Black Water Transit (22 page)

Pete LeTourneau was waiting for him by the coffee machine halfway down the hallway, holding two cups and talking to Casey Spandau. Nicky hadn’t seen her since early this morning, when a couple of Internal Affairs bulls had hustled her into a black Lincoln and driven her away, followed by a second car with Dexter Zarnas and Carlo Suarez. As a state man, he was isolated, quarantined. Casey’s eyes were still swollen from crying, and she looked as if somebody had tied her to a chair and then thrown the chair down a fire escape.

She was leaning against the wall, holding her ratty brown briefcase against her belly in what Nicky was beginning to think of as a kind of obsessive manner. It was a damn ugly briefcase. It didn’t suit her. She was an absolute pistol, he couldn’t help thinking, and even in her state of shock she glowed like polished ebony. Maybe he should buy her a briefcase that suited her more. Matteblack steel with solid gold hinges and an engraved nameplate.

Pete LeTourneau, Nicky’s boss, could have been her older brother, a craggy-faced black cop with salt-and-pepper hair and slightly hooded eyes with the same Chinese cast to them. He was known around the State Police divisions as a hard man but a stand-up guy. If he was going to hand Nicky his papers, he’d do it right now. All he gave him when Nicky reached them was one of the coffees he was holding, along with a gentle smile.

“Nicky. How you doing?”

“How do I look?”

“Yeah. Stupid question. I’ve been talking to Officer Spandau here, Nicky. She tells me you handled yourself pretty good out there.”

Nicky looked at Casey, at her puffy face and reddened eyes, her body sagging with fatigue and guilt.

“Did she? I didn’t think any of us handled ourselves pretty good out there. But thanks, Casey.”

Casey just nodded, looking over Nicky’s shoulder at the IAD guys down the hallway. They were talking to one of the Seven Six patrolmen who had arrived just as Jimmy got shot. Casey couldn’t hear what was being said, but she figured her career was about a week from being over. Pete LeTourneau let the silence run for a minute.

“Okay, Nicky … I’ve been talking with Vince Zaragosa, the CO of the JTF. You met him yet?”

“Yeah. He was on the scene at Red Hook about ten minutes after Detective Rule was killed. We had a long talk.”

“Way he told it to me, he talked and you listened.”

“Yeah. That’s about right.”

“You want to go home, then?”

Nicky looked at Casey.

She shrugged, looked at her hands.

“You pulling me off the Blue Stores thing?”

Pete LeTourneau studied Nicky’s face for a time. His eyes were hard but not mean, and he seemed to be making up his mind based on whatever he could see in Nicky’s face. The voices in the hall were hushed, muted, like the talk at a funeral home. The hospital smelled of dead flowers and Lysol. Nicky waited for whatever was coming.

“No. I’m not. Nobody could see this shit coming. ATF was supposed to inform Port Authority, and they did, but only after they were in position. Port Authority
never told the NYPD, so there was no way any of you could have known what you were walking into. The usual jurisdictional crap. It’s not your fuck-up, Nicky. Don’t race to own it. You were doing well. Casey says you got some DNA off the guy. If we can match it with blood on the male vic, we can go ahead and charge him, see how it plays out. At least we’ll spoil his weekend. You have that with you?”

Nicky patted the pocket of his black leather jacket, pulled out a plastic bag with a razor blade inside. Pete took the bag, held it up to the light. Tiny flecks of blood and tissue were visible on the steel.

“Yeah, this would do it. How’d you get it?”

Casey’s face was motionless and Nicky thought she might be literally holding her breath. Pete LeTourneau was a fair man, a good cop, and Nicky didn’t want to lie to him. But he wanted Earl Pike. He was now quite certain that Pike was the guy. Why he had done what he did at Red Hook was a mystery. For now. But Pike was the only man who had the background for that kind of work. They had to get him now, any way they could. That meant using the razor blade.

“Detective Rule and Casey had Pike under surveillance. While he was out of the hotel, I went up to his floor. There were maids working the floor. The room was being cleaned. I got the maid to bring me out his garbage. I found the razor in the bag.”

Pete’s eyes widened.

“You tin her?”

“No.”

“Good, because you had no warrant, did you?”

“No, sir.”

“So why’d she bring it out for you?”

“She wanted to be helpful.”

“Yeah? That was sweet. Why’d she want to be helpful?”

“She was from Tegucigalpa. Maybe she thought I was INS.”

“You say you were?”

“No. But I didn’t say I wasn’t.”

Pete was silent for a while, working it through.

“You can swear in court this was taken directly from Earl Pike’s room? No chance of confusion? Chain of evidence?”

“I watched her go in, I watched her come out.”

“Will she verify that?”

“Will she have to?”

“Maybe. Is that a problem?”

“I might have scared her off. What if she blows town?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we don’t need her. I mean, we call her to testify, her job’s toast, and if she’s illegal, she’s out of here. Plus one more witness is one more chance to blow the case in court. DNA collected from a garbage bag has stood up before. Courts say you don’t have an expectation of privacy for hotel garbage. If you … let’s say you simply observed the garbage being removed from the suspect’s room … you follow? That’s a true statement. I mean, it’s literally true. And, being a good investigator, you saw an opportunity to collect DNA-bearing items … that would just be good police work. Right? No. I’d say we don’t need her.
If
the DNA holds up. What happened with the Benz? Zaragosa says the car was clean.”

Casey came to life at that.

“Sir, Pike’s job puts him in touch with a lot of covert sources. He could have had another Benz located by a contact. Or he got it repaired by experts. At the time we had no right to put the car through a really close examination. Pike was just a guy on a list, and the DMV numbers matched. If we get some DNA support, then we can
seize the Benz and tear it apart. Whatever they did, either way, it had to leave signs under the paint.”

“So you’re saying he found a substitute Benz? And faked the VIN number so well you couldn’t spot it? Or he had his own vehicle put back in mint condition by people so good at it that a couple of trained cops couldn’t spot the repairs? And he does either one of these tricky-dick stunts in just one day?”

“It’s the only explanation I can think of.”

“Yeah? I got one. How about maybe he’s innocent?”

Nicky shook his head.

“I’ve met the guy, Pete. He’s capable of the crime. He was in the vicinity of Blue Stores; a witness puts him in the region. He used his credit card to buy gas. His hand was bandaged. The only thing that says he’s innocent is the Benz, and I think Casey’s right. I think he managed to get the car cleaned up somehow. If we can match his DNA with the crime scene, we don’t even
need
the damned car.”

Pete looked from one to the other, his mind working.

“Okay. Okay. That works for me. Nicky, I’ll take this back to Albany, get it matched right away. Any idea where Pike is now?”

“No. I haven’t really looked. But we’re not the only people who want to have a chat. The ATF guys figure Pike might have had something to do with the …”

“Total screaming fuck-up?” offered Pete.

“Total screaming fuck-up at Red Hook. The sniper was a pro, that’s a fact. What, three ATF guys down, plus Detective Rule? With a sound suppressor? Christ.”

“Four ATF guys. Three very dead, and a guy named Luther Campbell hanging on to life with half his chest gone. And Detective Rule, the last hit. From a thousand yards, into the haze, into strong lights, without a brace. Everybody says that only a military-trained shooter
could do anything like it with a fifty-caliber rifle. And definitely a silenced weapon.”

Nicky’s eyes widened.

“A fifty? Jesus Christ. What was the weapon?”

“A Barrett Fifty. The army calls it an M-eighty-two-A-one.”

LeTourneau lifted up a CD-ROM, held it out to Nicky.

“This is a combat weapons CD. Put it on when you get a chance, learn about this piece. There’s a video. Watch it carefully. If this is what Pike’s using, we got big trouble right here in River City.”

Nicky took the CD, pocketed it, shrugged.

“So what the hell was going on at Red Hook?” he asked.

“I’m trying to get that out of them. This Pike, he’s military?”

“Retired a full colonel, Pete. Nobody will tell me anything about his background. But Pike’s the best suspect anybody has.”

“So ATF, they want him too?”

“Badly.”

“And if they get him first, we have zip on Blue Stores.”

“That’s right.”

“And if the ATF gets Pike on the sniper thing, it’ll be years before he answers for the NYPD guy. So we both got reasons to be interested, am I right, Officer Spandau?”

Casey shook her head and broke a long silence.

“Sir, if Pike’s connected to the death of an NYPD cop, then I got to be honest with you. We’ll have a conflict when we get him.”

“Let the DAs work that out. We’re just cops. You suspended, Officer Spandau?”

“Not yet. There’ll be a shooting board, because one of our guys, Carlo Suarez, fired his weapon at an ATF agent. We have an officer killed. There’ll be hell to pay. But no, Vince says I’m not suspended.”

“So your JTF team is still on this?”

“I … think so. If Vince wanted me off, he’d have said so.”

“What about the other two guys on your unit? Dexter Zarnas and Carlo Suarez? Will they help?”

“Vince busted Suarez back to patrol. But Dexter, he’s ready.”

“Are you? Ready? Personally?”

Casey lifted her face, hardened visibly.

“Yes. I am. I’m ready.”

Pete raised his hands, shrugged, flipped the plastic bag in the air and caught it.

“Okay. Get some sleep, both of you. Then go out and find this Earl Pike asshole, bring him back wrapped in heavy chains, hah?”

“Over the saddle or in it?” asked Nicky.

“What counts here is proof, not vital signs.”

“What about the ATF? Do we cooperate?”

“With the feds? Absolutely. You will cooperate with the federal agencies involved in this case as fully and as completely as they will cooperate with you. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” said Nicky. “Understood.”

Flannery Coleman arrived at the Red Hook Terminal a little after seven in the morning. There was heat building out in the long dockyard section, and the ATF agents guarding the long hull of the
Agawa Canyon
looked hot and bored, their black HK rifles held at port arms across their chests, their faces blank. Jack, watching from the window of the terminal manager’s office on the second floor of the main building, saw Flannery’s green Volvo pull up to a checkpoint manned by a couple of Port Authority police officers.

“He’s here,” he said, not looking back at Valeriana Greco. She stepped away from the small group of ATF agents gathered at the far end of the room, crossed over to the window.

“Fine. Now we can get started.”

“Started at what?”

Greco gave him the same flat stare that he’d been getting from everyone else in the Red Hook buildings.

“We have men down, we have questions. We’re hoping you can help us with the answers.”

Jack considered pushing harder, held his temper, said nothing. Four minutes later Flannery Coleman came through the office door, wearing a dark-blue single-breasted suit over a crisp white shirt, a Yale tie. He was shaved and fresh and looked as if he had just come off a week’s ski vacation in Vermont, his ruddy skin glowing and his pale-green eyes bright with battle. He ignored everyone in the room but Jack, strode briskly over to his
side, gave him a wink, and then turned to face Valeriana Greco.

“Before my client says or does anything, I’d like to know what the blazing hell is going on out there.”

Greco smiled at him. Flannery gave her an up-and-down look and waited. She was wearing some sort of black jumpsuit with a gold star on the left breast. Her hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail and her face was red and shiny. There was a look in her eyes, a kind of mutant sexual energy, that Jack had not noticed before.

“Mr. Coleman, the situation outside is something we can address later. Right now we’d like your client to accompany us on board the
Agawa Canyon
. We have something we’d like him to see.”

“Ms. Greco. I see police cars, I see federal cars, I see a crime scene van from the NYPD, I came through a cordon of press people, there’s a New York One satellite truck out there, and I passed a CNN mobile unit on the way up Van Brunt. Clearly there has been an event, and I’d like to know what it was exactly, and what bearing it may have on my client’s interests.”

Greco shook her head.

“We’re not at liberty to discuss the … event … as it’s an internal matter. Part of an ongoing investigation. I admit we have sustained some injuries as a result of the unexpected intervention of a unit of the NYPD. This is a jurisdictional matter that does not immediately affect Mr. Vermillion’s situation. Now, will you allow us to take your client over to the
Agawa Canyon
?”

“Is he charged with something, Ms. Greco?”

Greco licked her lips and Jack half expected her to snag a passing fly with her tongue while she was at it.

“Not at this time. And until he is, to be frank, you’re not really a part of this and have no standing here. You’re here as a courtesy and as a way of ensuring that
this investigation in no way violates Mr. Vermillion’s rights.”

“And what is the status of Mr. Earl V. Pike at this time?”

Greco’s face shifted through some expressions and settled on bland and blank.

“Mr. Pike is not currently in custody.”