by Andy Straka
“This is nuts,” Jayani said as we approached the security desk. “We don’t want any more publicity.”
Darla sighed and looked at me.
“I was afraid of this,” I said.
Jayani had been talking on the phone with someone else, but she hung up now. “Who are these people?”
“Backdrop.”
“Huh?”
I didn’t answer. Instead, I focused on LaGrange, who made eye contact with me from a distance and poked the cameraman in the shoulder urging him forward.
“I thought he was just print media,” I said.
“Looks like it’s time to the pay the piper.” Darla made eyes at me.
“Ought to be a hoot.”
“Very funny.” She turned away from the guard and said under her breath: “Let’s agree we don’t say anything about the threats or the shooting or the links we’ve found to Watisi, all right?”
“You’re preaching to the choir.”
“If any of these people are doing their homework they may know enough already.”
LaGrange and the cameraman were at the front door now preparing to enter.
“Okay,” I said. “How about we just no-comment our way past them?”
“How’s that going to look?”
“Probably better than anything I might say.”
A squad car rolled to a stop outside. Two cops were inside and they switched on the whirling blue beacons. LaGrange and all the camera people paused and turned for a few seconds to take more pictures.
“Lovely,” Darla said. “Why don’t we just invite the mayor to join us while we’re at it.”
“Don’t laugh. He might’ve been invited.”
“Who do you really think tipped them all off we were coming out here.”
“Prime suspect is our good doctor.”
“Or it might’ve been anybody else we talked to—someone at the precinct even.”
“Maybe.”
The phone behind the security desk rang. Jayani said: “We gotta keep the street clear in front of here. My boss is not going to be happy about this.”
“We’re headed out, then they’ll be gone,” Darla said reassuringly.
Nicole’s voice crackled over the walkie-talkie attached to my belt. “Dad? What’s going on down there?”
I picked the handset off its clip and keyed the mike. “Just a little disturbance. We’ll handle it. If you can get some good photos of the participants from up there, go for it.”
“I’m on it,” she said.
“Let’s go,” Darla said.
We headed through the revolving glass door. The two cops were now out of their car and speaking with one of the reporters.
“There they are!”
LaGrange whirled around and dragged his cameraman to face us as we exited the building.
“Hello again, Mr. Pavlicek.”
I guess this guy didn’t like being told no.
LaGrange’s voice had changed though. A conspiratorial half whisper that seemed custom designed to induce a response. I wasn’t biting though, and neither was Darla. She pushed past the two cameras as if they didn’t exist.
“I’d like your comment on what’s happening here, Ms. Barnes,” LaGrange said. “What’s the nature of your investigation and who hired you?”
Darla glared at him the way she might a housefly. He knew damn well who had hired us.
We kept on walking and he fell into pace. Cameras were whirring.
“Did you know anything about the hearing tomorrow?” he persisted. “Have you heard there might be a protest?”
Darla said nothing.
Seeing he was getting nothing from her, LaGrange turned to me. “Mr. Pavlicek, what are you doing up here all the way from Virginia?”
Who else had he been talking to? But I didn’t stop to give it any more thought.
LaGrange, with his apparent superhuman powers of deduction, must have sensed he was going to get nothing from us—at least for the time being. He turned and began speaking into the camera.
The two uniformed officers acted as though we were just extra security hired by the building. Thankfully, one of them also put a hand in the reporter’s face.
“Back off, fellas,” he said to the two with the cameras.
“Just trying to ask these people a few questions,” LaGrange said evenly.
“And the people don’t feel like talking.” Darla already had her credentials out and was showing them to the officers.
The same officer turned back to LaGrange. “Like I said, I’m sorry sir, but I’m going to have to ask you to back off,” he said.
You had to give the reporter some credit. He knew trying to bait a cop in front of the cameras, while it might raise his stature some back in the newsroom, wouldn’t get him very far when it came time to mine his inside sources from the boys in blue. “All right,” he said.
He nodded and retreated reluctantly to the other side of the street with the camera people and attempted to regroup.
The officer, whose badge read Mullins, turned back to us.
“We got the word at roll call yesterday about you two, but you better watch your backs while you’re out here chasing kitty hitter.” He gestured toward the reporters. “Looks like you may have an audience.”
Terrific. Surveillance by media. Just the way I’d normally have gone about it.
“Don’t worry, we’ll lose these idiots sooner or later,” Darla said.
“Yeah? Well, sooner would be better so we can clear the street,” Mullins said.
“Why don’t I just threaten to shoot them?”
“Now there’s an original thought, Ms. Barnes. That would definitely make the 11 pm.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“We’ll wait them out. Sooner or later they’re all going to need to pee. And being the ex-cops and patient professional investigators that we are, we know how to hold it.”
The cop looked at me and smiled. “Okay, but just remember, outside of provided restrooms human urination or defecation in a public park is against city statute.”
“So what, you busting all the winos, teens, and the homeless now?”
Still smiling, he shook his head and waved us on.
18
The jogger’s footsteps crunched a steady rhythm through the darkness on the 102nd Street Transverse. Playing rhythm section was the drone of distant building air conditioners, the din of crickets, grasshoppers, and katydids. It was twenty minutes to midnight and the hoped-for reunion with Cato Raines. What kind of idiot would be out here running in the park so late, even assuming the emergency phones were all working and the cop currently stationed at the booth on the quarter-mile connector was awake? Was it Raines?
The fireworks over the Hudson were now a distant memory. A brief thundershower had drenched the pavement a little earlier. The moon, which had made a dim and brief appearance after the rain, had almost disappeared again, fading behind another encroaching line of clouds. Did I expect the homeless falconer to show? Not really. But I thought his knowing we would be trolling through the park at this hour might force him into some sort of mistake. An hour and a half had passed since Darla and I had traipsed through the media gauntlet in front of Grayland Tower; at least an hour since we lost Barry LaGrange and his crew of picture takers, who obviously hadn’t thought of bringing low light camera equipment. My last radio check with Darla and Nicole, the former somewhere in the darkness and the latter keeping tabs on the scene from her balcony perch above, had been about fifteen minutes ago.
Through the night vision goggles, I could begin to make out the running figure. Definitely not Raines—shorts, reflective sneakers, white tank top, a woman. She was tall and athletic looking, her long hair drawn back into a ponytail. She was pumping her arms with her head held back and to one side like some kind of wild, nocturnal mare.
The realization dawned on me all at once. It was none other than our client, Dr. Lonigan.
&
nbsp; I flipped off the goggles and waited in the shadows, debating whether to alert her to my presence. There is a fleeting epiphany to such moments, like standing at the end of the diving board above the shimmering pool. In the end, I went with the indirect approach.
“You’re out late,” I said stepping from the shadows so she could see that it was me.
“Oh.” She pounded to a halt. “You gave me a start.”
“May I ask what you’re doing here?”
“Didn’t Darla tell you? I like to run in the park.”
“In the middle of the night? By yourself?”
“No. Not usually in the middle of the night. But I couldn’t sleep and I was hoping I might run into you or Darla.”
“It’s a big park.”
She flexed her arm and brushed a loose strand of hair back from in front of her face. “Guess you’ll have to call me lucky then. Have you seen anything? Any sign of the man with the owl?”
I shook my head. “All’s quiet on the falconer front.”
“I heard you and Darla had to pass by a bunch of reporters earlier.”
“Yes. What were you doing talking to them?”
“How did you??”
I held up my hand.
“It doesn’t matter. A reporter named LaGrange left a message for me at my apartment. He was waiting in the lobby when I came back from the hospital. I told him I didn’t want to talk about the matter any further.”
“All right. But you should know that if this thing turns into some kind of public spectacle, the truth, whatever it is, may get lost.”
“That’s not what I want.”
“You may not want it, but it can happen. And if it does, everyone gets burned.”
“Is that what happened to you and your partner when you shot that teenager years ago?”
“More or less.”
“And you’re still bitter about it.”
“I was, yeah, for quite a while.”
“But you’re not anymore.”
“They teach you to change the subject like this and ask probing questions in medical school?”
I caught a hint of a smile in the darkness. She said nothing.
“You still haven’t answered my question completely.”
“What’s that?”
“I can’t help finding it suspicious that you’re out here right now.”
I would have liked to have heard her reply, but the walkie-talkie on my belt crackled softly.
“Frank.”
It was Darla.
I picked the handset off its clip and keyed the speak button. “Copy.”
“I think I’ve got something. Looks like it could be our man.”
Her voice came through with too much gain, but it was clear enough to understand her words. I looked at Dr. Lonigan, who stood riveted to her spot.
“Where are you?” I asked into the mike.
“On the South side of the Meer. Between the lake and the Lasker Pool.”
“I know right where it is,” Lonigan said.
I pushed the button again. “Tell me what you see.”
“It’s pretty dark over here,” Darla said. “But I see a small man with one of those mini flashlights by the water. Swinging something in the air shining a beam of light on it.”
“Could be our guy.”
“Oh, wait! Something big just swooped through the air in front of the light.”
“Definitely our guy.”
Lonigan turned and started running. “Come on,” she called over her shoulder.
Come on, indeed.
* * * * *
In the dark, its scattered lamps glowing beneath oak and bald cypress, the Harlem Meer is a postcard quality swath of water. During the daytime, you can watch the swans and grebes drift around like tame pets. If someone with a well-trained falcon were stupid enough to hunt here, one of the grebes might make a tempting target. At night with an owl, you’d have to mount a pretty spectacular ambush.
Lonigan stopped next to the pool. I pounded to a halt next to her. We were both dripping with sweat in the humid air. I’d finished off my water bottle over an hour ago. There was no sign of Darla or the falconer. We stood to listen and catch our breath.
Nothing.
I keyed the walkie-talkie again and spoke more softly this time.
“Darla.”
No reply. Several seconds passed.
“Darla, where are you?”
Still nothing.
I said into the hand piece: “Nicky, you there?”
“Yeah, Dad, it’s me.”
“You get Darla’s position?”
“I think so. Looking at a map.”
“Forget that.” I was breathing easier now. “Just look out the balcony to your left about fifty, sixty degrees at the big body of water across the park.”
A few seconds later, Nicole’s voice returned: “Got it.”
“See anything?”
“Not yet.”
“Keep looking.”
My legs and lungs were still burning, but I tried to ignore them.
Nicole came on again. “Dad?” she said.
“Yeah.”
“I can’t see a thing. Too many trees in the way.”
“Right.”
“I’m coming down there.”
“Wait. Nicky.” I keyed the mike again several times. “Nicky.”
There was no response.
“Where is she?” Lonigan asked.
“She was on the balcony of our apartment. Supposed to be serving as a spotter.”
I looked around and listened. Still no sign of Darla or Raines, if that was who she’d spotted.
“What now?” Lonigan asked.
I flipped my night vision goggles back down over my eyes. “Now. We take a good look around.”
We walked at a cautious gait along the nearest pathway around the lake. I swept my head back and forth slowly, probing the darkness. It had been years, I thought, since I’d last ventured away from the well-lit thoroughfares in Central Park at night.
A trio of figures jumped out from behind the rocks along the shoreline ahead and began running away.
“There they go!” Lonigan whispered, her voice thin with excitement.
I took note of the spiked hair on one, the chains dangling, the heavy boots.
“Nope,” I said. “Just some kids. Goths. Probably smoking weed or something.”
Five minutes passed. Ten. Still no sign of Darla.
“You think something’s happened to her?” Lonigan asked. She was still with me, moving as I moved.
I shook my head and shrugged. “Still a lot of park here. She could be anywhere.”
A few seconds later, Nicole’s voice came back on the radio over some static. “Dad. Dad, you there?”
I reached for my handset. “I’m here.”
“I think I’ve spotted him.”
“Who?”
“Raines. Or someone, at least, with a bird.”
“What about Darla?”
Static. “Don’t see her,” she said.
“Where are you?”
“I’m not sure exactly.”
“Somewhere around the Meer?”
“I think so.” Static. “I ran up to 110th Street and cut across to come into the park from that end.”
“Watch yourself,” I said. “Wait for backup.” I was trying to guess how far she was away and how long it would take for us to get there.
“Where are you, Dad?”
“Around the lake from you to your right. Can’t say exactly how far.”
“There’s more of them,” she said. Static. “I see Darla. I’m moving in.”
More of whom? Where were they?
The shots that rang out then let me guess where. Sharp, staccato explosions echoed across the water. Like a string of fire crackers, followed by a chorus of larger caliber blasts.
I sprinted toward the sound with Lonigan on my heels. Hollered into my walkie-talkie, reaching for my gun.
19
“Not one of the brighter things I’ve ever done.”
Darla Barnes grimaced as she held a folded gauze against her lower leg to help stem the bleeding.
She had been lucky. A bullet had torn into her calf muscle, but—according to the paramedics and Dr. Lonigan’s preliminary assessment—it had missed any vital arteries or nerves and was well back of the bone. She might be on crutches for a few weeks, but she would recover.
“I had him right there.” She pointed to a spot down on the bank. “I must’ve been only about fifty feet away from him when he got away.”
She was sitting on the rear deck of an ambulance while Lonigan and Nicole, who was unhurt, finished talking to the patrol officers and medical personnel who’d responded to the scene. Had Darla only been caught in the crossfire from some late night Fourth of July revelers firing handguns? No one really believed it, although that was the story being fed to the media. With everyone on edge after the shootings in the park the night before, the cops weren’t taking any chances.
My old friend looked me in the eyes. “Nicky saved my butt, Franco. If she hadn’t shown up when she did, along with that other shooter, those two might’ve taken me out.”
Those two were a pair of Latino males of average build, who’d appeared from out of the darkness to deliver some sort of muffled threats apparently aimed at the mysterious falconer. When Darla made her move, they started shooting and the falconer ran. Nicole’s intervention, along with the help of another unidentified shooter from somewhere across the water, forced the assailants to melt back into the bowels of the park as well.
“Yeah, well, I’m glad,” I said. “But it wasn’t because of me. I ordered her to stay away.”
“She’s a hardhead like her old man.” Darla smiled through the pain.
The cops had already questioned Nicole before talking to me. I told them what little I knew: all of us had heard the shots. Afraid we wouldn’t get there in time, Darla had gone after the falconer with no backup. The man with the owl, quite probably Cato Raines—although I didn’t share that with the officers—along with the other person firing from across the lake, had simply vanished like smoke. As had the two who had started the gunplay.
“You both discharged your firearms,” I said. “You think you hit either of the perps?”
“I know I didn’t. Getting shot in the leg didn’t help my aim.”
