Suspects

by William Caunitz

  Scanlon repeated the address aloud. The detectives looked at each other. “The One-fourteen,” Scanlon blurted.

  The order form had been typed. A Mr. Raymond Gilligan had ordered crepe wool, medium-gray beard stubble, adhesive stick, hair whiteners, latex, cosmetic pencils, nose putty, rubber mask grease, molding putty, and spirit gum. He had also ordered a man’s wig and a walrus mustache.

  Scanlon hastily signaled for Brown to join them.

  “What can you tell me about this order?” Scanlon asked Brown.

  The makeup man took the order form and looked it over. “Mr. Gilligan obviously wanted to make himself appear older,” Brown said, handing Scanlon back the form.

  “Do you have any recollection of filling this order?” Scanlon asked.

  “None whatever,” Brown said. “We fill hundreds of orders a month.”

  “What is crepe wool?” Biafra Baby said.

  Brown went up to one of the storage cartons and took out a package of crepe wool. It looked like sticks of licorice. He removed the wool from its cellophane wrapping and began unraveling the fibers, spreading them apart. The wool began to curl and resemble beard hair. “It’s used to make beards and mustaches.” He strung the fiber over his clean-shaven face. “See, now I have a beard. It’s applied with spirit gum.”

  “How would a person not in the business find out what to order and how to apply makeup?” Scanlon asked.

  “There are a lot of books on the subject,” Brown said. “In fact, I’ve written a few myself.”

  Biafra Baby pointed to the order form in Scanlon’s hand. “All that makeup is used to make a person look older?”

  “Most of it.” Brown spread his hands. “I mean, some of that stuff has several uses.”

  “May we borrow this form, Mr. Brown?” Scanlon said. “It might aid us in our search for this pervert.”

  “Take it with you. I’m glad to help.”

  Scanlon went up to the packing table and tore a sheet of wrapping paper from the roller and wrapped the order form in paper. He turned to Brown. “One more favor. May I use your phone?”

  The clerical man at the One-fourteen remembered Ray Gilligan. He had worked sector Henry Ida for sixteen years until he developed the Big C four years ago, the clerical man told Scanlon. “Ray went out of the picture three years ago.”

  Every patrol precinct in the city maintains mailboxes for its cops. Pigeonholes with three or four letters of the alphabet stapled under each hole. It would have been an easy matter for Harris to have sent the order form in the name of Raymond Gilligan and then to check the G mail slot daily for the package, Scanlon knew. He turned to the makeup man. “Can you tell me how this order was paid for?”

  Brown removed an accounting ledger from the desk and flipped clumps of pages until he came to the page he wanted. He moved his finger down a column of names, came to Gilligan, slid his finger over to the numbered column, and said, “A bank money order. And there is no way I can tell you the name of the bank.”

  The Latent Section of the NYPD is located in Room 506 of the big building. Before going there Scanlon and Biafra Baby stopped off on the thirteenth floor to see the CofD. Scanlon asked Chief Goldberg to make a personal call to the CO of the Identification Section, of which the Latent Section was a part, and request the CO of Identification to render all possible assistance to Scanlon and Biafra Baby, who were conducting a confidential investigation under the personal control and supervision of the CofD.

  Chief of Detectives Goldberg chewed on his cigar, grabbed up the phone, and, when he got connected, barked, “Harry, I’m sending two of my people around to see you. Do whatever the fuck they ask you to do, and keep your mouth shut about it, or I’ll personally stick one up your ass.”

  Riding down in the elevator, Biafra Baby nudged Scanlon. “Goldberg’s a class act.”

  “He’s certainly a hard one to follow,” Scanlon said.

  The CO of the ID Section was waiting for them when they stepped off the elevator. He led them into the Latent Section, assigned a man to help them, and excused himself because he had a lot of work waiting for him. The fingerprint man who had been assigned to them had green eyes and appeared nervous.

  “This is a confidential investigation,” Scanlon said. “If word leaks out, the PC and the CofD are both going to be highly pissed off at you.”

  “Don’t worry, Lou. I don’t feature being flopped back into the bag. I like working days with weekends off.”

  “Then we understand each other,” Scanlon said.

  Scanlon had the fingerprint man check the name index for George Harris’s fingerprint formula. Armed with the filing code, the fingerprint man was able to pull Harris’s fingerprint chart from the million-plus on file. Scanlon signed the card out of file with a confidential index number. Next the fingerprint man checked the criminal and civilian name file for Mary Ann Gallagher. The dead lieutenant’s widow had no record with the NYPD.

  When they reached Room 506 the fingerprint man unwrapped the package that Scanlon had handed him and removed the order form with tweezers. “You’re interested in knowing if Harris’s prints are on this form, right?” asked the fingerprint man.

  “Correct.” Scanlon turned to Biafra Baby. “Better call the Squad and let them know where we are.”

  Biafra Baby nodded and moved off.

  The fingerprint man went up to a dollhouselike contraption with an open front that sat on top of one of the workbenches. He fastened one end of the order form to one of the three clothespins that hung from the house’s ceiling. He attached the other two pins to the order form. He took a tiny dish that resembled a Chinese duck-sauce bowl and dumped crystalline iodine into it. He put the dish inside the house, directly under the hanging order form. “The iodine fumes will bring out any latents,” the fingerprint man said. Scanlon watched as the orange outlines began to appear: loops, arches, central pocket loops, whorls.

  “All the lines are busy,” Biafra Baby called over to Scanlon.

  “Keep trying,” Scanlon called back.

  The fingerprint man unfastened the order form and placed it down on a glass plate that lay on the workbench next to the dollhouse. He picked up a second glass plate and covered the first, then sealed the edges with rubber-tipped clips.

  “Why the glass plates?” Scanlon asked.

  “It preserves the latents. We can also photograph them, and if we have to, at some later date, we can present them in court.” He looked at Scanlon, a smug smile on his lips. “The Best Evidence Rule, Lou. Remember? Present the original trace evidence before the court.”

  Leaning over the plates, the fingerprint man glided his magnifying glass on a stand over the glass, examining the impressions through the eyepiece.

  “I told Higgins where we are,” Biafra Baby said, returning.

  “Got a lot of prints here, Lou,” the fingerprint man said. “And from the diversity of pattern types I’d say that many different people have handled this piece of paper.”

  “For now, I’m only interested in Harris,” Scanlon said. “By the way, who maintains the Typewriter File these days?”

  The NYPD files sample type of every typewriter that is used in the department. Each letter and character has individual characteristics that can be positively identified as belonging of a specific typewriter.

  Without looking up from the linen tester, the fingerprint man said, “We maintain it.”

  “I’d like the type on that order form checked against the Typewriter File,” Scanlon said.

  “No problem, Lou,” replied the fingerprint man.

  A voice called out, “Is there a Lieutenant Scanlon here?”

  The bank was nestled on the ground floor of a high-rise apartment building.

  Lew Brodie was waiting in the corridor outside the vault room. “She’s been inside for almost a half hour,” Brodie said to the approaching lieutenant.

  “I left Biafra Baby at the Latent Section and got here as fast as I could,” Scanlon said. He looked
through the security glass into the vault room. “How many people are in there?”

  “We got lucky,” Brodie said. “Zimmerman and the vault man. Some old guy just left.”

  “Let’s get in there now,” Scanlon said. “I want to see what she has in that box.”

  “Lou,” Brodie said, taking the Whip by the arm, “you sure you wanna go in after her? We don’t have a search warrant, and she ain’t no bimbo.”

  “We don’t have one shred of evidence, not against Harris, not against Mrs. Gallagher, not against anyone. We have a suspicion that Harris and Gallagher might be the perps, but I could be wrong about them. And then where do we go? Linda Zimmerman cleaned out her mother’s apartment the day after she was killed. She rented a safety deposit box the same day. She could very well be involved in the murders.”

  Lew Brodie motioned for the vault man to open the door. The retired cop, a big man with a sagging neck and a pallid complexion, opened the door. “I don’t want any trouble,” he said to Brodie.

  Placing a calming hand on the vault man’s shoulder, Brodie said, “Ain’t gonna be no trouble.”

  Scanlon looked around the vault room, his gaze coming to rest on the huge stainless-steel door. “What room is she in?” he asked the vault man.

  “Number four,” answered the retired cop. “No trouble, right? I’m a little nervous. I’d forgotten what it’s like to be in the Job.”

  Scanlon motioned to Brodie and the vault man to remain where they were, and padded over to cubicle four. He listened at the door. He heard muffled sounds, and strained in vain to make out the intelligible words. Should he barge in on her, or should he wait for her to leave? He never felt any hesitation when he had to lean on a wise guy or anyone who lived on the fringe of the law. They were fair game and they knew how the game was played. Linda Zimmerman was different. Or was she? Was she a victim or was she a guileful woman involved in murder? He had to satisfy himself which it was.

  A rustling came from inside the room. Scanlon turned quickly and shooed Brodie and the vault man from sight.

  Linda Zimmerman gasped when she opened the door and saw Scanlon. She darted back inside, pulled the door behind her. He threw his weight against the door and pushed it open before she could lock it.

  It was a cramped space with a desk built into the wall and a straight-back chair padded in green leather. She cowered against the wall, the thin green box clutched to her chest, her face furrowed with confusion. “Please leave me alone.”

  “Linda, I need to know what you have in that box. Knowing might help me get the people responsible for taking your family away from you.”

  “It’s personal,” she said, frantically looking around the room for an escape hatch.

  “Linda, please allow me to look inside that box.”

  “No! I want to call my attorney. How dare you invade my privacy?” She tried to push past him but he blocked her path. She pulled back from him. As she did, he reached out and yanked the box from her grip. She leaped at him, beating him on the head and shoulders, screaming at him to give her back her property. He pushed her away from him. Holding her at arm’s length with one hand, he put the box down on the desk and with his free hand flicked the hasp off the staple.

  “Don’t!” she beseeched him.

  He flipped open the lid. The box contained four Ziploc plastic bags filled with gray ash. She pulled away from his grip and slumped down into the chair, defeated. He prodded the bags with his fingers. He could feel bits of calcareous material. In one horrible moment of recognition his heart sank with guilt.

  She was crying, talking to the bags of ash. “Daddy, they won’t leave us alone.”

  Scanlon slapped the lid closed. “Linda, please forgive me. In my zeal … I …” For the first time in his life he was sorry that he was a cop. For the first time in his life he hated the Job. He pressed her head to him, consoling her.

  “I wanted them to be safe. They were all that I had. I came here to talk to them, the way I did when I was a girl. I wanted them to be together, always.”

  Scanlon slid his hand behind him, reaching for the doorknob. He turned it and left the room, leaving her with her head atop the box, crying softly. He stormed out of the vault room.

  “Whaddya find out?” Brodie said, hurrying beside him down the corridor.

  “Nothing. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “But Lou,” Brodie persisted, “she must have been doing something in there.”

  “Goddamnit! I said nothing. Now let’s go. Biafra Baby is waiting for us in the Latent Section.”

  The fingerprint man used a Pentel sign pen to rule off the points of comparison. “These characteristics match up with the ring, middle, and forefinger of Harris’s right hand,” the fingerprint man told Scanlon.

  “We hit pay dirt, Lou,” Brodie said.

  “Maybe,” Scanlon said, bending to examine the latent finger-prints. He noted the different points of comparison that had been ruled off on the glass. An abrupt ending ridge. A dot. A short ridge. A meeting of two ridges. The core. The delta.

  Looking up from the glass, Scanlon asked, “What about the type?”

  The fingerprint man said, “I enlarged and measured the writing. It was one of those check-off order forms, so it didn’t present much of a standard to work with. So I had to make do with the name and address. ‘Raymond Gilligan’ and the Astoria address contained four A’s, three L’s, three I’s, two O’s, and two D’s. I compared the characteristics of those letters against the writings in our files and came up with a match. An Underwood, assigned to the Seventeenth Narcotics District. Serial number 38J93873.”

  Chief of Detectives Goldberg trudged six paces ahead of Scanlon into the PC’s office.

  The police commissioner was standing in his sun-drenched office reading a legal brief. Not looking up from the page, he motioned the two men into chairs. “Tell me what you have, Lou,” Gomez said, tossing the brief onto his desk.

  Scanlon began: “I’ve just come from the Latent Section …” When he finished, he added, “I know that it’s circumstantial, but I believe that we now have enough to move on Harris.”

  “I’m not so sure,” the PC said. “You have no evidence linking Harris to Mrs. Gallagher. In fact, you don’t have anything against Mrs. Gallagher. As for the fingerprints, Harris’s weren’t the only ones on that form. And anyone assigned to the Seventeenth District could have typed out that makeup order. Including Joe Gallagher.”

  “I’m aware of all that, Commissioner,” Scanlon said. “But I’m still convinced that evidence exists that does link Harris and Mrs. Gallagher to the murders. And I want to throw a scare into them that will make them run to destroy that evidence.”

  “And just suppose that they don’t scare, Lieutenant?” Gomez said. “And suppose that they have already destroyed the evidence? Suppose that the evidence never existed in the first place? And I want you to further suppose that we make a move on a lieutenant’s widow, the widow of a decorated police lieutenant, and it backfires on us, and we all end up at the other end of a civil suit. Then what, Lieutenant?”

  “Then we’d be up the creek without a paddle,” Scanlon said.

  “Precisely my point.” The PC looked at the CofD. “What do you think of all this, Chief?”

  The CofD cupped his kneecaps and leaned forward. “I think that we should go with what we got. Circumstantial evidence can convict, if you have enough of it.”

  “If I give the green light, how would you proceed?” Gomez asked Scanlon.

  Scanlon told him, adding, “I’d like Sergeant Harris to be flown on a detail tomorrow that ends around fifteen hundred hours, someplace where Mrs. Gallagher can’t telephone him directly.”

  “Orchard Beach,” CofD Goldberg said.

  22

  It drizzled that Wednesday morning, and was unseasonably cool. Scanlon darted into the Nine-three station house and turned to watch the rain make tiny dimples in the puddles. Shaking drops from his jacket, he looke
d up at the heavy clouds. Damn rain had better stop, he thought. All he needed now was for the rain to continue and the Orchard Beach detail to be canceled because of rain. It was 0747 hours. The First Platoon was on duty until 0800. Day-tour cops lolled around the sitting room drinking coffee, consulting scratch sheets, the sports pages.

  The late-tour desk officer ruled off his final entry. The cop on switchboard duty yawned and stretched. The one-twenty-four man stuffed the night’s mail into the mailbag. The desk officer stood and arched his back. Glancing behind him, the DO saw Scanlon reading the orders. “What are you doing in so early?”

  “Couldn’t sleep,” Scanlon said, returning the clipboard to its hook.

  “Must be an insomnia epidemic. All your people are in early. Anything up?”

  “Nothing. Detectives love the Job. We can’t get enough of it.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Going into his office, Scanlon rolled the blackboard away from the wall and pinned the maps that he had ordered from the Cartography Unit to its wooden frame. Yetta Zimmerman’s candy store was circled in black, along with the location where the van had been found. The Gallagher residence was circled in green. Harris’s official residence on Staten Island and his splash pad on Ocean Avenue were circled in brown.

  Leaning against his desk, studying the maps, he ran it over in his head, how he thought the crime had gone down. Somewhere along the line, Gallagher must have mentioned to Harris or to his wife that he was delivering Andrea Zimmerman’s birthday cake to her grandmother. They saw this as their opportunity to kill Gallagher. Mrs. Gallagher must have applied the makeup in the van or at home. Probably in the van on the way to the candy store. She would not have wanted to take the chance of anyone seeing her leaving her apartment in a disguise. Harris lets her off near the park and goes and sits on the candy store. When he sees Gallagher carrying the cake box, he leaves and gives her some prearranged signal.