any trouble, that he seemed like a quiet and nice man.
The maintenance guy confirmed this. As far as he knew, he’d never been late on a payment and there had never been any complaints about him. He was a dream tenant.
“Well that was a useless visit,” Donnie said as they stepped onto the sidewalk again thirty minutes later.
The weather was nice and he decided to take his time to walk back to the car. If anything, it would give him time to think.
But his line of thought quickly changed when he noticed someone coming toward them. He was middle-aged, his hair was long and greasy, just like his shabby clothes. He would have pegged the man as homeless, but there was purpose in his stride.
Instinctively, Donnie unbuttoned his jacket in case he needed to reach for his weapon. Emma noticed.
“What’s wrong?”
“This guy, he’s looking at us and I’m not getting a friendly vibe.”
“You Beecher?” he called before he’d reached them.
It was a different kind of ambush, Donnie decided.
“That’s right, I’m Detective Beecher. Who wants to know?”
“I’m Hoffman, DEA.”
Without saying a word, they shuffled under a London planetree to get in the shade.
“What’s going on? You’re the man who’s been taking a black marker to Butterfield’s file?”
“I’m here to tell you to lay off, all right?”
Donnie snorted. “You know I can’t do that. If you know who I am then you know that I’m in charge of this investigation. The Pope is dead and I gotta follow every lead.”
“Stop looking into Butterfield, that’s all I’m asking.”
“You’re protecting him?”
“Look, he still has connections in the narcotics business, okay? He’s still valuable even though he’s no longer officially a CI. He’s important and I don’t want nothing to happen to him.”
“Tough shit. What if he killed the Pope? You want me to look the other way? I got news for you, pal. It’s not gonna happen.”
Hoffman sighed and ran a hand through his g
reasy hair. Donnie decided that he probably spent half his time in the field, often undercover, which explained the attire. This meant Hoffman was a very smart guy, but it also meant that he was used to going off the books.
“I’m telling you, he didn’t kill the Pope.”
“How do you know? Did you kill the Pope? Do you know who did?”
“No, but Butterfield wouldn’t do anything like that. He’s never been violent. Drug deals, transport, but never any muscle work.”
“There’s always a first time,” Donnie said with a shrug. “We like him as our doer. He had a beef with the Catholic Church. He had a motive and he was at the scene.”
“I know about his history, okay? That’s how he got into the drug scene. But I swear, this guy wouldn’t hurt a fly. You’re barking up the wrong tree so I’m asking you to lay off. Please, as a professional courtesy, don’t involve Butterfield any further.”
That was the last thing Hoffman said. He turned around and walked away, crossing the street and disappearing around the corner.
“Well, that was interesting.”
“Do you think he’s telling the truth?” Emma asked while they resumed heading toward the car.
“I think Hoffman believes what he’s saying. Whether or not that’s the actual truth, I don’t know.”
“But he seemed to be sure of himself, no? I mean, if Hoffman worked with Butterfield all this time, he must have gotten to know him pretty well.”
“Yeah, there’s that.”
Donnie didn’t know what to believe anymore. If what Hoffman was saying was true, then they were back at square one. On the other hand, maybe it was just the DEA wanting to protect one of their assets.
They got into the car and, right before Donnie turned on the engine, his phone rang. He quickly reached for it, hoping it was Sierra finally getting back to him.
His heart fell when instead he found that it was Victor Bray from the Crime Lab.
“Hey, Victor. What’s shaking?”
“What’s up, Donnie? We’ve been missing you on bowling nights.”
“Call me crazy, but I got tired of paying for everybody’s drinks all night long.”