by Dana Perry
I asked Peter how he got the aide to talk. She was a sixty-five-year-old woman who was fiercely loyal to her boss despite the things she saw going on around her. No one had been able to get her to reveal what she knew.
Peter said that he called her each morning for fourteen consecutive days. Every time she hung up on him. Sometimes she didn’t say anything. Other times she threatened to report him to the police for harassing her. Once she screamed profanities at him and told him to go to hell. On the fifteenth day, she didn’t hang up on him. He asked her to meet with him. She did, and the rest was journalistic history.
I’ve thought about that whole sequence of events a lot. I don’t know too many reporters who would have made that fifteenth call. A lot of them would have given up after the first hang up. There are still people around in the newspaper business who say Peter Ventura just got lucky with that big exclusive. Well, sometimes you do get lucky. But other times you make your own luck.
That’s what Lorraine was telling me about this story.
I decided to take her advice.
Like she said, what did I have to lose?
I started in the Tribune library by going through Maura Walsh’s file all over again.
Most of that stuff was online now, of course. But the Tribune still keeps clip files from the print editions too. I’d already done an online search about her at the beginning. But now I wanted to make sure I saw and read everything, and going through the actual print stories seemed the best way for me to do that.
She’d only been on the police force for a few years, but there were a lot of clips and articles about her. The first one was a feature that ran when she graduated from the Police Academy. The headline said: TRUE BLUE! DEPUTY COMMISSIONER WALSH’S DAUGHTER IS A CHIP OFF THE OLD FAMILY BLOCK. There were pictures of her in a classroom at the academy; shooting on the pistol range with other recruits; and at the graduation ceremony where she finished first in her class.
There were more articles chronicling the highlights of Maura’s police career. Arrests. Rescues. Awards.
Then, at the end, came all the stories about her death. Including the stuff from me.
Her father’s clipping file was much bigger. It went all the way back to his early days on the force, faded stories and pictures that had been stored away in some dark corner for years and years. It was all there, though – the account of Walsh’s illustrious career as he rose through the ranks to the top of the NYPD hierarchy. The man who’d gotten the nickname of “Prince of the City” and become a legend for everything he had done to stamp out police corruption.
I read through everything I could find on the police department too. Corruption scandals. Internal investigations. Political wars with City Hall. Controversial arrests and cases. It was a tremendous amount of information, and it took me a long time to get through it.
I didn’t find anything at all that helped me.
On the other hand, I didn’t have the slightest idea of what I was looking for anyway.
When I was finished with all the newspaper clippings, I went through the picture files too. Some of the pictures were the same ones I’d seen in the clips. But the Tribune photo department also saved a lot of other pictures that never made the paper just in case they ever needed to use them again. That’s what I concentrated on. Or tried to concentrate. My head hurt, my eyes ached and my brain felt like it had turned to mush.
I almost missed it. It was in Maura Walsh’s picture file. It had been taken on the day she graduated from the Police Academy, but never ran with the article. A casual shot of her and three other police recruits. They were in the background of the shot, and you couldn’t see their faces as clearly as Maura. They weren’t identified in the caption.
But I had a nagging feeling that I recognized something.
I studied the three faces of the student police recruits behind Maura Walsh more closely. At first, I didn’t see it. Then it hit me. Of course, he looked a lot different these days than he did in the picture. His hair was longer now, he had a beard and he’d probably put on a few pounds.
But there was no question about it.
I knew this guy.
Hell, I’d almost slept with him.
Sam Rawlings.
Fifty
“We need to talk,” I told Rawlings.
“Look, I’m sorry about the other night.”
“That’s not what I want to talk about.”
“So what do you want to talk about?”
“You.”
“What about me?”
“How about we start by you explaining how come you didn’t tell me you used to be a cop?”
We were sitting in a booth in the back of his restaurant. Rawlings didn’t say anything at first. He just sat there looking at me across the table with a stunned look on his face.
“I’ve never been a cop,” he said finally.
“Wrong answer.”
“I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Maybe this will help refresh your memory.”
I took out the picture of the Police Academy graduation and put it on the table in front of him.
“What about this picture?” I said. “That’s you and Maura Walsh. You graduated from the Police Academy at the same time as she did.”
He stared down at the picture for a long time without answering. Trying to figure out the best way to respond to this, I assumed.
“Okay, I used to be a police officer.”
“But you’re not anymore.”
“That’s right.”
“Why not?”
“I didn’t like being on the NYPD very much.”
“Or the NYPD didn’t like you.”
I took out my iPhone, called up a file I’d downloaded earlier with notes I’d gotten from someone in the personnel office at One Police Plaza – and began reading from it.
“Samuel Rawlings,” I said. “Graduated from the Police Academy in March, 2015. Assigned as a rookie patrolman to the 22nd Precinct in Manhattan. Suspended in 2017 on charges of taking payoffs from businesses on your beat. Brought up on departmental charges. Agreed to plead guilty in return for no criminal charges being filed. Dismissed from the police force in June 2017.”
I put the phone away and looked at Rawlings.
“The 22nd Precinct,” I said. “The same precinct where Maura Walsh and her partner Billy Renfro were taking payoffs. And she just happens to come here and start taking money from you now. Hard to believe that all happened by chance.
“There’s more too. I did some checking on who actually owns this place where you work, The Hangout. It turns out to be a company called Riviera Management. Riviera Management is part of another company called Cumberland Real Estate. And – here’s where it really gets interesting – both of them are part of a bigger holding company owned by none other than mob boss Dominic Bennato. Which means you work for Bennato.
“Lots of connections, huh? And lots of lies by you. All of which make me suspect you might know a lot more about Maura Walsh’s murder than you’re letting on. For all I know, you played some part in it. So talk to me, Samuel Rawlings. Tell me the damned truth. Or is that something you’re not used to doing very much? You certainly haven’t ever done it with me. So please… no more lies about you being a goddamn aspiring novelist or all the rest of that crap.”
I sat back and waited for his answer.
“You’ve got a few things wrong, Jessie,” he said.
“Such as?”
“Well, first off I am a writer. I am trying to write a novel. I wasn’t lying about that.”
“Good for you.”
“And I was a lawyer too. I went to law school before the Police Academy. I applied for a job on the police force when I was twenty-eight. One of the oldest recruits they ever had, I believe.”
“Okay.”
“And I don’t know anything about what happened to Maura Walsh or who killed her. You’ve got to believe me about that.”
“I
’m not sure I do.”
“What can I do to convince you?”
“Tell me the truth.”
“I am telling you the truth about that.”
“Tell me the truth about everything.”
He hesitated for a few seconds, then shook his head no.
“I can’t do that.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
“I’m really sorry.”
“So am I. Sorry I ever met you.”
I stood up, started for the door – but then turned around one last time to look at Sam.
“I’m going to find out what happened to Maura Walsh and why,” I told him before I left the restaurant. “Then I’m going to print the story. And if that brings down you and your corrupt cop friends back at the 22nd Precinct and your boss Dominic Bennato… well, then you’re going to be really sorry about that.”
I stormed away from him and back out onto the street, just like I had that night at his apartment.
He didn’t chase after me this time either.
But I didn’t want him to anymore.
I was just glad I found out about Sam Rawlings in time.
Before I did anything stupid.
Like fall for him.
Fifty-One
Lieutenant Thomas Aguirre called and said he wanted to see me.
“I’m going to do you a big favor, kiddo,” was the way Aguirre put it to me over the phone.
“Kiddo?”
“Well, you got mad when I called you ‘honey’.”
“My name is Jessie.”
“Do you want to find out the favor I’m going to do for you or not?”
I decided I could live with him calling me “kiddo”.
“Okay, what’s the favor?”
“Nah, it’s gotta be in person. Come on over to my office right away.”
When I got there, I could tell Aguirre had something good for me. There was this irritatingly smug look on his face. I’d seen that smug look before when he knew something that I didn’t. The only thing I could figure was there had been some kind of a break in the Maura Walsh case.
I soon found out I was right.
“We’ve got a suspect in the Maura Walsh murder,” he announced. “A real suspect this time. We think he did it.”
I sat and waited.
“Don’t you want to know who it is?”
“Who is it?” I asked, playing along with his little game.
While I did that, I tried to run through in my mind all the possible suspects I had. Dominic Bennato. Other corrupt cops. Was Sam Rawlings really involved in her death? Or maybe even her own father, as crazy as that sounded? Could Frank Walosin the PI have murdered her for some reason before he died himself? Did Billy Renfro kill his own partner over some fallout in the corruption they were both involved in? Did—
“Charlie Sanders,” Aguirre said.
“Her boyfriend?”
“Ex-boyfriend.”
“But he was across town on a stakeout in the Bronx.”
“That was his alibi. But we broke it. He filled out a false report of a stakeout and then got his partner to back him up. We believed him, at first. But then the partner got cold feet and came to us with the real story. Sanders had disappeared for more than an hour that night. Want to know where he disappeared to?”
I was getting tired of playing this game with Aguirre, but I needed the information.
“Where?”
“East 86th Street in Manhattan.”
At first, I didn’t recognize the location. But then I remembered. East 86th Street was one of the spots Maura and Renfro had stopped at during their patrol that last night. It was listed as a meeting with an “informant”. But now it sounded as if she was meeting with Charlie Sanders. And that meeting took place just before she was found murdered.
“Sanders heard rumors that she was having an affair with someone,” Aguirre said. “He called her up, and she denied it. But he demanded a meeting with her. So he drove to Manhattan and confronted her in a bar on East 86th Street. They got in a big argument and she stormed out. We’ve got a witness now – once we went back to 86th Street and asked more questions – who saw some of that. And shortly after that, she turns up dead. That makes Charlie Sanders our prime suspect.”
I remembered asking Charlie Sanders if he thought Maura might be seeing another man. He could have been jealous, I suppose, but murderous jealous? Sanders still seemed like a nice guy to me, not a killer. Then again, love does make people do crazy things sometimes. Including murder.
“What does Sanders say?”
“He admits to meeting her and having the fight. He says he went back to the Bronx afterward. When he heard she had been shot to death, he realized he’d be a suspect and came up with the phony alibi to throw any suspicion away from himself.”
“Is that enough to charge him with the murder?”
“Not yet. For now, he’s only suspended from the force for obstruction by lying about his whereabouts. But he looks good for it. We’re all over this now. It’s the first real break we’ve gotten on this case. And I’m giving you the story first. I’m doing a big press conference later this afternoon. But you can get this out online right now so the Tribune – and you – will get the credit for the exclusive. That’s a pretty big favor I’m giving you, huh?”
He was right. It was a big favor. But, of course, I had a question for Aguirre about it.
“Why give me the story first, Lieutenant?”
“Hey, you made me a big media star after the Central Park stuff. Oh, I know I saved your life too. But I figured I’m going to be making big news here again today. So why not give it first to my friend, Jessie Tucker. Simple as that.”
I knew it wasn’t as simple as that. If I broke this story now, it would get us even more publicity because of our history together. Then he could still meet with all the rest of the press and get himself publicity there too. But, by coming to me first, he’d get even more attention. It was a win-win situation for him. He was doing me a favor, but he was doing himself an even bigger favor by making sure he got the biggest play possible for all this in the media. That was what it was all about for an egotistical cop like Lt. Thomas Aguirre. But what the hell, it was all right with me. An exclusive was an exclusive, no matter how I got it.
Before I left, I asked him a few more questions. Especially about why Sanders thought Maura was having a romance with someone. But he said all Sanders knew was he’d gotten an anonymous phone call telling him about it – and saying where Maura was. Sanders was jealous enough about the possibility of Maura seeing another man that he believed the caller was telling the truth. Which was why he’d gone to confront Maura.
All in all, it sounded like a good motive for murder. Jealousy usually was.
And Aguirre sounded confident that they’d soon have accumulated enough evidence against Sanders to charge him with killing Maura Walsh.
“Do you really think she was having an affair with someone else?” I asked Aguirre when he was done.
“Maura Walsh? Not that we know of. We’ve questioned a lot of people who knew her. But no one had heard of anything like that. They said the last man she’d been with as far as they knew was Sanders. And her psychiatrist said the same thing.”
“Maura Walsh was going to a psychiatrist?”
“You didn’t know about the psychiatrist?”
“No, I didn’t.”
Aguirre smiled smugly again. He was enjoying this.
“What’s the psychiatrist’s name?”
“C’mon, I can’t tell you that.”
“Sure, you can. We’re friends, remember? I do you a favor, you do me a favor.”
Aguirre laughed.
“Aw, what the hell?” he said. “I might as well give you the name. She’s not going to talk to you anyway. She hardly talked to us.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that.”
“Just make sure you spell my name right in your story.”
Fifty-Two
“Wow, when it comes to men, I sure can pick ’em, huh?” I said to Ellen.
“You do have an uncanny knack for zeroing in on the wrong one at the wrong time, Jessie.”
“Thanks for your support.” I smiled.
“I’m serious. This was your worst ever. A corrupt ex-cop who lied to you about who he was and what he was doing and who he worked for. And he could even be a murder suspect in the death of Maura Walsh.”
“I’m pretty sure he didn’t murder Maura Walsh, if that matters.”
“Okay, let’s take ‘murderer’ off the table for now then. But it still leaves him as a corrupt ex-cop; a liar and a guy working for mob boss Dominic Bennato. Not exactly prime dating material. I gotta tell you, your screening process for choosing men leaves a lot to be desired.”
“You’re having a lot of fun with this, aren’t you?”
“When something like this happens, what else can you do but laugh?”
We were sitting outside at a bar in Rockefeller Center, not far from the Tribune offices. The temperature had gone down to something more manageable in the eighties, at least for now, and it wasn’t that bad not being in an air-conditioned place. Even better, most of the tourists who normally populate the area had stayed away tonight because of the heat wave we’d been enduring in the city. So the bar was relatively empty.
I had the front page of the Tribune in front of me. My story – the exclusive I’d gotten from Aguirre about Charlie Sanders – was the lead story on Page 1. The headline said: COP LOVER EYED IN WALSH MURDER. The story included everything I knew about Sanders’s concocted alibi, the meeting he had with Maura on 86th Street just before her murder and his jealousy over the fear she was seeing another man. The Tribune had beaten the hell out of everyone else in town on this story. And I was a big star again in the office because of it. Norman was happy. Danny was happy. Lorraine was happy. I should be happy too, and I was. Sort of.
“You figure this Rawlings guy was part of whatever corrupt scheme was going on which involved Maura Walsh and his boss, Dominic Bennato? That he tried to get close to you when you found out about what Maura was doing? Then kept his eye on you so he could warn Bennato and the dirty cops at the 22nd Precinct if you got too close to the truth?”