by Andy Straka
“Nicole says she doesn’t think she did either, but the other shooter might have. That sounded like a decent-sized weapon they were firing. It was a lucky thing they didn’t turn it on either of you.”
“What do you think’s going on, Franco?”
I shook my head.
“A gang war?”
“Maybe.”
“But how are your falconer and all these missing pets mixed up in it?”
“You definitely saw a bird?”
“Had to be.”
“Nicole says she saw it too.”
She looked over at the paramedics and Lonigan. “How did Dr. Lonigan end up out here with you?”
I lowered my voice and told her I’d run into Lonigan lower down in the park. “Are you absolutely sure you can trust this woman?” I asked.
“Her retainer check cleared, what else can I tell you?”
“You know about her record out in Oregon?”
“Oh, you found out about that too, huh?” She shrugged. “Didn’t seem like any big deal to me. Just a bunch of young tree huggers.”
“Don’t you think it’s bizarre, though, to be running alone in the park at midnight?”
“Stupid, for sure.”
“It was like she knew where I was and purposely came out looking for me.”
She thought about that. “Maybe we ought to have a talk with her about her agenda.”
I motioned toward the two officers questioning Dr. Lonigan. “What’d you tell the cops?”
“Same thing you probably did.”
“You tell them we talked with Marbush?”
“Yeah.”
“Think they’ll be of any help?”
“Hopefully.”
“Looks like you’re going to be out of commission for a while.”
She grimaced again, nodded.
“What did you plan to do if you caught the guy with the owl?”
“Pray he didn’t try to sic the thing on me.”
“Good plan,” I said.
“What was the dude doing out here with the flashlight?”
“Sounds like he’s got another lure. Sometimes you can also play games with birds, get them to fly by while you swing it like a matador. To do that, though, the bird needs to see the lure. An owl sees well in the dark, but he’s probably got the bird conditioned to the flashlight. Or …”
“Or what?”
“The falconer was in an emergency situation. He knew he’d been spotted and needed to get his bird down in a hurry. You think he saw you?”
She shook her head. “No way. That’s why I never got a good look at him. He never even turned in my direction.”
“Which means he must have been worried about something or someone else.”
“Yeah. The dudes who started shooting at him,” she said.
Nicole had sauntered over to join the conversation. Turning so no one else could hear, she said, “I’ve got something interesting.”
“You mean besides disobeying me when I tell you to stay put?”
She ignored me. “I shot some video.”
“You what?” Darla glanced at the cops who were still busy talking with Lonigan.
“I brought along the lowlight camcorder. I managed to get some footage of the falconer before all the shooting started.”
Darla, looking impressed, raised eyebrows at me. “This girl brings the whole package.”
“I just excused myself for a couple of minutes to use the public restroom by the boat house and took a look at it,” Nicole said. “I think it came out pretty well.”
“What’s it show?” I asked.
“Something strange. The glove on the hand holding the bird was not a normal falconer’s glove, not like one I’ve ever seen anyway. It looked more like a hard cylinder, almost like a prosthesis or a heavy ace bandage.”
“Really? That says a lot.”
“Why?”
“Our falconer isn’t from the U.S. At least he wasn’t trained to handle birds of prey in North America.”
“What do you mean?”
“What you saw is called a mangalah. Used in the Arab style of falconry. It’s basically a cylindrical kind of cuff with no fingers.”
“So we’re looking for a Middle-Easterner. Maybe not Raines after all.”
“Or at least someone who was trained to handle birds Arab style.”
“Do the Arabs hunt with owls?”
“Not generally.”
“You all are freaking me out even more now,” Darla said. “Something weird is definitely happening here.”
One of the paramedics, a young woman, approached.
“Hate to break up your conference, people, but we do need to take Ms. Barnes to the hospital. Dr. Lonigan’s going to accompany us.”
“Okay,” Darla said.
Just then, an unmarked police cruiser, magnetic beacon spinning on its roof, screeched to a halt at the curb. Lt. Marbush stepped out of the front passenger side and made a beeline toward us.
“Don’t tell me,” she said. “Dominic Watisi, in addition to hiring someone to steal kittens, has gotten himself caught up in a gangbanger’s street fight.”
“You tell us,” I said.
Nicole and Dr. Lonigan came over too. Everyone went through their stories again with the detective supervisor. I told her some of what we’d learned.
When all of us were through, the lieutenant looked at Darla.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” she said. “We’ll get some crime scene people out here to look for ballistic evidence. Believe it or not, we really are investigating these killings. But you folks better stay out of the park after dark from now on, before one of you ends up like those two bodies last night.”
“You don’t need to worry about me,” Darla said, smiling. “I ain’t going anywhere with this leg.”
Marbush looked over at Nicole and me. “How about you people?”
“We’ll think about it,” I said.
The lieutenant said: “You do that, Frank. The last thing I’d think you would want is your face splashed across the tabloids connected to a shooting once again.”
The lieutenant climbed back into her car and closed the door. She was right. The paramedics and Dr. Lonigan loaded Darla into the back of the ambulance. I stood on the curb with Nicole and watched as both official vehicles pulled away.
20
But I guess I couldn’t help myself.
At ten o’clock the next morning, I was standing with Nicole outside a courtroom waiting for a new salvo in the litigation of the dispute between the Grayland Tower apartment owners and Dominic Watisi. A preliminary hearing in the courtroom of the Honorable Carmichael Peabody, judge for the New York County Housing Court, was about to begin. Darla had spent the night at Mt. Sinai and wasn’t scheduled to be released today either. Which, in her present condition, was like caging an angry mountain lion.
“The proceedings will begin about twenty minutes late,” a bored-looking bailiff cheerlessly informed the assembled masses.
“Great,” Nicole said, her shoulders slumping with fatigue. “Just great.”
She was still smarting from the tongue-lashing I’d given her on the way back to the apartment the night before. She had helped save Darla’s life, after all, not to mention shooting the video footage, which was exactly as she’d described, by the way. But I had lit into her pretty hard about not following orders.
“Hey,” I said. “Like I told you over breakfast, I’m sorry about chewing you out last night. I was as much to blame as you.”
“That’s not it, dad. Someone out there tried to kill us—Darla and whoever was flying that owl anyway. Someone else was firing an M-16, or whatever, and all we’re doing is sitting in here waiting for a stupid court case.”
“And waiting for Watisi to show or some more information to be revealed that might help us nail down his connection to our falconer in the park.”
And for entertainment, we wouldn’t even have to wait alone. I put the total at
maybe fifty, sixty people. The same reporters and cameras from the night before were in attendance. But now they had more to work with. Two factions opposed one another, in fact, many of whom carried placards.
STOP THE SLAUGHTER OF INNOCENT PETS. SMALL ANIMALS HAVE RIGHTS.
BIRDS HAVE RIGHTS TOO. SAVE THE OWLS.
Each group was comprised of mostly women, but there was a small number of men as well. On the bird side a long necked man with spectacles and a green backpack walked next to a turtle-bodied woman clad in ill-fitting shorts and clunky sandals. The cat activist crowd included a braid-coiffed woman dressed in black with a bare midriff and belly button ring. She was speaking urgently with a young man dressed in a suit and tie.
While the opposing camps appeared peaceful for the moment, the three sheriff’s deputies on duty at the metal detector watched them warily. Not to mention two of Marbush’s plainclothes detectives, who had also shown up for the hearing and were doing their best to blend into the crowd.
“Hey,” I said. “There’s that reporter from the Post you thought was so cute. At least he’s not hanging out with the guys with the cameras this morning.” I’d also given Nicole the run down on our encounter with the press the night before.
“You know what?” she said. “Why don’t we go and talk to him? He looks like he’s by himself. Maybe he’s found out some stuff that can help.”
I thought about it. It beat cooling our heels.
“I’ll talk to him,” I said.
“What about me?”
“You need to be here in case the hearing starts.”
She bit her lip. “Okay. But be nice to him, Dad.”
Right. So I was.
Unlike the night before, LaGrange was respectful and less confrontational. He seemed grateful for the chance to sit down and talk and bought me a cup of coffee at the fast food restaurant just down the block from the courthouse.
“Look, Mr. Pavlicek, I’ve got a job to do and you’ve got a job to do. You’re a peripheral player in this thing, I understand that. But I’m smelling there might be a big story here.”
“Me too,” I said.
Realizing we wouldn’t be able to take the Glocks into court, Nicole and I had left our handguns back at the apartment. The reporter, on the other hand, had arrived this morning with his full armamentarium: pen, paper, and tape recorder. Whoever said that the pen is mightier than the sword must have lived for a time in New York City.
“Okay then.” He switched on his tape recorder.
“I’d rather you not do that,” I said, indicating the machine.
“What? Tape you? I assure you, Mr. Pavlicek, it’s for your protection as well as mine. This way we can be sure you won’t be misquoted.”
“That’s what they all say.”
“Why don’t you start by telling me how you were hired?”
“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “Why don’t we skip all that because you can probably piece all that together anyway. I’ll tell you some things I know and you tell me some things you know. We can trade information and maybe that way we can both get what we want.”
“Fair enough. So, tell me what you know.”
“Uh-huh. You first.”
He stared at me for a moment. “Okay. My understanding is that you’re working for Dr. Lonigan, trying to substantiate the public charges she has made against Dominic Watisi regarding pets missing from Grayland Tower.”
“Close enough.”
“There was another shooting in the park last night and you and your partner were there.”
I said nothing.
“You’re not denying it.”
I shrugged.
“What about Dominic Watisi?”
“Have you talked to him?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Just to his publicist and one or two of his employees.”
“He denies involvement.”
“To you too, huh? Did you speak to him directly?”
“Yes.”
He wrote something down.
“What do you know about the man?” I said.
LaGrange sighed and pushed a strand of curly dark hair off his forehead. “He’s wealthy, obviously. He’s incredibly secretive, which I’m sure you’ve figured out. Most of his hush-hush activity revolves around his finances and his development plans, but he’s also may be engaged in some off-the-books philanthropy.”
“What do you mean?”
The reporter lowered his voice and said in a conspiratorial tone: “I talked to a former employee who told me Watisi has been helping finance illegals seeking asylum or setting up residence in the United States.”
“Really.”
“Yes, really.”
“Not such a smart thing to do in today’s climate.”
“Exactly.”
“Why hasn’t this been in the paper yet?”
“I’m looking for corroboration,” he said, looking at me hopefully.
“Sorry. Can’t help you there. If it’s true, what’s Watisi get out of it? He running sweatshops or something?”
He shook his head. “I haven’t been able to find anything at all of that nature. So far.”
“The police know about this?”
“Not exactly. Watisi is careful to keep all of his activities in the realm of private charity work.”
“Who does he work through?”
“His lawyer mostly, and a network of sympathetic clergy and social workers.”
“Why don’t you go talk to them?”
“No one else is talking. The most interesting hard facts I’ve been able to establish around this story are still about the building and the missing pets. How do you think he got the pets out, by the way?”
“Who?”
“This falconer, or whoever Watisi is supposed to have hired.”
“Any number of ways, I suppose.”
“I have a theory,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“You know all about the history of Grayland Tower, right?”
I nodded, vaguely, not wishing to admit my ignorance or that I was about two years behind in my reading of the Sunday Times, not to mention Architectural Digest.
“Back in the 1920’s and 30’s, there used to be a well known restaurant on the ground floor. An old guy I talked to with the city, said that the cops used to think the foundation of the building was honeycombed with tunnels that were used during prohibition to smuggle in whiskey from somewhere in the park across the street.”
“They ever find any tunnels?”
“Nope.”
“But you think there might still be one.”
“Maybe. You still haven’t told me much, if anything, about what else you know about the shootings in the park.”
“What do you know about Los Miembros?” I asked.
“Not much, unfortunately. Why, do you think the shootings are tied to your case?”
“Maybe.”
He sat a little taller in his chair. “Oh, man. Maybe that’s how Watisi is connected. Maybe some of the people he’s helped finance are part of Los Miembros. Maybe he’s hired them too, like he’s hired that falconer.”
“You’re jumping to a lot of conclusions and you’re missing something,” I said.
“What?”
“Two young men are dead and another person was almost killed last night. Seems like a little too much activity for a dispute over some apartments, don’t you think?” I looked at my watch.
“Yeah, but—”
“I think we need to get back to the courtroom. We’ll miss the hearing,” I said.
* * * * *
Nicole and I took a seat in the back row of the courtroom. LaGrange, who’d smiled pleasantly at Nicole when I’d introduced them, sat in the front row, notepad and pen in hand. Judge Peabody made the protestors leave their signs outside and gaveled everyone into silence. For their part, Dr. Lonigan and a few of the other plaintiff apartment owners sat stoically beside their counsel, a businesslike brunette in a dark gray
suit and black stockings.
Unfortunately, we were out of luck when it came to Watisi. I should have guessed. The wealthy developer apparently wasn’t required to appear in person and had sent two middle-aged male attorneys in his stead.
“If Watisi isn’t going to show, this may not be getting us anywhere,” I whispered to Nicole. I’d already told her what I’d learned from the reporter.
Up front, the hearing appeared to have bogged down before it even started over some procedural motion or question. The judge had the opposing attorneys before his bench discussing an arcane section of the housing statutes in tones that were barely audible to the rest of us in the room.
This was the sort of thing that always drove me nuts about going to court. Half the time, the lawyers and judges would spar over puny conditions that only tangentially related to the matter at hand. They managed to create a mini-bureaucracy right there before your eyes.
My phone began to vibrate from inside my jacket pocket. I pulled it out and quietly and thankfully slipped out the door.
The call was from Marcia in Charlottesville.
“You okay?” she wanted to know when I answered. I made sure to stand far enough away from the TV camera crew that they wouldn’t overhear what I said.
“Yeah, fine. Sorry I didn’t call you last night. It turned into kind of a late evening.”
“How’s everything going?” she asked.
“Not so good.”
“Why? What happened?”
“Darla was shot last night.”
“What?”
“Took a bullet in the leg. She’s going to be out of action for a while. But she’s going to be okay.”
“Does the client still want you to keep working?”
“I haven’t talked to her yet. Things are a little crazy at the moment.” I told her about the courtroom and the protestors. I glanced down the hall at the distant TV personnel. They were busy interviewing one of the activists who’d also stepped out of the courtroom, but thankfully no one was paying me any attention.
“Maybe you should just let the police handle the whole investigation.”
“Can’t,” I said. “We’re in too deep now. And besides, I think we may even have found our falconer.”
“So he exists.”
“Looks that way.”
“I’m worried about you.”
