Suspects

by William Caunitz

  Zimmerman’s face molded into a disturbed expression. Slowly it turned contemplative and he began to scour memories. “Mother was born in Warsaw into an upper-middle-class family. When the war came she had a husband, and three small children, two girls and a boy. The Nazis rounded them up and shipped them to Auschwitz, where her family was killed in the crematoriums.” Tears were streaming down his face as he talked. “Mother was spared because those savages needed people to translate the camp bulletins into several languages. Mother was fluent in German, Polish, Russian, and Hungarian. She met our father in Auschwitz. He too had lost his entire family. He survived because he was an accountant and they needed inventory writers to keep track of all the property they stole from the living and the dead. My parents worked in the same barracks. They were two human, breathing skeletons, working next to each other, day after day, who somehow sustained each other and fell in love.

  “They were married shortly after they were liberated and came to this country as displaced persons. They had two children. My sister, Linda, is three years older than I.” A painful remembrance made him look away. “Dad was killed by a drunk driver, crossing a Bensonhurst Street. The driver was convicted and given a suspended sentence. Mother opened the candy store to support us. She worked long hours, seven days a week. Linda had to come home directly from school to do the housework, the laundry, prepare dinner. On weekends my sister and I would help out in the store so Mother could get some sleep in the back.”

  He glared at Scanlon. “My mother work for organized crime? What nonsense. I’ll tell you the kind of a woman my mother was. Look at me, Lieutenant. I’m not what you would call a handsome man. I’m short, I have a face like an owl, and my hair’s like a monk’s, but my mother made me feel nine feet tall and more handsome than Gregory Peck and Clark Gable. She was constantly telling me how wonderful I was, that I was going to grow up and be a great surgeon. That I was the one who was going to make up for our family that had been killed in the camps.”

  He held up his hands. “These hands held the power, Mother told me. It was my hands that made me handsome. My specialty is plastics, Lieutenant. My mother would send me neighborhood children who needed my special skills but could never afford to pay for them. Recently I did a cranial-facial reconstruction on a little girl who had a congenital birth defect. My mother sent her to me. And I should do it without a fee, Mother said. Because we have to give to those less fortunate than we are. To repay this great country for the good that it has done for us. And you tell me that my mother was a criminal. Does that sound like a criminal mind to you?”

  Scanlon was determined not to become embroiled. His voice soft, he said, “How do you and Linda get along?”

  “My sister and I are close. Growing up as we did made us protective of each other.”

  “How did your sister get along with your mother?”

  “They were very close. Linda adored Mother.”

  There were sounds of people, the sudden babble of female voices. Scanlon craned his head in the direction of the door. Two women appeared. A girl followed behind them. A tentative silence filled the room. The doctor went to greet them. Moving a hand from one to the other, he introduced them. “This is my sister, Linda.”

  She smiled politely and moved over to one of the dainty chairs and sat in ladylike fashion.

  Zimmerman introduced his wife. Rachel Zimmerman was an attractive woman with a curtain of banged brunette hair that fell to just above the eyebrows. She looked to be in her early thirties. She had on a plain cotton dress, Roman-style sandals, no hose, and was holding two shoe boxes. Standing beside her was a girl with chestnut hair, inquisitive brown eyes, and a shy little smile. She had on jeans and a baggy top with a big red-nosed Snoopy emblazoned on the front, and white sneakers with big blue tassels.

  Rachel Zimmerman came over and shook Scanlon’s hand. “Thank you for coming.”

  Andrea Zimmerman ran to her father, throwing her arms around his waist, hugging tight. “Mommy bought me a pair of penny loafers and Aunt Linda bought me sneakers.”

  “You really made out,” said the father, hugging her close.

  The girl turned and looked at Scanlon. “Are you a real policeman?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you as mean as Dirty Harry is in the movies?”

  Scanlon grinned at her. “Meaner.”

  “Come on, young lady,” the mother said. “Let’s you and me go upstairs and try on those new shoes of yours. I’m sure that the lieutenant and your father have things they want to discuss.”

  Andrea Zimmerman looked up at her father. “Daddy, I miss Granny.”

  “So do I,” Stanley Zimmerman said and cried. The room became silent.

  “Why don’t you go upstairs with them, Stanley? I’ll talk to the lieutenant,” Linda Zimmerman said.

  Stanley Zimmerman took hold of his daughter’s hand. “If you need me, I’ll be upstairs,” he told Scanlon, moving toward the door. When he came up to where his sister sat he stopped and whispered in her ear.

  Scanlon could not hear what was said, but he did see Linda Zimmerman’s eyes dart in his direction.

  Linda Zimmerman pulled off her big-brimmed black straw hat and placed it on the walnut table next to her. She carefully tugged off one of her black lacy crochet gloves that matched her linen dress. She began to rake out her hair. Hair that flowed down to her shoulders and had a deep black sheen. She took her time removing the last glove, her face set in thought. She tugged it off and slapped it down on the hat’s wide rim.

  “Stanley tells me that you think there is a possibility that Mother’s death was premeditated. He also said that you think that Mother was part of some criminal activity.”

  He made a dismissive gesture with his hands. “What I said was that I have to examine every possibility.” He noticed that she wore no rings and wondered if she was married. He told her of her mother’s gambling activities. Added, “All the evidence gathered so far indicates that it was a holdup.”

  “I see.” She clasped her hands on her lap. “Would you mind telling me the details of the case?”

  Scanlon related the official version of the case, taking care not to mention the Jackson Heights splash pad or Joe Gallagher’s secret life.

  “Those animals,” she said, speaking with visible anger. “To snuff out two lives. Scum like that should not be permitted to live.”

  “It happens every day of the week. And most times it doesn’t even rate two lines on the evening news.”

  An ugly expression of agreement came over her face. “Don’t misunderstand what I’m going to say, Lieutenant. My brother and I want them caught and punished. What we don’t want is unnecessary publicity.”

  “I can understand that, Miss Zimmerman.”

  “I don’t think that you can, Lieutenant.” She shifted slightly in her seat, tucked her dress under her thigh. “I am thirty-nine years old and I’m a vice-president of the trust department of Morgan Fidelity. My responsibilities at the bank include the maintenance of private investment portfolios for some of the wealthiest people in this country.”

  “I fail to see what that has to do with your mother’s death.”

  “Banking, Lieutenant, is a stodgy world dominated by stodgy men who look down their stodgy noses at women. Scandal, no matter how far removed from me personally, could, and in fact would, hurt my career.”

  “Your mother’s death could hardly be called scandal.”

  “In banking, it is indecorous to have one’s name appear anywhere in a newspaper, except on the social page, the financial page, or the obituary page. It is one thing to have a close member of your family the unfortunate victim of a random killing, and quite another thing to have a member the victim of premeditated murder, or connected in any way to any illicit activities.”

  Scanlon went to answer her. “Miss Zimmerman …”

  “Please, hear me out, Lieutenant. My family does not want to read any of your ridiculously absurd surmises about my mother b
eing the victim of a contract killing or part of any crime family. Such stories would have an adverse affect on my and my brother’s careers. If you want to look for reasons for the killings I suggest that you delve into your dead lieutenant’s background, because there are no motives in my mother’s. I hope you understand what I’m telling you.”

  He caught himself watching her with an intensity that surprised him. He looked down at his hands, politely hesitant to say what was on his mind. He leaned forward slightly and looked at her. “Miss Zimmerman, it is my job to arrest people who commit crimes. We are not talking here about a case of malicious mischief or Assault Three; we’re talking about a double homicide in which a member of the force was one of the victims. We are going to break this case. And you and your family can be assured that the press will get nothing out of me or any of my men. You see, Miss Zimmerman, in the world of cops and robbers, newspeople rank several notches below whores and pimps. Do I make myself clear, Miss Zimmerman?”

  A beginning smile caught her lips. “Perfectly. And my name is Linda, Lieutenant.”

  “And mine is Tony.”

  She put her fingertips to her lips and gave him a slow warming glance. “I’m glad that we understand each other, Tony.”

  He became aware of her fragrance. Evergreen and orange. She was more beautiful than he had first realized. “Did you and your mother speak often?”

  “On the telephone, at least twice a day.”

  “Did she mention where she was getting your niece’s birthday cake?”

  “A cop friend of hers, she said. He was getting it for her wholesale.”

  Wholesale, a cop’s way of doing business. “Was your mother a wealthy woman?”

  Slight annoyance. “She was comfortable. And, before you ask, her estate will be divided between her children, equally.”

  “You and your brother appear to be successful people. Why was it necessary for your mother to work at her age?”

  “It was necessary because she wanted to. My brother and I urged her to give up the store. She refused. Said that she would never become a burden to her children. You see, Lieu—Tony, my mother was a survivor of the Holocaust. Their minds never really recover. Mother would squirrel her money away, every cent that she didn’t need to live on, preparing for the day when she would have to flee, to buy her freedom, her children’s and grandchildren’s freedom. It was only during the last few years that Stanley and I were able to persuade her to put her money in the bank and make prudent investments.”

  “Did you know that she took gambling action?”

  “That was done as an accommodation for her friends in the neighborhood. I don’t think she made fifty dollars a week taking those bets.”

  “How come your brother didn’t know about the gambling?”

  “Because mothers and daughters talk in more detail than sons and mothers. Women do generally.”

  “Did your mother ever mention Joe Gallagher to you?”

  “She did mention the name once or twice. He was a friend from the neighborhood. That’s all I know.”

  “What about Walter Ticornelli?”

  “No, never.”

  “Gretta Polchinski?”

  A frigid smile. “You mean the madam. Yes, Mother would talk about her. We would laugh over Gretta and her whorehouse. The women used to come into the store in the mornings and tell Mother they were glad that their husbands bothered Gretta’s girls and left them alone.”

  “Did your mother have any business dealings with Gretta?”

  “Hardly. Gretta Polchinski was not the kind of woman my mother would associate with. In Poland my mother had women like that to clean her house, not to have dealings with.”

  He got up and walked over to the display of African shields and spears on the far wall. He felt a spear point and carefully examined the shields. She was next to him, explaining, “Stanley collects them. He has done a lot of work in Africa for the United Nations.”

  He loved her fragrance and was aware of a desire to sweep her into his arms, caress her body, consume her. He wondered if women ever had sudden urges like that, had blunt erotic images. Even if he made a move and she responded favorably, then what? He could never get it up with a straight woman. He felt antsy.

  “Linda, can you think of anyone who might want to cause your mother harm?”

  She fixed him with a penetrating look. “No, I can’t.”

  “Thank you for your cooperation, and please accept my condolences.”

  She moved to where her hat and pocketbook were and took out a dark-colored card holder from her bag. She removed a card and handed him one. “I can be reached at that number during business hours.”

  “And if it should become necessary to contact you after business hours?”

  Her cynical look became a small smile. She went back to her pocketbook and removed a silver pencil and wrote a number on the back of the card. “I can be reached at this number at night. But only if necessary, and never after eleven.”

  It was late afternoon when Scanlon walked into the Nine-three station house. A lone policeman manned the telephone switchboard, whiling away his tour by flipping through worn copies of Screw and Hustler magazines. The muster room was empty, save for the coffee containers and the waxed paper that was scattered over tables and sills. Nobody sat behind the raised desk. The sergeant had left his post and gone into the one-twenty-four room to aid a new female typist with an inviting smile. The old rules and procedures of the NYPD, rule 124, delineated the duties and responsibilities of the clerical patrolman assigned to each of the three platoons. Hence the cop assigned to clerical duties would forever be known as the one-twenty-four man and his workplace as the one-twenty-four room.

  Scanlon was struck by the pervasive quiet inside the station house. It was the weekend, and the Palace Guard does not work weekends. The highway safety man, the summons men, the youth officer, the Community Relations people, the lead clerical man, his assistants, and the entire civilian clerical staff, save the few who work the clock, were all at home making like nine-to-fivers. A strange stillness becalms station houses on the weekends.

  The TS operator looked up from his magazine and nodded to Scanlon, then returned his attention to the centerfold’s delights.

  After Scanlon had left the Zimmerman town house he had decided to pay an unannounced visit to the Squad to see if there had been any new developments on the case. Police management texts state that unannounced visits are a meaningful supervisory tool. Scanlon knew better. He knew that the moment he climbed the staircase out of sight, the cop on TS was going to dial upstairs to the Squad. “Your boss is on his way up,” he would say, and turn to the next color photograph.

  That was the problem with management texts: they never take into account the realities of the real world. Whenever the borough shoofly is spotted within a precinct, that precinct’s emergency code is immediately transmitted over the radio. “Apache. Apache.” Beware, a Judas is among us.

  A realistic man, Scanlon knew that his unannounced supervisory visit was nothing more than a way of killing time before he went to pay his respects at Joe Gallagher’s wake and keep his late-night appointment with Sally De Nesto. He had already cleaned his apartment and danced his aerobics, washed and hung out his pantyhose, and now there was nothing for him to do but play cops and robbers.

  When he walked into the squad room he found one industrious detective at his typewriter. “Anything doing?” he said, moving to the line of clipboards that were hooked on the wall to the right of the detention cage.

  The gray-haired detective, Steigman, who had a stomach that spilled over his wide western belt buckle, looked up from the machine. “They found the van. It was torched.”

  “Where did they find it?” Scanlon asked, unhooking the roll call.

  “Laurel Hill Boulevard, right next to Calvary Cemetery.”

  Scanlon knew the area. It was a deserted section of real estate located under the Long Island Expressway and the Brooklyn-Queens Exp
ressway. An artery that led into the major highways and avenues of both Brooklyn and Queens. A perfect place to abandon a getaway vehicle and torch it. “Was forensics called to the scene?”

  “Yeah, they were there. The van was a charred hulk. There was nothing there to be found, but they went through the motions. The fire marshal said that the fire was started from inside the body of the van. The Five is on your desk,” Steigman said.

  Looking over the roll call, Scanlon asked, “Where is the rest of the team?”

  “Biafra Baby and Colon are out doing a canvass where the van was found. There are a few factories around there. Somebody might have seen something. And Florio is available,” Steigman said with a sly glance at the lieutenant.

  “Available” in NYPD argot meant that Detective Angelo Florio’s whereabouts were known to his partner, and that he could be reached quickly, if needed, and that there was a blank Twenty-eight with his signature affixed if something should go wrong. If that should happen, the UF 28, Request for Leave of Absence, would be filled out and filed, and Florio’s name scratched off the duty roster for that tour. Double homicide or not, life within the NYPD goes on.

  Scanlon moved over to the waist-high tray cabinet near the Dial-a-Brew machine and moved his finger over the index annotations on the front of each tray: Resident Known Criminal File, Known Gamblers File, Precinct Directory File, Parolee/Released Prisoner File, Vulva File. He pulled out the last tray. Detective Florio’s “available” telephone number was listed along with the name and address of his girlfriend. In the back of the tray was a stack of blank Twenty-eights, all signed. It was each detective’s responsibility to see that the Vulva File was kept current.

  Walking into his office, Scanlon unhooked the remote from his belt. He sat on his desk and dialed his home number. The first voice that played back was that of his mother inviting him to Sunday dinner. She was going to have a few of her friends from the neighborhood, she said. He broke into a big smile, for he knew from long experience the meaning behind his mother’s guileless tone. For sure, included among her friends would be a single woman who his mother and her cronies had decided would make him a perfect wife. The last one that she tried to fix him up with played the piano and spoke French, his mother had confided in the kitchen of her rent-controlled apartment. Her one great desire in life was to get him married.