Blood in Babylon

by Blake Banner

  “Did you ever visit him alone?”

  Her eyes went wide. “No! Only ever with my mom.”

  “He ever give you candy?”

  “Only every time we visited!” She laughed. “He was real nice. We was real fond of him. I was sad when the Lord took him away.”

  “Did you ever see him and talk to him out in the street?”

  She smiled and shook her head. It was hard to tell what, because she was still smiling sweetly, but something had changed in her expression, even in the attitude of her body.

  “Well, I never went out alone. I only ever went out with my mom.”

  Dehan frowned. “What about school?”

  “Well, they told us at the school that school weren’t the best way for me. There were some special schools, but they were awful expensive. So Mom fixed it for me to have a teacher come in and teach me the basics. So most often I’d just stay at home, until Mom come in.”

  I murmured. “You don’t want to be a girl alone on the streets of Babylon.”

  “That’s what my mom says.”

  I nodded. “We’ll let you get on, Mary. But before you go. Do you know whether Al had a girlfriend?”

  Her face softened and she laughed prettily. “No, I don’t think so. But who knows what goes on after dark in this city?” She skipped a couple of steps toward the elevators. “I have to go. Mom and Dr. Epstein depend on me being on time. So I am always a little early. I wouldn’t dream of letting them down…”

  She edged a step closer and I laughed. “Go, hurry! Don’t be late.”

  “Thank you!”

  She climbed into the elevator we had vacated. She pressed the button and gave us a little wave, the doors slid closed and we stepped outside into the morning sun.

  Dehan spoke to the sky, as though she were addressing God. “This is turning into a nightmare. Everything contradicts everything else.” She went and sat on the hood of the Jag. “As soon as it looks like an avenue has opened up, something else comes along and closes that avenue down again.”

  “I know.” I went to the driver’s side and unlocked the door. “We should get word about the court orders soon.”

  She didn’t answer. She sat and sulked.

  I said, “You want to ride to the station on the hood?”

  She turned to face me, her brow twisted into a knot. “So what are we saying now, that Max had his brother killed because he believed Al’s story that he was getting married, when all along it was just a fantasy?”

  “A very long fantasy, that lasted six months.”

  “That is dark, and a bit depressing.”

  “Would you like to get in the car, please, Detective Dehan?”

  She stood and opened the passenger door just as my phone rang. She slammed the door and the deputy inspector’s voice said, “John, it’s John, I am here with the DA and Judge Mathews, discussing the dilemma of the court orders. Judge Mathews would like you to present yourself here and explain to her, and the DA, exactly why we feel we are entitled to a judicial order.”

  “Where is here, sir?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Where are you, sir? Where do we need to go?”

  “Oh, yes, I see, Hall of Justice, Stone. Chambers of Judge Mathews.”

  He said it like it was obvious.

  “Half an hour, sir.”

  FIFTEEN

  We took the Cross Bronx Expressway and followed it as far as the Alexander Hamilton Bridge. There we turned south, following the Harlem River as far as Macomb’s Damm Park and the Heritage Field. There I turned in and took River Avenue to East 161st and parked in the big lot opposite the Hall of Justice. Then we crossed the road to enter the vast, ugly, gray-green box where the criminal courts were held.

  I had spoken to Judge Mathews before, and aside from her desire to bring back public birching, we were pretty much on the same page about most things. We took the elevator to the top floor and followed a blue-carpeted passage to her door. There, we knocked and were admitted by her secretary, who showed us through to the judge’s chambers.

  The carpet was the same deep, rich blue as it was in the corridors outside. The furnishings were modern and functional, but of good quality, and mainly wood. It was not a corner office, but the view from her large, double window was good.

  Assistant District Attorney Bob Swindon and the deputy inspector stood as we came in. Judge Mathews smiled at me from where she sat behind a vast, oak desk. There was a bit of hand shaking, but the judge spoke over it.

  “Stone, Dehan, come in and sit down, and do me a favor, would you?”

  Swindon and the inspector pulled up two chairs for Dehan. I figured she only needed one, so I sat in the other.

  Mathews kept talking. “I have always had you down as that rarest of all things, a sensible cop.”

  “Thank you, Judge.”

  “But this, what you’re asking for today…” She shook her head. “I’m here with Bob and John because it’s you. I’m aware of your track record and I’m aware of some of the garbage you’ve cleared out from the halls of power, so I’m here, listening, but I have to tell you, Stone, I am struggling to see exactly on what grounds you think you’re entitled to these two judicial orders. So do me a favor, and explain that to me.”

  I drew breath to answer, but she plowed on, “And let me tell you something else, before you get started, an emergency injunction was granted this morning, by Judge Allende, preventing the NYPD from obtaining precisely the information you are trying to obtain with these two orders. Shoot. Convince me I should overturn Allende’s order.”

  I smiled sweetly and held up three fingers. “Three.”

  “Three judicial orders?”

  She looked at Bob and John with a ‘what the hell?’ face. Bob and John looked at each other and then they all looked at me. I counted the orders off on my raised fingers.

  “We need one to view the will by which Ned Brown was made a beneficiary of that trust. We need another so that we can have sight of Ned Brown’s birth certificate and establish who his biological parents are, and we need a third one allowing us to view the financial records of the surviving Chester siblings.”

  ADA Bob Swindon half stood. He looked scandalized, probably because he played golf with two of the surviving Chester siblings. Meanwhile, Deputy Inspector John Newman, my chief, looked equally shocked, probably because he hoped one day to play golf with two of the surviving Chester siblings. He spluttered, “Now, John…!”

  Judge Margaret Mathews did not look shocked or scandalized. She began to laugh, leaning first forward and then back in her large, black leather chair. She wiped her eyes and looked at Dehan.

  “You married this guy, right?”

  Dehan’s eyes narrowed and her jaw set like concrete.

  “Yes, Judge.”

  Mathews shook her head. “The man has the balls of a bronco, the predatory instincts of a mountain lion, and what makes him most scary, he has the brains of a Sherlock Holmes.” She turned back to me. “OK, you got my attention. Explain to me how you are legally entitled to these orders.”

  I sighed, crossed one leg over the other and smiled at her. “You set me a pretty high bar there, Judge. I’ll see what I can do. Aloysius Chester was murdered. He was stabbed in the heart with a large kitchen knife, which was never recovered. That same night, we presume it was during the same incident in which he was murdered, three shots were fired in his kitchen, from a 9mm pistol. which was never recovered either. A satisfactory motive for his murder has never been established. These are the bare, relevant facts which I want to highlight.”

  They were all watching me, frowning. Mathews was nodding, like she was going over the facts with me. I went on.

  “We know that earlier that night, Aloysius had an altercation with Ned Brown, in which Ned and his friends tried to break into his house and assault Aloysius, but in which Aloysius, in fact, broke two of Ned’s fingers. Ned and his friends left and we now know that he went to the ER unit—with his fri
ends and his mother. The story until now has been that Ned was given powerful painkillers and that he went home with his mother to sleep and recuperate.”

  Mathews was chewing her lip. She raised an eyebrow. “The story until now? How has the story changed?”

  “Julio Chavez was one of the boys who were present that night. He is now serving time upstate for the murder of Geronimo Paez. We spoke to him and he told us a different story. He said that the painkillers and the marijuana Ned was smoking combined with the November cold and triggered some kind of craziness in Ned, and he and Lenny ‘Lucky’ Marley went down to Aloysius’ place and killed him. Lucky, according to Chavez, provided the 9mm. Chavez alleges that the next day, Ned did in fact confess to killing Aloysius.”

  ADA Bob Swindon muttered, “The word of a convicted murderer…”

  I gave him the dead eye for a moment, then turned back to Judge Mathews. “I don’t plan to take this to court yet, Judge, but it is a well known fact, I can get you a dozen witnesses right now who will testify that there was a rumor in the neighborhood that Aloysius had anything from a quarter of a million dollars to a million dollars stashed away in his house, either in a box or a knapsack or a sports bag. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that Ned, feeling both physically injured and that his pride and his reputation had been damaged, did in fact go, while under the influence of drugs, and kill Ned with the purpose of taking his money...”

  She sighed. “John, I am being very patient here. I am still waiting to hear why I should make this order that allows you to look at a document the author of which expressly required it to be sealed! So far, you have simply added some detail to what Detective Martinez had originally speculated.”

  I raised a hand. “I am almost done. First, one or two witnesses to a confession to murder is more than a little detail. But here is the important point: Ned’s trust fund, assumed to be a will, though nobody has actually laid eyes on it except the attorneys at Hernandez and Heap, was made available to him within a year of Aloysius’ death. Clearly, there must be a suspicion that Aloysius did in fact have a great deal of cash in his house, that Ned found that money and took it to some local attorneys, and they advised him to set up an anonymous trust fund.”

  ADA Swindon sighed. “I believe you also discovered that Ned is in fact adopted. It is equally likely that the trust fund is an endowment from his biological parents.”

  “Of course, Judge, that is obvious. But it is equally possible that if Ned turned up at home with half a million bucks in a sports bag, his mother might well come up with the idea of the anonymous trust fund, recalling that he was, in fact, adopted.”

  He shook his head. “That is a hell of a reach, Stone.”

  “Is it? So far, it is the only theory that comes anywhere close to answering all the questions in the case. Besides…” I spread my hands. “There is one very simple way of putting these doubts to rest, and that is allowing us to have a look at the trust, find out who established it, when and with what money.” I turned back to the judge. “I put this very proposition to Chevronne Brown, Ned’s mother, last night. I told her that if the trust fund was legit, it would clear her son from any suspicion of the murder of Al Chester, take him clean off our list of suspects. Her response was to throw us out.”

  The judge was nodding. “Assuming, for one moment, that your suspicions were founded, if Ned, conspiring with his mother and possibly even these attorneys, had in fact set up a fake trust fund, the documents clearly would not have Ned’s name on them.”

  “Obviously, Judge, but if the trust was fraudulent and we got our fraud boys to look into it, it would very quickly come to light that the people who had established the fund were as phony as the fund itself. Which brings me to the second point. We need to know who Ned’s biological parents are, because right now the supposition that the trust fund was set up by them is creating a possible smoke screen. If we find that his biological parents are John and Jane Doe, and John and Jane Doe have set up the trust fund with money they made sheep farming in Australia, well, that’s fantastic. He is in the clear. But if we discover that the fund was set up by John Smith, and he is nothing to do with John and Jane Doe, well, then we have good reason to believe that the idea for the trust fund was borne of the fact that he was an orphan. We need to know who his biological parents are. He is our prime suspect in a murder investigation aggravated by the possible theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and he may be hiding behind that anonymous trust fund and his biological parents.”

  I stopped and waited. She stared at me for a long moment. Finally, she said, “You should have been an attorney. You make a compelling case. What about this nonsense about looking at the Chesters’ financial records?”

  I met her smile with a completely blank face. “If it were nonsense, Judge, I wouldn’t waste your time with it. In our first interview with Maximilian Chester, he told us, quite blatantly, that they had discussed having Aloysius killed. But he said that his brother’s descent into psychosis had obviated the need, because they were able to have him sectioned. Shortly after that, his brother, Justinian, called and said he wanted to talk to us. He told us, at some length, that Maximilian and Annunziata had conspired to have Aloysius killed, no longer because he was soiling the family name with his drugs and generally disreputable behavior, but because, shortly before his death, he had informed them that he planned to get married.”

  ADA Swindon sat forward, wide-eyed. “What?”

  Judge Mathews narrowed her eyes. “Run that by me again?”

  “Aloysius Chester contacted Maximilian, Justinian and Annunziata and asked for a family get together. At that get together, he informed them that he was planning to get married. Clearly, that had serious implications for the family as a whole, for the three siblings personally, and for Chester Cardio-Valves, the family firm.”

  “Why didn’t his psychiatrist know about this?”

  “That’s exactly where we’ve just come from, Judge. Aloysius had in fact mentioned it to his psychiatrist’s assistant, but they had not taken it seriously. They thought it was a fantasy. Besides which, he claimed that his girlfriend didn’t want Dr. Epstein to know about it, because he would disapprove. So it never really got discussed.

  “Now, the point is, regardless of what Dr. Epstein did or did not know, Aloysius did go to his brothers and his sister and he did tell them that he planned to get married. It makes no difference whether it was true or mere fantasy, the fact is that he told them, and they believed him; and, according to Justinian, this prompted Maximilian and Annunziata to contemplate having him killed. So, on the strength of those facts, I think we are entitled to look at their bank records to see if around November or December 2007, any or all of them paid out a significant sum of money that cannot be readily explained: the fee for a hit.”

  She shook her head and flopped back in her chair. “This is insane. I have known the Chesters for years!”

  I raised an eyebrow at her. “I fail to see the relevance of that, Judge, unless you see it as a reason to recluse yourself and call in another judge who has no personal association with the Chesters.”

  Her cheeks flushed and her eyes shone bright with anger. She turned to Dehan. “You see what I mean!”

  “Yes, Judge.”

  I cut across the crap, feeling suddenly irritable and in need of lunch and a beer. “We need those orders, Judge Mathews. Somebody is getting away with murder—and a very substantial theft—and granting those orders can help us find out who. There is also the very pertinent fact that there is a young man trying to make something of his life, and he is going to have the suspicion of Aloysius’ murder hanging over his head until the day he dies. If he is innocent, he deserves to have that known, even if it brings down the Chesters. If he is guilty, he is not entitled to the protection of the courts.”

  She sighed. “I am going to need some time to think about all this, Detective Stone. I don’t mind telling you, you are a supreme pain in the ass, but you have ma
de a very compelling argument. It is a credit to you and your eloquence that I didn’t kick this whole request out from the start…”

  “I hope it is also a credit to our diligent police work, Judge, not just my eloquence.”

  We gave each other the dead eye for ten seconds, then she said, “Get out of here. You’ll have my decision within the next hour or two.”

  I nodded. “Thank you for seeing us, Judge.”

  We stood and I opened the door for Dehan. As she was about to go through, the judge smiled at her. “How do you put up with him?”

  Dehan stopped and gave me a lopsided smile. She spoke to me, not Mathews. “He’s usually right, and he’s all mine.”

  I shrugged with my eyebrows at the three watching faces and we stepped out.

  We rode the elevator down and after a couple of minutes, stepped out into the bustle and noise of the Bronx’s downtown area. I looked at my watch. It was approaching twelve forty.

  “We should grab some food and a beer and have a think.”

  “I can’t think of any more ways to think, Stone. Think about what? Unless she gives us at least one green light, we are as screwed as…” She hesitated.

  I said, “A two dollar whore during shore leave?”

  “Stone!”

  “What? That’s pretty screwed.”

  “Stop it! I can say things like that. You can’t.”

  I took her elbow and we started walking east, pushing through the crowds toward the intersection with Morris Avenue. “Let’s go to Amina’s Café. I am in need of good Mexican food. And, to answer your question, what we are going to think about, Ritoo Glasshopper, is strategy. Strategy and tactics. We are not going to get our court orders…”

  “You don’t know that. How can you know that? We might. You were pretty convincing back there.”

  I shook my head. “Nah, she was much too complimentary. Plus, there is no way she is going to upset the Chesters without a much bigger cause than what I gave her. No, she’ll turn us down. She’ll say she can’t overturn another judge’s ruling without much more solid facts. And to be honest, she’ll be right. So we need to think, about how we proceed from here. Not a plan, we have a plan, but tactics and strategy.”