by Blake Banner
His lips moved, his eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything.
I said, “What happened next?”
“I went home, told my mom I got my fingers caught in a car door. She slapped me around ’cause she thought I’d been tryin’ to steal cars, and I ain’t never done that. But she could see it hurt real bad, so she took me to the ER. They give me some painkillers. Then the bros come to hang out with me at the hospital till they fixed me up.”
Dehan said, “What time was that?”
“I don’t know, ’bout nine. They give me some powerful drugs, man. I went home to sleep and the bros went home too. That’s all that happened, man. You can check with the hospital.”
Dehan shook her head. “Ned, you have just admitted to two police officers that the hospital released you an hour and a half before Ned was killed, and that the alibis you had previously provided were false.”
His eyes went huge and round, and brimmed with tears. “I told you the truth, man. You said if I told the truth, it would be OK. Well, I’m tellin’ you the truth.” He made a face that was both incredulous and outraged. His voice became shrill. “I weren’t in no shape to go killin’ nobody! You know how much my hand hurt? It hurt like a bitch! All I wanted to do was sleep! Besides, I ain’t no killer!”
I pointed around me with my finger like a gun. “This…”
“What about it?”
“Where’d the money come from, Ned?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. They won’t tell me.”
“Who won’t tell you?”
He shrugged and gave a small, helpless laugh. “I don’t know!”
Dehan sighed. “OK, you don’t know. You’re going to have to explain that.”
“I don’t know, man. I’m tellin’ you. It was like ten, maybe eleven years ago. I was in a bad way, I couldn’t see no future, I was even thinkin’ about joining up, you know?”
“The military?”
He laughed. “No, man. A gang, the Cabras or somethin’.”
I raised both hands to stop him. “Let me see if I got this straight. You were lost and had no direction in life, so joining the military was a laughable idea, but joining the Chupacabras made sense?”
“I told you I was in a bad way.”
“Yeah, and the idea of getting up at six AM and doing a day’s work scared the bejaysus out of you.”
“Hey!” He became serious. “I ain’t up at six, I’m up at five most days. And you know where you’ll find me? You gonna find me in this shop, seven days a week. So you can shove your white Republican stereotype right where it ain’t so white!”
Dehan snorted. “So you were lost. What happened?”
“We got a letter. It was from some attorney. It said I was the beneficiary in a will. Some relative of mine had deceased or some shit and he left me a packet in a trust. The condition of my gettin’ that money was that I had to educate myself and get a trade. So that’s what I did. I went to community college, learned about cars. I always fuckin’ loved cars, man. So I learned all about them. I did my apprenticeship and then the money was released to me to buy these premises and get the equipment. First the bros used to bring me their rides, know what I’m sayin’? But I wanted to move on, distance myself. So I advertised and I always did a fine job, man. That was my thing! I did a fine job. I don’t care if you black, white, Latino—I don’t care what you are. I’m workin’ on your car. You understand me? That’s my philosophy, and word got around. Now I’m doin’ good. I made a down payment on my house, and I am buyin’ it. Only brush I ever had with the law was that whole Al thing. I was wrong to go after him, man, but he made me mad, ignorin’ me like that. But I been straight these ten, eleven years.”
I sighed. “You ever try to find out who this benefactor was?”
“Yeah, once. The attorney told me it was a condition of the… the thing… the grant, whatever, that I should never know where the money came from.”
Dehan laughed and shook her head at the floor. “See, I think that’s all bull. I think you took the money that Al had in his house. You heard the rumors, like everybody else, and you got to thinking, what if it was true? Half a million bucks, maybe more. And he was just a fat, ugly, weird freak, and he deserved to die anyway.”
“No, man! I ain’t like that!”
“So you killed him, you took his money to some crooked shyster and had him set up a trust for you. A perfect cover.”
He stared at her for a moment. “You ain’t as smart as you think, sister. If I was gonna do that, would I force myself to go through college and get a trade?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know, Ned, maybe. I’ll let you know when I make up my mind. I’m going to need the contact details for that attorney.”
He pulled his cell from his overalls and started scrolling through it, looking for the number. While he did that, I asked him, “You knew about the money?”
He spoke to the screen. “Talk. I never believed it. He looked and talked like maybe he was once rich. But not anymore. He was poor as shit, man.” He handed Dehan the phone and she copied the number. He continued talking. “The way he talked, he sounded kind of Ivy League. There were rumors that he was from some rich family, but they disowned him or some shit. They said he’d stashed money in his house. Some people said a quarter of a mill. Others said a million bucks.”
“How much was it?”
It was worth a try, but he raised an eyebrow at me and said, “I don’t know, cop. Probably nothing. I told you I never believed the story. He was too fat and too stupid to have that kind of dough in his house. It was bullshit.”
Dehan handed him back his phone. “Big coincidence though, huh?”
“Yeah, big coincidence. Big coincidence that in New York City, with eight million people, somebody got an inheritance one year after the freak died. Big fuckin’ coincidence.” He held her eye a moment. “Tell me something, cop. If I was white, would you still think it was a coincidence?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
Hatred flickered in his eyes. “Cause white people have rich relations who can leave them shit, right? But black people? Black people all poor as shit. They don’t have rich relations. So if this black dude got a legacy, he must have stole that shit, and probably killed some white man while he was doin’ it. Ain’t that right?”
Dehan heard him out. Then, she said, “No, dude, because you tried to break into his house the night he died. Wake up, asshole!”
I stood, suddenly bored with the conversation. “You’re full of crap, Ned. You and half a dozen pals tried to break into a sick man’s house, and I believe you did it with the intent to hurt him and rob him. That has nothing to do with him being white and you being black. It has everything to do with the fact that you were a scavenging punk and he was vulnerable. Maybe you grew up since then and now you’re a decent human being. Maybe not. We’ll talk to the attorney and see if we can find out who endowed you with that legacy. If I find out that you killed Al and stole his money, I promise you I will do everything in my power to put you away for the rest of your life.” I paused and smiled. “You feel me, man?”
We stepped out onto the forecourt and I went and leaned on the roof of my car. Dehan looked at her watch. “My stomach says it’s lunchtime. My watch agrees.”
I nodded, only half listening to her. “What’s your impression?”
She leaned on the roof opposite me and sighed. “My personal impression, between you and me, is that he’s an asshole who belongs in prison, and it makes me mad that a crook like him gets a second chance when people who work their butts off all their lives just get kicked in the face by the banks and the IRS.”
“I’ll vote for you. Now, again, but without the soap box.”
She stared at nothing in particular over my shoulder. “I didn’t want to believe him, but it had the ring of truth. But, Stone, I am very far from convinced. My logic tells me that he and his pals went back after he was released from the ER unit. That is the most logic
al conclusion.”
I nodded. “That is the most logical conclusion, and it’s the one Martinez came to. How do we prove it?”
She shrugged. “We start picking his alibi apart, like you said.”
I opened the car and climbed in. She got in the other side and we slammed the doors. I said: “Step one, we apply for a court order to find out who left Ned that money.”
She made a face. “I’m not sure you’ll get that order, Stone.”
“Neither am I, but we have to try. Meantime, let’s track down all of Ned’s old buddies and see what they’re doing these days. We pull them in and question them one by one. And we also go and talk to the Chester siblings. I haven’t closed that door yet.”
I shoved the key in the ignition and turned it, and the big old engine growled into life. “Right,” I said. “A burger and a beer!”
SEVEN
We had chicken and rice and a couple of beers at El Sazon de Olga, talked in circles for half an hour and made our way back to the 43rd not much clearer in our minds about what we thought had happened that night. At the station, we climbed the steps and knocked on the deputy inspector’s door.
“Come, come!”
I pushed it open and stood back for Dehan to go in ahead. The DI was watering his bonsai orange tree on the windowsill and turned to smile at us as we went in.
“Ah,” he said. “The Terrible Two.” He laughed and we smiled. “How are things? Margaret has been talking about having you both over for dinner. We must arrange that some day. What are you working on at the moment?”
Dehan looked confused and muttered noises about how that would be nice. I said, “The Al Chester case.”
“Sit.” He pointed at two chairs, frowned and resumed his own seat. Then he shook his head and frowned harder. “No, doesn’t ring any bells.”
“Twelve years ago. Schizophrenic, sixty years old, white male, stabbed in the heart in his living room. Nothing obvious missing, but there were rumors that he had a stash of money in his house. None was ever found.”
He nodded a few times. “The case went cold, obviously, or you wouldn’t be looking into it.”
“Yeah…” I sucked my teeth a moment. “It’s complicated. There is a very obvious prime suspect. Martinez had the case and he was convinced that this kid was the killer.”
I filled him in on Ned Brown and how he’d had it out for Al and pursued him home that evening. When I had finished, Dehan took over.
“But here’s what Martinez didn’t know. Just after the case went cold, about a year after Al was killed, Ned Brown inherits a trust fund from an anonymous relative. The terms of the legacy were that he must get his life together, study a trade and make something of himself. We went to see him today and he’s set up as a car mechanic with his own garage, servicing custom cars. He’s bought the premises and he is buying his own house.”
The inspector flopped back in his chair. “So you think the rumors about the money were true, he killed Al and took the money.”
Dehan said, “Yes.”
I sighed. “The evidence certainly seems to suggest that, sir, but there are problems.”
“Such as?”
“For a start, his hand. I don’t believe he’d have been able to fire a gun or stab Al in the chest with two broken fingers. If he went back, he did not go alone. He went with at least one other person…”
“So look into his old associates, see how many of them also had rich, anonymous family members.”
“Yes, sir, we plan to do that, but there is also the fact that it seems very unlikely that Ned would dream up an idea like setting up a trust fund for himself, especially one on terms like these, forcing himself to go to college and make something of himself.”
He made a face. “You’re right, it does seem a little unlikely. How do you want to tackle it?”
“The first thing I’d like to do, sir, is to get a court order compelling the attorneys who are acting as executors of the will to reveal the identity of Ned’s benefactor.”
He grunted and scratched his head. “That’s a tall order. A person is entitled to anonymity, John, and the attorneys are compelled, as executors, to respect that anonymity. The courts, furthermore, are compelled to respect it unless you can produce very cogent reasons why they shouldn’t.”
I smiled. “Well, that money might be the proceeds from a burglary turned homicide. That’s pretty cogent.”
“Oh, certainly it is! But is it the proceeds of a burglary turned homicide? What reasons have you for such a belief, other than a coincidence which is not, in fact, that much of a coincidence? Are your reasons cogent, or are they purely circumstantial? I am afraid they’re circumstantial and not very cogent. I’m afraid that all you have, at best, are suspicions. And we cannot have the general public victimized and harassed by the police simply on the strength of their suspicions. Imagine where that would end! Yes, it is a coincidence. But it is also possible that it is no more than that, a coincidence.”
I sighed. “That’s what I thought.”
“Give me a report of what you have so far. I’ll pass it on to the DA and ask her to talk to a sympathetic judge, see what we can do. But I have to be honest, I don’t hold out much hope, especially as there are other avenues you can pursue.”
I nodded. “There is another avenue I personally find more interesting.”
“Oh, what’s that?”
Dehan answered. “Well, sir, like he said, Stone is a little skeptical of the Ned Brown angle. But there is also Al’s own family. They certainly had motive.”
“Indeed?”
I watched his expression turn rigid as she filled him in on the Chesters and on Al’s background. When she had finished, he sat nodding for a while. “You two certainly have a genius for finding the cases that will cause the most embarrassment at the country club, don’t you?”
Dehan didn’t flinch. “That is our primary criterion, sir.”
He smiled at her, then narrowed his eyes. “I wish I was sure you were joking. You realize that Max and Justinian Chester are close friends of the mayor’s, don’t you?” We didn’t answer and he sighed. “All right, do what you have to do, but please tread with care. I’ll see if we can’t find a judge to sign off on this will.”
We thanked him and left. On the stairs going down to the detectives room, Dehan glanced at me over her shoulder. “We’re subtle. I think we’re subtle, don’t you?”
“I think we’re pretty subtle, Dehan.”
“Drop the Chesters as suspects in at the last minute. Fear of upsetting the Chesters, and their pal the mayor, equals pressure on the DA and the judge to sign off on the disclosure order. Nice.”
“Immoral. It shouldn’t be necessary.”
“Preachin’ to the choir, Mr. Stone. Preachin’ to the choir.”
We spent the rest of the afternoon looking into Ned’s old pals, trying to find out what became of them and where they’d wound up. At six PM, Dehan leaned back in her chair and rubbed her hands over her face.
“Julio Chavez and his brother Ernesto, fifteen and sixteen at the time of Al’s death, both joined the Chupacabras in 2008. A year later, they were arrested, tried and convicted of the murder of Geronimo Paez and his family. He was an informer for vice and it was a punishment killing. They went down in 2009 and are serving several consecutive life sentences upstate, with no chance of parole, because of the, and I quote, ‘hideous nature of the killings’.”
She raised her boots and crossed her ankles on the corner of the desk. “I called Nick, he investigated Paez’s murder. I asked him if he remembered the Chavez brothers. He said he’d never forget them. I asked him if he got the impression that they were sitting on a lot of money. I gave him the background to the Al Chester case. He said obviously he could not know, but he definitely did not have that impression.” She shrugged her shoulder. “In any case, I think we should go talk to them.”
I nodded. “Anything else?”
She grinned. “Yeah, Lenny ‘Lucky
’ Marley, 2010 he mugged a Navy Seal in one of the parking lots on Newbold Avenue, by the Circle. I say he mugged him. I should say he tried to mug him, at gunpoint. The Seal broke his arm in three places and then ruptured his liver. Lucky Marley died in hospital. No action was taken against the Seal.”
“Who says the system doesn’t work? That’s what I call justice. Anything else?”
“No, what about you?”
“Nothing of any use. Delroy Evans, arrested in 2008 trying to hold up a liquor store on White Plaines Road. He was high and they found some meth in his car. They found more in his house and now he’s serving ten years at Attica. His cousin, Chicane Evans.”
“Chicane? Seriously?”
“I guess Dad was a motor sports enthusiast. Anyway, Chicane died of a heroin overdose in 2015. He still lived with his parents on Thieriot. I called them and spoke to his mother. She laughed when I asked if around 2007 or 2008 Chicane seemed suddenly to have more money than usual. She said I must be crazy, and told me his dying of an overdose was the best thing that ever happened to them.”
“Nice.”
“People are. Finally, last member of Ned’s merry band, Simon ‘el Loco’ Ibanez. Stole a Corvette from a Sunoco gas station while the owner was paying for the gas. Nobody was chasing him, but still he hit a hundred and twenty down Castle Hill Avenue and ran straight into the back of a truck transporting quick-set liquid concrete to a construction site. The Corvette was a mess, but also the truck dumped part of its load into the car through the shattered windshield, and Ibanez drowned in concrete. Not a nice way to go.”
She stared at me for a long time with no expression. Finally, she said, “That’s true? It’s not a joke?”
“No, Dehan. It’s true. I wouldn’t joke about something like that.”
“No, sure. It’s a terrible way to die. But hey, at least he achieved his ambition of becoming a hardened criminal, right?”
She slapped her thigh and laughed immoderately for a while. Even Mo at the next desk laughed while he typed. She made a high-pitched noise and shook her head.