by Dana Perry
The woman was a freckle-faced young blonde who looked barely old enough to have graduated high school.
“Look,” I told Clauson, “I don’t care about you. I want to talk to you about Police Officer Maura Walsh and her visit to this club on the night she was killed. It’s listed in her police log as one of the stops she made.”
“Sure, I remember her,” he said. “I wondered if it might be the same woman when I heard about it on the news. Yeah, she was here that night.”
“What was she doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, she was on duty at the time. It was an official visit. There must have been a reason she came here?”
“Oh, right… we had a little problem.”
“What happened?”
“Someone just got a little too boisterous with the girls. It happens sometimes.”
“And that’s all it was?”
“Yes. She left right afterward. It’s a shame about her getting killed like that, but it had nothing to do with my place.”
I rolled my eyes but I wasn’t surprised. I didn’t figure a guy like Clausen was going to tell me anything significant – even if there was anything to tell me. I wasn’t picking up on anything out of the ordinary here, but still, I wanted to check out the other places from Maura Walsh’s log that night.
When I left the Hands On club, I saw a woman standing on the street outside the front door smoking a cigarette. I recognized her. It was the woman that Clauson had called “Bubbles”.
“That was pretty funny,” she called over to me now.
“You mean my remark about how he must be a real media celebrity in this job?”
“No, the load of BS he was giving you about why the policewoman was here that night.”
“He didn’t tell me the truth?”
She laughed. “Ol’ Marty’s not a big believer in the truth.”
I walked over to where she was standing. Up close, she looked even younger than she had in the bar. I told her who I was and she said her name was Nancy Wesley. Bubbles was the name they’d given her to use for the customers in the club.
“Why do you…?”
“You mean, how did a nice girl like me wind up working in a place like this?”
“Something like that.”
“I need the money to pay my tuition.”
“Tuition?”
“I go to NYU. I’m a business management major. I go to classes full-time, then work here part-time to pay the bills. It’s only for a little while until I graduate. Believe me. I’m not going to be doing this any longer than I have to.”
I nodded.
“Were you working the night Maura Walsh came in?”
“Sure. I saw her a bunch of times.”
“She was here more than once?”
“The two of them were – her and her partner. They came twice a month. It was like clockwork. Then they would do business with Marty.”
“What kind of business?”
“What do you think?”
“I have no idea.”
“Picking up their money from Marty.”
“Wait a minute… Clauson was paying them?”
“Yep. The Walsh woman picked up her five hundred dollars from him that night. The way she always did. That was the deal.”
Damn. Not that cops taking payoffs was a new phenomenon in New York City. That kind of corruption has been going on for years. What was startling was that the daughter of the deputy police commissioner – the man known as the “Prince of the City” because he was so squeaky clean – was doing it.
But that sure might explain why Billy Renfro was reluctant to be entirely truthful with me about the details of that night.
“You know, she was a piece of work, that Walsh woman,” Nancy continued, grinding her cigarette under her heel. “I mean, she looked like an angel but she took the money like a pro. Icy cold, no nerves, totally businesslike about it. She knew exactly what she wanted. Hey, I understand that – it’s just the way things are. She’s not the first cop on the take, she won’t be the last. I’m not naïve. Anyway, it’s a shame how things worked out for her. Getting blown away like that by a drug dealer or crazy person or whatever. Real bad luck.”
It didn’t take long after that to confirm Maura Walsh was definitely not the hero cop her family and everyone else had made her out to be.
The story at the apartment house where Maura Walsh and Billy Renfro had gone next was pretty much the same. There was an escort service – or, more accurately, a prostitution service calling itself by a fancier name – operating out of the first floor.
At first, the woman who ran it was reluctant to tell me anything about why Maura Walsh had been there. But when I told her what I already knew – and threatened to write an article about what kind of business she was really running – she agreed to talk off the record about Maura Walsh and Billy Renfro.
“It’s the cost of doing business,” the woman told me. “I understand that. I take care of the police, and they take care of me.”
“You realize, of course,” I said, “that paying off a police officer is illegal?”
“Yeah, well, try telling that to a cop who threatens to shut you down if you don’t pay up. Besides, everyone does it.”
“Who told you that?”
“She did.”
I had no idea who the “informant” was who Walsh and Renfro had met with on the Upper East Side, but – based on the rest of their activities – it seemed likely that something illicit had gone down there.
And the bodega owner who was another stop on that night admitted to making payoffs to Renfro and Walsh too. He said they had threatened to write him up for all sorts of violations if he didn’t pay them what they wanted. He paid.
The bodega owner then added a new piece to the puzzle for me.
“Are you working with the other guy?” he asked me, crossing his arms over his belly.
“What other guy?”
“The private investigator.”
“I’m a reporter, not a private investigator.”
“Well, he was asking me lots of questions about them too.”
Why would a private investigator be checking up on Walsh and Renfro’s activities?
“Do you remember the private investigator’s name?” I asked.
“Uh, Walters… no, Walker… no, it was Walosin. That’s it. Frank Walosin? He left me his card. Told me to call him if I remembered anything else on the two of them. Let me see if I can find it for you.”
He came back a few minutes later and handed me a small white business card. It read: “Walosin Private Investigations – Friendly operators, friendly service, friendly rates.” There was a picture of a smiling man below the words. Friendly seemed to be the key theme here.
But what did it all mean?
Was it possible this corruption thing had something to do with Maura’s death? That it wasn’t just a random killing, as everyone assumed? But, even if she was on the take, why would anyone want her dead? And why was a private investigator involved in it? I rolled all that around in my head for a while, looking for an answer… and got nowhere.
Also, the police investigating her murder must know about this too. I mean, I’d found out about all the payoffs she was taking pretty quickly. Apparently, so had Walosin, the private investigator. Maybe the police were aware of the corruption angle, but they didn’t think it had anything to do with her death? They were probably trying to keep it under wraps to protect the reputation of her father and the department.
After I left the bodega, I took out my phone and called the number of the private investigator listed on the card the owner had given me.
“Yeah,” a voice rasped on the other end.
“Frank Walosin, please.”
“You got him. Start talking, but make it fast. Otherwise I’ll have to bill you for my time, lady.”
Friendly. Just like the ad promised.
“My name is Jessie Tucker, and I’m a repor
ter for the New York Tribune. I’m working on a story about Maura Walsh, a police officer that was murdered recently. I’ve been told you might have some information about her.”
“Oh, I’ve got information. I’ve got a whole lot of information about Maura Walsh and her partner. Pictures. Video. Audio recordings. The works. It’s all there for the right buyer, honey.”
“Information for sale?”
“That’s the only kind I deal in.”
“What’s your connection to her? Why are you looking into what she was up to?”
“I’m not telling you anything for free. Let’s just say for now I was doing another job for someone. A personal matter. Anyway, I stumbled on this funny business going on with the Walsh woman while I was checking it out, and I figured it might be worth some money. Now the Tribune is a big newspaper. You must have plenty of money. So if you want to make me an offer…”
“How much? I suppose I might be able to give you a little something, if it checks out.”
“Big money. You want to find out what I know about Maura Walsh, you’ll have to pay plenty for it. It’s the law of competitive bidding.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’ve got another potential buyer for this information.”
“And you want us to get in a bidding war against each other?”
“Something like that. I’m offering that buyer the same deal as you. I’m open to the best offer. It’s a seller’s market.”
No way the Tribune was going to pay big money for this kind of information, we didn’t work that way. But I didn’t want to tell Walosin that. Not yet, anyway. I decided to string him along a bit and see where that took me.
“How about we get together and talk about this?” I suggested.
“Sure. Talk’s cheap.”
“When?”
“Give me your number.”
I did.
“I’ll get back to you,” he said.
“I could meet with you today, Mr. Walosin—”
But he’d already hung up on me.
Seven
The final spot I knew Maura Walsh had visited before she and Billy Renfro stopped at the pizza place was the restaurant on the Upper East Side.
It was a place called The Hangout in the East 70s. It was already half-filled when I got there, even though it was only four o’clock in the afternoon. It looked like a popular drinking and meeting up place for singles. Everyone was laughing and having a good time. I was the only woman there who wasn’t standing with a man. No big deal. I was used to being by myself.
I sat down at the bar, ordered some wine and told the bartender I wanted to talk to the manager.
While I was waiting, a guy slipped on to the barstool next to me.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
“You know, a pretty girl like you really shouldn’t be drinking alone.”
Terrific, the local Romeo.
“Yeah, well I have impetigo. Very contagious.”
“Is that terminal?”
“Just itchy.”
“I can live with that.” He smiled.
I swiveled around on the barstool to face him. He was maybe thirty-five years old, with a shaggy beard and long sandy hair that hung down to his shoulders; wearing blue jeans, a gray T-shirt and sandals. He was looking at me with an eager, puppy-dog kind of expression. Under different circumstances, I might have been mildly interested. But not now. I didn’t have time for this now.
“I’m waiting for someone,” I said.
“Me too.”
“Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
“Now, goodbye?”
He didn’t move from his seat.
“Look, I’m here to meet the manager of this place,” I said. “If you don’t go away, I’ll tell him you’re hassling me.”
“You’d do that? After all we’ve meant to each other?” He chuckled at his own joke and put his elbows on the bar.
“I’m serious.”
“Okay, then I’ll find the manager for you myself.”
He made a big show of looking around the place, then turning toward me with a big grin on his face. “Well, Goll-darn! I almost forgot – that would be me.”
“You’re the manager?” I raised my eyebrows.
He nodded. “I’m Sam Rawlings.”
“Jessie Tucker.”
We shook hands.
“Why didn’t you just tell me who you were in the first place?” I asked him.
“Oh, I was enjoying myself too much.”
I explained to Rawlings why I was there. How I was a reporter at the Tribune working on a story about the murdered policewoman who had been to the restaurant on the night she died. He seemed very interested in the fact that I worked for a newspaper.
“I’m a writer too,” he said.
“I thought you were a restaurant manager.”
“I’m a restaurant manager and writer.”
“That must keep you pretty busy.”
“I’m actually a lawyer as well.”
I looked at him quizzically.
“I went to law school and graduated and passed the bar, then decided that I didn’t want to be a lawyer,” he said. “I got a job doing corporate law, and it was b-o-r-i-n-g. What I really wanted to do was be a writer, but I learned pretty quickly that writing unpublished novels doesn’t pay all that well. So I got involved in this restaurant. I manage it during the day, then go home and work on my Great American Novel at night. It’s only a matter of time, I figure, until I become rich and famous.”
“How’s it going so far?”
“The novel or the restaurant?”
“Both.”
“The restaurant’s doing pretty well. I guess there’s a lot of thirsty or hungry or lonely people in Manhattan looking for a place to go. The writing is kind of a different story. I’m a good writer, I really believe that. And a good writer can make it with a bit of luck and good connections. Everyone’s looking for the next Stephen King or Lee Child or James Patterson. There’s a lot of money being paid out to a lot of writers these days.”
“But not to you?”
“It’s a world gone mad.” He grinned.
I asked him about Maura Walsh. He said that she and her partner came into the place about nine-thirty p.m. or so. They ordered something to eat and then they left.
“They weren’t responding to any complaint of trouble here?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Did they talk to you?”
“Just for a minute.”
“What’d they say?”
“They wanted to know if the chicken cutlet special was any good. I said it was a bit dry. My chef had an off day. They went for the hamburger platter instead.”
“And that’s all that happened?”
“As far as I can remember.”
Billy Renfro and Maura Walsh had called in a Code 7 – a meal break to go to the pizza parlor – at 10:30. That was barely an hour later. Why would they eat dinner here, then go out for a pizza an hour later?
“Do you have a receipt?” I asked Rawlings.
“Huh?”
“The receipt for their meal. Do you have it?”
“Somewhere.”
“Could I see it?”
“That’s a lot of trouble to try and find—”
“I’ll wait.”
Rawlings started to get up from the barstool, then sat back down again.
“There was no receipt,” he said.
“I figured there wasn’t.”
I told him what I had found out at my previous stops. He listened silently, playing with a swizzle stick on the bar in front of him. When I was finished, I asked him if the same thing had happened to him. He nodded his head yes.
“How much?” I asked.
“A thousand dollars each time.”
“And what did you get in return?”
“They made sure we didn’t have any trouble with the law. Look, it’s a cost
of running a restaurant in this city. Sometimes you pay off the cops, sometimes you pay off the mob –sometimes both. A couple of thousand dollars a month really isn’t very much. Especially if it protects you from unpleasant hassles.”
No, a couple of thousand dollars a month wasn’t that much. Unless you were getting it from a lot of different places. Then it could really add up to some nice money.
“Was it always just the two of them?” I asked.
“Recently. For the past six months or so. Before that, it was Renfro and some other guy. I don’t know what happened to him.”
Probably Billy Renfro’s former partner. It was six months ago that Maura Walsh got transferred to the precinct and became Renfro’s partner. Did she have any idea what she was getting into? Or had she been already involved?
“Did you tell this to anyone else?” I asked Rawlings.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Who was I going to tell?”
“You could have filed a complaint with the police?” I told him. I picked up my wineglass and drained it.
“But the police were the ones asking me for the payoffs.”
When I left, Rawlings walked with me out the front door and onto the street. He hailed a cab for me.
“Stop by again next time you’re in the neighborhood,” he said before I got in.
“I’m not in this neighborhood very often.”
“How about lunch then tomorrow wherever you are?”
“I’ll be busy working on this story tomorrow.”
“Another time?”
“I’m busy a lot.”
“Is that a no?”
“Maybe.” I smiled.
“Well, at least now you know where to find me.” He smiled back.
Eight
“So what do you think is going on with the Maura Walsh story?” said my best friend Ellen Robbins as we pedaled away next to each other on a pair of exercise bikes at the gym where I worked out.
I’d just told her about the payoffs and kickbacks and bribes I’d discovered Maura Walsh was taking.
“I don’t know, Ellen. This started out as a routine profile piece about the Walsh woman. But once I started asking questions… well, it turned into something a lot more complex and confusing.”