by David DeLee
She carried a folder and pulled out her own chair. The legs scrapped loudly in the empty space. “Officer Stokes, I’m Detective Christine Levy.” She slapped the file onto the table and sat down. “This is my partner, Detective Frank Flynn.”
He took a seat beside her, letting her take the lead.
“Which one of you is IAD?” Stokes asked.
“I’m with Internal Affairs,” Levy said. “Detective Flynn is Homicide.”
“You’ve been read your rights, Officer Stokes?” Flynn asked.
“Yeah. At the scene. And again here. So twice.”
“And you continue to waive your right to counsel?”
“I don’t need a lawyer.”
“You’re allowed to have a union rep present as well,” Levy said. “Would you like us to call one?”
“No, I just want to get this over with.”
Flynn crossed his arms over his chest and sat back. “That’s not the smart play, patrolman.”
Levy furrowed her forehead and shot him a look.
Stokes leaned forward and moved the blue and white coffee cup to one side. “Look, it’s cool. I’m not hiding behind some lawyer or the union. I didn’t do anything wrong. I’ve got nothing to worry about.”
Flynn gave him a look that said; I certainly hope so, for your sake. “You’re service weapon’s been surrendered?”
“Taken at the scene by my supervisor. Sergeant Pesala.”
“And an intoxilyzer was administered?”
“Yeah. At New York-Presbyterian. Also a blood draw.”
Both of which were routine in cases like this. Levy asked, “What will we find when the results come back?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Flynn repeated.
“Nothing. No drugs. No alcohol. No prescription pills. Nothing.”
Levy opened up the file on the table and cleared her throat, taking back control of the interrogation. The file was Stokes’ personnel jacket. Upside down, he saw his rookie picture. A headshot with him in uniform. He looked so young.
“You joined the department five years ago, is that correct?”
She knew damn well it was. She was looking at the damn file. “Yes.”
Detective Levy spent the next ten minutes going over his record, having him confirm the things she read from his file. Five years on the job, the whole time in uniform, working patrol. “You started out in Brooklyn South?”
“Yes. The Six-one.”
“Fort Siesta,” Flynn said.
“That’s right.”
“A quiet house?” Levy asked.
Flynn nodded. “Back in the day, a lot of short-timers got transferred there to serve out their time before retiring.”
Levy returned her attention to the file. “You transferred to the Seventh a year and a half ago. At your request?”
“That’s right.”
“Why?” she asked.
“I want to make detective. I figure I can’t do that in a house where the most exciting call we get is to have the neighborhood kids turn their music down.”
“You want to be a detective, why?”
“Doesn’t every cop?” Stokes asked.
“No,” Levy said. “Many officers find great satisfaction being in patrol, serving in uniform.”
“Good for them,” Stokes countered, testy. “I want the extra pay and better hours.”
“Okay,” Flynn said. “Tell us what happened.”
Stokes told them.
When he got to the end, he took a swig of coffee and grimaced. It had turned cold. He put the cup as far away as he could reach. He ran his scraped hand over the marred and graffiti-scratched surface of the table. He wondered about the thousands of other people who’d sat here before him.
“It was a simple B&E,” Stokes concluded. “Why’d the little fucker have to run? What’d he have to come at me like that for?”
“Officer Stokes,” Levy asked. “When did you realize the object you saw in his hand wasn’t a gun? That, in fact, it was a cell phone.”
He met her piercing stare. She had blue eyes, icy blue. They were quite beautiful. And very intimidating. She’s IA, he reminded himself. A pretty package that can’t be trusted. “Not until it was all over. I saw something shiny black…in the dark. In the rain. I couldn’t tell what it was. I ordered him to stop. Twice I told him to drop it. But he kept coming at me. He kept bringing his hands down. I swear to God, I thought it was a gun. I thought he was going to shoot me.” Stokes shook his head. “All he had to do was fucking stop. That’s all.”
Flynn and Levy exchanged glances. Levy extracted a form from the file, flipped the cover of the file closed, and slid the form toward Stokes. “This is a Firearms Discharge and Assault Report. I need you to fill it out.” She handed him a pen.
He accepted the pen. “Five years on the job. I’ve only ever had to draw my weapon once before, never fired it, except on the range. Not ever until tonight.”
She and Flynn stood up and headed for the door.
“Two and a half seconds,” Stokes said, almost under his breath.
“What’s that?” Flynn asked, turning.
Stokes looked up from the form. “That’s all it took. Two and a half seconds is all it took to change my fucking life forever.”
“DeShawn Beach’s life is changed forever, too,” Levy said.
Stokes nodded. “Is that his name? Was…his name?”
“Yes.”
“What happens now?” Stokes asked.
Flynn answered as he buttoned his suit jacket. “An investigative shooting team is being formed, led by Captain Ray Whalen, my squad commander. Detective Levy and I will be the lead detectives on it.”
Levy picked up from there. “You’ll be assigned to administrative duty for the next three days. That’s mandatory in all officer-involved shootings.”
“And after that?”
“It depends on where the investigation takes us,” Levy said.
“Fill out the FDAR, Officer Stokes, and we’ll go from there.” Flynn reached the door first.
Stokes called out, “One more question.”
Levy stopped next to Flynn and turned.
“The boy I…I killed.” Stokes swallowed down the lump in his throat. “How old was he?”
“Sixteen, Officer Stokes. He was sixteen years old.”
“Oh, shit.” Stokes buried his face in his hands.
Flynn pulled the door open and the two detectives left.
Homicide Division – Squad Room
7th Precinct – NYPD
Lower East Side, Manhattan
Monday, November 27th 8:05 a.m.
ON THE OTHER SIDE of the door, Captain Ray Whalen watched through the one-way glass. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, the throat of his dress shirt open, and the knot of his brown knit tie pulled down. He stood with his hands in his pockets, rolling on the heels of his feet. The man looked like he’d put in a really rough full day already, but his tour had started less than an hour ago, just like Flynn and Levy.
His detectives joined him to look through the window at Stokes, alone, inside the room. The patrolman wiped tears from his eyes and went about the task of putting pen to paper.
“Hell of a way to start the day,” Whalen said. “What do you think?”
“He comes across as credible,” Levy offered.
“He’s got a clean if unremarkable record. No civilian complaints, but no medals or awards or citations or commendation letters in his jacket either,” Flynn added.
“He was at Fort Siesta for most of his career,” Whalen said as if that explained a lot.
“Still,” Flynn said, not convinced.
“Not every cop’s Serpico, Frank. You clock in, you rattle your doors. That’s being a good cop, too,” Whalen said.
Flynn smiled at the reference.
Back in the day when cops walked their beats, a patrolman would ‘rattle the door’ of closed shops to make sure the business was properly lock
ed up and no one had broken in. Whalen was third-generation cop. That little nugget of advice had probably been passed down from his dad or his grandfather, men who’d raised high in the ranks of the NYPD.
Flynn knew Whalen’s father. He was still on the job when Flynn was a rookie. He’d heard tons a war stories told about the old man, and Whalen’s grand-pappy, too. They’d been cops who did a lot more than rattle doors. And the apple didn’t fall far from the tree when it came to Captain Whalen, though admittedly in his younger days.
“What do you think, Captain?” Levy asked.
Whalen stared through the glass and a silence began to grow.
Finally, he said, “A damn shame is what I think. Poor bastard’s facing every cop’s nightmare, an uncorroborated shooting. It’ll be his word against whatever made up garbage is said by people wanting to make us look bad. You two have got to find something to substantiate his version of what happened out there.”
“And if we can’t?” Levy asked.
“That’s why you’re here, detective,” Whalen said, meaning Internal Affairs. “If there’s evidence of wrongdoing, find it. And if you do, we’ll nail his ass to the wall. But do it fast. Already the media’s in a feeding frenzy over this. The Chief of Ds suddenly has me on speed dial, and One PP’s up my ass wanting to know what we’ve got.”
“CSU is out working the scene,” Flynn said. “With this weather I don’t expect them to get much.” When he’d come into work the rain was down to a misty drizzle, but after the deluge that had fallen through the early morning, anything recoverable would either be washed away or destroyed completely.
“Patrol’s canvassing the apartments and the neighborhood,” Levy said. “See if we can get anyone who saw anything—”
“And is willing to say something,” Flynn added. “Not likely in that neighborhood.”
“Gotta check all the boxes,” Whalen said. “The ME’s taken possession of the body. The family’s being notified.” Whalen pulled a folded scrap of paper from his pocket. “Our vic lived with his mother, Eleanor, and an older brother named Trey. No father in the picture that we know of. Here’s the address.” He handed the paper to Flynn. “Uniforms are making the notification and bringing the mother to the morgue to confirm our preliminary identification.”
Whalen shook his head. Cops got used to seeing dead bodies, but civilians, they were a different story. They’re not prepared for it. Especially when it’s a child. Their child.
“Start with the vic. I wanna know who he was and what he was doing out there at three in the goddamn morning. Talk to his school. His friends. You know the drill.”
“We’re on it,” Flynn said.
“Toro and Lovato are at your disposal. Use ’em. Have them dig into Stokes. Talk to his CO, his fellow officers, all the friends or family they can find. I want to know everything about him, inside and out. Is he a closet racist? Does he have a history of anger management issues? Does he like to kick puppies in his spare time? If there’s anything there, anything, I wanna know it before the newspapers and NY1.”
“He’s married and has a daughter,” Levy said. “We’ll talk to his wife once we’re done speaking with DeShawn’s mom.”
“That’s good. Good.”
They all took another minute to watch Officer Stokes diligently filling out the FDAR. Ben Stokes was right. No matter how this turned out, his life would never be the same again.
“What do you want to do with him?” Levy asked.
“Leave ’im in the box for now. Whether he wants it or not, I’m getting a union rep in there to talk to him.” Whalen walked down the corridor toward his office.
Flynn turned to Levy. “Give me a minute.” To Whalen, he called out, “Hey, boss. You got a second?”
Whalen waved him toward his office.
In the cramped space, Whalen circled around his desk. “What’s up?”
Flynn shut the office door. “I’m wondering if you can—I don’t make this kind of request often, boss, you know that—but do you think you can assign this one to someone else.”
“You know Stokes or the victim?”
“No.”
“There another reason you can’t give this investigation a fair look?”
“Not the investigation, so much as…”
“Levy,” Whalen said.
The two of them had been partners for the best part of the past year. That was until about a month ago when Levy accepted a transfer out of homicide back into IA. She didn’t tell him about it until after everything was said and done. They had a five-minute see-ya-later talk out on the street outside the precinct. He hadn’t seen or heard from her since.
He’d felt betrayed, but mostly confused. He liked her, and if he was being truthful with himself he’d admit he’d had feeling for her. So, it had taken him some time, but he’d felt like he’d dealt with it. Put it behind him.
Until he walked into the squad room that morning and Whalen told him he’d be leading the officer-involved shooting team they were forming. That was no big deal. Flynn had supervised many such investigations during his years as a homicide detective. He didn’t even raise an eyebrow when Whalen said there’d be an IA detective assigned to the team. That was pretty standard departmental procedure, too.
But when he learned the IA detective would be Christine Levy—that landed like a gut punch thrown by Mike Tyson. When he saw her for the first time since she’d walked away, it was as if Muhammad Ali had joined in on the pummeling.
“Yeah, it’s about Levy,” Flynn reluctantly admitted. “We, when she transferred out, it—”
“You shagging her?”
“What? Jesus, boss. No.” Flynn was almost offended by the question. Almost.
“You think she’s not cop enough to do the job?”
“Of course not. She’s top-notch. We both know that.”
“Good. Then put your big boy pants on and work it out like adults.” He pointed toward the door. “Get cracking.”
Scotty’s Diner
Lexington Avenue
Murray Hill, Manhattan
Monday, November 27th 8:52 a.m.
FLYNN TOOK THEM TO Scotty’s Diner, a twenty-four hour place on Lexington Avenue, under a blue awning in the middle of the block. It occupied a narrow space wedged between the House of Lasagna and a place called Mapo Tofu. A Chinese restaurant Flynn guessed from the big red kanji letters painted on the window, but what kind he hadn’t a clue, except it involved tofu. Flynn shuddered at the mere thought.
They drove in uncomfortable silence. Flynn hated that.
Before, when they’d been partners they’d talked, a lot. About everything. Flynn wasn’t the most social of people and yet Christine Levy had had a comfortable way about her. She’d made him want to open up. It seemed, without even trying.
He missed that.
The diner, long and narrow, was coming off its morning rush. They took a booth along the wall. There was additional table service in the back. Most of the stools at the counter were empty, yet there was a clatter of pans hitting stove-tops and metal bowls and utensils banging, the sizzle of fire coming from the kitchen. There was an energy, a buzz, about the place Flynn loved. And the smell of frying bacon and strong brewed coffee made his mouth water.
A waitress came over and poured them hot coffees and took their orders.
When she was gone, Levy asked, “What’s going on with you?”
“How do you mean?”
“Come on, Frank.”
He took a sip of coffee, put his cup down, and rubbed his eyes.
When he didn’t say anything, she pressed. “You’ve barely said two words to me today. And that secret pow-wow with Whelan, what was that about?”
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit,” she said. “You asked him to take me off the case, didn’t you?”
“No.”
“Yes, you did.” She sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. “I can tell.”
“I asked for him to re-ass
ign me.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Why?”
Their food was delivered. A California omelet for her. He had the Belgium waffles swimming in maple syrup, with bacon, hash browns, and a sunny side up egg on the side.
“You’re angry,” she said using a fork to cut through her omelet.
“I’m not angry.” He stabbed at his waffle. As he chewed, he mulled over his response. “I just don’t get it. You got kicked out of IA and the first chance you get you go running back to them, to a unit where you were treated like shit. To work with a bunch of scumbag assholes who don’t deserve to wear a police uniform.” He shook his head and ate. “You’d earned a place with us in homicide. The squad respected you. We were doing good work together.”
“You’re saying Internal Affairs isn’t good work?”
“I’ve got my issues with the rat squad, you know that. But that’s not the point here.”
“What is the point, Frank?” She put down her folk, her omelet only half eaten.
“Okay, here it is. I want to know if you left homicide just so you could prove a point or did you go because…you killed a man, Christine.”
In October, working their last case together, Levy was forced to shoot and kill a man. It had happened on the George Washington Bridge, traffic backed up around them for miles, and they were pinned down by a dirty cop who was trying to escape. A woman in a car, whom Levy had told to stay put, panicked and ran into a hail of bullets mean for Levy. Levy returned fire, killing the cop. It was the first time Levy had ever had to fire in the line of duty.
“You killed a man,” Flynn repeated. “You had someone die in your arms. Have you dealt with that?”
“My therapist says I have.”
“By running away.”
“You act like I quit being a cop,” she shot back. “I went back to IA to prove myself. To show those asshole cops, as you put it, they couldn’t chase me away.”
“Or you could have stayed right where you were. In a squad that had accepted you, where you don’t need to prove yourself.” Flynn sipped his coffee. “Instead, you ran back to where it was safe.”
“Who says IA’s any safer than homicide?”
