LA. Franco Mysteries: End Of Watch Part 7

CHAPTER 12.

Still Sunday-PM-Manhattan Going to spend one more night at the Crowne Plaza. What the h.e.l.l. Called Mary, told her what was going on. She's worried about me but Tm all right. Confused, maybe, but I told her I'm not going to drink over it. I want a drink, h.e.l.l yes, but not the consequences. She was happy Td been to a meeting. It was at Grace Church. I walked over. Forgot how much I like walking. Never walk anywhere at home but you could spend your life here without venturing more than ten blocks in any direction. Amazed how much I still remember, too.

Pa.s.sed St. Mark's, where A.T. Stewart was buried. They kidnapped his body from there in the late 1800s and demanded a $200,000 ransom. I think the widow bargained them down to $20,000 and got him back but she didn't bury him in St. Mark's again. Commodore Perry's buried at St. Mark's and Peter Stuyvesant. All that history in one block. I miss that in LA. Everything's new and modern, ultra this and techno that. It lacks a sense of place, perspective.

Anyway. St. Marks was cool but Grace Church blew me away. Beautiful little church, built in the 1800s. It's got some scaffolding up around the spire now, like they're working on it. When I got there, before I went in, I was standing outside admiring it and I almost started crying.

I felt small. The trees were taller than me and the church was taller and the buildings around it were taller still and above us all was the sky. I felt like I was such an infinitesimal part of things, but that somehow all the infinitesimal parts- including me- came together to make the whole picture. I felt like a dot in a Seurat painting. A pixel. Barely a speck on its own but together they make a picture. It just felt like at that instant in time everything was as it should be. A baby being born across town, and an old man dying in the apartment across the street. Someone getting married while someone else was getting knifed in an alley. Someone shooting junk while someone else is out on their first date. I don't know. It just all seemed to fit. Life going around and around, doing its thing.

I told Mary about it. How I just got filled up with the majesty of it and she laughed. Said that was grat.i.tude and that when I was drinking I was too busy getting loaded or figuring out how to get loaded to feel it. Definitely a nice result of sobriety. Told her what a roller coaster day it had been. All the mixed feelings-surprise, anger, joy at being with Gail. Sadness. Seems everywhere I turn there's a memory, not always a good one.

Nice people at the AA meeting. Amazing how you can just walk into a room full of complete strangers and have this instant rapport with them. Mary said that's because we all have one thing in common that bonds us instantly, and that's the fact that alcohol's almost killed us and will likely kill us if we pick it up again. So right away you got a bond with everybody in an AA room. We've all come through the fire together. Lets you strip away the bulls.h.i.t and cut to the chase.

Wish I had answers. Wish I had a match on the prints. Hate waiting. Hate the uncertainty. Gail asked how it felt to have this door open again after all this time and I got to admit it's d.a.m.ned uncomfortable. I gave up on ever having an answer and now the question's shoved back into my face. Who is the motherf.u.c.ker? Where is he? Who's leaving this s.h.i.t on my father's grave? Spent all this time trying to forget and now it's all pouring back in. Not liking this. But I gotta see it through. Woman at a meeting said when G.o.d wants something for you he rolls the red carpet out. I feel like this is my chance, that the carpet's rolling out and no matter how uncomfortable it is I have to walk it to the end.

One day at a time, right? Mary says this is all unfolding according to G.o.d's schedule, not mine. That my job isn't to force the unfolding but to follow along in the direction of the movement. She told me not to push it. d.a.m.n-been getting a lot of that lately. Said drunks are like five-year-olds. We don't have a lot of discipline. Want what we want and want it now. And the bottom line is, sometimes you just can't have it. Like Gail. At least not now. So you move on and take what you can have. Which in the World According to Mary is a good night's sleep, a decent meal and faith that tomorrow will bring what I need. Maybe not what I want, but what I need.

It's ironic. At work I know exactly when to force things and exactly when to sit back and let them develop. I can wait weeks on a stakeout or take a perp down in an instant. Flexibility makes me a good cop, so you'd think I could apply that logic to my personal life.

Whatever. Progress not perfection. And Tm Audi. My extra ten minutes is up. And you know what? Right this second, it's all good. New York is shining outside my window, Tm warm, Tm healthy, I don't have a hangover or the shakes, and I have a soft bed to sleep in. There's a h.e.l.l of a lot of people out there who can't say that. So this drunk's going to turn the lights out and admire the view. Tm paying enough for it.

CHAPTER 13.

By quarter to seven Annie Silvester was already in the squad room, chatting with a man shaped like a fireplug. She raised an eyebrow in Frank's direction, her glance taking in the bag Frank held out. Reaching for it, Annie plunked the bag next to a fresh pot of coffee and introduced her to a detective from the Fourth Precinct. Extracting a bialy, she told the cop, "Detective Franco here's from Los Angeles. She visits her father's grave to pay her respects and finds something that may or may not be of interest to us. An old case of ours, thirty-six years old, to be exact. Her pops was shot by a junkie on East Ninth and Second. The lieutenant here was the only witness. She and her pops were walking home from the deli. Junkie popped out from a doorway. Shook her pops down. Pops resisted, junkie capped him. Pops was dead before he got off the sidewalk. Not even a hint of a suspect." Biting into her bialy Annie asked Frank out of the side of her mouth, "How'm I doin'?"

Frank was impressed by her blunt grasp of the details. "Light bedtime reading?"

"Naw." Annie winked at her. "First thing this morning. Much better than the Post." Annie turned back to the squat detective. "Billy found the little girl's backpack last night, ripped open and dumped into a trash can three blocks south. I was gonna run it over to the lab with the lieutenant's things while he and Vince track down our mopes. There's a couple places we want to check today. While I do that"-she turned to Frank again-"the file's over on my desk if you want to look through it. Maybe something fresh'll come to you, huh?"

Frank doubted she'd have a sudden brainstorm after thirty-six years but answered, "Sure. Thanks."

As the rest of the detectives sauntered in they fell on the bialys like crackheads on a loose rock. One of the detectives, who turned out to be Vince, came up to her and said around a mouthful, "I got a sister in LA. She works for Fox Studios. Says you couldn't pay her enough to come back to New York. When she visits-you know, Thanksgiving, Christmas-all she says is LA this and LA that. Me? You couldn't pay me to leave the city. Best place on earth. You can't get a bialy like this in LA."

"You can't," Frank agreed. "Or the right hard rolls or bagels either. Must be something to do with the weather because San Francisco's got sourdough bread that doesn't taste right anywhere else. Everyplace has got something, I guess."

"Yeah. LA's got earthquakes, floods and fires."

"Don't forget the mudslides," a Hispanic detective chimed.

Vince waved him down. "That goes with floods."

"They're totally different," the other detective argued.

Leaving them to it, Frank wandered over to Annie's desk. She saw the file marked "Franco," the case number. She returned to the coffeepot and poured a cup. After making such a big deal about getting the file, she was suddenly reluctant to touch it. She sipped her coffee and listened in on the squad room chatter.

Annie was conferring with Meyers, her partner. One of the detectives was reading aloud from a newspaper to a cop ignoring him, while Vince and the Hispanic swapped natural disaster lore. Maybe if she was alone, or if it was quiet, she could have picked up the folder, but the room was too noisy and distracting.

It was a good story, Frank decided, but she felt that even if the room were empty she'd still hesitate to open the folder. She groped for the bottom line and the bottom line was dread. It was one thing to describe that night to another cop, but something else entirely to relive the details.

She debated the wisdom of picking at the scab of her father's death. After all, it was her mother she'd come to make peace with, not her father. The man had been dead nearly four decades with no resolution in all that time. Was the sudden urge to find one now just because she was a cop? And where would these leads go anyway, besides straight into the circular file like most leads? Why was she wasting Silvester's time on some wild-a.s.s goose chase?

Frank's arguments sounded hollow even as they occurred to her.

There was no statute of limitation on murder. If she had a possible lead in a case, no matter how old and forgotten, it should be checked out. That was the law. That's how justice supposedly worked. She couldn't ignore the evidence because it made her uncomfortable. She had to see it through. She was a cop. That was what cops did. Not only was she a cop, she was witness to a homicide. She had a moral duty to cooperate with solving a man's death.

Cop and witness. Frank was fine with both roles. It was a third role that kept her from the folder. She stared at the floor, not wanting to go through with it. She heard Mary's words from the night before, telling her to have faith that tomorrow would bring what she needed. Not necessarily what she wanted, but what she needed.

Frank walked back to Annie and asked, "Is there somewhere quiet I could read the file? An interview room or something?"

"Sure." Silvester picked up the folder. Frank followed her down the hall to another room. Annie opened the door, motioning her into an office. "This is Lieutenant Jacobs' office. He won't be here today. Take all the time you need."

"Thanks."

Annie handed her the thin folder, shutting the door behind her.

Frank put her father's folder on the wide, clean desk. She thought to return to the squad room and fill her coffee cup. She squinted at plaques and framed pictures, family photos on the desk. Her father's file stared in blind accusation.

Settling in the LT's chair she swiveled a few times, fingered the middle drawer. It was locked and she idly tried another. Locked too. She crossed her legs, studied the hem of her Levi's. She'd have to buy an extra set of clothes today. She'd find a cheaper hotel and then go shopping.

Frank squared the chair to the desk. Centering the folder, she drew in a long breath and flipped it open. At the top of the folder was a stack of DD5s, the detectives' progress reports, all dated consecutively throughout the years. All concluded NR-Negative Results.

She sat back before going deeper into the file. By the time she got back onto a plane for LA the file's latest DD5 might also read Negative Results. Frank decided that would be a bitter pill but she still had to see this through. There was no going back. She owed her father at least that much.

The sudden sanctimony didn't sit well and Frank jumped up to pace. She hadn't been to the man's grave since she left home and she'd done her best since then to drown his memory. The pacing worked her conscience, helping her realize that her sense of obligation was real enough but that it stemmed from atonement rather than righteous vindication. That was a more comfortable reason to continue and she settled to the folder again.

It was like thousands of homicide cases she'd read over the years and not remotely like any of them. With a detachment bordering on an out-of-body experience she pulled the original DD5s. She did the same with the ME's report and the responding officer forms. She arranged a crime scene sketch next to the reports but left the pictures inside.

Picking up the responding officer's report, she checked his name. Wolinsky. Frank matched the name to a blurry face. Wolinsky was indistinct then and had become more so with time. She wondered if he was still on the Job, guessing he quit long ago or retired. Could even be dead.

He must have been the one who had lifted her off her knees. She was kneeling next to her dad. He was slumped forward over his legs. He held out a hand for her. She took it. It was wet and sticky.

"Frankie," he whispered. "S'gonna be okay."

When her father had dropped to his knees he'd told her to call the police. She'd fled to the deli they'd just left. She couldn't remember what she'd said but a man followed her back to her father. She heard him talking to the tiny crowd, the words "shot" and "bad" buzzing above her head like angry bees.

Then strong hands around her waist lifted her from her father. The second she was freed she shoved her way back between the cop and her father. The cop smelled like cigarette smoke and wet clothes. He asked her father, "Who did this, pal?"

"Don't know," her father wheezed. "Junkie. f.u.c.kin' hurts."

"A junkie?" the cop asked.

Weak nod from her father.

"A junkie." Frank intervened. "He jumped out from there"- she pointed to a covered stoop-"and told my father to give him his wallet."

"That right?" the cop asked.

Her father gave a small nod again.

"Did you get a look at him?"

Her father tried to hold up his hand but it fell to the sidewalk.

The cop stood up and Frank scooted closer to her father. She picked up his hand. It was cold and she held it between hers. Her fear ratcheted to terror. Behind her the cop was talking into his radio. She heard "eta" and "ambulance," "backup" and "homicide."

Her father's face was bent to the ground and she peered into it. His eyes were almost closed and his lips were loose. She squeezed his hand. "It's okay, Dad. It's okay."

"Tell aem," he slurred. "Al. Uncle Al. Ninth Preesing."

His voice scared her. As the cop knelt again she blurted, "My Uncle Al works at the Ninth Precinct. Albert Franco. He works at the Ninth Precinct. He was in Cal's a little bit ago. You gotta get him. He lives at-"

She couldn't remember. She could see the apartment building. On Lafayette. But couldn't think of the building address. Or the cross street. Only Lafayette would come to her.

"Okay, honey. Don't worry. Look. Why don't you come over here-" The cop was directing her from her father with one large hand but she pushed his arm away.

"No!"

"Look," the cop insisted. "He's gonna be all right. Don't worry about it."

They both looked as the siren cut the corner. An ambulance jolted to a stop in front of them. Two men jumped out with a stretcher and Frank was pulled aside. The men lifted her father onto the stretcher.

"Dad?" she called.

He didn't answer.

"Dad!" she screamed, running to follow but the cop caught her.

Wolinsky.

Frank opened her eyes.

She was a homicide lieutenant with the LAPD.

She was a forty-five-year-old woman, not a ten-year-old watching her father die.

Frank closed the folder and left the room.

CHAPTER 14.

Annie looked up from her computer as Frank carried her cup into the squad room. Frank noticed one of the other detectives still reading his paper. That wouldn't play in her squad room. She balled up the empty bialy bag and tossed it in the trash. That, however, was just like her detectives-rip through the food then leave the empty containers lying around like bones. The Times sports section was next to the coffeepot. Frank skimmed it. Looked like the Pats were going to the Super Bowl again, a dynasty in the making. No mean feat in an era of salary caps and free agents. More steroid scandals and basketball fights. Still no hockey.

Glancing around the room, she found Annie staring at her.

"Ya finished already?"

Frank shook her head. "Just needed more coffee."

She trudged back to the lieutenant's office, took the chair again. She ran her fingers over the glossy wood grain, wondering what she needed to read that she didn't already know.

They'd turned onto East Ninth. She'd been walking next to him, a bag of groceries cradled in his right arm, her hand in his left. When he walked with her or her mother he always kept himself between them and the street. He'd explained it was an old custom from the days of runaway horses in the streets. But that night the danger came from the entrance to an apartment building. Boing! Like a jack-in-the-box the junkie had popped out and landed in front of her father.

Wielding a short, ugly pistol, he demanded, "Gimme your wallet!"

Her father dropped her hand, pushing her behind him. "Take it easy," he said.

Frank peeked around his waist.

"Gimme your money!" the junkie yelled, dancing and jabbing his gun close at her father.

"All right! Jesus Christ, hold on! Let me put my food down."

"I don't care about your f.u.c.kin' food!" the junkie screamed.

"All right, all right, I'm getting it!" her father soothed. He groped for his wallet. Frank watched the junkie's feet. Tennis shoes with holes in them, dancing at the end of skinny legs, dancing close to her father's feet.

"Come on, man, hurry up!"

Her father pulled his wallet out.

"Give it to me," the junkie mumbled. "Give it here."

Her father dropped the groceries as his body swung forward. The junkie jumped back, swearing. Her father swung a roundhouse left at the same time Frank heard the pistol shot. Her father fell onto a knee then tipped over.

"Oh, s.h.i.t," the junkie said. "Oh, s.h.i.t."

Frank had a clear look at him before he bolted down the street. His eyes were round and black. Greasy hanks of hair hung in his face and his skin was gray.

"Frankie," her father said in an awful voice. "Go back to the store. Tell him to call a cop. Get aem here quick. Get an ambulance."