Bad Blood (33 page)

“Oh, Detective Chapman, you’re not wrong. We’ve got our Whitneys and our Woolworths and our Vanderbilts.” Silbey poked his head between us again with a new spurt of energy. “This was such an elite place in its heyday. We’ve got Irving Berlin and Duke Ellington, Herman Melville and Joseph Pulitzer. Mayor La Guardia, of course. And our ladies — like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Nellie Bly.”

“No matter how much money they spent on these shrines to themselves, they’re still dead, aren’t they?” Mike said.

“Obviously so. These memorials just tell their stories, sir.” Silbey sat back in his seat. “That’s Primrose, just after the stop sign. You can pull over and park.”

“What’s this? The low-rent district?”

The headstones in the section we were approaching were on a flat piece of land, far less dramatic than the rolling topography of so much of the park. There were no grandiose monuments here, but rather crowded rows of small markers, set close together.

The strips were bare of the elegant plantings we had passed along the way, shaded simply by tall, old trees that dotted the dirt pathways.

“Some of the more modest graves are in this area. The girl’s family,” Silbey said, stepping out of the car, checking his notes for the name, “the Hassetts, is it? Looks like they bought the plot about fifty years ago. Not quite the placement some of our rich and famous have, but we’ve got many local folks like them.”

I joined Mike on the side of the road. “The diggers will meet us here?” he asked.

Silbey checked his watch. “It’s almost nine. They should be along shortly. Anyone else coming?”

“There’ll be a van from the medical examiner’s office to take the body away,” Mike said. “And maybe a couple of detectives from the Bronx District Attorney’s Office. Where is she?”

Silbey crossed the road. “Four rows back in there. G112. It’s just a small marker in the ground.”

Mike made his way through the narrow footpaths — stopping to kneel in front of the flat stone that said
REBECCA HASSETT
on it. I watched as he ran his finger over the letters that formed her name and studied the numbers chiseled in it, which noted the few years between her birth and death.

Several generations of Hassetts were here, resting head to foot, fast running out of room in their final resting place. Mike glanced around at the names, then continued walking downhill toward what looked to be another pond, which was bordered in part by an enormous weeping beech.

I walked behind him and stopped when he did, for a second time, at a larger headstone. “Whaddaya know? William Barclay Masterson.”

“Who?”

“Gold-topped cane, derby hat, fastest gun in the West. I’d have expected him to be buried on Boot Hill.”

“Bat? Bat Masterson?” I remembered the reruns of the popular fifties TV western starring Gene Barry, but knew nothing about the life of the real deputy marshal appointed by Teddy Roosevelt.

Neither of us heard Evan Silbey come down the dirt path. “He left Dodge City to come back to New York. Bat was a sportswriter for the
Morning Telegraph
when he—”

“Did you see that?” Mike asked, turning to look toward a tall obelisk marker.

“What? The van?” I noticed the morgue car — with its
OCME
markings on the side panel — coasting to a stop behind our Crown Vic.

Mike shook his head. “Someone was crouching behind the marker opposite the Hassett plot. Somebody waiting for us who wasn’t invited to this unpleasant little disinterment.” He started to trot down the incline.

“Where’s he going?” Silbey asked, his voice rising almost an octave.

I saw a figure in a dark coat dart out from behind the obelisk and cross the road to go down toward the tranquil pond. Mike called out for the person to stop as he began to give chase.

“Mike,” I said, in almost a whisper. It seemed so inappropriate to be shattering the quiet of this sanctuary.

He ignored me but had reached the roadway just as the truck carrying four gravediggers pulled up to the intersection.

The person picked up speed as he ran downhill, and Mike lost seconds waiting for the truck to make the turn. Whoever it was did not want to stop to see why Mike was after him.

The branches of the weeping beech hung over the landscape, like hundreds of arms reaching almost to the ground. I lost sight of the black-coated figure when he headed directly for the great tree and slipped under its limbs, disappearing behind it. A garish mausoleum with a green copper roof sat beside the beech and provided cover for him as well.

Ten seconds later, Mike was swallowed up by the foliage, too. Anxiety had overtaken me again. I didn’t need any more excitement after yesterday’s trauma. I was too late to try to chase Mike and uncertain about what had set him off after the elusive figure.

I cut through the grass between several markers to get to the curb. I pleaded with Mr. Silbey to send the gravediggers to back Mike up. All four of them — and Silbey himself — looked at me as though I had lost my mind.

“What do you need, Miss Cooper?” one of the morgue drivers asked.

“Mike Chapman — he’s gone off after someone. Would you check down there” — I pointed — “and see if he needs any help?”

“Sure. Who was it?”

“I don’t know.”

“But,” the driver said tentatively, “what if it’s trouble?”

“It’s probably paparazzi,” I said. “Mike was worried that someone at the squad might have leaked this to a reporter. We wanted to get the exhumation done without any press around. Please hurry.”

We had talked about that possibility on the ride to the cemetery. I hadn’t seen a camera in the runner’s hand, but now I was actually hoping that the interloper was no more dangerous than a press photographer.

Reluctantly, the driver started walking toward the pond.

Another car pulled up behind our growing caravan. A husky, thick-necked man in a T-shirt, jeans, and clean work boots — a baseball cap barely fitting the circumference of his wide head — got out and came slowly toward Evan Silbey and me with his head down.

“I thought you weren’t expecting anyone else,” Silbey said. “Get Chapman back here. Who is this?”

“I don’t have any idea,” I said.

Then the well-muscled figure lifted his head and kept walking toward the stone that bore Rebecca Hassett’s name. All his features were exaggerated — a bulbous nose, strong chin, piercing blue eyes, and sulking expression. It was her brother Bobby.

He wagged a finger in my direction. “Don’t think you’ll be touching my sister, Miss District Attorney. Not you, not that wiseass cop who’s sticking his nose in our personal business every place I go. Let her rest in peace, for God’s sake, or I’ll be sure you live to regret it.” Hassett stepped closer to me and backed me against another headstone. “You leave the poor girl alone.”

“Look, Mr. Hassett, we’ve got a court order to do this,” I said, trying to glance over my shoulder for any sign of Mike. “I — I know this is an awful thing to have to think about, but it’s quite possible that techniques we have now that weren’t available when your sister was killed might help us identify—”

Bobby Hassett’s face was just inches from mine. His nostrils flared and his bloodshot eyes narrowed as I spoke. His breath had the faint odor of beer as he interrupted my lame explanation. “Don’t give me none of that. What difference is it to know who the mutt is who killed the kid? He’s lived way too long to make any kind of justice worthwhile.”

“A judge has already made a ruling about this,” I said, inching backward again.

“I know that. I got a call from the DA’s Office last night—”

“My office?”

“The Bronx. Those fools thought they were going to get my permission to do this.”

“Well, that would have been necessary if the judge hadn’t granted the order,” I said, aware that the prosecutor’s phone call was what had alerted Bobby to this morning’s exhumation.

“An order? Let me see your papers.”

Evan Silbey had retreated from this encounter. “Mr. Silbey,” I said, “you’ve got to send your men to find Detective Chapman.”

Bobby Hassett grabbed my wrist and pulled me forward. “Get your damn foot off my mother’s grave.”

I looked down to see the writing on a small flat stone similar to Rebecca’s, though not worn by age and exposure to the elements. The woman had been dead less than six months, according to the date. The grass around her little plot was newer than that around the family graves surrounding it.

“The documents are in the car. The detective picked them up early this morning. I’ll get them for you.”

I was glad to step away from Hassett and even more relieved to see Mike Chapman, leaning on the arm of the morgue driver, limping up the slope that led from the pond.

I didn’t stop to get the court order, but jogged directly down to meet the two men.

“What happened?”

“I fell on my rear end, that’s all. Glad you weren’t there to see it. Twisted my ankle and slid down. Just missed that frigging tree trunk. Could have planted me in old Mr. Woolworth’s mausoleum.”

“Is it—”

“Nah. I stepped into a pile of goose droppings and my foot went out from underneath. It’s just sore. Maybe a sprain.”

“You didn’t catch up to the guy, did you?”

“Not even close. Not even a good look. Like a gazelle, he was.”

I put my arm around Mike’s back and let him walk the rest of the way up leaning on me. “A photographer?”

“Not likely. No equipment dangling and no reason to run.”

“Well, we’ve got another spectator,” I said. “Bobby Hassett.”

“That’s a gruesome thought. He wants to watch?”

“He wants to stop us. Someone from Jefferson’s office called him last night, trying to get his consent in case the judge didn’t go for their application. Tipped him off that something might happen this morning, whether the Hassetts agreed to it or not, and now he’s here to try to prevent us from — from doing this.”

As soon as Mike heard Hassett’s name, he untangled himself from me and straightened up, walking gingerly across the road to get to the family plot.

Mr. Silbey scurried toward Mike. “Please, Detective Chapman. We can’t have a scene here.”

“I forgot — all your peeps are asleep, aren’t they?”

“This man has rights, too, doesn’t he?”

Mike kept moving while he looked around us. Birds were chirping in the surrounding trees, the wind occasionally gusted and rustled the leaves, no one else was in sight but those of us who had come to disturb Rebecca Hassett’s grave — and her irate brother. There was nothing in this pastoral setting to tell us that we were still in New York City.

“Bobby,” Mike said, reaching a hand out to Hassett. “Mike Chapman. Homicide.”

“Yeah. I know that.” His hands were dug as far as they could go into his jeans’ pockets.

“Could we step away from here? Would you let me tell you—”

“Not a chance.”

I walked to the morgue van and spoke to the patient attendants, waiting for their cargo.

“Call 911. Get Chapman some backup from the precinct, okay?”

They both looked startled, and I had to repeat the demand, explaining who Hassett was, to get them to make the call.

I opened the door of the department car and removed Mike’s folder, looking for the court order. I started back over to where he and Bobby Hassett were going head-to-head.

“I don’t understand you,” Mike said. “If it was someone I loved — if it were my sister — and you come along telling me we can maybe solve a crime, find her killer — I don’t care if it’s fifty years later, I’d be so thrilled to get the motherfucker I’d move heaven and earth.”

One eye was on my watch. Forty-five seconds since the 911 call was placed. Officer needs assistance was bound to get a rapid response.

“Yeah, well, you’re not moving this piece of earth.”

I handed Mike the exhumation order, thinking it might help him to have some law to back up his reason.

He flipped the page to the judge’s signature and turned it around so Hassett could read the bottom line. Instead, Hassett swung his arm wildly and knocked the papers out of Mike’s hand.

I bent to retrieve them as Mike signaled the quartet of gravediggers to move in. A minute and a half later, and Bobby Hassett was becoming more agitated, his face reddening and his eyes bulging.

The four workmen picked up their tools and began a solemn march toward Rebecca’s grave.

Hassett waited until they were alongside him, then lurched at the first man, trying to take hold of the long wooden handle of his shovel. Mike took a step forward, wincing as his full weight landed on his bad ankle, and grabbed Hassett’s right arm.

Bobby Hassett spun on his heel and threw his fist at Mike’s face, missing narrowly. The other men backed off as Mike held out both arms to try to calm his opponent down.

It was more than two minutes — two and a half — before the peaceful cemetery air vibrated with the sound of a distant siren.

Hassett punched again, and Mike, unable to dance away on his lame leg, was nailed in the shoulder.

“Don’t be crazy, Bobby,” I said. “Don’t get yourself locked up over this.”

He paid no attention to me and lashed out again, without success.

The siren was getting louder. The gravediggers turned their backs to the commotion and huddled together while Evan Silbey ran for the shelter of Mike’s car. The driver of the morgue vehicle had stayed on the phone — with the operator, I guessed — to let her know when the cops arrived.

The patrol car came from the west, speeding down the gently undulating hill. The two officers parked in the middle of the road, running over toward us.

I flashed my gold-and-blue shield — a prosecutorial copy of the NYPD badge — and identified myself. “That’s Mike Chapman — Homicide — in the blue blazer.”

The younger cop made a beeline for Bobby Hassett, while the older one laughed and took his time. “I worked with Mikey when he was breaking in. I oughta let this one go ten rounds, for all the aggravation he gave me.”

The uniformed rookie wrestled Hassett to the ground and restrained him until his partner caught up and rear-cuffed the silent, sullen man.