Devil's Bridge

by Linda Fairstein

  “Maybe so.”

  “My daddy was carrying on with a ho. Plain and simple,” Angela Wilson said, spitting each word out with equal emphasis. “Takeesha Falls is a full-on ho.”

  “I’m—”

  “She don’t care who she rubs up against, as long as there’s a cash bonus for her lovin’, using that word really loosely.”

  “I’m confused a bit. I thought your father was a churchgoing man.”

  “Church?” she said, waving the hand with the handkerchief over her shoulder. “Last time Daddy went to church was for my mother’s funeral, fifteen years ago.”

  “Stay with me, Angela. This is helpful. All I know—all I was told by my boss—was that your father was a good man, a really decent guy, and that he worked—”

  “Daddy hasn’t worked in five years, Detective,” she said, her annoyance temporarily displacing her emotion. “Lost his job driving a livery cab with a few too many arrests for being intox’d behind the wheel. And that was a good thing, getting him off the road.”

  “Okay, but the information we had was that he worked at the church, for Reverend Shipley.”

  “Ha!” Angela Wilson’s laugh split the quiet of the small space like a roll of thunder. “Don’t make me sick, Detective. That man don’t have no church. Some of you white boys are as dumb as you look. You, too, Detective? What church would that be?”

  She stared at the top of my head while I tried to answer her.

  “Well, he’s a preacher, isn’t he?”

  “Without any brick-and-mortar place to preach. The man started life as a backup dancer for Little Richard, Detective. Put a collar on and made himself a minister, and nobody calls his bluff on that, ever. All he does is run some bullshit—excuse me, please, but I’m rather agitated—some bullshit organization that keeps his fat old face in the newspapers. Wants you to think he robs from the rich to give to the poor, when all he does is stuff his own pockets with his take.”

  I didn’t have to ask questions. I just let Angela run with it.

  “Was Daddy there? I told you so. The community center is where Shipley ran the show from. You know that. He controls all those protests against you guys. Against the police.”

  Cops hated Hal Shipley. I tried to keep that in the back of my mind so it didn’t infect how I looked at Wynan Wilson’s murder.

  “Gotham City Humanity Activists, Detective. I know you know that operation. You know what smart folks in Harlem call it, or don’t you? Every organization has an acronym these days, doesn’t it?” Angela said. “Use those first three letters of Gotham, put them together with the rest of the first letters of his city humanity activists. We call it GOTCHA!”

  I smiled for the first time since meeting her. GOTCHA. The guys in the squad were going to love this one.

  “I like your smile, Detective.”

  “And I like your candor. Do you know Shipley?”

  “Hate’s a strong word, and I don’t use it often. But I hate that man.”

  “But it’s fair to say, isn’t it, that your father didn’t feel the same?”

  “Shipley paid the bills for Daddy, didn’t he? I mean, not literally. But he trusted my father to take home those bunches of little envelopes, the ones filled with cash. Those fools who’d send in money from direct-mail advertising. Fifty dollars from a widow in Pittsburgh or twenty from an ex-con in Memphis. For the reverend to carry on his noble work.”

  “What did your father do with the money?”

  “Sat in front of the TV at home, just opening those envelopes and stacking up the cash. Too many nosy people in the community center. Planted it under his mattress for safekeeping.”

  “Then how did he get it back to Shipley?”

  “You’re gonna make yourself bald, you keep stroking your hair like that, Mike,” she said.

  “How do you think he got it back?” I said again.

  I wanted to hear it from Angela without suggesting an answer to her. I didn’t expect what I got.

  “Takeesha Falls is the Reverend Shipley’s whore, Detective. You need a fancy gold shield to figure that one out?”

  “I don’t know the players, Angela.”

  “Here’s the scorecard, Mike. Nobody loves—loved—my daddy more than I did. Warts and all, he was a sweet man.”

  “I hear that.”

  “You think Keesh falls in love with an overweight, out-of-work alcoholic who lives in a fourth-floor walk-up? Don’t give her no bling or take her out for cocktails more than once every two weeks? Hooker with a heart of gold? I sort of doubt it.”

  “She’s Shipley’s—?”

  “I’m not sayin’ she was ever in bed with him. Not necessarily speaking of that kind of whore. But she’s on his payroll, too. Does all his bidding, sexual and otherwise. Shipley introduced her to Daddy, knowing my father’s fondness for a particular type of woman. She encouraged his drinking habit to stop him from too many demands on her body. Most of all, Keesh was supposed to be the watchdog, keeping Daddy honest and delivering the cash to the reverend, at the time and place most appropriate for his receiving of it.”

  What at first glance seemed to be a straightforward domestic homicide was sprouting wings that would carry it all the way to City Hall, where Shipley had unfettered access to the gangly new mayor, who didn’t seem to take a step—or make a misstep—without the reverend. This unorthodox treatment of the cash proceeds of the Gotham activists’ fund-raising went hand in glove with Shipley’s personal history of tax fraud. Coop was going to love this twist.

  “Let me ask you this, Angela,” I said, as too many random thoughts of how far up the ladder this killing would lead raced through my brain. “Does your father have a gun?”

  The handkerchief was in her lap. She played with its rolled edges.

  “Did he. You mean did he have one?”

  “Yes. Sorry for that.”

  “Course he did. Small one,” Angela said. “Don’t know what you call them—pistol or revolver—but a small black one. It’s not there tonight. I looked for it.”

  “Where did he keep it?” I had opened the night table drawers for the same reason.

  “Right by the front door. On the stand under the TV. It was the best place to have it, so that nobody got in that he didn’t know.”

  “You—you didn’t take anything out of there, did you, Angela?”

  “Like the gun, Detective? Like I’ve been talking crazy enough so you think maybe I shot my daddy to put him out of his misery?”

  She was all puffed up now, full of outrage at me.

  “Not the gun. No, I wasn’t thinking of the gun,” I said. I took the chance of smiling at her for a second time. “In my book, everyone’s a suspect till I put the cuffs on the killer. Can’t ever rule out the first one who finds the body.”

  “You think I hate Keesh enough to set her up, don’t you?”

  “I believe you loved your father. That’s why it’s also hard to ask you whether you think he ever helped himself to any of the reverend’s money. But I’ve got to do it. I’ve been wondering, with all that cash, if you think he—”

  “I hope to God he did, Detective. I hope he took fistfuls for himself,” Angela Wilson said. She was on fire now. The whites of her eyes, streaked with ruptured blood vessels from hours of crying, glistened as she talked to me. “I hope Daddy had it hidden well enough that his bitch didn’t find any of it.”

  “Did you search for that, too, Angela?”

  “You got a real mean streak, Detective. You know that? Start out nice and easy, but you got a streak.”

  “I’ve been told. You haven’t seen that side yet. I got no reason to show it. I’m asking you the same thing I’d ask anyone else in this position.”

  “I didn’t say I searched anywhere, did I?”

  “You looked for the gun.”

  “Damn right I did. I called 911 just as soon as my hand stopped shaking so bad I could actually dial the three numbers. Then I looked for the gun in case Shipley or any of th
ose felons he collects showed up at Daddy’s bedside before you gentlemen did.”

  Angela Wilson was weeping again.

  There was a soft knocking on the apartment door.

  “Give me five more, Lee. We’re almost done,” I said, without taking my eyes off Angela.

  “Right now, Chapman,” he said, cracking the door to talk to me.

  “Back off, will you? Five minutes.”

  I was getting everything I wanted and more from Wilson’s daughter. I didn’t need Petrie to interrupt her mood swings or the flow of her information.

  “Pretty urgent,” Lee Petrie said. “The Most Reverend Hal Shipley is here to offer a moment of silent prayer over the body of Wynan Wilson.”

  ELEVEN

  “Mike Chapman. Homicide.”

  “Hal Shipley. The Reverend Hal Shipley. Pleased to meet you.”

  I didn’t want to remind him that we’d met before. The circumstances were never happy ones when a police officer crossed the path of a self-righteous charlatan. I almost put his lights out when he led a protest at the wake of a cop who’d been slain by a teenage psychopath. I’d wanted to collar him ten years back when he’d lied about a young woman who had fabricated a rape case and identified an innocent man as her assailant. He had sneered at me on the steps of City Hall and in the stairwell of a housing project where a parolee had ambushed a rookie cop.

  “You mind stepping out of Mr. Wilson’s apartment? It’s a crime scene.”

  “Wynan Wilson is a dear friend of mine, Detective. I’d like to see him, be alone with him for a moment. Pray for his soul.”

  “Not possible. Just kindly back out into the hallway. You shouldn’t have been allowed in, in the first place.”

  “I’m his spiritual adviser,” Shipley said, putting the palm of his hand on my chest. “You don’t understand.”

  “Get your paw off me, Hal.”

  “Do we know each other?”

  “Not really.” All cops looked alike to Hal Shipley. It wasn’t a matter of race. We were Blue. NYPD Blue. “Back it up.”

  Shipley took a glance around the small room, then turned and went into the hallway. I had sent Petrie’s partner in to sit with Angela Wilson. She wanted a go at the reverend, but I told her to save it for a day or two. She was whimpering now, and Shipley’s ears picked up the sound.

  “Is that Angela?” he asked.

  “Let’s take your business downstairs.”

  “Who’s your supervisor, Detective?”

  “Someone who doesn’t like you any better than I do. You lead down and I’ll follow.”

  Hal Shipley’s laced shoes had a better shine than my loafers. The three-piece suit was an affectation he had sported for years, though its material showed it as clearly off the rack from some discount store.

  When he reached the first floor he was ready with questions.

  “You’ll wake the neighbors, Hal. Try the vestibule.”

  I joined him in the space that separated the building entrance from the locked door to the apartments above, and I leaned against the row of metal-fronted mailboxes. There was no room for him to posture for me or to squirm if he didn’t like the direction of my questions.

  “How’d you know Wilson was dead?” I asked.

  “Friends, Mr. Chapman. We have many mutual friends.”

  “Which one of them told you? And how? In person, by phone call?”

  “I’m not here to answer questions. I’m here to ask them.”

  Shipley swiveled toward the glass panes in the upper part of the front door and looked out.

  “You got peeps with you, Rev? Leg breakers or what?”

  I could see over Shipley’s head. Two husky men in overcoats were standing guard beside his double-parked, dark-tinted-windows SUV.

  “Pallbearers, Detective. Wynan’s honorary pallbearers.”

  “A little premature, don’t you think?”

  “My people have a tradition, Mr. Chapman. I’d like to say a prayer over Wynan.”

  “What part of ‘it’s a crime scene’ don’t you understand? The medical examiner is having a look at the deceased right now.”

  “Well, before they remove the body to the morgue.”

  “Why don’t you help us for a change, Rev? Tell me where the killer is.”

  “If only I had the power to know,” Shipley said.

  “Surely you’ve figured out who he is.”

  Shipley’s eyes narrowed and he stared into mine. “Now, how would I—?”

  “Or she. Who she is.”

  The reverend was a man who couldn’t easily be baited. He fixed his gaze but never blinked.

  “Wynan was shot,” Shipley said. “That’s what I’ve heard. Is that much the truth?”

  “The gospel, Rev.”

  I took a plastic case of Tic Tacs out of my pocket and popped two in my mouth.

  “Was—was there a fight?” he asked.

  “Now we’re getting into need-to-know territory. I’m just not able to tell you.”

  “Angela—she’s the one who found Wynan?”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “I think I can offer her some measure of comfort, if you’ll let me see her.”

  “I got the firm impression that she worships somewhere else, Rev. She doesn’t have quite as much admiration for you as her old man did.”

  “Time to mend fences, Detective. A time to heal, a time to mend.”

  “I know you think cops are heathens, but I’ve spent plenty of time in church. To everything, Rev, there is a season. A time to refrain from embracing.”

  “Ecclesiastes.”

  “The Byrds. A time for dying, and this wasn’t meant to be Wynan Wilson’s moment. So why don’t you tell me what kind of work he did for you?”

  “Certainly. That’s no mystery, Detective,” Shipley said. “Wynan was a helping hand at the community center I run. He assisted me in recruiting newcomers and did minor chores, taking care of the mail and such.”

  The reverend could bullshit with the best of them.

  “Where did he recruit, Rev? At AA meetings?”

  “Are you implying that Wynan had a drinking problem? I never saw the slightest evidence of that,” Shipley said. “What he did after hours was quite his own business.”

  “Looking around his apartment tonight, can’t say I saw a computer. How’d he handle that mail for you?”

  “He was responsible for recording the names and addresses of contributors, which he’d pass along to my secretary. Make a record of the checks and so on.”

  “I don’t think the man was a skilled banker, Rev. Kind, gentle, fond of the ladies, but I doubt he was the J. P. Morgan of your organization.”

  “We’ll have to ask my secretary just what his duties were. I’ve got a lot of responsibilities so I’m not exactly hands-on with everything,” he said, glancing out the window again.

  “Word is you’re hands-on with the cash. Word is—”

  “You can stand in this—this half a hallway, Detective, and be as rude as you want, but it won’t get you answers to—”

  “For the moment, Rev, this vestibule is my office. That’s as good as it gets in the NYPD. It’s my office and you’re my witness. There’ll be a subpoena on your desk before noon asking for the name and address of every contributor, a copy of every letter that has come in during the last year. That is, if the IRS doesn’t have that stuff already. Make sure nothing disappears between now and then.”

  Hal Shipley laughed at me. In my face. Then he took his phone from his pocket and appeared to be texting someone.

  “Wynan Wilson was your bagman. Excuse me. One of your bagmen. You can practice that asinine guffaw till it chokes you, Rev, but that’s the worst-kept secret in the hood. Now, when’s the last time Wilson brought money to you?”

  Shipley ignored me and kept texting. When he finished the message, he looked up and spoke to me. “I have no idea what you’re referring to, Detective.”

  “You think I don’t know why
you showed up in the middle of the night, shot out of a rocket, to get here and be alone with Wilson? Alone in the apartment? He must have shorted you a few bucks.”

  “You about done, Mr. Chapman? ’Cause I got places to go.”

  “You going to pay a condolence call on Takeesha Falls?”

  “Miss Takeesha will be mighty sad about Wynan,” Shipley said, shaking his head. “You seen her yet?”

  “Good try, boss. Mighty good try. Yeah, Keesh and I had a real come-to-Jesus moment. She was so broken up she almost regretted being such a straight shooter.”

  Shipley snorted again. “I’ll call that bluff on you.”

  “Course you will. No doubt you’ve got her hidden away, right where you want her.”

  “What’s up with your imagination, Mr. Chapman? It’s running you wild. People know better than to talk to me this way.”

  “I’m shaking in my boots, Rev. What are you going to do? Organize a protest?”

  His iPhone buzzed and he unpocketed it again to look at the response to his text.

  “I’m going to be all over you, like horseflies on a pig’s ear, till I get to the bottom of this, Reverend Shipley. There’s a man upstairs who met an untimely end—a good old guy—and he was all wrapped up in your business. And it stinks to high hell,” I said. “I’m going to be—”

  “You’re gonna be sitting this one out, Detective,” Shipley said, holding up his phone to my face.

  “I don’t work for you, Rev. And unless you’ve got a pipeline to the police commissioner, I doubt that text you just sent has any relevance to this homicide.”

  “I’ve got a better pipeline than that, Mr. Chapman. This here’s a return text from the mayor’s chief of staff. The police commissioner answers to City Hall.”

  “Twelve noon, Reverend,” I said. I’ve had smackdowns from the top brass for better reasons than my interface with a total jackass.

  Shipley walked out and started down the steps of the old brownstone. One of his lackeys opened the rear passenger door of the Suburban. He looked back, cocked his thumb and forefinger as though firing a pistol, and called out a single word to me: “Gotcha!”

  TWELVE