Silent City: A Claire Codella Mystery

by Carrie Smith

  These were not amateur snapshots, Codella observed. Rather, they were carefully composed, professionally lighted portraits, each capturing a singular mood and family character. They reminded her of the photo she had seen in Hector Sanchez’s apartment, and she scanned the faces until she found the photo of Dana Drew and her family. She followed Dana Drew’s pale left arm around the shoulder of her attractively androgynous partner. She studied the actress’s right hand resting delicately on the shoulder of her smiling honey-skinned child. Why had a copy of this portrait been in the principal’s apartment? Why this one and none of these others?

  While she stood there, Detective Sunil Ragavan, a short, slightly built man with thick black hair, arrived. “We have an unmarked car in front of the school, Detective Codella.”

  “Good. I want it there during school hours until further notice. And you’re going to be my eyes and ears in here.”

  Ragavan nodded.

  “I see you’ve found our Wall of Pride.” Marva Thomas was suddenly standing behind them.

  Codella thought she detected a wisp of sarcasm in the woman’s reference to the photos. She turned to face her. “I’m Detective Codella. And this is Detective Ragavan.”

  Marva Thomas shook their hands. “How can I help you?”

  “May we speak privately?”

  Thomas’s office was smaller than a walk-in closet at the stately Beresford on Central Park West, the crime scene of Codella’s last murder investigation as a precinct detective in the 171st. Marva Thomas closed the door behind them and gestured toward two straight-backed chairs. “Please, have a seat.” She was a light-skinned African American woman with delicate features. Codella judged her to be in her early to midforties. Her hair was combed tightly back in a bun, and her facial makeup was subtle and flattering. Her nails were polished in a muted shade of red, and she wore no wedding band. A handwritten note on an index card taped to the side of her computer read, Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Ephesians 4:32. “What can I do for you?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Ms. Thomas, but Hector Sanchez died last night.”

  The woman’s gasp seemed genuine, as did the tightening of the facial muscles around her mouth and eyes into an expression of confusion. “How? I don’t get it. He’s in excellent health. He’s a runner. He runs marathons, I think. He—”

  Codella cut her off. “He was murdered.”

  In the silence, Thomas shook her head in tight little movements. “By whom?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “How?”

  “I can’t discuss that. How well did you know him?”

  “He became principal here last winter.”

  “What was he like?”

  Thomas paused before answering. “Hardworking. Demanding. He definitely had a vision for the school.”

  It was a diplomatic answer, Codella decided. “What did you think of his vision?”

  “There were good and bad parts.”

  “How did the staff feel about him?”

  Thomas squinted. “Why? Do you think someone here might have murdered him?”

  “I don’t think anything yet. All I know is a school official has been killed and until we know why, we’ll err on the side of safety and take every precaution necessary to ensure the protection of your staff and students.”

  “What kind of precautions?”

  “We’ve posted an officer outside the building, and Detective Ragavan here will be stationed inside to assist with our investigation and provide an additional layer of security. That said, keep in mind that we have no indication there’s a risk to anyone. There’s no need for panic, and you can help us by not discussing our security concerns and measures with anyone else on your staff.”

  “Of course. But I do need to inform my district superintendent.”

  Thomas’s gaze shifted repeatedly from Codella to the three-inch-long scar bisecting Detective Ragavan’s right cheek. By now, Codella thought, the assistant principal was probably wondering if he had acquired the scar in a rough Mumbai slum or in a fight with a crazy knife-wielding addict. People couldn’t conceal their fascination with human imperfections. Codella had experienced their fascination firsthand during the long months of strangers staring at her bald scalp and gaunt cheeks. Ragavan’s real story was far less dramatic than anything Marva Thomas was imagining, of course. As a three-year-old in Montclair, New Jersey, he had fallen under a neighbor’s backyard swing and sliced his face on a rusty nail.

  Codella repeated her earlier question. “How did the staff here feel about Sanchez?”

  “Hector liked things his way. If you followed his rules, you had no problems.”

  “But?”

  “Sometimes his rules conflicted with union rules.”

  “Would you say he had enemies?”

  Thomas chuckled. “This is the New York public school system. A principal always has enemies.”

  “Who?”

  “Annoyed parents, disgruntled teachers, controlling administrators.”

  “Who were Sanchez’s enemies?”

  “That I can’t say.”

  Can’t or won’t? Codella wondered. She wasn’t naïve enough to believe that a woman who taped scripture to the side of her computer couldn’t be a liar. “Tell me about yesterday. Was it a typical day?”

  “Around here, not much is typical.” Thomas paused. “But we did have an incident.”

  “Go on.”

  “One of our fifth graders attacked another student in the first-floor boy’s restroom.”

  “His head was pushed into a toilet bowl.”

  “Then you know about it.”

  “Tell me about the student who got attacked.”

  “He’s a fourth grader. John Chambers. He has sensory integration issues and OCD. He’s mainstreamed.”

  “What does that mean—mainstreamed?”

  “He’s special ed. He has an IEP—an Individualized Education Plan—but he spends most of his school day in a general education classroom. It’s hard for him. He gets teased a lot. He has some noticeable compulsions, one being that he insists on washing his hands every hour. If he doesn’t, he has a meltdown. Jenny Bernstein lets him leave the classroom when he starts to feel agitated.”

  “Tell me about this other student.”

  “Miguel Espina. He’s almost twelve. He’s been held back twice. Very intelligent. Extremely troubled. Bad home situation. The mother’s an exotic dancer.” She raised her eyebrows.

  “You mean a prostitute?”

  She nodded. “He was transferred here this year.”

  “Why wasn’t he in his classroom?”

  “He slipped out.”

  “Where was Sanchez when this was happening?”

  “At the district office.”

  “Why?”

  “Margery Barton had called a principal’s meeting.”

  “Who’s she?”

  “The district superintendent.”

  Codella touch-typed names into the notes app on her iPhone. Marva Thomas. John Chambers. Miguel Sanchez. Jenny Bernstein. Margery Barton. “Sanchez reported to this Barton woman?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where were you when the attack occurred?”

  “In the library. We had a parent workshop going on.”

  “What parent workshop?”

  “A Title I family involvement program Hector started. Twice a week we bring in family members and teach them basic literacy skills,” she explained with more enthusiasm. “More than half our parents don’t speak any English.”

  “How many parents would you say were in the building?”

  “More than thirty.”

  “I’ll need their names. Who else was there?”

  “Carole Berger, one of our special ed teachers, and Sofia Reyes, the literacy consultant.”

  Codella typed these names into her iPhone. “Did anything unusual happen?”

  “No, exc
ept that we ran out of donuts. If it weren’t for the donuts, maybe the attack wouldn’t have occurred.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “Ordinarily, I’d notice a student wandering the halls. I was too busy tracking down Mr. Jancek, our custodian, to make a Dunkin’ Donuts run.”

  “When did you find out what happened?”

  “Delia—Delia Rivera, the security officer—came up and told me.”

  “And then?”

  “I called Hector’s cell. He didn’t pick up so I texted him, but he didn’t respond to the text either, and I knew he’d be upset if he wasn’t informed immediately, so I called Dr. Barton’s office and had her receptionist deliver a message to him in the meeting. Then I called Yolanda Espina, Miguel’s mother, to get over to the school. I knew he’d want to speak with her.”

  Codella added Yolanda Espina’s name to her list. “Sanchez gave the Espina boy an in-school suspension,” she said remembering Helen Chamber’s angry post. “Did you agree with his decision?”

  Thomas made a tight smile. “He’s the principal, not me. He was, I mean.”

  Codella allowed the woman’s answer to swell and take shape in the silence that followed. Was it contempt she heard in that voice or merely resignation? She glanced at Ragavan before she said, “We’re going to need a complete list of the school staff and parents with addresses and telephone numbers. Can you get on that right away?”

  “Of course.”

  “And I’d like to speak with some of your staff.”

  “The teachers can’t leave their classrooms unattended.”

  “I understand. I’ll speak with teachers later, but I’d like to speak with some other staff members, starting with your school safety officer, Delia Rivera.”

  Thomas nodded. “I’ll send her in. You can use Hector’s office.”

  Chapter 5

  Haggerty’s head was still pounding as he stepped off the elevator on the fifth floor. Three Advil were never a match for too much vodka and too little sleep. He found Muñoz standing in front of the fire exit writing in his notebook. Haggerty hadn’t said more than twenty words to Muñoz since the tall detective had transferred to the precinct—Reilly had assigned Portino to be his mother hen—but his presence had certainly caused a lot of talk at this morning’s briefing. “How’s it going?” he said.

  Muñoz stopped writing and looked up with a wince, as if he expected Haggerty to address him as New Dick. The poor bastard probably didn’t know yet that Blackstone had changed his nickname this morning. Now he was Rainbow Dick, because of last night. It was the talk of the squad room.

  Muñoz said, “Morning, Detective Haggerty. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  Haggerty took a few steps back so their height differential wouldn’t mean he had to crane his neck. He smiled. “Get me up to speed.”

  “Detective Codella put me in charge of the canvass.”

  “How many guys you got on the vertical?” He pulled out a cigarette.

  “Two. That’s all Captain Reilly could spare. One’s working his way down, the other up. Detective Codella gave me detailed orders. To be honest, she scared the shit out of me.”

  Haggerty twirled the filter end of the cigarette between his fingers. Detailed orders. That was Claire, he thought. She always gave agonizingly meticulous instructions. When they’d been partners, he had stood beside her many times while she had spelled out her expectations to junior detectives and uniforms.

  “Let’s avoid any misunderstandings here,” she would say at a crime scene if she hadn’t worked with a detective before. “If I tell you to stand by the door and don’t move, that means you don’t pace around in front of it like you’re waiting for your kid to be born, and you don’t step across the threshold even one centimeter and contaminate the evidence. And if I tell you, ‘Don’t let anyone pass by you without my permission,’ that includes CSU, the chief of police, and the mayor. You ask them to wait, politely, of course, and you call me. You don’t come in to get me. You call me.”

  Claire’s obsession with little contingencies had rubbed off on him. At some point, he’d started to give those meticulous orders, too. She made anyone who worked with her a better detective, so he understood why Muñoz didn’t want to disappoint her. But Haggerty half-wished he would so that he could step in and run the case. He would be running it right now, he thought, if he hadn’t left his cell phone in his jacket pocket last night and missed the 6:00 AM call. How many chances was he going to get to work with Claire again now that she had left the precinct? If they worked a case together, maybe she’d forget all the shit that had happened between them. Maybe they could work themselves back into their old comfortable rhythm and everything would be fine again, just like before.

  He struck a match, lighted his cigarette, and blew a stream of smoke past Muñoz’s left shoulder. “What have you learned so far?”

  Muñoz seemed to consider. Finally, he said, “Not much. We still have a lot of doors to knock on.”

  Haggerty pushed open the door to the fire stairs. “All right. Keep knocking, then.”

  He climbed a flight to the crime scene. The body was still on the floor when he stepped into the room. Banks nodded tersely, but he was bent over something and turned his attention back to that. Haggerty got the details from O’Donnell instead. Then he went downstairs and stood on the front steps and lighted another cigarette to take his mind off his head. He was thirsty, and his stomach was churning.

  He watched the patrol cops in front of the building drink their Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. He studied three workmen across the street erecting a scaffold. Half a block down, two Spanish-speaking building porters wearing work gloves were shouting back and forth as they carried industrial-sized garbage bags out to the street for pick up.

  He sat on the steps, finished the cigarette, and flicked it skillfully into the street between two parallel-parked cars. A familiar number popped up on his phone. “Quit calling me.”

  “I hear there’s a body,” said the nasal voice.

  Haggerty stood and walked up the street toward Morningside Park out of range of the uniforms. “There’s a body all right. A really interesting body.”

  “You’re on it, then?”

  “Of course I’m on it.” He lighted another cigarette.

  “What can you tell me?”

  “Lots.” But that doesn’t mean I’m going to, his tone implied.

  “Who was he?”

  “A school principal, and everyone will know that before you file any story. Whoever gets the inside scoop on this will have a very juicy front page, that’s for sure.”

  “Help me out here.”

  “I told you, you’re wasting your time calling me.”

  “I’ll make it worth your while.”

  Haggerty turned back toward the other end of the block and smiled at the north- and southbound cars on Frederick Douglass Boulevard as if they were a fan club. One or two little tips could wipe out a lot of credit card debt, and although he had never succumbed to that temptation, he knew plenty of cops who had, including his old man.

  “Go to the press conference like everyone else,” he said and ended the call.

  He returned to the steps in front of the building and closed his eyes because the sunlight was making his head feel like a geological hot spot about to erupt. He pictured himself this morning, in that woman’s bed—what was her name?—while his phone sat in his jacket pocket in her living room with the ringer off while Reilly was trying to hand him this lovely opportunity to work side by side with Claire.

  He wished more than anything that he hadn’t gone with the woman. But it was either follow her home or go home alone and think about Queen Smith’s baby all night, and he had to get the baby out of his mind. He could still see her now, small and irrevocably silent, the way she had looked yesterday morning lying like a discarded doll on a filthy throw rug in the bathroom of an underheated, roach-infested apartment in the Coretta Scott King housing project. He could
still hear Queen Smith’s deafening primal howls within the narrow crumbling plaster walls. She had been so out of her mind when he got to the scene that the first responders were physically restraining her as the EMTs tried and tried to revive the little body with no success. He could still hear her weeping and screaming, “My baby, my little baby,” and then he had spent the day tracking down the crackhead boyfriend who apparently couldn’t stand a baby crying while he wanted to sleep.

  Now he could think about Claire instead of the baby. He pictured her face—the flawless skin, blue eyes, coal black hair, perfect lips. And even in his hungover, sleep-deprived state, he felt a terrible combustion of desire and dread in his gut, and he knew that he didn’t just want his old partner back, he still wanted all of her, and he was desperate to see her again but unsure he was ready to see her, to come face to face with that night when everything had gone terribly wrong.

  By now, he figured, he must have replayed that night—the night of Portino’s fiftieth birthday—a thousand times. He could still see Claire walking into the bar in her black leather jacket an hour after everyone else. She had taken a seat at the opposite end of the table from him. For seven years, they had spent so much time together that he’d assumed he knew everything there was to know about her. He knew her shoe size, her favorite NBA players, her food cravings, her Starbucks order. He knew from the way she sometimes checked her hair in the side mirror of a cruiser that she had a secret hair vanity. He could tell when to shut up so she could think and when to tell a joke so she would relax. He knew all her facial expressions and what each of them meant. But he had never seen her look at him the way she had looked at him that night, across the table, as if just the two of them existed, while Blackstone was busy making one of his garrulous toasts, and in the next moment, when she had abruptly stood and left the bar with no explanation, his desire for her had surfaced like some primordial sea monster that wasn’t even supposed to exist, and he had realized instinctively that his desire for her was different, that it had absolutely nothing in common with the desire he felt for the women he charmed in bars and got into bed.