Fourth Victim (19 page)

When he turned around, he saw McCauly’s lifeless body sprawled out on the kitchenette floor. As he passed the dead cop to see about Gigi, Serpe saw part of Finn’s forehead had been blown off and there was a hole three times the size in what used to be the back of his head. He heard faint groaning coming from the bedroom and as he stepped, his shoe slipped in an invisible puddle of blood, but he managed to use the wall and keep himself upright.

He reached into the bedroom and flicked on the switch. Here the fixture worked. Gigi was on her back, an ugly red stain spread across her upper body from her right shoulder down. Her eyes were open, she was panting, shivering, in shock. Joe’s Glock was still in her right hand. Serpe found a few pair of Gigi’s panties that were laying on the floor and he pressed them hard against the hole in her shoulder.

“You’re gonna be alright,” he said. “Can you hear the sirens? They’ll be here soon. You’re gonna be alright.”

“There was …” she gulped air. “There was someone else … here.”

“Don’t talk.”

She didn’t listen. “He was … tall, black … young. When … McCauly came after … you … I found your … gun. I went to … shoot … but the black guy—” Gigi’s body clenched in pain. “He shot … McCauly. One of the … shots … hit me.” She clenched again. “I squeezed … the … trigger. I think I hit … him.”

“Shhh,” he said. “I know it hurts, but I think it’s just your shoulder.” The sirens were louder now, maybe a block or two away. “Listen Gigi, I’ve gotta get outta here now, but if you—”

“Go!”

“But—”

“Go.”

Joe took the Glock and moved it onto the patch of panties on her shoulder, and told her to press as hard on the wound as she could until the cops got there. He knelt over and kissed her.

“Go!” was what she said.

S
erpe changed out of his bloody clothes and into the fresh ones in the backseat of Bob Healy’s car as they sped along the Grand Central Parkway in Queens towards the Jackie Robinson Parkway. As Joe changed, he explained to Healy and Blades about McCauly and Khouri Burgess.

“You were right about almost everything,” Serpe said, pulling a sweater over his head. “When you think about it, we were kinda dumb to think the Reverend James Burgess would throw some kid off a roof himself or be there when one of his minions did.”

“I guess,” Healy agreed. “So you think it was Khouri who showed up at Gigi’s apartment tonight, huh?”

“Yeah. I don’t know who else it could be.”

“And he got the pictures,” Blades said. “Shit.”

“He got the pictures, but he didn’t get these,” Joe said, reaching into his coat pocket and handing Detective Hines the white envelope. “He was in too much of a rush and I think Gigi might have wounded him. There was blood on the steps from her apartment.”

“Holy shit!”

“That’s right, partner. Holy shit.”

Raiza Hines popped on the dome light, opened the envelope, and held the strips of negatives up to the light.

“These are the real goods,” she said, carefulling replacing the negatives. “Edgerin Marsden caught the whole sequence of them tusseling and DeFrees going over the edge. It’s kinda tough to see on the negatives, but it looks like you’d be able to make out the faces of the two of them when they’re developed.”

“I’m sure that’s true, otherwise Burgess wouldn’t have paid anything beyond the first twenty grand.”

“Then what are we doing?” Blades asked, agitated. “We got the evidence right here about the DeFrees murder. You got McCauly to give up Edgerin Marsden’s killer. Chances are we’ll be able to track down who in his posse killed him. So, Joe, explain to me why are we breaking every rule in the book to go to Reverend Burgess’ headquarters and get ourselves jammed up or worse?”

“Because I wanna know who killed Rusty Monaco.”

“It was Khouri Burgess,” Blades said. “That’s pretty clear.”

“Maybe to you. You’re probably right that it was Khouri Burgess. Or maybe it was one of his daddy’s less savory business partners or maybe someone who owed him a favor. I mean, it was the Reverend Burgess who was under DOI investigation, not the son. It was the Rev who had the most to lose. It could have even been Finn McCauly, though I doubt it. I just don’t like getting half or most of the story.”

“Is it
that
important to find out exactly which one of the three actually put the bullets into Monaco? You already know why.”

“Blades, you and me, we don’t know each other real well, so I understand,” Joe said. “But I was never much for cutting corners on the job. You go back, you check my cases. None of the convictions built on my work were ever overturned on appeal. None. Never.”

“Not until the end, you mean,” Healy corrected. “Before your partner Ralphy started fucking up your cases and sabotaging your work to protect the scumbags who were paying him off and feeding his jones.”

Serpe relented. “Okay, not until the end, but it was Ralphy doing it. You know I didn’t do sloppy work. The one time in my career I cut corners and didn’t see things through; the one time I looked the other way and hoped for the best, I lost everything.”

“Ignoring what your partner was doing?” Blades asked.

“With Ralphy, yeah. I’m not gonna do that here. Not this time.”

“But why not let the NYPD and the Suffolk cops sort this shit out?” she asked. “The Burgesses ain’t going nowhere.”

“You know why, Blades?” Healy said. “Because the second they’re arrested, both father and son will lawyer up and shut up. The only murder that there’s any real evidence of is the DeFrees murder. On the Marsden kid’s homicide, all we got is McCauly’s word and he’s dead. Khouri Burgess, if that’s who really was at Gigi’s tonight, will claim that Finn McCauly fired at him first and it was self-defense. Hell, if Gigi really did wound him, he’ll say he had no way of knowing who was shooting at him.

“And a lawyer might not be able to talk a jury into believing that the Marsden pictures don’t show what they show, but he might. He’ll say DeFrees and Khouri were fighting and DeFrees went off the roof by accident. Khouri will say he wanted to turn himself in, but that Rusty Monaco wouldn’t let him because he knew he could blackmail his dad. There
is
proof of blackmail. Shit, Blades, I could half believe it and I know the truth.”

“But—”

“No buts,” Bob said. “At best, they’ll get Khouri Burgess for manslaughter and obstruction of justice in Brooklyn. He might get off on McCauly too. Even in Suffolk County, dirty, blackmailing cops aren’t real popular. The Reverend James Burgess will look like a sympathetic character here. Neither him or his kid is going to cop to four murder one counts on Long Island. They’ll claim it was McCauly turning on his partner in extortion who killed Rusty and murdered the other drivers to cover it up. No, we’ve gotta get to them first.”

Raiza Hines didn’t say another word about it.

“Look, Blades,” Serpe said. “The minute we get off on Pennsylvania Avenue, we’ll pull over and you can get out of the car. My reputation’s shot. Me and Healy here, our careers are over. You’ve got a big career ahead of you. You got the goods. When we pull over, you can walk away from this, no questions asked.”

“No questions asked,” Healy agreed.

“Both of you just keep quiet. Besides, without me, how you two old crackers gonna get anywhere near Burgess’s headquarters?”

As they got off the Jackie Robinson Parkway and onto Pennsylvania Avenue, Blades stayed silent. When they were a block away from the converted brownstone on Utica Avenue that Burgess used as his headquarters, Serpe told Healy to park. They each pulled out their cell phones and made a call or two. No one on the other end of the lines seemed too terribly pleased, but the three of them had already plunged so far into the deep end of the shit that they were beyond caring. When they were done with the calls, Hines, Healy and Serpe got out of the car and walked.

Out front of the beautifully restored brownstone—footscrapers, wrought iron gate and fence, faux gas lamps, et al—stood two men, one at either side of the steps like the lions in front of the New York Public Library. They were escapees from the NFL, more mountains than men, really. Both had necks, arms, and legs like telephone poles and torsos like concrete bunkers. They had ear pieces and mics clipped to the collars of their black leather dusters. Although their matching overcoats were just loose enough to conceal a holster and sidearm, it was safe to assume they were carrying. But none of that was nearly as intimidating as their
don’t-even-fuck-with-me-I-will-kill
you demeanor.

Blades and Healy already had their shields out as they approached. Serpe just acted the part. The twin mountains were unimpressed and unintimidated. The one on the left held up his right hand. It was as big as the rest of him. Good thing he didn’t hold it up high enough to blot out the moon.

“Where y’all goin’?” he asked, in a calm, sweet voice.

Hines did the talking. “Up those stairs.”

His partner reached up his hand and leaned his head over to talk into his mic.

“Don’t do that!” Healy said. He put his hand back down.

“You got an invitation or a warrant? ‘Cause if you don’t, y’all ain’t goin’ up them steps,” said Sweet Voice.

“See this?” Hines flicked the shield clipped to her lapel. “This is my invitation.”

“Nah, it ain’t neither,” the other mountain chimed in. “That there is a few ounces of gold plated metal and ceramics. That ain’t no warrant neither. Come on back next Thanksgiving when the Reverend give out free turkeys. Maybe he’ll talk to you then.”

“Enough,” Hines barked, putting her face up close to Mountain Number Two. “Did Khouri Burgess enter these premises this evening? ‘Cause he murdered an NYPD detective earlier this evening. I don’t need no fuckin’ warrant.”

The distant wail of approaching sirens could just be heard above the street noise. The timing couldn’t have been better. The guards were unmoved.

“How we know—”

Hines had reached her limit. “Look, you motherfuckas, this ain’t no bullshit. Now let us in there or I’m gonna arrest both of you. Where’s Burgess at inside?”

“Probably in what he call his war room up on the top floor,” said Sweet Voice, his voice less calm.

“When did the son get here?”

“ ‘Bout five minutes before y’all.”

“Okay, come on. Show us. And keep your hands off those mic buttons.”

They heard the shouting before they were fully inside the brownstone. And when they reached the top of the stairs, they heard the first shot. Now they all broke into a run, but not even Superman on his best day could’ve gotten there before the second and third shots. They did get there just in time to see Khouri Burgess put the muzzle of his hand cannon under his chin and blow off the top of his head.

James Burgess was still alive, barely. He had been hit once in the liver and once above the heart. The sirens were loud outside the window, so Sweet Voice put down the telephone. Calling 911 suddenly seemed beside the point. Blades and Healy pressed their hands against the reverend’s wounds, but his eyes were glassy; the pupils wide and unseeing. The blood that had already poured out of his body made a huge wet stain in the cream-colored carpet.

“Fool … didn’t … even … get the … neg …, a …, tives. That … boy … has always … been … a … dis … a … pointment to … me. Always … a … dis …” Such were the last words spoken on this earth by the once mighty Reverend James Burgess.

Joe Serpe attended to Khouri; what was left of him, anyway. When he opened the dead man’s coat, Serpe saw that the younger Burgess had only expedited the inevitable. Either Gigi or McCauly had hit him. He’d been gut shot and had tried to stem the flow of blood with a bunch of sanitary napkins taped over the wound. He’d either scooped up the pads and tape from Gigi’s apartment or picked them up at a convenience store on the way into Brooklyn. But like everything else about the dance between the Burgesses, Rusty Monaco, and Finnbar McCauly, the patch was futile and soaked with blood.

Serpe stood up and looked at the photos that lined the walls. They were pictures of the Reverend James Burgess with some of the most powerful men and women in New York City, New York State, the country, and the world. He was pictured with senators and congressmen, presidents and popes, prize fighters and a princess. Healy noticed Joe Serpe staring at the walls.

“Look at Burgess’ desk,” he told his partner.

Serpe walked over and saw the blackmail photos laid out in sequence across the desk, Khouri Burgess’ freckled skin apparent in every picture.

“Amazing, huh?” Healy said.

“What?”

“All those pictures of the rich and famous and powerful.”

“Big fucking deal,” Serpe said. “In the end, all of his connections couldn’t do a thing to save his ass. None of the pictures on the walls mean a fucking thing in the face of the pictures on his desk.”

“All the kings horses and all the kings men.”

Serpe opened his mouth to answer, but half the uniforms in New York City came rushing through the door.

S
erpe was waiting at Gigi’s bedside when she opened her eyes. The ugly red marks around her neck from McCauly’s choke hold had turned purple. In the end, they had a longer shelf-life than he did. The bullet had shattered her clavicle, punctured her lung, and broken a rib. She wouldn’t be playing tennis or the violin any time soon.

Joe’d been by every day since Monday, when the NYPD released him and Healy from the Seven-seven Precinct. They hadn’t been formally charged or even arrested, although there was plenty of evidence that they’d broken any number of laws. A lesson had to be taught and they were being taught it the only way police departments know how to teach them: with all the delicacy and nuance of a plummeting bowling ball. Joe and Bob actually felt pretty fortunate, because, as NYPD lessons went, the holding cell at the Seven-seven was dream vacation territory. If the NYPD or the Brooklyn DA had really wanted to fuck with them, they would have spent an all expense paid forty-eight hours at the Brooklyn Tombs on Atlantic Avenue or at Riker’s Island. Besides, they knew what was really going on and didn’t want any part of it.

When George Healy picked them up, he told them about how the negotiations had gone. From the sound of it, things had gotten pretty ugly. That’s what happens when the police departments and the prosecutors from three counties do the high wire act of credit and blame. Between the blackmail and the fourteen bodies that had piled up since September 2001, there was precious little of the former and an abundance of the latter to go around. Most of the people who actually deserved credit weren’t going to get any. Only Raiza Hines and Detective Keyes were going to get a bit of light shined on them. Hoskins was going to get some spotlight time too, but he hadn’t earned a lick of it. As for Serpe and Healy, they were destined to be footnotes; grateful, silent, unprosecuted footnotes. They knew the negotiations were over when they heard they were getting kicked.

After the negotiations were done, the real work began. The cops from all the counties and the DA offices from Suffolk, Nassau, and Brooklyn, combed over all the financial documents, credit card receipts, phone records, travel records of all the principals involved. With the road map of the case laid out for them, it was in everyone’s self-interest to confirm what Serpe and Healy believed; that all fourteen deaths sprang from the murder of Bogarde DeFrees by Khouri Burgess. And the sooner it was confirmed, the better. If even one of the principals had survived, there might have been some player willing to keep the case going for political gain. But as one newspaper hack told Serpe during Ralphy Abruzzi’s trial, “You can beat a dead horse, but you can’t milk a dead cow.” Now Joe finally understood what he meant. This case was a dead cow and it was best for everyone to bury it and move on.

“Hey you,” Gigi rasped, turning her head over to her left to where Serpe was sitting.

“Hey yourself. How you feeling?”

“Like shit.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “You’re the hottest looking gunshot victim I’ve seen in a long time.”

“It’s the diet.”

“What diet?”

“Hell of a way to lose a few ounces, getting shot. I think I’ll try Atkins next time.”

“Bullets are low carb, aren’t they?” He stood up, leaned over her, and stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. “You saved my life, Gigi.”

“Bad habit I picked up from my brother.”

“Only bad habit of his you did.”

They were quiet for a moment.

“What day is it?”

“Friday. You’ve been pretty much out of it until today.”

“It’s the drugs and the pain.”

“I know,” Joe said. “Trust me, I know.”

“That’s right. Your leg.”

“I spoke with your doctor before. He says you’re lucky.”

“No, he’s lucky. He didn’t get shot.”

“My doctor said the same thing. He didn’t get shot either. But your doctor did say that you could probably start rehab pretty soon.”

“Great! More pain, less drugs.” Serpe checked his watch and the wall clock. “What’s the rush?” Gigi asked. “The news conference is on in a few minutes.”

“News conference?”

“Yeah, I told you, but you were probably so fucked up you don’t remember.”

“Tell me again,” she said.

Serpe explained to her about what had happened after she’d been shot. “We could hear Burgess yelling at his kid the minute we got in. I think that he was calling him a stupid, incompetent fool. Probably hurt him almost as much as the bullet you put into him. He had probably heard it his whole life and maybe it was true, but. Khouri, the kid, shot him and then blew his own brains out.”

“What’s the news conference for?”

“To shut the door on any lingering questions.”

Gigi seemed to understand.

Joe clicked on the TV that sat on a swiveling platform in the corner of the room and put on the local cable news channel. On screen was a very serious looking reporter speaking in hushed tones. He was saying something about how things were about to get underway. Behind him, a room full of people—photographers, other reporters, political types—were milling about in groups, whispering in each other’s ears. There was a background buzz of low voices. Behind them, on a crowded stage, were lots of men in uniforms that featured some funny hats, lots of gold stripes and shiny brass buttons and stars. If there had been a Sousaphone up there, you might almost have mistaken them for a wayward marching band. Their middle age and sour expressions, however, were a dead giveaway.
Cops
! Up there as well, were several suits; George Healy among them. But it was the Brooklyn DA who stepped up to the array of microphones aligned in rows atop the rostrum. There was a flurry of activity in the auditorium and on stage. Then things got very quiet, all cameras focusing on the stage. Still cameras click, click, clicked away. The introductions alone took nearly eight minutes. Boredom began to show on the faces of the men on the stage and an impatient chatter came up from the crowd. Understanding he was losing the audience, the Brooklyn DA sped up the proceedings.

“On September twenty-fourth, two-thousand-one, while the city and the nation were still reeling from the tragic events of the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, several nine-one-one calls were received by the NYPD. These calls, the transcripts of which are included in your press packets, were to report that someone had either jumped or was thrown from the roof of Building Four of the Nellie Bly Houses. A pair of New York City Police personnel, Detectives Russell Monaco and Finnbar McCauly, were already on scene …” His narrative went on like that for a few minutes, laying out events in the most linear and vague fashion possible. Then he came to the part where the lying began in earnest. You could tell he was lying because his narrative became far more detailed. “.and upon learning of the homicide of retired Detective Monaco on the fifth of January this year, and in receipt of a tip from a reliable and confidential source alerting her to past possible illegal financial transactions between Reverend James Burgess and the recently deceased Detective Monaco, NYPD Detective Hines of the Internal Affairs Bureau, with the approval of her commanding officer, Captain Skip Rodriguez, began an exhaustive review of Detective Monaco’s past cases.”

When the Brooklyn DA had finished his compelling fairy tale, several representatives from the various other law enforcement agencies took their turns at the podium to explain their parts of the puzzle, to tell their lies. Blades got a turn to stand before the cameras and explain that she was most gratified for Evelyn Marsden, who had, after all these years, finally found out why her precious son had been taken from her. She also got to explain that the NYPD had several suspects under arrest in the killing of Carter Blaylock, the man who had been forced to execute the Marsden boy.

Detective Keyes was his usual terse self and did less than two minutes in the spotlight. Not surprisingly, the longest part of the presentation was done by George Healy. Somehow that bothered Serpe the most. Joe didn’t mind so much that he had been left out of the story. He hadn’t gotten involved in this mess for glory or gain, but to pay a debt that was long overdue. It didn’t even bother him that every clown who’d been at the mic had lied through his teeth. It was that George Healy was the biggest liar of the bunch. His brother had risked his life and deserved better than what George was giving him. Bob wouldn’t see it that way, but brothers can be easily blinded.

The main thrust of George’s song and dance was that the Suffolk PD had concluded, with a high degree of certainty, that Khouri Burgess had murdered the first three oil drivers in order to cover up the true target of his intentions; Rusty Monaco, the fourth victim. With credit card receipts, electronic toll records, they could place Khouri Burgess on Long Island on two of the dates of the murders. One of those dates was the night Rusty Monaco was murdered. Eyewitnesses said that Khouri often spent time playing ball at a community gym his father’s foundation had built in Wyandanch, very near where Monaco’s body was found. George also explained that no one could provide exculpatory alibis for the nights of the other two homicides. There was mention of the shooting at Gigi’s apartment, but if you sneezed you would have missed it.

“What about that?” she asked Joe, pain and exhaustion creeping into her voice.

“It’s a done deal. The cops will take your statement when you’re feeling up to it. You shot in self-defense not knowing whether Khouri Burgess was shooting at you or McCauly.”

“How did Khouri Burgess know to come to my apartment?”

“He was following McCauly. Finn wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. Since it was always your brother who had dealt with the Reverend Burgess, Finn didn’t know how to make contact without calling too much attention to himself. So the idiot tried to squeeze money out of the kid first by claiming he already had the pictures and negatives. The idiot led Khouri right to him and the blackmail material. Cops always say that if criminals had half a brain, they’d be in trouble. When cops become criminals, I guess some of them lose half their brains.”

“And the money.”

“We haven’t told anyone about it,” Serpe said. “I don’t think they give a shit. They assume that your brother used most of the money to buy the condo and that if there was any leftover cash, McCauly took it and hid it somewhere. Wouldn’t be the first time money got stashed and the guy who hid it died without sharing the whereabouts. Word is that’s what happened to the Lufthansa money that was stolen at JFK.”

The rest of the news conference went pretty much as expected. The press seemed almost complicit. They asked very few incisive questions or ones that raised even the specter of doubt. The one or two probing questions that were asked were swatted away like one-winged flies. Really, the only surprising thing was Tim Hoskins’ absence. George Healy made liberal mention of him and he would get credit for doing the leg work, but he was nowhere to be seen. Hoskins wasn’t great with the press, so maybe the bosses didn’t want him around.

Serpe clicked off the TV. He had spent the better part of his morning rehearsing what he wanted to say to Gigi. The first part was a speech about Rusty. That it was awful that he turned out to be exactly what everyone thought him to be. Joe meant to say that he never intended for things to work out the way they did and that all he ever wanted to do was to repay his debt to her brother. That he considered the debt paid in full, but that he wished the truth could have been less painful. The second part of his prepared talk was about the two of them. How he understood that they didn’t have much of a future together as a couple. Still, he meant to say, that he’d like to see her when he could. That he liked being around her because he didn’t have to pretend to be somebody he wasn’t. When he put the clicker down on the bedside table and leaned over to talk to her, Serpe noticed she was sleeping. Whatever he had to say would keep.