Suspects

by William Caunitz

  The more he ran it before his mind’s eye the more he realized that it had the right feel. And smart cops heed the feel, those moments of intuitive insight born of experience. Many times the feel for a case will go against logic and common sense. Common sense would dictate that Harris would have deep-sixed the evidence. But Scanlon knew that any chintzy bastard who clipped and saved cigarette butts and who used a tipping chart for a lousy bar tab was not about to toss expensive weapons into the drink. Besides, the cocky son of a bitch probably thought he was too smart to get caught.

  Herman the German telephoned at 0820 to tell Scanlon that Harris had been flown on the Orchard Beach detail. Hundreds of thousands of people flock to the city’s beaches and parks every summer. The NYPD assigns hundreds of policemen from around the city to the beaches and parks for crowd and traffic control.

  Scanlon glanced out the window. “We’re lucky it stopped raining—otherwise the detail might have been canceled.” He asked the inspector if he had spoken to Harris.

  “Just as you asked me to. I caught up with him as he was on his way up to the locker room. I told him I had no choice but to fly him out. I told him that while he was out on emergency leave connected with Joe Gallagher’s death the other sergeants in the unit had all become embroiled in heavy investigations and that I didn’t want to pull them off to fill summer details. So it was his turn in the barrel, I told him.”

  “Did he buy it?”

  “He seemed to.”

  “Good. We’ll put him at ease and then yank the rug out from under him.”

  “Are you sure you want me to visit Mrs. Gallagher? I was thinking that it might be better if you saw her.”

  “It’ll be more natural coming from you,” Scanlon said into the mouthpiece. “I hope she’ll know how to get in touch with Harris.”

  “She was married to a cop long enough. She’ll know.”

  After Scanlon hung up he played with the dial, trying to decide whether or not to call Linda Zimmerman and apologize for intruding upon her privacy yesterday at the bank. His hand slid from the dial. It was better to let time heal whatever wounds he had reopened. He wondered if Jane Stomer had received his flowers, and if she would call him to thank him. He telephoned his mother to see if she was all right and to tell her that he loved her, and to explain why he would not be able to come for dinner this Sunday. He telephoned Jack Fable at the Nineteenth Squad and went over the arrangements they had made late last night.

  Three hours passed.

  Higgins swept out the squad room. Christopher watched television. Biafra Baby took a shopping list from his wife over the phone, and then swept out the squad room. Brodie came up to Biafra Baby and asked him to give him a piss call at 1345, and then Brodie slipped into the dormitory to sack out.

  Hector Colon telephoned his wife and told her it looked as though he were going to have to work late into the night on the Gallagher homicide and he probably would sleep in the dormitory. His wife asked him to call her in the morning to let her know that he was all right. He hung up, then telephoned his girlfriend at her cashier job at Macy’s and told her he would pick her up at five o’clock. Higgins swept out the squad room again. Like everyone else she was nervous and trying to keep occupied.

  At 1400, Scanlon stepped out of his office and beckoned the detectives inside.

  “Let’s go over it one more time,” Scanlon said, tacking a map of Orchard Beach up on the blackboard. Higgins and Biafra Baby were to plant on the Gallagher residence. Christopher and Lew Brodie were to take in Harris’s splash pad on Ocean Avenue. Jack Fable and two of his Nineteenth Squad detectives were to plant on Harris’s Staten Island residence. Fable had received photos of Harris in the department mail.

  The four anticrime cops that Scanlon had gotten on a steal from Chief McMahon, the Bronx borough commander, had been given photographs of Harris and Mrs. Gallagher and assigned to various locations in and around Orchard Beach. There were only four avenues off the beach that led to the major parkways. Scanlon had one anticrime man assigned to each of those avenues. One cop was going to follow Harris out of the parking field. As Harris drove past the exits leading onto the parkways the cop assigned to the exit would leave and join in with the other mobile unit.

  Although trailing a car was difficult to coordinate, Scanlon knew from experience that it usually got the best results. That was because the bad guy was on guard, but scared. Harris would be on the watch for a tail, but he really did not want to spot one, so he wouldn’t, Scanlon hoped. The cops assigned to Orchard Beach had been assigned two department taxis, one mail truck, and a tan Buick for the surveillance.

  “If everything goes according to plan, and Mrs. Gallagher takes the bait, then Harris is going to try and bolt the beach detail early,” Scanlon said. “And when he does, the tail men are going to be waiting.”

  “I sure hope these tail guys know their stuff,” Brodie said.

  “Chief McMahon assured me that they were the best tail men he had,” Scanlon said.

  “They had better be,” Biafra Baby said. “Harris ain’t no pussycat.”

  “I want you all to sign out radios. Make sure the batteries are charged,” Scanlon said. “We’re going to be using one of the closed channels. Number three. Our call letters will be Renegade.” He thought a second and added, “I like Renegade—it seems appropriate for this caper.” He assigned them call numbers.

  “What about the men from the Bronx and the Nineteenth Squad?” Biafra Baby asked.

  “Herman the German met with them last night. He assigned them their radios and their call letters,” Scanlon said.

  “Where are you going to be, Lou?” Higgins asked.

  “Right here coordinating everything. Hector is going to be with me. But he has to take a few hours off at the end of his tour, a personal problem.”

  “I bet,” Biafra Baby said, making an obscene plunging gesture with his fist.

  A beguiling smile lit up Scanlon’s face. “Any questions?” His eyes slid from face to face. There were no questions. “Then let’s do it.”

  After the detectives left, the squad room became unnaturally quiet. Colon took the occasional call and jotted down messages. Scanlon sat at his desk listening to the static coming from the walkie-talkie standing in the middle of his desk. It was too early for anything to be happening, but he listened anyway. He powdered his stump and rolled on a fresh stump sock.

  Hector Colon drifted into his office. “Lou, I was just thinking that we’d be in one helluva fix if a heavy case went down.”

  Scanlon snatched the roll call off the clip. Three detectives were scheduled to do the evening duty, a 1600 to 0100. He checked the time: 1450. A helluva lot could happen in a hour and ten minutes. He telephoned the adjoining detective squad, the Nine-seven. When the Whip came on the line, Scanlon asked him to have his detectives cover the Nine-three for the next hour and ten minutes. “I’ve got a heavy one going down and I’m working short-handed.”

  “You got it, Tony,” Lt. Roy Benson said. “I’d just love to take my girlfriend to Monte’s one night.”

  “Any night you want, as my guest, of course.”

  “Gee, Tony. You’re a real swell guy.”

  “Fuck you, Roy. And thanks.”

  Herman the German rang the bell and stepped back.

  Mary Ann Gallagher answered the door dressed in black, a rosary dangling from her right hand.

  “I hope I’m not disturbing you, Mrs. Gallagher. But as I told you on the phone, I want to get this money to you as soon as possible.”

  “I appreciate that, Inspector.” She turned and led him down the hall and into the parlor. They sat facing each other. He watched her finger the beads as he slid the white department envelope from his jacket pocket. “Mrs. Gallagher, this money was collected from the men and women in Queens Narcotics. There’s thirty-six hundred dollars here. I know that it won’t bring Joe back, but it will help you make a new life for yourself.”

  She leaned up out of her se
at and kissed him on his cheek. “May God bless and protect you and your men,” she said, taking the envelope from his hand, easing back into her seat. “Gallagher was such a good man. I miss him very much.” She looked away.

  He stood. “I must be getting back.”

  “Won’t you stay and have some tea with me?”

  “I really can’t. I have an appointment to see Lieutenant Scanlon. It seems that the lieutenant has developed some leads on the killings.”

  “What?” she asked, standing up in her excitement.

  “I don’t have all the details, so I’d rather not say just yet. I’m sure Scanlon will contact you at the appropriate time.”

  “Please tell me whatever you know. I have a right to know. Any ray of hope that those people will be caught will make my day easier to face.”

  “I guess you got the right,” he said, lowering himself back down into the chair. “It appears that the lieutenant has developed a lead to a theatrical makeup store. And he’s come up with some fingerprints on some order form. He’s leaning toward the theory that it might not have been just a robbery attempt.”

  “What? Tell me.”

  “That’s all I know. I’ll know more after I see Scanlon.”

  “That’s wonderful news. I pray that they catch them,” she said, clutching the arm of her chair.

  Mary Ann Gallagher walked with the inspector to the door and waited until she heard the downstairs vestibule door open and close. She threw the rosary on the floor and ran for the telephone.

  Herman the German drove to the Nine-three Squad and told Scanlon what had happened with Mrs. Gallagher. The inspector used Scanlon’s desk phone to telephone the Seventeenth Narcotics District. The operations sergeant told the inspector that a woman had just called looking for Sergeant Harris. As instructed, the sergeant had told the woman that Harris had been assigned to the crowd-control detail at Orchard Beach and had given her the number of temporary headquarters.

  A woman had telephoned the headquarters van at Orchard Beach wanting to speak with Sergeant Harris of the Seventeenth Narcotics District. When she was told that the sergeant was out on patrol, she left an urgent message for the sergeant to call Mary Ann, at home.

  Herman the German’s face clouded. “Now?”

  “Now!” Scanlon said. “Tell them to deliver the message to Harris.” Scanlon went and stood by the window. The sun was out, the street below dry.

  Twenty-six minutes passed before the call they were waiting for came. “Harris just threw in a Twenty-eight and took the rest of his tour off, a family emergency,” the inspector said, gently replacing the receiver back in its cradle.

  Scanlon picked up the walkie-talkie. “Renegade base to all units. Stand by. It’s going down.”

  On the map in the squad room, Scanlon could see where a lagoon separated the Pelham Split Rock Golf Course from Orchard Beach. A parking area was sandwiched between the picnic grove and the picnic play area. The beach itself was a crescent of sand on the eastern end of the peninsula. Park Road wound its way across the peninsula connecting the parkway area and the picnic areas. The NYPD headquarters van was parked on the southern tip of the parking field. A number of spaces around the van had been reserved for the policemen who were assigned to the beach detail. Six rows away from the last reserved space a taxi idled, the driver slouched down behind the wheel, a portable radio on his lap.

  Scanlon fingered the map of Orchard Beach. Had he covered all the exits? City Island Road leads off the beach. Pelham Bridge Road runs parallel to City Island Road. Both roads flow into the Hutchinson River Parkway, or the Hutch as it was commonly called. Renegades Two through Four were stationed at the entrances to the parkways. Renegade One was assigned to the parking field. It was One’s job to tail Harris from the field onto whatever parkway the subject was going to take. As Harris and his tail passed the various entrances the unit at that particular entrance would leave and join the mobile surveillance.

  Scanlon thought of something and grabbed up the radio. “Base to Renegade Two, what’s the traffic like?”

  “Two to Base, weekday summer traffic, Lou. Not too heavy, not too light.”

  “Ten-four.”

  George Harris appeared in the doorway of the headquarters van, uniform and equipment slung over his shoulders. Beach-weary people trudged back to their cars. Newcomers unloaded car trunks, gathering up blankets and coolers, preparing for their trek to the sand.

  Harris made a rush for his Jeep.

  The taxi driver parked in the parking field radioed, “Renegade One to base. Subject leaving in Jeep Comanche.”

  The driver of the tan Buick parked near the Pelham Bridge Road exit radioed: “Renegade Two, ten-four. No sign of subject.”

  Another taxi was parked on the shoulder near the entrance to the Hutch, the driver searching for a mechanical problem under the hood. He spoke into the radio that lay across the car’s battery. “Renegade Three, standing by.”

  A mail truck was waiting behind an arbor of evergreens near the entrance of the Bruckner Expressway. “Renegade Four, standing by.”

  Scanlon radioed: “Base to Renegade Five, radio check, how do you read this unit?”

  “We read you five by five,” Higgins radioed.

  “Renegade Six, how do you read this unit?”

  “Five by five,” Christopher transmitted.

  “Renegade Seven, how do you read base?”

  “We read you five by five,” Fable transmitted.

  Scanlon fingered the map of Orchard Beach. Damn, what was taking them so long?

  “Renegade One to base. Subject passing Pelham Parkway.”

  “Renegade Two is leaving to join up with Renegade One.”

  “Renegade Three to base. I’ve got subject turning south onto the Hutch.”

  “Base to all units. Make frequent changes of close-contact car.” Scanlon paced the squad room, his radio held in front of his mouth.

  Herman the German stood at parade rest in the middle of the squad room, looking down at the floor, waiting for the next transmission. Hector Colon kept looking up at the clock. He would have to leave soon. He had an engagement party to go to.

  “Subject heading onto Bronx Whitestone Bridge.”

  “I’ve got ’im.”

  The units in the field were beginning to transmit without identifying themselves. That happens when cops have worked together a long time. They move and think as one, each recognizing the others’ voices, moving as one well-trained unit.

  Scanlon inspected the map. “He’s going to take either the Cross Island or the Whitestone Expressway.”

  The tension grew. Colon slipped from the squad room and went to the locker room to change his clothes.

  “He’s going onto the Whitestone.”

  “Jack, you fall back, I’ll pick him up.”

  “Ten-four.”

  “That guy is really pouring on the gas.”

  “He’s turning south on the Van Wyck.”

  Hector Colon walked back into the squad room dressed in white slacks and a blue sport jacket with orange saddle stitching. He had on shiny white loafers and a maroon shirt and white tie. He sheepishly went up to Scanlon. “Lou, I don’t have to go to this party. I can stay if you really need me.”

  “We’ll manage, Hector. Go and enjoy.”

  After Colon had left the squad room, Herman the German looked at Scanlon and said, “I hope you remember that act of loyalty next time evaluations come around.”

  “Payback is always a bitch, Inspector.”

  The radio came to life. “He’s turning west on the Long Island Expressway.”

  “He’s making for the Gallagher house,” Scanlon said. “He wants to make her rehash her conversation with you. Then he’ll go for the guns.” Scanlon transmitted: “Base to Renegade Five, subject is heading your way. Stay out of sight.”

  “Ten-four,” Higgins radioed.

  A short time later Renegade Five radioed that the subject was parking his Jeep on Anthony Stre
et. “He’s out of the Jeep,” Higgins radioed. “Looking around, taking his time, being careful. He’s moving up the steps, standing there. Now he’s coming back down. Walking back over to his Jeep, taking his time, being real careful there’s no tail. Now! He’s running up the steps. He’s in the house.”

  “Base to Renegades One through Four. Stay out of sight. Renegade Three and Four cover the rear of 32 Anthony Street.”

  Scanlon imagined the scene inside the Gallagher house. Mrs. Gallagher frantically relating her conversation with Herman the German. Harris picking up on her every word. He’d latch on to the inspector’s comment about the makeup and fingerprints. There would be acrimony; heated words would be exchanged. Eventually, Scanlon hoped, Harris would be spooked and make a run to recover the guns.

  “Subject is leaving,” Higgins radioed. A short time later another transmission came over the wavelength. “Subject is eastbound on the BQE.”

  Time passed, contact positions changed.

  Harris left the BQE at Queens Boulevard. When the transmission came into the base, Scanlon rushed up to the map. Examining the location where Harris exited the parkway, Scanlon cursed in Italian. Harris could not have picked a better location to shake a tail.

  Queens Boulevard is a major artery that runs east and west across the Borough of Queens. The east- and westbound lanes are separated by various kinds of road dividers along the length of the boulevard. It is not possible for a driver to turn north or south at every intersection. Sometimes he must drive three-quarters of a mile before reaching a north or south turn lane. Many of the peripheral streets along the boulevard curve into other streets and avenues or dead-end into parkways or residential cul-de-sacs.

  “Base to Renegades, what is subject doing?”

  “Subject is double-parked on Queens and Five-eight Street. He’s sitting in the Jeep watching through his sideview mirror.”

  “Base to Renegades One and Two, proceed to first eastbound exit and station yourself on the boulevard facing east. Renegades Three and Four, box him in.”

  “Renegade Five to base. Do you want us to leave this location and join up other units?” Higgins radioed.