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Shades of Blue
By Kenny Ferguson iUniverse
Copyright © 2015 Kenny Ferguson
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4917-5552-5
CHAPTER 1
THE CRIME SCENE
FLASHES OF RED AND YELLOW LIGHTS BOUNCED OFF THE BUILDING FACADS in lower Manhattan with a rhythmic cadence and ricochet through the quiet city streets. Those same lights pulsed on the face of Charlie Weadock as he approached the police lines. Weadock nudged a few curiosity seekers aside to reach the yellow crime scene tapes then paused to check his watch. It was a few minutes after midnight.
A group of nosey bystanders irritated Vincent Kennedy; the Detective-Lieutenant in charge of this homicide investigation but the sight of Charlie Weadock showing his Sergeant's badge to a uniformed police officer at the crime scene perimeter annoyed Kennedy a lot more.
"What the hell is he doing here?" Kennedy complained to the Night Duty Captain.
Captain Carmody twisted his body to look at Weadock. "I called the Internal Affairs Division and told them that Weadock's business card was found in the victim's pocket."
"So, why'd they send him here?"
The captain shifted his owlish eyes in thought. "Because it was his card?"
"Ah," Kennedy's naturally red face got redder as he shook his head from side to side. "I hate this son of a bitch, Captain. He's a true scumbag."
"Charlie Weadock?" The captain narrowed his eyebrows and formed a questionable expression on his face. "He seems like a team player to me. You don't like him, huh?"
Kennedy looked up at the night sky. "It's personal."
Weadock came closer to the shattered remains of a corner newsstand and the tarp-covered corpse in the street. "Good morning, Captain."
"Hello, Charlie." Carmody loosened his tie. "You know Lieutenant Kennedy?"
"I do."
"Tell me something, Weadock," Kennedy closed the gap between Weadock and himself. "How come this dead guy had your business card in his pocket?"
Weadock glanced down at the tarp. "He was an old friend."
Kennedy lifted the blue tarp to expose the upper part of the corpse. "This piece of shit was your friend?"
Weadock peeked at the body then looked up at a solo lighted window across the street before moving even closer to Kennedy. "He grew up in this neighborhood, look at us." Weadock waited until Kennedy made eye contact with him. "Some of us became cops, some became priests, some others became drunks or-"
"Junkies." Kennedy let the tarp slip from his fingers.
"I guess."
"So, which one are you, Weadock?"
"I wonder sometimes." Weadock crouched down again to get a better look at the victim. The skull was still exposed. "You don't remember this guy at all, do you?"
"Should I?"
"He lived on our block."
"What? No way."
Weadock covered the body and stood up. "That's Tommy Raffes laying there. He lived at 339 West Seventeenth Street, just across the street from you. He was your neighbor until you moved to Long Island."
Kennedy crinkled his face in thought.
"Remember those houses on the other side of the street. The ones the city ripped down to build the new high school?"
Kennedy shot the victim a perplexed glanced. "He lived there, huh? That would be right next door to you."
"Some of the guys called him Rat Face."
"Rat Face?" Kennedy registered a smirk. "I don't remember anybody named Rat Face."
"He was the skinny lefty who played first base for Saint Bernard's."
"Rat-face-Tommy, huh. Well, he doesn't have much of a face anymore. Does he?"
Weadock scanned the area again. "Any leads?"
Detective Marini, a Tony Curtiss look alike, stepped into the conversation. "Not a clue, Sarge. Just that busted up newsstand and this dead guy. This area is desolate after 10:00 o'clock at night. You know that."
"What else do you know about this bum?" Kennedy demanded.
"Before off track betting came along, he ran numbers for the local bookies."
"Then he has a yellow sheet?"
"Nothing much, a couple of short visits to Rykers Island for shop lifting. He annoyed the shit out of the local merchants but he was harmless and broke most of the time." Weadock glanced at the body again. "When he needed cash, he worked at that car wash on 19th Street and Tenth Avenue." Weadock pointed south. "And I've seen him pushing a rack of dresses in the Garment District."
"You getting this?" Kennedy nudged Marini and Marini began taking notes.
Weadock looked down again. "I haven't spoken to him in a year or two but one of my detectives recently told me he was running errands for a drug dealer up town on the west side."
"So he was a junky?"
"He may have been but I can't think of anyone who would want to do this to him. Perhaps it was a robbery?"
"It was no robbery." Kennedy insisted, "He's got money in his pockets and an expensive watch that's probably stolen."
"An attempted robbery?"
"No!" Kennedy showed his teeth, "No robbery."
"Okay, okay." Weadock threw up his hands and looked at Marini. "Are there any witnesses?"
"Not yet." Marini slid his eyes at his boss, "No witnesses."
"You want to claim the body, Weadock?"
Weadock ignored Kennedy and continued talking to Detective Marini. "His parents moved to Florida about five years ago. Too bad he didn't go with them. Look," Weadock paused to look at the body again. "He was an alcoholic and a petty thief and probably a drug addict but he wasn't a trouble maker. He kept pretty much to himself."
Kennedy came closer to Weadock and Marini. "You knew this guy pretty well, Weadock. I'll bet he was one of the rats on your payroll." Kennedy nodded at Captain Carmody.
"He was." Weadock grinned. "He was a Registered Confidential Informant for the New York City Police Department and I was his contact. But he's dead now and all that doesn't matter much anymore. Does it?"
"I'll have to see his folder."
"You can't see a CI's folder."
"What are you talking about? This is a homicide investigation and the guy's dead. I think that entitles me to see his folder, Sergeant!"
"I'll find out what I can for you, Lieutenant. But it's Department Policy, not mine. All CI folders are automatically sealed in the case of their death because their folder may contain information about active cops under investigation. I'll screen his folder for you and if there's anything in there connected to this case, I'll see that you get a copy of it."
"Excuse me, Captain," Kennedy said. "But I've got some real police work to do. Now I know why they called this dead guy Rat Face." Kennedy nudged Weadock aside as he moved around him.
Marini followed Kennedy toward the splintered newsstand.
The Duty Captain beckoned Weadock to come closer to him. "How come you guys are so fond of each other?"
"It's a long story, boss."
Captain Carmody leaned back against the fender of a patrol car. "I've got all night."
"Well," Weadock shrugged. "I dated his little sister when we were kids and he didn't like it ... I also arrested his older brother, Tom, about four years ago."
The captain raised his eyebrows again.
Weadock hesitated. "Tom Kennedy was a patrol sergeant in Midtown Manhattan. It was one of the first cases I caught as a Field Internal Affairs Unit Investigator. That case ended Tom's NYPD career.
"Wow, I was working in the Bronx then."
"Tom Kennedy was the oldest of the Kennedy boys and the first of his generation to join New York's Finest. His Grandfather is a retired Sergeant and his father was a Lieutenant and still on the job when this happened. When Tom got booted from the job, his father threw his papers in and retired. The whole Kennedy family took it on the chin, including him." Weadock nodded at Lieutenant Kennedy.
"What's Tom Kennedy doing now?"
"He's a bartender at the Blarney Rock Bar near Madison Square Garden."
"I could never work Internal Affairs, Charlie. If I did I wouldn't have a friend in the department."
"You're right about that boss."
The captain stretched. "Why do you suppose there's so many screwed up cops on the job today?"
"I don't know. I guess they keep this blue wall of silence around them. They think it binds them and protects them, like doctors and lawyers. Cops will protect other cops to the death no matter what they've done wrong. That's the part I don't understand and that's why I took this job with FIAU."
"What about this dead guy?" Carmody moved a few steps and looked down at the corpse. "Was he really on the city payroll?"
"Of course."
"Working for you?"
"Yeah," Weadock nodded, "but nothing recent."
"Well," Carmody pulled a pen from his pocket. "It was nice chatting with you, Charlie but I've got to start the paper work on this incident. We have to talk again sometime, over a martini."
Yes, Sir. It was nice to see you again, Captain."
Kennedy and Marini came back to the body when Carmody walked away. They hovered around the corpse, looking at it from different angles.
Weadock joined them. "I'm not recommending an IAD complaint number for this case." Kennedy ignored Weadock.
"Do you need me for anything else, Lieutenant?"
Kennedy still ignored him.
"Hello!"
Kennedy glanced at Carmody who was now sitting in a patrol car then moved closer to Weadock. "This guy was a big pal of yours, right? You must know where he lived."
"He had an apartment in the Chelsea Housing Project. Weadock waved at the buildings across the street. I'll look up the exact address when I get back to my office and call you."
"Call him." Kennedy nodded at Marini. "I don't want to talk to you unless it's absolutely necessary."
"Okay but you might want to send someone over to talk to Mr. Hansen. He's the guy who owns this newsstand or what's left of it. He and Tommy were pretty tight."
"Don't worry about my case, Weadock. My detectives can handle this investigation without any help from you. This is a homicide investigation. It doesn't concern Internal Affairs ... Or does it?"
Weadock twisted his neck to scan the area, then looked at Marini. "Did the Crime Scene Unit leave yet?"
"I don't know, why?"
"I was wondering if they took any pictures of this tire track here." Weadock pointed a pen size flash light at the ground near the body.
"Why would they do that?" Kennedy asked. "This is not a hit and run. There is no car involved."
"Perhaps not but someone or something wrecked that newsstand," Weadock flicked a finger at the newsstand, "and there was a car parked here before the murder and now it's gone."
"You think so, huh?"
"Yes, I think so. Look, there's no blood here." Weadock pointed toward the black top again.
Kennedy and Marini looked at each other.
"Take a step back here with me." Weadock said as he motioned them to move around the body. "See how the explosion of blood forms a circle around the body. There's blood everywhere but there's none here and there's a tire print in the blood. It looks like a pizza pie with a slice missing."
"He's right, Lou." Marini stood up next to Weadock and looked down, "Look at that shit!"
"Thanks a lot, Sherlock but the Crime Scene Unit is still here," Kennedy looked around." Kennedy moved closer to Marini to speak privately. Then Marini walked away.
Kennedy looked at the ground again and shook his head in silence.
Weadock began moving away. "I was just trying to be helpful."
"I don't need any help from you or your scumbag unit."
"It's Manhattan South, Field Internal Affairs Unit, Lieutenant." Weadock objected to Kennedy's comments about scumbags but decided to let it go. He paused again. "By the way, how's the family?"
Kennedy followed Weadock and caught up to him. "What did you say about my family, Weadock?"
"I just asked if they were okay."
"My family is none of your fucking business, Sergeant. Oh, you mean, how is my sister?"
"Okay, how is she?"
"I haven't seen her in two years but it's been a lot longer for you, hasn't it, hotshot?"
"Goodbye, lieutenant." Weadock turned and walked away."
"My family is just fine." Kennedy spoke loudly at weadock's back. "And they'll stay fine as long as you stay away from them. And keep your nose out of my case too."
Weadock twisted his body under the bright yellow reflector tape that was wrapped around the crime scene and threaded a path through a maze of empty patrol cars to his parked car.
He got in and sat behind the steering wheel thinking about what had just transpired. Looking at the date on his digital watch, his thoughts faded and Theresa Kennedy's face came into clear focus. Don't do this to yourself, Charlie. He thought.
Weadock moved his car out into the early morning traffic and headed uptown. The area around the Port Authority Bus Terminal was grid-locked with a taxicab accident and he became trapped in the stalled traffic. Two cabbies and a bus driver were arguing about who hit who and there was no way to back up. He put the transmission into parking gear and slumped against the backrest. He saw her face again on his windshield and remembered the first time they met.
... Theresa was sitting across the table from him at a neighborhood wedding. She was studying him when he first noticed her and she looked away when their eyes met. When she glanced back at him, he looked away. This avoidance of eye contact continued for several minutes until her bewitching blue eyes captured him. He was stunned by her aggressiveness and tried to act tough. She sensed his shyness and made the first move. She came to him, took his hand, and led him to the dance floor. He protested but couldn't let go of her hand.
"I can't dance." He pleaded.
"It's easy," she tugged at his hand, urging him to the center of the room. "It's just a polka."
They sailed around the room in each other's arms with their eyes locked together. Everyone and everything in the room faded away. When a slow dance followed, she stepped in close to him and waited. Her scent was intoxicating. He was apprehensive and took a step back. She took a step closer and he surrendered ...
The loud honking of car horns brought him back to reality as the traffic knot became undone and the noise faded, he headed east toward his office in the 17th Precinct.
An hour later, at the Midtown South Precinct Station House, Lieutenant Kennedy spread the contents of Tommy Raffes's property envelope on his desk and began examining the items.
"Carbonaro," the lieutenant called.
A chubby Italian detective in his fifties stuck his substantial nose into Kennedy's office. "Yeah, boss?"
"Let's see the DD5's on the canvass you and Marini did."
"The follow-up 5's are not typed up yet, boss."
"So tell me about them."
"Okay but so far we only did the windows facing the street."
"Well?"
"One witness, an old hag who lives over the tire shop on Thirty-Fifth Street. She heard a noise and looked out her front window."
"She saw a car, right?"
"Yeah," the surprised detective said. "She said she heard screaming about midnight and went to the window. She saw a big black limousine parked at the newsstand but she was watching a good movie on the late show and went back to the tube. How did you know about the car, boss?"
"Just a guess."
"That's why you're the lieutenant and I'm the detective, right?"
"Any other witnesses?"
"No, nobody else."
Kennedy picked up Weadock's business card and examined it. He lit a cigarette and was tempted to torch the card but tossed it back into the victim's property bag. "When you finish the canvass tomorrow, go back and talk to that old woman again. Get more details; see if she remembers the license plate number or anything about the occupants in the car. Then go interview the owner of the newsstand. Your partner took his name and address from the peddler's license at the crime scene."
"We could go over there now, boss?"
"Nah, I'm going to meet some of my Irish buddies at Morgan's Bar while it's still open." Kennedy grabbed his jacket. "Tomorrow's just fine but I want all the crime scene reports on my desk by noon."
CHAPTER 2
THE TERMINAL HOTEL
IT WAS STILL DARK WHEN RAMON VELEZ PARKED LOPEZ'S limousine on a quiet street near the Terminal Hotel.
"This is stupid," Lopez wagged his distressed face. "You can't leave this car here. What happens if cops come along? I don't have a badge to show them like you."
Ramon spread his hands. "But this is where the guy lives, poppy. What would you have me do?"
"Don't you think the cops would be curious about a brand new Cadillac being parked in front of this shit hole?"
"I guess."
"There's an all night diner on Tenth Street. Park the car there and walk back. And stop calling me Poppy."
"You're the only Poppy I have now."
"Didn't they teach you anything in the army?
"Like what?"
"Like getting me too close to your repulsive work."
"You came with me to find the rat man. Didn't you?"
"That was different, Tommy was on my payroll, like you but I didn't think he would steal from me. From me!" Lopez's face turned red with rage. "Look, I don't know this news paper guy and I don't want to know him. I just want my luggage back."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Shades of Blue by Kenny Ferguson. Copyright © 2015 Kenny Ferguson. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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