He finally made it up onto the highway, which rose on stilts as it neared the Brooklyn waterfront. Below and to the right slid the dark polluted worm of the Gowanus Canal; to the left stretched the warehouses and loading docks of Red Hook. Beyond them, through the sleet, the winter-dulled harbor faintly shone. The traffic was just starting to pick up when his beeper went off. He pulled out his cell phone.
“Jack? It’s Mike Pacelli.” Harbor Unit. “You said you wanted to hear about any unusual activity along the waterfront. Something just came in. We got a call that someone might have just broken into a boat out in Bay Ridge. I’m in the middle of a rescue in Coney Island right now, but I’m sending one of our patrol launches over. Are you anywhere near there?”
Jack swerved toward an exit ramp. There was no way he could pass up an opportunity to catch the Governors Island killer—IAB would have to wait. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He pulled his rotating beacon from beneath the seat and stuck it up on the dash. He cut around an eighteen-wheeler and felt his tires grabbing for traction as he skidded down the ramp. He clutched the wheel with one hand and his cell phone with the other. He needed backup. He had already learned his lesson about going out on a dangerous call alone—he had a bullet-shaped scar on his chest to prove it. Tommy Balfa was still point man on the case, but the thought of working with the detective this morning was hardly appealing. He tried Gary Daskivitch, but got his voice mail. He tried the Seven-six desk, got a sergeant he knew, and learned that Balfa’s boss was out on a call. He thought of Raymond Hillhouse, but the man was in Manhattan. He frowned; time was slipping away.
Cursing under his breath, he punched in Balfa’s cell number. Maybe this could be the detective’s chance to rehabilitate his sorry ass.
Balfa didn’t answer.
Jack called the Seven-six desk again. “Do you know where Detective Balfa is this morning?”
“Yeah,” the sergeant answered. “He’s at home. He called in sick today”
Yeah, right, Jack thought. Sick with guilt. He hoped the detective hadn’t gone a runner. “Do you know where he lives?”
“Gimme a sec.”
The sergeant came back on the line with an address in Sunset Park. Half the way toward the marina.
BALFA ANSWERED THE DOOR fully dressed. He started to say something, but stopped, a look of total surprise on his face. “What are you doing here?”
Jack got the sense that the detective had been expecting someone else. He didn’t bother giving him any grief about his fake sick day. “Let’s go,” he said brusquely. “I’ve got a hot lead on our Governors Island perp.”
“I can’t,” Balfa sputtered. “I have things—”
“No. This is what you’re doing. Get your coat and let’s go.”
He pushed the detective in the chest, and then—without asking—he followed the man into his modest two-story aluminum-sided house.
“I’m not really—”
“Come on,” Jack said. “We nail this guy and you’re gonna be in a lot better shape. Do something right for once.”
Balfa stared at him for a moment, nodded, and then walked down a hallway and pulled his shoulder holster and coat from a hook on the back of the kitchen door.
The thought of riding with the other man, armed, didn’t make Jack happy, but if Balfa was prepared to shoot him right out on a city street, he could certainly have done it the day before. “Joe Reppi gave me your address,” he said, letting Balfa know that the desk sergeant at the Seven-six knew he was here, just to be on the safe side. “Charlie Unit’s gonna meet us at the scene.” He glanced impatiently at his watch. “Where’s your Kevlar?”
BALFA STAYED MOSTLY SILENT during the high-speed ride out to the shore, except that at one point he asked, “Have you thought about what we talked about yesterday?”
Jack shook his head. “Not now. We need to focus on what’s going down here, one hundred and ten percent.” The scar on his chest told him all too well what a moment’s inattention could bring. And he didn’t see any need to warn Balfa about his appointment with his friend at IAB. He was doing the jerk a favor.
Ten minutes later, they reached the shore. Jack peered out his side window at a small marina, where five or six small boats were docked. He couldn’t see anyone, and nothing looked out of place. There was no sign of the Harbor Unit, either.
He gave them a couple of minutes, then decided that he couldn’t wait. “Let’s go,” he said, stepping out into the cold. The sleet had stopped, but the wind was fierce; it sanded his exposed face and hands. He opened his trunk and pulled out his own Kevlar vest.
As the two detectives neared the marina, leaning into the stiff wind, Jack heard a sharp pinging noise. It took him a moment to place it over the dense flutter of the wind and slap of the waves: just a cable clinking against a boat’s hollow metal mast. Nobody was visible. Motioning to Balfa to stay silent, Jack stopped and listened. Clink, clink. The wind whistled in from across the harbor. The sky was gray, leaden, sullen. Jack stared out across the churning gray and white water, but couldn’t see any police boats.
He turned his head sharply. Had he imagined it? Another noise, muffled…Something moving inside one of the boats. He scanned them slowly. And then he spotted an inflatable Zodiac tethered to the last vessel, a sleek modern sailboat with blue covers wrapped around its furled sails. He gestured to Balfa and they moved forward carefully out onto the pier; the concrete was covered with snow and ice. There, again—a muffled knock from inside the last boat.
The ice crunched underfoot and he winced as he moved forward. As he came up to the boat, he reached into his coat and pulled out his gun. He was sweating now, despite the cold, envisioning another bullet slamming into his chest.
He scanned the harbor again: still no sign of backup. Next to him, Balfa reached into his coat and pulled out his own service weapon. Jack prayed for the sound of the Charlie Unit launch; it was too stressful trying to keep one eye on the boat, one eye on his own partner. Balfa, though, seemed focused on the job at hand.
Jack communicated with him through gestures. I’ll pull the boat closer; you step aboard. I’ll be right behind you. (At this point, he had no intention of stepping out in front of the man.)
Balfa nodded. Jack bent down and took hold of a mooring rope attached to the rear of the boat, some four feet away. He pulled slowly and it arced in toward the dock and thudded against some old tires strapped to the side of the pier. Balfa grabbed a cable that encircled the deck and stepped over it. Jack dropped the rope and followed suit. The deck was slick, and rocked with the waves. He reached out and grabbed hold of the blue-wrapped boom. It swung a bit, but it was tethered to the deck; it made for an unsteady support as he stepped toward the cabin. He walked on the left side of the boom, Balfa on the right. A textbook pattern—you never wanted to approach together and present a single target.
He heard footsteps down below. A wooden hatch at the rear of the cabin swung open. Jack raised his gun. A man’s head emerged. He looked to be about sixty-five or older—not a vigorous young carpenter and seaman, someone who could sneak aboard an island, build a coffin, and beat a security guard to death.
“Can I help you?” the man said. He had a thick, upswept shock of wirelike gray hair; a craggy face with bright blue eyes, a sharp nose, and a thin, sour mouth. Prominent ears. He sounded low-key and polite, but he had the bristly, rather offended look of a hawk or eagle.
“We’re police officers,” Jack said. “Would you mind stepping up on deck?”
The man looked puzzled. “Of course not. I was just closing up my boat for the winter.”
He came up carrying a big paper shopping bag. It looked to be filled with clothes. “What’s going on?” the man said. As he clambered out, Jack noticed that the clothes he wore seemed wrinkled and dirty. He stared into the man’s stark eyes. Something was wrong.
Balfa stepped forward. “Sir, could you set the bag—”
A shot rang out. At first Jack thought it might have
come from behind him, on the waterfront somewhere, but it was so loud. He turned to see Tommy Balfa put his hand up to a red hole in his cheek, and then the detective fell to the deck. Jack turned back to the other man, who had dropped the paper bag he had just shot through and was raising a pistol.
Jack raised his own gun, but the boat swayed and he almost lost his footing. He grabbed at the boom; once he had a hold of it, he swung it as hard as he could to the right. It caught the man in the side; he grunted in surprise as the gun flew out of his hands and disappeared over the side of the boat.
“Don’t move!” Jack shouted, doing his best to steady his aim on the man’s chest. He snuck a glance down at his partner, who was writhing feebly on the deck—things didn’t look good. Balfa needed medical treatment, fast. Jack took a step forward, which was a mistake, because he had nothing to hold on to, and he felt his feet start to go out from under him.
The man shouted something, lowered his head, and charged. He ducked under the boom and slammed into Jack’s chest. Both men had lost their footing now, and they slid across the deck, wrestling furiously. Jack grabbed the man’s arm and his hand closed on pure muscle. The man chopped his hand down on Jack’s wrist and he was appalled to watch his gun leave his hand and skate across the deck. He threw up an elbow and felt a satisfying whump as it caught the man’s cheek. He was struggling to his feet when the man grabbed his pants leg and yanked. Jack slid toward the side of the boat and felt the wire lifeline catch him at mid-thigh, and then he was toppling over the cable toward the waves.
CHAPTER twenty-three
THE COLD WATER BURNED like fire.
Jack had no time to consider the strangeness of that shock, because it was immediately followed by another: He was sinking fast. His wool overcoat, which seconds ago had protected him from the cold air, had turned into a soggy shroud, and the Kevlar vest into a heavy straitjacket. Even as he tumbled down, a shard of irony pierced his consciousness: He was drowning because of a bulletproof vest. Bubbles burbled around his head like angry bees. The water was so murky that he couldn’t even see which way was up. Panicked, he managed to work his frozen fingers enough to unbutton the coat. He shrugged his way out of it, and then—lungs bursting—wormed out of the vest. He saw a dim light ahead and struck out toward it, praying that it would bring him back into the life-giving air.
What seemed like minutes later, he broke the surface, gasping. The currents spun him around, and he glimpsed the sailboat, ten yards away. He saw the man gripping the wire cable, staring dispassionately down at him, and then the currents bore him away.
Even without the weight of the coat and vest, he could barely manage to keep his head above the water. He kicked his shoes off, then lashed out furiously toward the shore, but he was caught in the massive hand of the current as it pulled him out into the open water, claiming him: MINE. It swirled him under again, and then released him just enough so that he was able to grab another mouthful of air. He was shivering desperately, and moving faster now. His right shoulder suddenly slammed into something; he never found out what it was because the current rushed him on. He caught a view of the low mass of Staten Island far in the distance, and the leaden clouds, pierced by a slanting ray of sunlight, like some heavenly annunciation. The view of the harbor was shockingly different from the water; there was none of the lordly perspective and distance afforded by the deck of a boat.
The grip of the current suddenly released him into a pocket of less angry water, and he was able to keep his head above it, and to note how bleak his situation was. Lifting his chin, he was able to look out for the Charlie Unit boat: nowhere in sight. He could make out the orange bulk of the Staten Island ferry far in the distance, way too far for anyone to hear his shivery cries. Aside from a long dark tanker even farther off, there was not another vessel in sight. The shore was a hundred yards away now. Even if he could buck the currents, time was running out. Hypothermia was setting in—he could feel it: His hands and feet were going numb, his muscles cramping, his brain getting foggy. He was moving out toward sea now and he remembered what Mike Pacelli had told him about how floating objects in the harbor tended to wash up on the south shore of Long Island. In this cold, he wouldn’t live to make it anywhere near that far. He thought of what the old sailor had told him decades before: There comes a point when you can only take in a deep lungful of water and let the ocean win.
He pictured Michelle, though; pictured his son. He wasn’t ready to leave them behind. He managed to raise his head again, and spotted something light-colored, drifting, maybe twenty yards away. He splashed toward it, each stroke an agony of effort. Finally, he closed in: a wooden pallet. His hands wouldn’t cooperate to grip the rough slats, but he threw an arm over the edge and managed to pull himself partway onto it. The little raft depressed under his weight, but it kept his head above the slap of the frozen waves.
He spit out a mouthful of salty water, gasped for air, and lay there, shivering uncontrollably. He was drifting toward the middle of the harbor. A wave slapped against the pallet and the spray stung his eyes; he rubbed an unfeeling hand across them. It was no good. Maybe he wouldn’t drown now, but he might freeze to death before the next boat came along.
After a couple of minutes he heard a clanking.
He wondered if he was hallucinating, but there it was again.
His neck muscles strained as he raised his head above the wood.
There! Maybe thirty yards away, approaching on his right. A bright green tower, bobbing on the waves, one of the harbor markers. His only chance.
With his last bit of strength, he pushed himself away from the relative safety of the pallet, back down into the icy waves, and slapped furiously at the water.
He could barely keep his head high enough to see now, but his ears led him on. Clank, clank. The sound grew louder. He strained his head up one last time, corrected his trajectory, and redoubled his efforts. If he swept past the buoy, he might as well pack it in.
He needn’t have worried: The current slammed him right into the metal side. The challenge was to hold on—the base was a tall cylinder encrusted with barnacles, slimed with sea moss. Desperate, he flailed up and grabbed a bar of the latticed tower. He reached up and managed to place his other hand. He stopped, groaning. Just a little more…He felt drowsy now—all he really wanted to do was sleep—but he clung to the buoy, and then pulled back with all of his remaining strength. The little tower swayed sharply and the bell clanged; the sound was so close that it felt as if it was cleaving his head in two. Grimly, he repeated the motion. The bell clanged and clanged.
CHAPTER twenty-four
HE STOOD ON THE little marina’s pier the next morning, shivering, though he was bundled in layers and layers of clothes: long Johns, down vest, hat, gloves…Every few minutes someone approached, offering another cup of hot coffee. They all figured he was nuts to come back so soon; that he’d never want to get near cold water again. He stood there and shivered, and didn’t tell anybody the real reasons why. The sudden bark of the gunshot. The bloody hole in Tommy Balfa’s face, the sight of the old man raising the gun to fire again…And there was only one reason Balfa had been on that boat in the first place.
He took another sip of coffee and watched as techs in jumpsuits swarmed up the staircase from the boat’s small cabin. It seemed that they were done with their forensics work. He glanced back toward the base of the pier, where a big knot of NYPD brass conferred gravely. A cop had been killed, and this was no longer just a precinct affair. The mighty behemoth of the Department had stirred in anger and deep affront. Back on shore, a line of uniforms did their best to keep a jostling horde of press behind the Crime Scene tape. TV news vans filled the street, their tall satellite antennas broadcasting the pompous voices of on-the-spot reporters who were clearly thrilled by the previous day’s events. Vampires.
Jack stood apart, on the end of the pier. The wind was calm today, and the water smooth. It was cold, though, damned cold.
He could ha
ve remained in his warm hospital bed. The doctors had advised it, but being back in a hospital again gave him the heebie-jeebies. After a night rendered sleepless—first by urgent official interviews about the shooting, then by an anxious visit from Michelle, finally by vicious dreams—he was glad to escape, even if it meant being caught up in this roiling drama. It was a crime scene; he was a homicide cop. This was where the action was; it was where he belonged. Most of all, he burned to catch the man who had killed a young boy, and a security guard, and messed-up Tommy Balfa, who had died—after all—in the line of duty.
He knew what the Crime Scene techs had found when they arrived the previous afternoon. One ransacked cabin, valuables still present. One NYPD detective, deceased, with the letters G.I. Magic Markered on his forehead.
He also knew what they hadn’t found. An NYPD Glock-19 service pistol, registered to one Jack Leightner. He pictured it skidding across the deck…It hadn’t gone overboard, though, not that he could recall. The loss of your service piece was one of the most profound embarrassments for a cop—especially when it ended up in the hands of a killer.
Thankfully, that detail had eluded the reporters, HERO COP SLAIN IN HUNT FOR SERIAL KILLER, read the cover of the Post Ridiculous, of course—killing three separate people under different circumstances didn’t necessarily make a perp a true serial killer. But they didn’t care; they had papers to sell. As for the hero cop part…Jack rubbed a glove across his face. Through all of the turmoil of the last twenty-four hours—Balfa’s killing, his own rescue, the ensuing mobilization of forces, the media frenzy—he had not mentioned the detective’s little secret. It had been one thing too much.
A seagull landed a few feet away. It lifted one leg and scratched it against the other, eying Jack warily. A thin breeze ruffled its feathers. “If you were smart,” Jack told it, “you would’ve flown to Florida a month ago.”
A figure broke through the scrum at the base of the pier and walked out. Mike Pacelli, from the Harbor Unit.
The Graving Dock Page 13
