by David DeLee
Homicide Division – Break Room
7th Precinct – NYPD
Lower East Side, Manhattan
Monday, November 27th 1:35 p.m.
AFTER THEIR VISIT WITH Miss Ellie Mae Porter, they grabbed a couple of dirty water dogs, sodas, and hot salted pretzels from the street vendor on the corner of Pitt Street and Broome outside the precinct house. They ate in the lobby, out of the rain.
“Look on the bright side,” Flynn said as they later strolled into the squad room. “The morning wasn’t a total waste. We reunited Mr. Pumpkin-White with his mother. That’s something.”
“Maybe we’ll get a commendation,” Levy suggested, downing the last of her Diet Pepsi before tossing the empty can into the recycle bin outside the squad room door.
The squad room was abuzz with activity. Almost every desk had a detective seated at it. They were on the phone talking, jotting down notes, or furiously two-finger typing on the keyboards of their computers. Typical for an eight-to-four shift in homicide where each team of detectives juggled an average of eight open and active investigations at a time. The term “spread thin” didn’t begin to cover it.
He and Levy headed for their desks. Hers, the one facing his, remained unoccupied.
“No one’s using my desk?” she asked, folding and draping her still wet trench coat over the back of the chair.
“Nope,” Flynn said and left it at that.
The newest member of the squad, Danny Toro, was a short, spunky Puerto Rican with a mop of unruly curly black hair from the south Bronx, a recent transfer into the unit from Narcotics. He’d tried to claim the desk but Flynn wouldn’t let him. He made the cop grab a desk from the training classroom downstairs. It was the kind with just a surface table and an attached chair, like the ones found in every grade school classroom across the country. He’d placed it in the corner of the room where he sat now with a phone receiver wedged between his shoulder and his head.
If he minded, he didn’t say. He smiled brightly at seeing Levy and waved, while still listening to his call.
Flynn pulled his service weapon and holster from his hip and put them in the top drawer of his desk. He shut the drawer and noticed Captain Whalen standing at his open office door. As usual, his shirt sleeves were pushed—not rolled—up his arms past his elbows, giving him that working man appearance.
“Flynn. Levy. A word.” He waved for them to join him.
They made their way across the squad room, weaving between the desks arranged in groups of two so the detectives assigned together faced each other and could easily communicate over their flat computer screens. A flat screen TV hung from the ceiling in the corner. The channel set to NY1, the local New York all-news station, but the sound was turned off. On the screen appeared a wide-angle shot of City Hall and an empty podium with a cluster of microphones. The set up for a press conference.
Flynn tried to read the caption scroll underneath to see what was going on, but was interrupted when the door to the breakroom flew open and a young woman stormed out. She had short red hair cut in a pixie style, and a pretty if plain, face. Her thin, red cotton sweater clung a little too tightly to her compact body. It buttoned down the front. She wore gray slacks and flat black shoes. What struck Flynn most about her was the look in her green eyes. They burned with fury.
“Are you the detectives investigating my husband?” she demanded.
Flynn and Levy exchanged glances. He had no idea who the woman was, and from Levy’s expression, he guessed neither did she. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know—”
The woman pointed her finger at him. “Are either of you Detective Flynn or Levy? I’ve been told I had to wait to speak to Detective Flynn or Levy.”
“Captain?” Levy said, looking for direction from Whalen.
“Take it.”
Levy veered toward the woman. “Ma’am, I’m Detective Levy.”
Whalen nodded at Flynn, meaning “let her deal with it.” He stepped into his office, leaving the door open for Flynn to follow.
Levy approached the woman, noticing a small diamond engagement ring and gold wedding band on her finger. “What can I do for you, Mrs…?”
“Stokes. I’m Karen Stokes and my husband—”
Levy nodded and indicated the woman should return to the break room. “We can talk in here.”
With the woman back in the small break room, Levy shut the door behind them, cutting off the distractive low buzz of voices, ringing phones, and general pulse of the active squad room. She twisted the rod, closing the venetian blinds. Why hadn’t she sent Flynn to deal with the woman?
“You want to sit?” Levy indicated the round table and four mismatched chairs that filled the center of the room. With a start, she noticed a young girl with red ponytails sitting at the table busy coloring in a coloring book. “Oh. Hello.”
The little girl looked up and smiled big. Her cheeks were full of freckles.
She swung her legs hard under the table. Her feet didn’t reach the floor
“This is my daughter, Rebecca. She’s five.”
“I see. Hi, Rebecca. I’m Christine.”
“Hi.” She slurped loudly from a Styrofoam cup leaving a thick hot cocoa mustache on her upper lip. A second later, she licked it away.
Karen Stokes pulled out a chair and sat down beside her daughter. She patted the back of her head.
Levy went to the counter and over her shoulder asked, “Coffee?”
“Fine, sure.”
“How do you take it?”
“What? Oh, light and sweet.”
Levy picked up three sugar packets and slapped them against her opposite hand before tearing them open and dumping them into her own coffee. After turning the coffee a milky-brown color with half-and-half, she returned the carton of dairy to the top shelf of the full-size refrigerator, donated to the squad by a local church group the year before. It hummed. The only sound in the room.
The meticulous preparation of coffee gave Levy the time she needed to organize her thoughts, review in her mind what she’d read from Ben Stokes’ personnel jacket and decide how best to deal with Mrs. Stokes—and her daughter—now.
Levy turned away from the counter with cups in hand. She sat down beside Karen, putting one cup in front of her.
Karen looked at it suspiciously. “How awful is it?”
Only a cop’s wife would know about the rock gut swill cops routinely drank by the gallon, usually burnt from being left on a hot burner for hours at a time.
Levy smiled. “For cop coffee, it’s not bad.” She leaned in with a conspiratorial smile. “But if you’re ever at any of the precincts in the Bronx, avoid the coffee like the plague.”
Karen sipped the coffee. She shrugged and nodded.
Levy noticed her hand shook as she picked up the cup.
After another sip, Karen put the cup down. She leveled Levy with a stern stare. “Detective Levy.”
“Call me Christine.”
“No one will tell me what’s going on. When Ben didn’t come home from work this morning, I called his cell but Ben didn’t pick up. He never does that. When I called the station no one would tell me anything.” She stole a glance at her daughter and lowered her voice. “I knew something was wrong. And that it had to be bad.” She covered her mouth with a trembling hand and her green eyes filled with tears. “I thought he was…” she whispered, “dead.”
Levy reached out and patted Karen hand. It was ice cold. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“Did I have to?” A tear tracked down her milky-white cheek. “Go through that. Really. Why can’t anyone simply tell me…”
“I wish there was a better way.”
“There is. Tell me what is going on. I know Ben’s involved with that boy that was shot this morning. I saw the story on the news, saw where it took place. The news didn’t say so, but I put two and two together. That was Ben, but I don’t know anything else.”
“How’d you get my name?”
&
nbsp; “When no one would tell me anything over the phone—only that Ben wasn’t hurt—I came down here. The desk sergeant, I guess he got tired of me ranting on like a lunatic, badgering him, he told me to come up here and talk to one of you. I’ve been waiting for hours for you to get back. What’s going on? Please, just tell me.”
“I can only tell you what we know at this point. Yes, Ben was involved in the shooting early this morning, and yes, he’s fine.” She looked at Rebecca who continued drawing with her head down. “He’s not hurt. How long have you two been married?”
“Seven years. But we’ve been together for nine, since high school.”
Levy smiled. “High school sweethearts, that’s nice. If you’ve been together that long, then you know anytime a police officer’s involved in a shooting there’s a procedure, an investigation we need to conduct.”
Karen leaned in closer, as if closing the gap between them to make sure she didn’t miss a word of what Levy said and to keep what was said from Rebecca’s ears. “That’s what is happening now?”
“That’s right.”
“And the boy he shot? He’s going to be okay, right?”
Levy hesitated. She lowered her voice “I’m sorry to tell you this, but no. He’s not. He was killed.”
The woman leaned back in her chair. Her hands covered her open mouth once more. “Oh, God. No.”
“Mommy?” Rebecca looked up, concern in her eyes. “Are you okay?”
Being the wife of a cop, Levy was sure Karen knew what it meant when a cop killed someone in the line of duty. That cop would face an investigation and internal reviews. There would be department ordered therapy. Afterwards, even in a clean shoot, there could be psychological damage, PTSD, nightmares, moods swings, irritability. Blame. When the victim was a young person, all of that could be made worse. Magnified.
Levy watched the woman absorb the news, gauging how much of the woman’s concern was for the loss of the young man’s life and how much was for the dire situation it put her husband in. And her family. To be fair, Levy thought, if their roles were reversed, her own heart would go out in equal measure to both the deceased and to the man who was now in a world of hurt.
“Yes, baby,” Karen said with a sniffle. “Mommy’s fine. I was just…surprised by what the detect…Christine told me. Go back to coloring.”
Blissfully reassured, Rebecca did as she was told, but her forehead wrinkled with worry lines. Looking down at her coloring book she colored with a greater intensity than before, pressing hard with the crayon to the paper. Levy caught an occasional furtive glance from the girl now.
“Now what?” Karen said. “Ben had to do it. I’m sure of it.”
“We’re continuing our investigation,” Levy said. “Once we determine exactly what happened, we go from there. I really wish there was more I could say, but it’s an on-going investigation.”
“What about Ben? Where is he? Why hasn’t he been able to come home? Can I see him?”
“Not yet, I’m afraid. He’s fine, perfectly,” Levy reassured her again. “But he’s busy giving us his statement. We’re going over every detail. We, my partner and I, need to talk to him again. Verify some of the things he’s told us.”
Karen’s forehead wrinkled and the anger Levy saw in her eyes earlier had returned. “Verify? Are you saying you don’t believe him? That he’s lying about something?”
“No, not at all. Please. We just need to go through the process.” Levy stopped short of telling her everything would be fine.
“Detective, be straight with me. Are you going to arrest my husband?”
“I think the best thing you can do for Ben,” she glanced at the girl, “for everyone concerned, is to go home and go about your normal day as best you can. Ben will be done here soon.”
Levy came to her feet, politely signaling the meeting was over. “I know this is hard, but there’s nothing more you can do except let us do our jobs. We’ll be in touch.”
Karen slid the coffee cup to the middle of the table and came to her feet, too. “Come on, Rebecca.” She held her hand out, and after the little girl gathered up her coloring book and her crayons, she took her mommy’s hand.
“You know what really sucks?” the woman asked. “Ben wasn’t even supposed to be working last night.”
“He wasn’t?”
“No.” Tears welled in her eyes. “He switched shifts with another officer. They were away for the holiday and didn’t want to cut their family visit short, so Ben offered to fill in for him. And then this.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Stokes.”
Karen Stokes forced a smile. “No good deed goes unpunished, they say.” She held Levy with a hard stare. “My husband’s a good man, Detective. A good police officer.”
“I’m sure he is.”
Again that flash of anger she’d shown before. “Don’t patronize me. You don’t know him, don’t know anything about him. Do your job. Make sure you get to know the kind of man he is before you judge him.”
She tugged on Rebecca’s arm and swayed to one side, bumping the table with her hip. Coffee spilled from the cups left there.
Levy reached out and held her by one hand and the opposite elbow. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She forced a smile. “Really. I stood up too fast, just a little dizzy is all. I haven’t eaten,” she laughed, “anything today.”
Levy arched an eyebrow. “You’re sure that’s all?”
“Yes, except…” The woman struggled to meet Levy’s gaze. When she finally looked up she appeared almost embarrassed. “Well, and I’m pregnant. Three months.”
Levy gave her an encouraging smile. “That’s wonderful. Congratulations. Do you want us to have someone take you home?”
Karen shook her head and took a couple of fast, deep breaths. “No. No. I’ll be fine.” She nodded. “I’m okay.”
Levy led her and Rebecca to the door, more concerned than ever for the woman and her husband and what they were about to face. Still, trying to sound as upbeat as possible, Levy opened the door and smiled. “Go home and get some rest. We’ll be in touch as soon as we can. And again, congratulations.”
Homicide Division – Squad Room
7th Precinct – NYPD
Lower East Side, Manhattan
Monday, November 27th 1:40 p.m.
FLYNN WATCHED LEVY LEAD Karen Stokes back into the breakroom. His partner shut the door behind them. The Venetian blinds covering the window banged against the door. He saw Levy cross to the big picture window that looked out over the squad room. She twisted the blinds shut.
Levy had the gentle touch that could calm the woman down. In speaking with her, she might even get some good intel on Ben Stokes. In conducting their investigation, they’d have spoken with the spouse sooner or later anyway. Better to do so now before she’d had a chance to talk to her husband. But not without him.
Not that he didn’t trust Levy to get the job done. He did, and she would. She was a pro at that sort of thing. Her gentle approach would calm the woman down and more than likely get her to open up. He just wanted to be there so he, too, could hear what she had to say first hand. Be in there to gauge the woman’s demeanor, her body language, her tone of voice when she answered a question. There was so much more to an interview than what the person being questioned actually said.
Truth of the matter was he just hated being sidelined. That, and he didn’t want to spend his time explaining to his boss the only progress they’d made was to antagonize a prominent and very public civil rights leader and that they rescued a kitten.
From inside his office, Whalen called out, “Today, Detective.”
Flynn swung his attention back to Whalen’s office. “Yeah. Yeah. Coming.”
He went into the office and halfway through closing the door he stopped. They weren’t alone.
Whalen sat behind his desk, wearing a sour scowl on his face. The office was cramped under the best of conditions. Filled with a credenza and bookcases an
d a desk way too big for the space, every surface was covered with police reports, blotters, case files, manpower reports, and after-action files. The bookcases were filled to brimming with police manuals and procedural textbooks. A pathetic potted plant sat on the windowsill overlooking Pitt Street. The plant, on the verge of dying, its few drooping leaves more brown than green, had only one sickly stalk sticking up out of the potting soil.
Flynn had never known the captain to water it except to pour the old dredges of cold coffee into the hard-packed soil every now and again. Yet the damned plant looked the same, never changing, since the day Flynn started working for Whalen over a dozen years earlier.
ADA Brooke Prescott sat in one of the two chairs facing Whalen’s desk. Dressed in a green skirt and matching blazer, she had on a white collared blouse and wore her long brown hair in a thick ponytail draped over her shoulder. The hairstyle reminded Flynn of the video game character Lara Croft.
As the assistant district attorney assigned to the precinct, they’d worked a number of cases together over the years. Flynn liked her, found her to be a good prosecutor. She wasn’t someone the cops could bamboozle easily with flimsy cases and little evidence. She made them do their jobs. A lot of cops resented her for that. But not Flynn. He respected her for it. Even though it made his job harder, he was a better investigator for it, and he’d never lost a case he’d worked with her. That made her okay in his book.
Whalen introduced the other person in the room, a tall, prim-looking man in an impeccable—meaning expensive and well-tailored—dark, pinstriped suit. “You know Bureau Chief Joseph Gregg, from the DA’s Office.”
The bureau chief was Brooke’s immediate supervisor. Flynn had worked a few cases with Gregg many years earlier when the man had simply been an ADA. Back when Flynn first made detective. He’d not seen the man in years, but had watched as the lawyer rose up the ranks in the DA’s Office. Always an ambitious man, as Flynn recalled, Gregg had done well for himself over the years. The District Attorney of New York County was up for reelection next November, less than a year away, and the latest scuttlebutt was Gregg was preparing to make a run for the office by challenging his boss at the voter’s booth.
