Bodies in Winter hc-1

by Robert Knightly

  ‘The evidence you’re demanding is out there to be found,’ I continued. ‘I would have found it on my own, if I hadn’t been pulled off the case. For example, the crime scene where DuWayne Spott overdosed? I admit that I didn’t get much of a look at it before I was relieved, but what I did see was discarded garbage, soiled utensils, blankets and mattresses. We both know this evidence went into storage when the job decided that Spott’s death resulted from an accidental overdose. Likewise for the evidence collected at the David Lodge scene. DuWayne killed David Lodge? There isn’t going to be a trial because DuWayne is conveniently dead? Time to conserve our limited resources by packing the physical evidence into a box, then shipping it to the property clerk’s office.’

  Sarney attempted to interrupt, but I was well into my act by then. ‘Now take Ellen Lodge’s phone records. Given that we know there were two shooters present when her husband was killed, and that we suspect she’s covering for somebody by throwing all the blame on Dante Russo, it would be nice to run back through her phone records for the last six months. Just on the off-chance that she made contact with an unknown co-conspirator. But, of course, being as it’s not my case, I have no way to get those records.’

  I went on for some time, mentioning, along the way, Clarence Spott’s vehicle, somehow unaccounted for on the night he was killed, the sad lack of scrutiny paid to the Broom’s sudden demise, the failure to capitalize on Jarazelsky’s parole status, and Ted Savio, the lawyer shared by David Lodge, Justin Whitlock, Pete Jarazelsky and Ellen Lodge.

  ‘The finances,’ I concluded, ‘are the key. Russo’s, Jarazelsky’s, Szarek’s, Ellen Lodge’s, and most of all Greenpoint Carton’s. Once we start tracing the money, the house of cards is gonna come crashing down.’

  Sarney raised a finger, as if he expected to win on a technicality. ‘Only a grand jury can subpoena financial records. And a grand jury can only be convened by the DA. You know that, right?’

  ‘That’s why Ellen Lodge has to be arrested. Look, David Lodge became a celebrity on the day he was charged with killing Clarence Spott. That’s why his murder drew media scrutiny in the first place. So, what do you think’s gonna happen when the reporters find out his wife’s been arrested for his murder?’

  Sarney shuddered. ‘If that were to happen,’ he said, ‘blood would flow.’

  ‘Not necessarily.’ I waited until Sarney’s eyes rose to meet mine. ‘If the job admits it made mistakes, then moves to clean house, the damage can be limited. There are bad apples in every barrel, right? On the other hand, if Ellen Lodge is released and some insider leaks it to the media after the fact? Think about it, lou. Think about what’s gonna happen if Ellen Lodge is released on your authority. Think about what the job will do to protect itself. Think about what it feels like to be the official NYPD scapegoat.’

  I expected Sarney to explode at that point, but he surprised me, perhaps because he’d already considered this outcome.

  ‘Wait in the squad room,’ he ordered, ‘and see that Ellen Lodge gets to call her lawyer.’

  Jack Petro and the four-to-midnight detectives were standing by the door when I came out. They fled at my appearance, which was fine by me. I knew they’d repeat the conversation they’d overheard to every cop they came across. That was all I wanted from them.

  Ellen Lodge was considerably more subdued when I offered her my cell phone. She’d been contemplating her fate for an hour by this time.

  ‘You still have options,’ I explained, ‘if you want to take them.’

  She stared at the phone for a moment, her expression puzzled, as if she was having difficulty remembering what it was for. Then she said, ‘You think I could use the bathroom?’

  I accompanied her, but, of course, had to remain outside, risking the chance that she’d escape through the window. She didn’t, emerging instead with her face scrubbed. Again, I made an attempt to reach her.

  ‘Conspiracy in the first degree is an A-One felony,’ I said. ‘It carries a maximum penalty of life without parole, which you are very likely to get. We’re looking at five murders here.’

  Ellen shook her head. ‘You’re not supposed to talk to me without my lawyer present.’

  ‘Well, that’s just it, that lawyer. What you wanna do is instruct him to cut the best deal possible in return for your truthful testimony. It’s the only way out.’

  I could see it in her eyes, the message hitting home. She hadn’t been expecting an arrest and was unprepared for the rigors to follow. Unless Sarney cut her loose, she’d be looking at a night on Rikers Island, then a very brief appearance before an arraignment judge who would remand her without bail, the fate of all accused murderers in New York City.

  I led Ellen back to the interrogation room and left her with my cell phone. When I returned a few minutes later to retrieve the phone, I asked, ‘You have any luck?’

  ‘My lawyer will be here in an hour.’

  ‘And what lawyer would that be?’

  ‘Theodore Savio.’

  Inspector Thaddeus Clark, accompanied by Sergeant Joe Flaherty, beat the lawyer by a good fifteen minutes. They barged into Sarney’s office, without knocking and without so much as glancing in my direction. A few seconds later, the blinds came crashing down.

  I recognized both men. From his office at Queens North Borough Command, Clark supervised the detective squads in six NYPD precincts. Flaherty was his driver.

  When Theodore Savio arrived, he too went directly to Sarney’s office, though he did pause long enough to knock before opening the door. Savio was tall, slender and well-dressed. He wore a Russian fur hat, undoubtedly sable, and a black overcoat, undoubtedly cashmere. Everything about the coat, from the fit of the shoulders to the ruler-straight drop from armpit to hem, was perfect.

  Savio emerged less than a minute later. He crossed the room to a wooden coat rack near the stairwell, took off his hat and coat, finally hung them on hooks. ‘Now,’ he said, turning to me, ‘if you’ll kindly show me to my client.’

  Though he maintained a polite smile throughout, Savio’s overall intensity was apparent. He was young and hard-charging, with a long face, a square determined chin and the shoulders of a linebacker. If possible, his charcoal gray suit fit him even better than his coat.

  I led him to his client, then walked back to my desk. For a short time, I fiddled with the five I’d eventually have to write, but then my thoughts began to wander.

  The anger of my superiors, I decided, was nothing more than vanity. In their world, communication flowed in one direction only, from higher to lower. Pissant detectives, like myself, were supposed to take orders and keep their mouths shut. My failure to do so was not only a challenge to their authority but an affront to their dignity as well. The saddest part was that, if asked, each of these ranking officers would claim that their primary concern was to protect the Department. But what they were really protecting was their own asses. That was made clear ten minutes later when Flaherty summoned me into Sarney’s office.

  Inspector Clark cleared his throat as I entered. ‘I want those tapes,’ he said, ‘and any copies you may have made.’

  ‘What are you going to do with them?’ I asked.

  ‘None of your goddamned business.’ Clark’s hair was ghostly white and extremely fine. He wore it pasted flat against his skull, an affectation that drew attention to his shaggy eyebrows and oversized, horn-rimmed glasses. The rap on him was that he was a self-important ass who’d kill for a promotion to deputy chief.

  ‘Did you hear what I said, detective?’

  ‘Inspector,’ I said, ‘as I already told the lieutenant, I don’t have the tapes. My partner has them.’ I raised my arms. ‘But if you wanna search me, I’m willing to give consent.’

  ‘I don’t need to hear that smart mouth. Where’s your partner?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  Clark made an attempt to stare me down, but I simply absorbed the wrath pouring from his blue eyes. It was a little late in the game for in
timidation. Finally, he said, ‘I’m putting you on suspension. Place your badge and your weapon on the desk.’

  ‘What’s the charge?’

  ‘Conduct unbecoming an officer.’

  ‘And what conduct would that be?’

  Clark leaned toward me, his little twisty mouth arranging itself in a smile. ‘If you don’t put your badge and weapon on that desk, and I mean right the fuck now, you’re gonna find yourself in a cell next to Ellen Lodge.’

  And what could I say to that? I took out the billfold holding my badge and ID, laid it on Sarney’s desk, then followed the billfold with my Glock. Though I felt naked and exposed without the badge, surrendering the weapon didn’t bother me at all. That was because I had a Smith amp; Wesson. 38 snugged into a holster attached to my ankle. This was one outcome I’d been anticipating for days.

  ‘It doesn’t matter anyway,’ I said. ‘The investigating part is over. I’ve gone as far as I have to.’

  ‘Is that supposed to be a threat?’

  I responded by turning my back, then opening the door to reveal Ted Savio huddled with Adele Bentibi and Assistant District Attorney Ginnette Lansky. For a moment, I was as shocked as anybody in the room, but then Adele glanced up to flash a smile I knew well. She’d won again.

  Lansky was well turned out in a brown leather coat that fell to mid-calf, a pair of suede boots and an orange scarf that hung open. She was standing with her hands in the pockets of her coat when I opened the door, her lips moving rapidly as she communicated some urgent message to Theodore Savio.

  ‘Mother of God,’ Clark whispered, ‘what have you done now?’

  I was pretty certain the ‘you’ referred to Harry Corbin, but I didn’t react. Ms. Lansky was walking directly toward me and I stepped aside to let her into the office before returning to my desk. Then Ted Savio went off to advise his client, leaving me alone with Adele. She took my hand and squeezed it. I returned the pressure before asking, ‘Bad news for the widow?’

  ‘Mixed news.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Well, she’s going to be arrested, Corbin, and she’ll have to spend the night in jail. But if she survives, the judge will release her tomorrow morning on her own recognizance. At the prosecution’s request, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’ I was captivated by Adele’s exuberance. She was as happy as I’d ever seen her.

  ‘It was Ginnette’s idea, but I have to admit it’s brilliant.’ Adele put her left hand on her hip. Her right was still cradled by the sling. ‘Accused felons, if they’re incarcerated, have to be indicted within a hundred and twenty hours of arrest. But if they’re not incarcerated, the grand jury can investigate for months before delivering an indictment. And there’s no limit on what the grand jury can investigate, either.’

  The news was so good that my initial reaction was to pick it apart. How, I wanted to know, could Adele be sure the DA, possibly in league with the NYPD, wouldn’t bury the investigation? Especially in light of the fact that grand jury proceedings are secret.

  The answer was simple enough. Ellen Lodge’s arrest would be made public on the following morning. At the press conference, District Attorney Kenneth Alessio would announce that the grand jury charged with indicting Ellen Lodge would investigate every aspect of the case, from Clarence Spott’s murder seven years before, to Dante Russo’s disappearance. The only issue still to be resolved was whether the task force to be established would include NYPD personnel or be staffed entirely by the DA’s own investigators.

  Does it hurt now? Does it hurt now?

  An hour later, when Bill Sarney returned my gun and badge, I was so high, I thought I’d explode.

  THIRTY-NINE

  If it weren’t for the rat, Adele and I would have been inside the Nissan when the RAV-4, screened by the falling snow, pulled away from the curb with its headlights off. If it wasn’t for the rat, I would certainly have been preoccupied — starting the Nissan in cold weather was a challenge that required my complete attention. If it weren’t for the rat, Adele would have been inside the car, facing forward, her view restricted by the wiper blades running across the windshield.

  Trapped in a small enclosed space? With no warning? Time to sing your death song.

  But we weren’t inside the Nissan when the RAV-4 pulled away from the curb. Instead, having cleared the windows of snow and opened the door, I was circling the car, pounding on the roof, the hood and the windows. Just in case some mischievous co-worker had decided to play a little joke on me. The unattended Nissan had been parked a couple of blocks from the precinct for nearly four hours.

  Adele was standing by the passenger’s door when I finally got to the trunk, watching me with apparent amusement. Then she glanced over my shoulder toward the end of the block and her eyes narrowed.

  ‘Heads up, Corbin,’ she said as she slipped her right arm out of the sling. ‘I think we’re gonna have company.’

  I spun around to find the silver SUV a half-block away, its tires spinning in several inches of frozen slush despite the four-wheel drive. On the passenger side, the head, shoulders and right arm of a man extended through the fully open window. Though the snow was falling pretty hard and I couldn’t see his hand clearly, I was fairly certain the object he clutched was not a wallet. Nevertheless, though I drew my Glock and laid the sights on the center of his face, I did not fire my weapon until fired upon. Nor did I seek cover. I simply stood there, ignoring the wet, wind-driven snow in my face, muzzle flashes that lit the falling lines of snow with the intensity of a strobe, the SUV itself, which fishtailed back-and-forth, passing within a few feet of my body before describing a complete circle, then finally crashing into a mini-van parked near the corner.

  The whole business took no more than a few seconds. I’d fired my weapon six times as the vehicle approached, then passed me, carefully re-sighting after each shot. All the while, I was aware of Adele’s. 40 caliber AMT firing behind me. That she continued to pull the trigger after the man shooting at us abruptly stopped was reassuring. True, the RAV-4 had been fishtailing from side to side, but there was still the chance that one of the bullets pegged in our general direction had found its mark.

  ‘You hurt, Corbin?’

  In fact, despite my inner calm, I’d somehow bitten deep enough into my lower lip to draw blood. ‘Outside of a self-inflicted bite wound, I seem to have escaped without harm.’ My weapon extended, I began to approach the RAV-4. ‘And you?’

  ‘Never better.’

  I came up on the driver’s side first. The RAV-4 was nosed almost vertically into the side of the mini-van and both its air bags had deployed upon impact. Though I couldn’t know it at the time, the driver, foolish enough to pilot the vehicle without fastening his seat belt, had been killed by his air bag and not by any of the four bullets that passed through the windshield. I only knew that when I put my fingers to his throat, he had no pulse to take.

  As for the second man, the shooter, he’d been hit twice in the face, once near his mouth, the other almost dead center in his forehead. I didn’t bother to take his pulse, nor did I worry about making an identification. These were the same two men who’d trailed us in their boss’s Jaguar on the previous night.

  What a party we had. Internal Affairs, a shooting team, homicide and squad detectives, the Crime Scene Unit, the morgue wagon, a gaggle of overly caffeinated bosses, a pack of media jackals — everybody showed up. At one point, the job brought in a Winnebago outfitted as a command center. Since there was nothing to command, I assumed its function was to give the big dogs a private space in which to consume the coffee and donuts fetched for them by a series of fawning lieutenants.

  Adele and I were separated, then subjected to thorough interrogations. But the shooting was justified and there was no getting past it. At one point, when we were alone, Inspector Clark whispered, ‘You’re a hero now, you hump, but trust me on this: unless you walk away from the job, there’s gonna be a later on.’

  I thanked him for his kin
d words, but held onto my shield nonetheless.

  Adele had another problem, this one more immediate, but she managed to work her way past it. Somehow, she’d failed to register her AMT with the job, an oversight that could have resulted in departmental charges being filed against her. But Adele cleverly pointed out that she wasn’t on duty, she was on vacation, plus as a police officer, she was legally entitled to possess the weapon in New York State. The bosses, she later told me, were grateful for the technicality. If we were to be presented as heroes, however briefly, tainting Adele would obviously be counter-productive.

  It was approaching nine o’clock when a uniformed officer summoned me to the command center where I found Adele waiting alone. I wanted to put my arms around her, but settled for a wink. A moment later, Bill Sarney stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

  ‘Congratulations,’ he said, ‘you won.’

  ‘It’s not a game,’ Adele replied.

  ‘Don’t go there.’

  But Adele was on a roll and she simply continued. ‘It’s not a football game, lieutenant, one side wins, the other side loses, next week we get to do it all over again. It’s real people really getting killed and the NYPD acquiescing to an innocent man being framed for another man’s crime.’

  Far from losing his temper, Sarney folded his arms across his chest and completed his mission. It was over now, for better or for worse.

  ‘You’re being put on paid administrative leave until you’re cleared to work by a department shrink,’ he told us without addressing Adele’s accusation. ‘Make the appointment whenever you’re ready. You wanna take a month, fine. You wanna take a year, that’s also fine.’

  But Adele wasn’t about to be bribed. She reached into her purse, withdrew the wallet holding her badge and ID, then tossed the wallet to Sarney. ‘You’re never going to get the message,’ she declared. ‘Never.’

  Sarney looked down at the wallet in his hands, then slowly raised his eyes to meet mine. ‘What about you, Harry? You wanna give up your shield?’