by Andy Straka
It all amounted to a modestly elaborate, state-of-the-art data processing setup that was beyond my ability to figure out.
Fortunately, I’d brought Nicole.
“Tell me again what we’re doing down here, Dad,” she said.
“Hunting squirrels.”
“Squirrels.” She didn’t look impressed.
“Yeah, you know. What happens when you’re hunting squirrels and you walk into the woods with your red-tailed hawk following on?”
She recited what I’d taught her. “The squirrels freeze on tree trunks opposite you and try to make themselves invisible.”
“Right. And I’m betting we might just find some squirrels inside this security video setup. Or if not, somewhere in this basement.”
“You mean a tunnel like that reporter was talking about.”
“Right.”
“Can we be prosecuted for breaking in down here?”
“Probably. But we’re still guests upstairs, at least until Dr. Lonigan decides to officially fire us.”
“I’m betting if we do find a tunnel or something, we may just find more stuff Watisi is into.”
She sat down in front of what appeared to be the main computer terminal. “What makes you think I’m going to be able to just magically figure out the passwords I need to access this complex digital system?”
“How about ‘cause you’re my daughter and just about the most intelligent young investigator and computer whiz on the planet?”
“I can run with that.”
While Nicole went to work at one of the computer keyboards, I took the opportunity to scout out the sublevels of Grayland Tower. I say sublevels because there seemed to be more than one. An interconnecting labyrinth of passageways led down at least four stories, as far as I could tell. The tunnels served as conduits for all sorts of utility pipes and wires. Only one camera guarded this entire area. It was mounted on the main stairwell. I didn’t even have to be a gymnast to fold my body over the railing and clamber down to the next level without entering its field of view.
The entire foundation of the building looked as though it had been overhauled during renovation and reconstruction. The exception was the northeast corner that interfaced with what looked like a section of steam grates and a narrow utility tunnel running under the street, the entrance to which was covered by a rusty grate surrounded by a layer of burnt orange clay. It was also protected by wired and monitored security fencing so a potential intruder couldn’t pop a manhole cover and make his way into the building.
Intrigued, I was looking over all this construction when I heard Nicole’s footsteps and whispered voice from the stairwell above.
“Dad. Dad, you down there?”
“Yeah,” I said softly.
“I may have found something.”
“Did you avoid the camera coming down the stairs?”
“Yeah, I saw it.”
“Coming right up.”
Back at the computer, I listened as Nicole patiently explained what it was she’d uncovered.
“It isn’t much yet,” she said. “But someone’s put a back door in this network’s basic operating system and possibly altered some video files.”
“Which means?”
“I don’t know what it means, exactly. But it’s not the kind of thing anyone would do for routine network security or maintenance.”
“Can you get into the affected files themselves?”
“Probably not. Even if I could, it might take me a few days or more to unravel all the pieces.”
“Okay.”
“Does this qualify as a squirrel?”
“Maybe.”
“What do you want to do?” she asked.
“I’m thinking … Who would have access to this room and this equipment?”
“Security, of course. Possibly a maintenance person or janitor or someone else who worked in data processing for Watisi.”
“What if one of those people let somebody else in?”
“It could happen, I suppose. But who would want to do that and why?”
“I’m not sure.”
“There’s no way to trace the source of the tampering any sooner?”
“Not that I know of. But if you want to bring Jake into the process, he might have some ideas on how to speed up the process.”
I thought it over. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s close up shop for now and leave this system the way we found it.”
“No problemo.”
“Can you cover your tracks?”
She flexed her fingers and tapped at the keys.
“Unless someone randomly decides to start dusting this keyboard for fingerprints or DNA, they’ll never know I was here.”
23
Nicole and I were seated in Lt. Marbush’s office again at the precinct house in Central Park. Detectives Hickey and Martinez were also there, along with Marbush and another detective. The Lieutenant wasn’t in the mood for mincing words.
“You’re trying to tell me our investigation into the Hicks slayings and Darla’s wounding is definitely related to your client’s fight with her landlord and some stupid cat?”
“You saw the lure at the murder scene the other night,” I said.
“I saw a bloody stuffed animal.”
“With a hunk of meat attached, don’t forget.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“There’s something much larger happening here.”
“Yeah, like the fact that your client, Dr. Lonigan has had a long standing grudge going against Dominic Watisi.”
“What?”
“She didn’t tell you people about that, did she? Lonigan and Watisi were on the same board of directors of a now defunct community development organization a few years ago. From all reports, they didn’t get along then either.”
“Then why would Lonigan buy an expensive apartment from the man?”
“This is Manhattan,” the lieutenant said. “It’s prime real estate and Lonigan needed a place to live not too far from her work. My guess is the realtors handled the whole transaction. Either that or Dr. Lonigan figured it was time to bury the hatchet.”
“Why hasn’t there been anything about this in the newspaper?” I’d read what I thought were all the articles by now, and Barry LaGrange sure hadn’t mentioned or even hinted at such a prospect.
“My guess? Lonigan knows someone at the newspaper, and she didn’t want her past relationship with Watisi revealed.”
“But why wouldn’t Watisi scream bloody murder in his own defense?
She shrugged. “You’ll have to ask him.”
“What, exactly, did this community development organization do?”
“Helped find housing and provide other assistance for the underprivileged.”
“Such as refugees and other newly arrived immigrants?”
“I know what you’re thinking, Frank, but you can forget it. Watisi has already been thoroughly scrutinized by immigration authorities.”
“I’m supposed to feel comforted by that.”
“You’re supposed to leave it alone. That’s all.”
“But there is definitely someone in the park with a bird.”
She shrugged. “So call the state Department of Environmental Conservation or U.S. Fish and Wildlife.”
“What about the other shooter from the woods when Darla was hit, the one with the higher caliber weapon?” Nicole asked.
“We’ve already brought a guy in for questioning. Twenty-year-old Latino—some gun nut with ties to a rival gang who must’ve decided to shoot it out with Los Miembros. He’s a strong candidate for the murders as well.”
I looked out the window of Marbush’s office. There was a maple tree behind the building, its dark green leaves sun speckled and waving in a puff of wind.
“So is Los Miembros trading in live warm bodies or what? We talked to someone who said one of the dead men was heavily into this.”
“They’re behind at least a couple of significant prostituti
on rings, we know that. A lot of their girls barely even speak English. They don’t need to, for what they do.” Her gaze was steady.
“That have anything to do with the motive behind the shootings?”
“Possibly. Or a hundred other things. Like I told you, this shooter we’ve got in custody was from the competition.”
“So you think we’re totally out in left field going after Watisi with our hired falconer theory?” I said.
“Wouldn’t you?”
“You got anything else from ballistics to tie this guy to the shootings?”
“Not yet. Bullets were 7.62x39mm assault rifle Hollow Point, probably Russian.”
“Nasty stuff.”
“We’ve already executed a warrant and are trying to match the fragments to a rifle we pulled from the guy’s apartment. It doesn’t look like a match, but the gun he used the other night could be at the bottom of the East River somewhere,” Marbush said.
“Without the gun or eyewitnesses though, you’re case is still pretty circumstantial.”
“Maybe. Look, forget about it, Frank,” Marbush said. “You stick to your wildlife stuff. You want to go tracking down your bird man, have at it. If you make some connections and anything comes of it, give us a shout. I’ll let you know if something more definite comes up from our end—and don’t forget about what I told you last night. I heard about that little spectacle in housing court earlier.” She stared at me.
“Darla’s convinced there is a link between the missing pets, what happened at the airport, and what’s going on in the park. She’s been living with this thing the longest,” Nicole said.
“Fair enough,” Marbush said. “But it looks like she also missed the Lonigan/Watisi connection from a few years back. I’m not saying either of you are bad detectives, Ms. Pavlicek. Just that you’re probably wrong.”
The lieutenant had a point. I didn’t think Darla had underestimated the urgency of the threats she’d received. Neither had I. But Darla was now hobbled and we were left with what was beginning to look like a crumbling case.
“All right,” I said.
“Look,” she said, “no matter what else happens, you’ve got me curious about the falconer guy. At roll call this morning and afternoon I’m instructing the officers on patrol in and around the park to keep an eye out for this idiot.”
“How about giving them my cell phone number too,” I suggested. “If it’s after dark, it might be hard for them to tell what it is they’re looking at.”
“Okay,” she said. “And it should go without saying as far as you and your daughter are concerned, whatever you come up with, I’d like to be kept informed.”
“Got it.”
But I didn’t get it. Not really. As we left the precinct, the snickers and grins were gone. Warren Fitzhugh nodded gravely at me from his sergeant’s desk. I was beginning to feel the eyes of the hunter, the strange and paradoxical realization that as pursuers we might soon find ourselves being pursued; that I did not understand enough of the motivations of those involved to be able to properly respond to what would happen next.
24
“Why didn’t you tell us you and Watisi had a history,” I asked our client.
Dr. Lonigan was at her easel, painting. She’d been working on a landscape she said, since coming home from work an hour earlier. She’d been so upset by the incident in housing court that morning, she said, that she’d left work early, right after seeing her patients.
“I didn’t think it was relevant,” she said.
“Not relevant? When you’re out there making claims against the man quoted in the newspaper?”
“He’s hiding something. He’s always been hiding something.”
“I may grant you that, but you’re not exactly helping us do our job here.”
“Sorry.”
“You’re sorry.”
“Yes.”
“What are you hiding, Dr. Lonigan?”
She pushed her brush in a wide stroke across the canvas. “Nothing. Just trying to help someone. Just trying to get to the bottom of all this. Same as you.”
“Help someone?” This was a revelation. “Who might that be?”
Her eyes remained on her canvas. “Can’t say.”
“Lovely.”
“I still would like you to keep working for me on this.”
“You bet I will keep working on it,” I said.
She turned to face me. “But not necessarily for me.”
I said nothing.
She went back to her canvas. “Feel free to stay in the apartment and continue to use my car, if you’d like,” she said.
* * * * *
Darla called me from her hospital bed.
“How come you guys haven’t been by to bring me flowers?”
“‘Cause we’re too busy out here trying to solve your case,” I said. Actually, we’d been by twice but she’d been zonked both times and the docs didn’t think she was ready to talk.
She chuckled under her breath. “You go, Franco.” Her voice was still slightly slurred from whatever pain meds they’d given her.
I brought her up to speed on the information we’d gleaned in her absence and the NYPD’s suspect when it came to the murders and her shooting. When I got to the part about the sign-swinging protestors at the courthouse, I could almost hear her shaking her head through the phone.
“You guys don’t have to keep on with this, you know,” she said.
“Are you kidding?,” I said. “Someone’s either got it all wrong or I’m missing a huge piece of the puzzle. And you lying in the hospital. I’m not about to walk from that.”
“Didn’t figure you would,” she said.
I said nothing.
“I’m going to get some sleep now. You be careful out there, Frank. Take care of that daughter of yours. She’s a diamond,” she said. “You tell her I said so.”
“She is that,” I said. “And I will.”
* * * * *
Darkness was still an hour away as Nicole drove us around the outside of Dominic Watisi’s Westchester estate. We’d turned our backs on Lonigan’s Porsche in favor of a nondescript Ford rental. Rush hour traffic on the Major Deegan had delayed our arrival by at least an hour. I could only hope it would do the same for Watisi, who no doubt would be working late at his office in Harlem.
Before we ventured into Central Park again after our mystery falconer, I wanted to get a closer look at Watisi’s castle. I had no idea what we were looking for, other than the fact that Watisi seemed so intent on protecting it. Maybe I was paranoid. Then again, maybe I wasn’t paranoid enough.
The cameras dotting the spiked top of the estate’s brick wall seemed to form an impregnable barrier. They were spread every thirty yards or so. We were probably on someone’s video screen or tape right this moment. At the same time, I noticed something odd about several of the cameras.
“Stop the car right here,” I said.
“What?” Nicole let her foot off the gas to slow down.
“Right here. Stop the car.”
“But they’ll have us on tape. Or the could be watching us right now.”
“Maybe not.”
She did as I said and braked us to a stop at the side of the road.
“Did you bring the stepladder I asked you to get?”
“In the trunk.”
“Great,” I said. “Here goes nothing.”
I climbed out, she popped the trunk, and I pulled out the ladder.
“I hope you know what you’re doing, Dad,” she said.
“Me too.”
I stepped across the grass to the wall and leaned the ladder up against it. I climbed up and found myself nearly face to face with one of the cameras. It looked intimidating. I reached across, grabbed it by the lens, and begin to pull on it.
“Are you nuts?” Nicole said. “If whoever’s in there wasn’t watching us, they’re definitely going to be now.”
The camera swiveled on its base. It felt light as a
feather. I twisted the lens—hard. It broke off in my hand.
I peered inside the casing. Nothing there.
“They’re fakes,” I said.
Nicole climbed out of the car and came over to the ladder.
“The cameras aren’t real?”
“Nope. Not all of them anyway. Strictly used as deterrence. Sometimes, in order to save money, building owners will mix some fake cameras in with the real ones. I’ve been checking out these along the top of the wall. Some are real, but most aren’t. My guess is whatever contractor Watisi used to put these cameras in messed up because we’re smack dab in the middle of a row of fake ones.”
“So there’s a blind spot. We can walk right in.”
“Hopefully.”
“What about the ones back at Grayland Tower?”
“Oh, most of those were real enough, I think. But we’re not exactly sitting in the middle of a high crime area up here.”
“What about further on inside?”
“Oh, I’m sure Watisi will have more real surveillance further on inside, including the human type.”
“At least we can get in.”
“It’s a start,” I said.
The road we were on looked empty enough. It curved downhill in front of us, but we hadn’t passed a single other vehicle as we’d driven along it. Beautiful shade trees, maple and oak, blocked most of the sun here, making it less likely we’d be spotted once we scaled the wall. Only one way to find out for sure.
Nicole opened the trunk of the car and brought out her backpack filled with camera equipment, in case we needed to document what was saw. The fact that we were going in armed meant that we were committing more than one felony. God help us if we were caught.
I went over the wall first, dropping into a nice thick stand of rhododendron, perfect for concealment. I waited for a minute or two. Nothing happened. So far so good. I whispered up to Nicole, who pulled up the ladder from the other side and leaned it down beside me on the inside of the wall, then climbed down next to me.
We waited some more. From where we stood, we could just make out the rooftops of what looked like the main residence or compound above the trees about a quarter mile downhill and to our right. My curiosity was immediately piqued, however, by a different set of structures, much closer to our location. Low slung, barracks-type structures made of wood and corrugated metal, like large mobile homes or temporary housing.
