“If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be in a room where a guy got shot three times.”
“Obviously, let’s just hope he’s not a complete piece of shit. After we find out his record, we have to work on getting corroborating witnesses.”
“I’ll get witnesses if I have to arrest every asshole in that crew and break every one of them.”
“All right, all right, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. One step at a time.”
“Hey, c’mon, Ray, give me some credit. I told you that asshole Beck was important, didn’t I?”
Ippolito lowered his voice. “How do you even know it was Beck who was here? I mean seriously.”
“First of all, I got an eyewitness who says he was here. Second, I can identify Beck leaving the scene.”
“While another guy was shooting at you with a twelve gauge? Careful, John.”
“I saw what I saw, Ray. And it all lines up. Beck is connected to Paco Johnson. We know that from Lorena Leon. Paco Johnson threatened Derrick Watson. We’ll get a half a dozen witnesses at the Bronx River Houses to verify that. Watkins, or one of his guys, popped Johnson. Beck does Watkins in revenge. All the dots connect.”
“Yeah, well the first dot we gotta establish is Derrick Watkins puttin’ a bullet in Paco Johnson. You do see the challenge here, right John?”
“Tyrell will back me up.”
“You can’t put all your eggs in that broke-ass basket.”
“It’s a start.”
“Okay, John, just be realistic, okay? We got a long ways to go before we convince an ADA on this mess. And don’t forget now you got a shitload of bosses looking over your shoulder.”
“Agreed. Absolutely. But if we make good on all this, it’s going to be good for us, Ray. Real good. The links are there. Stick with me, big guy. We are going to make out great.”
Ippolito smirked, taking note of the word we, and not believing for a second that Palmer meant anything other than me.
25
The cell phone alarm signal started slowly. It wasn’t until it reached its fastest, most insistent beeping that John Palmer finally forced himself out of a deep sleep.
He rolled over and sat up on the cot in the 42nd Precinct bunk room. He cursed, rubbed his face, stood up wearing only his boxer shorts and socks. The dark room felt airless. He shuffled into the precinct locker room, rinsed his face in the sink, washed his armpits, and splashed water over his torso. He used paper towels to dry off.
He padded to his locker, slathered on deodorant, and dug out a fresh shirt, before climbing back into his rumpled suit. It was almost 11:30 P.M. He’d slept for two and a half hours. It would have to do.
As he made his way into the precinct, Palmer wondered how Ippolito had done shepherding the case along. Ippolito lived to complain, but he knew how to get things done. Palmer hoped he had gotten a statement out of Tyrell Williams. If Tyrell had balked, there were ways to coerce him. He could threaten to lock up Tyrell as a material witness. There might be some outstanding warrants on Tyrell he could use for leverage. Or, if things had really blown up, he’d turn the tables and arrest Tyrell for the murder of Derrick Watkins. Tyrell might figure the charge would never stick, but at the very least it would mean a long night at Central Booking. Then arraignment on a murder charge, or on conspiracy to commit murder, which would certainly convince a judge to send him to Rikers without bail.
Palmer had plenty of ways to keep Tyrell on the team. But when he walked out into the detective’s work area, he saw Tyrell sitting next to Ippolito’s desk, with Ippolito diligently typing on an old IBM Selectric. A legal pad with Tyrell’s written statement sat on Ippolito’s desk.
Palmer walked up to them and asked, “How’s it going?”
“Good,” said Ippolito. “It took me awhile to get to this, but we’re almost done with Mr. Williams’s statement.”
“Great. Great. How’re you feeling, Tyrell?”
“Like shit, man. All they would give me was goddam Tylenol. I wanna get the fuck out of here.”
“Absolutely. As soon as possible. So where are we, Detective Ippolito?”
Ippolito leaned back from the typewriter and pointed to a file folder sitting on the mess of paperwork littering his desktop. “Detective Witherspoon has a rather extensive file for you, Detective Palmer.”
“Good, good. And do we have an ADA heading our way?”
“As we speak.”
“Okay,” said Palmer as he picked up the Witherspoon folder. “We’ll get a copy of your statement, Tyrell, meet with the assistant DA, and we’ll be all set. We’ll have you out of here in no time.”
Tyrell made a face to show he knew Palmer was bullshitting him.
Ippolito stood up and said, “Tyrell, I’m gonna talk to Detective Palmer for a second.”
Ippolito walked a few desks away, Palmer following him, asking, “Jeezus, Ray. What the fuck’s taking so long?”
“Waiting for you so you can see this mutt’s record before you jump in with this asshole. John, this skel’s sheet goes back to when he was thirteen.”
“Shit. Anything horrible?”
“Define horrible. He’s been arrested for drugs, assault, possession of an unlicensed firearm, for which he did a mandatory twenty-four months.”
“Anything else?”
“Of course. There’s also a bunch of charges before he turned eighteen, which are sealed.”
“Okay, so just the one prison term, right? C’mon, that’s not so bad. It’s the same for plenty of guys in his neighborhood. He’s never testified before, has he?”
“Not that I can tell.”
“Good. We got that going for us.”
“John, that’s not exactly the point. You gotta see Witherspoon’s file on James Beck. His conviction for killing a cop in a bar fight was overturned. Completely exonerated, plus he got a couple million in damages. Technically, he’s clean. As far as the system is concerned, he has no criminal convictions. Nuthin’. Not even a parking ticket.”
“How’d he beat a charge like that?”
“Fuck, I don’t know. Brady shit, or something the judge did. Beck is Kryptonite, or he had a hell of a good shyster, or both.”
Palmer shot back. “James Beck isn’t clean. He’s an ex-convict. He was at the scene of a brutal execution where a guy was shot three times. He shot his fucking face off. He fled the scene with a guy who unloaded a shotgun at me. There’s shit in Beck’s file about an assault charge last year. We’ll find whatever there is to discredit Beck. He’s an ex-con, a murderer, and a cop killer who everyone in this department would love to see back in jail where he belongs.”
“With a lawyer who’ll portray him as a victim of the NYPD. John, all I’m saying is you’re going to need more than one bust-out skel of a witness like Tyrell fucking Williams.”
Palmer said, “I’m going to make these cases, Ray. I’m going to use anybody and everybody in the New York Police Department to help me do it, and in the Bronx DA’s office, and the FBI, and any other place that can help me. You can jump on board or keep an arm’s distance or whatever you want, Ray. It’s up to you.”
Ippolito raised both hands and said, “Yo, relax, man, I’m on your side.” Ippolito checked around them to make sure nobody was within earshot. He leaned closer to Palmer and lowered his voice. “Just hear me out, kid. This is Uncle Ray talking. I been doing this a long time. You want to go after this asshole, Beck, trust me, you’re going to need more than your buddy, Tyrell.”
“I know that.”
“So listen to me, John. You ain’t got time to run around the Bronx trying to persuade some nitwits from Watkins’s crew to be witnesses for you. They live their whole lives getting it pounded into their heads never to rat. Stitches for snitches and all that shit. You’d need a thirty-year bit hanging over one of them to get ’em to turn. It just ain’t going to happen. Not in two or three days. No way.”
“Tyrell turned.”
“For now. He fell into your lap, and he knows you�
��ll try to hang a murder on him if he doesn’t play along.”
“All right, so what do you have in mind, Ray?”
Ippolito looked around again to make sure nobody was within earshot. He bent closer to Palmer and said, “Look, I was going to float this to you back when we were looking for Watkins at Bronx River Houses, but I figured well, whatever.”
“Float what?”
“I think we gotta go to the head honcho and make a deal here.”
“The head honcho?”
“The guy who runs all these mutts.”
“Eric Jackson?”
“Yeah, Eric Juju Jackson.”
“What kind of a deal?”
“We give him something, he gives us witnesses.”
“Why should he help us?” Palmer asked.
“For starters, murder investigations aren’t good for him. He’ll want to shut this thing down as fast as we do. The only way to make that happen quickly is to prove Derrick shot Paco Johnson. Jackson should be happy to get us a couple of witnesses who’ll claim Derrick Watkins did it. Stitchin’ up a dead guy for shooting Johnson is zero skin off Jackson’s ass.”
Palmer nodded. “Makes sense. What about helping us with Beck?”
“Why shouldn’t he? Beck shot his boy Derrick. We ask him nice, he’ll give us a couple of assholes to back up Tyrell’s testimony.”
Palmer said, “Just ask him nice?”
“Well … plus offer him the same thing they all want, John.”
“What?”
“Information. Information that will keep him and his crazy enforcer, Whitey Bondurant, out of jail. Fuck, even disinformation. I don’t give a shit. We both know the Fibbies have got multiple cases they’re developing. Hell, even our dumb asses in Gangs are always looking at Jackson and Bondurant. They’ve been trying to nail those two pricks for years.”
Palmer looked at Ippolito. “Christ, Ray, giving a guy like Eric Jackson inside information? If that ever got out…”
Ippolito raised his hands and said, “John, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I’m just telling you how I see it. It’s up to you. My clock gets permanently punched in two weeks one way or the other. Makes no difference to me. I’m tryin’ to help you if you want to go for it. No risk, no reward.”
Palmer nodded. And then asked, “You ever make a deal with Eric Jackson?”
“No comment.”
Palmer said, “I assume you know how to get to him.”
“You assume correctly. Listen, John, don’t make any decision now. Take what you’ve got—your theory of the murders, Tyrell’s statement, what you saw at the scene, whatever. Present everything to the ADA. Hear what he says. Then decide.”
John Palmer nodded slowly, but both he and Ippolito knew he had already decided.
26
Walter Ferguson walked into Beck’s second-floor loft space looking like he had aged about five years. He sat alone on the unoccupied third couch, so he could face all four men.
Manny asked him, “You hungry, Walter? Let me heat up a plate for you.”
“No thank you, Emmanuel. I’m fine.”
“Something to drink?”
“No, thank you.”
Beck said, “Long day?”
“Yes. Quite a lot to deal with in one day.” Walter checked his watch. 10:14 P.M. “Didn’t realize it was so late. Sorry I kept you all waiting.”
“Don’t worry about it. What can you tell us?”
“Jacobi Hospital isn’t the easiest place to deal with. I waited at the medical examiner’s office there until after eight, and they still didn’t have the report finished. Unfortunately, I don’t have a relationship with the doctor in charge, a fellow named Meyers, so he wouldn’t take the time to talk to me. I had to stay there to read the preliminary notes.”
“They find anything you didn’t expect?”
“Not really. They followed procedures. The notes confirmed he was in a fight. Which the detectives already told me.”
Beck didn’t comment.
“They listed all the scrapes on his hands and trauma to his head and torso, including a diagram showing the location of each injury.” Walter pointed to places on his body as he spoke. “A cracked rib. A bruised spleen. A big contusion on his hip. A note said the hip bruise probably impaired his ability to walk. Hands. Face. Broken jaw.” Walter didn’t have the heart to go into more detail. “Be that as it may, the death certificate stipulated the cause of death was a single gunshot to the back of the head.
“There were notes about which parts of the brain the bullet destroyed, but I didn’t read them. They recovered the bullet. A twenty-two. Fairly intact.”
“Time of death?” asked Beck.
Walter pulled out a notebook from his breast pocket. Flipped through the top pages. “Estimated time between eleven P.M. and one A.M.”
Beck and the others had been listening stoically to what had happened to Paco Johnson. None of them commented, but Beck’s expression clouded with anger. His friend, a man who had saved his life, a man who had been trying to save his daughter’s life, had lain dead in a gutter for hours before anybody even came to look at the body.
Beck cleared his throat, but said nothing.
Now that Walter had delivered the hardest part of his news, he hurried through the rest.
“So, I contacted a funeral director nearby in Carroll Gardens. I know a man who’s worked there many years. He promised to make sure the funeral home takes care of everything correctly.” Walter tore a page out of his notebook and placed it on the coffee table. “Here are his name and contact numbers. He’ll have to wait for the official death certificate. It should be issued tomorrow. Friday latest. It’s all Web-based now. They e-mail copies. The second he gets the death certificate and the body is cleared, he’ll go get Packy and bring him down from Jacobi. Then we can make whatever arrangements we want.”
“Okay,” said Beck. “Thank you, Walter.”
“Of course.”
“You have any report from the police who are investigating this?”
“No. It’s still early, James, but I assure you I will follow up with them.”
“Good. Good. That will be very helpful, Walter. You’ve done everything you could for Packy. And for us.” Beck paused, “But I’m going to ask you to do more.”
Walter turned to Beck, somewhat surprised, but he recovered and said, “Whatever you need, James. Whatever I can do.”
“First, a simple thing. Can you describe the cops who came to see you this morning?”
For a moment, Walter seemed confused at Beck’s request.
“I know you told us before, but can you tell us again, Walter?”
“Of course. There were two of them. A younger man who seemed to be in charge. And an older detective who looked like someone who’s been at the job too long. About thirty pounds overweight, salt-and-pepper hair, combed straight back. Italian. Name is Raymond Ippolito.”
Beck interrupted him. “And the other one?”
“I’d say early thirties. Tallish. Maybe six two. Thin. Brown hair. Styled to look disheveled, which I suspect takes some time to achieve. He impressed me as someone who thinks he’s smarter than everyone around him. Or better. I don’t know which. Maybe both.”
“What’s his name?”
Walter thought for a moment. “Palmer. John Palmer. They both work out of the Forty-second Precinct. I have their contact information if you want it.”
“Hang on to it,” said Beck. “Last question, Walter. Would you consider taking a trip with me up to Eastern Correctional?”
“When?”
“Now. Tonight. We’ll get there, check in to a motel, and then visit the facility tomorrow morning. I’ll have you back in Brooklyn by end of day tomorrow.”
“I don’t have any other clothes with me.”
“We’ll stop by your place. I’m already packed.”
“What do you want to do at Eastern?”
“I’ll tell you what I have in
mind on the way.”
Walter looked at the men sitting around him. None of them offered any comment. Walter looked back at Beck. This was an unusual request. He wanted to ask Beck more, but he simply said, “All right, James.”
27
Captain Jennie had left hours ago, but he told Levitt they could use his office for their meeting with the Bronx assistant district attorney.
Levitt sat behind Jennie’s desk. Palmer and Frederick Wilson, the ADA, sat facing each other from opposite corners of the desk. Ippolito stood by the door. The ADA’s assistant, a heavyset, conservatively dressed Asian woman, sat alone on Jennie’s battered couch, contributing nothing to the meeting except intermittent frowns and adjustments of her wire-rim glasses while Palmer and Frederick Wilson sparred.
Palmer ran down the history of the two murders, the status of the investigation, backgrounds on his suspects, his theory of the murders, ending with emphasizing the advantage of having an eyewitness to the murder of Derrick Watkins.
Levitt made optimistic comments, trying to back up his detective.
Ippolito said nothing.
Wilson, a tall, impeccably groomed black man wearing stylish tortoise-shell-framed glasses had an air of confidence about him. His crisp white shirt and off-the-rack brown suit fit him well. His shoes were polished to a shine, somewhat matched by his gleaming bald head. When Palmer finished, Wilson took no time to focus on the weakest part of his case.
“Look, Detective, I know you have your eyewitness to the second murder.” Wilson checked the notes on his legal pad. “Mr. Tyrell Williams. And hopefully, your witness will hold up against scrutiny.”
Palmer tried to speak, but Wilson raised a hand.
“Please, don’t try to sell me on him. We both know he’s as bad as the criminal who was murdered. And we both know what can happen to a witness between now and two years from now, when we go to trial.
“But, putting all that aside, you need more than a witness. You need motive. You assert that this fellow Beck shot Derrick Watkins in revenge for Watkins killing his friend Paco Johnson. That in itself is problematic, proving that level of friendship. But the bigger problem is you don’t have any evidence proving Derrick Watkins shot Paco Johnson. Without it, you have no motive for Beck.”
Bronx Requiem Page 14
