Cold Blooded (Dennis McQueen 02)

by Randisi, Robert J.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll have to talk to the lieutenant when we get back.”

  “By the way,” Sommers said, “it’s Lydia.”

  “What?”

  “Mrs. Dean’s first name,” she said. “I get the feeling you didn’t ask her. It’s Lydia.”

  “We’ll have to check out Lydia Dean and her husband,” he said. “You can get started on that when we get back to the office, while I’m talking to Jessup.”

  “Okay.”

  McQueen figured he didn’t need to tell her how to do that. She must have run background checks before, when she was in Vice.

  Back at the office Sommers went right to her desk while McQueen went into the lieutenant’s office to give him a verbal report on what they had so far.

  “Write it up, Dennis,” Jessup said, “and ship it over to Brooklyn North. It’s theirs.”

  McQueen made a face, but said nothing.

  “Okay,” Jessup said, sitting back in his chair, “I can see it all over your face. Make your pitch.”

  “We have a fire that happened two weeks ago,” McQueen said, “and Thomas Wingate showing up on the beach in Coney Island two weeks later. We don’t know where he died.”

  “He died of smoke inhalation, right?”

  “Yeah, but that could’ve happened anywhere.”

  “Was he reported missing after the fire?”

  “Mrs. Dean said she was advised to do that,” McQueen said. “We checked with Missing Persons but they haven’t gotten back to us yet.”

  “So, it could be their case. It’s not even definitely murder, is it, Dennis? I mean, he could’ve died in the fire accidentally, right?”

  “Somebody moved the body, though,” McQueen said. “Most likely to hide it.”

  “So why does it show up two weeks later?”

  “They might have tried dumping it in the ocean, and it washed up on the beach.”

  “Your initial report said the body could have been dumped there.”

  “Could’ve been, right. Loo, I’m just not comfortable giving this case up, yet.”

  “Dennis . . .” Jessup said, shaking his head. “How’s your case load?”

  “This is the only case I have, right now.”

  “Okay,” Jessup said, “talk to everyone else involved, see how they feel. Try and work it out and get back to me. But if anyone balks, we’ll have to hand the case over.”

  “What about a task force?”

  Jessup shook his head and said, “Not to solve one murder of a kid. I’d never get the okay for that.”

  “Okay,” McQueen said, “then I’ll be satisfied with that. I’ll talk to Arson and Brooklyn North. I can tell those commanders that I have your okay?”

  “In principle,” Jessup said, “yes.”

  McQueen stood up.

  “Thanks, Loo.”

  “Dennis,” Jessup said, “you know that the Arson Task Force will send a D.D. 5 to Brooklyn North.”

  “Yes, sir,” McQueen said. “I thought of that. I could keep the case by simply not filing a report until I’m sure where the victim was killed, but once Arson sends a five to Brooklyn North they’d be looking for it.”

  “So why not do that? Buy yourself some extra time?”

  McQueen shrugged.

  “I thought I’d play it straight, for once.”

  “Well,” Jessup said, “I hope it works out for you.” McQueen stood up and walked out of the office.

  As he did Sommers hung up her phone and waved him over.

  “What’ve you got?”

  “Missing Persons confirmed that Lydia Dean reported her brother missing after the fire,” she said. “I talked with Detective Brennan from Missing Persons. He’s satisfied to let us and Arson fight over the case. Says he’s swamped.”

  “That’s fine,” McQueen said.

  “What’d the lieutenant say?”

  “If I can get everybody to agree, we can keep the case.”

  “Good,” she said.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “I figure my first homicide case might as well be an interesting one,” she said.

  “You get anything on Lydia Dean and her husband?”

  “Victor,” she said. “I’m still running checks. I’ve got to go down to the precinct to use their computer.”

  “You want me to arrange that?”

  “Already did,” she said. “I called down. That’s where I’ll be for a while, okay?”

  “Get going,” McQueen said. “I’ve got my own phone calls to make.”

  “Talk to you later, boss.”

  “Don’t call me boss,” he called after her as she went out the door.

  Chapter 15

  McQueen spent the next two hours on the phone, trying to talk to the appropriate people in Brooklyn North Homicide and the Arson Task Force. He got Detective Jack Orson on the phone at Arson again, but Orson said McQueen would have to talk with his lieutenant. Then when he finally got somebody on the phone at Brooklyn North it was a police aide who said everybody was out. McQueen left a message for someone—preferably somebody in authority—to call him back. When he hung up he wondered why they didn’t have a clerical aide to help them with phone calls and filing and stuff like that.

  It was getting on toward the next tour and both Frank Cataldo and Ray Velez were at their desks typing up reports, getting ready to head home. Sommers was still out of the office, presumably still working on the precinct’s computer.

  When somebody from Brooklyn North finally called him, it was somebody he knew, Detective Don Santo.

  “Hey, Donnie,” McQueen said, “I’m glad it’s you.”

  “Well, don’t be,” Santo said. “My lieutenant wants to know what the hell is going on, Dennis. You got a case for us or not?”

  “Let me go over this with you, Donnie,” McQueen said. “I’m pretty sure I can make this clear.”

  “Well, make it clear to him, then,” Santo said. “I’m about to hang up and go home. He says for you to come by early in the morning and talk to him.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Lieutenant Howard Campanella.”

  “I don’t know him,” McQueen said. “What’s he like?”

  There was hesitation at the other end and McQueen could envision Donnie Santo looking around before he answered.

  “Dennis, he’s a lightweight who thinks he’s a hard ass,” Santo finally said.

  “What about your sergeant?”

  “Ain’t got one, right now,” Santo said. “We been waiting a month since Bassett retired.”

  “George retired?”

  “You’re behind the times, Dennis,” Santo said. “Put his papers in last month, and they rushed it through for him. He’s got cancer.”

  “Jesus,” McQueen said. “Okay, Donnie, I’ll come by in the morning and see if I can plead my case.”

  “He’ll try to push you, Dennis,” Santo said. “If you push back hard enough he’ll fold like a cheap suit. You didn’t hear that from me.”

  “Gotcha. Thanks, Donnie.”

  As he hung up the phone Sommers walked in with some printout sheets in her hands. Velez and Cataldo had already left for the day, and Jessup was still in his office. The Double Ds had not yet arrived or, if they had, were downstairs, shooting the breeze with some of the precinct cops.

  “Tell me,” he said, leaning back in his chair.

  “The clothing line is called Lydia Studios,” she said, “and they are in so deep it’s no wonder the husband torched the place.”

  “What about their personal assets?”

  “Seems like the husband poured it all into the business,” she replied. “They don’t have much left besides the house, a couple of cars and some other possessions.”

  “And they won’t get any insurance money, either.”

  “Right,” Sommers said. “They’re done.”

  “Did you check out the old lady?”

  “Yeah, she’s got money. Lots of it. Her husband
died a few years back. The insurance on that just gave her more money.”

  “Why hasn’t she given some to her daughter?”

  She sat down opposite him and placed the printout sheets on his desk between them.

  “That’s not in her, but like I said, I was reading between the lines earlier. She’s got no use for her son-in-law, blames him for the rift between her and her daughter.”

  “Seems to me there’s more to it than that,” McQueen said, “especially if the son was the favorite.”

  “I’m an only child,” Sommers said. “I wouldn’t understand that kind of thing.”

  “No children?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, “never been married, never been pregnant.”

  “I have a daughter,” he said. “She’s an adult now, and we don’t talk much. Started drifting apart after the divorce.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  “Yeah,” he said, “it is.”

  “How’d your phone calls go?”

  He told her he was going to have to go and talk to the C.O. of the Brooklyn North Homicide Squad in the morning.

  “I’ll have to make my case, and make it well,” he said. “There’s money in this case, so it’s liable to become high profile once the press catches on. Brooklyn North may not want to give it up.”

  “There may have been money here,” Sommers said, “but they weren’t high society. They pretty much kept to themselves, stayed in Brooklyn.”

  McQueen knew that the paparazzi prowled Manhattan for their high-society stories and photos. If these people stayed in Brooklyn—and stayed away from the new “trendy” Brooklyn, where some shutterbugs had taken up residence—then maybe it wouldn’t be as high profile as it could have been.

  Sommers had spent a good portion of the day either on the phone or the computer. She rubbed her eyes, then her entire face.

  “Go home, Bailey,” he said. “Get some rest. Tomorrow morning we’ll head over to Brooklyn North.”

  “I’m going with you?”

  “You’re my partner, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Get out of here, then,” he repeated. “I’ll see you in the morning. Don’t be late.”

  “I won’t.” She stood up. “You want me to write something up before I go?”

  “No,” he said, “let’s put it off for now.”

  “I’ve got no problem with that,” she said. She went to her desk, grabbed her purse, then waved and went down the hall to her locker for her coat.

  He decided he should have told her she’d done good work. She’d been good with the old lady, better than he could ever have been. He’d been better with the daughter, who hadn’t needed much in the way of sympathy—at least, not over her brother.

  He’d make a point of telling her in the morning.

  Chapter 16

  Lieutenant Howard Campanella had been a pencil-pushing, clipboard-carrying, stat-keeping desk jockey for so long he was determined to make the most of his assignment as C.O. of the Brooklyn North Homicide Squad. His appointment was one of those decisions made higher up the ladder that no one could understand. He’d made lieutenant at forty and now, at fifty, was stuck in the same rank. Circumstances beyond anyone’s control had left the Brooklyn North Squad without an experienced sergeant, or lieutenant. Campanella knew he’d been out here as a stopgap measure, but a big case would go a long way toward keeping him here.

  That’s why he was royally pissed when Detective Santo told him that Sergeant Dennis McQueen of the Brooklyn South Homicide Squad was coming in to see him about a case.

  “What about it?” he asked. “Is it our case?”

  “Well,” Santo said, not wanting to screw Dennis McQueen too badly, “apparently it’s supposed to be, but—”

  “But nothing,” Campanella said, cutting Santo off. “If it’s our case it’s our case. What is it?”

  “I don’t know, Loo,” Santo said. “I knew you’d want him to talk to you about it.”

  “Damn right!” Campanella said. If it was a good case, he was thinking, there was no way he was going to give it up.

  No way.

  When they arrived at Brooklyn North on Wilson Avenue, McQueen, introduced Bailey Sommers to Donnie Santo.

  “Nice to meet you,” Santo said. “The lieutenant is waiting for you, Dennis.”

  “What did you tell him?” McQueen had the existing file in his left hand, shook hands with Santo with his right.

  “Everything I know,” Santo said, “which ain’t a lot. Come on.”

  Santo showed them to the lieutenant’s office, at the back of the squad room.

  “Donnie,” he said, “why don’t you get Detective Sommers a cup of coffee?”

  “My pleasure,” Santo said. “Come on, Detective. Do you want real milk, or that powdered crud . . .”

  McQueen knocked on the closed door.

  “Come!”

  He opened the door and entered. The man behind the desk stood and glared at him with all the malevolence his five foot six could muster.

  “Detective McQueen?”

  “Sergeant McQueen.”

  “Yes,” the man said, “sorry. My name is Lieutenant Harold Campanella.”

  “Lieutenant.”

  “Have a seat, Sergeant,” Campanella said. “I understand you have a case that belongs to me. Is that the file?”

  “It’s what we have so far,” McQueen said, putting the file on the desk between them.

  Campanella ignored it.

  “Why don’t you summarize it for me, Sergeant?”

  McQueen did so, starting with the fire two weeks before, on through the body washing up on the beach in Coney Island and ending with his talk with the mother and sister of the victim at the morgue.

  “Well then,” Campanella said, placing his hand on the file, “I assume there’s a D.D. 5 in here transferring the case here, where it belongs.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “And why not?”

  “I’m not sure that would be in the best interest of the case.”

  “Perhaps not, Sergeant,” Campanella said, “but it would be proper procedure, wouldn’t it?”

  McQueen had already decided to try honey before vinegar.

  “Sir,” he said, “maybe I can make a case for letting me keep this, uh, case.”

  “Perhaps I should read the file before you do that, Sergeant.”

  McQueen figured if Campanella read the file and found out that there was money in the family he’d never want to give the case up.

  “The Arson Task Force will continue to work on the fire,” he explained. “They found no bodies in the rubble, but did determine that the fire was suspicious. I’ve found out from another source that it’s very likely the owner of the building—and the business— hired a professional to set it.”

  “For the insurance money.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, now he won’t get it.”

  “He obviously knows that,” McQueen said, “and he’s disappeared.”

  “So he’s Arson’s problem.”

  “Yes.”

  “But the murder is my problem,” Campanella said, “or it belongs to whomever I assign to it.”

  “Sir, I’m not all that certain that the victim was killed in the fire,” McQueen said.

  “How was he killed?”

  “Well,” McQueen said, “he died in a fire, that’s true—or, at least, from smoke inhalation, but he was moved.”

  “What are you trying to tell me, Sergeant?”

  “Sir, I just think I have a handle on this already and, for the sake of continuity, the case should stay with me.” He was aware that in his attempts to spread honey he was repeating himself.

  Campanella pulled the file over to his side of the desk and opened it.

  “Sergeant, why do I get the feeling this has all the earmarks of a high-profile case?”

  “I don’t think it does, sir.”

  “Then why do you want to kee
p it?”

  “As I said, sir,” McQueen answered, “continuity.”

  Campanella studied McQueen for a few moments, then snapped, “Bullshit!”

  “Wait a min—”

  “I don’t know a man on my squad who wouldn’t give up a case if they could,” Campanella said. “For you to want to keep this one means there’s something in it for you.”

  “Can’t it just mean I want to solve it for the sake of solving it?” McQueen asked. “Finish what I started?”

  “That would make you different from most men I know.”

  “And?”

  “Not likely.”

  McQueen moved quickly, leaping to his feet and snatching the file from the desk.

  “Hey.”

  “It’s my file.”

  “That’s my case—”

  “No, it’s not,” McQueen said, “not until I send it over to you.”

  “Sergeant,” Campanella said, “I’ll have your badge for this.”

  “I’ll write out my reports and refer the case to you when the time comes, Lieutenant,” McQueen said. “Consider this a courtesy call.”

  “Arson will send the case to me before you do,” Campanella said. “Then I’ll take it from you.”

  “Until then,” McQueen said, “it’s still mine.”

  “Do yourself a favor, Sergeant,” Campanella said, getting to his feet. “Put that file back on my desk and walk out.”

  “Not a chance,” McQueen said, “sir.”

  “By the time you get back to your squad I’ll have talked to your C.O.,” Campanella said.

  “That’d be Lieutenant Jessup,” McQueen said. “Give him my regards.”

  McQueen walked out, ran into both Donnie Santo and Sommers in the hall.

  “What happened?” Santo asked.

  “Don’t go in there for a while,” McQueen said.

  “He’s a little more hard-nosed than you thought.”

  Chapter 17

  McQueen held his anger until they were in the car, and then he pounded his fist on the dashboard.

  “That was a bad idea!” he said.

  “What happened?”

  “I’m getting too old and soft,” McQueen said. “I should have just kept my mouth shut and worked the case as long as we could. Now this dickhead lieutenant is gonna be trying to take it away.”