Investigation Room, North Manhattan Homicide
March 7, 2.05 p.m. ‘
‘Wait up, Harper. I need to speak to you right now!’ bellowed Captain Lafayette.
Harper was moving fast down the beige and brown corridor of the precinct house. ‘I’ll get back to you,’ he shouted. ‘I’ve got something that needs my full attention.’
Lafayette’s face reddened and he marched up to Harper. ‘Stop with the fucking games, Harper. I need to know, right now.’
Harper stopped and turned; he pointed his finger. ‘You know and I know that someone is going to try to pull this out of our hands. The media are painting this as a political assassination so we’re going to be dragged off-course unless we focus. We’ve got maybe twenty-four hours to make this our own.’
‘Then help me to keep them off your back.’
‘What do you need to know?’
Lafayette sighed. Harper looked bad and he felt wired. Everything was urgent, everything had to be done an hour ago. Evidence evaporated the moment it was born. Time was all they needed and time was the one thing that destroyed evidence. Harper had sent out his teams to interview witnesses, families, friends and anyone else who might have come into contact with Capske.
‘It looks like a political attack, Harper. I got to explain to the Deputy Commissioner why we’re closing the door to the Feds and Counter-Terrorism.’
‘Don’t close the door, just point them in another direction. Look, tell the Deputy Commissioner that, as it stands, there’s not a scrap of evidence that this was political.’
‘You really think that? The killer emailed the networks to tell them just that. Jesus, I thought this was an open and shut case.’
‘You know Judge Capske and his wife had cut ties with David because he was marrying a non-Jew?’
‘No, I didn’t know that.’
‘Did you know David Capske was big into cocaine a year back?’
‘Come on. Harper, I know nothing till you tell me.’
‘We can’t presume it’s political just because someone emailed. I’ve got the team bringing in evidence all the time. Just let me see this my way. What have the Feds got? Our victim’s related to Judge Capske – that’s it. You going to hand over every investigation on account of their parent’s CV?’
Lafayette grabbed Harper’s shoulder and turned him towards the window.
‘Look out there, Harper. What do you see?’
Harper stared out of the sixth-floor window down to the street below. The crowd of news teams kept growing. The nearside sidewalk had already been filled, and new teams and the later arrivals from the print media had set up on the opposite side of the street. The whole mass of people seemed to be in constant circulation. ‘I see about a hundred and fifty people down there telling some bullshit story before we’ve even got an autopsy report,’ he said.
‘What you see is pressure,’ said Lafayette. ‘By the fucking truckload. They’ve got Judge Capske’s rulings and every third one is some battle with the gun lobby. He’s been threatened a hundred times. They don’t need an autopsy report to put two and two together. And someone called them, Harper. Someone wanted this to make the front page.’
‘I get the connection, Captain. I get how we’re supposed to read this, but we’ve got to work from evidence, not from what the media think.’
‘That’s how it used to be, Harper, but you know as well as I do that this is not how it is these days. The media is your biggest fucking threat. Worse than me, Harper. They apply the pressure, start questioning why a homicide team are leading on a political assassination, why we’re ignoring the obvious, and we’re history.’
‘Looks to me that this is an East Harlem gang shooting. Cocaine found at the scene. All the hallmarks.’
‘Don’t bullshit me, Harper. Twenty-four hours, then I’m fighting our corner at a multi-jurisdictional meeting with the Feds and Counter-Terrorism, and you better give me something better than three wraps of cocaine and a smile.’
‘If it’s a political kill, then I’ll back off, but until I get to look at the whole story, I can’t lie down for the Feds or anyone else.’
The Captain stared down at the street. ‘It’s the way of things now. Trial by media. You don’t want to get caught up in the middle of it.’
‘We need time,’ Harper repeated. He looked at the man who’d headed up North Manhattan Homicide for nine years and protected him for most of them. He knew Lafayette’s intentions were good, but sometimes things got taken out of the Captain’s hands. ‘I’ll get you something.’
Harper started down the corridor. Lafayette called after him, ‘Why do you want to play it like this, Harper? A conviction on this isn’t going to be easy. The media will want a fall guy. Who do you think that’s going to be?’
‘I am what I am,’ said Harper. ‘Let’s just say I get excited by the complex cases.’
‘This might be the shortest lead you’ve ever taken,’ said Lafayette.
Harper turned. ‘If I’ve got just twenty-four hours, I need help. I want Blue Team, plus four other detectives. No rookies – I want experienced guys. I want whoever it is leading the Federal investigation to come and tell me what he’s got. I want a profiler from the FBI Field Office to start working on this. And I want someone to keep the press happy. I need a specialist team to respond to the calls. We’re going to get a lot.’
‘You finished?’
He moved back into the investigation room. The overriding smell was of coffee and fresh paint; it wasn’t a good mix, or a good time to start a major refurb. Three maintenance men in blue overalls were finishing up the latest addition to North Manhattan Homicide’s investigation room – a new set of cubicles for each of the detective teams.
The rest of the room remained as it had for twelve years: a big open space with a dirty blue carpet and a long string of fluorescent lights that leaked out a dull yellow glow. Outside, the sun hit the building only to show up the haze of deep gray dirt on the windows. Beyond the grime, the heavy bass note of the city could still be heard.
Harper walked across to his old desk, his head swimming with details from the case that he needed to get down and think about. He didn’t want a cubicle. Career advisers used cubicles. It wasn’t right. Harper just wanted the old, worn, paper-stacked brown wooden desk that had been good enough for the last five years. Blue Team liked to spread and merge and, like all cops, they didn’t like change.
Calls of, ‘Hey, champ!’ followed Harper through to where the rest of the team were setting up base camp. Cops didn’t make a very sentimental bunch. It never took long to go from a hero to a zero in the eyes of your fans. Harper shrugged it off.
Eddie Kasper pulled out a chair and fixed his backside to it with a sigh. ‘What did he say?’
‘The press want it to be political. The Feds want to argue jurisdiction. I need something to give the Captain and the Chief of Detectives if we’re going to keep this in house. And that means I need to know why Capske was killed.’
‘What if it is some wacko from the gun lobby?’
‘I got to tell you, Eddie, I’m not buying this Judge Capske thing. There are too many questions. Why the son not the father? Why has no political organization claimed the kill? They say it’s a political statement but not what for or who made it.’
‘You’ve got a point.’
‘Then ask another question: why would they torture the guy? If it’s a group, then they’ve got to be in and out fast. This feels different. This killer liked to spend time with his victim.’
Eddie narrowed his focus. ‘You know something more than you’re saying, Harper? You got that look about you.’
‘Maybe this is about Judge Capske and some group who thinks he’s a threat to American freedom, but if it is, they found someone who hated the victim. Hated him so bad they wanted to watch him bleed to death. Think about the mind that can do that, Eddie. If Denise Levene were here, she’d say the same thing. Overkill like this is pretty unusual – it’s either a hell of a political statement or it’s not political at all, it’s something much more personal.’