In the predawn light, the body spilling off the curb looked like a large bag of garbage.
Detective John Palmer eagerly stepped out of the unmarked Impala he’d pulled over at the corner of 174th Street and Longfellow Avenue. His partner, Raymond Ippolito, pulled himself out with a grunt and walked slowly behind him, frowning at the sight of a corpse jammed between the curb and a parked car.
The report came in thirty minutes before the end of their Wednesday midnight-to-eight shift at the 42nd Precinct in the Bronx. A dead body lying in the gutter. There wasn’t any particular reason to believe it was a murder. In fact, there hadn’t been a murder in the Four-Two in thirteen months. Not like the old days. But if this was a murder victim, Palmer knew it would provide a rare chance for recognition and advancement toward his goal of Detective First Grade.
For Ippolito, a murder, an accident, a heart attack—it didn’t matter. It was all just bad luck.
Clouds obscured the rising sun. The air felt heavy with humidity and hotter than normal for the end of May. In the dim light, with a stunted elm tree shading the area, Ippolito wondered how long it had taken for someone to spot the body.
Both detectives stopped about ten feet away, stood next to each other on the sidewalk, a vest-pocket park behind them, and gazed at the corpse in front of them.
Two first-on-the-scene uniformed cops were stringing NYPD crime-scene tape, forming a thirty-foot rectangular boundary around the body.
Palmer told the cops, “Hey, you gotta close off a bigger area, guys. Take the tape across the street, run it up the whole block, and bring it back over to this side.”
Ippolito watched the cops, a tall African-American and a short Hispanic, react to Palmer’s take-charge order with deadpan expressions. They didn’t seem to wonder why the younger detective was giving the orders. Ippolito was clearly the senior detective. At fifty-two years old, too overweight to close the top button of his white shirt, wearing a rumpled sport jacket and stained tie, he was nearly twice Palmer’s age. Palmer wore a trim-fitting dark suit, blue shirt, and skinny tie. He’d been a detective for a little over a year.
Palmer said, “Hey, Ray, think we should pull the car across the intersection there, let people know they can’t drive through?”
“The tape should be enough, John.”
“Right, right.”
Palmer walked over to the body. He slid on a pair of blue latex gloves from his back pocket and squatted next to the corpse, just looking.
The body lay sideways, facing away from him, the head and upper body jammed between the curb and a Honda Odyssey. Most of the face was pressed against the front tire.
Palmer had to lean over to see the profile, but the section of sidewalk where he squatted had been cracked and lifted by the roots of the elm tree so he had to place a hand against the SUV to keep his balance.
He leaned farther over the victim and bumped his head on the parked car.
In the dim dawn light, Palmer couldn’t tell if the man’s zippered sweatshirt and T-shirt were dark blue or black. The pants were definitely dark blue jeans. He bent closer, looking down at the side of the dead man’s face. He could just make out a swollen bruise on the left cheek.
Palmer looked for blood. He didn’t see any on the clothes or sidewalk or curb, although there could be blood under the dead man.
The victim’s right arm and hand were under the body. The left hand jammed between stomach and car. Palmer carefully pulled the lifeless left hand free. He took out a small Maglite from the inside pocket of his suit jacket and focused the bright white light on the hand. There were open scrapes and cuts on almost every knuckle.
Ippolito stood close behind Palmer, watching, saying nothing.
Palmer held up the man’s hand.
“Looks like he was in a fight.”
Ippolito made a small noise of agreement.
Palmer pulled back the unzipped sweatshirt, shining his light along the length of the torso, playing the part of a careful investigator looking for blood, stab wounds, bullet wounds. There were none.
He slowly ran the light toward the neck and head. They both saw it at the same time.
“Ah,” said Ippolito.
Palmer leaned closer, moving the dark hair aside with his right forefinger, uncovering more of the angry red bullet hole, the edges stippled and stained with gunpowder. The bullet had entered about two inches below and slightly to the right of the man’s left ear.
“Shot.”
“Yep.”
The long hair made it difficult to see the wound clearly, even under the glare of the Maglite.
“Guess we’d better turn him over. See if it came out the other side.”
Ippolito was down next to Palmer now. It was much harder for the older, heavier man to squat. He balanced himself with one hand against the Honda and craned his head down and around, almost even with the street.
“Nah, no blood under his head. Bullet’s still in there. If it’d come out there’d be blood all over the place.”
Palmer asked, “Nothing under him?”
“No,” said Ippolito, “I think he got shot and the impact sent him down right here.”
“Let’s lift him onto the sidewalk. Roll him on his back.”
The body was wedged so tightly between the car and the curb it took an unexpected amount of effort. When they finally managed to free the dead man and lay him flat, Ippolito let out a hiss.
“Fuck. Somebody beat the shit out of this poor guy.”
Even without the Maglite, Palmer could see that the face had been damaged. Some of it might have been from the pressure created when the bullet entered the head, but clearly the victim had been beaten. Both eyes were filled with blood, blackened underneath, a cut split the bridge of his nose, both upper and lower lips were lacerated. There was a swollen lump at the corner of the left jaw.
Ippolito stood up with a grunt. Palmer joined him. They stared down at the victim.
Palmer asked, “You want to look around for a shell casing?”
“Size of the hole, I’m betting a twenty-two.” Ippolito gave the area a cursory look. “Gonna take a lot of work to find it, all this mess around here. Let the CSU guys do it.”
Palmer frowned and nodded. Another patrol car had arrived. One of the uniformed cops joined the others to keep passersby away from the crime scene. The other cop waited near Palmer and Ippolito for orders.
Palmer pulled out his police radio and called the precinct dispatcher, telling her to send a sergeant and request a Crime Scene Unit.
Ippolito looked down at the body. Frowned, shook his head, and said to himself, “All I fucking need, end of my goddam shift.”
Ippolito watched Palmer check the pockets of the dead man. He pulled out a single key on a beaded chain, a thin wallet, a wad of folded papers in the back pocket.
“What’s in the wallet?” asked Ippolito.
“Couple hundred bucks. A little more. Guess it wasn’t a robbery.”
“No ID?”
“No. Wait a second.” Palmer found a single laminated card in the wallet. “Shit.”
“What?”
Palmer held it up. “Department of Correction ID. Name is Paco Johnson.”
Ippolito squinted at the ID. “Ah, Christ. What’s this guy, on parole?”
Palmer unfolded the papers he’d pulled from the victim’s back pocket. “Jeezus, this son of a bitch just got out yesterday.”
“What?”
Palmer handed the discharge forms to Ippolito, who checked the dates.
“You fucking kidding me? This guy ain’t been out even a day.” Ippolito squinted at the dates again. “Christ, he was in seventeen years.”
Palmer stared down at the inert body and shook his head, trying to look concerned while thinking: Shit, man, people are gonna be all over this one. Department of Correction. The Parole Division.
He took the papers back from Ippolito.
Paco Johnson had been discharged from Eastern Correctional Facility at 2 P.M. yesterday, Tuesday. He checked his watch. Palmer could already see the headline: PAROLEE DEAD SEVENTEEN HOURS AFTER SEVENTEEN YEARS IN PRISON.
He took out his notebook and carefully wrote down the time, place, victim’s name, and the name of parole officer assigned to him: Walter Ferguson.