No Mercy (16 page)

“No,” O'Malley answered. “I never had to, but I would not hesitate if things had to change.” Paul turned around to head into the building as the ambulance pulled up. O'Malley met with the medics and sent them into the building. Powers called Lynagh to get directions to where he was. It was not easy because the club was full and the noise was getting louder. Bud went up to the DJ, flashed his badge, and told him to take a break from the music. There were so many people in the club drinking and talking that the only change was people leaving the dance area.

They reached Lynagh within three minutes and Paul started yelling to Branca, “Where is Baker? Bring us now!”

He told Wyatt to stay in the room with the entourage as Branca got up and brought Paul, Lynagh, Bud, and the medics to the room where Baker was still lying on the floor. Bud went over to her with the medics and determined she was still alive. Bud put his hand on her head as he looked at the black eye that was forming on her face.

The senior medic who was examining her spoke. “Someone beat the shit out of her. From the way she is breathing she probably has broken ribs as well.”

As Bud gently took his hands off her face he thought about Deborah. It seemed like only yesterday he first met her after being held in the house, but this was a physical beating. Bud was getting emotional as Ellyn opened her eyes and tried to talk to Bud. The senior medic motioned for his crew to put her carefully on a stretcher as Ellyn tried to speak to Bud again.

“Hold on,” Bud said as he put his ear to her mouth. Paul kept looking around the room for any clues about what may have happened, but he could see from Ellyn's throat she was speaking in Bud's ear. Bud moved his mouth over to Ellyn's ear as he whispered to her then touched her forehead with a gentle rub. He got up as the medics put the young detective on a stretcher as Paul ordered Lynagh to escort the medics and Baker to the ambulance.

“If anyone gets in your way, shoot them.”

Branca started yelling, “You can't shoot in here. You'll ruin my club!”

“Your club?” Bud answered. “You have bigger problems, my friend, right now. And speaking of bigger, who is the large four-hundred-pound man that looks like a slob that you have working here?”

Branca hesitated as Bud spoke again. “I'm not going to ask you again, because I think you are resisting arrest.”

Branca replied, “I had nothing to do with this!”

Bud got in his face as he yelled back, “This is your club! I want a name right now!”

Paul started to leave the room, and suddenly Branca realized he would be alone in the room with Bud.

“His name,” the club owner replied, “is Kevin Sysco. I will get him.”

“No,” Bud said, “no you won't. I have a better idea. Set it up with your tech man to get me on the PA system from here.”

Branca shook his head and said, “I want my attorney here. What the fuck do you guys think you are doing?”

Paul called O'Malley outside to get Lynagh back to the owner's room after the ambulance left and to bring Edward Larson back to the private room.

After disconnecting, he handed his phone to Branca and said, “Get your man from the control room to let the PA system come through here now.” Branca took the phone and called Steve Lewis, who was near the DJ waiting for the authorization for the music to start again.

“Never mind that, make arrangements to allow a PA system to be controlled out of Private Room 4. Now!” Branca said as he disconnected.

Within five minutes Lewis was up in the room with a cord and a microphone, and in minutes they had a PA system hooked up to the stereo system. It was ready. As Bud took the microphone, Lynagh brought Larson to the room.

Bud tapped the microphone as Branca asked, “What are you doing?”

Paul looked over at Larson. “Are you going to advise your client to be quiet, Mr. Attorney?”

“Yes,” Larson replied.

Bud had a puzzled look on his face as he looked at Paul and said, “I have a question. Should he be advising Bullshit Branca here if the attorney is also a suspect?”

Paul took a deep breath and shook his head. “I really don't know. I think we should check with the ADA on that one,” he said, looking back at Larson. “But I don't want to take any chances, so let's leave him here for the moment.”

Then he called Wyatt into the control room and said, “We are sending down Steve Lewis. He is going to turn on the master control and then he is going to make a copy of the video from the cameras here.”

As Lewis started to leave the room, Bud called to him, “Excuse me, if the video accidently gets deleted, I just want to let you know I will find a way to tie you into the murders of Detective Cronin, Hansen, and Officer Walter Dugan. So be careful.”

Steve Lewis stared back at Bud as he looked at Brian Branca and left the room. It was another five minutes when Wyatt notified Powers that the PA was on. Paul looked over at Bud and nodded. Bud tapped the microphone a few times, which caused most of the people to look up at the ceiling with a puzzled look as if they were not sure what to look for. Bud began to speak as Branca looked at his attorney for help, but Larson just shook his head in silence.

Bud put on his radio voice and said, “Good evening, boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, drug users, parole violators, prostitutes, pimps, underage drinkers, and all-around shitheads. This is Detective Bud Johnson of the Priority 1 Task Force in Suffolk County. I'm sorry for the interruption tonight, but I did want to bring to your attention that in addition to a murder that happened here a couple days ago, we also had a lovely young lady beaten up tonight who just happens to also be a detective with Suffolk County.”

The club was dead silent as everyone was listening. Officer Wright continued to sit at the bar as she looked around for suspicious behavior from anyone.

Bud continued, “Now, this woman was physically beaten by one of the employees here, who by the way has been fired but is most likely still here in the club at this moment.”

The women in the club were now setting down their drinks as the detective continued, “The coward who beat our detective up . . . well, you can't miss him. He happens to be a big, fat man who smells bad and looks like a complete slob. This is important, because it will make it harder for him to hide due to his girth. Oh, by the way, his name is Kevin Sysco. It is spelled S-Y-S-C-O, which is funny because it's the same name of a company that sells food, but in this case he eats it.”

He continued as people in the club started walking toward the door to leave and gather their belongings. O'Malley and his officers were ready to inspect everyone coming out. Bud looked at Branca, who edged over to the couch to sit down.

Some patrons were enjoying the speech and were giggling as Bud continued, “So we ask for you cooperation. If you know where this man is, please let one of our fine officers know as you leave the building, or better yet, Mr. Kevin Sysco, you can get your big, fat, ugly ass up here to Room 4 and save us all a lot of time and effort. Again, everyone, I'm sorry for your evening being cut short, so to make up for it I would like to sing for all of you.”

Paul started shaking his head as Bud started singing a popular, classic song by War, “The Cisco Kid.”

After Bud sang the entire first verse, he made up his own lyrics for the second verse but was still in tune to the music of the song: “Sysco kid is not a friend of mine. Your ass is so big you won't be hard to find.”

Even the guys in the master control room had puzzled looks on their faces as Wyatt said to himself, “One crazy motherfucking cop.”

Officer Wright tucked her lips in to hide her amusement at Bud Johnson's PA speech.

Bud spoke again into the PA after he finished his singing. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen and the rest of you degenerates. I hope you all have a wonderful evening and also hope never to see you in this club again. It is a bad element here, and I and the other fine officers of the Suffolk County Police Department will be keeping an eye on this place for quite some time. Good night, good luck, and good riddance. PS, all of your handbags will be inspected on the way out, so if you have anything you shouldn't have, please leave it in the club.”

Everyone thought Bud was finished, but he went back on the PA, this time in an airport voice: “Mr. Sysco, paging Mr. Kevin Sysco, please come to Private Room 4. You are wanted in Private Room 4. Mr. Kevin Sysco, please get your huge bodily self up to this room in the next thirty seconds or we will tear this club down with every officer we have. Thank you.”

Bud shut the PA off as he asked for alone time with Branca. Paul started to object, but Bud reassured him, “Paul, I'm fine, really. I just want to talk to him for a moment.”

“I object!” Larson yelled.

“Come with me,” Paul said as he and Lynagh went to the master control room. It was apparent that Bud's PA speech had the entire club emptying out.

Bud approached Brian Branca, who spoke as the detective approached him. “You crazy fucking cop, you just destroyed my business!”

Bud moved in closer as he replied, “I guess my bounty just went up.”

Branca was silent as Bud looked at him. The club owner's eyes spoke a thousand words as the detective spoke again. “I want to know where the fat man is. I want to know where Robert Simpson is, and I want you to call off all the bounties on my fellow cops. Put it all on me and raise mine to a million, I don't care, but if another cop is killed in or out of prison, I assure you my mission will be to be a part of your life until there is no life.”

Branca looked down as he said, “Sysco lives on Grant Avenue; Simpson, I don't know where he is. I had nothing to do with what Sysco did tonight. Why would I bring attention to my club like this?”

The detective spoke again. “Where is all the bounty money coming from?” Branca shook his head in the motion that he could not speak. Bud picked up his phone and called Lynagh in the control room. “Did you see the video of Baker and Sysco?” he asked.

Lynagh replied, “Bud, it's ugly. He beat the shit out of her, but she caught him with her high heel right in the mouth before he laid her out. From his reaction she might have knocked his front teeth out.”

Bud replied, “Can you turn off the video camera for this room?”

Branca raised his head in concern when he heard the question. Lynagh informed Paul of Bud's request. The detective sergeant grabbed the phone and said,

“No, Bud. I'm not shutting the camera off. For your own good, no,” and he disconnected the phone.

Bud disconnected the phone, realizing that Branca did not know his request was turned down. He said, “The camera is off. Tell me where the money is coming from or you won't be leaving this room in one piece.”

Branca spoke. “Simpson, he skimmed, a little at a time while he worked for William Lance. Over the course of fifteen years it was over $4 million, and Lance never noticed it.”

Bud stood up and grabbed Branca's arm, and they went back to the control room. Paul had just gotten off the phone with ADA Ashley and requested an alert for all dentists and oral surgeons to be notified within a twenty-five-mile radius with a description of Kevin Sysco. Bud informed Paul about the information from Branca as Lynagh and Wyatt controlled the rest of the entourage in the room. After their conversation they were all informed that they were being placed under arrest.

Officer Justin Healey, was back on duty after being cleared and was sipping on his coffee. He noticed the light flickering in Lindsey Wilkerson's bedroom. He was getting a little nervous as his concern heightened. He studied the lights and realized it was Morse code. It was a message coming from Lindsey's front bedroom. He turned on the car and drove to get a closer look at it. The message said, “Hello, Officer Healey. Thank you and God bless you.”

He sat in his squad car and looked at the message flickering in the night a few more times. Healey was overcome with emotion that Lindsey would repeat the message as many times as she did to ensure that he saw it. His thoughts took him back to the night eighteen months prior when he was her constant bodyguard, or as Lindsey called him, her protector. It was the night in the house when O'Connor's men made a bold move to eliminate her in her own home. It wasn't just at the house that night. He stayed with her during the day in school and during the night, 24-7. He was within twenty feet of her at all times. He laughed to himself as he recalled her banter with Bud. It seemed she was the only one who could get the best of him in conversation and trivia. Healey's thoughts had taken him so far away from the present that the knock on the glass window startled him. It was his replacement for the evening. As he drove away, he flashed his headlights to say good night to Lindsey. For a fleeting moment he wondered how she knew he had knowledge of Morse code. He smiled as he thought he probably told her on June 22, 2012, at 8:00 at night, during a conversation. He shook his head as he continued to think about the little girl with the eidetic memory.

The drive back to Paul's apartment above Z Pita had the detectives exchanging theories as Lynagh, Wyatt, Caulfield, and O'Malley brought Branca, Larson, and four of their entourage from the control room to the precinct for booking.

Paul looked over at his partner and said, “You know they're going to get out on bail quickly. All they're going to say is that Sysco acted on his own and he is fired.”

Bud nodded and said,

“Yeah, we'll see. We need to find the fat man, Wiley, and Simpson quickly, before the hit list gets more check marks next to their names.”

Paul turned right on Arden Place, then right again into Trader Cove behind the restaurant and parked his car.

“Listen,” Bud said, “mind if I borrow your bathroom before I go?”

Paul nodded and replied,

“Go on up. I want to check in on Rachelle. It’s close to time to shut down the restaurant.”

Bud had a key of his own and headed up the stairs as Paul walked into the backdoor of Z Pita and greeted Joey Z, who had returned, and also hugged Rachelle. Her face glowed when she saw him, and the three of them sat down to have a conversation.

When Bud reached the top of the stairs, Wes was at the top moving around in a circle, expressing his excitement to see Bud. Craven was curled up on the bed with not a care in the world. Bud loved the dogs, which had been given to him and Paul after the incident at Lindsey Wilkerson's house in Belle Terre. Paul and Bud were so worried about Rachelle being alone after the arrest of her sister Madison that they gave her the dogs to raise. Yet the presence of Lindsey remained, and part of it was these two beautiful dogs given to them by the young girl.