Vickee was a couple of feet away, coming back in our direction, hands raised over her head with double victory signs. “Spoke to my boss, gentlemen and ladies. Raymond Tanner, aka Raimondo Santini, aka Ronald Tanney, has appeared before the court and has been remanded without the possibility of bail. He’ll spend the night in leg irons and cuffs in the Men’s House of Detention before being transported tomorrow to Rikers Island.”
“That calls for another round,” Pug said. “I’m off for the next two days. Nothing would make me happier than a Tanner hangover.”
“I haven’t felt this good since the beginning of the summer,” I said, shaking off the courtroom drama of the day. “This arrest kind of puts Josie Aponte in perspective.”
“Good to hear. C’mon, Coop. I’m going out to use Vickee’s phone booth,” Mike said, referring to the patch of sidewalk in front of Primola that was a quieter spot from which to make and receive calls.
It was close to ten P.M., and although Mike’s tour didn’t start till eleven thirty, he and his team were often called in early if a case was breaking.
He dialed the number and waited for Peterson to answer the phone. “Hey, Loo. What’s happening?”
Mike listened, and I just leaned against the door of the restaurant. “Where?” he asked.
Murder investigations in Manhattan were split between two elite squads. Mike worked in North Homicide, which covered the island from the tip of Spuyten Duyvil, facing the Bronx, to 59th Street, the lower border of Central Park. The South squad handled everything down to the farthest end at Battery Park.
“Deep-six the morgue photos for now, right?” Mike asked, then waited again. “Got that.”
“What is it?” I asked after he ended the call.
“Eight million stories in the naked city and none of them are pretty,” Mike said, holding the door open for me. “Got a domestic in the two-eight.”
“The victim’s dead?” I asked, turning sideways to get through the bar crowd.
“That’s why they called the homicide squad and not auto theft, Coop.”
“How’d he kill her?”
“You keep making these sexist assumptions,” Mike said. “She offed her main man. Her boyfriend of two years. Shot him in the back of the head when he was sleeping. Wiped out the savings under his mattress, according to his daughter, who found the body.”
The Twenty-Eighth Precinct was a largely residential area of Harlem. The current policing tactics of the commissioner and a crime-prevention strategy by the DA had brought rates of violent attacks way down, and homicides in particular had plummeted.
“So she’s waiting there to be cuffed?”
“Now, you know my job isn’t that simple, Ms. Cooper,” Mike said, grabbing his glass from the table and taking a last swig of vodka. “The vic’s body was just found an hour ago, but this seemed to have happened late last night. No telling where the perp-lady is by now.”
“The girlfriend’s your prime suspect?”
“Like I say, she’s my perp till I learn otherwise.”
“Call me later, will you?”
“No, ma’am. You get a good night’s sleep tonight. I’ll give you a wake-up call instead. Get you ready to take on the district attorney. Feed you some breakfast of champions and all that.”
“Be caref—”
“I’ve already got a mother, Coop.”
Mike said his good nights around the table, kissed Vickee good-bye, and parted from me as though he was still just a professional colleague.
He was ten feet away before he turned and doubled back. “If it helps you count sheep tonight, I’ve got a crumb for you to feed Battaglia when you see him.”
“Always useful,” I said.
Paul Battaglia kept ahead of the game by trading on inside information. Those most loyal to him dropped nuggets of facts—literally as valuable as pieces of gold—which gave him the power to strategize on policy and politics before leaks hit the tabloids or the street.
“The lieutenant says the deceased was a worshipper at the church of the Reverend Hal. Might even have been his bagman, which would account for the mattress money. Use the info with Battaglia if it helps distract him, keep you out of his sights. I’ll be going into Holy Hal’s sanctuary with a search warrant before too long.”
EIGHT
“Things going okay for you?” Vickee asked, moving her chair closer to mine. “You’ve certainly got Mike in a good mood.”
“Can you remember what it’s like at this stage of a relationship?” I asked.
“First time or second?” Vickee and Mercer had split years ago, before Logan was born, because she feared his devotion to the job led him to take risks with his life. “It’s always tricky at the outset.”
“Even trickier with our work situation.”
“C’mon, now. Mercer and I are both on the job. We used to have cases together all the time. That can’t be the issue.”
“Totally different dynamic than yours, with one of us prosecuting and the other handling the investigations.”
“Why? You’ve always ridden these guys as hard as they’re able to go. Like you’re suddenly afraid Mike can’t take direction from you?”
“Nothing new about that, Vickee,” I said with a smile. “Mike and I will go right on doing what we’ve always done. He and Mercer are the best cops I’ve ever known, and that never changes. They do the heavy lifting and I get the evidence to hold up their collars in court.”
“So stop making a big deal about it.”
“I think the department bosses are watching us like hawks. Battaglia, too. I’m not exactly sleeping with the enemy, which is how they seem to be treating us, but it does make things very complicated sometimes. They figure I’m just playing with their ace detective. That once I toss him aside he’ll be useless to them.”
“Well, are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Just playing with Mike’s emotional well-being.”
“I’m out of here before I snap at you, okay?” I lifted my bag off the floor to pull out some cash and get ready to leave. “Are you turning on me, too? Everybody is pushing this relationship along because we’ve been in each other’s lives for so many years. We’re not even living together yet or anything remotely close to that. Mike’s a quirky guy, Vickee. You know that as well as I do.”
“And you’re all sunshine and light? Give me a break, girl.”
“I have never in my life claimed I was easy. But this is a man who lives in a studio apartment so small and so dark that he nicknamed it ‘the coffin.’ This is a guy who is so used to his privacy and his man-cave ways, who keeps every ounce of his sensitivity bottled up inside him so far that even a suppository wouldn’t unglue him, that there are times I—”
“Don’t you even think about bad-mouthing Mike Chapman to me, Ms. Cooper,” Vickee said, wagging a finger at me.
I dug in my bag again to find my phone. “Why are we having this conversation? I think it’s a little too much Scotch on my part, for sure. I’d never bad-mouth him. I simply tried to give you an honest response when you asked me how things are going. And all I said is that some things are tricky with Mike and me. You want this transition to be a smooth one? Then give us some time and space.”
“Don’t lay one of your high-profile, strung-out, going-to-pieces bits on him because of this Antonio Estevez dirtbag. He doesn’t need it right now, okay?”
“Like I would do that?” I said, tapping the Uber car service app. “What’s got your nose so out of joint tonight? Mercer must be complaining about the fact that Mike and I have something going on.”
“Forget I said anything. And for God’s sake, don’t tell Mike. You texting him already? He’s got a homicide to deal with.”
“This whole conversation is forgotten,” I said, pushing back from the table. “And no, I don’t text him while he’s working a scene, Vickee. Something has you all gnarled up.”
“What’s with Uber?” Alan Vandomir asked, catching the
screen on my phone before I stood up. “I’ll drive you home.”
“No problem. I have no intention of breaking up this cozy gathering. You stay right here,” I said, punching in my destination on the app. “I’m close enough to walk, but if I said I was going to do that, all you Cub Scouts would be on your feet to protect my honor.”
“Whatever’s left of it,” Alan said.
“Giuliano is right at the front door. He’ll see to it that I get in my chariot, and here’s some dough for my share of the bill,” I said, plunking down money, then reaching for a biscotto as I left the table. “Ciao, guys. See you tomorrow.”
I shimmied through the bar crowd again and looked down at my phone. An Uber driver had responded to my request and would be at the exact location I ordered, right around the corner from the restaurant on 65th Street, in two minutes.
I waited inside for a bit, to make sure the driver would be there. Giuliano held the door open for me. “Thanks again, Alessandra. Everybody have enough to eat?”
“Perfect, Giuliano. See you in a few days.”
I stepped down onto the sidewalk and turned north on Second Avenue, in the direction of my apartment. Traffic was heavy, as it usually was, heading for the entrance to the 59th Street Bridge out of the city, just a few blocks the other way.
At the first corner, I crossed Second and made a left turn onto the quiet side street, looking over my shoulder to make sure Vickee hadn’t followed me out. I couldn’t figure out why she was so testy this evening, and I didn’t want any more judgmental jabbering.
The black sedan I expected wasn’t there yet, but it looked as though an SUV had pulled up to take the job.
I walked toward it, at the edge of the curb next to the fire hydrant. The windows were tinted, but I could see the driver motioning me to open the rear door.
I heard the click of the lock and I pulled on the handle. Just then, I picked my head up and could see the lights of a black sedan approaching the rear of the SUV.
I hesitated for a second as I opened the door, wondering if there was a mix-up in cars. But in that single moment, I felt a tug on my arm from a figure sitting in the backseat of the SUV. His hand was on my throat before I could open my mouth to scream. He covered my nose with a cloth that reeked of the powerful sweet smell of chloroform.
I tried to pull my head back and break away, but in that instant my entire world crashed to black.
CHAPMAN
NINE
“Nice, Sarge,” I said, pushing open the bedroom door inside the apartment of the late Wynan Wilson. I had put on my gloves and booties in the hallway. “Nice that you two waited for me.”
“Dead men don’t got anything better to do than wait, Chapman. There’s too much lead between his ears for Mr. Wilson to be out and about causing trouble. Just figured I’d chill with him till you got here.”
“What’s the word on the ME?”
“The doc’s got a vehicular on FDR Drive. Highway Patrol tells me she just declared the driver dead at the scene. Should be here in fifteen or so.”
I took a couple of steps toward the bed. The belly flab of the large man cushioned his corpse against the paper-thin mattress. He was facedown on cheap linens that had a sheen to them—kind of like fake satin—except for the large patch below Wilson’s head that had been soaked in a mixture of his blood and brains.
“You know him?” I asked the sergeant. “Wynan Wilson?”
“Regular pain in the ass.”
“Felony pain in the ass? Bad rap sheet?”
“Nah. More like a nuisance than a terminal condition.”
I took my pen out of my pocket and lifted some strands of hair from around the entry wound, which was dead center at the indent in the rear of Wilson’s skull.
“Crime Scene should get here before the doc. I asked them to rush it. She’s got good aim, am I right, Chapman?”
“Hard to miss when you put the barrel of the gun against the flesh while your target is sound asleep.”
The entrance wound was small and symmetrical. There was the abrasion ring I expected to find on Wilson’s skin—the residue of gunpowder and cordite—along with the clear imprint of the gun barrel.
“That’s what you’re assuming.”
“Gotta start somewhere, Sarge. Pretty tough for a big man to let someone get that close to him with a cold hard piece of metal and no sign of a struggle. Either he anesthetized himself with three-quarters of that bottle of Rémy or you’ve been nipping at it while you dialed me up.”
The cap was off the bottle on the nightstand. The pungent odor of the alcohol was almost enough to mask the familiar scent of death.
“The fave neighborhood brew. Me, I’d rather go lights-out with a six-pack of Bud.”
I squatted next to the bed. “And I’m thinking she straddled him to get the best angle.”
“Whaddaya mean?”
“It’s all in the details, Sarge. See those marks on his side? See where the fat flops over the waistband of his shorts?”
The sergeant leaned down and squinted. “So?”
“They’re not stretch marks from a pregnancy. You clear on that?” I said. “Same thing on both sides, the left a bit higher on the torso than the right. Not enough to lacerate the body, but just to leave a scratch. I’m guessing the girlfriend had boots on when she mounted him with her gun. Zippers on the inner calf.”
“Whoa. Like S and M? Like this was a game and Wilson forgot the safe word?”
“Nope,” I said, straightening up. “Like ‘these boots were made for running out on you the minute I sink a slug in that pea-size nugget that some folks call a brain and run off with the right reverend’s wrong money.’ The shooter was perfectly positioned for the strike. Wilson’s on his stomach, right side of his head on the mattress. No pillow. Shooter is right-handed. Mounts him ’cause she knows he’s out cold and won’t feel it. Positions the barrel right against the head, pointing up a bit, where it will do the most damage. Much more reliable than trying to direct it while standing beside him. What’s her name, Sarge? The suspect’s name.”
The sergeant looked at his steno pad. “The daughter knows her as Keesh. Been with the old man for almost two years.”
“Is she known to the department?”
“Yeah, KTD as Takeesha Falls. Thirty-six. Born in—”
“Priors?”
“Only a shoplift in New York. But—”
“Gotta be half a hooker.”
“No half about it, Mike. Full-on pros in DC and the great commonwealth of Virginia. Like ten times over, in her younger days. And an arrest for armed robbery in Baltimore that was dropped because of her cooperation against her codefendant.”
“Got it. A woman of great principle and dignity. Another fit in Reverend Hal’s fucked-up flock. You got an APB out on Keesh?”
I was face-to-face with the dead man, kneeling at the head of the bed. He didn’t seem to notice my presence. His eyes were shut—as they had probably been at the time of his murder—and rigor still locked the muscles of his jaw. That fact confirmed that he had probably been dead less than thirty hours, but the medical examiner would ascertain that point with greater certainty.
“Yeah. We went with it about an hour ago.”
“She’s had a full day’s jump on us,” I said. “That sucks. Either of them own a car?”
“Nope. Guys are checking Port Authority and the train stations, as well as all her local haunts. As soon as Lieutenant Peterson gives me backup from your team, we start hitting her friends and contacts here.”
“She works other than hustling?”
“Braids hair occasionally. Makes ’em into dreadlocks. That count as work?”
“It’s a look, Sarge.”
“You see some of those pro ballplayers? You can bring them down by their dreads instead of a full-on tackle.”
I reached my right arm in under the mattress. I’d done it enough times that even the ME wouldn’t have a clue I’d been there.
“Kees
h got it all, Chapman. All the cash.”
“You know that how?”
“Well, I, uh, the first cops on the scene did exactly what you’re doing, and then I tried my own luck when I got here.”
“Damn it, Sarge.”
“You want me to turn my pockets inside out? You think I’d take—?”
“Don’t wet your pants, Sarge. It’s not the money. I’m just worried about whether all your digging in the box springs rocked the body. This case looks pretty much straightforward. I don’t want to screw it up with postmortem artifacts like bruises on Wilson’s gut ’cause there was a treasure hunt going on beneath him. I don’t want to set Keesh up with a self-defense argument by having her claim he was face-to-face with her, threatening her, so she had to shoot just as his back was turned.”
No one was supposed to touch the body until the medical examiner arrived. But the natural instinct of good cops to look for identification in the clothing of a deceased found in a park or deserted apartment, the curiosity to see whether there were bullet holes or stab wounds that caused the death, or the desire to be the first to find a clue that might solve the crime drove many investigators to break the most basic rules.
“You got a rock crusher here, Chapman. Don’t look to blame me if you can’t nail Keesh for murder. There’ll be fingerprints and DNA of hers all over this pad.”
“She’s been banging the guy for two years, Sarge. Of course Keesh has left junk all over the place. That won’t be dispositive of anything. What’s the daughter’s name?”
“Wilson’s daughter? Angela. Twenty-eight years old. She’s good people. Works as a home health-care aide for an old lady up the block.”
“Is that her wailing?”
“Yeah. I stashed her with the next-door neighbor so you could talk to her. I didn’t want her to leave.”
“Thanks.”
“She’s been howling on and off the whole time. I thought Pops here might actually open his eyes from the commotion. I’d get to her soon if I was you.”
“You would have told me if there was any sign of a gun.”
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