Bronx Requiem

by John Clarkson

  Tyrell turned toward Palmer and mumbled, “Huh?”

  “C’mon, listen up. My name is John Palmer. I’m the detective in charge here. My men found you out back. I need to know something. You were here when the guy in the front room got shot, right?”

  Tyrell had both eyes open now.

  Palmer repeated, “You were here, right?” Making it sound more conspiratorial.

  Still no answer.

  Palmer lowered his voice, looked behind him to make sure no one was hovering outside the door. He leaned closer to Tyrell. “When that guy got shot, you were here.”

  This time it wasn’t a question.

  “Yeah,” answered Tyrell.

  Palmer nodded.

  “Good, that means you have a chance to help yourself out. What’s your name?”

  “Tyrell. Tyrell Williams.”

  “Okay, Tyrell, you’re going to need medical attention for your injuries. You need to be taken care of, you know what I mean?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It doesn’t look to me like you could have pulled any trigger. Doesn’t seem like you even had a gun.”

  “No. I didn’t have no gun.”

  Palmer kept going, knowing he was completely leading his witness. Describing to him the answers he wanted.

  “I pulled up outside here in time to see three guys coming out of this house in a big hurry. They got into a black car. Look like a black Ford Vic, or maybe a Lincoln Town Car.”

  Tyrell listened, and waited.

  “There were three plus the driver,” said Palmer. “One of ’em was white. Had a shotgun. He fired at me.”

  Still Tyrell didn’t comment.

  “You know who they were, Tyrell?”

  “I don’t know who they were, but they was up here.” Tyrell pointed to his face. “One of ’em did this to me.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  Palmer asked the next question softly. As if he and Tyrell were friends.

  “I’m assuming they shot the guy out in the front room.”

  Tyrell hesitated only slightly before he gave Palmer the answer he was seeking, making sure to use the plural as Palmer had. “Yeah. Yeah, they shot him.”

  “You know why?”

  Tyrell thought carefully before he answered. “Something about a friend of theirs.”

  “I see. How many were there?”

  “Four. Two whites. One brother. One spic.”

  “Who’s the guy they shot?”

  “Name is Derrick. Derrick Watkins.”

  “Which one shot him, Tyrell?”

  “The white guy. There was two white guys.” Tyrell pointed to his face. “The one who did this to me shot Derrick.”

  Palmer mustered a look of sympathy. “Really. Think you could identify him?”

  “Hell yeah I can identify him.”

  Palmer patted Tyrell’s shoulder. “Good. Good. All right, I want you to take it easy. Don’t worry about anything. I’m gonna make sure you’re okay. You know. Get somebody in here to look at your injuries. Give you something for the pain.”

  As he spoke, Palmer unlocked one of Tyrell’s handcuffs and attached it to the frame of the bed.

  “Don’t worry about this cuff. This is just procedure. Something I have to do until I get things set up. Understand?”

  Tyrell lifted his left arm and held his wrist in front of Palmer.

  “You arrestin’ me?”

  “No, no. Just procedure until I get you looked after.”

  “Yo, cuz I ain’t done nuthin’ but tell you what you want to know. I don’t want to be cuffed like this for too long. We on the same page?”

  “Sure. Sure. Don’t worry. I just need them on until I get you set up as a witness. Just work with me here.”

  “Yeah, because I’m still a little dizzy and all. I want to be able to recall what you need.”

  Palmer nodded. He didn’t like the implied threat, but at least it showed his witness had a brain. “Well, if you want to do yourself a favor, you’ll make sure you do recall what I need. Otherwise, all kinds of problems come into the picture. Problems about who actually shot that guy out front. You understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yeah, I got it. Ain’t no need for any confusion. I can identify all them motherfuckers. All four of them. Show me their pictures and I’ll pick ’em out for you. All four.”

  “And the white guy who shot Derrick.”

  “Him especially.”

  Palmer stood above Tyrell Williams and smiled down on him.

  “Good. That’s real good.”

  Tyrell nodded at Palmer, saying nothing more. He’d play along with this detective. Let the fucking cops go after those four motherfuckers. Lock their asses up. Then tell Juju Jackson what really went down. Help him and Biggie find that bitch Amelia and make her pay for what she did. Make her pay like she’d never paid in her goddam life. The shit he would do to her was going to be legend. Tyrell Williams closed his eyes picturing how he would strip that fine bitch, tie her up, and rape her for days.

  John Palmer took one last look at his prize witness, lying on the sour-smelling bed, eyes closed, like all was right with the world.

  He’d better call Witherspoon and get him to come over with a photo array with James Beck’s picture. Palmer smiled. Wait’ll Ray finds out how close he is to sending a cop killer back to jail. Forever.

  23

  Demarco Jones had taken a route back from the shootout that avoided security cameras and eluded the cops. Now James Beck and the others sat on couches surrounding a massive coffee table made of petrified wood on the second floor of his three-story waterfront building at the south end of Red Hook—the smell of gun smoke still in their clothes, still ramped up from their brawl with Watkins’s crew, still picturing Derrick Watkins blown away by three shots at close range.

  Beck’s building at the far end of Red Hook provided a measure of safety and security for them. It had taken him a year to renovate the place with help from an assortment of local workers and ex-cons. He’d restored the ground-floor bar, gutted the second and third floors, and built them to meet his needs. The top floor had bedrooms, bathrooms, storage areas, and a workout space. The second floor was an open loft divided into an office space, kitchen/dining area, and seating area.

  Manny and Beck sat on one couch, Demarco and Ciro on the facing couch, all of them finishing a meal Manny had put together in the large upstairs kitchen accompanied by an ample supply of amber lager.

  Demarco asked, “How long you think before the cops come after us for shooting Derrick Watkins?”

  Ciro said, “Maybe never. That cop might have seen us, but he couldn’t identify anybody with me blasting the crap out of his vehicle.”

  Beck said, “He doesn’t have to. I caught a glimpse of him. He fits the description Walter gave us of the cop who showed up at his office this morning.”

  Ciro asked, “Walter Ferguson? The parole guy you work with?”

  “Yeah. That cop and his partner told Walter Packy had been shot. Walter said they were going to interview Packy’s mother-in-law after they talked to him. I gotta figure she told them about me. How me and Walter persuaded her to take Packy in, so he knows I’m tight with Packy. He’ll figure I went after the crew responsible for shooting my friend. It won’t be a big leap to say I killed the guy who I think killed Packy.”

  Demarco said, “Except you didn’t.”

  Manny said, “So what. Cops get someone they can hang a murder on, they ain’t gonna bust their ass trying to find anyone else. In the meantime, James, that girl did everyone a favor getting rid of that lowlife pimp, but I don’t think he shot Packy. He didn’t sound to me like he even knew Packy got shot.”

  Ciro said, “How do we know he wasn’t lying? Guys like that, if their lips are moving they’re lying. Shit, I’d lie my ass off if someone had a shotgun pointed at my foot.”

  Beck said, “Maybe. But I think Manny is right. I don’t think Watkins shot Packy.”

>   Ciro said, “Then who did?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe one of his crew. I also don’t know why the girl shot him. I did not see that coming.”

  Manny said, “Neither did the pimp.”

  Beck said, “She didn’t have a gun on her when you found her, right D?”

  “Absolutely not. The way she was dressed, she had no place to hide a gun.”

  “So every time she left the room, she got something she needed. The hoodie to hide the gun. Then the gun. Her purse. Her shoes.”

  Ciro nodded. “She made her bones, man.”

  Beck said, “What is she? Sixteen? Seventeen?”

  Manny said, “Old enough to have a reason to kill somebody.”

  Beck asked, “But what was the reason? She didn’t know Packy had been shot either. She jumped on me when I said I was a friend of her father’s. She set up everything, getting the gun and all before I announced her father had been shot.”

  Manny said, “I don’t think Packy had shit to do with it. Girl like that, getting whored out? That means she’s getting beaten, raped into submission. Maybe drugged up on top of it. She had enough reasons on her own to pull the trigger. We come along and give her the opportunity.”

  Demarco said, “Agreed, but there was more to it. When I found her, she was locked in one of the bedrooms. She looked crazed. I think she believed they were going to kill her. I think that whole crew was going to pull one last train on her, and then get rid of her.”

  Manny made a sour face, thinking it over. “Animals. But that don’t explain why they wanted to kill her in the first place. Maybe it was because her father raised hell at the projects.”

  Beck said, “Which brings me back to my main question. Why was Packy raising hell? I keep trying to figure out what made him risk his parole hitchhiking into town, and then rush over to that housing project minutes after he arrives ready to take on a whole crew?”

  Ciro said, “Because his daughter was getting turned out. Ain’t that enough of a reason?”

  “Maybe. But it wasn’t as if Packy and the girl were all that close. And the Packy Johnson I knew didn’t do things on the spur of the moment. The better play would have been to come to us for help. There had to be more to it.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. But I guarantee you I’m going to goddam find out.”

  Demarco asked, “How?”

  Beck sat forward. “First, you guys have to find the older brother.” Beck pulled out the IDs Manny had gathered out of his shirt pocket, held one up, and dropped the rest on the coffee table. “Jerome Watkins. If anybody knows what the hell is going on, it’s him. You’ve got to find him, and find him before he gets to Packy’s daughter. If he was going to kill her before, what do you think he’ll do to her now that she shot his brother?”

  Demarco, “She’ll be begging for a bullet before he’s done with her.”

  Manny asked, “And while we’re doing that?”

  “I’ll be looking in the only other place that might have the answers to all this.”

  Ciro asked, “Where?”

  “The place Packy Johnson had been up until seventeen hours before his death. Eastern Correctional.”

  24

  It took nearly three hours to process the crime scene and remove the bloody remains of Derrick Watkins. All the windows in the apartment were opened, and surfaces in the front room were sprayed with an enzyme solvent and deodorizer to cover the lingering odors and make it bearable for the police personnel gathering at the scene.

  Palmer talked to Tyrell Williams twice more. Once, making sure Tyrell picked out James Beck from the photo array as the man who shot Derrick Watkins. And once to make sure Tyrell understood he shouldn’t talk to anyone else but him.

  Since the crimes connected to the shooting of Derrick Watkins involved two precincts, the 42nd, where Paco Johnson had been found, and the 43rd, where Derrick Watkins had been shot, it meant double the number of police brass.

  The bosses from the Four-Two included Lieutenant James Levitt and his sergeant Billy Clovehill, plus Levitt’s boss, the precinct commander Captain Dermott Jennie. From the Four-Three came the precinct commander, a deputy inspector named Kenneth Walker who brought with him a veteran homicide investigator, Richard Albright.

  The last police official to arrive was the man who would decide what happened next, Borough Commander Edward Pierce.

  Palmer, Levitt, the two precinct commanders, and Pierce occupied five seats around the kitchen table in the back of the whorehouse/apartment. Richard Albright and Billy Clovehill stood watching. Palmer had called Ippolito for help with the bureaucratic battle, but he hadn’t shown up yet.

  Even though Palmer had never presented a case before so many bosses, his sense of entitlement and unbridled ambition enabled him to speak calmly and lay out the facts as if he were convinced everything he said was actually true.

  He started with the murder of Paco Johnson in the Four-Two, claiming it had been done by Derrick Watkins in retaliation for Johnson threatening him at Bronx River Houses.

  He then explained that Paco Johnson’s ex-convict friend, James Beck, tracked down and shot Derrick Watkins to avenge the Johnson’s murder, making sure to emphasize Beck’s history as a cop killer who got away with murder once, but shouldn’t get away with it again.

  His presentation ended with an appeal that he and his partner be allowed to pursue both cases, obviously under the supervision of Lieutenant Levitt and Captain Jennie, based on Palmer’s involvement in both murders. He’d caught the original murder in the Four-Two, had followed a lead on that crime to the scene of the second murder, where he’d survived a shotgun attack, and had been able to secure an eyewitness to the shooting in the Four-Three.

  Edward Pierce, the borough commander, let the two precinct commanders argue for jurisdiction, but Pierce ended up giving both cases to the Four-Two, saying Palmer’s eyewitness tipped the scale against Deputy Inspector Walker and the Four-Three. Although it was unsaid, everybody at the table knew Edward Pierce’s decision was influenced by his wanting to stay in the good graces of Palmer’s father.

  And, as if on cue, just before Pierce rendered his opinion, Raymond Ippolito entered the kitchen. Pierce knew Ippolito and considered him a reliable veteran investigator.

  He asked Ippolito, “Ray, are you up to speed on all this?”

  “Pretty much.”

  Pierce pointed to Palmer. “If I give this youngster his head on these cases, can I trust you to ride herd on him?”

  Ippolito answered the borough commander without hesitation. “Absolutely, sir.”

  Pierce looked around the table once, made sure he sounded decisive, and pointed his index finger at John Palmer. “Okay, I’m going to let you see this through with your bosses keeping tabs on you. You’ve got a lot of i’s to dot and t’s to cross. You need hard evidence for all your allegations.”

  “Understood.”

  “You know where to find Beck?”

  “Already working on it. He’s based in Red Hook.”

  “What’s that, the Seven-Six?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Which means another jurisdiction we have to deal with.” He turned to Levitt and Jennie. “You two run interference and coordinate.” He turned back to Palmer. “You get this witness of yours processed and squared away. I want a signed statement tonight. And you make damn sure you don’t lose track of him, or he becomes a problem for us. Then you and Detective Ippolito follow through on every loose end. You have a long way to go before you convince the DA’s office they can win these cases, much less issue warrants.”

  Pierce turned his attention back to Levitt and Jennie. “I’m letting the Four-Two run with this, but if you haven’t nailed everything down in a few days, I’m putting together a task force to take over. And let me know immediately if you run into problems. I don’t want to be the last one to find out about problems. Understood?”

  Everybody at the kitchen table indicated they got it lo
ud and clear. The borough commander walked out of the kitchen trailed by the Four-Three’s Kenneth Walker and his homicide detective Richard Albright, who smiled at Ippolito and whispered as he passed him, “Good luck, butt hole.”

  Once the others were gone, Levitt told Palmer and Ippolito, “Get it done, guys. No screwups. Let me know if you need assistance. See you back at the house.”

  Palmer waited for Levitt, Jennie, and Clovehill to leave and quickly filled in Ippolito about what had gone down and how he’d set up Tyrell Williams, who could be heard snoring through his broken nose in the bedroom down the hall.

  “Ray, I’d say we’re close to nailing this whole thing down tight.”

  Ippolito raised his eyebrows in response and said, “Jeezus fuck, John, you got any idea how far out on a limb you are? With me right next to you?”

  “Don’t worry. It’ll work out. Hey, I’m about to lay down on this table I’m so fuckin’ tired. Let’s get this mutt Tyrell back to the precinct. You take his statement while I grab some sleep. Go easy on him. Help him out, you know what I mean?”

  “Yo, John, the brass is gone. It’s me you’re talking to. Does this scumbag understand the deal? You explained the facts of life to him?”

  “He understands.”

  Ippolito didn’t believe Palmer fully realized what he was trying to pull off, but he made a quick decision. In less than two weeks, he would be officially retired. It was time to play the smart move and go with Palmer.

  “All right, fuck it, I’m not going to ask you if he really saw anything. Just tell me you got it into his head what he has to do.”

  “It’s pretty simple, Ray. He testifies Beck shot Derrick Watkins, or I’ll put the murder on him.”

  “Yeah, it sounds simple but, I’m telling you, the first thing that can bite us in the ass is some cock-sucking double-dealing mulignan of a witness. Fucking shines, you know you can’t trust them, John.”

  “Hey, rely on him doing what’s good for him. He was here. He saw it. What the hell else do we need?”

  Ippolito stared up at the ceiling.

  “What?”

  “Those words, rely on. All right, the hell with it. First thing we have to do is run down his record. I guarantee you he’s dirty.”