Jojo went for his cell phone.
“Not now,” Tommy Boy said. “And definitely not from here. You asked me what to do. I told you. Get the fuck out. Fast.”
“How the hell do you know her?” Jojo said. “Who is she?”
“I’ll tell you in the car. Trust me. Go.” He took out a handkerchief and began backing out of the room, wiping down everything they had touched.
They were just about out the door when Tommy Boy saw it out of the corner of his eye. It was almost lost in the jumble of audio equipment on the table. “Hold on,” he said.
“What now?” Jojo said.
“I’m not sure. Give me a second.” There was a small wooden box on the table. He picked it up and opened it.
“What the hell is that?” Jojo said, looking over Tommy Boy’s shoulder.
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.” He took the choke pear out of the box with his handkerchief, set it on the table, and clicked off some more shots. Then he tucked it back in the box.
“Now let’s go,” he said.
Tommy relocked the door, then wiped the lock, the knob, and the jamb. Minutes later they were on the Long Island Expressway, headed back to Howard Beach.
“I figured it out,” Jojo said. “The white overalls. One of those cops is the Hazmat guy.”
“Both of them.”
“That’s what I’m saying. But who’s the girl?”
Tommy Boy told him.
“You sure that’s her?”
“Her face was on TV every night.”
“Not on ESPN.”
“It was in the Daily News. Didn’t you see it in the paper?”
“Probably. I can’t remember everything I read. Was there anything about that weird corkscrew thing in the box?”
“No.”
Jojo pulled out his cell phone. “I’m calling Pop.”
“Make sure you call one of his burner phones. The Feds have ears on everything else,” Tommy Boy said.
Jojo stopped dialing. It was as though he’d just remembered his father was a Mob boss and the FBI had had him under surveillance for years.
“Good idea. We don’t want the Federales picking up on this one,” Jojo said. “Y’know, you big ox, sometimes you’re not as dumb as you look.”
“Thanks, boss. I’m no genius, but I have my moments.”
Chapter 70
Of all the elite units in the department, Red is the toughest to get into. There are only seventy-five of us spread out across the city and at least a thousand more hoping to get in. But I’ve never met two cops more eager—or more qualified—to be part of Red than Casey and Bell, the two Anti-Crime detectives who saved my ass at the carousel on Monday morning.
They’re skilled at undercover, fast on their feet, and, as Kylie pointed out, willing to break a few eggs to make an omelet.
When we asked them to tail Donovan and Boyle on the down low, they said yes. When we told them why, Bell asked only one question.
“Does IA know you’re recruiting cops to investigate other cops?”
“No,” I said. “And if IA finds out, they’ll be investigating all of us.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “They won’t find out.”
He called me at 6:00 p.m. and said they couldn’t wait to tell us what they came up with on their first day. I suggested an off-campus rendezvous at Uskudar, a hole-in-the-wall Turkish restaurant on Second Avenue. Logistically and strategically, it was the perfect choice. It was walking distance from our office, but nobody who knew us was likely to show up. The fact that I really liked their musakka may have also influenced my decision.
They were waiting for us at a table in the rear, and from the grins on their faces, I couldn’t tell who was more excited—them or us.
We ordered drinks and a bunch of appetizers and got down to business.
“So, if we help you crack this case,” Bell said, cutting to the chase, “do the two of us have a good chance of working for Red?”
“No promises,” I said, “but I can tell you this—if we don’t crack the case, the two of us have a good chance of not working for Red.”
“So please tell us you have pictures of Donovan and Boyle shopping at a Hazmat suit store,” Kylie said.
Casey laughed. “Nothing that exciting. We have bad news, good news, and great news.”
“Start with the bad and work your way up,” I said, popping a hunk of warm pita bread in my mouth and washing it down with cold beer.
“Eight thirty this morning,” he said, putting his iPhone on the table and bringing up a picture of Donovan walking out of a Starbucks carrying two cups wrapped with cardboard sleeves. “We put our keen detective minds together and concluded it was a coffee run.”
“Two minutes later we ran into the snag,” Bell said. “Our sergeant called us in. Some mope snatched a purse from a woman in the park. A couple of uniforms could have handled it, but the victim was a British nanny who works for a diplomat’s family, so now it was all hands on deck, and we got pulled in to canvass the area. We were caught up in it for four hours, and we didn’t get back to Donovan and Boyle again till one o’clock.”
“They were having lunch at the Big Wong King on Mott Street,” Casey said. “After that, they answered a robbery call at an optical store on Franklin, and then they got called to the Pu Chao Buddhist Temple on Eldridge.”
“We didn’t pick up on the radio what they were called in for, but they only stayed twenty minutes, so we figured it was no major crime,” Bell said. “Maybe just somebody disturbing the enlightenment.”
Kylie and I laughed. These guys were light-years more fun to work with than Donovan and Boyle.
Casey flipped through pictures of the restaurant, the optical store, and the Buddhist temple in a hurry.
“All those places are in the Five,” Kylie said. “So basically they stayed close to their own precinct.”
“Until around three this afternoon,” Casey said. “Then they drove uptown to a storefront on East Fifty-Fifth Street.”
He flipped to the next picture.
“Holy shit,” Kylie said. “That’s Muriel Sykes’s campaign headquarters.”
“Do you know if Sykes was there at the same time?” I asked.
Casey scrolled to the next shot. It was the three of them—Donovan, Boyle, and Sykes—walking out of the campaign office together.
“We have no idea what they talked about because we couldn’t get close enough to hear anything, but whatever it was, they were in there with her for over an hour.”
“If that’s the good news,” I said, “I can’t wait to hear the great news.”
Casey grinned and flipped to another picture on his iPhone. It was a pretty young woman with curly red hair. “She’s the nanny whose purse got snatched. She gave me her phone number. Wants me to call on her day off.”
I took the phone out of his hand and flipped back to the shot of Donovan, Boyle, and Sykes. “As impressed as Kylie and I are at your ability to hit on crime victims, we’re even happier about this.”
“It’s a big help,” Kylie said.
“We were hoping you’d say that,” Bell said, “but we don’t know enough about the case to understand why.”
“Because the two cops who could be the Hazmat Killer are in cahoots with the politician who will most benefit if the murders aren’t solved,” I said.
“And I bet the reason Donovan and Boyle showed up to pick our brain last night is because they’re reporting everything we know to Sykes,” Kylie said.
“So they’re like double agents,” Bell said.
“You’re being generous,” Kylie said. “They’re more like dirty cops. Zach is right. You guys did some great work in a big hurry. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Casey said, “but it goes both ways. We appreciate getting a shot to work with Red, so thank you, Detective Jordan. And thank you, Detective MacDonald.”
“Hey—we’re having beers and breaking bread here,” Kylie said. �
��You don’t have to be so formal. Call me Kylie. And he’s Zach.”
“Kylie and Zach it is,” Casey said. “I’m Dave.”
Bell raised his beer and toasted us. “And I’m Gideon.”
Part Three
La famiglia fornirà giustizia
Chapter 71
Friday started way too early. My cell phone rang at 3:02 a.m. I fumbled for it and focused on the name of the caller, glowing at me in the dark.
Delia Cates.
In my stupor, I could come up with only one reason my boss would call in the middle of the night. She’d found out that Kylie and I were playing fast and loose with the chain of command, and she couldn’t wait till morning to get me started on my new assignment writing tickets to unlicensed street vendors in Jackson Heights.
I pressed the green button on my phone and mumbled something that sounded like “This is Jordan.”
“The Rachael O’Keefe case just blew through the roof,” Cates said. “I need you and MacDonald at Gracie Mansion in twenty minutes.”
And just like that, I was wide awake. “What’s going on with O’Keefe?” I said.
“I’ll tell you when you get here. Call your partner. Repeat—Gracie Mansion. Twenty minutes. You got it?”
“Yeah, I got—”
She hung up.
I reached for the reading light on the headboard and flipped it on. Cheryl rolled over on her back, jet-black hair cascading over the pale blue pillowcase, caramel skin glowing in the lamplight.
I swung my legs onto the floor and sat on the side of the bed.
“Mmmm, don’t go,” she said softly, sitting up and letting the sheets slip below her breasts.
I couldn’t believe that I was living in a universe where someone as beautiful and desirable as Cheryl would be lying naked beside me and I would leap out of bed and put on my pants. But that’s exactly what I did.
“I have to,” I said.
“Who called?”
“The police commissioner. He heard we’ve been sleeping together.”
She gave me a drowsy smile. “And he’s going to fire you?”
“Hell, no. He’s giving me a medal. Go back to sleep.”
I leaned over and kissed her. She wrapped her arms around me, worked her tongue against mine, slowly let one hand slide down my back, under my belt, and grabbed hold of my gluteus maximus.
She put her warm, soft lips to my ear. “Just stay ten more minutes,” she said. “I promise they’ll be the best ten minutes of your day.”
“You’re killing me,” I said, trying to pull away.
“I know,” she purred. “But you’ll die happy.”
Her hand found a new resting place, and I stopped pulling away and leaned into it.
“I have a problem, Doctor,” I moaned in her ear. “Something big just went down on the O’Keefe kidnapping, and Cates wants me at the mayor’s house in twenty minutes. But then something big came up in my personal life, and I don’t know what to do.”
She pulled her hand away and sat up straight. “Are you serious? Why didn’t you say something? Go.”
“Thanks for understanding.” I planted one more kiss on her lips. “I’ll definitely be back to pick up where we left off.”
Showing up for work wearing yesterday’s clothes is a red flag for the gossipmongers, so I had one drawer at Cheryl’s place just for times like this. I grabbed a clean shirt and called Kylie.
I told her what, when, and where, and I was about to hang up when I heard a man’s voice in the background.
“Who is it? What’s going on?”
It was Spence.
“Go back to sleep,” I heard Kylie say just before she hung up.
I had to laugh. I’m sure she didn’t want to get out of bed any more than I did.
At least the universe wasn’t playing favorites. It was dicking around with both of us.
Chapter 72
I got to Gracie Mansion at 3:26, three minutes past my ETA. Kylie was already waiting outside the guardhouse.
“How the hell did you get here so fast?” I said.
“I pride myself on punctuality. It’s the hallmark of great police work.”
“I deserved that,” I said as we headed up the mansion’s steps to the sprawling front porch.
“Also, did you forget I’m staying in Shelley’s apartment? It’s five blocks away. I strolled over.”
I hadn’t forgotten. But when I’d heard Spence’s voice, I’d jumped to the conclusion that she had spent the night downtown in her own bed. But Spence must have made his way uptown.
Or maybe it wasn’t Spence’s voice.
Or maybe it was none of my damn business.
The four of them were in the mayor’s office at a conference table—Mayor Spellman, Irwin Diamond, Captain Cates, and PC Richard Harries. Kylie and I sat down, and the PC started talking.
“Last night, a couple on East Seventy-First Street, Larry and Clare Bertoli, left their apartment at seven fifteen and went to the theater. Mrs. Bertoli got sick during the first act, so they left, went home, and walked in on a burglary in progress. They knew the perp. It was their doorman. He didn’t try to run—just sat down on the couch and started bawling. Mrs. Bertoli called 911. The uniforms made the collar, took him in to the One Nine, and turned him over to the detectives to be debriefed.”
I knew he hadn’t gotten us up at this hour to talk about a routine burglary. Cates had already told me that the Rachael O’Keefe case had blown through the roof, and I was waiting for the bombshell. But I know Richard Harries, and he’s painstakingly methodical. He needs time to land the plane.
“The lead investigator is Detective Sal Catapano,” he said. “He’s got twenty-one years, and as soon as he walked into the interrogation room, he knew he had a page-one case on his hands. The doorman’s name is Vidmar, Calvin Vidmar.”
Bombshell. I looked at Kylie. She knew it, too.
“You recognize the name,” Harries said as soon as he saw our reaction.
“Yes, sir,” Kylie said. “Vidmar was the doorman on duty the night Rachael O’Keefe’s daughter was murdered. He testified against her in court.”
He nodded. “It seems he’s not the solid citizen the prosecution made him out to be. He’s a thief. The tenants all leave house keys with the super in case of emergency. Vidmar would take one out of the storage box, enter an apartment, and help himself to something small—usually one or two pieces of jewelry, or if he found cash, he’d take some, but never enough to be noticed. And if it was, the victims didn’t report it. They either thought it went lost, or in one case, a tenant fired her cleaning lady, thinking it was an inside job.”
“Is there any evidence he was in O’Keefe’s apartment the night Kimi was murdered?” I asked.
“Catapano got a search warrant for Vidmar’s apartment in the Bronx and found several pieces of jewelry that he hadn’t had time to unload. And this.”
He put an eight-by-ten photo on the table. It was Mookie—the stuffed pink monkey, identical to the one taken from Kimi O’Keefe’s bedroom.
“How long before we can get DNA to see if it’s hers?” Kylie said.
“We don’t have to wait. Catapano told Vidmar he’d be smarter to confess now rather than let the evidence hang him. He started crying again and then spilled his guts. It was a botched robbery. The girl woke up and started screaming. He panicked, put a pillow over her face, and you know the rest—he didn’t mean to kill her; it just happened. He put the body in a trash bag, left her out for the morning pickup, and let the mom take the fall.”
I felt as if I’d just been hit by the Hiroshima of bombshells. The jury had gotten it right. Rachael had told the truth.
“So maybe now I won’t have to take the rap for turning a child killer loose,” the mayor said.
“Mr. Mayor, if we release the news that O’Keefe is innocent, she’s a dead woman,” the PC said. “The men who took her plan to torture a confession out of her, but the minute they find out that Vidmar d
id it, they’ll kill her on the spot.”
“And if you think people hated you when O’Keefe beat the rap,” Irwin said, “they’ll hate you even more when it turns out that she’s innocent, didn’t get the police protection she asked for, and was murdered on your watch.”
“Then where the hell are we on the Hazmat case?” the mayor said, looking right at me.
I couldn’t let Cates know that we’d gone over her head and put an unauthorized tail on two cops. And I certainly couldn’t tell the mayor that Muriel Sykes had spent an hour behind closed doors with our two prime suspects. I was groping for an answer when Diamond interrupted.
“The last time we spoke, you were getting a list of everyone who knew where O’Keefe was going when she was released. Did you question them all?”
“All but two from the DA’s office,” I said. “We plan to connect with them in the morning.”
“The goddamn election is in four days,” Spellman said. “I don’t have time for you to connect with them in the morning. Talk to them now. Find out where they live and drag them out of bed.” He turned to the commissioner. “Richard, we can’t crap around anymore. Find her.”
The PC is appointed by the mayor. If Spellman got voted out, Harries would get swept out along with him. He turned to Kylie and me. “Who from the DA’s office haven’t you talked to yet?”
“ADA Wilson and one of his assistants,” I said.
“Damn,” Harries said. “Mick Wilson is a pain in the ass, and the last person I want to wake up in the middle of the night.”
“So then, don’t wake him?” I said.
“Hell, no. Just make sure he’s last. Wake the assistant first.”
Chapter 73
I’d been sucker punched more than a few times in my career, but this one hit me the hardest. I never saw it coming. I was right there with the rest of the world, branding Rachael O’Keefe as the Worst Mother in America, and I wondered if my prejudice had any bearing on how hard I had been working to find her.
East End Avenue was dark, deserted, and eerily calming, and we drove without saying a word, both of us trying to process the news in our own way.
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