Parker 02 - The Guilty (4 page)

exposed every jealous and spiteful emotion from those who

wished they had it, and from those who wanted nothing to do

with it.

I saw Curtis Sheffield on the cop side of the tape, holding

back photographers and issuing "no comments" like they

were going out of style. Curt Sheffield was a young black

officer, two years out of the academy and the kind of cop

who'd be one of New York's finest for years to come. Fit, tall,

with a smile that got female witnesses offering more than their

side of the story. I'd interviewed Curt a few months ago for

a story on the NYPD's developing new body armor, how the

upgrade was long overdue, and how based on gunshot wound

studies the new vests, when implemented across the country,

would likely save up to thirty lives a year.

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Jason Pinter

Curt was glad the department finally kicked in the dough

to save lives, but offered sincere remorse for the lives that had

already been lost. He'd been honest and eloquent, and it was

clear the public good was his passion. The department had

recognized this--and recognized that his face would look

good on a poster--and within weeks Curt was the centerpiece

of a new NYPD recruitment campaign.

Despite our naturally combative professions, I considered

Curt a friend. He was a great source because he knew any information he passed along would be treated with respect. A

few weeks after the recruitment drive started, Curt admitted

that most cops weren't big fans of
do I know you
looks. They

don't like getting recognized in movie theaters or getting

asked for autographs. So we had something in common.

Curt saw me as I battled the wave of gawkers barricaded

behind police tape. He walked over fast, a stern look in his

eye.

"Hey, back off," he said, approaching a grizzled paparazzo

trying to sneak his camera beneath the tape. He eyed me,

popped his head to the left.
Come over here.

I followed him off to the side. Another cop held back the

masses so we could talk in private.

"You believe this shit?" Curt said. "Don't know what's worse,

cleaning up this mess or having Athena Paradis's stupid song

stuck in my head while her blood is drying on the sidewalk."

"I'd say they're both pretty bad."

"Yeah. Pretty bad," he said, distracted. He was chewing

gum. His jaw was working overtime, anything to keep his

mind occupied.

"So you assigned to this mess?" I asked.

"You aren't assigned to shitstorms, they just happen to rain

when you're walking by." Curt smacked his gum.

The Guilty

35

"Big story," he continued. "Not just any girl got killed

here tonight."

"Don't I know it." I leaned in. "Listen, man, if I had to

guess, Athena was killed by a high-powered rifle. Highcaliber slug." I pointed at the outcropping of rooftops surrounding the Kitten Club. "Your killer shot from the roof of

one of these buildings. Guess it's up to your forensics and

spatter people to figure out the angle and trajectory."

"Like Deadwood out here. Everybody saw everything, but

nobody saw nothing. Know what I mean?"

"Yeah. Figure some sick asshole with a video cell phone

will upload this to YouTube any minute now." I looked around,

saw half a dozen half-drunk and half-asleep club goers fiddling

on cell phones and BlackBerries. "Maybe sooner than later."

Curt kept chewing, nodded. "You see that building over

there?" He flicked his head north.

"Which one?"

"Don't know," he said, eyes locked on to mine. "Maybe

redbrick or something."

I looked again. There was a redbrick building two blocks

north and one block west of us. I could make it out through

the early morning haze.

"Seen a lot of my boys in blue checking it out. Trying not

to cause a stir."

"That right?"

Curt nodded. "Hate to see those cockroaches at the

Dispatch
get the brass ring. You know they had a reporter over

here from their gossip section, offered to write me up as one

of NYC's hottest bachelors if I planted a bug in our briefing

room? Fucking parasites."

"Hell, you'd be lucky to break the top hundred."

"Yeah, tell that to my girlfriend. I'd be on patrol with a

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Jason Pinter

GPS monitor up my ass the second she thinks my eyes start

wandering." Curt looked around, coughed into his hand.

"Can't say I was a fan of Athena's, you know,
work,
but

Christ, the girl was only twenty-two."

"No kidding," I said. We stayed silent for a moment, then

I remembered my deadline. "Hey, drinks on me this week. If

I don't hit my deadline which is in, oh about six minutes, I'll

be out of work and you'll have to pick up the tab."

"Then get the hell out of here." He clapped me on the

shoulder. "Take it easy, Parker."

After saying goodbye I hung back for a minute. I didn't

want to let anyone else know I had a possible scoop. Then I

waded back into the soup of reporters, stuffed my hands in

my pockets and headed north.

Two patrolmen jogged by me. I slowed down. There were

several cops huddling outside of the redbrick building Curt

had pointed out. As I got closer I heard radio activity. I stopped

at the corner and peeked around.

A cop stood by the awning, a walkie-talkie in his hand. A

plainclothes cop, probably from Forensic Investigation, strode

up and spoke to him for a minute, then ducked inside. I took

a breath, waited until the cop was alone, then rounded the

corner and approached him.

"Help you?" he said.
Nothing to see here, move along.

"Henry Parker,
New York Gazette.
" I showed him my press

credentials. Might as well have been a slab of lemon, the way

his face scrunched up.

"Go on, get out of here."

"Something going on inside this building?" The cop locked

eyes with me, then spoke deliberately.

"You know you don't have a whole lot of fans in the law

enforcement community."

The Guilty

37

I nodded. Even though charges had never been brought for

the murder of Officer John Fredrickson, if not for me he'd still

be alive. And even though he was dirty as sin, that was something no cop or Fed would ever forget.

"Crime scene is over on Thirteenth." He jerked his thumb

back where I'd come from. "You want a better view of the

crime scene, might I suggest walking to the middle of the

Brooklyn Bridge and then jumping off."

I laughed, pretended it didn't affect me. "I saw several

officers entering and exiting this site."

"You saw wrong."

"Officer..." I said, looking at his badge. "Officer

Lemansky. I know this is the building the killer shot Athena

Paradis from. You and I both know this murder is going to

make both of our lives a living hell until the killer is caught.

All differences aside, the story is huge, and it won't go away

just because you tell me to. Whether it's the
Gazette,
the

Dispatch
or the
National Enquirer,
you're going to have reporters up your ass until this psycho is caught. Do you read the

newspaper?"

He nodded. "So what?"

"So you must have read that story the
Dispatch
ran last

week. Detective Pedro Alvarez, killed in the line of duty. Did

you know him?"

Lemansky's silence was an affirmative.

"So you know the
Dispatch
ran a front-page story two

days after his death. About his mistress. Lena something,

right?"

Officer Lemansky sniffed. He shuffled his feet.

"Fucking parasites," he said. "Madeleine deserved better

than seeing her family's name dragged through the mud." He

looked at me. "Alvarez was a good cop and a good husband. If

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Jason Pinter

it wasn't for people like you he'd still be remembered that

way."

I had my opening.

"I don't work for the
Dispatch.
I'm not interested in smear

campaigns and ruining families to sell papers. If you don't talk

to me, another reporter will get the story. You've read the

Gazette.
So you can talk to me right here, right now, or I can't

promise what tomorrow's headline will be in the
Dispatch.

But I can promise you what the headline will be in the

Gazette.
"

Lemansky was searching my eyes for the truth. Whether

he could trust me. I knew he could.

He nodded. "I give you something, it came from an anonymous source. I get quoted, or you do anything to go back on

what you just said, I don't care if the papers start claiming

we're fucking aliens from Mars, you'll get a mouthful of

broken teeth before you ever get another story."

I said, "You have my word."

He looked around. I thought about Curt. Knew the cops

just wanted to make sure the right thing was done.

"Forensics is saying they found a note scrawled up on the

roof, below the ledge they think the shooter rested the gun on.

They're analyzing it, but they say he wrote in block using a

Sharpie so it's pretty much useless. They're sifting through

about a ton of loose gravel up there, could take days to find

anything else."

"The note," I said, speaking softly, half to calm the cop and

half to slow down my heart. "What did it say?"

The cop looked around again. He reached into his pocket

and pulled out a folded piece of paper.

"Some lab rat passed copies around, asked if anyone had

ever heard of someone talking like this before. I didn't know,

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39

but..." He licked his lips. His eyes danced around, like

somebody was about to leap from the morning shadows.

He handed it to me.

"Get out of here," he said. "And remember what you said."

I nodded, took the paper and walked off.

I waited until I'd gone about three blocks and was out of

the line of sight from the building. Then I opened my hand.

It was a simple piece of paper on which was written a

single sentence. And if Lemansky was correct, besides a

murdered girl, this was all the killer left behind.

I read the sentence. Felt my breath catch in my throat.

Right then I knew why Officer Lemansky was scared. I knew

what my angle was. A chill of fear ran up my spine, similar

to the one I felt last year when I was accused of murder.

And I knew that Athena Paradis wouldn't be the last

victim.

5

I was sitting in Wallace Langston's office as he read a

printout of the article. My palms were coated with sweat

and my eyelids felt like they were being dragged down

with two-ton weights. Evelyn had posted the text of my

article at 4:22 a.m., holding it up just to confirm my source.

When I told her the quote the killer had left at the scene,

she paused.

"Why do I recognize that line?" she asked.

I took a breath before answering. "Because I wrote it."

The slip of paper Officer Lemansky gave me had one

simple sentence on it. It read:

The only difference between the innocent and the

guilty is that the guilty are the only ones who believe

in their cause.

I had written that line several weeks after being cleared of

the murder of John Fredrickson. When I was on the run, when

the whole world saw me as a murderer, other than Amanda I

was the only one who knew and believed in the truth. The

article was in response to those who'd been so quick to pass

The Guilty

41

judgment, including the
Gazette'
s own Paulina Cole. I was

happy to hear when she left for the
Dispatch.
I couldn't

imagine going to work every day, sitting next to someone who

printed such vileness without knowing the truth.

When the world assumed I was guilty, they looked at me

as a degenerate, someone to whom committing murder was

justified.

And now a killer had taken my words, used them to support

whatever twisted reasoning goes through the mind of someone willing to steal an innocent life.

The killer knew he was guilty. Only he didn't care. He had

a cause. Causes don't simply end. Murderers don't simply

lose interest. There were more victims out there.

"This came out well," Wallace said, mainly to fill the

silence. We both knew the copy wasn't great, but contained

all confirmed and pertinent facts and was as good as could

be expected from a reporter running on Red Bull and a

deadline.

He put the papers down on top of a copy of the morning

edition of the
Dispatch.
Wallace had it delivered every day,

though I couldn't remember him ever reading it.

The headline read, HEIRESS WHACKED: Police Search

For Sex Symbol Shooter. It was actually one of their more

subtle headlines.

"I give them ten points for alliteration," I said. "'Search For