by Jason Starr
A couple of days later, after Geri had left Mangel another message, he finally called back and they spoke for the first time. Geri mentioned that she’d spoken to Hartman recently and filled Mangel in briefly about the wolf deaths, and Mangel said, “Wolf deaths?”
“Yeah,” Geri said. “Remember that case last year? A Manhattan man was found mauled to death in Brooklyn?”
“No, I don’t remember.” Geri couldn’t tell whether Mangel sounded distracted, sarcastic, annoyed, or all of the above.
“Then I was involved in another investigation,” Geri said. “A man in northwest Jersey was found mauled to death outside his house. There was a person of interest in the case living in Manhattan, and Hartman was his main alibi.”
“Mm-hm,” Mangel said.
“Is there a better time to have this conversation?” Geri asked, not bothering to hide that she was pissed off.
“I don’t get what you want me to do.” Now Mangel was definitely annoyed. “Hartman isn’t a suspect in the Olivia Becker case. He isn’t a person of interest either.”
“So what do you think happened to Becker?”
“The investigation is ongoing,” Mangel said. “But if you’re asking me to guess, I think she killed herself. She was unstable, had been acting bizarrely before her death.”
“So where’s the body?”
“I said the investigation is ongoing,” Mangel said. “Is there anything else, because I’m kind of in a hurry now?”
“Yeah, can you let me know if there are any new developments?” Geri said.
“I’ll be sure to do that,” Mangel said. If he was trying to hide the sarcasm in his voice, he wasn’t doing a very good job.
Over the next couple of weeks, Geri continued to follow the progress of the Becker investigation. She didn’t have any further contact with Mangel, but through the department grapevine she heard that the police didn’t have any major new leads in the case. There weren’t any stories in the papers, or even online, and investigators were sticking to the theory that Olivia Becker had committed suicide. Geri wasn’t satisfied, though. She couldn’t shake a feeling that something was off. A happy, successful woman suddenly starts acting bizarrely and kills herself? Yeah, people sometimes have sudden psychotic breaks, but there’s usually a life event that triggers it, like a divorce or getting fired. What was Becker’s life event? She’d apparently been happy and successful with no history of mental illness. And why had Hartman been dismissed as a suspect? If they’d been dating seriously, at least he should have been able to supply what the life event could have been that had triggered Becker’s sudden meltdown. Geri wasn’t doubting whether Mangel was a competent detective. She was sure there must’ve been a good reason why he wasn’t focusing on Hartman. Still, she wanted to know what Hartman’s alibi was for the night Becker had disappeared, and if this were her case she would have at least explored whether there was any connection to any of the wolf killings. While Geri understood that none of this was really her business, that didn’t stop her from wanting to know the details. God knew some parts of her life weren’t perfect, but when it came to police work, she was an obsessive control freak.
So Geri kept pursuing Mangel. He hadn’t returned a couple of her recent calls, but she had gotten through today. She asked him about the case and he said, “We’re on it.” When she pressed for details, he wouldn’t give her anything substantial and then pretty much hung up on her.
Yeah, it was definitely the call to Mangel and the Olivia Becker case that was keeping her awake. The only thing Geri hated more than getting dissed was being kept in the dark. Geri had a feeling that Mangel wasn’t “on” anything. After three weeks, the leads had probably gone cold, and he was willing to accept the likelihood of the theory that Olivia had committed suicide. While it was certainly possible that she had killed herself, Hartman’s connection to the case still bothered Geri, and she knew she wouldn’t have an uninterrupted night’s sleep till she got some answers.
“You shouldn’t’a put his head in the pea soup,” Geri’s partner, Detective Shawn Phillips, said to her.
They were in an unmarked black Charger, Geri driving them up to Washington Heights. Geri and Shawn were opposites in practically every way. He was a large black man—six five and over three hundred pounds—who had played college football at Rutgers and now lived with his wife and two kids in Queens. When they were together it looked like Shawn could squash Geri, and he probably could, but when it came to detective work Geri always took the lead, and Shawn was fine with it; he preferred being in the background. While Geri was emotional and always spoke her mind, Shawn was cool and quiet and rarely lost his temper. When they did the “good cop, bad cop” routine, Geri was always the bad cop.
“So what was I supposed to do?” Geri said. “Let a couple of punks molest me in public?”
“I thought only one of them grabbed you,” Shawn said.
“One or two, what difference does it make?” Geri said, going along Fort Washington Avenue, under the overpass to the GW Bridge.
“Yeah,” Shawn said, “but you provoked them.”
Geri felt confused. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“I’m just saying,” Shawn said. “I mean based on what you’re saying to me, I don’t think putting his head in the pea soup was the right way to go.”
“So what was I supposed to do?” Geri said. “Just sit there calmly and smile and go, ‘Excuse me, would you please remove your hand from my ass and leave the diner?’ Give me a break.”
“What if somebody had a camera?” Shawn said. “What if it wound up on TV?”
“Nobody had a camera,” Geri said.
“You don’t know that,” Shawn said. “These days, everybody has a camera, man. Anybody with a phone can put you on YouTube.”
“There was nobody else in the diner.”
“What about the guys in the kitchen? Or what about the security camera? You think that wasn’t caught on film? You want to see yourself on the ten o’clock news? Or, wait, I got the headline in the Post … COP O’SOUP.” Shawn laughed. “Cop O’Soup, get it? That’s funny, right?”
“No, it’s not funny,” Geri said, hitting the gas to make a light.
“I’m just saying,” Shawn said. “Sometimes you gotta think of all the consequences before you act.”
At the next light she braked hard, and she and Shawn jerked forward a little.
“Okay, let’s just drop it,” Geri said, partly because she didn’t like how Shawn was judging her, and partly because she knew he was right.
“Oooh, somebody’s testy,” Shawn said. “What’s going on with you anyway?”
Geri didn’t feel like answering.
They didn’t speak again till they got to the apartment building on 184th Street where Carlita Morales lived, and Geri said, “You don’t have to come.”
“What,” Shawn said, “you gonna leave me in the car like a dog? Keep the window open a crack so I can breathe?”
Shawn smiled; Geri didn’t.
Together they went over to the tenement and buzzed Morales’s apartment. They had already spoken to her a couple of times but were hoping the third time was a charm and she’d give them some useful information. There had been violence in the neighborhood lately by a Dominican gang called DDP—Dominicans Don’t Play—and the shooting the other night was almost certainly drug-related as the victim, Orlando Rojas, had had a long rap sheet with multiple arrests for dealing and possession. It wasn’t surprising that Morales didn’t want to talk—not very many people wanted to get involved in ratting out drug dealers—but Geri still hoped she could wear her down.
“Si?”
The visit was unscheduled, which was probably why Morales had bothered to answer her intercom.
“Policia, Detectivos Rodriguez y Phillips.”
Now Morales probably regretted answering the intercom big-time.
There was no reply. Geri was about to ring again when Morales buzzed them in.
&n
bsp; On the second floor of the tenement Morales—heavyset, in her fifties, with bushy gray and black hair—was standing in front of the door to her apartment when Geri and Shawn arrived on the landing.
“I told you, no se nada.”
“Cálmate, cálmate,” Geri said. “We just have a few more questions for you.”
“Last time you had a few more questions,” Morales said. “How many times’re you gonna have a few more questions?”
Thinking, Till you start talking, Geri said, “I promise, it won’t take long. Can we come in?”
Though she didn’t exactly seem happy about it, Morales let them into her apartment. It was a studio and, like the last time they had been there, it was a mess—dishes piled in the kitchen, stuff on the floor and the table. The TV was blasting The View.
“Que quieres? Ya te dijo todo.”
“English, please,” Geri said.
At their previous visit, yesterday afternoon, Geri had asked Morales to speak in English so Shawn, who didn’t speak much Spanish, could follow.
“I told you everything,” Morales said. “You’re just wasting your time.”
“You didn’t give us a description of the shooter,” Geri said.
“That’s ’cause I didn’t see the shooter. Seriously, how many times’re we gonna have to do this, ’cause it’s starting to piss me off? I’m busy. I got work to do today.”
Geri looked toward the TV and gave Morales a look as if saying, That’s work? Shawn had the same expression.
“Seriously,” Morales said. “I don’t got time for this.”
“Can we sit down?” Geri asked.
“No,” Morales said.
“It’s okay, we don’t gotta sit,” Shawn said. “Standing burns more calories anyway, right?”
“All right, look,” Geri said to Morales. “You were there. You made the 911 call. You told the operator that you witnessed a shooting—”
“I told you, I made a mistake when I said that,” Morales said. “When I got there the guy was already shot.”
“Or maybe when the cops came you decided to change your story,” Geri said. “Figured, Do I really wanna get in the middle of somethin’ like this? But let me be honest with you right now, okay? Whoever the shooter is, he or she—I’m assuming it’s a he—knows what’s going on. This guy shot somebody, and if he thinks you saw him he’s not gonna forget about it. If he doesn’t know you’ve been talking to us, he’s gonna find out you’ve been talking to us, and he’s gonna start making assumptions, know what I mean? Even if you didn’t ID him, he’ll think you ID’d him, so for you it’s the same difference. You have family in the area, right?”
Morales, distracted and terrified and a little dazed—Geri knew she was getting through to her—didn’t answer.
“She’s asking you about your family,” Shawn said, to jolt her out of it.
“Yes, my whole family’s in the city,” Morales said. “I told you that yesterday.”
“So I don’t have to connect the dots for you, do I?” Geri said. “If, as we suspect, this is DDP-related, I’m sure you’ve heard how brutal they can be, how ruthless, how…” Geri tried to come up with another word to scare the crap out of Morales, but went with, “You know what I’m talking about, right? So the question you gotta ask yourself is how you’ll feel if somebody in your family gets hurt. Because, like I said, they could hurt someone anyway, even if you don’t say a word to us. But if you help us out, we can get this guy, take him off the street before he has a chance to hurt anyone you love.”
Geri furrowed her eyebrows to show how serious and dangerous the situation was, but she hoped she wasn’t overdoing it, that it didn’t seem like an act to get her to talk.
“And what about his friends?” Morales asked. “You gonna take them off the street too?”
“I thought you didn’t see anything,” Geri said.
“I didn’t,” Morales said quickly. “I’m just saying even if I did see something and you got him off the street, that doesn’t mean I’d be safe.”
“Him?” Geri asked.
“Sabes lo que quiero decir,” Morales said.
“What’s she sayin’?” Shawn asked.
“If you saw him,” Geri said, “that means he probably saw you.”
“I know what you’re doing,” Morales said. “You’re just trying to scare me.”
“You’re right, we are trying to scare you,” Geri said, “but that’s because you’re in danger. I guarantee you if this guy knows you saw him, he’ll come after you. Yeah, he might not be the only threat, but chances are he’s just concerned about saving his own ass. It’s doubtful anyone else in DDP cares about you, and the NYPD will do its very best to protect you from any threat that might materialize, including providing you with twenty-four-hour police protection. But we can only help you if you cooperate.”
“Well, I’m not cooperating,” Morales said, “’cause I told you everything I know and I don’t know nothing else. So all you’re doing right now is wasting your time.”
Geri and Shawn exchanged looks, as if saying to each other, Well, at least we tried. They’d been through this act so many times, they had it down pat.
Then Geri said to Morales, “Fine, you want us to go, we’ll go. But the last thing I’ll say is if, God forbid, something does happen to somebody you love, then you’re gonna have to live with your decision. Take it from me, somebody who’s seen lots of people in your situation—talking is a lot better than not talking. At least when you talk you can live with yourself after.” After giving Morales a long, serious glare—she deserved an Academy Award for this—she headed toward the door and Shawn followed her.
Sure enough, just as she was turning the handle, she heard:
“All right.”
Geri smiled slightly, not letting Morales see, then turned back toward her.
“Okay, whatever, I’ll tell you everything.” Morales looked and sounded like she was about to cry. “But you better get the son of a bitch—fast.”
They sat with Morales and finally got a full account of what had transpired the other night. Morales had been about to enter her building when she’d heard a gunshot. She’d seen the victim on the sidewalk and a man—in his early twenties, about five ten, medium build, wavy dark hair down to his shoulders, in a black leather jacket—standing near a double-parked car. She even gave a description of the car—a light blue economy car.
“What about the driver?” Geri asked. “Did you see him?”
“No, I didn’t see anybody else, I swear.”
Geri believed her.
“But the guy with the gun,” Morales continued. “He saw me. He shot the guy again, I guess to make sure he was dead, then after he got in the car, right before he drove away, he looked out the window, right at me. I feel like such an idiot. I don’t know why I stood there; why didn’t I run into my building? If I went right in he wouldn’t’ve seen me. I don’t know why he didn’t shoot me right there. I mean he could’ve shot me, but instead he just smiled. I’ll never forget that smile—it was so calm, so relaxed, like it was a summer day and he was passing by, smiling at a pretty girl on the street. But now he knows what I look like and he knows where I live.”
Morales was crying.
“Think of it this way,” Geri said. “Now we can get him before he has a chance to hurt you.”
“Yeah,” Shawn said. “And maybe you’ll save somebody else’s life too.”
Geri asked Morales if she would come to the station and describe the shooter to a sketch artist.
“Do I have to?” she asked.
“If you want us to make an arrest as fast as possible, yes, you do,” Geri said.
Morales agreed to come back to the precinct. While Geri and Shawn were waiting in the hallway for her to get ready to go, Shawn said, “Nice one, Rodriguez,” and Geri said, “How about you congratulate me after we get the guy?”
They drove Morales to homicide on Broadway and 133rd. Geri and Shawn hung around until t
he artist arrived and then stayed in the room while Morales described the suspect. It took almost an hour, but when the composite was completed Morales looked at it and said, “Oh my God, that’s him. It’s amazing, how did you do that?”
“You did it, not us,” Geri said.
“What happens next?” Morales asked.
“We’ll get the sketch to our officers and to the public and continue our investigation.”
“We’ll do our best,” Geri said. “In the meantime, we’ll have an officer outside your apartment, twenty-four-hour protection.” Geri could tell Morales was concerned, so she grabbed her hand and said, looking right into her eyes, “You did the right thing.”
