“You know he doesn’t park these expensive pimped-up wheels on the street in the middle of Harlem,” I said.
“Why not? Can you think of anybody who messes with the reverend?” Mercer answered. It was close to two thirty in the morning and we were cruising the streets in the area between the Gotham center and Shipley’s apartment. “Probably the safest cars in the hood.”
“We’ve been around three times,” I said, holding a printout of the cars and plate numbers. “Nada. Absolutely nada. Let’s check out the parking garages.”
The car stopped at a light and I opened the door. Mercer pulled over and parked in front of a fire hydrant.
The first two garages we walked by had closed at one A.M.
Teenagers we passed on a street corner started taunting Mercer with chants of, “Five-oh. We know you five-oh.”
The old TV show—Hawaii Five-O—had long ago provided the nickname for cops on ghetto streets. Even with the stunning gentrification of parts of Harlem, I gave away Mercer’s presence as surely as if I had worn my police badge around my neck.
Three blocks from our car, and half a block from Shipley’s home address, the mouth of a large garage yawned at us. Open twenty-four hours.
I followed Mercer down the ramp. The old black man behind the bulletproof window in what served as an office had fallen asleep. Mercer rapped on the glass.
The startled attendant sat up straight. “What you want?”
“These three cars. Let’s take a look at them,” Mercer said, passing him the plate numbers.
“I can’t help you.”
“Does that mean they’re not here or they’re here?”
“Means just what I say. I can’t help you.”
“Fat Hal got your tongue, Pops?” I asked.
“Don’t sass me, boy. I just park cars.”
There was no need for Mercer to show his ID. We were the man, and this guy didn’t like it any more than the kids selling weed on the street corner.
“Someone was murdered not far from here,” Mercer said. “A nice man.”
“Wynan Wilson,” he said. “Knowed him for a long time.”
I let Mercer worm his way back into the man’s good graces while I continued on down the ramp and around the corner. He was trying to cajole the attendant into talking to him by using Wilson’s daughter’s name and describing her despair.
There were about a hundred cars parked below. Most were Hondas and Toyotas and Fords. The three SUVs were easy to spot, lined up in a ready-to-go-at-a-moment’s-notice position against the right wall.
I walked over to the first one and opened the door. The good thing about the cars being in an attended garage was that most probably they would be unlocked.
The interior was as clean as though the SUV were brand-new. I sat in the driver’s seat and opened the glove compartment. Nothing was inside. I pulled the lever to raise the rear door, got out, and walked around. The back was empty as well. Someone took very good care of the vehicle, or had gone to great lengths to purge it of any signs of a disturbance.
I closed the doors and swiveled to the second car. Mercer was coming toward me and the old man was limping along behind him.
“Stay out, boy!” he yelled to me.
“Just having a look.”
“You’ll cost me my job.”
The second car was as well tended as the first. Not the first crumb on the floor or seat, not a single slip of paper stowed in the side pocket.
“I promise we’ll watch out for you,” Mercer said.
The wide-awake attendant was in a frenzy. “Don’t be doing that.”
I pulled on the handle of the third SUV and the door opened. I sat in the driver’s seat and again reached across to the glove compartment.
Mercer had the door behind me. “Hold up, Mike. You’ve got to see this.”
I stood and pushed the old man out of the way. There was a stain on the camel-colored seat leather. A small one, but it looked like blood.
I couldn’t move. The rear seat, behind the driver’s position, was, according to Sadiq the Uber driver, where Coop had gotten into a black SUV.
“Lean in, man,” Mercer said, getting out of my way. “Take a look. It’s probably blood.”
“I get it,” I said.
I didn’t want to see Alex Cooper’s blood. I couldn’t tell the blood type of the spot I was looking at and I couldn’t know what its DNA fingerprint was—I just had it in my head that it was Coop’s and I needed to shake that thought.
“Your skin is completely ashen. You’ve gone gray, Mike.”
“No, I haven’t. Let’s call the precinct and get this mother impounded. Get it out of here before Shipley can spirit it away.”
“You’re thinking about Alex. That’s why you look so bad.”
“I’m not—I’m—”
“Meanwhile, I’m assuming the blood has something to do with Takeesha Falls—something bloody she carried out of Wynan Wilson’s apartment. Not Alex. Let the lieutenant stay on top of the search team.”
“I’m trying to do that, Mercer. It’s not going to work.”
The old man was on his way back to his little office.
I heard someone running and looked back at the ramp, knowing it could not have been his footsteps.
A tall African-American man, both hands tucked in the pockets of his black overcoat, was coming toward us. “Hands off, gentlemen. Hands off that machine.”
I threw a glance at Mercer.
“Pops pressed a button in his office. Must go straight to Shipley’s bodyguards,” he said.
My fingers were firmly wrapped around the handle as I dialed 911 with my free hand.
“I said don’t touch.”
“Can’t hear you, dude. I’m talking to the police,” I said.
Mercer identified himself and told the tall man to slowly bring his mitts out of his pockets.
“Mike Chapman. Homicide. Put me through to the two-eight, stat,” I said, holding until she got me connected to the desk officer. I explained the situation and asked for two cops to come to the garage to secure the car until it could be towed to the pound for evidence collection. I could always deal with warrants before the actual search got started.
The tall man turned around and started to walk away.
“Hold it right there,” Mercer said. “Right there.”
The man stopped but kept his back to us.
“Are you the driver of one of these machines?”
“From time to time.”
“You work for Shipley?” Mercer went on.
“Time to time.”
“Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
“Do I have to look at that prick you got with you? My boss really don’t like him.”
Mercer waved at me to step away. “Just talk to me.”
The tall man pivoted around.
“Do you have the names of the men who drive these cars? All the names?”
The man shook his head from side to side. “I’m not good with names. You’ll have to check with the office.”
“Is one of these cars assigned to you?”
“I just stick close with the reverend. That’s all I’m supposed to do.”
“The night before last—Wednesday evening—where were you?” I broke in.
The tall man glared at Mercer instead of responding to me.
“I’m just going to ask you the very same things he is,” Mercer said. “You might as well answer one of us.”
“Wednesday night,” I said, “did you go into Central Park?”
I could feel myself lurching out of control. There was an art to questioning people, a skill I had learned first from my father, and right now I wasn’t capable of exercising the patience and control it required.
“My mother always cautioned me to stay out of the park at night, you know? It kind of creeps me out to go there.”
“So tell me what you did on Wednesday,” Mercer said. “Start around five o’clock in the afternoon.”
“I’m being square with you. I just don’t recall.”
“Try harder,” Mercer said.
“I was with Reverend Shipley. I know that for sure. You ask him and I’m certain he’ll remember.”
“Where’s Keesh?” I blurted out. “Takeesha Falls. Where is she?”
The tall man looked at me and laughed. “Now, there’s a mystery for you, isn’t it? The reverend’s looking high and low for that girl. We think she’s in mourning. Gone into seclusion and all that.”
If Shipley wasn’t hiding the woman, then he was certainly looking for her. He must have figured she made off with some of the Wynan Wilson cash that belonged to Shipley himself.
More footsteps. Two uniformed cops showed themselves on the ramp, with the wide-eyed attendant at their heels.
“Good timing,” Mercer said. “These three cars—that third one in particular—we’re going to get them taken out of here. You’ll have to—”
“One thing before that,” I said. “This gentleman works for Hal Shipley. He needs a lift over to the North Homicide office. He’s ready to spill the beans on Takeesha Falls.”
The man laughed at me again, but not before the attendant scurried back up in the direction of his office. He was about to drop a dime on the tall man. It was never good form to snitch on the Reverend Shipley’s friends.
“No such thing, Detective.” He cocked his head and grinned at me. “You trying to get me hurt?”
“I’m afraid word is out on the street already. That old guy has a pipeline to important people, right from his little bulletproof cage,” I said. “Once he squeals on you, you’ll be safer in the homicide squad than on Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard.”
His jaw locked in place.
One of the two cops radioed in for backup to take an informant to the squad. “We can stay with the car. Another team will be here in four minutes to transport Mr.—”
“Mr. Who?” I asked.
The tall man wasn’t talking.
I walked toward him to pat him down before I left him with the cops. He flinched when I made him raise his hands over his head, but he complied. He leaned against the hood of an Acura while I searched him.
“No hardware,” I said. “Give these guys your ID.”
He removed his wallet from his pocket. I looked at the name on the license—Ebon Gander, which meant nothing to me—and handed it to one of the uniformed men. Then I took hold of the wallet.
“Well, well. You are just awash in hundred-dollar bills, dude. Four or five thousand of them.”
I handed him back the money. “Let’s be sure to tell the detectives to look over the Franklins for possible blood, in case these bills just tiptoed out of Wilson’s apartment along with Keesh.”
Ebon Gander twitched.
“Let’s go, Detective Wallace,” I said. I had just diverted enough of my mental energy to keep Coop out of this narrative—to form the thought that maybe this man had been Keesh’s getaway driver, which would account for the bloodstain in the car and the big bills in his wallet.
“We got a condolence call to pay.”
Mercer hesitated, like he didn’t quite know what to do about me.
“Don’t you want to know where?” I asked.
“It’s three o’clock in the morning,” Mercer said to me softly, pleading for some kind of rational thought on my part.
“Time to pay a visit to Fat Hal, pardner. Once we tell him Mr. Gander’s been talking to us—”
“I’m not saying a word to you or anyone else.”
“I don’t see it that way, Mr. Gander. The way I figure, you might as well be talking. I’m pretty certain once the reverend learns you’re up at the homicide squad and the cars are impounded and your wallet has grown pretty damn wide, I’m quite certain your goose will be cooked.”