"Cop Killer - part 2" by John S LES
My drive into the city was pretty smooth. The doorman at 15 Central Park West was already alerted that I was arriving and walked me in past security. He knew my name and saw when I drove by the building in my electric blue, Corvette convertible before I parked it in a nearby garage. Of course he couldn't wait until I walked back up to the building to ask me why a guy with a last name like Ferrari was driving a Corvette. I told him quite simply,
"Hey bro, I don't have a place to park a Ferrari where I live at in Queens. I'm only another worker bee in this lifestyles of the rich and famous building. Hopefully while I'm here, you'll be the first and only person from around here to ask me that question today."
I had read a little bit about the building's construction and design ahead of time, but to see it close up was immensely different. The lobby was huge and spacious. It was even better in person than it was on paper or in photographs. The average cost of the apartments in the building was $17 million, and this building looked every bit of that kind of clientele.
By the time I made it to Mrs. Walter's apartment, I was getting a little numb at being in awe of this building. Her apartment had over 2700 square feet inside and was on a high floor. The rooms overlooked the park. It was absolutely spectacular. Even though she was on the older side of her mid 30's, she too was absolutely gorgeous. Clearly from the close fitting, contour accenting black designer suit she was wearing, she definitely kept up some kind of exhaustive workout routine. Her green eyes and short, dark hair highlighted her naturally attractive looks.
She was gracious and immediately complemented me on my suit. "You look terrific in Armani, but don't be afraid to try a Hugo Boss."
"Ahh it's the Italian side of me. But, I normally don't dress this way, Mrs. Walters - "
"Please call me, Linda."
"Yeah, well, Linda I normally don't dress this way. In fact, if I don't have this suit back at the morgue by midnight, it might turn back into a teapot or something."
My comments got a good, room relaxing laughs as we got into our business discussion.
Initially Mrs. Walters seemed eager to hear what I had brought for her and her attorney, who was present in the apartment along with her personal assistant. But, the novelty of how me and my team obtained that information, as well as the number of women, including his main squeeze, Sherman, started to wear on her. She became a little more melancholy realizing that her 15 year marriage was over and that now she would be headed for a bumpy battle in divorce court. The information I had given her only gave her a slight advantage. I handed her the envelope containing a flash drive copy of the accompanying photos, CD recording and audio recordings of her husband's infidelities.
"May I call you, Gio?" I nodded yes. "Good. Gio, I hired three other private investigators who took months and had less than half of what you brought here to me today. They did that because they know that I have money. You did all of this within ten days. You came highly recommended from a friend and I can see why. You're tall, gorgeous and honest. Nothing sexier for a soon to be single woman with money than a hot looking man, who's an honest entrepreneur."
"Linda, I try to make it my policy to not date my clients. It wouldn't bode well for my business."
"It wouldn't bode well for you to flat out reject a wealthy and influential woman, who hasn't been with a man in nearly a year and is singling you out to break her ice."
I immediately stood up. "It's time for me to go, Linda. I'll take my check?"
She walked over to her kitchen table and removed a certified check from her purse and handed it to me. "Here's your check. I hope that one day you will forgive me for my bad behavior and rude comment due to a broken heart and a lonely, rich life."
I looked at the check. We had agreed for two weeks at $20,000. She handed me a $75,000 check.
"Gio, don't be upset with me for overpaying you from our agreement too. That is as much as the other three bozo investigators combined cost me. You did 4 times the work that they did in less than a quarter of the time. I'm compensating you for your honesty and efficiency."
When I made a sarcastic face, she quipped back, "Dammit, Gio. There's no need to make an embarrassing moment for me more difficult. You're an ambitious man. Can't you just figure out a way to do something positive with the extra compensation? You've saved me millions in a divorce settlement and I'm thanking you. No strings attached."
By the time I got downstairs, Darren had tried to reach me while in the elevator. Normally we would have had a good connection, but he was trying to reach me via phone to phone, Skype. When I walked outside the building our signal strength improved and I could see and hear what he was trying to tell me.
"Gio, take a look at what's going on down here, man! The police have stepped up their stop and frisk trying to look for this cop killer. They are tossing everyone! There's a neighborhood guy down here on 14th Street that everyone calls 'Loco'. The cops upset him so bad that he just came back at them with a knife in the streets. The tension down here is crazy and the cops are making it worse! Now they are chasing him down. "I'm going to follow this on my phone so that you can see." Loco did refuse to put the knife down, and continued to run from the police as he menaced them and pedestrians on the street. It was all over in 9 gunshots.
"What the hell! Gio, you gotta get down here!"
A little over an hour later, Darren and I were inside St. Emeric's Parish talking to Father Manuel Cabron. He talked to us about the tension in the streets from the stop and frisk program in New York City. He also talked about an innocent man, who is not a model citizen and a small group of cops, who aren't on a straight and narrow path of righteousness.
"No more than all priests at all parishes are perfect servants, there are a band of cops in this area who are not perfect either. They prey upon the weakness of others to feed their own weaknesses. They don't enforce any laws, they just use their authority to enforce their egos."
"I hear you Father. How does this pertain to the police officer who was shot last night?"
"Gio, I've been at this parish for 6 years now. I walk these streets at different hours. I know the good people here and the bad ones. I know the good cops and the bad ones. That police officer that was killed last night was not an honest cop. There have been many civilian complaints on him, but they have fallen on deaf ears because his uncle is a commissioner. Their suspect, Santiago and his whole family have been parishioners at this parish. Although this young man is not an innocent young man to life, I know of him to be innocent of this crime of murder, because he is afraid of guns. That is why even the good people in this community here will not turn him over to the police. Someone shot that cop, but Santiago wasn't the one."
"Father Manuel, I don't see how either me or my agency will be any good here? The police have Internal Affairs and the citizens have all sorts of community resources and leaders here to make themselves heard. I mean, who would my client even be?"
"Yes we the people have community resources and the police have Internal Affairs. But everyone is only looking for their own self interests. I know you. You will look for only the truth. Hopefully before more lives are lost in this tug of war. By looking at your suit, I know that I may not be able to afford your normal rates, but I will pay you what I can?"
"No, no. That won't be necessary, Father if you feel that strong about this. Although I am reluctant, I guess you can be my client? As it is, the good Lord looked out for this situation. Just a little while ago a client purposely overpaid my agency, and told me to do something good with the extra money. I guess this is the sign. So between the three of us and these four walls, I'm going to represent you and the people of this city. I promise that my Private iTeam will carefully look into this. I'll try to give it two weeks and see what we come up with."
As Darren and I were walking out the door, I turned and looked Father Manuel straight in the eyes, "Father, by any chance, would you happen to know where I could find Santiago? I mean it would make things easier for me to understand, if I could hear his side of what went down last night before the police find him. It's important that I do."
"I knew that it is, Gio. Sometimes when things get too hot on the beach, you have to move to another side of the beach that is more in the shade. This parish - it's too small for any type of sanctuary for such a controversial event. Too many people going in and out in such a small place and lots of eyes and ears everywhere. But our old sister parish, in Queens, the one we grew up with - "
"St. Joseph on Jamaica Avenue?"
"Yes. It's a much better place to hide children who have turned to God for help or sanctuary. Many things can be hidden in plain sight."
"Thanks, Father."
On our way out the door, I noticed that Father Manuel's sister, Emily had just arrived at the office. Emily Cabron was a petite and still beautiful woman. She and I dated briefly back in high school. A few months after we had broke up, she had an unfortunate incident with her next boyfriend. He beat and raped her. He was later shot and killed in gunfight with the police. She was so traumatized by the incident that she started using drugs. Within a year her her family sent her upstate to a boarding school. That was the last that I saw of her. We had kept in contact through only word of mouth via her brother, Father Manuel.
We traded pleasantries, she asked for my business card, but the time had come for me to go. Darren and I got into our cars and as we exited the church parking lot, we were immediately surrounded and blocked from moving any further by about eight police cars and one Emergency Service vehicle. The police surrounded us with guns draw and demanded that we exit our vehicles, my small Corvette and Darren from his Chrysler 300. Before I could even speak or identify myself, I was immediately spun around and pushed against my car. While my hands were on the hood of my car I activated the SOS recording on my watch.
"Who the is the commanding officer here?"
"You shut your fucking mouth and just tell us who you are? What are you some kind of lawyer?"
Just as the officer said that, he felt my gun. "Gun!" and immediately seized my arms to handcuff me. He immediately began to Mirandize me and Darren who was also carrying his licensed handgun. Getting permits to carry handguns in New York City is an arduous task in and of itself. But we had our permits through the agency. Yet, we had been stopped, searched and handcuffed without any questioning or respect for our rights. I was livid, but kept my tongue as civil as possible and did not struggle.
The commanding officer finally did approach after we were roughly handled and handcuffed. He began asking us questions in a more calmer tone. Once he read our ID cards, permits, and licenses, he then asked for our permission to search our car because they were looking for Santiago. They had heard that he could be hiding in the church or was being sneaked out in the trunk of someones car. I refused the search, which was being conducted anyway without even waiting for me or Darren's approval. As I looked around, I recognized some of the plainclothed cops from DeLorenzo's Anti-Crime unit from the news interviews.
"Sergeant, you must be kidding me? After me and my partner have been stopped without cause and handcuffed like this, you expect me to turn around and give you the okay for searching my car - which you're men are doing anyway? Tell you what Sgt., I'm betting that as we speak there are phone calls being made by my office to the Commissioners office, my attorney, the Civil Complainant Review Board, and my cousin, who's Chief of D's. You can't solve one problem by creating another."
He looked at me hard. "I don't know who the fuck you are, but you're talking a big game. I don't know if you have the juice to back it up."
I looked at his name tag, "Sgt. Brennan I don't think you have enough time to start working your way back up from meter maid. This whole thing has the right spirit, but it's being done the wrong way. We are war veterans, working as private investigators, with authorized permits to carry our guns. We came here at the request of a longtime friend. We would have cooperated had you just stopped and asked us what we were doing here. You and everyone here preempted us from being cooperative and violated our civil rights - plain and simple. What's your probable cause? Two cars leaving the parking lot of a rectory? Cars that you've probably been sitting on since we arrived? You know, when me and my partner were overseas, even we would have to answer to someone for treating civilians like this."
"Santiago could have been sneaked into one of your cars."
"Oh really? Well, since you and your team have been sitting on our cars the past hour and a half, just how could we sneak him into our cars? Our cars were parked out in public view - in broad daylight? Do you think we brought him out in our coat pockets? This is a ploy to harass the parish."
At just that same moment, the Sgt received both a radio broadcast from a Lieutenant Simmons and a phone call on his cell from a Captain Dunlap. Marti had received my SOS watch audio transmission in the office and put in a conference phone call with a live broadcast of this stop/frisk. She also patched in the conversation to a conference call to a friend at the CCRB, our attorney Aliyah, my cousin Alex and another friend at police headquarters. Within seconds the handcuffs were immediately removed.
I used the moment to get me and Darren into the teeth of the 14th precinct by advising Sgt. Brennan that we needed to have a civil conversation with him at his precinct building and if I could have a minute to speak with his Lt. Simmons when we got there.
Two hours later, Darren and I would wrap up our day in a closed door conversation with Lt. Simmons, Sgt Brennan, a couple detectives and Aliyah. The police again blamed the whole stop and search of me and Darren on some neighborhood junkie who had claimed that we were there to hide Santiago. In addition, Santiago's has an older brother who once hid at St. Emeric's to avoid being arrested for beating a man with a bat. He had gotten into a street fight with a guy with a knife, but he had a bat. The bat won. But he still had to go to through the legal process. However, he chose to hide in the church for three days before he voluntarily came out.
NYPD brass was not about to wait three days to see if a younger Santiago was involved with killing a cop and was now hiding out in the church. They were not going to allow anyone to sneak Santiago out of the church. Unfortunately for them, the task force that was set up to find Santiago had gotten their information about 12 hours too late. Neither Darren nor I updated them. But, what I did establish in that meeting was that people in the community had asked Father Manuel to reach out to us to investigate dirty cops.
Lt. Simmons was quick to point out that IAB investigates dirty cops.
"Yes Lt., that may be, but investigating a police officer who has family with big hooks with police brass, might prove to be a career shortening move for sn IAB detective. After what happened today, the way you guys are looking for this civilian Loco - I can see why people in this community have a growing mistrust of the officers they are suppose to trust."
"Let me tell you something Gio - I know all about you, your father and your family. Your father retired from this job. I had an occasion to work with him many years ago. When you were born this city averaged nearly 2000 murders a year - not including all the attempted murders. Now we average less than 100 murders. This city is a much safer place than when you were born. Your sarcasm is pissing me off and pissing on the time that men like your father and uncles put into this job. Or perhaps you missed all of that while you were gone overseas?"
I responded back to him with a quote, "'A large reservoir of good will was under construction when I left the Police Department in 1994. It was called community policing. But it was quickly abandoned for tough-sounding rhetoric and dubious stop-and-frisk tactics that sowed new seeds of community mistrust.'"
"What is that? Some idealistic, liberal rhetoric from the 1960's?"
"No, Lt. Those were the words of the then former and now present Police Commissioner, Raymond Kelly back in 2000. His views have apparently changed. All I want to know is, who's watching the people that are supposed to be watching over this city, to make sure they are doing the right thing?"
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"You know Lt, I was on the job too, if even for a minute. I know that Anti-Crime units work in sets of 2 or 3 or a whole team of people. What was DeLorenzo doing out there on the streets, going after a perpetrator with no backup? Where was his partner, Lt?"
"That's none of your business. That's police business."
"Yeah, well I wonder if I look hard enough I wonder if I'm going to find out that part of the reason that DeLorenzo died is because he's a hot head - can't do anything wrong - type of cop? I wonder if I'm going to find out that because of his family hooks in the department - he always took short cuts. He took them because no one laid the hammer down to correct him along the way? In fact, I'm betting that has ultimately led to his death and that there's people from the streets lined up to expose his misdeeds to myself and the media? I'm sure the neighborhood folks will consider it an IOU hat they have saved for a rainy day."
"Sure, go listen to the testimony of a skell! You're an embarrassment to your father's good name."
"Funny, Lt., I was treated like a skell today all while wearing a $3,000 suit and earning a honest living. I'm beginning to wonder just who are the skells? The hoodlums on the street, or members of this department?"
As I stood up, I took one more shot at rattling his cage, "And for your information, my father is embarrassed - but only from the way things are being handled on this job by loafers who were good at taking promotional tests but, couldn't handle themselves on the street without a badge and a gun."
Lt. Simmons' forehead was turning red with his anger, "Ms. Mitchell can you kindly escort your clients out of my precinct before I have them arrested as pollution. Be advised, if they break or obstruct any laws regarding police business, I will be seeing you all here sooner than later."
Outside the precinct, Aliyah tore into me, "Gio, just what the hell were you trying to do up there? Get us all locked up for Jay walking or spitting on a curb? Come on use your head!"
"I was using my head, Aliyah. What I did up there is only the beginning. They want to rattle cages around here. Let's see how they react when someone rattles their cage? Yesterday we had a cop killed. Today we have a man shot dead on the streets holding a knife. Then Darren and I get handcuffed like common criminals for doing nothing but exiting a church. And let's not forget that right now I have a priest who's more afraid of the police than he is afraid of neighborhood hoodlums. Something just isn't right."
"Fine, Gio. But if you're going to disturb a hornet's nest, you're suppose to do it while they are sleeping, not while they're out flying around carrying guns."
Darren shook his head in agreement as I gave him a sarcastic look. "Oh so you're agreeing with her now? You weren't smiling when they were frisking us and searching our cars?"
"That's because at the time I was pissed. But I wouldn't want to agitate a Lt right in his own precinct."
"Yeah well, I did that to see how far this dirty cop theory goes. He's their boss. Whether he knows or doesn't know who's dirty, he's still going to lead us right to them. Once he goes blow some steam about me in front of them - I'm sure we'll be hearing from them."
We all got into our cars and headed our separate ways. Darren went back uptown to his condo in Harlem. Aliyah back to her Upper Eastside, apartment. I headed back to my Colonial Style house back in Queens. I had Marti and Grace start pulling as much public information that they could get online about the 14th precinct Anti-Crime unit. I needed their names. I also told her to give Edge a call. We would be needing his technological expertise on all the members in that unit. Wherever the public information ended and classified information began, Edge could find it and give us that information.
When I pulled up into my driveway, I could see that an object had been placed on my doorstep. I couldn't tell what it was until I got closer. When I did, I could see that it was a dead rat thrown on my stoop. Perfect. Whoever that person or persons that did this, didn't know was that my house was surrounded by hidden camera's along with motion sensors, and an alarm system. I checked my computer system inside and all was functioning well. I didn't bother looking at it because I knew it was all already saved, and downloaded to a back up system away from my house. I could review the video in the morning.
.
My sister Bianca lost her husband to a car accident. It had been a couple of days since I spoke to her son, my nephew Michael. Instead of watching video, I gave him a quick call before it got any later. Above all things, family issues mattered in my family. When Michael lost his father, Michael, senior, all of the men in our family from both sides made it our business to check in on him. Moreover, since Bianca was closest to me, it was I who was going to be his surrogate father until she was able to move on.
Tomorrow would be another day. Everyone behind that rat on my doorstep was going go down.
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