The Graving Dock

by Gabriel Cohen

In the passenger seat of Jack’s vehicle, Sergeant Tanney picked up his walkie. “You guys ready?” he asked Vargas and Hillhouse in the other car.

  “Hold on a minute,” Jack said.

  The sergeant frowned. “What is it, Leightner?”

  Jack turned to Tommy Balfa. “Have you got Chapman’s home number?”

  The detective pulled out a computer printout.

  Jack took out his cell phone. The line rang five times before someone picked up.

  Jack pitched his voice high and sharp. “You order Chinese food?”

  “You’ve got the wrong number,” said an irritated male voice on the other end.

  Jack hung up. “Well,” he told the others, “somebody’s home.”

  THE DETECTIVES TOOK UP positions on both sides of the door, avoiding the potential line of fire. Jack glanced across at Sergeant Tanney, who was sweating profusely. Under other circumstances, Jack might have been amused, but this morning he could only sympathize. He kept swallowing nervously. He didn’t remember much about the night he had been shot in Red Hook, but an image came to him now: Lying on a stark concrete basement floor, he had raised his head to see blood fountaining up out of his own chest…

  He swallowed again and blinked the memory away; he needed all of his focus now. Next to him, Balfa and Hillhouse had a battering ram ready, in case they were denied access. Tanney carried a shotgun and the warrant that would guarantee them access. The other detectives had their guns out, pointed at the floor. The sergeant glanced at the team, then gave the high sign. He reached out and rang the bell.

  The detectives heard some kind of muffled commotion inside, then someone shouting, “Hold him! Don’t let him go!”

  And then they heard a child’s high-pitched squeal.

  “Shit!” Tanney muttered. He turned to Balfa and Hillhouse. “Go!”

  The two men stepped back, lifted the ram, and swung it at the door. The lock gave way and then they were through.

  Jack came in right on their heels, found himself in an open loft space, frantically scanned from right to left—and couldn’t believe his eyes. Something was rocketing toward them out of a back hallway, a low dark creature swathed in a strange white cloud.

  Close on its heels ran a man dressed in sweatpants and a T-shirt, also covered in something white. He skidded to a halt when he saw the team of detectives crouched down, guns pointed. “Jesus!” he cried out, raising his hands; he was clutching something.

  “Hold your fire!” Jack shouted at his teammates.

  It wasn’t a gun.

  The creature, now recognizable as a big black Labrador, scampered across the room and disappeared behind a couch.

  A boy appeared in the hallway. His jeans and T-shirt were wet and soapy. He saw the detectives and his eyes went wide. He edged over and took cover behind the man’s leg.

  Jack turned his attention back to the man’s hand, and identified the big object there as a sponge.

  They had been giving the dog a bath.

  DARREN CHAPMAN MADE A face. “Let me guess. This woman who called you: Did she have a foreign accent?”

  Tommy Balfa didn’t respond—he wasn’t going to give away the identity of a possible witness—but his crestfallen face answered the question.

  They were all seated in a corner of the loft now, a living room area cobbled together out of couches and armchairs. Most of the big room was occupied by a number of abstract sculptures that looked to Jack as if the artist had taken a bunch of scraps from a woodshop floor and randomly glued them on top of one another. Aside from the sculptures, the room was incredibly cluttered: stacks of books on the floors, dirty coffee cups everywhere, tools lying on the broad plank floors. The thought of living in such a state of disorder made Jack’s head spin.

  The artist himself sat in the middle of the mess, still trembling from the shock of the invasion. He wasn’t the only one who looked shaken up. All of the detectives knew how close they had come to pulling a trigger in a moment of high tension and confusion.

  Sergeant Tanney turned to Linda Vargas and then nodded at the boy. “Why don’t you take this young man into the kitchen and give him a drink of water?” Question him separately, was what he meant.

  The kid looked scared. “Dad?” he said, voice quavering.

  Chapman patted him on the shoulder. “It’s okay, son. Go ahead with the nice lady.”

  The kid looked doubtful, but he let himself be led away.

  Chapman rubbed a hand across his face. “That call—it must have been my wife. My ex-wife. We’re divorced now, and everything’s supposed to be settled, but Simone just can’t let things end gracefully. She’s nuts, if you want to know the truth.”

  Jack leaned forward. “Did she make the charge of child abuse?”

  Chapman groaned. “Not that again. That charge was so ridiculous that the judge dismissed it before it even came to trial. My wife was just trying to block me from sharing custody.”

  Tommy Balfa pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket. “Can you tell us where you were this past December seventeen and eighteen?” The day the security guard had been found on Governors Island, and the day before.

  Chapman thought for a moment, and then started to stand up.

  Tanney and Balfa jumped to their feet.

  Chapman raised a hand to mollify them. “I just want to get a piece of paper.”

  “Sure,” Tanney said. He nodded toward Balfa. Go with him.

  The detective followed the man as he navigated between several sculptures, over to a desk at the far end of the room. Balfa watched tensely as Chapman rooted around. He found what he was looking for and carried it over to the sergeant. A postcard.

  “I had a show at a museum in San Francisco. I was out there installing it all that week.” He pointed to the bottom of the card. “Here’s the number if you want to check.”

  Jack noticed that Balfa stayed on the other side of the room. All of his usual cockiness was gone. For the first time Jack actually felt some sympathy for the man.

  Linda Vargas emerged from the back hallway with the boy in tow.

  Tanney shot her a questioning glance.

  Vargas shrugged and shook her head.

  The boy edged over and stood next to his father, who put a protective arm around his waist and said, “Don’t worry, everything’s fine.”

  CHAPTER eighteen

  “WHO FIXES THE DOOR?” Michelle said.

  “What?” Jack stopped in the middle of eating his appetizer, which he was puzzled about to begin with. (What was the red sauce with the little flakes in it? Were you supposed to eat the lettuce, or was it just decoration?) The restaurant was a new Thai place in Carroll Gardens, all bare brick walls, nothing to absorb the din of a roomful of young customers chattering away on a Friday night.

  Michelle leaned forward to be heard. “You said your team busted down the door. I’m just wondering how the poor guy gets it fixed.”

  Jack set down his fork and smiled.

  “What?” Michelle said.

  He shook his head. “Nothing.” What happened to the door? It was such a civilian question. A cop would have been relieved that none of the detectives had been caught up in the horror of a wrongful shooting. A cop would have been concerned with whether Chapman wanted to press charges. Michelle was curious about the door.

  “He’ll get it fixed,” he answered. “And the City will reimburse him—after about six months of paperwork.”

  He watched as she used her chopsticks to pick up a dumpling and deliver it neatly to her mouth. Personally, he didn’t get the chopsticks thing. What was the point of performing acrobatics with knitting needles, when a good old fork could do the job?

  “It must have been awful scary for that boy,” Michelle observed.

  He nodded. “I guess. But we had to get in there. For all we knew, the kid’s father was about to do something awful to him.”

  It had been a legitimate mistake, and he couldn’t fault Tommy Balfa. Any major investigation had it
s share of errors: false leads, blind alleys, incorrect deductions. Nobody was perfect; you just tried to keep the batting average as high as you could.

  A busboy rushed over and swept away their plates. Jack glanced around. The place was packed, and the other diners all seemed to be about his son’s age. The ones waiting for tables wore chic outfits, and clutched cell phones to their heads, or sipped martinis at the bar. They seemed so self-possessed, so cocky. These were the kind of kids you saw in downtown Manhattan—rich kids, they looked like to him. How had they ended up here, in his Brooklyn?

  A beautiful young Thai woman glided up with their entrees. Jack stared down at his dish. “What’s the brown stuff?”

  “IT’S PEANUT SAUCE,” MICHELLE said. “Try it—you’ll like it.” He looks so dubious, she thought. Like a child confronted with broccoli for the first time. “You’ve really never had Thai food before?” He shook his head. “I’ve had lots of Chinese, though.” She smiled. Her boyfriend was incredibly worldly in one sense—he certainly knew the New York streets, knew bad guys, knew all about people who killed people—yet his universe was oddly narrow. He had never eaten Thai food, never heard of many popular musicians or famous films. He had almost no interest in national politics, or celebrity gossip, or even what he wore every day. He had been born just a mile or so from Manhattan, yet had grown up in Red Hook—she got the sense that the place had been as provincial as some hick town.

  She picked up her chopsticks again and dunked a little clump of jasmine rice into the garlic sauce on her plate. She smiled. “Wait till you see what I got you for Christmas.”

  He looked up eagerly. “What?”

  She shook her head. “No, no, no—you have to wait until Santa drops it off.”

  He chuckled. “Santa, huh? Are you sure he makes deliveries to heathens like me?”

  Michelle laid a hand on his. “You’ll see. You just tiptoe downstairs on Christmas morning and I’m sure there’ll be something in the stocking for you.”

  He frowned.

  “What?” she said. “What’s the matter?”

  He pinched his lower lip. “Um…there’s a little problem there. Tanney just told me I’m gonna have to work Christmas.”

  She pulled her hand away. “Why?”

  He grimaced. “John Brady, one of the guys on my team, has to go into the hospital next week. He’s getting surgery and I gotta cover for him.” He pulled her hand back to the middle of the table. “Listen—I’ll make it up to you. We’ll have a great New Year’s Eve. I’ve made the reservations, planned it all out. You’re gonna love it.”

  She stared at him. “You made reservations? Where?”

  He shrugged. “You’ll see. Don’t worry—you’ll love it.”

  She frowned.

  “What?” he said.

  She picked up her chopsticks, toyed with them, set them down.

  “What’s the matter?”

  She turned away. Over at the bar, two twenty-somethings were doing a little courting dance, flushed with what she figured was maybe second-date excitement.

  “Are you mad at me?” he said. “Don’t be mad. Let’s enjoy the evening.”

  She turned back to him. “It’s just…didn’t you think I’d want some say in what we do for New Year’s?”

  He shifted uncomfortably, like a kid in the hot seat.

  CHAPTER nineteen

  “HEY,” SAID TOMMY BALFA, looking up surprised as he entered the Seven-six detective squad room. “I wasn’t expecting you today.”

  The squad room was quiet. Gary Daskivitch was out, as were the other detectives. Jack came over, holding a manila file, and dropped into a grubby molded-plastic chair next to Balfa’s desk. He grinned. “I’ve got a whole new angle on our case.”

  “That’s great,” Balfa responded, without enthusiasm.

  Jack figured that the detective was still chastened about the other day’s bum lead. He lowered his voice. “I don’t wanna harp on this, but don’t worry about what happened on Thursday. We all make mistakes.”

  Balfa nodded, but now that Jack was sitting right across from him, he noticed that the detective didn’t seem embarrassed or contrite. He just looked distracted again, jittery. Balfa glanced at the big old grade-school-style clock on the wall, then at his desk, then at the clock again.

  “You got somewhere to be?”

  Balfa ignored the question. “What’s in the folder?”

  Jack straightened up. “I’ve been thinking about our perp. He doesn’t seem to have a regular place to stay around here, so where does he go, now that his little island nest is busted up?”

  Balfa didn’t venture a guess.

  Once again, Jack was disappointed with the man’s lack of interest, but he wasn’t going to let it dampen his own excitement. “I asked Charlie Unit to let us know if they spotted any unusual activity around the waterfront. I did the same with the Coast Guard.” He opened the folder and pulled out some reports. “Check it out: We seem to have a little rash of boat burglaries in the last few days, all after the incident on the island. And look what was taken: no valuables. Just food, blankets, crap like that.” He smiled significantly. “When our man bolted, he had to leave a lot of that stuff behind…”

  “Sounds interesting,” Balfa said, but he was looking at his cell phone.

  Jack stood up and walked over to a map of Brooklyn. “Have you got some pushpins? Let’s plot these babies, see if we can narrow down where our man might be camping out these days.”

  Balfa glanced at the clock.

  Jack sat down again. “What’s going on?”

  Balfa ran a hand over his mouth. “What do you mean?”

  “You have something more important to do?”

  Balfa frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Jack looked around the squad room. He took a deep breath, trying to stay calm. “Do you resent my interference, is that it?”

  Balfa didn’t answer.

  “I’m not your boss,” Jack said. “I know you’re not used to working with Homicide, so maybe I should have made that clearer. I’m just here to help. Most precinct detectives, frankly, are happy for the assist. But—bottom line—this is your case.”

  “All right,” Balfa said. “So what’s the problem?”

  Jack stared at him. “You tell me. I gotta say: Sometimes I can’t help thinking that you don’t really give a shit.”

  Balfa raised his hands. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Didn’t I follow up on that lead just the other day?”

  Jack nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, you did. Like I said, nobody blames you for the way that turned out, either. But this is a case of a kid who got killed. Somehow that doesn’t seem to be getting through to you.”

  Balfa made a face like he was wrestling with something. He sighed and sank back into his chair. “I’ve…look, I’ve been having some personal problems. Marital shit. I guess it’s been stressing me out a little.”

  Jack sat back, too, trying to diffuse the tension. “All right. I can understand that. I’m just asking you to focus a little, to work with me here. Okay?”

  Balfa nodded. And then he glanced at the clock. He stood up. “I have to make a quick run downtown. Why don’t you start in on the mapping, and I’ll be right back?”

  Jack shrugged. “Why don’t I go with you, and we can work out our next step?”

  Balfa frowned. “I have to see my CI again about that other case. He gets real jittery, and he definitely won’t talk if I’m not alone.”

  Jack stared. He doubted that the detective would actually have the stones to run off right now and hook up with his lover. No, the man seemed troubled somehow, like maybe something else was going on, something more stressful than an extramarital affair…“Okay then,” was all he said. “I’ll be here. See you in a few minutes.”

  Balfa grabbed his coat from a rack in the corner and left.

  Jack looked down at his burglary reports, but he barely saw them. Something was definitely
hinky. He had a pretty good bullshit meter, and right now the little needle was smacking against the high end of the red zone.

  He stood up and hurried out of the squad room.

  BALFA DROVE DOWN SACKETT Street. Instead of turning north on Clinton, toward downtown, he bore straight. Toward the waterfront.

  “What are you up to?” Jack muttered as he followed in his car, two blocks behind. Though a spectacular sunset streaked the sky ahead—the last rays caught the bottom of a field of clouds like cotton wadding catching fire—the winter dusk was settling down fast. The good news was that there was still enough light so that he didn’t have to turn on his headlights.

  Traffic in Carroll Gardens was busy, the beginnings of rush hour, but Balfa continued on across the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway into quiet Red Hook. Following him here was going to be a lot harder, as cars were few and far between. Jack watched Balfa turn left onto Van Brunt Street. If he followed, the detective would surely spot the tail. He made a quick decision. From his childhood, he knew these streets well, and he would have to rely on that knowledge now, mixed with a little luck. He cut left on Columbia and picked up speed, hoping to catch up again with Balfa a few blocks down.

  The gambit worked. Jack turned onto Summit Street, near the entrance for the Battery Tunnel, pulled over, and waited to see if Balfa would blow on by. And he did, continuing down Van Brunt toward the harbor. Jack gave him another two-block lead, then swung out after.

  The detective drove almost all of the way to the water, then turned left on Beard, a street that ran past the old Todd Shipyards. When he was a child, Jack had come here often to watch the workers repair huge ships. The behemoths would be floated into one of two graving docks, which were like massive stone bathtubs, and then a gate would close and the water would be pumped out so that workers could have a rare opportunity to see what was normally hidden below the waterline. Then they could clean, weld, and repaint the rusty, barnacled hulls. With the constant clang of iron and steel and huge showers of sparks from the welding torches, the yards provided a grand free spectacle.

  Now the shipyards were gone, and Beard Street was just a lonely, quiet street bounded by empty warehouses, derelict little homes, and vacant lots. A tail would surely be spotted here. Again, Jack cut over a couple of streets early and swung around in an attempt to catch up with Balfa a little farther on. A few blocks down, he hung a right, pulled over, and waited, but the other detective didn’t reappear. Cursing under his breath, Jack got out of his car next to an ivy-choked chain-link fence. He was quickly chilled—he hadn’t had time to pull his coat on, and a brisk wind swept down the deserted Red Hook street. He cautiously poked his head around the end of the fence and glanced down Beard; thank God the dark was settling in. A block back, Balfa had pulled up behind a parked car. He was too far away for Jack to make out what was going on.