Cop Job

by Chris Knopf

  “Is that how he ended up splattered all over the inside of his pickup?”

  “That’s my guess, though nobody’s saying.”

  “I’d prefer if the boats around here stuck to hauling fish,” he said.

  We honored his sentiment with a few more minutes of calm silence, then I said to him, “You know, Hodges, we pay a lot of money to keep up these big boats, we ought to sail them once in a while.”

  He nodded agreement.

  “You got that right. Though the only rhumb line I can follow now is from here to the quarter berth.”

  “We can take the Carpe Mañana,” I said. “If you man the helm, I can screw around with the sails.”

  He thought that was a fine idea and we set a date far enough out to assure his helmsman readiness.

  “It’ll give me a chance to show you how to sail that thing,” he said.

  The shih tzus noticed the arrival of a pair of Canada geese out in the channel and burst in a flurry of black and white fur out of the cockpit and over the cabin top to the bow, where they loudly expressed their disapproval until Hodges yelled at them to shut the hell up.

  “You’d think they’d get tired of doing that,” he said.

  “Not as long as God keeps making water fowl.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I called Jackie the next day and proposed a field trip. I even offered to drive. All she had to do was come along and criticize my car.

  “Your allegiance to that antediluvian ark is not my fault,” she said.

  “At what point does an ark become postdiluvian?”

  “Just pick me up. And bring coffee.”

  Our destination was the headquarters of the New York National Guard Forty-Third Infantry Brigade Combat Team.

  One of the distinctions of a national guard force over the regular army in a hostile theater is all the soldiers come from the same state, often the same towns and cities. That’s why the unofficial name for Jimmy and Alfie’s unit was the Long Island Forty-Third. Likewise, the VA center in Nassau took care of local veterans, so it wasn’t surprising that Jimmy had stumbled over Alfie in the psych ward.

  I didn’t exactly have a reason to go there, other than heightened curiosity about their service together in Iraq. I assumed Jimmy had already said whatever he was going to say, so this seemed the next best way to go. I didn’t know if they’d talk to me, which was another reason to bring along Jackie, who was almost as good as Eddie at getting people to open up.

  It wasn’t until we were under way that Jackie bothered to look up the address on her smartphone, so we were a little surprised to learn the place was nearly in Queens. I began to wish I’d brought Amanda’s Audi, but at least I’d installed a decent modern radio in the Grand Prix and it had a nice riding quality if you didn’t mind zero communication with the road surface. Also Jackie was never at a loss for words, so all I had to do was listen and offer trenchant commentary for her to dispute.

  An hour out, Jackie had a brainstorm and called the headquarters and asked to speak to the public information officer. It turned out they had one, and after a brief delay, he came on. She told him the truth, that she was a defense attorney investigating the murder of a client who’d served in the Long Island Forty-Third in the Iraq War. She gave him Alfie’s name, and we were both relieved to have the guy confirm that Alfie did indeed serve in Iraq, as an E4 specialist trained to operate an M3 Bradley Fighting Vehicle. She said she wanted to learn more about his service, and asked if she and her associate could drop by for a chat. He said sure as long as his commanding officer gave the okay. He said he’d get back to us.

  “We could’ve called before we left,” she said, after getting off the phone.

  “Yeah, but where’s the adventure in that.”

  While waiting we distracted ourselves talking about Allison’s unsteady recovery, and Jackie repeated her firm recommendation that we use the plastic surgeons who worked on her after that concussion from the car bomb turned the left side of her face into a sunken soufflé.

  “They work on the Upper East Side,” she said. “You see their faces on the street up there every day, and you’d never know it. Which is the point.”

  I’d already been in touch with them and told her so. She promised me she’d stop by and talk to Allison at the next opportunity, show off her face, and generally run her through the reconstruction process. I told her I appreciated anything she could do. Then she changed the subject to Alfie, asking me if I had any theories I hadn’t shared, something she often accused me of doing, probably because I often did.

  “No,” I said, honestly. “I think the three murders are connected, and that there’s something very funky going on with the Southampton Town Police, which may or may not have anything to do with Alfie’s murder, his message on your answering machine notwithstanding. I think the killers could be from anywhere, though the motive is local. And I have very little real evidence to support any of this.”

  She nodded.

  “I agree,” she said. “I also think you’ve made yourself a big fat target by agreeing to work with Ross and telling the whole East End that you’re after Alfie’s killer.”

  “We’ve made ourselves big fat targets.”

  “Point taken,” she said.

  “Just keep your Glock and that man mountain close at hand.”

  “Always do.”

  THE HEADQUARTERS for the Long Island Forty-Third wasn’t an attractive building, which you’d expect. It had a low profile and was built with white-painted cinder block, though there were lots of flags and the grounds were neatly trimmed. Which you’d also expect.

  We hadn’t heard back from the PR guy, but that wasn’t surprising or much of a deterrent to either of us. I found a big enough parking spot to handle the Grand Prix and we marched through the front doors.

  The lobby was guarded by a huge glass case filled with trophies, medals, and other commemorations of the Forty-Third’s storied past. Somewhere behind the case was a receptionist, though it took some time to find him. Jackie leaned over the wide expanse of glass in a vain attempt at invading his space and said we had an appointment with the public information officer. The young soldier looked unsettled, but picked up the phone anyway. After a brief discussion, he told us to make ourselves comfortable in the waiting area, an impossible assignment given the remarkably uncomfortable furniture.

  About fifteen minutes later, a blocky woman strode into the lobby and approached us with an awkward gait that was nevertheless brisk and forthright. We both stood up in time to shake her outreached hand.

  “Captain Jane Aubrey,” she said. “Brigade judge advocate.”

  As we introduced ourselves, Jackie told me she was a military lawyer, which I already knew, but acted freshly informed.

  “I’m not sure if we can help with your inquiry, but I’ll hear you out,” she said, addressing Jackie and ignoring me.

  Jackie went through the same explanation she’d given the PR guy, which Captain Aubrey listened to intently. Then she asked us to follow her and brought us to a small conference room just inside the inner door. It reminded me of the interrogation room back at Southampton Town Police HQ, without the one-way mirror, cigarette burns on the tabletop, or other pleasant amenities.

  We all sat.

  “Let me be clear about one thing,” she said, without preamble. “Military records are maintained by the Federal Records Centers and are only accessible by the veteran personally, in this case not an option, or immediate family members.”

  “Since Specialist Aldergreen was an orphan, that’s not an option either,” said Jackie, in a soothingly quiet way. “Though we’re not looking to get his records. We just want to find someone who can talk to us about his experience in Iraq. Someone willing to talk.”

  “No one here is authorized to provide that sort of information.”

  “Does anyone here care that one of your own was brutally murdered?” I asked.

  “Is that a question or an accusation?” said
Captain Aubrey, with no change of tone.

  Jackie gave me a look I knew to be the equivalent of a swift kick under the table.

  “This matter is being treated strictly as a civilian homicide,” said Jackie. “I’m only here to fill in some background on the decedent. Just doing my job as an officer of the court, and an advocate for my client, who deserves a full and thorough investigation of his death. What you would be doing if you were in my shoes.”

  “I would never be in your shoes,” she said. “Very bad for your feet.”

  “You’re right,” said Jackie. “I keep telling myself to be more age appropriate.”

  That’s when I really knew I wasn’t actually part of the conversation.

  “Tell me what you want,” said the captain.

  “As I see it, there’re a few ways we can go about this,” said Jackie. “We can go through all the official channels, fill out applications, mount appeals, start pulling political strings, and make a general nuisance of ourselves, which we both know will mean you and I will be playing canasta in the old folks home before we learn anything of substance. Or we could go to the media with cries of bureaucratic intransigence, and implications of a cover-up. I’ve got the phone number of Roger Angstrom of the New York Times on speed dial.”

  She pulled out her smartphone, pushed a few buttons, and slid it across the table before continuing.

  “Or we can track down the men who served with Specialist Aldergreen through the public records that do exist, though who knows what they’ll say. Or my favorite option, you can direct us toward those most likely to have a credible and responsible recollection of the young man’s combat experience, giving us a clear and accurate picture that we can fold into our background profile, which might have some bearing on this investigation, unlikely as that seems at the moment.”

  Then she sat back in her chair to give the captain some room to return the volley, which didn’t take long.

  “You’re aware that Alfred Aldergreen was severely mentally ill,” said Captain Aubrey.

  “He thought Elrond of Rivendell should run for president, if that’s what you mean,” I said.

  “Alfie was a friend of ours,” said Jackie, back in her temperate mode.

  “Then you’re also aware that he was being treated at the VA center in Nassau County,” said Captain Aubrey.

  “We are,” said Jackie.

  “So you must also know that Colonel David Cardozo of the New York National Guard, retired from the military and his practice in psychiatry, is a regular volunteer at the VA center. Such a fact could not have escaped the notice of a diligent advocate such as yourself.”

  “Of course not,” said Jackie.

  “So there is no reason for this office to provide any information beyond what you already know.”

  “None that I can see,” said Jackie.

  Captain Aubrey put both hands flat on the table.

  “Very well,” she said. “Then this meeting has reached an appropriate conclusion.”

  “I believe it has,” said Jackie.

  With that the captain escorted us back out to the lobby and all the way to the walkway outside the building, where she told us to have a nice day, and then disappeared back inside. Jackie led the way to the Grand Prix, which we used to execute a strategic retreat.

  “That went well,” I said.

  “It would’ve gone better if you’d waited in the car.”

  AS I drove, Jackie did some digging around on her smartphone before placing a call to the VA center. She told the person on the other end of the line that the New York National Guard asked her to get in touch with Retired Colonel Cardozo, a frequent volunteer at the center. The person was unable to confirm or deny the colonel’s whereabouts, but would gladly pass along a message. So we ended up riding around Nassau County for a while hoping to hear back. Which we did, right before throwing in the towel and heading for home.

  “Hello, Colonel Cardozo, or is it doctor?” said Jackie, then after a pause, “Okay, David.”

  Then she gave him the same story we gave the judge advocate. From her animated tone, the conversation was going well. It ended with an agreement to meet at a bar in Center Moriches, a shore town well on the way back to the Hamptons, which to me meant it couldn’t have gone any better.

  Once you took away the art galleries, mansions, and stock brokerages, Center Moriches, like most places on the East End, was basically a small town, with a main street, firehouses, schools, public library, and locals’ favorite seafood restaurant, this one you got to by walking through the gaping jaws of a shark. Jackie said that, given her line of work, the entrance felt right at home. We found places at the bar, already well patronized, including by a tall, bony guy with a long, hooked nose. His eyebrows and temples were grey where the hair tufted out from under a Mets cap. It wasn’t hard to figure him for Cardozo, especially after he caught sight of Jackie and stood up from the bar.

  “The lawyer, I presume,” he said, offering his hand.

  “You presume well,” she said. “This is my associate, Sam Acquillo.”

  “Thanks for meeting me here,” he said. “It’s close to home and if I don’t stop by every night they call missing persons.”

  “It’s the least we could do,” I said, scanning the shelves behind the bar for regular, non-flavored Absolut.

  We arranged the bar stools so all three could easily share in the conversation. As the drinks arrived, Cardozo told us he’d been a widower in good standing for more than ten years and never learned to cook, another reason to be a restaurant regular, a situation Jackie and I had little trouble relating to. As he spoke, I noticed a gentle accent, which I asked him about.

  “I grew up in Lisbon,” he said. “Portuguese father and English mother. And how did I end up here, you’re going to ask next?”

  “I was.”

  “Medical school and a US military in desperate need of psychiatrists, even ones with big noses and funny accents.”

  “Not that big,” said Jackie, looking appraisingly.

  “You should meet my friend Rosaline Arnold,” I said. “Make you look like a pug.”

  We all shared some more personal information, which surprised me given we’d just met, until I realized the guy was a shrink trained to pull that kind of stuff out of people. Even though my track record with folks in that line of work was a bit checkered, I liked him. You got the feeling he was genuinely interested in you, so if it was just part of the act, he was pretty good at it.

  Eventually we got down to talking about Alfie. He’d heard through the veteran grapevine that Alfie had been killed, and how, which brought him a great deal of pain and sorrow. He said if you knew Alfie, which we clearly did, you’d know a violent death would have been particularly horrifying for him, not that any are easy.

  “That he expected something like that to happen to him is no consolation,” he said.

  “We just learned a little about his time in Iraq,” said Jackie. “So he did see combat.”

  Cardozo gave a sad nod.

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “Of the most serious kind.”

  “So I guess his mental state was no big surprise,” she said.

  This time he shook his head.

  “It’s very important to understand that what Specialist Aldergreen suffered from was not post-traumatic stress disorder. There could have been some comorbidity there, and I think the stress of his environment might have triggered his first psychotic break, but Aldergreen was a person with paranoid schizophrenia. It’s a condition inherent to a diseased mind, not something you acquire from your environment, no matter how ugly the experience.”

  For some reason, I always thought that was the case, though it was good to hear it from someone who knew something about that stuff. Not that it would help Alfie much now.

  Jackie encouraged him to go into more detail about the clinical aspects of the psychopathology, which he took to eagerly. You’re not the only one good at pulling information out of people, doc,
I thought to myself.

  She asked how much of it related to Alfie specifically, conceding that we might have traveled into confidential territory. He was unfazed.

  “Who’s going to complain?” he asked. “The man’s dead with no next of kin.”

  Then he went on to call Alfie’s a textbook case, presenting classic symptoms in his early twenties. He was born to a single mother, who committed suicide before Alfie turned two. Cardozo felt strongly that she suffered the same condition, since “there’s a strong hereditary correlation with first-degree relatives.”

  He then reversed course a little by admitting that no symptoms for any mental illness were classic, since every person’s brain was a unique vessel. For example, he noted, Alfie was generally a happy sort.

  “Not all his hallucinations were threatening,” he said. “I think he had a rich inner life, complex and engaging, albeit entirely delusional. Who wouldn’t like a lot of imaginary friends?”

  I had to agree with him, realizing for the first time that Alfie might have thought I was no different from some guy with long robes and a staff sitting there with us. It prompted me to ask a gnawing question.

  “Before he died, Alfie told Jackie the cops were after him,” I said. “He’d complained about them before, but it wasn’t his regular thing. Is it possible to separate his real experience from his hallucinations?”

  Cardozo seemed amused by that.

  “You know the old joke, ‘Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean people aren’t out to get you.’ So no, you can’t separate those things. Though let me put it another way. Aldergreen could have absolutely perceived a genuine threat and responded to it in a completely appropriate way. Don’t forget he’d been in real battles with real enemies shooting at him.”

  Cardozo slid his Mets cap back on his head, revealing a full head of hair, mostly white, but thick and long. His fingers were long and slender, though his hands looked strong enough to crack cue balls.

  “You said it was bad over there,” said Jackie, giving the conversational course another gentle shove.