NINETY MINUTES LATER, I sit with Jimmy O’Neil and Inspector Thomas Upton of the Central Investigation and Resource Division, Homicide Analysis Unit, in a Mobile Crime Scene Command Center parked on East Drive where it intersects with Well House Drive at the eastern side of Prospect Park.
“I should be out there.”
“I won’t give you the comfort of saying it’s not your fault.” Upton and I have been formally introduced, and I have supplied a brief, preliminary statement.
“Which is why I should be out there.”
“No. You’re a primary witness, Fortune.”
Upton is a six-foot-four-inches tall African American in his early fifties now in control of the Livingstone et al. murder investigation. Outside the Command Center, he’s ordered a dozen patrol cars stationed along the roadways and walkways fanning out from where the body was discovered earlier by a passing dog-walker on the Lullwater Bridge.
On the bridge, the victim is hidden from view by a nylon tent illuminated inside by six high-intensity halogen arc-lamps on extendable poles. This allows the Medical Examiner to conduct a thorough examination of the corpse even in the low gray light of the approaching dawn.
In cooperation with Patrol Borough Brooklyn Assistant Chief Arthur Inkster, three dozen uniformed officers man police barricades set up to prevent pedestrians and vehicles from entering the park and trampling over the crime scene.
Three dozen officers scour the surrounding terrain, poking beneath trees and shrubs using high-power hand-held lamps. A dozen more unis bang on doors along Ocean Avenue. Sniffer dogs from the Canine Unit strain at the leash, snouts pressed to the ground, huffing and puffing as if they’re about to go into cardiac arrest. I sympathize.
At least six senior detectives—including Gabby—coordinate the activity of a team of plainclothes subordinates.
The operation totals over a hundred women and men with the full investigative and forensics weight and combined expertise of the New York City Police Department brought to task on the speedy apprehension of the man we believe to be the City’s latest bogeyman.
Left to my own resources, I’d have been lucky to summon a tenth of the manpower. By Upton, I am suitably impressed.
Creating the feel of a terrorist attack, journalists from every major New York City daily, borough-level weekly, and online local news source mingle outside the barricade. Every local television affiliate has a mobile broadcast vehicle stationed nearby. CNN has a stringer on-scene. Bystanders out-number media and cops five to one. The Chatterbox Killer likely stands shoulder-to-shoulder among them.
Pleading my case, I say, “I don’t feel comfortable sitting here on my hands, Jimmy.”
To show me who’s now boss, Upton responds in Jimmy’s stead. “Nothing you can add out there. The man is either baiting you, or taunting you.”
“It’s the Department, sir, not me personally.”
“For better or worse, you are now the face of the department, Fortune.” Said as if he thinks I’ve committed a federal crime. “If it gets out he’s been speaking to you directly, it will get ugly.”
Ugly for me, I take him to mean. “I can’t stop him calling.”
“You don’t have to answer.”
I don’t disagree.
“You didn’t suspect who this man was when he approached you in the park?”
Sounding like an excuse even to me, I claim I was in no shape to pay the guy much attention. Besides, which, he had a hoodie covering his head and we don’t know what The Chatterbox looks like.
Upton says, “Years ago, I worked an investigation, a series of serial rape-murders in the Bronx. I’d just received my shield, and here I was assigned to a major case: nice, I thought. The detective in charge was an ugly Irish thug by the name of Hogan. Well, after the third killing, the perp starts sending Hogan notes, handwritten, demeaning, almost insinuating that Hogan, himself, is somehow personally responsible for the killings if for no other reason than he can’t stop this guy. The notes are evidence, and Hogan can’t suppress them. So the CO, another nasty-as-fuck Irish bastard”—I see no sign that Jimmy O’Neill has taken offense—“suggests for Hogan to call the killer out, set up a face-to-face as a way to lure him into the open.”
Here, I interrupt. “You suggesting I set up a meet?”
Upton raises a hand to silence me. “Hogan agrees, figuring when he gets his hands on the guy, he’ll snap his neck, come off looking like a hero. Keep in mind, Hogan is a tough son-of-a-bitch, big as a house, strong as an ox. But still, he’s out of shape and getting old. Two days later, with the evidence we gather at the scene, we apprehend the killer. He died at Attica ten years ago.”
“And Hogan? A hero?”
“For Detective Hogan it didn’t turn out so well. Point being, Fortune, if you need to indulge this Chatterbox, make yourself useful. Next time he calls, set up a meet.”
O’Neill says, “You want to use my detective as bait?”
“He already is bait, Jimmy. No sense letting him go to waste. This way we look out for Fortune and move forward the investigation at the same time. At this rate, the Mayor will be calling in the National Guard.”
“What happened to hang up on him?”
“Five dead women, and nothing to show for it? Time to think outside the box, Dex.”