The Craving (7 page)

Though she didn’t exactly seem happy about it, Morales let them into her apartment. It was a studio and, like the last time they had been there, it was a mess—dishes piled in the kitchen, stuff on the floor and the table. The TV was blasting
The View
.

“Que quieres? Ya te dijo todo.”

“English, please,” Geri said.

At their previous visit, yesterday afternoon, Geri had asked Morales to speak in English so Shawn, who didn’t speak much Spanish, could follow.

“I told you everything,” Morales said. “You’re just wasting your time.”

“You didn’t give us a description of the shooter,” Geri said.

“That’s ’cause I didn’t see the shooter. Seriously, how many times’re we gonna have to do this, ’cause it’s starting to piss me off? I’m busy. I got work to do today.”

Geri looked toward the TV and gave Morales a look as if saying,
That’s work?
Shawn had the same expression.

“Seriously,” Morales said. “I don’t got time for this.”

“Can we sit down?” Geri asked.

“No,” Morales said.

“It’s okay, we don’t gotta sit,” Shawn said. “Standing burns more calories anyway, right?”

“All right, look,” Geri said to Morales. “You were there. You made the 911 call. You told the operator that you witnessed a shooting—”

“I told you, I made a mistake when I said that,” Morales said. “When I got there the guy was already shot.”

“Or maybe when the cops came you decided to change your story,” Geri said. “Figured,
Do I really wanna get in the middle of somethin’ like this?
But let me be honest with you right now, okay? Whoever the shooter is, he or she—I’m assuming it’s a he—knows what’s going on. This guy shot somebody, and if he thinks you saw him he’s not gonna forget about it. If he doesn’t know you’ve been talking to us, he’s gonna find out you’ve been talking to us, and he’s gonna start making assumptions, know what I mean? Even if you didn’t ID him, he’ll
think
you ID’d him, so for you it’s the same difference. You have family in the area, right?”

Morales, distracted and terrified and a little dazed—Geri knew she was getting through to her—didn’t answer.

“She’s asking you about your family,” Shawn said, to jolt her out of it.

“Yes, my whole family’s in the city,” Morales said. “I told you that yesterday.”

“So I don’t have to connect the dots for you, do I?” Geri said. “If, as we suspect, this is DDP-related, I’m sure you’ve heard how brutal they can be, how ruthless, how…” Geri tried to come up with
another word to scare the crap out of Morales, but went with, “You know what I’m talking about, right? So the question you gotta ask yourself is how you’ll feel if somebody in your family gets hurt. Because, like I said, they could hurt someone anyway, even if you don’t say a word to us. But if you help us out, we can get this guy, take him off the street before he has a chance to hurt anyone you love.”

Geri furrowed her eyebrows to show how serious and dangerous the situation was, but she hoped she wasn’t overdoing it, that it didn’t seem like an act to get her to talk.

“And what about his friends?” Morales asked. “You gonna take them off the street too?”

“I thought you didn’t see anything,” Geri said.

“I didn’t,” Morales said quickly. “I’m just saying even if I did see something and you got him off the street, that doesn’t mean I’d be safe.”

“Him?” Geri asked.

“Sabes lo que quiero decir,”
Morales said.

“What’s she sayin’?” Shawn asked.

“If you saw him,” Geri said, “that means he probably saw you.”

“I know what you’re doing,” Morales said. “You’re just trying to scare me.”

“You’re right, we are trying to scare you,” Geri said, “but that’s because you’re in danger. I guarantee you if this guy knows you saw him, he’ll come after you. Yeah, he might not be the only threat, but chances are he’s just concerned about saving his own ass. It’s doubtful anyone else in DDP cares about you, and the NYPD will do its very best to protect you from any threat that might materialize, including providing you with twenty-four-hour police protection. But we can only help you if you cooperate.”

“Well, I’m not cooperating,” Morales said, “’cause I told you
everything I know and I don’t know nothing else. So all you’re doing right now is wasting your time.”

Geri and Shawn exchanged looks, as if saying to each other,
Well, at least we tried
. They’d been through this act so many times, they had it down pat.

Then Geri said to Morales, “Fine, you want us to go, we’ll go. But the last thing I’ll say is if, God forbid, something does happen to somebody you love, then you’re gonna have to live with your decision. Take it from me, somebody who’s seen lots of people in your situation—talking is a lot better than not talking. At least when you talk you can live with yourself after.” After giving Morales a long, serious glare—she deserved an Academy Award for this—she headed toward the door and Shawn followed her.

Sure enough, just as she was turning the handle, she heard:

“All right.”

Geri smiled slightly, not letting Morales see, then turned back toward her.

“Okay, whatever, I’ll tell you everything.” Morales looked and sounded like she was about to cry. “But you better get the son of a bitch—fast.”

They sat with Morales and finally got a full account of what had transpired the other night. Morales had been about to enter her building when she’d heard a gunshot. She’d seen the victim on the sidewalk and a man—in his early twenties, about five ten, medium build, wavy dark hair down to his shoulders, in a black leather jacket—standing near a double-parked car. She even gave a description of the car—a light blue economy car.

“What about the driver?” Geri asked. “Did you see him?”

“No, I didn’t see anybody else, I swear.”

Geri believed her.

“But the guy with the gun,” Morales continued. “He saw me. He shot the guy again, I guess to make sure he was dead, then after he got in the car, right before he drove away, he looked out the window, right at me. I feel like such an idiot. I don’t know why I stood there; why didn’t I run into my building? If I went right in he wouldn’t’ve seen me. I don’t know why he didn’t shoot me right there. I mean he could’ve shot me, but instead he just smiled. I’ll never forget that smile—it was so calm, so relaxed, like it was a summer day and he was passing by, smiling at a pretty girl on the street. But now he knows what I look like and he knows where I live.”

Morales was crying.

“Think of it this way,” Geri said. “Now we can get him before he has a chance to hurt you.”

“Yeah,” Shawn said. “And maybe you’ll save somebody else’s life too.”

Geri asked Morales if she would come to the station and describe the shooter to a sketch artist.

“Do I have to?” she asked.

“If you want us to make an arrest as fast as possible, yes, you do,” Geri said.

Morales agreed to come back to the precinct. While Geri and Shawn were waiting in the hallway for her to get ready to go, Shawn said, “Nice one, Rodriguez,” and Geri said, “How about you congratulate me after we get the guy?”

They drove Morales to homicide on Broadway and 133rd. Geri and Shawn hung around until the artist arrived and then stayed in the room while Morales described the suspect. It took almost an hour, but when the composite was completed Morales looked at it and said, “Oh my God, that’s him. It’s amazing, how did you do that?”

“You did it, not us,” Geri said.

“What happens next?” Morales asked.

“We’ll get the sketch to our officers and to the public and continue our investigation.”

“We’ll do our best,” Geri said. “In the meantime, we’ll have an officer outside your apartment, twenty-four-hour protection.” Geri could tell Morales was concerned, so she grabbed her hand and said, looking right into her eyes, “You did the right thing.”

Morales managed to nod.

Geri and Shawn got right to work on the case. Shawn put out a bulletin on a suspect to precincts around the city while Geri updated Dan McCarthy, her CO on the case. Dan was a ruddy, burly guy who always seemed to be sweating, even on frigid days in the middle of winter. He was on the phone when Geri entered, probably talking to his wife because he sounded rude, saying, “I told you I don’t wanna talk about that.” In Geri’s experience, people were at their rudest and most disrespectful when they were talking to their spouses; another reason why she intended to never get married.

Geri was about to leave when Dan held up his hand like a stop sign and Geri waited at the door while Dan said, “I got somebody in my office … I said, I got somebody in my office,” and hung up.

Not making eye contact with Geri, looking for something in the mess of papers and folders on his desk, Dan said, “What do you want?”

Geri figured that Dan’s attitude probably had nothing to do with her; it was just leftover tension from his phone conversation.

“Maybe there’s a better time,” she said.

“What is it?” Dan said.

“We got a good lead in the Washington Heights shooting,” Geri said, then explained that Carlita Morales had given them a description of the shooter.

Instead of a pat on the back from Dan, or some kind of positive reaction, she got, “Why didn’t you get this sooner?”

Thinking,
Is he serious?
Geri said, “We tried to get it sooner, but the witness wouldn’t talk yesterday.”

“But now it’s what, thirty-six hours after the shooting took place?” Dan said. “The suspect could be on the other side of the world.”

“Sorry,” Geri said. “Next time I’ll use my psychic powers to get a description sooner.”

“Excuse me?” Dan said, though he’d obviously heard her.

“We’re lucky she talked at all,” Geri said. “What’s up with the attitude?”

“Never mind,” Dan said. “Let’s just move quickly. I’m under a lot of pressure on this case, okay? Washington Heights is a gentrified neighborhood; at least it’s supposed to be. The powers that be don’t want to see any more gang violence there.”

“Yeah, they want all the gang violence to stay tucked away in the Bronx, right?”

Geri was joking, but Dan stayed serious, saying, “Exactly.” Then he added, “So do you have any leads yet?”

“You mean in the four minutes since the sketch was completed? No, but the style of the killing definitely points toward DDP. The victim, Orlando Rojas, was apparently hooked on H, and a few of his friends told us that he’d seemed worried and stressed lately. As you know, DDP is big into heroin.”

“What about the shooter?” Dan asked impatiently.

“DDP sometimes uses newbies for their hits,” Geri said. “The shooter sounds young, maybe inexperienced; he could be a kid just off the boat. Now that we have a full description of the car we’re going to take another look at video in the area. We’ll also recanvass the area
with the sketch and see if we find somebody else who’s willing to talk. Hopefully it won’t mean needing another TB screening.”

“Any word on the gun?” Dan asked.

“Talked to ballistics this morning,” Geri said. “We got no priors on the weapon, which isn’t surprising. One thing about DDP—they aren’t stupid. Even when they use newbies for their hits they give them clean weapons. We probably have a better chance of finding that gun at the bottom of a river than in some database.”

“What about the car?”

“Possible make and model but no plate and no description of the driver, but hopefully we’ll make some progress on that front today. I’ll need as many officers as possible in the area this weekend, working the case.”

“The marathon’s this weekend, remember?”

“Come on, I’m talking about five to ten additional officers.”

“Look,” Dan said. “It sounds like you’re finally making some progress. Hopefully we can make a quick arrest today and we’ll all be happy. Just try to stay focused, okay?”

“Focused?” Geri was confused. “How am I not focused?”

“Look, I know the Olivia Becker case has been sucking up your time,” Dan said, “but you’re gonna have to let go of it.”

“Wait, so let me get this straight,” Geri said. “You think because I’m interested in a case that, by the way, might be related to a case that
is
my responsibility, that, what, I didn’t get that info out of Carlita Morales sooner? Is that what you honestly think?”

“Drop the Becker case,” Dan said. “It’s in excellent hands.”

“Over three weeks and no body and no leads,” Geri said. “Sorry, but I have a problem with that.”

“I read the report,” Dan said, “and there’s no evidence to suggest
that the disappearance has anything to do with the wolf killings or that the investigation has been mishandled in any way. In other words, there’s no reason for you to get involved.”