Murder Games Read online

  Livingston exchanged glances with the mayor. Their minds were easier to read than the first line of an eye chart. Tyrell Melvin Burke? That’s not even close to a Jack.

  “What about the other one?” asked Livingston.

  Saxon checked his pad again. “Lawrence Tack,” he said. “That came off a credit card he had on him. No middle name yet.”

  “Tack?” I asked. By then I’d already stolen a peek at Saxon’s notepad. A doctor with the yips had better handwriting than he did. “Are you sure that’s a T?”

  Saxon looked again. “My bad…that’s a J, not a T,” he said. “The kid’s name was Lawrence Jack.”

  “Jack?” repeated Livingston.

  “Yeah,” said Saxon. “Actually, he’s the one who had the card in his mouth.”

  I looked over at Elizabeth. She knew what I was thinking. No wonder she looked away.

  If the police commissioner, the highest official with the NYPD, had actually known that the Dealer had pinned the jack of spades to Colton Lange’s burned-to-a-crisp corpse, this would’ve been his “Aha!” moment. But Saxon said nothing. He hadn’t been told.

  “Hank, you mentioned there were four victims total?” asked Livingston.

  “Yes,” said Saxon. “We got them out of here to the morgue right before you arrived. Thought it best to be quick, given the crowd.”

  “Four kids gunned down in broad daylight,” said the mayor. “How many witnesses were there?”

  Saxon again glanced knowingly outside our circle. In what was already a busy intersection, there were now more than a hundred people gathered. “None so far,” he said.

  Livingston’s head snapped back. “How could that—”

  Elizabeth cut him off. For all his savvy, the mayor’s chief of staff could still manage to be a little too white and a little too Connecticut. “They were gang members,” she said. “No one’s coming forward.”

  “They wouldn’t be ratting on anyone except a serial killer,” said Livingston.

  “Would you like me to get you a bullhorn so you can tell them that?” asked Elizabeth.

  Everybody and his uncle were here, yet no one was ever going to admit to seeing anything. These were the rules of the street. Keep your mouth shut.

  C’mon, people. Can I get a witness?

  Next thing I knew, he was standing right next to me.

  Chapter 61

  “DID YOU know that Bob Dylan won eleven Grammys and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988?” he asked.

  I playfully rubbed my chin. “Gee, I didn’t know that,” I said.

  “I googled him,” he told me. “Dylan’s pretty cool.”

  “Yeah, but Miles Davis is still the coolest,” I said. “Right?”

  “That’s for sure,” he said.

  “I take it you two know each other?” asked Elizabeth.

  I turned back to see everyone—Elizabeth, the mayor, Livingston, and Saxon—all staring at me talking to a kid who was four foot nothing, including his Questlove afro.

  Small world.

  “Hey, you’re the mayor!” said Miles, pointing.

  “That’s right; I am,” said Deacon. “Who might you be?”

  Miles stuck out his hand as if remembering what he’d been taught. “I’m Miles Winston,” he announced. “It’s very nice to meet you, sir.”

  I watched as Deacon shook Miles’s hand with a broad smile. Maybe the mayor was truly charmed by the boy, or maybe it was nothing more than his political instincts kicking in. There were, after all, news cameras and photographers scattered all around us. Not to mention the crowd itself.

  Livingston, on the other hand, was neither charmed nor on the ballot in November. “Hey, kid,” he said, frowning. “You need to get back behind those barricades, okay?”

  Livingston sounded like a complete tool, but it did make me wonder what Miles was doing all by himself. He shouldn’t have been alone. The next second, he knew he shouldn’t have been.

  “Miles!” yelled his mother. “Miles Winston!”

  I turned back to see Ms. Winston squeezing between two barricades, running toward us in a panic. With a quick hand wave, Saxon told one of the cops about to stop her that it was okay.

  What followed was what surely happens at shopping malls and playgrounds every day when parents don’t see their kids wandering off. Sudden relief tempered by the anger of having been scared to death. Ms. Winston handled it better than I expected, though. There was far more relief than anger.

  “Look, Mom,” said Miles, pointing again. “It’s the mayor!”

  Deacon remained all smiles as he pressed the flesh with Ms. Winston. Naturally, he asked if she was a registered voter.

  But Livingston was thinking bigger. His smile stretched wider than his boss’s. A minute earlier, he’d told Miles to scram. Now he wanted him and his mother to stay right where they were, especially after she mentioned that the two of them lived directly across the street.

  “Ms. Winston, the city needs your help,” said Livingston, jumping right into it. As soon as he invoked “the city,” I knew what was coming next.

  Could she possibly “consult” with her neighbors to see if anyone saw the shootings? All it would take was one brave individual to come forward, he explained. Simple as that.

  If only.

  In the battle between civic duty and self-preservation, my money is always on Darwin.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” said Ms. Winston. She was only being polite, though. All she could really see was her young boy by her side. What she may or may not have owed “the city” paled immensely to what she owed Miles. First and foremost was being there for him.

  But the world is a far less complicated place for a six-year-old.

  “Are you guys talking about the guy with the gun?” asked Miles. “Because I saw him.”

  “You did?” asked Livingston.

  Miles nodded. “Yeah. I was practicing my trumpet in front of the window in our apartment and—”

  Ms. Winston all but slapped her hand over Miles’s mouth. “No, he didn’t,” she said. “He didn’t see anything.” As fast as she had arrived, she grabbed his small hand and began walking away.

  “Wait!” said Livingston. He was about to chase her down when I stepped in front of him, blocking his way. He glared at me. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Being smarter than you,” I said.

  He tried to push his away around me. “Get out of my way,” he said.

  That didn’t work out so well for him, as I quickly found his right clavicle with my thumb and forefinger, squeezing good and hard. The Chinese call it the rooster pinch because the remaining fingers look like a rooster’s comb. I simply call it the way to stop a man cold in his tracks when kicking him in the balls isn’t an option.

  Either way, I suddenly had Livingston’s undivided attention. He knew the only way the pain would stop was if he listened, so he did.

  “There’s a better way to do this,” I said.

  Chapter 62

  “THAT WASN’T exactly on my bucket list,” said Tracy, stepping out of the cruiser on the corner of 112th Street. It was his first time riding in a police car.

  “Believe me, that won’t be the last of your first-time-evers today,” I said. “C’mon, let me introduce you to the mayor.”

  Tracy had tried to convince me over the phone that the subway would’ve been a faster means for him to get up to Harlem. He might have been right, but it wasn’t my decision. Once I convinced Deacon, Livingston, and even Elizabeth that this was the right move, the travel plans were out of my hands. Saxon radioed for the car.

  “So you’re the woman’s attorney?” asked Livingston.

  I had introduced Tracy to Deacon and the commissioner in the back of a nearby diner commandeered by the mayor’s staff. Elizabeth was next when Livingston rudely jumped the line on her. To know Tracy was to know that that didn’t go unnoticed.

  “Hi, Elizabeth. I’m Tracy,” he
said, ignoring Livingston.

  Elizabeth shook Tracy’s hand, barely suppressing a chuckle. As first impressions go, Tracy had knocked it out of the park. “It’s nice to finally meet you,” she said.

  “As to your question, Beau, the answer is no,” said Tracy. Leave it to him to already know who Livingston was…and to call him by his first name. “I’m not Ms. Winston’s attorney. However, I do provide legal counsel to her through a legal aid center here in Harlem.”

  “Tomato, tomahto,” said Livingston.

  “Actually, no,” said Tracy. “There’s only one way to pronounce attorney-client privilege, and that’s not something I currently share with her.”

  Livingston turned to me, piqued. “Remind me again why you wanted him here, Reinhart?”

  “He’s here because Ms. Winston trusts him and because he’s the only one who might be able to get her little boy to tell us what he saw,” I said. “Do I need to explain it to you a third time?”

  “No, you don’t,” said the mayor, shutting down Livingston. He turned to Tracy. “We appreciate your help, Mr. McKay.”

  “You’re welcome,” said Tracy. “I just can’t promise anything.”

  “I understand,” said Deacon. “Of course that would make you a lousy politician.”

  “So are we ready?” asked Saxon. He motioned to the front of the diner, the door partially visible behind a waitress taking an order.

  “Yeah. Let’s get this done,” said Deacon.

  Immediately Tracy gave me the Look. I hadn’t mentioned his one condition to the group, the one thing he required in return for agreeing to do this. I figured we’d cross that bridge when we came to it.

  We’d come to it.

  “Where’s everyone going?” asked Tracy.

  Livingston was mastering the art of chiming in at the wrong time. “We’re going with you, of course.”

  Tracy shook his head. “Perhaps Dylan didn’t make it clear, but—”

  “We can’t let you do this on your own,” insisted Livingston.

  “Yeah—that wouldn’t be a good idea,” said Deacon.

  “Why not?” asked Elizabeth. “In fact, it’s probably the best idea. If Ms. Winston trusted any of us we’d already be talking to Miles right now.”

  “She has a point,” said Saxon. “I think we all benefit if Mr. McKay goes at this alone.”

  Deacon gave the nod, and the commissioner raised his notepad, adjusting his glasses. He’d already made a call and gotten the address.

  “That’s okay. I already know where they live,” said Tracy.

  Twenty minutes later, he was back in the diner. As soon as I saw him come through the door I knew something was up.

  “Well?” asked Deacon. “How did it go?”

  It was as if Tracy didn’t hear him. Instead he walked straight toward Saxon, extending his hand as if the two had never met.

  “Commissioner Saxon, my name is Tracy McKay, and I’ve just witnessed a murder.”

  Chapter 63

  “ACTUALLY, MAKE that four murders,” said Tracy.

  The strongest smell in the diner was no longer the burgers on the grill. It was everyone’s brain working overtime.

  Deacon waved the white flag first. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Tracy didn’t flinch. “As you know, Mr. Mayor, I do volunteer work in the vicinity, and I was out for a walk when I saw a black car—the make unknown—pull up to the curb across the street. Someone inside the car then opened fire on the four young men walking on the sidewalk. The last thing I saw was the driver of the car get out and approach one of the victims lying on ground. He put something in his mouth, but I couldn’t see exactly what it was.”

  “Can you describe the driver?” asked Elizabeth.

  Deacon, Livingston, and even Saxon did a double take on her. What the hell is happening here? What are we missing?

  A law degree, for starters. Or just some very quick thinking.

  “Good question,” I said, joining in with Elizabeth. “Was the driver wearing any particular item of clothing or markings?”

  “As a matter of fact he was,” said Tracy. “He had a black bandanna tied around his arm, outside of a gray hoodie.”

  Deacon and Livingston had officially caught up. Saxon, too. “Black bandanna,” said the commissioner. “That’s the Tombs.”

  “Let me guess—another new gang name I have to learn,” said Deacon sarcastically.

  The mayor knew all too well that keeping track of street gangs in the city was like keeping track of restaurant openings.

  “The Tombs actually broke off from the Broad Day Shooters,” said Saxon. “Apparently they didn’t do enough shooting for their liking.”

  For better or worse, Saxon’s job required that he keep track of every gang. As well as what it takes to prosecute and convict them. He turned back to Tracy.

  “You can’t do this, Mr. McKay,” he said.

  “Do what?” asked Tracy.

  “Substitute yourself as a witness for someone else. If this was a gang killing we can protect the boy and his mother,” said Saxon.

  It was actually fun watching Tracy give the Look to someone other than me. He simply stared at Saxon long enough to make the words redundant. You can’t protect them any better than I just did.

  “For fuck’s sake, Hank, what are you going to do? Arrest him?” asked Deacon.

  Saxon was resolute. “If this were to ever go to trial—”

  “Do you mean if the gang member who shot four members of a rival gang actually lives long enough to make it to trial?” said Deacon. “Is that what you’re worried about, Hank?”

  There is no gambling like politics, said Benjamin Disraeli.

  Deacon dismissed Saxon’s concern as fast as he dismissed Saxon himself, his frustration boiling over. Livingston was a mere bystander, too. “So what in God’s name just happened?” he asked Elizabeth and me. Mostly me.

  “Remember the idea of taking the deck out of the Dealer’s hand? Someone beat you to it,” I said.

  A gang saw an opportunity and grabbed it. Did one of them see or hear about the jack of spades before Lange’s body was discovered? Maybe. Better than maybe, even. So he posed as a serial killer to take care of his own business. Members of a gang can live—and die—with the threat of retaliation from the street, but at least they won’t have the police to worry about. Or so went their plan. After all, no witness would be foolish enough to come forward. You’d have to be sick in the head.

  Or maybe just six years old.

  Amazing. Tracy, without the slightest hesitation, was willing to do everything he could to protect Miles.

  Your witness, Gateway Adoption Agency. Any more questions about Tracy being a suitable parent?

  “One hell of an afternoon,” muttered Deacon.

  Grim nods followed from Livingston and Saxon. Even Elizabeth bowed her head a bit.

  Not me, though. I was practically smiling. Tracy had done more good than he realized.

  Deacon glared at me. “What the fuck are you so happy about?” he snapped. “We just went down a dead end.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s the exact opposite. It’s the break we’ve been waiting for.”

  Chapter 64

  TICK-TOCK…

  His name was Jackie Palmer.

  Back in the early 1970s, he was a member of the Black Spades, a gang that ruled the Bronx like no other before it…or after it. They were violent, extremely territorial, and built to last, with Palmer as one of their warlords.

  But then Palmer got political.

  Not run-for-city-council political. Instead he blew up an army recruiting station because of the way he thought the US government was exploiting African American soldiers in the Vietnam War. That kind of political.

  Palmer had visited the recruiting station in the Bronx under the pretense of obtaining enlistment brochures. While there he asked if he could use the bathroom, where he allegedly planted a pipe bomb with a timer set to explode th
at evening after the station was closed. Allegedly.

  What he didn’t know was that the recruiting officer was using the supply room as a bedroom for the night because his apartment was being fumigated. The officer was killed in the blast.

  There were no witnesses, but a log sheet was recovered from the wreckage showing that the officer had listed “Jack Palmer” as the sole visitor to the station that day. More incriminating were the bomb-making materials the police found in Palmer’s apartment after they obtained a search warrant.

  But none of that actually proved anything beyond a reasonable doubt, especially because this was before the days of sophisticated forensic evidence. Palmer never even admitted that he’d set foot in the station. Ultimately, no charges were filed.

  One very committed detective, however, never let go of the case. Ten years later, courtesy of advanced CSI techniques, a hair sample from the station was shown to be a match with Palmer’s. It “positively” placed him at the army recruiting station. With no statute of limitations on murder in the state of New York, Palmer was arrested and tried.

  He was found not guilty.

  The case against Palmer began unraveling when his attorney successfully challenged the admissibility of the hair sample based on a technicality—the temperature at which it had been stored over the years. Still, the prosecution continued, abetted by a jury that seemed ready to convict regardless. That’s when it happened. Jackie Palmer came forward.

  A different Jackie Palmer. But similar in many ways. He was black, roughly the same age, and lived in the Bronx. He claimed he was the Jack Palmer who had gone to the recruiting station that day. The reason he never came forward previously was that he feared he’d be charged with planting the bomb. He was terrified, he said. Of course, he was also lying.

  No one could prove it, though, and that gave the defense just enough reasonable doubt to prevent a conviction. Palmer was a free man.

  I remember reading about the trial in an article that discussed the various tiers of morality. In this case, someone was willing to obstruct justice in the name of avenging a perceived larger injustice. Vietnam, as it turned out. The Jack Palmer who took advantage of a common name and came forward had not only been a conscientious objector but also an outspoken critic of the war.