The Mayor of Lexington Avenue

by James Sheehan

  Dick seemed to loosen up. “I hear ya. Go ahead, ask your questions. I’ll answer them if I can.”

  “Why did Tracey James get out of the case?”

  “Money. Tracey never did anything unless there was money in it. Frankly, I was surprised when she took the case. The woman, Rudy’s mother, had no money. I thought Tracey might be bleeding her for whatever she could get out of her.”

  “She would do that?”

  “Oh, she could be a bloodsucker—but not this time, at least not as much as usual. There was something about this case. It haunted her until the day she died.”

  “I’m not sure I understand. She didn’t take the case for money but she got out because of money?”

  “That’s about right. Tracey was definitely conflicted when it came to this one. I’d never seen her like that before or since. She really wanted to help that woman and her son. And I’ll tell you something else, she did a damn good job while she was on the case.”

  “I know, I’ve read the file. She ripped the chief detective a new asshole during that suppression hearing.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I heard. I wasn’t there. You know, she planned on getting back on the case before she was killed.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. I didn’t know Tracey had a conscience until Rudy Kelly came along. When he got convicted, she was sick about it. She knew the public defender fucked everything up and she just couldn’t let go.”

  “Wait a minute. I’m not following you here. She got out of the case almost ten years ago—and you’re telling me she planned on getting back into it?”

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  “Why after all these years?” Jack felt like he was pulling teeth again.

  “Somebody contacted her, I don’t know who it was. She wouldn’t tell me. But whoever it was gave her some information that she felt would free Rudy. She tried to contact Rudy’s mother but found out she had died. That’s when she really got motivated—she felt she let that woman down. So she called that detective, Wes Brume.”

  “Why’d she call him?” Jack asked, surprised at what he’d just heard. His surprise was about to turn to shock.

  “I think part of it was just to let the little peckerhead know she was coming back. She always thought that Brume set Rudy up. She knew she got to him in that suppression hearing and she wanted to plant a seed in his brain, hopefully, to give him a few sleepless nights.”

  “You said part of it was just to let him know she was coming back—what was the other part?”

  “I’m not sure—maybe she wanted to squeeze him to come clean. Maybe she thought what she had was good enough to do that. It was a stupid move on her part.”

  “Sounds like you advised against it?”

  “Oh yeah. There was no purpose to the call. It’s pretty hard to squeeze a bad cop. They’ll kill you first, which is exactly what I think Brume did. I should have been more forceful in my advice but I wasn’t paying attention, wasn’t piecing everything together like I should have. I was working on something else at the time. A week after she called Brume, she was dead. Hey, how about another beer?”

  Radek had just dropped a bombshell, and Jack was desperate to learn more—he couldn’t have cared less about another beer. But he could tell this was hard on Radek; Jack sensed that the old cop was probably trying to hide his emotions. He probably blamed himself for Tracey’s death.

  “Sure,” he said to Radek’s back—he was already halfway to the kitchen.

  “I usually have a cooler out here,” he told Jack when he returned from the kitchen with two more beers. “It keeps the beer colder. But I ran out of ice yesterday and I haven’t gotten out yet today.”

  “It tastes plenty cold to me,” Jack replied after taking his first sip.

  “That’s because when I take two out, I put two in the freezer.” It’s going to be a long night, Jack thought to himself. “By the way, what’s your interest here?” Dick asked, once he was comfortably seated again in his favorite deck chair.

  Jack smiled and took another sip. “Rudy’s father was my best friend. He’s dead now. Let’s just say I’m repaying a debt.”

  “I hear ya.”

  “I’m trying to locate Tracey’s file,” Jack said after a few more minutes of silence. Dick didn’t answer. “It must still exist if Tracey was getting back into the case,” Jack persisted. Still there was no response from Radek. Jack tried to stay cool although he was boiling inside.

  “All right, let’s assume a certain person has it but they don’t want to give it up. Maybe I could get a copy? It might just save a young man’s life.”

  Still he just sat there, looking out at the water in total silence. Finally, after several agonizing minutes, Dick spoke.

  “As I told you a few minutes ago, I think that fuckin’ fleabag cop killed Tracey over this case.”

  “I thought she died in a car accident.”

  “She did, but it was a mighty suspicious car accident. Two o’clock in the morning—what was she doing out at two o’clock in the morning on a weeknight? I knew this woman’s personal habits—she never went out during the week. There was no other car involved and no brake fluid in the brake line. Although the investigator said that it probably leaked out because of the accident, I went over that accident scene thoroughly and I couldn’t find any traces of brake fluid.”

  “So you really think Brume killed her to shut her up?”

  “I don’t know. No—yeah, that is what I think. She was probably shaking him down and he’s a cop. If he’s dirty, he’d kill her first.”

  It didn’t make sense to Jack. From what he knew of the case the cops had definitely fucked up and had overreached with Rudy, but it wasn’t something to kill someone over—especially a high-profile attorney like Tracey James, unless she had information that would nail him to the wall. But if she had that kind of information, why make the call at all?

  “I’ve been gnawing on this like a bone,” Dick told him. “I wasn’t crazy about Tracey. She was a good boss—she paid well.” Jack knew that line. “But like I said, most of the time it was about the money, and she could be a real hardass. But still, I’m a homicide detective. You can’t kill my boss and expect me to go quietly into the night. I’ve got to find out.”

  “You think there’s something in the file to help you?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been over it a hundred times. I can’t find anything. But that doesn’t mean it’s not there.”

  “What about the person who contacted her? Have you tried to find out who that is?”

  “Have I? I checked the calendar—checked out everybody who came to see her the month before her death. I talked to all our employees. I checked the telephone records to her home and the office. I couldn’t check them all. We had twenty adjusters and five lawyers at the time, ads all over the state, receptionists, telephone solicitors—I’m talking about thousands and thousands of telephone calls in a month. I checked out every call from and to Bass Creek, every call in Cobb County, all the long distance calls; and I did a random sampling of the rest. I came up empty. Nada. Zilch. The only thing I have left is that file and I’m not letting it go.”

  It was Jack’s turn not to answer right away. He knew he needed to offer Dick something to get that file—or even a copy of it.

  “Maybe we can help each other. Look, you think this cop killed your boss. I want to get Rudy free. We’re not in conflict. If I discover something, I’ll give it to you. You do the same. But let me copy the file.”

  Dick thought about it for a moment. “All right, there’s a copy place down the road. I’ll go with you in the morning and we’ll copy it.”

  He stood up and headed for the kitchen, returning moments later with two more beers.

  “There’s another person you might want to talk to,” he told Jack after he handed him a beer and sat down.

  “Who?”

  “Joaquin Sanchez.”

  Twenty–eight

  Wh
ile Jack was traveling around the state “investigating,” Nancy and Pat had been busy shopping for the latest computer technology and setting it up in the office. Then they began the long process of scanning all the documents they had received from the state and loading them into the new computers. Pat was clearly the most knowledgeable. Nancy had spent her time at Tobin, Gleason and Gardner mostly as a word processor. She didn’t mind taking direction from Pat, however. Unlike her superiors at the law firm, Pat was a pleasure to work with.

  Every morning they came to work in jeans or shorts. The first order of business was breakfast at the local diner, the Pelican. They’d started eating there the week before, which made them almost regulars. It wasn’t a very large place—an old railroad-car diner complete with a once-shiny aluminum façade that had lost its luster considerably over the years. Dolores was their waitress—the only waitress in the place.

  “Just call me Dolly,” she’d told them the first morning they came in. “We ain’t got no specials. We don’t do waffles. It’s pancakes; eggs any way, with ham, bacon or sausage; or cereal, cold or hot. We got oatmeal, Cream of Wheat, corn flakes and Special K. What’ll it be?” Dolly just stood there staring at her pad, pen in hand, her black reading glasses resting below the bridge of her nose—ready for action. Pat and Nancy looked at each other and almost burst out laughing. They’d been coming back every day since, always sitting in the same booth.

  Dolly was more familiar now. “Hiya, girls. Ya gonna have the usual?” she’d ask as soon as they were seated. Dolly didn’t seem to remember that, although Pat ordered the same meal every day, Nancy didn’t.

  “How long did you work for Jack in Miami?” Pat asked Nancy one morning as she waited for Dolly to deliver her daily bowl of oatmeal and bananas.

  “About a year.”

  “How’d you like the big firm atmosphere?”

  “I hated it.”

  “How about Jack?”

  “Him too.”

  “Really?” Pat laughed. She enjoyed finding out about the “other” Jack. “Tell me about it.”

  “He was nothing like he is now. It’s almost like he was a completely different person. He never smiled. He never talked to me until the day he saw in the paper that your friend Mike had died. Since then he’s been great—like a second father.” Just then Dolly arrived with Pat’s oatmeal and Nancy’s bacon and eggs. Youth, Pat said to herself. They can eat anything.

  “I hated my father,” Dolly interjected. They both looked at her and smiled and politely waited until she was a safe distance away before they resumed their conversation.

  “Jack’s behavior sounds a little strange—almost like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde thing,” Pat remarked.

  “Not that bad. Jack was never mean. It was just like he wasn’t there—emotionally. You know what I mean?”

  “I think so.”

  “Now he’s as warm as a person can be. It’s almost like your friend Mike’s death opened the floodgates to his emotions. Just look at the way he’s working this case. His heart and soul are in it.”

  “Yeah, I see that. But I worry what will happen to him if he’s not successful.”

  “You mean if Rudy dies?”

  “If Rudy is executed.”

  “Oh, I don’t even want to think about that.”

  “None of us does” Pat replied. “But it’s a distinct possibility.”

  “I just don’t think Jack’s going to let that happen,” Nancy said. “After all, he’s personal friends with the governor. If worse comes to worst.”

  “I didn’t think about that. Maybe you’re right.”

  Back at the office, they jumped right into their work. Pat noticed that while she was setting the computer equipment up, Nancy was reading one of the files.

  “That’s a lot of information to digest,” Pat said in a nice way.

  “I know. But it’s so interesting—the investigation, the hearings, the trial.”

  “You really like this legal stuff, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I think I’m going to make it my life’s work.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Jack said something to me about becoming a lawyer when he asked me to come with him. I never thought of myself in that category before, but just him saying it made me start thinking about it and once I get going, I don’t stop.”

  “Do you have your degree?” Pat asked.

  “I’ve got a two-year degree and about fifteen credit hours past that. There’s a four-year school in Vero Beach, Madison College, where I can get my bachelor’s degree in a year. There’s a law school in Fort Lauderdale, two hours away. If I can schedule my classes two or three days a week, I can still work for Jack part-time. Dad’s got a V.A. disability pension plus Social Security, so we can make ends meet.”

  “Wow! I guess you don’t stop once you get going. But I don’t hear anything about a social life in those plans.”

  “What social life? I don’t have a social life now.”

  “I can’t believe that,” Pat told her. “A beautiful girl like you?”

  “Thanks for that, Pat, but I never quite fit in in Miami. I wasn’t fast or flashy enough, or something. And guys my age just seem like jerks to me. They’ve got one-track minds. There’s no substance or soul.”

  “It doesn’t change as they get older, honey. The guys with real substance are few and far between, no matter how old you are. But you’ll meet someone.”

  “It can wait until I get out of law school.”

  “Love waits for no man or woman. When it happens, it happens,” Pat said, staring out the window.

  Nancy looked at Pat and was about to ask her about her own personal life. But she stopped herself. She could see Pat wasn’t ready to go that far.

  Twenty–nine

  Jack spent Monday night at Dick Radek’s house and woke up the next morning with a hangover. He and Dick had sat on the back porch until the wee hours of the morning drinking beer and solving the problems of the world. Now with his head pounding, he couldn’t even remember what one of those problems was.

  He showered quickly, put on the extra pair of slacks and shirt he’d brought with him and waited for Dick to wake up so they could go to the copy place.

  It took a little over an hour to have the file copied. He and Dick went out for breakfast. Then he dropped the old detective off and headed for Indiantown, where Joaquin Sanchez now lived permanently. Dick had called the night before ostensibly to let Joaquin know Jack was coming. But Jack knew the real reason—the address. Dick had to get Joaquin’s permission to give out his address. They’ve still got each other’s back.

  Joaquin also lived on the water, a small canal that meandered out to Lake Okeechobee. He was cleaning his boat when Jack arrived. Jack rang the bell and stood at the front door for ten minutes before he thought to look in the backyard. So much for being an investigator, he told himself as he walked around the house and discovered Joaquin hard at work.

  Joaquin was very friendly. “I can’t help you with much,” he said. “I wasn’t on the case too long.” But he had reread his report the night before and went over it in detail with Jack.

  “There’s no doubt in my mind this Geronimo guy killed Lucy Ochoa. Rudy was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The problem is you’ve got no firsthand information. The guy I talked to—Pablo—he’ll probably help you but everything he knows is hearsay.”

  “Did Dick tell you that Tracey talked to somebody about this case before she died? Somebody who gave her new information?”

  “Oh yeah. He’s been talking about nothing else for the last year. I try to get him to forget about it—to come fishing—but he just sits there on his back porch drinking beer all day and festering. You know, it’s a hard thing for a cop to take when somebody is killed on his watch. He’s convinced that’s what happened to Tracey.”

  “How about you? Are you convinced?”

  “No. But I wasn’t close to the situation, Dick was. You learn in this business to tr
ust your intuition. I trust Dick’s intuition.”

  “Do you have any idea who would have called her?”

  It was clear that Joaquin had already thought this through because he answered immediately. “Either Raymond Castro or José Guerrero—those were the two guys with Geronimo the night of the murder. It’s been ten years; they might have come back to town, heard about Rudy’s situation and decided to do something. That’s the only possibility I can come up with.”

  Jack thanked Joaquin for his time and was about to leave when Joaquin remembered one more, small piece of information.

  “Just before she dropped out of the case, Tracey sent a letter to the state attorney about this Geronimo fellow and attached my report. She sent me a copy of the letter, I guess because it was my report. I’ve got an extra copy if you’d like it.”

  Jack didn’t know how much good it would do but he took the copy and thanked Joaquin again before heading back to Bass Creek.

  That night, on their evening run, he told Pat all about his trip. They took a special route, one Pat had discovered just the day before when Jack was out of town. It was a secluded path through the woods.

  “Covers about ten miles but we can get off anywhere we want.”

  Jack loved the new run. They were hidden among tall pines and ancient oaks. The arms and elbows of the oak trees were brimming with Spanish moss, which created an eerie atmosphere that made them feel even more secluded and alone.

  Jack started in on his story right away, and by mile three he was summarizing what he’d learned. “So Tracey James is dead, and her chief investigator thinks she was murdered by Wesley Brume, the investigating detective in Rudy’s case, a theory that I don’t buy at all. Yet, Tracey was getting back into the case. And she found out something—something that she believed would free Rudy and possibly incriminate Brume. Radek thinks that’s why Brume killed her. Radek doesn’t know who Tracey talked to but he thinks the information is somewhere in her file, which he is guarding with his life. Joaquin’s pretty sure it was one of the two guys who saw Rudy go into Lucy’s trailer, but he’s got no proof.