“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” he said.
“I should?” She looked incredulous, a finger above the blouse button where he could see the black lace bra she was wearing.
“Running down good cops so you can get ahead. They got a name for what you are.”
“I’m more interested what you think they should call you, lieutenant. And by the way, how’s that new place in Smithtown working out for you?”
“Get your leg out of my car before you lose it.” He slammed the door, nearly catching her ankle.
He rolled the window down and spat on the asphalt near her shoes.
“You want to talk to me again, it’ll be with a lawyer.”
“Nice meeting you too.”
He rolled the glass up, restarted the engine, and drove away.
17
SEPTEMBER
2017
The first surprise was that anybody from the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office called Lourdes back, after she’d been getting cold-shouldered by Chief Tolliver’s people. The second surprise was that when she showed up at the records room with B.B. expecting to collect some files from a second-tier assistant, they were instead ushered in to see the DA himself, Kenneth Makris.
His office was a more austere affair than the chief’s. Instead of all the civic awards proudly displayed, he just had a few spare diplomas on the wall and a framed, yellowing Newsday headline celebrating his first electoral victory in 1984. In fact, the most noticeable items in the office were pictures of a much-younger Makris on a stage with his wife and daughter and a large white cross on the credenza behind his desk.
Makris himself was a thin, white-haired man in horn-rimmed glasses and a bow tie, outwardly gracious and polite but inwardly severe, bordering on ascetic. Like other DAs she’d met, he seemed more like an administrator than a politician or a lawman. Someone who was happier wielding power in a quiet office rather than on a stage or in a courtroom. It was a minor wonder he’d managed to get elected at least eight times. His opponents must have had about as much charisma as kelp.
“So I hear you folks have already been to see Joey,” he said, surprising Lourdes by trying to turn her hand as he shook it.
The old cop-testing ritual. Sullivan had shown it to her when they worked together. If you could twist someone’s wrist while you were shaking hands, you might have yourself a cooperator.
“Joey?” Lourdes closed one eye.
“Chief Tolliver at the police department.” Makris forced a grin. “I heard good things.”
“Did you now?”
She glanced at B.B., who was back to being his old spiffy self today, shoes polished and suit pressed, like he was here for a job interview.
“So what can I do for you good people?” The DA took a seat behind his desk. “I’m always happy to help out my friends at the New York City Police Department. We’ve solved a lot of great cases together over the years.”
“We certainly have.” B.B. grinned, his teeth noticeably whiter today as well. “I think you and I worked together on a Gambino heroin case back in the nineties, counselor, where they were dealing out of the back room of a pizza place in Smithtown…”
“Aaanyway,” Lourdes interrupted before this got as white and boring as a golf tournament without Tiger Woods. “I’m sure the chief told you that we were looking at these Sunrise Highway murders going back a few years.”
“Yes, those are Nassau County’s cases.” Makris had started vigorously nodding before she was done talking. “I heard all about those from Joey.”
“Well, they’re not all Nassau County cases,” Lourdes said. “Some of the bodies were found on your side of the line, which is why we—”
“See, this is what we have to be careful about,” Makris said over her. “We don’t want to get our lines of communication crossed and put the wrong message out there.”
“And what message is that?” Lourdes asked.
“That we have a major crime problem in our community,” the DA said. “Which we do not. Except what’s caused by some illegal immigrants. Who will soon be gone, thanks to the efforts of my office with the federal government and the police.”
Lourdes glanced at B.B., who was just standing there with his hands clasped and an ingratiating smile on his shiny face like he was auditioning to be a greeter at one of the more expensive Vegas hotel-casinos.
In a way, she got it. They had their carefully maintained little American dream out here, with green fields and good schools and rising house values, and the idea of a serial killer running around destabilized the whole image. Not like the neighborhoods she came from, where you expected every day to be a struggle and where just lying down in your bed at night in a housing project without getting shot through the window was a triumph. Making everyone feel safe and not rocking the boat was why Makris kept getting elected.
“Forgive me, Mr. Makris,” she said. “I think we’ve had a misunderstanding. We didn’t ask for this meeting because we’re worried about a local PR problem. We asked for it because we’re concerned there might be a serial murderer running around and we’re getting very limited cooperation from the police department. Our bosses thought you could maybe help because your office has done its own investigations into some of these cases.”
“Definitely.” The DA nodded. “I have some of the finest investigators in the business. Some of them come here straight from the Suffolk County Police Department, and go right back after working with us. Though we maintain our independence. So tell me exactly what you’re looking for.”
“Anything that could help our case,” B.B. said, finally sounding like a detective doing his job. “When we start thinking about serial killers, we think either of people who’ve never been caught or people who’ve been caught for something else and are out now. Maybe your office successfully prosecuted someone in the past who could be our suspect now. Especially if the dates line up with when they were in and out of prison.”
“And Joey couldn’t help you with that?” Makris looked up, his desk lamp catching the smudge of a fingerprint on one of his lenses.
“Well, he’s pledged his assistance, but time is of the essence,” Lourdes said. “And we were hoping that because of the close relationship between the DA and the PD out here, you might be able to encourage the chief to be more responsive.”
“Heh, heh, well, Joseph Tolliver does things on Joseph Tolliver’s time.” Makris laughed and used a handkerchief to wipe his glasses off. “But tell me something, detective. Who else is talking to you?”
“Sir?” Lourdes looked at B.B. as if she needed translation.
“You’ve been looking into these murders. Where are you so far?”
Under normal circumstances, it would have been a perfectly reasonable question. The head of an important prosecutor’s office asking a couple of visiting detectives what they had so far. But again, she had that halted feeling. Almost like an arm in front of her chest, keeping her from plowing ahead heedlessly.
“Well, we’re still in the early stages,” she said. “But all our victims so far were prostitutes who worked on Long Island, so anything anybody can give us as background is going to be helpful.”
“Yes, yes, I can see that.” Makris nodded. “I’ll have my people start pulling case files as soon as we’re done. But please, share whatever you have with us. It’s all about creating dialogue.”
Lourdes tried to catch B.B.’s eye, to see if he was as disconcerted as she was. Why were these people pretending to be helpful and then doing nothing? Were they just worried about looking like they’d been asleep at the switch? She was beginning to understand what Tierney and Sullivan meant when they’d said that this was another world.
“And I’ll reach out to Joey at the police department and let him know we’ve spoken,” Makris added. “And you should let him know what you have so far as well. We all want the same thing here.”
“I hope that’s true,” Lourdes said.
“Of course it
is.” Makris gave a kind of flabbergasted smile as he stood up to show them out. “Why would you ever doubt it?”
18
OCTOBER
1989
Billy the Kid was riding low in the saddle again. Rattigan was clinging to the end of the bar at a place that had changed its name from the Brazen Fox to Cheers Too. The white tablecloths were now checkered, Guinness and Heineken ran from the taps, and the Irish soda bread and crisp breadsticks in the baskets had been replaced by day-old Pepperidge Farm rolls.
But the waitresses were mostly the same, if older and more pulled-on, and Rattigan was still on his customary stool, wearing his tinted aviators indoors. Only now the darkened lenses served the purpose of keeping him from detecting the increasingly contemptuous stares aimed his way, the rag on the counter the barmaid had just thrown at him to fend off his halfhearted advances, and the ruined bloat of his body threatening to tumble off his perch as he demanded the staff switch the TV from East German protestors on CNN to sports in the middle of a weekday.
“Look at him.” Joey took off his own aviators and glanced over his shoulder. “Can you believe there were people on this job who once respected that man?”
“I thought you were one of them,” Kenny Makris said, eyes on the lunch special blackboard, hand wrapped around the glass of pinot noir a waitress had just brought over.
How times had changed. The DA having a drink of his own in plain view of Steve Snyder, the hail and hardy county executive, sitting in a booth across the room. Under the same roof where Kenny nearly had a heart attack because the star witness in the case that had made his career dared to want his own glass filled. The miserly hypocritical fuck. So much for gratitude. Well, he’d be paying today.
“Anyway, we were talking about this state investigations commission.” Joey turned back, catching his own reflection in the mirror.
He liked the way he was coming into his look. More beefy and square-jawed than his old man. Clear-eyed and thick-necked. Closer to the central casting look of a man of authority. Someone not to be questioned.
“I got a call from the judge in the Spinelli case and thought I should come down and speak to you about it right away,” Kenny said. “Apparently, Leslie Martinez has been in touch with him about irregularities in procedure.”
“The nerve of this broad, Kenny.” Joey dropped his voice and his chin. “The friggin’ balls on her. Trying to stick her big fat foot in my car and up my ass.”
“I understand.” Kenny paused to wave uncomfortably at a passing legislator. “But there are questions that have to be answered now.”
The wineglass was suspended halfway to his lips. The scared little altar boy in him not completely at ease, even running one of the biggest local law enforcement offices in the country.
“A lot of people have a lot of nerve,” Joey grumbled. “And not enough memory.”
“Is that referring to something?”
“What do you think?”
Kenny looked away, put the glass down, and raised a hand for the waitress to come over to take their orders. They both asked for the pasta special and Kenny tucked his tie into his shirt, already worrying about it getting stained.
“So what are we going to do about this Martinez bitch?” Joey asked as the waitress scurried off.
“I have no control over what a state investigations commission does. For all I know, they could be looking at my office as well as the police department.”
“You better hope not.”
Two judges passed by and Kenny draped a napkin over his wineglass. As if it had just occurred to him that after years of sliding into the habit of having the occasional discreet drink at the banquette he’d inherited from Phil O’Mara, he had to be on guard against spies from the state.
“Look, I’m proud of the work we do here,” he said quietly. “But the governor is worried about the next election and he doesn’t like some of the stories he’s been seeing in the press. He wants to look like he’s doing something about corruption.”
“By conducting a witch-hunt, led by actual fucking witches.”
“Could you keep your voice down please?”
Joey had his back to the room, but he could see the reflections of the county executive and the judges watching them in the smoked mirror over Kenny’s shoulder.
“I got nothing to be ashamed of,” he said. “And I’m not taking the fall for anybody.”
“Then let’s be honest: How much of a problem do we have here?”
“Who said there was any problem? It’s just the same old bullshit with the high and mighty from the outside trying to tell us what to do.”
“Joseph.” Kenny took off his glasses and set them aside, near the wineglass. “This is me talking. I’ve known you since you were a teenager. I’ve vouched for you. I helped you get into the police department. I’ve encouraged the chief to move you up on the list. I need the truth now.”
Joey expanded his chest with a deep breath through his nose. “You know what you need to know.”
“But what I’m hearing about these investigations is troubling,” Kenny pressed on, trying to sound steely and resolute in his low-key way. “Twice evidence that wasn’t properly vouchered showed up later at crime scenes. What am I supposed to make of this?”
“Nothing. Present it to the jury and let them decide.”
“I will not allow the reputation of this office to be tarnished.” Kenny tapped a fingernail on the tablecloth, his face turning red. “The integrity of the process has to be protected. Especially when the legislature is talking about bringing back the death penalty for cases like this. I’m not going to be involved with innocent men getting executed.”
“Oh please.” Joey wrinkled his nose. “Don’t talk to me about ‘the integrity of the process’ when you took cases with a ninety-four percent confession rate.”
“We’re not doing that anymore. Not with a state commission turning over every stone.”
“Then say goodbye to your pristine little track record, Mr. Law and Order.” Joey waved. “Because you’re going to start letting the animals roam free.”
“Look.” Kenny turned his head in both directions before he started speaking in a lower, more heated voice. “This goes beyond procedure. They’re looking at individual behavior. And it doesn’t help that a highly regarded officer just moved in with the widow of a suspect he shot in Smithtown.”
“That’s none of anybody’s business.”
“At the same house, Joey? Really?”
“That was three years ago and I wouldn’t be talking about anyone else’s real estate arrangements if I was you, Kenny,” Joey warned him. “I heard about your office dropping the investigation into Port Jefferson Mortgage Brokers right before you got the loan from them.”
The blood drained from Kenny’s face. “Who told you about that?”
“That’s not important. People talk.”
“I’ve done nothing improper.” Kenny held the sides of the table, as if trying to maintain his balance. “There wasn’t enough evidence to sustain a case against the bank.”
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that.” Joey grinned. “How’s Judge McCarthy’s old place working out for you anyway? Annemarie putting in a new kitchen? Better schools for Christina too, right? I hear you got yourself a nice break on the interest rate for the loan. Two percent on a thirty-year mortgage?” He licked his lips to whistle. “Man, I’m impressed.”
The district attorney put a finger on the tabletop. “Joey, why do you want to put me in this position?”
“Because I put you in this position.” Joey laughed. “Get it? You wouldn’t be the fucking DA if it wasn’t for me.”
The finger on the table began to shake and turn white from Kenny pressing down so hard.
“I’m going to ask you something now that I didn’t want to ask in this setting,” Kenny said, struggling to maintain his composure. “But I need to get to it. And I want you to answer it quietly and straightforwardly. Did you plant
evidence in either one of these cases in order to incriminate these defendants?”
“Who says I did?”
“Answer my question first, lieutenant.”
So it was “lieutenant” now, instead of “Joey” or even “Joseph.” Trying to distance himself. Like they weren’t inextricably linked. Like spattering mud only went in one direction.
“Trevor Knightsbridge murdered Stephanie Lapidus and Lonnie Donges killed Angela Spinelli.” Joey hunched forward on his elbows. “Anyone says otherwise is a liar.”
Conversation around them died away, leaving ferns swaying in the air-conditioning and Billy Joel singing “My Life” prominently on the sound system. In the mirror glass, Joey could see that half the restaurant was looking at them now. They had kept their voices down, but the presence of two grown men speaking so intensely without laughter or a glance at the bar TVs meant that either a large sum of money was involved or a fight was about to break out, or both. Even Billy Rattigan was sitting up and paying attention.
“So I guess I’ll have to accept that,” Kenny said. “For now.”
“So exactly who is talking to this commission? Where are they getting this bullshit about the chain of evidence?”
The district attorney put his glasses back on and forced a smile, as if they were going back to a normal conversation. “You know I can’t tell you what they shared with me without jeopardizing the independence of their investigation.”
“Fuck you, Kenny.” Joey kept monitoring reactions in the mirror. “You were reminding me of how much I owe you? Let me remind you of something. You wouldn’t be where you are if it wasn’t for me. I was your star witness in the case that made you. I kept the players where they needed to be. And as a police officer, I’ve helped drive down the crime rate to make you look good.”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
“It sounds like you have. So let me remind you of something else. There’s no statute of limitations on murder. If your star witness comes forward years later and says: ‘Hey, the prosecutor pressured me to finger this poor fucking black kid, instead of the real doers’…”
Sunrise Highway Page 13
