Suspects

by William Caunitz

  She looked up from the typewriter. “No way. I love children.” She looked down at the keys. “That’s my one big regret, not having children.”

  Scanlon went into his office and telephoned the Nineteenth. Jack Fable had nothing to report. Patient Information at Doctors Hospital informed him that Linda Zimmerman and Andrea Zimmerman had been discharged. He took out the card that Linda Zimmerman had given him and dialed her home. There was no answer. There was also no answer at the Stanley Zimmerman residence. He plucked a pencil out of the coffee can on his desk and jotted in block letters on the pad in front of the can: “WHY? WHERE THE HELL IS THE DAMN MOTIVE?” Staring out into the squad room, he thought, There has to be a connection between Gallagher and the Zimmermans, someplace. He wondered what Jane Stomer would say if he called her. Knock it off, he thought with disgust. You have a homicide on your hands.

  Brodie stuck his head into the office. “Lou, we got shots fired on Kent and Franklin streets.”

  Scanlon broke out of his trance and rushed out into the squad room. The detectives had all gathered around the radio set, heads bowed in concentration. Tension was high. Scanlon lowered himself to the edge of the desk, folded his arms across his chest, and listened to the transmissions.

  “We have numerous reports of shots fired at Kent and Franklin. Subject a male, white, heavyset, wearing maroon slacks with a white belt, white loafers, and a long-sleeved brown shirt. Units responding use caution.”

  “Nine-three sergeant to Central. Advise units, no sirens.”

  “Ten-four, Sarge. Units responding to Kent and Franklin, do not use your sirens. Authority, Nine-three sergeant.”

  An excited voice burst over the wavelength. “George Henry, Central. We have ’im in view, walking east on Kent.”

  The radio fell silent.

  Radio cars on patrol in Brooklyn North pulled into curbs, double-parked, their crews refraining from giving back the dispositions on jobs, anxiously awaiting the next transmission. Inside station houses clerical men hurried from offices and gathered around precinct radio sets. The Nine-three detectives fidgeted uneasily and glanced impatiently at one another. The absence of traffic on the radio was ominous.

  “Nine-three units on the scene Kent and Franklin advise Central of the condition at that location, K.”

  No response from the field.

  “Nine-three sergeant advise Central of the condition Kent and Franklin. Is further assistance required? Acknowledge, K.”

  A nonchalant, self-assured voice crackled over the wavelength. “Er, Central, this is the Nine-three sergeant. No further, Central. Call it off.”

  “What is the condition, Sarge?”

  “We’re investigating at this time, Central. Will advise by landline.”

  “Ten-four, Sarge.”

  Scanlon kicked the side of the desk in anger. “Sheee-it! Just what we need.” He hopped off the desk and stormed back into his office. That last transmission from the patrol sergeant had told it all: they’d be dragging trouble in off the street. He figured that he had about ten minutes before it arrived. He made another quick call to Linda Zimmerman, with negative results. He dialed Sally De Nesto’s number, and reminding himself to use her name and to mention his, he told her machine that he would like to see its mistress that evening, and hung up. Staring at the phone, he thought, We’ve become a society of automatons. Machines dial and talk to each other, machines add and subtract for us, pay bills for us. Someday soon we’ll be able to stick our dicks into the mouthpiece of telephones and get blow jobs. I’d better hurry out and buy some telephone stock.

  Nine minutes later he heard the expected commotion outside in the squad room. Loud, gruff voices, and shuffling, stumbling feet. A boisterous drunken voice shouted, “Get your hands off me. I’m on the fucking Job.”

  Scanlon pushed himself up out of the chair and calmly walked out into the squad room. A sergeant and five cops were tugging and pulling a drunk through the gate. Scanlon leaned against the doorframe, watching the all-too-familiar sight. The detectives had all found something to do; nary a head was not bent over a typewriter. What you don’t see, you don’t know, and can’t be expected to testify to.

  Sergeant McNamara had a ruddy complexion and thinning gray hair. He left the drunk and came over to Scanlon. He shrugged helplessly. “His name is McMahon, Lou. He works in the Four-nine. He went to Lieutenant Gallagher’s funeral and afterward him and his buddies stopped in the Dunnygall for a taste.” The sergeant moved in close and whispered, “His uncle is Chief McMahon, the Bronx borough commander.”

  Scanlon eyed the thrashing drunk attempting to straddle a chair. “How many did he let go?”

  The sergeant scratched the back of his ear. “Six.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Can we say it was a car backfiring?”

  “Backfire? Have you canvassed the area to see if his backfire resulted in any dead or injured?”

  “Emergency Service is on the scene now. They’re checking.”

  Scanlon nodded toward the drunk. “Keep him quiet.” He walked back into his office and found Higgins waiting with a smile on her face.

  “Seeing you in action reminds me of Baryshnikov making great leaps across the stage, graceful, smooth, always in command.”

  “And what is that supposed to mean, Detective Higgins?”

  “That means, Lieutenant Scanlon, sir, that before you are finished with that caper outside, you are going to be holding a lot of IOUs.”

  “Why, Maggie chile, whatever do you mean?”

  Sergeant McNamara stuck his head in. “Chief McMahon is on the line for you.”

  “My, the word do travel fast in the Job,” Scanlon said, pushing down the blinking button. “Hello, Chief.”

  The authoritarian voice on the other end was full of concern. “I understand you’re holding my nephew.”

  “He’s here.”

  “What’s the story?”

  “He might have to take a fall for Reckless Endangerment. He got his load on and let six go.” As he talked, Scanlon reached into the top drawer of his desk and took out the Department Directory. He quickly flipped the pages to the M’s. Assistant Chief Joseph McMahon was born February 11, 1927, and came on the Job June 1, 1946. That would make him fifty-nine. With the mandatory retirement age set at sixty-three, Scanlon would have four years to call in any markers. Plenty of time.

  “Can anything be done?” Chief McMahon said. There was that familiar undercurrent, that slight modulation of tone.

  “I’m not sure. Depends on whether or not he hit anyone. If he did, then nothing can be done, and he’ll have to take a collar. If not …” He did not finish the sentence. The next move was McMahon’s.

  “I’d be very grateful for anything you could do, Lou.”

  “I’ll get back to you, Chief.”

  The next call came from Frankie Lungo, the PBA’s borough trustee. He too wanted to know if anything could be done, and he too would be grateful. The third call came from the duty captain. He was anxious to dance away from the entire matter, and asked Scanlon to call him with the results of his investigation.

  Scanlon got on the horn to the desk officer in the Four-nine. He asked the desk lieutenant one of the Job’s most-asked questions: What kind of guy is this McMahon?

  “When he’s sober, a gentleman. When he’s got his load on, he’s trouble.”

  It was almost one hour before the sergeant in charge of the Emergency Service truck telephoned Scanlon and told him that the canvass failed to reveal any casualties or property damage from PO McMahon’s unauthorized discharge of six rounds. Scanlon thanked the sergeant and went out into the squad room. The off-duty cop was slumped in a chair, still babbling, “I’m on the fucking Job.”

  Scanlon went over to him and stared into his blurry eyes.

  “Whatharfuck you looking at?” McMahon said truculently.

  “I’m looking at you. I’ve never seen an asshole up close before.”

  “I know who you are,” babbled the drunk.
“You’re that pegleg lieutenant, ol’ shit on a stick himself.”

  Scanlon kicked the chair out from under the drunk. With arms thrashing upward, McMahon tumbled backward onto the floor.

  “I’m the pegleg lieutenant who is going to hand you a collar for Reckless Endangerment.”

  McMahon sat up, shook his head trying to clear the drunkeness away. “I didn’t do nothing. I wanna PBA lawyer,” he demanded.

  Bending, cupping his palms over his kneecaps, Scanlon said into the drunk’s face, “You didn’t do anything, huh? I’ll tell you exactly what you did. You fired six rounds from your off-duty under circumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life thereby recklessly engaging in conduct that created a grave risk to human life. And that, asshole, is a D Felony.”

  McMahon tottered up onto his feet. His cheeks were crimson and his nose a patchwork of broken capillaries. Bracing himself on the edge of the desk, he shook his head, trying to clear the craziness from his mind. He was suddenly scared. “I’ve got fourteen years on the Job. I’ve got a family.”

  “You should have thought of that when you drew your gun.” Scanlon looked over at Lew Brodie. “Read him his rights and book him.” Scanlon went back into his office and slammed the door.

  Higgins was sitting down, applying polish to her nails. “Beautiful, Lou,” she said, carefully gliding the brush over a nail. “I just love your lighthearted leaps, your angular foldings and unfoldings.”

  The door burst open. McMahon teetered over to the desk, gripping it for support. Higgins got up from the chair and with her fingers fanned limply out in front of her moved out into the squad room.

  “Please, Lou,” McMahon pleaded, trying to hold his swaying body upright. “I’ll do anything. My family. Please.”

  Scanlon glared at him. How many tragedies involving cops had he seen? Too many to remember. Scanlon always thought of the wife and children. How they are made to suffer punishment too. He wondered how many times his drunken father had gotten jammed up and had been cut loose. “You’re a police officer. You’re supposed to protect lives, not endanger them.”

  “I can’t stop once I start. I lose control. I …” He hung his head and cried.

  “I’m going to let you slide,” Scanlon said, “but I’m dropping the net over you. You’re going into the Program.”

  “Oh, God, thank you, Lou, thank you.”

  “It means going away to the Farm to dry out and then attending the AA meetings. One slip, and it’s your job. Understand?”

  McMahon nodded.

  Scanlon dialed the Counseling Unit of the Health Service Bureau and told the cop who answered that he had a live one for him.

  A harried desk officer was fending off a barrage of reporters’ questions. He grabbed the telephone, dialed the Whip’s extension, and when Scanlon answered, turned his back to the reporters and said, “I’ve got a million fucking reporters down here breaking my balls about the Gallagher/Zimmerman connection. Better come down and speak to them.”

  When Scanlon appeared on the staircase, someone shouted, “There’s Scanlon,” and the herd turned and stampeded over to the staircase.

  “What’s the connection between Gallagher and the Zimmermans?”

  “Why were the doctor and his wife murdered?”

  “What leads have been developed?”

  “Do you have any suspects?”

  Scanlon moved down to the bottom step and held out the palms of his hands, signaling to the reporters to quiet down. “Gentlemen, our investigations have failed to reveal any connection between the homicides that occurred within this command and the ones in the Nineteenth. At this point in the investigation, we believe it was nothing more than a sad coincidence.”

  This only triggered a new burst of questions. The desk officer shook his head, signed out in the blotter on a personal, and stepped into the lieutenants’ locker room to the right of the Desk.

  Scanlon shook his head in frustration.

  “Look, guys. I’d be more than happy to give you whatever I had. But the simple truth is, I have nothing for you that you don’t already know.”

  A disbelieving murmur came from the crowd.

  “Look. The Nineteenth caught the Dr. Zimmerman case. Maybe they have something to give you.”

  “That’s the same bullshit that Fable fed us,” a reporter shouted up at Scanlon.

  “Are you and your superiors convinced that Lieutenant Gallagher was killed while preventing a holdup?” a woman reporter shouted.

  “Absolutely.”

  Her raven-black hair was pulled back into a bun, and she wore oversize, tinted aviator glasses. “Would you not agree, Lieutenant, that there is always the remote possibility that you and your superiors are wrong, and that Gallagher was murdered, and that there is, in fact, a direct connection with the homicide in the Nineteenth?”

  Scanlon looked directly down at her. “I’m sorry. Would you mind repeating the question?”

  She scowled, took a few seconds to gather her thoughts, and then repeated the question in a different form.

  “No, I don’t see any connection,” Scanlon answered, and immediately answered another question. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m really not conversant with what happened in the Nineteenth. Captain Suckieluski of Press Information has been designated to act as press coordinator for both cases. He’s the man you should be talking to, not me.”

  “And where do we find this Captain Suckieluski?”

  “I believe he has an office at One Police Plaza. Room 1010, I think.”

  The reporters wheeled and headed for the station-house door. Daniel J. Buckman, an investigative reporter from the Times, aka the Cocksucker with Lockjaw, was leaning against the Desk’s brass railing, smiling broadly and clapping his hands slowly in mocking applause.

  Scanlon walked over to him.

  “Suckieluski shows originality. Most cops are only capable of a McCann or a Smith, but Suckieluski, I like it.” He sucked air through his uneven teeth. “And I do believe that Room 1010 is the Pension Bureau.”

  “What’s on your mind, Buckman?”

  The reporter looked around at the cop on the switchboard and moved away from the railing, going over to the staircase.

  Scanlon went with him.

  “Your cover-up on Gallagher’s death and the link with the double homicide in the Nineteenth is on my mind. I can’t help but wonder what the connection is and what Gallagher was into that caused everyone to get gray hair.”

  “You’re playing with yourself, you know that?”

  “I can smell it.” He put one foot on the bottom step and gripped the banister. “You know, my job is a lot like yours. I make a pest of myself asking questions, suborning, making promises that I know won’t be kept. I keep at it until I find that one person who will talk to me. Tell the truth.”

  “If you want to waste your time, that’s your business.” He started to go back upstairs.

  “Wait.”

  Scanlon stopped.

  “The public does have a right to know the truth.”

  “What the public has is the right to expect its public officials who are charged with the enforcement of criminal law to do everything possible to protect the integrity of their investigations. And that is done, Mr. Buckman, by not revealing information that will end up as blaring headlines. So you see, what we have is a conflict of rights.”

  “They need not be mutually exclusive.”

  “That is true. But, sadly, they are.”

  “I’ve always admired you, Scanlon. Losing your leg, electing to remain a cop. I’m sure that it wasn’t easy for you.”

  “See ya around,” Scanlon said, lifting his fake leg up onto the first step.

  “A deal?”

  Scanlon froze. “I’m listening.”

  “I’ll lay off. I’ll even suggest to my colleagues that there is no cover-up, no connection.”

  “And the bottom line?”

  “When it’s all over you sit down with me and giv
e it to me chapter and verse.”

  “You’re a whore, you know that?”

  “Even a whore has to make a living.”

  Deputy Chief MacAdoo McKenzie’s white shirt had sweat stains around the collar. Pacing Scanlon’s office, he growled, “I’ve just come from the PC. He’s a little more than just concerned. The fucking press has been all over him regarding this Dr. Zimmerman case. Even the mayor is taking heat.”

  “Chief, it’s just another homicide.”

  “That’s bullshit. Anytime the rich and famous get blown away it ain’t just another fucking homicide. All we need now is for Gallagher’s love life to leak out.” He wiped his palms with his handkerchief. “What about this Eddie Hamill thing? Anything to it?”

  “Hamill’s not involved,” Scanlon said. “I talked with Walter Ticornelli at the funeral this morning and he assured me that the vendetta story is nonsense.”

  McKenzie threw up his hands. “And you believe him?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Do you think you should at least go and have a talk with Hamill?”

  “Probably. But I haven’t had the time. As soon as I do I’ll go and have a sit-down with Hamill.”

  Higgins came into the office, nodded to the Chief, and said to Scanlon, “Sigrid Thorsen, our witness with the baby in the park, called. She’s agreed to be hypnotized. I’ve arranged an appointment for her on Wednesday. A policewoman from the Six-oh will be assigned to baby-sit.”

  “Anything else?” Scanlon asked.

  “The spectrographic report from the lab on those peanut shells Christopher sent in was in the morning mail. The shells contained traces of mineral oil, water, propylene glycol, glyceryl stearate, lanolin oil, and other assorted goodies.”

  “Which all adds up to what?” Scanlon said.

  “A hand cream or some kind of skin moisturizer,” she said, perplexed. “A woman, you think?”

  “Too many people say a man. Besides, men use hand creams. Especially older men with dry skin.”

  “I suppose so,” Higgins said.

  When Deputy Chief McKenzie left the Squad thirty minutes later, Scanlon got on the horn to Jack Fable at the Nineteenth Squad and told him about the deal he had made with Buckman. Fable told him that his detectives had come up with a witness, a man who had had a fight with his lover and could not sleep. They lived two houses down from the Zimmerman residence. The witness was looking out the window and saw a man enter and then leave the Kingsley Arms around the time of occurrence. The man was carrying an attaché case and had a mustache. The witness stated that the man appeared to be in his late thirties. The witness was working with the department artist. Fable would send Scanlon a copy of the Five.