The Grave Above the Grave

by Bernie B. Kerik

  To avoid the press, Raymond ordered the Intelligence Division, which controls City Hall security, to have all the reporters secured in the Blue Room until the mayor and he came in for the press briefing. Outside the mayor’s office, a few reporters were standing around, sensing this was not the right time to approach Raymond and Gallagher as they got out of the SUV and walked up the stairs, into the building, escorted by four uniformed cops. Raymond’s appearance, as the police commissioner, and as the city’s and the country’s latest folk hero, was national news, and that brought a press gathering not seen in years in the marble halls of City Hall. Many of the reporters inside and out had been there since dawn, as soon as the news of the Times Square shooting hit the wires. One newly assigned reporter to the City Hall police beat pelted Raymond with questions: “How does it feel to be a hero, Commissioner? Do we know yet who the shooter was?” Obviously, the FBI’s raid had not hit yet, nor the identity of Bakheer. As Raymond hurried toward the mayor’s office, one uniformed cop walked over to the reporter, mindful of the ever-present news cameras, gently but firmly blocking him from moving closer.

  As the precinct commander of the 1st Precinct, I arrived at World Trade Center One within seven minutes after it was hit by the first plane. Standing on Vesey Street, I saw and heard people jumping all the way down from the 95th floor of that building, and I saw their bodies disintegrate into dust on impact. I’d been on the job 11 years by then, but had never seen anything like this before. I was stunned into a trance, as numbness took over my body to protect me from the unbelievable desperation of the jumpers and the depravity of the act that caused their desperation.

  Inside, the mayor was standing behind his desk, finishing up a phone call on his office landline. He hung up, walked around to shake Raymond’s hand, gave him an obligatory hug, and asked him if he was okay. “Fine,” Raymond said. The mayor coughed, poured himself a glass of water from a large pitcher on his desk, gestured for Raymond to sit down on one of the two big leather chairs that were tilted at an angle across from the desk, took a long drink, followed by a deep breath, then came around and unbuttoned his jacket as he sat in the other chair.

  “So, give it.”

  Raymond told him everything he knew, and described in detail what had happened that morning, beginning with the phone call at two in the morning. The mayor listened intently, occasionally nodding his head up and down, slowly. Raymond thought he looked relieved, happy almost. Just then, the mayor’s counsel, Michael Tierny, came in, his cloud of yellow hair leading the way. Raymond stood and shook his hand.

  “The reason I’m here,” Tierny said, in his distinctive high-pitched and nasal Irish West Side voice, “is that Internal Affairs, the DA’s office, and the New York State attorney general’s office all have to speak to you as soon as possible, prior to the grand jury that will be set for next week.” Raymond could smell liquor on Tierny’s breath.

  “Of course,” Raymond said. He watched Tierny leave, and knew now he had no choice. He stood up, walked over to the brass serving tray against the wall, and poured himself a glass of water, wondering to himself if he was the best person to send out to talk with 50 reporters.

  “Mayor, there’s a problem,” Raymond said.

  The mayor took a deep breath, exhaled, stood up, and said, “What is it?”

  “I’ve known Sheilah for a long time, since I was in narcotics in the ’90s and she was an assistant district attorney in the special narcotics court.”

  “So? What’s the deal? Both of you were stealing weight? Using? What? Tell me.”

  “No,” Raymond laughed. “We’ve been secretly seeing each other for the past three years, and I’m concerned about the grand jury and a possible conflict.”

  The mayor didn’t move. Neither did Raymond. The mayor looked directly at him. Raymond stared back. Finally, the mayor broke the silence. “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  Brown sat back down, leaned back in his leather executive chair, and broke out in a locker-room grin. “Ray, you’re single, as is she. She’s gorgeous, smart, and one of the powerful people in the city, and you’re the fucking police commissioner and you’d make a great looking couple. I think most people know you guys dated in the ’90s when you were both single, and I don’t think they’d give a fuck about today, but I get the conflict thing. She’s going to have to recuse herself without making it a public spectacle, if you guys want to keep this under wraps.”

  The grand jury was mandatory when a police officer, even the commissioner, was involved in any homicide, and the district attorney was always the one who represented the state.

  The mayor opened the door of his office and motioned for his counsel to come back in the room. Tierny burped as he felt the heaviness in the air. “What’s wrong?”

  “Well,” the mayor said, “we have a little problem here.” He laid out the situation for Tierny, who shifted into defense mode.

  Tierny looked at Raymond and then back at the mayor. “Who else knows?”

  “My chief of staff,” Raymond said. Then he added, “And my bodyguard.”

  “Great,” Tierny said sarcastically.

  “You don’t have to worry about them,” Raymond said, hearing how weak he sounded.

  “Yes, okay, we’ll see. On her side?”

  “The only one I’m sure of is her chief of staff, Stephanie Mills.”

  The mayor frowned as his wheels turned, then spoke directly to Tierny. “Listen, this is fucking stupid. No one’s doing anything wrong; it’s just a perception issue to avoid conflicts. Sheila will recuse herself from this proceeding, but without making any kind of special announcement. She’ll just assign it to her first deputy, Dolores Rhonni. If anybody asks Sheilah why, she can say her mother is sick, her dog died, whatever. I don’t care what, but she won’t be in charge of this grand jury.”

  The mayor’s face tightened. He put his fists on his hips, lowered his head, and spoke directly now to Raymond. “Rick, from this point forward, not only from a perception perspective, but more importantly an ethical one as well, don’t call Dannis, don’t email her, don’t text her, and I would go as far as saying don’t attend any public or private functions where there is any chance at all you will be in the same place. The problem here is that the ethical issue could be blown up in the press and last for a fucking three months, and we don’t need that.”

  The mayor turned back to Tierny: “You speak to Mills. Explain to her why Sheila should recuse herself, which I’m sure they’re already thinking about.” He paused, then used his hand to gesture to each of them, waving it back and forth. “From this moment forward, no one talks to the press about anything connected to the grand jury.” To Raymond: “The sad thing is, that this is juicy enough that the press would forget about this scumbag you killed and you and Dannis would be tabloid headlines for months. Enough of that, Rick; you’re going to need outside counsel. The city will represent you at the grand jury, but you’ll need a private lawyer to get you through the legal maze. Make sure he’s sitting next to you during your interviews with IA, Dolores, or anyone in the the attorney general’s office. We need to make sure this flows smoothly without any bumps. You got it?”

  “Yes sir,” Raymond nodded.

  To Tierny: “Get him the best lawyer we have. Call the Corporation Counsel and tell him I want someone he can trust with his life. That’s who I want.” Tierny scribbled a note to himself on a small spiral pad. “Okay,” the mayor said. “Let’s get on top of this.”

  Tierny then said softly, “There are 50 reporters in the Blue Room waiting for a briefing. How are we going to do this?”

  There was a knock on the door. “Now what,” Brown said as he went to the door and opened it. It was FBI agent Jones. “Good morning, Chelsea,” the mayor said; the first-name familiarity came from his knowing her since his days as an assistant U.S. attorney. “What have you got?” the mayo
r asked.

  “It’s bad,” Jones said. “They found a shitload of extremist propaganda, money, weapons, and other stuff in Paterson linking him to the shooting, but they’ve also confirmed now that he wasn’t acting alone.”

  “Motherfucker!” Brown blurted out.

  “There’s more. Turns out Bakheer was a U.S. citizen, born in 1985, only he never really lived here. His father was an Egyptian military officer who came to the States in 1984 for training, stayed until 1986, a year after Bakheer was born. He then brought the boy back to Egypt, where he lived until two years ago. That’s when he returned to the States.”

  “The Bureau didn’t have him on their radar?” Raymond said, cutting in and sounding incredulous.

  “It’s one of the major loopholes of our immigration policy,” Jones said. “We call them ‘anchor babies’ . . . non–U.S. citizens intentionally come to the country so their children will be born citizens. When the child turns 21, he, or she, can, in turn, petition for their parents to become citizens. That’s what happened here. Bakheer petitioned for his parents to become U.S. citizens once his father retired from the Egyptian military. The parents spent half the year in Egypt and the other half in the U.S. They’ve both since passed.”

  “Go on,” the mayor said.

  “The two phones we found, one was apparently a burner—a temporary throwaway you can buy in any bodega. He only called one number with it. The FBI ran it, and their report says it led to another burner that communicated daily with seven more phones, bouncing off relays in Paterson, Brooklyn, Detroit, Fayetteville in North Carolina, Las Vegas, and LA. Every one of these lines died as soon as Bakheer went down. Every one. We’ve determined there are at least six or seven more involved, and we’re actively searching for them. This is an ongoing situation.”

  “That’s it,” the mayor said. “I’m going to give the press the name of the shooter, which they already have anyway, thanks to that Breshill, and refer them to the district attorney’s office, the FBI, and the NYPD’s press shack. Okay, let’s do this. Rick. Chelsea, you come with me. Let’s get this over with.”

  Rick felt like he was walking into a firing squad.

  CHAPTER 5

  8:15 pm, Wednesday, 4 October

  With the Suburban in the shop, Taylor Shelby was behind the wheel of a blacked-out NYPD Ford Explorer, heading south from Riverdale. WQXR was piping classical music. He hated classical music but it was Raymond’s favorite station, and he didn’t want to change the station and go through that hurricane. He had on a white tee shirt, dark-blue pressed jeans, black loafers, no socks, and clear-lens prescription glasses. Archer was in the passenger seat wearing the same outfit, making them look like twins.

  Rick Raymond was sitting in the back, wearing a light-gray windbreaker, pilot Ray-Bans, a black sweatshirt, khakis, socks, and sneakers. Gallagher was next to him, also dressed down. The traffic wasn’t too bad today for rush hour. They sat for nearly a half hour in the nightly East Side bumper-to-bumper crawl to the Ed Koch Bridge until the bottleneck broke. Shelby then sped toward 73rd Street and Madison.

  Their destination, the Marcus, was an exclusive Upper East Side boutique hotel, six stories high, all the rooms well-appointed suites. It catered to celebrities, politicians, and a high-end corporate clientele, all of whom were attracted to the Marcus for its no-questions-asked, no-press-allowed policies of privacy. It was sufficiently upscale for those who insisted on luxury, and was necessarily low-key for those who counted on the hotel’s policy that what happened with whom at the Marcus stayed inside the suites at the Marcus. Unlike most hotels, the bar was located well off the main entrance, its double doors guarded by a pair of beefy ex-wrestlers. Nobody got past them if the concierge didn’t first call ahead. That ensured it would never become a public social gathering place instead of the private convenience it was for its specialized clientele. Rick Raymond and Sheilah Dannis used the hotel for their own personal rendezvous when they didn’t feel like driving to Raymond’s apartment in the Bronx or her place in Brooklyn. Normally, neither one of them could have afforded their permanently assigned penthouse suite, but what few people knew was that Dannis’s now deceased husband, who had been an extremely wealthy Wall Street hedge fund owner, had also been the primary shareholder of that hotel; and when he died six weeks after being diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor, he’d left his shares of the hotel, plus $137 million in a trust, to his wife. So Sheilah Dannis was not only smart, powerful, and gorgeous; she was filthy rich.

  The Explorer drove down the ramp to the hotel’s underground lot, and Gallagher and Raymond got out and walked quickly through a short hallway at the rear, to an elevator directly adjacent to the freight elevator. It was marked “Private.” Gallagher rang for the elevator, and within 20 seconds its doors opened. The elevator proved to be the same size as the freight elevator, but the inside was covered with deepest, darkest cherry wood, granite railings, and plush carpet, and was lightly scented with lavender from the bouquet that was changed daily. This was the hotel’s VIP elevator, and a uniformed employee of the hotel was always on hand to operate it. As he was trained, he did not look directly at either Gallagher or Raymond, nor did he have to ask what floor. He had taken them on this brief vertical journey to the penthouse dozens of times. As always, Gallagher got out first, walked the few steps through the alcove past an open door, where a butler met him and nodded. “Mr. Gallagher, Commissioner, how are you fine gentlemen this evening? Commissioner, I’m so sorry to hear about the officer that died last night.”

  “Thank you, Nelson. That means a lot.”

  Nelson, one of the hotel’s six VIP butlers, walked Gallagher and Raymond to the apartment, down the pink-walled, softly lit corridor, with its baby blue rugs, to the massive double doors marked “Penthouse A.” Gallagher used his own personal plastic key, swung open the door, scanned the room, then handed the key to Raymond and told him that he’d see him in the morning. Gallagher took the main elevator down to the lobby and walked into the bar, where he would nurse a couple of Coca-Colas and munch on bar nuts before heading home.

  As he began to undress, Raymond turned on the TV to NY 1, sound off. The mayor was holding another press conference. He clicked on the sound. “. . . and the Transit Authority will have to . . .” He hit mute again. He went to the bar, cracked open a fresh fifth of Dewars, poured himself half a glass, no ice, took a deep swig, smacked his lips as he banged the glass on the counter, walked into the bathroom. He turned on the smaller TV, strapped high on the wall over the sink and conveniently tilted down, again keeping the sound off. The mayor was still talking. Raymond stripped off the rest of his clothes, turned on the shower faucets, waited until the water was the right temperature, and stepped in.

  When he was finished, he slipped into the white terry robe hanging on a hook behind the door, wiped the mirror clear with his palm, combed his hair, shaved, and then slapped on a little aftershave the hotel made sure was always in full supply for him. He used it sparingly, not enough to suffocate anyone, just enough to sting. He went to the living room. There was a soft rap on the door. He turned the TV off.

  He went to the door, looked through the one-way peephole, then opened the door slowly. Sheilah walked in to the living room. Without saying a word, she took off her beige coat and tossed it and her purse onto the sofa. She headed for the bedroom. Raymond followed. He sat on the side of the bed and watched intensely as Sheilah, having still said nothing, looked away as she reached behind and unzipped her dark-blue dress. She wiggled it into a heap around her shiny black spike heels. She looked statuesque in her black bra, black bikini panties, garter belt, sheer black stockings, and spike heels. Having given him enough time to eat her with his eyes, she came over slowly and sat next to him. He could smell her perfume. She put her arms around his neck while he reached behind and unhooked her bra. She shimmied it off down her arms and let it drop. She put her hands on either side of his head, pulled him
forward and buried his face in her breasts. She held him that way until she could feel his face was sufficiently warm. She let him go and he stood up. He opened his robe and let it drop to the floor. She smiled; he was ready.

  Sheilah pulled the thick silk bed cover down until it fell off the edge. She then pulled the sheets back. She turned and looked into Raymond’s eyes for the first time and smiled as she hooked her thumbs into the top of her panties and pulled them down until they fell to the floor. She stepped out of them, held her hand out; he took it, and she guided him into the bed. She kissed him lightly. He could taste her lipstick. “Good evening, Commissioner,” she purred.

  He laughed softly. “Good evening, District Attorney.” He could hear the after-husk in his own voice.

  She slipped beside him, stretched out, and pulled him on top.

  Downstairs, in the bar, Gallagher was about to order yet another Coke, when he heard a familiar voice behind him.

  “Chief,” the voice said. Gallagher turned. It was the reporter, Sammy Breshill. His tie was loosened, his hair was a bit mussed, and his pants, like always, Gallagher thought, needed to be donated to charity.

  “What’s up, Mr. Breshill?” Gallagher said in the most sarcastic voice he could muster, wondering how he managed to get past the other media marauders at the front entrance.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” Breshill said, his face turning into something just short of a sneer. Then he added, “Nothin’.”

  “They must let anyone in here,” Gallagher quipped.

  “I’ve got friends.”

  “Really? There’s a headline you could sell to Ripley.”

  “Where’s the commissioner?

  “In Bimini. He wanted to go for a swim.”