Nineteen

FINALLY, Quinn saw the light—metaphorically speaking, because the deep shadows around us were as daunting as ever. But he had to agree with me. Locating the dead girl’s missing shoe would be a brilliant find.

“If we actually discover it, I’ll call Night Watch myself,” he promised. “They can create a perimeter and get CSU down here to look for additional evidence—blood, hair, prints, fibers, whatever they’re able to recover. But I have to be honest, Cosi, I’m not optimistic.”

“You’re here, Mike—and after a long day of work. That’s optimistic enough for me.”

At that, he gave me a little smile. Then together we began casing the concrete walkway along the river.

Every few feet, Quinn directed his heavy Maglite to aid my shadowy search. I carried a flashlight, too, a standard one from my shop van’s glove compartment. But he insisted on bringing his Mag, and I knew why.

For years, the weight and solidity of the long-handled design allowed street cops to use the Maglite as a defensive weapon. It wasn’t a pleasant idea, but it certainly was a practical one when venturing down dangerous alleys, approaching suspicious vehicles, or (in our case) entering dark, desolate areas of an officially closed park.

As we searched under trees, around bushes, and near every bench, we encountered others daring enough to enter the deserted green space.

A few bicyclists raced by quickly, to avoid being ticketed by random patrols. We also found a pair of homeless men—one older, one younger—camped out among the greenery.

Despite the autumn chill, the weather wasn’t bad enough to drive the two into city shelters, but soon enough winter would come. Feeling a sudden sting from winds off the water, I remembered the frigid day I’d taken a walk along the icy river and found a homeless old man frozen to death beneath a blanket of newspapers.

I shook off the tragic memory as Quinn and I spoke with the bearded pair. Quinn initiated the conversation. Then I gave a general description of the dead girl and asked if they’d seen her.

They both shook their shaggy heads.

Before we left, Quinn shared a few more concerned words with the men, passing each a small card from a special pocket. I already knew what was on those cards: the addresses of shelters and food banks in Lower Manhattan.

As we walked on, he silently handed me the Maglite and pulled out his phone. I knew why he’d done that, too. The HOME-STAT app would allow him to report the men—not for arrest, but to get them help via the city’s outreach program. A Street Action Team would arrive within the hour to evaluate their situation, and (hopefully) help the pair into transitional or permanent housing.

As we continued along the riverfront, checking bushes and benches, I couldn’t help thinking back to my dinner with Madame—and what this park might have looked like if it had existed during the Summer of Love.

“Those camped-out men we saw. They got me thinking . . .”

“About?”

“Something Madame brought up at dinner. Do you remember the Groovy Murders?”

“Sure. They were way before my time, but senior officers talked about them, back in my Academy days.”

“I know the facts surrounding the victims. But what about the two killers? Were they ever caught and convicted?”

“They were.”

“How?”

Quinn shrugged his broad shoulders. “No Sherlock tricks, if that’s what you were hoping to hear. Just meat and potatoes police work.”

“What? Detectives canvassed the neighborhood? Questioned residents?”

“They did that. They also put the squeeze on their only witness.”

“There was a witness?”

“Experienced officers know that the person who ‘finds the body’ is sometimes responsible for the crime, and the ‘discovery’ is simply a ploy to hide his or her involvement. In the case of the Groovy Murders, the man who reported the dead teens was the building’s janitor. He used the basement boiler room—the location where the female victim and her friend, Groovy, were killed—as a place to crash.”

“The janitor wasn’t involved in the crime?”

“That’s what he claimed. But the detectives were suspicious, so they grilled him. While he was in custody, a woman reported being assaulted that same day, in that very basement. A little too coincidental, right? She identified the janitor, and they used that assault charge to put pressure on him for the names of the killers.”

“He knew?”

“He knew because one of the killers lived in the building. The other was the petty drug dealer who led the two victims to the basement with the promise of selling them LSD. The two killers were high when they did it, passing the murder weapon—a brick—back and forth.”

I shivered. “So evil. So awful.”

“Both of the killers died in prison.”

As Quinn’s voice trailed off, his gaze scanned the brush and walkway. This time, I could tell, he wasn’t looking for a shoe or scraps of paper. The Groovy discussion seemed to make him more wary of our vulnerability.

“As police work goes, Cosi, solving that murder was pretty routine, though the aftermath wasn’t.”

“You mean the fear on the street when everyone learned about those murders?”

“That was part of it. But you have to remember, with all those kids bunking in parks, alleys, and doorways, and openly using drugs, the business owners and eventually the entire city expected the NYPD to do something about it. Those Summer of Love kids also had parents who were looking for them. The old-timers said not a day went by without some poor mother or father showing up at a local precinct desperate for news about a lost child. Or just wanting someone to explain to them how their child died—usually from an overdose.”

“Oh, God.”

“After those murders, the public expected police to do more than catch criminals after the fact. They wanted us to start addressing the underlying conditions that lead to crime.”

“Madame was right then.”

“She usually is.” He smiled. “What was she right about this time?”

“She said the Groovy Murders changed the Village culture. But they did more than that, didn’t they? They started to change the NYPD.”

“That’s true, I guess. Although when it comes to policing, some things never change . . .”

Quinn’s last enigmatic comment became all too clear a few minutes later, when we passed more men along the waterfront. Only these guys weren’t homeless, or quietly camped out in the brush.

Perched like roosters on the riverbank railing, this rough crew was loudly laughing and cursing. Their tan overalls were identical, displaying the name of a nearby West Side warehouse.

Three of the six young men were smoking, and all of them held cans or bottles tucked inside wrinkled paper bags, a popular method of avoiding a citation for consuming alcohol in public.

I could tell Quinn was going to ignore the raucous group, until a few made loud, lewd remarks about yours truly.

That did it.

“Good evening, gentlemen.”

“Good evening, asshole!”

The young man’s reply cracked up his five friends.

Quinn didn’t blink. “Not just any asshole,” he coolly returned. “An asshole with a badge.”