Cover Story

by Gerry Boyle

  He caught himself.

  “I appreciate your interest, Mr. Murrow, but I really don’t want to be in your story.”

  “But Mr. Tilbury, you already are.”

  He stopped.

  “Sir, is that a threat?”

  “Not at all. It’s a fact. Your letters are public documents.”

  “I know people at the Times. I’ll call them.”

  “They’ll tell you the same thing. Call the journalism professors at NYU. They’ll tell you, too.”

  “Then I’ll take legal action. I’ll—”

  I looked at him with pity, and it must have shown through.

  “Goddamn it,” David Tilbury exploded, white spittle on his lips. “Don’t you understand? He can change his mind.”

  “Who?” I said.

  “John. He can change his mind. They told me. If it’s a big deal, all over the newspapers, the lawyers read those newspapers. They’ll be calling him up, writing to him. Saying, ‘Don’t take that deal. I can get you off.’”

  “So the police didn’t want this arrest publicized?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Who told you that, Mr. Tilbury? Because in my experience, cops want nothing more than to have their arrests in the paper. And this one, yeah, the guy jumped bail, but wanted for homicide out of state? Nearly a homicide here, with a prominent victim? It just doesn’t make sense for them to—”

  “It doesn’t have to make sense to you, sir,” Tilbury said. “And besides, Mr. Murrow, I see no constructive reason to throw dirt at a dead man.”

  “Who, Fiore?”

  “Good day, Mr. Murrow.”

  “Who told you all this?”

  “I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave.”

  “With all due respect, Mr. Tilbury, I think you’re getting some bad advice here. Publicity doesn’t make it less likely a guy will get hammered in court. It makes it more likely. It puts pressure on—”

  But then I was out in the heat and glare and Tilbury said, “Good day” one last time and closed the door. As I stood there, I heard the locks sliding home.

  19

  So I knew a couple of things. David Tilbury didn’t want to kick the mayor’s corpse. And he was getting advice from someone who didn’t know the first thing about the press or New York.

  You want to scare people? Have Tilbury in the newspaper talking about how this mugging exhausted his 401(k). The whole city would be screaming for a piece of Lester John, for a judge to put his head on a plate, for the cops to lock up scum like this before they cost the law-abiding citizens of New York their tax-deferred mutual funds.

  But Tilbury had been told to keep it quiet. An arrest for aggravated assault, extradition for a homicide—even in New York, that was news.

  Back in the car, I fished out Donatelli’s card and called and got a beeper. I punched in the cell-phone number and started down the street. A minute later the phone rang.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “McMorrow?” Donatelli said.

  “Right here.”

  “Right where?”

  “Deep in the heart of lower Manhattan.”

  “In your girlfriend’s Range Rover?”

  “She’s not my girlfriend.”

  “Okay, she’s your sister. Christina Mansell. Lives in a loft in Brooklyn. Where’s an artist get the dough for a car like that?”

  “She made it the old-fashioned way. She inherited it.”

  “Must be nice. I’m gonna inherit a funeral bill and one-eighth of four rooms of used furniture. Now where can we get together, McMorrow? I’d like to get a look at you.”

  “DA’s people beat you by twelve hours.”

  For a moment, Donatelli didn’t answer.

  “Says who?”

  “Says me. They were there all night.”

  “No shit.”

  “You guys ought to talk more.”

  “What can I say? They’re assholes.”

  “Here’s another one. You know of the arrest of a guy named Lester John?”

  “No.”

  “Would have been in Brooklyn. He’s in his late twenties.”

  “A lot of people get arrested in Brooklyn.”

  “This one was arrested here for an old aggravated assault, but he’s wanted for homicide in Alabama. They’re taking him first.”

  “Right now?”

  “Last week or so.”

  “What do you care? They got you writing the police blotter now?”

  “Something like that. This Lester John mugged an NYU professor in 1988. Practically killed her. Then skipped.”

  “Outside the subway, right? I think I remember that one. Press jumped on it ’cause of who the victim was. But the guy, I don’t know, seems to me he was supposed to have gone south and gotten himself killed or something.”

  “I heard he was picked up in the Red Hook project.’”

  “Huh.”

  “Could you check?”

  “Yeah, maybe. I’ll put my entire staff on it. Now when can we meet?”

  “Call me back about this guy. We’ll talk about it then.”

  “Hey, McMorrow, who’s in charge here?” Donatelli said.

  “Good question,” I said. “If I find out, I’ll let you know.”

  I called Conroy’s office from a pay phone, told the man who answered that I’d meet Mr. Conroy in fifteen minutes at the coffee shop on Broadway, across from the end of City Hall Park. The man said Mr. Conroy had meetings all day. I told the man my name and said I was sure Mr. Conroy would fit me in.

  He did.

  I waited against a building just down the street from the shop. Conroy crossed the park in a hurried walk, dashed across the street, peered in the shop window briefly. When he went in, I followed.

  “David,” I said behind him, and he started, then recovered and turned and smiled.

  “Reporters. Always blindsiding you.”

  “That’s right. Sneaky little devils. But in our case it was the other way around, don’t you think?”

  “Jack, I’ve always been sorry about that. I was only the messenger. You realize that.”

  “Sure, David. I know you were just following orders. And it was a long time ago. And now there’s nobody left to be mad at, really.”

  “No,” he said, suddenly somber. “It’s truly unbelievable.”

  We got coffee and sat at a table in the back. The table was small and it stood between us like a chessboard in the park. We looked at our cups but neither of us made a move to drink. Conroy’s fingers were slender, his nails manicured. His suit was tasteful, always pinstripes, as unvarying as a Yankees uniform. His shirt was white and his hair was thinning. As far as I knew, he had no interests, no sex life with either gender. Just City Hall and Johnny Fiore.

  “So this must be hard on you,” I said. “You and Fiore were together for a long time.”

  “It’s—”

  He searched for the words.

  “—beyond comprehension. He was such a great man. Truly a great leader.”

  “You think he was headed for the White House?”

  “No doubt in my mind. Every pinnacle in front of him, he climbed. He was going to address the Democratic National Convention this year. I think he was destined to be one of the greatest presidents this country has ever seen.”

  “Or not,” I said. “Destined, I mean. Because—”

  “Because that fool, that pathetic loser of a—”

  He caught himself.

  “I’m sorry. I know you were friendly with Casey.”

  “Yes, we established that, didn’t we?”

  “Like I said, that was business. Nothing personal.”

  “Of course not.”

  Conroy looked at me to see if I was being facetious. I wasn’t sure myself.

  “So you called,” I said. “Said it was imperative.”

  “Yeah, Jack. I mean—”

  He lifted the coffee to his mouth but put it down without drinking.

  “I
know you’ve talked to the detectives and all. But I just had to talk to you myself. To ask you why.”

  “Why what?”

  “Why he did such a thing.”

  “We don’t know that he did,” I said. “That’s why we have courts and juries.”

  “Oh, come off it, Jack. They didn’t arrest him for no reason. They have his goddamn fingerprints. His fingerprints in the mayor’s blood. He did it.”

  “That hasn’t been established. There’s a process.”

  “Well, I can’t wait for the process, McMorrow,” he snapped. “I gave fifteen years of my life to this man. I need to know why. Why now? Casey’s wife was killed? Too bad. I mean, it’s terrible. But—”

  “But get over it?”

  “Why not?”

  “He really loved her.”

  “I loved working for Mayor Fiore.”

  He paused.

  “Everybody loves somebody, Jack.”

  “Sometime,” I said.

  “This isn’t the time for humor.”

  “Sorry. It just popped out. Word association.”

  “Oh, I know,” Conroy said. “We’re all under tremendous stress. The grieving process takes its toll. Anyway, I just wanted to talk to you. Privately. Off the record. I won’t repeat it to a soul. I just need to know if he said anything. If he gave any indication . . .”

  “That he intended to harm Fiore? No.”

  “Well, what did he talk about? What was he thinking? I mean, was he talking about baseball or something, and then just went out and—allegedly, I mean.”

  “We chatted,” I said.

  Conroy’s grief seemed to clear and his gaze hardened. He leaned forward as though to snap up the words as they flew from my mouth.

  “We talked about old times,” I said. “I hadn’t seen him in several years. Got a Christmas card every year. A note once in a great while.”

  “And what did he say he’d been doing?”

  “Not too much. I think he sort of puttered around. Took in some culture. He’d toyed with the idea of writing a book.”

  “About what?”

  “About all the murderers he helped convict over the years. He wanted to study them and come up with some sort of pattern.”

  Conroy looked relieved.

  “Sounds academic, almost.”

  “He hadn’t found a publisher. Probably could now, though.”

  “Oh, God, yes. It’s a sick country.”

  “In some ways.”

  I waited. Looked at my coffee.

  “But didn’t he do any investigative work? It seems these ex-detectives all try to be Magnum P.I., at least for a while.”

  “No.”

  “Really?” Conroy said.

  “You remember he went out on stress disability. Stress and alcohol.”

  “Oh, yes. I knew that.”

  “I’ll bet you did.”

  Conroy paused, as though he were going to say something but had reconsidered. When he did speak, he said, “So Casey wasn’t working? Just taking walks in the park and feeding the pigeons?”

  I looked at him for a moment, considered how to answer that. Conroy was looking into his coffee, but then he looked up, unblinking. I watched him as I spoke.

  “He was working on something,” I said slowly. “He said it was very big, it would be a big story for the Times.”

  Conroy smiled. Suddenly it was all very amusing.

  “Oh, and what was that about?”

  “He said it was huge,” I said.

  “That was all? Nothing else.”

  “Oh, we talked about it a little. We were going to talk about it some more. But then . . .”

  I shrugged.

  “Then this happened,” Conroy said.

  “And the story goes on the back burner, I guess,” I said.

  “What was it about?”

  “It’s kind of hard to explain.”

  “His murder cases? The Mob?”

  I stood and Conroy stood with me, eyes following mine.

  “More like corruption in high places,” I said.

  Conroy gave a little laugh, his face frozen in a half-smile.

  “The usual stuff, then,” he said.

  “No,” I said. “Not really the usual stuff at all.”

  And with that, I said I had to go, and I did, getting up and walking straight out the door, sticking Conroy with the bill for old times’ sake. Up the block, I turned and saw him loping across the park to City Hall, like a lookout running for the village with very bad news.

  JULY 1988

  The uniform cop didn’t know Butch Casey and she held up her hand and said, “Hey, you,” as he stepped over the crime-scene tape and continued toward her.

  “Homicide,” he said, showing his shield. “I was going by. Whatcha got?”

  “Carjacking. Victim dead, or close to it. Looks like the shooter got her out, don’t know how, got in the car and shot her in the face.”

  “In and out?”

  “Yup.”

  “No slug.”

  “Not yet.”

  Casey looked at the blood that had spilled onto the sidewalk and trickled over the curb into the gutter. It was dark, like chocolate syrup.

  “Got a plate on the car?” he said.

  “Yeah,” the cop said. “We ran her name, got the reg. She worked here. Must’ve just got off her shift and was pulling out.”

  “Where was security?”

  “Other end of the lot, car broken into.”

  “Took all of ’em to do that?”

  The cop shrugged.

  “You got people here?”

  “Yeah. They’ re inside now.”

  Casey looked at the blood again.

  “No shells?”

  “Just the victim. A bunch of people around her wigging out.”

  She shook her head.

  “That’s why I drive a shit box,” the cop said.

  “Yeah, well, then it breaks down and you’re in trouble anyway. Stuck out in the bush country somewheres.”

  The cop was black and Casey caught himself, but she didn’t seem to be offended.

  “You can’t win,” she said.

  “Nope,” Casey said. “Well, I’m off. I gotta meet my wife inside. She works here, too. In the ER. I’ll ask her if she knows the victim.”

  “That’s where she worked,” the cop said. “ER people came out here. They were going nuts.”

  “Is that right?” Casey said, thinking of Leslie, worried she’d be upset, and then thinking, if she was working on this lady, she wouldn’t be mad about him being late. A weird silver lining.

  “I better get in there,” he said.

  The cop nodded. Casey turned toward the lighted walkway that led to the emergency entrance. Took a couple of steps, and then turned back.

  “Good luck,” he said.

  “Yeah, we’ll hope the car gets spotted quick, before they chop it.”

  “Kill somebody for a goddamn car,” Casey said. “Goddamn pigs.”

  “Yeah, even if it was a Lexus.”

  Casey froze. He started to shake his head. He said, “No.”

  “Yeah, it was,” the cop said, misunderstanding. She took out her notebook. “A Lexus, model ES 300. Dark green.”

  “No,” Casey gasped. “Oh, my God, no.”

  “What’s the matter?” the cop said, looking at her notebook.

  “Not Leslie. Please, God, not Leslie.”

  “You okay?” the cop said softly.

  Casey gasped, “Oh, God, no.” He stood there for a moment, the life draining out of him just as Leslie’s had, and he said it again, softly. “Oh, God.” And then he bellowed, clamped his hands to his head. Started up the walkway, running but rigid, and he stumbled, then lurched on, wailing, “No, God, no, oh please, God,” because, as he’d always said, at that moment even the worst dirtbag in the world starts talking to Jesus.

  20

  The block around the Criminal Courts Building looked like Tower Hill on e
xecution day, but without the glee.

  There were satellite trucks in the streets, which were blocked off by police barriers and orange cones. In the courtyard between the buildings people milled in somber clumps, like mourners stalling outside a wake. TV reporters were doing advance spots outside the south entrance hall, where the criminal courts building inscription, coldly chiseled in the stone, implied that justice always was inevitable, harsh, and swift.

  It wasn’t, but this case might be the exception.

  Glasses on, hat pulled low, I stood in line at the building’s south entrance. The usual security was a cop with one eye on the job, the other on the clock. On this day there were six cops, two running a metal detector, four just staring. There was no banter between lawyers, no kidding among the clerks. The cops didn’t smile. The defendants looked confused.

  Fiore’s death hung over the place like a grim haze.

  My turn came. Christina’s car keys went in a bowl, my wallet, too, like an offering at church. I stepped through and the woman cop passed the wand over me, front and back, between my legs. Her partner looked at me and then looked at her.

  “Okay?” he said doubtfully.

  She nodded, but he looked at me again, like he knew me from somewhere.

  “Where you gotta go?” he said.

  “Arraignment. AR One,” I said.

  “When they gonna . . .” he murmured to the woman.

  “Not for another hour,” she said.

  ‘“You know where it is?” the guy asked me.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Been there before.”

  More than once, for the Times, but the courtroom had never looked quite like this.

  I pushed through the swinging wooden doors and a cop stopped me.

  “You,” he said.

  I froze.

  “Take off your hat.”

  I did, but left the glasses on. Moved to find a seat.

  The room was full, not with the usual unfortunates, but with reporters, who sat with notebooks in hand and every few moments checked their watches. I squeezed in next to a young preppie-looking guy who looked away from me with distaste. I figured there must be a reporting pool for something as big as this, and the courtroom would be cleared before Butch was brought in. This guy was getting the scene down. I did the same.

  The defendants up front were mostly black and Hispanic. The lawyers were not. Tommy Hilfiger was the uniform of choice and the favored crime was selling drugs. Each case ended with the bailiff’s chant: “Take a step back, turn around, and walk directly to the rear of the room.”