Suspects

by William Caunitz

  “Right.”

  “Pick me up at eight.”

  He checked his watch. “Make it nine.”

  After he had hung up he thought, Why the anxiety attack? Certainly he couldn’t be falling for a hooker. Every cop who ever did that ended up swallowing his own gun. Crazy thoughts. It’s just that he didn’t want to be alone tonight, that was all there was to it. He was better off with the Sally De Nestos of the world. He picked up his prosthesis, leaned back in his chair, lifted up his stump, and fitted the beveled end into the socket.

  The lazy quiet was broken ten minutes later when Biafra Baby answered the telephone. “It’s for Higgins. Where is she?”

  “Probably taking a piss,” Colon said.

  Higgins strolled back into the squad room. Biafra Baby held out the receiver. “Valerie Clarkson on three.”

  “Lou,” Higgins called out, “our missing witness is on three.”

  “Now,” Scanlon said, and he and Higgins pushed down the blinking buttons.

  “Hi, Valerie, this is Maggie Higgins.”

  A scared voice. “I’m no material witness.”

  “Valerie, we have reason to believe that you are in possession of information that is vital to our investigation. You were given the opportunity to come in and talk to us, but you elected to run instead.”

  “I’ve never been involved with the police. I was scared.”

  “I can understand that, Valerie. You’re no criminal. You’re a working woman, like me. Look, why don’t you come in of your own volition? That way there would be no publicity, no one would ever know that you talked to us, and I promise you that whatever you tell us will be held in strict confidence.”

  Biafra Baby mimed playing a violin. Colon wiggled his tongue at Higgins and undulated in his seat. Higgins turned her back to them.

  “My parents mustn’t find out about my private life. Dad has had two heart attacks. It would kill him.”

  “No one will ever know, I promise.”

  The reluctant witness said, “Okay, I’ll come in.”

  “How long will it take you to get here?”

  Lew Brodie walked into the squad room forty minutes later carrying three bulging folders. Moments later a nervous Valerie Clarkson appeared. Higgins went up to the railing, opened the gate, and ushered the witness into Scanlon’s office. Scanlon motioned to Brodie to wait, and followed Higgins and the witness into his office, closing the door behind him. Higgins moved behind the Whip’s desk and sat down in his department-issue swivel chair.

  Valerie Clarkson glanced around at Scanlon, who had positioned himself in front of the door.

  “Do you mind if he stays?” Higgins said. “It’s regulations.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  Higgins began by asking the witness how her trip into the city had been. Clarkson told her that there had been hardly any traffic so she had made good time. Higgins leaned across the desk to admire the witness’s pearls. “They’re beautiful.”

  “Cultured. I bought them on sale in Fortunoff’s.”

  “I love pearls,” Higgins said, fingering the strand. “I have a string of opera-length pearls that I just love.”

  Within a short time the two women were chatting as though they had been lifelong friends. The witness’s brother-in-law had been laid off from his job at Republic, and Valerie had helped her sister to pay the mortgage. Higgins lied and said that she had just gone to contract on a co-op and confided that she was sweating out mortgage approval. She was a little afraid of the new adjustable mortgage rates.

  Scanlon edged along the wall in order to get a better look at the witness. She wore her chestnut hair short and had on a white pleated skirt and violet-colored blouse. Her figure was trim, her face pretty, and with the exception of a little mascara she wore no makeup. When the witness was completely at ease, Higgins gently guided the conversation around to the dead lieutenant.

  Joe Gallagher had not employed his favorite traffic ploy to meet this witness. Nine months ago, the witness said, Gallagher began showing up at the Santorini Diner around lunchtime. He always took a booth at her station. He was a big tipper, and never told off-color jokes, or came on to her, like most of her male customers did. Higgins nodded her understanding.

  The remainder of Valerie Clarkson’s story paralleled those of Gallagher’s other girlfriends. Higgins let the witness finish her story before asking her first question. “The Santorini Diner is on Linden Boulevard near Conduit Avenue, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you happen to know what he was doing in that neighborhood?”

  “No, I never thought to ask him.”

  “But you knew that he was a police lieutenant.”

  “Yes, but we never discussed his job.”

  “When he came to the diner was he alone?”

  “Sometimes, and sometimes he came with a friend. And once he met some man there and they ate and then left.”

  “Who was the man he used to come into the diner with?”

  “I don’t know. I think he was a cop, but I’m not sure.”

  “And the third man that he met there, who was he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Was Luise Bardwell the other woman in the threesome?” Higgins asked casually.

  The witness shifted uncomfortably in her chair and glanced around at Scanlon. She moved her head close to Higgins’s and whispered, “It’s hard for me to discuss that with him here.”

  Higgins motioned to Scanlon to leave the room. When Scanlon walked out into the squad room and closed the door, he asked, “Where is the Coles?”

  “There in the bottom of the supply cabinet,” Colon said.

  Christopher moved to the cabinet and said, “What borough do you want?”

  “Brooklyn,” Scanlon said. The Coles Directory is a reference source that lists the telephone numbers and the names of subscribers in every building in the city. The directory is cross-referenced by address and telephone exchanges. Christopher put the thick book on a desk. “What’s up?”

  “For the past nine months Gallagher has been dropping around a diner in Brooklyn,” Scanlon said. “That’s a long way from where he worked and lived. I want to know what the hell he was doing around there. The name of the diner is the Santorini. I want you to look up the phone number of the diner, and then pull out Gallagher’s address book and check to see if there are any telephone listings around the diner for anyone connected to this case.”

  “You got it, Lieutenant,” Christopher said.

  Scanlon moved across the squad room to where Lew Brodie had arranged the criminal record into neat stacks.

  “Now, what do we have on Mr. Eddie Hamill?” Scanlon asked Brodie.

  “He did a stretch in Attica and is on parole until ’89,” Brodie said.

  “And the Nineteens?” Scanlon said, picking up a handful of DD 19s, Prisoner Modus Operandi and Pedigree Forms. He turned them over to the back where the associates on that arrest were listed.

  “Hamill was busted with associates on eight of his eleven collars. A dude named Oscar Mela took the fall with him six times. Mela’s folder is here, along with the folders of Hamill’s other associates,” Brodie said.

  “Anyone know this Oscar Mela?” Scanlon called out.

  “I know him, Lieutenant,” Christopher answered, looking up from the Coles. “He’s an empty suit who hangs out in Astoria. In the pool halls along Steinway Street.”

  “I guess Mela is our best shot to find Hamill,” Scanlon said. “What was his last known address?”

  Brodie checked Mela’s package. “Thirtieth Avenue, in the One-ten.”

  “Call the One-ten Squad and ask them to check their Resident Known Criminal File and their Released Prisoner File. Get Mela’s current address. And if he has moved out of the One-ten, call that Squad.”

  “Right,” Brodie responded.

  Higgins and Valerie Clarkson walked out from the office together, chatting like old friends. Higgins moved ahead of the witne
ss and unlatched the gate. Clarkson stopped and smiled at Higgins.

  “Thank you,” Clarkson said.

  “I’ll call you,” Higgins said, pushing open the gate.

  “Don’t forget,” Clarkson said, leaving the squad room.

  When the witness had gone, Higgins perched on the edge of a desk across from the lieutenant. “The material-witness bit scared her. She was petrified that the newspapers would pick up on her involvement with Gallagher. Especially the threesome. She told me that after the trio finished playing their game together she stopped seeing Gallagher.” Higgins took hold of the sides of the desk and leaned forward. “But she continued to see Luise Bardwell.”

  “Bardwell told me that she isn’t seeing Clarkson,” Scanlon said.

  “She isn’t, according to Clarkson. They only saw each other four or five times after the threesome, and then Clarkson stopped seeing Bardwell too.”

  “Did she say why she stopped seeing Bardwell?” Scanlon asked.

  “She didn’t want that kind of a relationship, she told me,” Higgins said. “She thought she was gay and then realized that she wasn’t.”

  “Lieutenant, what was the name of the woman who came to see us first?” Christopher asked.

  “You mean the first of Gallagher’s girlfriends?”

  “Yes.”

  “Donna Hunt,” Scanlon said.

  “What was her husband’s name?”

  “Harold.”

  “Want to take a look?” Christopher said, stabbing a line in the directory with his finger.

  Scanlon looked over Christopher’s shoulder. Harold Hunt, CPA, had offices on Pennsylvania Avenue. His telephone exchange was 739, the same as the Santorini Diner’s.

  Jack Fable telephoned Scanlon to tell him that he had decided to assign men to guard Linda and Andrea Zimmerman.

  Scanlon told him that he thought that was a good move.

  “Oscar Mela still resides on Thirtieth Avenue. I have the address,” Brodie said, hanging up the receiver.

  A telephone rang. Colon answered. “Nine-three Squad, Suckieluski.” He shoved the receiver at Higgins. “For you.”

  Higgins took the phone, and her voice became strained. She turned her back to the others, arguing in whispers. She slammed down the receiver and stormed into the Whip’s office, banging the door closed.

  Scanlon said to Brodie, “I want you, Hector, and Christopher to hit Mela’s flat. Get him in here now. I don’t want to waste any time on this Eddie Hamill thing if it’s going nowhere.” He rummaged through Mela’s criminal record and took out several 4×4 mug shots of Mela. “Take these with you. It might help if you know what he looks like.”

  “We have nothing to hold this guy on—want us to flake him?” Brodie said.

  “No. Put on a little performance for him.”

  When the detectives had left, Scanlon slipped into his office and gently closed the door behind him. Higgins was standing by the window, looking down into the street.

  “Anything I can do?” he asked.

  She dabbed her eyes with a tissue. “Gloria can’t get used to me being on the Job. We were supposed to go shopping on the East Side for sheets today. She’s pissed off that I had to come into work on a Sunday that was my RDO.” She turned and looked at him. “Civilians will never understand this Job.”

  “That’s what makes us special, Maggie.”

  She blew her nose.

  “Why don’t you call it a day? We can handle it.”

  “No way. But thanks anyway.”

  “In that case, why don’t you make yourself useful and take your cute little behind out of my office and go into the prop room and get a baseball bat and a few collapsible chairs and set them up around the squad room in anticipation of the drama that is about to unfold.”

  She sniffled, kissed him on the cheek, and said, “My backside isn’t cute. It’s too big.”

  When she had left his office, Scanlon wrote a note to himself: “Luise Bardwell and Valerie Clarkson?? Donna Hunt’s husband, ck.”

  “Take your motherfucking hands off me!” screamed Oscar Mela as Lew Brodie heaved him over the squad room’s railing. Brodie threw open the gate and stormed in after the frightened man.

  Colon and Christopher restrained Brodie. “Take it easy,” Colon said to the seething detective.

  Biafra Baby went to help Oscar Mela up off the floor and onto one of the wooden chairs that Higgins had placed around the room.

  Scanlon rushed from his office. “What the hell is going on out here?”

  Lew Brodie pointed at Mela. His eyes were wide with frenzy. “While on patrol,” he began, “we observed this man drive past a red light on the intersection of Morgan and Nassau avenues.”

  “You’re a fucking liar!” Mela shouted. “I wasn’t anywhere near there. You kidnapped me from in front of my house. What’s his name? I want his name.”

  “His name is Detective Suckieluski,” Biafra Baby whispered to the suspect.

  “You got the balls to call me a liar!” Brodie screamed, breaking free of the detectives and rushing at the suspect.

  Biafra Baby stationed himself between Brodie and Mela. Colon and Christopher grabbed Brodie and pulled him away from Mela. Scanlon placed a calming hand on Mela’s shoulder. He noticed the thin man’s gaunt face and weak mouth. He had on a dirty pair of jeans and a grimy white T-shirt. Tattoos covered both his arms. Scanlon took note of two of them. A dripping dagger piercing a skull … Death Before Dishonor. A dagger piercing a heart … Mother. “Let the officer tell his side of it, and then you’ll get to tell your side. Okay?”

  Mela rapidly nodded.

  Brodie leaned against the railing, his right hand inches away from the baseball bat that Higgins had strategically placed there. He continued with his complaint. “I observed that the suspect was driving a ’79 Bonneville that had the vent window broken on the driver’s side—”

  “You broke that window with a blackjack,” Mela shouted.

  “Please, sir,” Scanlon said, gently squeezing the suspect’s shoulder. “Let Detective Suckieluski finish.”

  Brodie continued, “Having reasonable cause to believe that the offending vehicle was stolen, we identified ourselves to the driver as police officers and directed him to pull into the curb.

  “While Detective McCann was inspecting the suspect’s license and registration, I noticed that the vehicle identification number on the dashboard was altered. I observed that the Car Make Serial Symbol and the Body Style Symbol had been changed. ‘N’ is the symbol for a ’79 Bonneville. The VIN number on this car was ‘W,’ which is the style symbol for a Firebird Trans Am.” He inched his fingers closer to the bat. “I advised the suspect that he was under arrest for forgery of a vehicle identification number as an E Felony, and for Offering a False Instrument as an E Felony. I thereupon advised the prisoner of his rights. It was at this point that the prisoner lunged at me and began to beat me about the head and body with his clenched fists. Necessary force was required to subdue the prisoner.”

  An exasperated Oscar Mela screamed, “You lying cocksucker!” Brodie grabbed the bat and swung it at Mela, striking the rickety chair’s left leg, causing it to shatter, and tumbling Mela onto the floor. Screaming for help, Mela scrambled over the floor in a desperate flight to escape the crashing bat. Holding the bat high above his head, Brodie rushed after Mela.

  Every detective in the squad room rushed to subdue Brodie. They dragged him screaming into Scanlon’s office, where he continued to vent his rage by shouting and hitting the cabinets with his bat.

  “I wanna lawyer!” Mela shouted as he scrambled up off the floor.

  “Now calm down,” Scanlon said, lifting the receiver. “I’ll call Legal Aid and ask them to send someone.” He dialed his home number and had a brief conversation with his machine. Inside the Whip’s office, Brodie, Christopher, and Colon settled down into a fast game of stud poker. Brodie would intermittently halt the game to emit an angry howl and bang the bat against the si
de of the desk.

  Biafra Baby tried to calm Oscar Mela.

  Fifteen minutes later Maggie Higgins walked into the squad room and announced, “I’m Linda Wade. I would like to see my client, Oscar Mela.”

  Biafra Baby motioned to Mela. “He’s all yours.”

  Higgins dragged a chair over to where Mela was sitting and positioned herself in front of the prisoner so that she blocked his face with her body and whispered, “Tell me what happened.”

  Scanlon left the squad room and hurried downstairs. He crossed the muster room and went behind the Desk. Pete Doyle, an old-time lieutenant with a brogue, was doing desk duty.

  “How are you, Anthony?” the desk officer asked, looking up from U.S. News and World Report.

  “Okay, Pete. Anything doing?”

  “It’s quiet. It’s always quiet when I work. The lads know better than to bring any bullshit into the house when I have the Desk.”

  “Anticrime working today?”

  “I have two units out there.”

  “They busy?”

  “Anthony? In the Nine-three on a Sunday. You can’t be serious?”

  “Mind if I borrow one of your teams for a while?”

  “The lads are yours.” He spun around on the swivel chair to face the TS operator. “Give Anticrime a ten-two.” The TS operator picked up the radio and transmitted: “Nine-three Anticrime, ten-two.”

  No response. The operator waited a few minutes and rebroadcast the message. Still no response. The desk officer glanced with paternal annoyance at the squad commander, as the message was broadcast for a third time. There was still no response from the field.

  “It’s not like the old days, Anthony, when a desk officer told a cop to shit, and the cop asked how much would you like, sir. The new breed is young, most have never been in the service, and only a few of them have heard terms like ‘military discipline’ and ‘military courtesy.’ So every now and then I have to put on my tight pants and give the lads a little in-service training.” He angrily spun around to the TS operator. “Get on that radio and let them know that I am good and pissed off at them.”

  “Right, Lou.” The operator transmitted: “Nine-three Crime! Ten-two! Forthwith! Acknowledge! K!”