Chase (2 page)

At the barrier
to the construction site, Devine ripped a piece of plywood free and rushed in.

The place was empty and unlit. He pulled the wood back into place and scurried along the wall of the hotel, searching the concrete-dusted iron pipes, snarls of cable, and mounds of brick rubble and ash-gray dirt.

He glanced up at the buildings around him. Three hundred and sixty degrees of endless windows, in rows and columns. Had somebody seen?

As if. The phone-faced folks of this metropolis didn't so much as look up while walking across the damn street these days. The chance of some Jimmy Stewart type laid up with a broken leg at a window witnessing Pretty Boy's Superman audition was as about as remote as him surviving his assisted sixteen-story swan dive.

Welcome to New York City, Devine thought as he walked around a pallet of cinder blocks. Apathy central. Home of eight and a half million ways to not give a shit whether another human being lives or dies.

He found Pretty Boy on the other side of the battered steel tower of a pile driver, between some orange netting and a bunch of empty spackle buckets. He was on his back, blood covering his face.

Devine looked down and clicked his penlight. Oh my. The worksite wasn't the only thing that needed reconstruction. Pretty Boy wasn't looking too pretty anymore, that was for sure. Devine looked around; he must have hit the steel housing on the pile driver on his way down.

As he knelt beside the body, he realized that, unbelievably, Pretty Boy was still breathing. Devine lifted his wrist and expertly took his pulse. Very, very faint. But still there, for the moment.

“You did this to yourself, you stupid ass. You know I'm right,” Devine said as he searched him. “You screwed yourself real good, Pretty Boy. What did you think was gonna happen?”

He found some cash in his right pants pocket, along with a hotel room card and a little flip knife at the back of his belt. The man's phone was in his inside jacket pocket, and he slid it out. It was still on. The phone was in one of those industrial waterproof shock cases and had survived the fall unharmed. How do you like that?

“Who says they don't make good products anymore?” Devine said as he pocketed it.

He patted Pretty Boy down, took off his shoes and socks, and unbuckled his belt. He did a quick professional groin probe with his green rubber-gloved hands. There was nothing else on him. Not even a wallet. It had to be on his phone then, on his contacts or in his notes. It wasn't in his room. They'd already checked there. No luck. Found what looked liked a couple of grand in cash, sure—but left it. Give the cops a chance to chase their tails.

Devine shook his head as he took Pretty Boy's pulse again. Still alive, the stupid ass. Too dumb to die. Was he conscious on some level?

“Where is it?” he said to him. “On your phone, right? Is it on your phone? Tell me, bro, and I'll save you. You still have a chance.”

He waited. Nothing. He looked at the state of him. His face and jaw. Pretty Boy couldn't have talked if he'd wanted to.

“Okay, have it your way,” Devine said, pinching Pretty Boy's nose and closing a hand over his mouth.

Devine clucked his tongue and shook his head down at Pretty Boy as he made the smallest groan of protest.

“No, Pretty Boy, it's time for me to talk,” Devine told him quietly as he squatted there, killing him.

“See, everybody always said how top-notch you were. Mr. True Team Member, grace under pressure and all that jazz, but I never bought it. I never liked you. I always knew you looked down on me, that it was just an act.

“You had it all, bro. But you had to go and screw yourself up and ruin everything. We're all really disappointed in you, man. Me and Therk and the boss. You had such potential, dude, such amazing potential, but you blew it like the loser that you deep down are and always were. Okay? I just wanted you to know that. Get it off my chest and set the record straight. I feel better now. Thanks a bunch, bro. Good night now.”

“Good morning, Detective Bennett.”

A little after 8:30 on a Tuesday morning late in October, I smiled at the double row of kids sitting cross-legged on the linoleum at the front of the classroom. They were seven-year-olds, about thirty of them, very cute and trying to stay still so as not to muss their Catholic school uniforms.

I was doing a little free PR work for the NYPD. It was Holy Name's career day, and I was there in front of my youngest daughter, Chrissy's, second grade class.

It wasn't the first time I had spoken at the school. In fact, I had spoken at the second grade career day for pretty much all of my ten adopted kids.

But because of my not-so-stellar track record as a speaker, I'd already been told by my older daughters to keep my talk brief and to the point. There was to be no going off script, and there would be absolutely no displays of the patented Bennett sense of humor.

I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. My kids were far too sensitive.

I took a breath and Chrissy's teacher, Sr. Claire, smiled at me encouragingly.

“Try to keep the f-bombs to a minimum, Serpico, would you, please?” whispered my grandfather, Father Seamus, who was at my side to observe the proceedings. “Try not to scar the minds of these fine young Christians any more than necessary.”

“I'll do my best, Monsignor. Thanks for the pep talk. It means a lot coming from a man of the cloth.”

Seamus was my actual grandfather and, yes, a priest. He'd gone into the seminary after Nana passed. Though well into his eighties, he was still as sharp and sarcastic as ever.

“Hello, boys and girls. I'm Chrissy's dad, and I'm a police officer. Who knows what police officers do?” I started.

A cute, nerdy little kid with glasses, Henry, raised his hand from the back.

“Yes, Henry?”

“Have you ever handled a sniper rifle?” he said as the other kids started laughing.

“Well, yes, actually. I have. Now who knows what a policeman does?”

Just as I said this, my phone started ringing. I had forgotten to put it on airplane mode, and the loud tones started playing, to the amusement of all the kids.

Naturally, one of my kids at home had set it onto the stupidest ring available in the settings, a doofy electronic ditty called “By the Seaside.” As I unsuccessfully tried to hit the right button to shut it off, Henry leapt up with an impromptu belly dance for his buddies. Thanks, Henry.

As the chaos erupted, I looked down at my phone screen and saw that the call was from Chief Fabretti, my boss. Which was actually a little concerning. He didn't call me unless there was something happening.

“Hey, Sr. Claire,” I said, waving my phone. “I'm sorry. I actually have to take this.”

“Please, Detective. Take it, by all means,” she said, settling Henry back into his place on the floor.

Leaving, I glanced back and saw Chrissy covering her face in abject embarrassment. Great.

“Another fine speaking engagement, Tony Robbins,” Father Seamus said, giving me a mock thumbs-up as I left. “But don't worry, I'll cover for you.”

I shook my head as my stage Irishman of a grandfather rushed to the front of the class and cleared his throat elaborately.

“Boys and girls and girls and boys. Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Father Seamus,” he said, taking a bow as the door closed behind me.

Twenty minutes later,
I was on 67th Street between Broadway and Columbus, standing in front of a beeping Caterpillar front loader as it was about to drop a bunch of rubble into a curbside dump truck. Inside the hollowed-out dirt worksite behind it, I could see yellow crime-scene tape cordoning off a section to the right.

“Hey! Hold it right there! Back it up!” I yelled to the hard hat in the cab, showing him my shield.

“What the hell is this?” said a big guy, who looked like the contractor in charge. He rushed over and got in my face. “What's the problem? We're working on the other side, away from the body. The first officer said it was okay.”

“The first officer was wrong,” I said, stepping up till we were practically forehead to forehead. “I'm the responding detective. This entire site is a crime scene. Nothing gets moved out of it. In fact, you and everybody else get out on the sidewalk until I say different.”

“Are you mad?” the contractor said, in his thick Brooklyn accent. “We're on a schedule. Cement is on its way. We're pouring in less than an hour.”

“Not anymore,” I told him as I walked toward the crime-scene tape.

“Hey, Detective. Sorry about that,” said a young black sergeant, stepping up beside me as I arrived at the crime scene. “I thought it would be all right since they wanted to work on the other side of the site. Besides, the guy looks like he fell or jumped.”

“Looks can be deceiving, Sergeant,” I said. “Please go out on the sidewalk and keep those people off my back.”

“Hey, Mike. Long time, no see,” said a sharp crime-scene tech I knew, Judy Yelas, who was photographing the body. “What brings the legendary Major Case to the lowly West Side? I thought the Twentieth Precinct was handling.”

“Me, too, until my boss called,” I said with a shrug.

“Ah, I see. Orders from on high. Poli-tricks as usual,” Judy said, rolling her eyes.

Poli-tricks was actually kind of right.

As it turned out, Index House, the hotel beside the crime scene, kept appearing in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Open for only six months, it had received negative publicity for a couple of viral videos. One was of people having sex on a balcony. Another was of a famous NFL player drunkenly knocking out a woman in an elevator.

It also turned out that the owner of the hotel was a wealthy political contributor and close family friend of the new governor. Now, the powers that be wanted to “figure out” this latest Big Apple hospitality fiasco as quickly and discreetly as possible.

I don't know about any of that wishful sort of political thinking. Nor, frankly, do I care. A person was dead, and I was available, so here I was.

I came around the pile driver and squatted down on my heels to look at the body. The deceased was a tall, lean, dark-haired man in his early thirties, maybe. He wore a nice dark suit and was positioned lying on his back in a pool of blood, his face smashed up horribly.

I took a few steps back, looked up at the hotel and unintentionally let out a whistle. He must have come down face-first and hit the metal pile driver on the right, which flipped him like a rag doll. I felt terrible for the guy. Like pretty much every other jumper I had ever dealt with, he seemed to have suffered a gruesome death.

“Wallet? Phone?” I said to Judy.

“None that I can see. I didn't pat him down, though. Thought you'd want to.”

I knelt beside him, pulled on a pair of rubber gloves, and went through the pockets of his pants and jacket. There was nothing. No wallet, no phone. Not even when Judy helped me turn him and look underneath the body.

Didn't make a lot of sense. Drunk? I thought. Suicide? But I let my conclusions slide for the time being, and snapped a few pictures with my phone of this poor citizen's ruined face.

“I'm done here, Judy,” I said, giving her my card. “When the medical examiner gets here, tell him this gentleman is good to go.”

“That's it, huh?” Judy said, smiling. “Love 'em and leave 'em? Mike Bennett, NYPD's version of the Lone Ranger. Who was that masked man?”

“Hey, feel free to take notes on what an efficient textbook investigation looks like,” I said with a wink. “Like you said, you're dealing with the legendary Major Case.”

The first thing
I noticed as I entered the stylish modern hotel off the 67th Street sidewalk were the two people talking by the front desk.

One was a twenty-something white guy wearing an Arab keffiyeh scarf with his blue blazer. The other was an elegant middle-aged black woman in a plum-colored dress and pearls. They seemed to be arguing quietly, and the guy in the scarf was holding up his phone between them, right in the lady's face.

“Hi. I'm Detective Bennett. Are you the hotel manager?” I said to the woman.

“Yes. I'm Amanda Milton,” she said pleasantly. I stepped between them, almost knocking the phone out of the guy's hand.

“And who are you?” I said to the guy curtly. As if I didn't know.

“Luke Messerly. From the
New York Times,
” he said.

“Could I talk to you for a sec, Luke?” I said. I steered him toward the front revolving door. “I just got here, buddy,” I said in a low tone. “I need to get a handle on this investigation. Give me your card, and as soon as I have something, I'll get back to you. I promise.”

“Yeah, right. Don't give me the runaround, Detective. I know who you are. You're Mike Bennett, the NYPD's go-to Major Case problem solver. Or is it fixer? I also know that the owner of this hotel is very good friends with the governor. Coincidence? I think not.”

I smiled as I put an arm over Luke's shoulder.

“Luke, you're quick. I like that. But listen. Your boss told you to drop everything and rush the hell down here, am I right?” I asked.

“Of course. What does that have to do with anything?”

“Luke, we're in the same boat, buddy. My boss did the same exact thing to me.”

“Which means?”

“Which means we're in this together. But if you start stepping on my toes, then how can I be nice to you and help you keep your new job? See, I know you're young and impatient, Luke. I was the same way myself once upon a time. But if you continue to push, I will ‘no comment' you straight back to the real estate or Queens section you just came from. You don't want that, do you? Of course not. You're in the bigs now, Luke. The last thing you want is to get sent back down, right?”

“I guess,” he said. I slapped my card into his hand and nudged him into the exit.

“Let's cooperate, buddy, and truly, we'll all get through this just fine,” I said with a smile, as I helped the doorman push the reporter out the door.