Suspects

by William Caunitz

  Detectives prefer to operate by stealth, away from the harmful glare of the limelight. In and out quickly, quietly. Scanlon knew that at that very moment mobile press crews had picked up the police transmissions on their car radios and were speeding toward Chrystie Street. He pressed the transmit button. “Nine-three lieutenant to Central, K.”

  “Go, Lou. What’s the condition? Do you require heavy weapons on the scene?”

  “Negative, Central. Call it off. Everything is under control. There’s no thirteen.”

  “Were shots fired at that location, K?”

  “Negative, Central. Some kids must have set off firecrackers.”

  “Ten-four, Lou. All units responding to the thirteen on Chrystie Street resume patrol. Authority, Nine-three lieutenant on the scene. Mark that run ten-ninety Y, Unnecessary Call.”

  Scanlon looked up and down the hallway. The doors were closed, the apartments silent. He checked Higgins once more and rushed back inside, cursing the PC.

  The furniture was cheap leatherette and veneer. A velvet painting of the Brooklyn Bridge hung on the wall. The bridge’s towers and cables were illuminated with little yellow lights. Scanlon moved the radio to his mouth. “Biafra?”

  Biafra Baby and Christopher had been assigned by Scanlon to stay with the two uniform cops from the Ninth and watch the front of the house, the side with the fire escapes.

  Biafra Baby’s voice came over the airway. “Yeah, Lou?”

  “Three.”

  “Right.”

  Scanlon switched the wavelength to the third setting, the seldom-used detective channel licensed by the FCC for person-to-person communication.

  “Anyone hurt?” Biafra Baby asked.

  “Maggie had the wind knocked out of her,” Scanlon said. “Who put over that thirteen?”

  “The boys in blue,” Biafra Baby radioed. “They did it before we could stop them.”

  “Can you make out the apartment?”

  “Yeah. Do you want us to give it a shot?”

  “Yeah. He’s holed up in what I think is the bedroom. The fire escape cuts across both rooms,” Scanlon said. “And for Chrissake, be careful.”

  In the hallway, Lew Brodie hovered over Higgins. Color had returned to her face and her gasping had stopped.

  “You gonna be okay?”

  She looked up into his massive face and smiled. “You threw your body over mine to protect me. Thanks, Lew.”

  He squirmed. “Hey, anything for a free feel. You know how horny us cops get.”

  “Yeah, I know. Get inside, you big lummox. I’ll be all right.”

  Brodie kissed her on the top of her head. “You’re an okay kid, Higgins. I’m goin’ inside and get a chunk of that guy’s ass for you.”

  A snarling, avenging bull rushed into the apartment. Before Scanlon could react, Brodie had hurled his massive hulk against the closed door and let out a blood-curdling yell.

  The sound of splintering wood filled the dingy apartment. The door flew off its hinges.

  Scanlon and Colon rushed into the bedroom behind Brodie. Eddie Hamill had been hastily unscrewing the window lock when the door caved in. He wheeled with his gun pointing at Brodie. Scanlon and Colon spread out, stalking Hamill. Colon was low, in a combat stance, his revolver pointed at Hamill’s chest. Scanlon’s revolver was aimed at the belly.

  Hamill’s nervous eyes darted from detective to detective as they spread out.

  “I’m getting out of here,” Hamill said. “I’ll blast anyone who tries to stop me.”

  Brodie stopped a few feet from Hamill. He aimed his weapon at Hamill’s face and cocked the hammer. “You’re gonna die, motherfucker.”

  Hamill’s gun hand trembled as the fear spread across his face.

  Biafra Baby and Christopher appeared on the fire escape.

  “I’m counting to five,” Brodie announced, “and if that piece ain’t on the floor, and your hands reaching for sky, I’m gonna send you to hell. One … two … three …”

  Biafra Baby smashed the window with his revolver.

  Instinctively, Eddie Hamill whirled to the sound of the breaking glass. Brodie and Colon leaped on Hamill. Colon’s hand gripped the cylinder of Hamill’s gun, preventing its discharge. Lew Brodie grabbed Hamill by the balls. Hamill screamed and his knees sagged. Keeping a relentless grip on the cylinder, Colon forced the gun upward, exerting pressure against Hamill’s wrist.

  Brodie twisted Hamill’s testicles, crushing them together. Hamill squealed and his body bent in half. Retching, Hamill toppled to the floor. Colon, with his hand still around the gun, knelt beside the downed man and prized the weapon from the resisting hand. Brodie raised his foot to stomp Hamill’s face.

  Scanlon grabbed Brodie’s shoulder. “Enough. We have the gun.” Scanlon yanked Hamill up off the floor and slammed him against the wall, pulling his hands behind his back, handcuffing him.

  Colon opened the cylinder of Hamill’s gun. “He let three go at us.”

  “Check them out,” Scanlon ordered Colon.

  Biafra Baby and Christopher opened the window and climbed inside.

  Eddie Hamill cringed up against the wall. “Ahhhh, my balls. My balls. Why’d ya have to grab my balls?”

  Scanlon turned the prisoner around and rammed his elbow across Hamill’s throat, pinioning him to the wall. “This ain’t Sesame Street, pal. We get annoyed when people peg shots at us.”

  “I thought you were burglars,” Hamill grunted.

  “With police shields stuck into your ugly face?” Scanlon said. “Save your bullshit for Legal Aid.”

  “Whaddaya want with me?” Hamill said. “I didn’t do nothing.”

  Eddie Hamill had a cloud in his right iris that spread outward into the pupil. Scanlon recalled the description of Hamill that Colon had given him in McJackoo’s Bar and Grill. He remembered the clumsy way Hamill had run into the bedroom. “You’re missing three toes off your left foot, right?” Scanlon asked.

  “Yeah,” Hamill snarled.

  Hamill was a muscular man with bushy eyebrows and a crooked nose that looked as though it had been broken on several occasions. There were large gaps between his front teeth.

  Colon came up behind Scanlon and whispered that the slugs had lodged in the wall without causing injuries.

  “Good,” Scanlon said.

  “Take a look,” Biafra Baby called out, holding up a plastic bag containing white powder and the silencer that he had found on top of the battered chest of drawers.

  “You can’t introduce any of that shit in court,” Hamill shouted. “You got no fucking search warrant.”

  Biafra Baby came over to Hamill, dangling the evidence. “It’s gonna be used, m’man. It’s gonna be used because we were legally present inside your stinking dom-i-cile, and because the discovery was inadvertent, and because the incriminating nature of the objects were immediately apparent to us police-type professionals.” Biafra Baby did a fast shuffle. “And that, m’man, bees known as the Plain View Doctrine, cha, cha, cha.”

  Scanlon looked at Christopher. “Get him out of here.”

  Christopher and Biafra Baby hustled the prisoner from the apartment. Hector Colon went outside in the hallway to see how Higgins was, and to help her downstairs.

  Brodie was on his knees rummaging through the bottom of the closet. Scanlon glanced around the room, made sure that they were alone, and went over to him. “Lew?”

  “Yeah?” Brodie said, looking up at the Whip’s angry face.

  “Don’t ever pull a stunt like that again.”

  Brodie raised his palms in a gesture of surrender. “That hump pegged shots at us and dumped on Maggie.”

  “Your Charge of the Light Brigade could have gotten yourself and us dead. You had no way of knowing what kind of artillery was on the other side of that door.”

  “Aw. You’re right. It won’t happen again.”

  “And don’t ever cock your hammer unless you damn well intend to shoot.”

  “Not to worr
y on that score, boss. I’m one of those cops who leave the first chamber empty. I’ve seen too many accidental discharges in my day.”

  “Did you find anything in the closet?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then let’s get the hell out of here.”

  15

  The Seventh Precinct is located on Pitt Street, a dilapidated block of boarded-up buildings and ruined foundations amid weed-filled lots in Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

  Scanlon had used the direct line to notify the PC of what had happened at the Chrystie Street address. How did the PC want him to proceed? Scanlon had asked.

  “Make your notifications, Lieutenant.”

  Scanlon notified Manhattan South Detective Command and Brooklyn North Detective Command of the arrest of Eddie Hamill. Both commands in turn notified the chief of detectives. CofD Goldberg upon hearing of the arrest got on the horn to the press.

  News briefs interrupted regular programs to announce that the NYPD was questioning a suspect in the Gallagher/Zimmerman homicides. The Seventh was soon besieged by reporters.

  Scanlon would have preferred to question Hamill back at the Nine-three, but department regulations required that prisoners be processed at the precinct of arrest, in this case the Seventh. Hamill was closeted in the Seventh Squad’s interview room, a cell-like place of cinder-block walls and two-way mirrors.

  Scanlon felt the tug of frustration gnawing at his gut. He knew damn well that Hamill was a dead end and that valuable time was being squandered, the case’s momentum lost. He walked into the interview room and sat across the table from Hamill. Shaking his head from side to side, he looked into the subject’s face.

  A faint smile came to Hamill’s lips. “You ain’t got shit and you know it.”

  Scanlon leaned forward. “Eddie, I’m going to be a nice guy and tell you exactly what we got. For openers, Assault Two on Detective Higgins. And the silencer that we found on your dresser, criminal possession of a weapon, a D Felony. The junk was felony-weight and carries with it a presumption of intent to sell, a C Felony. And then there is that matter of your gun and the shots you fired at us. Attempted Murder of Police Officers, a B Felony.”

  Hamill folded his arms across his chest and leaned back onto two legs. “Bullshit, and you fucking-A well know it.”

  “Eddie, I’ve been lying guys like you behind the wall for years.”

  Hamill nervously stretched his neck.

  “It’s time to play ‘Let’s Make a Deal,’” Scanlon said.

  “Fuck off.”

  “A wise man would at least listen.”

  Hamill’s gaze wandered, stopping at the two-way mirror set into the gray cinder block. “I’m listening.”

  “I want to know what went down between you and Walter Ticornelli. I also want to know your whereabouts when Lieutenant Gallagher and Yetta Zimmerman were taken out.”

  Hamill’s expression brightened. “That’s what this is all about?”

  “That’s what it’s about, Eddie.”

  “And suppose I tell you, then what?”

  “Then I’ll be a nice guy and see to it that when the complaint is drawn up no mention is made of Clear View. The evidence will have been discovered in a closet in your apartment. You’ll be held for the grand jury and they’ll indict. But at the first Huntley hearing to suppress the evidence your Legal Aid lawyer will be able to get the evidence suppressed and the case will go bye-bye.”

  “And the gun and the shots I took at you?”

  “What shots?”

  Hamill grinned. “I’m on parole. I owe eight on a seven and a half to fifteen for burglary. I’d have to go back inside.”

  “I’ll square things with your parole officer. You won’t have to go back inside, I promise,” Scanlon lied.

  “In that case …” Hamill flipped his palms. “I was into Walter and couldn’t make the payments. We had a sort of falling out.”

  “All of it, Eddie.”

  As Hamill told it, when he missed two vig payments, Ticornelli dispatched three of his Mulberry Street gorillas to have a talk with him. The Greenpoint burglar took a bad beating and was forced to redouble his efforts to steal enough money to get Ticornelli off his back. It took him three weeks to raise the money.

  “I had the hospital records checked, Eddie. You were confined to St. John’s with gunshot wounds. Was that Ticornelli’s handiwork?”

  “He had nothing to do with that,” Hamill said, annoyed. “That’s them Greenpoint biddies and their rumors. It just so happened that about the same time I was having a problem with Ticornelli I was also seeing this Cuban chick. Her old man found out about us and sent some of his relatives around to see me. I almost didn’t get away that time. I’ll tell ya, them damn Cubans still live in the stone age. I hadda go out and rob more money to lay on the head spic in order to square myself with them. Tell ya, that was one expensive pussy.”

  “Someone tried to take Ticornelli out about the same time. Was that you?”

  Hamill placed his elbows on the table and held out his hands, palms out. “Look at my sheet, man. I’m a burglar and a lover. Not a strongarm guy. I never tried to hit Ticornelli or anyone else.” He held up a finger. “If you’d bothered to check back you’d have seen that the paisanos were having one of their pizza wars at the time Ticornelli got shot at. It was his own people who tried to take him out.”

  “Where were you when Lieutenant Gallagher and the old lady were hit?”

  Hamill suppressed a smile. “I got the best alibi in the world. I was with Mr. Greenspan, my parole officer. Check it out.”

  “Your stomping grounds are Greenpoint, Eddie. Why are you living in Manhattan under an alias?”

  “Guys in my line of work don’t advertise, Lieutenant.”

  Scanlon scraped his chair back and got up.

  “We got a deal, ain’t we?”

  “Yeah, Eddie, we got a deal.”

  The Seventh’s squad room was a very busy place. Detectives manned telephones, answering the queries of overhead commands who wanted the who, what, when, where, why, and how of the Eddie Hamill arrest. The Seventh’s Second Whip was out in the muster room keeping the reporters at bay. Nine-three Squad detectives were at typewriters banging out the considerable paperwork connected with Hamill’s arrest.

  Scanlon was anxious to leave the Seventh and get on with the investigation. He knew that they’d all be stuck in the Seventh until all the paper was done and all the notifications made. Tradition dictated that detectives who made out-of-command arrests process their own prisoners.

  Scanlon went into the Whip’s office and telephoned the PC. He told him of his interview with Eddie Hamill and restated his belief that Hamill was nothing but a waste of time and effort. The PC agreed, but still wanted Scanlon to buy him some time.

  Scanlon walked out into the squad room. He went up to Higgins, who was sitting at a desk scratching out the property voucher. “How do you feel?”

  “All right, Lou.”

  “I want you to do an LOD request.”

  She let the pencil fall from her hand and looked up at him. “I really don’t want to go through the hassle of a line-of-duty-injury request, Lou. I’d have to have the guys prepare witness statements, go to the hospital and get a doctor’s diagnosis, wait around to be interviewed by the duty captain, call the sick desk and get a serial number. All that paperwork, and I feel fine.”

  Leaning forward, Scanlon placed a hand on the back of her chair and another flat on the typewriter. “Maggie, if you start to hemorrhage tonight at home, it’ll be too late to put in for LOD, so do me a favor, and do it now.”

  “But Lou …”

  “Now, Maggie,” he whispered into her ear.

  Covering the mouthpiece of the phone with his hand, Colon hollered, “Lou, you got a call. Some broad.”

  “What’s her name?” Lew Brodie hollered back.

  “Not you, the lieutenant,” Colon said.

  Linda Zimmerman’s voice was strained and very
low. “A news bulletin just announced that you have taken a suspect into custody in the Seventh Precinct. Is that true?”

  “I can’t discuss that over the telephone. Where are you?”

  A maid led Scanlon into the sitting room of the Sutton Place apartment. The furniture was wicker and the room overlooked the river and the East Side Highway.

  Linda Zimmerman was slumped in a sofa with her left arm hanging limply over the woven arm. Her hair was carelessly pinned up and her face was without makeup, save for some caked-on mascara on her long eyelashes. She was dressed in jeans, an oversize cotton shirt, and Docksiders. Her grim stare followed Scanlon as he crossed the sun-drenched room.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, lowering himself down next to her.

  “The man that you have in custody, is he the one who slaughtered my family?”

  “No, Linda, he isn’t. We’re holding him on another matter. The press somehow got hold of it and got their wires crossed.”

  She clutched her arms and shivered. Her body began to shake.

  Scanlon was saddened by the sight. “Please believe that we are doing everything possible to catch them.”

  “Sure you are,” she said with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

  “I’ve been trying to contact you. Whose apartment is this?”

  “My Aunt Rae’s. She’s my father’s sister, and you can’t interview her because she is not here. She’s out making the arrangements for the cremation of my brother and his wife.”

  Scanlon caught a faint whiff of her evergreen-and-orange fragrance. He recalled their first meeting in the drawing room of her brother’s home. Then she had been wearing a wide-brimmed hat and black crocheted gloves, and sat on a fragile Queen Anne chair with her long legs crossed at the knees. It seemed as though it was an eon ago, in some far-off place. “How is your niece?”

  “Oh, Andrea is just wonderful. Would you like to see her?” She got up, held out a hand to him. “Come, I’ll bring you to her.”