Dancer in the Flames (18 page)

‘Thanks for the coffee.’

Andy Littlewood’s smile wavered for a moment, then vanished. ‘Well, then, I can see you’re busy.’

Jill continued on as though they’d never been interrupted. ‘Now, here’s the thing. Uncle Mike would sell his soul to be named Commissioner, but he’s not an idiot – no Chief of D has ever made it to the top. But Uncle Mike’s willing to settle for second best, which is his job. He wants to remain Chief of Detectives after the changeover.’

‘And Mario Polanco is how he plans to do it?’ Boots asked. Mario Polanco was Chief of Internal Affairs.

‘Exactly. Polanco is one of the hopefuls and Uncle Mike’s been his running dog for years. If Polanco’s named Commissioner, Michael Shaw remains Chief of D. It’s that simple.’

‘What’s Corcoran’s connection?’

‘Corcoran’s rabbi is the Chief of Department, Eamon Gogarty, who has more political connections in New York than the Mayor. He’s everybody’s favorite. Polanco’s hoping to bring Gogarty down a peg.’

‘And how do I fit in?’

‘When Vinnie Palermo’s arrest was announced, Eamon Gogarty and Mack Corcoran were both standing on the platform, along with the Mayor and the Commissioner.’

‘So, if Vinnie’s cleared, the blame will fall on Polanco’s rivals.’ Boots took a second to add up the columns. ‘Are you telling me that Michael Shaw doesn’t want me to look at his brother-in-law’s murder? He’s willing to let that go?’

‘Listen and learn, Boots. If Michael Shaw had to choose between his own interests and the interests of God Almighty, he wouldn’t hesitate for a minute. And he won’t hesitate to feed you all the rope you want, then hang you with it if you fail to advance those interests.’

‘In that case, you better hope I know what I’m doin’, because the way I’m gonna set things up, Mike Shaw won’t be able to hang Boots Littlewood without also hanging Jill Kelly.’

Jill crossed her legs, noting Boots Littlewood’s gaze flick to her thighs. ‘Why don’t we get down to business,’ she said. ‘Tell me what you want.’

B
oots had a list of demands all ready to go, a list he’d been preparing for weeks. He was about to begin with the items at the top of the list when his house phone rang.

‘Boots, it’s Fianna Walsh speakin’. You remember when you asked us to watch for the cops? Well, there’s one sittin’ right down the block.’

‘In uniform?’

‘No, but we talked it over and Jenicka’s sure. The guy’s definitely watchin’ your house.’

‘When did he show up?’

‘Right after your . . . your little visitor.’

Boots was still smiling when he re-entered the living room. Boots beaten up? Cops on the block? Little visitors? Even the heaven to which Fianna and the ladies fully expected to ascend couldn’t be more joyful than this.

‘Problem?’ Jill asked.

‘Yeah, we’ve got an uninvited guest sittin’ in a car up the block. Time for a little walk.’

‘What do you plan to do?’

‘Show you off.’

‘Is that the price? Jill Kelly as your protector?’

Boots ignored the jibe. ‘Actually, the price is a lot higher. First thing, I want to be returned to active duty, but I don’t want to report to anyone but you. And no paper trail, either. I keep my notes to myself until such time as I decide to release them. Otherwise, I’ll work things out on my own.’

A pair of roses blossomed in Jill Kelly’s cheeks. Irish roses, no doubt, roses of Killarney. ‘What else?’

‘The case files on the Lipstick Killer, Patrick Kelly and Chris Parker, along with any relevant IAB files, and time enough to study them. After that, you get to watch my back on the street. The way I understand it, you’ve got the eyes of an eagle and the balls of a wolverine.’

This time Jill got the message. A spank on the ass, a pat on the head. ‘If your only goal is to liberate Vinnie Palermo, what do you want with the other files?’

Boots shook his head. His demands were non-negotiable. ‘You don’t mind, I’m gonna head for the bedroom and change my clothes. I was raised in Greenpoint and I have to meet neighborhood standards.’

Now Kelly was laughing. ‘Neighborhood standards? Boots, you better look in the mirror. Because if your face is the neighborhood standard, it’s time to emigrate.’

Lenny Olmeda’s eyes jumped back and forth, from Boots to Jill, as he watched them approach. He was wondering which of the two was actually in charge. The question was answered when Boots leaned into the window, his face close enough to count the fading stitch-marks on his forehead. Olmeda braced himself. Corcoran’s instructions were succinct: Find out what he wants. Lenny Olmeda could only hope it wasn’t a pound of his flesh.

‘I was just coming to see you, Boots.’

‘What about?’

‘The case, man. I came about the case. It looks like you were right. The rumor on the street is that Mark Dupont—’

‘Forget it, Lenny. Mark Dupont had nothing to do with what happened to me. I only said that to buy a little time. Now, listen close to what I’m tellin’ you. Me and Jill are gonna walk around the block. If you’re still parked here when we get back, I’ll do to you what I did to Artie Farrahan. Plus, you should tell your boss that if he sends somebody else, I’m going to assume that individual means to do me harm and act appropriately.’

Boots straightened up and turned to face his partner. Jill Kelly was standing a few feet to the left, seeming entirely at ease except for a single detail, a detail only a cop would notice. Though her shoulders were relaxed and her arms hung at her sides, she was grasping the hem of her linen jacket with the thumb and forefinger of her left hand. If she needed to reach her weapon, of course, she’d have to get her jacket out of the way.

‘So,’ he said as he led her up the block, ‘I heard you’re a great shot. Where’d you learn?’

‘My father was big on self-protection. I was ten when he enrolled me in a class at the range in Sunnyside. I took to it right away.’

‘Why do you think that was?’

Jill glanced over her shoulder as Olmeda pulled away from the curb and headed down the block. ‘I’m not a big fan of psychiatry,’ she told Boots. ‘To my mind, the examined life’s not worth living. But I’ll tell you this, there’s a lot to be said for being really good at something. After I came within ten points of making the Olympic team last year, my self-esteem went through the roof.’

Boots watched Jill light a cigarette, carefully gauged the direction of an intermittent breeze, finally dropped a step behind her. From this position, he could observe the rise and fall of her buttocks without her catching him at it. To his experienced eye, they appeared as confident as the rest of her.

‘I was never that good at anything,’ he said, ‘but I once hit a baseball four hundred feet. That was in a PAL championship game. Talk about a sweet spot. It felt like I hit a golf ball.’

‘Did you win?’

‘Win what?’

‘The game.’

‘No, we lost.’

Jill wiped the sweat off her forehead. ‘Sorry to hear that.’

Forty-eight hours later, Boots got what he wanted: a mountain of paper that he and Jill carried to an unused bedroom in his apartment. The Lipstick Killer task force had included nearly a hundred cops investigating four homicides. Apparently, they’d toiled night and day, conducting thousands of interviews which now filled several dozen boxes. The paper generated by the year-long Pat Kelly investigation filled a dozen more. Chris Parker, by comparison, was the neglected orphan, two boxes sufficient to contain the entirety of the investigation into his death.

‘Hope you brought your reading glasses.’

‘Gimme a break. I just turned forty. I can read without glasses.’

‘Sorry. The scar – it makes you look older.’

‘Now who’s pressing buttons?’

They were standing on opposite sides of a wooden desk, both grinning, both sweating. ‘I realize it’s not my place to ask,’ Jill said, ‘but what do you plan to do with all this?’

‘Find a place to begin.’

‘And how long will that take?’

‘A couple of days? A couple of weeks? I only know we can’t afford a lot of dead ends, there being only the pair of us. Of course, you could make both our jobs a lot easier.’

‘Me?’

The corner of Jill Kelly’s mouth slid a few millimeters to the left. A smile? A sneer? Boots maintained a neutral expression as he continued. ‘Your father was murdered six years ago and you’ve been out for revenge ever since. This I can tell just by looking into your eyes. And I don’t blame you. If it was my father, and I had to look at his body—’

‘Get to the point, Boots. I don’t want to hear any more bullshit.’

‘OK. Why did you suddenly show up at Brooklyn North after Parker was killed? Why were you assigned to the case? Is there anything you need to tell me that I won’t find in the files?’

‘Boots, it’s like I already said. Uncle Mike sent me to keep an eye on Corcoran.’

‘Now who’s bullshitting?’

This time Jill’s smile was quick and genuine. ‘Well, that’s my story,’ she declared, ‘and I’m stickin’ to it.’

B
oots got busy within minutes after Jill Kelly’s departure. He had no intention of spending weeks, or even days, working through the files. If the answers were buried somewhere in the mass of paper filling the room, Jill and her uncle, the Chief of Detectives, would already know it. But that didn’t mean there was nothing to be gained, no questions to be answered. First, there was the need to impress Jill with his diligence when next she visited his humble home, and to deceive her if necessary.

Boots spent the next three hours examining the Chris Parker files. He found no trace of Rajiv Visnawana’s statement, nor any mention of the Hoyden of Humiliation. Instead, the paperwork documented a thorough neighborhood canvas, including six statements given by individuals who’d also testified before the grand jury. The statements were uniform in nature: two shots fired, a dash to the window, a car pulling away, a body on the corner.

After skimming the witness statements, Boots quickly reviewed the autopsy report which included a dozen photographs. One photo especially caught his attention. Chris Parker was positioned on his back prior to the beginning of the autopsy, staring up at the camera through his open right eye. His left eye was an empty socket, the bullet fired into the back of his skull having chosen this point to exit his body. A second exit wound appeared six inches to the left of his navel, and what appeared to be a third wound crossed his right hip. But when Boots took a closer look, the gash on Parker’s hip was a healed scar sunk deep into the underlying muscle. It looked as if his flesh had been gouged.

Boots replaced the autopsy report, then turned to an unmarked folder tucked away at the rear of the box. Inside, he found a single sheet of Internal Affairs Bureau stationery. He read it quickly, then read it again. A drug dealer from the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant named Maurice Selman, facing serious federal time, had claimed that Chris Parker was extorting money from his operation. The item had been routinely forwarded to Internal Affairs by the FBI, though no proof was offered, and IAB had routinely opened a file, but made no effort to follow up.

On one level, this was less than nothing. Vague accusations against cops assigned to Narcotics Division are an everyday occurrence. But two things caught Boots’s attention. First, the allegation had been made six years before, within a few months of Patrick Kelly’s murder. Then there was Maurice Selman, a legendary drug dealer well known to New York cops. Selman had been shot down shortly after his release from prison, probably by a rival named Elijah ‘Maytag’ LeGuin. Cock of the walk in the Bed-Stuy projects, LeGuin had earned his street name as an eight-year-old when he drowned the family cat in a washing machine.

Boots turned next to the thirty-seven boxes containing the Lipstick Killer files. Reading through them was clearly beyond his capacity and he limited his attention to three items: the crimes scene photographs, the statement given by Jules Cosyn following his arrest and a profile worked up by Detective Adam Khouri, the NYPD’s Quantico-trained profiler.

Boots took the crime scene photos into the living room and spread them out on the floor, separating the four scenes. Then he crawled from one to another in search of any indication that all four murders were not committed by a single individual. He found none. The crime scenes were as uniform as they were depressing. Each of the women had been strangled in a public space – two on stairwells, one as she entered her apartment, one in a basement laundry. The attack on the woman entering her apartment was the most telling. Her killer might simply have pushed her through the open doorway, then taken the time to enjoy himself, or at least to conceal her body. Instead, she was found lying across the threshold, fully clothed, her face smeared with her own lipstick.

Like Boots, Adam Khouri had made much of this particular attack in concluding that the perpetrator was disorganized and severely delusional. Many other factors supported this judgment. Though he placed no great faith in profilers, Boots could see them clearly. Each of the women was killed in a blitz attack that left her dead within two minutes. There was no sign of the sadistic behavior associated with organized serial killers like Ted Bundy, nor was there evidence of a sexual motivation. All the victims were fully clothed when discovered, and the lipstick marks (which the media had made so much of) were limited to random smears with the victims’ own lipsticks. In fact, there was no indication that Cosyn had brought anything with him to the crimes scenes – no restraints, no weapons.

The subject
, Adam Khouri wrote in his summary,
is a white male in his mid- to late twenties. He will have been diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic in early adolescence and have a long history of institutional care. Although he sometimes lives with his parents, he is currently homeless. Just as he has no plan of attack before an assault, he will have no plan of escape afterward. Look for him to linger within a block or two of a particular crime scene for several hours. He will be dirty, disheveled and confused when approached, but he will speak to investigators if properly handled. Under no circumstances should he be exposed to stressful interrogative techniques. If pressed, he is likely to retreat into his paranoid delusions. If allowed to proceed under gentle questioning, he will eventually reveal his motive for the homicides.