Frank Macamber entered Alexa Kokinas’s hospital room and closed the door behind him. It was late, around four o’clock in the morning. He had already flashed the tin for the nurses on duty, told them who he was and that he was checking on his patrolman. They had no problem with that. He had already cleared any visits with Alexa’s doctor.
The room was dark. Alexa was asleep in the bed, turned away from the window. Macamber had to be careful. There would be a record of his visit, in the line of duty, but that did not matter. No one had actually seen him going into the hospital room. He had told the night nurse he would only be a minute to look on his rookie patrolman. He was not going to unplug any of the machines she was hooked up to. He would just push a pillow over her face. He did not think there would even be a struggle. If she did awaken, it would be over in seconds. The night nurse would not come in until six o’clock in the morning to take blood from her and check her vital signs. By that time Macamber would be long gone.
Macamber took a step to her bed and looked down at her. He had to admit that she was pretty messed up. The bruising and lacerations to her face and arms were extensive. She should not have resisted so violently. She could have walked out of that abandoned warehouse under her own steam, but she had chosen to flail and writhe like some wild thing. Macamber thought it was too bad. Looking down at her now, he thought she could easily have had a cardiac arrest in her sleep.
He reached down for the pillow under her head.
A man’s voice said quietly: “Checking up on your patrolman?”
Macamber froze, his hands nowhere near the pillow yet, and whirled around.
Detective Steve Lansing displayed his CITY OF NEW YORK POLICE — DETECTIVE wallet with the number 7 in gold beneath the shield. “Detective Steve Lansing, 7th Squad.”
Macamber moved forward immediately, shaking Lansing’s hand. “Frank Macamber, 16th Precinct. I wanted to know how Alexa was doing. Maybe we should let her get her sleep.”
Detective Steve Lansing opened the hospital room door. Macamber saw at once that there was a uniformed Police Officer stationed outside. He closed the door behind him. They stood together in the ward while the small, muted sounds echoed from the nurse’s station. Lansing indicated the uniformed police officer.
“My Captain offered to authorize some added back-up for Alexa Kokinas. Three Officers on eight-hour shifts.”
“What does this have to do with the 7th Precinct?”
Lansing shrugged. “A little added protection. Until she gets stronger. Patrolman Kokinas is one of our own. What happened to her was despicable.”
“Yes, it was,” Macamber said, recovering quickly. “Glad to have the help. I’ll make sure my Captain at the 16th and your Captain are brought up to speed.”
“Making any progress on the identity of the perps?”
“We’re making headway, Steve. My guys are hunting down every possible lead. We have established a hot line into the precinct. We have had over a hundred tips on it in the last forty-eight hours. Nothing substantial yet but we are chasing down every lead, no matter how small. We are going to find these guys. It is only a matter of time. I’ve got my best men on it.”
“You call them the Elite, don’t you?”
Macamber shrugged, his expression wry. “A label we seemed to have picked up right out of the Police Academy. It is a little embarrassing, and my guys take a lot of ribbing about it, but they are the best. As soon as I get something solid, I’ll pass it over to you at the 7th Precinct.” Macamber weighed his next words carefully. “We rousted a guy who came here to the hospital to see Alexa. His name’s Robert McCall. Have you ever heard of him? Some of an urban vigilante.”
“I haven’t come across him,” Lansing said, deadpan.
“A total psycho. I am going to nail this asshole. He attacked two of my cops in a construction site and sent them to the hospital.”
“You can prove it was this guy?”
“Neither of them could provide a description,” Macamber said, “but I’m going to take him down. Thanks with the help for Alexa. I’ll call on her in a couple of days, see how she’s doing.”
Macamber shook hands with Lansing, as if he were preoccupied, and headed down to the nurse’s station. He had a quick word with her, professional and clipped, then rode the elevator down to the ground floor.
Detective Lansing was ironic. “Good luck with arresting Robert McCall. Let me know how that goes for you.”
McCall found the Kilpatrick house on the banks of the Hudson River in Millerton, a quant old-world town steeped in history and culture. It was a mansion built with Vermont marble, tall colonnades, with a flagstone porch and rolling hills that ended in the woods on the river. He had heard back from Emma Marshall the night before. She had said that everything was in place for him. McCall had thanked her and disconnected. He had parked his Jaguar off to one side of the maple trees and found a meandering flagstone path that led up the house. Tables had been placed on a gorgeous terrace for a buffet spread. There were small tables with fruit punch and bottles of wine on them and wine coolers on the nearby lawn. There must have been at least sixty people crowded around the tables or strolling through the trees that led down to the banks of the river. It looked like a gathering to McCall of aunts and uncles and family friends. A dozen children were racing around, most of them under the age of six, but there were several teenagers in attendance as well. The party had a festive, celebratory feel to it. Everyone was in good spirits and conversations were punctuated with laugher.
McCall stepped up onto the terrace. Immediately a stocky man with a shock of red hair, greying at the temples, walked up to him, putting out his hand. He had chiseled features, piercing blue eyes and a ready smile.
“Welcome! I am Joel Fitzpatrick. I guess I am in charge of this mob of unruly renegades. Most of them are family, although there a few of them I expect are imposters just here for a good time. But that is the cop in me.”
McCall shook hands. “Robert McCall.”
“I am going out on a limb here, but I figure you must have something to do with my son Jerry.”
“He invited me to your family get together,” McCall said, noncommittally.
“Well, you’re most welcome. I think Jerry just went into the house.”
“I’ll find him.”
McCall stepped off the patio and walked up the sweeping lawn to the imposing house. Joel Fitzpatrick watched him as he disappeared inside. Something about McCall’s intensity, although understated, had bothered him. But then he was assailed by some cousins and friends and found himself being the gracious host again.
A hallway faced McCall leading into a living room and a study which was open, revealing floor-to-ceiling bookcases and white coaches. A narrow marble staircase wound down from the first floor to the basement. McCall took the stairs and stepped out into a long corridor. Every inch of the wood-paneled walls was lined with framed photographs of the Fitzpatrick family. Prominent was a massive painting in muted oil colors of Joel Fitzpatrick in a dress uniform with a cap and white gloves. To one side of it was another oil painting of an older man also dressed in a dress uniform of the NYPD. A brass plaque below it said the man was Nicholas Kitzpatrick, Jerry’s grandfather. The older man looked like a carbon-copy of his son with the same piercing blue eyes, the same chiseled features, maybe more of a twinkle in his eyes. To complete the family was an oil-painting in rich colors of Gordon Fitzpatrick, Jerry’s great grandfather, also in the dress uniform of the NYPD, with cap and white gloves. At the time when the portrait was painted the old man must have been in his late nineties. He had gray slate-colored eyes and the rugged features of the Fitzpatrick family. His dress uniform, complete with cap and white gloves, came from another era.
There were framed pictures of the elder Kitzpatricks with politicians, including the Mayor of New York and various officials throughout the tri-State area. There were photographs of New York City from the sixties through the eighties, including a homage to the Twin Towers. There were exquisite oil paintings of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Grand Central Terminal, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty and Rockefeller Center. There was a montage of Central Park including the Pond, the Central Park Zoo, Bethesda Terrace and the Fountain, the Ramble and Strawberry Fields.
Jerry Fitzpatrick was standing in front of more glass-fronted photographs of the three generations of his family. He was casually dressed in jeans with open-toed sandals with no socks and a gray New York Yankees T-shirt.
McCall moved over to Jerry and indicted the montage. “Three generations of Police Officers. That’s quite an achievement.”
“I can’t take credit for that. We have these parties twice a year,” Jerry said. “Gives us a chance to get the family all together in one place. It can get a little chaotic at times. Did you meet my father, Joel Fitzpatrick?”
“I did. He was very cordial.”
“He’s tough as nails and big-hearted. He would give you the shirt off his back or stake you to a meal and a beer. In his day he took no prisoners. He is a strict disciplinarian and used to rule this family with an iron fist. He has mellowed out some. My grandfather is also here. My great-grandfather should be somewhere too, holding court with the ladies even though he is pushing ninety-eight. He is a rascal. I lost count of how many cousins, aunts and uncles come to these shindigs at Fox Haven. That is the country name for the house. Probably maybe a hundred when they all finally arrive.”
“Quite a gathering.”
Finally Jerry looked at McCall. “I didn’t know if you would come.”
“You invited me.”
Jerry nodded. “There’s a back way out of the house at the top of these stairs. Follow me.”
McCall followed the young NYPD Officer to another narrow staircase at the end of the basement that led up to the main floor of the house. Jerry moved into an oak study which had more pictures on the walls in front of a desk and floor-to-ceiling bookcases. The pictures in the study were mainly baseball photographs from another era, including signed autographs from Phil Rizzuto, Whitey Ford, Derek Jeter, Yogi Berra, Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle and a special shrine of the Great Bambino himself, Babe Ruth.
Jerry let himself out to a patio area where a wrought-iron bench sat shrouded by greenery. McCall followed him. Jerry walked out onto the rolling lawn at the side of the house. More family members were arriving, slamming car doors, children scrambling out and greeting people. Joel Fitzpatrick, Jerry’s father, was the official greeter for the family. Nicholas Fitzpatrick, Jerry Fitzpatrick’s grandfather, was embracing his daughter-in-law whom McCall recognized as a high-fashion model. At one of the picnic tables McCall noted the patriarch of the family, Gordon Fitzpatrick, Jerry’s great-grandfather, sitting alone, sipping what looked like a Black Russian. McCall thought that no one escaped the old man’s intense scrutiny. He had noted McCall and Jerry strolling over the lawn to disappear into the red maple trees and Douglas firs that marched down to the bank to the Hudson.
In the dense trees, McCall waited for Jerry Kilpatrick. The bursts of laughter and camaraderie did not quite reach them here. Jerry’s voice was subdued. Finally he said: “I don’t know what to say to you.”
“Yes, you do,” McCall said.
Jerry took a deep breath. “Frank Macamber had it all planned out. He followed Alexa Kokinas when she left O’Grady’s Tavern. He had made sure that the padlock on the fence of the abandoned warehouse was broken. There were six of us waiting in the warehouse when she entered. We were wearing black turtlenecks and ski masks. Pete Hightower tasered Alexa. That brought her down to the floor. She was paralyzed.” For a moment Jerry could not go on. McCall let him get through it in his own time and did not interrupt. Jerry took another deep breath. “The Elite all took turns raping Alexa. Except for myself. I lost my nerve. The horror that was happening finally got through to me. I pulled off my ski mark. Frank Macamber grabbed me and whispered that we were all in this together. There was no backing out now. I think he would have killed me right there and then, except one of the Elite, Marvin Rabinski, we call him the Moose, he said to let me go. I put back on my ski mask. I stood in the shadows while my fellow Police Officers assaulted Alexa. Macamber was the last one. He took his time with her. He slapped her around and punched her in the face. When he was through, he climbed off her. He said she was conscious. She would find her way out of the warehouse. If she wanted to be a cop, she could start acting like one. We left her on the floor and walked out.”
“Macamber would have had the last word,” McCall said.
“He did. He cornered me the next day at the precinct and made sure that I understood about the code of silence. No one does anything without his blessing. If any of the Elite were implicated, I would have been found in an alleyway with my throat cut. Frank Macamber is a cop you do not want to mess with. He’s vicious and brutal.” Jerry looked at McCall for the first time. “But he’s right. I can’t cross over the line and confront my fellow Police Officers.”
“You’ve got three generations of your family sitting at those tables on the patio,” McCall said, quietly. “Your father, your grandfather, even your great grandfather has made an appearance. All of them were Police Officers you have looked up to your whole life. What are you going to say to them?”
Jerry shook his head. “They would be mortified by what happened. Especially my Pappy, that is what my father calls my great grandfather. He would never recover from the shame of it.”
McCall said: “You have to do the right thing, Jerry. Alexa Kokinas did not deserve what happened to her. You’ve got a chance to make that right.”
Through the trees Jerry saw more family members arriving onto the grounds of the magnificent house. His mother, a gorgeous redhead, brought out more fried chicken, baked potatoes, corn-on-the-cob and salads to the picnic tables. She had help from other family members and the children who were ready to pitch in.
“Macamber told the Elite that this will all blow over,” Jerry said. “Don’t sweat it. None of them will ever be caught.”
‘Don’t bet on that,” McCall said.
Jerry looked at more family members arriving onto the grounds. There were snatches of laughter, hugs and more fried chicken set up on two more picnic tables.
“What can I do?” Jerry asked, his hands clenching into fists. “I can’t get a confession out of Frank Macamber or any of the others.”
“There may be a way,” McCall said. “But you will have to own up to your part in the assault. Maybe the Distinct Attorney will cut you a little slack. There will not be a way to spare your family the humiliation of what is coming. That’s on you.”
Jerry was quiet for another moment. Then he said: “Frank Macamber knows about you. Mr. McCall. He’ll come after you.”
“He already has,” McCall said. “He sent two of his Officers to kill me on a construction site late at night.”
“Which ones were they?”
“Detectives Graves and Rabinski. They are now in Lennox Hospital recovering. Their injuries were not serious, but it will give Frank Macamber food for thought. You are going to break the hearts of three old-time cops, but I believe they will forgive you when the time comes. But there cannot be a cover-up. That decision is up to you.”
Jerry looked back through the maple trees and slowly nodded. McCall thought he had reached a decision.
“What happens now?” he asked.
“Macamber will confess to his crime,” McCall said.
“Not going to happen.”
“I think it will. I want you to contact Frank Macamber tonight. Give him the impression that everything with you is back on track. You have moved on like nothing happened. Tell him you have new intel about Alexa Kokinas. Will he at the 16th Precinct?”
“Today he’ll be off-duty,” Jerry said. “He’ll be shooting pool at O’Grady’s Tavern on the Lower East Side. Probably with Detective Hightower and the other members of the Elite squad.”
‘Make sure that all of them are at O’Grady’s together.”
“How will you know that?”
“I’ll know.” McCall handed Jerry a card. “Call me at this number. Let me know when you are at O’Grady’s. Do not lose your nerve, Jerry. Be convincing. You are doing this for Alexa Kokinas. Can you do that?”
Jerry nodded.
McCall said: “I’ll be in touch.”
He made his way back out of the woods to where his Jaguar was parked on the edge of one of the lawns. He caught the patriarch of the family, “Pappy” Jerry had called him, watching him intently. The old cop knew something was very wrong. Jerry emerged from the woods and joined him at his table where a slew of cousins and a lovely looking older woman, who must be his mother, joined them. Jerry was all smiles and forced camaraderie.
McCall knew what the revelation was going to do to this proud family of ex-cops. Maybe there would be a way for him to ease the suffering they were going to experience.
It was the suffering that Alexa Kokinas was experiencing that concerned him the most.
McCall slid into the Jaguar, fired it up and drove away from the Fitzpatrick mansion where it was swallowed up in the elm and spruce trees.