Close Case Page 31

  “I’m paying y’all enough.” It was Andre. “Shit, dealing with the po-po’s worse than the mob. That’s what it is. You’re shaking me down for security money.”

  “Well, for the kind of security you’re getting, it’s not enough. We go out of our way to take the calls about your guys on the corners, then they get to walk away.”

  Andre laughed. “You know what’s cracking me up? You really are acting like this is a bunch of mafia shit. Foster, now, he’s easy—he could be any one of them, so let’s make him Michael Corleone, how about? Now you? You’d have to be Tom Hagen with that light hair of yours. Before Bobby D went bald, obviously. But now here’s the funny part: Don’t no one in those movies look like me. You know what I’m saying?”

  It really was true. All men loved The Godfather.

  “Don’t give me that movie bullshit, Andre. You’re getting a piece of every rock that’s sold in this city—”

  “Not every rock—” Andre interrupted.

  “Well, pretty fucking close. And now you’ve dragged me into something I never signed on for. People are getting hurt—”

  “You rather they figured out the shit you’ve been doing?”

  “We never talked about witnesses getting killed.”

  “Now if that ain’t some hypocritical shit, I don’t know what the fuck is. If you want to talk about fucked up—”

  “Shooting an old lady’s fucked up.”

  “And I told Foster I’d take care of it. You think I want some dumb-ass kid popping ladies from the neighborhood? Talk to your boy—”

  “You know you wouldn’t have this club and all the other shit you have if we hadn’t been watching your back.”

  “You’re less valuable than you think,” Andre said.

  “Who else is going to do this crap for you?”

  They went back and forth like that, arguing about whether Powell had been paid fairly. Tommy even managed to find some humor in the situation. “Sounds like every workplace in America.”

  What happened next was over so fast, it took the many replays of the audio later to help me understand what we had heard.

  “Stop!” It was Powell’s voice, and it was panicked. “Don’t do it! Don’t!”

  Two distinct pops followed. Before I could even process what was happening, the other occupants of the van reacted on pure police instinct. Tommy Garcia and Alan Carson jumped from the back doors, drawing their weapons and yelling commands into the radios on their chests. Backup teams in two separate cars on the street poured out as well, descending on Jay-J’s. Just a few minutes later, Tommy Garcia radioed the audio technician to give the clear.

  In retrospect, we were lucky. Only a few employees were in the bar with Brouse. Two of the men were armed, but the stereo’s pounding rhythms had drowned out the sound of Powell’s shots. The scene was secured without incident.

  That would have been little consolation to Andre Brouse, who was declared DOA. Two bullets—one in the head, one in the chest.

  We followed the protocol for an officer-involved shooting. Powell was transported to the precinct with his union rep. He told us that he fired when Andre reached for a gun in his top drawer. He said he intended to keep his end of our deal, but he wouldn’t be discussing the incident further until he spoke with an attorney. We found a Glock in the open desk drawer, but we also knew the discovery would never be enough to resolve what happened in that office. Powell had been around Brouse enough to know where he kept his gun.

  When the crime scene was secured and the evidence-gathering process under way, I took a breather to call Duncan, who at least appeared to be understanding. “We’re just the lawyers,” he said. “This was a decision about the implementation of an undercover operation, and the bureau made a reasonable call. We’ve got enough to show the guy was dirty, right?” I accepted his support with one eye open, realizing that if the debacle came with political damage, he’d sacrifice Carson and Garcia in a heartbeat—then me, if necessary.

  He did explain that he was going to send Jessica Walters to handle the shooting, since I was technically a witness. I tried to argue, emphasizing the entanglement of the shooting with the Crenshaw investigation.

  “And if Walters comes across anything on Crenshaw, I’m sure she’ll fill you in. What I need right now is a deputy who’s going to deal with the immediate issue—a cop shot a suspect—and you’re not going to be that lawyer. Consider it a lucky break. After the day you’ve had, I’d think you’d be grateful for the rest.”

  I should have been, of course, but I wasn’t. As much as I usually hate a sports analogy, when Jessica showed up, I felt like a pitcher getting pulled in the middle of an important game. I didn’t care if it was a morass of confusion. It was my morass, and I wanted to be in the middle of it.

  Jessica finally gave me a choice: I could leave on my own, or she would have me forcibly evicted. I didn’t think she’d actually go through with it, but I got the point. “Can I take a copy of the tape with me?” I asked, as a final negotiating point.

  “Jesus, Kincaid, why the hell do you want to do that to yourself?”

  Because I feel guilty, I thought. Because I sat in a van and listened while the person who could have answered all my questions was killed, possibly executed. Because if I listen to the tape, I might be able to convince myself there was nothing else I could do.

  “I should add it to my Crenshaw file,” I said, “just in case.”

  “Yeah, whatever. Have the tech dupe it for you, then get the hell out of here.”

  A patrol officer gave me a ride home as instructed, speaking not a single word once he had my address. As we turned onto my block, I eyed the street eagerly, hoping to spot Chuck’s car. My disappointment was complete when the officer pulled into my driveway. Nothing other than my Jetta, the tarp I’d used to cover the window loose now, blowing in the wind.

  In one tiny bow to normalcy, Vinnie was eagerly waiting for me when I opened the door. I scooped him up and cuddled him on my way to the kitchen. My message light was blinking.

  Well, good evening, Samantha Kincaid. Or I guess it’s afternoon out there in Oregon. Ed Devlin here, NYPD. It wasn’t easy, but I did finally find a friend of mine who’s a friend of Patrick Gallagher. Gallagher was the IA officer who’d vouched for Mike when PPB hired him. I couldn’t get the full story, but apparently a couple of officers thumped up a suspect pretty good. Everyone was supposed to give the same story—you know how it goes—but Calabrese went his own way. He told it like it was and—well, it didn’t go over so good. The bureau transferred him around a couple times, but a story like that follows a guy. He wanted out, and I guess Gallagher helped him. Give me a call if you need more. Hell, you’re a beautiful young lady. Give an old guy a break and call me anyway.

  As the machine moved on to the next message, I smiled, thinking back to the many times Ed had encouraged me to dump my then-husband and run away with him instead.

  Hey, it’s me. I noticed the absence of Chuck’s usual hey, babe at the start of the message. I can’t get anyone in DV either, so I finally called this Marcy Wellington chick myself. She was freaking out, so I’ll head over myself to take a report. I’ll call you when I’m done. You owe me one.

  I tried to keep occupied with TV, but my mind kept returning to the scene in the van. Tommy Garcia, making a joke about the banter between Andre and Powell. Then panic in Powell’s voice. Two shots. The van doors spilling open. It was so damn fast.

  I retrieved my Walkman from my gym bag and inserted the tape of the shooting. I hit STOP and REWIND over and over again, trying to calculate the time that passed between the argument about money and the end of Andre Brouse’s life. Somewhere between two or three seconds, by my watch. Not enough to stop Powell. Not even enough for Andre Brouse to speak.

  The tape did at least corroborate the evidence we’d gotten from Powell and the Yorks. Jay-J’s would most likely be seized by the state in a drug forfeiture action. Hopefully, Jessica would find evidence identi
fying Brouse’s source and key distributors.

  Still, I kept fiddling with the buttons of the tape player, searching for some clue about the murders of Percy Crenshaw and Janelle Rogers.

  “We never talked about witnesses getting killed,” Powell had said. Now if that ain’t some hypocritical shit, I don’t know what the fuck is. If you want to talk about fucked up— “Shooting an old lady’s fucked up,” Powell interrupted. And I told Foster I’d take care of it. You think I want some dumb-ass kid popping ladies from the neighborhood? Talk to your boy—

  I listened to Brouse’s words again and again, knowing I was missing something. Snippets of the tape started to come together. Now if that ain’t some hypocritical shit…talk about fucked up…talk to your boy—

  I had figured out what was bothering me. Brouse had something on Powell, or at least on someone close to him. Powell was supposed to cajole Brouse into talking about Percy and the drive-by at Selma’s, but Brouse kept turning the tables on him. And each time, Powell had interrupted. There was only one explanation: Brouse was mad at Powell’s boy for something serious, and Powell didn’t want us to know about it.

  I plucked off my headphones. Talk to your boy. Talk to your boy. Why did that seem so familiar? I was close to making sense of Brouse’s words. Something about the sentence echoing in my head would pull the pieces together.

  Then it came to me: Mike’s hostile reaction when we had first talked about the Hamilton shooting. Your buddy Frist’s looking to shine by going after our boy Hamilton. Geoff Hamilton worked out of Northeast Precinct with Powell and Foster.

  I logged on to the District Attorney data system from my computer, pulled up the Hamilton case, and dialed the phone number for Marla Mavens, Delores Tompkins’s mother. She assumed I was calling to see how she was faring in the aftermath of the grand jury’s decision, but I got straight to the point.

  “You mentioned during the grand jury that Delores had been dating a man who was involved with drugs.”

  “Well, she didn’t know that at first. And, like I said, she was trying to get a fresh start.”

  “I remember. She had the new home improvement job and something she was working on that made her feel special.” Marla clearly found comfort in the fact that her daughter seemed finally to find the right track before her death.

  “That’s right,” she said proudly.

  “Do you remember the name of the boyfriend?”

  “Oh, shoot. I should, but—”

  “Was it Andre Brouse?” I prompted.

  “Yes, that was it. She called him Dre sometimes for short.”

  “Did she know a man named Percy Crenshaw?”

  “The reporter?”

  “That’s the one. Did your daughter know him? The special thing she was doing—could she have been helping Percy with a story?”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. I didn’t keep track of all her friends, but she never mentioned him. Does this have anything to do with the grand jury?”

  I knew in my gut that I was right about this. I just needed to prove the connection. “No, I’m sorry,” I said, not wanting to get her hopes up about reopening the case. “I’m just tying up some loose ends before I can put the file away.”

  “I guess you could say I’ve been doing the same thing,” she said.

  “Would you mind if I asked what phone numbers someone might have used if they were talking to your daughter?”

  “Not at all. I still remember them. Probably always will, I suspect.” She rattled off the digits for Delores’s home and cell phones, and I jotted them down on a legal pad from my briefcase.

  My next call was to Heidi Hatmaker.

  “How have you been holding up?” I asked when she answered her cell. We hadn’t spoken since she left the precinct the day before.

  “Honestly? I lasted about five minutes in my apartment by myself before I packed a bag. I went on a date, haven’t been home since, and couldn’t feel any safer.” I heard a man say something in the background, and Heidi shushed him. “What have I missed?”

  Where could I even begin? I told her briefly that we’d flipped Powell and about the shooting at Jay-J’s. “And you didn’t call me?” she protested. “You swore you weren’t going to leave me out of the story.”

  “And I didn’t. Only the sanitized version gets released today: An officer returned fire when a suspect reached for a weapon. We’re still putting the rest of it together. On that note, do you happen to have Percy’s cell phone records?” The ones we seized were in the police evidence room.

  “Are you kidding? After this weekend, I wasn’t about to leave anything having to do with Percy in my unoccupied apartment.”

  I thought about asking her to check for Delores’s numbers, but I wasn’t ready to give Heidi all of the pieces to the puzzle yet. Not before I’d put them together. “Do you mind if I come by and get them?”

  “I guess not. From what I could tell, it was just a bunch of carryout places.”

  I had a feeling there was more to it if you knew what to look for.

  I pulled into the driveway of the address she’d given me, a well-kept home in the Hawthorne district. Fortunately, given my high-class cellophaned car window, it was only a five-minute drive from my place.

  A vaguely familiar face greeted me at the door. “You must be Samantha Kincaid.”

  “Wait a second,” I said, pointing at him. “I know this one. The bureau’s PIO?”

  “You’ve got it. Jack Streeter.” We shook hands and exchanged the requisite good-to-meet-yous as he welcomed me in. Heidi looked comfy on a sofa in the front room, legs crossed beneath her, documents spread out on the coffee table.

  “Are those the phone records?” I asked.

  She nodded. “I was just putting them in order.” She piled a stack together. “Most recent are on top.”

  “Great. Thanks.”

  “What are you looking for?” she asked inquisitively.

  I shrugged my shoulders. “With Andre Brouse dead, we’re pretty much back to square one.” I felt bad leaving her in the dark, but I held strong. She’d get it all before the rest of the media, and that’s what really counted.

  In my car, I double-checked the Saran Wrap on my window. Then I scanned the list of calls in Percy’s records, comparing them against the numbers I’d gotten from Marla Mavens. It didn’t take long to find what I was looking for. In the two weeks before Delores Tompkins’s death, her cell phone number was one of the most frequently dialed by Percy Crenshaw. I saw that Heidi had written disc’d on the bill, most likely after she’d tried the disconnected number.

  I was just about to return the papers to my bag when I noticed something else—another match between Percy’s cell phone records and my legal pad. I checked the records and found the number listed three additional times within the same month.

  I knocked on Jack Streeter’s door again. “Sorry. Do you mind if I use your phone real quick? Someone stole my mobile.”

  “Wish that would happen to me,” he joked, pointing me to a phone in his kitchen.

  I tried Chuck’s cell, but there was no answer. I hit RE-DIAL, but still nothing. Either he had Motorhead blasting as he drove or he was still taking the report from Marcy Wellington.

  Back in my car, I flipped through the Crenshaw file until I found what I was looking for: the restraining order against Peter Anderson, with Marcy Wellington’s current residential address. I’d ask her myself what she and Percy Crenshaw had been discussing so frequently.

  The route took me east on Hawthorne, past the earthy coffee shops and breakfast bistros in Streeter’s neighborhood to the used car lots, gun shops, and cement strip malls on 82nd Avenue. A couple of quick turns and I was on Marcy Wellington’s street.

  Chuck’s familiar car was in the driveway. Good, I hadn’t missed him. I parked the Jetta on the street and started to get out. Then I took another look at the house. A Toyota Celica was pulled to the front of the double driveway, on the side closest to the hous
e. Chuck was parked on the opposite side. A third car, a Geo Prizm, blocked the Celica from behind.

  I looked through the Crenshaw file again and found Peter Anderson’s PPDS printout. Sure enough, he was the registered owner of a 1996 Geo Prizm.

  I automatically reached to the floor of my passenger compartment for my purse. Shit. I’d need to find a pay phone. I reinserted my key in the ignition but couldn’t bring myself to drive away. Who knew how long the three of them had been in there? I had called Chuck’s cell nearly fifteen minutes ago, and he hadn’t answered. At the very least, Anderson was violating the restraining order against him, and I refused to consider the other possibilities in any detail. I knew how many police officers were killed each year at the scene of domestic assaults.

  I stepped from the car and shut the door lightly behind me. I scurried next to the Prizm, ducking low for cover as I worked my way to Chuck’s Jag. I checked the dash. No flashing light. Good, he hadn’t bothered arming his alarm. I fumbled with the bulky ring in my hand until I found my copy of the key. I slid into the car and used the next key to open Chuck’s glove box, flashing back to the day two weeks ago at Home Depot when Chuck had insisted that we copy our car keys for each other.

  “We live together now,” he’d said, as if that was an obvious explanation. I had dangled my overstuffed purple parrot key chain and asked why in the world I needed to make room for a key that started a car he wouldn’t let me drive, let alone the glove box. “Think of it as a symbolic gesture, a token of our commitment to one another,” he responded with self-mocking flourish.

  Right now, the keys beat a wedding ring, hands down. I opened the glove box and removed the case I knew I would find there, the one that cradled Chuck’s off-duty weapon. He had insisted on keeping his Colt .45 after the bureau replaced its service weapons with Glocks. I checked it. Full magazine, empty chamber. I secured the gun snugly in the back of my waistband and worked my way to the front porch.