Burn: (Michael Bennett 7) Read online

  “What the—!” I said as I shot up to a barrage of hysterical giggling.

  I clicked on the light. It was the stupid cat!

  “Put Socky out of this bed, Chrissy. This bed has a strict no-cat policy. No means no. Get him out of here!”

  “But Socky misses Touchdown and Flopsy, Mopsy, and Desiree, too,” said Chrissy.

  “No, Socky misses the rodents, and most of all, those delicious birds,” I said as I placed the cat on the floor and put the pillow over my head.

  “That’s so mean, Daddy,” Chrissy said. “Homer is a bird and Socky is my friend. Socky would die before he hurt even one feather on Homer’s head.”

  Wanna bet? I thought.

  “Mean Daddy,” Shawna agreed with another giggle.

  “Please, girls. Mean Daddy has work tomorrow and just wants some sleep, OK? Just a little sleep, pretty please,” I said as I felt the cat leap back up onto the bed and use the back of my left leg for a scratching post.

  I shook my leg free and was about to get rid of the cat again but then wisely resigned myself. I closed my weary eyes and pictured room service breakfast at the Plaza. As I fell asleep, I pictured Mary Catherine in a white bathrobe raising a mimosa as the sun came up over Central Park.

  CHAPTER 20

  I GOT OUT OF the house at an extra-early six-thirty the next morning to beat the traffic.

  Not the commuter traffic in the street so much as the always-heavy bathroom traffic in my apartment on weekday mornings.

  From the corner deli, I grabbed a breakfast sandwich and a coffee and the paper. The Post wasn’t in yet, but the Daily News was, so I picked up a copy, which I perused in the front seat of my Chevy as I ate my ham, egg, and cheese.

  After I read the sports section, I flipped the paper over. I skimmed through what Kanye was up to these days, and then I read something interesting on page four.

  There was a story about a jewel heist at some high-end jewelry shop out in Brooklyn.

  The criminals seemed sophisticated. Rushing in wearing ski masks and brandishing handguns, they’d forced the store staff to the ground before smashing display cases with ball-peen hammers and grabbing the most expensive items. The smash-and-grab gang had struck thrice and was always in and out in minutes and got away without a trace.

  It really did sound like an interesting case, I thought as I put down the paper and started the car. A crew of professional thieves was something a cop could really sink his teeth into. I imagined the stakeouts and suspect interviews, the adrenaline-laced thrill of the hunt.

  Then I stopped fantasizing as I reminded myself that my involvement with high-profile cases was now a thing of the past.

  I was first one in at the ombudsman office at 125th in Harlem. After I keyed myself in, I turned on the lights and parked myself at my desk. I was drinking a coffee to the sound of a soothing Mozart horn concerto from YouTube and going through more complaints when a woman poked her head in the doorway.

  “Detective Bennett?” she said.

  It took me a few seconds to realize that it was the clerk I’d sent home yesterday. It was hard to recognize her, what with the long-sleeved blouse and tailored pants and no gaudy makeup. The only earrings she wore were in her ears this morning, I noted happily. She looked quite respectable and professional. Well, what did you know? Day two and I was already making some headway.

  “Yes, Ms. Ramirez?” I said, taking note of her name tag.

  “I just wanted to apologize for my appearance and behavior and stuff yesterday. I read the manual like you said, and I’m going to follow it. I actually like my job, and I’d like to try to show you that I’m actually really good at it if you give me another chance.”

  “Sounds good, Ms. Ramirez,” I said.

  “Oh, please call me Roz,” she said, smiling.

  I didn’t smile back. The last thing this tattooed young lady needed was to be more casual in the workplace.

  “That’s OK,” I said. “I’ll just stick with Ms. Ramirez for now, Ms. Ramirez.”

  CHAPTER 21

  FIRST UP ON THE day’s agenda was a squad meeting I called and held in the small conference room next to my office.

  By a little after nine, around the battered laminate table that was almost too big for the room sat the squad’s full retinue of unusual suspects.

  Gung-ho Jimmy Doyle was present and accounted for on my left, beside a happy Arturo Lopez and the stylish Noah Robertson. On my right was wired-a-little-too-tight Naomi Chast, sitting beside a new female cop who’d been in court testifying the day before.

  The new cop’s name was Brooklyn Kale, and she was a nice-looking and very tall young black woman. I’d read in her file that the six-three Brooklyn had played basketball with the University of Connecticut Lady Huskies and was one of the point guards on the 2009 NCAA championship team. She was also a Harlem native who’d grown up six blocks north up Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard.

  Which I liked. Brooklyn knew the area, the community, had some skin in the game. I just hoped her policing skills were comparable to her accuracy from the three-point line.

  I started off the meeting by handing out the current docket of complaints I’d had Ms. Ramirez print up.

  “Now, before we get started looking these over,” I said to everybody, “I think it’s important to let you know what I expect out of this squad. What I expect is nothing short of doing this job absolutely as well as anybody can possibly do it, OK? We prioritize the cases and we work ’em and work ’em and work ’em until they’re done.

  “So I don’t want to hear excuses. We set our goals, and we methodically accomplish them. And then we go home and go to sleep and wake up and do it again.”

  I looked everyone over. They mostly seemed to get what I was saying. Arturo even gave me a happy little thumbs-up.

  Was I being too harsh? Too drill sergeant? Maybe a little, but that was probably better in the beginning with these newborn baby cops. I could show them my good cop side once the ground rules were laid down and I started seeing some results.

  I looked over the complaint list. At the top were a lot of strange but not really police-related complaints. People were wondering things like why weren’t their radiators working and what school district were they in and what was up with their food stamp application.

  “Ms. Ramirez, Ms. Tyson,” I said to the two clerks, who were hovering in the conference room’s doorway. “Do you see all these housing complaints and whatnot at the top of this list? Can I put you two in charge of redirecting non-police complaints to the proper city agencies?

  “I’m not trying to diminish these issues. I might want to call the cops if rats were infesting my building, too. But we don’t fix streetlights or fill in potholes. We just deal with actual crimes. Help out people who are in danger, that sort of thing. If you have something questionable, by all means leave it on the docket, but my boss is a nut about numbers, and we can clear a lot of these by proper redirection.”

  “On it,” Ariel Tyson said, leaving the room with Ms. Ramirez.

  I quickly kept reading until I found something valid. “OK. Look here on page two, folks. The third complaint from the top. A woman named Holly Jacobs is being harassed by her ex-boyfriend. She states that her boyfriend threatened to murder her, cut her up, and feed her to the seagulls out at Coney Island. See, this is a police matter. Just threatening to murder someone is a crime called—”

  “Yes, simple assault. We know. We learned this at the academy. Have mercy,” said Naomi Chast testily beside me.

  “Very good, Naomi,” I said after a long wide-eyed moment. I nodded at her calmly before licking my thumb and turning the page. “It is called simple assault. You’re right. Now, see, we’re starting to get somewhere.”

  CHAPTER 22

  “DETECTIVE? MIKE? I MEAN, SIR?” Arturo Lopez said, raising his hand like a very overgrown third grader.

  “Yes, Arturo?”

  “Did you happen to see this strange, um, cannibal thing down o
n the bottom of page three?”

  I went down the list. At the bottom, there was a complaint. And Arturo was right on the money. It was pretty strange, all right.

  A complainant with the curious name of Hudson Du Maurier III claimed that early in the morning Thursday last, he observed something odd from his sixth-story apartment window on Lenox Avenue. He was looking out the window when a brown hatchback pulled up in front of an abandoned building on the corner of 145th.

  He said several men exited the vehicle and entered the premises. He also said that through a large hole in the roof of the abandoned establishment, he made out a large, blazing grill. He said he also spied a large black man in chef’s whites, and what looked like a girl bound like a “leg of lamb.”

  Du Maurier concluded his account by stating that he was afraid the girl had been eaten by these men, and that he could be contacted at his apartment to provide more details, such as the vehicle’s license plate number, which he’d jotted down.

  “And then Mr. The Third woke up and rolled over and finished his last rock of crack and lived happily ever after,” said Doyle from the other end of the table.

  “Actually, I think I know this man from when I was on patrol,” Naomi Chast piped up. “He’s got some mental issues, schizophrenia, I believe, but he’s not a crackhead.”

  “Oh, he’s just schizo,” Doyle said, nodding. “Sorry for doubting his addled, er, I mean riveting account.”

  “He sold books on the street, I think,” Chast said, ignoring Doyle. “No, wait. He was a sketch artist. One of those sidewalk people who will draw your caricature for ten bucks. He was a pleasant enough character. Definitely not a troublemaker or attention-seeker. We saw plenty of them, believe me.”

  “Wait, I think I heard of him, too,” Brooklyn Kale said. “Always wears, like, a dirty tuxedo kind of getup, right? Like a magician or something. He used to be a children’s book illustrator or something in the seventies. A community activist, too. Chast is right. He’s odd but not nuts. At least not completely.”

  “I want this case,” Naomi said as she started tapping the table hard with her bit-to-a-nub fingernail. “I have the most seniority here, and I deserve first pick.”

  “Fine,” I said, leaning back in my chair. I was a little afraid not to give her the case. She might bite off my head.

  “Chast, go with Kale,” I said. “You two can go and see if there’s anything to what Mr. Du Maurier is saying.”

  Chast stared at me with a hard, pissed-off look, her specialty, apparently.

  “I don’t think so,” the strawberry blonde said, standing and slipping on her Windbreaker. “In fact, no way.”

  “No? What do you mean, no, Chast?” I said.

  “I don’t need a partner. I don’t want one. I work better and move faster alone,” she said. Then she turned and walked out the conference room door.

  “Whoa, Chast. Are you kidding me? Get back in here,” I yelled as I stood up.

  “Don’t bother on my account, Detective Bennett,” said Brooklyn. “You probably noticed by now that Officer Chast doesn’t exactly play well with others.”

  “Brooklyn’s right, Detective. I’d just as soon let her go,” Arturo said. “Officer Chast isn’t exactly easy to work with.”

  “Make that impossible,” said Noah Robertson, drumming his fingers on the table.

  “Now, c’mon, guys,” said Officer Doyle. “Our colleague isn’t even here to defend herself. Besides, there was that one fugitive case two weeks back where she helped me get that guy under control. Remember that big dude outside the Duane Reade on Lenox?”

  “That was me, you idiot,” Brooklyn said.

  “Yeah?” Doyle said, squinting across the table at her.

  Doyle turned to me with a shrug.

  “I guess it’s unanimous, Detective Bennett,” he said. “Chast completely sucks as a partner.”

  CHAPTER 23

  I DECIDED TO LEAVE Doyle, Robertson, and Kale to man the office and took Arturo Lopez with me to check on Holly Jacobs, the woman with the pyscho boyfriend.

  Holly Jacobs’s place turned out to be a dozen blocks to the south, across the street from Morningside Park near 116th Street. She lived in a beautiful six-story brownstone building that she buzzed us into after we arrived and gave her a call.

  Holly Jacobs was a striking, well-dressed and well-put-together middle-aged black woman with a short Vogue-ish asymmetrical bob haircut. Her white-on-white apartment was sleek and modern and immaculate. The books on her shelves were those coffee-table artsy ones. Edward Weston, Magritte, The Drawings of Peter Paul Rubens.

  She sat us down in her sunken living room on a couch near the bay window that overlooked the leafy park.

  “So tell us, Holly,” I started. “You’re having some problems with your ex-boyfriend?”

  Holly stood and folded her arms over her flat stomach and stared out the window for a few moments before she nodded. She took a photograph off the coffee table and handed it to me. It showed a handsome, smiling, wiry young black man with a shaved head.

  “This is Roger. I met him at a club about a year ago. I thought I’d put my clubbing days in the rearview, but I’m a marketing consultant for a fashion company, and I was celebrating a deal with some young clients. He looked like a model when he came up to me at the bar. Still in his twenties, chiseled-looking. You know, somebody special.”

  She took a long breath.

  “We started dating. I knew it was too early when he said he wanted to move in. I mean, he didn’t even have a job, but I was flattered, I guess. He was charming, attentive, younger. The first time he hit me was when I came home from work about a week after he moved in.”

  She paused for a moment.

  “I was putting down the groceries at the counter, and he had his head in the fridge. When he closed the door, out of nowhere, he slapped me hard enough to give me a bloody nose. He had this far-off look in his eyes. I don’t know what the hell he was on, but after a second or two, he went into the bedroom and passed out.

  “When he woke the next morning, he said he had blacked out after partying with some old friends, and that they must have put something in his drink. He had some really great excuses, couldn’t stop apologizing. He cried. So I let him stay.”

  She started crying then.

  “After that—after he bloodied my face and my clothes—I let him stay. Imagine? He started hitting me pretty regularly then. I’m supposed to be this fashion guru, and I was so stupid.”

  CHAPTER 24

  ARTURO STOOD IMMEDIATELY AND gently held the woman’s elbow.

  “No, Holly. It’s OK. Don’t do that. We’re here, OK? We’re going to help you now. This man tricked you. It could have happened to anyone. Don’t blame yourself. He’s in the wrong, not you.”

  She sniffled, composed herself.

  “Eventually, about a month later, I just woke up one morning and realized how crazy my life had become, and I threw him out. The super is a good friend of mine, and he and a couple of guys who work here came up and backed me up when I told Roger to get his stuff and get out.

  “That very next night when I came home from work, I saw him through the glass of the front door, sitting in one of the lobby windows, holding a bulging laundry bag and a butcher knife. I ran back and got into my cab and called the cops, but he was gone by the time they showed up. He took everything. My jewelry, my computer, a bunch of my financial records.”

  “When was this?” I said.

  “About a month and a half ago,” she said. “I reported it to the precinct, canceled all my credit cards, changed the locks. I thought it was over until he started leaving all these anonymous threats on my social media page. He told me how he’s been following me, waiting for the right moment. Biding his time. ‘You can’t just throw me away,’ he said.

  “He started calling my cell and landline in the middle of the night. Sometimes both at the same time. He’s even called and harassed some of my coworkers, people I introduc
ed him to. The things he says.”

  She shook her head rapidly.

  “It’s like a nightmare. I’ve been to court three times, but I still can’t get a restraining order because I don’t even know his real name.”

  “Holly,” I said. “Do you have any time at work that you could take off? Maybe two weeks or so?”

  “No,” she said. “We’re swamped with a new client, a celebrity fragrance that’s just getting ramped up. Why?”

  “This guy seems pretty impulsive and obsessed. If you took a trip, if he noticed you weren’t around for a consistent stretch, it might take the thrill out of it for him, and he might move on.”

  “But I can’t. I just told you,” Holly said as she started crying again.

  While Arturo continued to comfort her, I took a cell phone photograph of the suspect and sent it to the local precinct captain’s e-mail address. Then I made an actual phone call to the precinct captain to fast-track the case.

  He told me he’d let the shift commanders know what was up and gave me the desk number for Holly to call instead of 911 in case she spotted this wacko. I wrote the precinct number on the back of my card along with my cell phone.

  “Holly, listen to me, OK?” I said. “I don’t care if it’s day or night. I live pretty close by downtown. You see Roger, you call the precinct, then you call me, and we’ll come running right away, OK? You have friends close by now. You don’t have to face this alone.”

  Holly nodded. She finally looked relieved.

  “Thank you so much for coming by and taking my situation seriously, Detectives,” she told us as she led us back out into the hallway.

  CHAPTER 25

  FOR THE NEXT HALF hour, we drove around the Morningside Park area, looking for Roger.

  “Good work comforting that lady up there, Arturo. She was pretty shook up. You’re good with people,” I said as we circled the block.