Several phones rang at once and Jack glanced up. The normally calm squad room had been transformed. A cop had been shot, and now the place was crackling: More desks had been moved in, new phone lines installed, extra detectives brought in from other houses. The
G.I. Killer Task Force
, the brass were calling it. Every uniform in the city had been issued a photocopy of Robert Sperry. His mug had been plastered on lampposts and bus stops all over town. Most likely it was only a matter of hours before a cab driver or bodega owner called in a good tip, hoping for the $10,000 CopShot reward.
Despite all of the publicity and manpower, though, the team was working against one significant drawback: Sperry’s loner status. Even the most violent, hardened drug dealer was part of an extensive social network of customers, suppliers, coworkers, girlfriends, and rivals, all of whom might have some financial or personal motivation to snitch. But Sperry was a stranger to the city, and even on his home turf he had kept to himself. FBI agents had interviewed the man’s New Hampshire neighbors and come up with surprisingly little info. The killer had lived there for only a few months, no one knew where he had come from, and he kept fiercely to himself. The neighbors had reported seeing a boy with him in the last few weeks, a kid who matched the picture of the victim in the floating box, but nobody knew who the child was or where
he
had come from. There was no indication of kidnapping or coercion. The boy had looked glum, but he had been walking about freely and alone when someone had spotted him on the road near Sperry’s house.
Jack had spent some somber time thinking about the kid since receiving those reports, but this morning his mind was fixed on Sperry’s latest victim. He listened idly as a detective at the next desk phoned an informant, fishing for news of the killer—and then he froze as a new thought occurred to him. Tommy Balfa’s flimsy lie made no sense unless the man was only hoping to buy a little more time for himself. Unless he had been planning to skip town.
Sure enough—it took Jack just minutes to verify his hunch. After a couple of calls, Balfa’s name popped up in a passenger list at Newark airport. A 2:07
P.M.
flight on the day he had been killed, one ticket to Mexico City, purchased a full three weeks before Jack discovered what his temporary partner was up to. Balfa had been planning to run for a while, and it was only a phenomenal double stroke of bad luck that had put the kibosh on his plan. Jack was not much of a believer in a universe in which everything happened for a good reason, but this series of events—the man getting caught and killed within twenty-four hours of his planned escape to enjoy his ill-gotten gains—seemed almost like a Biblical judgment.
He pictured the look on Balfa’s face when they had driven out to the marina, when the detective had asked if he had thought things over. The bastard was just trying to find out if he’d still be able to bolt.
Which raised the question of why he had not simply taken off the night before.
Jack sat for a minute, sipping a lukewarm cup of coffee, considering the options. Maybe the man had been reluctant to leave his wife. Or his mistress. No, that didn’t seem likely—he could always send for either one later…Jack thought of the money he had seen in the gray bag. It had seemed like a lot at the time, but it couldn’t have been more than ten or twenty large. Not enough to compensate for leaving a good job and a home behind. But maybe there had been other payments…What if Balfa had been foolish enough to bank the money, or greedy enough to invest it? He would need to go back during business hours and withdraw the funds…
His cell phone snapped him out of his reverie. Sergeant Tanney.
“How’s it going with the Balfa thing?”
For a second, the question unnerved him, as if the sergeant had been reading his mind, but he dropped the thought. Tanney wanted the murder solved; that was all. Every officer on the force was crazy eager to catch a cop-killer, and the pressure from Downtown to wrap things up was intense, but Tanney was extra fired up. He had a special interest in covering his ass for all of the ways in which he had minimized the initial investigations.
At this point, though, the sergeant reminded Jack of his main priority: catching a live killer, not worrying about Balfa’s shenanigans before he got shot.
AND SO IT WAS
that he found himself driving out into the heart of suburban New Jersey.
Much of the trip was ugly. First there was the huge toll plaza at the other end of the Lincoln Tunnel, with its pall of exhaust—he couldn’t imagine sitting in one of those booths all day, no matter how good the pay or perks might be. Near the plaza stood several gritty by-the-hour motels, and he knew that if he worked Homicide in Jersey he would be quite familiar with those. Finally, for someone who hated shopping as much as he did, the highways themselves were a vision of hell, mile after endless mile of strip malls: mattress discounters and junk food chains and window foofiness specialists…He knew from prior drives that New Jersey had lots of beautiful countryside, and he expected to end up shortly in an idyllic, picturesque town, but meanwhile the state seemed determined to put its worst features on display.
IT SEEMED THAT THERE
was no human experience that didn’t attract its amateur historians. It didn’t matter if it was trivial or terrible or just of interest to a very limited audience. The horrific World War II Death March from Bataan? Someone kept the memory alive with photos and a pen-pal club. Train schedules in rural England? Hundreds found them fascinating enough to explore every detail.
Jack had put in a call to Michael Durkin, asking who would know about the island’s history. The security supervisor had called back in a couple of minutes, saying that he had found “just the man.” Five seconds in Gene Hoffer’s study made clear the object of his own itch to memorialize. The paneled walls were covered with framed photos of Governor Island life in the late forties and early fifties, the same self-contained world documented in Robert Sperry’s little photo album.
Hoffer was a retired insurance executive; he had replaced his business attire with a green flannel shirt and khaki pants. The man’s handsome head was crowned with thick white hair, and he wore thin wire-framed glasses. Behind him, a picture window gave out on a pool covered with a winter tarp, and ranks of what in summer would undoubtedly be impressive flower beds. The pool, the sleek Beemer in the driveway, the huge flat screen TV they had passed in the living room—Hoffer was clearly determined to enjoy his free time and disposable income.
The man settled down behind his desk and motioned Jack to a white wicker armchair. “What exactly is this about?”
Jack shrugged. “First off, I was hoping you could tell me a little about what the Island was like back in the old days.” Long experience had shown him that if you cut too directly to the chase, you only got answers to the questions you knew to ask—and risked missing out on all sorts of unexpected material. Sometimes it was best to just let a subject ramble.
Hoffer chuckled. “Well, you’ve certainly asked the right person.”
Jack nodded, doing his best to communicate enthusiasm. Most people would be more curious about why an NYPD detective had trekked all the way to another state, but Hoffer impressed him as the kind of man who was chiefly interested in what he himself had to say.
The man’s wife, a trim, pretty brunette, came in with a tray of refreshments. The couple looked like they spent their days doing something brisk and active, hiking or skiing…“I thought you boys would enjoy a hot drink,” the woman said as she moved aside some papers on her husband’s crowded desk.
“The best coffee you’re ever going to have,” Hoffer said, turning to Jack. “Did you know that I met Bitsy here when we were both Army brats on the Island?”
Of course, there was no way Jack could know any such thing, but such was his host’s rhetorical style. He smiled appreciatively, then made a puzzled face. “Wasn’t it a Coast Guard base?”
Hoffer nodded smugly. “Of course it was, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. The island was transferred to the Coast Guard in Sixty-six, but before that the Army had it for over a hundred and fifty years. They constructed Fort Jay and Castle Clinton there between Eighteen-oh-six and Eighteen-oh-nine, and then of course during the War of Eighteen Twelve—”
“I was asking what it was like back when you were kids there,” Jack said to Mrs. Hoffer, hoping to head off a detailed inventory of the island’s early years.
The woman smiled. “Oh, it was a paradise for children. Both of those big forts to play in, and the movie theater, and the YMCA—”
“The Y was supposed to be for the troops,” her husband interjected, “but there were hardly any. At that time the island was the headquarters for the First Army, so there were mostly just officers around.”
“And parolees,” his wife added.
Jack perked up. “Parolees? From what?”
Mr. Hoffer took the question. “They were Army prisoners in the fort who were allowed out to do chores. They were mostly just homesick kids themselves; they taught us kids how to throw a baseball.”
“Those were innocent times,” Hoffer’s wife said. “And the island was a wonderful, safe place to grow up. There was no crime at all to speak of.”
“Well…”
Hoffer said, and he and his wife chuckled.
“Did I miss something?” Jack asked.
Hoffer grinned. “The only crime on the island was perpetuated by adolescent boys. Gosh, we had some
fun
. It would only take six or eight of us to tip one of those old cannons onto its muzzle. And there was that time with the fireworks—”
“Maybe you shouldn’t tell that one to a policeman,” chided Mrs. H.
Her husband smiled. “I think only an MP would have jurisdiction, and anyhow the statute of limitations has long expired.”
“What happened?”
Hoffer placed both of his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair. “One time, several boys—and I’m not saying
who
—set off some fireworks on the Fourth of July. Only problem was, we didn’t realize that we were doing it right on top of the munitions storage area.”
“Was there an explosion?”
Hoffer smiled. “Let’s just say that we were very, very lucky.”
His wife shook her head. “You boys were a
terror
. How about the things you used to put in the cannons?”
Jack turned to Mr. Hoffer. He was beginning to feel as if he was watching a Ping-Pong match.
The man smiled impishly. “The howitzer crews used to fire test rounds. They only used blanks, of course, and they never checked the bores. So we kids would put things in there and watch them get a free ride over to Manhattan. One time there was this dead cat—”
“Don’t tell that one,” his wife said, with considerably less humor.
Jack stood up. “Mind if I take a look at your photos?”
“Go right ahead,” Hoffer said. He kept up a running commentary as Jack moved from picture to picture. “That was the time we had a little circus. That was our Friday bowling night. That was our Little League team…”
Jack scanned the photos, searching for the faces of one particular boy and his father. After an exhaustive catalog of every possible childhood activity and party, he came up with zilch.
He reached into his sports coat and pulled out several snapshots of his own. He held up a picture of Sperry as a boy, and another of the man in military regalia who appeared to be the child’s father. “Do you recognize these people?”
Hoffer’s face immediately clouded up. His wife came around and peered over his shoulder, and she also turned grim. Jack could almost sense the milk curdling in his perfect cup of coffee.
Hoffer shook his head. “Listen, officer, I don’t know why you’re bringing this up. Isn’t it just ancient history?”
The question, coming from this compulsive recorder of past events, almost made Jack laugh, but he pressed on. “Do you know the boy in these pictures? Why don’t you tell me about him?”
Hoffer stared down at his desk for a moment. When he looked up, he was scowling. “I’m going to tell you, detective, and then—and I don’t mean to be rude—I’m going to have to request that you leave.”
J
ACK REFLECTED ON HOFFER’S
tale as he sat in his car the next day, but other, more mundane matters kept intruding into his thoughts. He cast an envious eye on a man walking by with a cup of deli coffee; he could have used the wake-up, but he had no idea how long he’d be waiting on this quiet Cobble Hill street, and he didn’t want to have to pee. He shivered; the morning sun was too weak to take the stinging chill out of the air. He turned on the engine to warm up the car for a minute, then glanced down at his watch. He’d have to be gone by afternoon, when his next tour began.
With any luck, by then he might receive a fax that would go a long way toward completing the back story of Robert Dietrich Sperry. He wasn’t counting on it, though. Arlington, Virginia, was a long way from New York, both in distance and in attitude: The Pentagon’s Office of the Judge Advocate General sounded like a typical bureaucratic sinkhole, and the records he was seeking were half a century old. If found, though, they might complete what Gene Hoffer had started: detailing the childhood roots of Sperry’s recent penchant for homicide.
Jack reached down and made sure that his cell phone was on. He was running two investigations simultaneously, one very high profile and by-the-book, one unofficial and secret. Right now he was off the clock, freezing his balls off just for the sake of finding out what Tommy Balfa had been up to in his ill-fated final days. Which was not necessarily a smart career move. The Department was only concerned with Dead Tommy Balfa, Hero Cop. Alive, the man had presented problems, and if Jack kept tugging at those unresolved threads, who knew what was going to come unraveled, or where the strands might lead?
One definitely led to Maureen Duffy. Other residents of her brownstone-lined street were coming down off their stoops, heading toward the subway and their day jobs, but Duffy worked just a few blocks away, as a night nurse at the local hospital. Jack glanced down at the seat next to him at a photocopy he had run off earlier in the Midwood precinct house. Judging by her driver’s license photo, Duffy didn’t look much like the femme fatale he had been imagining for the past few days, after he had glimpsed her driving away from the side street where she had dropped Tommy Balfa. She was an attractive redhead, but she was only twenty-three, with the healthy, freckled wholesomeness of a girl who had grown up in a big, happy Irish family. It was easy to picture her babysitting nieces and nephews, or tending to some elderly patient; harder to imagine her having a fling with a married man. Jack frowned. Who knew?…Maybe they weren’t having an affair at all. Maybe he had jumped to conclusions. Hopefully soon, she would walk out of that heavy front door and he’d find out for sure.