Suspects
Page 42
“You’re crazy! I loved her!”
“We have two civilian witnesses to her statement,” Scanlon said, motioning to Brodie and Christopher to take him.
“You set me up, you bastard,” Harris shrieked, lunging for Scanlon’s neck.
Scanlon sidestepped the lunge. Brodie grabbed Harris and tossed him to the floor. Christopher slapped handcuffs on Harris’s wrists.
Harris struggled to get up off the floor. Brodie and Christopher hefted him up onto his feet. “You son of a bitch. You rotten son of a bitch. You set me up. I’m going to kill you. I’ll kill you.”
“Your killing days are over,” Scanlon said.
The detectives dragged their screaming prisoner out of the house and over to the unmarked department auto. Cops from the One-two-three who had responded to cover Harris’s house watched in silence. Scanlon stood in the doorway of the house, looking around the living room. He noticed the photograph of the two smiling children on the mantel. Harris’s, he thought. He felt sorry for them. He closed the door and walked up to the gaping cops from the One-two-three. “You guys can resume patrol,” he said.
“What’s going down, Lou?” one of the cops asked.
“Somebody forgot which side he was on.”
At 0900 the next morning, Tony Scanlon parked his car on the corner of Third Avenue and Fifty-second Street. He tossed his vehicle identification plate on the dashboard and got out. He stood on the corner watching four city buses gridlock the avenue. People rushed past him on their way to work. Delivery boys hustled past carrying cartons filled with coffee containers and goodies bundled in waxed paper.
Ten minutes passed before he saw her crossing Third Avenue; she was just one in a flock of scurrying people. She seemed lost, as though she were being carried along by the momentum of the flock.
Coming up to the bank, Linda Zimmerman saw him and stopped. “Leave me alone, Lieutenant.”
“I had a feeling you might be coming here today,” he said, moving up to her. “Mrs. Gallagher was murdered last night.”
“That’s wonderful. I hope with all my heart that she burns in hell,” she said, pushing past him.
He blocked her. “The ME hasn’t figured out yet what the murder weapon was. My money is on a spear, one of those short-handled stabbing kinds that I saw on the wall in your brother’s house, or one that fell out of the closet in his office.”
“Please excuse me now. I have things I want to do.”
He continued blocking her path. “We arrested George Harris for her murder.”
“What?”
“Yes. Before she died, Mrs. Gallagher told us that Harris had killed her. She told us in front of two witnesses.”
“But I don’t understand. I’m—”
“There is no need to understand, Linda. Just know that one way or the other, Harris is going to pay. The statement that Mrs. Gallagher gave us is going to put him behind bars for the rest of his life.”
“There is no question of him not spending his life in jail?”
“None. I have a lead on the man who took the guns from the highway, and I fully expect to get my hands on those weapons soon.”
“Those two animals didn’t have a millimeter of pity between them. I’m glad they both got exactly what they deserved.”
Scanlon slid the lighter he had found in Mary Ann Gallagher’s bedroom from his pocket and held it up to her. “A Zippo. You don’t get to see many of them these days.” He opened the clasp of her shoulder bag and dropped the lighter inside, closing the bag. “Goodbye, Linda. I hope everything works out for you and Andrea.”
She stood open-mouthed, looking down at her pocketbook. People rushed past them. A jumble of car horns echoed off building walls. She called to his back. “Why, Lieutenant?”
“Say hello to your parents for me,” he said, making for his car.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to thank the following people for their help and encouragement in the writing of this book: Theodor Saretsky, Ph.D.; Irene Gellman, Ph.D.; and Carlo and Eugent De Marco of the Orthopedic Studio, Brooklyn, New York.
Detectives George Simmons, Frank Nicolosi, Anthony Tota, Robert Cotter, and Mike Albanese of the NYPD’s Ballistics Squad.
Knox Burger and Kitty Sprague for always being there. Detective Milagro Markman, the NYPD’s hypnotist, for showing me how it is done.
A very large thank you to Giampaolo Panarotto for translating my prose into Italian.
I acknowledge a special debt of gratitude to Capt. Edward Mamet, NYPD, who took the time to teach me about stump-sock maintenance, edema, and the true meaning of the word courage.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
William J. Caunitz was a thirty-year veteran of the New York City Police Department. During his career, he achieved the rank of lieutenant and was assigned commander of a detective squad. At the age of fifty-one, Caunitz began publishing crime novels, which were noted for their realistic depictions of the daily workings of a police precinct, as well as for their sensational plots. He wrote seven novels, and the first, One Police Plaza, was made into a television movie. Caunitz died from pulmonary fibrosis in 1996. His last work, Chains of Command, which was halfway completed at the time, was finished by Christopher Newman, author of the Joe Dante series.
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Copyright © 1986 by William J. Caunitz
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