Buzz Killer

by Tom Straw

  “Where did I catch you?” she asked when he had finished.

  “Scene of the crime. I took a cab to the Bronx to retrieve your car. Something told me you might like it back.”

  “Don’t you need my key?”

  He chuckled. “Any other stupid questions?”

  An hour later, Wild made a stop in the break room to retrieve the bottle of Sancerre she had left in the fridge, a purchase she had impulsively ducked out to make after her phone call with Gunnar. She asked the clerk what went into an old-fashioned, and also bought a bottle of Jameson, which she had seen him order at Isabella’s, and some microbrew bitters made by some purveyor from Park Slope. Ignoring the fact that she was stocking up for something more than an evening of bodyguarding, she enjoyed the tug of war between denial and anticipation. Macie slid the bottles into her canvas Whole Foods reusable and turned off the lights in her office.

  In the lobby she stopped and set everything down to answer her cell phone. It was Rick Whittinghill.

  Macie switched her office lights back on and waited for him. Her former MCPD investigator didn’t take long; Whittinghill had called her from the Starbucks over on Worth, and brought her a coffee. “I forgot what you took in it, so I snagged pretty much the works.” He set the coffee on her desk and, from the pocket of his sport coat, fished two each of the different sugars and sweeteners from the fix-up bar. “Milk, you’re on your own.” She selected an Equal and stirred it in while he took a seat. “Sheez, sorry about rolling in on you like that this morning. With him right here, and all. Christ, I’m losing my edge.”

  “It’s all good, Whit. You sidestepped it fine. No harm done.”

  “So.” He gestured to her Whole Foods bag with the liquor bottle necks poking up. “I see you have some plans for the night, so let’s get to it.” From another pocket of his jacket, he pulled out a manila envelope that had been folded in half. While the ex-cop unbent the metal butterfly clasp to open it, a twinge pulled at Wild’s solar plexus, which was tender enough from the abuse it had taken. Could she call this off now? she wondered. Should she? Before Macie could decide, Whittinghill spoke, citing the front page of his report from Internal Affairs. “Gunnar Cody, Ex-Detective First Grade.” He paused to scan the page and then the next. He took off his CVS bifocals and set the papers on his lap. “A couple of things. Speaking as an ex-cop myself? Up top, nothing heinous.” Macie felt relief spread through her and nodded, trying to keep her smile measured. “Apparently he’s got a smart mouth on him—who doesn’t? Got written up a few times for insubordination. Also some citations for . . .” he put his glasses back on to recite, “‘. . . repeatedly exceeding the scope of his assignments.’ That would be crossing the line once too often. Again, what cop worth a shit hasn’t been there? Still, kind of a dick pattern.”

  “Well, thank you Whit. This is very helpful. I owe you one.”

  “Not done yet. Something unusual.”

  “All right . . .”

  “A portion of his IA file is under seal.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means exactly what it means. There’s something in there nobody—especially a snoop like me—is supposed to see.” He folded the papers, slid them back in the envelope, and redid the clasp. He set the package on her desktop and patted it lightly with his wide fingers.

  Wild touched the inflamed skin on her stomach. “Is that bad? I mean of course it’s—probably not good, right? Sealing a personnel file?”

  “Could be anything. Could be something that carries liability, legal or civil liability, to the department. Could be he had a sharp lawyer negotiate the seal as part of his exit from the force. The point is, it’s sealed. So who’s to know?”

  ♢ ♢ ♢

  In the liquor store, Macie had been toying with telling Gunnar not to bother with the couch that night. Now she found herself wondering if she should cancel the big evening. Compared to being tortured by electroshock, this emotional jolt about a past that was controversial enough to go under official seal was low grade, but still troubling. Yet by the time she came up the steps from the R train at Eighth Street, Macie had gone back and forth with this Internal Affairs news and come down on the side of taking the longer view: grown adults come with pasts, herself included. Maybe this was all best left set aside, if she could do that.

  When she turned the corner off University Place, Gunnar was sitting on the stoop of her building, smiling wider the closer she got. He rose, offering her car keys, which were looped over his pinkie for the taking. “Gassed up and parked. Alternate-side’s in effect; you’ll have to move it in the morning.”

  “You had my car key?”

  “I relieved you of it during my daring rescue after you insisted it would be a good idea to hang around and get your Corolla while half the Fortieth Precinct was rolling up. Considering the ordeal, your memory may be hazy about that. Thank goodness one of us had a clear head, right?” Wearing a sunny mask, Macie took the key from him and fished out her house keys to let them in. On the elevator ride, she smelled the lightness of his cologne and a small ripple ran through her. As they strode to her door, she said, “You know, I was thinking. Before I met you I had what I thought was a very colorful life. But no car chases, no kidnappings, no electric-shock torture . . .”

  “You’re welcome,” he said.

  The liquor bottles clanged as she set the Whole Foods bag on the counter. “Hey, now, whatcha got there?”

  “Don’t peek.”

  “Curiosity is my only virtue.” Gunnar peered in the bag and palmed the Jameson.

  “Just a little something to help the time pass for my bodyguard. I got some hipster bitters too.”

  He set the bottle down on the tiles and smiled. “Someone pays attention.” Instead of making her feel lighthearted—the way she had envisioned this moment—his appreciation only churned up the guilt Macie thought she had tucked away. He picked up on it. “Something wrong? I forget to wipe my feet?”

  Macie led him to the living room to sit on the sofa with her. A confession would be the only way she could do this night. Without a strategy, other than to speak her heart, she said, “Gunnar, I need to tell you something. I came by some information today. Information about you and your departure from TARU and the NYPD.” He didn’t speak, but gave her the kind of attention that matched the gravity that had suddenly befallen the party. “You told me yourself that you left on rocky terms. What I came across was . . . that whatever those circumstances were, they were serious enough to be placed under seal.” He drew a lengthy audible inhale and his lips whitened as he pursed them. “I can see this is awkward for you,” she continued, putting a hand on his. “It is for me, too, but we seem to be on the brink of going somewhere beyond partnering on this case, and I don’t want a secret from you. It feels dishonest, and I wanted to be transparent.”

  “Are you hearing yourself?” he asked evenly. “You talk about transparency in the same breath you say you happened to ‘come by’ some information about me?”

  Wild’s limbs became leaden. “This was a mistake. I never should have brought this up. It’s not easy to have a conscience sometimes.” His neutral stare made her nervous and so she filled the void. “I guess part of me was hoping, you know, quid pro quo. Like, if I opened up to you . . .”

  He withdrew his hand from hers and tapped a forefinger on his temple. “Macie, there’s still a detective in here, and you are insulting his intelligence.”

  “I am not insulting you at all. I just don’t want us to have secrets.”

  “You didn’t ‘come by’ anything. Don’t compound this by making it sound like it’s some shiny quarter you found in the gutter. You like transparency? Here’s some: The guy who saved your ass today doesn’t like to be snooped.”

  Macie told herself not to rise to the bait, but couldn’t hold back. “Ironic. From somebody who’s all about snooping.”

  “Very glib.”

  “Look, let’s just—let’s pop that cork and have
a night.” After she suggested that, he stood. But not to play bartender. “Can’t we at least have a conversation about this?” she asked.

  “I’ll tell you what I told you when we met. My exit from the force is my business. And after this, it’s going to stay that way, you can count on that.”

  “Gunnar, don’t.” But he was already on his way to the door and didn’t stop, even for a glance back. Wild sat alone a moment in tortured silence before she hauled herself off the couch and sauntered unsteadily to the counter. She snatched up the bottle of Jameson and pegged it across the kitchen into the sink where it shattered, spraying the walls and ceiling with Irish whiskey.

  C H A P T E R • 28

  * * *

  Macie’s next day became a mix of moving forward on the case while dragging the tonnage of regret for having to do so without Gunnar. Wild had adapted more than she knew to having an adroit partner in him and had to still herself from the reflex to check in or to share. The shattered Jameson and all that went down the drain—literally—with that was another matter, another ache.

  The New York Ledger, one of the city’s also-ran tabloids, was where Macie finally found the only mention of the incident she had escaped the day before. “Squeeze Play in Da Bronx” was the headline in a two-paragraph squib buried on one of the middle pages with the weekend anglers’ report and a photo of a llama in somebody’s yard in suburban Hicksville, Long Island. The copy was an attempt at glibness, reporting the deaths of two unidentified men crushed by a tow truck in an auto repair garage. Detectives from the Fortieth Precinct were investigating it as a potential homicide. Funny, she thought, folding the newspaper, how something so life-death for you—and death for two others—barely makes the radar in a city of millions. Or was it not getting more play for other reasons? Once again, Macie wished she could match her conspiracy paranoia with Gunnar’s.

  Jonathan Monheit showed up at her office door goofy with excitement. “This may be big,” he said as she motioned him to sit. “Also it may not be the most legal or ethical thing I’ve done. In fact, now I’m . . . God, I wonder if I should even disclose to you, since it could make you an accessory.”

  “Got a dollar on you?” His face puzzled and he nodded. “Hand it over.” When he gave the buck to her, she said, “Attorney-client privilege. Talk to me.”

  Jonny Midnight leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I have some contacts. All right, one, a fraternity brother, at the corporate headquarters of Rúben Pinto’s bank. I asked him—discreetly—to do a snapshot of his account history. Check it out.” He made a few taps on his iPad and came around her desk to show her the spreadsheet. “All pretty much what you’d expect. Low amounts coming in and going out. More going out actually. But here. See that? A $9,995 deposit. Total red flag.”

  “Almost $10,000, in a lump sum.”

  “Almost ten because ten means the bank has to report the activity under federal regs. I’m betting Pinto knew that would bring scrutiny so he kept himself under the limit. And why?”

  Macie was right there, but let him enjoy his unique moment of success. “Tell me.”

  “Because scrutiny is what he didn’t want. Because this was the extortion money he squeezed out of that football player in exchange for returning the betting ledger he stole from him.”

  The ramifications of Monheit’s findings were support for the developing picture that at least Rúben Pinto, if not possibly the entire burglary crew, fenced its stolen goods, but ransomed back some of them too. Wild didn’t need to do too much abstract analysis. All she had to do was replay the question Pipe Wrench tortured her over the day before. He wanted to know about the take. “This is terrific, Jonathan. But a first step. See if you can do the same with Jackson Hall and Jeffrey Stamitz, the crew chief.” His eyes widened, and she said, “Aw, come on, you did this once, you’ll find a way.”

  “I suppose I can,” he said, rising to go. “And I don’t need to worry. Attorney-client privilege, right?”

  “Oh, I just made that up so you’d talk.” She handed back his dollar, and he was still wondering whether she was joking or not when he left.

  Her team’s social worker was late getting in following a visit to Department of Corrections headquarters in the old Bulova building out near La Guardia. Soledad Esteves Torres had gone there to press for full disclosure about what happened at Rikers the day Jackson Hall was found hanging. “I also told them I don’t like the smell of his escape from the Bellevue prison ward. BHPW is supposed to be state-level security, and he just wanders out?” She opened the fridge in the break room to retrieve her lunch bag and, after she closed it, she showed a weary face to Macie. “Sometimes it just feels like the system isn’t working. Then I wonder. Is it working, but against us?”

  The two ate together at one of the little picnic tables outside City Hall where they could see the traffic flow off the Brooklyn Bridge and watch the tourists pose with the NYPD detail on the beat around the mayor’s office. Wild sidestepped Soledad’s questions about how she was doing. “You look kinda spent, Macie. Is there something you need to talk about?” That’s what happened when your friend was a licensed social worker. But opening up about her surveillance exploits, her torture in the Bronx, not to mention her parting with Gunnar, would only dig a hole and pull the dirt in. So Macie shifted to ask Soledad about her search for Jackson Hall’s MIA girlfriend.

  “First of all I can tell she’s not dead. Her coworker friend hasn’t opened up yet, but I’m reading from the way she talks about Pilar that she’s not deeply worried about her.”

  “You think she’s hiding her?”

  “I do. And if not physically, she knows who. You know, these things take time. We want it all now, but trust has to be built. I’m visiting her again this evening.” She took a forkful of her rice salad. “I wonder who she’s hiding from.”

  Wild flashed back to her TENS session. Then the crew chief’s body in the marsh. Then the Pinto crime scene. Then her near-abduction by Luka Fyodor Borodin. What Pilar Fuentes was hiding from wasn’t the question. It was, is Jackson Hall hiding with her? And could they find her, or him, before somebody else did?

  ♢ ♢ ♢

  Gunnar Cody was leaning against the brick wall outside his apartment building with his head down, thumbing a message on his cell phone, when Wild approached. He never looked up, but when she got within speaking range, he said, “Almost finished.” Macie came no closer and held her spot at about the same privacy range as an ATM line. And about as warm. “Ready,” he said, pocketing his iPhone and boosting himself away from the wall. She got a reserved smile, and he didn’t lead her into his vestibule. Instead, he said, “Let’s take a walk.”

  NoLIta on a June evening is a bath of golden light and warmth. He seemed to have a destination in mind, and so she just stayed at his elbow as they wove past the window shoppers and cafés until he gestured through the gate of the little pocket of a park on Elizabeth Street. The Gothic statuary made the small patch of urban greenery a small cemetery without the bodies. They crunched over the pea gravel past an ornate stone balustrade to a granite bench that was being vacated by a couple that looked in a hurry to get to dinner or to bed.

  A Jeep Wrangler paraded up Elizabeth, blasting Bruno Mars. After the mega bass faded away and muffled night sounds again filled their oasis, Gunnar said, “So what’s up?”

  “I’m wondering if it’s time to, I dunno, to reset.”

  Gunnar rocked a little, an internal nod of confirmed suspicions. “I think we need to clear some air first.”

  “OK . . .”

  “You caught me way off guard. Everything’s great, and then, sproing. Like stepping on a rake and the handle hits you in the face. Anyway, I got too pissed to be—articulate—in the moment. But I still feel the way I did. About you going behind my back like that. You know, I have had to walk a very fine line lately. Doing my job—and teaming with you—has definite pluses, but it has not always been a day at the beach.” He counted off on his fingers
. “My job. Our job. Also feeling a need to protect you. You’ve been more than . . . your word: transparent . . . about how you feel about what I do. Well, I have some issues of my own. Like sending that ham and egger Rick Whittinghill to sniff around Internal Affairs. And don’t insult me by trying to cover for him. Even if I weren’t savvy enough to see through that charade in your office when he ‘just happened to drop by’ for his ‘vay-cay pay,’ I still have plenty of eyes and ears at One-PP who tip me off when the bloodhounds are out.”

  “I’ll cop to that—no pun. But that was initiated before I really knew you. Before I—” He might have heard something more than he’d bargained for if he’d let her finish that sentence. But he interrupted.

  “See, you’re using the same rationale I did for not coming clean right off about knowing who Luka Borodin was.” He paused. Then, sounding conciliatory, added, “So does that even it out?”

  “It could . . . If we let it.” Then, advocate that she was, Wild tempted fate with one more try. “So no chance you’ll tell me why part of your personnel file is under seal?”

  “Nope, sorry.”

  “Gunnar, don’t you trust me?”

  “You kidding? I totally do. But I can’t talk about it.” Wavering slightly, he added, “Maybe someday. Not now.”

  “That’s trusting.”

  “And that’s sarcasm. I’m liking that side of you, Macie Wild.” He shifted to face her. “Look, remember that first time in the van, when you said that we all have our secrets and that something needs to be sacred? This is me, saying, ‘amen.’”

  Wild thought a beat and smiled. “Are you sure you aren’t a lawyer?”