Suspects

by William Caunitz

Scanlon moved into the front room, went over to the gold-and-white drapes, and reached behind them. Finding the cord, he pulled. Late-afternoon sunlight came through the filthy windows. He looked around the room. Cobwebs were on the ceiling around the steam pipe. Carpet remnants covered the floor in a quilt of colors. A tweed convertible sofa was up against the far wall, and next to it was a three-legged serving table on which sat a telephone and an address book. He went over and picked up the address book and began to flip alphabetized tabs. The name Harris was listed under H. It had a 516 telephone number that had been crossed out and replaced by a 718 number. In parentheses next to it was “Luise” and a 212 number. The book also contained police department numbers, direct unlisted numbers. He found the telephone numbers of police benevolent organizations and police fraternal organizations. When he had gone through the entire book he discovered four additional names: Donna, Valerie, Mary, and Rena. The remainder of the numbers were all connected in some way to the Job.

  The address book in a cop’s splash pad would only contain a few numbers that were all connected to his secret life. And police department numbers; the Job was the bridge that connected both lives. The people in Joe Gallagher’s other life would all have to be interviewed. He heard a noise and turned. Higgins was framed in the doorway. “What a dump.”

  “I’m sure that it served its purpose,” he said, placing the address book on the sofa. “Find anything in the bathroom?”

  “A few rusting blades and a rolled-up tube of toothpaste. No woman ever called this place home.”

  “What made you reach that conclusion?”

  “Because a woman would keep certain things in any apartment that she was using as a rendezvous—cleansing lotions, a hair dryer, napkins, extra panties.”

  He rose effortlessly from the sofa and caught her watching him with the same astonished look that he had seen on so many other faces, a look that said: He moves and acts as though both his legs were real.

  A pair of sliding doors enclosed the closet built into the wall directly to the right of the tweed convertible. He slid the right side open. A few articles of men’s clothing hung from wire hangers. There was a movie screen leaning up against the wall, and on the floor next to it was an 8mm projector. The closet contained three shelves on brackets. The first one acted as the bar, and the second contained a stereo tape deck, record player, and AM/FM receiver. The top shelf was crammed with movie tins. He took out a handful and read titles aloud: “Annie Can You Come? Big Cock Harry. Andy Hardy and the Nuns. Come Again Sweet Lips.”

  “Do you think the precinct CO might like to show a few of them at the next Community Council meeting?” she asked.

  He burst out laughing. “Some of those biddies would drop their store-bought teeth.” As he said this, his gaze fell to the bottom of the closet, to the department storage carton. He dragged it out and over to the sofa, where he sat and flipped off the cover. He spilled the contents onto the floor. Nipple creams and prolong creams, and joy jellies, and emotion lotions, and edible panties in many different flavors, piled up in a bizarre heap. He sat rummaging in the pile. Ben Wah balls, anal love beads, dildos, vibrators.

  He glanced over at Higgins. She clasped her hands to her chest and with fluttering lids said, “What is this world coming to?”

  He picked up one of the vibrators and read aloud: “‘A clitoral vibrator. This unique machine may be worn during intercourse. It is excellent for masturbation and for facilitating orgasm during intercourse. Luv-Joy Manufacturing Company, Brooklyn, New York.’” He dropped it back into the pile and picked up a set of Ben Wah balls. Turning them over in his hands, he glanced up at Higgins, a silly expression curling the ends of his lips, showing his teeth.

  “Don’t look at me,” she protested. “I don’t use them.”

  Before entering the apartment, they had canvassed the tenants in the four-story walk-up and found that none of them knew the occupant in 3C. A retired postal worker in apartment 1A had stated that he used to see the man in 3C entering and leaving from time to time in the company of different women. “It looked mighty suspicious to me,” the toothless old man had confided.

  During the drive into Manhattan, Scanlon noticed Higgins looking at her watch and saw the concern seeping into her face. “You pressed for time?” he asked.

  “Gloria and I moved in together. She’s making our first homemade dinner tonight.” Gloria Lufnitz was a twenty-nine-year-old music teacher at Music and Art High School and Detective Maggie Higgins’s lover.

  “What made you decide to move in with her? I thought you were happy the way things were.”

  “She wanted to. I was perfectly content. We’d spend weekends together and a few nights a week and everything was great. But Gloria wanted to play house, so I went along.”

  “Good luck.”

  She smiled her thanks.

  Higgins parked the department auto at the bus stop on Worth Street and went to telephone Gloria to tell her that she was going to be late. At five-thirty Scanlon hurried into the huge, empty lobby of the telephone building.

  Two massive steel doors confronted him when he stepped off the elevator on the thirty-seventh floor. One of the four armed security guards stationed there asked to see his police credentials. After he handed them to the guard, and the credentials were scrutinized, he was permitted to sign in the Visitors Log. Then he was required to stand before a Polaroid camera that was mounted on a desk and have his picture taken. This done, a button was pressed and the steel doors opened, and he was permitted to enter Ma Bell’s secret security service headquarters.

  When Scanlon emerged from the building thirty minutes later he was in possession of the names and addresses of the subscribers whose telephone numbers had appeared in Joe Gallagher’s most private address book. Sliding into the passenger seat, he said, “Did you make your call?”

  Higgins drove out of the bus stop. “She was pissed off. Said that she cooked a roast and that it’ll be dried out by the time I get home.”

  “Your girlfriend is going to have to get used to your being on the Job.”

  She smiled bitterly. “That’s easy for you to say.” She glanced at the list of names he was holding. “Are we going to pay the ladies a visit?”

  “We’ll let them stew awhile.”

  They lugged the carton of sexual paraphernalia and the address book into Scanlon’s office and put it on top of one of the file cabinets.

  Christopher walked into the Whip’s office nibbling sunflower seeds. He brought Scanlon up to date on what was happening at temporary headquarters. He began his report with “Lieutenant” and went on to say that forensics technicians were still at the crime scene conducting tests, and that some of the detectives who had been “flown in” from other commands to assist with the preliminary investigation had been sent back to their own commands. Some of the buildings around the scene were still being canvassed.

  Lew Brodie came into the office and handed Scanlon a long sheet of four-ply paper. “Thought you might wanna take a look at the Incident Log,” Brodie said.

  Scanlon took the paper from him and detected the faint odor of alcohol. He gave Brodie an annoyed look and then scanned the computerized printout of all the radio transmissions connected with the double homicide. He let his eyes sweep over the neatly arranged columns of computer symbols and abridgments. After one fast read-through, he went back to the beginning and started over, this time taking his time translating the symbols.

  The initial call had been received at 911 by operator 42 at 1404 hours. The anonymous caller had reported that a police lieutenant had been shot at 311 Driggs Avenue. Operator 42 had typed the address into her queue and a display peeled onto the lime-green screen that had shown 311 Driggs Avenue to be within the confines of the Nine-three Precinct, sector Boy. RMP 1704 was assigned to that sector this tour, and the display showed that that radio motor patrol car was currently not on assignment. Operator 42 transmitted code signal 10-13, Assist Patrolman, Officer Shot.


  Scanlon read the verbatim transmissions of the responding radio cars: “Boy, on the way. Sergeant going. George going. Frank going. Crime, responding from the other end.”

  Whoever had made that call to 911 had known that Gallagher was a police lieutenant. How? Gallagher had not been in uniform. Scanlon looked up at Christopher. “Where are the witnesses?”

  “The women are upstairs in the Community Relations office with the department artist,” Christopher said.

  “Who interviewed the first team on the scene?” Scanlon asked.

  “Colon,” Brodie said.

  “Where is that team now?”

  “They’re waiting downstairs in the sitting room,” Brodie replied.

  “I’m going upstairs,” Scanlon said to Brodie. “When I come back I want to see those cops waiting for me.”

  “You got it, Lou,” Brodie said.

  The walls of the third-floor Community Relations office were covered with posters that were designed to address public fears: Be a Block Watcher; Vertical Patrol, the Answer to Residential Burglaries; The Auxiliary Police—Our Eyes and Ears.

  A PR hand job, Scanlon thought, glancing at the posters as he plunged into the office. The department artist was a bald middle-aged detective who wore thick horn-rimmed glasses. The artist glanced up from his drawing board and nodded recognition to Scanlon. They had worked together on the Rothstein homicide, six years ago. Cops remember their unsolved cases. Two women sat on either side of the artist. The one on the right was Mary Cilicia, a woman of thirty-six or so who had a round plump face. She wore what appeared at first glance to be a bathing cap covered with blue plumes. Many women in Greenpoint wear such hats. She wore a blue polyester pantsuit with a diamond design. The other woman, Mary Adler, was twenty-eight; she had a tiny mole on the right side of her nose with two long hairs sprouting from it, and she had a potbelly and sagging breasts.

  Scanlon walked up behind the artist and looked over his shoulder. “How’s it going?” he asked, studying the charcoal drawing of a killer’s face. A face with wrinkled skin and hair that covered the tips of ears.

  “Okay, Lou,” the artist said, making an erasure and blowing the residue away. “The ladies have been a big help.”

  Scanlon smiled at the women. They smiled back. He noticed that they both wore dentures, a not uncommon sight in his area. Poor people can’t afford good dental care. “Do either of you ladies know who telephoned nine-eleven to report that a policeman had been shot?” He stared into their innocent faces.

  Mary Cilicia didn’t know who had made the call; the first they knew that a cop had been killed was when they were being driven to the station house. One of the detectives had told them.

  There were two policemen waiting when Scanlon swept back into his office fifteen minutes later. He went up to his desk and wrote himself a note on the department-issued tear-off calendar: “Get tapes and do round robin on G.” He turned his attention to the two policemen who were lounging on green department swivel chairs. Lew Brodie was leaning with his back against the wall, his left foot braced on it and his left arm draped over the top of a filing cabinet. Brodie introduced the cops to Scanlon. Stone and Trumwell.

  Scanlon nodded at the cops and said, “Where were you two when the initial thirteen came over?”

  Trumwell had a badly pockmarked face and red hair. “Apollo and Bridgewater streets,” he said, stretching his legs out in front and examining the tips of his scuffed shoes.

  “When you arrived at the scene, what did you see?” Scanlon asked, lowering himself onto the edge of his desk, wondering what Trumwell found so interesting about his shoes.

  Stone had a bulbous nose and a receding hairline. It was he who answered the question. “A large crowd had developed. We got out of the RMP and pushed our way into the store. We found a woman sprawled over the soda fountain and Gallagher on the floor. There were three kids screaming in the rear of the store.”

  Trumwell continued, “I frisked the man and came up with a gun and shield. I got on my portable and told Central to have the Squad and the duty captain respond forthwith.”

  “Didn’t you make an attempt to rush them to the hospital?”

  “Lou?” Stone protested, spreading his arms. “There wasn’t any doubt. They were both DOA. The ambulance arrived shortly after us. The attendant took one look and pronounced them both.”

  “Boy your regular sector?”

  “Yeah,” Trumwell said, still engrossed with his shoes.

  “Did you both know Gallagher?”

  “We knew ’im,” Stone answered. “We used to see him hanging around Yetta’s. He’d park his car in the restricted zone in front of the funeral home and put a PBA card, an LBA card, or his vehicle ID plate on the dashboard. One day we decided to check him out to make sure he wasn’t some cop’s relative using a hand-me-down card. He tinned us and then we both recognized him. We’d both seen him MC a couple of retirement rackets.”

  Staring past the two cops, Scanlon asked casually, “Yetta take any action in that candy store?”

  The two cops exchanged nervous looks. Scanlon understood why. The NYPD had a strict policy of covert omission in its war on crime. The enforcement of narcotics and gambling laws was forbidden to the cop on post or in the sector car. The smoldering embers of Knapp and Serpico had made the Palace Guard paranoid about the corrupting influences of these crimes on the patrol force. The result was a proliferation of narcotics bazaars, juice joints, and gambling dens about which the cop on post could do nothing but submit a report which did nothing. Corruption Prone Locations were off-limits to the patrol force. But! Every cop in the Job knew that if any serious problem ever developed concerning one of these locations, it would be the cop on post or in the sector car who would have to take the weight. The Palace Guard would deny any policy of nonenforcement.

  Trumwell sat upright in his chair and folded his arms across his chest, chin down. “I don’t know anything about no gambling violations.”

  “Me either,” Stone said.

  A flicker of disgust creased Scanlon’s face. “Hey, you two. A police lieutenant has been murdered. I’m on your side, remember? Anything that you say to me stays with me. You got my word.”

  Stone looked at his partner, shrugged shoulders, and said, “I guess he’s a right guy.” He looked at Scanlon and said defensively, “We ain’t allowed to take gambling collars. We can’t do dick about them.”

  “I know that,” Scanlon said.

  “Yetta’d book the ponies, numbers, and some sports action,” Trumwell said with some reluctance.

  “Who’d she lay off her action with?”

  “Walter Ticornelli was her man,” Stone said.

  “Did you happen to notice him when you first arrived on the scene?”

  Trumwell responded, “Not when we first arrived. But when I left to use the telephone on the corner to call the desk officer, I saw Walter across the street leaning against the church fence.”

  A cagey little smile. A remembrance. He’d had both his legs then. “I know Walter.”

  Inspector Herman the German Schmidt was a big man with a strong angular face and puffy discolored eyelids. He had powerful hands with wide thick nails. For the past forty-six months Herman the German had been in command of the Queens Narcotics District. He had recently been promised by the powers that be that he was next in line to be promoted to deputy chief. Everything had been going real good for him. His unit’s arrests were up; the Inspection Division had recently issued an above-average evaluation of his stewardship; his youngest daughter was scheduled to graduate from Brooklyn Law School. Gallagher’s death had suddenly changed all that. There was a chance now that he could end his glorious career by being demoted back to captain and losing his command. He’d end his thirty-two years as a fly captain who’d spend late tours responding to barroom brawls involving off-duty cops. Probably in Manhattan North, the dumping ground for defrocked inspectors.

  Herman the German was a very worried man. The gr
apevine had whispered that Gallagher’s death might not have been clean. And if that was the case, there would be an IAD investigation into Gallagher’s background to determine why he was killed, to see if his death was in some way connected to his official life. If any hint of corruption was discovered, it would reflect on his leadership. The favorable Inspection Division evaluation would be forgotten. He had seen many fallen stars in the Job. Men who had been shunned by former friends and peers as though they had AIDS.

  Herman the German had left the crime scene at about 1800 hours and driven directly to the One-fourteen. He wanted to comb through Gallagher’s records for any clue to irregularities that might shed some light on why he was killed. He found none. It was a little after eight that night when he telephoned Scanlon at temporary headquarters and asked if he could meet him in Gallagher’s office. He hoped that the Whip of the Nine-three Squad might be able to tell him what had really happened in that candy store.

  The Seventeenth Narcotics District was quartered in a suite of six interconnecting offices on the third floor of the One-fourteen Precinct’s station house. Scanlon arrived a little before nine and found Herman the German in Gallagher’s office, partially hidden behind a cloud of cigar smoke. “Hello, Inspector,” Scanlon said, making for the old wooden swivel chair.

  Herman the German was not a man to mince his words. “I hear that you left the crime scene to personally break into Gallagher’s locker.”

  “SOP whenever a cop is killed. You know that.”

  “It’s not SOP for the squad commander to leave the scene of a double homicide in order to break into a goddamn locker. You could have directed a subordinate to do it.”

  “Joe Gallagher and I were brother lieutenants. I wanted to make sure that things were handled discreetly, that there wasn’t anything mixed up with his personal property that might prove embarrassing to his family.”

  Herman the German frowned, leaned forward, resting his thick chin on a steeple of fingers. “If I want a hand job, Lou, I’ll jerk my own prick. I don’t need you to do it for me.”