Cassidy's Corner

by Hack, Henry

  “I don’t doubt it. I do believe him.”

  “That’s good, Sue, but does Sergeant Goldman believe him? That’s what you have to resolve, my dear.”

  ●

  Police Officer Harry Cassidy walked his beat in the Seven-Six precinct in Jackson Heights, Queens, on a mid-March morning that finally hinted an end was near to the unusually harsh winter. The remaining piles of dirty, fast-melting snow formed rivulets in the gutter which trickled their way to the sewer grates and down to the East River. Harry had tossed and turned most of the night, concerned about Susan’s reaction to his revelations and now, as he slowly walked down Roosevelt Avenue, he wondered if she had serious doubts about him. Had he convinced her he truly would turn himself in? Would she jump the gun and run into Gregorovich on Monday morning with his confession? Why did he have these nagging doubts about Susan? He loved her and he knew she loved him. What if she didn’t love him as much as her career? What if his admission was beyond her ability to forgive? What if…?

  As Harry approached 77th Street he spotted him. He wasn’t the killer, but he looked like him – young and Middle-Eastern – and he was acting funny, looking furtively up and down the streets. Harry watched him cross Roosevelt Avenue and walk north on 77th. The young man turned around once more to check the avenue, and then scooted into a four-story apartment building halfway down the block.

  Harry had ducked behind an el pillar and was about to step out when another young Middle-Eastern man came down the avenue acting similarly to the one he had just watched go into the building. What was going on here? As the second young man turned his way, Harry’s heart nearly stopped. This was no look alike. The murderer of Richie Winston, whose likeness was on a flyer in Harry’s pocket, was facing him. The killer crossed the street and went into the same apartment building.

  Harry took out his cell phone and dialed the Nine-Five squad. When Pop Hunter got on the line Harry filled him in and Pop said, “Nick and I are on the way. Don’t do anything until we get there.”

  “Here comes another one,” Harry said. “I’m going in after them.”

  He closed the phone before Pop could protest and crossed Roosevelt Avenue staying low behind the parked cars. The third young man entered the building and Harry was a little out of breath when he got to the front entrance a minute later. He peeked through the glass doors into the lobby. The elevator doors were just closing and he watched the floor numbers sequentially light as it moved up. It stopped on the third floor. He rang the super’s number and announced he was the police. He was buzzed in and the super opened his door and waved him into his apartment. “I need your help,” Harry said.

  “Certainly, Officer. I am Duc Phan. What can I do for you?”

  “I just observed three young Middle-Eastern men come into this building. At least one of them went up to the third floor. I’d like you to go up there and watch to see if any others go up, and what apartment they go in.”

  “Gladly, I’ll go right now.”

  As Phan opened his door he heard the buzzer sound and he peeked out. “It could be another one, Officer. When the elevator doors close I will run up the stairs. I am very fast.”

  Five minutes later he was back and said, “He went into 3C. That apartment is rented by Ahmed Hanjour.”

  “Has there been any trouble?”

  “No. He has been there only five months.”

  “May I have the key, and may I use your phone?”

  “Of course.”

  Harry dialed the stationhouse and asked the desk sergeant to send a couple of radio cars for back-up.

  “Maybe you should wait for them, Cassidy. Detective Hunter already called concerned about you, but he didn’t know exactly where you were going.”

  “I’m not waiting, Sarge. I’ve been looking for this guy for too long to let him get away now. I’ll wait until I hear the sirens from the back-up cars before I head up.”

  “Okay, but be very careful.”

  ●

  Harry walked up the stairs and crept down the hallway to 3C. He listened at the door for a full minute, but heard no movement inside. He heard the distant wail of a siren and slipped the key into the lock with his left hand. He removed his Glock from its holster and flicked off the safety. It was cocked and ready to go with one in the chamber. He turned the key with his left hand, and when he felt the lock disengage, he burst inside. He immediately spotted three of them, two on the couch and one on a chair and he yelled “Freeze! Hands over your head, then get down on the floor. Now!”

  The three young men complied. One of them was Winston’s murderer and he had a look of fear in his eyes. Harry got a bit of satisfaction in seeing that. Just then three more young men burst out of the bedroom with guns blazing, yelling, “Die infidel!” Harry returned fire and time slowed down. He was stunned as the first round caught him high on the chest of his body armor. It spun him to the left and two more slugs caught him in the right hip and thigh. He spun back to face the fire and blasted away as fast as he could at the multiple targets confronting him. He felt a bullet smack into the stomach area of the armor and one more into his left shoulder and now he was off-balance. Another round deeply creased the left side of his head. He fell hard to the floor, squeezing off his last two rounds into the ceiling.

  There was complete and utter silence in the smoke-filled room. Harry lay on his back, conscious, but knew he was hurt bad and bleeding from several locations, especially from the head wound. Someone moved over him. He looked up, waiting for the final bullet to enter his brain. He blinked the blood out of his eyes and focused on the face that hovered one foot above him, “You,” he gasped as he came face to face with the killer of Richie Winston.

  The killer stepped closer, gun pointed at Harry’s head, his eyes studying the blood-smeared face beneath him. Then, as recognition dawned upon him, an urgent voice said, “Come, Ziad, I hear the sirens right outside. We must get out of here now.”

  Harry passed into unconsciousness his last thought being the name spoken by the unknown voice – Ziad. Ziad, so that’s your name…

  The emergency room staff had been alerted and they went right to work on him as soon as the cops in the radio car brought him in. His uniform was cut off and he was stripped to his skivvies as a nurse inserted an IV drip. The doctor said, “Two trauma shots, chest and stomach. One in the upper left arm. Looks like two in the upper right thigh and hip, and a head shot, but maybe only a deep crease. Get him to the OR, stat.”

  ●

  As Harry was being wheeled into surgery, Susan wrestled with her true identity and many questions swirled around in her mind. She felt she did love Harry, but did she love him enough to place her career in jeopardy? She was still not sure Harry would follow through and confess to her officially, but then what would happen if he did? She would get a big pat on the back for cracking the case, and then they would be seen together in public as a couple after he got terminated? What future would he have outside the Job? How would being with, or married to, a disgraced police officer affect her career? If she quit the Department along with Harry would the DA’s office employ her with his treacherous past now part of her baggage?

  And finally, as the fifth pint of blood dripped into her lover’s veins, she reached her decision. She walked to the inspector’s office and asked his secretary if she could speak with him. His door was closed. Lynn said, “He’s been on the phone a long time. Do you want to wait? Or go back to your office and I’ll buzz you as soon as he’s free?”

  Susan looked at her watch. It was 2:30. Unknown to her the surgeons at Jamaica Hospital had just located the third, and last, nine millimeter slug, the one that had smashed into Harry’s hip, luckily just nicking the bone. The seventh pint of blood flowed into his ravaged body.

  The light on the phone on his secretary’s desk went out indicating the inspector had hung up. “He’s off now, Sergeant. I’ll buzz him.”

  “Please close the door and sit down, Sergeant. I was just now deciding whet
her to speak with you on an unusual occurrence.”

  “What unusual occurrence, sir?”

  “Let me think it over for a few minutes, but first tell me what you have to say, and then we’ll go from there.”

  Susan placed the tape recorder on the inspector’s desk and said, “This is a conversation between me and Officer Cassidy recorded this past Saturday night.” She pressed the play button. When the recording was over, Gregorovich asked Susan to rewind it and play it through once more. She complied. He looked at her a long time and finally said, “You recorded this on Saturday night?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you were both off duty?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you call each other Susan and Harry?”

  “Yes, sir…but”

  The inspector raised his hand and said, “And where was this conversation recorded?”

  “In my apartment, sir, in the bedroom.”

  “In the bedroom? So you two have been having an intimate affair? For how long?”

  “Since about a week into the investigation.”

  “Was this affair deliberately entered into by you in furtherance of the investigation?”

  “Yes, Inspector,” she lied. “And I got him. A full confession.”

  “Yes, I heard it. Am I now supposed to congratulate you?”

  “I did solve the case.”

  “How do you wish to proceed?”

  “He should be called in and suspended pending the issuance of formal charges.”

  “And how do you suppose the Department will prove those charges?”

  “The tape is proof positive, sir.”

  “Yes, it is. And it’s also proof positive a sergeant in Internal Affairs prostituted herself to solve a case. She violated the rules and regulations and had sex with a subordinate. I wonder what a defense attorney would do with that.”

  “What are you saying, Inspector?”

  “I’m saying forget about it. We all knew what Cassidy did, and the tape confirms it. The case is closed. Burn the tape and save your career.”

  “My career? Burn the tape? You want to bury this, Inspector? I won’t stand for it. I’ll go over your head. I’ll go to Chief Kelly.”

  “There’s the phone. Go ahead and call him. Call the commissioner also if you desire. But before you do that and destroy yourself, let me tell you something. That long phone call I just had? That was with Chief Kelly. And the subject was Police Officer Harold T. Cassidy.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Kelly remembered Cassidy was the subject of an internal investigation from our weekly briefings with him. He wanted to know if the case was closed with no charges pending. I told him it was.”

  “Yes, sir, but that was before I…before you heard the tape.”

  “I will not call the chief and change that determination, Sergeant. This case will remain closed, and let me tell you why. Whenever a promotion is to be made, the prospective candidate must be screened through Internal Affairs to save the Department embarrassment. We wouldn’t want to promote someone who was under investigation for the sale of narcotics or wife beating, would we?”

  “What does this have to do with Cassidy?”

  “Everything. As soon as feasible, the police commissioner will respond to Harry’s bedside at Jamaica Hospital and pin a gold detective’s shield on his chest.”

  “Hospital? What bedside? What…?”

  “A short while ago Harry Cassidy was involved in a major shootout in Jackson Heights. Harry Cassidy is a hero. Now go ahead and make your call,” he said, pushing the telephone set over to her.

  She gasped and rose from her chair, clasping her hands together tightly. “This is too much for me to absorb…”

  “Sit back down and compose yourself. I want you to take the rest of the day off. Come in tomorrow and we will arrange to have your open cases distributed among the other investigators. I will have you transferred effective Monday to a command where you can continue to work steady days so you may finish up with your schooling. When you get your law degree you may wish to consider a career outside of the Department. Your actions in the Cassidy case will not reflect well on any advancement you seek here. That’s all. You’re dismissed.”

  Susan got up and started to turn to the door. Gregorovich snapped the tape out of the recorder and put it in his pocket. “Here,” he said, handing her the empty device. “Any questions?”

  Susan sat in her office in total shock. After days of coming to her decision about Harry, she was now back in a state of major confusion. He had been shot, and she had turned him in. My God what kind of person had she become to betray the man she loved for the sake of her career? Then the irony hit her squarely between the eyes. She had just committed the same betrayal of Harry that he had committed in the Richie Winston case – the ultimate hypocrisy. Rita knocked softly on Susan’s office door and then let herself in. “Susan, are you all right?”

  Susan burst into tears and buried her face in her arms. Rita came over and comforted her until she calmed down a bit. “What happened? What’s going on?”

  She blurted out, “Harry’s been shot and I’m…I did an awful thing.”

  “How bad is Harry?” Rita asked after she took a few moments to absorb the news of Susan’s disclosures.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think the inspector knows.”

  “Are you going over to the hospital?”

  “No, I couldn’t face him now after what I just did.”

  “Then it’s over?”

  “Yes, it’s over. I made that decision before he was shot. I chose my career over Harry.”

  “Any second thoughts?”

  “Plenty, especially in light of what just happened.”

  “What’s next? Where do you go from here?”

  “I’m out of here Monday. Law school is over in two months, and then I’ll see where I’m headed.”

  “Think you’ll leave the Department?”

  “Probably. Gregorovich made it quite clear my upward progress would be brought to a halt over my conduct in this case.”

  “I wish you the best, Susan. I’ll always be your friend.”

  “In spite of what I did?”

  “Of course, that’s when we need our friends the most, isn’t it?”

  “Then you think I made the wrong decision? You think I should have burned that tape and stuck with Harry?”

  “Yes, Susan. An emphatic yes, to both your questions.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Pop called Father Tom from his cell phone and filled him in on the shooting. “Father, Nick and I are at Jamaica Hospital. They just took Harry into surgery. We have to respond to the location of the shooting and probably won’t be there when he gets out. I don’t want him to be alone when he wakes up. Can you get over there for him?”

  “I’m on my way. Was he hurt badly? Has he been given the last rites?”

  “I don’t know how bad he is, and I don’t know about the last rites either.”

  “All right. I’ll see to it. Thanks for the call.”

  When Father Tom got to the hospital Harry was still in surgery. He inquired if he should go into the OR. The nurse went in to check and came out two minutes later. She said, “It won’t be necessary, Father. He’ll be in the recovery room shortly.”

  “That’s quite a relief, young lady. Please call me when he gets there.”

  A half hour later with Father Tom on the side of the gurney, Harry opened his eyes. “Father…”

  “Take it easy, Harry. Take your time. You’re in the recovery room after surgery, and you came through fine.”

  He took Harry’s hand in his and said the Our Father. When he finished he said, “I’ll get Doctor Johannsen who patched you up. He’ll tell you what’s happening.”

  Doctor Johannsen came back with Father Tom and smiled down at Harry. “You came through fine although you drank up half our blood supply – eight pints. You had a few big holes to plug, but you we
re very lucky none of the slugs hit anything vital, nor broke any bones. Your recovery should be quick and clean. One slug in your upper right thigh went in and out. The one in the right hip just chipped the bone and almost came out your right butt cheek. The slug in your upper left arm stayed in deep and we had to dig a lot to get that one out. The one that creased your head severed some blood vessels, but they were cauterized by the heat of the bullet. Ironically, the two shots blocked by your vest, which prevented their penetration, will probably hurt the most. The bruises are big and deep, and will take a long while to heal.”

  “Thanks for fixing me up, Doc.”

  “Always a pleasure to fix up one of New York’s Finest.”

  The recovery room nurse came in and said, “Your accommodations are ready, Officer. Room 507. You can meet him up there, Father.”

  When Harry had been comfortably settled in and the nurse had left the room, Harry said, “Tom, I’m ready to come clean with the Department. When you get back, please call Sergeant Susan Goldman and tell her I need to see her right away.”

  “I’ll do that, but Doctor Johannsen told me I was the only one you’ll get to see tonight. He wants you to have a long night’s rest. No visitors until tomorrow.”

  “Then tell her first thing in the morning. She’s in Internal Affairs. Get a slip of paper and I’ll give you her number.”

  “Okay, Harry. I better get going now. I’m so glad you’ll be fine. Maybe that rosary did the trick.”

  “Thanks, Tom, for everything. And thanks for coming to see me. By the way, did you give me the last rites?”

  “That I did, but only as a precaution.”

  “I’m accumulating an awful lot of sacraments. I’m holier than you now.”

  “And if you join the priesthood, you’ll have them all. Can I sign you up?”