Exceptional Merit (6 page)

Hutter had been called into the Captain's office and confronted with the letter. It had been so detailed that it could have only come from Castillo.  Hutter marched straight out of the captain's office and into the muster room where the dozens of uniformed officers were seated in rows of chairs, waiting for roll call to begin.  Hutter walked up to the sergeant’s podium, and asked for everyone’s attention.  Hutter, who was one of the most popular cops in the command, had no trouble getting complete silence.  Castillo silently squirmed in his seat as he felt a sudden nausea come over him.  Could Hutter have found out about the letter?  He prayed he had not.

Much to Castillo’s dismay, all the admiration and respect he had earned from his fellow officers over the past few years was about to be impeached in a matter of seconds.  There was nothing he could do or say to prevent it.   “I would just like everybody standing before me to know that we have a rat among us,” Hutter announced.  “Louie Castillo is a fucking rat!”  Hutter then walked over to Castillo and jabbed his forefinger in Castillo’s chest.  “You're a piece of shit Louie.”

Castillo found
he was unable to say anything.  He stood there in a stunned silence.  The look on his face and his silence were as good as admitting he had ratted Hutter out.  His lack of word or action was his indictment among his peers.  He felt the eyes of every member of the outgoing platoon fixed on him for what seemed like an eternity.

The next day, Castillo could no longer be the active street cop he once was and wanted to continue to be.  The word had spread throughout the precinct that Castillo was a rat.  The entire command was constantly talking behind his back.  All of the other cops in the precinct, even the bosses, could not look him in the eye without a look of disdain.  Later that week, as Castillo went in to the locker room to suit up for the street, he saw a dead rat hanging from his locker.  The rat’s throat was slashed and there was a small pool of blood at the base of Castillo’s locker.  This was a message from the other cops that they would not work with a rat.  It was an outright threat to his safety.  Castillo prayed this would soon blow over but deep down he knew it would not.

With few other viable options, Castillo requested an administrative transfer that same night.  Castillo's Commanding Officer immediately pushed the transfer through.  The transfer was not only in Castillo’s best interest but also that of the entire precinct, reasoned Castillo’s boss.  The telephone message transferring Castillo to another
borough came through the very next morning.  Castillo looked forward to starting over and putting this nightmare behind him.  He could once again go back to being the cop he had until recently been.

The phone calls, however, had preceded Castillo to his new assignment in the Bronx.  It didn't take very long before the talking behind his back and the word RAT started appearing on his locker.  Castillo had regretted ever writing that letter. He realized that he was right, but he’d never expected how negatively coming forward would affect his career.  Maybe he could have talked to Hutter.  Maybe he could have done something to stop him or talk to him afterwards to make sure at least it would never happen again.  He could never undo what was done, however, and had to deal with the consequences.  He faced the fact that he would never again be a real cop.  It was the low point of his career—the day he realized he needed to go to the one detail on the job that so many before him and after him went once they were labeled rats.   He found himself assigned to the Internal Affairs Bureau.

Almost every day of Castillo's life, since the day he wrote that damned letter, he wondered if he had done the right thing.  Today was no different.  What did it change other than his own situation?  Hutter was still in Anti-Crime, and never even received charges over the incident.  An internal investigation ruled it unsubstantiated.  The only thing that changed in Castillo’s mind was that he threw his own career away.  It was cops like Hutter that gave the department a bad name.  He reassured himself that he’d done the right thing after all.  Regardless of the outcome, if he had not reported it, he was no better than Hutter, he concluded.  The same conclusion he always reached after wrestling with this dilemma hundreds of times.

Castillo parked the department auto on East Twentieth Street in front of the Police Academy.  He grabbed his briefcase from the seat next to him and exited the auto.  He walked under the overhang towards the Academy’s glass doors.  He watched as the new recruit class stood in formation under the overhang, despite the twenty degree temperatures.  The instructors were inspecting their companies and he thought back to when he, himself, had stood in their shoes eight and a half years earlier.

It was hard to imagine, but it was true that every member of the New York City Police Department, past or present, had come through this building.  Castillo walked through the double doors and identified himself to the Police Officer on desk duty.  He entered the elevator, pushing the button for the eighth floor.  Castillo got off the elevator and made a right turn walking into the department's laboratory.  He entered his name in the sign-in log.  The sign-in log was commonly found at almost all department facilities to keep a record of all visitors.  The main office of the department lab looked similar to any detective squad in the city. 
It was overcrowded with light green file cabinets, black steel desks with brown laminate tops and chairs.  On each desk were a typewriter and a phone as well as an assortment of paperwork.  The only thing separating this office from any detective squad in the city was the fact that there were no holding cells.

Castillo called up his command and asked them to sign him in via outside wire.  He would be starting his tour of duty at 0700 Hours at the Police Academy.  He spoke to the same lab technician who had shown him how to operate the camera.  He handed over both the camera and the mug he had lifted from the bar, to the lab tech.  He explained almost apologetically, how dark it had been in the bar the past night.  The technician once again assured him the photos would come out fine.  The lab tech invited Castillo into the lab.  From the pocket of his white lab coat, the tech removed a pair of latex gloves and put them on.

Placing the mug on its side, the lab tech applied a small amount of black fingerprint dust on it.  Slowly, the tech dusted the entire side of the mug.  Twisting the brush ever so gently, spreading the thinnest of coats of dust over the mug.  Castillo could see prints jumping out at him.  The tech very carefully lifted the prints with a piece of clear tape and then set the tape down on a glossy white fingerprint card.  The print looked perfect to Castillo but he was not the expert.  He hoped the prints that were lifted would be helpful.

Castillo decided to go and have some breakfast since the tech explained that tracing the fingerprints could take a while.  He went to the same corner coffee shop he had eaten many meals in during his academy days.  The coffee smelled great.  He ordered a toasted bagel with cream cheese and a cup of coffee.  He watched as numerous instructors walked in and out of the coffee shop getting their own morning coffee. 
Most of them are so young
. 
They can’t have much time on the job.  How much could they really teach the recruits?
  He slowly ate his bagel as he read the morning paper.  There was nothing in the paper which caught his interest and his mind once again drifted back to Mark Hutter.  He wondered if Hutter had changed at all.  Had writing that letter at least served as a warning to Hutter to change his ways?

After breakfast, Castillo returned to the lab.  The technician relayed to him that the city and state had no record on file concerning the fingerprints but the F.B.I. file had come up with a match.  The fingerprint belonged to a man named Daniel O'Brien.  He was a native of Northern Ireland and was granted citizenship of the United States in 1982.  He had no arrest record in the United States and had only been finger printed for citizenship purposes.  He also handed Castillo a manila envelope which contained eight by ten photos taken the previous night in the bar.  Castillo momentarily examined the photos and signed out.

Looking down at his wrist watch, Castillo saw it was after nine a.m. when he arrived at the Poplar Street headquarters of the Internal Affairs Bureau.  Castillo took off his overcoat and hung it on the coat rack in the far corner of the office.  After checking the cork board to see if he had any messages, he sat at his desk.  He opened the desk drawer and put his newly attained information inside.  Castillo picked up the phone’s receiver and held it between his shoulder and head as he punched in the number for his friend who worked over at the F.B.I.'s Eastern District office. 
I hope he’s doing a day tour today
.

“F.B.I., Balentine, can I help you?”

Castillo would have recognized his friend’s voice even if he had not identified himself.

“Frank, it's Louie Castillo! How've you been?”

“Great Louie, and yourself?”

The two high school buddies caught up on recent events.  After the small talk, Castillo got to the point of the phone call.  “Frank, do you think you can do me a favor?”

“Just name it, Louie, and you got it.”

“Thanks, Frank. I appreciate it.  I'm working this case and I need a background check done on this guy,” Castillo explained.  “His name is Daniel O'Brien.   He’s a male white, thirty eight years of age and an Irish immigrant.  I'm looking for any possible connections with the Irish Republican Army.”

Balentine was a nine-year veteran of the F.B.I. and a special agent assigned to investigate white collar crimes.  In spite of his assignment, Balentine still had all of the resources at his fingertips that any agent in any other division had.  “I'll look through our files and see what I come up with.  If I get anything, I'll fax it over to you.  Hey, Louie, what do you say we get together for some drink sometime?”

Castillo politely agreed before the two men said their goodbyes.  Castillo sat at his desk studying the photos.  As he stared at Keegan's photo, he thought of how it had just been a hunch that Keegan might have ties to the I.R.A.  Now, it seemed as though his hunch may be correct.  Keegan had become somewhat of a celebrity after he broke the Federal Courthouse Case and everyone on the job would surely recognize him while the case was still front page news.  Once the case died down, so did Keegan’s celebrity.  But Louie Castillo was a sharp cop that never forgot a face.

It was at a political rally in front of the United Nations, protesting the Queen of England's visit to the United States, that Castillo had first taken an interest in Keegan.  Castillo had seen a picture in the newspaper concerning the protest and thought he had recognized the hero cop's image in the background of the photo.  After an investigation, Castillo learned that Keegan had in fact been at the rally and was there to help raise money for the Irish Northern Aid Committee.

The committee, better known as NORAID, was a committee dedicated to raising money for the families of Irish-Catholic political prisoners and those who struggle financially living in Northern Ireland.  At face value, it seemed to be a noble cause.  Many familiar with NORAID, however, also believed this money was used to fund the outlawed Irish Republican Army
.  Soliciting money for any political group was prohibited conduct for a member of the department, and Keegan had clearly been in violation of this statute.  Castillo, after getting permission from his commanding officer, opened a case on Keegan and began his investigation.

Castillo jumped from his chair as he heard the fax machine begin to spit out a fax.  A warm feeling came over him as he read it.  This could be the break he had needed.  Castillo walked over to the commanding officer’s office and knocked on the door.

“Come in.”

Castillo entered the office of Deputy Inspector John Marsh.  Marsh was seated at his desk, drinking a cup of coffee.  Marsh has been assigned to Group One of the Internal Affairs Bureau for the last three years of his thirty-one on the job.  Group One handles allegations against high ranking members of the department, other members of internal affairs and all high profile corruption cases.  They report directly to the top brass at One Police Plaza.  Marsh was an overweight man with a far receded hairline and a gray mustache.  He wore his bi-focal lensed glasses low on his nose and had the habit of a chain smoker.  His smoking, Castillo
believed, was a reaction to the pressures of his position, especially nowadays, with the department being so closely scrutinized.  Still Marsh was pleasant enough to work for and obviously appreciated when his men worked hard for him.

“What can I do for you, Louie?”

“Well, Inspector, it's about that case I was working on Keegan.  I think I'm onto something pretty big.”

Marsh responded with a hint of skepticism in his voice.

“Alright Louie, let me hear it.”

“I followed Keegan into this bar in Midtown last night.  The bartender at the bar is named Daniel O'Brien.”

He handed over the O’Brien’s photo to Marsh.  “I did some research on O’Brien; he came over from Northern Ireland in 1978 and gained citizenship a few years later.  His father was killed in the violence by British troops in 1972 and his brother is currently in a prison in Northern Ireland for a car bomb which killed an informant against the I.R.A.  Both O'Brien's father and brother were active members of the I.R.A.  If I were a betting man, I’d bet that O'Brien is as well.”