by Walter Marks
He went to bed feeling frustrated and angry, and missing his partner terribly.
In the early dawn, Jericho was tossing and turning in bed. Eyes closed, he was in the so-called hypnopompic state — that condition between sleep and full waking, when the mind swirls with dreamlike imagery.
Jericho awoke with a revelation — his mind flashing with five words. He’d experienced this in the past, as if his brain was processing information all night, then giving him the results in the morning.
He got up and walked groggily over to his computer. Mouse’s suicide note was still up on the screen. He read it until he came to those five words.
He copied the sentence that contained them into a Word document, highlighted the five words, then hit BOLD:
They say what I’m doing is the coward’s way out, that a man must fight and never give up the battle. This is not true.
He read the words again — battle. This is not true. Was Mouse telling him something, knowing that Jericho’s detective mind would eventually tease out his partner’s meaning? Or was Jericho reading something into the note that wasn’t there?
There were so many unanswered questions:
Was Mouse’s guilt over causing the little girl’s death in our botched operation sufficient make him take his own life?
If his manicured fingernails suggested he was having an affair, could that have somehow driven Mouse to kill himself?
Was his confinement to desk duty sufficient to cause a fatal depression?
Did his heart illness affect his mental state so gravely that he no longer wanted to live?
Sure, any of these motives, taken together or separately, could have driven Mouse to take his own life. But all of them raised a fundamental question — How could he kill himself, knowing what that would do to his family? His family was by far the most important thing in his life.
Maybe there’s another scenario altogether. But as Mouse used to say, “Don’t speculate, investigate.”
If Mouse’s hidden message was “Battle, this is not true.” Then what is true?
In that moment, Jericho knew he had to go back into the city, and stay there till he got some answers. He had four weeks of vacation time coming, and the month of May was a relatively quiet time in East Hampton, at least until Memorial Day weekend.
After breakfast, he called Police Chief Krauss and told him he needed to take some time off.
“For what?’
“Personal matters.”
Krauss was annoyed. “What kind of personal matters?”
“That’s personal.”
“How much time we talkin’ about?”
“I dunno. Hard to say.”
“Jesus Christ, Jericho. I’m runnin’ a police department here.”
“And the department owes me vacation time.”
The Chief yelled and screamed, but Jericho insisted. The truth was he didn’t want his boss to know he’d be doing a police investigation in another jurisdiction. That would never fly with Krauss.
Jericho pointed out that Detective McCoy, who was Krauss’s drinking buddy, could take over while he was gone. And Detective Dobrowolski was a very capable assistant. He’d be in good hands.
After the chief relented, Jericho thought about where he might stay in NYC. He knew hotel rates were exorbitant, so this was going to be a very costly deal. He considered asking to stay with Keisha and the boys, but realized that would be awkward and emotionally trying.
On the Internet he found a site called CheapoHotels.com. Listed was a place on East 90th called Elegancia Inn — free Wi-Fi, Sharp TV, microwave and mini-fridge available, $95 per night. Definitely my speed, he thought.
He called their number, got the front desk and said he wanted to reserve a room. The girl said no problem, they weren’t completely booked.
He put on a lightweight cotton sport jacket, polo shirt, blue jeans and sneakers. Then he packed a small suitcase and grabbed his laptop, which he put in his battered canvas evidence bag.
He strapped on his Beretta M9 pistol. He was never comfortable without his gun when he was working. And now he was definitely working.
On his way out, he saw the old photograph of himself and Mouse on his desk. With a wistful sigh, he dropped it in his canvas bag, and took off in his car for the city.
Jericho pulled into a self-park garage near the FDR Drive. The hotel was a short
walk away.
He passed a bank and withdrew $700 from the ATM.
The Elegancia Inn was completely devoid of elegancia. It was housed in a renovated tenement, with chipped or missing bricks, rusting fire escapes, and a narrow vertical back-lit sign that kept flashing HOTEL-HOTEL-HOTEL.
The place had a shabby, red velvet-walled lobby that seemed like a remnant from the massage parlor it probably was in the ‘80s.
The desk clerk was a gaunt, Goth girl, with spiked hair and big eyes like those in a Keane painting. Her nametag said Hi. I’m Paloma.
Jericho thought it best to be incognito during his stay in the city. He signed the register book as Darryl Gooden (two of his favorite NY Mets players), writing left-handed and illegibly. He scribbled something indecipherable in the address section, then paid cash for three days in advance.
Paloma handed him the room key.
“Room 302, on the third floor,” she said “You’ll have to, like, walk. Elevator’s on the fritz.”
“When will it off the fritz?”
“I don’t have any information on that.”
“I’d like to get the mini fridge.” Jericho said. “And the microwave.”
“Geez, sorry,” she said. “The only ones we have are taken — we have some, like, long-term residents livin’ here.
“That’s not good.”
“There’s an ice machine on two,” she said. “Lotsa people fill their plastic waste cans with ice, and stick food in it.”
“Thanks for the tip,” Jericho said. He picked up his suitcase, climbed the stairs, and found his room next to the defunct elevator.
Room 302 was long and narrow. It had a queen-sized bed, a card table and two wooden ladder-back chairs, and a Sharp (truth in advertising) TV set, circa 1995. The one window had a great view of the brick wall on the building across the way.
Jericho flopped down on the bed and stared up at the peeling paint on the ceiling. Okay, this place sucks. But it’s all I can afford. I can make it work.
He took out the old picture of himself and Mouse and propped it up against the bedside lamp. Then he put his mind to the investigative steps he needed to take. He knew the cops at the Two Five would be accepting the words in Mouse’s suicide note as the complete truth. But Jericho would work on a different premise — Battle. This is not true.
CHAPTER 7.
Jericho had very little to go on. He couldn’t set foot inside the 25th precinct house and run the risk of getting busted by the wrathful DI Babatunde. Which also meant he’d have no access to NYPD police files, or the findings of CSI and the forensics lab. This would have to be an old-school, low-tech investigation.
But Jericho felt he needed a connection to what was going on inside the precinct house. So he decided to call Danny Santos, the patrolman he’d met at the station’s reception, and make him his new best friend.
They met early that night when Santos got off work, at a below-street-level restaurant on East 87th Street, called Hamm’s Burgers. Jericho had asked him to choose someplace his fellow cops never went to, because this was a personal matter, one he could only share with a good friend of his ex-partner. Danny was intrigued and flattered.
He was a talker. Before the food came, Danny had already given Jericho chapter and verse on his background. He was born in Manila and came here with his parents when he was ten. He was raised in East Flatbush, Brooklyn and went to Erasmus Hall High School. He played varsity baseball and his teammates gave their Filipino shortstop the nickname “Full o’ Peanuts”.
His life’s ambition was to be a detective. He wasn’t
sure he had the smarts, but he was determined to shoot for it — “No guts no glory,” he said. He did okay at the Police Academy, maybe not so great on the class work, but the Community Affairs teacher told him he had “good people skills”.
“What made you want to be a detective?” Jericho asked.
“I guess movies and TV,” he answered. “My fave on TV was The Wire.”
“Great show. I binge-watched it a few years ago.”
“I thought the best detective was Jimmy McNulty. I mean, he thought he was hot shit and didn’t take orders real well, but he really knew his stuff. If a situation was dangerous, he’d jump right in. He did his share of breakin’ the rules on the job, but in the end, he always did the right thing. He was all about justice.”
Jericho smiled knowingly.
“You remember Jimmy McNulty?”
“Of course,” Jericho said. “Did you know he was played by an English actor?”
“No shit? He sounded American as apple pie.”
“Who’s your favorite movie detective?” Jericho asked.
Danny paused to think it over. “Well,” he finally said. “I’d say number one with me is... Humphrey Bogart.”
“You mean Sam Spade?”
“Who?”
“Sam Spade. He’s the fictional detective who...”
“I’ve never seen him,” Danny said. “Was he one of those 40s movie stars?
Y’ know, Film Noy-er?”
“Sort of,” Jericho said.
The burgers came, along with Budweiser for Danny and Beck’s Non-alcoholic for Jericho. As they ate, Jericho looked at Danny’s eager and enthusiastic face. The guy wasn’t likely to make detective, but he could still be a decent cop. Clearly, he had a good heart.
“Anyways,” Danny said. “After the Academy I was assigned to the Two Five. I pounded the beat for three, four years and got to know the neighborhood pretty good.
Then, remember things started to get real bad between the department and the community? What with all the back and forth over stop-and-frisk, and that Staten Island choke-hold business? The Mayor said the public face of the department hadda change. The Chief wanted somebody who would make nice with the public, especially at the reception station, which is where folks get their first impression. That’s where I came in. Mouse — who befriended me when I was a rookie — he recommended me. He told the Chief I touched all the bases — I’m good with people, spoke Spanish… at any rate, he thought I was a perfect face for the Department. So I got the job. Day shift. Plus a pay raise. Real nice o’ Mouse, if you ask me.”
“Did you spend a lot of time with him?”
“Some,” Danny responded. “We’d chit-chat around the station house, and have a beer together from time to time.”
“Did you notice any change in his behavior recently? Did he seem anxious, or did he do anything out of the ordinary?”
“Not really,” Danny said. “But, y’know, the last time I saw him, which was the afternoon of the day he... he passed...”
He broke off, shaking his head sadly.
“What happened?”
Danny took a breath and went on. “Well, that afternoon I asked Mouse if he wanted to grab a beer with me after work, and he said “I can’t. There’s something I gotta do.”
“Was that odd?”
“Yeah, it kinda was,” Danny said. “I mean, in the past, if he didn’t wanna go out, he’d say “I gotta get home.” Or “I gotta help my kids with homework.” Or like that. It was never ‘There’s something I gotta do.’”
“Did you ask him what that ‘something’ was?”
“No. It was none of my business,” Danny said. “Listen, I don’t know if that means anything or not. Maybe it sounds like I’m tryin’ to play detective here, and, okay, maybe I am. But you got the gold shield, and me, I’m just tryin’ to help.”
“You’re a big help,” Jericho said. “In fact I could use your detective skills in another area.”
“Really?”
“Here’s the situation,” Jericho said, in a confidential tone. “This is just between us, okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, there are some things that bother me about Mouse’s death,” Jericho went on. “For one thing, it’s not in his character to kill himself. He was devoted to his family and to leave them like this — it doesn’t make sense.”
“So — you think maybe he was murdered?”
“Right now I’d say no — he left a suicide note.” Jericho said. “I mean, if someone put a gun to his head and said ‘write a suicide note or I’ll shoot you’ why would he do that? He’d be killed either way, so writing the note would be letting the killer get away with murder.”
“And he was a cop. A cop would never let that happen.”
“Exactly,” Jericho said. “I’m thinking there must’ve been something really stressful going on in his life, something so terrible that it triggered his death. I need to find out what that was.”
Danny opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out.
“Danny,” Jericho said. “Do you want to help me? Do you want to help Mouse?”
“Hell, yeah.”
“This has to be absolutely secret, just between the two of us. And it may involve some risk on your part.”
“No problem.”
“You’re sure?”
“Count me in.”
“Okay,” Jericho said. “Inspector Babatunde banned me from this investigation, so I need somebody to... to do what I’d do if I were inside and on the case.”
“An inside man. Gotcha.”
“You know Detective Reardon?”
“Yeah.”
“Well enough to talk to him?”
“Sure,” Danny said. “We’re both Yankee fans, so we chit-chat all the time.”
“That’s good. Maybe you’ll find out something useful.” Jericho said. “In case you want to reach me, here’s my card.”
“Great.”
“Sorry it’s not as fancy as yours!”
Danny laughed.
“Right now, here’s what I need,” Jericho went on. “As far as I know, Mouse’s cell phone hasn’t turned up. It could contain valuable clues — who he was contacting, where he was going.
“It’s probably a long shot, but maybe they haven’t looked in his locker yet. After all, they’re treating this case like a simple suicide, so they may not be digging too deep. On the other hand, I’m treating it as a suspicious death. So I want you to check out his locker; maybe his phone’s in there.”
“I could do it tomorrow morning when I go in to work,” Danny said. “I go into my own locker then, so it won’t look suspicious — I’ll just wait till nobody’s around.”
“Good,” Jericho said. “He’s got a combination lock. The number is his house address. Got a pencil?”
“Pen. I’ll write it down on this napkin.”
“Six...five...eight.”
“Got it.”
“Y’know, first you turn it clockwise, then...”
“I told ya. I got it.”
“Right.”
“Lemme ask ya something,” Danny said. “What if Mouse changed his combination?”
“We’re fucked.”
“What if there’s no phone?”
“I told you, it’s a long shot.”
Danny looked thoughtful for a moment. “This thing I’m gonna do,” he said. “It’s dangerous and it’s breakin’ the rules, right?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good,” Danny said. “Now I feel like Detective Jimmy McNulty!”
CHAPTER 8.
After dinner, Jericho walked back to the hotel. He passed “Jay-Jay Grocery & Flowers,” one of New York’s fast disappearing Korean delis, put out of business by Duane Reade drugstores, the ubiquitous Stop & Shops, and Whole Foods.
He went in to pick up a few breakfast items to store later in his room’s ice-filled trash can.
The young Asian girl behind the counter smiled at him. T
here were no other customers in the store.
“How’s it goin’, Mister?” the girl said, with no trace of an accent. Probably second generation, raised in this country.
“Good, thanks,” Jericho said. He picked up a red plastic shopping basket and walked down the aisle. He’d always been amazed at the variety of name-brand items these little delis kept on their shelves.
He found a package of Starbucks instant French Roast, some Jif peanut butter, and Pepperidge Farm oatmeal cookies. Then he went to the cooler section in the back to get some OJ.
Suddenly, he heard a muffled scream, and a guy yelling, “shut the fuck up.” He drew his Beretta from his shoulder holster, and edged around a pillar where he could see what was going on.
Some punk had jumped the counter and grabbed the cashier from behind. His left arm gripped her around the waist and his right hand held a gleaming switchblade to her throat.
“Open the fucking register, puta!” he snarled.
Jericho crouched and moved quickly down the aisle, his gun in a two-handed grip.
“Police! Drop the knife!”
The punk saw him and tightened his hold on the girl’s waist. He made a sawing motion in front of his victim’s throat. “Drop your gun or she’s history!”
“I’m a police officer.”
“Where your badge?”
“Right here,” Jericho said, indicating his Beretta.
“Put down the piece, cabrón! Or this cunt’s blood gonna be on your hands.” He pressed the edge of his knife against the terrified girl’s throat. She looked at Jericho with pleading eyes.
“Let me explain something,” Jericho said calmly. “This gun is aimed directly at your head. And I’m a very good shot. You might be fast with the knife, but believe me, you ain’t as fast as a bullet. If you do manage to cut that girl, she’ll end up in the emergency room and you’ll end up in the morgue.”
“You wanna take that chance?’
“Do you?”
Jericho started moving towards him. “The closer I get,” he said. “the less time the bullet’ll take to blow your brains out.”
